ArcaMax

"This is the question that is going to dominate the election: How did you perform in the great crisis?"

So says GOP Congressman Tom Cole of Oklahoma in today's New York Times.

GOP National Committeeman Henry Barbour of Mississippi calls the crisis "a defining moment... The more (Trump) reassures Americans, gives them the facts and delivers ...Read more

To fight the coronavirus at home, France is removing all military forces from Iraq.

When NATO scaled back its war games in Europe because of the pandemic, Russia reciprocated. Moscow announced it would cancel its war games along NATO's border.

Nations seem to be recognizing and responding to the grim new geostrategic reality of March 2020: The...Read more

"We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself," tweeted the president on Sunday night, adding that, after the current 15-day shutdown, "we will make a decision as to which way we want to go."

President Trump is said to be privately expressing a deepening concern at the damage the coronavirus shutdown is doing to the U.S. economy and ...Read more

"It's a war," says President Donald Trump of his efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic, and likening his role to that of "wartime president."

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo welcomed the president's claim to his commander in chief role in the crisis and his resolve: "The president and I agreed yesterday... we're fighting the same war -- ...Read more

"The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time," said Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey to a friend on the eve of Britain's entry into the First World War.

Observing from afar as the coronavirus pandemic ravages the Old Continent, Grey's words return to mind. And as the Great War changed Europe ...Read more

Dr. Brian Monahan, attending physician of Congress, told a closed meeting of Senate staffers this week that 70 million to 150 million Americans -- a third of the nation -- could contract the coronavirus. Dr. Anthony Fauci testified that the mortality rate for COVID-19 will likely run near 1%.

Translation: Between 750,000 and 1.1 million ...Read more

"Fortress Europe is an illusion."

So declares the Financial Times in the closing line of its Saturday editorial: "Europe Cannot Ignore Syrian Migrant Crisis."

The FT undertakes to instruct the Old Continent on what its duty is and what its future holds: "The EU will face flows of migrants and asylum seekers across the Mediterranean for decades...Read more

A week ago, the candidacy of Joe Biden was at death's door.

On a taping of "The McLaughlin Group," this writer suggested it might be time to "call the rectory" and have the monsignor come render last rites.

Today, Biden's candidacy is not only alive. He is first in votes, victories and delegates, and is favored to win the nomination and, by ...Read more

After Joe Biden's blowout victory in South Carolina Saturday and the swift withdrawal of Tom Steyer, "Mayor Pete" Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the decisive day of the race for the Democratic nomination, Super Tuesday, is at hand.

Fourteen states -- including California and Texas and delegate-rich Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia -- ...Read more

Not until well into the Democratic debate Tuesday night did the COVID-19 coronavirus come up, and it was Mike Bloomberg, not a CBS moderator, who raised it:

"The president fired the pandemic specialist in this country two years ago," the former New York mayor said. "There's nobody here to figure out what the hell we should be doing. And he's ...Read more

Sen. Bernie Sanders may be on the cusp of both capturing the Democratic nomination and transforming his party as dramatically as President Donald Trump captured and remade the Republican Party.

After his sweep of the Nevada caucuses, following popular vote victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders has the enthusiasm and the momentum, as the ...Read more

Wednesday night in Las Vegas, Mayor Mike Bloomberg learned what it is like to be thrown up against a wall and frisked.

At the opening of the Democratic debate, his first, Mayor Mike was greeted by his nearest neighbor on stage, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, with this warm welcome:

"We're running against ... a billionaire who calls women 'fat broads' ...Read more

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has just given us notice he will be terminating the Visiting Forces Agreement that governs U.S. military personnel in the islands.

His notification starts the clock running on a six-month deadline. If no new agreement is negotiated, the VFA is dissolved.

What triggered the decision?

Duterte was offended ...Read more

From the day he entered the race, Joe Biden was the great hope of the Democratic establishment to spare them from the horrifying prospect of a 2020 race between The Donald and Bernie Sanders.

Today, that same establishment wants Joe out of the race.

Why has Biden suddenly become an albatross?

His feeble debate performances and fifth-place ...Read more

In a way, Donald Trump might be called The Great Uniter.

Bear with me. No Republican president in the lifetime of this writer, not even Ronald Reagan, united the party as did Trump in the week of his acquittal in the Senate and State of the Union address.

According to the Gallup Poll, 94% of Republicans approve of his handling of his ...Read more

By the end of February, the race for the Democratic nomination may have come down to a choice of one of three white men.

Two are well into their 70s, and either would be the oldest president ever inaugurated. The third is a 38-year-old gay in a same-sex marriage who would be our youngest president ever.

How is it possible, if not probable, ...Read more

It has been a bad few days for the establishment, really bad.

In a 51-49 vote, the Senate refused to call witnesses in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump and agreed to end the trial Wednesday, with a near-certain majority vote to acquit the president of all charges.

As weekend polls show socialist Bernie Sanders surging into the lead for ...Read more

Can a septuagenarian socialist who just survived a heart attack and would be 80 years old in his first year in office be elected president of the United States? It's hard to believe but not impossible.

As of today, Bernie Sanders looks like one of the better, if not best, bets for the nomination. Polls have him running first or second in the ...Read more

In 1868, President Andrew Johnson was impeached for violating the Tenure of Office Act that had been enacted by Congress over his veto in 1867. Defying the law, Johnson fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, without getting Senate approval, as the act required him to do.

In his 1956 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, John F. Kennedy made Edmund Ross ...Read more

"Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done. He was a career politician." So says Hillary Clinton of her former Senate colleague and 2016 rival for the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders.

Her assessment of Sanders' populist-socialist agenda?

"It's all just baloney and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it." ...Read more