ArcaMax

"History is repeating itself, and with a vengeance," John Dean told the judiciary committee, drawing a parallel between Watergate, which brought down Richard Nixon, and "Russiagate" which has bedeviled Donald Trump.

But what strikes this veteran of Nixon's White House is not the similarities but the stark differences.

Watergate began with an ...Read more

"My religion defines who I am. And I've been a practicing Catholic my whole life," said Vice President Joe Biden in 2012. "I accept my church's position on abortion as ... doctrine. Life begins at conception. ... I just refuse to impose that on others."

For four decades, Biden backed the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of the tax ...Read more

In 2018, a record turnout of women, minorities and young added 40 House seats to Democratic ranks and made Nancy Pelosi speaker.

This, we were told, is the new diversity coalition -- women, people of color, millennials -- that will take down The Donald in 2020.

So, how has the Democratic field sorted itself out half a year later?

According to...Read more

For a president who won his office by denouncing the Middle East wars into which George W. Bush and Barack Obama plunged the nation, Donald Trump has assembled the most unabashedly hawkish conclave of foreign policy advisers in memory. And he himself seems to concede the point.

If foreign policy were decided by my security adviser John Bolton, ...Read more

What is it about special counsel Robert Mueller that he cannot say clearly and concisely what he means?

His nine-minute summary of the findings of his office, after two years of investigation, was a mess. It guarantees that the internecine warfare that has poisoned our politics continues into 2020.

If it was the intention of the Russian ...Read more

Hillary Clinton called them "the deplorables." Barack Obama called them losers who "cling" to their Bibles, bigotries and guns.

To President Jean-Claude Juncker of the European Commission, they are "these populist, nationalists, stupid nationalists... in love with their own countries."

Well, "stupid" they may be, and, yes, they do love their ...Read more

After a stroke felled Woodrow Wilson during his national tour to save his League of Nations, an old rival, Sen. Albert Fall, went to the White House to tell the president, "I have been praying for you, Sir."

To which Wilson is said to have replied, "Which way, Senator?"

Historians are in dispute as to whether Wilson actually said it.

But the ...Read more

A week from today, Europeans may be able to gauge how high the tide of populism and nationalism has risen within their countries and on their continent.

For all the returns will be in from three days of elections in the 28 nations represented in the European Parliament.

Expectation: Nationalists and populists will turn in their strongest ...Read more

Speaking on state TV of the prospect of a war in the Gulf, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei seemed to dismiss the idea.

"There won't be any war. ... We don't seek a war, and (the Americans) don't either. They know it's not in their interests."

The ayatollah's analysis -- a war is in neither nation's interest -- is correct. Consider the...Read more

As his limo carried him to work at the White House Monday, Larry Kudlow could not have been pleased with the headline in The Washington Post: "Kudlow Contradicts Trump on Tariffs."

The story began: "National Economic Council Director Lawrence Kudlow acknowledged Sunday that American consumers end up paying for the administration's tariffs on ...Read more

In 2003, George W. Bush took us to war to liberate Iraq from the despotism of Saddam Hussein and convert that nation into a beacon of freedom and prosperity in the Middle East.

Tuesday, Mike Pompeo flew clandestinely into Baghdad, met with the prime minister and flew out in four hours. The visit was kept secret, to prevent an attack on the ...Read more

Last week, it was Venezuela in America's gun sights.

"While a peaceful solution is desirable, military action is possible," thundered Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. "If that's what is required, that's what the United States will do."

John Bolton tutored Vladimir Putin on the meaning of the Monroe Doctrine: "This is our hemisphere. It's not ...Read more

"Who would be free themselves must strike the blow...

"By their right arms the conquest must be wrought."

So wrote Lord Byron of Greece's war of independence against the Turks, though the famed British poet would ignore his own counsel and die just days after arriving in Greece to join the struggle.

Yet Byron's advice is the wise course for ...Read more

As he debated with himself whether to enter the race for the 2020 Democratic nomination, Joe Biden knew he had a problem.

As a senator from Delaware in the '70s, he had bashed busing to achieve racial balance in public schools as stupid and racist.

As chairman of Senate Judiciary in the hearings on the nomination of Clarence Thomas in 1991, ...Read more

President Donald Trump has decided to cease cooperating with what he sees, not incorrectly, as a Beltway conspiracy that is out to destroy him.

"We're fighting all the subpoenas," Trump said Wednesday. "These aren't, like, impartial people. The Democrats are out to win in 2020."

Thus the Treasury Department just breezed by a deadline from the ...Read more

The release of the Mueller report has left Democrats in a dilemma. For consider what Robert Mueller concluded after two years of investigation.

Candidate Donald Trump did not conspire or collude with the Russians to hack the emails of the DNC or John Podesta. Trump did not distribute the fruits of those crimes. Nor did anyone in his campaign. ...Read more

"The president has said that he does not want to see this country involved in endless wars... I agree with that," Bernie Sanders told the Fox News audience at Monday's town hall meeting in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Then turning and staring straight into the camera, Bernie added:

"Mr. President, tonight you have the opportunity to do something ...Read more

"(T)here is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so," said Hamlet, who thereby raised some crucial questions:

Is moral truth subjective? Does it change with changing times and changing attitudes? Or is there a higher law, a permanent law, God's law, immutable and eternal, to which man's law should conform?

Are, for example, the ...Read more

On Monday, President Donald Trump designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, the first time the United States has designated part of another nation's government as such a threat.

Iran's Supreme National Security Council responded by declaring U.S. Central Command a terrorist group.

With 5,000 U.S. troops in Iraq...Read more

During an Iowa town hall last week, "Beto" O'Rourke, who had pledged to raise the level of national discourse, depicted President Donald Trump's rhetoric as right out of Nazi Germany.

Trump "describes immigrants as 'rapists' and 'criminals'" and as "'animals' and 'an infestation,'" said Beto.

"Now, I might expect someone to describe another ...Read more