ArcaMax

President Donald Trump's reelection hopes hinge on two things: the state of the economy in 2020 and the identity of the Democratic nominee.

The further left the Democrats go to select their candidate, the greater the probability Trump wins a second term.

Thus Trump got good news this week.

The verbal flubs of Joe Biden reached critical mass. ...Read more

Ten weeks of protests, some huge, a few violent, culminated Monday with a shutdown of the Hong Kong airport.

Ominously, Beijing described the violent weekend demonstrations as "deranged" acts that are "the first signs of terrorism," and vowed a merciless crackdown on the perpetrators.

China is being pushed toward a decision it does not want to...Read more

Those who believed America's racial divide would begin to close with the civil rights acts of the 1960s and the election of a black president in this century appear to have been overly optimistic.

The race divide seems deeper and wider than at any time in our lifetimes. Most of the aspiring leaders of the Democratic Party have apparently ...Read more

It was two days of contrast that tell us about America 2019.

In El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, following the mass murders of Saturday and Sunday morning, the local folks on camera -- police, prosecutors, mayors, FBI and city officials -- were nonpartisan, patient, polite and dignified in the unity and solemnity of their grief for their dead ...Read more

In his opening statement at Wednesday's Democratic debate in Detroit, Joe Biden addressed Donald Trump while pointing proudly to the racial and ethnic diversity of the nine Democrats standing beside him.

"Mr. President, this is America and we are strong and great because of this diversity, not in spite of it. ... We love it. We are here to stay...Read more

Did President Donald Trump launch his Twitter barrage at Elijah Cummings simply because the Baltimore congressman was black?

Was it just a "racist" attack on a member of the Black Caucus?

Or did Trump go after Cummings after a Saturday Fox News report that his district was in far worse condition than the Mexican border area for which Cummings ...Read more

The Democrats who were looking to cast Robert Mueller as the star in a TV special, "The Impeachment of Donald Trump," can probably tear up the script. They're gonna be needing a new one.

For six hours Wednesday, as three cable news networks and ABC, CBS and NBC all carried live the hearings of the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, ...Read more

"Send her back! Send her back!"

The 13 seconds of that chant at the rally in North Carolina, in response to Donald Trump's recital of the outrages of Somali-born Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, will not soon be forgotten, or forgiven.

This phrase will have a long shelf life. T-shirts emblazoned with "Send Her Back!" and Old Glory are already on sale...Read more

In October 1950, as U.S. forces were reeling from hordes of Chinese troops who had intervened massively in the Korean War, a 5,000-man Turkish brigade arrived to halt an onslaught by six Chinese divisions.

Said supreme commander Gen. Douglas MacArthur: "The Turks are the hero of heroes. There is no impossibility for the Turkish Brigade."

...Read more

President Donald Trump's playground taunt Sunday that "the Squad" of four new radical liberal House Democrats, all women of color, should "go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came," dominated Monday morning's headlines.

Yet those headlines smothered the deeper story.

The Democrats are today using ...Read more

When Sir Kim Darroch's secret cable to London was leaked to the Daily Mail, wherein he called the Trump administration "dysfunctional ... unpredictable ... faction-riven ... diplomatically clumsy and inept," the odds on his survival as U.K. ambassador plummeted.

When President Donald Trump's tweeted retort called Darroch "wacky," a "stupid guy"...Read more

Despite all the grousing and griping about his "politicizing" of the Fourth of July and "militarizing" America's birthday, President Donald Trump turned the tables on his antagonists, and pulled it off.

As master of ceremonies and keynote speaker at his "Salute to America" Independence Day event, Trump was a manifest success.

A president ...Read more

"The liberal idea has become obsolete. ... (Liberals) cannot simply dictate anything to anyone as they have been attempting to do over the recent decades."

Such was the confident claim of Vladimir Putin to the Financial Times on the eve of a G-20 gathering that appeared to validate his thesis.

Consider who commanded all the attention at the ...Read more

"For too long our leaders have failed us, taking us into one regime change war after the next, leading us into a new Cold War and arms race, costing us trillions of our hard-earned tax payer dollars and countless lives. This insanity must end."

Donald Trump, circa 2016?

Nope. That denunciation of John Bolton interventionism came from ...Read more

Visualizing 150 Iranian dead from a missile strike that he had ordered, President Donald Trump recoiled and canceled the strike, a brave decision and defining moment for his presidency.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, John Bolton and Vice President Mike Pence had signed off on the strike on Iran as the right response to Tehran's shootdown of a ...Read more

"Apologize for what? Cory should apologize. He knows better. There's not a racist bone in my body."

Thus did a stung Joe Biden answer rival Cory Booker's demand he apologize for telling contributors, in a southern drawl, "I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland, He never called me 'boy.' He always called me 'son."

Joe was recalling fondly a ...Read more

President Donald Trump cannot want war with Iran.

Such a war, no matter how long, would be fought in and around the Persian Gulf, through which a third of the world's seaborne oil travels. It could trigger a worldwide recession and imperil Trump's reelection.

It would widen the "forever war," which Trump said he would end, to a nation of 80 ...Read more

"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