ArcaMax

SAN DIEGO -- What if Republicans played "Let's Make a Deal" on border security, and all they walked away with was a lousy consolation prize?

Maybe a set of steak knives.

That's essentially what happened this week when congressional negotiators announced a compromise that would stave off another government shutdown while also funding increased ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- President Trump is perfectly suited to be driving this chapter of the immigration debate. That's because he very ably represents the millions of Americans who love most talking about a subject they don't understand in the least.

Knowledge, experience and common sense are overrated. Anger, fear and racism work just as well.

Trump ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Howard Schultz is right about his critics. They have had too much caffeine. And it's made them snarky, mean and close-minded.

And what Schultz's critics could really use are a few shots of consistency, historical perspective and a willingness to hold the right people accountable when the wrong people get elected.

The media, ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Julian Castro wants to be the first Latino president.

A friend of mine for the last 15 years, Castro checks a lot of boxes on the application. A graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School, he's smart, capable, thoughtful and calm -- all things President Trump isn't. He has local and federal executive experience. And as ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Hello liberal racism, my old friend. I get to talk of you again.

Thanks to Tom Brokaw. The 78-year-old newsman wrote a best-seller about "The Greatest Generation." But his recent comments about America's largest minority were not great.

Brokaw may, or may not, be a racist. I don't know, I don't care. It is not my job to decipher ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- No mas! I can't take any more sob stories about government workers going without paychecks during a shutdown that just passed the 30-day mark.

The preferred media spin is that 800,000 federal workers are held hostage by political gridlock.

Wrong. These people are not hostages. They're volunteers. No one forced them to work ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- It's no fairy tale to say that the immigration debate could really use more Goldilocks solutions -- not too hard or too soft, not open borders or a tightly sealed door. We need answers that are just right.

Negotiations will often turn on being able to take half a loaf. But President Trump's new offer to end the government shutdown ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- As the son of a law enforcement officer who was on the job for nearly four decades, I would submit there ought to be an 11th Commandment: Thou shalt not exploit dead cops.

It is grotesque that anyone would ever seize on the killing of a police officer for political purposes. Alas, the practice is bipartisan.

On the left, the ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Political consultants will say that running for president is about raising money, hiring staff, building organization, studying issues and lining up endorsements.

That's wrong.

Take it from a journalist: Running for president is about telling a story.

This is especially true at a time when Americans are standing in front of fire ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Whenever the parties quibble over immigration, things get weird faster than you can say: "Que paso?"

This week, President Trump addressed the nation on border security after hedging on whether to force the issue and holding an off-the-record meeting with television anchors where he admitted, according to reports, that he didn't see...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- It seems nearly everyone wants to give Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a scolding. But what we should really do is give her a break.

Much of the criticism is driven by fear. The worlds of media and politics are largely controlled by old white men, and a 29-year-old Puerto Rican congresswoman from New York doesn't check any of those boxes....Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Confronted with heart-wrenching images of children snatched from parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, good people will feel as if there is nothing one person can do to make their sliver of the world a kinder and gentler place.

Robert Kennedy understood that feeling. And yet, at the University of Cape Town in South Africa in June 1966...Read more

EDITORS -- Ruben Navarrette Jr. is taking a one column vacation. His next column will move Thursday, Jan. 3, for release Sunday, Jan. 6. Until his return, you are welcome to run any of our other syndicated columns in his place, including by writers your publication does not subscribe to. Go to syndication.washingtonpost.com, where you can browse...Read more

EDITORS -- Ruben Navarrette Jr. is taking a one column vacation. His next column will move Thursday, Dec. 27, for release Friday, Dec. 28. Until his return, you are welcome to run ANY of our other syndicated columns in his place, including by writers your publication does not subscribe to. Go to syndication.washingtonpost.com, where you can ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- I bet that all Julian Castro wants for Christmas is for former congressman Beto O'Rourke to stay retired.

And I bet O'Rourke -- an Irishman who speaks Spanish and does a decent impression of a Latino Democrat -- would probably just as soon not run against a real one.

But now that Castro -- a rising star who served as San Antonio ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- The media is still buzzing about this week's televised 17-minute confrontation between President Trump and Democratic leaders over a possible shutdown if Congress doesn't approve additional funding for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Yet, people are talking about the wrong thing.

The narrative is that soon-to-be House Speaker ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- After some close calls, Rick Sanchez is ready for his comeback.

Not surprisingly, the newsman's return to the airwaves is not without controversy. Who would have thought that the son of Adela and Paco -- Cuban refugees who came to the United States in 1960 fleeing communism -- would wind up working for a global cable television ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- I never had the honor of meeting George H.W. Bush, but I was lucky enough to meet one of his oldest and dearest friends.

That man's name was Don Gaylien.

Bush was a businessman, congressman, CIA director, U.S. ambassador to China, vice president, and the 41st president of the United States. When I met Gaylien, he was a 75-year-old...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- At lunch the other day, a friend -- an old Marine who will soon turn 80 -- informed me that originality is dead.

"Nothing is new," he said. "Everything that's happening now has happened before."

At the intersection of politics and media, he has a point. The alarmist anti-Trump media likes to say that things have never been this ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Who's afraid of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?

A whole lot of Republican white men, it seems. I can smell the fear coming from Fox News host Tucker Carlson, radio host Rush Limbaugh, podcaster Ben Shapiro, and others.

Congress has more than enough lawyers. What it could really use is a few more bartenders.

The latter often have good ...Read more