ArcaMax

The tickets go for $35,000 a head. A table can cost more than $200,000. The room is crammed with some of the world’s wealthiest celebrities, donning thousand-dollar gowns and suits, at an event meant to celebrate, in many ways, excess itself.

Here, at the infamous annual Met Gala, is where New York City Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez chose to ...Read more

The frighteningly archaic, unworkable and very likely unconstitutional anti-abortion law out of Texas has thrust the issue back into the political foreground, and atop the heaping pile of policy issues President Biden is going to have to address — mostly without much help from Congress.

To be blunt, the law is bad for many reasons, and I say ...Read more

Like many fellow Americans, I know a number of men and women who served in Afghanistan. And whatever you think of the imprudence of the Afghan war, there is no doubt our U.S. service members were doing an important job there, and have more than earned our respect and gratitude.

With them in mind, they certainly deserved an end to this war after...Read more

Never, in 25 years of writing, has a blank page felt so intimidating.

To say I struggled to find something to write about this week is an understatement — not because there isn’t an abundance of news and important stories worth covering — but because I haven’t been able to read or watch any of them without spiraling into an ...Read more

The year was 2004, and a month after Barack Obama would make his national debut at the Democratic National Convention, another Democrat made news — at the Republican National Convention in New York City.

Georgia Democrat Zell Miller — a former governor who won with the help of longtime Democratic adviser James Carville, who had politics/fromtheright/secupp/s-2550402">Read more

As anyone who lived through it can tell you, the scars of 9/11 do not fade with time. Twenty years later, I’m still angry and heartbroken over what happened that day, changed forever by what I saw. When I close my eyes and imagine the New York City skyline I called my home, I still see the Twin Towers. I still can’t believe it was real.

...Read more

The pioneering American journalist John Chancellor once said, “The function of good journalism is to take information and add value to it.”

It’s not one of those self-righteous journalism quotes that presents the job as the last remaining thing standing between civilization and the Visigoths (although sometimes it actually is). It’s a ...Read more

I’m old enough to remember when, along with lowering the debt and deficit, anti-protectionism and so-called “family values,” a strong opposition to population control was one of the bedrock principles of the conservative movement and Republican Party.

But apparently, like lowering the debt and deficit, anti-protectionism, and so-called �...Read more

Nearly 30 years ago, comedian Jeff Foxworthy released his hit comedy album, “You Might Be a Redneck If…” It was a massive success, certified triple platinum. It spawned books, a calendar, a board game and all kinds of merchandise that made Foxworthy a millionaire many times over.

Its success was its simplicity — a playful ribbing of the...Read more

Ask any publisher. Two cardinal rules of non-fiction writing are obvious and unambiguous: Know your strengths. Know your audience.

No offense to the very smart folks at Threshold Editions, an imprint of Simon & Schuster and my own publisher, but did anyone there ask former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie if he could identify either?

Threshold ...Read more

My best friend James reminds me every year of the day he came out to me. It was in November of 2006.

It wasn’t a shock to me — we’d known each other for nearly 10 years by that point, through college and our early 20s, when all the good stuff happens — but it was, to this day, one of the most humbling and special moments of both of our ...Read more