ArcaMax

There are some notions so thunderously discredited by experience that they may never be revived. No serious person still believes that lead can be turned into gold, that astrologers can predict the future or that fans will turn out to watch baseball in Miami. But some people suffer from the delusion that when inflation emerges, price controls ...Read more

In 2016, a mass shooter at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killed 49 people and wounded another 53. The need for blood was urgent, and thousands of people lined up to donate. But some of those most eager to give were turned away for one reason: They were sexually active gay men.

The Food and Drug Administration's rule barred blood ...Read more

Long before the arrival of COVID-19, America was being ravaged by a deadly epidemic. Unlike the coronavirus, though, the drug overdose plague didn't elicit a massive response from public officials. And the epidemic has not only continued but gotten worse.

In 2020, more than 93,000 people died of drug overdoses, most of them after ingesting ...Read more

The 2016 presidential election may be remembered as the last one in which the voters on the losing side trusted the result. It used to be the unquestioned norm. But in the era of Donald Trump, norms are like eggs -- made to be broken.

The morning after, Hillary Clinton graciously conceded the election, despite getting nearly 2.9 million more ...Read more

A 19th-century Mexican president once summarized his country's plight: "So far from God, so close to the United States." Ukraine has the same problem, but with Russia. And its geographic proximity is particularly worrisome right now.

President Vladimir Putin, who annexed Crimea from Ukraine in a 2014 invasion, has raised fears he is planning ...Read more

Most children learn that while a few pieces of candy are a treat, eating a whole bag can be misery. Most adult understand that taking a multivitamin every day may be good for your health, but taking two or three or four is a waste. In much of life, restraint is a virtue.

That may be news to Anthony Fauci. He is a justly respected scientist ...Read more

College football's bowl season is upon us, raising the question: If the RoofClaim.com Boca Raton Bowl ceased to exist, would anyone notice? But occasionally these games produce news that deserves attention -- such as when Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz benched his star player for the Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl on Wednesday.

Drinkwitz ...Read more

The president of the United States is often referred to as the most powerful person in the world. That description must come as some consolation to Joe Biden, who in moments of despair can reflect that the second most powerful person in the world, whoever that may be, must have it worse.

Biden is in the position of someone who wins a lottery ...Read more

December is the month when we revisit the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a stony-hearted man who finally learns to be more generous and humane. That tale may strike home in the Oval Office, because Joe Biden sometimes resembles the reformed Scrooge in trying to make up for his past harshness.

Biden was the chief author of the 1994 crime bill, which...Read more

You know the country is in trouble when the voice of reason is Donald Trump Jr. The former president's noxious eldest son has an affinity for white supremacists, but when the Capitol riot erupted, he texted White House chief of staff Mark Meadows urging action by the president. "He's got to condemn this s--- ASAP."

The communications disclosed ...Read more

Before the White House announced that no U.S. officials will be attending a certain global sporting festival in Beijing, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry objected to the idea. "The Winter Olympic Games is not a stage for political posturing and manipulation," he said. That's right. Then he laughed so hard he ruptured his spleen.

Not...Read more

President Joe Biden faces many foreign policy problems, but one involving Equatorial Guinea was not on my Bingo card. This week, though, administration officials took offense at the revelation that China may establish a naval base in the western African nation.

This possibility is "a threat that is setting off alarm bells at the White House and...Read more

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments over a Mississippi law banning abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy. The law roundly defies the court's decisions affirming a right to abortion, but the state portrays the ban as the mildest of correctives.

All Mississippi wants the justices to do, insisted state solicitor general Scott ...Read more

Vice President Kamala Harris spent over $500 on cookware at a fancy store during her diplomatic visit to Paris.

I'll pause here to give you time to pick yourself up off the floor. It's a major shock to learn that someone with a net worth of $7 million would do a little shopping on a trip abroad. I assumed Harris would pack a well-worn copy of "...Read more

The Biden administration, to its credit, never misses a chance to emphasize the importance of dealing with climate change. President Joe Biden calls it an "existential" threat to humanity. John Kerry, his special envoy on the issue, said in April: "That means life and death. And the question is, are we behaving as if it is? And the answer is no....Read more

It has been 400 years since Native Americans took part in the first Thanksgiving, hosted by the Europeans who had appeared the previous year. This year also marks the first time a federal department has been headed by a Native American, and last week, she did something wise that none of her predecessors saw fit to do.

Interior Secretary Deb ...Read more

It can be really bothersome to hear politicians lying. But sometimes it's more alarming to realize they may be telling the truth.

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission complaining that "gasoline prices at the pump remain high, even though oil and gas companies' costs are declining." He wants the agency ...Read more

The Republican Party of Wyoming has formally banished Rep. Liz Cheney from its ranks. This decision calls to mind Evelyn Waugh's remark when told that Winston Churchill's son, a politician and journalist, had undergone surgery for a benign tumor: "A typical triumph of modern science to find the only part of Randolph that was not malignant and ...Read more

In the annals of American economic policy, the year 2020 will be remembered as a remarkable success. That may sound odd, considering that the economy suffered a seizure that caused unemployment to quadruple almost overnight. But sometimes success is measured less by what is achieved than by what is avoided.

In this case, we avoided a ...Read more

The 9/11 attacks were the worst acts of terrorism in American history, with horrible results to thousands of innocent people. But the U.S. government's response to it was a horror show of its own, with consequences that continue to reverberate.

In his ensuing war on terrorism, President George W. Bush lashed out in large, catastrophically ...Read more