ArcaMax

Someday, the past year or so may be remembered as a bout of temporary insanity among a large share of the American people. This group refused to take basic precautions against a devastating pandemic, swallowed the lies of a president who had lost an election, and excused a violent mob that attacked the Capitol to prevent Congress from doing its ...Read more

Right now, selling a home is akin to selling beer on a troopship: Buyers are so eager they'll pay almost any amount. The median home sales price in the United States was nearly 23% higher in June than a year earlier.

Surging demand is the immediate cause of the increase, and it will abate before long. But underlying it is a more durable factor:...Read more

Someday, many years from now, historians will use the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program as a case study in the monumental dysfunction of American democracy in the early 21st century. But there is no guarantee that the issue will be consigned to the history books by then. Many of the "dreamers" could pass on to the next world before ...Read more

Nostalgia is an essential ingredient in class reunions, wedding anniversaries and Baseball Hall of Fame inductions. But it's a poor source of guidance for public policy. Often, rose-colored memories serve to obscure dangers and cloud judgment.

In January, President Joe Biden issued an executive order directing Cabinet officers to create a ...Read more

When the president of Haiti was gunned down last week by a team of mercenaries, the country fell into even more turmoil than before, which is saying a lot. The assassination prompted the interim prime minister to ask the United States to send military forces. But here's the surprise: No one is jumping to accept the invitation.

Haiti is not far ...Read more

One of the many aggravating ills of the era of Donald Trump is having our intelligence constantly insulted. It is one thing to have spirited debate on divisive issues. It's another to have transparently fraudulent claims thrust upon us by people who are smarter than they pretend to be.

One of these is former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who ...Read more

If you've ever been on a date with someone who got up to go to the restroom and never came back, you know how Afghan officers at Bagram Airfield felt when they woke up the other day to find the American military gone.

According to the Afghans, our units vacated in the middle of the night without so much as a goodbye, cutting off the electricity...Read more

The Fourth of July is an occasion for the reading of the Declaration of Independence. But a better project might be the reading of the Constitution, a document that many Americans revere without fully understanding.

Among this group are many police officers, even though they take an oath to uphold it and are greatly affected by it in the course...Read more

Anyone who serves as attorney general of the United States owes a huge debt to the predecessors who upheld the rule of law while protecting the Justice Department from politicization. Bill Barr, by contrast, can thank the less distinguished ones. They may save him from being remembered as the worst attorney general the nation has ever had.

...Read more

From the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans have been yearning for the bygone life they once took for granted. But many of those most impatient to return to normal have been the least willing to help us get there. First, some people refused to wear masks. Now, some -- often the same ones -- balk at getting vaccinated.

This resistance is ...Read more

Legal marijuana is becoming the norm in America. Nineteen states have legalized recreational cannabis, and 36 allow medical use. In all five states where liberalization was on the ballot in November, voters supported it -- even in such conservative states as South Dakota and Mississippi. One in three Americans now lives in a place where adults ...Read more

In its Thursday decision letting a Catholic agency decline to place foster children with same-sex couples, the Supreme Court analyzed the First Amendment, state law and judicial precedents. But what prevailed in the end are the words emblazoned on the Great Seal of the United States: E pluribus unum. Out of many, one.

America is a land of ...Read more

The 2010 Senate candidate was almost a caricature of the sort of Republican who drives Democrats crazy. He bragged about his endorsement by the National Rifle Association, criticized "Obamacare" and dramatized his support for coal by picking up a rifle and blasting away at a bill aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

But the guy who turned...Read more

For a long time, inflation has been the phantom of the American economy: often expected but never seen. But the latest Consumer Price Index, which showed that prices rose by 5% from May of last year to May of this year, raises fears that it is breaking down the front door and taking over the guest room.

The price jump was the biggest one-month ...Read more

To everything there is a season, and in a season when the Supreme Court will decide many important questions, the justices have recognized an important truth: For major constitutional issues, there is a time to act, and there is a time to do nothing.

They followed this wisdom in declining to hear a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of ...Read more

Kamala Harris has been vilified by critics on the right, but the people who may end up detesting her most are not conservatives or even contemporaries. They are future vice presidents, who will curse her for loading up the office with heavy burdens.

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden announced that she will lead the administration's charge against...Read more

A lot of young people enroll at a university they think will suit their needs but later realize they've made a mistake -- maybe because of costs, maybe because of professors, maybe because of a failed romance. Fortunately, they have the option to move on, attending Missouri one semester and Kansas the next, and pursue whatever they went to ...Read more

When he became president, Joe Biden summarily reversed his predecessor's policies on a range of issues, including climate change, immigration, taxes, social welfare and police reform. But on international trade, it's almost like Donald Trump never left.

Trump had a primitive view of this issue. Good, in his view, were exports, trade surpluses, ...Read more

The American system of government has been around for 232 years, and it has survived wars, depressions, social upheavals and pandemics. But we should not bet that it will survive much longer. The proliferating signs of rot suggest the end may be near.

The election of 1800, in which Thomas Jefferson defeated incumbent John Adams, was perhaps the...Read more

Of the many mortifying moments of Donald Trump's presidency, few can match his hopeless infatuation with an unlikely partner: North Korean Communist dictator Kim Jong Un. It is still hard to believe that the leader of the free world could stand up in public and tell an audience: "We fell in love. No, really. He wrote me beautiful letters ... We ...Read more