ArcaMax

Given the increasing dominance of right-wing politics by arrogant, super-rich Tech Bros, here's a question about wealth inequality for your barroom philosophers to ponder: Does one have to be born a jackass to become a billionaire, or does becoming a billionaire cause jackassim?

Either way, they do seem to go together -- as in Elon Musk, Mark...Read more

Over the past year, federal agents have arrested U.S. citizens, dragged children from their beds in the middle of the night, smashed car windows and shot, sometimes fatally, those they encounter. As these agents advance President Donald Trump's extreme deportation agenda, many across the United States have watched in horror as they trample the...Read more

"If they ever make a sequel to 'Dumb and Dumber'," Rahm Emanuel mused to a packed hall at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire last week, "there's a lot of competition in this administration for who gets to play the lead." If there's one thing Emanuel isn't, it's dumb. He's not in New Hampshire to monitor the Granite State blossoming ...Read more

Donald Trump's assault on our democratic institutions did not stop voters from giving him a second term. The top reason they cited for reelecting him was the economy, notably their unhappiness over high prices.

During the campaign, Trump promised to "bring prices down, starting on Day One." How he would do this was left to our imagination. It...Read more

She did everything a loyalist could do. She bowed to his whims. She weaponized the Justice Department, turning it into the weapon and tool of a vengeful president. She fired all those who had dared to do their jobs and investigate him, or investigate and prosecute his loyal army of January 6 rioters. She decimated the ranks, shredding the ...Read more

It happened here.

The United States is officially a fascist nation.

Leftists, in the 1960s and '70s, loved to throw around the F-word. Johnson was fascist, Nixon was fascist, Amerikkka was fascist, the cops were fascist. As a history student and the son of a woman who lost her childhood to the objectively fascist collaborationist government of...Read more

Last week's Erma Bombeck Writer's Workshop in Dayton, Ohio, celebrated 25 years of the conference. The University of Dayton held the first workshop in 2000 as a one-time event to commemorate the Bombeck family's gift of Erma's papers to her alma mater. It turns out once just wasn't enough, and now there's no hint of stopping it. The conference...Read more

It's April 1, the day when guys my age finally stop writing 2025 on their checks.

I only wrote two checks this month. One was to my dentist because he still sends me a paper bill with a return envelope, and one was to a company that sells me sausage and cheese at Christmas. Once I pay them both off, I won't write another check until next year...Read more

Yes, he talks like a Brooklyn tough guy, but Sen. Bernie Sanders is a resident of Vermont, America's most rural and most white state. That he fled New York City nearly 60 years ago seems lost on the current Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his fellow socialists. Then again, Mamdani hasn't been around very long himself.

Sanders skipped out of town as ...Read more

It's business as usual -- almost -- in the midst of a war abroad and an affordability crisis at home and the longest partial government shutdown in history.

I say almost because last Friday, the Senate actually did something different. They did something extraordinary. Every Republican voted with every Democrat to fund the Department of ...Read more

I've watched the American triumvirate of leaders for a long time: principals House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, Senate Republican leader John Thune and President Donald Trump.

The ancient Roman triumvirate of generals had one that was truly great: Julius Caesar, famous forevermore.

Pelosi, who turned 86 last week, is the truly great leader,...Read more

Our future was pronounced dead last week.

I mean that glorious future of "The Metaverse," promised to us by Silicon Valley's tech and financial geniuses. Just a decade ago, they were promising us that by now we'd all be playing, working and relating as digital avatars of ourselves, living out our lives in a phantasmagoric new world of virtual ...Read more

In Washington recently, the Foreign Minister of a Middle Eastern country under attack by Iran argued that Iran must at last be forcefully confronted by the international community, and that continuing to kick the can down the road when it comes to Tehran is unacceptable. "You have to be clear-eyed about the risks that this regime poses," this ...Read more

Sure, the "No Kings" marches drew millions rightly protesting Donald Trump's assaults on our democratic institutions. But Democrats must dig deeper and ask how Trump could actually win another term after trying to overturn the 2020 election results with a violent attack on the Capitol. It wasn't as though most Americans adored him. Gallup's ...Read more

Across the country, brave people are out in the streets observing and recording immigration enforcement interactions to support people who are being targeted and to hold the government accountable for its abuses.

The First Amendment protects your right to take photos and videos of anything in public view, including law enforcement officers at...Read more

The costs of this war are becoming, painfully, clearer and clearer. The Friday headlines of The New York Times capture part of the picture: "Global Food Supply Faces Dangerous Bottleneck in Strait of Hormuz (that's the skyrocketing price of fertilizer at work); "Diesel Is a Bigger Problem for Consumers Than Gasoline" (hitting everyone from ...Read more