ArcaMax

I don't always say that. Sometimes the California governor and would-be 2028 contender drives me slightly crazy with his transparent stunts to get attention.

But this is not a stunt. The redistricting bill that the California legislature passed and Newsom signed aims to counter what Texas is doing with its mid-census redistricting plans. They...Read more

The first time I encountered a police checkpoint was in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan. My first reaction was excitement. I'd read about this facet of autocracy; here it was! It quickly gave way to fear. The men posted on the Almaty street intersection were armed. They had the power of the state. They could do anything they pleased. ...Read more

In May, my son and I gathered with hundreds of our neighbors at a community meeting to protest a pickleball and tennis complex planned for our local park. We're not against the sports. My son likes to play tennis with his dad. What we objected to was clearing trees and utilizing green space for a bricks-and-mortar complex. Fortunately, our mayor...Read more

As any pooch owner knows, a dog will eat its own vomit.

Catholic theologians hundreds of years ago used this doggy behavior to illustrate how humans return to their sins time after time after time.

In America, sometimes our conscience gives a great heave and we vomit up our thick, ugly racism.

But we always come back to eat it again.

Some ...Read more

President Donald Trump's energy policy is utterly screwed up -- if you assume America's interests, and not pleasing his fossil fuel friends, is the objective.

This came to the fore when trade adviser Peter Navarro hollered at India for buying Russian oil. Navarro called the purchases "opportunistic and deeply corrosive" of efforts to isolate ...Read more

Some headlines are just too stupid to pass by. Yes, this is the Trump era, and Trump being Trump and all that. But even so, there should be some things a president doesn't say -- or do. This is one.

"Trump Says Smithsonian Focuses Too Much on 'How Bad Slavery Was,'" The New York Times screamed this morning. Yes, he really said that.

In a ...Read more

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump attacked the narrative long taught in U.S. schools and documented in museums, about the abhorrent, centuries-long practice of slavery. He focused on The Smithsonian Institution, the world-renowned center of learning and culture based in Washington, D.C.

Trump wrote on his social media platform, "The ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- It's a truism that American presidents change in office. The youthful Barack Obama grew gray. Put another way, the office changes presidents.

Stepping off the train from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln was no abolitionist. Within two years of the Civil War, he had a revolution within and became the greatest abolitionist of all time.

...Read more

A gaggle of self-righteous multimillionaires is now in charge of America's poverty agencies and policies, and they've been flaunting their deeply held ignorance about poor families -- almost none of whom they actually know.

Consider the national embarrassment of Brooke Rollins, a patrician ideologue, who is President Donald Trump's ...Read more

Departing Alaska after a mega-hyped meeting with Vladimir Putin that gave the Russian dictator plenty to smile about, President Donald Trump trotted out the customary hogwash. It was, he proclaimed, "a great and very successful day in Alaska." For some lucky salmon fishermen, perhaps, but not for Ukrainians, who have been victims of Russia's ...Read more

Why do the world's poor make a beeline for New York City? It is now home to over 3 million immigrants, the largest influx coming from the Dominican Republic, China, Jamaica, Mexico, Guyana, Ecuador, Bangladesh, Haiti and India. How can these overwhelmingly poor new arrivals stay if no one can afford to live there?

Answer: They crowd into ...Read more

Deep in the Florida Everglades, a new immigration detention facility has appeared almost overnight. It's the latest example of the Trump administration's extreme approach to immigration enforcement, and it's drawing significant, well-deserved outrage.

In just eight days, a former airstrip was converted into a large-scale immigration detention...Read more

Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Commandos on land vehicles and paragliders killed 1,195 Israelis, injured about 5,400 and seized about 250 hostages. A few hours later, Israel launched its genocide of the Gazan people. The Israel Defense Forces have since killed at least 60,000 Palestinians -- with some estimates as high as 200,000 -- ...Read more

When I was a kid, my family often drove from northern Kentucky to Clearwater, Florida, where my grandmother had retired. We loaded down our van with camping gear and snorkels. Along the way, we camped in the Smokey Mountains, canoed with alligators in the Okefenokee Swamp and snorkeled with the manatee in Crystal River. Nature was my family's ...Read more

Scientists say blue whales are singing less.

It's not really singing. It's more like squeaking, but they used to do it all the time, and now they only do it sometimes. The singing helps them find mates, and it's how they talk to each other.

The same scientists say the whales might be singing less because climate change is making it harder ...Read more

It's with some discomfort that I consider the possibility that Trump's radical immigration agenda will lead to better immigration policies. The discomfort comes from the cruelty involved: the roughing up of good people who've been quietly working, the celebrations of brutal incarceration, the racially tinged rhetoric.

Hope comes in the form ...Read more

The latest from the streets of LA -- ICE Seeks Supreme Court Approval for Racial Profiling. That's what they're doing. As I wrote in my last column, in June, the federal district court found, discriminatory "roving patrols" of ICE agents terrorized Los Angeles and its residents, targeting not those who had committed crimes (remember those ...Read more