ArcaMax

At a donor event last week with Miriam Adelson, the widow of Las Vegas casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, Donald Trump promised to be the best friend Jews have ever had in the White House. The event was entitled "Fighting Antisemitism in America." This is what Trump said:

"My promise to Jewish Americans is this: With your vote, I will be ...Read more

Mainstream American political leaders regularly argue that the United States adheres to, defends and promotes a "rules-based international order." What's that? It's rarely defined.

The best summary I've been able to find was articulated by John Ikenberry of Princeton University, introduced by the Financial Times in 2023 as "an influential ...Read more

Someone recently told me, "The minute I took this job, I became part of the problem." I'd never thought of it that way before but instantly understood what they meant. They work within a government system, a completely different profession than me, but I couldn't help but come back to that phrase again and again. It also applied to me and ...Read more

In America's ongoing effort to separate the properly gendered from you freak jobs who are just making it up as you go along, we've finally struck on felines and fertility as the true measure of properly gendered patriotism.

You got cats? You got cats, there's some chance that you're not as male as the guy with a dog, particularly when ...Read more

Donald Trump's "drill, baby, drill" mantra portrays fossil fuels as the magic road to lower energy prices. He's exactly wrong. Solar, wind and other renewable sources are.

Renewables already provide electricity to consumers in Europe that's so cheap, it's at times free -- this according to The Wall Street Journal, a decidedly non-socialist ...Read more

"I am your protector. I want to be your protector ... you will no longer be abandoned, lonely or scared. You will no longer be in danger. You're not going to be in danger any longer."

That's Donald Trump talking, the man who was found liable for sexual assault by a jury of his peers and ordered to pay millions of dollars in damages -- now ...Read more

An iconic Texas band, the Austin Lounge Lizards, has a song that nails the absurd self-righteousness of Christian supremacists: "Jesus Loves Me (But He Can't Stand You)."

I think of this refrain when I behold today's right-wing proselytizers wailing that the blessed rich should not be taxed to assure that everyone has the most basic human ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- When you sit down at Ben's Chili Bowl, cofounder Virginia R. Ali is apt to greet you and tell you she is glad you're here.

If you're lucky, she'll tell stories of her life that intersect with every chapter of the city since 1958, the year she and her late husband opened the restaurant's doors in a segregated section in the old ...Read more

In June 2006, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., was asked in Boston what the Democrats' plan was for dealing with Iran, designated even then by our State Department as the world's foremost state sponsor of terrorism and well on its way to acquiring nuclear weapons. "I don't know," Durbin replied. "With any luck Israel will do something about it, ...Read more

Back in the days when I was a moderate Republican, I still found Liz Cheney too far right-leaning for my tastes. And that went for her dad, former Vice President Dick Cheney, as well.

Even today, I may not agree with her on this issue or that, but we're on the same page on the primal importance of preserving our democracy. And this year, the ...Read more

For many of Texas' 3 million border residents, going through federal interior checkpoints -- where Border Patrol agents are permitted to screen vehicles for suspected noncitizens and can ask passengers about their citizenship and travel plans -- can be an intimidating but predictable part of daily life. But for undocumented or mixed-status ...Read more

In the arguments before the Supreme Court on affirmative action in college admissions, proponents of affirmative action claimed that the number of Blacks admitted to selective colleges and universities would plummet absent affirmative action. And opponents of affirmative action claimed that the number of Asian Americans would increase ...Read more

If someone said something I found annoying or offensive, my mother taught me, the appropriate response was to allow them to finish speaking and reply with a calm, considered counterargument. Now you're supposed to talk over them until they shut up.

Or, better yet, cut their mic and show them the door.

Censorship has become a bipartisan norm....Read more

How unsurprising is it that former President Donald Trump appeared recently at an event supposedly devoted to opposing antisemitism -- and proceeded to deliver a speech dripping with antisemitic innuendo and contempt for American Jews?

Like so much of what Trump says and does, his remarks at the "Combating Antisemitism" affair in Washington, ...Read more

Last week I met a man struggling to understand the world and his place in it. We'll call him Bo. Bo's having marital problems and is contemplating divorce. My husband has been spending time to help him sort through it. While talking with Bo, it was obvious that this man doesn't know who he is.

The worst part is that it's how he was raised.

By ...Read more

The Amish are better than you. They're better than me, too.

This is because the Amish make furniture.

For the last couple years, every time I turn the television on, there's a commercial from a local retailer telling me they sell "Amish furniture."

"Experience the craftsmanship of the Amish," the announcer's deep voice says. Then the ad ...Read more