ArcaMax

As we reach the quarter-century mark, the 21st century has turned out a tragic disappointment. Hopes were high, leaving the world wars and Holocaust of the 20th century behind. Once, even globalization sounded good.

If the 21st century were a Broadway show, it would be a flop, closed by now.

The prelude was the Supreme Court giving George W....Read more

I made a few New Year's resolutions this week -- not for me, but as self-improvement ideas for some of the people running our country. No need for them to thank me -- happy to help.

I drafted one for the GOP's whole ultra-rightist gaggle of lawmakers who keep blocking passage of health coverage for poor people. "Resolved: We will forgo the ...Read more

Respect for the rule of law in the United States can hardly be helped by the fact that so many Americans don't know what it means. Last year's annual civics survey by the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center found that one-third of our countrymen couldn't name all three branches of government -- and almost 1 in 5 couldn't ...Read more

Donald Trump had a rough couple of weeks. Members of his own party sunk his attempt to escape a vote on the debt limit for two years. Some of Trump's picks for top jobs weren't received with universal applause. A revolt by Republican senators against his choice of Matt Gaetz as attorney general forced the Florida Republican to withdraw from ...Read more

There is widespread concern today about the use of generative AI and deepfakes to create fake videos that can manipulate and deceive people. Many are asking, is there any way that technology can confidently establish whether an image or video has been altered? A number of techniques have been proposed. They include -- most prominently -- a ...Read more

What a Christmas present! In its report released last Monday, the bipartisan House Ethics Committee cited "substantial evidence" that from 2017 to 2020, former Rep. and would-be Attorney General Matt Gaetz "regularly paid women for engaging in sexual activity with him," including an underage 17-year-old, and from 2017 to 2019, had in his ...Read more

Nonvoters are the biggest (potential) voting bloc in American politics. In midterm, state and local elections, more eligible voters choose not to exercise their franchise than to do so.

Pundits and political sociologists ignore nonvoters. Nobody polls them. Nobody asks them why they don't vote. Nobody asks them what issues they care about. ...Read more

Yeah. It was a hell of a Christmas. Elon Musk was in the manger, nursing greedily at Mary's exhausted body. One of the Wise Men was a crooked New York City real estate developer with an impossibly cotton candy combover, and Matt Gaetz was lustily pursuing the sheep who came to see the babe.

By the time the REAL apocalypse gets here, things ...Read more

People take part in health challenges all the time, especially as New Year's resolutions. We count our steps, track our water intake and count carbs and calories with the intention of being healthier in the new year. There's one more health challenge I want you to consider for 2025 -- the Anti-Racism Challenge.

According to UCLA Health, "...Read more

"The hopes and fears of all the years ..." -- Traditional Christmas carol

WASHINGTON -- Oh, the drama.

The closing days of this Congress were a mad rush, more so than usual since the white mansion up Pennsylvania Avenue will soon change hands.

The holiday parties given by the Bidens enchanted guests with a melancholy undertow. The candles ...Read more

This holiday season got me to thinking about America's spirit of giving, and I don't mean this overdone business of Christmas, Hanukkah and other holiday gifts. I mean our true spirit of giving -- giving of ourselves.

Yes, we are a country of rugged individualists, yet there's also a deep, community-minded streak in each of us. We're a people...Read more

In her iconic song "Big Yellow Taxi," an obvious lament about American presidents who have been underappreciated while in office only to finally be given their due with time's passage, famed presidential historian Joni Mitchell wondered, "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?" Professor Mitchell clearly ...Read more

Those 38 Republicans who frustrated Donald Trump's demand that he be freed from the inconvenience of a debt ceiling vote early in his term were truly impressive. These are guys with whom yours truly disagrees much of the time.

What Trump's smarter knee-jerk defenders really believe is a matter of speculation. Scott Jennings used to work for ...Read more

Sports stadiums around the country have begun using face recognition to identify ticket holders, threatening to normalize a uniquely powerful surveillance technology that has already been used for abusive purposes. Worse, companies involved are already planning big expansions, raising the specter of a world where our faces become not just our ...Read more

Something very scary happened in Washington this week. The world's richest man flexed his political muscle.

And the House collapsed.

All in a day.

Republicans and Democrats had negotiated for months about a spending bill to avoid a government shutdown -- complicated negotiations to keep the government funded through mid-March including $110...Read more