ArcaMax

SAN DIEGO -- This Thanksgiving dinner, Vice President JD Vance might need a taste tester.

The Yale Law School graduate has for years benefited from the assumption that he's a smart cookie. Yet Vance has a knack for saying dumb things, and that's when the public image begins to crumble.

Last month, when Politico published hundreds of racist ...Read more

I think the Supreme Court will rule against President Donald Trump's imposition of tariffs. That said, it's just remarkable that the vote will not be 9-0.

Trump is claiming sweeping powers to impose (and rescind and reimpose and re-rescind) tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA), which was a revised ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- With elections, as with individuals, appearances can be deceiving.

At first glance, Election Day 2025 appeared to be small and inconsequential. The national media were focused on a literal handful of races in this off-year election, and the coverage wrapped up early given that most of those electoral contests were on the East ...Read more

Last April, President Donald Trump announced stiff tariffs on goods from nearly every country on the planet, saying they were necessary to "deal with" a "national emergency" involving an "unusual and extraordinary threat" to "the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States." According to a Supreme Court brief signed by ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- America, make up your mind! When it comes to immigrants, your contradictions are big and loud and hard to square.

Let's start with the big one: America is the land of immigrants, and yet it has never liked immigrants.

Then there is this one: We insist that immigrants speak English, but companies market to them in Spanish.

And ...Read more

One of the things that I have most enjoyed about my commute to work in Lima, Ohio, during the Thanksgiving season is passing small farms and viewing the fields that are being cleared after the fall corn harvest. Much of the farmland is vast and such a peaceful sight to behold on a sunny day when God has decorated the sky with fluffy, white ...Read more

"Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man?" -- Henry Higgins

Those are the words librettist Alan Jay Lerner penned for the fictional professor Henry Higgins in the 1956 musical "My Fair Lady," and honestly, it could have been the title of Helen Andrews' much-discussed recent essay in Compact. She called it "The Great Feminization" but her screed ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Democrats are in crisis because they lost their way, gave up their bite and muddled their identity. It couldn't have happened to a more deserving bunch.

The scoreboard doesn't tell the whole story. Low on points, Democrats appear to have been beaten. The truth is, they forfeited. They've been lazy, complacent, arrogant and too ...Read more

A few weeks after taking office, President Donald Trump called the Second Amendment "an indispensable safeguard of security and liberty," declaring that "the right to keep and bear arms must not be infringed." But in a case that the Supreme Court recently agreed to hear, the Trump administration is urging the justices to uphold one of the ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- In California, voters are accustomed to supporting lousy ballot initiatives because we believe the alternative to be much worse.

But Prop. 50, a redistricting initiative that attempts to offset what Texas did recently when the Lone Star State redrew five congressional seats to flip them from favoring Democrats to favoring ...Read more

This week, as I was going through my online news feeds, which included updates on the government shutdown, I came across several stories about furloughed federal workers and contractors standing in line at food banks in Maryland and the D.C. area. In Landover, Maryland, the lines were extremely long, with numerous cars parked on the street ...Read more

The building's facade is gone this morning -- an ugly gash reminiscent of the smoldering Pentagon on 9/11. This disfigurement is not the act of terrorists or foreign foes. It's the work of our president. The East Wing of the White House, which has housed the visitors center, the office of the social secretary, the calligraphy office, and the ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- I recently attended my 40th high school reunion which, as expected, left me feeling "happy-sad."

You get the joy of stepping back in time and spending a few hours reminiscing with old friends -- some of whom you've known since you were in kindergarten eating graham crackers and drinking from milk cartons. But before you know it, ...Read more

Colombian President Gustavo Petro says one of the "narcoterrorists" recently killed by U.S. military strikes on boats in the Caribbean was a "fisherman" who had "no ties to the drug trade." That man's death, one of at least 32 ordered by President Donald Trump, therefore qualified as "murder," Petro declared on Saturday.

That much would be ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Try not to look too surprised when I say this, but President Donald Trump is hung up on race.

And the condition is not limited to just one person. The old proverb dictates that "the fish rots from the head." So it is that -- when it comes to race -- Vice President JD Vance, Trump's advisers, Cabinet officials, MAGA supporters and...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- President Donald Trump is part politician and part magician. A master illusionist, Trump doesn't merely live in his own reality. He creates a whole new reality and then forces the rest of us to live in it with him.

Like a used car salesman who sells you a lemon by convincing you it's a Lamborghini, Trump doesn't portray things ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Have you watched the news today? Oh boy.

The Trump administration's invasion of Chicago. Attacks on houses of worship. The government shutdown. The murder of Charlie Kirk. The division of a nation that was supposed to be "indivisible." All this and more weighs on the hearts and minds of many Americans.

I need a break. So today, ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Two years? It feels more like 20.

Another person who feels that way is Maha Shbeir, who worked as a doctor at Nasser hospital in Gaza. She recently told a reporter for the Associated Press that she feels as if over the last two years she has seen two decades' worth of pain, tragedy, suffering and hunger.

"I've seen cases of ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Republicans are pushing two conflicting narratives at once, and the double talk has them flummoxed and tongue-tied.

The first narrative is that Democrats are weak, ineffective, out of touch and totally irrelevant to the politics of today. As President Donald Trump might put it, "they choke like dogs."

The second narrative is ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Americans have talked a lot lately about the ugly phenomenon of political violence. As well we should; people should not feel unsafe because of what they believe.

Nevertheless, now we need to pivot and confront something we don't want to talk about because it can be even uglier: religious violence. People also should not feel ...Read more