ArcaMax

In a display of Stockholm Syndrome, the White House Correspondents' Association invited Donald Trump to be the keynote speaker at their annual festival of self-appreciation. Because he is who he is, he did not take the opportunity to do the kind of gentle press ribbing that past presidents have engaged in, and he certainly declined to engage in ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- The ICE raids are about race. They're fueled by racism. And they're supported by racists.

Pro-MAGA Americans can deny these ugly truths all they want, but it won't make them any less true.

By the way, the last thing the immigration crackdown is about is law and order. The Trump administration isn't even on speaking terms with ...Read more

Note to Editors Only: A version of this column was distributed by Cagle in 2024.

According to Cosmopolitan, the shag haircut of the 1970s has become all the rage in 2026.

That makes me grumpy because I’m still upset about the David Cassidy shag haircut my sisters made me get in 1973, when I was 11.

Mimicking a Teen Idol

As I explain more ...Read more

When you start with a predetermined policy and then go looking for a legal pretext to justify it, you are building on shaky ground. President Donald Trump illustrated that point once again last week, when he announced a third round of broad tariffs after his first two attempts were rejected by federal courts.

Shortly after taking office last ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- It's not exactly breaking news that Americans dislike politics, distrust politicians and doubt their government.

' Twas always thus.

Thomas Jefferson saw it coming. In his book "Notes on the State of Virginia," which was published in 1782, the Father of the Declaration of Independence warned: "In every government on earth is ...Read more

When I lived in the Washington, D.C., region, I enjoyed occasional Saturday morning visits to Lafayette Square to see what the protesters were up to.

Lafayette Square sits directly across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House. The park is often packed with people exercising their right to free speech.

The Saturday morning I visited, a large...Read more

As we approach the forthcoming college fall semester, much discussion has centered on the difficulties a lot of Gen Z students are having with reading and critical thinking. One Chronicle of Higher Education article that many of my colleagues at Ohio State University's Lima campus recently read delves into students' struggles with literacy. ...Read more

Should those of us who want to defeat the proto-fascists in charge of the Republican Party be worried about a few blue districts that have recently indulged their ids and voted for members of the Democratic Socialists of America? Yes. If their victories become a trend, it could sabotage the Democratic Party.

In a way, Democrats should be ...Read more

Imagine how Republicans would react if a Democratic president reflexively threatened to yank the broadcast licenses of TV stations because he did not like their news coverage or programming decisions. President Donald Trump has been doing that since his first term, and he did it again last week after ABC and NBC declined to offer live coverage...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Anyone who has written about immigration for more than 35 years, and who has the scars to prove it, has earned the right to say: "I told you so."

Those four words rang in my head recently as I read an article in The New York Times that exposed one of the three big lies of the immigration debate.

If you're curious, the other two ...Read more

Vacation season is upon us, and nobody knows how to vacation better than our friends in Europe.

Whereas many Americans settle for a weeklong summer vacation — often supplemented with day trips — Europeans commonly spend two to four weeks at the beach.

The United States is the only advanced economy with no federal requirement for paid ...Read more

If completed as planned, Donald Trump's triumphal arch outside Arlington National Cemetery will tower over the graceful Memorial Bridge, obstruct the view of the Lincoln Memorial from the cemetery (and vice versa) and offend anyone whose taste is north of Liberace.

But there's another aspect of this grotesquery that deserves some attention: ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Here is something you didn't need a library card to figure out.

Americans read fewer books than we used to, and the books that we do read are shorter. We spend less time in bookstores and more time on electronic devices. And instead of bucking this trend, public schools have caved in and assigned fewer books.

Even so, is the end...Read more

"I'm guessing I'll be in line," former FBI Director James Comey quipped after Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced a "settlement agreement" between President Donald Trump and the IRS that included $1.8 billion in taxpayer money for targets of "lawfare and weaponization." Comey's joke encompasses two reasons why the Senate should not ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- If you've ever written a eulogy, you already know that human beings are complicated.

At the end of the ride, we'll be proud of some of the things we've done but regret others. You take the good with the bad.

Most people don't want to be judged for the worst thing they did. But they don't give the same grace to elected officials....Read more

It’s never too late for a good belly laugh.

July 1 was International Joke Day. The origins of the day remain unclear, but one thing is for certain: we all could use a good laugh about now.

Which reminds me about the man who walks into a library and says, “I’m looking for books about paranoid schizophrenia.”

The librarian lowers her ...Read more

As the tragedy of Nolan Wells' death continues to dominate the news, there are so many unanswered questions. Perhaps the most significant one is what his grieving parents shared in a recent interview with "Good Morning America's" Michael Strahan. Why did their 18-year-old son separate from his friends during their July 4 trip to Horn Island, a ...Read more