ArcaMax

What does it mean that an alleged murderer has become a folk hero, that literally millions of people in this country have taken his side -- in social media, at least, if not as potential jurors -- in a case of cold-blooded murder? What does it mean that the McDonald's employees who reported him have had to resort to police protection to deal ...Read more

The arrest of a suspect in the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a street in midtown Manhattan leaves some questions unanswered. But the gleeful reaction to the executive's slaying leaves nothing subject to interpretation. Many Americans feel they have been treated so shabbily by the health insurance industry that they ...Read more

The publication last week of a new and innovative report on the causes of colorectal cancer could not be more timely, coming as it does when Americans are debating whether what we eat is killing us prematurely -- and whether Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s "Make America Healthy Again" slogan should qualify him to serve as secretary of Health and Human ...Read more

We put up our Christmas tree on Nov. 9 this year. Right after the election. I cannot remember a time when I've been more eager for the holiday season. We have holiday favorites playing on Alexa and in the car when we're driving around town. This holiday season feels like a post-election balm, a well-timed return to everything the season ...Read more

Money and power are persistent. They grind toward the twin goals of more money and power. They are not distracted, and they can identify their enemies.

The people, which is the rest of us, are not so focused. We're not always sure who our enemies are, and we're limited in the kinds of hell we can raise. The key feature of a "popular uprising"...Read more

The late 1970s were a sad time for America. The Vietnam War had just ended. Big cities fell in the grip of crime and neglect as the 1975 fiscal crisis pushed New York City to the brink of bankruptcy.

New York uniformed police, angry at the mayor's budget cuts, handed out "Welcome to Fear City" leaflets at the airports. Featuring a hooded ...Read more

The first woman combat veteran to serve in the Senate, and a sexual assault survivor, Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst understandably had serious questions about the nomination of Pete Hegseth to be Secretary of Defense.

Initially, she said he would "have his work cut out for him" to be confirmed and told Fox News that she was not yet a "yes" on his bid,...Read more

The New York Times, NBC News and the "legacy media" have got to change with the Trump times -- before Donald Trump takes power in six short weeks on Jan. 20, 2025.

One CBS News presidential historian commented on air after Trump's cruel 2016 "American carnage" inaugural address: "That was the best speech Trump ever gave."

In plain sight, ...Read more

Former New Mexico Gov. Bruce King was renowned for his frequent malapropisms and contorted logic.

For example, he once refused to back a bill pushed by loan-shark lobbyists -- but he pledged that it if the legislature passed the thing, he would sign it. Well, the bill did pass ... but Bruce vetoed it! The lobbyists swarmed him, crying that he...Read more

The cold-blooded, targeted murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson as he walked into a Manhattan hotel early last Wednesday morning has grabbed national attention, focusing some of it on America's troubling embrace of simple cruelty, and of violence.

There's chilling video circulating widely of the hooded, masked assassin pulling out a ...Read more

There is no condoning the cold-blooded murder of a UnitedHealth Group executive in predawn Manhattan. Moments after Brian Thompson was shot dead, a torrent of unsympathetic posts flooded social media. I was surprised by both the brazen attack and the unveiled congratulations to a killer. The reasons for the anger, however, I understood very ...Read more

From a young age, I enjoyed playing around with gender roles, but it wasn't until later in my adolescence that I started to have more complex thoughts about my gender identity. What I discovered, both in my childhood and later in my development, was that a lot of trans folks have similarly nonlinear approaches, or nonlinear journeys, to their ...Read more

In an interview taped Wednesday for Megyn Kelly's radio show, Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth said Trump told him he wanted a "warfighter" who would clean out the "woke crap."

What "woke crap"?

The "woke crap" that allows some 15,000 qualified transgender service members -- the best estimate I could find -- to risk their lives for ...Read more

As Democrats survey their recent losses in the election, they should avoid drawing conclusions or floating prescriptions for fixing their party's problems. First, they should absorb the biggest data point that is currently being ignored by both the progressive and the corporatist wings of the party: They haven't really won a presidential ...Read more

The trait most broadly shared by Donald Trump's nominees to top Cabinet posts is an utter lack of fitness for their prospective jobs. Most appear to be afflicted with negative attributes that would automatically disqualify them not only from these highly sensitive government positions but even from much less senior jobs in any normal ...Read more

En route to visit family in South Texas for Thanksgiving, we stopped in San Antonio to enjoy the riverwalk and take our 9-year-old son to the Alamo. Most kids in America learn the story of the Alamo in history class at some point. If you're a student in Texas, the state is really particular about how that 1836 battle at the old Spanish Mission (...Read more