ArcaMax

When I was a high school kid in Missouri, around 1972 or so, there were people in our town who used the word "foreigner" to refer to anyone who spoke English with an accent or spoke no English at all. Some older people would say someone was "speaking foreign" if they spoke a language other than English.

Neither thing was necessarily meant as ...Read more

"Some may seek to deny or delay the clean energy revolution that's underway in America, but nobody -- nobody -- can reverse it. Nobody. Not when so many people, regardless of party or politics, are enjoying its benefits." Still-President Joe Biden said that on a recent visit to Brazil.

His administration's Inflation Reduction Act, for example...Read more

Of course he pardoned his son. Joe Biden had already lost one son, as well as his wife and his daughter. He lost his ability to seek reelection, and then Democrats lost the election, for which he was roundly blamed. His son was facing prison time, a disaster for former addicts; as former President Bill Clinton put it, there was "reason to ...Read more

My father and I, discouraged at the election over the holiday, opened a book of poetry I brought along to the house.

Somewhere we traveled was back in time to John F. Kennedy's inauguration on a bright snowy day on Jan. 20, 1961.

Almost unbelievably, Kennedy asked New England poet Robert Frost to compose and read an original poem for the ...Read more

Social media has been lighting up like fireworks, with myriad Trump voters exclaiming, "I didn't know he meant me!" For example, many MAGA cheerleaders are now shocked to learn that his rallying cry to eliminate "Obamacare" means killing the popular Affordable Care Act that provides their health coverage!

Perhaps the most stunned, though, are...Read more

The word that Palestinians use for the 1948 displacement of many of their forebears is "Nakba," Arabic for "catastrophe." That displacement, of course, was a self-inflicted catastrophe, but also one that Arab leaders inflicted on the rest of the world, which has paid a heavy price for it. It was the proximate result of the decision by Arab ...Read more

Working-class voters put Donald Trump over the top, thinking he would look out for their interests. How does the administration he's putting together look for them?

Not great.

Roman emperors maintained control over the populace by giving them "bread and circuses" -- free bread and lavish entertainment to distract them. Trump appears to be ...Read more

The opioid epidemic has gripped communities for more than 20 years. From 1999 to 2022, nearly 727,000 people died from an overdose involving prescription or illicit opioids.

Litigation has dramatically changed the substance-use disorder policy landscape, and today, more than $50 billion in opioid settlements from pharmaceutical companies, ...Read more

We face so many challenges that the task of choosing which ones to emphasize and which can be edited out for the sake of brevity is nearly impossible. So many injustices afflict our fellow human beings that, of those that make the shortlist to be attacked and redressed, determining an order of priority is best left unattempted even by -- ...Read more

My wife and I just bought a house. The house we sold is in a city, just a three-minute drive from District Court. If you beat the murder rap, you can walk to my house in about 20 minutes. There's a methadone clinic a 10-minute walk away, too. Many clients of the court are also customers at the methadone clinic. We live in between the two. It's...Read more

While leaves changed color and floated to the ground, I talked to tree enthusiast Bill Hanavan, a retired gastroenterologist and co-founder of Heights Tree People in northeast Ohio. He believes everyone deserves a little shade -- from a tree, that is.

Hanavan started planting trees when he lived in his old house in western Michigan -- old as in...Read more

Of all the neighborhoods in Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's district, one stood out on Election Day as a considerable surprise. The left-wing congresswoman represents a very diverse population ranging from struggling immigrants in Queens and a piece of The Bronx to young professionals gentrifying areas right across the river from Manhattan.

...Read more

On Monday, Special Counsel Jack Smith filed motions to dismiss the two pending criminal cases against Donald Trump, the D.C. case centered on his actions to subvert the result of the 2020 election and the Florida case about classified documents.

The legal system failed.

Just how it failed is a matter of some debate. "If Donald J. Trump had ...Read more

The most tragic rhyme in American history falls in November's time, one century apart. President Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address on Nov. 19, 1863; President John F. Kennedy died in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

These events reach over endless bends in a profound dialogue like the mighty Mississippi River, cutting through North and ...Read more

Howard Lutnick wants to have his cake and eat it, too. Then, he intends to eat your cake. Lutnick is another billionaire corporate huckster who was a campaign bagman for Trump, and now he's to become the commerce secretary. But first, he's been tasked with picking hordes of corporate loyalists to be placed in Trump's government as ...Read more

The furor about the real risk to American national security posed by President-elect Donald Trump's choice of Tulsi Gabbard as the next Director of National Intelligence has obscured what is the even greater risk, and that's the one posed by the president-elect himself. It's somehow all but forgotten that Trump was indicted for intentionally ...Read more