ArcaMax

Things got violent outside a Los Angeles orthodox synagogue on Sunday, leading the mayor at a Monday press conference to say that a ban on wearing masks to such protests should be considered. A number of the pro-Palestinian protestors Sunday, who blocked entrance to the synagogue and ended up in fistfights and spraying Bear spray at those ...Read more

"Pray for Jack Kennedy," I said to Bill Clinton, then the governor of Arkansas and lead "spinner" for the 1988 vice presidential debate in Omaha, Nebraska. We had been rehearsing that week in Austin, with Rep. Dennis Eckart playing Dan Quayle, me playing moderator Judy Woodruff, and Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen playing himself, the Democratic vice...Read more

The convictions should have made a difference. But did they?

I was more troubled by what came out at Donald Trump's trial than I thought I would be. I had initially thought that the district attorney's case was much ado about not much. But the trial changed my mind. It was not much ado about not much. It was about rigging the election by ...Read more

It happened right in front of my house. Last Friday morning, at 3:30 a.m. to be exact, my nanny heard noises. She went to the window and saw two men climbing under her late model Toyota Tacoma truck. She found her key fob and immediately sounded the alarm, and the two men quickly drove off in a white Toyota. The damage was done. They had ...Read more

The contrasts could not be starker.

Two juries did their jobs: carefully considering overwhelming evidence of guilt and reaching the only verdicts supported by substantial evidence. Against a highly politicized background, and in the face of intense media scrutiny, the criminal justice system worked.

Everything else -- from the reactions to ...Read more

It was one of those rants that would disqualify a normal candidate. Speaking to Sean Hannity on Wednesday night, Donald Trump took off on abortion, saying things that are flat-out untrue and mouthing opinions entirely out of the mainstream. Most of the media ignored it, Trump being Trump.

"It's a beautiful thing to watch," Trump said of ...Read more

With the deadline quickly approaching for him to qualify for the June CNN presidential debate, RFK Jr. has yet to meet the commonsense qualifications that CNN has set for participants. Which is at it should be. He doesn't belong on the stage. His candidacy is at best a distraction and at worst a spoiler. What it most certainly is not is a ...Read more

The question everyone is asking in the wake of Donald Trump's conviction on 34 felony counts is whether it will matter in the fall election.

It should. Trump essentially offered no defense of his activities in the trial. His lawyers nitpicked, especially Michael Cohen, but the deny-everything-and-attack-everyone approach -- which is so ...Read more

The killing of civilians in Sunday's airstrike against Hamas in Rafah was, as Benjamin Netanyahu admits, a "tragic mistake." It was certainly that. The strike was aimed at two Hamas leaders meeting in a compound that was full of civilians, according to news reports. It was not supposed to set adjoining tents on fire.

It came as international ...Read more

After two failed efforts to pass a ban on gender-affirming treatment for minors, South Carolina Republicans announced in January that this year it would be a priority. This week, they succeeded, with the governor on Tuesday signing the bill to ban doctors, parents and children from securing medical care that they -- and science -- think is in ...Read more

Trump is sloppy. He doesn't seem to know where he stands. He engages in loose talk.

Those bad habits of his were on full display this week when, harkening back to language from Nazi Germany, he endorsed a unified "reich" and flip-flopped on his position on access to birth control. It's a pattern, and a troubling one. And he didn't take ...Read more

Did Donald Trump falsify business records to cover up his payment of hush money to Stormy Daniels?

Did he do it to hold onto women voters in the days leading up to the 2016 election?

Reading the daily press accounts of the New York trial leaves little doubt that the prosecution made its case.

Michael Cohen is a liar, convicted as one, but ...Read more

The problem with early polls is just that. They are taken early, and they are a snapshot of what voters know and think at the time they are taken. Which may be wrong. Because most of the voters who decide elections -- the so-called swing voters -- pay about as much attention to politics as I do to baseball. Not spring training. Not even the ...Read more

There are no good answers to the current situation in the Gaza War. President Joe Biden is trying to use a pause in weapons shipments to force Israel to do more to protect civilians against "collateral damage" that a bombing campaign in Rafah would no doubt entail. But United States military officials admit that that is easier said than done. ...Read more

She came out of the bathroom and he had stripped down to his underwear. He was waiting for her on the bed. He didn't ask about using a condom, and he didn't use one. Afterward, her hands were shaking so badly she couldn't fasten the straps on her shoes. She didn't say no, but then she didn't say yes either. No nonconsent, but a clear imbalance...Read more

I read all the updates from the reporters in the court room. But it just isn't the same as watching it yourself.

I want to actually see it. I want to see how Donald Trump reacts when he hears his former aides testify. I want to hear for myself the testimony of the witnesses against him, and the cross-examination. I want to judge for myself ...Read more

The helicopters were whirring in the sky last night over the UCLA campus as violent clashes broke out on the ground between pro- and anti-Palestinian demonstrators at the on-campus encampment that UCLA had tolerated for far longer than it should have. A university's first responsibility is to educate, and that means creating a safe and secure ...Read more

Justice Samuel Alito thinks presidents are kings and must be protected against those who would disrupt their peaceful retirement.

What planet is he living on?

In his questioning on Thursday in the Trump immunity case, he made perfectly clear whose side he was on.

"If an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election knows that a...Read more

The one thing you could always say about Donald Trump was that he was "big." He commanded the stage. His vigor -- or the appearance of vigor -- made him appear younger than Joe Biden, even though they are only a few years apart. He was able to roll over scandals and missteps that would have derailed a smaller candidate.

The civil trials didn'...Read more

Thirty years ago, O.J. Simpson got away with murder. Politics was to blame, in the form of racism and sexism. His lawyers put the LAPD on trial for racism, even though Simpson himself was not a victim of the police department's racism. That was Rodney King, who was brutally beaten by LAPD officers who were acquitted by a white jury in Simi ...Read more