ArcaMax

It's hard to believe, but we're finally here. Four years after all the Sturm und Drang that followed Donald Trump's 2020 electoral loss to Joe Biden, the maestro of Mar-a-Lago is set to be inaugurated once more on Monday as president of the United States.

And what an absolutely wild ride it has been. In the interim four years, Trump has ...Read more

Only hours after a possible ceasefire deal was announced between Israel and Hamas, Khalil al Hayya, chairman of the terrorist organization, declared victory, contending that the mass murder of Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, 2023, would "forever be a source of pride for our people."

Speaking from the safety of Qatar, Hayya didn't express a hint of...Read more

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine is a cathedral of the Episcopal Church, the fourth largest cathedral in the world, and unfinished. Begun in 1892, it is more exhibition hall than gathering for Christians. Given the rate of decline of the Episcopal Church, once called the Republican Party at prayer, it can safely be written that the last ...Read more

"It is not enough in life that one succeed," the droll economist John Kenneth Galbraith is supposed to have said. "Others must fail."

We're at a moment, in this week before Donald Trump's second inauguration, when the 45th and soon-to-be 47th president is succeeding at just about every enterprise he undertakes, while his political and ...Read more

In 1942, the Nazi apparatchik Otto Dietrich sniffed, "America never contributed anything to world civilization but chewing gum and Coca-Cola."

He rather understated our significance, but even if he'd been right, giving the world Coca-Cola is a greater contributor to human happiness than most other countries have managed to muster.

In yet ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- There has been a lot of talk lately about the need to return respect and civility to politics.

Although I'm not sure I buy into the premise that those things were ever really part of politics, I welcome the sentiment nonetheless.

We should start with Senate confirmation hearings, if it's not already too late. There is too much ...Read more

When she was a member of the House of Representatives, Tulsi Gabbard was a fierce defender of personal privacy rights protected by the Fourth Amendment. She consistently opposed permitting federal agents to spy on Americans without search warrants, and she consistently voted against the reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence ...Read more

Members of Congress get a number of generous benefits from their positions. They earn $174,000 annually (nearly three times the salary of the average American), they are provided with a sizable per diem for lodging and meals during their travels across the nation and abroad, they have the best health insurance that money can buy, and many will...Read more

The Federal Reserve's premature victory lap over inflation reveals a worrisome misunderstanding of the predicament we still find ourselves in. Unprecedented government spending and debt, combined with mounting fears that the debt can't (or won't) be repaid, played a misunderstood role in inflation's rise several years ago. As such, fiscal ...Read more

Fires continue to destroy parts of Los Angeles and its surrounding areas. At this writing, more than 40,000 acres have burned. Twelve thousand-plus structures -- mostly homes but also businesses, churches and schools -- have burned to the ground. Pacific Palisades is virtually gone, as are parts of Malibu and much of Altadena. Almost 200,000 ...Read more

The Japanese called their intercontinental weapons "fusen bakudan" -- trans-Pacific balloon-delivered firebombs riding the trans-Pacific jet stream and targeting the U.S. West Coast in late 1944 and 1945.

That the "Fu-Go" offensive occurred and that it failed to do any significant damage are historical facts.

However, 2025's Los Angeles ...Read more

This week, President-elect Donald Trump's nominees began their Senate confirmation hearings. After four years of the administrative malaise of the Biden administration, the nominees proved to be a breath of fresh air. They completely reject the failed philosophies of the Biden years -- and the contrast is absolutely stunning.

Secretary of ...Read more

Luck, the saying goes, is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

That's good luck. What about bad luck? It's the opposite.

Bad luck is what happens when lack of preparation meets an ongoing threat.

We're watching this play out now as fires tragically turn large swaths of Los Angeles' most valuable real estate to ashes, with a ...Read more

New Yorkers, Chicagoans, Denverites and other blue-city residents should feel scared as they watch Los Angeles neighborhoods obliterated by fire. These other cities could be next, victims of the same dysfunctional one-party government that puts woke priorities ahead of disaster prevention and readiness.

It doesn't have to be a fire. Imagine ...Read more

"Donald Trump will be a tyrant!" So my neighbors claim. I live in Manhattan. Feel for me. Yes, Trump says wild things, like riffing about "terminating" parts of the U.S. Constitution. But I don't think he means it. As Joe Rogan said to Trump when candidate Trump came on his show, "You say a lot of wild s---!"

In any case, podcaster Michael ...Read more

It was 5:12 a.m. on a Wednesday and the sun had not yet risen over the East Bay hills when a 7.9 earthquake struck -- its epicenter just 2 miles west of San Francisco's Ocean Beach.

This was April 18, 1906.

The next day, three San Francisco newspapers -- the Call, the Chronicle and the Examiner -- published a joint edition. Its front page ...Read more

If you're a late-night host with an affinity for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders, you're probably going to love being the target of a Donald Trump Truth Social tirade, uncorked in the middle of the night.

Seth Meyers is a millionaire socialist who preaches on TV about how Trump won with a "fake woke boogeyman," so "anyone suggesting...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Hyperbolic conservatives have long claimed that Mexico is staging an "invasion" of the United States.

For more than three decades, I've mocked these fools for their ignorance. But now I stand corrected. It's really happening. The Mexicans are actually invading, and they're starting by reclaiming the stolen parcel of land known as...Read more