ArcaMax

Gallup released 2025 survey data this month from its National Health and Well-Being Index showing a significant drop in Americans' optimism for the future. Taken from four quarterly surveys conducted last year, a total of 22,125 respondents were asked to "imagine a ladder with steps numbered from zero at the bottom to 10 at the top." They were...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- As a storyteller, I remember to begin with a tale.

In August 2005, I spoke to a group of retirees in their 70s and 80s. Those were whippersnappers compared to Julie, a 100-year-old woman who approached me.

Julie wanted me to know that everything happening now -- armed masked men disregarding due process, entering homes without ...Read more

In 2013, several Republican senators questioned then-President Barack Obama's use of drones to kill suspected terrorists. The lawmakers, who included Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and then-Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), were especially troubled by the possibility that drones might be deployed against American ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- What I remember about the one time I met the Rev. Jesse Jackson is how it turned into a multilingual affair.

It was 1994, and I was co-hosting a nightly 9 p.m. to midnight talk show for ABC radio in Los Angeles. My co-host, Tavis Smiley, had heard from Jackson, who was in town for an event with the Rev. Al Sharpton. Tavis invited...Read more

In one of my group texts with friends from church recently, an interesting commentary from The Hill's John Mac Ghlionn was shared. He asserts that "America is merely witnessing a Christian reboot, not a Christian revival." Mac Ghlionn's analysis stems from his examination of cultural leanings and how Christianity is often presented in the ...Read more

President Donald Trump's approval rating is sinking and gasping for air. His average net approval stands at -13.7, which is lower than Joe Biden's was at this point in his term. This matters beyond cosmic justice: The president's approval rating is the best predictor of midterm election outcomes. When it falls below 50%, his party tends to lose ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- My wife is the brains of the operation, and so it's rare that she asks a question with an obvious answer.

"Why did they lay off so many people at The Washington Post?" she asked recently. I worked for the Post for 24 years as part of the now shuttered Washington Post Writers Group. So my wife knew I'd have an opinion on the ...Read more

The New York Times embraced legalization of recreational marijuana in 2014, two years after Colorado and Washington became the first states to take that step. By that point, most Americans opposed pot prohibition, and that majority has grown since then.

Although the Times does not regret endorsing legalization, its editorial board now says ...Read more

Introducing the Bad Bunny backlash. On Super Bowl Sunday, the real losers were the estimated five million Americans who were so sheltered, so entitled and so used to getting their way that they fled the halftime show and went to YouTube for a whole lot of white noise.

The game is over. But the national conversation about the show put on by 31...Read more

As we survey the wreckage of Trump's second term, it is often said that half the country voted for this, or worse, half the country is fine with this. That isn't true.

MAGA is a bit of a moving target, but a recent Economist/YouGov poll found that only 27% of all voters described themselves as "MAGA supporters" and a perhaps ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Jeffersonian patriots are bloodied but unbowed as they fight back against the Mad King's violent but futile attempts to reverse demographics, restore the cultural relevance of white people, and make America into the 1950's again.

Take heart, soldiers. Reinforcements are coming. And yes, the revolution will be televised; in fact, ...Read more

Don Lemon and Georgia Fort, two journalists who covered a protest that disrupted services at a St. Paul church on Jan. 18, were arrested last week on federal charges punishable by up to a decade in prison. While the protest itself entailed trespassing coupled with disorderly conduct, the attempt to treat reporting on the event as a federal ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Is the siege of Minneapolis really drawing down now that there is a new sheriff in town?

You can't be serious. Personnel changes driven by public relations are usually symbolic and cosmetic, especially when the person setting the tone from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. seems as determined as ever to make America hate again.

President ...Read more

The debate regarding the value of a college degree has resurfaced in the news recently. With tuition continuing to increase at universities and colleges across the country, many people have, as NBC News political reporter Ben Kamisar described, "grown sour on one of the longtime key ingredients of the American dream." Kamisar cited an NBC News ...Read more

Does it sometimes seem as though too many people have never learned the lessons of the schoolyard? If you capitulate to a bully, you will be bullied forever. If you stand up to him, he will back down. What's true on the playground is also true in the office, in politics and in international relations.

Standing up to bullies is not free of risk....Read more