ArcaMax

As a surveillance and cybersecurity counsel for the ACLU, I spearheaded an ACLU project beginning in 2020 to strengthen warrants in the digital age, so that law enforcement does not conduct overbroad searches of our cellphones, computers and other devices. I traveled the country talking to judges and criminal defense lawyers about warrants and...Read more

There is lore about the 1862 meeting between Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," -- the influential novel about slavery -- and former President Abraham Lincoln. "So," President Lincoln is reported to have greeted her, "you're the woman who wrote the book that made this great war." History doesn't indicate whether Lincoln made...Read more

That $7,500 tax credit to buy an electric vehicle, now gone, was a "grotesque misallocation of federal spending." It was a form of "rent-seeking," whereby companies seek "to dominate the bureaucracy instead of the marketplace."

Thus wrote Kyle Smith in a Wall Street Journal column titled "EVs Can't Compete Without Subsidies." Smith deserves ...Read more

My daughter is suffering from long COVID. I have written about it before. I wish I had good news. I don't.

It is a nightmare you should do everything you can to avoid.

Most people who get COVID get well and move on. That's what we want to believe. No one wants to remember, much less relive, the pandemic, for reasons too numerous to count.

...Read more

"You can kill 10 of our men for every one we kill of yours," resistance leader Ho Chi Minh told the French who ruled Vietnam as a colony in 1946. "But even at those odds, you will lose and we will win." Historians who describe this remark as directed toward France's successor oppressors in Southeast Asia (the U.S.) are mistaken -- though the ...Read more

Watching the Artemis II space flight has filled my days with awe and wonder. From pilot Victor Glover's poignant Easter message and mission specialist Christina Koch's "space plumber" story to the crew naming a moon crater for commander Reid Wiseman's late wife. Artemis II really shows us what humanity is capable of. All of this took place with ...Read more

When I was younger, it was pretty easy to believe that only white countries should have a nuclear bomb.

When you looked at the white countries, the guy (and it was always a guy) in charge wore a nice suit, and he'd been to college, and there were pictures of him opening a new museum. In those countries, they had canned food and television. ...Read more

It appears that folks living in the gently rolling farmland of southwestern Ohio don't want a 2-million-square-foot data center plopped down the road from their front porches. What's wrong with them? Are they snotty not-in-my-backyard liberals?

Not quite. Wilmington, Ohio, is a very Republican region marked by modest incomes. Such ...Read more

It was Easter, for many a sacred day. The President of the United States had a message to send:

"Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!! Open the Fuckin' Strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in Hell -- JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah."

I'm sorry for the language...Read more

The seventh of April: Put it down as the most schizophrenic day in United States history.

While the nation waited with bated breath to see if Donald Trump would keep his threat to destroy the ancient Iranian "civilization" by 8 p.m. ET, we also glimpsed the dark side of the moon for the first time in human history.

Let's start with the good ...Read more

Given the increasing dominance of right-wing politics by arrogant, super-rich Tech Bros, here's a question about wealth inequality for your barroom philosophers to ponder: Does one have to be born a jackass to become a billionaire, or does becoming a billionaire cause jackassim?

Either way, they do seem to go together -- as in Elon Musk, Mark...Read more

Over the past year, federal agents have arrested U.S. citizens, dragged children from their beds in the middle of the night, smashed car windows and shot, sometimes fatally, those they encounter. As these agents advance President Donald Trump's extreme deportation agenda, many across the United States have watched in horror as they trample the...Read more

"If they ever make a sequel to 'Dumb and Dumber'," Rahm Emanuel mused to a packed hall at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire last week, "there's a lot of competition in this administration for who gets to play the lead." If there's one thing Emanuel isn't, it's dumb. He's not in New Hampshire to monitor the Granite State blossoming ...Read more

Donald Trump's assault on our democratic institutions did not stop voters from giving him a second term. The top reason they cited for reelecting him was the economy, notably their unhappiness over high prices.

During the campaign, Trump promised to "bring prices down, starting on Day One." How he would do this was left to our imagination. It...Read more

She did everything a loyalist could do. She bowed to his whims. She weaponized the Justice Department, turning it into the weapon and tool of a vengeful president. She fired all those who had dared to do their jobs and investigate him, or investigate and prosecute his loyal army of January 6 rioters. She decimated the ranks, shredding the ...Read more