ArcaMax

In the aftermath of the murder of Charlie Kirk, many folks who dared to express views of him and his work outside the mainstream lost their jobs, professional standing and State Department visas as they were fired or otherwise disciplined by employers or bureaucrats who concluded that anti-Kirk views could harm the employers' businesses or were ...Read more

It's fashionable to call the current federal government shutdown a "crisis," to focus on the missed paychecks, delayed services and bureaucratic disarray. But what if this standoff -- this uncomfortable pause in government business -- is exactly what the country needs right now? What if the dysfunction is finally forcing Washington, and all of ...Read more

In 1980, America's publicly held debt reached more than $712 billion (about $2.8 trillion in 2025 dollars), or roughly 25% of annual U.S. GDP. Today, that figure is a little over $30 trillion, or around 100% of GDP. And as the federal debt grew 42 times larger over that span, the economy grew only tenfold. You can't expand the numerator four ...Read more

For the past 20 years, the University of Notre Dame has sponsored a yearlong dialogue on a given theme, with featured speakers, panels and other public events at which the year's theme is discussed and debated.

This year's theme is "Cultivating Hope." Two weeks ago, Cardinal Robert McElroy, archbishop of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., ...Read more

The human "degrees of separation" theory contends any two people link through a chain of social connections, and most of us are no more than six individual links apart.

Twenty-first-century hybrid warfare is a vile and corrupted version of this theory of human relationship networks.

The sneaky war-waging state uses one or more degrees of ...Read more

Big news from Argentina is the electoral victory of the Advancing Liberty party of President Javier Milei.

Milei initially won the presidency in 2023 brandishing a chainsaw as a message of how he was going to cut the runaway government that has been destroying the lives of Argentinians.

Big government power has been a tradition in Argentina....Read more

"But people will die!" That's what some shout whenever anyone proposes cutting government spending. An audience member at a town hall shouted it when Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst said Medicaid shouldn't cover illegal immigrants. Ernst responded with an obvious truth: "We all are going to die." The audience groaned and booed. The Nation magazine ...Read more

When President Barack Obama ordered military action against Muammar Qaddafi's Libya in 2011, both Republicans and Democrats in Congress challenged his constitutional authority to do so.

On June 3 of that year, the House of Representatives voted on two resolutions challenging Obama's unilateral action. One was sponsored by Rep. Dennis Kucinich...Read more

How does a 33-year-old lifelong do-nothing -- a person who has never held a real job, never suffered a true challenge, been handed everything on a silver platter -- turn into a mayoral frontrunner in New York City? How does a self-described socialist who despises capitalism become the leading candidate for the mayoralty of the world's ...Read more

The silliest Trump scandal imaginable is the forthcoming White House ballroom, funded entirely by private donations. If everything is a scandal, is nothing a scandal? Anything that feeds President Donald Trump's ego must be denounced no matter how much it serves a larger public purpose.

Washington Post art critic Philip Kennicott uncorked a ...Read more

Undermining the principles that made America wealthy is no way to fix poverty.

Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently participated in a CNN Town Hall. Sanders appears to be passing the socialist leadership torch to AOC. Don't expect her to support collective ownership of that prize.

You shouldn't discount her ability ...Read more

DONEGAL, Pennsylvania -- It is 6:14 p.m. on a Thursday. You're hiking along the Forbes Trail, nestled deep in the Appalachian Mountains somewhere along the Westmoreland-Somerset County lines. It is 19 minutes until sunset, and you have just over a mile to go, mostly uphill, before you are out of the deep forest and in the clearing.

The ...Read more

Politicians in Washington have the shortest memories.

Maybe that's why they so seldom learn from their sometimes catastrophic mistakes.

It was less than 20 years ago that the U.S. economy was flattened by the mortgage and banking crisis. Anyone remember?

The experts said that the odds were tiny that the housing market could crash; that the ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump and Canada are at war again -- or should I say, Trump is in a tariff war with Canada?

Indeed, on Friday he announced he was cutting off trade negotiations with America's neighbor to the north.

The cause? It feels more like a soap opera than high-stakes international trade.

This tiff began with an ad ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- The partial government shutdown hit its 23rd day Thursday, yet much of Washington has been consumed with rage because President Donald Trump tore down the East Wing of the White House to make way for his dream Big Beautiful Ballroom.

The timing is so convenient for the 47th president that you have to wonder if Trump decided to ...Read more

I write from a quiet, mountainous part of Central Europe. The scenery is idyllic, and the fall air is crisp. But much as the case has been in my other recent trips to the European continent, the sights I see and the conversations I hear are all underscored by a similar haunting concern: Will there even be a Europe, in any cognizable ...Read more

Is it "Islamophobic" to wonder if NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has a soft spot for Islamic terrorists? Hardly.

"God forbid, another 9/11 -- can you imagine Mamdani in the seat?" New York mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo told WABC's "Sid and Friends in the Morning" this week.

"He'd be cheering," host Sid Rosenberg replied.

"That's ...Read more