ArcaMax

SAN DIEGO -- As a newsman who has been on the job for nearly four decades, I'm embarrassed to admit that the happiest people I know make a point of not following the news.

I don't blame them. These days, the process of following current events is often dark, depressing and disempowering.

Still, totally checking out of news coverage isn't the...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- I always wondered why Harvard turned out so many lawyers. Now, due to overreach by the Trump administration, I know the answer. It's all the better to sue you with.

My MAGA friends think that President Donald Trump can perform miracles. Yet, as a "Never Trumper" who thinks the con man is desecrating the country, I was skeptical. ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- I feel sick. But that is par for the course. America is also not well. Too many Americans are afflicted with what Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter this week correctly diagnosed as "moral depravity."

Leiter was responding to the killing of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, a young couple who worked for...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- The God of politics has a wicked sense of humor as well as a taste for irony. She delights in making members of both parties confront thorny subjects they've been trying to avoid.

It makes for an agonizing moment for Democrats, and a complicated one. It's a moment filled with sadness for a former president but also anger from ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Racists take care of their own. And so naturally, President Donald Trump is offering affirmative action to Afrikaners.

Recently, the Trump administration put out the red carpet to welcome into the United States several dozen white South African refugees. In response, Black and brown migrants who are turned away at the U.S.-Mexico...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Just when I thought I was out of the Catholic Church, something extraordinary -- an American pope -- might pull me back in.

It's beautiful to see how many people, places and things are claiming a piece of Robert Francis Prevost, a 69-year-old Augustinian pastor who will now and forever be better known by the handle Leo XIV.

...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- For the last few months, the Trump administration has offered undocumented immigrants nothing more than scapegoating, harsh rhetoric and one-way passage to scary foreign lands.

That was the stick. Now for the carrot.

The administration is offering a $1,000 stipend plus travel expenses to undocumented immigrants who volunteer to ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Harvard University stands accused of not defending a group of students on the margins.

You don't say! I could write a book on that subject. Oh wait, I did. In 1993, just a few years after graduation, I wrote a memoir about being a Mexican American student at America's oldest university.

In the fall of 1985, I was one of just 35 ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- I've been wrestling with the story of the Wisconsin judge who went quickly from "your honor" to "the defendant."

The more I hear about this case, the less certain I am that Hannah Dugan -- a Milwaukee circuit court judge -- did anything wrong.

Of course, you'll never convince President Donald Trump and MAGA of that. But what do ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Losing a presidential election is bad enough. But still not understanding why you lost several months later? Well, that's even worse. You don't want to end up there.

In politics, a little introspection can go a long way. After all, if you don't know what's broken, how can you fix it? And if you can't identify mistakes, ...Read more