I said these trade deals are going to be terrible: we're going to lose manufacturing jobs, factories abroad; the real wages of Americans are not going to rise. People are coming across the border; it has got to be stopped.

Bullying is something every kid in public, parochial, or private school has witnessed by graduation. While unfortunate, it is part of growing up.

While anti-immigrant and anti-E.U. parties across Europe may not take power anywhere in 2017, theirs is now a permanent and growing presence, leeching away support from centrist parties left and right.

Turkey, a powerful and reliable ally of the U.S. through the Cold War, appears to be coming unmoored from Europe and the West and is becoming increasingly sectarian, autocratic, and nationalistic.

Religion brings to man an inner strength, spiritual light, and ineffable peace.

The use of torture on suspected terrorists after Sept. 11 has already earned a place in American history's hall of shame, alongside the Alien and Sedition Acts, Japanese internment during World War II, and the excesses of the McCarthy era.

Oddly, the military world is one of great sameness. There is an orderly quality to life on an army base, and even the children of the military are brought up with that sense of order and sameness.

It's important to remember that the Jacobite Risings of the 18th century constituted a religious civil war, not a nationalistic movement.