We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States.

To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.

Not much happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin.

I can be much more sarcastic and, I think, sometimes withering in my assessments of things than I allow to show in my public life.

The point is ISIL leaders cannot hide. And our next message to them is simple - you are next.

A nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.

All Americans should be deeply troubled by the fatal shootings of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota. We've seen such tragedies far too many times, and our hearts go out to the families and communities who've suffered such a painful loss.