What's exquisitely weird about the Donald Trump/Judge [Gonzalo] Curiel formulation is that this isn't even a case about race.

I want to stay on the subject of marriage equality because this is the part of the show that everybody loves but you hate if you're the one who has to hear your own voice.

On the one hand we want to preserve the integrity of the judicial branch, and we want to talk about judicial independence, and how damaging and dangerous it is when Donald Trump calls out Judge [Gonzalo] Curiel. And at the same time, at the end of the day, judges work for us and we can recall them and we can impeach them.

Never believe in any faith younger than you are.

I think men get nervous when women start counting the number of female senators, and whites become edgy when they hear the next Supreme Court seat will probably go to a Latino. This isn't always because they object to sharing the spoils, by the way; it just reminds us that the melting pot may not be working, and we haven't yet achieved the ambiguous national dream of becoming a nation of indistinguishable beige atheists.

If Americans actually have the conversation about our disastrous prison policies, we'll understand the trends all move in very dangerous directions: we lock up more people, for less violent crime, at ever greater expense, breeding more dangerous criminals who often come out unemployable, violent and isiolated.

The Constitution created a framework, not a Ouija board, precisely because the Framers understood that prospect of a nation ruled for centuries by dead prophets would be the very opposite of freedom.