The more fear confrontational activism can put into the heart of the political class, the better.

The second term of the Bush administration and first five years of the Obama presidency have been devoted to codifying and institutionalizing the vast and unchecked powers that are typically vested in leaders in the name of war. Those powers of secrecy, indefinite detention, mass surveillance, and due-process-free assassination are not going anywhere. They are now permanent fixtures not only in the US political system but, worse, in American political culture.

You can't have a pristine house with ten dogs, and I'd rather have the ten dogs.

Of all the views that are detached from reality, the most delusional is that Christians are persecuted in the U.S.

The government usually announces it killed a Big Terrorist 5 or 6 different times before they're dead - they're almost like cats.

The many pro-surveillance advocates I have debated since Snowden blew the whistle have been quick to echo [Google CEO] Eric Schmidt's view that privacy is for people who have something to hide. But none of them would willingly give me the passwords to their email accounts, or allow video cameras in their homes.

The same president who has insisted that core moralism drives him has brought America to its lowest moral standing in history.