One loves one's country the way one loves a family member. And sometimes that family member does really embarrassing, shitty things. But you still love them.

The NFL, sadly, has a fatal environmental problem: It kills its workers.

The only reason investors haven't run screaming from an obviously corrupt financial marketplace is because the government has gone to such extraordinary lengths to sell the narrative that the problems of 2008 have been fixed.

What we Americans go through to pick a president is not only crazy and unnecessary but genuinely abusive. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent in a craven, cynical effort to stir up hatred and anger on both sides.

Obviously, people who commit crimes should be punished. Even people who steal socks and 'Snow White' videos should probably do time if they have priors, especially serious priors. But the punishment has to fit the crime, and the standard has to be the same for everyone.

The problem with the Tea Party is that it's been used in a way that scares people into supporting an agenda that's counter to their own interests.

There is a reason it used to be a crime in the Confederate states to teach a slave to read: Literacy is power.