We've learned something about President-elect [Donald] Trump's choice for secretary of defense. Lawmakers in Congress intend to proper debate over whether retired General James Mattis meets a requirement for civilian control of the military.

I belong to a bowling team with black and Latino coworkers. And when we get together and we talk about politics - I'm almost quoting him - he said, we don't talk about Black Lives Matters. We talk about what matters to our families. We talk about jobs, and we talk about the fate of the country. That is America, and you can reach those people.

We have to remember in that Bloomberg poll, strong Republican support for [Donald ]Trump's proposal, but the country at large - strong opposition to that support.

[Democrats] have lost the capacity to speak to the vast middle of America, an America that is, in large part, white, very religious and not highly educated.

Donald Trump places great faith in his son-in-law Jared Kushner.

People don't know where they stand and what they're going to lose, and that makes things uncertain. The political parties try to meld people together, but then that becomes a problem. There are parallels here, to American cities, which, in the '80s, with massive rural to urban migration, saw incredible amounts of violence.

So many awful things have happened in Karachi, it's true. It has its own crazy rhythm. Even as crazy as other news is in Pakistan, the city manages to beat that in the frequency of catastrophes.