Politicians in their hubris who believe they can ignore debt or wish it away are sorely disappointed - as we see now with the plummeting approval ratings of both the administration and Congress.

If I talk to black students on campus, they're not sympathetic to the people who are not sympathetic with [Black Lives Matter movement]. The fact that you want to argue rather than find some common ground, I think, has gotten a lot worse in the last years.

Trump is a symptom of widespread disgust, not the head of a carefully crafted ideological movement with a checklist of issues.

Ancient wisdom: deal in personal trust; your word is your bond; avoid extremes; treat the money you invest for others as something sacred; don't take any more perks than you would wish others to take; don't borrow what you couldn't suddenly pay back; imagine the worse case financial scenario and expect it very may well happen; the wealthier you become the more humble you should act.

The problem with deterrence - apparently sometimes forgotten by our former presidents - is that it is not static, but a creature of the moment, captive to impression, and nursed on action, not talk. It must be maintained hourly and can erode or be lost with a single act of failed nerve, despite all the braggadocio of threatened measures. And, once gone, the remedies needed for its restoration are always more expensive, deadly - and controversial - than would have been its simple maintenance.

War seems to come out of nowhere, like rust that suddenly pops up on iron after a storm.

Behind every American soldier, dozens of their countrymen tonight sleep soundly — and hundreds more in their shadow abroad will wake up alive and safe.