Growing up in the 1980s, I remember when the GOP was the party of ideas. Now it's brain dead.

Some people, such as the unemployed coal miners and steelworkers of the Rust Belt, have been left behind by growing prosperity.

Whether I realize it or not, I have benefitted from my skin color and my gender - and those of a different gender or sexuality or skin color have suffered because of it.

Logic, fact, morality, legality, ideology: All of it is irrelevant in understanding the Party of Trump. Republicans have made crystal clear that nothing matters to them other than partisanship.

Our daily habits of driving, drilling, buying and supporting all of the economic benefits a free economy demands has cost us dearly, but none more so than for the people of Shishmaref.

The natural state of motherhood is unselfishness. When you become a mother, you are no longer the center of your own universe. You relinquish that position to your children.

It is something that most parents hope for in life: That their children will be moderately successful, polite, decent human beings. Anything on top of that is something you have no right to hope for, but we all do.

Whether the family of the Clarkes were of Norman extraction cannot be easily ascertained.