If you can't put anybody on a moral plane, you can't put yourself on Air Force One.

[observation, 2015] Determined to get into one of the dozen or so most selective institutions of higher learning in America? I'm sorry to break the news, but your odds have never been worse, unless you're the winner of a national science contest, a Bolshoi-ready dancer, a surfing legend, a stoic political refugee from a country we really loathe, an heroic political scion from a country we really love, or Malia or Sasha Obama - and, of course, you have perfect scores on every standardized test since the second grade - your visions of getting into, say, Stanford would more correctly be termed hallucinations.

'Religious liberty' sounds disturbingly like a dog whistle to the crowd that wants specified, codified exemption from anti-discrimination laws. It's one of the phrases they lean on. As these lamentations about religious liberty get tossed around, it's worth remembering that racists have used the same argument to perpetuate segregation.