Maybe you're one of the 37; I left my list at home.

Nobody generally agrees with the ideas of federalism and states' rights. Any such invocation, by anyone of any political stripe, is purely opportunistic.
OK, "nobody" is a slight exaggeration. There is a small number of principled federalists -- by my count 37 of them. For everyone else, I stand by the original statement.

What is it you were "snort"ing? Draw a trend line from Obama through Trump for just about any important economic variable you want. (And by important, I don't mean the budget of a small, new government agency that has had little time and power to do anything good or bad, or small sops to dying industries.)

Trump is also very good at boosting the US economy. Obama was horrible at it.

This is a curious thing to say because until a month ago, Trump hadn't gotten anything he wanted in the way of actual policy done and we were (and to a considerable extent still are) in the Obama economy. The stock market has been rising for seven years at about its current rate consistently. Back when that was a problem for Trump, he said we were in a bubble. Now he says different. Given current P/E ratios, I fear he may have been right the first time, in which case he'll be looking bad pretty soon, and so, I fear, will my retirement funds. Employment, both the headline rate and the other measures -- which he decried as fake when he was a candidate, but embraces now -- has been moving on the same steady path for about the last seven years. Inflation has been quiet for so long, people are actually asking for it now. Basically, nothing much has changed until very recently, and there is much more downside risk than upside potential. If things go sour, you can be sure that the Trump fans will make the valid point that Presidents get too much credit and blame for the state of the economy -- but they won't make that valid point until their Dear Leader starts taking heat.

What chills me to the bone is the thought that so much depends on the good sense and restraint of Kim Jong Un.

As opposed to "if our current understanding . . . is anywhere close to correct"?

If our current understanding of physics, astronomy, and biology is anywhere close to correct, then the universe might be infested with intelligent life. It might not, but nothing says it couldn't be. But on the same proviso, it is next to impossible that any intelligent aliens have come to visit us. They would be too far away and couldn't travel fast enough.
So what is a more depressing thought: that we're alone in the universe, or that we're not but we'll never be able to meet or talk to our neighbors?

I never doubted what I had been raised to believe until an authority figure told me he could prove it and laid out his case.

He had a shirt with his name on it and everything

Did he have a cap and a little bow tie?.

Isn't there anyone here old enough to remember when the gas station attendant came to your car, you rolled down the window, told the attendant how much gas you wanted, and paid when he -- it was always a he -- finished? (Of course, if you're that old, you remember when "Two dollars worth of regular" was a common order.)
The pharmacy across the street from my house accepts UPS packages that the driver won't, for whatever reason, leave at the customer's door. We get a notice and go pick it up.

Flying is a miracle, but the experience pretty uniformly sucks across airlines. I expect next to nothing, and if the plane leaves the ground roughly when it is supposed to and doesn't hit the ground before it is supposed to, or noticeably faster than it is supposed to, and my baggage arrives on the same flight, I am, if not happy, content.

Maybe Sean Spicer should get a recurring role on Saturday Night Live as Sarah Huckabee.

What women have easier than men is the ability to have meaningless, commitment-free sex of uncertain quality. If that's what they want. Generally, it isn't. Men are more likely to find it acceptable, if not optimal, so they think women have it easier.

I think that it is possible for a spouse to withhold consent for sex, even while still married.

Possible? Hell, I thought it was mandatory.

My parents subtly discouraged my interest in becoming an altar boy. It was only many years later that the reasons became apparent.

We must always remember that We Don't Know These People. We may admire their artistic or athletic or other talents, which sometimes showcase desirable human qualities other than their raw talents, but did what did we really know about Bill Cosby or Kobe Bryant, or [fill in the blank]? Some of them, maybe many, will turn out to be awful human beings in a variety of ways, including sexual predation.
Sticking with Cosby for a moment, it would have been jaw-droppingly dumb if any of the 30-odd women he drugged and abused didn't think going in that Cos might want to have sex with them -- not because they had reason to suspect what Cosby was, but simply because he is a man. I'd be willing to bet that some of them, had Cos let nature take its course, would have had sex willingly. Most men aren't predators, and most will take no -- all right, maybe you have to say it twice -- for an answer. Women should be able to rely on that.

The difference between Harvey Weinstein and, say, Mick Jagger. Both have engaged in sexual behavior, enabled by their power and celebrity, that we have every right to deplore. As far as we know, however (big caveat--we don't know these people), Jagger did it with people who wanted to do it with him.

Here's what I'm struggling with: can you oppose witch-hunts even if there really is a witch?

An excuse to tell my Lauren Bacall story. Thanks rexnobus.
I was a somewhat sickly child, and much of my early youth was spent home watching Ed Murphy's Hollywood Matinee. (Ed was a local broadcaster who showed old movies in the afternoon.) When I was about 11 years old, I fell in love with Lauren Bacall --one of the Bogey pictures, I forget which. I didn't know why, being 11 years old, but I did.
Fast-forward 20 years. A co-worker of mine, a preppy trusts-and-estates lawyer, had a spare ticket to some political fundraiser, so I went with him. As we're nursing our drinks, I spot Lauren Bacall across the room. "Jeffrey," I said, "that's Lauren Bacall." "Yes, it is," he said. "I roomed with her son at boarding school. Why don't I introduce you?""
He dragged me over. I was close to paralyzed. She smiled. "Jeffrey, how good to see you again." He asked after her son, whose name I forget, learned that he was fine, and then introduced me. I stared and stammered. She smiled at me and then gave Jeffrey a look that said: "I see you're still doing charitable work with the mentally disabled."
I saw her a few years later at another function, and was determined to make my way over and make a better impression, but she was leaving and I never got the chance.

What struck me at the time was how low-rent and reckless this all was. Bill Clinton was a charming, powerful man who had had a long run of consensual sex with lots of women. (Some said it wasn't consensual. Let's leave them aside for now.) One can object to this, particularly in a married man, but it is probably only the first circle of Hell, and in this fallen world we wouldn't seriously try to hound a man out of public office for it -- at least if he wasn't a sanctimonious hypocrite about it. He was the f*****g President of the United States. He could have had consensual sex with beautiful, accomplished women he could have bragged about to his buddies in the golf club locker room, but who would have known how (and when) to keep their mouths shut. For all we know, he did.
Monica Lewinsky? I believe her when she says, in effect, that he used his power to charm rather than to coerce -- again, first circle of Hell stuff -- but WTF did Clinton choose such a target? What did it say about him that he didn't hold off and go for bigger game? He had to have an intern?

I am finally of an age where older woman fantasies don't make much sense.

Thanks for doing this so we don't have to.

1. Yes. The allegations of victimhood might not be true.
2. Because they're often not.
3. Yes.

You would probably know better than I. When it comes to these things, I'm hopeless. I've answered a few calls on the road, but I wouldn't make any even if I knew how.

By some magic I don't understand, I get phone calls through my car's sound system. All I have to do is press an icon, listen, and talk. I'm sure there's a way to make calls, too, but I haven't figured it out and prefer not to do it anyway.