The tang of fall is nearly in the air. The summer is all but over. Football season is here. Are you ready for some . . . culture war? This war may feel unending, but it only began a little more than two years ago. During a preseason game on Aug. 26, 2016, Colin Kaepernick, then the quarterback of my beloved San Francisco 49ers, refused to stand during the playing of the national anthem to protest police brutality against African-Americans. Soon the trend spread across the NFL.

America relies on crises. We hope that they don’t occur and pretend that they’re not inevitable, whatever they might be.

Colin Kaepernick risked his career to make us see. Now Nike risks its bottom line to support him.

The anonymous author of the New York Times op-ed declares that he and his co-conspirators are being “unsung heroes” fighting on the inside to “preserve our democratic institutions.” In fact, they are doing precisely the opposite.

If you prick Donald Trump, does he not explode? If you stroke him, does he not purr?

With today’s tension and rancor, we need a dose of Yogi Berra’s wit and wisdom to put things into perspective.

A handful of lefty candidates are calling themselves socialists without a single radical socialistic item on their promise lists. They seem to have little idea of what socialism is. And most of the conservatives talking back to them don’t seem to know, either.

The author of the anonymous “resistance” op-ed published this week in the New York Times might think he or she is doing a service to the country. I strongly disagree.

Donald Trump would quash such dissent as was heard at the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. But America is still free, and the people will be heard.

Is he serious? Does President Donald Trump really think there will be “violence” from the left if Republicans lose control of Congress in the November midterms? Isn’t the whole point of winning an election to get what you want without turning to violence? Yet, “violence” was in Trump’s forecast in a closed-door meeting with evangelical leaders last week at the White House, according to audio obtained by NBC and the New York Times.

If you missed Day One of Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court hearing, just try to imagine a mud-wrestling contest attended by banshees howling at the referee.

Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court isn’t about his judicial philosophy, it’s about political outcomes.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., never attained the presidency, but the funeral Saturday at the Washington National Cathedral had the feel of a presidential funeral, as has the week of ceremonial events that preceded it.

It is a tragedy that McCain, the warrior-hero, should exit the stage just when his model of citizenship is so needed.

Sen. Charles Schumer’s proposal in recent days to rename the Russell Senate Office Building after Sen. John McCain has stirred fresh debate over the removal or renaming of historical markers and monuments. Making such decisions is a complex task, requiring nuance and empathy. No historical figure can satisfy every moral requirement of the present day. George Washington owned slaves. Abraham Lincoln made racist arguments in his debates with Stephen Douglas. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was not known for his commitment to gender equality. Recalibrating the public celebration of past heroes, if it is to be done at all, requires a careful assessment of why they were honored, how central to their legacy was the viewpoint or characteristic now deemed offensive, how universally shared that trait or attitude was in their era and how egregious it seems to us today.

We lost two mavericks within a week. Last Saturday, we lost the legendary John McCain. On Tuesday, we lost his loyal sidekick, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham.

It had been many years since I’d thought of the five little piggies, protagonists of the first nursery rhyme I told my kids, the first nursery rhyme I heard and probably the first nursery rhyme my parents heard. My children are young adults now, but back before they could walk, my wife and I would take their little bare feet in our hands as they lay in their cribs, wiggle each toe in succession starting with the big toe and ... say it with me:

Even if Democrats win back both the House and Senate, there is zero chance a two-thirds majority of senators will convict President Trump for paying off an adult-film star.

President Donald Trump’s interpretation of what’s legal and what isn’t puts the rest of us to shame.