For me, Lincoln is like just a handful of people - a Gandhi, or a Picasso, or a Martin Luther King Jr. - who is an original and captures something essential.

The boarded-up homes, the decaying storefronts, the aging church rolls, kids from unknown families who swaggered down the streets - loud congregations of teenage boys, teenage girls feeding potato chips to crying toddlers, the discarded wrappers tumbling down the block - all of it whispered painful truths.

We can't wait for Congress to do its job. So where they won't act, I will.

Public school system status quo is indefensible.

There's a utility in the democracy refreshing itself on an ongoing basis.

When any kind of military action is popular it's because either there's been a very clear, direct threat to us - 9/11 - or an administration uses various hooks to suggest that American interests were directly threatened - like in Panama or Grenada. And sometimes, those hooks are more persuasive than others, but typically, they're not put before Congress.

Every woman should be in control of the decisions that affect her own health.