Bernie Sanders would say, "You still have millions of African Americans who aren't insured, and if we had a single-payer system, that wouldn't be the case." And that's true.

We've said to the Iranians all along . . . we still remain open to diplomacy. But it's been very clear that the Iranians don't want to engage with us.

Mexico is going to need the United States to cooperate in order to rid itself of the violence and corruption that results from the drug trade.

Historically - when you look at how America has evolved, typically we make progress on race relations in fits and starts. We make some progress, and then there's maybe some slippage.

Later, I would realize that the position of most black students in predominantly white colleges was already too tenuous, our identities too scrambled, to admit to ourselves that our black pride remained incomplete. And to admit our doubt and confusion to whites, to open up our psyches to general examination by those who had caused so much of the damage in the first place, seemed ludicrous, itself an expression of self-hatred - for there seemed no reason to expect that whites would look at our private struggles as a mirror into their own souls, rather than yet more evidence of black pathology.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

Arne Duncan is done more to bring our educational system, sometimes kicking and screaming, into the 21st century than anyone else.