I know from my constituency what is going on. Doctors that are told, begged, by mothers, 'Please don't write down that my child as asthma. Please lie and say it's bronchitis, because if you write down asthma, when my child turns 18 or 20 and has to get his or her own insurance, it will be a pre-existing condition.'

I must be doing something right. I was raised to stand up to the bully in the schoolyard, and you don't lose that.

Every citizen of this country should be guaranteed that their vote matters, that their vote is counted, and that in the voting booth, their vote has a much weight as that of any CEO, any member of Congress, or any President.

What they [Jim deMint and the oil lobby] do care about is the precedent. If they open up ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge), they'll think they can do anything to the environment - anything at all. Drilling in Yosemite? In the Grand Canyon? What's next?

When you have a president-elect who calls the press every name in the book, I think it's a warning shot across the bow, and you go back to what you learn when you were a child.

Look, all this is about is utilizing the rules of the Senate, using a majority of the senators, to make sure that we get health reform done. We cannot wait another day.

Voting against the resolution authorizing the use of military force in Iraq was one of my proudest moments as a senator. It is long past time to close this tragic chapter in American history.