The problems that exist on Wall Street today go to the center of a debate in this country about wealth and democracy. We cannot keep our democracy if those who are in charge of handling the engines of our economy are not honest with their shareholders. That's why there is a role for government regulation here. That role for government is breaking up the monopolies, insisting on public disclosure, insisting on public audits, insisting on restitution whenever someone has been cheated.

The tax code is not the only area where the administration is helping the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It has spent $155 billion for an unnecessary war driven by fear.

The United States must reach out to the world community with a new plan to stabilize Iraq, bring U.N. peacekeepers in, and bring U.S. troops home.

If we can change ourselves, we can change the world. We're not the victims of the world we see, we're the victims of the way we see the world. This is the essence of Compassionate Listening: seeing the person next to you as a part of yourself.

I said in October of 2008 that there was no proof that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or had the intention or capability of attacking the United States. Here we are. Almost 4,700 troops died, tens of thousands injured, over a million Iraqis dead. It will cost $5 trillion in the end for the war.

Iraq does not pose an imminent threat to the United States of any of its neighboring nations.

I think there are people in this Congress who actually believe that government does not have a benign role in the lives of the people, except as an engine to redistribute the wealth of the Nation upwards.