If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others - that had no concern for human beings.

And the banks - hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created - are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.

It simply isn't fair for senators to cut to the front of the line when seniors around the country have been forced to wait for hours to get a flu shot.

Those of us who believe in God and those of us who have dedicated our lives to helping others in the name of God don't want to take a second seat to anyone who is suggesting that one word out of the platform means that the Democrats across America are godless.

Our party is a diverse one, as is my home state of Illinois.

If you look at the record and the enviable record which Sandra Day O'Connor has written, you find she was the fifth and decisive vote to safeguard Americans' right to privacy, to require our courtrooms to grant access to the disabled, to allow the federal government to pass laws to protect the environment, to preserve the right of universities to use affirmative action, to ban the execution of children in America.

If you're not comfortable with delay, frustration and impatience, get out of the Senate. It's the nature of the institution, but I think we've taken it to an art form.