The more our feelings diverge, the more deeply felt they are, the greater is our obligation to grant the sincerity and essential decency of our fellow citizens on the other side.

The tax system is stacked against the average taxpayer.

When I look at that record in light of the 1985 job application to the [Ronald] Reagan Justice Department, it's even more troubling.That document lays out an ideological agenda that highlights Judge Samuel Alito in belonging to an alumni group at Princeton that opposed the admission of women and proposed to curb the admission of racial minorities.

In decision after decision on the bench, Judge [Samuel] Alito has excused abusive actions by the authorities that intrude on the personal privacy and freedoms of average Americans.

The stark and tragic images of human suffering in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina have reminded us yet again that civil rights and equal rights are still the great unfinished business of America. The suffering has been disproportionately borne by the weak, the poor, the elderly and infirm, and largely African-Americans, who were forced by poverty, illness, unequal opportunity to stay behind and bear the brunt of the storm's winds and floods. I believe that kind of disparate impact is morally wrong in this, the richest country in the world.

It appears that legal positions that you have supported have been used by the administration, the military, and the CIA to justify torture and Geneva Convention violations by military and civilian personnel.

The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.