Mile by mile, it's a trial; yard by yard, it's hard; but inch by inch, it's a cinch.

Our office corner has really become an area where the Tea party movement congregates and the rhetoric is really heated. Not just the calls but the e-mails, the slurs.

My position is to listen to my constituents, learn from the best information available and ultimately make sound, rational decisions that are going to be beneficial to the people of the 8th Congressional District.

Hope and faith. You have to have hope and faith.

Our democracy's history is littered with names we neither remember nor celebrate - people who stood in the way of progress while protecting the powerful. On Wednesday, a number of senators voted to join that list.

But the safety of the world, in some sense, depends on your saying no to inhumane ideas. Standing up for one's own integrity makes you no friends. It is costly. Yet defiance of the mob, in the service of that which is right, is one of the highest expressions of courage I know.

Our country must be strong enough to solve problems, and that means we must learn how to work together again.