I'm also particularly pleased that there is bipartisan support to include the input of border communities. Not only will security be strengthened according to Washington, D.C., but border communities will have a say as well.

Just when you think [Donald Trump] can stoop no lower, he does.

The impulse to scapegoat and belittle threatens to turn us into a fearful, backward-looking people. In the case of the Republican Party, those things also threaten to turn us into a fearful, backward-looking minority party.

This isn't all going to be done in one day, either.

American leadership looks to the world and just as Lincoln did sees the family of man. Humanity is not a zero-sum game.

Unfortunately there are too many examples of members of Congress and other elected officials using language, referring to your opponents in ways that you would have never done before, ascribing the worst motives to your opponents, and assuming that other Americans are the enemies. And that's just not the way it used to be. And I don't think it can be that way in the future.

Many of the earmark request forms are actually filled out by lobbyists and then just turned in by the member's staff to the appropriations committee.