There's an enormous amount of corruption, and as one American adviser put it to me, "The police in Afghanistan are thugs. We equip them, we train them, and now they are equipped and trained thugs."

Budgets are nothing if not statements of priorities.

What [Bernie] Sanders has done is he's focused the nation on the fact that these things are not inevitable. They are the result of policies. We can do better to create an economy that works well for working Americans.

For too long, tricks and traps in mortgages, credit cards, and other financial transactions have stripped wealth from working families.

Americans have powerfully sensed that we're off track. There is a structural challenge in our economy that needs to be addressed.

Imagine if Congress always put the interests of polluters ahead of the health of our families. Our rivers and lakes would be choked with sewage. Acid rain would pour down from smog-filled skies. Hundreds of thousands more of our neighbors, friends, and loved ones would be victims of cancer, heart disease, and asthma.

There are two ways of looking at the talking filibuster. My way is as a form of unanimous consent.