I don't want to call it audacity, it's too good a term, to appoint Jefferson Beauregard Sessions as attorney general should damn well be respectful of John Lewis.

It seems to me both moral and practical that in the richest in nation in the world that someone working full time shouldn't live in poverty. And studies over the last 20 years in states where we have seen these minimum wage increases show there's no discernible impact on employment growth. In fact, what it does is line low-wage workers' pockets with higher wages.

I think people are too often misinformed and, in some cases, deceived. We don't have a full marketplace of ideas in this country that in any way reflects the broad, real range of ideas.

This country needs to take a deep breath. We are a strong, resilient nation. And the idea that the Russians hacked our election needs to be investigated. There is very little evidence at that moment except for the DNC servers.

We need to find a new way forward. There are keys ways progressives can speak.

On issue after issue, the polls - and these are not snapshot polls; these are polls over a consistent period of time - show that most Americans share what one could call core liberal or progressive values: investment in health care and education over tax cuts; fair trade over free trade; corporate accountability over deregulation; environmental protection over laissez-faire policies; defending Social Security and Medicare over privatizing them; raising the minimum wage over eliminating it. The country prefers progressive alternatives to the failed policies of the conservative right.

Those poll ratings go south, I think you have a Republican Party ready to begin different kinds of hearings than [Jason] Chaffetz is unwilling to have.