The corporate lobby in Washington is basically designed to stifle all legislative activity on behalf of consumers.

There are very significant ways around America on how to break its grip, which is, of course, a way to exclude dissenting voices before tens of millions of people.

Since I was a law student, I have been against the death penalty. It does not deter. It is severely discriminatory against minorities, especially since they're given no competent legal counsel defense in many cases. It's a system that has to be perfect. You cannot execute one innocent person. No system is perfect. And to top it off, for those of you who are interested in the economics it, it costs more to pursue a capital case toward execution than it does to have full life imprisonment without parole.

The reason that democracies always defeat dictatorships is because they're open to debate. We should never allow Washington to say, 'Shut up, get in line and wave the flag.'

A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done.

Ours is a system of corporate socialism, where companies capitalize their profits and socialize their losses…in effect, they tax you for their accidents, bungling, boondoggles, and mismanagement, just like a government. We should be able to deselect them.

That's why I call the Senate the graveyard of democracy, because even when you have 58 senators, they can block it and block it and block it.