We pull out of the ground death, we burn death in our power plants, and then we act shocked when we get death in the form of oil spills and global warming.

Religion has gotten a bad rap for good reasons. Often, there are a lot of people - women, LBGT, and others - you know, hierarchical monotheism has been a real source of a type of oppression.

On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me. They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide. I have been inundated with calls - from across the political spectrum -- urging me to 'stay and fight.' But I came here to fight for others, not for myself. I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future.

Let me say what I actually believe. I believe that 9/11 was a conspiracy, by Al Qaeda, and Osama Bin Laden, and nobody else, trying to hurt America.

The time has come for a public-private community partnership to fix this country and put it back to work.

Apparently, the fossil-fuel industry's strategy is to convince the American people that we should just burn all the way through the last of our oil and coal reserves.

People in red states and blue states can agree that clean air is better than dirty air; therefore we should use clean energy where we can.