The light may be fading on the 20th century, but the sun is still rising on America.

The divide of race has been America's constant curse. Each new wave of immigrants gives new targets to old prejudices. Prejudice and contempt, cloaked in the pretense of religious or political conviction, are no different. They have nearly destroyed us in the past. They plague us still. They fuel the fanaticism of terror. They torment the lives of millions in fractured nations around the world. These obsessions cripple both those who are hated and, of course, those who hate, robbing both of what they might become.

It's important that the American people understand that President has proposed and passed this stimulus plan not as the end-all and be-all to our economic woes but as our bridge over troubled water until we get the finance system, the banking system working again.

I always get nervous when people start talking about legacies.

Every time Bush talks about trust it makes chills run up and down my spine. The way he has trampled on the truth is a travesty of the American political system.

Won't it be sad to have an Internet connection to Mars if there are no Martians to write to or e-mail us?

And I'd like to say to the Senate, I hope you will say yes to a stronger American democracy in the year 2000.