Part of what any good health-care professional does, including an advanced-practice nurse, is know when it is time to seek help from more experienced professionals. I'm a primary care doctor. It doesn't mean I know everything. When something is beyond my competency or expertise, I seek consultation from my colleagues.

I've always approached my job first as a physician. I'm here to help and take care of patients. I'm an administrator second.

I don't believe that the problems in the VA are necessarily about money. When I look back over the problems of the VA over the past decade, this is fundamentally a system that hasn't kept up with modernization in the way that the rest of health care in the private sector has.

VA is a unique national resource that is worth saving, and I am committed to doing just that.

Old models of development simply seek to lure business with substantial tax breaks and then hope (and pray) that economic benefits will trickle down to residents. It has not worked for our city in the past, and it will not work for the future city that we all hope want to see.

The American public should simply accept no distractions. In our democracy, it is our duty to hold our elected leaders accountable. We do it at the ballot box.

I remember, when I was younger, it was such a big fantasy for me. Now that I actually have a career and have made an album, it's really surreal.

Governor Kempthorne of Idaho, our chairman of the National Governors Association, is doing a great job bringing all of the nation's governors together to work as partners with the federal government.