It is critical that we pass legislation to dramatically reform our health insurance system, and this reform should include a genuine public option, universal coverage, an end to insurance policy rescissions, and no restrictions against covering people with pre-existing conditions.

We have to go to war against the people who enable the gun violence, the people who stop us from keeping guns out of the hands of mentally unstable people, of felons, and that means the NRA leadership.

Let's drive the message home: we need health insurance reform, we need a strong public option, and we won't settle for less.

Government by blackmail is incompatible with democracy.

I'm moved to think about the political state of our country right now. Most people who go out and vote have a very clear sense of what's right and wrong. And a lot of those people who don't aren't sure, so they don't go out and vote.

I don't want to remember 2005 as a year that the government heaped unnecessary burdens upon American families. Stealing from the poor and middle class and giving to the rich, while increasing the deficit, is hardly responsible.

The '50s in general are written off as a boring decade following the turmoil of the Second World War and its immediate aftermath - the postwar Labour government, the cold war, the arrival of the New Look in fashion, etc. But I remember it as a very exciting time - a pioneering, rule-breaking time, especially for the young.

We should not blur the lines between legal and illegal immigrants. Millions of people around the world have gone through the process to come here legally and they followed the rules that required them to pay a fee, learn English, and learn about American history and government.