We remain cohesive and mobilized and united because this is our goal - to rebuild Venezuela.

My ascension as interim president is based on Article 233 of the Venezuelan Constitution, according to which, if at the outset of a new term there is no elected head of state, power is vested in the president of the National Assembly until free and transparent elections take place.

The sanctions have been a key element in making sure that those who have violated human rights and are guilty of corruption have a clear consequence to their actions. They have also been key to helping protect the assets of the Venezuelan people.

We will fight back until we have democracy.

When conducted with proper preparation, and in a focused and professional manner, oversight of executive branch actions can reveal serious shortcomings by government officials and help prevent recurrence; the 'Waco hearings,' conducted over a two-week period in 1995, stand as an example of such an undertaking.

We should get to the business of providing at least one million opportunities each year for young Americans to spend a service year with peers who are different from them - by race, ethnicity, income, politics and religious belief.

As I got older I became a kind of sub cultural junkie, foraging around in music, street fashion and eventually art, politics and the freakier reaches of the Internet, hunting the next discovery, the next seam of underground gold.

For all the huffing and blowing we get about rugged individualism, the American spirit and the American experiment always have had at their heart the notion that the government is all of us and that, therefore, the government may keep things in trust for all of us.