You know, I'm not unwilling to listen to people just because where they're coming from. I'll listen to them, but I'm not going to be beholden to them.

Growing up, when we would get dragged to these events, I didn't want to be there. Over time, as we got older, I developed a real appreciation of the importance of being involved in the democratic process.

I couldn't help but to think back to my classmates at Thomas Jefferson High School in San Antonio. They had the same talent, the same brains, the same dreams as the folks we sat with at Stanford and Harvard. I realized the difference wasn't one of intelligence or drive. The difference was opportunity.

Hopefully, in not a too distant future, we will see a Latino president, and who knows how's that going to happen. It's just a matter of time.

No government in any country can run on static definitions of economic thinking.

While many federal agencies are engaged with international partners on science and technology projects, there is a need to coordinate these projects across our government network and to identify opportunities for additional beneficial collaborations.

Politics runs in every human being, and so does music.

The Adversity Index was created by msnbc.com and Moody's Analytics to track the economic fortunes of states and metro areas. Each month, the Adversity Index uses government data on employment, industrial production, housing starts and home prices to label each area as expanding, at risk of recession, in recession or recovering.