It is hard to work with the nagging doubt that perhaps some foreign intelligence agency is reading all your correspondence, especially when you know they have done so in the past.

Russia has had very aggressive military exercises. They've practiced mock nuclear attacks on Warsaw. Russian bombers practiced attacking strategic military targets in Sweden. The military aggression gets everybody nervous.

I remember starting to read about the Soviet Union when I was eight years old; I think I was reading my father's 'New York Times.'

The rights that people have offline must also be protected online.

I don't want my marriage or my guns registered in Washington. And if people have an opinion, it's a religious opinion that is heartly felt, obviously they should be allowed to practice that, and no government should interfere with them.

The real question is whether the federal government should be in the business of redistributing wealth to equalize the economic status of every state, including states where not many people, for whatever reason, have chosen to live. That type of redistribution is a distortion of our economy.

I've said we need to look at things from the perspective of working people and taxpayers, not from the perspective of government and government officials.

In the rush to become all things to all people, the federal government has lost sight of its core responsibilities. As a result we're stuck in this frustrating paradox where Washington actually neglects things it's clearly supposed to be doing, while interfering in other areas where they are neither welcome nor authorized.