Politician

For the life of me, I don't understand what honest motive there is in putting this in front of this body to philosophically debate marriage on a constitutional amendment that is not going to happen, and which is enormously divisive in all of our communities.

College costs continue to rise, and student loan debt threatens to price many Americans out of a college education and out of the middle class.

It is my belief that tax credits only go to people who are making money, and they generally keep it.

The sole purpose of nuclear weapons must be to deter their use by others.

We have a chance to wind down and expedite the removal of 96 percent of the world's nuclear weapons. What an achievement it would be, if at the end of the next administration, we could say that the nuclear arsenals of both Russia and the United States had been reduced to the barest minimums.

Ports are the gaping hole in America's homeland security.

We're not perfect, and there are some dark patches in our past, but what makes us special is that we recognize these evils, we come to grips with them, and we fix them.

Information-sharing is elementary to good intelligence work.

The criteria for serving one's country should be competence, courage and willingness to serve. When we deny people the chance to serve because of their sexual orientation, we deprive them of their rights of citizenship, and we deprive our armed forces the service of willing and capable Americans.

Well, that day is gone, and it will not occur again.

Women have begun to see that if I go through that doorway, I take everybody through it.

We cannot expect to keep our nation's secrets secure - or provide meaningful oversight for our intelligence agencies - if proper classification of our country's secrets is as likely as a coin flip.

As a former nine-year member of the Board of Supervisors and nine-year mayor, I know firsthand the merits of strong zoning laws. They protect residential areas so they can support families and be free of commercial activities that are not related to neighborhood needs.

Global warming is real. It is happening today. It is being charted by our satellites. It is being charted by our scientists. It is being charted by those of us in this body, and I think the real key is if we are ready to admit that fact and take the action to make the necessary conversion.

In the wake of 9/11, we were desperate to bring those responsible for the brutal attacks to justice. But even that urgency did not justify torture. The United States must be held to a higher standard than our enemies, yet some of our actions did not clear that bar.

Rogue internet pharmacies continue to pose a serious threat to the health and safety of Americans. Simply put, a few unethical physicians and pharmacists have become drug suppliers to a nation.

Torture goes against the very soul of our country. We are a democracy, established on the rule of law.

Simply put, Guantanamo is one of the best propaganda tools that terrorists have today. Our enemies use it to justify terrorism and recruit others to carry out violent jihad, and our allies continue to criticize it as a violation of the rule of law.

Theft of a firearm should be punished as a felony, plain and simple.

Today we have a health insurance industry where the first and foremost goal is to maximize profits for shareholders and CEOs, not to cover patients who have fallen ill or to compensate doctors and hospitals for their services. It is an industry that is increasingly concentrated and where Americans are paying more to receive less.