In undergraduate school, I chose a career path that always leads to certain unemployment: I majored in politics and public affairs with a double-minor in philosophy and history.

I've been a loud voice as a Democratic leader for years, but that's not my job now. My job is to represent fishermen and farmers - everyone.

Looking for a job, I was working with the Salvadoran American Foundation, a humanitarian aid group, and from there, I got an offer from the Cuban-American National Foundation.

If you give everybody a good government job, there's no crime.

That was my first lesson from Ben-Gurion. Then I saw him making peace, and I saw him making war. He mobilized me before the war. The man was a very rare combination between a real intellectual and a born leader. There is a contradiction between the two.

Every time that we've ever fought, we fought to keep from bein' destroyed. We've never started a war.

Everyone says we have our first African American president. Has there ever been a Jewish president? An Italian president? They don't say a damn thing about that. You think we're still fighting the Civil War or something. If you want to mention it in passing, OK. But don't dwell on it.

The tax code is not the only area where the administration is helping the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It has spent $155 billion for an unnecessary war driven by fear.