Washington is agonizingly slow at learning from its mistakes. Especially in the Middle East.

As I'm learning, Republicans seem to only care about deficits when a Democrat is in the White House.

The United States has the best intelligence-gathering operation in the world. We should provide a greater level of training and assistance to the E.U. to help them develop a more robust counter-terrorism platform.

From the outside, Qatar and U.A.E. likely look like twins - small, oil-rich Sunni monarchies that are largely friendly to the U.S. But their philosophies on the region are very different - Qatar does not fear Islamism as does the U.A.E.

We've got to do more to ensure that people who work full time are not living in poverty and that the massive gap between rich and poor - which is fundamentally un-American, as far as I'm concerned - is somehow dealt with.

Miley Cyrus is about making money. Amanda Palmer is about making art.

What do most people say on their deathbed? They don't say, 'I wish I'd made more money.' What they say is, 'I wish I'd spent more time with my family and done more for society or my community.'

You must believe in people. You must give back their money in their own pockets.