Under the leadership of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, the United States has given up the moral high ground that we used to occupy as an international leader.

Neither conscience nor sanity itself suggests that the United States is, should or could be the global gendarme.

Math and science fields are not the only areas where we see the United States lagging behind. Less than 1 percent of American high school students study the critical foreign languages of Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Russian, combined.

We should not be afraid to speak the truth to our powerful friend the United States.

The mission of the United States is one of benevolent assimilation.

I did about a 100 concerts this year. All over the United States. We're cutting back next year to about 40. We generate money for an organization called Mercy Corps.

I think almost every newspaper in the United States has lost circulation due to the Internet. I also think the Internet will lead to a lot of plagiarism in journalism.

My next book is also set in the eighteenth century. It's about the Revolution, with the focus on the year 1776. It's about Washington and the army and the war. It's the nadir, the low point of the United States of America.

There are a lot of messages that need to be sent to the criminal who is out there dealing in this on the streets of the United States. We need to send the message of swiftness and certain punishment.

In my home State of Texas, the Port of Houston operates as the United States' top port for foreign tonnage and our second largest for total tonnage, so I know how important this bill is for the protection of the American people.

Currently, the United States provides 22 percent of the U.N. annual budgets, over $900 million in fiscal year 2007, and some of that funding goes to the Human Rights Council.

Barbara Boxer is the most bitterly partisan, most anti-defense senator in the United States Senate today. I know that because I've had the unpleasant experience of having to serve with her.

The United States and Mexico are trapped - economically, culturally, politically and because of drug crime - in the same continent.

We are not being arrogant or complacent when we are said that our country, as a united nation, has never in its entire history, enjoyed such a confluence of encouraging possibilities.

I have to say that it's very few countries that are willing to look back at its past and apologize for its act, or make amends for its act, as the United States had one.