Once in a while things can go terribly wrong.

Instead of fighting this process, I encourage you to listen carefully to the testimony today.

Most people who take cruise ship vacations have a good experience.

This process of asking tough questions is in fact called 'oversight.' It's one of the most important jobs Congressional committees have, maybe the most important.

This Congress is sort of divided into (1) people who want to spend money and think that you need to spend money when you have a particular problem, which there can be no problem more dramatic than that of the veteran, and (2) those who…

But, boy, does that hit you in the face.

I think you are a problem solver. I welcome that. I think you are going to be a superb Secretary.

We in the Congress are terrifically skillful at finding problems.

You plan to get into some of those waiting lines, no staff, just you.

You have been a veteran. You have understood that. You put yourself in harm's way.

It has to be approved before it can be given by the Office of Management and Budget.

It doesn't make me popular, but it makes me do my job.

I've been so happy to support Federal funding.

Picking specific research projects or even scientific disciplines to be funded through a political process and favoring them at the expense of others is a mistake.

We must continue to defend scientific research and to make it a priority.

We need a video marketplace that more closely embodies the American values of free speech, fair competition and the rewarding of creativity and innovation.

Too much power in the hands of too few. That is really what the Comcast/Time Warner merger would produce.

The FCC and the Justice Department should block both the Comcast-Time Warner Cable and the AT&T-DIRECTV mergers.

I continue to believe that one of the core policy questions that the Congress must grapple with as it looks to reform video policy is how to nurture new competitive technologies and services.

I also want to express DISH's concerns about the proposed AT&T/DIRECTV merger.

Congress has an opportunity to encourage innovation, to promote competition, and to protect consumers, and we hope they do so.

I have never deviated from that, and it all flowed very easily simply because of the moral compass that was working within me after I had finished my 2 years with VISTA.

Yet these mergers, essentially media mergers and telecommunications, railroads and airlines, just to name a few--a lot of folks around here do not like the word 'regulation,' but I suspect some folks who come from rural states recognize…

nobody was a bigger consumer champion than you have been during your time in this committee and leading this committee.

Could that be manipulated to favor the company that owns the wire?