The only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Democrats allow the poor to be corrupt too.

Republicans have nothing but bad ideas and Democrats have no ideas.

But if republicans are to prevail if the peace process is to be successfully concluded and Irish sovereignty and re-unification secured then we have to set the agenda - no-one else is going to do that.

Obama has been attacked repeatedly for not wearing a flag pin with Republicans claiming that his patriotism is in question. It's all a bit silly.

There are a lot of conservative people a lot of moderate people Republicans Democrats in Hollywood. It is just that the conservative people by the nature of the word itself play closer to the vest. They do not go around hot dogging it.

I hate movies that tell people what to think. I'm proud that Democrats thought 'Thank You For Smoking' was their film and Republicans thought it was theirs. I'm proud that pro-choice people thought 'Juno' was their film and pro-life people thought it was theirs.

I grew up in a family of Republicans. And when I was 18 and registering to vote my mom's only instruction was 'You just go in and pull the big Republican lever.' That's my welcome to adulthood. She's like 'No don't even read it. Just pull the Republican lever.

The big divide in this country is not between Democrats and Republicans or women and men but between talkers and doers.

If Republicans want to be seen as more compassionate they should continue to stand proudly for the sanctify of life and marriage. And they should do so without apologizing.

House Republican leadership have refused to allow a clean minimum wage vote. Close to 15 million Americans will be affected if we did this. Do Republicans really expect a family to live on less than $11 000 a year?

I think that if Republicans are given the reins of leadership in the House or Senate or both we will have to govern in a way - at least put forward solutions whether or not the president goes along with them or not that deal with these long-term challenges.

The fact is when it comes to economic leadership the Republicans have nothing to brag about. This isn't what the American people want. They want to see progress that works for them.

We're going to need to absorb some pain. The Republicans want to pile all the pain on people who can least afford it and the middle class and Democrats under his leadership want to make sure that we can address deficit reduction and continue to make investments and shared sacrifice is going to be imperative in order to be able to do that.

But the fact is that the vast majority of Republicans support the Sinn Fein leadership.

We have a tremendous lack of knowledge of how far we have gotten away from the Constitution of the United States. Democrats and Republicans alike have taken us away from the original intent. You see I believe in this document as our founding fathers intended it.

House and Senate Republicans are now united in adopting earmark bans. We hope President Obama will follow through on his support for an earmark ban by pressing Democratic leaders to join House and Senate Republicans in taking this critical step to restore public trust.

Of course the Republicans have long wanted to privatize Social Security and destroy it. But Social Security has been the most important and valuable social program in the history of the United States.

The Democrats co-opted the credit for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But if you go back and look at the history a larger percentage of Republicans voted for that than did Democrats. But a Democrat president signed it so they co-opted credit for having passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

There is nothing new about these Republican attacks on our family planning decisions. In fact from the moment they came into power Republicans in the House of Representatives have been waging a war on women's health.

Seven presidents before him - Democrats and Republicans - tried to expand health care to all Americans. President Obama got it done.

It is important for women to have a choice to have an opportunity to plan their families because if they don't the Republicans have said this is an ownership society. You are on your own and they're going to begrudge that child everything from WIC to a Pell Grant to health insurance.

The reason Gov. Romney passed Romneycare as governor of Massachusetts in 2006 was because many Republicans viewed health care reform mandates and all as a way to inoculate against Democratic charges that Republicans didn't care about people who lacked health insurance.

President Obama stands ready to work with everyone because that's what the American people expect and deserve - not for the short term political advantages but the long term health of our country. We don't spend time trying to figure out what's in the minds of Republicans we try to keep our focus on the American people.

It is hard to miss the irony in the fact that the very same week that Republicans were publicly heralding Congressman Paul Ryan's plan to inject market forces into the American health care system they were crafting a budget deal to strip them from the health reform law.