I travel a lot. I'll go back and forth, you know, West Coast-East Coast, but it's separated by segments. So it's not a daily thing.

My district includes the two urban centers of Charlotte and Fayetteville, as well as large rural areas. Obviously, these diverse segments of North Carolina require different approaches to meeting current and future transportation demands.

All this talk of equality remains merely on paper. In real life, women are still bound by several psychological shackles and emotional boundaries imposed on them by their families and others. If a girl comes home late, she is asked 100 questions, whereas boys are not answerable for anything. And this prevails across segments.

We must have the courage to confront dreadful views even in the people we love the most. But that's difficult to do when we cast large segments of our fellow citizens into a basket to be condemned and disparaged, judging them even as we ignore that many of their deplorable traits exist in us, too.

I really think that elected officials should be focused on how you create sustained economic growth how do you create jobs and all of these issues that made people - segments of our society believe are really important are diversions politically.