Policy

If you are against everything Joni Ernst or Mia Love stand for, then this election was bad for you and the policies you care about, not bad for women. It should be obvious, but ‘women’ - half the population - are not a uniform voting block with uniform ideas about what is best for them.

If the ways that we’re approaching the Republicans in Congress [aren’t] working, I’m going to try different things -- whether it’s having a drink with Mitch McConnell or letting John Boehner beat me again at golf, or weekly press conferences - I don’t know if that would be effective…Whatever I think might make a difference in this, I’m going to be trying out up until my last day in office.

[Sandy Hook] was the one that was supposed to make a difference. It wasn't a high school. The victims were 20 first graders, 6-year-olds, along with six staff members. But the numbers indicate nothing much has changed. Sandy Hook turned out to be not a call to action, but a gruesome standard from which all inaction can be judged.

Sandy Hook turned out to be not a call to action, but a gruesome standard from which all inaction can be judged.

There’s a prevailing idea that there’s something ethically wrong with being poor, and that America’s run according to Christian values. But when people are practicing genuine Christian values, they themselves are directly prosecuted…Let’s bear in mind that America just had midterm elections where $4 billion was spent on campaigning — [campaigning] is just telling you that something’s good. But feeding the homeless? That’s illegal.

This [climate deal] means that in the next 15 years, China will have to build the energy equivalent of another China, but one that is entirely based on non-fossil fuels. This sends a signal that China has begun to say goodbye to coal.

The thing about Scandal and House of Cards that makes [them] fun to watch is I can't imagine that either a president [Kevin] Spacey or the president's chief of staff on Scandal could really get away with murder. I wish I'd known about that [ability] when I was in office. You know, think of all of the opportunities I missed. So little time, so many people that have it coming.

¦Something I am going to work very hard on changing - and I hope it changes before I die - is to make it illegal to buy, post, or shop a photo that's been obtained illegally. I have photographers that jump my fence ... if somebody jumps my fence and takes a picture through my window of me naked, that's illegal, but the photos can still be everywhere (online) the next day…that makes no sense!

To those Members of Congress who question my authority to make our immigration system work better, or question the wisdom of me acting where Congress has failed, I have one answer: Pass a bill.

Every time someone mentions how many jobs Keystone XL would create, it somehow gets bigger. A bazillion jobs!

Throughout my childhood, I watched my parents try to become legal but to no avail. They lost their money to people they believed to be attorneys, but who ultimately never helped. That meant my childhood was haunted by the fear that they would be deported. If I didn't see anyone when I walked in the door after school, I panicked. And then one day, my fears were realized.

We want to believe that diversity can transform the relationship of police to the communities they serve. But odds are good that it doesn’t, and it won’t. Given the fraught history of blacks and law enforcement, blue—it seems—is the only color that matters.