The United States has to go through structural reforms in terms of improving our education system or revamping our infrastructure or, you know, looking at some regulations that weren't properly controlling excesses on Wall Street.

All the strands of my life came together and I really became a man when I moved to Chicago.

In 2010 there were a lot of folks who were still out of work. There were a lot of folks who had lost their homes or saw their home values plummet, their 401k's plummet.

And when it comes to developing the high standards we need, it's time to stop working against our teachers and start working with them. Teachers don't go in to education to get rich. They don't go in to education because they don't believe in their children. They want their children to succeed, but we've got to give them the tools. Invest in early childhood education. Invest in our teachers and our children will succeed.

Those aren't the kinds of folks who represent our core American values.

If you look at sort of how politics has divided itself here in this country, the big divide right now is between urban areas, which have become increasingly Democratic, and rural or exurban areas that feel as if they're being ignored.

Palestinians will never realize their independence by denying the right of Israel to exist.