Lawyers are very, very good at keeping you out of prison, but they will sacrifice your reputation and credibility to do so.
It is because the fight against the harshest aspects of unrestricted capitalism is therefore a political problem and not an intellectual one that community action remains so essential.
In America, unlike England, unlike Israel, unlike Japan, other democracies, we have elections that have staggered terms.
The public is ready now for a safety net for the middle class, something not just for the poor, but for everyone who will need help, from time to time, in order to own a home, educate their kids, keep themselves healthy or have something to retire on.
We don't get ourselves dry cleaned.
Legislators have a formal set of responsibilities to work together, but there's no hierarchy.
The rights of the people who have done terrible things are hard to defend. You have to keep pointing out, the question is the process to determine whether they've done the terrible things.
We all have the right to call each other names. Rudeness is a deeply held constitutional value.
Before this learning experience, I had assumed that with regard to programs that sought to help people out of poverty, the political world was essentially divided into two camps: conservatives who opposed these for a variety of reasons, and liberals who supported them.
The issue is not that morals be applied to public policy, it's that conservatives bring public policy to spheres of our lives where it should not enter.
I wouldn't want [gay marriage] to go to the United States Supreme Court now because that homophobe Antonin Scalia has too many votes on this current court.
But here too it should be noted that the President's approach was to first ask the repressive and brutal Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden to us, and only after that government refused to do that did we invade.
I am very proud of the role I played in getting legal equality for people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, and in helping get rid of the prejudice by being visible about it, helping to block the conviction of Bill Clinton of impeachment.
One of the striking things and Donald Trump is right, he gets no Democratic votes. It`s interesting there were Democrats from states some of them more conservative states that voted him, Indiana, Missouri, West Virginia, Montana, North Dakota. They`re not afraid of Donald Trump those Democratic Senators because they know more than he knows and know what the people want.
Alec Baldwin has done this great Donald Trump. I wish somebody would hire Leslie Jordan to play Jeff Sessions. The only way is to put the two of them out there. it is the most bizarre, pathetic silliness I can imagine at what should be the most serious deliberations in the American government.
There is parallels these two great men John McCain and Ted Kennedy of great impact in the Senate, you don`t agree with everything they did but certainly they had major impacts as senators. Their one major political failure not to be elected president but that didn`t stop them from having enormous impact and at roughly the same age, exactly the same disease. It`s kind of a poignant sad parallel.
Can I say one other thing that`s very important? I`m indebted to Donald Trump for a long time, we`ve had this problem that people disliked government. And the health care bill has shown reminded people and Donald Trump has shown people there is something a lot worse than government. It`s not government. That as bad as they might have thought the government was on health care, it`s now created people that the absence of government healthcare is even worse.
I think there were two criticisms you can make of Donald Trump`s involvement in the Health Care Bill. First of all, there were times when he wasn`t being helpful. Secondly, there were times when he was trying to be helpful. I`m not sure which one did more damage.
Ronald Reagan got a lot of democrats. I wish he hadn`t. I got to Congress with Reagan coming to the Whitehouse. The Reagan Program, a very radical one, a very drastic one passed because he had a lot of democrats. He worked at it personally and also because Reagan retained a popularity.
I can tell you about health care and also about the financial reform bill. The Barack Obama, the President personally and his administration officials at his direction were very much involved.
In the West everybody recognizes the need for a private sector, pretty much, even the one Socialist group understands this now, and so there tends to be debate about how much public sector intervention you think is needed for a variety of reasons, and there are very important differences on party lines that should be fought out.
Going before an audience of people who expect you to be funny is tough. Going before an audience that expect you to be boring, and then being a little funny, is much easier. I prefer easier.
I don't think Donald Trump is the right person because I very much disagree with him.
I am not aware of any specific provision that mandates any tightening of lending to small business other than a requirement that people who lend and then sell that loan be prepared to take a part of the risk. And I'm proud of that.
NATO was a wonderful idea. It was formed in 1949. We are as far away from NATO as NATO was when it was done in time from the presidency of Grover Cleveland.
