“There was no blueprint or how-to manual for fixing a global financial meltdown, an auto crisis, two wars and a great recession, all at the same time.”

There are too many senior citizens and good residents in Chicago who are sick and tired of having to walk several blocks out of their way when they leave their homes just to avoid the gangs and drug dealers on the street corner.

In millions of encounters each year between the police and the public, it may be too much to expect that every officer will always get it right. But it is not too much to expect that we can put the right safeguards in place to hold officers accountable when they get it wrong.

I don’t want to go negative on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but he didn’t pass an economic deal in the first 100 days. We have passed the largest Recovery Act in the history of the country.

Things happened there that I don’t think are the finest hours for anybody, whether it was a journalist, the legal system or, in that case of the political system, who would say that was an example of when Washington worked best.

Every policy officer is sworn to protect life, and, under the most extreme circumstances, to take life. It is a staggering responsibility that requires officers to make split second decisions.

Bob Rubin was opposed to signing the welfare bill. He’s not exactly what I call a flaming liberal.

I would like to run for the mayor of the city of Chicago. That has always been an aspiration of mine even when I was in the House of Representatives.

Gun violence in Chicago is unacceptable. It threatens everything we have done together and all of the progress we have made in other areas.

What is more comforting to the terrorists around the world: the failure to pass the 9/11 legislation because we lacked a majority of the majority,’ or putting aside partisan politics to enact tough new legislation with America’s security foremost in mind?

Laquan McDonald is a wake-up call to all of us. It’s a reminder there’s a lot broken.

There’s no safe Republican district. You can run, but you cannot hide.

The overwhelming number of police officers in Chicago are doing good work under difficult conditions. They put their lives on the line every day in situations none of us can fully comprehend or appreciate.

Everybody knows they’re on the Obama team: There isn’t vice presidential vs. presidential division, there’s not a generational pull. People have internalized that this is a real moment in history.

The world for our law enforcement community has changed dramatically: everything from filling out paperwork to relationships with the community and how they think the narrative is in the media.

Banks are slowly but surely lending again, and never again will taxpayers foot the bill for Wall Street’s excesses. In case we forgot, that was the change we believed in. That was the change we fought for. That was the change President Obama delivered.

I join President Obama and the vast majority of Chicagoans who are tired of waiting for Washington to get serious about gun violence.

What happened in the missile crisis in October 1962 has been prettified to make it look as if acts of courage and thoughtfulness abounded.

It’s just very hard to teach a class of students about what has happened in the Global Financial Crisis.

Institutions of the newer participants in global finance had not been tested, until recently…recent crisis have underscored certain financial structure vulnerabilities that are not readily assuaged in the short run.

This is not a time to quail, it is not a crisis, nor should we see it as an excuse for wobbling or self-doubt. But it is a moment for hope.

Life isn’t like coursework, baby. It’s one damn essay crisis after another.

I’m not panicking, and I’m not scared, I’ve been through the Gulf War, the Asia crisis, and the Russian crisis.

And that will mean that we cast aside eight years of hard work, blood, sweat and tears that have gone into bringing cities and mayors and communities to the table to address what truly is a national crisis.

When there is a crisis, the first thing that gets damaged and gets harmed is democracy.