Having an understanding of what's possible also makes me redouble my efforts to fight those who stand in the way of doing the things that my constituents and the country would want to get done.

Congress has no business telling courts within a state that they are prohibited from considering issues involving a lease for energy development, production, and exploration that has the potential to cause irreparable environmental and economic damage to the Gulf Coast area of that state.

It is well past time for President Abbas to stand up and condemn all acts of violence, rather than encouraging violence by glorifying terrorists and teaching children to view Israelis as animals.

We need to move past blame and make sure we are delivering care to our veterans.

As for the music business itself, the key things have not changed that much. It operates like any business and money still keeps things moving.

Authority has to exist before it can be limited, and it is authority that is in scarce supply in those modernizing countries where government is at the mercy of alienated intellectuals, rambunctious colonels, and rioting students.

Being under the microscope meant I was never given any slack. I still managed to screw up plenty in life, mind you, but in the things I really cared about - the legal work, or the stories I was telling as a writer, or the office I built in government - I wasn't left a lot of margin for error. It's kept me driven.

Growing up, I didn't know anything about money other than we didn't have any.