Improving women's and maternal health, stopping the practices of child marriage and female genital mutilation, and combating the trafficking of women and girls are not just fundamental American ideals, they are a strategic imperative.

The award was presented to the Committee to Protect Journalists and the delegates had the opportunity to talk about issues related to the freedom of press with the senator.

For too long, women have gotten the short shrift in development and foreign policy.

I am thrilled to see that the Obama administration has kept its promise to make the role of women central to our foreign policy.

I get uneasy about moratoriums because they could just forestall the inevitable.

the TARP should not be extended.

I would like to get a far more frequent analysis of how that is working.

We are, after all, spending the American people's money.

I have heard that Freddie Mac does a pretty good job of getting the personal contact with people who could be falling into a foreclosure situation.

What is being done about it? What can we do? I just find frustration.

What plans do we have, if any, to assist our regional banks and community banks?

A lot of this may be anecdotal, so I want to be careful.

They were asking Congress for a blank check, with no protections for the taxpayers.

This cannot be seen as somehow a permanent program we have in place.

When I took over the gavel of this Committee in January of 2007, we held an extended set of hearings...

I have heard FHA is doing a dreadful job at this.

I am not--I don't know whether you want to acknowledge that number as something that is the number that the Department of the Treasury is accepting as a realistic number of not.

The American economy was on the brink of total collapse.

Had they acted in 2007 on this issue more aggressively... I think we would have mitigated it substantially.

Thank you very much, Senator.

We are looking for a system that works here, making some decisions.

There is a wave coming in commercial real estate that poses some real additional threats to our economic recovery.

What is presently going on is just not working.

Bernard Madoff stole $50 billion. He stole from individuals and pension funds and charities and municipalities like Fairfield in my home state.

Thank you very much, Senator.