Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
There really is no vacation from the world in which we live.
The Department of Defense took 40 years to get where it got.
You show me a 50-foot wall and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder.
I'm trying to read a book on how to relax, but I keep falling asleep.
First, we did rank everybody by risk, and New York comes out number one.
The United States and Arizona are both losing jobs to offshore locations.
Al Qaeda is very media-savvy and very focused on what goes on in the global media.
There is luck in chess. My opponent was lucky that he was playing against an idiot.
It drove home, personally, the value of early detection and education and intervention.
It is fair to say there are individuals in the United States who ascribe to al-Qaeda-type beliefs.
I have not heard a report of thousands of people in the convention center who don't have food and water.
The last thing the Department of Homeland Security is about is infringing on anybody's constitutionally protected rights.
I've appointed a task force to take a fresh look at the color-code system and whether we should retain it, change it or scrap it.
One of the most striking elements of today's threat picture is that plots to attack America increasingly involve American residents and citizens.
Even the kinds of ingredients you can find in your own kitchen can be used to make bombs. So the problem is with the people and not with the tools.
We've probably gotten 500 calls from people saying what the heck is going on with gas, and I gotta say I agree with you. What the heck is going on with gas?
And if we make the process political, if we start to make it personal, we're actually going to frustrate good public policy, in terms of managing this money.
So, all during the '90s and, you know, for the first half of this decade, we had opportunities to get evacuation plans in place, better communications in place.
Well, I mean, Congress did originally set the formula for the state grants, and they guaranteed every state a minimum formula. So that was a congressional decision.
If American schooling is inadequate now, just imagine how much more obsolete it will be when today's kindergarten students graduate from high school in just 12 years.
I think the idea that you can go this alone is - was a huge mistake. And unfortunately, there was a price paid in terms of suffering and pain for people in New Orleans.
And we ask the American people to play an important part of our layered defense. We ask for cooperation, patience and a commitment to vigilance in the face of a determined enemy.
You can't imagine a world, quite frankly, without a safe and secure aviation system. And so our job is to really focus on that, and what we need to do to keep it safe and secure.
We've done it in intelligence sharing and certain elements of security. There were parts of the department, in fact, that worked very well in Katrina, like the Coast Guard and TSA.
Well, I'm not excusing the fact that planning and preparedness was not where it should be. We've known for 20 years about this hurricane, this possibility of this kind of hurricane.
I believe we have to move, eventually in our country, toward a system of public financing that really works for candidates running for federal office. I will support that as president.
Such a system would be very, very expensive and laborious to have, given the kinds of border we have. Scientists and engineers aren't even sure they have the technology to make it work
There's no doubt that we have, as we always do in the nation, reacted to the reality of 911 here in the country as an aviation incident. There are other vulnerabilities to be dealt with.
I have long been a proponent of a guest-worker program between the United States and Mexico, and in particular I have proposed that Arizona would be an ideal location for a pilot project.
And one of the things I want to say, Wolf, is we're 100 days from hurricane season, and we've got to start focusing on what we're going to do to make ourselves ready for the next hurricane.
Public schools were designed as the great equalizers of our society - the place where all children could have access to educational opportunities to make something of themselves in adulthood.
It would be unwise to say the least, irresponsible of us at the TSA, at the Homeland Security Department not to evolve our technology to match the changing threat environment that we inhabit.
Each and every one of the security measures we implement serves an important goal: providing safe and efficient air travel for the millions of people who rely on our aviation system every day.
So not only do we need to deal with threats as they emerge, we have to be thinking in anticipation of future threats, and the things we do have to be things that enable the system to continue to work.
Now, I'm not suggesting we're going to wait 40 years or even four years, but I think we have to put in perspective the fact that we've come quite a distance. We have quite a distance to come - go, as well.
We have at least 125 communities in Arizona at risk from wildfire, not because of review processes or litigation delays but because of a lack of federal funding on the ground to actually begin the projects.
The larger point is this: We've invested over half a billion dollars in New York since this department was stood up. We've given New York more money, by more than double, than any other city in the country.
Second, there are two problems with respect to mobile homes in particular. One is we obviously don't want to put them in a flood plain, because if there's another flood, you're going to lose the mobile home.
Nonetheless, to the extent that terrorists have come into our country or suspected or known terrorists have entered our country across a border, it's been across the Canadian border. There are real issues there.
I'm angry that the private sector, which is supposed to be in charge of running gasoline into the Valley, doesn't have its act together to deal with a critical situation, so now the public sector has to step in.
The second thing we did was said, OK, we've now identified the risk, but what do you want to do with the money? Because it's not enough to have risk; you've got to have a meaningful use for the money we give you.
And one of the things we did here was we put the maximum amount of money up front in those cities that were at the greater risk, but that doesn't mean that we keep rebuilding the same security over and over again.
Well, you know, the violence is mostly in Mexico itself, at least the violence that people are worried about. And so we want to make sure that violence does not spill over into our communities that are along the border.
Last year, New York got $200 million. This year, we're going to give them $124 million under this particular program. But last year was an artificially elevated number to make up from the very low grant the year before.
And I have to say, I agree with some of the criticisms that some have made about that state program which allocates the grant money on a very rigid formula all across the country, with a certain percentage to each state.
And here where the fact that we've given over half a billion dollars to New York really plays a role, because New York has already made a lot of investments in the kinds of things which you'd expect to have as basic security.
We may have to force people to get together in terms of picking a particular type of technology and starting to build to that technology, as opposed to everybody exercising their right to buy their own system, you know, at will.
The great thing about this town hall format is that it allows us to hear what's on the minds of Americans. Tonight, it was clear - voters have quite a few questions about the direction in which the current administration is headed.
And it seems to me correct then, and I think it's correct now, that job one is get the planning done, make sure the buses are there. When that's done, it's completely appropriate to go around and tour around and look at the damage.
There are a number of countries that we see cyber-attacks emanating from. And, again, they can be just individuals who are located in the country. But three that I think are of special concern would be Iran, would be Russia, and China.