Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Despite unprecedented levels of technological advancement and the interconnectedness of the world, the pursuit of truth in the realms of foreign policy and national security remains a critical issue. This is because the level of 'noise' that must be sifted through has also reached an unprecedented size and scope.
In Selma, Alabama, in 1965, only 2.1 percent of blacks of voting age were registered to vote. The only place you could attempt to register was to go down to the courthouse. You had to pass a so-called literacy test. And they would tell people over and over again that they didn't or couldn't pass the literacy test.
San Bernardino involved two killers were actually radicalized before they started courting or dating each other online, and online as late as - as early as the end of 2013, they were talking to each other about jihad and martyrdom before they became engaged and then married and lived together in the United States.
Last night, I had a telephone townhall for my constituents back in Vermont, and we had 11,500 people on it. And I had people on Social Security saying if getting fewer benefits will help us on the debt, they're for it. And I had a farmer saying that he's had subsidies for 35 years but we can't afford them anymore.
It's not about what the speaker wants. It's not about necessarily what I want. There's two other principles involved here. It's what the constituents in my district want, and they didn't want to raise the debt ceiling unless there were significant structural reforms and spending cuts to help us balance our budget.
The long-standing, non-partisan and publicly-declared foreign policy commitment of the United States is clear. We will do whatever is required to prevent Iran from possessing nuclear weapons. Our nation has not ruled out any option that may be required to achieve this objective, including the use of military force.
Ivanka Trump's declared mission to 'empower women who work' is a welcome element in the Trump administration. As a woman with a desk in the White House and the founder of an international corporation, she is certainly in a position to improve the wages, safety, and quality of life of working women around the world.
To strengthen the grassroots at the party - at the party unit, at the county level, at the precinct level, and then to help motivate and facilitate the local grassroots to get out there and turn out the vote and boost turn out. And then to help govern in places where we do hold city councils and state legislatures.
Tax reform for the 21st century means rewarding hardworking families by closing unfair loopholes, lowering tax rates across the board, and simplifying the tax code dramatically. It demands reducing the tax burden on American businesses of all sizes so they can keep more of their income to invest in our communities.
What we learned in there is significantly more than what is out in the media today. I can't speak to what we learned in there, and I don't know if there are other leaks, if there is more information somewhere, if somebody else is going to step up, but I will tell you that I believe it's just the tip of the iceberg.
I intend to vote against authorizing the president to use military force in Syria. The Obama Administration has not provided a clear or convincing strategy for inserting our military into the conflict. I am also deeply concerned about the extent to which al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists are involved in the rebellion.
Fifty million Americans have dementia and other brain illnesses. To gather together the minds that exist and see how we can tackle these ailments together, that is the work that is in front of us: to have a map of the human brain, an understanding of the roadways, and an understanding of the traffic on the roadways.
If we must grind up human flesh and bones in the industrial machine that we call modern America, then, before God, I assert that those who consume the coal and you and I who benefit from that service, because we live in comfort, we owe protection to those men first and we owe security for their families if they die.
People aren't necessarily as concerned with how you vote as long as they feel they have a voice. If you can cross that basic threshold - that is, when a voter knows you're willing to listen to them and that you care about their lives - then that's most of what you need to get their vote. It's not your voting record.
They all want to be me. They do! What everybody else says they will do, I've already been doing. They all want to be me. It's become a joke in Congress how Dr. Gingrey and Mr. Kingston have been following my votes. They've even changed votes to what I voted, multiple times. Members of Congress are laughing about it.
The reason women don't vote for Republicans is not that they haven't had the impact of Republican policies spelled out in simple enough terms for them. It's because they understand Republican policies perfectly well. Women vote against Republicans because they know the impact Republican policies have on their lives.
The military taught me the importance of getting something done in a timely manner and the importance of completing a mission on time. My lieutenant would say, 'If you don't, you die.' In many ways, life is the same. If you don't pay attention to a timeline, you lose out on the ability to accomplish the task at hand.
With the discovery of vast new North American energy resources - thanks to the application of proven technologies like hydraulic fracturing and commonsense regulatory processes on non-federal lands - the U.S. government should no longer be in the business of spending taxpayer dollars on risky, exotic energy projects.
We need financial regulation that allows businesses and the banks they use to have access to the tools that help keep prices of consumer goods - like groceries and home heating oil - steady, while ensuring that the taxpayers are never again on the hook for the types of wild bets that helped crash the economy in 2008.
The fact that Turkey, the U.S., and Russia and other countries are really interested in Cyprus because of its strategic location... the fact that Russians launder their money there to avoid sanctions, and the fact that key U.S. and Russia players were there - all make it really important for the Russia investigation.
The U.S's first ballistic missile test was a complete disaster. The Atlas Missile Program, which began in the early 1950s, attempted its first ballistic missile launch on June 11, 1957. The rocket flew for 24 seconds before blowing up. It took two more years before the first successfully armed test flight took place.
I hear from the business community all the time that what they need is an educated work force. They need an infrastructure that can make people and products. You need to cultivate an environment that they can imagine living in and being in, having employees be in. And a fair tax structure. And a responsive government.
I think that there’s going to be a rush to judgment on civil liberties, and a clamping down, a suspension of our democratic rights. And I believe that those who are good Americans would want to see this not happen and that we debate how to find a balance between the public safety and the protection of civil liberties.
When I first ran for Congress, I decided that I would not take pledges to vote for or against any issue. I believe the practice of taking pledges contributes to the worst of the partisan gridlock in Washington, preventing many members of Congress from even considering a reasonable compromise offered by the other side.
If one of you pass out and go to the emergency room, the hospital has to see you. But when you go to the emergency room, you've had a stroke, or you've had a heart attack. If you had preventative medicine, you could maybe be taking your high blood pressure medicine so you wouldn't have a stroke and cut down the costs.
The time has come for President Obama to formally rescind his order to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and end his irresponsible allegations of injustices at the facility, which operates in a framework that respects the rule of law, keeps terrorists off American soil, and bolsters our national security.
Apparently, union bosses are so distraught about declining enrollments they will stoop to exploiting illegal workers. There is no doubt that this would hurt American workers, who would suddenly face a flooded job market full of cheap foreign labor. It would depress the wages of the American workers and cost them jobs.
Home Star is a common sense idea that would create jobs and provide a boost to local economies, while helping families afford their energy bills. By encouraging homeowners to invest in energy efficiency retrofits, Home Star would create 170,000 manufacturing and construction jobs that could not be outsourced to China.
For me, appropriations bills are the glue. These are the bills that must move, no matter what, to keep the government functioning as a reliable element of our society. The Appropriations Committee shouldn't be the most political place to be; it's the place where we have to make the institution function for the country.
By Congress delegating its authority to the executive and judicial branches, we've removed the American people from the process. They're left as bystanders to the whims of executive overreach, and they're watching the country they know and love slip away. Worse, they think their representatives are powerless to stop it.
Diversity on the bench is critical. As practitioners, you need judges who 'get it!' We need judges who understand what discrimination feels like. We need judges who understand what inequality feels like. We need judges who understand the subtleties of unfair treatment and who are willing to call it out when they see it!
Federal assistance helps millions of Americans escape poverty every year by providing the stability needed to take advantage of new opportunities. In fact, it is our safety net that allows full participation in the economy. More Americans purchasing goods means more Americans making them, which means more American jobs.
I'm looking for a place to be of use and benefit. And every single Democrat in this country better be thinking the exact same way. How can we help the average American worker, you know, right out there, worrying about whether that plant's going to close? Fighting for them, standing up for them. That's what the story is.
Even talking about change can be threatening to entrenched interests...Careers in the Pentagon, the board room, or the halls of Congress are not advanced by creating the disruptions that go with real change, so there are very few voices willing to speak up for the future and move beyond rhetoric to make serious choices.
The latest developments in Iraq are deeply troubling, but as the United States considers military and diplomatic responses to the actions of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) action, we should be clear that U.S. troops on the ground cannot go a million miles near a sectarian civil war-it's simply not an option.
Obviously, there's always a battle over philosophical leanings and persuasions, but the bottom line here is that Americans need to understand that this is an ideology in jihadist terrorism that is dangerous beyond words, and we need the moderate Muslim voices to be heard here if this is to be diminished in Islam itself.
There's dozens of unrelated policy provisions tucked inside of it. I'll give you a sense of a handful of them. One is a visa waiver program change. It's going to make it harder for people who've traveled to places with terrorist activity to get into the U.S. They're going to have to go through an added layer of security.
Every time I would give a talk, someone would say, 'You ought to go into politics.' I prefer to call it government leadership. My life has taken me to places where I have experiences that I think I can share. A lot of times, we see people who are career politicians. I'm not the conventional candidate, nor do I want to be.
I think in a society where you can't even pass the Equal Rights Amendment, it's very difficult to women make a progress. Incidentally, we are exactly 160 years after the very first women's public rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York, when a handful of women started it all and began the movement to make women equal.
From its onset, the labor movement has been at the forefront of the fight to improve working conditions and workplace safety. At the local level, knowing their union has their back gives workers the confidence and support they need to stand up and report harassment, poor working conditions, or workplace safety violations.
I lived in Meadowbrook. I went to church at Meadowbrook United Methodist Church. I went to school at Meadowbrook Elementary School and then Meadowbrook Middle School. I learned to dance at Meadowbrook Country Club. All those things grounded me in one place and I think most of Fort Worth is just like the area I grew up in.
People feel like there're two systems of justice, you know? Over there at Wells Fargo, you know, you had the scandal going on there, but the CEO leaves with a big, giant package. And other folks get in a whole lot of trouble for doing a lot less. The truth is that we have got to make America work for working people again.
After Nancy Pelosi became Speaker, we were told, 'She's the first female speaker of the House, so whether we like it or not, we've got to handle this with kid gloves. Don't go after Speaker Pelosi. You can go after other people, but you'll be branded as mean and evil if you go after the first female Speaker of the House.'
I thought it was a joke at first, but the president did, in fact, authorize an autopen to sign the Patriot Act extension into law. Consider the dangerous precedent this sets. Any number of circumstances could arise in the future where the public could question whether or not the president authorized the use of an autopen.
Last month, the House of Representatives passed the Veterans Opportunity to Work Act, which would provide training and assistance to unemployed veterans, and break down bureaucratic barriers preventing them from finding work. It's smart legislation that members of both parties support, and I'm pleased the Senate passed it.
Every one says: 'Listen, I'd love to reinvest. I'd love to hire people. But I have no idea what this healthcare bill is going to do to my bottom line. I have no idea what this financial reform bill is going to do... I'm not going to step out a limb and do any of those until I know what this government is going to do to me.
Back in East Texas, all three networks have stations in my hometown of Tyler, and for a town that small, 85,000, to have all three networks, they all have their own news programs, six and 10, and they're always looking for news. Back when I was a judge, they were constantly coming to the courthouse and asking for comments.
There was a time not too long ago when American seniors were too often forced to go without food, medicine, and quality healthcare. But thanks to transformative programs like Social Security, most seniors in this country are provided the opportunity to live with the stability and peace of mind they have earned and deserve.
America pays its bills. It always has. It always will. The fact that Washington is now debating whether to honor its debts and obligations, then, should come as a surprise. But playing political football with a necessary vote to raise the nation's debt ceiling has become as predictable as a Twitter rant from Charlie Sheen.
I think that the important thing to consider here - Hubert Humphrey said that a society is measured by how he treats those in the dawn of life, those in the shadows of life, and those in the twilight of life. And it is true that Terri Schiavo lives among us in the shadows of life, but she is not brain dead. She feels pain.