Best 286 quotes in «congress quotes» category

Washington D.C.! Congress is full of self-declared outsiders.

We applaud Congress for extending equitable abortion coverage to female Peace Corps volunteers.

We are determined to listen to nothing from the illegal congress.

We can't wait for Congress to do its job. So where they won't act, I will.

We can't change the way Washington works unless we first change how Congress works.

We don't need a "New Covenant." We need a new Congress.

We have to change the system. The system is very rotten. The executive is corrupt, the Congress is corrupt, the judiciary is corrupt. ... So what's left We really have to have a radical and surgical change to bring back the image of our country.

Well, my wife, Cathy Gillespie, worked for Joe Barton, who was running for Congress in 1984.

When I first ran for Congress in 1998, people counted me out.

We're sad about some of the losses of members of great seniority and distinction in the Congress, and some very new members, who will no longer be serving with us.

We should go forward in courts and Congress with investigations into post-9/11 interrogations and the decisions leading to them.

What standards are upheld by the scientific community affect the community internally, and also affect its relations with society at large, including Congress.

When congress is in session no American is safe.

When Congress talks of tax reform, grab your wallet and run for cover.

Well I think that what we're seeing now is that the people feel like they, the people in Congress don't have their consent to govern them. They keep doing things that are incredibly unpopular. And so when that happens, folks get angry

Well, it's taken a long time to get the Department of Homeland Security established. It's taken a long time for the Congress to decide how much it wanted to fund.

We talk about our military being degraded over time, and yet we've had folks who've been a part of Congress who have participated in sequester; who participated in the degrading of this military over time.

We've had a Congress that's spent money like John Edwards at a beauty shop.

When I make a joke, nobody gets injured... when Congress makes a joke, it's the law.

Yes, [I am accusing the CIA of] misleading the Congress of the United States, misleading the Congress of the United States. I am.

Whiskey is carried into committee rooms in demijohns and carried out in demagogues.

With gridlock the norm, Congress's approval rating is below 10 percent and the public has lost faith in its national leadership.

With the parties at virtual parity and the ideological gulf between them never greater, the stakes of majority control of Congress are extremely high.

Women administer the home. They set the rules, enforce them, mete out justice for violations. Thus, like Congress, they legislate; like the Executive, they administer; like the courts, they interpret the rules. It is an ideal experience for politics.

When I testified in front of Congress, I know that I was testifying under oath and I told the truth.

When we look at how, constitutionally, only Congress can declare war, and that is routinely ignored. Not NATO or the UN, but Congress has to authorize these endless wars, and it isn't.

And how about doing the job we hired you gentlemen and ladies for? Start doing it by reading the legislation you pass. If you don’t know what it says, don’t vote for it.

About half the population thinks that every person in Congress, including their own representative, should be thrown out. That's the center not holding.

You can go into the Library of Congress and find information on just about anything, but that doesn't do you much good unless you know what you are looking for.

You can't repeal human nature by an Act of Congress.

Your brother doesn't have to be speaker for your voice to be heard in Congress

After Congress passed SJ Res 34, we are no longer merely battling a cyber-kinetic war on all fronts, we are now in a state of perpetual cyber-kinetic-meta war, and there will be no end.

By simply refusing to fund a president's unconstitutional conduct, Congress can stop him dead in his tracks - even after the courts have abdicated their responsibilities to do so.

As heirs to a legacy more than two centuries old, it is understandable why present-day Americans would take their own democracy for granted. A president freely chosen from a wide-open field of two men every four years; a Congress with a 99% incumbency rate; a Supreme Court comprised of nine politically appointed judges whose only oversight is the icy scythe of Death -- all these reveal a system fully capable of maintaining itself. But our perfect democracy, which neither needs nor particularly wants voters, is a rarity. It is important to remember there still exist other forms of government in the world today, and that dozens of foreign countries still long for a democracy such as ours to be imposed on them.

As for Congress, one imaginative polling firm found that brussels sprouts, head lice, cockroaches, colonoscopies, and gonorrhea were more popular than our elected representatives. Apparently, the American people realized that when you take it up the ass from a proctologist, at least it's for your own well-being. From Congress, not so much

1. Society needs laws. While anarchy can often turn a humdrum weekend into something unforgettable, eventually the mob must be kept from stealing the conch and killing Piggy. And while it would be nice if that "something" was simple human decency, anybody who has witnessed the "50% Off Wedding Dress Sale" at Filene's Basement knows we need a backup plan—preferably in writing. On the other hand, too many laws can result in outright tyranny, particularly if one of those laws is "Kneel before Zod." Somewhere between these two extremes lies the legislative sweet-spot that produces just the right amount of laws for a well-adjusted society—more than zero, less than fascism.

Congress should make it so that all sex scenes in all films should be provided with a screaming baby sound track. That should help take away all the fun and may show a major decrease in unwanted pregnancies without having to provide birth control to anyone.

Congress may carry on the most wicked and pernicious of schemes under the dark veil of secrecy. The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.

Congress didn't vote on the bills, they just wave at them as they go by.

If developed and implemented meaningfully, Cyber Shield Act could be a catalyst to incite responsible cybersecurity adoption and implementation throughout multiple manufacturing sectors." James Scott, Senior Fellow, Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology

Decisions to cut aid for the terminally ill, for the elderly, for dependent children, for food stamps, even school lunches, are being made by men with full stomachs who live in comfortable houses with two cars and umpteen tax shelters. None of them go hungry to bed at night.

Forget public service. We all come here with good intentions, but as time passes, it becomes all about self-service and selfish survival.

I could end the deficit in five minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP all sitting members of congress are ineligible for reelection.

{Stockton, a playwright who performed plays about Robert Ingersoll, gives the four moments in Ingersoll's life that shaped him, first being the death of his father, who was a reverend} Despite their opposing religious views, the old revivalist on his deathbed asked Bob to read to him from the black book clutched to his chest. Bob relented, took the book, and was surprised to discover that it wasn't the Bible. It was Plato describing the noble death of the pagan Socrates: a moving gesture of reconciliation between father and son in parting. The second event was Bob’s painful realization that his outspoken agnosticism not only invalidated his own political career but ended his brother Ebon’s career in Congress, as well. Third was the exquisite anguish of seeing his supportive wife Eva and his young daughters made to suffer for his right to speak his own mind. And fourth was the dramatic tension of having to walk out alone on public stages, in a glaring spotlight, time after time with death threats jammed in his tuxedo pocket informing him that some armed bigot in that night’s audience would see to it that he didn't leave the stage alive.

I make love like a snake disguised as an elephant and a donkey. But I mustn’t talk about sexual congress and Congress simultaneously.

In 1996 Dorothy Mackey wrote an Op-ed piece, “Violence from comrades a fact of life for military women.” ABC News 20/ 20 did a segment on rape in the military. By November four women came forward at Aberdeen Proving Ground, in Maryland, about a pattern of rape by drill sergeants. In 1997 the military finds three black drill sergeants to scapegoat. They were sent to prison and this left the commanding generals and colonels untouched to retire quietly. The Army appointed a panel to investigate sexual harassment. One of the panelists was the sergeant Major of the Army, Eugene McKinney. On hearing his nomination, former associates and one officer came forward with charges of sexual coercion and misconduct. In 1998 he was acquitted of all charges after women spoke (of how they were being stigmatized, their careers stopped, and their characters questioned. A Congressional panel studied military investigative practices. In 1998, the Court of Appeals ruled against Dorothy Mackay. She had been outspoken on media and highly visible. There is an old Arabic saying “When the hen crows cut off her head.”“This court finds that Col. Milam and Lt. Col. Elmore were acting in the scope of their duties” in 1991-1992 when Capt. Mackey alleged they harassed, intimidated and assaulted her. A legislative remedy was asked for and she appealed to the Supreme Court. Of course the Supreme Court refused to hear the case in 1999, as it always has under the feres doctrine. Her case was cited to block the suit of one of the Aberdeen survivors as well!

I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is a disgrace, that two become a lawfirm, and that three or more become a congress. -John Adams

It is not unpatriotic to acknowledge America’s faults. No country is perfect… We can’t reach the top of the mountain if we don’t fix the injustice and confront our lies.

I was ecstatic when they re-named "French fries" as "freedom fries." Grown men and women in positions of power in the U.S. government showing themselves as idiots.

It's lawmakers know better than anyone that laws are more a matter of practical compromise than any kind of moral imperative.