Dianne Feinstein
I basically believe the medical insurance industry should be nonprofit, not profit-making. There is no way a health reform plan will work when it is implemented by an industry that seeks to return money to shareholders instead of using that money to provide health care.Collection: Medical
'No Child Left Behind' requires states and school districts to ensure that all students are learning and are reaching their highest potential. Special education students should not be left out of these accountability mechanisms.Collection: Learning
The criteria for serving one's country should be competence, courage and willingness to serve. When we deny people the chance to serve because of their sexual orientation, we deprive them of their rights of citizenship, and we deprive our armed forces the service of willing and capable Americans.Collection: Courage
Yes, I support the death penalty. It is an issue that cannot be fudged or hedged.Collection: Death
America is still the land of opportunity, and hard work is still a pathway to success.Collection: Success
Instead of starting a new nuclear arms race, now is the time to reclaim our Nation's position of leadership on nuclear nonproliferation efforts.Collection: Leadership
Today we have a health insurance industry where the first and foremost goal is to maximize profits for shareholders and CEOs, not to cover patients who have fallen ill or to compensate doctors and hospitals for their services. It is an industry that is increasingly concentrated and where Americans are paying more to receive less.Collection: Health
Congressional overseers and the public must be given appropriate insight into government activities as well as their legal rationale to ensure America's values are being upheld and our interests advanced.Collection: Legal
Ninety percent of leadership is the ability to communicate something people want.Collection: Leadership
For the life of me, I don't understand what honest motive there is in putting this in front of this body to philosophically debate marriage on a constitutional amendment that is not going to happen, and which is enormously divisive in all of our communities.Collection: Marriage
We're not perfect, and there are some dark patches in our past, but what makes us special is that we recognize these evils, we come to grips with them, and we fix them.
Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of all Americans to feel safe.
We have no regulation of drones in the United States in their commercial use. You can see drones some day hovering over the homes of Hollywood luminaries, violating privacy. This question has to be addressed. And we need rules of operation on the border, by police, by commercial use, and also by military and intelligence use.
Winning may not be everything, but losing has little to recommend it.
Toughness doesn't have to come in a pinstripe suit.
Let me say this: I believe closing Guantanamo is in our Nation's national security interest. Guantanamo is used not only by al-Qaida, but also by other nations, governments, and individuals - people good and bad - as a symbol of America's abuse of Muslims, and it is fanning the flames of anti-Americanism around the world.
I am religious in my thinking.
America is big enough to admit when it's wrong and confident enough to learn from its mistakes.
As a former nine-year member of the Board of Supervisors and nine-year mayor, I know firsthand the merits of strong zoning laws. They protect residential areas so they can support families and be free of commercial activities that are not related to neighborhood needs.
Survival is nothing more than recovery.
Women have begun to see that if I go through that doorway, I take everybody through it.
Rogue internet pharmacies continue to pose a serious threat to the health and safety of Americans. Simply put, a few unethical physicians and pharmacists have become drug suppliers to a nation.
It is my hope that the number of stem cell lines available for federally-funded research will be expanded so that the government can continue to participate in this vital research and provide hope to the millions of Americans with diseases that might be cured.
Ports are the gaping hole in America's homeland security.
Well, that day is gone, and it will not occur again.
We have a chance to wind down and expedite the removal of 96 percent of the world's nuclear weapons. What an achievement it would be, if at the end of the next administration, we could say that the nuclear arsenals of both Russia and the United States had been reduced to the barest minimums.
Global warming is real. It is happening today. It is being charted by our satellites. It is being charted by our scientists. It is being charted by those of us in this body, and I think the real key is if we are ready to admit that fact and take the action to make the necessary conversion.
It is my belief that tax credits only go to people who are making money, and they generally keep it.
The time has come to repeal 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.' It is the right thing to do. Every American should have the opportunity to serve their country, regardless of race, sex, creed, or sexual orientation.
If we want our nuclear stockpile to truly serve the interests of our country in a strategic, balanced manner, we have to change course. That means pursuing creative options such as reducing the weapons held in reserve.
Supreme Court justices should not be an extension of the Republican Party.
In the wake of 9/11, we were desperate to bring those responsible for the brutal attacks to justice. But even that urgency did not justify torture. The United States must be held to a higher standard than our enemies, yet some of our actions did not clear that bar.
Our system of checks and balances requires policymakers to have accurate information about government actions.
Torture goes against the very soul of our country. We are a democracy, established on the rule of law.
Let me be crystal clear: There is no such thing as 'limited use' nuclear weapons, and for a Pentagon advisory board to promote their development is absolutely unacceptable.
Nuclear weapons present us with a paradox: We spend billions of dollars building and maintaining them in the hope that we never have to use them.
The sole purpose of nuclear weapons must be to deter their use by others.
Designing new low-yield nuclear weapons for limited strikes dangerously lowers the threshold for their use.
Simply put, Guantanamo is one of the best propaganda tools that terrorists have today. Our enemies use it to justify terrorism and recruit others to carry out violent jihad, and our allies continue to criticize it as a violation of the rule of law.
In addition to being a terrorist recruiting tool, Guantanamo is a huge drain on taxpayer dollars.
There's no reason to think a Guantanamo detainee is any more likely to escape from Supermax than any other federal prisoner.
Tax reform shouldn't add one penny to our deficit or to the tax bills of middle-class Americans.
Theft of a firearm should be punished as a felony, plain and simple.
At age 14, my paternal grandfather fled Poland to escape the pogroms that killed tens of thousands of European Jews. He worked full-time for a cobbler in Boston, making his way to California and eventually starting his own business in Taft - the Goldman Oil Supply Company.
My mother emigrated from Russia as a young child. She couldn't speak English and had no education. Her father died at age 32, leaving the family destitute. An uncle, who worked as a carpenter, supported the family.
We cannot expect to keep our nation's secrets secure - or provide meaningful oversight for our intelligence agencies - if proper classification of our country's secrets is as likely as a coin flip.
Information-sharing is elementary to good intelligence work.
Student loan debt is certainly not a fitting topic for a commencement speech, but it's an issue we must confront - not only for thousands of college graduates who deserve a fair shot, but also for our economy.
College costs continue to rise, and student loan debt threatens to price many Americans out of a college education and out of the middle class.
If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them... 'Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in,' I would have done it.Collection: Gun