Edward Kennedy
I had the privilege of chairing Judge Samuel Alito confirmation hearing in 1990. And at that time, he had practiced law for 14 years, but only represented one client, the United States government.Collection: Government
She's a wonderful, wonderful person, and we're looking to a happy and wonderful night - ah, life.Collection: Night
In decision after decision on the bench, Judge [Samuel] Alito has excused abusive actions by the authorities that intrude on the personal privacy and freedoms of average Americans.Collection: Average
It is extraordinary that each of the three individuals this president [ George W. Bush] has nominated for the Supreme Court - Chief Justice [John] Roberts, Harriet Miers and now Judge Alito - has served not only as a lawyer for the executive branch, but has defended the most expansive view of presidential authority.Collection: Views
This is the greatest lesson a child can learn. It is the greatest lesson anyone can learn. It has been the greatest lesson I have learned: if you persevere, stick w/it, work @ it, you have a real opportunity to achieve something. Sure, there will be storms along the way. And you might not reach your goal right away. But if you do your best and keep a true compass, you'll get there.Collection: Children
I have fallen short in my life, but my faith has always brought me home.Collection: Home
In an era when too many Americans are losing their jobs or working for less, trying to make ends meet, in close cases Judge [Samuel] Alito has ruled the vast majority of the time against the claims of the individual citizens. He has acted instead in favor of government, large corporations and other powerful interests.Collection: Jobs
I believe that the Constitution is not hostile to the idea that national problems can be solved at the national level through the cooperative efforts of the three coequal branches of government, the Congress, the executive and courts. But not every president, not every legislator and not every judge agrees that the federal government has the power to address and to try to remedy the twin national problems of poverty and access to equal opportunity.Collection: Believe
[W]ords are fine, but it has to be what a generation reads into those words.Collection: Generations
If a legislator is safe from competition, or if he represents groups with the same economic and political beliefs, he does not have to change his ideas or respond to the needs of the broader population. He can rest content with a mediocre, absentee performance knowing he will be returned to office. And as he is returned year after year the seniority system gives him immense control over people from other parts of the country whose views he need not heed at all.Collection: Country
That is a pretty big deal from a commitment standpoint.Collection: Commitment
Sometimes a party must sail against the wind. We cannot heed the call of those who say it is time to furl the sail. The party that tore itself apart over Vietnam in the 1960s cannot afford to tear itself apart today over budget cuts in basic social programs.Collection: Party
Separation of church and state cannot mean an absolute separation between moral principles and political power.Collection: Mean
Democrats would use every tool in our arsenal to ensure that his [Charles Pickering] nomination is rejected again this year.Collection: Years
I won't yield to anyone about guns in our society. I know enough about it.Collection: Gun
I believe that religious witness should not mobilize public authority to impose a view where a decision is inherently private in nature or where people are deeply divided about whether it is... Americans are plainly and persistently divided about abortion and the fiat of government cannot settle the issue as a matter of conscience or of conduct.Collection: Religious
The AMA puts the lives and well being of the American citizens well below it's own special interest...It deserves to be ignored, rejected, and forgotten. No amount of historical gymnastics can hide the public record of AMA opposition to virtually every major health reform in the past 50 years....The AMA has turned into a propaganda organ purveying 'medical politics' for deceiving the Congress, the people, and the doctors of America themselves.Collection: Dark
Were I to make the announcement and to run, the reasons I would run is because I have a great belief in this country [America]. ... There's more natural resources than any nation in the world; the greatest education population in the world; the greatest technology of any country in the world; the greatest capacity for innovation in the world; and the greatest political system in the world.Collection: Running
I get up very early in the morning. I enjoy the quietness, the stillness, the rawness in the winter and fall. It's a special time.Collection: Morning
We cannot simply speak out against an escalation of troops in Iraq, we must act to prevent it... There can be no doubt that the Constitution gives Congress the authority to decide whether to fund military action, and Congress can demand a justification from the president for such action before it appropriates the funds to carry it out.Collection: Military
I hope for an America where neither fundamentalist nor humanist will be a dirty word, but a fair description of the different ways in which people of good will look at life and into their own souls.Collection: Dirty
I applaud the fact that the president has reached out to the members of Judiciary Committee. And I applaud... the fact that he has been meeting with members of the Judiciary Committee. He's been seeking out Republicans as well as Democrats.Collection: President
Our commitment to this founding principle is especially relevant today. Americans are united as rarely before in compassion and generosity for our fellow citizens whose lives have been devastated by Hurricane Katrina. The powerful winds and floodwater of Katrina tore away the mask that has hidden from public view the many Americans who are left out and left behind.Collection: Powerful
A good marriage is loving someone in a lot of different circumstances. Respect for them and their views and ideas and the life that they're leading with you. Shared values and interests. A good sense of humour. And a little volatility along the way.Collection: Views
The separation of church and state can sometimes be frustrating for women and men of deep religious faith. They may be tempted to misuse government in order to impose a value which they cannot persuade others to accept. But once we succumb to that temptation, we step onto a slippery slope where everyone's freedom is at risk.Collection: Religious
What we have in the United States is not so much a health-care system as a disease-care system.Collection: United States
I don't think you're going to be a success in anything if you think about losing, whether it's in sports or in politics.Collection: Sports
It appears that legal positions that you have supported have been used by the administration, the military, and the CIA to justify torture and Geneva Convention violations by military and civilian personnel.Collection: Military
Although my doctors informed me that I suffered a cerebral concussion, as well as shock, I do not seek to escape responsibility for my actions by placing the blame either on the physical and emotional trauma brought on by the accident, or on anyone else. I regard as indefensible the fact that I did not report the accident to the police immediately.Collection: Responsibility
Under the Bush administration, openness and accountability have been replaced by secrecy and evasion of responsibility. They abuse their power, conceal their actions from the American people, and refuse to hold officials accountable.Collection: Responsibility
Ultimately, the courts will make the final judgment whether the White House has gone too far. Independent and impartial judges must assess the proper balance between protecting our liberties and protecting our national security.Collection: Independent
In fact, the legal system is in part responsible for their very size and growth. And too often when the individual finds himself in conflict with these forces, the legal system sides with the giant institution, not the small businessman or private citizen.Collection: Growth
We know the future will outlast all of us, but I believe that all of us will live on in the future we made.Collection: Believe
From the windows of my office in Boston ... I can see the Golden Stairs from Boston Harbor where all eight of my great-grandparents set foot on this great land for the first time. That immigrant spirit of limitless possibility animates America even today.Collection: Eight
The core values of our constitution are at the heart of our nation's progress.Collection: Heart
Have faith in yourself and in the future.Collection: Inspire
Democrats may be in the minority in Congress, but we speak for the majority of Americans.Collection: Majority
I don't think America can just drill itself out of its current energy situation. We don't need to destroy the environment to meet our energy needs. We need smart, comprehensive, common-sense approaches that balance the need to increase domestic energy supplies with the need to maximize energy efficiency.Collection: Smart
We need the breast and the brightest to- umm the best and the brightest.Collection: Needs
The torture and other sadistic abuses of prisoners in Iraq have done immense damage already to America's reputation in the world, and the worst may be yet to come. Shamefully, we now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management: U.S. management.Collection: Iraq
The Republican program is the profit-protection program for the insurance industry It's a bill of goods, it's a bill of wrongs. Ours is a patients' bill of rights.Collection: Rights
The more our feelings diverge, the more deeply felt they are, the greater is our obligation to grant the sincerity and essential decency of our fellow citizens on the other side.Collection: Feelings
Individual faults and frailties are no excuse to give in - and no exemption from the common obligation to give of ourselves.Collection: Giving
The demand of our people in 1980 is not for smaller government or bigger government but for better government.Collection: Government
I think a child calling for his mother is the most beautiful sound in the world.Collection: Beautiful
If Saddam's regime and survival are threatened [by invasion], he will have nothing to lose, and may use everything at his disposal... If weapons of mass destruction land on Israeli soil, killing innocent civilians, the experts I have consulted believe Israel will retaliate, and possibly with nuclear weapons... Nor can we rule out the possibility that Saddam would assault American forces with chemical or biological weapons.Collection: Believe
As we have seen from Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's example, even one justice can profoundly alter the meaning of those words for our citizens. Even one justice can deeply affect the rights and liberties of the American people.Collection: Rights
Justice Lewis Powell spoke for all of us when he said: Equal justice under law is perhaps the most inspiring idea of our society. It is one of the ends for which our entire legal system exists.Collection: Law
Will a nominee embrace and uphold the essential meaning of the four words inscribed above the entrance of the Supreme Court building: Equal justice under law?Collection: Law