Congress Quotes - page 54
Some people view the public domain with contempt. In their brief before the Supreme Court, the Nashville Songwriters Association wrote that the public domain is nothing more than "legal piracy." But it is not piracy when the law allows it; and in our constitutional system, our law requires it. Some may not like the Constitution's requirements, but that doesn't make the Constitution a pirate's charter.
As we've seen, our constitutional system requires limits on copyright as a way to assure that copyright holders do not too heavily influence the development and distribution of our culture. Yet, as Eric Eldred discovered, we have set up a system that assures that copyright terms will be repeatedly extended, and extended, and extended. We have created the perfect storm for the public domain. Copyrights have not expired, and will not expire, so long as Congress is free to be bought to extend them again.
Lawrence Lessig
We've come to a point where every four years this national fever rises up - this hunger for the Saviour, the White Knight, the Man on Horseback - and whoever wins becomes so immensely powerful, like Nixon is now, that when you vote for President today you're talking about giving a man dictatorial power for four years. I think it might be better to have the President sort of like the King of England - or the Queen - and have the real business of the presidency conducted by... a City Manager-type, a Prime Minister, somebody who's directly answerable to Congress, rather than a person who moves all his friends into the White House and does whatever he wants for four years. The whole framework of the presidency is getting out of hand. It's come to the point where you almost can't run unless you can cause people to salivate and whip each other with big sticks. You almost have to be a rock star to get the kind of fever you need to survive in American politics.
Hunter S. Thompson
I have a greater appreciation for how change actually happens. If something could change with the flip of a switch, it would have been done before. By the same token, there's always going to be a bit of a disconnect. Whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, if you're under 35, you're for marriage equality, you want to raise the debt ceiling, and you want better access to health care and entrepreneurship. But the average age in the senate is 62 or 63. Like most people who turn on the news, I think, OK, the members of congress are out of touch.
Kal Penn
There's people in this country that are Jewish that no longer love Israel.
I'll tell you the Evangelical Christians love Israel more than the Jews in this country.
It used to be that Israel had absolute power over Congress and today I think it's the exact opposite, and I think Obama and Biden did that.
And yet in the election, they still get a lot of votes from Jewish people...which tells you that the Jewish people, and I've said this for a long time.
The Jewish people in the United States either don't like Israel or don't care about Israel.
I mean, you look at The New York Times, The New York Times hates Israel, hates them, and they're Jewish people that run The New York Times, I mean the Sulzberger family.
Donald Trump
In a sense what he's calling for [President Trumps plans to create a United States Space Force] is acknowledging something that has existed in an unacknowledged special access project, black project, that has been operational in one form or another since the mid-to-late ‘60s... I have a man who is a very top secret technology management office whistleblower from the Pentagon who has acknowledged to me that we have operational systems on satellites in space that can track and target and destroy any object in space, and those have been fully operational for many years.... This is what we've discovered is the unacknowledged extra access projects are run off the books in an extra-constitutional way, and the leaders in Congress and in the presidency rarely have full access, never mind control, over those projects. This is something that needs correcting as soon as possible.
Steven M. Greer
We're spending well over a $100 million per day on classified programs that have no congressional oversight, no public scrutiny, uh, there is no monitor of these programs. A number of these programs go directly through Congress, totally. When you start going through these documents, these programs start dropping off the radar screen. These are all classified programs within the defense budget, but they don't supply any technical information on the program.
Steven M. Greer
Helen Thomas
I think American policy is pro‐Israel. If you take a vote in Congress, maybe you might get five people vote against any further aid to Israel or to continue its occupation. But that's about it. They control- They have vast power.
Paul Jay
Who's they?
Helen Thomas
The Zionists.
Helen Thomas
I was kinda torn on-on that. (Donald Trump's announcement he was banning transgender individuals from the US military) I know Congress was looking at it. So maybe he signed a bill they passed or something, but the upside is that the army was refusing to prohibit, you know, big hairy men from going into the ladies' locker room in the Marines, in the army. And I thought, "Well, you know, maybe finally this will cut down on girls in the marines."
Ann Coulter
If you believe in the... War in Heaven where a third of the angels were cast out... it was about man's choice and he would provide a saviour and Satan's plan was... I'll save everybody... just take away their choice and give me the credit...that plan was rejected... because God knew that...failure was important ...the progressives have... replaced God... they are taking.... rights are not given to us by our creator, they created by congress, they are taking the role of God, and so they are taking away our suffering, they are taking away all of our pain, all of the opportunity to fail...
Glenn Beck
The battle for the airwaves cannot be limited to only those who have the bank accounts to pay for the battle and win it. Democracy is in danger. Seats in Congress, seats in the state legislature, that big seat in the White House itself, can be purchased by those who have the greatest campaign resources, who have the largest bank accounts or own riches.
That, I submit to you, is no democracy. It is an oligarchy of the already powerful. It is no less than a conspiracy of the powerful to deny access to government to those who literally cannot afford to run for public office with any realistic hope of getting elected.
Walter Cronkite
He became a lawyer and in 1929 joined the Indian National Congress movement. He was jailed several times in the struggle for Indian independence. He served in the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh) state assembly from 1937 on and was chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1967–68 and 1970.
Charan Singh
First of all I'd like to thank The Struggle and the IMT for giving me a chance to speak last year at their Summer Marxist School in Swat and also for introducing me to Marxism and Socialism. I just want to say that in terms of education, as well as other problems in Pakistan, it is high time that we did something to tackle them ourselves. It's important to take the initiative. We cannot wait around for any one else to come and do it. Why are we waiting for someone else to come and fix things? Why aren't we doing it ourselves? I would like to send my heartfelt greetings to the congress. I am convinced Socialism is the only answer and I urge all comrades to take this struggle to a victorious conclusion. Only this will free us from the chains of bigotry and exploitation.
Malala Yousafzai
The question which the House would have to decide was, whether a system had been created under which all countries might live in that peace which it was the great object of the confederacy to establish. A difference of sentiment on some points of the arrangements could be no impeachment of the wisdom of the whole. Perfection belonged to no work of human beings, even when many years were devoted to it; much less when its completion was accelerated by the necessity of circumstances. On this general principle he applauded and was prepared to maintain the proceedings of the Congress at Vienna.
Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh
In 1988 his [Shekhar's] Janata Party merged with several other opposition parties to form the Janata Dal Party under the leadership of V.P. Singh, who subsequently became prime minister. After leading an internal rebellion against Singh, Shekhar broke with the Janata Dal Party on 5 November 1990, and quickly formed the Janata Dal–Socialist faction. With the support of Rajiv Gandhi's Congress (I) Party, he replaced Singh as India's prime minister on 10 November 1990, as head of a weak minority government. He resigned on 6 March 1991, after the Congress (I) Party withdrew its support, but he remained in office as a caretaker until national legislative elections could be held in May and June; he was eventually replaced by P. V. Narasimha Rao.
Chandra Shekhar
The civil service can never be placed on a satisfactory basis until it is regulated by law. For the good of the service itself, for the protection of those who are intrusted with the appointing power against the waste of time and obstruction to the public business caused by the inordinate pressure for place, and for the protection of incumbents against intrigue and wrong, I shall at the proper time ask Congress to fix the tenure of the minor offices of the several Executive Departments and prescribe the grounds upon which removals shall be made during the terms for which incumbents have been appointed.
James A. Garfield
In his first annual message to Congress the same views are forcibly presented, and are again urged in his eighth message. I repeat that the adoption of the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution completes the greatest civil change and constitutes the most important event that has occurred since the nation came into life. The change will be beneficial in proportion to the heed that is given to the urgent recommendations of Washington. If these recommendations were important then, with a population of but a few millions, how much more important now, with a population of 40,000,000, and increasing in a rapid ratio.
Ulysses S. Grant
I am happy to announce the passage of an act by the General Cortes of Portugal, proclaimed since the adjournment of Congress, for the abolition of servitude in the Portuguese colonies. It is to be hoped that such legislation may be another step toward the great consummation to be reached, when no man shall be permitted, directly or indirectly, under any guise, excuse, or form of law, to hold his fellow-man in bondage. I am of opinion also that it is the duty of the United States, as contributing toward that end, and required by the spirit of the age in which we live, to provide by suitable legislation that no citizen of the United States shall hold slaves as property in any other country or be interested therein.
Ulysses S. Grant
Enjoined by the Constitution 'to take care that the laws be faithfully executed', and convinced by undoubted evidence that violations of said act had been committed and that a widespread and flagrant disregard of it was contemplated, the proper officers were instructed to prosecute the offenders, and troops were stationed at convenient points to aid these officers, if necessary, in the performance of their official duties. Complaints are made of this interference by Federal authority; but if said amendment and act do not provide for such interference under the circumstances as above stated, then they are without meaning, force, or effect, and the whole scheme of colored enfranchisement is worse than mockery and little better than a crime. Possibly Congress may find it due to truth and justice to ascertain, by means of a committee, whether the alleged wrongs to colored citizens for political purposes are real or the reports thereof were manufactured for the occasion.
Ulysses S. Grant
