Russ Feingold Quotes

It is not patriotic to decide to destroy a new president who was duly elected by an overwhelming margin. It is un-patriotic to resolve to destroy that presidency.

It's not enough to be in the majority, you have to stand for something.

It's just really tragic after all the horrors of the last 1,000 years we can't leave behind something as primitive as government-sponsored execution.

I have long believed that Israel should seek to give up the so-called Occupied Territories in return for security, and that a Palestinian state should be established. I have felt that way all my life. I think it is unreasonable to ask the Israelis to do this in a context where there is no guarantee at all that suicide bombers will be controlled.

Speech doesn't corrupt. Money corrupts, and money isn't speech.

It is crucial that civil liberties in this country be preserved, otherwise the terrorists will win the battle against American values without firing another shot.

That's what I like about you, senator, you're kicking it old-school.

Jews know the Palestinians. And they know they're not really different. And they know they are from the same background. And they know if they coordinated that they could be an economic success and a real basis for a rebirth in the Middle East.

The notion of American exceptionalism is effective in part because there is little on the face of it that is offensive.

The Tea Party ended up being a shill for corporate America.

There is nothing more American than peaceful protest.

I believe that the Israelis and the Palestinians, by and large, want peace, they each want their own country, and they want to get along, and they are going to get along. I know it sounds unbelievable, but I know enough about this, having been there, that these are sophisticated people. It's not like in Pakistan, where people have been told about Jews for a thousand years but don't know any. The Palestinians know the Jews.

Why should we believe people who constantly try to push these trade agreements and won't even admit when one has gone wrong? It makes working people feel like the process is rigged. The reason is, it is rigged.

Unfair trade agreements, passed by both Republicans and Democrats, have sent millions of jobs to other countries. We need to stop this hemorrhaging and find ways for American workers to compete in the new market.

Make no mistake, our military readiness is already suffering. According to a recent RAND study, the Army has been stretched so thin that active-duty soldiers are now spending one of every two years abroad, leaving little of the Army left in any appropriate condition to respond to crises that may emerge elsewhere in the world.

People whose terms go for five years or longer, like FCC commissioners. That's a higher standard. Then district judges, who are appointed for a lifetime but can be overruled. Then Court of Appeals judges. They're not the highest level, but they're almost the final word. And then, of course, the Supreme Court.

Congress has lost its way if we don't hold this President accountable for his actions.

There's a tendency on the part of Americans, all of us, to say, 'Hey, the Cold War is over, the Soviet Union is gone, we don't have to worry about these guys again.' We always have to be worried about them, we always have to be concerned about them, and we have to be well-informed.

The conservative version of American exceptionalism has become a password of sorts for candidates who want to prove their credentials to a right-wing America.

When the President picks someone who is his ideological soul mate, that's his right, in my reading of "advise and consent." I do think, though, the more you get up the ladder, when someone is no longer accountable to the President, and more importantly, will stay in office after the President, the standard gets tougher and tougher.

He's got to do better than the shoddy piecing together of flimsy evidence that contradicts the briefings we have received by various agencies. I'm not hearing the same things at the briefings that I'm hearing from the president's top officials.

It's time to refocus our global fight against terrorism. We must move away from the Iraq-centric policies that are draining our resources and focus on Al Qaeda and its affiliates who are reportedly operating in some 60 to 80 countries around the world.

The president and others say that if we leave, it will just be chaos in Iraq. Well, right now when you come to Iraq, you can't even drive from the airport to the Green Zone.

The President's pre-1776 mentality is hurting America and fracturing the foundation on which our country has stood for 230 years. The President can't just bypass two branches of government, and obey only those laws he wants to obey.

The Democrats were in the majority in the U.S. Senate when we voted for the Iraq war and passed the U.S. Patriot Act. It's not enough to be in the majority, you have to stand for something.