In most cases, cables are marked secret not because the U.S. requires it but because those speaking to us - the foreign leaders across the table - do. They are not keeping secrets from us, but from two other groups: their enemies and their subjects.
The Knesset is in Israel, and the Western Wall is in Israel, and the sooner the Obama administration realizes this, the closer it will be to a Middle East policy worthy of our country and its long alliance with our ally in Jerusalem - which is, actua...
Two presidents pursued human rights policies that were serious and effective: Reagan and George W. Bush. They understood that American support for human rights activists is a moral imperative for us and also makes the world safer for us.
Too often, as a global community of humanitarians, we meet the needs of the same families, the same individuals, the same communities crisis after crisis, when we are focused on meeting crisis needs but not on building resilience.
The people in the United States are some of the most generous people in the world. We saw it in Haiti. We saw it with Katrina. When devastation strikes, American people want to step up.
I'm lucky. As soon as I open my mouth, people see I know what I'm talking about, and when I leave the room, I think most say, 'She's OK.'
Unfortunately, the world pays attention when the media shines a light on those in need, which is why it's so important that we maintain the global public will that is necessary to meet the needs of those we serve.
You know, I once read a short story about how much you could tell about people from their shoes. You could tell where they had been, what they did, whether they were real walkers.
What happened after Katrina is that people were stirred to action; there were an enormous number of contributions by people trying to make a difference. But then we forget. We've forgotten Katrina victims, we've forgotten the face of poverty.
The State Department desperately needs to be vigorously harnessed. It has too big a role to play in the formulation of foreign policy, and foreign policy is too important to be left up to foreign service officers.
I have loved the Department of Justice ever since, as a young boy, I watched Robert Kennedy prove during the Civil Rights Movement how the department can - and must - always be a force for that which is right.
I urge the citizens of Ferguson who have been peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights to join with law enforcement in condemning the actions of looters, vandals and others seeking to inflame tensions and sow discord.
In a lot of ways, civil rights division is the conscience of the Justice Department. You can almost measure what kind of Justice Department you have by what kind of civil rights division that you have.
Kids who I grew up with, who I played ball with, basketball, baseball, and went to parties with - for whatever reason - they ended up in a fundamentally different place than I did. I'm the attorney general of the United States and they are ex-felons.
Although the attorney general is a part of the president's team, you're really separate and apart. You have a special responsibility as the nation's chief law enforcement officer. There has to be a distance that you keep - between this department and...
The reality is that we will be reading Miranda rights to the corpse of Osama bin Laden. He will never appear in an American courtroom. That's the reality. He will be killed by us, or he will be killed by his own people so he's not captured by us. We ...
When people are desperate or wealthy, they turn to socialism; only when they have no other alternative do they embrace the free market. After all, lies about guaranteed security are far more seductive than lectures about personal responsibility.
There are times that everyone hates his or her job. Were they freed from the economic consequences of having these jobs, they'd drop out of the workforce. There are only two problems with this strategy: First, someone has to pay for it; second, it is...
The vast majority of murdered whites are murdered by other whites. That's why there's no national outrage when a white person is killed by a black person: it's not evidence of some underlying black violence problem directed against white people.
President Obama has only had two major policy victories during his tenure: the stimulus package and Obamacare. Both are massively unpopular. The stimulus package launched the Tea Party movement. Obamacare led to the Republican wipeout of 2010.
In the aftermath of President Obama's re-election, members of both the administration and the media trumpeted that Obama had received his long-sought mandate. Obamacare, Americans were told, was the law of the land. It could not be changed; it could ...
