James Lankford Quotes

The bill is incapable of being executed …. It proceeds entirely upon the idea that the State governments will lend their aid to carry it into effect.

A law providing for the payment of a pension of $50 per month to every needy person over sixty years of age who has lived in the State of California three years prior to the date of the coming into effect of the law.

If the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms insists upon a firefight, give them a firefight. Just remember, they're wearing flak jackets and you're better off shooting for the head.

What we had to do was to make it more dangerous for the federal government not to enforce federal law.

The federal government, of course, enjoys a crucial advantage in its ability to evade laws. It owns the prosecutor.

We are the most scrutinized agency of the Federal government and we should be because of the enormous power we have and its potential for abuse

There's nothing we [the Congress] can do to eliminate crime.

Even the animal inspectors of the Department of Agriculture have a badge and carry a gun. Everyone wants a badge and a gun. Then they want arrest powers. Then, red lights on their car, and finally they want law enforcement retirement benefits …. It’s hard to find all the people in the federal government who have badges and guns.

That the people of this State have the sole, exclusive and inherent right of governing and regulating the internal police of the same

Slavery, like all other great systems of wrong, founded in the depths of human selfishness, and existing for ages, has not neglected its own conservation. It has steadily exerted an influence upon all around it favorable to its own continuance. And to-day it is so strong that it could exist, not only without law, but even against law. Custom, manners, morals, religion, are all on its side everywhere in the South; and when you add the ignorance and servility of the ex-slave to the intelligence and accustomed authority of the master, you have the conditions, not out of which slavery will again grow, but under which it is impossible for the Federal government to wholly destroy it, unless the Federal government be armed with despotic power, to blot out State authority, and to station a Federal officer at every cross-road. This, of course, cannot be done, and ought not even if it could.

The most malign of all these dangers today is disregard and disobedience of law. Crime is increasing. Confidence in rigid and speedy justice is decreasing. I am not prepared to believe that this indicates any decay in the moral fiber of the American people. I am not prepared to believe that it indicates an impotence of the Federal Government to enforce its laws.

The pursuit of happiness … calls for the institution of government to regulate and adjust the collisions and passions of society incident to the existence of a civil society.

It is well known to every man in this community, and has become a matter of history throughout the enlightened world, that the government of the United States looked on the scenes of robbing, driving, and murdering of this people and said nothing about the matter, but by silence gave sanction to the lawless proceedings. Hundreds of women and children have been laid in the tomb prematurely.

Virtually all Federal accounting is still oriented toward preventing fraud and theft, not toward controlling costs.

Don’t you realize that the Federal Government has the atomic bomb.

When Federal money goes to the States for the cities, it never gets there.

We continue the policy of not permitting any needy American who can and is willing to work to starve because the Federal Government does not provide work.

The arm of the Federal government is long, but it is far too short to protect the rights of individuals in the interior of distant States. They must have the power to protect themselves, or they will go unprotected, in spite of all the laws the Federal government can put upon the national statute-book.

The federal government has no right to treat all Americans as criminals by spying on their relationship with their doctors, employers, or bankers.

The United States doesn't and can't condone torture. And I want to make very clear that that's the view and the policy of the administration, the policy of the president, and that he's made very clear to American personnel that we will not condone torture....Senator, under no circumstances should we or have we condoned torture.

Governments and local administrative bodies decide to inform the public of their mistakes only when losses have become disproportionately great.

What have we allowed ourselves to become? Are we no longer a nation of laws? Have we become instead a nation of men who make secret arrests? Are secret prisons now simply another tool of the federal government law enforcement? Is secret rendition of individuals now permitted, out of misplaced fear? Have we decided that the writ of habeas corpus is not worth defending? Is torture now an acceptable tool for making us safe? Unfortunately, the single answer to all of these questions from the leaders of our country and to many of our citizens appears to be yes.

There is no doubt that cross border crime and illicit trade harm individuals and communities and pose challenges to governments, including the United States. But the panicked discourse and frenzied law enforcement policies that define Washington’s current approach are an alarmist reaction.

Hackers will always be one step ahead of the Feds.

… in light of the president's newfound boldness in speaking out about the unfairness of marijuana prohibition enforcement, he should take the opportunity to significantly reform federal marijuana policy and rearrange the agencies that have mismanaged it for so long.