Dick Durbin: “I was disappointed that fiscal year 2011 appropriations contained severe reductions to international programs.”

You can’t survive in politics unless you’re optimistic. You’ve got to believe that even though you face a setback or you don’t have all the laws you need, that tomorrow will be better.

Changes of this magnitude with no discernible justification must be scrutinized.

To leave here without this being a law finalized to protect these young people … is painful, really painful. I don’t want them to feel like I’m abandoning them.

The lowering of the FBI's hiring standards "threaten[s] to undermine the work of the FBI and pose a grave risk to the Bureau's integrity.