Political Quotes

“last week marked the season 13 premiere of late-night host John Oliver's ``Last Week Tonight.'' In the 30-minute monologue, John Oliver laid into the Department of Homeland Security which he says ``remain[s] a massive agency with unclear checks on its power, boatloads of money, and sweeping surveillance authority.'' John Oliver is right, but it is important to remember how we got to this point. I am old enough to remember a time before the Department of Homeland Security. After 9/11, Congress created what would become the third largest Department of the Federal Government. The creation and existence of this Agency was defended, in part, by proponents who argued that immigration was primarily a homeland security issue. But from the beginning, DHS and its various components have struggled to accomplish its many conflicting missions while spending hundreds of billions of dollars. In the wrong hands, this behemoth of an Agency could be weaponized for political purposes. Sadly, that is just what we are seeing today.”