Michael Bennet: “this is now the sixth time that I have been on this floor asking for unanimous consent so that the U.S. Senate can do…”

“this is now the sixth time that I have been on this floor asking for unanimous consent so that the U.S. Senate can do its job to ratify, to approve the nominations of flag officers' promotions at the Department of Defense. That is something that we have done as a matter of course in the U.S. Senate for the last 230 years. No Senator in the history of the United States has ever prevented the Senate from proceeding with these nominations of flag officers. I certainly don't have to tell the Presiding Officer how important these promotions are, how critical they are. And observer after observer after observer has said that it is in the national security interest of the United States, not surprisingly, for this Senate to confirm these promotions, to ratify these promotions. We are compromising our national security when one Senator out of the whole 100 people decides that they are going to do something that no Senator has ever done in the history of the United States. No Senator has ever put a blanket hold on the promotions of flag officers, and there is a good reason for that, because if people are willing to play politics with that, they are playing politics with our national security.…”