Political Quotes

“Mr. President, Jimmy Greene and his wife Nelba lost a daughter in Sandy Hook. Jimmy said this, leading up to the 10-year mark of the shooting in Newtown that we are commemorating today: There is a saying in our culture that ``time heals all wounds,'' but I wouldn't say that is true in my case. Senator Blumenthal and I have been down here on December 14 for 9 years in a row. Senator Blumenthal and I have given hundreds of speeches on this floor in the intervening days and months, in between those anniversaries, talking about what happened in Sandy Hook and trying to compel our colleagues to action. But there is nothing that we can say that explains through words the feeling of cataclysmic loss when you lose a child--a 6-year-old or a 7-year-old or an 18-year-old or a 19-year-old. Senator Blumenthal and I were there at the firehouse in Sandy Hook that day. There are a lot of days when I wish I hadn't heard and seen the things that I saw and heard that day. But we were voyeurs. We were interlopers. There is no way that we can understand what those families are going through today, as the pain still feels, for many, as acute as it did 10 years ago. So Senator Blumenthal and I think it is important to come down here and honor the memory of those children and those six educators every year on December 14. But I also know that there is nothing that I can do with words to explain to you how different the community of Sandy Hook is and how those lives will never, ever be the same.…”