Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, we were doing pretty well there, but behind the discussion of ducks were some pretty aggressive accusations of lying of American Government officials, dishonesty, attributions of motives, which is really what I am and I think what we are all trying to avoid here. {time} 0945 I will say it again. As profoundly frustrating as it is, we just don't know. We are entitled to have theories. We are citizens, after all. We shouldn't be so certain in those theories that we are willing to impugn the character and motives of other Americans, especially if those Americans are in positions of responsibility that need to be trusted in the next pandemic. So I will leave that there. I do want to characterize and substantiate my rather frustrating observation that we just don't know--with what the intelligence community believes is the latest assessment on the origins--again, I understand this is frustrating, but facts are important. Here it is, and this is a publicly available document: Four intelligence community elements and the National Intelligence Council assess, with low confidence, that the virus was likely caused by natural exposure to animals infected with it. One IC element assesses, with moderate confidence, that the first human infection most likely was the result of a laboratory-associated incident. Then analysts at three IC elements remain unable to coalesce around either explanation.…”