Political Quotes

“I thank my colleague from Oregon for his eloquence and for the power of his remarks. He speaks not only for Oregon but for America. He speaks for every one of our communities and States that ought to fear this overreach. It was, indeed, one of the main fears of our Founding Fathers that the misuse and abuse of our military and policing power--of violating fundamental rights--would encroach on our basic liberties. Now, let's be very real. Federal forces were used before to restore order in the face of violence after the Rodney King incident, after the killing of Martin Luther King in 1968, in Little Rock in 1957, in Oxford, MS, in 1962, and in going further back in our history, after the Pullman Strike and after the Detroit race riots in 1943, but this time is different. This time is fundamentally different. As my colleague has so powerfully described from the descriptions and the photographs that he has brought to the Senate floor, what we have here is not some violent encroachment by one group against another and not just some use of violence. We have peaceful protests. In fact, the purpose and effect of the use of Federal forces here has been to incite and fuel violence. It was the same purpose that Richard Nixon sought to use Federal force when protesters against the Vietnam war came to Washington.…”