Thank you, Madam President. I am here on the floor today to talk about an issue that has received a tremendous amount of attention, and rightfully so, in the last few weeks and it is the outrage of what is happening at the Veterans'…

Reserving the right to object, I wish to address a couple of points. The first is on the issue of politicizing this. I agree. In fact, that is why I have not come forward and said that the Secretary should resign. There are times in this…

Madam President, a bunch of issues were raised about the cost of the war in Iraq, how much money we spent, and how good we are at spending that money for the veterans. I think that is a valid debate and it is a debate we should have and…

The nature of al-Qaeda has dramatically changed over the last number of years.

What I am trying to put forward here is that we cannot continue to ignore that persecution of Christians is a leading motivator.

It is never the wrong time to condemn and sanction individuals responsible for grotesque human rights violations.

So is it the policy now of the United States that as long as this dialogue is somewhat successful, we are going to forget the human rights violations?

What kind of dialogue is that where the people that are involved in the dialogue cannot tell you what they really believe? That is a fake dialogue.

This is about punishing and shaming individuals responsible for human rights violations.

I would list 50 people, if I could, today but at least 23 people that today I wanted to share with you and everyone that I believe should be candidates for sanctions.

This is not a United States-Venezuela issue. This is for the Venezuelan people to decide what they want to do with the future of their politics.