Political Quotes

“I thank the Senator from Virginia for his clarion call for the U.S. Senate to assert its constitutional responsibility when it comes to the prospect of a war with Iran. He has referenced, many times, the War Powers Act. The War Powers Act, students of history will remember, was passed by the U.S. Congress after the end of the Vietnam war so Congress would assert, with specificity, its authority when it came to the execution of a war. The President at the time, Richard Nixon, opposed the War Powers Act and vetoed it, and because of what the United States had endured during the course of the Vietnam war, Congress overrode the veto of President Nixon to make it clear, with the War Powers Act, that we would never ever, by design, find ourselves in the same moral predicament we did with the war in Vietnam. Almost 50,000 American lives were lost in that war in Vietnam, a war which was not a declared war under the Constitution but one which still exacted a heavy, incalculable price on American families--families I know and everyone knows, whose lives were touched by that Vietnam war, whose sons and daughters may have served or may have given their lives in service. The decision was made in Congress never again. We are not going to let this happen again. We are not going to find ourselves backsliding into a war.…”