Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we are given an opportunity in the Senate to witness many things that have an impact on our values and on our votes. I have found that, of course, representing my own State and knowing the challenges families face from one end of the State to the other has really driven me in terms of my legislative agenda--the things that are important to me. That is my first priority. As I have traveled across the United States, I have found other issues that are of great magnitude and have real import when it comes to the lives of people across this Nation. I have also taken some time to visit countries overseas, knowing that the United States is part of a world community and that even though the amount of money we may invest may be small, it can have a profound impact on some of the poorest places on Earth. It was about 6 years ago that I made my first visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo. This was a part of Africa that I had never seen before, and I went to the city of Goma. Goma, in the eastern reaches of the Democratic Republic of Congo, is remote from the capital of that country and has unfortunately become a site where thousands of innocent people have been killed. When I visited Goma, it was clear that it suffered from some of the worst problems of the region: poverty, obviously; disease and war; and troops who left Rwanda after the genocide were living in the jungles of Goma. People were being preyed upon and killed, raped, mutilated.…”