Mark Kirk

My top priority on this subcommittee is to make sure we build the missile defense site in Poland to make sure we can defend our NATO ally there.

I am getting increasingly worried about the cost.

A sequester-level budget would undermine the Department's ability to meet the current defense strategy, have consequences to national security.

I believe a recent statement by my colleague referred to it as the recent unpleasantness.

Under the HERO Act, we have ICE hiring veterans to get on the Internet to find some of the slave dealers online. We should thread the needle very carefully when it comes to matters such as backpage.com. Under the Communications Decency…

I thank the Senator from Texas for moving this legislation, especially including the text of the HERO Act, S. 575, which is bipartisan, thanks to the help of Senator Blumenthal, that would also have us find wounded warriors to search on…

How does ATF plan to disrupt violent crime using NIBIN into areas of the country that have minimal resources but high levels of gang members and gun crime?

I appreciate the DEA's mission to enforce our Nation's drug laws and fighting gangs of national significance who deal in illegal narcotics is key to that mission.

I commend the Marshals Service for having a Counter Gang Unit up and running in the Great Lakes Regional Task Force that serves Chicago.

What is the FBI doing to ensure we have Arabic speaking FBI staff located at high-threat locations, like Chicago?

Very much so. The way we thread the needle here is to make online providers of slavery services liable for the costs that local governments incur in cleaning up the mess they create. In the case of Cook County, IL, we have had our…

The critical issue is how to restrict the ability of Americans to enslave each other. I don't think we should have that freedom. We want to make sure we thread the needle very carefully here, to make sure the freedom and commerce available…

As a Senator from Illinois, our true gift to the people of this country has been individual freedom and dignity, epitomized by the Lincoln candidacy for the Senate, and by the victory in the Civil War. We should not allow the freedom of…

Amendment No. 273 would include the SAVE Act, which has already substantially passed with huge bipartisan support of the party of the Senator from Vermont in the House of Representatives. If we look, we will find that backpage.com is…

I thank the Senator. Madam President, this is an amendment that is directed at attacking backpage.com, which stands on the principle that was well established in the Civil War--that we Americans have freedom and we should not be free to…

I would say that this amendment is directed at backpage.com, probably the largest provider of online slavery services in the United States. I would hope the Senator is not defending Lacey and Larkin, who make $30 million a year off of…

I ask the Senator from Vermont if he opposes the amendment that was also cosponsored by Senator Feinstein.

Assyrian Christians, including women, children, priests, and the elderly are being driven from their homes, kidnapped, violently attacked and in many cases killed by the Islamic State or ISIL in Iraq and Syria.

I am going to be doing what I can to make sure that Mavash Sabet is a poster child for all the prisoners of conscience that we see in Iran.

You can't solve this problem militarily alone, but if you don't have a capable military, you are never going to solve this problem.

If we are not involved over there constructively, it is just a matter of time before they come here.

There is a fight for the heart and soul of Islam. This is a religious war, and we need to take sides.

This is not just about killing people who are terrorists. It is about building up those who would fight back.

Young people are demanding more rights. They are refusing to live in dictatorships for our convenience.

We will have the smallest Army since 1940, the smallest Navy since 1915.