Political Quotes

“Mr. President, a second subject that I wish to talk about today on human rights deals with the collapse in Venezuela. I come to the floor to speak about Venezuela's growing humanitarian tragedy and accelerating economic collapse. Late last June, here on the Senate floor, I described Venezuela as a nearly failed State, where authoritarian leaders profit from links to corruption and drug trafficking, while the Venezuelan people are subject to precarious humanitarian conditions and human rights abuses. Disturbingly, the situation has only deteriorated since the time I was last on the floor talking about the circumstances. With Venezuela's humanitarian crisis growing daily, conditions facing Venezuelan children are particularly dire. This week, the New York Times published a heartbreaking investigation of how Venezuelan children dying of hunger. It states: Parents go days without eating, shriveling to the weight of children themselves. Women line up at sterilization clinics to avoid having children they cannot feed. Boys leave home to join street gangs that scavenge for scraps. . . . Crowds of adults storm dumpsters after restaurants close. Babies die because it is hard to find or afford infant formula, even in emergency rooms. That is in our hemisphere in Venezuela. The Catholic relief organization Caritas has determined that over 50 percent of the children are suffering from nutritional deficiencies.…”