There is a fantasy around here that we are fixing the sequester by dealing with it in the Defense budget...

I do not believe you are ever going to be able to protect yourself fully by defensive cyber technology.

I would point out that if we have greater distribution of distributed energy, that is customers making their own energy and interacting with the grid, that in itself would be a national security plus.

The next Pearl Harbor is going to be cyber.

I think that is an important point for this Congress to understand that there is a real problem in national security with leaving the sequester in place.

I rise today to discuss two important issues--first, the Export-Import Bank. There is a lot about this place that puzzles me, but one of the things that this year has puzzled me the most is the movement to somehow defund or end the…

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Ernst). Without objection, it is so ordered. Export-Import Bank

I rise to address the bill before us, the USA FREEDOM Act, and its predecessor, the PATRIOT Act. Before talking about the specifics of those bills, I will try to address the historical context of what it is we are wrestling with and why it…

I consider this extremely grave, a grave issue, because if we don't have reliable intelligence, as policymakers, and if the President doesn't have reliable intelligence, we can't make good policy.

If we can work with other parties, particularly Russia, to move Assad off the stage, then you've got an Arab army, a Muslim army, in Syria.

Assad and ISIS are evil twins. ISIS largely came into existence in reaction to Assad.

we've got to find a strategy that allows us to move Assad aside in some way, working with the Russians, if necessary, or the Iranians, if necessary, because he's the irritant that's keeping this thing stirred up.

I want to submit for the record an extraordinary speech by Robert Gates in 1992, when he was head of the CIA, on the danger of the politicization of intelligence.

we're not going to defeat ISIS with just airpower. Everybody knows that.

We can't wait years for Assad to leave and we turn the guns of the opposition and the Syrian army on ISIL.

I really think you need to rethink a strategy about a safe zone, a no-fly zone, some protection from Assad's barrel bombs.

Which only exacerbates the sectarian conflict, which makes ISIS look good to the Sunni chiefs in Anbar.

it makes the ISIS look invincible and more powerful, and that's--helps in their recruiting, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A strategy that ignores Assad... I just think in--I'm--I think we now need to recognize that that's not a logical strategy.

If we win a town in Syria and lose 10,000 kids in France or Belgium or Florida or Ohio, that's not victory.

We are doing that to ourselves.

Hydro is an enormous resource in America. Clean, renewable and it is one that, I think, we have to clear away some of these issues that make it such a lengthy and expensive process.

I would begin by acknowledging that debt is a problem and it is a serious problem, and it is only going to get worse.

But we are not going to be able to solve them as long as both sides of the political equation adhere to almost theological positions that make it impossible.

It seems to me you have to look at both sides of the ledger if you are talking about stimulating economic growth.