Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I have great respect for my colleague, Mr. Smith, and I have served proudly with him on the Armed Services Committee. I remind him that it is our responsibility. As our Founding Fathers established in 1777, it is Congress under Article I that has the rights and authorities to be able to designate which flags are flown over military installations. We are not talking about outside of their barracks. We are not talking about what they fly outside of their own rooms or even the buildings that they occupy. We are talking about the military installation as a whole. The one thing that Congress has gotten very good at is abdicating our responsibilities the same way that we abdicate Article I, Section 8, Clauses 11 through 13 of our war powers authority within the actual AUMF, Authorization for Use of Military Force. I ask my colleagues to explain why. In 1777, we deemed this as a congressional authority, but we now say that any command--and there are good commands; there are bad commands-- has the right to overrule what has actually been done here in the body. Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues, once again, to explain why we continue to abdicate our roles and responsibilities within this Chamber only to complain about them further later. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.”