Bob Menendez

So as such, you know that you are taking another level of risk, right?

Thank you for inviting me to testify today.

All politics is local.

And thank you for coming before the Committee.

Good. Let me thank you for your work and your testimony.

Finally, the banking regulators just recently issued a report themselves with reference to their review of servicers' practices.

Well, thank you very much, and you are so effective. You had 5 seconds left.

We must enhance our efforts to prioritize the humane treatment of the Iranian people through the framework of existing United States sanctions on Iran.

We must not be reluctant to support political activists who are courageous enough to demonstrate in the face of extreme government repression.

The United States has a moral obligation to stand in support of the Iranian people's struggle for democracy.

Is there an amount of money or a plan that can actually work there?

I look at the situation in Afghanistan. I look at the $10 billion per month cost of our counterinsurgency effort.

I look at Congress's language, as it relates to the economic support funds for Cyprus, and find that they go to bicommunal projects aimed at reunification measures to reduce tensions and promote peace and cooperation between the two…

That is not acceptable.

I would like to support a country that is making strides in a secular, more democratic direction--respecting the rights, for example, of Coptic Christians.

I don't know how you get to bicommunal efforts if you don't have conversations and engage the Cypriot Government.

I appreciate your recognition of that. The problem is that what AID has been doing over time is taking from the Latin America accounts whenever it faces a challenge.

I rise to call up amendment No. 284, cosponsored by Senators Kerry and Rockefeller, which is at the desk and ask for its immediate consideration. The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report. The assistant legislative clerk read…

This is a man who referred, in 1985, to the slaughter of innocent travelers that included an 11-year-old American child as a 'noble act.'

Unfreezing his assets doesn't seem to me a tactic or a policy that we want to pursue.

I appreciate my friend Senator Corker's concerns. I wish some of those voices...had been raised about Iraq...

I don't understand the standard that we set. To me, it's more than a tactic. It sends a message that even if you have committed crimes they may be excused.

Not to do so I think is unconscionable, given the sacrifices that Colombia has made to produce real progress in this area.

It is no exaggeration to say that crime and violence abetted by organized crime constitute central threats to democratic governance in Central America.

Let me ask--and I'll open this to anyone on the panel--when does the citizen security threat become a national security threat?