On the recordJune 26, 2024
America. Mr. Speaker, what a beautiful sound it is to just utter the name of this great country of ours. Americans do not share a common ancestry or common religion, but we are bound together by something that is bigger than us: the ideals of freedom and democracy. Our belief and faith in democracy, and the freedoms it provides, unite us, and it strengthens us. Yet, today's extreme Republican appropriations bills pit Americans against each other. They insert partisan culture wars into what should be funding to protect Americans from foreign wars. Republican culture wars undermine our unity. Their culture wars undermine our democracy, our security, and our freedom. Their culture wars limit our ability to see each other as something bigger than our individual selves, States, or party affiliation. Sometimes it is hard to picture democracy, but we can feel it. We can feel it when we see those soldiers whom we celebrated recently because they crossed the channel and stormed Normandy with salt and fear in their mouths. We can see it when we imagine the sand that has blown around and seeped into the pores of our servicemen and -women in the Middle East. They were all fighting for democracy. That is what it feels like. However, if this Republican Defense appropriations bill passes, then many of our brave servicewomen who tasted that sand would lose their own reproductive health freedoms even as they fight for American freedom.…
