Political Quotes

“I rise to talk about an aspect of the tea party government shutdown that has not gotten the attention it deserves. Sadly, the effects of this tea party shutdown do not stop at our water's edge. The shutdown is putting our national security at risk. The senior Senator from California, the chair of the Intelligence Committee, has talked to us about how 72 percent of our intelligence employees are not working. They are not all useless or laggards or slackers. In fact, there is a high degree of professionalism in the CIA, NSA, and like agencies. To have close to three-quarters of them not on the job puts every American at risk. There is another area that is putting us at risk. We all know that the greatest threat to our national security and to that of Israel--or one of the greatest threats to our national security and the greatest threat to Israel is a nuclear Iran. In order to punish Iran for their pursuit of nuclear weapons, Republicans and Democrats, in a bipartisan way, led in many instances by two of my good friends here, the Democratic senior Senator from New Jersey Mr. Menendez and the Republican senior Senator from South Carolina Mr. Graham--they have come together to pass tough sanctions that would have a crippling effect on Iran's economy, and this body in a bipartisan way and the other body in a bipartisan way have passed those.…”