You get paid sometimes, I understand, $1 million by clients for your opinion, and the reason you get paid so much money for your opinion is because some people think that this is a professional judgment.

Let me be blunt. Pakistan's pants are on fire.

One guy with a few friends and helpers discovered this thing nearly a decade ago, led you to this pile of dung that is Bernie Madoff and stuck your nose in it and you couldn't figure it out.

One guy, with a few friends and helpers, discovered this thing nearly a decade ago, led you to this pile of dung that is -- that is Bernie Madoff, and stuck your nose in it, and you couldn't figure it out. You couldn't find your backside…

Which is why the banks are holding onto all that money we gave them.

In my view, our examination of systemic risk must include both an in-depth analysis of the role that credit ratings and credit rating agencies played in creating the current economic crisis.

I have long believed that allowing the SEC to grant the largest credit rating agencies nationally recognized statistical rating organization status is the equivalent of stamping a government seal of approval on the ratings that they issue.

Sometimes some of us think we are living in two different worlds.

When the press makes inquiries as to what you did with the first (INAUDIBLE) of money that we gave you, many billions of dollars, your answer is, it's none of your business.

You have totally and thoroughly failed in your mission.

What the heck went on? Your mission, you said, was to -- was to protect investors and detect fraud quickly. How did that work out? What went wrong?

You have single-handedly diffused the American public of any sense of confidence in our financial markets if you are the watch dogs. You have totally and thoroughly failed in your mission. Don't you get it?

Our economy is in crisis, Mr. Vollmer. We thought the enemy was Mr. Madoff. I think it's you.

I think you struck something that strikes me as being a tremendous irony. The people who created the problem now are charged with fixing it. And that leaves us in kind of an interesting--and I think that the reason that I wanted to take a…

You have single-handedly defused the American public of any sense of confidence in our financial markets if you are the watchdogs. You have totally and thoroughly failed in your mission. Don't you get it?

the problem is--and one of my colleagues--in my opinion, it is pretty radical, but maybe, you know, we are talking about the possibility of having thousands and thousands of families homeless.

I spent Sunday in Sderot with Mayor Bloomberg of New York. We were being briefed by some people on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza when suddenly, after 14 missiles had already fallen that morning before we got there, the sirens…

A delicious irony in seeing private luxury jets flying in to Washington, D.C. and people coming off of them with tin cups in their hand.

Reclaiming my time, the Security Council of the United Nations has asked for the disarmament of Hezbollah. This is not our request. This is the United Nations. This is the international community. This is the entire peaceful world that has…

Let me say I'm not opposed to that happening. Let them disarm themselves. But let us in the meantime do what we can to be the voice of democracy and freedom. The world looks at us as a beacon. We have spent so much of the goodwill that we…

from time to time, I've heard some of our colleagues wondering why there are so many resolutions about Israel, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Why, they may wonder, do we have to take up these issues? Doesn't everyone already know…

Madam Speaker, on December 27, former Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Rawalpindi as she left a peaceful political rally. In addition, 20 of her supporters were killed in a suicide bomb blast and Pakistan was…

I just want to add to the comments by our good friend Mr. LaHood. He will surely be missed in this great Chamber. He has added much to the dignity, fairness, objectiveness and to the thoughtfulness of this body. And I hope when decency…

I too want to thank Speaker Pelosi for her leadership, for taking her time during her trip to the Middle East to visit Lebanon, and also to try to talk sense to the people in Syria as well.

There is no more imperative threat facing the world today than checking Iran's nuclear aspirations. Sometimes, in the midst of urgent debate over the right tactics to use to stop the mullahs' mad march towards the bomb, we lose sight of…