Political Quotes

“To my friends on the other side of the aisle, I am offering an amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill which would defund the war in Libya. The war is unconstitutional. The President did not come to this Congress, he went to the U.N. Security Council, he went to a number of international bodies, but he didn't come to the United States Congress. Last week, the President did not observe the tolling of the War Powers Act, so he's in violation of the statute. The action over in Libya has already exceeded the U.N. mandate; it's in violation of the U.N. mandate and there have been violations of international law. What are we doing there? Why does anyone think we can afford it? Why aren't we trying to find a path to peace so we aren't called upon to spend more money there? These are questions we have to be asking; that's why Congress needs to say we're not going to spend more money there. People are saying it's not the United States, it's NATO. The Guardian in the U.K. did a study which showed that 90 percent of the cruise missiles are paid for by the U.S. Sixty-six percent of the personnel working against Libya are from the U.S., 50 percent of aircraft, 50 percent of all ships--and our government is saying this is a NATO operation? We have to recognize what's going on here, which is an expansion of the war power by the Executive and it's time we challenge that. One thing we certainly shouldn't do is to support the amendment offered by my friend, Mr.…”