Political Quotes

“I would like to thank Ranking Member McKeon for his leadership on our committee and certainly for his support for our men and women in uniform in what has been this long year of trying to get a bill passed for the National Defense Authorization Act. I would also like to thank our chairman, Ike Skelton. Ike is leaving us with an incredibly distinguished career. He has led the Armed Services Committee in an incredibly bipartisan way. I know that on both sides of the aisle, people have appreciated his leadership, his counsel, and his dedication to what is a strong national defense. But I must rise to point out that this bill really shouldn't be the Ike Skelton National Defense Authorization Act; this should be the Nancy Pelosi National Defense Authorization Act. It is just a shame that this House and our committee labored for a year to put together a bill. The Senate never passed a bill. What we have before us is not what came out of our committee. It is not what came out of the subcommittees. It is not what was passed here on the House floor. In the Nancy Pelosi fashion of running this House, this bill was drafted somewhere in a back room in the Capitol and then brought forward for everyone to read. This is not the way that we should be doing a bill. One of the things that has been left on the table that should be in here is protection of our men and women in uniform and their custody rights.”