Political Quotes

“I appreciate the opportunity to come to the floor this evening to speak about an armed standoff that is taking place in my State of Oregon. This is the ninth day of armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge where we have some lawless, reckless behavior on the part of out-of-State zealots who have taken over a Federal resource. This is really hard to comprehend for a moment. As has been mentioned by numerous commentators, imagine what would happen if armed protesters who were of a different color or of a different religion occupied a Federal facility in Chicago or Washington, D.C., or Philadelphia. We would not tolerate that behavior. We would watch people move in to remove them. And yet, here, we are talking about the ninth day with impunity these people have undertaken to exert their own vision for an amazing region, this high desert plateau in eastern Oregon, a region of vast, arid, high desert with many key lakes and wetlands, that is the location of a wildlife refuge that was created in 1908 by President Teddy Roosevelt. It was deemed important to protect this critical flyway, this wildlife habitat. We found people there slaughtering wildlife to take the feathers to decorate women's hats. Now, I understand that there are some people who are involved who have some frustrations about issues of management of Federal resources. I appreciate that. This is a large, vast country, with 323 million people.…”