Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise to speak about the upcoming vote tomorrow at 2:15 on the Defense authorization bill. I don't know the state of play, but it looks as though we will bring to the floor a Defense authorization bill without any ability to amend the bill beyond a very limited set of amendments. If one is watching the political discourse at the moment, they would not realize we are at war in two different theaters and that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon, and that maybe a year from now they will have one. We are talking about domestic politics and spending. That is good. But what is equally important is national security. The Defense authorization bill is coming to the Senate floor tomorrow, and we have a don't ask, don't tell policy change within the bill that basically says we are going to change the law that would get rid of don't ask, don't tell; a policy that has worked very well, that we would receive input from the military, and we are going to change the law before we ask our men and women in uniform about their opinion. That is a huge mistake. We were told last year there would be a study among all the services about the effect of don't ask, don't tell on recruiting and retention and how it would affect the Armed Forces. Before we can get the study done, I think the Congress is going to repeal the law because our Democratic friends believe in the fall there will be more Republicans. So they are going to try to do it now.…”