Political Quotes

“Thank you. I am glad to hear that we will be having votes tomorrow. We need votes tomorrow, for some of the reasons that I am discussing. We shouldn't fear those votes. There is a great song by Blue Oyster Cult: ``(Don't Fear) the Reaper.'' We are lawmakers. It is what we do. We cast votes. We vote on amendments. We shouldn't fear votes. We shouldn't fear doing our jobs. I have heard it said many times: If you don't like fires and you can't stand being in their presence, then you shouldn't become a firefighter. And if you can't handle taking tough votes, for heaven's sake, you shouldn't be a lawmaker. So that is what we need to be talking about. One of the reasons why people are fearing the reaper here, fearing amendment votes here--even though there is nothing to fear--they are wanting people to fear those amendment votes because they say: If we cast any amendment votes, if we depart in even the slightest degree from what the House, in its supposedly infinite wisdom, passed last week--with its ham-fisted draftsmanship and its manipulated, truncated approach to voting on amendments over there--that if we depart from that to even the slightest degree, it will be Armageddon, dogs and cats living together in the streets. It will be Armageddon stuff playing out in America. We are all going to blow up. We are all going to die because all FISA 702 collection is going to come to an abrupt halt.…”