Gerry Connolly

In January you testified before this committee and raised concerns about access to Peace Corps information.

I find myself in firm agreement with yourself and with the ranking member, your opening statements.

We are sitting here watching this thing burn down and we are milling around with all these foolish policies.

We Democrats would like to see that here in our House of Representatives as well.

I cannot accept the gratuitous potshot at the administration as if this President and the administration are responsible for what has transpired in Libya.

What we are witnessing in Iraq and Syria is a form of genocide.

He decided to just use it for his own political gain.

I was proud to be one of those four.

The United States must remain engaged if we are ever going to end the cycle of violence in the Middle East.

The recent violence in the Gaza does show that there is no substitute for a long-term committed, sustained peace process between Israel and its Palestinian neighbors.

Its benefactors need to cut off its financial pipeline right now.

Hamas must abjure its own charter and radically alter its behavior if it is ever going to have any respectable place at the international table.

I urge passage of the chairman's bill and once again, thank him as well as the Democrats and Republicans on this committee for moving it forward.

Let us not pretend that this is a democratic process.

The whole world knows this isn't as simple as it sounds.

Make it clear right here and now that these elections will be free and they will be fair, truly free and truly fair.

If the Burmese authorities want to have a more advanced relationship with the United States... it should be linked to the concrete reforms that we expect of civilian rule.

These are men, women, children and infants who are for all practical purposes locked up in camps and denied healthcare and adequate nutrition.

I cannot believe that that could come to any good, so I encourage you, Mr. Hart, and your colleagues to re-examine that legislation.

Things are beginning to change. I wish they were faster, but these are the changes we are observing.

They are stakeholders in the success of the capitalist Korea economy, are they, do you believe, more open to pressuring the North for say market reforms

One of the biggest points of leverage we have is the strength of our alliance relationships

We managed a bill the other day on the floor, Chairman Royce and myself, that passed unanimously adding to the sanctions regime on North Korea.

I am frustrated, too, and I am sure you are and I am sure everyone in the audience is.

As the world's greatest democracy, we must take a tougher stance with the international community on North Korea's threatening antics.