Political Quotes

“2 days from today, June 14, is Flag Day in the United States. It is the day every year where we celebrate the flag, but it is not the piece of cloth that we celebrate; we celebrate core American values. And the most core American value is the one that we take an oath of office to, the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution includes a Bill of Rights, and one of the most important pieces of the Bill of Rights is the First Amendment. It was drafted by Virginian James Madison, and it talks about the fact that there can't be laws or legal restrictions against the right of the people to peacefully assemble and petition government for redress of grievances. That right is not something we are allowed. That right is something we are guaranteed. My colleague and our friend Alex Padilla, born and raised in Los Angeles, loves his hometown--an MIT-educated, baseball-playing engineer who returned to his home, who served on the Los Angeles City Council and now serves in this body--has some very legitimate questions about why, in an unprecedented way, the National Guard and the U.S. Marines have been deployed into his city, over the objections of the mayor, over the objections of the Governor, in a historically unprecedented way and in a way such as to escalate tensions in his town rather than to reduce them. So he decided to go to a peaceful public assembly. It was a press conference. It wasn't a private meeting to which he was not allowed entrance.”