Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's yielding, and I am grateful for all of your work, Congressman Fortenberry, Congressman Vargas, and Congresswoman Eshoo. Sometimes people look at this House and think that all we do is fight and disagree. I am not going to talk about you two punching each other to get a little more press, but it is a remarkable night when we all come together and stand together on such an important issue as this, where we all lend our voices to an incredibly important cause. We spent a lot of time tonight talking about the atrocities, and I am going to join in because we can't say enough all that has happened. Two million Christians called Iraq home prior to 2013. Fewer than 300,000 reside there today. Many were victims of killing or kidnappings, others forced to leave their homes by radicals, al Qaeda or ISIS. In Syria, Christians accounted for 10 percent of the population, but today their numbers have declined to less than 1 million. Last summer, ISIS kidnapped nearly 300 Christians in a Syrian village and then later ransomed them back to their families for an average of $100,000 per person. When ISIS invaded Mosul, Iraq, in 2013, as Mr. Fortenberry mentioned, they tagged Christian homes with an N for Nazarene, and then they gave the occupants a choice: you can convert, you can flee, or you would face death. In July of 2014, ISIS announced that the city, no doubt, was Christian-free--no surprise.…”