Floor Statements

Madam President, today I recognize Chelsie Sumner, a 2013 fall intern in my Washington, DC, office for all of the hard work she has done for me, my staff, and the people of the State of Florida.

Chelsie is a graduate of Davidson College, having majored in English. She is a dedicated and diligent worker who has been devoted to getting the most out of her internship experience.

I extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Chelsie for all the fine work she has done and wish her continued success in the years to come.

Madam President, today I recognize Ari Tepler, a 2014 summer intern in my Washington, DC office, for all of the hard work he has done for me, my staff, and the people of the State of Florida.

Ari is a freshman at Yeshiva University, currently majoring in political science. He is a dedicated and diligent worker who has been devoted to getting the most out of his internship experience.

I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Ari for all the fine work he has done and wish him continued success in the years to come.

Madam President, today I recognize Jackie Varas, a 2014 summer intern in my Washington, DC office, for all of the hard work she has done for me, my staff, and the people of the State of Florida.

Jackie is a senior at the University of Florida, currently majoring in economics and political science. She is a dedicated and diligent worker who has been devoted to getting the most out of her internship experience.

I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Jackie for all the fine work she has done and wish her continued success in the years to come.

Madam President, today I recognize Courtney Veatch, a 2014 summer intern in my Washington, DC office, for all of the hard work she has done for me, my staff, and the people of the State of Florida.

Courtney is a graduate of the University of North Florida, having majored in English and history. She is a dedicated and diligent worker who has been devoted to getting the most out of her internship experience.

I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Courtney for all the fine work she has done and wish her continued success in the years to come.

Mr. President, I yield back all time.

Mr. President, yesterday at events all around Florida and across the country, America marked the 73rd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor--a day known not only for its tragedy but also for its role in shaping the destiny of what has come to be called the ``greatest generation.'' It is a generation that faced challenges unlike any seen before or since. It saw a decade of widespread prosperity crumble into the deepest depression in American history, and it saw the deepest depression in American history give way to the deadliest war in human history.

The scope of hardship, destruction, and wickedness they faced was exceeded only by the strength and valor with which they responded. Theirs is a generation that truly saved the world. I don't think any other generation at any time can have that said of them with the same bluntness.

Today that generation passes its stories on to us. They are our parents and grandparents, our ancestors and our heritage. Their stories are emblems of strength that inspire us as we meet our challenges in this new century.

Yesterday we honored the almost 2,500 Americans who were killed on that day of infamy 73 years ago--unsuspecting servicemembers, innocent men and women, but today we have a chance to honor the sacrifices made in response to that attack.

It was on this very day 73 years ago that President Roosevelt famously came before Congress to ask for a declaration of war. He expressed his confidence that the American people would rally to defend their Nation, saying: ``The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our Nation.''

He was right. In the days that followed, 5 million Americans dropped everything to volunteer for the Armed Forces. No one asked them to do it; they just did it. Tens of millions more entered the draft or assisted the war effort at home, and the American people became the arsenal of democracy almost overnight.

In the latter years of his life, I had the honor of meeting and working with a man who was at Pearl Harbor. He was in Pearl Harbor that day and fought on foreign battlefields in the years that followed, even losing a limb. I am

speaking, of course, of the legendary leader with whom we are all familiar, Senator Daniel Inouye. He was born and raised in Hawaii and was 17 years old on December 7, 1941. When the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred, he rushed to the scene to help treat the wounded. He enlisted in the Army the first chance he got and went on to receive the Medal of Honor for his valor.

When the smoke of World War II finally cleared, his legacy of service was just beginning. He would go on to serve Hawaii in both the Senate and the House. By the time of his death, Senator Inouye was the second- longest serving Senator in United States history. I was privileged to count him as my colleague, though for too brief a time.

Like Senator Inouye, I also had the privilege of representing many veterans of World War II, including some who survived the attack on Pearl Harbor. At last count, there are over 140 Pearl Harbor survivors living in Florida, and I wish to tell you the stories of three of those men.

One is SgtMajMC William Braddock of Pensacola. I recently had the privilege of hearing his account of what happened that Sunday morning in Hawaii. Major Braddock had joined the Marine Corps the year prior to the attack. That morning he was in the messhall preparing for duty when he heard the first explosion. He ran outside and was met with pandemonium.

Ships that had been stretched out peacefully in the sun moments before were now engulfed in flames, blanketing the harbor in black smoke. He watched a torpedo drop in the water and seconds later explode into the side of the USS Oklahoma. He described the stain of oil on the water and the way flames shot up from it, and the horror of watching sailors trapped in the fire. Amidst the confusion and shouting of orders, he recalled how little he could do to save lives and how helpless he felt.

Following the attack, Major Braddock went on to fight bravely in some of the key battles in World War II. He fought in the Battle of Iwo Jima and remembers vividly the day the iconic flag was raised above the island. He was in the occupational forces in Japan after the devastation of the atomic bombs. But despite all the horrors he witnessed, Major Braddock did not retire from the armed services the first chance he got. On the contrary, he went on to 27 years of distinguished service in the Marine Corps.

I can't help but be humbled hearing such a story. Major Braddock is a man who fought out of duty and love of his country. He saw himself as a citizen soldier--even recalling the way his experience hunting rabbits in the fields around his house as a boy actually prepared him for Iwo Jima. He is humbled regarding his role. He says he tries not to give too much thought to it when he doesn't have to.

That same modesty is the hallmark of another story, the story of a Pearl Harbor survivor who lives in Palm Beach County today. His name is Wayne Myrick, and he was a chief machinist's mate on the USS Blue at the time of the attack.

Within seconds of the first explosion, Chief Petty Officer Myrick had rushed to gather ammunition and help operate the guns aboard that destroyer. But as a chief machinist, his attention soon turned to other matters. The captain of the USS Blue was eager to get the ship out on open water, but the boilers beneath deck were off line.

Under intense gunfire, Chief Petty Officer Myrick and his crew members scrambled to get the boilers working and eventually managed to give the ship the maneuvering speed to move out. With his help, the USS Blue was one of the first vessels to make it to open water and was able to down five enemy aircraft and at least one submarine.

Chief Petty Officer Myrick recalled how important his oath was to him that day. He and every one of his shipmates took an oath when they enlisted that commanded them to follow their orders and defend their country from all enemies, and he viewed that oath as a solemn and sacred one because it was a reminder that service to one's country is about more than self. He had a simple but powerful message he wanted me to share today: Be very proud to serve your country.

Finally, I wish to share the story of CDR Hal Sullivan of Jacksonville. Commander Sullivan joined the U.S. Navy when he was 23 years old. He was on the bridge of a destroyer that Sunday morning, tasked with operating the sonar equipment and helping sweep for mines. When the first explosion rocked the harbor, he looked up to see a Japanese plane bank sharply overhead. In fact, it was so close to him, he could see the expression on the face of the pilot. He even recalled wryly that he could have thrown a potato right into the cockpit if he had had one handy.

Before he could process what was happening, gunfire swept over the deck and struck the sailor next to him in the jaw. Commander Sullivan hoisted the man up and helped him to a medic. He spoke of looking up and seeing the USS Arizona rolling over with its belly up in flames as flames shot out its side. He saw sailors struggling in the water.

Commander Sullivan insists that his job isn't worthy of fame and that his contribution that day was simply the execution of duty. But through that humility I can't help but see a hero--a man as selfless as he is brave, a man who put the lives of others above his own, not just that day but for decades to come. You see, Commander Hal Sullivan went on to serve in both the Atlantic and the Pacific. He didn't retire from the Navy until almost 30 years after the attack of Pearl Harbor, on the exact same week his son entered West Point.

Even now, at age 96, Hal says he would still be in the Navy if they would let him. I am touched by that because the truth is Hal's country still needs him, maybe not on the deck of a ship, maybe not risking his life in the middle of the Pacific, but we need him all the same. It is through hearing stories such as his that our generation will find the courage to face its challenges--a courage that is uniquely American.

Pearl Harbor was not just a day of infamy; it was also a day that revealed the greatness of our ancestors. People such as Major Braddock, Chief Petty Officer Myrick, and Commander Sullivan--it is their blood that flows in the veins of this county that serves as our heritage and reveals our destiny.

I believe it is true, as Shakespeare famously wrote, that some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. But for the ``greatest generation,'' it was all three.

Pearl Harbor was the day that greatness was thrust upon them, but it was over the years that followed that their greatness was achieved the only way greatness can be achieved--through blood, toil, tears, and sweat.

And their toil did not stop after the war was won. The world still looked to America--to our industrial power, our political leadership, and our military might--to restore global balance and maintain order while the wounds of mankind healed.

As Pope Pius XII said following the war:

America has a genius for great and unselfish deeds. Into

the hands of America God has placed the destiny of an

afflicted mankind.

Well, I believe America still has that genius. I believe mankind remains afflicted and that its destiny remains largely in our hands. All around the world, those who yearn for freedom still turn their eyes towards our shores. They wonder if we see their suffering. They wonder if we hear their cries.

I am confident that our own generation will achieve greatness in this century. We will do so by remaining the world's beacon for freedom. That means preserving and extending the promise of the American dream here at home, and it means standing against evil and oppression where it rears its head around the world.

As did the ``greatest generation,'' our men and women in uniform today fight for a greater cause than themselves. Major Braddock said that if he could tell today's troops one thing, it would be: Don't give up, do what is right and, above all else, be proud of the work you are tasked with carrying out.

I second that sentiment because our children and grandchildren will stand on the shoulders of our generation. They will live in the world we leave behind, the same way we live in the world that was left for us.

So as we marked the 73rd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, I was grateful for all the tributes that took place throughout Florida over the

weekend. It is my prayer that America will take a moment to reflect on the meaning of that day.

Its meaning is not a relic of the past. It doesn't just belong to the ``greatest generation.'' It belongs to all of us. It was America's solemn call to action--not for a generation but for all time--a powerful reminder of our duty to our Nation, to each other, to our children, and to an afflicted mankind.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

I thank the Presiding Officer.

God forbid tomorrow morning we wake up to the news that a member of ISIL is in the United States and Federal agencies need to determine who this person is coordinating with to carry out a potential attack within the homeland. One of the tools they will use is a tool that allows them to see the people they have been calling and interacting with so we can disrupt that cell before they carry out a horrifying attack that could kill millions of American people.

Today we are able to do that because of a program that collects those records and keeps them--not in the hands of anyone who is looking at them on a regular basis but keeps them readily available for the government so the government can access those records and disrupt that plot. What this bill would do is take that apart. In essence, it would ask the companies to keep those records--at least in the hopes that they would. Under this plan, if this were to pass, if suddenly we were to go target these members of ISIL and find out whom they are coordinating with, those records may not be there and that plot may indeed go forward. That would be a horrifying result.

Here is why this doesn't make sense. First of all, we are rushing this to the floor of the Senate in a lameduck session, on an issue that doesn't even expire until next year, on a bill that was not listened to or heard in a committee, and they cannot cite a single example of this program ever being abused--not one simple example of this specific program being abused by anybody intentionally. So we are dealing with a theoretical threat.

The second thing is that even as we speak, law enforcement agencies investigating a common crime don't even need to go to a court to access these very same records. They can just issue an administrative subpoena and get ahold of them. We are actually making it harder to go after a terrorist than it will be to go after a common criminal.

This is happening at a time when homegrown violent extremism is the single fastest growing threat to the United States, people here at home who have been radicalized--even on the Internet--and people who have traveled to the Middle East and been radicalized in the hopes of returning and carrying out attacks here.

I hope this body would take more time to study an issue of this magnitude because this program was specifically designed to address the intelligence gaps that existed after the 9/11 attacks. I promise you, if, God forbid, any horrifying event like that were to happen, the first question we will be asked is why didn't we know about it and why didn't we prevent it. If this program is gutted, we potentially will not be able to know about it, and we will not be able to prevent it.

Mr. President, on the evening of Monday, November 17, 2014, the Senate passed S. 1086, a bill reauthorizing the Child Care and Development Block Grant Program, CCDBG.

This bill reauthorizes and amends the CCDBG Act with new requirements for State health and safety standards, including annual, unannounced onsite monitoring of licensed providers, background checks of childcare staff and providers, expanded compliance with child abuse reporting requirements, and enhanced coordination with other programs.

On March 13, 2014, the Senate passed an earlier version of S. 1086, and I voted aye.

Due to a flight delay, I was unable to cast a vote yesterday on its passage. I would have voted aye.

Mr. President, I know that the hour is late and that my colleague from Oklahoma wishes to speak as well. I know Senators are eager to vote. I will not be long, but I will try to be concise in what I am about to say.

I came to the Senate primarily motivated by many different things, but one of the things that truly motivated me was the fiscal state of our country, the fear that our current spending patterns are not just unsustainable but threaten our future and impede our ability to achieve what I believe is our destiny--another American century.

That is why each time I have been here and I have had an opportunity placed before me to vote on a short-term spending matter, I have voted against it--because I felt they ignored our long-term problems of spending in this country and did not deal with them in a responsible way.

Once again, today we are confronted with a short-term spending bill that we are asked to approve; otherwise, the government will shut down and the world will stop spinning. But today's question is a little different from the ones that have been posed to us in the past. The one before us today has deeply imbedded in it an issue of national security.

For the better part of 3 years, I have argued that what is happening in Syria is in our national interest. Many, quite frankly, in my own party but also in the White House disagreed with my view. They felt that it was a regional conflict or one that could be handled by leading from behind. So from that time until today we have largely watched as events have unfolded in Syria without carefully explaining to the American people why we should care.

But I believed then--and I think I have been proven right by recent events--that what happened in Syria and what was happening in Syria was in our national interests because if we failed to influence the direction of that situation, it would leave open a space for radical jihadists from all over the world to establish an operation space from which they could carry out their plots not just against us but all free and freedom-loving people and peace-loving people in the world.

Sadly, that is what has happened in Syria. A protracted conflict has left open spaces, and foreign radical jihadists from everywhere on this planet have flowed to the deserts of Syria, where they set up organizations not just designed to topple Assad but to establish an Islamic caliphate that oversees multiple countries in the Middle East and ultimately will target us. I say ``target us'' because that caliphate cannot exist unless they drive America from the region. The way they intend to drive us from that region is by terrorizing us. Those efforts began recently when we saw the brutal murder of two brave young Americans--including one from my home State--for doing nothing other than being present and being from America.

Now we find ourselves in this situation. I feel the President and, as I said, people in both parties have taken too long to realize what a threat this is. I recognize that the options before us now are not as good as they would have been had we dealt with this 2 years ago, 3 years ago, or even 6 or 9 months ago. We have plenty of time in the weeks and months and years to come to debate what should have been done. I anticipate I will be involved in that debate because there are lessons to be learned from that. But today, as leaders of this country, we are called on to decide what we do now. What do we do now when confronted with a very real threat that, left unconfronted, will become a very real danger for the people we represent here in this country?

The President has come forward with a plan--a plan that I wish he had come forward with 6 months ago, that I called for 3 months ago. But I suppose, as in most things, better late than never. Even if late means our chances of success have been minimized, even if it will cost more money, and even if it will now take longer, better late than never.

That is the question before us now. I wish we had a separate debate on this issue. I wish we had a separate debate on this issue with regard to arming moderate rebel elements in Syria because there are real reasons to be concerned not just about whom we are arming but whether it will work.

I wish we had more time to debate the broader plan and come before this body and ask for an authorization for the use of force, although I think there is a compelling argument to be made that for immediate action, the President, as the Commander in Chief, does not need that authorization. We were not given that opportunity. What they are cheating is not just the political process, for in that debate we would have been able to inform the American people so they too would have learned more about this, but as a nation we could have come to a consensus about what the right thing to do is. But in the end, that is not the opportunity before us now. We are asked to decide things in this Chamber that are in the best interests of our country even if they did not work out the way we wanted them to or did not develop the way we wanted them to. That is what is before us here today.

I say this to you without a shadow of a doubt, as I said weeks ago: If we do not confront and defeat ISIL now, we will have to do so later. It will take a lot longer. It will be much costlier and even more painful. We will confront ISIL one way or the other--I believe the sooner, the better.

What we are asked to do now is approve funding to arm moderate rebel elements in Syria. There is no guarantee of success. There is none. But there is a guarantee of failure if we do not even try. Try we must for one fundamental reason: If we fail to approve this, the nations of that region will say that America is not truly engaged, that Americans are willing to talk about this but are not willing to do anything about it.

So despite my concerns about the underlying bill and the budgeting it entails, I will support this resolution because I think it is in the best interests of our national security.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I appreciate the opportunity to speak for a few moments this evening before the Senate adjourns its workday.

I begin with a couple points of personal privilege. One is to congratulate a local high school in Miami, FL, by the name of Booker T. Washington. This is a school which has now won 29 consecutive games. They were the national champions last year in high school football, and I think they are headed to that again this year.

But what really impresses me about this program is the work they do with these young men. These young men come from a very challenging part of Miami, of Overtown, and have really overcome tremendous obstacles in their personal lives to achieve both in the classroom and on the field.

What I am most impressed about, as I tell Coach Harris every time I get to see him, is that it is not the kind of football players he has made them--because they are excellent--but the kind

of young men they are becoming. I think they are worthy of congratulations.

I was at their game on Friday against another very good team from South Florida, both ranked in the top 10 nationally in high school. I assure my colleagues from States such as California and Texas that while their football is good, our football is special.

Enough bragging on them. They are a great team, and we are fortunate to be able to witness what they have been able to do over the last couple of years.

Remembering Steven Sotloff

The second point, which is related to my comments here in a moment, is toward the family of Steven Sotloff, who lost his life tragically in the Middle East over the last few days. We are all familiar with that horrific tale.

Steven actually lived in Miami, FL, with his family literally blocks away from where I go to church, literally blocks away from where I live. He was a member of our community.

As I said last week at his memorial service, Steven had dedicated his life to revealing the suffering and the reality of what was happening in some of the most dangerous areas of the world. And while he lost his life tragically, I think it is both ironic and appropriate that in his last act, as he lost his life he revealed the true nature of what we confront in that part of the world and the true nature of the Islamic State, who they are, and what they are all about. This was a young man who, as I said, dedicated his life not just to journalism but to journalism in the most dangerous part of the world and in so doing was able to bring that reality to us even in the last moments of his life.

Constitutional Amendment

Intriguing, of course, is the debate which has occurred here over the last couple of days on this very interesting political matter. There is a lot of hyperbole being thrown around about the influence money has on our political process. I have found there is plenty of money on both sides of every issue, and certainly all of my colleagues here, including those who support this amendment before us, have been the beneficiaries of vast amounts of campaign spending. In fact, as some of my colleagues pointed to earlier, the majority of the money being raised and spent in political campaigns, including from Wall Street, is on behalf of many of the same people who are now here condemning it. If in fact it is so unseemly, as they say, then perhaps they should take a unilateral pledge not to accept these sources of funds. Of course they won't, but it is an interesting dynamic at a time when our Nation faces so many struggles.

Economic Challenges

What I hope and wish is that more time in this Chamber would be dedicated to the issues this country faces, the ones that threaten our status as a special and unique nation.

When we look across the country today at the economic challenges our people are facing, they are pervasive and they are real. We see that the 21st century has brought extraordinary and rapid change to our lives. The economy that once produced millions of jobs which allowed people to make it to the middle class and achieve that American dream-- many of those jobs have been outsourced. They are automated. They have gone away.

Millions of people who have worked their entire lives are now struggling to find a job that allows them to keep pace with the cost of living. People are stuck in low-wage jobs, and I will have more to say about that later this week. People are working for $9 or $10 an hour and cannot make ends meet, especially when the cost of living continues to rise in every facet of our lives.

We have students who have gone to school, graduated with a degree, have done everything they were told they needed to do to succeed, and now cannot find a job with the degree they sought, but they potentially owe tens of thousands of dollars in student loans--an issue I am both sensitive to and familiar with because I myself owed well over $100,000, including on the day I swore into the Senate. This is a real strain on people.

Whatever it may be, there are millions of Americans who are starting to doubt whether that fundamental promise of America--that if they work hard, they can get ahead and achieve happiness as they define it--is still true. We understand the reasons why, and this is something we need to address, and we address it by addressing the core challenges of our time, which are not the different issues I heard thrown around here today.

The core challenges of our time are that, first and foremost, the nature of our economy has changed rapidly. America faces more global competition than ever for investment and for innovation. There are more countries than ever competing with us for investment and for innovation, and tragically we haven't kept pace with that change. We still have policies in this country deeply rooted in the last century, in an era that has come and gone. We continue to impose taxes and regulations and a national debt and a health care law and all sorts of other measures that put us at a competitive disadvantage.

I wish the No. 1 priority of the Senate was to make America once again the single-best place in the world to invest and to innovate so we could create millions of higher paying 21st-century jobs.

I wish that were our No. 1 priority, followed closely by our No. 2 priority, which is equipping people with the skills they need for the jobs of the 21st century. It wasn't that long ago that someone could come to this country or grow up in this country, not have a lot of advanced education, and still make it to the middle class. My parents did it. They worked service sector jobs. My mother was a maid and a cashier at hotels, and my father was a banquet bartender. They never made a lot of money. Yet they achieved the American dream.

The American dream has never been about how much money you make or how many things you own; it is about achieving happiness. For them, achieving happiness was giving us the chance to do all the things they never could, and they were able to do that in the 20th century in service sector jobs.

That is still possible in America for many people, but it is increasingly more difficult. I wish we would address that because the reason it has become more difficult is because almost all the higher paying jobs of the 21st century require some sort of advanced skill acquisition, and millions of our people simply don't have it. The reason is because our educational system is not a 21st-century one. Why have we stigmatized vocational education in America? Why have we told people that if they want to be an electrician or a plumber or a truckdriver or a welder or any other number of vocational professions-- why have we stigmatized that when we know there are jobs available in those fields and we need people to fill them?

The second issue is, what about the people trapped in those low- paying jobs--the single mother who works as a home health aide for $10 an hour, the receptionist at a law firm making $11 an hour, the people working in a fast food restaurant for $9 an hour? There is nothing wrong with those jobs, but I am sure that as time goes on they want more, and we have to equip them with the skills to be able to do more so that the home health aide can become an ultrasound technician or a dental hygienist not making $12 an hour but making $30 an hour, so that the young man who is on the unemployment line can become a welder or a building specialist or some other 21st-century career or profession that gives him the skills he needs for those better paying jobs. I wish we were focused on that.

By the way, how about informing our college students about the true value of their degrees? In America--a free country--you can study anything you want, but before you borrow $50,000 to attain a major in Greek philosophy, you deserve to know that the market for Greek philosophers is tight and that it is going to be difficult to pay off that loan. I think every student in America who is taking out student loans has the right to know how much people make when they graduate from their school with that degree so they can make informed and educated decisions about whether they should borrow money to pay for the specific degree they seek.

This is an important issue, and I wish that was our second top priority here, that we would focus more on how to help people trapped in low-paying jobs, how to help people who are struggling with the challenges of the 21st century, how to help these people acquire the skills they need for better paying jobs.

We have seen virtually no conversations about those two issues here in the last few days.

No wonder people are disgusted with Washington. We don't spend any time here talking about what they are worried about. We spend very little time talking about what they are concerned about. Our discourse in this body is so irrelevant to their daily lives that they have reason not just to be disgusted with politics but quite frankly to be tempted to give up on us and our ability to address any of these challenges.

World Events

There is a third 21st-century challenge and one I hope to speak about in the moments I have remaining; that is, the reality that world events have an impact on us greater than ever before. I am not saying world events never used to matter. Of course they did. But we are increasingly members of a growing global economy, which means that today when there is instability on this planet, it isn't just our national security that is threatened, it is our economic security as well.

We are 6 percent of the world's population. In order to achieve more prosperity, we have to sell more things to more people everywhere in the world. But that depends on peace and stability across the planet, and we can't have peace and stability when the world is in chaos. So I would say today that foreign relations and foreign policy matter more from an economic perspective than they ever have in the history of this Nation. I wish there were more focus in this body on what is happening all over the world because the world is in total chaos.

In the Asia-Pacific region, China is undergoing a dramatic modernization of its military capabilities--increasingly challenging, for example, U.S. air power in the region and increasingly acting out on illegitimate territorial claims.

In Latin America we have seen an erosion of democratic order, the rise of antidemocratic governments that threaten to erode almost two decades of democratic progress in the region.

By the way, in this body we have endeavored to address one of those challenges in Venezuela--an outrage, a place full of corruption and human rights violations, an anti-American government that does everything possible to undermine us and our interests, not just the interests of their own people. We have been blocked in our efforts to address it because somehow the Venezuelan Government, acting through CITGO--a wholly owned company of the Venezuelan Government--got lobbyists to come here to the Senate and lobby for blockage and stoppage of a measure we were ready to pass by unanimous consent.

So I come to the floor to ask the majority leader to please schedule a vote on these sanctions on Venezuela because it will pass overwhelmingly. Do not allow lobbyists for the Venezuelan Government to be able to come to Washington, DC, and impede action on this matter.

In Europe we see chaos too. Russia has invaded Ukraine. Maybe they switched uniforms and have lied about it, but they have invaded Ukraine, and NATO has been helpless to do anything about it. I hope we will be more forceful in our response because the implications not just for that region but for the world are very significant.

But the one I want to close on tonight is focused on--and this relates to Steven Sotloff, as discussed a moment ago--what is happening with ISIL.

Tomorrow night I believe the President will give the most important address of his Presidency--perhaps the most important address of any Presidency in the last decade. Tomorrow night I hope he comes before the American people and explains to them what is truly at stake. I was about to say that I thought he should have done this weeks ago, maybe months ago, but I am glad he is doing this.

I would ask my Republican colleagues--all of my colleagues--that at this time of such critical national security importance, we try as much as possible to rally behind our efforts to address this challenge because it is a real challenge. If and when this group comes after the United States, both around the world or here at home, they will not be coming after Republicans and they will not be coming after Democrats; they will be coming after Americans; the threat we face is real.

We have a tradition in this government of rallying together and acting in a nonpartisan way when it comes to national security. That is not just something we do because it is polite; it is something we must do because unity is important in order to address these challenges.

I have been critical of the President. I have been critical of the slow response. I think it is valid to point out the mistakes he has made so we can learn and so he can be held accountable. But I also think it is important to look forward at what we can do now.

While I thought that what the President is about to do he should have done weeks and months ago, I am glad he is finally doing it. Tomorrow night's address to the Nation is an important one. I hope all Americans tune in.

Here are the three points I hope the President will make: First, I hope he clearly outlines to our fellow Americans what is at stake here. ISIL is not just a collection of crazy terrorists. It is the single most dangerous terrorist challenge this Nation has ever faced. We faced some dangerous terrorists before. We are familiar with Al Qaeda and their capability. We are familiar with some of the nation-states we faced down in the past.

This group is uniquely dangerous for a number of reasons. First, it is by far the best funded terrorist operation perhaps in all of human history. They are generating millions of dollars a day alone just from oil revenue. Second, they are replete with foreign fighters, including thousands of foreign fighters that have visa waiver passports from countries where all they have to do is buy a plane ticket to come to the United States. Among those, by the way, are Americans, including one who is from Florida who even came back to the United States for a number of weeks and then returned and conducted a suicide attack on behalf of this group.

Last but not least, they control territory. We know that in order to carry out the 9/11 attacks Al Qaeda needed a safe haven in parts of Afghanistan. These folks in the Islamic State--these lunatics--control a vast space. Most of northern Syria and vast portions of Iraq are under their control. This makes this group very significant and dangerous with intentions not just on taking over Iraq but dominating the region, ultimately moving into Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and other places, and conducting attacks against the United States.

It is simple. ISIL cannot fulfill its regional ambitions if it doesn't drive the United States out of the Middle East, and the only way they can draw us out of the Middle East is by terrorizing us out of the Middle East. To terrorize us they will have to conduct terrorist attacks against us both abroad and here in the homeland. Here we have the most well-funded, most capable terrorist group in modern history with a clear intention and desire to attack us in order to terrorize us out of the region. This is a very serious national security threat, and it is important for the President to clearly explain that to our fellow Americans.

The second thing I hope we will do is outline a clear goal about what we intend to achieve and that goal should be unequivocal: the complete defeat and annihilation of ISIL. That goal is accomplished in three steps: first, by stopping their continued spread; second, by eroding their capability and control of territory; and ultimately by defeating them as an organization--by eliminating them as an organization.

So after he has outlined who this group is and why it is in our national interest to defeat them and he has outlined his goal to defeat them, I hope the President will explain to the American people in as much detail as possible--and clearly there are things he cannot share for operational security purposes--but in as much detail as possible how he intends to defeat them.

I think this is a multi-faceted process, but it should include the continued air strikes in northern Iraq. Air strikes are most successful when they are done in coordination with Kurds and Iraqi ground forces there on the ground now--by continuing to supply and equip the Kurds by giving them logistical support they need in order to take on the supplies and get them out to the troops by hopefully working with the new Iraqi government that was just formed to stand as a unified

Iraqi government that is capable not just of supplying a government that unites all of the people of Iraq but also one that is capable of fielding security forces capable of conducting operations without dividing the country along the Shia and Sunni lines.

We also need more cooperation from Arabs in the region because they are immediately threatened. They are coming after the Crown in Saudi Arabia; they are coming after the Crown in Jordan. They are eventually going to move into Lebanon as well. They pose a real and present threat to all the nations in this region and they must act. We need their cooperation both militarily and diplomatically but also by using the megaphone that the government and state-run media provides to stigmatize this group by revealing them for who they truly are. There should be nothing romantic about ISIL in the minds of any Arab, about joining their ranks or their efforts. We need the government's help in spreading that word and revealing that reality.

By the way, we also need to work with them and other regional governments--especially the Turks--to help cut off ISIL's access to funds and to fighters. The Turks need to step up and do a better job of securing that border. Cutting off their funds requires us to go after their most significant source of funds and that is the refinery capacity in Syria. I will have more to say about that in a moment. We should target that because the black market sale of oil in Syria is the single and fastest growing source of revenue for ISIL, but it is also a fuel for their terrorist operations.

But ultimately there is no way to defeat ISIL without defeating them in Syria. Someone is going to have to confront them in Syria and defeat them. It is my hope that it will be a combination of U.S. air power and qualified, well-equipped, well-trained competent moderate rebel forces within Syria, because here is the problem: If you eliminate ISIL but you don't have some sort of capable moderate group left behind, then all you are doing is replacing ISIL with al-Nusra or some other radical Islamic group on the ground there. So it is important that we do both.

I know no one wants to get into another conflict. We have no choice. We are going to have to deal with ISIL. The choice is not whether we deal with them. The choice is do we deal with them now while they are still growing or do we deal with them later when they have grown and when they have controlled vast and larger territories than they do now, when they have more fighters and are better funded. That is the choice before us.

I submit to you that I know of no medical condition that is easier to treat later rather than earlier. Every medical condition that I know-- ISIL has been compared to cancer--every cancer that I know is easier to treat if you catch it earlier rather than later. I would say this is true with this cancer, ISIL. If we deal with them sooner, it will not be costless or fast, but it will be easier to deal with them then, than if we wait until later. But to do so will ultimately require someone to confront them and defeat them within Syria itself, and defeating them in Syria alone is not enough. We have to ensure that there is some group there on the ground, some moderate rebel force that can take over not just from them but from the Assad regime.

There is collusion between Assad and ISIL. The refineries that ISIL controls in Syria are former Assad refineries which he won't bomb because he hopes to take them one day intact so he can use them. There is collusion between them. If anybody has any illusions about who Assad really is, I hope the President will outline this for us tomorrow. It is important for us and for our future.

I will make one more point about why this is the most important speech that the President will give. Because this threat will probably outlive his Presidency. We have to be prepared for the fact that ISIL may not be defeated in 24 months, that the next President of the United States and many of us--whether it is serving here, whether it is controlled by Republicans or Democrats--will have to remain committed to this goal, because this threat in all likelihood will outlive the Presidency of Barack Obama. It is important for him to put in place a clear goal and a plan that can survive his Presidency so that we can carry out this task. It is critical for our country.

I wish the President the best on his address tomorrow, and I hope we can come together in a bipartisan way to confront and defeat this evil before it is too late.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

Thank you, Madam President.

I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized to speak for up to 10 minutes in morning business.

Thank you, and I know Senator Menendez is going to speak on this topic as well. We intended to come to the Senate floor and offer a unanimous consent agreement to pass sanctions in Venezuela. First of all, let me thank the White House for what they announced yesterday: sanctions against human rights violators and corrupt government officials in Venezuela who have been involved for a very long time--but especially since the 4th of February--in grotesque human rights violations against young people and all people in Venezuela.

It is a topic that is not often talked about unfortunately these days, given all the issues that are going on around the world. What is happening in Venezuela in our own hemisphere is startling.

First, you have the complete erosion of democracy which has been going on since the reign of Hugo Chavez and now with Nicolas Maduro it has gotten progressively worse. We have been seeing this and talking about this since earlier this year, when thousands of young people in Venezuela took to the streets to protest what was happening and they were met with some of the most brutal attacks we have seen in this hemisphere for quite a while. We documented that on the floor consistently.

So beginning from that moment forward, we have worked in this body to seek sanctions against those individuals, against the people responsible for those human rights violations who also happened to be, by the way, incredibly corrupt. I would go so far as to say that almost every major political figure in Venezuela today in the ruling party is corrupt. It is absolutely amazing how these individuals in charge of government in that country are systemically stealing the funds of the Venezuelan people, and the cases are extraordinary.

There are times, for example, when the President of that country-- who, by the way, was elected in an illegitimate election--is benefiting from the currency exchange rate and manipulating that, top-level members of his Cabinet are skimming off the top of the country's oil company and pocketing money, and what is even more outrageous about that is that they and the people who surround them in the private sector are taking those funds and investing them and enjoying them here in the United States of America.

So I felt for a very long time--as have my colleagues--that this was an important issue that needed to be addressed, and it needed to be addressed by sanctioning those individuals and we have named many of them. So yesterday the White House announced that many of these individuals will now be denied visas to travel to the United States. In fact, just yesterday a government official from Venezuela who was headed here toward America was not able to come because of these visa sanctions.

So we are grateful for that, and we are grateful for the administrations's implementation of this. But while we are grateful for the denial of visas, it does not go far enough. We also need to sanction their assets. That is why earlier this year I, in conjunction with the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and Senators Nelson, McCain, and Kirk proposed legislation to authorize both visa restrictions and also financial sanctions against these individuals, and we have been extraordinarily patient in working through the process to ensure that happens.

The ranking member of the committee, the Senator of Tennessee Mr. Corker had initial reservations about it, and they were legitimate reservations, and as a result the chairman was kind and wise enough to hold a hearing where we heard testimony about the reality on the ground in Venezuela.

We then proceeded to vote on this in the committee, and the committee voted and approved it by a vote of 13 to 2, if I recall correctly, and that happened on May 22.

Then we patiently worked with our colleagues to try to bring this to the floor, understanding that with all the issues going on it would be difficult to schedule a rollcall vote on it, but we would try to pass it by a process in the Senate we call unanimous consent, where we ask all of our colleagues to approve it and we worked patiently to do that. While he had initial reservations earlier this week, Senator Corker lifted those reservations and I thank him for that and the way he has taken this so seriously and his cooperation in that matter.

My intention this evening was to come to the Senate floor and ask for unanimous consent of this body to pass this resolution, but some of my colleagues expressed concern about some of the costs that are potentially embedded in this. Let me explain those costs for point of clarification. There were two, in general.

The first was a $15 million funding for a democracy program in Venezuela, which I believe is a worthy endeavor. But for purposes of overcoming those objections and getting this done, I agreed, and I think the other sponsors did as well, that we would be willing to suspend that in an effort to get this accomplished.

The second is a little bit more nebulous. The second describes administrative costs basically for identifying these assets and implementing the sanctions. The costs are not unique to this. They are not real costs in the way you and I would think of costs. You

don't have to write an additional check or borrow money from China to pay for it. It is the same thing that you would have to do if the President had announced these sanctions, which he has the power to do.

What we did as a result of that is we looked at it. The total cost of it is between $6 and $8 million, even though that number is probably not that high, but it would basically involve identifying the individuals and identifying the assets they have that we could sanction. There was concern about that. We were willing to find an additional measure to sunset the implementation of these sanctions in 2016 to lower the costs even further, and yet we still heard there might be some objections. Over the last few minutes, however, and in consultation with the Senator from Oklahoma, we have tried to craft what I believe we hope we can arrive at in the next hours, a solution to this problem that assuages his concern and allows us to get this done.

So in the interest of trying to achieve it in that manner, I am going to withhold asking unanimous consent today for purposes of hopefully arriving at that agreement over the next few hours or early tomorrow morning so we can attempt to get this done in a way that achieves what we are trying to do.

This is critically important.

I point out for purposes of my point of comparison, the Senate in April approved a bill which I supported--and I am glad we did--that authorized virtually identical sanctions against human rights violators in Ukraine. That bill authorized $50 million for funds for the Democracy Program. That bill authorized $100 million in security assistance and visa and financial sanctions on human rights violators. In implementing the sanctions in the Ukrainian human rights bill, the cost was $10 million. None of those funds, by the way, were offset in the way that term is used here. There was no objection to that. There was no objection to that. By the way, the total cost of that bill was $160 million. This bill that is before us is much more modest in its implications, and I would argue that the costs--at the end of the day, while it has what we call around here a CBO score, the costs are not real. It is basically what they would have to do anyway.

We are looking for language that assures our colleagues who are rightfully concerned about the debt and deficit but also addresses the grotesque human rights violations occurring in Venezuela today.

I will yield to the Senator from New Jersey in a moment, who has shown extraordinary leadership on this and every single issue involving democracy and human rights issues in this region and around the world.

I know there are things going on in the Middle East that are of critical importance to our country. I know there are things going on vis-a-vis Russia and Ukraine that are of extraordinary importance to our country. But I hope people understand that what is happening in Venezuela matters too because even as we speak, there are millions of people in that country whose rights are being systematically violated.

Just this week the majority regime began a show trial against Mr. Leopoldo Lopez, a popular opposition leader, a mayor of one of the municipalities there. Do you know what his only crime was? Urging Venezuelans to demand a constitutional and peaceful solution to President Maduro's violent repression of demonstrations.

In case anyone needs to understand the true nature of the Venezuelan regime, it is not just human rights violations or corruption or the fact that the cronies of the Maduro administration parade up and down the streets of South Florida bragging about their ill-earned gains without consequence. Venezuela projects itself as a defender of every single human rights-violating country on the planet. Anytime there is a vote on Iran or Assad in Syria or on any human rights violation, you can count on Venezuela's Government being on the side of the human rights violator--every single time. Just recently we have seen them again repeatedly pronounce themselves in opposition to Israel and Israel's right to defend itself.

On top of everything else, we are not just sanctioning corruption and human rights violations; we are sanctioning individuals who at every opportunity they get seek to undermine the national security and the national interests of our country.

So I think this is a worthy endeavor, and my hope is that tomorrow when the Senate gets into session we can reach a conclusion on this item and achieve it. I think it would be critically important as we go into August to show that the Senate made progress in this endeavor. The House has its own version of sanctions that are different from ours. That will have to be reconciled. But I think passage of this in the next few hours will send a powerful message to the people of Venezuela that the people of America, speaking through our Senate, are firmly on their side and for their aspirations for freedom and liberty and on the side of human rights.

Madam President, I will yield the floor now for the Senator from New Jersey.

Mr. President, due to family commitments in Florida, I was unable to vote on the confirmation of Pamela Harris to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Had I been present, I would have voted against Ms. Harris's confirmation.

The Senate has few responsibilities more important than providing advice and consent on the President's judicial nominations. These are lifetime appointments with great power, whose decisions directly impact the life, liberty, and property of the parties who come before them.

Americans deserve a judiciary staffed by lawyers who are not just highly capable but who are also men and women of a particular character. We rightfully expect judges to understand their important but properly limited role to say what the law is, without bias, without agenda. As passionately as a judge may feel about a particular issue, when he or she puts on that black robe, all personal views must be set aside.

No one can deny Ms. Harris has a first rate mind or that she has built an impressive career. Unfortunately, many of her statements during that career suggest that her mind is better suited to academia, or elective office, than it is to the bench. She has identified herself as ``profoundly liberal'' and said she views the Constitution as ``profoundly progressive.'' These types of statements, along with troubling interpretations of the First Amendment among other issues, paint a picture of a nominee more likely to become a liberal activist judge than one who neutrally applies the law.

For those reasons, I would not have supported granting Ms. Harris the profound power that comes with lifetime tenure on the Federal bench.

Madam President, I ask to be recognized as if in morning business.

Thank you, Madam President.

I come to the floor today to discuss the ongoing situation in Israel. We all watch with great concern the images of the loss of life, young children, innocents who have lost their lives over the last few days, and also the men and women who served in the defense forces of Israel who have lost their lives in this operation. Our hearts also go out to the men and women who live in the nation of Israel who are living under the constant threat of rockets that are coming over from Gaza.

I came to the Senate floor a week ago to express not simply my concerns with this but also my solidarity--and I believe that of almost everyone in this body--with our ally Israel, and I received a response, a pretty heated letter from the Palestinian Ambassador in Washington, DC. He expressed outrage that I and my colleagues had not expressed the same level of concern for Palestinians as we had for the Israelis. He particularly pointed to the case of the three murdered Israelis but said we had not expressed similar feelings for the young Palestinian who lost his life.

I responded to his letter by pointing out a number of things. The first is that I believe that I and all my colleagues wish and pray and will do all we can to further the ideal that the Palestinian people could live peacefully side-by-side with their Israeli neighbors. It is a sentiment I expressed when I visited the Palestinian officials in the West Bank a year and a half ago.

But I also expressed that there was a significant difference between the way Israel and the Palestinians reacted to these two horrible incidents. The Palestinian Authority had to be basically nudged into expressing any sentiment about the three young people who were missing at the time. In fact, when the bodies were discovered, it led to street demonstrations. It led to celebrations on the streets of the West Bank and Gaza.

In Israel, the discovery of the death of the young Palestinian led to strong statements by the Prime Minister and condemnation. It led to a phone call from the Prime Minister to the family of the Palestinian. It led to visits by Israelis to the family of the Palestinian. It led to real outrage. There was a difference there, although both are horrible tragedies.

But I think there is something now emerging that is not being talked about. We have all seen the images of people being killed, civilians who are losing their lives in Gaza, and some are beginning to say that this is all Israel's fault, that this is Israel's fault. In fact, earlier today--or maybe it was last night--the Prime Minister of Turkey said that what the Israelis are doing in Gaza is worse than what Adolf Hitler did to the Jews. It is, of course, a ridiculous statement, but it gives an indication of where this is headed.

There is a story here that is not being told and that the Palestinian Ambassador himself has ignored, as I point to in my response to him. The first thing he ignores is that we have never in the modern history of the world seen any organization use human shields like Hamas is using human shields today. In fact, the reality behind it is unbelievable.

I would like to read from some press accounts with regards to this.

Washington Post correspondent William Booth, reporting from Gaza, wrote in an article on the 15th of July:

At the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, crowds gathered to

throw shoes and eggs at the Palestinian Authority's health

minister, who represents the crumbling ``unity government''

in the West Bank city of Ramallah. The minister was turned

away before he reached the hospital, which has become a de

facto headquarters for Hamas leaders, who can be seen in the

hallways and offices.

Another report by the Washington Post on July 17 recounts:

During the lull--

I imagine in the action--

a group of men at a mosque in northern Gaza said they had

returned to clean up the green glass from windows shattered

in the previous day's bombardment. But they could be seen

moving small rockets into the mosque.

The Japanese Mainichi Daily's correspondent in Gaza reported on July 21:

Hamas criticizes that ``Israel massacres civilians.'' On

the other hand, it tries to use evacuating civilians and

journalists by stopping them and turning them into ``human

shields,'' counteracting thoroughly with its guerilla tactics

. . .

It doesn't end there. A Globe and Mail correspondent in Gaza, Patrick Martin, wrote on July 20:

The presence of militant fighters in the Shejaia became

clear Sunday afternoon when, under the cover of a

humanitarian truce intended to allow both sides to remove the

dead and wounded, several armed Palestinians scurried from

the scene.

Some bore their weapons openly, slung over their shoulder,

but at least two, disguised as women, were seen walking off

with weapons partly concealed under their robes. Another had

his weapon wrapped in a baby blanket and held on his chest as

if it were an infant.

If you think that is bad, it gets worse. I obviously cannot play a video on the floor of the Senate, so instead I will read a statement from Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri. This is a quote on television in Gaza:

The people oppose the Israeli fighter planes with their

bodies alone . . . I think this method has proven effective

against the occupation. It also reflects the nature of our

heroic and brave people, and we, the [Hamas] movement, call

on our people to adopt this method in order to protect the

Palestinian homes.

The response to this is, Israel drops fliers and sends text messages and makes phone calls telling people--civilians--we are going to undertake a military operation, you should leave the area. What does Hamas do? I will tell you what they do.

This is from the Facebook page of their Interior Ministry spokesperson:

An important and urgent message: The [Hamas] Ministry of

the Interior and National Security calls on our honorable

people in all parts of the [Gaza] Strip to ignore the

warnings [to vacate areas near rocket launching sites before

Israel bombs them] that are being disseminated by the Israeli

occupation through manifestos and phone messages, as these

are part of a psychological war meant to sow confusion on the

[Palestinian] home front, in light of the [Israeli] enemy's

security failure and its confusion and bewilderment.

This next statement was on television on July 14:

We call on our Palestinian people, particularly the

residents of northwest Gaza, not to obey what is written in

the pamphlets distributed by the Israeli occupation army. We

call on them to remain in their homes and disregard the

demands to leave, however serious the threat may be.

This is evidence that Hamas is using its own people as human shields.

It doesn't stop there, Mr. Ambassador. Ask yourself: Why did your organization--why did your government--unify with this terrorist organization that uses its own people as a human shield? You didn't mention that in your letter. You didn't mention in your letter that you aligned yourself with an organization that calls for the destruction of the Jewish state. You left that out of your letter as well, Mr. Ambassador.

What has been the international reaction to this? Well, I already told you about what came out of Turkey. Just yesterday the so-called United Nations Human Rights Council--and I say so-called because it has such distinguished human rights beacons as Cuba and China on its membership--voted unanimously, except for the United States, to condemn Israel and to call for an investigation into war crimes against Israel. There is a 700-page document that briefly mentions rockets and does not mention Hamas or human shields whatsoever. Meanwhile, this crisis continues.

What do we see coming out of Hamas? Have they stopped what they are doing beyond the human shields? No. What we discovered--and what has been discovered now--is an intricate web of underground tunnels designed to bring killers into the Israeli territory. They attempted, by the way, to carry out a massacre at a kibbutz near the border with Gaza. Luckily they were intercepted by Israeli defense forces. They discovered tranquilizers in their possession, the purpose of which, of course, was to use them to abduct and kidnap Israelis and take them back to Gaza for ransom or worse. The rockets continue to rain down as well.

You also didn't mention in your letter, Mr. Ambassador, the cease- fire, which, by the way, Israel agreed to even though it was extremely unpopular in Israel. Why? Because three times in the last 5 years they had to face this.

I want you to imagine for a moment that you lived in a country with a neighbor that blitzed you three times in the last 5 years with rockets, trying to kill your children and destroy your cities and disrupt and paralyze your economy. There comes a point where you say enough is enough, we have to put an end to this. So you can just imagine how unpopular that cease-fire must have been among some elements of the cabinet and the unity government in Israel, and certainly among the population. Yet the Prime Minister went ahead with it because they desire peace, and in just a few hours Hamas violated the cease-fire.

So please don't come to me and say that both sides are to blame here. That is not true. This crisis would end tomorrow if Hamas would turn over its rockets and stop bombarding people. This would end tomorrow, by the way, if the Hamas commanders were not such cowards. I will tell you why they are cowards. While they are on TV asking these people to go to the rooftops of these buildings, you know where they are? They are hiding in their basement command center, which, by the way, is located in the basement underneath a hospital.

This would end tomorrow--the civilian deaths could end tomorrow--if they stopped storing rockets in schools, including a U.N. school. By the way, when the U.N. discovered these rockets, do you know what they did with them? They turned them back over to Hamas. Don't tell me both sides are to blame here because it is not true. It is not true. This is the result of one thing and one thing alone: Hamas has decided to launch rockets against Israel, Hamas has decided to build this extensive network of underground tunnels so that in a moment of conflict they can get these commandos into Israel and kill Israelis.

What is Israel doing? What any country would do. Of course this is not an excellent example, but imagine for a moment if one of our neighboring countries decided to start hitting us with rockets. What would the United States do? Would we sit there and say: We really have to be restrained and hold back here? We would not tolerate that. Imagine that every night and every morning sirens were going off in your city because rockets were on their way in and you spent the better part of the day running in and out of shelters and taking cover. What would you say? You would say: Take care of this problem once and for all.

Why would we ever ask Israel to do anything less than we would do if we were in the same situation? And that is what they are doing.

In the process of taking care of the situation, tragically, civilians are dying, and do you know why? Because Hamas is deliberately putting them in the way. I just read the quotes. Hamas is asking their people to do what their leaders won't do. They are asking their own people to get in harm's way and act as human shields because they want these images to be spread around the world. They are willing to sacrifice their own people to win a PR war.

I think it is absolutely outrageous that some in the press corps domestically and most of the press corps internationally are falling for this game. So please don't tell me that both sides are to blame here, and please don't tell me this was caused by Israel.

In my time here in the Senate, I had the opportunity to visit multiple countries. I have never met a people more desirous of peace than the people in Israel. But peace cannot mean your destruction, and that is what they are facing here--an enemy force that wants to destroy them and wipe them out as a country. It is impossible to reach any sort of peace agreement with an organization like that. That is what Israel is facing here.

Mr. Ambassador, I ask that you go back to your government and ask them to separate completely from Hamas, condemn what Hamas is doing to your own people--condemn the use of human shields. That is what I ask you to do. Stop writing letters to Senators and being angry at us when, by the way--although we should not be doing it because the law says no money should be going toward any organization linked with Hamas--the United States has been helping you to stand up your security forces in the West Bank through our taxpayer money. Don't write letters to the U.S. Congress complaining to us about what Israel is doing when the people you just created a unity government with are launching rockets against civilians in Israel and using its own people as human shields.

I think you need to take responsibility for your own people and your own part of the world. If you truly want peace, peace begins with laying down your arms and stopping these attacks and condemning those who are conducting these attacks and using innocent civilians as human shields. If you want peace, that is what you should spend your time doing and not trying to rally public support around the world for the idea that Israel is responsible for war crimes.

From our perspective, I hope the United States continues to be firmly on the side of Israel because there is no moral equivalency here. What is happening between Israel and Hamas is totally 100 percent the fault of Hamas. There is no moral equivalency here. All of the blame lies on Hamas.

For this crisis to end, Hamas must either be eliminated as an organization or they must lay down their weapons and adhere to the true precepts of peace, which is the desire to live peacefully side by side with our neighbors in Israel.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I recognize Matt Stiglbauer, a 2013 summer intern in my Washington, DC, office for all of the hard work he has done for me, my staff, and the people of the State of Florida.

Matt is a senior at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, FL. Currently, he is majoring in English. Matt is a dedicated and diligent worker who has been devoted to getting the most out of his internship experience.

I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Matt for all the fine work he has done and wish him continued success in the years to come.