Speech By: Rear Adm. Barry Black

Rear Adm. Barry Black:coverage now of the u.s. senate, here on c-span2. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will now lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us

Rear Adm. Barry Black:pray. o maker of the seas and the earth, speak to our hearts today that we may cling to things that cannot fail. speak to our lawmakers that they may embrace your purposes and do your will. give them

Rear Adm. Barry Black:rest-not from labor--but strength for the work before them. and god we also ask you to bless this land. defend it from the forces that seek to destroy our freedoms. may its citizens never forget

Rear Adm. Barry Black:that righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. today, be with the family members of former senator jesse helms as they mourn his death. give traveling mercies to our senators

Rear Adm. Barry Black:who will attend the funeral. we pray in your compassionate name. # amen. the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the

Rear Adm. Barry Black:united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication

Speech By: Harry Reid

Harry Reid:to the senate. the clerk: washington, d.c, july 8, 2008. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable jon tester,

Harry Reid:a senator from the state of montana, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: robert c. byrd, president pro tempore. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid:

Harry Reid:following the leader remarks the senate will be in a period of morning business for an hour with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes during that morning hour. following morning business,

Harry Reid:the senate will resume consideration of the fisa legislation. we will offer and debate amendments to the bill today and be again voting sometime tomorrow morning. when we come in tomorrow morning,

Harry Reid:mr. president, there will be 105 minutes left of debate time. as previously announced, to accommodate senators wanting to attend the funeral of jesse helms, there will be no votes today. we do

Harry Reid:that to honor our departed friend, jesse helms. so there will be no votes today. and it worked out just fine. it is appropriate that we do -- have no votes today. we'll be in recess from 12:30 until

Harry Reid:2:15 today to allow our weekly democratic caucus luncheon. the republicans, who normally have theirs at the same time we do, will have their tomorrow. i've indicated to the republican leader that we'll protect

Harry Reid:his caucus. there will be no votes tomorrow during that period of time. having said that, we'll do everything we can to complete all the votes before the republican caucus tomorrow. if we don't finish,

Harry Reid:we may have a vote after lunch. we'll do that. around 4:00 tomorrow afternoon we're going to have another vote on the medicare doctors fix, which is so important to our country. we would hope that by

Harry Reid:4:00 tomorrow afternoon we'll pick up another vote, that we'll have 60 votes. that certainly would be good news for senior citizens, all those people on medicare and the doctors who want to take care

Harry Reid:of those patients. mr. president, i understand that h.r. 6377 is at the desk and due for a second reading. the presiding officer: the clerk wi read the bill. the clerk: h.r. 6377, an act to direct

Harry Reid:the commodity futures trading commission to utilize all its authority, and so forth. mr. reid: mr. president, i would object to any further proceedings to this legislation at this time. the presiding officer:

Jon Tester:objection having been heard, the bill will be placed on the calendar under rule 14. under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. under the previous order, the senate will proceed to a

Jon Tester:period of morning business for up to one hour, with the senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. a senator: mr.resident? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr.

Jon Tester:coburn: thank you. 232 years ago the declaration of independence established that humans have the right to self-government because of their inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of

Jon Tester:happiness. preserving these principles requires the same wisdom, courage and spirit of sacrifice that characterize many of the 18th century americans. what will our children say, wrote boston attorney

Tom Coburn:josia quincy ii when they read the history of these times should they find we tamely gave away the most invaluable of earthly blessings. let us swear we will die if we cannot live free men. indeed, the

Speech By: Tom Coburn

Tom Coburn:americans chose to fight nobly and khaeupblgsly. after the british battle at saratoga, lord chava concluded, you cannot, i venture to say -- you cannot conquer america. these principles to which

Tom Coburn:the representatives of the 13 colonies pledged their life, their resources and their honor, still apply in our nation today. it was on this day -- july 8, 1776 -- that the declaration of independence

Tom Coburn:was first red publicly having been adopted by congress only four days prior. today i'm pleased to join with my colleague, senator lieberman, in starting a new bipartisan tradition in the united

Tom Coburn:states senate. we will read the declaration of independence again. during the next hour we also hear from important leaders in our nation's history who saw these principles of liberty, equality and

Tom Coburn:justice as timeless qualities. patrick henry urges us to consider the consequences of weekly submitting to tyrannical authority -- weakly smithing to tyrannical authority. in his famous speech, george

Tom Coburn:washington establishes the importance of religious freedom for our nation. a few days before his inauguration, abraham lincoln makes an i am impromptu speech where he argues the principles of legislation

Tom Coburn:are incompatible with slavery. thomas jefferson comments on the significance of the declaration and its value. i ask unanimous consent that senator lieberman and myself may enter into a colloquy on the

Tom Coburn:reading of the declaration of independence and following the colloquy we have an order of speakers for the remaining of morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. coburn: when in the

Tom Coburn:course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political vans which have connected them with one another and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal nation

Tom Coburn:to which the laws of nature and nature's god entitles them a decent opinion of the respect of mankind requires them to declare the causes which impel them to separation. mr. lieberman: we hold these truths

Tom Coburn:to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. that to secure

Joseph Lieberman:these rights, gornments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the

Speech By: Joseph Lieberman

Joseph Lieberman:right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect

Joseph Lieberman:their safety and happiness. prudence indeed will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes. and accordingly, all experience has shown that mankind are more

Joseph Lieberman:disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. but when a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same

Joseph Lieberman:object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government and to provide new guards for their future security. such has been

Joseph Lieberman:the patient sufferance of these colonies. and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. the history of the present king of great britain is a history of

Joseph Lieberman:repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. to prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. mr. coburn: the

Joseph Lieberman:king of great britain refused assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. he has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance unless suspended

Joseph Lieberman:in their operation till his assent shall be attained. and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. he has refused to pass other ws for the accommodation of large districts of people

Tom Coburn:unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the ledges tour, a right inhe right inestimable to them. mr. lieberman: he called together legislative bodies at places unusual

Tom Coburn:and comfortable and distant from the depository of their public records for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. he has dissolved representative houses repeatedly

Speech By: Joseph Lieberman

Joseph Lieberman:for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the right of the people. he has refused for a long time after such dissolutions to cause others to be elected, whereby the legislative powers incapable

Joseph Lieberman:of annihilation have returned to the people at large for their exercise, the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without and convulsions within. mr. coburn: he has

Joseph Lieberman:endeavored to prevent the population of these states, for that purpose obstructing the laws of naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither and raising the

Joseph Lieberman:conditions of new appropriations of lands. he has object obstructed the administration of justice by refusing assent to laws. he has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their

Tom Coburn:offices and the amount and payment of their salaries. mr. lieberman: he has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. he

Joseph Lieberman:has kept among us in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislatures. he has effected to render the military nonpartisan of and superior to this civil power. he has combined

Joseph Lieberman:with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation. mr. coburn: for quartering large bodies

Joseph Lieberman:of institutions among us, for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world. mr. lieberman: for imposing taxes on us without our consent, for depriving us in many cases of the benefits of trial

Tom Coburn:by jury, for transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses, for abolishing the free system of english laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging

Joseph Lieberman:its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies. mr. coburn: for taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable

Joseph Lieberman:laws and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments, for suspending our own legislatures and declaring thepls invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. mr. lieberman:

Tom Coburn:he has abdicated government here by declaring us out of his protection and wages war against us. he has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns and destroyed the lives of our people.

Joseph Lieberman:he has at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perferty scarcely paralleled