Senator Marco Rubio (R, FL) gave a speech on the Senate floor. The video is here; it’s well worth the 15 minutes.
Here is the press statement that serves as transcript of that speech, from Rubio’s Senate Web site. It’s not indented and italicized like I usually do quotes because it’s the transcript of a 15 minute speech.
In advance: what he said.
The State Department accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of taking congressional testimony by Secretary of State John Kerry out of context in Netanyahu’s address to a joint meeting of Congress Tuesday.
What Kerry said in Congressional testimony:
[I]f you have a civilian power plant that’s producing power legitimately and not a threat to proliferation, you could have as many as 190,000 or more centrifuges[.]
What Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said:
President Barack Obama‘s national security adviser castigated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying the Israeli leader’s plan to address a joint session of Congress next week has been “destructive” to the relationship between the two countries.
Most administrations would take advantage of the visit of a major ally’s head of state to work out programs, resolve differences (at least down to a dull roar), even to mend fences.
Not President Barack Obama and his administration.
This is fence mending ego-ridden style. Obama just can’t stand to have grown adults not saying, “Mother, may I?” to him.
The article, by Reuters, is being censored in its entirety, even though it’s about the Commission’s planned censorship and not an attempt to carry the speech.
or via Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RevelationsRevealedNow/posts/1540371689585941
Following is that article.
Israeli election chief puts curbs on Netanyahu’s speech to U.S. Congress
By Luke Baker
JERUSALEM Mon Feb 16, 2015 10:11am EST
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a handover ceremony at the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem, in which the new Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Gadi Eizenkot replaced outgoing Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz, February 16, 2015. Credit: Reuters/Ronen Zvulun
I knew I had a previous engagement lying around here somewhere.
At first, Vice President Joe Biden didn’t know about his schedule, according to President Barack Obama’s Press Secretary Josh Earnest:
The vice president’s schedule for [the week in question] has not yet been set.
Then the priority turned up.
A White House official confirmed to Fox News on Friday that the vice president will miss the address, as he will be traveling abroad.
Going to an undisclosed location…. Joe Biden is President of the Senate, so he normally—and under protocol imperatives—attends joint sessions of Congress. But something finally came up.
Don’t confuse them with facts.
Congressmen John Lewis (D, GA), G.K. Butterfield (D, NC), and Earl Blumenauer (D, OR) have announced they’re going to skip out on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the full Congress on 3 March.
Never mind that this man on the scene might have some expertise about the Middle East and the threats posed by Islamic terrorists and by Iran. President Barack Obama has given them all the wisdom they need.
Blumenauer went so far as to say
I will refuse to be part of a reckless act of political grandstanding[.]
And so it goes with Iran.
Iran is encouraging its terror allies to pursue the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s children by publishing personal information about them, including photographs of the kids lined up in crosshairs, and declaring, “We must await the hunt of Hezbollah.”
And
In addition to biographical details and pictures of Netanyahu’s children, the Iranians provided details about the families of former Prime Ministers Ehud Olmert and Ariel Sharon.
This was nominally triggered by an Israeli airstrike against a weapons shipment arrived in Syria but not yet dispersed in which an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps senior officer was killed.
Jeff Dunetz, at The Lid, posted parts of an interesting exchange between Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Deputy Secretary of State Anthony Blinken regarding the nuclear weapons deal that President Barack Obama is about to conclude with Iran and at which Obama is desperate that Congress not look too closely. The three-hour hearing during which this exchange occurred can be seen on C-SPAN.
The set up question (from my perspective):
Menendez: So let me ask you this, isn’t it true that even the deal that you are striving towards—is not to eliminate any Iranian breakout capability, but to constrain the time in which you’ll get the notice of such breakout capability. Is that a fair statement, yes or no?
Blinken: Yes, it is.
Speaker of the House John Boehner (R, OH) has invited Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address the full Congress in early March. The purpose of the visit and address is to advise the Congress on matters of diplomacy and threat in the Middle East, in keeping with Congress’ duty to be sufficiently informed that it can maintain its oversight of the Executive Branch.
Motorboat skipper, accuser of the American military as war criminals, and Secretary of State John Kerry had this to say about the recent Palestinian terrorist attack on an Israeli synagogue in Jerusalem:
“Innocent people who had come to worship died in the sanctuary of a synagogue,” Kerry said, his voice quavering [quavering!]. “They were hatcheted, hacked and murdered in that holy place in an act of pure terror and senseless brutality and murder. I call on Palestinians at every single level of leadership to condemn this in the most powerful terms.