I Am The Senate Quotes

Roarke had to force himself not to snatch her up as she swept through the hallowed Senate halls. Members of the media were already leaping toward her, but she cut through them as if they weren’t there. “I like your style, Lieutenant Dallas,” he said when they’d fought their way to the car. “I like it a lot. And by the way, I don’t think I’m in love with you anymore. I know I am.

I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C" and "D." Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism.

And what thoughts or memories, would you guess, were passing through my mind on this extraordinary occasion? Was I thinking of the Sibyl's prophecy, of the omen of the wolf-cub, of Pollio's advice, or of Briseis's dream? Of my grandfather and liberty? Of my grandfather and liberty? Of my three Imperial predecessors, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, their lives and deaths? Of the great danger I was still in from the conspirators, and from the Senate, and from the Gaurds battalions at the Camp? Of Messalina and our unborn child? Of my grandmother Livia and my promise to deify her if I ever became Emperor? Of Postumus and Germanicus? Of Agrippina and Nero? Of Camilla? No, you would never guess what was passing through my mind. But I shall be frank and tell you what it was, though the confession is a shameful one. I was thinking, 'So, I'm Emperor, am I? What nonsense! But at least I'll be able to make people read my books now. Public recitals to large audiences. And good books too, thirty-five years' hard work in them. It wont be unfair. Pollio used to get attentive audiences by giving expensive dinners. He was a very sound historian, and the last of the Romans. My history of Carthage is full of amusing anecdotes. I'm sure that they'll enjoy it.

I almost could. I could almost leave and never look back. Like Mr. Bender, I could leave everything I was behind, including my name. Leave because of Allys and all the things she says I am. Leave because of all the things I am afraid that I will never be again. Leave, because maybe I’m not enough. Leave because of Allys, Senator Harris, and half the world knows better than Father and Mother and maybe Ethan, too. Leave. Because the old Jenna was so absorbed in her own needs that she said yes when she knows she should have said no, and the shame of night could be hidden in a new place behind a new name. But friends are complicated. There is the staying. Staying because of Kara and Locke and all that they will never be except trapped. Staying because for them, time is running out and I am their their last chance. Staying for the old Jenna and all she owes Kara and Locke and maybe all the new Jenna owes them, too. Staying because of ten percent and all I hope I might be. Staying because of Mr. Bender’s erased life and regrets. Staying for connection. Staying because two me is enough to make one of me worth nothing at all. And staying because maybe Lily does love the new Jenna as much as the old one, after all. Because maybe, given time, people do change, maybe laws change. Maybe we all change.

Sacrificing earth to paradise is like leaving your fortune to a corpse. I'm not that stupid. Duped by the Infinite! I am nothing; I call myself Count Nothing, the senator. Did I exist before my birth? No. Will I after my death? No. What am I? A little dust surrounding an organism. What do I have to do on this earth? I have the choice of pain or pleasure. Where will pain lead me? To nothing. But I will have suffered. Where will pleasure lead me? To nothing. But I will have enjoyed. My choice is made. I must eat or be eaten, and I choose to eat. It is better to be the tooth than the grass. That's my philosophy.

Are you afraid?” an interviewer asked him after the bombing, and there was a pause, and then Martin Luther King said, very firmly, “No, I’m not. My attitude is that this is a great cause, a great issue that we’re confronted with, and that the consequences for my personal life are not particularly important. It is the triumph of a cause that I am concerned about, and I have always felt that ultimately along the way of life an individual must stand up and be counted, and be willing to face the consequences, whatever they are, and if he is filled with fear, he cannot do it.

Said Doremus, “Hm. Yes, I agree it’s a serious time. With all the discontent there is in the country to wash him into office, Senator Windrip has got an excellent chance to be elected President, next November, and if he is, probably his gang of buzzards will get us into some war, just to grease their insane vanity and show the world that we’re the huskiest nation going. And then I, the Liberal and you, the Plutocrat, the bogus Tory, will be led out and shot at 3 A.M. Serious? Huh!

Who seeks for better of thee, sauce his palate With thy most operant poison! What is here? Gold? yellow, glittering, precious gold? No, gods, I am no idle votarist: roots, you clear heavens! Thus much of this will make black white, foul fair, Wrong right, base noble, old young, coward valiant. Ha, you gods! why this? what this, you gods? Why, this Will lug your priests and servants from your sides, Pluck stout men's pillows from below their heads: This yellow slave Will knit and break religions, bless the accursed, Make the hoar leprosy adored, place thieves And give them title, knee and approbation With senators on the bench: this is it That makes the wappen'd widow wed again;

Lavinia Asimov!' Reyna called from the rostrum. 'Did you have something to say?' All eyes turned towards us. A few legionnaires smirked, as if this was not the first time Lavinia had been called out during a senate meeting. Lavinia glanced from side to side, then pointed to herself as if unsure which of the many Lavinia Asimovs Reyna might be addressing. 'No, ma'am. I'm good.' Reyna did not look amused at being called ma'am. 'I notice you're chewing gym as well. Did you bring enough for the whole senate?' 'Er, I mean ...'Lavinia pulled multiple packs of gum from her pockets. She scanned the crowd, making a quick guesstimate. 'Maybe?' Reyna glanced heavenward, as if asking the gods, Why do I have to be the only adult in the room?

Are we still tying bows?" Sadie-Grace sounded hopeful as she sat down beside me at the senator's dining room table. "I only have three things in life that I am truly gifted at, and one of them is tying bows." I shoved the basket I was currently working on in her direction. "Have at it." Sadie-Grace studied my work and got very quiet for a moment. "Sawyer," she said morosely, "what did this cellophane wrap ever do to you?

With all respect, Senator,” Padmé said, “that is exactly why you sent someone like me on this mission. You don’t approve of violence, and you never will. I admire that, and I have accepted it. All I ask in return is that you accept that I am the person you send when there’s the possibility of . . . aggressive negotiations.

Senator DeBlass is an incestuous child molester. A rapist and a murderer. And what I am, pal, is the cop who's taking him down. You'd better call a lawyer unless you want to sink with him." Roarke had to force himself not to snatch her up as she swept through the hallowed Senate halls. Members of the media were already leaping toward her, but she cut through them as if they weren't there. "I like your style, Lieutenant Dallas," he said when they'd fought their way to the car. "I like it a lot. And by the way, I don't think I'm in love with you anymore. I know I am.

He was perfectly astonished with the historical account gave him of our affairs during the last century; protesting “it was only a heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions, banishments, the very worst effects that avarice, faction, hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy, lust, malice, and ambition, could produce.” His majesty, in another audience, was at the pains to recapitulate the sum of all I had spoken; compared the questions he made with the answers I had given; then taking me into his hands, and stroking me gently, delivered himself in these words, which I shall never forget, nor the manner he spoke them in: “My little friend Grildrig, you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your country; you have clearly proved, that ignorance, idleness, and vice, are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied, by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them. I observe among you some lines of an institution, which, in its original, might have been tolerable, but these half erased, and the rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions. It does not appear, from all you have said, how any one perfection is required toward the procurement of any one station among you; much less, that men are ennobled on account of their virtue; that priests are advanced for their piety or learning; soldiers, for their conduct or valour; judges, for their integrity; senators, for the love of their country; or counsellors for their wisdom. As for yourself,” continued the king, “who have spent the greatest part of your life in travelling, I am well disposed to hope you may hitherto have escaped many vices of your country. But by what I have gathered from your own relation, and the answers I have with much pains wrung and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.

I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times.

You’re not gonna believe what just happened to me,” Jase says the minute I flip my cell open, taking advantage of break at the B&T. I turn away from the picture window just in case Mr. Lennox, disregarding the break sign, will come dashing out to slap me with my first-ever demerit. “Try me.” His voice lowers. “You know how I put that lock on the door of my room? Well, Dad noticed it. Apparently. So today, I’m stocking the lawn section and he comes up and asks why it’s there.” “Uh-oh.” I catch the attention of a kid sneaking into the hot tub (there’s a strict no-one-under-sixteen policy) and shake my head sternly. He slinks away. Must be my impressive uniform. “So I say I need privacy sometimes and sometimes you and I are hanging out and we don’t want to be interrupted ten million times.” “Good answer.” “Right. I think this is going to be the end of it. But then he tells me he needs me in the back room to have a ‘talk.’” “Uh-oh again.” Jase starts to laugh. “I follow him back and he sits me down and asks if I’m being responsible. Um. With you.” Moving back into the shade of the bushes, I turn even further away from the possible gaze of Mr. Lennox. “Oh God.” “I say yeah, we’ve got it handled, it’s fine. But, seriously? I can’t believe he’s asking me this. I mean, Samantha. Jesus. My parents? Hard not to know the facts of life and all in this house. So I tell him that we’re moving slowly and—” “You told him that?” God, Jase! How am I ever going to look Mr. Garret in the eye again? Help. “He’s my dad, Samantha. Yeah. Not that I didn’t want to exit the conversation right away, but still . . .” “So what happened then?” “Well, I reminded him they’d covered that really thoroughly in school, not to mention at home, and we weren’t irresponsible people.” I close my eyes, trying to imagine having this conversation with my mother. Inconceivable. No pun intended. “So then . . . he goes on about”—Jase’s voice drops even lower—“um . . . being considerate and um . . . mutual pleasure.” “Oh my god! I would’ve died. What did you say?” I ask, wanting to know even while I’m completely distracted by the thought. Mutual pleasure, huh? What do I know about giving that? What if Shoplifting Lindy had tricks up her sleeve I know nothing about? It’s not like I can ask Mom. “State senator suffers heart attack during conversation with daughter.” “I said ‘Yes sir’ a lot. And he went on and on and on and all I could think was that any minute Tim was gonna come in and hear my dad saying things like, ‘Your mom and I find that . . . blah blah blah.’” I can’t stop laughing. “He didn’t. He did not mention your mother.” “I know!” Jase is laughing too. “I mean . . . you know how close I am to my parents, but . . . Jesus.

Neither the discontent of party friends, nor the allurements constantly offered of confirmations of appointees conditions upon the avowal that suspensions have been made on party grounds alone, nor the threat proposed in the resolutions now before the Senate that no confirmations will be made unless the demands of that body are complied with, are sufficient to discourage or deter me from following in the way which I am convinced leads to better government for the people.

More than once have I thought, Why does crime, even when as powerful as Cæsar, and assured of being beyond punishment, strive always for the appearances of truth, justice, and virtue? Why does it take the trouble? I consider that to murder a brother, a mother, a wife, is a thing worthy of some petty Asiatic king, not a Roman Cæsar; but if that position were mine, I should not write justifying letters to the Senate. But Nero writes. Nero is looking for appearances, for Nero is a coward. But Tiberius was not a coward; still he justified every step he took. Why is this? What a marvellous, involuntary homage paid to virtue by evil! And knowest thou what strikes me? This, that it is done because transgression is ugly and virtue is beautiful. Therefore a man of genuine æsthetic feeling is also a virtuous man. Hence I am virtuous.

In 1868, the Georgia legislature voted to expel all its Negro members-two senators, twenty-five representatives-and Turner spoke to the Georgia House of Representatives (a black woman graduate student at Atlanta University later brought his speech to light): Mr. Speaker. . . I wish the members of this House to understand the position that I take. I hold that I am a member of this body. Therefore, sir, I shall neither fawn or cringe before any party, nor stoop to beg them for my rights. . . I am here to demand my rights, and to hurl thunderbolts at the men who would dare to cross the threshold of my manhood.

Steel tempered by fire,” she said aloud, without thinking. “Am I?” he asked. She smiled sadly. “Aren’t you?” He let out a long, slow breath and some of the tension drained out of him. He looked at her quizzically. “You give me peace,” he said unexpectedly. “The only time I ever feel it is when I’m with you. God knows why, when you set me off like a bomb.” She searched his eyes. “Tate, Senator Holden has a reason for what he did,” she told him seriously. “I don’t pretend to know what it is, but I know him. He’s not like some politicians who lie when the truth would suit better. He has integrity. He doesn’t hold grudges and he doesn’t backstab. You know that,” she added with conviction. He scowled. “Yes, I do.” His narrow eyes searched hers. “What do you know, Cecily?” “I know archaeology,” she replied. He reached out and touched her firm little chin with hard fingers. “You’re keeping something from me,” he said in a low, deep tone. “I’m not sure why I sense that, but I do.” “You think you know all about me,” she replied, trying to draw back. “Don’t…do that,” she muttered, reaching up to catch his hair-roughened wrist in her warm fingers. His breath caught. “Fatal error, Cecily,” he said huskily, moving in, giving in to the hunger that had really brought him to her apartment at this hour of the night. “You shouldn’t have touched me…

The failure of Hellenism has been, largely, a matter of organization. Rome never tried to impose any sort of worship upon the countries it conquered and civilized; in fact, quite the contrary, Rome was eclectic. All religions were given an equal opportunity and even Isis—after some resistance—was worshipped at Rome. As a result we have a hundred important gods and a dozen mysteries. Certain rites are—or were—supported by the state because they involved the genius of Rome. But no attempt was ever made to coordinate the worship of Zeus on the Capitol with, let us say, the Vestals who kept the sacred fire in the old forum. As time passed our rites became, and one must admit it bluntly, merely form, a reassuring reminder of the great age of the city, a token gesture to the old gods who were thought to have founded and guided Rome from a village by the Tiber to world empire. Yet from the beginning, there were always those who mocked. A senator of the old Republic once asked an auger how he was able to get through a ceremony of divination without laughing. I am not so light-minded, though I concede that many of our rites have lost their meaning over the centuries; witness those temples at Rome where certain verses learned by rote are chanted year in and year out, yet no one, including the priests, knows what they mean, for they are in the early language of the Etruscans, long since forgotten. As the religious forms of the state became more and more rigid and perfunctory, the people were drawn to the mystery cults, many of them Asiatic in origin. At Eleusis or in the various caves of Mithras, they were able to get a vision of what this life can be, as well as a foretaste of the one that follows. There are, then, three sorts of religious experiences. The ancient rites, which are essentially propitiatory. The mysteries, which purge the soul and allow us to glimpse eternity. And philosophy, which attempts to define not only the material world but to suggest practical ways to the good life, as well as attempting to synthesize (as Iamblichos does so beautifully) all true religion in a single comprehensive system.

In my time in Washington, no battle has consumed more energy than stopping Obamacare. On the evening of September 24, 2013, it began with a prayer. In my tiny “hideaway” office wedged into a dome in the Capitol Building, Senator Mike Lee and I bowed our heads, read from the Book of Psalms, and asked for the Lord’s guidance. I then walked to the floor of the U.S. Senate and announced, “I intend to speak in support of defunding Obamacare until I am no longer able to stand.”* I opened by noting that “all across this country, Americans are suffering because of Obamacare.” And yet politicians in Washington were not listening to the concerns of their constituents. They weren’t hearing the people with jobs lost or the people forced into part-time work. They had no answers for the people losing their health insurance, or the people who are struggling. With good reason, men and women across America believe that politicians get elected, go to Washington, and stop listening to them. This is the most common thing you hear from the man on the street, from Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and Libertarians: You’re not listening to me.

My dear child,” beamed Martin Silenus, “I am not trying to tell you anything. I just thought it might be entertaining—as well as edifying and enlightening—if at some point we exchanged lists of all the locations at which we have either robbed or been robbed. Since you have the unfair advantage of having been the daughter of a senator, I am sure that your list would be much more distinguished … and much longer.” Lamia

year-old J.D. Vance would have considered ludicrous. But about two hundred people do the same thing every year, and trust me, you don’t want to read about most of their lives. I am not a senator, a governor, or a former cabinet secretary. I haven’t started a billion-dollar company or a world-changing nonprofit. I have a nice job, a happy marriage, a comfortable home, and two lively dogs. So I didn’t write this book because I’ve accomplished something extraordinary. I wrote

on November 1 he issued a statement that stopped just short of an endorsement. “I want to make it palpably clear,” King said, “that I am deeply grateful to Senator Kennedy for the genuine concern he expressed.… [He] exhibited moral courage of a high order.” In private, he added that the contrast between Kennedy’s call and Nixon’s inaction was very real to him. Even though Nixon had known him longer, he had done nothing. “I really considered him a moral coward,” King remarked.

She opened the book. “Don’t,” said Arin. “Please.” But she had already seen the inscription. For Arin, it read, from Amma and Etta, with love. This was Arin’s home. This house had been his, this library his, this book his, dedicated to him by his parents, some ten years ago. Kestrel breathed slowly. Her fingers rested on the page, just below the black line of writing. She lifted her gaze to meet Irex’s smirk. Her mind chilled. She assessed the situation as her father would a battle. She knew her objective. She knew her opponent’s. She understood what she could afford to lose, and what she could not. Kestrel closed the book, set it on a table, and turned her back to Arin. “Lord Irex,” she said, her voice warm. “It is but a book.” “It is my book,” Irex said. There was a choked sound behind her. Without looking, Kestrel said in Herrani, “Do you wish to be removed from the room?” Arin’s answer was low. “No.” “Then be silent.” She smiled at Irex. In their language, she said, “This is clearly not a case of theft. Who would dare steal from you? I’m certain he meant only to look at it. You can’t blame him for being curious about the luxuries your house holds.” “He shouldn’t have even been inside the library, let alone touching its contents. Besides, there were witnesses. A judge will rule in my favor. This is my property, so I will decide the number of lashes.” “Yes, your property. Let us not forget that we are also discussing my property.” “He will be returned to you.” “So the law says, but in what condition? I am not eager to see him damaged. He holds more value than a book in a language no one has any interest in reading.” Irex’s dark eyes flicked to look behind Kestrel, then returned to her. They grew sly. “You take a decided interest in your slave’s well-being. I wonder to what lengths you will go to prevent a punishment that is rightfully mine to give.” He rested a hand on her arm. “Perhaps we can settle the matter between us.” Kestrel heard Arin inhale as he understood Irex’s suggestion. She was angry, suddenly, at the way her mind snagged on the sound of that sharp breath. She was angry at herself, for feeling vulnerable because Arin was vulnerable, and at Irex for his knowing smile. “Yes.” Kestrel decided to twist Irex’s words into something else. “This is between us, and fate.” Having uttered the formal words of a challenge to a duel, Kestrel stepped back from Irex’s touch, drew her dagger, and held it sideways at the level of her chest like a line drawn between him and her. “Kestrel,” Irex said. “That isn’t what I had in mind when I said we might solve the matter.” “I think we’ll enjoy this method more.” “A challenge.” He tsked. “I’ll let you take it back. Just this one.” “I cannot take it back.” At that, Irex drew his dagger and imitated Kestrel’s gesture. They stood still, then sheathed their blades. “I’ll even let you choose the weapons,” Irex said. “Needles. Now it is to you to choose the time and place.” “My grounds. Tomorrow, two hours from sunset. That will give me time to gather the death-price.” This gave Kestrel pause. But she nodded, and finally turned to Arin. He looked nauseated. He sagged in the senators’ grip. It seemed they weren’t restraining him, but holding him up. “You can let go,” Kestrel told the senators, and when they did, she ordered Arin to follow her. As they left the library, Arin said, “Kestrel--” “Not a word. Don’t speak until we are in the carriage.

You,' she said, tucking a matching flower into the breast pocket of his coat, 'are not a Jedi Knight. And I am not a senator. We're just a married couple having dinner.' She gestured around, and he noticed that several other couples had donned matching flowers as well. Of course she would scout this out first. 'Yeah', he said, locking elbows with her. 'Just like any other married couple.' She rested her head on his shoulder, the glow of her flower tinting her face. Passion and purpose indeed.

A day after we returned from our trip, a day before Ramadan was set to begin, Philippe called. “Turn on CNN.” I flipped on the TV, and there on the Senate floor stood Senator John McCain, delivering a speech. He said, “Huma represents what is best about America: the daughter of immigrants, who has risen to the highest levels of our government on the basis of her substantial personal merit and her abiding commitment to the American ideals that she embodies so fully,” McCain continued and ended, saying, “I am proud to know Huma and to call her my friend.

Graham knew McCain hated Trump. He knew that in Washington, you had to deal with people who hated you. But he did not impart that particular piece of advice to the president. “My chief job is to keep John McCain calm,” Graham remarked. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell was “scared to death of John McCain. Because John knows no boundaries. He’ll pop our leadership as much as he’ll pop their leadership. And I will, at times, but mine’s more calculated. John’s just purely John. He’s just the world’s nicest man. And a media whore like me. Anyway, he’s a much nicer guy than I am.

It will be long before everyone is wiped out. People live in war time, they always have. There was terror down through history - and the men who saw the Spanish Armada sail over the rim of the world, who saw the Black death wipe out half of Europe, those men were frightened, terrified. But though they lived and died in fear, I am here; we have built again. And so I will belong to a dark age, and historians will say "We have few documents to show how the common people lived at this time. Records lead us to believe that a majority were killed. But there were glorious men." And school children will sigh and learn the names of Truman and Senator McCarthy. Oh, it is hard for me to reconcile myself to this. But maybe this is why I am a girl - - - so I can live more safely than the boys I have known and envied, so I can bear children, and instill in them the biting eating desire to learn and love life which I will never quite fulfill, because there isn't time, because there isn't time at all, but instead the quick desperate fear, the ticking clock, and the snow which comes too suddenly upon the summer. Sure, I'm dramatic and sloppily semi-cynical and semi-sentimental. But in leisure years I could grow and choose my way. Now I am living on the edge. We all are on the brink, and it takes a lot of nerve, a lot of energy, to teeter on the edge, looking over, looking down into the windy blackness and not being quite able to make out, through the yellow, stinking mist, just what lies below in the slime, in the oozing, vomit-streaked slime; and so I could go on, into my thoughts, writing much, trying to find the core, the meaning for myself. Perhaps that would help, to synthesize my ideas into a philosophy for me, now, at the age of eighteen, but the clock ticks, ah yes, "At my back I hear, time's winged chariot hovering near." And I have too much conscience, too much habit to sit and stare at snow, thick now, and evenly white and muffling on the ground. God, I scream for time to let go, to write, to think. But no. I have to exercise my memory in little feats just so I can stay in this damn wonderful place which I love and hate with all my heart. And so the snow slows and swirls, and melts along the edges. The first snow isn't good for much. It makes a few people write poetry, a few wonder if the Christmas shopping is done, a few make reservations at the skiing lodge. It's a sentimental prelude to the real thing. It's picturesque & quaint.

She let her bad mood seethe into the silence of the carriage. Finally, she couldn’t bear the vicious cycle of her thoughts, the way they kept returning to Irex and her stupid decision to humiliate him at Bite and Sting. “Well?” she asked Arin. He sat across from her in the carriage, but didn’t lift his eyes to meet hers. He studied his hands. “Well, what?” “What do you think?” “About?” “About the party. About anything. About the bargain we made that you could at least pretend to uphold.” “You want to gossip about the party.” He seemed tired. “I want you to speak to me.” He looked at her then. She found that she had clenched her silk skirts in a fist. She let go. “For example, I know you overheard about Senator Andrax. Do you think he merits torture? Death?” “He deserves what he gets,” he said, and went quiet again. Kestrel gave up. She sank into her anger. “That isn’t what’s bothering you.” Arin sounded reluctant, almost incredulous, as if he couldn’t believe the words coming from his mouth. Kestrel waited. He said, “That man is an ass.” It was clear whom he meant. It was clear that no slave should ever say that of any Valorian. But it was magic to hear the words out loud. Kestrel breathed a laugh. “And I am a fool.” She pressed chilly hands to her forehead. “I knew what he’s like. I should have never played Bite and Sting with him. Or I should have let him win.” The corner of Arin’s mouth twitched. “I enjoyed watching him lose.” There was silence, and Kestrel, though she felt comforted, knew that Arin’s understanding of the afternoon had been fairly complete. He had waited beyond the laran trees, listening to her and Irex. Would he have continued to do nothing, had something else happened? “Do you know how to play Bite and Sting?” she asked. “Maybe.” “Either you do or you don’t.” “Whether I know or don’t doesn’t matter.” She made an impatient noise. “Because?” His teeth flashed in the late, shifting light. “Because you would not want to play against me.

My little friend Grildrig, you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your country; you have clearly proved that ignorance, idleness, and vice are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them. I observe among you some lines of an institution, which in its original might have been tolerable, but these half erased, and the rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions. It doth not appear, from all you have said, how any one perfection is required towards the procurement of any one station among you; much less that men are ennobled on account of their virtue, that priests are advanced for their piety or learning, soldiers for their conduct or valor, judges for their integrity, senators for the love of their country, or counsellors for their wisdom. As for yourself, continued the king, who have spent the greatest part of your life in travelling, I am well disposed to hope you may hitherto have escaped many vices of your country. But by what I have gathered from your own relation, and the answers I have with much pains wrung and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.

In 2015, Trump had made one of his most cruel and thoughtless comments about McCain. “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” Graham knew McCain hated Trump. He knew that in Washington, you had to deal with people who hated you. But he did not impart that particular piece of advice to the president. “My chief job is to keep John McCain calm,” Graham remarked. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell was “scared to death of John McCain. Because John knows no boundaries. He’ll pop our leadership as much as he’ll pop their leadership. And I will, at times, but mine’s more calculated. John’s just purely John. He’s just the world’s nicest man. And a media whore like me. Anyway, he’s a much nicer guy than I am.

certainly nothing that would justify a complete stranger paying money to read about it. The coolest thing I’ve done, at least on paper, is graduate from Yale Law School, something thirteen-year-old J.D. Vance would have considered ludicrous. But about two hundred people do the same thing every year, and trust me, you don’t want to read about most of their lives. I am not a senator, a governor, or a former cabinet secretary. I haven’t started a billion-dollar company or a world-changing nonprofit. I have a nice job, a happy marriage, a comfortable home, and two lively dogs. So I didn’t write this book because I’ve accomplished something extraordinary. I wrote this book because I’ve achieved something quite ordinary, which doesn’t happen to most kids who grow up like me. You see, I grew up poor, in the Rust Belt, in an Ohio

We also have to consider the many different kinds of rape we have learned about over the past few years as conservative politicians blunder through trying to explain their stances on sexual violence and abortion. For instance, Indiana treasurer Richard Mourdock, running for the US Senate in 2012, said, in a debate, "I struggled with it myself for a long time, and I realized that life is a gift from God, and I think even when life begins int hat horrible situation of rape, that is something God intended to happen." I've been obsessing over these words, and trying to understand how someone who purports to believe in God can also believe that anything born of rape is God-intended. Just as there are many different kinds of rape, there are many different kinds of God. I am also reminded that women, more often than not, are the recipient of God's intentions and must also bear the burdens of these intentions. Mourdock is certainly not alone in offering up opinions about rape. Former Missouri representative Todd Akin believes in "legitimate rape" and the oxymoronic "forcible rape," not to be confused with all that illegitimate rape going on. Ron Paul believes in the existence of "honest rape," but turns a blind eye to the dishonest rapes out there. Former Wisconsin State representative Roger Rivard believes some girls, "they rape so easy." Lest you think these new definitions of rape are only the purview of men, failed Senate candidate Linda McMahon of Connecticut has introduced us to the idea of "emergency rape." Given this bizarre array of new rape definitions, it is hard to reconcile the belief that women are rising when there is still so much in our cultural climate working to hold women down. We can, I suppose, take comfort in knowing that none of these people is in a position of power anymore.

he saw that at its center were Coretta and Yoki, unharmed. And then, having made sure of that, Martin Luther King became very calm, with what Branch calls “the remote calm of a commander.” Stepping back out on the porch, he held up his hand for silence. Everything was all right, he told the crowd. “Don’t get panicky. Don’t do anything panicky. Don’t get your weapons. If you have weapons, take them home. He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword. Remember that is what Jesus said. We are not advocating violence. We want to love our enemies. I want you to love our enemies. Be good to them. This is what we must live by. We must meet hate with love.” The crowd was silent now, as King continued speaking. He himself might die, he said, but that wouldn’t matter. “If I am stopped, this movement will not stop. If I am stopped, our work will not stop. For what we are doing is right. What we are doing is just.

The criticism of the Soetoro administration kept rolling, mixing with a broad criticism of liberalism and federal judges. “I am sick of federal judges deciding that the United States Constitution requires abortion and same-sex marriage,” a state senator from Enid said. “I challenge you to read that document from end to end, and if you can find the word ‘abortion’ in it I will kiss your ass tomorrow at high noon on the capitol steps. Ditto gay marriage. What’s next? Plural marriages? Legalizing infanticide? We’re practically there now. I say it’s time we seized control of our own lives here in Oklahoma. Anyone wanting an abortion or to marry a homosexual partner can move to California or New York. We shouldn’t be forced to put up with it, and my constituents don’t want to. The real problem here is federal judges who enshrine their liberal philosophies in federal decisions instead of letting individual states vote their consciences in open, fair elections.

I am sure that the Roman emperors didn’t have prayer to God in their schools. But then, the early Christians didn’t seem to care what Caligula or Claudius or Nero did. How could any emperor stop God? How, in fact, could the demons of hell make headway when God’s people prayed and called upon his name? Impossible! In the New Testament we don’t see Peter or John wringing their hands and saying, “Oh, what are we going to do? Caligula’s bisexual … he wants to appoint his horse to the Roman Senate … what a terrible model of leadership! How are we going to respond to this outrage?” Let’s not play games with ourselves. Let’s not divert attention away from the weak prayer life of our own churches. In Acts 4, when the apostles were unjustly arrested, imprisoned, and threatened, they didn’t call for a protest; they didn’t reach for some political leverage. Instead, they headed to a prayer meeting. Soon the place was vibrating with the power of the Holy Spirit (vv. 23–31).

He opposed slavery, but could not see blacks as equals, so a constant theme in his approach was to free the slaves and to send them back to Africa. In his 1858 campaign in Illinois for the Senate against Stephen Douglas, Lincoln spoke differently depending on the views of his listeners (and also perhaps depending on how close it was to the election). Speaking in northern Illinois in July (in Chicago), he said: Let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man, this race and that race and the other race being inferior, and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position. Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal. Two months later in Charleston, in southern Illinois, Lincoln told his audience: And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.

I wonder how many people in the Washington metropolitan area know just how terrific Senator MacGregor looks in his underwear." "A select few." "You must have thought about image projection, Senator." She ran a fingertip down the top of his foot. "You should consider doing some of those ads,you know,like the ball players...I never meet with foreign dignitaries without my B.V.D.'s." "One can only be grateful you're not the Media Adviser." "Stuffy,that's the whole problem." She dropped, full-length, on top of him. "Just think of the possibilities." Alan slipped a hand under her robe. "I am." "Discreetly placed ads in national magazines, thirty-minute spots in prime time." Shelby propped her elbows on his shoulders. "I'd definitely get my set fixed." "Think of the trent it might start. Federal officials everywhere stripped down to their respective shorts." Shelby's brows drew together as she pictured it. "Good God, it could precipitate a national calamity." "Worldwide," Alan corrected. "Once the ball got rolling, there'd be no stopping it." "All right, you've convinced me." She gave him a smacking kiss. "It's your patriotic duty to keep your clothes on. Except in here," she added with a gleam in her eye as she toyed with his waistband.

There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of conservatism.

There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of conservatism.19

From Hillary Clinton, I have learned all kinds of things. How to be confident, brave, unfailingly empathetic, future-focused, tough, and gracious. She and I have had countless adventures over the past twenty-five years and who knows what else lies in the future, but I am still certain about one thing. Hillary Clinton would have been an exceptional President of the United States. Maybe one of the best presidents. I say that with even more conviction and resolve today than when I believed it as a starry-eyed young woman. The overarching quest of her public life has always been how to help every man, woman, and child reach their full potential. That purpose drove every policy rollout, every bill in the Senate, every speech she delivered, every town and country she visited, every book she wrote. Her focus was always how to give each child the opportunity to grow and flourish, every parent the tools to raise healthy, educated children, every person the right to live in dignity, every worker the protections and rights to succeed and thrive. As president, she would have reached across the aisle and forced divergent opinions to the table to help all Americans. She would have served her country, not herself. Maybe it won't happen in her lifetime or mine, but I'm confident that history will remember her as one of the American Greats.

For instance, Indiana treasurer Richard Mourdock, running for the US Senate in 2012, said, in a debate, “I struggled with it myself for a long time, and I realized that life is a gift from God, and I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something God intended to happen.” I’ve been obsessing over these words, and trying to understand how someone who purports to believe in God can also believe that anything born of rape is God-intended. Just as there are many different kinds of rape, there are many different kinds of God. I am also reminded that women, more often than not, are the recipient of God’s intentions and must also bear the burdens of these intentions. Mourdock is certainly not alone in offering up opinions about rape. Former Missouri representative Todd Akin believes in “legitimate rape” and the oxymoronic “forcible rape,” not to be confused with all that illegitimate rape going on. Ron Paul believes in the existence of “honest rape,” but turns a blind eye to the dishonest rapes out there. Former Wisconsin State representative Roger Rivard believes some girls, “they rape so easy.” Lest you think these new definitions of rape are only the purview of men, failed Senate candidate Linda McMahon of Connecticut has introduced us to the idea of “emergency rape.” Given this bizarre array of new rape definitions, it is hard to reconcile the belief that women are rising when there is still so much in our cultural climate working to hold women down. We can, I suppose, take comfort in knowing that none of these people is in a position of power anymore.

After three weeks of lectures and receptions in New York, Einstein paid a visit to Washington. For reasons fathomable only by those who live in that capital, the Senate decided to debate the theory of relativity. Among the leaders asserting that it was incomprehensible were Pennsylvania Republican Boies Penrose, famous for once uttering that “public office is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” and Mississippi Democrat John Sharp Williams, who retired a year later, saying, “I’d rather be a dog and bay at the moon than stay in the Senate another six years.” On the House side of the Capitol, Representative J. J. Kindred of New York proposed placing an explanation of Einstein’s theories in the Congressional Record. David Walsh of Massachusetts rose to object. Did Kindred understand the theory? “I have been earnestly busy with this theory for three weeks,” he replied, “and am beginning to see some light.” But what relevance, he was asked, did it have to the business of Congress? “It may bear upon the legislation of the future as to general relations with the cosmos.” Such discourse made it inevitable that, when Einstein went with a group to the White House on April 25, President Warren G. Harding would be faced with the question of whether he understood relativity. As the group posed for cameras, President Harding smiled and confessed that he did not comprehend the theory at all. The Washington Post carried a cartoon showing him puzzling over a paper titled “Theory of Relativity” while Einstein puzzled over one on the “Theory of Normalcy,” which was the name Harding gave to his governing philosophy. The New York Times ran a page 1 headline: “Einstein Idea Puzzles Harding, He Admits.

These senators and representatives call themselves “leaders.” One of the primary principles of leadership is that a leader never asks or orders any follower to do what he or she would not do themselves. Such action requires the demonstration of the acknowledged traits of a leader among which are integrity, honesty, and courage, both physical and moral courage. They don’t have those traits nor are they willing to do what they ask and order. Just this proves we elect people who shouldn’t be leading the nation. When the great calamity and pain comes, it will have been earned and deserved. The piper always has to be paid at the end of the party. The party is about over. The bill is not far from coming due. Everybody always wants the guilty identified. The culprits are we the people, primarily the baby boom generation, which allowed their vote to be bought with entitlements at the expense of their children, who are now stuck with the national debt bill that grows by the second and cannot be paid off. These follow-on citizens—I call them the screwed generation—are doomed to lifelong grief and crushing debt unless they take the only other course available to them, which is to repudiate that debt by simply printing up $20 trillion, calling in all federal bills, bonds, and notes for payoff, and then changing from the green dollar to say a red dollar, making the exchange rate 100 or 1000 green dollars for 1 red dollar or even more to get to zero debt. Certainly this will create a great international crisis. But that crisis is coming anyhow. In fact it is here already. The U.S. has no choice but to eventually default on that debt. This at least will be a controlled default rather than an uncontrolled collapse. At present it is out of control. Congress hasn’t come up with a budget in 3 years. That’s because there is no way at this point to create a viable budget that will balance and not just be a written document verifying that we cannot legitimately pay our bills and that we are on an ever-descending course into greater and greater debt. A true, honest budget would but verify that we are a bankrupt nation. We are repeating history, the history we failed to learn from. The history of Rome. Our TV and video games are the equivalent distractions of the Coliseums and circus of Rome. Our printing and borrowing of money to cover our deficit spending is the same as the mixing and devaluation of the gold Roman sisteri with copper. Our dysfunctional and ineffectual Congress is as was the Roman Senate. Our Presidential executive orders the same as the dictatorial edicts of Caesar. Our open borders and multi-millions of illegal alien non-citizens the same as the influx of the Germanic and Gallic tribes. It is as if we were intentionally following the course written in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The military actions, now 11 years in length, of Iraq and Afghanistan are repeats of the Vietnam fiasco and the RussianAfghan incursion. Our creep toward socialism is no different and will bring the same implosion as socialism did in the U.S.S.R. One should recognize that the repeated application of failed solutions to the same problem is one of the clinical definitions of insanity. * * * I am old, ill, physically used up now. I can’t have much time left in this life. I accept that. All born eventually die and with the life I’ve lived, I probably should have been dead decades ago. Fate has allowed me to screw the world out of a lot of years. I do have one regret: the future holds great challenge. I would like to see that challenge met and overcome and this nation restored to what our founding fathers envisioned. I’d like to be a part of that. Yeah. “I’d like to do it again.” THE END PHOTOS Daniel Hill 1954 – 15

This administration has not been content simply to reduce the Congress to subservience. By closely guarding information about their own behavior, they are dismantling a fundamental element of our system of checks and balances. A government for the people and by the people should be transparent to the people. Yet the Bush administration seems to prefer making policy in secret, based on information that is not available to the public and in a process that is insulated from any meaningful participation by Congress or the American people. When Congress’s approval is required under our current Constitution, it is to be given without meaningful debate. As Bush said to one Republican senator in a meeting, “Look, I want your vote—I’m not going to debate it with you.” When reason and logic are removed from the process of democracy—when there is no longer any purpose in debating or discussing the choices we have to make—then all the questions before us are reduced to a simple equation: Who can exercise the most raw power? The system of checks and balances that has protected the integrity of our American system for more than two centuries has been dangerously eroded in recent decades, and especially in the last six years. In order to reestablish the needed balance, and to check the dangerous expansion of an all-powerful executive branch, we must first of all work to restore the checks and balances that our Founders knew were essential to ensure that reason could play its proper role in American democracy. And we must then concentrate on reempowering the people of the United States with the ability and the inclination to fully and vigorously participate in the national conversation of democracy. I am convinced this can be done and that the American people can once again become a “well-informed citizenry.” In the following chapter I outline how. CHAPTER NINE A Well-Connected Citizenry As a young lawyer giving his first significant public speech at the age of twenty-eight, Abraham Lincoln warned that a persistent period of dysfunction and unresponsiveness by government could alienate the American people and that “the strongest bulwark of any government, and particularly of those constituted like ours, may effectively be broken down and destroyed—I mean the attachment of the people.” Many

supposed weakness on national security. Ours was a brief exchange, filled with unspoken irony—the elderly Southerner on his way out, the young black Northerner on his way in, the contrast that the press had noted in our respective convention speeches. Senator Miller was very gracious and wished me luck with my new job. Later, I would happen upon an excerpt from his book, A Deficit of Decency, in which he called my speech at the convention one of the best he’d ever heard, before noting—with what I imagined to be a sly smile—that it may not have been the most effective speech in terms of helping to win an election. In other words: My guy had lost. Zell Miller’s guy had won. That was the hard, cold political reality. Everything else was just sentiment. MY WIFE WILL tell you that by nature I’m not somebody who gets real worked up about things. When I see Ann Coulter or Sean Hannity baying across the television screen, I find it hard to take them seriously; I assume that they must be saying what they do primarily to boost book sales or ratings, although I do wonder who would spend their precious evenings with such sourpusses. When Democrats rush up to me at events and insist that we live in the worst of political times, that a creeping fascism is closing its grip around our throats, I may mention the internment of Japanese Americans under FDR, the Alien and Sedition Acts under John Adams, or a hundred years of lynching under several dozen administrations as having been possibly worse, and suggest we all take a deep breath. When people at dinner parties ask me how I can possibly operate in the current political environment, with all the negative campaigning and personal attacks, I may mention Nelson Mandela, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, or some guy in a Chinese or Egyptian prison somewhere. In truth, being called names is not such a bad deal. Still, I am not immune to distress. And like most Americans, I find it hard to shake the feeling these days that our democracy has gone seriously awry. It’s not simply that a gap exists between our professed ideals as a nation and the reality we witness every day. In one form or another, that gap has existed since America’s birth. Wars have been fought, laws passed, systems reformed, unions organized, and protests staged to bring promise and practice into closer alignment. No, what’s troubling is the gap between the magnitude of our challenges and the smallness of our politics—the ease with which we are distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions, our seeming inability to build a working consensus to tackle any big problem. We know that global competition—not to mention any genuine commitment to the values

Here is Democrat Robert Byrd, “conscience of the Senate,” lionized by Obama, Hillary, and Bill when he died in 2010, speaking during the war about his reluctance to fight in a racially integrated military: “I am loyal to my country and know but reverence to her flag BUT I shall never submit to fight beneath that banner with a negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see this old glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimens from the wilds.”20

I am the senate!

Villicus Vadum: Soldier Of Fortune by Stewart Stafford I am the ghost of lupine Romulus, Founder of Rome, hear my tale, Of Villicus Vadum - young, driven, Steward to Senator Lucius Flavius. Villicus wanted Flavia, the senator’s daughter, But she was betrothed to Marcus Brutus; A consul of noble and virtuous stock, Villicus conspired to take Flavia's hand. Treachery and deception were his tools, Knavish peacock of Rome's epic stage, Sought to take Flavia from Marcus Brutus, To snatch and cage his treasured gem. Bribed a false soothsayer to trap her, Believing her beloved began with V, Flavia agreed to elope with him to Gaul, With Brutus vowing deadly vengeance. Fleeing to the bosom of Rome's enemy - Vercingetorix, at war with Julius Caesar, Villicus offered to spy on the Senate, While plotting to seize Gaul's throne. Queen Verica also caught his eye, Villicus was captured by Mark Antony, Taken to Caesar's camp as a traitor; Brutus challenged him to a duel. Brutus slashed him but spared his life, They dragged Villicus to Rome in chains, To try him for his now infamous crimes; Cicero in defence, Cato as prosecutor. Cicero argued Villicus acted out of love, And that his ambition merited mercy, Cato wanted death for his wicked threat, Julius Caesar pondered a final verdict. Villicus - pardoned but banished from Rome, Immediate death if he returned to Flavia, Villicus kissed the emperor's foot for naught, Flavia refused to join him in fallen exile. Now learn from this outcast's example, friends, That I, Romulus, warn you to avoid at your peril, Villicus Vadum, the wrath of the gods upon him, Until time ceases, sole spectre of night's edge. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.

I rise, Mr President, for the purpose of announcing to the Senate that I have satisfactory evidence that the State of Mississippi, by a solemn ordinance of her people in convention assembled, has declared her separation from the United States. Under these circumstances, of course, my functions terminate here. It has seemed to me proper, however, that I should appear in the Senate to announce that fact to my associates, and I will say but very little more.” His voice faltered at the outset, but soon it gathered volume and rang clear—“like a silver trumpet,” according to his wife, who sat in the gallery. “Unshed tears were in it,” she added, “and a plea for peace permeated every tone.” Davis continued: “It is known to senators who have served with me here, that I have for many years advocated, as an essential attribute of State sovereignty, the right of a State to secede from the Union.… If I had thought that Mississippi was acting without sufficient provocation … I should still, under my theory of government, because of my allegiance to the State of which I am a citizen, have been bound by her action.” He foresaw the founding of a nation, inheritor of the traditions of the American Revolution. “We but tread in the paths of our fathers when we proclaim our independence and take the hazard … not in hostility to others, not to injure any section of the country, not even for our own pecuniary benefit, but from the high and solemn motive of defending and protecting the rights we inherited, and which it is our duty to transmit unshorn to our children.” England had been a lion; the Union might turn out to be a bear; in which case, “we will invoke the God of our fathers, who delivered them from the power of the lion, to protect us from the ravages of the bear; and thus, putting our trust in God and in our own firm hearts and strong arms, we will vindicate the right as best we may.

A Senate of Josh Hawleys certainly won’t stop Trump. Neither will House Republicans led by a Speaker who has made himself a willing hostage to Trump and his most unhinged supporters in Congress. I am very sad to say that America can no longer count on a body of elected Republicans to protect our republic.

THE NEXT AFTERNOON, they all got together at the Capitol, in the governor’s conference room: Henderson, Grant, Smalls, Mitford, Rose Marie, Lucas, Connie Schiffer, and Alice Green, still working as Taryn’s security. For a political gathering, there was a remarkable lack of even symbolic amity. The governor shook hands with everybody, but nobody shook hands with anybody else. The governor sat at the head of the conference table, cleared his throat, and said, “I don’t expect all of us to be pals after this, but I’d at least like to get things clear for everybody. Senator-elect Grant has, of course, made it clear that she didn’t have anything to do with the rogue security people on her campaign staff, and in fact feels that she was being set up for long-term blackmail by those same people. In any case, she will not resign and will take her seat in the Senate in January.” Smalls said, “I think that—” The governor: “Shut up for a minute, will you, Porter? Let me finish.” “I just—” “You’ll have your chance,” Henderson said. He looked at Taryn Grant and asked, “Setting aside all the BS aimed at the media, am I correct that this is your position?” Grant nodded: “Yes.” Connie Schiffer started to say, “I think we all know that Senator Smalls—” The governor interrupted: “No. Be quiet. We don’t want any of that. So we know that Senator-elect Grant will take her seat in the Senate. I’ll now turn to Lucas Davenport, the lead investigator in this case. Lucas, do you have any issues that you will continue to pursue?

I am without illusions; what would the Senate do with me, an inexperienced legislator who lacks the faculty of self-deception, essential requisite for wanting to guide others?

Hannah tells me that you helped protect her from the Hispanics during the riot.” “The Hispanics? Oh, the protest, right.” “Call it what you like, son. This place was crawling with spics, and I am grateful that you took care of my only child.” “Well,” I shrugged. “I guess that’s what boyfriends do.” Spics?? “Only good boyfriends,” Hannah said, still tightly holding my left hand. I could never predict when she’d pour on the affection and when she’d act distant. Were all girlfriends this complicated? “I helped pass that law, you understand,” Mr. Walker said. “I’m an advisor to the senator, and it’s about time someone notable, someone of prestige, took a stand on the influx of hispanics into our once great city. The Hispanics were rioting because of that law, because they’re afraid of justice.” “Oh yeah?” I said. I knew nothing about politics or laws. But I had a feeling I disagreed with him. “But I’ll discontinue this tangent before I begin to preach,” he smiled. “Hannah is giving me the warning look.” “Thank you, Daddy,” Hannah said. “The spics destroyed your car,” he said. “Hannah informed me, and then I read the report in the newspaper.” “That was a good car,” I nodded. “I will miss it.” “Well, let me see what I can do to help,” he said. “I’m a financial consultant to many of our nation’s finest automobile manufacturers, including Mission Motorcycles. You have heard of them?” “I don’t know much about any cars. Or motorcycles,” I admitted. “Well, it just so happens, they owed me a favor and agreed to give me a short-term loan on one of their new electric bikes,” he said. And it was then that I realized we were standing beside a gleaming black, silver, and orange motorcycle. I hadn’t noticed before because our school parking lot always looks like a luxury car showcase, and I’d grown numb to the opulence. A sleek black helmet hung from each handle. Mr. Walker placed his palm on the seat and said, “This bike is yours. Until you get a new car.” “Wow,” I breathed. A motorcycle!! “Isn’t it sexy?” Hannah smiled. “It looks like it’s from the future.” “It does,” I agreed. “I’m almost afraid to touch it, like it’ll fly off. But sir, there’s no way…” “Please don’t be so ungrateful as to refuse, son. That’s low class, and that’s not the Walkers. You are in elite company. Dating my daughter has advantages, as I’m sure she’s told you. You just keep performing on the football field.” “Oh…right,” I said. “I’m gratified I can help,” Mr. Walker said and shook my hand again. “I’m expecting big things from you. Don’t let me down. It’s electric, so you’ll need to charge it at night. Fill out the paperwork in the storage compartment and return them signed to Hannah tomorrow. If you wreck it, I’ll have you drowned off Long Beach. I wish I could stay, but I’m late for a meeting with the Board of Supervisors. Hannah, tell your mother I’ll be out late,” he said and got into the back seat of a black sedan that whisked him away.

I am vice president,” wrote John Adams, the first to inhabit the office. “In this I am nothing. But I may be everything.” In January 1961, as Lyndon Johnson left the Senate for the vice presidency, his future held the dim but tantalizing promise of the presidency, of “everything.” But in the meantime LBJ would not resign himself to nothingness. It was not his nature. Throughout his life Johnson had assumed positions with no inherent power base and infused them with irrepressible energy, drive, and ambition: as assistant to President Cecil E. Evans of Southwest Texas State Teachers’ College, as speaker of the “Little Congress” of staff members in the 1940s, and as party whip and leader in the 1950s, power seemed to flow to him and issue from him naturally. In Johnson’s political ascent, power was the constant; public offices were quantities to be stretched, exploited for public and personal gain, and, ultimately, discarded along the climb. If this was arrogance, it was well grounded. Lyndon Johnson was never nothing; and if the vice presidency meant little today, that could not be the case for long. The press accepted Johnson’s bold claim with little skepticism. On the eve of the inauguration, U.S. News & World Report exclaimed that “the vice presidency is to become a center of activity and power unseen in the past.” The magazine foresaw “important assignments” for LBJ in foreign affairs, especially in the explosive Cuban situation. Undoubtedly, President Kennedy would rely heavily upon the negotiating skills of his brilliant second, Lyndon Johnson, “a new kind of vice president.” And LBJ, surely, would demand no less. “The restless and able Mr. Johnson is obviously unwilling to become a ceremonial nonentity,” Tom Wicker rightly predicted in the New York Times. Johnson’s former Senate colleagues agreed, assuring reporters that LBJ “will be very important in the new Administration—and much utilized.” Headlines heralded Washington’s new “Number 2 Man.

I ran into similar, though less dramatic events after moving to Yale Law School, where I spent two years as a Senior Research Scholar. Hawaii’s two Democratic U.S. Senators once contacted the law school to complain about testimony that I gave before the Hawaii state legislature. They blamed me for somehow single-handedly scuttling the new gun registration laws that were being considered. The associate dean of the law school called me up about the complaints and grilled me about my testimony. I am certain that neither of these incidents would have occurred if I had been on the other side the gun debate. Over the years, many academics have told me that they would have studied gun control if not for fear of damage to their careers. They didn’t want to run the risk of coming out on the wrong side of the debate. From my experience, that is understandable. Eventually, I was forced out of academia. There is only an abundance of funding for those researchers who support gun control. There is a war on guns. Just like with any war there are real casualties. Police are probably the single most important factor in reducing crime, but police themselves understand that they almost always show up at the crime scene after the crime has been committed. When the police can’t be there, guns are by far the most effective way for people to protect themselves from criminals. And the most vulnerable people are the ones who benefit the most from being able to protect themselves: women and the elderly, people who are relatively weaker physically, as well as poor blacks who live in high crime urban areas—the most likely victims of violent crime. When gun control advocates can’t simply ban guns outright, they impose high fees and taxes on guns. When the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory, had their handgun ban struck down as unconstitutional by a federal judge in March 2016, they passed a $1,000 excise tax on guns—a tax they hoped would serve as a model for the rest of the U.S.8 I hope that this book provides the ammunition people need for some of the major battles ahead. We must fight to keep people safe.

Humans have natural rights in the state of nature but they do not have civil rights. Civil rights are derived from membership in a society. The Republicans who controlled both houses of Congress after the Civil War knew this. They also knew that, before conferring civil rights, they had to once and for all abolish slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment ending slavery was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, and by the House on January 31, 1865. Republican support for the amendment: 100 percent. Democratic support: 23 percent. Even after the Civil War, only a tiny percentage of Democrats were willing to sign up to permanently end slavery. Most Democrats wanted it to continue. In the following year, on June 13, 1866, the Republican Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment overturning the Dred Scott decision and granting full citizenship and equal rights under the law to blacks. This amendment prohibited states from abridging the “privileges and immunities” of all citizens, from depriving them of “due process of law” or denying them “equal protection of the law.” The Fourteenth Amendment passed the House and Senate with exclusive Republican support. Not a single Democrat either in the House or the Senate voted for it. Two years later, in 1868, Congress with the support of newly-elected Republican president Ulysses Grant passed the Fifteenth Amendment granting suffrage to blacks. The right to vote, it said, cannot be “denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.” In the Senate, the Fifteenth Amendment passed by a vote of 39 to 13. Every one of the 39 “yes” votes came from Republicans. (Some Republicans like Charles Sumner abstained because they wanted the measure to go even further than it did.) All the 13 “no” votes came from Democrats. In the House, every “yes” vote came from a Republican and every Democrat voted “no.” It is surely a matter of the greatest significance that the constitutional provisions that made possible the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the Fair Housing Bill only entered the Constitution thanks to the Republican Party. Beyond this, the GOP put forward a series of Civil Rights laws to further reinforce black people’s rights to freedom, equality, and social justice. When Republicans passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866—guaranteeing to blacks the rights to make contracts and to have the criminal laws apply equally to whites and blacks—the Democrats struck back. They didn’t have the votes in Congress, but they had a powerful ally in President Andrew Johnson. Johnson vetoed the legislation. Now this may seem like an odd act for Lincoln’s vice president, but it actually wasn’t. Many people don’t realize that Johnson wasn’t a Republican; he was a Democrat. Historian Kenneth Stampp calls him “the last Jacksonian.”8 Lincoln put him on the ticket because he was a pro-union Democrat and Lincoln was looking for ways to win the votes of Democrats opposed to secession. Johnson, however, was both a southern partisan and a Democratic partisan. Once the Civil War ended, he attempted to lead weak-kneed Republicans into a new Democratic coalition based on racism and white privilege. Johnson championed the Democratic mantra of white supremacy, declaring, “This is a country for white men and, by God, as long as I am president, it shall be a government of white men.” In his 1867 annual message to Congress, Johnson declared that blacks possess “less capacity for government than any other race of people. No independent government of any form has ever been successful in their hands. On the contrary, wherever they have been left to their own devices they have shown a consistent tendency to relapse into barbarism.”9 These are perhaps the most racist words uttered by an American president, and no surprise, they were uttered by a Democrat.

Wednesday, 16 November 2011: United States (US) senator Bernie Sanders gives a remarkable speech, which is worth quoting at some length: There is a war going on in this country.… I am talking about a war being waged by some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in this country against the working families of the United States of America, against the disappearing and shrinking middle class of our country. The reality is that many of the nation’s billionaires are on the war-path, they want more, more, more. Their greed has no end.… The reality is that many of these folks [the wealthy] want to bring the United States back to where we were in the 1920s. And they want to do their best to eliminate all traces of social legislation, which working families fought tooth and nail to develop to bring a modicum of stability and security to their lives.… While we struggle with a record breaking deficit and a large national debt, caused by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, caused by tax breaks for the wealthy … caused by the Wall Street bailout, driving up the deficit, driving up the national debt, so that people can say oh my goodness, we have got all of those expenses and then we got to give tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires, but we want to balance the budget. Gee, how are we going to do that? Well, obviously, we know how they are going to do that. We are going to cut back on health care … education … childcare … food stamps, … we surely are not going to expand unemployment compensation, … we got a higher priority, … we have got to, got to, got to give tax breaks to billionaires.

I began to have second thoughts about having given up a federal judgeship for the Senate. I had been a dignified person in a black robe; now, here I was, lying on a narrow, uncomfortable cot in my suit with a bunch of old men in suits, while a few senators spent the whole night on the Senate floor talking but saying little. I began to feel a sense of regret, even self-pity, when I rolled over on the cot and looked, on the next cot, directly into the sleeping face of Senator John Warner of Virginia. He then was married to Elizabeth Taylor. After a few minutes of wallowing in self-pity I thought, “Who am I to feel sorry for myself? There, just a few inches away from me is a man who could be home, legally in bed with Elizabeth Taylor, but who instead is spending the night with me.” At that moment I recalled what we all know to be true: No matter how bad off you may think you are, somebody is worse off. You can waste your time in self-pity, or you can do something about whatever problems you face. Then and there, I decided that’s what I would do. I haven’t felt any self-pity since, thanks to John Warner,

Whether I am the candidate for the presidency, or president, or stay in the Senate, I regard our obligation not to please you but to serve you, and in my judgment, in 1960, a candidate for the presidency should be willing to give the truth to the people, and the truth is that what we are now doing is not good enough.

Why This Book I HAVE WRITTEN THIS BOOK because I am convinced that there is a way to end most evil.* And ending evil is the most important task humans can ever undertake. The only proven way to achieve this on any large scale is the American value system. These values are proclaimed on every American coin: “Liberty,” “In God We Trust,” “E Pluribus Unum.” Each one is explained at length, and each one is adaptable to just about any society in the world. I have written this book with a number of audiences in mind: It is written first for Americans who already affirm American values. To those who would argue that this is an unnecessary exercise in “preaching to the choir,” I would say that, unfortunately, this is not the case. Most of the choir have forgotten the melody. Few Americans can articulate what is distinctive about American values, or even what they are. There is, in fact, a thirst among Americans for rediscovering and reaffirming American values. I know this from my daily radio show, and I know this from a personal experience. A few years ago, at a public forum at the University of Denver, I was asked by the moderator, former Colorado senator Bill Armstrong, what I thought the greatest problem confronting America was. I answered that it was that the last two generations of Americans have not communicated what it means to be American to their children. Someone in the audience videotaped my response and put it on YouTube, where millions of people have seen it. A lot of Americans realize we have forgotten what we stand for.

Some would say it hardly mattered what women thought of Tavius, that even senators' wives, like Mucia, had no power to shape events. But what if Portia, Brutus's beloved wife, rather than encouraging his plan to assassinate Julius Caesar, had told him he would pointlessly destroy himself and others? I think Portia might have changed history.

I was once a useful political piece for you to play on the board. You did, even though I begged you not to. And now I am no longer a useful piece for you. My name has been sullied irrevocably. In the forum and the senate hall and the finest tricliniums in Rume, when they speak my name they whisper – matron macula. I will never marry again. I will never be able to appear in any public familial function for fear of shaming the Cornelian name. And why? Because as a strategist, you played me poorly!

Mr. VITTER. Will the Senator yield for a question?   Mr. CRUZ. I am happy to yield for a question without yielding the floor.   Mr. VITTER. I thank the Senator. Does he acknowledge that he understands, as I do, that as this monstrosity goes into effect October 1 and as it has all of these really devastating impacts on individuals and small businesses, under a special illegal rule from the Obama administration, Congress and Washington get an exemption; they get a special pass; they get a special deal no other American gets under the law?   Mr. CRUZ. I thank the Senator for his question, and he is absolutely right. There are many scandalous aspects of ObamaCare: how it was passed--on a brutal partisan vote rammed through with late-night deals that have earned rather infamous nicknames, such as the ``Cornhusker kickback,'' which has sadly become part of modern political lore; and the ``Louisiana purchase,'' with all due respect to my friend from the great State of Louisiana, who was not involved in that. And one of the most sorry aspects of ObamaCare is the aspect Senator Vitter refers to, which is that President Obama has chosen, at the behest of majority leader Harry Reid, at the behest of Democratic Members of the Senate, to exempt Members of Congress and their staff from the plain language of the statute.   When

Our national security can only be assured on a very broad and comprehensive front. I am using the word ‘security’ here consistently and continuously rather than ‘defense,’ ” Navy Secretary James Forrestal explained in one 1945 congressional hearing. “I like your words ‘national security,’ ” Senator Edwin Johnson responded. Forrestal

It is in your power not to allow me to be a member of the senate,” Helvidius replied, “but so long as I am, I must go in.” “Fine,” Vespasian said with surprise, “but you better not say anything.” “Do not ask my opinion,” Helvidius told him, “and I will be silent.” “But I must ask for the Senate’s opinion,” Vespasian told him, growing angrier. “And I must say what I think right,” was Helvidius’s reply.

Are you familiar with the horseshoe theory of politics?” “What about it?” “Most people think, politically speaking, that the right and the left are on a linear continuum—meaning that the right is on one side of the line, and the left is obviously on the other. That they are polar opposites. Far apart from one another. But the horseshoe theory says that the line is, well, shaped more like a horseshoe—that once you start going to the far right and the far left, that the line curves inward so that the two extremes are far closer to one another than they are to the center. Some go as far as to say it’s more like a circle—that the line bends so much that far left and far right are virtually indistinguishable—tyranny in one form or another.” “Senator?” “Yes?” “I studied political science too.” “Then you’ll understand what I’m trying to do.” Rusty came closer, wincing as he limped. The shattered leg from that terrible night too often tightened up. “Most Americans are in the middle relatively speaking. Most are somewhat left or right of that center. Those people don’t interest me. They are pragmatic. They change their minds. Voters always think the president has to appeal to those folks—the center. Half the country more or less is right, half is left, so you need to grab the middle. That’s not what I’m doing.” “I don’t see what that has to do with the Maynards,” Gavin said. “I am the next evolution of our outrage-fueled, social-media-obsessed political culture. The final evolution, if you will. The end of the status quo.

I well remember an occasion when Massachusetts was arraigned before the bar of the Senate, and when the doctrine of coercion was rife, and to be applied against her, because of the rescue of a fugitive slave in Boston. My opinion then was the same that it is now. Not in a spirit of egotism, but to show that I am not influenced in my opinions because the case is my own, I refer to that time and that occasion as containing the opinion which I then entertained, and on which my present conduct is based. I then said that if Massachusetts—following her purpose through a stated line of conduct—chose to take the last step, which separates her from the Union, it is her right to go, and I will neither vote one dollar nor one man to coerce her back; but I will say to her, Godspeed, in memory of the kind associations which once existed between her and the other States.

Back at home, Lincoln prepared for the 1858 challenge to Senator Douglas. As he traveled around the state, the story is told, a woman on horseback once approached Lincoln appraisingly on the road. “Well, for the land’s sake, you are the homeliest man I ever saw,” she said. “Yes, ma’am, but I cannot help that.” “No, I suppose not,” she replied, “but you might stay at home.” That was something he could not do.

The slaveholders’ views were clear. “We know what is coming in this Union,” Senator Alfred Iverson of Georgia said in December 1860. “It is universal emancipation and the turning loose upon society in the Southern States of the mass of corruption which will be made by emancipation. We intend to avoid it if we can….We are obliged to have African slavery to cultivate our cotton, our rice, and our sugar fields. African slavery is essential not only to our prosperity, but to our existence as a people.” “I am of the opinion that our beloved Union is drawing to an ignominious end,” a Nashville diarist wrote on Christmas Day. “Lincoln has been elected President & the whole South is shaken from center to circumference.” “For the North to undertake to force obedience, on the part of the South, to the views of the North, would be absolute folly,” John S. Brien of Nashville

I am a free man, an American, a United States Senator, and a Democrat in that order. I am also a liberal,, a conservative, a Texan, a taxpayer, a rancher, a consumer, a parent, a voter, and not as young as I used to be nor as old as I expect to be, and I am all these things in no fixed order.

President Pitzer, Mr. Vice President, Governor, Congressman Thomas, Senator Wiley, and Congressman Miller, Mr. Webb. Mr. Bell, scientists, distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen: I appreciate your president having made me an honorary visiting professor, and I will assure you that my first lecture will be very brief. I am delighted to be here and I'm particularly delighted to be here on this occasion. We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a State noted for strength, and we stand in need of all three, for we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds. Despite the striking fact that most of the scientists that the world has ever known are alive and working today, despite the fact that this Nation's own scientific manpower is doubling every 12 years in a rate of growth more than three times that of our population as a whole, despite that, the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the unfinished still far out-strip our collective comprehension. No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50,000 years of man's recorded history in a time span of but a half century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only 5 years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than 2 years ago. The printing press came this year, and then less than 2 months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power. Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight. This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward. So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this State of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward-and so will space. William Bradford, speaking in 1630 of the founding of the Plymouth Bay Colony, said that all great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage. If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space. Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolutions, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it - we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace...

The main work of the church in our culture, I am beginning to feel, has to do with “ways and means.” When everybody knows the gospel and is happy to be saved (and that is just the extreme instance of what is pretty common in so many church circles), the thing that stands out negatively is the inappropriateness of their ways and means: All their admiration is for the big and the glamorous, the image and the numbers. The most significant thing about The Message—to judge from their comments—is that it has sold seven million copies. I’m not sure what the Senate Ways and Means Committee does, but my feeling is that it is one of the more influential committees in the Senate. Do we have an equivalent of such a thing among us?

Despite Byrd's claims that he had only been a member between 1942 and 1943, a handwritten letter from Byrd to the KKK Imperial Wizard, dated 1946, stated, 'The Klan is needed today as never before, and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia'.

With regard to Senator Strom Thurmond's attack on my morality, I have no comment. By religious training and fundamental philosophy, I am disinclined to to put myself in the position of having to defend my own moral character. Questions in this area should properly be directed to those who have entrusted me with my present responsibilities.

As a United States senator, I am not proud of the way in which the Senate has been made a publicity platform for irresponsible sensationalism. I am not proud of the reckless abandon in which unproved charges have been hurled from this side of the aisle. I am not proud of the obviously staged, undignified countercharges which have been attempted in retaliation from the other side of the aisle. I do not like the way the Senate has been made a rendezvous for vilification, for selfish political gain at the sacrifice of individual reputations and national unity…. As an American, I am shocked at the way Republicans and Democrats alike are playing directly into the Communist design of "confuse, divide, and conquer." As an American, I do not want a Democratic administration "whitewash" or "coverup" any more than I want a Republican smear or witch hunt. As an American, I condemn a Republican Fascist just as much as I condemn a Democrat Communist. I condemn a Democrat Fascist just as much as I condemn a Republican Communist. They are equally dangerous to you and me and to our country. As an American, I want to see our nation recapture the strength and unity it once had when we fought the enemy instead of ourselves.

BELINDA’S PETITION (Boston, February 1782) To the honorable Senate and House of Representatives of this Country, new born: I am Belinda, an African, since the age of twelve a Slave. I will not take too much of your Time, but to plead and place my pitiable Life unto the Fathers of this Nation. Lately your Countrymen have severed the Binds of Tyranny. I would hope you would consider the Same for me, pure Air being the sole Advantage of which I can boast in my present Condition.

Senator Douglas said during his debates with Old Abe that America “ …was built by White men, for the benefit of White men and to their posterity forever,” and that “… citizenship should only be conferred upon White people and to people of European descent, and not upon Negroes, Indians and other inferior races.” Lincoln said when he was accused of trying to bring about the equality of the White and Black races: I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races—that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race (Speech at Charleston, Illinois, 1858).

How spacious are these squares, How resonant bridges and stark! Heavy, peaceful, and starless Is the covering of the dark. And we walk on the fresh snow As if we were mortal people. That we are together this hour Unseparable -- is it not a miracle? The knees go unwittingly weaker It seems there's no air -- so long! You are my life's only blessing, You are the sun of my song. Now the dark buildings are stirring And I'll fall on earth as they shake -- Inside of my village garden I do not fear to awake. Escape "My dear, if we could only Reach all the way to the seas" "Be quiet" and descended the stairs Losing breath and looking for keys. Past the buildings, where sometime We danced and had fun and drank wine Past the white columns of Senate Where it's dark, dark again. "What are you doing, you madman!" "No, I am only in love with thee! This evening is wide and noisy, Ship will have lots of fun at the sea!" Horror tightly clutches the throat, Shuttle took us at dusk on our turn. The tough smell of ocean tightrope Inside trembling nostrils did burn. "Say, you most probably know: I don't sleep? Thus in sleep it can be" Only oars splashed in measured manner Over Nieva's waves heavy. And the black sky began to get lighter, Someone called from the bridge to us, As with both hands I was clutching On my chest the rim of the cross. On your arms, as I lost all my power, Like a little girl you carried me, That on deck of a yacht alabaster Incorruptible day's light we'd meet.

Persuading him to do so is no easy task. In this attempt, Menenius is joined by Volumnia, who shares his frustration that the stiff-necked Coriolanus could not dissemble just long enough to be elected. “Lesser had been/The taxings of your dispositions,” she tells her son, “if/You had not showed them how ye were disposed/Ere they lacked power to cross you” (3.2.20–23). Coriolanus’s response is “Let them hang,” to which his mother adds, “Ay, and burn too” (3.2.23–24). But cursing the people will not solve the problem. The only intelligent course of action, she says, is for Coriolanus to do what, in effect, the elite have always known how to do: to speak To th’ people, not by your own instruction, Nor by th’ matter which your heart prompts you, But with such words that are but roted in Your tongue, though but bastards and syllables Of no allowance to your bosom’s truth. (3.2.52–57) Just lie. Everyone shares this view, she assures him: “Your wife, your son, these senators, the nobles” (3.2.65). It is in Coriolanus’s power to solve the crisis he has provoked. The price he needs to pay is simply to behave, for once, like a politician. But for him this price is unbearably high. Everything in Coriolanus’s being—the fierce integrity and pride and spirit of command he has imbibed from his mother—rebels against playing so degrading a part. And the conflict is all the more unbearable because it is precisely his mother who now urges him to debase himself. “I prithee now, sweet son,” she tells him, as thou hast said My praises made thee first a soldier, so To have my praise for this, perform a part Thou hast not done before. (3.2.107–10) Volumnia understands perfectly well that her son’s sense of his manhood is at stake and that he has shaped his whole identity from the beginning by trying to please her. The scars that cover his body were never meant for theatrical display before the people; they were adornments offered only to her. But now, devastatingly enough, she tells him that he has been trying too hard: “You might have been enough the man you are/With striving less to be so” (3.2.19–20). Or, rather, he hears from his mother a demand for a different, even more painful form of masochism. She wants him, in his view, to be a beggar, a knave, a weeping schoolboy, or a whore. Worse still, she wants his “throat of war” to be turned “into a pipe/Small as an eunuch” (3.2.112–14). All right, he says, for her and her alone, he will in effect castrate himself: “Mother, I am going to the marketplace