The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“ANTI-SEMITISM” mentioning Tom Cotton was published in the Senate section on pages S3386-S3387 on May 25.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Senators' salaries are historically higher than the median US income.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
ANTI-SEMITISM
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, now on a related matter, the despicable, age-old specter of anti-Semitism continues to rear its head, even here in our country.
Last week, authorities from New York to Los Angeles were investigating assaults on Jewish people. According to press reports, in New York City, one Jewish man was kicked, punched, and sprayed with chemicals by five or six men yelling anti-Sematic things. That happened, by the way, right in Times Square. A synagogue in Arizona was vandalized. So was another in Illinois. A Jewish family visiting South Florida had a car pull up next to them and multiple occupants begin screaming: ``Free Palestine . . . die, Jew.'' That is what he got for wearing his yarmulke in public.
The head of the Anti-Defamation League said:
We are tracking acts of harassment, vandalism, and violence as well as a torrent of online abuse . . . it's happening all around the world.
This garbage--this garbage didn't begin a few weeks ago. It isn't a response to geopolitics. This hatred long predates the recent fighting between Israel and Hamas, and it hasn't gone anywhere since the cease-
fire.
This spring, in the shadow of this Capitol Building, a U.S. Capitol Police officer was killed in broad daylight by an unbalanced follower of the Nation of Islam, the extremist group led by the anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan.
This trash should be the easiest thing in the world for every person in a leadership position to call out. But perhaps--perhaps--because Israel has become a strangely controversial issue on the far left, the condemnations do not seem to be flowing quite as easily and unequivocally as they should.
Yesterday, a Democratic Congressman from Minnesota tweeted this:
I'll say the quiet part out loud. It's time for
``progressives'' to start condemning anti-Semitism and violent attacks on Jewish people with the same intention and vigor demonstrated in other areas of activism. The silence has been deafening.
I couldn't say it better myself.
So Senator Cotton and I are introducing new legislation to fight anti-Semitism. Our bill will support State and local law enforcement and ensure the bigoted thugs who are attacking Jewish Americans face the full force of our justice system.
I am proud to be cosponsoring this legislation, although I regret that in the year of 2021, it remains, unfortunately, necessary. I hope every one of our colleagues will join Senator Cotton and myself.
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