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.
“Cuba (Executive Session)” mentioning Mitch McConnell was published in the Senate section on page S4913 on July 15.
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:
Cuba
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, throughout my career, I have been proud to amplify the voices of freedom fighters around the world, brave men and women working to secure the blessings of liberty that we enjoy here in America. And I have repeatedly shone a floodlight on the oppressive regimes that stand in their way. I have championed the pro-
democracy movement in Burma, the brave advocates for freedom in Hong Kong.
Right now, the loudest cries for liberty are coming from pretty close to home. After enduring 60-plus years of socialist tyranny just 90 miles from American soil, the people of Cuba are telling the world they have had enough--had enough. They have had enough of a regime that has stolen their dreams for decades. They have had enough of its stranglehold on information and on prosperity. They have had enough of its intimidation and its repression.
The past week's demonstration in the streets of Havana should represent a major turning point in the Cuban people's movement toward liberation. The regime's failed communist ideology has saddled generations of Cubans with a backward economy, inadequate services, and no means of justice or dissent.
Now, some naive Americans on the left seem intent on once again running interference for the Cuban regime. They still buy the propaganda that Cuba is a socialist paradise--paradise--with a model healthcare and education system that we should actually emulate. But the Cuban people see a different reality: an open-air prison that communism has run right into the ground.
Since the 1950s, the blight of Castro rule has driven many Cubans to flee to the United States. Generations of immigrants and their descendants have lived out and are living out American dreams of prosperity, achievement, and service. We are blessed to call them fellow Americans.
As Senator Rubio put it so well this week, ``The only country on this planet where Cubans are not successful is Cuba.''
My hometown of Louisville is actually home to one of the largest Cuban-American populations in any American city outside of Florida. In recent days, this vibrant community has rallied by the hundreds in support of Cuban protesters. As one of these fellow Kentuckians of mine put it, ``The only voice they have is us.''
The brave men and women who have taken to the streets in Cuba are demanding freedoms they have been denied their entire lives. They deserve our strong support. I am proud to cosponsor a new resolution with Senator Rubio and several other colleagues to communicate precisely that.
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