Bob Menendez

My mother made the courageous decision to flee a tyrannized Cuba in the 1950s and bring her children to the United States, where I was born.

I was the first in my family to go to college.

Tyrants and dictators have incited hatred against ethnic and religious minorities for centuries in order to consolidate power for themselves.

This is the United States of America. It means we respond to our fellow Americans in times of crisis and emergency and disaster.

Ultimately, the NRA has maybe five million members. We are a nation of 320 million-plus, and it's time we call out those who stand on the wrong side of history and spout the same old NRA talking points.

Fidel's oppressive legacy will haunt the Cuban regime and our hemisphere forever.

We believe very passionately that an international approach is necessary to achieve some of these goals.

My first priority is growing this economy in the long term, and stimulating it in the short term.

There are many domestic issues that give us a lot of common ground to work on. Health, education and immigration are among the areas where we share mutual goals and aspirations. There are also many values that we share as a communities.

We need to have a strong economy that can create employment opportunities and that can also produce the revenue that we need to defend our country at home and abroad.

Secondly, security. Both the challenges we face in the world and the responsibilities that our country has in protecting our people, are major issues. We need to do more in the context of domestic security.

Since the end of the Cold War, peace, prosperity, and progress have largely been the order of the day for hundreds of millions of people in the Americas, but not for the people of Cuba.