kilroy: to the grieving family of stephen tyrone jones, i offer my deepest sympathy. you are in our thoughts and prayers. to the men and women in blue, especially those serving here on capitol hill, i offer my condolences at the loss of your brother officer and recognize the courage and devotion to duty he displayed at the cost of his life. i know that our nation's police forces stand ready each and every day to serve and to protect. this particular outrage is all the more heinous because of the place of the crime, our national holocaust museum and memorial. and because its perpetrated -- perpetrator had a repeated history of public ex-preckses of racism and anti-semitism. it is long past time for us to come together as a nation and put an end to racism to put an end to anti-semitism. to put an eand to homophobea and to eliminate hate crimes. to come together and say that hatred and intolerance should not be allowed, that we should be able to end this as a community and come together as a nation that respects each other for the true gift of the individual that each of

speaking of hate crimes, i should point out with the killing last week of of asserts stephen tyrone jones at the holocaust museum -- the killing last week of stephen jones. i know that senator leahy, who has long been one of our strongest allies, would agree on the need for more aggressive congressional action. s chairman of the senate judiciary committee senator leahy will be presiding over the confirmation proceedings for judge sonia sotomayor, who i am thrilled to know is currently in line to be the first latino american member of the united states supreme court. perhaps we will hear and i suspect we will more about the confirmation process when senator leahy takes the podium. i should make one final point. senator leahy recently reestablished the judiciary subcommittee on human rights in the law, a move that i strongly support and help will eliminate what is essentially an artificial distinction between what we usually referred to as domestic civil rights and what we call global human-rights. the first that we should take is to restructure the u.s. civil rights commission, but i will

speaking of hate crimes, i should point out that with the killing last week of officer stephen tyrone jones of the holocaust museum, it appears we may be seeing a new, perhaps boulder phase of the hate crime problem, and i know senator leahy, who has long been one of our strongest allies in an effort to pass a stronger hate crimes law would agree to the need for more aggressive congressional action. as chairman of the senate judiciary committee, senator leahy will be presiding over the confirmation proceedings for confirmation sonia sotomayer sonia sotomayer -- for sonia, who i am thrilled to learn is -- to know is currently to be the first female hispanic member of the supreme court. i will hear more when senator leahy takes the podium in just a moment. i should make one final point. senator leahy reason to reestablish the judiciary subcommittee on human rights and law -- recently reassembles the judiciary's the committee on human rights and law, a move that i hope will eliminate an artificial distinction between what we usually referred to as domestic civil rights and what we call g