Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise, to oppose a Continuing Resolution that will allow a chainsaw to, among other things: minimize Medicaid with underfunded block grants to states, marginalize Medicare's ``Dual Eligibles'' long-term Medicaid care, and privatize Social Security by allowing private investment of Social Security funds in the stock market with no protections from market downturns. Mr. Speaker, the costs of the cuts in spending will be measurable. However, the human cost in pain and suffering will be immeasurable.

I will not participate in what can become the chainsawing of proven safety net programs. I will vote against exposing lifesaving programs to an uncertain, shameful future.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise.

And still I rise, a proud, liberated Democrat, unbought, unbossed, and unafraid.

I rise today, Mr. Speaker, to call to the attention of the House, this place that I revere and, notwithstanding recent events, that I have great respect for.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in response to a censure, a censure that took place as it relates to my behavior. I have been told by some that they did not have an opportunity to hear the actual resolution as it was read. I have here H. Res. 189, the censure resolution as it relates to my behavior.

I believe this resolution should be read. I am not in any way upset with the Speaker. I want people to know that the Speaker did what he was supposed to do. He did what he was supposed to do when we had the joint session of Congress.

When I interrupted, the Speaker called it to my attention. He did it on multiple occasions. I have no reason in my heart to be upset with the Speaker.

Later, persons came over and escorted me out. I appreciate them. They were very kind to me, the officers, very kind. They said kind words to me.

As a result of my behavior, I have been censured.

I am going to read the resolution and give some commentary. It reads, ``H. Res. 189. In the House of Representatives, Mr. Newhouse submitted the following resolution, which was referred to the Committee on''--and the copy that I have does not have a committee. I am not sure it was referred to a committee. It may have come straight to the floor. Regardless as to how it arrived, it did, and I am not contesting the procedure.

The resolution reads: ``Censuring Representative Al Green of Texas.

``Whereas, on March 4, 2025, during the joint session of Congress convened pursuant to House Concurrent Resolution 11, the President of the United States, speaking at the invitation of the House and Senate, had his remarks interrupted by the Representative from Texas, Mr. Green;

``Whereas, the conduct of the Representative from Texas disrupted the proceedings of the joint address and was a breach of proper conduct; and

``Whereas, after numerous disruptions, the Representative from Texas had to be removed from the chamber by the Sergeant at Arms:

``Now, therefore, be it resolved, that--

``One, Representative Al Green be censured;

``Two, Representative Al Green forthwith present himself in the well of the House of Representatives for the pronouncement of censure; and

``Three, Representative Al Green be censured with the public reading of this resolution by the Speaker.''

That concludes the resolution.

Some things bear repeating: I respect the Speaker. I have no ill feelings toward the Speaker, none toward the persons who escorted me away from the floor because I did disrupt. I did so because the President indicated that he had a mandate--and I wanted him to know that he didn't have a mandate--to cut Medicaid.

I did this because Medicaid is the only insurance many people have in this country. I am blessed. As I stand here now, there is a physician waiting. If something should happen, I will be taken to that physician. I have the best healthcare in the world.

There are other people who have less than I. I would have them have what I have, but I surely would not stand by and see them lose what little they do have.

Medicaid is for people who don't have the kind of healthcare that 435 Members of Congress and 100 Members of the Senate have, but they do have some healthcare.

It has been approved by legislation that the Energy and Commerce Committee would cut $880 billion from their budget. The overwhelming majority of that budget has to do with healthcare. I see no way for this cut to take place without cutting into Medicaid.

I am going to fight the cutting of Medicaid. I hope that this comment, this message that I am giving today, will deter them and cause them to go a different way. Then, they can say: ``We were never going to do it. Al Green just had this false notion.'' Well, let me have it. Don't cut Medicaid. It is all they have.

This is the richest country in the world. Mr. Musk has doctors. He will get the best healthcare. Let him understand that he should be on my side. He should be on the side of the people who need this healthcare. He has the ear of the President.

Mr. Musk, speak to him. He listens to you. But for the grace of God, dear brother, you could be on Medicaid. You just have been blessed. Don't assume that it was your intellect that has caused you all of these great blessings that you have received. You have just been blessed beyond measure. Speak to the President and tell him that Medicaid ought not be cut.

But I continue. I interrupted.

I was set to be in need of sanctions. I came to the floor today, and while the Speaker was reading, I recalled what happened in the sixties. I recalled that when we were faced with adverse circumstances, we would sing a song that would inspire and encourage us to move forward with alacrity.

The words were:

We shall overcome,

We shall overcome,

We shall overcome some day.

Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe we shall overcome some

day.

That was an act of incivility.

Why, Al Green, would you come to the well before your colleagues and the world and commit an act of incivility?

Here is why: It is because when the President of the United States right there at that podium addressed the Members of Congress, Democrats seated on this side, seated, many of them saying nothing, the President of the United States looked upon them, pointed toward them and said: Lunatics. The President of the United States at a joint session of Congress called Members of Congress lunatics.

That was an act of incivility.

There comes a time, Mr. Speaker, when you cannot allow the President's incivility to take advantage of our civility, and that is what is happening in this country. His incivility is overwhelming our civility. We cannot allow this. That act of incivility was in direct response to the President's incivility.

Mr. President, you, sir, were wrong when you pointed to the Members of Congress and called them lunatics, Democrats, I might add, you called them lunatics.

The President hasn't been sanctioned. The President hasn't been reprimanded. There has been no censure of the President. The President is above the law. The Supreme Court has said as much. He can do things that no other can do. He is above the law as it relates to certain things, but not as it relates to all things, not all. He is still subject to the norms of society, the decorum that you expect from me, you have to respect and expect from the President.

Why would we allow him to use his incivility and expect me to continue to engage in civility as it relates to his incivility?

Mr. President, there are some of us who are going to stand against your incivility. We have reached a point in our history where we have to hearken back to that which got us to this point in our history.

I remember the sixties. I remember Dr. King. I remember the movement. I remember what it took to get me in this House. I am not here because I am so smart. I am not here because of brilliancy or good looks. I am here because people made great sacrifices. It was incivility, and it was disruption, but they were prepared to suffer the consequences.

We are going to have to resort to the same tactics that we used in the sixties, but we did it for a worthy and noble cause. Calling the people of Congress lunatics was not noble, Mr. President. It was an ignoble act of incivility.

I remember how we marched and how we protested, and I am prepared to do it again. If you treat me like you treated me in the sixties, I am going to respond the way I responded in the sixties.

It is time for us to use the same level of incivility that was used in the sixties for a noble cause: to save Medicaid, to protect Medicare, and to prevent the demise of Social Security. It is time for us to take that stand. Incivility emanating from the highest office in the land cannot be tolerated and has to be negated.

I did it, and I have said to people that while I respect others and while I absolutely was cooperative when they led me away from the floor, but if circumstances permitted, given what I know, and I have to be candid, I would do it again. I would do it because I care about these people on Medicaid.

For edification purposes, the State of Texas was accorded $100 billion--100 billion Medicaid dollars--100 billion Medicaid dollars were sent to the State of Texas to help poor people.

What did the State of Texas do?

The State of Texas rejected $100 billion for poor people on Medicaid, 100 billion, not million, 100 billion. The State of Texas does not have the goodwill necessary to manage Medicaid dollars. If we block grant this money and send it to Texas, then those who are in need of it will get less of it. We have to stand up for them. They are among the least in our society. Unfortunately, we have to stand up for them.

I am standing up for those people. I will continue to stand, and I will continue to tell the world that this incivility has to be dealt with. We have to deal with the President's incivility.

The name-calling never ceases. Maxine Waters he has assaulted verbally and Ms. Wilson of Florida. The list goes on and on and on. As Congresswoman Waters is known to say: on and on and on.

We sit and we watch with civility as he employs incivility. Yes, I have said earlier, and I am retreating to the point, that he has been given a certain amount of immunity. He has not been given absolute immunity, but he seems to have an inordinate amount of influence with his party. It is inordinate. I see people doing things that I never thought I would see them do. I have seen people who are conservative and that I have great respect for doing things that I never thought I would see them do.

I am not calling names. I am just saying to my friends that the President has an inordinate amount of influence. He has an inordinate, unusual, and incomprehensible amount of influence.

The courts have given him a certain amount of immunity. His party has given him carte blanche to say anything and to come before the joint session of Congress and use the word ``lunatics'' as he refers to Democrats. The only thing left in ordinary times would be the courts.

The court orders ought to be obeyed. I don't always like them, but I remember what John Lewis explained to me about peaceful protests: Protest, the court orders you to do certain things, you don't have to agree with it, but you do it. You be willing to suffer the consequences.

The courts are right now in the midst of, as best as they can, trying to give us the laws necessary to prevent certain things from happening. Mass layoffs have to be taken to court. There have been mass layoffs with no due process and no thought of what is happening in the lives of these people. You just take a pen and with the stroke of a pen they are off. There is no concern about children in school, there is no concern about loved ones who may be ill, whom they are taking care of, being the chief breadwinner for the family. There is no concern.

You have got billions, Mr. Musk.

Why should you care about the concerns of people who have much less and who are working every day to eke out a living?

You have billions. You shouldn't worry about them. Worry about making more money. Go to the Moon.

They don't have that luxury. I am going to stand for them and mass layoffs without any consideration.

I just believe that this level of behavior if it were conducted, committed, and engaged in by one Barack Hussein Obama when he was President, if he behaved in this fashion, then he would have been impeached. He would have been impeached. I will go to my grave with this belief. We wouldn't allow these mass layoffs. We wouldn't allow these cuts to veterans, and we wouldn't allow Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security to be on the chopping block.

He would have been impeached.

To be very honest, I would have voted for the impeachment because I don't think that we should allow a President to circumvent what we know to be the requirements associated with the legislative process and with due process which should be accorded people who are being fired as it were.

When you do these things, the courts are acting, and the courts should act. However, there is a point, Mr. President, if your incivility allows you to disobey court orders given that your party has given you carte blanche and given that you believe you have absolute immunity by virtue of what the Supreme Court has accorded you--and you don't have absolute but I think you believe it--when you cross that line, when you cross that line and you, Mr. President, decide you will no longer honor orders from the judiciary, when you decide that Marbury v. Madison means nothing, when you decide that you are the supreme law of the land, then on that day we will have a dictatorship.

We are close because you are continually inching right up to the line, you are looking over to the other side, and at some point, regrettably, you may cross over.

Mr. President, I beg that you not do so. I beg that you would not do so and that you would honor the third branch of government designed to settle disputes among us, not always in a favorable way to some, obviously, but that is what it is there for.

I beg you, Mr. President, that you would not dishonor the judiciary in this country.

Here is what I know: I know that you have the ability to say to a judge: You have issued your court order, now let me see you enforce it. That is my Justice Department--not Al Green's, the President's--that is my Justice Department. The head of my Justice Department has pledged fealty to me--not Al Green, the President--that is my Justice Department. Let me see you get my Justice Department to enforce your order, Mr. Judge.

More specifically, Mr. John Roberts, get my Justice Department to enforce your order. Let me see you get my marshals to enforce your order.

This President, whether wittingly or unwittingly, has put himself in a position such that the Justice Department has pledged fealty to him.

Generals in the military: You don't get these positions now unless you have pledged fealty to him.

We ought to be ashamed of ourselves to allow such a thing to have happened. Yes, generals in the military, the Justice Department, the courts, many of them are bending knees and genuflecting.

Somehow, you believe that you are showing respect, I suppose, or maybe you are just currying favor.

Be that as it may, the Justice Department, generals in the military, and many of the courts are giving a genuflect. Wittingly or unwittingly, he is setting himself up such that he is in a position and such that, at the end of his fourth year, he might attempt to do what he tried to do and failed to do at the end of his last term.

He tried his best to prevent the transition of power. He did all that he could. He encouraged persons to come over to the Capitol. People came, and they literally broke into the Capitol. I was here. They came, and they marched through the Capitol.

Mr. Speaker, for doing it, the President has been given them the ultimate reward. You, you, and you--yes, you, too--all of you, you are pardoned. You are given some sort of amnesty. You are okay.

This is what the President has done. Wittingly or unwittingly, he is now in a position to make that same effort. Only this time, the Justice Department is with him, not with the Constitution. Generals in the military are with him, not with their oath that they have taken.

The President, wittingly or unwittingly, has put himself in a position such that if he chooses to stay on beyond his term of office and if he chooses to do what a Member of Congress has suggested that might be done by law, which is to give him a third term--I hold no animus toward the Member of Congress who has filed the legislation; I have no animus to you, dear brother--but what we have done is witnessed a President who, wittingly or unwittingly, has put himself in a position such that he will have the power to enforce the inanity of not allowing a peaceful transfer of power.

He literally is putting himself in that position. Wittingly or unwittingly, he is.

As a result of his doing this, we have to not allow his incivility and his requirement of fealty to prevent us from taking the necessary actions to protect liberty and justice for all and to protect government of the people, by the people, and for the people. To protect what this country has in its great and noble ideals, we have to do what is necessary.

I believe that we have to engage in a level of positive, righteous incivility--positive, righteous incivility, the same kind of incivility that Dr. King engaged in and that John Lewis engaged in. This incivility would only be a counterbalance to the President's incivility.

I am not saying that we get into the name-calling and stoop to the level that he does. I am saying that, when there are moments for us to have righteous incivility, we should.

Now, I am back to where I started. I stood there in the well of the House, other Members with me. I never suggested to anybody that you do a certain thing. We did sing ``We Shall Overcome.''

It was an act of incivility, but I want people to know that it was in direct response to the President's incivility at the joint session of Congress. He has not been reprimanded. He has not been censured. He won't be reprimanded. He won't be censured.

However, there is one, as the President uses it, in his parlance, one card. There is one card that we have. You told the President of Ukraine: ``You don't have the cards.'' Well, Mr. President, we have the cards.

There are 435 of us with the cards. The card, Mr. President, you know well because, on two occasions, these cards have been utilized to check you. You don't always get convicted when you are indicted, but you do get indicted.

If you continue with this line of behavior, you may not just simply be indicted. That means impeached. You may be more than impeached. There may be a Senate that has the will to live up to the ideals in the Constitution. When that Senate does so, you will no longer be President.

There are 435 cards. Mr. President, I have one of those cards. I have one of them. You are a Goliath. You are Goliath. You now have control of the Justice Department. You have the generals pledging fealty. You are a Goliath, Mr. President, but there are 435 Davids--435 Davids--435 with the power accorded to us by way of the rules of this House to bring Articles of Impeachment.

You may not be impeached the first time, but there is always a second, and there is always a third.

In the end, if you, Mr. President, continue with this behavior, you will be impeached, and I believe there will be the will in the Senate to convict.

I am not threatening anyone. I am talking about the rules that have been accorded to this House, which I happen to be a Member of and proud to be a Member of, and accorded to the Senate.

You are a Goliath, but, Mr. President, there are Davids among us. Your incivility can no longer be tolerated. It has to be met with righteous indignation and righteous incivility.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to explain why I did what I did, and I did it with intentionality. The President indicated that he had a mandate.

I said to the President: ``You do not have a mandate to cut Medicaid.''

I have constituents who need Medicaid. They will suffer, and some will die if they don't get Medicaid.

I heard the Speaker when he said that I should cease. I did not, and I did not with intentionality. It was not done out of a burst of emotion. I was emotional about it, but I did it with intentionality.

I think that, on some questions, questions of conscience, one has to be willing to suffer the consequences. I have said that I will. I will suffer whatever the consequences are because I don't believe that people should be without good healthcare.

Mr. Speaker, I stood up for my constituents then. I am standing up for my constituents now. I am grateful to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) for what he has said. I am grateful to those who have been standing with me.

I will tell my colleague on the other side of the aisle: I appreciate him. I have no anger. The officers who escorted me out were kind to me. I don't blame the Speaker for anything.

Mr. Speaker, I would do it again. I have to be candid with the gentleman. I am not trying to insult him in some way. This is a matter of principle. This is a matter of conscience. There are people suffering in this country because they don't have healthcare.

I will close with this: On some issues that are matters of conscience, it is better to stand alone than to not stand at all. This is where I stand.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise.

I rise today, Mr. Speaker, to first announce two pieces of legislation. Thereafter, I will go into my message, which will be the impact of President Trump's engagement in the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

First, let's look at the two resolutions. The first resolution is our Black History Month resolution.

I am proud to say that this resolution will be filed tomorrow, and this is the original Black History Month resolution for 2025. We have many persons who have signed up to cosponsor, but it is still not too late for additional persons to sign up.

The theme is African Americans and labor. It deals with African Americans and labor in America. It will trace the history of labor from enslavement through current times.

The second resolution is one that I am very proud to present. This is a resolution for slavery remembrance month. As you know, August 1619 was the month and year that enslaved persons from Africa were introduced into the Colonies. Since that time, we have had an adverse impact on African Americans in the United States of America.

We need to retrace some of the history of what actually happened, but not just on one day. We have a slavery remembrance day that we proposed. Now, we are proposing a slavery remembrance month. There is still time to sign on to this resolution, as well.

We will file it tomorrow, so if Members desire to be original cosponsors of either of these two, they have until the close of business tomorrow or until we have our last opportunity to file tomorrow any type of legislation. I suggest by noon tomorrow for Members who want to file.

Now, let me get to my message: the impact of the President on the peace process. I say again: the impact of the President on the peace process.

The President, as it relates to this process, is not an honest broker. He is not an honest broker because an honest broker has to be impartial. The President has made it perspicuously clear that he is not impartial.

He has already sided with Israel, and the President has every right to do that, to side with one side as opposed to another, but let's be clear about the role that he is playing. He is not playing the role of an honest broker.

The President is not playing the role of a negotiator because the President does not seek to get input from the Palestinians. The President will get input from one side, that would be the Israelis, and he will make his decisions with the Israelis.

It appears that there will be an all-or-nothing offer made. The President has gone so far as to say that certain things must be done, or certain conditions will manifest themselves.

The President doesn't want peace. It appears to me that the President wants to stop the killing, and there is a difference between stopping the killing and peace.

Peace requires more than the absence of tension, the absence of violence, the absence of killing. Peace requires justice. It requires justice. Stopping killing is not going to end the process because you won't have justice for all parties involved, and there must be justice for all parties involved if we are to have genuine peace between Palestinians and Israelis.

The President appears to currently be engaging in a process of ethnic cleansing. This is where his thoughts are. He seems to believe that we can take Gaza from the Palestinians. He seems to believe that the Gazans can be relocated. Just place them someplace else. Give them nice homes in some other place. Let us, meaning the United States or Israel, have Gaza.

Mr. Speaker, that won't happen because the Palestinians have made it very clear that they don't intend to leave their homeland, but there is more to it than simply replacing them, putting them someplace else. We have to think about what the President is saying.

The President is making it clear that we are an existential threat to the creation of a Palestinian state because if you remove the Palestinians from the land that was once Palestine, they won't have a Palestinian state there, then we, indeed, are an existential threat to Palestine. In fact, if the language that the President is using as it relates to the Palestinians, if it were used as it relates to the Israelis, the President would have some serious problems.

You cannot say with any degree of credibility that we ought to remove the Israelis from Israel, which is now in land that was once labeled ``Palestine.'' You can't say that. If you say ``from the river to the sea,'' you are saying that you are proclaiming an existential threat to exist as it relates to the State of Israel, the mere statement, whereas Israel's Knesset has already, by way of resolution, indicated that there will not be a Palestinian state in the land of what we now call Gaza, in the land of what we now call the West Bank, that there won't be a Palestinian state. If there is not going to be a Palestinian state, then Israel is declaring that it is an existential threat to the creation of a Palestinian state.

The President doesn't want a Palestinian state. He is with the Israelis. The President wants Gaza. He wants the West Bank to be controlled and possibly become a part of Israel. This is not the way to achieve justice.

Remember, you cannot have peace without having justice. You have heard

the phrase, ``No justice, no peace.'' Well, there has to be justice for us to have peace, and the President is willing to sacrifice the Palestinians. He seems to be willing to sacrifice them because he has indicated as much, that if a certain thing doesn't happen, if hostages aren't returned by a certain time that he has chosen, that all hell will break loose.

Well, that seems to indicate that he is willing to see an infiltration unlike we have not seen so far, something more than we have seen so far because, quite frankly, Gaza has been decimated. The roads have been destroyed. The bridges have been destroyed. The schools have been destroyed. The hospitals have been destroyed. The homes have been destroyed. People have been killed. Until we decide that we want peace, we are not going to have the kind of place that people should have as a homeland for Palestinians.

There has to be peace. To have peace, there must be justice. To have justice, we have to at least decide that there are certain things that we are willing to do. Justice is going to require equal respect for the lives of all babies--equal respect for the lives of all babies.

I will tell you that I, just as early as this morning, had tears well in my eyes when there was a story about the Israeli babies who were returned after they had been held hostage by Hamas.

Hamas did a dastardly thing in taking babies as hostage. Israel has done nothing that would warrant Hamas to take babies as hostages. Then, for those babies to be returned in caskets, it is heartbreaking.

Those parents had to suffer immeasurable heartache as a result of what happened to their children. Those babies were young babies, infants.

Hamas is not--is not--an organization that seeks peace. If you are going to do these kinds of things, you are not seeking peace because what you did was not just. It was an injustice to take those babies.

It was an injustice to keep those babies, and now you are returning them lifeless to their parents, and they have to suffer for the rest of their lives knowing what happened to their babies.

You can't stop there. All babies have to be treated equally. The lives of all babies have to be treated equally. You cannot say that it is shameful and sinful for Hamas to do what they did to those Israeli babies and not condemn what Israel has done to the Palestinian babies.

Babies have been bombed; body parts scattered all over. One parent just had the baby born and was about to register the baby. The parents come back, and the baby is no longer alive. All babies have to be treated equally. Their lives have to be respected in the same way, regardless as to where they are, where they are from, and what their ethnicity is. We cannot continue to believe that some babies have lives that are more valuable than others.

Nothing Israel has done merits what Hamas did to the babies that they took hostage or other babies that may have been killed as well. Nothing that the Palestinians have done merits the killing of--nothing that the Israelis have done merits the killing of Palestinian babies to the extent that they have been killed.

Palestinian babies, Palestinians cannot have done anything that would merit Israelis killing their babies to the same extent that they have. Israelis have to understand that Palestinian babies have lives that have to be respected to the same extent as they want Israeli babies' lives to be respected. By the same token, Palestinians have to respect Israeli babies' lives to the same extent that they want Palestinian lives to be respected. All babies have to be respected equally. All babies.

Today, I want to say to the Israelis and the Palestinians: There will be no peace until you respect the babies equally. But you have got to do more than this and we have to do more because we have to rebuild Palestine.

I say ``we.'' I believe the United States has to make a contribution, just as we contributed to the rebuilding of Japan after we dropped bombs on Japan, just as we have contributed to the rebuilding of other places when we have been involved in the destruction.

We helped to destroy Palestine. Yes, I know that what Hamas did was dastardly. I understand that. It shouldn't have been done, but that did not give Israel the right to kill babies and innocent people to the extent that Israel has killed these babies and innocent people. We have to respect their lives.

Now we have to respect their property. There has to be a home for Palestinians, and that home has to have some help from the United States because we sent our weaponry over there. We have to pay for weapons that were used to bomb the Palestinians. The bombs, many of them, were actually munitions that came from us.

We have a duty to respect their lives and their property, and we have a duty to help to rebuild. This is something that we can't push off on others, and we can't just decide, Mr. President, that the Palestinians should not have a state and that we can just simply take their land. This land belongs to them. It was theirs in 1948.

The majority of the people in Palestine in 1948 were not people who were there to have a State of Israel. People came into the place called Palestine and helped to build and construct the State of Israel. I have said that a two-state solution is a solution, but you can't have a two- state solution without respecting the babies that are Palestinian and the land that was once Palestine.

We have got to give Palestinians a homeland, more specifically a state. Palestinians have the right to live there with sovereignty, not to be told what to do by others, not to have the flow of their electricity controlled by others, not to have others determine whether they can have ingress and egress. They have got to have a state.

That means there has to be some negotiation. It can't just be dictation. The President wants to dictate what the policies will be and expect everybody to live happily thereafter. If we want true peace, then, Mr. President, you have got to cease to be a dictator and become a negotiator. You have to talk to the Palestinians and get their opinions about what they want, and you have got to decide that you cannot side with one side and conclude that that is going to give you the necessary strength to bring peace about.

You may have calm, but you won't have peace, and you won't have the kind of peace that will be lasting if you just decide you are going to stop the killing. Stopping killing does not bring about peace. It just brings about an absence of a certain amount of tension.

Dr. King reminded us that if you want peace, you have to have more than the absence of tension. You have got to have the presence of justice. The presence of justice must be accorded not only to the Israelis, they deserve justice. But to the Palestinians, they also deserve justice. Justice for both sides, peace for both sides. One country, one place; Palestinians on one side of that place, the Israelis on the other side. Two people, two homes, two sovereignties living side by side in peace.

Finally, on this whole question, Dr. King also reminded us that we have to learn to live together as brothers--this is how he put it--or we will perish together as fools. Living together as brothers--and I would add and sisters--is an imperative. We no longer have, as Dr. King put it, a choice between violence or nonviolence. He said: We have a choice between nonviolence or nonexistence, and we are marching toward nonexistence.

As we decide who is going to have certain pieces of land and how land is going to be divided, many countries who are viewing this are concluding that to protect themselves, they are going to have to have the ultimate weapon. Just as North Korea made that decision, others are making that decision. I don't support any of those decisions. I don't support any nuclear weapons. I would like to see the absence of nuclear weapons across the globe, but I also understand that they exist. I understand that others are going to want them to protect themselves from us, from the United States, from Israel. They are going to want them to protect themselves from other countries that have them.

Friends, it is no longer the choice between nonviolence or violence. The choice is going to be between nonviolence or nonexistence, and we have to learn to live together as brothers and sisters or we will perish together

as fools. Those were the words of Dr. Martin Luther King.

I stand for peace, peace between Israelis and Palestinians. I stand for loving all babies the same. The lives of all babies should be treated equally. Hamas shouldn't hide behind babies, but that doesn't give you the right to just kill babies indiscriminately. Thousands of babies have been killed. You can't do that. That is antithetical to having a just society where peace presides.

I present to you my belief that if we are to have true peace, there has to be justice; and if there is to be justice, all babies have to be treated equally. All babies have to be respected equally. All babies' lives are equally as important. It doesn't matter where they are or who they are.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise, a proud, liberated Democrat, unbought, unbossed, and unafraid. I rise, Mr. Speaker, today, in the name of liberty and justice for all, in the name of government of the people, by the people, for the people. I rise to remind us of the words of Ben Franklin. He reminded us that we have a republic if we can keep it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to warn all of the greatest living threat to our Republic. I rise to explain how we must deter this threat or we must remove it. I rise to explain how the consequences of doing nothing can be harmful to all that we hold dear.

Mr. Speaker, our greatest living threat is a President who defies court orders. Our greatest living threat is a President who defies court orders. One can but only imagine what America would be like today if President Eisenhower had defied the order of the court in Brown v. Board of Education.

It was Brown v. Board of Education that desegregated society to the extent that it is, that integrated it to the extent that it is, that probably has given me a means by which I can stand here in the House of Representatives.

Brown v. Board of Education was a seminal moment in time. It was a moment in time which has changed time from the point of its announcements to

this very day. Brown v. Board of Education has made a difference in my life and in the lives of many others.

I am so grateful that President Eisenhower--who was reluctant, who was not a fan of Brown v. Board of Education, who didn't really want to deal with the great racial issues of his time. I am glad that he did not defy the court. There are things that he could have done to prevent Brown from being fully realized. Quite frankly, it has not been fully realized to this day.

A President who defies court orders is the greatest threat to American democracy because that President has the ability to not only defy court orders but in so doing to become the final arbiter of what the law is. That President assumes an inordinate amount of power.

That President will destroy what we know as the three branches of government, because that President will no longer recognize the judiciary and what the judiciary has been allowed to do since Marbury v. Madison. That President, Mr. Speaker, will become a person who is not only above the law, but that President will become the law, if we allow a President to defy court orders.

What we must do to prevent this? We can prevent a President from defying court orders with impeachment, impeachment in two senses of the word.

One, it can act as a deterrent. The other is it can act as a means of removal. If a President defies a court order, we can remove him, but let's not go there just now. Let's talk about deterrence.

I learned from the last time I engaged in this impeachment process of the value of deterrence, impeachment as a deterrent.

Here is how it works. If a President believes that he will be impeached for defying a court order, because he will in effect become the law of the land, we will no longer be a land where laws govern but a land where a man governs or a woman governs, a person governs.

We are a land of laws, and we want to remain such. If a President defies a court order and if he knows this, that we can deter him or we can impeach him, he can opt to take advantage of the warning of deterrence. This is what I learned.

This President or any President can be deterred if the President believes that impeachment is a remedy. If the President does not believe that impeachment is a remedy, then he can go on and defy the court's orders.

If he believes that impeachment is there as a possible remedy, then he will not.

I say it can be a deterrence. I say it can be a deterrence if the President believes that we will impeach. I believe that if a President knows that we will impeach, then he may back off, and he may back down.

I believe that this President knows that I will bring Articles of Impeachment against him. He knows that I have no fear of him as many others do.

I believe he understands that those who fear him will cower. They are pusillanimous. I am not a pusillanimous politician. I will not kneel; I will not bend; and I will not break. I will stand for liberty and justice for all.

Mr. President, you know that if you cross the line and if you defy court orders, then there is one Member of Congress who has pledged to bring Articles of Impeachment against you.

Let that deter you, Mr. President. Don't go forward, Mr. President. Don't believe what the Vice President is telling you about defiance of court orders. Don't believe those around you who are trying to convince you that you can do this with impunity.

Mr. President, you have been made immune to some laws, but you are not immune to impeachment. Impeachment is the final straw that can break the back of the camel who happens to decide that he is going to continue with his ruthless, reckless orders and defy even the courts of this country.

No President--no President--should ever defy court orders because, at that point, that President becomes a dictator. We in this country have decided that we have a republic, and we want to keep it. If we are going to keep this Republic, then we must use impeachment as a deterrence, which means that this President has to know that it is there for him and that we will use it against him, impeachment as a deterrence.

Now, let's move to impeachment as a form of removal. If a President defies a court order or court orders, then that President has committed an impeachable act. It is an impeachable act to defy your oath of office to execute the laws, to honor the laws of the United States, and to protect the Constitution. You are charged with the responsibility of defending the Constitution.

If you do this, Mr. President, then you will now have committed an impeachable act. The question is not whether you will be impeached by way of a resolution being presented and not whether a resolution will be presented because you know that I am going to present that resolution. I am telling you now that I will present the resolution.

If you defy court orders, then I will present resolutions to impeach you. I will present the resolution.

Now, the question is: Will the Congress act? What will the Congress do? I believe that even some of the most conservative Members of Congress will recognize that we don't want a dictatorship and that if we don't act, then we will have a dictatorship. The consequences of our inaction and the consequences of our failure to impeach and convict would be a dictatorship.

I don't believe that the Congress of the United States of America and I don't believe that the Senate of the United States of America will stand by and watch a dictatorship develop while they are in office.

This is our watch. I don't believe that, on our watch, we have such persons who are going to simply stand by. There may be some, but I believe there will be enough to impeach, and I believe there will be enough to convict. That is because no one in this country, I believe, wants a dictatorship. If there are some who want it, then you don't know what you are asking for.

Mr. Speaker, this is an alarm. I am warning our country. I want you to know that we are this close to a dictatorship because we have a President who is seriously considering, it seems, disobeying court orders.

That is the line. That is the line in the dirt. That is the Rubicon. If you cross this line in the dirt, you will have moved into the area of impeachment, and I assure you, Articles of Impeachment will be brought against you.

Mr. President, you are a Goliath. You have been made to be above the law in certain cases. You are a Goliath. There is nothing on the planet like you, it seems, because you happen to be armed with the nuclear weapons that are capable of changing life on Earth as we know it or obliterating all life on Earth. You are armed with the mightiest Army.

You are armed, Mr. President, and you are dangerous if you decide you are going to move forward and deny court orders. You are a Goliath, but I will let you know now, Mr. President, that there are Davids among us. There are Davids, Mr. President. There are 435 Davids.

The question is, will these Davids use their slings to bring you down with impeachment?

That is the only question. I believe the Davids among us will do this. I believe that there is a majority on a given day when impeachment is brought who will vote to impeach. These are the Davids that will save this country. They will preserve the Republic. They will continue to have the justice that we understand we should have through the courts. They are the persons who are on watch, and they understand that this is their watch, Mr. Speaker.

I would pray that the President would not move forward. I would pray that he will back down from his notion of defying court orders. I also know that if he does, the Davids of the Congress of the United States of America will bring him down.

Mr. Speaker, I am one of those Davids.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise, a proud, liberated Democrat, unbossed, unbought, and unafraid. I rise as one who is not a sunshine freedom fighter, as one who can stand before the crowds. This is what a sunshine freedom fighter does. He stands before the crowd with plenty of people to surround him and receives the cheers.

I believe that there are times when one has to stand alone, and on some issues it is better to stand alone, Mr. Speaker, than not stand at all.

Today, Mr. Speaker, I rise to proclaim February 4, 2025, as a day that will live in infamy. It was a day when the leaders of two nuclear powers stood next to each other, and these nuclear power representatives, these persons who had the ability to create a nuclear holocaust, something that not even the mind of Dante can imagine, these two persons made comments about Gaza.

One person said: It would be nice--not in these exact words--to make Gaza a better place for people to live. I am paraphrasing, but this person went on to talk about how this superpower would take over Gaza and how this superpower might, at some point, have the American military have boots on the ground in Gaza. These are not the exact words.

These two superpowers dared to work together. The other said: Well, I think this is an idea worth considering, to have the Palestinians move to another location.

These two superpowers, the United States of America and Israel, were represented by the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Israel. These are two superpowers that are not in the business of saying things without thought, or they shouldn't be if they do.

These two superpowers could operationalize what they say. The United States of America can go into Gaza by and through its military. It can take over Gaza, and it can remove the Palestinians from Gaza. The United States of America has already, with our tax dollars, sent money into Israel and munitions to Israel, and Israel has gone into Gaza.

Yes, I know why. Yes, I believe that what Hamas did was a dastardly deed. Yes, that should have been redressed. However, there is a point in time when your redress becomes an offense as opposed to a defense.

Israel went into Gaza and killed thousands of babies, obliterated schools, and destroyed hospitals and infrastructure. Israel, with our tax dollars, and some of their own and others' perhaps, but our tax dollars, Israel destroyed Gaza. The President himself has said that Gaza is no longer habitable. These are not the exact words. Israel and the United States of America, represented by their various agents, are now indicating that Gaza can be taken over.

I marveled, quite frankly, at something that happened. The President of the United States of America said: I talked to everybody, and everybody I have talked to agrees.

Apparently, the Saudis didn't agree. Apparently, the Jordanians didn't agree. The Egyptians didn't agree. The Europeans didn't agree. There seems to be great disagreement with what the President said he would do in Gaza.

Mr. President, for your edification, and Mr. Prime Minister, for your education and edification, you should have talked to the Palestinians. You talked to people other than the Palestinians about what would happen to the Palestinians. The Palestinians are not cattle, and they are not animals that you can herd and push in one corner or decide you can go here and be happy. The Palestinians have the right to self- determination in their land.

Gaza belongs to Palestinians. At one time that whole area was called Palestine. Now you can't find Palestine on a map.

I want you to know, Mr. Netanyahu, that what you said when you said this was worthy of consideration, you were agreeing with what the President of the United States said. I want both of you to know that this act, what you are proposing, was ethnic cleansing. It is ethnic cleansing, Mr. President. It is ethnic cleansing, Mr. Prime Minister.

The two of you are superpowers. We are a global superpower, the United States of America. Israel is a regional superpower. You can operationalize what you say. You ought to be careful about the things that you say when you are speaking about the lives of other people. I want you to know, the two of you, that what you have done cannot be erased. It is indelible. It is indelible. It is a stain on Israel, and it will be a stain on Israel.

From now until the end of time, people will remember that the Prime Minister of Israel, the Prime Minister of the state that passed a law that said that from the river of the sea there will be no Palestinian state. That is what the Israeli Knesset did. The Prime Minister of Israel has agreed that the Palestinians could be taken away or moved and that the United States would take over Gaza.

Mr. Prime Minister and Mr. President, what you have done brings shame onto both countries. I love my country, but you have brought shame on it.

That doesn't mean I don't still love it, because I love what it stands for. I salute the flag, say the Pledge of Allegiance, and sing the national anthem. However, the greatness of America is not in whether I will do these things. The greatness of America is in whether we will appreciate and allow people who do not do these things to have the freedom to do them.

What I am saying to both of you is this: You brought shame on your respective countries, the United States of America and Israel. That shame is something that you cannot walk back. You can't crawl it back. You can't slither it back.

You brought shame on two great countries, and I assure you that it will live on your records and live in the annals of time forever, a day that will live in infamy, February 4.

It also calls to mind something else. It calls to mind now how this didn't just start on February 4, 2025. It started in 1948, when the United States of America was the first country to recognize Israel as a country. When we did it, we did not recognize a state for the Palestinians.

That was the genesis of it, and it has now come to fruition that the Israelis, by and through their Prime Minister, desire to have us take over Gaza.

This is shameful. Here is what I think has to happen, and I speak for myself and everybody who agrees with me: I will boycott. I will boycott.

I want my colleagues to hear that. You have put us in a position such that, if we disapprove of this kind of invidious discrimination and harm that is being perpetrated, we can't say anything about it. I am saying: I will boycott.

My first boycott will take place when there is a vote on sending more money, more tax dollars, to Israel. If you bring a standalone bill to the floor, I am going to boycott with my vote. I will not vote to send another dime to Israel. Israel has to do more than simply say: Well, what we said the other day was not a big deal. We were just talking about a temporary relocation.

That is not what you said. We are not going to let you crawl that back, so I am going to boycott.

I know that there are persons who believe that to say that is somehow inappropriate. I am saying it live here and now. I will boycott.

I also understand that if I or someone else, any two of my colleagues, took to a podium and have it televised, and if you would say, ``I believe we ought to buy Israel and ought to relocate the Israelis,'' I believe that if you said that, they would never live it down. Members would be called anti-Semitic if they talked about relocating Israel the same way people are talking about relocating the people of Gaza, the Palestinians. You would be anti-Semitic.

What does that make the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Israel? You have to be anti-Palestinian. You cannot say what you said and not be anti-Palestinian.

This day is going to live in infamy. This will be forever a part of your history--anti-Palestinian. It didn't just start in that moment in time. It had to be a part of the Knesset of Israel when they voted. They voted to not have a Palestinian state west of the Jordan. That is another way of saying: From the river to the sea, there will be no Palestinian state.

You can't say that in this country. If you say that, you will be labeled an anti-Semite. If you say that and you are a Member of Congress, you will be brought into the House and you would be sanctioned for it. It happened to one of my colleagues, someone that I have respect for--may I change that--I have great respect for.

It happened to her, Rashida Tlaib. ``From the river to the sea,'' and you are sanctioned, but you can pass a law in the Knesset saying that from the river to the sea, there will be no Palestinian state?

It was a slogan that she could not operationalize, by the way. You can operationalize what you say, Mr. President, Mr. Prime Minister. Yet, you don't want others to say what you are doing. You talk about how the Palestinians--more specifically, Hamas--are an existential threat to Israel.

You, Mr. President, and you, Mr. Prime Minister, are not just an existential threat. You are operationalizing that threat. You are, as I speak and as you spoke, making your plans to take over Gaza.

You ought to have some sense of justice, righteousness, and fair play, which seems to be absent from your very souls for you to say these things and then deny others the ability to say them--to have already done this, denied others the ability of saying what you are doing.

There is no amount of shame that you can show now. I assure you this will be a stain on your records forever and a stain on the State of Israel and on the United States of America that you would go to the podium and do this.

You have done other things, Mr. President. I am not going to go through an entire laundry list. I will talk about many of these things from time to time.

I want you to know, Mr. President, that I--personal pronoun--standing alone here in the House of Representatives, not looking for a cheering crowd, not looking for people to pat me on the back--most of the people don't bother to care, it seems--but I--I--will bring what you fear the most because you have talked about how you think that we shouldn't have done what we did. I, who laid the foundation for impeachment in the House of Representatives, along with the Honorable Maxine Waters--I don't want to ever take away the role that she played because she was there, but I--I will bring Articles of Impeachment to this floor.

I will bring Articles of Impeachment to the floor of the House of Representatives. I am not saying that the Articles of Impeachment will be about this, and I am not saying what I am talking about today, February 4, 2025, being a day to live in infamy, and I am not saying that they won't. I am not saying what will be in those Articles of Impeachment now because those Articles of Impeachment will become a reality on the floor after a passage of time.

We need to make sure that time has given other people an understanding. You know that I support peaceful protests. At some point, there will be people in the streets peacefully protesting with signs with ``impeachment'' on them.

It is going to happen. When it happens, I will come back to this floor at some point. I may come back before. I will come back before, in fact, because

what I will do will help to lay the foundation for the impeachment that is to come.

By the way, I have 4 years to do it. I have 4 years. There is no rush, but I want you to know and I want this to help galvanize the public because marching is a great thing, but you have to have a goal. What is the endgame? For me, the endgame is to remove a President from office who would engage in ethnic cleansing.

There are other things that I shall not mention now that I would have him removed from office for.

You have to have the endgame, but that is the endgame for me. When I march--and I shall be marching soon. If I march alone, it will be to remove this President from office, and I have 4 years to do it. I have this Congress, and there is another Congress.

Now, there are some people who will agree with me if we take back the House. If we never take back the House, I am going to do it because people need to know that there is a certain amount of courage within these Chambers.

There are people who will not stand for what we are seeing, who won't stand for taking over the Department of Education, who won't stand for attempting to vitriolize the Nation, who won't stand for attempting to roll back the clock to segregation. There are some of us who won't stand for that.

There are some people who will not stand by and watch you eviscerate the FBI and install people who are going to be loyal to you and not the Constitution. There are some people who won't stand for it. Others will do things to indicate their positions. I am doing things to indicate my position.

I remember when I filed Articles of Impeachment before. It was after the President fired Mr. James Comey, the Director of the FBI.

He fired Mr. Comey because Mr. Comey was investigating him. Mr. Comey would not tell the President: I am not investigating you.

The President wanted Mr. Comey, out of loyalty and out of the President allowing him to be the Director--he expected Mr. Comey to say: Well, Mr. President, you are all clear. We are not investigating you.

Mr. Speaker, he fired Mr. Comey, and we did not impeach him for that. If we had impeached him for that, we might not be here today because we have given him reason to believe that if he could fire the Director for investigating him, why not fire everybody that was a part of that investigation, a lawful investigation, based on things that he did? It was a lawful investigation.

He believes he can do it. We cannot allow this kind of injustice to go unnoticed. We cannot take this notion of ``we will get to that when appropriate, at a later time.''

Now is the time to stand up to injustice. Now is the time to let people know that you have the guts, the courage, the moral turpitude, and the strength of your convictions. Stand up for your country. Stand against what you see happening.

How can you see the takeover of the constabulary, the FBI, the CIA? What Federal FBI agent will see the President commit a crime and call it to anybody's attention knowing that the President can fire him, knowing that the Supreme Court has already given him immunity, knowing that the President can take his livelihood?

We are putting the President not above the law but beyond the law, beyond any means of redress for the injustices he perpetrates.

That is not the country I want, and that is not the country my Republican friends across the aisle want. They are just too timid to say it. I am not.

I want you to know also, Mr. President, that you are doing them a disservice. Here is why you are doing them a disservice. It is because you can do these dastardly things and bring them along, drag them along, and put anybody you want in charge of the Department of Defense--put anybody you want, just anybody. It doesn't matter. That is your choice.

You can do these things, and they can support you, but here is where you harm them: America is going to wake up. Some of them won't be coming back to Congress. You don't worry about getting reelected; some of them do. You are putting them in a bad position.

Someone will say, well, Al Green, you may not come back to Congress. If I don't come back, I will know that, before I left, I spoke truth not only to power but about power.

Many of them will just leave in shame, afraid, in fear of the President, afraid that he will try to get Elon to spend $25 million against him just as they did Jamaal, just as they did Corey, and we never said a word about those. That is another speech.

My point to you is, we cannot allow this kind of injustice to go unnoticed.

I assure you that what you have done to bring shame on yourselves, what you have done, Mr. President and Mr. Prime Minister, to disgrace the countries that you represent will live in infamy. It will live in the records of the Congress of the United States of America not only by virtue of this speech but also by written words that will be placed in the Record, so that those who look through the vista of time, when they look upon this time, they will know who had the guts to stand here in the House of Representatives and call out your injustices.

Mr. Speaker, I am a person who is not afraid of what I have been and am not. I am reaching my final comments.

These are my final comments. I have said I am a liberated Democrat, unbought, unbossed, unafraid. I am also woke, not in the sense that my colleagues have redefined the words to suit their unjust means, but in the sense that it has been defined, more specifically, in a dictionary.

I am awake, and I understand injustice and prejudice. I know what it looks like. I had the clan burn a cross in my yard. I know what it smells like. I have been called ugly names. I know what it sounds like. I had to go to the back door in my lifetime to use restrooms that were never cleaned it seems. I know what it hurts like because I have felt the pain myself of invidious discrimination.

So I am woke. I know injustice when I see it, and what occurred on February 4th was an injustice. I am woke, and I have this flag. This is my favorite T-shirt. I took a picture of it rather than wear it on the floor.

I am woke and the flag says I love my country in spite of all this country has done to me. I still love my country because I love what it stands for, not the behavior that it exhibits at all times.

Then I have Black lives matter. I am woke, and I want you to know that Black lives matter. I am saying I want you to know this because they do. Someone would say, but Al, don't you know that all lives matter? Yes, but when my mother was ill and she was in the hospital and I spoke to the doctors and I knew there were other people who were sick, but we were talking about my mother. I didn't say: Doctor, everybody is sick. I want you to go out there and help them all. I did want everyone to recover, but I knew the suffering of my mother. So I explained to the doctor: I want you to take care of her. I want you to treat her with dignity and respect. I want her to be a patient that means something to you.

My mother's life mattered. If somebody had asked me, I would have said my mother's life mattered. Well, Black lives matter. Black people suffered 240-plus years of slavery. Black people suffered 100 years of invidious discrimination after having suffered--and there are 95 graves in Texas that prove what I am about to say. Black codes were literally used on people to place them in jail, then they would lease them out, and many of them would never ever have freedom again. It was convict leasing. 240-plus years of slavery, years of convict leasing, black codes, and then 100 years thereabout of invidious discrimination known as segregation, which was really racism by any name. So Black lives matter.

I have to say this because invidious discrimination against Black people still exists, and if I don't have the courage to say that Black lives matter, who should?

I was elected by a good constituency, many of whom are Black. I fight for Latinos. I fight for the LGBTQ community. I fight against anti- Islamics. I fight for justice for all, including women. I fight for justice for all, including all of the various religious groups, but that doesn't mean that I can't tell you that Black lives matter

because of the suffering that Black people have endured and still endure.

Black lives matter because America is not a meritocracy. I hear my colleagues talking about how we should not have any DEI programs because this is a meritocracy. Well, find another reason because it is not a meritocracy.

If America were a meritocracy where the most qualified person would get the job, you would have somebody else as Secretary of Defense. It is not a meritocracy. It is a country currently where conservative, White, wealthy men have power and where they are willing to use it.

Black lives matter, I am woke, and I am proud to be an American.

I will close with the remedy for all of these problems, Mr. Speaker. Here is the remedy for all of these problems.

They are found in a poem that I didn't write. The style of the poem is ``The Cold Within.'' It speaks to what we shouldn't do and in understanding what we shouldn't do, we can understand what we must do.

The Cold Within:

Six humans trapped by happenstance in black and bitter cold.

Each one possessed a stick of wood or so the story's

told.

Their dying fire in need of logs, the first man held his

back. Because on the faces around the fire he noticed

one was Black.

And the next man looking across the way saw one not of his

church and he couldn't convince himself to give the

fire his stick of birch.

The third man sat in tattered clothes. He gave his coat a

hitch. Why should his stick of wood be put to use to

warm the idle rich?

And the rich man just sat back and thought of all the wealth

he had in store and to how to keep what he had earned

from the lazy, shiftless poor.

And the last man of the forlorn group did nought except for

gain. Giving only to those who gave was how he played

the game.

Their logs held tight in death's still hands. They didn't die

from the cold without, they died from the cold within.

My dear brothers and sisters, people of goodwill, eliminate the cold within your hearts. Unite to fight the injustices that can cause us to lose our country.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise.

I rise today, Mr. Speaker, with a to-whom-it-may-concern message. To whom it may concern: Ethnic cleansing in Gaza is not a joke, especially when it emanates from the President of the United States, the most powerful person in the world, when he has the ability to perfect what he says.

Ethnic cleansing in Gaza is no joke, and the Prime Minister of Israel should be ashamed, knowing the history of his people to stand there and allow such things to be said. Ethnic cleansing has been a crime against humanity.

I stand here today in the well to denounce what was said, to denounce what the President said, to denounce the complicity of the Prime Minister of Israel, and to remind people that Dr. King was right: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Injustice in Gaza is a threat to justice in the United States of America.

I rise to announce that the movement to impeach the President has begun. I rise to announce that I will bring Articles of Impeachment against the President for dastardly deeds proposed and dastardly deeds done.

I also rise to say that the impeachment movement is going to be a grass-up movement, not a top-down. The people have got to move forward. The people have to demand it, and when the people demand it, it will be done.

I did it before. I laid the foundation for impeachment, and it was done. Nobody knows more about it than I, and I know that it is time for us to lay the foundation again.

On some issues, it is better to stand alone than not stand at all. On this issue, I stand alone, but I stand for justice.

THE SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the President.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise. I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 28, the misnomered ``Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act.'' Regrettably, without strong language banning demeaning, unclad body searches, this legislation will not prevent perverted personalities from developing reprehensible ``show me your private'' rules. This legislation requires that ``sex shall be recognized based solely on a person's reproductive biology and genetics at birth.'' However, it is sadly silent as to how that requirement shall be validated. As numerous women's and girls' rights organizations have noted, the lack of guidance in this legislation could lead schools to adopt intrusive and humiliating examination practices to verify students' sex. Due to the lack of protections against invasive examinations of students' private areas, I oppose this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise. I rise today with a very heavy heart, Mr. Speaker, because while we hear the words ``in the line of duty,'' we have a wife and three children who will understand the true meaning of ``in the line of duty.''

They have lost a husband. A father has made a transition. They will have to suffer and, unfortunately, live with this for the rest of their lives.

Mr. Speaker, I beg that all would understand that our officers are out there trying to do the very best that they can, and when this happens, let's make sure that we let the world know that we appreciate the job that they do.

This was a 17-year veteran, 17 years of work, and he is no longer with us.

I, too, ask for a moment of silence in recognition of his service and in respect of his wife and children.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise. I rise today as a proud American and a staunch believer in the noble ideals this country was founded upon. This country, which was built on the idea of equality and justice, today is a leader on the world stage that can boast of its commitment and success in spreading these values. We have established a world order based on the rule of law, a commitment to advancing human rights, and deference to international institutions.

Yet, flagrantly contravening all of these principals, the House of Representatives has before it a bill that would punish the International Criminal Court (ICC) as it seeks justice for the Palestinean people. This legislation explicitly imposes sanctions on the ICC for ``any effort to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute any protected person of the United States and its allies''.

I love my country, and I truly believe that at our core, Americans do want global peace. For this reason, I staunchly oppose these efforts to undermine the international order merely because the agents of that order are taking legal action against one of our allies. Many of our closest allies are intimately involved with the funding and proceedings of the ICC, meaning they would be exposed to the sanctions created by this bill. This includes many of the United States' closest allies, such as Germany, France, Japan, and the United Kingdom, where the current Chief Prosecuter of the ICC is from.

This partisan bill is evidently not concerned about protecting all American allies, who would face severe sanctions should this legislation pass into law, but rather one American ally in particular. While Palestinians in Gaza continue to endure the most dire of circumstances and as their death toll for children only continues to tick upward, this Congress is instead intent on protecting Israeli politicians from scrutiny at the expense of maintaining the international order at large that we helped establish. I continue to ask for mercy for the Palestinian people and hope that all people of the region, both Israeli and Palestinian, receive the justice that they deserve.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise. And I rise today in the name of government of the people, by the people, and for the people; not government of the oligarchs, by the oligarchs, for the oligarchs; or for the plutocrats; and I surely do not rise in the name of government by the mob and for the mob.

No. I rise in the name of government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Today, as I rise, I am going to give two important reasons why Vice President Harris presided over a Republican certification process earlier this week.

Stated differently, I am going to give two important reasons why Democrats did not get the most electoral votes.

First, allow me to commend Vice President Harris for leading the United States of America, our country, back to the moral high ground. I was proud to be here. In fact, I was seated on this very row at the very end. I was proud to be here when the doors opened and the words were spoken: the Vice President of the United States and the Senate.

There she stood. She came forward. As she came forward, she was quite statuesque, comely, and courtly. She looked almost majestic as she walked in.

As she moved down towards the front of the room, I, in my mind, recited a part of the 23rd Psalm: ``Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.''

I am not saying that she was walking through the valley of the shadow of

death. What I am saying is that I knew that if she could walk through the valley of death and fear no evil, then surely she could walk through the Halls of Congress and fear no evil.

As she moved forward, I was taken to a point in my life when a song meant something to me. The song was ``You'll Never Walk Alone.''

She walked forward, never to walk alone.

When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high. Don't be afraid of the dark.

Then, near the last stanza, the words are:

Walk on, walk on through the winds of life.

I am paraphrasing.

Walk on through the storms of life, and you will never walk alone.

She proceeded up to the dais. As she stood there announcing the number of electoral votes from the various States, I could see her standing there alone, and I am reminded as she did so of another song. This song has to do with standing, standing alone.

The words are: Just stand. After you have done all that you can, just stand.

I was reminded of all that she did. She worked hard. She worked long hours. She put everything into it. After you have done all that you can, then just stand. Sometimes it is better to stand alone, which is what she did, than not stand at all. It is better to stand alone than not stand at all.

So I am so proud of what she did because in doing this, she helped us to reclaim the moral high ground that we lost 4 years ago on January 6, to reclaim that moral high ground because as she was presiding over the certification process, it was more than Vice President Harris presiding or Vice President Pence when he presided. It was the candidate who ran for President and did not win certifying that the opposing candidate won. That was the moral high ground. That is something that the United States of America has had, and she was reclaiming it for the world to let the world know that in the United States of America, we know how to win, but, more importantly, we know how to lose.

She claimed the moral high ground for this country, and in so doing, she was more than an example. She was an exemplar. She was a supreme and superb standard for the kind of behavior that ought to be exhibited on occasions such as the one she was presiding over.

She made it clear to those who will look back in time upon this time that there are people among us who have dignity and respect for the process.

She made it clear that, while she did not win, she respected the process and announced the winner.

I think that Vice President Harris can forever know that she has brought this country to another place. Many countries around the world envy what we were able to do this year and this week, juxtaposed to what did not occur 4 years ago, when a mob disrupted the process at the behest of the President of the United States of America.

Who can deny that? Who can deny that they came here at the urging of the President of the United States of America and that their behavior was nothing near exemplary? Their behavior was shameful. They marched with symbols of Nazism, with a gallows. They marched saying ugly things and making vile comments. They stormed the Capitol of the United States of America.

In so doing, their behavior was disdainful and shameful as they marched through the Halls. Some even went so far as to defecate in the Capitol, in places where one would not expect such things to occur. Yes, there was a difference between this year and what happened 4 years ago, and that is because we had a Vice President who was a candidate for President and who understood the necessity to have a peaceful transfer of power.

Though Vice President Harris stood alone, she stood alone at a time when it was appropriate and necessary. I have said it many times, and I will say it one more. There are times when it is better to stand alone than to not stand at all, as Vice President Harris did, and she shall be remembered in history as bringing us back to the moral high ground.

Mr. Speaker, I will give the two reasons why she didn't preside over her own certification and why Democrats didn't get the most electoral votes. There are two reasons. They had to do with legislation that was not passed. I am going to walk through the legislation, and then I will give the two reasons as to why the legislation didn't pass.

The legislation. I have noted six pieces of legislation: The PRO Act, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act--I have shortened the title--George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, comprehensive immigration reform, and legislation to raise the minimum wage, as well as to pass the Equality Act. I have noted those six.

Now let's take a look at these six with a bit more information. This is legislation that would have made a difference for America and Americans.

Starting with the PRO Act, the PRO Act would have benefited all Americans. Labor unions were obviously desirous of having it pass, but it would have benefited all Americans. It would have benefited American laborers, the working class. It would have been the legislation that we need to help close the wage gap. This wage gap is something that has to be dealt with because, from 1967 to today's date, that wage gap has increased exponentially.

Currently, the median income for a CEO is about $16 million. It is $16.3 million, to be a little bit more specific. The annual median income for a minimum wage worker at $7.25 an hour is a lot less than that CEO who is making $16 million. In fact, the CEO making $16 million would make 1,000 times more than the minimum wage worker at $7.25 an hour, which would be something more than about $15,000 annually.

Who can survive on $7.25 an hour in the United States of America? You have to have at least two jobs and maybe three. A family would have to have at least two persons working.

The minimum wage has to be raised. If we pass the PRO Act, labor would be in a position to defend the desire and the need to raise the minimum wage and could have pushed more for a higher wage. We have to raise it to a living wage.

If we should raise it to a living wage, then we can start to close this wealth gap. Raising it to a living wage won't do it in and of itself. There is much more that has to be done, but that is a pretty good start.

It would also help us to protect the right to organize. That right to organize is a means by which labor can move forward en masse to negotiate and to do that which is necessary to cause the industries in this country to raise the minimum wage.

We have more States in this country with a minimum wage above $7.25 an hour than not. In fact, the States are ahead of the Congress. The Congress needs to catch up with the States and move on beyond that. A wage of $7.25 an hour is what is known as a slave wage in many quarters.

We need to pass the PRO Act. We did not. I will explain why in a moment. There are two reasons.

The John Lewis Voting Rights Act, had we passed it, would have enfranchised more voters and caused greater participation in the process. This act would have helped us by reinstating a version of the Voting Rights Act. In fact, it was in Shelby County v. Holder that the Voting Rights Act was weakened greatly when section 4 of it was declared unconstitutional and the preclearance portion of it in section 5 could no longer be exercised.

This Voting Rights Act would have helped to reinstate a version of the preclearance process. This Voting Rights Act would have helped to allow people to vote without fear of having the hours set such that it didn't help persons who might work late hours. There are some people who work late hours. They work into the morning hours.

In Houston, at one point, we had an opportunity to vote 24-7, 24 hours in a given day. I went out to see the people who were coming in to vote. Well, we can no longer do that, but had this version of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act passed, we would have made it easier for people to vote, harder for people to cheat, and brought more people into the process. We would have had greater participation. It did not pass.

George Floyd Justice in Policing Act did not pass. This wouldn't have cured but would have assisted in arresting

bad police behavior. My colleagues have seen the videos. I don't have to try to convince people anymore that there are bad police officers. Not all police officers are bad. Some are. This doesn't mean that you should paint all officers with the same brush. It simply means that the bad ones have to be weeded out.

This piece of legislation, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, would have helped us to weed them out. It would have also dealt with these no-knock laws that have cost lives, dealt with chokeholds that have taken lives.

The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act would have made a difference, and I can say there were many of my constituents who were eager to see the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act pass and who were very disappointed when it did not. Many of my constituents were disappointed when the John Lewis Voting Rights Act didn't pass. American minorities, a good many, were disappointed.

These pieces of legislation could have made a difference in voter participation.

Let's move on to three more.

Comprehensive immigration reform. This was a key piece of legislation that would have addressed the border issues, addressed labor issues, H- 1B issues, all of these various means by which persons could come into the country for various purposes associated with work.

Family reunification issues. This country has a history of keeping families together. We have strayed away from that history. This piece of legislation, comprehensive immigration reform, would have addressed that issue, and it also would have addressed discontentment.

What is discontentment? I hear it quite regularly when I am out and about. I go into places where people are buying food. I hear people talking. Many of them are not talking to me. Many of them do talk to me and explain what I am about to tell you.

There are people in this country who just don't believe that it is fair and that it is right for persons who are coming into the country to receive what they perceive as benefits that they are not receiving. They talk about this discontentment. They are not pleased with the way the system is functioning.

Comprehensive immigration reform could have given us the opportunity to address this issue. It did not pass.

Of course, raising the minimum wage, I have spoken about this and closing the wage gap. When you raise the minimum wage, you do something that we talk about here quite often, and that is the rising tide theory. A rising tide will raise all boats, we say.

Raising the minimum wage would create that rising tide that would raise the wages above the minimum wage. The minimum wage has an impact not only on those who are receiving it but also others who are workers. It has an impact on the working class.

Raising the minimum wage would have made a difference. I assure you there are people who would have been grateful that the minimum wage was raised, and it would have inspired them to come to the polls to vote.

The Equality Act. This act would have protected the LGBTQ community. It would protect their civil rights and their human rights.

Yes, the Supreme Court made a ruling about discriminating against persons because of their sexuality, but that is not enough. We have many more means by which they can be protected if we pass the Equality Act.

Having gone through these six pieces of legislation, there are more. The Paycheck Fairness Act, that would help women to achieve equal pay for equal work. Women now make less than 90 cents for every dollar a man makes, generally speaking, in the country. That is all women.

Over some number of years, I saw a figure of a trillion dollars having been lost because women are making so much less. I believe that it was from the year 1967, and I think it was up to last year.

That is a trillion dollars. Assuming that my numbers are a little bit off--maybe I didn't get the years exactly right--a trillion dollars is still a trillion dollars, and it was lost. That is money lost for healthcare, money lost for schools, children going to school, buying food, buying clothing, providing shelter, and also money lost for a pension, something to retire with. It is lost because women are making less than men in the richest country in the world. They still do make pennies on the dollar. That is what women are making compared to what men make.

So, the query is: Why did we not pass all of these pieces of legislation? The answer is because we had two Senators--two Senators, not the entire Democratic Party; not all the Democratic leadership, two Senators--who would not do what Republicans did when they wanted to get a certain Supreme Court nominee confirmed.

When Republicans wanted to confirm a certain Supreme Court nominee, they challenged the process of coming to cloture and, in so doing, moved to a point where you could appoint that nominee to the Supreme Court with 51 votes as opposed to 60. They did that, and it was along party lines. All the Republicans voted to change the rules.

Mr. Speaker, to his credit, Senator Schumer brought the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act that I have called to your attention to the floor of the Senate. To simplify it, he made a request that it be passed with 51 votes as opposed to having to hit the 60-vote threshold and then come back and pass it with 51 votes. He made the request. It would have passed but for two Senators. These are the two reasons, two Senators, two Democratic Senators.

Now, why would I focus on Democratic Senators when the Republicans voted against it? Because if you make your deposits in the Democratic Party, you expect your interests to come from the Democratic Party. You may get some from someplace else, but you expect the Democratic Party to perform. If you put your money into a Democratic corporation, you expect Democratic dividends.

The Democrats, two of them, chose not to allow the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to pass the Senate, which is an indication that none of the other legislation could have passed with 51 votes.

Here is what would have happened had it passed: 50 Democrats would have voted to allow it to pass with 51 votes. That is not a majority. The Vice President would be the tiebreaker. The Vice President would have said to the world that we passed the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and I was proud to break the tie. We passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act; I was proud to break the tie. We passed the PRO Act; I was proud to break the tie. We passed the Equality Act; I was proud to break the tie.

All of these various pieces of legislation could have been passed but for two reasons. Two Senators did not do what more than 50 Republicans did to claim another seat on the Supreme Court.

Mr. Speaker, the prognostication from me--I am speaking for myself and no one else--is that we would have seen Kamala Harris come through that door, still comely, still courtly, still stately, still statuesque. We would have seen her walk down. We would have seen her go up to the podium at the dais, and we would have seen her, if this legislation had passed, certify the election of Kamala Harris for President--as President, to be more appropriate, if the legislation had passed.

There are two reasons: Two Democratic Senators refused to do what more than 50 Republicans did when they saw the opportunity.

I will close with this. Do not assume that those Republicans will now do what they have done in the past and oppose moving to 51 votes as they did when there was a Democratic issue on the table. I prognosticate here and now that they will move to use 51 votes if their agenda is stalled, and they will think nothing of it. They will do it with alacrity. They will pass their agenda.

Mr. Speaker, I guarantee you that if they run into a roadblock, they will do it. If that becomes the issue, they are going to do it. When they do it, I am going to come back to this podium, and I am going to say I told you so because we have suffered long enough from our history of using the filibuster to prevent progress, especially among the minorities in this country.

I am not giving them a license to do anything. They are going to do what they are going to do. I am just telling the truth. They are going to do it.

They will do it regardless of what anybody on this side of the aisle says.

We have nothing to do with what they do, but I can tell you this: We have suffered because two Senators would not vote to pass legislation that could have made a difference in the lives of the American people as well as in the lives of specific people who have suffered great injustices, great injustices, grave injustices, lives lost.

I believe that the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act would save lives. Voters would receive a better path to getting their votes into the process. More of them would participate.

I am not saying the election was rigged, none of that. What I am saying is that we had legislation that people would have appreciated, and we could have marketed that legislation by simply saying here is what we accomplished that benefits you at a different level.

Yes, we passed the infrastructure bill. It is a great bill. Yes, we passed the CHIPS and Science Act. I am glad we did it. These are the kinds of kitchen-table issues, this is the kitchen-table legislation, that people were talking about, and the lack of seeing this legislation passed dampened the enthusiasm of key aspects of the Democratic base.

Mr. Speaker, I want you to know there are some people who now want to back off of this legislation. They want to try to become Republican lite. That is what I call it. We have to be ourselves. This is what has been important to our base. We have to stay with what has been important to our base.

There is nothing wrong with any one of these issues. Nothing has changed. We still need them. America needs them. America wants them. We just have to pass this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I am always grateful to have this opportunity to speak. It means something to me because I don't hate the country. I love this country. That is why I want to improve it with this legislation. It means something to me. I am proud to say that I stand here in this place to speak on behalf of people who cannot speak for themselves, and I pray that one day we will be able to say that we were there to vote, to take maybe hard votes and pass legislation that makes a difference.

Mr. Speaker, I guarantee you, if my colleagues on the other side run into a roadblock, they will do as I said.

Our time will come again. We will have to take advantage of the time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Still I rise, Mr. Speaker, very honored and very proud to stand here and have this preeminent opportunity to speak for 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, I speak tonight with an expression of gratitude because this is the season of giving and the season of being grateful for that which we have.

I thank all of the many persons who have made it possible for us to have these opportunities. I am especially grateful to the staff that I have. They have worked tirelessly over this year.

While everything did not go as I would have had it, I do appreciate the fact that there will not be a shutdown, that the American people can go on about their way, and enjoy this and make it the best holiday ever.

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues and I should thank each other for getting this done. There ought to be thanks to the 196 Democrats and to the 170 Republicans.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise, very proud to have this opportunity to stand here and to address colleagues, persons who are within the Chamber, as well as people who may be without who are tuning in.

I am especially proud today, Mr. Speaker, because I have in my hand a fact sheet. This fact sheet comes from the White House, and this fact sheet is styled: ``President Biden Announces Clemency for Nearly 1,500 Americans.''

I am so pleased that the President has done this.

Mr. President, if you hear me or if someone informs you, I want them to tell you that I support what you are doing. I have supported you as President. I think you have made a tremendous difference in the lives of a good many people in this country. I do believe history will be kind to you. It will say to those who are not here at this time that you made a difference within your lifetime. That means something to me.

I would like to read a few things from this fact sheet. Thereafter, I will go into something that is related in a very tangential way, but I would like to go into something more. First, I will read from the fact sheet.

It reads: ``Today's announcement will commute the sentences of close to 1,500 individuals who were placed on home confinement and will pardon 39 individuals convicted of nonviolent crimes.

Today, President Biden announced that he is granting clemency to nearly 1,500 Americans.''

Let me stop for just a moment. I will come back to this. 1,500 people will now have the opportunity to, in a sense, begin life anew. They will have a new promise that they can now address, and that promise is you can have great opportunities in this country if you play by the rules. This helps them to demonstrate to the world that they are playing by the rules.

It reads, again: ``Today, President Biden announced that he is granting clemency to nearly 1,500 Americans, the most ever in a single day.'' I am sure that there are many Presidents who have desired to do more. It is difficult to do all of the things that you want to do when you have so many things to do.

This President has had many great things to accomplish. He did a great job with the pandemic. He did a great job when it comes to the infrastructure bill that eluded many others for years, perhaps even decades. He did a great job in appointing people to positions: to the United Nations, a female; to the Supreme Court, a female; a Vice President who is a female, and he selected this person to run with him.

He has done things that will make those who look upon this time--when they look through the vista of time back and see us at this time, they will know that President Biden left great tracks in the sands of time so that we can know that he came one way and then proceeded to do great things in other ways.

He has done this, the most ever in a single day, to those who have shown successful rehabilitation and a strong commitment to making their communities safer.

The President is commuting the sentences of close to 1,500 individuals who were placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic and who have successfully reintegrated into their families and communities. He is also pardoning 39 individuals who were convicted of nonviolent crimes. These actions represent the largest single-day grant of clemencies in modern history.

Mr. President, I salute you, I commend you, and I honestly believe that your desire is to do things that can benefit humankind. You have demonstrated it in so many ways.

But, Mr. President, I have an additional request. I have called it to your attention prior to this time, but I have this additional request. I have made the request here on the floor of the House of Representatives, and I make it again. I make this request because there are some people who have not been given the special treatment that others have received by virtue of the way they behaved.

These persons are persons who lived many years ago. They are persons who suffered for some 246 years of enslavement. These are persons who have not been treated fairly by our country, Mr. President. They have not been treated fairly by this House of Representatives, Mr. President. They have not been treated fairly by the United States Senate, Mr. President.

I can say these things, Mr. President, because I am an unbought, unbossed, unafraid, liberated Member of Congress. I want you to know that these persons, the persons who were enslaved, commenced with us, meaning the Colonies, in August of 1619 when the first 20 persons were brought into slavery in the Colonies. They have not been treated fairly, that first 20, nor have the many that followed, some more than 10 million. They have not been treated fairly. They have not been respected.

I am asking for respect for the persons, these some 10 million persons, whose lives were sacrificed--not willingly, I might add--whose lives were sacrificed to make America the great country it is today.

They were the economic foundational mothers and fathers of this country. They planted the seeds and harvested the crops. They served in the homes, they built roads and bridges, and they helped to construct the White House. Their hands were involved in the construction of the Capitol. They have not been respected for what they have done, Mr. President. This House has not respected them.

By the way, when I say this House, that includes Republicans and Democrats. There are people who seem to think that I am somehow myopic and I only see what Republicans do and not do. There are Democrats who have not respected them, as well.

One way that they could be respected would be to simply sign onto a piece of legislation that would accord a Congressional Gold Medal to these persons, a Congressional Gold Medal similar to what we did for the Confederate soldiers in 1956, as well as soldiers who represented the Union, similar to what we did for them. We could do this for them. We can do this posthumously.

Mr. Speaker, this is not directed to you especially. I just want you to understand the condition as I am speaking, Mr. President.

Posthumously it could be done, and this House could do it. Just recently this House last week accorded some special treatment for the victims of the Holocaust, those who were heroes of the Holocaust and heroines of the Holocaust. They were accorded some special treatment. A Congressional Gold Medal will be presented to them. We passed the legislation to allow it to be done.

This is the right thing to do. We should do this for those who were there to help the victims of the Holocaust. It is the righteous thing to do. It is more than the right thing. It is the righteous thing to do.

I salute those who had a hands-on experience with causing this to happen. However, for 246 years, those who were enslaved have not received a similar honor. Similar, not the same, because we are talking about now persons who last week were the heroes who helped them. I am talking about the people who were the victims now.

We have done things for the victims of the Holocaust that we have not done for persons who were victims of slavery. These two circumstances are not the same.

They are both great crimes against humanity. That is what makes them similar. They are not the same. I don't say that the Holocaust is the same as slavery, and I don't say that slavery is the same as the Holocaust. They are two great crimes against humanity, but we have been more generous with our treatment of those who were victims of the Holocaust than we have been for those who were victims of enslavement for some 246 years.

It is time for that to change. I don't see the House doing anything to change it right away.

When I say the House, I am talking about Democrats and Republicans. I don't see them doing anything right away.

However, Mr. President, there is something you can do right away. You can accord those persons who suffered from the indignation and humiliation associated with slavery with the harm, the pain, the suffering, and the agonizing. You can do something for them.

This is not all that should be done, but if you do this, you will show that their lives meant something to us, that it means something to you, and here is what you can do. You have with the power of the pen and the will to do it. Grant them the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

It has been done posthumously for many others. It could be done posthumously for them. Let's show them that this country appreciates their 246 years of sacrifice, that they didn't labor, forced into it I might add, but that they didn't labor in vain, that somebody appreciates the fact that they were the economic foundational mothers and fathers of this country.

Somebody appreciates the fact that we stand on their labor. What they did to lay the foundations for what we are today still benefits those of us who are here today.

Mr. President, I would ask kindly and humbly and from the bottom and depth of my heart and soul that you would give them the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It would make a difference in terms of how they are viewed.

Maybe if it is done, we can get people in Texas to cease with this notion that the enslavement of some more than 10 million people was somehow a benefit to them. There is no benefit to people to be enslaved, but there are people in Texas who seem to think so.

If you would do this, it would help us to better understand that we can now start to move forward to do the things that would show the respect for them that we have shown for the victims of the Holocaust.

In Texas, for edification purposes, there may be some who don't know, there are people who believe that the enslavement of these more than 10 million people was involuntary relocation.

Involuntary relocation is not what it was. It was kidnapping. It wasn't involuntary relocation. It was placing people on ships and treating them like cargo. Some of them were stripped and chained. It wasn't involuntary relocation. It was forcing them against their will to leave their families.

By the way, there were Africans who were involved in this trade, too. I am leaving nobody out.

They were forced. They were taken away from their families by force. Some of them were taken away by African people who then traded them into slavery, and then they were traversed across the Atlantic. When they arrived, they were not treated and welcomed with any degree of dignity. Women were raped, and men were brutalized and lynched.

The Supreme Court in this country indicated that they had no rights that a White man had to respect. They were disrespected by the Supreme Court. They were disrespected by President Johnson when he decided he would abandon the whole notion of some sort of recompense for them, and they have been disrespected throughout history. To this day they have been disrespected.

They were taken to various places and sold on the auction blocks. Children were separated from mothers and fathers. Husbands were separated from wives. They had no rights. You could do whatever you wanted to them if you were the master. They have been disrespected.

Mr. President, I beseech you and I implore you to show them some respect and grant them the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

I will still continue to bring to the attention of the Members of this House the fact that they but only have to sign onto a document that is necessary for the House to do what it can to grant them the Congressional Gold Medal. I will continue to present it.

For those who would like to know who signed on, I have people ask me: Why don't you announce who signed on and who hasn't?

I am not doing it, but the Record speaks for itself. For those who would like to know, the Record speaks for itself. I am not trying to make friends. I am trying to make sure that people are respected who have earned the respect that they richly deserve. I want them to know that there is at least one person who is going to fight for them. I want them to know.

They are not here.

How can they possibly know?

Well, know in the sense that I believe that if I do this, that somehow the times will change such that they will benefit. Even after they have had their demise, they will still benefit from what we are doing.

By the way, I am not alone. I said I am one person. I want to let you know that there are others. We have 125 people who have signed on to this request for the Congressional Gold Medal, 125 out of 435.

There are people who would prefer that the Al Greens of the world who would bring these things to the forefront wait until they are ready to see this happen. They have a timetable that they have set for it. Sometimes in a timetable, it involves doing it maybe 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now. Let's just make sure we do it when the people who are unbought, unbossed, and unafraid are not around so that they won't be able to say: I was able to help get that done.

There is some notion that you don't have to do this until there is some event that might occur in the life of the person who is presenting it, and then you can do it afterwards. Well, I am not going to allow that to cause me to believe that I should just wait and let things work out and let it happen. I am not that kind of guy.

I want to see it happen in my lifetime. I want to see this happen while I am still in this House of Representatives. If it can happen for the persons who were victims of the Holocaust, meaning there are people who can bring legislation and get it passed, then it ought to happen for those persons who were enslaved. We ought to be able to bring legislation that relates to them and get it passed, too.

For some reason, and I know what it is, we will do for the victims of the Holocaust what we will not do for those who were victims of enslavement in this country.

Now for the reason: It is easy to look through the window of life and be critical because you are looking into someone else's life. In this case, you are looking into another country when we are dealing with the Holocaust. It is easy to do that, to look into the window of life and be critical, to talk about what happened to our Jewish brothers and sisters.

I am as critical as anybody in terms of what happened to them. It was wrong. It should never have happened. I have stood and fought for them to be properly respected. I have voted for the pieces of legislation that relate to the Holocaust. I have gone to events. I have been to Yad Vashem in Israel. I have been associated with the Holocaust Museum in Houston, Texas. I believe it happened. I know it happened, and I know that we will never be able to do enough to make sure that it never happens again.

However, we do that by looking through the window of life.

When it comes to the enslavement of people in this country, then we have to look into the mirror of life. The window of life is clear. It is translucent. You can see into it clearly and through it into the lives of others, but the mirror of life is blurred. We don't want to see the reflection in the mirror of life because that reflection is us. We are the people in the mirror of life, we have to now examine ourselves.

We don't want to admit that slavery even occurred in this country. It is easy to say that something happened in a horrific way someplace else, but it is hard to acknowledge that it happened here in the United States of America, the country that boasts liberty and justice for all, the country that says bring your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, come to these shores and enjoy that freedom.

It is not in those exact words. I am talking about the Statue of Liberty and the words inscribed on that statute.

I am saying to you that we have to now look into the mirror of life. We have to acknowledge that these things happened.

We can acknowledge that if we can look into that same mirror of life and grant the Confederate soldiers who were the enslavers, if we can grant them a Congressional Gold Medal, then surely we can do the same for the enslaved.

It is difficult. It is difficult.

By the way, again, I am not talking just about Republicans. I am talking about Democrats and Republicans who refuse to see into the mirror of life the necessity to do for the victims of 246 years of slavery, to see the necessity to do for them what we have done for victims of the Holocaust, maybe not the same thing but similar things. Similar things.

My hope is, Mr. President, that you can help us change this by simply signing the necessary documentation to grant them the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

I just hope that there is somebody who will take what I have said today to the President. I have already delivered the message prior to this, but I don't think you can deliver a message too many times when it is something that is of necessity, and this is of necessity.

It is of necessity that the people in this country respect those who were enslaved. We have not done it.

I would add: Respect them to the same extent, maybe in different ways, but similar ways as we respect the victims of the Holocaust.

It is time for the United States of America, all within, to examine the mirror of life and critique ourselves for what we have done for 246 years. That was 246 years of enslavement, but it was followed by other things, such as Black codes followed by convict leasing; followed by lawful, legal segregation, which was another form of racism; followed by invidious discrimination.

All of these things have taken place, and what happened on August 20, 1619, when the first 20 persons were brought here and placed into enslavement, still has an impact on what is happening now because there has been no recompense. There has been no justice for these millions of people who have made America the country it is.

I say ``made.'' Someone will say, well, they didn't do it by themselves. Let me just revise that and say, helped to make America the great country that it is, but there is no question that millions suffered. There is no question that the suffering lasted for more than 246 years. There is no question that we have disrespected them for what they have done. I say ``for what they have done'' because there are many people who see them as the culprits.

They see the enslaved people as the perpetrators. I don't understand that mentality, but it exists, so they blame them for what they have done for being enslaved. The only thing a good many of them did was resist. Nobody wanted to be enslaved, but people will tend to blame the victims.

For too long, we who have had the opportunity to do something about it have been victims in the sense that we have bought into the notion that this is not something that needs to be addressed now; this can be addressed later on. For 246 years, it wasn't addressed while they were enslaved, and it hasn't been addressed since that time.

In a sense, the people who are doing nothing about it have been victims of a society that disrespects the victims of slavery. I am sorry I have to be the bearer of truth, but somebody has to do what I am doing currently. I regret having to say these things to people, but people need to know from somebody that this is wrong. We ought to have the courage to do something about it, as opposed to wanting to do something about the messenger.

Rather than deal with the message, they would rather deal with the messenger. Deal with the message. The messenger didn't create the circumstance that requires the message to be brought to your attention. Deal with the message. Look into the mirror of life.

Don't be a perfect victim yourself and be silent on something as salient as this issue. This is one of the great issues of our time, and it will be one of the great issues of our time until it has been confronted.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to stand here. I am still proud to say that I am

a citizen of the United States of America. I am proud to say that I salute the flag. I say the Pledge of Allegiance. I sing the national anthem. I stand for the national anthem. I stand to salute the flag. I place my hand over my heart when I salute the flag.

I am not one of those people who hates this country. I love the country. That is why I do what I do to make it a better country. I am trying to live up to the more perfect Union that we all believe this country can become.

Mr. Speaker, I want you to know that, as a person who is proud to be a citizen of the United States of America, notwithstanding all the things that have happened here and the things that it has done to me personally when I was a son of the segregated South, and I had to go to the back door and sit in the back of the bus, stand in the back of the line, get locked up in the bottom of the jail were I arrested, sit in the balcony of the movie, I want you to know that I still believe the words we have seen and read in the Constitution, the Jeffersonian Declaration of Independence, and the Madisonian Constitution. I think these words can make a difference, and I am going to fight to use these words to make a difference.

I believe, Mr. President, that you can do this. Please grant the enslaved the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 1 o'clock and 5 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until Monday, December 16, 2024, at noon for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise. I rise today as a proud American who supports all who are willing to put their lives on the line to protect liberty and justice for all. This is why:

I introduced H.R. 39 the ``original Honoring our WWII Merchant Mariners Act of 2023'' to amend title 38, United States Code, to direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to establish the Merchant Mariner Equity Compensation Fund to provide benefits to certain individuals who served in the United States merchant marine (including the Army Transport Service and the Naval Transport Service) during World War II.

I introduced H.R. 5979 the ``VA Home Loan Awareness Act of 2023'' to require each enterprise to include on the Uniform Residential Loan Application a disclaimer to increase awareness of the direct and guaranteed home loan programs of the Department of Veterans Affairs, and for other purposes.

I introduced H.R. 165 the ``Improving Access to Homes for Heroes Act of 2021'' to require the inclusion of veterans in housing planning and an annual report on housing assistance to veterans, and for other purposes.

I introduced H.R. 9055 the Justice for Milton Holland Legislation to provide for the posthumous commission as a captain in the regular Army of Milton Holland, who, while sergeant major of the 5th Regiment, United States Colored Infantry, was awarded the Medal of Honor for gallantry during the Civil War.

Regrettably, Mr. Speaker, despite my attempts to submit them as amendments, not one of these bills was included in this National Defense Authorization Act.

Sadly Mr. Speaker, for these reasons, and more, I have decided to withhold my support for this version of the National Defense Authorization Act. I trust that future Congresses will work more diligently to pass a more just, and inclusive, National Defense Authorization Act.