Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, today, Tax Day, millions of Americans know that their tax dollars will support rebuilding Iraq instead of rebuilding America. Americans have already spent $44 billion in rebuilding Iraq at a time when the Iraqis have a huge oil revenue reserve.

Today, taxpayers may be wondering how this money could be spent in Iraq, our money, instead of rebuilding the U.S.A. With the $339 million that we are spending daily in Iraq, we could instead provide an additional 18,000 American students with Pell Grants so they can attend college. We could also hire and keep 4,400 ``COPS on the beat.'' Our moneys could be used, if we spent them here, to have 2,000 more border guard agents to protect our borders.

Madam Speaker, as Americans pay their taxes today, they have a right to know why billions are being spent each month in Iraq instead of here in the U.S.A.

Mr. Speaker, tomorrow, April 4, will mark the date that Martin Luther King departed and went for his just rewards. I have a theory that messengers are sent to Earth to make us better human beings. And if you go back in history, Jesus Christ left early in his thirties, the Kennedy brothers left early in their thirties, and Martin Luther King, after he had done his work, left us.

And so we are very fortunate to be able to participate in a service today honoring the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I would like to pay tribute to someone from the State of California who can be described as a ``diamond in the sky.''

Charles Thorntona left this Earth about 2 weeks ago, and I presented his family with a Congressional Memorial Certificate of Recognition:

``Whereas he was preceded in death by parents Polly and Jimmie Thorntona and godson Gary Parker.

``Whereas he leaves behind lifelong soul mate Christine; children Kishaun and Charles Thorntona, Victoria and Aurea Smith and Chris Bale; grandsons DeAndre and Jaydn; and siblings Jim, Sandra, Pamela, and Timothy Thorntona and also Debra.

``Whereas, as a musician, artist, and coach, Charles touched many lives. A big-hearted father figure who thrived on making others happy. A legend, never to be forgotten.

``Be it resolved that Charles Thorntona be immortalized as a humanitarian, who shared his life to make it better for his fellow man and left an outstanding lasting legacy for his family and friends. May he rest in peace.''

And may I just share a poem that was written called ``A Diamond in the Sky,'' and it's a tribute from his brothers Jim and Tim and also written by Alice Holmes McKoy:

Stand and take a bow;

As you leave us for the pureness of heaven,

You have left us in this mist of life;

What becomes a legend most . . . you, my brother;

The one who reached out to everyone.

You chose to engage to interact to love;

Sharing and caring, never too busy to do.

Why you? The original rock of our world has been called to

your eternal rest with the Lord;

You were supposed to let me know these things in advance . .

. after all,

I am your brother . . . but it's all right;

As you sit with Jesus, Mom, Dad, and young Gary,

Man, know that you will always be loved and appreciated; and

as I look into the sky tonight . . .

I see you . . . a diamond in the sky.

Mr. Speaker, Washington Republicans are not leveling with the American people on the immediate effects of the expiration of the Protect America Act. Despite their fear-mongering, even the Bush administration admits that it still has the ability to continue all its wide-ranging surveillance for another 6 months.

Kate Martin, Director of the Center for National Security Studies, said, ``If the government learns of new individuals plotting terrorist activities, it can immediately surveil such individuals, the court can issue an order within minutes of being asked, or the government can start surveillance without a court order under the existing FISA emergency authority.''

Richard Clarke said, ``The President misconstrued the truth and manipulated the facts. It was wrong to suggest that warrants issued in compliance with FISA would suddenly evaporate with congressional inaction.''

Mr. Speaker, our intelligence community still has every tool available that it had under the President's Protect America Act. Republicans should stop their misleading fear-mongering.

Madam Chairman, I just returned from South Africa, and I did a single codel visiting the various clinics and hospices that are receiving PEPFAR funds. And I happily report that the small donations they do receive are stretched beyond imagination. They are finally realizing that the NGOs have really made great strides.

About 4 years ago, when we went offering them assistance and so on, most of our help was rejected. But I want you to know that one clinic, which is a hospice, gets $70,000 a year. And what they do is reach out to the NGOs in the area. There are volunteers from America there. They run an excellent facility, and you can see gradual progress.

I was told by our appointed ambassador that he was going to reduce the amount of donation by $50 million, and I cautioned him because that would be the wrong message to send for the small successes they have had and that what we can do is say to the government there that we will cap it at a certain amount and then you need to also kick in.

So I want to report to our committee and to Mr. Payne, the Chair, that the funds are working. They're improving our image, and they're helping to save lives in South Africa.

Thank you so much, Mr. Payne.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the right to object to this process.

I am feeling manipulated. My question is, if there is confidential information, why was it not taken to the Intelligence Committee first before there is a secret session?

I reserve my right to object. That is what I said before I came to the mike. I guess I wasn't heard.

Madam Speaker, I want to know why the Intelligence Committee did not receive the confidential information that I am hearing is going to be discussed here. If the information discussed here is not confidential, why do we need a secret session and to what end are we having this? We are supposed to vote on FISA tomorrow. I understand there is a compromise that pretty much has been agreed upon. I have been whipping it.

So I want to know to what end we are having this secret session. I would like to yield to you, Mr. Blunt.

Reclaiming my time, I would like to know the purpose of the secret session, if you have confidential information, why it was not taken to Intelligence before it was brought here to the Chambers in secret?

I have got to go back to my district and explain to my constituents why we had a secret session before we voted on the FISA bill.

Reclaiming my time, I asked the Chair, and the Chair is unaware of what this information might be. I am continuing to object until I am satisfied that this meeting is necessary in secrecy and why it didn't go to the Intelligence Committee first.

I don't feel comfortable being manipulated with scare tactics.

Why is it this didn't come forward prior to voting on FISA?

I yield.

I just want to end this with this: I went over to the Chair of Intelligence. I said, Do you know about this? He said, No. He can speak for himself. But why at this time are we given information that is supposed to be so strategic we have to do it before we take the vote on FISA? I smell something, and I do not like to be manipulated.

Madam Speaker, I withdraw my reservation.

Mr. Speaker, it is clear that no one is buying into the scare tactics created by the President and some Republicans regarding the expiration of the President's Protect America Act. Newspapers around the country are rightfully asking Republicans that if this law were so crucial to national security, why did they oppose an extension of it last month?

The Saint Louis Post-Dispatch called this intimidation and ``fear mongering at its most craven.'' The Oregonian wasn't fooled by the President's political actions, writing: ``If the Protect America Act is as crucial as he says it is, then he is taking a terrible gamble with the safety of his country's citizens.'' The Palm Beach Post recognized that ``political distraction'' is more important to this administration than the law. They wrote, ``The law that Mr. Bush and some Republicans say is vital could have been extended for 3 weeks. Instead, they let it die.''

Mr. Speaker, House Democrats are serious about passing a strong FISA law that provides our intelligence community with the tools necessary to protect our national security, and we urge congressional Republicans and the White House to join us at the table.

Madam Speaker and my honorable colleague, Stephanie Tubbs Jones, thank you for this opportunity to salute our women over a period of time.

I would like now to introduce you to a woman by the name of Mayme Clayton.

Mayme Clayton, a renowned librarian, worked her entire life to assemble a priceless collection of historical artifacts. The collection was assembled over a 40-year period by Mayme A. Clayton, 1923 to 2006, a career librarian at the University of Southern California in my district, and University of California, Los Angeles, my alma mater. And Dr. Clayton's singular commitment to preserve African American culture and history was inspired by her desire to ensure that children would know the richness and diversity of African American contributions to the world.

The Mayme A. Clayton Collection of African American History and Culture is comprised of seven main components. They are as follows: rare and out-of-print books, manuscripts, documents, films, music, photographs, and memorabilia. The collection is a remarkable cultural treasure, with a vast ability to educate and to delight. It is our hope that this particular collection will be explored on the Web site to learn more about the collection and why Dr. Mayme Clayton assembled it, and the goals of the Western States Black Research and Educational Center.

It's a research center, and it's scheduled to receive a Federal grant to refurbish its facilities that are located in my district, Culver City, California. The center will be known as the Mayme Clayton Library, and it has housed the largest collection of rare books, films, recordings, and other documents on black Americans outside of the Schomburg Library.

Ms. Clayton's historic efforts have not been in vain, but can rightfully serve as historical and intellectual nourishment for this generation as well as future generations of Americans.

When she learned that there was a location for her rare collection, which she kept in her garage, and I remember going over as a student at UCLA and going through her works for a paper that I had to do, I knew that she would outgrow that space and would have to find a place that could rightfully house such a precious collection. But we found a place for her. It was the old courthouse in Culver City. As you know, you cannot sell a courthouse; so we're on loan. They lent it to us for a period of time, and we're going to see that Federal grants go to that library to preserve this collection.

And I am so pleased to put that name into your psyche because she has skillfully, artfully, and scholarly recorded our history, as written by slaves themselves and written by free men.

Mayme Clayton, a true African American heroine.

Thank you, Stephanie Tubbs Jones, for giving me this time to talk about Mayme Clayton.

Mr. Speaker, Washington Republicans are throwing the facts out the window and are trying to scare the American public into believing that our Nation is less safe today than it was under the administration's supposed Protect America Act.

The Bush administration was wrong when it said the intelligence community would go dark, outrageous, when the act expired earlier this month.

Kenneth Wainstein, the Assistant Attorney General for National Security, said that even after the President's law expired, ``intelligence officials would still be able to continue eavesdropping on already-approved targets for another year.'' And Kate Martin, the Director of the Center for National Security Studies, said our government could immediately listen in on any new individual plotting a terrorist attack without a court order under existing FISA emergency authority.

Clearly, our intelligence community is not going dark. And I would hope that congressional Republicans would stop this scare tactic.

Madam Speaker, this week we learned that the Army refused to release a report it commissioned from the RAND Corporation on the mistakes made in the planning and the implementation of the Iraq war.

We all know that mistakes were made. However, it's important that the Bush administration hear from independent voices exactly why the war in Iraq did not go as the administration planned.

The RAND report, uncovered by the New York Times earlier this week, chided both President Bush and then-National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, for not resolving differences between the State Department and the Pentagon. It also highlighted the administration's failure to develop a single national plan that integrated ``humanitarian assistance, reconstruction governance, infrastructure development and postwar security.''

Madam Speaker, the Bush administration has a lot of lessons to learn but refuses to listen to any independent critiques. I would hope the administration would take this report seriously and would also conclude that the status quo in Iraq cannot continue.

It's time that we bring our troops home.

Madam Speaker, I want to add my remarks to those of my colleagues, but I have got some personal things to tell you.

Yes, he had that compassionate spirit. His unwavering concern for individual human rights and his deep knowledge of the world were an inspiration to us all. I remember when my predecessor passed away, I got a call at my embassy saying that if you should come to Congress, there is a place on Foreign Affairs for you. I hadn't even said I was going to come. Well, the results were I did.

I sit with honor among my colleagues on Foreign Affairs. I had the privilege to be trained at the State Department twice with his son-in- law, one of those rare specimens of humanity that he allowed to marry Katrina, his daughter. And I said to Tom after Katrina in Louisiana, ``I'm so sorry that Katrina has to go around through life after this terrible, terrible hurricane and present herself as `Katrina.' ''

He said, ``She's strong like I am. She can survive.''

But I knew that when he called on me to lead the delegation to Italy, something that he looked forward to every year to continue our dialogue with Great Britain, I knew something was not right, but that proud, distinguished, tall-standing human being never uttered a word. And so I kind of knew something was up.

When I got back, I said to him, ``Thank you for the honor of going to Portofino and leading the group in your place.'' He said, ``Ambassador, you deserve that,'' and never said another word.

Then he called us together and he said, ``Travel, learn what is happening around this globe.'' And that is what we are doing. We are carrying on his legacy by learning the world, knowing it the way he did.

We will certainly miss this giant of a human being.

Madam Speaker, I want to commend Mr. Royce on sponsoring H. Res. 947, a resolution congratulating Lee Myung-Bak on his election to the Presidency of the Republic of Korea and wishing him well during his transition and inauguration on February 25, 2008.

The United States and Korea share a longstanding and special relationship. Our strong alliance is rooted in the common principles of freedom and democracy. Today that relationship has blossomed into a strong economic partnership in which the Republic of Korea has become one of the United States' major trading partners. In my State of California, Korea is the State's fifth largest trading partner and the Los Angeles Custom District's third largest trading partner, with $18 billion in two-way trade annually.

In my congressional district in Los Angeles, Hollywood, and Culver City, ethnic Koreans have built a thriving business and cultural area known as Koreatown. Many maintain close cultural, business, and family ties to their homeland. Accordingly, it is my hope that the Republic of Korea will be fully admitted into the Visa Waiver Program in the very near future so that we may share even closer people-to-people exchanges between our two countries.

H. Res. 947 is also timely and important due to the ongoing Six-Party Talks and current attempts to dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons program. President-elect Lee has pledged to make the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula a priority of his administration. In order to achieve the goal of a nuclear free Korean Peninsula, the Republic of Korea will need the full support of the United States.

Madam Speaker, as co-chair of the Congressional Caucus of Korea and the U.S.-Korea Inter-Parliamentary Exchange and as a member of the House Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and Global Environment, I am committed to ensuring that the rock-solid U.S.-Korea alliance remains relevant, resilient, and enduring.

For these reasons, I again congratulate President-elect Lee on his electoral victory and am certain that I speak for all of my Congressional colleagues in wishing him the best.

Madam Speaker, I move that the message of the President be referred to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed.

Today, I join my colleagues, Madam Speaker, to override the President's veto of H.R. 3963, which the President vetoed on December 12. Since then, we received more discouraging news regarding the growing domestic and global economic crisis. It is imperative that we look at the impact of the downturn on our Nation's children. A slowing economy will definitely lead to an increased demand nationwide for SCHIP services.

Overriding the President's veto of SCHIP is more critical than ever during this period of economic downturn. I urge my colleagues to join me to override the President's veto and to guarantee that sufficient funding levels to address the need of our Nation's uninsured children become a reality.

Madam Speaker, it is with great sorrow that I learned of the death my dear friend Johnny Grant, known internationally as the honorary Mayor of Hollywood. His departure from our lives has created a significant void in the normal glitz and glamour of everyday Hollywood. Johnny was a symbol of great Hollywood movers and shakers who took sincere interest in creating goodwill worldwide.

Johnny's legendary accomplishments in Hollywood drew strongly from his roots in radio and television. He was one of television medium's earliest pioneers and stars. Johnny traveled the world to entertain U.S. troops in his role as the United Service Organization ambassador. He joined comedian Bob Hope in taking entertainers to war zones to perform for military personnel and was the first recipient of the highest honor awarded by the USO. Johnny was also a retired major general in the California State Military Reserve, a volunteer backup and support force of the National Guard.

Johnny Grant served as chairman of the Los Angeles City Fire Commission; the Los Angeles County Social Service Commission; and the Burbank, California Police Commission. More recently, he had been a member of the Los Angeles City Cultural Heritage Commission. He was the only person ever to twice receive an Order of California, the State's highest honor.

A lifelong bachelor, Johnny Grant was best known to television audiences around the world as the enthusiastic host alongside the more than 500 celebrities he inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame. With his ebullient style, Johnny was one of the west coast's most sought after masters of ceremony. He emceed more than 5,000 civic and charity events. Johnny was also a humanitarian who produced hundreds of charity events where he was instrumental in raising millions of dollars for the USO, for the Boy Scouts, the Arthritis Foundation, police and fire services, veterans organizations, and others.

Although he has an honorary star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the real star, his presence and inspiration will be sorely missed. We will miss him. And just last month he completed his 60th trip to entertain servicemen and women abroad.

We extend our most heartfelt condolences to his family, colleagues, and his many close friends here on Capitol Hill, in California, and around the world.

Today, Madam Speaker, January 15, 2008, is an auspicious day for Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, as it celebrates its 100th birthday anniversary. Founded in 1908 on the campus of Howard University in Washington, D.C., Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority is the first Greek-letter organization founded by African American college women. Alpha Kappa Alpha is a sisterhood of women who have consciously chosen to improve the socioeconomic conditions in their city, State, Nation, and the world.

Its history tells a story of changing patterns of human relations in America in the 20th century. The small group who organized the sorority was just one generation removed from slavery. The sorority has directed its efforts toward improving the quality of life for all mankind while living the sorority motto: by culture and by merit.

I am proud to count myself as a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority; and throughout the years I have witnessed firsthand how the power, vision, and commitment of our founders and members have inspired AKA to endure and prosper through 10 decades. Our membership includes high-profile women from all walks of life and from all disciplines, including the astronaut and physician Dr. Mae Jemison, poet Maya Angelou, actress Phylicia Rashad, entertainer Gladys Knight, entrepreneur Suzanne de Passe, U.K. member of Parliament Diane Abbot, performing artist Alicia Keys, Indira Gandhi, and a host of other regional, national, and international political leaders. My colleagues Sheila Jackson-Lee and Eddie Bernice Johnson, also retired Congresswoman Eva Clayton, and the late Juanita Millender-McDonald are sorors, too.

Alpha Kappa Alpha led the way with such programs as Vocational Guidance, Foreign Fellowship, the Mississippi Health Project, Health Programs, Nonpartisan Council, the American Council on Human Rights, Sickle Cell Anemia, Job Corps, the purchase of Martin Luther King's birthplace, the establishment of Educational Advancement Foundation, and the African Village Development Program, among a few.

The AKAs have always understood that the world's greatest asset is its youth, and developed several integral programs in an effort to increase their opportunities. These programs include PIMS, or Partnership in Mathematics and Science; ON TRACK: Organizing Nurturing, Team-building, Respecting, Achieving, Counseling, and Knowing; Ivy AKAdemy; and the Young Authors Program.

Inspired by the vision, Celebrating Our Past, Serving Our Community, Honoring Our Sisterhood, women from around the world have gathered in our Nation's Capital today to honor this anniversary, celebrate our achievements, and resolve to build on the legacy of our founders by strengthening our commitment. Today, the sorority donated $1 million to Howard University and $10,000 to the Andrew Rankin Chapel.

On July 10-11, 2008, the AKAs, under the astute leadership of Dr. Barbara A. McKinzie, Centennial International president, will host its Centennial Boule here in the United States Capital, the sorority's birthplace. More than 20,000 members of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority will tell the Nation and the world the story of 20 women who started a movement which advanced a people and changed the course of history.

And I ask all of you to join me in acknowledging this great milestone as Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority embarks on its second century of service, the bedrock of our sorority, and excellence. It was true in 1908 and it is true today.