Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the bill as crafted and to this rule. I also urge my colleagues to support the substitute that will be offered by the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) and the amendment to be offered by the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

The bill creates a new block grant for eight States and eliminates the obligation that States abide by Head Start's educational performance standards by allowing governors to increase class size, increase child-to-staff ratios, dumb down existing curricula, all without any accountability.

The President has told us repeatedly that his goal is to leave no child behind. Unfortunately, the reality fails to match the rhetoric. Because of inadequate funding, we are already leaving 400,000 children behind. An appalling 40 percent of those eligible to participate in Head Start cannot participate because of short funding.

With the changes made by this bill, even more of our at-risk, eligible children will be shut out of this successful program, endangering their opportunities to succeed in school and to contribute all they might to this Nation. We must not deny children the health, social and educational services they need. This Nation cannot afford to cheat its future by robbing our children of educational opportunities today.

Without the amendment to be offered by the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey), the bill would betray our core values by explicitly permitting, for the first time in the history of this program, religious discrimination in employment. It would allow Head Start programs that use taxpayer funds to discriminate against teachers and parent volunteers solely because of their religious convictions.

The bill does so by eliminating existing law that has, since the beginning of the Head Start program, protected the people who teach our children against this most reprehensible form of discrimination. No public school, no publicly funded Head Start program should be permitted to hang out a sign that says no Jews or Catholics or Protestants or Muslims or whatever need apply. Incredibly, this bill deliberately would allow them to do just that. For shame.

Head Start is an exceptional program that has served nearly a million children and their families. It works. It works well. Instead of cutting its funding and eliminating basic standards and promoting religious discrimination, we should be standing up and expanding this program and not destroying it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the legislation and to this rule. I also urge my colleagues to support the substitute that will be offered by the gentleman from California (Mr. Miller), and the amendment to be offered by the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

This bill creates a new block grant program for eight states, yet it eliminates the obligation that states abide by Head Start's educational performance standards by allowing governors to increase class size, increase child to staff ratios, dumb-down existing curricula--all without any accountability.

The President has repeatedly told us that his goal is to leave no child behind. Unfortunately, the reality fails to match the rhetoric. Due to inadequate funding, we are already leaving behind over 400,000 children--an appalling 40 percent of those eligible to participate in Head Start.

With the changes made by this bill, even more of our most at-risk, eligible children will be shut out of this successful program, compromising their opportunities to succeed in school and contribute all they could to our nation. We cannot continue to deny children the health, social, and educational services they need. This nation cannot afford to rob its future by robbing our children of educational opportunities today.

This bill also betrays our core values by permitting, for the first time in the history of the Head Start program, religious discrimination. It allows taxpayer funds to be used in Head Start programs that discriminate against teachers and parent volunteers solely because of their religious convictions. The bill does so by eliminating existing law that has, since Head Start's beginning, protected the people who teach our children against this most reprehensible form of discrimination.

We have heard terrible allegations from the other side of the aisle, and from the administration alleging, that certain members of the other body have hung a sign on the federal courts saying ``No Catholics Need Apply.'' While I continue to believe that this slur against conscientious Catholic members of the other body is blatantly false and slanderous, those making the charge, including the President and our colleagues on the other side of

the aisle, understand that religious discrimination in employment, or the imposition of a religious test for federally funded employment in violation of the Constitution, is reprehensible and an affront to our First Freedom.

I urge my colleagues to support the Democratic substitute, and the Woolsey amendment, both of which would strip this indefeasible provision from the bill.

Head Start is an exceptional program that serves nearly 1 million children and their families. We know from experience that it works and works well, helping our children succeed educationally. Instead of cutting funding, eliminating basic standards, and promoting religious discrimination, we should be standing up for families and our most vulnerable children by providing the necessary resources and accountability, to ensure that all children who qualify for the Head Start program can participate and succeed.

By failing to improve, rather than destroy, Head Start, this administration, and this bill, are making clear that our children are not valued and do not deserve a head start in life. Instead of dismantling this program, with a proven track record, that countless early childhood educators, child psychologists support, and parents support, this bill would replace it with an untested, unproven, unaccountable program.

It is time to match the rhetoric with action and leave no child behind. It is time to make good on the promise of this nation that we are all created equal, that all children are entitled to a decent education, and that no one should ever have to decide between a job helping our children and their religious faith. No child was ever helped by governmentally funded and endorsed religious discrimination. That is not what this country is about, and it is not befitting of a nation dedicated to liberty and justice for all.

I urge the rejection of this rule, and the adoption of the Democratic substitute and the Woolsey amendment.

Mr. Speaker, for 30 years the pharmaceutical companies have opposed proposals for the government to help senior citizens buy their products. Why? Because they are afraid that the government, as a bulk purchaser, would exercise market power to do what a bulk purchaser in a free market society should do, use bulk market power to get lower prices. And they tell us that lower prices will mean they could not do research and development when they spend 33 percent of their revenues on marketing and 14 percent on research and developing.

That is why the Republican bill we debated a few weeks ago prohibits the government from negotiating prices. This bill is a substitute for that, not a good substitute, but the best we are likely to get. It will help the seniors buy their drugs and we ought to pass it.

Offered By: Mr. Nadler

Amendment No. 6: In the item relating to ``DEPARTMENT OF

HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT--Public and Indian Housing--

housing certificate fund'', after each of the first, second,

and fourth dollar amounts, insert the following: ``(increased

by $150,000,000)''.

In the item relating to ``DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN

DEVELOPMENT--Management and Administration--working capital

fund'', after the first dollar amount, insert the following:

``(reduced by $150,000,000)''.

Offered By: Mr. Nadler

Amendment No. 4: In title II, in the item relating to

``Community Planning and Development; housing opportunities

for persons with aids'', after the first dollar amount insert

``(increased by $13,000,000)''.

In title III, in the item relating to ``National Science

Foundation; research and related activities'', after the

first and second dollar amounts insert ``(reduced by

$13,000,000)''.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I am not asking in this amendment to shift priorities within this bill. I am asking to set priorities for an agency that has failed miserably in its 53-year history. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, otherwise known as UNRWA, is spending over $300 million a year to house, educate and provide social services to 3.9 million Palestinian refugees, 1.2 million of whom still live in refugee camps.

The amendment is very simple. It would withhold a third of the United States contribution to UNRWA until such time as the President certifies that UNRWA has established a program for the resettlement of the refugees under its authority. It also would require UNRWA to replace textbooks and educational materials that promote anti-Semitism, deny the existence of Israel and exacerbate stereotypes and tensions between the Palestinians and Israelis.

What is shocking is that the United Nations through UNRWA has allowed and indeed compelled these camps to exist for more than 50 years. No other refugees in the modern era have had to sustain such a long existence in refugee camps before being resettled and absorbed. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, charged with dealing with all refugees in the world other than the Palestinians, has overseen the resettlement and absorption of more than 200 million refugees since World War II. Only the 600,000 Palestinian refugees and their descendants have languished in refugee camps for three generations, refused resettlement and normal lives for the specific purpose of being used as political pawns and recruitment assets for terrorists groups opposed to the existence of Israel.

In March of 1976, 27 years ago, Mahmoud Abbas, who is now the new Palestinian Prime Minister, wrote: ``The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect Palestinians from the Zionist Tyranny, but instead they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, imposed upon them a political and ideological blockade and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which Jews used to live in Eastern Europe.''

This statement underscores the fact that UNRWA has been used and abused for over 50 years to further the political goals of a radical political Palestinian leadership with the goal of eliminating a sovereign state. With a new leadership and renewed hope for peace in the Middle East today, these abuses must end.

The United Nations has not only failed to resettle the refugees, it has fostered and promoted anti-Semitic and anti-Western propaganda in the schools. The education system run by UNRWA with United States money does not recognize Israel, indoctrinates children into Jihad, contributing to the fact that the refugee camps have become notorious breeding grounds for suicide bombers and other terrorists.

At roughly the same time, Mr. Speaker, that 600,000 Palestinians became refugees, more than 900,000 Jews were forced out of Arab countries in the Middle East and North Africa where they had lived for hundreds or even thousands of years. These refugees were not herded into refugee camps and American taxpayers have not supported them for 50 years. Israel absorbed 600,000 of these refugees from the surrounding Arab countries, building them homes and providing education and social services so that they could sustain themselves and become productive citizens, as they have. Another 300,000 fled to the United States and Canada. None became burdens on international refugee agencies and on American taxpayers.

By contrast, UNRWA and Israel's Arab neighbors have refused to allow the absorption or resettlement of the Palestinian refugees. Instead they have compelled them to suffer for more than 50 years in camps that provide no future and no hope and breed only hatred and violence.

It is time for the United Nations and UNRWA to stand up and take responsibility for the 1.2 million people under its charge. Most of these Palestinian refugees were born in these camps and will die there as well unless UNRWA is forced to reform. The United States will contribute an estimated $91 million to UNRWA this year, almost a third of its budget. I believe that it as the main financial supporter of an agency that has kept millions of people in squalid camps for generations and that has allowed and even encouraged the camps to become breeding grounds for anti-Semitic and anti-American feelings and training grounds for terrorists, it is our responsibility to force change on that agency through withholding funds until they start to change and to give hope and life to these refugees to establish a plan and a mechanism for their resettlement and their absorption.

I would urge my colleagues to support this amendment so that we may start on that goal.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, I do.

Mr. Chairman, first of all, I thank the gentlewoman for her kind remarks about this amendment. But secondly, I think in commenting on the distinguished chairman's point of order and on the remarks he made in making that point of order, I think that now with the peace talks about to begin hopefully in the Middle East, it is precisely the time when this is not inappropriate but is very appropriate because we know, we know from the Camp David experience, that at the end of the day when everything else is agreed upon someone is going to raise the issue of the so-called right of return of these refugees to Israel and that we had better have dealt with that and have started to solve that problem if we expect a successful conclusion later. I think the biggest mistake we have all made in the last probably 20 years of seeking peace in the Middle East is trying to put off this problem to the end hoping it will go away. We

must deal with it before the last moment, and that is the purpose of this amendment.

I understand the gentleman's point of order, a limitation amendment, and as a technical point I think that it is a limitation amendment, and I think that the point of it now and the point of raising this now is to put people on notice. We will be back with this amendment when the point of order will not stand against it and hopefully, though, it will not be necessary because UNRWA and the State Department will start taking notice and start dealing with these problems and dismantling these camps and enabling these people, 1.2 million people to start being resettled and absorbed and have decent lives instead of being kept in these squalid camps at a cost to the American taxpayer so far for 53 years.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment also, and let me begin by saying that this letter from the Assistant Secretary of State reveals a profound misunderstanding of the amendment. In the very language that the distinguished chairman read, which says, ``The administration strongly opposes efforts to add the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to this list of state sponsors of terrorism,'' then he says that ``doing so would severely undermine

our counter-terrorism cooperation with Saudi Arabia,'' that is not what the amendment does.

The amendment says, and I will read it in its entirety because it is one sentence. It says: None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available pursuant to this act shall be obligated or expended to finance directly any assistance or reparations to a list of countries, including Saudi Arabia.

Now, those countries may be some of the same countries on the State Department terrorism list, but this does not affect the terrorism list. Only the Secretary of State can add or subtract a country from a terrorism list. So this letter from the Assistant Secretary of State simply means he did not read the amendment or did not understand it if he did and we should disregard it.

The fact is my colleague from New York who offered this amendment, for which we ought to be grateful, recited a whole list of actions by Saudi Arabia in supporting terrorism. Now, someone said that they have looked the other way at terrorism for a long time. They have not looked the other way. They have supported it, they have funded it, they have trained people for it, they have paid for it, and they have been the source of most of the terrorism in the world.

Mr. Chairman, some of us supported the decision to go into Iraq, some did not. I did not at the time in the way that it was done. But the fact is if Iraq is an enemy, Saudi Arabia is a more dangerous enemy. The major danger this country faces today in the world is the war launched against us by the Islamic terrorists, by Osama bin Laden, al- Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, and a dozen different organizations. They want us all dead. They have killed 3,000 of our people. They would kill 3 million if they could.

The biggest danger we face is that they may get nuclear weapons. The second biggest danger we face is that they recruit more and more people. There is a civil war going on within one of the world's great religions, Islam. And that civil war pits, hopefully, the majority of the adherents of that religion in the world today, I will call moderates, versus the Wahabi extremists, who believe that they have a religious obligation to essentially kill all the Christians and all the Jews.

And where is that Wahabi missionary work coming from? Who is supporting and funding sending out missionaries and tape cassettes to Indonesia, Nigeria, and every country in the Muslim world? Saudi Arabia. That is where the money has been coming from for the last 30 years. It started in the 1960s, to send out these missionaries to say your Imams here in Nigeria, your Imams in Iraq, your Imams in Indonesia and Malaysia, they are sellouts. They do not preach the true religion. The true religion means we have to kill all the Christians and the Jews, and certainly the United States.

That is what is emanating from Saudi Arabia. That is why 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. If we look at the funding for any of the madrasas in Afghanistan that gave rise to the Taliban in Pakistan and all these other countries that were poisoning the minds of generations of poor students because they pay for the education, where is the money coming from? Saudi Arabia. They thought for a while they would buy off these people. Now they understand it is going to boomerang on them too, maybe.

This money is not the object, the $105,000. The object is to send them a strong message, that we are on to them. It is not a question of their looking the other way and not actively participating with us. It is a question of their funding the enemy, supporting the enemy, and generating the enemy. And if I have a major criticism of the administration it is that it is not really fighting the source of the enemy. The enemy is emanating from Saudi Arabia, from this Wahabi sect that is spreading all over the Muslim world and saying if you want to go to heaven you have to kill Christians and Jews and especially Americans.

That is what is fundamentally emanating from this, and we ought to rise to the nature of what is going on. There is a civil war in Islam today. We ought to be having Radio Free Islam, we ought to be supporting the moderates and opposing this poisonous doctrine which is at the root of the terrorism aimed against us and at our friends, which comes essentially from Saudi Arabia.

So I support this amendment as a first statement of maybe waking up the American people and seeing where the problem really comes from.

Mr. Chairman, I am going to begin by reading from an editorial that appeared in the New York Daily News this past Sunday, written by a Richard Brookhiser, who is a senior editor of the National Review, a very noted conservative magazine founded by William F. Buckley.

He writes as follows: ``Earlier this year, the New York State Association of County Health Officials, as cautious a bunch as you will find in the medical community, urged New York lawmakers to pass legislation to legalize the medical use of marijuana. It is past time to remove patients fighting cancer, AIDS, and other scourges from the battlefield of the war on drugs.

``The legalization of medical marijuana would be a step forward for the health of all New Yorkers, the Association of County Health Officials declared. Marijuana has proven to be effective in the treatment of people with HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis, cancer, and those suffering from severe pain and nausea.

``I discovered,'' that is, he did; I am quoting the article. ``I discovered marijuana's benefits while receiving chemotherapy for testicular cancer in 1992. Part way through my treatment, the conventional antinausea drugs prescribed by my doctors stopped working. Marijuana was the only thing that kept my head out of the toilet.

``I was lucky. As a member of the media elite, I probably wasn't at huge risk for a drug bust. Living here, I was able to obtain my herb under the cover of urban anonymity. But people shouldn't have to depend on professional status or the luck of geography. Putting such patients in jail for the `crime' of trying to relieve some of the misery caused by their illnesses is cruel.

``The consensus regarding marijuana's medical value grows every day. Just this May, The Lancet Neurology noted that marijuana's active components are effective against pain in virtually every lab test scientists have devised, and even speculated that it could become `the aspirin of the 21st century.'

``Marijuana does have risks, but so do all drugs. Recent researchers documented that relatively simple vaporizers can allow users to inhale the active ingredients with almost none of the irritants in smoke.

``Ten States now have laws allowing medical use of marijuana with a physician's recommendation, and those laws have been successful. Last year, the General Accounting Office interviewed 37 law enforcement agencies in those States, reporting that the majority of those interviewed `indicated that medical marijuana laws has had little impact on their law enforcement activities.'

``As a conservative, I am not surprised that common sense is bubbling up from the State level while Federal marijuana laws remain stuck in the 1930s. Federal law will change eventually, because science, common sense, and human decency require it.''

That is the article. Mr. Chairman, I am not a conservative, as most of my colleagues know. I am a liberal. But I certainly agree with this conservative writer and editor.

The fact of the matter is, we ought to let doctors prescribe the medicines they feel would be most effective for their patients. It is not up to us to stand up on the floor of this House and declare with the expertise of the politicians that we are that marijuana, or morphine, or tetracycline is not an effective drug. That is the job of the doctors and the medical professionals to make those judgments.

We can prosecute doctors or others who may abuse this privilege. We allow morphine's use for medical purposes. No one has legalized the general use of morphine, or heroin, from which it is derived. But for medical purposes, we use it as a painkiller all the time. Most of our drugs, if misused, are dangerous and even toxic, but we allow their use to heal the sick under a physician's supervision. Why should marijuana be any different?

Sure, it is a dangerous drug. I certainly do not deny that. But for certain diseases, for certain conditions, it can help people. It can make their lives bearable.

Let the doctors make those decisions, not the politicians. Let the doctors decide what will work for someone's illness, and let them be subject to the normal medical discipline procedures for the normal uses of the law for those who would abuse their ability to prescribe a drug.

Mr. Chairman, let marijuana be treated as a drug the way morphine is, the way other powerful drugs are. Let people be healed. Let them feel better. Let people with HIV or AIDS or cancer be able to hold their food. Let them survive longer. And let us fight the drug war on a different battlefield.

Offered By: Mr. Nadler

Amendment No. 15: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

limitation on contributions to unrwa

Mr. Speaker, I was not able to be present for rollcall votes 249 through 251, Numbers 287 and 288, and Numbers 297 through 300. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' on Numbers 249 through 251, Number 287, and Numbers 297 through 300. I would have voted ``nay'' Number 288.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this much-deserved and long-overdue increase for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

For years, Mr. Chairman, we have been told by opponents of government funding for the arts that the private sector could easily step in if government funds were cut or flat-funded. That may have sounded reasonable during the flush economy of the 1990s, but now, with the economy mired in recession, we are seeing private sector support drying up and nonprofit arts companies withering away.

Cities and States across the country faced with deep budget deficits are being forced to cut their support for the arts as well, and it is having real consequences for the arts organizations that rely on these funds for their survival. That makes it even more critical that we increase the Federal commitment to the arts today.

Funding for the arts is one of the best investments our government makes. In purely economic terms, it generates a return that would make any Wall Street investor jealous. For just a fraction of 1 percent of the entire Federal budget, the NEA supports a thriving nonprofit arts industry which generates more than $134 billion annually, nearly 5 million full-time jobs, and returns $10.5 billion in Federal taxes each year.

With grants that touch every congressional district in the country, the NEA supports educational programs that teach children valuable lifelong skills, allows new and innovative art to find an audience, helps bring the arts to underserved communities, enables organizations to share their exhibitions and performances with the rest of the Nation through national tours and, most important, provides crucial seed money for organizations to leverage private donations.

Yet the NEA continues to suffer from the shortsighted decision by this Congress to slash its funding back in 1996 after an attempt at its outright elimination. The NEA has been forced to do more with far, far less; and, despite consistent underfunding, it has been an efficient and a productive agency. But we should at least restore the NEA to its pre-1996 levels; and we should, in fact, be considering an increase over that level, not simply the paltry funding it has had since then. Only through increased public support can the arts continue to be as vibrant as they are through the Nation.

The NEH, too, is a vital industry, but without additional funding the important work of interpreting and preserving our Nation's heritage will go unrealized. The NEH is at the forefront of preserving endangered recordings of folk music, jazz and blues; bringing Shakespeare to inner-city youth; promoting research into immigrant life and culture; and helping disseminate this information into our communities through technologies such as the Internet and CD-ROM.

The arts inspire us, challenge us, spark our creativity. They make us think, laugh, and cry. The humanities teach us about ourselves and our history and foster cultural understanding. We should be ashamed at the tiny investment we make in such important activities.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment asks only to restore the funding level that the House supported last year without any increase for inflation. The level that we supported last year, but that was unfortunately stripped during the conference. This is the very least we should do today. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and to vote against any attempts to slash NEA funding that may be made by others.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to praise the extraordinary efforts of NYU Downtown Hospital and its Chinese Community Partnership for Health program, for all of their work in health education, outreach and case management throughout lower Manhattan. I salute them on the occasion of the fourth annual Hong Kong Television Broadcast Limited Benefit Variety Show, which raises funds for this worthy cause.

Lower Manhattan is a diverse community that welcomes thousands of new immigrants every year, especially to the dynamic neighborhood of Chinatown. NYU Downtown Hospital is the only health care facility in the area and works to guarantee that these immigrants have access to quality health care.

The hospital has numerous successful outreach programs including the Chinese Community Partnership for Health (CCPH) program. The CCPH works to promote health care to all the residents of New York's Chinese community, including the tens of thousands of new residents each year. For ten years, the CCPH has served more than 80,000 garment and restaurant workers, elderly Chinese residents and school children in the Hospital's service area.

The centerpiece of the Partnership program is its health screening activities conducted by specially trained outreach teams that include bilingual nurses with both Eastern and Western healthcare concepts and practices. CCPH helps these immigrants overcome language and cultural barriers which prevent them from receiving the medical assistance they need and deserve.

To help raise funds for this worthy cause, CCPH and NYU Downtown Hospital will host a three-day extravaganza featuring a celebrity gala dinner and culminating in the Benefit Variety Show. Produced by the Hong Kong Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB), the Benefit Variety Show is an annual event in its fourth year that will be held in New York on July 10th. The festivities are broadcast worldwide, which helps to display New York's tremendous diversity.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing the many individuals who work tirelessly to make this event an annual success, including Sir Run Run Shaw, Executive Chairman of TVB; George C.K. Liu, Chairman of the Physician Committee; Mr. Tim Cheng of the East Buffet and Restaurant; Pulchee Ngan, General Manager, Raymond Miu Productions, Inc.; and Hong Kong Superstars Jerry Lamb, Yumiko Cheng, Maggie Cheung, Denise Ho, Aaron Kwok, Alan Lam, Samantha Lam, Edmond Leung, Gigi Leung, Edwin Siu, Tommy Yuen, and Tim Yuk. I would also like to recognize the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, who are the grand benefactors of this event and do so much throughout Chinatown to serve and protect the interests of the Chinese community in New York City.

I appreciate all the good work that CCPH does to promote quality health care and I wish them great success with this year's variety show.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, many people thought that the Holocaust cleansed the Western world of anti-Semitism, that the catastrophe, the mass murder, and the genocide in the Holocaust caused the civilized world or at least the Western part of the civilized world to recoil in such horror that anti-Semitism would

not be a major problem again. We now know that maybe it did that for a generation or two, but that the scourge of anti-Semitism is returning in great and terrible force in its ancient homeland of Europe and other places.

Today we have two major problems of anti-Semitism: in Europe and in the Muslim world. It is very appropriate that we adopt this resolution today to ask the governments of Europe through the OSCE and individually to crack down on anti-Semitism, to speak out against it, to act against it because many of the governments of Europe, many of the parts of the political left in Europe and elsewhere as well as the right have not done so. They ought to do so. And this resolution is fitting and appropriate to adopt today for that purpose.

Mr. Speaker, those who have opposed this resolution have opposed it for what it does not say, not for what it does.

The United States can be an honest broker and should be between Palestinians who want peace such as perhaps Abu Mazen, whose sincerity is still subject to proof, but it cannot be an honest broker with Hamas and other terrorist groups who desire genocide.

This resolution supports the road map by supporting the first preconditions for it, the disarmament of the terrorist groups, by agreement if possible, by force if necessary.

Finally, there is no equivalence between Israeli victims of premeditated murder and Palestinian victims who either were terrorists or were victims of warfare unleashed by Palestinian terrorists. This resolution strikes a proper balance, and I strongly support it.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I was intending to offer an amendment to this title of the bill, but the amendment is to increase the appropriation in the bill by $5 billion for the purpose of stationing American inspectors in every foreign port from where ships leave for the United States in order to inspect every container before it is put on a ship bound for the United States. Unfortunately, I could not find a $5 billion offset in this bill. What I wanted to do, obviously, was to reduce the tax cuts, the hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars of tax cuts, by $5 billion to offset this. But the rules of the House do not permit that, so my hands are tied.

Let me address for a moment the necessity of this amendment, if not in this bill then elsewhere. The greatest danger this Nation faces, which we are not addressing in any real shape or form, is that some foreign terrorist group, al-Qaeda, whoever, or some rogue nation, will get hold of a nuclear bomb and attack the United States. We are spending about $100 billion on an anti-ballistic missile system ostensibly to meet that threat. But think about it a minute. The leader of any rogue nation who had a few atomic bombs and wanted to attack the United States would not put them on a missile, because a missile has a return address. We would know from where the missile came, if God forbid someone attacked American cities. That leader would know that if he launched nuclear-tipped missiles at American cities, his country would cease to exist, along with his regime and him, would cease to exist a half-hour later. So he would not put the atomic bombs on a missile, he would put them in a ship.

Mr. Chairman, six million shipping containers come into this country per year. We inspect less than 2 percent of them. Ninety-eight percent of those six million containers, for all we know, have atomic bombs in them. It does not do any good to inspect them in Newark or New York or Los Angeles where they night explode. I know Secretary Ridge and others are saying we are going to set aside a few hundred million dollars and send some inspectors to foreign ports to look at some high-risk containers. High risk? Well, if we look at the high-risk containers, the bombs will be in the low-risk containers, or at least those that used to be low risk.

Mr. Chairman, the catastrophe that could be caused from one atomic bomb in an American city would make 9/11 look like child's play. That catastrophe would cost half a million lives immediately, probably trillions, trillions in economic damage. We cannot afford to risk one nuclear explosion in an American city. President Bush said, when he was trying to motivate a war with Iraq, that we could not wait for the mushroom cloud. Well, I am not so sure the facts justified that reference with respect to Iraq, but they most certainly justify that reference with respect to six million shipping containers coming into this country with God knows what inside.

So, Mr. Chairman, my amendment that I would have offered, if the majority did not prevent me from offering this amendment, would have appropriated $5 billion, which is little

enough for this purpose, and would have sufficed to enable an American inspection team to see to it that no container, not one container, is put on any ship bound for the United States in a foreign port until that container is searched and sealed and certified by an American inspection team in the foreign port to say there is no weapon of mass destruction on board that.

Mr. Chairman, if we do not do this, during the war that we are engaged in now and maybe for the next 10, 20, 30, or 40 years with the terrorists, then we ought to have our collective heads examined. Any American city could be destroyed, millions of lives lost by one atomic bomb in any container in any ship. We cannot afford not to spend the money to search and inspect every single container, whether our intelligence people think it is a high-risk or a low-risk container, every container in a foreign port with an American inspection team to make sure there is no weapon of mass destruction on board that container.

For $5 billion, Mr. Chairman, we could do that. Five billion dollars a year. Compare that to trillions of dollars in tax cuts that we have passed in these last 2 years. Where does the risk lie for the American people? I would urge, and I would challenge the Bush administration to make the $5 billion a year available and to institute this and to say to foreign countries that no container gets put on a ship in their port without being inspected first by an American inspection team.

And, by the way, if they did not want an American inspection team in their ports, that is fine, they are sovereign, but they cannot ship anything to the United States. We must hermetically seal this country from nuclear bombs possibly contained in ships, and this is the only way to do it. The failure of this Congress and of the administration to deal with this subject seriously is one that I hope will not result in cataclysmic catastrophe for the American people.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate, as do other speakers, the hard work of the members of the Committee on Appropriations and of the chairman and ranking member of the Appropriations subcommittee. The bill before us provides $500 million for 47 high-threat/high-density areas, 47 cities. People are talking about New York. We are talking about 47 cities that are high-risk areas, $500 million. The bill also provides, as I understand it, $1.9 billion for the rest of the country. Low risk or less than high-risk areas. The amendment would change that somewhat to make it $700 million for the 47 high-risk areas, $700 million for all 47 high-risk areas combined, and $1.7 billion the low-risk areas or less-than-high-risk areas in the rest of the country. By way of comparison, just keeping police officers on duty costs the City of New York, one high-risk area, $676 million a year. This amendment would make $700 million available to all 47 high-risk areas. So we are talking about a small fraction of what any of these high-risk areas are spending.

There is not enough being allocated, there is not enough that we could allocate, for all the high-risk areas and the rest of the areas. All some of us are saying here for New York, for Pennsylvania, for Illinois, for Houston, for Texas, for other high-risk areas is that we should be a little more rational in allocating the funds a little more on the basis of where the heavier expenditures are necessary because of where the risks are and how much it costs to guard against those risks and a little less on the uniform geographic basis which is the other half of this allocation.

Now, I understand, of course, that in the end the committee and the conference committee are going to make this allocation. What we are saying now is we want to bring to the attention of the body some of the considerations that say that there should be a little more rationale, rationality, to put a little more of the money for high-risk areas where so much more is necessary.

I appreciate the work that has been done by the committee and the work that will be done. I hope the committee will see its way clear to balancing this a little better, not for New York alone, but for the other 46 high-risk areas which have billions of dollars that have to be spent on this, not hundreds of millions.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, I am not going to speak for 5 minutes. I just want to say what this amendment does, to be blunt, is it says that if any city in the country, and according to the gentleman who read a list of most of the large cities in the country, if they are in violation of a particular provision of the Immigration Act which now has no sanction, this will put a sanction on the city, on all the large cities, and the sanction will be that we will leave them open and naked to the terrorists. That is what it says.

No funds can go to those cities to protect their ports, no funds made available in this act. This act makes available funds for fire, for police, for emergency responses, for protection against terrorists. Now, I know we want to get to a vote but this is about as important an amendment as we have taken up here in a long time. Because whether the people understand it or not, what this amendment will do, and maybe we should do something about non-enforcement about the immigration provision, maybe the Committee on the Judiciary should hold hearings on that, but in fact what this amendment does is say most of the large cities in the country because they are not in compliance with a specific provision of the immigration law will gets no funds to use to protect themselves against the terrorists. No funds for port security, no funds for airport security, no funds for fire and emergency response. That, I submit, makes no sense.

It says to all the citizens in all those large cities, we will hold you hostage so that the terrorists have a free hand at you if your city violates the immigration law. That is not the way to enforce the immigration law. I urge a no vote.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green).

(Mr. GREEN of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), the ranking member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, today we have a very bad combination, a combination of Members of Congress who want to play doctor and Members of Congress who want to play Supreme Court. When you put the two together, you have a prescription for some very bad medicine for the women in this country.

We have been through this debate often enough to know that you will not find the term ``partial-birth abortion'' in any medical textbook. There are procedures that you will find in medical textbooks, but the authors of this legislation would prefer to use the language of propaganda rather than the language of medical science. This bill is so vague that it could be read to prohibit many common procedures used during the second trimester. This, the Supreme Court has said, Congress may not constitutionally do.

The bill as written fails every test the Supreme Court has laid down for constitutional regulation of abortion. It reads almost as if the authors went through the Supreme Court's controlling decision in Stenberg v. Carhart and went out of their way to thumb their noses at the Court. Unless the authors think that when the Court has made repeated and clear statements over the years of what the Constitution requires in this area, they were just pulling our leg, this bill has to be considered facially unconstitutional.

In addition, in just one example of an obnoxious clause, the bill allows the husband of a woman who seeks an abortion to sue her and her doctor if the husband did not consent to the procedure. This would include a husband who had abused the woman, punched her causing massive damage to the fetus, deserted her, and then allow him to realize a huge windfall after she is left alone to deal with the consequences of his wrongdoing.

This is the position of people who call themselves pro-life? It is an obscenity and people who support it should not be proud.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly said any restriction on the right to choose must have a clear exception to preserve the life and health of a woman at any stage of pregnancy.

The bill lacks an exception for the health of the woman. I know that some of my colleagues do not like the constitutional rule that has been in place and reaffirmed by the Court for 30 years; but that is the supreme law of the land, and no amount of rhetoric, even if written into legislation, will change that. Even the Ashcroft Justice Department in its brief defending an Ohio statute before the Court has acknowledged that a health exception is required by law.

The sponsors say that findings in the bill to the effect that so- called partial-birth abortion is never medically necessary will satisfy the constitutional requirement of a health exception to any limitation on the right to choose an abortion. But while the Court has made clear that it now requires Congress to support our legislation with findings of fact and that the Court has arrogated to itself the right to decide whether the facts established are sufficient to establish that the legislation is appropriate and proportionate to the evil to be remedied in order to render the legislation constitutional, that is an affirmative requirement within the power of Congress to legislate.

It is not. The Court has said the opposite. The Court has not said where Congress has no power to legislate, such as abortion regulation, without an exception for the health of the woman, that findings of fact can expand the power to legislate. The fact requirement is established by the Court as a limitation on Congress, not as an expansion of the power of Congress.

Whatever deference the Court may have shown to Congress's fact findings, the Court has made clear it is the final arbiter of the fact, not Congress, even if we put so-called fact findings in the bill. I do not like that anymore than other Members of the House, but there you have it; and frankly, the contention that the findings in this bill negate the necessity for the health exception to make this constitutional is laughable, and I do not believe any Member who knows anything about constitutional law can seriously and honestly suggest anything other than that.

While I realize many of the proponents of this bill view all abortion as tantamount to infanticide, that is not a mainstream view. The proponents of this bill are attempting to foist a marginal view on the general public by characterizing it as having to do with abortions involving healthy fetuses that are already viable. But, of course, the definition in this bill will go into second trimester abortions also.

If they really wanted to deal with post-viability abortions and situations in which a woman's life and health are not in jeopardy, then let them write a bill dealing with late-term abortions. We already have such laws in 40 Sates, and they would not find much opposition, if any opposition, to that. But it is clear that the majority is not interested in a bill that could pass into law and naturally be upheld as constitutional. What they want is simply an inflammatory piece of rhetoric to start undermining the political support of Roe v. Wade. The real purpose of this bill is not, as we have been told, to save babies, but to save elections.

We now have a President who has expressed a willingness to sign this bill. He may in fact get his chance.

Perhaps here in the Halls of Congress the health of women takes a back seat to the most extreme views of the anti-choice movement. Perhaps the President does not care about the health of women. We will find that out, perhaps.

Let us hope that this administration does not get the opportunity to pack the Supreme Court with fanatics who are also indifferent to the lives and health of women. Until then, fortunately, the Constitution still serves as a bulwark against dangerous, malicious, destructive, and misogynistic particular bills like this one. I am thankful for that.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. DeGette).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman makes the comments about an inhumane form of abortion, but of course, the fact is the gentleman would not support any form of abortion. He does not care that one form is more or less humane than the others. That is why this bill makes no sense at all.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks).

(Mr. MEEKS of New York asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. Speaker, I thought I had 3 minutes remaining.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

Mr. Speaker, two key points to be made. One, if the real purpose of this bill is to ban late-term abortions with all the gruesome descriptions we have heard, you could do it very simply by including a health and life exception for the mother as the Supreme Court requires. No one would oppose it. We have such laws in 40 States.

That is not the goal here. The goal is a propaganda goal.

Second point, the declaration by the majority here that they can get around the health exception requirement of the Supreme Court by saying, by a legislative finding that such a procedure is never necessary for the health of the mother runs into the observation by Justice Clarence Thomas in a different context that ``if Congress 'could make a statute constitutional simply by finding that black is white or freedom, slavery, judicial review would be an elaborate farce.' What if Congress, in the aftermath of Brown versus Board of Education found that segregated schools could be equal after all?''

With reference to Ruth Marcus' column in The Washington Post, from which I just quoted, this morning she points out that Judge Posner, a distinguished conservative appeals court judge, said the purpose of this statute is that they are concerned with making a statement in an ongoing war for public opinion. The statement is that fetal life is more valuable than women's health.

That is the real purpose of this bill, not to protect babies, not to save lives, but to undermine Roe v. Wade, to undermine a woman's right to choose and to declare that fetal life is more sacred than the life of the existing woman.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct the conferees.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Reclaiming my time, the gentleman is correct, the motion is to have the conference be open. I appreciate the gentleman's support.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to make two points in this 1 minute.

Number one, the gentleman who just talked disparaged the Supreme Court because of one decision, that we should not respect that decision. It is the same Supreme Court that 2 years ago arrogated to itself the right to take away from the American people the choice of the Presidency and said do not finish counting the votes, we declare George Bush the President of the United States. That decision has been respected. Though on the merits and on the intellect, that decision belongs in the garbage heap of history because it was not an honest decision, it was not honestly intended. It was a results-oriented decision.

Secondly, the gentleman said that there are Members of this body who are not patriotic as seen by the votes against defense bills. The fact of the matter is, you can vote for a defense bill, you can vote against it based on whether you think that bill is best for your country or not. But to ascribe unpatriotic motives to differences of opinion is to disrespect the Bill of Rights in the Constitution. To ascribe unpatriotic motives to people who differ with you politically is the methodology of a Soviet commissar. It is not an argument that should be heard on this floor. It is an argument that destroys liberty. It destroys freedom of speech.

And whether a particular defense bill was good or too small, or bad or good or deserved to be voted for should be addressed on the merits intellectually and not by disparaging the motives and saying that someone who votes against it is unpatriotic. That argument we could hear from Mr. Stalin, not from someone on this floor.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, today we are enduring the annual Republican rite of spring, a proposed amendment to the Bill of Rights to restrict what it calls flag desecration.

Why spring? Because the calendar tells us that June 14 is Flag Day, and then, of course, we have July 4. Members need to send out a press release extolling the need to protect the flag, as if the flag needed protection by Congress. We do not see a great epidemic of flag burning. This amendment is truly an answer in search of a problem.

The flag is a symbol of a great Nation and of the fundamental freedoms for which this Nation stands. If the flag needs protection at all, it is from Members of Congress who value the symbol more than the freedoms that the flag represents, and would, in fact, limit those freedoms to protect the symbol.

The argument that we must, for the first time in our Nation's history, amend the Constitution to limit freedom of speech because the flag stands for freedom would sound like a bad joke if the danger to the First Amendment were not so real. I warn my colleagues, once we get into the business of amending the Constitution, every time someone does something we do not like, there will be no end to it. We have never in the 200 years of this country so far, of this Republic, amended the Bill of Rights, and we should not start now.

There is unpopular speech that people find offensive, unpopular religions that people do not like. We had a Member of the House on the floor a few years ago excoriate the Army for allowing a wicked religious service on an Army base. The man with the protest sign in a crowd of people favoring the President and his policies, he was threatened with arrest if he did not leave or get rid of his sign because it did not agree with the other signs. Maybe some of our Republican friends think we need a constitutional amendment for protesting against Republican Presidents. Quite frankly, the crass political use of the flag to question the patriotism of those who value our fundamental freedoms is a greater insult to those who died in the service of our Nation than even the burning of the flag. It is the civic equivalent of taking the Lord's name in vain.

People have rights in this country that supersede public opinion, even strongly held public opinion. If we do not preserve those rights, the flag would have been desecrated far beyond the capability of any individual with a cigarette lighter. Let there be no doubt, this amendment is aimed directly at unpopular political ideas.

Current Federal law says that the preferred way to dispose of a tattered and old flag is to burn it, but there are those who would criminalize the same act if it was done to express political dissent. So if you burn the flag, if you physically burn the flag while standing around saying nice things, pleasant things, platitudes about patriotism, then that is a wonderful thing to do. But if you burn the flag while criticizing the conduct of the current administration or some political decision, then you will be arrested.

Is the act of burning the flag any different in those two instances? No. What is different is the words said in association with it. In one instance, the words are pleasant and nice and therefore protected by the First Amendment; and in the other instance, the words are unpleasant and disagreeable and, therefore, we are going to pass a constitutional amendment to throw someone in jail for uttering the wrong words while he burns the flag, because if he uttered the nice words while he burned the flag, that would be the correct way of disposing of the flag.

Clearly, the Supreme Court was right, it is the expression of unpopular political opinions that this amendment is aimed at, and that is why this amendment should not be passed because we should protect the right to utter all opinions in this country, even those we think are harmful because bad ideas should be driven out of the arena of public opinion by good ideas, not by repression by the State or by the police. That is why we have the Bill of Rights, and that is why this amendment should not pass.

One other example, and that is if someone produced a movie or play in which actors impersonated Nazi soldiers, and during the course of that play, the Nazi soldiers trampled on the flag to show the contempt the Nazis had for freedom and the United States, no one would think of arresting the actors because they know they did not mean it. They would know they were showing what Nazis thought of the flag and the United States, not what the actors think. So it is clearly the ideas associated with the act of desecrating the flag, it is the speech that we are criminalizing here, and that is why the Supreme Court was right to say we cannot criminalize speech.

We heard in the hearings conducted before the Committee on the Judiciary from a Vietnam veteran who has been in a wheelchair for the last 30 years as a result of his combat wounds in Vietnam. He made clear he did not want his sacrifice to be used to destroy the freedoms for which he fought and for which many of his friends made the ultimate sacrifice. I would urge my colleagues to listen to all veterans and understand that those who support this amendment do not speak for all veterans.

General Colin Powell, for example, had this to say about this amendment a few years ago, ``The First Amendment exists to ensure that freedom of speech and expression applies not just to that with which we agree or disagree, but also that which we find outrageous. I would not amend that great shield of democracy to hammer a few miscreants. The flag will be flying proudly long after they have slunk away.''

Jim Warner, a Vietnam veteran and prisoner of the North Vietnamese from October 1967 to March 1973, wrote, ``The fact is, the principles for which we fought, for which our comrades died, are advancing everywhere upon the earth, while the principles against which we fought are everywhere discredited and rejected. The flag burners have lost, and their defeat is the most fitting and thorough rebuke of their principles which the human mind could devise. Why do we need to do more? An act intended merely as an insult is not worthy of our fallen comrades. It is the sort of thing our enemies did to us, but we are not them, and we must conform to a different standard. Now, when the justice of our principles is everywhere vindicated, the cause of human liberty demands that this amendment be rejected. Rejecting this amendment would not mean that we agree with those who burn our flag, or even that they have been forgiven. It would, instead, tell the world that freedom of expression means freedom, even for those expressions we find repugnant.''

I would add that rejection of this amendment would mean that we understand that democracy in the United States and our protection of freedom of expression in the United States is stronger than the ill will and the venom that motivates people who might desecrate our flag, and that we do not need a constitutional amendment to protect us against them.

These thoughts are echoed by Terry Anderson, a former U.S. Marine staff sergeant and Vietnam veteran who was held hostage in Lebanon, who wrote:

``This constitutional amendment is an extremely unwise restriction of every American's constitutional rights. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the first amendment protects symbolic acts under its guarantee of free speech. Burning or otherwise damaging a flag is offensive to many, including me, but it harms no one and is so obviously an act of political speech that I'm amazed anyone could disagree with the Court.''

Mr. Speaker, people have died for this Nation and the rights which this flag so proudly represents. Let us not destroy the freedoms and the way of life for which they made the ultimate sacrifice. Let us not demean our freedoms. Let us not demean our country. Let us not for the first time in the history amend the Bill of Rights to say we cannot be trusted with that freedom. Let us not pass this amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Snyder).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green).

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Indiana (Ms. Carson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, last year this House and the other body and the President all cooperated in passing legislation to improve campaign financing techniques. Some people say that regulated speech. What it did was regulate expenditures of money. Many people do not consider money as speech. It is a different issue.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner).

(Mr. TANNER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones).

(Mrs. JONES of Ohio asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Ackerman).

(Mr. ACKERMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the minority whip.

(Mr. HOYER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Marshall).

Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have left, please?

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, first let me comment on what was just said by the distinguished gentleman from Texas, by reading an article written by a prisoner of war named James Warner. He wrote in ``The Retired Officer'' on September of 1989 of his experience as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. He writes as follows:

``We could subvert them,'' meaning his torturers, the North Vietnamese, ``by teaching them about freedom through our example. We could show them the power of ideas. I did not appreciate this power before I was a prisoner of war. I remember one interrogation, where I was shown a photograph of some Americans protesting the war by burning a flag. There, the officer,'' that is the enemy officer, ``there, the officer said, people in your country protest against your cause. That proves that you are wrong. No, I said, that proves that I am right. In my country we are not afraid of freedom, even if it means that people disagree with us. The officer was on his feet in an instant, his face purple with rage. He smashed his fist onto a table and screamed at me to shut up. While he was ranting, I was astonished to see pain, compounded by fear in his eyes. I have never forgotten that look, nor have I forgotten the satisfaction I felt at using his tool, the picture of the burning flag, against him.''

That is the close of the quote from this article from ``The Retired Officer'' by James Warner, former prisoner of war in Vietnam.

Mr. Speaker, the truth of the matter is we have heard today that desecration of the flag ought to be made unconstitutional because it is not valid speech. True, the first amendment is not absolute. We do not allow people to yell fire in a crowded theater unless there is evidence that there is a real fire. The Supreme Court ruled that many years ago. But the core protection of the first amendment is for ideas, for outrageous ideas, for obnoxious ideas, for ideas that we find horrible and offensive and dangerous.

Our philosophy, what makes this country different and unique, is that this country is built on a foundation, the foundation being the belief in freedom, in liberty, in the fact that, not always the case but we fervently believe in the fact that good ideas will drive out of the marketplace of bad ideas; that good speech will defeat bad speech. And we do not legislate against bad speech; we do not legislate against speech that we disagree with or find outrageous.

Now, we have heard, of course, that we are not talking about speech here, we are talking about expressive acts. But the fact of the matter is, again, we are talking about speech. We are talking about speech that people are frightened of and outraged about because it offends them. Because, again, the very acts we would be outlawing or permitting Congress to outlaw with this amendment would not, by anybody's stretch of the imagination, be outlawed unless accompanied by the wrong speech.

Again, as the gentleman from Virginia earlier today told us, and as I mentioned in my opening remarks, the recommended manner, recommended by the law, of disposing of a flag is to burn it. So, again, if you burn the flag, and while you burn it you say respectful things, that is wonderful. But if you burn the flag while saying what a terrible policy the current administration is following or if you burn the flag while saying what a terrible policy we are conducting and that we do not like this country, then we would make that criminal. Why? Not because the act of the flag burning is any different than when it was done with respectful words, but because in the one case the words were respectful and in the other case the words were obnoxious.

I agree the words are obnoxious. But the whole idea of freedom is to protect obnoxious words, especially obnoxious words or words that I or you may regard as obnoxious, though someone else may regard as fine and intelligent. That is their privilege. That is what freedom is about. The freedom of speech is not freedom for what we agree with, but freedom for what we find outrageous. Not just disagreeable, but outrageous.

When someone criticizes our country and says the war we are fighting is wrong, or the conduct of our troops is terrible, or whatever they may say that we may find disagreeable, outrageous and horrible, the glory of this country is that we give them the freedom to say it. And when someone burns a flag, and again there is no epidemic of flag burning, this amendment is really directed not at an existent problem, or has not existed really in the last 30 years of any size, but when you burn a flag and say respectful things, that is okay, because the law says that is okay; but when you burn a flag and say disrespectful things, that is not okay, what these circumstances say and that what we are really legislating against is the speech and not the act.

The act, accompanied by the right circumstances, would never be outlawed. We would not prosecute people who desecrated the flag as part of a movie or a play when they were portraying enemy soldiers, Nazi soldiers, or Chinese soldiers in the Korean War, because we do not think they mean it. What do they not mean? The speech. It is the ideas and the speech that we are outlawing by such an amendment. That is at the core of protected speech, at the core of the first amendment, at the core of the values we are supposed to hold dear. And that is why this amendment is so wrongheaded and ought not to be adopted.

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