Floor Statements

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

I support H.R. 3237, a bill proposed by the Office of Law Revision Counsel to enact title 51 of the U.S. Code, as positive law. The Judiciary Committee has jurisdiction over law revision bills, and this particular bill creates a new title to address national and commercial space programs.

Many laws have been enacted over the years dealing with national and commercial space programs. However, there is no distinct title in the U.S. Code to consolidate these laws. This is because the U.S. Code was established in 1926, long before space programs were ever contemplated. This bill would put all of these laws into one title within the Code. H.R. 3237 and similar law revision bills are important because they ensure that the U.S. Code is up to date and accurate, without making substantive changes to the law. I am happy to support this legislation today.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, Americans have one word for Congress when it comes to more bailouts: ``No!'' Taxpayers want to hold accountable those who wrecked American companies and our economy--not give them new, federal checking accounts.

The Obama administration does not get the message. What was its Christmas ``present'' for taxpayers? A Christmas Eve gift of unlimited bailout billions to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

House Democrats don't get the message either. Just before Christmas, they rammed through a partisan financial ``reform'' bill to institutionalize bailouts--not bury them.

There is a common thread in the Democratic gift-giving. It is Chicago-style patronage politics, rung up by the billions. Fannie and Freddie's patrons gladly drain taxpayer coffers to preserve these tools of liberal social policy. Meanwhile, as the latest academic study shows, politically connected banks get the most bailouts. Little does it matter that these were the institutions that brought us to the edge of ruin.

Republicans and the American people have a better solution. Send the institutions that have failed us to bankruptcy. There, accountability will carry the day--not patronage politics.

Mr. Speaker, CBS' ``60 Minutes'' is the winner of the Media Fairness Caucus' highly un-coveted ``Lap Dog Award'' for this week's most glaring example of media bias.

A new book called ``Game Change'' has brought to light comments made by the Senate majority leader that some people find offensive. On Sunday, ``60 Minutes'' featured a 13-minute story about the book and interviewed its authors. Not once did ``60 Minutes'' mention the majority leader's comments. Instead, they devoted 10 minutes to negative comments about former Governor Sarah Palin.

What an astounding example of biased journalism. It is no wonder five out of six Americans see the national news media as ``very or somewhat biased,'' according to a recent public opinion poll.

CBS and ``60 Minutes'' should report the facts, not engage in double standards.

Madam Speaker, the Obama Administration has announced its plan to transfer 75 Guantanamo Bay detainees to the United States.

The Administration claims that transferring these detainees from Guantanamo Bay will somehow lessen al Qaeda's desire to attack America. But a change in location of detainees is not going to reduce terrorists' hatred of America.

However, the transfer of any Gitmo detainee to the U.S. will give them additional constitutional rights, making it harder for prosecutors to obtain convictions.

The Administration claims that it can detain these terrorists indefinitely. But many agree this is an impossible goal. Civil liberties groups were quick to point out that indefinite detention inside the United States without a trial is little more than a change in zipcode.

It is clear to all but those in the Administration that this decision will likely result in the almost immediate challenge to detention as soon as these terrorists arrive in Illinois.

The Guantanamo Bay facility in Cuba, not a prison in America's heartland is the right place for terrorists.

Madam Speaker, the national media spell `scandal' without the `D.'

Recently, the mayor of Baltimore was convicted of embezzlement.

On December 2, ABC's ``Good Morning America'' and CBS's ``The Early Show'' both briefly reported the Mayor's conviction.

Both failed to mention that she is a Democrat.

The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Post both failed to identify the Mayor as a Democrat in articles at the beginning of the trial.

The media also were guilty of selective omission in their coverage of scandals involving the Democratic former governors of Illinois and New York, as well as the Democratic former mayor of Detroit, among others.

On the contrary, when a former mayor in Georgia was arrested earlier this year, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution was quick to point out that he is a Republican.

The national media should treat both sides the same, not show favoritism based on party affiliation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I support Chairman Conyers' sponsorship of House Resolution 894, which honors the 50th anniversary of the album ``Kind of Blue'' and reaffirms jazz as a national treasure.

I thank Chairman Conyers for his excellent work over many years to honor and support jazz not only in music halls but in the Halls of Congress.

In 1987, Chairman Conyers' House Concurrent Resolution 57 designated jazz a national American treasure. Taking its name from this resolution, the HR-57 Center for the Presentation of Jazz and Blues later established itself on 14th Street in Washington, D.C., to educate aspiring musicians on the history and culture of jazz and blues.

In 1990, Chairman Conyers won passage of appropriations legislation awarding the Smithsonian Institute with funding to establish a comprehensive jazz program, including the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra.

Chairman Conyers has long supported efforts to present live jazz to the public in Washington, D.C. He has served on the board of directors of such organizations as Capital City Jazz Festivals, Inc., the National Jazz Service Organization, and the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. His love of jazz is shared by many. Jazz is an historic American creation, and as such, it certainly should be honored and supported by Congress today.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the famous jazz album ``Kind of Blue.'' On August 17, 1957, Miles Davis and his ensemble sextet collaborated to record ``Kind of Blue.'' This album popularized jazz like never before. It led Columbia Records to declare 1959 as ``jazz's greatest year.'' Today, ``Kind of Blue'' is recognized as the best- selling jazz album of all time. Its influence on music beyond jazz alone has led music writers to view it as one of the most influential albums ever. In 2002, it was one of 50 recordings chosen by the Library of Congress to be added to the

National Recording Registry. In 2003, ``Kind of Blue'' was ranked No. 12 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

One reviewer called ``Kind of Blue'' a defining moment of 20th century music. Ashley Kahn, the author of the book ``Kind of Blue: The Making of a Miles Davis Masterpiece,'' called it ``the premier album of its era, jazz or otherwise.'' Pianist Chick Corea, one of Miles Davis' acolytes, said, ``It's one thing to just play a tune or play a program of music, but it's another thing to practically create a new language of music, which is what `Kind of Blue' did.''

As a distinctly American language of music, jazz is rightfully honored by Chairman Conyers' resolution today. So it is with great pleasure that I join him in supporting this resolution, and I urge our colleagues to support the resolution as well.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I support S. 1472, the Human Rights Enforcement Act of 2009. This bipartisan legislation was recently passed by unanimous consent in the Senate. The bill is now before this body for consideration.

The first goal of this legislation is to provide technical corrections to the Genocide Accountability Act, which was signed into law by President Bush in 2007.

Before that act passed, genocide was only a violation of Federal criminal law if it was committed within the United States or by a U.S. national outside the United States. The act closed this loophole by allowing the prosecution of non-U.S. nationals found in the United States for genocide perpetrated outside the U.S.

The second goal of this legislation is to create a new section at the Department of Justice to consolidate prosecutorial authority over most Federal criminal and immigration human rights offenses.

Currently, the responsibility for enforcing these statutes rests within the Office of Special Investigations, or OSI; OSI was created in 1979 to hunt down Nazi war criminals who secretly lived in the United States. After discovering war criminals within the U.S., OSI used administrative procedures to denaturalize, deport or remove them. In 1994, Congress statutorily directed OSI to also investigate and denaturalize individuals who participated in genocide, torture or extrajudicial killings.

Right now, OSI does not have prosecution authority. Instead, it works with attorneys and other components of the Department to prosecute those cases in which a violation of Federal criminal law can be shown. This legislation expands OSI's jurisdiction to enable it to prosecute and enforce Federal criminal human rights laws and to consolidate those efforts into one office.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I support House Resolution 150, which recognizes Asa Philip Randolph for his lifelong leadership and work to end discrimination and secure equal employment and labor opportunities for all Americans.

Mr. Randolph was a leading champion of fairness in the 20th century. He is one of the most well-known trade unionists of his time and he helped found the modern civil rights movement.

Mr. Randolph moved to the Harlem district of New York City in 1911, where he organized black voters in favor of labor rights. In 1917 he cofounded a magazine, The Messenger, calling for more positions for black Americans in the war industry and the Armed Forces.

In 1925, Mr. Randolph organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. This was the first serious effort to form a labor institution for the employees of

the Pullman Company, which was one of America's most powerful companies and a major employer of black Americans. The Pullman Company later negotiated with the Brotherhood in 1935 and agreed to a contract with them in 1937, winning pay increases, shorter workweeks and overtime pay for their employees.

In 1941, Mr. Randolph proposed a march on Washington to protest racial discrimination in war industries and to propose the desegregation of the American Armed Forces. The march was canceled after President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, which called for an end to discrimination in defense industries and government on the basis of race, creed, or national origin.

Mr. Randolph's nonviolent efforts led to the signing of another executive order on July 26, 1948, this time signed by President Truman to ban discrimination and segregation in the Armed Forces.

In addition to these accomplishments, Mr. Randolph was an active participant in a number of organizations and causes, including the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, which he cofounded, and the Workmen's Circles. He also formed the A. Philip Randolph Institute for community leaders to study the causes of poverty.

Mr. Randolph has been called ``the towering civil rights figure of the period'' in which he lived, ``the dean of American civil rights leaders'' and ``among the first leadership of the Labor movement.'' He fought for more than a half-century on behalf of the poor and deprived, securing rights not just for black workers but for employees of all races and nationalities.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this resolution.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1110, the Preventing Harassment Through Outbound Number Enforcement Act, or PHONE Act, addresses caller ID spoofing.

Spoofing is a ploy for obtaining a victim's personal and financial information to commit identity theft and other similar fraud. It involves masking caller ID information to make a fraudulent telephone call to a recipient. Those who engage in spoofing use incorrect, fake or fraudulent caller identification to hide their identity and then obtain personal information from the victim. Call recipients unwittingly divulge their names, addresses or Social Security numbers under the mistaken belief that the caller represents a bank, a credit card company or even a court of law. All too often, a person does not know that their identity has been stolen until it's too late and the damage has been done. This legislation will help law enforcement officials stop identity thieves by cutting off their means of obtaining personal information.

Spoofing not only victimizes the phone call recipient but also invades the privacy of those individuals whose

caller ID is used to mask the fraudulent calls. To address this, the PHONE Act specifically prohibits the use of an actual person's caller ID information for spoofing.

Although the technology needed to spoof has been available for some time, it previously required specialized equipment. Now an identity thief can simply purchase Internet telephone equipment or use a Web site specifically set up for spoofing.

The PHONE Act imposes penalties for modifying a caller ID with the intent to deceive the recipient of a telephone call as to the identity of the caller. This legislation will help deter telephone fraud, protect consumers from harassment, and protect consumers and their personally identifiable information from identity thieves. Similar legislation passed the House with bipartisan support in the last two Congresses. I urge my colleagues to join all of us in supporting this bill.

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

Madam Speaker, the White House considers business owners the opposition, but don't take my word for it. In his autobiography,

Mr. Obama wrote that when he worked in the business world, he felt like a ``spy behind enemy lines.''

So it's no surprise that as President, he has appointed fewer people with business backgrounds to Cabinet positions than any other President in over a century, according to an analysis by J.P. Morgan. Maybe that explains why the President favors government control of the health care, energy, automobile, banking, insurance, and student loan industries.

Perhaps the administration has forgotten that without employers, there would be no employees, and that small businesses generate 65 percent of the new jobs in America. It is the private sector, not the government, that makes America productive and prosperous. Business owners are our friends, not the enemy.

I thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte), the deputy ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, for yielding me time.

Madam Chairwoman, those who confront mortgage foreclosures are understandably in difficult situations, but this bankruptcy amendment will only lead to a worse situation for everyone.

The number one cause of foreclosures today is job loss. The number two cause is homes which are mortgaged for more than they are worth. Sending homeowners with these problems into chapter 13 bankruptcy is no solution at all. The jobless do not have the steady incomes that are required to file for a chapter 13 bankruptcy, and those who bet wrong on a rising housing market should honor the mortgages for which they have freely contracted.

Allowing bankruptcy courts to cram down mortgage principal will only lead to higher interest rates and tougher mortgage terms for all future homeowners.

Why should those who have done nothing wrong have to pay that price?

Madam Chair, the Administration's and this Democratic majority's legislation is a massive, politically driven, government intervention in America's economic life.

Americans see this in the health care legislation that threatens government control over their lives. They see it in the cap-and-tax legislation that sacrifices the economy to the uncertain science of climate change. They see it in the Stimulus Bill and the federal budget that increases deficits and burdens our economy for generations.

And they see it in the legislation before us today.

This bill's giving so-called ``resolution authority'' to the federal government is a perfect example.

``Resolution authority'' is intended to address how to handle collapsing institutions that allegedly are ``too big to fail.'' Economists and legal experts point to the ``too big to fail'' mentality as the culprit that laid the groundwork for the September 2008 financial panic.

A key feature of the ``too big to fail'' approach is the provision of bailouts for failing firms. But bailouts only encourage risky behavior. If Congress authorizes the bail out of Wall Street every time a gamble doesn't pay off, what will deter bad business decisions in the future?

Rather than end billion dollar bailouts, today's legislation turns the ``too big to fail'' mentality into a cornerstone of Democrats' proposed reforms.

The bill gives special treatment to big firms; encourages risk; and gives government agencies the power to determine which firms live or die. In other words, the bill institutionalizes the mistakes that led to the 2008 financial collapse.

And consistent with the Democratic agenda, it empowers the federal government to intervene in the lives of our largest financial institutions.

The Republican substitute amendment rejects this big government ticket back to financial ruin. It slams the door shut on the bailout era and ``too big to fail.'' It renounces the power grab that lets federal agencies and government employees determine who lives and dies in our economy. It embraces the way the experts point to as the better path towards a healthier financial future.

With respect to failing financial institutions, the better way is bankruptcy reform.

The Republican substitute establishes a new chapter of the Bankruptcy Code to resolve failed non-bank financial institutions. It puts responsibility into the hands of non-partisan, transparent bankruptcy courts. It adds new provisions to help courts better handle these bankruptcies so that future crises may be better avoided.

The amendment creates one set of fair, predictable rules for all non- bank institutions. It rests on a long-standing body of precedent well understood by firms, investors, government and the public.

And the Republican substitute guarantees that not a single taxpayer dime will ever again be paid for a Wall Street bailout.

America's economy--and taxpayers' wallets--will not be safe until billion dollar bailouts and the notion that Wall Street firms are ``too big to fail'' rest in the dustbin of history.

Mr. Speaker, it has taken months, but there's one thing even the national media now acknowledges--Joe Wilson was right. Illegal immigrants are covered by the health care bill.

This week the Associated Press reported that the House health care bill, which was the bill under consideration at the time of President Obama's speech to Congress and Mr. Wilson's remark, will allow illegal immigrants to participate in the government-run and government-funded insurance plan. To its credit, CBS News said something similar back in September but only on a Web post.

These articles are few and far between and fairly well hidden from public view. They also fail to address the other illegal immigration- related loopholes in both the House and the Senate bills.

It's no wonder that only one in 10 Americans now have a great deal of faith in the media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly, according to a recent poll.

Madam Chair, I thank the gentleman from Alabama, the ranking member of the Financial Services Committee, for yielding me time.

Madam Chair, Congress today faces a once-in-a-generation decision. To respond to the financial meltdown of 2008, Congress can enact reforms that respond to the true causes of the calamity. Or Congress can pass legislation that flies in the face of the facts.

The first course will protect America from the same fate we suffered last fall. The second will only pave the way for our next potentially worse crisis. That's what the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act does. Why? Because as we have investigated the causes of the financial crisis, one conclusion has become clear. What caused the financial crisis of 2008 was government intervention in the economy. That intervention swept from the Community Reinvestment Act to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to the Bear Stearns and AIG bailouts and beyond. It destroyed financial incentives, promoted dangerous risk-taking, and ultimately provoked full-blown market panic.

Yet what does this legislation do? It provides super-sized tools for ever more invasive government control of the economy. It further entrenches the Community Reinvestment Act. It fails to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And it institutionalizes billion-dollar bailouts. For example, take the act's provisions that allow the Federal Government to take over and wind down the liabilities of financial institutions. This empowers the Federal Government to determine which of our biggest financial institutions live and die. It is backed by a $200 billion bailout fund. It has never before existed. And it should not be created now.

For over 100 years, the bankruptcy code has been America's trusted means for dissolving or reorganizing failed or failing firms. The administration and this bill's sponsors send the Bankruptcy Code's remedies to the trash heap. They do so on the theory that Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy triggered the financial panic of September 2008. If bankruptcy triggered the panic, goes the argument, we have to look beyond the bankruptcy code to reform the financial system. The problem is that the so-called Lehman Brothers theory is a myth. The market took Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy more or less in stride.

What triggered systemic financial panic was subsequent action by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve. These agencies' actions signaled to investors that the government anticipated a market collapse, but did not have an adequate plan of action. In a self-fulfilling prophecy, it was only after the Treasury and the Fed ratcheted everyone up into a panic that the market itself collapsed and not after their earlier decision to let Lehman Brothers go into bankruptcy.

Other government actions also contributed to the panic. These included the government's inconsistent treatment of Bear Stearns and AIG, which it bailed out, and Lehman Brothers, which it did not.

Yet what does today's bill do? It expands and then cements into place the government's authority to engage in wave after wave of ad-hoc bailouts. It sews the Community Reinvestment Act into the very fabric of the new consumer financial protection agency. It fails to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and it throws out the one tool that has worked to resolve a giant, failing financial company. That tool is the bankruptcy code, which was used successfully to wind down Lehman Brothers.

Madam Chair, we have no reason to avoid the bankruptcy code and other sound measures that can avert future financial distress. What America should renounce is the super-charged government control of our economy that the bill represents.

We do not need government control that lets Federal agencies and government employees distort who gets credit, displace private enterprise, and determine behind closed doors what companies live and die. We have tried that before. It brought us the meltdown of 2008.

Madam Speaker, ABC, CBS, and NBC are the winners of this week's Media Fairness Caucus' highly uncoveted ``Lap Dog Award'' for the most glaring example of media bias. The networks took 2 weeks to devote any coverage to the Climategate scandal on their evening news programs.

We now know that prominent scientists were so determined to advance the idea of human-made global warming that they worked together to hide contradictory temperature data. But for 2 weeks, none of the networks gave the scandal any coverage on their evening news programs, and when they finally did cover it, their reporting was largely slanted in favor of global warming alarmists.

The networks have shown a steady pattern of bias on climate change. During a 6-month period, four out of five network news reports failed to acknowledge any dissenting views about global warming, according to a Business and Media Institute study.

The networks should tell Americans the truth, rather than hide the facts.