Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I do greatly appreciate my friend across the aisle. Mr. Garamendi made some good points. For example, the people speak, and we are thankful they do. And that is why, when the Democratic House Members and Democratic Senate Members voted to pass something known as ObamaCare--it is hard to call it the Affordable Care Act because it has come at the cost of some people's lives, their doctors, their insurance policies, their medicines they needed--but the American people did speak, and they said, ``Not again,'' and they put Democrats out of the majority as a result of that bill.

As I explained to some of my colleagues in the Republican Conference who were saying that the Speaker is the one who got us the majority back, I pointed out in conference, if you look at the polls, it is very clear. No one person got us the majority back in November 2010. The Democrats got the Republicans the majority back.

The polls back then showed that we were not trusted any more than we had been so much in the past, as they were, the voters were just upset with the Democrats passing a bill they didn't want, that the Democrats had not read, and didn't know what it said, and they were going to have to pass it to find out what was in it.

And they were lied to repeatedly. You can keep your insurance if you like it. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, and all those. Turns out they knew in advance--not all of the people here, but the people in the Obama administration who kept saying it, they knew they were lying because they knew people would not keep their insurance whether they liked it or not; they would not keep their doctors if they liked them as they may well not be in the network and probably wouldn't be in many networks.

So it is so true that the people speak, and thank goodness they do. And then they have returned, not only Republicans to majorities in the House, repeatedly, on the promise of repealing

ObamaCare, but also gave the Senate the majority twice now on the promise to repeal ObamaCare and, unfortunately, the Senate has not delivered.

We passed a bill here in the House, it was after much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and a terrible bill at first that would have allowed premiums to continue to go up. Some say, yeah, but you should have voted for it; it would give the President some wind at his back.

But when the American people found out that premiums were going to continue to go up, their deductibles would continue to go up, the insurance companies would continue to get bailouts after record profit years, they were not going to be returning Republicans to the majority.

So it is still very critical that we keep our promises and we take a lesson from the actual planks of the platform that got our great President elected: number one, build a wall and secure the border; number two, repeal ObamaCare; number three, we would have tax reform. Those seem to be the three biggest promises that most all of us made on our side of the aisle.

The reason ObamaCare was not, at least the majority of it, repealed was because the Senate could not bring itself to act because there were some Senators who decided that, after winning their election, promising in the primary and general election that if you elect me, I will be the one who can get ObamaCare repealed, they decided to break that pledge, break that repeated promise.

So the thing I am grateful to the President--well, actually a number of things, but one is that he continues to say: We are not done. We are not through. We are going to repeal at least most of ObamaCare.

We have got to. People have got to have relief. They have got to. They cannot continue on like they are.

Obviously, we can see now, in hindsight, ObamaCare was designed to fail. Unfortunately, the insurance companies did not realize that when they signed on to ObamaCare, they were signing on to their death warrants; that the designers were counting on insurance companies to have people at the top who were so overwhelmed with greed they would not see the end coming as it came barreling toward them. They would be busy making record profits, getting bailouts, until the American people said we can't stand it anymore. The insurance companies had record profits and still got bailed out.

We never thought we would say this, but surely the government would be better than these greedy insurance companies; and that would be the end of the insurance companies.

And sure, some of the insurance executives would have taken their golden parachute and their millions after record profits and dropped out before the industry that made them rich ceased to exist, but that day is still coming if we don't act; and the American people would then be resolved to have much worse healthcare than the VA because the government would be the only game in town.

I know, from talking to one legislator in England, I was surprised. I thought everybody was mandated to be part of the government healthcare there. And it was true, but he said that his wife had had cancer, and, fortunately for them, they could afford to pay the private insurance above the ridiculously wasteful insurance the Britons have.

I remember looking at the numbers back in 2010, when we were debating ObamaCare, and seeing at that time that someone who was diagnosed with breast cancer at a similar time in the staging of cancer, breast cancer, as someone in the U.S., as someone in England, that the American had a 20 percent better chance of surviving than the British citizen under British healthcare did. That is terrifying to some of us. We don't want the kind of healthcare England has.

So if you have a wife and three daughters, like I do, the chances are much better that you will lose one of them if you have British-type healthcare.

I have one guy from Tyler, who lives in Tyler, was from Canada originally, said, his father was put on the list to have bypass surgery in Canada, and after 2 years of waiting, he died. It kind of sounds like the VA and the problems that have been experienced by some of our veterans.

But I would submit, if those who have laid down much of their lives for their country in our armed services are treated the way many of our veterans have been treated, then you can't expect that American citizens that have never offered to lay down their life for their country would be treated much better.

We need to get off the track we are on. We need to return healthcare back to the control of a patient and a doctor, and get the insurance companies and the government out from between the patient and the doctor. We can do that with the kind of thing the President has been talking about, health savings accounts.

Instead of paying $1,000 a month to an insurance company, put $800 or $900 in a health savings account; start building this huge healthcare, health savings account. And sure, there will be some people who are chronically ill or chronically poor. Those who don't have to be chronically poor, that could work, as we found out when welfare reform took place in the mid-nineties by the first Republican majority in many decades; as they found out, statistics showed, and there is a graph I saw at a conference in Harvard, for the first time since welfare began, 1995, after the work requirement kicked in for welfare, up through 2005, single moms' income, when adjusted for inflation, for the first time since welfare began, had an increase--that was incredible--when the government encouraged individuals to reach their potential, instead of luring them away from their potential with welfare when they could have had a job, that people do a lot better.

It is terribly unfortunate, though, that the lessons learned in the mid-nineties, including getting to balanced budgets, over the objections of the Clinton administration. President Clinton didn't want balanced budgets, but, eventually, the Republican Congress forced him when they had enough to override his veto, so he signed them.

And now, all these years later, when people don't remember, President Clinton likes to take credit for having the first balanced budget in years. Well, the Republicans took him, figuratively, kicking and screaming and, obviously, now, he is proud that they did, though they don't get the credit for it.

Well, we need to encourage people to reach their potential--that is the job of government--not luring them away from their potential. We should be encouraging the best healthcare that could be had.

We don't need insurance companies managing all our healthcare. We don't need the government managing all our healthcare. We need individuals managing their own healthcare.

If somebody wants to volunteer and say, ``Here's all my income for the rest of my life. Government, you manage, tell me what I can have and not have in the way of surgeries or healthcare or medicine,'' well, we ought to make a place for them to do that. But for the rest of us who would rather make our own decisions about our healthcare, we could do that.

But one of the things, and I put it in the bill that I filed back in 2009--I was encouraged by former Speaker Newt Gingrich, and he said: You have got to put your ideas into a bill, get it scored.

CBO refused to score it for many months. Former Speaker Gingrich thought if I had gotten it scored, that it could have changed the debate on healthcare.

But CBO dutifully did the bidding of Speaker Pelosi, scored their bills, refused to score mine, and so we didn't have the score.

And let's face it. CBO, on ObamaCare scoring, their margin of error apparently is somewhere, plus or minus, 250 to 400 percent; so why should they score anything anyway? But that is another matter.

But if the health insurance companies and the government don't manage all our healthcare, who would do that? Well, we would do that. If somebody's chronically poor and cannot provide for themselves, we can help them. But for those who can, they should.

If you put that kind of money in a health savings account, where it can never be used for anything but healthcare, not like retirement, where you can pull it out and pay a 40 percent tax, leave it in there. It can only be used for healthcare.

Give the individual a debit card that is coded that will only pay for medical

expenses, medicine, crutches, doctors' appointments. Then most people would have enough built up in their health savings account by the time they are 65 or 70, they not only would not want government participation in decisions about their healthcare, but they wouldn't need it, and we could make our own decisions, after consulting with physicians. That saves healthcare.

The last 100 years of healthcare, some medical historians say, have been the only 100 years in American history where people had a better chance of getting well after seeing a doctor than of getting worse.

Even just over 200 years ago, the man without whom there would be no free America, George Washington, he was bled to death. The last bleeder was his very good friend, Dr. Craik, who had been with him through so many things. He thought he was helping him, and he was bleeding him to death, preventing him from getting well.

But here, 200 years later, doctors are actually curing disease, curing things we thought were incurable. We had the best healthcare that could ever been found at any time in history anywhere in the world, and we have done a great deal to destroy it since the passing of ObamaCare.

People have found out they lost their insurance. They are paying more than they ever dreamed they would pay. And, yes, there are some who are paying minimal amounts, and some are getting subsidies, but the President had to make up some law in order to pay out some of the things he did.

Because of all of the distraction with ObamaCare, perhaps that is why the Obama administration dropped the ball on following through regarding Russia's efforts to sidetrack American politics.

This article from John Solomon and Alison Spann, October 22, in The Hill: ``FBI Watched, Then Acted As Russian Spy Moved Closer to Hillary Clinton.''

It says: ``As Hillary Clinton was beginning her job as President Obama's chief diplomat, Federal agents observed as multiple arms of Vladimir Putin's machine unleashed an influence campaign designed to win access to the new Secretary of State, her husband, Bill Clinton, and members of their inner circle, according to interviews and once- sealed FBI records.

``Some of the activities FBI agents gathered evidence about in 2009 and 2010 were covert and illegal.

``A female Russian spy posing as an American accountant, for instance, used a false identity to burrow her way into the employ of a major Democratic donor in hopes of gaining intelligence on Hillary Clinton's Department, records show. The spy was arrested and deported as she moved closer to getting inside State, agents said.

``Other activities were perfectly legal and sitting in plain view, such as when a subsidiary of Russia's state-controlled nuclear energy company hired a Washington firm to lobby the Obama administration. At the time it was hired, the firm was providing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in pro bono support to Bill Clinton's global charitable initiative, and it legally helped the Russian company secure Federal decisions that led to billions in new U.S. commercial nuclear business, records show.

``Agents were surprised by the timing and size of a $500,000 check that a Kremlin-linked bank provided Bill Clinton''--that is the former President, and although none of the mainstream media would ever say this, Democrat Bill Clinton--``with for a single speech in the summer of 2010. The payday came just weeks after Hillary Clinton helped arrange for American executives to travel to Moscow to support Putin's efforts to build his own country's version of Silicon Valley, agents said.

``There is no evidence in any of the public records that the FBI believed that the Clintons or anyone close to them did anything illegal.''

Yeah, that is pretty understandable that The Hill would say that and that the FBI would make sure those records were not available.

The article goes on. It says: ``But there's definitive evidence the Russians were seeking their influence with a specific eye on the State Department.

`` `There is not one shred of doubt from the evidence that we had that the Russians had set their sights on Hillary Clinton's circle, because she was the quarterback of the Obama-Russia reset strategy and the assumed successor to Obama as President,' said a source familiar with the FBI's evidence at the time. . . .''

``That source pointed to an October 2009 communication intercepted by the FBI in which Russian handlers instructed two of their spies specifically to gather nonpublic information on the State Department.

`` `Send more info on current international affairs vital for R., highlight U.S. approach,' part of the message to the spies read, using the country's first initial to refer to Russia. ` . . . Try to single out tidbits unknown publicly but revealed in private by sources closer to State Department, government, major think tanks.' ''

This isn't in the article, but that might also mean, if the State Department Secretary had a server through which classified information was sent and it is not very well protected, gee, grab all of the information from that server that you can. Shouldn't be hard to hack them. That had to have been part of the thinking of the Russians. They surely figured out that Secretary of State Clinton was using different sources for her emails.

The article goes on: ``The Clintons, by that time, had set up several new vehicles that included a multimillion-dollar speechmaking business, the family foundation, and a global charitable initiative, all of which proved attractive to the Russians as Hillary Clinton took over State.

`` `In the end, some of this just comes down to what it always does in Washington: donations, lobbying, contracts, and influence--even for Russia,' said Frank Figliuzzi, former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence.

``Figliuzzi supervised the post-arrest declassification and release of records from a 10-year operation that unmasked a major Russian spy ring in 2010. It was one of the most important U.S. counterintelligence victories against Russia in history, and famous for nabbing the glamorous spy-turned-model Anna Chapman.

``While Chapman dominated the headlines surrounding that spy ring, another Russian woman posing as a mundane New Jersey accountant named Cynthia Murphy was closing in on accessing Secretary Clinton's Department, according to records and interviews.

``For most of the 10 years, the ring of Russian spies that included Chapman and Murphy acted as sleepers, spending a `great deal of time collecting information and passing it on' to their handlers inside Russia's SVR spy agency, FBI record state.''

Inserting parenthetically here, also, we now know, due to the great investigating work of Luke Rosiak with The Daily Caller, who apparently has done much more investigation into Imran Awan, the Awan family, and IT or computer workers, some of whom apparently didn't do any work but who were making the maximum amount of money that anybody can make working on the Hill for Congress, as I believe Luke testified or indicated in a prior meeting, he indicated that actually every time one of the Awan family added enough part-time work for Members of Congress with their computers, they would add another family member to start getting part-time until they built up to the $160,000 or so level.

But in any event, we now know that, apparently, Imran Awan copied dozens of Democratic Members of Congress' servers into one place so that all of those servers could easily be accessed by someone who did not have permission to access those Congress Members' computer systems and servers.

It is interesting that that was occurring for him as a Pakistani native. He became a citizen but, at the time he began working on Capitol Hill, was here by visa working for Members, Democratic Members of Congress.

But how interesting that the Russians were doing everything they could to get any information, not just classified, but any inside information, stuff like you would find in emails, for example. And now we are finding all of this out about the Awan brothers, and his wife and a couple of people, one of whom quit because he was doing too much of the work and not getting as much pay as the others.

But it is incredible that it was after President Obama left office we started

hearing all of this screaming about how the Russians were trying to affect elections. And who knew about that? Well, Robert Mueller, former FBI Director knew all about it because he was the FBI as this stuff was being investigated. Wouldn't it be nice if he had said something about that previously?

But if he had talked about it previously, he might not--and I am sure, in fact, would not--have gotten an appointment to be special counsel to investigate potential ties by the U.S. Government with Russia, specifically, the Trump campaign, or the Trump support ring, those who were supporting Donald Trump as a candidate. Wow.

But then again, Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein might have appointed Mueller, because it turns out he was involved in the investigation back then. Wouldn't it have been nice if Rosenstein or Mueller had had the moral fiber and the ethical fiber to say: ``You know what? The AG has recused himself, but, actually, I was involved in this stuff back under the Obama administration investigating all this, and I had developed opinions, made statements back in those days-- weren't public.''

And if Mueller had done the same thing: ``I was head of the FBI. We were investigating ties to Hillary Clinton, efforts to get in touch with and utilize the Clinton Foundation, Hillary Clinton.''

Wouldn't it have been nice if that information had come from Robert Mueller or Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein before Rosenstein appointed Mueller, because those two people would not even be involved at all, I don't believe, had we known the extent of their involvement in the investigation into Russia before, when they were with the Obama administration. But they didn't disclose that.

And I think it is a little insidious, myself, on the very day that James Comey testified on Capitol Hill that there were no known ties between President Trump and the Russians, the collusion that was talked about, there were no ties, no evidence of that, it was the same day it was leaked, apparently by Mueller or his staff, that now they were investigating obstruction by the Trump administration.

Now, why would that get leaked the very night that James Comey testified there were no known ties, no evidence of any collusion between President Trump and the Russians? Well, because if there was no evidence to support what Mueller had been appointed to investigate, then President Trump would have had every right and it would have made sense to say: ``Okay, Mr. Mueller, it sure would have been nice if you had disclosed the reasons that you should have been disqualified to accept this special counsel job. But even though you didn't, there is no reason for you to be special counsel because there is no evidence, according to this FBI Director, so we don't need you anymore.''

But by Mueller or his clan leaking out that now we are investigating President Trump for obstruction of justice, that set him up in a position that President Trump could not afford to fire him, or else it would look like Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre before they had a chance to come after him. So, clearly, former FBI Director Mueller who, in my opinion, did more damage to the structure of the FBI than anyone since J. Edgar Hoover, ran off thousands of years of experience from the FBI and spent millions of dollars on programs that didn't work out. Apparently he got rid of a lot of people that would not say yes to him all the time. He also--let's give him credit--he did purge the FBI training materials of anything that offended radical Islamists.

I would submit there is a reason why when an FBI agent was finally sent out to talk to the older Tsarnaev brother after Russia had reported twice--actually doing America a favor--hey, this guy has been radicalized. Do they look at where he had been to see that he had been in areas that were very radical and what he was like?

No. They sent out an FBI agent to talk to him. According to Director Mueller, in essence, he indicated he was not a terrorist, so that was good enough for them. But they went the extra mile and asked his mother if he was a terrorist, and, in essence, she indicated he was a good boy and not a terrorist. That was good enough for the new Mueller FBI that had purged itself of the ability to know what a radical Islamist looked like.

When I asked about their going out to the mosque to investigate whether Tsarnaev had been radicalized, of course, again, they purged their training materials, they didn't know what to ask. They didn't know whether to ask if he had been memorizing verses of the Koran, what verses those were. Kim Jensen, who had a 700-page program to teach FBI agents about what to look for in radical Islamists, under Mueller, was ordered to destroy all of those. Fortunately, there was an extra copy. As I understand it, the FBI is now trying to teach some of the higher- level agents exactly what a radical Islamist is. But if Mr. McMaster has his way, that won't last much longer.

But, nonetheless, Director Mueller, as head of the FBI, as one intelligence official told me, they were blinded of the ability to see the enemy--the enemy being radical Islamists who want to destroy our Nation, destroy our freedom, and kill us. They don't know what to look for, thanks to Director Mueller.

Of course, as the Washingtonian article pointed out in 2013, basically Mueller and Comey were joined at the hip, that if the world was on fire, Mueller would be the last one standing beside Comey, protecting him, with him, supporting him, whatever. Which, by the way, is another reason, if Mr. Mueller had been as ethical and moral as he should have been, he should have disclosed immediately: I can't accept this special counsel role because James Comey is a friend. He sees me as a mentor. We talked, including about his testimony he was going to give before Congress. We are just too close, and he is a central witness to all of this. I can't do it.

Unfortunately, Director Mueller did not take that position not feeling that he needed to do that, because, after all, it is a great job. It pays a lot of money. He can hire anybody he wants to and hire good Democratic supporters, as he has. For people who hate Republicans, this will be a great job. Apparently it is. He just basically makes up whatever he wants to investigate anytime he sees fit, and Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein should have been disqualified and not been able to appoint special counsel had the Attorney General known what all he had been involved in previously. He certainly is not going to fire Mueller, as he should.

Going over to a different article, this is from National Review by Andrew McCarthy, October 21. Andrew McCarthy is the former prosecutor of The Blind Sheikh that masterminded the first World Trade Center attack in 1993 during Democrat Bill Clinton's Presidency.

Andrew McCarthy says: ``Not only the Clintons are implicated in a uranium deal with the Russians that compromised national security interests. Let's put the Uranium One scandal in perspective: the cool half-million bucks the Putin regime funneled to Bill Clinton was five times the amount it spent on those Facebook ads--the ones the media- Democrat complex ludicrously suggests swung the 2016 Presidential election to Donald Trump. The Facebook-ad buy, which started in June 2015--before Donald Trump entered the race--was more leftwing agitprop, ads pushing hysteria on racism, immigration, guns, et cetera, than electioneering. The Clintons' own longtime political strategist Mark Penn estimates that just $6,500 went to actual electioneering. You read that right: $6,500. By contrast, the staggering $500,000 payday from a Kremlin-tied Russian bank for a single speech was part of a multimillion-dollar influence-peddling scheme to enrich the former President and his wife, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. At the time, Russia was plotting--successfully--to secure U.S. Government approval for its acquisition of Uranium One, and with it, tens of billions of dollars in U.S. uranium reserves.

``Here is the kicker: the Uranium One scandal is not only, or even principally, a Clinton scandal. It is an Obama administration scandal. The Clintons were just doing what the Clintons do: cashing in on their `public service.' The Obama administration, with Secretary Clinton at the forefront but hardly alone, was knowingly compromising American national security interests.

The administration green-lighted the transfer of control over one-fifth of American uranium mining capacity to Russia, a hostile regime--and specifically to Russia's state-controlled nuclear-energy conglomerate, Rosatom. Worse, at the time the administration approved the transfer, it knew that Rosatom's American subsidiary was engaged in a lucrative racketeering enterprise that had already committed felony extortion, fraud, and money-laundering offenses.''

It is not in the article, but it does raise the question: Gee, I wonder if the Obama administration or Director Mueller of the FBI, knowing all these things apparently, did anybody bother to tell Secretary Clinto about the situation and that the entity that they were being courted by was actually tied to felony extortion, fraud, and money-laundering offenses?

I thought the Obama administration was pretty close-knit. It seemed like they would have surely told Secretary of State Clinton who had access to classified information. We know because she put it on her server that wasn't classified.

But it looks like somebody would have told the Secretary of State: Hey, this outfit that is courting you has ties to the people paying your husband half a million dollars for one speech, paying $145 million or so to the Clinton Foundation, these folks are bad folks.

Surely somebody in the Obama administration would have told them. Well, we don't know, and, certainly, Director Muller is not going to investigate any inappropriate actions that he or James Comey or Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein took or didn't take.

The article goes on to say: ``The Obama administration also knew that congressional Republicans were trying to stop the transfer. Consequently, the Justice Department concealed what it knew.''

That being from congressional Republicans who were trying to stop the transfer.

In fact, ``the DOJ allowed the racketeering enterprise to continue compromising the American uranium industry rather than commencing a prosecution that would have scotched the transfer. Prosecutors waited 4 years before quietly pleading the case out for a song, in violation of Justice Department charging guidelines. Meanwhile, the administration stonewalled Congress, reportedly threatening an informant who wanted to go public.

``Obama's `reset,' to understand what happened here, we need to go back to the beginning. The first-tier military arsenal of Putin's Russia belies its status as a third-rate economic power. For well over a decade, the regime has thus sought to develop and exploit its capacity as a nuclear-energy producer. Naively viewing Russia as a `strategic partner' rather than a malevolent competitor, the Bush administration made a nuclear-cooperation agreement with the Kremlin in May of 2008.

``That blunder, however, was tabled before Congress could consider it. That is because Russia, being Russia, invaded Georgia. In 2009, notwithstanding this aggression, which continues to this day with Russia's occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton signaled the new administration's determination to `reset' relations with Moscow. In this reset, renewed cooperation and commerce in nuclear energy would be central. There had been such cooperation and commerce since the Soviet Union imploded. In 1992, the administration of President George H. W. Bush agreed with the nascent Russian Federation that U.S. nuclear providers would be permitted to purchase uranium from Russia's disassembled nuclear warheads, after it had been down-blended from its highly enriched weapons-grade level.

``The Russian commercial agent responsible for the sale and transportation of this uranium to the U.S. is the Kremlin-controlled company `Tenex,' formally, JSC Techsnabexport. Tenex is a subsidiary of Rosatom. Tenex, and by extension, Rosatom, have an American arm called `Tenam USA.' Tenam is based in Bethesda, Maryland. Around the time President Obama came to power, the Russian official in charge of Tenam was Vadim Mikerin. The Obama administration reportedly issued a visa for Mikerin in 2010, but a racketeering investigation led by the FBI determined that he was already operating here in 2009. The racketeering scheme as Tenam's general director, Mikerin was responsible for arranging and managing Rosatom/Tenex's contracts with American uranium purchasers.

``This gave him tremendous leverage over the U.S. companies. With the assistance of several confederates, Mikerin used this leverage to extort and defraud the U.S. contractors into paying inflated prices for uranium. They then laundered the proceeds through shell companies and secret bank accounts in Latvia, Cyprus, Switzerland, and the Seychelle Islands--though sometimes transactions were handled in cash, with the skim divided into envelopes stuffed with thousands of dollars in cash. The inflated payments served two purposes: they enriched Kremlin- connected energy officials in the U.S. and in Russia to the tune of millions of dollars; and they compromised the American companies that paid the bribes, rendering players in U.S. nuclear energy--a sector critical to national security--vulnerable to blackmail by Moscow. But Mikerin had a problem.

``To further the Kremlin's push for nuclear-energy expansion, he had been seeking to retain a lobbyist--from whom he planned to extort kickbacks, just as he did with the U.S. energy companies. With the help of an associate connected to Russian organized-crime groups, Mikerin found his lobbyist. The man's name has not been disclosed, but we know he is now represented by Victoria Toensing, a well-respected Washington lawyer, formerly a Federal prosecutor and counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

``When Mikerin solicited him in 2009, the lobbyist was uncomfortable, worried that the proposal would land him on the wrong side of the law. So he contacted the FBI to reveal what he knew. From then on, the Bureau and Justice Department permitted him to participate in the Russian racketeering scheme as a `confidential source'--and he is thus known as `CS-1' in affidavits the government, years later, presented to Federal court in order to obtain search and arrest warrants. At the time this unidentified man became an informant, the FBI was led by Director Robert Mueller, who is now the special counsel investigating whether Trump colluded with Russia,'' which we keep hearing there is no evidence of.

``The investigation was centered in Maryland, Tenam's home base. There, the U.S. Attorney was Obama appointee Rod Rosenstein--now President Trump's Deputy Attorney General, and the man who appointed Mueller as special counsel to investigate Trump.

``Because of CS-1, the FBI was able to understand and monitor the racketeering enterprise almost from the start. By mid-May 2010, it could already prove the scheme and three separate extortionate payments Mikerin had squeezed out of the informant.

``Equally important: According to reporting by John Solomon and Alison Spann in The Hill''--which we were just speaking about--``the informant learned through conversations with Mikerin and others that Russian nuclear officials were trying to ingratiate themselves with the Clintons.''

It goes on and on, Mr. Speaker, but it is clear this definitely needs investigation. It needs investigation as to the propriety of the actions of Robert Mueller, FBI Director. It needs investigation into the propriety of the actions by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

We need a special counsel. If the current Attorney General considers himself recused, there is only one person who has the power to make that appointment, and that is the President of the United States, from whom the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein derive their power to appoint special counsel.

The President needs to appoint somebody to investigate this mess, because I guess former Secretary Clinton knew with authority when she said the Russians were clearly trying to hack and to influence this election. Yes, they sure were.

It appears they were doing more to influence the Clintons and the Obama administration than they were even the American people: $500,000 to Bill Clinton himself and only $6,500 to the

ads to try to affect the American people.

So this really does need to be investigated. I know Congress really hasn't gotten into it in any depth, but if Congress is to do that, it has got to take a page out of Judicial Watch's notebook, and that is you have got to be willing to go to court and demand people produce evidence, produce people.

We can't just continue to be obstructed the way we have allowed the IRS Director to do after he has obfuscated, lied to Congress, and I believe perjured himself, after Lois Lerner appears certainly to have committed crimes, to me, and we have let her get away with such apparent criminal activity.

But in the few minutes I have left, in addition to this scourge upon the United States that we find out was going on during the Obama administration, there is a tremendous irony that is playing out, and it is reflected in the article by J.E. Dyer, October 10.

The article is titled: ``NFL meltdown blows the dam on MSM's centralized media model.''

I thought about this. I did not realize, but Colin Kaepernick first began to kneel down after he apparently has also supported a group that wants to kill cops and thinks cops should be killed, the people who are protecting us and allowing us to continue safely in our way of life and our freedom.

He doesn't have that respect. He knelt. He had nothing but contempt for America's police and for those protecting America. He did not appreciate America, which was bringing him millions of dollars. Just contempt. Apparently, his belief is there is racism in America, though he was adopted by, as I understand it, a White family.

But he started this, and the American people didn't like it. After 9/ 11 particularly, they realized: You know what? We owe so much to first responders and to law enforcement that have been willing to lay down their lives for us against enemies, foreign and domestic. And they continue, as police around the country, law enforcement, continue to be willing to lay down their lives for Americans and our way of life, our freedom. We appreciated that after 9/11.

After my 4 years in the Army, when we were sometimes ordered not to wear our uniform because of hatred for people in uniform after Vietnam, I didn't think we would ever come to a day when people would again appreciate our military. But that also came out in amazing ways after 9/11.

As evil and hateful as the actions were that day in an effort to kill as many innocent people as these radical Islamists could, we saw the good in Americans. We saw the good in first responders. We saw the good in our military. We saw men and women willing to evidence the greatest love, as Jesus said, willing to lay down their lives for their fellow Americans.

Yet, during the last administration, somehow the President normally took the wrong side. He spoke up before the evidence was in and often derided the wrong people. I just can't believe that our President for those last 8 years set us back so many years in race relations. It is incredible. I thought we were beyond that, but we got set back many years.

Huge numbers of Americans didn't appreciate the way the Obama administration set us back in race relations. For the first time, we had a President and First Lady who had not normally been proud as Americans. The First Lady said she was finally proud of America.

I have been proud of America all my life. I was not proud of the activities of some Americans. Americans have been a force for good in the world since it came into existence. This article points out that, actually, that started something, because then other NFL players, as we have heard, didn't even realize what Colin Kaepernick was actually kneeling for. It is interesting to hear their explanations. They are not sure. They just have contempt for something, so they kneel during the national anthem.

It has so affected many Americans that many of us are not watching the NFL like we used to. It used to be a priority. I was always glad to get home from church and turn on the NFL, maybe see the Dallas Cowboys. I haven't been doing that. It hasn't been a priority. Colin Kaepernick started that.

Now, as this article points out, the one thing that allowed the mainstream media to bundle all kinds of programming that they forced cable companies or dish companies to take was the NFL. It was the big breadwinner that forced cable companies and satellite companies to take programming they really didn't want. But if you wanted the NFL, you had to take what the networks were bundling.

Now that the NFL is not turning into the cash cow it once was, and viewership and attendance drops, and, therefore, advertising dollars are plummeting, it may just be that that act of taking a knee back when it first started ends up leading to the liberal mainstream media not force-feeding Americans liberal pablum that they have been able to do for years. Wouldn't that be an ironic result of one player taking a knee?

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

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 7 o'clock and 56 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, October 25, 2017, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, a different variety of thunder rolled across Williamsport, Pennsylvania in late August, which provided some respite from the devastating storms which were battering Texas . . . the ``Thundering 13'' from Angelina County, Texas captured the attention of millions and the title of a lifetime when they emerged victorious as the U.S. National Champions in the 2017 Little League World Series tournament.

The Lufkin All-Stars gained its distinctive nickname of ``Thundering 13'' during grueling two-a-day practices and games leading up to the tournament, when the young men pounded so many home runs that spectators said it sounded like thunder.

A single loss during the national tournament motivated the team even further, resulting in a rematch where they ultimately emerged victorious against the only team that challenged their bid for the national title.

With the strength of their camaraderie uniting them, and the unwavering support of their family, friends, and fans, this talented, resolute, and relentless national championship team never lost sight of the dream.

This remarkable accomplishment cannot be possible without the determination and hard work of every team member, along with the skill and experience of dedicated Head Coach and Manager Bud Maddux, along with Assistant Coaches Malcolm Deason and Ryan Deaton.

My most enthusiastic praise and congratulations goes to national champions Chip Buchanan, Malcolm Deason, Jr., Charlie Deaton, Hunter Ditsworth, Kolby Kovar, Lance Modisette, Christian Mumphery, Zach Phipps, Mark Requena, Collin Ross, Chandler Spencer, Blake Slaga, and Clayton Wigley.

The path to a championship title can be long and arduous, but the Lufkin All-Stars met the challenge sustained by the solid and enthusiastic encouragement of a fiercely loyal network of community support which provided the foundation upon which a national championship emerged.

These young men bear witness to the fact that anything is achievable though focus, hard work and determination. These are guiding life principles that lead to success not only on the field, but will undoubtedly resonate through every endeavor these valiant championship players undertake in their entire lifetimes.

May God continue to bless these young people, along with their families, friends and neighbors in east Texas and beyond. It is an extraordinary privilege to recognize the Lufkin All-Stars, 2017 Little League World Series U.S. National Champions.

Madam Speaker, it has been an interesting number of days here this week. We continue to have hearings and fight for good legislation, and we continue to hear from people back home that we simply must at least work on our promises to repeal ObamaCare and bring their health insurance into a realm that is affordable.

They realize they were lied to. They will never get the insurance they liked back. They would like to try to get their doctors back.

One of the interesting things about the design of the devious architect of ObamaCare is the guy who bragged later: Yeah, we knew you couldn't keep your insurance, you couldn't keep your doctor, but we had to say that to sell it.

They actually incentivized the handful of remaining insurance companies not to put the best cancer healthcare providers in their network. ObamaCare actually incentivizes insurance companies not putting the best heart healthcare providers or, in fact, any chronic, expensive disease that the insurance companies, because of the design of ObamaCare--and I think it was intentional--basically were penalized if they put the very best cancer treaters, heart treaters in their network. So there actually are indications that insurance companies, they could see what the administration was encouraging them to do.

For example, I had read that MD Anderson was not in those networks as a cancer provider. Some would argue it is the best cancer treatment facility. That certainly can be debated. I think it still comes down to the effort to get to the point where government is completely in charge of every American's healthcare.

ObamaCare was a good start, but obviously if you design a system so that the insurance companies, they just get down to a handful of monopolies and they are having record years, and that same bill even allows those insurance companies to get what are called bailouts after they have had record profits, well, most people are going to end up hating the insurance companies. And we have seen that.

What would happen, of course, is eventually people get so outraged with premiums going up, whether it is 10 percent or 70 percent--I have heard of it being doubled, being tripled since the last 7 years. I have heard all kinds of horror stories from people in east Texas. Around other places I have visited, it is the same thing happening. They can't afford their policy, yet they can't afford to pay an extra tax for not having a policy that the government says they have to have; and yet if they pay for their policy, the deductible is so high, they are still not going to get any benefit out of it.

So it is easy to see, when you start looking at the way in which ObamaCare was created, the rules in place for it, the day would come when people got so outraged at how expensive their health insurance was that they would scream: Look, I just can't stand it anymore. I never wanted the government to be in charge of my personal life, but anything's got to be better than the current system. Just let the government take it over.

Then, there you are, government controlling everybody's body, everybody's personal life.

Of course, we have got this Consumer Financial Protection Bureau out there created during the Obama years by the Democrats. We were not helpful in that. We thought, sure, we want to help people who are being taken advantage of by unscrupulous lenders, but we don't need a Bureau to monitor everybody's debit and credit card transactions. There were those who argued: Yeah, but this way, they can monitor and they can tell if somebody's being taken advantage of.

There was a time, as a felony judge in Texas, that, if someone wanted your bank records, under the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, we are supposed to be protected from unreasonable searches and seizures, and that includes anyone's bank records. So people would come to me as a judge, they would have affidavits, and they hoped that would prove under oath probable cause that a crime had been committed and that this person committed it, and if so, I could sign the warrant that allowed them to go get bank records.

We used to care about the Fourth Amendment. I know my friends across the aisle, our Democratic friends, they cared greatly, because I have heard over and over in Judiciary Committee arguments about the protections against unreasonable searches, and yet they set up a Bureau that violates that, says: Just give us all your information.

Well, sure, if somebody is being taken advantage of by an unscrupulous lender, then the remedy is they go complain to the appropriate government law enforcement or the SEC, whoever it is, and then they come to a judge like I was, get the warrant, get the records, and then make the determination if there is probable cause. We just lost so much of our privacy.

Several years ago, we said, well, since ObamaCare is going to allow the mass gathering of people's medical records and our Democratic friends set up this consumer protection racket here in Washington, we could conceivably have a day--and if we don't do something about ObamaCare and the CFPB, then it is closer than I imagined--when you get your mail, Madam Speaker, and you see: Oh, I have got a letter from the government here. And you open it, and it says: We noticed, when you were at Brookshire's grocery store the other day, that you bought a pound of bacon; and we also noticed, from your healthcare records, that your cholesterol rate is at this certain level, and so, therefore, since we control your healthcare now and we monitor your debit and credit purchases, here is the deal: you are either going to join a health club and start working out once a week and stop buying bacon, or we are going to have to raise the amount you pay in each month.

I mean, this is where it goes when you have the Orwellian Big Brother that was advanced more through ObamaCare than anything that has ever occurred in U.S. history. It has got to be repealed.

I want to applaud and thank President Trump for taking steps today through executive order. He shouldn't have had to do that. I am very, very grateful he did. God bless him for doing it. But we should have already taken care of that stuff. That is our job.

What do we do here in the House? It was contentious. The first bill was a disaster, but we got it to where it actually was going to bring premiums down for the middle class in America. It was going to make their premiums cheaper. It was going to make their deductibles lower. Then we had people in the Senate who got elected on the promise of repealing ObamaCare that voted ``no.'' We still have to do something.

I loved seeing the President's interview with our good friend, Sean Hannity, last night. I love this about President Trump. I think it is why he got elected. When Sean asked him about, basically, is this over, he gets this smile and says: No. We are not giving up, not giving up.

The truth is we cannot give up. People are counting on us. They don't know what to do.

There are small-business employers like the one in Tyler who told me that a few years ago he was paying $50,000 for his employees' health insurance. He has the same number of employees, and this year it is $153,000, and he is going to have to start letting people go or drop their insurance. It just cannot continue. People are already taking losses. It can't continue.

Well, with the proper President in place, and here in Congress we have taken some steps to ameliorate some of the damage to jobs in America, things seem to be turning around some. But we actually have to keep our promise, and I think we do that by putting a lot more heat on the Senate as the House body, House Republicans. We have got to put pressure on the Senate. Like the President said, this fight cannot be over.

Normally, I have been told since my freshman term, you can't do big things in an election year. But I am beginning to wonder, if America makes it clear to the Republicans in the Senate that you either will keep your promise on ObamaCare, you will keep your promise on tax reform or you will not be back in the Senate, then I think we could buck tradition in this place.

The idea was that we were told back in 2006, in January: Okay. Well, we didn't keep any of our promises last

year as the Republican majority, but now, you veterans know we are into an even-numbered year. That means it is an election year, so we can't do any of those big things, because everybody knows you just can't do big things in an election year or you might lose.

Well, it would have been a lot better if we had already done those things, if we had repealed ObamaCare and put a system in place that was affordable, that gave people the healthcare they needed and with actual insurance and encouraged, instead of spending $700, $800, $900, sending it to the insurance company, how about putting $700, $800 in your own medical health savings account you control, debit-card coded where it can only be spent on healthcare, whether it is crutches, medicine, doctor visits, hospital stays, whatever, and you could have a high deductible. We could have a day where $700 goes to your account, $200 goes for catastrophic coverage. That is the kind of thing that we should have been pushing for and gone to, but, instead, we are pouring that money into health insurance companies.

Just in case, Madam Speaker, there are those who are already wondering, ``Maybe we should just let the government take over everything; that has got to be better,'' I heard on the news again today another horror story. Just when you thought the VA was being cleaned up, here comes another horror story.

Some doctor at the VA was allowed to do 80-some-odd surgeries that were unnecessary, inappropriate, or terribly done, even surgeries not even needed at all, on the wrong person, but it had been covered up for some time. Well, when the government is in charge of your healthcare, you can't expect any more than the lowest common denominator in the government.

I am very, very grateful we do have some good doctors, some good nurses in the VA, but I have also talked to good doctors and nurses in the VA who are so frustrated with such an albatross of a system.

Why not just let people--if you want to go to the VA clinic, here is your card, you go.

We thought we were doing a good thing, and I think it was a step in the right direction when we were going to allow veterans to go to a civilian clinic, hospital, healthcare provider if there was not one within a minimum number of miles. I believe it was 40, but I have heard horror stories about how people have been jerked around and not been allowed to utilize the program as it was designed. Here, again, we come back to what you get when the government is in charge. We have got to do that.

Stuart Varney was asking today again about tax reform. We promised it. We have got to deliver on that. These rumors I hear emanating from people at the Senate side of this building that: Yeah, well, the House can do the reform. They did their ObamaCare repeal and we didn't pass that, so maybe we won't do their tax reform package like we are working on.

It takes a lot of work to pass a major reform like we did on ObamaCare. It takes even more work, perhaps, to do a significant tax reform package where it becomes simplified, people pay less tax, the economy explodes. You would think it would be a no-brainer, but apparently there are too many people up here with no brains and it is not getting done. We do have to do that. We promised we would. We have got to do it for the sake of the economy that will make people's lives so much better.

But in the meantime, if we are going to be an effective Congress, we have got to make sure that we maintain proper systems in place that we can do our business without inappropriate outside influence, whether it is coming from Russia or Pakistan. Wherever it is coming from, we need to know and we need to protect ourselves.

That is why this Taxed Enough Already Caucus meeting we had, we invited people in the tradition of my friend Tim Huelskamp, the former chair of that caucus from Kansas. Just a great guy, a great American. It was great to talk to him recently. Tim started with this caucus having representatives of outside groups with important information we should share coming in and having Members of Congress come in and share information, figure out how we can help get the Nation's business done.

We have been concerned about articles we continue to read, especially by Luke Rosiak of The Daily Caller. No one has done more investigation on the issue of the Awan family cohorts that were working here on Capitol Hill for House Members. They happened to be Democratic House Members. I think the same thing could happen where one Republican could say, ``Oh, these folks are great,'' and before you know it, you have dozens of people having the same IT computer workers working part time. People are allowed to do that, hire somebody part time so it doesn't overwhelm your budget. Others can hire them part time, but under no circumstances can anybody working on the Hill make more than around $160,000.

We found out this week from the lead investigator, oh, not law enforcement, oh, no. FBI, apparently they are not getting anything done, and I will explain why in a moment. But as he has gone around and investigated and asked witnesses questions that have direct information about what is going on, Luke Rosiak would also ask: Has anyone from the FBI talked to you, or has any law enforcement talked to you?

He said 80 percent of the time the answer is no. No one from the FBI has talked to me. No one from any law enforcement has talked to me. Staggering.

I hear rumors that there are people from the FBI telling the Department of Justice: Yeah, we have looked into it. There is nothing there.

Yeah, just the way the FBI looked into the notice from Russia that the Tsarnaev older brother had been radicalized.

What do they do?

I know because I have asked Director Mueller after he had run off thousands of years of our best experienced FBI agents, done more damage to the FBI than anybody since Hoover. He has got plenty of young aggressive people without enough experience to call him out when he was making mistakes, as he made many.

They send out an FBI agent to talk to the older Tsarnaev after the second notice from Russian agents that this guy has been radicalized. He is going to be a threat. But because Director Mueller--now Special Counsel Mueller, who is hiring lawyers and investigators right and left--built up a beautiful, comfortable nest for himself, that same Mueller, as Director of the FBI, had the FBI training materials on radical Islamists purged of anything that might offend radical Islamists.

Yes, he was more concerned about the little lunches and dinners he had with CAIR--or the Council of American-Islamic Relations--than he was about people being killed in Boston, because if he had, he would have made sure that the Tsarnaev brothers were properly investigated after they got two heads-up.

If they had bothered to look, they would have seen where the older Tsarnaev went and would have known he went to a hotbed of radicalism. They would have known to investigate: What has he been reading? What scriptures from the Koran has he been reading? What has he talked about? Is he doing more memorization? What is his appearance looking like now? Who is he hanging out with?

But no. Because he was too concerned about what he called the outreach program to Islamic Americans, he didn't want to offend anybody. He was more worried about offending somebody than saving the lives and limbs of Bostonians.

He created a massive problem at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and now we are turning special counsel over to this man?

We heard from Mr. Comey himself that he talked to Mueller even before his testimony before Congress. We heard from he himself that he leaked information that was clearly FBI information that should not have been leaked.

So there is a question of did he commit a crime, or did he just commit a breach of FBI ethics? What action should be taken?

Oh, no. We have got FBI Director Mueller on the case, and if you go back and look at the Washingtonian back in 2013, they did a big expose on how wonderful Mr. Comey was; and they point

out in there that, gee, basically if the whole world were on fire, Comey knew there would be one person that would still be standing with him there to protect him, Mr. Mueller; the same guy that is protecting him instead of investigating the leaks that have come from the FBI that appear to have gone through the exact same person through whom he leaked what he admitted. But, no, we have got Mueller, the same man who is going to be there through thick and thin to protect Comey; he is the one investigating.

If Jeff Sessions as Attorney General cannot investigate Mr. Comey and his violations, potential breaches of the law, then we need another special counsel, and it sure ain't going to come from Mr. Rosenstein, that is for sure.

We need a special counsel. I think the Attorney General could do it, but I am not sure the extent to which he has recused himself. But this has to be investigated. Unfortunately, because of the damage done to the FBI, I still have questions arise on things they investigate because I know the damage that Mueller did to their training materials, to their ability. As one of our intelligence agents explained, we have blinded ourselves of the ability to see our enemies.

But don't worry, the guy that was the biggest blinder is now the special counsel growing his little bureaucracy. And I am sure, knowing how vengeful he is, when he hears what I have had to say, then he probably will open an investigation on me. That is just how vengeful this man has been.

But the truth is the truth. He damaged the FBI, running off thousands of years of experienced people. He purged the training materials that would have--and Michele Bachmann and I went through these, and another Congressman from Georgia went through some, and there were some things, sure; cartoon stuff, sure; take them out, fine. But there were some things in there very clearly that every FBI agent needs to know to help them spot a radical Islamist, and Mueller blinded them of the opportunity to do that.

I will never forget, at one of our hearings, after it was so clear that he was more concerned about offending CAIR than he was of protecting Boston, and he was so defensive, I said: You didn't even go to the mosque where Tsarnaev went to see if he had been radicalized.

After fumbling around, I finally got him to tell me how he thought that was wrong, and he said: We did go to the mosque.

And I didn't hear it at first. Unfortunately, I didn't hear it until I had it played on the video.

He said: We did go to that mosque in our outreach program.

Oh, the outreach program. Yeah, you didn't go to investigate Tsarnaev to find out if he had been radicalized by asking questions in the mosque where he worshipped to find out if he was now acting like a radical. And there are clear indications. That is why we don't have to worry about most Muslims, but you sure need to know what you are looking for.

For those that want to call people like me an Islamophobe, well, it is another lie. But there are plenty of lies around Washington. I have got enough Muslim friends in the Middle East and Afghanistan and other countries. They know they don't want radicals. I am so proud of the President of Egypt, el-Sisi, a man who would stand before imams and tell them: We have got to get our religion back from the radicals.

That is a courageous great man. We owe him a lot of help.

So what do we have here on Capitol Hill?

We had guys that apparently never had a background search. And as we found out from the investigator for The Daily Caller, there were actually three or more months of the year when Imran Awan would be in Pakistan doing his job, supposedly making sure Capitol Hill computers were secured. We find out that there was suspicion when they saw this Imran Awan clan. His wife got involved. As we heard, when they would get up to the maximum amount one person could make on Capitol Hill, they would add another family member, and then they would get up to $160,000; add another family member, get them up; add another family member. And apparently all of these people didn't work.

The people that had a lot of experience working at McDonalds probably didn't have that much experience on computers, but he was still making $160,000 or so a year and, we find out--I had no idea, just this week found out--they were able to gain $6 million to $7 million from the House of Representatives' budget.

And we find out, gee, one of them, had gotten $100,000 from an individual with known ties to Hezbollah, and we don't know for what reason, but clearly never came to Capitol Hill. He was put on the payroll of the U.S. House of Representatives, the guy that was owed $100,000 with ties to Hezbollah, and made over $200,000 or so before he was taken off the payroll.

That is a good way to pay back a loan, isn't it?

So we had Imran Awan; Hina Alvi, his wife; Abid Awan; Jamal Awan; Rao Abbas; and possibly a couple of others we found out--just incredible that this kind of thing could happen.

But the suspicion grew when he was supposed to be working on the computer system of Congressman, now attorney general in California, Becerra. No indication Becerra knew anything was wrong, but people here on the Hill watching this saw there have been 5,700 accesses to his computer system and 5,400, at least, were not from people who should have been getting into his computer system.

Then we find out, actually, he downloaded other Members of Congress' servers completely onto Becerra's server, and, actually, he had 2 terabytes of information that he said was for their child's homework--a little child's homework taking 2 terabytes.

But we also know, apparently, from what came out this week, he was downloading dozens of Members' computers onto one server so that anybody he wanted to could access any of that information.

Now, there is no indication that classified information was revealed through the access to all these computer systems by people who were not hired by that Member of Congress. But we also know--I mean, General Petraeus, I read somewhere that it was actually a calendar that he gave to the lady who was to do a book, that he was having an affair with, that had some stuff that was considered classified.

Well, on every Member's computer system, you get their calendar, you get all their email, you get all their appointments, things that are going on in the office, you get reactions to people who come in over different bills, you get reaction to different things that have been learned in the intelligence community. There are all kinds of things that people would pay a lot of money for.

Then we find out, you had a bankruptcy in the Awan history, you had domestic violence in the history, and now we find out this week, newly reported, that his wife is now upset. We can maybe get some answers now that she is upset because, now, she has found out that not only was he being corrupt to the banks here in the United States and on Capitol Hill, but he also, without his wife's knowledge, married another lady. So that may help bring his first wife around to giving us more information about just how bad things got.

But the report was, this week, investigators with the IG's office here on Capitol Hill have been quietly tracking the five IT workers-- that is, the Awan group--their digital footprints for months. They were alarmed by what they saw.

The employees, the Awans, appeared to be accessing congressional servers without authorization, an indication that they ``could be reading and/or removing information,'' according to the documents distributed at the previously unreported private briefings.

So I know that there are people who have reported here on Capitol Hill, well, it is being looked into, but there is no evidence of crime. Really?

Because we have also learned that there may have been hundreds of vouchers filed falsely for, say, an $800 iPad. But if you say that it is under $500, then it doesn't go in the inventory, and it is easier to steal and sell, for example, hypothetically, in Pakistan, where there are reports that he sent technological systems and sold them to make extra money.

We know that he was not truthful and honest in his financial disclosures.

That can be a crime. But just one voucher where you claim something only cost $490 and the server system cost $310 when you know that item actually cost $800 and should go into the inventory, that could be a crime. It appears that happened countless times, but we need to be trying to count anyway.

We know that there were many pieces of computer equipment found at his home after FBI agents said his wife appeared to be fleeing, to not come back, even though she had a trip back. We don't know what representations have been made to get her to come back, but we know that the tenants who leased the house where they fled from had been threatened by Imran Awan's lawyer for allowing law enforcement to have access to that computer equipment that was there at his house. Hard drives appeared to be destroyed so they could not be properly investigated.

We got a report that one of the group appeared to be home most of the time and was not here in Washington, D.C. But what a great gig, when you can make $160,000 a year for servicing computer equipment. And it appears all of these five, six, seven people in this group didn't have competence to do computer or IT work, yet they were sure making a good living doing it.

But for those who continue to say ``we just don't think there is much there,'' all that should tell you is the report by Luke Rosiak, of all the witnesses to this whole sordid matter, only about 20 percent of them have ever been interviewed by FBI or law enforcement. It tells you somebody around here in this town, this Hill, somebody does not want to get to the bottom of this. If law enforcement wants to get to the bottom of this, they will get to the bottom of it.

Kind of like Benghazi, if we really wanted to get to the bottom of it, we would do like Judicial Watch and be relentless till we got to the bottom of it. We haven't gotten there yet

So, Mr. Speaker, there is a lot that needs to be investigated, a lot that needs to be done. We need--somebody, sounds like, needs to be investigating Mr. Mueller, but certainly needs to be investigating the various leaks that appear to have come from Mr. Comey through the same sources as the one he admitted. That has got to be investigated. And Mueller can't do it and, apparently, the current Attorney General can't. We have got to have somebody appointed to get to the bottom of what was happening at the DOJ during last year when an election was going on.

We need to have an investigation to thoroughly get into this matter of having a U.N.--our representative to the U.N. is unmasking American information. We were assured that kind of thing would not happen if we would just reauthorize that program: Oh, no, no. If there are Americans who happen to be incidentally picked up by the monitors, the wiretap, by listening in on conversations, look, if there is an American, we mask the name. You can't just get that. You are protected. It is minimized.

Well, we find out that wasn't true, that anybody that wants to go skipping and looking into any political opponents can do that if you are corrupt enough. And if you are corrupt enough and you have corrupted other people, then it won't be investigated.

Maybe there are things other people around here don't want found out, but it is time we cleaned up the mess that has been left here, we clean up the wiretapping capability. It is coming up for reauthorization here. It has got to be done before the end of December, and I still need a lot of answers before I could even consider doing that.

In the meantime, Mr. Speaker, we have got to help the American people by keeping our promises.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my good friend, Mr. Higgins from Louisiana.

The Plight of the Citizens of Louisiana Impacted by Hurricane Harvey

Mr. Speaker, we had some interesting days here, but, over the weekend, being back in Texas, I am hearing the cries from people all over east Texas. There is a small number that say: Hey, I am not making much, and I am getting a subsidy from the government, so I am okay on my healthcare, I am young, I have no health problems, and that is fine.

But over and over, there is a cry going out around America that says: We elected Republicans in the majority in the House and the majority in the Senate to help us with our healthcare--with really health insurance. Everybody can get healthcare. You can just go to the emergency room, whether you have money or not.

This is really more about health insurance. Some of us have not wanted health insurance to make our major decisions for us on our own healthcare. We haven't wanted the government to make major decisions on our healthcare, but both are making those decisions for people across the country today.

Unfortunately, there are people telling me they are paying $8,000, $10,000, $12,000. I heard one for $20,000 yesterday from Texas, $20,000 for the family's insurance, and they have a $12,000 deductible, and they can't afford either one. They expected help.

President Trump is not the Congress. He has pushed, shoved, cajoled, done everything he could to try to get Congress moving in the House after a back and forth, wailing, gnashing of teeth. We got a bill. It wasn't perfect by any stretch. But at least it would have given people relief from high premiums, most Americans. Hopefully, Republicans won't misrepresent the truth, as some did.

Actually, we know some people just flat lied about ObamaCare. People who said, ``If you like your insurance, you can keep it,'' they knew it was a lie. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. They knew that was a lie.

And now the people are suffering the consequences of trusting people in government who lied to them. They were deceived. But even with all the deception, most of the time it appeared that a clear majority of Americans did not want what was fraudulently called the Affordable Care Act. There was nothing affordable about it, unless you didn't have any healthcare problems at all.

People who are carrying the weight of the taxes in this country have needed help. They counted on us to provide legislative changes, repeal of ObamaCare, let's put a system in place where people can make their own healthcare decisions, and we sent the bill to the Senate, and I still believe we should have been demanding more of the Senate every day.

I know there are a lot of people who say: Well, Republicans can't lose the majority in the Senate because there are a bunch more Democrats whose seats are up this time instead of Republicans. Yes, we can lose the majority, even when there are more Democratic seats up for election.

That is what happens when people are sorely disappointed. Many stay home, and the wrong people will get elected when too many people stay home.

But the adage is, still true, democracy ensures people are governed no better than they deserve. So whether anybody liked or disliked President Obama as our President--and, by the way, for those who like to throw out the term ``hater,'' I don't hate anybody, but I can certainly disapprove of conduct.

For 8 years, America deserved Barack Hussein Obama. Before that, whether you like him or not, I like him, America deserved George W. Bush. Before that, America deserved 8 years of William Clinton--I forget his middle name. Before that, 4 years of George H. W. Bush. Before that, 8 years of Ronald Reagan. And I am very pleased that America deserved Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton last November.

It is interesting, though, being in hearings today and hear people clambering that they demand action from this department, that department, it is taking too long, while, at that very moment, Democratic Senators at the other end of this building are doing everything they can to prevent confirmation of President Trump's appointees

to those departments so they can start getting things done.

It is amazing when one party like that can hold the ability, because of the filibuster rule, because of the requirement for 60 votes, apparently, they are able to hold up these appointees. To me, that is all the reason to go ahead and say: Do you know what, you are demanding action from people who you have not confirmed yet, so we are not going to let you play that game anymore. You have people saying, ``Oh, my goodness, these departments aren't getting decisions made, aren't getting their work done,'' and all the while you are holding them back from being able to do it by not confirming the people who need to be doing that work.

The Senate ought to just say: We are not playing that game, we are not letting you play that game, we are going to call the game off, we are going to get serious about America's problems, and we are going to confirm President Trump's nominees with 51 votes, not just judges, we are going to confirm his nominees with 51 votes. We cannot tolerate people--really it is fraudulent activity to hold back the nominees from being confirmed and then vilify the administration for not getting the work done that those nominees who hadn't been confirmed will have to do.

The Senate needs to respond. The Senate did not respond to the bill we sent to them. That was quite interesting. In my 12 years here, I have never seen a situation like that, Mr. Speaker, where some of us got calls from people in the Senate who don't normally get calls, and that included people from the Tuesday Group, the Freedom Caucus, the Republican Study Committee, and the Republican leadership. They all were asking the same question: Okay, would you please promise us that if we pass this healthcare bill in the Senate that you will not take it up and pass it in the House? Because it is only if you guys promise us, the Republicans promise us, you won't pass the bill that we have down here--apparently, it was so bad--that we will let it go to committee, or you will amend it, but you just promise us you won't pass the bill if we pass it.

Well, as far as I know, everybody I talked to gave reassurance to the Senators who called them and said: No, we promise, we won't pass your bill, it is terrible, we won't, we can assure you.

Even with those assurances, just the effort to get something passed so that we can come together in a conference between House conferees and Senate conferees, just to come together for the chance--this bill that the Senate was taking up to have some skinny repeal, they called it, of ObamaCare, and at least some measure of change to the suffering that people are enduring right now, and they still couldn't get 51 votes, which is all they needed under the reconciliation process.

Even when they were assured: We promise you, we won't pass this bill, you will get another chance to vote, just help the process, let's get it to conference, so we can get some relief to the American people who are suffering, suffering so much that they would go so far as to give us the majority in the Senate after they have given us the majority in the House, and give us the White House as a Republican Party-- incredible.

But the American people are still suffering. And the budget apparently does not provide for ObamaCare to be repealed and replaced under reconciliation for the next 12 months. So unless the Senate feels enough heat from the American people--the Republicans that is--they are not going to do anything about ObamaCare that they promise to repeal and replace.

Apparently, it is going to have to get pretty hot in the kitchen down in the Senate to get people down there worked up enough to finally give the American people the relief that the Senate Republicans promised.

Now, I don't like talking about this, despite what some may think. It is much nicer to get along and go along, but people are suffering because we haven't kept our promise. The Senate couldn't pass anything that would get the American people some relief from all the suffering from ObamaCare.

For those who are not aware, yes, there were bailouts for the monopoly insurance companies. Some made record profits, and yet they are still, under ObamaCare, the way it was written, supposed to get bailouts.

So it appears pretty clear the design of ObamaCare was to make it fail. Apparently, people at the top of some of these insurance companies have not been smart enough to figure out that they signed their own death warrants when they embraced ObamaCare, but it appears it was designed to make people angry at the greedy, allegedly corrupt health insurance companies.

I don't think they are corrupt, but there sure was a lot of greed there between some of the pharmaceutical companies and the health insurance companies signing on. Some of them tried to say: Well, oh, but we needed to be at the table.

We are going: Not if you are on the menu you didn't want to be at the table.

I am sure the executives that have their golden parachutes leave the health insurance companies after 5, 6, 7 years with their incomes.

The design was the health insurance companies make a fortune, people's premiums kept going through the roof, deductibles kept going through the roof, bailouts were provided to insurance companies that had record profits, and then the design ultimately would be the American people getting so angry that they would lash out and say: Enough already. I never thought I would say this, but anything has got to be better than these insurance companies, the handful that are left, so let's just let the government take care of everything.

Then we get a system that is twice as bad as the VA for all Americans, so all Americans can suffer fairly, equally, instead of getting what used to be some of the best healthcare ever in the history of the world.

We have another issue I want to touch on. Our Taxed Enough Already Caucus had a meeting yesterday and heard from Luke Rosiak, who has done more investigation on the IT scandal here on Capitol Hill, apparently done more investigation than anybody at the FBI. We keep hearing rumors that the FBI is reporting there is nothing to this, kind of like the Clinton scandal, the money that the Clinton Foundation got from the stockholders of Uranium One--she approves the sale of 20, 25 percent of America's uranium production; it ends up going to the Russians--the email scandal, that obviously there were efforts to destroy and obfuscate evidence that was being sought, and Comey went out of his way to protect Ms. Clinton. There is just so much there that needs to be investigated.

The Attorney General apparently can't investigate because of his own recusal. Mr. Rosenstein is sure not going to investigate it and thinks Mueller will do it.

Mueller is disqualified from doing it. Although he is such a problem, he will not disqualify himself. Comey is a material witness--should be--in the investigation.

As the Washingtonian reported back in 2013 in this long expose they did on glorifying Mr. Comey and Mr. Mueller's relationship, that Comey knows that basically, in essence, if the world were on fire, the one person who would be there with him, protecting him, standing with him, would be Mr. Mueller. Mueller cannot investigate anything in which Comey is a witness. He can't.

So what does he do? Comey goes and hires more lawyers. He has already had more lawyers than anybody I am aware of--ever. He is already exceeding the very general charge he got, going back years before he needed to. I mean, this is just incredible.

They were a problem 10 years ago. The Obama administration had 8 years to get into it. Mueller, as FBI Director, had plenty of time to get into it.

So there is only one thing we can be looking at, and that is a vendetta by Robert Mueller after some people. He is clearly disqualified. Comey is in it up to his eyeballs. We have got to have a special prosecutor that will look into the matters that should be investigated.

Then we have this issue on Capitol Hill. We need to know how compromised our computer system, our IT system on the Hill has been.

We had a guy named Imran Awan working on Capitol Hill, started working with Democrats' computer systems

12 years or so ago. He was not even an American citizen at the time.

Apparently, if there has ever been a background check on Imran Awan, it certainly was not adequate, because in the Imran Awan family and cohorts, you have got bankruptcy; you have got massive indebtedness; there was money received by one of the team, $100,000 or so, from a known consort with Hezbollah.

Then we find out yesterday--or I did; I had not heard of this before--that Imran Awan, for parts of the year, would not even be here in Washington. He would be in Pakistan servicing up to dozens of our Democratic colleagues' computer systems from Pakistan, making the maximum that somebody working on Capitol Hill could by working for different Members of Congress, and then you add the partial salaries together until you get around $160,000.

We heard yesterday that as he would get one person up to $160,000 working for different offices, then they would add another to the payroll and get them up to $160,000. One of the group owed another individual $100,000. So with no indication that that individual who was owed $100,000 ever even came to Capitol Hill or did any work here, he got put on the House payroll and made a couple hundred thousand dollars in return for the hundred thousand that he had loaned to one of the Awan team.

It is just almost inconceivable that we would have someone working with some of the highest privileged material. It seems to me the courts made it clear the speech or debate privilege to protect constituent information, information that people provide to us as whistleblowers, that that is probably more constitutionally protected than the attorney-client privilege. It is that important.

Yet knowing there are countries, there are companies that would pay large amounts of money to know some Members of Congress' schedule, have access to all their emails, see what they are saying about different bills, what they want to do, that is some valuable stuff. And yet, in some years, we were told yesterday, that Imran Awan was servicing Capitol Hill computers from Pakistan.

Now, I don't know how secure the Pakistani internet systems are, but it is kind of hard to believe that the American interests would be as protected in Pakistan and the Capitol congressional computer system would be protected as it is going through the Pakistani internet to be serviced.

We also heard that Imran Awan, from some of the emails that WikiLeaks put out--we don't know if he worked for the Democratic National Committee when they were hacked, but we know there were emails where someone was saying: We need to get into the chairwoman's laptop. We need her password.

Oh, well, Imran Awan has all of her passwords, so check with him.

So we don't know the extent that he could have compromised things, with all the indebtedness he had and the car dealership that he never reported. Anybody that makes over $120,000 from Capitol Hill has to report any outside income. He never reported those things.

In fact, it appears to be a crime when he failed to even report that he had his wife on the payroll making money on Capitol Hill in those financial disclosures he filed.

We also know that he had some history of violence complaints. His step-mother complained of being kidnapped by him and forced to sign documents that would turn over money and property that Imran's father supposedly had coming.

We know that he has now been indicted simply on a bank fraud charge for lying in order to get a bank loan, the money from which was sent overseas.

We also learned that they were sending technological equipment over to Pakistan. They were fraudulently filing vouchers showing that $800 iPads only cost under $500 so they wouldn't have to be listed on inventory. That obviously makes things more easy to steal.

There were reports, in fact, by the person who rented his house when he and his wife appeared to flee--he was trying to flee when he was stopped at the airport. There were hard drives, all kinds of things.

We know that he and possibly some of those working--maybe they didn't work. We don't know. But $6 million to $7 million was paid to him and his family and his cohorts during the time they were working here, and yet he was downloading from Members of Congress' clouds or from their own servers all of their information into a spot where people who weren't authorized could access those Members of Congress' accounts.

This has got to be investigated more thoroughly than it has been.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Higgins), my friend.

Mr. Speaker, when someone with the service of my friend from Louisiana, Mr. Higgins, pays tribute, you know it is somebody worthy, because my friend from Louisiana served with distinction in the United States Army, wearing the uniform of this country. He served as a law enforcement officer. He knows about serving, protecting others, and a willingness to lay down his life for others.

It has been deeply touching to have seen accounts of what is going on in Las Vegas. To understand what I have seen in my years as a prosecutor, judge, and chief justice, when everyone is running away from the sound of a gun, first responders and law officers are running into harm's way to help and protect others.

It was Jesus who said, ``Greater love has no one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.''

Those who wear the uniform, as my friend has, of law officer and in the military, they know what that means. My 4 years in Active Duty in the Army, we were not in combat, but Jesus was right.

There were so many there in Las Vegas that put their own lives on the line for the sake of the lives of others.

There are others that couldn't wait to rush to a microphone to demand: Gun control, gun control.

I am waiting for them to rush to the mic and scream: Knife control, knife control.

Or after a van is used as the weapon: Van control, van control.

What is clear is we need to look at the real causation, whether it is machetes being used to torture and kill 800,000 precious humans in Africa, whether it is knives, whether it is ammonium nitrate. People with evil in their hearts are going to find a way to wreak havoc.

We know that without a gun being used, the biggest--worst tragedy and loss of life attack was on 9/11 in 2001. I don't believe there was a gun used in the whole process, yet it was a worse loss of American life than at Pearl Harbor.

You have got to look at what is in the heart, what's causing it. If they are going to use knives, if they are going to use planes, if they are going to use vehicles, yeah, we need to protect ourselves, but we need to look at what is in the heart.

I know the sheriff said the shooter may have been radicalized. We don't know yet. We know there was a trip to the Philippines

I am very proud to have met out in the jungles of the southern Philippines with some of our special forces. Amazing. Some of the best America has to offer, and they were out in the jungles teaching the Filipino soldiers, the best that the Philippines had, how to go after the radicalized Islamists in the southern Philippines.

But we don't know if this man with evil in his heart had been radicalized.

Others say there were no indications. But one thing was certain, he looked down on that crowd of people enjoying life, enjoying their families, enjoying their loved ones, and all he could see was worthless people that needed to be eliminated.

Why did he have that in his heart? Where do people get those ideas?

I mean, we argue and disagree here on the House floor. When I was a judge, I watched argument. At times it seemed like they wanted to come to blows, but it was part of a civil process in a bastion where we come and we disagree and we don't use physical violence, but we are still supposed to have respect for each other and each other's position.

To hear some comedian say, ``Just do something,'' would have been viewed by those who gave us the documents that have allowed us to be the greatest Nation--I think greater than Solomon's Israel, more assets per person, the only country in the history that I'm aware of where the number one health problem for the Nation's poor is obesity, and it is a serious issue.

But how did we get here?

Obviously, for the Japanese at Pearl Harbor, it was easier for them because they weren't looking in the eyes of people.

It was easier for this guy 32 floors up because he was not looking at the eyes of these people, his people he wanted to kill that he didn't think were worth allowing to live, despite the love they were sharing with each other and the joy.

Where do people get those ideas that somebody is that worthless? Is it from hearing people with whom someone disagrees is deplorable, that they simply cannot be made worthy of living?

Here is a statement from this October 2 article. Some CBS executive said she was not even sympathetic for the victims of the shooting at a country music festival. She said: ``I am actually not even sympathetic because country music fans often are Republican gun toters.''

Scott Pelley has questioned whether the shooting was ``foreseeable, predictable and, to some degree, self-inflicted.''

But for someone who appears to know right from wrong, not suffering from mental disease or defect, to inflict that kind of death on people who are just innocent, just having a good time, there has to be so much evil and hate in his heart.

So we have a Supreme Court that has been saying for years: You have got to get prayer out of schools. Never mind the fact that prayer got this country started, that prayer and worship and honoring God have been behind the greatest developments in this country's history that got us to this place, to this plateau, as a nation.

Although some would argue we have hit the height of freedom, some surveys don't have us anywhere near the top of being one of the freest countries in the world anymore.

It is continuing to be, after tragedies, after people with evil in their heart do evil things, that more cry out: We need to lose more freedom. We need to lose more freedom.

That is not the answer. Let's look at what is in people's hearts and what would be good to have in their hearts.

I know where we came from, but even I was surprised when my pastor, David Dykes, and I and his wife, Cindy, my wife, Kathy, we were going through the State Department. I had not done a tour of the State Department before because it is mostly boring, but we came to a glass case that had a document in it, and it said it was a duplicate.

We know that many of our most important documents, including the Declaration of Independence, were made in duplicate, so I don't know if this was one that was actually signed or it was a duplicate. It appeared to be of the era.

I said to Dr. Dykes: Did you know the Treaty of Paris began like that?

I didn't know. I study history most every day.

Mr. Speaker, I did know that rule.

But this was the Treaty of Paris, 1783, and John Adams was there. But this is where we were negotiating with England, the most powerful country in the world, imploring them to recognize this little upstart country of 13 States as an independent country, independent and free of the shackles that were there as Colonies by England.

Here they have got the biggest navy. They have an impressive military, most powerful nation, and we are asking them to swear on a document that we in the United States have the right to be free and independent.

So as I contemplated that, well, these first words that are in much bigger letters than the rest of the document, began to make sense.

What would you have asked somebody swear under, at the beginning of our Nation, asking the most powerful nation in the world to swear that they recognize, something important enough they would not want to break that oath, even with the anger and the despising attitude that many in England had at that time?

Well, the words they chose for those big, tall letters, were these, and this is a copy of the copy. ``In the name of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity.''

Well, some say we were started with the Declaration of Independence, recognizing that we are free and, of right, ought to be free because we are endowed by our Creator with these unalienable rights.

And then we have this document where England swears in the name of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity that they recognize our independence. That came after the Great Awakening, in the 1700s, where pulpits were on fire with the glory of God and the recognition of what God had given us and of the importance of the Bible.

No, everybody wasn't a Christian back then, but of the signers of the Declaration, you had over a third of them were--may have been over half were actually ordained Christian ministers.

There were secularists that supported the end of slavery, but the churches drove that. The churches provided the Underground Railroad, most often, to try to help Africans to be free Americans.

It was an ordained Christian minister who went on to help bring about the full meaning of the Constitution, that this should mean what it said, an ordained Christian minister named Martin Luther King, Jr.

So, Mr. Speaker, Abraham Lincoln, he started life early as, bragging to his law partner, he was an infidel. Going from that, as Steve Mansfield discusses, I believe the book is entitled ``Lincoln's Struggle With God.'' By the time he became President, he knew there was a God. And just like Benjamin Franklin said: ``I have lived, sir, a long time. The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth--God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings that, `except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.'''

He said: ``I firmly believe this. I also firmly believe that without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in our political building no better than the builders of Babel.''

So this man, kind of homely looking--I thought Daniel Day-Lewis captured his essence so well. When I met Doris Kearns Goodwin over at the Library of Congress, I said: You've got to tell me, you do such fabulous research--and, yes, she is a more liberal Democrat, I know, but she does fabulous research. And in her book, ``Team of Rivals,'' she has well documented he didn't have a pleasant voice, kind of high, raspy. Daniel Day-Lewis nailed it.

But Lincoln came to know what Ben Franklin testified to in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention. He lost a son. He and his wife lost a son in 1861. There are indications he totally blamed himself because he thought he hadn't done quickly enough what God meant for him to do: end slavery. I don't know if that is true or not.

But in March of 1863, this was Abraham Lincoln's declaration, and I will finish with this, Mr. Speaker. Abraham Lincoln's words were: ``But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the

gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all the blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.''

Lincoln goes on and says: ``Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness''-- Abraham Lincoln.

Mr. Speaker, I believe this was not the act of God punishing Americans for being country music fans or being conservatives. This was not the act of God punishing Americans for turning away. This was from a man with evil in his heart in a country where God has been driven out of the schoolhouse, driven out of government buildings by a majority of Supreme Court Justices who have no clue how far from the original intent of the Constitution they have wandered.

It is the result of years of teaching people that there are those among our what we deem innocent in society who just should not be allowed to live. That is not the teaching of Jesus. It is not the teaching in the Bible, and it is not what this country grew so great believing.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 9 o'clock and 57 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, October 5, 2017, at 9 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, it is indeed an honor to speak on behalf of a person I have come to know and love. In fact, the First District of Texas has been blessed to be the home of many remarkable individuals who have gone above and beyond to serve others in Texas and throughout the world.

It is indeed a privilege to honor a woman from Longview, Texas, who has dedicated her life to serving and providing comfort for our Nation's veterans, particularly our prisoners of war. Her name is Helen Smith, and October 5 of this year marks her 91st birthday.

Helen's caring for our Nation's POWs began with her husband, Gordon Smith, a survivor of the Bataan Death March in 1942 and a POW until the end of World War II.

Throughout her long and happy marriage to Gordon, Helen gained a personal understanding of the struggles many of our veterans and former POWs endure; but armed with the knowledge of what our veterans and former POWs face on a daily basis, Helen set out into the world to help as many of our veterans as she possibly could. She spent countless hours in VA facilities ensuring veterans, young and old, got the care they so desperately needed and deserved.

Helen has walked the Halls of Congress advocating for our veterans and former POWs throughout her life. She is a driving force and was behind Public Law 97-37, which improved VA benefit programs for former POWs.

Helen is not slowing down even at her age. At 90, Helen would head over to the Longview Community Based Outpatient Clinic every morning at sunrise. She would make a pot of coffee and spend her day talking to veterans, giving them a sympathetic ear and helping them through the VA process.

It is a distinct privilege to recognize such a remarkable woman, to thank her for her tireless service to our veterans and former POWs, and to wish her a very happy 91st birthday.

Her accomplishments are recorded in the Congressional Record, which will endure as long as there is a United States of America.

I do thank my friend from Virginia for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, this has been a day that answered a lot of our prayers seeing our good friend Steve Scalise here, and it brings to mind part of the story of that tragic morning that I haven't heard told anywhere else.

One of our Members, Georgia Congressman Barry Loudermilk, was there, and he was--the shooter started from behind the third base dugout and hit Steve Scalise right away. It was so deeply touching to hear Steve's words today. It is just rather emotional seeing so many of our prayers answered, seeing Steve return to the House.

That morning, Barry was saying that he was behind a little closet area, and as the shooter was moving toward the first base side continuing to shoot, Matt Mika had already been shot and was down, and Barry realized that he had no place to go. He looked for places to run, and there was no place to run.

The shooting had been going on for a while, perhaps 9 or 10 minutes at that point. Capitol Police Officer Griner was there. She and David Bailey, the other Capitol Police officer, were using their suburban for cover and shooting at the shooter--the hate-filled leftist who felt like it was a good idea to kill as many Republicans in Congress as he could.

It was gratifying to hear that admission from our friend from Maryland, former majority leader Hoyer, that it was hateful. He was full of hate. He was a leftist who had supported Bernie Sanders. It is not Bernie's Sanders' fault. You don't hear Republicans blaming a party or a candidate that a hate-filled person supported, but he was going to kill people. He was doing what he could.

Barry had no place to go, and he was working his way to where he was about--Barry was going to be in the open and could see there was no place to go, and he said a prayer. He saw that Officer Griner had been shot in the ankle, and she was trying to return fire but under tremendous amount of pain.

Just when it looked hopeless, David Bailey stepped out, completely uncovering himself. He had no cover at that point, and yelled twice: ``Drop your weapon. Drop your weapon.'' And as he said those words, the shooter fired twice at him. And as soon as he finished saying, ``Drop your weapon'' the second time, he fired twice and took the shooter down. Incredible courage.

When I saw David Bailey out at the hospital a few days after the shooting, I said: ``Barry Loudermilk said that when it looked pretty hopeless for him, you stepped out from behind the suburban completely uncovered, that you made yourself a target taking all the attention toward yourself. Did you do that?''

And David Bailey, a hero in every sense of the word, with his normal casual way of speaking, just said: ``It hit me all of a sudden. I had to make it him or me. I had to make it him or me. That is when I stepped out. And, fortunately, it was him.''

That kind of courage--when a shooter is about to get to a position to take out a bunch of defenseless people, some lying on the ground in the dugout, if he had made it just a little further, there would have been a lot of people killed that day.

Crystal Griner shooting as she could and David Bailey stepping away from any cover, and he just instinctively knew, ``I have to make it him or me,'' thank God and thank David Bailey he is still here today and the hate-filled shooter is not

So it was touch and go. The hate that filled this leftist shooter almost did in a couple of people who day. But by the grace of God, the great work of the doctors--but as the doctor said out there that night after the shooting, telling me, the President, Melania, and my staff member Andrew Keyes, it was--he said he would be on pins and needles that night because he just didn't know.

To see Steve Scalise, our dear friend, standing right here earlier today, is just an answer to prayer, and I can't wait to cook ribs again for my friend Steve Scalise very soon.

It is also a good day for America, despite the House passing a bill that would have helped Americans by at least repealing part of ObamaCare, as we had promised, and despite the immense suffering by millions around this country who actually became victims of the lie that if you like your insurance, you can keep it; if you like your doctor, you can keep him or her--well, it turns out those were lies when they were spoken, and the people who spoke them knew they were lies when they spoke them. It was discussed that that would not be the case, they wouldn't be able to keep their insurance, and people haven't.

It is a bit disingenuous when some of the alt-left media boasts that so many millions of people have gotten insurance that didn't have it, because there are an awful lot of people in my district that had insurance and, because of ObamaCare, they lost it, and then they were put on Medicaid--not even Medicare, but Medicaid. So they lost their doctor, they lost the hospital that was no longer in the network for Medicaid that they had before. ObamaCare took their insurance.

The people who have talked to me in east Texas and as I go around in other parts of the country, they were desperate. They have been desperate. They are still desperate. They say: Please, you got to give us some help.

It is tragic when you have some millionaires in the Senate who can get whatever healthcare they want, turning a cold shoulder to those suffering around the country because the countless promises they made to repeal ObamaCare are being broken every day we are in session and the Senate does not pass at least some kind of repeal of ObamaCare.

I mean, what kind of person promises over and over, ``You elect me, I will repeal ObamaCare, I will get it repealed,'' knowing that there will be a

smug and proud vote against any effort to repeal, even partially repeal ObamaCare?

You make promises like that knowing that, without those promises, you would not get elected. People count on your promises because they really are hurting, they need the medicine that they are not getting under the new Medicaid, they don't have the doctor that was providing so much help under their insurance before ObamaCare took it away. And an almost cheerful breaking of those promises, it really is tragic. It is simply tragic.

It is really unfortunate that they don't have the millions, like some Senators, to get whatever healthcare they want, that they make--they could suffer less, perhaps be cured if Republican Senators all kept their promises.

It is just tragic. But despite that, this has been a week where the House has done what we can under reconciliation. We sent a bill to the Senate. They didn't have to pass that bill, just something so that we could have a conference bill to give Americans the help they needed.

We have done what we can there, so we are taking up tax reform. And if we do the right thing by Americans, they will have more money in their pockets. If we pass the bill that has just been proposed--I don't have all the details--the framework certainly looks like something we can really work with that will put a lot more money in middle class pockets.

It is interesting. I hear some people, especially at the other end of the hall in the opposite party, opposing party, who make efforts to tax the poor in order to reward Republican rich friends. We saw back in 2008, there were apparently a whole lot more rich people on Wall Street that supported Barack Obama than supported the unfortunate losing candidate of the Republican Party that year.

Yeah, the rich people on Wall Street, more of them supported Barack Obama. That kind of goes against what is thought to be conventional wisdom that the Republicans are rich and the Democrats are poor when the reports we have to file annually indicate that some of us came here without anything and we sacrificed virtually everything we had to run, to try to make a difference in this country, and we haven't become rich by being here; whereas, there are an awful lot of millionaire Democrats here in the House and in the Senate.

But if you look at what has been proposed, the lowest tax rate in America right now is 10 percent. And it appears, we are told, it should be everybody paying 10 percent right now should end up paying no tax. Well, personally, I would rather see us have everybody pay something in the way of income tax, pay something, the lowest rate possible--whether it is 6, 7, or 8 percent, maybe 7 percent, something--so that every single American pays an income tax so they understand how important it is to have a frugal government and not just constantly be handing out welfare, especially in cases that involve fraud.

I had a lady that was telling me there in Tyler, Texas, that she used to, every spring, work for H&R Block in helping people prepare their tax returns. She said she finally had to give it up. People would come in and they wouldn't have Social Security numbers. They would have tax ID numbers.

Now, why would they have tax ID numbers? Well, even though the law says that you are not supposed to be filing tax returns because you are not supposed to be working if you don't have a Social Security number, the IRS assumed--and we know what that means, they assumed--that, gee, if we give people a tax ID number, then they will pay income tax, and that will bring in more money to the coffers.

But, according to this lady, the reason she couldn't do it anymore was she was becoming a nervous wreck because so many people were coming in with tax identification numbers, not Social Security numbers, and they would have a list of things that they would want her to put in their tax return. And they always had, she said, a number of children listed that they wanted to claim that would ensure that they got more money back from an earned income tax credit than they even paid in.

Since she was a senior citizen on a fixed income, the little extra help that she made helping people prepare tax returns, she gave it up. It was driving her a bit crazy to help people get back more money than they paid in over and over and over again when she understood the law. That is not supposed to be what happened.

So a lot of people say, hey, folks that are illegally in the country--and we are not talking about any particular place, just people illegally here from wherever they are--when they file a tax return and get more back than they paid in, then that is not quite as some represent, oh, gee, they pay so much money in income tax, they are good for the country.

Well, we know an awful lot of hard workers who we have seen--illegal aliens. I hear contractors say: I found out one of my best workers is not here legally.

But it brings us back to the point: Why are such hardworking people especially coming from south of the border into the United States? Well, obviously, for those type of folks--they came in and they are hardworking--they came to get jobs.

But that begs the question: Why are they having to come to the United States to get jobs? They are hardworking. Why wouldn't they find jobs in Mexico or El Salvador or Guatemala? Why wouldn't they find jobs in these other Central American countries or Mexico? The answer is obviously very clear: it is because of all of the corruption.

Even though I understand the President of Mexico recently claimed there were no drug cartel murders going on at the very time when there were an enormous number that happened within the few days of him saying that, we know there is murder, there is corruption, and it is from the drug cartels.

And the gangs and the coyotes that bring people into the United States illegally, they answer to the drug cartels. It is the Border Patrol that told me over and over, every inch of the U.S.-Mexico border is spoken for by some drug cartel; and if you cross into the United States without paying an appropriate price or dues to that drug cartel, then you are not going to last very long because they feel they have to make an example of you.

I saw one estimate of $70 billion or $80 billion, somewhere around there, estimated to have gone from the United States into Mexico, to the drug cartels, for illegal drugs. Well, if we build a wall where it is appropriate and we totally secure our border 100 percent, then that $70 billion, $80 billion that is used for the drug cartels in their corruption of the Mexican cities and federal government and state government, that dries up to nothing. And if we could help dry up the $70 billion to $80 billion to $70,000 or $80,000 for illegal drugs, then, finally, we would help Mexico--as the best neighbor Mexico could ever dream of having--to become one of the very top economies in the world.

They ought to be one of the top 10 economies now, maybe top 5. All the massive natural resources that Mexico has, they are actually in a better location for trade than the United States. They are between two continents, North and South America. They are between two oceans like we are, the Pacific and the Atlantic, with, of course, the Gulf of Mexico in between. They ought to be a top 10 economy, but they are not because of corruption from the drug money that illegally crosses the U.S. border into Mexico. We cut that off.

And then you have all these hardworking people who just want to help their families. They don't want to have to flee the country they love to find a job. The jobs would be abounding all over Mexico. Isn't that what a friendly, caring neighbor would do for a neighbor? Shouldn't we want to help Mexico stop the corruption? Of course.

And any Mexican-elected official who says that there is no corruption, that there is no drug cartel influence, or that there is nobody being killed by the drug cartels, well, a statement by a Mexican-elected official that those things are not going on is an indication that that elected official is either completely ignorant of what is going on in his or her country or they are, as one would suspect, under the finger of the drug cartels themselves.

So I am hopeful we are going to be able to get a wall where we need it. President Trump and Attorney General

Sessions are both doing everything they can to help secure the border. We need a Secretary of Homeland Security, and I am sure that will be coming quickly. The Democrats will probably try to block whoever it is for as long as they can, but we need a Secretary of Homeland Security; and we need our border secured not merely to help us, but as being the best possible thing we could do as a caring neighbor of Mexico.

Our Republican Conference we had in the House yesterday seemed very productive. We had a good discussion about the proposed tax reform, and, as I was mentioning earlier, you will have people who have been paying 10 percent will go to paying nothing. Some that are paying much higher taxes will be cut down to 12 percent, and brackets indicating that there is going to be an awful lot more money in the pockets of people who are working, that will be fantastic, because when we leave more money in the pockets of those who have actually earned it, it gets the economy going.

People, whom I have immense respect for, like Dr. Arthur Laffer, Stephen Moore, Larry Kudlow, it is very clear to them, when they run the numbers, we could never adequately tax our way out of bankruptcy the direction we are headed. We couldn't. We cannot tax enough. If you put on too much tax, then people quit working.

But the way to make Social Security solvent and to make Medicare solvent is if we get the economy growing not at the 1.8 percent--I believe that was the average for the Obama administration--but for the good of everybody. People keep the money in their pockets. That allows them to spend it, and it causes the economy to grow.

I know, during the Obama administration, they saw 3 percent growth in the economy as just being virtually impossible; and I can understand, because their idea was tax, tax, tax, and that kills an economy. Whereas, if you allow people to have more of their own money, they spend more of their money. That allows more jobs to be created, and there are more people paying taxes. They begin making more, so they are paying higher taxes, even though it is at a lower rate. That helps stimulate the economy.

I was really hoping that President Trump's number of 15 percent corporate tax would work out to be our number for corporate tax. I was hoping that would be for regular C corporations, as well as a pass- through subchapter S corporation, because President Trump and I and others know that if it is a 15 percent corporate tax, then we would get back most of the manufacturing jobs, which fled America because of our massive 35 percent tax. Actually, by the time you add in all the others, it is well over 40 to 50 percent tax on corporations.

The reason some of us say the corporate tax is one of the most insidious taxes there is is because the government defrauds Americans into thinking they are not paying the corporate tax. These evil, rich corporations are paying those taxes. They are saying: ``We are not paying them. Make the evil corporations.'' Whereas, anybody that is going to really be honest about it would have to say: ``Well, the truth is, yeah, it is actually a pass-through from the customer, because if the corporation doesn't pass on that massive tax they are paying, they go out of business.''

So it is actually an additional tax on the little guy. So the middle class, lower-income folks are paying the big corporate tax. It is not the wealthy. It is the customers that are paying all that extra corporate tax.

So if you got the tax rate for corporations down to 15 percent, those companies start coming back, the manufacturing jobs come back.

As I mentioned to the President one time: ``Mr. President, you understand it because of your great business acumen, and I understand it from studying history, but any major nation that cannot manufacture what they need in a time of war will not be a major nation after the next war.''

The President wants those jobs back. It is not 15 percent being proposed. It is 20 percent. But that will bring back jobs. Not as many as if we had a 15 percent corporate tax, but it will bring back jobs.

I know there are those who say: Oh, we have evolved in America. We are more of a service economy. We don't want to be a manufacturing economy with those dirty jobs.

Yes, we do. We need to have those manufacturing jobs. Those are good jobs. We have requirements that you have to be concerned about the health of Americans. And by doing that, we bring back the jobs, we help our economy, and we actually save Social Security and Medicare.

I see my friend, Dr. Harris, is here.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honor to be here on the House floor.

We passed appropriations bills. It is a rare thing to hear it coming from me, but the Appropriations Committee for the Republican majority here in the House of Representatives has actually done an extraordinary job this year. It hasn't been easy. They have spent a tremendous amount of hours taking votes, during which it was made particularly partisan.

It is just a shame when people will take votes just along party lines and not even reach out in the areas where there is mutual interest. But, as with any bill, there are things that could have been better. But our appropriators took some tough votes, and some of them tough politically, but, overall, they did a remarkable job and they are to be commended for the work they did.

We actually got our 12 appropriations bills passed in the House. I look forward to the day--it may be years away, months away, weeks away, days away--when the Senate is capable of passing 12 appropriations bills.

It is very important, too, that we note the agreement that President Trump reached. Widely reported, the President made a deal with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. But whether it is one of the worst votes I have taken or not, I knew, number

one--Texas had been going through Hurricane Harvey, but Texas had planned for the future. And God bless the Texas Legislature. Governor Greg Abbott has been a dear friend since we started as district judges together back in January of 1993. And I think the world of Governor Greg Abbott. He is doing a superb job through the emergency situation that Hurricane Harvey has created in Texas.

Also, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick is a very good friend. I think the world of him. He has done a remarkable job leading there in Texas from the standpoint of being the head of the Senate. He's a very conservative man of principle. It is just a pleasure to have such able, competent, not just conservatives, but very smart people who are people of principle.

They created a rainy day fund. It has billions of dollars in it. Obviously, Harvey was definitely a rainy day.

But when we took this vote on getting money into the emergency, the FEMA, our emergency system, we were assured by people that I believed to be very honest that they really were out of money for FEMA. That vote had to be taken to get money into our emergency system so they could help Florida prepare as Hurricane Irma approached.

Like I said, Texas had prepared for a rainy day as far beyond the extent of their preparation. But I knew we could haggle over emergency funding, we could haggle over the debt ceiling, we could haggle over a CR coming up, and Texas would be okay while we were debating for 2, 3, 4 weeks, whatever it took until we got agreement. But Florida did not have a rainy day fund. They needed help. Irma was approaching.

But the other thing that struck me about the need to get that vote done, give the President 90 days, was that we still have not changed the law to give Americans the help that so many tens or hundreds of millions needed. We have got over 300 million here in the country and, of course, there was bragging about the millions that got healthcare under ObamaCare.

Well, that is a misnomer. It is a misstatement because the truth is that some people got health insurance, but there were millions of people that got--well, they lost the insurance. So all the statements about, ``If you like your insurance, you can keep it,'' those were lies. Those people making those statements have been now shown they knew they were lies at the time they were being made. The architect of ObamaCare knew that people would lose their insurance they liked; knew that they would lose doctors they liked.

The way ObamaCare was designed, it even gave huge incentives, financially, to the remaining big monopoly health insurance companies not to bring into their network hospitals like MD Anderson or Cleveland Clinic. There were actually incentives built in ObamaCare to have health insurance companies not put chronic care facilities like cancer and heart disease in their network because that meant people that had those conditions would get that insurance because they had things like MD Anderson or Cleveland Clinic or Mayo, whatever it was, in network, and they didn't want them because that would be costly.

So it was a very subtle way ObamaCare was designed in order to encourage insurance companies to actually avoid giving people the doctors they had had before, the facilities they had had before and, in many cases, lifesaving and life-lengthening facilities.

So there are just so many people hurting. In August, as I went all over east Texas--from the very southeast end down in Sabine County to the very north end, up in northwest end, up in Wood County, to the northeast end, up in Harrison County, down to the southwest corner of my district, down below Diboll in Angelina County--people are hurting, and they are begging for Congress to keep its word.

We said: If you gave us the majority in the House and Senate, we would repeal ObamaCare.

And, by golly, the American public gave us the majority in the House and Senate. Yes, President Obama was in the White House, but we got the majority in the House and Senate. And, holy smoke, we were able to get--it wasn't a total repeal, but, under reconciliation procedures, we were able to repeal most of ObamaCare in the House and in the Senate, and send it to the President's desk, where he vetoed it. Well, that wasn't a big surprise.

So Republicans were saying: Okay. You give us the House, the Senate majority, and the White House, then it is a no-brainer because then we have a President who will sign the bill that we passed when Obama was President, and this time the Republican President will surely sign it.

Well, not only do we know we have a Republican in the White House, but President Trump--God bless him--made clear: If you just send me that bill that you passed in the last Congress that Obama vetoed, I will sign it, and then we can work on a healthcare system where people can get the care they need.

Now, what has not been talked about in the alt-left media--some people call them the mainstream media. But the alt-left, mainstream media, whatever you want to call them, they have talked about all the millions of people that now have health insurance.

No. Most of those--it may be a few, but most of them have got Medicaid. That is not the most desirable insurance you can have.

And another thing that needs to be made clear: health insurance is not healthcare. Anyone in America here legally, illegally, criminal, non criminal, it doesn't matter, if you are in the United States and you have a problem, you can go to the emergency room.

I have been in emergency rooms with my immediate family members, including kids, in-laws. I mean, I have been there. And we wait in line behind people that may have a cold or a cut or a minor this or that. They have got healthcare.

And most of those people aren't going to pay anything, and they got the healthcare they needed. Now, they don't have health insurance, apparently, most of them that I have been in line behind, because you could hear the discussion as they go through filling out the forms with the hospital people. It would be far better if we had a better system of clinics for people like that so they didn't have to go tie up the most expensive healthcare there is in the emergency room. They could go to a clinic and get the things they need.

I was yanking a hook out of a catfish that my youngest daughter had caught some years back, and it is kind of embarrassing, a Member of Congress, and the hook had not set until it was well down in the catfish, so I was having a lot of trouble getting it out. And I got a long needle-nose pliers and I was pulling it out, and I just strained as hard as I could and, lo and behold, pulled the hook out and embedded it very deeply in my hand down at the base of the thumb.

People started freaking out. It was no big deal. I mean, I just had a hook buried about three-quarters of an inch or so in my thumb.

I went down for an emergency. I didn't want to. Somebody said: Look, we will take care of your daughter. You need to get a tetanus shot. When I found out the line was going to be about 2 hours before they could get around to messing with the hook that was embedded in my thumb, well, I went home and ended up using ice, and I eventually got it out myself.

But I know, even without one of my kids or relatives, just by myself, I have been there. I have sat there. I have listened to conversations. There is no question, health insurance is not healthcare.

People are still hurting, and they relied on our promise; and if we don't get the big part of ObamaCare repealed, at least at a minimum, and get a system in place that gets people back toward the kind of healthcare they once knew and loved--if we weren't part of the government, as an old judge, I know those lawsuits would be brought.

The allegation in the pleadings would be that a promise was made which lured someone in to act to their detriment based on those promises. The doctrine, legally, is called promissory estoppel. The judge could issue an order, if you win the case, and prevent someone from going back on their word after they made a promise on which another party relied to their detriment.

Unfortunately for the American public, when it is Congress, or, in particular, the Senate, and in particular a Republican Senator, or more, who makes an absolute repeated promise

over and over that they are going to do something if you elect them or reelect them and people rely on that, they vote them in and it turns out it is to their detriment because that Senator was not being honest in running for office, well, it is kind of a shame that you can't get a judge to come in and say: ``I am issuing an order under the doctrine of promissory estoppel. You will not be allowed to back down off of your promise. You will make good on your promise.''

When it is the government, you can't sue them and force that, because promissory estoppel does not apply in a government situation, not normally.

So what are we left with? Well, people can say, well, you know, wait until the next election. We will have to replace people. No. This is it. This is the chance. This is a generational chance. We promised people certain things we would do, and I was fully supportive of the promises that President Donald J. Trump made that helped him get elected. Particularly, he promised to repeal and replace ObamaCare. For heaven's sake, we ought to be helping him in that.

I am very grateful. We had some difficult times there between some of us, particularly the House Freedom Caucus and the House leadership, but Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, they came through. We worked together and we got an agreement that repealed most of ObamaCare, and we got it down to the Senate.

I have my friend from West Virginia, and I would be glad to yield to him.

Expressing First Amendment Rights

I have been to my friend's home, beautiful as it is in a beautiful part of the country, and I appreciate the gentleman's recognition. It sounds like it is well deserved.

Regarding what has to be done about healthcare, clearly, the Senate is not going to get to 60 votes on anything to do with repealing, replacing ObamaCare. We have this reconciliation procedure that we went through all the hoops, dotted the I's, crossed the T's, and we passed the budget, got the rule set for reconciliation so the Senate can pass a bill in reconciliation with 51 votes instead of 60.

Of course, the majority leader could say: You know what? This is such a critical promise we made about healthcare that, just like the Reid rule, when it is really, really important, we will set aside the 60- vote cloture rule so that we can get something done, whether it is a confirmation, whatever it is, that saves lives, helps Americans.

Well, if there was ever a bill that fit that situation, it would be one that helped save lives through repealing at least the biggest, worst parts of ObamaCare.

Nonetheless, under that reconciliation procedure, we have until September 30 to get it done with 51 votes. I have got to say, earlier this summer--I have been here 12\1/2\ years. I have never seen a situation where the majority party in the Senate was calling those in the majority party in the House, including the Speaker and the leadership team, and calling those of us in the House Freedom Caucus, calling those in the Tuesday Group, and their one big question--I have never heard of this happening in American history--their big question was: Would you please promise us that, if we pass this bill in the Senate, you promise us you will not take up our bill and pass it as it is, because the only chance we have, we are told, of passing this bill in the Senate is if we know for sure it won't become law.

I have never heard of that happening before, but that is what happened this summer. From our Speaker on down, our different groups: Yes, we promise you we won't let that bad bill you're voting on become law. We will make sure it goes to conference, and we will get something a lot better than that that we send to the House and Senate to vote on.

It didn't get passed, and we have until September 30 to keep from being about as big a bunch of liars as has ever been in Congress. That is it.

I am very grateful--again, here, I appreciate the Appropriations Committee, and I will express appreciation here, now, for Speaker Paul Ryan, because he has agreed with me and some others about the kind of pressure we are going to put on when we get back the last week of September if the Senate has not passed their ObamaCare repeal bill. They have got to pass something or we can't get it to conference. We can't get the American public what they need.

Now, some of you have said: Well, if you had just passed that first bill the Republican leaders had put together. Well, I am not sure who put it together. It may have been the remaining health insurance companies and Big Pharma, from what I could tell, but it was not going to do anybody any good except the insurance companies and Big Pharma. It was not going to help rank-and-file Americans the way we promised them we would help them.

There are some that say: Yeah, but, Louie, if you guys had just voted ``yes'' immediately on that bill, it would have gotten wind in the sails of the President and we would already have tax reform.

Well, I am here to tell you, Mr. Speaker, if we had passed that first bill, and when people saw their premiums continuing to shoot up and their deductibles continuing to shoot up and just these overwhelming prices, it would not have been wind in the sails of President Trump. It would have meant that people would have been so angry, a lot of Republicans would have stayed home and a lot of Democrats who voted for Donald Trump and Members of the Republican House and Senate, they would stay home or they would go out and vote for someone else, and the first order of business in January 2019 would probably have been, when we lost the majority, the impeachment of President Trump. It shouldn't be. It is not appropriate, but that is probably what would have happened if we had just jumped on that first bad bill.

We have got a good bill. We have still got a chance. We have got to get this done for the good of America. If we can't get this done, we have no business being in the majority. It just brings you to just throw up your hands: My goodness, what good is this?

I will also say, Mr. Speaker, the old adage is true: democracy ensures a people are governed no better than they deserve.

We have got too many Americans across this country that are not paying attention. They are like some friends I had in high school that said: Well, Louie, I don't care what the government does as long as they stay out of my business. Well, they have come to find out, if you don't care what the government does, they are not going to stay out of your business; they are going to take it over--your life, your business, everything.

People have got to get reengaged, pay attention, get out and vote, and we have got a chance to get it fixed. It is absolutely essential before September 30, at midnight, that we get something done to help the American people.

I am looking forward, if the Senate doesn't get a decent bill done, I want us to pass a sense of the House bill right here in the House that says it is the sense of the House that the Senate absolutely must pass a bill to give the American public the help they need with healthcare by repealing the worst parts of ObamaCare, at a minimum.

And then follow the Speaker out here on the steps, and every one of us point to the Senate, and keep putting the pressure on. Keep on putting the pressure on until, hopefully, they do something.

But it may be that they get it done. We don't have to get into a battle of words and wits like that. The American public is expecting it. We promised it. We have got to get that done. In the meantime, I know there is a lot of discussion, a lot of calls today about, oh, gee, the President is talking about DACA this, and DACA that.

I have spent so many hours, so many nights, down on the border all night long, and I always heard the same things from my friends in the Border Patrol. Every time anybody in Congress, or in the administration, starts talking about, well, we are working out a deal for amnesty for this, or to legalize that, then we get a huge surge in people coming across our southern border.

So I will continue to refuse to make statements about what I think about--should we agree to this; should we compromise on this legalization, this amnesty? Because every time we do, people get lured into the United States.

When that happens, there are always some that get drawn into sex slavery. Some get drawn into being mules and drug dealers for the drug cartels; and some--we have seen the video, we have seen the evidence-- they die trying to get in.

We should not be luring people in. We need to secure the border. That includes building a wall where we need it. We don't need one in Big Bend National Park, in my opinion. If you can get across Big Bend National Park carrying all of the water you are going to need to get clear across there, then I want you in America, and I want you in our military. You are an extraordinary person. We don't need a wall through Big Bend National Park, most of it, anyway, but there are places we do.

We have got to secure the border. If you go down there, south of McAllen, the river is wide, flowing fast. If you just have people along the river--I have been there, I know. The coyotes will not bring people across if they see there is law enforcement that will stop them. The trouble was, during the Obama administration, they didn't stop them. They didn't even process them when they got across. I have seen it.

Why wouldn't you stop them? Why wouldn't you say: No, you are not coming on to U.S. land. Go back. Come in legally. We want you, but you have got to come in legally.

It is time to secure the border. President Trump is making great strides in that area. General Kelly--God bless him--he was making great strides when he was head of Homeland Security. I was so thrilled he was there. I knew about the things he was doing, and I sure hope it continues, whoever replaces him. But we have got to secure our border, build a wall where it is needed.

We have got to repeal ObamaCare--the worst parts of it, anyway--and get people the help they need.

We have also got to give them the tax reform they need. As Art Laffer told me--he was asking me: Louie, you know, once we got that 30 percent tax cut in 1983, the third year of the President Reagan administration, do you know what the rate of growth was? Here we have been talking about 1.92 percent. It was 8 percent or over when they had the big tax cut.

People got jobs. They made more money than ever. It was incredible. It is time to get back to that kind of growth. It is time to get back to a healthcare system where we are not slaves to a health insurance company, and we are not slaves to the U.S. Government, where we have control of our doctor-patient relationship, and America can heal; it can grow; it can prosper.

We can bring back manufacturing jobs, which are so critical to this Nation, but we have got to get it done, and it has got to start this month.

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

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 1 o'clock and 34 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until Monday, September 18, 2017, at 2 p.m.

Mr. Chairman, as the designee of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Posey), I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to offer an amendment to H.R. 3354. Originally this was offered by my friend from Florida (Mr. Posey), who is currently helping his constituents recover from Hurricane Irma, so I rise on behalf of Mr. Posey.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would strike the IRS' Operations Support account by $165,300 and transfer that amount to the Spending Reduction account. The effect would be to eliminate the salary of IRS Commissioner John Koskinen's salary, in fact, and would finally begin a tiny amount of accountability that American taxpayers have deserved for quite some time.

Not only did Commissioner Koskinen fail to hold the IRS accountable for wrongfully targeting groups based on their lawful political beliefs, but he obstructed the congressional investigations into the scandal.

When Congress requested the testimony of Lois Lerner, who was head of the Exempt Organization Division at the IRS, she took the Fifth Amendment and refused to cooperate. Instead of providing these records, as required, Mr. Koskinen chose to--in his words--``recycle'' the Lerner email records. By recycle, Mr. Koskinen meant, obviously by his actions, destroy evidence that was part of a congressional investigation, which was in direct conflict with his duties as a public servant and, in particular, as head of the Internal Revenue Service.

After obstructing a congressional investigation, Mr. Koskinen then lied about it under oath on several occasions before Congress. In other words, he repeatedly and contemptuously perjured himself before Congress.

Now, on June 20, 2014, for example, Mr. Koskinen testified in a Ways and Means Committee hearing that since the targeting investigation started, every email had been preserved and nothing was lost. At that very same hearing, Mr. Koskinen said that the backup files no longer existed. He then went on to say that the IRS had ``gone to great lengths to spend a significant amount of money trying to make sure that there were no emails that were required that has not been produced.''

That, as we found out, was a blatant lie. Mr. Koskinen and his staff had gone to no lengths to get these emails. They had done nothing. In fact, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said that the IRS under Koskinen--his direction--simply did not look for the emails at all. Later, more than 1,000 emails were recovered from backup tapes that the IRS had attempted to destroy knowing they were being sought by Congress.

A year later, on June 20, 2015, Mr. Koskinen again falsely testified--also known as perjuring himself--that all of the Lerner emails had been preserved--not lost--but the IRS had destroyed the emails, in fact, and tried to destroy the backup tapes as well. That was well after the investigation had started and the emails were being sought.

Koskinen's dishonesty and obstructionist actions were not limited to congressional business. His actions directly affected American taxpayers. Under his tenure, IRS customer service for the 2015 filing season was nothing short of abysmal. Taxpayers were forced to wait hours to speak to an IRS agent, even after Congress gave him more money than he had had before for that assistance, but under his control and direction, it was squandered in other ways.

The terrible customer service was a direct result of Mr. Koskinen's IRS directing funds meant for taxpayer services toward other priorities.

At his confirmation hearing, Commissioner Koskinen promised that he would be transparent. That was a lie. This man's salary should be reduced.

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

Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, I hope and literally pray that at some point we will put politics aside and, when somebody lies in front of Congress, we will join together to say: Not before Congress; there will be consequences.

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

Mr. Speaker, it has been a deeply troubling last 12 hours--

24 hours, I guess. The House went about trying to repeal the--and it is just tough to say--Affordable Care Act because of the thousands of people we have heard from in my district in the last 7 years who have just been devastated by the costs that skyrocketed, the premiums that skyrocketed, the deductibles that skyrocketed, the critically important doctor or medicine or facility that President Obama promised they could keep that was taken away by ObamaCare. It is just hard to call it the Affordable Care Act because it has cost some people everything.

But every Republican had promised we would repeal ObamaCare. It is possible Susan Collins in the Senate may not have. She didn't vote for the repeal in the last Congress, but it is my understanding that virtually everybody had promised: If you will elect me, or reelect me, I will vote for repeal.

I have literally prayed for Senator John McCain with the cancer that they found out has overtaken him, and I do hope and pray for a speedy, full recovery. But I do recall, vividly, that election in Arizona, and apparently he was extremely concerned about getting reelected.

There was hard-charging opposition in the Republican primary, more than one primary opponent, and as I recall, there were repeated promises that the Senator, if the good people of Arizona would just reelect him, give him another 6 years, he would be working tirelessly, he would be working so hard to repeal ObamaCare.

And I did go down to the Senate Chamber this week a couple of days ago. I went down because I thought it would be historic, potentially, to have the Senate vote to proceed to debate on what we hoped would be an actual repeal of ObamaCare.

It turns out they called it a skinny bill, or a skinny repeal. It wasn't much of a repeal at all. In fact, I guess there is a decent chance, if that had passed and become law, it may have very well ensured the total collapse of private insurance and, ultimately, the desire of those who pushed through ObamaCare. We would ultimately end up with socialized medicine, rationed care.

I am not a fan of the term ``single payer'' because it masks what we are really talking about. We are talking about government takeover of healthcare. And as we have watched the little precious child, Charlie Gard's parents going through absolute hell, there have been so many questions: Whether you agree or disagree, should he be allowed to have further surgery? Should he have been allowed to have a procedure that might have saved his life?

It ends up going to court, and because of the laws in England with their socialized medicine, the government gets to choose who can have potentially lifesaving procedures, what life-enhancing procedures, and who can't. That is the nature of socialized medicine.

During my summer in the former Soviet Union, back when I was in college as an exchange student over there, I didn't just have tours, I saw the way people were treated in the socialized medicine of the Soviet Union.

I have heard even some of my dear friends and colleagues here in the House say: We know socialized medicine always fails.

Actually, that is something I don't know. What I know and what I believe is socialized medicine never actually fails. Now, socialism will always fail. It always has. Even going back to the New Testament church when the Apostle Paul tried this beautiful, wonderful concept: bringing all into the common storehouse, sharing and sharing alike.

Well, eventually he realized that is going to work in Heaven just beautifully, but it sure doesn't work on Earth. So here is a new rule: if you don't work, you don't eat.

Why? Because in this beautiful, incredible world where people are human, they are imperfect. Everyone has done wrong at some point and fallen short of the glory of God--every one of us. Nobody is perfect. So you can't have a perfect system that does anything but become a totalitarian government.

It has to become totalitarian in order to force people to bring into the common storehouse. When you do that, you eliminate the incentives that have proved over recorded history to be the least effective. If you don't have incentives, it is ineffective. People don't work the hardest.

Mr. Speaker, I have mentioned before--because there was a great example during that summer in the Soviet Union at a collective farm 30 miles or so outside of Kiev--there were thousands and thousands of acres, but I could not tell the difference between the cultivated areas and the noncultivated areas.

I've worked on farms and ranches. This was in the middle of July. We are at about the same latitude in east Texas. You want to get out there as close to sunup as you can because it gets so hot by midafternoon you want to be finishing up by midafternoon.

Here it was the middle of the morning, and most of the farmers were out there in the middle of the village area there in the shade. Back in Mount Pleasant growing up, some of the older gentlemen had a spit and whittle club. That reminded me of that, the old guys just sitting around talking--young and old.

So I tried to use my best Russian and asked: When do you work out in the field? Obviously, these guys hadn't worked up a sweat all morning. I was trying to be pleasant. When do you work out in the field?

They all laughed. So I thought maybe I didn't say it right. But one of them then responded in Russian: I make the same number of rubles if I am out there in the sun or I am here in the shade, so I am here in the shade.

Obviously, I have not forgotten this. It is such a great example of why socialism never works because there is no incentive to work. Oh, yes, you can punish people. But that doesn't provide nearly the incentive as the Pilgrims found, their beautiful Compact: bring into the common storehouse, share and share alike.

After they lost so many people that first harsh winter, they tried something called private property--you got to keep what you produced. Wow, did it work out well. It has worked out well over the years even to the present time, although this government has continued to buy and take over more and more land and move in the direction of being socialistic.

But our medicine has not been really socialistic. It has been taken over more and more by government and the insurance companies. Why in the world did the insurance companies support ObamaCare, the ACA, in the past? Because they were so shortsighted.

I think they and the big pharmaceutical companies knew that eventually by signing onto ObamaCare they were signing their own death warrants. Not immediately. Those executives that got involved would be able to take their golden parachutes and their millions and millions of dollars in distribution. But, ultimately, we would become a socialized medicine country.

You would see mortality rates begin to go up where people didn't live as long. People would not get the knee, hip, and the back surgeries and hearing aids. The government ends up deciding who is worthy and who is not.

So America voted the Democrats out of majorities in the House and Senate mainly because they pushed through ObamaCare. The huge majority of Americans were satisfied with their health insurance, their health insurance plans, and their healthcare.

There is a big difference. Those terms, health insurance and healthcare, have been skewed. There is a big difference. We have got to get back to a place where patients and doctors have a relationship unencumbered and without being separated by insurance companies and the government.

But if we don't repeal ObamaCare, we will move to total government control and Charlie Gard's situation where the government says: You can have a lifesaving procedure, but you cannot.

That day has already come, and it is going to be a common occurrence if we don't keep our promise and repeal ObamaCare.

I was down there when they voted to proceed to debate. But, honest to goodness, even though I have been here 12 years and think nothing shocks me, I couldn't believe that so many people who promised over and over and over again ``we will repeal ObamaCare, we will end ObamaCare, we will get you back in control of your healthcare, we will get you back affordable healthcare'' couldn't vote even for the skinny bill.

It hardly did much of anything to ObamaCare, even a little bit.

It is the first time I am aware of in the history of the United States Congress where one body contacted the other body--the Senate, in this case, contacted the Republicans in the House--and said: Please, we think we can pass our bill in the Senate, but you have got to promise us you won't pass it in the House. We will go to conference. Please promise us you won't pass it in the House. We have a chance to pass it in the Senate.

What kind of governance is that? I think it is a good thing to take a break from being here in session where we talk to ourselves too much. I think that is a problem here on both ends of the House.

I am proud of some of the things we have done here in the House. We have made some progress. We need to make a lot more. We need to pass the tax reform. I want to see the corporate tax get down to 15 percent so those hundreds of thousands of millions of jobs that went to China can come back to the United States. Why? Because we undercut the income tax that China charges to corporations.

What is a corporate tax? It is an insidious fee that citizens have to pay where the government makes them think they are not paying it--oh, it is the evil corporation paying it. No. It is every customer pays for the corporate tax.

If you reduce that tax, then we become competitive around the world in things that we are not competitive, and jobs come back here. As any historian can tell you, an international power that does not produce the things they need in a time of war will not remain an international power after the next war.

When we lost production of steel, of rubber, and of tires--all these things that are critical in the time of war--it will encourage our enemies to take advantage of the fact that they provide the things we will need in a time of war. The only way you really effectively avoid war, as President Reagan made clear, is you become so strong nobody wants to fight you. Those are the small times of peace in world history either when someone is so strong they enslave everybody else or that one country is so strong that believes in freedom that they force the evil leaders in the world to stay at bay where people have peace.

I want peace. I want a strong America. I want to keep our promises and have tax cuts. I feel pretty comfortable that we are going to do it in the House.

I just hope and pray, Mr. Speaker, that those in the Senate who have made promises about repealing ObamaCare and cutting taxes will have the kind of August where God lays it on their hearts that it is not a good thing to lie to the American people or constituents, and that the best thing I can do for myself politically and for my country is to keep my promises.

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

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 2 o'clock and 41 minutes p.m.), consistent with the fourth clause in section 5 of Article I of the Constitution, and notwithstanding section 132 of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, the House adjourned until Tuesday, August 1, 2017, at 11 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate Mr. Newhouse's efforts here.

Hearing a concern about the $1.6 billion for the wall, let me just say, living in Texas, spending a lot of time on the border, spending time in Mexico--it is where my wife and I went on our honeymoon--there is only one reason Mexico is not one of the top 10 economies in the world, and it is because the drug cartels make tens of billions of dollars they use for corruption to keep it from being that.

The best thing we could do as a good neighbor to Mexico is to build a wall where it is needed, just like President Trump has talked about, stop that flow of tens of billions of dollars to Mexico used for corruption to keep down the Mexican people--hardworking, God-fearing people--and bring that country up by being a good neighbor; because, in this case, a good fence or wall will make a good neighbor, and Mexico will have its rightful place in the economic hierarchy of the world.