Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, it has been quite a week. There have been tragedies, and there have been wonderful events.

In having been to Nigeria this past year and in having met with family members of girls who were kidnapped because they went to Christian schools, there were three girls I met who had escaped after they had been kidnapped. The kidnapped girls, it was known, were being sexually abused and may have now been sold into sex trafficking, given as wives, and have been ordered to convert from Christianity to Islam or be killed. I know there are some in this town who think they are

being asked to convert to an Islam that doesn't exist as a religion, but to those girls who are being told they must convert to the religion of Islam or be killed, it does seem to be a religion.

In having grieved with others around the world who have been harmed or who have had family killed or harmed by radical Islam, it is tragic this week.

I will read a story from Breitbart:

According to the United Nations, ISIS--the Islamic State--

is killing educated women following shari'a court sentences.

That is a problem. There is nothing wrong with religious people participating in government. Most of our Founders were very strong Christians. Around a third or so of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were actually ordained Christian servants. So that is a good thing, but when a religion also becomes the state, then this is the kind of thing you get, and it is tragic.

In an article by Edwin Mora, it says:

The U.N. warned on Tuesday that the Islamic State, known as

ISIS, ISIL, or IS, is showing a ``monstrous disregard for

human life'' in the areas it has conquered, which include

swaths of Iraq and Syria.

This article points out:

Nevertheless, President Obama, during his State of the

Union Address delivered Tuesday night, proclaimed that the

United States ``is stopping ISIL's advance'' in Iraq and

Syria. Just last week, The Daily Beast, citing an unnamed

Pentagon official, reported that, despite U.S.-led

airstrikes, ISIS is gaining ground in Syria.

The U.N. warned that the jihadist group is meting out

``cruel and inhuman punishments against men, women, and

children'' through ``unlawful'' shari'a courts it has

established in territory under its control.

The civilians falling victim to ISIS' wrath are accused of

``violating the group's extremist interpretations of Islamic

shari'a law or for suspected disloyalty,'' said Ravina

Shamdasani, spokesperson for the U.N. Office of the High

Commissioner for Human Rights.

ISIS has killed fellow jihadists and local residents for

violating the harsh version of Islamic law imposed on the

areas it now controls.

``Educated, professional women, particularly women who had

run as candidates in elections for public office, seem to be

particularly at risk. In just the first 2 weeks of the year,

reports indicated that three female lawyers were executed.''

It goes on:

``The ruthless murder of two men who were thrown off the

top of a building after having been accused of homosexual

acts by a so-called `court' in Mosul is another terrible

example of the kind of monstrous disregard for human life

that characterized ISIL's reign of terror over areas of Iraq

that were under the group's control.''

Look. I know, Mr. Speaker, that our President stood right here at the second level and told us ``the shadow of crisis has passed.'' Apparently, he is not getting the briefings, or maybe the briefings don't include just how bad the situation is around the world. Christians are being persecuted and are being killed in greater numbers than at any time in history since Jesus came. Jews are being subjected to anti-Semitic hate in many places, we are told, which has not been seen since before and during World War II.

Now, in growing up reading and studying history, I couldn't imagine that there would ever come another day that we would see hate growing against Jewish people that could inspire another Holocaust. I just didn't think it would happen. So, when I had read about General Eisenhower's having soldiers bring people from the surrounding communities to help clean up the death camps, I thought: These are civilians in the community, and that may have been a little harsh if they had nothing to do with the death camps.

I had read that his reasoning was--and this was many years ago--that he wanted to make sure that nobody could ever proclaim that the death camps did not exist and that they were a figment of someone's imagination. He wanted to make sure that could not happen, so they were brought out to clean up. Yet, mere decades later, here we are at a time when there are radical Islamists calling for a new, greater Holocaust to kill Jewish people, calling for the complete wiping off the map of Israel, calling for the complete destruction of what they call the ``Great Satan''--the United States.

The shadow of crisis may have passed, but the mental image I got when I heard the President say ``the shadow of crisis has passed'' took me back to fifth grade. I was very small in elementary school, and there was one guy who could have been two grades ahead, but he had been held back. He was about two heads taller than I was. I was on the playground one day, and as a little kid, I saw Ray's shadow pass me. I turned around, and I got smashed in the face, and it made my nose bleed. That was the image I had when the President invoked the shadow of the crisis' passing. If the shadow of this crisis has passed, then we may be just about to get smacked in the face by these radical Islamists, and it will be a lot more than a bloody nose that ends up occurring.

This is a very desperate time in the world for millions of people. Since they, perhaps, weren't journalists--the nearly 2,000 or so Nigerians who were killed by radical Islamists--Boko Haram, in Nigeria, didn't quite get the attention I thought it should have as did the horrendous killings in Paris get the attention, as they absolutely should have.

Under Western civilization law--and it was true in the early days of this country, and it has been true, as far as I know, under every State's law. I know, absolutely, it is true under State law--when it comes to a physical assault, the law has been clear: provoking words are never a defense to a physical assault. In this country, under our law and under the law of every State, no matter what you say, it does not justify a physical attack. We have even had the President of the United States basically stand up before the U.N., stand up in front of media, stand up in front of crowds, and say that we need to be more careful.

But he goes beyond that.

He appears to attribute blame for an attack on the people being attacked to the point that he and those who work for him were asked to go out and tell the country before the 2012 election that a video was responsible for the deaths of four Americans who were serving their country in Benghazi, Libya. It turns out that that was not true at all. It turns out people knew that before that was trotted out.

According to the book written about the blood feud between the Clintons and the Obamas, there was a phone call from Hillary Clinton to her husband in which she was upset that the President was asking her to go out and say that the Benghazi attack was the result of a video. According to the book, she was advised that America wouldn't buy a lie like that. Ultimately, they decided, at least, not to have her go on the Sunday shows--again, according to the book--and that, gee, if she resigns, that might cost him the election, and Democrats would be upset about it, so they would never want to nominate her for President if she resigned and cost Obama the election in 2012.

That was according to the book as to why she didn't resign, but she didn't go on the Sunday shows. Susan Rice was sent out with that task to blame a video when it was very clear, when Chris Stevens called, saying that he was under attack, there was nothing about a video mentioned. When the warnings were being given by those who were aware of a buildup of radicals--and of potential problems even across the street--nothing was mentioned about a video because it wasn't about a video; but that would have been an inconvenient truth so close to the election.

Our heartbreaks collectively for these killings, and it is my hope and prayer--liberal women's groups here in the United States prefer the easy task of attacking conservatives and of creating allegations that, gee, there is some war on women when, actually, as I speak, there is a war on women going on in radical Islamist-held countries. There is a war on baby women going on around the world, and there are people who actually choose to abort babies because they are baby women.

There is a war on women, but it is not by conservatives in the country, who want them to have the best health care they can get, who want young girls to have the best care they can get, both in the womb and outside the womb. This isn't where the war on women is occurring.

Although there are still some vestiges of prejudice against women, we are very hopeful that since the President has made such a big issue about treating women equally, it won't

be too long before the White House will start treating women equally and giving them equal pay for equal work. So I am encouraged the President keeps bringing that up, hoping that will inure to the benefit of people working at the White House so they will eventually be paid what men in the White House are paid.

I really do hope that liberal women's groups that take the easy path--taking potshots at conservatives--will stand with us against radical Islam.

I asked mothers of girls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram in Nigeria: Did they attack this school because it was a school for girls? They said that apparently they didn't realize that it was only girls at the school because they did ask: Where are the boys? Because they wanted to bring them out and shoot them, as they did at other places. When they realized it was only girls, they took them to become slaves, sexually and otherwise, and to force them to convert. But the school wasn't attacked because it was a girls school, because they didn't know it was only for girls. They knew it was Christian.

There was also an attack on Christian women. And I would hope that even the most atheist of women in the United States and in Western civilized countries around the world would start standing up for the mistreatment of Christian women who are particularly being brutalized because of their faith and because of their sex, combined.

So, of the Presidents we have had since 9/11, the President failed to mention al Qaeda. And I can understand that, and I have to be a little defensive for the President here. He and the Vice President had been saying before the 2012 election that al Qaeda was on the run. In some cases, Osama bin Laden is dead, al Qaeda is on the run, and General Motors is alive.

Well, it turns out if al Qaeda is on the run, it is a run directly at us and our allies, our friends. And that is particularly true of Israel. They consider Israel the little Satan and us the great Satan, but we have no better friend in the Middle East than Israel.

Our President has been overheard on a microphone that picked him up basically casting aspersions on the character of Prime Minister Netanyahu. Fair people that I have known, if they ever got caught maligning someone inappropriately, they would go out of their way to show that it was inappropriate--I want to make it up, and I want to show that we are friends. We may have disagreements, but we are friends.

Of course, people have read about him treating Prime Minister Netanyahu so poorly when he came to the White House in prior years, having him sit around. One account said he was told: Just wait here. And when you have a change of position, let me know. I'm going to eat with my family.

The Prime Minister ended up leaving rather than sitting in his corner for a timeout, as the President wanted.

We haven't seen this President make clear to the world that Israel is our friend, as well as to its leader, the people, and the legislature they have elected. We haven't seen those kind of outreaches.

And then, we find out the President is upset that the Speaker of the House invited Prime Minister Netanyahu to come speak here on February 11. And perhaps that is yet another indication of the ignorance. And, Mr. Speaker and our Parliamentarian, it doesn't cast aspersions to be ignorant of something--we are all ignorant of things--but apparently there is a blind spot in the Constitution for the President on a number of things, and apparently one is how the legislature works, even though he has been in the Senate, because under the Constitution, we can't have anybody in the people's House come speak here who is not a Member of Congress, with one exception. Under the Constitution and Thomas Jefferson's Rules of the House, under which we have been operating since 1789--with modifications, but it has still been the rule, you can't come speak in the House Chamber officially unless you are invited by the House. You can't come speak to a joint session of Congress, both the House and Senate, unless both the House and the Senate invite you.

Now how do we know that the President doesn't really grasp that concept and is not aware of the constitutional and the rule ramifications in Congress? It has been a few years back, but the President decided, as I recall, that he was going to come lecture Congress on a jobs bill and tell us--I think it was 16 or so times-- that we had to pass it right now, right away, failing to mention he didn't even have a bill.

Nevertheless, the President went out publicly and the statement was released that he was going to come to Congress and speak to Congress on a specific day at a specific time, and he had not even spoken to the Speaker of the House. Maybe he had talked to Majority Leader Reid, but he hadn't talked to the Speaker of the House, and this is the House Chamber where the House actually has to vote to invite him. He didn't even bother to see what was convenient.

And as I recall, not only was there ignorance of the rules and the constitutional requirements, but there was also ignorance about the NFL, what is known as football here in the United States, and I believe it was the beginning of the season. The President had just announced he wanted to come to Congress. He demanded to come speak to us, in conflict with the beginning of the first football game of the season. I believe it was the first. It was a big night. After that was pointed out, he ended up coming and speaking earlier. But the point being, no President has ever picked a date, said, Here's when I'm coming to speak to the House, without understanding you can't come unless you are invited.

You are not even allowed to come give an oral State of the Union Address unless the House and Senate vote to invite you to speak to a joint session. That has been the rule since we began. Under the Constitution, it is not required that a State of the Union Address be orally given in a speech. There is a constitutional requirement for a State of the Union report to be given. But in the early years of our country, there were times when the President just sent a report. Here's my report on the state of the Union.

So the President has snubbed Congress, the rules, and the Constitution repeatedly, and then our Speaker is condemned by the White House for inviting a world leader to come speak here. Again, the President doesn't realize there is no requirement to check with the President. If it hasn't already occurred, we will have to have a unanimous consent or a vote to have the House approve the invitation of Prime Minister Netanyahu to come speak here. That has to happen, if it hasn't already.

So there is no requirement to check with the President. We don't even have to invite him over here to speak to do his State of the Union. And when the unanimous consent request is made, anybody here could object to the President coming. I am not aware of that ever happening. I don't anticipate that ever happening.

Interestingly, we have been reading--when I have been in Israel and talked to leaders over there, they talk about the massive pressure by the Obama administration to try to push Israel into getting rid of Prime Minister Netanyahu. Now we know what our President did to help support the removal of President Mubarak. We know that he went even further in Libya, after Qadhafi--after the 2003 invasion of Iraq--threw all of his weapons systems open to the United States and said, You tell me what I can keep, basically. And as some in Israel have advised, after Qadhafi's conversion experience in fear that the U.S. would invade Libya in 2003, he became more of a help in going after radical Islamic terrorists than almost anybody, except in Israel.

We have got friends around the world that are trying to help us with radical Islam, and even our friends in Egypt, a neighbor of Israel. As many of us feared, they had an election too quick after the so-called Arab Spring, which was more of an Arab nightmare for the Egyptian people. They had an election too soon. The most organized group was the radical Islamic Muslim Brotherhood.

It was not really a military coup, and that has offended the Egyptian people, as they have indicated, when news media or the White House have said it was a coup because you had the largest uprising in the history of the world occur in Egypt. It was demonstration after demonstration for the ages. It was 20 million, 30 million, 33 million,

came the reports of the uprising, of the around 90 million people in Egypt--massive. That would be like over 100 million people in America going to the streets and demanding the President be removed. It is hard to get a third of the United States just to go out and vote. They did more than that. They put themselves at risk and came to the streets and said, Enough is enough.

And the Coptic Christian Pope has told me of how touched he was to have moderate Muslims, secularists, and people of different faiths come and literally and figuratively join arms and march together to stop the brutality against Christianity and against Jews in Egypt.

That was extraordinary. And so much of our media missed it. I think our President never really understood that. Briefings must not have been adequate--or he missed them--but that was extraordinary. That was an event for the ages, the Egyptian people uprising in millions like no country had ever experienced in our entire history of mankind. Extraordinary. They are to be commended.

What happened?

Yeah, there were even a couple of Republican Senators, but you had the President, the White House, the State Department, people condemning Egypt for saying: We don't want radical Islam running our country.

I didn't realize, but the constitution--that as I understand this administration helped with--did not include a provision for impeachment. We didn't give them a peaceable way within the constitution to remove a leader once he acted outside the constitution, as Morsi was doing.

Now, because I have been told by a former CIA operative--I asked General al-Sisi while he was still general, before Morsi was elected: Did you have evidence that he was trying to have you killed? I was told by a former CIA operative that he did.

He was reluctant to respond, but he eventually responded: Yes, we did. He didn't even really need that because of the unconstitutional actions of President Morsi. Now, I have had friends of Israel that were saying: We want to give Morsi a chance because he is really working to bring peace to the Sinai.

Well, as we found out after the people arose and a peaceful revolution occurred--I thought about the Egyptian peaceable revolution as I watched the movie ``Selma.'' It is tragic that that ever came about and circumstances ever came to the point that we were treating, especially as a Christian, treating brothers and sisters like that.

Thank God for Martin Luther King, Jr. We honor him this week. What an example. People in Egypt know about Dr. King. The Pope, Coptic Christian Pope knows of Dr. King. He wanted a peaceful demonstration, and they were part of peaceful demonstration.

Unfortunately, radical Islam did not like being removed. They burned churches. They went after Christians. They went after Jews. It was so offensive to the moderate Muslims that make up most all of Egypt that they even voted, overwhelmingly, for a constitution that required the government to build back the churches that the Muslim Brotherhood burned down. That is historic for the ages.

We have this one country, 90 million, most Muslim. At one time, there may have been, as I understand, maybe 10 percent or more Christians, but radical Islam took over after the alleged Arab Spring that was anything but a spring. It is a place of hope with a very, very difficult road in front of them.

Some of the military leaders were asking Members of Congress that were visiting over there about the Apache helicopters and the tanks that have been frozen by President Obama's administration and the refusal, for so long, to provide them.

The military leaders are saying: Does your President not understand that we use those Apache helicopters to keep the Suez Canal open? Does he want a tragedy at the Suez Canal? Is that why he is not allowing us to have new Apaches that we need in order to keep the Suez Canal properly open and safe?

We use the Apache helicopters to go after the massive weapon buildup that occurred in the Sinai under Morsi, and the Sinai is an area with rapid, huge weapon buildup under Morsi that is a threat and was a threat to Israel, our ally.

Somebody in the administration needs to get out a memo to everyone else saying: Look, Israel really is our friend. Netanyahu has more in common in his government and what his government believes than any other government in the entire Middle East with us here in America. Maybe we ought to go easy on pushing for a new leader.

Well, it hasn't happened today. Here is an article. Not only, apparently, is the White House furious with our Speaker--heck, I have been mad with our Speaker. I am telling you, this is a good thing, Mr. Speaker, that has been done here in inviting the Prime Minister of Israel.

Here is an article, since the leader of our closest ally and friend in the Middle East, Israel, is coming, this article from NBCNews.com, Kristen Welker and Carrie Dann:

President Barack Obama will not meet with Israeli Prime

Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visits the United Nations

in March, his administration announced Thursday, citing a

``longstanding practice'' of avoiding appearances with heads

of states in close proximity to their elections.

I guess he is glad that countries around the world don't have that same policy because he was sure running around before the election wanting to make appearances with them. I guess it would only be natural that foreign leaders would assume, since he did it before his election, that he would certainly not want to appear less than consistent.

They didn't use that excuse when the President gave Prime Minister Netanyahu a timeout. You wait here, I am going to go eat. Let me know when you have a change of mind.

I mean, that is what parents used to say to us. That is what some of us, as parents, have said: Until you are willing to act right, you go to your room.

For a President of the United States to do that to the leader of the country that is our best ally in the Middle East is really extraordinary, so I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that he wants him snubbed before his reelection; but I also think it is important, Mr. Speaker, that we have him here to hear his side about what Iran is doing.

Some of us, in December, met with leading investigators at the IAEA in Vienna to talk about Iran's current status, as best they can figure out. I think it was the most candid meeting that we have had with representatives of the IAEA. I appreciate their honesty and forthrightness.

But Iran's centrifuges are still spinning. They are still enriching uranium. They are increasing the amount of uranium that they are enriching. Even though they are assuring the IAEA that they are not taking it any more--they are not taking it past 5 percent enrichment, people that know about the enrichment process know it is not that much of a step to go from 5 percent to 90 percent, have weapons-grade uranium that can be used for bombs.

I think my friend, Joel Rosenberg, in his all-too-realistic novel, previously depicted Iran as developing enough nuclear material to use-- not just in one bomb, they wanted enough to use in several bombs, so that when they got to that point, in a secret facility that even the IAEA, U.S., others didn't know about, according to the novel, they were able to prepare nuclear weapons, multiple nuclear weapons at the same time and immediately ship them out in different directions, so that anyone trying to stop their nukes, once developed, would have to worry that if they attacked Iran to stop their nuclear weapons--they had several--that it would be unlikely they would get them all, and that would mean that nukes would probably show up in Israel and the United States.

It seems pretty realistic. That seems like a realistic consideration for Iran. They seem to be following that procedure, developing as much 5 percent enriched uranium, that we know of; but as even the experts can tell you, it is possible they have got a facility we didn't know about. They have surprised us before.

This is a tragic time in so many places in the world. The shadow of the crisis may have passed us, but too often, that means, now, the shadow is passed and the crisis is upon us.

It is time to stand up to radical Islam and to stand in Erbil and talk to Kurdish leaders--or outside Erbil, at the headquarters where they are able to watch things that are going on; hear

a Commander say: You have no idea how heartbreaking it is to see a vehicle, an American vehicle, up-armored vehicle that the United States produced that is in the Islamic State hands, that has now been made into a massive suicide bomb, comes at our Kurdish fighters, fighting heroically, but not having a single weapon that will stop an American up-armored vehicle as the vehicle comes, as they know it is going to explode, and it gets nearer and nearer, and they are frantic.

Everybody watching the video feed, everybody on the ground there knows they are not going to stop it because the United States has not provided the weapons to our friends that will stop the weapons, the U.S. weapons that are in the hands of our enemies. Then, ultimately, the suicide bomb of a U.S. up-armored vehicle takes out those valiant, heroic Kurdish fighters.

These are not people that threw down their weapons and ran, like so much of the Iraqi Army did. There are Iraqi officials that say: This is why we really needed a small American presence here, to give us the backbone, to tell us, ``Here is what you do. Yes, they are coming, but don't throw down your weapons. Go here. Go there.''

We needed that help, that coordination, the same kind of help and direction, coordination that our embedded Special Forces, Special Ops people gave to the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan in late 2001 and early 2002, when the Taliban was initially decimated, defeated before we added tens of thousands of troops and became occupiers.

It has worked. It worked in Afghanistan before we became occupiers. It has worked when we help people that want to defend themselves to defend themselves.

We have seen over and over these reports that, in Syria, this so- called vetted, moderate Free Syrian Army is joining forces with al Qaeda affiliates. This administration still thinks it is a good idea to send them weapons that they can use, ultimately, to go after our friends, the Kurds.

Turkey, our ally and friend, NATO partner, says we can't use their bases to fight the Islamic State. I have got friends in Turkey, leaders there I have met with. They don't like the idea of the Kurds being armed.

Well, I think it is time the administration should announce that we are not sending weapons to Baghdad so that they can send what can't stop the Islamic State to the Kurds. We are sending weapons directly to Erbil. We are sending them directly to the Kurds.

Okay. Turkey, we understand you don't like that idea. If you don't like it enough, you have a powerful enough military to stop and destroy the Islamic State by yourself if you want to. So we would much prefer Turkey take out the Islamic State by themselves. But as it appears, Turkey is becoming more radical in their legislation and activities. It explains, perhaps, why they will not allow us to use our bases and will not directly, themselves, fight the Islamic State.

Well, the Kurds are willing. They are doing it. They are fighting valiantly. Let's help them out directly, not through Baghdad, but directly.

Let's try to be friends with Israel. Let's try not to snub their leaders. I mean, since I have been in Congress, I have tried to be encouraging when I have met with other Israeli leaders. Before Netanyahu became the Prime Minister, we met with others. We encouraged them. I wasn't crazy about some of the things they were doing, but they were leaders of our friend Israel, and I wanted to be their friend. I wish that it were so with this administration.

Now, we had what was purported to be the State of the Union Address in here. We were told ``the shadow of crisis has passed.'' I don't know. I am finding that maybe the President, a few years ago when he came and told us, ``Pass my bill right away, right away, right away,'' maybe he didn't really know he didn't have a bill. But we kept trying for days to get a copy of his bill, and finally, after a week, there was no President's American Jobs Act.

Well, I went ahead and created one, and what it did was eliminate the biggest tariff that any country in the world puts on their own manufactured goods. It is called a corporate tax. It has to be passed on to consumers, which makes the price of the product or their services more expensive. Imagine the manufacturing jobs that would come flooding back to America if we even just reduced the corporate tax, this tariff that we are putting on our own goods.

And I have had reporters around Washington who don't really get it say: Well, how would you make up for the lost corporate taxes?

Those corporate taxes are paid by Americans. They are paid by the consumers. Any corporation that doesn't pass on that tax is not going to stay in business. So the consumers pay it. The American taxpayers pay it anyway.

But what would happen when you lower the corporate tax rate? Some of those massive manufacturing businesses--like the President's dear friends own that have moved over to China and other places--some of them have told a group of us that went over there: Well, the biggest reason we had to move is America had such a massive and now the highest corporate tax in the world. If you lower that like to China levels, 17 percent, we would be able to be back there.

Now, I loved hearing from leaders of industry in China that the best workers they have were American workers in the United States of America. Their best quality control is right here. Well, if we would lower the corporate tax, those jobs would come flooding back.

I loved hearing the President so pleased that we are becoming energy independent. Unfortunately, it is not due to anything the Federal Government is doing. His administration is doing whatever it can to slow down energy production of oil and gas that we are so reliant on, and production from Federal lands, under his watch, is down significantly.

So it is all the private sector that has done this, Sarah Palin and others saying, ``Drill, baby, drill.'' That has actually happened, and now we have got an abundance. It has brought down gasoline prices.

And what is the Democrat reaction to prices of gasoline going down? Well, that means we need to add some taxes to gasoline. Really?

I loved hearing the President say we need to do infrastructure, except, dadgummit, I remember him talking about that repeatedly when he first became President. That is why he said we had to have this massive $900 billion, because we are going to build infrastructure.

And what did he do? He got the $900 billion from a Democratic House and Senate, and only a fraction of it went to infrastructure. We were told it was going to go to shovel-ready jobs, and then we find out some years later, well, actually there was no such thing as the shovel-ready jobs. They did send it to companies like Solyndra and others that lived high off the hog for a while and then went broke. I am sure they are getting some other grant somewhere else.

Which brings us to another story, which was reported as a bombshell, a story by Richard Pollock, ``Bombshell: IRS Has Active Contract for Millions With Company HHS Fired Over Botched Healthcare.gov'' Web site.

Wow. Well, no wonder the President wants more money. He is still doing deals for millions of dollars with people they paid massive millions of dollars to do a Web site that didn't work. We have had people come to the Hill and say: We could have done that for about one- twentieth of the cost of what was paid and actually had it working.

But things are a little better in Texas. I loved hearing the President take credit for jobs that have been created in Texas. Unfortunately, when you look at the jobs that his policies have helped create around the country, the biggest thing he has helped create is part-time jobs in numbers like we have never had before.

I love when he brings people in here to hold them up as good examples. I wish he had brought some of my constituents, some of whom are brokenhearted because their part-time job went from 39 hours to 29. They had to get a second one. And they have also lost what benefits they did have at their first employment. Now they are spending more time away from their children, making less.

I know he has the image that $15,000 a year is supposed to support a family of four, but what most people in business can tell you-- especially small business that employs about 70 percent

of American workers--the minimum wage is entry level. And when I talk to people at places like McDonald's, they are not even paying the minimum wage. They are paying more than that. And places where oil is being drilled and gas is being drilled, they are paying a lot more than minimum wage. Some of them are paying bonuses because that is what happens when the Federal Government does not impede the ability of industry and of American entrepreneurialism.

But here, also, the President wants to provide net neutrality. I want neutrality. I want Internet neutrality. But I don't want the government taking over because I know his friends end up doing well and his enemies don't do well.

I would like to make sure that the market is able to play. I would love it if he had come in here and said: You know what? We have wasted a lot of money trying to prop up solar energy and wind energy. We have squandered massive amounts of money, of taxpayer dollars, money we have had to borrow from China that won't be paid back in my lifetime. But here is a tax notion. Let's eliminate the subsidies for every energy form, whatever it is, eliminate them. Nobody is going to get subsidies. Nobody gets grants. Good luck.

What would that mean? It would mean the free market would take over.

And when I hear the commercials, oh, buy a solar energy whatever, air conditioner or whatever it is, heater, buy it now because the subsidies may be running out before long, well, let's run them all out. Let's let energy be determined by the free market without government intervention, without using the Tax Code.

I am pleased that perhaps the President has heard some of us. As we have said, the President keeps talking about Warren Buffett paying a lower tax rate than his secretary, but he has never offered any solutions to fix that, as some of us here have. What would be the best solution? Well, bring down the secretary's income tax rate to the capital gains rate that Warren Buffett is paying. That is how you do it.

I just love Arthur Laffer, Ronald Reagan's former economic adviser, such a brilliant guy. He explained to a group of us a few years ago here--and I am paraphrasing Arthur--he said: I hear people talking about we are going to tax the rich. The rich, he says, are the ones you are not going to tax.

Now, if you say we are going to tax this activity of the rich, they will change the activity. They can do that because they are ultrarich. If you say we are going to tax you in this location, this State, this city, this country, they are ultrarich; they can move. That is what rich people do.

So if one State where Secretary Kerry has his yacht has a really high tax, well, what is he going to do? He is going to do what he has done. He is going to move the yacht to a State that has a lower tax. That is what rich people do. So you may say: I am going to go after the rich and tax them, really put it to them, and then spread that wealth.

The ultrarich are the ones you are not going to tax. They will move. The rest of us, we can't just say: You know what? I am going to go be a lawyer in another country, another place.

You can't just do that. You have got to go through all kinds of training. You just can't do that. You can't go be a Member of Congress somewhere else. You can't just pick up your job and take it when you are middle class or you are poor.

So what happens when somebody says we are going to increase taxes on the rich, well, they move. They change their activity. They avoid the tax because they can do that. That is why Warren Buffett can say he is not worried about the inheritance tax. He takes actions to make sure he is not going to get hit with it. The poor can't do that. Of course, you have to have over a minimum amount now, so the poor don't get hit with it, but the middle class does.

My great-aunt was middle class through and through--as they say, land rich, cash poor. Land prices dropped within 6 months of her death. The IRS took every acre of her 2,500-acre farm. Every acre. They sold her home at an auction because land prices dropped. The FDIC had dumped land around there. Prices dropped. Under the inheritance tax, it is the value of that land at the time of the death. They took every acre, took the home place. The people she had specified in her will that would get specific things didn't get them. The IRS got them.

That is why I went when the call went out to family members to please show up and buy whatever you can so that we can keep it in the family. Yes, that lady was middle class. She lived middle class. I had been to her home numerous times. You wouldn't find anything that you would say was even upper middle class. They took every acre of her land, her home for taxes.

But if you are ultrarich, you don't run into that situation. You buy insurance policies. You convert the way you get income. You move cash here, there, to other countries. You can do that. But not when you are middle class.

So the policies of this President have caused, for the first time in American history, 95 percent of America's income to go to the top 1 percent.

The President admitted it a couple years ago, yeah, he was aware that happened. Well, how about working with the rest of us who have some good ideas that would increase the number of middle class, moving people up from poor; increase the people moving from lower middle class up to upper middle class; and moving people from middle class to wealthy? We want that. That is what we hope for. We don't want to bring down people from where they have done well, even if they are one of the few that were born on third base and have gone through life thinking they hit a triple. We want everybody to do well. And if you get jealous of them, your life is going to be ruined.

I loved the quotes from Martin Luther King, so many of them brought out in the movie ``Selma'': If you get eaten up with anger, revenge-- and in the cases around here--jealousy, you are the one that is going to be miserable. Let's encourage people to get wealthy not by taking from the wealthy and bringing people down. Let's have a flat tax: if you make more, then you are going to pay more; if you make less, then you are going to pay less.

Mr. Speaker, let me just conclude by saying that in 40 years over 57 million babies have been killed here in America. As a father who held a premature daughter in my hand and had her grasp the end of my finger with her tiny little hand, it wrenches my heart to think there are people that will want to kill a baby girl of that same age. Let's stop. God bless the March for Life.

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

Mr. Speaker, it has been an interesting short week. And with all the drills in the world going on, it is important that we deal with our Department of Homeland Security. And I am proud the House has taken quick action to pass such a budget and passed it handily.

Homeland Security needs to be funded, and the President needs to sign the bill. We have finished that today and are sending it to the Senate. Hopefully they will work quickly and deal with this issue because, as people in America know, we have crises all around us. We have threats to our security all around us that require immediate attention.

The world is watching as we play golf while they come together, millions at a time, to stand against radical Islam and Islamic terrorism.

So it has been interesting to see the White House as the only significant international capital where the ultimate leader of the country cannot bring himself and, therefore, his spokespeople cannot bring themselves, to say the words ``radical Islamic terrorism,'' because that is what we are talking about.

And for an administration to diminish the seriousness of radical Islamic terrorists wanting to destroy Western civilization is worse than having our leadership's head in the sand, or wherever their head is. It is important to wake up and recognize what the world has recognized, what our Muslim friends have recognized--that radical Islam is a threat to our very existence and way of life.

The Weekly Standard has an article, January 13, by Daniel Halper, which says: ``The White House won't be calling jihadists adherents to `radical Islam.' At least, that's the reasonable takeaway from this extraordinary exchange the White House press secretary had today with a reporter.''

And I will jump down to a statement by President Obama's chief spokesperson:

Mr. Earnest: I think the reason is twofold. One is I

certainly wouldn't want to be in a position where I'm

repeating the justification that they have cited that I think

is completely illegitimate, right? That they have invoked

Islam to try to justify their attacks.

And the reporter said:

But to call it radical Islam you feel would be playing into

their hands.

Mr. Earnest: Well, I think what I'm trying to do is I'm

trying to describe to you what happened and what they did.

These are individuals who are terrorists. And what they did

was they tried to invoke their own distorted deviant view of

Islam to try to justify them.

And I want to stop there. The President's mouthpiece says that he is not going to call it ``radical Islam'' or ``Islamic terrorism'' because that is a deviant view. Well, if you look at the definition of ``deviant,'' that is what deviates from what most people do or say or think.

So it would appear, Mr. Speaker, that the deviant thought process is not what the reporters had and not what the major countries in the world have and not what our Muslim leader friends in the world have. It is what this White House has. Theirs is the deviation from what is truth, because the truth is--as much as this President doesn't want to say it, and he doesn't allow his spokespeople to say it, I will say it, Mr. Speaker: this is radical Islamic terrorism, and it is a threat to Western civilization.

And the more our leaders refuse to recognize it for what it is, the worse it gets because the radical Islamic terrorists realize they are winning. And the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the OIC, composed of the Islamic states in the world, all 57--I know it gets confusing to some in this country's leadership whether we have 57 States and they have 50 or they have 57 and we have 50. But they have 57 because they include one that is not actually a state. But they are the ones that started the campaign after 9/11 of calling anyone who expresses concern about radical Islamic terrorism ``Islamophobes.''

I fear God. I don't fear any man. I am not a phobe of anything. But it is time to recognize truth, and that is that radical Islamic terrorists want to destroy our life and kill us. It is very simple.

And what is remarkable--and I think it is very important that both Democrats and Republicans have the opportunity to travel around and speak to world leaders in their own countries because when you are there in their country talking to them, as some of us on both sides of the aisle have done in those Middle Eastern countries, led by moderate Muslims who don't believe they need to have an explosive jihad, they recognize that the terrorism that is a threat to them, as moderate Muslims, and the terrorism that is a threat to us and Western civilization, is radical Islam. They recognize that it is a religion.

And they recognize that when people in the name of Allah and Islam take territory and claim they are their own caliphate, their own government, then you had better understand who they are and what they are. And in this case, the Islamic State has enough

strength and enough power to be taken seriously so that they are totally defeated and wiped off the map, whether it is in Syria, northern Iraq, wherever they find themselves, because they are at war with us.

And I mentioned it before, Mr. Speaker, but as we have had this administration do a cleansing--not necessarily a book-burning but a burning, in essence, of parts of the training books that talk about radical Islam, that tried to educate our FBI, our State Department, our intelligence communities, all of our government workers on what radical Islam is, what it believes, the intelligence officer said: We have blinded ourselves of the ability to see our enemy. And that has never been more apparent than it has been this week, with the radical Islamic jihad terrorist attack in Paris and in Nigeria.

Even though there weren't reporters killed in Nigeria, those lives were every bit as much precious--around 2,000 lives. Somehow, much of the mainstream media had trouble reporting that. They were concentrating on the horrors of the journalists killed in Paris, and rightfully so. But they should not be neglecting the horrors for those villagers, so many of them Christian, who have been killed because they did not believe in radical Islam.

And one of the reasons, I would submit, that we should have had a President there in Paris--and I know it would have been difficult for this President, but he should have been there locked arm-in-arm with Prime Minster Netanyahu. Words keep leaking out about things that are said, about strained relations that this administration has with the Netanyahu administration. There is a leader whose eyes are clear and his vision is clear, and he can see exactly who is at war against him, who is helping him and the nation of Israel and who is not helping him and the nation of Israel.

And as we know from history, anytime a nation's enemies see that nation's strongest ally pulling away, it is provocative. And the more the United States distances itself from Israel, from those who recognize that radical Islamic terrorism is a threat to Western civilization, then the more radical Islamists win.

I really, honest to goodness, didn't think we would be 6 years in to President Obama's administration with him still not willing to acknowledge that radical Islam is a threat, is at war with us.

It is a religion. This administration may not like it, but it is a religion. It is a radical form of Islam. I hope one day that our top leaders in this country will have the courage of President al-Sisi in Egypt and that will reflect, as General al-Sisi has, the will of the people of their country.

If the story is properly written about Egypt--and one day it will be. It won't be by people at The New York Times. It will be by people who are not trying to twist and turn and create history the way they want it. It will be by historians that are really looking at what has happened.

They will see that in the last 6 years that, besides Israel, the country that has been most fearless--and by ``country,'' I mean the people of the country--most fearless in standing up for freedom and against radical Islamic terrorism, unfortunately, has not been the United States because of our leadership. It has been the nation of Egypt.

Certainly, Israel has stood strong and fearless. Their nation has been under attack nonstop. God bless them and protect them. Egypt was not under attack other than by the radical form of Islam, the religion of radical Islam, and this administration helped oust one of this country's allies.

Like him or not, there were plenty of agreements signed by this country with President Mubarak, and this administration disregarded them. That is a problem for other countries and other leaders who want to sign agreements with this administration, but they don't know that our country can be trusted anymore.

As people see the decline of respect for America around the world, they should understand that it is being credited to the lack of reliability of the United States to keep its word, to support its friends, not to turn its back on its friends. This Nation's leaders have begun repeatedly appearing more helpful to our enemies than to our own friends. They don't know who to trust.

I mentioned to Secretary Kerry that I have talked to people in the Middle East, Muslim leaders, who say: We talk among ourselves, we are all worried we may be the next ally to be thrown under the bus.

He wanted to know who said that. Well, obviously, I couldn't tell him because he would throw them under the bus.

For many of us that have traveled around the Middle East and talked to leaders in the Middle East, we understand what they feel. Maybe they are not able to be as open and candid with this administration for fear of it turning on them the way it does anybody within the administration here in America or outside the administration.

God help the whistleblowers. If you want to stand up for truth, justice, and the American way in this administration and point out massive problems that could subject our country to attacks, to terrorism, God help you because this administration is coming after you. They will use the Justice Department, they will use the EPA, they will use the IRS.

This administration has been weaponized to go after anybody that dares to stand up, especially within the administration. People that want to stand up and tell the truth, they are attacked, they are threatened with prosecution.

If someone like General Petraeus, who has defended the administration--but this administration knows that General Petraeus has information that would virtually destroy any credibility that the administration might still have nationally and internationally--so what else would this administration do but leave over his head, for over a year-and-a-half, the threat: We are going to prosecute you, so you better keep your mouth shut.

They actually know just the threat of prosecution helps diminish potential credibility. So if you wonder why General Petraeus has not come out in the last year and a half and said, ``No, those weren't our talking points, somebody that created them needs to be prosecuted, it was a fraud on the American people,'' he is not going to say that.

He has got this administration hanging a prosecution over his head. What do you expect? I doubt he will ever be able to say it without worrying about something over his shoulder coming after him.

Here he is. He has been defensive of the administration. He has been a good soldier. He has said what they wanted him to say. He hasn't told all he could say, and they are going to make sure he doesn't--or if he does, he pays a heavy criminal price. That is where we are now in America.

It may have been the kind of administration Richard Nixon dreamed of, but he knew he could never get there. He couldn't weaponize the IRS. He apparently dreamed of it. This administration has done it.

For the President, for his spokespeople not to be able to call the terrorism a result of radical Islamic terrorism, it weakens our country, it emboldens our enemies, and as we have seen, you may take out Osama bin Laden, but when you withdraw our troops prematurely before Iraq soldiers are ready to stand on their own and you have blinded ourselves of the ability to recognize that any believers like Khamenei or Ahmadinejad, the former President of Iran, if you have blinded yourself of the ability to learn and educate our administration on what they believe, then you are going to fall prey to everything they decide to do toward you and about you because you don't understand where they are coming from.

I repeatedly reflect on that scene in the movie ``Patton,'' and although he didn't know Rommel was not there with his tank division, he yells out in the movie after his tanks have defeated Rommel's: Rommel, you magnificent fatherless--I am paraphrasing--fatherless man, I read your book.

If you read and learn and educate yourself about your enemies, you have got a better chance of defeating them, but this administration continues to make it more and more difficult to understand who our enemies are. All of this backing up and crawfishing, well, you know, this isn't all Islam.

Of course, it is not all Islam. That is how I can go to Afghanistan and hug dear Muslim friends, we have the same enemies--and a big old bear of a man who led the Northern Alliance to defeat the Taliban by February of 2002 in the initial defeat is now the Vice President, and thank God he is.

Some of us that just met with the new leadership recently--and I have known General Dostum for a while and met with my good friend the Honorable Massoud.

President Ghani basically has gathered around him people a bit like what Lincoln did. He took people who opposed him, ran against him, but because he clearly cares deeply about Afghanistan, he gathered around him a team of rivals, and the good thing is, unlike the current administration here, he is not afraid of having people with opposing viewpoints around him.

He is just like Lincoln. Lincoln had rivals all around him, and he listened to their input. He got their opinions, and it helped him make better decisions. This administration here needs to do what President Ghani in Afghanistan is trying to do, and it is not easy because our U.S. administration here has been reaching out for the Taliban.

Initially, the Taliban are defeated, and then this administration comes in--and I know the prior administration started the massive occupation of Afghanistan with tens of thousands of troops.

This President comes in, and in his campaign, he said that was the real war. Well, yeah, but once you defeat your enemy in that part of the world, you don't help yourself by becoming an occupier--you add over 100,000 troops to the country that is so thrilled that you relieved them of radical Islamic leadership, then you become an enemy because, now, you are an occupier. We didn't do ourselves any favors.

There are people, unlike the Iraqis who threw down weapons and ran, turned them over to the Islamic State, in Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance was willing to fight the Taliban initially, and they are still willing to fight.

In fact, before President Ghani was elected--that was so much uncertainty: Is President Karzai going to try to have another term, even though it is against the constitution? Are they in for a civil war?

There was a great deal of trepidation on the part of the Northern Alliance that fought against the Taliban on our behalf with less than 500 American special ops and intelligence people embedded.

They knew we withdrew, and the Taliban were able to take over the national government. Then they were in for a war, and one of them told me: Look, since you have taken back the weapons, you don't support us anymore, and you are doing everything you can to help the Taliban--that is this administration--we realize the odds are that we will lose our lives, but we are not going down without a fight.

Well, fortunately, they have got a team of rivals leading the country. Prayers are with them. They are moderate Muslims that I trust, and they want the best for Afghanistan.

According to the military leaders I have talked to repeatedly in Afghanistan and others, the country of Pakistan has been the biggest supplier and supporter of the Taliban. The Taliban didn't do themselves any favors when they just, in such evil fashion, attacked a school and killed 140 or so precious people, including children.

There are many more in Pakistan that are saying: You know what, it is time to stop supporting the Taliban, it is time to worry about Pakistan.

Some have even started saying it is time to quit persecuting the Baloch people.

The arbitrary lines that were drawn many decades ago put probably the bulk of the Baloch people in southern Pakistan where most of their minerals are. It put the Baloch people within the arbitrary lines drawn for a country called Iran. In fact, the Baloch area actually is where the Straits of Hormuz are. It is where much of the oil and gas is.

I have grown to admire and love many of the Baloch people. I wouldn't mind seeing them having an independent Balochistan. I wouldn't mind seeing an independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq, because unlike what is portrayed in much of the mainstream media, the Kurds never threw down their weapons and ran away or turned them over to the Islamic State. They are people we can trust.

Mr. Speaker, a solution to our problem there would be to announce that we are going to provide weapons directly to the Kurds. We don't have to go through Baghdad, because Baghdad doesn't want them to have the equipment they need. They are afraid of them. Let them have the equipment they need to defeat the Islamic State. Yes, I know, that would not make Turkey happy, but Turkey has said: Not only are we not fighting the Islamic State--even though we have pledged in our NATO alliance that we will help fight any enemy of our fellow NATO signatories--we are not going to help, and we are not going to let you use any of the NATO bases or U.S. bases here in Turkey. You are on your own.

Well, Mr. Speaker, if Turkey is not going to fight them and they are a threat to all Western civilization, then we are just going to have to supply the Kurds and let them take them out.

It has been an honor to be over there numerous times and spend time there even when the State Department said it was too dangerous to go. Dana Rohrabacher and I went and spent 3 days when the State Department was telling us it was too dangerous to be there. But I knew that there was no way their leaders were going to let anything happen to us. And they didn't. They were trustworthy.

Mr. Speaker, one of the problems this administration has is figuring out whom we can trust and whom we can't. I know that this administration continues to talk about these moderate, vetted Syrian Army soldiers that we can really help. Well, if they were there 3 or 4 years ago, most of them are ready to throw in with the Islamic State or with al Qaeda subsidiaries. In fact, they have done that very thing. They have fought together.

I don't know if ``naivete'' is the proper word, but when this administration started supplying their so-called free, vetted moderate Syrian Army personnel and the equipment, they kept ending up in the Islamic State's possession. They even suspended sending them more weapons and equipment for a while, but then some months later they picked it back up. I don't know why, what made them feel they were more believable than they were before, but amazingly, they started sending it, and it started ending up in Islamic State hands.

It is heartbreaking to be, as a few of us have, in northern Iraq in the Kurdistan area with real, patriotic Kurds who love their people and who have fought not just for themselves, but they have fought for other groups, Shi'a and Sunni, without throwing down their weapons. They have fought and died. But to look in their eyes and see the hurt as they say: Couldn't you give us some Humvees, some up-armored vehicles? Because we are fighting against the Islamic State, and they are using American Humvees. They are using American armored personnel carriers. They are using American tanks. We don't have anything that can penetrate your American tanks or your personnel carriers. Those are invulnerable almost completely to IEDs because you up-armored them and gave them to the Syrian Army that gave them to ISIS, or you gave them to the Iraqi soldiers that left them for ISIS.

The commander who had lost soldiers said: You don't know what it is like to see a big, armored vehicle that is going to be used for a suicide bombing coming at your soldiers who have weapons that can't possibly penetrate those vehicles. And they are shooting. They are doing everything they can to try to stop them, but because they are the best America has in the way of fighting vehicles, we can't stop them, and we know my guys are going to get blown up as this American vehicle gets close, and it has been set up to be a suicide bomb.

Mr. Speaker, since this administration has not been effective in fighting IS for so long, for too long they looked at them as the junior varsity, the JVs, shouldn't we at least help those who are fighting to help us, along with themselves, by giving them vehicles that could match up against the vehicles we provided to the Islamic State? It seems like the least we can do. It really does.

This administration was going to be the most transparent in history. There

is a story out this week from PJ Media. Josh Earnest doesn't think President Obama is upset about missing the solidarity gathering of world leaders. The world leaders see that our way of life is at risk, and our leadership doesn't see it. He thinks if we give a good enough speech, we coddle, we offer to buy offices in Qatar, or we release more of their murderers, that surely they will recognize how truly wonderful, kind, and generous we are and they will stop their evil ways of killing innocent people. It is not going to happen.

I have Christian friends that say: Yes, but as Christians, we are supposed to turn the other cheek. That is as individuals. Individual Christians should live out the beatitudes as Christ gave them. But the government has a different role. If you do evil, you should be afraid because the government, within the bounds of Christianity--Romans 13:4--is supposed to punish the evil, eliminate the evils, and protect your people. I don't try to convert anybody using my position in government, but for those who misunderstand Christian teaching, you need to read Romans 13.

We have an Attorney General still holding on, Holder the Holdover. He said he is concerned about the so-called lone wolf attacks in the United States--one of the things, Mr. Speaker, I don't think, again, that this administration understands. They talk about these lone wolf attacks, and yet when you get down to the bottom of it, you find out, gee, they had talked to al-Awlaki, the man born in the United States so he gets an American birth certificate, an American passport, and American citizenship because his parents came over and had him while they were here, so he is an American citizen. He is radicalizing people.

These weren't lone wolfs. They got information, they got advice, and they got radicalization from somebody else. It is tough to find anybody self-radicalized because apparently there are plenty of imams in this country that are not the general rank-and-file imams. They are imams that are ready to radicalize those--and twist and convert into evil-- that would kill innocent children, women, and men.

Mr. Speaker, we need to recognize the threat that is upon us, and you can't do that when an administration will not even call the evil for what it is. I know indications are, gee, the economy is getting so much better. We still have over 90 million people that are not counted as unemployed because they just finally gave up looking for a job. To me, that is unemployed. But we don't count them in our statistics. And this staggering story came out today, written by Wyton Hall:

In a stunning Tuesday report, Gallup CEO and Chairman Jim

Clifton revealed that ``for the first time in 35 years,

American business deaths now outnumber business births.''

I can't help but think that has something to do with the massive overregulation by this administration continuing to set records in the number of regulations it sets. How in the world can businesses keep up with over 70,000 new pages of regulations year after year? They did it again in 2014, over 70,000 pages of new regulations, and they are expected to follow them and manage to keep a business. You don't have to look very far to find CEO after CEO or a person that started a business, no matter how massive, who said: In looking at all the regulations now, it is a good thing I started my business when I did, because if I were trying to start it now, I never could. I couldn't overcome all of the massive government overregulation.

Now, Mr. Speaker, we see ObamaCare continuing to fail and continuing to provide less care for more money. But not to worry. A lot of your good health care dollars are going to fund navigators who will never put a Band-Aid on anybody or never even blow on a cut to make it feel better. No. They will never even pat somebody on the back. They are bureaucrats. They are not in the health care business, nor are the thousands and thousands and thousands of new IRS agents who are not looking out for your health. They will probably give you ulcers. But they are part of the health care dollars now.

So people keep asking me: Louie, I don't understand. My deductible is higher. I am paying more money than ever. I am getting less care. I am getting turned down for things. I don't get to choose my doctor. I sure don't have the insurance policy I wanted. I don't understand.

I have to explain: Well, that is because you are paying for a lot of government workers that don't really help in anybody's health problems at all. They create health problems, more likely.

With all of this as a background, all of the failures of the Federal Government, the Federal Government, in fact, is intruding in people's private lives. As they access email and gather phone logs of every call to and from American individuals, we were assured that would not happen when the PATRIOT Act was extended. I was not here when it was passed. We were told it was only if you were a foreign terrorist, a known foreign terrorist, or you had ties to foreign terrorists would you be even eligible to have your phone logs gathered, emails checked. ``Only'' we were told. Well, that turned out not to be true. That was just an outright lie. It is time to stop the government intrusion into people's private lives unless the government has a warrant.

As a judge, I had no problem signing a warrant if there was probable cause spelled out in the affidavit. There were times I would turn away law officers and say: You have plenty of speculation there that sounds good, but you don't have facts that get you to probable cause.

That should be in there, under the Constitution, before the government can start invading your privacy.

Then when the House and Senate were controlled by the Democrats, President Obama is in the Oval Office, they passed a bill creating this Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that apparently is out there thinking they need to be able to monitor everybody's debit and credit card records so that they can see if anybody is being taken advantage of.

Well, how about following the Constitution and not getting anybody's bank records or credit card or debit card records unless you have probable cause or unless the person gives permission.

I am hoping that is going to be a bill that we pass because I have talked to enough Republicans and know how we feel, and there are Democrats who feel the same way. Of course, they are the ones that created this monster, but that needs to be reined in. And now with that as a backdrop, we have the story: ``Obama backs government-run Internet.''

And I know there was somebody who wrote into the Longview paper that they want net neutrality. They love the idea of the government playing more of a role in the Internet. Well guess what? When the government takes control of the Internet in the name of neutrality, it will probably not be neutral, according to most Americans' opinions.

So I hope Americans are not fooled. I hope Americans don't buy into this because when the United States Government takes control of the Internet, then we are going to start having the same problems they have in China, in Russia, and other parts of the world where their government does control their Internet, and they control your freedom to search for what you want or to say what you want.

I know of numerous occasions where people said they were in China typing, and they mention anything about the government, even if it is not terrible what they said about the government, they start typing again, and they have lost their Internet connection. They have learned not to say anything about the government, let it go, and they keep their Internet connection better.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to also touch on this because we passed the funding for the Department of Homeland Security. I hope the President doesn't veto the bill. I hope the Senate will pass what we passed. There are some things in there I would have liked to have been different, but I read the bill totally. There are some parts that aren't great, and there are some parts that are great. I am very proud--my friend John Carter has some great language in there. I know he has worked very hard on language that is very good.

As I was reading the bill this weekend, I said, that was John Carter's specific language from an earlier bill. Overall, it was a good bill. The amendments helped it. I voted for the bill.

And now hopefully the Senate will do the right thing and pass it, and we will send it to the President and we will fund the Department of Homeland Security without all of the amnesties he has unconstitutionally created.

But if the President wants another way of doing things, I haven't heard anyone else suggest this, but I brought it up with some friends this morning. Perhaps we go ahead, if he doesn't think that he likes that and we are not able to override a veto, maybe it is time to start setting goals for the administration, and when they don't meet them, we just take that money from them and block grant it out to State and local law enforcement.

There are some jail cells open. We don't have to provide the hundreds of millions of dollars to hold people being detained. The local law enforcement is tired of holding people on behalf of the Federal Government and not being reimbursed. Let them do the job they are supposed to do of enforcing the law.

I know the Arizona case said, the Supreme Court said Arizona could not be enforcing immigration law, that was a Federal job, but we certainly have the authority to say, you know what? Let's block grant that money out and let State and local government do that, enforce our laws for us. I think we will get a whole lot better job done. So that may be something else to consider. If the President is not going to sign a bill that funds homeland security, maybe we need to fund it, and if they can't meet their goals, block grant it out to local authorities.

In the time I have left, I wanted to touch on a significant article by Patrick Poole of PJ Media, because, as he says, it is a look back on this year's parade of failure, and expect more in 2015.

His article is titled, ``The National Security `Not Top 10' of 2014.'' So my paraphrase is the top 10 failures in national security by this administration.

Number one: befriending ``moderate al Qaeda'' in Syria. Patrick Poole said:

``There are some ideas so at war with reason and reality they can only exist in the fetid Potomac fever swamps of D.C. think tank and foreign policy community. Such was the case in January when three of the best and brightest from those ranks published an article in Foreign Affairs (the same publication that in 2007 brought us the `moderate Muslim Brotherhood') contending that the U.S. needed to befriend the Syrian jihadist group Ahrar al-Sham as some kind of counter to more extreme jihadist groups, like ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra. The precedent they cited was the U.S. failure to designate the Taliban after 9/11.

Mind you, at the time they wrote this, one of Ahrar al-Sham's top leaders was a lieutenant for al Qaeda head Ayman al-Zawahiri, who openly declared himself a member of al Qaeda. After most of their leadership was wiped out in a bombing in September, they have gravitated closer to the jihadist groups they were supposed to counter and their positions have been bombed by the U.S., much to the consternation of other vetted moderate rebel groups. So ridiculous was their proposition that the original subtitle of their article, `An al Qaeda Affiliate Worth Befriending,' was changed online to `An al Qaeda- Linked Group Worth Befriending' in hopes of minimizing the absurdity of their case.''

But this administration bought into it.

And I understand there may be a Republican Senator or two that buys into it. It doesn't make it any less preposterous.

Number two of the top 10 national security failures:

Obama administration deploys three hashtag divisions in response to Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Some folks may remember that the response of this administration to help the Ukrainian people that I hold so dear, having lived with them for a summer back as a college student, the response of this administration was to launch a Twitter war that Russia wasn't terribly concerned about.

The number three failure of national security was Obama calling ISIS the ``JV team.''

I am sure Americans remember, and Patrick Poole discusses it, but to call the Islamic state a JV team betrayed his failure to get his security briefings as he should have to really understand what is happening in the world, because I don't believe for a minute, having talked to different intelligence people, I don't believe for a minute that our intelligence people did not know how dangerous the Islamic state was.

The number four failure of national security was the State Department official denying that Boko Haram targeted Christians.

Having been over there and having hugged and wept with those parents of daughters who were kidnapped and terrorized and made sex slaves, unlike the State Department official who says it wasn't about them being Christians--if you go hug them and weep with them and talk to them and their pastors, as I have, you find out it was precisely because they were Christians. Please, somebody in this administration, wake up. Radical Islam is at war with the United States and any Western civilization, and specifically with Christians.

When I asked these mothers whose daughters are still held kidnapped, probably sold into sex slavery by now--and this administration has not done enough because they don't see it as a war against Christianity--I asked, just to be sure, I said: Did they attack--Boko Haram, these radical Islamist terrorists--did they attack your daughter's school because they were girls, because they don't believe girls should be educated?

They said: Oh, no, they don't believe girls should be educated, but they attacked it because it is a Christian school.

That is precisely why they attacked it.

Number five: Homeland Security adviser's pro-caliphate tweet used by ISIS recruiters. I had been warning about this pro-caliphate Homeland Security top adviser in Janet Napolitano's regime in Homeland Security, a guy that has spoken, was a listed speaker to pay tribute to the Ayatollah Khomeini as a man of vision of the 20th century, who blasted the prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation, the largest terrorist support prosecution in American history, and he defended the convicted defendants, and he tweets out. Finally, it was enough to show the administration what most of us who had eyes and ears understood. He tweeted out, after ISIS killed more innocent people, that the caliphate was inevitable so just, you know, get ready. And then ISIS used that to help recruit.

Number six failure of 2014 of national security in this administration: Obama and the State Department give shout-outs to Islamic cleric who okayed the fatwa authorizing the killing of Americans in Iraq. And Patrick Poole lays out exactly what it involved. Not once but twice, as I understand it, he gave a shout-out to this Islamic cleric who authorized the killing of Americans in Iraq.

Number seven: Obama administration gives heavy weapons to ``vetted moderate'' Syrian rebel groups; they promptly turn up in hands of ISIS and al Qaeda.

Number eight: The White House defends the Muslim Brotherhood's ``commitment to nonviolence. And that is what some of the moderate Muslim leaders in the Middle East have said, different countries saying, Why are you helping the Muslim Brotherhood? Do you not understand they are at war with you?

Number nine: The Obama administration defends U.S. Islamic groups branded as terrorist groups by the UAE.

The UAE is run by moderate Muslims. Perhaps this administration could learn something by listening to them and who they recognize to be terrorist groups.

And number 10: Having banned discussions of ideology driving Islamic terrorism, the Pentagon says it can't understand the ideology of ISIS.

Well, duh. It is no wonder they can't understand it when you are not allowed to be educated about what these people believe. But there are people around this town that have been banned from teaching about radical Islam who perhaps should be unbanned.

In conclusion, I just want to reference the vote this week for Speaker. The vote is behind us. It is done. The Speaker was reelected. But one of the big concerns I had has not gone away, and it still needs to be addressed.

Those 4 years that Democrats controlled the House and the Senate, they set a record for the most bills brought to the floor where no amendments by

anybody were allowed. They wouldn't let us participate in the legislative process. And we railed against that. We said, You put us in the majority, we won't do that. And it breaks my heart that under the current Speaker, a new record broke Nancy Pelosi's record of more bills brought to the floor with no amendments allowed, a closed rule. That has got to change.

Some have said our effort had no chance. If all those who said they would have voted with us but it had no chance had voted with us, then it would have been overwhelming.

One of the Speaker's supporters came up to me yesterday on the floor and handed me this and said, ``This is from an old novel.'' I think it is called ``The Lion's Den.'' He said, ``This applies to you,'' and I appreciate it more than he would know.

The quote is this:

No matter how the espousal of a lost cause might hurt his

prestige in the House, Zimmer had never hesitated to identify

himself with it if it seemed to him to be right. He knew only

two ways; the right one and the wrong, and if he sometimes

made a mistake, it was never one of honor: he voted as he

believed he should, and although sometimes his voice was

raised alone on one side of a question, it was never stilled.

There were 24 such people that spoke this week, and I hope they will be honored and not belittled.

With that, 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 47 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until Friday, January 16, 2015, at 4 p.m.

Mr. Speaker, I have great appreciation and affection for my friend from North Carolina, Dr. Foxx, and I appreciate her comments. Actually, I didn't realize at the time, but some of the things she said leads into some rather painful things to talk about this evening, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I have been greatly encouraged, first of all, over the last few days to find out that Americans are paying attention. They realize what is at risk. They realize there is a great deal at stake in this country, and now--maybe not more than ever, but as much as ever-- we need to be about the business of getting this country on track.

I have mentioned before, Mr. Speaker, in recent years--maybe 3 years or so ago--my wife and I had gone to Togo, West Africa, which is by Nigeria, while Mercy Ships headquartered in my district were there. It is just an awesome charitable institution.

They bring a huge medical hospital ship into a dock in a Third World country, usually in Africa, and it is controlled by Christians, operated by Christians. They don't proselytize. They do the job of reaching out and ministering.

After the ship has been there, blind can see, and lame can walk. People who had massive tumors that were about to cut off their breathing are able to live. Women who had a child and developed a small hole in either the urinary tract or the colon when having a child that had been banned from families--sometimes, for 20 years, they were not allowed to be with the family. They were considered unclean.

They would have the fistula repaired and, after rather emotional ceremonies, for the first time, they would be reunited with family members. Sometimes, like I said, they hadn't seen them in 20 years. There were specific occasions like that.

And it is an amazing thing to watch. I was there for a week, really was blessed to help out with a number of different things.

But some of the West Africans wanted to meet with me before I left. They knew I was in Congress. Some of them were a little perplexed to see a Member of Congress. They were told he was a Member of Congress, but he is back there washing dishes in the kitchen.

But my late mother once said: I am not going to have you bunch of boys grow up and not be able to cook and wash dishes. So she made sure we could, and we can.

But we had the meeting with the West Africans there. They were Christians. And the oldest, senior citizen, hardworking man, after we had a really nice visit, he concluded, in essence, by saying: We were so thrilled when you elected your first Black President--his words--but since then, we have seen America getting weaker. It appears you are getting weaker and weaker. And the weaker it appears America gets, the more we suffer. Please, please, go back to Washington and tell your friends there stop getting weaker, because we know where we go when we die, but our only chance of having peace in this world is if America is strong.

I don't try to shove my religious beliefs on others, but it is part of who I am, just as it was with most of our Founding Fathers and those that went before us. But we were founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs. If you go look at one of the most important documents that established our independence--yes, the Declaration of Independence is critical. We are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights.

But the Treaty of Paris, 1783, that was after the Revolutionary War, after the war had been won, but the Americans weren't sure that Britain wasn't going to come back. They had the most powerful navy, the most powerful army. What is to say they wouldn't come back?

So it was critical that a document be signed, and something put in that document that was so important, that would be such an oath that the leaders of Great Britain would not dare break that oath, that they truly would recognize the United States as being independent and free of Great Britain.

I didn't know until I got to Congress--I mean, I read history books. I read biographies. I love to learn more all the time. But I was struck when our pastor, David Dykes, his wife, Cindy, were up here and they wanted to go on a tour of the State Department. I had never been through a tour of the State Department.

I went with them and, lo and behold, there was an original copy of the Treaty of Paris, the actual treaty. We were told it was an original copy. And I was surprised at the huge, big, bold letters that started the document because that document, if that is not signed, we are not free and independent, regardless of what the Declaration of Independence says. It means Britain is going to come in any time they get ready to. There had to be something so important put in that document so that when they signed it they wouldn't dare want to break it.

The words that started the Treaty of Paris, 1783, were: ``In the name of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity.'' That is a Christian belief. That was so important and held with such reverence that neither side would want to break an oath under the name of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity.

Mr. Speaker, for those that don't know--I know you do--but that means the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. That is how the Treaty of Paris started that established not just our hopes and aspirations and principles as the Declaration of Independence did, this was the treaty that gave us the independence.

So, yes, we got back into a fight with Great Britain in 1812, the War of 1812. 1814, part of that war, this building was burned and, apparently, if it had not been for a massive thunderstorm or rainstorm that night, this would have gone the way--this actual wing didn't come into existence for about 40 years, 44 years or so, but the reason we didn't get a big ruin up here on what was once called Jenkins Hill was because the rainstorm put out the fire. The roof was badly damaged. And even though sandstone, marble granite doesn't burn, necessarily, in the presence of extreme heat you get cracks and it falls. We didn't get a big ruin because of the rainstorm.

Some thought maybe we ought to move the Capitol back to Philadelphia or New York, but others felt that what was here was preserved for a reason, so it was built back. It is part of our founding.

And what we have seen in the last 6 years as this noble effort by our President wanting to bring peace throughout the world by showing how nice we were, by showing that we meant them no harm, we would be glad to meet with them, to sit down, we will give them offices, we will give them things, we will let murderers go from prison, and those type things will show our enemies how really decent and good we are, and so they will want to be our friends and will not want to be at war with us--the only problem is that may work in some common core-type thing taught in school, but it is not in touch with reality because there is evil in this world, and that evil has been most recently manifested repeatedly in radical Islamic jihadist actions. And there is no way around it. The more the people in this administration refuse to rise up and call evil what it is, the more the evil rises up.

Last June, I was asked to go to Nigeria and meet with 23 of the mothers of daughters who were kidnapped by Boko Haram, a radical Islamic group. And I hope and pray more around this town,

especially down the end of Pennsylvania Avenue, will begin to develop the courage and understanding that we are not going to bring peace to Christians and Jews throughout the world, and we are not going to bring peace to moderate Muslims who want to stand up to radical Islamists, but they know they go to the top of the death chart. But we have got to have people in the executive branch understand this is evil, and it is done in the name of Islam, and it is radical, and it is what they believe is jihad.

Yes, it is their religion. It is not the religion of moderate Muslims, but to them it is their religion. It is their religion. It is their politics. It is their world view. And under their world view, you don't have freedom of expression. Ultimately, shari'a law will prevail, and either they must wipe you out and kill you as dogs, or some of the more moderate of the radicals will allow you to pay a tax, admit that you are subservient to the Islamists, and they may let you live in peace, unless they feel that they are being led by some religious fanatic to do otherwise.

Things around the world have gotten worse for Christians and Jews because we had an administration, as noble and idealistic as it wanted to be--as wonderful as it would be if you could just say, ``We want to be at peace and we will turn the other cheek,'' that is not for a government to do, even a Christian-based government, as this one started and was for most of this country's existence.

For Christians, there is an obligation to follow the beatitudes, the teachings of Christ. But, Mr. Speaker, some get confused and think that is the government's role, that if its people get killed, well, if we just say, ``Oh, that was probably our fault; we deserved it,'' then it will stop. It does not. It gets worse.

People need to begin to understand what is going on in this world. There is evil, and people are being killed and tortured and women and young girls raped and their lives stolen from them, Christians and Jews being persecuted in greater numbers than any time in the world's existence--not a greater percentage but greater numbers.

I met with many Nigerians who have been adversely affected by this radical Islamist--yes, radical Islamist--group, Boko Haram. And make no mistake, I am not advocating for sending troops into Nigeria. That would be a huge mistake, in my opinion. But we can help them. They need intelligence. We might use a drone and drop a bomb. That might help save many Christians from the horrors they are experiencing. We could work with the southern, with part of the Nigerian Government, at least, to help save those people.

I mentioned before, I asked--these were all Christians. I asked did they attack this girls' school, because I know they don't believe girls should be educated. And they said no, they don't believe girls should be educated, but they attacked the school because they knew it was a Christian school.

And usually when they attack a school, if there are boys, they kill the boys, and then they take the girls and sell them into sex slavery. And in the case of these innocent children, these girls, they took them captive. They raped them repeatedly. They abused them severely. They demanded that they convert from Christianity to Islam.

But I asked the Christian pastor--and we were a couple of hours outside of town, where I had to go without the State Department or other people that would not have wanted me to put myself in that situation, but getting out to the remote location, secret location, where these survivors were. I said to the pastor: Where are the fathers? And he said: That is another part of the tragedy. They know that girls are being raped, sexually abused, abused in so many ways. They left their homes and they went into the bush because they are the fathers. They were supposed to protect their children, and they feel guilty, and they don't believe they deserve to be in a bed or a home while their daughters are being abused like they are.

That is a real human tragedy.

Then we hear not of just some violent action in Paris, France--it was a terrorist action, committed by radical Islamic jihadists who are being taught, so many of them, as tiny children growing up, to hate the West, to hate Western civilization, to hate America, that it is a good thing to kill innocent Americans, and that somehow, in their weird religious belief--in this evil--they benefit by killing and harming what are really innocent people.

This is a story from CNS News, on January 8, by Curtis Kalin:

In the wake of the terrorist attack on the offices of

French satirist paper Charlie Hebdo, one Muslim cleric

justified the murders under Islamic law.

Mr. Speaker, for those who don't understand, when they say they are justifying this under Islamic law, it means, to them, it is their religion. Yes, it is their religion:

USA Today published a column by avowed ``radical Muslim

cleric'' Anjem Choudary. The piece, titled ``People know the

consequences,'' asks why France would allow the paper to mock

Islam, and further excuses the systematic murders as

justified under Islamic law.

Then it quotes him:

``Muslims consider the honor of the Prophet Muhammad to be

dearer to them than that of their parents or even themselves.

To defend it is considered to be an obligation upon them. The

strict punishment, if found guilty of this crime under sharia

law, is capital punishment implementable by an Islamic State.

This is because the Messenger Muhammad said, ``Whoever

insults a prophet, kill him.''

See, for those who don't understand, those are people who are saying, ``This is our religion; it is our state; it is our lives,'' and until the people leading this administration understand that, it is going to get worse.

I do believe what is in the Bible: that to whom much is given, of them much will be required.

We have been put here in America in such a place and time that if we stand strong, we don't have to send American troops, who then end up being seen as occupiers, but we can help. We can give them intelligence, and we can give them the ability as we did in Africa. Within about 4 or 5 months, and with fewer than 500 American special ops people and intelligence, they defeated the Taliban by February of 2002. Then we became occupiers and added tens of thousands of troops and ended up, eventually, with over 100,000 in this administration. Occupiers don't do well in that part of the world. If we tried to be occupiers in Nigeria, we wouldn't do very well, but we can help with information and if we get weapons in the right hands.

I am not talking about sending weapons to the Free Syrian Army, which is working frequently with the Islamic State. I am talking about putting them in the hands of people who are our friends. Send them directly to those we can be sure are our friends in Nigeria. Send them to Erbil, where I was 2 or 3 weeks ago, in northern Iraq with the Kurds. They didn't throw down their weapons. They didn't hand them over to the Islamic State. They stood and fought. They are still standing and fighting. They helped clear an avenue to free some people who were trapped on a mountain while I was there.

My dear friend, Dana Rohrabacher, set the trip up. He and I have traveled to so many places. My friend Steve King was there, and Gregory Meeks was there--a good man. We also were in Kabul in Afghanistan. There is hope there. We have got to be smart about the way that we help, but it does not help when we can't even recognize the enemy.

I warned about one of the Homeland Security advisers--top advisers-- for a number of years. Finally, after all of this time--back, I believe it was, in August, he tweeted about the Islamic State's beheading and killing people. This adviser--top adviser--in the Obama administration tweeted out, Hey, the Islamic caliphate is inevitable, so just relax-- words to that effect. Finally, that was enough. They let him resign and not renew his term again. Thank goodness.

I have been talking with people in Nigeria and emailing, and I have great hopes for the girls I have met with, these young girls, that they are going to come out of it. They are still traumatized. The families are still traumatized. The girls have not been released, and it doesn't appear that this administration has done anything to really help. As I was communicating with African friends in Nigeria, we got word of this story, this one from NBC News:

More than 2,000 people are unaccounted for after radical

Islamist sect Boko Haram

torched more than 10 towns and villages in Nigeria, a local

lawmaker told NBC News. Ahmed Zanna, a senator for Borno

state, where the attack happened, said the militants razed

the town of Baga as well as ``10 to 20'' other communities in

the country's rural northeast over the past 5 days. ``These

towns are just gone, burned down. The whole area is covered

in bodies.''

Look, I know that there are people in this administration, including our President, who think you can win over evil by just being nice to it--offering to buy offices in Qatar, offering to release the evil forces--murderers--from captivity, and that such wonderful, gallant gestures will turn the tide. Individuals can, but governments are supposed to protect the people. It is causing this weakness to grow, which allows evil to grow around the world. There is a vacuum being filled as we have lost our leadership role around the world, and it is being filled with evil religious nastiness called ``radical Islam.''

As this administration continues to act as if it is not a religion and as if we can win them over with kindness, more people die. Now they are saying maybe 2,000 Nigerians have died today. So I couldn't help but reflect back to my senior citizen friend in Togo and his words, his imploring: ``Stop getting weaker. When America gets weaker, we suffer.''

How much suffering is this administration going to allow before it wakes up to the reality of what radical Islam is?

Until such time, this Congress needs to stand up and say we are not going to keep supplying weapons to radical Islamists who are working with the Islamic State in Syria. We will help our friends, like the Kurds. We are not going to keep supplying weapons to people who may have them end up with the Taliban. We are going to help our friends like we did with the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. It is time to wake up to the reality of evil that this radical Islam is because, until this administration does, it is going to get worse.

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 6 o'clock and 40 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Friday, January 9, 2015, at 9 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, a lot of my Republican friends have been upset with the comments of Jonathan Gruber, where he was quoted accurately as saying about ObamaCare: ``A lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. Call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever.''

He also said that they--President Obama and the Democrats--proposed it and it ``passed because the American people are too stupid to understand the difference.''

Now, I would say to my Republican colleagues: chill out. Don't worry. Not a single Republican voted for that bill. Not a single Republican in the Senate voted for that bill. He wasn't talking about Republicans. He wasn't talking about the Democrats, Independents, or Republicans who voted for Republicans to come to the House or the Senate. He was talking about the people he was paid millions by to work on ObamaCare. That is right--he called the Democrats stupid.

He wasn't talking about Republicans. He knew we were smarter than that.

Mr. Speaker, our chaplain today is Dr. Robert Jeffress, senior pastor of the 11,000-member First Baptist Church in Dallas. His opinions are ubiquitous on radio and television, as is his radio program, ``Pathway to Victory.''

His weekly TV program is on over 1,200 stations and systems worldwide, while he has authored 21 books and is a FOX News contributor.

While some churches flee downtown areas, Dr. Jeffress led his church in a massive revitalization of downtown Dallas. He has a bachelor's from Baylor, master's from Dallas Theological Seminary, doctorates from Southwestern Theological Seminary and Dallas Baptist University.

He and his wife, Amy, have two daughters, Julia and Dorothy, who are here today, and son-in-law, Ryan Sadler.

Dr. Robert Jeffress is principled, brilliant, charitable, and his faith in God leaves no room for fear of man. He and my wife, Kathy, grew up together in church, and he is a dear, treasured friend of mine.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to be here honoring Ralph Hall. He has been my Congressman for many years; and, in fact, after being on the bench for about 10 years, I had a feeling that perhaps I ought to legislate, and I wouldn't do it from the bench. But my Democratic Congressman Ralph Hall, from conversations, he talked like I did--I hope that is not disrespectful to Ralph--but I told him, as long as he is my Congressman, I didn't have any need to run because he would represent me well.

Then we had redistricting in 2003, and it opened up a different district. But I felt that way then, if he had stayed my Congressman, I never had a need to run, so some wish we didn't have redistricting.

As I hear people talk about his age, I think about Ralph saying that when he turned 90, somebody on his staff said: ``Congressman Hall, would you rather we didn't mention to people that you are 90?'' He said: ``No, I am fine with that. I would a lot rather you say he is 90 than, `Doesn't he look natural?' ''

Having been with Ralph yesterday there in Rockwall as he is going through rehab, actually, he doesn't look natural at all, he looks great, and we just look forward to the days when he is fully out of the wheelchair and that rod in his leg is not bothering him as much as it is now. We miss him very much.

He did also provide me a quote that struck him having been chairman of the Science Committee. This is a quote Ralph sent:

We are reminded of the responsibility given to us by the

scripture engraved on the hearing room wall of the Science

Committee from Proverbs 29:18, ``Where there is no vision,

the people perish.''

Well, Ralph's eyesight was 20/20. He could see where we have been, and he could see where we were going. It was an honor, a pleasure, and a real privilege to serve with my friend, Ralph Hall.

Mr. Speaker, I won't take long, but I wanted to address the bills that we took up late today. First we voted on H.R. 5759. This is the bill exactly as it appears. We always have copies of the bill that we vote on that are out here in the Speaker's Lobby so you can grab them as you come in here and see what we are voting on. But

what this did not reflect was the exceptions, the provisions that were added last night that had to be added by hand here on the floor so that as I tried to talk to my colleagues here on the floor and pointed out that our Republican leadership had added an exception, they didn't know that, and I had to show them.

So, Mr. Speaker, I felt it was important to explain why a bill that I was listed as a cosponsor on ended up with my voting ``no'' on it, because it was a good bill. My friend, Ted Yoho, is a good man. He is a very dear friend. I think the world of him, and he had a good bill here. The purpose is, it says, ``to establish a rule of construction clarifying the limitations on executive authority to provide certain forms of immigration relief.''

It was basically to make clear that the President had no authority to do what he did when he started granting amnesty-type work permits to 5 million people who were unauthorized aliens, as the law calls them. My friend Congressman Yoho's bill was entitled the Executive Amnesty Prevention Act of 2014. The title was changed by leadership, and it became the Preventing Executive Overreach on Immigration Act, and the exception that was added--and I won't read the whole thing--in part the exception says that basically this law that was passed by the House this evening shall apply except for humanitarian purposes where the aliens are at imminent risk of serious bodily harm or death.

Now, I don't personally think that exception applies right now, but this administration has been using similar exceptions like that to grant amnesty in the way of asylum and refugee status to people that should not have gotten it, but they are already claiming this exception. So it is kind of like what happened at the end of July when our leadership, we had some great principles all Republicans agreed on regarding dealing with the border issue, the immigration issues, all of us agreed on the principles, but nobody got to see the bill until late Tuesday. I finished reading it about 2 a.m. and then got up at 5 a.m. and reread it, and it was a disaster. It was a de facto amnesty bill. So we only had 1 day basically to get the word out that this is a bad bill because we voted on Thursday, and by Thursday, people had awakened, realized it was a de facto amnesty bill, we got it fixed, so very late Friday night around 10 p.m. or so, we passed a good border bill.

I know that is news to the President because nobody let him know. He didn't know the House had actually acted. But on this one, by adding that exception, I know the President issued a veto threat, but he probably didn't know about the exception being added either, because if you saw the official printout of the bill, it didn't include that exception. But if the Senate came through and passed this same bill with that exception, the President could actually claim that this exception on here legalizes what he had done illegally as an executive amnesty provision to give these work permits. So the bill that I was willing to cosponsor completely changed in the addition of that exception. It wasn't just the title that changed.

On the National Defense Authorization Act, Buck McKeon worked very hard on that bill. The people on Armed Services worked very hard. I was very proud of them. They got things in that bill that we have been fighting for. For example, Fort Hood was not workplace violence. That was an act of war against our military members. The law should have reflected it, and the President should have reflected it. But, instead, those military members, those patriots of ours, had been mistreated. They have not been given the Purple Heart they deserved. They have not been given the benefits they deserved, and that needed to be fixed. That fix got in this NDAA, and I am very grateful to Buck McKeon for getting that in there.

Another problem, we have had this administration going after chaplains for saying things like ``in Jesus' name.'' They pray in Jesus' name because as a Christian, Jesus said, if you pray in My name, then it will be answered--but not always ``yes.'' So chaplains were told it doesn't matter what your religious beliefs are, you can't pray in Jesus' name, and we have got to get rid of all the crosses. The place I reported to every morning for 4 years at Fort Benning had a chapel across the street. Under the orders I had seen, apparently they would have to remove their crosses.

Well, the provision in the NDAA extended religious freedom to our chaplains. It should have been a no-brainer, shouldn't have been required to have been said, but in this administration, it did.

Also, something that many of us have had problems with was the Authorization for Use of Military Force going back to September 2001, after the 9/11 attacks. It gave the President way too much power.

Some thought it was the NDAA that gave too much power, but actually, it was the AUMF. We amended that. The Gohmert amendment help amend that, but I feel a lot better under this NDAA because the AUMF is finally not continued anymore, so that was a good thing.

The problem is the NDAA--this massive National Defense Authorization Act that is a big, important bill--got to the Rules Committee last night. We didn't have a chance to read it. I am anal enough, I actually try to read these important bills, and I didn't have time to read this bill.

What happened to our 72-hour promise? Well, actually, it was a 3-day promise, and that has been whittled down since then, but we didn't have the 3 days that were originally promised by Republicans.

I knew the bill increased TRICARE costs. I wasn't happy about that. I voted no against a process that takes something as important as our national defense and said, ``Here you go, here is the whole thing, trust us. Vote for it.'' We didn't have a chance to review it.

Were there any powers in this thing given additionally to the NSA? Is there any more power to spy on Americans under this bill? I don't know. I couldn't vote for a bill that was launched on us last night that is this important, and I deeply regret it with the good things that were in here.

There were numerous good things, well thought out, but you can't push a bill this important on us, especially when we know there are problems, we just don't get a chance to find them. Can't vote yes--I couldn't in good conscience vote yes.

One additional irony, Mr. Speaker, I had run for Republican Study Committee chair, and I knew if I were elected chair of the Republican Study Committee, I would still vote as representative of my district in Texas, but I also knew if I were representing a majority of the feelings of the Republican Study Committee, I should not and would not be in a position to speak out as boldly against a majority of the people in my organization.

Maybe it is fortunate I am not the RSC chair, so I am here to complain about the abuses when they happen by our own leadership.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to associate myself with the words of my colleague, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall). I think this body has been blessed by Rob Woodall being here, and his words tonight just reinforce that.

The President has declared an amnesty. The law of the land is if someone is in this country illegally, they are not allowed to legally work. To change that law requires a bill. As Saturday Night Live pointed out in their version of Schoolhouse Rock, a bill has to pass the House, it has to pass the Senate, and then it goes to the President and gets his signature if it is going to change existing law.

For anyone to just pronounce ``here is the new change'' is an indiscriminate approach to changing the law without following the law.

I believe such an indiscriminate approach would be both

unwise and unfair. It would suggest to those thinking about

coming here illegally that there will be no repercussions for

such a decision, and this could lead to a surge in more

illegal immigration, and it would also ignore the millions of

people around the world who are waiting to come here legally.

Ultimately, our Nation, like all nations, has the right and

obligation to control its borders and set laws for residency

and citizenship, and no matter how decent they are, no matter

their reasons, the 11 million who broke these laws should be

held accountable. That is what I believe.

All of the words--every one of the words I just spoke, beginning with ``I believe such an indiscriminate approach would be both unwise and unfair''--were words directly out of the mouth of the United States of America's Barack Hussein Obama.

He was right. In everything he said in that quote, he was exactly right. There are millions of people lined up around the world who are wanting to come here legally. Most of those who would be coming would have to have some way to support themselves; yet the President spoke into law and signed his oral fiat saying: ``You know what, I am going to disregard everything I have previously said that was exactly right,

change the law without a bill going to the House or the Senate or without coming to me for my signature after it has passed both.''

Our President also said:

I take the Constitution very seriously. The biggest

problems that we are facing right now is the President trying

to bring more and more power into the executive branch and

not go through Congress at all, and that is what I intend to

reverse when I am President of the United States of America.

The trouble is he said that on March 31, 2008, and when he became President, he forgot that promise. Somebody needs to get that promise in front of him again.

Also, in 2008, before he got elected, he said:

We have got a government designed by the Founders so there

will be checks and balances. You don't want a President who

is too powerful or a Congress that is too powerful or a court

that is too powerful. Everybody has got their role. Congress'

job is to pass legislation. The President can veto it or he

can sign it.

Senator Obama said:

I believe in the Constitution, and I will obey the

Constitution of the United States. We are not going to use

signing statements as a way of doing an end-run around

Congress.

I had a practice court instructor at Baylor Law School. He was an incredible trial lawyer before he came to be a professor at Baylor Law School. He talked even slower than I talk. I can still hear Matt Dawson saying, when he caught a witness saying something different one time than he said another time, he would say to the witness: ``Well, were you lying then, or are you lying now?''

Let the shoe fit on the foot that wears that size.

Now, there has been a lot of talk about the law, and I have been called anal and everything else around this House floor, even by people in my party, for actually reading bills and reading laws, but 8 United States Code section 1324a(a)(1) says:

It is unlawful for a person or other entity--(A) to hire,

or to recruit or refer for a fee, for employment in the

United States an alien knowing the alien is an unauthorized

alien, as defined in subsection (h)(3) of this section, with

respect to such employment; or (B) (i) to hire for employment

in the United States an individual without complying with the

requirements of subsection (b) of this section; or (ii) if

the person or entity is an agricultural association,

agricultural employer, or farm labor contractor, to hire, or

to recruit or refer for a fee, for employment in the United

States an individual without complying with the requirements

of subsection (b) of this section.

Basically, it makes clear, and it is easier for me to see it in print, but when I see it in print, it is very clear, it is illegal for someone to get a job in America who is not an authorized alien.

If you are an illegal alien or an unauthorized alien, as the language is here, then you are not entitled, it is illegal for you to get a job in the United States, and it is illegal for someone to hire you.

It really raises an interesting question, and I haven't seen this in the President's fiat, the royal decree that he made, I haven't seen if he is providing amnesty for every employer that hires someone who is here illegally because the President is saying, basically, ``I'm giving you amnesty, so you can go work wherever you want to,'' but as the law makes clear in section 1324 of volume 8 of the United States Code, it is illegal to hire someone that is illegally in the country.

Is the President going to pardon every employer that hires one of the 5 million that is going to get a permit? We know that the President wants to give pardons to folks who are here illegally, but the trouble is a pardon doesn't work for someone wanting to grant legal status. A pardon only works if you want to forgive a crime that has been committed, like President Clinton did.

President-elect George W. Bush and Vice President Cheney, he kept them waiting. The service was supposed to start, and President Clinton was over there, just signing pardons as fast as he could. It took him awhile to get that done.

He left President-elect George W. Bush and Vice President Cheney waiting. They were late starting the service that day on Inauguration Day for George W. Bush because he was signing those pardons as fast as he could, because he had to sign the individual pardons.

Well, the President hasn't signed 5 million pardons, and even if he did, a pardon forgives the committing of a crime. It does not change the status of someone that is illegally in the country. A pardon pertains to criminal law.

The changing of status is under naturalization and immigration, and that power is strictly reserved to this House and the body down the hall, the U.S. Senate.

We have the power under article I, section 8, to make the law on those things; the President does not. And there is no provision that allows him to pardon someone from the requirements of the naturalization or immigration laws.

Now, something else caught my attention. It is down in the miscellaneous provisions of section 1324, because I am always looking: Okay, does the President have a loophole here? And at first I thought maybe he did. It turns out he doesn't. But under the definition of ``unauthorized alien,'' it says:

As used in this section, the term ``unauthorized alien''

means, with respect to the employment of an alien at a

particular time, that the alien is not at that time either:

A) an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence, or

B) authorized to be so employed by this chapter or by the

attorney general (now the Secretary of Homeland Security).

So I thought maybe this is their loophole here that the President might try to use, even though that is not what was said in a basis that was provided.

But then when you get over here, it says this exception may not be provided to the alien unless the alien is lawfully admitted for permanent residence or otherwise would, without regard to removal proceedings, be provided such authorization.

So again, it kicks it back to the law as Congress has decreed it in the past, by both Houses passing it with a majority and a President previously signing it, that you have to follow the law in order to get this lawful permanent resident status. You have to be lawfully admitted. You are not even eligible for that miscellaneous exception under section 1324.

There are people that have violated the law to come into the country in such a way that it is not necessarily a crime, but if they go to work, under volume 8 of the United States Code, section 1324, it will be a crime for anybody that hires them, and it will be a crime for them. That is where the crime may get committed.

I guess at that time if the President wants to sign 5 million pardons for 5 million employers, well, he could do that. He has that authority under the Constitution. He can sign pardons for all 5 million employers that employ people who are unauthorized aliens in this country. No matter what the President gives them under the law, that person is still an unauthorized alien under this criminal provision.

There are some interesting days ahead, and the statute of limitations will not have run out when a new President comes into office. The only way that wouldn't happen is if the President got a third term, and, of course, we know that would be as unconstitutional as the President legislating, and surely that wouldn't happen.

Now, it is interesting, too, that in the manner in which the President has given this amnesty and is authorizing these work permits, he has actually doubled down legally on his violation of the law previously under DACA in which he had said that--well, this is the way he doubled down on it. Basically, he expands his previous unconstitutional action that the House passed a law the last week of July canceling but the Senate didn't take it up. That is why, when the President says Congress hadn't done anything, the House did. They talked about the Senate passing a comprehensive bill, and they forget to mention that the Senate's bill is unconstitutional. We are not allowed to take it up because it raised revenue, and under the Constitution, such a bill has to originate in the House.

If the Senate gets around to sending it down here, we don't get to bring it on the floor. It would be what is called ``blue slipped,'' where you put a blue slip on there and say the House cannot take this up. It raises revenue. It has

to originate in the House. Therefore, the House is not allowed to take it up.

Since the Senate passed a bill that was not allowed under the Constitution, we took one up ourselves and we passed that one, and it was constitutional and it was a good bill. There was more that needed to be done, but for what it did, it was a good bill. It dealt largely with securing our border. Because the question people are not asking and the President is not answering is a very important question.

If this act of amnesty, unconstitutional, illegal as it is, if this act of amnesty is allowed to stand, and obviously the border is not secure, we still have thousands and thousands continuing to come across our border illegally, and nowadays nobody apparently is being turned away, then the big question I am getting to that has to be answered is: How often should we go ahead and have an amnesty? Because clearly, since the President has chosen to provide an amnesty unconstitutionally without securing the border first--and the vast majority of Americans do, and even a majority of our Hispanic friends that are legally here want the border secure before we do anything else.

I have said over and over, if the President will just secure the border, as we get confirmed by the border States, not by anybody over at Homeland Security--we have already seen their kind of work, at least the people at the top--but if it is confirmed by the border States that the borders are now factually secured, then people would be amazed at what the House and the Senate can negotiate on and get accomplished.

But until the border is secured, then we have to decide, if this amnesty is going to stand, as unconstitutional and as illegal as it is, how often should we give an amnesty? The President has given amnesty to 5 million this time. And, of course, those 5 million are in this time where there is already over 92 million people of working age who are not working, they have given up even trying to get a job, and there are millions more that are looking for jobs and can't find them. So we will put 5 million Americans out of work, middle class, poor working Americans that are legally here. They will be put out of work. Why? Because people that have just gotten an amnesty, as unconstitutional as it is, they will surely take jobs for lesser pay than what the American citizens or legal permanent residents were getting paid, so they will bump them out of a job.

And then also for any employer that hires more than 50 employees, they have learned over the last few years since ObamaCare passed, actually in 2010, employers have learned if you have got more than 50 employees, then you are going to end up paying a $3,000 fine for anybody that you don't provide what the Federal Government considers adequate insurance for.

So, for example, today, our friend Dennis Michael Lynch was pointing out that he has about 200 or so employees that are either American citizens or legally here, and the law is clear he is going to have to provide insurance that is approved by this government. That means even if they are 60 years old and they are a single man, they are going to have to have maternity coverage. Or as the couple I saw on TV, the gay or lesbian couple, women in their sixties, saying, ``We don't need maternity care.'' Well, it won't matter because they require it.

If you don't provide that very expensive insurance for your employees, if you have more than 50 employees, then you are going to be paying the $3,000 fine, penalty. As Chief Justice Roberts called it at page 14 and 15 of his opinion, clearly it is not a tax, it is a penalty, it is a fine. Never mind what he said 40 pages later. But you are going to have to pay this fine, this penalty, of $3,000 per employee.

So for somebody like our friend Dennis Michael Lynch, this President has, by his act of amnesty, conveyed to Dennis Michael Lynch: If you will let those 200 American citizens or legal permanent residents who have done everything the right way, if you will allow them to be fired, let them go, and then hire these people who are illegally in the country, then my administration has put in place a law called, informally, ObamaCare that will save you $600,000.

So basically, Dennis Michael Lynch, how would you like to take home an extra $600,000 this next year? All you have got to do is let your American citizens go, hire people illegally in the country, because under this royal decree from the White House they don't have to be provided insurance.

So Dennis Michael Lynch can save at least $600,000. It may be he had 300 employees, in which case he gets to pocket an extra $900,000 if he'll just let the American citizens go and hire those folks that are illegally here. And since there are 5 million of those folks that are going to be looking for jobs, then 300 is a drop in the bucket compared to the 5 million. But $600- to $900,000 for one person in extra income, that is some serious money. Even for people in Congress, that is serious money.

But that also doesn't address the issue of whether or not Dennis Michael Lynch, if he went ahead and did that and made himself an extra $600- to $900,000 next year, it doesn't address the issue of whether a new President that comes in in January of 2017 might have their Justice Department actually follow the law, and even though might not be able to pursue the aliens illegally here that got jobs, certainly would be able to prosecute the employers.

But here again, the President could do what President Clinton did and leave his successor sitting there waiting on Inauguration Day while he signs 5 million pardons, and he could do that. That doesn't seem to have been this administration's history. If you get thrown under the bus, someone else has said before: When this administration throws you under the bus, they mean for you to stay there. So you probably shouldn't count on a pardon in the future for people that violate the law and don't have a pardon in their hand before this President leaves office.

Now, there has been a lot of discussion among Republicans here in the House and among some of our friends. In fact, some of us have been talking tonight about what is the best way to address this unconstitutional amnesty. And I know our leadership has talked about, well, we could fund all of the government with an omnibus, taking appropriations bills that have been done already by the House--there have been seven of those--adding four to them, and then not funding the Department of Homeland Security and only funding them until March, and then by March of next year we could try to overturn the amnesty action taken by the President.

Most of us believe if those permits are issued before Congress stops them, it is going to be difficult to get enough votes to withdraw the permits. Once they are out there, it is going to be so tough to get them withdrawn. Some of us have been saying we don't think we can wait until March because, if you wait until March, there is a real risk that permits are done.

Maybe if we just do a short-term CR until January, when we get the new Senate in, then we can act on that, but another problem there is that it is not just the Department of Homeland Security that is involved in this process for people that are here illegally.

You have the Department of Homeland Security. You also have the Bureau of Consular Affairs that is involved in this unconstitutional amnesty. That is the State Department that is involved. You have the Department of Defense that has been involved in housing for the next influx of people as they flood in. DOD housed many of those people initially.

You have got Health and Human Services, who takes custody of minors that comes in and ships them all over the country. You have got Social Security that is going to be issuing Social Security numbers. You have got the Department of Justice and CJS for immigration court processing. You have got HUD for housing.

There are a lot of issues here, and as somebody once said, you should never take a hostage that the other person you are trying to influence by taking hostage is willing for you to shoot. It doesn't do you much good to take a hostage that the other side wants you to shoot.

We need to be concerned that if we say, ``All right. We are not funding the Department of Homeland Security until you cease this illegal and unconstitutional action,'' the President might say, ``So you mean you're not

going to fund the Border Patrol? In other words, you're going to leave the border wide open, so that anybody wants to come in, can. And that's your threat. You are going to leave the border wide open for anybody to come in unless I back off of my amnesty.''

Well, good luck. That is not going to do the trick. We need a short- term CR to get us into the first of the year. For example, the House has defunded ourselves over a 4-year period by over 20 percent. We cut our own budgets over 20 percent. Nobody noticed, nobody cared, except those of us in the House. We had to make real adjustments.

If we can make those adjustments, I think the White House ought to be able to make those adjustments. Maybe they could do with a few less czars--maybe we defund all the czars--but there are smart ways to defund the waste, fraud, and abuse in the executive branch, and I don't think it is a good idea to start with Homeland Security.

At the same time, what happens when those employers that hire the 5 million people that have just been given amnesty are able to save millions of dollars? What happens to them? They are going to make more money than ever, and that is during a President's administration who has presided for the first time in our history over a Nation where 95 percent of all the income has gone to the top 1 percent. It has got to stop.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, well, it has been quite an interesting couple of days coming back from Thanksgiving, and this morning, there was an interesting conference, what to do about a President who, for a number of years, a couple dozen of times or so, has made very clear he is not a king, he is not an emperor, he would rather not have to deal with Congress, Congress is a messy thing to deal with, but he can't just do what he wants regarding immigration without following the Constitution and that means, under the Constitution, article I, section 8, Congress has sole authority when it comes to issues like naturalization and immigration.

Prior Congresses have passed laws and made it clear what it takes to become a United States citizen. Now, those laws need fixing. There is no question about that, and despite all of the rhetoric, our friends on the other side of the aisle, when they controlled the majority in the House, majority in the Senate, with President Obama in the White House, chose to absolutely do nothing about correcting immigration problems, securing the border--not even amnesty. Why? Because they know, they see the polls, and the polls make very clear that the American public did not want any type of amnesty.

The President knew were he and the Democrats in the House and Senate, when they had the majority during their 2 years, to have done something like an amnesty bill like the bill the President passed without going through Congress, then they would have surely lost the majority, and the President would definitely not have been reelected in 2012.

And they did not think it was worth risking the majority over an amnesty when the vast majority of Americans did not want it. Why? Because the vast majority of Americans have to comply with the law, and fortunately those same vast number of Americans think everybody else should as well.

Now, we still see emails saying, you know, if we could ever get Congress under Social Security, Congress living under the same laws as everybody else did, then a lot of our problems will be fixed, and that forgets the fact that actually Members of Congress have been paying into Social Security for years.

No Member of Congress has a benefit that every other Federal employee doesn't already have. One of the promises that Republicans made, that they said they would do if they got the majority in November of 1994, is to make sure that Republicans have and Democrats in Congress have to live under the same laws everybody else does.

Now, I was told when I was prevented from continuing to cook ribs that my friends across the aisle, Democrats, and Republicans love-- everybody that is not a vegetarian tells me they loved my ribs; and my dear friend Louise Slaughter had told me that her late husband, before he passed, as a vegetarian had even eaten two ribs of mine she brought home. So my ribs were a big hit with everybody but the Architect of the Capitol. He told me I couldn't continue to cook because of a violation of the fire code, and that was something Republicans actually changed to make sure that we in Congress had to live under the same laws everybody else does. So we do.

We are supposed to live under the laws everybody else does, but then it comes to amnesty, and some here in the minority think it is just fine for a President to legislate since they are not able to do that while they are in the minority. Didn't do it when they were in the majority. The President didn't do it before his reelection in 2012.

So it is a bit of a conundrum when the President of the United States asserts, as an alleged former constitutional professor, apparently an instructor, all these years he cannot do anything about the immigration problem because the Constitution doesn't allow it. Then, immediately before the grand jury acted in Missouri, the President acts, knowing what was about to happen in Missouri, Ferguson, and knowing Thanksgiving was coming up and a lot of people would take their eye off of what was happening with regard to amnesty, and then the President speaks a new law into existence.

The law is very clear: if you are not legally in the United States, you can't legally hold a job. The President changed that law with a pronouncement and a stroke of his pen, but that is not a legal law.

So we have got to stand up for the Constitution. For a President to avoid taking such action before an election because he knew it would cost him a second term, it would cost his party dramatically in the Senate and House, then to wait and do it immediately after the election and right before Thanksgiving when he thinks people will lose interest, well, Americans are not losing interest. They are still concerned.

Now that the President has taken this unconstitutional action, America is looking at Republicans: You said you were against it. You ran and we elected you to the majority in the House and Senate, and you were saying you would not abide such an unconstitutional action. So what are you going to do about it?

Well, one of the things being proposed is my dear friend Ted Yoho-- sometimes people say ``dear friend'' around this body and they say it a bit tongue in cheek, but that is not true of Ted Yoho. He is a great American, and I am very, very proud he is my friend. But in H.R. 5759, titled, Preventing Executive Overreach on Immigration Act, my friend Congressman Yoho has a bill that declares that the President does not have the authority to exempt categories of persons unlawfully present in the United States from removal. Any executive action seeking to exempt these categories of person is a violation of the law and has no legal effect.

The bill goes on to make clear this is a permanent solution that will apply to executive actions that attempt to circumvent the law. Further, this does not affect any appropriation, so it does not risk any government funding or shutdown issues.

It is a constitutional separation of powers issue. So any reform or change to the law must come from congressional legislation, not executive fiat, and basically makes clear an executive fix of the law is unconstitutional, temporary, and establishes a dangerous precedent that could be abused by Presidents of both parties for any area of the law they disagree with.

So that is a great first step, but the problem is, if we do not eliminate the funding for the President's unconstitutional action, then it may be carried out anyway. There is some talk about extending funding to next March. Well, by March people will already have been provided work permits that the law says may not legally have work permits, and it is not likely anything would be done at that point to stop it. Now is the time to stop unconstitutional action.

As the President keeps saying, Congress didn't do anything. It shows that he is getting terrible advice. We had a knock-down, drag-out session the last week of July in this Chamber, and two floors below this Chamber, in the House office buildings, we were fighting it out because, as the President has said, dealing with Congress can be messy.

That is the way the Founders intended it. They wanted it to be difficult to pass laws. And Jefferson, thinking it would be a good idea--though he wasn't there at the Constitutional Convention, so he didn't get this in. It would be a good idea if laws had to be on file for a year before they could even be brought up for a vote. Things done in haste in this body or the Senate are not a good idea.

Yet we must do something to stop the unconstitutional action. The President wants a border bill. We passed one in the House. Somebody needs to advise President Obama's advisers that we passed a good bill. It was not a good bill on Thursday, but by Friday at 10 p.m. or so when we passed it, it was a good bill. Still had more to do. There is much more we can and should do. There is a lot of reforms that must be done, but until the border is secure, then we are just going to have to keep

reforming immigration, reforming immigration, giving amnesty, giving amnesty, until the country is not the country people wanted to come to.

How ironic that people have to leave countries--they believe--because there is graft, corruption, violence, because the rule of law is not enforced fairly across the board, and they want to come to America because, with all the down economy, over 92 million people having given up hope of finding a job, not even looking anymore, this is still one of the greatest economies in the world because we still pretty much try to enforce the law across the board.

So people come from countries where the rule of law is not observed, not enforced fairly across the board--too many friends or people with particular interests of the leaders, they get special privileges, they get exempted from the law. So they come here where we are not supposed to do that, and once here, say, ``Look, now that we are here, having come illegally, we want you, United States, to just forget about the law, ignore your Constitution, ignore the laws on immigration, and just waive them and forget about them,'' when, in so doing, we would become like the country they felt they had to leave because we don't enforce the law fairly across the board anymore.

The old saying, capital is a coward, talking about money to be invested, it is a coward. It goes to areas where it feels safest, where the laws will be most fairly applied so that there is something that can be counted on, that laws mean things.

So we have had a lot of investment in the United States of people from China, from Russia, Africa, South America. People around the world have been willing to invest in the United States because we have been a country where capital could be comfortable.

But when mass amnesty is applied, which will ultimately throw however many people are given illegal work permits to work legally, you are going to throw that many million people out of jobs. You will depress the working wage rate.

Mr. Speaker, it can't be overemphasized that what happened since this President has been in office or in power is what we normally say about monarchs, but what has happened for the first time in American history never happened under any prior President.

But this President's policies, as he talked about the fat cats on Wall Street, though he received more donations from them than Republicans did; as he bad-mouthed the oil companies, but he had friends that were doing favors for him; as he bad-mouthed capital cronyism as capital cronyism was exactly what was occurring in this country and from this administration, actually for the first time in our history, 95 percent of all income in America went to the top 1 percent of income earners. It has never happened before.

I know--I know--this administration, everybody in it talks about the fat cats and going after the rich, and yet, amazingly, as they talk about going after the rich, it is as if there is a wink and a nod: We are going to talk bad about you, call you fat cats, but you are going to get richer than you have ever been. Just don't forget us when it comes to political contributions. Oh, yeah, we will trash the Koch Brothers, but they can't hold a candle to the fat-cat Democratic contributors.

But when you try to get your head around 95 percent of the income going to the top 1 percent in America, it is extraordinary. The President himself acknowledged, September a year ago, that this was happening on his watch.

Again, people can talk about the middle class getting bigger and wages being suppressed. Their solution is to bring in 5 million new workers willing to work a lot cheaper, without health insurance, to compete with Americans that need a little more in order to live and that need health insurance.

And the solution is to bring in 5 million people more? Do you really want to see minority unemployment go even higher than its current skyrocketing position?

That is not fair to Americans. Our oath is to this country and the people in it, and the way we do that is by defending the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. It is time the poor and the middle class in America were helped by having a better wage, by not continuing to leave the borders open, by not winking and nodding and unconstitutionally allowing 5 million people to work illegally but with the stamp of approval from the White House. It is time to stop it before we lose the Constitution altogether.

Here is an article from Steven Camarota and Karen Ziegler. The headline, ``Immigrant Families Benefit Significantly from ObamaCare,'' and the subheadline, ``Immigrant Families Accounted for 42 Percent of Medicaid Growth Since 2011.''

The article says:

A key part of the Affordable Care Act is Medicaid expansion

for those with low incomes. A new analysis of government data

by the Center for Immigration Studies shows that immigrants

and their U.S.-born children, under age 18, have been among

the primary beneficiaries of Medicaid growth. The data show

that immigrants and their children accounted for 42 percent

of the growth in Medicaid enrollment from 2011 to 2013.

Immigrants benefited more from Medicaid expansion than

natives because a much larger share of immigrants are poor

and uninsured.

It seems almost certain that immigrants and their children

will continue to benefit disproportionately from ObamaCare,

as they remain much more likely than natives to be uninsured

or poor. The available evidence indicates that Medicaid

growth associated with immigrants is largely among those

legally in the country.

Nonetheless, immigrants, this points out:

The number of immigrants and their U.S.-born children on

Medicaid grew twice as fast as the number of natives and

their children on Medicaid from 2011 to 2013.

Immigrants and their children accounted for 42 percent of

Medicaid enrollment growth from 2011 to 2013, even though

they accounted for only 17 percent of the Nation's total

population and 23 percent of overall U.S. population growth

in the same time period.

About two-thirds of the growth in Medicaid associated with

immigrants was among immigrants themselves, rather than U.S.-

born children of immigrants.

It is an interesting issue because when my friend Steve King and I were in England in recent years, we were told there that the law is very clear. They know that their country would fail if they just say everybody that comes in is immediately entitled to every Federal subsidy the British Government offers, so they have a requirement in England that you are not entitled to any benefit, we were told, until you have paid into the British system for at least 5 years.

Well, that kind of makes sense, and having just been over there and had a chance to address members from the House of Commons and House of Lords, having spoken at Cambridge and Oxford, they are trying to save their country over there, but there was a great deal of welfare that is hurting the system and their economics. Even so, they have a law that says you can't even get these kind of benefits until you have paid into their system for 5 years.

Why isn't there something like that in the President's new law that he spoke into being? Perhaps that ought to be the first reform that both Houses take up. You can't receive any kind of benefit from the U.S. Government unless you have paid into the U.S. Government for at least 5 years, and that does not include getting more money back year after year than you pay in.

An article yesterday indicated one woman in Virginia had been largely using people that were illegally in the country to file for child tax credits so they can get back $4,000, $7,000, $1,500 more than they paid in, and it was a scam.

If one woman in Virginia can be accountable for $7,000 in child tax credits being paid out more than people paid in, how many people are there across the United States that are doing that same thing, while we have workers across the country, like in my district, that have said that because ObamaCare changed the definition of part-time work, it forced them into a situation of having to work two part-time jobs, not having health insurance anymore, and just struggling just to survive, just to live; yet when it comes to people that have not paid a dime into the system, all of a sudden, we are just going to bend over backwards and violate the Constitution for them.

There is an article in Breitbart today from Tony Lee that said:

One in three illegal immigrants over the age of 25 in

America do not even have a high school education, according

to a New Migration Policy Institute report.

The Migration Policy Institute estimates there are 8.512

million illegal immigrant adults 25 years of age or older.

The study found that while 49 percent of illegal immigrants

25 years or older have at least a high school diploma or a

GED, 17 percent have some high school education, while 33

percent do not have any high school education.

Of course, we have got people of all races, national origins, and both genders trying to get into this country. They have been trying for years and years to do so legally. They could fill needed specialized positions to help our economy grow; yet they can't get a visa. They are not about to get amnesty. We have got things completely backwards.

We know, of course, when the President talks about amnesty and legal status--along with other people here in Washington--our border patrolmen make clear over and over that that increases the number of people coming across our border.

Thank God Texas has stepped up. The State of Texas has been paying tremendous amounts of money to have additional people on the border. At night, you can see their profile--DPS troopers, Texas Rangers, game wardens--where they can call people in speedboats that Texas has paid for to rush up and try to catch the coyotes bringing people across illegally.

The coyotes don't want to be caught. The people do. They want to turn themselves in as quick as they can. The coyotes don't want to be caught, so they are not going to come across if they think they are going to get caught before they can get across with their raft.

One of the other things that ought to scare law enforcement dramatically is the fact that I have heard a number of people say, as they were questioned by our border patrolmen out in the middle of the night, and they are asked--it's not on the standard questions, but they have been asked many times by our border patrolmen, ``How much did you have to pay the gangs or the drug cartels to bring you across?'' Sometimes, it is $5,000, $6,000, $7,000, or $8,000.

Sometimes, a followup question is asked, ``Where did you get that kind of money in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, or wherever you came from?'' Often, the answer was, ``Well, some of the friends or family in the U.S. sent money. We have been trying to collect money in our home country.''

Every now and then, you get a response that scares me and is probably at the bottom of many of the people's payments to come and be brought in illegally by drug cartels and gangs. They have confided, ``They are going to let us work some of the rest of it off.''

Well, what does that mean? It means when Health and Human Services picks people up and transmits them across the country--with scabies, as we have seen happen, and whatever disease they may bring in--as some have pointed out, that means every State is a border State, thanks to Health and Human Services shipping them around the country.

As they build up their numbers in different cities around the country and they owe the drug cartels that are ruthless, unscrupulous, and don't mind torturing and killing, we hear more and more about Mexican drug cartel activities around the country and our cities, how horrendous it is that the United States Department of Homeland Security and the United States Department of Health and Human Services being complicit in helping ship agents for the drug cartels and gangs around the country that can be intimidated and reminded, ``Remember, you still owe us $3,000, $4,000, $5,000, and here's how you will work it off.''

Is it sex trade? Is it drugs that are poisoning more of our American teenagers and young adults with the Mexican drugs being brought in?

If the drug cartels are getting promises from people coming into the United States illegally that they will work off the rest of the money, then you can bet the drug cartels are going to see that they do.

I have been told by border patrolmen that you don't cross the U.S. border without some drug cartel, some gang, some organized crime being in charge of the area of the border where you crossed, and you dare not cross across Mexico into the United States without the permission of whatever organized criminal group is in charge. They say they will come after them.

We are bringing in agents of drug cartels and shipping them around the country where they can work for the drug cartels. It is what they have said there on the border. ``Yeah, they are going to let me work this off.''

Well, in talking to the border patrolmen there in the middle of the night down on the border, they tell you some interesting things. As I have been told by the border patrolmen, ``You know what the drug cartels call us Federal agents here in the U.S.? They borrow from a commercial on television and say, `We're the logistics.' ''

The United States Federal employees are the drug cartels' logistics. All they have to do is get their agents that are going to work for the drug cartels into the United States, and then the United States Government ships them around the country for the drug cartels.

All they have to do is say, ``This is where I've got somebody--a family member, a loved one--and that's where I need to go,'' and we ship them free of charge. The U.S. Government makes it free of charge at least to the immigrant coming in illegally.

Of course, there is no free lunch, as Phil Graham used to repeatedly say. Somebody is paying for it, and to a limited extent, it is American taxpayers. To another extent, it is our children and grandchildren who are incurring the debts that will be paid with income they have never even figured out what job they will be deriving the income from. It is immoral.

Here is an article from Politico saying, the DHS chief, short-term funding a very bad idea. So it turns out Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson warned Tuesday that a short-term funding measure for his agency will be ``a very bad idea,'' telling Congress such a bill would hold up everything from hiring Secret Service agents to paying for border security.

Well, we still have people that are saying, though, you know, in a CR and an omnibus, we really can't put restrictions on the Federal Government in there. And yet, here is a report regarding the last omnibus highlights where there were 17 different restrictions on agencies' use of fees in the last fiscal year.

This was done with the help of the Congressional Research Service that reviewed the previous spending omnibus. And Senator Jeff Sessions, dear friend, great guy, he has been able to identify 17 separate restrictions.

One was a restriction in section 543 on the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services that said, notwithstanding section 1356(n), title VIII, U.S. Code, of the funds deposited into the immigration examinations fee account, $7,500,000 may be allocated by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services fiscal year 2014 for the purpose of providing an immigrant integration grants program.

There is one for the Department of Agriculture, Department of Justice, Transportation Security Administration, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Federal Communications Commission, Security and Exchange Commission, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Office of Surface Mining Reclamation Enforcement, Copyright Office, Export-Import Bank of the United States.

So we know it can be done. It has been done. The restrictions have been made in past omnibuses, even just last year. So we can do that, and we should do that.

If we don't do that, then the President's unconstitutional act is going to be a harbinger of terrible things to come. Once you no longer have a Constitution that means anything, then Presidents can pretty much do as they wish.

That is what happens in Third World countries. That is why we have lasted over 200 years, because the Constitution meant something. It took a civil war to make the Constitution more enforcing of what it said. It took someone like Dr. King giving his life to ensure civil rights for everyone, as the Constitution guaranteed.

But once we have moved into this post-constitutional era, where the Constitution no longer is enforced, it is just a document, then there is no skeleton on which to hang muscle and the might that makes a strong country, and we become, figuratively speaking, a blob of a nation without structure that can't defend itself adequately, that has drug cartel agents throughout

the country, that continues to have people sending wives in to have children in the United States free of charge and leaving to go back home with, actually, a U.S. passport as an American citizen.

I think that is how Anwar al-Awlaki, whom the President was so concerned about he blew him up with a drone strike--he was an American citizen. His parents came over from Yemen on visas, and he was born here, but taken back, grew up learning to hate America.

The deputy leader of Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzook, his wife came to the U.S., had a child that, no doubt, is being taught to hate America.

Palestinian Islamic jihad leader Sami Al-Arian, his wife came to the United States, had a child, American citizen.

Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi, who is doing 23 years in prison for supporting terrorism, financing terrorism, his wife had a child here in the United States, an American citizen.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the 9/11 mastermind, even has confessed to that in his own written pleadings and said, if our act of terror created terror in your heart, then praise be to Allah. Basically, in his six-page pleading, he said, you had it coming.

I think there is possibly a chance he would raise a child to hate America.

And then the Muslim Brother President of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, his wife came to America. Irony of ironies, he thought he was being very clever to have an American citizen daughter, yet the Egyptian people didn't think it was so clever. They didn't like the idea.

When he became such an unconstitutional actor as a President that he could no longer be tolerated, be allowed to be left in office, 20 million Egyptians were reported in the streets of Egypt demanding his removal, followed by another demonstration of 30 million to 33 million Egyptians, moderate Muslims, Christians, Jews, secularists, out in the streets demanding, we don't want a radical Islamist in control of our country, Egypt.

Amazing. Such a huge event in the realm of human history in Egypt. God bless the Egyptians. We need to pray for them, we need to help them.

But not this administration. This administration says, oh, so you ousted the Muslim Brother, part of the organization that wants to bring down America, and you ousted him?

Well, if you don't put him back in power we are not going to send you the Apache helicopters you are using to keep the Suez Canal open. We are not going to send you what you need to deweaponize the Sinai that Morsi saw weaponized.

No, we are going to hold back any weapons that will help you clean up the radicalization in Egypt and Sinai that Morsi oversaw, which is why some of the moderate Muslim leaders in the Middle East and North Africa continue to ask, why do you keep helping your enemies?

Do you not understand that the Muslim Brothers are your enemy?

Do you not understand that the Muslim Brothers want the United States as part of a caliphate?

Well, the Department of Homeland Security and this administration and mainstream media belittled me for the last couple of years or so as I continued to point out that they had an adviser on their top Homeland Security Advisory Council who had used his classification that Janet Napolitano gave him in an inappropriate way; that he had spoken--he was listed as a speaker paying tribute to the Ayatollah Khomeini as a man of vision; that he defended the Holy Land Foundation principals who were convicted of supporting terrorism; failed to properly file the tax forms that would allow his foundation to remain a 501(c)(3). Didn't file them. And yet, he is a top adviser.

Well, even the Obama administration had to finally let him go and, yes, go ahead and accept the resignation when he tweeted out that the international caliphate is inevitable so we need to get used to it. Even the Obama administration had to let him go after that. So he has resigned. He is no longer a top member advising this administration.

But it is time for Americans to wake up. Ignoring the Constitution is not helpful. After over two-dozen statements by this President that he doesn't have the power to, in effect, do what he just now did right before Thanksgiving, demands congressional action. We must stand up and defund the illegal activity of this President.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is also important to note that our Republican leaders got duped in July of 2011. I tried to warn. I told people back then, told our whole conference, this supercommittee will not be allowed to reach an agreement by the Democrats.

I was assured, oh, sure they will because it cuts a whole bunch of money from Medicaid and an automatic sequestration if the supercommittee doesn't reach an agreement. So the hundreds of billions, the gutting of our military will never happen because the supercommittee will reach an agreement because they don't want the cuts to Medicare.

Well, it seemed very clear to me, and as I told my Republican friends, no, they are going to prevent the supercommittee from reaching agreement if we pass this bill because they want the cuts to Medicare because they cut over $700 billion of Medicare funding in ObamaCare without a single Republican vote.

So the only way, in 2012, they will be able to run commercials saying, we love our rich friends more than we love seniors, is if they prevent the supercommittee from reaching an agreement.

The cuts to Medicare are only a fraction of what ObamaCare did but, nonetheless, cuts to Medicare will happen.

And the President has never cared much for the military anyway, and this allows him, basically, to gut our military to pre-World War II levels. So it is a win, win, win all the way around for the administration if we pass that bill creating a supercommittee.

Well, we did, and the President got the military gutted, Defense Department gutted. The sequestration happened.

And now I am concerned, if we say, all right, we are not going to fund Homeland Security unless you agree, you sign a bill that defunds your illegal activity in providing amnesty to 5 million people, I think we need to be careful about that, Mr. Speaker, because it just may be that the President would like to blame Republicans and say, you know what? Well, I would like to have Border Patrol securing the border, but the Republicans cut off the funding, and so, gee, there is no Border Patrol on the border. It is all the Republicans' fault because they wouldn't fund it.

I think we need to be rather careful about saying we are going to bank on not funding Homeland Security, only fund them for a short time, and then threaten the President, if you don't sign off on a bill defunding your illegal activity, then Homeland Security won't be funded.

As one of my Republican friends pointed out, kind of like the old adage, if you are going to take a hostage, you need to take somebody that the other side doesn't want to see killed. And there is some concern that if we take hostage, figuratively speaking, the Homeland Security Department in order to defund the illegal activity of this President's amnesty, it just may be that the President, figuratively again speaking, will say, go ahead, take out your hostage; completely defund Homeland Security. That is okay with me.

No, that is not the way you negotiate.

If we are going to stop the President's unconstitutional amnesty, it is going to require funding everything that needs funding, but to go after something the President really wants but doesn't need. Good grief. When we are spending the trillions of dollars we are, we can certainly afford, for example, to do away with the czars, to do away with the, say, public transportation to golf outings.

We can save millions of dollars just on that alone. This is what you do in negotiation. For those of us who have negotiated multimillion- dollar deals and multimillion-dollar settlements, that is what you do. You have to find something that is very important to the other side, but that is really not necessary, so that the other side, when you are negotiating, knows you mean business. I don't think Homeland Security is the place to threaten.

We have got to defund the illegal activity, or of those who fought to defend the Constitution, who picked up the Stars and Stripes in representing our

Nation--our constitutional Republic--and carried it as fellow soldiers were killed and who advanced freedom here in America, their blood will be on our hands because we wouldn't even stand for the Constitution when there were no bullets being fired. We have got to stand up for America and for our Constitution.

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

Mr. Speaker, there are some Members who wanted to be heard from the prior Special Order, and they didn't have a chance, and I am glad to yield to my friend, Mr. Jeffries, so they may conclude.

Congressional Black Caucus

I thank Mr. Jeffries, my colleague and friend. I knew that words that were going to be spoken were from the heart, and I am glad to be able to facilitate that. Thank you.

And it does take me back again. I was just a little kid, a little bitty kid, when Martin Luther King, Jr., was standing up for civil rights for all people. We have heard over and over: Well, he did wonderful things for African Americans. But I happen to know as a little White Christian boy growing up in east Texas that the work he did and the life he gave actually enabled me as a little White boy to treat my brothers and sisters like brothers and sisters. That is the ultimate goal, as Dr. King said: we judge each other by the content of the character and not by the color of the skin. That is a goal to shoot for.

It also meant that when I was quarterback and captain for the JV, junior varsity, team in our high school, it meant I got to have Coach Williams as my head coach. I just loved Coach Williams. But it was tough when he put both hands on your shoulder pads and got right in your face. You knew you were in for a lesson. But he was imminently fair. We had no race problems. He was just a fair man.

Although I didn't vote for President Obama and certainly might have had other people in mind for Attorney General, I had hoped that there would be a piece that would come out with Eric Holder as Attorney General the way I experienced with Coach Williams, an African American, but great coach, very winning season, and he made football fun--a great leader, a great teacher. I just loved having him for a coach.

I had hoped that that might be true across the country, but we have seen so many people hurt around Jefferson. I was reading about minority business owners who had their businesses burned. I so hope that the words that my friend Ms. Jackson Lee was saying will ultimately come through where protests will be nonviolent so people don't lose their stores and lose their homes or lose their lives.

Just before coming over, I was hearing about a Bosnian man that was beat to death with a hammer. It is senseless, just senseless. I don't even know the cause of his being killed there in Missouri.

Peaceful protests are what Dr. King knew would do the greatest good for the greatest number of people, and he certainly did a great deal of good. But basically most people what they want is to make sure that they get fair treatment. That is it: be treated fairly.

Now, we do have some that want to engage in crony capitalism and want to have all kinds of advantages. We saw that with TARP. People wanted to have their cake, and then when they finish with that have your cake, too. That was very unfortunate. But overall, most Americans just want to be treated fairly. They want everyone to be treated equally and fairly under the law, which brings me to the subject I wanted to take up tonight.

We know that the President, before Thanksgiving, announced that since Congress hadn't passed or hadn't changed the law as he wanted them to, he indicated he waited long enough. He waited for Congress to change the law, and since Congress had not changed the law, he decided to do it for Congress. The trouble is that is not equal and fair under the law.

Some have said, well, they don't think there is a way that Congress can defund this illegal executive order that provides amnesty. And actually, the law is clear. I mean, if you are illegally in the country, you are not allowed to work in the country; and the President, regardless of whether or not he has the power to provide amnesty or a pardon in a single case, there is no law, there is no authority, constitutional or legislative, that allows a President to provide benefits across the board that are illegal and not authorized under the law. You just can't do that.

So what do we do about that?

Some have said we can't defund the President's illegal actions. An article here in Breitbart by Matthew Boyle, 26 November, and this is a quote to start the article:

``In light of Congress's constitutional power over the

purse, the Supreme Court has recognized that `Congress may

always circumscribe agency discretion to allocate resources

by putting restrictions in the operative statutes,' '' the

CRS, a legislative authority on Capitol Hill, wrote in a

report sent to incoming Senate Budget Committee Chairman

Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama. ``Where Congress has done

so, `an agency is not free simply to disregard statutory

responsibilities.' Therefore, if a statute were enacted which

prohibited appropriated funds from being used for some

specified purposes, then the relevant funds would be

unavailable to be obligated or expended for those purposes.''

Sessions' team provided the CRS report--which is not made

public unless Members of Congress who request such reports

decide to make them so--exclusively to Breitbart News.

Rogers, last week--

And apparently it is talking about House Appropriations Committee Chairman Representative Rogers.

Rogers, last week, argued that Congress could not block

funding for Obama's executive amnesty because the agency that

will be printing the work authorization and other documents

for illegal aliens--U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

(USCIS)--operates primarily on fees it collects rather than

from tax revenue collected by the Federal Government.

So, as I understand it, the Appropriations Committee was concerned that since the Citizenship and Immigration Services, or CIS, gets a great deal of their funds from fees, perhaps we couldn't defund them. But the CIS report goes on to say this:

A fee-funded agency or activity typically refers to one in

which the amounts appropriated by Congress for that agency or

activity are derived from fees collected from some external

source. Importantly, amounts received as fees by Federal

agencies must still be appropriated by Congress to that

agency in order to be available for obligation or expenditure

by the agency. In some cases, this appropriation is provided

through the annual appropriations process. In other

instances, it is an appropriation that has been enacted

independently of the annual appropriations process, such as a

permanent appropriation in an authorizing act. In either

case, the funds available to the agency through fee

collections would be subject to the same potential

restrictions imposed by Congress on the use of its

appropriations as any other type of appropriated funds.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I know that is a long quote from CRS, but the bottom line is right there at the end: It doesn't matter whether revenue is generated through fees or whether it is a direct appropriation. Congress has the authority to restrict how that money is spent.

Anyway, that is a very helpful CRS opinion, and Matthew Boyle did a good job of covering that.

But I also noticed an article by the Twitchy Staff--that would be my dear friend Michelle Malkin. She has a series of tweets that people have sent out in response to the amnesty that this President is going to provide and the illegal right to work that is going to be legalized by fiat by the President. This is from November 20.

One tweet says:

Excellent point made on @TalkRadio1210. Will all the

immigrants who came here legally get a refund from Obama for

the fees they had to pay?

Of course, the Labor Secretary Tom Perez, previously with the Justice Department when we saw racial relations deteriorate dramatically, but Tom Perez said in his tweet:

This is a moral imperative, a national security imperative

and an economic imperative.

He is talking about the need for the President to act like a king and just dictate new law and allow people who are not allowed to work here legally to work here legally, though it is against the law.

Tony Pelz says:

@LaborSec are you going to refund all the money I spent

doing it legally? Huh? Huh?

Ben Shapiro says:

Our nanny is from Guatemala. She arrived legally 5 years

ago. Tomorrow, she takes her citizenship oath. Boy, did she

waste her time.

Shar Viloria says:

Hey @BarackObama I want a refund of all my legal fees plus

10 years' worth of interest. I have all the receipts. I came

here legally.

Another tweet says:

My family has paid fees to the U.S. immigration system and

followed the law. I'd like a refund, please.

Another says:

So, who's gonna refund the $18,000 I spent to bring my wife

here legally? @BarackObama? @NancyPelosi?

There is another invoice apparently. They are seeking a refund for all the money they were out.

Another says:

Hey, you gonna chip in for my refund, for doing it legally?

Another said:

Lots of dollars for husband to immigrate to U.S. legally:

attorney, mounds of paperwork, interview, et cetera. Do we

get a refund now?

Another said:

So 5 million illegal immigrants get shortcut visas. Do I

get a refund of the $50,000 I spent over 14 years legally

becoming a citizen?

A different person tweets:

My wife came here legally. If #ObamaAmnesty happens, can we

get a refund for all the money we spent on her green card

application?

Another says:

Does this act refund all the filing fees of those legally

at this time? Does it relieve us sponsors of our legal

obligations?

There are a lot of people that are upset about this--and understandably--because they went about becoming citizens the right way.

My office continues to help people. One worked for 7 years in order to get admitted legally. We have had people work for 10 years to get here legally and be authorized legally. And the message that is sent when a President just by speaking new law into existence because he is not happy that Congress didn't do what he told them to, that sends a message to those who abide by the law, just as these tweets indicate, that America, which has tried to be fair across the board, fought against the worst blot on American history--slavery--fought for civil rights, and now we are fighting to have the law completely disregarded so that it is an encouragement to people coming illegally.

The word I was getting today from law enforcement friends on the border in Texas who are seeing the numbers and the President's promise of an illegal amnesty is, once again, creating a lure to people to come rushing illegally into the United States. And I know there are those that say, ``No, we have got to make sure you have been here 5 years.'' How about that? Isn't that amazing?

The message of the President basically is, if you are really good at violating the law and you have been doing it over 5 years, so you are a pro at violating our immigration law, we want you to stay. We want you to work. You are good at violating the law. On the other hand, if you are new at violating the law, we don't want you here working.

So the question arises: If someone is willing to break United States law to come here illegally for whatever reason, whether it is a desire for a job, a desire for benefits, a desire to come here and hurt us, whatever their desire they are willing to break the U.S. law to come for, does anybody seriously think that people that would break the law--at least some of them--would not be willing to sign a paper that says they have been here for 5 years when they haven't, if they are told, ``You sign this paper whether you know what is on it or not.'' Some don't speak English.

I have been out there, as you know, Mr. Speaker, all hours of the day and night on our border around the Rio Grande. I have seen people come across and look at the Xerox copy with some mention of a country they are from. They look at each other and say, ``Oh, here,'' and they switch papers. They don't come with identification cards. They don't come with a government driver's license. They come with no legitimate identification.

So as someone pointed out there in a holding facility near the border, ``Gee, that guy says he's a teenager,'' but you rarely see beards that well developed on somebody that is 15. So they can lie about their age and there is no question--some of them have--because they have got no identification.

Of course, why would this administration want to require any kind of real identification to come into the U.S.? We have the right to vote. This administration has been fighting tooth and nail, spending massive amounts of money to fight any State that wanted to just make sure that people were voting legally, lawfully, and they were the person that they were representing they were.

And some say, ``Well, it's just ridiculous to think there's any fraud,'' and then you find out there are still people in Louisiana telling Democrats to go out and vote again. And that is why I have, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, urged my Republican friends that there is no group, no matter that they vote traditionally well over 90 percent for Democrats, we can't just assume they should always vote Democrats. We need to be going after the deceased vote. Just because dead people may vote Republican, they shouldn't always vote Democrat after they pass away. Republicans should have a share of those.

I know that people don't always get sarcasm around this town, but the fact is there are plenty of people that cheat the system, whether it is at voting, whether it is at legalization, and that is certainly going to happen when people have nothing but their word to say that they have been here for 5 years so that the President, under the new law he spoke into existence, can feel comforted that: Gee, they've been here 5 years. I'm comfortable they're good at violating the law, so I want them to stay.

There is an article written by Bryan Preston. It recommends watching a clip from President Obama's State of the Union address in 2009. He says Representative Joe Wilson was finally vindicated. But he points out:

Secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia

Mathews Burwell held an online chat with Latino bloggers on

November 11, 2014. The bloggers asked Burwell about ObamaCare

benefits for ``mixed families''--families in which some are

present in the United States legally, while others are not.

Burwell said that so-called ``DREAMers,'' people brought to

the United States illegally when they were children, are not

eligible, but she indicated that she and President Obama

would like to change that. Surely another executive order

cannot be far off.

But then she said ``mixed families should come . . .

Everyone should come on, and folks should not be scared. No

questions will be asked, and it is not about an immigration

issue.''

So if you come to get medical benefits, the Secretary of Health and Human Services is saying ``no questions will be asked.'' How in the world are they going to avoid violating the law by providing medical care? Not medical care--that is required for anybody legally or illegally here--but insurance that the rest of America is paying for.

This article points out that, despite Secretary Burwell saying that:

``No questions will be asked, and it is not about an

immigration issue.''

It is an immigration issue, and it's a fiscal issue, it's a

rule of law issue and a constitutional order issue, but

deeper than that, it is an honesty issue.

American taxpayers, a majority of whom never supported

ObamaCare in the first place, will now be forced to subsidize

health care for millions who are not even in the country

legally.

As part of my alternative health care proposal I offered before ObamaCare ever passed and became law, one of the requirements would be to provide temporary work visas when we need temporary workers to harvest crops, whatever, but that doesn't mean that the rest of America should subsidize their health care. In other words, if someone wants to bring in people temporarily under a temporary work visa, they ought to be required to make sure that they have health care. So either the employer buys an umbrella health insurance policy for those while they are temporarily here or the individuals have to.

Some nations have started requiring that before you can get a visa to come in their country, since they are not wealthy countries and they can't afford to be providing everybody in the world free health care, if you want to come into their country on a visa, you have to show that you will be covered by health insurance so they don't have to pick up the tab. That continues to be a problem here, however.

An article from National Review Online, November 26, Peter Kirsanow, says:

You've been working hard to support your family, paying

taxes--including Social Security and Medicare taxes--for

nearly 20 years. Now you find out that 5 million illegal

aliens the President legalized with a stroke of a pen will be

eligible for Social Security, Medicare, and disability

benefits--you know, the

programs you've been supporting with your tax dollars your

entire working life.

The plant you've been working at most of your career is

considering layoffs and benefit cuts due to the cost of new

regulations imposed by bureaucrats who've never run so much

as a pop stand, and who know absolutely nothing about your

business. So your employer is forced to hire cheaper labor

and is interviewing formerly illegal aliens to replace some

of your coworkers, and maybe you, because the company won't

have to pay the $3,000 ObamaCare penalty on such illegal

aliens for not providing health care coverage.

So, to keep your job, you try to make yourself more

valuable to the company by getting additional training and

skills at the nearby college. But the school, supported by

your tax dollars, rejects your application in favor of an

illegal alien under the admission office's affirmative action

program that makes it 170 times more likely a preferred

minority will be admitted over you. He'll even get in-state

tuition rates, as well as a grant funded, in part, by your

tax dollars. And so what if that may be unconstitutional?

Indeed, you feel a bit chastened when one of the school's

professors suggests you might be racist for thinking this is

all somewhat unfair.

You thought that, if push came to shove, you could always

get a job at your brother-in-law's tool and die shop over on

West Plymouth. But it got burned down when the elected

officials--to whom you've remitted tens of thousands in tax

dollars to protect property, as well as dictate your toilet's

water flow, failed to deploy sufficient law enforcement

personnel to control the rioters the very same elected

officials elected to inflame.

Well, no worries. You're pretty sure that, much like your

preternaturally serene neighbor Julia, who never seems to

have worked a job in her entire life, you'll be able to

access a variety of social benefits to keep your family

afloat. At least for a while. Admittedly, you became a little

nervous upon learning that the newly ``legal'' immigrants

could drain the Treasury of nearly $2 trillion. But hey, all

the smart people in academia, Hollywood, and Washington say

this is all good for America. The fundamentally transformed

States of America.

Happy Thanksgiving.

And it is quite an interesting point that my friends, my colleagues here have been talking about the tremendous problems in Missouri. I have talked to too many minorities that have had a tough time finding a job, a tough time finding employment that will pay them so they can live, help a family live, and now they are going to be competing with 5 million people who didn't even come into the country legally.

But the national Chamber of Commerce wanted this. The superrich in the country who, at least in the first 5 years of this administration-- we haven't seen the number for the 6 years--for the first 5 years of this President's administration set a record. Never before in the history of the country has 95 percent of all income in America gone to the top 1 percent.

Under President Obama and his policies, that happened.

People in this administration can talk about the disparity between the poor and the rich and the unfairness to the middle class. There just can't be much more unfair to the middle class, more devastating to the middle class, more devastating to the Nation's poor than to suddenly announce, you are now going to compete with 5 million people that are here illegally, that are going to take jobs cheaper than you would be willing to.

It is not that there are that many jobs Americans won't do, as we are told. Under a free market system, it costs the market whatever it takes to get the legal workers to come work for a living wage.

You wouldn't have to have legislation about minimum wage if you weren't bringing in millions of people illegally and causing them to compete with people that are trying desperately to find jobs, doing everything they can to find jobs.

But we also know that for the first time since President Carter, over 92 million people who could work, who are over 16, could work, they have totally given up working. They are not looking anymore.

With this new 5 million people that the President has, all of a sudden, with the stroke of his wand, taken from illegal status to legal status, and here are your work papers--all that is illegal, but he has done it, which should ultimately drive another 5 million people out of work, and either onto food stamps, onto welfare.

So if the President has been upset about being tied so much of this year with Jimmy Carter's numbers, over 92 million people that are not even looking for work anymore, they have given up hope, he won't have to worry about that. He will be in a league all his own once he puts an additional 5 million working Americans out of work as they are displaced by people that are illegally here willing to work cheaper. Very, very tragic.

An article from Victor Davis Hanson: ``For Obama, inconvenient law is irrelevant law.''

He says:

There is a humane, transparent, truthful, and

constitutional way to address illegal immigration.

Unfortunately, President Obama's unilateral plan to exempt

millions of residents from Federal immigration law is none of

those things. President Obama has said he had to move now

because of a dawdling Congress. He forgot to mention that

there were Democratic majorities in Congress in 2009 and

2010, yet he did nothing, in fear of punishment at the polls.

Nor did Obama push amnesty in 2011 or 2012, afraid of

hurting his own reelection chances. Worries over sabotaging

Democratic chances in the 2014 midterm explain his inaction

from 2012 until now. He certainly wouldn't have waited until

2015 to act because Republicans will then control Congress.

Given that he has no more elections and can claim no more

lasting achievements, Obama now sees amnesty as his last

desperate chance at establishing some sort of legacy.

Obama cited empathy for undocumented immigrants.

Well, I have got that. I mean, most of us do:

But he expressed no such worry about the hundreds of

thousands of applicants who wait for years in line, rather

than simply illegally crossing the border.

Any would-be immigrant would have been wiser to have broken

rather than abided by Federal laws. Citizens who knowingly

offer false information on Federal affidavits or provide

false Social Security numbers would not receive the sort of

amnesties likely to be given to undocumented immigrants.

Obama has downplayed Americans' worries about social costs

and competition for jobs, but studies show illegal

immigration has depressed the wages of entry-level American

workers while making social services costly for States and

burdensome for U.S. citizens.

Obama says he has the legal authority to rewrite

immigration law without working with Congress, yet, on more

than 20 occasions when it was politically inexpedient to

grant amnesties, Obama insisted he would not, or that such a

move was prohibited by the Constitution.

President Obama not long ago warned us about the dangers of

granting amnesties by fiat. This is President Obama: ``The

problem is that I am President of the United States. I am not

the emperor of the United States.''

On another occasion, he lamented: ``Believe me, the idea of

doing things on my own is very tempting, but that is not how

our system works. That is not how our democracy functions.

That is not how our Constitution is written.''

By setting aside settled immigration policy and ignoring

statutes he finds inconvenient, President Obama has set a new

precedent that a President can arbitrarily declare what is

valid and what is not valid immigration law.

Should his successors make up their own versions of any

Federal statutes that they choose, in areas ranging from

abortion and gun control to drug enforcement, environmental

protection?

And I would also add, heck, why not throw in income tax? Just declare that all the people that are going to vote for you don't have to pay income tax.

Why not?

All you have to do is say, I waited and waited and Congress wouldn't allow my supporters to get away with not paying income tax, so I waited long enough. Here is the new law. My supporters don't pay income tax.

Then here's another article from Steve Dinan, in The Washington Times from November 25:

Under the President's new amnesty, businesses will have a

$3,000-per-employee incentive to hire illegal aliens over

native-born workers because of a quirk of ObamaCare.

President Obama's temporary amnesty, which lasts 3 years,

declares up to 5 million illegal immigrants to be lawfully in

the country and eligible for work permits, but it still deems

them ineligible for public benefits such as buying insurance

on ObamaCare's health care exchanges.

Under the Affordable Care Act, that means businesses who

hire them won't have to pay a penalty for not providing them

health coverage, making them $3,000 more attractive than a

similar, native-born worker, whom the business, by law, would

have to cover.

The loophole was confirmed by congressional aides and drew

condemnation from those who said it put illegal immigrants

ahead of Americans in the job market.

``If it is true that the President's actions give employers

a $3,000 incentive to hire those who came here illegally, he

has added insult to injury.''

That is a quote from Representative Lamar Smith.

``The President's actions would have just moved those who

came here illegally to the front of the line, ahead of

unemployed and underemployed Americans.''

A Department of Homeland Security official confirmed that

the newly legalized immigrants won't have access to

ObamaCare, which opens up the loophole for employers looking

to avoid that penalty.

Then Breitbart has an article regarding Robert Rector, our friend at Heritage Foundation. ``Amnestied Illegal Immigrants Could Cost Taxpayers $2 Trillion Over Their Lifetime.'' It is dated 24 November.

Well, we do have this report from CRS, Congressional Research Service, and it looks like Congress should be able, without any problem, to pass a law that defunds any actions carrying out the President's illegal fiat that he dictated.

I pulled language here--I have got a great staff, very helpful--I got them to pull this language from the law in 1974. This was in the bill that limited the funds that kept military in Vietnam, and this was on a continuing resolution. This was kind of what we are doing right here.

But in 1974, the post-Watergate, Democratic majority in both houses just decided, you know what?

We are going to stop Vietnam on a dime. Never mind that there are people who have been our allies that will be murdered as soon as we pulled out. Time to pull out.

No plan for a slow withdrawal. No plan about leaving a stable government. We are just pulling out all of a sudden, and a million, 2 million people, it is estimated, died.

This is how they do it. Section 108 of this continuing resolution, in 1974, simply said:

Not withstanding any other provision of law on or after

August 15, 1973, no funds herein or heretofore appropriated

may be obligated or expended to finance, directly or

indirectly, combat activities by United States military

forces in or over, or from off the shores of North Vietnam,

South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.

Boom, that stopped Vietnam. We can do the same thing with the President's illegal law that he pronounced into being.

And then, in 1984, we had a Democratic-controlled House and Senate. They just decided they didn't want anybody providing funds to the Contras that were fighting Communists just south of the United States in Nicaragua, so here is the language, and I am quoting. This was in the bill that was signed October 12, 1984:

During fiscal year 1985, no funds available to the Central

Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, or any other

agency or entity of the United States involved in

intelligence activities may be obligated or expended for the

purpose which would have the effect of supporting, directly

or indirectly, military or paramilitary operations in

Nicaragua by any nation, group, organization, movement, or

individual.

So we just take our language directly from what the Democratic House and Senate did in 1974, what they did in 1985, and do that to address what the President has done, otherwise, fund things I wouldn't normally at all be in favor of funding. But I think this is such an important principle to saving this little experiment in a democratic Republic, it is worth doing.

Then I couldn't help but note Kenric Ward's article, November 25:

More than a year after Watchdog reported the IRS sent

thousands of refunds to the tiny town of Parksley, Virginia,

a woman has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and mail fraud.

Linda Avila admitted to obtaining more than $7.2 million in

refunds by exploiting the Federal Government's child tax

credit program. Avila filed more than 1,700 tax returns with

stolen identifications used by illegal immigrants, mainly

from Mexico.

The Virginian-Pilot reported that Avila, 50, operated a

landscaping and cleaning business in Parksley. Investigators

found copies of refund checks in amounts from $4,000 to more

than $7,000. The tax returns frequently cited foreign

dependents, which increased the refund amounts.

Avila had the refunds mailed to various post office boxes

on the Eastern Shore and in Delaware, according to court

records. The workers cashed the checks, turned over most of

the money to Avila, keeping a small fee for themselves.

Avila, who remains free pending sentencing in U.S. District

Court on February 17, could not be reached for comment.

There is a good chance that has been going on in more than one place.

Then there is this article from Neil Munro, today, December 1, entitled, ``Obama: Fund My Amnesty or I'll Shut Down the Government.'' It basically talks about that that is, indeed, what the President is threatening to do, ``You fund my illegal action when I spoke new law into being and overrode laws that were duly passed by the House and Senate and passed by the Congress and sent to the President.''

The President signed it. He overrode it just by himself. In essence, he is saying, ``If you don't give me every dime I want, along with funding my illegal actions, I am going to shut down the government.''

We have heard Mitch McConnell say it and John Boehner say it. They don't want a shutdown. We don't want a shutdown. We also don't want to fund illegal activity.

We hope that the President is not going to throw a hissy fit and shut down the government because this is about the Constitution. It is about fairness under the law. It is about fairness to people who came legally. It is about fairness to the minorities who have an unemployment rate through the roof, and now, we are adding 5 million people who are going to get to compete with people who can't find jobs or who are underemployed as it is.

It is up to Congress to do the moral, the legal thing, and force this President to work with Congress instead of dictating to it.

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 9 o'clock and 16 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, December 2, 2014, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, my dear friend from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kelly) is exactly right. We haven't heard the last of Ebola. It will continue to mutate. It will continue to be a threat.

As this President is sending around 3,000 or so of our military members to west Africa--and they have been told they are going to be given gloves and masks and are urged to wash their hands and feet several times a day--basically, what that says is the men and women who have sworn and pledged their lives to protect ours are not going to be adequately protected by this administration. The rules of engagement already put our military at risk, and now, we are going to send them to Ebola-infested countries.

The initial report said, initially, our military will not be seeing Ebola patients, but they are certainly going to come into contact with people who have had exposure to Ebola.

I recall our President George W. Bush--a good man, a smart man, a witty, clever gentleman, despite what some might say--but he asked after 9/11, in essence, who would have ever dreamed someone would fly a plane into a building like a bomb? My thought immediately was, ``Well, actually, Tom Clancy wrote about that several years ago.'' It was not a radical Islamist as had happened on 9/11/2001.

The late Tom Clancy had quite an imagination, but he did his homework in amazing fashion. Some have said his books had too much detail in them, but one of his latter books had research going on in Africa with the strain of monkeys that is the one strain that is believed and has support for having been transferred through the air instead of through liquid body fluids.

In the fiction novel, Clancy had somebody working to develop that strain into a mutated strain, since it mutates constantly into one that people could pass through the air, and then it was used to infect our military or expose our military and many Americans.

Basically, in his fiction novel, that allowed radical Islamists to take over much of the Middle East, while our military had been exposed to Ebola and much of it was quarantined.

There are many things Tom Clancy has written about that I hope and pray never happen. That is one of them, but since some things that Tom Clancy's mind dreamed up as a fiction writer novel actually came to fruition, we shouldn't think for a minute that if Clancy could dream it up, our enemies could as well.

Immigration

I have been on the border many nights, all hours of the night, and I have seen people just as they have finished crossing. The first time I went, I expected I would see people crossing in droves, not realizing the coyotes--the paid employees of the gangs, drug cartels that bring people across--they don't want to get caught because if a drug cartel or gang employee gets caught by one of the Texas boats running up and down--I say Texas boats because our administration has not provided any Federal boats in the area most crossed down south of McAllen.

There are no Federal boats down there. It is an area where Texas has stepped up and provided a number of boats that are zipping up and down the river, and you can hear them coming.

The coyotes don't want to be caught. They know if the Texas DPS catches them, they will destroy the raft, and that will put the coyote in very deep trouble for getting caught, so they don't want you to see them crossing.

As the State of Texas has placed DPS officers, Texas Rangers, game wardens up on the high bank--even in the dark, with just the least bit of light at all, you can see their silhouettes--and coyotes won't cross, again, if they think they are about to get caught.

Once across, groups anywhere from eight to 90 will immediately look for someone to surrender to unless, of course, they are like the people I have seen fleeing down there, who apparently had drugs or something they didn't want to be caught with.

It is an open border, far too open, and now, before the border is secured, with talk of amnesty and legal status that our Border Patrolmen have assured over and over again causes a massive surge, a massive influx of people trying to get to the United States, just the President or anyone in Washington talking about amnesty or any type of legal status helps lure Central Americans and others to their demise, girls to being raped, sold into sex trafficking. Many make it across; some don't.

I would think the most compassionate thing that the government of the United States could do is, number one, secure the border so that families are not tempted to send their little children, little girls up with other people, paying gang members to bring

them up, who frequently rape them as they come to the U.S.

A good neighbor would not only secure their border, but then we would help Mexico and Central American countries, as we did Colombia, to overcome the drug cartels.

Colombia had made great strides I think, largely in part, because they had a President like President Uribe whose parents had both been assassinated. As one of our Federal agents in Colombia told me some years back, the toughest job they had back then was keeping Uribe alive because he was so courageous and so determined to defeat the drug cartels.

Well, they kept him alive. With our help, some British help and some other help, the drug cartels were placed on the run. Coca fields were eliminated. It is still an ongoing battle they face constantly.

If Mexico elects the right leader, then the United States Government should be a friend that helps them create an environment where people want to stay and work because many of the people come and they would love to remain in their country if it wasn't so dangerous and there was work.

We can't take every person who resides in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, or Honduras. We can't take every person without destroying the country that is the magnet, that is the shining light on the hill.

As a very precious, wise, and elderly West African told me when I was over there:

We were so excited when you elected your first black

President, but ever since he has been President, we have seen

America get weaker and weaker. At least from what we see, it

appears you are getting weaker and weaker. We need you to

spread around in Washington that you have got to stop getting

weaker because it doesn't just affect you. We are Christians,

and we know where we are going when we die, but we have no

hope of a secure life and a safe life unless America is

strong and is an intimidating force to the forces of evil

around the world.

Forces of evil will not go away. They will be with us until the end of time, and America makes a difference when we stand strong. We don't even have to send people, just the threat, as a former Ambassador from Israel said:

America is not a serious threat to take out Iran's nuclear

capability, and, in fact, quite the opposite. Everybody

realizes America now is no threat to Iran. And since America

is no threat to Iran, and Iran knows it, the world knows it,

then Israel is more at risk than ever before.

It is true in West Africa as Boko Haram gets more powerful, radical Islamists that want to take out Americans--and America is the Great Satan. It is true in North Africa, it is true in the Middle East, in Asia, in Russia, and in Europe: we need a strong America.

And instead, though the official unemployment numbers have been shown to come down, when you cook the books by not including the massive millions of Americans who are adults, who could work, who are not institutionalized, and they have given up hope of finding a job. They have tried so long they are not counted in the unemployed. They are unemployed, but they are not counted as unemployed because they have given up looking. They have lost hope. That is absolutely tragic.

I mentioned an article from September previously, but this report from CNS News on September 5 says that a record 92,269,000 Americans 16 and older did not participate in the labor force in August as the labor force participation rate matched a 36-year low of 62.8 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Well, the article goes on to mention that that has happened six times in the past year, and, again, that matches the all-time high of nonparticipation, matching that set during the malaise days of the Carter administration. Back then, there was double-digit inflation, double-digit unemployment officially, and double-digit interest rates. People were hurting in America.

Now people are still hurting. They are hurting across the country. That is why people are so desperate for sales. No telling what Thursday, Thanksgiving, the day after will look like. People are so desperate for sales because the data indicates on average people are taking home less than they did when compared with the rate of inflation.

So we have a President whose administration has tied the Carter administration for the highest number of American adults who have given up hope of finding a job.

Just as we get this news that the Obama administration continues this year to tie the Carter administration for the all-time high of Americans who have given up hope of finding a job, we get the story today, an article from The Daily Caller, that Obama's amnesty will add as many foreign workers as jobs since 2009. Because, Mr. Speaker, think about it: over 92 million Americans have given up hope of finding a job. That has tied the Carter administration. When this President in this economy says to people who have come illegally into this country, I am going to grant you 5 million or so permits to work, then it will put this President in a category all by himself. He will no longer be tied with the Carter administration as presiding over the highest number of Americans giving up hope of finding work. It will propel him into a league all of his own because it only makes sense that if you are giving 5 million legal work permits to people who are here illegally, they will then be able to offer their services cheaper than union workers and other workers who are here getting a proper wage, and it will displace millions more Americans from the jobs they currently hold.

You can anticipate that, not immediately, but in the months ahead if the President does this unconstitutional act because he is tired of waiting on Congress to change the law the way he has dictated, and he has decided to dictate new law to America. Well, that is unconstitutional, and it is illegal. But the good news for the President is it will propel him out of the tie with the Carter administration for the most Americans giving up hope of finding employment and get him to the all-time high that will likely remain for as long as there is an America.

Well, this article from The Daily Caller today points out that:

President Barack Obama's unilateral amnesty will quickly

add as many foreign workers to the Nation's legal labor force

as the total number of new jobs created by his economy since

2009.

The plan, expected to be announced late November 20, will

distribute 5 million work permits to illegal immigrants and

also create a new inflow of foreign college graduates for

prestigious salaried jobs, according to press reports.

Obama has already provided or promised almost 1 million

extra work permits to foreigners, while his economy has only

added 6 million jobs since 2009.

Under the President's new amnesty plan, ``up to 4 million

undocumented immigrants who have lived in the United States

for at least 5 years can apply. An additional 1 million

people will get protection from deportation through other

parts of the President's plan,'' according to a November 19

report in The New York Times.

The 5 million total was attributed to ``people briefed on

his plans,'' the Times reports.

The 5 million work permits will add to Obama's prior

giveaways, which have provided work permits to almost 1

million foreigners.

Since 2009, the U.S. economy has added only 6 million jobs,

according to the International Monetary Fund.

Further, it says:

Not all the 5 million illegal immigrants who get permits

will work, and many are already working under fake names or

for cash. However, their new work permits will allow them to

compete for jobs now held or sought by blue-collar Americans,

including the many African American and Latinos who voted for

Obama in 2008 and 2012.

It would seem to me, Mr. Speaker, that if the President wants to do something about the massively unfair high unemployment rate for African Americans who are legal citizens that the thing to do would not be to give 5 million work permits to people that are illegally here so that they can knock more African Americans and more Hispanics out of the jobs they legally currently hold because they will work cheaper, probably without requirement for health benefits.

My dear friend, Steve King, had invited me to Iowa, and I was visiting with a businessman there about their meatpacking plant where they had felt like, gee, they had to have illegal aliens doing the work because they were just jobs that Americans wouldn't do. And after a raid on their plant and illegal aliens were arrested, he reported that it turned out those were jobs that Americans just would not do at that price. But by raising the wages a couple of dollars and providing health care benefits, amazingly, they could

find Americans who would do that job. So it seems that as this story is replicated around the country, there are not so many jobs that Americans won't do; it is that there are jobs that Americans won't do at the market rate. So that is why you see so many millionaires and billionaires, many of them massive Democratic donors, who are--and some Republican donors, including the National Chamber of Commerce; my local chambers aren't pushing like this--but they say we want and we need this massive influx of unskilled laborers to do these jobs Americans won't do. They don't finish the sentence and say ``these jobs Americans won't do at what we would like to pay them.'' They require more in order to be hired, which skews the living wage that workers in America are getting paid and skews it downward.

So that under the Obama administration, Americans have really been hurt, and that was reflected in the results of the election. I know there are many Democratic friends who said they don't understand why Americans that came out and voted didn't feel better about the economy. Well, try talking to them because they make it very clear, they haven't had a raise in years. They have lost health care benefits because of ObamaCare. They have had deductibles. Some have told me: Mine went from a $500 deductible, which was really tough, to $5,000, which I just can't ever meet because I can't spend $5,000 extra to cover the deductible of my new ObamaCare policy.

So, yeah, the old joke was always, Well, I am from the government, and I am here to help you. It is one of the most frightening lines in America. It is no longer a joke. It is quite scary when you look at what the government has done to people. And then as this article points out, for the Obama administration to, using their terminology, create 6 million jobs--because as we know the President and also Hillary Clinton have said, you businesses, you didn't create those jobs. Oh, no, you weren't the one that put your capital at risk, that took out a loan, that is paying more in taxes for the police and for the roads than anybody else. No, you didn't build that company that you risked your sacred honor and everything you hold dear on. You didn't create that; the government did that. We did that for you.

Well, that is the way socialists generally start talking.

Having been an exchange student to the Soviet Union back when it was the Soviet Union, I saw what happens to a country that has to live under that for decades. So even in the 1970s, I could see, wow, I don't want their health care. Thank goodness we have free market health care. Of course, that was back before insurance companies and the government skewed the cost of health care.

So when I was being told this week by a parent that the bill they got for their child having stitches in a medical facility was $4,500, well, I did enough work with and for health insurance companies and people who had claims with health insurance companies that I know good and well that the top health insurance companies, they wouldn't pay $4,500. You get a bill for $4,500, they probably don't pay $500 for that bill.

So why shouldn't an American who can't afford an insurance policy under ObamaCare, why shouldn't that American be able to pay $500 cash instead of being hit with a $4,500 bill, and then the health institution says hey, since you are going to pay cash, we will cut you a real deal, we will knock off 20 percent. So yes, we will save you a bunch of money. And you will still pay several times more than what the insurance company would pay.

The bill I proposed, even though there are those in ignorance who say Republicans didn't have any solutions, one of the parts of my health care bill would require every health care facility and provider to post the costs. And if you are giving a different rate to the insurance company than you do to an American paying cash, you have to post it and let everybody see, because only then would you ever get back to having some competition.

The doctors that we used to go to in my hometown have passed away now, but my late mother, a very, very smart lady, was always looking for a bargain. I remember one time I asked: Why are we going to this doctor instead of the one we went to last time?

Well, he raised his rates, and you know good and well this doctor is as good as the other one.

When is the last time somebody said that? I'm going to a different doctor because the other one raised his rates. People don't even know what doctors charge because it has been so skewed.

You want to fix the health care system, one thing that should be required is that there actually be truth in the charges of health care. We don't have that now. You don't know what the insurance company pays specifically. Government rates are posted, but that is also why many physicians and health care providers, like hospitals, they have gotten out of the business. Doctors have told me that they have, and I have seen that they have. We lost our second hospital in my district this past week, they announced at least.

If we want to help Americans, it is not by more government takeover. The question keeps coming to me: I don't understand why my insurance is so much more. My deductible went way up. I am covering things like maternity care I will never use, and my premiums went up. I don't get it. I don't understand why it is more expensive.

Well, one thing that is very basic as part of that answer is, if you are going to hire with health care dollars 1,800 new IRS agents, if you are going to hire millions more people for the government that will never so much as put a bandaid or Bactine or anything on a cut or help anybody with a real problem, then your health care costs will go up because you have added huge amounts of government that have nothing to do with getting you treatment. They are government. They may make you sick to your stomach, they may cause you to get ill, they may scare you, but they are not going to fix your problem. They are government workers.

And thank you very much, I was in the Army for 4 years, and I know there were some good doctors there. I was friends with some. But, wow, we did have some quacks. The last thing I want is to be forced back into a hospital where the government has total control. But that is part of the price you pay by being in the military.

Well, thank goodness, Congress has stepped up enough to provide our military with really the best health care when it comes to traumatic injuries. But as some have found around here, if you have a problem with your gall bladder, you better go to a private hospital. If you have a traumatic injury, sure, our military doctors and facilities are awesome, but I will take my private facilities for anything else.

Well, this article from The Daily Caller points out:

Each year, the Nation accepts 1 million new immigrants, or

roughly 5 million new immigrants since 2009. That total

includes roughly 3.5 million working-age immigrants, which is

slightly less than the number of Americans--4.3 million--who

turn 18 each year.

Also, companies annually hire roughly 450,000 blue-collar

guest workers and roughly 200,000 white-collar guest workers.

Most of these guest workers stay for less than a year, but

many stay for 6 years.

That current population of roughly 600,000 foreign

graduates is expected to increase, if, as reported, Obama's

plan allows American universities to offer green cards to

foreign tuition-paying students.

Each year, roughly 4.3 million Americans join the workforce

in search of good jobs. That total includes roughly 800,000

Americans with expensive degrees in business, engineering,

medicine, technology, and architecture.

At least 9 million Americans are unemployed, and at least 7

million have given up looking for work. Employment rates

among African Americans and Latinos are lower than rates for

Whites and Asians.

Since 2000, the number of native-born Americans with jobs

has stalled, despite a growing population of working-age

native-born Americans.

The surplus of domestic and foreign job seekers also helps

ensure that U.S. median wages have flatlined since 2000.

Economists--including Obama's top economic adviser--say that

wages stall when the labor supply is larger than the supply

of new jobs.

Down further:

Obama has already provided or promised about 1 million work

permits to foreigners since 2011.

Since June 2012, Obama used the legally questionable

Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals program to give work

permits to almost 600,000 illegal immigrants. That DACA

number may go above 1.5 million.

In May 2014, Obama's deputies announced they would provide

work permits to 100,000 spouses of university-trained guest

workers used by brand name companies.

In October 2014, his deputies announced they would

accelerate the paperwork for 110,000 would-be Haitian

immigrants, allowing them to begin working in the United

States long before they were due to get green cards.

This is bad news for American workers. It is really bad news for American workers, and you would think it would come at a tremendous cost to the Democratic Party, which gets the huge majority of African Americans and a lesser majority of Hispanic and Latino voters. So this action to provide legal work permits to as many as 5 million people who are illegally here is a slap in the face, as hard a slap as you could give to Hispanics and to African Americans, whose unemployment rate is dramatically higher than it should be because this action that the President is about to take unconstitutionally and illegally for political purposes is basically saying to the masses, the millions of African Americans and Hispanic voters who are out of work: Look, we know you are going to always vote for us no matter how much damage we do to your lives, your employment, your ability to pay your bills. We know you are still going to vote for us no matter what because you haven't figured out that Republicans, they want you to have a job. They want you to be able to provide for yourself. They want you to learn English so you can be president of the company and not just a manual laborer for the company. We want you to live and achieve the American dream while the President is pushing a program that is going to push millions more, many of them African Americans and Hispanics, out of the jobs they have and bring in cheaper labor and make it even tougher.

Why? We keep hearing it is a political move. Of course it is a political move. Well, the only way it is a political move is if the Democrats take the African American and Latino votes for granted. You are going to vote for us no matter how bad we mess up your lives, so this will allow us to eventually pick up the votes of people who have come in illegally because they will want to reward those of us who helped them.

Well, I tell you, my office helps so many Hispanic families try to go through the legal route of getting family members here, or people who are trying to get a loved one here, a fiancee here. We help with those things. And, of course, there is no charge. And I have had a lot of people say: I don't know why we are working so hard and for all of these years to bring this person in legally when I would have been better off just saying, come on across, you will get amnesty some day and we will have saved all of this frustration--because we were trying to do what we thought was the American way, the legal way, when the President is about to reward lawbreakers by being a lawbreaker himself.

The New York Times reports today:

Officials of the Republican-led House Appropriations

Committee have concluded that the government agency most

responsible for implementing any new executive order,

Citizenship and Immigration Services, would not be hindered

if government funds are cut off. It operates entirely on

revenue it generates through immigration applications. In

short, lawmakers have no fiscal leverage over the agency,

which could keep operating even if the rest of the government

were shut down.

We understand that. CIS, Citizenship and Immigration Services, they operate with fees they generate. Who allows them to do that? Congress does. Who created CIS? Congress did. Who has the authority to prevent CIS from implementing any illegal dictate that comes from the White House? Congress does.

So even though CIS is funded by fees, we have the ability to do what Democratic Congresses have done post-Watergate. You want people out of Vietnam immediately who are Americans? Then no matter where the Federal money comes from, you make it a crime to spend any Federal revenue, no matter where it comes from, to have people in Vietnam.

You want to prevent Americans from helping the contras keep communism off our southern border and out of Central America? They pass a law. It is easy to do. You pass a law saying it is a crime to use any Federal funds no matter where they come from for this purpose.

That is one thing we can and should do. I deeply regret that our Members were told we are done until after Thanksgiving when the President is about to announce this lawlessness, and then we are hearing secondhand from leadership of the Republican Party, ``There is not much we can do. Gee, they get their own funds.'' Yeah, there is plenty we can do.

We ought to be here right now passing a resolution that authorizes a lawsuit, an injunction. I have signed plenty of injunctions. There is a standard you have to meet, but it can be done.

If you have a President acting lawlessly, just like if you have a mayor that is acting lawlessly or a county judge or a commissioner or a Governor, somebody that is adversely affected--ought to have standing, bring a lawsuit, bring an injunction--to keep them from violating the law when they are supposed to be enforcing the law.

It makes sense that as an administration acts more and more lawlessly, you have the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that was created, we were told, by the Democrats--by an all-Democrat House--and Senate majority, signed by President Obama, created this entity that was supposed to protect Americans from unscrupulous banking practices. It turns out now that is being used to gather debit card and credit card activity on Americans.

The government shouldn't be able to get that information without a warrant or without permission from that American. We don't need a Federal agency that goes snooping, getting material that should require a warrant, and only after the government has shown probable cause that that American has committed a crime. Officers would come to me--I have signed orders ordering the disclosure of bank records like that, but the government had to establish probable cause, or I wasn't going to sign the warrant.

Yet we create this monstrosity that, in the name of helping us poor stupid ignorant Americans, they will just monitor every bit of our financial activity while the NSA is watching over our emails and we are having our phone calls, all the logs from them go into the government.

I mean, for heaven's sake, is it any wonder that we get a report this week. There is an article from the Washington Examiner that reports: ``Under Obama, U.S. Personal Freedom Ranking Slips Below France.''

For heaven's sake, we ought to be the freest country in the history of the world, and we have been previously. As Peter Sellers used to say, as the Pink Panther, ``Not anymore.''

How sad is this? The United States in the personal freedom rankings for 2014 is number 21. Well, is that any surprise that our freedom is under such attack and our freedoms are diminishing and going away when the government is looking at every private aspect?

You look at the control that was taken by ObamaCare over all aspects of our life. It allowed the Federal Government to have all of your most personal secrets that should be only between you and your doctor. How many times have we heard that from liberals?

Yet they passed ObamaCare without a single Republican vote that puts the government, not only in their bedroom, as they have previously objected to--the government is in your bedroom, your bathroom, your garage; they are in your dining room, your refrigerator, they are on machines you buy food from. They are everywhere now.

As I have said before, the ObamaCare bill was not so much about health care, it was about GRE. ObamaCare was about the ``government running everything.'' Holy cow, are they actually doing that.

Anyway, quite interesting, as our government is going to put another 4 or 5 million hardworking Americans out of work and turn those jobs over to people who came in illegally displacing--I guarantee you, when the smoke clears, there will be a disproportionate number of African Americans and Hispanics who have lost their jobs because of this action the President is going to take.

New Zealand, Norway, Australia, Iceland, Canada, Sweden, Netherlands, Uruguay, Denmark, United Kingdom, Ireland, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Costa Rica, Finland, France, Austria, Malta, Portugal, those are all ahead of us in the personal freedom rankings for 2014, and there we are down below Portugal.

Well, tonight, it is also reported in The Washington Post, that the President's announcement coincides with the Latin Grammy Awards. The article points out that the 15th annual Latin Grammys, which begins at 7 p.m. Thursday on Spanish TV network Univision, they are going to take a break for the President's announcement.

Clearly, it is political. Clearly, it will make points with those who are rewarded by legal work permits for coming in illegally. It is going to be a disaster for many Latinos, for many African Americans, to keep their job. They are going to have to start making less than a living wage than they had before.

We need to be about the business of stopping this. We can, we have the will, but it is kind of tough, as we approach Thanksgiving, for many Americans to be thankful. This is still the greatest country in the world, but we are losing what we have had, losing freedoms, losing revenue, losing control of our lives to the government.

It was George Washington, along with every single President since, who have said, ``This time of year for all we have, for all we have been given, those that do believe the Bible know all good gifts come from God and to God be the glory.''

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, we got word earlier this afternoon that President Obama intends to issue an oral decree followed by a written decree--as any good monarch would--indicating that he has decided to change the law regarding immigration.

An article here from The Washington Post has a quote from Secretary Jeh Johnson, the Secretary of Homeland Security, which he says:

``Legislative action is always preferable,'' Johnson said,

``but we have waited for Congress to act, and the Congress

has not acted. The President has waited.''

That is what leaders in places like Venezuela--many places historically where that statement has been made, we have waited for parliament or the legislature or Congress to change the law. They didn't do as we dictated to Congress they had to do, and therefore, we have decided to change the law.

This President is creating a constitutional crisis, and it happens when a President is allowed to continue pushing the envelope and pushing the envelope and exceeding the envelope, and you have an incorrigible opinion written--as the majority for the Supreme Court did on ObamaCare--that is the height of hypocrisy.

How the Supreme Court majority could say, on page 14 and 15, that the mandated penalty in ObamaCare was not a tax--the Supreme Court said if it were a tax, of course, under the anti-injunction statute many decades old, we would not have jurisdiction--plaintiffs wouldn't have standing.

But since clearly the penalty is just that--it is a penalty--then it is not a tax because, if it were a tax, we wouldn't have jurisdiction, plaintiffs wouldn't have standing, and we would all be out of luck, and we wouldn't be able to issue an opinion, but since it is not a tax, it is a penalty, then we will go forward and be able to issue an opinion.

Then you get over about 40 pages, and the opinion says, since it is a tax after all--even though 40 pages or so ago it wasn't--now, we found that it is, therefore, it is constitutional.

So we have had all three branches help create a constitutional crisis. The President on one hand, by continuing to overstep the boundaries of the Constitution as he usurps more and more power; the Supreme Court by issuing decisions that are nonsensical; and Congress, if we continue not to use the powers of the purse to stop the lawlessness by this administration.

The Supreme Court has had opportunities to stop it--they have stopped it on many occasions--set a record for numbers of Supreme Court opinions ruling against an administration unanimously, so the President does have that part of his legacy going, but apparently, the legacy continues to be stretched to the bounds of absurdity.

The Washington Post said--this was from today:

President Obama will announce Thursday that he will use his

executive authority to expand temporary protections to

millions of undocumented immigrants, according to several

individuals who have been briefed on the decision. Obama will

travel to Las Vegas on the heels of that announcement to

rally support for his initiative on Friday.

It shouldn't be a surprise. While the President slept and four heros--including one ambassador--in Benghazi were killed, he got up and headed for Las Vegas.

Now, he is going to announce this constitutional crisis he is creating by deciding to legislate and then take off for Las Vegas again, gambling with the jobs of Americans as he goes.

Getting back to the article again, it says:

Congress will receive official details on the move

Thursday, according to a senior Democratic Party official.

Even before final confirmation of the President's plans,

outside advocates began readying events to promote the

administration's immigration policy.

``We hear there will be a primetime Thursday evening

announcement, to preview, and full unveiling in Vegas on

Friday,'' immigration advocate Dawn Le wrote in an email to

other activists, which was later inadvertently sent to a

group of reporters Wednesday morning. ``Can folks begin to

work and plan watch parties for Thursday and/or Friday?

Unclear whether Thursday night content will be what is

`celebratory,' but Friday will be where we need a lot of

energy guaranteed.''

That is, of course, while the President is in Las Vegas, gambling away American jobs.

The article goes on:

Obama launched his push for immigration reform in January

2013 in Las Vegas, outlining a plan that would allow many of

the Nation's 11 million undocumented immigrants to earn

citizenship.

Now, it is important to note the article goes on to say:

Johnson said the administration has concluded it has ``wide

latitude'' to take action. ``It can't be that we are not

allowed to lift a finger to fix our broken immigration

system,'' he said. ``And we will.''

That is what creates the constitutional crisis, Mr. Speaker. Jefferson once recommended that we shouldn't bring up a bill for a vote until it has had a year on file for people to review. That would eliminate all these legislating-by-crises situations, but we have seen crises generated.

We know the former Chief of Staff for the President of the United States once quipped that you never want to let a good emergency go to waste; obviously, there is a feeling that this would be the time to usurp congressional authority.

Now, the sad thing is the crisis is not as bad right now as it has been in the past. Any time the President talked about amnesty or legal status, Border Patrolmen--some on the record, some in articles--have pointed out any time the President--or anybody in Washington, but especially the President--talks about amnesty or legal status, the numbers of people coming in illegally, the number of people dying trying to get in, increases.

The number of people wishing to get lost in the masses from Central America and Mexico coming in from countries where radical Islamic activities abound are coming in, in greater numbers.

Interestingly, the White House has shown it has the ability to foment a crisis unilaterally, and then by fomenting the crisis unilaterally, justify the crisis they created to usurp congressional authority granted to Congress and no one else in the Constitution.

There is an article from my dear friend, Senator Ted Cruz. ``The Constitution designs a system of checks and balances for our Nation, and executive amnesty for illegal immigrants unilaterally decreed by the White House would seriously undermine the rule of law.

``Our Founders repeatedly warned about the dangers of unlimited power within the executive branch. Congress should heed those words as the President threatens to grant amnesty to millions of people who have come to our country illegally.

``To be clear, the dispute over executive amnesty is not between President Obama and Republicans in Congress; it is a dispute between President Obama and the American people. The Democrats suffered historic losses in the midterm elections largely over the prospects of the President's executive amnesty. President Obama was correct: his policies were on the ballot across the Nation in 2014. The elections were a referendum on amnesty, and the voters soundly rejected it. There was no ambiguity.

``Undeterred, President Obama appears to be going forward. It is lawless. It is unconstitutional. He is defiant and angry at the American people. If he acts by executive diktat, President Obama will not be acting as a President, he will be acting as a monarch.

``Thankfully, the Framers of our Constitution, wary of the dangers of monarchy, gave the Congress tools to rein in abuses of power. They believed if the President wants to change the law, he cannot act alone; he must work with Congress.

``He may not get everything he wants, but the Constitution requires compromise between the branches.

``A monarch, however, does not compromise. As Alexander Hamilton explains in Federalist 69, a monarch decrees, dictates, and rules through fiat power, which''--as Ted Cruz points out--``is what President Obama is attempting. When the President embraces the tactics of a monarch, it becomes incumbent on Congress to wield the constitutional power it has to stop it.''

He goes on to make good points.

It is important that someone speak for the tens of millions of American citizens who had a dream, who hoped to have work, who hoped to provide for their families, who hoped to have enough to pay back student loans, who hoped to buy their children bicycles for Christmas, but they are out of work. They lost work.

Oh, I know the books have gotten cooked, and we are told that the unemployment rate is dramatically better, but a big reason that the American voters did not indicate that at the polls is they don't feel it, and the reason they don't feel that the employment numbers are better is because they personally know they are not. They are not better.

In fact, this article is from September 5 from CNS News:

A record 92,269 million Americans 16 and older did not

participate in the labor force in August, as the labor force

participation rate matched a 36-year low of 62.8 percent,

according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics.

The labor force participation rate has been as low as 62.8 percent in 6 of the last 12 months, but prior to last October had not fallen that low since 1978, which, hypothetically or parenthetically, was during the august--I say sarcastically for those on the left that don't know sarcasm--days of the American economy during President Carter's glorious years as President.

This article goes on:

BLS employment statistics are based on the civilian

noninstitutional population, which consists of all people 16

or older who are not in the military or an institution such

as a prison, mental hospital, or nursing home.

In August, the civilian noninstitutional population was

248,229 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Of that 248 million, 155,959 million, or 62.8 percent,

participate in the labor force, meaning they either had a job

or had actively sought one in the past 4 weeks.

The 92,269 million who did not participate in the labor

force are those in the civilian noninstitutional population

who did not have a job and did not actively seek one in the

last 4 weeks. Because they did not seek a job, then the

administration did not count them as unemployed.

Mr. Speaker, as the President intends to announce tomorrow--and party in Las Vegas--going into more detail about how many Americans are going to be displaced from their jobs by people the President is going to provide amnesty to, somebody needs to be speaking up for that union member that would love to pay union dues if he just had a job, or for the single moms that have approached me in tears, saying they got forced into part-time work because of ObamaCare and the change in the law that was entailed in the ObamaCare bill.

There are people hurting across America that are American citizens that once had a dream. Maybe we should label the President's unconstitutional actions as the American citizen dream killer, instead of any type of DREAMer act.

We have seen statistics that indicate that possibly less than 10 percent of people who have come into this country illegally are actually working, so the President provides amnesty for millions of people who are illegally here.

I hope that he will also provide an apology to the Hispanics and people from different places around the world that my office is trying to help achieve visas, achieve citizenship legally, some taking years.

I am sure the President is not going to feel like apologizing. Apparently, the indication is he wants to celebrate the unconstitutional actions he is going to announce in Las Vegas, but somebody with the government needs to apologize to the American people that 92 million-plus Americans are not even looking for a job any more when they are eligible for jobs, they could have jobs, most of them would like to have jobs, but they have given up. They have lost their dreams under this administration.

As the President announces making millions of more people who have come illegally eligible to take American citizens' jobs in the next 2 days, I hope that our Congress on both sides of the aisle will do what is right and say, ``Wait a minute. Secure the border, Mr. President. That is what is exclusively within your control.''

The Supreme Court has said States and local authorities can't secure the border. It is up to the administration, and the mere fact is that this administration has turned their back on protecting Americans from the illegal aliens that have come in and killed Americans, raped Americans. Thank God most of them don't do those things.

But for the millions of people who have been the victims of crimes by people who have come in illegally, those crimes would never have occurred if we had had an administration that secured the border so people who came across with criminal records in their past in the countries they came from would not be allowed in here, and those crimes they committed in America would not have been committed.

Those that have been deported and come back in after they committed crimes here and commit more crimes, as I personally saw as a judge happen in Smith County, Texas, those wouldn't be happening if we had an administration that would properly secure the border.

The Clinton administration didn't do it. The Bush administration didn't do it. And now, this administration has set records for how poorly they have prevented people from coming in illegally, the damage that has been done to American citizens, crushing dreams, taking dreams.

I hope and pray the President will remember his oath, that this precursor that was released today about the damage the President wants to do to American citizens who are trying to find jobs, that he will have second thoughts and not do it.

Mr. Speaker, I hope the American people who spoke very loudly and clearly when they came out to vote will let the President know, in person, through email, through phone calls, that American citizens still need jobs.

Why don't you help the economy get going stronger so that we need more people to come in and have those jobs?

Our oath is to the American people, and when you have nearly a third of the United States, or getting close to half of people eligible to work that have even completely given up on looking for jobs, the economy is not good. Americans are suffering.

Now the President wants to bring in, just provide amnesty to people who will then be able to compete and put American citizens out of work. It really is heartbreaking.

Now, if you stay aboard, say, an Air Force One and you only go to rallies or golf courses where everybody is doing great, wealthy, you only talk to high-tech industry people that are just knocking down billions of dollars, it is easy to start feeling like things are going great. But if you go to Sabine County, Texas; San Augustine, Texas; Shelby County, Texas; Angelina County; Nacogdoches County; Rusk County; Panola County; Harrison County; Gregg County; Smith County; Wood County; Upshur County--those are counties all within my district. And in some of those counties, people are really getting desperate. They don't need to compete with 5 million more people for jobs. They would just like a job themselves.

If the Obama administration will take the foot off of the throat of this economy, will help us roll back and repeal ObamaCare.

I got notice again of another hospital in my district this week, there in Gilmer where my nephew was born. Gilmer hospital, where my nephew was born, is now going to be closed. They are not going to be able to handle the continued cuts that ObamaCare has created. There are numerous reasons, but that is a death knell.

Hospitals are closing. People are hurting. So for the 92, between 92 and 93 million people that have given up hope, how sad, because the Obama administration will not secure our borders.

I want immigrants coming in. I love the fact that we allow more legal immigrants in than anybody. I love that. That is wonderful. But when you don't have secure borders and millions come in, millions upon millions, then you are moving toward a day when nobody is going to want to come in because you didn't have a logical immigration process. They overwhelmed the system. They broke the system, and now that shining light on a hill has gone out.

We are moving in that direction: the military becoming too small to adequately protect us, people around the

world in hostile environments deciding that America can be pushed around, radical Islamists deciding this is the time to move, Iran figuring out that they have an administration that can be duped over and over again until they have the atomic weapons and the ability to carry them, which they have already got. They can do it with ships, enough to take out the Great Satan, which is the United States, according to them, and the Little Satan, Israel.

And this President is going to have a good time out in Las Vegas. Las Vegas can be fun, but not when the President says he is going to sign a law--wouldn't it be ironic if he decided to sign it at Caesars Palace, because the real Caesar's palace used to see that kind of thing on a regular basis, you know, a dictator, or Caesar just signing a law as he saw fit.

But in this case, you would think a Caesar would not sign a law that would provide the ability to displace millions of Americans who have jobs and force them into the eventuality where 92 million Americans are. They have given up hope. They have given up on their dreams.

If you believe the Bible, as I do, it makes clear that the government is here to protect people, to protect against evil, to encourage good conduct. That means following the law. You provide a protected environment in which people can be peacemakers and be meek and loving and kind and turn the other cheek.

But that is not for the government. The government's role is to enforce the law as it is. And may God plant the seeds of wisdom in the right people in this administration so they will quit harming Americans who just want a job.

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