Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

Honoring Congressman John Dingell on His Retirement

Mr. Speaker, it was a privilege to yield to the gentleman from New Jersey on behalf of our colleague who set a historical record of serving this Chamber and the people of his district so well for 60 years.

And it is a privilege for me now also, Mr. Speaker, to be in this well to deliver what is my last speech on this floor.

It has been the privilege and the honor of a lifetime for me to serve as a Member of the United States Congress, serving as the first woman ever elected from the State of Minnesota in the capacity of being a Republican. It is an honor, and it is the ride of a lifetime. As I stand here in the well of this House, I am so filled with joy and so much happiness in understanding that the privilege I have is one of being really a link on a chain that has gone on for hundreds of years.

I stand right here on the soil, in the square feet that are the freest square feet in the world because you see, Mr. Speaker, it is here where any voice that holds an election certificate can speak forth the words, words that maybe a President of the United States would vehemently agree with, disagree with, words that maybe colleagues from one's own party and the opposing party may vehemently disagree with, words that in some sense might incent people to anger or to even riot in some cases, but words, nonetheless, that are free--free, free-- because a price was paid so that speech could be given. It is an honor. Where else could we find this level of freedom anywhere in the world?

That is why at the very top of this Capitol on the rotunda dome standing a full 20 feet tall is a statute called ``Freedom.'' It is a woman, and her name is Freedom. She stands as the uppermost point in this part of our Nation's Capital. She faces east because she faces toward the sunrise so that every day Freedom's face looks into the morning sun, and, happily, we begin yet one more day of liberty in this country.

You see, I am so proud to be a part of this Nation. I am so proud to be an American citizen because I recognize the costs of my freedom, the price that was paid for it by those who have gone before. I am so thrilled to have this opportunity.

Just behind me, Mr. Speaker, above where you are standing, is our Nation's motto. It says, ``In God We Trust.'' What a fabulous motto. Could any better motto be written for any nation to

declare full voiced that it is in God that we as a nation put our trust? What other more trustworthy venue could there be? What other trustworthy vehicle could there be than a holy God?

You see, it is not just today that we mouth these words. These words were mouthed by the Founders of our country, those who decided to leave the comforts of their home to come here to what was essentially an untested, untapped world where there were people, the Native Americans who populated this land, but where a brand-new culture was about to be born, one that would be again the fulcrum to bless the entire world, where people would know that they could come from any portion of the world and find freedom as individuals, but also as a nation.

We have so much to be thankful for, so much to be grateful for. For many people who have never had the privilege of being in this House Chamber before, this is the room where the laws of our Nation are formulated. Our Founders meant that the House of Representatives would be the most powerful form of government. Why? Because it would be these 435 Members that we eventually became would hold the power of the purse. We would hold the Nation's credit card. It would be up to us to decide what we spent money on and what we didn't. We would formulate policy for what is now some 300 million-plus American people.

We are the lawgivers because the people of this country have given us the privilege of the election certificate to make the laws. We must never forget that it is by the consent of the governed that we rule and that we decide our laws.

As I look about this Chamber, we are ringed with the silhouettes of lawgivers throughout history--Hammurabi, various lawgivers throughout all of time, lawgivers for whom veneration is required. And yet only one lawgiver has the distinction of not having a silhouette but having the full face be revealed by the artist. That lawgiver is Moses. Moses is directly above the double doors that lead into the centermost part of this Chamber. In the face of Moses, his eyes look straight upon not only our Nation's motto, ``In God We Trust,'' but Moses' face looks full on into the face of the Speaker of the House.

Daily the Speaker of the House, as he stands up in his authority and in his podium, recognizes that he, too, is a man under authority, just as Moses was a man under authority. Because you see, Mr. Speaker, Moses is given for the full honor as the greatest lawgiver in this Chamber because he was chosen by the God that we trust to be entrusted with the basis of all law. The basis of all law, as was written by Blackstone, the famous English jurist, was the Ten Commandments that were given by none other than the God we trust on Mount Sinai. We know those laws. Those laws are the fundamental laws of mankind. And here in the United States, the Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses are the very foundation of the law that has given the happiness and the rise of the greatest prosperity that any nation has known before.

Mr. Speaker, it could be no coincidence that this Nation, knowing and enjoying the heights of such great happiness and such great prosperity, could be built upon that foundation of the Ten Commandments and of the law given by the God in whom we trust. What a privilege we have been given. What an unparalleled foundation. We have so much to be grateful for and thankful for.

Before I continue my remarks, I want to also say thank you to people in their individual capacity who have done so much to help me in my service in the House of Representatives. I want to thank, first of all and most importantly, the people of the Sixth Congressional District of Minnesota who thought enough of my campaign to give me the election certificate that I have been privileged to hold for these four terms that I have served in office for 8 years. Had the people of the Sixth Congressional District not elected me to service, I would have never known what a privilege it would be to serve them here in this Chamber. I thank the great people of the Sixth District. It is known as Lake Wobegon country, the greatest people in this country as far as I am concerned--people where all of the men are good looking and the children are above average. It is a State unlike any other, and I am privileged to have served.

I also want to thank the many numerous volunteers who worked on my campaigns to send me here. Without their tireless work stuffing envelopes and serving on the campaigns and making phone calls, it never would have happened.

I was a homemaker at home with our family. I had been a Federal tax litigation attorney. I had had the privilege of starting a charter school. My husband and I started our own company, but I was essentially nobody from nowhere, and because people believed in me, they elected me, and they brought me here. I want to thank again the people of the Sixth District and the volunteers who sent me here.

I also want to thank the donors who very generously gave their money also so that I could be here. I had very hard-fought campaigns. I was often the top nemesis for the opposite political party in election after election, and millions of dollars were spent to make sure that I would not have the privilege of standing in the well of this House.

I want to thank those who gave me the money to be able to come and who sacrificed so that I could be here. Over the years my races were so expensive that at one point mine was the most expensive race in the country. That was done on an average donation of $41 per donation. Millions and millions of dollars with an average donation of $41.

I am so proud of that because real people across the United States saw in me an authentic, credible voice who was here to speak for them. I had people all across the country who said to me, Michele, thank you, you speak for me, and I am so thankful that you have fought for me here in Washington.

They knew that I wasn't here to speak for special interests. They knew that I wasn't bought and paid for. They knew that I was speaking for them. I want to say for those that did donate money to my campaigns, I am the same person today as I was when I came here 8 years ago, and I fought for you and for the values that you sent me here to fight for.

I also want to say thank you to the God who saved me. I am so grateful to the Holy God who created us, the Creator God, the God that Jefferson pointed to in the Declaration of Independence. It is because of Him and because He created me in His image and likeness, as He has each one of us, that I even have the possibility of coming here to be able to serve.

I also thank my parents, my father, who has passed away. I thank my mother, Jean LaFave, and my stepfather, Ray LaFave, for their love and their support over the years as well. I am thankful to my brothers, David and Gary and Paul, and my stepbrothers and my stepsisters.

I am thankful to my husband of 36 years, Marcus; to our five wonderful children, Lucas, and his wife, Christine; Harrison, Elisa, Caroline, and Sophia; and also to our wonderful 23 foster children whom we were privileged to raise over the years. As I often joke, yes, I am the old woman in the shoe. I have raised 28 children, and I am so grateful for each one of them.

I am thankful for my very dear friends over the years who prayed for me and stood by me and helped me to get to this position, to my supporters from the great State of Minnesota, and most particularly to the prayer warriors. The very first committee that we formed every time I ran for political office was our prayer committee, and I thank you to the intercessors who prayed routinely for me. Those prayers I believe were answered.

I also say thank you to the men and women who serve today in our Armed Forces. It was the privilege of a lifetime for me to go and travel across the world to Iraq, to Afghanistan, to Germany, and various places around the world where I was able to meet you in your service, and I thank you for allowing me to meet you there.

I say thank you to our veterans who have gone before. You know how near and dear you are to my heart. I am the daughter of a veteran, stepdaughter of a veteran, sister of a veteran, and I am so grateful because I recognize we would not be here today if it wasn't for our veterans, and I thank you for your

service to our country because you answered the call.

I want to also say thank you to my staff:

My longest-serving staff member, Kim Rubin, who came with me on day one and who has served me every single day so superbly as my scheduler. There is no one quite like her, and I have absolutely no idea how I will order my life once I leave here without Kim Rubin.

I say thank you to my chief of staff, Robert Boland, who has stepped in and done a wonderful job with our well organized machine in our office. He makes it a joy for everyone in our office to serve.

I say thank you to my press communications director, Dan Kotman, who has done such a wonderful job every day challenging me to make sure that I can be as good as I can and to keep me from making the mistakes that I am all too prone to make;

For Mikayla Hall, who keeps me on the current edge in absolutely everything that she does, with a brilliant career in front of her;

For Renee Doyle, my dear longtime friend and legislative director, who has a heart of gold and who has served tirelessly in every form of her capacity;

For Jason Frye, Sergeant Frye, who has served our Nation as a veteran but who now will be a legislative director for my successor, and he will do a wonderful job serving.

For Kevin Wysocki, who has served me so well. I thank him, Mr. Speaker, for the brilliant, high-quality man of integrity that he is;

For Jessica Cahill, who has always been there to serve me in every possible capacity that she was asked to do;

For our intern Julie; for our district director Deb Steiskal, who has been so faithful to me during my time in service; for Barbara Harper, who has been with me through thick and thin through 16 years of activism and political life; for Nicole Severson Pelzer, who serves our veterans; for Karen Miller, who will continue to serve our district.

I am so grateful for the Capitol Police, for all that they have done to secure my safety; for the Sergeant at Arms; for our chaplains; our Bible study leaders; for the Clerk's Office.

I want to give a special shout-out to James, who runs the railroad car in the basement of the Rayburn Building. James has become a wonderful friend, a man of God, and we literally have tears in our eyes when we are saying good-bye to each other in these last days. He has brought joy to my heart, and I thank him as well as I thank Maria, who stands right out here outside the door. She has to fetch me all the time because I am usually the last one in the Chamber, trying to get more business done, and Maria says it is time to go, Congresswoman, and I thank God for Maria and what a darling that she has been.

I am grateful for the committee staff from the Financial Services Committee, on which I have been privileged to serve for 8 years, for the committee staff on the Intel Committee. No one knows how hard they work and what a vital service they play to our Nation.

I am grateful for Bonnie, the elevator lady, who is always so happy.

I am grateful for the two ladies at our lunch counter back in the cloakroom, to Ms. Pat and Ms. Doris. You are such good cooks, you make wonderful sandwiches, and I always knew that if I was short $2, you would see me through to the next day. So thank you for believing in my creditworthiness.

More than anything, I want to say thank you to the Founders of this Nation, who gave us the most incredible ride by believing in us and in our future, by recognizing that these truths are self-evident, that all men and all women are created equal, that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among those rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

What that means to me is this: no government gave me rights that only God can give, and no government can take away the rights that only God can give. The only reason that we even have a government and the only reason it was instituted among men is to secure for me and for you the rights that God gave us: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Beyond that, we rule by the consent of the governed.

This is a pretty simple gig to figure out here. There are things that government can't touch. Would that we would learn that. But there are things that we do, and those things that we do should be for the happiness of mankind. You see, it is our job not to think only of ourselves, but to think of the generations that are yet to come.

My favorite Americans are people who didn't know they were Americans. They were the Pilgrims. They came here before our Nation was founded. I love the story that was written by Governor Bradford. He wrote in his journal, which I have read in the King's English multiple times. The Pilgrims are one of my favorite groups of people.

Governor Bradford wrote that with the sorrow and the sacrifice that the Pilgrims made--you know, the very first year when they came over, fully half of them died in that first starving winter. Governor Bradford wrote that it was worth it all because the Pilgrims saw themselves, in his words, as stepping stones. He said they willingly laid down their lives and sacrificed themselves because they looked into the future, Mr. Speaker, and they saw you, and they saw me, and they saw all of the American generations that would come after them, and they saw what a marvelous land filled with natural resources, the ability to have freedom, a completely new covenant, a completely new promise that we could make with the future and with the God that we trust.

We could have here a brand new, ordered experiment in liberty, and we did. The generations benefited, and our generation has benefited like nothing before. And that is what we too must do.

As I wind down my remarks, I say thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you that I could have that privilege of also being a stepping stone to look to the future so that the next generation would live better than we do today. Thank you for the privilege.

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

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall vote No. 549 on the Democrat Motion to Recommit on H.R. 5759 I intended to vote ``no''; on rollcall vote No. 550 on H.R. 5759--Executive Amnesty Prevention Act of 2014 I intended to vote ``aye''; on rollcall vote No. 551 on the passage of H.R. 3979--Carl Levin and Howard P. `Buck' McKeon National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015--Concur in the Senate Amendment with a House Amendment I intended to vote ``aye''--I was away from the floor due to a family emergency.

I want to say thank you to my wonderful colleague, Erik Paulsen, who has exemplified the spirit of Bill Frenzel in the Third Congressional District seat; and it really is because our former colleague, Bill Frenzel, set a standard.

Mr. Speaker, we would like to think in Minnesota that we are a trendsetter, and we have often called ourselves the Brainpower State. Well, could the Brainpower State have ever been better exemplified than by a man like Bill Frenzel? He really was a thinking man's person. He also was an individual who was completely willing to open himself to new ideas from other Members. I think it is very evident from the Members that we heard from this evening on both sides of the aisle that this was a complete, unfettered outpouring of not just admiration, but love--love and appreciation for what this man did.

As Representative Paulsen had just said, I will, too, soon be leaving this House floor. This will be one of the last speeches that I ever give from this privileged well. There is no greater bastion of a few square yards of freedom than this area. We are allowed to do this. I am allowed to speak here tonight because I was privileged to be given an election certificate just like Bill Frenzel. He earned the trust, he earned the admiration, and Bill earned the respect of the people in the Third District. One thing I can tell you, Bill

Frenzel never disappointed. He kept faith with those who gave him that election certificate.

Mr. Speaker, I know when I first ran for Congress, it was in 2006. I began the journey a little bit before then. And as I was in Minnesota, usually all of us made our way over to the Third Congressional District, because in the Third Congressional District resided a lot of the people who paid for the campaigns in the State of Minnesota. And everyone knew Bill Frenzel.

So I would meet and have lunch, breakfast, and dinner, and lunch, breakfast, and dinner, and coffees and coffees with people in the Third Congressional District. When it came to finding those who wanted to get behind efforts in Minnesota in running for campaigns on either side of the aisle, it was usually out of the Third Congressional District.

Mr. Speaker, this is what I want the family, who this evening--for those who are watching across the Nation on C-SPAN, it is important to know that Bill was so highly loved. His family is here this evening. They are joined here in the gallery, and they are able to hear what every family needs to hear.

Yes, there is sorrow at the passing of a loved one, but there is also great joy. Joy that is made in reliving memories, memories of those we admired, those we served with, those that we loved. It is good to remember them forever. It helps to deepen in our memory book the importance of what this life meant; Bill's meant something. Bill contributed, Bill was a positive force for good, not just for the Third District, not just for Minnesota, but for the Nation. It was his character, first of all. That is what I want the family to know.

When I sat down in coffee after coffee, breakfast after breakfast, inevitably, Bill's name came up. I am sure that Erik Paulsen would agree. Bill's name came up. Why? Because people would say to me, ``Michelle, you know Bill Frenzel, don't you? Bill is a friend of mine.'' I heard that over and over and over: ``Bill is a friend of mine.'' He was a respected colleague, yes; a thinker, yes. But he was people's friend.

So people would always speak with Bill in the terms of raising the bar and setting a standard.

I hope that I was able live up to that standard of a Bill Frenzel for my brief 8 years in Congress. I give Bill a lot of credit. He served for 8 years in the Minnesota House of Representatives. He served for 20 here in the United States Congress. Think of that: 28 years of public service. That is amazing. I was able to put in 8 here. Think of 20 years here, pouring out his life on behalf of this Nation. It really is an accomplishment.

To think that during all of those years it wasn't that Bill just had 1 good year or 2 good years, Bill had 20 great, fabulous years that not only can the family be proud of but that our Nation, and, as a fellow Minnesotan and successor colleague, I am proud of.

I also just briefly want to mention one thing that Bill also did for his Nation, and that is he was willing to lay down his life when he served our country in the Navy. He was a veteran. I am thankful for what he did.

The Holy Scriptures say: ``Greater love hath no man than this, but that he would lay down his life for his friend.''

Bill Frenzel willingly put himself on the line so that he could do that. Thank goodness, his life wasn't required and he came back to serve in this distinguished body. As a distinguished man, he singularly served this body.

And so with great humility I want to say again to Ruthy, to the three girls, to the grandchildren: Be so proud of the legendary Bill Frenzel. His name will not be forgotten in this institution. His work won't be forgotten in this institution.

As one who is about to depart, I can tell you, you think about that: What I did here, did it matter? The speeches I gave, the work I did, the late nights, the early mornings, the weekends--the sacrifices that he made and the sacrifices that you as a family made.

Bill would be the first one to say, I couldn't have done this without Ruthy, I wouldn't have done this without the girls, I couldn't have done it without those who loved me. He would be the one to say that.

So I thank the family, Mr. Speaker, who are in the gallery, for what you did to support this legendary man because he made a distinct contribution, and he couldn't have done it without you making that sacrifice.

So I am very grateful for what they did. I thank God our country is a better place because of Bill Frenzel.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and congratulate Pregnancy Resource Center (PRC) in Saint Cloud, Minnesota for 25 years of serving men and women in the greater Saint Cloud area.

PRC, through the hard work of their licensed medical team and volunteers, offers free and confidential pregnancy tests and screening for sexually transmitted diseases. In addition, PRC provides medical information and counseling, enabling patients to consider all their options before making decisions.

The chosen theme to mark this milestone is ``Together for Life,'' which pays homage to both their pro-life values and the fact that they are ``all in this ministry together for life.''

Mr. Speaker, I ask this body join with me in thanking everyone at PRC for their efforts and the services they have provided to countless men and women over the past 25 years. May they continue far into the future.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to proudly honor thirteen high school seniors from the Sixth Congressional District of Minnesota who earned the Congressional Certificate of Merit for their exemplary citizenship and academic excellence. The award winners include: Spencer Clark, Andover High School; Kevin Bloch, Immaculate Conception Academy; Brooke Volpone, Monticello High School; Brandon Fabel, Central High School; Carissa Nelson, PACT Charter School; Cole Anderson, Becker High School; Natalia Velenchenko, Buffalo High School; Austin Schmitt, Royalton High School; Grant Tesdahl, Elk River High School; Abbey Halonen, Dassel-Cokato High School; Jiahui Jiao, Delano High School; Gino Fraboni, Princeton High School; and Luke Anderson, Legacy Christian Academy.

These students have made significant contributions to their schools and communities and stand out to faculty as the ``cream of the crop.'' They have shown they can set and achieve goals, work as team members, be leaders, and volunteer--all while maintaining a proper school work/ life balance.

I ask this body join me in congratulating them and wishing them the best in their assuredly bright futures. They are the pride and joy of Minnesota, and I expect they will continue to astound us.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize twenty-two family-owned farms for reaching the milestone of family farming for one hundred fifty years or more. Throughout our state's history, Minnesota farmers have not only fed the citizens of our great nation, but they help to provide the world with food. These Minnesota families have stood the test of time and passed their farm from generation to generation; sharing their values of hard work, determination, and love of the land. Each family has its own story to tell about the trials and joys of farming, and no matter what those stories are, they can be proud of the heritage of farming that they have passed as parents to their children over and over again.

These are the twenty-two farm families from Minnesota's Sixth Congressional who have been recognized for their family-owned farms of one hundred fifty years or more.

From Benton County: James E. Donovan (Foley); Glenn Seppelt Family (Foley).

From Carver County: Dale Wildung (Cologne); Earl Schmidt Family (Cologne); Dorothy Light (Delano); Rodney Jaus (Hamburg); Meldon Melcher Family (Norwood/Young America); Gerald Schimmelpfennig Family (Norwood/Young America); Eugene Kamann (Norwood/Young America); John H. Eklund (Watertown); James Hendricks Family (Watertown).

From Sherburne County: Shady Nook Farm/Neal Weis Family (St Cloud).

From Stearns County: Ken Zumwalde (Cold Spring); Torberg/Prill Family (Richmond); Joyce Hansen (Rockville); Robert A. Moeller (St Cloud); David J Morreim (St Cloud); Jerome D. Schroeder (St Joseph).

From Wright County: Richard Lindenfelser (Albertville); William Weldele (Buffalo); Florence Roth (Delano); Lawren Horsch Family (Delano).

Mr. Speaker, I ask this body join with me in honoring these twenty- two family owned farms and their owners who represent a great piece of Minnesota's rich history and heritage.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in memory of the former Congressman from Minnesota's 8th Congressional District, Jim Oberstar, who passed away on May 3 at the age of 79.

I had the privilege of serving with Jim Oberstar for four years, and will always remember his mastery of multiple foreign languages. It was a remarkable talent.

Jim was a dedicated representative who will be remembered for devoting 36 years of his life in service to Minnesota and the country in the U.S. Congress. We joined our hearts, efforts, and voices in the protection of the unborn and I am especially grateful for his work as the co-chairman of the House Pro-Life Caucus.

My prayers are with his family, particularly his wife Jean, and friends during this difficult time.

Mr. Speaker, I ask this body join with me in honoring the life and legacy of the late Congressman Jim Oberstar. May he rest in peace.

Mr. Speaker, I expect that, shortly, a colleague will be here that I will hand off to for a few minutes to deal with several housekeeping issues, but, for the moment that I have, I want to focus on an issue that has gained the attention--as well it should--of the American people.

The number one duty of government, Mr. Speaker, is to secure the safety and the security of the American people. That is why we have a government. That is why we exist. It is the reason why countries enjoy sovereignty and declare themselves sovereign nations.

That means they are a separate political unit, and they exist for the purpose of preserving the safety and security of their people. That is our duty, and that is our government.

It seems, Mr. Speaker, throughout each generation that somehow, some way, there is a force that comes against a nation. In different eras, we have had different foes that the United States has had to contend with, beginning at our founding, when the United States of America, through our Declaration of Independence and through our Constitution, on this, our Constitution Day--and, by the way, we say happy Constitution Day to all Americans. We are very proud of our United States Constitution.

Contained within the Constitution is the admonition to the President, to the Congress, to the Supreme Court, again, to ensure that, in our founding document, we understand that it is the duty of the government to secure the safety and the security of the American people.

What led up to the writing of the Declaration of Independence and to the American Revolution and, ultimately, to America's founding document with the United States Constitution was a reaction of the colonists against a great totalitarian oppression that was coming against the United States. That was from the British motherland of which the United States was a colony of.

We pushed back against that oppression for many and sundry reasons, some of which were taxation, others were the taking away the rights of American citizens, whether it was forcing American citizens to take soldiers into their homes or taking away their rights as free men under the Magna Carta.

The American people rose up, and they said, ``We want to have freedom.'' They threw off the chains of the totalitarianism of the day, the British Empire.

Going further into the future with the War of 1812, again, the United States was pushed into a conflict with the British, and, again, we had to throw off that enemy. Again, we saw our own house come apart in the time of the Civil War. There was also the Spanish-American War.

The United States was engaged in a great totalitarianism in 1917 with World War I and, again, in World War II. There was a conflict in the totalitarianism of our day. It was an evil known as Communism, both from the Soviet threat and also from Nazism.

The United States came together as a Nation. We threw off the yoke of the oppressor, of the totalitarianism of our day--in other words, a regime that had an idea that it wanted to conquer the world with its evil and immoral philosophy, whether it was Communism or whether it was Nazism.

It seems, Mr. Speaker, that every generation is confronted by a great evil, and the moral questions of the day are related to that evil. The evil, Mr. Speaker, that we are dealing with today is something known as Islamic jihad.

Its face is ugly. Its face has reared not only just in recent decades and just the last few months of this summer, but Islamic jihad is something that has been around as long as the inception of Islam itself.

The regime of jihad has been defeated, summarily, time and time again throughout history, but it was defeated through military might, it wasn't defeated through diplomacy, and defeated it was.

It was defeated at Tours; it was defeated at the battle of the gates of Vienna; it was defeated again with the

collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the 1920s; but it was defeated militarily. It was an idea that had grisly consequences. Those consequences were ones that led to bloodshed and suffering and misery for thousands of people across the world. Today is no different.

Today, we see the same level of bloodshed across the world. That bloodshed is coming to us, again, at the tip of the sword. This summer, it is known as the Islamic State. Some people know it as ISIS. Some people know it by the name ISIL. The President uses the term ``ISIL.''

This organization is just a continuation of al Qaeda--and a continuation of something even greater than al Qaeda--and that is the concept known as Islamic jihad.

Baghdadi, the head of the Islamic State, initially called them ISIS, which means the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or Syria.

That was the territory that Baghdadi was seeking to conquer. He did, in fact, conquer much of that territory.

Then he changed the name of his organization to ISIL, the Islamic State in the Levant. The Levant is a geographical area that is greater than Syria and Iraq. It would comprise much of eastern Turkey, Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, and so forth, the greater area, if you will, of the central Mediterranean area.

After that, the Islamic State issued yet another press release with yet another name change. And in the course of that name change, the Islamic State decided to drop the IS and the IL, and now they are known simply as the Islamic State.

That is because the ambitions, Mr. Speaker, of Baghdadi and the Islamic State are far grander than just Iraq or just Syria or just eastern Turkey or Israel or Lebanon or Jordan or Gaza--far bigger.

The Islamic State, you see, Mr. Speaker, encompasses the entire globe, the planet Earth. Every part of this Earth, you see, Mr. Speaker, is what is intended. It is the ultimate in totalitarianism-- what the Communists planned for, which was for control of the world under the umbrella of communism, and saw themselves ultimately defeated militarily; and again, what the Nazis saw, Mr. Speaker, as control of the world, national socialism through the Nazi Party movement and, ultimately, were defeated militarily.

So too, Mr. Speaker, the Islamic State sees their evil, violent, cruel, bloody philosophy also would encompass the Earth. That would include the United States of America. That would include, obviously, our great ally Israel. It would encompass all of North America. It would also cover the Asian nations. The entire world now, Mr. Speaker, is at threat from this totalitarianism.

And often it is said, never despise small beginnings. It is breathtaking, Mr. Speaker, what we have seen accomplished by the Islamic State. The leader, again, is a man named Baghdadi.

Baghdadi was a part of the franchise known as al Qaeda in Iraq. Al Qaeda began--we know about Osama bin Laden. Well, an affiliate of Osama bin Laden was the man named Baghdadi, who is the current head of the Islamic State.

Baghdadi, when he was a part of the franchise, al Qaeda in Iraq, was number three. We were able to target and kill number one and number two in the power structure in Iraq. That left Baghdadi as the next in command.

Baghdadi decided not only did he want to be the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, he wanted so much more. But, you see, Baghdadi was waylaid for a period of time in his life. Why? Because Baghdadi was captured by the United States. He was found to be a terrorist. He was held in detention in Camp Baka in Iraq.

So we had him, the leader of the Islamic State, the organization responsible for the beheadings of Americans, the American photojournalist James Foley and the American photojournalist James Sotloff and, this Saturday, the beheading of another British journalist. Baghdadi is responsible for all of that and so much more.

Baghdadi was responsible for ordering the murdering of literally hundreds and thousands of individuals in Iraq. We saw Baghdadi line up hundreds of soldiers in Iraq, Iraqi soldiers, and they were brutally and mercilessly murdered, being shot in the back.

We also saw additional beheadings occur, and we saw also as they chased the Yazidis up Mount Sinjar. We also heard the horrific tales of how the merciless Islamic State literally stooped so low that they buried alive women and children in graves in August.

Mr. Speaker, I despise being as graphic as I am, but we must be face- to-face with the facts that we are facing. This is an evil regime. It is an evil philosophy with an evil goal. They are as equally committed to killing Jews as they are committed to killing Christians as they are committed to killing any Muslim who doesn't agree with their sick, failed philosophy.

The other thing we need to recognize, Mr. Speaker, is that this has a religious motivation, not because I say so, but because Baghdadi and the terrorists of the Islamic State say so. Their motivation is their religion. They say it is Islam that drives them to do what they are doing.

That is why it is perplexing, Mr. Speaker, that a week ago the President of the United States said in a televised address that Islam has nothing to do with the Islamic State. He said there are two fallacies of the Islamic State. Number one, he said, it is not Islam.

Well, Mr. President, you may not think it is Islam, but ask the leaders of Islamic jihad what they think it is. They say forthrightly and boldly, with everything that is within them, that their motivation for beheading individuals, for burying women and children alive, for establishing a global power to enforce their sick, religious ideas upon the world is based upon their religion of Islam.

That is their reasoning, Mr. Speaker, out of their mouths. And I believe that it is prudent and wise to listen to the enemy, to find out what their motivations are.

We look no further than the mad, evil, maniacal leader of the Nazi Party, as he was rising in the 1930s, when he wrote his book called ``Mein Kampf.'' In his book, ``Mein Kampf,'' he wrote his detailed plan. You see, he wasn't being secret, Mr. Speaker, about the evil that he wanted to bring against the Jewish people. He was very forthright. The same can be said, Mr. Speaker, of Baghdadi, who is the head of the evil regime and ideology known as the Islamic State. Baghdadi.

As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, this is what the leader of the Islamic State had to say. This is in January, and he said this to the United States, and I quote. In a speech in January of this year, Baghdadi said to the United States: ``Soon we will be in direct confrontation. So watch out for us for we are with you, watching.''

I repeat: ``Soon we will be in direct confrontation,'' meaning with the United States. ``So watch out for us for we are with you, watching.''

That tells me, Mr. Speaker, that Baghdadi and the Islamic State don't intend to confine their bloodletting just in Iraq and Syria or in Jordan or Lebanon. Their designs are for the United States as well.

We have been told and we have read that there is an enormous amount of so-called chatter through the social media by members of the Islamic State and those who promote Islamic jihad to enter into the United States and to bring about atrocities here within the confines of our American sovereign soil.

You see, our sovereign soil has been invaded. Our sovereign soil was invaded at Benghazi. Our U.S. consulate in Benghazi when Ambassador Chris Stevens lost his life was U.S. soil. Islamic jihadists entered our sovereign soil and killed our U.S. Ambassador on that sovereign soil.

Just within a month or so ago, Islamic jihadists again took over the airport in Baghdad, and again we saw an embassy in Libya, in Tripoli, abandoned. So United States personnel were forced to flee the United States Embassy in Tripoli and leave and gain escape through Tunisia.

It is really quite sobering when you think of the advances of Islamic jihad in the region. And that is why I don't understand, Mr. Speaker, I don't understand the thinking of the President when it is coming against this evil. I don't understand it because, you see, the Islamic State has not only declared their intention, they have declared that they are at war with the United

States. They have declared they are at war. They have declared that they are a caliphate. They are a government. They are an Islamic government.

They have a leader in Baghdadi. They have already conquered territory, about half of Iraq, about half of Syria, which they control, also other parts of the Middle East as well. They also control parts of northern Lebanon.

They have made absolutely breathtaking strides in their short tenure of advancement. So they have land. They have a name. They have a leader. They have a government. It is known as shari'a law. That is Islamic law. That is their law of the land.

They also have an administration. They have a Shura Council, and they have an administration. They already have a line of hierarchy and an organizational flowchart of how they are going to run the Islamic State.

They have an army. Twelve thousand, presumably, are in the Islamic State Army, and brutal they are--beheadings, women raped, men beheaded, innocent children shot in the head. It is absolutely devastating.

We see Christians have been chased out of the Middle East region. The numbers are so dramatic, Mr. Speaker, of Christians that have had to flee Iraq, Christians in Mosul that have lived safely there. The ancient town of Nineveh, which Jonah went to preach in Nineveh, and that town is Mosul, Christians have been in Mosul since the time of Christ, 2,000 years. Mosul no longer has Christians. They were chased out of that city.

The Christians have been chased repeatedly out of Iraq. They are being chased out of the Baghdad area. They have been chased certainly out of northern Iraq and western Iraq, as Jews were chased out long ago.

Now, in Syria, we hear the horrific stories of Christians who have been killed and murdered and beheaded simply because they name the name of Jesus Christ. Jews have been slaughtered and beheaded simply because they name the name of their God.

Is there any greater intolerance, Mr. Speaker than the intolerance that has been shown repeatedly, brutally, lethally, by the Islamic State against Jews and Christians, and, yes, Muslims whom they disagree with.

It is a very sobering time. And so, quite rightly, our President, a week ago in his remarks, called upon the Congress to help him do something. The President gave his strategy. I listened with open ears to the President's strategy, and it was very curious to me because the President of the United States developed a strategy that consists of items that the United States is already doing. There was nothing new here.

The President called for an increase of 475 advisers to go into Iraq. The President said there wouldn't be any boots on the ground, of soldiers' boots.

He did not say that we are at war. Even though the Islamic State has declared war against the United States, the President did not say that the United States was going to war.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, something like 7 weeks ago, in the midst of the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq, with the horrific, breathtaking advances and murders, the President of the United States said that he wanted the Congress to withdraw the AUMF, which is the authorization of military force for the United States to be in Iraq.

It was really an unthinkable, bizarre request that this Congress received from the President. Would you please withdraw, the President said, my ability to be able to bring about military force in Iraq?

From my perspective, either the President and his advisers were incredibly shortsighted about this breathtaking rise of the Islamic State which, by the way, didn't just occur in the last 3 or 4 months. I am privileged to serve on the Intelligence Committee in the House of Representatives. We have watched, Mr. Speaker, literally, for the last several years, the rise of the Islamic State. We saw this coming.

That information presumably was available to the President of the United States as well. He knew they were on the rise. There has always been the Islamic jihad in the Middle East, but it has been at a different tempo. It has been on the rise.

Baghdadi, who is in his early to mid-forties, who is a very well- educated man with a doctorate degree, who literally has decades of veteran senior-level experience in al Qaeda, declaring war against the United States, literally, for decades, put himself in the position of being the top man at the very top of the hierarchy, the top of the line of the chain of command of the Islamic State.

Baghdadi knew what he needed to have. He needed to be financially self-sustaining. To do that, he ordered the robbing of banks, particularly beginning in northern Iraq. Some reports estimate that the Islamic State had stolen as much as over $400 million. We don't know the exact amount, but we do know that Baghdadi was determined, and he intended to advance. He knew he couldn't feed an army unless he had money to do so, and so he robbed it from the banks to begin his army.

Then he began to build that army by opening up prison doors and having prison breaks and bringing terrorists who had been jailed out of the prisons to join his band. So he had an army of terrorists, and he trained them even further, and he paid them with money that he stole from banks.

Then Baghdadi did something very strategic. He decided to steal oil fields, and he stole those oil fields in northern Iraq, very productive oil fields. One estimate says that one of the oil fields is worth about 10 billion barrels of oil. Whether or not that is true, that is one of the accounts that I have read. If that is true, it would be equal to about the value of the Bakken oil field, which has proven to be extremely productive and very lucrative in North Dakota here in the United States. Baghdadi is selling oil on the black market today to finance his terrorism, oil fields that he stole from northern Iraq and in the Kurdistan area.

He didn't stop there. He knew, to be viable, he also had to have refined energy products. So what did he do?

Baghdadi then stole and secured an oil refinery so that he could have oil products in order to have energy to run his army and also to be able to provide for the people under his protectorate. A ``protectorate'' is a very generous way of saying ``dictatorship'' in his caliphate. You see, he is the head guy. He is the caliph in his new self-described Islamic State, the caliphate.

You see, Mr. Speaker, he figured out how to finance himself. He took over electrical grids in Iraq and in Syria so that he could be the one who supplies the electricity to the people so that the people would be beholden to him. He put his people in charge of roads and supply lines. Baghdadi also took over a gas field in central Syria. That gas field also could be used to sell the gas for productivity or to deny that gas to Assad or to anyone he considered his enemy. You see, Baghdadi was strategic.

In August, I had the ability and the privilege to go over and visit both Turkey and Jordan and to meet with leadership there on the issue of ISIS, and, while I was there, it was stunning. There was a public display in Jordan of well over 15,000 who were protesting against Israel and in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood and the foreign terrorist-designated organization known as Hamas. There was also a reported demonstration of 7,000 Jordanians who were protesting in favor of the Islamic State. So there is pressure on Jordan--pressure within and pressure from without.

The Islamic State now controls checkpoints, so much so that there is, effectively, no longer a border between Iraq and Syria. That has been erased. Now Iraq and Syria have been joined to one another under the control and the authority of the Islamic State. They control checkpoints not only on Lebanon but also Israel.

It was horrifying to read that the Islamic State had joined up with the Free Syrian Army, the army that the United States has been involved with in the so-called ``vetting'' of moderates and in the training and equipping to fight against the Islamic State.

The Free Syrian Army reports say they had actually joined up with other Islamic jihadists, known as the Jabhat al-Nusra Front, and they took over the checkpoint that controls the area of the Golan Heights leading into Israel. There were upwards of 20 to 40 different U.N. peacekeepers at that checkpoint, and that checkpoint was taken over 200

yards from Israel, as if Israel didn't have enough to deal with in the terrorist organization known as Hezbollah, which is an Iranian proxy on her north, and from Russian influence as well coming through Hezbollah. Israel has had to suffer with indignities from Assad, from Syria, as well as from the Muslim Brotherhood franchise known as Hamas in Gaza.

It has been an extremely difficult summer. I met with refugees while I was in the Middle East region, people who were just peaceful, freedom-loving people just wanting to live their lives and raise their families and love people and worship their god. They were uprooted over this summer and late spring by Islamic jihad, both in Iraq. As for one woman I spoke to, she and her family were uprooted from their home in Iraq. They had to flee their home and abandon everything they owned and flee to Syria. Once they were in Syria, there was a rise of the Islamic jihad in Syria. They had to flee Syria and make their way to Turkey. When I spoke with her, she was on the southern border of Turkey, and she was hoping that she would have the ability, with her family, to move to the United States of America. She was going to go for yet one more final interview at the end of September, and she was hoping that her family would have that chance to come and live in freedom.

That is our wish, Mr. Speaker, for all men. We want all men to have the dignity of living in peace. It is why we honor the American Constitution today on Constitution Day. You see, this Constitution and this country mean something for the rest of the world. We think that the norms and the peacefulness that we enjoy and the prosperity that you see here in the United States must be somewhat normative across the world. We think, well, we have it, really, probably the best, but sometimes we don't recognize, really, how great we do have it. It isn't by accident--it is by design--and it came at a great cost and at a great sacrifice because our Founders recognized these ideals:

Number one, that all men are created equal and that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, rights that aren't given by government, rights that are only given by God: the right to life, to our liberty--our freedom--and to the pursuit of happiness, which means we have the privilege to work, and, once we work, we get to keep the fruit of our own labors.

What a brilliant concept. Where across the world do people have the right to life? Certainly not in Iraq today. Certainly not in Syria today. They don't enjoy the unfettered access to their right to life, because their life is imperiled by the Islamic State, which says to them: Under pain of death, you convert to Islam, or we kill you. You convert to Islam, or you pay us a tax. You convert to Islam, or you have to abandon everything you know and get as far away from us as you possibly can in the short term because we are coming after you in the long term.

Is that life? That is no life at all. But here in the United States, our Founders wisely understood that all of humanity's happiness springs from the right to life.

Number two, liberty, freedom. That is the hallmark and the emblem of the United States of America. If there is any ideal and any value, Mr. Speaker, that our Constitution champions it is this: it is liberty-- freedom--from an oppressive government that would force its will on an individual human's life, because the Holy Scriptures teach that life is precious. We are but a flower that quickly fades. We are but a puff of smoke, the Old Testament teaches in the Proverbs. Therefore, this life that God has given to us, that He has breathed into every human being, as He created every human being in His image and His likeness, this is it. This is no dress rehearsal. This is the main event.

Our Founders wisely understood that it is for freedom that we have been set free so that we can then aspire to do whatever it is that we choose to do, the way that we take our finger and write the poetry of each of our lives.

Then, in the Declaration of Independence, our Founders rightly said, through the pen of Thomas Jefferson's, that we are also endowed by our Creator--again, not by a government, not by any government. Only a God who created us, gave us the unalienable right to pursue happiness, which means we can pursue whatever employment, whatever labor that we so desire, and then we have the right, the unfettered right, to keep the fruit of our labor--to build a home, to marry, to start a family, to be able to go out and further and help our community. Oh, what a Nation we have today, Mr. Speaker, the economic powerhouse of the world, the military engine of the world. This is such a great and wonderful gift that was given to us.

That is why it is right and fitting and proper for us to honor and recognize this Constitution Day. I am so grateful and so honored and privileged that we can do exactly that and honor that day. That is why we have to stand for this liberty, something that people in other countries cannot do.

We must therefore observe, and it is why we have to make sure, when there is a great totalitarianism like the Islamic State, which has declared war against the United States, we have a decision to make. Anyone can declare war on you. It is another thing to bring about warlike acts against you in an attempt to defeat you. That is exactly what the Islamic State has done. That is exactly what they have stated their intention is. I believe, if there is anything, Mr. Speaker, that history has taught us it is this: when a madman speaks, we should listen. Baghdadi, most certainly, is rational from his point of view, but his ideas are mad, and, even further, they are immoral and they are evil to deprive life, liberty, and happiness to people.

If I could just pause and ask the Speaker if there is a time limitation that we are looking at. How much time remains?

I appreciate that update.

Mr. Speaker, we look at the threats that the United States is looking at from the Islamic State: the fact that they have declared war against the United States; the fact that they have already killed intentionally, in a cruel and barbaric manner, American citizens; the fact that they are recruiting American citizens to come and join them in their evil deed; the fact that American citizens have left the Islamic State as terrorists under the creed of the Islamic State. Their creed says that those who join the Islamic State abandon any allegiance to any other government, including the American Government. They then become part of the Islamic State, and their duty and allegiance is to the Islamic State. Once they leave the Islamic State and return to the United States, then they have the ability to come in and be terrorists in the United States. This is nonsensical to me.

You see, Mr. Speaker, earlier this summer, I asked the FBI for a classified briefing. I did so because my home State of Minnesota has a tragic, very unfortunate, nexus to terrorism. We have the distinction of having the only convicted terrorist of 9/11 being from the State of Minnesota. His name is Moussaoui.

We also have a high number of Minnesotans who left Minnesota and abandoned the United States to go and fight on behalf of another al Qaeda organization, known as al-Shabaab. That is an al Qaeda affiliate in Somalia. Well over 50 Minnesotans traveled to join al-Shabaab and fight in the cause of Islamic jihad.

We also had terrorist financing cases, which were successfully prosecuted in Minnesota. Two women were convicted of terrorist financing cases in the Minneapolis Federal district court. Two women were convicted of terrorist financing in Rochester, Minnesota, in Federal district court.

Then we had the Westgate shopping mall terror act in Kenya, and from the terrorists who were involved and claimed sponsorship of this horrific act of the shooting at the Westgate mall in Kenya, the report was that two Minnesotans were a part of that effort. Then we saw, although it hasn't been confirmed by our government, that the terrorists have named two Minnesotans.

Then we saw that very sophisticated recruitment videos were put forth to recruit individuals to come and join al Qaeda. When this occurred, three of them were featured from Minnesota. They were called the ``Minnesota martyrs,'' three young men. One was a

Caucasian American. His name was Troy Kastigar. He had been converted to Islam at a mosque called the Al Farooq mosque in Bloomington, Minnesota, where many of the individuals who have gone to fight on behalf of the Islamic State made their religious home.

Troy Kastigar said that he was honored to be a traitor to America. That was a part of his conviction to the Islamic State. He turned on his country; so, when I asked the FBI earlier this summer--and then, of course we have had, according to the FBI, at minimum, another 20 Minnesotans who have left Minnesota to join the Islamic State, including the first two Americans who were killed fighting on behalf of the Islamic State, both of whom were from the State of Minnesota.

Just as recently as several weeks ago, three young Somali American girls left Minnesota, abandoned their families, and joined the Islamic State. We have a very unfortunate nexus.

It is with that background, Mr. Speaker, that I asked the FBI if I could come in and sit with them and if they would answer my questions in a classified setting.

I wanted to know, number one, had Minnesotans left the United States and joined to fight with the Islamic State. Unfortunately, I was told there were two. It was classified information at the beginning of the summer. Now, tragically, it has been reported worldwide that the very first two Americans were Minnesotans who were fighting for the Islamic State.

I asked the question: If these terrorists choose not to blow themselves up as suicide bombers, or if they are not killed fighting on behalf of the Islamic State, and they choose to fly back to the United States or gain entry to the United States legally through some other means with a U.S.-held passport, would they be given entry into the United States?

Mr. Speaker, I have to tell you, I was completely floored when the FBI said to me, ``Well, yes, of course, these terrorists would be allowed to come into the United States.''

I asked, ``Why? And how?'' They told me, ``We track them, and we put their names on a watch list.'' It isn't perfect, but the FBI puts the names of Americans on a watch list. I asked, ``What happens when they are on a watch list?''

I was told that the Americans with a U.S. passport, who have relinquished U.S. citizenship and have joined the Islamic State, have become terrorists and fought on behalf of the Islamic State then were returning to the United States, would be asked additional questions at screening at an airport before they come into the United States.

Mr. Speaker, I am asked additional questions, sometimes, at the airport. How could this be possible?

I was told by the FBI that the terrorists then would be given entry, and they would be allowed to go, unmolested, to return to their life here in the United States.

Mr. Speaker, I submit that is pure madness for us to do that. If there was one thing we should do, it is follow our Constitution, follow the way of all nations, which is to secure the safety and security and sovereignty of that Nation.

To do that, Mr. Speaker, we must take the passports of anyone who has joined up with the Islamic State and do everything that we can to prevent terrorists from reentering the United States.

These terrorists would have had battlefield experience, they would have had established relationships with a terror network, and they potentially may have a plan for terrorist activity in the United States. That should and must be done.

What we also must do--and I agree with the President of the United States--we must defeat this enemy. The Islamic State has declared war against the United States. I believe that we must declare war against the Islamic State, but that is not what President Obama proposed.

You see, President Obama, from his rhetoric, has essentially made clear that he believes that war is obsolete in the 21st century, but that isn't the view of the Islamic State. That isn't the view of the totalitarian regime that has declared war against the United States. War isn't obsolete for their mind; yet the President of the United States is not choosing to engage the United States in war.

It is this odd hybrid where the President wants to say that he is going to try to defeat the Islamic State; yet he is not willing to do what it takes to defeat the Islamic State.

Why do I say that? Because the United States military is the greatest military--Army, Navy, and Air Force--in the world. There is nothing that can even remotely compare to the United States military; yet our President stated--both last week in his address to the Nation, as well as today at MacDill Air Force Base in his remarks--that there will be no U.S. boots on the ground. There will not be a U.S. military presence.

He is willing to use the American Air Force to fly missions and have airstrikes, but not boots on the ground.

You see, it doesn't work that way, Mr. Speaker. A military is a cohesive unit, and this is going up 50,000 feet, we have to understand: Do we have a problem? Yes, we have a problem.

Americans are being killed and beheaded by the Islamic jihadist state. They have declared war against the United States. They are using all possible means to advance themselves to their goal.

They are gaining in strength every day--huge swaths of economic territory, huge swaths of geographic territory. They are increasing the size of their armies. They are making threats against the United States.

What is our response? The President of the United States, number one, is unwilling to declare war against this enemy. He is unwilling to use our United States military to defeat this enemy.

He has asked partners across the world--whether it is Muslim, Arab nations, whether it is our traditional allies--to join him. He received some rhetoric, some nods of the head, that some allies would help him; yet there isn't one word that one country is actually going to supply troops or supply armament or supply training.

We don't know what it is that the President has put together; yet, somehow, some way, he believes that this enemy is going to be defeated. His plan is what he was doing before. It was some advisers in an Embassy in Baghdad, U.S. advisers, but not boots on the ground.

His other avenue of defeat is to have United States tax dollars vet Syrians and, supposedly, Iraqis and train them to be a part of a military effort and give them American armament after 3 and a half weeks of arming.

You see, I really don't understand this methodology, when we already have the best military in the world and the President has decided to put the best option that we have on the sidelines and then he wants to create an ad hoc army on the ground with, at best, thin loyalties to our ultimate objective.

How thin, Mr. Speaker? Well, the RAND Corporation took a look at those who were trained, vetted, and on the ground and fighting in the Free Syrian Army, and the RAND Corporation found that about half--50 percent of those that the United States had vetted, the so-called moderates trained and given American armaments to--about half had been not only sympathetic but had cooperated and joined up with the enemy, the Islamic State and the al-Nusra front.

Well, if, in fact, the RAND Corporation is accurate and we have lost about 50 percent of those that we trained, I would say we don't have a very good success ratio.

As a mater of fact, what I would say is that the Islamic State has an incredible success ratio because we will have--at taxpayer expense-- identified, vetted, trained, and armed a whole new level of army for the Islamic State, the enemy.

Who is this working for? Not us. Who is this defeating? Not them. Because the Islamic State continues to grow and we are paying for part of their military training and armaments.

In fact, this same story that came out last week said that the Islamic State had raided our United States weapons depots that we had set up for arming the Free Syrian Army.

What does the President want us to do? The President wanted the United States Congress to get behind his effort to increase the amount of training and arming of the Islamic State.

You see, these moderates have been more than a mirage, more than a charade for quite a bit of time. As a matter of fact, one of my colleagues from Minnesota gave me an article today before we took the vote.

Again, I am not trouncing anyone's vote in this chamber. I want to make it very clear. Both sides of the aisle--Republican and Democrat, individual Members of Congress--wrestled with their vote. Everyone struggled with what to do. Should we back the President in what he is choosing to do? Should we not back the President?

I give all goodwill to every Member of Congress. I castigate no one for the vote that they cast today because this was truly a vote of conscience that every Member made, and every Member needs to speak for themselves.

I only speak for myself tonight, Mr. Speaker, but this came out yesterday. The leader of the Free Syrian Army, the army that the President wants us to spend $500 million to train even more individuals, under this commander, this is what the article says: ``The Free Syrian Army announced they will not sign up to the U.S.-led coalition to destroy the Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.''

I just want to repeat that again.

``The Free Syrian Army announced it will not sign up to the U.S.-led coalition to destroy ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The group's founder, Colonel Riad al-Asaad, stressed that toppling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is their priority and that they will not join forces that U.S.-led efforts without a guarantee that the United States is committed to his overthrow.

`` `If they want to see the Free Syrian Army on their side' ''--our side--`` `they should give assurances on toppling the Assad regime and on a plan including revolutionary principles.' ''

This is the army that we are entrusting to win this effort against ISIS, and this army is more interested in toppling Assad. They are not interested in toppling ISIS.

``The announcement appears to be reversing an earlier statement on Thursday by the National Coalition opposition, the Free Syrian Army's political wing, which said it was ready to work with the coalition against IS.''

The political arm said yes, but the guys who are actually going to have the boots on the ground say, ``No, we are not going to be there. We are not going to be fighting IS.''

``Saying they had `long called for this action,' the coalition called on U.S. politicians to authorize the training and equipping of the Free Syrian Army `as soon as possible.' ''

This is from the Middle East Eye. This is in an article that came out yesterday.

At best, we have got a very, very weak case--a very weak case. There are articles, which I agree with, that put the choice before us. It says: Do we have an enemy? Yes. What do we need to do? Defeat the enemy. I get that, but we have been unwilling to declare a war against this enemy. We have been unwilling to put the United States' military against this enemy.

What the President of the United States wants the United States to do is train some Syrians for 3 and a half weeks. We have already spent how many billion training the Iraqis, and the Iraqi Army could not stand up against the Islamic State army.

We had trained them for a very extensive period of time, with the finest training that we possibly could. They were well-equipped. Because United States residual forces were pulled by the President of the United States, the Iraqi Army could not stand up against the Islamic State, and they ran.

We think that 3 and a half weeks of training is going to do the job of the Syrians? I don't think so.

I think what the President of the United States asked us to do, Mr. Speaker, is to be a scapegoat in his failed strategy. He wants to be able to point to the Congress and say, ``The Congress gave me the authority to do it.''

I don't want to do that. I didn't do that today. I chose to vote ``no.'' I am not being self-righteous when I say that.

My thinking on this is that I am willing to vote for a World War II strategy, meaning I am all in. I believe that we need to declare war against this evil empire of the Islamic State. We need to put all resources with the full plan, with an exit strategy in fully defeating the Islamic State, which we can. They are an army of 12,000.

This can be done, but I won't agree to a Vietnam war style strategy which is exactly, in my opinion, what President Obama chooses--chose to engage, with dribs and drabs, increasing a little here, increasing a little there.

The President, in my opinion, Mr. Speaker, would have been well- served if he also would have demonstrated even more humbleness regarding our strategy--meaning, for the President to be absolutely adamant last night, as well as today, for Secretary of State Kerry to be absolutely adamant today that there will be no U.S. boots on the ground sends a signal. It sends a signal that we are not serious about defeating this evil known as the Islamic State, which we must be.

I ask the question, Mr. Speaker: Who on the ground will be calling for the airstrikes against the Islamic State? Someone on the ground needs to do it. That is how war works. Someone who is on the ground needs to call for those airstrikes.

You cannot win a war when you only have overhead architecture and overhead surveillance. You need people on the ground who can go and gather the intelligence that you need so you know, effectively, how to defeat this enemy.

I ask this: Do we want to defeat this enemy decisively, quickly, and completely so that this enemy understands that, if they ever rear their head again, they had better think twice because we are going to so decimate their evil plan? Are we going to do that? Or are we going to do what happened in Vietnam, drib, drab, a little here, a little there, never quite getting up what it takes to actually defeat that enemy?

What happened in the end in Vietnam? Ultimately, the Communists came in, and that country fell. It was a very sad conclusion because, you see, the postscript to the story of Vietnam was the slaughter of innocents under the evil Pol Pot and the killing fields, and we know the history was an ugly history.

This isn't good, this is awful, but we need to see what has happened. You see, this Arab Spring has been nothing but Islamic bloodletting across the Middle East. In their own words, it is religious-based. In their own words, it is religious, shari'a inspired. In their own words, they are doing the bidding of their god to spill the blood of the infidel. This is an evil, this is a moral wrong, and this must be defeated.

The good news is it can be. We can defeat it. When we are the greatest military powerhouse in the world, when we have the capability to defeat this enemy, I don't understand it. I don't understand, Mr. Speaker, our President who just this week said that he needed to commit 3,000 American troops to the African continent for Ebola--to defeat Ebola.

Now, Ebola is a virus that has a health impact against the American people. I can understand dispatching medical personnel. I can understand dispatching people for humanitarian purposes, but the very weird thing about the President's strategy is it has been changing our military so that its purpose is to bring about humanitarian relief in the form of dispatching them for boots on the ground to deal with Ebola. That is not the purpose of a military.

The President needs to dispatch 3,000 troops--or whatever it takes-- into the Islamic State to defeat the Islamic State. We don't go in willy-nilly. We go in with a very good plan, with the most brilliant military minds--and we have them--with the bravest military heroes--and we have them--and with the greatest military equipment that has ever been devised by man, and we have it. We have got it all. We have got the means for defeating this evil enemy.

To not do it, Mr. Speaker, in my mind, that is a moral wrong. That is an evil. To allow that evil to grow, thrive, and continue to slit the throats of men, women, and children; to rob them of their lives; and, yes, to see tragedy borne potentially across this land because, even today, as we are in this Chamber tonight, absolutely nothing has been done to secure America's southern border, absolutely nothing against entry by the Islamic State into

this country, despite the fact that the Islamic State, through their social media, has been declaring their intent to do exactly that.

Why in the world aren't we closing our southern border and every other border and every other port of entry? Why aren't we pulling the passports of Americans who have become terrorists under the Islamic State and who seek to return to the United States?

Why would any sane country choose to take effective, commonsense answers to secure the safety of the American people? That is what a nation that wants to survive would do. That is the better way. That is what I hope the President of the United States will do because, you see, everything is at stake

On this, our Constitution Day, let us recognize the first duty of any nation, especially the greatest Nation, is to secure the safety, sovereignty, and security of the American people. That, we must do, and I am so proud that we have the means to do it.

I believe that we will acquire the judgment to do what needs to be done. It is within the hearts of the American people. It is within our military. Now, it is up to the politicians. Listen to wisdom. Listen to the people, and do what needs to be done.

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

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 7 o'clock and 6 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, September 18, 2014, at 9 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, during rollcall votes 497, 498, 499, and 500, I was away from the House floor and would have voted ``aye'' on all four measures.

Mr. Speaker, I am so profoundly grateful to be able to stand in the well of the United States House of Representatives. There is no greater bastion for free speech than here in this House. What a wonderful gift this is, not only just for people here in the United States, but also for people around the world.

There is one thing that we have learned from Tiananmen Square, and I had the privilege in August of being able to travel to China and visit and stand in the midst of Tiananmen Square, where people from around China had come to take a stand for speech. If we remember from that infamous photo that was taken, one very brave student held up a copy of a little pamphlet in front of a tank when a tank was going to run this student over. The document that the student held up was a copy of the United States Declaration of Independence, as he spoke about freedom and what freedom meant to him.

You see, Mr. Speaker, we have always been in this country--this is a standard-bearer for liberty, a standard-bearer for freedom and a standard-bearer for the expression of free speech rights. That is why we take this opportunity so seriously to be able to keep safe this ability, to be able to speak out on the issues of the day.

If there is anything that has captured America's attention with horror, I believe, especially over these summer months as the United States Congress had taken a recess--the Members of the House of Representatives and of the United States Senate had gone back into their districts, and they had met with people on the ground who allowed them to come and serve here in this Congress--it is, when they went home, they also saw on their televisions at night a fairly horrific sight, something that we thank God with everything within our beings that we don't see frequently here in the United States. It was terrorism--and terrorism on a level that we were unfamiliar with and hadn't seen before.

We heard of a group named ISIS, and we saw they had continued to make wild gains both in Iraq and in Syria, so much so that they were robbing banks to fill their own pockets. Then they began to steal oilfields and take those oilfields over. Then they took over oil refineries. Then they began to take over electric grids. Then, with just seemingly very few men, they took over entire cities. In fact, we were shocked when the city of Mosul, which is the ancient city of Nineveh--the prophet Jonah was sent to the city of Nineveh, where he preached to the city, and the Holy Bible records that the entire city repented and turned to God. That ancient city is the modern day city of Mosul in northern Iraq. That was the city that the leader of the Islamic State--the jihadists that we have seen every night on our national news programs-- chose to come against. That particular city had a population of well over a million people, and some estimate there were 1.7 million people.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I would be more than delighted to yield to the wonderful gentlewoman from the great State of North Carolina, Ms. Virginia Foxx.

Recognizing Childress Institute for Pediatric Trauma

Mr. Speaker, I also want to give words of praise for the gentlewoman from North Carolina, Ms. Virginia Foxx. She is a stalwart on almost every topic and every subject that there is in this Chamber.

She is one of the few women that you will regularly see here almost on a daily basis, taking the debate to the American people, so that they can understand that our society can be in conformity with what the creators of this society wanted, a place that was, first of all, peaceful, a place that would be welcoming, and a nation that would allow everyone who comes here to realize their dreams in a way that would even stretch their own imaginations. She has been a stalwart, and that is Ms. Virginia Foxx, and I am grateful that she was able to come and speak here this evening.

I would like to be able to continue, Mr. Speaker, with this important topic because, again, these are extraordinary times and extraordinary days that we live in. As we all know from the news reports, the President of the United States, tomorrow night, will be addressing the Nation on the topic of Islamic jihad, particularly the Islamic State, as they call themselves today.

Some people may know them as ISIS or ISIL. They call themselves the Islamic State. The President will be talking about this threat, and I think that the country is anxious to hear what the President of the United States will say.

I serve on the Intelligence Committee. It is a privilege to serve on the Intelligence Committee. It is a fairly small committee. We deal with the classified secrets of our Nation. We also deal primarily with terrorism and how to keep the Nation safe, and as a member of that committee, we have watched this group called the Islamic State form.

We have watched it for well over 2 years because what we are seeing, Mr. Speaker, is nothing new. It is a continuation of the concept known as Islamic jihad.

While maybe this is a new name and this is a new format, the Islamic State, it is merely a continuation of a phenomenon that began in 700 A.D. under the prophet Muhammad who took the sword and violently attempted to convert people to his religion to various villages, whether it was Mecca or Medina, he used the sword to violently force individuals to convert to Islam.

That attempted conversion has continued from 700 A.D. forward, and so what we are seeing today is the Islamic jihad, the continuation, and it is also at its root a religious war.

While sitting on the Intelligence Committee, watching the rise of the Islamic jihad, we learned and studied about who this leader of the Islamic jihad is. His name is Baghdadi. He is about 43 years old. He is very well-educated. He has a doctorate degree.

He has been involved in al Qaeda as a senior member for decades. So, again, this is not a new individual. This is not a brandnew thought or a brandnew concept. This is an individual who has dedicated his life to jihad. His name, again, is Baghdadi.

As we watched Baghdadi and his rise, something stunned me, and I hope that everyone in the United States understands this one concept: we, in the United States, had intercepted Baghdadi, the current head of the Islamic State. We had Baghdadi in United States custody. We had him in custody in Iraq, the country where he was born, and he was in a United States detention center.

The reason why he was in detention is because he was a terrorist committing terrorist acts, and he was committed to pursuing terrorist goals. We had him in detention, and President Obama chose in 2009 to release Baghdadi from detention in Iraq. He was set free.

Now, was Baghdadi rehabilitated? Had we confirmed that he had renounced Islamic jihad, that he had renounced acts of terror, that he was no longer going to pick up the sword and force people at the threat of their life or beheadings to convert to Islam?

That wasn't it at all. As a matter of fact, at the moment when the United States released Baghdadi from the United States prison, Camp Bucca in Iraq, at that moment, Baghdadi said to his jailer, ``I will see you in New York.''

That should have been a tipoff right there and then that we should have nabbed him and held him and retained him in detention. This was not a good candidate for release.

Today, Baghdadi is the head of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and the self-appointed caliph of the new caliphate. He reconstituted al Qaeda in Iraq. As a matter of fact, the very first franchise or affiliate of al Qaeda was located in Iraq. Baghdadi himself was the number three in the organization.

We in the United States took out and killed the number one and the number two in al Qaeda of Iraq. Baghdadi was number three. He was ready to move up, obviously, to be the number one of al Qaeda in Iraq, but he didn't have the opportunity.

He didn't have the opportunity when he was in detention in 2009. He had to look for his opportunity and reconstitute himself and his organization and build an organization, which he did. He began in 2009, and he began with what he called ``break the walls''--that was his name, a ``break the walls'' strategy.

It was a campaign whereby he opened prison doors all across northern Iraq, and he released terrorists from prisons, so these are prisoners that we captured--the United States--or that the Iraqi forces working with the United States had captured.

So terrorists who are behind bars in jail in Iraq in pursuit of the Islamic jihad were behind bars, and the one man that President Obama released from jail in Iraq went to the other prisons and opened the prison doors and began forming his army, and his army was formed with convicted Islamic jihadist terrorists.

He broke open so many jails, and he again then recruited other terrorists from the region that today Baghdadi has an army--a brutal, savage, animalistic army of 12,000 individuals who are so brutal.

We heard the reports that they literally buried alive innocent women and children in northern Iraq. They chased families up a mountain, Mount Sinjar, the Yazidis. The Yazidis were a peace-loving people, but they were considered devil worshippers by Baghdadi and his band of the Islamic State. They couldn't have that, so they chased these people.

One and two and then 10 and then 100 and then thousands of Yazidis were killed by these barbarians and the Islamic State. They died of thirst. They died of hunger. They died of beheadings.

Men were separated from women. Women were raped. Women were carried away and kidnapped. They were forced into sexual slavery to serve the animals who had beheaded their husbands and their sons. Literally, hundreds of men were taken away and beheaded by the Islamic State, led by Baghdadi, the man who had been released from prison by President Obama.

I wonder if President Obama will have something to say about his decision to release Baghdadi when he addresses the Nation tomorrow night. Clearly, this was a mistake that never should have happened.

Well, once Baghdadi had his terrorists released from prison, they began a wave of car bombings across Iraq. As Baghdadi reconstituted his Army in 2010 and 2011, he began his strategy. His outward strategy was a series of nationwide car bombings in 2011 and 2013 all across Iraq.

He destabilized Iraq and destabilized the Government of Iraq and destabilized the Army of Iraq to the point where they were more and more fearful of the Islamic State and what they were intending to do.

So bold did Baghdadi become that his aim was not simply on Iraq and on Syria or just on Gaza or just on Israel or on Jordan or on Turkey or on Lebanon. He gave a speech in January of this year, 2014.

In this speech, Baghdadi spoke to America. This is what he had to say to America--the leader of ISIS--``Soon we'll be in direct confrontation, so watch out for us, for we are with you, watching.''

I repeat, ``Soon we'll be in direct confrontation, so watch out for us, for we are with you, watching.''

They posted a picture of the al Qaeda flag--the black flag--flying over the White House. They have intentions, all right. Their intentions are not just in the Middle East. Their intentions are terrorist activity also in Western Europe and also in the United States of America.

Why? They tell us what their goal is. Their goal is to force the peoples of Western Europe and to force the peoples of the United States of America to convert to Islam at the tip of a sword, whatever it takes.

You see, we are in the shadow of the 13th anniversary of the horrific tragedy of 9/11, when we saw what 19 committed Islamic jihadists can achieve with an airline ticket in one hand and a box cutter in another.

They drove the planes on that morning of September 11 directly into tower number one and tower number two in New York City. They felled the towers, and 3,000 innocents died.

They also took off in a jet here in this city, from the airport in this city. That airplane went directly into the Pentagon, and more hundreds of innocents died, and that wasn't alone. Another jet took off.

No one knows if that jet was intended to come into this building, if they were targeting this very well, 13 years ago. Were they targeting this well, this rotunda, the Capitol? Were they targeting the White House?

We will never know. We will never know because the brave Americans on Flight 93 infamously said, ``Let's roll.'' They were the first resistance that day, the first American resistance to push back and say, ``Not in my Nation, you don't.''

We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to those Americans who said, who realized through phone calls with their loved ones, when they tragically picked up the phone and found out the horrifying news of what had happened in New York City to the World Trade towers, of what had happened to the Pentagon, and they knew very likely that the plane that they were on could be carrying them also on a nefarious mission, and to the point of losing their own lives, they stood up and said, ``This is our last chance, but we're not going to sit here, we're going to fight back,'' and they did. They fought back. They lost their lives that day.

They lost their lives that day, but they saved that jet from being used as a missile on another target.

You see, Americans and America didn't wait. We didn't wait to be defeated by this evil philosophy and this evil enemy. Brave Americans stood up that day and said, ``No more.'' And the question we have is: Do we hear their voices? Do we still hear their voices? Is there bravery yet among us today to heed their call? Because, you see, the Islamic jihadists haven't changed. They haven't deviated in their intent. They haven't deviated in their ultimate goal, which is to spread their caliphate across the entire world, not just in Iraq, not just in Syria, but across the entire world, including the United States of America.

We saw what they did in Benghazi 2 years ago, almost to the day, again on September 11, when Islamic jihadists targeted the American consulate. They not only burned it down, but they also took the life-- for the first time in 30 years, we lost an American Ambassador, Chris Stevens. What is so shameful is that 2 years later Libya is in absolute chaos today. Just in the last month, we saw Islamic jihadists take over the airfield in Tripoli.

I was in Tripoli earlier this year. I had visited the American Embassy earlier this year. I went outside and observed a moment of silence in front of the memorial recognizing our Ambassador, Chris Stevens. It is right outside, between the Embassy and the swimming pool at the Embassy. And shamefully, about a week, 2 weeks ago, we saw Islamic jihadists had so pressurized our Embassy that the people in our Embassy wisely abandoned the Embassy and took off for Tunisia and escaped out of Libya with their lives, thank God.

The Islamic jihadists, the terrorists, came into the United States Embassy and took over and had a party in our Embassy and made a video that they posted on YouTube that had them standing on the second-floor balcony at the Embassy, jumping joyfully into the swimming pool, splashing in the swimming pool, mere yards from the memorial to our killed Ambassador, Chris Stevens.

You see, we are not winning the war against Islamic jihad. Our President infamously told us in the runup to his reelection in 2012 that al Qaeda was defeated. Core al Qaeda was nearly gone; it was defeated. Al Qaeda was on the run, our President assured us. I only wish our President would have been right.

Sitting on the Intelligence Committee, I knew without a shadow of a doubt what our President was saying in 2012 was absolutely wrong. It wasn't true. I knew al Qaeda wasn't defeated. I knew that al Qaeda across the world was continuing to gain traction. We knew that. And yet we were told that, with the death of bin Laden, all had been solved. Thank you very much. Tragically, nothing could be further from the truth.

Tragically, James Foley, the United States photojournalist who was beheaded by ISIS, knew that that wasn't true, as well as Steven Sotloff, the other United States journalist who also was beheaded by the Islamic State.

You see, actions have consequences; ideas have consequences. And when the decision was made by President Obama of releasing Baghdadi from the United States detention center for whatever reason, that has had profound consequences. Ask the thousands of Iraqis who are now dead. Ask the thousands of Yazidis who are dead and displaced. Ask the hundreds and maybe thousands of women who have been raped and violated, and young girls, those in Syria who have had to deal with the same. The tragic consequences are being felt even here in the United States.

Then we watched, with startling speed, the bank robberies that occurred when Baghdadi had to find a source of income and revenue to run the Islamic State. He did that by robbing banks. There are various reports. Some reports say that he stole over $400 million, some say over $100 million, others say various amounts. The fact is now we had an Islamic jihadist who could support himself through bank robberies. But he didn't stop there. He knew that that wouldn't be enough to accomplish the dreams that he had to establish a global Islamic State.

And so, besides robbing banks, besides reconstituting an army, he decided that he would also take over oilfields in the Kurdistan area of northern Iraq. He took over the oilfield. Some reports say that he sells on the black market oil that comes in at potentially $1 million a day; other open-source documents say other amounts. But the fact is we have the Islamic State supporting itself by selling oil on the black market, and that oil goes to fund terrorism.

He also didn't stop there. Baghdadi also was strategic and he took over an oil refinery, the oil refinery which supplies the energy to the Islamic State to run their vehicles, their airplanes, whatever it is that they need energy for.

They also took over an electric grid so that they could have electricity. They didn't take over every village; they didn't need to. They could cause them to fall through intimidation, just as they did in Mosul, and that is what was stunning.

Imagine you have got an army estimated to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 to 12,000, and you can take over a city of 1.7 million, just one. You see, that is what terrorism does. It so intimidates people that live in the community that they decide, We can't win; we aren't even going to try.

That is why the United States can't stay silent. That is why we must stand and act and recognize. We are at war. We are at war because the Islamic State has declared war against the United States, Western Europe. They declared war on anyone who isn't them. But they have been very clear about declaring war against the United States.

The Islamic State also made another strategic capture. They captured air bases, Iraqi air bases. And when they did that, they captured United States equipment. So the Islamic jihad is fighting with the latest United States equipment.

They reportedly have United States helicopters, United States planes. They reportedly have United States weaponry and United States ammunition.

They also have uniforms that they captured from the Iraqi forces. They captured Humvees, armaments, the oilfields. They also captured natural gasfields in central Syria.

Well, this spring as I was watching this occur, I am from the State of Minnesota, and unfortunately Minnesota has a very long connection to terrorism. I went to the FBI earlier this summer, and I asked the FBI for a private classified meeting. I asked the FBI if there were any Minnesotans that had joined the Islamic State and had traveled to the Middle East to fight on their behalf. They told me at that time the information was classified. It no longer is. The FBI told me that there were two Minnesotans who had traveled and joined the Islamic State.

So I had asked the obvious question, which was: If they are not killed in that battle, and if they choose to come back to the United States--we know who they are; we know what they have done--will they be allowed to come back into the United States? And I was told, Yes, they will. They are American citizens. They have passports. We can't stop them from coming into the United States.

I was floored. Here we are trying to track down and murder terrorists in Afghanistan. We have American citizens who have left the United States and who have joined with the Islamic State--and, by the way, the creed of the Islamic State says, when you join the Islamic State, you have renounced every other form of government and you are now submitting to the government of the Islamic State. How is it that that individual then would be able to come in?

The FBI said, Well, we put those individuals on a watch list and we give them further screening at the airport. I asked, What you do mean, further screening? They said, Well, we ask them questions.

And then they are allowed to get on a plane and then they are allowed to come into the United States and travel freely?

Yes, they are.

That floored me. I thought that couldn't possibly be. And then we saw the events transpire this summer. And tragically, we saw the very first American who was killed fighting for the Islamists, the Islamic State, was a Minnesotan. His name was Doug McCain, from Minnesota, from the Twin Cities suburban area. He was an African American youth from Chicago. He had come with his family to Minnesota, where had he been converted to Islam and radicalized in the Twin Cities and became a fighter for the Islamic State. He was the first American.

Very shortly thereafter, a second American was reported to have been killed fighting for the Islamic State--in the same battle. That was also a Minnesotan, another young man, who was a Somali American. Minnesota has the largest Somali population in the world outside of Somalia. And that Somali man traveled over as well.

And so had these two individuals, had they been in the war with the Islamic State and, rather than getting killed decided to come back, they would not have been impeded by the United States Government from coming back.

Now, think of this. Here you have individuals who have given their allegiance to the Islamic State--oh, and by the way, one of their friends from high school was killed in 2009. He also was fighting in the Middle East in Islamic jihad. His name was Troy Kastigar. And Troy Kastigar was featured in a video, a recruitment video, inviting more Americans to come and join Islamic jihad.

Troy Kastigar said that he was glad--I am paraphrasing--he was glad to be a traitor to America. And yet, under our current law, Troy Kastigar can be a killer and fight against the interests of the United States and travel to the Middle East, be a terrorist, and then freely come back to the United States with battlefield experience, maybe a plan for terrorism in the United States, and he can roam freely in this country?

There is something seriously wrong here, Mr. Speaker, something very seriously wrong. Have we completely lost our minds that we wouldn't even prevent a terrorist, a known, avowed terrorist from returning to the United States where he could carry out terrorist activity here in the United States?

You see, we think that things have been fairly peaceful, but at a minimum, there have been 53 different terrorist plots that our government has stopped. We have foiled 53 plots, at minimum, since 2001, since the terrorist activity.

We didn't foil all of them. We didn't foil the Islamic jihadists in Arkansas who killed a United States soldier. And this individual also had been converted to Islam and killed the soldier who was at a recruiting station, I believe an Army recruiting station. We didn't stop the two refugees who were in Boston, the Tsarnaev brothers, at the Boston Marathon bombing.

Despite the fact that our FBI was given a cable from the Russian FSB--that is their intelligence service. They gave a cable to our FBI that it appeared that the Tsarnaev brothers had--there was a question of terrorist involvement and terrorist activity. The Tsarnaev brothers weren't stopped, and people, tragically, were hurt during the Boston Marathon bombing.

So we have seen those attempts, as we also saw another attempt of the infamous Christmas Day underwear bomber, who had left London, headed to Minneapolis, Minnesota, with the express intention of blowing himself up as a suicide bomber with a concoction that someone had put together for him, and he attempted to blow up the plane. At that time, it was Northwest Airlines, the precursor to today's Delta Air Lines. He tried to blow himself up over the city of Detroit, but thank God he was unsuccessful. Again, it was yet one more plot here in the United States.

And there were more. There were attempts on one of our former President's life, George W. Bush, at his home. There have been other plots as well. Thank God we have foiled so many of them. But what that should speak to us, Mr. Speaker, is that the problem isn't just in the Middle East.

The problem is here in the United States, and that is why we have to act now. We have to act forward thinking so we don't allow them to reach their goals. Well, I went to the FBI, and I asked them this question. Again, I was shocked at the answer.

Earlier this week, Mr. Speaker, I introduced a bill in the United States Congress. It is gaining a fair amount of traction with both Democrats and Republicans. It essentially says this: If you are an American citizen, and if you have gone to join ISIS, a foreign terrorist organization, and you want to return to the United States, your passport will be taken from you, and you will begin the process of denaturalization. In other words, we will do everything within our power to prevent you from coming back into this United States. You can try to come in--and, unfortunately, too many try to come in through our southern border--but we are going to try and make sure that you are not successful. My bill is called the Terrorist Denaturalization and Passport Revocation Act to amend section 349(a) of the United States Code.

Well, not only that, from Minnesota, the FBI estimates we have at least 20 Somali Americans from Minnesota that have left our State and have traveled to the Middle East to join the Islamic jihad. Just last week, a 19-year-old Somali American woman left St. Paul to join the Islamic jihad. What I am told is that all three of the women that have gone to join from the United States are from the State of Minnesota. They are continuing to recruit.

Our southern border remains, for all practical purposes, wide open so foreign nationals can cross into the United States. Again, it is not the fault of the Border Patrol. I actually naively thought on my visit about 6 weeks ago to our southern border that the Border Patrol actually stops foreign nationals from coming in. I thought they did. I was shocked to find out that the Border Patrol doesn't stop anyone. Nearly 100 percent of foreign nationals who want to come into the United States through our southern border come in. They come in. The Border Patrol is a people processing pipeline. So they come in. They may not all get to stay, but they certainly all do come in. Again, that is not the fault of the Border Patrol. That is the fault of politicians who haven't made the decision to actually secure America's southern

border and to set up the police, to set up the law enforcement to make that happen, and also to instantaneously deport foreign nationals back across the border. I was told, as a matter of fact, if I didn't mention it before, that foreign nationals from over 140 countries have already made their way into the United States just so far this year.

We have a lot on our plate right now, Mr. Speaker, a lot that we have to pay attention to. The United States could have stopped them in the cradle, and they weren't. They could have been stopped before they were reconstituted. The President could have retained Baghdadi in the United States detention system. We wouldn't have had the beheadings that we saw of James Foley or of Steve Sotloff, and hundreds of thousands of innocent people wouldn't be dead today had the President made that decision, but he didn't.

It is also important for us to realize Iraq pled with the United States to do drone strikes against the Islamic State dating back to August of 2013. Wouldn't it have been important to listen to Iraq? They were the ones dealing with the Islamic State in 2013. They begged us to do drone strikes and take out the leadership in Iraq. What was the answer of President Obama? No. He took a pass. He didn't listen to the calls of Iraq, and we didn't take out the leadership when we had the chance.

The Iraq foreign minister came to the United States, and he begged for the United States to help against the Islamic State. He also went home empty-handed. There were multiple knocks on the President's door to do something about the Islamic State even back in 2013 by our partners who we were trying to help be successful in Iraq. Unfortunately, our President did not answer that call.

On May 11, the President of Iraq, al-Maliki, asked CENTCOM to strike the Islamic State with drones. That was on May 11, this spring. I was on the Intelligence Committee. I was seeing the up tempo, and all of us were seeing the up tempo of the Islamic State and the rise of the Islamic jihad. Again, the president of Iraq asked our CENTCOM to do drone strikes and take out the Islamic State. Al Maliki said, ``I will approve the airstrikes. I will get behind you.'' He was told ``no.''

The problem, you see, wasn't al-Maliki in the spring. The problem is that the President and his team decided not to help when we had ample opportunities. A meeting was held very early on on how to defeat al Qaeda both in Pakistan and Afghanistan. It was written about by a weekly news magazine author who had the ability to be in that meeting. And in that early meeting of the Obama administration, a meeting both with Pakistan and Afghanistan on how to defeat al Qaeda, they didn't discuss in that meeting--and it was very telling--they didn't discuss a strategy to actually defeat al Qaeda. What they did is take along our agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, and the conversation rather than being about actually defeating al Qaeda was about planting seeds in Pakistan and planting seeds for the agriculture community and growing the agriculture community in both countries. Now, I am not saying that that is not a worthwhile meeting, but if your point in having the meeting is to defeat al Qaeda, that is the subject that you should be covering, and you should come up with a plan. That was, again, at this point, over 4 years ago, and we are here tomorrow night about to hear from the President. Does he finally have a plan? Once the crisis got to the point of American citizens being beheaded on TV before our eyes in the most cruel, barbaric way possible, now we are only starting to reengage.

The Islamic State crisis, unfortunately, is one that will be very difficult because we have seen United States forces prematurely moved out of that region. So were we forewarned? We absolutely were forewarned. And it isn't just the administration. We also knew during George W. Bush's tenure as President of the United States that the foreign policy establishment, the military establishment, also knew. There is a clip that has gone on YouTube recently of President George W. Bush in 2007, and I will read exactly verbatim what the President said July 12, 2007. George W. Bush warned the Nation then:

It would mean surrendering the future of Iraq to al Qaeda

if the United States completely removed ourselves from Iraq.

It would mean that we would be risking mass killings on a

horrific scale.

It would mean that we would allow the terrorists to

establish a safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they lost

in Afghanistan.

It would mean increasing the probability that American

troops would have to return at some later date to confront an

enemy that is even more dangerous.

It is beyond belief the statement that was made by George W. Bush back in July 12 of 2007. It is as though the President has most accurately described exactly what President Obama will address tomorrow night by his ill-made decision in 2011 not to leave American residual forces to maintain the peace.

I want to give credit tonight, Mr. Speaker, to the American heroes, the American soldiers who won the peace and defeated the enemy in Iraq--yes, they did--and in Afghanistan. In order to maintain the peace, we needed to maintain a strong American presence, just like today we have in South Korea. I was in South Korea in August. We maintain an American presence. Why? Because there is an aggressor in North Korea. We have our force on location so that we can let the aggressor know, if you try something, we are here, and you won't succeed. And that has worked very well in South Korea. That has worked very well in Western Europe.

Unfortunately, President Obama didn't learn the lessons of history, and he made the ill-timed decision to pull American residual forces out of Iraq. That decision has led to the consequences that we have today, and it is why, again, I would plead with the President of the United States to not pull American forces out of Afghanistan, either. Because I heard over and over and over when I was in Kabul, Afghanistan, over the Memorial Day weekend, May 30, that if the United States leaves Afghanistan, everyone on the ground knows the Taliban will be back. It will be bloody, and it won't be pretty, and it will be back to square one after $1 trillion worth of treasure. But, more importantly, after the sacrifice of thousands of brave American lives. That is not how we should honor their memory nor their sacrifice. And the same with the brave American men and women in our Armed Forces, and contractors, et cetera, who lost their life also to win the peace in Iraq. Again, President George Bush had it right in July of 2007. We needed those residual forces.

Yes, this is a continuation of Islamic jihad. Yes, this is, at its basis, a religious war--not America saying it. That is the terrorists themselves telling us that they are at war with us because they intend to force conversions to their religion of Islam.

Well, what is very unusual about the Islamic State is this: they have a land, and they have a territory. We have a philosophy, we have been fighting, now we have a land and a territory, a new caliphate. It is at least half of Syria and at least half of Iraq. It has a head, Baghdadi, who has declared himself the caliph of this new caliphate. He has a committed army of 12,000 terrorist soldiers, many of whom he released from terrorist prisons. They have a form of government, Islamic sharia law, and they follow that to the tee.

They have money from banks that they have robbed, from oilfields, and from the revenue that they take from gasfields. They also have a self- sustaining infrastructure with their energy production. They are seeking to obtain weapons of mass destruction. They obtained 90 pounds of low-enriched uranium. There is now a fear that materials that could be used to form a nuclear bomb are items on the wish list and the shopping list of the Islamic State. We need to do everything that we can to prevent them from achieving their goal of putting together the elements for a nuclear weapon.

We also need to be aware that Pakistan is also in a vulnerable position. There are reports that Pakistan may have upwards of 200 nuclear weapons. Pakistan is a Sunni state. The Islamic State led by Baghdadi is also a Sunni Islamic jihadist enterprise. If they choose to make a deal with Pakistan for nuclear material or a nuclear weapon, that would change the dynamic overnight. And that is why it is imperative that another Islamic state, Iran, a Shia Islamic state, never, ever, ever obtain a nuclear weapon. Because if

Iran obtains a nuclear weapon, they have stated unequivocally they will use that nuclear weapon to wipe Israel off the map. They will also use that weapon, they have stated, against the United States to defeat the United States of America.

You see, nuclear weapons matter, Mr. Speaker, and they must never, ever go into the hands in any way of committed Islamic jihadist terrorists. Iran is a terror State. It is a United States-designated terror state. There are only four in the world. Iran is one of them.

Now we have the Islamic State. The Islamic State headed by Baghdadi also seeks destruction, and they mean it. We have seen it, and we have to take it seriously. That is why we must engage them and not allow them to succeed because the Islamic State now has weapons from the United States equal to weapons that we have in our Army. They have weapons from the Russian Government, and they also have Iranian weapons, as well--sophisticated weapons and individuals with the knowledge and ability to be able to use those weapons.

They also control borders that weren't in the control of jihadists before. Just recently, they gained control of a border at the Golan Heights on Israel's border. This is approximately 200 yards from Israel in a demilitarization area. Nonetheless, they took United Nations workers hostage just as the Islamic State took 49 Turks hostage out of the Turkish Embassy in northern Iraq.

They have taken checkpoints on the Jordan border with Iraq. The Islamic State has taken over. They have virtually erased the border with Syria. They have taken over checkpoints in Lebanon, also in Turkey and also in the Kurdistan region, so they control territory in a way that they never have before.

They have some of the most sophisticated recruitment materials in the world today through Facebook, through Twitter. They know exactly what the message is and who they need to target to join them in the Islamic jihad.

Unfortunately, in my home State of Minnesota, we know all too well how successful the Islamic State has been in drawing in literally thousands from Western Europe to join them in jihad, but also Americans as well. They are the cool kid on the block, if you will. That is where young people want to go, and that is who they are attracted to.

As I said earlier, the leader of the Islamic State is a man named Baghdadi, a man who was released from American detention by President Obama in 2009, who went on to reconstitute this horrific Islamic jihad called the Islamic State. He is in his early forties. He is in the prime of life. He believes this is his moment. He has declared himself the head, the caliph, of the new state, the caliphate.

He was involved in al Qaeda leadership for decades. He was literally number three in al Qaeda of Iraq, the first franchise. He was an associate of Bin Laden. He has a doctorate degree. He was born in Samarra, Iraq. He understands Iraq. He understands that it is his destiny, from his opinion, to fulfill the reestablishment of the caliphate, and he has no interest in waiting. He is on the march.

He made a statement in January of this year that I read previously, but it is one that bears repeating, and he said this to the United States. He said, ``Soon we will be in direct confrontation with you, United States, so watch out for us, for we are with you, watching.''

That is why we need to understand that we very likely have Islamic jihad terrorists here in the United States today. We know that there are those who went to join ISIS who have returned to the United States. They are terrorists.

We need to call them for who they are. They aren't engaged in workplace violence, as our former head of Homeland Security erroneously said. They are terrorists. They are murderers. They live to kill innocent human beings.

They do it because they believe that they are pleasing their God when they do. According to their belief, not mine, not what I am saying, what they say, they believe that if they are a martyr, if they die in the way of jihad, that is their only one sure way to go to heaven. That is what they say in their belief.

We need to understand who the enemy is. We need to understand the enemy's motivation, not what we wish the enemy thinks, not what we hope the enemy thinks. We need to understand what the enemy--the terrorists--actually say about themselves and say about their beliefs and say about what their goals are because, you see, Sun Tzu wrote in his book ``The Art of War,'' there are two rules to win in a conflict.

One is you need to know yourself, you need to know who you are, you need to know what your attributes are, what your strengths, what your weaknesses are as an army, as a nation, as an individual, but you also need to know who your enemy is.

That is why it was so concerning when the FBI decided--not only the FBI, but other agencies of our government, the CIA included, but in particular, I am familiar with the FBI--when the FBI agreed that they would purge the training manuals of FBI agents, and they purged the manuals of materials on Islam, and the materials that they purged were quotes from the Koran--why did they do that? Why in the world would our FBI not want its agents to understand the motivation of terrorists?

This isn't about being mean to Muslims, this isn't about being mean to anybody's religion or being insensitive to anyone's religion-- because in the United States you have freedom of religion, you can believe what you want to believe, but you can't take, as your basis and your justification, religious belief to go and kill other people or hurt other people--that, you can't do.

It is important again that our FBI, our law enforcement mechanism, understands the motivation of who the enemies are and why they are doing what they are doing. That is why it is so dangerous for the FBI not to train our agents in what the motivation is of Islamic jihad.

Well, you see, we witnessed the Islamic jihad, we witnessed them also taking hostages. I mentioned 49 Turkish hostages have been taken. They have taken hostages of the British, the French, Germans, United States hostages, including the two journalists that we had mentioned that they tragically took.

This is age-old. This has been a part of what has happened in Islamic jihad through the millennia with ransoms and piracy and taking hostages for money.

The demand was made of the United States that we would pay $132 million for the release of James Foley. It is curious that that demand was made almost immediately after President Obama illegally and unfortunately negotiated with terrorists to release the alleged deserter Bergdahl in exchange for five Taliban.

The five top leaders of the Taliban, the five top strategists, the five top leaders of the Taliban, the enemy that we are fighting in Afghanistan, the President of the United States negotiated with terrorists so that we would release from detention in Guantanamo Bay the five top strategists of the terrorists that we are fighting in Afghanistan. He released those five top terrorists in exchange for the alleged deserter Bergdahl.

Now, that was a first. The United States hadn't done that before. We have had a policy of we don't negotiate for hostages, and that has served us very well because the world understood--the thugs and the animals and the savages and barbarians of the world understood you are not going to get anywhere with the United States, they are not going to pay for hostages, they are not going to give up prisoners in exchange. It is not going to happen.

It is a way of life with other countries, not with the United States of America, not until May of 2014 when President Obama, in my opinion, tragically made the decision that he would negotiate with terrorists in order to regain the alleged deserter Bowe Bergdahl.

Almost immediately, we saw the demand by the terrorists for money for James Foley. We did not comply, and he was beheaded. Then the demand came for the United States to release Lady al Qaeda in exchange for Steve Sotloff, and we didn't comply. That is why we are looking forward to what

the President of the United States has to say tomorrow. We have to defeat this enemy, the Islamic State.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Goodlatte and Mrs. Blackburn who is responsible for this wonderful bill this evening, which I wholeheartedly support. This is why: last weekend, I think the Nation was stunned when our President said that he would unilaterally use his power--raw power--to effectively grant amnesty to 5 to 6 million foreign nationals here in the United States illegally.

He said that he would do that with his power, and what happened this week is that this body came together and we decided to answer the President's unconstitutional call.

So with this DACA bill, effectively, we will put forward the strongest possible legislative response that this body could put forward. We say in this bill that the President has no power, no authority administratively to grant permits which would effectively grant amnesty to 5 to 6 million foreign nationals illegally in the United States.

In other words, Mr. Speaker, we will put a handcuff on one of the President's hands.

Now, in the United States Senate, the majority leader, Harry Reid, has left town. He has left town. Not only did he fail to complete an immigration bill, but he knows full well that President Obama may illegally grant amnesty to 5 to 6 million foreign nationals illegally in the United States without doing anything.

What Harry Reid has the opportunity to do is to come back and join us. We will be here any time, any day, anywhere, anyhow. We will join him here in August, September, whenever, and he needs to put the other handcuff on this lawless President's hands, so we constrain this President from granting amnesty.

Mr. Speaker, that is what the American people want us to do. We do that tonight with this bill. We invite Harry Reid to bring the Senate back and put the handcuff on the President's other hand, so that we can have sovereignty again on our southern border.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to offer my support for the Strengthening the Child Welfare Response to Trafficking Act. As a co- chair of the Foster Youth Caucus and a former foster parent, I am grateful for this legislation, as it recognizes a terrible and undeniable truth about our child welfare system.

Statistics show that foster children are highly vulnerable to being sexually trafficked. This bill will lay out needed provisions to identify and track victims within the already existing National Child Abuse and Neglect Data Systems and ensure that each state is not only prepared to spot the signs of victimization, but also adequately help those who have been rescued.

This bill is an important step in coordinating state and federal efforts and resources, to give victims the necessary individualized care, and to stop this terrible assault on children.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Mrs. Blackburn for the wonderful leadership that she is providing on this bill this evening.

It really is quite shocking. We have had a conversation this week about all the work that has been done in this Chamber. We have worked really hard. We have been here late at night, and we have been here every day because we know people across the United States are suffering. They are suffering in this economy, as Mrs. Blackburn has said. They are suffering from the rising gas prices. They are rising because of joblessness. They are very worried because their children aren't getting jobs. Most particular, the African American youth, it is out of control the number of African American youth who don't have employment, and in the Latino community, as well.

We are heartbroken about that because this is hurting families across the United States, so therefore we have been here doing the work. We have been here passing jobs bill after jobs bill. And this week we learned, as Mrs. Blackburn rightly said, that we passed 332 bills out of this Chamber.

Now, we didn't fully expect when we passed these bills that every word and every jot and every tittle of every bill would be immediately unanimously agreed to by the Senate.

We didn't kid ourselves, but we thought at least let's get started and do the work; 332 bills, and out of those Harry Reid couldn't find one that he could pick up and we could have a conversation about and pass and do something to move this economy forward? The economy is one thing, Mr. Speaker, it is also all of the firefights around the world that are happening. We are concerned about America's national security issues. We are concerned about our allies, like Israel, and what is happening in these countries.

We have bill after bill, scores of bills to address getting our Nation back in order. We want to work with the President. We want to work with the Democrat-controlled United States Senate and with Harry Reid, and what doesn't make one bit of sense to me, Mr. Speaker, when we have all these scandals, whether it is the VA or the IRS that is using the power of the Federal Government to punish innocent American citizens for simply expressing their political beliefs, all of these scandals, and we can't even get the attention of the U.S. Senate?

We have heard about a do-nothing Congress. I think we have to be a little more specific. It is a do-nothing U.S. Senate. There is a distinction here. There is no equivalency. So I wanted to come down to the floor when I heard Mrs. Blackburn speaking this evening, I wanted to come to the floor because she is exactly right. I know that many of our colleagues on the floor today agreed with the position Mrs. Blackburn is putting forward this evening.

Many of our colleagues wanted to be here because they want to work, and have worked, and now we are saying to Harry Reid with one voice, please come back, we are happy to work with you. There is plenty of time. If you want to come back in August, we will be here. Whatever it takes, we are here to work on behalf of the American people. Why not come and join us?

There is a heartbreaking story that happened to me this week. I was on the plane, the usual Delta flight that I take out of Minneapolis at 1 p.m. on Monday afternoon when we come back to resume our work here, and a veteran came up to me, a young man who couldn't have been more than 30 years of age. He told me that he had been deployed in the Iraq war. While there, his knee had been shattered in a combat operation in service to his country. He told me that he has been waiting for over 1 year to get an appointment with the VA to go in to have the surgery done to fix his knee with arthroscopy. He called the VA center in Minneapolis to try and get in, and it has been over a year for a young man of maybe 30 years of age, and he can't get in and get his knee taken care of. I think that begs our involvement.

He wasn't even from my district, but I took his name and his address. I took all of his information, and then I took his hand, most importantly. I held his hand in mine and I looked into his eyes and I called him by his name and I said: I promise you I will personally call the VA center and make sure that you get a call back and that you get the appointment you need. And I will make sure that your Member of Congress gets this information and is able to help you because there is not one Member of Congress that I can imagine who wouldn't want to see a veteran get the help he has earned and that he deserves and that he needs. Anyone I believe in this House Chamber would do it, Republican or Democrat, this is not partisan.

But what absolutely floors me, Mr. Speaker, and I think floors Mrs. Blackburn, is that we want to help these veterans. How could anyone on the Senate side, anyone, possibly refuse reform of the VA?

Mr. Speaker, I understand and I am sure that Mrs. Blackburn is aware that today there was supposed to be a conference committee hearing on the VA reform bill and the Democrats in the Senate chose not to even show up to conference the bill.

Now, how in the world is this young man who is a veteran who served his country honorably supposed to expect that his government cares about him when the Senate won't even show up to talk about VA reform?

That is why I am so proud of the fact that Mrs. Blackburn has the physical stack of the work that this body has done, work to help veterans like this young, 30-year-old Iraq veteran. Or the moms that are waiting tables tonight and the dads who are at T-ball games tonight who are asking us, Could you please get the Keystone pipeline bill? Could you please do something about the Tax Code so my business can get up and fly?

That is why we are here tonight, not expecting that the Senate would agree with everything that is in these papers. We do not expect that for a minute. All we are saying is show up to your job, show up and work. We want to talk. We are here. The President is very happy to talk to the terrorist nation of Iran. He has been very willing to negotiate, even to offer them a deal on developing a nuclear weapon, but for some reason, they won't talk to Republicans in the House of Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, as always, it is a supreme privilege to be able to stand here in the greatest deliberative body in the world, the well of the United States House of Representatives.

It is a thrill to be able to be here also to be able to stand in defense of our ally, the Jewish State of Israel, which is under attack, even now, as we are here in this Chamber this evening.

As all Americans have seen across the country, the fighting that is going on in the Middle East has been horrific, but we must remember that all of this began with an unprovoked attack by the terrorist organization named Hamas. Hamas is the governing organization over Gaza.

If a person looks at a map of the Middle East, there is the Mediterranean Sea. Just on the easternmost part of the Mediterranean Sea lies the very tiny Nation of Israel, approximately the size of New Jersey. On the southwest corner of Israel is a little area known as Gaza.

In 2005, Israel willingly gave up the area called Gaza. Why? Because the Palestinians that were in the area known as Gaza were continually attacking and causing havoc against the Jews that lived in the Gaza area.

Jews who had businesses, Jews who had homes, as well as synagogues, relinquished those homes and businesses voluntarily in an effort known as ``land for peace.'' So Israel gave up its land to Palestinians, and the Palestinians promised there would be peace.

At that time, Abu Mazen, also known as Abbas, the head of the now Palestinian Authority, had promised that the Gaza region would remain demilitarized. In other words, that there would be no weaponry and no rockets that would be contained in the Gaza region.

This has been a joke and an absolute lie and a fraud from the Palestinians and from the leader Abbas from the beginning in 2005. How do we know? Almost nearly overnight, the Palestinians in Gaza began firing rockets at Israel. That was 9 years ago, in 2005. Today is 2014. Nothing has changed. As a matter of fact, now we are seeing the rise once again from Gaza of rockets being fired into Israel--again, in an unprovoked attack.

We should also recognize Hamas isn't a stand-alone terrorist organization. Hamas is a part of a wider constellation of terrorist organizations--franchises, you might say--under an umbrella. That umbrella is to my left.

That umbrella is known as the international Muslim Brotherhood. It was began in 1928 to reconstitute the Islamic caliphate across the world. Again, the umbrella organization is known as the Ikhwan, the international Muslim Brotherhood.

There are various entities, Hamas being one of those terrorist children, you may say, under the umbrella of this international terrorist organization. It contains individuals who were part of forming and putting together the attack on the United States during 9/ 11, when our Nation was attacked and the Twin Towers came down, led by Mohammed Atta, and also by the tragic hijacking of an airplane that went into the Pentagon.

Also, one of the earliest terrorist attacks against the Twin Towers in 1993 was masterminded by an individual known as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, now contained at Guantanamo Bay as a detainee for his work in that effort. He also was found guilty for the work he did there.

I am here tonight, Mr. Speaker, because I believe that the United States does have an option of aiding and assisting our ally Israel in this horrific tragedy that the world is seeing unfolding right now. And it is this.

As we have seen with this terrorist organization under the auspices of the international Muslim Brotherhood, known as Hamas, Hamas had a very friendly entree when the Muslim Brotherhood was running Egypt, the largest Arab nation in the Middle East region.

The Muslim Brotherhood, under then-President Morsi, had a deal with Hamas; again, the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist organization in Gaza. This was the deal. Hamas was allowed to run smuggling operations through tunnels between Egypt and the Gaza territory. So lucrative was the smuggling business that Hamas was making, it is reported, $2 billion a month.

When the people of Egypt decided to throw off the violent terrorist regime known as the Muslim Brotherhood, literally tens of millions of Egyptians took to the streets and said to the Muslim Brotherhood, You must go, and to Morsi, You must go, because the Egyptian people wanted to stop the slaughter and murder of innocent people, including the Coptic Christians.

Coptic churches were burned in Egypt. Coptic businesses owned by Coptic Christians were also burned and ransacked. Innocent people like Christians--there are virtually no Jews left in Egypt because they have been run out--and even Muslims considered apostate Muslims were all attacked by the violent terrorists in the Muslim Brotherhood.

As I said, tens of millions of peace-loving Egyptians and Muslims took to the streets and said, We want the violent terrorist organization known as the Muslim Brotherhood to leave Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood had to leave. They no longer had any consent from the Egyptian people to rule. There was no process of impeachment in Egypt. This was the only avenue left to the Egyptian people.

The Muslim Brotherhood left, and in stepped the military led by General al-Sisi. The Egyptian people then conducted democratic elections and General al-Sisi was elected as the first President of the modern state of Egypt. He is the President now.

He has been engaged in a very serious struggle with the Muslim Brotherhood. He has worked with them. Their violent protests continued. Remarkably, now President al-Sisi has been able to bring down dramatically the level of violence from the Muslim Brotherhood. The streets are far safer today in Egypt than they were before. And it came at a price.

It came at a price of many deaths in Egypt, but now we are seeing more peace. It is because of the work of President al-Sisi on the border with Gaza that we have seen a dramatic decrease in weapons, munitions, and

most particularly, $2 billion going into Gaza.

How does this frame into what a new alternative solution would be to tamp down this terrorist organization known as Hamas?

The United States Government designated Hamas a terror organization.

Again, let's remember. This is a U.S.-designated terror organization called Hamas, which unilaterally and unprovoked launched thousands of rockets against our ally Israel. Israel did not provoke Hamas. Israel did not send munitions into the Gaza territory. Israel did not fire the first shot against Gaza. It was Hamas that fired the first shot.

Let us not forget that it was Hamas that fired rockets specifically at the greatest number of civilian targets. We even read this last week that Hamas dressed up in Israeli uniforms, IDF uniforms, and went through a tunnel, into Israel, to specifically go to an Israeli kibbutz so that they could slaughter a mass number of innocent Israeli citizens as well as IDF soldiers.

That is what we are dealing with--greater terrorist acts than we have ever seen before.

They are reporting now from Turkey and from other parts in the Middle East region that they are again calling on wiping out the Jewish state--in other words, killing the Jews in the Jewish state and eliminating and annihilating the Jewish State of Israel. This is nothing more than a genocide.

How can we stop this continual slaughter by the terrorist organization known as Hamas?

They were greatly weakened when President al-Sisi did the United States--the world--a favor when they closed those tunnels between Egypt and Hamas. That greatly reduced the income that was coming into this terrorist, corrupt, violent organization under the Muslim Brotherhood umbrella, but it is not enough because, you see, the umbrella is essentially the lifeline economically for the terrorist organization known as Hamas. If you will, the umbrella is the umbilical cord that feeds economically, politically, and with munitions into this violent terrorist organization.

The question then, Mr. Speaker, is: How can we get the Muslim Brotherhood to stop feeding economically to prop up this terrorist organization known as Hamas?

This is how we can do it:

When the United States Government effectively labeled Hamas as a foreign terrorist organization, then any organization or person who tried to offer material support to Hamas was effectively continuing a terrorist enterprise, and, thereby, there would be sanctions, and in fact, there would be convictions that could be brought against those people.

That happened in a charity called the Holy Land Foundation. This charity was directed by the international Muslim Brotherhood, the umbrella organization. The international Muslim Brotherhood directed the United States' chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood to raise men, raise money, and raise media support for Hamas, the terrorist organization that is now firing rockets unprovoked against Israel.

That charity in the United States was found guilty by a United States Federal court. That happened in 2008. Our Federal Government has already found, through our Department of Justice, that the Muslim Brotherhood has engaged in terrorist activities. We have Federal courts that have also found that the international Muslim Brotherhood, the umbrella organization, has, in fact, engaged in terrorist activities. Also, our FBI Director in 2011, Robert Mueller, said before the committee of which I am privileged to be a part--the House Intelligence Committee--that the international Muslim Brotherhood has engaged in terrorist activities both abroad and in the United States.

Whether it is through entities, like designating Hamas a foreign terrorist organization, or through our Federal courts, where we have found Muslim Brotherhood charities--in this case, the Holy Land Foundation, a Muslim Brotherhood terrorist organization--our government has found members of the international Muslim Brotherhood to be terrorists who are engaging in the material support for terrorist activities. That would include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who this night is sitting in Guantanamo Bay, behind bars--where he should be--because his goal was to bring down the Twin Towers in New York City. This was in 1993. We know that the Muslim Brotherhood was successful and brought down the Twin Towers in a horrific display of terrorism on American soil on September 11, 2001.

So, you see, Mr. Speaker, it isn't enough for the United States to cripple Hamas, the foreign terrorist organization, by designating them a foreign terrorist organization. That was a good beginning. What this body can do is to pass a resolution to urge President Obama--who has the power to direct the United States Department of State--to now designate the international Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization.

If we want Hamas to collapse--to collapse economically, to collapse politically, to collapse because they are bereft of munitions and weapons--what we must do is designate the international Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization because then, you see, it would cripple the international Muslim Brotherhood with various economic sanctions. Also, those who are members of the international Muslim Brotherhood would no longer have the ability to be granted visas by the United States Government to come into the United States.

This is the best action that the United States could take today to benefit our ally Israel as they are being mercilessly attacked by the U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization known as Hamas. Cut off the head. Cut off the feeder unit to Hamas. Cut it off, and then we will see Hamas collapse. That is what we could do.

Now, President Obama doesn't need the United States Congress to pass this resolution. He doesn't need that. President Obama, on his own this evening, could designate the international Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization, and I call upon our President to do exactly that in order to help our ally Israel.

That would send a resounding signal across the world if the United States took that action because, you see, this has already been done by other countries--by Egypt, led by President al-Sisi. They have already designated the international Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. Jordan, our ally and friend, has designated the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. Saudi Arabia sees the international Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. The United Arab Emirates sees the international Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization as does the Jewish State of Israel see the international Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.

If the nations that are most impacted by the terrorist activities of the international Muslim Brotherhood could designate this nefarious organization as such after the Muslim Brotherhood's participation in the greatest horrific act on U.S. soil--September 11, 2001--and if we have designated charities and entities of the Muslim Brotherhood and leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorists, participating in terrorist activities, why in the world wouldn't the United States join Egypt, Israel, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia in doing the right thing in designating the international Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization?

You see, once we do that to the umbrella organization, then all of the other organizations that are represented therein are also duly impacted by that designation. That is how we bring peace. That is how we bring peace to Israel. That is how we bring peace to this region.

Just a few years ago, the conventional wisdom here in Washington, D.C., was that the Muslim Brotherhood would be a moderating force in the Middle East and bring democracy to the region. We had great hopes that that is who the Muslim Brotherhood would be. That was the face that they tried to present here in Washington. Tunisia removed their Muslim Brotherhood-led governments because they saw that the Muslim Brotherhood wasn't a moderating force. Hardly. It was a violent terrorist force. As I said, other Middle East nations have taken measures to designate the organization as a terrorist group, and these nations banned the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood completely.

Even our British allies have opened an official investigation into the Muslim Brotherhood's activities and connection to violent terrorism. For the past 20 years and in three different administrations, the United States Government has identified and designated branches of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations, and its leaders are branded as terrorists. United States Government officials have testified under oath before Congress, here in this building, that the international Muslim Brotherhood has supported terrorism not only here at home but also across the world.

From its earliest days, the Muslim Brotherhood used violence as its strategy. They formed what was called a ``secret apparatus''--that is their term--to attack government officials and foreigners in Egypt, even killing two Egyptian Prime Ministers. Richard Clarke was the counterterrorism czar to both Democrat President Bill Clinton and to Republican President George W. Bush. Richard Clarke testified before the Senate Banking Committee in October of 2003 that the common links that are shared by al Qaeda, by the Islamic jihad and by Hamas were ``the membership and the ideology of the Muslim Brothers.'' As was recognized by our own 9/11 Commission Report, virtually every Islamic terrorist group has built its organization on the ideological bedrock the Muslim Brotherhood established--that is astounding--al Qaeda as well as Hamas.

Some have tried to paint al Qaeda as a great enemy of the Muslim Brotherhood, but whatever differences they have are merely tactical, and there are many reports of the groups cooperating together and endorsing their terrorist activities.

In February 1993, the United States House of Representatives Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare reported that various branches of the international Muslim Brotherhood regularly took part in terror conferences with al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, called the Quds Force. The senior clerical leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood is led by the group's Qatar-based top jurist, Yusuf al-Qaradawi. He issued a fatwa in November of 2004 that authorized the killing of American soldiers and contractors in Iraq while we were conducting that liberation force at that time.

Many of al Qaeda's leaders also came through the Muslim Brotherhood's ranks. Mohamed Atta, as I previously stated, was the ring leader of the 9/11 terrorist attack here in America on our Twin Towers. According to The Washington Post, he was radicalized while he was a part of the Muslim Brotherhood's engineering syndicate in Egypt. It is fair to say that, rather than being opposed to al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood has been an open gateway to al Qaeda.

One of the enduring myths about the Muslim Brotherhood is that the group has renounced violence. Nothing could be further from the truth. Then how can one explain the Muslim Brotherhood's long-time support for the Palestinian terrorist group, Hamas? In fact, Hamas identifies itself in its 1988 Covenant as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood--in other words, a franchise of the Muslim Brotherhood--in Palestine's own words.

That is a fact that is recognized in the State Department's annual Country Reports on Terrorism. It was President Bill Clinton who designated Hamas a terrorist organization in 1995, and I praised President Bill Clinton for doing that. It was the right thing to do.

Now, President Obama must do the same and also designate the international Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization because, you see, Mr. Speaker, it is myopic to look at Hamas, as it rains down thousands of missiles and rockets on our ally, Israel, without considering the Muslim Brotherhood's greater role in the larger context of global jihad.

In fact, our Justice Department, in 2007 and 2008, successfully argued in Federal court that the international Muslim Brotherhood has directed its affiliates here in this country, in the United States, to organize to provide ``media, money, and men'' to Hamas, a U.S.- designated foreign terrorist organization.

As Federal prosecutors showed during the Holy Land Foundation trial, the largest terrorist financing trial in American history, the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee raised millions of dollars for Hamas here in the United States.

The judge in the case wrote an opinion that there was ``ample evidence'' that establishes the association between Muslim Brotherhood groups here in the United States with Hamas. The convictions of the Holy Land Foundation executives have also been held up by our United States Supreme Court, the highest court in the land.

This was one of the reasons, Mr. Speaker, why the FBI Director, Robert Mueller, testified before Congress in February of 2011 that ``elements of the Muslim Brotherhood both here and overseas have supported terrorism.''

The U.S. Government has designated branches, charities, and leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, as I have pictured on this graphic under the umbrella--branches, charities, and leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood.

U.S. Government officials have said, Mr. Speaker, that the Muslim Brotherhood around the world has supported terrorist groups, and the Justice Department has prosecuted elements of the Muslim Brotherhood here in the U.S. for materially supporting terrorism.

It is long overdue to act on what the U.S. Government has already acknowledged. It is time, Mr. Speaker, to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terror organization.

I wanted to speak just a little bit, Mr. Speaker, about who some of these people are under the umbrella, if I could have that slide right here.

The umbrella organization, again, is the international Muslim Brotherhood organization. Under that umbrella is an individual known as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the operations chief under al Qaeda. The 9/11 Commission report said that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, also known as KSM, who is currently detained behind bars in Guantanamo Bay, he was radicalized in the Kuwaiti Muslim Brotherhood--Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, under the Muslim Brotherhood.

Abdullah Azzam is part of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood. He is a leader who was the cofounder, both of Hamas and of al Qaeda, also under the international Muslim Brotherhood.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi is the chief jurist of the international Muslim Brotherhood. Some call him the spiritual leader and guide of the Muslim Brotherhood. He has been banned from entering the United States since 1991. He is the first Sunni cleric to endorse suicide bombing.

Then Mohamed Atta, he was the ringleader of the horrific 9/11 attack against the United States of America, the ringleader of bringing down the Twin Towers and also the attack on our Pentagon. He was radicalized in the Muslim Brotherhood-controlled engineering syndicate in Egypt.

Then Hamas, the foreign terrorist organization raining down rockets, even tonight, against our ally, Israel. Hamas is self-identified as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Then the Union of Good, this is a Muslim Brotherhood charity that was led by Yusuf al-Qaradawi. It was designated by our Treasury Department in November of 2008 for Hamas financing.

Osama Bin Laden--no introduction necessary--he is the al Qaeda cofounder who was radicalized by Muslim Brotherhood leaders at the university in Jeddah.

You see, Mr. Speaker, the Muslim Brotherhood has its fingers all over jihad because its mission statement is jihad. It is radical, violent terrorism to achieve its goal of a global caliphate, to have control of all Muslim and all infidels across the globe.

Then Abdul Majeed al-Zindani, he is the head of Yemen's Muslim Brotherhood, al-Islah Party, and he is the mentor of Osama Bin Laden, designated by our Treasury Department in February of 2004.

Ramzi Yousef, he is the convicted leader of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He is the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, also radicalized by Kuwaiti Muslim Brotherhood.

As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, if anyone watching this evening would go to the official Muslim Brotherhood Web site today, they would see that the international Muslim Brotherhood is praising Hamas for the killing going on in Jerusalem and in Israel, even today.

This is why the best thing that the United States of America could do--and I call on President Obama to do it, hopefully, with support from both Democrats and Republicans, this is not a partisan issue--we need to stand with our ally, Israel. We need to stand against radical terrorism.

In order to do that, we need to designate the international Muslim Brotherhood, the umbrella organization, for what it is, a foreign terrorist organization.

Mr. Speaker, I call, again, on President Obama to bring about this designation to bring peace to our world.

I yield back the balance of my time.