Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the recipients of the St. Cloud Area Chamber of Commerce Small Business of the Year, the Family Owned Business of the Year, and the Business Central Mark of Excellence-Emerging Entrepreneurs. These individuals stand out to the Chamber as ``those who have the courage to aspire to a higher level'' as business owners and community members.

Jim Kruze and Melissa Kelley of J. F. Kruze Jewelers were awarded the 2014 St. Cloud Area Chamber Small Business of the Year. Though he never intended to own a jewelry store, Jim learned early on that he had a knack for sales and found himself eager to learn more about the jewelry industry. Fourteen years after returning to the business, Jim and his daughter, gemologist and co-owner Melissa Kelley, have doubled the size of their original store and specialize in custom jewelry.

The St. Cloud Area Chamber Family Owned Business of the Year is awarded to Pat and Paul Duininck of Royal Tire. Founded in 1948, Roger Duininck acquired the store in 1987 and raised his sons, Pat and Paul, with the family business, which provides retail and commercial tire sales, service, and repair and operates two retreading plants in Minnesota. Since Pat and Paul joined the family business, (1979 and 1984 respectively) it has tripled in size from 100 employees and 12 stores in Central Minnesota to 300 employees and 26 stores, covering an area from Rochester, MN to Williston, ND to Virginia, MN. With the 2013 purchase of their 3rd manufacturing plant in Rochester, MN, Royal Tire is ready to provide quality service to another community far into the future.

The Business Central Mark of Excellence-Emerging Entrepreneurs's inaugural recipients are the six second-generation co-owners of Midwest Machinery, Co.: Ben and Andrew Swenson; Brian, Corey and Adam Weber; and Paul Seipel. Originally a merger of eight separate John Deere locations into one company, Midwest Machinery's focus on strong and skillful management has paid off. With four new stores last year, the business now boasts an impressive 13 locations. Not bad for a team of owners all under the age of 40!

The St. Cloud Area Chamber of Commerce made a great decision in highlighting the owners and managers of J. F. Kruze Jewelers, Royal Tire and Midwest Machinery, Co. as this year's winners. They not only provide a quality service to their customers and boost the local economy, they also serve as a notable example to their communities of the importance of family-owned and small businesses--they are lifeblood to our beloved state.

Mr. Speaker, I ask this body join with me in honoring J. F. Kruze Jewelers, Royal Tire and Midwest Machinery, Co. for their accomplishments and their invaluable contributions to the state of Minnesota.

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to be here tonight. Today is a significant day. It is Holocaust Remembrance Day. And the greatest ally that the United States has, Israel, had a remarkable experience that they hold every day because of the unique situation that the Jewish people have endured, and that is, the entire nation and all of the people in Israel come to a complete stop. Cars literally stop in the middle of highways. Buses literally stop in the middle of highways. Metros stop. If a pedestrian is walking on a street, kids playing in a park, they stop. A siren goes off for 2 minutes' time, and during that time every person in the nation comes to a standstill. Why? Why this extraordinary action?

Because, quite simply, nothing like the history of Israel has ever happened anywhere in the annals of recorded human history. It is this: 6 million people lost their lives. They lost their lives simply because they were Jewish. They were children, they were grandparents, they were moms and dads. They were disfigured. They were disabled. They were high functioning. They weren't even necessarily in Israel. They were in countries all across primarily European areas. But 6 million died. And it is important that we never forget. That we never forget that a people were so brutally targeted that 6 million were killed virtually in silence; silence because of the devious ways in which the German regime carried out this horrific action. That is what happened about 70 years ago.

We will commemorate D-day, the 70th anniversary this June 6, as we should, probably one of the greatest sacrifices ever made by one people for another, led in large part by the Americans to liberate Europe as they were under this cloud of Adolf Hitler. It is a horrific past, but it is something that we have to remember because we can never forget. We can never, ever, ever forget.

We join with our great ally Israel today as we remember this horrific act. It was a racist act on the part of Adolf Hitler. It was a bigoted act on the part of Adolf Hitler, and I think that is why today we are all rather shocked when the story was disclosed that our American Secretary of State had made comments last Friday behind closed doors in a meeting with members of the Trilateral Commission, and he had said that if Israel does not go along with the proposed two-state solution, that Israel would risk becoming an apartheid state.

Now that is a shocking comment to come from an American Secretary of State, particularly to have this comment revealed on Holocaust Remembrance Day, to accuse the Jewish people who have undergone what no other people have undergone, a horrific act to be targeted by Adolf Hitler some 70 years ago, within the lifetime of some people who remain alive today. And yet our Secretary of State, accusing this nation of engaging in an act, an institutional act against another people based upon race with no evidence whatsoever because there is none.

I want to read the definition of the 1998 Rome statute. It says:

The crime of apartheid is defined as inhuman acts committed

in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic

oppression and domination by one racial group over any other

racial group or groups and committed with the intention of

maintaining that regime.

Now, that would apply to an Adolf Hitler. That did apply in the case of South Africa. It does not in any possible imagination or universe apply in any possible sense to the Jewish State of Israel, and yet that is what our Secretary of State said last Friday in reference to our greatest ally. Our Secretary of State needs to apologize humbly to the people of Israel, and then he needs to tender his resignation immediately to the President of the United States.

But our Secretary of State did not stop there. He went on to reiterate a statement that he had made prior that merely was an echo of what the Palestinians had intimated, and it was this: That Israel could be looking at a third fatwa--that is a war--that Israel could look at a war by the Palestinians, by people who would engage in

terrorist acts against Israel, that Israel could be looking at the threat of another war if they failed to give up 40 percent of their land to people who, number one, don't recognize that Israel has the right to exist; number two, that they have the right to exist as the Jewish state; and number three, that they have the right to defend themselves.

Since when do we force our greatest ally to sit down with people and negotiate with people who want to see them killed and annihilated? That is the stated position of Hamas. Just read article 7 of the Hamas charter.

The head of the Palestinian Authority, Abbas, recently said:

I am 79 years old, and I have no intention of changing my

ways.

In other words, he has no intention of recognizing the legitimacy of the Jewish State of Israel and their right to exist. And the United States is expecting, our Secretary of State is expecting after that statement, not only that Israel would sit down and negotiate in good faith with people who have said unequivocally they will never recognize the right to exist. And Israel is the bad guy here, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker, I think we have our priorities wrong. Not only did Abbas say he would not recognize Israel's right to exist, we also heard last week that the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, which is a foreign terrorist organization, part of the violent Muslim Brotherhood, have said that they are looking to merge--the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. And again, we are going to force our great ally, Israel, to sit down at a negotiating table and negotiate with terrorists over Israel's right to exist and give the terrorists 40 percent of their land?

This is madness. This is once again an alternative universe that doesn't make any sense.

Our Secretary of State went on to say that Israel has built 14,000 living units, apartments, extra rooms, what have you, for Jewish people. Well, of course, a population that increases has to build apartments.

How many times has our Secretary of State talked about the Palestinian building of apartments on their land? Because, after all, this is Israelis building apartments on their own land. Since when is this a detriment to peace? And since when will our American Secretary of State ever call out the Palestinians and say those Palestinians, they shouldn't be building apartments, they shouldn't be building houses on their own land. Are you kidding? In the multiple times that I have been to Israel and the multiple times that I have been to Ramallah, to the Palestinian Authority, it is a building bonanza going on in the Palestinian Authority. And if it is their land, more power to them. Let them go ahead and build.

Since when is it wrong for Israel to build on their own land? You see, there is a reason why the Obama administration has been accused of being the most anti-Israel American administration since Harry Truman wisely recognized the modern Jewish state's sovereignty in May of 1948.

Eleven minutes after Israel declared her independence, the greatest military economic super powerhouse of the world, the United States of America, recognized Israel's right to exist. That meant something because our strength and our wealth was behind Israel. We had Israel's back.

No one, no nation, thinks that America unequivocally has Israel's back today. All you have to do is look at Israel's neighborhood. It has become a very dangerous place, a very dangerous place, indeed. The epicenter of jihad today is on Israel's border in Syria.

There are more weapons floating around in the Middle East today in the hands of terrorists than ever before; and yet our Secretary of State, rather than being focused on Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, which it has stated unequivocally it will use to annihilate the Jewish state and to murder millions of Jewish people in Israel, rather than the Secretary of State calling out Iran for its ongoing action tonight, as I am speaking before C-SPAN and before the Speaker of this House, tonight, Iran has thousands and thousands and thousands of centrifuges spinning, fissile material that can be used and converted into nuclear weapons.

Tonight, as we speak, research and development continues to go on for nuclear warheads. Tonight, as I speak, Iran continues to work on a delivery system--a missile delivery system to deliver a nuclear bomb, a nuclear warhead with the fissile material to take out Israel. The fact is Iran already has the capability to deliver a missile into Israel.

What they don't have is that capability yet to deliver a nuclear warhead against us, the United States. You see, that is Iran's ultimate goal. They call us, the U.S., the Great Satan. Israel is the Little Satan. So, of course, the goal of Iran will be let's wipe out, with a nuclear weapon, some strategic main cities in America, so that we can achieve our real goal, which is the annihilation of the Jewish State of Israel. That is the goal.

Where is our Secretary of State calling out Iran? What about the epicenter of jihad, Syria, where weapons are awash? Where is our Secretary of State there, talking about the numerous, numerous terrorist organizations that are already running completely independent in Syria? Where is our Secretary of State talking about the problem with the communist nation of Russia, which has illegally seized Crimea and is now making incursions into the eastern area of Ukraine?

I just returned from a trip, Mr. Speaker, on Sunday, visiting some former Soviet bloc nations to talk about their response to the aggressive illegal actions of Russia and what is happening to reset the table in the former Soviet bloc nations.

These are nations that are very worried about what they are seeing. They are worried because they understand that you can trust a communist to be a communist, and their actions today are a mere image of what their actions were formerly.

Russia recognizes that, if no one pushes back, they will continue to salivate over more lands and more influence and seek to dominate more people. Russia is responsible for enslaving millions of people. In fact, they even murdered tens of millions of their own people under Stalin. This is a regime that needs to be watched.

Unfortunately, under our previous Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, she gave, in my opinion, unwisely, the reset button to the former Russian government and apparently didn't think that they would push the button.

They did. They pushed the reset button, and they pushed it in a way that has the Soviet Union looking at the United States and making the calculation that the United States is now a weak power, that we have weakened ourself, and therefore, now is Russia's opportune time to seek to influence and pull back into the fold former Soviet bloc nations.

As we have learned from history, when a madman speaks, listen. Madmen spoke in the form of Lenin and Stalin, and millions--tens of millions of people were enslaved in misery for decades. The same happened under Adolf Hitler, with a madman who spoke, and he murdered 6 million Jewish people. That is why we have, today, the Holocaust Remembrance Day.

We need to pay attention today to the thugs and rulers that are making their mad statements. They are doing it again. That is why again--why did the Obama administration demand that Israel release from prison over 100 murdering terrorists, murderers who murdered innocent people--children, women, men--in order for the Palestinian authority just to go to the table and have negotiations and talks?

Now, these same leaders are saying: Don't worry, we will never recognize the Jewish state; and, oh, by the way, we want to form up a new league with a terrorist organization.

That is why I say tonight, Mr. Speaker, our Secretary of State has to first apologize to the Jewish state and then tender his resignation. I call on President Obama, Mr. Speaker, to completely change course on his foreign policy.

We are looking at one foreign policy disaster after another. After the thugs of the world have calculated that the United States has put itself into a position of weakness, while we are in the process of gutting the greatest military force in the world, the bad actors of the world are recalculating and resetting the table.

We are seeing China making aggressive moves that we haven't seen before

against Japan and causing trouble in that area and region of the world. We are seeing Russia making incursions, again, as I just said, in Eastern Europe that we haven't seen before.

Even just today, we heard of a mayor in eastern Ukraine who was shot in the back by Russian forces. Just over this last weekend, there were those who were killed also in Ukraine and those who were taken hostage. This is moving forward. This isn't stopping. This is moving forward.

In Syria, with the epicenter of jihad, and as we saw three Americans killed--innocent Americans killed in Afghanistan by a member of the Taliban. You see, they are making calculations, these murderers. They are looking at the United States. They are seeing this failed foreign policy.

They are seeing that America won't stand up for her allies, like the Jewish State of Israel, and at every turn, we lift up the agenda, for some inexplicable reason, of the radical Islamist who seeks to destroy the Jewish state and destroy the United States of America. It is a policy that will lead to a day that I believe we will all regret.

That is why America and the world needs to wake up and listen to these bad actors. So when our Secretary of State calls the Jewish State of Israel an apartheid state, it is more than unhelpful. Those words are dangerous because a state that was born after seeing 6 million of its compatriots, one-third of the entire Jewish population in the world at that time, one-third of its people annihilated by the maniacal evil ruler named Hitler, to see them called an apartheid state, institutional oppression, really? There is no such thing. You will find it nowhere.

Mr. Speaker, as we look again to the Jewish state and as we remember with great sadness what this day signifies, the incredible loss of life that this signifies, I am reminded of the violence that I witnessed myself on a recent trip that I took to Israel.

I was in the area that President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry have demanded that the Jewish state give up and yield, which is 40 percent of its land. It is the biblical homeland of the Jewish people. Hebron is the city, essentially, where the Jewish people were born. Abraham was in Hebron.

It was in Hebron where I was invited into the home of a Jewish woman who is in a so-called settlement and has been there for decades. She invited me into her kitchen.

In her kitchen, she showed me some of the doors on her cabinets. Those doors on her cabinets had bullet holes in them, Mr. Speaker, bullet holes, bullet holes fired across her land, over her deck, in through the glass windows of her kitchen and into the cabinet doors of her kitchen.

Every day, her family is reminded of the very real existence that they have, that they literally can be in their home and bullets can fly in to a place where children should be able to be free, where a wife should be able to whip up supper or breakfast and not have to dodge bullets.

You see, that is the very real existence that the Jewish citizens have had to face in the southwestern section of Israel, where I had a chance to live for a summer. The day after I graduated from high school, I was privileged to be able to go and live and work on a kibbutz down in Be'er Sheva.

Kibbutz Be'eri is the area now that is oftentimes dealing with the violence from Gaza where Qasam and various rockets are fired from Gaza into the Jewish area with no other intention other than killing innocent civilians. This is what Israel deals with on nearly a daily basis.

Mr. Speaker, just in the month of February alone this year in 2014, there were more rockets that were shot into Israel in this one month this year in February than there were all of the previous 12 months in 2013 put together.

The Jewish state is under attack, and yet what is Israel's response? In Israel, especially in the area known as the disputed territory, what is called occupied territory by people in our United States State Department, the greatest human rights that women--Arab Muslim women in the Middle East are afforded is in no other country but Israel, in the so-called occupied territory.

That is the area where women--Arab Muslim women enjoy the greatest protection of human rights, and Israel is being called the apartheid state--Muslim women enjoying the greatest rights that they can find anywhere in the Middle East in Israel.

What about jobs? Jobs are available for Palestinians in Israel at higher wages, at better conditions, and they are grateful to have those jobs. I was in the area where there is a threat by now potentially European nations and other nations.

Even 5,000 academics from America were calling for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions on any products that are made in the so- called occupied territories of Judea and Samaria. Those are Israel's biblical homeland. There are 3,500 years of history. Just pick up the Bible, read the Bible.

This is the land that God gave to Abraham. He said: I give you this land, Abraham, to you and your descendants through Isaac. Through the descendants of Abraham, I give you this land, not just for a year or 5 years or 10 years.

But in the Bible, God said: I give you this land for eternity.

If you don't want to believe the Bible or if you think that it is a book of fiction, that is up to you. I believe it is true. You can look at historic documents. You can look at documents from this last century. International agreements gave this particular piece of land not to any other country but to Israel. This is Israel's rightful land.

Don't we recognize that this has been a very long effort on the part of the Arab Muslim people, who made a decision that they don't want Israel to exist?

As I said previously, Mr. Speaker, even the head of the Palestinian Authority--Abbas--has said:

I am 79 years old. I am certainly not about to recognize

Israel now.

He is the one Israel is supposed to negotiate with?

Even with the leader of the Palestinian Authority--and going back for decades--the stated position has been from the Palestinians: Israel does not have the right to exist. We will push the Jews into the sea, and we will take it over.

It isn't that they just don't want Israel. It is that they don't want any Jews in Israel. They want Jews gone. They don't want Jews anywhere on the planet. There is nowhere they believe that the Jewish people have the right to exist.

And this is after 6 million Jews were murdered by Hitler?

You see, there is an ongoing genocide, if you will, because there is a group of people who still believes today that the Jews have no right to exist. This isn't just a modern phenomenon. You can go back to the days of Haman, when Haman didn't want to have the Jewish people exist, and he persuaded the king at that time to issue an edict to eliminate and exterminate all of the Jewish people.

One woman--her name was Esther--was called upon by her uncle, Mordecai, and Mordecai said to her:

Esther, could it be that you have been called to a position

for such a time as this?

Mordecai, her uncle, called upon Queen Esther, and said to the queen:

You need to go to the king, and you need to ask the king to

pardon the Jewish people from this death sentence.

Esther said to her uncle:

But if I go in to the king, I could be killed. I am not

allowed to just go in to the king. I have to wait until he

calls upon me.

That is when Mordecai infamously said to his niece, to Queen Esther:

Could it be but that you were appointed for such a time as

this?

She rose up at that moment. She had courage, and she went before the king. The king, rather than banishing her or rather than having her see the end of her life, called her in, and he asked what it was that she wanted. She made the request and interceded on behalf of the Jewish people, and, ultimately, the Jewish people were spared.

You see, Mr. Speaker, this isn't a one-off. This is throughout history--from the time of the creation of the Jewish people through Abraham and through Abraham's line. This was a God thing. He created this people. He created this race.

In the Book of Genesis, it is extremely clear:

Those who bless Israel, I will bless, says God. Those who

curse Israel, I will curse, says God.

That isn't just a one-off. It is for all time.

The United States of America, I believe--it is my opinion--has been singularly blessed by standing by the Jewish people, and on this day of remembrance of the Holocaust, we stand with Israel. We, too, remember, and we stand up against those who want to see the extermination and the annihilation of the Jewish race.

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

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 9 o'clock and 49 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, April 29, 2014, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Coach Kevin Schlagel of St. Cloud, Minnesota, upon his retirement after 40 years of service to the St. Cloud State University Men's Basketball Program.

Kevin Schlagel's dedication to Huskies basketball began when he was a player from 1972-1976 and helped bring home the Northern Intercollegiate Conference title his senior year. After 18 seasons as their top assistant coach, he was named the head coach of the Huskies during the 1997-1998 season. Under Coach Schlagel's leadership the Huskies earned a selection in the NCAA tournament eight times, and won the NCC Wells Fargo Finals Tournament twice, the NSIC Sanford Health Tournament twice, and the North Central Conference regular season title once.

In the Huskies' most prolific season ever, 2009-2010, they won a school record 29 games and made it to the NCAA Division II Final Four. After 17 years as the head coach, Kevin Schlagel is the winningest Men's Basketball coach in Huskies history with an overall record of 321-149.

Coach Schlagel is a great example of the important role that coaches play in our communities. He has been a true leader to young people, helping them develop skills that will enable them to be successful long after their last game.

Mr. Speaker, I ask this body to join me in honoring Coach Kevin Schlagel upon his successful career at St. Cloud State University.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Kansas for sponsoring this extremely important time we are taking today. It is so important because this is a law, the signature piece of the President's legislative agenda, the ObamaCare act that we are dealing with today has impacted people's lives in such a profound way.

I am reminded of the President of the United States who, five days before he assumed office, said he was planning to fundamentally transform the United States of America.

We didn't know if that was rhetorical flourish or exactly what it would mean. It has taken many forms since that time, but one thing I didn't think I would ever see in my district on the faces of beautiful, innocent people is a fundamental transformation.

But I can tell you very clearly, Madam Speaker, that I have seen a fundamental transformation in the face of a lot of women, women's faces in my district, and it is this: I am seeing them, for the first time, not be able to look me in the eye.

There is a loss of dignity. There is a sense of shame, and there is an embarrassment because there are women, Madam Speaker, who had full- time jobs who could support their families, and now, they don't have them.

They have been lost because their employer no longer can keep the full-time jobs. I have seen women who have lost their jobs altogether. I have seen women whose hours have been backed off to the extent that they can hardly afford to pay the gas to go in the car to get to work. Life has really changed for women in my district.

This isn't made up. This is real. That is the fundamental transformation, and I am sorry to say, Madam Speaker, it is not for the better. You see, we all hoped that, perhaps once this bill passed, that maybe we would be proven wrong. Maybe this bill actually would help a lot of women in our district.

I am not denying that there aren't a few people who have been helped--there are some--but what is remarkable is the number of men and women who I have met who lost health insurance, who said to me: Michele, what happened? The President promised me if I liked my plan, I could keep it. Why can't I keep it? They have said to me: Michele, I relied on my doctor.

One woman who called me was scheduled for cancer surgery. She was denied. She wasn't able to go through. The hospital canceled it. Then her doctor was changed out from under her and she was depressed. She didn't know where she could go. We spent hours on the phone to try and help find someone who could take care of her.

Then I got a call, Madam Speaker, from a female physician who said: I want you to know, in my practice, I spend 90 percent of my time speaking to my patients, diagnosing them, and giving them advice, and now I spend 50 percent of my time doing that because I have to spend 50 percent of my time filling out paperwork.

Madam Speaker, let's listen to the women of this country and fundamentally transform their lives for the better. That is why I support H.R. 2575, the Save American Workers Act.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize an extremely important person. Today marks 25 years that Kim Rubin has worked here on Capitol Hill.

In the 1980s, Kim Rubin accepted an internship with former Congressman Jack Kemp from her home State of New York. She has come a long way since then. She has been with me, I am proud to say, since day one that I served in the United States Congress.

I have never met anyone more loyal, more dependable, or more organized. Not only does Kim coordinate our office's schedule and those of our entire staff, she works diligently as our office manager.

Somehow, she still has the time and energy to be a dedicated wife to her loving husband, Howie, and also to her two beautiful daughters, Lexi and Livi. She is also a volleyball coach, and her nickname is Coach K.

As Kim says, her life is centered on faith, family, and pursuing what makes you happy. I don't know how Kim does it all, but it has been an honor to work with Kim Rubin for these past 8 years.

While we will part ways after we both retire this year, I know I will have a lifelong friend in the indomitable Kim Rubin.

Congratulations and thank you, Kim Rubin.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in celebration of National Agriculture Day. But also, today marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of a man who literally changed the world. His name is Norman Borlaug. He was born in an upstairs bedroom in northeast Iowa 100 years ago today. He went to the University of Minnesota, where he received a Ph.D. degree in plant biology.

While he was in a class dealing with plant genetics and the future options of increased food production, Norman Borlaug had that moment of divine genius. That is when he applied himself to work. And Norman Borlaug, because of 6,000 experiments in very difficult terrain, created a grain of wheat that literally changed the world.

Norman Borlaug is rightly credited with saving the lives of over 1 billion people, 1 billion people on this Earth because he dedicated his life and persevered to create strains of wheat which would grow in India, Pakistan, Africa, and places that never before could be able to uphold a grain of wheat. He did that in East Asia with rice.

Today we honor and recognize and celebrate the life of one American who did so much for 1 billion people across the world.

Well, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas for allowing me to participate in this discussion, because this really is the issue of our day.

People on a political level are talking about ObamaCare and how ObamaCare is destroying our economy. It is hurting job prospects, and it is not allowing us to move into the robust growth we would be in without ObamaCare. But it is even more fundamental; and I think the gentleman from Texas, as a judge and as a lawyer, has been laying out, really, his broken heart over what he observed today at the Supreme Court.

I share that same level of heartbrokenness because this really is the whole game. This is the whole ball of wax. Because if you look at what America was founded upon and why we were founded in the first place, it was so that we could be a free land made up of free people who are allowed to exercise our own moral conscience--and not just in the realm of belief, freedom of belief, but also freedom of speech and freedom of expression. But even one step further, it is the exercise of our religious liberties.

There was a case that the gentleman from Texas would remember. It was during the Vietnam war era. It was called Tinker v. Des Moines, and the very famous holding out of that Supreme Court decision was this: students did not have to check their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse door. Today, the Supreme Court is taking up this question: Will the American employer and will the American employee have to check their religious liberties at their church door so they can only exercise their religious faith within the confines of their religious house of worship or maybe even so far as in their home, but certainly, according to the Obama administration, not in the workplace?

Think about it for a moment. The author of the Constitution of the United States, James Madison, and the other Founders specifically wrote the Constitution and, in particular, the First Amendment to the Constitution to guarantee that it wasn't just behind closed doors in our church or behind the confines of our home that we would be entitled to religious liberty of freedom of belief and freedom of expression and walking out our faith, because isn't that what most churches and synagogues and mosques advocate during the time of worship, that we live our faith, that we don't have a dead faith but an alive faith that we practice?

This is really the key, and this is the issue. We are here in the most lively place on the planet for speech--the House of Representatives. Representative Gohmert is standing in the well. There is no other piece of real estate on this Earth that allows for greater freedom of speech and expression than right here. In fact, we are protected by law. We can't be arrested while we are coming here to cast a vote. We can't be dragged off to a court because of the speech that we enjoy here on this House floor.

Just merely steps from here, if you pass through Statuary Hall and into the rotunda--Representative Gohmert has given probably more tours of this building than any other Members of Congress, and I know when he gives that tour he points to one of the seminal paintings that hangs in the rotunda. That painting is called the ``Embarkation of the Pilgrims,'' and it shows our ancestors, the Pilgrims, as they bowed on their knees before a holy God, the Bible in front of them on their lap turned to the New Testament. And on the sail of the ship it says, ``God with us,'' hanging in the rotunda just in yonder Hall.

The Pilgrims left their surroundings not because they didn't like England and not because they didn't like Holland. They came to the United States because their religious liberties were being infringed upon. They weren't allowed to believe and act on their belief in such a way where they truly felt free.

So they came to the United States of America. That was in 1620 when the Pilgrims first came, and it wasn't until later in 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was passed, and then later in 1789, I believe, or '87 when the Constitution of the United States was passed, but the author of the Constitution, James Madison, wrote, and I just the week before last saw the First Amendment to the Constitution. It was written in James Madison's hand. I bent over and read in that beautiful calligraphy script, and James Madison scratched out the original words that he was going to put in the First Amendment. It was full toleration of religious expression, meaning we tolerate your belief. Instead, what he wrote in was ``free exercise.''

So that not only was our government saying that it is nonnegotiable, there is no negotiating away these rights. These were fundamental rights every American enjoyed just because we are Americans--freedom of religious belief and freedom of free exercise, expression of those beliefs.

That is what is on trial today before the Supreme Court. It should have never gotten there because our liberties shouldn't be up for sale. That is

part of the problem. We believe there should be equal treatment under the law for every American--Black, White, whether or not you are male, female, poor, rich--everybody should be treated equally under the law. Is that true under ObamaCare? According to the Becket Fund, they say over 100 million Americans who are politically connected to this administration are exempted or waived from some of the requirements under the Affordable Care Act. But Americans who have religious objections to providing drugs or devices that would take the life of innocent Americans, they are being denied the exercise of their religious liberties.

So just think of that: over 100 million people, whether they belong to a union or maybe they work for a university, but somehow they are politically connected to this President and this administration, they are waived, but the people who aren't politically connected, they have a different kind of justice that they have to come under. That is wrong, and that denies equal treatment under the law.

Could we talk about that?

Let's talk about the reality as an employer and an employee of how egregious this tax is.

The employers that were in front of the Supreme Court today, and there were two employers before the Supreme Court today, they could pay the tax. They could do that, and then enjoy their religious liberty. This is what the tax is: it is over $36,000 per employee per year. So we are talking about a company that has 16,000 employees. They offer a very generous health care package. The employer wants to provide health insurance for their employees. In fact, they already offer 16 different contraceptives. They just don't believe, because it violates their moral belief, that they should supply four different contraceptives because it takes the life of a innocent human being. So they fully pay for health insurance, but if this employer decided they didn't want to offer health insurance, then they would pay the government a $2,000 fine per person. So they can either choose to offer health insurance and pay over $36,000 a year, which would effectively shut the company down. They would have to go out of business.

Yes, it is very, very high, wonderful insurance that they already offer. Or they offer no insurance and they pay the government a $2,000 fine, and the employees don't get any health care, by the way. Or they can choose to violate their moral conscience. Or they can just close their doors and go out of business. This is freedom under the Obama administration? This is freedom for the American people?

I think the gentleman would agree that the supreme irony of all of this is that we have a President today who under article II is given executive power, and he has made a decision apparently that he is going also to arrogate to himself the power that is given to Congress under article I, which is to make the laws, because this President is currently making his own law, even as we speak every day. But it is also arrogating to himself the powers of article III of the judicial system when he and our Attorney General said they don't agree that the Defense of Marriage Act is a constitutional law, so they are not going to uphold it, in violation of article II, which says the President must faithfully execute the laws of the land.

So we have a President who, ironically, is taking power that wasn't granted to him, and by this law today he is taking away fundamental guaranteed rights from the American people. The President is giving himself power unconstitutionally, but he is taking away from the American people power that belongs to them.

That to me is a part of gangster government. We talked about gangster government early on when the President issued 3,400 pink slips to automobile dealerships all across America. He shut them down virtually overnight because he said so. Now we have a President who is giving a pink slip to anybody who wants to exercise their religious liberty rights.

We are here to say, Mr. Speaker, to the President of the United States--I hope he is listening--that our First Amendment rights, our Second Amendment rights, all of our rights are nonnegotiable because they are guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. That is why this matters, and that is why the gentleman from Texas is dead-on today to talk about this issue because this is it. If we lose political speech and expression and religious liberty, it is game over for the American people. It is game over.

We know exactly what they would say. Patrick Henry said:

Give me liberty or give me death.

They were willing to put their lives, their honor, their sacred fortune on the line to fight for exactly what the Obama administration has been eager to deny to the American people, which is political speech and expression, and also religious liberty. We know that is what they would do.

They would do far more than dump some boxes of tea into Boston Harbor in one of the first tea parties there is. If they thought the Tea Party was strong now, you ain't seen nothing yet, because we are going to see the American people rise up in force. They are unwilling to put duct tape willingly over their mouths. They are unwilling to put duct tape over their moral conscience. They are unwillingly to put duct tape over their hearts, to have a heart for God.

People will stand for freedom. It is written in our DNA as Americans. It is what we do for a living. We get up in the morning and we fight for liberty. It is who we are. The Obama administration can pass an unconstitutional bill, which ObamaCare is, but the American people won't stand for it. That is why we are here today in this Chamber, where we still retain free speech, to hopefully continue to give free speech and religious liberty to every American so they don't have to check their religious liberty at the doors of their church or their synagogue or their home.

Fundamentally what they are doing in this legislation, and apparently the question that the Supreme Court Justice asked today, that is what the Justice was saying. That is that you pay a fine of over $36,000 a year per employee, and then that is the price for exercising your religious liberty. So you can have religious liberty, but it is at a very steep price. Since when did it become for sale? That is the issue. That is what is

unconstitutional about this bill. No one has to pay for speech. Are we going to start charging the printing presses? What about local TV? What about bloggers and what about all of the mainstream media, usually called ``Team Obama.'' What if they have to start paying for the privilege of being able to publish? Then where would they be in their defense of the administration?

The gentleman is exactly right because if you have an international body, whether it is the U.N. or some other international body--we know that the largest bloc in the U.N. is the OIC, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. And the number one agenda item of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation is to criminalize speech, any speech that they consider as an insult to their prophet.

So we would see across the world again a silencing of freedom of speech and expression dictated in all likelihood by this large bloc at the U.N., which takes us back to religious liberty here in the United States.

As the gentleman asked in his original question, what about this idea of the government being able to tax us for religious speech? I believe that if we lose this case, this will set the precedent that the government will then be able to dictate and decide any practice that touches our religious belief.

So, for instance, if you are in a doctor's office or if you are in a counselor's office or a therapist's office, the government could conceivably then dictate to the therapist what the therapist can say or not say in that office; or likewise, a doctor, what they can say or not say.

Let's remember, again, what this is. This isn't a company imposing its beliefs on employees because employees are free to buy whatever they want to buy in health care.

This is the government. This is government censorship. This is our government forcing government's politically correct beliefs and religious ideas down the throats of every American--every American company, every American employer, every American employee.

Do we see where this is leading? It is here right now. It is government-enforced coerced speech. I want to say that again. This is government-enforced coerced speech--speech and religious practice.

Now, the Federal Government is going to have the power to force you and me and everyone listening to us today, the government gets to choose, the government gets to decide what our speech is, what our religious expression is. That is not America.

You see, that is it. That is the entire game right there. That is why I say it is game over if we lose on this issue. That is how central and important the issue is that the gentleman from Texas is bringing up today.

The gentleman is absolutely correct because in that statement lies the premise. The premise that the justice is embracing is that you don't have a guaranteed right to religious expression and to religious thought; you don't have that right. That is our right. We will sell it. The only question at this point is how much and can you afford it.

Now, for people who are poor people, will the government be subsidizing them so that they can buy their indulgence from the government?

Is that what it will be? We have to buy indulgences from the government now?

Protection money.

That is why I call it a gangster government. It is a gangster government when you have to buy protection from your own government. In this instance, it is over $36,000 per year, per employee.

In fact, the fine is in excess of what the wage is for some of the employees that are being provided full generous health insurance.

And can I tell you at what price?

This is how inexpensive it is. This doesn't deny any employee to go out and purchase a drug that would kill their child in the womb.

You can purchase it at one retailer for $4 a month and another retailer--all of these retailers are widely available across the United States--for $9 a month, so this is well within the grasp of any employee.

The one employer from Oklahoma that you mentioned pays a starting wage of over $14 an hour. There is a lot of Americans listening right now who would love to have a job at $14 an hour--in fact, I think it is $14.61 per hour, I think that is their starting wage--plus very generous health insurance benefits.

So why in the world would the Obama administration deny to 16,000 employees scattered across the United States potentially their job, their livelihood? It is either you agree with our administration's view of religion and morality or you forfeit your company.

This is a pretty big deal. This is about as big as it gets. This to me shows a stunning arrogance of power by the Obama administration, that they would force people to give up and yield their religious liberty and freedom of expression rights or pay for that right.

In fines, in fines to the government, and nobody gives anything. In fact, you give up the health insurance you have today. That is why people are so upset, and rightly so, across the country because more people have lost health insurance, we are told, than have gained health insurance under ObamaCare.

Again, all across my district--I am sure you have the same stories, it breaks your heart--people whose deductibles quadrupled, people whose premiums quadrupled if they still have insurance. This is real.

Then you have got the spectre, as the Becket Fund said, of over 100 million Americans who are politically well connected enough to this administration under what I call gangster government that they were able to be waived out of the ObamaCare requirements.

Does that mean that they get to exercise their religious liberties, but if you are a business that has, what, Christian-held beliefs, then you are going to lose those beliefs?

This is insanity. We have to have freedom in this country, and we have to have equal application of justice under the law. That is who we are. It is a good thing. It is what builds us up. That is worth fighting for.

Well, remember that the tax to express your religious beliefs is $36,500 per employee. The tax is $2,000 per employee if you decide you are not going to purchase health insurance, so it is extremely expensive.

I think the gentleman is raising an excellent point because to where do the people of this country repair? If we have a President who many believe is no longer following the Constitution of the United States under article II with the limitations of power or if we look at the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court justices themselves are not rendering opinions that are within the Constitution of the United States, what do the people do?

The Constitution provides for impeachment for justices. There is impeachment provided for the President of the United States. That is an option, but those are options of last resort.

I think what we are trying to do is appeal to the justices, to think of the people, think of the oath they took to the Constitution. Don't consider that, every time you meet in the Supreme Court, that you are in a new open constitutional convention.

It isn't a constitutional convention where the justices have a free pen and a phone, so to speak, and can rewrite the Constitution.

We are appealing to the justices to limit themselves under the Constitution and observe that the First Amendment has been ironclad since James Madison wrote it.

We are here on this floor today saying we stand with James Madison, we stand with the people of this country, and we are not, for one moment, going to allow anyone to attack any American's religious liberties and freedoms.

Did she say the $2,000 or $36,500?

What she was saying is: Don't provide health insurance for your employees. Just push your employees out in the cold. They can sit on the curb. They won't have employer-sponsored insurance--which, by the way, has zero tax consequence to the employee. They have no tax consequences.

Under ObamaCare, every American is forced to buy a product whether they want it or not, even if they can't necessarily afford it. So then people now under ObamaCare have to go buy a product that the government dictates to them they have to buy at a price that the government dictates that they have to pay. So either they get health insurance with no tax consequence or they have to buy their health insurance with after-tax income, money that they have already paid taxes on. Now they are going to get double-hurt under ObamaCare.

So, what the President wins, the American people lose. That is our choice. The President wins; the American people lose--financially, freedom, most importantly in this case, religious liberty, and that is not acceptable under our constitutional guarantee of liberty.

I don't care who it is, because the Magna Carta taught King John at Runnymede that no man is above the law, especially the King, because that is who you have to worry about. It is no different in the United States of America. No man is to be above the law, including the President of the United States. He can't just change a law with the stroke of a pen or with a telephone call. He's not allowed to under our system of justice, but he also is not within his power to deny anyone their religious liberty rights.

I was here in the Chamber with the gentleman. I saw and observed exactly what you said, that our colleagues across the aisle stood up and applauded. That is a constitutional crisis. As we are having this discussion today, we are in the midst of a constitutional crisis with a President who is aggregating to himself powers that are not constitutionally his. He is rendering also, taking away and denying constitutional liberties to the American people in terms of freedom of speech, expression, and religious liberty.

It is interesting, too, with all due respect to our colleagues across the aisle, they are applauding becoming dinosaurs when the President of the United States decides that he will also be Congress and he will also write the laws.

Thank you very much. I don't need your help. I am going to do what I want to do.

Why in the world would any Member of this body who has an election certificate applaud that now they get to become a dinosaur? Now they are no longer relevant. We might as well dispense with the cost of elections altogether and go home and revert to what King George III wanted in the first place, which is a total and complete and absolute government with one person calling all the shots. That isn't our form of government.

She also fails to understand that the Federal Government again is practicing censorship and that the Federal Government is the one forcing its vision of morality and religious belief on every American. Again, that is government-enforced coercive speech and morality and religious expression. That is also contained in that remarkable premise of the Supreme Court Justice.

Sixteen thousand employees of one company.

By the way, isn't it true, if the gentleman recalls, that while this Supreme Court Justice was just advocating, in a flippant way, drop health insurance coverage for over 16,000 employees, doesn't that same Supreme Court Justice enjoy Federal employee health insurance? And isn't that same Supreme Court Justice protected from not going into ObamaCare?

It seems to me that our President is not in ObamaCare nor are the Supreme Court Justices in ObamaCare. It seems to me that there is a shield of protection for them. It is good enough for the American people to suffer under ObamaCare, but I don't believe our President or the Supreme Court Justices have to be in ObamaCare.

I would like to share my experience with it, because as Members of Congress we were forced to go into ObamaCare. The only exchange we were allowed to go in was the one here in Washington, D.C. It is called a small business link. The only small business is Congress, the government. We are the ones put in.

Just for the record, my own individual premium increased for the same number of people in our family that we would have to cover. Our premium was scheduled to increase times four. So we would have had to increase our premium by four times, and our deductible was quadrupled. That also went up four times. So there was no Affordable Care Act in our family. It is an extremely unaffordable health insurance act.

I would be curious to know if the Supreme Court Justices would voluntarily put themselves in ObamaCare so they, too, could know the pleasure of what it is to pay four times more for the same health insurance than my family paid last year.

That is exactly right. That is government-enforced coercion on religious belief. It varies at caprice and whim. That is one thing under the rule of law that has been a pillar of American exceptionalism, the fact that under the rule of law there is certainty for the American people. If you look at the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, you knew with certainty when you woke up tomorrow morning that your religious liberties were intact. Now, apparently, today, the gentleman was in the Chamber and heard that, according to at least one Supreme Court Justice, in her opinion, they aren't so certain anymore.

It is not only the election of the Court, but at the election of the unnamed bureaucrat who decides today we will have these killer drugs that we mandate. Tomorrow what drugs will they take off the list? Will I not get lifesaving drugs that I would need to get? Will I not get lifesaving treatments that I thought I was going get? Will the bureaucrats decide that only politically connected best friends of the administration get certain surgical procedures or get to see the best doctors? We don't know, because apparently the Supreme Court has decided that the bureaucracy must be fully imbued with all power.

That means again that the President and his administration wins their religious liberty and the right to force their religious views down the throats of the American people. While the President wins, the American people lose, and they lose under the protections of the Constitution. It is unlike anything we have ever seen before in the history of the United States of America. It is a seminal day in Washington, D.C., and it is why the American people better wake up really quickly and watch what is happening, because we are living in a country we no longer recognize. It is being rewritten by unelected bureaucrats. It is being rewritten by Supreme Court Justices who apparently think that the

amendments in the Constitution are optional rather than mandatory.

I thank the gentlelady from Missouri for hosting this important discussion because nothing could be more important and more basic to every American than standing on the principle of our First Amendment rights of speech and religious expression.

You know, it was very interesting, just the week before last we had an expert on James Madison speaking to us, and he wrote a book about Madison. Madison is the author of our First Amendment, and we had the document in Madison's own handwriting where he had his First Amendment. James Madison crossed out the word ``full toleration'' when it came to religious liberties, and instead he inserted not just belief but also the free exercise, the acting of our beliefs. This is what America is about. We are standing here in the well of the House of Representatives, the most important forum for freedom of speech in the world, and just beyond the double doors of this Chamber lies the rotunda, and in the rotunda is a painting of the Pilgrims, and the Pilgrims are on their knees before they come to the United States. It is the ``Embarkation of the Pilgrims.'' They have open before them a copy of the Bible, the Geneva Bible, turned to the New Testament. And why was it that the Pilgrims came to the United States? They searched for religious freedom and toleration.

One thing that the bill that will be before the Supreme Court tomorrow addresses is this issue: will toleration be a two-way street? I think it is. Toleration should not be just the government-enforced coercion of government's beliefs on every American, because that is what is happening in a family business, for the Green family with Hobby Lobby or the Hahn family with Conestoga. This is the government enforcing its beliefs down the

throats of two family-owned businesses, and what is at stake is not just the rights of the people who own the business. What about the rights of those who work in the business, the employees? They also have moral rights and protections. These businesses pay very good wages and they offer very good benefits to their employees. So here is what we are being looking at: either the business pays over $36,000 a year per employee for the price of standing up for their moral beliefs, or they have to give up health insurance altogether for their employees and pay the government a $2,000 fine per employee. Who, I ask you, benefits? That is dealing with a case that is coming before the court tomorrow.

An even more fundamental issue is at stake, and it is this: here we are, Representatives of the United States Congress, and we are having to fight President Obama on whether or not we can retain our constitutional rights and liberties. That is what is at stake.

We are standing here for the Constitution. We are standing here for every man and every woman in the United States that agrees with those rights. This is a discussion worth having. I thank the Speaker. I thank the gentlelady from Missouri. Tomorrow is an extremely important day, and I thank God for all of the wonderful Members of Congress who are standing up for these important issues. They are not negotiable. They are not for sale at any price.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Dan ``Ox'' Ochsner for more than a

decade of work as a radio host in St. Cloud, MN.

Originally from Fargo, ND, Ox began his radio career in 1991 as a rock DJ out of Fergus Falls. He's come a long way since then, now hosting an afternoon show on weekdays in St. Cloud with popularity in the Twin Cities and here in D.C.

He's not only an on-air personality and radio entrepreneur. Ox and his wife, Jan, have made an effort to stay involved and connected in the community. His involvement with Jaycees, Sertoma, Chamber of Commerce and the Boy Scouts haven't gone unnoticed. The St. Cloud Times named him one of the top 40 most influential people of the decade (2000-2010).

As I continue on in my final year in the House of Representatives, I look back with appreciation and respect for the people of the 6th District. One of those special people is Dan Ochsner. With a personality as fiery as his hair, he can always be counted on to provide a humorous take on current events to the people of central Minnesota.

There are few people kinder, funnier, and more genuine than Ox. It's an honor to represent a district in the halls of Congress with talented individuals like Dan. The 6th District of Minnesota is lucky to call Dan Ochsner one of their own.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Huelskamp for sponsoring this important topic this evening on National Marriage Week.

It is fitting and proper that we would set aside this period of 1 hour to focus on the institution that is the fundamental grounding institution of the United States of America. There are various units of government. We, here, are in the well of the greatest deliberative body that the world has ever known, the House of Representatives. That is at the Federal Government level. We have 50 State governments here in the United States. We have numerous county governments and numerous cities across the United States, but the fundamental institution, the fundamental unit of government is the family unit, and the family unit begins with husband and wife.

Mr. Speaker, this isn't a creation of the Republican Party. Marriage isn't a creation of Western civilization or of the United States of America. Marriage, as an institution, was created by none other than the Creator of mankind itself, a Holy God, the God of the Bible, and it is stated very clearly in the book of Genesis that after God created man and woman, He then created the institution of marriage, and He created it for a very simple reason: it is because God had a plan for man in the future, and that was through the propagation of the human race.

So as we are here talking about marriage this evening, my colleagues who will be joining us on this floor, we are here not to condemn anyone. My parents were married and then were divorced and then were remarried again, and that is a story that is repeated not just in America but in families across the world.

We are here not to condemn tonight because even though God creates an institution like marriage, and even though men and women can mess up and not necessarily fulfill what God had hoped for--God says He hates divorce, but it does happen--God is also the god of a second chance, and He gives people that opportunity, once again, to go back into a relationship.

So an institution that is meant for our good, it is one that, in fact, has been for good. It is good for man, good for woman, but most of all, good for the children that come from that union.

My husband and I are thankful that we have been blessed with five biological children. We have been privileged to serve as foster parents to 23 wonderful foster children. But you see, Mr. Speaker, without the umbrella and the protective element of marriage, that is the greatest security blanket that any child could ever know, to know that in their life, there is a mom or there is a dad that is crazy about them.

Many, many women raise children on their own in this country. Many men are raising children on their own. But we know that it is this fundamental institution of marriage that is the bedrock institution of this land, and so we are here tonight, as imperfect and filled with mistakes as we are--again, not condemning. We are here to lift up and support and encourage this wonderful gift given to us by the Creator but given to us for our good and for the building up of this country.

Well, it really is something, and we had seen another couple in our church that were serving as foster parents. That is really what induced us to take on foster parenting. Our hearts broke when we saw the lives of some of these kids, and we knew we weren't perfect people. We knew we didn't have the perfect marriage, but we thought we could offer something into the lives of these kids.

One thing my husband said is, every child needs to know that at least one person is committed to them and at least one person is crazy about them. It isn't to take away from the foster children's biological parents. Families go through rough patches. Families have challenges. Marriages have challenges. Nothing is perfect, and we are not standing up here saying any of us are perfect because we aren't, but what we do know is that a perfect God created a pretty good institution, and that is marriage, and that is the one thing that we felt that we could offer to our foster children.

We are an example of two very imperfect people in an imperfect home, but we were able to offer that model of what God had created, and that is bringing man and woman together, because we each, we are two whole people, but when we come together in marriage, we are stronger than two people together. So it is a very unique, three-stranded cord.

So I thank you for this opportunity.

I would say think about it. It is not for everyone. But if you don't think you can do it--we didn't before we were foster parents. We took in one child, a beautiful girl. We took her from a homeless shelter, and we had the experience. It was good. We got a phone call from an agency, would we take another? We thought, okay, we will take another. And then we got a phone call, would we take another? And we took another. We got a phone call, would we take another? At that point, we didn't have enough places around the dining room table, so we blew out a wall and made the dining room bigger. And we just kept taking children into our home.

What we found--it was amazing. What I would say to parents is you will be amazed how your heart can expand. And it is all good, so I just encourage people to consider being foster parents.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for recognizing me for 30 minutes to speak on a topic, no matter where I go or what I speak on or if I am being interviewed somewhere, I am not the only one, it is other Members of Congress, too. This isn't a Republican issue. This is a bipartisan issue that Republicans and Democrats, Mr. Speaker, confront wherever we go across the United States. I think that it has to do with the fact that Americans cannot countenance the fact that, when we had people who are serving us in harm's way, it appears that the United States of America, in one of the rarest occasions that anyone can recall, wasn't there for those who were serving us on foreign lines.

What I am speaking of, Mr. Speaker, is the night of September 11, 2012, what is known as ``Benghazi.'' People still say to us, Mr. Speaker--again, Republicans and Democrats alike, because this is clearly a bipartisan issue. They say to us, when will we get the definitive report on Benghazi? When will we get some answers on what happened on that night, September 11, 2012? Because no American citizen should go and serve her country and not be protected by the Nation that sent her there.

Those who were killed that evening: Ambassador Chris Stevens, the first American ambassador to be killed in 30 years in the line of duty; Sean Smith, who was there that evening with our ambassador; and then also two men who gave their lives trying to protect our ambassador, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods. They weren't on the scene very long when they finally arrived in Benghazi.

The Senate intelligence report that came out said that perhaps 15 minutes had lapsed by the time they arrived on the scene until they were murdered by a sophisticated mortar fire on the roof of the annex.

Well, let's go back a little bit, Mr. Speaker. Let's take a look of what we know to be true so far.

We have had two reports that have been issued. One is from the Senate Intelligence Committee. I commend every American to go to the Senate Intelligence Committee Web site and download that report, read it for yourself, share it with your friends, share it with your family, and you will be shocked at what you find in these findings.

The media didn't pick it up. The report came out, it is true. It was reported in the media, it is true, that there had been a report, but what the findings said about the lack of management and the lack of accountability coming out of the White House and the State Department, quite literally coming to the very doorstep of the President of the United States and of the Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is shocking, and shocking is the fact that to this day there have virtually been no firings at the State Department for what happened at Benghazi, despite the fact of the report that was issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee and despite the fact that this week the House Foreign Affairs Committee issued another report after another investigation of what occurred at Benghazi. You see, there was a report, Mr. Speaker, that was issued prior to this one. It was the Benghazi Accountability Review Board.

It is very curious that this Benghazi Accountability Review Board failed to interview the senior-most decisionmakers in the Department of State. The facility in Benghazi, the compound where Chris Stevens and Sean Smith lost their lives, that particular compound is managed by the State Department; it is run by the State Department.

I would like to go over some of the findings this evening. In the minutes that we have together, I would like to go over some of the findings that were issued in this report. As I urge my fellow citizens in the United States to go to the Senate Intelligence Committee and read the damming report and the conclusions of that report, I also encourage my fellow citizens to go to the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs and download the report that was just issued this week also on Benghazi. The report is entitled, Mr. Speaker, Benghazi: Where is the State Department Accountability? Majority Staff Report, House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is a Representative from the State of California, Mr. Ed Royce. Mr. Ed Royce said in September of 2013, the State Department cannot have a culture of accountability if no one, literally no one, is held accountable for the mismanagement and poor leadership of the Accountability Review Board it self-identified. In other words, a report which, in my mind, Mr. Speaker, was woefully inadequate in investigating Benghazi, what we will call the ARB, the Accountability Review Board, even that report said there were deficiencies in accountability at the State Department. We know there was woeful inadequacy, and this is something that has to be addressed.

I call on members of the media, Wake up. Take a look at what the American people want to know, and that is answers, answers about what led up to the night of September 11, 2013, in Benghazi. Were there alerts? Were there reports? Did we have any idea that this tragedy was going to occur? Absolutely we do. That is what this report shows from the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

What happened that night? What did the President of the United States do? Why is it that the media has absolutely no curiosity when it comes to where the President of the United States was that evening when the battle ensued? It actually wasn't evening. In Washington, D.C., it was 3:40 in the afternoon.

In the election that occurred in 2008, there were two Democrat candidates. There was Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama who were vying to become the nominee of the Democrat Party. One particular commercial was aired by Hillary Rodham Clinton. It was famously called ``the 3 a.m. commercial,'' and the question that the ad asked is: Who would be the person that you want to answer the phone at 3 in the morning if a call comes for a tragedy?--inferring a foreign policy tragedy.

Well, the call did come, unfortunately, tragically, but it didn't come at 3 in the morning. It came at 3 in the afternoon. To be precise, Mr. Speaker, that call came in at 3:40 in the afternoon from a desperate security officer in Benghazi inside the U.S. compound who picked up the phone and made a call to the desk that he was to report to. That call immediately was transferred to the appropriate channels. Literally, Mr. Speaker, within minutes of the attack on the compound in Benghazi the President of the United States was informed not only that our American compound was under attack in what can only be called one of the greatest hellholes of the world, but he was also informed that our ambassador went missing and other Americans, as well.

What would a Commander in Chief do? What did our Commander in Chief do? I don't know. As a Member of Congress, I don't know where our Commander in Chief was that night. I don't

know as a Member of Congress what our Commander in Chief was doing that night.

I do know, again, in 2008 Hillary Rodham Clinton said she would be the individual who should appropriately take that call. She was the Secretary of State at that time on September 11, 2012. Where was the Secretary of State? She was here in Washington, D.C. What did she do when that phone call came in? She has testified before the United States Congress and answered questions.

But let's take and review again, for the few moments that we have, what this report states about that infamous evening. To understand anything this tragic, Mr. Speaker, we need to understand the context of the time. That is what this report begins to lay out, the context.

We know that in 2011, in May, our brave United States Special Forces took out the menace and the head of the al Qaeda organization, Osama Bin Laden. We are extremely grateful for the work that they did.

But despite that blow to al Qaeda's network, al Qaeda wasn't done, and al Qaeda still isn't done today. Al Qaeda's influence continued to spread, and it spread well beyond Afghanistan and well beyond Pakistan. It had spread into the area of northern Africa.

There is a disturbing trend that occurred in Libya. There was a concern led by our President of the United States, Barack Obama. He stated that the United States needed to unilaterally go in to Libya and begin bombing.

The leader of Libya was a man named Muammar Qadhafi. He had been the head of Libya for a number of years. He is not a good actor. He is not someone that the United States would consider a friend. As a matter of fact, we had discovered that Qadhafi was hoping to start a nuclear program in Libya. Events ensued and that program was stopped.

Qadhafi changed his ways, so to speak, and Qadhafi actually became a partner in fighting the global war on terror and was, in fact, jailing Islamic terrorists in parts of Libya. Qadhafi was acting in this manner, and yet at that time, President Obama felt that he needed to go in and bomb Qadhafi.

I severely disagreed with President Obama at the time, Mr. Speaker. This was the wrong action for the United States to take. President Obama didn't come to this body. He didn't seek permission from the United States Congress to declare war on Libya, Libya which had not declared war on the United States. But President Obama literally sent in United States airplanes and began bombing Libya.

At the time, Mr. Speaker, I was running to become President of the United States. At that time, I stated I was unalterably opposed to President Obama's policy. We should not be bombing in Libya, Mr. Speaker. That is what I said at the time. Why? Because we already knew that, especially in the eastern part of Libya, this was the number one area where people were recruited, terrorists were recruited, to come and kill American soldiers in Iraq. This was also training grounds and training camps for al Qaeda and other terrorist forces in eastern Libya.

You see, Mr. Speaker, if President Obama went forward--I said at the time--and bombed Libya and created instability, the question would be: Who would take over for Muammar Qadhafi? Who would fill the leadership void? The only competing power structure was of terrorist forces. Arguably--I said at the time, Mr. Speaker--we could even conceivably see al Qaeda come in to fill the void.

Libya is a nation that is not a poor nation. They have oil revenues that finance that country. I was there recently, speaking with the prime minister and with the head of the justice ministry and also with the foreign affairs ministry. This is a nation that has a great deal of infrastructure, particularly in the Tripoli area, and there are revenues that have come in.

So, if the United States were to go in, as President Obama wanted to do and did, in fact, do in Libya, we could see that there would be bombing, destabilization and that there would be a fight for power. We could see terrorist elements come in, those elements that would be in line with the goals and objectives of al Qaeda, and we could see oil revenues used and go into the pockets of those engaged in terror in order to continue to finance global terrorist activities.

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, this is exactly what has happened in this region. That is what President Obama's foreign policy in Libya led to-- to terrorists being on the march--and that is the context of the time that led up to that infamous night, September 11, 2012.

In that disturbing trend that was occurring in Libya after a near total collapse after President Obama's ill-timed and unfortunate bombing in Libya, in June of 2012, there were nearly 1,000 Islamist militants who had converged on the courthouse in downtown Benghazi. They came in one night with 150 to 200 vehicles. For 2 days, they had a rally that was sponsored by the terrorist organization known as Ansar al-Sharia. This was in June of 2012, just a few months before September 11.

After this major rally that occurred and also in June of 2012, an improvised explosive device--what we call an ``IED''--blew a hole in the wall that surrounded this very same compound where Chris Stevens was tragically murdered on September 11. So, in June, there was a terrorist explosion that occurred just months before the attack on our compound, but that was the second explosion and attack that occurred on our compound. That was the second attack on that compound.

Did we have notice? We absolutely had notice prior to that time with that second attack.

Elsewhere in Benghazi, the United Kingdom--our closest ally and intelligence English-speaking partner--shuttered their office. Their staff withdrew after a rocket-propelled grenade attacked the British Ambassador's convoy and two security officers were injured. It wasn't just the U.K. that pulled out of Benghazi, Mr. Speaker. The United Nations pulled out, and the International Red Cross pulled out. The U.S. flag was one of the only Western flags that remained flying in Benghazi.

Did we know? Did Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton know? Did President Barack Obama know that Benghazi was in a terribly precarious state leading up to his reelection in the fall of 2012? Absolutely, they knew what a precarious situation this was, because it was our U.S. intelligence agencies that did their jobs.

What have the investigations shown? U.S. intelligence agencies did their jobs. They extensively warned not only President Obama but also Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that there was a deteriorating security environment in eastern Libya, including the expanding operation of al Qaeda in that region and that it mounted a significant risk to United States' personnel and to United States' facilities.

You see, this is the first question that needs to be addressed:

Did the President of the United States know this was a volatile situation? The answer is, undoubtedly, ``yes.''

Did Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have ample warning? Did she know that this was a real concern that Benghazi could potentially be under attack? The answer is, without a doubt, absolutely, yes, she did.

As a matter of fact, it was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, herself, who stated in testimony before Congress that she well understood and was certainly aware of this reporting by our intelligence community as well as the fact that extremists claiming to be affiliated with al Qaeda were active in the area in Benghazi. Still, after the United Kingdom pulled out and left, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the decision that the United States would remain. After the United Nations pulled out, Secretary of State Clinton made the decision the United States would remain. After the International Red Cross pulled out, Secretary of State Clinton made the decision the United States and our Ambassador would stay and remain in a facility that was not secure to vulnerable attacks.

As a matter of fact, the United States taxpayers paid for hundreds of analytical reports that were done and completed by our intelligence services that provided strategic warning that militias and terrorists and affiliated groups had not only the capacity but the intent to strike the United States and Western facilities and personnel in Libya. They could, in fact, do that. In

fact, we even had a report that was entitled in June of 2012: ``Libya terrorists now targeting U.S. and Western interests.''

Could we have been any more clear? Could the Intelligence Committee have been any more clear? They issued a bulletin to our President and to our Secretary of State, ``Libya terrorists now targeting U.S. and Western interests,'' and still they made the decision that our vulnerable facility would remain open.

What happened?

Before and after these attacks, a lieutenant colonel in our military named Andrew Wood appealed to Washington for added security in Benghazi. He knew. He was a military man. Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Wood led a U.S. military team. He asked for supplemental diplomatic security in Libya, and he recommended that the State Department consider pulling out of Benghazi altogether after the U.K. left and the U.N. left and the International Red Cross left--but his warnings weren't heeded. In fact, tragically, his warnings went unheeded.

Despite the growing danger in Libya, State Department officials in Washington denied the request made by Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Wood. When Andrew Wood said that we should get out of Benghazi, he was told no. He said, If we are going to stay in Benghazi, at least add more security. Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Wood was denied. He was told, No, we are not going to give you more security in Benghazi. In fact, they took away security in Benghazi. This was after the compound was attacked with an IED explosive device. This was after a rocket- propelled grenade was fired at the British Ambassador's convoy and the U.K. left and the International Red Cross left.

Numerous incidents--in fact, 16 different terror incidents--occurred in 2012. Despite the pleas from the military for more security, Secretary of State Clinton, as the Secretary of State, did not give in to those requests. The President of the United States did not give in to the requests for additional security, and yet our Ambassador remained on that infamous night of September 11, 2012, without adequate security. It was a tragic loss of life, I believe a preventable loss of life.

What is even worse from that consequence, if there can be anything worse than this loss of life, is that that very action emboldened America's enemies. Our adversaries saw what we did. In the midst of this heightened terrorist activity, they saw we did nothing to protect our Ambassador. When they killed our Ambassador that night, they saw exactly how the United States responded. We did not have military on the ground.

I am not faulting our military. Mr. Speaker, what I am faulting and what I am suggesting is that the President of the United States and the Secretary of State, despite ample warning, did not put the United States military on high alert in this volatile region. What other region of the Earth besides Afghanistan would have had this level of violence on that particular night, especially after there were already protests going on in nearby Cairo and especially after threats had been made by terrorists of retaliatory actions in the Libya region?

It is shocking to me, Mr. Speaker--shocking--that the President of the United States, despite this knowledge, failed to do anything in response to the pleas for additional security or, at a minimum, pull our Ambassador out of that region. Yes, we have answers. We have answers, and we still have more questions.

Committee members on the Foreign Affairs Committee demanded that appropriate State Department officials be held accountable for these decisions, as they rightly should, so that these mistakes wouldn't be repeated, yet neither the White House nor the State Department has stepped up to the responsibility. Instead, the accountability review board, which did the first review, was seriously deficient. It failed to even comment on the actions of our Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or of the most senior officials in the State Department.

Now, why is this? Could it be because Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, herself, selected four out of the five review members?

You see, isn't it convenient, Mr. Speaker, when it is our Secretary of State who gets to decide who sits on her own accountability review board, overlooking the actions of what happened on that infamous night? She selected four out of the five who sat on that phony review board.

Those are my words, no one else's.

So, when she is selecting four out of five of those who are going to review potentially her actions, is it any wonder then, Mr. Speaker, that this accountability review board, if that is what you want to call it, decided: ``We don't think that we will even interview Secretary of State Clinton. We don't think we need to talk to her. We don't think we need to talk to any of the senior decisionmakers in the State Department. Oh, no.'' So they chose to bypass even interviewing those who were the decisionmakers.

Mr. Speaker, that sounds a lot to me like the IRS, after this terrible scandal that is going on in the IRS. Where they appear to be, in a corrupt manner, trying to deny to conservative tea party organizations their tax-exempt status, the IRS also decided not to interview any of the victims.

How can you have an investigation of the IRS when they don't even interview the victims? How can you have an accountability review board if you don't even interview the decisionmakers in the State Department, including the Secretary of State and her top advisors?

This is embarrassing, if it weren't even more tragic, because, again, we are talking about the unprecedented loss of life of four Americans, including our Ambassador.

Secretary of State Clinton, herself, championed the United States' going into Libya going back to as early as 2011. She testified before the committee that she was engaged in the issues relating to the deteriorating threat environment in Libya.

That is pretty interesting, Mr. Speaker. You see, both Hillary Rodham Clinton--the Secretary of State--and President Obama believed that the United States of America unilaterally needed to go into Libya and start bombing.

That was their agreed-upon decision, and when the chips were down and when the threat environment was deteriorating in Libya and Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Wood said, Hey, we've got a problem here in Benghazi and we've got to either pull out or we have to have more security, the Secretary of State and those who serve under her don't heed those warnings. Not only do they not pull out of Benghazi, but they don't give the increased security that was required to keep the Americans who were serving us safe. When they do that, then that is a problem.

What is an additional problem, Mr. Speaker, is the fact that at the State Department not one employee was fired or even missed a paycheck over what happened in Benghazi. I would imagine, Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of Americans that don't know that; that despite this tragedy, despite this lack of accountability, of anyone being held responsible-- Oh, yes, we heard that there were four people who were going to lose their jobs. My foot, Mr. Speaker. Four people didn't lose their jobs at the State Department. Two were reassigned, one retired, and another one had another similar situation. No one was fired. No one even missed a paycheck.

What we need to do, Mr. Speaker, is listen to the good commonsense of the American people who are demanding answers.

What in the world happened in this lead-up before Benghazi?

We need to hold the Secretary of State and the President accountable for what they knew and why they failed to make the important commonsense decisions that any Commander in Chief should make.

We need to ask that second question, What in the world was the President of the United States doing that night when the attack happened in Benghazi? For over 8 hours, Americans were under attack and no one came to their aid or assistance, other than those who were at the annex who came and were willing to lay down their lives, and those who came from Tripoli. It took them hours and hours, but they were finally able to come to assist their comrades in arms.

Then also the third question that needs to be addressed, Mr. Speaker, is

this: What happened after that night in Benghazi? Why did Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, why did President Barack Obama continue to force the false fiction that there was a video that no one saw was the cause for a spontaneous outbreak that led to the deaths of these four Americans in Benghazi?

We have listened to people who were on the ground in Benghazi. They stated overwhelmingly that this attack was not spontaneous. It was planned. Yet for weeks afterwards, the President of the United States, as late as September 25, when he went to the United Nations, made a statement--this was after four Americans were killed--the President of the United States said this at the U.N.:

The future does not belong to those who insult the prophet.

Those were his words.

We need to get answers. Again, I encourage the American people, Mr. Speaker, to read this valuable report issued this week on Benghazi by the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the House of Representatives.

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 3 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until Friday, February 14, 2014, at 2 p.m.

Mr. Speaker, during rollcall vote 54, on the vote on Passage of H.R. 2954--The Public Access and Lands Improvement Act, I was away from the House floor and intended to vote ``aye.''

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Speaker for allowing me this 1 hour to talk on some very important subjects that are facing the Nation. We deal with economic issues. We deal with the health care crisis in our country. And Americans right now, as they are watching us on this floor this evening, wonder if they will have a job tomorrow. So many Americans right now are looking at part-time jobs rather than full-time jobs. This is changing their lives, and it is changing what they thought the future would hold for them.

Mr. Speaker, I want to assure the American people that it is not over. Hold on. We know that better days could be ahead. Why? Because economics can change; economic policies can change. And unfortunately, what we have seen coming out of the Obama White House, the economic policies have led to Americans not having the number of hours that they need to be able to provide for their families. They haven't led to the wage increases that they had hoped that they would be able to see.

As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, very disturbing information has come forward that nearly $4,000 in a reduction of income has occurred, on average, to American households. From the time President Obama first came into office in 2008, the average median household income was something like almost $4,000 more in 2007 than it is today in 2014.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I don't know how anyone could see that that is good news or that that is a good deal because with inflation and inflationary values--we all know, Mr. Speaker, that people pay more for gasoline today in 2014 than they did back in 2007. We know that people pay far more today for groceries, Mr. Speaker, in 2014 than they did in 2007. So what the American people need is relief, relief from these inflation-pushed high prices on the American people.

That is why the report that came out on Friday regarding the Keystone pipeline was so important. It confirmed what numerous other studies had already told us before, and it is this:

The Keystone pipeline will not increase carbon emissions here in the United States. It is completely safe. And for the good of the United States of America, for the good of our environment, for the good of job creation, for the good of wage increases in the United States, we should have built Keystone and the pipeline and increased American energy production years ago.

We have the chance now. And so, Mr. Speaker, I call on the Obama administration to implement what the recent State Department report issued on Friday, and it is this: that we can safely go ahead and build the Keystone pipeline.

But I think we need to go much further than that, Mr. Speaker. I think that it would behoove not only this House of Representatives but also the United States Senate and the President of the United States to unify and agree on something that would be so good for all Americans-- young and old, rich and poor, Black and White, Latinos--all elements of the United States. We should unite on growing our economy and growing prosperity for the average American. And we can do this, Mr. Speaker, by engaging in an all-of-the-above energy policy whereby we legalize all forms of energy and, in fact, encourage exploration and growth, because we have reports that are issued every single year that come to the same conclusion year after year after year: of all the countries in the world--there are well over 100 countries in the world, and of all the countries in the world, our own government tells us every year in a report that it is the United States of America that has been singularly blessed.

Blessed how, Mr. Speaker? Blessed with an abundance of natural energy resources. Whether it is oil--the United States is blessed with more oil than Saudi Arabia--or whether it is natural gas--the United States of America is blessed with trillions of cubic square feet of natural gas--every day, Mr. Speaker, our scientists and our explorers find more and more of these wonderful natural resources: oil, natural

gas, and coal. And because of the genius of the scientists in the United States, we have cleaner options than ever before to use this fundamental source of energy which is the number one source of energy in the United States, and that is coal.

In my home State of Minnesota, we see that there is a propane crisis. The people in my district are severely curtailed from using this energy resource. And there is also a scarcity of the product as well. I spoke with one individual today on the plane when I was coming in who told me that he was so happy. His mother locked in at about $1.30 a gallon on propane, and he said there are reports propane could go up to over $6 a gallon, perhaps even $7, before the harshest winter in decades in Minnesota and other parts of America, as well, is over.

Let's help the American people's lives, Mr. Speaker. Let's not make life more difficult for the average American. Let's make life better. And we can do that very simply by engaging in an all-of-the-above American energy strategy, whereby, literally millions of high-paying jobs would come online.

Since President Obama came into office, we have seen the average median household income go down, not freeze or stay the same, but actually go down, go down by nearly $4,000. And, in fact, the average median income of the average American, they now see that their income is 8 percent less today than it was 7 years ago. Rather than that being our story, let's change the narrative, Mr. Speaker. Let's change it for a positive, happy ending for the American people so that when they go to their local gas stations, rather than gas being in excess of $3 a gallon or in some parts of this country over $4 a gallon, let's bring that price down, Mr. Speaker, so that it could be $2 a gallon again. I know that is entirely possible and within our grasp.

But what would be even better is to see the average American's income, including senior citizens on fixed income, to see their incomes go up--their rate of return on their savings, the rate of return on their dividends, their investments that they have tied up, after a lifetime of labor, after a lifetime of doing the right thing, taking their hard-earned money, putting it into savings, putting it into investments, putting it into, for many Americans what is their number one investment, which is their home, seeing Americans' home values rise. Why? Because of having a go-go economy, a growth-based economy, an economy that is growing because, rather than being a consumer of energy from foreign nations, we are, instead, the world's leading supplier of energy resources across the rest of the world.

I know this is possible, Mr. Speaker, and I know that we can unify on this issue--not only fossil fuels but also nuclear reactors.

Just this last week, I spoke with an individual who is an expert in the field of nuclear reactors. Before, in the United States, we relied on large nuclear reactors. In my home State of Minnesota, Mr. Speaker, we have two nuclear reactors in my State that supply somewhere between 20 and 25 percent of all the electricity needs in Minnesota. We are grateful that we have these two reactors that provide emission-free power in our State, but we have a new generation of nuclear reactors that could come online and be available for people all across the United States. Think, in a rural area, where perhaps it is just a few thousand people who perhaps wouldn't have access to nuclear-generated energy, they could have access to new, small, nuclear modules that are effectively able to be put in very unique locations, completely safe, almost--almost--waste-free.

This new generation of nuclear reactors, in my opinion, should be studied and put online in the near future so that we could have yet one more tool in America's energy toolkit. As a matter of fact, the United States could be, again, the leading supplier of this newest generation of modular nuclear reactors to be used and deployed across the world where they are safe, where they can't be compromised, and where very, very little nuclear waste comes forward.

You see, it is exciting, Mr. Speaker, to look at the future when so many of my constituents that I speak to today are worried and nervous about the future. They literally tell me, Congresswoman, I have no idea if my children will be as well off in their future as I am today. Every generation of Americans has been hopeful and optimistic, Mr. Speaker, because they have assumed and taken for granted that their children would be better off economically than they are today. That is all of our hope. I know I feel that for my biological children, and that is my hope and my prayer for our foster children. We want every generation to not only have what we had but to exceed it and shoot for the stars with their ambition, their goals, their dreams and their plans. Isn't that America? Isn't that what defines us, to build the next generation of the next mousetrap, to benefit not only us, not only our children, but to benefit and lift up those among us in the United States who seek to move up the next economic ladder?

You see, that is what can happen with innovation. Pull out a smartphone, if you have a smartphone, and you think of what was available to only the wealthiest among us, you now see in the hands of people at the bottom level of the economic ladder. Yet how much improved are our lives because we have smartphones today that are available to us? Think of the applications, the apps, if you will, that are on smartphones, and how those apps can be used to increase productivity in the United States, can be used, for instance, on health care to connect us more quickly with a doctor or a nurse or a pharmacy so we can realize the requirements that we need to become healthier individuals.

There are so many great innovations that are just waiting around the corner if we only legalize them, if we only open them up, and if we reject this very heavy hand of government that wants to bureaucratize nearly every element of our lives and cause different aspects of our lives to be far more expensive and have less of an ability to access the newest innovations. Instead, we in the United States need to be what we were for the first several hundred years of our existence, and it is this: nimble--nimble and able to capitalize on the intellect, the raw ideas and the talents that are in the United States. Legal immigration has benefited this country immeasurably, and we embrace with both arms legal immigration and all that has meant for our country. These are just a few of the things that we have to be hopeful about and optimistic about as we go forward in our country.

There are other issues, as well, besides economics, that we grapple with here in the United States. One of those deals with foreign policy, another deals with national security, and another deals with how the United States is viewed across the world. I have spent time with my colleagues, many of whom this last week were across the world trying to meet with world leaders and find out what the concerns are and how we in the United States can advance our mutual interests.

I was privileged to be able to go on a fact-finding trip recently with one of my Democrat colleagues, a wonderful man from Rhode Island, Representative Jim Langevin. Jim is a quadriplegic, and he and I had the privilege of traveling both to Australia and to New Zealand, where we met with our counterparts and also where we could talk about mutual areas where we could work together.

We see the rise in Asia of a new and aggressive China, a China who, for all practical purposes, has been engaging in what some would call cyber espionage and cyber warfare against nations all across the world--not just the United States but against many nations. How can we cooperate, then, with our allies to counter very aggressive steps that could be taken by, for instance, the Chinese or perhaps the Russians or perhaps the Iranians or other nations, North Korea, for instance, who may not have the United States' best interest at heart, who may, in fact, through the use of the Internet, through cyber espionage or through hacking in government computers, be, in essence, stealing some of the United States' most sensitive secrets, secrets that we would not want our adversaries to have? This is a very real issue, Mr. Speaker, and one that needs to be addressed.

That isn't the only form of warfare. There is also economic warfare, where our private businesses, through their own expenditure of funds on research and development, have come up with innovative new products and have, in effect, had the plans, the designs and the processes for those products literally stolen by adversaries--again not with our best interest at heart here in the United States. That information has been taken, and in some cases, we are told, a country like China has built a factory in China or in some other location where all they had to do was steal the raw data from an American company and they could go to work once they had that intellectual property and put to work perhaps a new line of paint, perhaps a new product that was being made in the United States and now is being made more cheaply in China and is undercutting the patents, the protections and the intellectual property that we have in the United States.

Do you see, Mr. Speaker, it is a brave new world that we live in. That is why national security matters, and it is why foreign policy matters. It is why this last weekend at the Munich conference it was very important that we in the United States listened to and paid attention to what it was we were hearing from our foreign partners in the world. We have to recognize the reality of our world. Not everyone has America's best interest at heart. Not all foreign powers want to make sure that it is America's children who will grow up to be the economic and military powerhouse leaders of the world.

You see, many foreign nations would like to see the United States cut down, reduced down, so that we are no longer an economic leader or a military leader. I believe that the United States has been a strong partner in keeping peace across the world for decades. We are not a perfect country. We haven't done everything right. We get that. We recognize that. But I believe that our world has been better off when the United States has been that economic leader and that military leader.

If the United States isn't the leader in the world, who should be? What would peace be like in the world if Vladimir Putin and the Russian Government were the leader holding together world powers? Just imagine for a moment what that would be like. Or imagine, Mr. Speaker, what would it be like if China was the leader holding together world powers? We know what they have done before. By stealing secrets from our government and stealing secrets from private industry, we know what that has done. What would that be like if China was the leading military or economic superpower?

We can't think that this is some far-off future scenario that could never happen. We need to open our eyes, and I think one place that we can open our eyes is listening to what foreign leaders are telling us. What some of my colleagues have told me even as recently as today from some of their travels, foreign travels across the world, is that they have never heard before foreign leaders say to them what they are saying now. Foreign leaders are saying, look, we don't get the United States anymore. We don't understand your foreign policy. We don't understand your national security, because we don't understand who the friends of the United States are anymore. We don't understand who your adversaries are anymore. In fact, we can receive communications from the State Department or the Defense Department or an intelligence department, and we can get three different pictures of the same scenario. Which one should we believe?

There is a problem--and we didn't hear this just once. We have heard this from multiple regions in the world and from multiple world leaders who were scratching their heads, even including former Polish President Lech Walesa, who had said the United States is no longer the political and moral power in the world.

You see, Mr. Speaker, other nations across the world want the United States, a responsible holder of power, to maintain that sense of decency and rule of law and adherence to a common goal of mankind, to prefer peace over war. Sometimes the United States has had to go to war. We have had to go to war in order to stand face to face and toe to toe with some of the most maniacal dictators that have ever been known in human history. That would include a Stalin of Russia, that would include a Mao Tse-tung of China, and that would include an Adolf Hitler of Germany. These maniacal rulers have served to hurt the chances for peace in the world, and yet it is the United States that has chosen to put on the line treasure and blood time after time after time. Once war has ensued--no one wants war, no one prefers war--but once that has ensued, it is the United States through the Marshall Plan that did, in fact, rebuild Europe and feed millions who were starving. It was the United States after World War II, after dropping the bombs in Japan, that went in and helped to rebuild that war-torn country and the difficulty that had ensued.

These aren't easy issues. There is no clean line here of right and wrong. There are difficulties that we grapple with. We get that. But, Mr. Speaker, one thing that we should agree on is that the policies of the United States shouldn't hurt the American people, and they shouldn't hurt people in other countries. Our policies should be ones that help the American people and help to bring about peace with other nations of the world. That should be easy.

That is why this last weekend at the Munich conference I was particularly concerned with our Secretary of State's comments. There was an article that had come out just this weekend regarding our Secretary of State, and I wanted to quote from it. I wanted to be able to speak a little bit, also, about some other issues that have been in the news. The American people continue to ask me about Benghazi: When are we ever going to get the truth about Benghazi? Just over a week ago, there was an article by the second-in-command in Benghazi who wanted to straighten up the facts and put his view on paper.

That is all very interesting. We want to be able to have time to talk about that, but I think it is also very important that we talk about and listen to America's greatest ally in the world. There is an ally that felt very disrespected and even used the word ``offended'' after comments that were made at the Munich conference this week by our Secretary of State. Now, in deference to our Secretary of State, followup responses have been that he didn't mean to say what was reported in the media, but I think it is very important that we look at our ally--and this is Israel--and what Israel's response is. Again, I think, Mr. Speaker, we need to look at the context of the remarks that were made by our Secretary of State. Because, you see, if you speak with the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, as I have done numerous times in the last few months, and if you speak to the Foreign Minister of Israel, as I have been privileged to do, to the defense secretary in Israel, as I have been privileged to do, and to the intelligence secretary in Israel, as I have been privileged to do, they have been very strong and united in their view of the greatest existential threat that Israel faces today.

That threat isn't new; it is one that Israel has faced for the last recent years. And it is this: it is Iran with a nuclear weapon, because Iran has stated unequivocally, once they gain access to a nuclear weapon, and potentially the missile means to deliver that weapon, they have announced they will use that weapon against Israel. They will use that weapon against Israel, Israel being about the size of New Jersey. The largest city, Tel Aviv, and the surrounding area provides employment to approximately 80 percent of the Israeli population. So it doesn't take a lot of imagination, Mr. Speaker, to see that it may be the game plan of a nuclear weaponized Iran to drop a nuclear weapon on Tel Aviv and effectively wipe out the Jewish State of Israel in one fell swoop.

If that would happen, we should not kid ourselves, that capability and capacity, I believe, could just as easily be used against our Western partners and allies in the European region. It could be used against Australia, our great ally and friend, and also against New Zealand, our great ally and friend. And it could even be used here in the United States of America.

The rhetoric that has come out of Iran is nothing less than outrageous,

but intentional. The regime has stated, they haven't deviated one iota from their nuclear goals and ambitions--not one iota.

What would that mean for the world if Iran obtained a nuclear weapon? You see, this is a very dangerous, dangerous game that we are playing with Iran.

I absolutely disagree fundamentally with the President's decision under the P5+1 agreement to allow Iran to continue to spin centrifuges and continue to enrich uranium which could be used as a fuel for a nuclear weapon. Iran has not complied with the U.N. resolutions, not at all. They have not.

What is different today under the P5+1? Not much, I would submit. So the worst nightmare for Israel has been realized in that exactly when Iran was being squeezed with economic sanctions, when they were in a position where they were starting to yell ``ouch,'' that is exactly when the United States and the P5+1 pulled back the pressure and allowed Iran to have some breathing space, breathing space to the tune of billions of dollars of access to grow and prop up Iran's failing economy. This was not the time to give balance to Iran. This was the time to demand cooperation from Iran.

And so what is happening now is that we see people from all over the world--China, Russia, various nations--are all buying plane tickets to run to Iran to conduct economic deals because, you see, under the previous sanction's regime, nations were prevented from constructing economic deals because it would help build up Iran. Now, it is an open- court press to engage in economic commerce with Iran. That is building up Iran, and it is causing Iran to have less incentive to come to the table and stop their program of enriching uranium, of spinning centrifuges, and they are not in any way dismantling their current nuclear program.

As Prime Minister Netanyahu said, it is his worst day in 10 years. He said this is the deal of the century for Iran.

Why is it we would fail to listen to our number one ally in the world, Israel, on this topic of a nuclear weaponized Iran? Why wouldn't we listen to their concerns? Why--Israel, which is far more vulnerable to Iran with a nuclear weapon--wouldn't we take those concerns into account?

Well, I think it is revealing what happened this last weekend at the Munich conference because you see, Mr. Speaker, one government minister in Israel called Secretary of State Kerry's statements ``offensive.'' At the conference the Secretary said, and I quote from the article that was published this weekend:

You see, for Israel, there is an increasing

delegitimization campaign that has been building up.

In other words, there is an effort to delegitimize Israel. People are very sensitive to it. There are talks of boycotts and other kinds of things. Are we all going to be better off with all of that? The Intelligence Minister, Steinitz, in Israel yesterday morning said:

Israel cannot be pressured to negotiate with a gun against

its head.

In other words, economic boycotts from the European Union, from sanctions, and also from divestment campaigns.

Now, let's just think about this for a moment. Boycotts, boycotting Israel's products. Approximately 30 percent, I am told, of economic trade that Israel engages in comes from Europe. If there is a boycott that comes from the EU, this will severely handicap Israel's economy, and yet it seems Secretary of State Kerry was threatening Israel with an economic boycott.

What about sanctions? Sanctions. Isn't it the mother of all ironies that sanctions, by agreement of the United States, have been lifted from what arguably is the United States' greatest adversary, a nuclear weaponized Iran, and also Israel's greatest adversary, a nuclear weaponized Iran? We would lift sanctions, ironically, against a rogue regime with announced intentions to annihilate people across the world, the Jewish State of Israel, the United States of America; the Jewish State of Israel being the little Satan and the United States of America being denominated the great Satan. So we would lift sanctions on this maniacal nation, a nuclear Iran, and yet we would threaten sanctions or the possibility of sanctions from the EU against America's greatest ally, Israel? Isn't that one of the most severe ironies of all time? This being the greatest existential threat to the world, Iran with a nuclear weapon. How could it be that our Secretary of State could bring this up to the world at the Munich conference this last weekend, the specter of a boycott against Israel, sanctions against Israel, and the potential of a divestment campaign analogous to South Africa which actually engaged in apartheid.

And yet in Israel, what is the so-called apartheid when the Palestinians can work in the State of Israel? Palestinians are allowed to live in the Jewish State of Israel. There is an effort of coexistence from the Jewish State of Israel. And yet what has the Palestinian Authority done? They have thumbed their nose at the Oslo Accord. They have thumbed their nose. Have they fulfilled the requirements on the Palestinians? No, they have not.

What did Israel do? Israel took land in the Gaza area, which is on the Mediterranean Sea. They withdrew Israeli settlers from Gaza and gave the land over to the Palestinian Authority in exchange for peace. What sort of peace did Israel realize by actually giving up that land to the Palestinian Authority? They were met with rockets fired in the region near Beersheba and Sderot. Those areas continue to have thousands of rockets pointed at them.

Who, I ask, Mr. Speaker, is the aggressor in this situation? Who, I ask, Mr. Speaker, should be the one to receive economic boycotts or sanctions or divestment? Would it be Israel, which is not being the aggressor with rockets against Gaza, or should it be Gaza?

You see, these rockets are hidden in neighborhoods. They are hidden in nursing homes by the Palestinians. They are hidden in areas where civilians are kept. And these rockets are not fired at military targets, Mr. Speaker, by the Palestinians. They are specifically targeted at elementary schools, at nursing homes in Israel, and at innocent human life. Think of this.

And our Secretary of State this weekend, in effect, threatened Israel with boycotts, economic sanctions, and divestment. No wonder the Israelis were so extremely upset with our Secretary of State. Even the economic minister, Naftali Bennett, whom I had the privilege of meeting on one of my recent trips, had a message for all of the advice givers:

Never has a nation abandoned their land because of economic

threats. We are no different.

In other words, be warned, Israel will not give up further land no matter what the threats are. And the United States, which purports to be Israel's best friend, should not be the one rattling the saber with economic threats.

Naftali Bennett went on to say:

Only security will ensure economic stability, not a

terrorist state next to Ben Gurion Airport. We expect our

friends around the world to stand beside us and against anti-

Semitic efforts targeting Israel, and not for them to be

their amplifier.

That is how those words were received in this very volatile part of the world. Even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu weighed in on our Secretary of State's boycott threats, primarily coming from Europe, during his Cabinet meeting. According to a transcript of the Prime Minister's remarks on the Prime Minister's Web site, he called any attempts to boycott Israel ``immoral and unjust.''

``They will not achieve their goal,'' the Prime Minister said. ``First, they cause the Palestinians to adhere to their intransigent positions, and thus push peace further away.''

You see, these are not big asks for reasonable people to consider. You see, the Palestinian Authority is being asked to recognize the right to exist for the Jewish State of Israel--the right to exist. They don't even want to accept that the Jewish State of Israel has the right to exist. That is number one. Number two, does the Jewish State of Israel have the right to defend herself from aggression? They won't even admit that she has the right to defend herself from aggression.

Maybe it would help if Hamas, which is the ruling authority over Gaza, maybe it would help if they remove article 7 from their charter, which calls for the annihilation of the Jewish people, the extermination of the Jewish people. There isn't much difference between the call in the Hamas charter,

which is the final solution, the riddance of the Jewish people in the Jewish State of Israel, there isn't much difference between that and what a maniacal leader tried to accomplish during World War II. And yet these same terrorists are being given deference in the Palestinian- Israeli negotiations.

It is bizarre to think that the United States and the policy of the United States since 2008 has included calling on Israel to retreat and give up even more land to the Palestinians, which have repeatedly called for the annihilation of the Jewish state. It is amazing that the United States and our President has called on Israel to withdraw to the pre-1967 borders, which would be a suicide mission.

You see, Mr. Speaker, I have been to Israel. I have literally stood in an apartment building where I can look out the front window of the apartment and see the Mediterranean Sea and the border of Israel on the west, and look out the window in the rear of the apartment and see Israel's border on the east with the Golan Heights, about a 9-mile width.

What country could defend itself, especially when the call is that the Palestinian Authority seeks to unite both the area of Judea and Samaria with Gaza, and they want a highway to do that? In other words, Israel is being called upon to cut herself in two. If she cuts herself in two, just like any human body, she couldn't go on, she couldn't survive, she couldn't live.

So these requests that are coming--in fact, those demands that are coming from the Palestinian Authority--should be shut down by the United States of America. That is where the delegitimization should come, Mr. Speaker, not delegitimizing Israel because she has a goal of the existence of the Jewish state. Shouldn't Israel have that right to continue and preserve itself as the Jewish State of Israel? Isn't that a worthy goal? Should we agree with that?

Why should we be undercutting that goal when the so-called partner in peace, the Palestinian Authority, is unwilling to even work with step one? I understand the response from leaders in Israel this weekend--I understand it--because, in effect, what they are saying is they no longer recognize the United States of America as its friend.

Isn't it interesting, Mr. Speaker, that parallels what many Members of Congress have been hearing from various leaders across the world: We no longer recognize the United States of America; we no longer recognize your foreign policy. Behind closed doors they are telling us they want us to succeed. They want us to remain the world's superpower because we provide literally defense across the world to keep world order. If we are not here as a force for good, then what, then who, then what is the next step? So you see these are not comments made by our ally Israel and those leaders without cause and without reason.

The Prime Minister said: ``They will not achieve their goal''-- meaning the boycott and the sanctions and the divestment. ``First, they cause the Palestinians to adhere to their intransigent positions and thus push peace further away.'' True. ``Second, no pressure will cause me to concede the vital interests of the State of Israel, especially the security of Israel citizens.''

Make no mistake about it: Israel won't give up, Israel is going to stand, Israel is going to be there. So the last nation to put roadblocks in Israel's way should be the United States of America.

Secretary Kerry has a proud record of over three decades of

steadfast support for Israel's security.

That is the statement that was released. But the Secretary's words don't add up.

At the conference, Kerry said of the Israel-Palestinian conflict:

Today's status quo absolutely, to a certainty, I promise

you 100 percent, cannot be maintained. It's not sustainable.

It's illusory. There's a momentary prosperity, there's a

momentary peace.

In other words, Secretary Kerry is putting pressure on Israel to make a change, and to make a change whereby putting her sovereignty on the line.

The question is: Will the United States continue to press Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria, the Biblical homeland of the Jewish State of Israel?

I ask you, Mr. Speaker, why in the world would the United States ask Israel to withdraw from the very location where, according to Biblical and Torah documents, the Jewish State of Israel was begun; where Abraham, the originator of the Jewish State of Israel, where the Jewish people had their origin. Why would Judea and Samaria be that area that is the area that we would expect would be given back to the Palestinian Authority when there has been virtually continuous presence of the Jewish people in that region, albeit to varying degrees?

I had the privilege of standing at Shiloh--or what some people pronounce Shiloh--where the tent of meeting was moved in the interim period between the First Temple period and the Second Temple period on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The temple was in a tent at Shiloh.

There are artifacts yet today being found, shards of pottery that prove that this location in Judea and Samaria was where the Jewish people had their most holy site, where the Holy of Holies, the Ark of the Covenant, was kept with the tents built around, where worship was conducted for over 350 years by the Jewish people. Yet the Jewish people are told they have to leave that land, the land of their origins, the land of worship for over 3,500 years--they have to leave? It is incredible, it is impossible, it will never be.

One thing that needs to be understood, Mr. Speaker, is the tenacity and determination and decision of the Jewish people. You see, Mr. Speaker, they have given up before. They have given land for peace. They have given one concession after another. But what they have told me in my visits to Judea and Samaria, no more the people who live there are temporary settlers. They are residents, this is their home, and they have no intention of leaving, and they will fight to the death for their land and for their people and for their ancestors and forebears and, yes, for their children and for the future of the Jewish State of Israel.

You see the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood in this Chamber right behind me and stood, Mr. Speaker, at the lectern, and he told a joint session of Congress very clearly that Israel isn't what's wrong with the Middle East; Israel is what is right with the Middle East.

I know from experience. The very first time I was privileged to travel to the Jewish State of Israel was the day after I graduated from high school. It was in 1974. I spent my summer in Israel. It was a very different place back then. It was a Third World country. The modern State of Israel was established in 1948 under extremely severe adverse conditions, and they continued to fight for the maintenance of their sovereignty. Why? Because they were continually attacked by their Arab neighbors and continue to remain so to this day.

There is only one Jewish state in the world. There are multiple Arab nations, multiple Muslim nations across the world, as it should be. We recognize the right to exist of Muslim nations. We recognize Iran's right to exist.

Why is it that only the Jewish State of Israel has to struggle for the world to recognize its right to exist? Why is it the only nation in the world that has to struggle to have recognition of its designated capital--Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the eternal undivided city and the undivided capital of the Jewish State of Israel. Yet that appears, once again, to be the bone of contention for the world, Jerusalem. Even so much so that the United States, which is supposed to be Israel's ally and we are supposed to have Israel's back, our Embassy remains in Tel Aviv rather than in Jerusalem.

There are efforts to have our Embassy moved, and I call upon our government, Mr. Speaker, I call upon our President, to demonstrate to Israel that we do have your back, we are your greatest ally, and have the United States move our Embassy into Jerusalem and do it in a fortnight and make it happen and show the world that we literally do have their back.

If we can't do that, Mr. Speaker, I will call upon our administration to at minimum change the State Department's Web site, which, if you look at the map of Israel and if you look at the capital Jerusalem, Jerusalem is not designated Israel; it is considered an international up-for-grabs area. Really?

Jerusalem is contiguously surrounded by the Jewish State of Israel. How could this not be the very navel of the Jewish State of Israel? You see if the United States makes a decision to abandon Israel, as many nations of the world have done, as many nations are crying out for an economic boycott of Israel, economic sanctions against Israel, economic divestment against Israel, as though Israel were a criminal--if the United States, Mr. Speaker, chooses to join that extremely misguided, wrongheaded void of all facts, then I make a prediction, Mr. Speaker: that the United States will be adversely affected economically, and I believe that we could see adversity militarily against the United States as well.

There has always been one great defender of the Jewish state and of the Jewish people. That defender has been listed throughout antiquity, and Israel has had her back held by a force stronger than the United States. That strong right arm will remain for Israel. That defender will remain. The question is what will be the destiny of the United States? Will our destiny be one of blessing or will our destiny be one of adversity?

I think we need to be very clear and very careful in how we deal with the Jewish State of Israel. Israel must never be betrayed, and the United States must not put pressure on the Jewish State of Israel.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to go over just a brief timeline that I put together of Jewish and Israeli concessions and foreign demands that have been put on the Jewish State of Israel.

You can go back to 1917 with the Balfour Declaration.

Go back to 1920. There were Arab attacks on peaceful Jewish settlements in the northern part of the British-controlled Palestine, where seven Jews were killed. The British military administration urged the disbanding of the Zionist commission, created to assist the British authorities in giving effect to the Balfour Declaration, promising the upbuilding of a Jewish national home in Palestine. The British military administration was replaced by a League of Nations mandate. It was Israel that was betrayed.

In 1921, anti-Jewish riots occurred in Jaffa on the Mediterranean, orchestrated by the British-installed Mufti of Jerusalem by the head of the Muslim community. They took the lives of 43 Jews in that effort in 1921. The British temporarily suspended Jewish immigration into Israel.

In 1922, Britain removed all of Palestine east of the Jordan. Seventy-eight percent of Palestine was removed from the territory of the League of Nations mandate for Palestine and power transferred to Emir Abdullah, who established the Emirate, later called Transjordan.

In 1929, a campaign of false rumor and propaganda, orchestrated by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj-Amin el-Husseini, alleged that Jews demonstrated at the Western Wall to curse Mohammed. Never happened. That mosques had been attacked by Jews. Never happened. That others would soon be attacked. A massive anti-Jewish pogrom convulsed Palestine in which 133 Jews were murdered by Arab mobs. The British suppressed the assaults, they killed 110 Palestinian Arabs. The British Shaw Commission ignored evidence of the Mufti's orchestration of the violence and recommended reducing Jewish immigration, and blamed the Jews for the murderous violence against them.

In 1939, a commission that investigated the Arab Revolt recommend creating a Jewish state in 20 percent of the British Mandate, with 80 percent of the mandate to be placed under Arab control and incorporated into the Transjordan. The Arab world rejected that--in other words, the Palestinian homeland rejected it--and the Arab Revolt continued.

In 1939, the St. James Conference was attended by the Zionist and Palestinian Arab leadership. Again, the Arab parties refused to sit in the same room with the Zionist representatives. No solution was reached. A paper was written. Further Jewish immigration would have to be dependent upon Arab approval.

In 1947, the United Nations proposed partitioning the British mandate. The plan was accepted by the Zionist movement. It was rejected by all Arab parties. Again, 6,000 Jews--1 percent of the Israeli population--were killed in a war in May of 1948 when Israel declared herself the Jewish state. That was her entree into statehood and sovereignty. Israel has fought for her sovereignty ever since and has been under attack by our Arab neighbors ever since.

In 1949, Arab belligerents other than Iraq signed an armistice agreement with Israel. All refused to recognize Israel. All refused to negotiate a solution to the Palestinian-Arab refugee problem created by the first Arab-Israeli war that was launched by the Arab States. The Arab war on Israel created 700,000 Palestinian-Arab refugees. Most were confined to Palestinian refugee camps in neighboring Arab States, and 50,000 remain alive today--only 50,000. The oft-heard figure of 4 or 5 million Palestinian refugees includes, contrary to any other refugee case in the world, not only the actual refugees but generations of their offspring. Today, we have refugees from the Syrian conflict. Only the current refugees are included, not multiple generations. This is not true with the Palestinians. The U.N. called on Resolution 194, calling for returning refugees between the context of an Israeli-Arab peace, and all Arabs opposed that resolution.

On and on we go, Mr. Speaker, to the present time, including the most recent demand by Secretary of State Kerry against the Israelis that the Israelis had to release over 100 terrorists, many of whom were murderers, who had killed innocent Israelis, including an American citizen. The United States Government put pressure on the Israeli Government to release known murderous terrorists and thugs in exchange for--what?--other Israeli prisoners to be returned to Israel? No, Mr. Speaker. It was in return for the Palestinians to sit down at the negotiating table, and they did.

Once again, Israel disadvantaged herself and released murderous terrorists in order to get the Palestinian Authority to just come to the table. What has been the goal of the Palestinian Authority? Delay, wait, change the terms, move the goalpost, never getting to a point of actually coming to an agreement.

We have the instance in '47-'50 of Jews in Arab lands being told that they had to flee violence and persecution.

In 1956, Israel captured the Sinai and then later returned it to Egypt. In 1957, Israel withdrew from all of the Sinai. In '67, Egyptian demands were met, and that is when Israel returned that land to Egypt. 1973 was the Yom Kippur war. Egypt attacked Israel. Syria attacked Israel. Israel turned the tide with a miracle, and a ceasefire came about. In '79, Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty with Egypt, and Israel dismantled 5,000 communities.

In 1993 were the Oslo Accords. To this day, they have not been met by the Palestinian partners. In 1994, Israel and the PLO signed the Gaza- Jericho Agreement. Again, the Palestinian Authority repudiated that agreement. In 1995, the Oslo II agreement was, again, repudiated. In 1997, Israel and the PA signed the Hebron agreement. Again, there was no peace, and it was undercut. In 1998, the Wye River Memorandum-- undercut. In 1999, the Sharm el-Sheikh agreement--again, undercut.

In 2000-2001, with the Camp David negotiations, again, Israel came in good faith--again, undercut. In 2003, the Roadmap for peace did not call for terrorism-free Palestinian leadership, and terrorists remain in that leadership today. In 2005, as I said earlier, Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza and northern Samaria, and 8,000 rockets have attacked Israel in that time. In 2008, Israel made another peace offer to the PA that covered 94 percent of the West Bank. Again, it wasn't enough. The PA wouldn't accept the offer, and it made no counteroffer. You see, the PA is unwilling to say ``yes.''

That is why this last weekend was so important, Mr. Speaker, and why Secretary of State Kerry's words fell on incredulous ears. In spite of the nuclear agreement with Iran and now with the words that were said this last weekend, we need to make it unmistakable that I as a Member of Congress stand with Israel, as do my colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

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