Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise today to ask that Republicans and Democrats in the Senate to come together and unanimously pass legislation to address the threat of American citizens fighting for ISIS and bringing our statutory system into the 21st century to protect the national security interests of our Nation.

As the American people are now painfully aware, the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, has emerged as the new face of the radical terrorist threat that has bedeviled the West in recent decades. This virulent jihadist group--so extreme they got kicked out of Al Qaeda, which I will note is not easy to do--is rampaging across Syria and Iraq in a campaign of oppression and genocide, including the relentless targeting and murder of Christians, of Jews, of Muslim minority sects, Yazidis--indeed, any who do not share their radical Sunni theology.

While other terrorist organizations have been content with a parasitic relationship with state sponsors of terrorism--notably Syria and Iran--ISIS has a new agenda, which is to establish its own state or caliphate. They now control a territory about the size of Indiana with oilfields they can exploit on the black market to the tune of some $1.5 million a day. Their ranks have grown in the last 3 months alone from roughly 10,000 to now more than 30,000.

Unlike some regional jihadists, ISIS also represents a direct and growing threat to our citizens here at home, and increasingly to our homeland itself. Just this week there were news reports of an online posting urging individual jihadists in the United States to attack targets such as Times Square, the Las Vegas strip, and even locations in my home State of Texas, with homemade pipe bombs. This is not the first time we have heard such threats, but we have to take them seriously. ISIS has made no secret that its goal is not simply to establish a caliphate in the Middle East; its desire is to impose Sharia law on the Muslim population and to exterminate any religious minorities, and that desire is not confined by geography. When the leader of ISIS, Abu al-Baghdadi, was released from a detention camp in Iraq in 2009, he reportedly remarked to Army COL Kenneth King, ``See you in New York.'' This danger, this evil intends to come home to America.

ISIS has in recent weeks graphically demonstrated their eagerness to murder American civilians by beheading two journalists, gruesomely demonstrating on the world stage their hatred for America. This is not a situation where if we simply leave ISIS alone, they will leave us alone. This is a case where America's national security interests demand a serious response, which should be both to attack ISIS directly and take them out in its claimed caliphate, as well as to defend against the attacks ISIS is planning to execute here at home.

The Obama administration's approach to this crisis has unfortunately lacked a clear focus on that issue. It doesn't help that ISIS is surrounded by regional chaos borne out of a Syrian civil war, and ISIS has exploited the inherent political weakness in Iraq. However, while both the crisis in Syria and the upheaval in Baghdad are unfortunate, concerning situations, we cannot allow resolving them to become preconditions to any military action we might need to take against

Mr. President, I would note that the objection from my friend from Hawaii observed that this legislation has not gone through the Judiciary Committee, and that is true. It is true, of course, because the Senate is expected to adjourn this week as Senators return to their home States to campaign for elections.

If it were to go through the Judiciary Committee, it would mean it would not pass in time to prevent Americans fighting right now with ISIS from coming back and murdering other Americans. There is an urgency and exigency to this situation.

This is also legislation the Senate considered before. As I noted, it was bipartisan legislation. Joe Lieberman, Scott Brown, Hillary Clinton are all in one accord.

It is unfortunate the Democratic Senators chose to object to this, to prevent this commonsense change in law. I would note when it comes to constitutional concerns, I don't know if anyone in this Senate has been more vigorous or more consistent in terms of defending the constitutional rights of Americans than I have endeavored to be during my short tenure.

I will yield to no one in passion for defending constitutional liberties, but I note there is an existing law that has been on the books for many decades covering the renunciation of U.S. citizenship.

It is current law right now that if someone goes and joins a foreign nation and takes up arms against America, that act has long been recognized as constituting a constructive renunciation of U.S. citizenship. As for the question of due process, existing law provides due process that an individual who goes and takes up arms with ISIS-- and all this does is treat ISIS, a nonstate terrorist group, on the same footing as taking up arms with a foreign nation against America. It is a recognition of the changed circumstances of this world that many of the gravest threats facing this country are not coming from nation states but are coming from terrorist groups that sadly some Americans are choosing to join forces. The existing law has considerable due process protection such that anyone who is determined to have affirmatively renounced his or her citizenship has a right to challenge that in Federal district court and a full proceeding under existing due process standards to have that matter resolved.

The question is very simple: Would any reasonable person want an American who is right now in Iraq, who is right now training with ISIS, who is right now taking up arms, who is right now participating in crucifying Christians, who is right now beheading children, who is right now participating in beheading two American journalists, who is right now standing arm in arm with virulent terrorists who have pledged to take jihad to America--would anyone in good conscience of either party want that person to be able to come back and land at La Guardia Airport with a U.S. passport and walk unmolested onto our streets? The obvious answer is no.

It saddens me we could not see Republicans and Democrats come together, and it saddens me that in an election year the Democratic Senator, who is up for reelection, chose to block this commonsense legislation rather than to work together to protect the American citizens.

I hope in time we see less election-year politics and more service to the men and women whom all of us are obliged to protect.

I yield the floor

I intend to, yes.

Mr. President, we have a crisis in this country. We have a crisis at our southern border that is producing some 90,000 unaccompanied children coming into this country. These kids are being victimized. These kids are being physically and sexually abused by violent coyotes and drug cartels.

The American people understand we have a crisis, and the American people want action. The House of Representatives understands we have a crisis. The House of Representatives has acted. Yet I am sorry to say the majority leader and the Democrats in this body refuse to allow any action to address this crisis.

The crisis at the border is the direct consequence of President Obama's lawlessness. Just 3 years ago, in 2011, there were roughly 6,000 unaccompanied kids coming into this country, and then in 2012, a few months before the election, President Obama unilaterally granted amnesty to some 800,000 people who entered the country illegally as children. The predicted consequence is that if

you grant amnesty to those who enter illegally as children, it creates an enormous incentive for more and more children to enter illegally. As a result, we have seen the numbers go from 6,000 unaccompanied kids 3 years ago to approximately 90,000 this year, and next year, the Department of Homeland Security predicts, there will be 145,000 little boys and little girls illegally smuggled, victimized, and brutalized.

This needs to stop. We need leadership in Washington. We need leadership in both Houses of Congress. We need leadership from both Republicans and Democrats. Yet not only do President Obama and the Senate Democrats refuse to do anything to solve this problem, but, I am sorry to say, it is even worse.

In recent weeks President Obama told the American people he intends to grant even more amnesty. The first illegal amnesty of some 800,000 people was not enough, so in his view we need more. He intends to illegally grant amnesty to 5 or 6 million more people. Mark my words: The President of the United States intends to illegally grant amnesty. Amnesty is coming. Yet we heard in recent days that the President has decided to delay that action until just after the election.

There are a lot of cynical policies in Washington, DC. Yet this has to rank very near the top. For the President of the United States to say he understands the American people don't want amnesty, but since there is an election coming up, he intends to pass the policy which they don't want, don't believe in, and which subverts the rule of law just after the election so that the Senate Democrats can campaign and say they had nothing to do with it--what does that say about what the President thinks about the American people? That he thinks they are not paying close enough attention to understand that this election is a referendum on amnesty? That he thinks they won't remember by the time the next election happens?

Well, here is the bottom line: Amnesty is the wrong approach that created the crisis. The only way to solve this crisis and protect and prevent those little boys and little girls from being physically and sexually abused is to end President Obama's amnesty and prospectively stop the promise of amnesty that is causing these kids to come here illegally.

I introduced legislation in the Senate to do exactly that, and the House of Representatives, to their credit, stood up and led. They stayed in session an extra day before the August recess to come together and pass the legislation I had introduced in the Senate. They passed it by a vote of 216 to 192, with 4 Democrats joining the Republicans to stop President Obama's amnesty in order to actually solve the crisis at the border. Yet what happened in the Senate? In the Senate the majority leader refused to allow a vote on the provision and sent the Senators home for August while doing nothing to address the problem.

The reason is simple: Although President Obama and Senate Democrats are afraid of the voters holding them accountable for amnesty, it should be lost on nobody watching that what is happening in the Senate is that the 55 Senate Democrats serving in this body affirmatively want amnesty.

If only this body would just do its job. If we would simply pass the legislation the House has already passed, prospectively taking amnesty off the table--and by the way, this bill does nothing, zero, to the so- called DREAMers who are already here. It doesn't address that issue. This issue addresses the promise of amnesty in the future. As long as these children believe they will get amnesty, they will keep coming here illegally. They will keep being victimized and abused.

Unfortunately, the majority leader has employed a procedural trick called filling the tree. It is a trick this body is now quite familiar with because it is what the majority leader has done over and over to shut down every single amendment from every Member of this body.

To be fair, majority leaders in both parties have used this trick in the past. The previous six majority leaders used the procedural trick of filling the tree a total of 40 times. The current Democratic majority leader has used it almost 90 times since 2006. The current majority leader has used it more than double what his six previous predecessors did. Roughly two-thirds of the time this procedural trick has been employed, it has been by the majority leader of this body.

What does that do? What that does is it says legislation in this body will shut down the right of amendments for every Senator. What it says to the 26 million Texans is that their views don't matter because neither Senator Cornyn nor I will be allowed to offer any amendments. It says to the citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the State of Maryland, the States of New York and California: Your views don't matter. Why? Because the majority leader has stripped your Senators of the right to offer any amendment on any topic whatsoever.

The majority leader has done that nearly 90 times--including on this continuing resolution, including on the basic bill that funds the government because the Senate has failed to appropriate the funds that we should be doing otherwise.

This is wrong. It is fundamentally wrong. The American people deserve a vote. If Senate Democrats want to embrace amnesty, let them do so openly and in daylight. Stop hiding. People are frustrated with Washington because they recognize politicians say one thing here and one thing at home. How many Senate Democrats, particularly in red States, go home to their States and say amnesty is a terrible thing and then come back here and facilitate the President illegally granting amnesty. How about we have some honesty. How about we have elected Members of this body say and do the same in Washington that they say and do back home. Don't hide. How about we all tell the truth. And the truth is the 55 Senate Democrats want amnesty, but they don't want the voters to know. They are celebrating that President Obama has said: Fear not, the amnesty is coming, but we will wait until after the election. That cynicism is fundamentally inconsistent with the obligation every Member of this body owes to our constituents.

So I am pleased we will get a vote--despite the majority leader's best efforts--on amnesty, because momentarily this body is going to have the opportunity to vote, and I predict most, if not all, Senate Democrats will vote in favor of President Obama's amnesty.

I have a lot higher opinion of the American people, of the voters, than it seems the President does. I think the American people understand what is going on and I don't think they are going to be fooled by the President delaying his illegal amnesty until after the election. So we are going to get a vote on this matter.

Amendment No. 3852

For that reason, I move to table Reid amendment No. 3852 for the purposes of offering the Cruz-Sessions amendment No. 3859, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, Americans across the country have been riveted by the crisis occurring on our southern border.

President Obama is correct with one regard: What we are seeing is a humanitarian crisis. But it is a crisis, sadly, of the President's own creation, and it is the direct consequence of President Obama's laws. To understand why, one merely has to look at the numbers.

Three years ago, in 2011, there were roughly 6,000 unaccompanied children entering the country illegally. Then in June of 2012, just before the election, the President unilaterally granted amnesty to some 800,000 people here illegally who entered as children.

As a direct foreseeable consequence of that--the predicted consequence of that is: If you grant amnesty to people who enter as children, you create an enormous incentive for more and more children to enter the country illegally. That is exactly what we have seen happening.

As a result of the President's amnesty, we have seen the numbers go from 6,000 kids 3 years ago to this year, it is expected, when there will be 90,000 unaccompanied children entering the country illegally, and next year the Department of Homeland Security predicts it will be 145,000.

I have traveled down to the border of Texas many times. As recently as the last couple of months I have been down to McAllen. I visited with the Border Patrol chief in McAllen. I visited with the Border Patrol agents and line agents down there. I have been to Lackland Air Force Base where there are roughly 1200 children being housed. I am sorry to say that President Obama, when he visited Texas, had time to do neither. He had time to go to Democratic Party fundraisers, to pal around with the fat cats in the Democratic Party and to raise money but no time to travel to the border and see the human suffering his failed immigration policies have produced.

It is worth underscoring, these are little boys and little girls who are not being brought into this country by well-meaning social workers with beards and Birkenstocks trying to help the kids. They are being brought in by hardened, drug-tough coyotes, cartels. And these little boys and little girls are being physically victimized, physically abused, sexually abused.

When I was at Lackland Air Force Base, a senior official there described to me how the cartels, when they have control of these kids and are smuggling them illegally into this country, sometimes will hold the kids hostage and try to extract more money from the families. In order to do so, horrifyingly, they will sever body parts from these kids. This senior official at Lackland described to me how these coyotes will put a gun to the back of the head of the little boy or little girl and order that child to cut off the fingers or ears of another little boy or little girl, and if they don't do it they will shoot that child and move on to the next one. They describe how on this end we are getting, No. 1, some children who have been horribly maimed by these vicious coyotes and, No. 2, we are getting children who have enormous psychological trauma from being forced to participate in such horrors.

The crisis at the border cannot be solved without ending the promise of amnesty. The data demonstrates that, compellingly, it was when the President granted amnesty that the numbers spiked, but more recent data demonstrates that as well. A few months ago the Border Patrol conducted a survey of over 200 people who entered illegally, many of them children, and asked the obvious question: Why are you coming? What has changed? Just 3 years ago it was only 6,000 kids and now it is 90,000. What has changed? Ninety-five percent of them told the Border Patrol they were coming because they believe they will get amnesty. They believed they will get a permiso, a slip of paper that lets them stay once they get there.

When I was in McAllen, I took the time not just to meet with the chief but to meet with a number of Border Patrol agents who spend every day out on the river, up in the air, on horseback, working to secure the borders. I asked the line agents the obvious question: Why are they coming? What has changed? What has caused this humanitarian crisis? Every single Border Patrol agent gave me the exact same answer: They said they are coming because they believe they will get amnesty.

In fact, they explained to me, they said: Right now the Border Patrol is not apprehending these kids. When they cross the river, they often have nothing, sometimes just rags on their back after a long, arduous journey where they have been subjected to horrible physical and sexual abuse, but the one thing they almost inevitably have is their documents. And these children immediately look for the first person in uniform they can find. The Border Patrol isn't apprehending them; they

are looking for the Border Patrol, because they come to the Border Patrol and hand them their documents because they believe they will get amnesty; they will get a permiso; they will be allowed to stay.

If we want to solve this crisis, if we want to stop these children from coming and from being abused, the only way to do so is to end the promise of amnesty.

Before the August recess, I introduced legislation in this body to do exactly that. It was very simple legislation. It was directed to the source of the problem. It provided in black-and-white law that the President of the United States prospectively has no authority to grant amnesty to anyone. The legislation doesn't address the 800,000 who were the subject of the 2012 order. It simply says going forward the President cannot grant amnesty to anyone else, and the reason for that is the cause of this crisis is these children coming believing they will get amnesty.

The White House, in their talking points, routinely said that children coming today are not eligible for amnesty.

I see my colleague from Illinois nodding in agreement with that statement. If that is the case, then my colleague from Illinois should join me in sponsoring this measure because the legislation I have introduced would simply put into law what the White House talking point is, which is that----

I will be happy to yield to the Senator for a question.

I don't have the precise cutoff date in my mind, but the point that is being raised is these children don't fall under the precise terms of DACA, but they believe they will get amnesty.

I would respond to my friend from Illinois, does my friend from Illinois believe these children who are coming today should get amnesty, yes or no?

Absolutely.

I thank my friend from Illinois, but I would note that the comments he made are not connected to the facts of the proposal. The proposal is explicitly post-DACA.

Some 800,000 people have already received amnesty. Let's be clear. The President had no legal authority to grant amnesty at the time. He did so unilaterally, contrary to the rule of law.

Now we are in a broader context where the President has quite publicly promised to grant amnesty--again unilaterally and illegally-- to some 5 or 6 million people. Yet at the behest of our friends on the Democratic side of the aisle, he announced this weekend he is delaying the decision until after the election, because apparently Senate Democrats up for election have noticed their constituents don't support the President in illegally and unilaterally granting amnesty.

I would suggest that Members of this body cannot have it both ways.

My friend from Illinois stated he doesn't think we should be granting amnesty to these children, and yet the legislation I introduced, the legislation the House of Representatives passed, does not act retroactively, does not address anyone who has fallen within the previous DACA. It simply says going forward the President doesn't have the authority to grant amnesty. Instead it is Congress that has the authority to pass or not pass immigration.

I will be happy to yield for a question.

The deferral of deportation under DACA is a written determination from the President that the individuals who receive this, No. 1, will be immune from the black-letter text of the immigration law that subjects them to removal; and No. 2, the administration has created an authorization-to-work document as a component of DACA that has no basis or authority in existing Federal law.

Let us be clear. The President has been absolutely explicit. He intends to expand that to another 5 or 6 million people who are here illegally.

I will yield for a question in a moment.

The President intends to expand this to 5 or 6 million people who are here illegally to give them presumably the same authorization to work unilaterally and with no authorization in law to transfer their status from being illegally here to legally here on executive dispensation. I understand my friend from Illinois and other Members of the Democratic Party support that decision. I believe--and I would allow him in his question to clarify that. If I mischaracterized it, I would welcome his clarification. But there certainly are some members of the Democratic Caucus who do support that. But the American people powerfully don't, profoundly don't. They recognize it is inconsistent with the rule of law, is bad policy, and is creating this crisis at the border.

I have to say the President's decision to delay the amnesty until right after the election reflects a cynicism that even in Washington, DC, is unusual. Because what it is saying is: I understand the policies that I, President Obama, am trying to force that are completely unpopular with the American people, so I am going to jam them through right after the election. Because what it reflects is that President Obama and unfortunately many of the Senate Democrats hold their constituents in very low regard. It reflects the view that if we do this after the election, even if the people don't like it, they will forget about it in 2 years.

If my friends in the Democratic Party believe the right policy solution is amnesty for 5 or 6 million more people and the President acting unilaterally, then we have a very simple solution. Let's bring this up for a vote before the October recess.

The House of Representatives took the legislation I introduced in this body and they stayed over an extra day, they voted on it, and they stood up and led, acting to solve the crisis at the border. And what happened in the Senate? The majority leader of the Senate refused to allow a vote on the proposal and sent every Senator home for August while having done nothing to address this crisis.

If my friend, the Senator from Illinois, believes amnesty is the right policy decision, then let's have a debate, let's bring it up for a vote, and let's have every Senator in this body go on record.

I appreciate my friend from Illinois impugning the integrity of our friends in the House and also describing the plight of innocents.

As you rightly noted, 67 years ago my father came here. He came from Cuba and spoke no English. He had $100 sewn into his underwear. He came here legally on a student visa to study. He followed the rule of law. And I would note--my friend from Illinois knows full well--there is no stronger advocate of legal immigration in the Senate than I am. Indeed, on the Senate Judiciary Committee I introduced two amendments, one for high-skilled workers, H-1B workers, to increase that fivefold from 65,000 to 325,000 because temporary, high-skilled workers are progrowth. Every one of those who comes along produces 1.7 American jobs. I am sorry to say my friend from Illinois and every Senate Democrat on the Judiciary Committee voted against that proposal--voted against increasing legal immigration for temporary, high-skilled workers.

My friend from Illinois is also aware--since we are both members of the Senate Judiciary Committee--that I introduced another amendment that would take our current failed legal immigration system and dramatically simplify it by reducing the barriers and costs and eliminate the per-country caps which have the effect of discriminating against nations such as Mexico, China, and India and take the legal cap from 675,000 and double it to 1.35 million so we can have a legal system we can continue that welcomes legal immigrants who come here to celebrate the American dream.

Again, I was sorry to see every single Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee vote against increasing legal immigration, streamlining it, making the system work better, and eliminating the discriminatory per-country caps on nations such as Mexico, India, and China.

I understand the Senator from Illinois just gave a passionate speech in defense of granting amnesty to people who are here illegally. He is certainly entitled to those views. We should indeed have a full and robust debate, but I will note that the Democratic Senator from Arkansas, the Democratic Senator from Louisiana, the Democratic Senator from North Carolina, and the Democratic Senator from Alaska are all busily telling their constituents they disagree with what my friend from Illinois just said. They are at home telling their constituents: No, no, no, no. We don't want amnesty. No, no, no, no. We don't want the President to unilaterally grant amnesty.

If that is indeed their position, I welcome them to come to the floor right now. If that is indeed their position, there is an easy action. For centuries this body has been called the world's greatest deliberative body. Unfortunately, that label is no longer accurately applied because this body, sadly, under Majority Leader Reid and the Democratic majority, neither deliberates nor votes on much of anything.

There are over 350 bills the House of Representatives has passed to address the great challenges in this country--mostly with substantial bipartisan support--and over 350 pieces of legislation are sitting on Harry Reid's desk and he will not allow a vote on them.

When it comes to solving the crisis at the border, the only way to do so is to end the promise of amnesty. The 90,000 children who are coming believe when they get here they will get amnesty. The position, sadly, of President Obama and the majority leader and the Senate Democrats is that they will do nothing--zero--to fix that problem.

Let me say it is not compassionate, it is not humane to continue a system where tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of little boys and little girls are being victimized and assaulted physically and sexually by violent coyotes. Under the Democratic plan that will continue. It will continue this year. It will continue next year. In response, they do nothing--zero, nada--to fix the problem. That is a hard-hearted approach to this challenge.

We have a demonstration, a study in contrast. Looking at a humanitarian crisis, the House of Representatives stood and voted on legislation to lawfully make it clear that the President of the United States has no authority to grant amnesty to people who are here illegally. The Senate had a chance to do the same.

President Obama has promised the American people that right after the election he intends to unilaterally and illegally grant amnesty to another 5 or 6 million people. Every Senate Democrat has an opportunity to make clear where he or she stands.

In a moment I am going to ask for this body to take up the bill the House has passed to make clear in law that the President has no authority to grant amnesty prospectively. I understand my Democratic friends are going to object to this. That should surprise no one because my Democratic friends for the last 2 years have objected to considering almost every major piece of legislation to address the challenges in this country.

What this means is that the 55 Democrats in this body who are standing united in blocking this legislation that the House of Representatives has passed--all 55 Democrats bear responsibility for President Obama's amnesty, for the amnesty of 5 or 6 million people.

I understand the President thinks it is politically clever to delay the amnesty until after the election, but I have real faith in the American people, that it is too clever by half, that all 55 Senate Democrats who are standing together, standing united with President Obama and saying we want the President to have the ability to illegally grant amnesty, every Senate Democrat in this body bears responsibility for that choice. If they did not, any Senate Democrat is welcome to come to the floor. I will note that other than the Democratic Senator from New Jersey, who is the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee--and I expect will object to my unanimous consent momentarily--there is not a single Democrat in this Chamber speaking out on eliminating the President's authority to grant amnesty.

Clarity in elections, enabling the American people to hold all of us accountable is a very good thing. One body, the House of Representatives, is leading. The other body, the Senate, under Democratic control, refuses to even allow a vote on solving the crisis at the border or stopping the President's illegal amnesty.

Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 5272

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 551, H.R. 5272. I further ask consent that the bill be read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Will the Senator yield?

Will the Senator yield?

The Senator from New Jersey talked about legislation that was debated and voted on a year ago--legislation that I believe, if passed into law, would only make the problem worse, would only increase illegal immigration, would only exacerbate the problem.

I, as do most Americans, want to see commonsense immigration reform, but not reform that fails to secure the border, that grants a pathway to citizenship for those here illegally, and that incentivizes further and further illegal immigration.

But that legislation was a year ago. The President of the United States tells us we have a humanitarian crisis on the border today-- right now, not a year ago, today--with little boys and little girls being subjected to physical and sexual violence and being victimized.

The question I would ask my friend from New Jersey is: Why is it that neither President Obama nor the Senate Democrats have introduced any legislation or allowed a vote on any legislation whatsoever that would actually solve the problems?

Now, the President did introduce a $3.7 billion social services spending bill, less than 5 percent of which went to securing the border and none of which went to the underlying amnesty that is causing this crisis. That was a bill designed to deal with the symptoms to care for the kids once they come, but that bill assumed that tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of kids would continue to come, continue to be victimized.

So the question I ask of my friend from New Jersey is: Why have the Democrats not allowed a vote on anything to solve the problem and prevent these little boys and little girls from being victimized this year and next year and the year after that?

Mr. President, I wish to make two final comments to conclude this exchange. My friend from New Jersey admitted that Senate Democrats introduced nothing--zero, nada--to do anything to fix this humanitarian crisis. Indeed, the majority leader dismissed the Senate and sent the Senators home for the month of August, perfectly content to let the crisis continue, to let tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of children be victimized. He suggested instead the solution was Presidential action, unilateral action.

There was a time when the Senate believed we had a responsibility to legislate, to actually pass laws to address challenges. Yet under the Senate Democrats, we have a do-nothing Senate. That is why over 350 bills passed by the House of Representatives are sitting on Harry Reid's desk, because this body no longer votes on meaningful legislation to address the challenges facing this country.

My friend from New Jersey suggested that the reason the legislation the House of Representatives passed prohibiting the President from illegally granting amnesty--the reason it is not going to come up for a vote is because he said it is a bad idea. Well, I recognize the Senator from New Jersey may well think that. Indeed, the Senator from Illinois may well think that. But no one who is paying attention to the Senate thinks that is the reason it is not coming up for a vote.

If it were objectively a bad idea--if it were a bad idea and the Democrats agreed on that, bringing it up for a vote would be very simple. We would bring it up for a vote. The Democrats have 55 Democrats in this body. They could all vote it down and it would be defeated. If the point were on the merits it is a bad idea, bringing it up for a vote would be very straightforward.

The reason the majority leader is fighting so hard to prevent a vote is that a great many of the Members in his caucus are doing everything in their power to convince their constituents back home they don't support amnesty.

As we travel the country, the most frequent thing we hear all throughout the country is that the men and women in Washington aren't listening to us. Something happens. I don't know if it is the water or what it is, but they get to Washington, they stop listening to us, and they don't tell us the truth. They are lying to us. We hear this from Republicans, from Democrats, Independents, Libertarians, all across this country. There is a reason why the popularity of Congress rivals that of Ebola, because the American people recognize the people in this body aren't telling them the truth. There is one reason and one reason only that Majority Leader Reid does not want to vote on this legislation: because he wants to allow Senators in red States--the Senator from Arkansas, the Senator from Louisiana, the Senator from North Carolina, the Senator from Alaska, even the Senator from Colorado, even the Senator from New Mexico--he wants to allow them to tell their constituents, No, I don't support amnesty. And the reality is, of the 55 Members of this Senate who are Democrats, who caucus with the Democratic Party, today it has been conclusively demonstrated that all 55 support President Obama's illegal amnesty and are responsible for his promised amnesty of 5 million to 6 million more people right after the election. If that were not the case, we would have seen one Democrat show up and speak out to the contrary. Not a single Democrat showed up.

There is a reason we don't have a vote, because if we had a vote, it would force Members of this body to be on record.

The Senator from New Jersey is entitled to make the case on the merits why he thinks amnesty for 5 million or 6 million or 12 million is a good idea. He is entitled to make that case, and if his constituents agree with him, he will keep getting reelected. But far too many Senate Democrats want to pretend they disagree, and a vote makes that impossible because if we had a vote, we would see all 55 Senate democrats vote in favor of amnesty. They are right now hiding behind their leadership because they don't want that vote. They don't want their constituents to understand they support amnesty. So, instead, they shut this body down.

The American people are frustrated. They are disgusted with the Senate that won't do its job, that won't allow votes, that won't consider legislation to address the problems in this country, and that consistently lies to the voters.

I will tell my colleagues on my side of the aisle, I am happy to have as many votes as we like. It is interesting. The Senate majority leader today seems to view as his principal obligation protecting his Members from hard votes. I wish to point out the concept of a hard vote only makes sense if there is a disconnect between what a Senator says at home and what he or she does in Washington. Votes are hard if we have Democratic Senators who go home to their States and tell their constituents: I am really conservative and I don't agree with that crazy stuff President Obama is doing. Then they come here and vote lockstep

with the majority leader and the President. Then votes are hard.

I will tell my colleagues from my perspective, I don't consider votes hard. In 2 years, what I have tried to do in the Senate is very simple--2 things: Do what I said I would do, and tell the truth. The 26 million Texans I represent, I believe, understood the principles I am defending when they elected me. And whether we have 1 vote or 10 or 100 or 1,000, it doesn't surprise the men and women back home, because what I say in Texas is exactly the same as what I say on the floor of the Senate, and it is the way I have tried to vote since I arrived here. The reason the majority leader has 350-plus bills sitting on his desk is because a substantial number of Senate Democrats tell their constituents one thing and vote a different way. This is all predicated on deception.

So I am glad for this exchange because this exchange has shined light and made clear to the voters that, No. 1, amnesty is coming and President Obama intends to grant amnesty to 5 million to 6 million people right after the election; and No. 2, all 55 Senate Democrats bear direct responsibility for President Obama's illegal amnesty because all 55 Senate Democrats are standing in lockstep, preventing legislation that would stop that amnesty. That clarity is good. It allows accountability. It allows decisionmaking to be made by we the people.

The one thing I would encourage of my Democratic friends is, given that reality, go home and be honest with your constituents. All 55 of you go home and say: Yes, I stand with President Obama. I stand with majority leader Harry Reid in support of amnesty.

Those are not the views of the American people, but they are the views of every Democratic Senator in this body. We have a natural check when elected officials ignore the views and values of the people for whom we work in the place where sovereignty resides in our system: We the people.

I yield the floor, and I would suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, at a time of extraordinary challenges across the globe and here at home, we are not gathered in the Senate to discuss how to confront the threat of ISIS. We are not gathered in the Senate to discuss how to prevent Putin's Russia from invading its neighbors. We are not gathered in the Senate today to discuss how to solve the humanitarian crisis at the border with some 90,000 unaccompanied children coming into the country this year. We are not gathered in the Senate today to discuss how to bring back jobs and economic growth, or how to correct the fact that the Obama economy has produced the lowest labor force participation since 1978--92 million Americans not working today. And we are not gathered in the Senate to discuss how to stop the disaster that has been ObamaCare, which has caused millions of Americans to lose their jobs, to be forced into part-time work, to lose their health insurance, to lose their doctors, and to see their premiums skyrocket. No.

Instead, we are gathered today in the Senate for a very different topic. The majority leader and the Democratic majority in this Senate have determined that the most important priority this Senate has, which we are spending the entire week addressing, is the proposal of 49 Democrats to repeal the free speech provisions of the First Amendment. That is not hyperbole. Typically, when Americans hear that Members of the Senate are proposing repealing the free speech protections of the First Amendment, the usual reaction is a gasp of disbelief. Could we really have entered a world so extreme that our common ground no longer even includes the First Amendment of the Constitution?

The First Amendment protects our most foundational rights. Yet, under the amendment we are debating today that 49 Democrats have signed their name to, the First Amendment would, in effect, have crossed out freedom of speech. Why? Because 49 Democrats have cosponsored a constitutional amendment that is currently on the floor of the Senate, being voted on this week, that would give Congress blanket authority to regulate political speech.

From the dawn of our Republic we have respected the rights of citizens to express their views. It is the right upon which every other civil liberty is predicated. But in the Democratic Senate of 2014, citizens' free speech rights are tools for partisan warfare.

This proposal before the Senate is, bar none, the most radical proposal that has been considered by the Senate in the time I have served. If this proposal were to pass, its effects would be breathtaking. It would be the most massive intrusion on civil liberties and expansion of Federal Government power in modern times.

Let's talk about how and why that is the case. The text of the amendment that is currently in the Bill of Rights

says, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech. So right now we operate under a First Amendment that says Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech--not some laws; not laws that some politicians think would help them politically; but no law abridging the freedom of speech is what our First Amendment says.

What would the new First Amendment say? Well, according to our Democratic friends, the new First Amendment would have two sections. The first section says, Congress and States may regulate and set reasonable limits on the raising and spending of money by candidates and others to influence elections. Now, ``reasonable.'' Who could oppose reasonable limits? Isn't that the essence of reasonableness? Perhaps I have forgotten my spectacles, but I don't see in the current First Amendment, Congress can make reasonable restrictions on the freedom of speech. It doesn't say that. It says Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.

What is the difference? The First Amendment is not about reasonable speech. The First Amendment was enacted to protect unreasonable speech. I, for one, certainly don't want our speech limited to speech that elected politicians in Washington think is reasonable.

There was a time this body thought the Alien and Sedition Acts prohibiting criticizing the government were reasonable. There is a reason the Constitution doesn't say let's trust politicians to determine what speech is reasonable and what isn't.

I would note the Supreme Court has long made clear the First Amendment is all about unreasonable speech. For example, when the Nazis wanted to march on Skokie, IL--Nazi speeches, the paradigm example of unreasonable speech; it is hateful, bigoted, ignorant speech--the Supreme Court said the Nazis have a constitutional right to march down the street in Skokie, IL, with their hateful, bigoted, ignorant speech. Now every one of us then has a moral obligation to condemn it as hateful and bigoted and ignorant. But the First Amendment is all about saying government doesn't get to decide what you say is reasonable and what you say is not.

The First Amendment is all about saying we will not censor American citizens. What is this amendment about? Saying the Federal Government now has the power to censor each and every American who dares speak about politics. So if a person has a political view at home, they better hope politicians in Washington think that view is reasonable. I will tell my colleagues that very little of what we do in this town is reasonable and the idea that elected politicians would seek to arrogate power to themselves to censor the citizens is anathema to who we are as a country.

This bill, if adopted, raises three simple questions--questions I raised at three hearings in the Judiciary Committee and in the Constitution subcommittee, and I am the ranking member on the Constitution subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee. We have had extensive debates on this amendment. I wish to pose three simple questions that I would ask every Democrat who has put his name to this--and I notice, sadly, my friend, the Presiding Officer, is one of them, but he didn't serve on the committee. So I would ask him to consider these questions, and I would hope every Democrat who has put his name to this, upon thinking about it, will have second thoughts and pull his name off.

So here are three questions every one of us should ask. No. 1, should Congress have the constitutional authority to ban movies?

No. 2, should Congress have the constitutional authority to ban books?

And No. 3, should Congress have the constitutional authority to ban the NAACP from speaking about politics?

My answer to these three questions is unequivocally, unquestionably no. Yet every single Democrat who has put his name on this amendment has no choice but to answer yes to all three of these questions.

I posed these questions in the Constitution subcommittee. When I posed them to the committee, the chairman of the committee, Senator Durbin, gaveled the hearing shut because he could not answer those questions. But at the full Judiciary Committee hearing, I was told by my Democratic friends: This is hyperbole. This is exaggeration. We don't intend to ban movies or books or the NAACP. My response in those hearings was that this is the Senate. Forty-nine Senators are proposing an amendment to the Bill of Rights. The inchoate intentions that may be buried in the hearts of each and every Senator are utterly irrelevant to the question. The question is, What is the language that would be inserted into the Bill of Rights of our Constitution?

Let's look to the language. Section 2 of this amendment says Congress and the States shall have the power to implement and enforce this article by appropriate legislation and may distinguish between natural persons and corporations or other artificial entities created by law, including by prohibiting such entities from spending money to influence elections.

That is very specific language that would now become part of our Bill of Rights. It is breathtaking. It is staggering in its scope.

I wish to take these one at a time because the Democrats, I am sure-- all 49 Democrats--say, We don't intend to ban movies, books, or ban the NAACP. Well, let's look to the language they put their names to.

No. 1, let's start with movies. We have all heard a lot about the Citizens United case. In fact, we remember President Obama during the State of the Union hectoring the Supreme Court of the United States for the Citizens United case.

Relatively few people know the facts that underlie the Citizens United case. The facts in those circumstances are that a nonprofit corporation made a movie critical of Hillary Clinton, and for making a movie critical of Hillary Clinton the Obama administration tried to impose massive fines on them. Citizens United, which President Obama and the Senate Democrats decry as the most pernicious thing in modern times, it seems, was all about the government trying to fine a movie maker for daring to make a movie about Hillary Clinton.

Listen, let me be very clear. There are movie makers--Michael Moore's movies I think are complete nonsense. To quote the bard, they are full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Michael Moore has a right to keep making those movies over and over again and spewing his nonsense as long as he likes. The First Amendment protects his right to be wrong.

And as a simple legal matter, would this amendment give Congress the constitutional authority to ban movies?

Paramount Pictures is a corporation. Under the text of the amendment, what could Congress do to a corporation? It can prohibit--and that is the language in the amendment--it can prohibit the corporation from spending money to influence elections. So if a movie talks about politics, Congress can make it a criminal offense. Go down to Hollywood, take the producers, the directors, the actors and everyone involved in the movie and put them in handcuffs. That is breathtaking.

Now, again, the Democratic Senators say, We don't intend to do that. Then why did they submit a constitutional amendment to the Bill of Rights that says Congress can prohibit Paramount Pictures from speaking about politics? That means Congress can ban movies.

How about the second question: Should Congress be able to ban books? That is an extreme question by anyone's measure. Surely, nobody in Washington is talking about banning books. Well, if we assumed that, our assumption would be wrong. Indeed, during the oral argument in Citizens United, the Supreme Court asked the Obama administration: Your position is that under the Constitution, the sale for the book itself could be prohibited. The answer from the Obama administration: Yes, if the book contained the functional equivalent of express advocacy. The Obama administration went in front of the Supreme Court and argued: We have the power to ban books.

This is in the record. This is in the official transcript. People can go and listen to this argument, listen to the Obama administration say they believe the Federal Government has the ability to ban books from your house. That is breathtaking.

I recognize in today's partisan society there are some people who may be

watching these remarks who aren't inclined to believe me. They might say: Listen, you are a Republican. You are a conservative. And coming from the spot in the political aisle that I do, I don't tend to trust Republicans or conservatives.

I understand that. I would tell you that if you don't believe me, perhaps you would believe that famed rightwing organization, the ACLU. The ACLU said this amendment, to which 49 Democrats have signed their names--what would it do? It would ``fundamentally `break' the Constitution and endanger civil rights and civil liberties for generations.'' I said a few minutes ago that this was the most radical legislation that has been put before this body. Why is that? Because it is legislation the ACLU says would ``fundamentally `break' the Constitution.'' Breaking the Constitution is no minor matter, and endangering civil rights and civil liberties for generations ought to concern every Member of this body.

One still might say: Surely banning books is hyperbole.

Well, if you don't believe me, the ACLU in writing told the Senate this amendment--to which 49 Democrats have put their names--would give Congress the power to ban Hillary Clinton's new book, ``Hard Choices.'' I want that to sink in for a moment. Forty-nine Democrats have just put their names to a constitutional amendment, and the ACLU rightly tells us that the express language of the amendment gives the government the power to ban Hillary Clinton's new book, ``Hard Choices.''

I have that letter from the ACLU. I also have a subsequent letter from the ACLU doing something which they haven't done before and which I don't know they will do again--thanking me and thanking all of us who have been fighting against this amendment for standing up for civil liberties. It is truly a shame the Democratic Party is not among them.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record both of the letters from the ACLU I referred to earlier.

The third question every Senator who has put his name to this amendment must answer is this: Should Congress have the constitutional authority to ban the NAACP from speaking about politics? Well, why is that? Because the NAACP is a corporation. We hear the word ``corporation,'' and we tend to think of ExxonMobil, Walmart, or what have you, but the NAACP is a corporation. What could Congress do under this amendment, under the explicit language of this amendment? Congress could prohibit the NAACP from speaking about politics.

Let me state some other corporations Congress would have the constitutional authority to silence. The ACLU is a corporation. The AARP--the American Association of Retired Persons--is a corporation. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is a corporation. Amnesty International is a corporation. Americans United for Separation of Church and State is a corporation. The Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders is a corporation. The National Organization for Women is a corporation. The Center for Reproductive Rights is a corporation. The Sierra Club is a corporation. La Raza is a corporation. NARAL is a corporation. Planned Parenthood is a corporation. Moveon.org is a corporation. The Human Rights Campaign is a corporation. Greenpeace is a corporation.

People will note that every one I listed is a group that in our political discourse is often associated with being on the left. Many of those groups are not particular fans of mine as an elected official, and that is their right. Indeed, it is their right to scream from the mountaintops their criticism of my political positions. I will defend their right to criticize me or any other Member of this body all day long because the Bill of Rights says Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.

Forty-nine Democrats just said that every organization I read--that it should be constitutional for Congress to prohibit them from speaking about politics.

It seems to me that when we return to our home States, every Senate Democrat who put his or her name to this amendment should expect to answer questions from citizens: Senator, why did you vote for a constitutional amendment to silence my free speech rights? That is a question we should all expect.

I would like to address a couple of red herrings in this debate because there are arguments put forth by the Democrats who say: No, no, no. Pay no attention to the text of the amendment we have introduced. Pay no attention to the fact that it would give Congress the power to ban movies, books, and to silence the NAACP. Pay no attention to any of that. It is something else.

There are three red herrings that are tossed forward.

First, money is not speech. How many times have we heard that over and over in floor speeches? Yesterday and today Democrats have stood and said: Money is not speech. Money is not speech. It has been repeated over and over. It is a good talking point. It is simply, on its face, demonstrably false. It is certainly true that all money is not speech.

If you go out and buy a Ferrari, that is not speech, but if you go out and erect a billboard and pay money to put up a billboard that says ``Senator Joe Manchin is a terrific guy,'' that is speech. It takes money to do that. They don't put up billboards with pixie dust. It actually takes some dollars to erect that billboard and to express that speech.

If you decide you want to run a radio ad saying that Senator so-and- so is terrible or wonderful, they don't run radio ads just because you asked ``pretty please.'' It takes money.

Let's say you want to run a television ad. It takes money.

Let's say you want to launch a Web site. Have you ever launched a Web site for free?

Let's say you are a little old lady who wants to put a yard sign on your front yard, and it is going to take $5 to buy some poster board and a stick and some crayons and markers and write: I love the First Amendment; I love free speech. That takes money.

The Federalist Papers were the essence of speech, and it took money to print them. Thomas Paine's ``Common Sense''--it took money to print it. It took money to print pamphlets.

Everyone in the tech community--and I would note that all of our Democratic friends and sponsors of this amendment almost to a person go routinely to the tech community and say: Give us money. Give us campaign contributions.

Every Senate Democrat should expect the tech community to say: Wait a second. Why did you vote for a constitutional amendment to give Congress the power to regulate every Web site in America?

If a Web site talks about politics, this amendment gives Congress the power to regulate that Web site.

Listen, I understand there are Members in this body on both sides of the aisle who find it really pesky when citizens dare criticize us. If you don't want to be criticized, don't run for office. Democracy is messy.

I guarantee there is no one in this country who truly believes money is not speech. It is a talking point, but those examples are unquestionably speech, and they have been from the very first days of our Republic.

A second canard is that corporations are not people. That is often said. Citizens United said that corporations are people.

Of course corporations are not people, but that is not the right question. It never was the question. Nobody thinks corporations are people. They don't breathe, they don't walk, and they are not human beings. The question is, Do corporations have rights under our Constitution? Again, I guarantee that every person in this Chamber and every person in the gallery believes the answer to that question is yes. If they don't, the New York Times is a corporation. Do we really think the New York Times has no First Amendment rights?

If the canard were true--corporations are not people, so they don't have rights--Congress could pass a law tomorrow that says the New York Times can never again criticize any Republican Member of Congress. I think the paper would probably go out of publication if it had to remove that from its content.

But it, of course, cannot. Why can't it? Because corporations have rights. Every one of us knows that. We would be horrified. That legislation would be blatantly unconstitutional. Why? Because the New York Times has a First Amendment right to speak about politics however it likes, whether wrongheaded or right-headed.

The groups I mentioned before--the NAACP is a corporation. I challenge any Senator to stand and say the NAACP has no First Amendment rights. But every Senator who has said on this Senate floor that corporations

aren't people, that they have no rights, has said the NAACP has no constitutional rights--if you were a first-year law student and put that answer in any constitutional law class in the country, you would get an F. It wouldn't be a D-plus or a D-minus; it would be an F. It is an obviously blatantly false statement. Yet 49 Democrats rely on it to justify trying to gut the First Amendment.

The third red herring the Democrats in this body point to is they paint a specter of evil billionaires coming to steal our democracy.

We have all heard of our friends the Koch brothers--in part because the majority leader has launched an unprecedented slander campaign on two private citizens. Almost on a daily basis the majority leader stands and demagogues two private citizens who have committed the sin of creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, being successful in the private sector, and then exercising their First Amendment rights to speak out about the grave challenges facing this country.

If one Member of this body impugns the integrity of another Member of this body, we can rise on a point of personal privilege. I ask the Presiding Officer, where is the point of personal privilege for a private citizen when the majority leader drags his name through the mud day after day?

What Senator Reid is doing to two private citizens who are fighting to exercise their free speech rights is reprehensible. It is an embarrassment to this institution. Yet perhaps one might say there is some truth to the matter. We are told these nefarious brothers are responsible for almost everything bad in the world, so it must be that they are playing a huge role in our body politic.

Well, if you go look at OpenSecrets, which compiles campaign giving from 1989 to 2014, so for the past 25 years--and it compiles them from the biggest givers down to the smallest givers--if you look at first 16 names on that list--I have heard what our Democratic Members of this body have said: There are evil, nefarious Republicans trying to steal our democracy. And the implication is that they are backing Republicans. So my assumption is, as I look at the list of the top donors, the top 16--how many of them give predominantly to Republicans? Well, one would assume, given how great the magnitude is, that it has to be a lot of them, probably all of them, or if not all of them, most of them--at least half of them.

Mr. President, do you know how many of the top 16 groups give predominantly to Republicans? Zero. The top 16 political donors in this country all give either overwhelmingly to Democrats or at best evenly between the two parties. You have to fall to No. 17 to find a group that gives more heavily to Republicans than to Democrats. Now, that is curious given the story that is being told by our Democratic friends about these evil Republican billionaires stealing democracy. Gosh, the top 16 donors are not Republicans.

And how about the Koch brothers who we are told are somewhat like the Grinch who stole Christmas? Where do they fall? We have to go down to No. 59 on the list to find Koch Industries.

But perhaps you believe there is something to this claim of secret money. That too is a red herring. The Federal Election Commission estimates that over $7 billion was spent in the 2012 election cycle. We have heard from Democrat after Democrat after Democrat that secret money--money where the donors are not disclosed--is this enormous problem in our democracy that justifies gutting the First Amendment. So of that $7 billion, I assume a lot of that is secret money. Well, if you were to assume that, you would be wrong. The Center for Responsive Politics estimates that in 2012 about $315 million was spent by groups that do not disclose all of their donors. That is less than 4.5 percent of all the political speech in 2012.

So this entire effort to gut the First Amendment, to give Congress the power to ban movies, books, and the NAACP from speaking about politics is justified because of 4.5 percent of political spending, a whole bunch of which is being spent to help Democrats. Those are the facts. As John Adams famously said: Facts are stubborn things.

(Ms. WARREN assumed the Chair.)

So it raises the question: If the problems they are telling us about are not real, why are the Democrats doing this? Why are we spending a week debating this constitutional amendment, the most radical constitutional amendment this body has ever considered, particularly because every single Member of this body knows the outcome? There are not sufficient votes to adopt this amendment. The Democrats all know this. The Republicans all know this. Then why would they be doing it?

Well, if you are a Democrat running for reelection in 2014, you cannot run on the economy. The Obama economy is a disaster. Millions of people are out of work. The people who have been hurt the most by the Obama economy are the most vulnerable among us--young people, Hispanics, African Americans, single moms. We have not seen such a low labor force participation since 1978, since the stagnation and misery and malaise under Jimmy Carter. The Obama economy has recreated that. So if you are a Democrat, you cannot run on the disastrous economic record of the Obama administration.

If you are a Democrat, you certainly cannot run on ObamaCare--the most harmful social services legislation in modern times that has cost millions of Americans their jobs, their health care, their doctors. If you do not believe me, take a look at how the Democrats are running in their States. You do not see Democrats running saying: We passed ObamaCare. When you take away millions of people's health care and doctors, and when you look in the TV camera and repeatedly state falsehoods: If you like your health insurance plan, you can keep it, if you like your doctor, you can keep them, you do not really want to remind the American people that you deliberately lied to them.

And the Democrats certainly cannot run on the Obama-Clinton foreign policy--a policy about which we heard last week the President has no strategy for dealing with the great threats facing this country. Leading from behind is not a strategy, and we can see the consequences of the Obama-Clinton foreign policy, which is that the entire world is on fire.

If you are a Democratic Senator running for reelection in 2014, you have a problem. You cannot run on your record because the record is abysmal. So what is done instead? It is smoke and mirrors. It is distraction.

The only explanation I can come up with for why we are spending a week--with all the challenges in the world--a week debating an amendment that will never ever pass is this is designed to fuel a bunch of TV commercials for Democratic Senators, to paint the picture of nefarious billionaires coming to steal our democracy. Facts do not get in the way of their story. But yet the breadth of this is rather enormous.

I serve on the constitution subcommittee with the Senator from Minnesota, who before being a Senator was a very talented comedic actor and comedic writer on ``Saturday Night Live.'' I grew up watching ``Saturday Night Live.'' I love ``Saturday Night Live.''

``Saturday Night Live'' over the years has had some of the most tremendous political satire--for decades. Who can forget Chevy Chase tripping and falling over just about everything? Who can forget portrayals--Dana Carvey's George Herbert Walker Bush: ``Not going to do it.'' Who can forget Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Al Gore? Who can forget in 2008 the ``Saturday Night Live'' wickedly funny characterization of the Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin? It was wickedly funny and also had a profoundly powerful effect on people's assessment of Governor Palin, who is a friend of mine.

When I asked the Senator from Minnesota in the Senate Judiciary Committee: Do you believe that Congress should have the constitutional authority to prohibit ``Saturday Night Live'' from making fun of politicians, the good Senator promptly reassured me he had no intention of doing any such thing. But what we are debating is not the intentions of 100 Senators. What we are debating is a constitutional amendment that 49 Democrats are proposing to be inserted into the Bill of Rights.

The only question--it is not the intention of those Senators--but, rather, what would that amendment say? What the amendment says is for any corporation Congress would have the constitutional authority to prohibit it from engaging in political speech.

Well, NBC, which airs ``Saturday Night Live,'' is a corporation. Under this amendment 49 Democrats have signed their name to, Congress would have the power to make it a criminal offense. Lorne Michaels could be put in jail under this amendment for making fun of any politician. That is extraordinary, it is breathtaking, and it is dangerous.

The idea of banning books is not new. Advocates of government power, statists, have long favored silencing the citizenry. It is why our First Amendment was such a revolutionary concept, the idea that the individual citizen has the authority to challenge any elected official, from local magistrate all the way up to the President of the United States.

But if you are an advocate of governmental power, the citizens having the liberty to speak out is inconvenient; it can lead to inconvenient truths. So on some level it should not be surprising that the modern Democratic Party, which has become the party of government power over every aspect of our lives, would take it to the final conclusion of giving government the power to silence our political speech and to ban books.

I am reminded, in Ray Bradbury's immortal book ``Fahrenheit 451,'' of the words of Captain Beatty: ``If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none.'' That was, of course, the chief fireman in charge of burning books in ``Fahrenheit 451.'' In the book that is the temperature at which book paper ignites. It breaks my heart that today we are seeing the Fahrenheit 451 Democrats. Today we have seen 49 Democrats put their name to a constitutional amendment that would give Congress the power to ban books.

Some might dismiss it and say: What does it matter? It is an exercise in politics. They do not really believe it. They know it is not going to pass. Politicians will be politicians. No wonder the American people are cynical. I would be embarrassed if one Senator put his or her name to an amendment repealing the free speech protections of the First Amendment. Instead of one, it is 49. And much like with Sherlock Holmes and ``the dog that didn't bark,'' every bit as troubling as the 49 names of the Senators who are willing to repeal the free speech protections of the First Amendment are the Senators who are not speaking out. In particular, we have not seen a single Democrat have the courage to speak out against this abominable provision.

It was not always so. There was a time not long ago when there was bipartisan agreement on questions of civil liberties. There was a time when you could find Democrats for whom the First Amendment meant something.

In 1997, Democrats attempted a similar amendment to give Congress the power to regulate free speech, and that lion of the left Ted Kennedy stood up and said: ``In the entire history of the Constitution, we have never amended the Bill of Rights, and now is no time to start.''

Where are the Ted Kennedys? Where are the Democrats? Where are the liberals?

Also in 1997, Senator Russ Feingold, another passionate liberal, stood up and said:

. . . the Constitution of this country was not a rough

draft. We must stop treating it as such. The First Amendment

is the bedrock of the Bill of Rights. It has as its

underpinnings that each individual has a natural and

fundamental right to disagree with their elected leaders.

I agree with Ted Kennedy, I agree with Russ Feingold, and I will tell you, privately I have urged Democratic colleagues to come and join me in defense of the First Amendment--the handful who have not put their names to this amendment--and all I can surmise is that the partisan pressures of Washington are too much.

This amendment is not going to pass, but it is profoundly dangerous that in the U.S. Senate not a single Democratic Senator will come to the floor in defense of the First Amendment. It is profoundly dangerous that the modern Democratic Party now thinks it is good politics to campaign on repealing the First Amendment. The hashtag #don'trepeal1A has echoed through twitter as individual citizens are amazed.

Earlier this year we saw all 55 Democrats stand together against religious liberty, supporting an amendment that would gut the Religious Freedom Restoration Act which was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and signed into law by Bill Clinton.

It used to be on religious liberty there was a bipartisan consensus. The same used to be true on free speech. When did Democrats abandon the Bill of Rights? When did Democrats abandon civil liberties? I assure you, if it were my party proposing this egregious amendment, I would be standing on the floor of this Senate giving the very same speech trying to hold my party to account. Because at the end of the day, when we take our oath of office, it is not to a Democratic Party or the Republican Party, it is to represent the citizens of our State--in my case, 26 million Texans--to fight for their rights and to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States.

There is nothing the United States has done in the just under 2 years that I have been in this body that I find more disturbing and more dangerous than the fact that 49 Democrats would put their name to a proposal to repeal the First Amendment.

When my daughters Caroline, 6, and Catherine, 3, came up from Texas to Washington for a weekend to visit, I took them to the Newseum. It is a terrific museum. The front facade of the Newseum has in gigantic letters the text of the First Amendment carved in granite.

If the Democratic Party has its way, the Bill of Rights will be forever altered. We will have to send up workmen to that facade to carve with jackhammers the words of the First Amendment out of the granite in the front of the Newseum.

In the Senate Judiciary Committee I introduced a substitute amendment. It was an amendment to replace every word of this extraordinarily dangerous amendment with the following words:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of

religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or

abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the

right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition

the Government for a redress of grievances.

It was word-for-word verbatim the text of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, and I am sorry to tell you every single Senate Democrat on the Judiciary Committee voted against the text of the First Amendment. It was a straight party-line vote.

Going back to Senator Kennedy, Senator Kennedy and I would have agreed on very little. On matters of policy, he was a big government man and I most assuredly am not. On matters of foreign policy, he supported a far weaker military than do I and a far weaker defense of our Nation. But on the question of the First Amendment, I am proud to stand side by side with Ted Kennedy.

What does it say about the modern Democratic Party that not a single Democrat is willing to honor Senator Kennedy's legacy? His words are every bit as true now as they were in 1997.

In the entire history of the Constitution, we have never

amended the Bill of Rights, and now is no time to start.

It is my plea to the Democratic Members of this body that they reconsider the decision of putting their name on this amendment. It may seem like harmless election-year politicking that will help in political campaigns, but it is dangerous when 49 Senators come together and say: We no longer support the First Amendment.

We have a two-party system--a two-party system on which there should be robust debate. It is even more dangerous when one of the two parties becomes so extreme and so radical that it becomes seen as good politics to campaign against the First Amendment.

This will not pass this week, but I hope my Democratic colleagues will have second thoughts. I hope we can return to the day where there is a bipartisan consensus in favor of civil liberties, in favor of protecting the free speech rights of every American.

I hope we will listen to the wise counsel of Senator Kennedy, and I hope we will recognize, as Senator Kennedy and Senator Finegold observed, that there are no James Madisons or Thomas Jeffersons serving in this body today.

The Bill of Rights is not a rough draft, and the U.S. Senate should not

be proposing to repeal the First Amendment.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to address an issue of grave importance to the national security of the United States; that is, the threat from the radical Sunni terrorist organization known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or simply as the Islamic State.

Now it claims to control territory in a grotesque parody of a nation state. ISIS is a study in oppression and brutality that is conducting ethnic cleansing against religious minorities in the region; that is, targeting and persecuting Christians and that is attempting to subject the local population to the strictest forms of Sharia law. ISIS has grotesquely murdered U.S. civilians and indeed journalists on the public stage. It should come as no surprise that the people of the United States are deeply concerned about this development. We are concerned about the inability of our government to anticipate this gathering threat. We are concerned about the brutal acts of oppression against the weak and the helpless.

We are concerned about ISIS's seizure of financial and military assets that have fueled their murderous rampage. Above all, we are concerned about the threat ISIS poses, not only to our close allies in the region but also to our citizens and even here in our homeland.

There has been a lot of talk in recent days about developing a strategy to combat ISIS. I would like to propose a couple of commonsense steps that we should take immediately to combat this scourge.

First, the time has come--it is beyond time--for us to secure our borders. Representing the State of Texas, which has a border nearly 2,000 miles long, I know firsthand how unsecure the border is right now. This week of all weeks, with the anniversary of the September 11 attacks upon us, we can have no illusions that terrorists will not try to make good on their specific threats to attack America. As long as our border is not secure, we are making it far too easy for the terrorists to carry through on those promises.

Rumored ISIS activities on the southern border should unite us all in the resolve to make border security a top priority rather than an afterthought or rather than something to be held hostage for political negotiations in the Congress. Second, we should take commonsense steps to make fighting for or supporting ISIS an affirmative renunciation of American citizenship. We know there are over 100 Americans who have joined ISIS who have taken up arms alongside the jihadists, along with thousands of others from the European Union.

We also know they are trying to return to their countries of origin to carry out terrorist attacks there. We know this because on May 24 an ISIS member returned to Belgium where he attacked innocent visitors at a Jewish museum, slaughtering four people. It was reported today he had been plotting an even larger attack on Paris on Bastille Day.

In addition, on August 11 of this year, an accused ISIS sympathizer, Donald Ray Morgan, was arrested at JFK Airport trying to reenter the United States. So we know this threat is real. That is why I have today filed legislation, the Expatriate Terrorist Act of 2014, which would amend the existing statutes governing renunciation of U.S. citizenship to designate fighting for a hostile foreign government or foreign terrorist organization as an affirmative renunciation of citizenship.

By fighting for ISIS, U.S. citizens have expressed their desire to become citizens of the Islamic state. That cannot and will not peacefully coexist with remaining American citizens, the desire to become a citizen of a terrorist organization that has expressed a desire to wage war on the American people, has demonstrated a brutal capacity to do so, murdering American civilians on the global stage and promising to bring that jihad home to America.

We should not be facilitating their efforts by allowing fighters fighting alongside ISIS to come back to America with American passports and walk freely in our cities to carry out unspeakable acts of terror. It is my hope the legislation I am introducing today will earn support on both sides of the aisle, that we will see this body come together and say: While there are many partisan issues that divide us, when it comes to protecting U.S. citizens from acts of terror, we are all as one. That is my fervent hope.

The third thing we should do is we should do everything possible to make ISIS understand there are serious ramifications for threatening to attack the United States, for murdering American citizens. While damaging ISIS's financial assets is certainly a part of this action, because of the very nature of ISIS, the response must be principally military.

All Americans are weary of the long and costly wars in the last decade. We

are tired of sending our sons and daughters potentially to die in distant lands. No one wants to see an extended engagement in Iraq, but at the same time I do not believe the American people are one bit reluctant to defend our national security, to defend the lives of fellow Americans. The American people can see the grim threat represented by ISIS and the need for decisive action.

We should concentrate on a coordinated and overwhelming air campaign that has the clear military objective of destroying the capability of ISIS to carry out terror attacks on the United States. We must remain focused on this clear military objective if we hope to be successful. We cannot engage in photo op foreign policy or press release foreign policy of dropping a bomb here, shooting a missile there, and not have a strategy that is dictated by clear and direct military objectives in furtherance of U.S. national security interests.

We should be perfectly clear as well that any action we take against ISIS is in no way contingent on resolving the civil war in Syria. That conflict is a humanitarian tragedy, pitting a brutal dictator against radical Islamic terrorists. The sad reality is there are no good options for the United States in this fight. We may have had less radical options 3 years ago, but those are not currently available.

The Obama administration had proposed arming rebel forces that contained terrorist factions associated with ISIS. Previously, we were told the rebels fighting alongside ISIS were our friends and Assad and Iran were our enemies. Now, in the face of ISIS, we are hearing Assad may be our friend, Iran may be our friend, and ISIS is now our enemy. This makes no sense. Indeed, it is a dangerous cycle reminiscent of George Orwell's ``1984.'' Orwell wrote:

At this moment, for example, in 1984. . . . Oceania was at

war with Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia. . . .

Actually . . . it was only four years since Oceania had been

at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. But . . .

[o]fficially the change of partners had never happened.

Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always

been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of the moment always

represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or

future agreement with him was impossible. . . .

This administration seems to have no sense of past or future. All of those familiar with the terribly human carnage inflicted by the civil war in Syria pray for its end. But the goal of our action against ISIS should not be to end it by supporting Assad. The enemy of my enemy is not always my friend. Sometimes the goal is the destruction of the enemy who poses an imminent threat to our national security, not the enabler of yet another enemy of America.

It should also be clear that any action we take against ISIS should in no way be contingent on political reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites in Baghdad. This administration has often become distracted by the hope to achieve this reconciliation, but the sad truth is the Sunnis and Shiites have been engaged in a sectarian civil war since 632 A.D. It is the height of hubris, it is the height of ignorance to suggest the American President can come and resolve a 1,500-year-old religious civil war and have both sides throw down their arms and embrace each other as brothers. That should not be our objective, although we of course always hope for reconciliation and peace. We should not be so naive as to make defending our national security contingent on resolving millennia-old sectarian religious civil wars. Doing so, seeking to promote a utopia, seeking to transform Iraq into Switzerland is nothing less than a fool's errand.

Likewise, it should be perfectly clear that any action we take to stop ISIS from attacking and murdering Americans is in no way contingent on consensus from the so-called international community. America is blessed to have many good friends and allies in the region and beyond who understand the threat of ISIS and are eager to do what they can to combat it. We welcome their support. But in order that this action be done right, it must be led by the United States, unfettered by other nations' rules of engagement that might impede our effective action.

Achieving some preordained number of countries in a coalition is not a strategy. For as has often been remarked: In the most effective efforts, the mission determines the coalition, not the other way around. It is heartening to hear the voices from my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, raising the alarm of the threat posed by ISIS. President Obama has signaled his intention of addressing the issue later this week.

It is well past time for him to do so. His recent statements from his admission on August 28 that ``we don't have a strategy yet'' to his suggestion on September 3 that ``our best bet is to try to `shrink' ISIS's sphere of influence until they are a manageable problem,'' those comments are not encouraging. The objective is not to make ISIS manageable. The objective is to protect the national security interests of the United States and to destroy terrorists who have declared jihad on our Nation.

Neither are the two things we already know that the President will propose in his new ``game plan''--namely, that he will not be requesting authorization from Congress for military action against ISIS and that his model is the counterterrorism policies pursued by his administration the past 5 years. Neither of these is encouraging. I ask the President to reconsider both of these points.

While ISIS is obviously part of the scourge of radical Islamic terrorism that has bedeviled the West for decades, it equally obviously represents a new and particularly virulent strain. The President is reportedly considering an action that could last as long as 3 years and may require a range of actions. If this is indeed the case, then it is incumbent on him to come to Congress and lay out his strategy so that we and the American people are clear on it.

I would note that the Presiding Officer has been particularly vocal and clear defending the constitutional authority of Congress to declare war. I would note as well that it is beneficial for the effort for the President to come to Congress, because in doing so it will force the President to do what has been lacking for so long, which is lay out a specific and clear military objective: What is it we are trying to accomplish that is tethered directly to the U.S. national security interests of America?

The Constitution is clear. It is Congress and Congress only that has the constitutional authority to declare war. Any President, as Commander in Chief, has constitutional authority to respond to an imminent crisis, to respond to a clear and present danger. But in this instance, the President is not suggesting it. He is suggesting engaged military action, and it is, therefore, inconsistent with the Constitution for him to attempt to pursue that action without recognizing the constitutional authority of this body.

It is my hope that he will do so, and it is my hope we will have a substantive and meaningful debate about the military objective we should be united in achieving, which is, namely, destroying ISIS and preventing them from committing acts of terror and murdering innocent Americans.

Given the need to consider such action against a new actor such as ISIS, it also must be admitted that the Obama administration's counterterrorism policy has not been a success. They have labeled the 2009 attack on Fort Hood in my home State of Texas as an act of ``workplace violence'' even though the terrorist attacker Nidal Hasan recently asked to become a citizen of the Islamic State.

They also missed connecting the dots that would have uncovered the radicalization of the Tsarnaev brothers that resulted in the attack on the Boston Marathon. It should be noted that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the elder brother, worshipped at the same Cambridge, MA, mosque where the ISIS head of propaganda worshipped. This jihad can reach back and directly take the lives of Americans citizens at home.

The administration has failed to respond effectively to the attack on our facilities in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, in which four Americans were murdered, including the first ambassador killed in the line of duty since 1979, an event that inaugurated Libya's spiral into terrorist anarchy that continues unchecked to this day. They completely missed the gathering threat of ISIS to the point that the President himself was under the misapprehension that the group was the terrorist equivalent of the junior varsity only a few months ago.

We cannot afford to return to these destructive policies, given the acute threat posed by ISIS. It is my hope that this body will stand together as one in bipartisan unity to secure the borders and to change our laws to pass the legislation I am introducing today to make clear that any American who takes up arms with ISIS has, in doing so, constructively renounced his or her American citizenship so that the Congress, with one voice, can protect Americans at home. This requires clear, decisive, unified action, and it is my hope that all of us will come together supporting such action and that the President will submit to the authority of Congress seeking authorization to protect America against ISIS and to engage in a concentrated, directed military campaign to take them out.

Mr. President, I rise to address an issue of grave importance to the national security of the United States; that is, the threat from the radical Sunni terrorist organization known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or simply as the Islamic State.

Now it claims to control territory in a grotesque parody of a nation state. ISIS is a study in oppression and brutality that is conducting ethnic cleansing against religious minorities in the region; that is, targeting and persecuting Christians and that is attempting to subject the local population to the strictest forms of Sharia law. ISIS has grotesquely murdered U.S. civilians and indeed journalists on the public stage. It should come as no surprise that the people of the United States are deeply concerned about this development. We are concerned about the inability of our government to anticipate this gathering threat. We are concerned about the brutal acts of oppression against the weak and the helpless.

We are concerned about ISIS's seizure of financial and military assets that have fueled their murderous rampage. Above all, we are concerned about the threat ISIS poses, not only to our close allies in the region but also to our citizens and even here in our homeland.

There has been a lot of talk in recent days about developing a strategy to combat ISIS. I would like to propose a couple of commonsense steps that we should take immediately to combat this scourge.

First, the time has come--it is beyond time--for us to secure our borders. Representing the State of Texas, which has a border nearly 2,000 miles long, I know firsthand how unsecure the border is right now. This week of all weeks, with the anniversary of the September 11 attacks upon us, we can have no illusions that terrorists will not try to make good on their specific threats to attack America. As long as our border is not secure, we are making it far too easy for the terrorists to carry through on those promises.

Rumored ISIS activities on the southern border should unite us all in the resolve to make border security a top priority rather than an afterthought or rather than something to be held hostage for political negotiations in the Congress. Second, we should take commonsense steps to make fighting for or supporting ISIS an affirmative renunciation of American citizenship. We know there are over 100 Americans who have joined ISIS who have taken up arms alongside the jihadists, along with thousands of others from the European Union.

We also know they are trying to return to their countries of origin to carry out terrorist attacks there. We know this because on May 24 an ISIS member returned to Belgium where he attacked innocent visitors at a Jewish museum, slaughtering four people. It was reported today he had been plotting an even larger attack on Paris on Bastille Day.

In addition, on August 11 of this year, an accused ISIS sympathizer, Donald Ray Morgan, was arrested at JFK Airport trying to reenter the United States. So we know this threat is real. That is why I have today filed legislation, the Expatriate Terrorist Act of 2014, which would amend the existing statutes governing renunciation of U.S. citizenship to designate fighting for a hostile foreign government or foreign terrorist organization as an affirmative renunciation of citizenship.

By fighting for ISIS, U.S. citizens have expressed their desire to become citizens of the Islamic state. That cannot and will not peacefully coexist with remaining American citizens, the desire to become a citizen of a terrorist organization that has expressed a desire to wage war on the American people, has demonstrated a brutal capacity to do so, murdering American civilians on the global stage and promising to bring that jihad home to America.

We should not be facilitating their efforts by allowing fighters fighting alongside ISIS to come back to America with American passports and walk freely in our cities to carry out unspeakable acts of terror. It is my hope the legislation I am introducing today will earn support on both sides of the aisle, that we will see this body come together and say: While there are many partisan issues that divide us, when it comes to protecting U.S. citizens from acts of terror, we are all as one. That is my fervent hope.

The third thing we should do is we should do everything possible to make ISIS understand there are serious ramifications for threatening to attack the United States, for murdering American citizens. While damaging ISIS's financial assets is certainly a part of this action, because of the very nature of ISIS, the response must be principally military.

All Americans are weary of the long and costly wars in the last decade. We

are tired of sending our sons and daughters potentially to die in distant lands. No one wants to see an extended engagement in Iraq, but at the same time I do not believe the American people are one bit reluctant to defend our national security, to defend the lives of fellow Americans. The American people can see the grim threat represented by ISIS and the need for decisive action.

We should concentrate on a coordinated and overwhelming air campaign that has the clear military objective of destroying the capability of ISIS to carry out terror attacks on the United States. We must remain focused on this clear military objective if we hope to be successful. We cannot engage in photo op foreign policy or press release foreign policy of dropping a bomb here, shooting a missile there, and not have a strategy that is dictated by clear and direct military objectives in furtherance of U.S. national security interests.

We should be perfectly clear as well that any action we take against ISIS is in no way contingent on resolving the civil war in Syria. That conflict is a humanitarian tragedy, pitting a brutal dictator against radical Islamic terrorists. The sad reality is there are no good options for the United States in this fight. We may have had less radical options 3 years ago, but those are not currently available.

The Obama administration had proposed arming rebel forces that contained terrorist factions associated with ISIS. Previously, we were told the rebels fighting alongside ISIS were our friends and Assad and Iran were our enemies. Now, in the face of ISIS, we are hearing Assad may be our friend, Iran may be our friend, and ISIS is now our enemy. This makes no sense. Indeed, it is a dangerous cycle reminiscent of George Orwell's ``1984.'' Orwell wrote:

At this moment, for example, in 1984. . . . Oceania was at

war with Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia. . . .

Actually . . . it was only four years since Oceania had been

at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. But . . .

[o]fficially the change of partners had never happened.

Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always

been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of the moment always

represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or

future agreement with him was impossible. . . .

This administration seems to have no sense of past or future. All of those familiar with the terribly human carnage inflicted by the civil war in Syria pray for its end. But the goal of our action against ISIS should not be to end it by supporting Assad. The enemy of my enemy is not always my friend. Sometimes the goal is the destruction of the enemy who poses an imminent threat to our national security, not the enabler of yet another enemy of America.

It should also be clear that any action we take against ISIS should in no way be contingent on political reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites in Baghdad. This administration has often become distracted by the hope to achieve this reconciliation, but the sad truth is the Sunnis and Shiites have been engaged in a sectarian civil war since 632 A.D. It is the height of hubris, it is the height of ignorance to suggest the American President can come and resolve a 1,500-year-old religious civil war and have both sides throw down their arms and embrace each other as brothers. That should not be our objective, although we of course always hope for reconciliation and peace. We should not be so naive as to make defending our national security contingent on resolving millennia-old sectarian religious civil wars. Doing so, seeking to promote a utopia, seeking to transform Iraq into Switzerland is nothing less than a fool's errand.

Likewise, it should be perfectly clear that any action we take to stop ISIS from attacking and murdering Americans is in no way contingent on consensus from the so-called international community. America is blessed to have many good friends and allies in the region and beyond who understand the threat of ISIS and are eager to do what they can to combat it. We welcome their support. But in order that this action be done right, it must be led by the United States, unfettered by other nations' rules of engagement that might impede our effective action.

Achieving some preordained number of countries in a coalition is not a strategy. For as has often been remarked: In the most effective efforts, the mission determines the coalition, not the other way around. It is heartening to hear the voices from my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, raising the alarm of the threat posed by ISIS. President Obama has signaled his intention of addressing the issue later this week.

It is well past time for him to do so. His recent statements from his admission on August 28 that ``we don't have a strategy yet'' to his suggestion on September 3 that ``our best bet is to try to `shrink' ISIS's sphere of influence until they are a manageable problem,'' those comments are not encouraging. The objective is not to make ISIS manageable. The objective is to protect the national security interests of the United States and to destroy terrorists who have declared jihad on our Nation.

Neither are the two things we already know that the President will propose in his new ``game plan''--namely, that he will not be requesting authorization from Congress for military action against ISIS and that his model is the counterterrorism policies pursued by his administration the past 5 years. Neither of these is encouraging. I ask the President to reconsider both of these points.

While ISIS is obviously part of the scourge of radical Islamic terrorism that has bedeviled the West for decades, it equally obviously represents a new and particularly virulent strain. The President is reportedly considering an action that could last as long as 3 years and may require a range of actions. If this is indeed the case, then it is incumbent on him to come to Congress and lay out his strategy so that we and the American people are clear on it.

I would note that the Presiding Officer has been particularly vocal and clear defending the constitutional authority of Congress to declare war. I would note as well that it is beneficial for the effort for the President to come to Congress, because in doing so it will force the President to do what has been lacking for so long, which is lay out a specific and clear military objective: What is it we are trying to accomplish that is tethered directly to the U.S. national security interests of America?

The Constitution is clear. It is Congress and Congress only that has the constitutional authority to declare war. Any President, as Commander in Chief, has constitutional authority to respond to an imminent crisis, to respond to a clear and present danger. But in this instance, the President is not suggesting it. He is suggesting engaged military action, and it is, therefore, inconsistent with the Constitution for him to attempt to pursue that action without recognizing the constitutional authority of this body.

It is my hope that he will do so, and it is my hope we will have a substantive and meaningful debate about the military objective we should be united in achieving, which is, namely, destroying ISIS and preventing them from committing acts of terror and murdering innocent Americans.

Given the need to consider such action against a new actor such as ISIS, it also must be admitted that the Obama administration's counterterrorism policy has not been a success. They have labeled the 2009 attack on Fort Hood in my home State of Texas as an act of ``workplace violence'' even though the terrorist attacker Nidal Hasan recently asked to become a citizen of the Islamic State.

They also missed connecting the dots that would have uncovered the radicalization of the Tsarnaev brothers that resulted in the attack on the Boston Marathon. It should be noted that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the elder brother, worshipped at the same Cambridge, MA, mosque where the ISIS head of propaganda worshipped. This jihad can reach back and directly take the lives of Americans citizens at home.

The administration has failed to respond effectively to the attack on our facilities in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, in which four Americans were murdered, including the first ambassador killed in the line of duty since 1979, an event that inaugurated Libya's spiral into terrorist anarchy that continues unchecked to this day. They completely missed the gathering threat of ISIS to the point that the President himself was under the misapprehension that the group was the terrorist equivalent of the junior varsity only a few months ago.

We cannot afford to return to these destructive policies, given the acute threat posed by ISIS. It is my hope that this body will stand together as one in bipartisan unity to secure the borders and to change our laws to pass the legislation I am introducing today to make clear that any American who takes up arms with ISIS has, in doing so, constructively renounced his or her American citizenship so that the Congress, with one voice, can protect Americans at home. This requires clear, decisive, unified action, and it is my hope that all of us will come together supporting such action and that the President will submit to the authority of Congress seeking authorization to protect America against ISIS and to engage in a concentrated, directed military campaign to take them out.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I rise today to speak in favor of a principle that should unite us all--the principle of Internet tax freedom. One of the great blessings of our modern economy is the productivity, the entrepreneurial spirit the Internet has created, the ability of anyone with an idea to jump online, to communicate, to create a business, to reach the world.

One of the reasons the Internet has been such an entrepreneurial haven is that Congress has wisely decided to keep it free from taxation, not to subject the Internet to taxation. Well, unfortunately, we are at the precipice of that long tradition changing. If the Senate refuses to take action, the Internet will be taxed this November.

For a decade and a half, Americans have been able to use the Internet all across the country free of taxes, and Republicans and Democrats have agreed on this basic principle. There is not a lot of agreement in this town on much of anything, including what time of day it is. Yet on Internet taxes--in 1998 President Bill Clinton signed the law banning Internet taxes. Congress has extended it three times--in 2001, 2004, and 2007.

Today there is a bipartisan coalition on the record to keep the Internet tax free. The senior Democratic Senator from New York and the senior Democratic Senator from Wisconsin both publicly support keeping the Internet free from taxation. Conservatives in the Senate, such as the junior Republican Senator from Utah, the junior Republican Senator from Florida, and the senior Republican Senator from Louisiana, agree as well. There are 52 cosponsors in the Senate on the bill by the senior Democratic Senator from Oregon, who is here with us, to keep the ban on Internet taxes.

This should be easy. This should be a matter of easy agreement because rarely is there an issue that has united parties so broadly as keeping the Internet tax free. Yet, unfortunately, this session of the Senate is also seeing politicians who want to extend sales taxes to the Internet, who want to subject small businesses, mom-and-pops, businesses started by people just wanting to build a business, to crushing sales taxes from 9,600 jurisdictions nationwide.

I am passionate in saying we should fight against taxing the Internet, and we should not open the door to Internet taxes. The average tax rate right now on telephone services and other voice services is 17 percent. The average tax rate on cable and video services is 12 percent. If this Senate does not act, you are going to see consumers in States such as Montana and South Dakota and Massachusetts, on November 1, begin paying taxes for having basic Internet service. Those State laws are already in effect and will go into effect on Internet services.

I would note for the Senators who represent Montana and South Dakota and Massachusetts that come November 2--which, I might note, is right before an election day--anyone in those States should be prepared to answer questions from their citizens on why the Senate stood by and let taxes be raised on their citizens just for having an Internet connection.

Americans are struggling to pay their bills in the Obama economy. Life has gotten harder and harder for working men and women in this country. Life has gotten harder and harder for the most vulnerable among us--for young people, for Hispanics, for African Americans, for single moms. The last thing we should be doing is playing politics and jacking up taxes on people accessing the Internet.

I would note that the U.S. House of Representatives has already acted. On July 15 the House voice voted H.R. 3086, the Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act. It had 228 cosponsors. My friend Senator Wyden has introduced the Senate version of it, S. 1431. It has 52 cosponsors, including 18 Democrats. This ought to be something where we stop playing games and say let's all come together and agree: Do not tax the Internet. Yet, unfortunately, we are not in that situation. Unfortunately, we are seeing an objection to the House-passed bill, to a bill that has the support of a majority of Senators. Why? The only reason is because there is hope that by holding the Internet Tax Freedom Act hostage, it can become a vehicle to impose sales taxes on transactions over the Internet, to impose sales taxes on every small business.

I would note one of many wonderful things. It used to be that if you were a single mom and you wanted to start a small business, you wanted to make something, you wanted to sit down and make something, whether it was a computer program or sweaters for dogs or anything else, it used to be that to create a small business took time, it took money, it took infrastructure. You had to have in place warehouses and distributors. You had to have a mechanism to sell your products.

Do you know the great thing about the Internet? If you are a single mom and you have an idea to start a business, you can put up a Web site, and with FedEx you can deliver anywhere in the country.

Anyone all over the country can do it, if you have an idea. Let me tell you, my cousin had an idea to sell scarves. She thought she had some good design ideas. My cousin Beatriz worked with her best friend to design scarves.

If you put up a Web site, suddenly you can sell all over the country. Well, what would the Internet sales tax do? It would say that when you start your business, if you start getting customers, you have to collect taxes in 9,600 jurisdictions all over the country. If the school district across the country changes its tax rate from 4.5 percent to 4.75 percent, you have to know that and collect that differential tax. This does not make any sense.

We should stand together united in protecting the entrepreneurial haven that is the Internet. We should stand united against taxing the Internet.

I would note that my friend the Senator from New Hampshire has a long and passionate record on this issue as well, and I am happy to yield to her for a question on this important topic.

I thank my friend from New Hampshire. I would note that she is exactly right. We have the ability to do something productive, something that does not happen in Washington an awful lot. We have the ability right now to come together in a bipartisan way for the Senate to demonstrate that it can function productively to address the economic challenges in this country the way the House has.

The House is doing its job. The House has passed this bill. It is the Senate that has refused to take it up for a vote. It is the Senate that is refusing to do its job. We have an ability not just to protect the Internet from taxes but also to honor our word. How many Members of this body, on both sides of the aisle, go to the tech community and say: We want to stand with tech. We want to stand for the entrepreneurial vibrancy of tech?

Yet I would note anyone objecting to this right now is setting the stage for a massive Internet tax. How many of us make the case to young people that we are standing for the future for young people, we are standing for greater opportunity, we are standing for the chance to help young people achieve the American dream? You know, young Americans, 18 to 29 years old, oppose an Internet sales tax by 73 percent to 27 percent.

Yet if this body refuses to stand together in a bipartisan manner, we are telling young people: What we say on the campaign trial is not backed by action on the floor.

We ought to come together on what should be an uncontroversial bill, a bill that has passed three times before, a bill that was signed by President Bill Clinton, a bill that in this body is introduced by a senior Democrat. We ought to come together in a bipartisan way to say: We stand in unison protecting Internet tax freedom.

Accordingly, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 3086, which was received from the House. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Madam President, I wish to briefly explain to people watching the back-and-forth that just occurred what is going on here, because it is easy to not understand everything that is happening. There are three things going on here:

No. 1, what we are unfortunately seeing is the Senate holding one bill hostage in order to try to force through another unpopular bill.

There are two bills concerning the Internet. The first is the Internet Tax Freedom Act. That has been in place for over a decade. It has had bipartisan support. It has been championed by the Senator from Oregon who has been an outspoken and passionate advocate of making sure that when you and I go and sign up for the Internet, we don't face taxes for getting Internet service, and it has worked very well. That law has always been an area of bipartisan agreement.

But there is a second law that has been proposed in this body but not passed. The second law is the Internet sales tax, what its proponents call the Marketplace Fairness Act. The Internet sales tax is not focused on taxing someone just for signing up to the Internet. Rather, the people being punished by the Internet sales tax are all the small businesses trying to sell their wares online, and there are a number of Senators who very much want to impose taxes on those small businesses in 9,600 jurisdictions nationwide.

What is happening here, right now, is even though no one has serious objection to the Internet Tax Freedom Act, we are, unfortunately, seeing our colleagues from the Democratic side of the aisle hold that bill hostage in an effort to try to force through the Internet sales tax.

I would note the reason my friend from New Hampshire had no choice but to object to the 2-month proposal is the 2-month time period was not picked out of a hat. Two months means the Internet Tax Freedom Act would expire during a lameduck session. And why is that? Because in a lameduck session there are a bunch of Members who have been defeated, who aren't going to face voters ever again. A lameduck session is the session most likely to raise taxes.

So why is it there is an effort to extend this just 2 months? So when the Internet Tax Freedom Act expires in the lameduck, the Members of this body who lost their election and are immune from democratic accountability will all come together and say: OK, now let's pass the Internet sales tax. We shouldn't be holding the Internet hostage to the rapacious desire of tax collectors.

A second point I want to make about what is going on here--this is about discriminatory taxes, not about federalism. My friend, the Senator from North Dakota, was a learned attorney general who talked about the 10th

Amendment and federalism. I welcome seeing friends of mine on the Democratic side of the aisle embrace the 10th Amendment. I look forward and hope aspirationally that friends on the Democratic side of the aisle will embrace the 10th Amendment on other issues.

I would note, however, that the constitutional history we were told was a little bit off, because if we look at the history of our country, originally we had the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation allowed States to enact discriminatory taxes against each other, and it led to chaos. It didn't work. One of the reasons our Constitution was adopted was to prevent discriminatory taxes, one State picking on another State.

So when Congress was given the authority to regulate interstate commerce, it is precisely to prevent a little mom and pop selling online from being forced by 9,600 jurisdictions nationwide to collect all of those taxes. If someone is living and working in the State of Texas, they shouldn't have to collect taxes for New York or California--for politicians they don't get to vote for. For politicians they don't get any input on, they shouldn't be forced to collect their taxes.

Indeed, for the approach of Members of this body who want to pass the Internet sales tax, recall President Reagan's famous admonition:

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a

few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving,

regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

Why don't we stop it at the outset? The Internet is moving. It is generating entrepreneurial steam throughout this country. We haven't been taxing it. Let's not start now.

The third and final point I will make about what this exchange is about is, more than anything, this exchange is about crony capitalism.

I would note the Presiding Officer today has been quite passionate discussing the corruption in Washington that favors big business. What we just saw on this Senate floor illustrates that as powerfully as anything that has happened this year. Because what is the Internet sales tax all about? It is about a coalition of big businesses coming together, both big bricks-and-mortar retailers and big online retailers coming to their elected officials, saying: You know what. We don't like competition. These little guys, these little upstarts, these single moms who start businesses and compete with us, we don't like that. So let's go to our friends in Washington--our friends, mind you, whom we hold campaign fundraisers for, whose campaigns we contribute to--and let's get the Congress to come together and hammer every small online business we can.

That is what we are seeing. This is crony capitalism. This is a law designed to benefit big companies and hurt small startups.

The beauty of our country is that anybody can come to this country with nothing but a hope and a dream and a vision and achieve anything. It is because the entrepreneurial vibrancy of this country gives the little guy a chance. Yet I am sorry to say Washington more and more behaves as though it is for sale to the highest bidder.

Right now, today, the top 1 percent in our country earns a higher share of our income than any year since 1928. We ought to come together in a bipartisan way and say: Stop being the handmaidens of big business. Stop using government to make it harder for the little guy, for young people, for single moms, for Hispanic and African-American entrepreneurs. Stop making it harder for them to achieve the American dream. Stop pulling up the ladder so the big companies can say: We have got ours; nobody else gets theirs.

When big business comes to Washington and says: We want government's help stifling small business, both parties should stand together and say: Sorry. That is not what the Congress is for. We work for the American people. But, I am sorry to say, what we just saw was a powerful demonstration that this Senate right now is more interested in preserving crony capitalism than it is in protecting mom-and-pops, in protecting opportunity, in protecting Internet tax freedom.

But the great thing about our system is at the end of the day, the American people don't work for the 100 Members of this body. It is the other way around: All 100 of us work for the American people. And I will tell you, the American people are getting fed up. They are getting fed up with Members of both parties who spend more time giving in to the corruption of Washington and entrenching power than they do removing barriers to people achieving the American dream.

I am hopeful and confident that the voters are waking up, are standing up, and will hold every one of us accountable. Democrats and Republicans, every one of us, will be held accountable: Have you fought to make it easier to achieve the American dream or have you simply preserved the corrupt crony capitalism of Washington?

I hope we can together aspire to our better angels. I hope we can come together and keep and preserve in a bipartisan manner Internet tax freedom.

I thank my friend from South Dakota.

Mr. President, I am pleased and saddened to stand here in support of my colleagues as we stand united in support of the Nation of Israel.

In the last several weeks over 2500 rockets rained down over the Nation of Israel. Eighty percent of the population had to flee what they were doing and run to bomb shelters to hide--moms, dads, children. When the alarm goes off they have sometimes 10, 15 seconds to get to a bomb shelter.

I want you to imagine if the same situation were happening in America. Imagine if 80 percent of this country in the last several weeks had run to a bomb shelter. Imagine if 240 million Americans in the last several weeks had been sitting at work or in the doctor's office or having breakfast and had to grab their children and run in panic toward a bomb shelter. Imagine what our country would be doing in response.

In recent weeks we have discovered that Hamas has opened a new chapter in the annals of terrorism. It is not just raining rockets down from on high, but it is now attacking from below. Some 32 full-scale terror tunnels have been discovered dug under the ground under the border and coming up in kibbutzes inside Israel along Gaza. Some of the tunnels come up inside kindergartens. We have discovered in recent weeks a terrifying plot that was underway for Hamas terrorists on Rosh Hashanah to come through those tunnels--hundreds of them--to emerge in kindergartens to kidnap and murder vast numbers of young Jewish children.

Imagine right now if enemies of this country had dug tunnels into this country and were coming up into our schools. Imagine if Iran or China or some other hostile foreign nation had tunnels from which your children and my children were at risk of being kidnapped or murdered. Today in Gaza we see massive civilian casualties that are the direct consequence of the violence of Hamas.

You see, the human casualties are not an unintended side effect of the conflicts. They are the objective that Hamas seeks--dead Palestinian children and women and men. We know this because Hamas is engaging in a war crime right now, not that the United Nations Human Rights Council would ever say anything about it. But Hamas is engaging in a war crime of using human shields--deliberately using human shields. Where do they place their rockets with which they are raining down death and destruction upon Israel? They place them in schools. They place them in private homes. They place them in mosques. Deliberately they surround their rockets and their terror tunnels with innocent civilians.

Israel right now is engaged in something unprecedented in the annals of modern warfare. It is undertaking more humanitarian effort to spare civilian deaths than any military has in recorded history. Before attacking, Israel sends out texts. When they discover a rocket battery they need to take out because it is firing rockets targeting innocent civilians, they send texts saying: Clear out of the area. They try to save the Palestinian civilians. They drop from the sky pamphlets on an area that is about to be bombed to take out the rockets that are coming from that area. The pamphlets say to the civilians: Get out. Get out because we are going to take out the rockets and you are in harm's way. Not only that, they have a practice of sending an initial knock bomb. What does that mean? It means the first bomb lands on the roof and makes a knock. It doesn't explode; it just makes a loud knock. They do that for a reason: So the people inside the building can look up, can hear the knock, and can flee the building so the second missile can take down the building and the rockets that are housed inside and being used to try to murder innocent civilians.

A few weeks ago Prime Minister Netanyahu summed it up very powerfully when he said: Israel uses missile defense to defend our citizens. Hamas uses its citizens to defend its missiles.

Israel has tried to warn Palestinian civilians: Don't be located where the missiles are because we are going to respond as any sovereign nation will to protect our citizens.

What does Hamas say? Hamas tells the Palestinians: Stay there.

Picture that for a second. Israel is warning civilians to clear the area because they are going to take out the rockets and they are going to take out the tunnels. The response from Hamas is: No. Stay there.

Why? Because what they want to see is Palestinian children, Palestinian women killed so they can put the pictures on the Sunday night news because they know the world--many at the United Nations, many in the media--will behave like useful idiots. They will point to the civilian casualties that are Hamas's fault. When you put rockets on top of children, when

you tell the children ``do not leave,'' when you know the rockets are going to be taken out--it is Hamas, the terrorists who are responsible for those children's deaths. Yet the international community puts the pictures on the evening news and blames the nation of Israel.

I am proud this week to have joined my colleague, Senator Gillibrand from New York, in filing a bipartisan resolution in this body condemning Hamas's use of human shields, condemning it as a war crime, condemning it as an outrage, condemning it as the direct reason we are seeing so many civilian deaths.

I have to note that one of the reasons civilian deaths have been mitigated in Israel is because of the incredible success of the Iron Dome missile defense system. Ronald Reagan's ``Star Wars'' is today's Iron Dome.

We see unfolding in recent weeks in Israel the product of President Reagan's vision when he proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI, on March 23, 1983. Critics at the time dismissed it as ``Star Wars.'' The Presiding Officer will recall--we were both teenagers at the time, and we recall learned experts, so to speak, going on television saying SDI was a fool's errand; it was a dream. The analogy that was given was you cannot hit a bullet with a bullet; it can't work. Well, run the clock forward three decades, and we see an Iron Dome, the strategic vision of President Reagan, playing out in real- time.

There is a wonderful video on YouTube that I encourage anyone who is interested to Google and watch. It is a video called ``Iron Dome Wedding.'' If people Google it, they will discover a video from a wedding in southern Israel. It is an ordinary wedding video, just like I suspect the Presiding Officer and I both had from our weddings. But in the midst of it, rockets begin coming through the night sky. We see rockets come across the sky, and then we see Iron Dome interceptors come up and explode the rockets. One after the other is hit and explodes, and the whole thing looks like fireworks. In the background we hear the wedding music and the sound of celebrating, and we think, were it not for these Iron Dome interceptors, those missiles might be landing on that wedding and causing carnage and death and destruction. But because of the potential, the power, the actuality of missile defense, instead they are intercepted.

There are indisputable differences between the intercontinental ballistic missiles that SDI was designed to target and the low-tech missiles Hamas is firing over Israel that Iron Dome is intercepting. That is why Iron Dome is one part of a three-tiered system that includes David's Sling and the Arrow 2 and 3 systems, which are designed to guard against more sophisticated weapons, such as the longer range missiles being provided to Hamas by Syria and Iran, and they would also defend against nuclear ballistic missiles of the sort being developed in Iran.

It is worth underscoring, even as the fighting in Gaza grabs the headlines, that we have to keep our eye on the far more serious danger of a nuclear Iran. The threat of a nuclear-armed Iran would make Hamas and their rockets seem like child's play. And our support for Iron Dome should be understood in the context of support for the continued development of these systems, which not only protect our friend and ally Israel, but they protect us. There is a reason why Hamas and Iran refer to Israel as the ``Little Satan'' and the United States as the ``Great Satan,'' because their intention with both is the same terror, the same murder, the same death and destruction.

Israel is currently working to carry out the grinding work to eradicate these terror tunnels that have been built under schools and kindergartens designed to kidnap and murder young children. I would note that it is an enormously difficult task, one that might prove impossible were it not for the success of Iron Dome limiting the effectiveness of those rockets.

I encourage this body to stand together, united as one, Republicans and Democrats. There may be issues on which we disagree--there may be a great many issues--but we ought to be able to stand together as one and speak in unison that we support the nation of Israel and that we will work with the nation of Israel immediately to replenish their Iron Dome supply so they can protect the citizens there and so they can do what is necessary to eradicate the Hamas rockets and terror tunnels being used to commit war crimes. There should be a unified, bipartisan voice in this body, and it is my hope that by the end of this week that is exactly what it will be.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank my friend, the junior Senator from Alabama, for his very kind comments and for his relentless leadership in defense of the rule of law and standing against amnesty.

What I wish to speak about this afternoon is the humanitarian crisis that is playing out on our southern border right now and the abdication of responsibility that is playing out in Washington, DC.

A couple of weeks ago President Obama was in my home State of Texas. He found time to go to two Democratic Party fundraisers, to pal around with some Democratic Party fat cats, to collect a whole bunch of checks. Yet somehow he didn't have time to make it down to our southern border.

The day before he was in Colorado and he found time to play a game of pool with the Governor there. I am glad he enjoyed himself playing pool. Yet somehow he didn't have time to go visit Lackland Air Force Base and see the 1,200 children who are being held there who are paying the price for the failure of the Obama immigration policy. In the coming weeks he is headed to Martha's Vineyard. He is, I am sure, going to enjoy himself paling around with swells. Yet the people held in detention facilities up and down the border are not going to see the Commander in Chief because he cannot be bothered to address the human suffering.

He was just in California, in Hollywood, where the producer of ``Scandal'' hosted him. That is kind of fitting because it is scandalous that the President has more time to be ``Fundraiser in Chief'' than he does to do his basic job as Commander in Chief in securing our borders.

Let me tell my colleagues, while the President was running around collecting checks from Democratic Party fat cats, I was back home in Texas. I was on the border this weekend down in McAllen. I sat down with the chief of the Border Patrol in McAllen. I sat down with the line officers of the Border Patrol in McAllen. I visited the detention facilities that are being constructed to hold these children. I saw a remarkable facility. It used to be a gigantic warehouse, and in 18 days the Border Patrol had to stand up a facility to house 1,000 children because that is the volume coming through there every couple of days.

The President is right in one regard. He has publicly stated we are seeing a humanitarian crisis, and that is correct, but it is a crisis of his own creation. This humanitarian crisis is the direct consequence of President Obama's lawlessness. I will note he cannot even be bothered to cast his eyes on the people who are suffering because of it.

If we want to know what is causing this crisis, a simple examination of the numbers will suffice. Just 3 years ago, in 2011, the number of unaccompanied children entering this country was roughly 6,000. Then, in June of 2012, just a few months before the election, President Obama unilaterally granted amnesty to some 800,000 people who were here illegally in this country who entered as children. He did so, presumably, because he thought there would be a political benefit. It was a few months before an election and he thought there was good politics in ignoring the law and granting amnesty. But the foreseeable consequence of that amnesty--the predictable and the predicted consequence of that amnesty--if we tell people across the globe that if they enter as children, they get amnesty, suddenly we create an incredible incentive for more and more children to come and more and more children to come alone.

This year, the Department of Homeland Security estimates that 90,000 unaccompanied children will enter this country illegally. Next year they estimate 145,000. I want my colleagues to compare those numbers for a second. Three years ago, it was 6,000. Now it is 90,000, and next year we expect 145,000. The direct and proximate cause was President Obama's amnesty.

There are some in this body who might not believe what a Member of the opposite party says on this. There is a whole lot of partisanship in Washington. It truly has shut down the ability of this body to deal with real challenges facing this country.

If people don't believe what a Member of the opposite party says, perhaps they will believe the Border Patrol. Just a few weeks ago the Border Patrol conducted a confidential study that was given to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee by a whistleblower in the Border Patrol, where they interviewed over 200 people who had entered the country recently illegally, and they asked them the question: Why are you coming? Ninety-five percent said we are coming because we believe we will get amnesty; that if we just get here, we will be allowed to stay.

The administration has been giving lots of supposed causes for this humanitarian crisis. One of their favorites is the violence in Central America. It is true. Tragically, there is a great deal of violence in Central America and it has been increasing, but I would note violence is not new to the human condition. There have always been countries across the globe that are racked by violence, racked by civil war, and we have always seen when violence rises, the immigration from a particular country goes up. We see legal immigration from that country go up and we see illegal immigration from that country go up. What we haven't seen in the past is the explosion of children.

The violence in Central America is a reasonable cause to explain the increase in immigrants from Central America, the increase in families coming up to get away from the violence. What it doesn't explain is this new phenomenon: 90,000 unaccompanied children. That is a new phenomenon. There is no reason violence would dictate saying, I am going to take my little boy, I am going to take my little girl, and send them alone. That instead is a direct response to what President Obama did by granting amnesty that was targeted to those who entered as kids. Why are kids entering? Because the President has said, if you enter as a kid, I will grant you amnesty.

Several weeks ago I visited Lackland Air Force Base where roughly 1,200 of these children are being held. I visited with the senior officials there. It is worth understanding that there are many victims of the President's refusal to enforce the law, but some of the most direct victims are these little boys and little girls because the coyotes who are bringing these children in are not well-meaning social workers. They do not have beards and Birkenstocks, and they are not there out of love. These coyotes are hardened, vicious transnational drug cartels, and these children are being subjected to horrific physical and sexual abuse.

When I was at Lackland Air Force Base, a senior official there described to me how these coyotes get custody of these kids to smuggle them illegally into this country, and then sometimes they will decide to hold the children for ransom, to get even more money from the families. If the families cannot or will not pay, horribly, what these coyotes are doing is severing body parts of these children and sending them back to the families.

The senior official at Lackland described coyotes putting machine guns to the back of the head of a little boy or a little girl and ordering them to cut off the fingers or the ears of another little boy or little girl. If the child refuses, they shoot that child and move on to the next one. They described how on our end we are seeing children come into this country--some of whom have been horribly maimed by these violent coyotes and drug cartels, others of whom have enormous psychological damage--from a little boy or a little girl forced to commit such atrocities upon pain of death.

I asked the officials at Lackland: How many of these children have been victimized? The answer: All of them. That was from the senior official at Lackland. By the way, one of the things we hear reports of is these families with the girls, before they send them up, they give them birth control because the expectations are that the risks of sexual assault and rape are so high. That risk is being undertaken because of the promise of amnesty.

When I was down in McAllen this weekend, I asked the line agents--I said: Listen. Every day you guys are on the river, you are in the helicopter, you are securing the border. Why are they coming? What has changed? Just 3 years ago it was 6,000 kids. Now it is 90,000. What has changed? Every single one of the Border Patrol agents gave the exact same answer. They said they are coming because they believe they will get amnesty.

It is important to understand, by the way, the coyotes smuggle them across the border, and as soon as they get across the border, they actively look for the Border Patrol. They are not being captured. They are not being caught. They go look for someone in uniform. They may have ragged clothes falling off their back, they may not have food or water, but they have their papers. They have their papers with them. They cross the border illegally with a coyote and they endure the physical and sexual abuse and then they look for the Border Patrol to hand their papers to. Why? Because they believe once they get here and hand their papers over, they get amnesty.

If we want to solve this crisis, there is one, and only one, way to solve this crisis; that is, to eliminate the promise of amnesty. I mentioned a few moments ago that I wanted to talk about this humanitarian crisis and talk about the abdication of responsibility because Washington has always been lousy at taking responsibility for the suffering our policies create. But the response of this President, and I am sorry to say the Democratic majority in this body, has been particularly callous.

President Obama proposed a $3.7 billion supplemental plan. Mind you, he did not have time to visit the border, to visit the children, to see the suffering, but he proposed yet more spending. The $3.7 billion supplemental is an HHS social services bill. It spends a whole bunch of money. By the way, to give you a sense of just how much $3.7 billion is, for $3.7 billion we could purchase a first-class airplane ticket for each one of these 90,000 children to return them home--first class--sitting in the front row of a commercial airline. After doing so, we could deposit $3.6 billion back in the Federal Treasury. It is a massive amount of money he has asked for, and what is striking, less than 5 percent of it goes to border security.

Here is the cynical part. Here is the sad part. Nothing in the President's proposal does anything to solve the underlying problem. Nothing does anything to eliminate the promise of amnesty. Nothing does anything to solve the problem. What the President is

saying is he is perfectly content for this crisis to continue in perpetuity. Under the President's bill, next year we can expect 145,000--DHS expects--to come. We can expect tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of little boys and little girls to be physically assaulted and sexually assaulted by coyotes.

That is not humane. That is not compassionate. Any system that continues to have children in the custody of these vicious drug cartels is the very opposite of humane and compassionate. As my friend the junior Senator from Alabama pointed out, the magnet of amnesty has been significantly exacerbated in recent months. Why? Because President Obama, in a very high-profile way, met with far-left activists and made a promise. He said: I am going to study how to expand amnesty and to grant amnesty to another 5 or 6 million people here illegally.

Let's be clear. There is nothing--zero--in U.S. immigration law that gives the President the power to grant amnesty. It is open lawlessness and contempt for rule of law, but yet that promise is heard. That promise is heard throughout Central America. That promise is heard by those mothers and dads who make the heart-wrenching decision to hand their sons and daughters over to these coyotes. They do so because they love their kids and they believe, as terrible as the journey will be, that if they get here, they get a permiso, they get to stay in the ``promised land.'' That promise of amnesty is why this crisis has happened.

So I have introduced legislation to solve the problem. Last week I introduced a very simple bill that puts into law that President Obama has no authority to grant any additional amnesty. It is a very simple bill. It prevents the President from taking the DACA Program that he unilaterally and illegally implemented in 2012 and expanding it to cover any new immigrants.

It is interesting. Representatives from the administration go on television and they say: These children are not eligible for amnesty. If that is their position, the administration should support my bill. If that is their position, all this bill does is put into law what they say their position is; that these children are not eligible for amnesty.

Have they supported the bill? They have not. Instead the majority leader of this body took it upon himself to go out and hold a press conference. What is the top priority for the majority leader of this body? To come after and attack the legislation I introduced, to personally come after the freshman Senator from Texas. The majority leader is welcome to impugn any Member of this body. Sadly, that happens all too often. But yet nowhere in the majority leader's comments was a word said about solving this problem. Nowhere in the majority leader's comments was a word said about changing it so little boys and little girls are not physically and sexually assaulted so we do not have tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of kids coming illegally into this country.

Look, we all understand politics in this town. It is an election year. The election is a few months away. Scaring people and demagoguing, unfortunately, is not new to Washington. But the cynicism that is reflected in President Obama's and the majority leader's approach to this issue is a new level for this town.

This week I am introducing broader legislation that not only includes what was included last week--a prohibition on the President granting amnesty--but includes two other elements: a reform of the 2008 law to expedite the humane return of these children to their families and a provision to reimburse the cost for the States calling up the National Guard to secure their borders.

I would like to say a word about the 2008 law. That has actually been discussed a lot in this body. Indeed, the Obama administration has two talking points. If we ask the administration what has caused this crisis, the first one is violence in Central America. There is something convenient about that talking point because if it is violence in Central America, it is not President Obama's fault. It is not anything they have done. It is something else extrinsic. But the second talking point that sometimes the administration will say is that the cause of this crisis is the 2008 law.

There is a reason they point to that. Because it seems there is nothing President Obama enjoys more than blaming everything bad on this planet on George W. Bush. The 2008 law was signed by George W. Bush. So if this crisis was caused by the 2008 law, then mirabile dictu, it is not this administration's fault.

But John Adams famously said: Facts are stubborn things. If someone is going to make a claim that a crisis is caused by the 2008 law, they have to be willing to take at least a moment to look to the facts.

The 2008 law was passed, unsurprisingly, in 2008. The number of children entering unaccompanied did not spike in 2008. It did not spike in 2009. It did not spike in 2010. It did not spike in 2011. In 2011 it was roughly 6,000. If the 2008 law were the cause of this crisis, we would have seen the numbers spike in 2008 or 2009 or 2010 or 2011. No, they did not spike until 2012--June of 2012--when the President pulled out his pen and granted amnesty. That is the cause--the direct cause-- the cause that the Border Patrol tells us these immigrants are telling us is why they are coming.

Once the crisis was created, the 2008 law has had unintended consequences. The 2008 law allowed expedited removal for unaccompanied children from Mexico and Canada--our immediate contiguous countries-- but created slow, delayed, bureaucratized removal for children from more distant countries.

That did not create significant problems in 2008 or 2009 or 2010 or 2011 because we did not have a massive influx of kids from those countries. But once the President illegally granted amnesty and we started getting--as we are expected to this year--90,000 unaccompanied children--most of whom are from Central American countries--now we are seeing the 2008 law cause real problems because returning these children home is delayed, often delayed indefinitely.

When I was in the McAllen meeting with the line Border Patrol agents, I asked them another question. I said: Listen. Washington is dysfunctional. Partisan politics rips the town apart. If you could ignore the politics, what do you say on the frontlines? How do we actually secure the borders? How do we solve this problem? Every single one of the Border Patrol agents answered the same way. They said: We have to send them home.

We treat them humanely. We treat them compassionately--because that is who we are as Americans; those are our values--but humanely and compassionately we need to expeditiously return them to their families back home. Why? Because if the children are allowed to stay--and, mark my words, President Obama wants these children to stay and he wants to grant amnesty to the next children and the next children, which means that promise of amnesty will cause tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of children to continue to be physically assaulted and sexually assaulted in perpetuity.

If we grant amnesty, all it will do is incite yet more kids to be victimized. The only way to solve this problem--this is coming from the Border Patrol agents--is to humanely and expeditiously send them home, reunite them with their families.

The legislation I am introducing this week changes the 2008 law so the policies for sending them home are the same as the policies for Mexico and Canada. We treat Mexico and Canada with great friendship and compassion. There is no reason the very same procedures cannot apply to children from Central America.

The final element of this bill is dealing with the real security crisis that is occurring.

Just today the junior Senator from Alabama and I both heard a briefing from one of our senior military leaders on the national security threats caused by our porous borders, by the same avenues that are taking those kids in and that are also being used to smuggle vast quantities of drugs. The same corridors that are taking those kids in are also being used to smuggle in thousands of aliens from special interest countries, from the Middle East, aliens from countries that face serious issues of radical Islamic terrorists.

A number of our border Governors have stepped forward to respond to this crisis. I commend the Governor of my home State of Texas, Rick Perry, for

showing leadership and calling up the National Guard in Texas. It was the right thing to do. He should not have to do it. The Constitution gives that responsibility to the Federal Government. The Governor should not have to step in and fill the breach. They are doing so because the President and the Federal Government are refusing to do their job. But I commend the Governors for doing so. The legislation I am introducing simply provides that when a State steps up and does the job that is our responsibility, the Federal Government will reimburse the costs.

In all likelihood, next week we are going to have a vote on a bill that is denominated a ``border security'' bill. It is a bill the majority leader wants us to vote on that is a version of the President's HHS social services bill and spends a whole bunch of money and does nothing, zero, nada, to solve the problem.

The majority leader knows that. The President knows that. The intention is to have it voted down. One of the incredible things about where we are right now is this Democratic Senate is a do-nothing Senate. We do not pass any legislation of consequence. There is a reason for that. The majority leader has decided we are not going to pass any legislation of consequence. So instead what do we have? We have a series of show votes, every one of which is designed to fail, every one of which the majority leader knows will fail, and every one of which is poll tested or focus-group tested to allow Democrats running for reelection to campaign based on those votes.

It is not legislating. It is not doing the job the Senate was meant to do. This border security bill that we will likely vote on next week will do nothing for border security. It is not designed to. Even if it were to pass, it is not designed to. It is not designed to do anything to stop President Obama's amnesty. It is not designed to do anything to expedite reuniting these kids with their families back home. It is simply designed to be a fig leaf, to say: The Democrats have responded to this crisis. The evil, mean, nasty Republicans did not go along.

That is a political narrative that is not new. It is common in partisan politics. It just happens not to be true. Unfortunately, the Democratic majority in this body has demonstrated no interest in actually solving this problem. You want to know just how cynical the majority leader's strategy is? They have added to this border bill a provision that would replenish the Iron Dome missiles for the nation of Israel.

I would note that has nothing to do with the crisis at our southern border. It is a policy that is unambiguously good. Every Member on the Republican side of this Chamber supports replenishing the Iron Dome missiles that are right now keeping Israel safe from the Hamas terrorist rocket fire. So why has the majority leader stuck that onto a bill that he knows will fail and is designed to fail?

Well, it is called partisan politics. Because when it fails, the talking points will come out. The majority leader will come out and say: The Republicans do not want to solve the problem on the border. The Republicans are unwilling to stand with our friend and ally Israel. Let me tell you right now, every Republican on this side of the Chamber would vote right now, this afternoon, to replenish the Iron Dome missiles. To be honest, we should be voting. You know, in most parts of the country, Thursday afternoon, 4:30, people who actually have an honest job are still at work. Not in the Senate. The Senate people head on home. People are out campaigning. How about we actually have Senators show up on this floor more than one or two at a time and debate these issues? How about we actually see Senators stand, debate the issues, and resolve the problems?

The majority leader went on television and said: The border is secure. I find that an astonishing assertion. I recognized how from the perch of Washington, DC, it might seem that way. Perhaps the DC/ Virginia border is secure. But I would invite the majority leader and I would invite any Member of the Chamber: Come down to Texas. Come to McAllen. Come visit the border. When I was in McAllen on Saturday, the Border Patrol agents told me the day before they had apprehended 622 people.

I went to the processing center. They had 10 holding centers with 600 or 700 people there. One holding room had little girls below age 14, unaccompanied. Another holding room had little boys under age 14, unaccompanied. The third holding room had girls ages 14 to 19, unaccompanied. The fourth room had boys ages 14 to 19, unaccompanied. The fifth and sixth rooms had family units, mothers and fathers and little bitty babies, including tiny infants needing diapers and formula. Then the final four holding areas held adults.

That was one day. That was not a week. That was not a month. That was one day. Ninety thousand unaccompanied children are expected to enter the country this year. The majority leader of the Senate says the border is secure. I would invite the majority leader to say that to those little boys and little girls who have just been victimized that the border is secure. That sure would surprise them. I would invite the majority leader to say that to the farmers and ranchers and the citizens in South Texas because that sure would surprise them.

By the way, when you get outside of Washington this issue is not partisan. When you go down to South Texas and you visit with the elected leaders there, many of whom--most of whom--are elected Democrats and often Hispanic Democrats, and you ask: What is your top priority? Among Hispanic Democrats on the border, they say: Border security--because the border is so far from secure that their communities are paying the price.

I would invite the majority leader to come to Brooks County, TX. In Brooks County, TX, hundreds of men, women, and children are found dead from crossing illegally. I would invite the majority leader to look, as I have, at the photographs of these bodies. Pregnant women are abandoned and left to die. Those are vicious cartels and coyotes. This is the face of amnesty. Ninety thousand children being victimized, being physically assaulted and sexually assaulted. This is the face of amnesty: Children held in detention centers with chain-link fences going up 18 feet, separating them in separate pens. This is the face of amnesty. Our heart breaks for these kids. But if it really breaks for those kids, we should do something about it. The only way to stop this humanitarian crisis is to stop President Obama's amnesty. As long as the President continues to promise amnesty, these children will keep coming, and they will keep being victimized.

Sadly, as long as Senate Democrats are unwilling to stand up to their President and say, let's actually show some leadership and fix this problem, then the Senate will continue to be the Democratic do-nothing Senate. We will not solve those problems. We will fail in the fundamental obligation all of us owe to the men and women who elected us.

Would the Senator yield for a question?

The junior Senator from Alabama has just described President Obama's stated intention to grant amnesty to an additional 5 to 6 million people here illegally in the months preceding this next election. As the junior Senator from Alabama is certainly aware, there are a number of Senators up for reelection, including a number of Democrats in bright red States where the constituents of those States, whether in Louisiana or Arkansas or North Carolina or many other States, do not support amnesty for another 5 to 6 million people here illegally.

The question I would ask my friend from Alabama: Is he aware of any Democrat in this Chamber, including those Democrats running for reelection in conservative States where the citizens strongly oppose amnesty--is he aware of any Democrat in this Chamber who has had the courage to stand with him in standing up to President Obama and saying: Do not grant amnesty illegally? Is he aware of any Democrat who has joined the two of us in our legislation to prohibit President Obama from illegally granting amnesty to 5 to 6 million people?

Senator Sessions, it causes me great concern. One of the most troubling aspects of the Obama Presidency has been the persistent pattern of lawlessness from this President. We have never seen a President who, if he disagrees with a particular law, so frequently and so brazenly refuses to enforce it, refuses to comply with it, and asserts the power to unilaterally change it.

The President famously said: I have a pen and I have a phone, and he seems to confuse his pen and his phone for the constitutional process of lawmaking our country was built on.

Rule of law does not mean you have a country with a whole lot of laws. Most countries have laws, and many totalitarian countries have a whole lot of laws. Rule of law means no man is above the law. It means that everyone, everyone, everyone, and especially the President, is bound by the law.

President Obama openly defies his constitutional obligation under article 2 of the Constitution to take care that the laws will be faithfully executed.

I would note that Professor Turley, as the junior Senator from Alabama quoted, is a liberal Democrat who in 2008 voted for President Obama. Professor Turley also testified before the House that President Obama has become the embodiment of the imperial President. Barack Obama has become the President Richard Nixon always wished he could be.

Those are the words of a liberal Democratic constitutional law professor who voted for Barack Obama.

But my friend the junior Senator from Alabama is learned and experienced in the ways of the Senate. He has seen lions of the Senate walk this floor. It is unprecedented to have a President so brazenly defy the rule of law, but I state what is equally unprecedented, to have the Senate lie down and meow like kitty cats.

Abuse of power by the President is not a new phenomenon. Presidents of both parties have abused their power. That is a job, sadly, where that tendency has been significant. But in the past, when Presidents have abused their power, Members of their own party stood and called them to account for it. When Richard Nixon abused his power, Members of both parties rightfully decried his abuse of power, so much so that he was forced to resign.

I can state when George W. Bush was President, he signed a two- paragraph order that purported to order the State courts to obey the World Court. I know this because I was at the time serving as the solicitor general of Texas, and it was our State courts that the President's order purported to bind.

George W. Bush is a good man. He is a former Governor of Texas, he is a Republican, and he was a friend and is a friend. Yet I was proud that the State of Texas did not hesitate to stand up to that abuse of power. I went before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the State of Texas and argued that President George W. Bush's order was unconstitutional, that no President has the authority to give up U.S. sovereignty. I am pleased to say the U.S. Supreme Court agreed and struck down the President's order by a vote of 6 to 3.

What is unprecedented today is that on the left side of the Chamber it is both literally and figuratively empty.

We had, not too long ago, the President abuse his power with recess appointments. One of the important checks and balances the Constitution creates on Presidential authority is it gives this body, the Senate, the power of confirmation. President Obama apparently didn't like any checks and balances on his power, so he made a series of recess appointments when the Senate wasn't in recess. It was brazen, it was naked. The President simply asserted: I say the Senate is in recess. Mind you, the Senate didn't say we were in recess, but the President claimed the power to declare us in recess when we weren't.

Do you want to know how extreme that was? Do you want to know how brazen that was? Do you want to know how extraordinary that was?

Just a few weeks ago the Supreme Court unanimously struck it down as unconstitutional.

It is important to underscore that. There is a lot of coverage in the newspaper that suggests we have liberal Justices, conservative Justices, and on any close issue it is going to be 5 to 4. This wasn't 5 to 4, it wasn't 6 to 3, it wasn't 7 to 2, and it wasn't even 8 to 1-- 9 to 0. Every Democratic appointee on the Court--both of President Obama's appointees on the Court. They looked at the substantive issue and they said: This ain't hard. The President doesn't get to say when the Senate is in recess, the Senate gets to say when the Senate is in recess. And if the Senate isn't in recess, the President has to respect the checks and balances of confirmation.

So we have an easy, no-brainier layup of a constitutional law question about the President usurping the constitutional prerogatives of the Senate, and how many Senate Democrats stood up to their party's President? Not a single one. Not the majority leader of the Senate, who we would think might have some interest in the credibility of this institution and, I am sorry to say, not a lone Democratic Senator. It wasn't that long ago there were lions of the Senate on the Democratic side who prided themselves on defending this institution: Robert Byrd, who stood for years defending this institution; Ted Kennedy.

I would say to my friend the junior Senator from Alabama, what is truly unprecedented is that there are no Senate Democrats who say: Enough is enough.

I am hopeful at some point we will see a Senate Democrat listen to their constituents, listen to the Constitution, and listen to the rule of law.

I can assume the reason why Senate Democrats don't do it and why our friends in the press often don't report on this. I can assume their reasoning goes something such as: Well, I basically agree with the policies of President Obama. I like the policies. I agree with what he is doing, and he is our guy. We kind of have to back our guy.

I am guessing that is a reason, but I will note, as the Scriptures say: There came a pharaoh who knew not Joseph and his children.

President Barack Obama will not always be President of the United States. There will be another President. And even to my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle--I must say something shocking and terrifying to you--there will come another Republican President.

If the President has the authority to do what President Obama is claiming, with ObamaCare--28 times--he simply unilaterally changed the text of the law, said: It doesn't matter what the law says, I say it is something different. If the President has that power, a Republican President has that power too.

So I would encourage all of my friends on the left who like these policy issues--well, imagine some of the policy issues you don't like, whether on labor law or environmental law or tort reform or let's take tax law. I will give an example.

Imagine a subsequent Republican President who stood up and stated quite sensibly the economy might do much better if we move to a flat tax, so I am therefore instructing the IRS: Do not collect any tax above 20 percent.

Now one might say, well, that sounds extreme. That sounds radical. As a policy matter, that would be a terrific policy.

But could the President instruct the IRS not to enforce tax laws? Fifty-five Members of this body are already on record saying yes. Do you know why? Because when the President suspended the employer mandate for big business, the text for ObamaCare says the employer mandate kicks in on January 1, 2014. The President said: I am suspending that provision of law. I am granting my buddies in big business a waiver. That was a tax law.

Mr. President, I rise to discuss the ongoing crisis in Venezuela. With so many crises happening around the globe these days, political turmoil in Venezuela has slipped from the headlines and sometimes seems easy to forget. The situation commands our attention. In Venezuela the protests against oppression go on, with 6,369 recorded rallies this year, the most in over a decade.

When Hugo Chavez's death was confirmed 15 months ago, there were hopes that his hand-picked successor Nicolas Maduro would prove more moderate and friendly to the United States. These hopes quickly proved groundless, as Maduro doubled down on his predecessor's disastrous socialist economic policies and his close partnership with Castro's Cuba, not to mention Khamenei's Iran.

Earlier this year, as Venezuela endured shortages of basic goods from baby formula to caskets, from beginning of life to end and everything in between, while an increasingly authoritarian regime trampled their constitutional rights, the people finally took to the streets to protest Maduro's corrupt and unjust rule. Demanding freedom, they marched peaceably while Maduro's Cuban-trained militia tried to incite violence.

Following the wide-ranging protests of February 12, 2014, Maduro's regime claimed that opposition leaders were

personally responsible for the violence that Maduro's regime had deliberately provoked. Six days later, the leader of the Voluntad Popular Party Leopoldo Lopez demonstrated his respect for rule of law when he voluntarily surrendered to the authorities.

He could have stayed in hiding, he could have gone into exile, but he believes it is only through taking action that change can come to Venezuela. Here is Mr. Lopez. As he surrendered to the authorities to be thrown in prison, hundreds of thousands of supporters accompanied him to the police van. Mr. Lopez has been held in the Ramo Verde military prison ever since. In early June a judge ordered him held for trial, which will begin this week.

His wife Lilian Tintori is in Washington today to draw attention to his case. She spoke powerfully at the National Press Club about how she and her children have missed their dad, have missed Leopoldo while he has been in prison, but they know their daddy is doing what he must to fight for the men and women of Venezuela.

Maduro's so-called evidence against Mr. Lopez includes the claim that he was somehow sending secret subliminal messages inciting violence, when he in fact explicitly called on his followers to protest peacefully. Let me repeat that. Mr. Lopez explicitly asked his followers to protest peacefully against the oppressive regime of Maduro. What does Maduro say? That apparently Leopoldo has the power to subliminally suggest violence when his words say, ``Don't engage in violence.''

This would be comical and absurd were it not the basis for an indictment that Maduro is seeking to lock Leopoldo up for 10 years in prison for daring to speak out against oppression. It is important to understand the trial scheduled this week is no trial in the ordinary term. There will be no jury. There will be no evidence for the defense--not for lack of trying. Mr. Lopez is denied any opportunity to refute these bogus charges about his supposed subliminal powers because Mr. Lopez's defense team asked to submit the testimony of 60 witnesses.

The trial court denied all 60, said no witnesses will be allowed for the defense. Mr. Lopez's team asked to submit 13 videos. The trial court denied all 13. Mr. Lopez's defense team asked to submit the testimony of 12 experts. The trial court denied all 12. So in this so- called trial, which is nothing but a sham, the defense will have no evidence because the trial court has already decided they will allow no evidence in support of someone speaking for freedom, someone speaking for the people. The evidence will be kept out of this show trial.

That is not an unusual path. Dictators, totalitarian regimes from Stalin to Castro throughout the ages have engaged in the same show trials that they use to brutally silence any who would dare to speak out against them. The undeniable fact is that Nicolas Maduro has no interest in justice in this case or in the nation of Venezuela.

The official charges are public incitement, property damage, and criminal conspiracy, but Mr. Lopez's real crime is quite simply the exercise of his rights provided by article 57 of the Constitution of Venezuela, which states:

Everyone has the right to express freely his or her

thoughts, ideas or opinions orally, in writing or by any

other form of expression, and to use for such purpose any

means of communication and diffusion, and no censorship shall

be established.

That is what the Constitution of Venezuela says, but Nicolas Maduro says Leopoldo Lopez goes to prison and wants him to stay there for 10 years because he spoke out and spoke the truth. Mr. Lopez freely expressed his criticism of Maduro's failed leadership, and for that he has been unceremoniously thrown in jail and faces a sham trial that could rob his 4-year-old daughter and his 1-year-old son of having a daddy for the next 10 years.

As his wife Lilian wrote today in the Washington Post:

No one should doubt why Leopoldo is in prison: Venezuelan

President Nicolas Maduro is afraid of him, and he has great

reason to be. Chavez did not deliver and Maduro has not

delivered on their promises, and they have systematically

dismantled our fundamental freedoms--free speech, freedom of

association, freedom of the press and freedom to vote for

candidates of our choosing.

The most basic foundational human rights, and for advocating for those Leopoldo Lopez is in prison.

Every American should take an interest in Mr. Lopez's fate. Not only is he a good friend to our country, having attended both Kenyon College and Harvard, he also advocates the sort of political and economic reforms that would return Venezuela to its historic place as a close partner to the United States, a development that would be of great advantage in our hemisphere.

Mr. Lopez's case also reminds us of the precious freedoms we enjoy in the United States that can all too quickly be taken away.

Article 57 should have particular resonance for us as our right to free speech is enshrined in the First Amendment of our Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of

religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or

abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the

right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition

the government for a redress of grievances.

There is a reason the Framers chose this subject for the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights, because upon these rights all of our liberties are built. No freedom is more vital to true democracy than the freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our conscience and the freedom to speak as we choose without government censors, for when these freedoms are restricted citizens lose their ability to express their opposition to the government.

As Venezuela shows us, this process can take place slowly, over time, but the eventual result is that a citizen who speaks out is silenced and punished.

I have to say Leopoldo Lopez's situation is one that has resonance in my family. Fifty-seven years ago my father was in a prison in another Latin American country, the country of Cuba. My dad was 17 when he was imprisoned and tortured in a Cuban jail. Leopoldo is 43, the very same age I am today.

Leopoldo Lopez's case is, unfortunately, not an isolated case in Maduro's Venezuela. Forty-six people have been killed, thousands have been detained, and more than 100 are still in prison.

His fellow opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, recently discovered that she too had been charged last month with incitement to violence related to the February protests. She had never been informed there was a criminal case against her and now she faces potentially 6 years in prison as well.

Maduro's actions are those of a dictator who knows he is deeply unpopular, that his policies are a dismal failure, and that to survive he has to silence the voices of those who oppose him and offer a viable alternative, who oppose him and offer freedom.

The people of Venezuela showed in February that they are ready for a change from the long slog into totalitarian socialism that was begun by Chavez and is being continued by Maduro. Now Maduro is trying to use a cloud of censorship to isolate Venezuelans from each other and from the rest of the world. We should not look the other way.

Again, from Lillian's Washington Post op-ed today:

We need to send a message to the government that it cannot

trample on the rights of its people with impunity.

Accordingly, I call on President Maduro to release my husband

and the more than 100 political prisoners being held in

Venezuela. But my actions alone are not enough. My husband

needs the support of all countries that stand for freedom.

In this, the United States should lead the way. America should speak with a clarion voice: Free Leopoldo Lopez. As the hashtag #SOSVenezuela has rocketed around the globe, it shows the power of speaking the truth: Free Leopoldo Lopez.

The United States should do everything it can to shine the bright light of truth and freedom on this repression by highlighting Leopoldo Lopez's case.

President Obama should stand and lead, demanding the freedom of Leopoldo Lopez.

Secretary Kerry should stand and lead, demanding the freedom of Leopoldo Lopez.

Every Member of this body should join in bipartisan unison demanding the freedom of Leopoldo Lopez.

We should not and cannot let this unjust persecution pass unnoticed but, rather, we should help the people of

Venezuela choose a different path, a path of freedom, a path of prosperity, and a path of friendship that will return this one-time enemy, the nation of Venezuela, to its traditional role of America's partner and friend. All of us should join in demanding and working for the freedom of Leopoldo Lopez.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about one of the saddest developments in the Senate--namely, the all-out assault on the First Amendment being led by Senate Democrats.

It is important to clarify what the issue before this body is not about. The issue before this body is not about access to contraceptives, despite a whole lot of politicking by Senate Democrats who suggest to the contrary.

In this body the number of people who would do anything to restrict access to contraceptives to anybody is

zero. Let me repeat that. There is no one in this body, there is no one I am aware of across the country who is advocating restricting anyone's access to contraceptives.

My wife and I are blessed with two little girls. I am very glad we don't have 17.

Nobody, nobody, nobody is talking about restricting access to contraceptives.

What are we talking about? What we are talking about is the Federal Government using brute force to force people to pay for the abortion- inducing drugs of others against their religious faith. That is extraordinary. It is remarkable and it is dismaying.

I am sorry to show what the current First Amendment looks like in the wake of the Democrats' assault on the First Amendment.

In the Senate Judiciary Committee we have been debating on amendments some 47 Democrats have supported that would repeal the free speech protections of the First Amendment. Sadly, every Senate Democrat in the Judiciary Committee supported it.

Today, this body is considering another provision that would effectively cross out the free exercise rights.

Where have we entered when the Bill of Rights has become a partisan matter? What kind of world is it? It used to be the case that we would find bipartisan agreement that the First Amendment is part of our civil compact--that we will stand together with one voice in support of the free speech rights of individual citizens, in support of the religious liberty rights of individual citizens.

The proposal we are going to vote on in just a few minutes would go directly after the religious liberty rights of Americans.

Let me talk a little bit about one group of people who will be affected by this bill if this bill were to pass. Let me talk about the Little Sisters of the Poor, a group of Catholic nuns.

The Little Sisters of the Poor are an international congregation of Roman Catholic women founded in 1839 by St. Jeanne Jugan. Their mission is to:

. . . offer the neediest elderly of every race and religion

a home where they will be welcomed as Christ, cared for as

family and accompanied with dignity until God calls them to

himself.

The bill that is being voted on on this floor would shut these nuns down. The bill that is being voted on on this floor, if it were adopted, would fine the Little Sisters of the Poor millions of dollars, unless these Catholic nuns are willing to pay for abortion-producing drugs for others.

When did the Democratic Party declare war on the Catholic Church? And let me note, this is not hypothetical. I am not suggesting in theory this might be applied to the Little Sisters of the Poor. Right now-- today--the Obama administration is litigating against the Little Sisters of the Poor, trying to force them to pay for abortion-producing drugs and threatening to shut the Little Sisters of the Poor down.

How far have we come from the basic bipartisan agreement in favor of religious liberty? Faith fines should have no place in American society.

The Little Sisters of Denver, which provides approximately 67 full- time jobs, has said it will incur penalties of roughly $6,700 per day-- nearly $2.5 million per year--if it chooses to stay true to its religious beliefs; that is, $2.5 million a year in faith fines--fines to Catholic nuns who are devoting their time to caring and providing health care for the elderly. That is more than one-third of their $6 million budget each year.

What has become of the Democratic Party? When did they become so extreme that they would actually propose fining nuns millions of dollars if they are unwilling to pay for the abortion-producing drugs of others? That is not a mainstream position. That is a radical, extreme position.

I would encourage every one of my colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle to ask themselves: How are they going to answer their constituents when they say: Senator, why did you vote in favor of a law that would fine Catholic nuns millions of dollars if they refuse to pay for the abortion-producing drugs of others?

Let me make a basic suggestion. If you are litigating against nuns, you have probably done something wrong. And the Obama administration is doing so right now.

Mr. President, drop your faith fines.

Mr. Majority Leader, drop your faith fines.

To all of my Democratic colleagues, drop your faith fines. Get back to the shared values that stitch all of us together as Americans.

I call upon my Democratic colleagues to stop playing election-year politics. I recognize scaring women by suggesting someone is coming at their birth control may be good politics. It is false. Even the Washington Post has said it is false and a lie.

But election-year politics should not trump religious liberty. Senate Democrats should not wage war on the Catholic Church.

It is not just the nuns who are dismayed. The Catholic bishops have said the proposed bill ``does not befit a nation committed to religious liberty'' and would allow the government to ``override religious freedom rights of Americans regarding health coverage.''

So it is not just the nuns. It is to the Catholic bishops that the Democratic party has said: Your free exercise of religious rights has no place in a Democratic Senate.

The Catholic bishops went on to say:

If, in the future, the executive branch chose to add the

abortion pill RU486, or even elective surgical abortion,

including late-term abortion, to the list of ``preventative

services,'' those who object to providing or purchasing such

coverage would appear to have no recourse.

Think about that for a second. The Catholic bishops just said the bill this body is getting ready to vote on, if passed, would enable the Federal Government to try to force Catholic nuns to pay for and carry out partial-birth abortion. That is staggering.

If we want to talk about mainstream positions, there are mainstream positions, there are far-left positions, and then there is extreme radical fringe, which is the Federal Government forcing Catholic nuns to pay for partial-birth abortions. And that is where virtually every Senate Democrat is today.

Under the legislation before this body, the Catholic University Ave Maria would be forced to make the same choice: Authorize abortion- inducing drugs right now or pay millions of dollars in fines to the U.S. Government.

As Ave Maria President Jim Towey has said:

Ave Maria University pays 95 percent of the cost of the

health plan we offer our employees. Under the federal mandate

Ave Maria University would be paying for these drugs if we

complied with the law. So we will not.

Every Senate Democrat who votes yes in a few minutes will be voting to fine Ave Maria Catholic University millions of dollars simply for standing true to their faith. That is a vote that should embarrass any Member of this body.

Mr. Towey went on to say:

We are prepared to discontinue our health plan and pay the

$2,000 per employee, per year fine rather than comply with an

unjust, immoral mandate in violation of our rights of

conscience.

Belmont Abbey College is another proud religious school--founded by Benedictine monks--that the Democrats have put in the same predicament. The Democrats' legislation would force Belmont Abbey College to pay $20,000 a day in faith fines. Faith fines have no place in our democracy.

Let me ask again: Why are Democrats so hostile to the Catholic Church? Why are Democrats trying to use the Federal Government to fine Catholic institutions for holding true to their religious beliefs? It all comes down to a hard-line, extreme, out-of-touch position on abortion.

Just yesterday we had a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee about legislation so broad that it would set aside State laws providing parental notification for abortion, prohibiting late-term abortions, mandating taxpayer-funded abortions. These are extreme radical views held by a tiny percentage of the American people but yet held by a large percentage of Democratic activists.

This position would also rip apart the bipartisan legislation that President Clinton signed into law in 1993. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act passed the Senate 97 to 3. When President Clinton signed that Act, he said:

What [RFRA] basically says is that the Government should be

held to a very high level of proof before it interferes with

someone's free exercise of religion. This judgment is shared

by the people of the United States

as well as by the Congress. We believe strongly that we can

never, we can never be too vigilant in this work.

We should listen to the words of Bill Clinton in 1993, and the Senate should back away from this assault on religious liberty.

I will finally note two simple things.

In 1997, when the Senate considered another assault on the free speech protections of the First Amendment, then-Senator Ted Kennedy, liberal lion of the Senate, stood and said:

We haven't changed the Bill of Rights in over 200 years and

now is no time to start.

Senator Ted Kennedy was right in 1997.

Likewise, President John F. Kennedy, in a historic speech to the Nation, said:

I would not look with favor upon a president working to

subvert the First Amendment's guarantees of religious

liberty.

Where are the Kennedys today? Does any Democrat have the courage to stand and speak for the First Amendment today? Does any Democrat have the courage to stand and speak for the constitutional rights of practicing Catholics? Does any Democrat have the courage to stand and speak for the Little Sisters of the Poor? Does any Democrat have the courage to listen to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and speak for religious liberty?

It saddens me that there are not 100 Senators here unified, regardless of our faith, standing together, protecting the religious liberty rights of everyone.

Faith fines have no business in our democracy. I urge every Member of this body to vote no on this assault on basic religious liberty of every American.

Madam President, I wish to commend the senior Senator from New Jersey for the powerful remarks he has just given about the threat posed both to the United States and to the world of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons capabilities. I wish to commend the Senator from New Jersey for his leadership, along with Senator Mark Kirk, on Iran sanctions legislation--legislation that enjoys wide bipartisan support--and indeed that would have passed into law months ago were it not for the majority leader of this Chamber refusing to allow a vote on it. Even to this day, we should vote on Kirk-Menendez, because a substantial majority of Members of this body and of the House of Representatives would pass this legislation to make clear what the senior Senator from New Jersey just made clear: that no deal is not nearly as bad as a bad deal, which all of us fear we are on the verge of entering into in Vienna.

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

I rise today to address the misguided foreign policy of the Obama administration, which is wreaking catastrophic consequences across the globe. The Obama-Clinton-Kerry foreign policy has profoundly undermined our national security, along with that of our friend and ally, the Nation of Israel.

Just last week the White House coordinator for the Middle East, Phillip Gordon, gave an astonishing speech at an international conference from Tel Aviv to try yet again to revive the Israeli- Palestinian peace process. In his remarks, Mr. Gordon criticized Israel for the failure of the most recent round of attacks, urging yet further concessions to the Palestinians. He asserted that the United States, as Israel's ``greatest defender and closest friend,'' had the obligation to ask ``fundamental questions'' about Israel's very viability as a democratic Jewish State after the breakdown of negotiations.

I am not sure about the role Mr. Gordon suggests friends should play, but undermining our allies is not one of them.

Mr. Gordon threatened that America would not be able to prevent the international isolation of Israel--what Secretary of State John Kerry shockingly recently referred to as Israel becoming an ``apartheid'' state--if Israel did not return to the table on terms he found acceptable.

Mr. Gordon warned that the clock is ticking and that Israel should not take for granted the Palestinian Authority's willingness to negotiate. He claimed that the administration's negotiations with Iran had halted that country's nuclear program and made Israel safer.

Mr. Gordon's comments are belied by the facts given that, No. 1, this conference took place under the direct threat of rocket attack from the Palestinian-sanctioned terrorist group Hamas--indeed, delegates literally had to, at one point, scatter for shelter--given that, No. 2, these rockets were fired by the very same terrorist actors who abducted and then brutally murdered three Jewish boys 3 weeks ago near Hebron, and given that, No. 3, Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan announced just days later that it was working closely with Iran in its attacks on Israel, declaring Hamas's ``connection with Hezbollah and Iran is much stronger today than what people tend to think.''

Given these facts, Mr. Gordon's remarks seem utterly detached from reality.

Even more disturbing, the speech did not take place in a vacuum but, rather, was part of a coordinated messaging effort. It was accompanied by an op-ed by President Obama in Ha'aretz, which sponsored the conference, repeating Mr. Gordon's main themes. Taken as a whole, these statements demonstrate that the administration's longstanding policy of pressuring Israel into a peace deal with the Palestinians remains unchanged by the harsh reality in which Israel finds herself.

In the hopes of demonstrating that there are some in the U.S. Government who do not share this policy, I would like to offer an alternative approach.

As Israel's greatest partner and ally, the United States has weathered with Israel relentless attacks from terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, belligerents from rogue nations like Iran, and unremitting hostility from international organizations like the United Nations.

As such, we are veritable brothers in arms--and who better than a brother to tell the truth about you?

The truth is that Israel is the one country in the Middle East that fully shares America's fundamental values and interests.

The truth is that Israel is a vibrant, inclusive democracy that respects the

rights of its citizens--Jewish and Arab alike.

The truth is that Israel has for more than six decades wanted nothing more than peace and has repeatedly made significant concessions to achieve it.

The truth is that Israel can never be isolated on the international stage because the United States, with or without the President, will continue to stand with Israel.

And the truth is that for the United States to abandon Israel would be to abandon the very moral principles that have made our Nation exceptional.

These basic truths should inform any discussion of the current conflict taking place between Israel and the Palestinians.

We also need to recognize that the circumstances leading to the 2012 cease-fire between Hamas and Israel are not the circumstances in which we find ourselves today, and that the terms of that agreement have proven inadequate to the current reality. Both Israel and the United States had hoped that the relative calm following the 2012 cease-fire would lead to peace and that the increasing prosperity of the West Bank would lead the Palestinians to renounce war. Sadly, those hopes proved illusory. That cease-fire did not change the fact that the Palestinians have remained implacably hostile and, indeed, their government is actively indoctrinating yet another generation in vicious genocidal hatred toward Israel and the West.

That simmering hatred burst into flame last month when three innocent teenagers--Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaar, and Eyal Yifrah--were kidnapped and murdered by Hamas agents. In a stark reminder of how intertwined our nations are, Naftali was a duel Israel-American citizen. This was a vicious attack against innocent Jews, regardless of their nationality, and Americans as well as Israelis were considered legitimate targets.

There is a temptation to refer to the murder of three teenagers as a senseless tragedy that should be handled by law enforcement. But this attack was nothing of the sort. It was a terrorist atrocity coldly plotted and executed by vicious killers whose only motivation was to murder teenage Jews regardless of their citizenship, and whose larger mission is the annihilation first of Israel and then of the United States.

It was therefore my privilege last week to file S. 2577, a bill that would direct the Secretary of State to offer a reward of up to $5 million for the capture or killing of Naftali's killers--and by extension those of Gilad and Eyal as well.

No one doubts Israel's ability to handle this matter on her own, but the Hamas terrorists need to be perfectly clear that the United States understands that kidnapping and murdering a U.S. citizen is an attack on us as well and we will actively support Israel's response to this atrocity.

I am gratified by the support this bill has gotten in the Senate from both sides of the aisle and, in particular, I am gratified that this bill is cosponsored by the senior Senator from New Jersey, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and I look forward to that committee's markup of the bill this week and then, hopefully, to its passage through both Houses of Congress. There is also a bipartisan version of this bill in the House of Representatives led by Representative Doug Lamborn of Colorado and Representative Brad Sherman of California.

Following the discovery of the murdered teens, the Israeli Government has moved decisively against Hamas in a just and appropriate action to both bring the terrorists responsible to justice and to degrade Hamas's capability to launch further attacks.

Now is not the moment to suggest that Israel open itself to further terrorist attack by, for example, withdrawing from the West Bank.

Now is not the moment to urge restraint or to try to broker yet another temporary cease-fire that does not stop the threat of Hamas murdering innocent civilians. Now is the moment to support Israel in the effort to eliminate the intolerable threat of Hamas, and given Hamas's commitment to terrorist violence, the Israeli response is by necessity military and it must be decisive.

This conflict is not of Israel's choice; it is Hamas's choice, and to argue that there is some sort of viable diplomatic alternative, as Mr. Gordon and President Obama did last week, is denying the truth.

In addition to the current military offensive, there are a number of important long-term steps that the Government of Israel has taken to reduce the threat of terrorist attacks and so to secure the civilian population. One is the security barrier in the West Bank initiated by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon during the second intifada. Necessitated by waves of Palestinian suicide bombers targeting Israel, this fence was immediately decried as an abuse of the Palestinian people and, indeed, declared illegal by the International Court of Justice. But since the fencing began, attacks have declined by 90 percent--90 percent. No apology should be required for securing a nation's border and for saving innocent civilian lives.

The Israeli missile defense system that protects against short-range rockets coming out of Gaza is an equally remarkable success story. In partnership with the United States, Israel has conceived, designed, and implemented Iron Dome, which enjoyed a remarkable 87 percent success rate during the 2012 operation Pillar of Defense and to all appearances is exceeding that performance in this most recent action. Iron Dome has dramatically changed Israel's ability to determine the future on its own terms, not because the Palestinians have in any way modified their eagerness to fire rockets at their neighbors in an attempt to murder innocent civilians but, rather, because the Israelis now have a system capable of neutralizing the vast majority of those rockets and protecting the hospitals and schools and homes that the Palestinians seek to destroy.

President Obama wrote in his Ha'aretz op-ed that ``[w]hile walls and missile defense systems can help protect against some threats, true safety will only come with a comprehensive negotiated settlement.'' But that can only be true when both sides genuinely seek peaceful coexistence, which at this time, sadly, the Palestinians do not. Projects like the security barrier and Iron Dome may well be, both practically and philosophically, Israel's only real option. That the Israel response to hostility out of the territories has been primarily defensive is an important illustration of their preferred approach to this problem, which is not to attack or destroy but, rather, to protect and defend.

This posture illustrates the fundamental difference between the Israelis, who have pledged they will stop fighting when the Palestinians stop fighting, and the Palestinians who swear they will stop fighting only when Israel ceases to exist. As Prime Minister Netanyahu recently said: Israel uses missiles to protect its citizens; whereas Hamas uses its citizens to protect its missiles.

We must reject any assertion of moral equivalence between the Palestinians who seek to attack Israel and the Israelis who are trying to defend themselves from terrorist attack.

Nowhere was the contrast between these two sides more clear than in the two investigations that are taking place into the murders that occurred in Israel in recent weeks. After the bodies of Naftali, Gilad, and Eyal were discovered, an Arab teen, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, was tragically, savagely murdered by Jewish extremists in a perverted attempt at retribution. Prime Minister Netanyahu rightly, quickly, and emphatically condemned this act and he called the victim's father personally to offer condolences. Naftali's mother Rachael stated her sympathy publicly saying:

No mother or father [should] go through what we are going

through now. We share the pain of the parents of Muhammad Abu

Khdeir. . . . Even in the depth of the mourning over our son,

it is hard for me to describe how distressed we were over the

outrage that happened in Jerusalem--the shedding of innocent

blood is against morality, it is against the Torah and

Judaism, it is against the basis of our life in this country.

The murderers of our children, who ever sent them, who ever

helped them and who ever incited toward that murder--will all

be brought to justice, but it will be them, and no innocent

people, it will be done [by] the government, the police, the

justice department and not by vigilantes.

Contrast Racheal Fraenkel's powerful statement with that of the mother of one of the Hamas suspects in Naftali's abduction and murder, who while the boys were still missing and before their executed bodies had been

discovered, publicly announced: ``They're throwing the guilt on him by accusing him of kidnapping. If he truly did it--I'll be proud of him until my final day . . . If he did the kidnapping, I'll be proud of him. I raised my children on the knees of the religion, they are religious guys, honest and clean-handed, and their goal is to bring the victory of Islam.''

Contrast those two statements. One is serious law enforcement responding to the wrongful murder of a teenager. The other is a society that celebrates, that glorifies, that lionizes vicious criminals who kidnap and murder innocent teenagers. Further highlighting the contrast is the fact that the murderers of Mohammed Abu Khdeir were apprehended in less than a week. The Israeli police moved and moved expeditiously.

Almost a month after the abduction of Naftali, Gilad and Eyal, their Hamas murderers are still at large because they are being protected by those who consider them heroes rather than terrorists. When Mr. Gordon asserted in his speech that Israel's ``military control of another people,'' for ``recurring instability,'' and for ``embolden[ing] extremists'' were to blame for the regions problems, he ignored the facts that the Palestinian Authority bears the real responsibility for the crisis by including Hamas in their so-called ``unity government,'' and then urging the international community to officially sanction this deal with the devil.

This should not be surprising as the PA is headed by Mahmoud Abbas, a Holocaust denier who was Yasser Arafat's right-hand man for 3 decades. Ever since Arafat and Abbas were given autonomy to run the Palestinian territories 20 years ago through the Oslo Accords, they have used that power to radicalize their population and to harden opposition to the very idea of peaceful existence with the Jewish State of Israel.

Palestinian children are bombarded with heavy-handed propaganda praising the virtues of suicide bombers and other mass murderers. Sesame Street-style puppets and cartoon characters are horrifically used to encourage children to grow up to become terrorists. Yet President Obama hails President Abbas as a man who can help broker a peace deal. Phillip Gordon called him in his speech last week a ``reliable partner'' for peace. Holocaust deniers are not reliable partners. Leaders who incite hatred and bigotry and the murder of innocent children are not reliable partners.

Just 2 months ago I was back in the nation of Israel. I traveled to the north of Israel, to the Ziv hospital, a hospital in the north of Israel that has treated over 1,000 Syrians wounded in the horrific civil war waging in that country. I met with those Israeli physicians and nurses as they described how they have given over $8 million in free medical care, uncompensated.

One person in particular I spoke with there was a social worker who described the shock and trauma of young children. Imagine, you are a little boy, you are a little girl in Syria. You go to bed in your bedroom. A bomb, a missile, a mortar comes through the ceiling and explodes. When you awake, you have been horrifically wounded. You find yourself in the nation of Israel in a hospital surrounded by Israeli doctors and nurses.

What this social worker told us was that as horrifying as being the victim of terrorism, as horrifying as some of these little boys or girls discovering limbs of their body had been blown off, that consistently the greatest terror of these children was finding themselves in Israel because their entire time they had been told that Israel was the devil. This social worker who is fluent in Arabic would spend time talking and reassuring these children and comforting them, because they were sure horrible things would happen to them.

Why were they sure of this? Because they had been taught those lies from the moment they could learn. One Israeli physician described to me a comment that a Syrian woman made to her. She said: My entire life the Army that I had been told was there to protect me--now they are trying to kill me. My entire life the Army I had been told wanted to kill me-- now they are the only people protecting me and my family.

We will not see peace between Israel and the Palestinians until the Palestinian Government stops incitement, stops systematically training its children to hate and to kill. Neither Hamas nor its partner, the Palestinian Authority, has displayed any interest in peace. The so- called Hamas-affiliated technocrats that Abbas has embraced have done nothing to curb Hamas's violence, as missiles continue to rain down on innocent civilians in Israel or even to express sympathy for the murdered Jewish teenagers. Even that is a bridge too far given the hatred that the Palestinian Government promotes.

The incessant campaign of incitement carried but out by the PA lays bear the myth that Abbas is in any way a moderate or possesses any real desire for peace with the Jewish state. In his speech, Mr. Gordon asserted that ``Israel should not take for granted the opportunity to negotiate peace with President Abbas, who has shown time and again that he is committed to nonviolence and coexistence with Israel.'' How can any rational sentient person utter that sentence--that Mr. Abbas has shown time and again that he is committed to nonviolence and coexistence with Israel, while he partners with Hamas, a terrorist organization that is raining rockets on Israel as we speak, when he is directly responsible for a pattern of incitement that is training young Palestinians in vicious, racial bigotry and hatred, that is celebrating murderers and kidnappers as heroes and martyrs?

Anyone who utters a statement like Mr. Gordon uttered is being willfully blind to the facts on the ground. Given that it was Mr. Abbas, not Israel, who accepted Hamas into the PA's Government, the burden should be on the PA, not Israel, to unequivocally condemn not only Hamas but also their fellow terrorist groups, the Islamic Jihad and Abbas' own Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.

The PA should not take for granted the limitless patience, not only of Israel but also the United States, and, indeed, any responsible members of the civilized world for the legitimization of these terrorist groups.

While the PA harbors Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade or any other terrorist group and supports their vicious activity, it should forfeit its position as a legitimate negotiating partner with Israel. It is the height of delusion to suggest that Israel should accommodate the Palestinian Authority with any further security concessions until this activity stops.

While the PA harbors Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade or any other terrorist groups, and supports their vicious activity, it should forfeit any and all material support from the taxpayers of the United States--not one penny. Only when the PA takes significant and affirmative steps to stop the incitement, eradicate terrorism, and demonstrate its leadership ability to honor their pledged commitments in the past, including the Oslo Accords, and affirms Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state should this aid be reconsidered.

It must also be recognized that Hamas is not acting alone in the current crisis. In an alarming escalation of the rocket attacks out of Gaza, Hamas militants recently fired an M-302 type rocket an unprecedented 70 miles north, some 30 miles north of Tel Aviv, meaning that now 6 million Israelis are vulnerable to the rocket attacks.

Israel has intercepted a shipment of these weapons bound for Gaza from Iran earlier this year. It now appears that some of them have gotten through by other means. As Osama Hamdan's celebrating their close collaboration demonstrates, neither Hamas nor Iran is even trying to hide the connection. In the face of this blatant hostility from the Islamic Republic of Iran, it seems the height of foolishness for the United States to be participating in nuclear negotiations with Tehran at this time. Iran's leaders are actively engaged in inciting and supplying violent terrorists. Indeed, Iran is the chief state sponsor of terrorism on the globe today.

Our focus should be on thwarting Iran's behavior in Gaza and across the world, not in engaging in diplomatic niceties over Chardonnay in Vienna. Given Iran's ongoing pattern of arming Hamas with increasingly sophisticated weapons, it is simply unacceptable to risk their achieving nuclear capability by exploiting the eagerness--the utterly unexplainable eagerness--of the Obama administration to get a deal--

any deal--any deal at all it seems--by the July 20, 2014, deadline.

We need to recognize that the arbitrary decision to relax sanctions and to engage in 6 months of negotiations under the joint plan of action last year was a historic mistake. We need to dramatically reverse course, and we should immediately reimpose sanctions until Iran makes fundamental concessions by ceasing all uranium enrichment, handing over its stockpiles of enriched uranium, and destroying its 19,000 centrifuges.

The Obama, Clinton, Kerry foreign policy is setting the stage for Iran to acquire nuclear weapon capability. If Iran acquires that capability, it will pose a grave if not mortal threat to the nation of Israel and to the United States. The strategy of the Obama administration--relaxing sanctions first and then hoping to get some concessions later--is putting the proverbial cart before the horse.

You do not negotiate with bullies and tyrants by conceding everything at the outset and then hoping for good faith. Instead, we should reimpose those sanctions and additionally, as a further condition, we should demand that Iran stop its state sponsorship of terrorist attacks against our allies. Only then should Iran see a relaxation of sanctions.

In the coming days, I will be filing legislation which will do exactly that: reimpose strong sanctions on Iran immediately, strengthen those sanctions, include an enforcement mechanism to ensure that these measures are implemented, and call for the dismantling of Iran's nuclear program, which should be the only path to relaxing sanctions in the future.

This legislation will lay out a clear path that Iran can follow to evade the sanctions: Simply behave in good faith and stop its relentless march towards acquiring nuclear weapons capability.

The connection between Hamas and Iran is a sobering reminder of a larger context in which the events of the past month have taken place. They are not an isolated local issue that could be managed if only Israel would act with restraint. Both the United States and Israel want the Palestinian people to have a secure and prosperous future free from the corrosive hatred that has so far prevented them from thriving. But as has been demonstrated time and time again, the simple truth is that concessions from Israel are not going to alleviate that hatred. The truth is that aid from the United States is not going to alleviate that hatred. The truth is that even the establishment of a Palestinian State would not alleviate that hatred while the avowed policy of the Palestinian Government is the destruction of Israel.

Only when the Palestinians take it upon themselves to embrace their neighbors and to eradicate terrorist violence from their society can a real and just peace be possible. Until then, there should be no question of the firm solidarity of the United States with Israel in the mutual defense of our fundamental values and interests. This is nothing less than the defense of our very exceptionalism as a nation--that same exceptionalism fueled by those God-given rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to which Israel aspires.

Writing in the New York Times last September, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that it is ``extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional.''

In a very odd echo of President Putin's sentiment, Secretary Kerry said just today, in Vienna, that hearing politicians talk about American exceptionalism makes him quite uptight because it is ``in- your-face'' and so might offend other nations. Secretary Kerry should know, as President Putin clearly fears, it is indeed discomforting for bullies and tyrants such as Hamas and their Iranian sponsors to see free people boldly assert their exceptionalism. Indeed, in modern history it has been dangerous for totalitarian despots when the American people rise and defend our exceptionalism.

I would encourage Secretary Kerry to unambiguously explain American exceptionalism to his colleagues across the negotiating table. They might benefit from hearing that one of the most exceptional things about America is that we will robustly support our allies when they are engaged with the radical terrorist enemy that targets us both.

It is not enough, as Mr. Gordon seems to think sufficient, to ``fight for it [Israel] every day in the United Nations.'' We shouldn't just ``have Israel's back.'' We should be proud to stand beside Israel, to make sure that both Hamas and Iran know that the United States is ready to provide whatever moral support or military resupply Israel might need.

It is true we might risk a little of the criticism from the international community that seems to be of such concern to Mr. Gordon and to President Obama, but the United Nations should be the least of our worries at this point.

In any event, threats of Israel finding herself isolated--threats sadly emanating, in part, from the administration of this government-- appear empty, as many of our closest friends, including Canada, Great Britain, France, and Germany, have spoken out in the strongest of terms supporting Israel's right to self-defense.

I add my voice to theirs and urge President Obama to reconsider the counterproductive policies laid out by Mr. Gordon last week. The White House should explicitly disavow Mr. Gordon's misguided speech, haranguing, and attacking our friend and ally in the nation of Israel.

A negotiated settlement is not an absolute prerequisite to Israel's security, as the administration has claimed but, rather, establishing Israel's security may be the only way to eventually reach any such settlement. Israel's fight against radical Islamic terrorism and by extension the radical Iranian regime that supports it is our fight as well.

There is a reason they call Israel the little Satan and America the great Satan. This menace does not discriminate between Israelis and Americans, and it cannot be placated or appeased even by the deftist diplomacy. It must be diligently defended against and at times, when necessary, it must be directly confronted.

This is difficult, dangerous work that Israel's Government and the brave men and women who serve in its Armed Forces are doing right now for the sake of both nations. I hope and I pray for their continuing success as America stands, unashamedly, alongside the nation of Israel.

Thank you.

I thank my friend the senior Senator from Texas. I am honored to stand here with the senior Senator from Texas and the Senators from Arizona as we speak out together against the humanitarian crisis that is unfolding on our border.

President Obama today is down in the State of Texas. But, sadly, he is not visiting the border. He is not visiting the children who are suffering as a result of the failures of the Obama policies. Instead, he is doing fundraisers. He is visiting Democratic fat cats to collect checks. Apparently, there is no time to look at the disaster, at the devastation that is being caused by his policies.

Just a couple of weeks ago, as the Senator from Texas observed, I was down at Lackland Air Force Base where there are roughly 1,200 children being housed. There is one thing President Obama had said about what is happening that is absolutely correct. This is a humanitarian disaster. But it is a disaster of the President's own making. It is a disaster that is a direct consequence of President Obama's lawlessness. A quick review of the facts makes that abundantly apparent.

In 2011, just 3 years ago, there were roughly 6,000 unaccompanied children apprehended trying to cross illegally into this country. Then in 2012, in the summer of 2012, right before the election, President Obama illegally granted amnesty to some 800,000 people who were here illegally who had entered the country as children.

The direct, predictable, foreseeable consequence of granting that amnesty is the number of children--unaccompanied children--immediately began to skyrocket. This year, the estimates are that 90,000 unaccompanied children will enter this country illegally. That is up from 6,000 just 3 years ago--6,000 to 90,000. Next year the estimate is 145,000.

This explosion is the direct consequence of the President's lawlessness. It is worth underscoring. The people who are being hurt the most are these kids. The coyotes who are bringing them in are not well-meaning social workers trying to help out some kids. These are violent, hardened transnational criminal cartels. These mothers and fathers, sadly, are handing over their children to violent criminals who are physically abusing and who are sexually abusing small children.

When I was down at Lackland Air Force Base, a senior official there described to me how those cartels--with some of these children after they have taken them and after they have begun coming to this country to take them here illegally--would hold these children captive, hold them hostage to extract additional money from the families.

If the families did not send them additional money, as horrifying as it is, these drug cartels would begin severing body parts of these children. I listened to the senior official at Lackland describe how the cartels would put a gun to the back of the head of a little boy or little girl and force that child to cut off the fingers or the ears of another little boy or little girl. If they do not do so, they will shoot them and move to the next one.

So on our end, we are having children come to this country whom we are having to deal with who are maimed. They have been maimed by the brutality of these criminal cartels. Others of them have deep, deep psychological trauma from a child forced to do something so horrific. This is a tragedy that is playing out. It is happening in real time.

Now, the administration has suggested the cause of this is violence in Central America. I would suggest to my friends, the senior Senator from

Texas and the Senators from Arizona, that argument is a complete red herring. With violence in one country, you would expect to see the number of immigrants from that country to go up. But there is no reason unaccompanied children would go up. That is something unique and distinct.

There have always been countries across the world, sadly, that have been plagued by violence. When that happens, we have always seen an influx in immigrants, both legal and illegal, from those countries. What we are seeing here is particular, though. It is particularized towards children. The reason it is particularized towards children is because the President granted amnesty in a way that was particularized towards children.

If you want to understand just how false the administration's talking point is for the cause of what is happening, you need to look no further than a report which was prepared by our border security that Senator Cornyn and Senator Flake and I all saw in the Senate Judiciary Committee. A couple of weeks ago we had a hearing on this humanitarian crisis, and a whistleblower at the Border Patrol handed over this confidential document to a number of Senators on the Judiciary Committee.

It described how the Border Patrol interviewed over 200 people who have come here illegally--adults and children--and asked them a simple question: Why did you come? Ninety five percent said: We came because we believe if we get here we will get amnesty. We believe we will get a permiso is what they said; that once they get here, once a child gets here, that little boy, that little girl is scot-free. I would suggest to my friend, this is what amnesty looks like.

I would suggest to my friends this is what amnesty looks like. Amnesty looks like dangerous drug cartels entering this country wantonly. Amnesty looks like thousands of young children being housed in military bases. Amnesty looks like hundreds of immigrants who came here illegally being transported to cities and towns amid opposition from the citizens who lived there. Amnesty looks like a complete and utter disregard of our rule of law. Amnesty is unfolding before our very eyes.

I would suggest that the only response that will stop this humanitarian disaster is for President Obama to start enforcing the law, to stop promising amnesty, to stop refusing to enforce Federal immigration law, and, finally, to secure the borders. Indeed, I would call upon our colleagues in this body in both parties to come together and secure the border once and for all and to stop holding border security hostage for amnesty.

The senior Senator from Texas is exactly right that the President has effectively admitted he has no intention of stopping this problem. The supplemental request he has submitted, $3.7 billion, the majority of that goes to HHS's social services, providing care to these kids, rather than stopping and solving the problem.

The Senator and I have both spent a lot of time down on the border of Texas and all four of us have spent time down on the border of Texas or Arizona. The consistent answer from local leaders, from local law enforcement, from local elected officials about what is effective securing the border--the most consistent answer is boots on the ground; that if you want to effectively secure the border--boots on the ground, particularly combined with technology.

It is striking, out of $3.7 billion, a tiny percentage of that is directed toward boots on the ground. This is an HHS social services bill, and it is unfortunately a pattern we have seen with the Obama administration of bait-and-switch. They are calling this a border security bill. It is reminiscent of the 2009 stimulus, which we will all recall was sold to the American people. The 2009 stimulus was about building roads, infrastructure, and shovel-ready projects, all of which are good ideas. Then when over $800 billion was spent by the Obama administration, very little of it actually went to roads, infrastructure, or shovel-ready projects. Instead, it paid off liberal interest groups such as, in this case, the administration calls the $3.7 billion border security and yet almost none of the money goes to border security.

Indeed, I would note for all of the Democrats who are seeing this humanitarian crisis unfold, who are discovering suddenly the need for border security--and I would note my friend the senior Senator from New York stood on this floor as we were debating immigration last year and said: The border is secure today.

President Obama stood in El Paso in 2010 and said: The border is secure today.

I would note, for everyone who says now they are focused on border security that when the Senate Judiciary Committee was considering immigration reform, I introduced an amendment--the senior Senator from Texas supported it--that would have tripled our Border Patrol, that would have increased fourfold the fixed-wing assets, the technology that would have provided the tools to finally solve this problem, and every single Senate Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted against it. So we shouldn't be surprised the President's proposal that is labeled border security doesn't actually secure the border, doesn't do anything about the lawlessness or the amnesty, which means the Obama administration is effectively admitting they expect these children to continue coming--hundreds of thousands of them in years to come, hundreds of thousands of little boys and little girls being subjected to horrific physical abuse, sexual abuse, and they intend to do nothing to fix the problem, to stop it, to secure the borders, to uphold the law. That is heartbreaking, and that is not the responsibility of a Commander in Chief.

I would note that the confirmation and message of amnesty received by the parents entrusting their children to these drug dealers is the Border Patrol report, which said that 95 percent of those coming believe they would get a permiso. They believe they would be allowed to go scot-free. That is the message being heard. It is why these children are being subjected to violence.

A Lackland Air Force Base senior official described a young Hispanic child who is a quadriplegic, who is paralyzed from the neck down, and the drug cartels abandoned him on the Texas side of the Rio Grande. They found him lying by the river, on the other side of the river. That is the sort of care and consideration they are providing for these children. What is happening to these children is horrific.

We are a compassionate nation. We have always been a compassionate nation. But any policy that continues children being abused by violent drug cartels is the opposite of compassion.

So I ask two questions to my friend the senior Senator from Arizona.

This afternoon I had lunch with the attorney general of Texas, Greg Abbott, who described that the attorney general of Texas and the U.S. Attorney's Office have recently arrested an alleged terrorist in Texas with ties to ISIS--with ties to the radical Islamic terrorists who are right now wreaking havoc across Iraq and Syria.

The first question I would ask the senior Senator from Arizona is, how significant does he see the threat of terrorists crossing our porous border and targeting the homeland?

Then, of the $3.7 billion President Obama has requested in the supplemental bill, just $160 million is directed to Border Patrol agents and immigration judges--both. So less than 5 percent of the total actually goes to boots on the ground.

The second question I would ask of the senior Senator from Arizona is, in his judgment, is devoting less than 5 percent of the resources from this bill to boots on the ground a serious effort at securing the border and solving the problem?

Madam President, I rise today to discuss the facts regarding the ongoing IRS scandal that the Obama administration refuses to investigate, refuses to prosecute, refuses to address with honesty and integrity. I want to talk about the facts we know and the facts we don't know, and how we as the Senate can demonstrate fidelity to law and the integrity of the U.S. Government.

Let's talk about what we know.

We know that more than 1 year ago on May 14, 2013, the inspector general of the Treasury Department said that beginning in 2010 the IRS had improperly targeted conservative citizen groups, tea party groups, pro-Israel groups, and pro-life groups. The day the inspector general's report was made public, President Obama had described what occurred as ``intolerable and inexcusable.'' As President Obama put it: ``Americans have a right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it.''

Well, if President Obama was speaking the truth when he said over a year ago that Americans have a right to be angry about this, then today after over a year of obstruction of justice, of refusing to investigate or prosecute what happened under President Obama's own standard, the Americans have a right to be far more than angry about it.

Likewise, the very same day the inspector general report came out, Attorney General Eric Holder said the IRS targeting the conservative groups was ``outrageous and unacceptable.'' That was more than a year ago.

What has happened in the year and 2 months that have passed since then? Although both the President and the Attorney General profess outrage and anger, not a single person has been indicted--not a single person. Although both the President and the Attorney General said they would investigate this matter, it has been publicly reported that no indictments are planned. In fact, President Obama went on national television during the Super Bowl and categorically stated, ``There was not even a smidgeon of corruption to be found at the IRS.''

How far we had come from the day the scandal broke when he said he was angry and the American people had a right to be angry. Fast forward a few months later and he goes on television and says there is not a smidgeon of corruption.

That is a remarkable statement for the President to have made, because Attorney General Eric Holder 4 days earlier had told the Senate Judiciary Committee that there was an ongoing investigation being conducted at the IRS.

President Obama's comments and Eric Holder's comments are facially inconsistent. Either Eric Holder was telling the truth, that there is, in fact, a meaningful ongoing investigation, or President Obama was telling the truth when he said conclusively there is not a smidgeon of corruption. One or the other was not telling the truth or perhaps President Obama was simply prejudging the investigation. Perhaps President Obama was simply attempting to influence its outcome, making clear that the outcome desired from the White House is that there is not a smidgeon of corruption. What happened to the American people having a right to be angry? Now the President is instead telling investigators the conclusion they should reach.

Regardless, it is beyond dispute that the Obama administration, the Justice Department, has not held anyone accountable for this gross abuse of power.

In a hearing in January of this year, Attorney General Eric Holder refused to answer whether even a single victim of the wrongful targeting has been interviewed.

Let me repeat that. The victims who were targeted wrongly by the IRS--the citizens--for exercising their political free speech rights, the Attorney General refused to answer if they had even bothered to interview any of those citizens.

We also note some of the emails that have been made public give the appearance that the Department of Justice may have been directly involved in the illegal targeting of citizen groups based on their political views.

Most stunningly, we know that the lead attorney investigating this matter is a major Democratic donor and a major donor to President Obama. Indeed, she has given over $6,000 to President Obama and Democrats in recent years.

No reasonable person would trust John Mitchell to investigate Richard Nixon. Yet the Obama administration is telling the American people the investigation into the wrongful targeting of conservatives will be led by a major Obama Democratic donor. That is contemptuous. It is contemptuous of the law; it is contemptuous of the American people. One would think that if you appoint a major Obama donor to lead the investigation, it is likely that the victims would not be interviewed, that no one would be indicted. And, wonder of wonders, what has happened? The victims have not been interviewed and no one has been indicted.

But that is not all. We have seen Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS office that illegally targeted conservative citizens, go before Congress and repeatedly plead the Fifth. When a senior government official takes the Fifth, that is an action that should be taken very seriously. Yet it seems in this town partisan politics trumps fidelity to law. What Lois Lerner said in the House of Representatives by pleading the Fifth is effectively standing there saying, ``If I answer your question, I may well implicate myself in criminal conduct.'' That is chilling.

Let me note with sadness that the Democratic Members of this Chamber seem to have no concern about a senior IRS official pleading the Fifth repeatedly because truthfully answering the questions could implicate her in criminal conduct.

Throughout it all Americans have been told that the Obama administration would find out what happened and would take the necessary actions.

Indeed, the new head of the IRS, Commissioner John Koskinen, promised as much. Now we find out that this new Commissioner is also a major donor to President Obama and Democratic causes. This new Commissioner of the IRS has given nearly $100,000 to the Democratic Party, including $7,300 to President Obama. What fairminded person would entrust not one but two major Obama donors to investigate how the IRS used political power to go after the enemies of President Obama? Not one but two--the lead lawyers in the Department of Justice heading up the noninvestigation that is not interviewing the victims, that is not indicting anyone, and the head of the IRS giving nearly $100,000 to Democratic causes.

We received even more striking news, that Commissioner Koskinen tells us the IRS lost Lois Lerner's emails. Oops, sorry. The dog ate my homework.

Madam President, if you or I tried that in our IRS returns, they wouldn't accept that excuse from a citizen. We are told the hard drive crashed and the documents are irretrievable under any circumstances. We also know the IRS didn't follow the law when it failed to

report the hard drive crash that we are told occurred. But make no mistake, these emails haven't just been lost. These emails have been deleted, taped over, and the hard drive physically destroyed ccording to public news reports. This is Rosemary Woods, when you have Federal Government officials destroying evidence. In the ordinary parlance that is called obstruction of justice. The hard drive magically collapses, magically crashes, and is physically destroyed right after the investigation begins and, I would remind you, the investigation that has resulted in Lois Lerner pleading the Fifth twice.

We are supposed to believe that the emails from the IRS officials in charge of the division that illegally targeted political organizations and has repeatedly pleaded the Fifth to avoid incriminating herself, that her emails have simply vanished innocuously. It happens. It happens to people in the middle of illegal acts. Their records magically disappear right when the investigators are seeking to discover them.

This is an outrage. This is a scandal. This is an insult to anyone concerned about the rule of law, and no one in the Senate, regardless of political party, should stand by and accept this.

But it doesn't end there.

On Wednesday it was reported that Lois Lerner flagged a speaking invitation for Republican Senator Charles Grassley for examination. Senator Grassley is the highest ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee who has been a strong and powerful voice for accountability at the Department of Justice. It is curious that she would be so eager to subject Senator Grassley for extra scrutiny based on a speaking invitation.

Right now, today, the White House is in control of Democrats. There will come a time when Democrats no longer control the White House and the administration. I would ask every Democratic Member of this body, how comfortable are you with the precedent that the IRS can single out Democratic Senators who might disagree with the President's political position? The targeting of Chuck Grassley, the singling out of Chuck Grassley, ought to trouble every single Member of this body.

On Tuesday it was reported that the IRS agreed to pay $50,000 in damages to the National Organization for Marriage because the IRS admittedly unlawfully released confidential information of members of that group to its political opposition.

Let me repeat that. IRS officials have publicly admitted--this is not inference, this is not suggestion, this is what they have admitted-- that they leaked personal tax information for the purpose of intimidating a conservative group to the political opposition of that group. That is textbook abuse of power. And I would note the $50,000 fine--which, by the way, has been paid by U.S. taxpayers--the $50,000 fine does nothing to address the partisan political corruption at the IRS, the abuse of power, or the coverup. A fine does not signal the problem has been fixed.

I would note, by the way, where are the Democratic Members of this body standing and saying it is wrong for the IRS to illegally hand over personal information from individual taxpayers for partisan purposes to their political opponents?

I want to underscore that the IRS has admitted they did this and paid a $50,000 fine and the Democratic Members of this body are apparently not troubled at all. If they are troubled, they keep their troubles very quiet and to themselves.

Americans need a guarantee that the IRS will never be used again to target an administration's political enemy.

When a Republican President, Richard Nixon, attempted to use the IRS to target his political enemies, it was wrong. It was an abuse of power, and he was rightfully condemned on both sides of the aisle. Both Democrats and Republicans stood up to President Nixon when he attempted to use the IRS to target his political enemies and said: This is wrong.

The Obama administration didn't just attempt to do so, it succeeded. It carried out a concerted effort and targeted those who were perceived to be political enemies of the President and targeted those individual citizens. The administration then put two major Democratic donors in charge of the investigation and covered up the truth, including conveniently losing emails from the central player in this figure who has twice pleaded the Fifth.

It was wrong when Richard Nixon tried to use the IRS to target his political enemies, and it was wrong when the Obama administration tried and succeeded to do the same. The difference is when Richard Nixon did so, Republicans had the courage to stand up to Members of their own party. It saddens me that there is not a single Democratic Member of this body who has had the courage to stand up to their own party and say: This abuse of power--using the IRS to target citizens for political beliefs--is wrong.

We need a special prosecutor with meaningful independence to make sure justice is served and that our constitutional rights to free speech, to assembly, and to privacy are protected.

It saddens me to say that the U.S. Department of Justice, under Attorney General Eric Holder, has become the most partisan Department of Justice in the history of our country. I say this as a former associate deputy attorney general at the U.S. Department of Justice. I can tell you there are Democratic alumni across this country who are saddened and heartbroken to see the Department of Justice becoming effectively an arm of the Democratic National Committee.

IRS officials have stonewalled at every turn, and we should not wait a single minute to put an end to the intimidation and bullying of the American people. These are not the actions of a government that respects its citizens. We need to restore that respect, that government officials work for the people and not the other way around.

The Department of Justice has a storied history. There is a history of attorneys general standing up to political pressure, even against the Presidents who have appointed them. Listen, political pressure in this town is nothing new and attorneys general throughout history have had a special mettle of being willing to look into the eyes of the President who appointed them and willing to say: I care more about the rule of law than any partisan allegiance I might have.

When President Richard Nixon faced charges of abusing government power for partisan ends, his attorney general Elliot Richardson, a Republican, appointed Archibald Cox as special prosecutor. Likewise, when President Bill Clinton faced charges of ethical impropriety, his attorney general Janet Reno, a Democrat, appointed Robert Fiske as independent counsel. Sadly, the current attorney general has refused to live up to that bipartisan tradition of independence, of integrity, and of fidelity to law.

I have repeatedly called on Attorney General Eric Holder to remove the investigation from the hands of a major Obama donor and put it instead in the hands of a special prosecutor with meaningful independence who, at a minimum, is not a major Democratic donor. Even the very slightest respect for the rule of law would suggest that the attorney general should not be part and parcel of the political and partisan coverup.

Therefore, in a few moments I intend to ask for unanimous consent to call up a Senate resolution expressing the opinion of the Senate that the Attorney General should appoint a special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute--if the facts support--the IRS targeting of Americans and its potential coverup of those actions.

When I asked the Attorney General whether the Department of Justice investigated the direct involvement of political appointees at the White House--up to and including the President--Attorney General Holder refused to answer that question. That is always the hardest thing for an attorney general to do: Ask the question that raises partisan peril. That is why attorneys general are supposed to be nonpartisan and owe their fidelity to the Constitution and the laws of this United States and to the American people.

The House of Representatives has passed a similar resolution to the one I am submitting. It was sponsored by Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio on May 7, 2014. The resolution passed in the House 250 to 168. Twenty- six Democrats voted in favor of the resolution.

Why is it that Democrats in the House of Representatives can muster up the courage to stand up to the partisan pressure from the White House.

Yet in the Senate we hear crickets chirping. This used to be the body praised for its independence and for its ability to stand up to abuse of power.

Just today the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously reversed the Obama administration for the 12th time in the last 2 years in its assertion of overbroad executive authority. This time it asserted that the President unconstitutionally attempted to circumvent the checks and balances of the Constitution by unilaterally appointing recess appointments while the Senate was not in recess.

The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously, by a vote of 9 to 0, said the President's actions were unconstitutional in that case, and once again, as with the IRS, my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle were silent. How is it there is no longer a Robert Byrd, that there is no longer a Ted Kennedy, that there are no longer any Democrats who will defend the institutional integrity of the Senate? How is it when the Supreme Court concludes unanimously that the President's intrusion on the Senate's constitutional authority is unconstitutional not a single Senate Democrat has the courage to stand up to this President? How is it in the face of a senior IRS official repeatedly pleading the Fifth, how is it in the face of the IRS admitting it wrongfully handed over private personal IRS tax data to the political opponents of a citizens group and paid a $50,000 fine for it, how is it that not a single Democratic Senator does not have the courage to speak up? At what point does it become too much? At what point does it become embarrassing?

Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley, whom I might note is a liberal and voted for President Obama in 2008, said that President Obama has become the embodiment of the imperial President. He described how Barack Obama has become the President Richard Nixon always wished he could be. I am sorry to say that he has done so with the active aiding and abetting of 55 Democratic Members of this Senate because when Democratic Members of this Senate or any Member of this Senate stands by and allows the President to trample on the rule of law, then any one of us who remains silent is explicit in undermining the Constitution.

This resolution should be unanimous. If the tables were turned and this were a Republican President and a Republican Attorney General had appointed a major Republican donor to lead the investigation into the wrongful targeting of Democrats and destroyed emails and hard drives and publicly admitted to leaking private citizen information to the political opponents of Democrats, the Democratic side of this Chamber would rightly be lighting their hair on fire.

If this were a Republican administration, every media outlet would have banner headlines every single day. I can assure you that at least some Republican Senators would be standing up and saying this abuse of power is wrong.

This resolution should be unanimous because everyone should agree that an investigation should be beyond reproach and should not be handed over to major Democratic donors.

If the allegation--which the report of the inspector general of Treasury has already confirmed in significant respect--is of abuse of government power of the IRS to target citizens for their political beliefs, then you cannot entrust the investigation to someone who is partisan and has a political interest in protecting the party in power. If Attorney General Eric Holder continues to refuse to appoint a special prosecutor, he should be impeached.

When an attorney general refuses to enforce the rule of law, mocks the rule of law, and corrupts the Department of Justice by conducting a nakedly partisan investigation to cover up political wrongdoing, that conduct, by any reasonable measure, constitutes high crimes and misdemeanors.

Attorney General Eric Holder has the opportunity to do the right thing. He can appoint a special prosecutor with meaningful independence who is not a major Obama donor. Yet every time the Attorney General has been called on to do this, he has defiantly said no. In fact, he said in writing in his discretion, no. If Attorney General Eric Holder continues to refuse to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the abuse of power by the IRS against the American people, he should be impeached.

I agree with President Obama when he said on the day this scandal broke, the American people have a right to be angry. If the American people had a right to be angry over a year ago when the scandal broke, the fact that it has now been covered up and the fact that a partisan investigation has refused to begin to scratch the surface of what happened should make the American people more than angry. It should move them to action. It should move them to accountability. It should move them to hold the officials of our government responsible.

Accordingly, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 487. I further ask consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I thank my friend from Oregon for his impassioned comments. I would note for the Record a few things he did not say. My friend from Oregon chose not to say a word about the fact that Lois Lerner, a senior IRS official, has twice pleaded the Fifth in front of the House of Representatives. To that he had not a single response.

My friend from Oregon chose to say not a word to the fact that the IRS singled out Senator Chuck Grassley for special scrutiny. To that, he said not a word.

My friend from Oregon chose to say not a word to the fact that the IRS has now admitted to illegally handing over private personal information from a citizen group to its political opponents for partisan political purposes, and has paid a $50,000 fine. That is not an allegation. That is not a theory. That is what the IRS has admitted to and paid a $50,000 fine for with taxpayer funds. Yet I am sorry to say my friend from Oregon had not a word to say about that abuse of power.

I mentioned before that from the Democratic Members of this Chamber, when it comes to the abuse of power by the Obama administration, there are crickets chirping.

Now, I am pleased that my friend from Oregon and the

Finance Committee has engaged in an investigation of what

occurred. We don't know what that investigation will

conclude. But I find it interesting that he said it is

premature for a special prosecutor. Fourteen months ago was

when President Obama said: I am angry and the American people

have a right to be angry--14 months ago. Fourteen months and

not a single person has been indicted. Fourteen months and

most of the victims haven't been interviewed. Fourteen months

they have publicly announced they don't intend to indict

anyone. Yet, it is premature. If the American people had a

right to be angry 14 months ago, which is what President

Obama told us, what should we feel 14 months later after

partisan stonewalling and obstruction of justice? The

American people had a right to be angry.

I would note a Senate committee is conducting an investigation and will issue a report, but the Senate committee can't indict anyone. The Senate committee can't prosecute anyone. My friend from Oregon says it is premature to have a special prosecutor because, apparently, holding people who break the laws, who commit criminal conduct to abuse IRS power to target individual citizens based on their political views-- apparently, holding them accountable--is not a priority for a single Democratic member of this Chamber. That saddens me.

It saddens me that we don't have 100 Senators in this room saying, regardless of what party we are in, it is an embarrassment to have this ``investigation''--and I put that word in quotes, because a real investigation involves interviewing the victims; a real investigation involves following the evidence where it leads. I would note my friend from Oregon, in describing the Senate committee's investigation, mentioned that they interviewed some IRS employees, but notably absent from whom he said they interviewed was anyone at the White House, anyone political. Apparently, they were not interviewed. We don't know. But he didn't mention them if they were.

It is an embarrassment that this so-called investigation is led by a partisan Democratic donor who has given over $6,000 to President Obama and Democrats. It is an embarrassment that the IRS obstruction of justice is led by a major Democratic donor who has given nearly $100,000. Every one of us takes an oath to the Constitution. Every one of us owes fidelity to rule of law. When we have the Department of Justice behaving like an arm of the DNC, protecting the political interests of the White House instead of upholding the law, it undermines the liberty of every American. I am saddened that Democratic Members of this Chamber will not stand up and say: I have a higher obligation to the Constitution and the rule of law and the American people than I have to my Democratic Party. That is a sad state of affairs, but it is also a state of affairs that is outraging the American people, that is waking up the American people.

President Obama had it right when he said 14 months ago the American people are right to be angry about this. He was correct. And when elected officials, when appointed officials of the Obama administration mock the rule of law, demonstrate contempt for Congress, and abuse their power against the individual citizenry, against we the people, the people have a natural and immediate remedy that is available in November every 2 years. This November, I am confident the American people will follow the President's advice and demonstrate that they are angry about the abuse of power and even angrier about the partisan coverup in which all 55 Democratic Senators have actively aided and abetted.

If Attorney General Eric Holder is unwilling to appoint a special prosecutor, if he insists on keeping this prosecution in the control of a major Obama donor, then Attorney General Eric Holder should be impeached, because the rule of law matters more than any partisan political problem.

Thank you, Madam President.