Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, it is such a privilege for me to stand in this Chamber to honor and

speak words of tribute to a beloved lady, born Mae Cardella Fox on a cold December day in 1913. Mae was the essential coal miner's daughter and grew up in a small miner's camp close to Habersham, Tennessee.

When she was only 11 years old, her mother died of pneumonia. Being the oldest daughter at home, she bravely embraced the crushing challenge at her age of maintaining a household and cooking for her siblings and her father.

When she was 16 years old, just as the Great Depression was falling upon America, she married another coal miner by the name of Earl Carr. The two of them were deeply committed to each other, and by themselves alone, using only hand tools, they built their first home, a log cabin on Pine Mountain above Morley, Tennessee.

When Mae was still in her twenties, her husband Earl was in a terrible accident when a coal mine caved in, killing many of his friends and breaking his own back and disabling him for life. When rescue workers reached him, he had already begun to dig himself out.

To take care of her severely injured husband and family, Mae began to take in laundry and clean houses, and she said she canned every kind of berries that grew in the Smoky Mountains. The older children gathered and sold holly at Christmas time, and the entire family gathered coal that fell from the tipple where the train cars were loaded. They said sometimes the workers would deliberately throw out coal for the families.

As the children grew in number and in stature, the family would travel to Florida in citrus season to pick oranges. It was there that my first memories of Mae and Earl Carr were born. I can remember at 4 years old waking up before daylight and climbing into a tarpaulin- covered truck, called a doghouse, and going to the orange groves to help pick oranges with Mae and the rest of her family.

To find better work, the family moved to Colorado, close to Juanita Franks, one of Mae and Earl's married daughters. While they were there, a grandson with a missing palate and a cleft lip was born to Juanita. Mae lovingly helped feed this little baby with a pill cup and an eyedropper until surgery could be performed. Madam Speaker, this is only one small instance of all of the acts of love and devotion this precious woman bestowed on every member of her family.

Mae Carr loved Jesus and her family more than anything else in life, and in all of the joys and struggles of their lives and 64 years of marriage, Earl and Mae Carr became the patriarch and matriarch of a family that would number 11 children, 47 grandchildren, 76 great- grandchildren, 22 great-great-grandchildren, and two more on the way.

A few days ago, in her 94th year of life, I was called to the bedside of Mae Carr, who as it happens, Madam Speaker, is my precious grandmother, and who was called home to meet her Savior on February 7, 2007.

Among her last words to me were those contained in a phrase I had heard her say many times before, and expanded just this once. She said, ``Trent, the truth will stand when the world is on fire; and the truth will still be here when the world is gone.''

Madam Speaker, if all of us in this institution and this world could learn the reverence for truth and the love for humanity personified in this four-foot-eleven coal miner's daughter, the entire human family would be nobly transformed.

I will cherish those final moments with her for the rest of my life, because her mind at the time was still keen and perfectly lucid, and I was able to tell her not just how much I loved her, she already knew that, but I was able to tell her how much we were grateful for her 94 years of loving all of those about her, for loving life, and for making this world a better place to live. And, most importantly, Madam Speaker, I was able to remind her that indeed her life was a profound victory and that all of her dreams had come true.

Because you see, Madam Speaker, Mae Carr's dreams, though profound beyond words, were simple dreams: a family to love and nurture and support, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even great- great-grandchildren who would learn her heartfelt love for God and her fellow human beings. Her family now stands as a living testament to her life and her noble dreams fulfilled. And her greatest dream, Madam Speaker, is also now fulfilled as she stands in the presence of her Savior and has heard His eternal words of victory, ``Well done, my good and faithful servant.''

The truth will stand when the world is on fire, and the truth will still be here when the world is gone. Mae Cardella Carr.

Madam Speaker, on December 8, 2006, the House considered H.R. 6406, which, among other things, authorized the permanent extension of nondiscriminatory treatment (normal trade relations) to the products of Vietnam. While I am a strong proponent of free trade and I am committed to helping broaden the United States' relationship with Vietnam, I could not, in good conscience, vote for this legislation.

I continue to hold serious concerns about Vietnam's human rights record, as well as their handling of cases regarding U.S. Armed Forces personnel missing and killed in action during the Vietnam War.

Madam Speaker, I truly believe that the overall benefits of free trade are numerous for our country and that of our trading partners. These positive aspects include a higher economic standard of living, a wider range of higher quality products at lower costs, and a migration of workers from less competitive markets to more competitive and productive markets. As a former small business owner, I am and will remain a strong advocate for free trade.

However I also believe that religious liberty and respect for human rights should be requirements for achieving the broadest possible economic success.

Mr. Speaker, a great man once said that a society is measured by how it treats those in the dawn of life, those in the shadows of life, and those in the twilight of life.

Because they are hidden, both in the dawn and in the shadows of life, we kill 400 late-term unborn children every day in America using methods that cause such agonizing pain to the child that it would be illegal under Federal law if it was done to an animal.

This bill would call upon abortionists to offer an anesthetic to assuage this agony to these children. Mr. Speaker, if we, as a human family in America, cannot find that much humanity within ourselves, if this human rights atrocity of dismembering our own children alive is truly who we are, then the patriot's dream is lost, Mr. Speaker. Those lying out in Arlington National Cemetery have died in vain, and twilight has fallen upon all of us.

I urge my colleagues to pass this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman.

Mr. Speaker, in the very simplest of terms, the strategic goal of terrorists in this war is to be able to hide from justice long enough to be able to gain access to weapons of mass destruction with which they can radically alter the future of American freedom for generations to come. The strategic challenge that we face is in finding and defeating terrorists before they gain access to such weapons and proceed to achieve their horrifying goal.

It is obvious that the critical factor in all of this effort is intelligence, for if we knew where every terrorist in the world was at this moment, we could destroy nearly all of them in less than 60 days.

But, Mr. Speaker, we have been held back by liberals in this country. Every effort the President has made to gain such intelligence has been resisted.

We should consider the terrorists' own words if we doubt their commitment to strike this country in the most horrendous way possible. Osama bin Laden said many years ago, ``It is our religious duty to gain nuclear weapons.'' Hezbollah's Nasrallah said of America, ``Let the entire world hear me. Our hostility to the Great Satan is absolute. Regardless of how the world has changed after September 11, death to America will remain our reverberating and powerful slogan. Death to America.''

Terrorists, Mr. Speaker, believe that they have a critical advantage over the free people of the world. They believe their will is far stronger than ours and that they need only to persevere to break our resolve.

Mr. Speaker, the message of liberals in this country has only encouraged terrorists in that belief. If we fail to use our best and critical intelligence mechanisms to fight and defeat terrorists in these critical days, our children and grandchildren will pay an unspeakable price, and history will condemn this generation for such profound irresponsibility in the face of such an obvious threat to human peace.

We need to pass this bill, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House out of order.

Mr. Speaker, a tyrannical government cares not about the fate of an individual citizen. But in a free country to murder a single innocent citizen is to provoke a fight with the entire nation. This is one of the great differentiations between Hezbollah and Israel. While desperately trying to retrieve two of her soldiers who were abducted by Hezbollah terrorists, Israel takes great lengths to minimize civilian casualties. Conversely, Hezbollah takes great lengths to maximize civilian casualties in Israel while making breathing barricades out of the innocent men, women, and children in Lebanon.

Time and again Israel has made efforts for peace. Israel fully withdrew from Lebanon. Then she uprooted from Gaza. She was thanked with rockets, mayhem, and bloodbath.

The recent kidnapping and murder of Israeli citizens and soldiers were definitive acts of war. Hezbollah terrorists, along with the nations of Syria and Iran, who support them, are the aggressors, Mr. Speaker. And now as Israel has risen up to defend herself, along with each of the individual citizens whom she loves, we hear cries from the U.N. and other quarters for Israel to restrain herself.

What if, on 9/11, Mr. Speaker, the outcry was for the United States to restrain ourselves? Or what if Israel had listened to such calls for restraint 15 years ago when she learned that Saddam Hussein was building a nuclear reactor? The United States and our coalition forces would have faced terrorists with nuclear weapons when we lifted the iron hand of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

You see, Mr. Speaker, Israel understands that the entire world faces an evil, poisonous ideology that causes mothers to leap for joy when their children blow themselves to pieces in order to kill other innocent human beings. Israel understands that a dark ideology like that must never be allowed to gain nuclear weapons.

And why does the rest of the world not seem to understand that? This is the same ideology that murdered Olympic athletes in 1972, that took American hostages in Iran, that murdered Marines in their barracks in 1993, that bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, Riyadh in 1995, the Khobar Towers in 1996, the embassy in 1998, and the USS Cole in 2000.

And then, Mr. Speaker, this murderess ideology massacred nearly 3,000 Americans on September 11.

And today this is the same ideology that is launching rockets into Israel to kill innocent civilians. And, Mr. Speaker, lest we forget, it is the same ideology that is working feverishly to gain nuclear weapons, to terrorize the Western world in ways that we cannot yet imagine.

Seven decades ago, Mr. Speaker, another murderess ideology arose in the world. The dark shadow of the swastika fell first upon the Jewish people of Germany. And because the world did not respond to such an evil, it began to spread across Europe until it lit the fires of World War II's hell on Earth, which saw atomic bombs fall on cities and over 50 million people dead worldwide. All because, Mr. Speaker, the world's free people did not respond in time.

History has taught us that evil ideologies must ultimately be defeated in the minds of human beings. But in the meantime, in the meantime, Mr. Speaker, they must often be defeated upon the battlefield.

The battle Israel fights in these days is a battle to protect all of humanity from an evil ideology that has no respect for innocent human life anywhere on the Earth. That is why, Mr. Speaker, Israel's war is our war, and if there is hope for peace and freedom in this world, free peoples across this world just unite to defeat this hellish ideology of terrorism. This time, Mr. Speaker, we must not wait too long.

So may the people of Israel take comfort in these days, knowing that America stands with you. May you find victory, and may the light of God's peace shine down upon the streets of Jerusalem, forever.

Mr. Chairman, may I first remind all of us of words we each spoke not so long ago.

``I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter, so help me God.''

Mr. Chairman, when we swore this oath, we did not say that we would protect the Constitution from everyone except rogue judges.

The issue that brings us to the floor this day is an act on the part of the Ninth Circuit that ruled that the words ``under God'' in a voluntary Pledge of Allegiance by our school children is unconstitutional.

It astonishes me, Mr. Chairman, that we even have to address such an insane conclusion. I truly believe that if we had lived in the days of the Founding Fathers and accused them of intending to outlaw school children from saying the words ``under God'' in their voluntary Pledge of Allegiance, they would have challenged us to a duel for impugning their honor in such an egregious and outrageous fashion.

Mr. Chairman, when judicial supremacists on the bench desecrate the very Constitution that they are given charge, the sacred charge to defend, those of us in this Congress who have also made an oath to defend the Constitution must respond accordingly.

The Constitution of the United States, Mr. Chairman, does not prohibit school children from saying the words ``under God'' in a voluntary Pledge of Allegiance. It is that fundamentally simple.

Indeed, the Constitution does say that the Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Mr. Chairman, when the Ninth Circuit decision said school children cannot voluntarily say the words ``under God'' in their Pledge of Allegiance, these judges, sir, were prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

This legislation would take such a decision away from such rogue judges.

Mr. Chairman, if Congress forsakes their oath and their duty to defend the Constitution and allows this magnificent document to fall prey to activist judges, we relegate this Republic to an arrogant judicial oligarchy. It is an abrogation of our oath of office and it tramples on the blood of our Founding Fathers and the soldiers who died to give us America and her rule of law.

There would be nothing left to us at that point but to board up the windows in this building and go home and quit pretending to be defenders of the United States Constitution or representatives of the greatest Republic in the history of humanity.

Mr. Chairman, it is not too late. I urge this amendment be rejected, and the bill be passed as written.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for allowing me the time to speak on behalf of this resolution, and I will be very brief.

Madam Speaker, whether we understand it or not, tonight the world faces an evil, poisonous ideology that threatens the peace and freedom of humankind. This ideology is not new, Madam Speaker. It is the same one that murdered Israeli athletes in 1972, that took American hostages in Iran, that murdered marines in their barracks in 1983, that bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, Riyadh in 1995, the Khobar Towers in 1996, the embassies in 1998, the U.S.S. Cole in 2000, and then, Madam Speaker, that same ideology massacred nearly 3,000 Americans on September 11.

And tonight, Madam Speaker, that same dark, insidious ideology is launching rockets into Israel to slaughter innocent, freedom-loving civilians. This is why Israel's war is our war.

If there is hope for peace and freedom in this world, free peoples across this planet must unite with Israel to defeat this hellish ideology. The battle Israel fights tonight is a battle to protect all of humanity. May the people of Israel take comfort knowing that America stands with you in these difficult days. May you come to victory, and may the light of God's peace shine down on the streets of Jerusalem forever.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, America is first and foremost an ideal. It is an ideal that holds that all of us are created equal, endowed by that Creator with unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Truly, that is what our troops fight for in Iraq.

For their efforts, we now see a country that, although it has been in bondage since it was called Babylon, has a freestanding constitution and hope for freedom. And there is hope that freedom may take root in the Middle East and turn the whole of humanity in a better direction.

But, Mr. Speaker, I would suggest to you that there are other ideals in the world besides America's noble ones, and they have great consequences. I am concerned that this Nation does not understand that we are now at war with an evil ideology. It is an ideology that has the most profound human implications and consequences.

On September 11, terrorists murdered on our own soil 3,000 American citizens. But this ideological war did not begin on 9/11. It began many years ago when certain Muslim extremists embraced a divergent Islamist dogma that dictates that all infidels must die.

Not so long ago, al Zarqawi himself said of America's leaders: ``They are aware that if the Islamic giant wakes up, it will not be satisfied with less than the gates of Rome, Washington, Paris and London.''

Mr. Speaker, we cannot deny that we are fighting a war against an ideology that is bent on the destruction of the Western world. They are committed to killing us and would like nothing better than to decapitate this country by detonating a nuclear yield weapon 100 yards from here. To allow Islamist extremists to declare victory in Iraq will only hasten such a day.

These are moments when we must hear the voice of history and remember the words of Winston Churchill when he said in part: ``If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, there may come a moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse moment. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory because it is still better to perish than to live as slaves.''

Mr. Speaker, if freedom is to survive, to allow Islamist terrorists to declare victory in Iraq is not an option. We must win. The world has changed since Mr. Churchill warned us all. We are 60 years now into a nuclear age. We must not let terrorists have even the slightest hope of victory ever.

Mr. Speaker, I regret that I was unable to be present for rollcall votes No. 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, which occurred on May 18, 2006. I was unable to cast votes on these important matters because I was traveling on official business in Arizona.

Mr. Chairman, first and foremost, America is an ideal, and that ideal is that all of us are created equal and endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, and the first one of those is the right to live. Our men and women across the centuries have fought and died to uphold that ideal.

Now, suddenly, to turn the hospitals that we set forth to deal with their needs overseas into abortion clinics abrogates everything that they fought and died for. It is an undermining of everything that America is.

Our foundation is to be able to look to people across the world and say that in America, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, life, liberty and property, these basic rights are something that we will protect.

I hear the other side often using terms like ``safe,'' ``legal,'' ``clean,'' but it ignores one absolute reality, and that is that every time an abortion takes place, a nameless little baby dies a lonely, tragic death, a mother is never the same, and everything that child might have brought to humanity is lost forever.

God help us not to turn our military hospitals into abortion clinics, and to stain the very foundations of this Nation with the blood of our own children.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I have a modification to my amendment at the desk, and I ask unanimous consent that my amendment be considered in accordance with this modification.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment that will provide funds for a critical component in our Nation's effort to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis and others in the global fight for freedom and democracy.

For 25 years, groups like Operation Smile have sent teams of volunteer surgeons and medical personnel throughout the world to provide medical treatment and surgery to children suffering from facial injuries, cleft palates and other facial deformities.

Last year, I had the wonderful opportunity to travel to Jordan to take part in the first mission of the Iraq Initiative of Operation Smile. I was able to observe the indescribable joy of families as the lives of over 50 Iraqi children were transformed.

Mr. Chairman, it is difficult to describe how moving such an experience really is. It made clear absolutely to me the vital role these efforts play in our Nation's diplomatic efforts.

Recently, the Secretary of Defense exercised his discretionary authority to permit space available travel on military aircraft in order to safely return 110 Iraqi children to Baghdad from Amman where they had undergone urgently needed oral and facial surgeries. This intervention was deemed necessary and appropriate because armed insurgents had stopped and boarded the children's buses when they were traveling to Amman, raising serious questions about the safety of undertaking the return trip by ground.

Mr. Chairman, such activities are vital to our efforts in Iraq. Not only are many young children receiving critical, life-changing reconstructive surgeries, Iraqi physicians are also being trained so that even more children can be helped. This helps the Iraqi people understand that our war is with the terrorists and not with the Iraqi people.

Mr. Chairman, Americans have a genuine and abiding compassion for their fellow human beings, and if our diplomatic efforts and our military efforts in other Nations are to truly succeed, compassion must always be a centerpiece of those efforts. Groups such as Operation Smile provide a clear, tangible demonstration of such compassion. They put a smile on the face of freedom and our Nation's commitment to liberty in Iraq and the world over.

I truly believe these efforts save American lives by helping to win the peace, and I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I would just thank the gentleman for his kind words and support. I now yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, thank you.

I guess the only way I can describe this, Mr. Chairman, is as they begin to create these surgeries, as they begin to pull the child's lip together with a giant hole in the center of his face or her face, it not only seems to pull a face together, it seems to pull a life together. If you understand the significance of going through life with an uncorrected cleft palate or cleft lip, this is to also take the child out of an emotional darkness that is almost impossible to describe.

The ultimate impact to these families is one that is emotional beyond words. When you hand the child back to the mother or the father, there is a wailing and a moved feeling that they express that, again, is just beyond my ability to describe.

But it does have I think an effect, as I said, of putting a smiling face on the face of freedom, and I just am so grateful that this is something that we can do together as a House and that while we may have differences on a lot of our policies throughout the world, the one thing remains that America is a noble Nation and we are committed to making sure that all of God's children, as it were, have an opportunity to lay hold on this miracle of life and to live as meaningful as they can possibly can, and I appreciate the support that is demonstrated for the amendment.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I am not sure what else I can add to this except to just simply express that we are not only changing the lives of children in the profoundest sense, but we are letting our soldiers in different parts of the world demonstrate their own compassion to these children as they are a part of the logistical process of making this real.

I would just suggest to you that the bottom line is that this is a diplomatic effort, a medical diplomacy, that is in the best interests of America. It saves Americans lives, and it transform the lives of all the children.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is wise for all of us to remind ourselves every day that our primary purpose for being here is defending this country against military threats and defending the constitutional rights of our citizens. In terms of defending this country, we have to continue to remind ourselves every day that there is a growing military buildup in China that is unprecedented in the world. We face an ideological enemy in terrorism that if left unchecked will mean humanity will ultimately never sleep again.

We face a growing nuclear threat in Iran that could destabilize the whole world in a matter of months or years.

Those who would undermine the defense of this country for political purposes disgrace this body and disgrace America. I pray that we will always remember, as George Orwell said, that we

sleep in our beds safe at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would do us harm.

May we continue to defend this Nation. May we continue to defend the constitutional rights of our citizens, and may we always remind ourselves of the price that military heroes of the past have paid so that can happen.

Mr. Speaker, I regret that I was unable to be present for rollcall votes No. 50, 51, 52, 53, and 54. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' on the amendment offered by Ms. Foxx (rollcall vote No. 50), ``no'' on the amendment offered by Mr. Melancon (rollcall vote No. 51), ``no'' on both amendments offered by Mr. Jefferson (rollcall votes Nos. 52 and 53) and ``no'' on the amendment offered by Mr. Taylor (rollcall vote No. 54).

Mr. Speaker, I deeply regret that I was unable to be present on the House floor to cast my vote in favor of H.R. 4297: the Tax Relief Extension Reconciliation Act of 2005. This bill will maintain and expand the low-tax environment that has catalyzed our Nation's now-booming economy. I strongly support this legislation. Please be assured that I would have voted in favor of the legislation had I been present, and I look forward to voting in favor of the conference report.

Mr. Speaker, before I begin my remarks, I would also like to congratulate Mr. Dingell for his 50 years of service to this institution and to his country.

Mr. Speaker, it has come to the attention of the American people that the President's nominee for United States Supreme Court, Judge Samuel Alito, wrote in a job application at the Justice Department some 20 years ago statements to the effect that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion. Judge Alito's statements regarding Roe v. Wade reflect a widely

held belief by many judges and lawyers and scholars across the political spectrum. These legal experts recognize that Roe v. Wade was indeed bad law created out of whole cloth by an unelected Supreme Court seeking to legislate its social agenda from the bench.

Ironically, if Roe v. Wade was overturned today, it would not end abortion on demand. It would simply leave the matter to the States and to the people through their elected representatives.

Mr. Speaker, this was not the vision of our Founding Fathers. They wrote the U.S. Constitution to specifically protect those that were most innocent and to protect the most basic civil right of all, that being life itself.

The preamble to the Constitution sums up the entirety of their reasons for establishing a constitution in the first place, that we, the people, to ``secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.''

The Constitution expressly states in plain language that one of the primary purposes for its existence is to secure the blessings of liberty to our future children. The phrase in the 14th amendment sums up the entire document. It says, ``No State shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law.''

Mr. Speaker, protecting the lives of the innocent and their constitutional rights is why this government exists. How does it secure the blessings of liberty to our posterity to sacrifice their very lives upon the altar of convenience?

Judge Alito was correct; the Constitution does not guarantee the right to hire someone to kill an innocent unborn child and dispose of the body. Our Founding Fathers put pen to paper and proclaimed: We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

When our Founding Fathers proclaimed those words, the course of human history was forever changed.

Mr. Speaker, it is time to have this debate on abortion out in the open.

Those who promote abortion on demand ignore the Constitution and the original intent of our Founding Fathers who took great care to structure a foundation for self-governance that safeguards innocent life and human dignity. America will not remain free if we claim for ourselves the right to destroy innocent human lives simply because they are unwanted or they are at our mercy, or because they lack even the voice to cry out. We cannot embrace the notion that by our own choice we determine the dignity or worth of other human beings. That is the principle of might makes right, and this Nation was founded to dispel that depraved injustice.

Mr. Speaker, the future of this country in freedom depends that the fundamental principle which guarantees the right to the divine gift of life and liberty to each of us must remain intact. This is America's creed. This is our foundation. It is so very simple. We are not born equal; we do not become equal when we reach a certain level of development or age or status. All human beings are created equal. That principle of human equality must not be discarded by the United States of America, because if Americans in the 21st century cannot or will not sustain the will and the courage to protect the innocent, in the final analysis we will never sustain the will or the courage to protect any kind of liberty for anyone.

Mr. Speaker, as the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito moves forward, let us all just remind ourselves that we are Americans, that we walk on the freest soil, and that we breathe the freest air of any people in human history. There is nothing more American than defending innocent human life. So now it is up to this generation, Mr. Speaker, to protect the God-given life to live so that future generations will say of us that we justify our brief moment here. God bless America.