Tom Cotton

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. COTTON

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 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Madam President, our Nation functions thanks to the extraordinary devotion and patriotism of the American people. Every city, every county, every State, and every party has a few patriots who go above and beyond, dedicating their whole lives to making sure that our system works and that our way of life is preserved so that we can pass on our Republic as a precious inheritance to our children and our grandchildren. Billie Sue Hoggard was just such a patriot. She devoted her life to her neighbors and fellow citizens in Jonesboro in northeast Arkansas. Billie Sue went home to be with the Lord on Sunday at age 76. Billie Sue loved America, she loved Arkansas, she loved the Republican Party with all of her heart, and she devoted all of her energy to making them great. As a young child, sadly, Billie Sue knew the meaning of sacrifice. Her adoptive father was killed in action during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. Although they had not met, he kept her baby photo in his wallet. No doubt, he was proud to know the baby girl he adopted grew up to carry on his legacy of service to others. I bet he told her that on Sunday when they were reunited. Billie Sue worked as a teacher in northeast Arkansas for decades, helping young people grow up to become better citizens. Her career as an educator was just one part of her commitment to public service. She also served as a justice of the peace and the Republican Party committee chair for Craighead County, where she brought energy and joy and a little bit of feistiness to every meeting and every local gathering. Billie Sue was also a Republican well ahead of the pack, back in the day when many counties didn't even have committees and some counties could probably meet in a telephone booth. Her energy and commitment were instrumental in helping our party win the trust and support of our candidates in Jonesboro, in Craighead County, in northeast Arkansas, and all around our State. It is thanks in no small part to her efforts that Rick Crawford now represents northeast Arkansas in the House of Representatives, the first Republican to hold that seat since reconstruction. I met Billie Sue shortly after my election to the House. She encouraged me to run for the Senate. She promised to deliver Craighead County if I did, and I can tell you, she kept that promise and then some, as she always did. Of course, Billie Sue was most committed of all to her family. Her four children, seven grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren were the loves of her life. In a fitting turn of fate, Billie Sue, the adopted daughter of a servicemember, served herself as guardian to two of her young granddaughters in her later years. She was in her seventies when she raised those two young girls. In an act of love, she stepped up for her family in its hour of need. Billy Sue's health declined over the last year of her life. We all know how the battles of illness can rob people we love of their vitality in their final days. But while cancer could ravage her body, it could never dampen Billy Sue's spirit. When I called her over this last year to check on her, I always heard the same energy and passion-- and, yes, feistiness--as she wanted to skip over quickly how she was doing and talk about the latest legislative battles here in Congress and political campaigns in Arkansas. Now Billie Sue has gone back to be with the Lord, but she is not forgotten. Arkansans will remember her as a local leader and a patriot who made her community and our State better through decades of tireless service. May she rest in peace. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, Denman Wolfe of Scottsville, AR, was called home to be with the Lord last Thursday at age 98. He was Arkansas's last surviving Army Ranger who served in the Second World War. Denman's whole life was a portrait of honor, but he will be remembered especially for his heroic actions at age 23, when he took part in the invasion of Normandy--one of many thousands of American troops who stormed the beaches that morning to free Europe from Nazi tyranny. Private Wolfe was part of the elite 5th Ranger Battalion charged with silencing the guns atop Pointe du Hoc, a dagger-like cliff well-guarded by German defenders. His force landed at Omaha Beach amid intense artillery fire, sustaining casualties amid the fighting on the beachhead. He was still on the beach with his fellow Rangers when MG Norman Cota shouted the order that has now become part of Ranger lore: ``Rangers, lead the way!'' Denman Wolfe obeyed this order with distinction over the course of his military service. In addition to fighting on D-day, Wolfe led the way during the Allied invasions of North Africa and Sicily during World War II and later in Asia during the Korean war. In total, he served in the Army for more than 20 years, remaining on Active Duty until 1964 and attaining the rank of sergeant first class. For this valorous service, Wolfe was awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and many other combat decorations. Denman's service to his country didn't end once he left the military, however. Once marked, a Ranger serves for life. After settling in Arkansas after the war, Denman was called to work for his adopted State as a correctional officer, deputy sheriff, and election judge. But his heart was always with the land, where he worked for many years as a rancher. Denman's many friends and relatives remember him as an avid outdoorsman who spent his free time fishing, hunting, gardening, foraging--even winemaking. Denman took special joy in sharing these hobbies with his family, including his wife, Kay, his two daughters, Lesa and Lori, and his many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Denman Wolfe was among the greatest of a great generation. It is fitting we honor him for his bravery at age 23 as a young private but also for a lifetime of service to his country and community. We honor him for his sake but also to hold up his life as an example worthy of emulation. It is worth noting that Denman has already inspired others to follow his lead: his daughter, Lesa, served in the U.S. Army just like he did. Let's hope that many others are inspired to serve by his example. In every aspect of life, Rangers lead the way. Denman Wolfe took this motto to heart during his long life. Now he is leading the way again, going ahead of us to our eternal home. May he rest in peace.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I will soon join a majority of the Senate in voting down the Articles of Impeachment brought against the President by his partisan opponents. The time has come to end a spectacle that has elevated the obsessions of Washington's political class over the concerns and interests of the American people. This round of impeachment is just the latest Democratic scheme to bring down the President. I say ``this round'' because House Democrats have tried to impeach President Trump at least four times--first, for being mean to football players; then for his transgender military policy; next for his immigration policy. And those are just the impeachment attempts. Along the way, Democrats also proclaimed that Robert Mueller would drive the President from office. Some even speculated that the Vice President and the Cabinet would invoke the 25th amendment to seize power from the President--a theory that sounds more like resistance fan fiction than reality. What is behind this fanaticism? Simply put, the Democrats have never accepted that Donald Trump won the 2016 election, and they will never forgive him, either. It is time for the Democrats to get some perspective. They are claiming that we ought to impeach and remove a President from office for the first time in our history for briefly pausing aid to Ukraine and rescheduling a meeting with the Ukrainian President, allegedly in return for a corruption inquiry. But the aid was released after a few weeks and the meeting occurred, yet the inquiry did not--even though, I would add, it remains justified by the Biden family's obvious, glaring conflict of interest in Ukraine. Just how badly have the Democrats lost perspective? The House managers have argued that we ought to impeach and remove the President because his meeting with the Ukrainian President happened in New York, not Washington. When most Americans think about why a President ought to be impeached and removed from office for the first time in our history, I suspect that pausing aid to Ukraine for a few weeks is pretty far down the list. That is not exactly ``treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.'' And that is especially true when we are just months away from the election that will let Americans make their own choice. Indeed, Americans are already voting to select the President's Democratic challenger. Why not let the voters decide whether the President ought to be removed? The Democrats' real answer is that they are afraid they will lose again in 2020, so they designed impeachment to hurt the President before the election. As one Democratic congressman said last year, ``I'm concerned that if we don't impeach this president, he will get reelected.'' Or, as minority leader Chuck Schumer claimed earlier this month, impeachment is a ``win-win'' for Democrats; either it will lead to the President's defeat or it will hurt enough Republican Senators in tough races to hand Democrats the majority. Or maybe both. The political purpose of impeachment was clear from the manner in which House Democrats conducted their proceedings. If impeachment was indeed the high-minded, somber affair that Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed, House Democrats would have taken their time to get all the facts from all relevant witnesses. Instead, they barreled ahead with a slipshod and secretive process, denying the President's due-process rights, gathering testimony behind closed doors, leaking their findings selectively to the press, and ignoring constitutional concerns such as executive privilege. The impeachment vote itself contradicted the pretensions of House Democrats. Speaker Pelosi said last year that she wouldn't support impeachment unless there was something ``so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan'' that it demanded a response. Likewise, Congressman Jerry Nadler said that the House had to ``persuade enough of the opposition party voters'' before it voted to impeach. Democrats failed on both counts. Indeed, the only bipartisan aspect of the whole proceeding is that both Republicans and Democrats voted against impeaching the president. Not a single Republican voted for either article of impeachment in the House, resulting in the first party-line impeachment of a President in our Nation's history. So instead of doing their work, House Democrats simply impeached the President and declared their job complete. Yet after piously declaring the urgency of this impeachment, they waited a month to send the articles over to the Senate. Maybe they had to wait for the gold- encrusted souvenir pens to arrive for Speaker Pelosi's ``signing ceremony.'' And once in the Senate, the political theater continued. The House Democrats repeatedly asserted a bizarre logical fallacy: their case was both ``overwhelming'' and in need of more evidence. Yet we heard from 17 witnesses--all hand-selected by the House Democrats--and received more than 28,000 pages of documents. The House could have pursued more witnesses during its impeachment, yet it instead chose to rush ahead rather than subpoena those witnesses or litigate issues in Federal court. In fact, when one of the House's potential witnesses asked a Federal court to rule on the issue, the House withdrew its subpoena and asked to dismiss the case. The House Democrats complain that the courts would have taken too long. Yet they expected the Senate to delay our work to finish theirs. And in a final, remarkable stunt, Congressman Adam Schiff suggested that we depose witnesses--only his, of course, not the President's--with Chief Justice Roberts ruling on all questions of evidence and privilege, dragging him into this political spectacle. But the curtain will soon come down on this political theater. The Senate will perform the role intended for us by the Founders, of providing the ``cool and deliberate sense of the community,'' as it says in Federalist 63, over and against an inflamed and transient House majority. Were we to do otherwise, were the Senate to acquiesce to the House, this process might have dragged on for many weeks, even for months, shutting down the normal legislative business of Congress even longer than it already has. Even worse, by legitimizing the House's flawed, partisan impeachment, we would be setting a grave precedent for the future. Just consider how many times we heard about the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson during this trial. The Founders didn't intend impeachment as a tool to check the Executive over policy disagreements or out of political spite. And the House has never before used impeachment in this way, not when the Democrats claimed that President George W. Bush misled the country into the Iraq war or when President Barack Obama broke the law by releasing terrorists from Guantanamo Bay in return for the release of an American deserter, Bowe Bergdahl. Indeed, the Republican House did not impeach President Obama for, yes, withholding aid from Ukraine for 3 full years. No House in the future should lead the country down this path again. By refusing to do this House's dirty work, the Senate is stopping this dangerous precedent and preserving the Founders' understanding that Congress ought to restrain the executive through the many checks and balances still at our disposal. More fundamentally, we are preserving the most important check of all--an election. It is time to teach that lesson to this House and to all future Houses, of both parties. Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff have failed, but the American people lost. Now it is time to get back to doing the people's business.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Mr. Chief Justice.

Mr. COTTON. I send a question to the desk for the President's counsel on behalf of myself and Senators Boozman, McSally, Blackburn, Kennedy, and Toomey.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Madam President, in the next few days, Senate Democrats will move to discharge a War Powers Resolution to tie the President's hands in defending this Nation against Iran and terrorist masterminds like Qasem Soleimani. Let's think about how we got here and the implications of this reckless action. Qasem Soleimani has the blood of thousands of Americans on his hands and hundreds of thousands of innocent souls across the Middle East. For more than 20 years, he was the Supreme Leader's most trusted lieutenant, Iran's terror mastermind, and the man responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan by supplying the most deadly kinds of roadside bombs soldiers ever faced. He and his proxies and Iranian leaders like him are responsible for bombings of our Embassies in places like Lebanon and Kuwait. They are, in no small part, responsible for the ongoing horror of the Syrian civil war, for the civil war in Yemen. There is no doubt, based on the intelligence we have and this bloodthirsty past, that Qasem Soleimani was in Baghdad on January 2 to plot something very dangerous and very big that was going to target Americans once again. We should all be thankful that Qasem Soleimani no longer walks the Earth, and we should be proud of the troops who executed that mission. The world is a safer place and America is a safer nation because of it. The people of Iran have been given a voice against the man who was responsible for mowing them down in protests over the years and whose death they have been out on the streets celebrating even though they risk being mowed down by their own security forces once again. Yet, over the last 2 weeks, the Democrats have been able to do nothing but express their regret for the President's decision to eliminate Qasem Soleimani. And make no mistake--this War Powers Resolution is not about the future; it is about delivering an implicit or, if you listen to their words and don't just read the resolution, an explicit rebuke to the President for ordering the killing of Qasem Soleimani. They certainly want to prevent the President from doing anything like that in the future. That is why they have introduced this War Powers Resolution. We should always remind ourselves when we are having a war powers debate, as we do from time to time, the War Powers Resolution is unconstitutional. It was passed by a liberal Congress in 1973 at the height of Watergate, and not a single President since then has acknowledged its constitutionality--not a single one, to include all the Democrats. I hear a lot about the Constitution these days and reclaiming our authority to declare war and to constrain the Executive. I guess all those constitutional experts missed the Federalist Papers and their authoritative explanation of the Constitution and why we have the government we do. We have a House of Representatives with 435 people to be the institution that is most closely tied to popular opinion. We have a Senate to act as the cool and deliberate sense of community. And we have a single President--a single President--to act on behalf of the entire Nation in moments of peril. Federalist 70, if they would just open up that authoritative explanation of the Constitution, says why there is one President, not a council of two or three or four, as some of the States had at the time of the founding. Because of the division of opinion and perspective and temperament that an executive council would have, there is one President--one President--who can act, as Federalist 70 said, with energy and dispatch and, yes, in some occasions, with secrecy. So if the Founders didn't think we should have an executive council of 3 or 4 or 5 people, imagine what they would have thought about 535 commanders in chief making operational decisions about when to take action on the battlefield. These debates about War Powers Resolutions are really about how many lawyers and armchair rangers can dance on the head of a pin. Do you think wars and battles are won with paper resolutions? Those wars and battles are won with iron resolution. Do you think the ayatollahs are intimidated by ``whereas'' clauses and joint resolutions? The ayatollahs are intimidated, deterred, and scared when we incinerate their terror mastermind and we tell them that we will do it again if they harm another American. Even if you grant the War Powers Resolution constitutional, look at the actual text of this resolution. It makes no exception for Iran developing a nuclear weapon. The ayatollahs could hold a press conference tomorrow or the Supreme Leader could tweet that they are going to rush to a nuclear breakout. The President would have to come to Congress if he would want to take any kind of action to deter it. It makes no exception for designated terrorist organizations and individuals, like the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds Force, who have killed so many Americans and continue to target them today. It makes no exception for attacks on our allies in the Middle East, nations like Israel. The sponsor of this resolution will say: Oh, it makes an exception for imminent attacks. We have seen what that gets us over the last couple of weeks--again, lawyers and armchair rangers arguing about the meaning of ``imminence.'' Well, I have to say that whether an attack is imminent looks pretty different if you are a soldier on patrol in Iraq than if you are a comfortable Senator sitting behind secure walls and armed guards. None of this means Congress has no role in matters of life and death on the battlefield. It is very far from it, in fact, and I will take a back seat to no one in asserting that constitutional authority. I would remind my colleagues that when we had an opportunity to insist that Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran be submitted to this Chamber as a treaty, there was one Senator who voted to insist on that--only one. This guy. Ninety-eight other Senators were perfectly willing to create some made-up, phony-baloney procedure that allowed Barack Obama to submit a nuclear arms agreement with a sworn and mortal enemy that chants ``Death to America'' and put it into effect with a large majority opposed to him, as opposed to the two-thirds majority that our Constitution requires for treaties. We do have a tremendous degree of constitutional authority in the Congress. We regulate interstate commerce, which means sanctions. We confirm Ambassadors. We confirm the President's Cabinet. We declare war, which we have done only a few times in our past despite hundreds of instances of introducing troops. But most importantly, and the way to constrain the Executive if this Congress thinks he should be constrained in a particular case, we have the spending power--in particular, the spending power for our Armed Forces. That is the way the Congress--any Congress with any President--can control the use of the Armed Forces by the President. It is something this Congress has done a lot in the past. We did it in Vietnam, did it in Nicaragua, and did it in Somalia. There were plenty of times where the President has acted in some ways in a much more aggressive and far-reaching fashion than President Trump did just a couple weeks ago--the first Taiwan Strait crisis, Granada in 1983, Libya in 1986, and Iran in 1988. I would even say Libya again in 2011, although most of my Democratic colleagues like to send that down the memory hole since it was a Democratic President. So I would simply say that if you disagree with the President's decision to kill the world's most sadistic, bloodthirsty, terrorist mastermind and you want to stop him from doing so again, file your bill to prohibit the use of any taxpayer funds for such operations. It is very simple. It is one page. I will help you write it, if you need help--one page: No funds will be used to support operations by the Armed Forces against the Government of Iran or any of its officials. Do it. Have the courage of your convictions. Why are we not seeing that bill? Because it failed just last year. All of these same politicians offered language on our annual Defense bill to try to prohibit the use of any funds in operations like we just saw, and it failed. We passed a defense bill, as we always do, by overwhelming majorities, which means they don't have the votes because they know their position is not popular with the American people. Not surprisingly, the American people don't want their elected leaders to act as lawyers for the ayatollahs. So if you are not going to act in what is our true constitutional power, spare us the unconstitutional and dangerous War Powers Resolutions and simply let the people who are serious about our national security--from troops on up to the top--do what is necessary to keep this country safe. Madam President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Madam President, this holiday season, the ancient darkness of anti-Semitism cast a shadow over New York City during Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights. The New York Police Department recorded at least nine separate attacks against Jews--more than one attack for each day of Hanukkah. New attacks are reported seemingly on a daily basis. In Crown Heights, the site of deadly anti-Semitic riots incited by Al Sharpton in 1991, a group of men beat up an Orthodox Jew and attacked another with a chair. In Williamsburg, another group terrorized an elderly Jewish man on the street. ``Jew, Hitler burned you,'' one of the criminals reportedly said. ``I'll shoot you.'' Just outside the city, in Rockland County, a man with a machete stormed a celebration in a rabbi's home and injured five worshippers, leaving two in critical condition. The family of one victim, Josef Neumann, says he may never wake up from his coma. These heinous attacks are part of a growing storm of anti-Semitism that has made Jewish Americans fearful to worship and walk the streets in their own communities. They come in the wake of the deadly rampage at the kosher market in Jersey City that left four innocent people dead, including a police detective, and of course they come in the wake of the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in our Nation's history: the massacre of 11 Jews at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh by a White supremacist. According to the FBI, our country suffered a 37-percent increase in anti-Semitic crimes between 2014 and 2018. According to the New York Police Department, the city suffered a 26-percent increase in anti- Semitic crimes in the past year alone. That increase is alarming enough. So is the fact that most hate crimes reported in New York are crimes against Jews. While some of the increase is due to better reporting, much of it is not. Jewish Americans bear witness to this harsh reality. Anti-Semitism is an ancient hatred, and today it appears in new disguises. It festers on internet message boards and social media. It festers in so-called Washington think tanks like the Quincy Institute, an isolationist, blame-America-first money pit for so-called ``scholars'' who have written that American foreign policy could be fixed if only it were rid of the malign influence of Jewish money. It festers even on elite college campuses, which incubate the radical boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement--a movement to wage economic warfare against the Jewish State. These forms of anti-Semitism may be less bloody than street crime in New York, but they channel the same ancient hatred, the same conspiratorial and obsessive focus on the Jewish people. Anti-Semitic attacks are a symptom of a larger breakdown of public order in our major cities caused by politicians who are letting dangerous criminals roam our streets. While Jews were being attacked in New York City, a law went into effect eliminating pretrial detention and bail for most crimes, including serious crimes like stalking, arson, robbery, and even manslaughter and negligent homicide. This law was a gift to criminals just in time for the holidays. In some cases, it came with an actual gift. New York City's criminal justice system gives goodies like taxpayer-funded movie tickets to criminal suspects just for showing up to court--movie tickets for criminals. I wish I were joking, but the joke is on the law-abiding citizens of this Nation. These soft-on-crime politicians are doing their best to make crime pay in New York. Releasing criminals is the logical next step for the criminal-leniency movement. Thanks to the new bail law, an estimated 3,800 criminal suspects were released from New York jails before New Year's Day. Many of those suspects were arrested for new offenses within hours--within hours--of their release. Case in point: On the sixth day of Hanukkah, December 27, Tiffany Harris was arrested for attacking three Jewish women in Crown Heights. She shouted ``F-you Jews'' as she slapped them in a rage. Despite the violent nature of her crime, Harris was amazingly released without bail the very next day, December 28, the seventh day of Hanukkah. On the eighth day of Hanukkah, Harris was arrested yet again for assault. She was released for a second time the day after that and is in custody now only because she was arrested for now a third time for failing to comply with a court order. I can only imagine how demoralizing it must be for New York's police officers to arrest a violent criminal, only to risk their safety arresting them the next day for harming somebody else and the next day and the next day. How terrifying it must be for the witnesses of those crimes to contemplate giving evidence while the criminals they witnessed stalk the streets the very next day. And how enraging it must be for New York's Jews to suffer constant anti-Semitic attacks and know that the perpetrators will slide through a revolving door from the lockup back into their communities to spread more of their virulent, anti-Semitic hatred. Soft-on-crime politicians claim that cash bail and strong policing punish the poor, but is there a worse punishment for poor communities than flooding them with dangerous criminals, making them unlivable for many law-abiding Americans who call those neighborhoods home? Guess what. Those dangerous criminals aren't going back to live in fancy penthouses in the Upper East Side. They aren't living behind gated communities in Bethesda and Arlington. They are living in the very communities that most need policing. That is why the consequences of criminal leniency never fall on the rich elites who praise it the most. Instead, the consequences fall on the less fortunate and on the brave officers who are duty-bound to uphold the law, even as they receive less and less support from the political class. The real solution to disorder in our cities is the same as it always has been: more and better policing. New York's finest and police officers all across the country have broken crime waves in the past using steely resolve and superior force. They can do it again, if only we give them the freedom and support they need. Thankfully, most Americans know whose side we are on in the fight against crime. We stand with cops, not criminals. We stand for the Jewish people against the ancient hatred that stalks them even to this day. America liberated Nazi death camps in World War II, and we have served as a haven for persecuted Jews for longer than that. We must not allow the bigotry so common in Europe and the Middle East to spread here to our free shores. We must not allow our city streets to be plunged into the lawlessness of the not so distant past.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, Stephen Carr has been described by friends as a ``gentle giant'' and ``all-American boy.'' He enjoyed hunting and fishing. He played on the offensive line at Southwest Baptist University. He came from a law enforcement family. He always knew he wanted to be a police officer, so it was little surprise when Stephen joined the Fayetteville Police Department 2\1/2\ years ago. He served with professionalism and valor in those 2\1/2\ years as a patrol officer in the Dickson Street entertainment district. Sadly, Officer Carr was in his patrol car Saturday night when he was ambushed by a gunman looking for an officer to kill. Carr's fellow police heard the gunshots and responded to the scene within seconds. With little regard for their own safety, they pursued the gunman down an alley. When confronted, they met force with force and took him down. The whole incident took just minutes from start to finish. Emergency services were on the scene within an instant, but despite their best efforts, they couldn't save Officer Carr. He succumbed to his wounds on the scene, as did his killer. Officer Carr was only 27 years old. This tragedy reminds us of the terrible risks officers face every day when they put on the uniform and the badge, not knowing whether they will be alive to take it off that night. Already this year, 118 officers across America have been killed in the line of duty. Some were the victims of random tragedies. Others, like Officer Carr, were targeted by a criminal class that hates what the police represent: law and order. Since Officer Carr's killing, two more officers have fallen in the line of duty. Detective Joseph Seals, a 15-year veteran of the Jersey City Police Department, was shot to death while approaching two suspected killers. Sergeant Kaila Sullivan, a 16-year veteran of the Nassau Bay Police Department, was struck and killed by a fleeing suspect in a vehicle. All of these fallen officers will be remembered as heroes. In Arkansas, especially, we will remember Officer Carr, whose watch ended on December 7, 2019. May he rest in peace. Honoring Storekeeper 1st Class John William Craig Mr. President, Navy Storekeeper 1st Class John William Craig of Monroe, AR, perished aboard the USS Oklahoma on December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy. On that day, Imperial Japanese bombers shattered the morning calm at Pearl Harbor, killing Petty Officer Craig and more than 2,000 of his brothers in arms. Nearly eight decades later, however, his remains were listed as unknown and interred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. He was reported as missing in action, but Petty Officer Craig is missing no more. Thanks to the outstanding work of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, his remains were accounted for in 2017, and just last weekend, on the 78th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, he arrived home in Arkansas to his final resting place. Petty Officer Craig's burial is a long-overdue moment of honor for a brave sailor. It is also a moment of hope for our many military families whose loved ones haven't yet been found--a reminder that our Nation will not rest until every one of our missing heroes is back in our arms or laid to rest with honor. We have now fulfilled this solemn pledge to Petty Officer Craig. Nearly 80 years after his disappearance, we have affirmed once again that the United States leaves no man behind on the battlefield. Fentanyl Sanctions Act Mr. President, synthetic opioids like fentanyl kill tens of thousands of Americans each year. They are a terrible accelerant that has fueled the worst drug crisis in our Nation's history, killing more people every year than died in the entire Vietnam war. These drugs aren't made here in the United States. No, they are flooding across our borders from overseas, trafficked by cartels, and, even unwittingly, sometimes by the U.S. Postal Service. Synthetic opioids are often produced in superlabs by the drug cartels that are terrorizing our border communities. But the ingredients for those drugs--and sometimes the drugs themselves--can be traced back to a different source: China, whose vast pharmaceutical and chemical industries frequently have been abused to poison our fellow citizens. The Chinese Communist Party has been waging an opium war in reverse against the United States for far too long. As tens of thousands of Americans have perished from overdoses, Chinese officials have turned a blind eye to the drug criminals who have profited off of our pain. But now, desperate for a trade deal to save its sputtering economy, Beijing has finally promised to crack down on fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. But we would be naive to trust any promise from Chinese Communists, especially this one. It is time that we take matters into our own hands. That is exactly what we will do in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, which includes my bill introduced with Senator Schumer to sanction foreign drug dealers in China, Mexico, and elsewhere. The bill also urges the President to work with our allies to impose even tougher multilateral sanctions against foreign drug dealers. It authorizes new funding for law enforcement and the intelligence community for counternarcotics activities. It establishes a commission to find new ways to stop the flow of drugs from overseas. This bill will soon be signed by the President and become law. This is welcome news for law enforcement and for families who are battling the crisis of opioid addiction, and it is bad news for the Chinese Communist Party and foreign drug dealers around the world who are responsible for the poisoning of so many Americans. Protecting Europe's Energy Security Act of 2019 Mr. President, 70 years after the creation of NATO, the biggest external threats to the alliance are our revisionist adversaries--China and Russia. Unfortunately, however, the alliance faces some internal threats, too, among the allies themselves, who too often fail to take these adversaries seriously. Instead, they strike dangerous deals with the very powers that threaten to destroy all of us. Consider the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project between Germany and Russia. Germany touts the pipeline's commercial benefits, but Russia sees it differently--as a strategic tool to divide Europe and thus to strengthen its fictional claim to dominion over parts of Eastern Europe. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline would effectively double the amount of natural gas Russia could export to Europe along a route that bypasses the alliance's eastern frontier. This would deepen the NATO members' reliance on Russian gas while it would enhance Putin's ability to engage in energy blackmail, just as he has done in the past. For example, in 2009, Russia shut off the flow of natural gas to Europe during a dispute with Ukraine, causing energy shortages across the entire continent in the dead of winter. Putin's opportunities for such blackmail will only increase if Nord Stream 2 is completed because he will be able to ship his gas to Western Europe without its transiting Eastern Europe. Therefore, he will be able to blackmail Eastern Europe while the Germans will sit warm and toasty in their living rooms-- indifferent to the plight of their NATO allies to the east. This pipeline is almost complete, so the timeline for action is short. Thankfully, the National Defense Authorization Act includes our bill to impose mandatory sanctions on companies that are constructing, insuring, or financing Vladimir Putin's pipeline to Europe. These sanctions are a demonstration of our commitment to the strength and security of the whole NATO alliance. I urge the German Government and all companies involved in this dangerous endeavor to pull back before it is too late and to consider the serious consequences that Nord Stream 2 could have for their security as well as for the security of the NATO alliance as a whole. Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps Homeschool Mr. President, homeschooling parents sacrifice a lot when they make the legitimate and indeed very admirable choice to personally educate their children. In effect, these parents are making the choice to go back to school themselves so that their kids may receive well-rounded and faithful educations. Their sacrifices pay off in spades. Homeschooled students consistently prove to be outstanding citizens because they are taught the importance of patriotism, faith, hard work, and sacrifice--virtues exemplified by their parents and their teachers. Homeschooled students, therefore, ought to be prime candidates for our Armed Forces for this very reason, but until now, in some places, it hasn't been clear as to whether homeschooled students have been eligible to join their local Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps Programs. Now that is going to change. The 2020 National Defense Authorization Act includes my bill--also sponsored by Senator Jones--which clarifies that homeschooled students may indeed enroll in their local JROTC Programs. Our bill will ensure that the Nation's 2.5 million homeschooled students will have the opportunity to sharpen and deploy their skills in service of our country. This will move us closer to being a society that fully accepts and indeed celebrates homeschooling families for the noble paths they have chosen. PCS Act Mr. President, the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act includes many valuable reforms. One such reform is the PCS Act, which is legislation I introduced with Senator Shaheen, that helps military spouses keep their occupational licenses even when they are on the move across State lines. One in three military spouses works in a field that requires one to have an occupational license, and too many spouses are forced to recertify every time they move between States. That can be very often. Most military families move every 2 to 3 years, and when each move requires an expensive, time-consuming recertification process, many military spouses might as well kiss their jobs goodbye. These occupational licenses are a costly burden for military families, who have already sacrificed so much for our country. Our PCS Act will alleviate this burden by empowering the Department of Defense and the States to negotiate interstate compacts for occupational licenses in fields in which military spouses often work. These compacts, which are made possible by our bill, will ensure that military spouses will be able to pursue their careers uninterrupted even while they are moving their families from State to State and base to base. Most importantly, the PCS Act will allow military families to focus on their mission, which is to protect and serve our country with honor. I yield the floor.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Madam President, I join my colleagues in recognizing Senator Johnny Isakson for a lifetime of service and achievement, from the Georgia Air National Guard, to the Georgia Legislature, and finally to Congress. Georgians know Johnny as a trailblazer, a proud Republican in a State that was once solidly Democratic. Americans know him as a friend to veterans and taxpayers, a strong conservative who loves and fights for his country. Those of us in this body know Johnny as a leader, a man of great integrity, and a statesman whose legacy will last a very long time. We are sad to see you go, but proud of what you built while you were here. Thanks, Johnny, for your work on behalf of our country and the State of Georgia.

Mr. COTTON

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

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, the New York Times has recently obtained a secret trove of documents from the highest ranks of the Chinese Communist Party. Those documents reveal some chilling, terrifying details about Beijing's campaign to stamp out all dissent and religious diversity in Xinjiang Province in the north, where the party has concentrated more than 1 million Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other minorities in reeducation camps. These documents bring to mind George Orwell's famous novel ``1984,'' not as the cautionary tale as he meant it, but as an instruction manual for the totalitarian government in Beijing. This reign of terror began in 2014, after a string of terror attacks in Xinjiang Province. But instead of bringing those terrorists to justice, the Chinese Communist Party used the attacks as an opportunity to eradicate all dissent--all wrong-think, if you will--from a province with 25 million residents. It would be as if you tried to turn the State of Texas into a concentration camp. These secret documents reveal a stunning order from General Secretary Xi Jinping. He said, ``We must be as harsh as them and show them absolutely no mercy.'' So to beat these terrorists, Beijing chose to adopt the tactics of terror. Every Uighur and dissenter in the province is suffering as a result. Secretary Xi tapped one of the most notorious enforcers to execute this mission, a man named Chen, who climbed the ranks of the Communist Party first by crushing dissent and religious diversity in the southwestern Chinese province of Tibet. The techniques that they perfected in Tibet, the Chinese Communist party took to Xinjiang. They have turned the province into a garrison state with ruthless and pitiless competence. Chen's order to the police? ``Round up everyone who should be rounded up.'' Uighurs, young and old, were loaded on into buses and taken to concentration camps with thick concrete walls and razor-sharp barbed wire. The police informed anxious relatives that these were schools and that their loved ones were being ``reeducated.'' And, no, they were not free to leave the school, nor would there be any recess or field trips. A secret manual obtained by Western journalists reveals that these facilities operate more like maximum security prisons than like schools. The manual's very first section deals with preventing escapes through the use of guard posts, patrols, internal separation, video surveillance, and double locks on dormitory and hallway doors. The manual even advocates the use of ``secret forces'' to infiltrate the detainee population to prevent them from joining forces or planning an escape. Beijing now holds--let me say it again--more than 1 million people in these reeducation camps, supposedly for reasons of national security, but the truth is a lot more chilling. The Chinese Communists, like all totalitarians, are paranoid about their own survival--and rightly so-- as a conspiracy of greedy, power-mad princelings with no democratic legitimacy whatsoever. Like all totalitarian rulers, the Chinese Communist Party is also a very jealous master. Every attachment, every conviction, every loyalty--whether to one's family, one's culture, even one's creator-- must be sacrificed on the altar of the Party. According to the Chinese Communist Party, everything must bow before it, and every tongue must profess the slogans of Xi and Mao. That means the Uighurs and also Hongkongers, Tibetans, Taiwanese, and others. The paranoid Communist Party will not limit itself to one province or one people, nor will it ultimately limit itself to its own land. It will extend its tyrannical reach to every corner that it views as its own, creeping ever outward until it demands the deference of all the world, until it ``deals with'' the rebellious billions who have not yet learned to love the Chinese Big Brother. The Chinese Communist Party is running concentration camps today, but make no mistake, its appetite for expansion is far greater, its methods of control applicable to anyone anywhere. The Free World must confront this threat in plain view and act now to avert such a dark and chilling future. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Madam President, I come to the floor with the senior Senator from Arkansas, Mr. Boozman, to celebrate a great anniversary. Two hundred years ago this week, the very first newspaper in Arkansas was published. It was called the Arkansas Gazette. We know it today as the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. It is the oldest paper west of the Mississippi, an institution in our State, and a credit to the many outstanding journalists who have made it possible over two centuries. From its first issue, the Arkansas Gazette was a pioneering newspaper, published by a young man named William Woodruff who crossed the mighty Mississippi into brandnew territory, dragging behind him a wooden printing press and other tools of the trade. The Gazette was first published out of a log cabin in the territorial capital, Arkansas Post. It reflected the bold aspirations of American settlers moving West to fulfill our manifest destiny on the continent, and it reflected these landlocked settlers' keen awareness that events far beyond out little plot of soil could shape their lives in dramatic ways. The first story in the very first edition reported on a Navy expedition to open the Pacific Northwest for American traders. It speculated with excitement about the prosperity that would flow to our Nation as Americans followed Lewis and Clark west across the country. ``The plan may appear visionary,'' the Gazette remarked, ``but that which is now speculation will . . . shortly become a fact, and this country will be enriched by the overflowings of its benefit.'' As the Arkansas Territory grew, Arkansas's newspaper grew with it. Woodruff moved the paper from Arkansas Post to Little Rock in 1821, where it would continue to be published for the next 198 years with few exceptions, such as a devastating fire in the 1850s and military occupation during the Civil War. Just as Arkansas kept its rough-hewn, pioneer character, so too did Arkansas's newspaper, whose staff were involved in not one but two gun battles, including the last recorded duel in Arkansas history--between, I am compelled to report, the owners of the Gazette and its upstart competitor, the Democrat. If William Woodruff was the founding father of the Democrat-Gazette, John Netherland Heiskell was its Lincoln, bringing the paper triumphantly into maturity. Heiskell became editor in 1902 and served in that position for an incredible 70 years until his passing in 1972. The one interruption in Heiskell's remarkable tenure came in 1913, when the Governor selected him to serve as a U.S. Senator after the death of a sitting Senator. He only served in this body for 23 days before a successor was elected, and then he hurried back to Little Rock and to the Gazette because the news waits for no man. Over the next half-century, the Gazette established itself as a world-class newspaper. It was during this period that the Gazette took a bold stand for truth in the finest tradition of journalism by declaring its support for desegregation well ahead of the pack in 1957. The Gazette and its editorial writer, Harry Ashmore, covered the turmoil surrounding Little Rock's integration with decency and firmness, insisting that Arkansas fulfill its obligation to all our citizens on an equal basis, without regard to race. This editorial crusade lost more than a few subscriptions, but it won the Gazette two Pulitzer Prizes ``for demonstrating,'' in the words of the Pulitzer committee, ``the highest qualities of civic leadership, journalistic responsibility, and moral courage.'' And so the Arkansas Gazette entered the modern era as a famous and award-winning publication. In 1991, after years known as ``the newspaper wars,'' the Gazette's old rival, the Democrat, bought the paper and created what we now know as the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Fortunately, I hasten to add, no duels were needed this time around. Now, the Democrat-Gazette is again changing with the times through the capable leadership of Walter Hussman, his family, and David Bailey, the managing editor. This time, the paper is transforming for the digital era, moving from paper to screen, and it is even giving away free iPads to subscribers to ease the transition. So if you are not already a subscriber, consider supporting our local journalism in Arkansas. It has a bright future ahead. Today, unfortunately, many venerable newspaper have fallen on hard times. Too many journalists can't be bothered to get the story right. Too many local communities are losing parts of their identity, which is all the more reason to celebrate newspapers like the Democrat-Gazette, which do get the story right and have preserved their distinctive character throughout the years. Some things may change. The Democrat-Gazette of the future may be heralded by the bright glow of the screen rather than the rustle of the news page. But other, more important things stay the same, such as integrity, impartiality, and credibility. The Democrat-Gazette holds its reporters to the highest standards of accuracy and ethics. Walter Hussman publishes these high standards that won the Gazette two Pulitzer Prizes every day on page 2 of the newspaper in its statement of core values. That statement reads: Credibility is the greatest asset of any news medium and impartiality is the greatest source of credibility. The Democrat-Gazette practices what it preaches, and for that reason, it continues to succeed 200 years on. There is also its Arkansas focus. As ever, the Democrat-Gazette earnestly pursues stories in Arkansas for the benefit of Arkansans. It is this proud local focus which has made the Democrat-Gazette a beloved institution in Arkansas and which will sustain it in the years ahead. Finally, the pioneer spirit--from the Arkansas Territory to the frontiers of digital journalism, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette will travel confidently into the future. Today, I join Senator Boozman in congratulating the Hussman family, the Democrat-Gazette, and all of their many hard-working professionals and journalists. I yield the floor to my colleague, the senior Senator from Arkansas.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Madam President, the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act is really about promises--making promises and keeping promises. Unfortunately, the Chinese Communist Party has a long history of making promises but not keeping them. You can ask a rice farmer from Stuttgart. You can ask a software programmer from Fayetteville, a factory worker from Fort Smith, or a Christian missionary from Searcy. In this case, China promised in 1984 that it would uphold the ``one country, two systems'' approach to Hong Kong when it took over in 1997, a promise to preserve the freedoms that have made Hong Kong distinctive--the freedom to practice one's religion as one sees fit, to speak one's mind, and to participate in the political process. But that is just another promise they are on the verge of breaking. Apparently, the ``one country, two systems'' approach can't satisfy Beijing's rapacious appetite. They look at and covet Hong Kong's wealth, and they fear and loathe its freedom, which stands in shining contrast to the Orwellian oppression on the mainland. In fact, they fear that mainland Chinese might look across the bay and start to get ideas. So the Chinese Communist Party has been breaking its promises to Hong Kong and to the world, waging a brutal campaign to absorb Hong Kong into its dystopian, high-tech dictatorship. Hongkongers are bravely resisting in the face of this kind of escalating violence. In recent days, Hong Kong security forces have shot a protestor in the stomach. They have trapped hundreds of students in the university, using rubber bullets and tear gas on them. They have threatened them with mass arrest. Beijing's propagandists have been hinting that even harsher measures are on the way. An article in the party-controlled China Daily argues that Beijing must accelerate Hong Kong's integration with the mainland and then reeducate Hongkongers, just like they are doing on a mass scale to 1 million Uighurs in concentration camps in Xinjiang. I said this in the summer when the protests started. Let me say it again. It would be a grave mistake of historic proportion--surpassing the massacre of Tiananmen Square--if Beijing were to impose martial law, occupy, or otherwise crackdown on Hong Kong. But the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act is about more than China making and breaking promises. It is also about the United States finally enforcing China's promises. We have a shot to avert catastrophe, protect the people of Hong Kong, and to finally enforce Beijing promises or hold them accountable for breaking those promises. Very soon, the Senate will pass this legislation on a unanimous, bipartisan basis to give you a sense of sentiment in the Congress. This legislation requires the Secretary of State to certify Hong Kong's autonomy from the mainland each year. Otherwise, they will lose the special privileges that U.S. law currently grants to Hong Kong. The bill will freeze the assets and travel of officials who are responsible for abducting Hongkongers, like journalists, booksellers who have been vanishing without a trace since 2017, and it will ensure that pro-democracy protesters cannot be denied visas to the United States despite their specious arrests. But if the Hong Kong Chinese Communist Party will simply pull back from the brink, if they will keep their promises, if they will respect their one-country, two-system approach, none of this will happen. So Beijing has a promise. Keep its promises, or give Americans and the world one more reason to treat China like an outlaw regime. Choose wisely, Mr. General Secretary Xi.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I join the Senator from Missouri, the Senator from Alaska, and the other Senators in calling for the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act. This bill is the last of a breed. It is a bill we have passed with a large bipartisan majority in Congress every single year for 58 straight years. It hasn't been derailed by petty, partisan politics or grievances between the parties. It has gotten large bipartisan majorities because Congress has understood that for those 58 years, the national defense must come before politics. It is the definition of a must-pass act, but time is short to get it right, unfortunately, because of those very kinds of petty, partisan politics. This bill is an opportunity for us to continue rebuilding our military after 8 years of stagnation and cuts by the last administration. The bill would increase funding to our troops by $22 billion--money that would be spent on cutting-edge technologies, like new vertical-lift jet engines, to give our troops an edge in future conflicts. This kind of investment is essential, especially as storm clouds brew in the Western Pacific from a rising China. The Communist Party of China is not derailed by petty, partisan politics; therefore, it is investing huge sums to transform its military into a world-class force that will be capable of rivaling and, it hopes, ultimately, of defeating our own military. At the same time, China is pursuing an aggressive technology strategy to dominate the next generation of military hardware. Beijing's ultimate goal, of course, is to replace us not just as the most powerful country in the Western Pacific but in the entire world. So we must invest in our military right now or else we will reap that whirlwind in the future. There are many other important measures that have been included in this year's Defense bill that will not pass--that will not even see the light of day--on the Senate floor if we fail to pass the bill. There is the Fentanyl Sanctions Act, which is my bipartisan legislation, that would crack down on foreign criminals--mostly Chinese--who smuggle deadly poisons across our border. Synthetic opioids kill tens of thousands of Americans every year, and that toll will continue to rise if we don't start to bust up the criminal networks that originate in China and then come through Mexico to poison our communities. Let's pass the Defense bill to give law enforcement the tools of the Fentanyl Sanctions Act. There is also the PCS Act, which is my legislation that would help military spouses transfer their occupational licenses across State lines. When your husband or your wife is in the military, you follow his or her career, and if you are a lawyer or a nurse or a teacher or any of the other hundreds of jobs that require an occupational license in this country, you face barriers to working and putting food on the table for your family. This bill would allow military spouses to continue to pursue their careers uninterrupted, which would therefore allow their military servicemembers to focus on their own missions and not worry about their spouses' jobs. There is also our legislation to honor the 241 American victims of the Beirut marine barracks bombing that was perpetrated by an Iranian suicide bomber 36 years ago last month. The Defense bill would designate the anniversary of that bombing as a national day of remembrance and strengthen our resolve to fight the terrorist forces that carried it out and that threaten our security to this day. There is also the opportunity to strengthen trade restrictions on Huawei by including in the Defense bill the Defending America's 5G Future Act. Huawei is the eyes and ears overseas of the Communist Party of China, so we must deny it access to our sensitive networks and the networks of our allies. There are 91 Senators who voted to instruct the conference committee to include that legislation in the Defense bill. They still hope it will be included, but, first, we will have to pass the Defense bill. If we don't, then China's spy company stands to gain. This is far from an exhaustive list of the reforms that are or could be included in this year's Defense bill. It is just a sample of the many valuable and bipartisan measures that are under consideration. They also underscore the importance of passing the Defense bill in the first place. Consider the alternative to passing the National Defense Authorization Act--that being a terrible stopgap spending measure that would include zero reforms and that would degrade, even as we face rising threats from China and Russia every day, the fighting capability of our military. A stopgap spending measure would freeze defense spending at last year's levels. That is not to say that business would go on as usual. No. Inflation would continue to erode the purchasing power of last year's funding levels, and the military would have to tear up and renegotiate many of its multiyear contracts with defense companies. Renegotiating those contracts would cost billions in administrative expenses that would otherwise go to the pay and benefits of our fighting men and women, to a new aircraft, to new ships, to new guns, or to new munitions. This so-called spending freeze would, in fact, cost taxpayers an arm and a leg. This is all the more reason for Congress to act, once again, to pass the National Defense Authorization Act, as we have for 58 years, without being divided by petty, partisan politics. I urge my colleagues to put aside their partisan objections on issues that are really not even related to our military. I urge them to make the hard compromises necessary in order to pass this bill and give our troops what they need. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Mr President, this week marks the 40th anniversary of the Iran hostage crisis, when 66 Americans were seized by an armed mob fueled by the anti-American ravings of Iran's revolution clerics. Fifty-two of those Americans were held captive for 444 days, during which time they were paraded on television and used as pawns by Iran's theocratic dictators. Those Americans would finally come home safely, thanks to a pressure campaign of financial sanctions and trade embargoes by the United States and their partners, but not everyone came home safely from Iran. Before the crisis ended, five American airmen and three marines lay dead, killed in an ill-fated rescue mission necessitated by Iran's lawless deeds. This week's anniversary is a useful reminder of the true nature of the regime in Tehran. Behind Iran's smooth talking, Western-educated diplomats are a band of radical clerics that act more like a criminal gang than the rulers of a sovereign nation. Consider how the regime commemorated the 40th anniversary of their crime--not with apologies, like a civilized nation might. No, with anti-American rallies where uniformed soldiers--uniformed soldiers, not clerics, not activists--uniformed soldiers led chants of ``Death to America'' and ``Death to Israel.'' In other words, Iran is unreformed and unrepentant. It still takes and holds hostages to this very day--businessmen, professors, engineers, fathers, and mothers, all just bargaining chips to the Ayatollahs. That is why I have a bill to impose new and substantial costs on these kidnappers. The Global Hostage Act would require the President to sanction foreign officials who take Americans as their hostages. The goal of our bill is clear: If you take Americans hostage, we will make your life miserable. You will not be able to travel here. You will not be able to bank here. You will not be able to send your kids to fancy schools here. You will be treated like the pariah you are, which is precisely what the Ayatollahs remain 40 years after they took their first American hostages. Mr. President, I ask consent that the following remarks be entered in a separate part of the journal.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I would like to say a few words about Lee Philip Rudofsky, the President's nominee to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas. In a few minutes, this body will vote to move ahead with this nomination. Lee has a long and impressive resume, from Harvard Law School to the White House Office of Legal Counsel, to Kirkland & Ellis, and beyond. His early career and qualifications speak for themselves. Lee is no stranger to serving Arkansans. He was our State's very first solicitor general. Lee left a good job at Wal-Mart to take that position and face the many challenges that come with it. He also moved 3 hours from his loving wife and three young kids to work around the clock for the people of Arkansas. That hard work paid off for all of us. According to esteemed members of Arkansas' legal community from both parties, Lee ``established Arkansas Solicitor General's Office as one of the finest legal practices in the State of Arkansas.'' He has subsequently become a respected professor and recruiter at one of our State's two law schools, and Lee is also a leader at his local synagogue and a member of the local chapter of the American Inns of Court. After the Senate votes to confirm him later this week, Lee will draw from this deep well of experience as he continues to serve the people of Arkansas with devotion and distinction. He will bring to the bench his intelligence, character, and, above all, commitment to the rule of law and the administration of equal justice under the law. I was honored to introduce Lee before the Judiciary Committee earlier this year. I am now honored, again, to speak on his behalf today. Lee is an exceptional selection for the Federal bench. I am happy to call him friend, and soon I look forward to calling him a judge. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to start the votes now.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to; the preamble be agreed to; and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, last weekend, elite U.S. Special Operations forces embarked on a daring and dangerous mission to locate and kill or capture the terrorist leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. These soldiers knew that Baghdadi's compound was well guarded by radical Islamic terrorists who placed little value on their own lives. They knew the compound was booby-trapped and that Baghdadi kept innocent children as human shields to protect himself against attack. Nevertheless, these soldiers carried out their mission fearlessly and flawlessly. They breached the compound, eliminated Baghdadi's Praetorian Guard, and then cornered the terrorist leader in a dead end, underground tunnel. Baghdadi chose the coward's way out, detonating a suicide vest, even though he was surrounded by his own children. True to form, he was as evil in the final moments of his life as he had been throughout it. Now Baghdadi is dead, thanks to the brave men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces and our canines too. There is no other Nation on Earth whose military could have carried out this raid, and the American people ought to be proud of them. To commemorate their stunning success, Senator Graham and I have a resolution to honor the leaders and members of the military intelligence community who made it possible and to commend the President for his decisive leadership in ordering the raid. Therefore, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 394 submitted earlier today.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session and be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. COTTON

Mr. COTTON. Madam President, Army CPL Jerry Garrison was reported missing in action on December 2, 1950. After all these years, Corporal Garrison is on his way home to be laid to rest with full honor due to a member of the U.S. Armed Forces. Corporal Garrison was one of ``The Chosin Few'' who fought on that frozen ground to protect his fellow soldiers and the independence of the Korean people against the Communist hordes. God, in His mysterious providence, chose to call Corporal Garrison home during that epic battle, but only recently were his remains discovered in Vietnam. Corporal Garrison's funeral today is a long-overdue moment of honor for a brave soldier and a long-anticipated moment of mourning and remembrance for his loved ones. Let's also remember in our prayers the many families whose loved ones haven't yet come home. Corporal Garrison's recovery is a moment of hope for these families, a reminder that our Nation will not rest until every one of our missing heroes is brought home, and it is a reminder to our troops who are in harm's way today that we will always bring them home should they fall in the line of duty or go missing in action. We have now fulfilled that solemn pledge to Corporal Garrison. Nearly 70 years after he went missing, we have once again affirmed that the United States leaves no man behind. Rest in peace, Corporal Garrison. Anniversary of the Beirut Marine Barracks Bombing Madam President, 36 years ago this week, an Iranian suicide bomber detonated thousands of pounds of explosives inside a Marine compound in Beirut, Lebanon. So terrible was the blast that 15 miles out at sea, the marines aboard the USS Iwo Jima could see black smoke building over Beirut like an ominous storm cloud. The devastating attack claimed the lives of 241 Americans who were bravely keeping the peace in a country that was wracked by violence. A separate blast claimed the lives of 58 of our French allies. This anniversary is a sobering reminder that freedom comes at a price--a price too often paid by brave Americans in uniform. In Beirut, it was paid by 220 marines, 18 sailors, and 3 soldiers. As a memorial to their valor, I ask unanimous consent to have their names printed in the Record.

Mr. COTTON. I yield the floor.