Trent Franks

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, it is my precious privilege this morning to express a loving tribute to one Marguerite Freeman. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Freeman was my third and fourth grade teacher, and if I could be with her right now as she is surrounded with family and friends and well-wishers on her 103rd birthday, I would just look into her eyes and say: Thank you, precious lady, for all that you have done for me in this life. Without your loving encouragement to me as a child, I may never have had the privilege to stand here in this place and speak on the floor of the United States Congress; and I was only one of hundreds of children whose hearts and minds you so deeply touched with your noble message of love and human dignity to the generations to come. So, beloved Mrs. Freeman, only eternity will discover your magnificent contribution to humanity. Happiest birthday to you, gentle lady, and may God keep you forever. That's what I would say, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, on behalf of a lot of the Members here of the House of Representatives, I want to thank Peggy Sampson for her tremendous work to help us all. This is her birthday, Mr. Speaker, and we wish her a happy birthday. We hope she has 100 more and that at least 90 of them are spent helping us here in this House to do a better job. We appreciate her very much. Mr. Speaker, let me also thank Chairman Hastings and leadership for bringing this bill to the floor today, as well as the bipartisan group of cosponsors for their support. I certainly want to thank all of the Members of the Arizona delegation that are in support of this bill. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1410, the Keep the Promise Act, seeks to prevent Las Vegas-style gaming in the Phoenix metropolitan area until the gaming compact that both the tribes agreed to and the Arizona voters approved expires in 2027. One Tucson-area tribe is trying to build a major casino on lands that were purchased in the Phoenix metropolitan area at the very same time they were in negotiations with other tribes in the State to craft this gaming compact. These actions are contrary to the public commitments that this particular tribe made between 2000 and 2002 to the 16 other Indian tribes in Arizona, the State itself, and the voters of the State of Arizona; and they publicly supported the passage of Proposition 202, a State referendum to limit casino gambling in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Mr. Speaker, the bipartisan cosponsors of H.R. 1410 are simply trying to keep all the parties to their publicly stated commitment to the people of Arizona not to engage in gaming in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Mr. Speaker, during the subcommittee hearing on this bill, witnesses made clear that there is a problem and a serious threat to the negotiated gaming structure in Arizona if this tribe is able to break its promise and develop a Las Vegas-style casino in the Phoenix metropolitan area. H.R. 1410 prevents an onerous precedent that could lead to an out-of- control expansion of off-reservation casinos as well as dangerous changes to the complexion of tribal gaming in other States across America. Mr. Speaker, tribes across this Nation, including many of the other Arizona tribes that played an integral role in the 2002 gaming compact, strongly support this legislation due to the impact this situation could have on tribal gaming enterprises nationally. The bill is also supported by the State of Arizona, the city of Glendale, the city of Litchfield Park, the city of Scottsdale, the city of Tempe, the town of Gilbert, and the editorial board of The Arizona Republic, which is the largest newspaper in the State. Additionally, Mr. Speaker, even if the casino weren't in violation of Federal law or contrary to the voter-approved gaming compact, claims that the operation would create jobs and benefit the economy of the surrounding area are woefully misinformed at best and shamefully dishonest at worst. Tellingly, multiple organizations, including the city of Glendale, asked that the tribe release the data and methodology supporting their economic study, which was conducted roughly 4 years ago, and to this day the tribe continues to steadfastly refuse. In other words, the tribe released a batch of numbers extolling the supposed amazing economic benefits of this new casino and then refused to tell anybody how they came about finding and coming up with those numbers. Mr. Speaker, this bill does not impact any tribe's ability to have lands taken into trust, nor does it impact any water or land claims. Consistent with the intent of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and Proposition 202, this bill merely restricts the ability of tribes to game on the very lands on which they agreed they would not game. With that, Mr. Speaker, I respectfully ask that my colleagues join me and the Members of Arizona's delegation in supporting this bill.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 2449, thereby building upon the already strong relationship between the United States and South Korea by extending the current U.S.-Korea Civil Nuclear Agreement for another two years. Mr. Speaker, Korea and the United States have a long and storied alliance stretching back sixty years, with many shared political and cultural values. Our current nuclear agreement is set to expire in 2014. Extending it is a mutually beneficial proposition, as past nuclear agreements with Korea have demonstrated. South Korea is one of the largest consumers of nuclear energy in the world, and U.S. companies export billions of dollars worth of equipment to Korea each year, while Korea uses nuclear power to increase its own energy independence. H.R. 2449 represents a new chapter in energy partnership between the U.S. and Korea and I look forward to its passage.

Mr. FRANKS

Mr. FRANKS. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 448, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, tonight, as we talk about religious freedom, it is especially appropriate that this group is led by one Congressman Randy Forbes. Mr. Speaker, I came into Congress approximately 11 years ago, and Mr. Forbes has been a prescient and noble voice among us during that time. I truly believe that as long as there are men like Randy Forbes in Congress that America will continue to be a great and hopeful Nation. Mr. Forbes understands the importance of religious freedom. He understands that religious freedom is truly the cornerstone of all other freedoms. I want to make sort of a layman's analysis of a quote sometime back from a great English statesman. He said: Out of deep dark bondage arises great faith. And that faith leads to great courage. And courage leads ultimately to freedom. And freedom leads to abundance. And abundance leads to apathy. And apathy leads to dependence. And dependence leads back to bondage. That has been the litany so often of great countries down through the ages, Mr. Speaker. I would just suggest to you tonight that there is a solution to breaking that pattern. That is for us to hold, as we are trying to do this evening, to the great foundations of religious freedom. Because, as we so clearly see in the insights of this great English statesman, that faith oftentimes is the precursor to all other freedoms. It is vitally important that we protect it, and to fail to do so is to imperil our entire Nation. Mr. Speaker, I believe that's exactly where we are in many places today. I want to give one special example tonight: Saeed Abedini is a United States citizen who has been imprisoned in Iran for exercising his Christian faith in a manner that is both legal and protected under Iranian law and international law. A few days ago, the 36th branch of the Tehran Court of Appeals confirmed Saeed Abedini's prison sentence and he is expected to serve the rest of the 8-year sentence in a hostile Iranian prison. The following statement is by Naghmeh Abedini, his wife and a resident of Idaho, in reaction to the news that Iran had upheld her husband's prison sentence. She said: When I learned that the Iranian Appeals Court confirmed Saeed's 8-year imprisonment I was heartbroken. As tears streamed down my face, I pondered how I could crush the child-like hope with this news as my children tightly closed their eyes and prayed in hope and expectation for their daddy's swift return. Discouragement and disappointment washed over me. I was discouraged that after a year of travel and numerous media interviews, I felt no closer to Saeed's release. I am also disappointed that the leader of my country, a country founded on religious freedom, has been awkwardly silent when an American citizen is wasting away in an Iranian prison. For an entire year, my husband has faced threats and abuse daily by radicals in Evin Prison for refusing to deny his Christian faith. And still, President Obama has never spoken a word about him. I am grateful for congressional pressure, but I do hope that as a Nation we realize that if we do not collectively speak out against injustice it will only be a matter of time before all our children will have to face what my children are facing today. Mr. Speaker, the American people would be outraged to truly know that the Obama administration has responded with deafening silence when an American father, husband, pastor, and an American citizen, Mr. Speaker, was thrown into a harsh prison under an oppressive regime for having the nerve to practice his Christian faith. The Obama administration should be utterly ashamed of its disgusting failure to speak out on behalf of Saeed Abedini and his precious family. No wonder the oppressive Iranian regime holds the Obama administration in such total derision as it arrogantly proceeds to build nuclear weapons with which to threaten the peace and security of the entire free world. I hope that the American people will hold the Obama administration accountable for its absolutely criminal silence in the face of such heartless injustice forced upon this beloved American pastor, his innocent family, and so many others. Mr. Speaker, on September 26, Saeed Abedini will have served in Iran's harsh Evin Prison for an entire year. The appeal that Saeed Abedini just lost was his last hope of being released under a heartless and unjust Iranian judicial system that still demands that he serve his 8-year sentence. Now, Saeed's wife, Naghmeh, is faced with ``crushing the child-like hope'' she speaks of of her two young children who have patiently ``prayed in hope and expectation for their daddy's swift return,'' and telling them that it will be a very long time before they see their daddy again. Mr. Speaker, when I hear the words of Naghmeh Abedini and I roll them over in my mind and I think of my own two little children at home, I am at once heartbroken for the Abedini family and enraged at the lackadaisical attitude and silence of President Obama. Iran has demonstrated an utter disregard for fundamental religious freedom by continuing to unjustly hold Pastor Abedini, an American citizen, Mr. Speaker--an American citizen--in a hellish Iranian prison for practicing his faith. Iran's tyrannical attempts to, in the words of Ronald Reagan, ``stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people'' have again been exposed to the world after the imprisonment of this beloved American pastor, who at the time was working to build an orphanage in Iran when he was imprisoned. Mr. Speaker, Martin Luther King once said: ``Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,'' and Pastor Abedini's case has starkly shown the far-reaching implications of even a single instance of oppressing religious freedom. By relentlessly refusing to forget this noble and gentle man, Pastor Saeed Abedini, we are upholding the sacred principle of international religious freedom as a ``first freedom'' that, Mr. Speaker, is fundamental to all of humanity.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I thank Congressman Griffin for the opportunity here. Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the time. Mr. Speaker, the tiny Nation of Israel began in earnest more than 3,000 years ago. Since that time the people of Israel have faced more heartaches, threats of annihilation, bigotry, torture, and genocide than any other people in the history of humanity. Yet even today, in 2013, against all odds and opposition, the noble people of Israel remain. And the peace of Israel continues to be the linchpin of peace for the entire world. Today Israel faces another catastrophic challenge among the many in its long struggle throughout history that threatens to end its existence as a nation. The greatest challenge Israel faces today is the growing threat of a nuclear armed Iran. This is a menace that also threatens the peace and security of the entire family of mankind. Mr. Speaker, Israel has been our truest friend and ally in the Middle East now for approximately 65 years, and during that entire time it has faced many unthinkable threats from enemies who desire to see its absolute annihilation. Now more than ever before the United States of America and the nation of Israel must stand together against the threat of a nuclear Iran and against those who would see our two nations and all those we love and all those who love human freedom eradicated from the face of the Earth. One of the most important ways America can send a signal to the world that there is no space between us and Israel is to transfer our Embassy to an existing, newly constructed consulate in Jerusalem and once and for all make it clear that the United States officially and unequivocally recognizes Jerusalem as the undivided capital city of the state of Israel. This is something we should have done a long time ago, Mr. Speaker. However, there has never been a more important time to do it because the world today, including some of our most dangerous enemies, doubt America's resolve to stand with Israel. And the actions of the Obama administration would create such doubt in any reasonable person's mind. For instance, when it was announced that the Israeli Government had completed one more step in the permit process for building houses in Jerusalem, the Obama administration openly rebuked Israel and demanded that they do several things by way of ``penance'' for building houses for its citizens. Now Mr. Speaker, I cannot tell you how bewildering it is for me as an American Congressman to hear our own American President expressing more outrage toward Israel for building homes in its own capital city than he has expressed toward a madman like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for building nuclear weapons with which to threaten the peace and security of the entire world. Mr. Obama demanded that the permits be canceled, despite the fact that every Prime Minister of Israel has allowed them in their capital. Mr. Obama told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make a ``substantial gesture'' towards the Palestinians and release Palestinian prisoners. Mr. Obama has made no such demands of the Palestinians, and the Palestinians have made no such concessions. In fact, Mr. Speaker, every concession that Israel has ever made for decades has been met and responded to by violence and terror. Nevertheless, President Obama is continuing to insist that Israel publicly state its willingness to negotiate the division of Jerusalem and the right of return for millions of descendants of Palestinian refugees to Israel. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, no President in our history has been more bent upon isolating our friends and emboldening our enemies as this President. And Mr. Speaker, it places Israel in a great conundrum. For if, on the one hand, they take military action to halt Iran's nuclear program, the world--including this administration--will openly condemn them and they will face intense isolation and hostility from the international community. On the other hand, if they do not take action and they allow Iran to gain nuclear weapons, they face the real and imminent possibility that Iran will either directly or through its proxies unleash a nuclear hell on Earth that will annihilate their tiny homeland. It is perilous beyond description for us all, Mr. Speaker, that the leader of the free world doesn't seem to understand the gravity of allowing the Iranian regime and the Government of Iran today to gain nuclear weapons capability. It is vital for those of us in Congress to make it clear that America's commitment to Israel remains steadfast and that Israel's enemy is America's enemy. Once again, Mr. Speaker, America should make a major effort and make a major statement to that effect by transferring our Embassy to Israel's capital city, Jerusalem. This move would require nothing from American taxpayers. It could happen by selling the current Embassy in Tel Aviv, and that could even bring a substantial upside to America financially. This is something that we need to do for the sake of making it clear to the world that we will stand by Israel. America has established bilateral relations with so many nations across the world, and in each case we have recognized their capital city. Yet when it has come to the State of Israel, our most critical and cherished ally on this Earth, Israel's capital city of Jerusalem is the only one in the world which we have yet to recognize. Ironically, Mr. Speaker, it was America that was the first nation on Earth to recognize Israel as a nation, a mere 11 minutes after Israel's declaration. President Harry Truman said: I had faith in Israel before it was established, I have faith in it now. I believe it has a glorious future before it--not just as another sovereign nation, but as an embodiment of the great ideals of human civilization. Mr. Speaker, if America now ignores the opportunity to be the first to fully recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital city, can we truly claim that we are Israel's nearest and dearest friend? And, can we honestly say that we are fully committed to our own principles? The majority of Israel's citizens and leaders have yearned for their capital city's recognition by the people of the world and, moreover, by the people of the United States for so very long. Israel's capital city houses its government framework, including the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, the Supreme Court, the Bank of Israel, its diplomatic corps of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Prime Minister's and President's offices. And very significantly, Jerusalem surrounds many of Israel's most sacred remembrances, including the tombs of the fallen soldiers on Mount Herzl, as well as the symbol of the most insidious injustice ever endured by the Jewish people, the Holocaust Museum--Yad Vashem. Mr. Speaker, not so long ago one of the Members of this House said very eruditely and arrogantly: ``I don't take sides for or against Israel, and I don't take sides for or against Hezbollah.'' I believe, Mr. Speaker, that that is more dangerous, that kind of moral equivalence, that kind of moral neutrality, it's more dangerous to humanity than terrorism itself. Ronald Reagan gave an address in 1983 when the world faced a similar threat in the growing strength and nuclear ambition of the Soviet Union. He stated: I urge you to beware the temptation to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil. Mr. Speaker, we cannot remove ourselves from that struggle. Let us all be reminded that we have been here before. The free nations of the world once had opportunity to address the insidious rise of the Nazi ideology in its formative years, when it could have been dispatched without great cost. But they delayed, and the result was atomic bombs falling on cities, 50 million people dead worldwide, and the swastika's shadow nearly plunging the planet into Cimmerian darkness. You know, it is said that those who survived the Holocaust achieved their revenge through simply living. Rather than allowing their faith and their hopes to be crushed by the atrocities of the past, they chose instead to dry their tears and to look up and to begin building again. And indeed they did build again. They built a future and a family and a community and a nation. And Mr. Speaker, the God of Jacob honored their courage. The threat of the Nazis is no more, and one day this threat of global jihad will be no more. Mr. Speaker, recognizing Jerusalem as the rightful capital of Israel is not solely an act of foreign attributes and powers. It is the noble act of courage and justice that comports with everything that America is. We have assisted the Jewish people in restoring their ancient state. We must now act and recognize her restored ancient city, Jerusalem. Together, we can ensure that Jerusalem continues to be a center for answered prayers and dreams come true. And I pray that the United States will be the first nation to officially and formally recognize Israel's capital city and to transfer our Embassy to Jerusalem. This will undeniably affirm our commitment and our resolve on behalf of Israel. And we will be standing steadfastly on our own Declaration of Independence, as well, Mr. Speaker, as on the right side of history. With that, Mr. Speaker, I would just pray that the light of God's peace will shine down upon the streets of Jerusalem forever. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

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

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to cochair the International Religious Freedom Caucus here in the Congress. In that capacity, it's also my privilege to participate in the Defending Freedoms Project, a bipartisan effort for Members of Congress to adopt a prisoner of conscience. My office has adopted Saeed Abedini, a Christian pastor and an American citizen from Idaho who is currently imprisoned in Iran for his faith. Iran's tyrannical attempts to, in the words of Ronald Reagan, ``stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people'' were again exposed to the world after the imprisonment of Pastor Abedini, who was sentenced to 8 years in prison while working to build an orphanage in Iran. Mr. Speaker, Martin Luther King said: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Pastor Abedini's case is a demonstration to the world of the far- reaching implications of even a single instance of human rights abuse. I would call again upon Iran to immediately release Pastor Abedini so he can return to Idaho to be with his family.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Chairman, I am reminded that when two airplanes hit two buildings, it cost our economy $2 trillion and many thousands of lives. It occurs to me that sometimes we are fairly shortsighted. Sometimes even as conservative fiscally as I am, sometimes in this Chamber we don't look to our primary duty and we become penny-wise and very pound-foolish. One nuclear armed missile coming into the United States could ruin our whole day. I am astonished sometimes at the lack of insight to this very real problem. The system that we are speaking of today, the GMD, is the only system that we have tested that is successfully capable of defending this country against intercontinental ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads or other ordnance. Mr. Chairman, I just find it astonishing that President Obama and his supporters have cut funding for our missile defenses every year they have been in office. They criticize these programs when there are test failures or delays that have been made worse by their slashing and burning of the program. Mr. Chairman, I am convinced that the cost of failing in this area is simply too high. While the Ground-based Midcourse Defense System did miss its target on a July 5 test, it was one test. It has been successfully tested repeatedly since the 1999 testing began. This administration has not offered funding for testing this system since 2008. Mr. Chairman, it should not shock us that when we don't test our systems, sometimes they don't always perform perfectly. If we cut funding for systems that don't have a perfect test record, we are doomed to have no protection at all. Every sophisticated program in the Defense Department has had technical challenges at some time. But GMD's technical challenges are not insurmountable. We must commit to support these systems to see these challenges through. The amendment that Mr. Polis has offered would strike $107 million authorized in the National Defense Authorization Act. It would actually, because the authority for multi-year procurement would then be done away with, this Polis amendment actually costs the taxpayers money. I would just ask the gentleman: If not this system, what other system would he suggest that would protect our country against a potential situation where an intercontinental ballistic missile were coming into the homeland? I would ask him to consider that. I would now yield 2 minutes to my friend, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn).

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Chairman, I would just remind people in this Chamber that nuclear missiles coming into this country are the most dangerous weapons that we face, and GMD is the only system that we have to protect ourselves from it. I hope this amendment will be defeated, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes. I rise in opposition to the amendment from the gentleman from New York. Two Presidents and three Secretaries of Defense recognize the advantage of an additional missile defense site for a more effective defense against long-range missile threats from the Middle East. President Bush wanted to deploy 10 ground-based interceptors in Poland. President Obama wanted to deploy 24 SM-3 block IIB missiles in Poland. I would remind my colleague from New York that the additional idea of a homeland defense site is bipartisan and was supported by President Obama as recently as this March. But President Obama changed his mind with the cancellation of the SM-3 block IIB missiles intended for Poland in 2020, and now we no longer have a third homeland defense site which the Obama administration supported prior to March 15. The termination of the SM-3 block IIB missile intended for Poland now means defense of the homeland against ICBM threats from the Middle East will not be as strong as originally sought by this President--that's this President, Mr. Chairman--President Obama, who has cut missile defense every time he has had the opportunity since he started in the face of a growing threat, while the centrifuges in Iran continue to spin. The warfighters agree an east coast site adds to the defense of the United States. General Jacoby, NORTHCOM Commander, said: What a third site gives me, whether it's on the east coast or an alternate location, would be increased battle space; that means an increased opportunity for me to engage threats from either Iran or North Korea. Mr. Chairman, it's a very simple matter of telemetry and geography. The east coast site would allow us much greater battle space and not have to make our West Coast sites travel the entire length of the continent in order to engage a potential incoming Iranian missile. Mr. Chairman, I continue to sometimes be amazed. This is the most dangerous kind of threat that we face in America. The first purpose of this body is to make sure that the country's defenses are taken care of and that we provide for the national security of this country. And yet in a growing threat environment, by colleagues on the other side continue to want to cut missile defense. Mr. Chairman, I would urge defeat of this amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Rogers), the chairman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman said that the testimony was that they did not need the money today for additional testing, but they do need the money today for deployment, Mr. Chairman. This administration, throughout its tenure, has weakened our missile defense capabilities, which protect us against the most dangerous weapons in the history of humanity. We should not continue to go down that road. I urge my colleagues to defeat this amendment. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Well, I just thank the gentlelady, Mr. Speaker, because she has demonstrated such a wonderful presence in this body. She has been a gift to all of us. I know that each person who has preceded me at this platform is grateful for Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler. I wish there were about another 200 like her and I might just go home. But I really appreciate her so much. Mr. Speaker, it's been said that a father is a man who expects his children to be as good as he meant to be. I have yet to meet a father who doesn't want to convey his own mistakes to his children. He wants his children to learn from his mistakes, to give his children the best possible start in life, serving as a springboard from which to face the day-to-day challenges that ultimately come. But I really don't think that's such a comprehensive definition. Those of us who are privileged to be in a Christian family believe that there is a loftier image of fatherhood, that there is One after whom we model our inevitably flawed attempts to raise our children with love and wisdom, a perfect father who gives us ``every good and perfect gift,'' who is a father to the fatherless and a help in times of need to the widow and the oppressed. And it is only in having children sometimes that we begin to understand just a little glimpse of how our heavenly Father feels about the rest of us. To most women, their father was their first love. To most men, their father was their first larger-than-life idol. The role a father plays in the life of his children simply cannot be overstated. That fact, Mr. Speaker, that knowledge that little eyes are watching every move we make, often emulating what they see for good or bad, no matter what we do, we will never feel quite fully equipped to do justice to the sacred responsibility to which God has entrusted us. There is a famous saying that the greatest gift a father can give his children is to love their mother. And the point of that quote of course is that a healthy, intact home gives a child the best possible chance at pursuing and achieving their dreams. But for all its difficulties, what a sweet and blessed honor it is to be entrusted with the task of raising these little human images of unconditional love. I've said it before, Mr. Speaker, and I believe with every passing day that every baby that is born comes with a message from God that He has not yet despaired of mankind on Earth. Yet I look around at the state of the American family, Mr. Speaker, that bedrock institution that is responsible more than any other factor for inculcating the truth into the hearts and minds of each new generation, and I believe that it is facing a grave and profound challenge in America. A mentor and a friend of mine, Gary Bauer, recently wrote an article on this very subject. He was highlighting the state of affairs in which so many Americans find themselves without the firm, guiding, loving hand of a father. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, 40 percent of children are now born to unmarried parents, including a majority of children born to women 30 years old or younger. A recent study in Richmond, Virginia, found that 60 percent of families in the city have just one parent--usually the mother--at home. Among black residents, it's 86 percent of homes that are single parents. A related Pew study estimated that women, when they are the prime breadwinners--and they are in 40 percent of American households--that, unfortunately, the majority of these households are led by a single mother who averages just $23,000 in annual income, whereas intact families average about $80,000 a year in income, by comparison. Eighty-five percent of all young men--or even, for that matter, middle- aged men--in prison came from a family that never had a functional father figure in their midst--85 percent. Mr. Speaker, it is an understatement to suggest to you that children are so desperately in need of both a mother and a father. And I know no better way to really illustrate that than just to try to tell the story of three fathers. The first story I will tell is of one father named Earl Carr. He was my grandfather. Earl Carr was a coal miner. When he was just in his mid-twenties, a terrible cave-in crushed his friends, killed most of them, and broke his back. So as a child, I remember growing up when my grandfather could carry a coal bucket for maybe 40 or 50 feet, but then he would have to sit down. But he never abandoned his family, and he was always there in every way that he could be. Just to illustrate to you how sometimes a grandfather can have a big impact on a grandson, more than 45 years has passed--and I hope I can remember it--but he used to be very fond of the ``Coal Miner's Ode,'' and it goes something like this: Come and listen, you fellers, so young and so fine, and seek not your fortune in the dark dreary mine. It will form as a habit and seep in your soul 'til the stream of your blood runs as black as the coal. Because it's dark as a dungeon, damp as the dew where the danger is double and the pleasures are few. Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines, it's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines. And I hope when I'm gone and the ages shall roll, my body will blacken and turn into coal. And I will look from the door of my heavenly home and I'll pity the miner digging my bones. Because it's dark as a dungeon, damp as the dew, where the danger is double and the pleasures are few, where the rain never falls and the sun never shines, it's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines. I don't remember the last time I said that, Mr. Speaker, but I do know that it was over 40 years ago that I learned it, and a grandfather does have a lasting impact on our lives. So now I will tell you another story of another father, and he's my father--a man named Taylor Franks. I won't go into--because I don't remember--how he was there for me when I was a baby and had some congenital defects and probably wouldn't have had the opportunity to be standing in this well had it not been for a faithful father, but I'll tell you just one story. Years ago in the little town when I was growing up, I came away from the playground one day when I was about 5 or 6 years old, maybe 6 years old. And I came through an alley, and you know how it always is. There is sometimes a bunch of guys that want to demonstrate their macho capability. I walked past the fence and one of them yelled something at me and there was a rock fight that ensued. Now, they were behind the fence and there were several of them. I was out there alone and I was losing this battle very demonstrably. I would pick up one rock and throw it back because I didn't want to be discomforted by this band of ruffians, you understand. But I was losing, and I thought, Boy, what am I going to do? I am going to have to run, it looks like. And just at the moment when I was probably in the peak of my panic, all of a sudden the rocks stopped, everything was still, and I could see them peaking over the fence at me. I noticed a little carefully. It seemed like they were looking at something behind me. I turned and it was Taylor Franks. He said, How about me evening up the sides here just a little bit? He evened up the sides many, many times. He's 87 years old now. But I'll tell you, if the communists ever come to this country to take us over, they better go around that old gentleman's house because they'll get more than they bargained for. This is a man that loves his country, loves his God, and loves his family. I have no words to express my gratitude to him. So I will tell you about another father, who almost didn't think he was going to be one. But he calls his little boy ``little feller,'' because that's what his daddy called him. And his name is Joshua Lane, and he's my boy. He's got a sister, a twin sister. She's 5 minutes younger. Of course he takes care of her. But I can say to you that there is no greater gift on this Earth than these children. Somehow, I guess, the point of all this, Mr. Speaker, is just to remind all of us that are fathers what they meant to us and what we mean to our children. Sometimes I have to watch mine grow up at a distance, but they know their daddy loves them and they know their daddy is here so that we can make a better future for them. I guess my challenge to the fathers of this country is to be reminded that your children grow up so quickly and your impact on them will be profound beyond any words that I could ever articulate. They say that great societies finally come when old men plant trees under whose shade they will never sit. I believe that to be true, that our greatest jobs as fathers is to make sure that our children have the inculcated truths that will help them find their way home and through the great storms of life. We should always remind ourselves that they are, indeed, the living messages that we send to a time we will never see ourselves. I hope that somehow that fathers of this country will recognize the gift that they've been given and they will recognize the impact that they will have, and that the rest of society will recognize that if we displace fathers in our country, we will bankrupt us all trying to replace them. With that, Mr. Speaker and Congresswoman Hartzler, I yield back.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I just want to thank the distinguished gentleman from Georgia for yielding this time. One of the great hopes that I see that portends for a better future for America is to see men like Doug Collins join this group and this Congress. Mr. Speaker, it seems like we are never quite so eloquent as when we are decrying the crimes of a past generation, while we oftentimes remain as staggering blind as some of our most intellectually sightless predecessors when it comes to facing and rejecting atrocities in our own time. Whether it was slavery, or the many human genocides across history, the patterns were the same. Mr. Speaker, innocent human beings, children of God all, were systematically dehumanized and then subjected to the most horrifying inhumanity. All the while, human society as a whole at first hardened their hearts and turned away. But, Mr. Speaker, truth and time travel on the same road; and though it was often agonizingly slow, the truth of these tragic inhumanities in our past began to dawn on the people of reason and goodwill. Their hearts first, and then their minds, began to change. Mr. Speaker, I have often asked myself, what was it--what was it that changed their minds? What changed the minds of those who had previously embraced an almost invincible ignorance to hide from themselves the horror of what was happening to their innocent fellow human beings? I so wish I knew that answer, Mr. Speaker. Because you see, today, such a conundrum looms before humanity again, the most glaring recent example of which are the gut-wrenching revelations surrounding the trial and conviction in Philadelphia of Dr. Kermit Gosnell. In the words of the grand jury report: Gosnell had a simple solution for unwanted babies: he killed them. He didn't call it that. He called it ``ensuring fetal demise.'' The way he ensured fetal demise was by sticking open scissors in the back of the baby's neck and cutting the spinal cord. He called it ``snipping.'' Over the years, there were hundreds of ``snippings.'' When authorities entered the clinic of Dr. Gosnell, they found a torture chamber for little babies that I do not have the words or the stomach to adequately describe. Suffice it to say, Dr. Gosnell ran a systematic practice in his late- term abortion clinic to cut the spines of those babies who had survived his attempt to abort them. Ashley Baldwin, one of Dr. Gosnell's employees, said she saw babies breathing, and she described one as 2 feet long that no longer had eyes or a mouth, but, in her words, was making this ``screeching'' sound, and it ``sounded like a little alien.'' For God's sake, Mr. Speaker, we are better than that. America is better than that. And yet if Kermit Gosnell had killed these children he now stands convicted of murdering before they had passed through the birth canal only a few moments earlier, it would have all been perfectly legal in many States, in this the land of the free and the home of the brave. Mr. Speaker, more than 325 late-term unborn babies were torturously killed without anesthesia in America just yesterday. Many of them--so many of them cried and screamed as they died. But because it was amniotic fluid going over the vocal cords instead of air, we couldn't hear them. All of them had at least four things in common. First, they were just little babies who had done nothing wrong to anyone on Earth. And each one of them died a nameless, lonely, and agonizing death. And each one of their mothers was callously abandoned to deal with the emotional results that will inevitably follow. And all the gifts that these children might have brought to humanity, Mr. Speaker, are lost forever. So if there is one thing we must not miss about this unspeakably evil episode, it is that Kermit Gosnell is not an anomaly; he is the face of this murderous Fortune 500 enterprise of killing helpless unborn children in the United States of America. With all of the distortions and the bait-and-switch tactics opponents have hurdled at the Pain- Capable Unborn Child Protection Act leading up to this historic floor debate, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act is very truly and simply a deeply sincere effort to protect both mothers and their pain- capable unborn babies entering their sixth month of gestation from heartless monsters like Kermit Gosnell. Given the cataclysmic implications, Mr. Speaker, for any society who turns a blind eye to atrocities truly forced upon the most innocent and helpless of its members, would it be too much to hope for that Members of this body and Americans in general might research this issue and learn the truth of it for themselves? Because you see, Mr. Speaker, the real question in the debate before us is not whether these unborn children entering their sixth month of gestation are capable of feeling pain. The real question is: Are we? If our society is to survive with our humanity intact, our human compassion toward our fellow human beings must first survive. Fifty million children--50 million dead children are enough. That is why it is so important for people to see for themselves the humanity of these little victims and the inhumanity of what is being done to them. Now, maybe it won't change everyone's mind, but it has changed so many minds; and most of these changed minds share a common thread. They were confronted with the brutal reality of abortion on demand, and something inside them could no longer deny the truth, or they could no longer condone the murder of a defenseless child. What changed their minds? Perhaps I will really never understand what sparked that change in their hearts, Mr. Speaker. But I am convinced of one thing: that it is the same spark in the human soul that has turned the tide of blood and tragedy and hatred and inhumanity throughout human history. And whatever else it is, Mr. Speaker, it is mankind's only hope.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Madam Chair, ever since mankind took up arms against his fellow human beings, there has always been an offensive capability and a defensive capability to try to match it. The spear was met with the shield. The bullet was met with armor. And, today, we face the most dangerous weapons in the history of humanity in nuclear-armed missiles. Madam Chair, we should have a capable defense. Our ground-based midcourse defense is the only system that we have that protects the American homeland from intercontinental ballistic missiles coming into this country. And, Madam Chair, it is a limited capability, and we should not further limit it in our policies here today. As has been so eloquently stated earlier, the President of the United States cut our GBI capability in recent years and now has changed his mind to where we will go from 30 to 44 interceptors. And with a 3- or 4-to-1 shot doctrine, that may give us the ability to defend ourselves up against as many as a dozen incoming missiles. Madam Chair, it's all right if we have a few too many, but if we have one too few, it changes everything. Across the world, we've all understood that the more we sweat in peace, the less we bleed in war. We need desperately to make sure that we do our fundamental job in this Congress and in this Federal Government by making sure that we protect the citizens against the most dangerous weapons mankind has ever devised, and, Madam Chair, this is why we want to reject this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Well, I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, I don't often do this, but I'm going to step away from my prepared remarks just a moment and express a sincere gratitude to Congressman Chris Smith. Mr. Speaker, years ago, when I came to Washington the very first time, it was on a weekend. I couldn't come here and visit the Congress, but I came to the congressional halls of where their offices were. There were two offices that I visited. One was the late Henry Hyde--one of the greatest human beings to ever sit in this place--and the other was Chris Smith. I just have to say to you--I know it embarrasses him terribly, but this is my heart--I believe this man to be truly one of the greatest heroes in this Congress. All the 30-plus years that he has been here, he has given everything he had to protect little children who couldn't vote for him. I am just convinced, in the councils of eternity, that someone is going to look him in the eyes one day when he crosses over that threshold and say, ``Well done.'' And I am just grateful that we have men like that here. Mr. Speaker, Daniel Webster once said: Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. For miracles do not cluster-- and America is a miracle, Mr. Speaker. For miracles do not cluster, and what has happened once in 6,000 years may never happen again. So hold on to the Constitution. For if the American Constitution should fall, there will be anarchy throughout the world. Our Founding Fathers wrote the words of our Constitution down for us because they didn't want us to forget their true meaning or to otherwise fall prey to those who would deliberately undermine or destroy it. This has always been the preeminent reason why we write down documents or agreements or declarations or constitutions in the first place, to preserve their original meaning and intent. Mr. Speaker, it really causes us to ask ourselves the question: Why was all of this effort made? Why are we really here in this Chamber? And I would suggest to you that if we simply avail ourselves of the most cursory glance of the Founding Fathers, we are all here to protect the lives of Americans and their constitutional rights. And protecting the lives of Americans and their constitutional rights is the reason Congress exists in the first place. The phrases in the Fifth and the 14th Amendments capsulate our entire Constitution when they proclaim that ``no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.'' It's that simple. Those words are a crystal clear reflection of our Constitution and the proclamation that the Declaration of Independence put forward to all of us when it declared that ``all men''--and I would suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that's all little babies too--``are created equal and endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, those being life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'' Those words are the essence of America, and our commitment to them for more than two centuries has set America apart as the flagship of human freedom in the world. It has made us the ``unipolar superpower'' of this planet, and yet unspeakable suffering and tragedy have occurred whenever we have strayed from those foundational words. Our own United States Supreme Court did exactly that, Mr. Speaker, when they ruled that millions of men, women, and children were not persons under the Constitution because their skin was the wrong color. It took a horrible Civil War and the deaths of over 600,000 Americans to reverse that unspeakable tragedy. And we saw that same arrogance in 1973 when the Supreme Court said ``the unborn child was not a person under the Constitution.'' And we have since witnessed the silent deaths of now over 55 million innocent little boys and baby girls who died without the protection of the Constitution, the protection that the Constitution gave them, and without the protection this Congress should have had the courage to defend. Mr. Speaker, the recent trial of Kermit Gosnell has played an instrumental role in exposing late-term abortions for what they really are--relocated infanticide. Kermit Gosnell is this now famous late-term abortionist convicted of murder, in part, for using scissors to cut the spinal cords of numerous little babies who had survived abortion attempts. One of his employees said that in one case that there was this little baby that had been so damaged by the process that it no longer had eyes or a mouth, but she could hear him screeching and making this sound like a little alien. I know sometimes, Mr. Speaker, we deliberately try to hide those things from our minds. I know I do. But once in awhile it's important just to think on the life of this one little child that was only in this world outside the womb for a few minutes and found nothing but horror and suffering, not knowing why, not knowing what the purpose or the reason was, and no one was there. I just have to say to you, Mr. Speaker, if that isn't wrong, then we can absolve ourselves forever because nothing is wrong. Had Kermit Gosnell done the same thing mere moments before when that little baby was still inside the womb, in many States in this union, in the land of the free and the home of the brave, it would have been entirely legal. We've seen similarly other late-term abortionists across this country exposed for such incomprehensibly barbaric practices. LeRoy Carhart in Maryland compared a ``baby in the womb before an abortion'' to ``meat in a crock pot.'' Abortion clinic employees in Arizona explained to a woman seeking an abortion at 24 weeks that ``sometimes they are sometimes alive, yeah, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it''--the baby--``will come out whole.'' Douglas Karpen in Texas has been accused by four separate employees of killing three to four born-alive babies per day by either cutting their spinal cords, forcing instruments in their soft spots on their heads, or twisting their heads off, completely off of their necks with his bare hands. Very simply, Mr. Speaker, the public is beginning to learn that there are scores of other Kermit Gosnells out there. He was not an aberration. One of the saddest things that we must not miss here, is that as evil as this man was, and the horrible things that he did, unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, they are not uncommon in America. And because of this, Americans are beginning to realize that somehow we are bigger than abortion on demand, and that 55 million dead children are enough. We are beginning to ask the real question: Does abortion take the life of a child? Mr. Speaker, that is the question that I would put before all of my colleagues and anyone in the sound of my voice, to ask themselves in their heart--put aside the rationalization just for a moment and ask yourself: Does abortion take the life of a child? If it does not, I'm willing to walk out of here and never mention the subject again. But if abortion really does kill a little baby, if it really does, then those of us sitting here in the seat of freedom, in the greatest, the most powerful Nation in the history of humanity, also find ourselves standing in the midst of the greatest human genocide in the history of the world. Throughout America's history, the hearts of the American people have always been moved with compassion when they discover a theretofore hidden class of victims. Once the humanity of the victim and the inhumanity of what is being done to them finally becomes clear in their minds, America changes their heart. I would submit to you, Mr. Speaker, America is on the cusp of another such realization. And I fear if we fail to respond this time--because after this, after Kermit Gosnell, no excuse remains, we have seen the worst--if we do not respond, then we will slide into that Sumerian darkness where the light of human compassion has gone out and where the survival of the fittest has prevailed over humanity, and it must not happen on our watch in this generation. Medical science regarding the development of unborn babies and their capacities at various stages of growth has advanced dramatically, and it incontrovertibly demonstrates that unborn children clearly do experience pain. The single greatest hurdle to legislation like H.R. 3803 has always been that opponents deny unborn babies feel pain at all, as if somehow the ability to feel pain magically develops instantaneously as a child passes through the birth canal. Mr. Speaker, this level of deliberate ignorance might have found excuse in earlier eras of human history, but the evidence available to us today is extensive and irrefutable: unborn children have the capacity to experience pain, at least by 20 weeks and, as Congressman Smith said, very likely substantially earlier. This information, Mr. Speaker, is at www.doctorsonfetalpain.org. I would sincerely recommend to anyone in this Chamber that is interested to really know the truth to go there and find out for themselves, rather than to have their understanding cemented in some earlier time when scientists still believed in spontaneous generation, and that the Earth was flat. That is the invincible ignorance sometimes that we find ourselves trying to break through on this seminal civil rights issue of our time. Most Americans think that late-term abortions are rare, but in fact there are approximately 120,000 late-term abortions in America every year, or more than 325 late-term abortions every day in America. Mr. Speaker, I believe we're better than that. We're better than 325 late- term abortions every day in this country. I believe that we're better than dismembering babies who can feel pain at every agonizing moment. And I sincerely hope that we can at the very least come together to agree that we can draw a line in the sand at that point. That we can agree that knowingly subjecting our innocent unborn children to dismemberment in the womb, particularly when they have developed to the point when they can feel excruciating pain every terrible moment leading up to their undeserved deaths, belies everything America was called to be. This is not who we are. Mr. Speaker, what we are doing to babies is real. It is barbaric in the purest sense of the word. It is the greatest human rights violation occurring on U.S. soil, and it has already victimized millions of pain- capable babies since the Supreme Court gave us all abortion-on-demand that tragic day in 1973. Thomas Jefferson said that the care of human life and its happiness and not its destruction is the chief and only object of good government. And ladies and gentlemen, using taxpayer dollars to fund the killing of innocent unborn children does not liberate their mothers. It leaves their mothers oftentimes with the brokenness and the emotional consequences without anyone there to really recognize what they have dealt with. It is not the cause for which those lying out under the white stones in Arlington National Cemetery died, and it is not good government. Abraham Lincoln called upon all of us to remember America's Founding Fathers and their enlightened belief that nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into this world to be trodden on or degraded and imbruded by its fellows. He reminded those he called posterity--those, us--that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest should set up a doctrine that some were not entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that their posterity--that is us, ladies and gentlemen-- might look up again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began. Mr. Speaker, may that be the commitment to all of us today.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I rise in support of my colleague, Mr. King's amendment, to H.R. 2216, the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act. This amendment would ensure that no funds made available by H.R. 2216 could be used to implement, administer, or enforce the Davis-Bacon Act requirements for government contracts. Mr. Chairman, the Davis-Bacon Act is an anachronistic law that was enacted during the Great Depression to prevent wayfaring contractors from lowballing local construction bids. In defense of my colleague, Mr. King's characterization, the sponsors of the Davis-Bacon Act originally intended for it to actually discriminate against nonunionized Black workers in favor of White workers belonging to White-only unions. Mr. King is correct--and that's in all deference to everyone in this debate--but this is indeed a vestigial remnant of the Jim Crow era and has no place in our military construction contracts and should be abandoned. Furthermore, the Davis-Bacon Act results in billions of wasted taxpayer dollars every year. This act requires Federal construction contractors to pay their workers ``prevailing wages,'' which could be as much as 1\1/2\ times greater than their basic pay rate. This results in artificially high costs of construction, which are ultimately shouldered by American taxpayers. Contractors wishing to offer a lower bid would still be required by law to pay their employees the prevailing wage and file a weekly report of the wages paid to each worker. This has a particularly negative effect on small businesses, as they are often unable to compete due to Davis-Bacon wage and benefit requirements, which reduces competition and further inflates contract rates. Moreover, Mr. Chairman, Davis-Bacon was enacted before the Fair Labor Standards Act and the National Labor Relations Act. According to the GAO, these acts have rendered Davis-Bacon obsolete and unnecessary. There are a number of laws passed by this body that protect construction workers without the discriminatory intent and effect of Davis-Bacon. During this time of fiscal austerity and responsibility, Congress must do all it can to lower Federal contract costs and decrease the burden on American taxpayers. This amendment is intended to stop the hemorrhage of wasteful spending and rein in our debt. I would urge my colleagues to support this amendment by Mr. King that would, again, ensure no funds made available by H.R. 2216 could be used to implement, administer, or enforce the wasteful Davis-Bacon Act, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANKS

Mr. FRANKS. Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, there was a time when the rules of Congress forbid anyone to petition this Congress against slavery. For some inexplicable reason, once in a while, it seems mankind becomes completely blind to a monstrosity. History is replete with such examples. It seems we are never quite so eloquent as we are when we decry the crimes of the past generation, and yet we seem as staggeringly blind as some of our most sightless predecessors when it comes to facing and rejecting atrocities in our own time. Whether it was slavery, the Nazi Holocaust, or the many human genocides across history, the patterns were the same. Innocent human beings, children of God all, were systematically dehumanized and then subjected to the most horrifying inhumanity. All the while, human society as a whole hardened their hearts and turned away. But, Madam Speaker, truth and time travel on the same road. And although it was often agonizingly slow, the truth of these tragic inhumanities in our past began to dawn on people of reason and good will. Their hearts first and then their minds began to change. I've often asked myself: What was it that changed their minds? What changed the minds of those who had previously embraced an invincible ignorance to hide from themselves the horror of what was happening to their innocent fellow human beings? Madam Speaker, if I only really knew or if I knew how to express it because, you see, today such a conundrum looms before humanity once again, those most glaring examples of which are things like the trial in Philadelphia of Dr. Kermit Gosnell. In the words of the grand jury report, Gosnell had a simple solution for unwanted babies. He killed them. He didn't call it that, Madam Speaker. He called it ``ensuring fetal demise.'' The way he ensured fetal demise was by sticking scissors in the back of the baby's neck and cutting the spinal cord. He called it ``snipping.'' Over the years there were hundreds of ``snippings.'' When authorities entered the clinic of Dr. Gosnell, they found a torture chamber for little babies that I do not have the words or the stomach to adequately describe. Suffice it to say that Dr. Gosnell ran a systematic practice in his late-term abortion clinic to cut the spines of those babies who had survived his attempt to abort them. Every American with the slightest shred of compassion for the innocent should learn the truth of this case for themselves, Madam Speaker, because perhaps the greatest tragedy of all surrounding this case is that it is not as rare as those in the media would try to convince us. Six months after the Supreme Court legalized abortion on demand in the United States, Dr. Peter A.J. Adam, an associate professor of pediatrics at Case Western University, reported to the American Pediatric Research Society concerning research he and associates had conducted on 12 babies up to 20 weeks old who had been born alive from hysterotomy abortion. These men decapitated these little babies and cannulated the internal carotid arteries. They then kept these little heads alive with heart-lung machines in order to study them. Like the victims of Dr. Gosnell, their spines had been completely sliced through and the painful agony that they were feeling is beyond our imagination, Madam Speaker. Americans were outraged when they learned that the Russians had kept the heads of dogs alive in the 1950s. Yet, when asked, Peter Adams responded to the criticism of keeping these little human heads alive. He responded by saying: Our society has declared the fetus dead and abrogated its rights. I don't see any ethical problem. Whose rights are we going to protect once we've decided the fetus won't live? In another case, Madam Speaker, Dr. Abu Hayat, the Manhattan abortionist who severed the arm of a baby girl later born alive, is reportedly the first physician in the United States to be jailed for an illegal third-trimester abortion since the infamous 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Sixty-three-year-old Abu Hayat was convicted of having knowingly performed an abortion on Rosa Rodriguez in October of 1991. The 7- to 8-month-old baby girl she carried, baby Ana Rosa Rodriguez, was born the next day, but one of her arms was missing at the shoulder because of Dr. Hayat's botched abortion. Hayat was also convicted of assault on the woman because, in the middle of the abortion, he stopped to demand an additional $500. When the woman's husband couldn't come up with the additional money, she was sent home semiconscious and still bleeding. Madam Speaker, my heart goes out to those like Rosa Rodriguez, and especially to her, who sooner or later had to face the question from her baby daughter, Mommy, where is my arm? Oh, Madam Speaker, it beggars human imagination to try to take in the crushing emotional burden that the abortion industry in this country has heaped upon so many American mothers. Madam Speaker, I will not expound upon the cases of abortionist Dr. Scott Ricke or abortionist Gordon Goei or Malvin Roy Weisberg in the infamous Weisberg incident in Woodland Hills, California. However, I will tell you, Madam Speaker, that they involved thousands of unborn children, many of them in their third trimester, in what can be described as a torturous and mass desecration of innocent unborn babies. Would it be too much to hope for, Madam Speaker, that Members of this body and Americans in general might research these tragedies for themselves, given the cataclysmic implications for any society who turns a blind eye to such atrocities against the most innocent and helpless of its members? If our society is to survive with our humanity intact, our moral impulse toward our fellow human beings must first survive. Madam Speaker, that is why it is so important for people to see for themselves the inhumanity of what is being done to these little victims. Maybe it would not change everyone's mind, but it has changed many minds. One such example gained a lot of media coverage. Abby Johnson spent 9 years working at a Texas Planned Parenthood clinic--first as a volunteer and then as clinic director. At one point, she was asked to assist during a routine abortion procedure. Amazingly, this was the first time in those 9 years that Abby had actually watched on an ultrasound an abortion being performed. She recounts holding the transducer over the mother's midsection and observing the display of the baby's movements on the screen. She then watched as the abortion proceeded and as the unborn baby attempted unsuccessfully to escape the probe. She said: I could see the whole profile of the baby. I could see the probe. I could see the baby try to move away from the probe, and I just thought: What am I doing? Then I thought: never again. Two weeks later, looking out the clinic window and seeing two members of Coalition for Life standing outside, praying, Johnson walked out of the clinic and joined them, and she has never looked back. Then there was the case of Brenda Shafer, a nurse who was so radically pro-abortion that she told her teenage daughters that they would be forced to have an abortion if they ever got pregnant; but only 3 days of working in an abortion clinic was more than she could handle. She speaks of going in on her third and final day and watching as the doctor performed three partial-birth abortions, including one procedure on a 6-month-old baby boy with Down syndrome. She watched as the little boy's arms and legs were delivered, his little fingers clasping and unclasping, his feet kicking before the vacuum tube was inserted into the baby's head. He went completely limp--only to be discarded as if he were nothing more than a rag. Brenda said: I have been a nurse for a long time, and I have seen a lot of death--people maimed in auto accidents, gunshot wounds, you name it--and I have seen surgical procedures of every sort; but in all of my professional years, I had never witnessed anything like this. For a long time, sometimes still, I had nightmares about what I saw in the clinic that day. Former abortion provider Nita Whitten tells a similarly gut-wrenching story of a young teenage girl who was pressured by her mother to have an abortion. The doctors had inserted what is called a ``laminaria'' to allow the abortion to be performed. Nita describes the young girl going into the bathroom and screaming at the top of her lungs for her mother, screaming over and over ``It's a baby. It's a baby'' after she saw the baby that was aborted in the toilet. For this little girl, who will forever be scarred by what she saw, there was no debate about whether her baby was just a blob of tissue. Unlike the ostensibly educated abortionists, this girl realized intuitively what science has long argued: conception creates a genetically unique human life--a baby. All of these people shared a common thread when they were confronted with the brutality and the reality of abortion. They could no longer deny the truth that abortion is the murder of a defenseless child. It's easy for those of us who are far removed from the actual abortion clinics--those who do not have to confront the unspeakable pain caused within the doors of those clinics every day--to idealize and justify abortion on demand. They tell themselves that they are really fighting for women. They convince themselves that that little flicker they see on the ultrasound screen, as the baby is savagely torn apart in his own mother's womb, is not the tiny beating heart of another living being. They lie to themselves year after year, ignoring the truth that every 5-year-old child knows instinctively. They desensitize themselves to the horrors and the reality until the violent destruction of a defenseless baby is viewed as if it were nothing more than having one's tonsils removed. Indeed, this is the hope and the goal of monsters like Kermit Gosnell or Abu Hayat or Scott Ricke or Gordon Goei or Malvin Weisberg, just to name a few. When Abby Johnson, Brenda Shafer, Nita Whitten, and so many others like them saw what abortion really was, they changed their minds. I would never suggest that I clearly know what sparked the change in their hearts, but I am convinced that it is the same spark in the human soul that has turned the tide of blood and tragedy and hatred and inhumanity throughout history. And, Madam Speaker, I am also convinced that it is mankind's only hope. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, my comments today are heavily contributed to by the author of ``The Nature of War,'' Ron Tira; and I want to acknowledge him. He's a noted military expert and noted national security expert, and I appreciate so very much his seminal contribution to these comments. Mr. Speaker, a nuclear Iran poses a severe and unfamiliar risk to the United States and its allies. We have to be very careful not to mistakenly assume that a relatively stable balance of deterrence, similar to the nuclear equilibrium between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, can be achieved with Iran. A nuclear Iran represents a very different type of threat that simply cannot be managed. A nuclear Iran would serve to incentivize the development of nuclear weapons by many other regional powers in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey. Mr. Speaker, a multi-polar nuclear crisis is much harder to manage than anything we've experienced or did experience during the Cold War. If we could all just imagine for a moment the so-called ``chicken game.'' But instead of two drivers, imagine five drivers, Mr. Speaker, each speeding from different directions to converge on the same intersection. All of this, in addition to the other characteristics of the Middle East, such as unstable regimes and the danger of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of al Qaeda or other terrorist groups. Consider Qadhafi's Libya, Mr. Speaker, with several nuclear warheads. Who knows where they might be now? And where would the world be today if Syria's Assad had managed to complete his nuclear bombmaking efforts? Therefore, Mr. Speaker, the only viable U.S. policy is one of preventing Iran from going nuclear, not this delusional notion of containing a nuclear Iran. Indeed, prevention is the stated policy objective of this President and his top advisers. However, the problem is not with the stated policy, but with the strategy that is supposed to achieve it. And, Mr. Speaker, the facts on the ground reveal that our policy objectives are not turning into reality. Nearly all previous red lines demarcated by America and its allies over Iran's nuclear ambition have now been crossed, with very few repercussions to show for Iran's defiance. Iran is now enriching uranium in quantities, enrichment levels and facilities that would have terrified the entire free world only a few years ago. Indeed, at this very moment, a defiant Iran is forging ahead with the development of ballistic missiles, detonators and other components essential to nuclear weaponization. Mr. Speaker, why do we find it so challenging to realize our policy objectives? Why is the world's sole superpower unable to impose its will on a country whose GDP is comparable with that of Argentina and many of those whose significant military assets date back as far as arms deals with the Johnson and Nixon administrations? Mr. Speaker, one of the key enabling factors for Iran's nuclear weapons development is the perception of a lack of symmetry between Iranian and American seriousness and determination regarding the nuclear program. But for Iran, it is of the utmost importance, and the regime is willing to take risks and to pay high prices to achieve its objectives, or at least this is certainly how it postures. Mr. Speaker, Iran is successfully deterring its adversaries and positioning itself as ready to face a confrontation, even if its deep- rooted weaknesses make it unlikely that it could ever withstand such a direct conflict. Mr. Speaker, it's time for us to be candid in questioning the strategic effectiveness of covert and clandestine operations, as important as they are. While the courage and resourcefulness of our intelligence community is unquestionable, and while covert and clandestine operations may inflict some damage on Iran's nuclear program, they cannot and have not been effective in convincing Iran to abandon its nuclearization policy. More significantly, covert and clandestine activities create an illusion of ``something being done,'' thus appearing to justify the fact that we continue to let more and more time pass. So, Mr. Speaker, we have to realize that covert operations simply cannot be the primary means by which we expect to deter Iran. If prevention is our real commitment, and not merely lip service, then we must deal with that Iranian nuclear challenge immediately, and not later. Every day that passes, Iran grows more dangerously close to realizing its nuclear ambition--and to becoming virtually untouchable militarily. In the face of that reality, the more breathtaking reality is that it seems both the Iranian and American administrations favor wasting more time: Iran, because it allows them to forge ahead toward completion, and the Obama administration, because it allows them to postpone difficult decisions which would necessitate actual leadership from the White House. Mr. Speaker, the President's disingenuously stated ends are utterly at odds with our actual response, and this raises a host of questions as to the credibility of either the administration's true intent or its chosen strategies. It's almost unimaginable how much further American strategic credibility would deteriorate if Iran actually acquires the bomb in spite of the half-hearted ``warnings'' of Mr. Obama. Credibility questions also abound with regard to the administration's reasoning against military action. Time and again administration officials argue that the futility of military action is real since, allegedly, some of the nuclear assets are difficult to reach, and a military action may only postpone the nuclear program by a couple of years. But, Mr. Speaker, this is a peculiar argument, at the very least. Any nuclear production asset that is destroyed can be eventually rebuilt. Moreover, chasing each and every centrifuge, wherever it is stashed away, is ultimately an ineffective strategy. So why does the administration advocate such a strategy? Our strategic challenge, Mr. Speaker, is Iran's policy of pursuing a military nuclear capability. It is not necessarily, not even mostly, that Iran is currently in possession of certain nuclear production assets. It is Iran's policy that must be altered. Production assets will then inherently follow. To realize its objectives, the U.S. must compel Iran to alter its policy of acquiring a military nuclear capability and then enforce the policy change over time. If we fail to deprive Iran of nuclear weapons, we will ultimately have to face infinitely more dangerous challenges than those associated with preventing it from going nuclear. Consider the dangers for a moment of conducting a second operation to free Kuwait, only this time, once it's been taken over by a nuclear-armed Iran. And none of this even touches upon the grave reality that would emerge once Iran possesses intercontinental ballistic missile capability along with a strategic reach to our own shores. Mr. Speaker, it's a sad day when the vacuum of leadership in the White House has allowed Iran to posture more credibly than America, in spite of wielding a much smaller stick. In this instance, it has literally allowed Iran to be more strategically effective than we are. Now, Mr. Speaker, the administration has been trying for a very long time to diplomatically talk its way out of this challenge or to bluff its way out of the challenge by moving military assets up and down the Gulf, and therefore has made it doubtful that any further such statements or deployments can ever suffice to get the job done. Indeed, they may well have the opposite effect, as the demarcation of the administration's risk tolerance, which to any observer of its actions caps the ends it can reasonably expect to realize. So, Mr. Speaker, this brings us to the critical question that everyone should be asking themselves: If this administration is so deterred by a pre-nuclear Iran, how would it ever face up to a nuclear- armed Iran? This is why, to date, in the only game that matters--that of conflicting policies--Mr. Speaker, the United States has not been able to alter Iran's policy of acquiring nuclear weapons. And, Mr. Speaker, we are running out of time to do things differently. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Madam Speaker, we often come to this floor to advocate any number of controversial issues--issues that often produce strong disagreement from the given Speaker's opposing party. But I stand here today stating what I'm confident an overwhelming majority of Americans would deem simple common sense: if the government responds to a disaster--like Hurricane Sandy, which caused devastating damage and losses in the tens of billions of dollars--it should strive to help the entire community recover, not pick and choose some to receive help and others to go it alone. But, stunningly, that's not the way it currently works, Madam Speaker. As it stands, many of the strongest, most necessary pillars in our society--churches and other places of worship--are being excluded from even being considered for the recovery aid provided by FEMA in the wake of Sandy. Since the policy has come to light, some have attempted to defend it, invoking that all-too-commonly abused notion of the separation of church and state. But, Madam Speaker, even if we accept the most radical definition of this phrase, there would still be no reasonably legal explanation for this inexcusable oversight. The Supreme Court responded to a similar issue when it decided Everson v. Board of Education. In that decision, the court criticized the ``imposition of taxes to pay ministers' salaries and to build and maintain churches and church property.'' But in the very same decision, the court makes clear the obvious exception to this policy, stating that the state has the duty to maintain neutral relations with places of worship, and that they should be granted access to the same basic government services as the rest of the community--``such general government services as ordinary police and fire protection, connections for sewage disposal, public highways and sidewalks.'' Who can, with any modicum of intellectual honesty, suggest that disaster relief does not fit the definition of a basic government service? The government is not maintaining neutral relations with houses of worship in this sphere. It is actively and specifically excluding them from a basic government service enjoyed by every other member of the community. Of course, perhaps the cruelest irony of this entire situation is the fact that it is so often the churches who step in to help in the immediate aftermath of such disasters. They are the ones sending their congregations to feed, clothe, and house a desperate community. They are the ones taking up donations en masse to help the most afflicted. And they are the ones selflessly emptying their food closets to sustain, for just a little while longer, families anxiously awaiting government aid--the same government aid for which they will inexplicably not even be considered. Madam Speaker, this unconstitutional, un-American, unreasonable discrimination against these essential, compassionate members of our society simply must not continue. Churches and other places of worship must be held to the same criteria as other members of the community in these decisions. I urge my colleagues to strongly support H.R. 592.