Steve King

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for working together with others to bring this bill forward. I rise in full support of H.R. 158, which is the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015. We all know that it takes a lot of pieces of legislation to fill some of the holes that exist, but I am pleased that this bipartisan effort has come to the floor of the House of Representatives, Mr. Speaker. I will say that, as I look at the language that is in here and the pieces of it, to recognize that as the tighter scrutiny to the Visa Waiver Program, which I have had some concern about over the years, 38 countries enjoy the relationship with the United States of a Visa Waiver Program. The way it functions is, if an individual of one of the participating countries has a valid passport from their own country and they sit down in front of the Internet, they can input that information and essentially clear themselves to be able to travel to the United States without further bureaucracy. That is a good thing on balance, but a bad thing when we have people that have dual nationalities or people who give indicators, such as having traveled back and forth to some of the countries that we have concerns about as being those countries where terrorists are, let's say, radicalized or sponsored. I am a little concerned that our list isn't a little longer than this. The countries that are covered with this bill are Iraq, Syria, and, by definition, Sudan and Iran. I am hopeful that the Secretary of Homeland Security will take a look at some other countries to tighten this up a little bit more. I just returned from that part of the world, Mr. Speaker, probably about a month ago, perhaps a little less. I traveled into Turkey, into Iraq, into the Kurdish region, Erbil, and then west as far as I could go up towards the ISIS lines. I visited a refugee camp there and then back into Turkey, up to Hungary, down to Serbia, into Croatia, back out of there again, and then determined to skip Germany and Austria this time, but traveled up to Sweden to look at the other end of this. There I sat with a briefing of our State Department. Some of that in that room is confidential, but we are working with these countries to tighten up our security. We are offering the expertise that we have developed here because we deal with a lot more people and a lot more travel than they do. I am hopeful that we will be able to share more of our intelligence also with the countries that are participating in a Visa Waiver Program. This will help tighten it up. Mr. Speaker, it will identify those who have traveled to some of these terrorist-sponsoring countries, and it will also require that they exchange information with us so that we can monitor them more closely. If someone travels and essentially lies about their travel--if they have, say, traveled to Iran, traveled to Iraq, maybe Sudan or Syria, and they apply for a visa waiver--we will either have a software program that will kick that out because it shows up on their passport or we will catch up with that and cancel their visa waiver. In any case, it is heightened scrutiny and heightened security for us. We need to do a lot of things to tighten this up, and this is one. It is one also that respects our relationship with the visa waiver countries, those 38. It is prudent. It is careful. It puts authority into the hands of the Secretary of Homeland Security. It is the right bill. It is bipartisan. I urge its adoption.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, amendment No. 6 is an amendment that addresses the transparency that we have heard much dialogue about in the debate here on the floor, especially from members of the Financial Services Committee. It is an amendment that requires that the records of the Federal Open Market Committee be recorded, in the same fashion that our committee meetings are recorded, and made public. The FOMC sets the monetary policy for the U.S. economy, but there is no law that compels the Fed to release FOMC meeting transcripts to the public. The details of the meetings are crucial for an accurate understanding of how the Fed views the state of the economy and the reasoning behind Fed policy and actions. That has also been a significant part of our debate here with the underlying bill. So, my amendment directs them to keep a transcript, keep a record, and make that record public. It compels those transcripts to be made public so that those of us here in the United States Congress, but also people in households and businesses across the country, can have a look into the decisions that are made and especially the rationale behind those decisions of the full proceedings of the Federal Open Market Committee. Every congressional hearing makes these transcripts publicly available. That is what my amendment does. It requires the FOMC to do the same. And I would urge its adoption. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to modify my amendment with the form I have placed at the desk.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the ranking member for her cooperation and opportunity to have this debate, and I will just address it briefly. In 1977, Congress established what is known as the dual mandate. The dual mandate set the goals of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Open Market Committee to include goals of maximum employment and stable prices. There has been a lot of debate about whether the tension of those two issues has brought about decisions of the Fed that might have otherwise been different, and so this amendment requires a study to be done in order to take a look at the effects of the dual mandate. It is pretty simple that way, and I urge its support and adoption. I circle back then to the transcripts. And in response to the gentlewoman's comments, I would just remind Members of Congress that we do keep records in all of our proceedings. There is a transcript taking place right now of these proceedings, of each of our committees and subcommittees. They are available to the public, and, in fact, we are on C-SPAN with almost all of our subcommittees and committees today. We are open. We are open records, and there is much sunlight on what we do. And yet, many of the decisions that we make here have far less impact on the American citizen than the decisions made by the Fed. So, again, I urge the adoption of this modified amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, on roll call nos. 626, 627, and 628, had I been present, I would have voted ``Yes.''

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, I thought I had actually made the statement, I thought my good friend from Virginia would pick this up, that it isn't about shoddy construction work that can be laid at the feet of merit shop operations. I am standing here on my feet in my boots having done all kinds of work for lots of years, and so has my family, going back about five generations. Our work has been competing with and superior to that of many, and there is nothing in the record of our company that anyone could point to other than quality and efficiency. In fact, the reason that he needs an apprentice program is because you can't afford to hire somebody and train them unless the government is willing to let you pay them less than the prevailing wage. That is what the apprentice program is. I have been one, and I have been bounced out of there because of the Davis-Bacon Act. Furthermore, Mr. Chairman, when I listen to the gentleman about how we are going to prevent people from moving people in from a low-wage area to a high-wage area to take a higher wage or perhaps undercut the existing wage that is there, that is what started the Davis-Bacon Act. It wasn't to keep the low wages out. It was to keep African Americans out of New York City during the Depression when there was a large Federal building contract, and a contractor successfully bid that job. He was from out of town and he brought his crews in from Alabama, African Americans from Alabama, to do the work cheaper than the union scale would do in New York. That is what brought about this Davis-Bacon Act. When the Federal Government decides they are going to tell people what they have to pay their employees, they are the last people that actually know what that is worth. When you have to compete in this real world where equipment is expensive and time is priceless and we have strict specifications, strong engineers, bonds--bid bonds and performance bonds--and insurance contracts, we have to be efficient, and we have to be professional. We have to be able to not only do this as well as anyone, but more efficiently than anyone. That is what the merit shop does. Mr. Chairman, nobody is dragging their feet in our operation. They want the company to be successful. When I send people out on a Davis- Bacon job, they are out there sometimes rolling clods because they know that it pays them to roll clods rather than get the job done. That is our expression, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I urge the adoption of this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, this is an amendment that I have offered in the past, and it will be known as the amendment that eliminates the effect of the Davis-Bacon Act. The substance of it is this: None of the funds made available by this act may be used to implement, administer, or enforce the prevailing rate of wage, which is the effect of this amendment, and it is effectively the Davis-Bacon Act. It seems to get the attention of some of my colleagues. I would say, Mr. Chairman, that I have worked with this issue as long as anyone in the United States Congress. I have worked back for years, as I began about 5 years in the construction site as an employee. Multiple times I received Davis-Bacon wage scales; sometimes I did not. As I became a contractor in 1975, we began hiring employees. Sometimes we paid Davis-Bacon wage scales, and sometimes we did not; but I was always aggravated by the Federal Government's deciding that they knew what we had to pay our help and what they were worth. I recall many debates on the floor of the House of Representatives when people from the other side of the aisle would say that anytime there is a relationship between two or more people that are consenting adults, the Federal Government has no business sticking themselves in the middle of that relationship. Yet the Davis-Bacon Act tells me what my son, who is now sitting in the gallery, has to pay me if I am going to climb in the seat of one of his machines, say an excavator, a scraper, a bulldozer, or a motor grader. So we are 40 years in the construction business. I have watched the inefficiencies that are created by the Davis-Bacon Act. You might need somebody on a shovel, and he decides it pays more to get on a motor grade; or you might need somebody on a scraper, and he decides it pays more to get on a bulldozer. This wrecks the efficiency as well as puts an extra high price on the cost of the products that are being produced under the contracting business in the United States. So I would say this, Mr. Chairman, that over our years in the construction business, the extra costs for Davis-Bacon ranges somewhere between 8 and 38 percent additional, depending on the type of project and the location where you are. The average is someplace between 20 and 22 percent. So to boil this all down, if we want to be responsible to the taxpayer, then we want to get the best dollar out of that. Somebody is going to say that it is second-rate work. That would be a direct insult to me. It would be a direct insult to my son, who owns King Construction today and who is listening to this debate. Our quality work stands with anyone's, and it is superior to many; and sometimes it is Davis-Bacon wage scale, and sometimes it is not. But we know what they are worth. The government doesn't know what they are worth. We want to hire the best help, keep the best help, and keep the best help on. That is just here in this microcosm of King Construction, but it is extrapolated across the Nation. So do we want to build 4 miles of road under government-mandated wages or do we want to build 5? I want to build the 5 miles. I want to build five bridges, not four. I want the best dollar for the taxpayers, and I want the highest efficiency that we can get. That is the substance of this amendment, and I urge its adoption. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, as Taiwan approaches the 104th commemoration of the National Day of the Republic of China next October 10th, it is important that we remember a few key points. First, the Republic of China, Taiwan is an extraordinary friend and ally of the United States. This year we commemorate the 70th anniversary of the allied victory in World War II. We must not forget the critical contribution of the Republic of China to freedom's victory over the forces of fascist tyranny. Second, Mr. Speaker, Taiwan deserves to be commended for having consolidated its representative democracy in an extremely challenging regional environment. Finally, people of Taiwan are hard-working and admirable. The current framework of U.S.-Taiwan relations has developed successfully in large part to the passage of the Taiwan Relations Act in 1979. The United States has sold defensive arms to Taiwan, allowing it to remain a respected force in the region. It is extremely important that the transfer of sophisticated defensive weapons such as Perry Class Naval vessels and other weaponry supported in the National Defense Authorization Act, take place soon. The government of Taiwan has set forth a noteworthy peace-seeking agenda in recent years, and it has accomplished a remarkable reduction in cross-strait tensions. History will certainly note President Ma Ying-jeou's East China Sea Peace Initiative and South China Sea Peace Initiative with deep admiration for these wise and responsible proposed solutions to critically important regional challenges.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Speaker, I rise to express several serious concerns with the flawed process that led to a flawed product, H.R. 3134, the ``Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2015.'' Ten shocking videos released over the last few months document what many already knew was happening at Planned Parenthood facilities around our nation--the selling and trafficking of fetal organs for a profit. For the vast majority of Americans who view human life as sacred, these videos halve caused righteous anger and disgust that the taxpayer- subsidized ``non-profit organization'' is not only extinguishing human life but also making money off of human parts--at the taxpayers' expense. This is the moment for the pro-life movement to hold this evil organization accountable by completely and unequivocally defunding Planned Parenthood. Rather than fighting to protect life and actually defunding Planned Parenthood, we are voting today on a weak bill, without teeth, that does not defund Planned Parenthood. H.R. 3134 only places a one-year moratorium on federal funding of Planned Parenthood. Furthermore, it includes exceptions to continue to allow taxpayer dollars to go to Planned Parenthood and its abortion factories. With all we know about what goes on at Planned Parenthood's abortion factories, why are we voting on a bill to ``defund'' Planned Parenthood for one year? What's worse, H.R. 3134 does not defund Planned Parenthood. The exceptions included in this bill allow taxpayer dollars to be used to fund abortions performed at Planned Parenthood. In effect, this bill is a proactive vote by the GOP-controlled House of Representatives to affirmatively fund abortions at Planned Parentlgd facilities. The very bill leadership has promoted as the solution to this grisly problem-- the taxpayer funded mutilation of fully formed children--actually rubber stamps the existing situation. Furthermore, the certification process in this bill is ripe for fraud and abuse. All Planned Parenthood needs to do is certify it is already following federal law and the Hyde Amendment to continue to receive funding. Who ensures this certification? Once Planned Parenthood receives federal funding and is found to violate this Act, what is the process for the executive branch to seek repayment of this money? H.R. 3134 does not go far enough to address concerns for fraud and abuse. Because of my serious concerns with the substance of H.R. 3134, I offered an amendment to the Rules Committee on Wednesday, September 16, 2015. My amendment states: ``No funds authorized or appropriated by Federal law may be made available for any purpose to--(1) Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc.; (2) any affiliate or clinic of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc.; or (3) any successor of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. or any such affiliate or clinic.'' My amendment is simple: no federal funds to Planned Parenthood. Period. No one-year moratorium. No exceptions. That should be the goal of this debate and any legislation to defund Planned Parenthood. Unfortunately, the Rules Committee did not approve my amendment for debate on the floor or adopt it as part of the underlying bill. If my amendment was considered on the floor, I am confident that my colleagues would have overwhelming support and adopted my amendment into the underlying bill. The funding fight starts now--this is our marker--H.R. 3134 is not a sufficient vote to defund Planned Parenthood. I expect much stronger language than this in the CR coming up in the next few weeks. Innocent, unborn babies deserve more than just a show vote. For these reasons, I will cast a present vote.

Mr. KING of Iowa

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

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to be able to address you here on the floor of the House of Representatives and to speak some words here that hopefully will be picked up by the rest of the country that causes us to think a little more, think a little deeper, and think about the destiny of this country, Mr. Speaker. I come to the floor to talk to you this evening about a couple of topics. One is national security, and the other is the rule of law. I will say the third thing that threads into that is the Planned Parenthood videos. We have now seen three of them, as they penetrate into our conscience. Let me address first the Planned Parenthood videos. It has been now several weeks since the first video came out that showed the supposed doctor that worked for Planned Parenthood cavalierly discussing how to harvest the organs of innocent little unborn--aborted, though--babies, and the cavalier approach to that: sitting there over dinner, chatting away as if they were talking about a soccer game or maybe talking about spending the weekend with their family, having a glass of wine and talking about taking organs out of innocent little creatures that are created in God's image, as we all are, Mr. Speaker. That was video number one. It should have shocked us to our core to see the attitude, but it didn't confirm decisively what was actually going on. It implied--and it was fairly strong evidence--but it didn't confirm. The second video was the older lady sitting in a different restaurant, chatting along about how a transaction would be to harvest kidneys and lungs and livers and hearts and brains and body parts from innocent babies who just wanted a chance to live and love and laugh and learn; to worship, to grow, to enjoy life--to enjoy that first right, that right to life that comes before the right to liberty, which comes before the right to the pursuit of happiness, as our Founding Fathers prioritized those rights in the Declaration of Independence, Mr. Speaker. That lady, in the second video, wanted enough out of that, that she-- I will use that word again--``cavalierly'' said: I want a Lamborghini. I am sure she would say to us: I was just joking. Well, to joke about that topic in a setting like that, that told me it wasn't just a casual conversation. There was attention being paid to the business deal that was being negotiated, and it didn't seem like it was conclusive, but there was a direction and a course for that conversation. Now, today, we see a third video, a video interviewing a young woman who has worked in a Planned Parenthood center whose task was to harvest the organs of little babies. The video shows the separation of that, shows the little feet, the little arms, the little hands. It shows the kidneys; it shows the brain. It shows the pieces of that little baby that was perfect in every way until it was torn apart by the abortionist, using a technique, a methodology that is designed to preserve the most valuable organs so that they can be sold on the market to laboratories and for medical experiments, Mr. Speaker. When I saw that video today and I saw each of the other two videos when they came out, the first day that one was available, and then I saw one, and I saw the second video as a preview before it came out to the public. Either one of those, when I was listening to the verbiage, certainly told me that there is an evil, evil element within Planned Parenthood, a cavalier attitude, a ``this is the business we do'' attitude; not a human compassion was exposed in either one of those first two videos. I have been in a lot of debates about abortion. I have read a lot of material about it. I have listened to a lot of testimony about it. Sitting on the Judiciary Committee, we moved legislation that put an end to partial-birth abortion or at least attempted to, and so we have had a lot of life-and-death debates in the Judiciary Committee here in the House of Representatives. When I saw the video of the young woman talking about the task that she was given, pick up these forceps and begin to separate these organs and sort them out, and these are good, and the lab will take that, and essentially, These will bring good money, let's make sure we protect them, it sickened me. It caused my gut to knot up, Mr. Speaker, in a way that reminded me of the first time I walked into a funeral home to see the dead body of a loved one. That is an experience in anybody's lifetime that you remember. Seeing this video is an experience that I will remember. As I watch this Congress and I think how Congress is reacting, I am glad that there are investigations going on. I am glad that the Speaker has spoken up on this issue. I am glad that there is a pro-life movement in this country. I am glad that there are people that are protesting and there are people that are making their positions known to the Supreme Court, to the United States Congress, to the President of the United States. However intransigent the President will be on this, this is a subject that should have the immediate attention of the Department of Justice. This would be something that Loretta Lynch should be on now, should be conducting an investigation now, should be bringing about the evidence and preparing a prosecution against the people that have, essentially, admitted in the videos that they have committed a crime, perhaps multiple crimes. This isn't about there is a piece or there is an argument on one side versus an argument on the other side. Planned Parenthood says: Well, we don't do it for a profit. We just do this to get our money back out of the costs we have to preserve these organs and pass them along. After all, this poor mother is just making a contribution to science, and so we should appreciate that. That is not what the Congress thought when they passed the laws against trading in little, unborn baby body parts, Mr. Speaker. It is about the law, and the law says thou shall not do such a thing. No amount of excusing away; no amount of trying to explain that it was with a positive motive, instead of a profit motive; no amount of saying that, Well, that is just our costs, and we are recovering our cost; no amount of saying that the money that comes from the taxpayer into the pockets of Planned Parenthood doesn't ever go to abortion because it will be said now, hundreds of times, Mr. Speaker, in fact, thousands of times, it will be said: Money is fungible. Money is fungible. Money is fungible. If you dump a half a billion dollars into Planned Parenthood's coffers--that is out of the pockets of the taxpayers. We hand them the debt, borrow the money from the Chinese, hand it over to Planned Parenthood, and Planned Parenthood then uses that to run their operation to free up some of their other operations that end up being what they call an operation, which is an abortion, that is snuffing out the lives--we are closing in on 60 million little babies since Roe v. Wade in 1973, closing in on 60 million. At the same time, we have people that are arguing that we need to open up our borders and let an unlimited number of people come into America because our birthrate is not high enough to replace the people that are dying off as they reach the end of their life. Rather than to say let's bring every one of these babies to birth, give them an opportunity to fill their lungs full of free air, give them an opportunity to live, to love, to learn, to laugh, give them an opportunity to contribute to this country, to this society, rather than do that, we abort the babies and bring in people from another culture and think we are making America a better place, when we have the sin of up to 60 million abortions on our country, on our heads, on our conscience, on our Supreme Court, Mr. Speaker, and on this Congress, to a degree, the House and Senate, and certainly on the President of the United States, who said he--and I will leave his family out of it, Mr. Speaker, but I think some know the thought that crossed my mind. It is time for this Congress to step up to defund Planned Parenthood. I won't be satisfied with just a moratorium of waiting around for a year while we study this situation and put together maybe a select committee that can look at it for a while longer and hold some hearings in Congress. They are going to look at the videos and listen to the testimony on both sides. All that does, Mr. Speaker, is give Planned Parenthood an opportunity to spend some of those millions of dollars, some percentage of the half a billion dollars that we send to them out of the taxpayers' pocket, borrowed from the Chinese, and indebted onto the children that are born, to lobby this Congress to tell us: Well, there is really some good there at Planned Parenthood after all, and so we should continue to fund them. That is what we are faced with, Mr. Speaker. The object is this: Shut off all funding to Planned Parenthood; they should not receive one dime of taxpayer dollars further. There has been a strong movement on this over the years since the time I have been here, and the States want to move, too, Mr. Speaker. The States want to shut off funding to Planned Parenthood. They are afraid that Congress, or the President of the United States, through one of his executive edicts, will order that the funding going to a State that would cut off the funding to Planned Parenthood would be cut off itself, that their Medicaid money might be stopped by this administration if a State would deign to cut off funding and no longer subsidize Planned Parenthood. Mr. Speaker, this Congress needs to deal with this. We need to give the States all authority to cut off any funds, in the discretion of their own legislature and Governors, any funds that go to any organization that provides abortion. They will call it services or counseling. If we do that, then we can restore a component of the culture of life in this country. If we do that, we begin to respect and appreciate innocent, unborn human life, we will see families that will grow. We will see children that are cherished. We will see more and more foundation of education and faith and wholesomeness in our country. If we turn our backs on those innocent, unborn, little babies that are being systematically aborted, while we are subsidizing Planned Parenthood with borrowed tax dollars, under the guise of somehow they do some good, this is evil, Mr. Speaker. What is happening to these innocent babies and what is happening to the mothers is evil, and it is evil for profit. It is on video, and we have seen three of these videos, Mr. Speaker. We are not done yet. This Congress should not just pledge to study this for a year. This Congress--and we go forward with funding for the fiscal year, next fiscal year, we have got the witching hour, September 30, at midnight. It is likely to come as a continuing resolution. That continuing resolution has to have in it the language that will cut off the funding to Planned Parenthood. I will cut it off to any organization that provides abortion, as they say, services or counseling. That subject is on the front of my mind, Mr. Speaker, and I wanted to get that off of my chest. National Security

Mr. KING of Iowa. The next piece that I want to talk about is our national security. As we are watching presidential debates unfold--and our 16 or so candidates that are announced for President of the United States, I am grateful for every one of them. I have never seen such a field of candidates that step up and want to serve this country from the Oval Office, the high quality of the character and the integrity that they have, the varied experience, and the success that they have demonstrated in their lives. There have been a lot of easier times to win the Republican nomination than there is now, Mr. Speaker. As I look at the candidates that are out there--and I have been tuning my ear, encouraging them--I have yet to hear any of the candidates deliver a compact, inclusive approach to how to defeat Islamic jihad. I listen to them speak, and I like the components that I hear from them. One of them says: We win; they lose. I like that; but how are we going to do that? We need a strategy. One of them says: If you attack us, we will kill you. Okay. Well, let's kill them first. That is fine with me. They have declared war on us. ISIS, for example, has established a caliphate. They declare it to be a caliphate. It is a caliphate. In northern Syria and in north and western Iraq, that real estate that they control is a caliphate, and they threaten all of the rest of the region, and they threaten us. They say that their black flag is going to fly over the White House. Well, some would say that will be a cold day, Mr. Speaker. We have seen some dramatic changes in history over the last few years. I would say to the United States: We need to step up to this. We need to recognize our enemy. We need to defeat our enemies. Our enemies are Islamic jihad, and Islamic jihad is comprised of the element within Islam that believes that their path to salvation is in killing us and that they can bring out some kind of worldwide revolution where, in the end, it will just be the purest of the pure of Islamists that are left on the planet. They will have killed everybody else; and all, whoever is left, must knuckle down to sharia law. We need to defeat the ideology, Mr. Speaker, and when I say defeat the ideology, and I am speaking to a group of people, I will often see that look on their face, such as: Why do you think you can defeat an ideology? You can't defeat an ideology. You can't change a culture. You can't defeat ideology. I recall one of those rebuttals that came to me, and I said, tell that to the Japanese. In fact, in World War II, in a 3\1/2\ year period of time, this country, with our allies, very powerfully, this country defeated three ideologies: the ideology of Japanese imperialism, the ideology of Italian fascism, and the ideology of German nazism. All three of those ideologies went down in flames in a 3\1/2\ year period of time, in the face of--I will say this, Mr. Speaker--the superior culture. The Western civilization, a superior culture that has a robust free enterprise, that has people that volunteer to engage in the economy, into the military, that reach out and pull each other up the ladder. This robust United States of America, coupled with our allies, reaching across the map of Western civilization, rose up, rose up and defeated three ideologies in a 3\1/2\ year period of time in the Second World War; and then it took on a fourth ideology, which was the Russian version of communism. That took about 45 years. They were a little more tenacious. It was not then just a kinetic operation. It wasn't just going up in flames. I am grateful that it wasn't. Instead, it was the economic and then political collapse of the Soviet Union brought about this way. Ronald Reagan saw this. Margaret Thatcher saw it. Margaret Thatcher went to Ronald Reagan and said: With Mikhail Gorbachev, I have found a man with whom we can do business. I don't quite understand the motive of Gorbachev, and he seems to have a little bit of revisionist history that comes out of him from time to time. But I also know that Pope John Paul II traveled throughout areas of Europe and went into Poland and told them do not despair because they could be a free people. The forces of the ideology of western civilization, western Christendom, as Churchill described it in his speech in Fulton, Missouri, are the forces that stood up against Russian communism. In about 1984, when Jeane Kirkpatrick stepped down as Ambassador to the United Nations under Reagan, she made a statement upon her departure which was this. She said: What is going on in this cold war--and that was near the height of the cold war--what is going on is Monopoly and chess on the same board. The United States and the Soviet Union are playing chess and Monopoly on the same board. It is just that the only question is: Will the United States of America bankrupt the Soviet Union economically before the Soviet Union checkmates the United States militarily? That was the question. It was succinctly put. And I believe that will also show up on her Wikipedia page, but I happened to find it in the Des Moines Register back in that year, 1984. Jeane Kirkpatrick was right. Five years later the Soviet Union imploded. On November 9 the wall went down in Berlin, and that was a symbol. Actually, I will say literally the Iron Curtain came crashing down throughout Berlin and the Iron Curtain all across Europe went crashing down. People flowed freely back and forth. The free world had defeated the ideology of communism that was the Soviet version of it. For a time, freedom echoed all the way across Eastern Europe all the way to the Pacific Ocean. And it can be restored again, Mr. Speaker. That is the foundation that we have that we work with. We are the people that--because of free enterprise, because we have idea people with good educations and a solid moral foundation and a good work ethic, this country has generated more patents than anybody else, created more inventions than anyone else, but cooperated with especially the western world and with the creativity that we have. We have been able to rise up against ideology after ideology, defeat three of them during World War II and defeat Soviet communism in a 45- year period of the cold war. Now we are faced with another ideology that rises up to challenges: Islamic jihad. If you go back to the time of Mohammed, about the last 20 years of his life and for 100 years after his death, there was a conquest going on of--shall I call them religious conversions by the sword? And, as the conquest was going on, Islam was invading and occupying most of the known world at the time. By 732 AD, Mr. Speaker, the Islamists were outside the city of Tours in France when Charles Martel brought his infantry into the trees to face the cavalry charge of the Islamists. And cavalries don't operate very well in the forest, Mr. Speaker, and that is how the Charles Martel, Charles The Hammer's infantry defeated them there and chased them out of Tours and across the plains and left their bones scattered a long ways back towards Spain. That was 732 AD. And you can fast-forward again and again to catch some of the milestones: In 1571, the battle of Lepanto where an Islamist navy was sunk by the Holy League navy that went to meet them in the Aegean Sea. You can go to 1683, when Vienna was surrounded by Islamists of the time. On July 14, they surrounded Vienna, and for more than 2 months-- they besieged Vienna for roughly 2 months. And then, on September 11, the three German infantries under three German kings and Jan Sobieski, the Polish king, brought his cavalry, they held a service at Kahlenberg Church, which was razed. It was in ruins at the hands of the Islamists. But they held a service there in the evening of September 11 and prayed for God's deliverance of their battle the next day that it already enjoined on September 11 and the deliverance of Vienna, which happened, as in the famous battle of Vienna, September 11 and 12, 1683. It goes on. Then September 11 became the date that lived in infamy for the people who attacked us on September 11, 2001--New York, Pentagon, and Pennsylvania--and then again on September 11, 2012, Benghazi. That date means something to them. It ought to mean something to us. They have been fighting western civilization for 1,400 years, and they have been adapting themselves to the technology that is created in the western world, creating very little themselves, but borrowing our technology, Mr. Speaker. And some of that technology that is now being borrowed is the Internet, the Internet that is being used to inspire and to recruit and to direct the Islamists that are attacking Americans and attacking people that are not in alignment with ISIS and with Islamic jihad. That is the effort that is coming and the ability that they have to use the Internet to coordinate and communicate. They will say as high as 100,000 tweets and emails and communications a day are coming out of ISIS and Islamic jihad in the broader definition of it. As high as 100,000 a day. We need to bring about warfare against them. And it means not just defensive warfare to protect ourselves, but offensive warfare to attack them through the same medium that they are using to attack us. So here is the list. It is not just a kinetic war against them, which they have declared against us, the kinetic war. We need to do cyber warfare, financial warfare, educational warfare against them. We need to build a strong alliance with especially the moderate Muslim countries in the Middle East, those who should be our allies but for being a--let's say given the short end of the stick from our State Department during this administration. And I am speaking of countries like Egypt; the United Arab Emirates, for example; Jordan, to a lesser degree. But they are natural allies to the United States. They are natural allies. In fact, they are allies to Israel today. They have been attacking our Islamist enemies in that part of the world. The Egyptians allowed for planes to fly out of there, to fly into Yemen. And the Emirates sent some of their Air Force there. You have seen the Saudis do the same thing. We can build an alliance in the Middle East with Saudi Arabia, whom I have got slightly less confidence in than I do in Egypt, and in the United Arab Emirates, with Jordan, and, also, working in cooperation with Israel. When President el-Sisi of Egypt says to me that his relationship with Prime Minister Netanyahu is stronger with Egypt and Israel and President el-Sisi and Prime Minister Netanyahu stronger than it is with the United States, we should be troubled by that, Mr. Speaker. We should be troubled by a foreign policy that has alienated the Egyptians, that has caused the UAE to wonder: What is America doing? Why are we paving the road to Damascus for our enemies? Why would we consider doing such a thing? So this strategy, a strategy that I have put into an op-ed in the National Review, which was just published here in the last couple of days, Mr. Speaker, lays out a strategy to conduct cyber warfare, both offensive and defensive, and economic warfare to shut off the funds that are flowing to Islamic jihad wherever they might be flowing from, wherever they might be flowing through, whoever might be doing business with them and thinking they are going to profit. We have got to turn that the other way. And then we need to shut down and shut off, if we can--and this is the most difficult component of the task--the educational system out there that is teaching this kind of hatred into the next generation. Build alliances with the moderate Muslim countries, as I have said, encourage them. We need to be arming the Kurds with everything that we can get to the Kurds, everything the Kurds can use. And that doesn't mean send it through Baghdad to get the Baghdad stamp of approval. It means directly to the Kurds along with special operation forces that could be on the ground with the Kurds and call in airstrikes and support the Kurds as one jaw of the vice that will squeeze ISIS in Iraq and in Syria. The other jaw of the vice is a natural. It is already there. It is Assad. And when those two jaws of the vice to come together and crush ISIS, by that point, we can take a look at Assad and decide how to approach the power that may be left in Syria at that point in time. This is just a quick list, Mr. Speaker, of a strategy to defeat the ideology of Islamic jihad. The time has come for us to do that. I want to see a Presidential candidate--or 16 of them, I hope--who can articulate a vision to bring about the defeat of this enemy that has been bringing battle against western civilization for 1,400 years, that targets the United States of America as the great Satan and the center of their efforts. They would like to destroy all of the United States of America. And while this is going on, we have got a treaty proposal from the President of the United States with Iran. In the spring or summer of 2008, as a candidate, he said to Iran: Mr. Ahmadinejad, if you will unclench your fist, we will extend our hand. I would remind the public of that, Mr. Speaker. Because that fist is still clenched in Iran. And the President is poised to hand over $150 billion to the Iranian economy that will juice that economy up. It will allow them to bring conventional weaponry to bear. It will allow them to fund more Hezbollah. It will allow them to continue to develop the most recent version of centrifuges. And even if they comply, in 10 years, the situation is set up where, rather than one weapon, it is 100 weapons, ICBMs sticking out of the sand in the Middle East, Mr. Speaker. There is much to be done for this western civilization. We need to strengthen our culture. We need to believe in who we are. We need to sort the best things out of what we are and strengthen them. We need to cull out the weaknesses that we have. And we need a leader whom God will use to restore the soul of America. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Speaker, I appreciate this bill coming to the floor. I hear this discussion, and it seems to me there is a consistent theme that the people on the other side of the aisle are opposed to bringing leverage to political subdivisions to bring about law enforcement. They assert that nothing in this bill could have prevented the tragic murder of Kate Steinle. I would suggest that if we had no sanctuary jurisdictions in America, there is a lot greater chance that his deportation would have stuck; and if we had a President of the United States who worked to get our law enforcement officers to coordinate at each level of our political subdivisions rather than litigate when they do mirror Federal law, likely we would have had a chance to prevent not only her tragic death but that of thousands and thousands of others. I support this bill. It is encompassed within an amendment that I brought to the floor here on June 3 that passed with 227 votes. I congratulate Duncan Hunter for his persistence on this legislation that is 6 years long. I am grateful to be working on an immigration issue with the second generation of Hunters. I see there is much more enforcement that is ahead of us, but this is a step, and it is a step that helps us find out are people for a thread of enforcement and bringing some leverage to try to bring the political subdivisions in line rather than having them flout the law, which they have consistently done, and it has grown dramatically under the Obama administration. I would add that there is much more that I would like to do, much more to do. I would like to move Kate's Law. Matt Salmon has brought some of that. I would like to make it incremental so it goes from a 5- year mandatory to a 10-year mandatory on second offense and move it up the line. I would like to make E-Verify mandatory. I would like to pass the New IDEA Act so the IRS can help enforce this. I would like to build a fence, a wall, and a fence, Madam Speaker, and I would like to repass the border bill that we did last summer. There are a number of good things. By the way, we need to make detainers mandatory, and we need to tighten up the loophole language. All of that we have a chance to do after Labor Day. Today we need to do what we can do, and that is pass this bill.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address you here on the floor of the House of Representatives and being recognized. I have been listening to this debate over the last week or so, and it has troubled me considerably to watch divisions being driven between the American people over symbolism that has now been redefined by a lot of Members of the opposite party. I regret, like all of us do in this country, the tragic and brutal and evil murders of the nine people in Charleston, South Carolina. I pray for them and their families. They stood up and showed us an example of faith that I think surpasses any that I have seen in my lifetime by forgiving the killer. I am not to that point in my faith, Mr. Speaker, the least that I can tell, but that was very moving. They didn't want to see a division created, they wanted to heal, and they wanted to see Christ's love come out of Charleston. Charleston is a wonderful and beautiful city, and I don't know where I would go to find nicer people if I couldn't go actually home, Mr. Speaker, so I couldn't say enough good about that. I have listened to this rhetoric that has poured forth over these days. It appears to me that it is now being turned into something that is division, rather than unifying. We unified in our grief with the people of South Carolina, the people of Charleston. Now, we are seeing the Confederate battle flag be put up as a symbol to be redefined as something different than is understood by the majority of the American people. I grew up in the North, Mr. Speaker, and the Confederate flag always was a symbol of the pride of the South from where I grew up. My family and my predecessors and my ancestors were abolitionists, and they went to war to put an end to slavery. Mr. Speaker, I have now in my hand a leather-bound New Testament Bible that was carried in the shirt pocket of my great uncle, John Richardson, and it is written inside here. It was presented to him on the eve of his departure for the war in July of 1862. He walked home 3 years to the day with this Bible in his shirt pocket, it having protected him. It has fly specks on it from laying open by the campfire. It has verses that are written in it. I have found his picture, his musket, his bayonet, his belt buckle, and his ink file. That is what is left of this man who committed himself to putting an end to slavery. Yet, his cousin, my five times great-grandfather, was killed in that effort. Many gave their lives to put an end to slavery. I was standing before the Lincoln Memorial, reading his second Inaugural Address, and I will read that into the Record, Mr. Speaker. This component is from Lincoln's second Inaugural Address of March 4, 1865, when he said: Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so still it must be said: ``The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'' Mr. Speaker, these are not disputed numbers. The numbers of Americans who were killed putting an end to slavery and saving the Union: 600,000. Another number not disputed is the number of Black Africans who were brought to what is now the United States to be slaves: 600,000. I take you back to the words ``until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword . . . `The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' '' A huge price has been paid. It has been paid primarily by Caucasian Christians. There are many who stepped up because they profoundly believed that they needed to put an end to slavery. This country has put this behind us. It has been through this brutal and bloody battle. We have come back together for the Reconstruction, and we have healed this country together. I regret deeply that we are watching this country be divided again over a symbol of a free country. When I go to Germany and see that they have outlawed the swastika, I look at them and I think: We have a First Amendment. That can't happen here in the United States because we are open enough. We have to tolerate the desecration of Old Glory, the American flag. Yet, we have people here on the floor who say they are offended by a symbol. They are the ones who are putting it up for all to see, and then they are saying that we should outlaw that so the American people don't have a chance to see our heritage. Everything about America's history is not glorious. Everything about our history is not right in our judgment, looking back in hindsight, but none of us know what it was like for the people who lived during that time, in that era. We can accept our history. We can be proud of our history. We can unify our country. We can grieve for those who were murdered, and we can preserve our First Amendment rights.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to be recognized by you and address you here on the floor of the United States House of Representatives, this great deliberative body. General Leave

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.

Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Kansas, but I would ask if he will yield to a question before he retires. You mention your constitutional amendment to preserve marriage between a man and a woman. I would ask if you would be prepared to, if you can, from memory, quote that into the Record here tonight.

Mr. KING of Iowa. The essence of it, if you could?

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor tonight to take up a topic that I think is going to be of interest to all Americans, but I can't dive into that topic immediately without first referencing my reaction to these long days of debate that have taken place here in Congress about opening up a subject that had been put away by this country since about 1865. I grew up as a Yankee well north of the Mason-Dixon line. I saw the Confederate flag in multiple applications. It always was a symbol of southern pride and regional patriotism and a symbol that said to them that the South was proud to be the South, but I never saw it as a racist symbol. But it had drifted into a symbol of an artifact of history until such time now as it has been seized upon by those who are using it to divide America again. I regret that they have gone through these days of this ritual of excoriating the Confederate flag. I regret that that has been brought up. And one would think that, if it was that offensive, that they would just let it drift back into history as a relic of history rather than try to resurrect it as a symbol of something that they can't seem to let go of. But, for us, we are a country that every component of our history has not been as noble as we would like. Every country in the world has had difficulties along the way. We have risen above our difficulties, Mr. Speaker, and we have adjusted to them and have put them behind us. But we cannot be eradicating or erasing the history of our country. It is important that we do keep it in front of us so that we can evaluate the lessons learned and move forward and make progress. That was the reconstruction era. That goes clear back to right after 1865, and I regret that those old wounds have been peeled open again. It is ironic that the gentleman would talk about President Lincoln's second Inaugural Address and binding up this Nation's wounds. They have been bound up. They have been healed up. And now they are open again, regretfully, Mr. Speaker. So I will package up that component of my response. The Supreme Court

Mr. KING of Iowa. I will now shift over to the topic that I came to the floor to address, and that is the topic of the Supreme Court from the marriage decision, the decisions that actually came down from the Supreme Court--I believe it was a week ago last Thursday and Friday. On Thursday, there was a decision from the Supreme Court on ObamaCare, the King v. Burwell case, where the majority decision of the Supreme Court concluded that the law, as passed by the United States Congress, doesn't mean what it says. It means instead, according to the majority of the Supreme Court, what they think the President would have liked to have had it said if he had actually been dictating the language there. But we have to vote, Mr. Speaker, on the language that is in the bill, not the language that should have been in the head of the President and the Speaker of the House at the time. That is why we have had a Supreme Court who, over the last generation, has been textualist. This has emerged from the Rehnquist court and should have survived and been enhanced under the Roberts court, that the law means what it says and the Constitution means what it says and, furthermore, it needs to mean what it was understood to mean at the time of ratification. We do have a language that moves and changes and morphs along the way. And the language that is written into the Constitution, into the various amendments that are there and written into our laws, we can't simply say that because we have a different way we utilize language today, that somehow the people who ratified it had a meaning that conformed to the morphed language of the modern world. And I would have thought that Chief Justice Roberts would have been one of those who would have adhered to that. I can think of times when the Court has said to this Congress: You may have intended one thing, but the language in the bill that you passed and was signed into law actually means something different. So you can either live with the decision of the Court or you can set about changing the language so that the language actually does what you intended it to do. It is a simple understanding of simple construction under the law in the Constitution. An example, Mr. Speaker, would be the ban on partial birth abortion that passed here in this Congress in the nineties. It went before three Federal courts and then was appealed to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court concluded that the ban on partial birth abortion that Congress had first passed was vague in its description of the act itself and that Congress didn't have findings that partial birth abortion was not necessary to save the life of the mother. So it was struck down by the Supreme Court, and that means they sent it back to us. They said: Congress, fix that. And I got involved in that. I want to tip my hat to Congressmen Steve Chabot of Ohio, who was the chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee at the time, and Jim Sensenbrenner, the chair of the full Judiciary Committee. We held hearing after hearing. We rewrote the definition of ``partial birth abortion'' so that it was precise and clear and understandable, and we complied with the Court's directive. In those hearings, we brought witnesses that put into the Congressional Record a mass of evidence that concluded that a partial birth abortion was never necessary to save the life of the mother. We did those things to conform to the directive of the Supreme Court because they read the text of the law. But today we have a Supreme Court that concludes that--well, the text may say one thing, but we think the President would have preferred it to say something else. And so did most of the people, maybe, that voted to pass ObamaCare, that very partisan piece of legislation. Maybe they intended for it to say something else, too, but it didn't. So the Supreme Court inserted the words ``or Federal Government'' into the statute that said an exchange established by the State. The Supreme Court essentially wrote into that ``by State or Federal Government,'' alleging that the language was vague. That is appalling to me, Mr. Speaker, to think that in the United States of America, a country ruled by the rule of law, that we could have a Supreme Court who--no one has a higher charge to read the language, to understand it, to call the balls and strikes, as the Chief Justice has said. I think he forgot to say that you are supposed to also call whether it is fair or foul. Well, I think it is foul. It is a foul ball for the Supreme Court to think that they can change the language of the law. If they sent it back here, Congress then had an obligation to adjust the policy to our intent from now, maybe not the intent at the time that it was passed, because those years have moved. Then subsequent to that, the very next day, Friday--a week ago last Friday, as I recall--the Supreme Court came with a decision, a decision on same sex marriage. I have some experience with this, Mr. Speaker, and it falls along this line. In 2009, the Iowa Supreme Court, in reading the mirror of our 14th Amendment, which is in our United States Constitution--and the mirror of it is written into the Iowa State Constitution--they concluded that same-sex marriage was the law of the land in Iowa. And their conclusion was that it fell underneath the equal protection and due process clauses of the 14th Amendment--the mirrored component of the 14th Amendment that was in our Iowa constitution. There are 63 pages in the Varnum v. Brien decision in the Iowa case. I read that decision. I read all 63 pages. But not only that, I poked through it. I read it. I looked at the ceiling. I contemplated. I looked back down at the words. I tried to absorb the kind of legal rationale that would get you to the point where you could conclude that under equal protection or due process, that marriage really was between one adult and another entity, whatever sex or gender that entity might be. And they wrote that under the protection of the 14th Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause and due process, that, quote, homosexuals have a right to public affirmation, closed quote. Mr. Speaker, I know of no place in law, I know of no place in society, I know of no place in history where there is an individual, let alone a group of people, a self-labeled group of people that have any claim to public affirmation, public approval conferred by the court. But that was the key to understanding this litigation that has moved forward since 2009. It brings us into 2015. And we have a decision in the Supreme Court that commands all States, if they are going to recognize any marriage, to recognize same sex marriage and for all States to also provide the reciprocity of recognizing marriages that take place in other States, as those individuals may come through or move into their States. That is that right of reciprocity. It is in the Constitution, reciprocity. But, Mr. Speaker, for the Supreme Court to essentially create a new right, a right to same sex marriage manufactured out of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, that was ratified in 1868--and, by the way, it ties into this dialogue about the Confederate flag and all the rhetoric that we have had in this Congress all week long. It ties into it in this way: The 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution were ratified in the aftermath of the Civil War. They were established, first, the 13th Amendment, to free the slaves because the people in the legislature at the time didn't believe that a clear statute that freed the slaves was going to actually have the impact that a constitutional amendment would. So they passed the 13th Amendment to establish that there will be no slavery in the United States anywhere, ever. The second was the 14th Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause and the clause says that all persons born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof shall be American citizens. All of that to ensure not only that the freed slaves would be free and they would have equal access to all their rights of citizenship but that their children would also be citizens and that they would have equal protection under the law. That was the essence of the 14th Amendment. We are asked to believe that somehow those who wrote and ratified the 14th Amendment in 1868 had secretly put some subtle language into it that they somehow knew we would discover in 2015 that says, there shall be same sex marriage in all of America, and the Supreme Court will find it, and they will impose it upon the rest of the country because they are the enlightened five of nine in black robes. Well, the Supreme Court has had a terrible record, a terrible record on dealing with large domestic issues. In 1857, Dred Scott, they thought they could resolve the slavery issue. The Supreme Court was stacked in favor of the South. Five from the South and one from Pennsylvania that was sympathetic to slavery. They had a 6-3 operation going on. And they essentially declared that blacks could not be citizens, and they could not be free. They could not be citizens, and they could not be freed by States. And that if a slave owner owned a slave, they owned that slave in any State that that individual might go. That was the decision of Dred Scott. They thought they had put the issue away. It came back to haunt this country over and over again. And it was part of the conflict that began in the next decade, within 1862, and that brought about the death of 600,000 Americans and split this country apart and it has taken years to put us back together. The Dred Scott decision. Fast forward 100 years. They took prayer out of the public schools. We honored that decision. We stopped praying at least openly in our public schools. Now the question is: Can a football team without the coach kneel on the grass and pray before a ball game? We are a First Amendment country. Freedom of religion. And we are dealing with this kind of assault on free religion because the Supreme Court in Murray v. Curlett in 1963 dumped that on us; 1973, Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. Then you have the Lawrence v. Texas decision. And it goes on and on and on, Mr. Speaker. Up to this point, the domestic life of America has been dramatically transformed by order of the Supreme Court, the people least connected to the will of the people. When they separate themselves from the text of the statute and the text in the understanding of the Constitution, we are in a place where the Supreme Court then has put themselves above the law, above the Constitution, and above the will of the people. One of the people that understands that as well as anybody in this United States Congress is my friend from Texas, Mr. Louie Gohmert, who speaks to us often in these Chambers. I know about his marriage, and I know about his conviction to the rule of law and the Constitution. I yield to the gentleman from Texas, Louie Gohmert.