Tom McClintock

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Mann).

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, you cannot fight anti-Semitism if you cannot define it. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance offers us a clear and widely accepted definition rooted in the tragedy of the ages. After that horrific crime against humanity, the civilized nations of the world took a sacred oath: Never again. To support that oath, these united nations restored the Jewish state to its historic homelands. That state is now under attack at home and abroad, and with this act, America stands with our Jewish brethren at home and abroad. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, Ukraine and Israel are in growing danger and running out of arms and ammunition while China casts a hungry eye on Taiwan. History warns us of allowing aggression to grow unchecked and of how quickly events in an unstable world can unravel. Profligate spending is exhausting our resources and damaging our economy, but as Reagan reminded us, defense is not a budget issue. You spend what you need to spend. Although the defense of these besieged nations is one step removed from our own, it would be a very good thing to keep it that way. I regret that the three military aid bills are larded up with about $20 billion of economic handouts, but we are out of options, and we are out of time. I am afraid that is the price we now have to pay for months of dithering in this House. Without these bills today, we and the world risk a future butcher's bill that is incalculable.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chair, I don't discount the mounting dangers we face from enemies abroad, but we also cannot discount the dangers we face at home from the very powers that this bill would continue. As has been pointed out, the FBI abused these powers 278,000 times in a single year and turned them against American citizens by phishing for January 6th and Black Lives Matter rioters, probing political donors, and even piercing congressional offices. John Adams believed that the indiscriminate searches by British officials became the first spark of the American Revolution. Having lived under such a tyranny, the Founders protected us with the Fourth Amendment. Before authorities can search through our records, they have to get a warrant from an independent judge by showing probable cause to suspect that we have committed a crime. Now, there are many excellent reforms in this bill, and I applaud them, but they largely depend on these agencies policing themselves, and experience warns us that is just not enough. Without a warrant requirement, I fear these powers will, once again, be turned against our fundamental liberties and these days that scares me as much as a terrorist attack. Just imagine how much safer we would all be if we stationed a soldier in every house, but we have the Third Amendment to protect us against that tyranny, just as we have a Fourth Amendment to protect us against the tyranny of indiscriminate searches. Benjamin Franklin's warning echoes from his age to ours today: ``Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.'' Let that not be history's judgment of us.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, do we really want to give the President the power to declare foreign adversaries and then require a communications platform within them to be banned or sold to a government-approved owner? If there are data privacy concerns, we should warn consumers and trust them to make their own decisions. If there are propaganda concerns, we should defend the free and open debate that our First Amendment protects, confident that the best way to judge the truth from lies is to put the two of them side by side and trust the people to know the difference. The last thing we should do is take that power away from the people and give it to the government. The answer to authoritarianism is not more authoritarianism. The answer to CCP-style propaganda is not CCP-style oppression. Let us slow down before we blunder down this very steep and slippery slope.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, this resolution reflects the testimony that the Immigration, Integrity, Security, and Enforcement Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee recently received from experts and former ICE officials that the President has full authority in existing law to secure our borders. He simply refuses to do so. Donald Trump enforced our laws. He used title 42 to stop millions of illegal crossings. He required the asylum claimants to remain in Mexico or other safe third countries until their cases were heard. He enforced court-ordered deportations, and it worked. Illegal immigration fell to a 46-year low. Now, the laws haven't changed. The President changed. On Biden's first day in office, he ended the remain in Mexico policy. He ordered ICE to stop enforcing border deportations, and he ordered all construction on the border wall to cease. Since that day, this administration has deliberately released more than 4\1/2\ million illegal aliens into our country and allowed an additional 1.8 million to evade apprehension by the Border Patrol while it was overwhelmed. That is a combined population of illegal immigrants who have entered into this country the size of the State of Missouri, our 18th largest State with eight Congressional Districts. I repeat: The laws didn't change. The President changed. Last year, the House passed H.R. 2 to make it harder for future Presidents to flout the law, but Senate Democrats killed it. Instead, they tout a bill that would leave a future President powerless to enforce our immigration laws until illegal crossings reached a minimum of 4,000 per day. This crisis is exactly what the Democrats promised to unleash, and it is exactly what they have unleashed and defended every day for the last 3 years. The hard truth is that that cannot be fixed by Congress. It can only be fixed by replacing this administration with one that will secure our border, enforce our laws, and protect our people. That can only be done by the American people at the ballot box.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, Laken Riley's death was foreordained the day that this administration took office and reversed the successful Trump policies that had finally secured our borders. Since that day, just 3 years ago, more than 6 million illegal aliens have been allowed to enter our country, a population the size of the State of Missouri, our eighteenth largest State. Very little is done to vet these millions of illegal migrants. We don't know how many terrorists or violent criminals are among them. Additionally, worse, this administration seems not to care. However, we do know that the number of suspected terrorists that we are apprehending has skyrocketed and that violent international crime cartels and violent foreign gangs are now operating freely in our communities, often protected from deportation and detention by the Democrats' sanctuary laws. One of these criminals is now accused of the brutal murder of Laken Riley. We do not know how many such monsters this President has allowed into our country, but we are slowly, painfully, and tragically finding out victim by victim. In this case, the suspect was paroled into this country through a shocking abuse of power by this President. He was repeatedly arrested for theft and other crimes in sanctuary jurisdictions and was each time released back onto our streets. The bill before us would require this administration to detain illegal aliens who commit theft, burglary, larceny, or shoplifting, something it simply refuses to do. It would also allow States to bring civil action against Federal officials who refuse to enforce these laws. Today, the name on the bill is Laken Riley. Tomorrow, it will be another victim of these policies, another son or daughter or loved one, and it won't stop until this administration is stopped. That can only be done by the American people.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, Secretary Mayorkas is guilty of maladministration of our immigration laws on a cosmic scale, but we know that is not grounds for impeachment because the American Founders specifically rejected it. They didn't want political disputes to become impeachments because that would shatter their separation of powers that vests the enforcement of the laws with the President--no matter how bad a job he does. Cabinet Secretaries can't serve two masters. They can be impeached for committing a crime relating to their office, but not for carrying out Presidential policy. This border crisis can't be fixed by replacing one leftwing official with another. It can only be fixed by the American people at the ballot box by replacing this administration with one committed to securing our borders, defending our country, and upholding the rule of law. Americans are already coming to that conclusion. Mr. Speaker, I am afraid that stunts like this don't help.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on H.R. 5585.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, on December 7 of 2022, Border Patrol Officer Raul Gonzalez got up, he got dressed, kissed his family good- bye, and left for work. His family would never see him again. He was killed later that day in Mission, Texas, doing his job trying to protect our country. A group of illegal aliens and their smuggler led him on a high-speed chase that ended in a fatal wreck that took his life. Now, this is becoming an increasingly common story along our southern border in the age of Biden's open-border policies. The number of high- speed chases by Border Patrol or local law enforcement has exploded along with the illegal human trafficking and smuggling that they are trying to stop. The Biden administration's lax enforcement of our immigration laws has incentivized this, creating the conditions that create these deadly high-speed chases, and the problem has now reached critical levels. One lifelong Arizona resident reflected on the dangers of Highway 90 in Cochise County, now a major smuggling route. She said, It is scary to the point you don't want to drive the highway, but to get to work you have to. I am actually scared about going out into the public sometimes, because what if there is a high-speed chase and something goes sideways, they get into a car accident, hop the curb and hit anybody? In Tombstone, Arizona, U.S. Marshal Jim Adams spoke of the high-speed chases racing through his town. He said, This is a weekly occurrence, sometimes daily, sometimes several times a day. Americans near the border should not be living in terror for themselves or their loved ones being killed by high-speed chases caused by cartel smugglers. Yet, in many communities, they do now. Human smuggling is an incredibly lucrative business. According to Border Patrol estimates in the Del Rio sector alone, cartels profit $32 million a week for a staggering total of $1.6 billion per year just in that one sector. The cartels expertly control their side of the border. Nobody gets through without paying them. Yet, while the cartels are making billions controlling their side of the border, Joe Biden is spending billions of dollars while abandoning control of our side of the border. This bill is very simple. It makes it a Federal crime to evade the Border Patrol or local law enforcement that is assisting the Border Patrol within 100 miles of the international border. If you are a foreign national, it makes the conviction or admission of such a crime grounds for inadmissibility and removability. If you hurt somebody, we will put you in prison for 5 years. If you kill somebody, we will put you in prison for 10 years. If you are a foreign national, we will send you packing when you get out. That is what the Democrats in this House will oppose today, and that should be a wake-up call for every American. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Ciscomani), the author of this bill.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chair, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Van Duyne).

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chair, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. De La Cruz).

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time to close. Mr. Chair, setting aside my good friend's weird obsession with Donald Trump, I hope Americans will take note of what has been said in this debate. The Democrats made the point, well, why chase them and endanger themselves and the public? Why not just let them go? Well, the answer should be obvious. Under the Democrats' open-borders policy, all that you have to do is flag down a Border Patrol officer and make a phony asylum claim. Under their policies, you will be immediately released into our country. You will get a plane or bus ticket anywhere you want to go. You will get free meals, free snacks, free clothes, free phones. You immediately qualify for free medical care, free housing, free education for your children. Within 6 months, you will be given a work authorization to undercut working American families. You will be assured that your phony claim won't be heard for many years into the future, if you show up at all. Also, when you are finally ordered deported, as is the case with the overwhelming majority of these claims, that court order will simply be ignored by our own government. There are already currently 1.3 million such deportation orders that the administration already simply ignores. With all of these benefits waiting for you simply by flagging down a Border Patrol officer, why in the world would you want to evade capture by endangering your own lives? Well, the only reason I can think of is that you are either hiding a criminal record, or you are committing a crime. I remind the gentleman that is why the Border Patrol chases evaders. They have caught hundreds of known terrorists and countless pounds of fentanyl and other deadly drugs by doing so. FBI Director Chris Wray warned the Judiciary Committee that this constitutes a massive security threat--his words--a massive security threat. Let that sink in. And then consider the barbaric terrorist attack 103 days ago in Israel. I believe it is just a matter of time before we see a coordinated terrorist attack in our own country from elements that have entered as a direct result of Biden's policies. We have already seen lone wolf attacks in Belgium, France, Germany, Denmark because of their lax border policies. I am afraid this is only the tip of this iceberg. I, again, remind the gentleman that is why we chase evaders, and those evaders need to be held accountable to the law and punished, and, if they are foreigners, they need to be removed from our country. Yet, the Democrats object to this. Now, the Democrats have argued that the bill should not include a mandatory minimum sentence. Well, let's go over specifically what they object to. If you cause a high-speed chase that injures somebody, you are going to serve a minimum of 5 years under this bill. If you kill somebody, it is a minimum of 10 years. Does any reasonable person believe these mandatory minimums are unreasonable? Ask the American who has been paralyzed in such a crash if it is unreasonable. Ask the family of the mother who has been killed in such a crash if that is unreasonable. The only people who seem to think that this is unreasonable are the Democrats in this House, and voters might want to do something about that. The Democrats argue that the bill is unnecessary because aliens who are convicted of fleeing an immigration checkpoint are already removable. You heard that argument several times. Well, that is true, but it only applies to those who are fleeing a checkpoint. It doesn't make the alien inadmissible to come back into our country, either. This bill applies to all smugglers causing dangerous crashes or chases within 100 miles of the border, and it creates serious penalties for those who injure or kill officers or bystanders during these pursuits. Now, the Democrats have also claimed that this measure would destroy due process by deporting an alien who hasn't actually been convicted of a crime. Well, actually, this bill requires either a conviction of a crime, or an admission of committing that crime. That is the same standard we apply to aliens guilty of overstaying a visa, violating nonimmigrant status or condition of entry, smuggling aliens, committing marriage fraud, being a drug user or a drug addict, falsely claiming United States citizenship, or engaging in espionage. This bill simply adds evasion of the Border Patrol to this existing list. By the way, a confession is not an idle matter. Under 80 years of precedent, the alien's confession has to be explicit, unequivocal, and unqualified. The Department of Homeland Security then has the burden of proof to show that the statement meets the requirement for removal purposes, and an immigration judge must then find that the admission is based on reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence. This is hardly a casual confession, but it does save years and years of court proceedings and appeals. Mr. Chair, we have heard directly from the officers and citizens of our border communities of the dangers that they now face day after day as cartel smugglers drive at high speeds through their towns to evade the Border Patrol or the police. This bill says, if you clearly admit to this crime or you are convicted of it and you are a foreign national, we will not only deport you, but it will be grounds for forbidding you from returning, which is not part of the current law. The bill says to legal and illegal residents alike, if you hurt somebody while causing this reckless hazard, we will throw you in jail for 5 years; if you kill somebody, it is 10. The Democrats are opposed to these reforms. We should tell people everything they need to know about the obstacles that we are facing to securing our border and returning our border communities to peace and safety. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, this amendment requires a new fact to be proven at trial that the pursuing law enforcement officer was ``under the command'' of the U.S. Border Patrol in each and every case. I can imagine many circumstances where local law enforcement is alerted to a Border Patrol chase that is going through their jurisdiction and then act immediately to assist them without necessarily being directly under their command. The issue is not who is pursuing smugglers but rather the circumstances of the pursuit; namely, this person is evading the Border Patrol. It is unlikely that during each and every pursuit in progress the Border Patrol is going to have time to deputize local law enforcement and place them under their command. This is a ridiculous expectation, so ridiculous as to raise the suspicion that it is intended solely to render the bill unworkable and meaningless. These high-speed chases occur far too often in our border communities, and State and local law enforcement are often first responders in protecting these communities along with the Border Patrol. This amendment would serve only to challenge law enforcement, who are properly doing their job, to stop smugglers and illegal aliens from terrorizing their communities. Mr. Chair, I, therefore, oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chair, I am prepared to close if the gentlewoman is finished. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chair, I was just shocked to hear the gentlewoman accuse the Governor of Texas of murder. This is an example of the kind of extremism that we see on the left in this House today. Now, the fact is the Border Patrol agents are strained to the breaking point by this administration's open-border policies, and they often rely on local law enforcement having their backs. If the gentlewoman doesn't know what active assistance is, it is a high-speed chase that is going through their community and they are there in a position to back up the Border Patrol. Mr. Chair, you can't negotiate that. You cannot be deputized. That is part and parcel of law enforcement. You have to spring into action. When overt local police are providing this assistance, they should have the protection that this bill provides. It also puts every smuggler on notice that if they are trafficking human beings or drugs across the border and they are pursued, then they darn well better pull over. Apparently, this is just too much for the Democrats to bear. I am not sure whether we should laugh this amendment off the floor or merely defeat it. In either event, it is a foolish idea. Mr. Chair, it deserves a ``no'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, President Biden marked the third anniversary of the January 6 Capitol riot by calling it a ``day that we nearly lost America,'' and he asked: ``Is democracy still America's sacred cause?'' That is an important question. What happened on January 6 was a national disgrace. A riotous mob disrupted the Congress and its congressional responsibility to observe the counting of the votes of the electoral college. To conclude that ``we nearly lost America'' to a lunatic wearing buffalo horns that day is hysterical hyperbole, to say the least. True insurrections are made of sterner stuff. When the last of these yahoos was kicked out of this building a few hours later, Congress calmly completed the electoral count and confirmed Joe Biden's election. Nevertheless, Mr. Biden is correct to raise concerns about the growing threats to our democracy, and he is right that democracy depends on the loser of an election accepting its outcome as the legitimate will of the majority. Many Democrats refused to do that in 2016 and many Republicans in 2020. Why do so many voters no longer trust the integrity of our elections? Could it be that so many of the safeguards that assure a fair election and an accurate count have been stripped away? For hundreds of years, we all looked our neighbors in the eye as they handed us our ballots. We all cast our votes in curtained booths where no one could influence us. We all watched our ballots placed in locked containers. At 8 p.m., we knew exactly how many votes had been cast, and a few hours later, we knew the outcome of all the elections. We all had our say during the campaign, and we waited until the debate was over to make our decision on election day. It was very hard to cheat, and everyone could trust that process. All that has changed. In recent years, the leftist Democrats have rigged election laws to extend voting over an entire month, accept ballots after election day, harvest ballots by political operatives, use mail-in ballots where there is no chain of custody, prevent observers from unobstructed views of ballot counting, and suppress debate and hide critical information from voters. Freedom of speech is the beating heart of democracy, yet the left- leaning bureaucracies, increasingly independent of the will of the voters, actively colluded to influence elections by intimidating political opponents, starting with the Tea Party. They have promoted utterly false narratives, most notably the Russian collusion hoax. Courts have recently found the government guilty of violating the First Amendment by actively pressuring social media platforms to censor the very political dialogue that is central to the functioning of a democracy. The President even attempted to establish a disinformation czar to decide what information could reach voters. Our fundamental democratic institutions are also under growing attack. The left has been very clear that it intends to pack the Supreme Court by creating new seats for leftist appointments and to pack the Senate by creating overwhelmingly Democratic States, like Washington, D.C. Less than 2 years ago, leftist mobs descended on the homes of Supreme Court Justices in an illegal attempt to pressure and intimidate them, yet Mr. Biden's Department of Justice refused to enforce the law that protects jurists from such bullying. The President has opened our borders and produced an illegal mass migration unprecedented in our history while his party has pushed to permit foreign nationals to vote in our elections, making a mockery of Americans' right to self-determination. How does Mr. Biden explain the unprecedented acts of his agents seeking to ban from the ballot candidates who directly challenge his candidacy? It is not just the brazen and unconstitutional attempt to keep his leading Republican challenger from the ballot. The agents of his party have been aggressively working to ban Democratic primary challengers as well and seizing from Democratic voters in Iowa the right to have any meaningful say in next week's election, for fear they would not vote for him in sufficient numbers. Mr. Speaker, our democracy is indeed under attack from the lunatic fringe on both extremes. When we ask which presents a clear and present danger to our democracy, I would respectfully but earnestly suggest the President remove the log from his own eye before he criticizes the speck in his neighbor's.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, the ancient Greeks would have appreciated the irony of this story. Kevin McCarthy spent his life preparing for the job that he held for just 269 days. For decades, he devoted all his energies and skills to building one of the most formidable political organizations of our time that ultimately took back the House last year. In those 269 days as Speaker, despite the most slender of majorities, and with Democrats controlling the Senate and White House, he cut $2 trillion of spending over the next decade. He forestalled the hiring of an army of IRS agents. He curtailed the woke policies plaguing our Armed Forces. He averted a government shutdown in a dangerous world. He reopened the Capitol to the American people. He launched historical investigations into government corruption. He produced the strongest border security measure in a century and landmark legislation to restore American energy independence. On his 269th day as Speaker, he enjoyed the overwhelming support and confidence of his Republican colleagues. He was completing the process of adopting the most conservative appropriations bills in decades. He had put House Republicans in a commanding position to sweep the 2024 election. National polls recorded that he had become the most popular elected official in America. His speakership ended on that day. It did not end because of the Republican Conference. It ended because of eight sad and pathetic mediocrities nursing petty personal grudges. As Shakespeare said: ``This house is turned upside down since Robin Ostler died.'' This is not the end of the tale. History commands, and we must obey. Soon, Kevin McCarthy will be called back to the national stage to play a vital and leading role in a command performance by history to save our beloved country.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, when the presidents of MIT, Harvard, and the University of Pennsylvania were invited to denounce open race hatred on their campuses, they wrapped themselves in the mantle of free speech. People have a right to say what they think as long as it doesn't become threatening conduct, they said. On this narrow point, they are right, but that does not explain why anti-Semitism is rampant on their campuses. It is not a tolerance for outrageous speech that is the problem. It is a complete intolerance of patriotic speech. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the two most intolerant and oppressive universities in the country are Harvard and UPenn. MIT ranks 136 out of the 254 universities surveyed. How is it possible that such depraved and discredited philosophies as Marxism, totalitarianism, racism, Islamic fascism, and anti-Semitism now flourish on these college campuses? It is because, for years, the antidote to these social pathologies--the American founding principles of freedom, democracy, tolerance, and justice that have always kept them in check--have been systematically suppressed and removed from campus discussions. A generation ago, only the lunatic fringe of our society would deny or minimize the Holocaust, cheer the slaughter of innocents in their cribs, or praise the fascist governments that produce such horrors. The spectacle of university presidents maintaining that genocide was a contextual matter would have been absurd. Why? Because people of good will had the freedom to present the other side, and the other side was always compelling. The only way to separate truth from lies or wisdom from folly or good from evil is to place the two side by side and then trust the common sense and good judgment of the American people to know the difference. This free exchange of ideas is the beating heart of democracy. It is the sole purpose for which this Capitol Building was constructed. We have based our entire form of government on the assumption that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time, but it assumes that people have the full and unfettered freedom to express themselves and to challenge the claims and opinions of each other. In such an exchange, the good, the moral, the wise, and the right will ultimately rise to the top. There are only two ways to resolve disputes among human beings: reason and force. The American Founders built an empire of reason enshrined in the First Amendment. Freedom of speech, of the press, of religion, and of peaceful assembly are the very tools that Americans have used for two and a half centuries to resolve our differences civilly and chart a path to a better future. In this brave new Orwellian woke world that we have entered, speech in opposition to leftist views is violence; violence in support of leftist views is speech; racial discrimination is social justice; and force rather than reason is the legitimate way to resolve our differences. They tell us that shouting down opponents, disrupting civil discussions, rioting in the streets, and threatening or even practicing violence against opponents is freedom of expression. The ultimate expression of this rot is the moral confusion that sees the killing of babies as a legitimate way to resolve grievances. Polls on campuses tell us that the vast majority of college students fear even expressing views that conflict with leftist orthodoxy. We are now learning that the Federal Government itself colluded with tech companies to deny the American people crucial facts and analysis over everything from COVID to the Russian collusion hoax to Biden family influence peddling. Major newspapers that once thrived on vigorous debate have said they won't even print opinions contrary to leftist orthodoxy on climate change. Free societies do not fear words and thoughts, even those that are hateful, ugly, evil, or obscene, because the same freedom that protects these darkest impulses of our nature also protects the right of men and women of good will to confront them, expose them, and reject them. This is what these university presidents and their many confederates have taken from our campuses, and this is what the left is taking from our society. This is what we must restore if we are to resume the upward path toward peace, prosperity, happiness, and justice that our freedom ensures and that our First Amendment protects.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, short of declaring war, impeachment is the most serious act that Congress can take. It must be confined to the narrow grounds established by the Constitution and never used to settle political differences. However, the Democrats would have us simply turn a blind eye to mounting evidence of a family influence-peddling scheme that implicates the President. This we cannot do. We owe it to the country to get to the bottom of these allegations, and that requires the House to objectively invoke its full investigatory powers, respect the due process rights of all involved, and lay all of the facts before the American people. Last session, the Democrats made a mockery of impeachment, and we cannot allow them to become our teachers. Shrill voices should be kept far from this inquiry lest they undermine its legitimacy and credibility. Congress has an obligation to approach serious accusations seriously. With this vote, we do so.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I rise to wish a happy 100th birthday to Ruth Sellers of Mariposa, although the general consensus is she is really in her midfifties. Skeptical or not, the town is going to celebrate with her tomorrow. From our Nation's Capital, I want to join them to express our love and respect. An Army brat, she spent her youth in prewar China and the Philippines. In the war, when she wasn't Rosie the Riveter at the Newport shipyard, she was a USO volunteer, where she met her husband, Earl. After a successful career at IBM, she retired to Mariposa in 1986 and has since been a terrifyingly inexhaustible force of nature in so many community endeavors it would take an hour to catalog. She will be celebrating many more birthdays in the year ahead, and Mariposa will be better for it. Happy birthday, Ruth.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, the attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7 was an unprovoked act of barbarity and butchery that targeted innocent civilians and broke every rule of war dating back to medieval times. The sinister nature of this attack and the genocidal character of the government behind it should shock the conscience of every man and woman of good will on this planet. As the Nazis were systemically murdering 6 million Jews, the civilized nations of the world took up arms in defense of the defenseless, annihilated the scourge of Hitler and Hitlerism, and vowed to never allow such crimes to be permitted again. To assure this objective, these United Nations restored the Jewish state to the Jewish homeland, whose roots in Israel trace back to the dawn of human history. Never again. Israel exists today to maintain and uphold that sacred vow of mankind. Never again. The generation that survived those times knew how vital that declaration is and how essential the existence of Israel is to fulfill it. Yet, the genocidal hatred that produced the Holocaust was never completely extinguished. It has now morphed into a more virulent strain of Nazism that came on full display on October 7. Shockingly, we are seeing support for that ideology in the riots unfolding on our streets and on our campuses, and it has even seeped into the Halls of Congress. Now, I oppose punishing anyone for their opinions, even vicious opinions, but they should be denounced at every opportunity, and the destructive policies they advocate should be decisively defeated; which brings me to the folly of the Biden administration. Now, Hamas is the popularly elected government of Gaza. When it attacked, Israel responded the only way it morally could, by waging war with all of its might and resources. Gaza was not provoked by Israel. Quite the contrary: In 2006, Israel granted the people of Gaza the right of self-government, and they promptly responded by electing Hamas. Last week, a poll of Palestinians found overwhelming support for that government and the atrocities that it has committed. There is no moral equivalency here. Israel has practiced tolerance toward all its Arab neighbors while Hamas is dedicated to the annihilation of Israel. War is hell on Earth. A nation forced into it has a moral obligation to put all of its resources behind its soldiers and to achieve unconditional victory as quickly as possible, and then to resolutely destroy the government and culture that unleashed it. The demands for a cease-fire by the Biden administration, the provision of so-called humanitarian aid to Hamas-controlled Gaza, and demands for proportionality are utterly self-destructive to all involved because their practical effect is to prolong the conflict indefinitely. In war, you don't want a proportional response; you want the most disproportional response you can muster. The more disproportional it is, the sooner it is ended. Humanitarian aid is what you send after the enemy has unconditionally surrendered and not a moment before. Can you imagine sending food and fuel into Nazi Germany during World War II? That is lunacy. The fountainhead of this problem is Iran. It is funding the most extensive terrorist network in history. The sanctions against Iran were producing a growing popular resistance to that regime, yet each time it was about to boil over, Obama, and later Biden, took billions of dollars owned by the Iranian people and instead turned it over to their oppressors in Iran. Biden's refusal to enforce sanctions has meant an estimated $30 billion of revenues to Iran. It was about to release another $6 billion when the attack on Israel embarrassed them into temporarily backing down. When President Biden releases money to Iran or relaxes sanctions, he is funding the very terrorist operations unleashed against Israel. When he leaves our borders wide-open, he is creating an open pathway for terrorists into our country. When he sends aid to Hamas-controlled Gaza, he gives aid and comfort to the very forces that unleashed such terror upon Israel and aspire to unleash it against America. For our own sake, and for the sake of humanity, America must stand unconditionally with Israel, cutting off any resources to its adversaries and providing the arms, ammunition, and moral support it desperately needs. This is the only way to restore the full force of civilization behind these two sacred words ``never again.''