Dana Rohrabacher

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, as Americans and free people we must always remember the sacrifices made by those our country sends into harm's way. Their courage and sacrifice allows us to live in a safer world. It is equally fitting that we also remember and consider those who are left behind--their wives, husbands, children and parents. And so I submit a poem entitled ``My Gold Star'' written by Debb Clay, a retired teacher with 40 years' service to our youth: I took the road ``less traveled'' and arrived upon a shore Where sunlight danced on surface currents-opening a door To memories of you and me--our feet upon the sand And how our voices filled the air as your touch filled my hand. You were just a little child but even then you knew That giving of yourself was all that you were meant to do, And day by day you walked the path that led you toward the day You'd place your country and its worth ahead of ``Self'' and say, ``I'll go and serve and do my part to keep my homeland free, When others tread a different path it matters not to me, For this I know and will profess to all who choose to hear, Our country needs us all to serve and that is why I'm here.'' I stand alone now on that shore, as sorrow fills my brow A mix of tears and smiles collide with thoughts of then and now, Yet as I witness warmth and sparkle from the water's skin, The silent streams upon my face with brilliant light begin To fill my heart, the air, this place with who you really are And what you did and why you had to venture out so far, So now I'm left without you here--my grief I try to hide But what I can show is my ``star''--it shines as does my pride.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, America lost one of her greatest sons this week. Al Mann, physicist, entrepreneur, executive, and philanthropist, spent his more than nine decades on this earth working mostly to help others. At age seventeen, when America was embroiled in the Second World War, Al Mann volunteered for the Army Air Corps, later becoming a pioneer in guidance systems for missiles and solar power for satellites. His technological advances helped us win that war, saving countless lives throughout. Afterward, he resisted pleas to continue his extraordinary work in military hardware, following his heart and turning his mind toward the health of humanity. Al's ingenuity, insight, and resourcefulness focused on projects to restore sight to the blind, to bring hearing to the deaf, and return mobility to the disabled. He did all this while developing a system to deliver insulin to diabetics without needles and creating pacemakers that those afflicted with heart disease would not need to replace frequently, thus sparing them great expense and disruption of their lives. It has been my honor and privilege to know Al Mann for many years. As he benefited humankind he in turn benefited from a patent system that has been the envy of the world; indeed, he warned against politicians who would tamper with it to advantage powerful business interests against individual innovators like him. Clearly, he wanted other Americans to succeed by their good works just as he had done. Because he was one of the most inspirational men I have ever known, I made a point of introducing my children to him so that they, too, might live by his example. If our country is to know more inspiring individuals like Al Mann, it is imperative that we reclaim and protect the conditions that made his exemplary creativity possible.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Speaker, I rise today to note the passing of an American hero, Alfred Mann. At 17 years of age, Al Mann was a navigator on a B-29 during World War II. After the war, he was educated with the GI Bill, and he used his genius, his creative skills, to upgrade America's antitank weapons of the day. A short time after that, he said he was so happy because he had his chance to use his creative genius in building things that helped people. He revolutionized heart pacemakers at that time, and then he went on to help us and help millions of Americans live better through his technology that helped diabetics, people who were deaf, even people who were amputees. Al Mann made a major difference. He represented the very best in America. He was a hero. He passed away at 91 years of age. He will be missed, but he has left a wonderful legacy. Now we live better and freer because of people like Al Mann.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, today I submit to the House of Representatives a Joint Resolution disapproving the sale of weapon systems to Pakistan. The Government of Pakistan has been using weapons from the United States to repress its own citizens and especially the people of Baluchistan. The deciding factor of whether to support this Joint Resolution is, for me, the arrogant and hostile actions taken by the Government of Pakistan against the man who helped bring Osama Bin Laden to justice. Osama Bin Laden was a mass murderer of 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001. Anyone who helped bring him to justice is an American hero. The Government of Pakistan arrested Dr. Shakil Afridi and continues to hold him in a cage. That arrest was a declaration of hostility toward the United States. Our government should not provide military equipment to Pakistan, let alone F-16s, as long as they are holding Dr. Afridi. His continued incarceration is an action which underscores that the Government of Pakistan considers itself our enemy, not our friend.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, today Congressman Collin Peterson and I introduced legislation that will expand employee ownership throughout America. This legislation is a bold proposal that, if enacted, will put management and labor on the same side, thus fostering cooperation rather than conflict. President Jefferson recognized ownership of private property as the keystone of a free society. Only a few decades after Jefferson's presidency, Abraham Lincoln pushed for, and Congress delivered, the Homestead Act of 1862, which has proven to be one of the most important manifestations of Jefferson's vision for broad-based ownership of property. More recently, President Reagan supported employee stock ownership, labeling it ``the next logical step . . . a path that benefits a free people.'' The belief that all citizens should be able to acquire property and wealth made our country the envy of the world. This legislation is consistent with the vision of our founding fathers because it empowers employees--not just a select few at the top of the management structure--to share in the development, success, and profits of a company. Our proposal would enhance accountability, productivity, and prosperity by making sure all employees--both inside and outside of management--keep an eye toward the long-term interests of their company. Our proposal would provide certain tax benefits to employees who are recipients of a broad distribution of voting company stock, so long as that stock is held for a specified amount of time. Specifically, when an employer makes an across-the-board distribution of voting stock, the value of the grant would not be counted as an employee's taxable income, provided that the same number of shares is granted to every employee and the stock is held for five years. If held for ten years, employee stockholders can begin to sell or exchange a portion of their stock for other similarly-priced stock free of capital gains. Thus, after 20 years, the stock would be totally tax free. The provisions of this bill are carefully crafted to allow for the empowerment of employees and the diversification of an employee's portfolio. The phase-in of the capital-gains-free treatment is meant to ensure that the company stock will not simply be dumped all at once. One of the most important aspects of my bill is that it would, unlike traditional ESOPs, allow employees to directly own the stock granted to them, including all voting rights granted to any other normal stockholder. This would empower employees to exercise oversight of their managers in an enlightened and responsible manner, and create a spirit of corporate unity rather than the adversarial labor-versus- management environment that is all too pervasive in corporate America today. It also gives the American working people the chance to benefit not just from physical and mental labor, but to profit from capital-- from corporate income, as well as their own time and energy. I ask my colleagues to join me in support of this legislation and let us lead the way forward to prosperity for millions of Americans in the years to come.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the underlying rule and in support of H.R. 1675, a bill that aims to lessen many of the regulatory burdens that employers currently experience. Of particular interest to me and of interest to working men and women throughout America is title I of the bill entitled Encouraging Employee Ownership Act of 2015. This title would make it easier for private employers to grant their employees with greater ownership stake in their own companies without having to disclose certain sensitive information. The consideration of the bill is but the latest in a long history of actions taken by the Federal Government to promote an ownership society. President Jefferson recognized ownership of private property as the keystone of a free society. President Lincoln pushed for, and Congress delivered, the Homestead Act of 1862 which has proven to be one of the most important manifestations of Jefferson's vision of a broad-based ownership property society. More recently, President Reagan supported employee stock ownership, labeled it ``the next logical step, a path that benefits a free people.'' In the near future, I will reintroduce legislation that incentivizes employee ownership even further than we currently have it by treating as tax-free any broad-based distribution of employer stock that is held by the employees for a certain period of time. Yes, it would be ESOPs on steroids. We would dramatically increase the amount of employee ownership in our country and all the benefits that go with that. I would ask my colleagues to consider my bill. It will be proposed probably next week. My proposal is simple and easy to understand. No team of lawyers or accountants would be needed to be hired in order for an employer to participate in this expansion of employee ownership of his or her company. As such, it has great potential to give a shot in the arm to many small upstart companies that do not have significant sums of cash to offer employees or to attract the very people who actually have the skills necessary for their new company to succeed, but instead have an idea that if an employee is willing to work hard and make a company grow, prosper, and succeed that that company's benefits would be shared with the employee. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to consider joining me in support of the working people of this country by giving them the opportunity to achieve the American Dream and make employees partners instead of adversaries to management. One of the things in this bill that we are talking about today is taking a step forward in employee ownership. I certainly support that. The legislation I will propose takes another step. I would like to congratulate my friends who have been involved with this bill today. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to support the rule and the underlying bill.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to call my colleagues' attention and the attention of the public to the legislation I have proposed. The bill number is H.R. 4017. This act is the Save Christians from Genocide Act. I would ask my colleagues to consider cosponsoring this legislation. A number have already done so. I would ask the public to make sure that they know that their Congressperson knows exactly what is going on with H.R. 4017 and that they would hope that their Member of Congress would also be a cosponsor of the bill. By calling your Congressman's office, I am sure the Members of Congress will be very happy to hear your opinion. Many Members of this body need to know that their constituents support the Save Christians from Genocide Act, H.R. 4017. What this legislation does is set a priority for immigration and refugee status for those Christians who are now under attack, targeted for genocide in Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Pakistan. Genocide is taking place. Mass murder is happening. Christians have been targeted for slaughter and elimination by radical Islamic terrorists in the Middle East. We have to acknowledge that or millions--not just hundreds of thousands--of Christian brethren will die. Another group, the Yazidis, have also been similarly targeted, and my bill covers those people as well, although they are not Christians. The greatest threat to our country today is radical Islamic terrorism. So it should not be a difficult decision on the part of our President or the people or the public or this body to decide that we are going to do what we can to save Christians who have been targeted for slaughter by those very same forces who are now the greatest threat to our own security. However, what we have is not just a foot dragging, but a negative response from this administration. Our President has been unable to defeat or even to turn back the onslaught of radical Islamic terrorism. Yes. I have to admit this President was dealt a pretty bad hand. Things were not good when he took over in the Middle East. I think the mistake the United States made--it is clear that, when we sent our troops into Iraq, we did indeed break a stability that has caused us problems. It was a bad situation at that time when our President became President. Well, this President has turned a bad situation into a catastrophe. We have almost lost--and with our President's policies, we would have lost--Egypt to radical Islamic terrorism. Our President supported the Muslim Brotherhood leader of Egypt, a man named Mohamed Morsi, who was at that time President of Egypt during the early years of this administration. President Obama went all the way to Egypt in order to give a speech, standing beside President Morsi to the Muslim people of that region. What it was was basically an acceptance of the Muslim Brotherhood, which people now know is the philosophical godfather to all of the radical Islamic terrorist movements that now slaughter Christians and threaten the peace and stability of the world. Our President encouraged them in the beginning, feeling, if we did, again, treat someone nicely, they will respect you. What happened? Moderate regimes and, yes, regimes in the Middle East that were not democratic, were less than free, have been replaced with radical Islamists who mean to destroy the Middle East and turn it into a caliphate, radical Islamic terrorists who conduct terrorist raids into Western countries, radical Islamic terrorists who murder people in Turkey, in Russia, in San Bernardino. This is what has happened since this President took over and reached out with the hand of friendship and understanding to those who would become the radical Islamic terrorists of that region and, I might say, a threat to the entire world, including the people of every city in the United States. Had Egypt been left the way that the President wanted it to be, had we instead not supported the effort by the Egyptian people to rid themselves of Morsi and his government at the time when Morsi was trying to destroy their supreme court and their court system, at a time when Morsi was trying to establish a caliphate that is totally rejected by the Egyptian people, had our President been able to support General el-Sisi, perhaps the revolution could have happened peacefully. But, instead, Morsi was removed by General el-Sisi when he tried to betray the Egyptian people. Today General el-Sisi now has been elected by a landslide in Egypt. And General el-Sisi--now President el-Sisi--has done everything he can to try to find a way to reconcile between Islam and the other faiths, of not only the region but the world. President el-Sisi is the only leader, the only President of Egypt ever to go to a Coptic Christian church and help them celebrate Christmas. This was an incredible act on his part. He also went to the Muslim clerics and personally pleaded with the leadership of the Muslim faith in Egypt and in that part of the world, pleaded for a rejection of the radicalism and pleaded for a rejection of those people who would commit acts of violence on others and try to repress the freedom of religion of other people. President el-Sisi begged and pleaded for the Egyptian clerics, the Muslim clerics to come out strongly for respect of other people's faiths, respect of freedom of religion and tolerance toward others. When have we ever had a leader like that? Our President resented him because he overthrew a man who was in the Muslim Brotherhood who was trying to lay the foundation for a caliphate of terrorists who would have tried to attack the entire Western world. So what did General el-Sisi get for being this courageous person? What did General el-Sisi get from us, from our President because he now basically saved Egypt, but not only Egypt--because had Egypt become a radical terrorist state--the entire Middle East would have fallen. It would have been totally out of control. And General el-Sisi stepped up. What did he get from our President because of that? He got a feeling that our President really didn't like him. He got the feeling, not only the feeling, but he got rejection on those requests that he made for support from the United States, legitimate requests of how he could have weapons systems that would help him defeat the same radical Islamic terrorists that are murdering our own people and conducting murderous terrorist acts throughout the world. At that time, I might add, they were also conducting mass murders of Christians and of other people of other faiths in the Middle East, burning people to death, taking people out and sawing their heads off and doing this in a very public way, capturing young women, raping them en masse because they are Christians or some other faith than Islam. Yes, we needed to confront that at that time. But, instead, when General el-Sisi needed help, what did he get? I went to Egypt several years ago, and General el-Sisi pleaded: We have F-16s that we need to combat this threat. We need spare parts for our tanks. He pleaded with us: We need these things or we can't police the desert areas on both sides of Egypt where these radicals are beginning to try to establish some kind of an uprising and some kind of a conflict that is hard to get at. So they need helicopters, they need the spare parts for their tanks, and they need their F-16, airplanes as well. So I came back and I put together, along with several of my other colleagues, the Egyptian Caucus. The Egyptian Caucus is nothing more than a group of probably 20 of us who are trying to do our best to see that the radical Islamists do not take over Egypt and that General el- Sisi is successful in reaching out to the moderate Muslims and trying to create goodwill between people of faith who are people of goodwill and should be working together and rejecting the radical terrorists that now threaten the whole world and threaten the region. So we are trying to help el-Sisi. He is the point man. I came back a year later, and I talked to General el-Sisi. Well, did you get your spare parts? Well, did you get the F-16s yet? No. Did you get spare parts for the tanks you mentioned? No. Well, did you get those Apache helicopters? He said: Yeah, we got the Apache helicopters, but the defensive systems needed to send Apache helicopters into a combat zone were not included, so we can't use them. Now, what I just described to you is not something that just happened by bureaucratic happenstance or somebody forgot to send the paperwork out. This was the policy of the Obama administration. I have worked in the White House and seen how these games are played. They are looking at el-Sisi as an enemy, and they are trying to play games with him, making sure his helicopters didn't have the equipment needed to do their job, and that the F-16s didn't come and the spare parts didn't come. Finally--after 2 years, I might add--I went back a year later, and finally they had arrived, after we had raised hell in this body and the American people had their say that people like el-Sisi and other moderate people, like Abdullah in Jordan and people like that who are moderate in their religious beliefs. They are moderate people, and they believe in giving people of other faiths respect and tolerance. These are the type of leaders we should be siding with. I might add that General el-Sisi has worked with Israel. He has gone out of his way to make sure there isn't war between Israel and Egypt. What could be better than a man who is reaching out, asking for tolerance among all faiths, a man who reaches out to a country where they have been at war before and is trying to say: We will never be at war again, we will work together to build a better world. That is what he is doing. But that is what our President is trying to undermine. Our President basically has been unable to use the words ``radical Islamic terrorism.'' We keep saying that. That is why right after the Benghazi fiasco, that is why immediately when they started talking about: Oh, these weren't really terrorists who murdered our Ambassador, it was all caused by a movie that had been shown, and it just enraged these Muslim people and a demonstration got out of hand, and that is when they went in and murdered our Ambassador. Do you remember that? I remember hearing it four or five times. The very first time that I heard it, I said: That is a lie. Everybody who knew what was going on, that is what struck them, our government was lying to us in order to protect what? And, I might add, our Secretary of State then, Hillary Clinton, when she was confronted with that lie--and finally by the time we confronted her with it, it was clearly a lie--she said: Well, what difference does it make whether it was a radical terrorist group or whether it was some people who were demonstrating against a movie? What difference does it make? I will tell you what difference it makes. The difference it makes is that you are sending a message to radicals who murdered our Ambassador that they have gotten away with it, and we are going to wink and nod and let them get away with it. We are not going to challenge them. We are not going after the terrorist murderers. We are not even giving them credit or making them accountable for it. We are going to blame it on somebody else so the American people won't get mad and insist that we do something against it. So, yeah, that was what the administration was trying to tell us. This is the same administration, as I say, that can't get itself to help General el-Sisi, who has saved us from the horror story of having Egypt turned into a radical Islamic terrorist camp. And now we can't even tell the American people that their Ambassador has been murdered by radical Islamic terrorists. In fact, those words, ``radical Islamic terrorists'' have not been uttered. I would challenge the President tonight, not including this in a list of long things, but just get up and say one sentence specifically about ``I reject radical Islamic terrorism, and the radical Islamic terrorists of the world have to know that.'' We haven't heard that from him. We haven't heard that from him at all. Give me the quote. By the way, I think he did use the phrase in passing saying Christian terrorists and radical Islamic terrorists and blah-blah. No, that is not it. Let's have a condemnation of radical Islamic terrorism. But, no, we haven't been able to do that. That same President, then, at a time when the situation is spiraling out of control because these terrorists are flooding the Middle East and various countries--whether it is Syria, Iraq, and those parts--this area is becoming so unstable that if we do not do something to save the people there who are under attack in two ways, number one, those people who are there, like the Kurds, like the Sunnis in the Anbar Province who are anti-ISIL, like General el-Sisi and Abdullah of Jordan, we have to make sure we help them. That is the first thing we have to do. But the second thing we have to do is make sure we do what is morally right when it comes to those people who have been targeted to be slaughtered. We are talking about a genocide that is existing. We know that the Christian communities have been targeted for extinction by a mass slaughter being conducted by radical Islamic terrorists. Those people who have been targeted deserve to come to the United States. Number one, our government needs to help those who are fighting ISIL. Number two, our government needs to make sure that those people who are targeted for genocide can find safe haven here instead of bringing healthy, young Muslim men from that area and letting them come into the United States, letting them flood into Europe rather than those people, those Christians who are being targeted. I went up to Munich and took a look at one of these refugee camps. We all have seen this, video after video of young, healthy Muslim men by the hundreds of thousands pouring in to Western Europe. We don't know how many of them are terrorists. But here is the point. If those young men don't like radical Islam and this terrorism, they should be back in their home country fighting it. If they do like radical Islam, they certainly shouldn't be permitted into the Western democracies. The same is true in the United States. We should not be permitting--and our President has been, I would say, not doing the job that we have been expecting him to do to protect our interests when it comes to the people who are flooding into our country, whether they are radical Islamic terrorists or whether they are just people coming in from the Middle East who we haven't checked out yet enough. And, of course, we have hundreds of thousands, and, yes, millions of people who have come here illegally--we don't even know who they are--who have swarmed across the border. This President talks about amnesty, talks about giving children who have come here illegally free education and health care, the DREAM Act, et cetera. What do you think this does? This encourages hundreds of thousands or millions of people to come here. The trouble is, when there is a flood, we don't know if in that group of hundreds of thousands and millions of people in the last few years, how many of them have been terrorists. Do you really believe that our enemies, that these people who slaughter innocent people, these people who are rampaging through the Middle East, raping thousands of young girls because they are Christians, you think that they would care about lying to come here and they would refrain from coming here because they would have to cross the border and break the law? We don't know how many of them are here, but they are here. It is the President of the United States who is at fault. We should have had a system of coming into our country a long time ago that handled refugees and handled people with legitimate immigration status, and everyone that would come here from the Middle East should have been vetted that way. I was briefed, along with my colleagues, on the vetting process. Top level people in this government admit that they have not been able to really verify the things that the people claim is their background. I would suggest and I would insist, there is legislation here as well that is pending that I am a cosponsor of that insists on a lie detector test for everybody that comes here, at least from that region. We could ask them five questions, like: Have you ever advocated violence for your religion? Do you believe in sharia law or the Constitution? That is all we have to do, just take an extra 5 minutes. We haven't even done that. We have millions of people here. Maybe 10,000 of them have animosity toward us or are here to try to shoot people like they did in San Bernardino, right in our own area. Innocent people were just slaughtered. I went to Paris. These kids were in a dance club and these guys came in and just massacred them. They kept shooting at them for minutes at a time. They loaded their guns again. This is what we are up against. It is evil. And this administration, this President can't use the words ``radical Islamic terrorists.'' Well, I ask my colleagues today to please join me in cosponsoring my legislation, H.R. 4017. It does this. At the very least, we can try to save those Christians in Yazidi cities that have been targeted for genocide. And how we do it is this. You have a certain number of those on refugee status, a certain number on immigration status coming from these five countries that I mentioned in the Middle East. These are the areas where the Christians are the most under attack. What my bill simply says is that Christians and these Yazidis who have also been targeted for genocide are going to get priority. They deserve to be on the top of the list. They deserve priority long before these healthy, young Muslim men who want to come here. And then we will let them in. We will, of course, vet them, make sure we know who they are, and they will get the priority. Now, the President made a statement--he didn't use the number of my bill, but he talked about it--and said: Well, we don't believe in that. That is discriminating because of religion. It is a religious test. We don't do religious tests in America. Are you kidding? We cannot prioritize what we do to make sure that what we are doing is helping the person who is most in danger? Is a lifeguard in some way showing disrespect in not helping those other people in the water by going out and saving someone who is drowning? This isn't discrimination. This is a prioritization of the people who are under attack and will be slaughtered. This intellectualism will result in what, if we accept the President and this administration saying, ``Oh, you can't prioritize for Christians''? By the way, he doesn't seem to have any trouble prioritizing for anybody else, but it is very clear that he won't let us prioritize for Christians who are targeted for genocide. No, I reject that totally. It is not racism. We had another incident like this in our history. In 1939, there was at least one boatload of Jews that made it to the United States. They prayed and pleaded with us to let them in. At that moment, Nazi Germany was in the process of picking up the Jews and putting them in concentration camps. These people got away with their families and they came here. And what did we do? We turned them back. We turned them back for the same reason. Oh, if we let you in, it is a special favor to you. These people were targeted for genocide, and we let them go back. Many of them died in these Nazi concentration camps. Let's not do that again. I would ask my colleagues to join me in cosponsoring my bill, H.R. 4017, the Save Christians from Genocide Act. Join me and we will send a message to the world that, yes, we are still the same good-hearted people that we have always claimed to be but have not always met that standard. Today we deserve to stand up and be the champion of the type of values that I am talking about. That is what our Founding Fathers had in mind. America was the refuge of the world. America was the shining city on the hill that inspired the whole world. But we weren't cowards. We weren't someone who undermined some person in his country who is fighting an evil force like General el-Sisi. No, our Founding Fathers made sure that those people who are struggling for a better world had our support. By the way, let me just note that I worked on speeches for Ronald Reagan. I was Reagan's speechwriter for 7 years in the White House. I was actually researching one of his speeches, and I came across the fact that a man named Kossuth, from Hungary, came to the United States and was pleading for help for the Hungarian people who were then in an uprising against the Austro-Hungarian Empire and were fighting for their freedom. He was there in the Midwest giving speeches and trying to get the American people to support him. I read a couple of his speeches. Then I noted that in Springfield, Illinois, right after his speech, the town liked him. He was a freedom fighter. But they passed a resolution at their meeting that said the United States is a noninterventionist power and we should not get involved overseas, something like that. Kossuth was still in town. He read the newspaper account of it. And when the word got out that he was so in despair that the people of the United States would say such a thing and side with the oppressor through their inaction, when the people heard about this, they called a second meeting. In the second meeting, they passed a resolution saying that while we don't want to send our military forces all over the world--which is still a good idea--we will support those people who are struggling for freedom throughout the world. We will open up our arsenals. We will give them what they need to defeat the forces of tyranny that oppress them. That second resolution, then, was passed and was signed by the people of Springfield, Illinois; and in the last phases, I might add, one of the people who signed that document was one A. Lincoln. I will tell you this about that speech of Mr. Kossuth. That speech ended with: And we do this and we make this commitment so that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this Earth. Lincoln was there in that room when that speech was given, and he later united the people of the United States with that thought from that man, that freedom fighter overseas. There are people who are struggling for their freedom. There are people who are struggling for their existence. We do not have to send American military boys to fight the fight that they should be fighting for themselves. But at the very least, we must give them the support they need to defeat the evil forces in the world that would slaughter them, slaughter their families, and come after us next. That is what the war with radical Islam terrorism is all about. They are at war with us, and they mean to kill our families and they mean to push Western civilization out of the history books of the world in the future. They want it to be a radical Islamic world, and they will kill all of us to get it. Now, that is not all of the Muslims. I agree with our President that we should not say all Muslims are this way. After all, General el-Sisi is a Muslim; Abdullah of Jordan is a Muslim. The people that we need on our side to defeat radical Islam are the moderate Muslims of the world. I think at least 80 percent of the Muslims of the world are moderate and would want to be our friends. We need now to recognize that that segment of Islam is now a threat to our safety, our well-being. This is an historic moment. We can either meet this challenge or we will lose. But the most important thing, no matter what we do, if our President doesn't want to send troops there, fine, but at least let us ensure that history will record that we saved those Christians who were targeted for the genocide of this evil force that was expanding in that part of the world. Shame on us if we do not. I ask my colleagues to join me in support of H.R. 4017. I ask the people of the United States to let their Congressmen know that they expect them to support honorable and noble and moral stands like this. It is not discrimination. It is prioritizing towards those people who have been targeted for genocide. Nothing could be better for our soul than to help those who have been so targeted. I ask that my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, one of the great honors this body can bestow upon a foreign leader is an invitation to address a joint meeting of Congress. As co-chairman of the Friends of Egypt Caucus, Tulsi Gabbard and I have delivered a letter today to the Speaker of the House, Paul D. Ryan, urging him to invite Egyptian President el-Sisi to give such an address. General el-Sisi came to power amidst chaos and restored order to his country. He was then democratically elected as President of Egypt. He is a pivotal figure in the Middle East during this time of great danger. He is a champion of the Egyptian people and a friend to the people of the United States. Most importantly, he is a voice for respect and reconciliation between people of all faiths. Thus, he is a force for peace and stability in a region plagued with terrorism and religious persecution. He and the people of Egypt have earned our moral and strategic support. I will include in the Record the official request that the Friends of Egypt Caucus have made to Speaker Ryan to invite President el-Sisi to be invited to address a joint meeting of Congress. Congress of the United States, Washington, DC, January 8, 2016. Hon. Paul D. Ryan, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Mr. Speaker: As co-chairs of the Friends for Egypt Caucus we request that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah elSisi be invited to address a Joint Meeting of Congress during the second session of the 114th Congress. Egypt under President el-Sisi's leadership is playing a pivotal role in North Africa and the Middle East. Egypt is a bulwark against a barbaric and fanatic Islamic state and its ilk. El Sisi's courage and commitment to peace and stability is a dramatic and positive force that deserves to be recognized. His call for tolerance and respect of people of all religions has been a dramatic step towards reconciliation and stability in the Middle East. His visits to Christian gatherings have been historic and worthy of praise by all people of good will. The United States and Egypt have had a long and mutually beneficial relationship. We need to bolster relations between our people now in this time of crisis and radical terrorist attacks in the region and throughout the world. Having President el Sisi address the United States Congress would be a message to the world of our solidarity with moderate Muslim leaders who share our goal of a more peaceful and stable world. His appearance before a Joint Meeting of Congress will underscore our gratitude for his leadership in this time of turmoil. We appreciate your consideration of this request. Sincerely, Dana Rohrabacher, Member of Congress. Tulsi Gabbard, Member of Congress.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, at the height of the cold war, Ethiopia fell to the Communists in 1974. Shortly thereafter, an Ethiopian family--the Berhane family--ended up in Huntington Beach, California, and for a long time they have been proud Americans and good citizens. After the Communist regime in Ethiopia collapsed in 1991, thanks to Ronald Reagan's global efforts to undue the Communist establishment, the government in Ethiopia, which was replaced in 1991, has refused to return the confiscated property the Communists took from the Berhane family. I rise in support of my constituents. I ask my fellow colleagues to join me in opposing any aid or activities helping the Ethiopian Government until they have returned the property of American citizens confiscated by the Communists. It is our job to stand up for American citizens, whether they come from Ethiopia or are born in Brooklyn. They are now proud Americans. We need to stick together and refuse to give support to regimes like Ethiopia that refuse to turn confiscated property.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join the people of Thailand in extending my warmest wishes to King Bhumibol Adulyadej on the occasion of his 88th birthday on December 5, 2015. During his nearly 70 year reign so far, King Bhumibol Adulyadej has remained a steadfast leader through his commitment to democracy, economic development, and Thai prosperity. I am grateful for his continued commitment to a strong and long- lasting relationship between the United States and the Kingdom of Thailand. Having had the distinct honor of meeting with King Bhumibol, I have admired his efforts to bring peace, prosperity, and stability for the Thai people. It is my pleasure to join our Thai friends in recognizing this special day and wishing King Bhumibol Adulyadej a long life of good health and happy 88th birthday.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in remembrance of Siddhi Savetsila, a great steward for the Thai people and a long-time friend of the United States. I am deeply saddened to hear about his passing last week at the age of 96. I extend my condolences to his family and the Thai people. Thailand has lost an honorable public servant. His leadership as a Royal Thai Air Force officer, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Deputy Prime Minister, and member of King Bhumibol's Privy Council was a testament to his commitment for the betterment of the Thai people. Moreover, the honor of his appointment to the Privy Council by the king highlighted the respect he has earned. On behalf of my wife Rhonda and me, and my colleagues who have had the privilege of knowing Councilor Savetsila, I extend my most sincere condolences to Councilor Siddhi's family and the people of Thailand. May you find comfort during this difficult time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce a resolution calling for reestablishing full diplomatic relations between the United States and the nation of Belarus with the focus of exchanging ambassadors between our countries. This resolution recognizes that the Government of Belarus has reached out to the West and has improved political conditions in their own country. For example, the Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe monitored the recent Presidential election in Belarus and noted the progress made in establishing a more democratic and open system. Another example of Belarus' positive action is that it played a significant role in bringing about a cease-fire in Ukraine. It did this by hosting immense diplomatic talks between all parties to the conflict. This was a major contribution toward restoring peace to that region. Furthermore, on October 22 of this year, Belarus released all of its very few political prisoners. In response, the European Union and the United States have temporarily lifted economic sanctions. Hopefully, that temporary suspension of economic sanctions will become permanent as Belarus continues to improve its standing. Exchanging ambassadors, as my resolution calls for, is a major step forward in the right direction. I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this resolution, which I will submit to the Congress right now.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 4038. This legislation will give us a pause to ensure that a benevolent safe haven in America is not used by terrorists to murder a large number of Americans. After the slaughter in Paris, it behooves us to take a close look to see to it that Americans will not be put in jeopardy by an irresponsible refugee policy or by flaws in our own system that already exist. We can be proud that our country has a tradition of assisting suffering refugees, but we will not be consistent with that by putting Americans in jeopardy. What could we do that might make the system better, improve the system, protect more Americans? If we pause for a moment, we might come up with some ideas. For example, let me be the first on the floor of the House to advocate that all people coming here, especially from the Middle East, be given polygraph tests. Let's give them a lie detector test to find out who they are. This shouldn't be an option for our embassies. It should be a requirement for our embassies to give such polygraph tests. Finally, we have heard several references to the Jews being sent back in 1938 to Nazi Germany. Well, the Jews had been targeted for genocide. It was wrong, it was horrible, and it was immoral for us to send them back and not recognize they had been targeted for genocide. Well, today the Christians in the Middle East are targeted for genocide. I hear over here: Oh, no, you are not going to let anybody in but Christians. No. Christians should get the priority the same way those Jews should have been given the priority in 1938 because, today, Christians are targeted for genocide in the Middle East. So we do not want to make the same mistake that sent the Jews back in 1938 to Hitler's death camps. Let's not make the same mistake and send Christians back because we won't give them priority because it might make some people upset with us. I call for, number one, my colleagues to join us and save the Christians from genocide; and number two, let's make our system better so Americans are not put in jeopardy by the benevolence of our own people.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to thank the chairman, Chairman Royce, and Ranking Member Engel for the great leadership they are providing at this moment in our history when we need that type of leadership the most. What we are witnessing is an attack on Western civilization. Radical Islamic terrorists are seeking to terrorize the West into a retreat. We fought and defeated an evil ideology that would have implanted an atheist dictatorship on the world not that long ago. We defeated this evil force, Communism, just as we defeated the Nazism and Japanese militarism before that. Today, the West again is confronted with an evil force that would threaten the world. Again, America must stand tall, and we must provide the leadership to save mankind from this evil threat. We will defeat radical Islamic terrorism. We are Americans. We will lead the way. We say to the people of France at this moment of suffering: Lafayette, we are here.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce legislation declaring the Christians and Yazidis of Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, Egypt, and Libya as targets of genocide. This bill will make them eligible for expedited refugee and visa processing for entry into the United States and give them priority over other applicants. The Save the Christians from Genocide Act is imperative at this time. The alarm bell is ringing. Ancient longstanding communities of Christians in the Middle East are being murdered individually and en masse, targeted for extinction. Under President Obama's leadership, our government has stood by impotently and watched this crime against humanity. I call on my colleagues and Members of this House to join me in cosponsoring this bill to save the Christians from genocide. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims are finding safety and economic handouts in Europe, but what about the true targets of genocide? Where is their safe haven? I ask my colleagues to join me to support the Save the Christians from Genocide Act to prioritize our immigration and refugee policy to save these Christians from facing brutal extinction. I rise now and will ask my colleagues to join me in cosponsoring this bill. I, at this moment, will submit it to Congress for consideration.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, we are in the process of deciding the defense authorization legislation that will determine how much we spend for our security. Yet, this bill, what we are talking about, includes tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of dollars for Pakistan. Pakistan is a country that represses its own people, the Baloch people. We give Pakistan military assistance to fight radical Islam, and they use that money to kill the people of Balochistan and their own Sindhis population. They use that money to destabilize Afghanistan. We all remember, of course, that this is the same country, Pakistan, that provided safe haven for Obama bin Laden for years, and now, when bin Laden was identified by Dr. Afridi, a courageous Pakistani, the Pakistan Government has him in a dungeon and we are doing nothing to help him. Why are we acting so stupidly? The Pakistanis are even giving their resources off to Communist China, the Port of Gwadar. Pakistan is not our friend when they act like this. We need to put our foot down and say: If you are going to act in a hostile way, Pakistan, you are not going to receive 1 red cent of American tax dollars.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I join my colleague from Orange County, California, and her deep concern for what is going on in the Middle East. Today I rise to speak out about the genocide that is taking place in the Middle East, that is being committed against Christians across the Middle East. They are being victimized and targeted for genocide. Violent radical Islamists have targeted Middle Eastern Christians for extinction, killing them, forcing them from their homes, and burning their churches. Hundreds of thousands of Christians have been forced to flee. The United States needs to do what we can to save these Christian victims, as we have saved other refugees throughout our history Mr. Speaker, all of us who believe in religious freedom and tolerance need to stand up and state clearly that we won't sit quietly as a genocide takes place on our watch. I ask my colleagues to join me in cosponsoring a resolution that I have here in my hand, that resolution declaring Middle Eastern Christians as targets of genocide and giving them priority for immigration and refugee status. We have been silent already for too long. It is time for this body to make sure that our words are heard and our deeds are taken. This is a good place to start, and I ask my colleagues to join me in this resolution which I will now submit to the United States House of Representatives.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 758. This is not an attack on the Federal judiciary. This is an attack on those unscrupulous lawyers and con artists who are bilking the American people out of hundreds of millions of dollars that they have had to earn and work hard in order to achieve. Our system is out of whack today, and today we find our honest citizens exposed to this type of threat. This would take care of that somewhat. First, I would like to thank my good friend from Texas, Lamar Smith, for his bill, which I believe is so important, as many small- and medium-sized businesses like we have in California are hit every year with frivolous and abusive lawsuits. I would also like to thank my friends Chairman Trent Franks from Arizona and especially Chairman Bob Goodlatte from Virginia for their leadership on this much-needed legislation. Frivolous lawsuits have cost honest Americans hundreds of millions of dollars by encouraging lawyers and scam artists to attack honest citizens, expecting that these honest citizens will opt for a settlement. This is what we call a legal shakedown, and it must be ended, which is what H.R. 758 intends to do. Let us note that giving in when someone reaches a settlement rather than trying to fight people who have more resources than they do, even though it is a frivolous lawsuit, encourages more people to have more lawsuits and encourages certain lawyers to go down a route where they are only aimed at trying to use their leverage against honest citizens to enrich themselves. I would note that this legislation will go a long way in these specific areas in terms that threaten all Americans, honest citizens, but it especially will take care of another concern that I have had, of course, and Chairman Goodlatte and Chairman Smith have had, and that is it takes care of patent trolls, who are scam artists who use claims of patent infringement in their frivolous lawsuits. Other proposed approaches to this problem deal with the problem in a way that would hurt legitimate inventors--this is where we have a little disagreement--but this solution will help these inventors and help all enterprisers and entrepreneurs. H.R. 758, combined with the actions of the FTC and other States on bad faith demand letters, gives small-business owners the tools they need to fight scam artists, including patent trolls who attempt to use our judicial process to extort America's job creators. I urge all of my colleagues to support H.R. 758. Support those people who are creating jobs throughout our society. Support those people who deserve the protection and are not trying to scam our system.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. What happens when the United States remains silent? What happens is repression and torture and the expansion of dictatorship, and, in the end, it makes the United States vulnerable. We have sat back and permitted the Chinese to take whatever course they want to suppress the people of Tibet for over three decades now. And has it made Tibet any better, the people any freer that we haven't put any demands on the Communist Party in Beijing? Has it made war less likely between the United States? Has there been any more, because we have given them such elbow room, that the Chinese dictators in Beijing have decided to move on and treat their people a little bit better? No. What has happened is there has been a growing repression and a growing chance of an altercation, an international altercation between China and its neighbors and, yes, the United States. It is time we stand up for the people of the world who are fighting, struggling for their freedom, knowing that is what will make us secure, and nowhere is that more clear than in Tibet. The people of Tibet are not Chinese people who are just reunited by the Communist Chinese with the motherland in China. It has been a distinct culture for centuries. And it wasn't until long after the Communist Chinese had taken over the rest of China that they invaded Tibet and subjugated its people. The Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader, but also a symbolic force for freedom of religion and humanitarianism in this world. We, as Americans, need to make sure that we are on the side of the Dalai Lama and the people of Tibet and in no way could our actions be interpreted, our silence be interpreted to be acquiescence to the repression that the people of Tibet have been experiencing these last three and four decades. I rise in support of H. Res. 337, and I thank my colleagues for the leadership that they have provided on this issue. Let's make sure America stands tall, stands strong, and stands with the people of Tibet and other people seeking their freedom.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to draw the attention of my colleagues and, yes, the American people to a legislative threat to the safety and well-being of the American people. We dodged a bullet in the last session of Congress about this very same issue that I will be discussing this evening. But today, again, we are in serious jeopardy of having an important right of the American people neutered from them, taken away from them by a power play here in Washington, D.C., being conducted by multinational corporations who have done everything they can to impact on this system while the American people do not know that there is an attempted move against their constitutional rights. Alerted by an aggressive yet an unsuccessful attempt to stop this rigorous and rancorous legislation in the House, the Senate was inundated last year about a similar bill that was supposed to be reform, and it was very similar to the one that I will be discussing today. There was so much opposition to that bill in the Senate that they simply refused to bring it up to the floor for consideration. The bill had already passed the House; and as I say, today, a similar bill now is making its way through the House and will be on the floor, and it is a great threat to the freedom, security, and well-being of the American people. What was that issue that was rammed through the House and once it was exposed that the Senate turned it back? Well, it has been an ongoing fight over 20 years, a classic case of crony capitalism that plagues our country. The big guys are trying to diminish the rights of the little guys in order to make more money--surprise, surprise. In this case, however, what we are talking about, they will not only make more money and take that from the little guys, but it will undermine America's prosperity and security in the long run. Mr. Speaker, I am certainly not opposed to the profit motive, but first and foremost, we need to ensure that powerful forces don't change the economic rules in order to enrich themselves. Unseen by most Americans who are not paying attention, but are paying attention to the important things in their lives: their children, their families, their jobs, their schools, and their churches; but they have been basically unaware that there is an attempt by mega-multinational corporations to undermine and, yes, destroy a constitutional right of our citizens--this in order to fill their pockets at the expense of the American people who don't really understand and even know this power play is going on. I am referring to an attack on the fundamental constitutional right of the American people to own what they have created. This is a right that has been written into the law at the Constitutional Convention--it is in our Constitution--that is under attack in a clandestine legal maneuver that would neuter America's inventors the protection that they were granted by the Constitution and permit powerful multinational corporations to steal what rightfully belongs to American inventors as granted to them as a right in the Constitution. Thus, Mr. Speaker, ordinary Americans, of course, are not as able to get their voices heard at times here in Congress and big corporations are. They have whole stables of lobbyists. Tonight, we need to mobilize the American people and have them make sure that they contact their Member of Congress. I will alert my fellow colleagues to make sure that they pay attention to what is happening in this piece of legislation that is now being rammed through Congress. It isn't just about, of course, dispossessing. This issue isn't just dispossessing individual inventors. It is a power grab that, if they are successful in undermining the constitutional rights of inventors to own for a given period of time what they have created, this change in our constitutional law will undermine the prosperity that we have enjoyed as Americans. The less than forthright attack on our patent system will undermine the economic well-being of our working people who depend on the United States to be technologically superior in order so that they can outcompete other peoples in other countries who come from poor societies who work just as hard, but don't have the technological advantage that we Americans have. Mr. Speaker, the American working people have always had the advantage that they can be more productive because our country permitted the technological development of the means of production that made our workers the most productive in the world. People are working hard all over the world, but it was the people of the United States who coupled that with freedom and coupled that with technology, and it uplifted everyone. Our Founding Fathers believed that technology, freedom, and, yes, the profit motive was the formula that would uplift humankind. They wrote into our Constitution a guarantee of the property rights of inventors and authors. It is the only place in the body of our Constitution where the word ``right'' is used, in article I, section 8, clause 8 of the Constitution of the United States: The Congress shall have power to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. This provision has served America well. It has led to a general prosperity and national security, and it has permitted average people in our country to live decent lives and to have good jobs; but instead, now, we are putting all of that at risk because some multinational corporations want to steal the technology that has been developed by our little guys, our small inventors. Our small and independent inventors are where the new ideas come from. These big meganational corporations have huge bureaucracies that are not the source of the great discoveries that we have had over the last two centuries. Americans work hard, as I say, but so do all the other people in the world. It is technology that makes the difference. Our technology has multiplied results of that hard work. Yes, that is the secret of our success, technology and freedom. That was put in place not just because we talk about it, but because we wrote that into our law, our basic fundamental law, the Constitution, and we have developed from that moment the strongest patent system in the world, and that is what has made all the difference. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were men who believed in technology, believed in liberty and freedom, and believed that we could uplift every human being, not just the elite in our society; thus they made sure that, in our Constitution, we had this provision that we set our course toward uplifting all people through technology, hard work, freedom, and the profit motive. Yet, today, multinational corporations run by Americans--and maybe by some multinational corporations that just have Americans working for them--want to diminish the patent protection our Founding Fathers put in place, want to diminish the patent protection that has served us so well, and over the years, we fought and turned back several efforts to weaken the patent system. The American people are unaware of this. They are unaware that, for the last 20 years, there has been this attempt--and they call it harmonizing our patent system with the rest of the world, when we have the strongest system, and they were trying to weaken it. How does the rest of the world respect the rights of the little guy? They don't. In fact, our patent system has said that if a man or a woman--an inventor--applies for a patent overseas that, after 18 months, anybody who applies for a patent over there has a different situation than our patent applicants. An inventor who applies for a patent in the United States knows that his patent application will be totally confidential until the moment he is issued the patent. When that patent is issued, then it can be published, but he then has the legal power to protect his patent rights for a given period of time. Traditionally, that has been 17 years of guaranteed protection. Well, that is not the way the rest of the world works. The rest of the world wants 18 months. Eighteen months after you apply for a patent, they publish it for the whole world to see, even if the patent has not been issued; thus any inventor in that case, everything that he or she has invented and all of the research is now made available to one's competitors. That destroys incentive, and in fact, that was the goal 20 years ago that Marcy Kaptur of Ohio and I were able to stop that provision from being put in the law. Mr. Speaker, because of what they were trying to do in harmonizing this law, was that every American today--think about it--every American inventor today, anybody who didn't get their patent in 18 months, it would be published to the world, and we would have a massive stealing of our technology and undercutting of our technological superiority. I might add the other thing they were trying to accomplish was they said--and overseas, they don't have this guarantee--and that is, if you apply for a patent, if it takes you 10 years to get your patent, you still have 17 years of guaranteed patent protection from the time it is issued. Overseas, they start the clock ticking at 20 years when you file. If you file for a patent and it takes you, let's say, 10 years to get your patent, in the United States, you would have 17 years of protection. Overseas, you end up with 10, sometimes 5 years of protection. Mr. Speaker, we have the strongest system in the world. It has worked for us. Now, we have people over the last 20 years who have tried everything they could to undermine it. We won those early fights against the two provisions I just described. Well, after a few years of this, of course, Marcy Kaptur, a strong coalition, and I managed to thwart those efforts, but today, we see another--another--effort to try to undermine and diminish the patent protection that we have been fighting to preserve for these last 20 years. Mr. Speaker, 3\1/2\ years ago, the House passed the America Invents Act which we warned fundamentally diminished the patent system, weakening its protection for ordinary citizens. The negative impact of that bill--and that is just 3\1/2\ years ago-- the negative impact is overwhelming. We changed, for example, the fundamental idea in that bill, one of the ideas that was changed, from our country's founding, it was always the first person to invent something and can prove they invented it, they will get the patent. Well, they have changed it to the first not to invent, they changed that to the first one to file for a patent is going to get the patent, so that smaller and independent inventors who can't afford to go over and over again and every new twist of their invention get a separate patent for, these small inventors have been facing major corporations that then immediately will go in and file for patent after patent after patent because they can afford it. Mr. Speaker, what they have done now is these corporations are flooding the Patent Office with applications. Of course, there are not more people working in the Patent Office; thus they are feeling a dramatic reduction in their ability to get the job done because they are being flooded with patent application because we have changed the basic rules of the game, and it has worked against technological development in our country. The onslaught, as I said, of course, is aimed at neutering the rights of the small inventor. We have barely turned back this latest attempt which, last year, we passed through the House and went to the Senate, but when the Senators, of course, got a message from their own colleges and universities as to what this would do and the damage that it would do to the universities, we were able to stop it and stop the effort in the Senate. Now, we have the American Innovation Act that has been presented here. This is yet the most recent onslaught. Over a 20-year battle of trying to protect the interests of the little guy, now we have the American Innovation Act. Let me just suggest that these big megacorporations over the years, who have stepped up with these proposals that would diminish the right of the small inventor, didn't say: We are trying to diminish the rights of the small inventor. That is not what was being sold to the Members of Congress. Instead, what was sold in the first onslaught 20 years ago was the submarine patent. That is why we have got to eliminate the ability for people to have a patent application that is secret until it is granted. That is why, at 20 years from filing, you don't have any more patent protection. Well, that was a derogatory term that was used to confuse the public in order to try to secure their goal of diminishing the right of all inventors, especially small inventors. They are insisting, of course, now that there is another threat and that we should pay attention to this other threat that has emerged that should motivate us to, again, diminish the rights of American inventors to protect their own patent because, supposedly, patent law is being abused by the so-called patent trolls. Now, what are patent trolls? Let me note that we all understand that there are frivolous lawsuits that take place throughout the American system. We have a system of justice. You can sue someone if that person has damaged you. Yet there are frivolous lawsuits. Lawyers will do that. And we know that that is something we have got to deal with. Judges need to be stronger in that case. But they exist. And yes, there are frivolous lawsuits that are presented by lawyers over patent right infringement. And sometimes these frivolous lawsuits--and many times--are just based on phony claims that they claim they have the right in the patent to this and they sue some businessman hoping he will just pay off. That is indeed a problem. It is not a major problem in the sense that it is a minor part of all of the litigation that goes on. Almost all the patent litigation that goes on, and most of the lawyers who are involved in this who are called patent trolls, are involved with legitimate claims against people who have infringed on the patent rights of especially small inventors. They are basically getting involved with the small inventor who does not have the resources to basically defend his patent against some large mega- multinational corporation. But, of course, big corporations would have us believe that what we are really talking about are frivolous lawsuits against them. No, there are many, many positive lawsuits that are totally justified. The vast majority of all lawsuits that come into play against these major corporations are based on a legitimate claim by someone who owns a legitimate patent who these big companies have just tried to rip off. And so what they are trying to do now is what? They are trying to make it more difficult for those little guys, even with any type of help from what they call a patent troll, to be able to actually bring their case of infringement against large corporations. What this basically is saying is we have got to change our justice system. We have got to change the rules of the game for every lawsuit because some people have been manipulating the law and having frivolous lawsuits. I don't think that that is what we want in America. We don't want to take away the right, the legitimate right, to go and defend yourself in court because some people use the courts in a frivolous or a manipulative manner. If the small inventor doesn't have the resources, for example, to enforce his or her own patent, and if they have been granted this patent legitimately by the Federal Government that they own this technology that they have developed, then there is nothing wrong with the fact that someone could come along and help them enforce it when a mega-multinational corporation is basically stealing their rights. I have consulted with a number of outside individual inventors and groups. They have affirmed to me that the legislation now being proposed in H.R. 9, the bill that was already passed through the Judiciary Committee, that that bill disadvantages the little guy against deep-pocketed corporations. And, in fact, every provision in the name of stopping patent trolls is a provision that would undermine the efforts of people who own legitimate patents and have legitimate patent claims, and undermine their ability to enforce those claims. So, basically, we are saying, and what is being said about patent trolls, yes, there are frivolous lawsuits and trolls sometimes are involved with frivolous lawsuits; but, by and large, that does not mean that the overwhelming number of lawsuits are not legitimate and they should have every right to call on someone to help them in their effort, basically, to defend their patent rights. Proponents of this legislation are covering the fact that what we really have here is a bill on H.R. 9 that makes it easier for big corporations to steal the technology secrets of the little guys. They would have us believe that all lawsuits are frivolous and the frivolous lawsuits are throughout our system. And instead of focusing just on frivolous lawsuits, they want us to have an overall diminishing of the rights to our inventors to enforce their patents and make it more difficult for them to do so. So tonight I draw the attention of the American people to H.R. 9. The Innovation Act, as I say, was introduced by Chairman Goodlatte and was passed through just a week ago or 2 weeks ago in the Judiciary Committee. In the last Congress, the House Judiciary Committee held hearings on this bill and witnesses at that hearing included Director Kappos and others. That was when we were discussing the America Invents Act. And people said: Let's go slow on this. Why are we trying to push this through in such a hurried manner? Well, they are trying to push it through in a hurried manner because, once people understand the implications of diminishing the right of people to protect their patents, they are going to find it has dramatic changes to the American way of life. For example, our universities now have discovered that if, indeed, H.R. 9 passes, that it will have a huge impact on the viability of their own scientific research and their own patents that they own by these various universities. It will diminish the value of patents across the board if we say that it is going to be more difficult to fight infringers and more costly for someone to fight someone who is infringing on that patent. So, according to sponsors of H.R. 9, this is, as I say, an attempt to control the trolls but, in fact, it is going to control the universities. It is going to control other companies other than these big companies that, as I say, are multinational companies. They are mainly in the electronics industry. Those people may want to take away some of these patent rights and let them sue, but that is not true in many others. You have got pharmaceuticals and biotech and many other industries that will be impacted in a horrible way because of H.R. 9. Now, what we need to do is make sure that the American people speak to their Member of Congress and talk to them about we do not want to make it more difficult for people who have developed new technologies to defend their technologies against infringers. We don't want to make it more difficult for people who are the innovators to innovate, to come up with the new ideas, to basically make sure that America is on the cutting edge and leading the way. And if we have harmonized with the rest of the world, as has been their goal for a long time--and, I might add, one of the things that we have to be very concerned about when we look at the trade bill that is being shoved through Congress is whether or not it will contain a provision that I helped defeat 20 years ago, which I just mentioned, that will make sure that our patent applications are published after 18 months. Now, I have been told that that is in the trade bill, and there have been all sorts of denials and some people are coming to me whispering, yes, it is in there. Well, we know we are operating under secrecy. We have been operating under secrecy here, so it is impossible for me to tell the public I know absolutely because I read it. Because had I read about this in that bill, I wouldn't be permitted to talk about it. But that is another one of those things that you have got to be very careful. What are you going to pass in this trade bill? It might be exactly what I am talking about, which is a diminishing of the patent rights of the little guy. And who is pushing that? Megacorporations, multinational corporations, the same guys who are pushing this trade bill on us and not letting us even know what is in the trade bill, which we are supposed to give up our right for an up-or-down vote not even knowing what is in that bill. So what we need to do is make sure we go through all of those items in this bill, H.R. 9. And people have to understand that every one of those provisions in this bill are aimed at making it more difficult for the small inventor to go up against a major corporation who is infringing on that inventor's creation. So how come we have got bills now that we can be bringing to the floor and that are aimed at helping the big guy steal from the little guy? This is not what America is all about. This isn't what our Founding Fathers had in mind. The results of H.R. 9 will be increased patent infringement, meaning the little guys will have more and more of what they are developing stolen from them and, thus, there will be less incentive for the geniuses in our society to use that genius to create the new technologies that keep us safe--safe. It is our technological edge that keeps us safe, that makes us prosperous. We can't be prosperous unless we are the innovators, unless we are the guys with the new ideas rather than the people who are just copying other people. Our working people will not have a decent standard of living. This will reduce the legal remedies for those who have been infringed upon. It will reduce investment into small businesses that are aimed at technological development. Why would anybody want to invest with a small inventor or a small company that is developing technology if you are going to make it more and more difficult for that investor to get that money back if someone is stealing that technology? And, of course, it will do irreparable damage to our research universities, our inventors, our entrepreneurs, our economy, and our Nation. Every part of the so-called reform is detrimental to the patent owners, and especially individual innovators will be damaged. Every provision bolsters the patent thieves, the infringers, at the expense of the legal owners. All this done, covered by the idea, well, we have got to get at the trolls. I would like to share with you and with my colleagues just the story of exactly how that word ``troll'' came up. There is a head of a major corporation who changed his mind on this bill, who years ago was part of the clique pushing this sort of diminishing of patent rights. He told me that he sat in a room with other corporate executives to come up with the strategy: How are we going to get the American people to support legislation that actually hurts the little guy and helps the big guy steal from the little guy? How are we going to do that? Well, we need a straw man. We need something to get attention that is going to make it look like that is really the goal is to take care of that evil, sinister person over there. They went around the circle trying to come up with a name that was so sinister that would help them accomplish their mission. This is how cynical these people are who are offering this argument about trolls. And finally, the guy who was talking to me said: I suggested ``patent pirate,'' but by the time it got around, ``patent troll'' sounded so much more sinister, they decided they would accept that. Well, this is absolutely absurd. The fact is that if we are going to beat this onslaught of the big guys against the little guys, we little guys have got to stick together. We have got to make sure that we notify our Members of Congress and talk to other Members. We have got to pay attention because this is just another example of when we are not paying attention, we lose our freedom. We lose our freedom. Our rights are diminished. You can count on the fact, with the diminished rights of our inventors, wages in this country will go down. Our competitiveness will go down. We will not be secure. We will not be prosperous. This is an important issue, yet they are trying to get this by with as little debate and as little attention as possible. Now, how important is this? Well, it has always been important to our country. If we didn't have this patent protection that I am talking about, our country would be totally different. Let me suggest this. If you look back and see what our Founding Fathers had in mind, they wanted the little guys to be protected and have legal rights. This is what our country was all about. And the innovation and the rights of ownership, this was our innovation. This is what Benjamin Franklin talked about and put into our Constitution, and that has worked so well for us. If we cut off the little guys and if we make sure that they are not going to profit from their hard work and their struggle, we will not have the new technologies. We will not be the leader in technology in the world, and we will fall behind, and every one of us will be hurt by this. One only needs to see how important technology was to our society. One only needs to take a look here in the Halls of Congress. There is a statue here in the Capitol of Philo Farnsworth. Now, who the heck knows who Philo Farnsworth was? They have done a special on him on education TV, I understand, on the History Channel. Philo Farnsworth was someone who really was important to our country, and there is a statue to Philo Farnsworth right here in the Capitol. He was a farmer in Utah, a man who was educated in engineering, but who had very little resources. In fact, he was a farmer. He set out between farming to try to find out and discover a technological secret that had perplexed some of the most powerful and financial interests in our country. RCA at that time--this was back at the turn of the century in 1910 and 1920--was under a man named David Sarnoff. He was America's premier executive at the premier technology company of the United States, a company that had vast resources and was deeply involved with trying to find out how to invent a picture tube. They knew what the radio tube was, but they didn't know how to make images on it. How could they make that radio tube show images? This is what they really were looking for, and they had invested so much in it. It was a huge challenge--an historic challenge--that RCA dumped millions of dollars of research into. However, they didn't discover it. The one who discovered the secret of the picture tube--and it has had so much impact on the American way of life since everything we have-- cell phones, computers, you name it--is based on a picture tube--was Philo Farnsworth. This independent inventor, this farmer from Utah, discovered the secret. He wrote RCA, naively believing that this big corporation would honor his discovery and permit him to at least have the benefit of being recognized as the person who made this discovery. Then RCA, when they got the letter from Philo Farnsworth, sent a representative to the laboratory there in Utah, which was in his barn, I believe. When he described to these top engineers from RCA what he had found, the scientists from RCA went away, saying: Oh, yes. We will be back in touch with you. Of course, they never did get back in touch once they learned of his secret, the thing that Philo knew was his. He ends up reading an announcement in a magazine of how RCA had made this major breakthrough, this discovery, except Philo knew. He was the one who had discovered it, and he was the one who had transmitted that information to RCA. This became one of the great jury and great legal battles of the 20th century. Philo Farnsworth, an individual person--not a wealthy person, the little guy--was up against the most powerful American corporation of the day, RCA, which had one of the strongest and toughest leaders. This corporate leader, David Sarnoff, had a whole stable full of tough, well-paid lawyers, all of whom vowed not to give one penny to Philo Farnsworth and not to recognize him because RCA deserved to get the credit and the money. Philo Farnsworth was able to mobilize support behind his claim. People invested in Philo Farnsworth's claim, and it went all the way to the Supreme Court. He was able to have people invest in his lawsuit. Slowly but surely, they made their way through the court system--as I say, all the way to the Supreme Court. God bless the United States of America. A poor, single man--an individual farmer--came up against one of the most powerful corporations in America at the time because he had invented something. The Supreme Court decided with Philo Farnsworth over this brutally powerful corporation in America. RCA was beaten by an individual farmer, but he had people who had invested in him. Had the same laws they are trying to promote now in H.R. 9 been in place, Philo Farnsworth and the other little guys who have invented things like this throughout our country's history would have been betrayed. There would have been nothing he could have done because H.R. 9 would have prevented him from having had people invest in his lawsuit. That is what H.R. 9 does. It says, if a big corporation has stolen from you and if somebody has invested in helping you with your invention, they then become liable if you have to sue to get your money. If something happens where the big guys win--even if you are right and they win because they have better lawyers--anybody who invests in you has to pay part of the legal fees of these big corporations, which are millions of dollars of legal fees. No one is going to want to invest in a little guy like that. The Philo Farnsworths would be left out in the cold. The nature of our system would have been totally different than what it is today if we were to have had the provisions of H.R. 9, which they are trying to foist on us now. Let me give you another example. Black Americans happen to be some of the most inventive people in the United States. A lot of people don't know that. If you look back in the history of the Patent Office, as I have been looking, what you will find is, while Black Americans were being discriminated against in general throughout our whole system, the Patent Office was the one place that they had equal rights to come up with their ideas and to say, ``This is what I have discovered.'' Because of that, we have many great Black inventors. Maybe that is the reason former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, John Conyers, is taking my side in this debate on H.R. 9. He is opposed to that. We have a Black inventor, for example, who was the guy who invented the machine that permitted us to mass produce shoes. Before that time, Americans had one pair of shoes. We started to mass produce them because this Black American, struggling on his own because he was discriminated against like all Black Americans were in that day, managed to get his patent accepted, and he changed not only himself, but the whole country had shoes after that. Isn't that wonderful? That is what happens when you have freedom for the little guy and not just for the big guys. They come up with the new ideas. They can uplift everybody and make sure everybody's feet feel better. We are on the verge of losing that now. We are on the verge of losing that. When I go out in the hallway of Congress here, I see a statue to Philo Farnsworth. That is where it is. It is the statue of this Utah farmer who invented the picture tube and who had to take on the biggest company and the biggest corporate powers in the world, and he won. I will tell you that there is his statue there and that there is no statue to David Sarnoff, the corporate leader who tried to beat him down and steal his technology. I do not care how rich and powerful he was; we respect the little guy in this country. We want the little guys to be able to have rights that are protected by our Constitution. That is why our Founding Fathers put it in the Constitution. Many of these megacorporations, especially electronic corporations, don't care one bit about the well-being of the American people because they are multinational corporations now. We want to make sure our people maintain their rights, that we keep being the leaders of innovation, and that we are able to outcompete the world and not just take all of our jobs overseas and give them to cheap labor. We want to make sure that Americans benefit because this is what America is all about. It is where the little guy has the same rights legally, and they are protected. That is what this fight is all about when it comes to H.R. 9. People need to talk to their congressmen, and the congressmen need to talk to each other about what this is really all about. It is easy to yawn when someone says: ``I am going to discuss patent rights.'' ``Oh, yeah, patent law. How boring.'' It is not boring. It is going to make all the difference as to whether our country stays safe because we have to have the technological edge to be safe in the world we are getting into now. Our people are not going to have decent housing or a decent standard of living because the wealth that is produced isn't produced just by hard work, it is produced by technological efficiency, and we have to be on the cutting edge, or we will be outcompeted by people overseas. This is going to determine what America is going to be like. I would ask my colleagues to join me in opposing H.R. 9. Let's talk to the universities. Let's talk to the other industries that are being hurt dramatically by this. Just talk to the inventors. Let the inventors know. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 376 I was delayed due to airline late departure. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.'' Stated against:

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this effort to prevent this very destructive tax from having the harmful impact that we know it will have. This medical device tax is perhaps the most odious of any tax that has ever been loaded upon the shoulders of the American people in the history of our Republic. Our first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Marshall, once pointed out: ``The power to tax is the power to destroy.'' Well, who is being destroyed and who is being hurt by this medical device tax? It is the American people who are suffering maladies and health challenges, and we are putting them as the people who are going to be basically paying the bill or doing without their medical devices. I would like to give a personal example of this. I know it is very painful for me to do so, but I think I need to share this with my colleagues. Two and a half years ago, I was notified that my daughter, who was at that time 9 years old, had leukemia. It was a horror story for my family, a horror story, just like it is for families across America. We came out of that. We went through it. It was a tough, tough road for a year. Last week, she had her last cancer treatment and, last week, she was declared cancer free.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Ninety percent of the kids who get leukemia today are cured from leukemia after a period of time. They actually will live through this. Only 40 years ago, 90 percent of the kids who got leukemia died. We have had different advances in medicine that have actually achieved this goal. But in my daughter's case, I could see very easily a medical device was put under her skin, a portal, so that she did not have to take the chemotherapy into her arms, which resulted in younger kids decades ago with their veins collapsing because of the chemotherapy being shot into their arm. The people who devised that medical device saved my daughter's life, and now we want to make them the most heavily taxed people in our country. That is ridiculous. We want to encourage people to build these types of devices that will save our children and help those people who are suffering. This medical device tax is odious, it is wrong, and it was wrongheaded from the very beginning. In the name of saving future children from things that we might be able to cure with a proper medical device, we need to make sure we eliminate this tax and keep faith with future generations, as well as those people who are suffering today. I ask my colleagues to join me in getting rid of this tax on medical devices.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of my amendment to H.R. 2685, which would prevent any funds in this bill from being provided to Pakistan. Over the last 15 years, the United States has provided Pakistan with over $25 billion, the vast majority of which has gone to its military and security services. With this money, which we are giving them at a time when we are borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars, Pakistan is using it to subsidize terrorists, some of whom are targeting Americans. Just as bad, our largess enables Pakistan to repress its own citizens. Our military aid is being used to murder and brutalize the Baloch and Sindhi peoples, who are citizens of Pakistan. The Baloch people are being slaughtered as part of a campaign by Pakistan, in partnership with China, to steal the natural resources of the Baloch people. With our money, the Pakistanis are, in fact, murdering and repressing their own people, and they are aggressing upon their neighbors in Afghanistan and in India. They also have, as we have heard, a much hyped cooperation against terrorism. I would suggest to my colleagues that this is a charade. This is the same Pakistan establishment that gave shelter to Osama bin Laden for years--Osama bin Laden, the mass murderer of Americans on 9/ 11. The establishment of Pakistan gave him shelter and gave him a place to hide all of those years, making a fool out of us as we provided them money. In case there is any doubt that they knew about Osama bin Laden's hiding next-door, they rubbed our noses in their arrogance and hostility when they arrested Dr. Afridi, the Pakistani doctor who helped us find Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice. As we talk tonight, Dr. Afridi still painfully languishes in a Pakistani dungeon. While Dr. Afridi is imprisoned, Pakistan should not get 1 cent of aid from our country. This is an insult to us, and it is an insult to the victims of 9/11 that we are even considering giving money to the country which hid Osama bin Laden from us, much less giving them borrowed money, perhaps, from China. Now we see we borrow money from China and give it to Pakistan, which then gives it to China. In exchange, of course, China is getting the natural resources of Pakistan, of the Baloch people, and they are, in fact, getting a pork facility in Qatar. Our aid to Pakistan does not make us safer or the world more peaceful. The Pakistanis and other enemies of ours see it as a weakness on our part. This payoff we hope, of course, will bring more peace and will pay the Pakistanis off. No. It emboldens the Pakistani establishment in their criminal violence against their own people and in their destabilizing violence against Afghanistan and India. Let us note: if we want to have a peaceful situation in Afghanistan someday, we cannot keep subsidizing the ISI and the military in Pakistan, which is primarily responsible for that mayhem that is going on in Afghanistan. The people of Afghanistan know that, and our own specialists know that. We are just hoping if we pay people off, things will settle down. It hasn't accomplished that mission. We have emboldened our enemies by being stupid by giving money to a country like Pakistan, which obviously hates our guts, when they hide the man who murdered thousands of people on 9/11 and then suggest they didn't know it, and then arrest the person who helped us find that murderer. I would ask my colleagues to join me in prohibiting any more of our money--especially borrowed money, as we are borrowing it today--from going to these people in Pakistan, the leadership who are committing crimes against us. I yield back the balance of my time.