Chip Roy

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Colorado (Mr. Buck) for this important time talking about the horrors that have been inflicted upon people by Vladimir Putin. Specifically, we know how much damage he has been causing to the people of Ukraine. More than 1.7 million--in fact, I saw a graphic just before I came to the floor--2 million Ukrainians have been displaced, have been fleeing Ukraine for other countries nearby. Over 2,000 civilians have been killed, according to reports. But, obviously, we don't know the extent of the damage and the carnage. Thirty-eight children have been killed that we know of, but there are probably more, and 70 wounded that we know of. Madam Speaker, $10 billion in damages to Ukrainian infrastructure, probably far more than that; 200 schools, 34 hospitals, and 1,500 residential homes destroyed--these are the basic numbers just coming in. We know they are going to be far greater. On Saturday, a family with two children, a teenage son and a daughter who appeared to be 8 years old, and several other civilians were killed by a Russian military strike at an evacuation crossing point in a Kyiv suburb as they were trying to flee Ukraine. Ukraine has required men to stay to defend their country, forcing families to make the unthinkable decision. One Ukraine woman said: ``It is very hard to have your husband stay home. You have to choose: Save the kids or stay with him.'' I have heard from friends and read dozens of tragic stories in the past few days through friends of mine in Austin, Texas, who have gone to Ukraine to help people. I have been in touch, through them, with an orphanage in Kyiv with somewhere upward of 50 children, up to 14 infants, up near the suburbs of north Kyiv. They are struggling. They are lacking food. They are lacking the materials to survive. They are trying to figure out how to get to a place where they can get to help. We have actors on the ground trying to help them, but they can't get to them because of what Putin is doing and not really heeding the calls for helping people be able to get out of harm's way. Right now, these children are completely helpless. A nurse from Lutsk in western Ukraine who fled to Poland said the decision on whether to stay or go was not instantaneous. When the Russian army first invaded eastern Ukraine, she and her husband decided to wait: ``We were hoping that the situation wouldn't develop into a full-scale invasion. But as hours passed, it became obvious that things were only getting worse.'' The next morning, she and her 2-year-old son, Tymi, got in a car and headed for Poland, where they waited 10 hours at the border. She said saying good-bye to their husband and father, who stayed in Ukraine to build barricades, was heartbreaking. She and her son were hosted by a Polish family, Robert and Hana, an English language university instructor and a human resources supervisor, who live with their two children. They made it clear that their hospitality didn't have an end date. Alex in Kyiv is helping his friends evacuate. Sergei in Rivne is setting up shelters for his community and providing food and supplies. Peter in Zhytomyr packed his car yesterday and is currently taking his neighbors to Poland.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the ability to address a few of my colleagues here on the floor of the House. Mr. Speaker, I would note, though, here we are again, we are sitting here at the precipice of the government funding running out. And I hear all my colleagues talking about how great it is: We are going to come up with some great, big omnibus bill. And I am hearing that from my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Nobody in America wants us to plus-up more spending irresponsibly. Nobody in America wants us to say, Oh, let's pat ourselves on the back now. Because some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are saying, Well, you know what? It is time now to ban Russian oil. It is not good enough to ban Russian oil if we are not going to open up American oil and gas. All we are going to do is provide more money to Venezuela, more money to Saudi, more money to Iran. But yet, that is being touted as a victory. And some of my colleagues on this side of the aisle are saying, Okay, good. Oh, this is great. But my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, they don't want any oil. They don't mind your gas being $4, $7, $10 a gallon. Don't get played. But my colleagues on this side of the aisle are about to get played, and everybody back home is saying: What are you going to do to stop vaccine mandates? Nothing. What are you going to do to secure the border? And my colleagues on this side of the aisle are going to say, Oh, don't worry. We are going to give you more money for ICE, more money for Border Patrol. But you know what that does? It makes it worse, because you are funding the processing of people at our border, because that is all Border Patrol and ICE are doing. But my colleagues on this side of the aisle are going to say, Oh, look at us. We did something for border security. It ain't true. It is going to make it worse. And anybody who has been to the border, anybody who talks to Border Patrol, anybody who talks to ICE, knows that is true. We are not going to get a vaccine mandate, we are not going to get a secure border, and we are not going to get more oil and gas being produced in America. And then we are going to say, Great, let's have a vote and send more lethal aid to Ukraine. And we are not even going to have a debate down here about what we are doing in funding Ukraine, with Putin rolling over Ukraine? All we are doing is backroom dealmaking, waiting for somebody to drop a bill on the floor of the House, and then come down and vote ``yes'' or ``no.'' That is a disgusting display by both sides of this body. We ought to have a full and open debate on the floor of the House about what we are doing in sending arms to Ukraine; how much we are spending; what it means for our involvement; what it means for NATO; what it means for stopping Putin. And stop spending money we don't have. Stop funding tyranny. Stop forcing Americans to get a jab or lose their job. Stop leaving the border wide open. And stop selling the American people a bill of goods. And I am looking directly at my party when I say that.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to follow my friend from Virginia (Mr. Cline). Mr. Speaker, last night when we heard the President of the United States address this Nation and this body in this Chamber as well as our colleagues on the other side of the Capitol in the Senate, you would think there was some sort of magic moment that the virus has suddenly left the Earth and now all of a sudden we are free here on the floor of the House of Representatives to be without masks. It was just coincidentally timed--just coincidentally timed--when the State of the Union is upon us. A number of States have lifted their mandates--all suddenly coincidentally timed--around the State of the Union. And I was interested in watching the Speaker of the House suddenly saying: Well, it is a new moment in COVID. I listened to my colleagues from Texas just a moment ago on the other side of the aisle talking about how we have had this great victory through the action of the genius of our Federal Government to free us from the perils of this virus. Mr. Speaker, tell that to the children who have been sitting in the corners of classrooms wearing masks. Tell that to the members of our military and the members of our Border Patrol who are the so-called heroes. I say so-called because my Democratic colleagues a year ago were calling healthcare workers heroes, and now they are forcing them still to lose their job if they don't take a jab because of the wisdom of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that they know best. They know best. The President stood there arrogantly in that posture preaching to the United States public and to this body yesterday and talked about how we are going to beat this virus and oh, by the way, suddenly magically we need to fund the police. Go back and look at every statement that has been made by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle over the last 2 years talking about defunding the police. We know who is defunding the police across the country, and it sure as heck isn't Republicans. It is Democrats across this country. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle know it. The President knows it, and the President is reading polls. The President knows that the approach to the virus has been devastating to the American people. Lockdowns, mask mandates, and vaccine mandates are being rejected by the American people. The polls show it, so the magic moment has then arrived. The President of the United States knows full well when he says the border should be secured that it is a lie. I just want to be very clear: when the President said last night that the border should be secure, it is a lie. He is lying to the American people. I was in Del Rio just last week. One thousand people a day are coming across that river, and nobody gives a whit. And they don't give a whit about the 26 migrants who have died in the Rio Grande since October 1, since the cameras have left the Haitians sitting on the Rio Grande. They don't care that there are 26 dead migrants. They don't care about the 119 bodies in Brooks County where the sheriff has to bring a body trailer to Brooks County. They don't care about the fences getting cut and the livestock getting out. The ranchers I met with last week in south Texas are in tears about their property. No. No. The President gets up, gives a speech, and declares the border secure and all is well. Then he gets up and talks about the solidarity of the Ukrainian people, yet he refuses to unleash American oil and gas and refuses to unleash natural gas, liquified natural gas, that would change the world. He refuses to stop importing 600,000 barrels of Russian oil every single day because we won't unleash American oil and gas. Well, Mr. Speaker, we are going to keep telling the truth about the border. We are going to keep telling the truth about vaccine mandates. We are going to keep telling the truth about the need for American energy. We are not going to bow down to the climate hysterics and the false lies about border security that are endangering the American people.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I agree with the gentleman's remarks about China, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I heard my colleague on the other side of the aisle and I certainly appreciate his friendship and service. I would take some disagreement with my celebrating the extent to which the President of the United States has announced beforehand the race and sex of the next Supreme Court Justice. And I would remind my friend, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, in general, the extent to which the current President rejected, filibustered, blocked Janice Rogers Brown--notably both Black and female--he did so because she wasn't the right kind of Black and female. You see, she was a conservative. She was not a leftist, a liberal. So the current President blocked, when he was in the United States Senate, filibustered, fought, broke the rules and the traditions of the Senate to do it. By the way, Janice Rogers Brown, a Black female, qualified but conservative, judge. So he refused to let her advance. Why? Now, the President of the United States is going out and lauding, praising his predetermination that the next Justice must be Black or female, undermining the nominee before even making the nomination. I would note also that the President blocked, attacked, voted against Miguel Estrada. And did so, we know, for one reason. He was a Hispanic conservative. Now, how do we know that? We have a memo. Yes, indeed, a memo in black and white, spelled out among Democrat Senators and staffers back in 2003. I happen to know this because I was a lawyer on the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. But my, how this town loves to sweep aside little details, like the current Democrat President of the United States working in coordination with Democrat Members of the United States Senate when he was a Senator to stop, to block, to filibuster Miguel Estrada because he is a Hispanic conservative. And we can't have that, can we? Because it breaks the narrative. It destroys the narrative. Republicans are anti-Hispanic. Republicans are anti-Black. We can't have a Black conservative woman advance under a Republican President, George W. Bush. We can't have Hispanic Miguel Estrada advance under a Republican, George W. Bush. But, no, no, will you hear Jen Psaki talking about that at the podium at the White House? Or will you hear more lies, lies about the whipping of migrants at our border? Will you hear her talk about the fact that no report has been generated by the Department of Justice or the Department of Homeland Security or anybody else about the alleged whipping of migrants, which did not occur, which we know didn't occur. By fact, we know it didn't occur. But yet, the President of the United States and his own White House Secretary sat at the podium and accused them, ``them'' being our Border Patrol agents, standing on the front lines, being ignored, underfunded, chastised, refused to say any apology since that day. They refused to look at the Border Patrol agents and say, You know, we are sorry. We got that wrong. No report forthcoming. Anybody sensing a theme that my Democrat friends and colleagues in the White House on the other side of the aisle love to make race an issue? But they are going to sweep aside the killing of Miguel Estrada's nomination because he is a Hispanic male, Hispanic conservative; sweep aside the blocking of Janice Rogers Brown; sweep aside running to cry racism and whipping of the Rio Grande when it is the policies of the Secretary of Homeland Security that is specifically and intentionally endangering the American people; causing our young children across this country to die from poisonings and overdoses; causing bullets to be fired upon our law enforcement officers in Texas; ranchers to get overrun, livestock to get out, cartels to get empowered. And the Secretary of Homeland Security literally refuses to enforce any of the laws to stop that from happening. But, oh, no, he can't bring himself, and Jen Psaki can't bring herself, and the President can't bring himself to look in the eyes of the Border Patrol and say they apologize for saying that they were whipping human beings. That is the state of the Democrat Party's commitment to race. It is all a fraud. It is all a fiction. It is all a front. It is all about continuing to foment racial division for partisan political gain. It has nothing to do about judging people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin because if it were, Janice Rogers Brown would not have been blocked and Miguel Estrada would not have been blocked. The President of the United States wouldn't be standing up at a lectern today predetermining the race and the sex of the next Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Mr. Speaker, I came down here today to talk about our law enforcement community. A year and a half ago, I sat here on the floor of the House--maybe in the same spot--with the number 43 similarly positioned on a board. That 43 represented the number of law enforcement police officers killed in the line of duty at that time. Well, saying to the Speaker and to my colleagues--who, of course, notably, as I like to observe, are not here. This is our idea of debate, you know, in the United States House of Representatives. On fly-out day, everybody is getting home. Nobody is here. We never have actual debate. We never offer amendments. We never have a back and forth. We come back and have showboats and give speeches on the Capitol steps about how Republicans are better than Democrats or Democrats are better than Republicans. We never sit down here and actually debate. If we did, then we could have honest debate about policies that will protect this country and protect law enforcement officers from the constant barrage and attack levied against them across this country. I am sick and tired of seeing nonstop attacks on our law enforcement community for being the ones on the front lines every day dealing with crime and figuring out how to protect our communities yet getting tossed under the bus, cast aside as being the ones that we should be targeting. Eighty-four dead law enforcement officers across this country last year; 346 officers were shot in the line of duty; 103 ambush-style attacks on law enforcement officers, up 115 percent from the year before; 4 police officers were beaten to death; 3 were stabbed to death. Sergeant Joshua Bartlett, Lubbock County Sheriff's Office in Texas, shot and killed during a barricade at a home on July 15 of last year. Earlier in the morning, the subject had been stopped by a Texas Highway Patrol trooper for reckless driving and attempted to bait the officer into a confrontation. He returned home after the encounter and began walking around the neighborhood with a firearm at 1:15. When officers of the Levelland Police Department arrived, the man opened fire and barricaded himself inside. The regional SWAT team was requested as the man randomly fired shots from the home. Sergeant Bartlett was a United States Army veteran. He is survived by his wife, four sons, parents, and a brother. Police Officer Mitchell Aaron Penton, Dallas, Texas, was struck and killed by a vehicle operated by an intoxicated driver on February 13, 2021. At the time of his death, he had a stepson, and his wife was expecting. Police Officer Brandon M. Stalker, Toledo Police Department, Ohio, was shot and killed during a barricade involving an arson suspect. Officer Stalker was on a perimeter position and was struck in the head and fatally wounded. He is survived by his two children and fiance. Police Officer Jimmy Inn was shot and killed while responding to a domestic violence call on May 11, 2021. He had served with the Stockton Police Department for 6 years. He is survived by his wife, 7-month-old son, and two stepchildren. Sergeant James Smith, Iowa State Patrol, Iowa, was shot and killed while attempting to arrest a subject who had assaulted and disarmed another law enforcement officer during a traffic stop on April 2, 2021. He is survived by his wife, two children, mother, brother, and sister. Lieutenant Michael Boutte was shot and killed after responding to a call involving a subject attempting suicide. He was a United States Air Force veteran and served with the Hancock County Sheriff's office for 8 years. He is survived by his wife and two children. Police Officer Chris Oberheim, Champaign Police Department, Illinois, was shot and killed at about 3:20 a.m. while responding to a domestic disturbance call. He had been on the job 20 years. He was 44 with a wife and four children. Trooper Chad Michael Walker, Texas Department of Public Safety, March 28, 2021, succumbed to gunshot wounds sustained 5 days earlier when he was ambushed while stopping to assist what he believed was a disabled vehicle near Mexia, Texas. He served with the Texas Highway Patrol for 6 years. He had 18 years in law enforcement. He is survived by his wife, 15-year-old son, twin 7-year-older daughters, and a 2-month-old daughter. Here are some of the quotes from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue about police officers. Jen Psaki, White House press secretary, while criticizing FOX News coverage of soft-on-crime policies, stated, while laughing, ``What does that even mean?'' and referred to the coverage as an alternative universe. President Biden famously expressed support for the defund the police movement in 2020 and then had to walk that back after backlash. Vice President Kamala Harris applauded Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti for defunding the police. Representative Ocasio-Cortez said, ``Defunding police means defunding police,'' arguing the cuts to the New York Police Department weren't enough. Representative Ayanna Pressley said she supports efforts to defund police departments. Representative Rashida Tlaib called for ``no more'' police. Tlaib's campaign has paid over $150,000 to defund the police activist Rasha Mubarak. Representative Ilhan Omar said: Not only do we need to defund, we need to dismantle police departments. Representative Cori Bush said that she would ``make sure'' she has private security for her protection while simultaneously promising to defund the police. This weekend, Representative Bush doubled down in her support for defunding our police departments on Twitter. President Biden's Assistant Attorney General, Kristen Clarke, supported efforts to defund the police. President Biden's Associate Attorney General, Vanita Gupta, said officials must heed calls to ``decrease police budgets and the scope, role, and responsibility of police in our lives.'' President Biden's Secretary of Labor, Marty Walsh, proposed a budget to divert funding from law enforcement. We see now what is happening in Minnesota, where you have one of the individuals who was a part of the mob violence riots in the summer of 2020, who burned down a store, a commercial property, and did so with video footage indicating the glee of doing so--this being an individual with a very long criminal record. The man who owned or worked at the establishment, I think, had five kids and died as a result of the fire set by this individual in Minnesota. The United States Attorney's Office in Minnesota filed a sentencing brief that read exactly like the defense lawyer's brief, citing all the events of the summer, completely offsetting the dead father of five with a store burned to the ground during mob violence rule in the summer of 2020. This United States Department of Justice, this United States Attorney's Office in Minnesota, downward departed from the sentencing guidelines of 20 years down to 10 years, purposefully citing the political interest of the summer of 2020, the political cause of the summer of 2020, in recommending that downward departure despite the criminal record of the perpetrator of the crime, despite the destroyed and burned down building, despite the death of the owner of the store and the fact that he had multiple children. All of that was cast aside in the political judgment, not even of the judge, but of the United States Attorney's Office. Lo and behold, that acting United States attorney a few months later is now working at Main Justice. I would sure like to know why. I would sure like to know who was involved. I would sure like to know who made the calls. I would sure like to know from the current acting United States attorney if that acting United States attorney agrees with the sentencing recommendations of the so-called prosecutors in the Minnesota U.S. Attorney's Office who turned a blind eye to their duty to keep the streets safe, to prosecute them under their oath to the Constitution and defense of the laws of the United States to protect the people of Minnesota, and chose to choose a political path, and chose to follow politics rather than do their job. We want to know. We are going to ask questions in the House Judiciary Committee. I can assure you that if the good people of the United States were to give the majority to the Republicans in January 2023, there are going to be some questions asked and some answers delivered by this administration for their failure to enforce the laws of the United States while American people die, lose property, are harmed, are killed. At the border of Texas or in Minnesota--it doesn't matter--the laws of the United States are supposed to be enforced, and we should be standing up for the rule of law. We are going to demand answers to questions. I want answers from the United States Attorney General for targeting parents for daring to stand up to school boards. I want answers from the Secretary of Homeland Security for his clearly impeachable conduct for recklessly ignoring the laws of the United States, endangering my people and constituents in Texas, endangering the people of this country while empowering cartels and allowing fentanyl to pour into our schools. I want answers. We are going to demand answers. We are going to want answers and demand answers from Anthony Fauci and all the bureaucrats at NIH and CDC for shutting down our schools, shutting down our economy, lying about what we were seeing in terms of gain of function research in China. We are going to want answers, and we are going to get those answers. While this body fiddles, we will demand answers if the American people will give us the ability to get them. I mentioned our situation at our border. We are in the midst of a fentanyl, opioid, and drug crisis in this country, the likes we have not seen before. Those of us who grew up in the eighties know what we saw with the cocaine epidemic. I was a 14-year-old when Len Bias notoriously died from an overdose within a week of being drafted by the Boston Celtics after his career at the University of Maryland. We know the horrors of the cocaine epidemic that led, by the way, to the crime bills of the 1990s supported by this President, supported by Black Americans across this country and lobbied for by Black pastors and Black leaders across this country because of the violence and the epidemic of drugs across our cities and across our towns in the 1980s and 1990s. We responded, and as a result, the crime rate went down. And now what are we seeing? Massive spikes in crime, massive spikes in drug use, carjackings in our Nation's Capital where it is easier to get carjacked than to order a hamburger while we are under lockdowns, and vaccine mandates and vaccine passports in the Nation's Capital. Side note: Yet another reason why we should never let the District of Columbia be a State. It is not supposed to have the political interest of a State. It is supposed to be our National Capital where people can come and go, where they can petition their government, and where they can come and do the business of the people. So we will address that issue as well in the next Congress. I am proud to represent Texas, but Texas is under assault. Texas is under assault every day by cartel-driven violence fueled by China and driven by the profit motive of pouring fentanyl into our communities, destroying our children's lives, causing addiction, causing death, and causing destruction. And this administration not only does nothing, it is worse than that, this administration purposefully--purposefully-- ignores the laws of the United States to the detriment and the endangerment of the American people. There is no other way to put it when our laws require operational control of the border and we do not have it. There is no other way to put it when our ranches are overrun, fences are cut, and livestock gets out. There is no other way to put it when there are stash houses in Houston, in San Antonio, in Laredo, in Del Rio, in McAllen, in Arizona, and in California. In every big city across this country there are stash houses where human beings are being moved for profit. There is no other way to put it when the current administration is releasing people into the United States. They are knowingly, in violation of law, releasing people into the United States under the guise of so-called asylum. They know it is not asylum, and they know it is not credible fear. They know they are releasing single, adult males. They are lying about it because we see them talking about the lies on tape. And the American people are the ones holding the bag. The American people are the ones who have their kids dying because they take a Xanax that is laced with fentanyl. And this administration doesn't care. This administration ignores the rule of law, ignores the Secure Fence Act, lets fencing rust in the field, and fails to require the fence to continue to be constructed which would help support Border Patrol and the communities in south Texas. But let me send a very clear warning signal to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle: My colleagues take for granted the people of south Texas, as a political matter. And I can tell you, the people of south Texas are tired of it. The people of south Texas are tired of being on the front lines of a cartel-driven drug-and-human-trafficking war with bullets flying, people dying, morgues filled, and rape trees being used. And this body, the people's House, not only sits silent, they facilitate it, and they facilitate the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security who does nothing but fuel the crisis even more. Mr. Speaker, 100,306 Americans are dead as a result of drug overdoses or poisonings. Mr. Speaker, how many minutes are remaining?

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I do want to finish by saying, it is our duty to secure the border of the United States. It is the duty of the Secretary to secure the border of the United States. There are 100,000 dead Americans as a result of wide-open borders, and it is impeachable conduct by the Secretary of Homeland Security. We are going to address that issue if the American people will give us the ability to be in the majority. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hill).

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague from Arizona (Mr. Schweikert), as he always does, making such a strong case for the need for this body to do the hard work that we are supposed to do and actually using not just taxpayer money but borrowed money remotely effectively. He has made the case for a long time about how mandatory spending, the spending that we had promised to people through Medicare, Social Security, and other programs, is blowing the lid off of our budget and the need for us to get right and that there are ways that we can solve the problem. There are ways that we can take dramatic steps to lower the costs of healthcare, which the gentleman from Arizona talks about regularly, about the need for us to do to drive down the costs of healthcare so that we can actually contain this beast that is consuming our expenditures and causing us to have to borrow so much money, weaken ourselves against China, and so forth. So, I thank the gentleman from Arizona for his consistency on this matter. Would that our body or even our own Conference be so consistent in having an interest in having that conversation. I would note again for my constituents, for those people across the country, all of you that are watching this on C-Span, that I am speaking to an empty Chamber. This is what we do. This is debate on the floor of the United States House of Representatives. We come down, and we had five votes earlier today--I think four. One got wiped off. We have four votes on two amendments. Amendments, right? They are amendments that are offered in the Rules Committee, where the powers that be decide what we get to debate on the floor of the House. I am a Member of the United States Congress with an election certificate for the some 700,000-odd people in central Texas that I represent, yet I have never had the opportunity to offer an amendment on the floor of the House of Representatives. This is not the people's House. This is a House of a handful of hand- selected individuals on both sides of the aisle who sit in a back room and decide what we get to debate about and what we get to discuss and what we get to vote on. My colleagues on both sides of the aisle know this, yet this is what we continue to do. I gave a speech a little while back in December about the United States House of free stuff because that is what we are. Neither party has ever met a bill that they are not willing to vote for because it sounds good, right? It doesn't matter how much it costs. It doesn't matter what it means in terms of debt, as my colleague from Arizona was just talking about in terms of debt. It just doesn't matter because we are the United States House of free stuff. You got a bill that sounds good? You got a problem that you want to solve? Come to Congress. We will write you a bill. We will print you some money because there is no consequence to printing the money. In what world is that a way to govern? The world is supposedly looking at us being this august institution, the people's House, and here I sit alone. My colleagues have headed off to the airport to fly home. We will come back on Monday. We will punch through a no doubt really important list of predetermined items decided by some Rules Committee people dropped on the floor and say: Take it or leave it. Vote yes or no. Boy, that is inspirational, looking at how a bill becomes a law. Schoolhouse Rock laughs at us because there is no debate. There is no amendment. Both sides just come down here and vote to spend more money we don't have in order to buy your votes. Well, our message to the American people is, are you for sale? Are the American people for sale by listening to every Member of this body go home and tell you all of the stuff they are bringing back home for you with borrowed money? Well, we have a decision to make about how we are going to spend the people's money in the next 14 days. Do we have a debate this week? Do we have a debate this week about the continuing resolution? No. That is the bill that is continuing to fund government that expires on February 18. Did my Democratic colleagues, did the Speaker, come down and offer an appropriations package or bill and say: Hey, let's have a debate and a discussion about how we should spend the people's money and borrow more money in order to carry out the functions and our obligations. No, we haven't had that debate. We voted on a garbage piece of legislation today that will do nothing to check China while we are sending our athletes over to bow down to the Chinese and allow them to take center stage on the world's stage. China. Never mind all the slave camps. Never mind what they are doing around the world. Never mind the espionage. Never mind the cyberattacks. Never mind what they are doing in working with Iran, working with our enemies. Ignore all of that. Ignore the slave labor. Ignore the persecution. Ignore what they did to doctors trying to tell the truth about what happened at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Ignore the virus born in China. Ignore all of that. Just send our athletes over there, and then pass a bill on the floor of this House that has literally no chance of checking China, holding them to account, ensuring that they no longer continue to carry out the atrocities that they are carrying out and continue to attack the United States of America on a daily basis. No, no, no, you just pass a bill, and you go give some speeches about: Oh, we are focusing on China. Oh, but rally around the TV tonight and watch our athletes hanging out over in China. And then have the Speaker of the House say: Oh, don't speak out. Don't say anything. Something bad might happen to you. Where is the spine or backbone of the woman from Texas sending the message to the coach of the Miracle on Ice hockey team that said beat those commie bastards? We don't have any of that here. In 14 days, the funding of government expires, and what will we do? We will come down here on the floor with some forced, last-minute CR, and then each side will go out and give their talking points about how the other side's priorities are wrong, and you are going to borrow more money as we have now surpassed $30 trillion. More important than that, when Members of this body or the United States Senate vote for a continuing resolution--I want every American to listen to me. When they vote for a continuing resolution to fund government, they are voting to fund the enforcement of vaccine mandates that are causing our men and women in uniform to be forced out of service, to be discharged. They are enforcing laws against our men and women who are serving so valiantly on the front lines in healthcare, nurses and doctors that are getting forced out of service, forced out of the ability to care for people after a lifetime of work, doctors in the Defense Department daring to say they want to have informed consent getting fired, getting fired for daring to question a politicized vaccine, if you can even call it a vaccine. It is a shot for a politicized virus. And we all know it is a sham, just like all the mask mandates, sitting here on the floor of the House Chamber, are a sham, just like all the mask mandates on our kids in schools are a sham. They are forcing our kids into the corners and forcing kids out of their schools and causing mental health issues and causing health issues and causing suicide rates to go up, all of which was entirely predictable. And this body cowers in fear, running around here. If you dare walk down the hallway not wearing a mask, people say: Get away. Get away. What kind of a country are we? Putting our children in the corner in masks when there is zero science to back up that it in any way, shape, or form is good for them or their families or the teachers that are allegedly teaching them. God bless the woman at Prince George County, Virginia, who yesterday took the school board to task for their duplicitous lies about masks, blaming the Governor. And now you got a new Governor. Now you have got a new Governor who has changed the law. And what is that school board doing? Finding every reason in the world to force those kids to be masked because that is what this is about. It is about power and force. Well, the American people have had it. Parents across this country have had it. They have had it with school boards that are forcing critical race theory on their kids. They have had it with school boards that are forcing their kids to be masked. They have had it with the inability to get healthcare and the inability to get treatments when they know full well there are treatments that will help people, and we refuse to allow them to exist. We have the FDA shutting down monoclonal antibody treatments in Texas and in other parts around the country when there is no basis to do so when you have the omicron burning through with very reduced lethality, with very little indication that it would impact our children. You have study after study demonstrating that the risk for our children of dying from the virus is so statistically insignificant relative to the need for a so-called vaccine and/or the dangers posed by a vaccine in kids. Then everybody throws back and says, oh, Chip, we have had vaccine mandates forever. Hold on a second. We have never had a Federal vaccine mandate like this administration is cramming down the throats of the American people. Show it to me. We haven't had a vaccine that was adopted across the country even by local governments and school boards that didn't have exceptions or didn't have a significant amount of time, science, evidence, and studies behind it. That is the truth. My dad had polio. He got polio in 1949 before the Salk vaccine 5, 6 years later. Go study how that vaccine got rolled out. It didn't get rolled out crammed down by the Federal Government in less than a year. People figured out to adopt it, take time, roll it out. And by the way, we rolled out this vaccine exponentially faster than the polio vaccine. And all those people would come and say, Oh, Chip Roy would cause polio to come back. These are all lies. They are all said to create and intimidate and cause fear. I am not going to play the, Oh, I am going to tell you absolutely I love the vaccine, go get vaccinated. I just don't want a mandates' game because that is all my side wants to do because they don't want to take this issue head-on. This is about power, and this is about limiting freedom. This is about undermining the ability of the American people to make choices for themselves. And it is causing harm. It is killing people by taking away our ability to focus on therapies and treatments because we have gotten so focused on a vaccine and cramming that vaccine down the American people. And it is political. And we should be ashamed of ourselves. And we shouldn't fund it. We should not fund a government enforcing vaccines on the American people. We shouldn't force them on our doctors. We shouldn't force them on our nurses. We shouldn't force them on our students. We shouldn't force them on our brave men and women in uniform. We shouldn't force them on Border Patrol--all of whom, having these forced mandates, are causing some of them to lose their job, lifetime public servants; people that have served their country honorably for years. We are standing here in the House Chamber, and I am looking up at the 13 stripes, the 50 stars, in a country that says, ``the land of the free.'' And yet, this government, through the power of government, is forcing people to get vaccinated against their will when we know it is absolutely true that natural immunity is real, that natural immunity, if you had the virus, is every bit as strong or stronger than vaccine immunity. So you are forcing an individual to take a shot, even if they have natural immunity, or lose their job, in America. I, for one, will not abide that, and I am going to take every step I can in the next 14 days to make everybody up here in Washington understand, if you vote to fund this government without stopping the vaccine mandates, you are voting for those vaccine mandates being applied to doctors, healthcare workers, our men and women in uniform, Federal contractors, Border Patrol--all of those people that are serving publicly and trying to serve their country. I see the gentleman from California here. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa).

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California. That means a lot coming from him and his great service here in this body, as well as his experience in the private sector, working in the healthcare industry, a great expertise that I don't have. My expertise is mostly on the other end of that as a cancer survivor and watching my dad deal with polio and those other issues. But I find it astonishing, whether you are talking about people getting fired from their job--or using a slightly different example--if you look at the vaccine mandates that are being applied at our Nation's capital in the seat of liberty, here in the United States of America, if you are in the District of Columbia and you go to a restaurant and you show them that you took a test that afternoon and are negative for COVID but you are not vaccinated, you can't go in. But if you are vaccinated and you are positive for COVID, you can go in. In what universe does that make sense? But that is what we are doing. We are turning logic and common sense on its head. And we are doing so because--I agree with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, by the way--we politicize the virus, and we politicize our response to it. Our friends in Japan, they put out their public policy as: There is a vaccine. We think it is good. We think you ought to consider taking it or strongly encourage you to take it. There are some risks that we are studying. We are not going to mandate it. And their vaccination rates are higher than ours. Now maybe they are a more compliant society. There are all sorts of reasons behind it; we are bigger. But it tells you something. Why is that not our position as a country. Right? Encouraging people. My dad is 79 years old and a polio survivor. I wanted him to get the vaccine; I wanted him to get the boost. He is particularly vulnerable. My mom. But it ought to be up to us. We ought to be able to decide for our families. I assume the gentleman agrees.

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California. I am just going to wind down here and say this is our time to lead. It does not matter who is the majority in this body. This is the people's House, and this is the people's House whether the Democrats are in charge or the Republicans are in charge. And we have a question before the body, and the Senate will have a question before that body: Will you continue to fund the enforcement of mandates and vaccines in a way that is causing the best among us, of our public servants, in our military, in our hospitals to lose their jobs with no basis in science for continuing to do so? If this is the land of the free, then let us stand up. Let's stand up for freedom and let us reject these mandates. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I am glad the gentleman from Pennsylvania asked the question. It stands nowhere. They are not giving us any report. They said it would be a couple weeks away. I can tell you why. Because the report will demonstrate there was no whipping. It was a lie. They owe an apology to those Border Patrol agents who are being abused on the front lines, having guns fired at them, dealing with COVID. No apology.

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, no. And the President should apologize for that and the President should apologize to every parent of a dead American kid who takes Xanax and dies with it laced with fentanyl because we have open borders--and the Secretary knows it.

Mr. ROY. Amen. Amen.

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, the Border Patrol was saying: What are we doing? We are doing nothing. That is what the Border Patrol is saying. But my colleagues on the other side of the aisle wouldn't know that because they never have hearings inviting the people on the front lines to talk, and actually hold the Secretary accountable.

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I would agree with my friend from Pennsylvania. I appreciate him having this time on the floor, and I appreciate my colleagues for coming down. The State of Texas is on the front lines under siege, the communities that I represent, dealing with the scourge of open borders, the dangers that are provided by cartels, and the illegal elements that come across the border on a daily basis--and this body does nothing about it. This week we are going to entertain legislation that will do nothing to combat China. Nothing to stop China from continuing to run rampant around the world, violating human rights, undermining our national security. We are going to put together a nonsense bill that is a Green New Deal agenda, a pacify and appease China bill. We should be saying what the woman from Texas said to the coach of the Miracle on Ice hockey team: Beat those Commie bastards. That is what we ought to be saying. That is what we ought to be doing. But no, no, no, here we sit doing nothing. But you know what we are doing, we are sleeping while our border is wide open. But worse than that, the Biden administration and Secretary Mayorkas are taking purposeful steps to open our border, disregard the law, and to fail to faithfully execute the laws of the United States. Our country is in danger and Americans are dying. Americans are dying specifically because of the actions of the Secretary of Homeland Security. That is what is actually occurring. We have fence rusting in fields in Texas. We have contracts that aren't being paid. In fact, we are paying people not to work--not to build the fences. We are not using migrant protection protocols. We are not using Title 42. We are releasing people into the United States against Federal law. We are not doing anything to actually secure the border and, therefore, the Secretary of Homeland Security should be impeached for it. I will make one final point. Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, stood at a podium and laughed about our commentary about the borders being open and our streets being unsafe. She lied. She lied about Border Patrol agents whipping migrants. It was purposeful and it was done to divide our Nation by race, the same kind of division that has the President of the United States choosing the race and the sex of the Supreme Court justice. This is the same man who blocked Janice Rogers Brown, blocked a Black woman Supreme Court justice. He blocked an Hispanic Miguel Estrada because he was Hispanic and because he is not the right kind of Hispanic. That is the truth. That is the truth of a President and an administration that wants to divide our county by race, they want to lie about our Border Patrol agents, and they don't want to do a dang thing about it.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my colleagues who have been down here on the floor of the House of Representatives for the most part of the last hour talking about the importance of defending life, those infamous--or famous or important words, I should say, in the Declaration of Independence: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Nothing can be more important than this body focusing on defending life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and my colleagues' focus on life, as we sit here now 49 years removed from a Supreme Court decision taking out of the hands of the people and putting it into the hands of unelected judges' decisions, about the beginning of life, when life begins, the important reality of a people defending life. What is controversial about defending life? It is a question for this body. What is controversial about defending life when we talk about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and when we talk about living on this Earth while God gives us the precious time we have here? What are we going to do with that time? Are we going to live free? Are we going to be able to pursue happiness? Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: one might wonder here now 1 year into the current administration, the Biden administration, whether the average American would say that he or she is free to pursue happiness. Are we free? Are we free to pursue happiness when, in fact, just a few miles away--and, frankly, a few thousand feet--from this Chamber where we are right now, restaurants are being chastised and pursued by the Government of the District of Columbia representing this area that forms our Nation's Capitol because those restaurants may not believe that it is in their interest or the interest of the people whom they serve to be checking papers and to be checking so-called vaccine passports or vaccine passes? One restaurant in particular over on H Street--which was one of the early restaurants on H Street as it was revitalizing--has been fined, berated, and harassed by the Government of the District of Columbia for wanting its doors to be open and not wanting to harass its patrons. They want them to use their own free will to make a decision about what is in their interest. They don't want to live in a republic where you are forced to show papers to walk about and to engage in society, to freely move about and engage in commerce. The very heart of the kinds of ideas that the Founders meant and what Jefferson meant when he penned pursuit of happiness is that we not allow a government through tyrannical policies to interfere with our pursuit of happiness: our ability to go have a business, our ability to go out and take care of our family, our ability to move about and to engage in commerce, our ability to create wealth and opportunity for our children and our grandchildren, to be able to get healthcare, and to be able to be secure in our possessions, secure in our belongings, and secure in our own homes. I would ask this question: Is the United States more secure than it was 1 year ago? Is the United States stronger economically than it was 1 year ago? Is the United States stronger on the world stage? Are we safer from our enemies than we were 1 year ago? Is our border secure? Are we able to afford energy and have reliable energy to heat our homes, fuel our cars, provide jobs, and keep us warm in the winter and cool in the summer? Are we able to do that better more than 1 year ago? The answer very clearly to all of those questions is a resounding ``no.'' Do you think it is an accident that I just spent 2 hours in a hearing in the Judiciary Committee bemoaning the United States Senate for holding the line on the filibuster which Democrats and this President wanted to throw over the wall in the name of voting rights because nobody can oppose something called voting rights? They put up those words, they call it the Voting Rights Act, and they name it after people we serve with in the Chamber to provide maximum guilt if you dare stand up and say, Mr. Speaker, that the people in the States ought to be able to decide how to ensure that the elections of the people who represent them are secure; that you dare to have a voter ID favored by 80 percent of the American people. But yet let's go back to what I just said: I have to have an ID just to walk in and buy a hamburger in the Nation's Capitol, but I cannot have an ID to vote. No. No. No. That is Jim Crow 2.0 I am told by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. I actually had colleagues on the committee today walking through the horrors of the poll tax--the jelly bean counting and all of the obstructions put into place for voting in the 1950s and 1960s that the Voting Rights Act nobly pursued to correct--and then tried to compare that to voter identification. They tried to compare that to wanting to make sure that mail-in ballots aren't abused by anybody in any party, even though, by the way, those bastions of crazy conservatism, Jimmy Carter and James Baker, came out in a report over a decade ago that The New York Times quoted saying precisely that mail-in ballots are the area where you have the most fraud. Now, all of us want to have integrity and belief in our elections. But our Democratic colleagues want to use that issue to divide us, as President Biden literally admitted yesterday. In his 1-hour marathon wandering, meandering press conference, he literally said that he could not say whether the elections will be legitimate this fall unless-- unless--we embrace the legislation that he says must get passed and that we must set aside the traditions of the Senate to jam it through. And all of it, very clearly, is to set the stage for a lack of faith and belief in the elections that are coming this November. Again I ask: Is America stronger or weaker? Is it richer or poorer? More secure or less safe? We know the answer, and that is why my colleagues on the other side of the aisle wish not to talk about those issues. We don't want to have a debate about crime on the floor. Do any of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to come down to the floor right now and have a debate about crime in the United States? Do they? Do you think a 50 percent increase in crime in Austin, a 50 percent increase in crime in San Antonio, a 19-year-old woman shot in a Burger King in New York City, a 24-year-old student murdered walking the streets of Los Angeles, train robberies in 21st century America with litter all over the tracks in Los Angeles, is an accident? Or could it be that radical leftists who are funded to take over the district attorneys' offices in cities across America and radical city councils like the Austin City Council and leftists in this Chamber believe that letting criminals out on the streets and believe in not prosecuting people is going to make our country safer? It is empirically and obviously untrue. The American people see it. And I promise you, Mr. Speaker, take this bet: We will not have a debate on the floor of this body about crime while I am here this year. It will not happen. My Democratic colleagues would not dare have a debate about crime because they would get absolutely decimated. They sure as heck do not want to have a debate about the border. Do you want to talk about 2 million apprehensions? Do you want to talk about 1 million people released? Do you want to talk about dead Texans? Do you want to talk about fentanyl pouring into our communities, 100,000 dead Americans, opioid poisonings of our youth, and kids taking Xanax and dying because cartels are flooding into our country while China drives them right up through Mexico? Not a person in this Chamber on the other side of the aisle wants to come to the floor and have an adult debate about why our country is much less secure and much more endangered at the hands of the cartels and of people making money trafficking in human beings and undermining our security and safety in the United States of America. I promise you, Mr. Speaker, Joe Biden and the Nancy Pelosi Democrats have no interest in having a debate about the border because it is an embarrassment and it is a travesty. Ranches are getting overrun, people are dying, bullets are being fired across at our own Border Patrol, the National Guard is having to fire at cars coming across the border, livestock is getting out, bodies are stacking up in body trailers in Brooks County, Texas, and cartels are making hundreds of millions of dollars on a daily basis driving fentanyl into our kids' communities and schools. No, no, no. We do not want to have a debate about the state of our border. Do we want to have a debate about the state of healthcare mandates? No. No. This body has no debate but embraces rules. We must wear masks, they say. For a year and a half we have been excoriated--even fined--if you don't wear a mask the floor of the House of Representatives--masks which are very clearly proven--fabric masks--to have no real discernible benefit over the last year and a half of the mandates that say you must wear a face covering. They said: Well, are we going to mandate N95s? Are we going to have to wear N95s on the floor? Do they want to talk about the negative effects in the study that wearing N95s for a prolonged period of time, what that does for people's health and well-being, breathing carbon dioxide, minimizing your cognitive ability if you wear N95s for a long time? Some people might joke: Would it make any difference on the floor of the House if you minimized the cognitive ability of the Members of the House? You could argue that it may not make any difference whatsoever. I am looking in the mirror myself. We do not want to have a debate on the floor of the House on anything, by the way, much less the reality of what has been happening with respect to this virus and our response to it; and what Anthony Fauci engaged in with respect to the reality of the truth of funding gain-of-function research knowing full well the dangers, working to cover that up and hide from the American people how this virus came about; not wanting to pursue the truth on that, not wanting to pursue the truth or conduct studies on natural immunity. We have study after study after study coming out right now. I could pull out on my phone and pull up study after study now finally demonstrating and showing how natural immunity is more powerful than vaccinations, and people don't want to be able to have that honest conversation. An adult leadership would have done like the Nation of Japan saying: We believe that vaccines are effective for a large group of people. We believe that there are some risks. You are adults. We won't mandate. You decide. We can't do that in the supposed land of the free? We sit up here and we stare at that American flag and we talk about the Senate being the greatest deliberative body. They don't really debate. This being the people's House, the people's Chamber, when was the last time the Speaker heard a robust debate on the floor of the House with multiple Members? When was the last time we offered an amendment on the floor of the House in open debate that wasn't predetermined by all of the Rules Committee overlords who govern our lives? Democrat and Republican, I do want to say. Mr. Speaker, it has been 6 years since we have had an amendment offered on the floor of the House in open debate. Do you want to know why we can't do anything in this Chamber? Because we don't ever debate. We don't ever actually have a discussion, throw things out there and then vote. Maybe, just maybe, we come to some bipartisan agreement. I am happy to work with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Dean Phillips and I worked on the PPP Flexibility Act. Abigail Spanberger and I have introduced legislation called the TRUST Act to deal with stock trading believing that might help improve people's faith and confidence in this body. I have introduced numerous bills and passed numerous bills with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. That is not what this is about. It is about a broken body refusing to actually debate, refusing to actually engage, refusing to offer amendments. Both sides do it. That needs to end. The last point that I will make on that point, if you want this body to function again, you have to stop spending money we don't have. If you keep writing blank checks, how on Earth is there a check against the wisdom of the policy? You just keep writing a check to keep doing the same thing or to do something different. You can't run a business that way. You can't run a home that way. You can't run a church that way. You can't run a legitimate school that way. But no, no, we just keep writing checks to fund the expansion of government, to fund the creation of programs no matter who is in power. Over the last year, we have seen what that causes when it is then left in the hands of an administration that literally does not care about the rule of law. To be very clear, this administration is ignoring the rule of law, ignoring their oath, ignoring their duty to enforce the laws of the United States, ignoring their duty to secure the border, ignoring their duty to stand up in defense of the men and women in blue, to follow the laws around the United States, ignoring their oath to stand up and defend the United States against our foreign enemies; hold the line against Russia; push back on Russia; sanction them; hold the line on Nord Stream 2; stand alongside Ukraine; push back on China; stop appeasing them. Don't leave $85 billion sitting there in the hands of terrorists when we walk away and abandon our duty and leave those men and women in the field, and then have 13 dead marines to show for it. That is the legacy of the first year of this administration. But will President Biden, when he strolls to that podium on March 1 for his so- called State of the Union, and we are all spread out, and all wearing masks, and doing whatever the heck we are going to do--not actually doing the people's business--will he address any of those issues? Will he talk about border security? Will he talk about how we are weaker around the world? Will he talk about the crime on the streets of Los Angeles, New York, Austin, San Antonio, and Chicago? Will he talk about the businesses getting crippled by mask mandates and health mandates? Will he talk about the children who are now having mental health issues, the people who are sick; the diseases that weren't dealt with, all to push a vaccine mandate that goes contrary to the pursuit of happiness and our right as Americans to live free? Will he talk about any of those things? Will he talk about the fact that the United States of America is sitting on one of the world's largest reservoirs of energy and, yet, we are wondering even in Texas whether you can have the lights on because we built no nuclear power plants. We slowed down our production of clean burning natural gas, all chasing unicorn energy policies of wind and solar as if they can possibly, possibly power the world at the level that is needed for the proper amount of human flourishing while 3 billion people around this planet do not have access to abundant energy and power. Will the President of the United States come down here and talk about that or will he get up there and just talk about: Well, we are going to be net zero in our carbon production by 2035, or 2050, or make up some totally arbitrary number without regard at all to what that does to the price of energy and the availability and abundance of energy. All of this has real-life consequences for Americans. People die. Houses get cold. People can't get access to energy. They can't afford energy. They lose jobs. You have stagnation and then you have the brilliance of this administration and the brilliance of those in the media starting to talk about energy and food price control because, of course, that is what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will resort to. They will sit there and bemoan markets when they don't let the markets work. Healthcare markets never work. We haven't had a healthcare market in decades. It is an absolute lie; and I am looking at you Big Healthcare. I am looking at you Big Pharma. I am looking at you hospitals. I am looking at you Big Insurance. You made out like bandits after ObamaCare. You minted money. And probably three-quarters of the people in this Chamber fattened their wallets and their portfolios riding the back of all of that Big Healthcare enrichment, all at the expense of poor Americans around this country trying to get access to a doctor without having to call some bureaucrat in the government, the VA, or an insurance company, or however it may be, but it sure as heck isn't their doctor. We don't have health freedom in this country. We have mandated Big Healthcare, Big Government, Big Insurance, bureaucracy. And everybody knows it. Everybody knows it because you all had to deal with it. You have had to call somebody. You had to call some kid sitting in Omaha in some phone bank telling you which doctor you can go to 2,000 miles away. That is the truth, and we all know it. We sit in here, we roll in here and we say: Let's spend more money and create a government program. Let's spend more money we don't have. Not one person in this body will come down here and truly debate any of these truths when you are $30 trillion in debt; when you are funding the very FBI going after parents for daring to stand up and defend their children in a school board meeting; when you are funding the Department of Homeland Security that is literally lying to the American people saying our border is secure while hundreds of thousands of people come across. You want to know what happened in that synagogue? Because we don't have a dang clue who is coming to the United States, and this administration doesn't care. They don't care. They don't care what list they are on. They don't care whether they pose a danger to the United States of America. They don't care at all who is coming into this country. And they sure as heck don't care what is happening to the people of Texas, Arizona, or, frankly, everybody around this country who is having to bear the cost, who is having to bear the burden of what wide-open borders means to the United States of America. Complain about Mayorkas? We should impeach him for failing to faithfully execute the laws of the United States of America, endangering Americans in the process, ignoring the laws of the United States. And that is what is happening. That is what is happening. America is poorer, sicker, and less safe a year into the Biden administration, and that is the truth. Our enemies know it. That is why Russia is going after Ukraine. That is why China is rattling on a daily basis. That is why Russia, China, and Iran are talking about joint exercises. That is why the cartels are emboldened. That is why there are people marching through Mexico from all over the world coming to our southern border. That is why there are people on the streets breaking into businesses, assaulting people on the streets and killing them, raping them. It is happening every single day in the United States of America with reckless abandon while Democrats in district attorney's offices, Democrats in the House of Representatives, Democrats in this administration do nothing about it and do not care that the American people are left holding the bag. Then they want to talk about taking away our Second Amendment rights and our ability to defend ourselves. Well, that crap ain't going to happen because we are going to defend ourselves in the land of the free. We are going to stand up and defend our communities and defend our families. We are going to stand up in defense of the Constitution and limited government and freedom to be able to protect our families and protect our States when this administration is letting this country burn. It dares to do an hour-long press conference, lecturing the people for wanting to make sure their elections are secure, for daring to say that we should have voter identification when that same administration is ordering vaccine mandates that are causing healthcare workers to lose their jobs; causing healthcare workers in long-term health facilities to be unable to carry out their jobs. And then there is the talk about, oh, the burden on hospitals. Well, you just caused 20 percent of nurses to have to leave because you were mandating they take a jab for something that is a year old that Pfizer is making billions of dollars on. Then we won't even have a hearing about why on Earth we are having this virus in the first place, because of what Anthony Fauci knew and what NIH was up to and what China was up to. We won't have a hearing about natural immunity. We won't have a hearing about the dangers and levels of dangers of the vaccines, what they may be. Again, my polio-stricken father who is 79 has been vaccinated. I refuse to say whether I have been vaccinated. I think it is a principle for Americans that they shouldn't have to say. My point is, there are people for whom the vaccine makes sense. There are people for whom the vaccine does not make sense. Mandating a jab in a 5-year-old is irresponsible and it is dangerous. We should have that conversation instead of blindly walking around preaching what other people should stick in their dang arm. But that is what we do in the people's House. I am sitting here in an empty Chamber--with the Speaker, respectfully--and that is it. They are all jet-fumed out, leaving town. Oh, we shut down earlier. Let's get out of here. Or they are out at some fundraiser or something. Let's have a debate on these issues. Let's seek the truth. I don't know all of the truth on all of those issues. I don't know the specific risks. I have read a lot about what is going on with the vaccines, positive and negative. But it is becoming very, very clear that it doesn't do squat to stop the spread. So you are left basically saying: Well, it is better for you so that you don't die in the hospital. Well, let's look at the data on that. But why don't we just present the information and let the American people decide? Japan's vaccine rate is a lot higher than ours and ours has mandates. All they did was say: We think it is good. There are some risks. You decide. We can't do that in America? We can't just go down to the border and say: You know what, it is better for migrants, better for Texans and all Americans, bad for cartels, bad for China, if we secure our border. That is the truth. Talk to the migrants getting abused. Talk to the people in south Texas. Go to Laredo and Webb County. Sit down with the Brown people in Laredo who will say: We are pretty ticked off with this administration about how they are handling the border. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle might be up for a rude awakening pretty soon about their expectations of what voters are voting for them and what voters are not because there are a lot of people in this country that are sick and tired of the elite in this town, immersed in the swamp, promoting Big Healthcare, promoting Big Tech, promoting Big Government, minimizing the rights and the abilities of Americans to live their lives the way they see fit. That is our calling as we head to 2026, our 250th birthday of the United States of America, which comes up in 4-and-a-half years. Will we be able to say that we live in the land of the free? Will we be able to say that we are pursuing happiness; that we are the country of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? We will only be able to do that if we stand up and secure our Nation's sovereignty, defend our streets, protect our families, stand up to enemies around the world, and limit this body to the job that it was given in the Constitution: limit our spending to the dollars that we have and responsibly lead this country and represent the people so that this country can, in fact, be great in our agreements and our disagreements in a Federalist Republic where we are able to live free. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Indiana for yielding. A year ago in January I spoke on this floor in defense of the rule of law and my view that it was incumbent upon Congress to count the electors sent to us from their respective States. In doing so, I reminded the Chamber that we are deeply divided. Now we are a Nation perilously divided further. And a divided Nation must return to first principles. Those first principles include separation of powers; and in so doing, the judicious use of the congressional subpoena power as requiring, per the United States Supreme Court, ``a valid legislative purpose.'' That power is not, per the court, limitless, it is not, per the court, a power to expose for the sake of exposure, it is not, per the court, a power to punish, as such would be ``indefensible.'' The January 6th Committee was born in politics. After all, we have standing committees like Judiciary, which have had precisely zero hearings about the 500 Americans who have been charged, arrested, and are jailed regarding January 6. And then the natural pursuit of any conspiracy associated with such crimes--no, the select committee continually moves the goalpost far from a core legislative purpose. Indeed, one target seeking to claim privilege was told to take specific tests to claim that privilege, then did so, and then was told, sorry, this was not sufficient en route to contempt. Now we have the targeting of our friend, Mark Meadows. Congressman Meadows sought accommodation. While, yes, it is between branches, the question in privilege regarding the former President continues to be litigated for good reason. The gentlewoman from Wyoming outlined text messages from some of us imploring action by the President. The text messages from which she read were, in fact, turned over by Mr. Meadows. He produced more than 1,100 documents totaling 9,000 pages and over 2,300 text messages. Mr. Meadows offered to appear before the committee to address the agreed-upon nonprivileged documents.

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, Mr. Meadows agrees to continue to work through questions of privilege. But again, here we are facing a vote to hold Mr. Meadows in contempt. Anger over January 6 and the events leading to it is not reason for a committee formed from that anger and in partisanship to exercise unlimited power to command attendance of production while moving the goalpost. This itself is an assault on liberty and our republic.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Arizona for being willing to stand on the floor of the United States House of Representatives, when unfortunately so many of my colleagues are not, this evening to talk about the danger facing our country. And the gentleman outlines, I believe if I am correct, that we will be facing $112 trillion of debt come 2050, if we do not change course. If we do not take the steps necessary to make changes with respect to our healthcare spending and make wise policy choices--like any family, any budget that you have to maintain, if you are running a business, nonprofit, a university, virtually everybody in the world, or at least everybody in the country--except this body right here--that has to maintain and balance a budget and make determinations and make tough choices. If the gentleman would indulge me for a minute or two, for a couple more minutes on the floor. When was the last time the gentleman recalls we have had the ability to amend a piece of legislation on the floor of this body? Truly amend it? Does the gentleman remember?

Mr. ROY. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. ROY. Would it surprise the gentleman that it was May of 2016, the last time that an amendment was offered on the floor of this body in open debate? Now, to be clear, that is an assessment of leadership in both parties. But how on earth can we actually solve the problems, I would ask the Speaker, if we don't come down and sit at this table, stop looking up at the C-SPAN cameras and just sit around this table and start with a budget--like any family or any business--and say, Here is how much money we have. Here is how we can responsibly spend for the betterment of the people. Have disagreements about what those priorities are and make choices. When was the last time that we have done that? It is a rhetorical question, but I know one data point is that May of 2016 was the last time that any Member of this body was able to walk on to this floor and offer an amendment that wasn't precooked up in the Committee on Rules previously and already set up by the leadership structure of either party. Would the gentleman agree that that is no way for the people's House to operate?

Mr. ROY. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. ROY. I am, I am.

Mr. ROY. It's shrinking.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman. I appreciate your steadfast commitment to try and speak the truth and come down to the floor and speak to the American people, and unfortunately all too often, an empty Chamber. I appreciate that my colleagues, many of whom were able to get a flight and go home--and God bless them--but we have problems to solve. And we ought to be here debating in this Chamber rather than posturing. Mr. Speaker, I would note that previously my colleagues were eulogizing and remembering Senator Bob Dole. As we all know, he was a World War II veteran who was injured in combat; a man of great distinction who served in public life pretty much since his service in World War II. And he is a reminder, as we all know, of losing that generation. There are precious few remaining. Both of my grandfathers have passed who served in World War II. We lost Senator Dole this week. I was on a flight to Austin, Texas, earlier this week, on Monday, with an honor flight, with eight veterans of World War II who came up for Pearl Harbor Day on December 7. None of those eight had been present at Pearl. Two of them were over 100 years old. One of the men, I sat next to him on the plane flying up to D.C., had served and been in combat in Iwo Jima. There is only a few of these folks left. And what I want to spend a minute focusing on, as we are heading out, and I know we will be back next week for a day, but we are getting close to winding down and heading home for Christmas. I want to remember what that generation did. Joe Crute and Jim Swartz remember vividly the merciless, frigid cold they survived during the Battle of the Bulge: ice, wind, snow, frozen ground, frostbite, amputations, pneumonia, Americans dying from hypothermia in a land far away from their homes. Approximately 1 million Allied forces endured the inhospitable conditions during the fight that lasted from December 16, 1944, until January 25, 1945, a span which, of course, surrounded Christmas. This was the Germans making their last major offensive strike on the Western Front during World War II. Almost 90,000 of them ended up wounded, missing, captured, or dead from battle injuries. Seventy-seven years later--this was written 2 years ago-- when recalling the bitter conditions of the Battle of the Bulge, Swartz stared at his large hands, rubbing them together as if to warm them. I have something to show for it, he said when sharing his experiences. I have the results of that cold. My hands are almost to the place where they are useless from the frostbite. You couldn't drink the water from the lakes due to the fact of dead animals and dead bodies in the water, so we had to purify that. Some of the boys couldn't get to the water. Some of them, the water was frozen in their canteens. So what did they do? They ate the snow to keep their body liquefied. We attempted to make shelter in the ground, but to no avail. You tried to dig little holes in the ground to sleep. The ground was so hard you couldn't dig a hole. So what you did is you got pine branches off of the pine trees, laid them down on the ground and laid there and covered yourself up with half of your pup tent. That is how you tried to keep warm. One day, a fellow soldier was mortally wounded. He was a little bit bigger than I was, Crute said. He was shot in the back. I ran and got his mackinaw off. It fit him perfect, but when I put it on it was an overcoat. It felt good. I pitied the poor guy, but it was so cold. At that time in 1944, there is the famous exchange that happened when the German commander wrote our commander, General McAuliffe, basically saying battalions are ready to annihilate the United States troops in and near Bastogne. The order for firing will be given immediately after this 2 hours term. General McAuliffe replied, famously, ``nuts,'' and they fought on. They battled on. Many of the soldiers spent Christmas 1944 celebrating the best they could. The American soldiers were within Bastogne. Christmas services were held by the Army chaplain. Some in the country went and visited with others. One story: We were out in the outskirts of Bastogne and we found this farmhouse. Inside was a man and a woman and a little boy and a little girl. The wife, she gave us some soup and some black bread. We stayed there all night in this farmhouse. The war was going on fiercely outside, and for some reason the farmhouse never got hit. We were there Christmas Eve. We sang Christmas songs that night with this Belgian family. We sang Jingle Bells and Silent Night. The words were different, but the music was the same. The thing that strikes me as we think about that generation and think about what they did in World War II in response to Pearl Harbor, signing up and enlisting and going out into the Pacific and going into Europe to stand up against tyranny around the globe and defend our country, but also others around the world, for an idea and for something bigger than they. They signed up without a question. Churchill famously observed that once we were bombed by the Japanese on that December day in 1941 that caused then-President Roosevelt to come into this room and give that famous speech about that day that will live in infamy--Churchill observed that the war would be won. The sleeping giant had been awakened because the world knew who we were. The world knew what America stood for. It knew that that sleeping giant had been awakened. Nothing could be assumed. It took a massive ramp-up, massive sacrifice, rationing, women enlisting, Rosie the Riveter, men enlisting, going across, 400,000 dead, represented on those stars at that memorial here on The Mall. The world knew what we would do. The question I would ask my colleagues today: Does the world know what we would do today? Does the world know who we are? Does the world know what we will do as we watch China on the rise, Russia rattling against Ukraine, Iran rattling about nuclear capability in an unstable Middle East, threatening our friend and ally Israel? The cartels in violence and unrest on our southern border--does the world know whether we have the resolve to stand up in defense of the rule of law and in defense of freedom and against tyranny around the globe but with the resolve necessary to win it? When President Reagan stood athwart the Soviet Union and talked about peace through strength and told Mr. Gorbachev to tear down these walls, the world knew our resolve. Do they today? Can we accomplish the objectives of defending this country and standing up in the world when we refuse to do the basic job of managing our own affairs and our own country responsibly? We amassed a mountain of debt in World War II: 125 percent of GDP by 1946 coming out of the Depression. We got back and got busy growing our economy. We grew out of it and got that down. We are sitting here today in relative peacetime with $30 trillion in debt, barreling toward $112 trillion in debt as my colleague just articulately illustrated on the floor of the House to an empty Chamber, minus myself and the Speaker. We are doing nothing about it. Nothing. Literally. Just last night, there was wailing and gnashing of teeth among my colleagues because we dared force votes on 30 suspension votes. Oh, no, we might miss a Christmas dinner or a Christmas party. Oh, no, we might not catch our flight home early enough. Madam Speaker, $2.7 billion was authorized last night in suspension votes, all bills that often just sound good in the headlines. Three of us voted against a bill that would provide $500 million over 5 years to support research and funding for therapies for ALS. I was one of those three ``no'' votes. Do you think I want to go back and talk to people and families that are afflicted by ALS? Where are the rest of my colleagues in explaining where that $500 million is going to come from? When we are faced with a conflict like our forefathers were facing, when Pearl Harbor was bombed, when Hitler was on the march, and we resolved to fight, we could because our economy was strong enough, and we were disciplined enough to try to do the right thing. Are we able to do that today when we are not even disciplined enough to sit here and figure out how to manage the budget and the spending of the United States so we don't drive our country into complete and total bankruptcy and destroy it for our kids and our grandkids? Literally, everybody, both sides of the aisle, say, well, it is just some votes. Some people today were giving me trouble because one of those suspension votes might be used as a political weapon by one of my Democratic opponents or one of our Democratic colleagues because they managed to pass some bill with a 375-40 bipartisan vote. Oh, no, don't give somebody a political weapon so they can go run an ad. Nowhere was there concern about another $2 billion or $3 billion just passed through on suspension bills that we hardly debated. When we talk about and venerate men like Bob Dole and men serving in World War II, and we look at our grandfathers and our great- grandfathers who sat there in the frigid cold or stormed Iwo Jima or stormed the cliffs at Normandy, can we fight those fights tomorrow? Are we capable of it? Do we have the resources to do it, much less the resolve, if we can't even resolve in this body to preserve and protect the actual foundation of this country to be economically and financially firm and stable? If we don't resolve, the 435 Members of this body, to do the hard work, as my colleague from Arizona was pointing out, of making tough decisions about Medicare and Social Security and mandatory spending, but also the discretionary spending that I talked about last night, but also the National Defense Authorization Act that we just threw $25 billion at the Defense Department with no real reforms or changes to how they spend money, how are we ever going to save this Republic? I said last week in a speech that this is the United States House of free stuff because that is what it has become. It has become an entity that doles out money to whatever cause because it sounds good and feels good. There was $500 million for ALS research. God bless them. I am glad that research is going to occur. But someone has to sit on the floor of the House, and say: Where are we going to get the money? Not just print it. I can't go next door to my neighbor and knock on the door, and say: Hey, it is time for you to give me your check. What check? Well, the check for ALS. Well, what do you mean? Well, it is a good cause. The check for cancer, I am a cancer survivor. The check for polio, my dad is a polio survivor--whatever it might be. Not one of us in this Chamber has the right to knock on our neighbor's door, and say: Give me a check to go give to another thing. You wouldn't do that. But through the power of this body as a whole we print money, borrow money, and then dole it out for political benefit and nothing more. It is cowardly. It is embarrassing. It is destroying the Republic. Thread by thread, the flag is getting tattered because we refuse to do the hard work, as my friend from Arizona said, of making tough decisions to ensure that we can sustain this Republic. We will come back in next week and the debt ceiling will get raised. That is as true as the Sun coming up in the east. Not a thing will be done to right the ship of the massive amount of debt piling up around the ears of our kids and our grandkids. Nothing will be done next week to solve that problem. Republicans will blame Democrats using a crazy procedural ploy in the Senate, passing a bill to blow up the filibuster to allow the debt ceiling on a supposed one-time basis to be raised with a 51-vote threshold so that they can go back to the American people, and say: I didn't vote to raise the debt ceiling, but you did. Don't let them hide. They did. They concocted the scheme. They voted to make sure that that happened, and the debt ceiling will be raised. Not a thing will change about how we carry out our work. Nothing will be done to make this country fiscally sound again. Madam Speaker, may I ask how much time I have left.

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, let me take a minute to thank the staff, the floor staff. We come down here and speak into late hours. We have votes like last night that go until 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. because some of us forced some votes. I appreciate all of your hard work. As a former staffer, I know it is not easy. The American people are a great people. The American people want this body, the Senate, and their leadership in Washington to actually represent them again. I am going to keep giving this speech over and over again, and I am going to keep calling for this body to do the hard work of representation. We don't govern; we represent. Those men who sat in the freezing cold--frostbite, amputations, pneumonia, death, and picking up jackets off of their fallen compatriot to stay warm to defeat Hitler's Germany-- those men who responded to Pearl Harbor 80 years ago this week, and President Washington overlooking this Chamber here in that portrait crossing the Delaware Christmas Eve night 1776, what will we do to honor their memories? What will we do to carry forward this Republic for which they fought, died, bled, and lost limbs? Senator Dole carrying a pen in his crippled hand, what will we do to honor that sacrifice? That is our calling as we embark on the second half of this Congress. I don't accept that just because my party is not in control of this Chamber for the next year that we can't find a way to actually do the hard work of representation. My ask of the Speaker, the leader, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and my colleagues on this side of the aisle: restore regular order on this floor. Bring bills to the floor and allow us to vote, debate, amend, and do the work the American people expect us to do. It is the least that we can do to honor the memory of those World War II veterans whom we are losing by the day, all of those who have sacrificed to defend this country, and all of those who sat there on that Christmas Eve day in Bastogne singing Christmas carols hoping to get back to this great country. Let's fight to save that great country. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.