Chip Roy

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Well, the gentleman is completely correct, and there is no debate about that. You want to have a conversation about solving the Medicare crisis driving $112 trillion, then you have to have a conversation about solving the healthcare crisis. And to solve the healthcare crisis, you need to actually be willing, both sides of the aisle, to take on the army of lobbyists representing the insurance companies, the hospitals, pharmaceutical companies--all minting money right now, by the way, literally minting money--and you have got to be willing to have a conversation about that to actually figure out how we can transform our healthcare system to be patient-centered, doctor- centered, and not have to go to an insurance bureaucrat or a government bureaucrat to figure out what your healthcare looks like and then get competition, transparency, and drive down prices. Because if you drive down prices, we can actually solve the Medicare crisis.

Mr. ROY. Well, I would agree with the gentleman. And to your point, you asked me a question about how many times we have had a real substantive debate. The closest I can remember was I made this point about amendments on the floor of the House. And the gentleman from Maryland, the leader, said in an agreement, Yeah, I wish we had more debate on the floor. And I would say to the leader, let's do it. Right? Let's start. Let's drop a bill on the floor, instead of a 2000-page monstrosity that costs X-trillions of dollars that was passed by the Committee on Rules, was brought to the floor, that we then offer an MTR, and then we go and give press conferences about why we can't support it. That is no way to actually do the work of the people. The NDAA bill last week, let's put a bill here on the table and then let's offer amendments. Right? We had a whole fight about, draft our daughters, about vaccine mandates, all these things. Well just start with the NDAA and then offer some amendments. Let the votes work. Let the people speak.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I object.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I object.

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. There is a lot of noise in this town right now about government shutdowns, and the fact is, the issue isn't about shutdowns. It is about whether or not Members of this body will continue to use money we don't have to fund mandates, indoctrination, and the use of force against our citizens: $73.5 billion for the Department of Education that subsidizes the indoctrination of our children with critical race theory and woke gender ideologies; $10 billion for an FBI that was just used by the Attorney General of the United States to target parents; $50 billion for a Department of Homeland Security that leaves our borders wide open, empowering cartels because Secretary Mayorkas fails to execute the laws of the United States; $6 billion for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases run by Dr. Fauci. Need I say more? $592 million for OSHA, which has imposed an unconstitutional vaccine mandate on 84 million Americans. I offered an amendment to strip any funding from this bill that would fund Federal vaccine mandates, and it wasn't even able to see the light of day. This is about a Congress that is supposed to use the power of the purse, our Article I authority, rather than hiding behind the judges in Article III, to check the executive branch. We have a moral obligation to give voice and representation to the people who elected us whose liberty and livelihoods are being attacked. My friend who battles MS is looking at being terminated from the university she teaches at because of the unlawful Federal contractor mandate. The medical hero in Texas who is 9 months pregnant is facing termination under the unlawful CMS mandate. Military personnel, including the 13-year Army veteran in my district who is concerned about myocarditis, are facing being discharged from service to our country. These are our neighbors, our relatives, our friends--maybe not for some of you who go home to double-masked, vaccine passport cities. But these are real Americans that this government wants to go after. I urge my colleagues to stop empowering executive branch tyranny over Americans, and I urge my Republican colleagues to not just vote ``no'' and give a speech, but go stand with Mike Lee. Go stand with others in the Senate trying to defend these Americans. We should not fund tyranny over American citizens.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

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

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I am fascinated to learn that I serve in the United States House of free stuff because that is what I have been hearing nonstop this entire week. There is an unlimited supply of money and resources apparently, an unlimited supply of dollars that we can continue to print while devastating our economy, devastating the American dollar, and transforming our society by encouraging Americans to believe that there is a free lunch. And there ain't no free lunch. My wife is the product of a single mom growing up in Texas. Her mom worked multiple jobs to send her to college. She worked hard to be able to go to college. She left with 70-something thousand dollars of student loans despite going to two top public universities in the State of Texas. She is not asking for her loans to get repaid because she went there with a free will. She went there and made a choice. She could have chosen a different path. She chose to take the debt. I did the same thing when I went to law school at the University of Texas. I might not have chosen to go to law school if the loans hadn't been available, and that might be fine. What is the fundamental problem? Why has the cost of education skyrocketed in my lifetime at an inflation rate multiple times over virtually every other product and service in this country except for healthcare? Why is it up something like 3,000 percent? Is it perhaps because we are subsidizing the holy heck out of it? Just thinking perhaps that there might be a correlation to the availability--massive, widespread availability--of subsidized student loans, the massive subsidization of K-12 education and higher ed. Do we think there might be a correlation to why the costs have skyrocketed so much? But no, no, no, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle now walk in here and say, oh, you know, we are not the party of big spenders; we have got a chart here with $1.7 trillion on it with another chart saying, ``Cancel Student Debt.'' Who is paying for that? Does anybody in this body give a rat's rear end about who is paying for anything at all? No. Oh, no, then they will come out here and say $3 trillion of tax cuts. They don't care about economic growth and opportunity. But fine. Why don't we actually have a conversation about spending and taxes? No, no, we don't do that. We just spend money we don't have. That is what we did today in the continuing resolution to keep this government running. Oh, my gosh, panic ensues if you dare question whether or not the government must be funded Saturday at 12:01 in the morning. What will the American people do? How will they function if the United States House of free stuff isn't doling out free stuff? No one is in this Chamber, of course. Just reminding the American people how this place doesn't work. We are now on 5\1/2\ straight years of no amendments being offered on the floor of this august Chamber. I would like to remind the American people every once in a while that what they saw about how a bill becomes a law is a complete fraud. See, there is a handful of people who get into a room and they decide what you are going to vote on. The Speaker knows it is true, and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle know it is true. And my colleagues on this side of the aisle know it is true because they did it when they were in the majority just as much as my colleagues on the other side of the aisle did it when they were in the majority. We get a massive bill dropped on our desk, and we say take it or leave it. Go offer an amendment in rules, they say. Never taken. Never accepted. Always prechosen, always pregamed out. This is deliberation and debate? This is the constitutional order? What value is there for an election certificate if you can't use it? You come to the floor and want to offer an amendment in good faith to try to make a piece of legislation better, and you can't do it. We have 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 people max who decide everything that goes on in this Chamber in all of their infinite wisdom. Then we come down and look at the board, and it is party-line votes, and then it is walk out on the steps and go give a speech and go to the press and go on Twitter and go on Facebook and go talk about why you are voting no or yes. That is what we are relegated to in the United States House of free stuff. But today, we just voted to extend the funding of government with a continuing resolution, which is going to barrel us toward a trillion- dollar deficit this year, give or take. Who knows? Does it matter? Does anybody know what the difference is between a trillion dollars or $1.2 trillion? Does anybody know the difference between $29 trillion in debt or $30 trillion in debt? Nobody knows or cares in this Chamber. Literally not a lick. We don't talk about it. Then each side comes down on the floor and offers more spending for whatever their priority is, defense, nondefense, mandatory spending, nonmandatory spending. If the unbelievably terrible circumstance occurred Friday night at midnight of this government daring to pause, do the American people know that about 82 percent of it is on autopilot with mandatory spending? I mean, does that matter? When you walk out and a gaggle of reporters come up with bated breath, oh, no, there might be a government shutdown. It always gets paid back. Eighty-two percent of it keeps running. There is never a serious debate about what is actually happening here in the United States of America. We never actually sit down like family or a small business, roll our sleeves up, and decide how to spend money. Do you imagine if we actually had to adhere to a budget like any business or American family, and we actually had to sit down, Madam Speaker, at that table and not leave this Chamber until we said our budget is $3 trillion or $4 trillion, whatever it is, here is our income; here is what we can spend; that is all we can do; let's figure out our priorities. Well, we disagree. You know, do you want to fund NEA? Do you want to fund the Department of Education, XYZ? Do you want to fund the military? Do you want to fund specific B-52 bombers? Do you want to fund healthcare? Do you want to fund border security? Make a choice. We never make a choice, ever--both parties, by the way, both leaders. We never make a choice. All we do is preen and posture and come down here with massive bills that have some of our priorities, depending on who is in the majority. That is it. Again, we are relegated to being the United States House of free stuff. You have to call it free stuff because we are just printing the money to do the stuff. We are down here talking about, oh, we have to cancel the student debt. Well, man, wouldn't that be lovely? Who cares about the people who have already worked hard their whole lives to pay off their student loans, whether they be Black, Brown, White, male, female. Who cares? They have worked their whole life. They paid off their student loans. They did what they were supposed to do, or they are in the middle of paying off their student loans. Oh, no, let's just go down here. One of my colleagues just said $50,000, President Biden. Did they just pick that number out of the air? $50,000 of free stuff, here you go. Somebody else chose not to go to college. Somebody else started a business, worked hard, borrowed money to run a business. Guess what? That money also had interest, to my colleague from Michigan who was down here talking about, oh, the pain of interest. As if it is not as old as time, as if it is not Biblical to say: Hey, I don't have the money to do something. I would like to have the money to do something. How might I get the money to do something? I don't know. One, get a job and earn the money, save the money. Two, ask for it from somebody who loves you. Three, borrow it. Okay, now what do you do with that? Go do something with it. Make a choice. Start a business. Start a lemonade stand. Go to college if you want. But, oh, no, let's just go pay off $1.7 trillion of debt. It doesn't matter if you went to school and got a degree in sociology or gender studies and you are floating around and trying to figure out what you are going to do with your life. Oh, no, let's pay off that $140,000. There ain't no free lunch. But we live in this fiction that we can just keep printing money, and the horrors of printing the money is not just that we have $30 trillion in debt; it is not just that we have rampant inflation; it is not just that we are undermining our dollar; it is not just that we are handing over power to China and every other country around the world to kick our rear ends; it is that we are funding a government to do things to us to interfere with us. We are funding an FBI to target parents for daring to question the wisdom of school boards around this country. People say: Oh, that is not true. You must be embellishing. It is not true? We just had hearings with the Attorney General of the United States. We just saw memoranda making it very clear that the FBI is targeting parents. We are funding that. For all Americans out there watching this, all 12 of you, we are funding that. We are borrowing dollars, spending money we don't have, and we are taking those dollars, and we are funding an FBI to target parents. We are taking away dollars from police departments, and Federal dollars are going in and funding programs allegedly to take the place of police and then wondering why department stores are getting looted. Then you have the White House press secretary today literally at the podium saying that is the fault of the pandemic, all the looting. We are not talking about somebody breaking into a grocery store to buy a loaf of bread. We are talking about people swarming a department store and taking Gucci bags. Oh, no, let's not enforce the law. Let's not enforce the rule of law. Let's blame it on the pandemic. Let's blame Border Patrol for whipping migrants, which was demonstrably and totally and clearly false. There is no shame coming from the Press Secretary's Office of the White House. No lie that won't easily slip out about what is actually going on, like Border Patrol agents whipping migrants. No apology. All of those Border Patrol agents down there on the front lines dealing with COVID, dealing with being outmanned and outgunned, dealing with cartels, no apology. Here we sit in the United States House of free stuff funding the Department of Homeland Security not to secure the homeland; funding the Department of Education not to educate our kids, other than to indoctrinate them to hate our country and to believe they are racist for the color of their skin; $700 billion for a Department of Defense to now run climate training and to focus on chief diversity officers in the Department of Defense rather than focusing on, I don't know, blowing stuff up and killing people, which is what the Department of Defense, formerly known as the Department of War, is actually supposed to do; $11 billion for an Internal Revenue Service that took a record $4 trillion from Americans last fiscal year; $9 billion for an EPA that is destroying American energy through regulation, pushing a radical climate agenda. None of which, by the way, is actually going to drive down CO2 production, which we have been doing with clean- burning American natural gas over the last decade. Today, we pass this continuing resolution in the United States House of free stuff to rack up another trillion dollars of debt, continuing to fund agencies to carry out their tyrannical activities, in particular to carry out vaccine mandates on the American people that are getting slapped down one by one by courts across this country because, of course, the President of the United States doesn't have the authority or the power to mandate that an American citizen go into a doctor's office and get a needle jabbed in their arm. He doesn't have that power. The United States House of free stuff here allegedly representing the people is supposed to actually care enough about representing those people to stand here as a board holding the line against an authoritarian President of the United States, against a President carrying out executive overreach. That is what we see happening. He is being slapped down left and right by the courts. Now, I don't believe in wearing a partisan hat when we are talking about standing up for the Constitution, standing up for the Article I branch of the Federal Government. I introduced legislation when the previous President, a Republican, President Trump, was in office called the Article I Act to take away powers from the President with respect to emergency powers being used. I did so, frankly, in the wake of the use of dollars for border fencing and wall construction, which I supported, which was important, which was a response to an emergency and, by the way, was working. But it was important for us to start laying out a foundation for protecting Article I, the United States Congress. Today we pass a continuing resolution that we sent over to the United States Senate, and we never had a vote in this body about the vaccine mandates that are being slapped down in courts across this country for being unlawful, unconstitutional, tyrannical overreach by the executive branch of the United States. Never in our history have we had Federal mandates applying across the country to the American citizens that they must be vaccinated. They have been local decisions, local schools, local counties in States and specific responses to highly communicable diseases that they knew might be communicable and be pulled back by a vaccine, and after many years of study with massive numbers of exemptions and protections for individual liberty and choice. That is the history of how we have handled it in a federalist 50-State republic, not a decision by a President or, frankly, probably more likely the President's advisers, that the American people must be vaccinated, that a small business or a business of any size must vaccinate their employees. People act like, well, it is no big deal. I ought to direct my remarks here to my Republican colleagues, my Republican colleagues who today were perfectly happy to vote no on this CR. Yes, I will go home, and I will give a speech: I voted no on this CR. I voted no because this continuing resolution had these terrible provisions in it. And, yes, this continuing resolution had vaccine mandate funding, funding the Department of Labor and funding OSHA and funding the Department of Defense to carry out these mandates. I voted no, don't you know. So what? Who cares if you voted no? You vote no, and you give a speech, pat yourself on the back. Good for you. Did you do anything, go stand with any of the Senators who had a chance to actually do something with this, with the Senators over there right now having a debate and trying to force a vote on an amendment to prevent the tyrannical application of vaccine mandates? Did my colleagues say let's go round up and go over and stand alongside Mike Lee, or did they hide behind the Article III judiciary? Did they hide behind the courts and say, well, let's let the courts sort it out. No, that is exactly what they did. Secure the blessings of liberty in the Constitution indeed by the supposed primary branch of government. And these have real consequences for real Americans, real lives. Hospitals in Massachusetts are already limiting elective procedures due to critical staffing shortages. Do we care? Are we concerned about that? The New York Governor issued an executive order that postponed elective surgeries in order to deal with the staffing shortages. Do we care? Are we concerned? The largest children's hospital in Wisconsin is struggling to treat victims of the BLM extremist, who rammed his car through the Waukesha Christmas parade. Do we care? A dear friend of mind suffering from multiple sclerosis, teaching at the university, she is being told she may not be able to continue teaching because she believes, in consultation with her doctor, that it is in her best interest not to be vaccinated at this time. She should have the right and the ability to choose to do that for her and her family and her interest without coercion from an overextended Federal Government under an unlawful and unconstitutional mandate by the President of the United States. And this body, the Congress of the United States, should do its Article I job and stand up in defense of her and every other American who is facing losing their job at Thanksgiving and Christmas, or being discharged from the military of the United States that they proudly served because they believe in their interest, in their own personal safety, their own health interest, that they should be the one to choose, not a faraway President. We structured this government specifically not to do this. We structured this government with Federalism and separation of powers specifically to avoid having a king. That man on the painting over on this wall, in this House Chamber, the first President of the United States, turned down being a king, turned down the monarchy, turned down a third term because the Founders knew why that mattered. The Founders knew why separating powers and limiting powers mattered because they saw and foresaw exactly what we are seeing today in this country and across the world. Where, in Austria and Germany and Australia and places around the world, we see mandates forcing people to be in their homes and not go out and not engage in society because they are not vaccinated. It is absurd. This country is built on a bedrock of liberty and protecting liberty and securing the blessings of liberty, and this President is stepping on it. And the United States Congress, Members of both parties, are MIA, missing in action, unwilling to stand up in defense of liberty while patting themselves on the back for voting ``no'' on a continuing resolution and then kicking it over to the Senate for one man to stand on the floor of the United States Senate, Senator Mike Lee, daring to say we should have a vote on an amendment, an amendment that says we shouldn't have this vaccine mandate. God bless Mike Lee for doing that. I hope he holds to his guns. And no, I am not going to freak out or panic if Saturday at 12:05 in the morning rolls around and, Oh, no, we haven't gotten that funding done. That funding, by the way, that is racking up, as I said before, another trillion dollars of debt. The United States House of free stuff. A father called me up in tears because his 13-year Army veteran son is likely going to be discharged because he believes, based on his conversation with his doctors, that it is not in his interest to get the vaccination. Millions of Americans who know they have natural immunity, who have been ignored, who have been absolutely ignored because the leaders of our national health organizations and agencies aren't actually focusing on natural immunity. We haven't had a study on natural immunity of any consequence out of our leaders. We have got to rely on Israel and the U.K. and other places, and private entities. But all of these millions of Americans who have natural immunity are being told, Sorry, you must still go get a needle stuck in your arm in order to have a job. In what world is this the land of the free? It is not. And in what world are the people in this Chamber who are supposed to represent the people of the United States, how are they doing their job in the Article I branch of our Federal Government if they are not standing up for these people? Those people who are going about their lives, making decisions in our interests--and by the way, as if this matters to me a whole lot--that even the experts, so-called, heading up our national health agencies and organizations, acknowledge that if you are vaccinated you still spread the daggone virus. It literally makes no sense. We are killing people. We are restraining and restricting therapeutics that can actually help people. We belittle people who are working in consultation with doctors to find ways to solve the problem if they happen to get the virus--whether they have been vaccinated or not, by the way. And we are mandating people to get the vaccination, irrespective of whether they had the virus and have natural immunity. For months, I have been hearing about, Oh, they laugh off natural immunity. And now suddenly, you start to hear--bow down to the altar of all things--Dr. Fauci, that he suddenly said, Oh, yeah, natural immunity, that is kind of a real thing. No kidding. What world do you live in? The world of Washingtonian magazine and propping your feet up with sunglasses and getting cool pictures and throwing baseballs out at games? I had a young woman who is 9 months pregnant. Remember all the frontline workers everybody was celebrating a year ago? She is one of them; she is a nurse. I saw all these people standing up at games, people in this Chamber going around praising the frontline workers. Well, good, we should have been praising the frontline workers who are out there, in an unknown virus, showing up and helping those who were sick. But suddenly now, if you are one of those frontline workers, and for your own health and well-being, you decide you don't believe you should be vaccinated, you might have natural immunity, maybe you have got an underlying condition and you choose not to. Then this young lady, a Texan, who is 9 months pregnant, is losing her job in direct response to the President's unlawful and unconstitutional mandates. Let's talk about those mandates for a minute. The OSHA mandate. When the President goes in and tells businesses across this country, You must get your employees vaccinated or go through OSHA rulings and fines. This body just voted to increase the OSHA fines, something like 700 percent or 900 percent. We just did that when we passed the so-called BBB bill that is going to destroy America with a whole bunch of more free stuff, $2 trillion of unpaid nonsense. Oh, no, don't worry. It's paid for. CBO said so. Garbage. Absolute, pure garbage. Of course, it is not paid for. It was games. The American people know all this. It is how this body works. Nobody here is serious about actually operating within the bounds of normalcy, like you would in a business or in your home, because they don't care. There is no consequence. There is literally no consequence to spending money we don't have, to printing money. But that is what we do. So we just voted to increase fines by OSHA. Now with those fines OSHA can go target businesses. Well, what happened? Now, that has been consolidated. U.S. District judge for the Eastern District of Missouri granted a preliminary injunction on November 29 for 10 States who brought forth a November 10 lawsuit by State AGs. On December 1, in a similar ruling, Louisiana Western District U.S. Judge Terry Doughty issued a nationwide injunction to the CMS mandate, a separate mandate, a CMS mandate--sorry, I mixed these up. The OSHA mandate, a panel of judges with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order staying enforcement and implementation of the OSHA mandate. Now, back to the CMS mandate. Matt Schelp, the U.S. District judge for the Eastern District of Missouri, granted a preliminary injunction for 10 States. And on December 1, in a similar ruling, there is a nationwide injunction on the CMS mandates. So these are the mandates that are shutting down hospitals and nurses and doctors from carrying out their job. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle don't care. And I know they don't care because they just passed a continuing resolution continuing to fund the mandates of a tyrannical executive branch without holding him accountable. I promise you if that were a Republican President they would be outraged at these mandates. My colleagues on this side of the aisle think voting ``no'' and walking out to go to dinner is perfectly fine because that is what is going on here. They are not over in the Senate backing up Mike Lee or here talking. Federal workers mandate, Federal contractors mandate--on November 30, U.S. District Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove of the Eastern District of Kentucky issued a preliminary injunction halting the government's enforcement of the Federal contractor vaccine mandate, which, by the way, is mandating universities, which is causing my friend with MS to possibly or probably lose her teaching job. Veterans, Active Duty military, frontline health workers, university teachers, professors, visiting professors, people across this country in private business--hopefully, the courts will strike this down. Since when is it the job of the Article I Congress to punt to the courts, and say, Well, I hope you do it. Do we care about the power of the purse? Do we care if bureaucrats are targeting American citizens, saying, You must get a needle in your arm? There is no science indicating in any way, shape, or form that those mandates are solving any problem at all, but rather causing problems. Over 80 percent of Americans over the age of 12 years old have gotten one shot of the vaccine; 99 percent or something close to it are people over 65. We are not even a year into the broad rollout of the vaccines. This blows way past the polio epidemic. My dad had polio. I am well-versed in the impacts of the polio epidemic. It didn't roll out nearly this fast. It was targeted at kids, not people over 65. Any mandates were left to school districts, and it took them awhile to get there. This was a vaccine that had been worked on for years with a significant amount of knowledge. It was a different kind of virus, by the way, not a coronavirus. A 21-year-old nursing assistant in Crawfordsville, Indiana, worked 60-hour weeks throughout the pandemic; she is facing termination. Do we care? Does the Indiana delegation care? Either side of the aisle? I would like to know. Is the Indiana delegation over alongside Mike Lee fighting to prevent the funding of the government bureaucrats that are going to enforce that mandate on Becca Pitts? Jen Peters, a 39-year-old San Diego maternity nurse was forced to resign from her position after not getting vaccinated. I recently met with heart surgeons that fly around the country saving lives doing heart surgeries. They come in and they do that. They do pro bono work. They do a lot of volunteer work. They fly all over the world. They have been providers for, roughly, three decades, and if the CMS mandates stay in place, they are no longer going to be able to save lives, they will have to shut down. Are we fine with that? Is that okay? Dozens of my constituents in the military have contacted me about this vaccine mandate. I represent thousands--like many of us do--but I represent San Antonio, a heavy population of veterans and Active Duty military. People call me in tears because it was their dream to serve their country and wear the uniform of the United States, and they are being told they must get the jab, or they will be discharged. I am not talking about the ability of a commander of a submarine going out for a 9-month tour, and saying, Okay. Sorry. I am going to make sure everybody in the submarine is vaccinated. Okay. Do you have to discharge the guy or gal? Or you can say, You know what, we are going to relocate you and leave you able to serve. But while this virus is going around, we are going to require the commander of the submarine to be able to make that decision. Okay. That is a reasonable outcome. Discharging under current law dishonorably, by the way, members of the United States military for not wanting to get the vaccine, for whatever reason they believe is in their interest, with young men in particular having concerns about the myocarditis and the heart issues, and we are going to say, Sorry, too bad, you get discharged. This body just funded the DOD, and the government is forcing those people to be discharged, instead of continuing to carry out their service to this country, and this body should be ashamed of it. A lot of people in this town seem to have forgotten that the American people are not our subjects. They are our fellow citizens, and we owe them the duty of representing them. They are our neighbors, our relatives, our friends. The people are sovereign in this country, not the President. George Washington turned that down, the Founders rejected that structure, and yet this body, which was supposed to be a check against an overbearing executive acting as a monarch refuses to check the executive. The CDC estimates that there have been 146 million infections, suggesting that nearly half of the United States has natural immunity. The first U.S. omicron patient was fully vaccinated and had mild symptoms. One study found the protective effect of the vaccine dwindles alarmingly at 3 months after the second shot, hence, the boosters. People are now saying that maybe we made a mistake, having the first two shots of the vaccine happen right next to each other reduced the effectiveness. Well, lo and behold, hard to believe when you are rushing and reacting to a virus that you might make an error. Financial institutions today are putting out reports saying their concern isn't about the omicron variant but rather governments' reaction to it. Of course, it is. One of the first doctors who discovered the variant in South Africa said, ``Most of the patients are seeing very, very mild symptoms. We have been able to treat these patients conservatively at home.'' On the 626th day into 15 days to slow the spread, we have had enough. The American people have had enough of being lied to and told what to do by a tyrannical Federal Government and so-called experts that we cannot and should not trust. This continuing resolution that we passed today was considered under a closed rule. As I said earlier, no chance for amending it. I offered an amendment upstairs--rejected. We don't want to have a debate on vaccine mandates. Why would we want to do that? My colleagues, I assume, would not like to take a vote on a vaccine mandate funding repeal. Otherwise, why not have the vote? Why not have the debate? The more and more that we turn over the decisionmaking to a small group of people in this body and a small group of people in the Senate and a couple of people at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, the more and more this Republic is getting ripped apart thread by thread. It is happening no matter who is in the White House and no matter who is in charge of this body. If we do not restore debate on the floor of this body and in the Senate--the greatest deliberative body in the world. Come on. When was the last time you saw any great debate or deliberation in that body or this one, Madam Speaker? You don't. We all know it. Nobody cares because all we are going to do is drop another 2,000-page bill, somebody is going to offer a motion to recommit. Boy, that will light things on fire. Oh, the previous question. Oh, man, the bars around town are talking about you. Did you see that previous question? Did you see that MTR? When are we going to represent the people again? When is this institution going to actually stand up and do the hard part of representation? We don't govern. We use that term a lot. We don't govern. We represent. That is what we are supposed to do in a republic. Next week we are going to turn to the National Defense Authorization Act, and if the Senate doesn't make any additional modifications, we are going to have another version of the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act, sent over to this Chamber for us to vote on again. In that legislation there are a number of problematic provisions. There is no accountability for the failed exit from Afghanistan, the 13 marines who died, the failed drone strike that led to the killing of 10 people including seven children. No accountability. There is no accountability for the $85 billion of assets left behind in Afghanistan that were just being used in a parade by our enemies, by the Taliban. No accountability. Madam Speaker, you have legislation that requires the Secretary of Defense to submit to Congress their plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and praises the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Well, praise the Lord. Our Department of Defense is focused on the really important stuff as China is doubling and tripling and quadrupling their navy, ramping up their military prowess, and shooting missiles around the Earth at low orbit hitting their targets. Yes. Let's focus on diversity. Yes. That will get them. That NDAA requires the DOD to hire and train gender advisers. Boy, that will send the Chinese packing. Yes, the National Defense Authorization Act will for the first time in the history of this country require women--girls--18 years and older to register for Selective Service, to register to be eligible for the draft. My daughter is 10 years old. The infinite wisdom of this body is going to require that my daughter be forced to register for the draft. If we want to have a debate about ending the draft, I am happy to do it. Let's offer the bill, let's have a debate and decide if we need to draft. I think most people in this body would probably vote the draft down. But that is not what we are going to do because my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and, frankly, the retreat by my colleagues on my side of the aisle from such touchy issues, they want to make a statement. They want to make a statement about so-called equity, and they want to use my daughter to make that statement. They want to make your daughter, America, part of that statement. If you are one of the thousands of people across this country who have been reaching out to my office enraged because this body with no debate, no amendment, and no vote on the substance is going to adopt the National Defense Authorization Act that for the first time in history will require your daughter, your sister, your mom, and your wife to register for the draft. Well, don't worry, I am going to keep fighting it. I am not going to retreat, and I am not going to run away from some pollster coming in saying, Well, I don't know. I am not sure how people feel about it. I know how people feel about it. I know how they feel about it in my district. I know how they feel about it in my kids' school, in my communities. I know the people who have stop me in the airport saying thank you for standing up for some sort of common sense about how we should actually function as a society. Speaking of the United States House of free stuff, we spent $36 million for a study to determine whether single-sex units performed better or worse than mixed-sex units. What do you think they found? Madam Speaker, you will be blown away by this piece of information. The single-sex male units performed better. Oh, we don't want to have that talk. My colleagues don't want to have that debate. But I am going to keep having that debate. Whatever they do at the NDAA, if the Senate doesn't have the backbone, if my Republican colleagues in the United States Senate won't stand up for my daughter--our daughters--I will keep calling them out, every single one of them. I will call on every one of my colleagues in this body, and I sure as heck will not ever vote for a single one of them for any office if they are going to make my daughter eligible for the draft. This is not the way we should do things. Have a debate, offer data, have amendments, have the courage to have straight up-or-down votes on subjects rather than mega bills cooked up in back rooms so people can go preen and posture in front of cameras outside on the steps. No matter who is in charge of this body, restore this body, and don't continue to operate as the United States House of free stuff doling out dollar after dollar and printing money to create programs that we can't even afford and to fundamentally alter and transform this society into one that is expected from government rather than serving themselves, their fellow man, and their communities. We are destroying the core of this great country by empowering government and doing so knowing full well we don't have the dollars or the resources to do it; knowing full well that we are ripping out the soul of people by taking away the value of work; and destroying family units; destroying the public education system, by turning them into political corruption entities. The veil having been lifted now after COVID has exposed so much of that corruption, and what we just saw in Loudoun County, Virginia, what we just saw unfold in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The American people are seeing the corruption that flows from the dollars that flow from this town without any responsibility. Again, that is not a partisan statement. Both sides are equally guilty of walking into this Chamber and writing checks they can't cash. And if we don't stop it, this country will not survive. This country will not make it. We will not keep the Republic if we keep spending money we don't have. If we keep turning over power to a small group of individuals in this Chamber, the other Chamber, the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue and, oh, by the way, the courts to make decisions rather than the people's Representatives. It is time, Madam Speaker, for this body to function again. And it is time for us to do it without regard to who is in the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue in the White House. We have a duty in Article I to use the power of the purse responsibly, to stand up for the people, to defend the people, and to stop the encroachment in their lives by unelected bureaucrats or a President using power that has now already in three different courts been found to be unconstitutionally and unlawfully executed against the people while they are lose their jobs, lose their livelihoods, destroy their lives because they want to make a decision that they believe is in the interest of them and their families. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, we have a choice to make this week. We have a choice to make whether we are going to fund the United States Government and to fund the executive branch when that executive branch is carrying out often unlawful, unconstitutional, but certainly, unhelpful and foolish mandates that are crushing small businesses and causing people to lose their jobs, forcing our members of the military to lose their ability to serve, forcing members of the Border Patrol, DEA, and hospitals across this country to lose workers because of these mandates. Why would anybody in this Chamber vote to fund a government that is going to mandate that people have to lose their jobs through these unlawful orders? And the second thing we have got to decide is whether we are going to vote for a National Defense Authorization Act that, for the first time in history, will add women, 18-year-old girls, to the draft, without so much as a debate in this Chamber. I think we have an easy call, but we have got to make that call this week and decide what we are going to do.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I can't help but wonder what my so-called moderate colleagues on the other side of the aisle are waiting for, with bated breath, from a CBO score. You don't need a CBO score to know that $100 billion worth of amnesty, when our border is wide open, will cripple the State of Texas, cripple our country, and cause thousands of pounds of fentanyl to pour into our country. You don't need a CBO score to know that a 900 percent increase in OSHA fines to go after small businesses and shut them down with tyrannical vaccine mandates is going to cripple jobs and small businesses across the country. You don't need a CBO score to know that $500 billion of unicorn climate agenda energy policies are going to drive up heating costs, drive up the cost of gasoline, and cripple our economy. You don't need a CBO score to oppose that. You don't need a CBO score to know that $300 billion of tax giveaways to basically blue State Yankees is going to somehow fix our country.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. And we are now getting into the business of chilling debate and discussion about censuring our Members and going down the road of pulling each other off of committees. Where is this going to end? When Republicans are back in majority, where is that going to end? When my colleague, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, in January called my former boss and my good friend, Ted Cruz, an attempted murderer, and I sent a letter to the leader saying, I am not asking for her to be stripped from committees but just to apologize, it was met with utter silence. I called then and I call now for us to drop that down and actually engage in debate on the issues that matter, actually engage in debate on what is occurring right now in America where people are getting harmed with vaccine mandates, tyranny, and open borders.

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Madam Speaker, my colleague just referenced the phrase ``any other environment'' that there would be some consequences. Well, this is not any other environment. This is the House of Representatives. We have constituents who elect us, send us to Washington to represent them, engage in debate, engage in often heated discussions with each other. This is not the same. One of the fundamental problems we have as a Chamber right now is that it is being treated that way. It is being treated that way by the majority. Shutting down our ability to engage in actual debate; shutting down our ability to move about the Chamber wearing these masks; talking about right now with CMS and what is happening, as early as December 5, doctors in San Antonio, Texas, which I represent, being unable to perform their tasks as doctors, potentially resulting in loss of life and being able to carry out their livelihoods through vaccine mandates. We have got untold harm occurring in South Texas with bodies in body trailers. We have got people dying. We have got actual consequences from these vaccine mandates causing people to lose their jobs, whether it is OSHA-related, private-sector jobs, military, defense, border patrol; all this happening as we head towards December 3 with a potential government shutdown. And this is what we are having an actual debate on the floor of the House for. I have not seen this Chamber look like this since I have been in Congress where we are debating an issue and we have got 100 Members on the floor. We are down here usually giving speeches to an empty Chamber. Now, look, let me be clear. I would not have posted that video. I would have told my staff I don't want to do that, if I knew what was in it, okay? But the video that was posted was an effort to make a point. The SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE. The time of the gentleman has expired.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I object.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding. I am interested to hear my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who designate themselves as moderates running around saying that they need a CBO score. Yet, we know this isn't paid for. We all know it is a lie. But you know what you don't need a CBO score for? You don't need a CBO score to tell you that there is a 900 percent increase in OSHA fines because you are going to cause small businesses to go out of business because of mandates. You don't need a CBO score to know that there is an amnesty provision in here right when our border is completely on fire to provide amnesty for 7 million. You don't need a CBO score for the $500 billion of a unicorn energy strategy that is already crippling the country, causing gas prices and electric bills to go up while President Biden is across the Atlantic begging for oil and taking cold baths in Glasgow. You don't need a CBO score for that, and you don't need to know what is in this garbage bill that is going to hurt the American people. Reject it resoundingly this evening.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, had I been present, I would have voted NAY on Roll Call No. 339.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, November 11, 2021 marks the 100th Anniversary of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. On this date, one hundred years ago, the first body of an unknown soldier was laid to rest in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The soldier died in World War I on the fields of France. He was brought home with honor. A representative for every American service man and woman who have served or will serve and have paid the ultimate price as ransom for our freedom. The Unknowns buried in the graves adjacent to the Tomb are no less honored and no less remembered. They are the nameless who bear all names. They are the dead who will rest forever, guarded by the men and women of the watch, the Sentinels of the 3rd United States Army Infantry Regiment, also known as the Old Guard. New York Congressman Hamilton Fish, Jr., a World War I veteran, proposed the legislation that authorized the construction of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The Major James Kerr Chapter, National Society Daughters of the American Revolution from Kerrville, Texas is honored to Commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on November 11, 2021. We unanimously pledge our devotion to the American soldier, both to those who currently serve and to those who have been involved in past armed conflict so that others might remain free. They are gone but will never be forgotten. The Major James Kerr Chapter, NSDAR therefore asks that citizens remember on November 11, 2021 that the Unknowns who are buried in the Tomb of the Unknowns represent all men and women who have died in the service of their country.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak a little bit about the current state of affairs with respect to our relationship with China and our Nation's response to it. I do so at a time when I am yet again sitting in an empty House Chamber, as I often am when I am speaking here because we don't really have debate here on the floor of the House, even when it is on important topics. We had votes today, for example, on 12 of what we call suspension bills. Tomorrow, we are likely to have votes on another, I don't know, five or six suspension bills while we wait with bated breath as to whether or not our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will produce the ever-waited-for legislation to further cripple our economy, spiral us into massive amounts of debt, raise inflation, pay people not to work, disrupt the supply chain. We are all waiting around while my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are literally fighting over which horrible bill they can unleash upon the American people. It is really quite extraordinary if you think about it. The people's House, we are sitting here debating, oh, well, are we going to have a $1\1/2\ trillion disastrous bill or a $3 trillion disastrous bill? Are we going to play games and cut that $3 trillion bill in half by cutting the time in half with the same disastrous policies? But that is precisely what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are doing. Meanwhile, China is preparing to kick our rear ends. We are all sitting here playing tiddlywinks, fumbling around, talking about climate change and diversity quotas and chief diversity officers, and China is actually preparing to kick our rear ends. Recently, as many of my colleagues know, China tested a nuclear- capable hypersonic glide vehicle, carried on a rocket, that flew low- orbit space, circling the globe before speeding toward its target, only missing by about 24 miles, a test that was reported to have ``stunned'' the United States military. Well, that is concerning both because of the capabilities of the Chinese and the fact that our U.S. military was stunned. Both of those two things are concerning. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Milley, interrupting no doubt a particularly enthralling session of diversity, equity, and inclusion over at the Department of Defense at the Pentagon, bolted out from that really important session and said in an interview that the Chinese military was expanding rapidly, and the recent missile test is close to a Sputnik moment. Indeed, this test comes after recent revelations that China has constructed and is making significant progress in developing at least 250 new missile silos at as many as three locations across China, fueling a rapid nuclear buildup. In the wake of Biden's disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, China is increasingly willing to increase hostilities toward Taiwan. Just last week, Taiwan's President said the threat from China is growing every day. She said: ``When authoritarian regimes demonstrate expansionist tendencies, democratic countries should come together to stand against them. Taiwan is on the front lines.'' This is a nation of 23 million people opposed to communism. Where is President Biden? Where is this Congress? Where are my Democratic colleagues? Wrestling around with their $2 or $3 trillion spendathons but not doing anything to help us figure out how to send a signal to the world that we are going to stand alongside Taiwan and, more importantly, that we are going to be strong for America against a rising Chinese military. Biden recently said the United States' commitment to Taiwan was ``rock solid,'' but China is calling his bluff. And why shouldn't they after the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan? By the way, it is thanks to Taiwan that the world was alerted to the coronavirus. On December 31, Taiwan's CDC reported warnings of the virus' human-to-human transmission to the World Health Organization in an email. This is back at the beginning of the pandemic. January 3 of that year, CDC Director Robert Redfield sent an email to the director of the Chinese CDC, formally offering to send U.S. experts to China. January 5, CDC Director Redfield sent another email to the Chinese CDC director, formally offering to send U.S. experts. The WHO even helped China cover the threat. On January 14, the World Health Organization tweeted: ``Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus.'' February 24, Nancy Pelosi encouraged individuals to come to San Francisco's Chinatown. We can go on and on, but China got busy continuing their coverup, even kicking out journalists in 2020. And now what do we know? We now know that there was gain-of-function research going on; America was funding it. And now we see precisely what was going on in Wuhan, what was going on in China, and America's involvement with it. The fact of the matter is, China is serious, and we are not. Let's talk about coal for a minute. China's not taking part in the climate hysterics currently taking place in Glasgow and is not undercutting its own supply of reliable energy like we are. Why might that be? Because China knows they need reliable power to kick our rear ends while we sit around fumbling around with a President of the United States taking cold baths in Scotland. According to Time, China is planning to build 43 new coal plants while we are rapidly decommissioning coal plants here at home--not advancing clean-burning natural gas, not moving nuclear power. No, no, no, we like to live out in unicorn land where we are going to have nothing but wind and solar powering up our entire grid. That has not been working out so well for us. All so we can go down this fiction that we are going to drive down CO2 by allowing the Chinese to do whatever the hell they want to do while we undermine our own national security, our own energy policy, and drive people into energy poverty. The Chinese are using that coal to produce the manufactured goods we consume in the United States, including 80 percent of our solar panels. By the way, the rare earth materials we just gave up in Afghanistan by abandoning Bagram means we can't even compete on that stage even if you want to live in unicorn land where my colleagues on the other side of the aisle do, where you can have all your power come from solar and wind in the year 2021. Literally, my colleagues are in a dispute and a fight about how crazy green can the infrastructure bill they want to advance or the reconciliation package they advance be. Meanwhile, China leads the world in emissions, but they got 43 coal- fired plants tuned up. But what do all these geniuses over in Scotland do? Well, China has promised they won't build coal-fired plants in other parts of the world. You literally can't make up how stupid a leadership of a country could possibly be than what we currently have in this country. Let me see if I can come up with every possible way to weaken our country, every possible way to make this country exposed on the world stage. I don't think I can come up with a better plan than what the current administration and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and this body are doing. I think it would be a great contest. What could they do that is worse than driving us into energy poverty, taking away our ability to compete on the worldwide stage, developing clean-burning natural gas, exporting that, instead of literally having the President of the United States currently begging OPEC to open up more oil and more energy supplies? I am not even sure how you can put into words how unbelievably pathetic it is for the United States of America to be on the world stage begging for energy supplies when we sit on a bed of fossil fuels that we can use to power this world. We have all the technology in the world to develop nuclear power, yet we are not doing it. Meanwhile, China is importing 800,000 barrels of Iranian crude per day. Well, isn't that great? We have already talked about that the President is hanging out over in Scotland taking cold water baths, mumbling unintelligibly about antitrust and animals--I couldn't even understand the speech today-- while congressional Democrats are in a death fight over their trillions of dollars in spending. Most troubling of all, our Department of Defense is in a race, but it is not in a race to beat China; it is not in a race to beat Iran or to stand next to Israel or make sure we have the strongest fighting force in the world. No, no, the brilliance of the brass over at the Pentagon and the Democratic leadership in the White House and in this body and in the Senate, it is in a race to train our soldiers the finer points of critical race theory and climate ideology. I mean, you really can't even make this stuff up. It has been 64 days since President Biden's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, and there still has been zero accountability for the President, Secretary Austin, NSA Advisor Jake Sullivan, and General Milley. Do we ever talk in this body? How many times do we come down here and emote about whatever horror has gone on in the world? We do it all the time. Have we talked about the drone strike that killed 10 people, including 7 children, something that would largely qualify as a war crime? Where are my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, coming down here and beating their chests about the horrors of war crimes? Oh, I remember what they were saying when President Bush was in office in the wake of 9/11. I remember all the protests. Where are the protests for this dead family? Is this the robust, over-the-horizon counterterrorism strategy that they like to hawk and talk about so much that the American people are supposed to trust? There is an unknown number of American citizens--I can read reports of over 100, 200, 400--still stranded in Afghanistan. Thirteen marines were killed, as we know. Madam Speaker, $85 billion worth of U.S. taxpayer-funded defense assets, the Taliban have some number of those--access to a biometric database of our Afghan allies, control of the over $800 million United States Embassy in Kabul. Bagram Airfield, here, go ahead, take it. Now President Biden plans to send an additional $144 million to Afghanistan. For what? But it is not only just abandoning Afghanistan; it is empowering the Taliban. Now our other adversaries: Hamas praised the Taliban for causing the American downfall in Afghanistan and said: ``We congratulate the Muslim Afghan people for the defeat of the American occupation on all Afghan lands, and we congratulate the Taliban movement and its brave leadership.'' China capitalized on it, saying ``a lesson that Taiwan needs to learn.'' Where are my colleagues on the other side of the aisle? Do they care? Iran is set to hold a series of war drills with Russia and China. All of this is happening right now. Again, my Democratic colleagues are talking about socialism and race division and gender equality. They don't even like the word ``equality'' anymore. It has to be ``equity.'' President Biden is appeasing Iran and walking away from Israel. Biden refuses to stand up to Iran, attempting to rejoin the failed Iran nuclear deal. On October 8, the Biden administration lifted sanctions on two Iranian entities involved in military missile programs. Over the last 3 months, a report showed that China imported nearly 800,000 barrels of Iranian crude, like I mentioned before. And now we are refusing to stand by Israel, our closest ally in the Middle East. The Biden administration wants to reopen the United States Consulate General in Jerusalem to provide separate diplomatic outreach to the Palestinians, directly undermining Jerusalem as Israel's eternal capital. Rejoining the Israel-hating United Nations Human Rights Council, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle don't care, and funneling millions of dollars into UNRWA that continues to undermine the very existence of Israel. Now Congress, in its infinite wisdom--both sides of the aisle, by the way, my colleagues on my side of the aisle, two-thirds of whom are guilty of this as well--is saying we need to not only give the Pentagon their NDAA, National Defense Authorization Act, their authorization, we ought to give them another $25 billion of authorization. We are not going to get anything out of Milley. We are not going to get anything out of Austin. We are not going to get the brass down here and say what in the world happened in Afghanistan, or can you explain what you are doing with all of your chief diversity officers and climate education? No, no, we are just going to throw them a whole bunch more money. Again, to my Republican colleagues and to my constituents and to all Americans: This isn't done yet. Make sure your Senators and your Members of Congress know precisely how you feel about authorizing a massive defense authorization that gives more money to the Department of Defense with no accountability for Afghanistan and that drafts our daughters. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, in the infinite wisdom of your leaders in Congress and in this administration, the plan is to have our 18-year- old girls--including my daughter, who is 10--have to go down and go sign up for Selective Service. Most Americans I talk to don't want that. They sure as heck don't want that buried in a whatever-thousand-page bill of $800 billion of defense spending. But respectfully, where are my colleagues on this side of the aisle on this? Two-thirds of this group voted for this bill because, Oh, we can't not support the Pentagon. Well, why can't we not support the Pentagon when the Pentagon is not actually running a military designed to blow things up and kill people the way it needs to, in a world where China wants to do us harm, Iran wants to do us harm, Iran wants to do Israel harm, and we are going to focus on adding women to the draft without so much as a debate on this floor or in the Senate? We are going to include gun-grabbing, red flag laws to take guns away from our servicemen and women, causing them usually to go hide it, not go seek mental health, not go get the help they might need. We are going to promote a radical Green New Deal agenda, including a sense of Congress that DOD should select electric or zero-emission models when purchasing new, noncombat vehicles; requiring the Secretary of Defense to submit to Congress their plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; praising the Intergovernmental Planet on Climate Change; creating a pilot program on the use of sustainable aviation fuel. But they are promoting a woke agenda in the Department of Defense. Requiring the Department of Defense to hire and train gender advisors, including creating an Office of Countering Extremism, which would have the power to expel military members who engage in ``extremist activities or members of an extremist organization,'' codifying diversity, equity, and inclusion training requirements, subsidizing plan B for servicemembers. And now, the Defense Climate Adaptation Plan. You can't even make this stuff up. China is sending missiles around the globe and we are responding with a Defense Climate Adaptation Plan. In what universe do the leaders of the greatest country in the history of the world do this? This new climate change plan ordered by President Joe Biden, released this last week would affect every level of command. ``Troops will be educated to improve their `climate literacy', according to the report. The topic should be taught to all during professional development training and at advanced courses. ``In order to properly respond, we need to have the knowledge, the tools and the ability to make climate-informed decisions at all echelons.'' We continue to fund in this NDAA, that my colleagues so readily supported, funding for a Department of Defense that engages in critical race theory training for servicemembers. Last month, the Navy released a recommended reading list--I am sorry, this is last spring--to facilitate the growth and development of sailors. One of the books on the list is ``How to Be an Antiracist'', Kendi's bestseller advocating critical race theory. Separately, the Navy's Second Fleet created a book club for sailors and recommended reading ``White Fragility,'' a book that White people are inherently racist. If you would like to take a perusal of the Department of Defense website, you can find the Chief Diversity Officer, Senior Advisor for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, the Director for the Office for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, the Director for Disability Equal Opportunity Policy and Compliance, the Director of the Department of Defense Diversity and Inclusion, the commandant of the Department of Equity--I don't know even know what the acronym stands for. In this so-called plan: Climate change is an existential threat to our Nation's security. We must act swiftly and boldly to take on this challenge and prepare for damage that cannot be avoided. The Department of Defense intends to champion climate considerations inside and beyond the Department. That, at the Department of Defense. The fact of the matter is, while China, Iran, perhaps the 5,000 terrorists that were released that we had housed in Afghanistan, dozens, hundreds of terrorist groups across the world, they know full well that this country is not remotely serious right now about defending ourselves, defending our allies, standing alongside Israel, standing alongside Taiwan, pushing back on China, ensuring our positioning in the Middle East is strong. Or, for example, securing the southern border of the United States, where we increasingly find individuals from state sponsors of terror from China coming into our southern border. It happens much more regularly than people understand or are comfortable with. But no response from here. The response to the border, as we know, is to encourage more traffic, allow asylum to be abused, stop building the fence. There are parts of the fence sitting in a field rusting in Texas. We are paying contractors not to build the fence. But paying people not to do things is what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are particularly good at. Let's borrow lots of money and print lots of money to pay people not to work. Let's borrow lots of money, print lots of money to pay people not to build a fence. Can I get into the not-doing-things business? Maybe my colleagues will be glad to have me not do Congress. Can I get paid to not do Congress, since we are in the not-doing-things business? It is absolutely absurd what we are doing on a daily basis endangering this country. Secretary Mayorkas, President Biden, utterly refusing to enforce our laws of a border, failing to faithfully execute the laws, refusing to use Title 42, refusing to use the Migrant Protection Protocols. Dead bodies keep piling up in South Texas. I have talked about it here before, again, to an empty Chamber. Steak dinners are much more important than the migrants who are dying in South Texas. We talked about that, right? We have a body trailer that a sheriff had to haul in to put the bodies in the body trailer. Does anybody care? Does anybody care about the rape trees? Does anybody care about the stash houses where little girls get raped? Does anybody care about the cartels making tons of money--moving people, by the way, into our country who want to hurt us. Rather than exporting the rule of law and building a strong relationship with Mexico and building a strong relationship with Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras--the rest of the Western Hemisphere-- to kick China's butt, we are retreating. We are importing lawlessness, importing people who aren't always wanting to do us good. And we are endangering our country in the process. We are shutting down power plants. China is building power plants. Our President is literally sitting with a bunch of leaders who flew 40 some-odd private jets to hang out and preach about climate change, and they are not going to dent climate change. We got out of the Paris Agreement, and we outperformed the Paris Agreement. How? By burning clean, natural gas, exporting it and working to try to use technology and innovation around the world to have clean, abundant energy that empowers human flourishing. There are billions around the planet right now that would die to be sitting in a room like this with air conditioning or heating and lighting. They are burning dung, wood, paper--whatever they can get. And we have all these holier-than-thou's running around preaching to people, taking cold water baths, seeking to truly decimate human life, undo human flourishing--all in the name of bowing down to the altar of a secular worship of a planet that they are actually harming with their absurdity. And in the process, endangering us through our national security. While China builds coal-fired plants, while China builds missiles, we conduct classes on critical race theory and on climate change. That is what we are doing to our country. As we look ahead next week, this body will not be meeting, and we will be celebrating Veterans Day. And every single one of us will, no doubt, go to an event, try to visit with veterans, thanking them for their service. But I have got to be honest with you. What do I tell those veterans when they come to me and say, Were the last 20 years worth it? I would tell them it was worth it because they fought, and they stood up to defend this country to keep terrorists from attacking us on this soil. But they are asking a reasonable question when the President of the United States abandons Americans, abandons assets, empowers our enemy, empowers China, leaves our border open, destroys our economy, undermines our ability to produce clean burning energy, leaves a future for our children weaker against the world without the ability to have the kind of flourishing and prosperity that you deserve as Americans. I don't know what the result is going to be in Virginia tonight, but I know one thing: there are a lot of American people awakening to the absolute disaster that is being inflicted on this country by a radical leftist regime, whether it is in this body, in the Senate, in this administration, or in the Capitol building designed by Jefferson in Richmond, Virginia. Or in the halls of the school board in Loudoun County, sitting on their hands, allowing another little girl to get sexually assaulted because they wouldn't actually address the fact that a girl had been assaulted and they knew it and they did nothing about it. And then the Democratic candidate in Virginia says parents have no place on the school board. But guess what? The American people think they do, and they are right. The American people know we should have parents on the school boards, parents in the classrooms impacting what their kids are learning. And they don't want to turn it over to leftist radicals who want to remake our country, teach their kids that up is down and down is up. But that is what is happening. The American people are waking up around this country. They are awakening in Virginia. They are awakening in Texas. They are awakening where they are kicking out people from their school boards. And they are awakening to an administration that wants to destroy our ability to compete and beat China. We are not going to do that. We are going to beat China. We are going to stand with Israel. We are going to have clean burning energy. We are going to be able to power our homes. We are going to be able to teach our kids what they ought to learn. We are going to stand up if there are men and women. We are going to stand up for the greatness of this country. We are going to provide the opportunity for them, not by lecturing them, not by mandating to them, not by telling them they have got to go get a vaccine, not by shutting down businesses, not by walking away, but by boldly carrying forward the America that we know through the consent of the governed doing that which we can do as Americans, without begging for permission from a government that wants to weaken our country rather than advancing. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.