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formal | terrorism | null | Islamophobic | Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, as the Senate convenes this afternoon, we find our Nation facing two grave and serious choices. One concerns our unity at home and the future of our Constitution. The other involves our strength abroad and the security of our homeland. Both situations demand serious, sober treatment from Congress. Both require that we put enduring national interests ahead of the factionalism and short-termism the Founding Fathers warned us about. But, unfortunately, seriousness has been in short supply lately--in very short supply--from the determined critics of President Trump, and our Nation, of course, is worse for it. Last Thursday, the United States took decisive action to end the murderous scheming of Iran's chief terrorist. Qasem Soleimani had spent numerous years masterminding attacks on American servicemembers and our partners throughout the Middle East and expanding Iran's influence. Despite sanctions and despite prohibitions by the U.N. Security Council, he roamed throughout the region with impunity. His hands bore the blood of more American servicemembers than anyone else alive. Hundreds of American families have buried loved ones because of him. Veterans have learned to live with permanent injuries inflicted by his terrorists. In Iraq, Syria, and beyond, theentire region felt the effects of his evil tactics. We should welcome his death and its complication of Tehran's terrorism-industrial complex, but we must remain vigilant and soberly prepared for even further aggression. It is completely appropriate that this decision would generate interest and questions from this body. We can and we should learn more about the intelligence and thinking that led to this operation and the plan to defend American personnel and interests in the wake of it. I am glad the administration will hold an all-Senators briefing on Wednesday. It will be led by Secretary of Defense Esper, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Milley, Secretary of State Pompeo, and CIA Director Haspel. Unfortunately, in this toxic political environment, some of our colleagues rushed to blame our own government before even knowing the facts, rushed to split hairs about intelligence before being briefed on it, and rushed to downplay Soleimani's evil while presenting our own President as the villain. Soon after the news broke, one of our distinguished colleagues made a public statement that rightly called Soleimani a ``murderer'' and then, amazingly, walked that message back when the far left objected to the factual statement. Since then, I believe all of her criticism has been directed at our own President. Another of our Democratic colleagues has been thinking out loud about Middle East policy on social media. Mere days before President Trump's decision, this Senator tore into the White House for what he described as weakness and inaction. ``No one fears us'' he complained. ``Trump has rendered America impotent in the Middle East.'' But since the strike, he has done a complete 180. That same Senator has harshly criticized our own President for getting tough. Ludicrously, he and others on the left have accused the administration of committing an illegal act and equated the removal of this terrorist leader with a foreign power assassinating our own Secretary of Defense. Here is what one expert had to say about it. Jeh Johnson, President Obama's own former Pentagon general counsel and Secretary of Homeland Security, said: If you believe everything that our government is saying about General Soleimani, he was a lawful military objective, and the president, under his constitutional authority as commander in chief, had ample domestic legal authority to take him out without-- Without-- an additional congressional authorization. Whether he was a terrorist or a general in a military force that was engaged in armed attacks against our people, he was a lawful military objective. That was the former Secretary of Homeland Security in the Obama administration, Jeh Johnson, an expert on these things. Our former colleague, Joe Lieberman, who ran for Vice President on the Democratic ticket in 2000, wrote this morning: ``In their uniformly skeptical or negative reactions to Soleimani's death, Democrats are . . . creating the risk that the U.S. will be seen as acting and speaking with less authority abroad at this important time.'' That is how a former Democratic Senator sees it. The Senate is supposed to be the Chamber where overheated partisan passions give way to sober judgment. Can we not at least wait until we know the facts? Can we not maintain a shred--just a shred--of national unity for 5 minutes--for 5 minutes--before deepening the partisan trenches? Must Democrats' distaste for this President dominate every thought they express and every decision they make? Is that really the seriousness that this situation deserves? The full Senate will be briefed on Wednesday. I expect the committees of oversight will also conduct hearings and that the Senators will have plenty of opportunities to discuss our interests and policies in the region. I urge my colleagues to bring a full awareness of the facts, mindfulness of the long history of Iran's aggression toward the United States and its allies, and a sober understanding of the threat Iran continues to pose. Could we at least remember we are all Americans first, and we are all in this together? | 2020-01-06 | Mr. McCONNELL | Senate | CREC-2020-01-06-pt1-PgS11-8 | null | 0 |
formal | terrorist | null | Islamophobic | Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, as the Senate convenes this afternoon, we find our Nation facing two grave and serious choices. One concerns our unity at home and the future of our Constitution. The other involves our strength abroad and the security of our homeland. Both situations demand serious, sober treatment from Congress. Both require that we put enduring national interests ahead of the factionalism and short-termism the Founding Fathers warned us about. But, unfortunately, seriousness has been in short supply lately--in very short supply--from the determined critics of President Trump, and our Nation, of course, is worse for it. Last Thursday, the United States took decisive action to end the murderous scheming of Iran's chief terrorist. Qasem Soleimani had spent numerous years masterminding attacks on American servicemembers and our partners throughout the Middle East and expanding Iran's influence. Despite sanctions and despite prohibitions by the U.N. Security Council, he roamed throughout the region with impunity. His hands bore the blood of more American servicemembers than anyone else alive. Hundreds of American families have buried loved ones because of him. Veterans have learned to live with permanent injuries inflicted by his terrorists. In Iraq, Syria, and beyond, theentire region felt the effects of his evil tactics. We should welcome his death and its complication of Tehran's terrorism-industrial complex, but we must remain vigilant and soberly prepared for even further aggression. It is completely appropriate that this decision would generate interest and questions from this body. We can and we should learn more about the intelligence and thinking that led to this operation and the plan to defend American personnel and interests in the wake of it. I am glad the administration will hold an all-Senators briefing on Wednesday. It will be led by Secretary of Defense Esper, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Milley, Secretary of State Pompeo, and CIA Director Haspel. Unfortunately, in this toxic political environment, some of our colleagues rushed to blame our own government before even knowing the facts, rushed to split hairs about intelligence before being briefed on it, and rushed to downplay Soleimani's evil while presenting our own President as the villain. Soon after the news broke, one of our distinguished colleagues made a public statement that rightly called Soleimani a ``murderer'' and then, amazingly, walked that message back when the far left objected to the factual statement. Since then, I believe all of her criticism has been directed at our own President. Another of our Democratic colleagues has been thinking out loud about Middle East policy on social media. Mere days before President Trump's decision, this Senator tore into the White House for what he described as weakness and inaction. ``No one fears us'' he complained. ``Trump has rendered America impotent in the Middle East.'' But since the strike, he has done a complete 180. That same Senator has harshly criticized our own President for getting tough. Ludicrously, he and others on the left have accused the administration of committing an illegal act and equated the removal of this terrorist leader with a foreign power assassinating our own Secretary of Defense. Here is what one expert had to say about it. Jeh Johnson, President Obama's own former Pentagon general counsel and Secretary of Homeland Security, said: If you believe everything that our government is saying about General Soleimani, he was a lawful military objective, and the president, under his constitutional authority as commander in chief, had ample domestic legal authority to take him out without-- Without-- an additional congressional authorization. Whether he was a terrorist or a general in a military force that was engaged in armed attacks against our people, he was a lawful military objective. That was the former Secretary of Homeland Security in the Obama administration, Jeh Johnson, an expert on these things. Our former colleague, Joe Lieberman, who ran for Vice President on the Democratic ticket in 2000, wrote this morning: ``In their uniformly skeptical or negative reactions to Soleimani's death, Democrats are . . . creating the risk that the U.S. will be seen as acting and speaking with less authority abroad at this important time.'' That is how a former Democratic Senator sees it. The Senate is supposed to be the Chamber where overheated partisan passions give way to sober judgment. Can we not at least wait until we know the facts? Can we not maintain a shred--just a shred--of national unity for 5 minutes--for 5 minutes--before deepening the partisan trenches? Must Democrats' distaste for this President dominate every thought they express and every decision they make? Is that really the seriousness that this situation deserves? The full Senate will be briefed on Wednesday. I expect the committees of oversight will also conduct hearings and that the Senators will have plenty of opportunities to discuss our interests and policies in the region. I urge my colleagues to bring a full awareness of the facts, mindfulness of the long history of Iran's aggression toward the United States and its allies, and a sober understanding of the threat Iran continues to pose. Could we at least remember we are all Americans first, and we are all in this together? | 2020-01-06 | Mr. McCONNELL | Senate | CREC-2020-01-06-pt1-PgS11-8 | null | 1 |
formal | terrorists | null | Islamophobic | Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, as the Senate convenes this afternoon, we find our Nation facing two grave and serious choices. One concerns our unity at home and the future of our Constitution. The other involves our strength abroad and the security of our homeland. Both situations demand serious, sober treatment from Congress. Both require that we put enduring national interests ahead of the factionalism and short-termism the Founding Fathers warned us about. But, unfortunately, seriousness has been in short supply lately--in very short supply--from the determined critics of President Trump, and our Nation, of course, is worse for it. Last Thursday, the United States took decisive action to end the murderous scheming of Iran's chief terrorist. Qasem Soleimani had spent numerous years masterminding attacks on American servicemembers and our partners throughout the Middle East and expanding Iran's influence. Despite sanctions and despite prohibitions by the U.N. Security Council, he roamed throughout the region with impunity. His hands bore the blood of more American servicemembers than anyone else alive. Hundreds of American families have buried loved ones because of him. Veterans have learned to live with permanent injuries inflicted by his terrorists. In Iraq, Syria, and beyond, theentire region felt the effects of his evil tactics. We should welcome his death and its complication of Tehran's terrorism-industrial complex, but we must remain vigilant and soberly prepared for even further aggression. It is completely appropriate that this decision would generate interest and questions from this body. We can and we should learn more about the intelligence and thinking that led to this operation and the plan to defend American personnel and interests in the wake of it. I am glad the administration will hold an all-Senators briefing on Wednesday. It will be led by Secretary of Defense Esper, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Milley, Secretary of State Pompeo, and CIA Director Haspel. Unfortunately, in this toxic political environment, some of our colleagues rushed to blame our own government before even knowing the facts, rushed to split hairs about intelligence before being briefed on it, and rushed to downplay Soleimani's evil while presenting our own President as the villain. Soon after the news broke, one of our distinguished colleagues made a public statement that rightly called Soleimani a ``murderer'' and then, amazingly, walked that message back when the far left objected to the factual statement. Since then, I believe all of her criticism has been directed at our own President. Another of our Democratic colleagues has been thinking out loud about Middle East policy on social media. Mere days before President Trump's decision, this Senator tore into the White House for what he described as weakness and inaction. ``No one fears us'' he complained. ``Trump has rendered America impotent in the Middle East.'' But since the strike, he has done a complete 180. That same Senator has harshly criticized our own President for getting tough. Ludicrously, he and others on the left have accused the administration of committing an illegal act and equated the removal of this terrorist leader with a foreign power assassinating our own Secretary of Defense. Here is what one expert had to say about it. Jeh Johnson, President Obama's own former Pentagon general counsel and Secretary of Homeland Security, said: If you believe everything that our government is saying about General Soleimani, he was a lawful military objective, and the president, under his constitutional authority as commander in chief, had ample domestic legal authority to take him out without-- Without-- an additional congressional authorization. Whether he was a terrorist or a general in a military force that was engaged in armed attacks against our people, he was a lawful military objective. That was the former Secretary of Homeland Security in the Obama administration, Jeh Johnson, an expert on these things. Our former colleague, Joe Lieberman, who ran for Vice President on the Democratic ticket in 2000, wrote this morning: ``In their uniformly skeptical or negative reactions to Soleimani's death, Democrats are . . . creating the risk that the U.S. will be seen as acting and speaking with less authority abroad at this important time.'' That is how a former Democratic Senator sees it. The Senate is supposed to be the Chamber where overheated partisan passions give way to sober judgment. Can we not at least wait until we know the facts? Can we not maintain a shred--just a shred--of national unity for 5 minutes--for 5 minutes--before deepening the partisan trenches? Must Democrats' distaste for this President dominate every thought they express and every decision they make? Is that really the seriousness that this situation deserves? The full Senate will be briefed on Wednesday. I expect the committees of oversight will also conduct hearings and that the Senators will have plenty of opportunities to discuss our interests and policies in the region. I urge my colleagues to bring a full awareness of the facts, mindfulness of the long history of Iran's aggression toward the United States and its allies, and a sober understanding of the threat Iran continues to pose. Could we at least remember we are all Americans first, and we are all in this together? | 2020-01-06 | Mr. McCONNELL | Senate | CREC-2020-01-06-pt1-PgS11-8 | null | 2 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, in the meantime, at this dangerous time, House Democrats continue to play political games with their partisan impeachment of the Commander in Chief. Last year, House Democrats conducted the least thorough, most rushed, most unfair impeachment inquiry in history. For weeks, Democrats said they could not wait for due process, could not conduct a normal or fair inquiry because removing the President from office was so incredibly urgent--incredibly urgent. Well, the unseriousness was obvious then and should be even more obvious now because Speaker Pelosi is now sitting on the articles she claimed were so very urgent. She has delayed this indefinitely so the architects of the failed House process can look for ways to reach over here into the Senate and dictate our process as well. Democrats have tried to insist that the Senate deviate from the unanimous bipartisan precedent set in the 1999 trial of President Clinton and write new rules for President Trump. They have tried to precommit the Senate to redoing House Democrats' slapdash work for them and pursuing avenues Chairman Schiff himself didn't bother to pursue. The Senate has a unanimous bipartisan precedent for when to handle midtrial questions such as witnesses: in the middle of the trial. That is when that was done the last time, and that is the way it should be done this time. In 1999, every single U.S. Senator agreed to establish basic parameters for the start of the trial upfront and reserve midtrial questions, such as witnesses, until later. The vote was 100 to 0. That was good enough for President Clinton, so it ought to be good enough for President Trump. Fair is fair. House Democrats' hunger to break our Senate precedents, just like they broke their own House precedents, could not be more telling, but the Senate does not just bob along on the currents of every news cycle. The House may have been content to scrap their own norms to hurt President Trump, but that is not the Senate. Even with a process this constitutionally serious, even with tensions rising in the Middle East, House Democrats are treating impeachment like a political toy--like a political toy--treating their own effort to remove our Commander in Chief like some frivolous game. These bizarre stunts do not serve our Constitution or our national security. They erode both. My Democratic colleagues should not plow away American unity in some bizarre intramural competition to see who dislikes the President more. They should not disdain our Constitution by rushing through a purely partisan impeachment process and then toying around with it. Governing is serious business. The American people deserve better, a lot better than this. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. McCONNELL | Senate | CREC-2020-01-06-pt1-PgS12 | null | 3 |
formal | based | null | white supremacist | Impeachment Mr. President, as my colleagues return from the holiday recess, one question looms before us: Will the Senate conduct a fair impeachment trial of the President of the United States? Will we search for all of the facts, or will we look for a coverup--a sham trial--on one of the most important powers the Founding Fathers gave the American people? The Framers gave the Senate the sole power to try Presidential impeachments because they could not imagine another body with ``confidence enough'' in its own status to ``preserve the necessary impartiality.'' It is up to every Senator now to live up to that awesome and profound responsibility. At the moment, there is a very clear difference of opinion between the Republican leader and myself about what it means to have a fair trial. I believe a fair trial is one that considers all the relevant facts and allows relevant witnesses and documents--a feature of every single impeachment trial of a President in the history of our Nation. We have never had one with no witnesses--not once. Leader McConnell likes to cite precedent. That precedent stares him in the face, and he can't answer it. My Republican counterpart believes that a trial should feature no relevant witnesses and none of the relevant documents. He has made clear in his public appearance on FOX News that it should proceed according to the desires of the White House--the defendant in this case. Glaringly, the Republican leader has yet to make one single argument why witnesses should not testify. I am waiting to hear it, Leader McConnell. Give us specific answers why these witnesses should not come forward. Don't call names. Don't finger-point. Don't get angry at Nancy Pelosi. Tell us why, here in the Senate, witnesses and documents should not come forward that are directly relevant to the charges against the President of the United States of America. Leader McConnell has sort of exempted himself from fair debate. He doesn't want a fair trial; he wants a quick and sham trial. Now it is up to every Senator. Every Senator will have a say in deciding which of the two views wins out. Will we have a fair trial or a coverup? Will we hear the evidence, or will we try to hide it? It will not be me and not the Republican leader alone but a majority of Senators who will decide whether we have a fair trial with facts and evidence or a Senate-sponsored coverup of the President's alleged misconduct. Make no mistake--there will be votes on whether to call each of the four witnesses we proposed and subpoena the documents we have identified. Under the rules of the Senate trial, the minority will be able to offer motions subject to a majority vote. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle, your constituents and the voice of history are watching. You will be required to vote on whether we have a fair trial with witnesses and with documents, or you will say: I am running away from the facts. I am scared of the facts. I will go for a coverup. A few hours ago, the momentum for uncovering the truth in a Senate trial gathered even more momentum. One of the key witnesses I have asked for, Mr. John Bolton, former National Security Advisor to President Trump, correctly acknowledged that he needs to comply with a Senate subpoena for his testimony, if issued. Previously, Mr. Bolton said he was leaving the question of his testimony up to the courts. Today, he made it perfectly clear that he will come if the Senate asks, as he should. The other potential witnesses we have identified--Mr. Mulvaney, Mr. Duffey, and Mr. Blair--should do the same. We know that Mr. Bolton, like Mr. Mulvaney, Mr. Duffey, and Mr. Blair--the three other witnesses--has crucial, eyewitness knowledge of the President's dealings with Ukraine, about how decisions were made to withhold security assistance and how opposition within the administration to that delay President Trump seemed to want was overcome. A simple majority is all it takes to ensure that the Senate issues a subpoena for these witnesses. If only four Republicans decide that Mr. Bolton and the three other witnesses ought to be heard, they will be heard, because every Democrat will vote to hear them. It is now up to four Senate Republicans to support bringing in Mr. Bolton and the three other witnesses, as well as the key documents we have requested, to ensure that all the evidence is presented at the outset of the Senate trial. Given that Mr. Bolton's lawyers have stated he has new and relevant information to share, if any Senate Republican opposes issuing subpoenas to the four witnesses and documents we have requested, they would make it absolutely clear they are participating in a coverup on one of the most sacred duties we have in this Congress--in this Senate--and that is to keep a President in check. Leader McConnell has suggested we follow the 1999 example of beginning the impeachment trial first and then deciding on witnesses and documentsafter the arguments are complete. He keeps making this argument. It doesn't gather any steam because it is such a foolish one. Let me again respond for the benefit of my colleagues. Witnesses and documents are the most important issue, and we should deal with them first. To hear Leader McConnell say ``no witnesses now but maybe some later'' is just another indication that he has no argument against witnesses and documents on the merits. He is afraid to address the argument because he knows it is a loser for him, so he says: Let's decide it later. Why? There is no reason. In fact, it is sort of backward. We are going to have all the arguments--pro and con--then say maybe we will have witnesses and documents? We will have the arguments first and the evidence later? As I have said, Leader McConnell's view of the trial is an ``Alice in Wonderland'' view--first the trial, then the evidence. More important than precedent is the fact that his analogy plainly doesn't make sense because you don't have both sides present their arguments first and then afterward ask for the evidence that we know is out there. The evidence should inform the trial, not the other way around. When Leader McConnell proposes that we follow the 1999 precedent, he is essentially arguing that we should conduct the entire impeachment trial first and then once it is over, decide on whether we need witnesses and documents. Again, McConnell's view is ``Alice in Wonderland,'' where we first have the trial and then the evidence. If the Senate were to agree to Leader McConnell's proposal, the Senate would act as little more than a nationally televised meeting of a mock trial club. Leader McConnell's proposal on witnesses and documents later is a poorly disguised trap. He has already actually made clear what his goals are. He said it on FOX News radio: ``After we've heard the arguments, we ought to vote and move on'' with no witnesses and no documents. Well, at least 47 Democrats and I hope some Republicans won't fall for that kind of specious logic. What McConnell said doesn't sound like someone who will reasonably consider witnesses and documents at a later date; he sounds more like someone who has already made up his mind. You cannot have a fair trial without the facts and without the testimony from witnesses with knowledge of the events and related documents. A trial without all the facts is a farce. If the President is acquitted at the end of a partisan sham trial with no witnesses and no documents, then his acquittal will not carry much weight in the minds of the American people or in the judgment of history. President Trump, if you are hurting about this impeachment and you are wishing for a fair trial and a real acquittal, join us in asking for the witnesses to come forward. Join us in asking for the documents. What are you hiding, President Trump? What are you afraid of, President Trump? If you think that you have done nothing wrong, you wouldn't mind having your own witnesses come here. These are people you appointed. Most Americans know that President Trump seems to be afraid of the truth. And 64 percent of all Republicans who almost always side with President Trump in the polling data say there should be witnesses and documents--64 percent. A trial without all the facts is a farce. The verdicts of a kangaroo court are empty. It is time for a bipartisan majority in this Chamber, Democrat and Republican, to support the rules and procedures of a fair trial. A vote to allow witnesses and documents does not presume a vote for conviction in any way. It merely ensures that when the ultimate judgment is rendered, whatever that judgment will be, it will be based on the facts. We don't know what the witnesses will say; it could be exculpatory for President Trump or it could be more condemning. Whatever it will be, we should have the facts come out and let the chips fall where they may. The Senate Democrats believe we must conduct a fair trial. As for the Senate Republicans, we will see. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2020-01-06-pt1-PgS14 | null | 4 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | Impeachment Mr. President, as my colleagues return from the holiday recess, one question looms before us: Will the Senate conduct a fair impeachment trial of the President of the United States? Will we search for all of the facts, or will we look for a coverup--a sham trial--on one of the most important powers the Founding Fathers gave the American people? The Framers gave the Senate the sole power to try Presidential impeachments because they could not imagine another body with ``confidence enough'' in its own status to ``preserve the necessary impartiality.'' It is up to every Senator now to live up to that awesome and profound responsibility. At the moment, there is a very clear difference of opinion between the Republican leader and myself about what it means to have a fair trial. I believe a fair trial is one that considers all the relevant facts and allows relevant witnesses and documents--a feature of every single impeachment trial of a President in the history of our Nation. We have never had one with no witnesses--not once. Leader McConnell likes to cite precedent. That precedent stares him in the face, and he can't answer it. My Republican counterpart believes that a trial should feature no relevant witnesses and none of the relevant documents. He has made clear in his public appearance on FOX News that it should proceed according to the desires of the White House--the defendant in this case. Glaringly, the Republican leader has yet to make one single argument why witnesses should not testify. I am waiting to hear it, Leader McConnell. Give us specific answers why these witnesses should not come forward. Don't call names. Don't finger-point. Don't get angry at Nancy Pelosi. Tell us why, here in the Senate, witnesses and documents should not come forward that are directly relevant to the charges against the President of the United States of America. Leader McConnell has sort of exempted himself from fair debate. He doesn't want a fair trial; he wants a quick and sham trial. Now it is up to every Senator. Every Senator will have a say in deciding which of the two views wins out. Will we have a fair trial or a coverup? Will we hear the evidence, or will we try to hide it? It will not be me and not the Republican leader alone but a majority of Senators who will decide whether we have a fair trial with facts and evidence or a Senate-sponsored coverup of the President's alleged misconduct. Make no mistake--there will be votes on whether to call each of the four witnesses we proposed and subpoena the documents we have identified. Under the rules of the Senate trial, the minority will be able to offer motions subject to a majority vote. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle, your constituents and the voice of history are watching. You will be required to vote on whether we have a fair trial with witnesses and with documents, or you will say: I am running away from the facts. I am scared of the facts. I will go for a coverup. A few hours ago, the momentum for uncovering the truth in a Senate trial gathered even more momentum. One of the key witnesses I have asked for, Mr. John Bolton, former National Security Advisor to President Trump, correctly acknowledged that he needs to comply with a Senate subpoena for his testimony, if issued. Previously, Mr. Bolton said he was leaving the question of his testimony up to the courts. Today, he made it perfectly clear that he will come if the Senate asks, as he should. The other potential witnesses we have identified--Mr. Mulvaney, Mr. Duffey, and Mr. Blair--should do the same. We know that Mr. Bolton, like Mr. Mulvaney, Mr. Duffey, and Mr. Blair--the three other witnesses--has crucial, eyewitness knowledge of the President's dealings with Ukraine, about how decisions were made to withhold security assistance and how opposition within the administration to that delay President Trump seemed to want was overcome. A simple majority is all it takes to ensure that the Senate issues a subpoena for these witnesses. If only four Republicans decide that Mr. Bolton and the three other witnesses ought to be heard, they will be heard, because every Democrat will vote to hear them. It is now up to four Senate Republicans to support bringing in Mr. Bolton and the three other witnesses, as well as the key documents we have requested, to ensure that all the evidence is presented at the outset of the Senate trial. Given that Mr. Bolton's lawyers have stated he has new and relevant information to share, if any Senate Republican opposes issuing subpoenas to the four witnesses and documents we have requested, they would make it absolutely clear they are participating in a coverup on one of the most sacred duties we have in this Congress--in this Senate--and that is to keep a President in check. Leader McConnell has suggested we follow the 1999 example of beginning the impeachment trial first and then deciding on witnesses and documentsafter the arguments are complete. He keeps making this argument. It doesn't gather any steam because it is such a foolish one. Let me again respond for the benefit of my colleagues. Witnesses and documents are the most important issue, and we should deal with them first. To hear Leader McConnell say ``no witnesses now but maybe some later'' is just another indication that he has no argument against witnesses and documents on the merits. He is afraid to address the argument because he knows it is a loser for him, so he says: Let's decide it later. Why? There is no reason. In fact, it is sort of backward. We are going to have all the arguments--pro and con--then say maybe we will have witnesses and documents? We will have the arguments first and the evidence later? As I have said, Leader McConnell's view of the trial is an ``Alice in Wonderland'' view--first the trial, then the evidence. More important than precedent is the fact that his analogy plainly doesn't make sense because you don't have both sides present their arguments first and then afterward ask for the evidence that we know is out there. The evidence should inform the trial, not the other way around. When Leader McConnell proposes that we follow the 1999 precedent, he is essentially arguing that we should conduct the entire impeachment trial first and then once it is over, decide on whether we need witnesses and documents. Again, McConnell's view is ``Alice in Wonderland,'' where we first have the trial and then the evidence. If the Senate were to agree to Leader McConnell's proposal, the Senate would act as little more than a nationally televised meeting of a mock trial club. Leader McConnell's proposal on witnesses and documents later is a poorly disguised trap. He has already actually made clear what his goals are. He said it on FOX News radio: ``After we've heard the arguments, we ought to vote and move on'' with no witnesses and no documents. Well, at least 47 Democrats and I hope some Republicans won't fall for that kind of specious logic. What McConnell said doesn't sound like someone who will reasonably consider witnesses and documents at a later date; he sounds more like someone who has already made up his mind. You cannot have a fair trial without the facts and without the testimony from witnesses with knowledge of the events and related documents. A trial without all the facts is a farce. If the President is acquitted at the end of a partisan sham trial with no witnesses and no documents, then his acquittal will not carry much weight in the minds of the American people or in the judgment of history. President Trump, if you are hurting about this impeachment and you are wishing for a fair trial and a real acquittal, join us in asking for the witnesses to come forward. Join us in asking for the documents. What are you hiding, President Trump? What are you afraid of, President Trump? If you think that you have done nothing wrong, you wouldn't mind having your own witnesses come here. These are people you appointed. Most Americans know that President Trump seems to be afraid of the truth. And 64 percent of all Republicans who almost always side with President Trump in the polling data say there should be witnesses and documents--64 percent. A trial without all the facts is a farce. The verdicts of a kangaroo court are empty. It is time for a bipartisan majority in this Chamber, Democrat and Republican, to support the rules and procedures of a fair trial. A vote to allow witnesses and documents does not presume a vote for conviction in any way. It merely ensures that when the ultimate judgment is rendered, whatever that judgment will be, it will be based on the facts. We don't know what the witnesses will say; it could be exculpatory for President Trump or it could be more condemning. Whatever it will be, we should have the facts come out and let the chips fall where they may. The Senate Democrats believe we must conduct a fair trial. As for the Senate Republicans, we will see. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2020-01-06-pt1-PgS14 | null | 5 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | Iran Madam President, on another matter, last Friday, Americans woke up to the news that one of the most brutal terrorist leaders in the world had been killed. Qasem Soleimani was killed in an airstrike by America's military, finally bringing an end to his decades-long reign of terror. You could legitimately call General Soleimani a master of disaster because that defined his entire professional life as the leader of Iran's military. Actually, he was the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, which is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. General Soleimani was the most consequential military leader in Iran, which has been designated by the U.S. State Departmentas a state sponsor of international terrorism since 1984. General Soleimani orchestrated Iran's efforts to squash democracy movements both at home and abroad by any means necessary. He and his army of terrorists exported violence around the region and engaged in gross human rights violations against the Iranian people. If you are curious how the Iranian Government treats its own citizens, just look at the recent protests that started as complaints over increased gas prices. When the Iranian citizens took to the streets in peaceful protest, the Ayatollah, the Supreme Leader, called them enemy agents and thugs, and the government attacked. As many as 450 Iranians were killed in those peaceful protests, with some 2,000 injured and 7,000 detained. This is not a government that is protecting its people; it is a network of criminals that masquerades as a government. One of the Ayatollah's most loyal henchmen was Soleimani. In addition to leading attacks on the Iranian people and fueling terrorist operations throughout the Middle East, he also played a crucial role in fomenting Syria's civil war. Soleimani helped to finance and aid the butcher, known as Bashar al-Assad, in the slaughter of the Syrian people. The death toll of the Syrian civil war is estimated to be as high as a half a million Syrians, and the number of refugees and internally displaced persons goes into the millions. While the greatest death and destruction orchestrated by Soleimani was concentrated in the Middle East, the United States was one of his and Iran's biggest targets. From the Iranian hostage crisis back in 1979, to the Khobar Towers bombing, to the recent shooting down of a U.S. drone, to the death of an American contractor in Iraq, Iran's actions at every turn have demonstrated a desire to make the chant ``Death to America'' a reality. Soleimani was known to be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers. He and the Iranian regime supplied explosively formed penetrators that cut through American armor like a hot knife through butter and left hundreds of American soldiers--indeed, maybe 1,000 or more--disabled as a result of this deadly instrument of war. Since 2003, at least 600 U.S. soldiers have been killed by Iranian proxies in Iraq, and as I have said, many more have been injured. I and others in this Chamber have seen their activities firsthand at Brooke Army Medical Center, the Center for the Intrepid in San Antonio, and at other places where they have received treatment, like at Walter Reed Army Medical Center here in Washington, DC. It is where the victims of these Iranian improvised explosive devices were treated for amputation, for burns, or functional limb loss if they survived those injuries in the first place. These soldiers are a reminder of the selfless commitment our men and women in uniform make each day as well as the perilous threat posed by Iran under Soleimani's leadership. For decades, since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Tehran has waged war against the United States and our allies, and recent reports indicate that Soleimani was in the process of plotting even more acts of aggression against the United States and U.S. interests, which is hardly surprising, though, since he had been doing that for many years. That is precisely why he was targeted. Just as quickly as the news of this attack spread, so did anti-Trump rhetoric. Instead of celebrating the fact that Iran's chief terrorist was dead and could kill no more, a number of our Democratic colleagues chose to bash the President instead. They claimed his action was unauthorized, even illegal, or that he should have sought congressional approval beforehand. None of that is true. The President not only has the authority under the Constitution but the responsibility to defend the United States from terrorist organizations like the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its leaders like General Soleimani. This was neither an assassination--a particularly loathsome allegation that has been made on social media--nor an unprovoked attack. This was the President of the United States exercising his lawful authority to protect the United States, our allies, and our national interests just as Presidents before have done. Perhaps the most stark comparison is when Barack Obama directed the killing of Osama bin Laden. Where were the people who now claim that Soleimani's death is an abuse of power? I don't recall anyone calling the killing of Osama bin Laden an assassination. When he was killed, they were not on cable TV, criticizing the move; we were all celebrating. Some of our Democratic friends will simply never pass on an opportunity to criticize the President--no matter how unfair. Thank goodness there are Democrats like former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and former U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman. Senator Joe Lieberman said: President Trump's order to take out Qasem Soleimani was morally, constitutionally and strategically correct. It deserves more bipartisan support than the begrudging or negative reactions it has received thus far from my fellow Democrats. I am also grateful for the informed comments by luminaries like former CENTCOM Commander and former CIA Director General Petraeus as well as Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who have both rightly said that this action was authorized and necessary. It is unquestionable that the death of Soleimani was a major blow to the Iranian regime and a strong message of deterrence to all state sponsors of terrorism. The blood of hundreds of American soldiers and countless civilians is on Soleimani's hands, and because of the decisive action taken by President Trump, he is gone. I fully support this move by the President, and I commend the President's willingness to send a strong message of deterrence to the terrorist threat in the Middle East, particularly against the United States, our citizens, and our interests. Finally, I join my fellow Senators in thanking the brave men and women in uniform who fought and continue to fight terrorist acts brought about by people like General Soleimani and the Quds Force as part of the IRGC. I especially thank those who are fighting and who are prepared to defend our interests in the Middle East today. America must never back down in the face of this evil. Our world is safer today because Qasem Soleimani is dead. It would not have been possible without the actions that President Trump has undertaken or without the resolve of our military leaders and our courageous servicemembers who put their lives on the line each day. 116th Congress Madam President, on another matter, briefly, we have now crossed the halfway point of the 116th Congress, and it is safe to say that 2019 was an unconventional and a somewhat bumpy year. After 2 years with Republicans controlling both Chambers of Congress and the White House, we were all prepared for the challenges that would come with a Democratically controlled House. Despite the unnecessary foot-dragging and political gaming and obsession with foiling the President, we were still able to accomplish a lot of good for the country and the people of my State of Texas. Last month alone, we made major moves to strengthen our military and support our troops. We passed a funding bill that increased the funding by nearly $20 billion--necessary to restore our readiness--and gave our troops the largest pay raise they had received in a decade. This complemented the National Defense Authorization Act, which authorized $400 million for military construction projects in Texas and 90 new F-35 Joint Strike Fighters that will be built in Fort Worth. It also included a number of provisions that I introduced to support our servicemembers and veterans. In 2016, only 46 percent of Active-Duty military voted by absentee ballot, and one-third of those who didn't vote said that the absentee voting process was simply too complicated. To make that better, I introduced the Military Voter Protection Act, which became law last month. It makes the absentee voter registration process easier for servicemembers stationed overseas so that a complicated trail of paperwork doesn't prevent them from casting their well-deserved ballots. I have also heard from my Texas constituents who are veterans, who havefallen on hard times and had to fight for their VA and Department of Defense disability benefits in bankruptcy proceedings. That should never be the case. Another bill I introduced called the HAVEN Act, which is now law, shields those benefits in the same way that Social Security disability is exempted. No veteran should be penalized for receiving the disability compensation that they are rightly due. Of course, perhaps the biggest headline news is our continued work on judicial nominations. Under this administration, we have confirmed more than 180 Federal judges, including 20 in Texas, plus 2 Supreme Court Justices. Although we are still 1 year shy of the end of President Trump's first term, we have already confirmed more circuit court judges than in any other President's first term in the past four decades. Having these impressive judges on the Federal bench will be a tremendous benefit to the entire country for generations to come, and we will keep working to confirm even more. Over the last year, we have also built on our work to support victims of Hurricane Harvey, including the release of $4.6 billion in additional funding from a bill to support communities across the country, including those in Texas, recovering from natural disasters. More than 2 years after the storm, many Texans are still rebuilding and, sadly, have had the added struggle of fighting to get their hands on Federal funds already approved by Congress. In February 2018, Congress passed a funding package that included more than $4 billion in disaster mitigation for Texas, but more than a year later, folks at home still hadn't seen a dime of that money. This summer, I introduced a bill that would require the Office of Management and Budget to send those and any future funds approved by Congress within 90 days of their appropriation by Congress. Government bureaucrats should not be allowed to stand in the way between communities in need and funds already approved by Congress, and I am happy that those funds are finally going out the door to these Texas communities. Another challenge we have faced over the last year is the ongoing crisis at the border, which hit its peak in May. Local communities in Texas helped carry the weight of this humanitarian crisis, which has placed serious strain on their ability to deliver basic services at the municipal and State levels. They diverted taxpayer dollars from things like public safety, power, and clean drinking water to do a job that should have been done by the Federal Government in the first place to secure our border. To right this wrong, we passed a funding agreement, at my request, which provided $30 million in reimbursements for local governments, States, and charitable organizations that have spent millions of dollars in response to this crisis, which seems to be ignored too often here in Washington, DC. Nearly 40 percent of this initial funding went to Texas to meet immediate needs, and I expect another round to come soon to cover additional expenses. Another big victory came in the form of international trade. Through my role as chairman of the Senate Finance Trade Subcommittee, I worked with the administration on three trade agreements with Japan, the USMCA--the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement--and China, all of which, I think, will inure to the benefit of all Americans, including Texans. I commend President Trump and Ambassador Lighthizer for their courage in confronting unfair trade practices, opening new markets, and providing economic certainty as we move into this election year. On top of all of this, we passed the bipartisan Taxpayer First Act, which includes some of the most significant reforms to the Internal Revenue Service in two decades. We stood with victims of domestic violence and sexual assault by finally passing the Debbie Smith Reauthorization Act, which strengthens our fight to end the rape kit backlog. We helped provide additional resources to secure America's elections against foreign interference, and the list goes on and on and on. It is safe to say, though, that there are a number of items that could have been added to this list of accomplishments, had they not been pulled into the political fray and this obsessive impeachment mania by the House of Representatives. Two things we could have done that were not accomplished as a result of this obsession were bills to reduce prescription drug pricing and to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, for which the Presiding Officer has played such an important leadership role. In both cases, there is broad bipartisan support for action, and in both cases, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle decided that political point scoring was more important than actually getting the job done; thus, we found ourselves at an impasse. As we gear up for a new year, those will be two of the top items on my priority list, and I hope our Democratic colleagues will work with us this time around to get them done. We are kicking off 2020 with a big, looming question mark hanging over this Chamber in the form of this impeachment trial, which was an urgent constitutional imperative until it wasn't. We are anxious to see what Speaker Pelosi will finally decide, and we are waiting for the House to transmit the Articles of Impeachment, but we are not going to let the grass grow under our feet in the interim. We are going to keep working to notch more wins for the American people, confirm more Federal judges, and pass the USMCA trade agreement, hopefully, before further delay. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2020-01-06-pt1-PgS15 | null | 6 |
formal | terrorism | null | Islamophobic | Iran Madam President, on another matter, last Friday, Americans woke up to the news that one of the most brutal terrorist leaders in the world had been killed. Qasem Soleimani was killed in an airstrike by America's military, finally bringing an end to his decades-long reign of terror. You could legitimately call General Soleimani a master of disaster because that defined his entire professional life as the leader of Iran's military. Actually, he was the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, which is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. General Soleimani was the most consequential military leader in Iran, which has been designated by the U.S. State Departmentas a state sponsor of international terrorism since 1984. General Soleimani orchestrated Iran's efforts to squash democracy movements both at home and abroad by any means necessary. He and his army of terrorists exported violence around the region and engaged in gross human rights violations against the Iranian people. If you are curious how the Iranian Government treats its own citizens, just look at the recent protests that started as complaints over increased gas prices. When the Iranian citizens took to the streets in peaceful protest, the Ayatollah, the Supreme Leader, called them enemy agents and thugs, and the government attacked. As many as 450 Iranians were killed in those peaceful protests, with some 2,000 injured and 7,000 detained. This is not a government that is protecting its people; it is a network of criminals that masquerades as a government. One of the Ayatollah's most loyal henchmen was Soleimani. In addition to leading attacks on the Iranian people and fueling terrorist operations throughout the Middle East, he also played a crucial role in fomenting Syria's civil war. Soleimani helped to finance and aid the butcher, known as Bashar al-Assad, in the slaughter of the Syrian people. The death toll of the Syrian civil war is estimated to be as high as a half a million Syrians, and the number of refugees and internally displaced persons goes into the millions. While the greatest death and destruction orchestrated by Soleimani was concentrated in the Middle East, the United States was one of his and Iran's biggest targets. From the Iranian hostage crisis back in 1979, to the Khobar Towers bombing, to the recent shooting down of a U.S. drone, to the death of an American contractor in Iraq, Iran's actions at every turn have demonstrated a desire to make the chant ``Death to America'' a reality. Soleimani was known to be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers. He and the Iranian regime supplied explosively formed penetrators that cut through American armor like a hot knife through butter and left hundreds of American soldiers--indeed, maybe 1,000 or more--disabled as a result of this deadly instrument of war. Since 2003, at least 600 U.S. soldiers have been killed by Iranian proxies in Iraq, and as I have said, many more have been injured. I and others in this Chamber have seen their activities firsthand at Brooke Army Medical Center, the Center for the Intrepid in San Antonio, and at other places where they have received treatment, like at Walter Reed Army Medical Center here in Washington, DC. It is where the victims of these Iranian improvised explosive devices were treated for amputation, for burns, or functional limb loss if they survived those injuries in the first place. These soldiers are a reminder of the selfless commitment our men and women in uniform make each day as well as the perilous threat posed by Iran under Soleimani's leadership. For decades, since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Tehran has waged war against the United States and our allies, and recent reports indicate that Soleimani was in the process of plotting even more acts of aggression against the United States and U.S. interests, which is hardly surprising, though, since he had been doing that for many years. That is precisely why he was targeted. Just as quickly as the news of this attack spread, so did anti-Trump rhetoric. Instead of celebrating the fact that Iran's chief terrorist was dead and could kill no more, a number of our Democratic colleagues chose to bash the President instead. They claimed his action was unauthorized, even illegal, or that he should have sought congressional approval beforehand. None of that is true. The President not only has the authority under the Constitution but the responsibility to defend the United States from terrorist organizations like the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its leaders like General Soleimani. This was neither an assassination--a particularly loathsome allegation that has been made on social media--nor an unprovoked attack. This was the President of the United States exercising his lawful authority to protect the United States, our allies, and our national interests just as Presidents before have done. Perhaps the most stark comparison is when Barack Obama directed the killing of Osama bin Laden. Where were the people who now claim that Soleimani's death is an abuse of power? I don't recall anyone calling the killing of Osama bin Laden an assassination. When he was killed, they were not on cable TV, criticizing the move; we were all celebrating. Some of our Democratic friends will simply never pass on an opportunity to criticize the President--no matter how unfair. Thank goodness there are Democrats like former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and former U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman. Senator Joe Lieberman said: President Trump's order to take out Qasem Soleimani was morally, constitutionally and strategically correct. It deserves more bipartisan support than the begrudging or negative reactions it has received thus far from my fellow Democrats. I am also grateful for the informed comments by luminaries like former CENTCOM Commander and former CIA Director General Petraeus as well as Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who have both rightly said that this action was authorized and necessary. It is unquestionable that the death of Soleimani was a major blow to the Iranian regime and a strong message of deterrence to all state sponsors of terrorism. The blood of hundreds of American soldiers and countless civilians is on Soleimani's hands, and because of the decisive action taken by President Trump, he is gone. I fully support this move by the President, and I commend the President's willingness to send a strong message of deterrence to the terrorist threat in the Middle East, particularly against the United States, our citizens, and our interests. Finally, I join my fellow Senators in thanking the brave men and women in uniform who fought and continue to fight terrorist acts brought about by people like General Soleimani and the Quds Force as part of the IRGC. I especially thank those who are fighting and who are prepared to defend our interests in the Middle East today. America must never back down in the face of this evil. Our world is safer today because Qasem Soleimani is dead. It would not have been possible without the actions that President Trump has undertaken or without the resolve of our military leaders and our courageous servicemembers who put their lives on the line each day. 116th Congress Madam President, on another matter, briefly, we have now crossed the halfway point of the 116th Congress, and it is safe to say that 2019 was an unconventional and a somewhat bumpy year. After 2 years with Republicans controlling both Chambers of Congress and the White House, we were all prepared for the challenges that would come with a Democratically controlled House. Despite the unnecessary foot-dragging and political gaming and obsession with foiling the President, we were still able to accomplish a lot of good for the country and the people of my State of Texas. Last month alone, we made major moves to strengthen our military and support our troops. We passed a funding bill that increased the funding by nearly $20 billion--necessary to restore our readiness--and gave our troops the largest pay raise they had received in a decade. This complemented the National Defense Authorization Act, which authorized $400 million for military construction projects in Texas and 90 new F-35 Joint Strike Fighters that will be built in Fort Worth. It also included a number of provisions that I introduced to support our servicemembers and veterans. In 2016, only 46 percent of Active-Duty military voted by absentee ballot, and one-third of those who didn't vote said that the absentee voting process was simply too complicated. To make that better, I introduced the Military Voter Protection Act, which became law last month. It makes the absentee voter registration process easier for servicemembers stationed overseas so that a complicated trail of paperwork doesn't prevent them from casting their well-deserved ballots. I have also heard from my Texas constituents who are veterans, who havefallen on hard times and had to fight for their VA and Department of Defense disability benefits in bankruptcy proceedings. That should never be the case. Another bill I introduced called the HAVEN Act, which is now law, shields those benefits in the same way that Social Security disability is exempted. No veteran should be penalized for receiving the disability compensation that they are rightly due. Of course, perhaps the biggest headline news is our continued work on judicial nominations. Under this administration, we have confirmed more than 180 Federal judges, including 20 in Texas, plus 2 Supreme Court Justices. Although we are still 1 year shy of the end of President Trump's first term, we have already confirmed more circuit court judges than in any other President's first term in the past four decades. Having these impressive judges on the Federal bench will be a tremendous benefit to the entire country for generations to come, and we will keep working to confirm even more. Over the last year, we have also built on our work to support victims of Hurricane Harvey, including the release of $4.6 billion in additional funding from a bill to support communities across the country, including those in Texas, recovering from natural disasters. More than 2 years after the storm, many Texans are still rebuilding and, sadly, have had the added struggle of fighting to get their hands on Federal funds already approved by Congress. In February 2018, Congress passed a funding package that included more than $4 billion in disaster mitigation for Texas, but more than a year later, folks at home still hadn't seen a dime of that money. This summer, I introduced a bill that would require the Office of Management and Budget to send those and any future funds approved by Congress within 90 days of their appropriation by Congress. Government bureaucrats should not be allowed to stand in the way between communities in need and funds already approved by Congress, and I am happy that those funds are finally going out the door to these Texas communities. Another challenge we have faced over the last year is the ongoing crisis at the border, which hit its peak in May. Local communities in Texas helped carry the weight of this humanitarian crisis, which has placed serious strain on their ability to deliver basic services at the municipal and State levels. They diverted taxpayer dollars from things like public safety, power, and clean drinking water to do a job that should have been done by the Federal Government in the first place to secure our border. To right this wrong, we passed a funding agreement, at my request, which provided $30 million in reimbursements for local governments, States, and charitable organizations that have spent millions of dollars in response to this crisis, which seems to be ignored too often here in Washington, DC. Nearly 40 percent of this initial funding went to Texas to meet immediate needs, and I expect another round to come soon to cover additional expenses. Another big victory came in the form of international trade. Through my role as chairman of the Senate Finance Trade Subcommittee, I worked with the administration on three trade agreements with Japan, the USMCA--the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement--and China, all of which, I think, will inure to the benefit of all Americans, including Texans. I commend President Trump and Ambassador Lighthizer for their courage in confronting unfair trade practices, opening new markets, and providing economic certainty as we move into this election year. On top of all of this, we passed the bipartisan Taxpayer First Act, which includes some of the most significant reforms to the Internal Revenue Service in two decades. We stood with victims of domestic violence and sexual assault by finally passing the Debbie Smith Reauthorization Act, which strengthens our fight to end the rape kit backlog. We helped provide additional resources to secure America's elections against foreign interference, and the list goes on and on and on. It is safe to say, though, that there are a number of items that could have been added to this list of accomplishments, had they not been pulled into the political fray and this obsessive impeachment mania by the House of Representatives. Two things we could have done that were not accomplished as a result of this obsession were bills to reduce prescription drug pricing and to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, for which the Presiding Officer has played such an important leadership role. In both cases, there is broad bipartisan support for action, and in both cases, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle decided that political point scoring was more important than actually getting the job done; thus, we found ourselves at an impasse. As we gear up for a new year, those will be two of the top items on my priority list, and I hope our Democratic colleagues will work with us this time around to get them done. We are kicking off 2020 with a big, looming question mark hanging over this Chamber in the form of this impeachment trial, which was an urgent constitutional imperative until it wasn't. We are anxious to see what Speaker Pelosi will finally decide, and we are waiting for the House to transmit the Articles of Impeachment, but we are not going to let the grass grow under our feet in the interim. We are going to keep working to notch more wins for the American people, confirm more Federal judges, and pass the USMCA trade agreement, hopefully, before further delay. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2020-01-06-pt1-PgS15 | null | 7 |
formal | terrorist | null | Islamophobic | Iran Madam President, on another matter, last Friday, Americans woke up to the news that one of the most brutal terrorist leaders in the world had been killed. Qasem Soleimani was killed in an airstrike by America's military, finally bringing an end to his decades-long reign of terror. You could legitimately call General Soleimani a master of disaster because that defined his entire professional life as the leader of Iran's military. Actually, he was the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, which is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. General Soleimani was the most consequential military leader in Iran, which has been designated by the U.S. State Departmentas a state sponsor of international terrorism since 1984. General Soleimani orchestrated Iran's efforts to squash democracy movements both at home and abroad by any means necessary. He and his army of terrorists exported violence around the region and engaged in gross human rights violations against the Iranian people. If you are curious how the Iranian Government treats its own citizens, just look at the recent protests that started as complaints over increased gas prices. When the Iranian citizens took to the streets in peaceful protest, the Ayatollah, the Supreme Leader, called them enemy agents and thugs, and the government attacked. As many as 450 Iranians were killed in those peaceful protests, with some 2,000 injured and 7,000 detained. This is not a government that is protecting its people; it is a network of criminals that masquerades as a government. One of the Ayatollah's most loyal henchmen was Soleimani. In addition to leading attacks on the Iranian people and fueling terrorist operations throughout the Middle East, he also played a crucial role in fomenting Syria's civil war. Soleimani helped to finance and aid the butcher, known as Bashar al-Assad, in the slaughter of the Syrian people. The death toll of the Syrian civil war is estimated to be as high as a half a million Syrians, and the number of refugees and internally displaced persons goes into the millions. While the greatest death and destruction orchestrated by Soleimani was concentrated in the Middle East, the United States was one of his and Iran's biggest targets. From the Iranian hostage crisis back in 1979, to the Khobar Towers bombing, to the recent shooting down of a U.S. drone, to the death of an American contractor in Iraq, Iran's actions at every turn have demonstrated a desire to make the chant ``Death to America'' a reality. Soleimani was known to be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers. He and the Iranian regime supplied explosively formed penetrators that cut through American armor like a hot knife through butter and left hundreds of American soldiers--indeed, maybe 1,000 or more--disabled as a result of this deadly instrument of war. Since 2003, at least 600 U.S. soldiers have been killed by Iranian proxies in Iraq, and as I have said, many more have been injured. I and others in this Chamber have seen their activities firsthand at Brooke Army Medical Center, the Center for the Intrepid in San Antonio, and at other places where they have received treatment, like at Walter Reed Army Medical Center here in Washington, DC. It is where the victims of these Iranian improvised explosive devices were treated for amputation, for burns, or functional limb loss if they survived those injuries in the first place. These soldiers are a reminder of the selfless commitment our men and women in uniform make each day as well as the perilous threat posed by Iran under Soleimani's leadership. For decades, since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Tehran has waged war against the United States and our allies, and recent reports indicate that Soleimani was in the process of plotting even more acts of aggression against the United States and U.S. interests, which is hardly surprising, though, since he had been doing that for many years. That is precisely why he was targeted. Just as quickly as the news of this attack spread, so did anti-Trump rhetoric. Instead of celebrating the fact that Iran's chief terrorist was dead and could kill no more, a number of our Democratic colleagues chose to bash the President instead. They claimed his action was unauthorized, even illegal, or that he should have sought congressional approval beforehand. None of that is true. The President not only has the authority under the Constitution but the responsibility to defend the United States from terrorist organizations like the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its leaders like General Soleimani. This was neither an assassination--a particularly loathsome allegation that has been made on social media--nor an unprovoked attack. This was the President of the United States exercising his lawful authority to protect the United States, our allies, and our national interests just as Presidents before have done. Perhaps the most stark comparison is when Barack Obama directed the killing of Osama bin Laden. Where were the people who now claim that Soleimani's death is an abuse of power? I don't recall anyone calling the killing of Osama bin Laden an assassination. When he was killed, they were not on cable TV, criticizing the move; we were all celebrating. Some of our Democratic friends will simply never pass on an opportunity to criticize the President--no matter how unfair. Thank goodness there are Democrats like former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and former U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman. Senator Joe Lieberman said: President Trump's order to take out Qasem Soleimani was morally, constitutionally and strategically correct. It deserves more bipartisan support than the begrudging or negative reactions it has received thus far from my fellow Democrats. I am also grateful for the informed comments by luminaries like former CENTCOM Commander and former CIA Director General Petraeus as well as Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who have both rightly said that this action was authorized and necessary. It is unquestionable that the death of Soleimani was a major blow to the Iranian regime and a strong message of deterrence to all state sponsors of terrorism. The blood of hundreds of American soldiers and countless civilians is on Soleimani's hands, and because of the decisive action taken by President Trump, he is gone. I fully support this move by the President, and I commend the President's willingness to send a strong message of deterrence to the terrorist threat in the Middle East, particularly against the United States, our citizens, and our interests. Finally, I join my fellow Senators in thanking the brave men and women in uniform who fought and continue to fight terrorist acts brought about by people like General Soleimani and the Quds Force as part of the IRGC. I especially thank those who are fighting and who are prepared to defend our interests in the Middle East today. America must never back down in the face of this evil. Our world is safer today because Qasem Soleimani is dead. It would not have been possible without the actions that President Trump has undertaken or without the resolve of our military leaders and our courageous servicemembers who put their lives on the line each day. 116th Congress Madam President, on another matter, briefly, we have now crossed the halfway point of the 116th Congress, and it is safe to say that 2019 was an unconventional and a somewhat bumpy year. After 2 years with Republicans controlling both Chambers of Congress and the White House, we were all prepared for the challenges that would come with a Democratically controlled House. Despite the unnecessary foot-dragging and political gaming and obsession with foiling the President, we were still able to accomplish a lot of good for the country and the people of my State of Texas. Last month alone, we made major moves to strengthen our military and support our troops. We passed a funding bill that increased the funding by nearly $20 billion--necessary to restore our readiness--and gave our troops the largest pay raise they had received in a decade. This complemented the National Defense Authorization Act, which authorized $400 million for military construction projects in Texas and 90 new F-35 Joint Strike Fighters that will be built in Fort Worth. It also included a number of provisions that I introduced to support our servicemembers and veterans. In 2016, only 46 percent of Active-Duty military voted by absentee ballot, and one-third of those who didn't vote said that the absentee voting process was simply too complicated. To make that better, I introduced the Military Voter Protection Act, which became law last month. It makes the absentee voter registration process easier for servicemembers stationed overseas so that a complicated trail of paperwork doesn't prevent them from casting their well-deserved ballots. I have also heard from my Texas constituents who are veterans, who havefallen on hard times and had to fight for their VA and Department of Defense disability benefits in bankruptcy proceedings. That should never be the case. Another bill I introduced called the HAVEN Act, which is now law, shields those benefits in the same way that Social Security disability is exempted. No veteran should be penalized for receiving the disability compensation that they are rightly due. Of course, perhaps the biggest headline news is our continued work on judicial nominations. Under this administration, we have confirmed more than 180 Federal judges, including 20 in Texas, plus 2 Supreme Court Justices. Although we are still 1 year shy of the end of President Trump's first term, we have already confirmed more circuit court judges than in any other President's first term in the past four decades. Having these impressive judges on the Federal bench will be a tremendous benefit to the entire country for generations to come, and we will keep working to confirm even more. Over the last year, we have also built on our work to support victims of Hurricane Harvey, including the release of $4.6 billion in additional funding from a bill to support communities across the country, including those in Texas, recovering from natural disasters. More than 2 years after the storm, many Texans are still rebuilding and, sadly, have had the added struggle of fighting to get their hands on Federal funds already approved by Congress. In February 2018, Congress passed a funding package that included more than $4 billion in disaster mitigation for Texas, but more than a year later, folks at home still hadn't seen a dime of that money. This summer, I introduced a bill that would require the Office of Management and Budget to send those and any future funds approved by Congress within 90 days of their appropriation by Congress. Government bureaucrats should not be allowed to stand in the way between communities in need and funds already approved by Congress, and I am happy that those funds are finally going out the door to these Texas communities. Another challenge we have faced over the last year is the ongoing crisis at the border, which hit its peak in May. Local communities in Texas helped carry the weight of this humanitarian crisis, which has placed serious strain on their ability to deliver basic services at the municipal and State levels. They diverted taxpayer dollars from things like public safety, power, and clean drinking water to do a job that should have been done by the Federal Government in the first place to secure our border. To right this wrong, we passed a funding agreement, at my request, which provided $30 million in reimbursements for local governments, States, and charitable organizations that have spent millions of dollars in response to this crisis, which seems to be ignored too often here in Washington, DC. Nearly 40 percent of this initial funding went to Texas to meet immediate needs, and I expect another round to come soon to cover additional expenses. Another big victory came in the form of international trade. Through my role as chairman of the Senate Finance Trade Subcommittee, I worked with the administration on three trade agreements with Japan, the USMCA--the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement--and China, all of which, I think, will inure to the benefit of all Americans, including Texans. I commend President Trump and Ambassador Lighthizer for their courage in confronting unfair trade practices, opening new markets, and providing economic certainty as we move into this election year. On top of all of this, we passed the bipartisan Taxpayer First Act, which includes some of the most significant reforms to the Internal Revenue Service in two decades. We stood with victims of domestic violence and sexual assault by finally passing the Debbie Smith Reauthorization Act, which strengthens our fight to end the rape kit backlog. We helped provide additional resources to secure America's elections against foreign interference, and the list goes on and on and on. It is safe to say, though, that there are a number of items that could have been added to this list of accomplishments, had they not been pulled into the political fray and this obsessive impeachment mania by the House of Representatives. Two things we could have done that were not accomplished as a result of this obsession were bills to reduce prescription drug pricing and to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, for which the Presiding Officer has played such an important leadership role. In both cases, there is broad bipartisan support for action, and in both cases, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle decided that political point scoring was more important than actually getting the job done; thus, we found ourselves at an impasse. As we gear up for a new year, those will be two of the top items on my priority list, and I hope our Democratic colleagues will work with us this time around to get them done. We are kicking off 2020 with a big, looming question mark hanging over this Chamber in the form of this impeachment trial, which was an urgent constitutional imperative until it wasn't. We are anxious to see what Speaker Pelosi will finally decide, and we are waiting for the House to transmit the Articles of Impeachment, but we are not going to let the grass grow under our feet in the interim. We are going to keep working to notch more wins for the American people, confirm more Federal judges, and pass the USMCA trade agreement, hopefully, before further delay. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2020-01-06-pt1-PgS15 | null | 8 |
formal | terrorists | null | Islamophobic | Iran Madam President, on another matter, last Friday, Americans woke up to the news that one of the most brutal terrorist leaders in the world had been killed. Qasem Soleimani was killed in an airstrike by America's military, finally bringing an end to his decades-long reign of terror. You could legitimately call General Soleimani a master of disaster because that defined his entire professional life as the leader of Iran's military. Actually, he was the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, which is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. General Soleimani was the most consequential military leader in Iran, which has been designated by the U.S. State Departmentas a state sponsor of international terrorism since 1984. General Soleimani orchestrated Iran's efforts to squash democracy movements both at home and abroad by any means necessary. He and his army of terrorists exported violence around the region and engaged in gross human rights violations against the Iranian people. If you are curious how the Iranian Government treats its own citizens, just look at the recent protests that started as complaints over increased gas prices. When the Iranian citizens took to the streets in peaceful protest, the Ayatollah, the Supreme Leader, called them enemy agents and thugs, and the government attacked. As many as 450 Iranians were killed in those peaceful protests, with some 2,000 injured and 7,000 detained. This is not a government that is protecting its people; it is a network of criminals that masquerades as a government. One of the Ayatollah's most loyal henchmen was Soleimani. In addition to leading attacks on the Iranian people and fueling terrorist operations throughout the Middle East, he also played a crucial role in fomenting Syria's civil war. Soleimani helped to finance and aid the butcher, known as Bashar al-Assad, in the slaughter of the Syrian people. The death toll of the Syrian civil war is estimated to be as high as a half a million Syrians, and the number of refugees and internally displaced persons goes into the millions. While the greatest death and destruction orchestrated by Soleimani was concentrated in the Middle East, the United States was one of his and Iran's biggest targets. From the Iranian hostage crisis back in 1979, to the Khobar Towers bombing, to the recent shooting down of a U.S. drone, to the death of an American contractor in Iraq, Iran's actions at every turn have demonstrated a desire to make the chant ``Death to America'' a reality. Soleimani was known to be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers. He and the Iranian regime supplied explosively formed penetrators that cut through American armor like a hot knife through butter and left hundreds of American soldiers--indeed, maybe 1,000 or more--disabled as a result of this deadly instrument of war. Since 2003, at least 600 U.S. soldiers have been killed by Iranian proxies in Iraq, and as I have said, many more have been injured. I and others in this Chamber have seen their activities firsthand at Brooke Army Medical Center, the Center for the Intrepid in San Antonio, and at other places where they have received treatment, like at Walter Reed Army Medical Center here in Washington, DC. It is where the victims of these Iranian improvised explosive devices were treated for amputation, for burns, or functional limb loss if they survived those injuries in the first place. These soldiers are a reminder of the selfless commitment our men and women in uniform make each day as well as the perilous threat posed by Iran under Soleimani's leadership. For decades, since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Tehran has waged war against the United States and our allies, and recent reports indicate that Soleimani was in the process of plotting even more acts of aggression against the United States and U.S. interests, which is hardly surprising, though, since he had been doing that for many years. That is precisely why he was targeted. Just as quickly as the news of this attack spread, so did anti-Trump rhetoric. Instead of celebrating the fact that Iran's chief terrorist was dead and could kill no more, a number of our Democratic colleagues chose to bash the President instead. They claimed his action was unauthorized, even illegal, or that he should have sought congressional approval beforehand. None of that is true. The President not only has the authority under the Constitution but the responsibility to defend the United States from terrorist organizations like the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its leaders like General Soleimani. This was neither an assassination--a particularly loathsome allegation that has been made on social media--nor an unprovoked attack. This was the President of the United States exercising his lawful authority to protect the United States, our allies, and our national interests just as Presidents before have done. Perhaps the most stark comparison is when Barack Obama directed the killing of Osama bin Laden. Where were the people who now claim that Soleimani's death is an abuse of power? I don't recall anyone calling the killing of Osama bin Laden an assassination. When he was killed, they were not on cable TV, criticizing the move; we were all celebrating. Some of our Democratic friends will simply never pass on an opportunity to criticize the President--no matter how unfair. Thank goodness there are Democrats like former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and former U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman. Senator Joe Lieberman said: President Trump's order to take out Qasem Soleimani was morally, constitutionally and strategically correct. It deserves more bipartisan support than the begrudging or negative reactions it has received thus far from my fellow Democrats. I am also grateful for the informed comments by luminaries like former CENTCOM Commander and former CIA Director General Petraeus as well as Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who have both rightly said that this action was authorized and necessary. It is unquestionable that the death of Soleimani was a major blow to the Iranian regime and a strong message of deterrence to all state sponsors of terrorism. The blood of hundreds of American soldiers and countless civilians is on Soleimani's hands, and because of the decisive action taken by President Trump, he is gone. I fully support this move by the President, and I commend the President's willingness to send a strong message of deterrence to the terrorist threat in the Middle East, particularly against the United States, our citizens, and our interests. Finally, I join my fellow Senators in thanking the brave men and women in uniform who fought and continue to fight terrorist acts brought about by people like General Soleimani and the Quds Force as part of the IRGC. I especially thank those who are fighting and who are prepared to defend our interests in the Middle East today. America must never back down in the face of this evil. Our world is safer today because Qasem Soleimani is dead. It would not have been possible without the actions that President Trump has undertaken or without the resolve of our military leaders and our courageous servicemembers who put their lives on the line each day. 116th Congress Madam President, on another matter, briefly, we have now crossed the halfway point of the 116th Congress, and it is safe to say that 2019 was an unconventional and a somewhat bumpy year. After 2 years with Republicans controlling both Chambers of Congress and the White House, we were all prepared for the challenges that would come with a Democratically controlled House. Despite the unnecessary foot-dragging and political gaming and obsession with foiling the President, we were still able to accomplish a lot of good for the country and the people of my State of Texas. Last month alone, we made major moves to strengthen our military and support our troops. We passed a funding bill that increased the funding by nearly $20 billion--necessary to restore our readiness--and gave our troops the largest pay raise they had received in a decade. This complemented the National Defense Authorization Act, which authorized $400 million for military construction projects in Texas and 90 new F-35 Joint Strike Fighters that will be built in Fort Worth. It also included a number of provisions that I introduced to support our servicemembers and veterans. In 2016, only 46 percent of Active-Duty military voted by absentee ballot, and one-third of those who didn't vote said that the absentee voting process was simply too complicated. To make that better, I introduced the Military Voter Protection Act, which became law last month. It makes the absentee voter registration process easier for servicemembers stationed overseas so that a complicated trail of paperwork doesn't prevent them from casting their well-deserved ballots. I have also heard from my Texas constituents who are veterans, who havefallen on hard times and had to fight for their VA and Department of Defense disability benefits in bankruptcy proceedings. That should never be the case. Another bill I introduced called the HAVEN Act, which is now law, shields those benefits in the same way that Social Security disability is exempted. No veteran should be penalized for receiving the disability compensation that they are rightly due. Of course, perhaps the biggest headline news is our continued work on judicial nominations. Under this administration, we have confirmed more than 180 Federal judges, including 20 in Texas, plus 2 Supreme Court Justices. Although we are still 1 year shy of the end of President Trump's first term, we have already confirmed more circuit court judges than in any other President's first term in the past four decades. Having these impressive judges on the Federal bench will be a tremendous benefit to the entire country for generations to come, and we will keep working to confirm even more. Over the last year, we have also built on our work to support victims of Hurricane Harvey, including the release of $4.6 billion in additional funding from a bill to support communities across the country, including those in Texas, recovering from natural disasters. More than 2 years after the storm, many Texans are still rebuilding and, sadly, have had the added struggle of fighting to get their hands on Federal funds already approved by Congress. In February 2018, Congress passed a funding package that included more than $4 billion in disaster mitigation for Texas, but more than a year later, folks at home still hadn't seen a dime of that money. This summer, I introduced a bill that would require the Office of Management and Budget to send those and any future funds approved by Congress within 90 days of their appropriation by Congress. Government bureaucrats should not be allowed to stand in the way between communities in need and funds already approved by Congress, and I am happy that those funds are finally going out the door to these Texas communities. Another challenge we have faced over the last year is the ongoing crisis at the border, which hit its peak in May. Local communities in Texas helped carry the weight of this humanitarian crisis, which has placed serious strain on their ability to deliver basic services at the municipal and State levels. They diverted taxpayer dollars from things like public safety, power, and clean drinking water to do a job that should have been done by the Federal Government in the first place to secure our border. To right this wrong, we passed a funding agreement, at my request, which provided $30 million in reimbursements for local governments, States, and charitable organizations that have spent millions of dollars in response to this crisis, which seems to be ignored too often here in Washington, DC. Nearly 40 percent of this initial funding went to Texas to meet immediate needs, and I expect another round to come soon to cover additional expenses. Another big victory came in the form of international trade. Through my role as chairman of the Senate Finance Trade Subcommittee, I worked with the administration on three trade agreements with Japan, the USMCA--the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement--and China, all of which, I think, will inure to the benefit of all Americans, including Texans. I commend President Trump and Ambassador Lighthizer for their courage in confronting unfair trade practices, opening new markets, and providing economic certainty as we move into this election year. On top of all of this, we passed the bipartisan Taxpayer First Act, which includes some of the most significant reforms to the Internal Revenue Service in two decades. We stood with victims of domestic violence and sexual assault by finally passing the Debbie Smith Reauthorization Act, which strengthens our fight to end the rape kit backlog. We helped provide additional resources to secure America's elections against foreign interference, and the list goes on and on and on. It is safe to say, though, that there are a number of items that could have been added to this list of accomplishments, had they not been pulled into the political fray and this obsessive impeachment mania by the House of Representatives. Two things we could have done that were not accomplished as a result of this obsession were bills to reduce prescription drug pricing and to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, for which the Presiding Officer has played such an important leadership role. In both cases, there is broad bipartisan support for action, and in both cases, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle decided that political point scoring was more important than actually getting the job done; thus, we found ourselves at an impasse. As we gear up for a new year, those will be two of the top items on my priority list, and I hope our Democratic colleagues will work with us this time around to get them done. We are kicking off 2020 with a big, looming question mark hanging over this Chamber in the form of this impeachment trial, which was an urgent constitutional imperative until it wasn't. We are anxious to see what Speaker Pelosi will finally decide, and we are waiting for the House to transmit the Articles of Impeachment, but we are not going to let the grass grow under our feet in the interim. We are going to keep working to notch more wins for the American people, confirm more Federal judges, and pass the USMCA trade agreement, hopefully, before further delay. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2020-01-06-pt1-PgS15 | null | 9 |
formal | secure our border | null | anti-Latino | Iran Madam President, on another matter, last Friday, Americans woke up to the news that one of the most brutal terrorist leaders in the world had been killed. Qasem Soleimani was killed in an airstrike by America's military, finally bringing an end to his decades-long reign of terror. You could legitimately call General Soleimani a master of disaster because that defined his entire professional life as the leader of Iran's military. Actually, he was the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, which is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. General Soleimani was the most consequential military leader in Iran, which has been designated by the U.S. State Departmentas a state sponsor of international terrorism since 1984. General Soleimani orchestrated Iran's efforts to squash democracy movements both at home and abroad by any means necessary. He and his army of terrorists exported violence around the region and engaged in gross human rights violations against the Iranian people. If you are curious how the Iranian Government treats its own citizens, just look at the recent protests that started as complaints over increased gas prices. When the Iranian citizens took to the streets in peaceful protest, the Ayatollah, the Supreme Leader, called them enemy agents and thugs, and the government attacked. As many as 450 Iranians were killed in those peaceful protests, with some 2,000 injured and 7,000 detained. This is not a government that is protecting its people; it is a network of criminals that masquerades as a government. One of the Ayatollah's most loyal henchmen was Soleimani. In addition to leading attacks on the Iranian people and fueling terrorist operations throughout the Middle East, he also played a crucial role in fomenting Syria's civil war. Soleimani helped to finance and aid the butcher, known as Bashar al-Assad, in the slaughter of the Syrian people. The death toll of the Syrian civil war is estimated to be as high as a half a million Syrians, and the number of refugees and internally displaced persons goes into the millions. While the greatest death and destruction orchestrated by Soleimani was concentrated in the Middle East, the United States was one of his and Iran's biggest targets. From the Iranian hostage crisis back in 1979, to the Khobar Towers bombing, to the recent shooting down of a U.S. drone, to the death of an American contractor in Iraq, Iran's actions at every turn have demonstrated a desire to make the chant ``Death to America'' a reality. Soleimani was known to be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers. He and the Iranian regime supplied explosively formed penetrators that cut through American armor like a hot knife through butter and left hundreds of American soldiers--indeed, maybe 1,000 or more--disabled as a result of this deadly instrument of war. Since 2003, at least 600 U.S. soldiers have been killed by Iranian proxies in Iraq, and as I have said, many more have been injured. I and others in this Chamber have seen their activities firsthand at Brooke Army Medical Center, the Center for the Intrepid in San Antonio, and at other places where they have received treatment, like at Walter Reed Army Medical Center here in Washington, DC. It is where the victims of these Iranian improvised explosive devices were treated for amputation, for burns, or functional limb loss if they survived those injuries in the first place. These soldiers are a reminder of the selfless commitment our men and women in uniform make each day as well as the perilous threat posed by Iran under Soleimani's leadership. For decades, since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Tehran has waged war against the United States and our allies, and recent reports indicate that Soleimani was in the process of plotting even more acts of aggression against the United States and U.S. interests, which is hardly surprising, though, since he had been doing that for many years. That is precisely why he was targeted. Just as quickly as the news of this attack spread, so did anti-Trump rhetoric. Instead of celebrating the fact that Iran's chief terrorist was dead and could kill no more, a number of our Democratic colleagues chose to bash the President instead. They claimed his action was unauthorized, even illegal, or that he should have sought congressional approval beforehand. None of that is true. The President not only has the authority under the Constitution but the responsibility to defend the United States from terrorist organizations like the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its leaders like General Soleimani. This was neither an assassination--a particularly loathsome allegation that has been made on social media--nor an unprovoked attack. This was the President of the United States exercising his lawful authority to protect the United States, our allies, and our national interests just as Presidents before have done. Perhaps the most stark comparison is when Barack Obama directed the killing of Osama bin Laden. Where were the people who now claim that Soleimani's death is an abuse of power? I don't recall anyone calling the killing of Osama bin Laden an assassination. When he was killed, they were not on cable TV, criticizing the move; we were all celebrating. Some of our Democratic friends will simply never pass on an opportunity to criticize the President--no matter how unfair. Thank goodness there are Democrats like former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and former U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman. Senator Joe Lieberman said: President Trump's order to take out Qasem Soleimani was morally, constitutionally and strategically correct. It deserves more bipartisan support than the begrudging or negative reactions it has received thus far from my fellow Democrats. I am also grateful for the informed comments by luminaries like former CENTCOM Commander and former CIA Director General Petraeus as well as Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who have both rightly said that this action was authorized and necessary. It is unquestionable that the death of Soleimani was a major blow to the Iranian regime and a strong message of deterrence to all state sponsors of terrorism. The blood of hundreds of American soldiers and countless civilians is on Soleimani's hands, and because of the decisive action taken by President Trump, he is gone. I fully support this move by the President, and I commend the President's willingness to send a strong message of deterrence to the terrorist threat in the Middle East, particularly against the United States, our citizens, and our interests. Finally, I join my fellow Senators in thanking the brave men and women in uniform who fought and continue to fight terrorist acts brought about by people like General Soleimani and the Quds Force as part of the IRGC. I especially thank those who are fighting and who are prepared to defend our interests in the Middle East today. America must never back down in the face of this evil. Our world is safer today because Qasem Soleimani is dead. It would not have been possible without the actions that President Trump has undertaken or without the resolve of our military leaders and our courageous servicemembers who put their lives on the line each day. 116th Congress Madam President, on another matter, briefly, we have now crossed the halfway point of the 116th Congress, and it is safe to say that 2019 was an unconventional and a somewhat bumpy year. After 2 years with Republicans controlling both Chambers of Congress and the White House, we were all prepared for the challenges that would come with a Democratically controlled House. Despite the unnecessary foot-dragging and political gaming and obsession with foiling the President, we were still able to accomplish a lot of good for the country and the people of my State of Texas. Last month alone, we made major moves to strengthen our military and support our troops. We passed a funding bill that increased the funding by nearly $20 billion--necessary to restore our readiness--and gave our troops the largest pay raise they had received in a decade. This complemented the National Defense Authorization Act, which authorized $400 million for military construction projects in Texas and 90 new F-35 Joint Strike Fighters that will be built in Fort Worth. It also included a number of provisions that I introduced to support our servicemembers and veterans. In 2016, only 46 percent of Active-Duty military voted by absentee ballot, and one-third of those who didn't vote said that the absentee voting process was simply too complicated. To make that better, I introduced the Military Voter Protection Act, which became law last month. It makes the absentee voter registration process easier for servicemembers stationed overseas so that a complicated trail of paperwork doesn't prevent them from casting their well-deserved ballots. I have also heard from my Texas constituents who are veterans, who havefallen on hard times and had to fight for their VA and Department of Defense disability benefits in bankruptcy proceedings. That should never be the case. Another bill I introduced called the HAVEN Act, which is now law, shields those benefits in the same way that Social Security disability is exempted. No veteran should be penalized for receiving the disability compensation that they are rightly due. Of course, perhaps the biggest headline news is our continued work on judicial nominations. Under this administration, we have confirmed more than 180 Federal judges, including 20 in Texas, plus 2 Supreme Court Justices. Although we are still 1 year shy of the end of President Trump's first term, we have already confirmed more circuit court judges than in any other President's first term in the past four decades. Having these impressive judges on the Federal bench will be a tremendous benefit to the entire country for generations to come, and we will keep working to confirm even more. Over the last year, we have also built on our work to support victims of Hurricane Harvey, including the release of $4.6 billion in additional funding from a bill to support communities across the country, including those in Texas, recovering from natural disasters. More than 2 years after the storm, many Texans are still rebuilding and, sadly, have had the added struggle of fighting to get their hands on Federal funds already approved by Congress. In February 2018, Congress passed a funding package that included more than $4 billion in disaster mitigation for Texas, but more than a year later, folks at home still hadn't seen a dime of that money. This summer, I introduced a bill that would require the Office of Management and Budget to send those and any future funds approved by Congress within 90 days of their appropriation by Congress. Government bureaucrats should not be allowed to stand in the way between communities in need and funds already approved by Congress, and I am happy that those funds are finally going out the door to these Texas communities. Another challenge we have faced over the last year is the ongoing crisis at the border, which hit its peak in May. Local communities in Texas helped carry the weight of this humanitarian crisis, which has placed serious strain on their ability to deliver basic services at the municipal and State levels. They diverted taxpayer dollars from things like public safety, power, and clean drinking water to do a job that should have been done by the Federal Government in the first place to secure our border. To right this wrong, we passed a funding agreement, at my request, which provided $30 million in reimbursements for local governments, States, and charitable organizations that have spent millions of dollars in response to this crisis, which seems to be ignored too often here in Washington, DC. Nearly 40 percent of this initial funding went to Texas to meet immediate needs, and I expect another round to come soon to cover additional expenses. Another big victory came in the form of international trade. Through my role as chairman of the Senate Finance Trade Subcommittee, I worked with the administration on three trade agreements with Japan, the USMCA--the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement--and China, all of which, I think, will inure to the benefit of all Americans, including Texans. I commend President Trump and Ambassador Lighthizer for their courage in confronting unfair trade practices, opening new markets, and providing economic certainty as we move into this election year. On top of all of this, we passed the bipartisan Taxpayer First Act, which includes some of the most significant reforms to the Internal Revenue Service in two decades. We stood with victims of domestic violence and sexual assault by finally passing the Debbie Smith Reauthorization Act, which strengthens our fight to end the rape kit backlog. We helped provide additional resources to secure America's elections against foreign interference, and the list goes on and on and on. It is safe to say, though, that there are a number of items that could have been added to this list of accomplishments, had they not been pulled into the political fray and this obsessive impeachment mania by the House of Representatives. Two things we could have done that were not accomplished as a result of this obsession were bills to reduce prescription drug pricing and to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, for which the Presiding Officer has played such an important leadership role. In both cases, there is broad bipartisan support for action, and in both cases, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle decided that political point scoring was more important than actually getting the job done; thus, we found ourselves at an impasse. As we gear up for a new year, those will be two of the top items on my priority list, and I hope our Democratic colleagues will work with us this time around to get them done. We are kicking off 2020 with a big, looming question mark hanging over this Chamber in the form of this impeachment trial, which was an urgent constitutional imperative until it wasn't. We are anxious to see what Speaker Pelosi will finally decide, and we are waiting for the House to transmit the Articles of Impeachment, but we are not going to let the grass grow under our feet in the interim. We are going to keep working to notch more wins for the American people, confirm more Federal judges, and pass the USMCA trade agreement, hopefully, before further delay. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2020-01-06-pt1-PgS15 | null | 10 |
formal | thugs | null | racist | Iran Madam President, on another matter, last Friday, Americans woke up to the news that one of the most brutal terrorist leaders in the world had been killed. Qasem Soleimani was killed in an airstrike by America's military, finally bringing an end to his decades-long reign of terror. You could legitimately call General Soleimani a master of disaster because that defined his entire professional life as the leader of Iran's military. Actually, he was the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, which is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. General Soleimani was the most consequential military leader in Iran, which has been designated by the U.S. State Departmentas a state sponsor of international terrorism since 1984. General Soleimani orchestrated Iran's efforts to squash democracy movements both at home and abroad by any means necessary. He and his army of terrorists exported violence around the region and engaged in gross human rights violations against the Iranian people. If you are curious how the Iranian Government treats its own citizens, just look at the recent protests that started as complaints over increased gas prices. When the Iranian citizens took to the streets in peaceful protest, the Ayatollah, the Supreme Leader, called them enemy agents and thugs, and the government attacked. As many as 450 Iranians were killed in those peaceful protests, with some 2,000 injured and 7,000 detained. This is not a government that is protecting its people; it is a network of criminals that masquerades as a government. One of the Ayatollah's most loyal henchmen was Soleimani. In addition to leading attacks on the Iranian people and fueling terrorist operations throughout the Middle East, he also played a crucial role in fomenting Syria's civil war. Soleimani helped to finance and aid the butcher, known as Bashar al-Assad, in the slaughter of the Syrian people. The death toll of the Syrian civil war is estimated to be as high as a half a million Syrians, and the number of refugees and internally displaced persons goes into the millions. While the greatest death and destruction orchestrated by Soleimani was concentrated in the Middle East, the United States was one of his and Iran's biggest targets. From the Iranian hostage crisis back in 1979, to the Khobar Towers bombing, to the recent shooting down of a U.S. drone, to the death of an American contractor in Iraq, Iran's actions at every turn have demonstrated a desire to make the chant ``Death to America'' a reality. Soleimani was known to be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers. He and the Iranian regime supplied explosively formed penetrators that cut through American armor like a hot knife through butter and left hundreds of American soldiers--indeed, maybe 1,000 or more--disabled as a result of this deadly instrument of war. Since 2003, at least 600 U.S. soldiers have been killed by Iranian proxies in Iraq, and as I have said, many more have been injured. I and others in this Chamber have seen their activities firsthand at Brooke Army Medical Center, the Center for the Intrepid in San Antonio, and at other places where they have received treatment, like at Walter Reed Army Medical Center here in Washington, DC. It is where the victims of these Iranian improvised explosive devices were treated for amputation, for burns, or functional limb loss if they survived those injuries in the first place. These soldiers are a reminder of the selfless commitment our men and women in uniform make each day as well as the perilous threat posed by Iran under Soleimani's leadership. For decades, since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Tehran has waged war against the United States and our allies, and recent reports indicate that Soleimani was in the process of plotting even more acts of aggression against the United States and U.S. interests, which is hardly surprising, though, since he had been doing that for many years. That is precisely why he was targeted. Just as quickly as the news of this attack spread, so did anti-Trump rhetoric. Instead of celebrating the fact that Iran's chief terrorist was dead and could kill no more, a number of our Democratic colleagues chose to bash the President instead. They claimed his action was unauthorized, even illegal, or that he should have sought congressional approval beforehand. None of that is true. The President not only has the authority under the Constitution but the responsibility to defend the United States from terrorist organizations like the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its leaders like General Soleimani. This was neither an assassination--a particularly loathsome allegation that has been made on social media--nor an unprovoked attack. This was the President of the United States exercising his lawful authority to protect the United States, our allies, and our national interests just as Presidents before have done. Perhaps the most stark comparison is when Barack Obama directed the killing of Osama bin Laden. Where were the people who now claim that Soleimani's death is an abuse of power? I don't recall anyone calling the killing of Osama bin Laden an assassination. When he was killed, they were not on cable TV, criticizing the move; we were all celebrating. Some of our Democratic friends will simply never pass on an opportunity to criticize the President--no matter how unfair. Thank goodness there are Democrats like former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and former U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman. Senator Joe Lieberman said: President Trump's order to take out Qasem Soleimani was morally, constitutionally and strategically correct. It deserves more bipartisan support than the begrudging or negative reactions it has received thus far from my fellow Democrats. I am also grateful for the informed comments by luminaries like former CENTCOM Commander and former CIA Director General Petraeus as well as Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who have both rightly said that this action was authorized and necessary. It is unquestionable that the death of Soleimani was a major blow to the Iranian regime and a strong message of deterrence to all state sponsors of terrorism. The blood of hundreds of American soldiers and countless civilians is on Soleimani's hands, and because of the decisive action taken by President Trump, he is gone. I fully support this move by the President, and I commend the President's willingness to send a strong message of deterrence to the terrorist threat in the Middle East, particularly against the United States, our citizens, and our interests. Finally, I join my fellow Senators in thanking the brave men and women in uniform who fought and continue to fight terrorist acts brought about by people like General Soleimani and the Quds Force as part of the IRGC. I especially thank those who are fighting and who are prepared to defend our interests in the Middle East today. America must never back down in the face of this evil. Our world is safer today because Qasem Soleimani is dead. It would not have been possible without the actions that President Trump has undertaken or without the resolve of our military leaders and our courageous servicemembers who put their lives on the line each day. 116th Congress Madam President, on another matter, briefly, we have now crossed the halfway point of the 116th Congress, and it is safe to say that 2019 was an unconventional and a somewhat bumpy year. After 2 years with Republicans controlling both Chambers of Congress and the White House, we were all prepared for the challenges that would come with a Democratically controlled House. Despite the unnecessary foot-dragging and political gaming and obsession with foiling the President, we were still able to accomplish a lot of good for the country and the people of my State of Texas. Last month alone, we made major moves to strengthen our military and support our troops. We passed a funding bill that increased the funding by nearly $20 billion--necessary to restore our readiness--and gave our troops the largest pay raise they had received in a decade. This complemented the National Defense Authorization Act, which authorized $400 million for military construction projects in Texas and 90 new F-35 Joint Strike Fighters that will be built in Fort Worth. It also included a number of provisions that I introduced to support our servicemembers and veterans. In 2016, only 46 percent of Active-Duty military voted by absentee ballot, and one-third of those who didn't vote said that the absentee voting process was simply too complicated. To make that better, I introduced the Military Voter Protection Act, which became law last month. It makes the absentee voter registration process easier for servicemembers stationed overseas so that a complicated trail of paperwork doesn't prevent them from casting their well-deserved ballots. I have also heard from my Texas constituents who are veterans, who havefallen on hard times and had to fight for their VA and Department of Defense disability benefits in bankruptcy proceedings. That should never be the case. Another bill I introduced called the HAVEN Act, which is now law, shields those benefits in the same way that Social Security disability is exempted. No veteran should be penalized for receiving the disability compensation that they are rightly due. Of course, perhaps the biggest headline news is our continued work on judicial nominations. Under this administration, we have confirmed more than 180 Federal judges, including 20 in Texas, plus 2 Supreme Court Justices. Although we are still 1 year shy of the end of President Trump's first term, we have already confirmed more circuit court judges than in any other President's first term in the past four decades. Having these impressive judges on the Federal bench will be a tremendous benefit to the entire country for generations to come, and we will keep working to confirm even more. Over the last year, we have also built on our work to support victims of Hurricane Harvey, including the release of $4.6 billion in additional funding from a bill to support communities across the country, including those in Texas, recovering from natural disasters. More than 2 years after the storm, many Texans are still rebuilding and, sadly, have had the added struggle of fighting to get their hands on Federal funds already approved by Congress. In February 2018, Congress passed a funding package that included more than $4 billion in disaster mitigation for Texas, but more than a year later, folks at home still hadn't seen a dime of that money. This summer, I introduced a bill that would require the Office of Management and Budget to send those and any future funds approved by Congress within 90 days of their appropriation by Congress. Government bureaucrats should not be allowed to stand in the way between communities in need and funds already approved by Congress, and I am happy that those funds are finally going out the door to these Texas communities. Another challenge we have faced over the last year is the ongoing crisis at the border, which hit its peak in May. Local communities in Texas helped carry the weight of this humanitarian crisis, which has placed serious strain on their ability to deliver basic services at the municipal and State levels. They diverted taxpayer dollars from things like public safety, power, and clean drinking water to do a job that should have been done by the Federal Government in the first place to secure our border. To right this wrong, we passed a funding agreement, at my request, which provided $30 million in reimbursements for local governments, States, and charitable organizations that have spent millions of dollars in response to this crisis, which seems to be ignored too often here in Washington, DC. Nearly 40 percent of this initial funding went to Texas to meet immediate needs, and I expect another round to come soon to cover additional expenses. Another big victory came in the form of international trade. Through my role as chairman of the Senate Finance Trade Subcommittee, I worked with the administration on three trade agreements with Japan, the USMCA--the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement--and China, all of which, I think, will inure to the benefit of all Americans, including Texans. I commend President Trump and Ambassador Lighthizer for their courage in confronting unfair trade practices, opening new markets, and providing economic certainty as we move into this election year. On top of all of this, we passed the bipartisan Taxpayer First Act, which includes some of the most significant reforms to the Internal Revenue Service in two decades. We stood with victims of domestic violence and sexual assault by finally passing the Debbie Smith Reauthorization Act, which strengthens our fight to end the rape kit backlog. We helped provide additional resources to secure America's elections against foreign interference, and the list goes on and on and on. It is safe to say, though, that there are a number of items that could have been added to this list of accomplishments, had they not been pulled into the political fray and this obsessive impeachment mania by the House of Representatives. Two things we could have done that were not accomplished as a result of this obsession were bills to reduce prescription drug pricing and to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, for which the Presiding Officer has played such an important leadership role. In both cases, there is broad bipartisan support for action, and in both cases, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle decided that political point scoring was more important than actually getting the job done; thus, we found ourselves at an impasse. As we gear up for a new year, those will be two of the top items on my priority list, and I hope our Democratic colleagues will work with us this time around to get them done. We are kicking off 2020 with a big, looming question mark hanging over this Chamber in the form of this impeachment trial, which was an urgent constitutional imperative until it wasn't. We are anxious to see what Speaker Pelosi will finally decide, and we are waiting for the House to transmit the Articles of Impeachment, but we are not going to let the grass grow under our feet in the interim. We are going to keep working to notch more wins for the American people, confirm more Federal judges, and pass the USMCA trade agreement, hopefully, before further delay. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2020-01-06-pt1-PgS15 | null | 11 |
formal | tax cut | null | racist | Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise to talk about an issue that the Senate may address on the floor this week. Tomorrow in the Senate Finance Committee, we are going to take up the renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement. One of my proudest votes as a Member of the House a long time ago was to vote against the North American Free Trade Agreement, to vote against NAFTA. I have voted no on every trade agreement since then because every trade agreement that has come in front of this body was written by corporate interests for their corporate executives and stockholders. They maximize profits always--every one of these trade agreements--CAFTA, NAFTA, PNTR with China, which is not technically a trade agreement, but it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck. Every one of these trade agreements, in every case, has looked out for corporate interests and jettisoned the interests of workers. We see the consequences. Corporate profits soar every time. Executive compensation explodes upward every time. Workers continue to produce more than ever before. Even though corporate profits are up and executive compensation is up, workers' wages are flat. Often, they can't join a union, and the middle class continues to shrink. I know what that has meant in the Presiding Officer's State of Arkansas. I know what it has meant in Ohio. I know what it has done to my hometown of Mansfield. I know what these trade agreements do to Dayton and Cleveland and Cincinnati and Canton and Youngstown and Toledo. Then-Candidate Trump said that he was going to renegotiate NAFTA. Well, that was his promise. He did, but he gave us the same thing. His economic policies overall have been that, but his renegotiated NAFTA, which he brought to this Congress originally--the negotiation that he made with Mexico and Canada--was another corporate trade agreement written for corporate interests. Again, this President betrays workers with his tax giveaways to corporations, to his judges who put their thumbs on the scale, choosing corporations over workers, choosing Wall Street over consumers. Then, last year, as he has done one betrayal of workers after another, squeezing the middle class even more--last year, when we got the initial draft of this agreement from the administration, the renegotiated NAFTA was another betrayal. His first NAFTA draft was nowhere near the good deal for workers that President Trump promised. He had fundamentally negotiated another corporate trade deal--a deal that helps corporate executives, that helps stockholders, that betrays workers again and again, another trade deal just like that. It meant nothing for workers. It meant a sellout to drug companies. It took us months of fighting alongside Speaker Pelosi and Senator Wyden and trade unions to improve this deal and take the real and important steps toward putting workers at the center of our trade policies. These trade policies should be written for workers so that they increase their income and expand the middle class, not written for corporations in trickle-down economics. We know what happens on every tax bill that comes before this Congress, written by the administration and Senator McConnell. We know it is the same thing. Instead of building the economy from the middle out so that the middle class grows and America overwhelmingly prospers, just like the tax cuts--the tax cuts for the rich that may, they tell us, trickle down and help the middle class--that is the way this trade agreement was written. That is the way these tax bills in this Congress were written. It took months of fighting alongside Senator Wyden and organized labor and Speaker Pelosi. We now have a provision in the labor chapter, and the President has finally agreed to this provision. He knew he wasn't going to get a renegotiated NAFTA unless he followed what we said on workers. For the first time, we have a provision in the labor chapter. For instance, it says that violence against workers is always a violation of the agreement. The language the President gave us said: Well, the first time you commit violence against workers, we might fine you. The second time, we might fine you. Only if you do it over and over is it a violation. Really? If there is violence against workers, the people who committed that violence ought to pay for it. So we fixed that in this agreement. We have improved some of the legalese that since the beginning has been included in trade agreements to make it nearly impossible to successfully win a case when a country violates its labor commitments. We secured the Wyden provision, which amounts to, by far, the strongest ever labor enforcement in the U.S. trade deal. This provision that Senator Wyden and I wrote and fought for is the first improvement to enforcing labor standards in our trade agreements since we have been negotiating them. We know why companies closed factories in Ohio and opened them in Mexico. They can pay lower wages. They can take advantage of workers who don't have rights. They can keep unions from organizing. American workers can't compete with that kind of low-wage lack of enforcement of labor laws. What happens? There is a race to the bottom on wages. So if a company threatens to move to Mexico and they tell their workforce ``We are going to move unless you do some wage givebacks,'' they either move and the American workers lose their jobs or they use that as a way to put downward pressure on wages for American workers. I know what that has done to Mansfield, OH. I know what it has done to Gallipolis, Chillicothe, Zanesville, Dayton, Huber Heights, and every other community. The only way to stop this is by raising labor standards in every country we trade with and, most importantly, making sure those standards are actually enforced. If corporations are forced to pay workers a living wage and treat them with dignity no matter where the workers are, we take away the incentive for those companies to move jobs abroad. That is what the Brown-Wyden provision does. A worker in Mexico now, under this agreement--the reason I am supporting this, the first-ever trade agreement that I am supporting--workers in Mexico will be able to report a company that is violating their rights. They can actually call a toll-free number and report violations against the workers. Aworker can actually make that request. They have never had that right in Mexico. They, often enough, don't have it here. We can then determine whether worker rights have been violated and then take action against the company that did it. We have never done it that way. We haven't had good results because of that. We can apply punitive damages when companies stop workers from organizing. If they keep doing it, we stop their goods from coming into the United States. You enforce it at the factory level by saying: If you keep violating this trade agreement, you are not sending your products into the United States. That will make them behave. When Mexican workers have the power to form real unions and negotiate for higher wages, it helps our workers. Right now, Mexican workers can be paid as little as $6.50--not an hour but a day. We have been asking American workers to compete with that. We have already heard some critics say that Brown-Wyden will force Mexican wages to rise. I plead guilty. That is the entire point--to take away the incentive. If Mexican wages go up, it makes U.S. companies less likely to shut down production in Steubenville or Lisbon or in Bryan, OH, and move overseas. It takes away the incentive for those companies to relocate. I want to be clear. I will always be straight with American workers. This is not a perfect agreement. One trade deal that Democrats fixed will not undo the rest of Trump's economic policies that put corporations over workers. This deal will not stop outsourcing when we have President Trump's tax plan that gives companies a tax break to send American jobs to Mexico. Here is how the President's tax bill that was rammed through this Senate a year or so ago works: If you are in Springfield, OH, your corporate tax rate is 21 percent. If you move--pull up stakes and move to Mexico or anywhere else--your tax rate is 10.5 percent. Even with this good trade agreement, we cannot stop that kind of outsourcing because the President insists on helping his corporate buddies. I will keep fighting his corporate trade policies and tax policies just as we did in this agreement. We have a lot more work to do to make our trade agreements more pro-worker. I will vote yes for the first time ever on a trade agreement because, by including Brown-Wyden, Democrats have made this agreement much more pro-worker. We set an important precedent for the future that Brown-Wyden must now be included in every trade agreement in the years ahead. I suggest the absence of a quorum. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. BROWN | Senate | CREC-2020-01-06-pt1-PgS22 | null | 12 |
formal | tax cuts | null | racist | Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise to talk about an issue that the Senate may address on the floor this week. Tomorrow in the Senate Finance Committee, we are going to take up the renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement. One of my proudest votes as a Member of the House a long time ago was to vote against the North American Free Trade Agreement, to vote against NAFTA. I have voted no on every trade agreement since then because every trade agreement that has come in front of this body was written by corporate interests for their corporate executives and stockholders. They maximize profits always--every one of these trade agreements--CAFTA, NAFTA, PNTR with China, which is not technically a trade agreement, but it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck. Every one of these trade agreements, in every case, has looked out for corporate interests and jettisoned the interests of workers. We see the consequences. Corporate profits soar every time. Executive compensation explodes upward every time. Workers continue to produce more than ever before. Even though corporate profits are up and executive compensation is up, workers' wages are flat. Often, they can't join a union, and the middle class continues to shrink. I know what that has meant in the Presiding Officer's State of Arkansas. I know what it has meant in Ohio. I know what it has done to my hometown of Mansfield. I know what these trade agreements do to Dayton and Cleveland and Cincinnati and Canton and Youngstown and Toledo. Then-Candidate Trump said that he was going to renegotiate NAFTA. Well, that was his promise. He did, but he gave us the same thing. His economic policies overall have been that, but his renegotiated NAFTA, which he brought to this Congress originally--the negotiation that he made with Mexico and Canada--was another corporate trade agreement written for corporate interests. Again, this President betrays workers with his tax giveaways to corporations, to his judges who put their thumbs on the scale, choosing corporations over workers, choosing Wall Street over consumers. Then, last year, as he has done one betrayal of workers after another, squeezing the middle class even more--last year, when we got the initial draft of this agreement from the administration, the renegotiated NAFTA was another betrayal. His first NAFTA draft was nowhere near the good deal for workers that President Trump promised. He had fundamentally negotiated another corporate trade deal--a deal that helps corporate executives, that helps stockholders, that betrays workers again and again, another trade deal just like that. It meant nothing for workers. It meant a sellout to drug companies. It took us months of fighting alongside Speaker Pelosi and Senator Wyden and trade unions to improve this deal and take the real and important steps toward putting workers at the center of our trade policies. These trade policies should be written for workers so that they increase their income and expand the middle class, not written for corporations in trickle-down economics. We know what happens on every tax bill that comes before this Congress, written by the administration and Senator McConnell. We know it is the same thing. Instead of building the economy from the middle out so that the middle class grows and America overwhelmingly prospers, just like the tax cuts--the tax cuts for the rich that may, they tell us, trickle down and help the middle class--that is the way this trade agreement was written. That is the way these tax bills in this Congress were written. It took months of fighting alongside Senator Wyden and organized labor and Speaker Pelosi. We now have a provision in the labor chapter, and the President has finally agreed to this provision. He knew he wasn't going to get a renegotiated NAFTA unless he followed what we said on workers. For the first time, we have a provision in the labor chapter. For instance, it says that violence against workers is always a violation of the agreement. The language the President gave us said: Well, the first time you commit violence against workers, we might fine you. The second time, we might fine you. Only if you do it over and over is it a violation. Really? If there is violence against workers, the people who committed that violence ought to pay for it. So we fixed that in this agreement. We have improved some of the legalese that since the beginning has been included in trade agreements to make it nearly impossible to successfully win a case when a country violates its labor commitments. We secured the Wyden provision, which amounts to, by far, the strongest ever labor enforcement in the U.S. trade deal. This provision that Senator Wyden and I wrote and fought for is the first improvement to enforcing labor standards in our trade agreements since we have been negotiating them. We know why companies closed factories in Ohio and opened them in Mexico. They can pay lower wages. They can take advantage of workers who don't have rights. They can keep unions from organizing. American workers can't compete with that kind of low-wage lack of enforcement of labor laws. What happens? There is a race to the bottom on wages. So if a company threatens to move to Mexico and they tell their workforce ``We are going to move unless you do some wage givebacks,'' they either move and the American workers lose their jobs or they use that as a way to put downward pressure on wages for American workers. I know what that has done to Mansfield, OH. I know what it has done to Gallipolis, Chillicothe, Zanesville, Dayton, Huber Heights, and every other community. The only way to stop this is by raising labor standards in every country we trade with and, most importantly, making sure those standards are actually enforced. If corporations are forced to pay workers a living wage and treat them with dignity no matter where the workers are, we take away the incentive for those companies to move jobs abroad. That is what the Brown-Wyden provision does. A worker in Mexico now, under this agreement--the reason I am supporting this, the first-ever trade agreement that I am supporting--workers in Mexico will be able to report a company that is violating their rights. They can actually call a toll-free number and report violations against the workers. Aworker can actually make that request. They have never had that right in Mexico. They, often enough, don't have it here. We can then determine whether worker rights have been violated and then take action against the company that did it. We have never done it that way. We haven't had good results because of that. We can apply punitive damages when companies stop workers from organizing. If they keep doing it, we stop their goods from coming into the United States. You enforce it at the factory level by saying: If you keep violating this trade agreement, you are not sending your products into the United States. That will make them behave. When Mexican workers have the power to form real unions and negotiate for higher wages, it helps our workers. Right now, Mexican workers can be paid as little as $6.50--not an hour but a day. We have been asking American workers to compete with that. We have already heard some critics say that Brown-Wyden will force Mexican wages to rise. I plead guilty. That is the entire point--to take away the incentive. If Mexican wages go up, it makes U.S. companies less likely to shut down production in Steubenville or Lisbon or in Bryan, OH, and move overseas. It takes away the incentive for those companies to relocate. I want to be clear. I will always be straight with American workers. This is not a perfect agreement. One trade deal that Democrats fixed will not undo the rest of Trump's economic policies that put corporations over workers. This deal will not stop outsourcing when we have President Trump's tax plan that gives companies a tax break to send American jobs to Mexico. Here is how the President's tax bill that was rammed through this Senate a year or so ago works: If you are in Springfield, OH, your corporate tax rate is 21 percent. If you move--pull up stakes and move to Mexico or anywhere else--your tax rate is 10.5 percent. Even with this good trade agreement, we cannot stop that kind of outsourcing because the President insists on helping his corporate buddies. I will keep fighting his corporate trade policies and tax policies just as we did in this agreement. We have a lot more work to do to make our trade agreements more pro-worker. I will vote yes for the first time ever on a trade agreement because, by including Brown-Wyden, Democrats have made this agreement much more pro-worker. We set an important precedent for the future that Brown-Wyden must now be included in every trade agreement in the years ahead. I suggest the absence of a quorum. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. BROWN | Senate | CREC-2020-01-06-pt1-PgS22 | null | 13 |
formal | middle class | null | racist | Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise to talk about an issue that the Senate may address on the floor this week. Tomorrow in the Senate Finance Committee, we are going to take up the renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement. One of my proudest votes as a Member of the House a long time ago was to vote against the North American Free Trade Agreement, to vote against NAFTA. I have voted no on every trade agreement since then because every trade agreement that has come in front of this body was written by corporate interests for their corporate executives and stockholders. They maximize profits always--every one of these trade agreements--CAFTA, NAFTA, PNTR with China, which is not technically a trade agreement, but it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck. Every one of these trade agreements, in every case, has looked out for corporate interests and jettisoned the interests of workers. We see the consequences. Corporate profits soar every time. Executive compensation explodes upward every time. Workers continue to produce more than ever before. Even though corporate profits are up and executive compensation is up, workers' wages are flat. Often, they can't join a union, and the middle class continues to shrink. I know what that has meant in the Presiding Officer's State of Arkansas. I know what it has meant in Ohio. I know what it has done to my hometown of Mansfield. I know what these trade agreements do to Dayton and Cleveland and Cincinnati and Canton and Youngstown and Toledo. Then-Candidate Trump said that he was going to renegotiate NAFTA. Well, that was his promise. He did, but he gave us the same thing. His economic policies overall have been that, but his renegotiated NAFTA, which he brought to this Congress originally--the negotiation that he made with Mexico and Canada--was another corporate trade agreement written for corporate interests. Again, this President betrays workers with his tax giveaways to corporations, to his judges who put their thumbs on the scale, choosing corporations over workers, choosing Wall Street over consumers. Then, last year, as he has done one betrayal of workers after another, squeezing the middle class even more--last year, when we got the initial draft of this agreement from the administration, the renegotiated NAFTA was another betrayal. His first NAFTA draft was nowhere near the good deal for workers that President Trump promised. He had fundamentally negotiated another corporate trade deal--a deal that helps corporate executives, that helps stockholders, that betrays workers again and again, another trade deal just like that. It meant nothing for workers. It meant a sellout to drug companies. It took us months of fighting alongside Speaker Pelosi and Senator Wyden and trade unions to improve this deal and take the real and important steps toward putting workers at the center of our trade policies. These trade policies should be written for workers so that they increase their income and expand the middle class, not written for corporations in trickle-down economics. We know what happens on every tax bill that comes before this Congress, written by the administration and Senator McConnell. We know it is the same thing. Instead of building the economy from the middle out so that the middle class grows and America overwhelmingly prospers, just like the tax cuts--the tax cuts for the rich that may, they tell us, trickle down and help the middle class--that is the way this trade agreement was written. That is the way these tax bills in this Congress were written. It took months of fighting alongside Senator Wyden and organized labor and Speaker Pelosi. We now have a provision in the labor chapter, and the President has finally agreed to this provision. He knew he wasn't going to get a renegotiated NAFTA unless he followed what we said on workers. For the first time, we have a provision in the labor chapter. For instance, it says that violence against workers is always a violation of the agreement. The language the President gave us said: Well, the first time you commit violence against workers, we might fine you. The second time, we might fine you. Only if you do it over and over is it a violation. Really? If there is violence against workers, the people who committed that violence ought to pay for it. So we fixed that in this agreement. We have improved some of the legalese that since the beginning has been included in trade agreements to make it nearly impossible to successfully win a case when a country violates its labor commitments. We secured the Wyden provision, which amounts to, by far, the strongest ever labor enforcement in the U.S. trade deal. This provision that Senator Wyden and I wrote and fought for is the first improvement to enforcing labor standards in our trade agreements since we have been negotiating them. We know why companies closed factories in Ohio and opened them in Mexico. They can pay lower wages. They can take advantage of workers who don't have rights. They can keep unions from organizing. American workers can't compete with that kind of low-wage lack of enforcement of labor laws. What happens? There is a race to the bottom on wages. So if a company threatens to move to Mexico and they tell their workforce ``We are going to move unless you do some wage givebacks,'' they either move and the American workers lose their jobs or they use that as a way to put downward pressure on wages for American workers. I know what that has done to Mansfield, OH. I know what it has done to Gallipolis, Chillicothe, Zanesville, Dayton, Huber Heights, and every other community. The only way to stop this is by raising labor standards in every country we trade with and, most importantly, making sure those standards are actually enforced. If corporations are forced to pay workers a living wage and treat them with dignity no matter where the workers are, we take away the incentive for those companies to move jobs abroad. That is what the Brown-Wyden provision does. A worker in Mexico now, under this agreement--the reason I am supporting this, the first-ever trade agreement that I am supporting--workers in Mexico will be able to report a company that is violating their rights. They can actually call a toll-free number and report violations against the workers. Aworker can actually make that request. They have never had that right in Mexico. They, often enough, don't have it here. We can then determine whether worker rights have been violated and then take action against the company that did it. We have never done it that way. We haven't had good results because of that. We can apply punitive damages when companies stop workers from organizing. If they keep doing it, we stop their goods from coming into the United States. You enforce it at the factory level by saying: If you keep violating this trade agreement, you are not sending your products into the United States. That will make them behave. When Mexican workers have the power to form real unions and negotiate for higher wages, it helps our workers. Right now, Mexican workers can be paid as little as $6.50--not an hour but a day. We have been asking American workers to compete with that. We have already heard some critics say that Brown-Wyden will force Mexican wages to rise. I plead guilty. That is the entire point--to take away the incentive. If Mexican wages go up, it makes U.S. companies less likely to shut down production in Steubenville or Lisbon or in Bryan, OH, and move overseas. It takes away the incentive for those companies to relocate. I want to be clear. I will always be straight with American workers. This is not a perfect agreement. One trade deal that Democrats fixed will not undo the rest of Trump's economic policies that put corporations over workers. This deal will not stop outsourcing when we have President Trump's tax plan that gives companies a tax break to send American jobs to Mexico. Here is how the President's tax bill that was rammed through this Senate a year or so ago works: If you are in Springfield, OH, your corporate tax rate is 21 percent. If you move--pull up stakes and move to Mexico or anywhere else--your tax rate is 10.5 percent. Even with this good trade agreement, we cannot stop that kind of outsourcing because the President insists on helping his corporate buddies. I will keep fighting his corporate trade policies and tax policies just as we did in this agreement. We have a lot more work to do to make our trade agreements more pro-worker. I will vote yes for the first time ever on a trade agreement because, by including Brown-Wyden, Democrats have made this agreement much more pro-worker. We set an important precedent for the future that Brown-Wyden must now be included in every trade agreement in the years ahead. I suggest the absence of a quorum. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. BROWN | Senate | CREC-2020-01-06-pt1-PgS22 | null | 14 |
formal | Cleveland | null | racist | Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise to talk about an issue that the Senate may address on the floor this week. Tomorrow in the Senate Finance Committee, we are going to take up the renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement. One of my proudest votes as a Member of the House a long time ago was to vote against the North American Free Trade Agreement, to vote against NAFTA. I have voted no on every trade agreement since then because every trade agreement that has come in front of this body was written by corporate interests for their corporate executives and stockholders. They maximize profits always--every one of these trade agreements--CAFTA, NAFTA, PNTR with China, which is not technically a trade agreement, but it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck. Every one of these trade agreements, in every case, has looked out for corporate interests and jettisoned the interests of workers. We see the consequences. Corporate profits soar every time. Executive compensation explodes upward every time. Workers continue to produce more than ever before. Even though corporate profits are up and executive compensation is up, workers' wages are flat. Often, they can't join a union, and the middle class continues to shrink. I know what that has meant in the Presiding Officer's State of Arkansas. I know what it has meant in Ohio. I know what it has done to my hometown of Mansfield. I know what these trade agreements do to Dayton and Cleveland and Cincinnati and Canton and Youngstown and Toledo. Then-Candidate Trump said that he was going to renegotiate NAFTA. Well, that was his promise. He did, but he gave us the same thing. His economic policies overall have been that, but his renegotiated NAFTA, which he brought to this Congress originally--the negotiation that he made with Mexico and Canada--was another corporate trade agreement written for corporate interests. Again, this President betrays workers with his tax giveaways to corporations, to his judges who put their thumbs on the scale, choosing corporations over workers, choosing Wall Street over consumers. Then, last year, as he has done one betrayal of workers after another, squeezing the middle class even more--last year, when we got the initial draft of this agreement from the administration, the renegotiated NAFTA was another betrayal. His first NAFTA draft was nowhere near the good deal for workers that President Trump promised. He had fundamentally negotiated another corporate trade deal--a deal that helps corporate executives, that helps stockholders, that betrays workers again and again, another trade deal just like that. It meant nothing for workers. It meant a sellout to drug companies. It took us months of fighting alongside Speaker Pelosi and Senator Wyden and trade unions to improve this deal and take the real and important steps toward putting workers at the center of our trade policies. These trade policies should be written for workers so that they increase their income and expand the middle class, not written for corporations in trickle-down economics. We know what happens on every tax bill that comes before this Congress, written by the administration and Senator McConnell. We know it is the same thing. Instead of building the economy from the middle out so that the middle class grows and America overwhelmingly prospers, just like the tax cuts--the tax cuts for the rich that may, they tell us, trickle down and help the middle class--that is the way this trade agreement was written. That is the way these tax bills in this Congress were written. It took months of fighting alongside Senator Wyden and organized labor and Speaker Pelosi. We now have a provision in the labor chapter, and the President has finally agreed to this provision. He knew he wasn't going to get a renegotiated NAFTA unless he followed what we said on workers. For the first time, we have a provision in the labor chapter. For instance, it says that violence against workers is always a violation of the agreement. The language the President gave us said: Well, the first time you commit violence against workers, we might fine you. The second time, we might fine you. Only if you do it over and over is it a violation. Really? If there is violence against workers, the people who committed that violence ought to pay for it. So we fixed that in this agreement. We have improved some of the legalese that since the beginning has been included in trade agreements to make it nearly impossible to successfully win a case when a country violates its labor commitments. We secured the Wyden provision, which amounts to, by far, the strongest ever labor enforcement in the U.S. trade deal. This provision that Senator Wyden and I wrote and fought for is the first improvement to enforcing labor standards in our trade agreements since we have been negotiating them. We know why companies closed factories in Ohio and opened them in Mexico. They can pay lower wages. They can take advantage of workers who don't have rights. They can keep unions from organizing. American workers can't compete with that kind of low-wage lack of enforcement of labor laws. What happens? There is a race to the bottom on wages. So if a company threatens to move to Mexico and they tell their workforce ``We are going to move unless you do some wage givebacks,'' they either move and the American workers lose their jobs or they use that as a way to put downward pressure on wages for American workers. I know what that has done to Mansfield, OH. I know what it has done to Gallipolis, Chillicothe, Zanesville, Dayton, Huber Heights, and every other community. The only way to stop this is by raising labor standards in every country we trade with and, most importantly, making sure those standards are actually enforced. If corporations are forced to pay workers a living wage and treat them with dignity no matter where the workers are, we take away the incentive for those companies to move jobs abroad. That is what the Brown-Wyden provision does. A worker in Mexico now, under this agreement--the reason I am supporting this, the first-ever trade agreement that I am supporting--workers in Mexico will be able to report a company that is violating their rights. They can actually call a toll-free number and report violations against the workers. Aworker can actually make that request. They have never had that right in Mexico. They, often enough, don't have it here. We can then determine whether worker rights have been violated and then take action against the company that did it. We have never done it that way. We haven't had good results because of that. We can apply punitive damages when companies stop workers from organizing. If they keep doing it, we stop their goods from coming into the United States. You enforce it at the factory level by saying: If you keep violating this trade agreement, you are not sending your products into the United States. That will make them behave. When Mexican workers have the power to form real unions and negotiate for higher wages, it helps our workers. Right now, Mexican workers can be paid as little as $6.50--not an hour but a day. We have been asking American workers to compete with that. We have already heard some critics say that Brown-Wyden will force Mexican wages to rise. I plead guilty. That is the entire point--to take away the incentive. If Mexican wages go up, it makes U.S. companies less likely to shut down production in Steubenville or Lisbon or in Bryan, OH, and move overseas. It takes away the incentive for those companies to relocate. I want to be clear. I will always be straight with American workers. This is not a perfect agreement. One trade deal that Democrats fixed will not undo the rest of Trump's economic policies that put corporations over workers. This deal will not stop outsourcing when we have President Trump's tax plan that gives companies a tax break to send American jobs to Mexico. Here is how the President's tax bill that was rammed through this Senate a year or so ago works: If you are in Springfield, OH, your corporate tax rate is 21 percent. If you move--pull up stakes and move to Mexico or anywhere else--your tax rate is 10.5 percent. Even with this good trade agreement, we cannot stop that kind of outsourcing because the President insists on helping his corporate buddies. I will keep fighting his corporate trade policies and tax policies just as we did in this agreement. We have a lot more work to do to make our trade agreements more pro-worker. I will vote yes for the first time ever on a trade agreement because, by including Brown-Wyden, Democrats have made this agreement much more pro-worker. We set an important precedent for the future that Brown-Wyden must now be included in every trade agreement in the years ahead. I suggest the absence of a quorum. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. BROWN | Senate | CREC-2020-01-06-pt1-PgS22 | null | 15 |
formal | terrorism | null | Islamophobic | Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I spoke yesterday about President Trump's decision to remove the chief architect of Tehran's terrorism from the battlefield, and I discussed the Senate's obligation to approach this in a manner that is serious, sober, and factual. It is right for Senators to want to learn more about the President's major decision. Once again, I encourage all of our colleagues to attend the classified briefing which the administration will provide tomorrow. The Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the CIA Director will give a classified context behind the President's decision, and they will discuss the administration's strategy to protect our personnel and defend our Nation's interests in the new landscape. I would ask every Senator on both sides to bring an open mind to this briefing. In particular, we should all remember that the history of Iranian aggression began long, long before this news cycle or this Presidency. In the decades since the Islamic revolution of 1979, as the White House has changed parties and our administrations have changed strategies, Tehran's simmering anti-American hatred, proxy violence, and steady support for terrorism worldwide have remained entirely constant through all of these years. In effect, Iran has been at war with the United States for years. While it has taken pains to avoid direct conflict, Iran's authoritarian regime has shown no compunction about kidnapping, torturing, and killing Americans since its earliest days--or Iraqis or fellow Iranians, for that matter. From the 52 diplomatic personnel held hostage in Tehran for 444 days back in 1979, to the hundreds of U.S. servicemembers killed in bombings carried out by Iran's proxies--Beirut in 1983, Riyadh in 1995, Khobar in 1996--to the hundreds more killed or maimed in Iraq by the explosives and indirect fire attacks ordered by General Soleimani himself, to the constant flows of resources and equipment that prop up despots and terrorist organizations throughout the region, Iran's game plan has been an open book: Use third-party terrorism to inflict death and suffering on its enemies while avoiding direct confrontation. The threat Iran poses is, certainly, not new. Its violence is not some unique reaction to President Trump or to Prime Minister Netanyahu or to any other current leader. Violence runs in the bloodstream of this evil regime. In particular, our colleagues who apparently want to blame President Trump for Iranian provocative foreign policy should reflect on the previous administration's recent history. Iran exploited President Obama's withdrawal from Iraq. Soleimani and his agents filled the void and dramatically expanded Iranian influence inside Iraq. They were able to impose a sectarian vision on Iraq that disenfranchised the Sunnis, fueled the rise of ISIS, and plunged the region into chaos. Over in Syria, more weakness from the Obama administration opened yet another door for Iran. The Democratic administration failed to confront the Iranian-backed Assad regime as it slaughtered literally hundreds of thousands of Syrians and displaced millions more. Once again, amid the chaos, Soleimani worked and thrived. Of course, all of this was the backdrop for the brazen, legacy-shoppingnuclear arrangement that sent billions of dollars to fuel Iran's further violence. Even my friend the current Democratic leader knew it at the time. Before he himself voted for a resolution of disapproval on President Obama's deal, Senator Schumer said: ``After 10 years, if Iran is the same nation as it is today, we will be worse off with this agreement than without it.'' That was the Democratic leader, who opposed President Obama's Iran nuclear deal, and the Democratic leader was prescient, for that is exactly what happened. The previous administration failed to confront Iran when necessary. So the mullahs used their windfall from the disastrous nuclear deal to double down on hegemonic aspirations all across the Middle East. A Democratic administration just had 8 years to deal with the growing threat posed by Iran, and it failed demonstrably. Iran was stronger and more lethal at the end of the Obama Presidency than at the beginning. So I would ask my Democratic colleagues today not to rush to lash out at President Trump when he actually demonstrates that he means what he says--when he enforces his redlines, when he takes real action to counter lethal threats against Americans. Wishing away tensions with Iran is really not an option. The Iranians have spent decades making that perfectly clear to all of us. The question is whether we as a body would prefer the administration to stand by as Iran kills Americans or whether we are prepared to work with the President to stand up to Tehran's terrorism and shadow wars. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. McCONNELL | Senate | CREC-2020-01-07-pt1-PgS31-6 | null | 16 |
formal | terrorist | null | Islamophobic | Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I spoke yesterday about President Trump's decision to remove the chief architect of Tehran's terrorism from the battlefield, and I discussed the Senate's obligation to approach this in a manner that is serious, sober, and factual. It is right for Senators to want to learn more about the President's major decision. Once again, I encourage all of our colleagues to attend the classified briefing which the administration will provide tomorrow. The Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the CIA Director will give a classified context behind the President's decision, and they will discuss the administration's strategy to protect our personnel and defend our Nation's interests in the new landscape. I would ask every Senator on both sides to bring an open mind to this briefing. In particular, we should all remember that the history of Iranian aggression began long, long before this news cycle or this Presidency. In the decades since the Islamic revolution of 1979, as the White House has changed parties and our administrations have changed strategies, Tehran's simmering anti-American hatred, proxy violence, and steady support for terrorism worldwide have remained entirely constant through all of these years. In effect, Iran has been at war with the United States for years. While it has taken pains to avoid direct conflict, Iran's authoritarian regime has shown no compunction about kidnapping, torturing, and killing Americans since its earliest days--or Iraqis or fellow Iranians, for that matter. From the 52 diplomatic personnel held hostage in Tehran for 444 days back in 1979, to the hundreds of U.S. servicemembers killed in bombings carried out by Iran's proxies--Beirut in 1983, Riyadh in 1995, Khobar in 1996--to the hundreds more killed or maimed in Iraq by the explosives and indirect fire attacks ordered by General Soleimani himself, to the constant flows of resources and equipment that prop up despots and terrorist organizations throughout the region, Iran's game plan has been an open book: Use third-party terrorism to inflict death and suffering on its enemies while avoiding direct confrontation. The threat Iran poses is, certainly, not new. Its violence is not some unique reaction to President Trump or to Prime Minister Netanyahu or to any other current leader. Violence runs in the bloodstream of this evil regime. In particular, our colleagues who apparently want to blame President Trump for Iranian provocative foreign policy should reflect on the previous administration's recent history. Iran exploited President Obama's withdrawal from Iraq. Soleimani and his agents filled the void and dramatically expanded Iranian influence inside Iraq. They were able to impose a sectarian vision on Iraq that disenfranchised the Sunnis, fueled the rise of ISIS, and plunged the region into chaos. Over in Syria, more weakness from the Obama administration opened yet another door for Iran. The Democratic administration failed to confront the Iranian-backed Assad regime as it slaughtered literally hundreds of thousands of Syrians and displaced millions more. Once again, amid the chaos, Soleimani worked and thrived. Of course, all of this was the backdrop for the brazen, legacy-shoppingnuclear arrangement that sent billions of dollars to fuel Iran's further violence. Even my friend the current Democratic leader knew it at the time. Before he himself voted for a resolution of disapproval on President Obama's deal, Senator Schumer said: ``After 10 years, if Iran is the same nation as it is today, we will be worse off with this agreement than without it.'' That was the Democratic leader, who opposed President Obama's Iran nuclear deal, and the Democratic leader was prescient, for that is exactly what happened. The previous administration failed to confront Iran when necessary. So the mullahs used their windfall from the disastrous nuclear deal to double down on hegemonic aspirations all across the Middle East. A Democratic administration just had 8 years to deal with the growing threat posed by Iran, and it failed demonstrably. Iran was stronger and more lethal at the end of the Obama Presidency than at the beginning. So I would ask my Democratic colleagues today not to rush to lash out at President Trump when he actually demonstrates that he means what he says--when he enforces his redlines, when he takes real action to counter lethal threats against Americans. Wishing away tensions with Iran is really not an option. The Iranians have spent decades making that perfectly clear to all of us. The question is whether we as a body would prefer the administration to stand by as Iran kills Americans or whether we are prepared to work with the President to stand up to Tehran's terrorism and shadow wars. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. McCONNELL | Senate | CREC-2020-01-07-pt1-PgS31-6 | null | 17 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, on another matter, every day that the House Democrats refuse to stand behind their historically partisan impeachment, it deepens the embarrassment for the leaders who chose to take our Nation down this road. You can't say we didn't warn them. You can't even say they didn't warn themselves. It was less than 1 year ago that Speaker Pelosi said: ``Impeachment is so divisive . . . unless there's something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don't think we should go down that path.'' That was the Speaker a year ago. Back during the Clinton impeachment, it was Congressman Jerry Nadler who said: ``An impeachment substantially supported by one of our major political parties and largely opposed by the other . . . will lack legitimacy.'' Chairman Nadler was right 20 years ago. At this point, they may wish they had taken their own advice. Instead, what the country got was the most rushed, least thorough, and most unfair Presidential impeachment in American history, and now the prosecution seems to have gotten cold feet. Nearly 3 weeks after the rushed vote they claim was so urgent, they are still debating whether or not they even want to see the trial proceed. They voted for it 3 weeks ago. The House Democrats say they are waiting for some mythical leverage. I have had difficulty figuring out where the leverage is. Apparently, this is their proposition: If the Senate does not agree to break with our own unanimous, bipartisan precedent from 1999 and agree to let Speaker Pelosi hand-design a different procedure for this Senate trial, then, they might not ever dump this mess in our lap. It is one cynical political game right on top of another. It was not enough for the House to blow through its own norms and precedents and succumb to the partisan temptation of a subjective impeachment that every other House had resisted for 230 years. Now it needs to erode our constitutional order even further. Those in the House want to invent a new, sort of pretrial hostage negotiation wherein the House gets to run the show over here in the Senate. Meanwhile, they are creating exactly the kind of unfair and dangerous delay in impeachment that Alexander Hamilton specifically warned against in the Federalist Papers. This is already the longest delay in American history between the impeachment vote and the delivery of the House's impeachment message. It is almost as though this House Democrat majority systematically took all of the Framers' warnings about partisan abuses of the impeachment power--took everything the Founders said not to do--and thought: Now, there is an idea. Why don't we try that? Impeaching a President is just about the most serious action that any House of Representatives can ever take. How inappropriate and how embarrassing to rush forward on a partisan basis and then treat what you have done like a political toy. How contemptuous of the American people to tell them, for weeks, that you feel this extraordinary step is so urgent and then delay it indefinitely for political purposes. How embarrassing, but also how revealing. Speaker Pelosi's actions over the past 3 weeks have confirmed what many Americans have suspected about this impeachment process all along--that the House Democrats have only ever wanted to abuse this grave constitutional process for partisan ends right from the beginning. Well, here is where we are. The Senate is not about to let the Speaker corrode our own Senate process and precedents in the same way. The first organizing registration resolution for the 1999 Clinton trial was approved unanimously, 100 to nothing. It left midtrial questions to the middle of the trial where they belong. If that unanimous bipartisan precedent was good enough for President Clinton, it should be our template for President Trump. Fair is fair. The Speaker of the House is not going to handwrite new rules for the Senate. It is not going to happen. Look, these are serious matters. At some point in time, the Democrats' rage at this particular President will begin to fade, but the sad precedent they are setting will live on. The American people deserve a lot better than this. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. McCONNELL | Senate | CREC-2020-01-07-pt1-PgS32 | null | 18 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | Impeachment Madam President, on impeachment, this morning, I return to the most pressing question facing my colleagues at this moment: Will the Senate conduct a fair impeachment trial of the President of the United States of America? The Framers suspected that any impeachment would ignite the passions of the public and naturally would create partisans who are either sympathetic or inimical to the President's interests. That is why the Framers gave the Senate the responsibility to try impeachment cases. When it came to a matter as serious as the potential removal of a President, they believed the Senate was the only body of government with enough independence to rise above partisan considerations and act with the necessary impartiality. Will we live up to that vision? Right now, the Republican leader and I have very different ideas about what it means to conduct a fair trial. Democrats believe a fair trial considers all the relevant facts and allows for witnesses and documents. We don't know what the evidence will say. It may exculpate the President. It may further incriminate him. We only want a trial that examines all the facts and lets the chips fall where they may. The Republican leader, in contrast, apparently believes that a trial should feature no witnesses, no relevant documents, and proceed according to the desires of the White House, the defendant. The Republican leader seems more concerned with being able to claim he went through the constitutional motions than actually carrying out our constitutional duty. Because the Republican leader has been completely unwilling to help get the facts for a Senate trial, the question will have to be decided by the majority of Senators in this Chamber. That means four Republican Senators at any point can compel the Senate to call the fact witnesses and subpoena the relevant documents that we know will shed additional light on the truth. I have heard several arguments from the other side as to why we shouldn't vote on witnesses and documents at the outset of the trial. The Republican leader and several Republican Senators have suggested that each side complete their arguments, and then we will decide on witnesses. This idea is as backward as it sounds. Trials should be informed by witnesses and documents; they are not an afterthought. Their reasoning and McConnell's reasoning has an ``Alice in Wonderland'' logic to it: Let's have each side make their case, he says, and then vote on whether the prosecutors and defense should have all the available evidence to make those cases. We know what is going on here. Our Republican colleagues, even Leader McConnell, knows that the American people want witnesses and documents. Sixty percent of Republicans do. They are afraid to say no, but they don't want to vote on them because that might offend the defendant in this trial, President Trump, so they are trying to kick the can down the road. It is a strange position for Republican colleagues to take. They are willing to kick the can down the road, as I said, on questions of witnesses and documents, but they are not willing to say when or if they will ever support it. Just yesterday, one of the four witnesses we have requested, former National Security Advisor Bolton, said he is ready to testify and has new information to share related to the case at hand. Republicans were dodging and twisting themselves into pretzels trying to explain why someone with direct knowledge of what the President did shouldn't testify under oath immediately. I believe that illustrates the fundamental weakness of the Republican position. None of our Republican colleagues can advance an argument about why this evidence shouldn't be part of a trial from the beginning. To put it another way, none of our Republicans have advanced an argument about why it would make sense for the Senate to wait until the end of the trial to obtain all the evidence. Make no mistake, on the question of witnesses and documents, Republicans may run, but they can't hide. There will be votes at the beginning on whether to call the four witnesses we have proposed and subpoena the documents we have identified. America and the eyes of history will be watching what my Republican colleagues do. Another argument I have heard from the other side is that it is not the Senate's job to go outside of the record established by the House impeachment probe. I would reply that it very much is the Senate's job. The Constitution gives the Senate the sole power to try impeachment cases, not review impeachment cases, not go over impeachment cases but the sole power to try them. It is not the Senate's job to put the House impeachment proceedings on a weeklong rerun on C-SPAN. Our job is to try the case, to hold a real, fair, and honest trial. That means examining the arguments. That means letting the prosecutors request witnesses and documents to make their case. This is not just my view. It has been the view of every Senate facing impeachment trial in our history. Every single impeachment trial of a President has featured witnesses. Andrew Johnson's impeachment trial had 41 witnesses. Several of my Republican colleagues here today voted for witnesses in the Clinton trial. Except for one solitary case, every impeachment trial of any official, in the history of the Senate--and there have been a bunch--had witnesses. A trial isn't a trial without evidence. A trial without all the facts is a farce. If the President is ultimately acquitted at the end of a sham trial, his acquittal will be meaningless. That is why the President himself should demand a full and fair trial. President Trump, if you have nothing to hide, if you think the case is as flimsy as you say, call your Chief of Staff. Tell him to release the documents. Call Leader McConnell and tell him what you already told the country; that you would ``love'' for your aides to testify in a Senate trial. President Trump, if you believe you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to be afraid of from witnesses and documents. To thecontrary, if you are afraid of witnesses and documents, most Americans will believe you have something to hide and that you fear you have done something very, very wrong. If my Republican colleagues believe the President has done nothing wrong, they should have nothing to fear from witnesses and documents. In fact, they should welcome them. What better way to prove to the American people that we are treating this matter with the gravity it requires. What better way to prove to their constituents that they are not just doing the President's bidding and not just making this a sham trial because of obeisance to the President of the United States. If every Senate Republican votes to prevent witnesses and documents from coming before the Senate, if every Republican Senator votes for a rigged trial that hides the truth, the American people will see that the Republican Senate is part of a large and awful coverup. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2020-01-07-pt1-PgS33 | null | 19 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | For-Profit Colleges and Universities Madam President, I have come to the floor many times to speak to the American people about an industry, the most heavily federally subsidized industry in America today. No, it is not a defense contractor. It has nothing to do with American agriculture. What I am speaking of are the for-profit colleges and universities of the United States. These colleges and universities, sadly, have written a notorious record when it comes to the treatment of their students. They have often cheated their students, luring them into signing up for expensive, often worthless college courses with false promises and inflated outcomes if they graduate. At the end, the students are left with massive student debts, a diploma that is worthless, credits that can't be transferred to any other reputable college or university, and the prospects of a job that is almost impossible to find. In many cases, these sham operations actually go out of business in the middle of the student's education. As an industry, for-profit colleges need to be remembered for two numbers--two numbers that tell the story of this industry. Nine percent of all postsecondary students go to for-profit colleges and universities in the United States. The University of Phoenix, DeVry--you have heard their names. They advertise quite widely. Nine percent of students are attracted to these for-profit colleges and universities. But 33 percent of all of the federal student loan defaults in the United States are by the students who chose to attend those colleges and universities. What is going on here, with 9 percent of the students and 33 percent of the student loan defaults? The answer is obvious. The cost of education at for-profit colleges and universities is toohigh. Students incur more debt than they would by attending community colleges, city colleges, or other universities and colleges that have good reputations. Secondly, the education is substandard. You can advertise everything online about this great education. I can recall an ad that was on television in the Washington, DC, area a few years ago, and it showed a young woman--probably a teenager, not much beyond--in her pajamas, on her bed, saying: I am going to college on my laptop here. Well, that kind of easy education, many times, is no education at all. At for-profit colleges and universities, too many students end up taking these expensive courses that are meaningless. It turns out that none of these courses can be transferred to some other school or university. When you take these courses and you spend your money and you spend your time and you end up with so-called college credits by for-profit colleges and universities, no one else will take them. No one else accepts them. They laugh at them. Then the students, if they can hang in there long enough with massive student debt, end up with a diploma that is a joke, a diploma that can't even lead to a job. That is what the for-profit colleges and universities are all about. Despite the fact that they have been pretty widespread across the United States, many of them have gone bankrupt. What happens to you as a student if you have gone to one of these universities that has made all these promises to you along the way about taking college courses and how it is going to end up being an education that will lead to a job, and it turns out they were all lies, fraud, deceit, deception? You have the debt, right? You have the student debt, but you can't find a job. You went through 4, 5 years of these so-called courses at for-profit colleges and universities, and the only thing you have to show for it is a debt that is going to decide the rest of your life. It is not just the for-profit college industry that is burdening and exploiting our students. I come to the floor this morning because, sadly, at this moment in time, an agency of our government is complicit. Secretary Betsy DeVos and the U.S. Department of Education have made a fateful decision for hundreds of thousands of American students that I have just described. Let me explain. After a for-profit college defrauds a student--lies to the student--Federal law gives that student the right to have his or her Federal student loan discharged under a provision known as borrower defense. Follow me. I have gone to a school and incurred a debt. They lied to me about their courses leading to a certain degree or to a job. Now the college is going out of business, and I still have the debt, but, under American law, I am protected as a student. The law says that if you were defrauded, you can use something called a borrower defense to discharge the student debt, wipe it clean, and get another chance at life. Congress has rightly decided with this law that we shouldn't leave students holding the bag when these schools should be held responsible. Is that something most Americans agree with? Take a look at this New America poll. Americans agree that students should have their Federal student loan debt canceled if their college deceived them. For Republicans, 71 percent agree with that statement; Democrats, 87 percent. Seventy-eight percent of the American people say that if these colleges lied to them, the students shouldn't end up holding the bag. It is pretty obvious. But sadly, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is trying to make it difficult, if not impossible, for defrauded student borrowers to get the relief. Secretary DeVos has allowed a backlog of--listen to this--more than 223,000 claims of students with student debt who claimed they were defrauded by these colleges and universities. There are 223,000 queued up, waiting in line for the Department of Education to implement the law. For more than a year, she has also failed to approve one single claim of the 223,000 who say they were defrauded--not one. She couldn't help one student who was defrauded out of 223,000. Now she wants to change the rules to make it impossible for future student borrowers to be relieved from their student debt when the schools have deceived them and defrauded them. She has put forward a new rule that places unreasonable burdens on student borrowers to seek and receive relief. Under this rule, the applicants looking for discharge of their student debt must prove that the school intentionally misled them. How is the student supposed to prove intention on the part of the school? Borrowers must also file a claim within 3 years of leaving the school, even though the conduct is often not discovered until many years later. The new rule also requires borrowers to apply individually instead of receiving automatic discharge when they are part of a group who has been harmed by similar widespread misconduct. We have seen it before. Some of these names may ring a bell with you: Corinthian Colleges. They were all over the United States. They went bankrupt. It turned out they were defrauding students, saying: Go take these courses, and you can end up being qualified for these jobs. It turned out it was a lie. After they went bankrupt, under the Obama administration, many of the students, as a group, were protected by this law, the borrower defense rule. Secretary DeVos says: Every student, you are on your own at this point. Lawyer up. You are going to have to prove your case as an individual. This new rule requires borrowers to apply individually, instead of receiving this automatic discharge, which was the case under the Obama administration. With this new rule, Secretary DeVos is saying to borrowers: We are not on your side. You are on your own. In addition, if a borrower's claim for relief is denied, they would not be allowed to appeal under Secretary DeVos's new rule. Even if more evidence of deception and misconduct is found. This new rule also puts taxpayers on the hook for relief, shielding schools from being held directly accountable by students. The DeVos rule eliminated the current prohibition on institutions using class action restrictions and mandatory arbitrations as conditions of enrollment. These practices, which you have seen over and over again by Corinthian and ITT Tech and others, require borrowers to sign away their rights when they go to school. Think about that. You are 19 years old, and you are starting your college education. You are going before one of these schools. They push in front of you that you have to sign up for $10,000 or $20,000 in tuition and sign the following contract. There you are, at age 19 without much life experience, being asked to sign up. Do you know what the fine print says? The fine print says that if I am lying to you, you can't go to court. Most students don't even understand that. They sign it because they are off to college, thinking, finally, here is our opportunity to be educated and have a life, a future. They don't know they are being deceived by these schools. Secretary DeVos has said: Sorry students, you signed that paper when you were 19, and now you are stuck with it. It is impossible for student borrowers to get relief under this new rule by Secretary DeVos. According to an analysis by the Institute of College Access & Success, the new Secretary DeVos rule will end up forgiving, at most, 3 percent of the loans associated with school misconduct. They will be able to recoup just 33 percent of that relief from the schools themselves, and taxpayers will foot the difference. The current rule is estimated to forgive 53 percent of loans associated with misconduct and recoup a greater percentage of the relief from schools. Secretary DeVos has loaded up the U.S. Department of Education with people who were in the for-profit college industry. These are folks who are devising rules good for their industry but not good for the American student borrowers. The bottom line is, the DeVos rule makes it harder for borrowers to receive relief, and the schools who commit the misconduct will pay for a lower portion of the relief that is given. I introduced S.J. Res. 56 last September to overturn Secretary DeVos's borrower defense rule. Representative Susie Lee of Nevada introduced a companion resolution in the House. Many organizations have endorsed my bill, including the Leadership Conference onCivil and Human Rights, the AFL-CIO, American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association, Consumer Federation of America, Student Veterans of America, and the NAACP, but there is one most recently that I want to share with you because I think it is important that Members of the Senate of both political parties realize that we now have a major organization--a nonpartisan organization--that speaks for the veterans of America who have endorsed this effort. I have in my hand a letter submitted to me by James Oxford, who goes by the nickname ``Bill,'' national commander of the American Legion of the United States of America, sent to me on December 18, 2019. He tells the story of veterans who were exploited by these for-profit colleges and universities. They ended up serving our country, earning their GI bill of rights, then losing their benefits to these schools--these worthless schools--and going further in debt to pay for their education. Commander Oxford sent this letter. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2020-01-07-pt1-PgS35-3 | null | 20 |
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