the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 228. the nays are 194. the motion is adon'ted. without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. the the question is on passage of the joint resolution. so many as are in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the yes have it. >> recorded vote. the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays? a recorded vote is requested. those favoring a recorded vote will rise. a sufficient number having arisen, the -- a recorded vote is ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device. this is a five-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 252. the nays are 172. the joint resolution is passed. without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. the unfinished business is the vote on the motion of the gentleman from new jersey, mr. frelinghuysen, to suspend the rules and pass house joint resolution 91 on which the yeas and nays were ordered. the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: house joint resolution 91, joint resolution making continuing appropriations for death gratuities and related survivor benefits for survivors of deceased military service members of the department of defense for fiscal year 2014 and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass the bill.

members will record their votes by electronic device. this is a five-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: the yeas are 425. the nays are zero. 2/3 of those voting having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the joint resolution is agreed to, and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. the chair will now entertain requests for one-minute speeches. for what purpose does the gentleman from florida rise? >> to address the house for one

minute. revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. >> thank you, mr. speaker. most people are astounded, they are absolutely amazed to learn -- mr. speaker -- >> the house is not in order. the speaker pro tempore: the house will come to order. please take conversations off the floor. members, please clear the aisles. members, please cease conversations on the floor. please cease conversations on the floor. the gentleman will continue. >> thank you, mr. speaker. most people are surprised to learn actually they are tunned and amazed to discover that the senate and the house have agreed at least for the next five weeks on a level of funding. this is not an argument about money. this shut down is not about money.

there's only two issues stopping the shut down from coming to an end right this second. the president was on television yesterday for over an hour but never mentioned those two issues. we have agreed on the money. here's the issues. make congress and the white house obey the same obamacare rules as everybody else in the united states of america. mr. posey: now, the president gave big business and special interest a one-year break from being a part of obamacare. we want america's workers and families who work hard and play by the rules to have the same advantage. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. posey: part of my time got used up quieting the chamber, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from arizona rise. >> request unanimous consent to

address the house for one minute. revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mrs. kirkpatrick: mr. speaker, i stand here on behalf of my arizona district to once again make a simple request. allow a vote on a clean funding bill to reopen the government. in the past week house g.o.p. aders only allowed piecemeal votes on bills that went nowhere. yesterday they did it again. this time with head start funding, which is important for the 12 native american tribes in my district. schools on tribal land have already taken a massive hit with sequestration cuts, and now the shutdown is continuing this pain. not just with cuts to head start and impact aid, but with furloughs from the indian health service and with cuts in funding for programs that protect women from violence. these piecemeal games are a dead end. they only prolong the shutdown.

if house leadership were genuinely concerned about programs like head start or impact aid, they would allow a vote to reopen the government. congress should stop picking winners and losers. this is not a game. we demand -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from minnesota rise. >> unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. and permission to revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mrs. bachmann: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise today to reiterate again that the bodies have agreed on the general numbers that we have to look at to deal with our budget. we need to do it, we need to get it done. we need to get people back to work here in the united states of america. one thing that shocked me, mr. speaker, last saturday, i went with my colleague, steve king, out to the house mall we wanted to open up the world war ii memorial, the korean memorial, vietnam memorial so the people could visit. we were shocked to find the

level of intimidation going on where police dogs would be held by park rangers and mounted police in front of the barriers, in front of these monuments. that's shameful. what was even more shameful is that there were 90-year-old people in 90-degree weather and the park system had shut down not only the water fountains, but also the bathrooms. here you have individuals, 10 honor flights coming in to visit the world war ii memorial and in one of the most undignified acts i have ever seen, the greatest generation was denied access to a public bathroom in a national park. that's terrible. we wouldn't to that to anyone. and that's why we need to get our act together and get this taken care of. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from nevada seek recognition? without objection. the gentleman is recognized for one minute.

>> thank you, mr. speaker. mr. horsford: i come to the floor today to give credit where credit is due. to commend a republican who understands the negative consequences of this shutdown. that is the governor from my home state of nevada, governor brian sandi balance. yesterday he told the las vegas sun that nevada is struggling because of this ongoing shutdown. he said that nevadans are going to see catastrophic issues going on for the state if the shut down continues. the sun reported that 362,000 food stamp recipients will see benefits end on november 1 as state employees who administer the program face potential furloughs. in addition, 425,000 women, infants, and children would be cut from food assistance rolls. rape crisis call centers may be closed, unemployment claims will not be processed.

republicans in congress need to recognize what's happening in their state. listen to your constituents. listen to your state legislators and governors. this shut down needs to end and it needs to end now. i'd like to submit the governor's letter to our delegation asking us to work together to end this g.o.p. shut down now. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from north carolina seek recognition? >> to address the house for one minute. and ask to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman, mr. hudson, is recognized for one minute. mr. hudson: mr. speaker, it's been eight days, eight days since the government was shut down. the postal service is still running. social security and unemployment checks are being processed. citizens can get passports and food stamps. and certain groups that have the right ideology are even given permits to protest on the national mall. for some reason our military families, including those at fort bragg in north carolina cannot receive emergency death benefits.

this is worse than excusable, it's shameful. last week congress unanimously passed the pay our military act with the intent that all military pay and allowances will be disbursed during the government shutdown. unfortunately this administration has been playing political theater with the families of our war heroes who have made the ultimate sacrifice. to make our intent crystal clear, today the house passed the honoring families of fallen soldiers act. certain things should transcend politics and it is up to the senate and the administration, in fact they have a moral obligation to join the efforts of the house to fix this problem and express our deepest gratitude to the families of our heroes. thank you, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. are there any further one-minute requests? under the speaker's announced policy of january 3, 2013, the gentleman from florida, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.

>> thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, i rise today to discuss an issue of increasing relevance to our national affairs and to constitutional government properly understood. and that is the requirement that the president faithfully enforce the laws of the land and the failure of the current incumbent to satisfy that obligation. the constitution sets out a simple yet effective structure, major powers of government, legislative, executive, and judicial are divided into three separate branches of government, the legislative branch, the congress, passes laws, makes laws. the executive branch, the president, enforces laws. and the judicial branch, supreme court and inferior courts, interpret laws. article 2, section 3 of the constitution imposes upon the president the duty to, quote, take care that the laws be faithfully executed. this duty has roots in angelo american law dating back to the glorious revolution of 17th century britain. in fact, the english bill of

rights of 1689 provided that, quote, the pretended power of suspending laws or the execution of laws by regal authority without the consent of parliament is illegal, end quote. for his part the founder of our country, george washington, saw the faithful execution of the law to be one of the president's core responsibilities. in a letter to alexander hamilton, then president washington explained that the constitution's take care laws meant, quote, it is my duty to see the laws executed, to permit them to be trampled on with immunity would be repugnant to his duty. mr. desantis: the duty of the president to take care that the laws be faithfully executed is an essential component not simply of the executive branch of government, but to the entire constitutional system. yet the conduct of the current incumbent has a disregard for this core constitutional duty by picking and choosing which laws to enforce, the president has

undermined the constitutional order and has failed to keep faith with the basic idea that ours is a government of laws not of men. now, the most conpick with us vehicle for the president's disregard of the take care duty has been the implementation of the law that bears his name. the patient protection and affordable care act, a.k.a., obamacare. now it is interesting that of all the arguments that have been put forward to counter those who seek toefund, delay, or repeal this law, the one that he obamacare supporters have embraced most frequently as of late goes like this, obamacare is the law of the land. has been upheld by the supreme court, therefore it cannot be repealed, defunded, or delayed. now, this is a nonsensical argument. the congress can amend, supersede or repeal ordinary

legislation as it sees fit. but this argument is particularly rich regarding obamacare, because if this law is somehow sacrosanct, then why is the president not enforcing it as written? it is untenable to assert that congress cannot change the law through legislation but that the president can delay or waive provisions of the law by executive fiat. and exhibit a as it relates to obamacare account president's unilateral decision for one year to delay the enforcement of the so-called employer mandate, essential provision of obamacare requiring most businesses to provide government sanctioned insurance to their employees. now section 1513 delta of that law states that the employer mandate, quote, shall' ply to the months beginning after december 31, 2013. note the statutory command of shall. this is not discretionary and there is no provision of the law permitting the executive to

delay it. incredibly, the president has not offered any coherent rationale for his options. he was asked by "the new york times" whether his critics were justified in asserting whether he could delay the mandate. he said, quote, if congress thinks i was inappropriate, then they are free to take that case. you have some folks in congress aying i am usurping my authority. ultimately, i'm not concerned about their opinion. very few, by the way, are lawyers, much less constitutional lawyers, end quote. in other words, the president doesn't care what congress thinks, as elected representatives of the people, and feels no need to justify his official conduct. now, a couple weeks later weigh asked again about this decision

to unilaterally delay the mandate. he said, look, he didn't simply choose to delay this on my own because a decision was made, quote, in consultation with businesses all across the country. now, i have searched the constitution in vein with the provision allowing the -- vain with the provision allowing the president to suspend article 3 of the constitution so long as he consults with business, but i have not found it. what is even worse, though, the president further justified his conduct by stating, quote, in a normal political environment it would have been easier for me to simply call up the speaker and say, you know what, this is a tweak that doesn't go to the essence of the law, let's make a technical change of the law, that would be the normal thing i would prefer to do but we're not in a normal atmosphere around here when it comes to quote-unquote obamacare. and that's the end of the president's quote. now, this is absurd. the constitution doesn't relieve the president of his

duty to faithfully enforce the law simply because the political environment is difficult. second, the president didn't in fact need to call the speaker because a couple weeks before his comment, the house, this use voted 264-161 with 35 members of the other party voting yes to delay the mandate by law for one year. most of us in the house actually think that as a matter of policy, the employer mandate is bad for the economy. the president responded to our request to delay the employer mandate by threatening to veto the bill. now, with respect to the employer mandate, the emperor truly has no clothes. unilateral delay of this mandate is not consistent with the constitution's take care clause and is an abridgement of congress' constitutional duty to make the law. the separation of the powers is designed to ensure a government of laws, not of men. this president is content to be a law unto himself.

now, the employer mandate delay is not an exception that proves the rule, unfortunately. far from it. the entire enterprise of obamacare implementation has been an exercise in the administration picking and choosing which provisions to enforce and which provisions to delay or waive. rather than implement the law as written, the president is rewriting the law as he goes along. the following list represents a pretty impressive display of this lawlessness. obamacare contains a statutory cap on out-of-pocket health costs, yet, the president suspended this provision most likely because he feared it would lead to health insurance premiums rising more than they already are. second, the law requires obamacare health insurance programs to verify applicants qualify for subsidies based on their income level. the president suspended this requirement thereby allowing taxpayer money to be handed out based on the honor system, and we know that is going to hit

the taxpayer more than if you actually enforce the regulation. the plain text of obamacare also provides that subsidies can only flow through state-based exchanges. yet, the president's i.r.s. is disregarding this requirement and is allowing subsidies to flow to federal exchanges. so this is creating, i think, a patently unjust scenario. the law imposes substantial burdens on society as a whole, but those with political connections, employers, insurance companies, what have you, are granted delays and waivers of the law's burdens. this is precisely contrary to james madison's admonition in the federalist 57 that there should be, quote, no law which will not have its full operation on the political class and their friends as well as on the great mass of society. the most egregious example of political favoritism via executive branch lawlessness has to be the bailout of members of congress with respect to congressional health

plans. now, when the bill was being debated several years ago, the american people were told we have to pass the bill to find out what was in the bill. sure enough, the law contained all sorts of surprises, including an interesting provision regarding health care for members of congress. now, there is broad agreement among analysts who looked at the effects of obamacare that the law's structures and incentives will cause millions of americans to lose their employer-provided coverage and get pushed into these health care exchanges. the only disbutte really is -- dispute, really, is how many americans will suffer this fate. the congressional office said seven million. others have said tens of millions of americans. perhaps recognizing this responsibility, one section of obamacare makes congress eat its own cooking. the idea is because obamacare will up end the health care arrangement of other americans, members of congress and other political insiders should be placed in exactly the same

position as their fellow citizens whom they have burdened, and thus members of congress must go and get insurance through these obamacare exchanges. no more gold plated plans for washington giving washington is having a negative effect on other americans. now, one can search the health care law in vain for any provision providing members of congress taxpayer financed subsidies for use on these obamacare exchanges. it's just not there. in fact, as "politico" reported, the office of personnel management initially said that lawmakers and staffers couldn't receive stees once they went in the ex-- subsidies once they went in the exchange, and perhaps because any other american who loses their health coverage and goes in the exchanges is prohibited from getting a tax excludeable employer contribution. so this didn't sit well with a lot of members of congress. so after being lobbied by both the house and senate the president pledged to, quote,

fix the issue. he ordered o.p.m. to grant unique taxpayer subsidies to members of congress and other washington insiders, again, without having the statutory authority to do so. this is liberating members of congress from having to live under the terms of the law that they imposed on others. and this is creating all sorts of problems of fairness and equity. i think the founding fathers had it right when they said that the president did have a duty to take care that the laws would be faithfully executed, and that word faithfulness means something. yes, you have discretion as an executive to enforce laws, you know, to a certain degree or not, depending on the situation. that's a natural prospect of prrl discretion. but the idea that you can supersede or delay laws by executive fiat is something that's foreign to our constitutional tradition. i will yield in a second to the gentleman from oklahoma, but i just think about this.

had mitt romney won the 2012 election and he came in and started delaying or waiving parts of obamacare with impunity and with no congressional authorization, can you imagine the uproar that we'd be hearing from the press, from our friends on the other side of the aisle. i think it would be very loud in here if that were the case. at this time i thank my friend from oklahoma for coming. i'll yield to him as much time as he may consume. >> well, i really appreciate it. i'd like to thank the gentleman from oklahoma, ron desantis, who's been such a great leader on constitutional issues in this body and i'd like to say that here you have a gentleman who went to yale undergraduate and he played baseball, he got a lot of grief from harvard and then he decided to join the united states navy. mr. bridenstine: and he's served bravely in the united states navy as a j.a.g. officer and now serving the united states congress. if there's anybody in this body that has the credibility to discuss these constitutional issues, it's my good friend from florida, mr. ron desantis,

and i appreciate your leadership on these issues. when you think of the constitutional process, mr. speaker, there's one particular issue that is near and dear to me, that's near and dear to my constituents that we have seen this body go through earlier this year and that is the issue of gun control. i think it was back in april the president had an agenda and harry reid had an agenda and their agenda was to outlaw certain types of guns. these guns didn't operate any differently than other types of guns. they just looked scary. so they wanted to ban them. and interestingly, that effort died in the senate and it never came to the house of representatives. so then they started another effort, and that effort was for what would eventually be a national gun registry. they called it national background check but ultimately that would be a national gun

registry and that effort died in the senate. now, the constitutional process, if the president wants his agenda enacted, he needs to go to the united states senate or the house of representatives and pass a law in a bicameral process and eventually it needs to go to his white house for signing. and ultimately this bill did not have the will of the american people. this bill did not have the desire of the members in this body to pass that bill. and so what the president did recently, which i believe is egregious, is he decided to enter the united states of america into an international treaty to accomplish the very objectives that the house of representatives and the senate had rejected and that's the united nations arms trade treaty. and under this treaty, anybody who purchases a gun internationally, if a gun comes from another country, maybe a ock from austria, well, then

you have to enter into an international database, your name, phone number. there will be an international database if you purchased a gun that was produced in any country other than the united states. and let me be clear about this, because i talked to a lot of gun manufacturers. many parts of many guns are not made in the united states. you could have a handle that's made in china. you could have a trigger that's made in mexico. if you look at most of the guns that's made in the united states, major parts of them are made elsewhere which means that we are going to have a national gun registry that will have an international body overseeing our national gun registry per the united nations arms trade treaty. president of the united states have an agenda that doesn't get through the senate, that doesn't go through the house of representatives, that doesn't come to his desk

for signing, but he's ideologically committed to this which is the violation of the second amendment of the united states of america, for him to enter a treaty, an international treaty, where there will be an international body responsible for overseeing this treaty to me is an egregious lack of leadership and certainly it violates the intention of the constitution. the president knows full well that the senate will never ratify this treaty. and this is another important point i think. the president has had other agenda items. he wanted to sign us up for other treaties. the united nations convention for the rights of children. the united nations convention for the rights of women. the united nations convention for the rights of the disabled. there are all these conventions. and they're all, you know, seemingly very good conventions. i say this, the united states of america have laws and those laws are far more stringent than these treaties.

what purpose would we sign onto a treaty when our laws are stronger adhering to the principles that these treaties are trying to promote? why would we sign on? why would we turn over our sovereignty to an international body? i personally don't understand it. the united states is a leader in the world, and we can lead the world by example, but signing over our sovereignty so there will be an international body that comes in and inspects our country because the president has an ideology that he couldn't get through the house, that he couldn't get through the senate, that ultimately these treaties, you know, were not going to be ratified by the senate, i think it's egregious. certainly the second amendment -- the second amendment of the united states is quite frankly not up to debate by foreigners, and it's not up to debate by foreign bodies and foreign governments cannot come into the united states and force us to overturn our own

constitution amendment, the econd amendment. so that's another example of where this president has overreached, beyond his constitutional authority, and certainly passing laws, not actually passing laws, but creating treaties because he can't get his laws passed, that would violate our constitution. with that i'd like to yield back to my friend from florida. mr. desantis: i thank the gentleman from oklahoma. i thank you for his comments and thank you for the service that you've given to the country, both here in the congress, but particularly as a naval aviator, flying more than one platform, the e-2, the hawkeye and then also the f-18 superhornet. you've been deployed in harm's way numerous times and you speak with a great deal of authority not only on these issues but on issues related to national security and i think it's been great that the gentleman and i have had a

mutual pact to be supporting our blue water navy. because there's no other weapon in the world like it when you can move a carrier 90 miles off somebody's coast and project power. so, with that i'd like to recognize another one of my colleagues, a guy who's been here before, he's walk the walk and one of the few guys who will tell you what his principles are and will come here and will actually put those principles into action. he did it in the 1990's and he's doing it again. so i'd like to recognize the gentleman from oklahoma, mr. salmon. mr. salmon: thank you very much. first of all, i want to say what an honor it is to be sharing the dice with two such distinguished -- dais with two such distinguished gentlemen who have given up their careers and sacrificed countless hours with their families to come to , as has been ot

done before, being willing to kick the can down the road. coming to make real change. coming to get our arms around the real problems that are confronting our society and us as a nation. and i'd like to say that it's just a debt crisis. that it's just funding for our government. but i think we all know it's much more than that. it's about the freedoms that we hold. it's about everything that we hold dear, everything that every military person for the last 240 years have fought to defend. and that is the freedoms that our founding fathers envision when they started -- envisioned when they started this great experiment. and we don't want to let that experiment die. i'm so honored to be able to serve with two gentlemen that take this seriously and are willing to do more than be politicians, risk those political careers to actually do what's right. what a novel idea for washington, d.c. i'd like to talk just about -- a little bit about the genesis of the president's health care

law. when we talk about the constitutionality. they tooked this thing up -- cooked this thing up at a time when they knew that there was -- the time was running short, a new senator had just been elected from massachusetts, so they had to act very, very quickly or they wouldn't be able to get by the cloture votes. so that's why nancy pelosi ended up saying, we have to pass it before we know what's in it and then we can read it afterwards. because virtually none of those senators actually read it. that's why i understand wolf blitzer just came on today and said, mr. president, why don't you postpone obamacare for a year? why? because we've seen over the last week it's a miserable failure. its rollout has been catastrophic. and we want to stop the hemorrhage and help the american people. but how did the bill eventually become a law? happened because they did a strike-all on a bill that was originated in the house. but they did a strike-all with

language that had nothing to do with the original language. why is that important? because in the constitution there's a provision called the origination clause. and that stipulates that any revenue bill has to originate in the house of representatives. it has to. that's a requirement per the constitution. but this bill actually started in the senate. obamacare. started in the senate. and so constitutionally, from day one, it started out on shaky footing. they violated the constitution right out of the chute. now, let's fastforward to where we are today. you've done a marvelous job describing some of the inconsistencies and the breaches of the constitution that this president has done in actually changing his own law. we say it's his own law. it's congress' law. it's a law that a president can't enact in and of himself and he can't change in and of

himself. we don't have a line-item veto anywhere. the president can only change the law if it goes through congress first. so like you said, congressman, he arbitrarily changed the date in the law from one year to the next. and you can't do that. i've heard from the democrat party time and time again, the folks on the other side, that they can't support this pathway that we've been diagnose gue -- going through in the last week of putting bills up on funding various aspects of government. like funding for n.i.h. and kids with cancer or funding our veterans or funding our national parks. they say that that's a process of creating winners and losers and they can't have any part of that. well, what is president obama doing when he's giving breaks to big business and to congress but he's not giving them to every other american when it comes to obamacare? isn't that creating winners and losers? i think it's a tad hypocritical of them to even raise that

specter. but i want to talk for a little bit about what's happened in the last week and a half. because while the president is very willing to exceed his constitutional authority, to do certain things, when he does have the constitutional authority to do something, he doesn't do it. what am i talking about? i'm talking about what's happened over the last few days with the bill that we passed last saturday, before the shutdown, funding our military. the pay our military act. it was clear in that bill, that very succinct bill, that they had the power to pay all of our military folks, including all of our civilians, and that they could go ahead and take care of the death benefits for these widows who have lost their loved ones in war. that was very, very clear. they had that ability all along. so what does the president do? he wants to use this for political leverage. and make this as painful as he possibly can. so what do they do? they furlough several hundred

thousand civilian workers within the military. just so they could rash et up the pain and make -- ratchet up the pain and make it tougher on the republicans. then what happens? about a week later, chuck hagel, the secretary of the feds, comes out and says, oops, my bad, i guess we had the power all along. isn't that what we've been telling them aye all along? you have the power -- them all along? you have the power. one other example. in my own state, in arizona, we have one of the greatest national parks, the grand canyon. and it's not only a wonder for the entire world, but it's also a wonder for our economy. we have folks that are doing river raft trips, folks that do excursions and hikes down through the grand canyon. but they run into a closed park. well, let me tell you something. i was here during 1995 when we had that last government shutdown. and guess what? we had a democrat president.

his name was bill clinton. we had a republican governor, just like we do in arizona right now. stimington. president clinton worked with our republican governer to allow them to use private and state resources to keep the park open. so our governor, governor brewer, writes a letter to president obama thinking that he might be somewhat similar in nature to president clinton as far as being willing to negotiate. these are people's lives on the line. what did they get? big fat zero. no way, you can't open it. we've seen that time and time again. we've seen it on the national mall. that when certain groups of people want to come and take a look at the monuments or go into the national mall, that, no, the government's shut down. you can't come in. everything's shut. but yesterday what happened in the national mall? 15,000 people came for a protest on immigration reform. and they opened up the national

mall. so it's a disturbing pattern. if you agree with the president and his policies, we're going to do everything within our power to use government to help you get where you need to be. if you disagree with me, we're going to use our government to bludgeon you and use it as a tool to further our political agenda. that's happened with the i.r.s., when it comes to these nonprofit status of various organizations, it happened with our capitol mall and our -- capital mall and our capital monuments. and i find it so incredulous that our president is willing to overstep his boundaries and unconstitutionally do things through executive order and yet when he has the power and we've given him the power, he's not willing to do it. i find those inconsistencies extremely disturbing and a little bit mack vellian. so i would hope that the president would look at what we're trying to do through this process. we have a responsibility to the

people that elected us, to make the laws as good as we possibly can. the last proposal that we put on the table was that we would delay the individual mandate so that every american, as you said, every american could get the same deal that big business with their great lobbyists here in washington, d.c., got. and that members of congress got. they would get the same consideration. and the other part was that we would make sure that congress lived under the same laws everybody else has to. pretty commonsense approach. so much so that multiple democrats agreed with us and voted with us to pass that and send it to the president. but what did harry reid do? shoved it in his drawer. at the behest of president obama. it's time to stop these reckless games. mr. president, you've already shown that you're very willing to use your executive powers far beyond your scope of

authority given to you under the constitution. is it unreasonable for us to ask you to use your powers when you're given them to do the right thing? and i yield back to the gentleman from florida. mr. desantis: i thank the gentleman from arizona for those great comments. i think he brings up a great point about the funding bill that was sent the day before the fiscal year ended. it was not demanding that the president, you know, fully repeal the health care law. it basically had two very reasonable policy asks. one, that members of congress live under the exact terms of the law that they passed and not get any type of special, unauthorized treatment. and then, two, that individuals be given the same courtesy that the president gave to big business. and that was very reasonable. the press hasn't really reported that. that's not really the way they framed it. and i'm not surprised at that. but that is a vote by standing beside the senate majority leader -- leader, all those senators who did that, that's a

vote that's going to reverberate into the future. and i think it's interesting because when we're talking about the proper constitutional authority of the president, our primary means to check the president is the power of the purse. and so that's basically what we're doing in terms of -- we're sending the funding bill but we're saying, look, we cannot afford to continue going with this treatment throughout society. you've got to treat everybody the same. and i'll yield to the gentleman from oklahoma. mr. bridenstine: when you consider the fact that the media reporting is very different than what i perceived in the body as a member of congress, i'm more astonished every day at how the media reports the story, but the very last ask that we made before the government shut down was about 1:00 in the morning. so i guess technically the government had been shut down for about an hour. and that very last ask was simply a meeting. it was simply a conference so

that people on their side and people on our side could come together and discuss obamacare and some of the problems that we have with it. now, when you talk about the constitution and the constitutional process that we have, and you have divided government, i'd like to ask the gentleman from florida, is that not a perfectly reasonable adult way of handling disputes? mr. desantis: i thank the gentleman for the question. that is not only an adult way, that is exactly the way that the founding fathers envisioned it. james madison when he wrote about the different branches of separation of power, checks and balances, he said, ambition must be made to counteract ambition. so you have an executive that gets beyond their scope. he expected the legislature to check that. and so in this instance we are. we're saying, wait a minute, you can't unilaterally delay the law for business, but then leave the rest of the american people holding the bag.

you can't let congress, the people who are imposing this law on others, get out from under the exact text of the law. so in that sense, that's exactly the way the system is supposed to work. now, he has a different view of basically the congress needs to do what he decrees and then he will grant congress the courtesy of actually discussing issues with them. that would not have probably gone over very well with the founding fathers. i just want to make another point because the gentleman from oklahoma -- arizona brought up how obamacare was passed and kind of the genesis of it. and some of our friends on the other side of the aisle, they say, how can you guys be talking about this? it's the law, kind of move on. not giving any credence to the 50%, 55% of americans who are being negatively affected by it. but you compare the way that law was passed to any other major piece of legislation, i pulled some interesting numbers. social security, 1935, in the house of representatives, the 6% of the democrats voted for

it, -- 96% of the democrats voted for it, 81% of the republicans voted for it. interstate, 98% of the republicans in this body voted for it. civil rights act in 1964, maybe the most important piece of legislation of the 20th century, 61% of the democrats in the house voted for that piece of legislation, 80% of the republicans in the house voted for that piece of egislation. 981, in the snarks 78% voted for rageon 8% voted economics. you had the republican party joining with a number of presidents and a democratic president. you have this bill that didn't receive any support from the other party and rests on all these broken promises that your health care will decline $2,500 a family, you can keep your

plan, keep your doctor, we know none of that is true. i just want to ask the gentleman from oklahoma, i yield to him because he and i had been discussing this idea of the president's responsibility to enforce border security and enforce laws related to immigration. so i'll yield you as much time as you consume so you can discuss that. mr. bridenstine: i appreciate that. it's perfectly appropriate that we have the gentleman here from arizona as well. the gentleman from arizona, you know, when you serve in this body you get to meet a lot of interesting people that have done amazing things in their lives. the gentleman from arizona, who we heard from earlier, had an opportunity to serve in this body back in the 1990's, and then he left. he had a term limit pledge. and he honored his term limit pledge. and then he came back recently as a newly elected freshman with the rest of us. it's an honor to serve with him. interestingly, in that hiatus

when he was back in arizona, he ran for the governorship of arizona and he darn near won. and interestingly, he ran against the person who won was janet napolitano who became secretary of homeland security here in the obama administration. and here -- i'd like to discuss some things why it's so important for me personally. i'm a navy pilot, as the gentleman from florida said, and i've flown combat. but interestingly, i've also flown counterdrug missions in central and south america. i can tell you without a doubt that the drug cartels that we fight down in central and south america, they don't try to get the drugs into the united states of america any more. their only objective is to get the drugs to northern mexico where they are vertically integrated with gangs and other cartels who bring the drugs across the border without a hitch. now, because we have these drug wars in northern mexico -- by

the way, there are over 100,000 people that have been killed in the last seven years in these drug wars in northern mexico, but that exists because we have an open border policy on the south side of the united states. so if you are to hand a 16-year-old kid a backpack with $1 million worth of cocaine and you say to him, hey, go across this border, get to that point and you will be very well rewarded, 16-year-old kid will do that. in many cases in these impoverished areas in northern mexico. interestingly, another 16-year-old kid will see that backpack and will want it for himself. and the next thing you know you have one killing the other. and you have the third killing the second. then you have these gangs formed. this is how you get to the point where you have cartels and gangs that are killing not only each other, 100,000 people, but they're also killing judges. they're killing police officers . they're killing politicians. and on top of it all, they're

not transporting cocaine. they're transporting young girls in the slave trade. they're transporting weapons. and this is happening in northern mexico, just south of our border. mexico is on the brink of a failed state because of this. it's the direct result of an open border policy. now, secretary of homeland security, former secretary of homeland security, janet napolitano, has been on record. what did she say? she says that the border is secure. that's what she says. and i just got to tell you that i know firsthand that it's not. and the people who live in arizona know that it's not. the people who live in texas know that it's not. the border is not secure. but here's what we've done in this body. we have passed laws to secure the border. has the border become secure? no. has thousands of people died since those laws have been passed because we haven't secured the border? yes.

the president's job, per the constitution, is to faithfully execute the laws. not pick and choose which laws he wants to follow based on political preference which is what he's been doing. so if it's all right, i'd like to yield to the gentleman from arizona. you've been, you know, near and dear to this for a long time and if you have some comments -- mr. salmon: i thank the gentleman from oklahoma. yes, this is something we've been dealing with in something in an up close and personal way. in fact, about a month and a half ago, i had the good fortune to meet with arizona's general for arizona. he was finishing up his term in office and i said, you know, sir, what is your biggest concern when it comes to possible terrorist activity here in arizona? you know, we don't have a lot of the national weather problems like they do in other

parts of the country. hurricanes like in florida. we don't have earthquakes. we have a dust storm every now and then and we've had some terrible fires. i wasn't trying to lead him in any direction. he said without a doubt the thing that keeps me up at night, the thing that worries more than anything is the porousness of our border and the fact that about 15% of the people that we apprehended last year were not from mexico. many of those people were from the middle east. what i worry about is that because it is so laxed and so easy to get across our border that some terrorist is going to be able to get across the border with a suitcase bomb and detonate it and a lot of people are going to be injured or killed. hat was his big concern. and then i spoke to some of our i.c.e. people. i had a long conversation with them. they said, you know, we don't

really need a lot more assets to get the border secured. what we need is for this administration to enforce the law. we need them to let us do our jobs. we're law enforcement people. we see the law very, very clearly. we know what the law states, but our hands have been tied by this administration. they won't let us do our jobs. he then proceeded to tell me that we've done these surveys on a regular basis to try to determine where employee morale is at. they said it's at an all-time low ever since they've been doing these surveys right now in i.c.e., especially in arizona, because they feel like they're not empowered to do their jobs and they wonder what am i doing here. many of them want to be transferred out or just kind of march in place and do their time and get out as soon as they possibly can. but the morale is terrible. these are honorable, decent people that want to do their jobs. and the other side would have

you believe, no, this is just about some honest people that want to come across the border and get jobs in the united states and take care of their families. it's not just about that. terry, with h brad the drug smuggling, with fast and furious. guns are being smuggled across the border. drugs are being smuggled across the boreder and unsavery people that want -- border and unsavory people that want to come across our border and one day the piper is going to have to be paid. the border is far from being secured. we have the ability to do it, but this administration will not let them do their jobs. i yield back. mr. bridenstine: thank you for that. mr. desantis: janet napolitano brings up the confirmation process and it provides for a cabinet officer, judges that they go, the president will nominate, the senate votes to

confirm and then at that point they can become appointed and fill up the office. there's also another provision in article 2 of the constitution, section 2 involving what are called recessed appointments. the president shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may done during a recess of the senate by granting commissions that will expire at the end of the next session. that made sense. people live all over the country. horse drawn carriage. the senate may be out for months and months. founders didn't want government to be grounded to a halt. if the senate is on recess, president can strategically figure that out and appoint someone that may not otherwise be confirmed. the president took a step further than that. he said if the senate says it's not in recess, if they're just adjourned for, say, a day, a couple days and they're having pro forma session that they doesn't actually count as a

recess in his judgment and he can go ahead and do recess appointments, people to the national labor relations board and the consumer financial protection board that would not otherwise be able to be confirmed. and a lot of people crowled foul about this. -- cried foul about this and it actually got tied up in the courts. normally we have to check some of these things. there's somebody that had standing to bring a lawsuit. it's gone to two different circuit court of appeals. they both said, look, the president can't just unilaterally determine when the senate is in recess. the senate is either in recess or not. if it's just they go to sleep at night and come back the next morning, the president can't wait until midnight and just thrust somebody into office. so both of those courts have said that the president overstepped his authority by shoving these recessed appointments in office while the senate was still not in in a formal recess, they were just adjourned within that term of service. and so i think the supreme court is going to hear that

this time. i think they're definitely very likely to agree with those courts and say if the president can determine when it's a recess, then the whole idea of advise and consent gets swallowed up by the exception. that's not something that's going to work. the gentleman from arizona, it's interesting with his history, because i listed some major pieces of legislation and how they got broad bipartisan support. the last one i mentioned was the 1996 welfare reform act that congress basically passed, got vetoed, got passed again. finally president clinton signed it. and the core of that, as i understand it, was that you'd actually try to incentivize work instead of dependency so you actually had work requirements for able bodied folks. i think the results of that were very, very positive and essentially changed the incentive structure and gave people hope to get off dependency and in a productive

life. i'll yield to the gentleman from arizona, because the president has basically watered-down those work requirements unilaterally and i think that will have a negative effect. so i yield to the gentleman from arizona. mr. salmon: i thank the gentleman from florida. yes, i was right in the middle of all those debates. in fact, before i came to congress, the arizona legislature, which i was part of, actually passed a bill called workfare which is what we passed in 1996. and it recognizes the idea, i think the truth, that government, while it can -- there's an old chinese proverb. if i catch a fish for you you'll have food for a day. if i teach you to fish, you'll have food for your life. and that was the model that we tried to employ. that was that people have to work. they have to give something back for the welfare payments that they're getting. it was called workfare, and that was what we decided to do

here in the congress. and it did one other thing, congressman, that no government program can or normally really do and that is help instill dignity in people. i think something that's broken our country is that we've become this welfare state, a bunch of dependents across the country. and i think that giving somebody the opportunity to be able to give something back actually helps preserve i think the human spirit. we all want to feel like we have some worth, that we have some relevance in society. and the old traditional welfare program is almost like we'll pay to you stay out of society. we'll give you barely enough to subcyst but you stay out of society, and that's the message sublimble nationally. we don't have much value for you. you don't offer much to society so we'll pay you to stay home. well, we thought of a different idea. i think a vastly more

compassionate idea and that is to be able to have people give something back so they didn't get something for nothing. and along the way they got skills and abilities that they otherwise didn't have so they can learn how to work, they can learn how to hold down a job, and so that was one of the key components of the welfare reform we passed in 1996, that while we send that money out to the states that there are work requirements, and i think that's reasonable. you don't get something for nothing. you've got to get out and help pull the wagon instead of having everybody cart you around. that's reasonable. and what did this president do the moment he got in office? he started through executive order granting waivers through each of the states, getting rid of those work requirements. again, that was a law that was passed in 1996, signed by president clinton, and a president coming after changes the terms of those laws. to me, as far as i'm concerned, not only is that lawless, it's foolish, because it's hurting the very people that he

purports to help and i believe rather than helping them it's keeping them down. i yield back. mr. desantis: i thank the gentleman from arizona for hat. you mentioned when the president came into office, none of us were in congress at the time, just as a citizen i was active duty, navy, you were probably, too, mr. bridenstine. but we had this stimulus bill that had been passed. this is a huge thing. and part of that, as i've learned more about it, is that there were actually requirements that the executive branch is supposed to submit timely reports that would document the different spending and what was going on and i think even the vice president said, hey, i'm going to be the watchdog on this. and it is in fact the case that most of those deadlines have just been completely disregarded, that you haven't seen the type of reporting that was envisioned by the law, and that's perhaps because the law wasn't successful at

engineering an economic recovery. shortly after that, though, one of the biggest issues that happened, this is 2009, was the auto bankruptcy and this was something that was unusual because the white house actually got very much involved on the ground in terms of refereeing the rights of the various parties including the creditors. and so i'll yield some time to the gentleman from oklahoma to discuss that. because you had mentioned that was something that had bothered you at the time and so the floor is yours. mr. bridenstine: i appreciate that. when we talk about the rule of law, the rule of law means that it applies equally to everyone. and of course today we have talked a lot about how within obamacare the rule of law does not apply equally to everyone. me people get waivers, depending on your, you know, what kind of cup work for. some companies get waiver -- kind of company you work for. some companies get waivers, some unions get waivers. some people get grandfathered and they get to keep their

policy. other people get letters saying their policy is canceled. so we have exchanged in this country at this point under obamacare, we've exchanged the rule of law for the rule of man. where you have nameless, faceless bureaucrats that nobody -- that they don't represent anybody, that make decisions, that change the law for individuals and that's not what was intended by the founding fathers. when you think about, as the gentleman from florida said, when you think about creditor rights and you think about the bailout for chrysler, you have different classes of creditors. in the case of the chrysler bailout, you had secured creditors. that means that in the hierarchy structure, they were superior to, you know, the shareholders. they were superior because they were lending the money, they wesht the owners of the company, -- they weren't the owners of the company, they were lending the money.

they had rights above the shareholders. with chrysler what happened is the president came in, like you said, and they got very involved. and in fact changed the rule of law for the rule of man where you had bureaucrats coming in and making a decision that the secured creditors would be wiped out. in fact, they were bullied. i think they received 30 cents on a dollar for investment, if i remember correctly. but the secured creditors would be bullied to give up their investment and the people who actually came out ahead were the unions who were not secured creditors. and this is a violation of bankruptcy law. i mean, the president's job, again, is to faithfully execute the law. not change the law for political preference, not change the law and not replace the rule of law with the rule of man, which is what they did in this case, and politically they made a decision that the

secured creditors would be wiped out, the unions would be made whole and at the end of the day, here's the fallout from that. in the united states of america, all across this country, and in the world, people are making decisions about where they're going to invest money. and if you look at the investment opportunities in the united states of america right now, if you're going to invest in big business, the whole too big to fail mantra that we've heard over and over again, if you're going to invest in big business, you're going to have to take a risk and that risk has nothing to do with the return on investment or whether or not the company is sound. that risk is now political risk. because as an investor, politically, you could be wipe you had out -- wiped out, even if you have a secured debt instrument. and when you replace the rule of law with the rule of man, especially as it relates to business, people make decisions to invest elsewhere. and if you look at our country right now, and you look at the capital investment in our country, we could be doing much better.

and of course if we had a president that adhered to the law, rather than changing the law based on political preference, we might see more investment in our country. and of course investment is how businesses grow. it's how they raise money to open up a new plant or open up a new store and capital investment is how new firms get created and it's how jobs get created and grow. so what we have right now is the replacement of the rule of law for the rule of man and it's been detrimental for our economy as it relates to the securities industry. and with that i'd like to yield back. mr. desantis: i thank the gentleman from oklahoma. i thank both the gentleman from oklahoma and the gentleman from arizona for coming here today to offer their views, their comments are much appreciated. and the great thing about these two guys is they'll stand up to people regardless of party. they'll stand up to people in their own party, they'll stand up to people in the other party. if what they're trying to do is not the right thing, because these guys want to do the right

thing. i just want to conclude by just invoking two giants in american history. in terms of some of the issues that we discussed today, and kind of what they mean. and the first is the father of the country, george washington. you know, when he took the reins as it's first president of the united states, he made a comment that, i walk on unready toen ground. so he had a great sense that it wasn't just about him. he was already the biggest hero in the country. he could have taken over the country after defeating the british. he could have been king but he surrendered his sword and retired to mt. vernon until he was called back for further service and he was very sensitive to the idea that he was trying to establish a framework for freedom that could last generations. and it wasn't just about his own personal glory. and what he tried to establish was the proper role of an executive in a constitutional system. there's a lot of people that

said, you either have a strong executive and it's a monarchy, or you just can't have a strong executive. and i think he laid the foundation to say, actually, you can have a constitutionally sir sum scribed executive power that was nevertheless a force for good for the country. and the other gentleman that -- like to mention is abram ache are a hamlin condoleezza rice -- abraham. his earliest recorded speech -- was ech before the in the 1830's. so he still had decades before he was president. i don't think he'd been elected to anything, even locally, at the time. and he was really concerned about the future of the country because he said, we had this great revolution, yet this great constitution, you had these wonderful decades where people were actually living and breathing that. and obviously he felt that there was a lot of work to do. because he spoke out against things like slavery. but he thought that the ball was moving in the right direction.

in terms of individual freedom. but he feared that, as the founding fathers and their generation passed away, that people really wouldn't have something that they could all have to organize around and be faithful to in terms of our country. and so what he told people to do was to really embrace constitutional principles and the rule of law. in this speech he said, as the patriots of 1976 did to the support the declaration of independence, so too the support of the constitution and laws. let every american pledge his life, his property and his sacred honor. let every man remember that to violate the law is to trample on the blood of his father and to tear the charter of his own and his children's liberty. and then he went on to say in short, let it become the political religion of the nation and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay of all sexes and tongues and colors and conditions sacrifice unceasingly upon its alters. i think what lincoln was

getting at was this idea of american exceptionalism. it's not because we as americans are anything -- i'm certainly not anything special. it's not that we're so much better than anybody as people. the exceptional part of the country is the origins of the country and the principles that the country is designed to further. and that i think is what lincoln was talking about. that when you embrace the declaration, when you embrace the constitution, you're embracing a framework in which individual liberty is the paramount objective of society and that is why things like the separation of powers, that is why you have to have proper lawfulness from the legislature and executive are so important. it's not just because this is all a game and we want to try to blow the whistle on people in the other party. it's because ultimately this constitutional structure and these protections are what make us different from all the countries that have come before

and all the countries that have been founded since. and so with that, mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. under the speaker's announced policy of january 3, 2013, the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. gohmert, for 30 minutes. mr. gohmert: thank you, mr. speaker. for a government she's shut

down, there seems to be a great deal that's going on. down here on the mall we ended somehow the national been, vice which has paraphernalia thetically speaking here, -- partner thetically speaking here, they have presided over a park service that, beginning with the franklin d. roosevelt memorial, has not had god entioned in any memorial since that time. we don't have time to -- our place for mentioning god as our memorials have in some way in the past, but by golly, we got time during a shutdown to approve a permit to allow that who want to demand

though they're here in this country illegally they have a right to demand rights. and this administration just as it did with the occupy washington movement facilitates that. we know with the occupy washington movement there was all kinds of lewd, i will sievious stuff going on. in public. the park service didn't seem to be bothered by that. but let veterans show up to the world war ii memorial and they've got barricades. let world war i irving veterans tried to get who to the monument, that commemorates climbing to the top of the mountain. they put up big obstacles to

our veterans getting there. so the message from this administration very clearly is, if you're illegally in the country, we'll bend over backwards to let you commit all kinds of acts in the mall, we'll send police down to pick up your garbage and if you just want to illegally occupy an area, a public area, we'll let you do that. basic et you use the services in public. all kinds of things going on there with the occupy washington movement. and that was allowed to continue on and on and on. however, if you have served your country in the united states military, then we're going to try to make life miserable for you. there just might be those

people who have hung onto their god and their guns and love america and love the constitution, so this homeland security thinks you're a threat. which is quite interesting. you know, with all the things hat are going on, we have seen that this administration has not had a problem with some things, that some of us feel like are a problem. like i've mentioned in the last couple of years about a member of the -- what was originally the countering violent extremism working group, had a gentleman named elbiari from texas that was placed on there. and then he got a promotion rom secretary janet napolitano up to homeland security advisory council and, gee, now

we're finding out he's continuing to defend one of the principles of the holy land foundation, we're finding out defending, till still considers them to be unjustly prosecuted, even though federal courts have found that crimes were committed, terrorism was supported by the holy land foundation, dallas federal court, along with the u.s. court of appeals, in new rleans, found that groups like cair whiches in a now changed ts name to w.t.f., and isna, groups like that were the largest front group for the muslim brotherhood in america. interesting, because here we have this

administration that's made life so difficult for our veterans just trying to get here and enjoy the memorials. i've been down to the memorials today, very day until and it's amazing. you know, i've been there different days, all hours of the day and night. you're lucky if you see one park ranger in the world war ii memorial and now they got them very strategically placed. they will stand there with the barricades closed most of the time. if some group comes up and explains that they are a world war ii veterans group, then they'll open and let them through, but they stand here intimidating. sometimes an officer comes by with a k-9, which is a bit more intimidating to most people. so unless members of congress are standing there, we see

people come up and get intimidated, walk away unless a member of congress goes up and says, please, come in. you are welcome. fortunately, veterans' of vietnam and korea are just going around the barricades, not being stopped. at the lincoln memorial, though, when a couple of members of congress encouraged people to come on up, like they do at the world war ii memorial, they said it appeared the park's swat team -- i mean, officers came in all over threatening arrest, get out of here. it's just amazing how far this administration will go to hurt americans that love america, that have served this country. and then we find out about americans killed in afghanistan that should have been no problem whatsoever with the defense department cutting the

$100,000 checks to these families. should not have been. and if there was any doubt, then the bill we passed before the shutdown began should have taken care of that. there was plenty of prerogative to do that, but we had to come back today and pass another bill just to say, get a check to the families of those who lost a loved one serving this country because the administration is playing hardball and has gotten policies in place that are hurting as many americans as possible. but when you look at who's advising this country's top leaders, it isn't any surprise. .ere's a story from october 6 senior advisor to the

department of homeland security is an old friend of an activist who was convicted in 2008 of financing the terrorist organization hamas. in an interview with "the daily ller," mohamed elibiary, a member of the homeland security council, former hollyland foundation and president and c.e.o. -- holyland foundation and president and c.e.o. is innocent and a victim of political persecution. elibiary, who is in his position on the council, has regular access to classified information. also said the united states insults muslim dignity and compared the muslim brotherhood to american evangelicals. libiary confirmed to a journalist in august, he's a longtime friend of baker. the interview can be read at the centers for security

policy. baker and four other officials of the closed holyland foundation for relief and development were convicted of using the charity to finance hamas in 2008. it was the largest terrorism financing trial in u.s. history. federal prosecutors described the foundation, which was closed by the u.s. government in 2001 as an entity of the u.s. muslim brotherhood. elibiary first disclosed the relationship in a 2007 article in "the dallas morning news." he met him as a teenager and was so moved by the terrorist funder's explanation of alleged israeli persecution of palestinians that he said he began donating monthly to his foundation until it closed in 2001. the friendship continued with elibiary meeting with him with coffee the day before he was convicted. elibiary maintains that he's

innocent and in 2010 he wrote that the u.s. government was, quote, using the law to enforce compliance with unjust foreign policies, unquote. he reiterated his belief that the u.s. should not have prosecuted the holy land foundation. the muslim activist has never disguised his support for muslim brotherhood extremism. in a 2006 letter to "the morning news," he defended the early brotherhood leader and theorist stating, i'd recommend everyone read him but read him with an eye to improving america, not just to be jealous with malice in our hearts. let me insert here. a book ote in egypt -- ed "milestone requests "

"milestones" that a guy called osama bin laden radicalized him. and here we have someone that janet napolitano hand picked to at the highest advisory council, someone that has classified material, someone that thinks radicalized osama bin laden is somebody we all should read with an eye toward improving america. elibiary has been honored by the f.b.i. society of former special agents, the article says and, again, a person theycally here, it's not -- paraphernalia theycally here, t's not -- parenthi -- parenthetically here, care was a large muslim brotherhood ont organization which was

supportive of the holy land foundation. even though it was implicated as a named co-conspirator in that trial. amazingly it took until 2008 and 2009 for the f.b.i. to suspend their partnership with care, and we know that care continued until they changed their name here recently in the last few weeks to w.t.f. they continue to complain to have instant access to anyone in this administration. they helped get the f.b.i. material, training materials purged of anything that might be offensive to someone who was a radical islamist. but the article says, in september, he, elibiary, was promoted to senior advisor at the advisory council, a title held by select members. other councilmembers include

william braton, the revered new york police commissioner, los angeles chief of police, former c.i.a. director, bill webster, l.a. county sheriff lee baca, d we have this -- had been tweeted out. i'm honored to be reappointed to secretary of homeland curitied a -- advisory council, that's mow ham he had ell bee ar -- mohamed elibiary. if anyone believes that the muslim brotherhood is a moderate force for good and partners with known u.s. muslim brotherhood entities, this interview with mr. elibiary helps to find the answer. he received attention in june, 2012, when minnesota republican michele bachmann and four other members of congress, one including me, wrote a letter to the department of homeland security naming him as one of

three advisors with extensive ties to the muslim brotherhood. and other islamist organizations and causes. anyways, it's just amazing. and it's also amazing when i confronted secretary napolitano in a hearing about the fact ed mr. elibiary had access classified material, and i was told by the director of the department of public safety, steve mccraw, in texas, he'd spoken with her chief of staff. he'd confirmed that he briefed her totally on what mr. elibiary had done and would look into it. when i asked her the next day when her chief of staff said she'd totally been briefed, she looked me in the eye and said she didn't know anything about it but she said she'd

investigate. we know from freedom of information and answer from department of homeland security, they never investigated, even when he had a writer, a journalist, patrick poole, wrote a story stating at mr. elibiary had actually shopped two documents that they knew he downloaded from the assified website, he sent it to national media and mr. poole said they never asked him about his sources and we then had it confirmed from the request that actually they never did an investigation. instead, they just promoted him. it is incredible, but then again when you look at what this administration is doing to those who don't necessarily worship allah but worship god and believe in god and served

the country, this administration is making it tough. one of most revered monuments, mount rushmore -- well, i was quoted accurately in the media a week ago saying after shutting down these open air monuments, just sidewalks, you can roll around in a disabled veteran's wheelchair, what are they going to do next, put drapery over the mount rushmore? well, it turned out what they did -- i guess i shouldn't have said anything because maybe there is a power of suggestion, there is a way we can make people miserable. even though it's a state road built by the state of south dakota, maintained by the state of south dakota, patrolled by the state of south dakota, we had federal authorities go put cones and barricades to prevent people from being able to pull off the side of the road to

take pictures of mount ushmore. somebody, while the government was shut down, sent enough park angers out to put up massive number of cones to try to make life as difficult as possible simply for people who loved america, who just wanted to pull over and get a view of mount rushmore. they weren't going to patrol it. south dakota does that. when south dakota, our dear friend, christie noem, she says when -- kristi noem, she says when south dakota pointed out, hey, this is a state road, the federal authority said, no, this is on federal land and we're not letting anybody pull over. so this is what you get. this is the way americans are

treated unless you're going to be illegally in the country and have a protest, then we'll give you permits, whatever you want. i was gratified to hear our friend, representative noem, int out to us that those sad that south dakota had four feet f snow in some places, unfortunately that covered all the barricades and cones, so strictly in the interest of safety, south dakota had to send their snowplows and wipe all the snow and there was no way to sort out the cones and barricades, so apparently they're in some ditch somewhere, but for safety purposes, because they were just trying to help those south dakotans and americans that wanted to see mount rushmore, get through that road, that state-built road. so, anyway, another chance to make americans