said that as a private citizen, the president will lend his voice to that fight. and will he speak out about this health care issue? mr. earnest: the president made clear his solidarity with congressional democrats and no doubt about that among anybody in the room. but yes, being a citizen is different being president of the united states or elected member of congress. and being a former president does necessarily give you a larger platform, but the president is hopeful that he will be able to observe the kinds of standards that previous presidents have in giving the next president the opportunity to succeed. and -- look, the president has been blunt about his approach here. he has talked a lot. -- >> all of this on c-span organ

take you live to the house floor. ucted as a 15-minute vote. the remaining electronic votes will be conducted as a five-minute vote. the unfinished business is the question on agreeing to the motion to recommit on h.r. 21 offered by the gentlewoman from florida, ms. castor, on which the yeas and nays were ordered. the clerk will redesignate the motion. the clerk: motion to recommit on h.r. 21 offered by ms. castor of florida. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on agreeing to the motion to recommit. members will record their votes by electronic device. this is a 15-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 183, the nays are 236. the motion is not adopted.

the house will be in order. the house will be in order. the house will be in order. the house will be in order. the house will be in order. members will please take their seats. members will please take their conversations from the house floor. he house will be in order. he house will be in order. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to speak out of order for one minute for the purpose of making an announcement. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. >> the rules committee issued announcements outlining the

amendment processes for several measures likely on the floor next week. mr. sessions: an amendment deadline has been set for monday, january 9 at 10:00 a.m.. h.r. 5, the regulatory accountability act of 2017. h.r. 7090, helping angels in our startups act and the deadline has been set for 3:00 p.m. on monday for h.r. 238, the community end user relief act and h.r. 2078 and the regulatory accountability act. the text of these measures are available on the rules committee website. please feel free to contact me or my staff with any questions. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, five-minute voting will continue. question is on passage of the bill. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no.

the ayes have it. the bill is passed. mr. conyers: i ask for a recorded vote. the speaker pro tempore: a recorded vote is requested. those favoring a recorded vote will rise. a sufficient number having arisen, 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. house of representatives will the house suspend the rules and pass -- [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 spker pro tempore: on this vo the yeas are 238. the nays are84. the bill is passed. without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table.

for what purpose does the gentleman from georgia seek recognition? mr. collins: m speaker, i send to the disk a privileged report. the clerk: report to aompany house resoluti 22, reslution providing for consideraon of the bill h.r. 26, to amend chapter 8 of tle 5, united states code, to provide that major rules of the executive branch shall have no effect until a joint resolution of approval is enacted into law and providing for consideration of the resolution, house resotion 11, objecting to united nations security council resolution 2334, as an obstacle to israeli-palestinian peace and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: referred to the house calendar and ordered printed. for what purpose does the gentleman from georgia seek recognition? mr. collins: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that when the housedjourns today it adjourn to meet at 10:00 a.m tomorrow. the speaker pro tempore: without objection.

the speaker pro tempore: the ouse will be in order. he house wilbe order.

members, pase te your conversations off the floor. he house will in order. members, please take your conversatns off the floor. the chair wl now entertain requests fr one-mite peeches. for what purpose does th gentleman from pennsylvania sk recognition? . thompson: mr. speak, request unanimous consent to address the house forne minute and to revise and extend my remarks.

the speak pro tempore: without objection, the gelean is recognized for one mite. mr. thompson: mr. speaker, the hou is not in order. the speaker pro tempe: the gentleman icorrect. e house will be in order. he house wille iorder. members, please remove your conversation from the house floor. the gelemafrom pennsylvania is recognized. mr. ompsonthk you, mr. speaker. mr. eaker, i rise today to talk about the pennsylvania rm show that opens th weekd in harrisburg, pennsylvan. this week' long event the rgest indoor agriculture expo

in the count. there will be a member listening session on saturday, anuary 7, at 1:30 p.m. the agriculture committeewill ar directly from rme an farm families. we iited all members of the house to in u at this emendous expo that celebrates peylvania's rich historand the riculture industry and ll tour the sho and various exhibits. penylvania's agriculture secretary russell redding will also join us. riculture is the number one industry in pennsylvania, which generates $6.9illion in ricture cas receipts. almost half a millionobs are tied to this industry in the commwealth, and this show has beenidely attended for ratio. inact, this year marks the 101st show. come join us saturda in harrisburg as we celebrate the agriculture industry in pennsylvania and the importance this nation.

we hope to see you there. thank you, mr. speaker. i yield bacthe balance of my ime. the speaker pro tempore: t gentlan yields back. e house will be in order. members, please take your conversations off the house floor. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. olson: mr. speaker, as you ow everything is bigger in texas, but as anyone knows, the biggest, most grand thing is the heart of a texan. the best example of these arts are my two dear friends - kevin and trish kline.

their huge texas hearts want to end childhood cancer so they started a foundation. they have raised over $1 million in less than 10 years to stop this cancer. they do this for kids like anna. when she was 14, she was told she had acute leukemia. he wondered, will i still be taken away? who will take care of my younger brother? am i going to die? but after nearly a decade of fear, with stonedrop's help, anna announced, cancer -- been there, beat that. god bless anna, stonedrop, kevin and trish. yield back.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? >> i seek unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. lamalfa: mr. speaker, just wanted to point out the pride of chico, california, the first district of pleasant valley high school vikings became state champions of football just a few weeks ago. it was a very exciting game. they had to traveled all the way down south to long beach to beat st. anthony's down in southern california. the resiliency of the vikings are amazing there. i didn't get to go to the game myself but i was texting back and forthwith updates with a good friend down there. after a 17-13 halftime score, it ended up 50-49. the vikings were back and forth, up and down on that with a minute and a half left in the game after a late interception

by the other team, they were down by eight points. but their resiliency with about a minute and a half to go, they drove the field, got the touchdown, got the two-pointer, tied. went into overtime. they came back, drove the field once again, scored a touchdown, went for two. became division champions of the state of california by a score of 50-49. congratulations, pleasant valley vikings. well done. you showed a lot of heart. mr. speaker, i yield back. . the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. are there further one-minute requests? if not, the chair lays before the house the following personal requests. the clerk: leave of absence requested for mr. poe of texas for today. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the request is granted.

under the speaker's announced policy of january 3, 2017 the gentleman from texas, mr. gohmert is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of of his -- of the majority leader. mr. gohmert: thank you, mr. speaker. it is an honor to get to come into this hallowed hall and to have a chance to address our peers. it was rather enjoyable day yesterday, even with all the vitriol. but i was reminded and couldn't

help but reminisce a bit, walk a bit down memory lane yesterday, as we heard from members of the house on the other side of the aisle express regular petedly a desire to have open debate and not shut off debate. and reminiscing took me back to a time last year when as far as we can find, the only time in american history, one party in the united states congress physically prevented another party from coming to the floor nd going into session, and trying to begin debate and trying to discuss the business of the day. we can't find that any party ever staged such a sit-in. we know there are house rules about not eating on the house

floor. about not having things to drink on the house floor other than water, and yet our friends across the aisle eating, drinking, it's actually a violation of the house rules to sing on the house floor. every now and then there's a violation, people look the other way. but certainly to take picture, broadcast, and i approached the sergeant at arms and asked him why this wasn't stopped. i was told, well, they won't stop. we told them repeatedly. and i said, well you won't let republicans get away with this kind of conduct, they're preventing debate, they're preventing a session from starting timely, this has been going on for hours, and i was told, well, congressman, when we

tell you republicans that you're violating a rule you stop. and you follow the rules. we've told them repeatedly and they will not stop violating the rules, they will not stop preventing you from going into session, so we don't know what else to do. well, i had issues like that when i was a felony judge and they didn't last long because we had bailiffs that would drag people out and stop such conduct, inappropriate. it just seemed that in this potentially the last bastion of civility where we can use words rather e issues, it's ironic, to say the least, to be preached to repeatedly about the desire for open debate and the desire to not be shut down from speaking, when that's exactly

what happened last year by the very people who were standing up, and some of them reading a script, pointing out how offended they were by being prevented by the rules under which we have been proceeding for going forward and debating. o rather ironic. rather incredible, actually. i also recall back when we were debating obamacare and some of us wanted to get amendments into obamacare and of course some of us remember the fact that john dingell was chairman of energy and commerce that had jurisdiction over the health care debate and health care bill. healths been working for

are bill something like what passed, for all of his time, as i'm aware of, in the house. and i was told by someone that his father may have worked for the same bill for years. so that was something that was going to be a crowning glory for an incredibly honorable man. we see differently on many issues. but i know him to be an honest, honorable man. his word is always -- has always been good when he's given it, it was always the way it is. have great respect for him. and anyway, because he understood that the cap and trade bill that was being pushed here in the house by then-speaker pelosi was going to unduly harm the nation's poor more than anybody else in the country, you're very rich,

you're on wall street, your friends of the obama administration, you've gotten $656 million in grants to open a noncarbon based energy facility, you know, you're not worried about the price of anything because your friends in the obama administration were giving you millions and billions of dollars that you could flitter away as you wished. but for our nation's middle class, lower middle class, and poor, that don't have the ability to absorb increasing energy costs, the cap and trade bill would have been devastating and that's why when john dingell was asked he responded about the cap and trade bill , he responded something to the effect that not only a tax, it's a great big tax and it will unfairly hit the poor and he was

not going to bring that bill out of committee. speaker pelosi at that time took whatever actions were required to remove him as chair and replace him with henry waxman. and chairman waxman made clear, we don't need your vote. we don't want your input. so we don't care what you want in the health care bill. joe barton that's the longest-serving texan in the house right now had indicated as a former chair of that same committee that it's interesting that john dingell, the consummate professional and honorable man that he is, if he had been allowed to remain as airman of that committee, he would have instinctively gotten republican input into that bill and included things in the bill

that republicans would have had a hard time voting against, such that if he had been allowed to remain as chairman of the energy and commerce bill, john dingell would have probably been able to get a bill through that would this n be taken up by ody to be repealed, ripped out by its roots. but hopefully that's what we're going to be able to do. with the extremely partisan bill. there were groups that were telling republicans, look, we of course we're negotiating with the obama administration. we've got to have a seat at the table. and i would tell them not when you're on the menu. but there were groups like the big pharma, like american hospital association, the a.m.a.

, the health insurance businesses ended up getting behind it. of course aarp totally sold out retired folks because they were going to make hundreds of millions, billions perhaps, more than they would have without obamacare being passed. they had no interest in supporting a bill like i proposed that would have ended any need for a senior citizen to ever have to pay for supplemental insurance on top of medicare. they would have been totally covered. but i didn't realize at the time i asked them to support it in 2009 that the year before they had made, i believe over $400 million or so in profit as a nonprofit organization on getting their members to buy their insurance that they had sponsored. and put their mark of approval on. so anyway, there were people that were going to make a lot of

money but i could see that in the end, it would probably spell the doom of the pharmaceutical industry, yes, it would be years down the road, yes there would be executives at pharmaceutical companies who would see massive billions of dollars come in more than would have otherwise, and yes they would likely take their golden parachute and their millions in severance and retirement and be gone before they were relegated to perhaps producing medications without getting reimbursement for research and development. this is the way this whole obamacare thing would have eventually played out. and still they got on board with obamacare because they were going to make short-term extra billions of dollars. , having all of that in mind

it's's all appeared to me, just been astounding to be here yesterday and hear all the comments about the inability to have open debate. i also know, i've talked to numerous friends across the isle who were greatly troubled over the last six years, actually, the office of congressional ethics was started by speaker pelosi, allowed to file complaints without anybody knowing who filed the complaint, the o.c.e. is then able to go after a member of congress and start demanding things that they could not possibly be entitled to under the constitution, if a member of congress were getting due process. and you know, i haven't been run

through the ringer like so many have but when you set up a process like that and you have the office of congressional ethics set up, they have no one at all to whom they're accountable. no one. and they are encouraged, even if they file the complaints themselves, to enable them to continue to grow from the little office they had over here in the longworth building, i'm told they have a massive amount of space in one of the big federal buildings now and they continue to grow. so apparently they were offended that their budget was cut and they were put you should the ethics committee so that they would have some accountability and there were an awful lot of great people, good friends across the country, that didn't know about how unconstitutional -- unconstitutionally they had

been acting. i mean, more abusive even than the i.r.s. at times. from the reports of some of my colleagues to me of what they'd been through. and you know, i stand here, mr. speaker, as a judge who has had to look people in the eye and sentence them to death, something never taken lightly, i may be the only person here in congress who has ever looked someone in the eye and sentenced appointedath and been to ounsel against my wishes defendant n indigent on appeal from a capital murder conviction and sentence of death and was able appropriately to have his case reversed and to save his life as the law should

have been. so i feel rather strongly, yes, people should be accountable, but they must have due process. and that is not what is provided for by the o.c.e. so wonderful people, including our incoming president, were not aware of just how crazy the abuses have been. one of the members told me yesterday that he was out about half a million dollars in attorney's fees responding to ridiculous demands and still never got to know who the accuser was, you don't get to necessarily even see what the specific complaint is. . so we didn't do a good job of educating people of how unfair the o.c.e. process, could be,

but it need -- everybody, everybody in congress, judiciary, executive branch, whom ody needs someone to they are accountable and that includes the o.c.e. so we got to do something about it but we do need to go about it in an appropriate way to make sure justice is done. t when you hear ethics watchdog group then immediately you think, gee, they're going to stop an ethics watchdog group, that's outrageous and that's what i'd think if i didn't know the background. so made for an interesting day been ay, but i've amazed, though, that some who have told me that they wanted , would ate the o.c.e.

stand up on the other side of the aisle and preach about ethics, apparently referring to the effort to place o.c.e. and make them accountable under somebody for a change -- in this case, under the ethics committee -- and would demagogue the issue, in essence, when really they had been mistreated by the o.c.e., according to what i've been told by them in the past. so i think if we can just set the politics aside and work together for appropriate due process, then we could have a bipartisan group that could work something, that would create due process and would make people accountable so when you have somebody with $90,000 in cold hard cash in their freezer, there is accountability. in that case, it was a crime,

and it needed to be addressed. so there does need to be accountability. on the same -- by the same token, we have friends here, saw steve king at the back a moment ago and we feel strongly that when a judge, a federal judge intentionally refuses to go along with what they know the constitution says, that ought to be an offense. they're not keeping their oath and that's as offensive as anything is when it comes from a judge. they ought to be able to impeach a job like that, and i don't think we have done enough removal, impeachment of judges who have violated their oath. we were removing a judge who ad committed sexual assault. well, that should have been a no-brainer, but that took

literally an act of congress to eventually get that done. and another judge, it was not until we actually impeached him for his terribly inappropriate , not bringing up suppressing information when he was being investigated for being a judge, a federal judge from his days as a state judge. apparently as a state judge he didn't have a problem if tuition was dufort his son, just send somebody, secretary, somebody, to one of the law offices that you often appoint and then have them fill up the envelope with a bunch of cash and use that to pay his son's tuition and that didn't seem to be a problem for his judge and those are all things that should have been appropriately taken into account before he was ever made a federal judge.

but i see my friend here on the floor. if he would be interested in having me yield because i will be certainly more than pleased to do that such time as he may consume. >> i thank you to my friend, mr. gohmert, here. mr. lamalfa: i was listening to your remarks on a couple of these topics here. they're very important. he led off with the situation with the sit-in that occurred here on this house floor last year, some months ago, and i found that to be very appalling for the decorum, for the honor, for the history, all the things are important about conducting ourselves in a society where order is needed in order to conduct business. and so this house floor was not treated that -- with that respect that is necessary to have order, to have an honest debate, a debate that's constructive when you have a sit-in like that where basically the folks on the

other side of the aisle, some of them, decided to take over the building, outside of the session, outside of the rules -- as mr. gohmert said, many rules were violated. i had the appalling experience of walking on the floor just a few minutes after they concluded their sit-in and honestly, the garbage that was laying on the floor -- i saw food crumbs, old newspapers, magazines, couple blankets, they didn't even pick up after themselves. they expected the staff of the building to pick it up and haul it off for them because their occupy wall street moment was over with. so this is not the 1960's. this is not the hippy era. this is the united states house of representatives. so this week when rules were proposed that when you violate rules in such a fashion where videotaping was going on or live video -- periscoping, they call, was occurring, sending these speeches during a nonofficial, nonsession time,

basically bootlegging them to the american public, via c-span -- which i am a little annoyed with c-span actually playing along with violation of house rules of piping this out the way they did. if you want to have a protest out on the front lawn, fine. that's within the rights of free speech, first amendment, all that. you don't do that in violation of a fairly -- some might say sacred place as this house floor the way that happened then. and so for them to be piping it out live that way i found to be completely wrong. some might say, well, this is all first amendment. first amendment right. not in violation of the decorum of the house rules. so i'm glad mr. gohmert brought that up. and rules were put in place this week to address that. if people are going to violate the very house rules that help us keep order and do business of the american public -- we lost part of three session days that could have been grinding out the important business that the people expect of this

country, we lost that session time and indeed had to come in here and the speaker and whoever was introducing legislation that day yell over the process here to do things in order for the house. i find that appalling. it isn't very mature, and i think with some of the penalties put in place by the rules this week, there will be a little more accountability for that. mr. gohmert: reclaiming my time briefly. i recall being told when that was going on and after it happened that republicans should not respond and that we were assured that people who violated the rules back then would be punished. , ll, adopting rules now specific penalties don't really

punish people that violated . ose very rules last year and so i'm surprised that there s any complaint at all since basically it means people who violated the rule with such andon would complain about inserting a specific penalty now, meaning, they got a free one. they didn't even get probation. they got nothing. they got pardoned, basically. so perhaps it's not too late for those that feel like putting a penalty in place now is unfair. i don't think it's too late. it's not unusual to have punishment assessed in a felony case six months or more after an event. so, you know, perhaps if they think this is unfair, then we

ought to have ethics hearings on what happened back then. i haven't heard of o.c.e., by the way, taking any action on such widespread abuse that didn't require great investigation. all you needed was footage that was being streamed out from the very violators of the rules. so it should have been an easy thing to pursue if o.c.e. were really that interested in making sure our rules were not violated. i yield to my friend. mr. lamalfa: i appreciate that. it wouldn't be inappropriate to bring it up to o.c.e. since o.c.e. is a hot topic this week. accountability goes both directions. with some of the issues we heard our colleagues talk about with unjust charges that can be brought from anywhere out of the blue against a member of the house without

justification, without even a due process for that member to have a chance to address directly what that charge is and then run their name through the newspaper, giant headlines and maybe a year worth of investigation. when you see it, congressman being investigated. well, that's an ugly headline. can be used to be manipulated for political purpose. when it could be a trumped up charge, no mert, and many times talking to some of my colleagues that have faced this, hundreds of thousands of dollars of cost to them for attorney's fees, their reputation besmerched by this. now, did we have the perfect piece of legislation in the rule this week? no. probably needed more time to be aired out. it was withdrawn at least getting the idea on the table. i am proud of my colleagues who will take this up, work through it this year in a bipartisan fashion, get the input on that to make some needed reforms to the o.c.e. so we have an ethics

process that's fair to the members but obviously enforces ethics for this house that are needed and clearly demanded by the public and us because we're talking here tonight about a decorum, a code, a process that our house is to be conducted by. so that sit-in is one extreme. the other one is charges that are in many cases absolved months later without giant headlines but are not even sometimes an oops or a sorry for trumped up charges being brought against somebody that would affect them negatively in their ability to serve their districts or to fend off the huge costs of legal matters that they have to go through. so, you know, there is so many of my colleagues here strongly care and want to have a strong ethical process in this place. but there needs to be accountability and balance to is and that's what we are all looking for is accountability with o.c.e. and our ethics committee who in a bipartisan

fashion can weed through all these processes. i think we will get to this. for those keshed around this country -- concerned around this country that some here want to get rid of that, the ethics process, that's absolutely couldn't be further from the truth because we all demand that with the code of conduct of this house on the floor and off for our members. mr. gohmert: well, i thank my friend, mr. lamalfa, for his great insight. thank you. well, i also was just advised this afternoon that the e.p.a. apparently in accordance with to -- endsied effort frenzied effort to have this administration put as problematic regulations in place to stifle the economy,

skyrocket further costs of energy, the e.p.a. has oil ntly given notice to and gas operators that they and one ays to comply, such operator in texas was , ing the date on the notice it was received december 15 but he was out of the country. somebody in the building accepted it, and the date for in 0-day compliance kicks january 18, two days before donald trump, president-elect, would be able to strike such an

arbitrary and capricious regulation down, and apparently they must have back dated the 60-day compliance before they saying, you got until january 18 to comply. so what we heard from so many small business owners, they get notices like this. all of a sudden you've got to comply, got to give us these records, those records, and it has cost them a fortune. it has stifled their ability to expand their business and hire more people and give more people opportunity and give more people opportunity to make more money than they have been making. those have been so completely stifled by this administration and i understand there was a

politico article glorifying the great efforts of the obama administration in helping the economy and to justify that took one quarter out of i guess four times eight, 32 quarters, and said look at what they did in this one quarter, when actually, as i understood, if you take the whole term that we have numbers on and adjust the growth for inflation, president obama's , ministration, his policies crony capitalism, helping people with no-bid contracts like i.b.m., giving $1.6 billion to this company to create mirors to heat water and however much it was, hundreds of millions for

solyndra. there are so many companies that have squandered so much money. and yet with all the money squandered, the economy grew when adjusted for inflation, about half the growth rate during the jimmy carter administration. now, i understand this administration is extremely proud of what they accomplished. but i would humbly submit, mr. speaker, if your policies cause the economy to grow at half the rate of the jimmy carter administration, you've done more damage to the american people and the american economy than you've done good and that's for sure and that's at a time when scientifically we were having such breakthroughs that we found out we could actually be totally energy independent if this

administration had not been on too so much money expensive of sources of energy and all the other thing this is administration supported. , in had a hearing chairman rob bishop's natural resources committee, in our oversight subcommittee, a hearing on some of the abuses, and i know there are legitimate groups and businesses that invested in this idea of having this fantastic carbon-free energy production out in california, and yes, it took a massive amount of acreage, i believe it was federal land that they were allowed to use, i believe, not certain. but i was intrigued, they were

going to create all these mirrors that would reflect the sun's light in concentrated for three -- toward three different towers and the towers would super heat the water, turn the water to steam, steam would turn turbines that would produce electricity. and if i recall correctly they got $1.6 billion in government loan and to help them make their loan payment they got over $600 million in grants and when i asked over this period of time that they've been operating how much of their $1.6 billion in government loans was paid back, i believe he said $6 million had been paid back from, may have

been $656 million that they got given to them by this administration. but we also came to find out that apparently there have been problems, one of the towers got super, super heated and was totaled, was destroyed because of the massive sunlight reflected and damaging where it wouldn't function and because apparently they squandered so much of their money they had to find a cheap source, an extremely cheap source of energy because they had contracts to supply a certain amount of electricity and with the third tower not in operation, they were not able to supply it. over 30% of the nrning they had contracted to provide. and so they very quickly,

cheaply, efficiently built a natural gas electricity production plant and wow, apparently it's working great. of course anybody that studies natural gas understands, they know what they're doing, that natural gas is an amazingly clean form of energy and anyway so now ability a third -- about a third of the energy is being produced using natural gas when the whole purpose of the massive $1.6 billion in the government loan and the $656 million or so that was given to them because it was not going to be carbon based at all. but it's not just the one problem apparently of the tower.

this is out in an arid area where there's not much water. they didn't need much water other than what they had in the towers, really. but what they didn't anticipate was something that i'm told operators, others in the area refer to as flamers. amers, as i was given to understand, those are birds, perhaps some of them endangered species that make the mistake of flying through the super heated beam of sunlight and immediately explode or burst into flame and apparently if you're a bird that gets super heated and explodes, masses of flame, then fluid keep covering the mirror which need to be kept clean and normally you'd figure out in a

desert or arid area, you're not going to need to clean those mirrors very often so you're not going to need much water, but then when it turns out you've got all these flamers that super coat the mirrors so they're constantly having to be recleaned, those poor birds that ur nature loving friends are exploding, it's running up the water bill as well because it's just not healthy to be exploding birds that fly the this super heated beam of sunlight. so eight years of misguided policies have made probably a t of democratic million -- millionaires, but the american public has suffered. when adjusted for inflation, the american people are on average

worse off. i was surprised to see a video where the president actually admitted , he actually acknowledged that in his administration, for the first time we're aware of, in the istory of the united states, 95% of the income in america ent to the top 1% in -- of the income earners and i've read articles since then about actually even that 1% that was making 95% of the nation's income, they still weren't making, many of them, quite as much as they had before because that's what happens when you hurt and throttle down an economy as has happened. we haven't really adjusted, of course we've had the fed that's had interest rates down to basically nothing, and it was

clear they were doing everything they could to try to help the obama administration's economy look better than it was, and now that people have started having hope because we have president-elect trump and the policies are going to change tra to -- change dramatically, we're going to be hopefully completely rid of the, or completely as possible, the crony capitalism, i know my colleagues here in the house actually on both sides of the aisle have made clear, we want to stop crony capitalism and i'm looking forward to that stopping once we get out from under this administration. so the economy's showing great signs. i've got people back home telling me they're starting to hire again just based on the hope and the promise. president obama was supposed to bring hope and change but all my constituents tell me, so many of

them are left with after he's been president was a little change left from what they had when he took office. but there's real hope and people are gearing up to grow and the economy should take off and we should get energy independent, i expect president-elect trump to keep his promises. he assured me personally he was going to. so i'm expecting great things. but just on that, the economy has started going up. on the assurance that president obama would not be around any longer than january 20. and as a result now the fed finally has started increasing interest rates because they don't have to artificially try to protect president obama's reputation and his poor economic. -- his poor economy. so just the fact that the e.p.a.

would send out regulations in such a capricious manner as they ve demanding that well operators start monitoring their emissions, something to that effect, looking forward to getting into it and just seeing how abusive the e.p.a. has been not to oligarches, but give a chance for true input into an arbitrary, capricious rule, not to give businesses a chance to get ready and to adjust, i mean, this is the kind of thing that has stifled so much growth and has sent so many high school and college graduates to their parents' home . i think there are a lot of people that voted for president

obama and were commited, i think it's unfortunate that so many people expressed that they voted for a president because of his skin color. i'm not talking about donald trump. that they made a racist vote a vote for a man who was not white so they could feel good about voting for someone who was not white, where some of us, and it's one of the things for which alita king, martin king's niece, she believes in his dream the americans who voted for donald trump they believe that skin color should not matter. it's racist to vote for a candidate because of what his race is. let's look at the character. let's look at the qualifications. what have you built?

that you actually built, that someone else didn't build for you? let's look at those things. and then make a determination rather than voting for someone just because of his race. let's do, as martin luther king was so profound in saying, looking forward to the day when people are judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. i'm looking forward to that day. that day has been set back tremendously. highlight for me back at the end of the fall to go back to my hometown of mount pleasant, texas. i mentioned to a reporter sometime back that i had hoped, i didn't vote for president obama, i hope head would do for america what coach willy williams did for our football

team, actually i didn't say football team, i said our team, and liberals immediately put up an article saying that i said my basketball coach, my favorite coach, was african-american. apparently liberals think if you're african-american you must be a coach of basketball. because of your race. when actually it was the year before i went to the varsity on the junior varsity and he was -- i enjoyed playing for coach williams more than any other coach i'd ever played for. and unfortunately coach williams' memory is still intact, hadn't seen him in decades but i was asked to come give a motivational talk for the team i played for, the mount pleasant tigers, and it was such a treat being with those players that morning, they'd had a rough i got tohat point, and

be with them on the field during the game. it was such a treat. those young people were just inspirational, they fought hard and some say it was the best game of the year, they won handily, a team from a bigger town than mount pleasant and they even gave me the game ball. as much as that meant to me, e real highlight was as we went into halftime someone told , that my old coach back from gosh, over 40 years ago, was up in the press box. nd i got to go up and i was so thrilled to see him. we hugged.

smile big as ever and i was so elated in seeing him and talking to him, somebody said when i got back here -- you got to see coach williams after all these years. it's wonderful. did you get a picture? i didn't even think about a picture. not a very good politician. i didn't even think about a picture, but it's a shame because his memory is so good. he remembered. we didn't have a lot of talent on that team. we didn't. he made us so cohesive. we played well together, and we didn't have any outstanding talent but we had a winning ason and it was a fun season because coach williams made it that way. and he inspired us together and everybody got treated just the same. nobody got special treatment. nobody got treated more harshly

than anybody else. we came together as a team. he remembered. he said, yeah, you guys didn't have much talent on your team but you played so well together. that was because of him. he brought us together, and i so hope that president obama would do that for america. i didn't vote for him but thought, it will be awesome. he can bring us even closer together and now at the end of s administration is so grievous that america seems more divided than ever. i see an article here about more police officers, again being shot in our u.s. cities. heard the former police chief, i believe, in chicago this week saying that black lives matter try upposedly organized to

, stop killings of black especially young men, and yet what black lives matter has done has actually increased the number of people being shot. i was absolutely astounded to hear a quote from the president, a speech he apparently was making, i heard it on the radio, or maybe he was giving an interview and he said cities that have more gun control laws just have less violence. that's called gas lighting. a 's called creating fiction and trying to push it across and make somebody that knows the truth think that they're crazy and that this

alternate truth is really what's going on. the fact is that cities with the most gun control laws like chicago, for heaven's sakes, i mean, the hundreds of precious black lives that have been massive en killed, the gun control laws have not helped chicago. they got a massive number of gun control laws there than we do in any city in east texas and yet nowhere in east texas has that got -- has that kind of violence at that percentage rate. it's insane. it's time to quit, stop trying to gas light the american people to convince them they're oing crazy and let them know

and have a truthful assessment of where we are. we need to follow the law. we need to have enforcement of our borders. we will continue to be the most generous nation in the world, not just in giving funds to help others, not just in giving lives of our citizens to help freedom for other countries like nowhere else in history, in the most generous number of people we allow to come into the united states and visit -- generous in the number of visas, in the number of people we allow to come into the united states and visit. it's been abused. and the border patrol has said, every time we hear somebody in the government in washington say anything about legalizing anything or anybody that's here illegally, it is like a shiny

object that draws even greater numbers illegally through our borders. nd what is our border patrol ordered to do? don't turn them back and prevent them from entering the united states. oh, no. let them step foot on american soil and then end process them and we'll ship them around different places. though i saw an article in the last week where there were aileyens illegally here who were -- aliens illegally here who were just dropped off at a bus stop. i have an article from julia edwards ansley, january 3 from reuters, trump team seeks agency records on border arriers surveillance, and it's fantastic. here they are trying to gear up

and they want information. they don't want to be gas lighted. they want to know what is the truth so that they can start making hard preparations for taking office on january 20. article december 30 from the washington examiner. department of homeland security says 94% of deportations are people illegally here, terror threats, gang bangers. the c.b.p., border patrol, reports assaults on border gents have skyrocketed 231% in 2017. so not only is this president's rules of engagement gotten about four times more americans killed, our military members killed in afghanistan in the same amount of time as commander in chief george w. bush had, but in addition to

the rules of engagement, getting our people killed four times faster than under ommander bush but also the assault on our own agents have gone up 231% just in this year. in one year. we're getting our border patrol harmed. another article from chris tomlinson, breitbart, 600 underaged migrants turn out to be adults. i've seen that in the middle of the night down on the border people coming in, switching off ze rocks indications they were going -- xerox indications they were going to use, this is who i am. for whatever reason they would look at their thing and switch out as to who was going to be whom. but they weren't able to vet

those people that they were still ordered -- but they were still ordered to in process them anyway. this article from michael patrick fillet he, december 7 in the y, december 7, first two months of fiscal year 2017, which would be october to november, the highest. just astounding when america made -- was making very clear we need to protect american citizens, not just the people in this room as we did sterday, take that oath, but the president takes that oath. you know, you got cabinet members that take the oath, and yet they're not doing their jobs. and people are getting killed. 85,000 refugees under obama but

less than 10 to the district of columbia. so apparently let's put these refugees in your back yard. we certainly don't want them in the washington, d.c., back yard. apparently, according to this administration. and then pretty amazing but just 10 states resettled more than half of recent refugees to the united states and natural leeway more than anywhere else as california and texas. "daily caller" reported that the state department claims no ne used sham visas from fake embassy and yet we have seen hundreds and hundreds of people that the report showed had been given citizenship by mistake when they were supposed to have been deported.

doesn't seem like a very innocent mistake when it's that egregious. but back in december, "washington times" says obama administration says they fail o look at f.b.i. databases and the afghan program has not been totally successful. report here, afghan refugee in december was arrested for rape and murder of a top e.u. official's daughter. so apparently that was not working out so well. oh, that was in the country of germany where you have a like-minded leader in angela merkel who wants to defeat terrorism, as our president does, with love and compassion. well, love is a stronger emotion than hate.

love can overcome evil, but when people are religiously dedicated to wiping another oup of people off the planet for what they deem to be their holly god -- their holy god, those are people that have to be defeated. they are at war with you. militaryly -- militarily and that puts radical islam until president carter, fine man, foolish president, not demeaning his character, but foolish man, in inciting the ayatollah khomeini a man of peace as he was so welcoming in the ayatollah

khomeini taking over iran. and that released radical islam out of the box, gave them control of a major country, major country military and thousands and thousands and thousands of people continue to die because of that mistake. we know going back to the early days of the united states when so much of the federal treasury , to get o pay ransom our sailors back who were being captured biff radical islamists -- captured by radical islamists in north africa and jefferson didn't know why they kept attacking american boats and he asked the islamist he was negotiating with, you know, why they kept attacking

american ships. we are not a threat to you. we don't even have a navy. and reportedly the response was in essence, well, look, if we someone like you, we go straight to paradise. and jefferson was amazed. he couldn't believe there was a world religion or even people's interpretation of a world religion that advocated you could go to paradise for killing innocent people. they maintain they're not innocent because they don't believe exactly like the radical islamists believe. but president obama basically did the same thing with libya. gaddafi was not a good man.

but since 2003, the reports were clear. as others in north africa and the middle east had reported, he was about the best friend that the united states had in helping fight terrorism in that area and yet this , inistration took him out sometimes on this floor i and others were begging the administration not to take out gaddafi, not to keep helping the rebels, not to keep bombing gaddafi's troops until we knew how extensive al qaeda was. we knew that at least 1/4 of the -- or a part of the people fighting were radical islamists, but the administration went on and turned the country into chaos. thank god america is going to have a new administration

before we completely go to chaos ourselves. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? mr. gohmert: mr. speaker, i would move that we do now hereby adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the motion is adopted. accordingly, the house stands adjourned until 10:00 a.m. tomorrow.