Posted on 11/16/2004 6:20:10 AM PST by OXENinFLA
Okay I think I am going to hurl---I turned on C-span and they are having the Ohio Election forum.
John Conyers, Sheila Jackson Lee, Jerrold Nadler---the panel is Jesse Jackson, Ralph Neas, so far.
The audience APPLAUDES after almost everything said. Give me a friggin' break!!
They are saying the election isn't over until all votes are counted--not just the LEGAL votes, but all votes and I just heard Conyers tell Jackson that he promises him the Cong. forum WILL go to Ohio!!! Almost a standing ovation.!!!
Are ya'll at work and can't watch this? Do you need me to keep you up to date?
The senate is having speeches---so far, Susan Collins, and Joe Lieberman (yawn)
On C-span 3 in about 10 minutes, Sensenbrenner is supposed to talk about immigration reform. I don't get c-span 3 on TV, I have to get it on my computer.
Thanks for the heads up, got it on now....
Just turned off the Sensenbrenner presser---he is not going to make very many people happy with the last statement I heard. "I'm pretty liberal when it comes to immigration that has nothing to do with terrorism". Uh-oh.
They also indicated that their bill WOULD NOT tackle the illegal immigration problem. Uh-oh!!
Your thoughts?
Can't stomach much of the Ohio hearings----although this morning I was wondering why there is so much angst over the Ohio election since Bush won by so many votes.
Remember before the election, Ohio was mentioned the most as THE state to watch and Kerry kept mentioning that he had dozens of lawyers in Ohio BEFORE the election. Also, it was said that the dems and Michael Moore gang had concentrated on Ohio in "get out the vote" drives.
I'm beginning to think that the reason they are so upset, is because they KNEW that this result was not supposed to happen. I remember Hannity telling Ohioans to really go vote because there were rumors of concentrated voter fraud being planned by the dems. This was being talked about for months before the election.
I think they thought they had CHEATED ENOUGH to win, and when Kerry didn,t, they were shocked because they hadn't succeeded in their fraud attempt, so now they are getting the tax payers to find out what they did wrong so that next election, they will CHEAT BETTER!
It is the only explanation I can come up with---after all Kerry conceded!!!
I got the Senate running on my computer, Byrd is talking and reading from a Wash. Post article.
On my Radio I have Rush on. THEY WERE READING FROM THE SAME ARTICLE IN UNISON!!
Very strange....
Back slowly away from your tv and radio. You've been caught in a media wave crosshairs. Try working a long division problem to realign your brain waves.
LOL!
[Page: H10929] GPO's PDF
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(Mr. PITTS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, an adviser to former President Clinton commented last month after reviewing documents captured by U.S. troops in Iraq. One 11-page memo dated 1993 lists experts ``in executing the required missions,'' including terror groups and three of the most wanted terrorists in the world: Al-Zarqawi, a-Zawahiri, and Hekmatyar.
Another memo that lists names of those trained for suicide missions was personally reviewed and approved by Saddam Hussein himself. The documents also describe Iraq's purchase of mustard gas and anthrax at a time when Hussein had kicked the U.N. inspectors out of the country. They show a strong operational link to al-Jihan al Tajdeed, a group allied with Zarqawi that posts its videos and statements on the Web.
Taken as a whole, the documents demonstrate not only Saddam Hussein's role in terrorism but his personal involvement, collaboration, and support for Islamic terrorist groups, with some on Saddam's payroll and some operating under his direct authority.
While some people have refused to acknowledge the documents, we cannot ignore them. The American people should know of them.
It was like pushing the stereo button.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. ROHRABACHER).
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to S. 2845.
This is first and foremost, and everyone in the country knows that, this is a pro-illegal immigration bill in that the situation with illegal immigration will be worse if we pass this bill than it is today.
It is also not a reform bill. It is an illusion. It is a piece of illusion legislation. It is designed to make people feel better because they perceive something is being done.
And I would like to thank the largest organization of 9/11 families who are opposed to this legislation, the 9/11 Families for American Security, who visited Members of Congress to oppose this legislation.
What this bill does is change the flowchart, trying to make people think
[Page: H11008] GPO's PDF
No, this whole bill is designed to make people feel good rather than to do something to hold people accountable for the decisions that they made that led up to 9/11. The intelligence czar and the huge staff required to support the new intelligence czar is duplicative and will be an impediment to getting things done in the Intelligence Community.
The National Security Council, I worked at the White House for 7 years, was set up to do exactly this. And had the National Security Council during the Clinton administration, and, yes, during the beginning of this administration, had been doing their jobs, there would not have been a 9/11. So we already have people to do this job of the new intelligence czar and his huge bureaucracy.
9/11 was not due to blocks in the flowchart. 9/11 was the results of bad policies in dealing with the Taliban, which I complained about for years on the floor of this House, and bad policies in terms of what we were doing against al Qaeda during the Clinton years, and, yes, even bad policies exemplified by Jamie Gorelick, who signed a Justice Department order during the Clinton years that restricted cooperation between the FBI and CIA in dealing with terrorist threats. No, that was bad policy.
We do not need to change the flowchart to make people feel good in order to hold people accountable for those bad policies.
Finally, this bill should be defeated because it has gutted the provisions in this bill that passed the House that were aimed at controlling this massive invasion we have of illegal immigrants into our country, and we are not going to have a secure America when we have millions and millions of illegal aliens coming here, many of whom can be terrorists; and in this bill we no longer have the provisions to make sure that we will not be giving ID cards so these illegals can get on airplanes and crash them into buildings.
Ms. GINNY BROWN-WAITE of Florida. Mr. Speaker, protecting our Nation is one of the most important duties that we have as Members of Congress. If we fail this, nothing else really matters.
The conference report does contain some useful provisions, but it is incomplete, making it inadequate and therefore unacceptable. The agreement with the Senate gave away so much, and it includes some major steps backwards from the House-passed version of the bill and from the strides that we have made since 9/11.
[Time: 18:30]
Specifically, the report ignores important suggestions made by the 9/11 Commission and by many Members of this Chamber regarding immigration and the use of illegal identification cards.
We need to have closed borders with open doors for those who follow the law. Our offices are flooded with people asking for assistance because they are trying to come here legally.
The version this House passed prohibited convicted terrorists from receiving Federal benefits, and yet the agreement before us here today fails to prevent this injustice. Remember, the taxpayers out there are going to be paying taxes and some terrorists are going to be getting some Federal benefits. That is just unacceptable.
It has been 3 1/4 years since the terrorists used illegal identification to cross our borders and to attack Americans at home, and yet Congress still ignores meaningful immigration reform. We authorize some detention beds in here; but guess what, we did not fund them.
There have been so many immigration bills introduced since 9/11 that have died and had to be reintroduced again, only to die again. We are told that, oh, they will be taken care of next year. I sincerely hope that that is the case because this bill is a feel-good bill, absolutely. It is like buying a state-of-the-art alarm system, installing it in your house, never actually activating it and then you do not even bother locking your doors. Your home is not secure. Our Nation will not be any more secure under this. We need to secure our borders. That is a very important component that is simply missing from this bill.
I cannot support the bill in its current form and because it is so inadequate, because it does not address the very important immigration issue.
The problem with the conference report was that it ignored so many of the good immigration reform provisions that we had in the House bill. This bill is only part of what the 9/11 Commission recommended. I was a State senator. As my colleagues know, many of the terrorists came from Florida. We said the length of their driver's license expires when their visa expires. Guess what. This bill does not mandate it. So the 10 States that do not even have that provision, they are the States that the terrorists are going to go to. That is just plain wrong.
We do need to have uniformity in driver's licenses. We do need to make sure that the person applying for the driver's license, who has a visa, that the visa expiration date is the expiration date of the identification or the driver's license.
(Mr. HAYWORTH asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I rise in reluctant, but vociferous, opposition to this legislation, fully named the National Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act.
Mr. Speaker, I reluctantly, but adamantly, oppose this measure because it fails to deal effectively with the second heading in the legislative title. It is beyond titles and slogans and, instead, policies where we must concentrate ourselves. Mr. Speaker, much has been made, and I have heard previous speakers speak of the families who suffered such great loss on 9/11, speak of what this Nation confronted on that fateful day. Yet, perhaps in a triumph of legislative policy and the incrementalism so often a part of the system, we are ignoring the single best provision to prevent future acts of terror, understanding that border security and national security are one and the same.
Good people on both sides of the aisle, well-intentioned people rightfully say we need to restructure our national intelligence-gathering capabilities. I concur. But what we see now, Mr. Speaker, is laying a new foundation, building a new wall, but forgetting both a front door and a back door and a roof. We are leaving our doors wide open.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased and proud to be an Arizonan. I was in Nogales at our border crossing not too long ago visiting with our friends from the Border Patrol. They told me of an interesting apprehension the day before. The gentleman they said was a native of Iraq who had claimed to come to the United States in 1978 with a green card. It was interesting, though, to hear the Border Patrol personnel speak of their detainee, because curiously, the Iraqi who said he had come to the United States in 1978 with a green card was much more fluent in Spanish than he was in English. We read in accounts of the free press that there are those who come from the Middle East, adopt Hispanic surnames, and seek to infiltrate. There are some adherents to the politically correct who would ignore or diffuse or understate the nature of this threat.
Mr. Speaker, I will not allow the national security of the United States to be jeopardized and undermined and placed on the funeral parlor of the politically correct. To those who say that it is incremental, it is a step in the right direction: well and good. But incrementalism in wartime when our national survival may be at stake is unacceptable. Either do it right, or do not do it.
It is sad, but necessary, to reject this bill because it fails to deal with preventing terrorist attacks by understanding that border security and national security are one and the same.
(Mr. GARY G. MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. GARY G. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the 9/11 Recommendation Act.
I want to commend the gentleman from California (Mr. HUNTER) for his efforts in the area of oversight that he had. I think he did an excellent job, and this bill was improved by his efforts. However, the gentleman from Wisconsin's (Mr. SENSENBRENNER) issues that he dealt with were removed from this bill, and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. SENSENBRENNER) looked at this House issue and said, how did 9/11 occur? How did the perpetrators attack this country, and what can we do in this bill to make sure that does not happen again? That language was removed, and when we talk to the people back home, these are commonsense issues.
The gentleman from California (Mr. OSE) injected language that said we are going to expedite construction of the gap of the 14-mile barrier in between San Diego and the border of the United States. That language was removed; and if we look at that 3-mile gap, it looks like a herd of cattle had stampeded through there every day. We cannot tell who came into this country illegally, but that was removed.
The other one struck is any requirement for proof of lawful presence in the United States for a driver's license.
[Time: 18:45]
The 9/11 perpetrators came to this country, they obtained driver's licenses through a legal fashion in 10 States that make them available, and this bill would have said that that will never happen again. The only way 9/11 happened and occurred is because these terrorists were able to obtain driver's licenses to come and go freely in this country and to board planes as they chose. Nothing in this bill will stop that from happening.
The other issue that was struck is license expiration tied to a visa expiration. It makes perfect sense that if you have a visa in this country, and you get a license while you are here, that your license should expire when your visa expires. The same thing happened with the 9/11 perpetrators. Their visas expired, but their licenses did not, and they were thereby allowed to stay in this country.
They also struck expedited removal of illegal aliens. You can implement frivolous lawsuits and stay in this country almost as long as you want, even if you are here illegally. This bill originally would have eliminated that option. It struck the restriction for a terrorist claiming asylum.
It does not take a brain surgeon to realize if you are a known terrorist, trained in an al Qaeda camp and here in this country, we cannot deport you. You can remain. The language to make sure that did not happen was, again, in this bill and was removed from this bill. It struck limiting judicial review of orders of deportation. That is common sense and should have been in.
Now, I will try to go through these quickly. It struck complete national driver's license standards. You should be here in this country legal as a citizen or have a legal right to be here to get a driver's license. It also struck an interstate driver's license database. That way you could not get multiple driver's licenses throughout multiple States like the terrorists did.
There were very good commonsense laws in this that would have become law, and they basically were struck. The one that really does not make any sense struck ``terrorists traveling information sharing.'' You have a terrorist that travels around, and we cannot even share that information by law. That is wrong.
The things that were removed from this bill warrant a ``no'' vote on this bill, and I strongly encourage a ``no'' vote.
I rise today in strong opposition to the intelligence reform conference report. There is no question that everyone in Congress wants to protect the country from another terrorist attack. That is why I am so appalled that this conference report excludes several House provisions strengthening immigration law. We cannot have real intelligence reform without addressing flaws in our immigration system.
I strongly believe that failing to act on important immigration reforms is a grave mistake, since these provisions are central to any legislation designed to prevent future terrorist attacks. By passing this conference report, Congress is looking the other way while potential terrorists are allowed to exploit flaws in U.S. immigration policy.
As we work to implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, how can we ignore the Commission's call for strengthened identification standards in this country? The Commission found that it was our immigration laws, not those laws aimed at protecting against terrorism, that shaped the terrorists' ability to carry out their plot on 9/11. In fact, the Commission found that travel documents were as important to the terrorists as were their weapons.
The simple fact is that if the 9/11 terrorists had not been able to enter the United States and operate freely--to obtain driver's licenses, open bank accounts, rent homes and cars, and board airplanes--they would not have been able to commit mass murder on that fateful day.
As long as fraudulent identity documents remain readily available, terrorists will be able to use legal loopholes to enter and remain at large in the United States.
It is truly beyond reason that this final conference report would remove House-passed provisions to secure driver's licenses. This is in direct contradiction to the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, which urged Congress to set federal standards for state-issued licenses. Have we already forgotten that the 19 hijackers on 9/11 had 63 driver's licenses among them and that most of these were obtained through fraudulent means?
One of the 9/11 hijackers was stopped for a traffic violation a mere two days before the terrorist attacks. Unfortunately, the officer was unable to detect that the terrorist's visa had expired because his driver's license was still valid. The House bill included a requirement that driver's license expiration dates coincide with visa expiration dates so that law enforcement officers could have the information they need to keep us secure. The conference report deleted this important House provision.
In addition, while current law allows for the denial of admission to the U.S. on terrorism-related grounds, terrorism cannot be used as a basis of deportability from the country. This means that some terrorists and their supporters can be kept out of the United States, but as soon as they set foot on our shores, we cannot deport them, hindering our ability to protect America from terrorists who have infiltrated our country. The House bill makes aliens deportable for terrorism-related offenses just as they would be denied admission to the country in the first place. The conference report excludes this critical provision, leaving a gaping hole in our national security.
The security of our Nation must be our top priority. Great intelligence is nothing without a strong national security. The bottom line is that this bill fails to prevent those who may be harmful to the security of our Nation from operating freely and undetected in the United States.
If the war on terrorism is to be ultimately successful, it is more important than ever that we take the necessary steps to strengthen security at our borders and provide law enforcement agencies the tools they need to identify those individuals who enter or remain in the United States illegally.
This bill is woefully inadequate because it fails to make immigration reforms that are absolutely fundamental to ensuring the security of our Nation. By passing this conference report without immigration reform, we are sending a message to the American people that we still have not learned from the tragedy of 9/11 that political correctness must never take the place of national security.
One is, indeed, most of the people who were here, most of the hijackers were here illegally, not legally, because they fraudulently produced documents to get their visas. The visas were frauds to begin with, making them illegal aliens in this country.
Secondly, many of them had overstayed their visas or were doing something here that was not allowed under the visa, making them illegal aliens in this country. So, indeed, they were illegal.
Thirdly, there are far more members of 9/11 families who oppose this bill because the provisions we are talking about here are missing; those provisions to secure our borders are missing. Far more oppose this bill in its present form than support it.
This conference report is supposed to codify the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, and insofar as intelligence is concerned, it does. But the 9/11 Commission's charter required it to create a full account of the circumstances of the 9/11 attacks and formulate recommendations for guarding against future terrorist threats. This includes immigration and asylum reform, border protection and identification security. The Commission's recommendations and staff report contained repeated and explicit references to immigration, border, asylum and identification problems of which the 9/11 hijackers took advantage and which need to be solved.
I thought that the House version of the Commission's recommendations, H.R. 10, properly attempted to meet these goals. Yet here we are today, debating a conference report that contains hardly any of the strong Title III measures that were passed by the People's House. This is incredibly disappointing. While the final version of this legislation adds to our border security personnel, tightens up our visa application process, and sets up some identification standards, the fact remains that we need to do much more.
We can have all the intelligence in the world, but if we can't protect our own borders or prevent terrorists from coming into our country, then we're just stupid. I support this bill because it reforms our intelligence, but also because the administration and leadership have promised to pursue additional reforms in immigration and border security.
Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Immigration Reform Caucus, I intend to make sure that these promises are kept. I also look forward to working as soon as possible in the 109th Congress on legislation dealing with serious immigration reform, improving our asylum laws, border control, and identification security. Now more than ever, our immigration policies have national security ramifications. I will not rest until we fix our laws to meet these challenges.
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