[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 104 (Wednesday, July 13, 2011)]
[House]
[Page H4954]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       RAISING LEADERSHIP SUPPORT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. Madam Speaker, I wish to raise concerns 
this morning that are international and domestic.
  I rise today to ask the question, when will Dr. Assad, the President 
of Syria, begin to act in a manner that respects the human dignity of 
the people of Syria. It is a tragedy to watch as the Arab Spring 
continues in many countries that I have visited and to see one country 
that one had hoped would realize that a civilized government respects 
the dignity of its people.
  Syrian Americans are crying out and reaching out to Members of 
Congress and leaders across the Nation to attack this horrific violence 
that is occurring in Syria: The mutilation of a 13-year-old boy; the 
slaughter of individuals in the street; and, seemingly, the absolute 
arrogance of the President of this Nation. Many of us have thought that 
Dr. Assad, the son of the former president, would recognize that the 
21st century does not in any way tolerate the kind of abusive and 
oppressive leadership that has occurred in the past and that it is high 
time for the leadership to be vested in the people.
  Now, we know that there has been a constant tension and brutality as 
it relates to Israel and the border and Hezbollah, something that has 
to be addressed, and I have cried out over and over that the dominance 
of Hezbollah and Syria must cease as well for any entity that does not 
recognize the existence of any other State, no matter what the State, 
and in this instance--Israel, it is an absolute abomination.
  But now, in American vernacular, they have added insult to injury, 
killing their people, blood in the streets, ignoring the international 
calls. So I am gratified for the stance that we have taken, and I want 
it to be a stronger stance, a stronger position.

                              {time}  1050

  How dare you attack the United States Embassy. How dare you violate 
international law that allows sovereign nations to exist peacefully 
among themselves. How dare you confront the United States flag by means 
of the United States military. How dare you violate the human dignity 
of your people.
  And so I'm calling upon world leaders, the United Nations and all of 
those who have the responsibility of protecting the human rights of all 
people to denounce the actions of President Assad, denounce the actions 
of those violent and abusive people in the streets who are killing 
their own people, and listen to Syrian Americans who have asked for a 
peaceful resolution. No, we are not calling for war despite the 
tragedies in Yemen where the president refuses to step down, the 
conflicts in Libya where the president refuses to step down, the 
difficulties in Egypt and on and on and on.
  But as for the people of that region, we should take heart in America 
that they have attempted to create a democratic community and a nation 
of states. The Arab League needs to speak. And we need to denounce the 
President of Syria and ask him to step down.
  That leads me to America's role, Madam Speaker, in this crisis that 
has now been made by our Republican friends. To my colleagues, America 
is not broke. We're not in the same posture as some of our European 
friends. But we are in a ridiculous posture because there's no way in 
the world that families who are trying to make ends meet don't also 
attempt to seek revenues--a new job or a raise or multiple jobs. How 
many of our families are doing that?
  No, we are not raising taxes on the middle class. We are, in fact, 
trying to establish a quality of life for the middle class in 
protecting Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. Don't laugh at 
those. Those are infrastructures that have allowed senior citizens to 
live. It has allowed our hospitals to stay open and our doctors to 
work.
  And yet we have, in the other body, an individual who has a ludicrous 
and absolutely absurd proposal that's not going to give anybody 
relief--let the President of the United States sign off on the debt 
ceiling. We haven't even tested whether that is constitutional. In 
fact, we don't know if the debt ceiling itself is constitutional. And 
so I'm arguing and begging for leaders of consciousness to sit down and 
work on behalf of the American people, raise the debt ceiling and stop 
the foolishness.

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