[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 7 (Wednesday, January 11, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H380-H389]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        PRESIDENT OBAMA'S LEGACY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Fitzpatrick). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 3, 2017, the Chair recognizes the gentleman 
from Arizona (Mr. Franks) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, one of the most important 
elements of this Republic is the ability of the people to understand 
and to remember the public actions and record of those they elect. This 
is vital to government accountability, to historical accuracy, and to 
the future direction of the future generations of this country.
  So, Mr. Speaker, what follows is the record and legacy of President 
Barack Obama.
  Last night, Mr. Speaker, President Barack Obama gave his farewell 
address to the Nation. In his speech, President Obama praised American 
exceptionalism for the very first time since his Presidency began. 
Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, much of the remainder of the President's 
speech was far removed from reality.
  Mr. Obama implied that his Presidency had increased trust and respect 
for America. Yet, the truth is that under Mr. Obama's Presidency, the 
trust and respect that both friend and foe alike previously had for 
America has been demonstrably diminished across the world. Mr. Obama, 
in fact, weakened our economy and led the most anemic military campaign 
in our history. So, Mr. Speaker, let us now recall the grand promise of 
candidate Barack Obama, bedecked with Greek columns and the rhetoric of 
bipartisan unity as it was, and let's compare it to the actual legacy 
of President Barack Obama, the partisan heckler at home and the lead 
from behind, apologize for America, academic abroad who was evermore 
eager to force Catholic nuns to buy birth control than he was to fight 
the ruthless butchers of the Islamic State.

[[Page H381]]

  Mr. Speaker, President Barack Obama has taken credit for a growing 
economy, but, after his failed stimulus, his was the worst economic 
recovery in the history of America. And his Presidency will be the 
first in modern times whose 8 years in office will fail to include even 
1 year of 3 percent economic growth.
  Under Barack Obama's Presidency, the number of long-term unemployed 
eclipsed 15 million for the very first time in history.
  Today, 95 million Americans, the highest number in history, are now 
not in the workforce in America. And according to the latest numbers 
from the Census Bureau, household income fell by more than $2,100 in 
inflation-adjusted terms; and 45.3 million Americans, the highest 
number in history, now live in poverty. More than 43 million Americans 
were receiving food stamps under Barack Obama, the highest number in 
history.
  Barack Obama single-handedly added almost as much deficit to the 
national debt as all of the other Presidents in the 240-year history of 
the United States of America combined. And Standard & Poor's downgraded 
the U.S. Government from its AAA credit rating for the very first time 
in history.
  Mr. Obama's signature policy achieved what was called the Affordable 
Care Act. As we have learned year after year, essentially nothing Mr. 
Obama said about the Affordable Care Act was true. ObamaCare contained 
over $1 trillion in new taxes, which was the largest tax increase in 
history. Yet, millions remain uninsured. Healthcare costs have never 
been higher, and the entire debacle called ObamaCare is now 
catastrophically collapsing before our very eyes.
  Mr. Speaker, Mr. Obama engineered the sequester on the military which 
had devastating consequences on our men and women in uniform and our 
ability to fight and win wars when necessary. Mr. Obama's was the 
opposite of a commitment to peace through strength.
  When it came to justice at home, Barack Obama told us that adult male 
transvestites had the moral right and the legal right to go into the 
bathroom with little schoolgirls whether their parents liked it or not. 
He fundamentally sought to abrogate religious freedom in America. He 
weaponized the Internal Revenue Service, the Environmental Protection 
Agency, the Attorney General's Office, and the Justice Department 
against America's own citizens. It was and is the epitome of tyranny.
  Mr. Obama unconstitutionally ignored and selectively applied 
America's immigration laws and illegally suspended immigration 
enforcement. He released 19,723 criminal illegal immigrants from prison 
into every State of the Union. These nearly 20,000 criminal illegal 
aliens were collectively convicted of over 60,000 crimes, including 
over 12,000 drunk driving convictions, and over 8,000 violent crimes 
such as assault, rape, and murder.
  Mr. Obama's actions endangered Americans and denied justice to the 
victims of their crimes. Mr. Obama bears a share of the responsibility 
for every crime that these criminals have committed or will commit 
against Americans since he released them from prison into American 
society.
  But, Mr. Speaker, perhaps Mr. Obama's most egregious broken promise 
to all Americans is when he said: ``I, Barack Hussein Obama, do 
solemnly swear that I will execute the Office of President of the 
United States faithfully, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, 
protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.'' Since 
then, he has shown complete and open contempt for the Constitution.

  Barack Obama blatantly stoked racial tensions in America, and, in the 
process, he painted a deadly target on the backs of the noble men and 
women in blue who risk their lives every day to protect the innocent 
citizens of this Nation.
  Barack Obama consistently subjected Americans to condescending 
lectures. If we opposed ObamaCare, we didn't want people to have health 
insurance.
  If we opposed wasteful stimulus spending, we hated schoolteachers and 
firemen.
  If we opposed the nuclear deal with Iran, we were compared to 
terrorist-sponsoring Iranian mullahs.
  If we believe in God and exercised our Second Amendment right, we 
were bitter.
  If we didn't believe in open, unsecured borders and vetting those who 
came into this country, we were un-American.
  If we believed in protecting unborn baby girls from being killed 
simply because they are little girls, we were waging war on women.
  And Mr. Obama was also fond of using politically correct euphemisms 
and constantly using them to distort nearly every issue.
  Evacuation of our Embassy in Yemen was ``a reduction in staff.''
  Terror attacks are ``man-caused disasters.''
  The global war on terror is an ``overseas contingency operation.''
  An Islamic terrorist murdering 13 American soldiers is ``workplace 
violence.''
  Terrorists beheading children, crucifying women, and burning men 
alive in the name of Islam are ``individuals from various religions'' 
who practice ``hateful ideologies.''
  Veterans, pro-life groups, and States' rights advocates were listed 
as ``at-risk'' to become domestic terrorists.
  Mr. Speaker, from day one, Barack Obama considered the cold war a 
giant misunderstanding. He did his famous reset with Russia and then 
turned and caved into everything that they wanted. Mr. Obama's policies 
of weakness and appeasement yielded Crimea, the South China Sea, the 
rise of the Islamic State, the return of Iran, and the unspeakable 
desecration of thousands upon thousands of innocent people in Aleppo 
where the result to date is now where 4 million refugees and 400,000 
people are dead. And during the so-called Arab Spring, the Obama 
administration sided with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
  At the end of the Obama administration, the only countries in the 
world that we have better relations with are Iran and Cuba--and even 
that has been entirely on their terms.
  Mr. Speaker, the average number of innocents killed by terrorists 
before the Obama Presidency was approximately 3,000 per year in the 
world. Now, under Barack Obama, it is probably 30,000 every year. Mr. 
Obama labeled the Islamic State a junior varsity team, and then stood 
by with a golf club in his hand while ISIS raped, butchered, and 
beheaded its way across Iraq, selling little, 6-year-old girls into 
slavery, burning people alive, and perpetrating a genocide against 
Christians and Yazidis. The Islamic State now keeps an estimated 3,000 
girls and women in sexual slavery while Mr. Obama runs out the clock on 
his term of office and hands the fight against ISIS off to the next 
President.
  Because of his delusional negotiation and acquiescence, the Islamic 
Republic of Iran, the number one sponsor of terrorism in this world, 
may place the finger of jihad on the launch button of an entire nuclear 
arsenal; and America's children and future generations may thereafter 
be forced to live their lives in the shadow of nuclear terrorism.
  Mr. Obama stood before a group of thousands of supporters of Israel 
and proclaimed: ``When the chips are down, I have Israel's back.'' But 
then as President, he blatantly refused even to acknowledge Jerusalem 
as Israel's capital and consistently expressed more open rebuke toward 
Israel than he did toward Iran for building an entire nuclear effort to 
some day threaten the world.
  I am going to say that again, Mr. Speaker.
  As President, Mr. Obama blatantly refused to even acknowledge 
Jerusalem as Israel's capital. And he consistently expressed more open 
rebuke toward Israel for building houses in its capital city than he 
expressed for Iran's efforts to build nuclear weapons with which to 
existentially threaten Israel along with the peace and security of the 
entire human family.
  In the political safety of his lameduck, he orchestrated and failed 
to veto a resolution that undermines Israel's very right to exist. Mr. 
Speaker, it was a cowardly act of political treachery that disgraced 
the United States, and it will send Barack Obama's name down the 
corridor of history as on overt traitor to the State of Israel.
  When the Security Council Quartet meets on January 15 and the full 
United Nations Security Council meets

[[Page H382]]

on January 17, I am gravely concerned that Barack Obama will overturn 
U.S. precedent going back to Lyndon Johnson and use the opportunity to 
stab Israel in the back one final time by allowing the anti-Semites at 
the U.N. to attempt to redraw the map of Israel to indefensible pre-
1967 borders, which would leave the only Jewish state less than 9 miles 
wide.
  Mr. Speaker, no government leader has any greater responsibility than 
that of protecting the innocent. Yet, Mr. Obama stood by and allowed 
not only ISIS, Boko Haram, Russia, and Syria, but also Planned 
Parenthood to brutally desecrate the innocent on a horrific scale.

                              {time}  2015

  President Barack Obama went to great efforts, against taxpayers' 
wishes, to give billions of taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood to 
expand abortion on demand in America and throughout the world and to 
proactively promote policies to allow the indiscriminate killing of 
these, the most defenseless of all human beings.
  As President, he appointed an empire of radically pro-abortion judges 
and government bureaucrats. When he was in the State legislature, 
Barack Obama actually voted ``no'' four times on a bill that would have 
protected babies after they were born alive.
  In the U.S. Senate, Mr. Obama voted ``no'' on a bill that would have 
prohibited someone from taking a minor child out of State for an 
abortion without even notifying the child's parents.
  He vowed to veto the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, which would 
prohibit discriminating against an unborn baby girl by subjecting her 
to abortion simply because she is a little girl instead of a little 
boy.
  He promised to veto the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, a 
bill that would have protected both mothers and their little pain-
capable babies between the beginning of their sixth month of pregnancy 
from the unspeakable cruelty of Planned Parenthood and evil monsters 
like Kermit Gosnell.
  Mr. Speaker, perhaps most astonishingly, Barack Obama, the President 
of the United States and the leader of the free world, wrote a letter 
to Congress and said he would veto the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors 
Protection Act to protect breathing, crying, kicking, born-alive human 
babies if it ever reached his desk.
  Mr. Speaker, could not the President have agreed that little human 
babies who survive abortion and are born alive should be protected?
  President Barack Obama's record is crystal clear. For his entire 
political life, he has strongly supported the full legalization of 
abortion on demand throughout all 9 months of pregnancy, for any reason 
or no reason, including sex selection, throughout all 9 months of 
pregnancy, and forcing American taxpayers to pay for it whether the 
taxpayers liked it or not.
  Under Barack Obama, nearly 9 million innocent, defenseless little 
American babies were aborted before they ever saw the first smile of 
their mother.
  Ironically, President Obama was in the unique position, perhaps among 
all other Presidents in history, of bringing this country together to 
protect these helpless little children. Yet, as the most powerful human 
being in the world, Mr. Obama chose to become the most powerful enemy 
of the most helpless human beings in the world. And nothing will stain 
his legacy or his claims of looking out for the little guy with more 
shame than going down in history as the ``Abortion President.''
  Mr. Speaker, it gives me no pleasure to lay out this record. I truly 
and sincerely hoped for God's best for Barack Obama when he took 
office. I wrote him a letter, hoping that he would be remembered as 
someone who stood up for the Constitution and stood up for the 
innocent.
  But in a Republic like ours, where the people are the final arbiters 
of our public policy and where those who would subvert this Republic 
consistently resort to deception and historical revisionism, an 
accurate record is vital to our Nation's survival and its future 
generations.
  So, alas, Mr. Speaker, I am afraid Barack Obama tragically wasted his 
precious and historic opportunity. However, this is the true record of 
President Barack Obama and, to paraphrase William Wilberforce: We may 
choose to look the other way, but we can never again say that we did 
not know.
  Mr. Speaker, Under President Obama, as of 2015, Democrats lost 900+ 
state legislature seats, 12 governors, 69 House seats, 13 Senate seats. 
Mr. Obama lost more U.S. Senate and U.S. House seats than any president 
since FDR. I would suggest this was not caused by a lack of political 
skills. It was Mr. Obama's policies and his attitude toward democracy 
and the Constitution that were so devastating to his Democrat party.
  From the beginning of his presidency it was President Obama's 
theological conviction that America needed to be transformed into 
something far afield of the founding fathers dream.
  Last night the President gave his farewell address to the country. In 
his speech, President Obama praised American exceptionalism for the 
first time in his presidency. Unfortunately Mr. Speaker, much of the 
remainder of the president's speech was far removed from reality.
  Mr. Obama implied that his presidency increased America's wealth and 
power and respect. The truth is that under Mr. Obama's presidency, the 
trust and respect from both friend and foe for America has been 
demonstrably diminished across the world. Mr. Obama in fact weakened 
our economy and led the most anemic military campaign in our history.
  One of the most important elements of this Republic is the ability of 
the people to understand and remember the public actions and record of 
those they elect. This is vital to the future direction of future 
generations of this country.
  So I come before the House today in order to lay out, and call for 
the American people to reflect upon, the true record of Barack Obama's 
Presidency.
  During this crucial moment of self-reflection happening in our great 
Republic, it is incumbent upon us to look back over the past eight 
years to fully comprehend what are the wages of two full terms of 
Progressive governance under President Barack Obama. Because Mr. 
Speaker, if Hillary Clinton had been elected president, the left-wing, 
mindset to ignore the foundations of this nation, the Constitution, and 
so many millions of those it was designed to protect, would have 
continued unabated and this Republic may have been lost.
  Mr. Speaker, I solemnly wonder if America as a nation and Americans 
as individuals truly comprehend how close we came to actually losing 
this Republic and the founding fathers dream during the last election.
  As Americans soberly reflect on that reality, let us now recall the 
grand promise of candidate Barack Obama, bedecked with Greek columns 
and the rhetoric of bipartisan unity as he was, and compare it to the 
actual legacy of President Barack Obama--the partisan heckler at home 
and the lead-from-behind, apologize for America, academic abroad who 
was ever more eager to force Catholic nuns to buy birth control than he 
was to fight the ruthless butchers of the Islamic State.
  So Mr. Speaker, what follows is the record and the legacy of Barack 
Hussein Obama:


                            Economic Growth

  Obama's presidency will be the first in modern times whose eight 
years in office will fail to include at least one year of 3 percent 
economic growth.
  Mr. Obama has taken credit for a growing economy, but after his 
failed stimulus, his was the worst economic recovery in history.
  Using the broadest measure of economic progress, growth in output, 
the growth rate over the first 25 quarters under Reagan was 34 percent 
versus 14.3 percent under Obama.
  Yet, Under Barack Obama, the growth of a ravenous Leviathan called 
the federal government, grew larger and larger in scope and in power 
every single year he was president.


                              UNEMPLOYMENT

  Under Barack Obama's presidency the number of Long-Term unemployed 
eclipsed 15 million for the first time in history.
  As the Los Angeles Times notes, ``The longer people remain jobless, 
the more likely they are to suffer the scarring effects of unemployment 
that can hurt their earnings permanently and create a cycle of 
instability.


                        Work Force Participation

  The percentage of people participating in the labor market in January 
fell to 62.7 percent its lowest rate in 31 years.
  On his watch, the number of people forced to work part time for 
economy reasons eclipsed 8 million for the first time in history.
  On his watch, the average time it takes Americans to find a job 
reached the highest total in the history of the statistic being 
measured.
  The unemployment rate among African Americans was nearly double what 
it was for white Americans
  And today 95 million Americans, the highest number in history, are 
now not in the workforce in America.


                               Inflation

  Under Barack Obama, American Families faced Higher Costs on Nearly 
Everything:

[[Page H383]]

Spending on gas, groceries, utility bills and health insurance premiums 
skyrocketed.
  However Wages were Down: according to the latest numbers from the 
Census Bureau household incomes fell by more than $2,100 in inflation-
adjusted terms,''


                                 TAXES

  When it came to taxes, Barack Obama said, ``No family making less 
than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase.'' He said that 
he ``Will eliminate all income taxation of seniors making less than 
$50,000 per year. This will eliminate taxes for 7 million seniors--
saving them an average of $1,400 a year--and will also mean that 27 
million seniors will not need to file an income tax return, at all.''
  However, Mr. Speaker, Obamacare alone contained at least 20 new or 
higher taxes on American families and small businesses, representing 
over $1 trillion in tax increases, the largest tax increase in history. 
It has produced a crippling effect on the working and middle class. Mr. 
Obama's tax increases include the Individual Mandate Excise Tax, 
Employer Mandate Tax, Surtax on Investment Income, taxes on health 
savings accounts, a hike in the Medicare Payroll Tax, and the 
elimination of the tax deduction for employer-provided retirement 
prescription drug coverage.


                                Poverty

  Under Barack Obama the number of Americans living at or below the 
poverty line went up 5.5 million between 2008 and 2013. A record number 
of 45.3 million Americans now live in poverty.
  Under Mr. Obama's presidency, the income gap between rich and poor 
reached its highest level in over 40 years, and the American poverty 
rate hit the highest level in the 52 year history of the statistic 
being measured.


                    Number of People on Food Stamps

  According to a report in the Washington Examiner, the number of Able-
Bodied adults on food stamps doubled, from 1.9 million in 2008 to 3.9 
million in 2010, when Mr. Obama suspended the work requirement.
  On his watch, more than 43 million Americans were receiving food 
stamps, that's an increase of 23% since January 2009 and more than at 
any time in American history.


                             National Debt

  Barack Obama said, ``I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our 
deficits, either now or in the future.'' And ``Today, I'm pledging to 
cut the deficit we inherited in half by the end of my first term in 
office.''
  Yet the reality was that under Mr. Obama's presidency, America had 
the first $1 trillion deficit in history. He raised the debt ceiling 
time and time again. He used scare tactics against seniors (``he said 
quote ``cannot guarantee'' Social Security checks will go out) as a 
means of getting way with another debt ceiling raise and Standard & 
Poor downgraded the U.S. government from its 70 year AAA credit rating 
for the first time in history.
  He instituted Federal bailouts, including bailouts that went to 
hundreds of millions in executive bonuses. The Obama government alone 
was equal to the entire United States' population in 1776. And he 
robbed the children coming up around her knees of their economic future 
and placed them on the path to national bankruptcy in order to ensure 
his radical, big-government agenda was implemented. Barack Obama 
single-handedly added almost as much deficit to the national debt as 
all of the other presidents in the 240 year history of the United 
States of America combined.


                           Military Readiness

  Mr. Obama engineered the sequester on the military which had 
devastating consequences to our ability to fight and win wars when 
necessary. The army is now the smallest it has been since Pearl Harbor; 
the Navy has shrunk to WWI levels; missile defense was cut every year 
he was in office, and the Pentagon was turned into a politically 
correct playground for social experimentation. During that same time, 
North Korea, one of the most dangerous police states in the world, 
tested nuclear weapons 5 times. Mr. Obama's was the opposite of a 
commitment to peace through strength.
  The reason President Obama's legacy will be endless war is because 
America's enemies knew he never had the commitment or the will to win 
any war. So all they had to do was wait him out. And that's exactly 
what they did; and so many people suffered and died as a result.
  When Mr. Obama was negotiating the New Start Treaty, he was caught on 
camera secretly asking Russian President Medvedev to ``Give me more 
time until the elections''. At least he meant for it to be a secret. 
Then after the elections he gave up far more that America got in return 
in that treaty, demonstrably diminished the strength of our nuclear 
deterrent and gave Russia a lopsided advantage over America in tactical 
nuclear weapons. I pray our children and grandchildren do not pay 
unthinkable price someday for the feckless and cowardly policy Mr. 
Obama negotiated.


                            Justice at Home

  When it came to justice at home, Barack Obama fundamentally sought to 
abrogate religious freedom in America and he weaponized the Internal 
Revenue Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Attorney 
Gen.'s office and the Justice Department against America's own 
citizens. It was and is the epitome of tyranny.
  President Obama turned the criminal justice system upside down. He 
commuted the sentences of 774 federal inmates which is more than the 
previous 11 presidents combined. He issued 590 commutations in the year 
2016 alone, which is the highest in U.S. history according to his own 
White House. Mr. Obama pardoned a total of 148 people during his 
presidency and has shortened the sentences of 1,176 people, including 
395 serving life sentences.
  Yet during his presidency, in Mr. Obama's hometown of Chicago alone, 
a city where his policies on gun control are the strictest in the 
nation, there were nearly 800 murders this year alone which is the 
highest in history.
  It was also Mr. Obama's administration that told us that mud puddles 
are navigable waters, that a tax is not a tax, that an exchange created 
by the federal government is an exchange created by a state, and that 
bureaucrats had more right's then parents to decide their child's 
education and that adult male transvestites had the moral and legal 
right to go into the bathroom with little schoolgirls whether their 
parents liked it or not.


                          Illegal Immigration

  Mr. Obama unconstitutionally ignored and selectively applied 
America's immigration laws perhaps because he saw those coming across 
the border into this country illegally, not as illegal immigrants, but 
as unregistered democrats.
  President Obama never gained control of the border and in fact, Mr. 
Obama unconstitutionally ignored and selectively applied America's 
immigration laws and illegally suspended immigration enforcement. He 
released 19,723 criminal illegal immigrants from prison into nearly 
every state of the Union. These nearly 20,000 criminal illegal aliens 
were collectively convicted of over 60,000 crimes, including over 
12,000 drunk driving convictions and over 8,000 violent crimes such as 
assault, rape, and murder. Mr. Obama's actions endangered Americans and 
denied justice to the victims of their crimes. Mr. Obama bears a share 
of the responsibility for every crime that these criminals have 
committed or will commit against Americans since he released them from 
prison into American society.


                               Terrorism

  When President Obama took office in January 2009, Iraq was a 
relatively stable nation. Iran was contained and ISIS did not exist. 
Now there is chaos throughout the Middle East. Vladimir Putin's Russia 
is in Syria, the Iranians have been unleashed, and ISIS has raped and 
butchered its way across Iraq declaring that there would be nothing for 
Christians but the sword and history will record that it was Barack 
Obama who willingly stood on the sidelines and knowingly let a genocide 
against Christians and Yezidis happen.
  Barack Obama drew red lines he had no intention of enforcing, stood 
back and watched as Syria burned and Islamist radicals grew in strength 
until they exploded out of Syria to bring Hell on earth to the innocent 
men and women across the region. To date, the result is over 4 million 
refugees and over 400,000 people dead.
  There are nine times more people killed in terrorist attacks today 
than there were in 2000. My colleagues and I earnestly warned President 
Obama and his administration of the dangers that Boko Haram and ISIS 
represented to innocent people in America and the world and pleaded 
with him to take actions to prevent them from desecrating the innocent. 
Mr. Obama casually dismissed our concerns related to both of those 
groups. His administration refused to call Boko Haram a terrorist 
organization and he dismissed ISIS as ``Junior Varsity''. My colleagues 
and I then repeatedly pleaded with Mr. Obama for over a year to 
resolutely respond to this insidious, murderous, hellish evil. I 
personally asked the president in an open video message if he did not 
realize ``that by ignoring this monstrous, ideological evil, that you 
allow it to grow, and you ultimately invite it to exercise its 
desecration of the innocent within the shores of our own nation.''
  Yet, President Obama stood by casually, golf club in hand, and 
steadfastly refused ignored those entreaties. And terrorism did return 
to America and for the first time since 9/11, innocent Americans 
citizens were murdered by terrorists on American soil. Today Boko Haram 
and ISIS are responsible for 51 percent, of all terrorist fatalities in 
the world. Foreign intelligence agencies now estimate ISIS ranks are as 
large as 200,000 fighters from 90 countries. ISIS and its affiliates 
either control or hold influence in nearly 20 nations: Iraq, Syria, 
Egypt, Libya, Nigeria, Algeria, Morocco, Mali, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, 
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Russia, Bosnia, Philippines, Indonesia, 
and Malaysia.
  Whether they manifested themselves as the Iranian mullahs, ISIS, Boko 
Haram, Hezbollah,

[[Page H384]]

Hamas, or a dozen other names, Barack Obama refused to even call Global 
Jihadists by name and he fundamentally refused to marshal the resources 
of his presidency to bear on behalf of the thousands of helpless 
victims they slaughtered. It is a disgrace that leaves me without words 
to describe.
  Mr. Obama released five of the most dangerous Taliban leaders along 
with other terrorists held in Guantanamo Bay including 182 violent 
prisoners who have been released from Guantanamo Bay, nearly 20 percent 
of whom returned to the battlefield to fight United States forces and 
interests the world over. Mr. Obama's ``slap on the wrist'' approach to 
national security needlessly added and continues to add to the dangers 
our men and women face in the fight against jihadist terrorism.
  President Obama abandoned the Iranian freedom movement in 2009 when 
the citizens of Iran took to the streets to protest the rigged 
presidential election and to remove the Khamenei regime peacefully. He 
supported the release of the Lockerbie bomber. He supported Civilian 
trials for terrorists. Then due to those very procedural protections in 
civil court that prevented introduction of crucial evidence, that Mr. 
Obama had been specifically and repeatedly warned about in advance, the 
civilian trial for the evil terrorist Ahmed Ghailani led to his 
acquittal on more than 280 criminal charges of a man who openly 
admitted his terrorist activities. And Mr. Obama specifically chose not 
to prosecute the Muslim Brotherhood in the Holy Land Foundation trial 
when the evidence against them was absolutely overwhelming. One week 
after three Americans and our Ambassador were killed by Terrorists in 
Benghazi, Mr. Obama and his administration stood in front of flag 
draped coffins and lied to the American people about what really 
happened.
  The average number of Innocents killed by terrorists before the Obama 
presidency was 3000 per year; now under Barack Obama it is thirty 
thousand per year. And the number of terrorists willing to blow 
themselves up to kill others is growing across the world. The chances 
of radical Islamists getting weapons of mass destruction are also 
growing.


                                  iran

  ``President Obama's has been the leading apologist in the world for 
the Islamic Republic of Iran throughout his presidency. In his 
relentless quest for a nuclear deal with the Islamic regime of Iran, 
Mr. Obama simply chose to ignore the fact that Iran is the world's 
leading state sponsor of terrorism.
  The notion that the only alternative to seeking a nuclear deal with 
the corrupt Khamenei regime is war is an illusion created by the Obama 
administration. Obama communicated directly to Tehran through secret 
back-channels his willingness to support Khamenei. The truth is that 
the oppressed majority of the Iranian people did not then, and do not 
today, support the Khamenei regime's nuclear program and in fact 
desperately want to be rid of this poisonous regime.
  Mr. Obama, with the help of liberal Democrats in Congress and the 
embrace of the left, got his deal with Iran at all costs. The left 
embraced it. But did Iran open its doors to U.S. goods? No. The 
Ayatollah banned them. Did Iran renounce its support for terrorism? No. 
It renewed support for Hamas, sent troops to Syria and armed rebels in 
Yemen. Is Iran acting like a responsible regional power? No. In blatant 
violation of U.N. sanctions, Iran is testing nuclear-capable missiles 
and firing rockets near U.S. ships. And when the U.S. threatened to 
respond to Iran's missile violations, did Iran back down? No. Iran's 
``moderate'' president ordered his military to accelerate Iran's 
missile program. The Iranians believe Mr. Obama is a total pushover. 
Mr. Obama said he was promoting peace, but he really only projected 
weakness and the world's dictators took notice.
  To pave the way for his insane nuclear agreement with Iran, Mr. Obama 
ordered the CIA to sever contacts with green movement supporters and 
even ended U.S. programs to document Iranian human rights abuses. It 
seems there was nothing the Mr. Obama was not willing to sacrifice upon 
the altar of the Iranian nuclear deal. To begin finalizing the Iran 
agreement, Mr. Obama brought in John Kerry and the same basic team 
which negotiated the nuclear deal with North Korea that paved the way 
for North Korea to gain the nuclear weapons they have today--North 
Korea, if you need to be reminded, is the same country which just this 
year conducted a nuclear test, an ICBM test, and a submarine launched 
ballistic missile test. From day one and the eight years that followed 
it has overwhelmed comprehension how divorced the Obama Administration 
has been from reality.
  And Mr. Speaker, what exactly did the U.S. from the Iran Deal? A 
completely unverifiable and tacit agreement from Iran that it will not 
make a nuclear weapon in the next ten years. And that promise from the 
jihadist government of Iran was good enough for Barack Obama. And Mr. 
Speaker, what did Iran get out of the deal? The world's leading sponsor 
of terrorism received $1.8 Billion in freed assets, a lifting of the 
arms embargoes in five years, the toothless U.N. ban on Iran missile 
development--which of course they are actively and continuously 
violating. And after eight years, Iran will [quote] ``then be allowed 
to build an industrial-scale nuclear program, with hundreds of 
thousands of machines, after a ten year period of restraint.'' [end 
quote] In order to reach this agreement, Obama ordered the executive 
branch to cease categorizing Iranian human rights abuses, and now he 
has also illegally paid $400 Million in ransom for American hostages 
abducted by the Iranian regime, he has ceded control of Iraq to Iran, 
he has ignored Iranian development of missiles capable of delivering 
nuclear weapons, and--most significantly--he has ensured the Iranian 
regime may legally develop nuclear weapons in the coming decade.
  After the nuclear deal, Iran became only more arrogant and bold. They 
seized two American naval vessels, took ten sailors hostage, and only 
released them after the Administration apologized. An Iranian general 
said the seizure of our ships was a warning to Congress against 
imposing new sanctions for Iran's illegal nuclear missile tests. Iran's 
intent and track record is crystal clear to almost everyone it seems, 
but to President Obama.
  The hallmark of Barack Obama's presidency has been that of weakening, 
disarming, diminishing and apologizing for the United States of 
America. For years many of us watched in utter disbelief at the great 
lengths to which the Obama Administration has gone in order to secure a 
deal at any price with Iran on their nuclear weapons program. He has 
capitulated on every red line and minimum requirement that both he and 
the United Nations had required. He has now squandered away every form 
of leverage we had against this theocratic radial regime which has 
broken every promise it has ever made to us. The jihadist leaders of 
Iran came to the table with nothing and walked away with everything. 
And now, instead of making sure they never get a nuclear weapon, Barack 
Obama's politically motivated, peace-in-our-time capitulation has 
strengthened Iran's ability to foment terrorism throughout the world as 
it has for the last 40 years. And, now, because of his delusional 
negotiation and acquiescence, this Islamic Republic of Iran, the number 
one sponsor of terrorism in the world, has become a nation on a path 
(cleared for them by President Barack Obama) to obtaining a nuclear 
weapons capability. Indeed, Mr. Obama's actions may place the finger of 
Jihad on the launch button of an entire nuclear arsenal; and America's 
children and future generations may thereafter be forced to live their 
lives in the shadow of nuclear terrorism.


                              Constitution

  Perhaps Mr. Obama's biggest broken promise to all Americans was when 
he said, ``I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear that I will 
execute the office of President of the United States faithfully, and 
will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the 
constitution of the United States. Whether we're talking about 
Obamacare, or Mr. Obama's administration weaponizing the IRS to target 
conservative groups, seizing the phone records of the Associated Press, 
Suggesting that Fox News reporter James Rosen was a criminal without 
evidence as an excuse to monitor his phone and e-mail, appointing Czars 
with no accountability, appointing Assistant AG Thomas Perez who 
steadfastly refused to affirm 1st Amendment Rights, called the 
Constitution an ``imperfect document'' that ``reflected the fundamental 
flaw of the country that continues to this day'', the seizure of the 
press' phone records by the Justice Department, the walking of guns to 
cartels during Operation Fast and Furious, unconstitutional recess 
appointments, unconstitutional executive orders or the Administration's 
intentional selective enforcement of the laws--This President has shown 
complete and open contempt for the Constitution as a mere obstacle to 
his preferred `pen and phone' method of governing through an executive 
autocracy.
  When Barack Obama came into office only one of the 13 federal appeals 
courts had a majority of liberal Democrat appointed judges. Now, nine 
of the 13 appeals courts have liberal Democrat appointees. Barack Obama 
nominated to individuals to the Supreme Court who have no regard 
whatsoever for the plain meaning and original intent of the 
Constitution. The lawlessness of Obama's Progressive Utopia, was one 
governed by the Pen and the Phone rather than the People. If Hillary 
Clinton had been elected in November she would have almost certainly 
appointed At Least Three more Supreme Court Justices which would have 
completely abrogated the United States Constitution along with the 
first second fifth and 14th amendments and all of the others for 
generation or more. For the first time in its history, America would no 
longer have been governed by the United States Constitution as the 
supreme law of the land. There are simply no words to describe the 
existential threat to the American Republic that Hillary

[[Page H385]]

Clinton would have inevitably represented if she had been elected 
president of the United States. Without the American Constitution there 
would have been no free America and without a free America there would 
have been no free world. The implications would have been beyond 
comprehension.


                           Religious Liberty

  Barack Obama's record is that of having assaulted centuries of legal 
precedent and medical ethics, pushing forward his effort to roll back 
regulations that protect physicians' rights of conscience. Amazingly, 
the Obama administration accused the Catholic nuns Little Sisters of 
the Poor, an entirely voluntary and Catholic organization dedicated to 
hospice care for the indigent, of promoting a war on women . . . for 
not agreeing to offer birth control as a Catholic health benefit, and 
then threatened them with $70 million a year in fines for not 
complying.
  The Obama administration essentially argued before the Supreme Court 
that the religious ministerial exception that had been bedrock law 
since the Constitution was written did not actually exist and that 
neither the Free Exercise Clause nor the Establishment Clause has 
anything to say about a church's relationship with its own employees. 
In a 9-0 opinion, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected the 
Administration's position, stating that ``imposing an unwanted 
minister, the state infringes the Free Exercise Clause, which protects 
a religious group's right to shape its own faith and mission through 
its appointments.'' Despite Barack Obama's supposed expertise on the 
Constitution, his administration has lost more 9-0 Supreme Court cases 
than any other Administration in history and no president in history 
ever posed more overt danger to religious freedom in America than 
Barack Obama.
  Mr. Obama casually ignored the historical and constitutional fact 
that religious liberty involves much more than freedom of worship 
alone, and that the fundamental rights of free speech and the free 
exercise of religion do not stop at the exit door of the local house of 
worship, but instead, extends to every area of life. Mr. Obama refused 
respect the public component of religious liberty, and failed to 
accommodate religion in our generally applicable laws, and placed in 
grave danger, the religious freedom in the Constitution which 
undergirds everything that is America.


                             Race Relations

  Barack Obama blatantly stoked racial tensions and in the process he 
painted a target on the backs of the noble men and women in blue who 
risk their lives every day to protect the innocent citizens of this 
country. Some people even went looking to assassinate police officers. 
And the result was that innocent Americans within both law enforcement 
and the minority community died across America for no reason. Barack 
Obama had an historic opportunity to unite America in a profound way. 
Instead, he chose for temporary political gain to become the divider 
and chief by seeking to divide America by race and class.


          MR. OBAMA'S CONDESCENSION TOWARD THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

  Barack Obama consistently subjected Americans to condescending 
lectures. Because he was a Progressive Politician who had attended the 
right schools held the right internships, and had the right credentials 
he knew what was best for us farm better than we did that he was 
morally empowered to properly order the minutiae of the lives of all of 
the American people.
  If we opposed Obamacare we didn't want people to have health 
insurance.
  If we opposed wasteful stimulus spending, we hated school teachers 
and firemen.
  If we opposed the nuclear deal with Iran, we were compared to 
terrorist sponsoring Iranian Mullahs.
  If we believe in God and exercise our Second Amendment Right, we were 
bitter.
  If we didn't believe in open, unsecured borders and vetting those who 
come into this country, we were un-American.
  And If we believed unborn baby girls should be protected under the 
law, we were waging a war on women.
  And Mr. Obama was also fond of using politically correct euphemisms 
and constantly use them to distort nearly every issue:
  (1) Evacuation of our Embassy in Yemen was ``a reduction in staff'
  (2) Terror attacks are ``man-caused disasters''
  (3) Global war on terror is an ``overseas contingency operation''
  (4) An Islamic terrorist murdering 13 American soldiers is 
``workplace violence''
  (5) Terrorists beheading children, crucifying women, and burning men 
alive in the name of Islam are ``individuals from various religions'' 
who practice ``hateful ideologies''
  (6) Veterans, pro-life groups, and state rights' advocates were 
listed as ``at-risk'' to become domestic terrorists


                               obama care

  Mr. Obama's signature policy achievement was the so-called Affordable 
Care Act. As we have learned year after year, essentially nothing Mr. 
Obama said about the Affordable Care Act was true. He told us his 
mother's health insurance denied her paying for her cancer treatments--
but it was a blatant falsehood. He told America--many, many times--that 
if we liked our plan and our doctor, we could keep our plan and our 
doctor--but it was a blatant falsehood. In fact, Mr. Obama's speech 
writers joked about deliberately putting that blatant falsehood over on 
Charlie Rose, who, like many in the media, never pressed the issue.
  Mr. Obama even deceived and betrayed Bart Stupak from his own party 
and used a myriad of special political handouts like the Cornhusker 
Kickback and the Louisiana Purchase to scrape together the support to 
shove a giant government takeover of the healthcare industry down the 
American people's throats and then raided the coffers of Medicare to 
the tune of over $700 billion to help pay for it.
  Anyone with a basic understanding of economics warned was going to 
wreak havoc upon the insurance market. Barack Obama said, ``Obamacare 
means more choice, more competition, lower costs.'' But now under Mr. 
Obama's presidency, the Cost of Average Family Health Insurance Plan 
has gone from $12,680 to over $25,000. Barack Obama said the ACA will 
cost around $900 billion over 10 years; in reality it is at least $2 
trillion or more. Mr. Obama said that it would lower health insurance 
premiums by $2,500 per family. In 42 states, many premiums increased by 
over 100 percent. Mr. Obama said, ``If you like your doctor, you can 
keep your doctor'' That was a blatant falsehood. Mr. Obama said, ``I 
will protect Medicare.'' That was a blatant falsehood. He robbed 
Medicare to pay for Obama care. He said, ``Obama care will cover every 
American.'' That was a blatant falsehood. Millions remain uninsured. 
Healthcare costs have never been higher and the entire debacle called 
Obamacare is now catastrophically collapsing before our very eyes.


                             foreign-policy

  From day one Barack Obama considered the Cold War a giant 
misunderstanding. He did his famous reset with Russia and then turned 
and caved into everything they wanted. Mr. Obama cancelled the missile 
defense site and betrayed the Czech Republic and Poland to placate 
Russia. He told Russian President Medvedev he would be more flexible 
after his re-election on missile defense.
  Barack Obama lifted sanctions on the communist dictatorship of Cuba 
and the Islamist dictatorship of Iran. He has held our allies and the 
enemies of human freedom to different standards, restoring diplomatic 
relations with Cuba and making economic concessions to their government 
with no reciprocity on human rights. President Obama praised the 
murderous dictator when he offered condolences after Castro's death. 
For decades, Democrats and Republicans alike maintained consistent 
policies. At the end of the Obama administration, the only countries in 
the world that we have better relations with under Barack Obama are 
Iran and Cuba--and even that has been entirely on their terms. The 
Saudis are so furious with Obama's surrender to Iran that they are 
threatening to develop their own nuclear weapons.
  Mr. Obama's policies of weakness and appeasement yielded Crimea, the 
South China Sea, the rise of the Islamic State, the return of Iran, and 
the unspeakable desecration of the innocent in Aleppo.
  Mr. Obama said we were exercising leadership in Syria. But under his 
``leadership,'' he drew a red line and then ran from it. Iran and 
Russia are now taking the lead in Syria. While he talks about 
leadership, his lack of action contributed to 400,000 human beings dead 
and generated 4 million migrants who are now destabilizing Europe.
  The commentary of Jared Hatch of the Young Leaders Program at the 
Heritage Foundation said it this way:
  ``Contemplating the extermination of Aleppo and its people, I was 
reminded of a sentence that I read this summer. It appeared in an 
encomium to Elie Wiesel shortly after his death. It was a sterling 
sentence. It declared: ``We must never be bystanders to injustice or 
indifferent to suffering.'' That was Wiesel's teaching, exactly. The 
problem with the sentence is that it was issued by the White House and 
attributed to President Obama. And so the sentence was not at all 
sterling. It was outrageously hypocritical.
  How dare Obama, and members of his administration, speak this way? 
After five years and more in which the United States' inaction in Syria 
has transformed our country into nothing other than a bystander to the 
greatest atrocity of our time, they have forfeited the right to this 
language. Their angry and anguished utterances are merely the 
manipulation of the rhetoric of conscience on behalf of a policy 
without a trace of conscience. You cannot be cold-hearted and high-
minded at the same time. Historians will record--they will not have to 
dig deeply or interpret wildly to conclude--that all through the 
excruciations of Aleppo, and more generally of Syria, the

[[Page H386]]

United States watched. As we watched, we made excuses, and occasionally 
we ornamented our excuses with eloquence. The president is enamored of 
his eloquence. But eloquence is precisely what the wrenching 
circumstances do not require of him. In circumstances of moral (and 
strategic) emergency, his responsibility is not to move us. It is to 
pick up the phone. ``Elie did more than just bear witness,'' Obama said 
in his eulogy, ``he acted.'' And he added: ``Just imagine the peace and 
justice that would be possible in our world if more people lived a 
little more like Elie Wiesel.'' Just imagine.
  If Obama wants credit for not getting us into another war, the credit 
is his. If he wants credit for not being guilty of ``overreach,'' the 
credit is his. If he wants credit for conceiving of every obstacle and 
impediment to American action in every corner of the globe, the credit 
is his. But it is a shameful and incontrovertible fact of our history 
that during the past eight years the values of rescue, assistance, 
protection, humanitarianism and democracy have been demoted in our 
foreign policy and in many instances banished altogether. The ruins of 
the finest traditions of American internationalism, of American 
leadership in a darkening world, may be found in the ruins of Aleppo. 
Our ostentatious passivity is a primary cause of that darkening. When 
they go low, we go home. The Obama legacy in foreign policy is vacuum-
creation, which his addled America-First successor will happily ratify. 
Aleppo was not destroyed by the Syrian army. It was destroyed by a 
savage coalition led and protected by Russia. While they massacred 
innocent men, women and children, we anxiously pondered scenarios of 
``deconfliction.''
  We need to be unforgivingly clear. The obligation to act against evil 
in Aleppo was no different from the obligation to act against the evil 
in Sarajevo and Srebrenica. (Has anyone ever heard Mr. Obama mention 
Bosnia?) It was no different from the obligation to act against the 
evil in Rwanda. It was no different from the obligation to act against 
the evil in Auschwitz. And we scorned the obligation. We learned 
nothing. We forgot everything. We failed. We did not even try.
  No, that is not quite right. It would be incorrect to analyze our 
delinquency in Syria in the dichotomously simple terms of action and 
inaction. The administration creatively pioneered a third option, which 
it pursued not only in Syria but also in Ukraine and elsewhere: Between 
action and inaction, it chose inconsequential action. There is the 
Obama doctrine! We backed moderate Syrian rebels, but not as seriously 
or as generously as the immoderate Syrian rebels were backed. We sent 
in small numbers of special operators. The CIA ran a few programs. We 
acted, in sum, only in ways certain not to affect the outcome. We were 
strategically feckless. I suspect that the president believes that the 
United States has no moral right to affect an outcome in another 
country. I suspect that he regards such decisive action as imperialism, 
or at least as Iraq-like. What this means in practice is that we will 
not help people who deserve our help. In the spirit of respecting other 
societies, we will idly gaze at their destruction. How would 
disrespecting them be worse?
  As a direct or indirect consequence of our refusal to respond 
forcefully to the Syrian crisis, we have beheld secular tyranny, 
religious tyranny, genocide, chemical warfare, barrel bombs and cluster 
bombs, the torture and murder of children, the displacement of 11 
million people, the destabilization of Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, the 
ascendancy of Iran in the region, the emergence of Russia as a global 
power, the diminishment of the American position in the world, the 
refugee crisis in Europe, the resurgence of fascism in Europe and a 
significant new threat to the security of the United States. It is 
amazing how much doing nothing can do, especially when it is we who do 
nothing.
  Not long after he mourned Wiesel, the president engaged in another 
one of his exercises in empathy without consequence. At the U.N. Summit 
for Refugees and Migrants, he spoke of Alan Kurdi, the Syrian boy who 
washed up dead on a beach in Turkey. ``That little boy on the beach 
could be our son or our grandson,'' the president moistly said. ``We 
cannot avert our eyes or turn our backs.'' And then we proceeded to 
avert our eyes and turn our backs. The people who had the power to 
prevent, stop or even mitigate this catastrophe should now bow their 
heads and fall silent and reflect on how it is that they brought us so 
low. Aleppo is no more, and we are weakened and disgraced.
  Mr. Speaker, it is ironic and tragic that the fall of Aleppo comes as 
Barack Obama is to leave office. Because it is one of the clearest 
demonstrations of how his cowardly foreign and domestic policies have 
consistently left tens of thousands of innocent helpless victims dead 
in his wake.
  When Islamic terrorists bombed Brussels, killing and injuring 
hundreds of people, including Americans, President Obama was eating 
cracker jacks at a baseball game rubbing elbows with a communist 
dictator.
  When the Benghazi tragedy occurred in the middle of a presidential 
election, and three Americans and our ambassador were murdered by 
terrorists the Obama Administration's spin-masters told us it was 
because of a YouTube video. It was a dark and deliberate lie to the 
American people in front of flag-draped coffins and was an egregious 
example of the Obama Administration's astonishing lack of 
accountability and transparency.
  At a time when noble Americans were fighting and dying in the sands 
of Iraq to secure a lasting peace and bring stability to the region, 
Senator Obama vigorously opposed the Surge in Iraq and said [quote] ``I 
am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to 
solve the sectarian violence there, in fact I think it will do the 
reverse . . . I am going to actively oppose the president's proposal.'' 
[end quote]. In spite of the opposition to the Surge from Senator 
Obama, Senator Reid, and many other partisan Democrats notwithstanding, 
General Petraeus and our unbelievably courageous men and women in 
uniform were able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat--decimating 
Al-Qaeda in Iraq, halting sectarian violence, and achieving a 
sustainable peace. As thanks for this historic military feat, the Left 
in America called him ``General Betray Us,'' and Senator Hillary 
Clinton said his reports to the Senate by General Petraeus required the 
``willing suspension of disbelief.''
  This was a despicable display of hyper-partisanship on the part of 
Mr. Obama and the Democrats who refused to accept American victory in 
Iraq. But then of course, the Obama Administration would go on to claim 
the peace in Iraq as one of their foreign policy achievements.
  Then in spite of the prescient advice President Bush gave on July 12, 
2007 and the warnings of countless generals, Obama ignored his 
commanders and precipitously withdrew our troops from Iraq. Even as we 
withdrew our troops, Vice President Biden said of Iraq [quote] ``I 
think it's going to be one of the great achievements of this 
Administration. You're going to see 90,000 troops come marching home by 
the end of the summer, you're going to see a stable government in Iraq 
that is moving towards a representative government . . . '' [end quote]
   is precisely because of President Obama's petulant decision to keep 
his politically motivated campaign promise to remove all our troops 
from Iraq that the Islamic State was able to form, spread across the 
region, and bring about a brutal reign of evil the likes of which the 
world has not seen since the Mongols rampaged across Asia.
  Right after the Islamic state entered Iraq, many of us in Congress 
wrote a letter to Mr. Obama beseeching him to understand the danger of 
this terrorist organization and imploring him to respond while there 
was time. Astoundingly, Mr. Obama labeled the Islamic state a junior 
varsity team and his administration stood by with the collective golf 
club in their hand while ISIS raped and murdered and beheaded its way 
across Iraq, selling six-year-old girls into slavery and burning people 
alive. The Islamic State now keeps an estimated 3,000 young girls and 
women in sexual slavery, and they are being beaten and raped day after 
day. It is mind-numbingly horrific to know what these innocent girls 
are going through every day while Mr. Obama runs out the clock on his 
term of office and hands the fight against ISIS off to the next 
president. Under Mr. Obama's administration the murder of innocent 
people by terrorists increased almost tenfold. Then when President 
Obama drew his famous red line in Syria, Bashir Assad had been paying 
attention and he knew he could simply ignore this red line in the sand 
for what it was. And he proceeded to do just that and he remains in 
power to this day slaughtering the moderate rebels and the Kurds 
fighting ISIS.
  In response to the onslaught of ISIS, President Obama launched one of 
the most anemic and pathetic air campaigns in modern history and ISIS 
grew to somewhere around 40,000 fighters under President Obama's watch. 
He enabled ISIS to grow and metastasize, attract and radicalize 
countless young men from the West who will attempt to return home and 
unleash their virulent brand of Islam upon innocent Europeans and 
Americans as we have so tragically seen in France, Brussels, and even 
in the United States. During the so-called Arab Spring the Obama 
administration sided with the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt.
  Barack Obama mocked Mitt Romney during their second presidential 
debate, saying ``The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign 
policy back.'' Mr. Speaker--would to God that we could get the foreign 
policy from the 1980s back! For eight years Barack Obama ignored the 
fact that Vladimir Putin is a KGB killer intent on restoring Russia to 
its Soviet-era in prayer for error. And it has been an absolute 
national embarrassment to watch this Russian thug unceremoniously mop 
the floor and the map of the world with the President of the United 
States.

[[Page H387]]

  In his first year of office, and on the very day of the 70th 
anniversary of Soviet Invasion Day in Poland, President Obama betrayed 
our European allies. The Czechs and the Poles had risked the survival 
of their governments by agreeing to implement a missile-shield in their 
countries that could have significantly devalued Iran's entire nuclear 
missile pursuits and even one day may have protected America from the 
Iranian nuclear missiles. But to placate a revanchist Russia Barack 
Obama blatantly betrayed both the Czechs and the Poles and unilaterally 
withdrew from the plan.
  Under Barack Obama, U.S. agreements with our understandably nervous 
friends in Eastern Europe were not worth the paper they were printed 
on. Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons with the written assurance from 
Russia and the United States of America that its national sovereignty 
would be protected. Then, in response to the unconscionable Russian 
invasion of Ukraine and seizure of the Crimean Peninsula, the Obama 
Administration would not even provide lethal armaments to the 
Ukrainians. Instead he offered MREs. Then Mr. Obama evidently did not 
deem that humiliation complete until he had turned to the Russians to 
assist with Syria. The complete and total lack of leadership from the 
Obama White House once again came full circle.
  Ben Rhoades made an attempt to analyze the mindset of Barack Obama. 
He said, [quote] ``He is smarter than everyone and more than willing to 
actively lie and obfuscate to the American people and media to effect 
his desired outcomes, despite, or in spite of, the will of the American 
people, the law, and even common sense.''


                            our ally israel

  Barack Obama pledged [quote] ``unshakeable commitment'' [unquote] to 
Israel's security. Mr. Obama stood before a group of thousands of 
supporters of Israel and proclaimed that ``when the chips are down, I 
have Israel's back.''
  But then as President, he blatantly refused even to acknowledge 
Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Then Mr. Obama consistently expressed 
more open rebuke toward Israel for building houses in its capital city 
than he expressed for Iran's efforts to build nuclear weapons with 
which to existentially threaten the state of Israel along with the 
peace and security of the entire human family.
  Mr. Obama all but ignored Iran's call for Israel to be wiped off the 
map. He supported the unification of Fatah and Hamas. He pressured 
Israel to release over 100 murderers, rapists, and terrorists. He 
suggested that Israel return to 1967 border lines which would have made 
national security for the tiny nation of Israel almost impossible.
  Benjamin Netanyahu came to Congress and said ``obviously we are going 
to have to continue to prepare to defend ourselves by ourselves.''
  On December 23, 2016, two days before Christmas and one day before 
the start of Hanukkah, in the waning days of his administration, in the 
safety of a lame-duck presidency, President Obama and Secretary Kerry 
broke with over 20 years of bipartisan precedent and betrayed America's 
best friend in the world when he orchestrated and then refused to veto 
a United Nations Security Council resolution that undermined Israel's 
very right to exist.
  Under the manifestation of this resolution, Jewish citizens of Israel 
could not legally step foot into the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem (where 
they have resided for thousands of years) and they could not even stand 
in front of the Western Wall, the holiest site of Judaism. In accepting 
the factually and morally incorrect label of ``occupied'' proclaimed in 
this resolution, President Obama and Secretary Kerry have reinforced 
the position of the plethora of anti-Semites at the U.N.
  This anti-Semitic resolution fueled and lent legitimacy to the 
ongoing murderous hatred of Jews, which manifested itself once again 
two weeks later when an ISIS-inspired murderer rammed his truck into a 
group of 16 Jews who Obama helped label ``occupiers'' by his 
abstention.
  In an all-too-familiar scene, thousands of people poured into the 
streets in Gaza to celebrate the murder of Jews. Amidst the 
celebrations, candy was passed out and Fathi Hamad, the leader of the 
Hamas, issued the following statement: ``The message of our Islamic 
party Hamas is a message of encouragement and support for every jihadi 
who carries out an attack that puts an end to the acts of the Zionist 
enemy.''
  Despite lending credence to the casus belli of the ISIS-inspired 
attack, the President has yet to comment on this despicable act of 
terrorism.
  When the Security Council Quartet meets on January 15 and the full 
UNSC meets on January 17, I am gravely concerned that Barack Obama will 
overturn U.S. precedent going back to Lyndon Johnson and use the 
opportunity to stab Israel in the back one final time by allowing the 
anti-Semites at the UN to redraw the map to Israel's indefensible pre-
1967 borders--leaving the world's only Jewish state less than 9 miles 
wide.
  Up until Barack Obama became President, America protected the State 
of Israel against the anti-Semitic mob we call the United Nations. The 
only thing United about the United Nations has been their consistent 
opposition to America and the state of Israel.
  Let me be very clear, Mr. Speaker. Orchestrating and then failing to 
veto this resolution that undermined Israel's right to exist was a 
cowardly act of political treachery by Barack Obama that has disgraced 
the United States of America and it will send Barack Obama's name down 
the corridor of history as an overt traitor to Nation of Israel.
  It is an absolute disgrace that this President has been willing to 
sacrifice the security and stability of this vital ally and our 
greatest friend in the world, upon the altar of perceived international 
civility. It is a betrayal that history will never forget.


                            Innocent Victims

  Perhaps the singularly saddest tragedy the Barack Obama leaves behind 
are all of the innocent victims that needed his help so desperately and 
for whom now that help is forever too late. Mr. Obama's Administration 
consistently and unconscionably implemented policies across the board 
that negatively impacted the most vulnerable in human society.
  The Obama administration loosened restrictions on regimes using child 
soldiers. The Obama administration officials repeatedly ignored Chinese 
human rights abuses during trips to China.
  FBI statistics indicate that hate crimes against the Jewish 
population are up, but Mr. Obama was silent about that. There was and 
is genocide against Christians taking place in the Middle East, but he 
was also silent about that.
  He stood by and let ISIS, Boko Haram, Russia, Syria and Planned 
Parenthood brutally desecrate the innocent.


                                Abortion

  Only three days after he took office, on January 23, 2009, President 
Obama overturned America's long-standing policy, which prohibited 
taxpayer dollars from being used to fund the killing of unborn children 
by abortion overseas. In a time of economic crisis, President Obama 
proceeded to give millions of U.S. Taxpayer dollars to abortion 
providers in foreign countries.
  Pastor Rick Warren asked candidate Obama, ``Forty million abortions, 
at what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?'' Mr. Obama's 
response was, ``Well, you know, I think that whether you're looking at 
it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, 
answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay 
grade.''
  President Barack Obama had one of the greatest opportunities ever 
afforded to any president to take his place among history's most 
respected heads of state by defending the rights of the defenseless 
which is the ultimate measure of every true statesman.
  Not only did he fail that opportunity, lie went to great effort to 
proactively promote the indiscriminate killing of the most defenseless 
of all human beings. Barack Obama worked diligently to expand abortion 
on demand in America and throughout the earth. He relentlessly worked 
against taxpayer's wishes to give billions of taxpayer dollars to 
Planned Parenthood, the largest promoter and perpetrator of abortion on 
demand on Earth.
  Throughout his presidency, Mr. Obama surrounded himself with some of 
the most radical pro-abortion officials in public office, including 
Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, who supports 
Partial Birth Abortions, and White House Science Advisor John Holdren, 
who has written openly about his support of radical policies like 
forced abortions and forced sterilization.
  In August 2010, authorities entered the clinic of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 
and found a torture chamber for little babies that defies description 
within the constraints of the English-language.
  According to the Grand Jury report: quote ``Dr. Kermit Gosnell had a 
simple solution for unwanted babies: he killed them. He didn't call it 
that. He called it `ensuring fetal demise.' The way he ensured fetal 
demise was by sticking scissors in the back of the baby's neck and 
cutting the spinal cord. He called it `snipping.' Over the years there 
were hundreds of `snippings'.
  Mr. Speaker, these were born alive children murdered by having their 
spines snipped with scissors without anesthetic.
  Ashley Baldwin, one of Dr. Gosnell's employees, said she saw babies 
breathing and she described one as two feet long that no longer had 
eyes or a mouth, but, in her words, was like making this ``screeching'' 
noise . . . and it ``sounded like a little alien.''
  For God's sake Mr. Speaker, is that who we truly are?
  As President of the United States of America at the time, Barack 
Obama did not utter one syllable against these gut wrenching atrocities 
of Kermit Gosnell or Planned Parenthood. He lectured this country on 
almost everything and yet he was shamefully silent in

[[Page H388]]

the face of this insidious and horrifying genocide against these 
helpless little born alive human children.
  When he was in the state legislature, Mr. Obama actually voted no 
four times on a bill that would have protected crying, kicking, 
breathing babies after they were born alive.
  Mr. Obama, also consistently supported the policy that allowed more 
than 18,000 late-term, pain capable unborn babies were torturously 
killed without anesthesia in America in just the last year. Many of 
them cried and screamed as they died, but because it was amniotic fluid 
going over their vocal cords instead of air, we couldn't hear them.
  In his position, President Barack Obama could have easily and 
successfully enacted policies that would have saved the vast majority 
of the little babies like the ones Dr. Kermit Gosnell killed, yet all 
of his adult life he has actively and vigorously supported policies 
that not only allowed but were the direct result of them being killed.
  In 2015, the Center for Medical Progress released numerous video 
recordings that incontrovertibly documented corporate officers and 
employees of Planned Parenthood casually discussing the harvesting and 
sale of the little body parts of countless little babies among the 
hundreds of thousands of innocent babies they are killing in many of 
the hundreds of existing abortion clinics owned by Planned ParenthoOd 
across this nation. It was a revelation so ugly and evil that it still 
casts an indelible stain of shame on all of us as Americans. Yet, 
Barack Obama arrogantly and heartlessly did all that was necessary to 
force American taxpayers to continue to fund this organization of human 
butchery called Planned Parenthood.
  In the U.S. Senate, Mr. Obama voted no on a bill that would have 
prohibited someone from taking a minor child out of state for an 
abortion without at least notifying the child's parents. He voted no on 
a bill that would have allowed unborn babies in low income households 
to be included for health insurance coverage.
  As President he appointed an Empire of radically pro-abortion judges 
and government bureaucrats. He vowed to veto The Prenatal 
Nondiscrimination Act which would prohibit discriminating against an 
unborn baby girl by subjecting her to abortion simply because she is a 
little girl instead of a little boy.
  He promised to veto the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act 
after its historic passage in the United States House of 
Representatives. This is a bill that would protect both mothers and 
their little pain capable unborn babies between the beginning of their 
sixth month of pregnancy and live birth from the unspeakable cruelty of 
Planned Parenthood and evil monsters like Kermit Gosnell.
  The House of Representatives later passed The Born Alive Abortion 
Survivors Protection Act. This was a humane and reasonable bill that in 
the name of humanity would simply protect those babies who had survived 
the process of abortion and were born alive. born alive, Mr. Speaker. 
Yet astonishingly, Barack Obama, the President of the United States and 
the leader of the free world wrote a letter to Congress and said he 
would veto this bill to protect these born alive babies if it ever 
reached his desk. I can only say Mr. Speaker, that there is a moment in 
the life of every policymaker when he or she makes a decision either to 
protect the innocent or to embrace the Cimmerian darkness where the 
light of human compassion has gone out and the survival of the fittest 
has prevailed over humanity. President Barack Obama failed that moment.
  President Barack Obama's record is crystal clear. For his entire his 
political life, Mr. Obama has strongly supported the full legalization 
of abortion on demand throughout all nine months of pregnancy for any 
reason or no reason whatsoever including sex selection throughout all 
nine months of pregnancy and he supported forcing American taxpayers to 
pay for it whether the taxpayers liked it or not. Under President 
Barack Obama, nearly 9 million innocent, defenseless little American 
babies were aborted before they saw the first smile of their mother.
  So ironically, Mr. Speaker, President Obama once spoke very noble and 
poignant words that, whether he realized it or not, apply so profoundly 
to this subject. Mr. Speaker, let me quote excerpted portions of his 
comments:
  Mr. Obama once said, ``This is our first task--caring for our 
children. It's our first job. If we don't get that right, we don't get 
anything right. That's how, as a society, we will be judged.''
  He asked, ``Are we really prepared to say that we're powerless in the 
face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard? Are we prepared 
to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after 
year is somehow the price of our freedom?''
  He also said ``Our journey is not complete until all our children . . 
.'' are ``cared for and cherished and always safe from harm.''
  ``That is our generation's task'' he said, ``to make these words, 
these rights, these values of life and liberty and the pursuit of 
happiness real for every American.''
  Mr. Speaker, never have I so deeply agreed with any words ever spoken 
by President Obama as those I have just quoted. How I wish he could 
somehow open his heart and his ears to his own words, and ask himself 
in the core of his own soul, why these words that should apply to ALL 
children, cannot include the most helpless and vulnerable of all 
children?
  Are there any children more vulnerable than little pain capable 
babies are before they are even born? Could we not at least agree we 
should all come together protect them when they are between the 
beginning of the sixth month of pregnancy and birth when we know that 
the thousands upon thousands of babies Planned Parenthood kills at this 
age feel agonizing pain in the process of being murdered? Could we not 
agree that little human babies who survive abortion and are born alive 
should be protected? Could the President not have agreed to that much, 
Mr. Speaker?
  Ironically, Barack Obama was in the unique position, perhaps among 
all other presidents in history, to bring this country together to 
protect these helpless little babies. Yet as the most powerful human 
being in the world, Mr. Obama chose to become the most powerful enemy 
of the most helpless human beings in the world. Nothing will stain his 
legacy or his claims of looking out for the little guy with more shame 
than going down in history as the ``Abortion President''.
  Mr. Speaker, I know Mr. Obama will hold to the standard line and 
cloak it all in the name of freedom of choice as he is done throughout 
his political life, but I wish he could just ask himself, what is so 
liberating about dismembering living, helpless little human babies?
  Mr. Speaker, I once prayed and hoped that Barack Obama would take a 
different road than he did when it came to protecting innocent 
humanity. Just before he first took office eight years ago, I wrote the 
President of the United States an open letter on this very issue of 
protecting the innocent unborn child that was published in Human Events 
Magazine the very day he raised his hand to take the oath of office, 
swearing before God that he would preserve and protect the Constitution 
of the United States. Several days later in the White House I 
personally handed Mr. Obama that original letter which he promised to 
read.
  In that letter I wished him well, hoping that he would use his unique 
and historic opportunity to bring together Americans in their common 
humanity to a moment of renewed commitment to recognize and protect 
every member of the human family including the innocent unborn child.
  The letter is as follows:
  Dear President Barack Obama,
  History and the human family find themselves at a crossroads as you 
take the oath of office to become the 44th President of the United 
States. I am told you are the first to request to be sworn in with your 
hand on the same Bible used by Abraham Lincoln when he took the same 
oath.
  In the days, years, and generations to come, many voices will speak 
to the profound symbolism of this gesture on your part. History will 
also record whether or not you honored those noble principles held in 
the heart of Abraham Lincoln; that all of God's children have the right 
to live, and be free, and to pursue their dreams.
  This is one Republican with the sincerest prayer that history will 
confirm that you did.
  May I submit that the surest hope of such a confirmation is for you 
and the Nation to remember why we built that grand white granite 
memorial along the Potomac to Mr. Lincoln, and why we revere him so 
deeply.
  We honor Abraham Lincoln most because he found within himself the 
humanity and courage to transcend the politics and convention of his 
day, to recognize the child of God in a slave, which both the tide of 
public opinion and the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision had declared 
to be a nonperson, and unprotectable by law.
  History found Abraham Lincoln a faithful steward of the hope, human 
dignity, and deliverance of those who bore the image of God in the 
shame of slavery; and now it waits to witness President Barack Obama's 
stewardship of the hope, human dignity, and deliverance of those who 
bear the image of God in unborn silence.
  Yes, it is true, Mr. President, that no issue since slavery has 
divided Democrats and Republicans so deeply as abortion. Yet, the two 
issues are so profoundly similar. In both cases, the innocent victims 
were arbitrarily dehumanized in the name of freedom. And yes, it will 
be easy for you to listen to the voices of those who still today, in 
the name of freedom, would deprive the innocent of both life and 
liberty. Certainly, their familiar phrases prevailed for a time in the 
days of slavery.
  However, is it possible that in hindsight, and with the weight of 
history on your shoulders, that you might find the courage to reject 
this insidious deception that has crushed so many

[[Page H389]]

lives across history, and that relentlessly pursues this nation still?
  Mr. Lincoln did. He said, ``Those who deny freedom to others deserve 
it not themselves, and under a just God, cannot long retain it.'' That 
is why we love him, and built our memorial to him.
  So, as you lay your hand upon his Bible, Mr. President, may I adjure 
you to listen, in the stillness of your own heart, to the faint cries 
for mercy from those little souls who now look to you for hope; and to 
the words printed in red on the pages beneath your hand which will be 
declared again in eternity's final day;
  ``Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my 
brethren, you have done it unto me.''
  Mr. Speaker, I truly and sincerely wished God's best for Barack Obama 
when he took office, just as I do now. And it gives me no pleasure to 
lay out what I believe to be the profound failures of Mr. Obama's 
presidency. However, in a Republic like ours where the people are the 
final arbiters of our public policy, and where those who would subvert 
this Republic consistently resort to deception and historical 
revisionism, an accurate record is vital to our nation's survival and 
its future generations.
  So, alas Mr. Speaker, I am afraid President Obama tragically wasted 
his precious and historic opportunity. However, this is the true record 
of President Barack Obama, and to paraphrase William Wilberforce, ``We 
may choose to look the other way but we can never say again that we did 
not know.''
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from 
engaging in personalities toward the President.

                          ____________________