[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 15]
[House]
[Pages 19792-19797]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            THE TREMENDOUS CHALLENGES THAT FACE OUR COUNTRY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Miss McMorris). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. 
McKinney) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.
  Ms. McKINNEY. Madam Speaker, I have got a lot of papers and a lot of 
posters. One hour will in no way accommodate all that needs to be said 
tonight about the tremendous challenges that face our country today, 
including how we conduct ourselves in the aftermath of Hurricane 
Katrina.
  While my remarks tonight in no way should be construed as 
encompassing all of my thoughts on the very important issues that I 
discuss tonight, just mark this down as a start.
  First, let me say that I am especially proud of the way the people of 
my district and of this country have wrapped

[[Page 19793]]

their arms around the victims of Hurricane Katrina. At this time, we 
have a healthy contingent of expert Georgians in the traumatized gulf 
States, and we have received thousands of Katrina's victims into our 
cities, churches, and homes.
  I have come to this floor on many occasions. People around the world 
have commented on how shocked they are to see such poverty in America. 
While cities and localities pass anti-panhandling measures that 
criminalize begging tourists and visitors in downtown areas asking for 
help, Hurricane Katrina washed away America's veneer of populist 
opportunity, a country that has overcome its racist, slave-holding 
past, a country ready for world dominion because it has learned how to 
uplift the human spirit at home.
  Katrina, in images as stark and undeniable as could be, has laid bare 
the Republican lie that its policies promote growth and prosperity for 
all Americans and leave no child behind, while Katrina put into our 
living rooms and the world's living rooms the cruel hoax that has been 
played on America and those who love America by the ruthless sybaritic 
power player elites who are as responsible for the conditions endured 
by too many Americans as they are for the embarrassing and breathtaking 
incompetencies we all witnessed just before Labor Day.
  Almost 30,000 New Orleans households live on less than $10,000 per 
year. More babies and young kids are going hungry in our country. 
Eleven percent of our families experienced hunger in 2003. One million 
more Americans are living in poverty today than there were 1 year ago. 
Income distribution has become obscenely skewed toward the rich during 
the Bush years. In Manhattan, the poor make two cents for each dollar 
that the rich make. This places Manhattan on par with Namibia for 
income disparity.
  Interestingly, in the financial capital of the world, New York City, 
the Bronx is the poorest urban county in the country, and New York 
State is being depleted of its middle class.
  America is being depleted of its middle class. Over 50 percent of 
America's income goes to the top 20 percent of households. With even 
more tax cuts for the wealthy on the horizon, coupled with real budget 
cuts for the programs that are forced to take care of more and more 
Americans, the situation can only be expected to get worse, sadly.
  Incomes for 95 percent of American households are flat or falling. 
Only the top 5 percent are experiencing the growth that we hear the 
Republicans talk about.
  Now, I have got tons of documentation to offer for all of the 
statistics that we cite, but let me take a moment and reiterate where 
we are for all the people who are listening tonight.

                              {time}  1815

  Let me recall for just a moment the America they might not know but 
that more of us are coming all too well to know.
  I will start with this poster, which depicts a black man hanging from 
a tree. The caption says ``The body of Robert McNair is seen here as 
residents and schoolchildren in the Georgetown community saw it between 
about 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. last Thursday.'' This was on the front page of 
the Jackson, Mississippi, Advocate the week of October 23 to 29 when I 
was in Mississippi for a speaking engagement. This was what I saw.
  Sadly, it is what the children in the neighborhood saw, a black man 
hanging from a tree. A lynching. That is 2003. I am not talking about 
1903. This is 2003. Sadly, in 2005, we have two lynchings being 
investigated in the State of Georgia, my home State, and both of them 
are supposed to have been suicides. In this story it was reported that 
this poor Mr. Robert McNair committed suicide, hanging from a tree.
  When I come to the floor and do these monthly talks, some way or 
other we get around to the state of black America because it is 
important for us to understand that there are many Americans, and some 
of those Americans we do not see and we do not know. But we need to 
know how all Americans live so that we can make sure that no American 
is left behind.
  On some indices, even today, it is true that the racial disparities 
are worse today than they were at the time of the murder of Dr. Martin 
Luther King, Jr. People would say it is not true, but, alas, it is 
true. And, of course, the statistics document that sad truth. United 
for a Fair Economy gives us these statistics in its State of the Dream 
report on imprisonment. To close the racial gap, it will take 190 years 
just so that black people are imprisoned for the same crime at the same 
rate as white people are imprisoned.
  What about poverty? We saw a lot of that. Overall poverty, the racial 
disparity, 150 years to close the gap. Why does that have to be? At the 
slow rate that the black-white poverty gap has been narrowing since 
1968, it would take 150 years to close the gap.
  What about child poverty? Two hundred ten years to close the gap. 
Almost one-third of black children live in poverty. The child poverty 
gap would take 210 years to disappear, not reaching parity until 2212.
  I would like to thank the National Council for La Raza that provided 
us with these statistics, the proportion of children without health 
insurance in the United States, home ownership rates. Look and you can 
see the proportion of children without health insurance in the United 
States. Look at the Hispanic figures. Look at that. Twenty-five percent 
of young Latino children do not have health insurance in this country.
  What about home ownership rates, because we hear a lot of talk about 
the growth economy, and the Republicans and the President talk about 
promoting home ownership, home ownership, the first tier toward 
building wealth, okay? Well, if you are lucky enough to be able to own 
a home, sadly black and Hispanic home ownership rates are low. How low? 
To close the home ownership gap, the disparity between white home 
ownership and black home ownership, the first tier toward wealth 
building, it will take 1,664 years to close the home ownership gap.
  This is something that so many Americans take for granted. Yet so 
many Americans still have a dream for home ownership.
  Now, what about income? It will take 581 years for us to close the 
per capita income gap. Since 1968, we have only been able to close the 
gap 2 cents. Black people make 55 cents for every dollar. That was in 
1968. In 2001, it was 57 cents. Two cents, so 581 years to close the 
gap.
  When some people start talking about how we want to build, rebuild, 
and provide for folks, that is what this Congress is supposed to do. We 
should build lives, we should build communities, build neighborhoods, 
and protect our people.
  When it comes to the economic conditions that are prevailing for so 
many Americans, it is almost a joke. Here is a cartoon from the 
Washington Post. This is the sybaritic power player who is pulling the 
strings behind the scene, calling the shots, dictating politics and 
policy; and he is saying, ``It is not trickle down economics. We got 
the plumbing fixed.'' Here is the poor little fella down here, little 
panhandler trying to wait to get some of the stuff that is trickling 
down, and it is not trickling down any more.
  Poverty is up. Median income down. That is the result of the policies 
of the Bush administration since 2001.
  What about all these tax cuts? New Orleans has got a lot of attention 
now because of what has happened, and we hear and we will hear some of 
our colleagues on the other side of the aisle suggesting that we need 
to do more tax cuts. Well, the faces of the people that came into our 
living rooms from Hurricane Katrina got this much from George Bush's 
tax cuts. But if you happened to make over $200,000 a year, you got 
this much from George Bush's tax cuts.
  It is so clear that the administration wants to serve some of the 
people all of the time and fool the rest of us all of the time. The tax 
cuts, we should not hear another word uttered about the need for more 
of the kind of tax cuts that the Bush administration has given

[[Page 19794]]

us thus far. This insensitive policymaking that ends up hurting real 
people leads to a kind of callousness within our society that we do not 
recognize sometimes, that we do not notice sometimes.
  It is easy to pass an anti-panhandling ordinance in the city of 
Atlanta because we do not feel the pain of the people who do not eat at 
night. So it is also easy to demonize people. It is easy to demonize 
people that you do not know.
  This made it around the Internet until Agence France-Presse pulled 
their photo off. But how is it that we can have a media in this country 
displaying one young man wading through that putrid water and the 
American press, the Associated Press, says that he is ``looting.'' Then 
you have two people who are obviously not black and they are 
``finding.'' This young man, according to the Associated Press, walks 
through chest-deep floodwater after ``looting'' a grocery store. Two 
residents wade through chest-deep water after ``finding'' bread and 
soda.
  This is the America of those statistics. This is the America that all 
Americans need to know and see. This is the America that too many of us 
have borne the brunt of generation after generation after generation 
after generation.
  And then, they called them ``refugees.'' Some bright light in the 
media came up with that one to further dehumanize poor black people in 
New Orleans. I had some New Orleans residents in my congressional 
office in Georgia who said that they had never, ever thought that they 
would be called refugees in their own country. Other insensitive 
language just shows how totally out of touch the leadership of this 
country is with the American people.

                              {time}  1830

  While the city was still flooding, Speaker Hastert suggested that New 
Orleans should not be rebuilt.
  As the mostly black people were herded into what looked like 
concentration camps, Barbara Bush suggested that they were really 
better off now than they were before. Well, maybe she has got something 
there, because it took losing an entire city for the ``compassionate 
conservatives'' in Washington, D.C., to finally get some compassion in 
the laws they pass, in the policies they enact, in what they do around 
here.
  And you can imagine my surprise to hear the very people who chose not 
to adequately fund education, health care, affordable housing, now 
saying we have got to have Pell grants, Section 8 vouchers, schooling 
for children. It is what some of us have been saying all along.
  Now, you can just about bet your bottom dollar that the Karl Rove 
spin machine is working overtime to whitewash the Bush administration 
preparations for the response to Katrina. Let us remember as we go 
through this that the State and local responders were victims too. That 
is why it is critical that the feds act. But they did not act, 
notwithstanding anything that comes out of the spin machine.
  Kathleen Blanco, the governor of Louisiana said, ``We wanted 
soldiers, helicopters, food and water. They wanted to negotiate an 
organizational chart.'' This is from the New York Times. ``Far from 
deferring to State or local officials, FEMA asserted its authority and 
made things worse,'' according to Mr. Broussard, and I will talk about 
him a little bit later, who complained on Meet the Press.
  Mayor Nagin said, ``The root of the breakdown was the failure of the 
Federal Government to deliver relief supplies and personnel quickly. 
They kept promising and saying things would happen. I was getting 
excited and telling people that. They kept making promises and 
promises.''
  MSNBC informs us that FEMA Director Michael Brown waited 5 hours 
after the storm's landfall to get agency assistance, to get agency aid 
from the Department of Homeland Security.
  Now, another thing that we need to know about, there are so many 
things that our government does in our name with our tax dollars, on 
our behalf supposedly, that we do not know about. The Bush 
administration has opened up these biodefense labs all over the 
country. In about 20, 25 universities around the country we have got 
biodefense labs studying I do not know what.
  I can remember the Tuskegee Study. I remember MK-Ultra as an African 
American. I remember Paul Robeson. But Tulane University is under 
water, and Tulane University houses one of these biodefense labs. We 
need to know what the heck was in that lab, what was going on in that 
biodefense lab.
  Some of the headlines. Notwithstanding what you may hear from the 
other side of the aisle or coming out of the White House about how 
everyone has to share the blame, these are some of the headlines.
  ``FEMA won't accept Amtrak's help in evacuations.''
  ``FEMA turns away experienced firefighters.''
  ``FEMA turns back Wal-Mart supply trucks.''
  ``FEMA prevents Coast Guard from delivering diesel fuel.''
  ``Homeland Security won't let Red Cross deliver food.''
  ``FEMA bars morticians from entering New Orleans.''
  ``FEMA blocks 500-boat citizen flotilla from delivering aid.''
  ``FEMA fails to utilize Navy ship with 600-bed hospital on board.''
  ``FEMA to Chicago: Send just one truck.''
  ``FEMA turns away generators.''
  ``FEMA first responders urged not to respond.''
  Those are just a few of the headlines. I have got all of the 
documentation, of course.
  There is also a story about three U.S. Customs Blackhawk helicopter 
crews that are absolutely livid because they had been directed not to 
provide full-time support for the hurricane relief effort in the Gulf.
  ``Navy ship nearby underused.'' This is from the Chicago Tribune. A 
craft with food, water, doctors. All it needed was the orders. It never 
got the orders.
  ``Federal agency slow to accept business help.'' This is from the 
Financial Times, ``Federal agency slow to accept business help. From 
Wal-Mart's satellite-based communications system to FedEx's aircraft, 
U.S. business has in some cases managed to provide a swifter response 
to the initial impacts of Hurricane Katrina than the Federal and State 
authorities.''
  This is from the Salt Lake City Tribune: ``Frustrated fire crews to 
hand out fliers for FEMA. Many of the firefighters assembled from Utah 
and throughout the United States by FEMA thought they were going to be 
deployed as emergency workers. Instead, they have learned they are 
going to be community relations officers for FEMA, shuffling throughout 
the gulf coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number, 1-800-
621-FEMA,'' which does not work most of the time.
  Now, I know that American children can do better in geography, but 
you would think that at least our emergency management people would get 
their geography right. CNN.com says, Well, they were supposed to go to 
Charleston. My colleague from Charleston, we were in a meeting on 
Tuesday night, and he said they had the shelter all set up with 
supplies, cots, blankets and everything, and nobody came. Now we find 
out that this is why they did not come. They were supposed to be in 
Charleston, South Carolina. Guess where FEMA took them? Charleston, 
West Virginia. What incompetence. Right city, wrong State. CNN.com.
  I cannot even imagine. No one should imagine. It is ridiculous. But 
they are going to tell you everything is all right.
  The New York Times tells us, ``Navy pilots who rescued victims are 
reprimanded.'' What? ``Two Navy helicopter pilots and their crews 
returned from New Orleans on August 30 expecting to be greeted as 
lifesavers after ferrying more than 100 victims to safety. Instead, 
they were reprimanded.''
  Well, we are working on this, since I serve on the Committee on Armed 
Services. But the sad thing about it is, when we had our briefing on 
Tuesday evening, the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Homeland 
Security, Secretary of Labor, Secretary of Treasury, Secretary of HUD 
were all there at the

[[Page 19795]]

briefing, except that Defense kept going in and out, Homeland Security 
kept going in and out, could not stay long enough to brief the Members 
of Congress or to hear from the Members of Congress who are directly 
impacted by their failure, their incompetence.
  Malik Rahin is a former Black Panther Party member. In a very 
compelling radio interview he said, ``You want more morality from the 
poor than from the rich.'' But he rejected the idea that New Orleans 
was a city divided by race. He said, ``Whites took their boats and went 
into black neighborhoods. But it was the feds who forced people to 
leave their possessions. Once they got rescued, they had to leave their 
possessions. They could only take one bag.''
  He says, ``Over 70 percent of the people who were rescued were 
rescued by individuals.'' Then he went on to say something very 
interesting. He said, ``$90 million of HOPE VI construction, but the 
people who needed it the most in New Orleans got no training, no 
community service.''
  Louisiana has the highest dropout rate in the country. He said, 
``Juvenile justice is a disgrace.'' He said, ``The only equal 
opportunity employer here is drugs.''
  We heard a lot about shooting. He says, ``White vigilante groups with 
shotguns and rifles rode around saying they were going to shoot the 
looters.'' They were unchecked. There could have been a riot. He says, 
``There was about to be a race riot.''
  He said, ``Many whites took their own personal boats into the black 
community. Too many acts of heroism, sharing ice, sharing water.''
  Then he mentions Jefferson Parish had to secede from the United 
States of America. So I want to mention the Jefferson Parish president.
  But before that I am going to mention what Mayor Nagin in a 
wonderfully compelling interview with WWL said when he had the 
opportunity to speak directly with President Bush. He said, ``I told 
him we had an incredible crisis here and that his flying over in Air 
Force One does not do it justice, and that I have been all around this 
city, and I am very frustrated because we are not able to marshal 
resources and we are outmanned in just about every respect.''
  But in perhaps the most compelling of all of the interviews that we 
have seen, and these are all available on the Internet, is Aaron 
Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, on Meet the Press. He said, 
``Sir, they were told, like me, every single day the cavalry is coming 
on the Federal level, the cavalry is coming, the cavalry is coming, the 
cavalry is coming. I have just begun to hear the hooves of the cavalry. 
The cavalry is still not out here yet, but I have begun to hear the 
hooves, and we are almost a week out.''
  Then he gives three quick examples, one of the Wal-Mart delivery 
trucks, three trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. They had 1,000 
gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel. It was docked in 
Jefferson Parish. The Coast Guard said, ``Come and get the fuel right 
away. When we got there with our trucks, they got the word. FEMA says, 
`Don't give the fuel.' Yesterday, yesterday FEMA comes in and cuts all 
our communication lines.'' Why is FEMA cutting communications?
  ``The guy who runs the building I am in, Emergency Management,'' this 
is Aaron Broussard on Meet the Press, ``he is responsible for 
everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard Nursing Home, and 
every day she called him and said, `Are you coming, son? Is somebody 
coming?' He said, `Yeah, mama, somebody is coming to get you.' 
`Somebody is coming to get you on Tuesday.' `Somebody is coming to get 
you on Wednesday.' `Somebody is coming to get you on Thursday.' 
`Somebody is coming to get you on Friday.' And she drowned Friday 
night.''

                              {time}  1845

  And she drowned Friday night. ``Nobody is coming to get us. Nobody is 
coming to get us. The Secretary has promised. Everybody has promised. 
They have had press conferences. I'm sick of the press conferences. For 
God's sake, just shut up and send us somebody.'' Aaron Broussard.
  Want the facts? The FEMA chief waited 5 hours after Katrina made 
landfall on August 29. Five hours.
  It is clear also that the administration would like to avoid a blame 
game. They want to do everything to not discuss the failures. What is 
Michael Brown's reaction to all of this? Michael Brown, FEMA director, 
says in a CNN interview: ``Considering the dire circumstances that we 
have in New Orleans, virtually a city that has been destroyed, things 
are going relatively well.'' That is our FEMA director, Michael Brown. 
How out of touch could this man have been?
  Those 9/11 activists know how critical it is to construct a timeline, 
because the timeline tells us who did what and when they did it. The 
timeline will tell us the truth. The timeline cuts through the spin. 
So, of course, I made a point to get in touch with the folks who were 
collecting the timelines, and there are a lot of timelines available on 
the Internet. Think Progress has a timeline, and WWL also has a 
timeline.
  All the while this was going on, the news media reported that the 
Iraq war costs now exceed Vietnam's. But I think it is pretty clear 
that the Iraq war is costing us more than money. Let us just look at 
where some of those assets were. Mississippi has 40 percent of its 
National Guard forces in Iraq. Louisiana has 35 percent of its National 
Guard forces in Iraq. Florida has 26 percent. Alabama has 23 percent of 
its National Guard forces in Iraq.
  On June 8, 2004, in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Walter Maestri, 
who is emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, said, ``It 
appears that the money has been moved in the President's budget to 
handle homeland security and the war in Iraq. And I suppose that's the 
price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be 
finished, and we're doing everything we can to make the case that this 
is a security issue for us.'' Security, we are going to discuss that in 
a minute.
  On April 24, 2004, the Times-Picayune said: ``Less money is available 
to the Army Corps of Engineers to build levees and water projects in 
the Mississippi River Valley this year and next year.'' Nobody can say 
they did not know, were not warned, whatever it is that the spin 
machine might come up with.
  National Geographic Magazine, October 2004, came up with an article 
that reported on a simulation, I will not call it a game, but a 
simulation of what would happen should a hurricane hit New Orleans: 
``As the whirling maelstrom approached the coast, more than a million 
people evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000 remained, however. The 
carless, the homeless, the aged, the infirm, and those die-hard New 
Orleanians who look for any excuse to throw a party.'' It goes on to 
describe just exactly what happened during Hurricane Katrina, but that 
was in October 2004.
  The Louisiana National Guard also knew that they were paying a price 
that was perhaps too high. On August 1 the Louisiana National Guard 
complained that they were taking critical equipment to Iraq that should 
have remained in Louisiana. But when the Bush administration does not 
like what one says, they just fire them. So there was a former Member 
of Congress that I had the pleasure to serve with, Mike Parker from 
Mississippi, who was with the Army Corps of Engineers. He complained 
that they were cutting the Army Corps of Engineers budget too much, and 
so he was forced out.
  Now it turns out that Michael Brown was forced out too. He was forced 
out from the job he had before he became the FEMA assistant director 
and then director. Let me see if I can read this correctly. Michael 
Brown's previous employment was with the International Arabian Horse 
Association, and he was fired from that job too. They said that he was 
asked to resign. And so, of course, eminently qualified to serve in the 
Bush administration; he gets one of the most important jobs in the 
country with the lives of the American people in his hands.
  We know that this is what they do, hurting people whom they disagree 
with, because there is the case of another Army Corps of Engineers 
employee by the name of Bunnatine

[[Page 19796]]

Greenhouse, who complained about the no-bid sweetheart deal private 
contracts going to Halliburton. Well, she was forced out of her job too 
because, even though Vice President Dick Cheney still gets his deferred 
compensation checks from Halliburton Corporation, I guess the Bush 
administration is not finished with Halliburton, because they have been 
hired to do the storm cleanup. Is there no other corporation in 
America? Why is it that it always has to be Halliburton?
  Well, the Times-Picayune calls for the firing of Michael Brown; and I 
have signed my name to many letters that are floating around here 
calling for his firing, his resignation, Chertoff's as well; and in a 
minute somebody on this House floor is going to mention impeachment.
  But as if making sure that Halliburton got what they needed to get, I 
checked the FEMA Web site, and on the FEMA Web site it says: ``Help the 
victims of Hurricane Katrina.'' First on the list is American Red 
Cross. We remember that during 9/11, there were many complaints from 
the victims of 9/11, and I remember seeing one report of the symphony 
orchestra getting some of the 9/11 contributions. But there is 
Operation Blessing. Operation Blessing was founded by Pat Robertson. 
That is the same Pat Robertson who called for the assassination of a 
duly elected president, Hugo Chavez, of Venezuela. How can FEMA 
recommend that someone who calls for the murder of somebody else get 
hard-earned money from the American people? It is on the FEMA Web site, 
and it is outrageous.
  But there is more. Sadly, there is more. I agree with the Tom Hartman 
article: ``You Can't Govern if You Don't Believe in Government.'' What 
we have witnessed here in utter stark relief is the culmination of all 
of that Republican ideology against government, against the people, 
against helping people who are in need. Ronald Reagan was elected 
President by saying: ``The nine most terrifying words in the English 
language are, `I'm from the government and I'm here to help.''' Newt 
Gingrich in 1995 told us what he thought about government. He was 
speaking about Medicare. He said: ``Now, we don't want to get rid of it 
in round one because we don't think that's politically smart and we do 
not think that's the right way to go through a transition. But we 
believe it is going to wither on the vine because we think people are 
going to voluntarily leave it.'' Wither on the vine.
  Grover Norquist in 2001 said this, and I think this encapsulates it 
all: ``I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it 
to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the 
bathtub.''
  That is how these people feel about government. So I am not surprised 
that the Army Corps of Engineers budget is cut to the extent it is cut. 
I am not surprised.
  Here, Bush's agenda is to cut government services to the bone and 
make people rely on the private sector for the things they need. So he 
sliced $71 million from the budget of the New Orleans Corps of 
Engineers, a 44 percent reduction. In addition, the President cut $30 
million in flood control. And then Bush took to the airwaves on ``Good 
Morning America'' on September 1 and said, ``I don't think anyone 
anticipated that breach of the levees.''

                              {time}  1900

  ``I don't think anyone anticipated that breach of the levees.''
  Now, in stark contrast to the way the Department of Homeland Security 
mobilized to secure the people of the gulf States, within 48 hours of 
the notification of the death of Chief Justice Rehnquist, Bush 
nominated Roberts to serve as Chief Justice. They are real fast at 
doing some things.
  Now, at some point, we have to talk about values and priorities and 
how it has become that our values and our priorities are so twisted and 
mangled now. We are focusing on other things, and some of those things 
are important. I am not going to say that everything is not so 
important that has become a priority. We had a resolution today that 
six people voted against to give Bush another blank check in the war on 
terrorism. I was one of the six.
  No more blank checks, Mr. President, not for war, not for war.
  I went to the Committee on Homeland Security's Web site, and I just 
thought I would look and see which subcommittee has jurisdiction for 
natural disasters. Well, I could not believe it. I did not see any 
mention at all of natural disasters. So I went to one of our interns, 
whose eyes are a whole lot younger than mine, and I said, Would you 
please scour the entire website, because I have put in a search and it 
did not come up in a search; scour the entire website, and I want you 
to highlight the number of times you see the mention of the two words, 
``natural disaster.''
  It is not mentioned. It is not mentioned. On the entire Committee on 
Homeland Security Web site ``natural disaster'' is not mentioned.
  Now, a young man had a script before him, and he was supposed to read 
the script, but he took the opportunity to deviate from the script and 
speak his mind. His name is Kanye West. He has been on the cover of all 
these national magazines talking about how he is the most brilliant new 
hip-hop, rap artist, Kanye West. And now, he is being vilified because 
he dared to take a detour from what some people wanted him to say and 
say what he wanted to say, which is, quite frankly, the origins of hip-
hop anyway, young people who have something to say and have found the 
means to say it.
  Kanye West said, ``I hate the way they portray us in the media. You 
see a black family; it says they are `looting.' You see a white family; 
it says they are `looking for food.' And, you know, it has been 5 days, 
because most of the people are black, and even for me to complain about 
it, I would be a hypocrite, because I have tried to turn away from the 
TV because it is too hard to watch. I have even been shopping before 
even giving a donation.
  ``So now I am calling my business manager right now to see what is 
the biggest amount I can give,'' notice he said he is calling his 
business manager; I want you to pay attention to that. ``And, just 
imagine if I was down there and those are my people down there. So 
anybody out there that wants to do anything that we can help with the 
way America is set up to help the poor, the black people, the less well 
off, as slow as possible.''
  Now, NBC censored that. NBC has decided that they can determine what 
we hear from the smartest young man in hip-hop.
  He also said, ``George Bush doesn't care about black people.'' NBC 
censored it. They deleted his remarks. And MSNBC President Rick Kaplan, 
who produced the telethon at Rockefeller Plaza in New York, had the 
cameras cut to actor Chris Tucker who was on a different part of the 
stage and who appeared to be looking off at something else in the 
camera. So it was the MSNBC president, who was also the producer, who 
said, Well, you know, maybe the American people do not need to hear the 
smartest young man in hip-hop's ideas about George Bush.
  Thank goodness, I can come to the floor of the House and speak my 
piece. And as long as C-SPAN cameras are running, well, it will not be 
cut off, but I understand there is even an effort to try and limit C-
SPAN's access to American households.
  But I have to tell my colleagues something. As I saw the African 
Americans, mostly African American families ripped apart, I could only 
think about slavery, families ripped apart, herded into what looked 
like concentration camps. So I was reminded of a Miami Herald article 
written on July 5, the day after Freedom Day, 1987.
  The title of the article was ``Reagan Aides and the Secret 
Government,'' and here is a quote from that article: ``A copy of the 
memo was obtained by the Herald. The scenario outlined in the 
Brinkerhoff memo resembles somewhat a paper Giufreda had written in 
1970 at the Army War College in Carlyle, Pennsylvania, in which he 
advocated martial law in case of a national uprising by black 
militants.'' In which he advocated martial law in case of a national 
uprising by black militants. The paper also advocated the

[[Page 19797]]

roundup and transfer of two ``assembly centers or relocation camps of 
at least 21 million American Negroes.''
  Now, I did not write that; the U.S. Government wrote that. They were 
going to round up 21 million Negroes because they were afraid of 
freeing black people. A story of neglect? I am not surprised about any 
story of neglect of the people that comes from this body with this set 
of priorities, that passes these kinds of budgets on the backs of the 
American people, these kinds of tax cuts on the backs of the American 
people.
  I want to commend my sister Congresswoman, the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Lee), who has said that it is time for us to get 
serious about poverty in this country. It is time for us to get 
serious. I am a proud cosponsor of legislation with the gentlewoman 
from California (Ms. Lee).
  I will just conclude by saying that on the United States State 
Department Web site is ``How to identify misinformation.'' Does the 
story fit the pattern of a conspiracy theory?

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