[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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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