macleginn/stanford_congress_record_longer_speeches huggingface dataset:
Date: 2006-06-14
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Well. I think if you are a patriot on this issue you oppose this amendment. I guess patriotism can be defined in a number of ways. First of all. the GAO report that was referred to was a GAO report in February of 2004 before Congress passed the Jobs Act that deals with the tax inequities in this particular area. The companies that are at issue pay full taxes on work and contract work that is performed in the United States. Basically. their offshore incorporationrefers to how they look at foreign dollars coming through those and how those are viewed under the Tax Code. But the Jobs Act addressed that. and the GAO report was prior to that Jobs Act. And finally. let me just add that retaliation. Bermuda is a protectorate of the United Kingdom. Panama is a country and an ally. and this is a very slippery slope once we start getting into which countries can do what that propose absolutely no risk to the United States at all. I think it is a bad amendment and I urge my colleagues to oppose it.
Date: 2006-06-14
Speaker: LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Florida

Mr. Chairman. I negotiated the agreement that Mr. MORAN made reference to. along with my dear colleagues. Ms. RoSLEHTINEN and Mrs. EMERSON. At that time Mr. Nethercutt was here. And the agreement stands. The agreement authorized sales to the Cuban regime as long as payments were made. cash in advance. Now. the Cuban regime. and let us be clear when we talk about trade with Cuba that we are dealing. there are no Cubans. there are no Cubans who can buy. because it is a totalitarian. state. the regime. Now the dictator started to make purchases after the law was passed in October of 2000. And as is to be expected. then he startedengaging in delaying tactics. precisely to create leverage and pressure so that we would .see something like we see today. Sure enough. the delaying tactics began by the dictator. And U.S. financial institutions asked for clarification of what "cash in advance" is. Now. it should not surprise us that the dictator started his delaying tactics. when we see the billions and billions of dollars that he owes. to anyone who has given him credit. It should not surprise anyone that he started. he began delaying tactics. The reality of the matter is. cash sales are allowed. The reality of the matter is that U.S. financial institutions asked for this clarification. And also I want to make -a separate point. President Bush is right. and I thank him once again for. today. having issued another very clear statement of administration policy. when he has stated from the first day of his administration that he has promised to veto any legislation that enriches the Cuban dictatorship or benefits the Cuban dictators regime. The President is right. I stand with him. I thank him once again. And I urge all of my colleagues to do the same. Mr. Chairman. I reserve the balance of my time.
Date: 2006-06-14
Speaker: LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Florida

Mr. Chairman. I yield such time as she may consume to another negotiator of the deal. of the agreement that still stands and has not been changed by this regulation by President Bush. Ms. ROSLEHTINEN.
Date: 2006-06-14
Speaker: MARIO DIAZ-BALART (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Flor

ida. Mr. Chairman. the bottom line is again. what part of payment. "cash in advance" is hard to understand? Cash in advance means cash in advance. That is what the rules are right now. There is nothing changing that. That is what we need to keep. That is why we need to defeat this amendment.
Date: 2006-06-14
Speaker: LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Florida

Mr. Chairman. I thank Chairman KNOLLENBERG. I was pleased to hear that our colleague from the other side of the aisle said that. I think he said something like he would vote for democracy in -Cuba. When we have had opportunities in this Chamber. as late as May of 2005. to condemn the human rights violations. I see that he has voted "no." So I am glad that perhaps some progress on that issue may be being made. Mr. Chairman. which of the conditions that Ms. ROSLEHTINEN mentioned. which are in our law for the immediate lifting of U.S. sanctions. the sweeping of trade. the arrival of massive trade and tourism and financing. which of the conditions in our law that make that access to the U.S. market. that are contingent for that access to the U.S. market. which are the conditions mentioned by our colleague. Ms. RosLEHTINEN? The liberation of all political prisoners. the legalization of all political parties. labor unions. the press and the holding of free elections. which of those conditions are objectionable? We want to see the sanctions lifted. What we want to see are the people of Cuba. 90 miles from our shores and oppressed for 47 years by a totalitarian tyrant. we want to see them freed. We want the political prisoners freed. We want their political parties legalized. We want to see- them with free elections. Which of the conditions are objectionable? Is it correct to lift. to reward that tyranny now. unilaterally. while the prisons are full of men and women. prisoners of conscience. who peacefully advocate for freedom and democracy. the freedom that we are here exercising today? For example. one of them. an independent journalist. Guillermo Farinas. is on the verge of death as we speak because he entered a hunger strike 4 months ago for the right as an independent journalist to access the Internet and to be able to have and send email. and he is on a hunger strike. on the verge of death as we speak. What is objectionable with our insistence to that tyranny that that political prisoner be released and all the others and political parties be legalized and the Cuban people have access like the rest of this hemisphere has to free and fair elections. multiparty elections?. What is so objectionable? Why the different treatment? Why is it that we insist on free elections for countries throughout the world. but our neighbors 90 miles away. no. no. for them let us unilaterally reward the tyrant and give him what he seeks. No. this amendment must be defeated once again. Mr. Chairman.
Date: 2006-06-14
Speaker: MARIO DIAZ-BALART (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Flor

ida. Mr. Chairman. this amendment wants to lift all sanctions unilaterally on the regime that. among other things. has invited the President of Iran to visit in the next few months because the Cuban regime supports Irans nuclear program. It is on the list of states that sponsor terrorism. and yet. how do some Members. how does this amendment want to deal with that terrorist state? By unilaterally asking nothing in return. helping that regime with billions and billions of dollars from here. from the United States. so that that terrorist regime can continue to oppress and also do what it used to do when it had money. Let us not forget the American GIs that died in Grenada fighting that regimes thugs. Do we really want to fund an antiAmerican terrorist state just 90 miles away. particularly in a time of war? Absolutely not. It makes no sense. It is absolutely ludicrous. So I would ask you to once again soundly defeat this amendment. It makes no sense.
Date: 2006-06-15
Speaker: LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Florida

Mr. Speaker. I remember the inexorable slide towards the absolute irrelevance of the international system during the decade of the 1990s and the first few years of this decade. Saddam Hussein having in fact purchased just. about every relevant United Nations leader and world leader. in fact. even in our friendly continent of Europe. except of course for President Bush and Prime Minister Blair and Prime Minister Aznar. Saddam Hussein and. we must remember. Mr. Speaker. the OilforFood program and its billions of dollars siphoned off to purchase world and United Nations leaders. Saddam Hussein flouted his disdain for the international community and its. acCording to him. silly norms. laws. and resolutions. Almost 20 of them. Mr. Speaker. he systematically ignored and laughed at. He called in al Zarqawi of al Qaeda to Iraq. joining next door Afghanistan as a state dedicated to welcoming and fostering international terrorists. In Afghanistan. as my late father Rafael DiazBalart would tell me. my late father whose wisdom far exceeded his formal education of five degrees from universities in Europe and one on this continent. he would tell me. "There in Afghanistan is the Taliban. the Taliban who torture women and who have opened that country to the training camps ofinternational terrorists." And in 1993. we saw the attacks coming from those terrorists to here. to New York City. the World Trade Center. and then the bombings of American embassies in Africa. and even an attack on a United States ship. the Cole. Nothing happened. But then came 9/11. Mr. Speaker. and it became evident that we could no longer allow despots like Saddam and the Taliban to ignore international sanctions and resolutions passed by the United Nations Security Council. no matter how many billions of dollars they spent purchasing world leaders. This is. Mr. Speaker. the debate of our era. We cannot wait until international terrorism attacks us. We must take the war to international terrorism and defeat international terrorism before the terrorists attack us. That is the debate of our era. as President Bush has reiterated so often. And that is a debate that we as a country and as a Congress must engage in. and I am pleased to see that we are doing so today.
Date: 2006-06-15
Speaker: JO ANN DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Speaker. an issue that hasnt received enough attention in the debate on the global war on terror is what happened to American intelligence during the 1990s. To effectively wage the war on terrorism. we need a. robust intelligence community that is capable of gathering intelligence aimed at eliminating the terrorist threat. Unfortunately. as the war escalated in 2001. the intelligence community was still reeling from policies that were implemented in the 1990s which undermined the ability of our intelligence agencies to predict 9/11 and to effectively fight the war today. Simply throwing people and money at the .issue. it doesnt solve the problem. Developing expertise to replace what was lost in the 1990s is a long endeavor. It takes 5 to 7 years of training and experience to bring an operations officer up to full performance. Mr. Speaker. I would like to list a few examples of what happened in the 1990s that hampered our intelligence community efforts leading up to and at the onset of the war. Between 1992 and 1999. the CIAs presence overseas declined by almost onethird. Our intelligence agencies had their hands tied by the Deutch Doctrine. forbidding recruitment of spurces that had shady -backgrounds. limiting our ability to get information on potential terrorist attacks. The number of officers declined and overseas facilities were closed. And as a result of the crises in the Balkans and in Africa. et cetera. officers were sent to areas where many times they had little knowledge of the issues there and. in some places. the targets had little and sometimes no presence. As a result. overall intelligence collection was decimated. James Pavitt. the former CIA Deputy Director for Operations. told the 9/11 Commission in April of 2004 that we were vastly underfunded and did not have the people to do the job. and noted that spending on CIA human collection was cut by 20 percent duringthe 1990s. Analysis suffered equally in the 1990s. with low priority accorded to terrorism analysis. Intelligence analysts were discouraged from writing original outofthebox assessments that might have raised awareness to terrorists staging unconventional attacks. And. instead. our analysts were pressured to craft politically correct analysis. The death of Zarqawi and the arrests of 17 terrorist suspects in Canada are recent successes in the global war on terror. However. we still have a long way to go to rebuilding our networks of human sources. Reform has to continue. and we must acknowledge that many of the problems facing U.S. intelligence agencies today are the product of unwise and neglectful intelligence policies of the past. It is simple to destroy. but it is much more difficult to build. Over the past 6 years. we have worked to rebuild our Nations intelligence capability. and it may take a few more years to complete. There is not a moment to waste in carrying out these essential reforms to our intelligence community. And I will say. Mr. Speaker. that we must continue this war. We must continue to let our intelligence community do their job.
Date: 2006-06-15
Speaker: MARIO DIAZ-BALART (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Flor

ida. Mr. Speaker. our Nation is fighting bloodthirsty monsters like al Zarqawi. monsters that behead civilian hostages and that blow up innocent women and children. And if many of our Democratic colleagues across the aisle have their way. we would already have cut and run from Iraq and Zarqawi would still be alive beheading innocent peqple. Thankfully. our brave troops understood the kind of enemy that we are facing. This is an enemy. Mr. Speaker. that kidnaps and beheads hostages. This is an enemy that walks into a mall full of innocent people and explodes bombs. This is an enemy that declared war on the United States decades ago. Mr. Speaker. and refuses to stop until liberty has been snuffed out. But the United States cannot and will not allow- that to happen. Hard work remains in Afghanistan and Iraq. The stakes are high. The Afghani people understand that. The Iraqi people understand this as well. So do the terrorists who murder on a daily basis. But we are steadily working towards success. not defeat. Because. you see. this is more than just about helping people over there. This is about protecting our country from rogue states and terrorists over here. This resolution. Mr. Speaker. makes it clear that the American people are determined to prevail in protecting our freedom from terrorist. We will not cower to these thugs. We will continue to support our honorable troops and prevail over this evil. Mr. Speaker. As long as we maintain our resolve. Mr. Speaker. and do not cut and run. we will win. we will defeat the terrorists.
Date: 2006-06-15
Speaker: GINNY BROWN-WAITE (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Flor

ida. Mr. Speaker. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker. even those of us on this side of the aisle sometimes wonder if after 3 years we should still be in Iraq. I recently traveled there. and like many of my colleagues. we met with soldiers from Florida. We each asked to meet with soldiers from our home State. I will never ever forget this young man. He was not from my district. He actually was from south Florida. And I asked each of them where they were from and if they were married. This young mans name was Joe. And I said to him. "Joe. are you married?" He said. Yes. maam. I am married and I have five children." So right away I said. "Your wife must be a saint to be home with five children." And he looked at me with all of the conviction that you would ever ask for a in a soldier. and he said. "Maam. he said. "my wife whos home with my five children feel exactly the way that I do. and that is until the children in Iraq are safe on the streets. our children wont be safe in Florida or in America." Obviously we are very proud of what our soldiers are doing. as are their families. As Members of the Congress. I believe that we have an obligation to honor every persons service to our country. Using words like "quagmire" and "mistaken war" do not honor our militarys service. We can do this by providing our soldiers with the support that they need and the recognition that they deserve. The negacrats and the media do nothing to make our children safer on the streets in America like Joe and his buddies do. This kind of rhetoric not only impacts our soldiers. but as I sat here tonight. I could not help but think about the families of the soldiers who are watching this at home. the children of- our very. very brave soldiers who are in harms way. In closing I want to thank Joe and all of our troops and those families. and I want to convey my eternal gratitude for everything that they do. May God bless them all. May God bless our troops. who. together with God. will keep our country safe.
Date: 2006-06-15
Speaker: DANIEL E. LUNGREN (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. Mr. Speaker. I thank the gentleman for yielding. and I rise in support of this resolution. Over a quarter of a century ago when I served in my first term during my first period of service in Congress. I remember making a very difficult phone call. That phone call was to the parents of a young man in uniform who had died in our failed attempt in the desert to attempt to rescue our hostages in Iran. I recall the feeling of helplessness we had at that moment. not understanding what we were doing. not having a strategy as to how we respond to what was. very simply put. a terrorist attack. I recall being awakened one morning to learn that we had suffered the loss of our marines in Beirut. I recall the attack on the USS .Cole. And then. of course. I recall with all of us the terrible tragedy of 9/11. Say what you will about the Presidents policies and say what you will about the imperfections involved. the fact of the matter is since 9/11 this President. this administration. has embarked on a strategy that says we will not wait to be attacked. We will not wait to respond exactly where they attacked us. We will change the rules of the game. and we will decide where and when we will attack. We understand that this is a global war on terror. Those who suggest that the war in Iraq is not essential to our defense in the war on terror should only listen to the words of Mr. Zarqawi and the correspondence that he had last October where he suggested one of the very first objectives of al Qaeda was to make sure we were defeated in Iraq. We should understand that we have done great things in response to this. on a bipartisan basis. We have given the President the tools to use. the PATRIOT Act. intelligence gathering that he did not have the capacity for before. And let me just mention a number of plots that have been deterred. The West coast airliner plot in mid2002. The U.S. disrupted a plot to attack targets on the West coast of United States using hijacked airplanes. The East Coast airliner plot in midThe Jose Padilla plot to blow up apartment buildings in the United States in May of 2002. The 2004 U.K. urban targets plot where the U.S. and partners disrupted a plot that involved urban targets in the United Kingdom. The 2003 Karachi plot. The Heathrow Airport plot in 2003. The 2004 U.K. plot. The 2002 Arabian Gulf shipping plot. The 2002 Straits of Hormuz plot. The 2003 tourist site plot where the U.S. and a partner nation disrupted a plot to attack a tourist site outside the United States. We are making progress precisely because we are playing away games. not home games. Lets not forget that as we debate this important resolution.
Date: 2006-06-16
Speaker: DANIEL E. LUNGREN (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. Mr. Speaker. I yield myself 15 seconds just to say I do not dispute the figure given by the gentleman from Pennsylvania. I dispute his logic. I question the causeandeffect relationship. Our presence has not created terrorists. Terrorists were around much before that. In the instance he cited with previous Presidents. yes. they did react. but obviously the totality of their reaction did not stop terrorism. We have a different plan. a different approach. That is what this President is following. Mr. Speaker. I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman fromIndiana . a member of the Judiciary Committee.
Date: 2006-06-16
Speaker: DANIEL E. LUNGREN (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. Mr. Speaker. I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania . a member of the Homeland Security Committee and the Government Reform Committee.
Date: 2006-06-16
Speaker: DANIEL E. LUNGREN (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. Mr. Speaker. I am pleased now to yield time to the distinguished gentlewoman from Ohio . who sits on the Government Reform Committee. 2 minutes.
Date: 2006-06-16
Speaker: DANIEL E. LUNGREN (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. Mr. Speaker. it is my privilege to yield a real 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia . the chairman of the Government Reform Committee.
Date: 2006-06-16
Speaker: DANIEL E. LUNGREN (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. Mr. Speaker. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas . who sits on the Budget Committee and the Financial Services Committee.
Date: 2006-06-16
Speaker: DANIEL E. LUNGREN (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. Mr. Speaker. I yield myself 12 minutes. Mr. Speaker. I have the greatest respect for the gentleman from Pennsylvania. When I returned to this House after an absence of 16 years. he was one of the first people to greet me. I have enormous respect for the work we did together with others here 25 years ago in fighting common battles. I have a general disagreement with him on this approach. I dont question your patriotism. I certainly am attempting not to be sanctimonious about this. But I think there are some real questions that we must pose. One of them would be this: I have heard it said from your side of the aisle that we are attempting to force democracy on this country. and it will never work. Look at the three elections they had. the increasing participation. And. frankly. contrast that with what occurred just this last Tuesday -in the Commonwealth of Virginia. where. for a primary to determine who the Democratic nominee is going to be for the Senate. 3 percent of the people showed up. 3 percent of the registered voters. I would suggest if we were on this floor talking about Iraq where only 3 percent supported. people would say democracy is a failure. I am not willing to give up on the Commonwealth of Virginia. I hope we are not willing to give up on Iraq. Secondly. the question about Vietnam. And I have the greatest respect for the gentleman. he served there with distinction. just as my father served in World War II with distinction. But I would suggest there are a number of differences between Vietnam and this experience. And one of the chief ones is this: when we left Vietnam they did not follow us. If we leave Iraq. the terrorists would follow us. Some would suggest that it is a shame that we are fighting them there. I say it is wonderful that we are fighting them there rather than here.
Date: 2006-06-16
Speaker: DANIEL E. LUNGREN (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. Mr. Speaker. at this time it is my pleasure to yield the balance of my time to the distinguished majority leader .
Date: 2006-06-20
Speaker: SAM JOHNSON (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Speaker. I am here to congratulate the men and women of our Armed Forces who have cornered and captured the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq. al Zarqawi. His death dealt a harmful blow to his followers who practice and preach hate. death. and fear. Better yet. the raid on the warlords hideout produced a slew of information: policy. propaganda. and baraphernalia. Even Zarqawi says they are losing. Just as important is what transpired after they uncovered that intelligence: 452 raids since the killing of al Zarqawi. 104 insurgents killed. and 759 antiIraqi elements captured. This mornings news release claims the death of Zarqawis replacement. One man said. "We are beating the snot out of them. Why quit now short of complete victory?" This is big news for democracy and freedom. Our men and women in uniform deserve the utmost respect and thanks. and I would like to honor them for a job well done