mesut/congress_speeches huggingface dataset:
CONSCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM DIVISION
Doug LaMalfa (Republican, CA) \u2014 2018-1-19

. Madam , I rise today to thank the Department of Health and Human Services under this new administration for doing something that should have been done a long time ago. prgtoken The agency is now opening a Conscience and Religious Freedom Division within its Office for Civil Rights. This new office will be devoted solely to treating people fairly, regardless of race, religion, or creed. prgtoken It is part of a broader theme in America where people, lately, from all religions and walks of life have been persecuted for their views and for not conforming to the views of others. How is that in the name of tolerance? prgtoken For example, I recently led an amicus brief on behalf of 144 Representatives and Senators for a Supreme Court case involving pregnancy clinics in California who, under California law, are being forced to violate their own faith and effectively advertise for abortions, against their own will. prgtoken This is wrong, and it is evidence of the religious persecution in America today, religion being one of the founding cornerstones that have formed this country by our Founders. prgtoken This new DHS office is a positive sign for people of all faiths who are being bullied into adhering to a leftist agenda and are essentially being told their beliefs don't matter because they disagree with a conservative viewpoint.
BORN-ALIVE ABORTION SURVIVORS PROTECTION ACT
Paul Mitchell (Republican, MI) \u2014 2018-1-19

. Madam , I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. prgtoken Madam , I rise today in support of the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which I proudly cosponsored. prgtoken This week, we are reminded of our Nation's most vulnerable people as we solemnly remember the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. Unfortunately, abortion has resulted in the deliberate death of too many babies, including babies born alive. We must protect these children. prgtoken Today, by this bill, we do protect these children who are born after a botched abortion attempt. prgtoken The CDC reported that, during a 12-year period, over 370 babies died after being born alive during a termination of pregnancy. The intentional neglect of care for these lives is unconscionable. prgtoken We must respect mothers and their children by ensuring necessary medical care is given to babies born alive after a failed abortion attempt. How hard is that? prgtoken Any doctor denying care to these newborns must be held criminally accountable. This legislation does that. prgtoken Madam , it is our duty to protect all lives, and I took an oath to do just that.
ANNOUNCED BONUSES
Earl L. "Buddy" Carter (Republican, GA) \u2014 2018-1-19

I rise today to recognize the immediate benefits that H.R. 1, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, is already delivering for American families. prgtoken Soon after it was signed into law, a number of large companies had already announced large bonuses for their employees, crediting the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. For example, American Airlines, AT&T, JetBlue, Nationwide, and Southwest Airlines all announced $1,000 bonuses for their hardworking employees. Other companies that announced bonuses include AFLAC, Wells Fargo, and SunTrust, and I expect more to join this list. prgtoken With an administration and Congress that support American businesses, we are not only seeing numbers of high consumer confidence and low unemployment, but we are watching the direct benefits that our policies are having on American families. prgtoken , I look forward to seeing how our Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will continue to benefit Americans throughout 2018.
FEDERAL REGISTER PRINTING SAVINGS ACT OF 2017
John Cornyn (Republican, TX) \u2014 2018-1-19

let me say publicly what I have said privately to Senator Tillis and Senator Lankford. prgtoken Thank you for your leadership. prgtoken They have done an extraordinary job trying to come up with a solution to the issue, the problem, the challenge that they have already described. I would like to add a little color to some of that, but they have done extraordinary work to try to come up with a compassionate but legal framework by which we can resolve this issue. prgtoken I have been in the Senate since 2002, and I have been through the immigration wars more times than I care to count. We keep working very hard on this issue, and we always seem to come up short. I come from a State that is one of the most diverse States ethnically in the country, and that is because we have been a big job creator, and a lot of people have been moving there looking for opportunities. We have a large Hispanic population. It makes sense. We are Texas, after all--used to be a part of Mexico. About 38 percent of my constituents are Hispanic, and I know that is a large part of the population we are looking at when it comes to the Dreamers. There are about 124,000 Dreamers in my State and others who are eligible who, frankly, are in a little bit of a box, not knowing how to deal with their situation. prgtoken When I think about immigration, I think about the two great pillars that have made our country great. No. 1, we are a nation of immigrants. We have benefited from the fact that people have fled religious persecution. They have fled poverty. They have come to the United States to experience the sort of freedom that our country has guaranteed to each and every one of us and the opportunity to pursue the American dream. That, to me, is one of the great things that have made our country the envy of the world. The other part and the part that I think sometimes people tend to overlook and forget is, what makes America great? We are a nation of laws. We are a nation of immigrants, and we are a nation of laws. When we forget either one of those pillars, I think we risk damaging this wonderful inheritance that we have gotten from our parents and grandparents and people who have gone before us. prgtoken I view this responsibility that we all share together here in the Congress as a sacred trust. We are the stewards of that inheritance. Shame on us if we don't do everything within our power to pass that on to the next generation and beyond. prgtoken By way of a little bit of background, I think sometimes people get-- it is just natural. We become familiar with these terms like ``DACA.'' People may be listening on TV, saying: What in the heck is DACA? prgtoken We say: That is a easy. It is deferred action for childhood arrivals. prgtoken They ask: What is that? prgtoken We say: We are talking about the Dreamers. prgtoken That is what Senator Durbin and others have talked about because there is something called the Dream Act that has
RECOGNIZING THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF MARY HELEN McCAY, Ph.D.
Bill Posey (Republican, FL) \u2014 2018-1-19

I rise to recognize the achievements of Dr. Mary Helen McCay who has just been named a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors--a highly prestigious professional distinction. Dr. McCay currently serves as University Research Professor and Director of Florida Institute of Technology's National Center for Hydrogen Research. She was inducted into the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame in 2017. prgtoken Dr. McCay grew up in Fort Pierce just south of Florida's Space Coast. A fan of space exploration from an early age, Mary Helen remembers watching Astronaut John Glenn's famous launch during high school assembly. Like many young people growing up on the Space Coast at that time--including myself--her enthusiasm for our space program grew as she regularly visited Patrick Air Force Base and Kennedy Space Center to watch our rocket launches. With a strong interest in studying science and engineering, she went on to earn her Ph.D. in Metallurgical Engineering from the University of Florida in 1973. prgtoken Dr. McCay was a Principal Investigator at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center for almost 20 years where she studied the influence of microgravity of single crystal formation and conducted failure analyses of space vehicle materials. She was Principal Investigator on a Microgravity Laboratory I flight experiment, as well as three other flight experiments and received the NASA Scientific Achievement Medal for her work. Her involvement with NASA led to her becoming a Payload Specialist Astronaut for Space Shuttle Challenger Flight Spacelab-3 mission. prgtoken Prior to joining the Florida Institute of Technology, Dr. McCay was Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics, Chair of the Center for Laser Applications, and Adjunct Professor of Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Tennessee Space Institute and received numerous awards for her groundbreaking research. She has published more than 130 technical articles; serves as reviewer on 8 peer-reviewed journals; and holds 24 patents, 22 for laser-induced- surface improvement and its applications. Together with her husband, Dr. Dwayne McCay, the President of the Florida Institute of Technology, she holds 15 joint U.S. patents in the area of metallurgical engineering. prgtoken When asked about her inspiration in science, Dr. McCay points to Madame Curie for her persistence as well as her brilliance. She credits her mother and father as key influences in her life, as well as the Dominican sisters who taught her in grade school, her high prgtoken school chemistry teacher, Mr Dean Rogers at Florida State University, and her husband. prgtoken A strong advocate for STEM education, Dr. McCay has worked to establish STEM mentoring groups between faculty and new students attending the Florida Institute of Technology. Along with her colleagues she does outreach to local high schools to encourage students to consider pursuing a career in
FEDERAL REGISTER PRINTING SAVINGS ACT OF 2017
James Lankford (Republican, OK) \u2014 2018-1-19

Senator Tillis and I have come to the floor today because we have just some incredible frustration and wanted to be able to bring some facts to this conversation. prgtoken I absolutely grieve for the Federal workers in my State. I mean, there are some phenomenal people who do an amazing job. Most people will never know their names, but, every day, they are getting up to serve the American people. prgtoken Every day, there are folks who are in our military who are serving the American people. The civilians who surround them, though they are not listed as Federal employees, are intimately connected to what we are doing for the Federal task--for people. They are trying to figure out this afternoon what is going to happen to them this weekend and next week. They are frantically getting together in offices all over Oklahoma and, quite frankly, all over America and are trying to piece together the ``now whats?'' of a government shutdown, which is distracting them from getting all of the things done that they already need to get done that they are backlogged on now. For what? prgtoken The frustration of this whole focus on ``let's do a government shutdown over not having to have real discussions about DACA and immigration'' is not only not accurate, but it is also something that is already in the process that is somehow being short-circuited. All of these Federal workers and all of these civilian employees who are going through all of this turmoil in trying to figure out why DACA is not resolved and why the deadline for DACA is in the first week of March, yet it forces them to be out and have all of this chaos now, at the end of January, has brought utter confusion to everyone, especially when you know the history of this dialogue. Let me walk everyone backward through a span of a few months here. prgtoken In September, the Nation was surprised when President announced that he was not going to renew DACA and that he wanted a legislative, long-term fix for DACA. The very day that he made that announcement, I released a statement, saying: In America, we do not hold children accountable for the acts of their parents. We don't do that in American law. prgtoken Just a couple of days after that, the President called me late one night. He said: Hey, I saw your statement in a report about that. Can we talk about it? We spent about 20 minutes late that evening just talking about immigration policy and his interest in getting a legislative, long-term resolution for DACA, for these kids who have to renew every 2 or 3 years, and they have no idea what is going to happen. He wanted to have some semblance of permanence for them but, at the same time, also resolve some of the issues around border security that were not controversial a few years ago. He said that we need to deal with some issues with border security, and we need to deal with the issue of DACA and give them some semblance of permanence. Can w
BORN-ALIVE ABORTION SURVIVORS PROTECTION ACT
Keith J. Rothfus (Republican, PA) \u2014 2018-1-19

. Madam , I rise in support of the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. prgtoken This should not be a controversial vote. This bill should pass unanimously. prgtoken If a little girl is born alive, she should be protected. It is that simple. prgtoken Everyone in this House, everyone hearing my voice, was at a point of just having been born, and all of us had a right to live at that point, whether we were wanted or not. prgtoken I wonder what the great pro-life of yesterday would think of what we are hearing from the other side today, pro-life leaders like Eunice Kennedy Shriver; Sargent Shriver; Thomas Eagleton; and, of course, the late great Governor Casey of Pennsylvania. Their rhetoric reminds me of what Governor Casey said 25 years ago: It is a bitter irony that abortion has found a home within the ic Party, which claims to be a champion of the poor, despite the fact that the interests of the poor are in direct conflict with the interests and the agenda of the abortion industry. prgtoken Madam , this is a simple bill. Please vote for humanity. Please vote for this bill.
SENATE BILL 139
Devin Nunes (Republican, CA) \u2014 2018-1-19

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) provides a framework for the Government to target non-U.S. persons located overseas to obtain foreign intelligence information, with the compelled assistance of electronic communication service providers. S. 139 reauthorizes and improves upon this authority--the intelligence value of which cannot be overstated. For example, Section 702 was critical in the tracking of Hajji Iman, a senior Islamic State terrorist who was removed from the battlefield. prgtoken Members have had numerous opportunities over the past several years to attend Section 702 education sessions, either on Capitol Hill or at Fort Meade, Maryland. These sessions have demonstrated the extensive level of oversight related to this authority, and underscored that no acts of intentional abuse have occurred since its creation. Despite these facts, and the fact that various courts have affirmed the constitutionality of Section 702, some Members sought to add further protections to enhance U.S. person privacy. As a result, S. 139, which reauthorizes title VII of FISA for six years, includes additional privacy, oversight and transparency provisions. prgtoken Throughout the debate, a good deal of inaccurate information about Section 702--including about the program's oversight, as well as the current or potential use of incidentally collected U.S. persons information by the Government--was put forward publicly. prgtoken Section 702 is not a bulk-collection authority. It is instead narrowly applied to a relatively small number of targets worldwide. In the Director of National Intelligence's 2016 annual transparency report, the Intelligence Community publicly reported that there are roughly 106,000 Section 702 targets--a vanishingly small fraction of the worldwide population of just over 7 billion. The targets' communications are, moreover, sought only for legally authorized foreign intelligence purposes. Section 702 is used for counterterrorism purposes, as well as to target spies, weapons proliferators, and other foreign threats to the United States and allies. prgtoken Section 702 is subject to a rigorous oversight regime by all three branches of government. The independent Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) produced a report on Section 702 in 2014, which states that Section 702 is constitutionally sound and implemented in a way that protects U.S. person privacy, while at the same time offering several recommendations to better enhance the program's privacy protections. As of 2016, the PCLOB reported that the Executive Branch has implemented all of its recommendations, either in whole or in part. In addition, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), as well as several U.S. district courts and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, have confirmed that Section 702 is constitutional, and that the implementation of the program is consistent with the Fourth Amendm
FEDERAL REGISTER PRINTING SAVINGS ACT OF 2017
Tammy Duckworth (Democrat, IL) \u2014 2018-1-20

this morning tweeted that `` are holding our military hostage'' in this shutdown--just the latest in a string of recent comments wherein he accuses like me of not caring about our military, and it is the latest example of his failing to show leadership, to take responsibility for leading this Nation. prgtoken Does he even know that there are servicemembers who are in harm's way right now watching him, looking for the Commander in Chief to show leadership rather than to try to deflect blame, or that his own Pentagon says that the short-term funding plans he seems intent on pushing are actually harmful to not just the military but to our national security? prgtoken I spent my entire adult life looking out for the well-being, the training, and the equipping of the troops for whom I was responsible-- sadly, this is something the current occupant of the Oval Office does not seem to care to do--and I will not be lectured about what our military needs by a five-deferment draft dodger. prgtoken I have a message for Cadet Bones Spurs: If you cared about our military, you would stop baiting Kim Jong Un into a war that could put 85,000 American troops and millions of innocent civilians in danger. prgtoken Last night, after the lights had been turned out in the White House and the President had gone to his private quarters, I voted to better train and equip our troops, to stop wasting taxpayers' dollars with yet another CR. I voted to make sure that our military men and women--who are standing on the line in the DMZ, who are in Iraq and Afghanistan, across Africa, in Asia--get the help, the support, and the equipment they need. prgtoken If the President truly cared about them, then he would stop hiding behind his Twitter account and stop blaming everyone else. And he can tell his party--a party that controls the House, the White House, and the Senate--to do their job, to govern, to stop allowing the most extreme wing of your party to prevent us from passing a long-term funding solution that the military itself--your own leaders whom you nominated and appointed--is asking for. prgtoken At the very least, you could ask your party to guarantee military pay and death benefits for our servicemembers and their families so that the troops downrange aren't putting their lives at risk overseas while also worrying about whether they are going to be able to feed their families or if our government will take care of those families if, God forbid, they must make that last full measure of devotion for our Nation. prgtoken I am so disappointed that my colleagues refused to allow us a vote for our troops last night, and I encourage them to please reconsider that vote. Let's get to a full budget. Let's move on. We can compromise. We can do this together. So many of the options on the table are bipartisan. In fact, a majority of them are - authored. Our troops know how to wo
WAIVING A REQUIREMENT OF CLAUSE 6(a) OF RULE XIII WITH RESPECT TO CONSIDERATION OF CERTAIN RESOLUTIONS REPORTED FROM THE COMMITTEE ON RULES, AND PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF MOTIONS TO SUSPEND...
David E. Price (Democrat, NC) \u2014 2018-1-20

we are 3\1/2\ months into the fiscal year without a budget. s are proposing to lurch along another month with no resolution in sight and no commitment to address critical investments. will not be a party to further delay. prgtoken It is not a great mystery how to deal with this. We have done it each of the last 4 years. We must have a year-long budget in place with a bipartisan agreement to adjust the defense and nondefense caps so that we can pass our 12 appropriations bills. have been willing to enter into such agreement for at least 6 months. prgtoken leaders need to reject their Tea Party extremists and conclude a budget agreement across the aisle. prgtoken We also must be assured of progress toward resolving the status of DREAMers, the 800,000 young people who were brought here as children and have known no other country. President created a crisis in removing the DREAMers' protection. He asked Congress to devise a long- term solution; he then blew up the solution. They are dangerously exposed. We must address their dilemma.
WAIVING A REQUIREMENT OF CLAUSE 6(a) OF RULE XIII WITH RESPECT TO CONSIDERATION OF CERTAIN RESOLUTIONS REPORTED FROM THE COMMITTEE ON RULES, AND PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF MOTIONS TO SUSPEND...
Jared Polis (Democrat, CO) \u2014 2018-1-20

you know, I am hearing s blame , blame s, people blaming the President, but you know, I have great respect for the intellectual abilities of everybody in this body, my colleagues on both sides. prgtoken And I think you all know--I certainly know, --that the American people blame all of us for this dysfunction and for the Federal Government closing. Of course they blame the President, of course they blame s, and, yes, they also blame . prgtoken Yet here we are continuing to play into the worst fears and partisanship of the American people, rather than talking about the path forward. I think we all know what the issues are that separate us, and they are not that great. prgtoken Of course we want to fund the Children's Health Insurance Program. We heard that from both sides. Let's figure out the plan to do it. Of course we want to fix deferred action because the President has canceled the program in March, and we want to find a way to rise to that challenge, to find a way that aspiring Americans can stay here and work. Let's do it. prgtoken The budget caps and the timing are very important. I understand that s want to spend more on the military than many do. And I have been a constant supporter of trying to find resources that we don't need in our defense and direct them other ways. Let's compromise and find a way to do it, but let's not do it while the government is closed. prgtoken Why don't we find a way to do a 2- or 3- or 4-day extension, or at least get to work, rather than blaming one another on actually solving these issues, which won't go away? prgtoken That is why you find the hesitancy of many of us to say let's just wait 3 weeks or 4 weeks and hash out the same exact issues that we all have our opinions on today, because that is much more uncertainty for the U.S. military, for the American people, for those who rely on basic government services. prgtoken So it is time to actually work together in good faith, to rise to the responsibility of the office that the American people placed us in, to find a commonsense way forward that respects our values as an institution, and to make sure the people are proud of , proud of s, and, yes, I dare to say, even proud of the President of the United States if he plays a constructive role in reopening the government and solving these pressing issues that face us right here.