mesut/congress_speeches huggingface dataset:
TRIBUTE TO DENEECE G. HUFTALIN
Mitt Romney (Republican, UT) \u2014 2024-1-30

I rise today to pay tribute to the exemplary service and leadership of Dr. Deneece G. Huftalin, who will soon conclude a decade of service as the eighth president of Salt Lake Community College, SLCC. prgtoken Deneece grew up in Millcreek, UT, and studied at the University of Utah, where she fell in love with university life and decided to dedicate her professional career to advancing higher education. After working at several education institutions throughout the country, Deneece returned to Utah and joined Salt Lake Community College in 1992. She has been a fixture at SLCC ever since, holding various roles at the college before being inaugurated as its president in 2014. Throughout her more than three decades at SLCC, she displayed an unwavering devotion to community and State service commitments while balancing the demands of a young family. prgtoken During her tenure, the college has experienced significant growth. SLCC now boasts the largest and most diverse student body of any 2-year college in the State, with 10 campuses throughout Utah. Students come from an array of backgrounds to pursue studies in more than 200 degree and certificate programs. At SLCC, students succeed in pursuing their passions, in large part because of how President Huftalin has created innovative educational opportunities. prgtoken A champion of the learner, regardless of background, President Huftalin has consistently created education pathways instead of barriers. Some of her crowning achievements include expanding initiatives that bolster college readiness for high schoolers, providing funding for students when Federal aid falls short and making online education resources mainstream and accessible. The Open Educational Resources initiative alone has saved students more than $21 million. Another program which President Huftalin was instrumental in creating, SLCC's Prison Education Program, made a difference in the lives of many. One of the program's graduates spoke about its impact, saying: ``For many of us, education served as a lifeline, a way to rise above our circumstances and make a difference . . . it became important to me to take charge of my life to secure my future and try to enlighten those around me.'' prgtoken Buoyed by the dedication of remarkable students and the tireless work of the entire SLCC faculty and staff, President Huftalin has created a ripple effect that will long outlast her tenure. Her family--husband Tim and sons Max and Eli--have supported her throughout her journey and helped make it all possible. I have no doubt that Deneece will continue to serve those around her in meaningful ways. The State of Utah thanks her for tireless service to the noble endeavor of education. Thank you.
Iran (Executive Session)
Mitch McConnell (Republican, KY) \u2014 2024-1-30

2 weeks ago, after nearly 150 Iran- backed attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria, a reporter asked President if he had a message for Iran. The President confidently replied: I've already delivered the message to Iran. They know not to do anything. prgtoken The Commander in Chief had the temerity to suggest that the world's most active state sponsor of terrorism was effectively deterred. Repeated attacks since then, including a deadly attack in Jordan that killed three American soldiers and injured dozens more, suggest otherwise. prgtoken SGT William Rivers, SPC Kennedy Sanders, and SPC Breonna Moffett now rest with generations of brave Americans before them who have given their lives in service to our country. I know my colleagues join me in grieving with the families and comrades they leave behind. prgtoken For 3 years, the threat of Iran-backed terror against American personnel and interests in the Middle East has been growing. Iran is emboldened and believes it can use its proxies to attack America with impunity. prgtoken The administration has hastened this erosion of deterrence. Their public hand-wringing and fear of escalation send exactly the wrong message to Tehran and other enemies of America. To paraphrase Henry Kissinger, when our primary objective becomes avoiding war or escalation, we are at the mercy of our most ruthless adversaries. prgtoken The United States' objective is not to avoid escalation at all costs. If it was, the quickest way to achieve it would be to retreat and cede the whole Middle East to Iran. Instead, our objective is to compel Iran and its proxies to stop attacking American forces and our interests in the region and to preserve American influence in a critical part of the world. But to achieve this objective, we have to convince our adversaries that we are prepared to escalate and to threaten the interests that they hold dear. If the Iranian regime thinks America is most afraid of escalation, it prgtoken will use that fear because it believes it will drive us from the Middle East, just as we were driven from Afghanistan. prgtoken It was reasonable to hope that the eruption of proxy violence against American forces in the wake of the October 7 massacre in Israel would convince the administration to start seriously exercising American strength. It was reasonable to hope that a global superpower might finally begin to act like one. That hasn't happened yet, but perhaps the gut-wrenching tragedy of American casualties will finally wake this administration from its delusional approach to Iran. prgtoken Yesterday, the Secretary of Defense echoed President 's hollow assurance from earlier this month, insisting that the administration ``will not tolerate attacks on U.S. forces, and we will take all necessary action to defend the U.S. and our troops.'' Unfortunately, this sentiment isn't yet backed by any action. The fact that Iran'
CELEBRATING NISHNA PRODUCTIONS' 50TH ANNIVERSARY
Zachary Nunn (Republican, IA) \u2014 2024-1-30

I rise today to celebrate Nishna Productions on their 50th anniversary of providing tremendous community support and opportunity to individuals with disabilities in Southwest Iowa. prgtoken What began as a humble operation in 1974 has continued to grow in size and scope over the last five decades. Today, the committed staff at Nishna Productions assist individuals with disabilities along the path to being as independent as possible in their communities by providing them with opportunities to gain vocational skills training, community involvement, and socialization as well as the resources to find and maintain employment. prgtoken I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing Nishna Productions for this incredible milestone. I specifically want to recognize their incredible staff for selflessly working to better the lives of others. Their dedication has not only touched the lives of countless individuals and their families but serves as an inspiration to us all.
SOUTHERN BORDER CRISIS
Gus M. Bilirakis (Republican, FL) \u2014 2024-1-30

I rise because December marked the highest number of illegal immigrant encounters in history with 331 persons on the terror watch list entering the country since President took office. prgtoken President falsely claims that he needs Congress to act to give him the authority to take control over the border. prgtoken Let me be perfectly clear: President has the authority to close the border today. He can simply direct his staff to enforce existing laws and reverse the 61 executive actions he has taken to worsen the border crisis since coming to office. prgtoken I will continue using every single tool at my disposal, including the power of the purse, to force President prgtoken to enact meaningful border security reform, such as the provisions we passed in H.R. 2. prgtoken Any action short of securing our border leaves our Nation in peril and our citizens in jeopardy.
ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS
Joni Ernst (Republican, IA) \u2014 2024-1-30

as ranking member of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, each week I recognize an outstanding Iowa small business that exemplifies the American entrepreneurial spirit. This week, it is my privilege to recognize Penn Drug of Sidney, IA, as the Senate Small Business of the Week. prgtoken Penn Drug Company was founded by John Newton Penn in 1863 after he moved to Southwest Iowa from Pennsylvania to open a medical practice. He prgtoken purchased the medicine he needed from a local doctor and, in 1864, built the drugstore at 714 Illinois Street in downtown Sidney, the same building Penn Drug continues to operate in today. prgtoken After years of serving the community, John Newton Penn sold Penn Drug to his son Alphonso Valdeze Penn in 1876. In addition to being one of the first registered pharmacists in the State of Iowa, Alphonso Valdeze Penn served in the Iowa General Assembly from 1909 until 1911. Alphonso Valdeze Penn's son Alphonso ``Val'' Valdeze Penn, Jr began working at Penn Drug in 1910. Val Penn took over the family business with his wife Christena Penn in 1925. In 1970, William ``Bill'' A. Penn, Val Penn's son, became the owner of Penn Drug after working at the store since 1949. Bill Penn ran the store with his son Jeffrey Penn, the fifth generation of the Penn family in the 1990s. prgtoken In addition to being a community pharmacy, Penn Drug also offers delicious drinks from a soda fountain. Initially installed in the store in 1898, the soda fountain was expanded in 1946 to serve customers lunch in addition to ice cream and sundaes while they wait for their prescriptions. prgtoken Today, Penn Drug is owned by Angie and Leo Ettleman and Mark Vogt, who purchased the store in 2015. Angie Ettleman is no stranger to Penn Drug. She started working at the drugstore in 1990 at the store's soda fountain. Penn Drug has the distinction of being the oldest pharmacy in Iowa, which is largely due to the dedication of each new owner to maintain a piece of Iowa history and honor the Penn family legacy. prgtoken Penn Drug is active in the Sidney community. Over the years, the team has hosted events, including Christmas open houses and customer appreciation days. Penn Drug also provides delivery options for prescriptions from the pharmacy throughout Southwest Iowa. In 2024, Penn Drug celebrated its 161st business anniversary. prgtoken Penn Drug's commitment to providing rural healthcare services while preserving a historic Iowa business is clear. I want to congratulate Angie and Leo Ettleman, Mark Vogt, the Penn family, and the entire team at Penn Drug for their continued dedication to the Sidney community. I look forward to seeing their continued growth and success in Iowa.
AGENT RAUL GONZALEZ OFFICER SAFETY ACT
Tom McClintock (Republican, CA) \u2014 2024-1-30

on December 7 of 2022, Border Patrol Officer Raul Gonzalez got up, he got dressed, kissed his family good- bye, and left for work. prgtoken His family would never see him again. He was killed later that day in Mission, Texas, doing his job trying to protect our country. A group of illegal aliens and their smuggler led him on a high-speed chase that ended in a fatal wreck that took his life. prgtoken Now, this is becoming an increasingly common story along our southern border in the age of 's open-border policies. The number of high- speed chases by Border Patrol or local law enforcement has exploded along with the illegal human trafficking and smuggling that they are trying to stop. prgtoken The administration's lax enforcement of our immigration laws has incentivized this, creating the conditions that create these deadly high-speed chases, and the problem has now reached critical levels. prgtoken One lifelong Arizona resident reflected on the dangers of Highway 90 in Cochise County, now a major smuggling route. She said, It is scary to the point you don't want to drive the highway, but to get to work you have to. I am actually scared about going out into the public sometimes, because what if there is a high-speed chase and something goes sideways, they get into a car accident, hop the curb and hit anybody? prgtoken In Tombstone, Arizona, U.S. Marshal Jim Adams spoke of the high-speed chases racing through his town. He said, This is a weekly occurrence, sometimes daily, sometimes several times a day. prgtoken Americans near the border should not be living in terror for themselves or their loved ones being killed by high-speed chases caused by cartel smugglers. Yet, in many communities, they do now. prgtoken Human smuggling is an incredibly lucrative business. According to Border Patrol estimates in the Del Rio sector alone, cartels profit $32 million a week for a staggering total of $1.6 billion per year just in that one sector. The cartels expertly control their side of the border. Nobody gets through without paying them. prgtoken Yet, while the cartels are making billions controlling their side of the border, is spending billions of dollars while abandoning control of our side of the border. prgtoken This bill is very simple. It makes it a Federal crime to evade the Border Patrol or local law enforcement that is assisting the Border Patrol within 100 miles of the international border. If you are a foreign national, it makes the conviction or admission of such a crime grounds for inadmissibility and removability. If you hurt somebody, we will put you in prison for 5 years. If you kill somebody, we will put you in prison for 10 years. If you are a foreign national, we will send you packing when you get out. prgtoken That is what the in this House will oppose today, and that should be a wake-up call for every American. prgtoken , .
PLACER COUNTY RETAIL THEFT INITIATIVE
Kevin Kiley (Republican, CA) \u2014 2024-1-30

we have some good news in the bill that has just been released that is a major tax bill here in the House of Representatives that will be moving through the House and likely coming up for a vote very soon. The good news is that several measures that I have cosponsored that provide important tax relief have made it into this tax bill. prgtoken I wanted to provide a few examples because these are significant ways in which we are now using the tax code in order to stimulate the right kinds of economic activity. prgtoken One of the measures that made it into the bill is H.R. 2673, the American Innovation and R&D Competitiveness Act. What this does is it eliminates the 5-year amortization requirement for research and experimental expenditures thereby allowing continued expensing of such expenditures in the taxable years in which they are incurred. prgtoken What this does is it enhances the competitiveness of U.S. companies particularly when it comes to competition with China and otherwise across the board. prgtoken Another provision that is very important that has found its way into this bill is H.R. 2406, the ALIGN Act. What it does is it makes permanent the expensing of certain new business equipment. This expensing allows the deduction of the full amount of an expensable item in the same taxable year instead of being depreciated under the current IRS rules. Once again, this is a very important provision for stimulating manufacturing and enhancing our competitiveness here in the United States. prgtoken A third measure which has made its way into this tax bill is H.R. 4970; that is the Protect Innocent Victims of Taxation After Fire Act. This measure which I have cosponsored excludes from gross income for income tax purposes any amount received after 2019 and before 2026 by an individual taxpayer as a qualified wildfire relief payment. prgtoken It defines such payment as compensation for expenses or losses incurred as a result of a federally declared forest or range fire disaster. prgtoken So this is just common sense and much-needed. It corrects an injustice for Californians who had suffered greatly because of our State's catastrophic wildfires and then found they were going to be taxed on the settlements and compensation that they received. prgtoken Finally, within this broader tax bill is another measure that I have cosponsored, H.R. 3238, the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act. Now, this does a number of things to stimulate housing production that we so direly need in the State of California. prgtoken It increases the per capita dollar amount of the affordable housing credit and its minimum ceiling amount beginning in 2023, and it extends the inflation adjustments for such amounts. prgtoken The low-income housing tax credit subsidizes the acquisition, construction, and rehabilitation of affordable rental housing for low- and moderate-income tenants. That is what we are talking about here. This measure tha
MOVING AMERICANS PRIVACY PROTECTION ACT
Steve Daines (Republican, MT) \u2014 2024-1-31

today the Senate passed the bipartisan, bicameral Moving Americans Privacy Protection Act--S. 758, H.R. 1568-- and will send it to the President for his signature. In 2017, a small Montana trucking company came to me with concerns that servicemembers and Americans moving home from abroad were having their identities stolen after cargo manifests were made public by Customs and Border Protection without the removal of their personally identifiable information. So I took action, drafted the Moving Americans Privacy Protection Act, and worked with a bipartisan group of Members in the House and Senate to move forward with a solution. prgtoken The bill is simple and straightforward. It requires Customs and Border Protection to remove all personally identifiable information, including Social Security Numbers and passport numbers, from manifest sheets before making them public. This is an easy solution to a longstanding problem, and I am glad Congress is finally acting to get this bill to the President's desk and signed into law. prgtoken In 1984, Customs and Border Protection were required to publicly disclose certain manifest information. Since then, we have seen the inadvertent disclosure of Americans' personal data with little to no recourse. In today's digital world, once a person's information is put online, it is nearly impossible to remove it. And while the CBP does offer a process for consumers of shipping services to make their information confidential, these forms can take months to process and are often processed after the individual's data has already been released to the public. prgtoken I believe the priority should be to protect Americans' privacy and automatically remove this personal information, rather than requiring citizens to make a request and hope the paperwork is processed in time. This bill will ensure that happens. prgtoken I want to thank Senator Peters for helping lead this bill with me in the Senate, as well as Senator Marshall and Senator Stabenow. I also want to thank Representative Waltz and Representative Pascrell for leading the House companion bill that we passed in the Senate today. I also want to thank all our staff and the staff on the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee for their work over the years to get this bill signed into law. Finally, I want to thank all the Montanans and Americans, including the large group of trucking, moving, and servicemember organizations, who have championed this bill for so long. prgtoken I look forward to our bill getting signed into law and ensuring Americans' and servicemembers' privacy is finally protected.
HONORING THE DISTINGUISHED MILITARY SERVICE OF AIRMAN BOBBY RAY STINSON
Diana Harshbarger (Republican, TN) \u2014 2024-1-31

I rise today to posthumously recognize and extend gratitude to Airman Bobby Ray Stinson for his honorable military service during the Vietnam War Era. prgtoken Airman Stinson was a man defined by his resolute and enduring love of country. Airman Stinson joined the United States Air Force in August 1964. Soon after, he was assigned to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. During this assignment, Airman Stinson served as an aircraft mechanic. He dreamed of one day becoming an Air Force Pilot like his father-in-law. However, due to a service-related injury, Airman Stinson instead received an honorable discharge from the Air Force. prgtoken Following his military service, Airman Stinson returned home to his beloved wife, Shirley Jean in Tennessee. As a stalwart patriot, he made sure the American Flag flew high in their front yard in Blountville. In his civilian life, Airman Stinson served a multidecade career at Eastman Chemical. At Eastman, Airman Stinson's leadership and character proved indispensable. He helmed the maintenance division, where he oversaw and managed large-scale machinery repair and power operations until his retirement in 1998. prgtoken Airman Stinson's word was his bond. His colleagues, friends, and neighbors knew him as a man of integrity, honor, and conviction. As a father, he taught his three sons, Mike, Travis, and Jeff Stinson of Blountville, Tennessee the difference between right and wrong, the value of hard work, and to never take the easy way out. prgtoken Even in his retirement, Airman Stinson's duty of service never wavered. Both as an active member of the Ruritan Club and a dedicated volunteer to the Blountville First Baptist Church, he would always lend a hand whenever he could. Airman Stinson loved to spend time with his family, especially his six wonderful grandchildren. A year before his passing, Airman Stinson and his wife celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary. He is remembered by all who knew him as a great Christian man, who always stood true to his faith in God. prgtoken Please join me in honoring the life of Airman Bobby Ray Stinson and for his patriotic service to our country.