mesut/congress_speeches huggingface dataset:
HONORING JOHN AND KATHY LOGUE
Andy Kim (Democrat, NJ) \u2014 2022-5-3

. Madam , I rise today to honor John and Kathy Logue, who are being honored as the 2022 Citizens of the Year for Moorestown, New Jersey. This year's award recognizes two Moorestown residents who have positively impacted the quality of life of our community. prgtoken John and Kathy moved to Moorestown in 1978 and immediately became involved in the community. Their collaborations touched the lives of many, and they have become familiar faces around town. Whether it was volunteering at neighborhood events, coaching sports teams, or leading a Girl Scout troop, their positivity radiates throughout our community. During the last 46 years, John and Kathy have volunteered with 9 and 11 different organizations respectively, in Moorestown and throughout New Jersey. prgtoken Starting his work in 1978 as the Moorestown Deputy Clerk, John became an active member of many committees and advisory boards. Totaling a combined 12 years of service, John played an integral role on the Planning Board; the Zoning Board; the Economic Development Advisory Committee; the Low and Moderate Income Housing Advisory Committee; Moorestown's Visioning Advisory prgtoken Committee; and the Make It Moorestown Celebration Committee. In addition, John was an active member of the Moorestown Rotary Club and the Knights of Columbus Council 1082. prgtoken Similarly impressive, Kathy served as Vice President, Planning Board Alternate, and a member of the Appearance Committee for the Moorestown School Board for more than a decade. Kathy was also a Board Member and Secretary of the Moorestown Business Association from 2006 to 2009. Her most recent community work involves her contributions to Percheron Park and her involvement on the Moorestown Tree Planting and Preservation Committee. prgtoken For almost five decades, whether they were together or apart, John and Kathy they have been integral participants in Moorestown's volunteer community and have been described as an inspiration to everyone around them. I am proud to congratulate them both for winning this award and thank them for their continued service to our community.
Unanimous Consent Request--Executive Calendar (Executive Session)
Mark R. Warner (Democrat, VA) \u2014 2022-5-3

I think we have an incredible nominee in Mr. Wainstein. He has served our government in the Justice Department at the FBI at virtually every level. prgtoken I think if my colleague, the Senator from Kentucky, is concerned about this, we ought to have somebody who is confirmed in this role. prgtoken And I would acknowledge that there are Members who share his concerns about First Amendment rights, including one of the members of our committee who has worked through Mr. Wainstein and was part of the group that unanimously voted to move him forward. prgtoken I am disappointed by the objection, and, unfortunately, both the security of our country and, candidly, the protection of those First Amendment rights is undermined by not having this nominee in place. prgtoken . prgtoken .
RECOGNIZING MS. DENISE SMITH
Haley M. Stevens (Democrat, MI) \u2014 2022-5-3

. Madam , I rise today in recognition of Ms. Denise Smith of Canton, Michigan, upon her 70th birthday. Ms. Smith is a tireless community servant and personal friend who has dedicated her life to advancing many social and political causes that are critically important to the people of Michigan's 11th Congressional District and the greater Metropolitan Detroit community. The entire Nation benefits from the work of Ms. Smith, and it is a pleasure to join her family and friends in celebrating and thanking her today upon achieving this significant milestone. prgtoken Ms. Denise Smith grew up in Waterford, Michigan and has continued to make Southeast Michigan her home for many years since. She spent much of her career with Ford Motor Company in corporate finance, retiring after 25 years, in 2014. In addition to the full-time commitment of maintaining a family and career, Ms. Smith found great pleasure in serving her community through volunteering and grassroots organizing. She was inspired to lead a life of service by her experience as a child, watching her parents offer help to anyone in need. This instilled in Denise a strong sense of service, leading to her affiliation with many local organizations throughout her life that have the mission of helping others. prgtoken Among the many causes that Ms. Smith has taken up, she has worked to support and advocate for survivors of domestic and sexual violence with First Step Michigan, address the gun violence epidemic with Moms Demand Action, and organize and distribute clothing to those in need as a high school clothing bank volunteer. Expanding the scope of her activism, Ms. Smith was drawn to assist with the election of , serving as a volunteer for his 2008 campaign. Ms. Smith loves sharing her enthusiasm for her community by making phone calls to engage voters, assembling yard signs to remind neighbors of the upcoming election, and overseeing campaign offices and their administration. She also served on the board of the Canton ic Club and was Treasurer of the Township Treasurer's campaign. Because of her tireless efforts, she was deservedly awarded the 2013 Grassroots Activist Award from her local ic Party organization. prgtoken Along with being a prolific local activist, Ms. Smith is proud to be a mother and grandmother. Her beloved son, Sam Plymale (Chelsea Plymale) of Livonia, Michigan, and daughter, Sarah Plymale-Ponza (Victor Ponza) of Portland, Oregon, have brought her great joy in welcoming two lovely grandchildren, Annabelle Plymale and Zadian Ponza; she is also thrilled for another grandson, Joseph Plymale, to join the family this June. Being a mother and grandmother motivates Ms. Smith's efforts to extend beyond rhetoric, as she translates her passion into action that is certain to leave our nation a better place for future generations. prgtoken Madam , Ms. Denise Smith has dedicated herself to helping others and has improved
IN RECOGNITION OF MARIA GUADALUPE ``LUPITA'' AGUILAR
Henry Cuellar (Democrat, TX) \u2014 2022-5-3

. Madam , I rise today to honor Maria Guadalupe ``Lupita'' Aguilar. prgtoken Maria Guadalupe ``Lupita'' Aguilar was born and raised in Laredo, TX. A proud daughter of a WWII Veteran and a farmworker turned seamstress, Lupita was taught about the values of community and service at an early age. prgtoken Lupita honorably graduated from Nixon High School and Laredo Community College and made a career in the service industry--working in housing and health care spaces primarily focusing on servicing low- income, Latino families throughout Laredo and Webb County. prgtoken The biggest accomplishment of her life has been being a mother of four grown children who are in their late 20's and early 30's: Jorge ``Georgie'' Aguilar, Jaime ``JB'' Aguilar, Lorena Aguilar, and Randy Aguilar. Watching them graduate from college, start a job and form their own families has been a blessing. Guided by her Catholic faith, positive mentality and optimism, Lupita has surmounted many challenges in the past including beating breast cancer twice. prgtoken During her free time, Lupita enjoys spending time with her grandchildren, cooking and traveling when she gets the opportunity. She and her husband reside in Rio Bravo, TX--just blocks away from the Rio Grande--where they've lived for over 20 years. prgtoken Madam , please join me in recognizing Maria Guadalupe ``Lupita'' Aguilar.
HONORING TEACHER APPRECIATION WEEK
Nanette Diaz Barragán (Democrat, CA) \u2014 2022-5-3

. Madam , in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, I want to commend and honor the extraordinary teachers in California's 44th Congressional District and across the United States. prgtoken Teacher Appreciation Week is an annual celebration of educators and the remarkable contributions they make in the lives of our students, parents, schools, and communities. prgtoken During the COVID-19 pandemic, our Nation's teachers innovated the education system to create new ways to connect and care for their students during times of uncertainty during both remote and in-person learning. prgtoken And our teachers have done all of this while they care for themselves and their own families. prgtoken Despite these challenges, teachers across the country continue to show up day after day to inspire, empower, and motivate their students. prgtoken I'd like to highlight two of my district's extraordinary teachers: Audrey Casas and Youko Amemiya and share a bit more about some of their accomplishments. prgtoken Audrey Casas is a passionate, brilliant, and community-focused Teach for America teacher in Los Angeles. During the pandemic she noticed some of her students and their families struggled to secure basic necessities, which led her to start working in the community to gather resources. Her success led to a nonprofit that she now runs in addition to her job teaching. She is passionate about student led practices and integrates many student-led projects into her teaching. Audrey's classroom is a safe space for kids and is often packed at lunchtime with her students including the ones she doesn't teach, to take part in ``lunch club.'' Some days the kids just hangout while they eat their personal lunches, and other days kids and their families will bring food to share. She constantly celebrates her students and fellow staff, from teachers to custodians to administrators, and is a known light on her campus, in her community, and in Lynwood. She was selected as Teacher of the Month by her students and her efforts were recognized by her school, district, and other regional news publications. prgtoken Youko Amemiya is an enthusiastic and accomplished teacher in the City of Carson, who is dedicated to her students, her school, and her community. She has instilled a vision of climate awareness at her school site with the development of her school's Roots and Shoots Club. At the beginning of the year, she wanted to teach her students about caring for the environment by planting 100 trees throughout the community in honor of the school's 100-year anniversary. Her students and community rallied behind her and helped to plant over 200 trees. Mrs. Amemiya is also committed to helping beautify her school. Through her tireless work reaching out to community partners and applying to grants, she was able to secure planters, benches, trees, soil, and various plants to make her school shine. She has been a positive influence on her classroom, her Roo
LEGISLATIVE SESSION
Charles E. Schumer (Democrat, NY) \u2014 2022-5-3

. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate resume legislative session, and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 360, S.J. Res. 39, with the time until 4:45 p.m. equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, and that at 4:45 p.m the joint resolution be read a third time, and that the Senate vote on passage of the joint resolution, with no intervening action or debate. Further, that upon disposition of the joint resolution, the Senate resume executive session.
LEGISLATIVE SESSION
Sheldon Whitehouse (Democrat, RI) \u2014 2022-5-3

this is my 283rd travel to the Senate prgtoken floor to ask that we wake up to the threat of climate change--an issue that demands, right now, American leadership. Over the recent recess, I traveled to parts of the world where climate catastrophe looms, and I saw firsthand what the absence of American leadership has cost. prgtoken My first stop was to the 2022 Our Oceans Conference in Palau, where I joined President 's Special Envoy for Climate, Secretary John Kerry, to discuss the state of our oceans. It was another productive Our Oceans Conference, leading to 410 commitments from around the world, worth $16.35 billion, to fund climate action, reduce plastic pollution, and reduce illegal fishing, among other things. These commitments are, indeed, a hopeful sign. prgtoken Palau is a tiny, beautiful ocean nation on the very far side of the Pacific Rim. This archipelago relies almost entirely on the ocean, with tourism as the dominant industry and fishing as a way of life. Palau has a front-row seat to the changes taking place in our ocean. Rising ocean temperatures and sea levels, acidification, disrupted fisheries, more frequent storms--they see and feel these every day. prgtoken I have spoken a lot about the amount of heat trapped by greenhouse gas pollution and then absorbed by our oceans. It is equivalent to multiple Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs being detonated in the ocean every second. That is the heat load that we are adding. In the last three decades, our oceans warmed eight times faster than in preceding decades. This is so much heat that you have to measure it using a special super unit of measurement--the zettajoule. prgtoken What is a zettajoule? A joule--J-O-U-L-E--is our standard unit of heat energy. A zettajoule is that unit with 21 zeros behind it. Here is a more practical reference: All of the energy used annually by all of the people in all of the world--all of it--adds up to one half--one half--of a zettajoule. prgtoken What does this mean for oceans? Scientists tell us that the top 2,000 meters of ocean absorbed a record 227 excess zettajoules of energy from 1981 to 2010. The current rate is to load 14 zettajoules of heat into our oceans every single year, which means we are loading into our oceans every year nearly 30 times more heat than the entire energy use of the entire species on the entire planet. prgtoken If you take a look at the segment of our energy use that is produced by fossil fuels, that segment, which is less than half a zettajoule, is creating this effect of 14 zettajoules of heat into the oceans every single year. We are pumping into the oceans nearly 30 times our total global human energy use. prgtoken This kind of heat is why coral reefs face mass bleaching and are dying, and, of course, dead reefs threaten the collapse of entire ocean ecosystems. It is not just dying reefs; when water warms, it expands, which means sea levels are rising and will rise by f
CELEBRATING THE LIFE OF DR. JOHNNIE ANDERSON JONES, SR., ESQ.
Troy A. Carter (Democrat, LA) \u2014 2022-5-3

. Madam , today, I want to recognize the extraordinary life of Dr. Johnnie Anderson Jones, Sr Esq. of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a Civil Rights Lawyer, and World War II Veteran, at the tender age of 102 on April 23, 2022. prgtoken Dr. Jones was born November 30, 1919, in Laurel Hill, Louisiana and raised on Rosemound Plantation by his parents, who farmed 73 acres of land but insisted that their son get an education. He attended a two- room schoolhouse and became interested in the law, he said, when a teacher gave him a book by Charles Evans Hughes, then the Chief Justice of the United States. ``While we were out in the fields picking cotton, I would be thinking about what I read in that book,'' Mr. Jones told the Advocate of Baton Rouge. ``I couldn't stand the sight of people picking cotton . . . . Everything it represented.'' prgtoken Mr. Jones enrolled at Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, planning to major in industrial education. He was 24 years old, a future civil rights lawyer not yet graduated from college, when he landed on the beaches of Normandy in the D-Day invasion of 1944. He was tasked with unloading equipment during the Normandy invasion. prgtoken He became the Army's first African-American warrant officer. He was assigned to a unit responsible for unloading equipment and supplies onto Normandy. prgtoken He nearly died before his ship reached the shore, when the explosion of a mine sent him flying ``sky high into the air,'' he recalled, and onto an upper deck. He again almost died when he came under German sniper fire on Omaha Beach. prgtoken When Mr. Jones returned home to Louisiana, he was greeted not with a hero's welcome, but rather with all the indignities of segregation in the Jim Crow South. prgtoken Riding a bus with fellow U.S. servicemembers, Mr. Jones, who was African American, was forced to sit in the back of the coach. He was driving to New Orleans to have shrapnel removed from his neck when a White police officer, entirely unprovoked, pulled him over and began assaulting him. ``He knocked me down and started kicking me,'' he said. ``Things weren't right. `Separate but equal' was unconstitutional, and I wanted to fight it and make it better.'' prgtoken Mr. Jones did so by enrolling in law school and becoming a lawyer in the early years of the civil rights movement. Mr. Jones was credited with fighting legal battles on multiple fronts of the movement for racial equality. prgtoken He worked with voter leagues and with civil rights organizations; including the NAACP and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). He assisted demonstrators who participated in lunch-counter sit-ins. During that time, his car was bombed on two separate occasions. prgtoken After the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, which outlawed segregation in public schools, he helped accompany about 30 Black children to a White elementary school in Baton Rouge, historian Adam Faircloug
PROMOTING MINORITY HEALTH AWARENESS AND SUPPORTING THE GOALS AND IDEALS OF NATIONAL MINORITY HEALTH MONTH
Benjamin L. Cardin (Democrat, MD) \u2014 2022-5-3

I rise today to ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing April as National Minority Health Month. For over 35 years, commemorating National Minority Health Month every April has provided us the opportunity to celebrate the progress we have made in addressing health disparities and recommit to achieving health equity. s, especially Senator Scott of South Carolina, for working with me to recognize this occasion formally through a Senate resolution. prgtoken Minority groups now make up more the 40 percent of the American population, and that number will continue to rise. Health disparities persist among racial and ethnic minorities. These disparities are plainly visible if we examine the mental health crisis or diseases such as diabetes and asthma. prgtoken Adults and children across all groups continue to experience increased behavioral health issues, but the burden on minority populations is heaviest. For instance, for American Indian and Alaska Native adults the death rate from suicide is about 20 percent higher than non-Hispanic White population. In 2019, suicide was the leading and second leading cause of death for Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders and African-Americans aged 15 to 24 respectively. High school-aged Asian American males were 30 percent more likely to consider attempting suicide than non-Hispanic White male students were. prgtoken This is why I continue to work with my colleagues in the Senate Finance Committee to improve access to behavioral healthcare for everyone. I look forward to working with all of my colleagues in the Senate to get the bipartisan package signed into law and am proud to continue my work to improve behavioral health, especially through increased telehealth access. prgtoken More than 30 million Americans live with diabetes, but African- Americans are twice as likely and Hispanics are over 1.3 times as likely to die from diabetes as non-Hispanic Whites are. African- Americans are also over three times more likely to suffer from diabetes-related end-stage renal disease than non-Hispanic Whites are. African-Americans and Hispanics are also at higher risk of having other related complications, such as the need for lower extremity amputations. prgtoken Asthma is another disease that disproportionately harms African- American, Hispanic, and American Indian and Alaska Native peoples. These groups have the highest asthma rates, hospitalizations, and deaths. For example, African-Americans are nearly 1.5 times more likely to have asthma than non-Hispanic White Americans and 5 times more likely to visit the emergency room due to asthma. prgtoken Social determinants of health such as access to transportation, education, housing, and income play a key role in health and well- being. According to the Healthy Baltimore 2020 report, the discrepancy in life expectancy between higher-income and lower-income neighborhoods within the city is as high a
CELEBRATING MR. ALVIN BROOKS' 90TH BIRTHDAY
Emanuel Cleaver (Democrat, MO) \u2014 2022-5-3

. Madam , I rise today to celebrate and honor Mr. Alvin Brooks for his decades of service to Missouri's Fifth Congressional District and to congratulate him on his most recent milestone: his 90th birthday. Having spent a lifetime advancing civil and human rights, Alvin Brooks is a Kansas City legend who has been recognized in both chambers of Congress. On this momentous occasion, it is once again worth reflecting on Al's inspiring narrative. prgtoken Born into poverty during the early years of the Great Depression, Alvin and his family struggled to make ends meet. Coming of age during a time when legal segregation was still yet to be declared unconstitutional, Alvin never forgot the lessons he learned while navigating the injustices of Jim Crow. Firsthand knowledge of the country's racial caste system, and the oppressive measures used to uphold it, generated within him a deep desire for justice and a strong sense of right and wrong. Alvin understood the importance of Black Americans being represented in all professional fields, particularly law and politics. It is only fitting, then, that he became one of Kansas City's only Black police officers in the 1950s. Not only that, but he also founded the AdHoc Group Against Crime--a grassroots organization dedicated to reducing violence, solving crimes, and bringing about healing--and later organized the city's Human Relations Department, making him the first Black department head in Kansas City government. prgtoken Alvin continued to inspire. He was twice elected to City Council, served as the Mayor Pro Tem, and came within 851 votes of becoming Mayor of Kansas City, Missouri. Alvin chaired city's the Public Safety Committee, the Police Capital Improvements Oversight Committee, the Police Site Selection Committee, and was vice-chair of the Aviation Committee and the Finance and Audit Committee. Whatever his station, though, Alvin was always a man of the people. He opposed racism in all its forms, brought justice to the community, and prioritized fairness and equality. ``Hate the sin, love the sinner''--that is Alvin. Through it all, he kept his roots. His work in Kansas City, though, is demonstrative of the work we need to do in communities all across America. Justice, fairness, and human rights: these are neither specific to locale nor timeframe. They are universal and eternal. prgtoken President George H.W. appointed Alvin to the President's National Drug Advisory Council. He was one of President 's ``Thousand Points of Light,''--a select group of Americans who were recognized for volunteering in cities and towns across the country-- serving in that capacity for three years. Understanding the devastating impact that the influx of drugs inflicted on underserved communities, Alvin worked tirelessly to steer others away from substance abuse. Missouri Governor Jay Nixon appointed him to the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners, where he used his seat