Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. This bill recognizes the importance of establishing a national memorial at the World Trade Center site as the highest honor the Nation can confer to commemorate and mourn the attacks on this Nation on September 11, 2001, and also the first attack, on February 26, 1993; and supports the efforts of the World Trade Center Memorial… Read more »

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call attention to a worthy organization, one committed to special children and their families. The Moses and Aaron Foundation's significant and enduring efforts under the direction of the president, Rabbi Yaacov Kaploun, and executive vice president, Yehuda Kaploun, deserve the highest praise, as do the philanthropists who have given of themselves to… Read more »

I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 5013, the so-called Disaster Recovery Personal Protection Act of 2006. There is really only one word to describe this bill: Insane. The proper title of this bill should be The Right to Sue Cops and National Guardsmen Act of 2006. The premise of the bill is that following Hurricane Katrina, and… Read more »

Mr. NADLER. If the gentleman will yield for a question, under this bill, if a law enforcement officer had completed evacuating people from someplace and saw a few guns lying around in a house, and didn't know who they belonged to but wanted to take them up so that looters who might come by later couldn't take them and present a menace to the public, would this prevent him from… Read more »

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join my colleagues in honoring a truly distinguished public servant. A man without whom our jobs would be infinitely more difficult. Tim Friedman, for decades a fixture of the House Democratic Cloakroom, will take his well earned retirement. Most people outside this building know nothing of the Cloakrooms. The staff there provide information to Members on… Read more »

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I really hate to be an ``I told you so,'' but when, in 2003, we considered legislation to strip the Federal courts of jurisdiction, in that case to hear cases challenging the Defense of Marriage Act, I warned that there would be no end to it. In fact, when we first marked up this bill, I asked my… Read more »

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, we are now down to the heart of the matter. This entire spectacle is aimed at a possible decision by one Court that the directed recitation by school children under the instruction of their teacher of the phrase ``under God'' may violate the first amendment rights of those children. Let's be clear.… Read more »

Madam Speaker, the recent unprovoked attacks on Israel are particularly notable because of the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 and from Gaza in 2005. Israel, as it has so often been urged to do, gave up land for the hope of peace. Yet what happened? From the day Israel withdrew, Hamas fired rockets at Israeli cities and villages every single day, followed more… Read more »

Mr. Chairman, I will not use the 1 1/2 minutes. I will simply say that this amendment is dangerous for the same reason that the bill is dangerous. We should not say, in the case of this amendment, to someone who is a plaintiff in a court in a pending case, we are going to shut the courthouse door in your face because we are afraid the Supreme Court might issue a decision. It has not done… Read more »

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, every word that we have heard uttered on this floor by the majority side has, as Mr. Scott said, increased the likelihood of the courts ordering that the words ``under God'' in the Pledge of Allegiance cannot be recited in a public, in a school situation where there is an imputation of coercion or pressure… Read more »