Season, equipping for the task at hand, focusing on the issues, and making certain that we are there to protect life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That is our charge in this election season. May god bless you. May he bless your weekend and equip you for a big tourist month ahead. Thank you so much. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome to the stage congressman alex moody. [applause] thank you, it is such a pleasure to be with you. Congratulations on your efforts to take our country back from the far left who is intent on making it a socialist utopia that will be a complete failure. My name is alex moody and i am on my first term in congress from the great state of west virginia. I have been passionate about the political process all my life. Father served as the army captain in vietnam. When a mother turned 20 years old, she was sitting in a prison cell in cuba. My mother was raised in cuba. When the bay of pigs invasion failed, they locked everybody up. She was able to flee and be accepted into this country. She saw an entire country taken from her by a despotic dictator, an evil person. Because there is good and evil in this world. Some people would have you believe it is differences of opinion and there is no objective truth and right and wrong differs for every person. That is not true. There is good in this world and there is evil in this world. There is evil and his country, as congressman blackburn just talked about the killing of unborn children. We are passionate about fighting back against this, as are you because you are here. My parents raised me to get involved with this process at a young age. At a nonslip minimum, everybody should vote. An absolute minimum, everybody should vote. There are people that we do know that do not bow, even during the president ial year. But you are here too comment, so obviously you are more active than that. I applaud you for that because it is desperately needed. Frankly, i think we are facing a constitutional crisis. We have a president , an executive, who thinks he can make the law. And that is not how our country works. Our founders set up the system of three equal branches of the government. The president enforces the laws, he does not make up the laws himself. This has become quite a difficult battle in the congress right now. This president has decided that he is going to declare a war on coal. To use the Environmental Protection agency, the department of interior, or any other means of his disposal to industry. The call he is putting people out of work, costing good paying jobs for families just for a political agenda. One of my first battles in congress during my freshman year i have been here a year and a half. You may recall during february of last year, president obama decided to declare executive amnesty by executive order. We were told that they could stay, which is against our lot in this country. And one of the things that is so scary about that is president obama himself has said, no fewer than 22 times that he lacked the authority under the constitution to do that by himself. When he was speaking to other groups he would go speak to left ring groups and speak to conservative groups. We spoke to liberal groups, people would ask, why dont you do executive amnesty illegal amnesty by executive order. He said, i dont have the authority to do it. He used terms like i am not a dictator, not a there are restrictions and i cannot do this by executive order. Everybody knew the president lacked the authority to do that and he did it anyway. That ladys and jenna munn a scary thing. The president does not have that power. We have been waiting and watching to simply assert ourselves and to stand up for the constitutional powers that we have. I have gotten very familiar with article one section seven of the constitution, which says the power to raise revenue, the power of the purse, lies specifically with the United States house of representatives. When the president of the United States gets out of control and goes around congress, taking up laws of through the rulemaking process of his department and through executive orders, congress was empowered by the founders of our country to stop him, to the power the purse. We need to do that. [applause] there has been a lot of talk about having steady commissions and how to do a task force to examine the control the president has and maintain the power of congress. We dont need all of that. It is right there, we have it. Simply have to do it. This president is being a bully. The president does not have the power to do these things. Where the new president might be migh does not have the power to go around congress. We just need to assert ourselves. We have differences on tactics in congress, not differences on the principles. It is so frustrating. I know it is frustrating to you when the house passes bills and recall, we have the largest conservative majority. There are 247 republicans and 188 democrats. It has been frustrating to see us pass bills that have u. S. Senate abusive filibuster rule. The Minority Party, not the Majority Party. They would like everyone to think they are the Majority Party, but they are not. The Minority Party filibusters everything, everything. You need 60 votes to pass something over there. We need to put that on the floors of the world can see the tactics they are using. They do it because they are attempting to shut down government and blame the Majority Party for that, which is of course, unfair. That is something that has been a battle for us to push back against. When we pass our bills in the house of representatives, we should wait until the senate acts and then appoint a conference committee. For us to pass good bills we are doing that right now, and we are doing this this weekend next week. We are passing Appropriations Bills one at a time with riders, things that defund planned parenthood. [applause] things that stop president obamas war on coal. We say, you cant take the money and go against the american people. But i just say, if the people in this country wanted everything barack obama is doing to go unchecked, he wouldve put nancy pelosi as a speaker of the house. He was speaker for a few years, but they did not do that. Iny put paul ryan and us charge of the house. The voters have asked for that second balance. We cant get everything, but there is a lot we can do. One victory we did have late last year, we passed the bill in the house and senate to repeal obama care completely. Thank you. [applause] completely. Every word of it and used the budget reconciliation act. There are procedures we can use to get around the senate filibuster. We passed that with all republican votes and no democrat votes. It went to the desk of the president and as expected, president obama vetoed the bill. But we were trying to send the public a message. If you give us a new president , we can repeal that completely. We can do it. [applause] if we rest assured, maintain a conservative majority in the house and senate, one of the first things we will do next year is repeal that bill completely. He was the event on the desk of the president , first thing. [applause] i know there is a lot of frustration out there and a lot of doubt and i was seeking election to this office, the number one skepticism i had is that we could make a difference at all. That we are fighting hard and with your help, we will continue to make a difference for our values as people who believe in traditional judeochristian values and Strong National defense. Anyway, thanks yall for coming. God bless. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, help me welcome to the stage, Liberty University young woman for america president. [applause] hello. I am here to introduce our next speaker, congresswoman Virginia Foxx from the Fifth District of North Carolina. She was elected to congress in 2005 and prior to that, served as the senator in north Carolinas Legislature for 10 years. She established yourself as a champion of conservative values in both congress and the North Carolina senate. However, most notably, she has been one of the most fearless leaders in congress when it comes to the prolife issue. She is one of the most dedicating, unwavering, and hardworking members of congress. This has become increasingly evident with her leadership when it comes to the fight for the 20 week ban. Is one of the members of congress that led this fight on the house floor. As a young prolife woman, i am so glad to have somebody like are setting an example of fearless and selfless leadership in congress. Please join me in welcoming from the great state of North Carolina, congressman Virginia Foxx. [applause] thank you, very much, savannah. I told savannah backstage that the young woman who runs my office is a liberty grad. She came to me as an intern about 11 years ago and during the first few minutes, she got me some information. I said to my chief of staff, that women is staying here as long as i am here. So, you keep her. We love the liberty grads. We really do. [no audio] [applause] i want to say it is a great honor to be with you this morning and especially, as i have seen the list of speakers and heard already a couple of my colleagues speaking to you and some are back at the back getting ready to come to speak to you. I think you will see what a Wonderful Group of republican members that we have in the congress. You will see that we are very strongly committed to faith and freedom in our country. We are leading the fight in this area, but we need folks like you lands,re in the inner helping to back us up with this. I want to say to you, it is an honor to be with you and i want to encourage you, as the other members have encouraged you and im sure as the members coming after me will, to stay involved and get even more involved. I agree, everybody can do something. I get letters from people in my office and they read my own mail and answer my own mail. So, i stay up with what is going on. And people say, what are you going to do about president obama . What are you going to do about this . And i turn it right back around and say, what are you going to do . Because we cant do this alone in the congress of the United States. We have to have everybody involved. Im so delighted that marsha spoke to you about the Investigative Panel on infant lives. I am the one who originally introduced that bill. I want to tell you, it is a prime example of one of our ma jor responsibilities in the congress that is often overlooked. That is the responsibility of oversight of the executive branch. Howknow, we read about Dysfunctional Congress is all the time. That is a press wants to talk about. Is it because republicans are in charge and we are dysfunctional . That is not true and dont buy into that. I asked recently because most people are saying, why cant you just get along . Did you know, any 9 of our 99 of our bills passed with bipartisan support. We have between 20 and 80 hearings the week and you never hear about that. We are passing legislation, but also, we have lots of committees doing their work in terms of oversight of the executive branch. We are delving into what the executive branch is doing and how it is either doing its work right or not doing its work right, as well as agencies that get money from the federal government, like planned parenthood. As part of our responsibility and i think we are doing it very well. I do want to tell you again, very briefly, you are going to hear from a variety of us and i want to tell you, because they help to inspire the young people here, like savannah. You might think that members of Congress Come from rare backgrounds, but i grew up in a house with no electricity and no running water. Th grader had a six education and my father had a ninth grade education. I tell them, im not tell you that to complain or to brag. Im only saying, we live in the greatest country in the world. [applause] asked this morning on a radio show if i were giving a commencement speech right now, this is commencement season, what would i say to young people . And i would say to them, wake up, open your eyes, and realize, you live in the greatest country in the world, where you have every opportunity to exercise the godgiven skills and talents you have to be whatever it is you want to be. Now, i have to tell you, when i was younger, i was focused on surviving. That is all i was focused on. I did not know god would lead me to where he has led me, but i feel very strongly that i could not be in the congress of the United States without the hand of god, guiding me and bringing me here. [applause] as others have alluded to, i love the title of your group, faith and f reedom. Well milk, that is how our country was formed on the concept of freedom and faith. We are losing those freedoms, slowly but surely in this country. The only way we are going to keep them is for people like you to be involved and to make sure that you hold people running for office to account to maintain our freedom and to make sure our faith is not pushed aside. I dont know how many of you ever get a chance to go down and see the congress in session, but we begin every day with a prayer and the pledge of allegiance. And every republican meeting that we have, our conference meetings not all of the community meetings, but a lot of our special community meetings, we begin with a prayer and the pledge of allegiance. And i think it is important that you know that because we do look to god for guidance and i will tell you, some of the prayers that are given in our conference are so inspiring. I have been collecting them. I was hoping someday to publish those. But you have folks on our side of the aisle, and some people on the other son, who want to sustain what sounded our country. This morning i said to one of my staffers, i said, i want to talk a bit about the founding of the country and this theme of faith and freedom. Because i know i have read that the founders of the constitution, the signers of the declaration of independence were members of the American Bible Society. Most of them were preachers. Most of you probably know that history. But if you dont, i encourage you to learn more about it. But i found something really interesting and my staff gave me the list of president s of the American Bible Society and i saw that the United States senator Theodore Freeman highs and was elected president in 1846. And then frederick, was elected president in 1894. The reason i mention them is because there is one in the congress right now, from new jersey. And so, that thread has stayed with us throughout our entire history. And we want to keep that thread there. I will tell you that again, you hear lots of negative things about us, but it is important you know, there are positive things that have been. We have a Prayer Breakfast every thursday morning, out of which the national Prayer Breakfast developed. We get together in a bipartisan fashion and we pray for each other and we pray for our leaders. I go to a bible study on wednesday mornings and my group focuses on jesus calling. How many of you read jesus calling every day . It is so great and it is one of the best devotionals that we have. But i want to talk a little bit more about policy. As a some of you know and other people will allude to today, speaker ryan has asked us to look at setting up an agenda called better way for the american people. We want to point out to people that we have a philosophy and we have an agenda. If we return to congress with a republican majority and we get a republican president , we will have a better way for the american people. We believe we will win on philosophy and ideas. We dont want this contest this fall to be a contest of just personalities. And so, we are working on that. The firstlled out one, which is on poverty, opportunity, and education. These are things that our faithbased organizations have always been so good at. We want to give them even more of a opportunityn in the future. Do you know anything that the government does better than the private or Nonprofit Sector . Nothing, absolutely nothing. And we have been spending 1 trillion each year on poverty programs and have not moved the needle one bit. To reengage the aith immunity and marking with us to make a difference for the american people, go back to the way it used to be in this country when that was the responsibility of our faithbased organizations. You know, i am somebody who beg ins each day reading jesus calling. Sometimes i read it at midnight before i go to bed and then read it again in the morning. I want you to know that most of us, starting with the speaker and coming down to all of us on that we of the aisle, know that this nation needs a moral and Spiritual Foundation in order to survive and thrive. [applause] George Washington said in his first inaugural, no people can be bound to it knowledge the hand that conducts the affairs of man more than the people of the United States. So, we must be involved as people of faith. And i often talk to people at home who feel like they are losing their faith and they say, we can do anything. It is all lost. Please do not buy into that. I believe as long as god gives us breath, we can save this country. [applause] what i have told people for many many years when they told me years ago, when it first ran for the state senate, i was at a church, meeting people and they said, we dont think church and politics shoudld mix. Politics is a dirty business. I said, if people of faith are not involved in the political life, you were leaving it to the philistines. [applause] and i am not willing to leave it to the philistines. So, i want to say to you, thank you. Thank you for being involved with the faith and freedom coalition. Thank you for caring about this country. Thank you for being people of faith. And dont be discouraged. Im not discoura