Freedom and oppression better than service men and women. They fight our nations wars, they risk their lives to defend our constitution. Sadly, the threat to our constitutions not just from foreign enemies. Sometimes sadly the right here in the halls of congress. In my short three months here ive seen attempted infringements on the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, ninth and 10th amendments. Hats hard to believe. Just this past summer we had members of congress obstructing the peoples work here. Sitting on the house. An agenda that seeks to deprive us of the very rights our Founding Fathers sought to preserve with the constitution and the bill of rights. Anyone can do a plane reading of the constitution and see the right to keep and bear arms is named right there, to be applied at the individual level. The rest of the bill of rights is almost certainly talking about is certainly talking about rights at the individual level and the Second Amendments no exception. Justice scalia wrote in the heller decision, nowhere else in the constitution does it a right attributed to the people refer to anything other than an individual right. The people refers to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset. We start therefore with a strong presumption that the Second Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to all americans. You see, for more than 100 years, the 14th amendments been used to link the rest of the bill of rights to the states and somehow the same folks that are onboard with applying the First Amendment to states, whether its free speech or voting rights, freedom of religion in some cases, theyre reluctant to let the same be true for the Second Amendment. When they want a uniform view of things that arent even addressed in our constitution, like marriage, theyre not willing to apply the same logic to our constitution with something thats very plainly stated. The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. I take that right very seriously. Those of us who have served in the military know all too well what a society looks like when freedoms are squashed. Weve seen these places and met the people who have lived under tyranny. Our Founding Fathers knew the battle between freedom and tyranny too well. Many sacrificing their lives in the struggle to establish this nation. It is not an accident that they enshrine that right to keep and bear arms squarely right after the right to speech and freedoms of religion. It is so essential to stave off oppressers that we cannot be truly free without it. After these men sacrificed life and limb, let us not besmirch their legacy by subjecting it to an agenda which would seek to take away this freedom, one firearm or one freedom at a ime. The threats are real. Its hard to imagine. The not just rhetoric the not just rhetoric. Those word its not just rhetoric. Those words, freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. Sounds like political rhetoric but it is just so real. And we have to take it very seriously. Its an honor to be here and talk about it. Madam speaker, i yield back my ime. I want to thank my colleagues and i really want to express what a privilege it is to serve in this house. I believe in this country. And this exceptional way of life. Mr. Gibson not that we dont have challenges. We certainly have those. Theres nothing that we cant solve together. We also need to recognize that what we did in the 18th century , which allowed for the most freedom and the opportunity and in the history of man kind, is not a birth right. The not a foregone conclusion. Every generation has to defend it, they have to defend it. From threats from abroad and also be vigilant for unintentional or perhaps intentional encroachment here at home. Our colleagues here, we believe deeply in protecting this exceptional way of life. As i stated earlier, we love our family, we love our friends, we love our communities. We want to ensure that they are safe. Were ready to work with our colleagues on that. As we do, we need to keep forefront this exceptional way of life, which the first generation of americans fought to provide for us and that every successive generation has fought to preserve. And that we also take commonsense approaches that are based on data and that are focused on actually solving the problem. We identified some of those problems tonight. In areas where we think we can find some Common Ground and i mentioned one of them, which we already have. In terms of the Law Enforcement and cracking down on the narco traffickers. Moism, madam speaker, were here tonight because we also wanted to make it very clear that while there are passions and emotions in every direction , we wanted to make it very clear that what we hold so dear , this exceptional way of life, the liberties, the bill of rights, the constitution, this is something we will defend. We have defended and we continue to defend. May god bless this country. Madam speaker, with that we yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. Under the speakers announced policy of january 6, 2015, the gentleman from wisconsin, mr. Pocan, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader. Mr. Pocan thank you very much, madam speaker. I am here on behalf of the progressive caucus, which is in charge of this hour. We are here today to talk about the Transpacific Partnership and trade. The people in the progressive caucus have been some of the leaders in the movement to make sure that we have trade deals that protect american jobs and lift our wages here in the United States. We want to make sure there are environmental protections across the globe. We want to make sure our food is safe and our Prescription Drugs are affordable. We want to make sure theres human rights in countries that do trade with the United States and we want to make sure were addressing issues like currency manipulation. All of those issues are important when you want to advance trade. No one in this room is against trade. Were all for increasing our ability to have more exports and to have imports into this country. But you have to have trade deals that work on behalf of the American Worker and all too often past trade deals have cost us jobs here in the United States. Theyve made our wages continue to be depressed. And thats not a good trade deal in the minds of the members of the progressive caucus and thats why we are here at this hour to talk specifically about what is good trade, why were skeptical of the Transpacific Partnership and why we especially dont want to see a vote during the lame duck session. After the election in november, with people who are no longer going to be serving in congress , to be taking that vote at that time would be an especially bad idea. Today is a national callin day of action on the Transpacific Partnership. Theres over 90 Public Interest groups that have been calling our offices. Ive heard my staff picking up the phone over and over and over again today, responding to people who want to make sure that we have trade deals that take care of all those things that we talked about, all the things that members of the progressive caucus have been leaders in this congress trying to advocate for. In conjunction with the tens of thousands of people who have called Congress Today to urge their members not only to not support the Transpacific Partnership, because its really not a trade deal, theres parts of it about trade, this is a rewriting of corporate rules that could have huge ramifications. 40 of the worlds Gross Domestic Product is involved in this one large deal. And we want to make sure we get it right, not just fast. And thats why were joining with these groups today to make sure that people know whats in the Transpacific Partnership and why its vitally important that we dont take this up uring a lame duck session. Who both oppose the Transpacific Partnership. This should be something that, as much respect as i have, enormous respect for president obama, we should allow the next president to address trade, especially when a deal like this has so much controversy and so many questions about it. We are here during the next hour, we are going to hear from various members of the progressive caucus. S can my honor to yield time to one of my colleagues from the great state of california, the 17th district of california is very lucky to have a representative who has been such an outspoken advocate for middle class families, not just from california but across the country. I would like to yield as much time as needed to my colleague from the 17th district of california, representative mike honda. Mr. Honda thank you, madam speaker. I rise today to voice my opposition to t. P. P. , an unfair trade deal which will hurt our nations workers and give corporations dangerous new rights. An alarming expansion of the investor state dispute process. T. P. P. Will give corporations a legal weapon to enforce their agenda on sovereign nations. Corporations have already used isds to bring over 700 lawsuits against more than 100 governments around the world. My home state of florida bapped the use as an additive in gasoline because it was polluting the groundwater, the Canadian Company sued. Costing the state and federal government millions of dollars to defend the case. T. P. P. Would extend these rights to 1,000 additional corporations, owning more than 9,200 subsidiaries. We need to stop Foreign Corporations from suing the u. S. Government before accountable panels of corporate lawyers. While giving these rights to corporations, t. P. P. Will provide little benefit to the american economy. Widely cited cited estimate of 0. 13 growth in u. S. G. D. P. Under t. P. S. Is over 10 years t. P. P. Is over 10 year. Its not an annual gain. A gain that benefits only a few is undone by the negative impact t. T. P. P. Will have on workers at home and abroad. Under nafta, 700,000 american jobs move to mexico to take advantage of mexican workers making 30 less than American Workers. Even after adjusting for differences in living costs. While t. P. P. Requires nations to implement minimum wage, minimum wage laws, nothing in the language of the deal prevents them from setting the wage as low as five cents an hour. T. P. P. Is a small win for highincome earners at the huge expense of lowincome workers. T. P. P. Sls lacks strong provisions to deal with countries with repulsive human rights abuses, including Human Trafficking and intolerance of the lgbt community. Singapore, malaysia and brew anyway criminalize samesex relations. Rewarding them with a trade agreement is really very unacceptable. Throughout my tenure in congress, i have evaluated each trade agreement based on whether it ensures strong, clear and enforceable label, environmental and human rights standards. I do not believe that the proposed Transpacific Partnership agreement that was sent to congress meets my standards. It does not deserve to be considered during a lame duck session. As it is currently written, t. P. P. Should not be brought to a vote. It should not be brought to a vote period. Yield back. Mr. Pocan thank you, madam speaker. Id like to thank the gentleman from the 17th district of california for his words. As he mentioned, there are a number of provisions that you can start to drill down to, in the giant vols that make up the Transpacific Partnership. There are provisions that i think the American People have no idea, in fact, i would argue there are people in congress who have no idea of whats in the transpacific marneship. Just one of those provisions that representative honda mentioned is the investor state dispute settlement process. The isds provisions. Where you have a threeperson tribunal of unelected, unaccountable people, people who are corporate lawyers one day and then fair ash traitors of the law another day arbitrators of the law another day. That set up this separate Legal Process from the american judicial system that international companies, multinational companies, can access if they want to sue the local government for a law that theyve passed, that they think affects their future profit. Think about it. Think about it. Everyone else in the country has to follow the court system we have in the United States. As a multinational company, because of the provisions in the Transpacific Partnership, decide they want to go around that system and go to three corporate lawyers who form a tribunal under this isds provision and want to challenge that law they can sue for monetary damages. Think about it. For example, if the state of wisconsin, where i come from, were to has a higher minimum wage than the federal minimum wage and it could be challenged potentially by multinational corporations saying thats going to affect their corporate profit, they could see the taxpayers of wisconsin over that law. This isnt just something we are dreaming up. We have seen over and over again countries in trade deals be sued because of environmental laws and other laws theyve passed that they said affect their future profits. It doesnt happen in the american legal system. Now as bad as this sounds, to skirt the american legal system, a special system for multinational corporations, let me tell you whats even worse about that provision. Its only a tribunal for those corporations, but the parts of the trade agreement that affect labor law or environmental law dont have access to the same provision. They have to go through the normal legal court system. Recently, there was a labor dispute with the country of hon tour rass with a company. It took us six years to get that resolved. So for environmental law or labor law, for things that are going to affect most people, we still have to flole the court system which is the way it should be, but for multinational corporations, they have these special streamlined process with basically their own arbitrators making the decision, allowing you to sue taxpayers within a local government or State Government that may pass a law. That doesnt make any sense whatsoever. Thats just one of those provisions that is a real problem. Another thing that mike honda from the great state of california said was he talked about some of the Human Rights Violations and there are explicit Human Rights Violations in some of the countries that dont respect things like single mothers, who dont respect the lgbt community. Those are things we absolutely cant allow. Our country has done so much to work with other countries to raise human rights standards. And yet in this bill, this trade agreement, the Transpacific Partnership, it does not have those things in place to make sure that weve got those protections for so many different people and so many different provisions. So what he mentioned are just a couple of the provisions. Let me mention something that i think people dont know about. As i mentioned at the begin, the Transpacific Partnership is made up of countries that are going to make up 40 of the worlds Gross Domestic Product. Its one thing to have a trade agreement with a country thats similar, like canada. Or a country like japan that does a lot of similar goods that theyre producing. But we have countries in here like vietnam where they dont allow trade unions, where people make on average 65 cents an hour. As you can tell, theres twoing to be a huge difference in a trade agreement you have with a country like canada and a country like vietnam. But in this trade agreement,ern is lumped together. Theres a long lead time that vietnam would have to try to get their act together, especially just around issues like having a trade union, much less around wage issues. But you can just imagine that if you open that door to have trade preferences for a country like vietnam at 65 cents an hour, yes, i will contend that we will lift their wages ever so slightly. But i will also tell you based on evidence weve seen from past trade deals that you will further depress our wages here. You will keep the wages flat because thats what happens in these trade agreements. And more jobs that are done here in the u. S. Will go overseas. I say this from someone who grew up in a very industrial town. I grew up in kenosha, wisconsin. We made autos for the entire time i grew up in that town. When i was growing up, american motors company, we made pacers and gremlins and some cars that people actually bought. But thousands and thousands of people work at those auto plants and supported their families with good, familysupporting, middle class wages. Thats the type of jobs that we need here in this country. But those jobs rvent going to happen as part of these trade agreements. I watched in my hometown of kenosha, after american motors sold to renault and they sold to chrysler and chrysler made engines for jeep. At some point, finally, they went away. And we lost what was over 5,000 jobs at one time in the city of kenosha, wisconsin. The ripple effects of the industries that fed into that country. Into that company. All too often we matched those jobs go to mexico, canada, and other places because of weages. Another thing for almost three decades of my life, ive had a Specialty Printing business. One thing we do is screen print tshirts. Ive been buying tshirtsed a goods like that for nearly 30 years. Over the years, i have watched the u. S. Mills go away. And more and more of those jobs have gone to countries literally that are paying wages that are subpoverty. I have gone to el