Today, I rise with a sense of awe and gratitude that God and the voters have permitted me to be a Member of this body, the House of Representatives, for the last 30 years. At least for me, my time here has permitted me the opportunity to…

Under normal circumstances this problem would be addressed by local government.

Let me start by thanking the thousands of firefighters who, each year, put their lives at risk to battle wildfires like those that have plagued California and other western States. We owe it to them, as well as to the American people, to…

Yes, thank you much, Chairman King, Ranking Member Cohen, and other members of the subcommittee.

Something is fundamentally wrong with this scenario.

Ignoring the issue results in disastrous effects on long-term residential neighborhoods, and fuels an increase of abuse in--of the protected class.

Meantime and meanwhile, crooked owners and operators laugh all the way to the bank.

As we are all aware, our country is enduring a crippling opioid epidemic.

Congressman Rohrabacher's H.R. 5724, Restoring Community Oversight of Sober Living Homes Act of 2018 is the second bill in two years attempting to clarify local control to come to the Judiciary Committee.

I would hope that we would get some support from these leaders who have been appointed by President Trump to protect the American people in any way they can. Having these airplanes sit on the tarmac in California and elsewhere throughout…

I mean, Ukraine, we've spent $1 billion in Ukraine, I guess, in the last couple years and everybody acknowledges the level of corruption there is just dramatic.

Can we still afford to do that and why should we do that if they already have a democratically elected government?

Maybe the people of these countries--for example, Hungary or elsewhere, when they see us getting involved with trying to push various policies and issues with the NGOs, et cetera, in their country, maybe they see it as the same kind of…

For decades it's been the policy of the United States to see the countries of Europe and Eurasia increase their liberty.

We need to now show in the age that we are in exactly how this is going to have an impact--positive impact on the United States because we are borrowing that money from our grandchildren.

That type of deficit spending has to be dealt with in some way and one way will be to increase the productivity of our economy.

If Central Asia stays stable from the expansion of radical Islam the whole world will be better off, especially the Western world will be better off.

I remember, like, one of the things when I first got here was the Clinton administration's insistence on spending what was the equivalent of $50 million providing fuel for North Korea, and it had just the opposite impact.

The way I handle this as chairman I usually let people finish their train of thought.

Isn't it somewhat presumptuous of us to go in and then to actually take more of that $833 billion that we are spending in deficit to go in to try to help them--push them in certain directions, even though they already have a democratically…

Our Government and, hence, the American people are over $1 trillion--that's $21 trillion--in debt.

Well, thank you, Mr. Meeks. I have a few questions of my own. But let me note that we are spending $833 billion more this year than we are taking in.

It made it less likely, and this President, with all of his abrasiveness and all of the way that he gets people angry at him, calling the guy 'Rocket Man' and things like that, we have made tremendous strides forward at least getting the…

It's just a vicious, one of the most iron-fisted dictatorships in the world.