Louie Gohmert

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. What a woman. What a person. Phyllis Schlafly led efforts to return America to being the shining light on a hill that it had been, but the light was dimming. She would see that. She could see the harm that was happening to our most vulnerable, and she led an effort more years than anybody that I have ever known personally to return America to being a citadel for freedom and for morality from which freedom can only grow. She saw us losing our way, yet she remained relentless. Those who despised her know better than most anyone else this is someone who would never, ever give up. She was a leader, a warrior, a mentor, and a friend. Like very dear friends, like family, you have disagreements sometimes, but you know her heart. You knew she wanted what was best for you, for this country, for the world.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. I am grateful to Mr. LaMalfa, a man that has been educated in agriculture. He knows what it is to be a farmer. He knows what it is to be a good steward of the land. At this point, we have someone else who knows something about use of the land. He is a dentist but knows about use of the land. I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gosar).

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock) so much for his in-depth observations. I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce), who knows a great deal about this situation.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce). So often we hear from people here on this floor from the other side of the aisle talking about how much they care about the children, for the children, for the children. And I know, in my district, we have counties that have national forests. There is no tax base, as Mr. Pearce points out. You can't tax it when they are not producing the renewable resource of timber. These aren't sequoias. These are not redwoods. These are just pine trees that grow back every 15 or 20 years or so. And the schools are hurting, the local governments are hurting, but the children suffer because of the Federal Government's usurping the land, failing to utilize it, and leaving people high and dry. We had a hearing. I learned a lot, and I was pleased that my friend, Mr. Hardy, had requested the hearing because I learned a lot. I yield to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Hardy).

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, our Natural Resources Committee--and great work from the Natural Resources Committee's staff--has been trying to get a handle on just how much land the United States--the Federal Government--has taken over. West of the Mississippi, it is absolutely extraordinary. Now, we have heard in recent months and over the last few years of incidents in which landowners, according to the media, just went off and did something crazy, overreacted--maybe had a gun--but it bears looking into what the Federal Government has been doing to the landowners, to the local governments, to the State governments in the Western United States. Our committee has been able to pull together maps that show just how much Federal Government property we have. On this, we have the Bureau of Indian Affairs showing in these burgundy, or maroon, areas. These are areas in the West that the Bureau of Indian Affairs is in charge of. When we look at the next map here, added to that of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, we have the Bureau of Land Management. Those are these areas here, the pale color, the soft orange. It is 247.3 million acres. That would be larger than Arizona, plus Iowa, plus Colorado, plus Nevada all put together that is owned by the Bureau of Land Management--those are all of these kind of light orange areas--all the way up here, into Montana. It is just extraordinary, when you look at Nevada, how much land the State of Nevada and the citizens of Nevada control and how much the Bureau of Land Management controls. Absolutely extraordinary. We run into the same thing here just north of California and getting into Oregon and over into Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming. It is just incredible. Then the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service gets some of their land in here. Then you also have the United States Forest Service. Those are these green areas. They have got a lot of California, a lot of Oregon, Washington, Idaho. You have got Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, right on down. You have got even Arizona and New Mexico. Extraordinary. That is this light green area. Then you have the national parks. Oh, by the way, the Forest Service has 197.1 million acres. Twice the size of Montana is what the U.S. Forest Service has. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has 89.1 million acres. That is larger than Utah and North Carolina put together. The national parks have 84 million acres. That is larger than New Mexico and New Hampshire put together. Then there are other agencies. We add on the Department of Energy, the Department of Transportation, the TVA, the Bureau of Reclamation-- extraordinary. When you look at how much land is white--meaning that belongs to State, local, or private owners--and how much is owned by the Federal Government, you begin to think, perhaps, the Soviet Union didn't disappear and that the Soviet Union is now in the Western United States when a government controls that much of what used to be private property, much of it. We look at the next map, and we are adding on another overlay. With this one, we have the endangered species' critical habitat. That is for 704 species of plants and animals. I know, in my district, we have two plants that grow wild, and they are all over the place. They were notified that they are now listed as threatened, and my local governments are already suffering because of the Federal land, the national forests. They get no tax money. They are not getting revenue. The Federal Government is not producing the renewable resource of timber off of them anymore. Then they get notified that they have got a couple of threatened plants with critical habitats there. The local government was saying: Wait a minute. These things are everywhere. These plants are all over the place. Look, we have got pictures. They are all over the place. You can find them anywhere. What does the Federal Government say? Yes, but we have a scientific study that says they are threatened. We don't care if you have got pictures that show they are everywhere. That is not scientific, because we had somebody in a cubicle in a little office, who never went to those areas, and he says they are threatened, so we are going to say they are threatened. You people who live in that area and who took pictures of them everywhere must not know what you are talking about. Wilderness areas, we have got 765 wilderness areas on Federal land. That is 109 million acres in 44 States. Then we have the Clean Air Act and Class I areas also added in here. Then, on our last map here, we have added on the wetlands--110.1 million acres are subject to section 404 regulations of the Clean Water Act--and marine protected areas. There are 13 marine sanctuary areas in more than 170,000 square miles of waters. Then you have got the Outer Continental Shelf at 1.712 billion acres. We will add this additional map. We have added Wild and Scenic Rivers. There are 12,709 miles of 208 rivers--amazing--that are managed by BLM, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and the Forest Service. Then we have 49 heritage areas in 32 States. It is absolutely extraordinary. When you look at all of the overlays of federally owned controlled land, there is just not much left there. Now, I love the idea that our chairman, Rob Bishop, had for a bill. How about if we don't allow the Federal Government to get any more land--to take over any more land--west of the Mississippi until 10 percent of all of the land east of Mississippi is owned by the Federal Government? That might slow things down with the people who are east of the Mississippi starting to have to lose their private property as the Federal Government takes up more and more. I am pleased to be joined by the gentleman from California. He knows California as well as anybody in the country, certainly better, probably, than the current Governor. I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock).

Mr. GOHMERT. I thank my friend from Wyoming. Well-made points. When you look at Wyoming on the map and you see just how much of it is colored, meaning how much is controlled by the Federal Government, how much is owned by the Federal Government--I think about the movie where one lawyer got upset because the judge kept interrupting, and the lawyer ultimately says: Well, Judge, if you are going to try my case, just don't lose it for me. I think about that with regard to the Federal Government taking over all of this land. If you are going to take over our land, Federal Government, at least just don't ruin it, which has been going on. In fact, what we have seen with the fund that has been used by the Department of the Interior to acquire more and more land, I think we may be $9-, $10 billion behind in upkeep and maintenance of our national parks. Our Federal properties as facilities are declining. Where they are not getting proper repair, it is like, as Mr. McClintock mentioned, all they can see is, wow, we have got money, let's get more land and more land and more land, and they are not properly taking care of what they have. At this time, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa). He knows all about the problems the Federal Government continues to create and aggravate.

Mr. GOHMERT. I thank the gentleman from Arizona. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Nevada. It was quite a learning experience, and it was amazing to hear testimony about the Federal Government not only not being helpful when ditches needed to be cleaned out to prevent massive flooding problems, but actually being a bigger problem than the floods themselves. At this time, I yield to the gentlewoman from Wyoming (Mrs. Lummis), my dear friend, who is going to be severely missed come next year.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, while most of us have been working around in our districts trying to assist others in their lives, one of our number, who is one of the most dedicated public servants in the world, has been fighting leukemia. That is our friend Judge Ted Poe. He sends this message: ``This summer, while Congress has been out of session, I have undergone treatment here in Houston for leukemia. Fortunately, just 8 weeks into treatment, I am feeling like myself again and am confident I will beat cancer. Incredible progress has been made so far thanks to the good Lord and the world-class team physicians at MD Anderson. ``Tomorrow I will return to Washington for votes and then be present for as much of the fall session as my treatment schedule will allow. The support I have received during this difficult time has been overwhelming.'' He goes on to say: ``Thank you for your continued thoughts and prayers. This September, during Leukemia Awareness Month, I intend to keep fighting the disease with all that I have while fighting for Texans in the House of Representatives just as I always have. ``And that is just the way it is.''

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my dear friend from California (Mr. LaMalfa). In Memory of Sharon Runner

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I do so much appreciate my friend, Doug LaMalfa, a very touching tribute to what is obviously just a wonderful individual that we will be missing. For some time now the Democrats have been doing 1-minute speeches. On the last day we vote during the week, we are allowed to have unlimited 1-minute speeches, and for--I don't know--2 or 3 hours, my friends across the aisle have been doing 1-minute speeches, and I am so pleased that they are doing that. I think that is terrific. That is so much better than taking away the civil rights of people who have the right to assemble on the floor, to have sessions, to vote on bills, to debate bills because the previous violations of the rules by my friends across the aisle were just unprecedented. I would like to commend our Speaker for this aspect, comparing what he did and did not do today compared to what Speaker Pelosi did the last day of our session in July of 2008 because today I know leadership and staff saw the massive number of Democrats assembled to give speeches here, and the rule allows for that. There was no effort to shut down debate, gavel us out early, but that is exactly what Speaker Nancy Pelosi did in July of 2008. We had assembled a group. It may not have been quite as big as the Democrats had today, but we had a group over here, and under the rules at that time, they were 5-minute speeches, which could still be done, but they chose 1-minutes. We signed up for 5-minute speeches. When the Speaker Nancy Pelosi saw a number of Republicans, appropriately under the rule, here in order, signed up. We weren't just sitting there. We had signed up and were sitting in order as we are supposed to. She immediately gaveled down the proceeding early, violated the rule that allowed us to speak in the order, just as the Democrats did today, and this is the way it is supposed to be. Yet, earlier this month we had our friends across the aisle--and I haven't seen this written up much, but they took positions at their microphones and at the Republican microphones. We tried to go into session, and we even had Democrats not only sitting where Republicans were supposed to be seated on the Republican side, we had them grasp microphones to prevent Republicans from being able to be recognized. Finally, in the wee hours, we had the Speaker recognize a Republican chairman. He couldn't get a microphone. He is standing over here. Why? Because of the violation of the rules as the Democrats tried--not just tried. They were preventing Republicans from exercising their civil rights under Jefferson's rules of the House, under congressional rules, and our constituents had a right to be heard, just as our friends across the aisle had a right to be heard today. Now, in those 1-minute speeches, the massive array we heard this afternoon, there were a few common themes, and I think that is wonderful. Football is my favorite sport. I enjoyed it in junior high, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12th grade, enjoyed every year of it. It is such a team sport. We saw a team acting in concert, working together. They all had their talking points. They all hit them and hit them hard. Some were very unfair, but they, from their standpoint, were acting as a team. But for one thing, they kept using the term ``vacation,'' that the House is going on vacation. One said a month vacation, I think, but I know I heard one say 7-week vacation, another one said 8-week vacation. They weren't all together on how long they were attributing to be vacation. I have told some of my friends at FOX News and different news commentators that when you criticize the month of August, that is traditionally, as I understand it--going back to the early days of Congress, that has been a month when traditionally Congress has not been in session. That is why I love September. In July I remember the disastrous bill, when John Boehner was Speaker, had the supercommittee, the sequesters that were going to gut our military. I will never forget it, after I was rather upset that that bill was going to gut our military, our Speaker said: Listen to me. Listen to me, those sequesters will never happen. Well, I knew they would. I said they would. But we passed some bad stuff in July in prior years. I think we have done much better this year. As far as this ``vacation,'' I am intrigued to know that that is what the Democrats are going to do with the time we are not in session, one 8-week vacation, as one of my colleagues across the aisle said. Eight- week vacation, that is what they think it is when we are not in session. But from my standpoint--and I am looking at my friend, Doug LaMalfa, over here. I know from his impression and other people that I work with on this side of the aisle every day that we don't consider not being in session a vacation. August, man, that is a great opportunity to hear from your constituents. I know we have at least one field hearing. I was requested to come meet again with some of the Egyptian leadership, and I have been urged to go visit with some of our friends in Israel again. I don't know if I will make that. This is a terrific time to get away from the inside-the-beltway thinking. It is only when you get away from the inside-the-beltway thinking that so many Congresses have gotten addicted to that you hear from real common sense. Back home, it is common sense. Inside the beltway, it is sense because it is certainly not common. It is a great time when we are in recess to reassess in the recess, and September ends up being a good month. We don't normally pass terrible bills in September. It has happened, but normally when people come back after having to visit--because we are not in session, people know we are not in session. When they hear from constituents during the month of August, they are much more ready in September to do what we should have been doing. So I know my friends across the aisle, they have their talking points, going on this big vacation. They consider it a vacation. We consider it an incredible opportunity to clear our heads, to get this inside-the-beltway thinking out of our heads, hear from our constituents, have some field hearings in different places in the country. I find it helpful. Last year, the last week of August, I was invited to meet with President Sisi in Egypt and the Coptic Christian Pope, meet with him again. I was told at the time that I was the only Member of Congress--I don't know if it is still true--who had been allowed to meet with the Director of Egyptian Intelligence. Anyway, I don't know if I will be able to get back there or not during this recess, but it was incredibly invaluable. I came away from that meeting in Egypt determined to do anything I could to stop the Iranian treaty that was not only going to devastate the Middle East, that was already starting to spark nuclear proliferation, because all of our former allies, before this President got ahold of them, they were saying: Wow, we can't count on the United States anymore. Iran's going to have nuclear weapons. That is what this has made sure. So we have to start figuring out what we are going to do to get nuclear weapons for ourselves. The worst possible result. The Iran treaty is a treaty. It was a treaty, it is a treaty, and that has become even more clear as Iran has violated so many aspects of the Iranian treaty. Unfortunately, the Senate refused to recognize that it was a treaty. They considered the fine Senator Corker's bill that actually turned the Constitution upside down and allowed a treaty to proceed as if it were effective and had been ratified with only a third of the Senate voting to ratify it instead of the two-thirds that the Constitution requires. It was that visit in Egypt with their top officials that just clarified in my head that we have to stop the Iranian treaty for the good of the United States, for the good of the Middle East, for the good of our allies, our Muslim allies in North Africa and the Middle East, and for our dear friends in Israel. But so far it hasn't happened, and Western civilization and the advances we know are more threatened than previously. The second talking point that we heard repeatedly from our friends across the aisle during so many of the 1-minute speeches was the talk about we are leaving here without doing a thing about the Zika virus. I don't fault anybody who has been standing up here and repeating the talking point that we haven't done anything about the Zika virus, we haven't done anything about the Zika virus, because there are so many bills that get brought to the floor. There are so many amendments, so many things, it is just virtually impossible to get through them all. I read as many as I can. Some people have told me I am probably reading more bills than most people, but you just can't get through them all. There is this mentality that if we are in session, we have to be passing bills. Any day we are in session, we have to be passing the bills. Talking to people who were here before, they said it wasn't always like that; that you could have hearings, you could have investigations, you could have a lot of meaningful things going on without people being forced to come over here and vote. But that is the mentality now. Whether it is Democrats in the majority, Republicans in the majority, gee, if we are in session, we have to vote on stuff. So with that understanding, it's easy to understand how so many Democrats had missed and didn't realize that, actually, we did vote. Not only did we vote to address the Zika virus, we voted to appropriate $1.1 billion toward dealing with a potential Zika virus pandemic. So for research, for vaccine, for all of these things. So I don't fault anybody. I know nobody would have come down here and said we didn't do anything about the Zika virus, intending to mislead. They just didn't remember that we did vote to spend $1.1 billion dealing with that issue. Also, probably the most frequently mentioned thing during the last 2 or 3 hours of speeches by my friends across the aisle was regarding guns and gun violence. One of the nicest guys in Congress even used a quote from somebody else in saying that Republicans are ``frozen in their own indifference.'' Now, that is deeply troubling. I don't know a single Republican who is indifferent to gun violence. It is just that we look at Chicago, we look at Washington, D.C., we look at where the most murders are occurring in the country, where more Black lives that matter are taken, and we look at those places and we see whatever they are doing about gun violence, it is the wrong thing, because they have an epidemic of gun violence. What are they doing? Oh, wow; they are the most restrictive cities regarding gun violence in the country. Now, in my home State, dear Dallas is still mourning the loss of five precious lives of law enforcement officers needlessly, senselessly taken by an evil that was encouraged by chants and songs repeated over and over and over talking about police as pigs in a blanket, fry them like bacon, encouraging the devastation and murder of police officers. Well, in Texas, that is a capital murder. And we do use capital punishment. So it is not that Republicans are frozen in our indifference. It is just that we look at the kind of gun laws that have been posed and pushed by our friends across the aisle and we see that the places that their laws have been enacted by Democratic leadership in those cities, with massive deaths, especially of the precious Black lives that matter; but they don't want to talk about those. You don't have to look too far to see what has been going on. It is offensive to those of us who are not frozen in our indifference on gun violence. We want it stopped. When you get beyond the pejoratives that are being muttered on this floor against Republicans and you start looking at what the actual news is so you can learn what would be the best way to deal with gun violence, you see this article today from National Review: ``Federal Agencies Can't Keep Track of Their Own Guns.'' The article says: ``The federal government needs to crack down on guns. Its own stockpile, anyway. The Washington Examiner reports: The federal government has spent $1.5 million on guns and ammo since 2006, and lost nearly 1,000 weapons along the way, including Uzis, assault rifles, and grenade launchers, according to the House Oversight Committee chairman. ``In a hearing to urge tightened control of weapons, Representative Jason Chaffetz, chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said, `The loss of a single firearm is cause for concern-- the loss of what amounts to roughly five a month is unacceptable.' ``These guns were acquired by the Department of Homeland Security, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, for use by their agents. Inventory is managed by the General Services Administration, the agency tasked with managing the affairs of other federal agencies. It's important for certain federal agents to be armed if their job requires it. But it's also important for the federal government to keep track of its expensive supplies, especially when those supplies have destructive potential. And these aren't your run- of-the-mill weapons. Uzis, grenade launchers, the ever-nebulous assault rifles: plenty of firepower for agents who have dangerous jobs. They simply vanished, at an alarming clip: 1,000 guns lost over the last 10 years come out to just under two per week. So sure, maybe it is easier to get a Glock than a book''--although, that is simply not true--``but only if you're neighbors with the local branch of the Department of Homeland Security.'' This article--and it is not even a recent article--in the Washington Examiner by Paul Bedard says: ``Gun prosecutions under Obama down more than 45 percent.'' I haven't been able to find anything that indicates differently; that they have stepped up prosecution. My understanding is they continue to decline, but they are at least much lower than they were under President Bush. This article says: ``Despite his calls for greater gun control, including a new assault weapons ban that extends to handguns, President Obama's administration has turned away from enforcing gun laws, cutting weapons prosecutions some 40 percent since a high of about 11,000 under former President Bush. `` `If you are not going to enforce the laws on the books, then don't start talking about a whole new wave of new laws,' said a gun rights advocate. ``In the wake of the horrific mass killing at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, Democratic lawmakers have begun preparing a new collection of anti-gun laws, including renewing the assault weapons ban, banning the purchase of high-capacity clips that spring bullets into guns, and tightening rules on who can buy weapons.'' The thing is this administration was given a heads up twice over the older Tsarnaev. He has been radicalized. But because of the purge of the training material that the FBI has experienced--Michele Bachmann and I and Lynn Westmoreland--and Trent was there for a while--we were going through the materials that had been purged. It was ridiculous, what they classified them. So we couldn't tell you, Mr. Speaker, exactly the things. Some were silly cartoons and things. But speaking hypothetically, you had verses from the Koran. Actually, there were verses from the Koran that were eliminated. They were found to be troubling to the people that were purging the materials. And who does this administration look to? They look to CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations. They look to Imam Majid, former head of the Islamic Society of North America. They look at a number of groups and individuals who were listed as coconspirators in the largest prosecution of support for terrorism in the United States history. The prosecution got guilty verdicts in, I believe, November 2008, and we changed Presidents, and Eric Holder came in as the new Attorney General; and instead of going after those listed coconspirators that both the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and the district court had said there is plenty of evidence to support their being named as coconspirators, they didn't go after them. They dropped it. They let it go. Those are the people that are advising this administration about what to purge out of the training materials for the CIA, the intelligence, the State Department, Homeland Security, the Justice Department. Our folks don't know what they are looking for when they are told to go find out if somebody has been radicalized. Twice, at least, the Orlando shooter was brought to the attention of the FBI. These are caring, well-informed law officers, except when it comes to radical Islam, because you have CAIR and others making sure they don't know what to look for when they are looking for radicalized Islamic terrorists. If materials weren't purged, if people who had dedicated their lives to studying radical Islam who are not actually Muslims themselves, if they were allowed to train as they once were and educate and help our officers of the Federal Government know what to look for to find a radicalized Islamic terrorist, then the Boston bombing would not have happened, the Orlando shooting would not have happened, the San Bernardino killings would have not happened. This administration has done grave danger, grave harm to this country. Yet, it is like the ``Wizard of Oz.'' Don't look at what is going on behind the curtain. Look at this shiny object, the gun. Oh, they used a pressure cooker. Well, never mind. Still, let's talk about the gun. Well, if we are going to be honest and you feel like whatever a radical Islamist used to kill people, that is what we are going to talk about. We are not going to talk about radical Islam. By the way, for my Democratic friends who called me a racist because I said the Orlando shooter was a radical Islamist, that he had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, we learn when people point out mistakes we have made. But Islam is not a race. So it makes no sense to call me a racist, as my friends across the aisle did when I pointed out that the Orlando shooter pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. They were thinking that that meant a race. And it is not a race. It is a religion. For a radical Islamist, it is really the makings of a theocracy. Then, this article from today by Neil Munro out of Breitbart says: ``Obama's Flack Claims Credit for Dallas Policing As Murders Spike 40 Percent.'' I have been so impressed with the Dallas police chief. The things he said, the way he has comported is exactly the way I would hope a police chief under such a terrible situation would comport himself. But this is a real story because he has been utilizing President Obama's practices for policing. As this article points out: ``President Barack Obama's preferred policing practices deserve the credit for changing the crime rate in Dallas, his spokesman says. But spokesman Josh Earnest does not seem to be aware the city's''-- Dallas'--``murder rate has climbed 40 percent this year as Obama's preferred policing practices were implemented.'' Some of the 2016 dead in Dallas had their pictures in this article. The article goes on and says: ``The spokesman's July 13 statement came in response to a reporter asking a question about the value of the policing changes that Obama is pressuring state and local police forces to adopt. `This latest tragedy, the murder of the five cops, took place in a community, Dallas, that the White House actually touted for having done a good job implementing new policing rules? I mean, doesn't that suggest that they're either ineffective or insufficient to prevent these kinds of things from happening?' asked the reporter. ``The police `reforms that have been put in place in Dallas have made a difference.' '' The reforms that have been put in place in Dallas that have made a difference is a quote from Josh Earnest, the spokesman for the President. He goes on and says: `` `That is a reflection of why it's important for other communities to make this issue a priority in the same way that Dallas has. It's making a difference in the lives and the people in Dallas, because it's not just those incidents of concern about police conduct that have declined; the violent crime rates declined, too.'' ' That is from Josh Earnest. The story goes on. Now that we have finished Josh Earnest's ignorance of what really happened in Texas, in Dallas, the article says: ``Actually, violent crime is up across the board in Obama's model city of Dallas. According to The Dallas Morning News, 67 people were murdered in the first five months of 2016, compared to 48 in the first five months of 2015. Also, robbery is up from 1,576 to 1,805, and aggravated assault is up from 1,501 incidents to 1,747 incidents. The relatively good news is that sexual assault nudged down from 336 incidents in 2015 to 312 incidents in 2016. ``The 2016 spike comes after the murder rate jumped almost 17 percent in 2015, bringing the city's death toll up to 136 dead for 2015. The 2016 crime spike is so large that the city's now famous police chief, David Brown, has faced pressure to resign. `` `Chief Brown's Career Has Lived By Crime Stats, and It Will Die By Crime Stats,' said a March headline in the Dallas Observer. According to a March 28 report in the Dallas Morning News, Dallas Police Chief David Brown's plan to fight a drastic rise in violent crime--including a nearly 75 percent jump in murders--by moving hundreds of officers to different shifts and on to task forces is creating an uproar within his department. ``The Black Police Association has historically been supportive of Brown but called for his resignation Monday hours before the group met with the three other police associations. ``Council member Philip Kingston expressed concern Monday about Brown's plans. `None of what you've presented here today is sustainable,' Kingston said.'' Anyway, it goes on to discuss this. But I am very impressed with the Dallas police chief. I think he has comported himself admirably under such horrendous circumstances and while going through such grief, losing five of his first-responding law officers. But people need to know that the kind of things that were being urged by my friends across the aisle, that Obama believes are going to make a big difference, well, they made a difference. Murders are up 40 percent now in Dallas since they followed the Obama rules for policing. Very, very tragic. I appreciated Dallas Police Chief David Brown's statement when he challenged Black Lives Matter. ``During a press conference Monday, Brown issued a challenge to Black Lives Matter protesters demanding change around policing in their communities. `We're hiring. Get off that protest line and put an application in. We'll put you in your neighborhood, and we'll help you resolve some of the problems you're protesting about.' '' Apparently, according to this article by Katie Pavlich, Brown grew up in the inner city and decided to become a police officer during the national crack cocaine epidemic. He saw a problem in his community, and he wanted to fix it. Decades later, he is in charge of one the most successful police departments in the country--that is, of course, before he started following the Obama administration's suggestions for effective policing in America. Another problem that is rather dramatic--we feel it in Texas, but we are not alone. It is a problem across the country, illustrated in this article by Bob Price from July 5, ``200,000 Criminal Aliens Booked Into Texas Jails Over Past 5 Years, Says Department of Public Safety.'' ``Nearly 200,000 criminal aliens have been booked into local Texas jails over the past 5 years. Those numbers included more than 155,000 criminal illegal aliens.'' Just shocking. So this administration has lost--well, I guess it goes back to 2006. So most of the 1,000 weapons were lost during this administration's term, some of them on Bush's watch. But the 2,000 or so weapons--that we know have already killed at least one Federal agent--that were forced by this administration--and someday it is all going to come out. Fast and Furious is all going to be exposed at some point, and this administration is going to fall further in the estimation of its effectiveness. We are already seeing things like, oh, here are our policing rules; they follow them; murder rates go up. Violent crime seems to go up, nearly all of it. The border is porous. We have people pouring into the country. The Islamic State has made clear they are making use of our porous border and our willingness to harm ourselves by bringing in refugees that will include Islamic State terrorists. I think we need to take them seriously. This article from June 28 from James Carafano says: ``Flash back 3 years ago, and remember when the Secretary of Homeland Security declared `the border has never been stronger.' Well, if what is going on at America's border with Mexico is a success, Americans should shudder to think what failure looks like. ``Unaccompanied children crossing the border is up over 70 percent this year. Other categories and overall numbers are on the rise as well, reflecting significant increases since 2014. And it is not just the numbers that are troubling to Americans. They are worried about national security threats on the southern border. ``The groups are not just drug mafias--they smuggle, steal, hijack, rob, or kill (anything that makes a profit). And it is not just an American problem. By some estimates, since 2007, the cartels are responsible for over 100,000 deaths.'' And this is something that a number of my Republican friends, especially all of us from Texas, were having meetings about off the record with the Director of Homeland Security and the White House, demanding that President Bush do a better job of securing our border. And they were actually making progress up through 2008. Then along came a new President. And they keep telling us, like this quote, the border has never been stronger. But the true facts belie that. We have diseases popping up where they shouldn't in places where immigrants who have come in illegally have come. And then, if that is not bad enough, this report from The Federalist: ``U.S. Negligence is Feeding ISIS' Global Appeal.'' And it goes on and documents in the article here just how bad negligence in this administration has become. I couldn't agree more with one of the later paragraphs and the subtitle: ``Weakness Invites Aggression. Muslim extremists around the world see that the American Government and much of American society do not take this threat''--radical Islam--``seriously.'' Parenthetically, they talk about guns, guns, guns and won't look at the person carrying or using the gun. The article says: `` . . . and can't or won't admit its theological origins. Rather than feeling on the run, ISIS and the men it inspires to jihad must feel emboldened by this. ``The Left continually insists, as Muslim Advocates President Farhana Khera did at least week's Senate hearing, that by talking about Islam in any capacity when discussing terrorism, we are playing into ISIS' hands. The argument is that groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda want nothing more than for the West and moderate Muslims to attack Islam. To what end isn't clear. ``Al-Qaeda may be frustrated it can't get the West to believe its motives--last week it released a special edition of their magazine, Inspire''--this is Al Qaeda--``in which it called on jihadists to `avoid targeting places and crowds where minorities are generally found' so their religious motives for the terrorist attack will be believed. But this isn't because al-Qaeda wants to instigate animosity between Muslims and the West. It's doing that by inspiring jihad. It simply wants the West,'' especially those of us in the United States, ``to believe al-Qaeda is fighting a holy war.'' They believe they are fighting a holy war. ``After the Paris nightclub attacks in November, Kerry vaguely described ISIS' motives, arguing that while the Charlie Hebdo attacks `perhaps' had a `legitimacy' or `rationale that you could attach yourself to,' indicating that murder is an appropriate reaction to insulting Mohammed, the November attacks were `absolutely indiscriminate.' '' Well, this administration, they do not understand the importance of securing the border. They don't understand, if they are going to avoid being complete hypocrites, that if you are going to outlaw whatever gun a radical Islamist uses to terrorize and kill Americans, if you are going to outlaw those, then next you have to file the bill that makes the possession or purchase of a pressure cooker illegal. And we really need to go back to 9/11; they used box cutters. Because if we are going to totally continue in this mode of refusing to recognize the problem with the murderer, the Islamic terrorist murderer, and look at only whatever weapon that murderer is using, then we are going to have to keep banning things. I am sure machetes, like were used to kill hundreds of thousands of people in Rwanda, we will have to outlaw them at some point. It will go on and on as long as we continue to ignore the true threat here to American lives in radical Islam. And I know it sounds good. ``No fly, no buy,'' that is clever. That is cute. But then when you have the Attorney General in front of your committee and you are wanting to know, what do you use to decide who is on the no-fly list, you can't get answers from the prior Attorney General, you can't get answers from the administration. They won't tell you. But they want Americans to get behind this movement to allow a bureaucrat, unelected, behind the scenes--we don't even know who is doing it--to make a list of people they don't want to have guns. Maybe we could get Lois Lerner over there to help. I am sure a lot of people would love that. Make a list of who you don't want to have guns. Unfortunately, we have seen the numbers that indicate most of the people on the no-fly list are people this administration should not have let into the country. If we are going to do something about the murderers, let's get serious about it. Let's address radical Islam. Let's secure our border. Let's start enforcing the gun laws we have. And let's allow the FBI to be trained to recognize what a radical Islamist believes, what they are reading, what they are doing, who they are following online, what mosque they are going to where more people are radicalized. Those are important things. And until this administration allows that to happen, we are going to keep losing precious American lives. It has to stop. And if it is not guns, it is pressure cookers, box cutters, machetes, underwear bombs. We find out, you know, these terrorists, these radical Islamists, they have learned how to make bombs. And on top of all of that, we have the President determined to release as many people who want to kill Americans as he possibly can out of Guantanamo Bay. Under the rules of war for civilized societies, when someone declares war on your country and you capture any of their warriors, you hold on to them, in civilized society, until such time as their friends and allies say we are no longer at war. Then you let them go. And if their friends and allies keep fighting for 30 years, you hold on to them for 30 years, and then maybe they can help persuade them to stop fighting. But you don't let warriors go while the war is still going on. Because, as we have seen--and it was repugnant to me to have a spokesman for this administration say, basically, well, we can't say that people we have released from Guantanamo have killed Americans, but I guess we could say, in essence, that people we have released--well, that Americans would not be dead if we hadn't released certain people from Guantanamo. My word, let's quit playing the games and quit releasing people who want to kill Americans, who are at war with us, who were at war with us when they were captured, and whose friends are still at war with us. Let's hold them at Guantanamo until their friends say, ``We are no longer at war.'' Then they can be released, unless they have committed war crimes. If they have, then at that point we will try them for those crimes like Nuremberg. That is what a civilized society does. You don't release warriors to go kill more Americans while the war is going on. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate very much my friend, Mr. Hice, who preceded me. It is a very sad day around the country. So much in the way of sympathy and prayers for the victims' families in Dallas are greatly appreciated. As someone who grew up looking forward to visits to the big city of Dallas, it is deeply troubling to see what has happened there. The Dallas police chief said that the suspect said he wanted to kill White people, especially White police officers. I was listening in the cloakroom to a press conference going on now with some of our African American Members of Congress defending Black Lives Matter and discussing the unfairness in America for African Americans in this country. I don't know the races of the officers that were shot. Apparently, the suspect said he wanted to shoot and kill White officers, but I know there are a lot of officers in Dallas of a lot of different races. I had the opportunity, if you want to call it an opportunity, of trying a murder case for 10 weeks in Dallas. I worked with some incredible Dallas police officers. Because of my background, I continue to have great respect for law enforcement officers. There was something that we had seen since the protest days of the sixties and seventies: calling police officers pigs and calling them all kinds of names. People--terrorists from those days that have now grown up and even teaching college--wanted to kill pigs, wanted to kill police officers back then. Back then it wasn't a race issue; it was just killing what they called pigs. Having served 4 years in the Army after Vietnam, we weren't ever in combat in my 4 years, but we knew what it was to be spit at, to be ridiculed, and at times to be told not to wear your uniform off post because people hate you so much. So I have some empathy for what officers have gone through. The evil and the hatred that brought about 9/11, killing thousands of precious lives, taking so many innocent lives here, had a result that I didn't expect: it brought America together. September 12, there on our town square in Tyler, Texas, people of all walks, age, race, gender--it didn't matter--came together. We sang together, we prayed together, and even all held hands together. As I have said before, the thing I loved about that day was there was no--there were no hyphenated Americans on September 12 of 2001. We were Americans, without regard to race, creed, color, national origin, gender, age. None of that mattered. We were Americans. We had been attacked, and we were wanting to stand together. In all our sympathy for those who died on 9/11, the day after, it felt good to be together. For about 3 months our churches were filled and people were asking God to bless America again, and it felt good to be together as Americans. Nobody from organizations like Freedom from Religion dared show their face that day because people across America were begging God for His protection, for His blessings, as He has through most of our Nation's history. There is an article that has already come out today from the Federalist publication. It says: ``Five Takeaways From the Dallas Police Chief's Press Conference. Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and Dallas Police Chief David Brown held a press conference Friday morning in the wake of the sniper shooting during a Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Dallas that killed at least five officers and injured seven more and two civilians.'' The five takeaways, they say, are, number 1: ``Police Killed a Suspect With a Robot Carrying a Bomb.'' Number 2: ``Gunman Said he Wanted to `Kill White People, White Officers.' '' Number 3: ``Brown and Rawlings Were Unclear About Number of Suspect/s and their Descriptions.'' Number 4: ``Brown said Police Don't Feel Support Most Days, but Need It Now.'' Number 5: ``Brown and Rawlings Asked for Prayer.'' I appreciate my fellow Members of Congress feeling the need to have a press conference today and, again, to support the movement of Black Lives Matter and the injustices that have happened at the hands of police officers. As I have said many times during my adult life, including especially during my days as a District Judge handling felony cases where humans are involved, there will be mistakes and wrongdoing. And no matter what profession, there will be people who do wrong. But I have always taken solace in the fact--what I believe is the fact--that amongst law enforcement, those who would do wrong or who may be prejudiced in their motivation, the numbers are so much fewer percentagewise than in the general population. That is why over the last 7\1/2\ years it has grieved me greatly to see our President rebuff the opportunity to bring us together as a nation anytime an incident involved a police officer, his knee-jerk reactions repeatedly, whether it was saying that the police acted stupidly or jumping onto the bandwagon against police, when it turned out the police were in the right. There have been instances where they were not, and there are some on video where it clearly appears they did terribly wrong and reacted terribly wrong. And when that happens, perpetrators, wrongdoers are to be punished without regard to race, creed, color, gender, national origin. That doesn't matter. It seems, as long as we have groups like Black Lives Matter, who will just become unnerved and inflamed when a Democratic candidate for President says all lives matter and chastise him for saying all lives matter, to the point that he has to withdraw his belief that all lives matter and go back to saying, you're right, you're right, it's just Black lives matter. That is nowhere near approaching the dream that Martin Luther King, Jr., had just about 2\1/2\ miles down the Mall here in front of the Lincoln Memorial. So we had people, after 9/11, return to loving and appreciating and an outpouring of support for first responders, law enforcement, because they saw that, when push came to shove, the huge majority of law officers put their own life at risk for the benefit of others without regard to race, creed, color, or national origin, gender, age. They don't care. Their job is to serve and protect, and they do an amazing job. I just keep going back to the statement of the police chief, that police don't feel support most days, but they need it now. But when elected officials contribute to stoking the flame of hatred and animosity toward our law enforcement, then people that don't have the reasoning ability that most of our elected officials have get stoked. They get inflamed. And we don't need anybody coming out and blaming guns before that person even knows what kind of guns were used. I know we have friends that keep saying, if you are on the no-fly list, which means if you are on the list that has a great deal of arbitrariness to it, to the point that this administration will not even tell Congress how they decide who goes on the no-fly list, and even though they won't tell us how to get off the no-fly list if you are arbitrarily and mistakenly put on it, as Ted Kennedy and so many others have been, that is a formula for disaster for totalitarianism. We don't need an arbitrary list that is concocted in secret with the secret way of getting off that we are not aware of. That is not the way you go about trying to take away people's civil rights to keep and bear arms. After seeing the disaster in Dallas, there are a number of things I knew. One is that the people in Texas--most of them, except for the agitators, so many that have come in from outside, but most of them-- will respond and show their love and support for our law officers because we love law abiding in Texas. I hope and pray, Mr. Speaker, that we can stop the divisiveness. There is nothing wrong with arguing. There is nothing wrong with debate. That is how we got our Constitution--a lot of yelling and fussing, bickering, came together. There is nothing wrong with disagreeing. Until one person in this Congress or in the White House has 100 percent lock on God's truth all the time, then we need to argue, we need to debate. I would submit we need to be prayerful in how we approach what we should do, but it is good to debate. I grew up in a family of four kids. We argued, fussed, bickered, but we came together as a family, and still do. In times of hurting, we still come together, and that is what we need to do as a nation. I look forward to the day when there is no group that includes a race color, a skin color, in its name. I look forward to that day when it just doesn't matter. And it seems clear to me that as long as we keep calling out distinctions between ourselves with matters of race, creed, color, national origin, gender, age, that there will continue to be bias and prejudice further engendered. I have seen video, including those recently, where I was horrified to see what happened. I didn't care what color the officer was. I didn't care what color the victim's skin color was. I was horrified that a victim would be treated as victims have been recently. I look forward to the day when the percentage of people committing crimes, according to race, have no need of being kept because it doesn't matter. We care about how you act, not how you look. But as long as those numbers keep being kept, they need to all be looked at. We need to get to the bottom of not just why so many African Americans are being killed in America--as we see from the numbers the FBI puts out, the huge majority are from other--the lives are taken by other African Americans. And I look forward to my friends getting upset about that someday, about the numbers of deaths in cities controlled by African Americans that have made it hard to possess guns unless you are a criminal. I have people that want to constantly point to our justice system and say: See how unfair it is? Well, in my court--I was asked just last week: Did you have any capital murder cases? Have you ever had cases where you had to look someone in the eye and pronounce the death sentence? I had two. I tried three capital cases. They take a long time to try because--particularly with the jury selection. Someone--the same person said skeptically: And let me guess; both of those were Black. I look forward to the day when people don't skeptically assume that everything is about race. As it just so happens, the two of the three capital murder cases where I had to sentence someone to death, they were White defendants. The one case where the defendant did not get the death penalty, though he was convicted of murder, happened to be African American. I had an issue raised by a defense attorney on a death penalty case out of another court, but in our county, and they were wanting--and I was subpoenaed as a witness to testify about the disproportionate number of African Americans who had not been allowed to be grand jury foremen. When they actually got the list of my grand jury--the judge doesn't pick the grand juries. Those are selected by grand jury commissioners of different races, creeds, colors, and national origin. As long as they are American citizens, they picked the grand juries, and then the only thing the judge picks in Texas is the foreman. After they got the list of grand juries that I have presided over and they saw that there was disproportionately more African Americans who had been foremen of the grand juries, they told me they didn't want me as a witness because clearly I was not going to help their case. But when I selected a foreman of a grand jury, I didn't care what their color was. I knew we needed good, sound leadership. Every person I ever selected as a foreman of a grand jury I knew was a caring, intelligent, and upstanding leader in our community. I didn't care what their color was. Jesus said: ``Greater love has no one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.'' He certainly would know; He did exactly that. I love that being the first thing on the plaque for Father Damien, one of the two statues that we have in the Capitol from Hawaii. Abraham Lincoln on September 5, 1864, said: ``In regard to this Great Book''--and he capitalized ``Great'' and ``Book,'' talking about the Bible--``I have but to say, I believe the Bible is the best gift God has given to man. All the good Saviour''--and I know that term offends so many, but this was Abraham Lincoln's own words. ``All the good Savior gave to the world was communicated through this Book,'' the Bible. ``But for this Book we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man's welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it.'' Mr. Speaker, I want to finish with a verse and a personal incident. Since Abraham Lincoln and most all of our Presidents have highly commended the use of the Bible as getting this Nation on track when we become dislodged, disoriented, and divisive, we go to Matthew 22:35: And one of them who was a lawyer--being a lawyer, you figure, leave it to lawyers to try to stir up trouble. One of them who was a lawyer tested Him by asking Him: ``Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?'' Jesus said to him: ``You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'' This is the first and greatest commandment. And a second is like it: ``You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Some people wonder about it. What does He mean, on those two commands, love God, love each other, hang all the law and the prophets? What does He mean, all the law and the prophets hang on those two commands? If you were to outline the Ten Commandments that God gave us and that most of our leaders in history have believed came from God, himself-- and that is why Moses up here, directly above me, facing me, is the only full face of the greatest lawgivers in the history of the world. It is because, at one time, all of the Supreme Court thought those Ten Commandments were great commandments. Now, probably at least four would say that maybe five or six were okay. But for most of our history, they have felt those ten were great commandments. If you do an outline or you categorize all of those Ten Commandments, they all fit neatly under two categories: one, love God; and number two, love each other. That came home very clearly to me years ago when my mother had a brain tumor. We knew it would eventually take her. The doctors had made that clear. They made clear that there was nothing more that could be done. Mother had said that she wasn't interested in seeing more doctors because they had said the same thing. Since she was my lifelong English teacher--but especially my eighth grade English teacher--and she loved poetry, I threw one of her poems back at her from Dylan Thomas: ``Rage, rage against the dying of the light . . . Do not go gentle into that good night.'' Mother wrote back. She was thrilled that I paid attention. But she quoted from another poem called ``Thanatopsis'' that talked about living with such faith that, at the end of life, you can lie down on the couch wrapped in covers around you. Well, the doctors said: We don't think she has got all that much longer to live. They weren't quite accurate; but she had been reduced, this incredibly brilliant woman, to a wheelchair. It took her a long time to say things. This incredibly brilliant woman put herself through Baylor, 2\1/2\ years. Her parents lived right there by the campus, so she could work full-time and go to school. I didn't know until after she passed she was a member of a big honor society there. But anyway, she loved our kids, and she loved our spouses. One weekend we decided, let's just have the four immediate children go back to Mount Pleasant and spend the weekend with Mom, and we did. That Saturday morning, we sat around the breakfast table for hours like we did years before. We told stories, we laughed, and we made good-natured fun of each other. We would disagree, and then we would come back around and kid and love each other. We went on for 3 or 4 hours. Mother didn't say anything. But finally Mother said, ``This,'' and we all got quiet. We would stay there all night if it took it to hear what Mother had to say. And she got out, ``is my favorite thing.'' That is all she had to say. When I left later that weekend to drive back to Tyler, it became clear that, if you were a heavenly parent, wouldn't you want your children loving you and loving each other? And all the law hang on those two: love your parent; love each other. It takes care of things. Then what Jesus said made perfect sense. I look forward to the day when Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream will be fulfilled and nobody will care about Black lives matter and White lives matter. Nobody will care what color people are, and we will come together again without any hyphenation as Americans. But as long as we have leaders who continue to pick at a scab and refuse to let it heal, then our law officers are in danger, our country is in danger, and this little experiment with a democratic Republic is in severe jeopardy. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, might I ask how much time is remaining?

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it is with great pride that I stand today to honor the University of Texas at Tyler Patriots on a spectacular 2016 softball season in which they have dominated all challengers to capture the NCAA Division III World Series title. The UT Tyler Patriots finished as national runners-up in 2015, but boasted 25 shutouts going into the 2016 finals. The Patriots went 5-1 at the national tournament held in Salem, Virginia, ultimately defeating the Messiah College Falcons by the score of 3-0 and a score in the title-clinching game of 7-0 to become the national champions. The championship success of this exceptional UT Tyler ladies team is a tribute not only to all those who had their skills and determination tested as players, but is also a testimony to all those who have assisted them in reaching their goal. The teamwork and discipline utilized to become champions should help all involved to know that no matter what obstacles may be thrown in their paths, they can overcome them and prevail. Heartfelt congratulations are extended to all the athletic staff including Head Coach Mike Reed, Assistant Coaches Whitney Wyly, Christa Hartnett, Anthony Springer and Coby Gipson, and Athletic Trainer Lexie Foster. The team members responsible for bringing this championship title home to east Texas includes Freshmen: Cheyenne Thompson, Abby Hall, Jade Green, Alli Ramsey; Sophomores: Rose Sullivan, Kailey Henderson, Hannah Moore, Kelsie McEachern, Kursten Jaime; Juniors: Kaylee Prather, Bianca Van Vlerah, Jaiden Rawls, Lexi Ackroyd, Mel Hinojosa, Alaina Kissinger, KK Stevens; and Seniors: Kristin Lopez, Britney Bledsoe, Emilee Burkhardt, Raven Rodriguez, Jackie Mendez, Vanessa Carrizales, and Kelsie Batten. It is my most esteemed honor to applaud everyone involved with this championship quest. May God continue to bless these young women, their families and their friends. Congratulations to the 2016 National Champion UT Tyler Patriots, as their NCAA Division III College World Series title is now recorded and applauded in the U.S. Congressional Record that will endure as long as there is a United States of America.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, such an articulate person in Congress is appreciated by all of us, especially so clear thinking. That is exactly the kind of thinking we need in the executive branch. Mr. Speaker, we have an article just in from Carolyn May today: ``441 Syrian Refugees Admitted to the U.S. Since the Orlando Attack, Dozens to Florida.'' It says: ``The administration has accelerated the pace of resettlement despite warnings from top security officials about potential vulnerabilities in vetting migrants from terror-hotspots like Syria and reports that ISIS operatives have infiltrated the refugee flows. ``In written testimony prepared for a Thursday hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee, CIA Director John Brennan again warned about the potential for ISIS operatives to manipulate the refugee system, as well as other immigration paths.'' While our CIA Director from this administration was warning the Senate here on Capitol Hill about ISIS being amongst the Syrian refugees--and ISIS leaders themselves have said, oh, yeah, we are going to have some of our killers amongst the so-called Syrian refugees. Because we don't really know where they are from, and that was pretty clear from testimony sometime back from FBI Director Comey, who said, sure, basically we will vet them, but we have no information to vet them with. Whoever they say they are, wherever they say they are from, especially if they say they are from Syria, we really don't have a good way to disprove or to prove. So, yeah, we will vet them. But since we have nothing to check with-- as he said, you know, we had tremendous information from Iraq. We had the government's own records, but we got nothing to vet the Syrians. So perhaps this is an area we should believe the Islamic State leaders when they say ``we are getting our terrorists in amongst the Syrian refugees.'' And apparently the CIA Director takes this seriously. And we hope, at some point, the President will as well. Before people get too harsh in their judgments of the FBI or the FBI agents who had questioned the Orlando shooter, the killer, the murderer, the Islamic radical in Orlando, it is important that we keep in mind that--you know, the 9/11 Commission was composed of Republicans, Democrats, and this bipartisan group used this term, ``violent extremism.'' They only used that three times, because they knew from their good report. They talked about the ``enemy'' 39 times. This administration doesn't like to talk about an enemy, so it is not appropriate for the FBI nor the National Intelligence Strategy. And this FBI counterterrorism lexicon was developed in 2009 after this President took office because they wanted to make sure that we don't offend the people who want to kill us and destroy our way of life. So there are terms that are off limits in this administration, in the FBI, in the national intelligence community. I haven't gotten any updates officially, but from what I understand from friends that work in these areas, there is no real update. You want a quick end to your career in the FBI or in our intelligence agencies, then all you have to use are the terms ``jihad,'' ``Muslim,'' ``Islam.'' If you talk about the Muslim Brotherhood, your career is pretty well over. You don't want to talk about Hamas or Hezbollah. ``Al Qaeda,'' that was used one time in the National Intelligence Strategy that this administration put forth. But for heaven's sake, even though the radical Islamists are making clear that they want an international caliphate in which everyone bows their knee to Allah and to the twelfth imam, the imam that is going to come back and lead everybody, you sure don't want to say it in this administration. And it is not appropriate to talk about sharia. Unfortunately, polls these days are showing that there is a massive number and a massive percentage of people who have already immigrated into the United States who are Muslim that say that they owe their allegiance more to sharia than to our Constitution. I know that people constantly say we should not discriminate, and certainly we should not, you know, as a judge, as a prosecutor, as a chief justice, discriminate based on things that were inappropriate. But if somebody is committing a crime, has committed a crime, wants to destroy our way of life, bring down our government, destroy Western civilization, it is okay to discriminate against those people because what they have done or want to do is called a crime. If they want to bring down our Constitution and have it submissive to sharia law, the appropriate term for that is treason. And it is okay to discriminate against people who want to destroy your country, destroy your government, bring down the Constitution, and it is okay to discriminate. If someone wants to immigrate into this country--and we are getting word that some are instructed not to talk about or mention their religious beliefs and just say it is none of your business--it is important to find out, before we give American citizenship to people, whether or not they can take the oath as a citizen honestly, truthfully, with no hesitation. Because if they cannot, then we need to discriminate against them and prevent those people who want to commit treason from becoming American citizens. It is called self-defense. It is called self-preservation. So, no, we don't want to ever discriminate against anybody based on race, creed, color, national origin, gender, age; but if somebody is not willing, because of their religious beliefs, to state that the Constitution is something to which they can pledge their complete allegiance, then they are not supposed to get citizenship. It is supposed to be denied. If you want to call that discrimination, then that is the kind that is okay. But the administration is going so far out of its way to try not to offend people that want to kill us and bring down our way of life that you can't talk about who our enemy is. So for the three of us who have been through many of the materials that have been purged from our training materials because they offended radical Islamists and Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers, it is important to understand, our FBI agents are not allowed to be properly trained to recognize what a radical Islamist believes, what he or she reads, the appearances that they have to ascribe to, all these things. They are teachable because they are being taught to radical Islamists that want the international caliphate. I know the immediate reaction to killings. I have dear friends on the other side of the aisle, and I know that they are honorable and truly believe the best thing to do is to start having restrictions on guns; but if we were simply dealing with people who should not be in this country--and if they are in this country, they should not be walking free; and if they are in this country, they should never have been allowed to get guns under the laws, if they exist, if this administration were properly training our agents and enforcing the laws--then we wouldn't have to go after the guns, and these people would be alive today. I understand their concerns. The anger is normally with the instrument used. I was reading, again, earlier about the 100 days in Rwanda, when between 500,000 to a million--many estimates say around 800,000 Rwandans--were killed mainly with machetes and clubs. Most of these people didn't have guns, but they were intent on terrorizing the nation--at least the Tutsi people--and terrorize them they did. They killed them. They terrorized them. There was widespread rape. It was just a disaster of biblical proportions. Just horrendous. But when someone is intent on terrorizing to that extent, they use whatever weapons are available, whether it is a machete, a club, a gun, a pressure cooker, or whatever they have available, or fertilizer, as is so often used for making bombs. So our FBI, they are not able to use these words. The term ``religious'' has been used three times in the counterterrorism lexicon, ``religious.'' And, of course, it is important to the current administration to use the term ``religious'' from time to time because, as our Department of Homeland Security has already told us and as the Secretary of Homeland Security reaffirmed this week, we know that rightwing extremists are every bit as much a threat to the United States as Islamic radicals. Something I am not hearing a lot about, but I sure hear it when I get fussed at by rightwing extremists. I know some people think that I am a rightwing extremist, but if you look back at the things the most liberal people in the country were saying in the early 1960s, boy, I am right there mainstream. We will see again in November, but apparently I am pretty mainstream with the people of east Texas. But they have the same beliefs that our Founders did. They want freedom, and they want liberty, and they want their constitutional rights, which includes the right to keep and bear arms so that, if somebody with a machete or somebody with a club or somebody with a gun who is intent on terrorizing, it won't only be the terrorists and the criminals who have the guns. They want to keep their guns. So what I am hearing from rightwing extremists that stay mad at me because I don't speak up enough to their way of thinking is that they are angry because we have an administration that won't identify the enemy. Clearly, most Americans understand radical Islamists are at war with America. Pointed out numerous times, but around the world, Muslim leaders have just been aghast and are asking me: What is wrong with your country? You are helping the wrong Muslims. You are helping the Muslim brothers who are at war with you. How about being a friend of those of us who are not at war with you? And they are right. This administration has brought too many people alongside who do not like this country. Let's look at the Orlando terrorist, the radical Islamist. He was 29 years old, and he was born in America. I have been warning about this for years, but people come here on visas, have a child, and then people here mistakenly think that that means they have to be an American citizen, where it seems pretty clear to some of us if we change the legislation to say that we stand with all the rest--I don't know of any other place that does what we do, but we stand with at least most, if not all the rest, of the world, and changing our law to say: just because you are born in America does not mean you are an American citizen. I have even heard somebody on FOX News say: Well, there is no way around it. If you are born in America, it doesn't matter who you are or where you are from, you are an American citizen. That is simply not true. If you go back and look at the debate over the 14th Amendment, the proponent of the 14th Amendment made it very clear that there are some groups that will not be American citizens under the 14th Amendment. We still recognize today the fact that if you are a diplomat here from a foreign country, then you are not subject to all of the laws of the country, and your children born here in America are not citizens. So, hopefully, those who think it is automatic no matter where you are from, they will be educated and know that is simply not the case. So we also have the right to tell people: No, if you come here illegally, just because you sneak in to the United States illegally or pay a gang or a drug cartel to get you in illegally does not mean that you are going to start increasing legally the population of the United States. But under existing laws, Omar Mateen was a 29-year-old American-born citizen. According to The Denver Post, Mateen's family was from Afghanistan, but he was born in New York City. According to CBS News, Seddique Mir Mateen, the father of Omar Mateen, has well-known anti- American views and is an ideological supporter of the Afghan Taliban. That is what I have been warning about. People who hate America, who have sympathized with those who want to destroy America, have kids here, and we say that their kids are American citizens. We are creating time bombs within our own Nation. The older Mateen hosts a program on California-based satellite Afghan TV station called the Durand Jirga Show, and the primary audience being ethnic Pashtun Afghans living in the United States. According to CBS: ``In his Facebook videos, the alleged gunman's father has often appeared wearing a military uniform and declaring himself the leader of a `transitional revolutionary government' of Afghanistan. He claims to have his own intelligence agency and close ties to the U.S. Congress-- assets he says he will use to subvert Pakistani influence and take control of Afghanistan.'' The younger Mateen was previously married in 2009 to a woman who, according to FOX News, was born in Uzbekistan, but the couple divorced in 2011. According to Omar Mateen's ex-wife, he ``was not a stable person. He beat me''--which is okay under many Muslims' interpretation of sharia law. My wife doesn't agree with that, and, therefore, I do not either--``he would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn't finished or something like that.'' Mateen is currently married to Noor Salman and has a 3-year-old son. I was speaking tongue-in-cheek about my wife. Actually, my mother is deceased since 1991, but growing up with an older sister, it was made clear you don't touch a girl. No matter if she hits you, you don't hit her back. You come tell us. That is the way I have lived. But, you know, many around the world who believe sharia law is much superior to the U.S. Constitution think it is just fine to beat a woman. That is not legal in America, for those in doubt. Thank God. In addition to his views on women and African Americans, Mateen has also had a history of anger toward members of the LGBTQ community. According to Mateen's father, his son was very angry about a recent incident involving two men kissing in public. Per Mateen's father, as reported by The Washington Post: ``We were in downtown Miami, Bayside, people were playing music. And he saw two men kissing each other in front of his wife and kid and he got very angry,'' the father told NBC News. ``They were kissing each other and touching each other and he said, `Look at that. In front of my son they are doing that.' '' I do recognize, apparently, according to reports, Mateen had visited the gay bar before. Apparently he had also visited a Disney park, people believe in casing the place for potential attack. Whatever his reasons for going to the gay bar before, whether he had those tendencies and because of his Muslim radical Islamic teaching, he hated himself for it, whatever the reason, we know that what he is taught is that no matter how bad the sins are that he has committed, if he can go out of this life killed while he is killing Christians, Jews, non- Muslims, Muslims who have converted to something else, if he can go out, be killed while he is killing people like that, it doesn't matter what sins he has committed in his life, under his radical Islamic beliefs, he goes to paradise. I believe with all my heart nobody in the universe was more shocked than Mateen after he went to the other side. It appears that Mateen first started walking down the path toward radicalization sometime after the end of his first marriage. Friends of the shooter describe how he became steadily more religious after his divorce and even went on a religious pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. As reported by multiple news outlets, Mateen has twice been investigated by the FBI. The first investigation involved comments he made which suggested he had an affinity for Islamic extremist groups. The second investigation involved connections to a Florida man who traveled to Syria and became a suicide bomber for. Per the Washington Post, ``Neither probe turned up evidence of wrongdoing. Mateen,'' according to them, ``had a blemish-free record.'' That is ridiculous. As a result of these two FBI investigations, Mateen was at one time placed on a terrorist watch list maintained by the FBI. According to the LA Times, Mateen was removed from the list after the FBI's two investigations were concluded. But, again, we have to remember, the FBI is not allowed to talk to people about jihad: What are your beliefs about Islamic jihad? Do you think it is a simple, peaceable conversion within your own heart and mind? Or do you believe jihad means it is okay to go out and kill people who disagree with radical Islam or your view of Islam? If you can't talk about someone's beliefs in Islam, you can't get to whether or not they have been radicalized. So we have some incredibly talented and intelligent FBI and intelligence agents that are completely ignorant of what they need to know because this administration has made clear to them you don't go there. If you have ever learned about jihad, Muslim, Islam, takfir, Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, caliphate, if you have ever been taught about those things and what to recognize in a radical Islamist, then you better keep your mouth shout about them or you will lose your career, as one of the original Homeland Security employees, dedicated patriot Philip Haney, learned when he was pointing out terrorists. So it makes it tough when you are in the FBI, in our intelligence, and you know the President will not call somebody a radical Islamist. And I know our President was belittling those of us who said it is important to recognize our enemy. The chairman of the Homeland Security Committee had said earlier today those very words. Those are very important words. He said we have to define our enemy to defeat it. He said if this President won't define it, this body will. Our bill that we passed today didn't define it at all. It didn't mention the words ``radical Islam,'' ``jihad,'' ``Muslim Brotherhood,'' ``Hamas,'' ``Hezbollah,'' ``al Qaeda,'' ``international caliphate,'' or those who were more devoted to sharia law than to our Constitution. So this is a little bit of a problem. This article from the Daily Mail has this as a summary: ``Seddique Mateen is the father of mass shooter Omar Mateen, 29. Mateen Senior is an Afghan who hosts the Durand Jirga Show. This show is aired on YouTube channel''--I am not even going to say. ``He visited Congress, the State Department and met with political leaders during a trip to Washington, DC, in April. He also attended a hearing on Afghanistan security while in the capital. Pictures from 2015 show him meeting'' with some folks up here. ``Police seen searching him home, located close to where his son lived.'' Obviously, his father's strong support or expressed support of the Taliban should have caused concerns. And I know the word ``discrimination'' has been overused, to the point that people who saw in Mateen the potential radical Islamist mass shooter were cowed by political correctness, as was the company he worked for when they refused to deal with the complaints about his radical Islamic problems. Political correctness killed 49 people. Should we ban political correctness because it closed the eyes of the FBI agents to seeing they had a radical Islamist they were talking to during their two investigations? Should we indict political correctness or ban it from America because the FBI, when they investigated and talked to the older Tsarnaev brother before he killed and maimed in the Boston bombing--should we ban political correctness because the FBI didn't know what to ask? The FBI Director himself--at that time, Mueller. I had understood they had not gone to the mosque where Tsarnaev was attending after they got word he had been radicalized. I said: You didn't even go to the mosque where they attended? He said: We did go to the mosque--and I didn't hear it until it was replayed later--in our outreach program. That is right. In a previous hearing to that, he had explained: Look, the Muslim community is like every other religious community in America. There is no difference whatsoever. We have a wonderful outreach program with the Muslim community. It is going great. But it is just like every other community. He said it over and over. When it was my time to question, I said: Since it is just like every other community in America, Director Mueller, how is the outreach program of the FBI going with the Buddhists and the Jewish community and the Baptist community and the Hindu community? How are your outreach programs to those religious communities? He had to back up and try to figure out something to say. And basically, it was: We have a combined outreach to all those other groups. We don't have a specific outreach to all of those others--the Baptists, Christians, or Jews. They don't have an outreach program like that because, to the FBI way of thinking, we have outreach to all religious groups in America as a whole, and because of our concern about American safety, apparently-- why else would they have it?--we have a specific outreach to the Muslim community. Well, isn't that strange? If you only have an FBI and a government outreach program to one religious group in America, then it is a little bit hard to honestly say that there is no difference whatsoever in these religious communities, because if that had been truthful statements made to our committee here on the Hill, there would not be a Muslim outreach program. I was, I have to say, very gratified that, after having evidence in the FBI's possession for about at least 18 years, some of which was used in the Holy Land Foundation trial in which a verdict was obtained in November 2008, they had evidence to show that the Council on American-Islamic Relations was a coconspirator in supporting terrorism. So finally, in 2009, after years of their outreach program with CAIR as a community partner, they finally had to send a letter to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, and say: Well, because of some of the stuff that came out at the Holy Land Foundation trial, we are going to need to suspend our partnership. How many partnerships does the FBI have with the Jewish community or with the Hindu community or with the very peace-loving Sikh community? How many? We can't find any. And I look forward to hearing from the administration if they have such wonderful outreach programs that they have started since the Director of the FBI testified before us. We continue to blind ourselves, as our intelligence officer told me, to our ability to see our enemy, and people in America are going to continue to die. Though I care deeply about some of our Democratic friends--they are wonderful people--they think the solution is stopping Americans from getting certain guns. Can't you just agree, I had a reporter say yesterday, to ban assault weapons? I have been engaged in the legal profession long enough in different capacities to know that, once you ban an assault weapon, you can ban every gun that exists. It reminded me of when I was thinking about going to law school, although my late mother and a doctor in Mount Pleasant kept telling me: Louie, you are smart. You can really help people. You would be a great doctor. Don't throw your life away and go to law school. You could really help people. You would be a great doctor. And my mother hoped I would. And if not that, at least I would be a college professor. My dad used to send me clippings--Dad is still alive and 90 years old this year--when I was expressing interest in going to law school. There was never a shortage of newspaper clippings about how rotten lawyers were. Headlines would be things like: There Are Too Many Lawyers in America; Lawyers Are Destroying America; quoting Shakespeare, First, We Kill All the Lawyers--all these types of articles. Normally, he would put a little note on it: Son, are you really sure about this? Well, I love and respect my father. And I finally wrote a letter back: I have done a lot of soul-searching, Dad, and I have come to the realization that the law is a tool, like a hammer. The law can be used constructively to build up or it can be used very destructively to destroy. It is all about the hand holding the hammer. A so-called assault weapon in the hands of an American military member, in the hands of law enforcement, or in the hands of someone whose home is being invaded by multiple burglars with guns is a good thing to have. If the principal at Sandy Hook had been running, as she so heroically did, at the gunman with any kind of gun in her hand--any kind of assault weapon, as some want to call some guns--there would have been people saved. So, once you say we are banning assault weapons, then you are on the road to banning all weapons. Every gun, every machete that has killed hundreds of thousands of Rwandans in 1994, I believe it was, in the wrong hands, is an assault weapon. Why can't we focus on the hands that are holding the weapons? Why can't we train our FBI and our intelligence community to recognize hands that are going to use a machete, a gun? I know people report it was an AR-15 that the Orlando shooter used. It was not. It is an awfully small caliber, but whatever. Let's train them to figure out which Americans are intent on committing treason, not by speculation, but by the things they have already said and done. And if we had not blinded them, San Bernardino could have been stopped, the Orlando shooting could have been stopped, the Boston Marathon bombing could have been stopped. I know Janet Napolitano took credit for the system working when the underwear bomber was stopped, but that was some heroic Americans. One intelligence person told me that, actually, the reason the bomb didn't go off is because his rear end had sweated too much and defused the fuse and it didn't go off. Well, we can't always count on a terrorist's rear end sweating too much to save hundreds of American lives. We have to have an intelligence community and a law enforcement community that can recognize when enemies are within our gate, as this President continues to bring them. It should disturb a lot of Americans, as this article from Alan Neuhauser points out, that the ``Security Firm That Employed the Orlando Gunman Guards U.S. Nuclear Sites.'' The article points out: ``The security firm that employed the Orlando gunman behind the worst mass-shooting in U.S. history says it's guarded '90 percent of the U.S. nuclear facilities'--raising concern that would-be terrorists could easily gain inside access to the most sensitive sites on American soil and release untold devastation.'' And it goes on to make some good points, but I don't think we would worry about someone going into one of these nuclear facilities, getting nuclear material to make a nuclear weapon. That would probably not happen, but it is quite conceivable they could get nuclear material and create a dirty bomb, a bomb with nuclear material in it and around it so that it is dispersed, causing more death. This article from Stephen Dinan, from The Washington Times says: ``American-born children of immigrants proving fruitful recruiting ground for jihad in U.S.'' Thank God, most of the children of immigrants that have come into the United States have helped and have made this country what was at one time the freest nation in the history of the world. We are not listed as the freest nation anymore, not near the top. This article from The Daily Caller says: ``Co-worker: Orlando Terrorist's Employer Ignored Unhinged Comments for Fear of Being Politically Incorrect. ``Daniel Gilroy used to work at G4S Security and complained to the company numerous times about Mateen's derogatory comments regarding homosexuals and people of other races. He also talked about massacring people. ``Gilroy said, G4S Security did absolutely nothing in response to the complaints for fear of being politically incorrect, as 29-year-old Mateen was an open Muslim, Florida Today reports.'' Political correctness has now gotten so far afield, it is killing people. Let's talk about banning political correctness that keeps our FBI and intelligence from being able to talk about radical Islam. According to Peter Hasson from The Daily Caller: ``DHS Secretary: Right-Wingers Pose Same Threat As Islamic Extremists.'' I mentioned earlier, people that--right-wing extremists that are mad at me are mad because we are not doing enough to stop radical Islamists from destroying our country, terrorizing our country, terrorizing our freedoms, telling us we can't say what we believe because we have lost our freedom of speech. We can't practice our Christian beliefs as the Bible teaches, because it may offend someone. For heaven's sake, let's compare. These radical Islamists believe that the way to paradise and to complete forgiveness of Islamic sins, no matter how bad, is to be killing a bunch of non-Muslims. When your life is taken, you go straight to paradise. On the other hand, I know the President loves to castigate Christians and say, hey, you know, Christians had the Crusades. Anybody that was out there saying, I kill you in the name of Christ, is not killing people legitimately in the name of Christ, because Jesus said, ``Greater love hath no one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.'' And, of course, he was talking about men and women. There is a pretty clear, distinct difference between what radical Islamists believe as well as what Christians who truly believe the teachings of Christ, what they believe. Yet, Jeh Johnson, the Homeland Security has released before: You have to watch those Evangelical Christians because they believe what Jesus said, you know, that you want to share the Gospel with people so that they learn love and not hate. So these real Evangelical Christians, like my friend, Trent Franks from Arizona, wow, he is a hulking threat because he believes that the two greatest commandments in the world are love God and love each other, and on those two laws hang all the law and the prophets. The Daily Caller also has an article about--and this is a member who is above the countering violent extremism advisory group. He is now elevated to the advisory council where Muslim Brother sympathizer, Elibiary, from Plano, Texas--he was until they finally had to let him go after he tweeted about the caliphate, the international caliphate being inevitable. But this is who has replaced him. I am not sure how to pronounce it. It looks like Marayati, something like that. He ``is the president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. He currently serves on the Homeland Security Advisory Committee's Foreign Fighter Task Force as well as HSAC Subcommittee on Faith Based Security and Communications . . . In 2001, Al-Marayati suggested that Israel--not Islamic extremists--was ultimately behind the September 11 terrorist attacks . . . In 2013, Judicial Watch noted that Al-Marayati told attendees at a 2005 conference for the Islamic Society of North America''--another named co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation supporting terrorism trial--``that `Counter-terrorism and counter- violence should be defined by us' ''--talking about the Muslims that think Israel was behind 9/11. He said: `` `We should define how an effective counter-terrorism policy should be pursued in this country,'' America. ``So, number one, we reject any effort, notion, suggestion that Muslims should start spying on one another.' '' Well, that is exactly what FBI Director Mueller said they were going to do. They had this wonderful outreach program so that Muslims will come and report other Muslims in advance, just like Mateen's wife did; since she knew that he was about to go kill a whole bunch of Americans, she came forward and reported--oh, wait. No, she didn't, did she? I guess the outreach program didn't work so well there. Well, maybe before the Boston bombing, maybe the outreach program worked there. Oh, that is right, they went to the mosque not about Tsarnaev being radicalized, as they had already been advised by the Russians, but just to have a meal and visit and talk. And, gee, the people at the mosque forgot to say: By the way, Tsarnaev is starting to demonstrate what we have seen every time somebody has been radicalized. And, oh, by the way, Director Mueller, you obviously are not aware--as he was not when I asked him--but our mosque was started by Al Amoudi, who your FBI helped put in prison after they finally were tipped off by--from what I understand--British intelligence, that Al Amoudi, who helped pick Muslims to serve in the Clinton administration, in the military, and also to be chaplains in the prison where, by the way, we are now getting reports and have for some time, that inmates are being radicalized. Gee, imagine that. Al Amoudi doing 23 years for supporting terrorism, helped pick imams to serve in our prisons and in our government agencies, and in the military, and, gee, they are being radicalized. What a shock. Well, the article goes on: ``Investor's Business Daily took an editorial stand against the invite.'' When the Obama administration invited Al-Marayati to a 3-day summit on fighting extremism in 2015, initially, the White House tried to conceal that from reporters, but it finally was made clear. So Investor's Business Daily said: ``Al-Marayati has a long record of defending terrorists and justifying violence against non-Muslims--an easy one for the White House to vet for extremism. ``According to White House visitor records, Al-Marayati has visited the White House 11 times since 2009 . . . Kyle Shideler, the director of the Center for Security Policy's Threat Information Office, told The Daily Caller that `Al-Maryati's association with the HSAC underlines what an unfortunate farce the entire, Combating Violent Extremism, program is. Al-Maryati's only notable counter-terrorism contribution is having suggested Israel be included as a suspect on 9/11. `` `His very organization,'' the Muslim Public Affairs Council, or MPAC, ``has historically cosponsored events in support of the very kinds of extremists he's been appointed to help oppose, which is no surprise, given that the organization's roots lay with men who literally studied at the foot of Muslim Brotherhood leader, Hassan Al- Banna' . . . `As long as the Obama administration is more concerned with keeping groups like Al-Marayati's happy with them instead of investigating actual terrorism, we will never have a sane counter- terror policy.' ``The Daily Caller previously reported on Monday that a current sitting member on the HSAC Subcommittee on Countering Violent Extremism, Laila Alawa, is a 25-year-old immigrant of Syrian heritage who said the 9/11 attacks `changed the world for good' and has consistently disparaged America, free speech, and white people on social media.'' And if you look at the things that that other adviser to Jeh Johnson tweeted, here is a tweet that Ms. Alawa sent out: ``I can't deal with people saying America is the best nation in the world. Be critical. Be conscious. Don't be idiots.'' Yeah, people like my friend, and like the Speaker, you know, we think America is the best place in the world. But according to Jeh Johnson's adviser, we are idiots. She tweeted: ``The US has never been a utopia unless you were a straight White male that owned land. Straight up period go home shut up.'' Wow. She also said: ``You can't say something intolerant and not expect consequences. Not on my watch.'' She said all kinds of hateful things about America, about Whites, about those who love this country. Great article in The Daily Caller. Did the FBI training purge cause agency to drop the ball on Orlando shooter? Clearly, it did. Well, Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, every Republican I have heard speak on this issue, including those from Homeland Security, have acknowledged that the President and our intelligence need to start talking about jihad, Muslim, Islam, radical Muslim, radical Islam, Muslim Brotherhood. And they are not allowed to talk about it without risking their career, and that is why I voted ``no'' on the bill today. These things have basically passed before. But all they talk about is countering violent extremism, countering violent extremism; five ``countering violent extremism'' on page 3. But it basically tells the Secretary of Homeland Security to keep countering violent extremism. It never mentions the term ``radical Islam.'' After the Orlando shooting, we have an obligation, when the administration won't call it what it is, to start calling what it is. I think the bill really didn't do what we needed done. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Wagner), my good friend and a great Member of Congress. Reestablish Integrity of Article I of the Constitution

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I want to first thank my friend. I am very grateful to my friend from California, Congresswoman Speier, for having the idea and doing this. Powerful. As a former judge who heard cases like this, it is a powerful reminder of the evil or, as the poet said, the inhumanity of man to man. It is such an outrage. This was a special evening to bring attention to a grave injustice, so I am very grateful that Congresswoman Speier did what she did. It also brings to mind the fact that there is grave injustice. Nobody should get 6 months in prison for what was done in that case. In Texas, the minimum would be 5 years. I saw Judge Poe, a former district judge, also reading part of the statement of the victim in the case. And I just cannot imagine Judge Poe or myself giving a sentence anywhere close to 5 years. We would have been heading for the top, if not the top. It is just so outrageous. In considering an appropriate sentence, a judge--we were taught and the rule was--considered punishment just for what was done. You considered deterrence to the individual who committed the act. You considered general deterrence to the public at large and the message that would be sent with the sentence that was assessed. And you considered the protection of the general public. The sentence in this case was just outrageous beyond measure. It is no deterrence to the defendant, criminal actor. It is no general deterrence to the public at large. Somebody thinks they could get away with what he did and get the kind of light sentence he did; it is no deterrence at all. It certainly didn't protect the public. If he had done 30, 40 years in prison, the public would have been protected all that time. It certainly wasn't much punishment for punishment's sake. Orlando Shooting

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I want to turn now to the issue of the Orlando shooting. There is an article from The Daily Caller from June 12, ``Did FBI Training Material Purge Cause Agency to Drop the Ball on Orlando Shooter?'' I would submit that it absolutely did. The FBI agents who questioned or investigated this matter I do not believe are at fault for shortcomings. I don't see them. Because I know, Michele Bachmann knows, Lynn Westmoreland knows, as we went over and were going through material that the FBI had classified--I thought it was ridiculous; the public should know--the documents about radical Islam that have been purged from the FBI training. Some were ridiculous, cartoon, this or that. But they classified them so that none of us could tell you, Mr. Speaker, or anyone publicly how ridiculous some of the purging was. According to this administration and Homeland Security, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, is an honorable organization. So are they all--all--honorable organizations? The Islamic Society of North America, all organizations that were named as coconspirators in the Holy Land Foundation trial: there were coconspirators named, and the judge found plenty of evidence to keep the named coconspirators in the pleading, though some of them tried to have them removed. But they say they are offended. They convince people in this administration that somehow the fact that nothing emboldens ISIS more than seeing a weak America and a weak American response is made to be somehow false, though it is absolutely the truth. Somehow, with the help of some of the media, some in this administration have been able to convince a lot of people that somehow, if you describe radical Islamist terrorists as what they are, you somehow are the reason that there is terrorism. They forget so quickly. Bill Clinton as President of the United States did more to try to help Muslims around the world, Eastern Europe than most any President. What happened? They tried to bring down the World Trade Center in 1993 on his watch. Not only that, it turns out that the whole time President Clinton was sacrificing American life and limb and treasure to protect Muslims, they were plotting to try again to bring down the World Trade Center. No, Mr. Speaker, calling radical Islam is not what evokes terrorism. There are a number of factors, but weakness is definitely one of them. And this is a paraphrase, but Ronald Reagan pointed out that, in his lifetime, there was no war that was begun because the country was too strong. That prevents wars. It doesn't cause them. It doesn't cause terrorist attacks. I go again and again back to the comment from the African gentleman. My wife and I were visiting the Mercy Ship there and the good they were doing treating the thousands and thousands there in West Africa who didn't have proper medical care. This wonderful charitable institution was doing great things. We were there for a week, washed dishes, assisted any way I could in surgery, anything I could do. But it was the Africans, at the end of the week, who wanted to meet with me and told me: Look, we were so excited when you elected your first Black President, but we have seen, since he has been President, you have gotten weaker and weaker in America. And when America gets weak, we suffer. Basically, we know where we are going when we die, but our only chance of having peace in this life is if America is strong. And this country has been weakened. As Muslims leaders have asked in the Middle East, North Africa, Asia: How do you not understand the Muslim Brotherhood has been at war with you since 1979? We don't understand. You placate, you help the Muslim Brotherhood, and you turn on your Muslim friends. We don't understand it. All around the world, they don't understand it. Iran is an enemy of the United States. They continue to say that. They continue to say that they lied and they would never submit to the terms that this administration said they agreed to. And it is one more thing that makes the radical Islamists or Islamists who are thinking about radicalizing, it helps them realize America is weak and they are stupid and they need to be wiped off the map. So what does this administration do? Well, Mr. Speaker, I have spoken from the floor here about a fellow Texan, Mr. Elibiary, who was a featured speaker at the 20th Century Man of Peace, the Ayatollah Khomeini, big closed-door event. He was a featured speaker to honor the Ayatollah Khomeini. When the convictions came through for supporting terrorism in the largest, most important terrorist case in America, he took up for the defendants. He said they were wrongly treated. We know that Osama bin Laden said that the writings of the Muslim brother Qutb--Q-U-T-B is how it is spelled--that Qutb, especially his booklet, ``Milestone,'' helped radicalize him. Mr. Elibiary was online encouraging people to read ``Milestone,'' that it was a great thing to read, that it was very helpful. And Osama bin Laden said it sure helped radicalize him. With all the warning signs, Janet Napolitano didn't care. She wanted to show the Muslim world that she was so above the fray and above these silly mortals, what fools these mortals be, that she was above all of that, that she could bring someone who named his foundation the same name as the political party of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. And he never would disclose--as far as I have seen, he still has not disclosed--where he got all the money for what he did. And yet she made him part of the Countering Violent Extremism advisory committee and then promoted him to the Homeland Security Advisory Council and gave him a classification so he could get online and review classified information. And Janet Napolitano, as Secretary of Homeland Security, testified falsely before our committee, first, that she didn't know anything about what I was talking about, him downloading documents and trying to offer them to news media, specific national news media, to publish. Thankfully, they turned it down. She said she didn't know anything about it, yet the night before, her chief told the director of the Department of Public Safety in Texas-- because he called me right after the call--I just got a call from Napolitano. He says he has just finished fully briefing Secretary Napolitano on what Elibiary did on his own laptop at his home downloading this information. She said the next day: I have no idea, basically, what you are talking about. The next time, I told her: You said you would investigate. She said: We investigated. There was nothing to it. None of that was true. When documents were sought to show what was done in the investigation, it turns out there was no investigation. She was testifying falsely about that as well. So what are radical Islamists supposed to take from all this? You have an administration that is protecting them. When you review documents that have been cleaned out, taken, purged out of the training material for the FBI, for the State Department, for the Defense Department, for the CIA, for our intelligence, Department of Defense, it is no wonder FBI agents cannot discern that Tsarnaev had been radicalized even though Russia told us twice. And still this administration, they had so miseducated and undereducated our agents, they didn't know what to ask. How do you establish that somebody had been radicalized? My dear friend, Philip Haney, one of the original members of Homeland Security, it probably was a record the number of people that he put together the information to show their terrorist ties. He got a commendation for it. But when he started showing there were ties that people with this administration were having with known terrorists, they deleted thousands of pages of entries of what he had done. When he filed an IG report, they came after him. They impaneled a grand jury to try to destroy him, and he was so squeaky clean. Even though it put his wife in the hospital, nearly killed her, this patriot who has given his life and the opportunity to make millions of dollars with the kind of brilliant mind he has gave it all for his country. And what did this administration do in return? This award-winning, wonderful patriot was harassed and investigated, had rumors spread so that they could make sure that the other agents within Homeland Security knew that you don't want to say anything about people with terrorist ties because this will happen to you next. You know, he has been run through the wringer with a grand jury, and now we are going to take away his gun, his weapon in front of others-- terrible humiliation--and then basically put in a closet to push him into retirement. Thank God he was close to retirement. Now he is where he can tell all that was not classified. And we find out just how bad things have been, as this administration did more to protect radical Islamists than it has done really to help keep America safe. I know I am critical a lot, but I am grateful. I am very grateful that after this terrorist attack, the President didn't go play golf this time. He didn't call the Governor of Florida, but I am very grateful he didn't go play golf. He didn't go to a baseball game. He wasn't on the kiss camera somewhere. I think he is making progress now after 7\1/2\ years, and I am grateful for that. I thank him for that, Mr. Speaker, through you. But this article from the Daily Caller by Peter Hasson says: ``Syrian Immigrant Who Said 9/11 `Changed the World for Good' is a Homeland Security Adviser.'' It goes through and it talks about, you know, that she was picked by Jeh Johnson to help advise him. And here are some of the tweets--oh, and by the way, Mr. Elibiary, like I said, they finally let him end his term after he said the international caliphate was inevitable. Obviously, the United States, by his comments, will have to fall on our knees in front of the ultimate caliph, perhaps the 12th Imam in his mind. But he said Americans need to get used to it. Well, here is a new replacement. It looks like she has some of the views of Mr. Elibiary. This is a lady with the last name Alawa. So Ms. Alawa, on February 4, 2013, tweeted out: ``I can't deal with people saying America is the best nation in the world. Be critical. Be conscious. Don't be idiots.'' Well, this Nation has previously been the best nation in the world. It has been the freest nation in the world, and that has been shown. But in recent years, we have fallen further and further down the list of the most free nations in the world. So we are certainly not the most free nation anymore, although we have been the most blessed nation with personal freedoms and personal assets. The only nation in history, that I am aware of, where the number one health problem for the Nation's poor involved obesity. This adviser to Jeh Johnson also tweeted out that ``The US has never been a utopia unless you were a straight white male that owned land. Straight up period go home shut up.'' Isn't that great, Mr. Speaker, that we have people with this mentality and hatred from Americans and bigoted racial positions that she can advise our Secretary of Homeland Security? Here is another one, September 17, 2014: ``9/11 is your day to pull out your flag themed clothing, and my day to look behind my back as I walk home.'' Well, actually, I don't see a lot of attacks on Muslims in America, especially by true Christians because that is not a Christian thing to do. It is a radical Islamist thing to do. That is actually quite confirmed by this tweet on 26 April of 2013. She says: ``You can't say something intolerant and not expect consequences. Not on my watch.'' Well, what she is advocating there, in America, under our Constitution, under every law of every State, is called a crime. She is advocating a crime. Our American Revolution saw the quoting, usually attributed to Voltaire--some differ for the proper attribution, perhaps Voltaire, but the saying was, ``I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.'' Now, according to this high-flying adviser to our own American Homeland Security Department, that is now being changed. Basically, to put it more in Voltaire's potential terms, Miss Alawa is saying: I disagree with what you say, and I am going to cause hell to come down on you. There will be consequences because I disagree with what you say, and I am going to make you suffer for it. Well, see, that is under sharia law, and we find, obviously, she follows sharia law. She doesn't believe in the United States Constitution, she doesn't believe in freedom of speech, and yet here she is, a top adviser to our own Homeland Security Secretary. Here is another tweet. This was after Pamela Geller was exposing the lies and hypocrisy of radical Islam and had a drawing contest about Mohammed, and she says: How the blank is--and she fills in blanks. How the blank is the S blank @PamelaGeller is spewing ``free speech''? It's straight up warmongering hate speech. It's xenophobia. No. The hatred is belonging to Miss Alawa. Here is another to show her racism. She says: ``Because, Ya know, @TheBachelor, white people in America? They're not gonna be dominant majority for much longer.'' So it is wonderful that Secretary Johnson feels that the way to protect America is to have racist, sharia-loving, above-the- Constitution advisers telling him that you have to go easy on the radical Islamists and not call them what they are, and be mean and tough on people who are concerned about their physical safety, and you need to take the guns away. I mean, I found this statement. This is consistent. This administration says, when radical Islam attacks, it is time to take guns away from law-abiding Americans. And he keeps proposing this idea that this list that only this administration can compile--nobody in Congress is allowed to even know how they put their list together, potential watch list, terrorist list. We don't know how they put it. They won't tell us. They won't tell people how you get off the list. And yet this unconstitutional way of depriving people of their constitutional rights is being advocated by mostly everybody in this administration. We have to take away Americans' right to keep and bear arms if the President puts them on a list that says he doesn't want them to have guns. I mean, we have already seen what this administration has done to seniors. Okay. If you are a senior citizen and you have found--because of arthritis in your hands, whatever reason--it is easier for a family member to take care of your checking account and pay your bills so you don't have to suffer the problems--I know, I have had relatives deal with this, and it is happening now. So somebody is taking care of your checking account, you lose your Second Amendment right to protect yourself with a gun. But what I have seen repeatedly is seniors who may have a family member take care of their checking account, but they sure do know when somebody is breaking into their home, and they need to defend themselves. They know that. It is instinct. But apparently not in this administration. And how about this? The security firm that employed the Orlando gunman guards U.S. nuclear sites. Well, we had heard he worked for this--I believe it was G4S, something like that. Yeah, G4S. They have thousands of employees, and they guard nuclear sites. I have read before publicly from the request for proposal to provide security for Dulles Airport right out here from Washington. Such an important airport to our Nation's government. It is a request for proposal for independent contractors to provide security. The only qualification to providing the security for Dulles Airport, for the toll roads, for the perimeter around Dulles where you don't want somebody that might leave a gate open for a terrorist friend, well, your only qualification is you have to be over 21 and legally allowed to work, which means you can be a Syrian refugee and have gotten one of the work permits this administration hands out as a basic form of amnesty or maybe be part of a gang bang group that came up from Central America and lied about who you were, where you were coming from, and got a work permit through this President's amnesty bill, you are welcome to go to work at Dulles providing security. Great stuff. And then this article: ``American-born children of immigrants proving fruitful recruiting ground for jihad in the U.S.'' It seems like I have been talking about that for 6 years. People come over here on visas, they have children, and then the children are taught to hate America. In fact, our own al-Awlaki, the first American citizen to have been killed by presidential order with a drone strike, even though he had worked with the administration, he has led prayers. He is so dangerous, the Muslim staffers here on Capitol Hill had him lead their prayers a number of times. So dangerous, the President had to take him out with a drone strike, and yet he was an American citizen only because his parents came over on college visas, had him here, took him back to Yemen and taught him to hate America. ``Orlando Terrorist Worked for Same Security Contractor That Has Been Moving Illegal Aliens Into the United States by the Vanload.'' This is from Debra Heine, June 13, from PJ Media. ``FBI Twice Probed Orlando Gunman,'' from Devlin Barrett, June 13, The Wall Street Journal. The FBI, the government, and homeland security had all kinds of warnings, but they chose to keep playing patsy with people that hate America, who are bigoted, racist Islamic supremacists, and the Nation has suffered as a result. So what are we going to do? We are supposed to take up a bill. And I applaud our party's leaders. They have made very clear that the President is making a severe mistake by not using the term ``Islamic terrorists.'' So we are taking up a nine-page bill tomorrow that uses the President's term repeatedly, over and over, ``countering violent extremism.'' We never use the term ``Islam.'' We require reports and training, basically, in the Secretary's discretion, if he wants to. The bottom line is it gives cover for countering violent extremism when we are supposed to be pointing out radical Islamists are our enemy. This is not the bill we should be passing. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. ``Thank you to everyone involved in the trial for their time and attention. Thank you to girls across the nation that wrote cards to my DA to give to me, so many strangers who cared for me. ``Most importantly, thank you to the two men who saved me, who I have yet to meet. I sleep with two bicycles that I drew taped above my bed to remind myself there are heroes in this story. That we are looking out for one another. To have known all of these people, to have felt their protection and love, is something I will never forget.''

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, there is an issue we have been talking about on the Republican side for quite a bit, and I think some of my Democratic friends realize how serious an issue this is because they care about our military members. The President of the United States promised, ill-advisedly, before he was ever elected, that he was going to close the Guantanamo Bay facility that housed the worst of the worst terrorists wanting to kill Americans and destroy our way of life. Well, he found out right after he took office that you just can't do that because it is going to put American lives at risk. There is a reason they are being held there. And it violates no rules of law when it comes to war, because war is a little different. Since civilized society came along in the history of mankind, things improved for prisoners of war. Before there was a civilized society, when one group warred against another, they would either kill them or make them slaves. What occurred was pretty gruesome. In civilized history, when one group says, ``We are at war with this other group,'' then the other group either responds by defending themselves or they are overtaken by the evildoers--in this case, radical Islamists. Since the history of more civilized warfare--if we can call it such, because war is truly hell--noble nations played by rules that said, if you capture someone who is part of the group at war with you, then you hold them as prisoners in a humane fashion until such time as the group of which they are a part agrees that they are no longer at war. If the war drags on 15, 20, 30, 50 years, it is not the fault of the country that captures people at war with them, because that country did not start the war. In this case, the radical Islamists have had this small part of Islam since its beginning and felt like the way to be truly religiously Islamic is to kill anybody that stands in your way of having an international caliphate and forcing everyone in the world to bow before Allah and Islam, in the name of Islam. It is not our fault if they will not say we are no longer at war with you, because once that happens, then you release those prisoners who were part of the group that was at war with you. And if some of them can be proven to be guilty of actual war crimes against humanity, then you take them to trial, and you try to convict them. And if you do, as we saw after World War II, if they are convicted and sentenced to death, that occurs. If they are sentenced to prison, that is on top of the years that we waited while their group continued to be at war with us. That is under the civilized rules of warfare. Guantanamo Bay, I can say, having been there more than once, and also having toured many State and Federal prisons, has provided the most humane treatment I have ever seen a group of prisoners get. For example, in a Texas prison, if you throw urine or feces on a guard, you will suffer consequences for that decision. I found out on one of my trips to Guantanamo Bay prison that when, as often happens, an inmate figures out a way to throw urine or feces on one of our military member guards, that because we don't want to be perceived as having some mean-spirited prison, we take away a couple of their movie- watching hours during some day to teach them a lesson. And there have been instances where, when they didn't like the movies being presented, perhaps they hadn't been screened properly enough, maybe some woman exposed a bare arm and that offended somebody, well, there was uproar, problems. But if somebody committed a really egregious crime of assaulting one of our guards, then they might actually lose some of their time outside for a day or two. It bothered me greatly to find out that the guards were not allowed to even say anything when someone threw urine or feces on them who was an inmate at Guantanamo Bay; because one such United States military member, I think they said he was a minority member of our United States military, had feces thrown on him, and he angrily said a name, and he received an article 15 non-judicial punishment, and he was punished for simply saying something back after he had feces thrown on him. Well, that ought to be the least of the problems. And I couldn't believe one of our military members who had been assaulted in such a despicable manner was the one punished for saying something back to the inmate that threw feces on him. But the President is determined to follow through with this same kind of policy idea that he has had since the beginning, when he had his apology tour going throughout the Middle East, apologizing in Egypt, apologizing around the world for America, who has been the only country that I can find in history that has shed so much precious American blood, so much blood of our Americans for other people's freedom. We didn't owe anybody an apology, not for that. And there is this mentality among some liberals like our President that the world will be so much safer and a so much better place to live if America were brought down and were not a superpower and you let other countries be superpowers, like, for example, Iran. Let's give Iran $100 billion, $150 billion access to that, and let's let them become a superpower, and we will negotiate a deal that, hopefully, will prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon while President Obama is in office. And then who cares what happens after that; right? But the deal that was negotiated pretty well assures that Iran will have nuclear weapons. It is just a matter of when. And now we know that Iran has repeatedly broken their agreement and we know that this administration, as we found out, this administration actually manipulated video to try to cover up just how bad the deal was that this State Department was negotiating. I didn't really need to see the story to know this kind of stuff was going on. When I saw that Wendy Sherman was maybe chief negotiator, working with the Secretary of State, who was also part of the glorious deal that the Clinton administration, along with Madeleine Albright, negotiated with North Korea, basically--and this is my translation of the deal--but, okay. We are going to make sure that you have nuclear power, and we will make sure you have got nuclear fuel, you have got everything you need to make a nuclear weapon so long as you will sign an agreement saying that you are not going to use it to create a nuclear weapon. You can't help but think of all the snickering that went on in North Korea, especially by Kim Jong-il: Wow, all they want is my signature and they will give us what we need to make a nuclear weapon? Sure. Where do I sign? I mean, it really reminded me of the story Jeff Foxworthy told about, before he made money as a comedian, he was down on his luck. A guy shows up at the door, says, ``I'm here to repossess your car.'' ``Oh, please don't take my car. If you take my car, I can't make it to any of my gigs. I can't make money, and then I have no chance of paying for the car. So please, don't take my car.'' ``I'm sorry, Mr. Foxworthy. I'm here, and I'm supposed to either leave with your car or with cash payment or with a check.'' And Foxworthy basically said, ``A check? You'll take a check? I didn't know you'd take a check.'' ``Yeah, how much do you want me to make it out for?'' ``I'm glad to write you a check. Sure, you just tell me.'' And then he signs and gives the check and he keeps his car. That had to be the kind of mentality. You mean, you will give us everything we need in North Korea to have nuclear weapons, and all we have to do is sign and you're good with that? Wow. Okay. Let us sign. So they signed. We make sure they have what they need for nuclear weapons in the name of giving them nuclear power, and sure enough--very expectedly by some of us because it was such a stupid thing to do, the Clinton administration, with Wendy Sherman right there in the negotiations--we gave them the ability to create nuclear weapons, which they have done. The same way with Iran. Their leaders must have been laughing behind our backs, because we know what they were saying publicly while they were still continuing to say ``death to America,'' still calling us the ``Great Satan,'' still saying they weren't going to abide by any agreement, that the United States would never get them to do what we wanted them to. Oh, so while we are telling the public we are not going to go along with any deal we sign, you are still willing to accept our signature on a deal? For sure, we will sign, because even Allah allows us to sign something that is a lie if, in the end, it furthers his kingdom, in their way of thinking. So if we had strong enough leadership in the United States Senate, what would happen would be there would be a call for a vote on the Iran treaty, which it is. It modifies other treaty provisions and, therefore, you can't do that unless it is a treaty, so it is a treaty. The Constitution says that requires two-thirds of the Senate to vote for the treaty in order for it to be ratified. The Senate took up this Corker bill, that turned the Constitution upside down, and said, no, we are going to say it takes two-thirds to vote against a deal; otherwise, it goes forward. Bob Corker is a really nice guy, but, my word, the damage that was done to the Middle East and to the world by the Senate taking an approach to the Iran treaty as if it wasn't really a treaty. There is still time. Take the vote in the Senate. I know that 60 votes are required for cloture; but when Harry Reid felt like getting very liberal judges into Federal courts was more important than the cloture rule, he had 51 Democrats vote to set aside the cloture rule, and they put in the liberal judges they wanted over the Republican objection. This Iran treaty is going to eventually bring so much death and destruction to not only the Middle East, but, as Netanyahu has warned us, they are not preparing those intercontinental ballistic missiles for Israel. Those are for us. They can already hit Israel. They are for us. So what do we see in the news now, other than the fact that Iran-- well, this article says: ``Iran Spends $1.7 Billion in U.S. Taxpayer Funds to Boost Its Military.'' And it says in this June 9 article from Free Beacon, by Adam Kredo: ``The State Department is staying silent after Iranian officials disclosed that the Islamic Republic spent a recent payment by the United States of $1.7 billion in taxpayer funds to expand and build-up its military, according to comments provided to the Washington Free Beacon. ``The Obama administration earlier this year paid Iran $1.7 billion from a U.S. taxpayer-funded account in order to settle decades-old legal disputes with the Islamic Republic.'' Never mind that our American citizens that were taken hostage have never been allowed to collect properly on the damages done by this regime in Iran. Yes, it was Ayatollah Khomeini instead of Khamenei, but these same hoodlums that are running Iran, same type of thinking, were the ones this administration provided $1.7 billion. Instead of taking care of the American citizens that this radical Islamist regime in Iran, after they attacked our Embassy, took our hostages, held them for over a year, and we pay them? It is consistent, I understand, with the apology mentality that leaders in this country have. Maybe the world will be so much better if we are not a superpower, we cut our military to pre-World War II levels, which is happening, and then we give Iran, that hates us, says very clearly they are going to destroy us and our way of life and our freedoms, we give them $1.7 billion to build up their military while we are breaking down ours. I keep going back to the comment by a gentleman, African, named Ebenezer from Togo, when I was over there with the Mercy Ship, provided incredible health care to the people of Togo, Lome, there in West Africa. And at the end of my week there, he and other Africans--these were not African Americans. These were Africans. But they also happened to be fellow Christians. After a lovely meeting with them, Ebenezer spoke, and he said: Look. Basically, he said: We were so excited when you elected your first African American--or ``Black President,'' I believe he said--but since then, we have seen America get weaker and weaker. And the reason we all wanted to meet with you is because, you know, we're Christians. We know where we're going when we die. But our only hope in this life for a peaceful life is if America is strong, because as America gets weaker, we suffer more. We have seen that around the world. I have been to Nigeria and wept with mothers whose children were kidnapped by radical Islamists. They know that, as America has not responded to the radical Islam in Nigeria and helped them as we could, they have suffered mightily. Yet, this administration, from what has come out of Nigeria, has said: Look, we will help you a little more. We will really be able to help you with Boko Haram, but you have to start paying for abortions, and you have to start having same-sex marriage. We don't care if it violates your religious convictions because that is what we want you to do. They are suffering there. They are suffering in all parts of Africa, many parts of Africa, because this administration has not been the force for good; it has been a force for weakness. Now this story from The Washington Post, Adam Goldman and Missy Ryan, June 8: ``At least 12 released Guantanamo detainees implicated in attacks on Americans.'' The article says: ``The Obama administration believes that at least 12 detainees''--and this is the Obama administration themselves. This isn't Louie Gohmert. This is ``the Obama administration believes that at least 12 detainees released from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have launched attacks against U.S. or allied forces in Afghanistan, killing about a half-dozen Americans, according to current and former U.S. officials.'' It goes on to explain how these former Guantanamo Bay detainees have been killing Americans in Afghanistan. This is no surprise to some of us who have been saying--when these people were involved in plotting and killing Americans before they were detained, and they have even made statements in detention that they can't wait to get out so they can kill more Americans, at some point even if they say, Okay, I will sign where you want me to, just let me go, who is surprised when they go back on their word like North Korea, go back on their word like the radical Islamist leaders in Iran as distinguished with so many Iranians who want to be rid of the radical Islamist leaders? But who can be surprised that they would actually go back to killing Americans? That is why so many of us have been saying--a majority in this House--we are not going to let you close Guantanamo. We have made it against the law for him to release people unless certain things were done. And he violated that--the President did--when he made the deal for what is apparently a United States Army deserter, it certainly appears, and he let five of the worst murderers go without following the law that was set out for the President. Now it has been substantiated. We know people that have been released from Guantanamo have been killing Americans. So one thing we know also is when a nation's enemies see that that nation's strongest ally is pulling away from that enemy, it is provocative. They act against that nation. So when that nation is Israel, and the appearance to the world is that the United States is pulling back from our close alliance and friendship with Israel, is it any wonder that Israel's biggest and most hateful enemies would be moving against Israel? Terrorists have, once again, been inspired to go on killing sprees in Israel despite the Israelis doing everything they can to stop the carnage. As Prime Minister Netanyahu has said, I believe he even said it in this Chamber as he stood here facing Moses, our greatest known lawgiver of all time, standing, by the way--and I mentioned this to Prime Minister Netanyahu as he came down the aisle in May of 2011: Don't forget, while you are standing, speaking to us, our national motto will be right above your head. He started to look up, and then he didn't even have to look up because he obviously knew what was up there. He looked me in the eye and said: I had already thought about that. So as he stood here, In God We Trust above his head, looking at the greatest lawgiver in the history of mankind, Moses--most of us think he had 10 good commandments. I think our Supreme Court would probably say maybe five or six. But he warned us what was happening in the realm of radical Islam, what would be happening to Israel, and what would be happening to what they call the Great Satan, America. People in this administration did not listen. Americans have spoken out loudly during the primary season about this idea of refugees who cannot be properly vetted, because we don't know really who they are and where they are coming from. As FBI Director Comey testified in front of our Judiciary Committee: We will vet them, but we have got nothing to vet with. At least in Iraq, we had Iraq's records on who had criminal convictions, who had arrests, and who had things in their record. We got no records from Syria and some of these other places. We don't know who they are. We don't know how criminal they are. We don't know how radical Islamist they are. So many have been warning, and the American people have been warning through the primary season, and this article substantiates, from June 10, ``Refugees Angry Over Skimpy Ramadan Meals Set Shelter on Fire, Police Say.'' This is from FOX News. It says: ``A pair of North African refugees reportedly set a German shelter on fire Tuesday because they were angry the special Ramadan meals there weren't up to snuff. ``Investigators told the BBC that the men--who were not fasting at the shelter in Dusseldorf--had complained their lunch portions were too small.'' Since they weren't observing the fast, they wanted more food. ``The fire burned the facility to the ground, causing $11 million in damages.'' The 26-year-old North African told reporters: We had to do it. We had to burn it down so things would change. So the question remains as more and more refugees are brought into this country against the will of the majority of the American people: How many facilities are going to be burned in America? How many more Americans are going to be killed on our own soil because the State Department and the Homeland Security Department are not properly vetting? Our friend--and, in my mind, hero--Phil Haney, who worked for the Department of Homeland Security, had thousands of entries that Janet Napolitano said: We tried to connect the dots. They deleted thousands of those dots. Why? Because this administration apparently doesn't want the public to know or the next administration to find out that many of the people they consult with and consort with have ties to terrorists. They deleted so many thousands of the dots in our system. We are at risk, and the FBI director--I respect him--James Comey, said Tuesday: ``The Islamic State group is currently the main threat facing the United States, both in its efforts to recruit fighters to join its members overseas and to have others carry out violence in America.'' He said: ``The Islamic State group poses a third potential threat: a `terrorist diaspora' that he said will eventually flow out of Syria and Iraq and end up in Western Europe, where members will have easy access to the United States. `` `There's three prongs to this ISIL threat,' Comey said. `The recruitment to travel, the recruitment to violence in place, and then what you saw a preview of in Brussels and in Paris--hardened fighters coming out, looking to kill people.' ``He said officials are `laser-focused on that.' '' We know some officials like him are focused on that, but we also know there are others in the administration who are meeting with people that the Justice Department under President Bush made very clear in their pleadings were coconspirators in support for terrorism. That included the Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR. Then we hear about our friends at the Council on American-Islamic Relations when we see the article that just this week CAIR is joking around about medicating Americans against Islamophobia. So that article from Virginia Hale, 9 June, Breitbart, talks about the jokes by the ``Muslim Brotherhood-linked Council on American- Islamic Relations advises that anyone who harbors `intolerance' towards Muslims, or who believes large numbers of the religion's adherents could pose a danger to the U.S., to take anti-Islamophobia medication for their `unthinking bigotry.' '' Is it really bigotry when you are not prejudiced against Muslims, you have many Muslim friends, but you know there is a part of Islamists and there is a part of Muslims who are radical Islamists who want to kill you, destroy your country, destroy Christianity, and destroy Jews--kill all of them? Is it really bigotry to say that we would really like to stop them before they destroy America, kill all Americans, kill all Christians in the world, and kill all Jews in the world, that we would really like to stop that? Is that really bigotry? Because I would submit, Mr. Speaker, that what that is--if you are an American--is love of country. We have had Americans--and I hope and pray still--well, no. I know we have Americans who still have what Jesus, who laid down His life for us, said is the greatest love anyone could ever have, that someone would lay down their life for others. He knew what that was. He did it. We have had so many Americans do that. But because of the lunacy that is occurring now in the administration, in the State Department, in homeland security, and in our military, Americans are being killed and are going to be killed. If that is not enough, this article from TownHall, Matt Vespa, June 3: ``Syrian Refugees Pushed Sweden's Welfare State to the Brink of Collapse.'' Very interesting. Osama bin Laden had an interesting statement at one time about how very cheaply they were able to kill 3,000 Americans on 9/11, but that the best part even beyond killing 3,000 Americans was that they cost us billions and maybe trillions of dollars with a very, very small investment to killing Americans on 9/11, and that if they will keep having projects like that, they can break us financially. It appears that with decisions in this administration, they are on their way to doing that. If that is not enough, this administration had the VA announce that the Department of Veterans Affairs has now proposed covering transition-related surgeries for transgender veterans in the near future under a proposed rule change. I know that the people making this decision don't want more veterans killing themselves. But as Dr. Paul McHugh, the former head of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, now retired, was still working with them--but one transgender gentleman that had had the sex change in his forties had told me Dr. McHugh knows more about transgender than anybody. Dr. McHugh has not made that claim. He is a very humble gentleman. He is a brilliant man. He cites in his article printed in The Wall Street Journal about a 2011 study at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden produced the most illuminating results yet regarding the transgendered evidence that should give advocates pause. He is talking about advocates for transgender agenda that is even being pushed here in Congress. And he says: ``The long-term study--up to 30 years--followed 324 people who had sex-reassignment surgery. The study revealed that beginning about 10 years after having the surgery, the transgendered began to experience increasing mental difficulties. Most shockingly, their suicide mortality rose almost 20-fold above the comparable nontransgender population. This disturbing result has as yet no explanation but probably reflects the growing sense of isolation reported by the aging transgendered after surgery. The high suicide rate certainly challenges the surgery prescription.'' So for those in the VA who think a sex change operation is a good idea, Mr. Speaker, I hope they will look at the number of veterans that are killing themselves--higher rates than any time in previous eras of American history--and they will look at how many veterans are dying without the treatment they need, the veterans that are in long timelines to get the treatment they need to stay alive, and those who are dying waiting for the treatment they need. Do you really want to have 20 times more veterans killing themselves? Is that where you want the VA money being spent, so that we can have 20 times the suicide rate that we currently have? ``Forbid it, Almighty God,'' as Patrick Henry once said. And now the administration wants to take away parents' choices of decisions for their kids, wants to take our choices away that the First Amendment assures us that we have the right to freedom of religion. There is no right to freedom from religion, but there is a right of freedom of religion; and those rights are being taken away, even as they were from the Little Sisters of the Poor. Do we want to allow these rights to continue to be taken at the cost of American lives, as we have seen resulting from people released at Guantanamo Bay, resulting from the ridiculous rules that are given to our military members? They are told they can't fire on people unless they are fired at and they can be assured no civilian will get hit. The rules of engagement are ridiculous under this administration. So many rules are costing American lives. It is time to bring it all home and to understand the words of Ebenezer in Africa that, when America gets weaker, people around the world suffer. They understand that around the world. Freedom-loving people understand around the world when America gets weaker, they suffer. America has been a gift to the world. Mr. Speaker, you know it, I know it, and I hope and pray more in the administration will realize it before it is too late. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, as you know, we have had some interesting discussions here on the floor in recent days about transgender as a topic and as individuals of interest. In having talked a couple of times with one man who had been through a sex change operation, what he told me was--really, the best expert in the world on the issue of transgender is the former head of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, now a retired diplomat, but he speaks for himself. Anyway, there was an article published back in 2014 that Dr. Paul McHugh had updated and that has been republished in the Wall Street Journal on May 13, 2016. It is entitled ``Transgender Surgery Isn't the Solution: A drastic physical change doesn't address underlying psychosocial troubles.'' Since there are so many people who have opined on this subject who have not dealt seriously with the issue, it seemed like it would be helpful to read from this article that was written by what one transgender explained was a great article by whom he thought was the world's leading expert on transgender issues. But Dr. Paul McHugh, who obviously is a brilliant man and obviously a man who cares very deeply about individuals, especially those who have transgender as an issue, says: ``The government and media alliance advancing the transgender cause has gone into overdrive in recent weeks. On May 30, a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services review board ruled that Medicare can pay for the `reassignment' surgery sought by the transgendered--those who say that they don't identify with their biological sex. Earlier last month Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said that he was `open' to lifting a ban on transgender individuals serving in the military. Time magazine, seeing the trend, ran a cover story for its June 9 issue called `The Transgender Tipping Point: America's next civil rights frontier.' ``Yet policymakers and the media are doing no favors either to the public or the transgendered by treating their confusions as a right in need of defending rather than as a mental disorder that deserves understanding, treatment, and prevention. This intensely felt sense of being transgendered constitutes a mental disorder in two respects. The first is that the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken--it does not correspond with physical reality. The second is that it can lead to grim psychological outcomes.'' Let me insert parenthetically here into Dr. McHugh's article, having talked to him twice in the last couple of weeks. He was aware--and he pointed out that the DSM-V, the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, evolves over time in line with the new scientific training and information available. It renames, as required, as they believe is appropriate, different conditions that may be diagnosed in accepted diagnoses. In the fifth edition of the DSM, it has gone from calling transgender a mental disorder to calling it a dysphoria, a gender dysphoria. Dysphoria basically is the opposite--it is an antonym of euphoria, and it basically means that someone is generally dissatisfied with their biological sex. And Dr. McHugh said that he thinks that ``dysphoria'' probably is a better word than ``disorder'' because it makes clearer what the situation is. It is someone who is generally not satisfied with their biological sex. His article goes on, though, and says: ``The transgendered suffer a disorder of `assumption' like those in other disorders familiar to psychiatrists. With the transgendered, the disordered assumption is that the individual differs from what seems given in nature--namely one's maleness or femaleness. Other kinds of disordered assumptions are held by those who suffer from anorexia and bulimia nervosa, where the assumption that departs from physical reality is the belief by the dangerously thin that they are overweight.'' Dr. McHugh goes on and says: ``With body dysmorphic disorder, an often socially crippling condition, the individual is consumed by the assumption `I'm ugly.' These disorders occur in subjects who have come to believe that some of their psycho-social conflicts or problems will be resolved if they can change the way that they appear to others. Such ideas work like ruling passions in their subjects' mind and tend to be accompanied by a solipsistic argument.'' Dr. McHugh goes on: ``For the transgendered, this argument holds that one's feeling of `gender' is a conscious, subjective sense that, being in one's mind, cannot be questioned by others. The individual often seeks not just society's tolerance of this `personal truth' but affirmation of it. Here rests the support for `transgender equality,' the demands for government payment for medical and surgical treatments, and for access to all sex-based public roles and privileges.'' Dr. McHugh makes really important points as he goes forward: ``With this argument, advocates for the transgendered have persuaded several states--including California, New Jersey, and Massachusetts--to pass laws barring psychiatrists, even with parental permission, from striving to restore natural gender feelings to a transgender minor. That government can intrude into parents' rights to seek help in guiding their children indicates how powerful these advocates have become.'' He goes on: ``How to respond? Psychiatrists obviously must challenge the solipsistic concept that what is in the mind cannot be questioned. Disorders of consciousness, after all, represent psychiatry's domain; declaring them off-limits would eliminate the field.'' We are talking about psychiatry. Dr. McHugh says: ``Many will recall how, in the 1990s, an accusation of parental sex abuse of children was deemed unquestionable by the solipsists of the `recovered memory' craze.'' Dr. McHugh goes on and says: ``You won't hear it from those championing transgender equality, but controlled and follow-up studies reveal fundamental problems with this movement. When children who reported transgender feelings were tracked without medical or surgical treatment at both Vanderbilt University and London's Portman Clinic, 70%-80% of them spontaneously lost those feelings. Some 25% did have persisting feelings; what differentiates those individuals remains to be discerned.'' As he pointed out on the air about 10 days ago, we all can recall girls we grew up with that were considered tomboys, who later grew up to be quite beautiful and quite feminine. They didn't need any liberals rushing in and forcing them to go in the boy's restroom because they identified more with what boys were doing. But Dr. McHugh goes on in his article, and he says: ``We at Johns Hopkins University--which in the 1960s was the first American medical center to venture into `sex-reassignment surgery'-- launched a study in the 1970s comparing the outcomes of transgendered people who had the surgery with the outcomes of those who did not.'' I will insert parenthetically that I remember reading that Johns Hopkins medical center had been the first hospital in the United States to begin doing sex change operations back in the '60s. I remembered reading that. I never remembered reading that they ever stopped. But Dr. McHugh's article points out--and I am going back and reading from the article: ``Most of the surgically treated patients described themselves as `satisfied' by the results, but their subsequent psycho-social adjustments were no better than those who didn't have the surgery. And so at Hopkins we stopped doing sex-reassignment surgery, since producing a `satisfied' but still troubled patient seemed an inadequate reason for surgically amputating normal organs. ``It now appears that our long-ago decision was a wise one.'' Well, Mr. Speaker, I never remembered reading anywhere and I don't recall articles talking about how Johns Hopkins said, look, we are having no better mental, emotional results from those who have had the surgery, so we are going to stop doing the surgery. This was Johns Hopkins; they were on the cutting edge of trying to advance gender change or sex change operations. They were doing those originally. This forward-looking, people-caring institution at Johns Hopkins medical center decided years ago that we may be doing more harm than good and we are going to stop doing sex change surgery. So no one can accuse them of trying to make more money--because obviously they would make money from the sex change operations--and not make money from stopping the sex change operations. But apparently those in charge at Johns Hopkins took rather serious the idea that doctors should first do no harm. He goes on and points out in his article: ``A 2011 study at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden produced the most illuminating results yet regarding the transgendered, evidence that should give advocates pause. The long-term study--up to 30 years-- followed 324 people''--so they have got hundreds in their database here and are following for 30 years--``who had sex-reassignment surgery. The study revealed that beginning about 10 years after having the surgery, the transgendered began to experience increasing mental difficulties. Most shockingly, their suicide mortality rose almost 20-fold above the comparable nontransgender population. This disturbing result has as yet no explanation but probably reflects the growing sense of isolation reported by the aging transgendered after surgery. The high suicide rate certainly challenges the surgery prescription.'' Now, Mr. Speaker, I know there are people on the floor that are pushing for civil rights equality for the transgender and to let them go into whatever restrooms they feel like represents the gender they are at that particular time, but the studies have shown that when someone has a general dissatisfaction with their biological sex, that doing the surgery to make them that sex gives them 20 times more likelihood of committing suicide. I know there is nobody on the other side of the aisle who has been pushing this issue that wants people to commit suicide at 20 times the rate of nontransgendered people, but this is where this ultimately goes. I don't believe our President wants people to commit suicide at 20 times the rate of nontransgendered people, yet what he is urging right now, the best studies in the world indicate will be the outcome. What this President is doing in pushing people who at one point in their lives have a general dissatisfaction, or dysphoria, with their biological sex is causing more damage for these individuals down the road than he will be around to do anything about. It is not enough to say, ``I care more than you do for those who want men to go in girls dressing rooms and bathrooms'' when you are doing the kind of harm that the best studies in the world are showing has been done. Back to Dr. McHugh's article, he says: ``There are subgroups of the transgendered, and for none does `reassignment' seem apt. One group includes male prisoners like Pvt. Bradley Manning, the convicted national-security leaker who now wishes to be called Chelsea. Facing long sentences and the rigors of a men's prison, they have an obvious motive for wanting to change their sex and hence their prison. Given that they committed their crimes as males, they should be punished as such; after serving their time, they will then be free to reconsider their gender. ``Another subgroup consists of young men and women susceptible to suggestion from `everything is normal' sex education, amplified by Internet chat groups. These are the transgender subjects most like anorexia nervosa patients: they become persuaded that seeking a drastic physical change will banish their psycho-social problems. `Diversity' counselors in their schools, rather like cult leaders, may encourage these young people to distance themselves from their families and offer advice on rebutting arguments against having transgender surgery. Treatments here must begin with removing the young person from the suggestive environment and offering a counter-message in family therapy.'' That is not me. That is what one transgendered gentleman who has had the sex change operation and knows more about transgender than any M.D. in the world, Dr. Paul McHugh. Now, Dr. McHugh, when I talked to him, said he thinks there are some others who know more, but they support his positions on what he is saying, which helped him come to these positions. But Dr. McHugh goes on: ``Then there is the subgroup of very young, often prepubescent children who notice distinct sex roles in the culture and, exploring how they fit in, begin imitating the opposite sex. Misguided doctors at medical centers including Boston's Children's Hospital have begun trying to treat this behavior by administering puberty-delaying hormones to render later sex change surgeries less onerous--even though the drugs stunt the children's growth and risk causing sterility. Given that close to 80 percent of such children would abandon their confusion and grow naturally into an adult life if untreated, these medical interventions come close to child abuse. A better way to help these children: with devoted parenting.'' This psychiatrist says: ``At the heart of the problem is confusion over the nature of the transgendered. `Sex change' is biologically impossible. People who undergo sex reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminized men or masculinized women. Claiming that this is a civil rights matter and encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote a mental disorder''--or mental dysphoria, if you would rather. Then I have this article from Walt Heyer. Having visited with Walt, I have eminent respect for this man who underwent a sex change operation from man to woman years ago. He is now in his seventies. This is his article published in The Daily Signal May 16 of this year. He says: ``President Barack Obama, the titular head of the LGBT movement, has added to the firestorm of confusion, misunderstanding, and fury surrounding the transgender bathroom debate by threatening schools with loss of Federal funding unless they allow students to join the sex-segregated restroom, locker room, and sports teams of their chosen gender, without regard to biological reality: ``I know firsthand what it is like to be a transgender person--and how misguided it is to think one can change gender through hormones and surgery.'' Walt Heyer says: ``His action,'' talking about President Obama, ``comes after weeks of protest against the State of North Carolina for its so-called anti-LGBT bathroom bill. ``As someone who underwent surgery from male to female and lived as a female for 8 years before returning to living as a man, I know firsthand what it is like to be a transgender person--and how misguided it is to think one can change gender through hormones and surgery. ``And I know that the North Carolina bill and others like it are not anti-LGBT.'' He says: ``L is for lesbian. The bill is not anti-lesbian because lesbians have no desire to enter a stinky men's restroom. Lesbians will use the women's room without a second thought. So the law is not anti- L. ``G is for gay. Gay men have no interest in using women's bathrooms. So the law is not anti-G. ``B is for bisexual. The B in the LGBT have never been confused about their gender. Theirs is also a sexual preference only that doesn't affect choice of restroom or locker.'' But he says: ``The North Carolina law is not anti-T because the law clearly states that the appropriate restroom is the one that corresponds to the gender stated on the birth certificate. Therefore, a transgender person with a birth certificate that reads `female' uses the female restroom, even if the gender noted at birth was male. ``So, you see, the law is not anti-LGBT. What then is all the uproar about?'' Walt Heyer goes on, he says: ``What has arisen is a new breed emerging among young people that falls outside the purview of the LGBT: the gender nonconformists. ``Gender nonconformists, who constitute a minuscule fraction of society, want to be allowed to designate a gender on a fluid basis, based on their feelings at the moment.'' Walt Heyer says: ``I call this group `gender defiant' because they protest against the definition of fixed gender identities of male and female. The gender defiant individuals are not like traditional transgender or transsexual persons who struggle with gender dysphoria and want hormone therapy, hormone blockers, and eventually, reassignment surgery. The gender defiant group doesn't want to conform, comply, or identify with traditional gender norms of male and female. They want to have gender fluidity, flowing freely from one gender to another, by the hour or day, as they feel like it.'' Mr. Speaker, coming from a transgender individual who had sex change surgery, this is quite an article. He goes on to say: ``Under the cover of the LGBT, the anti-gender faction and its supporters are using the North Carolina bathroom bill to light a fuse to blow up factual gender definitions. ``He does not grasp the biological fact that genders are not fluid, but fixed: male and female. ``Obama is championing the insanity of eliminating the traditional definition of gender. He does not grasp the biological fact that genders are not fluid, but fixed: male and female.'' Here I would also like to insert parenthetically. This is not from Walt Heyer. But in talking with Dr. McHugh, who had headed up psychiatry for so many years at Johns Hopkins, who cares deeply about people who are confused over gender, he was pointing out--he brought up the MMPI and asked if I knew what that was. Well, I knew. It is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Index, as I recall. But it is a personality test, and as far as I know, it is the most complete testing anybody has done on personality. It has different scales in there, and as Dr. McHugh pointed out, scale 5 is masculine at one end, feminine at another end. Based on the questions that are asked, the MMPI score gives an indication on the male-female scale as to where someone is in that scale. It has nothing to do with biological sex. Apparently, most of us may have different places on that scale at different ages, and there is nothing abnormal about that. People are to be comforted and counseled, not have laws passed that they can't get help from their parents, they can't get help from loving counselors, they can't get help from psychiatrists. As Dr. McHugh pointed out, when these States like California and New Jersey pass laws that some confused minor with no biological indications of a problem, so the problem is all in the mind, when you pass laws saying you can't get counseling for what is all in the mind, as Dr. McHugh says sarcastically, you might as well outlaw all of psychiatry because what they deal with are things that have not presented normally. They have not presented a biological scientific issue. Going back to Walt Heyer's article, he says: ``Gender nonconformists, who constitute a minuscule fraction of society, want to be allowed to designate gender on a fluid basis, based on their feelings at the moment.'' He said: ``I call this group 'gender defiant' because they protest against the definition of fixed gender identities of male and female. The gender defiant individuals are not like traditional transgender or transsexual persons who struggle with gender dysphoria and want hormone therapy, hormone blockers, and eventually, reassignment. The gender defiant group doesn't want to conform, comply, or identify with traditional gender norms of male and female.'' And I know I have read this, but this is so critical. He says: ``Under the cover of LGBT, the anti-gender faction and its supporters are using the North Carolina bathroom bill to light a fuse to blow up factual gender definitions.'' Now, going on: ``Using the power of his position,'' talking about our President, ``to influence the elimination of gender, overruling science, genetics, and biblical beliefs, is Obama's display of political power.'' ``One fact will remain, no matter how deep in the tank Obama goes for the gender nonconformists, genetics and God's design of male and female, no matter how repugnant that is to some, cannot be changed. Biological gender remains fixed no matter how many cross-gender hormones are taken or cosmetic surgeries are performed. No law can change the genetic and biblical truth of God's design. Using financial blackmail to achieve the elimination of gender will become Obama's ugly legacy.'' Now that is from a guy who has had the surgery, who has had the hormones. He has been through it all. Walt Heyer has a blog. He has overcome his alcohol addiction. I asked him--I don't think he would mind me repeating--I said that we learned from the Swedish study over 30 years, people that have had these sex change operations are 20 times more likely to commit suicide. I said: Did those thoughts enter your mind--suicidal ideations? And he indicated that he had tried to commit suicide. I didn't elaborate. This is a man that knows. And so is Dr. Paul McHugh. To try to make this a new civil rights issue holds these people up for political football. Everybody knows footballs get changed out from game to game. Some political football will be the new football in another game. I doubt that the people in this room that have been using transgender as a football will go back like the Swedish study or the Johns Hopkins study did and see the damage that has been done. Eighty percent, if left untreated, have very, very normal lives and normal mental affect down the road--if they are left untreated. But my friends who support this want to make them a political football. We have this article, then, from June 3. Melody Wood wrote the headline: 6 Men Who Disguised Themselves as Women to Access Bathrooms. She reports: ``The Obama administration has unlawfully rewritten law, meddling in State and local matters, and imposing bad policy on the entire Nation. ``Americans agree that while we should be sensitive to transgender individuals, others also have rights of privacy, safety, and their own beliefs that deserve respect and should not simply be pushed aside, especially when transgender persons can be accommodated in other ways. ``The risk to the privacy and safety of women and girls is real. There have been numerous cases in recent years of men either cross- dressing or claiming to be transgender in order to access women's bathrooms and locker rooms for inappropriate purposes. ``Here are six examples: ``In 2009, a sex offender named Richard Rendler was arrested for wearing fake breasts and a wig while loitering in a woman's restroom in Campbell, California, shopping center. Rendler had previously been arrested on charges of child molestation and indecent exposure. ``In 2010, Berkeley police arrested Gregorio Hernandez. Hernandez had disguised himself as a woman on two separate occasions to get inside a UC Berkeley locker room. Once in the locker room, Hernandez allegedly used his cell phone to photograph women. ``In 2013, Jason Pomare was arrested for cross-dressing in order to gain access to the women's restroom at a Macy's department store in Palmdale, California. Pomare snuck a video camera in to secretly videotape women while they used the restroom. ``In 2014, Christopher Hambrook--who faked being a transgender person named Jessica--was jailed in Toronto, Canada. Hambrook preyed on women at two Toronto shelters, and had previously preyed on other women and girls as young as five years old to as old as 53. Hambrook's case in particular shows the importance of protecting the privacy and safety of some of our most vulnerable citizens: the homeless and others who seek emergency shelter. And yet, the Obama administration recently proposed a rule that would impose a `gender identity' mandate here as well. ``In 2015, two spying instances were recorded in Virginia--one at a mall and one at a Walmart. Both instances involved a man in women's clothing who used a mirror and camera to take pictures of a mother and her 5-year-old daughter and a 53-year-old woman while they were in neighboring restroom stalls. The suspect wore a pink shirt and a long wig to present himself as a woman. ``In 2016, a man used a women's locker room at a public swimming pool in Washington State to undress in front of young girls who were changing for swim practice. When Seattle Parks and Recreation staff asked him to leave, the man claimed that `the law has changed and I have a right to be here.' The man was apparently referring to a Washington State rule that allows individuals to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity. However, the man made no attempt to present as a woman. ``As these examples illustrate, there are people who will abuse transgender policies. Although the Obama administration wants to keep its focus on bathrooms, its transgender directive goes much farther and actually requires biological male students who identify as female to be granted unfettered access to women's and girls' showers at school gyms. ``So what are women and girls to do when a biological male wearing a wig and makeup walks into an open shower next to them and they are shocked by the intrusion? According to the administration's directive, `the desire to accommodate others' discomfort' is no reason at all to prevent transgender people from accessing the intimate facilities of their choice. ``Moreover, the directive prevents schools from requiring transgender people to have surgery, take hormones, have a medical diagnosis, or even act or dress in any particular way before having the `right' to be treated exactly like a person of the opposite sex. ``The logical effect would be to silence women and girls who might otherwise speak out to prevent serious crimes from happening for fear that they would be accused of bigotry if they make the wrong call. ``The interests and desires of transgender persons, especially adults, shouldn't be placed over the privacy and safety of women and girls. There are ways of accommodating transgender people with private facilities without endangering and silencing women who could be hurt by policies allowing anyone unfettered access to their lockers, showers, and bathrooms.'' That is from Melody Wood. It also reminds me of back years ago when the issue of hate crimes was arising and we were going to punish people more severely based on what was in their minds, such as did they choose a person, a victim, based on their being a member of an identifiable group? That created a problem for me as one who has sentenced felons up to and including the death penalty, because from the testimony we heard over and over, those who used to be called sociopaths under the old DSM-II became antisocial personality disorder. But they knew right from wrong. They just chose to do wrong. And they would pick victims at random. They didn't really care. The people that testified in my court repeatedly made clear that if someone has this antisocial personality disorder, formerly sociopath, psychopath, they had less chance of being reformed and coming out of prison and shying away from wrongdoing. A lesser chance of reforming them. Whereas the testimony indicated in different cases that if someone committed an act in the heat of passion--often it was a one-time crime that had to be punished for its own crime's sake, but that they were not likely to ever commit that crime again. There were some who committed crimes. They were not antisocial personality, but they had been brought up to hate a specific group or people, and they committed some act or crime against them. I always made sure--it didn't matter whether they picked their victim because of sexual orientation--if they committed an assault of any kind, up to and including murder, I made sure they were punished severely for the crime they committed, because every person deserves to be protected from an assault. So hate crimes comes in. And those who chose a person based on a hatred they were taught, there are indications there have been some great successes with confrontations between them after they were sentenced with victims or victims' families in which the person who was not an antisocial personality would weep and recant and apologize and beg for forgiveness and never have that kind of hatred again and would begin associating with people, whether they were of a different race, creed, color, or gender. They had a better chance of being rehabilitated. Yet, the hate crime law came in. In fact, under the Federal law, if you convince a jury--just raise a reasonable doubt as a defendant--no, I didn't pick that victim because they were this, that, or the other; I just wanted to shoot somebody that day--if you raise a reasonable doubt that you may have randomly picked the victim, it is a complete defense to the Federal hate crime law. That is a messed up law. I also gave the example that, based on so many of the hate crime laws, you could someday--and I was called crazy and all kind of names for giving this example--but the example I thought many years ago that was appropriate, based on the hate crimes legislation, is that you could have a situation where a mother and her young daughter are standing on a street corner, somebody opens their trench coat and flashes the daughter, and the mother, out of that protective instinct they have to protect the child, hits the flasher with her purse. The flasher--in a lot of jurisdictions, that is a minimal misdemeanor--probably would never do any jail time. He might have to pay a fine or spend 1 day in jail. But because the woman hit him because of his sexual orientation toward flashing, then she is now guilty under many hate crime laws of committing a felony and can get prison time under these misguided hate crime laws. And I warned that we would get to this point. And then when I hear on the news some woman got mad when a guy came in dressed as a woman, scared her, and she hit him, then she gets arrested. This is what happens. This is the kind of miscarriage of justice you get when we don't base laws on facts. And then we have this article from Rebecca Kheel. Of course, most of us have heard the headlines. We know the Department of Veterans Affairs, or the VA, has had problems. People have been dying while waiting to get the treatment they needed. And now the VA proposes covering surgeries for transgender vets. They are not even taking care of the vets when they need help, and now they are going to take up a procedure that Johns Hopkins says does more harm than good, that the best study in the world from Sweden says they are going to be 20 times more likely to kill themselves. Have we not lost enough veterans already? The VA wants to make them 20 times more vulnerable to suicide than they already are? It is time to stop the nonsense. And I would submit, Mr. Speaker, having reviewed the information that Dr. Paul McHugh from Johns Hopkins provided and Walt Heyer provided and that I looked into based on their direction, one thing is imminently clear: the issue of transgender is not based on biological science, it is not based on medical science, it is not based on physical science, it is not based on chemical science. There is only one science that this whole transgender issue before the Congress is based on, and that is political science. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.