Louie Gohmert

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, the First District of Texas has been blessed as the birthplace of many remarkable individuals who have made notable contributions that have enriched lives well beyond the borders of Texas. It is a great pleasure to stand in honor of a man from Nacogdoches, Texas, who is young in terms of years but exceedingly senior when it comes to his patriotism, his caring, and his contribution to the ongoing of this country. His name is Corporal Timothy Grace and he has been named Soldier of the Year for the United States Army's 1st Infantry Division. Cpl. Grace enlisted in the U.S. Army in 2013 at the age of 22, pursuing a dream born out of a family legacy of military service. Inspired by his grandfather Leo Acosta who served during World War II, Cpl. Grace knew as a young boy that the military would be his future. His heartfelt desire was to serve and protect the greatest country in the history of the world, precisely as his grandfather had done. Cpl. Grace entered the military as a 19-Delta Cavalry Scout attached to the 1st Infantry Division in Fort Riley, Kansas. Regarding basic training, Cpl. Grace has remarked, ``. . . I've always been mentally strong so they never really broke me down. I enjoyed every minute of it and learned a lot.'' Cpl. Grace studied a variety of topics from weapons to Army history in preparation for the demanding process of facing the selection boards in anticipation of seeking advancement in his chosen endeavor. He first won the troop board, successfully navigated the squadron and brigade boards, ultimately culminating with his being named Soldier of the Year for the entire 1st Infantry Division. As a result of his selection as Soldier of the Year, Cpl. Grace was chosen to provide personal security for the 1st Infantry Division Sgt. Maj. Michael A. Grinston in Iraq. Based on his extraordinary history in the military thus far, there should be no doubt that Cpl. Grace will continue to distinguish himself as he pursues Airborne school and Ranger school. After his sterling career in the military is completed, Cpl. Grace aspires to yet again continue to serve his country and particularly the great state of Texas as a Department of Public Safety Highway Patrolman, but has not ruled out the possibility of serving as long as possible in his career within the United States Army. It is a distinct privilege to honor this remarkable soldier, to pay tribute to him for his being named Soldier of the Year from the entire 1st Infantry Division, and to congratulate him for his upcoming promotion to sergeant. His accomplishments are now recorded in this Congressional Record which will endure as long as there is a United States of America.

Mr. GOHMERT

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

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, we had a statement from the White House spokesman yesterday at a White House press briefing in which he had said that the Republicans have ``no one to blame but themselves.'' So, Mr. Speaker, I thought it would be helpful if we looked at the statements he made about the vast amount of crime in America disproportionately being committed by people who are illegally in the United States. First, the White House spokesman said it included--and he is talking about the President's bill and how if the House had passed that, then all our problems are over. And he said about the President's bill, it included a historic investment in border security. Well, let me help. Obviously, he is just not up on what the law said. He hadn't read it as I had. But what it did is it set forward a plan to have a plan made by Homeland Security within so many months. It has been a good while since I looked at it, but they had all kinds of time to put together a plan. And then that would be looked at by GAO, the Government Accountability Office, as I recall, and then they had so much time, a vast amount of time, to analyze that to see if the situational awareness and occupational control would be adequate under the plan that was being proposed by Homeland Security, the very people that have not secured the border so far. And then as time went on, I believe at the end of 5 years, it got really serious. If the border occupational control and situational awareness were not adequate, then there was a real tough penalty, and that was that the, I believe it was, Secretary of Homeland Security had to give a report on why it was not adequately controlled. Look, the Senate bill was a disaster. It did nothing to control our border. It was the same kind of gobbledygook we have been dealing with for quite some time from the White House. And we have said consistently, as Republicans in this House, most of us, if the President will secure the border, we will pass an immigration bill that takes care of everything else. It is pretty basic: secure the border, then we will deal with the people that are here illegally. Until the border is secured, then you are going to keep having people like Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez coming back across. So it won't matter how expansive a bill is and how much situational awareness there is on our borders or in our country; it won't matter because people like Mr. Lopez-Sanchez will keep coming back. We have got to have border security. That is all there is to it. Once the border is secure, we can work everything else out. And I pointed out many times what I have learned on the border, what I have heard repeatedly from our immigration officers, our border patrolmen, that they are not allowed to properly secure the border. We had this massive influx of people coming in, and apparently it is expected to grow some more again this year, but we are not securing the border. We let them come in. And once they are on our side of the border, then we go ahead and ship them off. This had been going on for some time. One of the border patrolmen told me that, among the drug cartels and the gangs in Mexico, the Homeland Security Department is called ``logistics,'' after the commercial. I forget if it is FedEx or UPS, one of them that say: Hey, we are the logistics. You give us your package, and then we get it wherever you want it to go. I asked just in the last couple of weeks the Secretary of Homeland Security: Are you still shipping people all over the place? I didn't get an adequate answer. I am afraid the answer is: There is still the logistics. We won't stop you at the border if you come across the river, we are not going to have people out there at the river to stop you from coming onto United States property. Now we are going to let you get onto United States property, and then we are going to take you where you need to go. You may have to stay in a facility here or there. That's the kind of thing that was going on that was luring more and more people. And as the border patrolmen, multiple, told me, Chris Crane has testified about himself that every time somebody in Washington talks about amnesty, talks about legalizing people that are here, it becomes a massive draw, a lure to people to come into this country illegally. That lures people to their deaths. It lures young girls into situations where they end up being sex slaves, we are told, that the sex trafficking is horrendous, and that young girls coming up here are often raped on the way by the gangs bringing them. And as one border patrolman had said, since he was Hispanic and he spoke better Spanish than many of the people coming across, he would ask them the question they are required to ask about why did you come to America, and 90 percent of the time he said they would say to get away from gang violence. He would say in Spanish: Hey, some gringo may accept that, but you and I both know you paid a gang, some gang to bring you up here. So don't be telling me you came to get away from the gangs; you used a gang to get here. And 90 percent of the time, their responses were: Well, yeah, that is true, but we were told to say we are getting away from gang violence. Well, the spokesperson for the White House also said about the Senate bill it would also have ramped up Interior enforcement of immigration laws against dangerous individuals. Well, in Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez' case, the immigration laws were being enforced to some extent, not completely, but to some extent. He had been to prison a number of times. He violated the immigration laws and had illegal reentry, been deported five times. So at least on five occasions, the Interior enforcement was happening. The issue was that the Bureau of Prisons released him to a sanctuary city of San Francisco and not to ICE, and San Francisco released him then to walk freely. So, even if we followed the White House advice and ramped up Interior enforcement, which clearly this administration has no intention whatsoever of doing--and I have stories to back that up shortly--then it would not have changed, in all likelihood, the outcome of that case. For those who are tempted to say, ``You are making a big deal about one case where a sweet young daughter was shot dead by somebody deported five times, a criminal, a felon, multiple-time felon, but it is not that big a deal,'' well, it is a big deal. Just recently, we had an article, the 7th of July of this year, written by Caroline May, headline, ``Illegal Immigrants Accounted for Nearly 37 Percent of Federal Sentences in FY 2014.'' According to fiscal year 2014 USSC data, of 74,911 sentencing cases, citizens accounted for 43,479, or 58 percent; illegal immigrants accounted for 27,505, or 36.7 percent; and legal immigrants made up for 4 percent of those sentences. As far as drug trafficking, illegal immigrants represented 16.8 percent of all drug trafficking cases. They represented 20 percent of the kidnapping and hostage taking cases. They represented 74.1 percent of the drug possession cases, 12.3 percent of money laundering cases, and 12 percent of murder convictions. Of the Federal murder convictions in America, 12 percent would not have happened. Since this President has taken office, there are thousands of people who would not have been murdered if we enforced our immigration laws and had a secure border. It is not just this precious girl in San Francisco. It is not a race issue. There are Hispanics being killed. There are Hispanics being taken hostage. There are Hispanics being raped. There are Whites, Blacks, Asians--you name it. They are victims of illegal immigrant criminal activity. It is absolutely outrageous for anyone in a government position to belittle thousands of people being murdered, raped, kidnapped, and to be so cavalier about it. The White House says, well, the bill that they were plugging for would have enhanced penalties for repeat immigration violators with sentences up to 20 years for certain illegal aliens who were convicted of felonies. Look, there were laws in place, and they were violated. He had been to prison. Until you secure the border, people like Mr. Lopez-Sanchez are going to keep coming back. You have to secure the border. He also said the bill would have increased penalties for passport and immigration document trafficking and fraud. Yes, like that would have stopped him. He came back across illegally five times. It wasn't a passport issue. It is just pretty dramatic what kind of things have occurred. I also filed a bill today--we have got some cosponsors--regarding the District of Columbia. The District of Columbia, by authority of the Constitution, was empowered to Congress. We set up local control. Some would say: Well, wait a minute. If you are trying to punish a sanctuary city like the District of Columbia, the only real Federal city in the country, the only real city under congressional, constitutional control, why don't you just leave it to the locals? We did, and the local officials allowed it to become a sanctuary city that was not enforcing the law. So the bill that was passed today wasn't near as tough as I felt like it should have been. It wasn't near as tough of a bill as the King amendment had been that we had previously passed with plenty of votes. We could have passed it again today, but that is not the bill that was brought. It is a good first step. It is a step in the right direction. That is why I ended up voting for it even though it was not as strong as the original King amendment. It is important to avoid having sanctuaries, refuges, for people who are felons, like the man who killed Kate Steinle. Then we have this story from July 22 by Elizabeth Harrington. It points out that the Obama administration is not only planning on not enforcing the law, despite all the hogwash coming out of the White House press room, and not only are they not going to enforce the law, but here is what is coming out. The article points out: ``The Obama administration is moving forward with plans to expand a waiver program that will allow additional illegal aliens to remain in the country rather than apply for legal status from abroad. ``The Department of Homeland Security issued a proposed rule on Tuesday that would make changes to a waiver program created by President Barack Obama's executive action on immigration in 2013,'' unconstitutional as it was. ``The action created a waiver that primarily allowed illegal immigrants with a U.S. citizen spouse or parent to stay . . . '' and it goes into the specifics. ``The new rule expands eligibility to a host of other categories of illegal immigrants.'' Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, said: `` `It's a very bad policy. It makes it possible for illegal aliens to avoid the consequences established by Congress to deter people from settling here illegally and then laundering their status by adjusting to a green card.' ``Vaughan, who has been following the issue for over 2 years, said the changes to the waiver program would increase fraud. `` `It is a slap in the face to the many legal immigrants who abide by the law, follow the process, and wait their turn,' she said. `In addition, it will increase the likelihood of fraud in the marriage categories, which produce tens of thousands of new green cards each year.' `` `The President should not be issuing executive actions that serve only to expedite the legalization process for those who have ignored our laws. This legalization gimmick is undermining the integrity of our legal immigration system, and Congress should take steps to block it.' ``The public will have 60 days to comment on the proposal.'' It appears to be yet another unconstitutional act by our President, still seeming to thumb his nose at the judge in south Texas who had put an injunction on the last amnesty that was issued by the President. So they are just going to keep going, apparently. This article by Julia Preston has a title from The New York Times: ``Most Undocumented Immigrants Will Stay Under Obama's New Policies, Report Says.'' ``Under new immigration enforcement programs the Obama administration is putting in place across the country, the vast majority of unauthorized immigrants--up to 87 percent--would not be the focus of deportation operations and would have `a degree of protection' to remain in the United States, according to a report published Thursday by the Migration Policy Institute. ``The report found that about 13 percent of an estimated 11 million immigrants without papers, or about 1.4 million people, have criminal records or recently crossed the border illegally, making them priorities for deportation under guidelines the administration announced in November.'' It makes it very clear that there is so much disingenuousness coming out of the White House. Oh, yes, if we had passed this ridiculous bill that the Senate passed, which really was not going to address the issue of enforcement adequately, we were going to have studies and plans. If it did not work in 5 years, heck, we would let the Secretary give us a report on why it didn't all work. I mean, it is absurd. Secure the border. It is very basic. The President has got the power, and he has got the money. Heck, they just blew off the $4 billion virtual fence a few years ago that we had appropriated money for. What are they doing with that money? Why haven't they secured the border with that? They could do it. Just when you think news about people acting illegally and being given amnesty couldn't get much worse, this story by Steven Green, on July 20, by PJ Media, reads: ``Iranian worshippers chant slogans during their Friday prayer service at the Tehran University campus in Tehran, Iran, Friday . . . The main prayer service in the Iranian capital has been interrupted by repeated chants of `death to America'--despite this week's landmark nuclear deal with world powers that was welcomed by authorities in Tehran.'' The devastating revelation from Mitch Ginsburg and the Times of Israel reads: ``Mojtaba Atarodi, arrested in California for attempting to acquire equipment for Iran's military-nuclear programs, was released in April as part of back channel talks, Times of Israel told. The contacts, mediated in Oman for years by close colleagues of the Sultan, have seen a series of U.S.-Iran prisoner releases''--not exchanges, but releases--``and there may be more to come.'' I mean, it is incredible. We are told we have seen the deal. Oh, yes. There are parts, like the IAEA has got to work out its side deal that we don't see here in Congress, but it is a good deal. Let's not forget my friend who spoke last from the other side of the aisle was talking about how great the Dodd-Frank bill is. Let me just say this quickly about that. As for the Dodd-Frank bill that was passed, supposedly, to punish those evil investment banks on Wall Street, what has it really done? It has punished the community banks that didn't do anything wrong. They weren't invested in mortgage-backed securities. They weren't doing all kinds of machinations to try to create new forms of legalized gambling on Wall Street. They weren't engaged in that. Yet, Dodd-Frank has so punished community banks that every month there are fewer community banks. They are getting gobbled up by the guys who caused the problems. That is what Dodd-Frank did. It added so much expense and burden on the local banks, and it provided a lot of benefits to the biggest banks. They are the ones that could absorb the parts of the law. We are losing banks constantly. As far as the great economic news, we know we have at least 93-plus million people for the first time in our history--94 million people, maybe, now--who have given up looking for jobs. It has never gotten that high before. It had gotten close once before, I think, under Carter, but it has never gotten this high before. People have just given up looking for jobs. You have got more on food stamps than ever before. Is that really something to be proud of? It is if you want indentured servitude of the people of the United States. The middle class, we hear now recently, is growing smaller. The gap between the ultra rich and the poor is growing bigger under this President's redistribution model because it doesn't work. The most troubling economic statistic that anybody should have been seeing over the last few years--over the last 2 years--came out in 2013, that, under President Obama, for the first time in American history--ever--95 percent of all of the income went to the top 1 percent income earners. It still bothers me greatly. But I read, actually, that, even though the top 1 percent is making 95 percent of all the income, it was a slower growth to them than in the last two expansions. So it really was not that great of news for them. Well, it isn't great for America when 95 percent of the income is made by the top 1 percent. It is just this wink and nod with Wall Street from this administration of: We are going to call you fat cats. We are going to punish you. We are going to hit you with Dodd-Frank. And what happens? You kill the smaller banks. You hurt the middle class. You overburden the middle class. You make it more difficult for them to live. More people end up on food stamps. It is a disaster. That is why it was no surprise in the last couple of days when we saw a report that there is a great majority of Americans who feels like this President has hurt the economy more than he has helped it. I don't know that that is true, but I do know that more people, according to the poll, are saying that. Capital markets and Wall Street, oh, they have done well. Yes, that is what happens when we create more money than at any time in American history. We are creating money. Notice, Mr. Speaker, I am saying ``creating money'' because I learned it was improper to say we are printing more money than ever before. I was told by someone with the Fed--some years back when I asked: ``How much more money are we printing than we have ever printed?''-- ``Oh, none, really.'' ``But there is more money in the system.'' ``Oh, yes. We couldn't possibly print all of the money we are creating.'' Are you kidding me? We are just adding numbers. We aren't even bothering to print it anymore as we are increasing money so fast. It is an outrage what has happened. The bottom line is Americans are suffering. Government does not make things better. It is better when they get a job, not more food stamps. It is time that we knock Dodd-Frank down to size where it does deal with the investment banks that caused the problem of 2008 and doesn't punish the banks that didn't get us in that trouble. In the time I have left, I have just got to go back to this horrendous Iranian deal. It is putting the United States and all freedom-loving people at risk. Iran cannot be trusted, and I am still concerned about the language, like, if you say in a bill or in the Iran agreement, oh, yes, you can't use ICBMs or develop them for 8 years or, at the broader conclusion of the IAEAs, that nuclear material is being used for peaceful purposes, whichever is earlier. That concerns me about the 8-year requirement. Is it really an 8-year requirement, seriously? I mean, what does that mean? I went down and cleared that that was not classified, so I could speak of that. There are a few places where I have seen that that language, the broader conclusion by the IAEA, holy cow, that is completely out of our control. That is one of the time deadlines that some of the important timing can be? Iran continues to make clear, as this story from July 12 from Adam Kredo says, that Iran is saying, ``We will trample upon America.'' ``Iranian cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Movahedi Kermani, who was handpicked by the Islamic Republic's supreme leader to deliver the prayers, delivered a message of hostility toward the United States in the first official remarks since a final nuclear deal was signed between Iran and world powers in Vienna last week.'' ``Analysts who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon about the anti- American tone of last week's prayers said it is a sign Tehran believes it bested the United States in the talks.'' You think? The article further down says: ``Iran's defense minister on Monday said the deal also will prohibit all foreigners from inspecting Iran's 'defensive and missile capabilities' at sensitive military sites.'' You don't have to have my SAT scores to know they are going to be classifying as many sites as they can as defensive sites that we cannot have inspected. It is time to say ``no'' to the deal. Americans need to rise up and demand it, and let's crush the Iranian deal before Iran crushes Israel and the Great Satan, United States. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I both applaud and appreciate the comments by my colleague, a person I love being a colleague with, Ms. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. These are profound points, excellent points, she has been making about the so-called Iran deal. What is shocking to me--and I got this copy that a friend was using, but the pages aren't numbered. By the way, Mr. Speaker, when Secretary Kerry came to the Hill today--in having been through briefings by our Secretary previously--I knew that the best use of my time would be in going and reading the deal for myself, which is what I did. It was interesting. I know that we have been assured over and over publicly that this is such a great deal, that this is what is going to really save the world from the Iranians having a nuclear deal, but there are some very troubling things that I haven't heard anybody mention about this agreement. Actually, there is a report that there is an outside deal that has to be arranged by the IAEA with Iran in order to have a complete deal, which is that the IAEA is going to have to work out terms--conditions--of its examination of some of the nuclear facilities in Iran. That is deeply troubling. Here is a story by Joel Gehrke from July 21, entitled ``House Republican: Obama Administration Won't Release Full Iran Deal to Congress.'' It reads: ``Senator Tom Cotton and Representative Mike Pompeo, who serves on the House Intelligence Committee, learned of the arrangement while meeting with the IAEA in Vienna, Austria, last week. `That we are only now discovering that parts of this dangerous agreement are being kept secret begs the question of what other elements may also be secret and entirely free from public scrutiny.' '' Meeting with the IAEA is something that I have done in the last year and a half, but because of the ban by our Speaker on my being able to travel because I was hoping to have a different Speaker, I am not able to visit anymore in a room with the IAEA in their office in Vienna. That was immensely helpful to do in the job. As one of the Speaker's folks mentioned, they see taxpayer-funded travel as a reward, and I haven't earned their giving away taxpayer- funded travel. Apparently, that is something you earn by voting like you are told to. In any event, I am glad that Mike Pompeo and Senator Tom Cotton have been over there and have met with them. There is just so much about this deal that stinks to high heaven, especially when you see it today, in that, apparently, in the last year or so, there must have been approval for an exception to the sanctions on Iran to allow Iran to have 13 metric tons of pure gold shipped to it from South Africa. Then we find out today that, actually, the U.S. was releasing $4.2 billion to Iran, apparently in return, paying them to sit down and negotiate further. Mr. Speaker, I will tell you that our allies have got to be really miffed as they find out more and more about the way this administration operates. If you are our friend, we are going to cut deals with your enemy that create a real issue as to whether or not you may exist in the future. But if you are our enemy, we will pay you just to sit down and negotiate with us. We will allow you to get gold shipped to you from 13 metric tons. There is no telling how much grief those 13 metric tons of gold have cost the U.S. I wonder how many American lives have had their demise contributed to because of the gold. How many Jews or Christians around the world have lost their lives as a result of this administration's paying the world's leading sponsor of terror all of this money, apparently, just to sit down with them and releasing all of this money in the past just to get them to come to the table? We don't do that with our friends. We don't pay them to sit down with us. We have already seen this in the attempted dealings with the Taliban. Mr. Speaker, it has not been that many years ago. It has been since I have been in Congress that this administration was reaching out to the Taliban, which has killed so many Americans and continues to kill Americans. In fact, under Commander in Chief George W. Bush, we lost--I believe it was--about 560 precious military American lives in Afghanistan in that entire 7\1/2\ years--about 7\1/4\ years, actually. This President has only been in office 6\1/2\ years, and under his command--his rules of engagement that cripple our military's ability to defend themselves--under this administration and this Commander in Chief's rules, there have been over three times that many lost American, precious, military lives. With this President being in command of three times the number of lost American military lives in Afghanistan, this administration's approach couldn't learn anything from the Bush administration's mistakes and successes. Instead, it decided to reach out. There are all kinds of reports of their reaching out their offers. ``Look, Taliban. If you will just sit down--no preconditions. If you will just agree to sit down with us, we will be releasing murderers you want released from Guantanamo or anywhere else. Not only that, we will buy you luxurious offices in Qatar--or wherever you say--just to sit down with us.'' Our enemies have really learned how to deal with this administration. Our friends have got to be scratching their heads, those who still have their heads. Therein lies another tragedy. In this agreement, until I can be sure that the parts I read have been released publicly--and that is why I was asking for this copy of the agreement. It is a different format from what I was reading earlier today. As a judge, as a chief justice, even as a lawyer who has taken on the world's largest oil company--I did years ago successfully--and as a lawyer who has taken on some pretty unbelievable efforts, words mean a lot when I am reading through things. There is one word that particularly catches my attention, and that is the little two-letter disjunctive word ``or.'' Until I can be sure that what I had read has been released--it should be. There is no reason that this agreement should not be public so everyone can read it. To those folks out there who are saying, ``Hey, it is a 10-year deal. It will keep Iran from having nuclear weapons for 10 years. Even though it may come back and have a nuclear weapon within a month, 2 months, 3 months after the 10 years, at least it will keep them tied up for 10 years,'' I would encourage anybody who has access to the actual agreement to look at any years mentioned--8, 10, whatever it is--and then see if there is that little two-letter disjunctive word ``or'' and then see if there is a provision for a shorter time than 10 years or a shorter time than 8 years to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles. These are things I have seen publicly, but I think it is critical. What kind of time or length of time of this deal are we looking at? If there is this disjunctive little word ``or'' anywhere after any time that this deal will last, we need to know how long that other provision might be that would be shorter than 10 years. If that provision, if such exists, puts the hands of how long this deal will last completely out of the United States' hands, completely out of the P5+1, then that alone makes this deal a ``no'' deal. It is outrageous that anything but a hard timeline could exist in such a deal. There is a story from July 16 by James Jay Carafano. The first paragraph reads: ``Once a major diplomatic agreement is inked, the world typically reacts by holding its breath, waiting to see if it will all turn out all right. Some deals, like the Munich Pact, crumble quickly. Others, like the Camp David Accords, hang in there; but rarely has there been a deal like the one reached in Vienna last night--a deal in which all the nations most closely affected by it, including Iran, pretty much start out knowing it won't end well.'' Here, Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out that, as absolutely atrocious as the Clinton-Albright-Wendy Sherman deal with North Korea was, at least South Korea and Japan were involved and present for the talks, because our allies Japan and South Korea were the ones most affected by any deal that the United States cut with North Korea. Now, it was an outrageous agreement. I mean, I was just a district judge at the time, but I knew, clearly, from history and from current events, that it was a deal that said, ``Here, North Korea. We will help you build nuclear reactors, which will give you nuclear material to make sure you have got what you need. All we ask in return, basically, is that you promise that you will never use any of this stuff to create nuclear weapons.'' Of course, North Korea jumped on that deal--different from here, though. The number one most affected country by this deal is our dear friend Israel. Well, this President and all his minions could not get Prime Minister Netanyahu defeated and out of office, as they tried to do. This administration has tried to punish Israel different ways, and those in the administration who really do want to punish Israel, that don't like Israel, they have got to be smiling over this deal because it is absolutely unconscionable what has been done in the deal as it affects the future of Israel. It is just incredible that we could allow this. Then Saudi Arabia, right there in the vicinity, they certainly understand what a bad deal this is. As we understand it, they are already making clear they are going to have to have a nuclear weapon. Egypt is going to need a nuclear weapon. This deal makes clear that Iran is going to have nuclear weapons in at least 10 years; 10 years, 2 months, whatever anybody wants to say, or out of my concern, possibly much sooner than that legally under the deal, even if it were ratified by the Senate. This is of tremendous concern. This is what the entire world, except for the most evil perpetrators in it, has worried most about, a point in world history where there is massive proliferation of nuclear weapons. It won't do much good to return a Nobel Peace Prize after a President causes nuclear proliferation that leads ultimately to the loss of millions of lives and rampant destruction around the world and, certainly, in the Middle East. We have got all these folks worried about climate change, and here we are, on the brink of 10 years, at the most, before the most terroristic evil nation--well, the nation is not evil, their leaders are--the most evil leaders in the world have their hands on nuclear weapons that will kill millions of people. It won't do much good for all those who lose their lives in a horrible flash if the President sends back his Nobel Peace Prize as being the cause of that. That is why it is so important that we stop this deal. I don't have any belief at all that anybody in this administration wants the world to go up, after nuclear proliferation, in one big mushroom cloud. I don't believe that; I know that is not true, but that is what their actions--if not stopped by Senators and House Members, that is what is going to happen. This is not just me saying so. Dr. Carafano says: ``The whole neighborhood will race to go nuclear. The number one concern with the way this deal was structured was that it was bound to accelerate nuclear proliferation. Iran has violated its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and repeatedly thumbed its nose at oversight from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA. Yet it winds up getting a great deal under the agreement--better, in fact, than the deal the United States gives its friends and allies, through the 123 civil nuclear agreements. If regional powers like Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia believe that the likelihood of Iran getting a weapon is undiminished and the penalty for becoming a nuclear breakout power is plummeting, then the deterrent for them to cross the nuclear threshold drops as well. ``Tehran gets to keep its vast nuclear infrastructure and its missile program.'' It goes on to talk about that. ``Sanctions relief will make the region far less safe.'' ``The deal is temporary, by design.'' I tell you, Mr. Speaker, we hear from our friends in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, our local chambers of commerce, at least, about how normally to calculate economic impact of $1 being spent somewhere, you have to multiply it times seven because that dollar gets spent again and spent again and spent again. I would submit that, with this deal with Iran, the most evil leaders in the world, the $100 billion to $150 billion that this administration makes sure they have can't just be limited by $100 billion to $150 billion when it comes to the calculation of evil that will result from that money. We can be sure that, since Iran sponsors terrorism around the world, that it will spend a lot of that money creating terrorism with other terrorists and with other evil people; and those evil people will then be able to take the billions of dollars they get from Iran and spend that for their evil purposes with other evil people. You may be looking at, really, a trillion dollars by the time all of that money gets spent when you look at it as chambers of commerce normally do. The potential for evil, for the $100 billion to $150 billion going to an unrepentant sponsor of world terrorism, is really dramatic. It is just incredible that this is happening on anybody's watch; Republican, Democrat, it doesn't matter. It is incredible. Here is an article by Sarah Wheaton, July 21st: ``In both a muscular speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Pittsburgh and a taping of `The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,' Obama cast critics of his diplomacy as the same kind of misguided warmongers who pushed for the invasion of Iraq during George W. Bush's Presidency.'' I guess that includes Hillary Clinton; John Kerry, I think he may have been on board with that. The article says: `` `We're hearing the echoes of some of those same policies and mindset that failed us in the past,' Obama said in Pittsburgh. His loudest critics, he added, are `the same folks who were so quick to go to war in Iraq and said it would take a few months.' '' Well, it is interesting to me that our President reserves making his case for the Iran deal for a venue such as Comedy Central, and it really would be a comedic escapade if this weren't so serious and we weren't talking about the existence of Israel, the continued lives or stoppage of lives of Christians and Jews around the world. We know what the leaders of Iran think. They never, ever stop saying what they think. It is just incredible. They have never stopped demanding ``death to America'' and ``death to Israel.'' I see this article by Raf Sanchez from July 21st: ``The U.S. said on Tuesday it was disturbed by an outburst of anti-American rhetoric from Iran's Supreme Leader in the wake of the nuclear deal, as fierce debates over the agreement began in both the Iranian Parliament and U.S. Congress. ``John Kerry, the U.S. Secretary of State, said he was troubled by a fiery speech in which Ayatollah Khamenei promised to continue fomenting unrest across the Middle East and said Iran's `policy towards the arrogant U.S. will not change.' `` `If it is the policy, it's very disturbing, it's very troubling, and we'll have to wait and see.' '' No, we shouldn't have to wait and see. When Iran's evil leaders say they are going to keep fomenting trouble, they are going to keep killing Christians and Jews across the Middle East, they are going to keep killing moderate Muslims in the Middle East, we should not wait; we should take them seriously. They are saying it while the deal is still not affirmed and ratified here in the United States. You would have to be a blooming idiot to make a deal with people who are saying they are going to take the money they get from this deal and kill Americans, kill Christians, kill Jews, and give them the money anyway. There are going to be consequences for this kind of irresponsibility. Mr. Speaker, I would just encourage anyone who has access to an updated copy of the Iran deal, look to see for sure if it is limited to a 10-year deal or perhaps could somebody do an inspection and say, Oh, it is all good--maybe it is a 5-year deal instead of a 10-year deal. When the person making the agreement has no power after the deal is signed, sealed, and delivered over when that deal ends, it is not a deal that should be made. That alone ought to be enough to make anyone walk away from it. Mr. Speaker, I am immensely concerned for our friends around the world. I have mentioned numerous times--and I keep going back to the words of a west African named Ebeneezer, a senior citizen there in west Africa who explained how excited they were when we elected our first Black President, but they have seen America get weaker, and he begged me to tell people in Washington that, when we get weaker in America, they suffer more around the world and specifically in Africa. Those words still bother me. This deal with an evil group of leaders in Iran is going to spell death down the road for masses of people if we don't get it stopped. Mr. Speaker, that is my plea. Let's stop the deal for the good of the world. Mr. Speaker, 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, it is an extraordinary privilege of extending recognition to a team winning, not merely a state or conference championship, but a national title, not for the first time, but for the second year in a row. Once again, the Tyler Junior College Apaches Baseball Team has achieved national prominence by winning the 2015 NJCAA Division III World Series baseball tournament. This back to back national title is the third national baseball championship title for Tyler Junior College, and marks the fifty-second national championship for TJC since athletics was first organized at the school back in the 1940s. The TJC Apaches traveled to Kinston, North Carolina along with a host of devoted Apache fans, where the doggedly tenacious team defeated Joliet (Illinois) Junior College with a final score of 10-9. They never lost sight of their unified goal of capturing another national title for TJC. The TJC Apaches pushed onward with unmitigated perseverance and determination, despite a season wrought with weather related delays and cancellations. A tremendously skilled coaching and administrative staff helped lead the Apaches to another consecutive victory. Those individuals include Head Baseball Coach Doug Wren (NJCAA Div. III Baseball Coach of the Year); Assistant Coaches Chad Sherman, Taylor White, and Trent Buchhorn. The exceptionally talented, resolute, relentless national championship team is comprised of Zane Ancell, Austin Ballew, Cody Brown (Tournament MVP), Landon Brune, Jace Campbell, Derek Clemons (Tournament Elite Hitter & All-Tournament Team), Aaron Clemons (All- Tournament Team), Michael Crews, Manny Galvan, Jonathan Groff, Jacob Hickman, Chantz Holland, Tim Hunter, Jimmy Johnson, Garrett Johnston, Alex Masotto (All-Tournament Team), AJ Merkel, Chandler Muckleroy, Brady O'Borski, Zane Otten, Jared Pauley, Gunnar Quick, Reese Read, Taylor Rich, Drew Robertson, Adan Ross, Reid Russell, Sam Sitton, Weston Smart, Travis Smith, Brady Usherwood, Jace Vines, and Brandon Webb (All-Tournament Team). Of course, every great team needs assistance to round out and hold them together as a team and keep them physically on the field playing, and that help came in the very able assistance of Training Staff Eddy McGuire, Jeff Derrick, Spenser Deeken, Lynsee Jistel, and Nathan Tanaka; and Student Support Staff consisting of Chad Cunningham and Justin Doelitsch. Without question, there is a long legacy of academic and athletic achievement at Tyler Junior College, even as it continues to reach new levels of prestige under the meticulous leadership of TJC President Dr. L. Michael Metke; Athletic Director Dr. Tim Drain; Assistant Athletic Director Chuck Smith; Athletic Department Coordinator M. Angela Clemons; and Provost and Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs Dr. Juan Mejia. One must also recognize the unwavering support of the players' families, Tyler Junior College alumni, faculty, staff members, and the entire East Texas community. Without this remarkably loyal support system, the Apaches' road to back-to-back national championships would have been a much more difficult journey. It is with great pride that I join the constituents of the First District of Texas in congratulating the players and athletic staff of the 2015 NJCAA Division III World Series National Champions, the TJC Apaches Baseball Team, whose legacy is now recorded in the Congressional Record that will endure as long as there is a United States of America.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, there is a great deal of tragedy going on in the world. I know that at times there are people around this Congress that have felt very much alone. I know there have been times when Presidents have felt very much alone, like Abraham Lincoln, a year or so after his son had died. His wife was fussing at him. He was going to commemorate a battlefield. There have been people who have been very alone in this town. But, Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that no one in the world feels more betrayed and dejected than the leader of our former friend, Israel. Now, Israel is still the friend of many of ours. We still hold it in the highest regard because of its similarity in belief and human rights that we have here, even there in the midst of the Middle East. The President has announced that he is going to the United Nations to get their approval before he would even ask for a vote in Congress. That struck a chord. That rang a bell. March of 2011, a letter from the White House in which the President advises that, he says: At my direction, U.S. military forces commenced operations to assist an international effort authorized by the United Nation's Security Council and undertaken with the support of European allies and Arab partners to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe and address the threat posed to international peace and security by the crisis in Libya. The trouble is, Mr. Speaker, that our President created the catastrophe, created the crisis, the real crisis in Libya, as it exists today, far worse than anything that anybody conceived would or could exist in 2011 before the President went to the U.N. to seek authority instead of coming to Congress. Since 2003, Qadhafi had given up all efforts at supporting terrorism. He had given up efforts, all efforts, at pursuing weapons that the United States did not give him authority to keep. As some of our Muslim Arab leaders in the Middle East have told some of us privately, since 2003, Qadhafi was doing more to help you tamp out terrorism than most anybody in the world, and yet this President decided that a small problem in Libya was enough to justify him taking out Qadhafi. Oh, I know, we were going to create a no-fly zone, but let's be serious. The President's bombing runs that he authorized ended up, even in the face of Qadhafi asking to be allowed to just leave, and leave the country peaceably, he asked for a response within 3 days, and this President authorized bombing, apparently, as an answer. So make no mistake, the incredibly bad judgment in this White House created a debacle in northern Africa that has spilled into other nations around Libya, that has created all kinds of human atrocities, that has created a massive movement of people heading for boats from Libya, heading north to anywhere they can go. This President did that without authorization of Congress. He caused that without authorization of Congress. But he did have the consent of the United Nations, as he now says he is going to seek before he gets approval for his Iranian deal in Congress. March 21 of 2011, an article by Charlie Savage in The New York Times, points out: ``Some Democratic lawmakers--including Representatives Jerrold Nadler of New York, Barbara Lee of California and Michael E. Capuano of Massachusetts--complained in the House Democratic Caucus conference call as the bombing began that Mr. Obama had exceeded his constitutional authority by authorizing the attack without Congressional permission.'' I would have to say that my friend, Mr. Nadler, Ms. Lee, Mr. Capuano of Massachusetts, they were right. I haven't said that a whole lot about my friend, Mr. Nadler, but he was right. The article goes on: ``On Monday, Mr. Obama sent Congress a two-page letter saying that as commander in chief, he had constitutional authority to authorize the strikes, which were undertaken with French, British and other allies.'' The article points out: ``As a presidential candidate who promoted his background as an instructor of constitutional law, Mr. Obama appeared to adopt a more limited view of executive power when he answered a question about whether a president could order the bombing of Iranian nuclear sites without a use-of-force authorization from Congress.'' Then it quotes Mr. Obama. It says: ``The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation,'' Mr. Obama told The Boston Globe in December of 2007. It mentions further down that, in the Globe survey, Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., then a Senator, argued that a President would have no authority under the Constitution to bomb Iranian nuclear sites without congressional authorization because even limited strikes can unintentionally prompt all-out war. Well, they have violated what Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden said before they were in the White House and the Vice President's quarters. They created a disaster in northern Africa because they believed that their opinion was adequate and that the massive number of countries in the United Nations that hate Israel were better confidants than Congress. Regardless of whether that is true or not, it is not constitutional. In March of 2011, there was a national review article by Bill Burk which points out: ``President Obama's war in Libya is unconstitutional without congressional authorization. But that is so only because the President has not yet given us a reason to fight that is constitutionally sound.'' And it goes on. So the President helped create this massive disaster in northern Africa that has human tragedy occurring day after day, people fleeing in boats, some dying trying to get away from the Libya that he created because he decided it was time for Qadhafi to go. Some of our Muslim leader friends in north Africa and the Middle East continue to ask: ``Does your President not understand that he keeps helping the people that are at war with the United States? Does your President not understand that he is harming the people that are helping stop terrorism in the world?'' This deal that has now been cut with Iran, the largest supporter of terrorism in the world, is going to do for the Middle East and the world what President Obama's bombing did for Libya. It has to be stopped. This deal has to be stopped. It does not meet any of the requirements that the President and all his minions said were going to come out of a deal with Iran. And, oh, yes, there were celebrations here in Washington because they were able to convince Iran into taking back over $100 billion. And, also, we were able to convince them to allow us to take them off the arms embargo so they could go ahead and start buying weapons from Russia, from China, wherever they wish. Let's help the Russian economy. Let's help the Chinese economy. Let's give hundreds of billions of dollars to the largest supporter of terrorism in the world and allow them to pursue arms with that money. Isn't there enough terrorism in the world today without this administration being accomplices to death and destruction the world over through the assistance, through this so-called deal that it has cut with Iran? An article from certainly not a great press friend of the United States, but AFP--the Agence France-Presse has an article from Tehran which says, ``Hard-Liners in Tehran, brought up on chants of `death to America,' have repeatedly voiced opposition to the quest for a deal with a power derided as the `great Satan' ever since the Islamic revolution of 1979. The article goes on further: ``Rather than representing submission to the West, the agreement is likely to consolidate Khamenei's rule, according to Davoud Hermidas Bavand, a veteran political analyst at Tehran University.'' And make no mistake, this is Tehran that is in Iran, from a veteran political analyst that serves at the pleasure--or keeps his life at the pleasure of Khomeini. The article says, ``And whatever the evident contradictions of a pact with `the great Satan,' the core of Iran's nuclear program has been preserved.'' Thank you, President Barack Hussein Obama. Yes, I know there are people celebrating in Washington. Yes, we got a great deal. We got them to take $100 billion off our hands. We got them to agree to start being able for they themselves to buy arms. We got them off the terrorist watch list so they can move more freely as they want to create terrorism. It is a great day. Oh, it is time to celebrate. This article, in what may be one of the most understated comments about the deal, says, ``It probably amounts to a marginal win over Israel, Saudi Arabia, and even Turkey.'' And that is from Mr. Bavand, describing the nuclear deal as a step forward for a war-wracked Middle East. An article from Max Boot in commentarymagazine.com points out that, for a more succinct account, go right to the statement issued by Tehran's official Islamic news agency. And this comes from that. ``World powers have recognized Iran's peaceful nuclear program and are to respect the nuclear rights of Iranian nation within international conventions.'' The second says--and this is from Iran--``The Islamic Republic of Iran is to be recognized as a nuclear technology power authorized to have peaceful nuclear programs, such as complete nuclear fuel cycle and enrichment to be identified by the United Nations.'' ``All unfair sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council, including economic and financial sanctions on Iran, are to be lifted, as per the agreement and through issuance of a new resolution by the United Nations Security Council,'' most all of which hate Israel. ``All nuclear installations and sites are to continue their work, contrary to the early demands of the other party''--that would be the United States--``None of them will be dismantled.'' That is Iran's interpretation of the deal being celebrated down the street here, down Pennsylvania Avenue. They are celebrating because they say none of their nuclear facilities have to be dismantled. It goes on: ``The policy on preventing enrichment uranium is now failed, and Iran will go ahead with its enrichment program.'' Further from Iran, they declare that ``Iran's nuclear infrastructure will remain intact; no centrifuges will be dismantled; and research and development on key and advanced centrifuges . . .'' ``will continue.'' And that is rather amazing. We heard the President say that they were going to have to dismantle like two-thirds of their centrifuges. But it appears, from what we can find out about the deal so far, that, actually, they may dismantle some of the centrifuges, but only because we are going to help them install and work with the most advanced centrifuges in the world, more advanced than anything Iran would have now. So far as we know, this is a huge boom to their nuclear efforts. This article says, ``The agreement specifies that it would take no fewer than 24 days to compel an inspection.'' It is talking about the nuclear sites. ``That's plenty of time for the Iranians to `sanitize' any suspect site so as to remove any evidence of nuclear activity; and it's far removed from the kind of `24/7 access' that President Obama said just today that inspectors would have.'' ``The Iranians had insisted that the agreement stick only to the nuclear issue--that's why, for example, the Iranians did not agree, as part of this deal, to release the American hostages they are holding or to end their support for terrorism or their commitment to Israel's destruction. But it turns out the agreement isn't just limited to nuclear issues. It includes a commitment to lift the conventional arms embargo on Iran in no more than 5 years and the embargo on missile sales to Iran in no more than 8 years and possibly sooner, if Iran is said to be in compliance with the nuclear accord.'' And, gee, won't that be interesting. They may be able to have people that hate Israel give them the go-ahead much earlier than 8 years. This article points out, ``What this means is that Iran will soon have more than $100 billion extra to spend not only on exporting the Iranian revolution and dominating neighboring states, but that it will also, before long, be free to purchase as many weapons--even ballistic missiles--as it likes on the world market. No wonder Vladimir Putin appears to be happy: This deal is likely to become a windfall for Russian arms makers, although you can be sure that Iran will also spread its largesse to manufacturers in France and, if possible, the U.K. so as to give those countries an extra stake in not re-imposing sanctions.'' And that is good news for Ukraine, good news for Georgia, because this means that this deal, if it goes through--and the President is already saying, ``We are going to lift these sanctions. We are going to get them the $100 billion plus.'' Some say it is going to be $150 billion. Can you imagine what Russia can do with money that Iran pays it? Why, they could probably take over all of Ukraine with that kind of money. And then the Russians, as they take over more and more of Ukraine, can be putting big posters on their tanks saying ``Thank you, President Obama. Without your deal with Iran, we would never have had the money to take over Ukraine.'' And what about Egypt? This is devastating news that this deal is coming to fruition for Egypt. When over 30 million Egyptians come to the street--it would be like over 100 million Americans going to the streets and demanding the ouster of the Muslim Brother president that was seizing all power and demanding that he be gotten rid of. The military did as the people of Egypt ordered. What an incredible peaceful uprising. That was impeachment as peaceably as it could be done since the Americans assisting Egypt did not even help them put in an impeachment provision in their constitution. Mr. Speaker, it is bad news obviously for Saudi Arabia. It is bad news for Jordan. It is bad news for all countries in the Middle East. It is bad news for Syria. It is bad news for Turkey. Oh, there will be some in Turkey and some in Syria that will be just shouting with joy, particularly President Assad. He may need to send President Obama a thank you note for the money that comes flowing in to help him in Syria perhaps; but there is going to be money spread all around to weapons makers and to people who peddle war and destruction because of what this President has done and agreed to without any promise--not even a promise--of giving up terrorism--not even a promise, not even a verbal promise, for Heaven's sake, that Iran will not try to destroy Israel. We have this article from AFP also back in March 2 of 2015, this year. The article says: ``Obama told Reuters if `Iran is willing to agree to double-digit years of keeping their program where it is,' '' there will be a deal. Well, that is not what President Obama agreed to. This article goes on--and, again, this is March--``Netanyahu on Monday told a pro-Israel conference that a deal with Iran would `threaten the survival of Israel.' ``Obama said that sentiment is wrongheaded, noting Netanyahu's previous opposition to an interim Iran deal as evidence Israel should back the talks. `` `Netanyahu made all sorts of claims. This was going to be a terrible deal. This was going to result in Iran getting $50 billion worth of relief. Iran would not abide by the agreement. None of that has come true.' '' Well, Mr. Speaker, it turns out the President was the one who was wrong, and Prime Minister Netanyahu is the one that was exactly right that it was a bad deal, that this was a terrible deal. He was right. Now, I have to admit, Mr. Speaker, that Prime Minister Netanyahu was extremely wrong about one aspect of the Iranian deal between it and President Obama; I have to admit. I think the world of Prime Minister Netanyahu; he is a great man, and he has the potential of being one of Israel's truly great leaders, but he was wrong when he said that this deal was going to result in Iran getting $50 billion worth of relief. He was way wrong because they are going to get maybe $150 billion of relief, but certainly over $100 billion of relief. We have to chalk it up as the one area that President Obama was right about Netanyahu being wrong. Netanyahu understated the amount of cash this administration was willing to fork over to the terrorist state of Iran. It wasn't $50 billion; it was over $100 billion, possibly $150 billion. There it is on the record; Netanyahu was wrong. He said $50 billion is what Iran would get, and it was over $100 billion. Mr. Speaker, let's look at this deal and what has been said in the past about it. Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman--Mr. Speaker, you will remember that she is the one who was key in the negotiations with North Korea where we gave them nuclear power plants and material and all we got in return was a promise that, if we just gave them everything they needed, all the technology to make nuclear bombs, they would use it for nuclear power plants. Of course, we know they broke their word. When you are dealing with a scorpion and it stings you, you shouldn't ask later: Why did you do that? You know why. The answer in the old fable is: It is because I am a scorpion; it is what I do. That is what the leader of North Korea is, and it is what he did. If you look at the leaders of Iran, there is a similar fable about the snake. Someone warms the snake up, and it ends up biting him. Why did you do that? It is because I am a snake. Perhaps in the near future, President Obama and Secretary Kerry will be heard to ask: Why did you break all these terms? The answer should be: It is because we are snakes; that is what we do. Mr. Speaker, Wendy Sherman said, on February 4 of 2014, nearly a year and a half ago, about the Iranian deal: We raised possible military dimensions. In fact, in the Joint Plan of Action, we have required that Iran come clean on its past actions as part of any comprehensive agreement. Well, that didn't happen. Wendy Sherman was as wrong about that as she was about North Korea not using the nuclear capacity we gave them to make nuclear weapons. Of course, December 7, 2013, President Obama himself said: ``It is my strong belief that we can envision an end state that gives us an assurance that even if they have some modest enrichment capability, it is so constrained and the inspections so intrusive that they, as a practical matter, do not have breakout capacity.'' Now, that is a great statement there because he is not saying that we will get Iran to that point. If you look carefully, he says that we will have ``an end state that gives us an assurance.'' Well, Iran is willing to give us assurance, but they are not even willing to give us an assurance of what President Obama hoped for, for goodness' sake. Secretary Kerry said, on November 24, 2013: ``There is no right to enrich. We do not recognize a right to enrich. It is clear,'' in the NPT, ``in the nonproliferation treaty, it's very, very clear that there is no right to enrich.'' Well, now, we know that Secretary Kerry was very, very wrong about it being very, very clear there was no right to enrich; not only is there a right to enrich, we are going to help Iran enrich. Thank you, President Obama. Sanctions relief, here is a quote from John Kerry from March 3. Secretary of State Kerry said: ``Iran is not open for business until Iran is closed for nuclear bombs.'' Well, we know that is not going to be the case. They are open for business, and they are still enriching. Again, Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said: ``This includes a lot of dismantling of their infrastructure.'' Well, it turns out that is not the case, either. Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, February 4 of 2014, said: ``It is true that in these first six months we've not shut down all of their production of any ballistic missile.'' Well, it turns out they are not going to at all--how about that. March 5, 2015, Secretary Kerry: ``It will reduce the pressure for a regional nuclear arms race, and it will increase the strength of the international nonproliferation regime. It will also vastly improve the prospects for peace both here and elsewhere.'' Secretary Kerry was wrong, wrong, wrong. Now, they want the U.N. to pass the deal. Well, gosh, I am sure they will get plenty of votes from people that want the money that the U.S. is going to make sure Iran has to buy nuclear weapons. Prime Minister Netanyahu says that the Iran deal is a grave mistake, and he is as right now as he was before. This deal has to be stopped for the sake of mankind. Mr. Speaker, 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, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. I am very grateful for my very dear friend--not just friend, but dear friend--from Iowa, and I am pleased that he would take the time to talk about this. He is making some great points. The Dred Scott decision, if you really look at it, was decided by a majority who had great aspirations that the media was going to love what they did. Instead of looking at the words of the Constitution and applying those words, they were playing to the elite media, and the elite media was completely wrong. Slavery was the worst abomination and blot on this Nation's history, and it is tragic that the Supreme Court played an active role in that. It is tragic that in the seventies, as you pointed out, from the sixties, the seventies, the Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court has contributed to tens of millions of murders--tragic. But I guess as a former judge and a former chief justice, nothing infuriates me more than for a judge or justice to believe that they are completely above the law. I know what it is to recuse myself. I know what it is for judges who are friends of mine who had strong feelings about a case, but they knew that they would not be fair and impartial and so they had to recuse or disqualify themselves. With regard to marriage, we had one Justice, Sonia Sotomayor, who has made comments indicating a massive question over her impartiality. But if you take two Justices about which there is no question, they were totally disqualified. They were very partial, and they were opinionated. Going into this opinion, they had long since made up their minds. In fact, one columnist reported on the last marriage, a same-sex marriage, that Justice Ginsburg performed. She emphasized the word ``Constitution'' when she said, ``I now pronounce these two men married by the powers vested in me by the Constitution of the United States.'' That is a Justice who was completely disqualified. Do you wonder, well, what actually disqualifies a judge? The law is very clear about that, and Congress does have the authority to dictate the terms by which a judge may sit on the Supreme Court or may sit on a particular case. This law, 28 U.S.C. 455 (a) part--(b) gets into a number of different options--in (a) there is no option. This is an emphatic requirement for a Justice. We know that Justice Kagan had performed a same-sex marriage before this opinion. So we had two Justices who, under the laws of the United States as allowed by the United States Constitution's clear reading, were disqualified. They were lawbreakers in order to dictate legislation on a social issue over which they have no authority by virtue of the Constitution and the 10th Amendment. Yet they violated the law, they violated the Constitution, and they violated their oath. It is dishonorable to be a justice in any court and violate your oath, violate the law, and violate the Constitution. But the law is wanting to assure the American people that we are going to be so far above question that not only do you have to disqualify yourself if you are partial, you are biased, you are prejudiced in a case, but ``if your impartiality might reasonably be questioned'' is the language, then you have to. It is a ``shall.'' You shall disqualify yourself. Mr. Speaker, two Justices violated the law, violated the Constitution, violated their oath, were dishonorable, and dictated law they have no business dictating. There is just one final point I would like to make, and I brought this up on C-SPAN yesterday, but I have been giving it some thought. What would be a good way to really get a grip on what nature would indicate? And my friend knows I was there in Iowa with him after that ridiculous decision by the Iowa Supreme Court and the three judges that were up for retention that year were eliminated, as they should have been. But having read that Iowa decision back then, I was amazed that the Iowa Supreme Court said this is a no evidence matter. We have different standards: substantial evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, and preponderance of the evidence. They said this is a no evidence issue. There is no evidence of any kind from any source to indicate a preference for marriage between a man and a woman as opposed to marriage between two men or two women. I think it is a very important point to say, well, I would be willing to put up everything I will make for the rest of my life, that it would go in to a bet, because I have that much faith in what Moses said and what Jesus said. Moses said that this is from God, that a marriage is when a man shall leave his father and mother and a woman leave her home and the two will become one flesh. That is a marriage. Jesus repeated: You know the law. Moses give you the law. Here is the law. And He repeated the very words of Moses, and then He added a line and said: What God has joined together, let no man pull apart. So I have such faith in the words of Moses and Jesus, I would be willing to stake anything I make the rest of my life that my kids would otherwise get that we could take four couples of man and woman as Moses and Jesus said and find a place that we could place them where they are isolated but they have everything they need to live and have a good, full life, and then take another place, an island or such, and put four couples of men, all men that love each other, and put them in such an isolated island situation where they have everything they need to be comfortable and live, and then have an island where we have four couples of women that love each other, they are going to stay together. And then let's come back however many years you want to wait to come back, at least 25, and you could go 200 years, and let's go back and see what nature has to say about which couple it prefers to sustain a civilization. Which couple is preferred by nature? You and I believe nature is God, as the Founders did. Which one is preferred? And I am willing to bet everything that I make the rest of my life that in those situations where just nature has to take its course, the couples of man and woman will be the one that proliferates and continues to exist and live on to produce further generations. Mr. Speaker, I think that is what the people of Iowa found so offensive that they had judges that were so completely ignorant of nature and nature's God that they could say that there is no evidence in nature or anywhere else to indicate a preference for a couple between a man and a woman. I know people have raised issues, but you need to be able to see someone you love in the hospital, you bet. We ought to make sure State legislatures fix that problem. If you love somebody, they are your partner, you care about them and they care about you, you don't want to just stalk anybody you want, but if there is a mutual love, admiration, and respect, you ought to be able to see them in a hospital. You ought to be able to transfer property and leave property. We ought to be able to address those things in the law. But when it comes to the building block for future generations and future civilizations, I can promise you that if it is not built on couples that are man and woman, as Moses and Jesus said, then that civilization will not endure. It is just the law of nature. I love the people of Iowa. I love the fact that they came out and let it be known that these judges who were educated far beyond their intellectual capability needed to step down because the people of Iowa could figure out that there was evidence to support marriage being between a man and a woman. So I appreciate the time the gentleman has yielded to me. Thank you for continuing to stand for what is right, even when we have Supreme Court Justices that violate the law, the Constitution, and their oath.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I heard earlier discussions from my friends--and I literally mean that, friends; I am not being sarcastic, they are friends--talking about the shootings. It sounds like they were certainly racist shootings in South Carolina when an evil man shot brothers and sisters of mine as fellow Christians. Now there is this big race to go after the Confederate flag. So, Mr. Speaker, I saw this article by Daniel Greenfield and felt like this was worth noting, historically, information that Mr. Greenfield has published this month. Just touching on parts of the article--I started to say ``he,'' but it says ``Daniel.'' Maybe it is a man, maybe it isn't. I don't want to be biased based on a name. But anyway, in his article he says, talking about President Obama: ``When Obama condemned Christianity for the Crusades, only a thousand years too late, in attendance was the Foreign Minister of Sudan, a country that practices slavery and genocide. President Obama could have taken time out from his rigorous denunciation of the Middle Ages to speak truth to the emissary of a Muslim Brotherhood regime whose leader is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, but our moral liberals spend too much time romanticizing actual slaver cultures. ``It's a lot easier for our President to get in his million-dollar Cadillac with 5-inch thick bulletproof windows, a ride Boss Hogg could only envy''--Boss Hogg being a reference to the name of the show ``Dukes of Hazzard''--``and chase down a couple of good ole boys than it is to condemn a culture that committed genocide in our own time, not in 1099, and that keeps slaves today, not in 1815. ``Even while the Duke boys''--again, references to ``Dukes of Hazzard''--``the Duke boys were chased through Georgia, President Obama appeared at an Iftar dinner, an event at which Muslims emulate Mohammed, who had more slaves than Robert E. Lee. There are no slaves in Arlington House today, but in the heartlands of Islam, from Saudi mansions to ISIS dungeons, there are still slaves, laboring, beaten, bought, sold, raped, and disposed of in Mohammed's name. ``Slavery does not exist under the Confederate flag eagerly being pulled down. It does exist under the black and green flags of Islam rising over mosques in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and America today. ``In our incredibly tolerant culture, it has become politically incorrect to watch the General Lee''--talking about a car--``jump a fence or a barn, but paying tribute to the culture that sent the slaves here and that still practices slavery is the culturally sensitive thing to do. In 2015, slavery is no longer freedom, but it certainly is tolerance.'' The article goes on: ``Slavery was an indigenous African and Middle Eastern practice, not to mention an indigenous practice in America among indigenous cultures.'' The author here is talking about, for those who don't understand indigenous cultures, he is talking about Native Americans. There were Native Americans that had slaves, just like in Africa and Middle Eastern practices. The article goes on: ``If justice demands that we pull down the Confederate flag everywhere, even from the top of the orange car sailing through the air in the freeze frame of an old television show, then what possible justification is there for all the faux Aztec knickknacks? Even the worst Southern plantation owners didn't tear out the hearts of their slaves on top of pyramids.'' This is a reference that obviously in history we understand Aztecs did pull out hearts of slaves that they sacrificed on top of pyramids. Anyway, the article says: ``The romanticization of Aztec brutality plays a crucial role in the mythology of Mexican nationalist groups like La Raza promoting the Reconquista of America today.'' I wasn't aware of that, but the article says: ``Black nationalists romanticize the slave-holding civilization of Egypt despite the fact that the narrative of the liberation of the Hebrew slaves from bondage played a crucial role in the end of slavery in America. The endless stories about the `Amazons' of the African kingdom of Dahomey neatly fit into the leftist myth of a peaceful matriarchal Africa disrupted by European colonialism, but Dahomey ran on slavery. ``The `Amazons' helped capture slaves for the Atlantic slave trade. White and Black liberals are romanticizing the very culture that captured and sold their forefathers into slavery. 'In Dahomey,' the first major mainstream Black musical was about African Americans moving to Dahomey. By then, the French had taken over old Dahomey and together with the British had put an end to the slave trade. ``The French dismantled the `Amazons' and freed many of Dahomey's slaves only for the idiot descendants of both groups to romanticize the last noble stand of Dahomey fighting for the right to export Black slaves to Cuba and condemn the European liberators who put a stop to that atrocity. ``If we crack down on romanticizing Dixie, how can we possibly justify romanticizing Dahomey or the Aztecs or Mohammed? ``If slavery and racism are wrong,'' which clearly they are, the article says. ``If slavery and racism are wrong, then they are wrong across the board . . . Dahomey and Mohammed had bought, sold, and killed enough Black lives to be frowned upon. ``If we go back far enough in time, most cultures kept slaves. The Romans and Greeks certainly did. That's why the meaningful standard is not whether a culture ever had slaves, but whether it has slaves today. If we are going to eradicate the symbols of every culture that ever traded in slaves, there will be few cultural symbols that will escape unscathed. But the academics who insist on cultural relativism in 19th century Africa reject it in 19th century South Carolina, thereby revealing their own racism. ``And so instead of fighting actual modern-day slavery in Africa and the Middle East, social justice warriors are swarming to invade Hazzard County. ``Most of the cultures of the past that we admire, respect, and even romanticize had slaves, but when we look back at their achievements and even try to forge some connection to them, it does not have to mean an endorsement of their worst habits. This is a concept that liberals understood but that leftists reject. ``The recent hysteria reminds us that the nuanced reason of the former has been replaced by the irrational, destructive impulses of the latter. The left is so obsessed with creating utopias of the future that, like the Taliban or ISIS, it destroys the relics of past societies that do not measure up to its impossible standards. And then it replaces them with imaginary utopias of the past that never existed. ``As Ben Carson pointed out, we will not get rid of racism by banning the Confederate flag. Even when it is used at its worst by the likes of Dylann Storm Roof, it is a symptom, not the problem. Roof was not radicalized by the dead Confederacy, but by the racial tensions kicked off''--I am not sure I want to say that. But, anyway, interesting take, but all of this talk about eliminating any references or uses of things that remind us of the horrors, the abomination that slavery was in the United States should be eliminated. That is what we are hearing. And so, Mr. Speaker, in thinking about that--and the suggestion was made by my friend, another judge from Texas, Judge Carter, so I had to go look it up. I think there is an entity that was so evil in supporting slavery, in fighting against civil rights, in fighting against the Christian brother that Martin Luther King, Jr., was, fighting against those who wanted equality that the Constitution guaranteed, we ought to look at those symbols, and we ought to look at what they stood for and perhaps ban any political organization from participating in Congress for upholding the abomination that slavery was to this country. So I was able to get a copy of this platform, this political platform from 1856. This is the number one plank in the platform of this hideous political organization, and this is what they believed and they asserted. I am reading from the number one plank in their party platform: ``That Congress has no power under the Constitution, to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several States, and that such States are the sole and proper judges of everything appertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by the Constitution''--then, here it goes--``that all efforts of the abolitionists, or others, made to induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences; and that all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people and endanger the stability and permanency of the Union, and ought not to be countenanced by any friend of our political institutions.'' That was the official number one plank in this hideous political organization's platform from 1856. They go on. Here is number three: ``That by the uniform application of this Democratic principle to the organization of territories, and to the admission of new States, with or without domestic slavery, as they may elect--the equal rights, of all the States will be preserved intact.'' They are saying they want to preserve slavery in any State that wants to have it. They finish up by saying: ``Resolved, That we recognize the right of the people of all the Territories, including Kansas and Nebraska, acting through the legally and fairly expressed will of a majority of actual residents, and whenever the number of their inhabitants justifies it, to form a constitution, with or without domestic slavery.'' It sounds like something the Ku Klux Klan would have done. They are demanding that they have the right to have slavery, the worst abomination in the history of America, that even Thomas Jefferson put in his original draft of the Declaration of Independence that it was a horrible grievance against the King of England for allowing slavery, this horrible abomination, from ever starting in America. Well, they didn't learn their lesson. This hideous political organization's platform in 1860 said they were adopting all the things that they had said in 1856 about the right to keep this heinous, offensive slavery intact. They include this, though, additionally in their platform of 1860: ``Resolved, That the enactment of the State Legislatures to defeat the faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave Law, are hostile in character, subversive of the Constitution, and revolutionary in their effect.'' They want to make it clear that not only were they avid supporters of slavery in America, but that it was their right to own people in America. This disgusting political organization also found the fugitive slave law to be, as they say, hostile in character, subversive of the Constitution. Again, this sounds like something from the Ku Klux Klan. Will we want the Ku Klux Klan participating here on the floor when this is their history? It is the worst abomination. The horrors of slavery finally were overcome, largely by abolitionist churches and pastors, people who believed that it had to stop, that people couldn't be treating brothers and sisters in such a way. It took the life work and even laying down of the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., to push us to the level where brothers and sisters, as he was in Christ, could treat brothers and sisters as equal people. That is where we should have been all along. It is where he was pushing us to be against the hideous type things from 1856 and 1860. If we are going to eliminate everything that reminds us of a hideous past that supported slavery and the oppression, the horrors that slavery entailed--breaking up of families, molestations, the beatings, just the horrors--John Quincy Adams was right. God could not continue to bless America while we were treating brothers and sisters by putting them in chains and bondage. He was right. So many abolitionists were right. Daniel Webster was right. Republicans that stood up to these hideous political organizations were right. There should be no place for slavery in America. If we are going to have a complete cleansing of this country of anything, any symbol, then this platform from the Democratic Party in 1856 and 1860--and it wasn't the Ku Klux Klan; it sounded like it, and there were a lot of Democrats who were members of the Ku Klux Klan. I don't know that you can find Republicans that were members of the Ku Klux Klan, but there were certainly plenty of Democrats that were. I think it is time not for the Washington Redskins to change their name, but for the Democratic Party to change its name because all you have to do is go online and look up the history of the Democratic Party. It is one of oppressing African Americans. It is one of supporting slavery and the horrors that occurred in the United States, even up through the 20th century on into the 1860s. I think we had a Democratic Senator who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. I think he has got a lot of things named after him. I hope that my friends who will ultimately want to change the name of the Democratic Party because of its horrible history will also want to change the names of things that were named after somebody that was a big supporter of the Ku Klux Klan. The fact is the families of the victims in Charleston, South Carolina--brothers and sisters in Christ, for those of us who are Christians--wow, did they send a powerful message. I didn't see or hear them demanding the Confederate flag be taken down. I heard them forgive the one--the evil, horrible person--that committed such a vile act on people at a prayer meeting, of all things. They showed the kind of love Jesus showed, the kind of love that was embodied by Father Damien, whose statue is right down at the southern entrance of this building beneath us right now. The plaque on his statue--God forgive anybody who would ever want to change this, because it is so powerful--are the words of Jesus in John 15:13: ``Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.'' Jesus did that; Father Damien did that; Martin Luther King, Jr., did that--many have so that we could have the freedoms we have today, many of our American military forces have, not just for your freedom, but freedom around the world. Let's recognize the good with which we have been blessed. Let's stop the name calling, the race baiting, the division politics. Let's fuss and disagree over issues, but let's quit trying to tear this country apart because of things of the past in which not one person in this room would have taken part in. Let's work together. Fuss, disagree, push for what we believe is best for the country, but let's stop the race baiting because, if we are really going to go there, we have got to end the Democratic Party. Its history is so interwoven with starting, keeping, trying to push slavery on beyond anything that it should have been through. We don't need to end the Democratic Party. We just need to work together in the present. That doesn't mean we can't disagree. We do all the time. Let's stop the race baiting. Let's look at the example of the victims' families in Charleston, South Carolina, and say: Wow, there are incredible believers and followers of Jesus Christ. That is somebody we can emulate. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate the gentleman's observations. Frankly, Mr. Speaker, I knew when I stood with Mr. Rothfus in the Senate Chamber in recent years past, in support of a filibuster, that I would enjoy standing with him on other occasions, and I appreciate so much his observations. Mr. Speaker, I just want to finish with this observation from John Adams, 1776 July. He is writing to Abigail. In the last paragraph, he writes: ``You will think me transported with enthusiasm''--in talking about the Declaration of Independence--``but I am not. I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost to maintain this Declaration and support and defend these States. Yet, through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is worth more than all the means, that posterity will triumph in that day's transaction even though we may regret it, which I trust in God we shall not.'' For this to stand as a country, as a democratic Republic as created, it takes courage and it takes integrity, and we didn't get that from the Supreme Court today. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Rothfus), my friend.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it has been a big day over at the Supreme Court and a big day for the Constitution as the Constitution has taken a rather profound hit. I understand the rules, Mr. Speaker. The rules are made clear. We will not impugn anybody's integrity and office up here, so I am not talking about an individual, I am talking about how completely dishonest, disingenuous, and how much affront to the Constitution and pure candor the majority's opinion is at the Supreme Court. Nothing is more of an indictment against the majority opinion than at the end of the opinion itself. The majority indicted themselves with their own words. At the end of the majority opinion, the majority says, ``In a democracy, the power to make the law rests with those chosen by the people. Our role is more confined''--and then quotes from Marbury v. Madison--``to say what the law is.'' The Court today goes on to say: ``That is easier in some cases than in others. But in every case we must respect the role of the legislature, and take care not to undo what it has done. A fair reading of legislation demands a fair understanding of the legislative plan. ``Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them. If at all possible, we must interpret the Act in a way that is consistent with the former, and avoids the latter. Section 36B can fairly be read consistent with what we see as Congress' plan, and that is the reading we adopt.'' The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit is affirmed. That majority opinion is an indictment of the majority. The Constitution is worthless--absolutely worthless--when we have a majority of the Supreme Court that makes up law or in this case says: Do you know what? We know what Congress passed, we have read it, and we get it. It makes exceedingly clear that unless a State sets up a State exchange for health care, then that State will be punished by not getting subsidies. That was debated, and that was included by the majority of the House and Senate without a single Republican vote, not a single Republican vote. As the former chair of Ways and Means told some of our Members: We don't need your vote, and we don't want your input. They did it as one party, jamming this down the throats of the Republican Party and the majority of the American people. That is why they lost the majority in November 2010. They made it very clear. If you don't set up a State exchange, you don't get the subsidies in your State. God bless all the States that stood up and said: No, this is wrong. A majority of the American people didn't want this. You passed this without any input from nearly a majority of the constituents that are represented by Republicans. You didn't care that it was the most partisan a bill that has ever passed in Congress. You didn't care. You forced it. It is bad for Americans, and we are not going to help you by setting up a State exchange. Yes, we understand the law is very clear. Our State doesn't get the subsidies from the Federal Government--those are called bribes to be more literal--our State won't get the bribes that you throw back at us that came from our taxpayers if we don't set up the State exchanges. We understand that. So what happens? The people that passed that bill and the President that helped pass the bill and forced it through and signed it realized they had made a major mistake, and rather than come and get Republicans to fix the disaster they had created, the President who had indicated he has a pen and he has a phone, decided: That allows me to make law, create new law, and change law completely that I have already signed into law because I got a pen and a phone, I can just change it upon my whim. The President basically decided, through his administration, they decided that they would set up Federal exchanges. Even though the law was very unequivocal, those States get no subsidies. They decided we better start giving them subsidies. If I sound sensitive about this, Mr. Speaker, it is because I am. This disaster of a healthcare bill that costs so many of my constituents the health insurance they liked because they were lied to every time they were told by anybody if you like your policy you can keep it, that was a lie, and when people were told, Nobody that is in this country illegally will ever get insurance under ObamaCare, that was a lie. When they were told, If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, no matter who told it to them, that was a lie. They were all lies. We found out later they talked about it within the White House and decided: Well, the best thing to do is not to tell everybody that they stand a good chance of losing their own health insurance and losing their doctor and losing their hospital and losing their particular policy that may keep them alive. Let's don't tell them that. Let's just say, if you like your doctor, if you like your health care, you can keep it. The bill passed. It was a bad bill, and now, we have a Supreme Court that has entered into the fiction and the fraud that this opinion can somehow act like the law was equivocal when it was very unequivocal. God bless Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas at the--well, the minority opinion, as it says here, I have a copy of the whole opinion, including the dissent, Justice Scalia with Justice Thomas and Justice Alito join, dissenting. That dissent starts by saying the Court holds that when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act says ``exchanges established by the State,'' it means ``exchanges established by the State or the Federal Government.'' That is, of course, quite absurd, and the Court's 21 pages of explanation make it no less so. The dissenting opinion also states in answer to the question of whether someone who buys insurance on an exchange established by the Secretary gets the tax credit, he says: ``You would think the answer would be obviously.'' Obviously, there would hardly be a need for the Supreme Court to hear a case about it. In order to receive any money under section 36B, an individual must enroll in an insurance plan through ``an exchange established by the State.'' The Secretary of Health and Human Services is not a State. Further down, he says: ``Words no longer have meaning if an exchange that is not established by a State is `established by the State.' '' Further down he quotes: ``The plain, obvious, and rational meaning of a statute is always to be preferred to any curious, narrow, hidden sense that nothing but the exigency of a hard case and the ingenuity and study of an acute and powerful intellect would discover.'' That quote is from Lynch v. Alworth-Stephens Company. Under all the usual rules of interpretation, in short, the government should lose this case, but normal rules of interpretation seem always to yield to overriding principle of the present Court: the Affordable Care Act must be saved. Mr. Speaker, the trouble this Nation is in when we have a President who makes law at the sound of his voice, at the stroke of his pen, without going through Congress, and then that is aggravated exponentially by a Supreme Court that enters into the charade. As the Court said on page 5 of its dissent, adopting the Court's interpretations means nullifying the term ``by the State,'' not just once, but again and again throughout the act. It goes on to point out that the term ``by the State'' is mentioned seven times throughout the bill and that the majority on the Court, they could care less about the Constitution, they could care less about their oath. They feel their job is to uphold anything that this President and the former Democratic majority sent to them, regardless of how badly it requires them to ax the Constitution. Page 12 of the dissent says: ``For its next defense of the indefensible, the Court''--talking about the majority--``turns to the Affordable Care Act's design and purposes.'' Well, obviously, they need to turn to something because the law was very clear. To get the subsidies, a State had to set up an exchange. Page 13 of the dissent says: ``Having gone wrong in consulting statutory purpose at all, the Court goes wrong again in analyzing it.'' Page 15 of the dissent says: ``Compounding its errors, the Court forgets that it is no more appropriate to consider one of a statute's purposes in isolation than it is to consider one of its words that way.'' Page 16 of the dissent says: ``Worst of all, for the repute of today's decision, the Court's reasoning is largely self-defeating.'' It goes on to explain why. Page 18 of the dissent says: ``The Court's decision reflects the philosophy that judges should endure whatever interpretive distortions it takes in order to correct a supposed flaw in the statutory machinery. That philosophy ignores the American people's decision to give Congress `all legislative powers' enumerated in the Constitution, citing article I, section 1. They made Congress, not this Court, responsible for both making laws and mending them. ``This Court holds only the judicial power, the power to pronounce the law as Congress has enacted it. We lack the prerogative to repair laws that do not work out in practice, just as the people lack the ability to throw us out of office if they dislike the solutions we concoct. We must always remember, therefore, that our task is to apply the text, not to improve upon it.'' The dissent actually cites precedent for that very language. Trying to make its judge-empowering approach seem respectful of Congressional authority, the Court asserts that its decision merely ensures that the Affordable Care Act operates the way Congress meant it to operate. First of all, what makes the Court so sure that Congress meant tax credits to be available everywhere? Those are great questions that the dissent asks, even though they are rhetorical. The Supreme Court struck a blow for tyranny today. I predicted this for quite some time because when you have someone who is Solicitor General under the Obama administration and who has the job of advising--well, first of all, defending legislation and defending acts that the administration wanted defended in court, but of course, part of that means, as any good lawyer will tell you, that attorney that defends you in court must give you advice about that which he or she may have to defend in court. Either we had a Solicitor General go before the Senate and lie that there had never been any discussions about the Affordable Care Act, about ObamaCare, in the presence of the Solicitor General, or the Solicitor General was completely incompetent. Everybody that voted for that Solicitor General should have their heads examined because either a lie or incompetence should have been enough to keep a former Solicitor General from going on to the Supreme Court of the land. It didn't happen. That person went on the Court. It also is reprehensible for judges, Justices, on the Supreme Court to flaunt the law, disobey perhaps one of the most critical laws assigned to the court, in order to participate in an opinion in which they want to change the law. Apparently, since the Supreme Court didn't come down with a decision regarding same-sex marriage today, that should be coming out next week. So far, there has been no notice that the two Justices that perform same-sex weddings would be disqualifying themselves as 28 U.S.C. section 455 says. With your indulgence, Mr. Speaker, I have a chart. 28 U.S.C. section 455 says very clearly in A part--there is an A part that would disqualify judges, or Justices, and then there is a B part that may as well, but A is a certainty. ``Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself''--that can be male or female--``in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.'' That is the law. When we have two Supreme Court Justices that, so far, have given no indications of anything but that they are going to intentionally knowingly violate that law and participate in a majority opinion, then we have to wonder how much longer this little experiment in a democratic republic will last. I would submit not much longer. The laws of Moses, the Bible, helped found this country. When all seemed lost and nothing appeared to be agreeable to a majority in the constitutional convention, they took a recess to go worship God at the Reformed Calvinist church in Philadelphia. We still have part of what the preacher prayed, what he spoke. He seemed to make a real difference because they came back. As Alexander Hamilton noted--someone not noted for being spiritual--he noted that, clearly, the finger of God was involved in bringing together people that could not agree in such an incredible document. We turn our back once again today, as a majority of the Supreme Court did, on the clear meaning, clear statement of the law. So far, I hope and pray they will have a change of heart and not disobey the law in order to try to change law overriding State constitutions, as it may. I hope and pray they will have a change of heart and they will disqualify themselves, anyone on the Supreme Court, who clearly, not just might reasonably be questioned, but they clearly were biased and partial when it comes to same-sex marriage. Hopefully, they will disqualify themselves, and we will get an opinion by a more objective Court; but if they don't, we are looking at a constitutional crisis of incredible proportions. Does a country have to follow a law created out of whole cloth by a majority of unelected judges who violate the law itself in order to create new law? I think the answer is: No, you don't have to follow that kind of law. There is no question that the persecution of Christians who practice their religion, as set out in the Bible, will be forced to subject themselves to persecution, as this administration already has shown. It doesn't matter if you are a nun and you have devoted your entire life to helping the poor and the downtrodden, your little sister of the poor; it doesn't matter to this administration. They are going to drag you through the muck, through the devastation of having to go to court, all because you happen to believe what the Founders believed, the huge majority since, heck, over a third of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were actually ordained Christian ministers, and then the great work by churches to force the Constitution to mean what it said so that slavery was eliminated, the great work of an ordained Christian minister named Martin Luther King, Jr., in pushing the issue of civil rights for one and all, so that one day, hopefully, we can have people judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. The things Martin Luther King, Jr., believed in, that he was ordained and preached, the things those abolitionist churches believed with all their hearts, if the Supreme Court does what the indications are they will likely do, they would be persecuted for their beliefs, our very Founders would be persecuted for their beliefs. This isn't about slavery. We did away with that. It is tragic. No one, no matter what their sexual preference is, should be discriminated against; but when it comes to marriage, it is the building block, the foundational building block established by nature itself, by nature's God, by the law of Moses, the Moses imprint that exists above my head here in this Chamber, that exists on the southern wall of the chamber of the Supreme Court, and is the law as Jesus laid it out regarding marriage when he quoted Moses. We are coming into some difficult days, and I am afraid this decision today that mocks the law, both case law and the written law, we are coming into some difficult days. Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I enjoy hearing my friend from Texas, a former judge down in Houston, talk about love. I do love him as a Christian brother. We can disagree and still love each other. I have been surprised in recent years to find some of those of us who believe in the Book that used to be read here. It was a pretty common practice on the floor of the House on Sundays down in Statuary Hall, and even in this room, back when church services were held in the former House Chamber. It was attended by the man that first coined the phrase, ``separation of church and State.'' It is not in the Constitution. It was in his letter to the Danbury Baptists. He came to a nondenominational Christian worship service down the hall. Of course, Thomas Jefferson would even bring the Marine Band and have them play hymns. Because although he made clear he believed in separation of church and State, and used that phrase, he didn't see any problem with singing hymns and having the Marine Band play the hymns to accompany right here in the U.S. Capitol. I have been surprised in recent years at how prominent the Bible was in our founding, so much so that toward the end of June 1787, the Constitutional Convention was at wits' end, having a great deal of trouble, and Randolph from Virginia made a motion that they all convene together on the Nation's birthday and worship God together in services under the auspices of the Bible. They came back and were able to reach a conclusion that we call the Constitution. People like Alexander Hamilton said that clearly the finger of God was in that, and it all came into place after they worshipped the Lord and used the Bible in worship there in 1787. But it is amazing now, after the Bible was such a prominent part of our founding throughout our history, now those of us that believe what is in the Bible are the ones who are now discriminated against. I have suffered it right here in this town, not to the extent of being harmed physically, of course. Physical threats are not uncommon, but they were there when I was a judge as well. So I am just going to read without comment the Book that has been read in this Capitol throughout our history, Romans 1:16: For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written ``The righteous shall live by faith.'' For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppressed the truth and unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power, divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds, four-footed animals, crawling creatures. Therefore, God gave them over in the lust of their hearts to impurity that their bodies might be dishonored among them, for they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them over to degrading passions. For their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural; and in the same way, also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire for one another, men with men committing indecent acts. Because I believe the Scripture--love those who don't, love those because we have all sinned one way or another--there is no room to hate anybody that has sinned, because we all have. We have all fallen short. But I am sure my office, Mr. Speaker, will be getting nasty, angry, bitter calls, as we often do when we refer to the Bible that helped give us our founding. But that is what the Bible said, and I am deeply concerned that we have Supreme Court Justices, two of whom who have actually participated in same-sex weddings, thereby showing how biased and partial they are in favor of such things, against the dignity and history of marriage in the country, marriage in the Bible. It has been said many times here over our history, Moses said it came from God, that Moses, depicted right up above the center door, that a man shall leave his father and mother and a woman leave her home and the two will become one flesh. When Jesus was asked about marriage, he repeated it: For a man shall leave his father and mother, and a woman leave her home, and the two will become one flesh. And Jesus added: What God has joined together, let no man put asunder. So we have two Justices that have already indicated they believe otherwise than the law of Moses and Jesus, and they have shown themselves to be anything but impartial. So, under the law, 28 United States Code 455, it is mandatory, they shall disqualify themselves. And if it turns out that they sit in judgment on a case in which they are clearly disqualified and a part of the majority, that cannot possibly be a legitimate law change, judges substituting their law for the law that this country has utilized throughout its history. Yes, courts all over the country have substituted their judgment for State constitutions and laws. And for those who don't believe the Bible, you have got nothing to worry about. But the indications are, in Romans 1, God's protective hand will be withdrawn when we continue to abandon the Nation's founding. Thank God churches fought for, so many were involved in, the movement to make the Constitution mean just what it said. We really shouldn't have had to have a 14th Amendment. Everybody should have been equal under the law. But it took an amendment, took a civil rights movement, to apply it across the board. Now we have judges that will be oligarchs, as they have been, and they will be making decisions, rather than elected officials, and we will see how much longer the Nation lasts. There is no hate, just a broken heart in me, but I will be accused of being hatemonger this, hatemonger that. That is not the case. I would like to congratulate our own leadership, Mr. Speaker. This is The Hill: ``Obama Poised for Huge Win on Trade.'' I would like to congratulate our Speaker, our Republican leadership, for pushing through the trade deal, leader McConnell, down the hall. The President could not have gotten this ability to fast-track, to make deals that we won't know about, without the Republican leadership making that happen for him. Of course, nobody that I know of on the Republican side ran promising that we would get such ability for President Obama, but congratulations go there. Some people say I am not quick enough to congratulate my own Republican leadership. I mean, I have congratulated our Speaker before when he was chairman of the Education Committee. As President Bush cited in his book, our now-Speaker was very important, very instrumental in getting No Child Left Behind pushed through. Of course, when we won the majority in November 2010, got it back that December, deals were worked out that cost the country a lot of spending, raised the debt a great deal. Since then, although we continue to promise that we are going to do something about the debt, we continue to give the President almost a blank check. But congratulations on all these. Congratulations on enabling the President to make these kind of deals. Then we will see if this law, TPA, is finally one the President abides by and gives us notice, timely, as he hasn't done in so many other areas, like Guantanamo and releasing people from Guantanamo. But we have an article here, I guess, congratulations then would go to the Commander-in-Chief. Because I don't know that this would be the lion lying down with the lamb, if this lamb is the Iranian military- backed forces. But this article from Bloomberg, June 22, Josh Rogin and Eli Lake, says: The U.S. military and Iranian-backed Shiite militias are getting closer and closer in Iraq, even sharing a base, while Iran uses those militias to expand its influence in Iraq and fight alongside the Bashar al-Assad regime in neighboring Syria. Two senior administration officials confirmed to us the U.S. soldiers and Shiite militia groups are both using the Taqaddum military base in Anbar, the same Iraqi base where President Obama is sending an additional 450 U.S. military personnel to help train the local forces fighting against the Islamic State. Some of the Iran-backed Shiite militias at the base have killed American soldiers in the past. Some inside the Obama administration fear that sharing the base puts U.S. soldiers at risk. The U.S. intelligence community has reported back to Washington that representatives of some of the more extreme militias have been spying on U.S. operations at Taqaddum, one senior administration official told us. That could be calamitous if the fragile relationship between the U.S. military and the Shiite militia comes apart and Iran-backed forces decide to again target U.S. troops. American critics of this growing cooperation between the U.S. military and the Iranian-backed militias call it a betrayal of the U.S. personnel who fought against the militias during the 10-year U.S. occupation of Iraq. ``It's an insult to the families of the American soldiers that were wounded and killed in battles in which the Shia militias were the enemy,'' Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain told us. ``Now, providing arms to them and supporting them, it's very hard for those families to understand.'' The U.S. is not directly training Shiite units of what are known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, which include tens of thousands of Iraqis who have volunteered to fight against the Islamic State as well as thousands of hardened militants who ultimately answer to militia leaders loyal to Tehran. But the U.S. is flying close air support missions for those forces. The U.S. gives weapons directly only to the Iraqi Government and the Iraqi Security Forces, but the lines between them and the militias are blurry. U.S. weapons often fall into the hands of militias, like Iraqi Hezbollah. Sometimes the military cooperation is even more explicit. Commanders of some of the hard-line militias sit in on U.S. military briefings on operations that were meant for the government-controlled Iraqi Security Forces, a senior administration official said. This collaboration with terrorist groups that have killed Americans was seen as unavoidable as the U.S. marshaled Iraqis against the Islamic State, but could prove counterproductive to U.S. interests in the long term, this official said. The militias comprise largely Shiite volunteers and are headed by the leader of the Iraqi Hezbollah, Abu Mahdi al- Muhandis. He was sanctioned in 2009 by the Treasury Department for destabilizing Iraq. Al-Muhandis is a close associate of Qasem Suleimani, the Iranian Quds Force commander, who has snapped selfies with the militia leader at key battles. Other militias that have participated in the fighting against the Islamic State include the League of the Righteous which, in 2007, carried out a brutal roadside execution of five U.S. soldiers near Karbala. The group to this day boasts of its killing of U.S. soldiers. In an interview in February, a spokesman for the militia defended the killings and said his militia had killed many more American soldiers. Members of these groups have also been deployed by Iran to defend the Assad regime in neighboring Syria. James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, confirmed in a June 3 letter to seven Republican Senators, which we obtained, that ``Iran and Hezbollah have also leveraged allied Iraqi Shia militant and terrorist groups, which receive training in Iran, to participate in the pro-Assad operations.'' The militias also stand accused of gross human rights abuses and battlefield atrocities in Sunni areas where they have fought. The State Department heavily criticized Iran's support for the Iraqi militias and those militias' behavior in its annual report on worldwide terrorism, released last week. Further down: With the deadline approaching for a nuclear deal that would place up to $150 billion in the hands of Iran, the U.S. is now openly acknowledging in its annual report on international terrorism that Iran is supporting a foreign legion, comprising Afghans, Iraqis, and Lebanese fighters to defend Iranian interests throughout the Middle East. But the U.S. response to this is inconsistent. In Iraq, America is fighting alongside Iranian-backed militias. In Syria, U.S.-supported forces are fighting against those same militias. The tragedy of this policy is that the Islamic State has been able to hold and expand its territory in Iraq and Syria, while Iran has been able to tighten its grip on Baghdad. Then another article from Daniel Horowitz, Conservative Review: Anyone who visits Walter Reed Hospital will immediately see the irrevocable destruction of Hezbollah. Thousands of our troops have been incapacitated and mangled by IEDs from Hezbollah and other Shiite groups in Iraq, all funded by Obama's ally, Iran. Anyone who was around in 1983 will remember the 241 American servicemen who were killed in the Hezbollah terror attack in Beirut. Guess what Obama is doing with them? Eli Lake reports at Bloomberg News that our troops are sharing a base with Hezbollah-controlled Shiite forces, and we are bailing them out of their humiliating loss to the Islamic State. The article goes on, but it is just exceedingly tragic; but it explains why the President has been unable to state that we have a clear strategy in the Middle East because, on the one hand, we have had the United States military give their lives fighting against the tyranny and the atrocities of Hezbollah. On the other hand, we now have the President, the Commander in Chief, who commands over our forces that he has put in the same camp with Hezbollah. The hope, apparently, of the administration is, even though they are still bragging in Hezbollah about killing American soldiers, that maybe by having them camp in the same camp, they won't be killing them now. You have got to love that optimism. As we see the Commander in Chief's troops being forced to come together with people like Hezbollah--that want to kill them, have killed them, have maimed them, Hezbollah is clearly supported by Iran-- then we get this, ``AP Exclusive: Document outlines big-power nuke help to Iran,'' George Jahn, dated today, from Vienna. The United States and other nations negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran are ready to offer high-tech reactors and other state-of-the-art equipment to Tehran if it agrees to crimp programs that can make atomic bombs, according to a confidential document obtained Tuesday by the Associated Press. The draft document--one of several technical appendixes meant to accompany the main text of any deal--has dozens of bracketed texts where disagreements remain. Technical cooperation is the least controversial issue at the talks, and the number of brackets suggest the sides have a ways to go not only on the topic but also more contentious disputes with little more than a week until the June 30 deadline for a deal. With that deadline looming, Iran's top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Tuesday rejected a long-term freeze on nuclear research and supported banning international inspectors from accessing military sites. Khamenei, in comments broadcast on Iranian state television, also said Iran will sign a final deal provided all economic sanctions now in Iran are first lifted--in a sign the Islamic Republic may be toughening its stance ahead of the deadline. In any event, that is great news. Of course, the Senate and House passed a bill that turned requirements for authorization of treaties upside down. Instead of having two-thirds of the Senate required to approve a deal, we have flipped it. Now, it will take two-thirds of a vote in the House and Senate to disapprove a deal. That makes it easier for the President to give Iran the nuclear reactors they are hoping. Mr. Speaker, I brought this up in past years; but here, in negotiating with Iran, one of our lead negotiators was the same person who was involved in the Clinton administration negotiations with North Korea, where they cut this wonderful deal basically saying, in essence, we will give you nuclear reactors for power if you will just promise that you won't use them to make nuclear weapons. This dishonest, evil leader said: All you want is a promise from a dishonest leader that I won't use them to make nukes? Sure, I will promise you that. Bring on the nuclear power plants. Those came, and they were converted. Now, North Korea is helping with parts of the evil empire to develop nuclear weapons of their own. When you have somebody involved in that kind of deal with North Korea sent to negotiate with Iran, we should have known that this would be coming: Hey, we will give you nuclear reactors. We will help you make it happen. We just don't want you to use them to make nuclear weapons. Since Iran has been--at least the leaders have been so evil in the way they have pursued Israel, in the way they have pursued Americans, continuing to brag about killing Americans, I don't think anybody should really be surprised if this deal gets cut and then Iran goes ahead and uses what we provide them or the P5+1 provides them in order to make nuclear weapons more quickly than they could have without this kind of deal. But ``congratulations'' again go to the Republican leaders in the House and Senate for pushing through the authority for the President to have the ability to make these kinds of deals. Who says I can't be magnanimous and thank Republican leaders? I hope the American public will wake up and understand, the deal that has been negotiated is deadly to our ally Israel; it is deadly to the United States. Make it clear that any party that hopes to have any chance of having a President elected from their party better not be part of the deal with Iran because it is going to get more Americans and Israelis killed. Mr. Speaker, 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, it has been a tough week, for all Christians in the country have lost three brothers and six sisters in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. The whole country mourns--well, probably not everybody. Evil has those who support it and wallow in it, as did the evil perpetrator of the killings. Our prayers continue to go out to the immediate family members and to the church family members for their peace and for their comfort because those of us who are believers know that those we have lost are at the foot of the Saviour in Paradise. I learned today that the President will be going to speak at the funeral. I recall a speech in Arizona, and so as I encouraged our prayer caucus tonight, we should be praying for the President to be a uniter as he speaks. I thought about the way a great President named Abraham Lincoln concluded his second inaugural address. The war was not over; there was great hatred and bitterness. Of course, he mentioned in his inaugural address--talking about North and South--both read the same Bible, both pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. He goes on to give what is one of the great theological treatises on the nature of God; he quotes from the Old Testament a couple of times, but with all the killing that occurred during the Civil War, he ended trying to encourage uniting. I know there are those who advise the President that he should not let a good crisis go to waste, but for many of us, the hope and prayer is that at this week's funeral, he will be a uniter. Mr. Speaker, President Lincoln closed his second inaugural with the words: ``With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the Nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.'' Mr. Speaker, that was a man who sought to unite, who knew there was a Heavenly Father to Whom we could pray and Who would answer our prayers. I hope and pray that will be the outcome at the funeral of my brothers and sisters in Charleston, South Carolina. Of course, then there is the judge side of me. Having sentenced people both to prison and to death, the judge side of me says, from what we know, it sure cries out for the death penalty, but we will let the justice system in South Carolina take care of that. In the meantime, as we think about injustice, it is also hard not to think of our friends and our allies in Israel who have trouble finding any friends. They are persecuted on every side. We got this report from the U.N., an article talking about it from Marissa Newman of The Times of Israel: ``Israel slams `politically motivated and morally flawed' U.N. Gaza report.'' The article says: ``Israel on Monday said it would `seriously' evaluate the United Nations Human Rights Council inquiry on the Gaza conflict, while politicians from left and right slammed the international body for bias and declared that the international investigators lacked access to evidence.'' The article goes on down further: `` `The report is biased,' said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in response. `Israel is not perpetrating war crimes but rather protecting itself from an organization that carries out war crimes. We won't sit back with our arms crossed as our citizens are attacked by thousands of missiles.' '' The article says: ``The Human Rights Council `in practice does everything but worry about human rights,' the prime minister charged. `The commission spends more time condemning Israel than Iran, Syria and North Korea put together.' '' It seems that these are the times that cry out for a moral, pragmatic, and unified response to the anti-Semitism that is growing-- it is just unbelievable--in Europe and in the United States colleges and universities. It is incredible. Mr. Speaker, the Bible talks about times when right will be wrong and wrong will be right; perhaps we are entering such an era. A country like Israel is under attack from virtually every front, every side; and Palestinians, radical Islamists, and Iranians declare that they will see that it is annihilated. Their leaders make statements such as ``we are glad that they are gathered in Israel so that we can annihilate them all at once,'' and the U.N. basically sees somehow level parties on the same plane: terrorists and people who promote democratic beliefs and carry them out, allow people to vote, believe in the rights of women, and believe in equal rights. Israel is a place where Muslims can freely vote and don't have to worry about a radical Islamist killing them if he or she doesn't believe and perform exactly like their radical Islamist leader tells them to. The article says that the Israeli Foreign Ministry also castigated the U.N. Human Rights Council investigation for failing to distinguish between the Israeli military and Hamas: ``It is regrettable that the report fails to recognize the profound difference between Israel's moral behavior during Operation Protective Edge and the terror organizations it confronted.'' ``Likud minister Yuval Steinitz compared the conflict to a Palestinian suicide bomber commandeering a bus full of Palestinian civilians and ramming it into an Israeli tank. `Many Palestinian civilians would die,' he told Army Radio. `But that doesn't mean the tank is to blame.' The U.N. panel's approach was `absurd,' he said, in that it would require Israel not to fire back when terrorists fire at its civilians `because the terrorists are hiding behind their civilians.' ``Steinitz also said the U.N. Human Rights Commission's obsessive focus on Israel points to anti-Semitism. Asked whether Israel would have done better to cooperate with the panel, he said, `You can't explain to people who are not prepared to listen.' ``Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid also rejected the idea that Israel should have cooperated, saying the panel had drawn its conclusions before it even began its probe.'' It goes on to discuss the report from the so-called Human Rights Council. The United Nations Human Rights Council is an abomination. It should be an affront as it is an outrage to anyone who cares about human rights. What has happened at the United Nations? We have had so many nations join the United Nations that don't care about human rights, and they don't care about women. Of course, they are so brutal in the treatment of those who would oppose it, that apparently it scares off feminist groups who are afraid to attack those who really are inhumane in their treatment of women, enough so the feminist liberal groups are afraid to take them on. Hopefully, some day, they will gain the courage to see where women are truly being abused in horrendous ways, and they will join with some of the rest of us in trying to stop that, instead of going after Christian groups or groups who believe that everyone, once conceived, should have a right to live. Maybe if some of those groups quit attacking those who are pro-life and spent a little time attacking those who are true abusers of women, then we would find common footing, and we would be able to work better together. There is another article here from Anne Bayefsky. This one is headlined: ``U.N. report denies Israel's right of self-defense, advocates arrest of Israelis instead.'' It really is outrageous, and the United States, as has been suggested by some writers, should withdraw from participation in the Human Rights Commission. The ICC, International Criminal Court, obviously from its actions and its efforts, is quite anti-Semitic. The United States has no business supporting the efforts of those who support the effort and abuse of Israelis and the effort to eliminate them from off of the globe. Mr. Speaker, if there had been an Israel during the Holocaust, Jews would have had a place to go, and there would not have been 6 million killed in the Holocaust. This is no time for anyone who cares about world peace and the avoidance of suffering to stand up and decry Israel. This is a time to stand with Israel. Israel is an actual democratic republic in the middle of the Middle East that respects women like no nation around in the Middle East and supports the value of life and private property. How in the world are we not a better friend to them? I would like to see, as some writers have suggested, that we withdraw from anything that might lend our support to the International Criminal Court because of its anti-Semitic views. Mr. Speaker, I realized, as I was reading these articles about additional anti-Semitic efforts by the United Nations, that the U.N. has been overtaken by so many countries that don't believe in human rights for their people. Many of them, they are abusive, have no problem with torturing those with whom they disagree, have no problem killing people who convert from, for example, Islamic beliefs to Christian beliefs--get the death penalty in some of these countries. You know, it is time to begin a new organization of democratic republics that respect the rights of women, men, children, and who have fair elections. Let's have an international community like that. Let's have an international group that, when it speaks, it is not with blood dripping off of the votes of its members. It would mean something. A human rights commission, for example, for a while had Libya as the head. Are you kidding me? This is outrageous. Mr. Speaker, I realized, in reviewing these articles, I have not yet filed the bill that I normally file, the U.N. Voting Accountability Act. What I have learned around this body is, if you keep filing a bill long enough, even if it requires somebody else putting their name on it to get it to the floor, you get that done; you get it passed, and you don't care who gets the credit. The U.N. Voting Accountability bill is very simple. It basically says any nation that votes against the United States more than half of the time in the preceding year would get no assistance from the United States of any kind whatsoever. As I have said for years, you don't have to pay people to hate you. They will do it for free. It is still true. It is time to leave that money here. It is time for this administration to stop sending weapons that it knows have continuously fallen in the hands of the Islamic State and made it extremely difficult for the courageous Kurdish fighters to fight and defeat the radical Islamic State. Let's start sending those weapons directly to the Kurds. Baghdad is not letting them get them. They cannot easily defeat the weapons, the up-armored vehicles, the things that we have sent that we knew ultimately were falling into Islamic State hands. As some Muslim friends, leaders in Middle Eastern states have continued to ask: Why is it that the United States administration keeps helping the Muslim Brotherhood? Don't they know that is who is at war with the United States? They ask: Why do you keep helping your enemies? It is time that we quit helping our enemies. It is time that we help those here at home. I applaud our conference passing the bills we did tonight. One is going to make it easier for seniors to get access to the health care that ObamaCare has made it very difficult for them to get, so there is some good news. Our prayers continue so that, by the end of the week, there will be even better news. Mr. Speaker, 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, we had an interesting vote today on the trade agreement, and I know my friends at Club for Growth have scored that. They wanted people to vote ``yes'' because they believed, as some have said, it is about free trade; but it is a bit ironic for those who follow politics because, on the one hand, Republicans were being told this will allow us to force the President to keep us apprised, to give us notice of what is going on so that we can reign anything in that is not helpful to the country. I didn't have that impression of the bill, not when reading the TPA, not going to the classified setting. I mean, I did that; I read the TPP, most of it. Having been a lawyer and a judge, prosecutor, done defense, a chief justice, I have litigated a lot of loopholes. There are a lot of loopholes in that TPP. There were loopholes in the TPA. One of my Democratic friends was telling me, Mr. Speaker, that he was being told that the whole reason the President came up here is that, by passing this trade agreement, it is going to allow the President to get his agenda done in the next 18 months without Congress being able to stop him. Some of my Democratic friends prefer that Congress have more say than that, and some were not happy with the proposal at all. They also were smart enough to know there are a lot of American jobs that will be lost because of that bill. I am not an isolationist. I believe in free trade, but I don't believe in free rein for a President. I am afraid that is what it will do, and that is why I had to vote ``no'' once again. But it passed, and now, we will see if what some of my Democratic friends were told is accurate in that the bill will allow the President to achieve his agenda without Republicans being able to stop him. It appears that way to me, in reading the bills, that he has got enough loopholes he can take advantage of. Plus, even without loopholes, there is a requirement of notification. He was required to notify us before he released anybody from Guantanamo. He didn't do it. He went ahead and released five of the worst murderers in return for a guy who is, we are told, about to be charged with desertion. The President doesn't seem to be bogged down by having to follow the law, but I am impressed with my friends who think--but, yes--if we pass one more law that makes him give us notice, after 6\1/2\ years of his not keeping us apprised as the law requires, this time, we think he really, really will. I am impressed with that kind of optimism, even though the old expression here in Washington is, no matter how cynical you get, it is never enough to catch up. Sometimes, I think there is merit to that. In any event, Mr. Speaker, there is an issue even far more important than trade that is about to hit this country. It could create a constitutional crisis of proportions that some of the Justices on the Supreme Court can't imagine. Mr. Speaker, I blew up the law. This is the law. It is not an ethical requirement. I mean, having been a prosecutor, a defense--heck, I was even court- appointed to appeal a capital murder conviction. I don't know how many here on the floor have appealed a capital murder conviction. I begged the judge not to appoint me, but he did anyway, and when I got into the thousands of pages of records, I found out he had not gotten a fair trial. I fought for him in the highest court in Texas and got the death penalty reversed. Some clients felt like I was a pretty good lawyer. I was told before I went on the bench that I got the only jury verdict against what was then the largest oil company in the world. I don't know if it was or is. That is what I was told. I know something about practicing law, and I know something about being a judge. I know that, with any case in which the public would suspect that I could not be impartial, I would have to recuse myself. Sometimes, judges will just recuse themselves so they don't have to make a tough call--I never did that--but there are times when you have such a strong opinion about a matter that you have no business sitting on that case. Now, ethical requirements would insist that a judge conduct his performance as a judge in such a way that it comports with the requirements of the canons of ethics. However, this isn't an ethical violation that would get you a letter from some bar president or from somebody saying: We think you violated the canons of ethics. This isn't it. This is United States law. This is the law of the land. This is part A. Part B goes into some different possibilities when a judge might have to recuse him or herself, but it is volume 28 of the United States Code, section 455, and section A doesn't have any subparts to it like B does. B is, like I say, other examples where the judge might have to recuse himself, but A is unequivocal. ``Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall''--that is a ``shall''--``disqualify himself''--generic, male or female--``in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.'' This is not some model code of ethics. This is the United States law. No one in the country, including on the United States Supreme Court, is supposed to be above the law. As we have talked about, we have two Justices who have performed same-sex marriages. In fact, the article by Greg Richter, May 18 of 2015, is quoting from Maureen Dowd in her article in which Maureen Dowd writes regarding Justice Ginsburg: ``With a sly look and special emphasis on the word 'Constitution,' Justice Ginsburg said that she was pronouncing the two men married by the powers vested in her by the Constitution of the United States.'' Now, there is no question that Justice Ginsburg is biased, prejudiced. She has her own opinion about this matter. She has had her opinion about this. That was clear in the first same-sex marriage she performed. For her not to disqualify herself is a violation of the law of the United States; yet we are told that Justice Ginsburg is not going to recuse herself, that she wants to be part of a majority opinion. What happens when someone who is disqualified for sitting on a case sits on a case anyway in order to use her partial, biased position to bring about a majority opinion? It would certainly seem that that would be an illegal act, not criminal--this isn't criminal law--but it is an illegal act for someone to violate this law. Then, of course, we also had Justice Kagan as mentioned in the fall of last year, in September of last year, in The Hill, when Peter Sullivan reported: ``'Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan officiated a same-sex wedding on Sunday,' a court spokeswoman told the Associated Press. ``The ceremony in Maryland for a former law clerk is the first same- sex wedding that Kagan has performed. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor have performed same-sex weddings in the past. ``Gay marriage,'' the article reads, ``has been a divisive topic at the Supreme Court as it has been elsewhere in the country.'' The article reads: ``The Court could decide as early as this month whether to take up the issue again in the coming session, this time to consider a more sweeping ruling declaring a right to same-sex marriage across the country. ``Ginsburg said last week that, unless an appeals court allows a gay marriage ban to stand, `there is no need for us to rush' on a Supreme Court ruling.'' But they took the case up, and now, we are told they are going to rule by June 30 of this month. Clearly, Justice Kagan is disqualified. She has had a profound opinion. It reads ``in which the impartiality might reasonably be questioned.'' There are different standards of evidence in the law. Some States use different burdens of proof. You can have more likely than not if it is a group, like on a jury, one more than half. If there is a preponderance of the evidence that it is more likely than not, then you find that way. Probable cause is an issue that has an evidentiary requirement. It has got to be, probably, something is likely or has occurred, a preponderance of the evidence. I mentioned that ``beyond a reasonable doubt'' is what most criminal courts have before you can find someone guilty. Evidence must be beyond a reasonable doubt. There are some courts that use a standard called ``clear and convincing evidence.'' This United States law doesn't use any of those standards. It is a very weak threshold before a judge or a Justice must disqualify himself. He must disqualify himself. I hated the fact that Justice Scalia, some years back, had to disqualify himself, but he had already had an opinion expressed about, I believe it was, the Pledge of Allegiance. He could not be sure that it wouldn't end up as a 4-4 decision, which meant the ninth circuit decision would stand, which struck down ``under God'' in the pledge, as I recall, but he disqualified himself. Justice Scalia followed 28 USC 455. He disqualified himself because his judgment--his impartiality--might reasonably be questioned. It appeared that he was partial, that he had an opinion in the case, so he disqualified himself. That is acting in accordance with the law. Mr. Speaker, I keep coming back to this. It is a matter of a constitutional crisis when the Highest Court in the land not merely strikes down and says that their opinion is more important than Moses', depicted up there in the center point of this room, more important than Moses', depicted in the marble wall over the Supreme Court, holding the Ten Commandments. The Supreme Court says theirs is more important than the opinions established and stated by Jesus Christ when he said--and he was quoting Moses--that a man shall leave his mother and father, a woman leave her home, and the two will come together and be one flesh, and what God has joined together, let no man put asunder. That is the law of God according to Moses. It is the law of God according to Jesus. It is tough enough if you have a United States Supreme Court which, back in the 1890s, said this is clearly a Christian nation. Despite what any opinions may be, the evidence established. This country was established as a Christian nation. The great thing is that, if a nation is established on Judeo- Christian beliefs, it allows anybody to live here and to function here and to do so without impediment to one's beliefs because one can be an atheist, an agnostic, a Buddhist, a Muslim. You can be any of those things, as long as you are not trying to take over the country like some would like to do. But otherwise, by basing a country on Judeo-Christian beliefs, we have provided more freedom for individuals than any nation in the history of the world. And yet we may have an ultimate crisis here when a Court says our opinion is more important than God, if there is one, more important than Moses, more important than Jesus. Our opinion is not only more important than those people, but it is the law of the land, and it is so important that our opinion count that we are going to violate the law ourselves in order to force our opinion--clearly what it is--our opinion on the United States of America. I don't want anybody to be prejudiced against anybody else. I was sick to my stomach this morning hearing about the shooting in Charleston, South Carolina. This evil perpetrator killed my brothers and sisters. We are brothers and sisters in Christ. Skin color does not matter one bit. He killed my brothers and sisters. I hope America joins me in mourning. I know the people on both sides of this aisle do. At our prayer breakfast this morning, we prayed and will continue to pray for the families of those who were lost. Those Christians, we as Christians believe, as Jesus told the thief beside him: This day you will be in paradise with Me. We believe they are better off than any of us here in the United States or on Earth. Because of their beliefs, we believe they are in paradise with Jesus himself, with the Lord, but it is the terrible wake they leave behind that is so tragic. State senator, from all accounts a good man, not only a Christian brother, but a really good man, pastor. Three men, six women. So our hearts go out to them. We don't want anybody to be prejudiced against anybody. But when it comes to the founding block, the foundation of any solid society, it doesn't matter what relationships exist. It doesn't matter who loves or is friends with whom. As a Christian, I think I can love most everybody. There are a few it is kind of tough, but most everybody. I have got some Democrats over here. I love them. They are just wonderful people. They are wrong on issues, but I love them. They are great folks. There is no animus. But when it comes to the foundation of this Nation, the home, a mother and a father, regardless of what other relationships may exist between siblings, between anybody else, what matters is you don't destroy the central building block. I was intrigued when the Iowa Supreme Court back in 2009 didn't use these words, but basically said there is no evidence in nature to indicate a preference of a marriage being between a man and a woman. It was clear the people of Iowa spoke--I love those folks. They were awesome. They came out, and for the first time since the up-or-down retention vote started, I understand, in 1960 or 1962 or so, they threw out the judges that were up for reelection because the vast majority in Iowa knew that is ridiculous. Nature makes very clear that you start a family, whether you keep both a mother and father, things happen. There are so many of our greatest Americans have arisen from orphanages or from single-parent homes, but still it doesn't get away from the optimum being nature says you are best off if you have a mother and father. They can produce children. Yes, you can adopt children, sure, but that is where nature comes in and says, yeah, but the optimum is a mother and a father in a home. I know there are some who are involved in same-sex marriage. They are not able to love as I do. They hate anybody that disagrees with them. There are some that can love me, though we disagree. I hope that the continued hatred that has been growing among some in the same-sex community can be tamped down, but this is an issue that is foundational to any society that is going to maintain strength, going to maintain viability for a long time into the future rather than show we just crossed another milestone on our way to the dustbin of history. This is something that is important to our society, to our foundation. Let's love everybody. Let's use law enforcement to stop those like the evil perpetrator in Charleston, like the leftwinger I think it was in North Carolina that killed the Muslims. There is no call for that. The man needs to go to prison. In Texas, we would say it is a multiple murder. I would say you need to get the death penalty for killing more than one Muslim. There is no place for that. But again, when it comes to the optimum home, a loving mother and father can procreate, adopt, but regardless of who agrees or disagrees, this is going to be a civilization changer, and it is not going to be for the better. We are going to continue our divisiveness and destructiveness when the highest Court in the land has Justices that say: My opinion is so much more important than the Bible, Moses, Jesus. My opinion is so much more valuable that I am going to violate the law; I am going to break the law so I can sit on this opinion, so the country can have my forced opinion on it. I know there are Christian leaders, some are ready to capitulate, but there are some that won't. But we are now to the point, Steve King and I and some others, addressed back when the hate crime bill was being discussed, that we are going to lead to the point where you ultimately persecute, eventually prosecute people because of their beliefs about sexuality. People then were wrong because they couldn't see the future, but this is where we have come. Now, if you hold the same beliefs that David Axelrod says the President didn't, but he said it in order to get elected, that a marriage is a man and a woman, you hold that belief that most Americans have held and still hold, that the Founders all held regardless of their sexuality, they believed a family, marriage at least, was a man and a woman, that that was foundational. So I am not sure what is going to happen in this country. I don't have that kind of crystal ball. But I know if we have two or three Justices who are clearly disqualified, who have clearly indicated--not only raised questions as to whether they could be reasonably questioned as to their impartiality, they made clear they are very, very partial. I don't know what happens, but it isn't going to be good at all. Justice Sotomayor has made statements that indicate she has an opinion before this case was decided. So, Mr. Speaker, I hope scholars will look carefully at this and they will understand, if Supreme Court Justices violate the law in order to change the law dramatically, as they want to do, is that a valid law? I don't believe it is. If they break the law in order to make the law, it is a void law. They need to recuse themselves and let an impartial group on the Court make the decision. It should be left to the States anyway. It is probably sufficient grounds for impeachment for a Supreme Court Justice to violate the law so that they can force their will upon the American people to push through their legislative agenda even though they are not legislators. Probably impeachment would be in order. If they break the law in order to change dramatically the law, they shouldn't be on the Supreme Court. It is my hope and prayer they will do the legal thing, recuse themselves before the Court makes its final decision with regard to marriage. If they don't, they will go down in legitimate American history books as being exceedingly destructive, and history will note that they violated the law in order to change the law so that it would be the way they wanted, not with a constitutional amendment, not through a legislative process, not by a constitutional convention that article V provides for. They just had the feeling that they wanted to tinker with over 200 years of law and foundational societal structure and force America to abide by their legislative agenda. Again, I just can't get over that. If they don't disqualify themselves, they will violate the law to try to change the law with the agenda they have made clear that they have. So, Mr. Speaker, I hope Americans will join me in not only hoping, but praying that their hearts will be touched, that they will decide not to act illegally, that they will be moved toward acting lawfully, disqualify themselves, and let us get a proper opinion from the Supreme Court. 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, this week, there will be important decisions made here on the House of Representatives' floor. We are told, this month, the Supreme Court may well play God and overrule what has been considered to be the house of God, as given by Moses, for the dramatic amount of history, including up through the President's own statement that he believed marriage was just between a man and a woman. When he was running for office, apparently, according to his campaign manager or whatever he is--whatever he was--he felt he wouldn't get elected if he said what he really believed. Nonetheless, in 6\1/2\ years, we are told things have changed to the point we are now in a position to overrule what Moses said, which is that a man will leave his father and mother and a woman leave her home and the two will come together. That would be marriage--Moses, who is the only full-faced profile above us in the gallery, with the side profiles of all of the great lawgivers, the greatest lawgivers as they were thought to be years ago. I will also note that, as I sat and listened to the Supreme Court's entertaining arguments on whether or not Texas could keep our monument dedicated to the Ten Commandments on our State campgrounds--and it was joined with a case from Kentucky on whether they could keep their Ten Commandments that were posted inside the door--and as they were arguing about whether or not the Ten Commandments could be attributed in that manner, I looked up on the marble wall to my right in the Supreme Court's chambers, and there was Moses, looking down with both tablets of the Ten Commandments, looking down--interesting, very interesting. It is the kind of mental gymnastics that have been played in the Supreme Court throughout its history. We know Dred Scott was a dreadful decision, and there have been others that were poor. Sometimes, in being human, they get them right, and sometimes, they get them wrong; but there is one thing that is very, very, very clear, and it is in the United States Code. It is United States law. It is volume 28 of the United States Code, section 455, and section (a) is very clear: ``Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall''--no room for question--``disqualify himself''-- that is generic, meaning mankind; it could be male or female--``in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.'' That is the law, and the only way that we can remain a nation that believes in the rule of law is if the courts that decide whether a law can stand or must fall abide by the laws that apply to them. If the highest court in the United States blatantly violates the law and especially blatantly violates the law in deciding a case, then is it really law that they have made if they have violated the law to create it? In knowing that the law is very clear, a United States Supreme Court Justice ``shall disqualify him or herself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.'' Then we must look next to see if there are any indications of partiality on the part of any of the Supreme Court Justices. Here is an article that was published by foxnews.com back on September 1, 2013, and it reads the following: ``Two months after the Supreme Court's landmark ruling to expand Federal recognition of same- sex marriages, striking down part of an anti-gay marriage law, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg officiated at a same-sex wedding. ``The officiating is believed to be a first for a member of the Nation's highest court. ``Ginsburg officiated Saturday at the marriage of Kennedy Center President Michael Kaiser and John Roberts, a government economist.'' I was just out at the Kennedy Center this weekend--it may be the only weekend; I am here in Washington all year--and was delighted to be there. Apparently, if Michael Kaiser is still the president, he is doing what appears to be an excellent job there. Further down in the article, it is quoting Justice Ginsburg, and it reads: `` `I think it will be one more statement that people who love each other and want to live together should be able to enjoy the blessings and the strife in the marriage relationship,' Ginsburg told The Washington Post in an interview. `` `It won't be long before there will be another' performed by a Justice. She has another ceremony planned for September.'' The last line--it is not the last of the article--but it reads: ``Justices generally avoid taking stands on political issues.'' The rest of the article goes on: ``While hearing arguments in the case in March, Ginsburg argued for treating marriages equally. The rights associated with marriage are pervasive, she said.'' Anyway, it reads further down: ``Before the Court heard arguments on the Defense of Marriage Act, Ginsburg told The New Yorker magazine in March that she had not performed a same-sex marriage and had not been asked. Justices do officiate at other weddings, though. `` `I don't think anybody's asking us, because of these cases,' she told the magazine. `No one in the gay rights movement wants to risk having any member of the Court be criticized or asked to recuse. So I think that's the reason no one has asked me.' ``Asked whether she would perform such a wedding in the future, she said, `Why not?' '' Apparently, the Associated Press also contributed to that report. It doesn't sound as if it could be any more clear that Justice Ginsburg has a very solid opinion that gay marriage, same-sex marriage, same-sex weddings are constitutional, despite its being something that is reserved to the States and to the people under the 10th Amendment for decisions. On September 22 of 2014, in The Hill, written by Peter Sullivan, an article reads: ``Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan officiated a same- sex wedding on Sunday, a court spokeswoman told the Associated Press. ``The ceremony in Maryland for a former law clerk is the first same- sex wedding that Kagan has performed. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor have both performed same-sex weddings in the past. ``Gay marriage has been a divisive topic at the Supreme Court as it has been elsewhere in the country.'' Further down, the article reads: ``The Court could decide as early as this month whether to take up the issue again in the coming session, this time to consider a more sweeping ruling declaring a right to same- sex marriage across the country. ``Ginsburg said last week that, unless an appeals court allows a gay marriage ban to stand, `there is no need for us to rush' on a Supreme Court ruling.'' Clearly, Justice Kagan has made her feelings clear on same-sex marriage. There could not be a more clear, unequivocal statement that any just judge or Justice could ever make on the issue of same-sex marriage than to actually perform, officiate, in a same-sex wedding. Here is a Newsmax article from May 18, 2015, by Greg Richter: ``Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sparked speculation on Sunday when she mentioned the Constitution while officiating a same-sex wedding.'' Further down is a quote from Maureen Dowd, a columnist for The New York Times: ``With a sly look and special emphasis on the word `Constitution,' Justice Ginsburg said that she was pronouncing the two men married by the powers vested in her by the Constitution of the United States, Dowd wrote.'' Then it also says in the article, ``Nevertheless, guests applauded loudly, Dowd said, and Ginsburg `seemed delighted.' '' For Justice Ginsburg to state publicly that the Constitution of the United States gives her the power to officiate and unite a same-sex couple in marriage is an unequivocal, clear statement as to what she believes the Supreme Court should do in their decision. If there was ever any doubt--and there wasn't. Once she performed a same-sex wedding, there was no question about her feelings on the matter. An article from National Review by Edward Whelan, February 19 of this year, the article, just a small part of it here: ``At her Supreme Court confirmation hearing in 1993, Ruth Bader Ginsburg repeatedly explained that the judicial obligation of impartiality required that she give `no hints, no forecasts, no previews' about how she might `vote on questions the Supreme Court may be called upon to decide.' '' As she declared in her opening statement: ``A judge sworn to decide impartially can offer no forecasts, no hints, for that would show not only disregard for the specifics of the particular case, it would display disdain for the entire judicial process.'' That was Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1993. Apparently, she sees things a great deal differently now. Further down in the article, Edward Whelan writes: ``Human nature being what it is, it's not easy for a Justice to recuse in a closely divided case that she obviously cares passionately about. This is exactly the situation Justice Scalia faced a dozen years ago in the wake of his public comments criticizing a Ninth Circuit ruling against the Pledge of Allegiance. As Slate's Dahlia Lithwick wrote at the time, Scalia was `intellectually honest enough to know that he slipped,' and he thus, `recused himself from what would have been one of the most important church-state cases of his career.' His recusal meant that `the Court may well split 4-4 on the case, in which case the Ninth Circuit's decision will stand for all the States in its jurisdiction.' '' We also have a quote from Justice Sonia Sotomayor: ``I suspect even with us giving gay rights to marry, that there's some gay people who will choose not to, just as there's some heterosexual couples who choose not to marry. So we are not taking anybody's liberty away.'' Justice Sotomayor has obviously stated her position very clearly on the issue of same-sex marriage. This is an article from May 27, 2009, Lisa Keen from the Keen News Service. She says in an article: ``Long-time gay legal activist Paula Ettelbrick said she met Sotomayor in about 1991 when they both served on then-New York Governor Mario Cuomo's Advisory Committee on Fighting Bias. `Nobody wanted to talk to . . .' '' and uses a slur for a homosexual `` `person at that time,' said Ettelbrick, who represented Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. `She was the only one on the advisory committee who made a point to come over and introduce herself. She was totally interested in gay civil rights issues and supportive.' '' Evan Wolfson, head of the national Freedom to Marry organization said: ``From everything I know, Judge Sotomayor is an outstanding choice, fair and aware, open, and judicious. I believe she has demonstrated the commitment to principles of equal protection and inclusion that defines a good nominee to the Supreme Court.'' Wolfson said the President ``has made a strong and appealing nomination that should and will receive the support of those committed to equality for lesbians and gay men.'' The National LGBT Bar Association issued a statement saying it was pleased with the choice, noting that it represents ``more diversity on the bench.'' In view, actually, of her quote, it seems that she has clearly stated her position with regard to same-sex marriage. Anyway, the article further down said Kevin Cathcart, executive director of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, said the organization was pleased that the nominee is a woman of color. ``While women, people of color, and self- identified gay people continue to be woefully underrepresented in the Federal judiciary, Judge Sotomayor's nomination represents a step in the right direction,'' Cathcart said. So, anyway, if those quotes are accurate, then certainly they would be supporting evidence of her quote that ``I suspect even with us giving gay rights to marry . . .'' she is already stating in this quote that she, not the Creator, not God, not almighty God, not the Constitution--``us giving,'' obviously the Supreme Court. So, as Jefferson pointed out, you know, he trembles for the country when he realizes that God is just and his justice will not sleep forever. It is not the Supreme Court that gives rights. We get our rights, according to the Declaration of Independence, from our Creator, and they are embodied or supposed to have been embodied in the Constitution. And yes, it took a Civil War to ensure that the Constitution meant what it said, and it took an ordained Christian minister named King to push peacefully until such time as the Constitution was more thoroughly forced to mean what it said. We are talking about marriage here. For anyone who is a Christian, that means they believe in Jesus Christ, they believe His teachings, they believe He is Savior, and they would have to believe when He quoted Moses, who said he was giving the law from God, and Jesus said: A man shall leave his father and mother, and a woman leave her home, and the two will become one flesh, and what God joined together, let no one put asunder. He put His stamp: this is marriage. It approved what Moses said was marriage, and in this Nation, throughout the Nation, until some said we have become smarter than we have ever been, once again defying Solomon's statement: There is nothing new under the Sun. This is not new. We are not more enlightened than other civilizations have been. But if the Supreme Court in a majority decision destroys the constitutions of numerous States across this Nation, and the majority opinion has Justices who are violating Federal statute regarding what a judge shall do, then it would appear that their law would be no more valid than if someone here cast the deciding vote on legislation that becomes law, and it is determined that the deciding vote was cast by someone who was not legally a Member of Congress. There would be reason to say that is not a valid law. It did not pass the House of Representatives. And especially, if it turned out that, say, 20, 30, 40 percent of those casting the majority votes on a bill were disqualified at the time of the vote from casting a vote, that would not be a legitimate law. I hope, and since I believe in prayer, I pray that those Justices who have made clear by their statements and their actions that they are disqualified, will do the lawful thing and recuse themselves. If they do not do that, they will be casting a ballot, casting a vote, and if that vote is the majority decision, and if that decision overturns massive law on marriage across the country, and by its statement says: We know more than Moses, we know more than Jesus, we are the U.S. Supreme Court, it certainly sounds like they will have produced an unlawful decision of the Supreme Court. I hope they will not put this Nation to such a constitutional crisis by violating the law to push through their legislative agenda, but we will see. Will they start a constitutional crisis by violating the law to push their legislative agenda through the Court? We will see. I hope and pray that they will follow the law and disqualify themselves. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate so much the comments of my friend Mr. Russell, a neighbor from an adjoining State. He is right. The American people have made clear that they did not want the TPA passed. They certainly don't want the TAA passed. How ironic that we are told that TPA's passage will create a massive number of jobs; yet the people who have really looked at it on the Democratic side say, ``Huh-uh, this is going to cost a lot of jobs so that we have got to have more unemployment benefits and more government help for people who are going to lose their jobs,'' which is what the TAA basically does, ``or we can't vote for the TPA''--how ironic. Also how ironic that President Obama seems to have worked harder on this bill than he has on anything since ObamaCare--he has come to the Hill; he went to the baseball game. He is really pushing people to join him. It is rather ironic because it is just hard to believe that he would be working this hard to limit his own powers. He has never done that before. He has never worked to limit his own powers. It also strikes me as a bit interesting that some of the same people who pushed so hard to pass TARP, the Wall Street bailout, are also pushing for this. There was a former FDIC Chairman named Isaac, who came to the Hill with the support of many economists, saying: ``Please, don't get into this socialist activity where government partners with private business. Don't do that and certainly not for $700 billion. There is no justification.'' Look, we clearly have more than that, that American individuals and American businesses have overseas in banks that they will never bring into the United States. They have already paid a massive amount of tax on it overseas. A far better, free market approach would be to just pass a bill and say, ``If you want to shore up any asset or any entity, like Goldman Sachs''--you could have saved Lehman Brothers, AIG, Chrysler, GM; you could have saved any of them if you had just said: ``Bring that money in from overseas, no tax.'' We could have made it very attractive to do that, and then we wouldn't have had to have given the government $700 billion with basically no limits on how the Secretary of the Treasury could spend his money. He couldn't prop up a central bank of a foreign government, but I read the bill. I couldn't believe we were going to give that kind of power to one person. We have not done that since the Constitution passed. It also should be noted, I think, that, if we had not passed that $700 billion Wall Street bailout--that giveaway--then President Obama would never have gotten $900 billion. He would never have been able to push so much more for bigger government and had gotten it. We would have been able to have stood stronger against that, which could have prevented ObamaCare from even coming up or passing. It had terribly damaging effects. Some of the same people who wanted TARP are now wanting TPA and TAA. It is a bad idea. I just want to just finish, Mr. Speaker, by noting that we have the Supreme Court taking up an issue--it is supposedly going to come out with an opinion before the end of the month--and ruling in a case involving same-sex marriage. Neither the Constitution nor the Bill of Rights provides any power for the Federal Government to get involved in the issue of marriage. That has always been a State issue. It should be under the 10th Amendment; yet we have the Supreme Court potentially going to weigh in and take over that power. We also know that the law is very clear: 28 U.S. Code, section 455, says that any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned. Two Justices have made clear how they feel. They have presided over same-sex marriage ceremonies. If they do not disqualify themselves and if they rule on this case, they have shown a total contempt for the law. That should lead to impeachment, but America would have to rise up to make that known. We will see here, in the 800th year anniversary of the Magna Carta, when it was made clear that nobody, not even the King, is above the law, if the Supreme Court will say, 800 years later: ``We are the Supreme Court, and we are above the law, and there is nothing you can do about it.'' I hope and pray they are not that arrogant in trying to bring down this constitutional Republic. We will see.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it seems so often in this body we tend not to learn from mistakes. We passed a bill--I guess part of a bill--that the Senate sent, referred to as the TPA, but it is all about a trade agreement that will provide a structure in which the President can negotiate and dock other agreements into it. Since the TAA did not pass, then it can't, apparently, go directly to conference unless we pass an amendment to allow it to go to conference or find some other way to effectuate a conference on agreement. Mr. Speaker, I can only surmise that, since the Speaker, himself, moved to reconsider, then there is something afoot in order to keep it from dying, as it should have, since both the TPA and the TAA did not pass. The TPA, I read it. It has got some good aspects to it, but it is not, in and of itself, free trade. As a judge in a district court--our highest level trial court in Texas--so many times, I would be the fact finder without a jury. So often, you would sit and listen to the evidence, and you would wonder why someone would take the action he did. There has got to be some motivating factor. You consider all of the possibilities. We had a very rare visit from President Obama to the Capitol, trying to push people to vote for the TPA--this trade agreement--and the TAA. It was great to see him come out to the Congressional Baseball Game last night. It is not something he does regularly. So, Mr. Speaker, I am left to wonder. I mean, we have not seen this President push this hard on very many bills over the last 6\1/2\ years, and I am left wondering: Why would President Obama push so hard to pass this trade agreement structure that allows him to negotiate so many deals with so many different countries? One possibility is he did it because he knew that Speaker Boehner was pushing to pass it, and it is possible that he really wanted to make Speaker Boehner and Mitch McConnell, the leader down in the Senate, look good. That is a possibility. I don't think it is terribly probable. In weighing all of the evidence, it would seem to me that it is far more probable that the TPA will give this President far more power to fundamentally transform America in his remaining year and a half or so as President. That is what it appears to be to me. Now, one of our Republicans speaking, whom I have tremendous respect and admiration for, commented that we are not a nation that sits on the sidelines. I agree that that used to be true, but we have basically sat on the sidelines as Christians and Jews are being persecuted and killed around the world in greater numbers than ever before. We have sat on the sidelines in Nigeria as precious little African girls are kidnapped and brutally, sexually assaulted day after day, month after month. Then we see an article. According to the article, actually, this administration communicated to Nigeria that, if they will change their laws to provide for same-sex marriage and possibly for abortions to be paid for, then the United States would not continue to sit on the sidelines, that we would actually help them stop radical Islamists. Of course, they didn't use the term ``radical Islamists,'' but that is what they are. They would stop them, the radical Islamists, from continuing to kill and persecute Christians the way they are doing in Nigeria. I have talked to some folks who have been on a recent trip to eastern Africa and who have met and even prayed with leaders in east Africa. I was going to be on the trip, but, apparently, the Speaker feels, if you oppose him, then you are not allowed to travel, that those rewards are saved for people who vote as he tells them to. I will tell you what: if that is the price of speaking truth to power, it is still a great country. The people who went on that trip indicated that leaders in eastern Africa had indicated that the United States administration, the Obama administration, was telling them, in essence, what the article said happened in Nigeria, which is that, if you will change your laws to allow for same-sex marriage, though it is totally against their spiritual beliefs as Christians or as Muslims, then we would help them with things like radical Islam, but, otherwise, we are not going to help them. So I appreciate hearing a Republican say the United States is not a nation that sits on the sidelines, but this administration does. It sits on the sidelines and uses power to fundamentally transform this country and other countries. We have seen that. I see my very dear friend from Kentucky (Mr. Massie) here on the floor, and I would like to yield to him for his comments and thoughts.

Mr. GOHMERT. My friend has observed all the goings-on very closely. The President has acted extraordinarily in reaching out to Congress, trying to push through this trade bill. I am curious whether the gentleman from Kentucky, my friend, thinks maybe this, for the first time, is an effort by the President reaching out to make the Republican Party, Republican leadership look good. Or what kind of motivation do you think most likely caused him to reach out more than he has, as I recall, on a bill?

Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate my friend, but my problem is, having had so many provisions explained, for example, oh, this won't affect seniors by cutting $700 billion out of Medicare, and, gee, if you will just renew the PATRIOT Act, section 215, gosh, you have got to be a terrorist before we get any of your personal information, your data-- there have just been so many explanations and promises that have been made. With regard to section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, that was over two administrations. But there have been so many representations on what an administration--particularly this administration--believes something means that allowed activity far beyond that, that even if this administration or the prior administration says this is what something means, I am sorry, the judge completely hasn't left me, the chief justice completely hasn't left me, and so I care more about what the language says on its face than what somebody tells me they think it will mean or how they will apply it. Again, you know, we were told things about ObamaCare and the way it would be interpreted and carried out, the PATRIOT Act, the way it would be interpreted and carried out. It turns out it simply was not the case. It is still why I am concerned over the part of section 215, even though I have been assured, oh, no, it really doesn't mean anything. But it says not only can they gather the data of people associated with terrorists or involved in international terrorism, but it has this little two-letter disjunctive, the ``or,'' clandestine intelligence activities. Nobody will explain where that is defined in writing because until it is defined adequately in writing, that can mean anything anybody wants it to mean. It is just too vague, allows too much arbitrariness and capriciousness. So I am not as concerned about what people tell me something says or means because I know when you put words in a bill, at some point some judge somewhere is going to say, you know what those words actually say; they mean exactly what they say. So I am concerned about the power that is given to the President. I am concerned about the ability of the President to cut deals, and if he happens to forget to give us notice, as he happened to do with regard to the five terrorists that were released from Guantanamo, then I don't see this body stepping up and stopping him. I know we absolutely pledged we were going to on the illegal, unconstitutional amnesty he did, but then we decided, well, we will just trust the judge in Texas that his ruling will be upheld all the way to the Supreme Court. So we gave up on that fight as a body. But I just have not seen anything from the House and Senate, either when it was under total Democratic control or now, that indicates we are going to be able to step up and stop the President if there is a violation of the law or a violation of personal commitments that were made. Because of that, I was not comfortable voting for TPA. I could not vote for it. I voted against TAA because it would facilitate TPA. I do have to make a parenthetical note here. It is interesting, we are assured that TPA is going to create this massive number of jobs, but we have to--absolutely have to--pass TAA, which creates additional welfare because there are going to be so many Americans that lose their jobs as a result of TPA. So it is going to create all these American jobs, but we have got to have TAA so we can cover all the American jobs that are lost that go overseas, when the fact is: You want a free trade agreement, you want to blow the doors off the barriers in the world to American goods and services? Let's cut the biggest tariff that any nation in the world puts on its own goods and services called a corporate tax. Let's cut it, if not eliminate it, at least get it below that of China. And the cuts to the prices will be so astounding that the doors will come down. They will have to come down, because our goods will not only be the best in the world, but they will be the best prices in the world. So we want real free trade. You are not going to get it by cutting a deal with countries that manipulate their currencies. Those were excellent points that some across the aisle made. If you are talking about free trade with countries that manipulate their own currencies, you are not going to get free trade with countries that manipulate their own currency because they can always maneuver around you and make their product better. So this didn't address the manipulative nature of some nations' currencies. Without that, you are not going to have a free trade deal. I would like to be an optimist and say that this bill that President Obama pushed so hard--historically hard for his administration--to get passed, I would like to be the optimist, as so many of my colleagues are, and say, but the reason President Obama was pushing for this so hard is this will really curtail his ability to make agreements without our agreement. I would like to think that he worked that hard to curtail his own power, but the realist, the old judge in me comes back and has to say, the verdict is he pushed for this TPA because it was going to give him a lot more power than he has now. I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Yoho).