Louie Gohmert

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. The former Attorney General of Nigeria has also weighed in and is really working hard to combat radical Islam, and so it is good to see both government officials and former government officials like that weigh in.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, how much time is that?

Mr. GOHMERT. We should not lose sight of that.

Mr. GOHMERT. I thank the gentleman. I want to finish by commenting on the comments of our President, particularly in the context of what has gone on in the world. The story says that, at a White House event on Wednesday, where the President took questions from Tumblr users, President Obama addressed what he will be doing in the future, but he made these comments that I just feel like we have to address in light of what my friend Mr. Smith and I have been talking about. The President said: I mean, the truth of the matter is that, for all the challenges we face and all the problems that we have, if you had to be--if you had to choose any moment to be born in human history, not knowing what your position was going to be, who you were going to be, you'd choose this time. The world is less violent than it has ever been. It is healthier than it has ever been. It is more tolerant than it has ever been. It is better fed than it's ever been. It is more educated than it's ever been. With regard, though, to the less violent, one doesn't have to look too far to see the kinds of things that are going on in this world. The latest crime statistics indicate violent crime is up, though property crime has gone down. Here is a story from January of this year from Reuters. This is Reuters. This is not a group that has ever been particularly kind to me. ``Religious Violence Across World Hits 6-year High According to Pew Study.'' The story says: Violence and discrimination against religious groups by governments and rival faiths have reached new highs in all regions of the world except the Americas, according to a new Pew Research Center report. Social hostility, such as attacks on minority faiths or pressure to conform to certain norms was strong in one-third of the 198 countries and territories surveyed in 2012, especially in the Middle East and North Africa, it said on Tuesday. Although this story says, ``except the Americas,'' we have commented numerous times here that, in recent years, it has come to be that there is really only one group in America that it is politically correct to be absolutely intolerant toward, and that is the Christian faith. It is okay to belittle the Christian faith. It is okay to belittle the position that marriage should be between a man and a woman. It is the exact same position the President took when he was a Senator in order to become President because that was very important in his becoming President in 2008. He took the position--most people did-- that marriage was between a man and a woman, and it is a Christian position. I mean, it is in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. Jesus, himself, said that a man shall leave his mother and a woman leave her home, and the two will become one flesh, and what God has joined together let no man put asunder. That is marriage, Biblical marriage. Anybody who retains the belief that Jesus had and that Moses conveyed as he got it from God was that it was between a man and a woman. If you hold that position now, it has become widely accepted that, gee, you should lose your job, that you should lose money, that you should have the Nation turn in hatred upon you and your family. Heck, some people want you to go to jail. They want you prosecuted. They want the IRS--they want everybody--after you just because you believe the same thing that Senator Obama said he believed before he became President and that Jesus said was actually the law of God and that Moses said was the law of God. Yet, nowadays, if you take that Christian position, you are a hate monger, and we want to destroy you, which is in direct opposition to the quote that was so often stated during the Revolution. It was attributed to different people. I think more people attributed it to Voltaire: I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. It used to be that on college campuses they would invite different people so they could get good arguments and good debates among the students. Now they don't want anybody who doesn't fit the cookie- cutter, liberal mode of whoever is in charge at the university. For heaven's sake, who would have ever dreamed at Brandeis University's founding that, when a Muslim woman stood up against the evils of radical Islam, she would be refused to be allowed to come to the university. It is time we stand up for freedom, liberty here and everywhere. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my good friend, Chris Smith. It turns out that he and I were in Nigeria around the same time. And I am so grateful for his work. He cares so deeply about life, about freedom, about religious liberty, as much as or more than anybody I know in all of Congress. I am so grateful to him for his great work. It is heartbreaking to see people killed, terrorized, kidnapped, sexually abused, abused in all kinds of other ways simply because of their faith. That is going on in Nigeria and all over the world right now. I yield to my friend.

Mr. GOHMERT. My friend brings up an interesting point. When I was there last week, a couple of the Christian pastors from Nigeria that were working with the victims, one of them pointed out to me that one of his groomsmen was a Muslim and they are still very, very close friends. Another, who is a Nigerian woman who has done extraordinary work in trying to help victims, particularly Christian victims, one of her sisters that she loves very much is Muslim. The point that they were making is that Christians and moderate Muslims have been able to live together for hundreds of years, even in Nigeria, but this radical Islam that has come in, especially in the north, is an abomination. It is antithetical to everything that Christians believe. As a result, they don't care how peace loving Christians may be; you either convert or they kill you. Having visited with a couple of the three girls who escaped--there were a number of girls who were able to get off the truck during the night, and some others who escaped the school that night and were able to run into the woods in the dark. There were only five or six who actually were in captivity and were able to escape. I have met with three of them. A couple of them were talking about it, and apparently they were telling the girls, you either convert to Islam or your problems get worse--repeated sexual abuse, all kinds of other abuse. They would say: Just convert to Islam and your problems were over. The trouble is, even when some of these girls at the threat of their very lives converted, which in and of itself is an abomination, their problems were not over. They were still being chided as potential sex slaves for the rest of their lives. So it is something that ought to concern all peace-loving people everywhere. I have talked to Democrats, friends across the aisle. Republicans, I know, were upset with what is happening. As I mentioned, these victims, I am not sure about the people my friend Mr. Smith met with in Nigeria, but the people I met with had no idea that the U.S. Government cared at all because they don't follow Twitter. And if you don't follow Twitter, you don't know that they have been doing #bringbackourgirls and making themselves feel very good. It didn't help the victims one iota. They didn't know. As we are told in Christian churches all our lives, they won't care what you know until they know that you care, and Twitter doesn't seem to convey that. I yield to my friend.

Mr. GOHMERT. The gentleman met with fathers. I didn't meet with fathers. I asked a pastor: Why do we not hear more and see more of the fathers of the girls who were abducted, kidnapped, and being brutalized? I was aware, and some of them had talked about, some people choose to leave their homes to sleep so that Boko Haram doesn't invade their home at night. But some of them were explaining--and these are all mothers of daughters who were kidnapped; she had two daughters kidnapped--but that it is an interesting thing, a deeply troubling thing about evil. Sometimes people who do evil, they intentionally do things that make the victims feel guilty when it is not their fault. One of the things that counselors constantly have to deal with, and I know from having prosecuted abusive women, you are constantly having to tell them no one deserved this, no one deserved to be beaten or harmed like you were hurt, nobody. There is no excuse, it is not your fault. There were times that, as a judge, after sentencing, children would feel guilty, and I would say: You have got to understand, please don't leave my courtroom thinking you did anything wrong. One of the things that some of the fathers and some of the mothers, they were telling me, they feel so guilty about, that night in the middle of the night, they get word the school has been raided and the girls have been taken. Some of the parents went running and they went all the way to where the school was. They had nothing. They were empty- handed. One woman was so appalled that her daughter had been taken she ran out and a little boy had to say: Ma'am, take my shirt, take my shirt, that she wasn't properly clad. But they were so worried about the girls they didn't think of grabbing anything. They ran. When they got to the area where some girls were being held all of the Boko Haram had AK-47s, they had machine guns, weapons. These people had empty hands. They were told you either walk away or we kill every one of you, and they would have. They had shown that over and over. They killed people and didn't think twice. They are thinking, well, if we kill us all here then we have no chance of helping our daughters, but we have got to get them free. We will all be killed right here, so will this do any good? Well, now they are saddled with the guilt of thinking, maybe if we had gone ahead and ran at them and they slaughtered all of us out there, maybe the world would have listened and our daughters would be safe now. They have no reason to feel that kind of guilt, none. But this is the kind of insidious evil that Boko Haram is engaged in. It is a travesty to anyone who cares about life or liberty and should be deeply offensive even to moderate or semi-moderate Muslims. They ought to be joining us in this call for an end to the existence of Boko Haram, to the Taliban, to all those who are so pervasive with evil. This is one of the girls that escaped. It breaks your heart when you start hearing her tell her story. Unlikely Heroes is the name of the NGO helping these victims. They are helping families. I don't know if you have heard, but just this week, Unlikely Heroes said they are now being contacted like never before from victims who were too afraid and felt like nobody cared and what difference would it make, and now, they are stepping up. We don't have to go to war for them, but we can help direct their efforts--give them the intel, give them what they need. Then, at some point, we need to help bring pressure on the Nigerian Government to make sure that the people of Nigeria benefit from the massive amount of wealth that is going somewhere. I sure don't see where it is going in Nigeria, but it is going somewhere. It is not being kept by the oil companies. It is going to somewhere, to somebody in Nigeria, and the people of Nigeria need to begin to enjoy some of the wealth with which their land has been blessed, and I hope we see that in our lifetime as well.

Mr. GOHMERT. As a child growing up in Mount Pleasant, Texas, my mother's first cousins, Gene and Mary Leigh Legg, and their children-- Beth, Arnold Lloyd, and Linda Leigh--were missionaries to Nigeria. They would go to Nigeria for 3 years and then come back to Mount Pleasant for a year, and they would normally live close to my house. We were always close. We went to church together. We were at each other's houses all the time. So I grew up vicariously learning the love of the Nigerian people that the Leggs had. Mary Leigh later had a brain tumor. There was nothing that could be done. Since it was inoperable and they couldn't fix it and she was going to lose her life, she wanted to die there among the Nigerians that she had spent her adult life helping, but the Southern Baptist mission board said: no, we can't have a missionary dying out there in the field, you have got to come back to Texas. So just a block or so from my house is where she was--we watched her--but she really wanted to die among the people she loved in Nigeria. Gene later remarried. Jackie and Gene then were missionaries to Nigeria. Beth, Lloyd, and Linda Leigh never lost their love for Nigeria. Jackie and Gene are back in Henderson, Texas, but they still do anything they can for Nigerians. So I have had the affinity. I have known of the love and the graciousness of the Nigerian people since my earliest memories. It also adds to the heartache when you see what the people are going through these days. I hope and pray that the Nigerian leaders, the governors in the northeast area and principals of schools, if they are not complicit, they need to come out and make clear that they are an enemy of Boko Haram. Let consequences follow where they may because, when those leaders in those areas stand up and make clear that they do not stand with this kind of evil, then it will give great courage to others. So I appreciate the gentleman so very much in his efforts around the world. There is much to be done.

Mr. GOHMERT. I think my friend and I both agree, we are not asking the United States to go to war in Nigeria.

Mr. GOHMERT. That is not necessary. When you go back to Afghanistan, within 4 or 5 months, the Taliban was totally defeated without one American losing his or her life; and we helped them with the kind of thing the gentleman is talking about: training, aerial reconnoissance--we would drop a bomb every now and then where it was directed by our intelligence--all done without a single American life being lost. Now, after the Taliban were routed, there were some CIA agents who were killed in one of the confinement areas, but that was after, basically, the Taliban had been routed. So, as the gentleman points out, some training, but the first thing the gentleman named, actionable intelligence that they can act on. I notice that my friend didn't mention that we have got to provide more tweets in order to overcome Boko Haram. Actionable intelligence, give them training to help them do this. We have done that in the Philippines. We have trained the Philippines to protect themselves; and they have come along so well, fighting radical Islam in the southern parts of the Philippines which, really, most people are not aware has been a real hotbed for this kind of radical Islamic activity. I think Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had been to the southern Philippines before 9/11. There are just these hotbeds, and the last thing we need is an area like Nigeria where they have been peace-loving and peacekeeping people, and now they are suffering from the abuses and the horrors of radical Islam. We don't need to lose friends like that. And nothing breaks my heart more, traveling abroad, than to be constantly asked: Why do you appear to be helping our enemies and not helping your allies? I don't know if the gentleman has heard that.

Mr. GOHMERT. There was a press conference we had with all these mothers and the three girls sitting in the back, but it was amazing to hear the comments of all of those Nigerians. All of their comments showed forth faith. It is amazing. I doubt that I would have said the same things that I said there in a press conference here, but since this is a big group of people who were either committed Christians or Muslims that are moderate, peace-loving people, I pointed out to them that it was obvious Boko Haram means this for evil. They mean to harm decent, innocent people just because they are Christians--some are moderate Muslims--but they meant it for evil. This brought me back to a place a long way from my home in the U.S., but not so far from here in Nigeria--just northeast of here--a place called Egypt, where a brother ended up because his 11 other brothers sold him into slavery. He cried. He wept. He was thrown into a pit. He was a slave. He couldn't understand why God had deserted him. He ended up being a slave and a servant and imprisoned. Ultimately, he became the second most powerful man in all of Egypt. Because he was the second most powerful man, he was able to save Egypt during the famine that no one knew was coming, but God revealed to him, Joseph. When his brothers finally realized who he was and began to weep, Joseph told them: you meant it for evil--because what they did was evil, but God used it for good. Boko Haram means this for evil, but despite all the evil and all the suffering, God can still work this together for good. I also looked in the camera there and I said: I have a message for Boko Haram. You think your hate for Christians is so powerful, no one can overcome it. Let me tell you, there is a stronger force than your hate, and that is the love of these parents for their children, that is the Christian love you find in Nigeria, and your hate will never be able, ultimately, to win the day over the stronger force of love. I believe that with all my heart. I believe that with all my heart, and I am looking forward to the day when love triumphs over the evil of Boko Haram.

Mr. GOHMERT. As my friend said, there is so much good in Nigeria.

Mr. GOHMERT. If that FTO--foreign terrorist organization--designation had been made earlier on, some might ask, what difference does it make? Well, clearly it could have made a big difference, because if the emphasis had been placed earlier on at just how much of a terrorist organization Boko Haram is they may not have had the power they did to do what they did. I don't know if my friend is aware, but in talking to these mothers and the three girls that had escaped, as they talked about that night the girls said--and I had not heard this before--but they painted a picture much like my friend had painted of other locations and what Boko Haram and other radical Islamists had done. They came to the school, and it is a bit shocking that their intel was not better, but they kept asking the girls at gunpoint: Where are the boys? Where are the boys? It was a girls school, and they are: Where are the boys? Where are the boys? Well, there are no boys, and they didn't believe them at first. They wanted the boys to do exactly what the gentleman said--they were going to pull the boys out and kill them. I said: So was it because some radical Islamists do not think that women should be educated? And they said: No, no, the point was it was a Christian school, so if you are a young man they will kill you, because men or women, you should never be educated in a Christian school even if you are not taught about the Bible at all. If it is a Christian-run school, whether it discusses the Bible teachings of Jesus and all, still you should be killed if you are a young man and abused horribly if you are a young woman. So they didn't even know that there were no boys there and were disappointed when all they had were the girls to take off and abuse them. But just a horrible humanitarian situation. As the gentleman points out--although I have been called an Islamophobe, xenophobe, all kinds of things by people that want to portray something we are not--I was amused at the reaction I saw over my shoulder in Kabul when there were a few of us that went to meet with some Northern Alliance leaders I met with a number of times. Dana Rohrabacher first introduced me to some, had met others. But we were going, and they weren't sure I was going to be able to get across the city to meet them, and I was determined, and I told the State Department: You see that gate out here at the Embassy? You are going to have to take me down because I am getting in a car and I am going to see our allies. I was informed: We are not authorized to take down a Member of Congress. I said: Then you won't stop me. My friend Massoud is sending a car. Having lost his brother, his father-in-law, he knows about security, he will keep me safe, and I am going to meet him. Well, they arranged for a car from the Embassy that was secured and we went. When we arrived at their compound and I got out of the car, I was surprised this big group of Northern Alliance leaders came rushing down, including General Dostum. But Massoud particularly, I really have high regard for him, came rushing out, they are rushing down the porch, and I notice my other friends from Congress are going: What's going on here, they are rushing to meet each other, are they going to hit each other or what is this? We embraced when we saw each other. They are moderate Muslims. We disagree on religious beliefs, but they are the enemy of our enemy, and those people successfully defeated the Taliban, our enemy, they want to wipe our Nation off the Earth, and all the Northern Alliance want is to be left alone and let them run their own area. It can be done. Christians and moderate Muslims can live in peace, can embrace, can be in each other's weddings, as happens in Nigeria. But when it comes to radical Islam we have got to call it what it is. I was a bit surprised to hear from some of the people from Chibok that they honestly believe that the governor is in cahoots with Boko Haram and, if not, is either sympathetic or very afraid of them. They also have grave concern that the principal of that school may have been complicit in assisting in having this happen. That could be an issue because they didn't have enough intel to know there were no boys there, so I am not sure. At least some of the parents were very concerned whether or not the principal may have been complicit. Perhaps the principal was just concerned for the principal's own life, who knows? But they don't know that we care, and there are some very inexpensive things that will come back as ``bread on the water'' if we assist others in stopping radical Islam right where it is--as our friend George W. Bush used to say--where they get stopped somewhere else and not right outside or inside our own homes. That is not the place you want to be stopping them. I am so grateful for the gentleman's heart and for his efforts.

Mr. GOHMERT

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

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, a great deal has been going on in the last 24 hours--a lot of surprises--which help make life interesting. Mr. Speaker, I want to call to attention, again, the human tragedy that has arisen in Africa--and Nigeria specifically--as I was there at the end of last week for a couple of days meeting with some of the mothers of girls who were kidnapped. There was an excellent story in The Blaze done by Sara Carter today where she says: Precious and Hope--two girls' names--ran for their lives through the thick brush of the Nigerian forest. They could feel their hearts pounding, their bare feet scraped from the rocks, and their legs throbbing from the thorns that penetrated their skin as they crawled low through the tangle to avoid detection. They were running from the armed Islamist fighters who had seized them and approximately 300 other schoolgirls from what they had believed was the safety of their boarding school in Chibok, Nigeria, in one of the most brazen mass kidnappings in history. Only the night before, the two 15-year-olds had been sleeping peacefully. It was mid-April, and many of the girls had chosen to try to stay cool by sleeping underneath the night sky in only their shirts and undergarments while others left the windows of their dormitories wide open to stave off the humidity. What they didn't expect shortly after they closed their eyes was that their world would soon be turned upside down. This is the story of the night that Precious and Hope were taken by Boko Haram and about their against-all-odds escape the next day while so many of their classmates remain missing. I have met those girls, Mr. Speaker, and they are precious, hopeful girls, but their hearts have been quite broken. Even though they have escaped, they have had many nightmares when they have lain down, because they have realized that what happened to them is happening to their friends every day. I did ask one of the pastors from Chibok, whom I met there--who was trying to assist the families, the mothers and the three girls who had escaped--what happened to the men? What happened to the fathers? I was told that so many of them feel so helpless and that they feel so guilty because now they don't even know where their girls are, but they know what is happening to them every day, and they can't stand the thought of what is happening to their daughters every day and what they know is happening. Many of the fathers don't feel worthy to be sleeping in their own homes, so they have gone into the bush to sleep, to be there while their daughters are suffering at the hands of these radical Islamists who think, somehow, they serve a god who thinks it is cute and it is funny, as one leader was laughing, talking about the sexual slavery of the girls and that they should be sold into sexual slavery. It is just sheer evil. I understand that moderate Muslims do not approve of this activity. I met and was with some moderate Muslims in Nigeria who understand how appalling and outrageous this activity is, but it is time moderate Muslims around the world actually stood up to the radical Islam that is doing so much damage in this world and is purveying so much evil. It is time they stood up. Counselors told me that they have had so much trouble in trying to help these mothers because they are so distraught, and what they have been told over and over and over again is that nobody cares; and if America ever came up, it was made clear that nobody in America cares and that they were certainly not going to come. So it has been very rough for them. I got an email today from one of the principals of the NGO unlikely heroes who is helping the families and the girls who have been able to escape so far, and she said even just one person from America coming has opened the doors to their having hope. Now, if one lowly, bald-headed guy from east Texas, just by going over and meeting with these women and children and meeting with the pastors and counselors, could provide hope sufficient to open the doors to so many more who have been victims--who thought it was hopeless and nobody cared now today and in the last few days coming forward--just think what could have happened if our beautiful First Lady had made a trip to Nigeria or if our President had even taken actions that got back to the families so they knew there was hope. The United States has no business going to war in Nigeria--we should not--but there are things that could be done without declaring war on a country when you find out that there is such a pervasive evil as Boko Haram, as al Qaeda, as radical Islam that wants to wipe the United States off the map and doesn't mind killing, repeatedly raping young girls, burning churches, burning homes, terrorizing people all because they had this sick, perverted idea that their god thinks that is good fun. It is time for moderate Muslims to stand up and to stand for the god they believe in. That would give even more hope. I took some pictures while I was there. I wasn't sure it was a good idea, but they said this is part of providing hope that somebody will take this to America and that others will understand, and then if they could see pictures of its being presented in Congress, that that would add even more hope and would help good people to rise up who have been victims for so long. America doesn't have to fight everybody's war, but they certainly have to do more than a hashtag and a Twitter. 43 and Twitters, as we saw, were not sufficient to stop Putin from invading the Crimea. Hashtags and Twitters were not sufficient to keep Boko Haram leaders from laughing at the sexual and horrible abuse of young girls who were kidnapped from school--girls they are still holding. At least President Clinton was willing to send a missile from time to time to try to send a message. In this administration, we have sent hashtags instead. It doesn't provide a whole lot of hope. They don't follow Twitter in the jungles of Nigeria. Mr. Speaker, these are many of the mothers of the girls who were kidnapped by the radical Islamist group Boko Haram. They were anxious, actually, to have a picture taken so that people could actually see and they wouldn't be forgotten. The faces of the minor girls have been blurred out. This woman here, Mr. Speaker, had two daughters who were kidnapped. She had great difficulty in talking about what happened the night they were kidnapped without falling to the floor and weeping bitterly. Their pastor over here on the far right is a devout Christian leader and is doing all he can to help the victims' families. This is that mother, Mr. Speaker, and the pastor. The counselor said just having someone come from the United States, put an arm around them, hug, and hold a hand has changed the outlook. Imagine what would happen if the authority of our administration did something besides Twitter. The pastor is a sweetheart of a man. He seemed so grateful. He said he knew what it meant that someone came all the way from America to show he cared. The face is blurred, but this is one of the children. They said she has had trouble doing a whole lot of anything but weeping and is in a deep, deep depression for her friends. Mr. Speaker, I do believe it is true--to whom much is given, of them much will be required. We have been blessed like no nation in the history of the world. Now, in one of the ways you provide hope--and it is throughout the Book of Proverbs, throughout the Bible, itself-- government is supposed to show impartiality and take care of those within its country. Some wonder, Well, gee. Aren't we supposed to help our neighbors? Neighbors could be from other countries. That is absolutely correct. As individuals, we are supposed to help our neighbors, and our neighbors can be from other countries, but there is a sworn obligation of government to help protect and keep the people safe within the country's borders. One of the reasons that it is helpful in a government role to reach out to people and give them hope to defeat their enemies and to stand up to their enemies is that, as President Bush used to say, I would much rather fight our enemies somewhere else instead of around our own homes. I would think that, as has been done in different places around the world, we can go to war, but you send a little help. For heaven's sake, in Libya, when we knew there were rebels who were supported by al Qaeda, we ended up having some kind of operation to send weapons in-- getting weapons to people we knew included al Qaeda. I have been wondering: How many of those weapons were being bandied about the night Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Ty Woods, and Glen Doherty were killed? Yet we have nations that are friendly nations, that we know are not evil, are not possessed by evil, but are wanting to fight evil--radical Islam--that is a threat to people in this country. Anywhere radical Islam exists, it exists with the belief that there should be a worldwide caliphate and that everyone, particularly in the Great Satan of America, should be destroyed or subjugated or, at the very best, made to pay a tax for the right to exist in another religion within Muslim country--if not killed or wiped out altogether. I certainly won't forget those families in Nigeria. It is startling to think how much could be helped by doing something more than Twitter. That is no substitute for a foreign policy. Our moderate Muslim friends, our international atheist friends, our Christian friends, they feel like we ought to stand up against evil that ultimately would be a threat to us. I think people should not forget that the Taliban was defeated within a matter of short months in Afghanistan, without a single American loss of life, up to and including that famous ride uphill led by the Northern Alliance leader, General Dostum, whom I have met a number of times. The Taliban was routed and defeated. No American blood was shed to that point. There are ways to fight evil without going to war. But if you are not going to fight, for our soldiers, for our military members' sake, don't leave them stranded telling them to hold what they got when it may include IEDs. The lesson from Vietnam should have been, we are not going to send our military anywhere that we don't give them all of the weapons they need to fight, to win, and come home. We are not, never have been empire builders. Never have been. That is why the people in France still speak French. In Germany they speak German. In Italy they speak Italian, because we have never been about building an empire. We have been about liberty, freedom. We want to be left alone, but when evil raises its head, it is time to speak up. But the only way a nation can remain a nation very long and be effective, without giving way to complete corruption or chaos, is if the rule of law is observed impartially, across the board. And you can't have a law-abiding, effective nation where there are immigration laws that say, here is the process you must go through in order to get into our country. Over a million people a year go through that legal process, and more millions are standing in line to go through that process. All they see and hear is that America is no longer a nation of laws. America now just lets anybody come in who comes. And we ignore the law. We become as a temporary Third World nation, saying we are going to ignore the laws that have helped make us the greatest nation in the world. I still haven't heard from this administration any explanation as to why they might think that unaccompanied minors under 18 are flocking to our border like never before. As I have explained, Mr. Speaker, before, when the word spreads through Central America, South America that if you just come to America, we are not sending anybody home, and story after story says that people come and they get word back home, we came, and sure enough, they are not sending people home. For those in the administration who are not stupid, but are ignorant of what is going on, here is an article, translated from an El Salvadoran newspaper dated June 7. The headline, Mr. Speaker, is: ``USA Will Give Legal Assistance to Children Migrating Alone.'' Well, that is incentive. Wow. It is really true. The newspaper said if you can just get your kids to the United States, the U.S. Government will give them legal assistance. The story is going back. It is not comfortable. Some people are lying in large rooms together, but food is being provided. Now they are going to provide legal assistance. Medical care, medical needs are provided because that is who we are. The problem is, you have to stop the humanitarian crisis by continuing to lure people into the United States by saying the United States law is United States law. Each of us in the Federal Government, Congress, and the administration, we have taken an oath to support and defend our Constitution, which means we follow our Federal laws, which means you have got to come into the United States legally. Some estimate that maybe a billion, billion and a half people want to come into the United States. That would overwhelm, destroy the United States. We have an obligation to make sure we bring people in in a rational, methodical way so that we don't destroy this great nation. So it seems to be a bit hypocritical for countries that don't allow near as many people in to their countries as we do, percentagewise or otherwise, to complain about unfair U.S. immigration laws. Well, there are some things that certainly need to be reformed, and we could get that done immediately once the President ever gets around to securing the border. But we have got to get back to following the law, to enforcing the law, or we are going to lose the country. With what is happening on our southern border, with what it is happening with the lawlessness in this city, people not only refusing to follow the law and follow their oath, but actually coming up with ways to encourage people to come violate our law even more by the thousands. Here's another article from an El Salvador newspaper from June 5: ``Extension of Suspension of Student Deportation.'' So, the article here is making clear, yes, some came into the United States illegally, but the President is suspending enforcement of the laws he is sworn to uphold. He just did it by fiat. He announced it. So is it spoken, so is it written, so shall it be. That is what happens in a monarchy. That is not supposed to happen here. And if our friends down the other end of the hall in the Senate would stand with us, we could get back to observing the Constitution and protect the constitutional powers that are afforded to Congress and not to the other end here of Pennsylvania Avenue. It is time to stand up. And perhaps, if people in this administration were not so busy luring people in by their words and actions, luring them to violating U.S. law, then maybe they would have more time to send more than a Twitter to evil radical Islamists wreaking havoc around the world that will ultimately end up on our doorstep because they still consider us the Great Satan. Here is from a Honduran newspaper: ``U.S. Military Base in California Used to House Children.'' The article is translated from June 7. Going through and explaining how these kids came up unaccompanied. We didn't turn them back. We brought them in. We are taking care of them. Here is another article, though, from Houston. ``Breitbart Announces Border Security and Public Corruption Tip Line'': The U.S. Border Patrol has been overwhelmed. The Federal Government is releasing thousands of illegal immigrants per week. The information Washington, D.C., shares about the border with the American people is often at odds with reality in the region, and scores of foreign children were found to be packed into holding cells on U.S. soil. Breitbart News has reported a near-steady stream of Mexican cartel activity and criminal efforts across the United States, reported on a plethora of corrupted U.S. officials and law enforcement along or near the U.S.-Mexico border, and reported countless tales of human suffering due to an often wide open and unsecured border. Breitbart Texas is introducing a new tip line for Border Patrol agents, Customs and Border Protection officers, other law enforcement, and other citizens to expose the reality of conditions along the U.S. Mexico border. ``The new tip line is for law enforcement or anyone who wants to speak out on discrepancies between what Washington, D.C., is saying and what is actually occurring on the ground.'' Breitbart Texas Managing Director Brandon Darby said: ``Whether you know of Mexican cartel-related corruption occurring on U.S. soil, people or government officials helping human trafficking, foreign children being kept in horrible conditions or exploited, or simply feel the moral obligation to tell Americans what is really occurring in the region, this tip line is for you.'' ``We are competent and able to handle and research these matters,'' Darby said. ``Anyone can call in and email with information, and we will do all we can to investigate and get the word out.'' The tip line number, the article says, is 877-204-2033. Breitbart Texas Managing Director Brandon Darby can be reached. Somebody is trying to make a difference. So then here is a story from The Washington Times by Cheryl Chumley: ``Border Agents Warn of Chicken Pox, MRSA, Staph From Illegal Child Crossings.'' Border patrol agents who have already experienced scabies infestation from illegal border crossers now fear that thousands of children who are sweeping into the United States are bringing a host of new diseases and ailments of even more serious nature. ``We are starting to see chicken pox, MRSA, staph infections. We are starting to see different viruses,'' said Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol Agent Chris Cabrera. Meanwhile, agents are still fighting off the scabies, a highly contagious skin disease that causes massive itching due to burrowing mites. The article goes on: ``We have an obligation to our oath to this country, to those we are supposed to provide a common defense for, and it is pretty tragic what it happening now.'' Here is a situation report from Thursday, May 29, RGV Sector Unified Coordination Group, EOC, and it goes through numbers, UACs, unaccompanied children, running through numbers of kids coming into the country illegally. Then as U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen has reported, the Department of Homeland Security has been engaging in human trafficking. Come into the country, we will take you to your parents, even if they are illegally here. Leave your aunt, uncle, family. Come with human traffickers to the United States, and we will get you to wherever your parents will be. If you are coming and your parents are not with you, and they are not in the United States, hey, we will find somebody to take care of you. That is not the message that is literally being sent out by this administration, but that is certainly the message that is being communicated by our actions. As a result, the number of what this human smuggling report says cause illegal alien apprehensions by southwest border sector shows to be skyrocketing, skyrocketing. It is incredible the number of people that are now flooding into the United States because they have heard nobody is following their oath with this administration. They are not enforcing the law. They have become like our country, basically. They are ignoring the law. It is great. Come on now. Here's a sitrep report from 9 June, 1600 hours, regarding unaccompanied children, the UC influx. It reports, Mr. Speaker, for the entire month of May, there were 5,595 children screened by the Border Patrol, but just in the first 8 days of June, there had been 6,956 children screened by the Border Patrol. As I understand it, May was far bigger than April, and April was bigger than March. I mean, this is increasing because the administration has not gotten serious about abiding by its oath, by not providing a common defense, not enforcing our borders, not enforcing our immigration laws. A Nation that refuses to enforce such important laws is going to find that, when it gets around to deciding the Nation is at risk, it will find that it is quite possibly too late. Instead of being concerned about following an oath, enforcing immigration laws, making sure that people have filled out the proper documents, gotten a visa legally--properly--coming in the proper way, we had many officials who were brought in, made aware of this Bergdahl swap, except for the people the law required to be told--yes, the Members of Congress--the lawlessness goes on. We have got to stand up and say enough is enough. This is an article under U.S. news titled, ``Officials Predicted Detainees in Bowe Bergdahl Swap Would Rejoin Taliban,'' from Julian Barnes, dated June 10, from Washington. Before the U.S. transferred five Afghan Taliban detainees to secure the freedom of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, American intelligence officials predicted that two of the men would return to senior positions with the militant group, according to U.S. officials. The classified assessment, a consensus of spy agencies compiled during the prisoner-swap deliberations, said two others of the five were likely to assume active roles within the Taliban, while only one of the five released detainees was considered likely to end active participation in the group's effort to undermine the elected government of Afghanistan. Make no mistake--it is not here in this article--but these people do not just believe in being hostile to the Government of Afghanistan. They consider the United States the Great Satan. While this is going on and we are releasing terrorists, who will ultimately kill Americans--and mark my words, there will be Americans who die unnecessarily because of the release of these murderous thugs. For anyone who says, well, you know, they didn't technically stab anybody or actually cut off their heads--they believe, they are complicit, they support, they assist, and under every State's law, I am aware of--and every Federal law--that makes them a principal. That makes them guilty of the crime, itself. I would think, under the logic of those who say, well, we don't think they actually murdered somebody, themselves--well, under that scenario, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's admission that he planned 9/11/2001 and that he glorifies Allah if he has terrorized Americans, he is not really a murderer because he didn't actually fly the plane in that killed them himself. He just planned it and made sure that it was carried out. That is some pretty weak reasoning. This is going to cost American lives, letting these five Taliban go. There was a bill that my friend from California, Dana Rohrabacher, filed--some of us signed onto--that would have prevented the executive branch from taking any action to release four of these five that were released. That is how serious we took it, but the administration seems to think: hey, it was a good deal, we made a good deal. Well, it wasn't a good deal. You can't release people who have engaged in evil this serious, who have not recanted their evil, who want to go back and commit atrocities against nonradical Islamists-- whether moderate Muslims, but especially Christians and Jews--and not expect that to come back on you and hurt you. This is an article from FOX News, published June 11, today, ``Hagel admits administration mishandled aspects of Taliban swap.'' You think? Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel arrives on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, June 11, 2014, to testify before the House Armed Services Committee. Defense Secretary Hagel, on Wednesday, sought to ease concerns about the controversial swap of five hardened Taliban leaders for Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, but under pressure from lawmakers, acknowledged that the administration mishandled the announcement. ``We didn't handle some of this right,'' Hagel admitted to the House Armed Services Committee, toward the end of the first public hearing on the prisoner exchange. The hearing lasted more than 5 hours, as lawmakers from both sides of the aisle voiced concerns about the trade-- while some also accused Republicans of exaggerating the security threats. It is unfortunate that names aren't mentioned as to who said Republicans were exaggerating the security threats because, Mr. Speaker, when Americans are killed because of this ill-advised swap, we need to be able to come back to the floor and say: these are the people that thought it was exaggerated to say that releasing murderous, evil thugs who hate America was not going to come back to bite us and cost American lives. This other article, all of this going on at the same time, ``U.S. Watches As Iraq Speeds Toward Disaster.'' Fighters for the al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and Syria took Mosul today, giving the militant group control of Iraq's second largest city and setting the country on a path toward chaos. ISIS militants already control Fallujah, a city that American Marines took in 2004 in what was the bloodiest battle of the Iraq war. Now, with both Mosul and Fallujah under their control, nearly half of Iraq is in the grips of a group that is a formal affiliate of a terrorist group. Equally troubling are the circumstances under which the city fell. Iraqi security personnel simply abandoned their posts, according to reports. It sounded like the Bush administration had teed up a security forces agreement--sometimes called SFA--with Iraq, could have gone ahead and signed it, but thought--because this is the way George W. Bush thinks-- even though he is a Republican and a Democrat was coming in, like his father, he feels like: I will do something nice. I will leave this teed up. He can come in, sign it, get a lot of credit. It will help him start off a good Presidency. Well, guess what, it didn't work out. It turns out Bush should have gone ahead and signed the agreement. Because of the mishandling by this administration, now all of those precious American lives and the blood that was shed at Mosul and Fallujah now has radical Islamists back standing on those spots where the blood was shed. It is time for what in east Texas is called common sense and here in Washington is just sense because it isn't common. It is time for us to listen to the American people, to read the law and follow it, to keep our oaths to the American people because a failure to be vigilant costs liberty. I still think, Mr. Speaker, because to whom much is given--which is the United States, given more than any nation in history--of them, much is required. As we allow lawlessness to continue on our borders here in Washington without encouraging law-abiding, decent activity in places where evil radical Islam is reigning supreme, we will be held accountable. This country will suffer for its negligent and intentional neglect in following the law that has made us so great. To those who want to descend to Third World status, this is how you do it: you just stop following your own laws, you start ruling by how you feel about things, instead of what the law says. We have an oath to do better. We have an obligation to the past generations who have sacrificed the last full measure of devotion, as Lincoln said, and our failure will cause future generations to rise up and curse our names if we don't start forcing people to follow the law. Mr. Speaker, tonight, I yield back the balance of my time with a broken heart.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, we have been going through appropriation bills, today Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development. We have had an open rule process where anybody who wanted to bring any amendment could do so. I was a little surprised that my amendment did not pass. It had 160 votes today. This is a very simple amendment. We took the last official number we could find from an executive branch, from January of 2009, before President Obama was sworn in, and it indicated that there was less than 1 percent of those getting section 8 public housing given to them, and so we took the amount of money clear back from 2009, even though there are indications that it is many times that now, we just took that conservative amount, trying to be conservative and trying to be more than fair, which it was, and said, okay, we have got to send a message to Housing and Urban Development folks that you can't just keep giving housing away. I know the mainstream media never talks about it when there is a Democratic President, but they sure bring it right back up as soon as a Republican takes over the White House, and that is homelessness. Well, if homelessness is ever a problem, then why do we keep offering and paying for people to use federally financed housing when they are not legally getting federally financed housing? So it gets me to use the word ``only'' with $24 million, but it was only $24 million that would be the amount reduced from section 8 public housing to send a message that, HUD, if you are going to be providing housing to people who are not legally allowed in public housing, then we are going to cut your funding by that much. It seemed like a pretty good amendment. It sent a message. And I was grateful for the numbers. The USA is very concerned about the illegal immigration issue. We scored that as an important vote, and we got 160 votes. If we cannot, as a majority Republican Congress, muster a majority of votes to say to the rest of the country that we have an obligation in this generation not to spend future generations' money, not to continue to be the first generation in American history to put succeeding generations into so much debt they can never get out of it--we have a moral obligation not to do that. It is absolutely immoral to be spending future generations' money. It is wrong, and if we can't even agree to cut public housing that is provided to people by the amount that was provided 5 years ago--illegally--then where are we ever going to make cuts? It would be nice if America were strong enough to house and feed the entire world. But if we try to do that, we will be so devastated and emaciated as a country that we will become a Third World country, because you just can't do that. You go bankrupt, then people quit buying your products, and then you have an entire rebound situation. But that is how you can become a destitute country. It is how the Soviet Union went out of business. It is what happens to any country, any group that tries to live under a communist or socialist system. As Margaret Thatcher said, eventually you run out of other people's money, and you are broke. A true free market system does not fail. A free market system fails when it becomes more and more and more socialistic, more government controlled, more giveaways, less reward for one's own work, and more reward for not working at all. That brings down a nation under the rules of socialism because it cannot stand--not in this life. It cannot. Yet, this Congress, though we are Republican-controlled in the House, is continuing to fail to stand strongly enough to protect future generations. And it is heartbreaking. Now, I got back from being in Nigeria for a couple of days. There are mothers with whom I met of young minor girls. Three of the girls were taken into captivity by Boko Haram, a radical Islamic group, and they were able to escape. There were only a handful that were able to do that, and this was three of those. Twenty-two of the mothers--one mother had two of her girls kidnapped. Radical Islam, because of its desire for a global caliphate, is a threat to all freedom-loving people. It is a threat to moderate Muslims because they generally go to the top of the list. If they protest, then they are at the top of the list to be knocked off by the radical Islamists. But consistently at the top are Christians and Jews. So radical Islam is a threat to civilization as we know it. The progress that was made in Muslim civilizations could not have been made if they were truly radical as we keep seeing them raise their ugly heads in Iran and places like Nigeria, the northern part where Boko Haram continues to terrorize, including yesterday. I am not for going to war, but we were able to go into Afghanistan when we knew Afghanistan was where the 9/11/2001 attack originated, and with less than 500 American soldiers, Special Forces and some intelligence, air cover, some weapons, they were wiped out within 4 or 5 months. It wasn't until we became occupiers with tens of thousands of military in-country that we started running into real difficulty and loss of American lives. Then this President came in and basically was ready to announce a date of withdrawal, which is considered by most warriors as an announcement of surrender. When you say, this is when we will withdraw no matter what is happening, most consider that as a declaration of surrender if they are opposing those who are going to withdraw. So we could do that in places. We have done it in the Philippines. Send a little embedded help for the Nigerians to eliminate Boko Haram, take them out as a threat, and then don't become occupiers, don't nation-build, just help them take out anything that is a threat to civilization as we know it and our freedom and liberty as we love it. It may shock some, Mr. Speaker, but in Nigeria these families have heard repeatedly that nobody cares about your daughters that were abducted and nobody cares what is happening. And if you think for a minute anybody from America cares, they are too busy enjoying their own lifestyle, they could care less what happens here. Nobody from America is coming. One Congressman came, and there are more, there was another small group there, but I was the only one that met with family members. So they didn't know there was another group. Again, it may shock some, but these families in Nigeria don't follow Twitter. They don't know what a hashtag is. So when the best an administration in the United States can do is #bringbackourgirls, it doesn't do anything for the families. They continue to cry day after day after day. One of these three girls was telling me that they had nightmares because they knew what was happening to the girls because of what happened to them while they were there, and they felt guilty because they were out and these girls were in. When the superpower of the world doesn't seem to care about the rule of law, number one, and begins to reward our enemies, begins to penalize our allies, those three things--and I will add one more--and then fourth, spending massive amounts more of money than we take in, those four are a very good prescription for bringing about the end of a great nation. Now, I am not a doom-and-gloom person, but I did major in history before I went--I knew I was going into the Army for 4 years, I loved history, especially American history, but anybody that studies world history understands that no nation will last forever--none. No nation will ever last forever in this life and in this world. So it is a question of how long you can maintain a great nation. The Romans, as great as they were, couldn't make an empire last forever. Later, the Ottoman Empire took over all these nations, most of them surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. And until the stop in Vienna, it looked like they were headed toward taking over all of Europe. They didn't last forever. Going back before the Romans, the Greeks, they had a great empire. They didn't last forever. Ironically, some like to point to Alexander the Great and say: see, you can conquer Afghanistan and occupy it successfully. I point out that Alexander the Great died leaving Afghanistan. I wouldn't consider that a great victory. It didn't work out that well. It didn't then. It didn't for the Russians. We have to be smarter about what we do because no Nation does last forever. My goal in being in Congress--one of my goals--is to try to work with other Members of Congress to perpetuate this little experiment in democracy for another 200--maybe 100 to 200 years. As Ben Franklin said: It is a republic if you can keep it. That takes work. As Thomas Jefferson said: The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Our Nation seemed to grow more apathetic after World War II and has seen our deficits go through the roof. Countries around the world are now saying: You can't trust the dollar because Americans can't control their spending; they have no moral judgment which would keep them from spending their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren's money, so we need to stop taking the dollar. When the dollar ceases to be important international world currency, it will have a devastating effect, bring about a crash, most likely, here in the United States, and you will not be able to revive the economy by creating more and more and more money, day after day, as is currently happening in this country now and has been dramatically happening for some years, especially since 2008. Nothing indicates to the world at large our lawlessness more than our refusal to enforce our immigration laws and to secure our borders. Some say: oh, you must not like Mexicans. Nothing could be further from the truth. I think the Hispanic culture, with a love of God--generally speaking--a love of family, and hard work ethic can help reinvigorate our Nation's morality where it should be. My wife and I went for our honeymoon 36 years ago in Mexico. It was quite extraordinary. I have very fond memories. What we have seen recently are not Mexicans coming across our border--no. The big numbers have been coming from further south. They have been coming from South America and south Latin America, south Central America. In talking to a law enforcement officer in Texas, the pride of Governor Rick Perry, I was just told--talking in the cloakroom to Steve McGraw--they are not sure how many 12 and under are in these masses, but generally, it doesn't look like there is a big percentage 12 and under. Apparently, in the last 8 days, the first 8 days of June, it appears that they have dwarfed the massive thousands that have come into the U.S. in the whole month of May, and May was dramatically ratcheted up from the month before that, and it is continuing to grow larger and larger. It was a bit appalling to hear a spokesman for the Obama administration is saying they have no idea why there is such a tremendous surge in the numbers of children coming into the United States. I mean, for heaven's sake, when you send out an invitation saying ``you all come,'' you shouldn't be surprised when they do. When you basically send out notification to the world that, if you can come quickly, we will give you amnesty, and we will provide you housing, and we will give you welfare benefits, and we will give you education, and we will give you better hospital care than you have ever had, then I think you can expect a great--a dramatic increase in the numbers of people who send their children to America. It shouldn't be a mystery. I have had great regard for the Anti-Defamation League. My understanding of their inception is basically to deal with hate, particularly as had been seen with anti-Semitism. After studying about the Holocaust during World War II and studying about it in history--high school and college--I couldn't believe that we would ever see anti-Semitism, an anti-Jewish sentiment arise in America as it had around the world. I didn't think we would see the rise of anti-Judaism in Europe again. I figured the Europeans would be too ashamed to ever allow that to happen, and yet we have seen it happen. While the Anti-Defamation League has not done the best job of helping suppress the anti-Jewish sentiment growing in Europe and that some see growing here in America, as we see Middle Easterners like Iran saying they want to wipe out Israel as the Little Satan and the U.S. as the Great Satan, and when you read the pleading that the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks wrote in his comfortable cell at Guantanamo Bay and he talked about and quoted the Koran, in essence, as the basis for wanting to destroy all Jewish people and all Christian people, so that Jews and Christians are together, as far as the radical Islamists are concerned, we all need to be wiped out. Instead, the Anti-Defamation League, this noble endeavor, sent this letter to me that was received last week: Dear Representative Gohmert: We write to urge you to stop using inflammatory rhetoric in the immigration debate. Your statements from the House floor that the current administration is ``luring young children across the border'' and that current policies are complicit in ``helping lure people into sex trafficking'' do not help engage in a productive discussion about the salient issues surrounding the immigration challenges our country is experiencing. Immigration remains a deeply polarizing issue in American politics and public life. Well, let me assuage concerns by the Anti-Defamation League, but the policies of this administration are luring young people--children--into this country, mainly being sent by adults, because of the policy of trying to create amnesty for children. Anyone in Congress, Republican--and I know we have some--and Democrat who keep saying yes, any children that are here, we need to go in and give them amnesty, are helping to lure children. I know they are not doing it intentionally, but they are doing it, and talking about amnesty for children is sending more and more children from South America and Latin America and other places, so they can get here in time for their amnesty. I was told by a missionary about a billboard up with our President's face, encouraging sending children to America, and the word spreads like wildfire: America is going to give amnesty to any children that can get there. Deeply troubling should be the fact that some children get tied in with sex trafficking and really despicable human traffickers--why? Because of this announced, discussed policy that we want to provide amnesty for children that are here. There is an article from Breitbart today entitled, ``Illegal Immigrants Intentionally Surrendering to Border Patrol to Gain Entry to U.S.,'' by Tony Lee. Illegal immigrants are reportedly signaling Federal officials to detain them once they are near the U.S.-Mexico border, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have declared they may not pursue all illegal immigrants who do not show up for hearings after they enter the country. Mr. Speaker, if anybody in this administration thinks they don't hear that and that word does not get around to those who are tempted to send children to America, they are wrong. That word gets around: they are not going to send you back if you come. According to the Los Angeles Times, Yoselin Ramos, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala who was with ``20 other families with children,'' actually ``had looked forward to being caught,'' telling the outlet ``at one point even waving down Federal helicopters--because of the welcoming treatment they had assumed they would receive.'' In their home countries south of the border, reports have been circulating that illegal immigrants, especially those with children, will be allowed to stay in the United States ``indefinitely.'' Ramos said she decided to make the trek to the United States after hearing reports ``that parents will not be detained in the U.S. if they arrive with a child.'' The Federal Government has been sending illegal immigrants to States like Arizona and Oklahoma, and local officials do not even know where some of them are headed. And though illegal immigrants are required to show up to meet with local Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, officials within 15 days, ICE official told the Times that ``they couldn't guarantee they would pursue all cases in which immigrants do not show up for follow-up appointments, but would examine each case to determine priorities.'' In fact, ``ICE officials say that the immigrants are released as long as they can provide an address for their destination--with family or friends, no matter their legal status.'' Ramos was sent to stay with her family in Iowa. And the Houston Chronicle reported that another illegal immigrant said he considered the papers ICE gave him to be a ``permit'' to remain in the United States. That illegal immigrant was sent to stay with family in North Carolina. Though these illegal immigrants said they intended to show up at their hearings, there is no guarantee that ICE is willing or even has the resources to track them down if they do not show up. This is from Judicial Watch from yesterday: ``Influx of Illegal Alien Minors a Disaster: Overcrowded Shelters, Diseases, Sexually Active Teens.'' It sure seems to be clear from the pictures we have been seeing that a very small percentage of the minors coming in would be below teenage years, but this story says: The barrage of illegal immigrant minors entering U.S. through Mexico in recent weeks has created an out-of-control disaster with jampacked holding centers, rampant diseases, and sexually active teenagers at a Nogales facility, according to information obtained by Judicial Watch from a Homeland Security source. There was a liberal game plan laid out some years ago that indicated the way to bring down the United States, for those extreme liberal activists who wanted to do so, the hippy mentality, let's bring down the evil United States that was the freest country in the history of the world, they wanted to bring it down, destroy it. The part of the game plan for doing so in this well thought-out narrative, you overwhelm the system. You get so many people on welfare rolls, the government implodes. You bring so many people in, you lure them in, so much so that the country cannot take care of them, and it implodes. My dear friend Joel Rosenberg has a good book I was reading recently, called, ``Implosion.'' That is one way a nation can end its existence as a strong nation. Another article from Newsmax, ``Central America Newspapers Tout Open U.S. Door for Illegal Minors.'' Mr. Speaker, for those in the administration that just cannot imagine what is causing the dramatic increase week after week, more and more and more coming to this country and overwhelming our Border Patrol's ability to handle the situation, then they just need to read a few newspaper articles. It's really quite telling. This one by Todd Beamon says: Newspapers in El Salvador and Honduras are promoting policies by the Obama administration that defer deportation to minors brought to the United States as children by their parents--known as ``DREAMers''--and those that are housing illegal children at military bases in the South and West. Almost all agree that a child who crossed the border illegally with their parents, or in search of a father or a better life, was not making an adult choice to break our laws, and should be treated differently than adult violators of the law,'' Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson is quoted in a story about a new 2-year extension of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Act published by Dario El Mundo in El Salvador. Signed by President Barack Obama in 2012, the law grants temporary legal custody to many young illegal immigrants, ending the threat of deportation for at least 2 years. The policy, however, does not entitle the immigrants to state services. The law was renewed for 2 more years. ``With the renewal of DACA, we act according to our values and code of this great Nation,'' Johnson said. ``But the biggest task of comprehensive immigration reform is yet to come.'' Meanwhile, La Prensa of Honduras discusses in a report how as many as 500 illegal minors are being housed at the Naval Base Ventura County in southern California. ``The children will be accommodated for between 3 and 4 months, while their parents or relatives are located in the United States,'' the report says. ``The administration of President Barack Obama has acknowledged he faces a serious crisis for the continuous arrival of children, mostly Central Americans, who are illegally entering the country on the border with Mexico.'' Besides Mexico and Honduras, the report notes that many of the children are coming from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. ``During their stay, in addition to accommodations and food, the children receive English classes, play sports, and participate in targeted programs while immigration authorities contact their families,'' the La Prensa report says. On Monday, the Obama administration said it would begin housing as many as 1,200 illegal minors at the Army base in Fort Sill in Oklahoma. And it goes on. For anybody who could wonder why the numbers are increasing basically daily, weekly, dramatically increasing, so that potentially in the first 8 days of June they have already overshadowed the massive number that came in in May, and because this Nation is a caring and the most charitable nation in the history of the world--any time, any place--the most charitable nation in the world, the most welcoming of immigrants around the world to our country legally--no one comes close to the number of immigrants that we allow into this country annually, nobody. Legally, I am talking about. And yet they dare to criticize our immigration policy as not being open enough? I still believe if the President or the Secretary of State notified the leaders in Mexico: Look, we turn around people that come in by mistake to the U.S. If they try to come in by mistake, we normally turn them around--that is until this administration's policy of just welcoming everybody, basically, particularly if they have got children. But if the President or Secretary of State added that we are about to start pushing the change of our laws in some respects to being like your immigration laws, so when an American citizen cannot own property outright by themselves in Mexico, we are going to change our laws, because if it is good enough for you to treat United States citizens like this in your country, then it should be good enough for the United States to treat our--treat your Mexican visa holders the same way, so we are going to outlaw Mexican nationals owning property outright in America. But if you want to head off our beginning to have our immigration laws more reflective of your own laws treating us when we come in, then you better let our marine go, and you better not ever pull that again. The man said he made a mistake. It was easy to make a mistake. I couldn't believe somebody could make a wrong turn and end up being unable to turn around, but then when you see Greta Van Susteren's video where she goes in, you have the concrete barriers, you can't turn around until you get there and say, ``I made a mistake; I want turn around and go back,'' and they decide this is a great chance to grab an American soldier and throw him in jail. It is a similar message that's being sent around the world by this administration doing nothing about our marine being falsely, wrongly held in jail. The same kind of message is going into Africa and into Afghanistan and into the Middle East and China and Russia and Crimea. And the message is: we don't even protect our own people, really. If we have a deserter, then we may give away five people that are destined to kill lots more Americans, but otherwise, we are not going to help a marine who really had served honorably. We are not going to help him, but we may help somebody who walked away from his post. The message is going out and making America appear to be a joke. It is why some are pushing their nation like Putin, knowing he could take over the Crimea. And the U.S. Government might talk about it, they might do as they did and put a hashtag and Twitter something and then be shocked that the Russians weren't scared to continue on in their imperialistic landgrabs by this administration's Tweets. What a shock. A man who learned manipulation and domination from the KGB appears to the world to be backing down a community organizer. What a shock. The story from Breitbart written by Kristin Tate, ``Border Children Reportedly Sickened by Food in U.S. Facilities, Throwing in Trash.'' It is from a Houston story. A tidal wave of illegal immigrants along the U.S.-Mexico border has caused Federal housing and processing facilities to become overwhelmed and overcrowded. The surge of thousands of children, it talks about. And so is it any surprise that more and more are coming to the extent we can't even provide them proper food? Here is one from Townhall.com, ``Internal Border Patrol Email: Unaccompanied Child Crisis is `Unprecedented' ''--Katie Pavlich. That is from today. A story from Stephen Dinan of The Washington Times, ``Holder Seeks Legal Team for Children on Border, Program to Aid `Most Vulnerable.' '' A story from Breitbart--I am not sure that is an appropriate title-- ``Obama's Criminal Activity on Immigration.'' The story talks about: With the wave of illegal immigrants crossing America's southern border thanks to the Obama administration's policy of nonenforcement, more and more Americans are rightfully anxious about the new and unprecedented use of executive power by President Obama. In December, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen of Brownsville, Texas, wrote, ``[The government] has simply chosen not to enforce the United States' border security laws.'' It was written by my friend Ben Shapiro. Here is one, ``Officials `Overwhelmed' by Influx of Children Crossing Mexican Border into U.S. on Their Own.'' It is very dramatic what has been going on, and there is a price to pay when we do not enforce our own laws, and we will pay by having more and more and more children coming into this country illegally. So, Mr. Speaker, let's think about this. When people come into the U.S. and we fail to turn them around and say: You are not lawfully coming in, so you can't come in. We are not going allow you to come in illegally, so go back, go back from where you came. You were able to get here, so go back wherever you came from. When we refuse to do that and allow them to come on in anyway, then we end up providing food, shelter, supervision, education. Apparently, we are going to provide legal services now, according to this article discussing our contemptuous Attorney General Eric Holder, who has shown a pattern of refusing and failing to follow and enforce United States law. It would seem that when you add up all the costs of those things, we would be better off--I had heard there was a plane with 100 and something minors that landed in the U.S. It seems it would be cheaper to just refuel their fuel tanks and send them back where they came from, sending a message with it: we are not letting people come in illegally. We already let more people in legally more than any Nation in the world, and we are not even one of the largest nations in the world. You have got China with estimates between 1.3 and 1.8 billion. You got India that is nearly as big. We are a large Nation, but not nearly compared. We are about a fifth the size of China, a fourth the size maybe of India, yet we let in many more immigrants than they do. So it is not that we have a ruthless immigration policy. But, Mr. Speaker, it seems, and I have had more and more reporters asking this question: So what do you do? Well, you secure the border first. You don't seal it. I have never advocated that. People lie when they say I have ever said that. I have never said that. You don't seal the border. You secure the border so that we continue to allow over a million people a year legally to come in. But anyone who is trying to come in illegally must be stopped, they must be stopped and be required to attempt entering legally because they will not be allowed to come in illegally. Whatever adults are sending children, it would still be cheaper to put an ICE agent with a group that came from a place like the 113 and make sure they go back where they came from, because otherwise the radical liberal approach of overwhelming the system so you can bring it down is in full display right now on America's borders, overwhelming the spending so that our dollar is not worth what it was, overwhelming our ability to protect ourselves, dramatically cutting the military where we can't adequately defend ourselves and those who would be harmed immediately before we would be harmed. Because as President Bush used to say, it is a whole lot better to fight people in another country than have to fight them within our own country. There are those who have compared Israel to the miner's canary; that if Israel is under attack, as they are every day, then the free world will be immediately behind it. We have got to start being more lawful. As I asked somebody in one of our hearings on immigration before, why are people coming here? Well, they are coming here for jobs or for food or for opportunity. Well, no, that is not answering why they are coming here, because they wouldn't need to come here if the countries they were coming from had jobs and had opportunity. Obviously, they don't have the jobs and opportunity where they are coming from. So why are there more jobs or more opportunity here? The answer is, up until more recently, we have been a Nation of laws. Up until this administration, we abided by the Constitution as best we could. Sometimes in our history the Constitution was misconstrued. It should have stood for freedom for all men and women throughout our history, but it took a Civil War and then an ordained Christian minister named Martin Luther King, Jr., to see that rights were to be applied across the board. But nonetheless, there was an effort throughout our history where Presidents were supposed to follow the law and have their administrations enforce the law. This Attorney General is in contempt of Congress because he is not. It is time to take further action and send a message to the world that we are still a Nation of laws and believe in the rule of law, because until we do that we will be overwhelmed, and hopefully we can take a stand and require the administration to follow the law before it is too late. But it genuinely was heartbreaking to me. It is not angering but heartbreaking to hear the President of the United States say, if Congress doesn't act I will, indicating that he would usurp constitutional authority reserved for the legislature in the Constitution. He would usurp that. The response by most of my friends on this side of the aisle was to stand and applaud the announcement that the President would ignore the Constitution, and if Congress didn't change the law he would take care of it himself by himself. To see people applaud the destruction of our Constitution was heartbreaking to me because I know they didn't realize they were applauding the implosion of our Constitution. There are an awful lot of good friends I have on the other side of the aisle who probably stood and applauded, and I am sure they didn't realize. But that is the effect when a President of the United States says if Congress doesn't address the law, change the law, then I will. The result is what our Founders promised. It was a Republic as long as you tried to keep it. You did have liberty, but you ceased being vigilant so you lost it. I tried to warn you about all these things. We tried to warn you, as John Adams did, that this government is only meant for religious and moral people, and not fit to govern any others. Abraham Lincoln, as inscribed on the inside wall on the north wall of the Lincoln Memorial in his inaugural address a month or so before he was assassinated, talked about God. Lincoln tried to debate in his inaugural address within himself how a good God could allow such suffering. It comes down, it appears, from his theological dissertation, that when a nation acts wrongly, as this Nation did in allowing slavery, a just God would allow suffering as a result. To paraphrase Lincoln, if it be God's will that every drop of blood drawn by the master's lash also be drawn by the sword in war, then we still must say, as was said 3,000 years ago, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous all together. When we as a Nation ignore the law, when we as a Nation encourage other nations to ignore our law, when our Justice Department refuses to enforce the law fairly and justly across the board, you lose the country that was, has been, and hopefully for a while longer will be the greatest country in the history of the world. We have an obligation, a moral obligation, to future generations not to leave this country the way we are about to. But people have got to wake up on both sides of the aisle. You can't keep announcing that we are going to ignore the law if you can just get here before we pass the law. We are looking the other way, come on, ignore our law along with our Justice Department, ignore our law along with the Homeland Security Department, ignore our law along with the White House, come on, we will ignore our law together. It truly is a prescription for the end of the Nation. We can't let that happen. People have got to wake up. So for those in the administration that just can't imagine why there is a dramatic increase in minors coming to our border, start reading some of the things you are saying and you will find the answer. Mr. Speaker, we have an oath to follow. By God's grace let's follow it. 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. Chairman, I agree with my friend from Missouri that Congress is dysfunctional. I am told by people that were here in the late seventies, eighties, nineties, that if a President started usurping power of the legislature, of the Congress, that very quietly, the leaders of the House and Senate from both parties would make a quick trip down Pennsylvania Avenue to tell the President that he either needed to stop usurping congressional authority, start living within the law, or quit being lawless, and that would have generally taken care of it, and it was a bipartisan and bicameral effort. Unfortunately, this body is dysfunctional, when you look at the efforts to protect an administration that keeps acting lawlessly. I would like to have had accurate numbers showing the percentage of section 8 housing that is being provided to people illegally; that is, providing section 8 housing to people who are not authorized, who are getting that housing against the law, mainly people illegally here, but the last official numbers that my staff and I could find go back to the January 1, 2009. Under the Bush administration, 0.4 percent of section 8 housing was going to people illegally. In other words, it was illegally going to people because they were not authorized to be here. There are indications from a report in 2010 that it increased to 1.17 percent, but, Mr. Chairman, I just felt that it was imperative for us to send a message: if you are not going to provide the housing to Americans who desperately need it and you are going to continue to provide housing to people who are not legally authorized to have that housing, then we will make a small cut here. Then we will get more accurate numbers in the future, and we will continue to cut the program until the Department of Housing and Urban Development gets serious about making sure that only people authorized under the law to have the section 8 housing get it. So we took four-tenths of a percent times that set-aside for the Public Housing Capital Fund at line 3 and the same percentage from the Public Housing Operating Fund at line 24, page 87, and then added that to the spending reduction account. Why? Because this generation has shown that we are immoral. We, like no other generation before us, are spending lavishly on our own generation without regard for the massive millstone--or albatross, if you prefer--around future generations' necks. That is immoral. That is immoral that we cannot live within our means, and we would cast that upon future generations. So with that, I would argue for the passage of this amendment. It does not legislate. It simply appropriates a more appropriate amount. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to comment about the work done on the National Defense Authorization Act. I know Chairman McKeon has done a tremendous amount of work. I know, from dealing with him during this work on the defense budget, it has been extremely difficult for him. I remain concerned where we have an administration that has kept our people in Afghanistan with less than favorable rules of engagement, where we have people in harm's way and constantly being called on to be alert, be in positions where they may be in harm's way; and, yet, the authorization ends up being $45 billion less than the President's own projection for fiscal year 2014 budget request, and $30.7 billion less than that, that was enacted for fiscal year 2014 in the NDAA Public Law 113-66. Back in the summer of 2011, I told our leadership that the deficit was a major problem, of course, as all of our conference realizes, as those on the other side of the aisle used to talk about until they got into the majority and blew the lid off the deficit. To raise the debt ceiling, set up a supercommittee that I knew was going to fail, said it was going to fail because the Senate Democrats would never allow an agreement because they wanted to be able to blame Republicans for not getting a deal. The mainstream media always buys whatever they said, even when they shut down the government, as Harry Reid did last September 30th, by refusing to take up even the most extreme compromises that this House was willing to make. So they know they will get coverage from the mainstream media, and even some amazing examples of complete abandonment of any type of journalistic integrity. They knew they would be protected. So they did refuse to allow an agreement. Even when Senators-- Republican Senators reached out, indications were they thought they could get a deal, but I knew they were not going to allow the supercommittee to reach an agreement, no matter how far they bent over backwards, and that is what happened. That meant the sequestration would occur. I had no problem with the amount of cuts in the sequestration. I had a problem with the number one job of the Federal Government, being to provide for the common defense, taking the biggest devastating hit in the sequestration. That was the problem. So, because of that, I am still very concerned about the massive cuts to our defense when we are more hated than ever, trusted less than ever. Our previous friends are now reaching out to China and Russia because they can't trust us. In trips abroad--I know the administration doesn't like Members of Congress to go abroad because we end up talking directly to people and finding out what they really think, so we don't get indirect misrepresentation, and you find out around the world, people don't trust this administration. Our allies are saying: Are we going to be the next ally that you throw away, as you have been doing in recent years under this administration? As I have said before, the elderly African in West Africa who told me how excited they were when we elected our first African American President, but ever since he had been President, he said, the United States keeps getting weaker and weaker, and you have got to stop. Please tell the people in Washington to stop allowing the United States to get weaker. As Christians, they knew, they said, where they would go when this life was over, but their hope, he said, for a more safe and free life here, even for a West African, would be when the United States does not get weaker, but stands against tyranny and stands against any threat. Like Boko Haram, that threatens innocent Christians anywhere, it will ultimately be a threat to Christians everywhere. I am also very concerned, as one who believes, as Abraham Lincoln says, as is inscribed in the north wall of the Lincoln Memorial, as part of his second inaugural address, that, as he quoted from scripture: The judgments of the Lord are just and righteous altogether. I am very concerned that, when our Nation is the most powerful Nation in the world, at the time when Christian persecutions, by number--not necessarily by percentage, but by number--are probably the greatest they have ever been in the history of the world, since Jesus was on earth, and we do nothing except watch the persecutions grow and grow, there will ultimately be some accountability if, as Abraham Lincoln said, as he and I believe, the judgments of the Lord are just and righteous altogether. When someone is given much, of them, much is expected. We have an obligation. We have been put in a position where we can stand up for righteousness. It did take a while for this Nation to get to the point where the Constitution meant exactly what it said, but what helped us get there was what was originally in the Declaration of Independence, a belief that we are endowed by our Creator, not endowed by government, not endowed by a monarch, but we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights. When we fail to acknowledge that Creator, when we fail to stand up for those who acknowledge the Creator, when we fail to stand up and provide for the common defense, then there will be a price to pay. Israel is feeling it. The mainstream media doesn't talk about it. Israel doesn't want to be considered a whiner, but they are being constantly under attack from rockets. Why? Because they are Jews and because they are in the Middle East, in the same location that was called the Promised Land where, around 1,600 years or so before Muhammad lived, King David was ruling in the land where they now are, and in the location, in Hebron, for example, where he ruled the first 7 years as King of Israel. Some say, well, clearly, that is not Israeli land. People that worship Muhammad that came along 1,600 years after Christ--I'm sorry-- after King David was ruling in that town or 600 years or so after Christ, then, surely, they have a better claim; yet we tell Israel that they have to constantly be giving up and even to have our Secretary of State saying that they are guilty of apartheid, they are risking that guilt if they don't do everything that our Secretary of State says, where he has previously warned that, if they don't do what Secretary Kerry said, they may bring another wave of murder upon themselves. It sounded like a threat. There are consequences for leaders who put our friends in jeopardy, and for those that think, well, just because we have leaders making bad statements, making bad decisions, doesn't mean it will reflect on us in the country, but for those who believe what is in the Bible, as the huge majority did, of our Founders, those who wrote translations of the Bible, those who taught Sunday school--one of the Founders started the Sunday school movement in America. It is amazing the strength of ties. Even though some teach today that Ben Franklin was a Deist, his statements make clear that was not the case. As he, himself, said and then recorded in his own handwriting of the speech he gave, he said: I have lived, sir, a long time, but the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth. God governs in the affairs of men, and if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it possible an empire could rise without His aid? Franklin said to the Constitutional Convention, as he went on: We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writing that, unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. He said: I also firmly believe that without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in our political building no better than the builders of Babel. When God was telling Hosea why he was mad at the Children of Israel, I looked at different translations. One basically had him saying: because they have chosen leaders who are not my choice. A Nation is responsible for the leaders they select, and it doesn't matter that John Kerry was rejected by the Nation to be the national spokesperson and national President because, when he is Secretary of State and he makes statements that hurt our dearest allies, then we, as a Nation, will be accountable for his missteps and mistakes in judgment. We have an obligation to demand better from our leaders. It is a scandal with regard to the Veterans Administration, and for anyone to stand up and say, wow, I had no idea that these problems were going on, stretches the bounds of credibility when that same person said, back in 2008, in condemnation of the Bush administration, that they were not doing enough for our veterans, and condemned the Bush administration and made clear that: when I get in office, I will clear up these problems, I will take care of our veterans. So as a former judge, those statements--prior statements against interest--would be allowed into evidence to show that something that was said yesterday was not truthful because the mental awareness was shown in 2008, was also shown by statements in 2009, 2010, and then we find out there was a document reflecting that there were these problems with the Veterans Administration. Our veterans deserve better. I was in the Army for 4 years. I don't deserve better. I never saw combat. I still think we should have, in 1979--I still feel guilty that, because we were not sent to respond at all to an act of war, in 1979, that thousands of Americans have died because we didn't take a stand in '79, so they got stronger and stronger and stronger until they have gotten to the place that the Taliban takes over Afghanistan. You have a renegade regime in Iran that President Carter welcomed in, the Ayatollah Khomeini, as a man of peace. And, of course, it makes sense that the policies of this administration are as they are, when you have someone who is a featured speaker at the great tribute to Ayatollah Khomeini as the man of vision and peace. Well, he is one of the top advisers, even as I speak, at the Department of Homeland Security. He is giving advice, as are others who were named as being members of the Muslim Brotherhood by a periodical in Egypt in December of 2012 in which they were bragging about the top officials in the Obama administration who are members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Perhaps that explains why this administration has remained so loyal to the Muslim Brotherhood abroad, such that moderate Muslims, as you travel abroad, ask you: Why are you supporting your enemy? The Muslim Brotherhood wants to eliminate everything but radical Islam in America and in the world. Why are you helping them? They are your enemy. They are behind the attacks that have been made on the United States. Why are you helping them? Mr. Speaker, in Libya, where a former terrorist supporter had reigned since 2003--and, as some Israelis had said: He was the best help you had, besides us, on identifying and eliminating radical Islam and terrorism, but yet you took him out. And we did that with our air cover and the provision of weapons to rebels that we knew had al Qaeda in them. It turns out that they were far stronger than we knew, which was why some of us were saying don't be helping the rebels in Libya. We know they have got al Qaeda in them. Yet we helped them. As you travel abroad, you find people saying: You are still helping your enemy. We are worried you are going to turn on us next. You turn on your allies. You punish your allies, and you reward your enemies. What kind of foreign policy is that? It never works. You will not win over people that hate you by giving them money and arms. They don't think you are a wonderful country because you have given them money and arms. They know you are crazy and you need to be wiped off the planet because you don't deserve to be a superpower. You are too stupid. And you give your people too much freedom, which allows them to choose some other religion than radical Islam. Moderate Muslims around the world do not want radical Islam reigning over them, and that is why the people of Egypt rose up. And if this administration would do anything to show a powerful support for the nearly double the millions of people that allegedly voted for Morsi to be President, that came out and signed a petition, the two or three times as many millions came to the street demanding his removal as he said voted for him. There were fraud allegations. But from talking to the Egyptians, apparently Morsi had made it clear that if anybody objected to his win of the election, they would, as they said, ``burn Egypt down.'' The people who are in charge in Egypt don't want radical Islam's return. But when you talk to them, you find out that one of their biggest problems--well, two of their biggest problems--is on their west, in the eastern area of Libya, since this administration made sure Qadhafi was eliminated. Now terrorist training camps, like the Taliban had in Afghanistan, are now in Libya. And they come in and out of Egypt. And because of this administration's support for Morsi, he was able to militarize and weaponize the Sinai like it had never been weaponized before, making it more of a threat to Israel and making it more of a threat to the lovers of peace in Egypt. There are consequences, even for those in this country who object to what the administration has done when they don't rise up and use their voices to make clear to this administration, through elections and through vocal objections, that they are making a huge mistake, and if they don't support lovers of liberty and Christian allies and Jewish allies that there will be a great amount to pay in the next election. And when that is made clear, I find my friends across the aisle get very responsive to the American people because--apparently, something that is a truth in America, as in other places--when someone is elected to a position they pursued, they like to stay in that position. Some of us wonder at times if it is worth it. But as I have been told before: You have got to stay; this is where the fight is. Well, I would also submit the fight is across America, for people to wake up, stop the apathy, and make it clear to those in this administration, to those in charge, that you are not going to stand for the kind of things that are going on. And when it is made clear that we will not, as a Nation, tolerate what this administration has been allowing and looking the other way on, in the Veterans Administration, then things will change. But not until then. And when it is made clear to this administration that ObamaCare is a threat to seniors--it did cut $716 billion from Medicare, which means they are not going to get the health care they need--when you are spending billions of dollars to hire IRS agents and navigators, more bureaucrats, then that is billions of dollars that will not be saving the lives of people that need lifesaving medications, need lifesaving procedures. Americans have got to wake up and demand better; and when they do, they will get it. But I also want to touch on the USA FREEDOM Act, as it was labeled. I had an amendment. Though I applauded the work that was done by my friend from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) to negotiate an agreement, I still had the same concern I had back in 2005 and 2006 as a freshman. At that time, I brought it to the attention of the Gonzales Justice Department. I brought it to the attention of the Bush administration that I am concerned about this part in the PATRIOT Act where it says, like in section 215, that you can go after anybody in ``an investigation to obtain foreign intelligence information not concerning a United States person or to protect against international terrorism.'' So in both of those cases, they have to involve a foreign entity, a foreign agent, a foreign country, a foreign group of some kind, international terrorism. Those have to be involved for the PATRIOT Act to apply because as, apparently, Congress was told when the PATRIOT Act was passed back in desperation after 9/11/2001, we have got to protect against international terrorism, foreign agents, people who are dealing with foreign agents. That is what it was for. So this third part concerned me because it says, or to protect against ``clandestine intelligence activities.'' ``Clandestine intelligence activities,'' what does that mean? It is very vague. And it doesn't say ``foreign.'' It doesn't say ``international.'' And since we were told that we are not allowed to just go gather information about American citizens, then this should have the word ``foreign'' or ``international'' in there. So my amendment to the USA FREEDOM Act that would amend this put that in there. It dealt with that, the amendment that was fought against by my friend from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner). They had too perfect of a cake that they had baked, and they, as MacArthur Park says, ``may never have the recipe again. Oh, no.'' They couldn't allow a change to their recipe. So they didn't allow any reference to ``foreign'' or ``international.'' And the other references within the PATRIOT Act and the other references, like in 18 U.S.C. 1842 talks about to obtain ``foreign intelligence information not concerning a United States person'' or ``to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.'' So it needed the word ``foreign'' or ``international'' somehow in there. I provided that, but the proponents of the USA FREEDOM Act did not want it in. Although my amendment originally passed in committee, it was revoted on a voice vote quickly after we were coming back from a vote on the floor and taken out. And although a majority of those in the Rules Committee said that my amendment needed to be in the law to protect it and to protect American citizens, when the rule came out, the rule said that my amendment was not going to be allowed to have a vote. So I had to vote against the USA FREEDOM Act because this is a gaping hole that allows the Federal Government to go after and spy on American citizens who have no contact with any foreign government, any foreign agent, have no ties at all to international terrorism, haven't necessarily ever even thought about terrorism. But with this, if they can be alleged to have engaged in any type of clandestine intelligence activities, you can go after them and spy on them. And what does that mean? Well, I have asked the question, and I have not gotten any satisfactory answer--any answer, really. Well, does that mean, if somebody looks over a fence into a Federal enclave, that that is trying to get intelligence and that might invoke this provision of the PATRIOT Act? Or how about if someone mistakenly goes to a Web site, does that invoke this provision that allows you to go after them? And I haven't gotten a good answer, and I haven't been told how this has been applied. I was hoping to get an answer that it has never been used, but I haven't gotten that either. As a result, I had to vote against the USA FREEDOM Act because I didn't want my name on a bill that leaves a hole this large, allowing the Federal Government to go after American citizens who have never even thought about terrorism and have never had any contact with a foreign agent. So, Mr. Speaker, I wanted to reiterate again that I think we will suffer if, having been given so much more freedom, more assets than any nation in the history of the world, we do not stand up for Jews and Christians being persecuted around the world. We have clearly gone to war and lost human life and limb on behalf of protecting Muslims in the world. It is time that we also stood for Christians and Jews around the world. I never thought I would see anti-Semitism arise in my lifetime like it has. On our college campuses in the name of open-mindedness, they have become anti-Semitic and racist, anti-Israeli. We have got to demand better from this administration, and we have got to stand up for those Jews and Christians who are being persecuted and oppressed in greater numbers than ever before. And with that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Chairman, at this time, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon), the chairman of the committee, for a colloquy.

Mr. GOHMERT. Reclaiming my time, my concern has been when we had a second shooting without the administration having done anything after the first Fort Hood shooting and then we have a second Fort Hood shooting 4\1/2\ years later, it made no sense not to do something. My own feeling was we should just allow all of our military members, they may be carrying automatic weapons, they may be authorized to shoot RPGs, drop bombs, all kinds of weapons in a foreign theater, why shouldn't they be able to carry weapons on military installations here in the United States? So my first amendment was simply to just allow every military member to carry, and then the issue came open or concealed. There are some commanders that have an issue both ways. In talking to other commanders, some commanders have said: look, there are some people overseas we don't let carry weapons, and we know from experience that some have returned where you have someone suffering potentially from PTSD that needs to be checked out. So commanders have encouraged that: gee, if that is going to happen, we ought to be able to check them out. Everybody knows nobody stands stronger for Second Amendment rights than me, but when you are in the military, you do give up certain rights, including free speech and freedom of assembly; and so it shouldn't be inappropriate to have someone go through an extra check before they were allowed to carry. Then bowing further to current commanders and former commanders like Jerry Boykin--former Delta Force--thought, gee, we can give them a choice, either have a duty roster where people walk around with weapons, and that would discourage further shooting because, clearly, as an article by Arthur Berg says in The Wall Street Journal, these people want to conclude it themselves. If they are afraid someone will shoot them before they conclude it, then that would not be--they wouldn't be going through it. So those are all things that motivate my amendment being filed, and the chairman here tells me that this is an issue that they would like to push in conference with the Senate bill that will be brought through. Since there is an ongoing concern about what would be the best way to do this, as I have experienced with commanders I have talked to, I have been encouraged--and not in a bad way--that this would be a way that we could do it, I would be consulted on what was being done in conference and that it would be brought up there. As a result, based on the assurances of my friend, the chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment at this time.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.