Louie Gohmert

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, today was a big day for the people of the United States of America. Some of us had tried to warn our friends across the aisle that back 3\1/2\ years ago, when ObamaCare was being passed, that there would be dire consequences. It would not just hurt the economy but it would hurt people's health. We were assured, No, we've got to do this bill that most people hadn't read. A precious few had read. I had read it. Some said, we have to pass it so we can find out what was in it, which was diametrically opposed to what the Founders wanted to see done. Though Thomas Jefferson was not at the Constitutional Convention, he did write later that he approved of the work. But if he had one thing that he could add, it would be the requirement that no bill could be passed until it had been on file for a year. If ObamaCare had been on file for a year, I really don't have any question that it would never have passed. Because whether Members of Congress read it or not, people across America would have read it and would have found out what was in it, would have realized that if they like their insurance policy, they are likely going to lose it. If they like their doctor, they are likely going to lose their doctor. People would have figured out that the consequences that are now being borne out would be coming down the road. There were union leaders that just couldn't rush fast enough down to the White House to express their support for a bill that they clearly did not read. They relied on representations that turned out to be totally untrue. But we were trying to get across to union leaders, to Americans that this is a bad bill for union members. If they like their insurance--which most did--they would not likely keep it. We were told, This has to be done for the 30 million or so that don't have any insurance. And now today, we see people losing their insurance right and left that they liked, losing doctors they liked. A doctor in my hometown had told me about having done a surgery just recently. He helped a woman, and he said, you know, it was one of the best jobs I have ever done. Just a tiny minimal loss of blood. It was done in 61 minutes. They have to keep track of those things. And because of his many years of experience, it paid off, and a patient got great help. But because so many parts of ObamaCare have been going into place, he got a call the very next day from a Federal bureaucrat who called from clear across the country to tell him that he was reviewing the information about the surgery the day before and that the average time for that surgery was around 3 hours and that, you know, 61 minutes was just way too fast, that he was way below the average. And normally, they lose three pints of blood, and he didn't hardly lose any. Therefore, they were going to have to dramatically dock the compensation only down to about 40 percent. He was told how he could change the record and get full compensation. But this is an honest and honorable doctor, and he was not about to do that. But what it did result in is, he has given his notice. He is giving up his practice. And because of the government's heavy-handedness, after this year, patients will not be having the benefit of his incredible experience, expertise, and training because this is where government control of health care goes. You run off doctors who care more about their patients than they do the government. And they're not going to stand for this kind of intrusion by some bureaucrat that didn't have any idea what good surgery was, telling him he couldn't be compensated because he did what, in effect, was too good of a job. These stories are being born out across the country. When the government starts taking over health care more and more, it is a disaster. And, of course, the government gets to know everyone's most personal secrets of their own physical body. I would have thought that over the years, since Roe V. Wade and so many friends across the aisle were screaming about privacy rights, that surely, they would not want either Democratic or Republican bureaucrats or elected officials knowing every detail of their private bedroom lives. And now we find that Democrats, without a single Republican vote, passed a bill that is going to give the Federal Government full power to know every detail of what goes on in someone's bedroom. I mean, I would have thought that this was something that Republicans and Democrats could have come together on. I'm greatly appreciative of the Democrats that voted with us today. And I know there's one reason they would have voted with us today, and that is that they have been home. I love August because most of the people here spend that time as they should. And they hear from people in their districts and across the country, letting them know what's a proper thing to do and what's not a proper thing to do. And who's suffering for what decisions of Congress. I love it when we come back in September, and Members of Congress have been hearing from people across the country, especially in their districts. It's a great thing. It seems like we get a lot more things done that really are good for America. And today was one of those things. Every Republican standing together and some Democrats because everyone who voted for this continuing resolution--they had stuff in there I was not in favor of. But to bring help to the American people who are already hearing--we've had personal stories about people being told, well, that after the first of the year they're not going to be able to get their pacemaker, they're not going to be able to get the medical device they needed, they're not going to be able to get the back surgery they need. They're already hearing these things from health care providers that because of ObamaCare kicking in the first of the year, they will no longer be able because they're just too old. So we're going to throw them out to pasture and not let them have the health care they need for a good quality of life and for the long life that they should be entitled to. This was a good vote today. And I appreciate our Republican leaders for managing things to the point where we can be here today and do that. Now, if the Senators just straight down that hall, if the Senators at the other end of the hall had to go back and listen to town halls and had to listen to their constituents the way Members of the House do, then there's no question in my mind they would have been rushing down here to work with us to say, How can we stop this disaster that is creating so much harm to people's health across America that it's only just going to multiply exponentially come January? But because of the 17th Amendment and because State legislatures no longer select the Senators, as the Founders had established, Senators get elected at large. And there's a lot of benefit to having people accountable to all the voters in the State. But there was also benefit when the State legislatures selected the Senators because that was the Founders' check and balance to make sure Senators did not just totally take away the powers that the Constitution gave to the States and the people under the 10th Amendment. Everything that is not specifically enumerated as a Federal power or prohibited to the States and the people was reserved to the States and the people under the 10th Amendment. That meant that before the Federal Government started getting its heavyhanded hands all over education, that local governments and local school boards could make decisions on what their schools needed. But Congress got involved. We had set up a multibillion dollar department to start sucking off money that could be going for students across America to fund bureaucrats and bigger, nicer buildings and offices and more and more cubicles for bureaucrats so that we would spend more money on bureaucrats that we used to spend on the students. And it also meant that school boards across the country would have to spend more and more money on bureaucrats and administrators, other people in the school system that were not actually involved in teaching. Madam Speaker, I would challenge people to go look at their own school board and get a report from their own school board. What percentage of our school districts' employees, in 1978, before the Department of Education really kicked in, what percentage of our school districts' employees were teachers that worked directly with the students? And what is that number now? Because the numbers I've seen seem to indicate most school districts have ended up now about half of their employees are actually helping the students. This is what happens when government bureaucrats get involved. This is what happens when the Federal Government ceases to be the referee that they were designed to be, and, like, in health care, they become a player, they become the coach and the referee, all three. We have a bad enough problem when we're just trying to referee; but when the Federal Government becomes the coach and the player and the referee, especially in the area of health care, it means less care for individuals. Like ObamaCare. Oh, it was going to mean a lot more jobs, if you want to work for the IRS and go after people's personal lives and their insurance. And it's bad enough when they come after you demanding more tax money, but now they were going to come after you for your health care. That's the last thing we need. Hiring all--millions and millions of dollars for navigators. They weren't going to provide one iota of health care for anyone. And I'm not sure they even were required to graduate from high school. And all of that money that could be spent on health care will now be, if we do not, if the Senate does not agree, if they hold this good bill up, if the Senate shuts down the government, which I hope and pray they won't, but all of this money will end up going for bureaucrats instead of going for health care, as it could be going. So it's a big day for the people of America who have already been told that come January 1 they will not get the health care they need. It's a big day for those who've been being told this year that their health insurance costs are going to skyrocket because of ObamaCare. Some States like New York, apparently, theirs were so high they might come down a little bit, but most Americans were going to see, or are seeing, their health care costs skyrocket. We have had reforms in the Republican Party; and those who say otherwise are either totally ignorant, intentionally so, or they're lying, because the Republicans have many great policies. And most of us actually thought President Obama had a good idea when he said, let's see this debated about health care. Even on CNN. Let's get it out there, where the American people can see who is for what. Well, the President didn't live up to that because if he had, they would have seen union leaders not helping their union members. They would have seen the big pharmaceuticals getting a special deal in there. They would have seen plaintiffs' lawyers getting special treatment. They would have seen AARP getting special treatment, though their members were going to get hurt. They would have seen all these special deals from the groups that stood with the President on this health care bill. And I have a feeling the President would not--feel pretty strongly he would never have won a second term if the American people had seen all the negotiations that were involved in passing this disaster or, as one Democrat called it, train wreck, Democratic Senator. It is a train wreck. But the trouble is it is an ongoing train wreck that will continue to hurt passengers who were put into this ObamaCare system for many years to come. And that's not even talking about the economy, those who have gone from full-time to part-time, those who have lost their health insurance when they had very good health insurance. Employers that I've heard from have said, we are so upset. Under ObamaCare, we cannot afford to keep insurance. One owner had said, Look, I've always paid 100 percent of my employees' health insurance. And now, because of ObamaCare, this bill that Congress forced on us is making me stop. So I'll give them, you know, an allowance; but because of the way costs have gone up, it may not cover things. That's playing out across the country. People are not hiring people as they should. They're not sure how much they're going to be out of pocket because of ObamaCare. So there are plenty of alternatives. I had a bill that I think was, like, 28 pages, that Newt Gingrich sent some folks, experts to sit down with me and brainstorm, put together good ideas. Mike Burgess, Tom Price, there's lots of great health care ideas. And I think that if the American people could see us do what the President promised, and debate that, where they can see, we've got lots of great alternatives. But one of them that needs to be in every bill, whatever ends up being the law, if we can totally get this repealed, we need to have truth in the cost of health care so that when someone asks a hospital administrator, what does a room cost for one night, single room, one bed, they can actually tell you without saying, well, it depends. Is it Medicare or Medicaid, Blue Cross? What insurance? Or if it's cash, there ought to be a price; it ought to be posted. People ought to know what it is because if people could pay the actual price that a lot of insurance pay, they wouldn't want the insurance getting between them and the doctor and telling them what procedure and what doctor, or the government getting between them. If they could pay what Medicare pays, then a lot of people would have the money to do it themselves. But people get a bill, like I did for my daughter, $12,000 for two MRIs. Well, it didn't cost but a matter of hundreds of dollars, not $12,000. There ought to be truth in advertising in the cost of health care, just like ophthalmologists do now on LASIK surgery. That's why the price kept coming down. And there were times when my parents say, we're going to another doctor here in our small town, said the other one went up on price. I remember being told specifically: and this doctor's as good as that one. When was the last time anybody changed doctors because the doctor was costing too much? Nobody knows what doctors are costing, and that needs to be part of the reform. And ObamaCare does not even touch that issue. It just gets a heavy-handed government between patients and their doctors. And I want to see the day when patients and doctors make their decisions, not the government, not insurance companies. And we could do that with some of our proposals. So I know there are people that know I've not cheered my leadership very often. But today was a big day. Today was an important day, not for Republicans, not for Democrats, but for the people of America who have already been finding out how much damage ObamaCare is doing. And, hopefully, Senators down the Hall will--now that it's headed down to the Senate--now Senators will start hearing and having to listen to Americans who are suffering health-wise, health care-wise, and economically because of that terrible bill. It is also an important week. A number of things have happened. Oh, and there's an article here, ``Home Depot Alters Insurance for Part-timers.'' A lot of people have gone from full-time to part-time so they wouldn't have to be--the employers would not have to pay the heavy-handed ObamaCare insurance costs. Home Depot. There are just so many of these stories. Let's see. There's a report posted by Rob Bluey on September 18, front page, ObamaCare. This says, here's a sampling of where America stands on ObamaCare: 68 percent are concerned about the impact of their personal health care under ObamaCare; 57 percent oppose ObamaCare; 52 percent believe ObamaCare will result in their health care costs increasing. And from people I've talked to, they don't just believe it. They've already seen it start to have that effect; 51 percent want Congress to cut funding for ObamaCare. As it says here, labor unions have sought relief from it. Democrats have called it a train wreck, and the Washington political class is getting exemptions or special treatment. Well, if we can't get it repealed, everybody ought to be under it, including the President, whose name is normally used to identify the bill. Another thing happened this week, in the last week, that was certainly worth noting, and that was the sentencing of a criminal defendant who went in to the Family Research Center and began to shoot. There's an article here from WND, there's a quote, has a quote: There's a paradigm shift in America where if you are an outspoken, open Christian, you are now being labeled as not only a hatemonger, but also a potential threat to U.S. security. And that was a quote from retired General Jerry Boykin with the FRC. He was, in part, referring to documents influenced by the Southern Poverty Law Center, or SPLC, that identified the Founding Fathers as the kind of radicals that we should be watching out for today. So it is rather amazing that the very Constitution that we celebrate this week was founded by people who are now being called extremists. The most free country in the world now has people calling the Founders, those who gave us our Constitution, as being radical extremists that need to be stopped. The irony is actually sickening. The article goes on, though, talking about Boykin. He was, in part, referring to documents by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Boykin's full list of accomplishments in service to his country is too long to detail, but it includes serving as an original member of the U.S. Army's Delta Force, commanding all the Army's Green Berets, and doing stints at the CIA and as deputy Under Secretary of Intelligence at the Department of Defense. And now he's found himself facing an adversary here in his homeland, one that is also capable of bloodshed, and that is the radical left. Boykin is the executive vice president of the Family Research Council, or FRC, which is dedicated to ``a culture in which human life is valued, families flourish, and religious liberty thrives'' and seeks to ``advance faith, family and freedom in public policy and the culture from a Christian world view.'' On August 15, 2012, heavily armed homosexual activist, Floyd Lee Corkins, II walked into Washington offices of the FRC and began shooting with the intention of killing ``as many people as I could.'' Corkins admitted he picked the FRC offices that are here in Washington because the organization was listed as an ``anti-gay'' hate group by the SPLC on its Web site. The article says, Corkins, a former volunteer at an LGBT community center, pleaded guilty to terrorism and will learn his fate Thursday when he will be sentenced in Federal Court in Washington, D.C. We now know he was sentenced to 25 years. Boykin said: I think the SPLC should be taken to task by the media and public opinion for the reckless nature of what they're doing. Personally, I think it's worth noting that the Southern Poverty Law Center arose out of racial hatred and bigotry, those things that were addressed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a true American hero, who advocated for peace, who advocated for love of Christ Jesus, as an ordained Christian minister. That was the way to win the day. And now, all these years later after the death of that great American hero, Martin Luther King, they've somehow morphed into an organization that is so busy calling other people and groups hateful, they don't see all of the hate that they are spreading and spewing around this country. Back to the article: The general called the map capricious and noted it had no definition of a hate group. It's talking about a hate map that the SPLC had created. More importantly, we think what they're doing is absolutely reckless, particularly given they put us in the same category as groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the skinheads. Pressure has to be put on the SPLC to stop this because, Boykin said, ``It is reckless behavior that has, at least in this case, incited someone to want to kill people who don't believe what they believe and stand for.'' People may remember that he came in to the FRC and he had sacks of Chick-fil-A sandwiches, which was also to be considered hateful by the SPLC. I think it's worth noting that if you go back to the 1964 speech by a man who was considered to be an extremely liberal Democrat, Hubert Humphrey, you go back to 1960 speeches by a man that some considered to be very liberal, John F. Kennedy, and you will find that they talked about the home and the parents and a mother and father and a good home and how we ought to be nurturing homes. Humphrey's speech was really rather amazing to the 1964 Democratic Convention. Though he was considered a liberal, he made very clear that we were doing great damage as we break down the traditional family home. I wonder how he'd be labeled today by the SPLC for the speech he gave in 1964. But the article says: Corkins managed to shoot and injure just one person, thanks to the heroics of building manager Leo Johnson, who stopped the attack. A video shows Corkins entered the building and approached Johnson, then leaned over to place his backpack on the floor. When he straightened up, Corkins pointed a semiautomatic handgun directly at Johnson and fired. Despite being wounded in the arm, Johnson was able to subdue Corkins after a brief struggle. Boykin said, ``Leo is doing very well after a series of surgeries, and in over a year of recovery time, he is doing very, very well.'' Anyway, it points out: The general is also a pastor and wanted to emphasize, ``It's important to remember that, regardless of where America is today, the original roots of America were founded in Judeo-Christian beliefs.'' He observed the Declaration of Independence was signed by men of Christian faith, but today, the vestiges of that heritage are being squeezed out of our society. People who cling to those values are being forced to go underground for fear of being ridiculed, for fear of even being attacked and maybe even killed, as was evidenced here. It's a sad commentary on the state of our society. It is a sad commentary on our society. We were founded on Judeo- Christian values. Look at the speeches that were given during the Constitutional Convention. The fact that the Constitution itself was dated in the year of our Lord, 1787, I wonder what Lord they were talking about. The Founders knew. They knew. Hopefully, we can get back to the place where, though people in America may practice whatever religion or no religion they believe or want to, the values are those that we were founded on. It was amazing to me how in the first draft of the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson could put one of the longest grievances listed as talking about slavery and condemning King George forever in allowing it in America. They knew it was wrong. The values they had, they knew slavery was wrong; but out of convenience, it was allowed. And it did such great damage to this country because it damaged people that were in it. And the great speeches of John Quincy Adams just down the hall after he ran for the House of Representatives and got elected after he was President. He was the only person to ever be a Representative after he was President. But he wanted to end slavery, and he believed that was what God was calling him to do and what God wanted America to do. That's what Abraham Lincoln believed. He believed, by 1860, God had called him to bring an end to slavery. And he was influenced by the speeches down the hall by John Quincy Adams. And it has been an honor for me to be in the church and worship God in the church where an incredible human being worshipped, came close to God, named Frederick Douglass, who had such a profound effect on Abraham Lincoln, as well, and made a material change in this country for the better. It is amazing that with all the hatred that's being spewed toward Christians, I'm shocked that in my lifetime that we have seen the lessons of anti- Semitism and the hatred toward Jews start coming back, even in this country. When I read about what happened in the concentration camps during World War II, I couldn't believe it. And I just knew we would never allow that kind of hatred to raise its ugly head again. And yet not only in some hate-filled countries in the Middle East is it resurfacing, it's resurfacing here in America. There were five of us Republicans in the House that signed letters to five different Departments. We set out facts in those letters. We said: There's indications that there was Muslim Brotherhood influence within your Department or Agency. Since your job is to investigate issues in your Agency or Department, we would ask you to investigate the extent of Muslim Brotherhood influence in your Department. One such letter was sent to the Department of Homeland Security. One was sent to the Department of State. Even Senator McCain got all up in arms. It was obvious he'd not even read the letter before he started condemning those that signed it. So I hope that at some point he'll read our letters. Then we hear in the news this week, stories from the Washington Times and Washington Free Beacon written by Adam Kredo, dated September 18: A senior Muslim Brotherhood official, who until recently had been employed by the William J. Clinton Foundation, was arrested in Cairo on Tuesday and charged with inciting violence. Gehad el-Haddad served as one of the Muslim Brotherhood's top communications officials until Egyptian security forces seized him as part of a wider crackdown on officials loyal to ousted former President Mohamed Morsi. Before emerging as a top Brotherhood official and adviser to Morsi, el-Haddad served for 5 years as a top official at the Clinton Foundation, a nonprofit group founded by former President Bill Clinton. This article goes on to say: El-Haddad gained a reputation for pushing the Muslim Brotherhood's Islamist agenda in the foreign press, where he was often quoted defending the Brotherhood's crackdown on civil liberties in Egypt. He was raised in a family of prominent Muslim Brotherhood supporters and became the public face of the Islamist organization soon after leaving his post at the Clinton Foundation. However, much of his official work with the Brotherhood took place while he was still claiming to be employed by the Clinton Foundation. The article goes on to say: El-Haddad's arrest sparked outrage among Brotherhood supporters, scores of whom have taken to the streets to protest in the weeks since Morsi was removed from office and seized by the Egyptian military. I want to inject in here that, as the article points out, it was scores--a score being 20 people--scores of people came to the streets. As I and some of my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, were in the Middle East in the last few weeks, I was surprised to keep seeing on CNN talk about the thousands of Morsi supporters and Muslim Brotherhood supporters who had come to the streets and, according to CNN, just want their country back. But they kept failing to report about the glorious stand that millions and millions and millions and millions of Egyptians took to get their country back because they did not want radical Islam running Egypt. And as even some of our own officials privately said, we're not exactly sure how many millions of Egyptians came to the streets to protest Morsi and demand his ouster, but it was certainly millions more than the 13 million he claimed had voted for him. This was not a coup, and those across America that only listen or watch the mainstream media, like the newspaper editor in Henderson, Texas, they don't know. They thought that was a coup because they haven't had the benefit of watching and getting information from the reality of what has happened in Egypt, because this was not a coup. They can talk to the Coptic Christian Pope of Egypt in Cairo, as I have, and have him explain that, Look, I am a Christian, and I am telling you I was part of the demonstration. I was gratified to have so many moderate Muslims join hands figuratively and literally with us and with me and say we don't want radical Islam running Egypt. This President has violated our constitution repeatedly. He's making life horrible for people of Christian or Jewish or moderate Muslim faith, and we want him out. And the Egyptian Pope will tell you this was not a coup. This was millions more Egyptians rising up and saying very clearly, Morsi has to go. I didn't know until I did my own research and consulted the experts that even though the United States gave advice to Egypt about their constitution, we did not emphasize the importance of having an impeachment process to have an orderly government. So Egypt's constitution that Morsi was continuing to violate, according to the masses, the millions of people there, had no provision to remove him. They had no choice except to move out in peace, as they did, and demand Morsi's removal. The violence, when you get down to accurate reporting, has been stirred by the Muslim Brotherhood. And just as CNN reported, they want their country back. And they're willing to burn churches, to kill Christians, to tell Christians to either repent and give up your belief in Christ or we will cut your head off and be proud of it and show the video. You either repent and repudiate Christianity or we'll kill you. They burned churches. They killed Christians. They killed moderate Muslims. I think it's to the military's credit, they heard the millions more Egyptians who rose up than Morsi claimed voted for him and demanded the ouster since there was no impeachment mechanism, and now they have an interim government with a roadmap toward having a fair election. But they're not going to let the radical Islamists take over that country. We need to be applauding that because they know, when they stand up to radical Islamists--just like other places in the world--it means death to some of them. Because radical Islamists believe they get virgins, they get paradise if they kill what they think are infidels in the process of pursuing their goal. Thomas Jefferson could not believe that there was a religion in the world anywhere, as well read as he was, that believed you could get to paradise by killing innocent people--and especially not innocent women and children for heaven's sake. So he got his own version of the Koran, an English translation. Thank God most Muslims do not believe in the radicalized Islam, but it's time to recognize this is a threat. The Muslim Brotherhood around the world wants to build toward one thing, and that is a permanent global caliphate where all of us either repudiate our faith, or lack of faith, and become radical Islamists like they are. We cannot allow that to happen. Our five letters that our group of five in the House wrote were pretty benign, actually, pointing out that, look, there is influence, let's find out what the influence is. I might also mention from the article here that I was quoting from that El-Haddad, who was arrested as the radical Muslim Brotherhood spokesman in Egypt, he left the Clinton Foundation in August of 2012, 2 months after Morsi assumed the Egyptian Presidency. But it says: The Clinton Climate Initiative taught Haddad about managing an NGO and the role that civil society takes between the state and private sector, lessons he is applying to the Renaissance Project. But Haddad had told the Independent that he applied the knowledge he learned at the Clinton Foundation to his work for the Renaissance Project--the Muslim Brothers: He was appointed a ``senior adviser and media spokesman'' to the Muslim Brotherhood in January 2013 and served in that role until his arrest. He regularly defended the Brotherhood's authoritarian crackdown on civil society, even running damage control in December 2012 when Morsi supporters attacked women and children. That's the kind of outrage that the people of Egypt stood up against. The article says also: When widespread democratic protests broke out on June 30, El-Haddad referred to the demonstrators as violent thugs in an interview with the Free Beacon. Nobody I know knows for sure--it would be the Clinton Foundation, the Clinton family, somebody knows--who hired this Muslim Brotherhood advocate to work for the Clinton Foundation and allowed him to continue his work for the Muslim Brotherhood while he was working for the Clinton Foundation. We know that a man named Al-Amoudi helped with some of the Muslim hirings and placement in the Clinton administration. But we haven't been able to find out who it was that placed Huma Weiner, or Huma Abedin Weiner, in the position with then-First Lady Hillary Clinton to become her close advisor over the years, especially when she became Secretary of State. Of course we also know that Ms. Abedin Weiner was part of a Journal that was founded and run by a guy that Osama bin Laden said had a material effect on him being radicalized. So it's interesting. There's a lot of questions here about how much influence the Muslim Brotherhood had. In fact, how could this administration end up being so supportive of a Muslim Brotherhood member who said, well, he gave up his Muslim Brotherhood membership. Well, the Muslim Brotherhood makes clear, you don't have to have a card to be part of the Muslim Brotherhood, you just have to believe what they do, and clearly Morsi did. And he violated the constitution routinely, according to widespread reports. So the 13 million he said voted for him, there are allegations of fraud, but that was clearly overshadowed by the millions and millions more in the largest demonstrations in the history of the world as the Egyptian people rose up and said, we don't have an impeachment provision in our constitution, so all we can do when a radical like Morsi takes over our country then is demand the military have him step down until we can elect a truly democratic leader who will follow the constitution. I know there were friends who told me, we think Morsi is a really good guy because he's really actually going to bring peace; he's helping bring peace in the Sinai. But when you actually go over there and do your own research, you find out that now the Sinai has been more weaponized with real military weapons than just about anyplace on Earth. And it is a major threat to Israel. So those who thought maybe he's a real help to Israel, they have no idea. In meeting with General Al-Sissi, he makes clear, I don't want to be president. I'll step down from the military. But the people of Egypt made clear to us in the military they want a democracy, and this man totally violated the constitution. When I asked him point blank--since I had heard from a former CIA agent that he said he knew that Morsi had been trying to contract to have a hit placed on General Al-Sissi--I asked him directly if he had evidence of Morsi trying to have him killed as head of the military, he dodged the question, but finally admitted, yes, they had evidence of Morsi trying to have Al-Sissi killed. I mean, if we had a President--and thank God we don't have a President like this--who was trying to have other members of the government, including at the Pentagon, having them knocked off, we wouldn't stand for that. Well, the people of Egypt, they didn't even know about the contract he was trying to take out--according to what these people who say they have knowledge, what they say--but they knew that they had a president who was acting outside the constitution, and he had to go. I want to go back to the influence that some of us are aware that the Muslim Brotherhood has on this administration. And we can say that because we know in the Holy Land Foundation trial in U.S. District Court, ample evidence was produced to show that CAIR, the Council of American Islamic Relations, and ISNA, the Islamic Society of North America, were two of the largest front organizations for the Muslim Brotherhood. When CAIR and ISNA, these groups tried to have their name removed as, not indicted, but as named co-conspirators to support terrorism, the District Court said no, there's plenty of evidence there to support your staying a named co-conspirator. So they appealed it to the Fifth Circuit. The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals made clear the evidence is quite profound: Yes, these guys are front groups for the Muslim Brotherhood. We know CAIR has had all kinds of influence in this administration. But when I was questioning Secretary Napolitano on October 26, 2011, I asked her about this. I was asking her if she was familiar with a man named Elibiary from Texas--nice guy, I've met him. I said: ``But let me ask you, Mohamed Elibiary is--was a member of the working group''--talking about the Countering Violent Extremism Working Group. ``You promoted him, and it said there--I've got articles here that say you swore him in as a member now of your, let's see, the Homeland Security Advisory Group. He's apparently been given a secret clearance. Do you know Mr. Elibiary?'' Secretary Napolitano said yes. Further in the question I said: ``This is critical: Secretary, were you aware that a week ago today, from his home computer, he accessed the SLIC database''--a classified database--``got information off and has been shopping a story to national media on Islamophobia directed by the Governor of Texas and the security folks there in Texas? Were you aware of that?'' She said no. I said: ``I'm telling you it happened. Do we need to appoint somebody, or will you have that investigated yourself, and if so, by whom?'' ``Well, since I don't know the facts,'' she said, ``I'll have to look into the facts.'' I said: ``So you'll be the one to make that call?'' She said: ``We'll have somebody, and it'll be myself or someone.'' On July 20, 2012, I asked the same person, Secretary Napolitano, about the same thing, and she said: ``I found out that the statements that have been made in that regard''--talking about him accessing the classified database--``are false. They are misleading, and objectionable. And I think they are wrong.'' I went on and I said: ``But are you saying before this Congress, right now, as Secretary of Homeland Security, that it is a lie that Mohamed Elibiary downloaded material from a classified Web site using the secret security clearance you gave him? Are you saying that's a lie?'' She said: ``I'm saying that isn't accurate. That is correct.'' I went on down and said: ``So you're saying that the State and local intelligence community of interest database is not classified? She said: ``I'm saying that he, as far as I know, did not download classified documents.'' That's all real interesting. Oh, and I asked her if Elibiary's status on the Homeland Security Advisory Council had changed. She said no. I said: ``And this administration seems to have a hard time recognizing members of terrorist groups who are allowed into the White House--you're aware of that happening, aren't you?'' She said: ``Absolutely not.'' And by the time she testified before the Senate, not long after that, she had found out that they had allowed a member of a known terrorist organization to go into the White House. So these are the kind of things that give us great concern. It's my understanding that not only has Mr. Elibiary still been there, but he has had his security still there--it may have been increased, I'm not sure--but is now even more important as an advisor. Then we got this from Judicial Watch. Judicial Watch had made a demand to know about the investigation into Mr. Elibiary. And the response back from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security--now that Secretary Napolitano is no longer there--and I am quoting from their letter to Sean Dunagan from Judicial Watch, September 16: We conducted a comprehensive search of files within DHS Enterprise Correspondence Tracking System for records that would be responsive to your request. Unfortunately, we were unable to locate or identify any responsive records. They have no records of any investigation into the facts that were presented before Secretary Napolitano. I talked to the head of the Department of Public Safety, Steven McCraw, in Texas before I asked our questions. He had told me that, even though she said the next day she didn't know anything about that episode of him allegedly downloading documents from a classified source, and Steve McCraw said I just talked to her chief of staff since you and I last talked. He said he had totally briefed the Secretary on the situation with Elibiary. She was fully aware of it. Then she came in and testified before us the next day she didn't know anything about it. Then she had the nerve to say it never happened. Yet there was one reporter, Patrick Poole, that did an article about it happening. He had the source in the mainstream media who had told him about Elibiary shopping those documents to him. And it was a fact. They knew exactly where Elibiary accessed the classified database, they knew what computer he used. Yet Homeland Security, with the Secretary at the top, being totally unable to find what the Department of Public Safety knew and had found in Texas. Mr. Speaker, we are in trouble when Homeland Security says they did an investigation and there's no documentation whatsoever of any investigation being done; and not only do they deal with the problem that was clearly a problem, they promote the individual. It comes back to the letters--and I think we need answers again--that make clear that, yes, there is Muslim Brotherhood influence through this administration, and we need to know the extent. We have also this week an executive summary of the FBI interactions with the Council on American Islamic Relations from their inspector general when he only looked into five specific incidences where the new policy--after it was proven that CARE was a Muslim Brotherhood front organization--where the FBI totally disregarded the new policy three out of the five times that they investigated--and that's only the five they investigated--and continued to have a chummy relationship with this Muslim Brotherhood front organization. I have not yet reviewed the classified report; but, for example, October 2010, the New Haven FBI field office, the FBI office co- coordinated a diversity training workshop with a local Muslim organization, and two of the six trainers selected for this cultural sensitivity training were local CARE officials. At some point, we have to learn that there are people who want to do away with our Constitution and do away with our form of government and substitute their own caliphate therefor. Some want to do it peacefully; some in the organization want to do it violently. But it is an outrage for people who want to eliminate our Constitution and have their own sharia law to be allowed to be in the higher places in this government--at least that's what the Egyptians were reporting. For those news outlets that try to claim that by my reporting what happened in Egypt when the Egyptian people rose up by the millions and by showing the pictures of banners, like the one that had an American flag on one half with a green checkmark they like America and on the other side our President with a red X, they try to blame me for stirring up the Egyptian people. I just want people in America to understand what is really going on; and, unfortunately, enough people have not gotten the picture. It is time to wake up, America. It is time to embrace the values that helped us get rid of slavery, that helped us become the greatest Nation in the world, in the history of the world, to re-embrace the values and to deal with anybody that wants to see those thrown asunder. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it is with enormous pride that I recognize and congratulate the Hudson Lady Hornets on a stellar 2013 softball season in which they once again captured the Texas State Class 3A Softball Championship. The Lady Hornets have attained a dazzling level of excellence with their second state championship title. The Hudson Lady Hornets triumphed over a solid team of Lady Jackets from Mineola with a final score of 12-9. Although Hudson dominated much of the game for more than two hours, the Lady Jackets fought back valiantly in the seventh inning. But that rally was short lived, with the ladies from Hudson pulling away determinedly to achieve their second state championship title win. The lessons learned about teamwork and discipline should help everyone who played, coached, and assisted in knowing that whatever the obstacles that may lie ahead in life, they can overcome and they can be champions. The Hudson Lady Hornets' championship success is a tribute to the coach, who brought his team back for another chance at victory, as well as a tribute to the players and all who assisted them along the way. Having practiced with the Lady Hornets' in the last practice before their defense of their State Title in Austin, I saw firsthand that these gallant young women had the talent, the ability, the coaching, the drive, and that intangible quality that makes a winner. It was an honor for me to help Coach Eby in practice, just as I had promised to do during an assembly at Hudson High School recognizing the team for last year's championship. This team has shown great faith in its journey to the championship crown. The team scripture is 2 Corinthians 5:7, which reads ``For we walk by faith, not by sight.'' And the Lady Hornets affirmed their faith by painting the numbers 5 and 7 on their faces. This recognition of their accomplishment is extended to all of the athletic staff, including Coach Jimmy Eby, and Assistant Coaches Wes Capps, Tanner Hines and Amanda Malone, as well as Hudson High School Principal John Courtney and Superintendent Mary Ann Whiteker. The team members responsible for bringing the second championship title home to Hudson included Freshmen Alyssa Pierce, Katelyn Hanks, and Cortny Luna; Sophomores Madison Jeffrey, Bryli Lee, Maria Mireles, and Adriana Mosley; Juniors Kaylee ``KK'' Parker, Ashley Davis, and Madison Selman; and Seniors Cassidy Brasuell, Alyssa Dotson, Kelsee Selman, and Haley Willson. The Hudson Independent School District staff and the community of Hudson have devoted countless hours to support and encourage these young ladies in the pursuit of their dream. It is my most esteemed honor to congratulate everyone involved with this endeavor. May God continue to bless these young women, their families and friends, and all those individuals who call Hudson home. Congratulations to the 2013 State Champion Hudson Lady Hornets, as their back to back championship legacy is now recorded in the Congressional Record that will endure as long as there is a United States of America.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are a couple of issues that are certainly worth elaborating on today. One is codified in The Wall Street Journal article from September 11, yesterday, and 7:35 p.m. is when it's timed out. It's regarding IRS Supervisor Lois Lerner. The article is entitled ``Lois Lerner's Own Words.'' The article reads: Congress' investigation into the IRS targeting of conservatives has been continuing out of the Syria headlines, and it's turning up news. Emails unearthed by the House Ways and Means Committee between former director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner and her staff raise doubts about IRS claims that the targeting wasn't politically motivated and that low-level employees in Cincinnati masterminded the operation. In a February 2011 email, Ms. Lerner advised her staff, including then Exempt Organizations technical manager Michael Seto and then Rulings and Agreements director Holly Paz, that a Tea Party matter is ``very dangerous'' and is something ``counsel and Lerner adviser Judy Kindell need to be in on.'' Ms. Lerner adds, ``Cincy should probably NOT have these cases.'' That's a different tune than the IRS sang in May when former IRS Commissioner Steven Miller said the Agency's overzealous enforcement was the work of two ``rogue'' employees in Cincinnati. When the story broke, Ms. Lerner suggested that her office had been unaware of the pattern of targeting until she read about it in the newspaper. ``So it was pretty much we started seeing information in the press that raised questions for us, and we went back and took a look,'' she said in May. Mr. Speaker, so no one misunderstands, it is a crime to give false information to Congress. The article goes on: Earlier this summer, IRS lawyer Carter Hull, who oversaw the review of many Tea Party cases and questionnaires, testified that his oversight began in April 2010. Tea Party cases under review are ``being supervised by Chip Hull at each step,'' Ms. Paz wrote to Ms. Lerner in a February 2011 email. ``He reviews info from TPs--or Tea Partys-- correspondence to TPs, et cetera. No decisions are going out of Cincy until we go all the way through the process with the (c)(3) and (c)(4) cases here.'' The emails also put the targeting in the context of the media and congressional drumbeat over the impact of conservative campaign spending on the 2012 elections. On July 10, 2012, then Lerner adviser Sharon Light emailed Ms. Lerner a National Public Radio story on how outside money was making it hard for Democrats to hold their Senate majority. It certainly appears that the IRS was weaponized for the political purpose of one party, which would, of course, be one of the worst nightmares for the Founders of this country. Of course, George Washington didn't even want us to have political parties--he warned of the danger there--and here we are, all this time later, with a group of Democratic operatives who are doing things with the IRS that Richard Nixon could have only dreamed of doing. This article from The Wall Street Journal goes on: The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had complained to the Federal Election Commission that conservative groups like Crossroads GPS and Americans for Prosperity should be treated as political committees rather than 501(c)(4)s, which are tax-exempt social welfare groups that do not have to disclose their donors. ``Perhaps the FEC will save the day,'' Ms. Lerner wrote back later that morning. Having been a district judge presiding over criminal cases, that is what you would call, Mr. Speaker, a statement against interests by Ms. Lerner in a prior communication that directly contradicts what she said the motivation was. I think there are criminal implications here that need to be followed up. In any event, the article goes on: That response suggests Ms. Lerner's political leanings, and it also raises questions about Ms. Lerner's intentions in a separate email exchange she had when an FEC investigator inquired about the status of the conservative group, the American Future Fund. The FEC and IRS don't have the authority to share that information under section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code. But the bigger question is: Why did they want to? After the FEC inquiry, the American Future Fund also got a questionnaire from the IRS. Again, that's from The Wall Street Journal dated last night. When one party in power in the executive branch can weaponize its Federal agencies against its political opponents, unless it is stopped, this little experiment in democracy will come to an end. It will bring about the very things that the Founders had hoped would not happen but were realistic enough to talk about them at some length about when and if we might move to one person being able to grasp control of the Federal Government. Of course, one of the things they used to try to keep that from happening was to give Congress the power of the purse, to give Congress oversight over the executive and judicial branches. When we've had Congress try to do oversight, whether it's over Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the IRS scandal, we've met with nothing but blinded opaqueness--not transparency--from this administration. They have obfuscated constantly, done everything they can to prevent Congress from getting the truth about what they have called even phony scandals. If they're so phony, why don't you get the transparency out here, Mr. Speaker? Let's get people out here with the truth and then we can see fully whether or not they're phony scandals. The more this drip, drip, drip of information comes out, the more it becomes clear as to why this administration has been hiding evidence and attempting to keep Congress from discovering things. I have personally been pushing for many months now to have a special prosecutor investigate the Internal Revenue Service situation with regard to targeting for political purposes. The reason is that there are statutes that pertain to the IRS that could make some of this conduct potential crimes for which people could go to prison. I am so proud that I became a friend of Chuck Colson before he passed. I think he is one of the great Christian luminaries of the 20th and 21st centuries. His becoming a Christian all came about after his arrogance and his willful disobedience of the law during the Nixon administration brought him to prison. He had possession of information from the FBI about someone. As I recall, that got him about 1\1/2\ years in prison. Yet, we have seen during the close of the Clinton years as President, one man having, at the White House, about 1,000 FBI files. If he had been held to the same standard as Chuck Colson, he would never have gotten out of prison, but nobody went to prison. We've seen, as time has gone on and abuses within the executive branch have not been dealt with properly, the abuses have continued and gotten worse. From reports I hear from conservative groups, whether Tea Party, pro-Israel, pro-marriage, as it's been known throughout the history of mankind as being between a man and a woman, groups that just wanted the Constitution followed are all coming under attack--not all of the groups have, but most of the groups that have have been these type of groups--from the IRS. Then I hear from others who are being hit by inquiries from the FEC, not about Democratic matters, but about contributions to the Republican candidates and party. Then we hear that the EPA and other Federal agencies are going after conservatives. It is unbelievable how powerful this government has gotten and how dramatically it can affect the outcome of an election. We must make sure that these kinds of abuses stop. We have the power of the purse to stop it, and we should. If the administration is not going to be forthcoming with information about the IRS, then it may be necessary to defund part of the executive branch until such time as they become truthful. The Department of Justice still has not been forthcoming on information that in our Judicial Committee we've been trying to get. We still haven't gotten answers to all of the matters that ended up resulting in the Attorney General of the United States being held in contempt for failing and refusing to answer. It would seem that in the Fast and Furious scandal, where this administration saw to it that 2,000 or so guns made their way into the hands of drug cartels in Mexico, resulting in the loss of hundreds of lives in Mexico and at least one or more here in the United States, that someone should be held to account. When no one is held to account, when there is no accountability, the abuses get worse. That's what we're hearing. You would have thought once the IRS scandal had been exposed that people would be more cautious about going after conservative groups for political purposes. Since no one has been held accountable yet, no budgets cut, the arrogance and the political maneuvering within Federal agencies seems to be growing much worse. I'm hoping that my friends on the other side of the aisle will understand that the pendulum swings back and forth. I cannot imagine a single of my Democratic friends across the aisle being nearly as composed as we've been on the Republican side of the aisle about the abuses if the shoe were on the other foot and those abuses were over Democratic groups that were trying to elect the next Democratic President. If they were, I should be helping the Democrats and I would help the Democrats, because there's no place for an administration that weaponizes for political purposes the agencies under its control. We've gone for over 200 years fighting and doing what we could to avoid that happening, yet here it's happening. It is a Federal agency that I want to go to next that's been involved in carrying out the will of this administration. Here's an article from yesterday from Breitbart, written by John Sexton. He says: It has been nearly a year since the attack which killed four Americans in Benghazi. During that time, various minute- by-minute accounts of the attack have been published. In addition, the administration's decisions to refuse additional security requests and to revise its talking points after the attack have been examined in detail. Mr. Speaker, before I go on, I would like to grab a couple of posters. I would have felt good in life having Ty Woods and Glen Doherty covering my back, just as they were trying to do for the survivors for our American Government workers at our consulate in our annex in Benghazi. These are the four people we've lost: Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, and our two former Navy seals, Ty Woods and Glen Doherty. They deserve the truth to come out. This article continues: But Benghazi may have been a case where most observers have missed the forest for the trees. This is not an attempt to add new information so much as it is to collate the information that already exists from the most reputable journalistic sources. To begin with, Benghazi was a CIA operation involving weapons, one which had no cover beyond a small mission that provided a diplomatic fig leaf for the effort. Officially, the CIA was there to track and collect dangerous weapons left over from the war that ousted Qadhafi. But the evidence suggests that the CIA was also either tacitly or actively involved in a multinational effort to ship those weapons to Syrian rebels. Our covert effort in Benghazi, Libya, was connected to our escalating involvement in Syria. The general outlines of this CIA effort have been reported. One fact which has not been highlighted is that the U.N. arms embargo of Libya, which the United States helped pass in 2011, makes shipping weapons in or out of the country a violation of international law. Indeed, the way the U.N. resolution is written, even knowingly allowing such shipments to take place may be a violation of the agreement. I want to add parenthetically here that some of our concerns with having a world court and international tribunals that have jurisdiction over American citizens is that they may have laws that they decide to enforce that are against or outside what our United States Constitution allows. I would submit that American individuals, whether they're CIA agents or military, should be accountable to the United States and under the United States Constitution and not some world court. And it should be worth noting that as this administration pushed U.N. resolutions--I'm not sure what the statute of limitations is, but if individuals within this administration then violated the international law that they pushed to create, then they probably need to be careful when they're traveling in years after they leave the White House or the administration efforts because, who knows, you might get an indictment somewhere in one of these international tribunals that you violated the U.N. law you passed. You got guns into or out of Libya, you violated the law. People in this country need to understand that participating in the making of laws and that participating in the violation of laws have consequences. This article continues: In 2012, the Obama administration publicly claimed it was working on diplomatic and humanitarian responses to the situation in Syria. But behind the scenes, the United States was aware that a network of arms shipments was being created to support the rebels. This network involved shipping weapons from Qatar and, later, Libya to Turkey where they could be taken across the border and distributed to militia in Syria. In June of 2012, The New York Times reported that a contingent of CIA agents were ``operating secretly'' in Turkey to help vet which groups would receive these weapons. But later reporting by the Times would indicate the CIA was doing more than vetting. The article goes on down and mentions that The Wall Street Journal reported at the time, this was back in June, that: The Central Intelligence Agency has begun moving weapons to Jordan from a network of secret warehouses and plans to start arming small groups of vetted Syrian rebels within a month, expanding U.S. support of moderate forces battling President Bashar al-Assad, according to diplomats and U.S. officials briefed on the plans. To sum up, the CIA encouraged the creation of a multinational arms pipeline, helped shop for weapons to fill it, vetted the groups who would receive those weapons in Syria and, since June of 2013, contributed U.S. weapons to the mix. With that backdrop in place, we can now return our attention to Libya. During the U.S. involvement in overthrowing Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi during 2011, the Obama administration became aware that shipments of weapons were making their way to Qadhafi's troops, allowing them to resupply themselves and pose a greater threat to civilians. I might add parenthetically that with Qadhafi, that Qadhafi was an ally of this administration and this country at the time, that this administration chose to destroy and help remove. The article says: So in February the U.S. and other allied nations including the U.K. and France pushed for a package of international sanctions which became U.N. Security Council Resolution 1970. Resolution 1970 condemned the bombing of civilians, imposed travel restrictions on Qadhafi and his inner circle, froze assets and, importantly, banned any transfer of arms to or from Libya. In addition, Resolution 917 requires member states, upon discovery of such arms, to destroy them. A second resolution, number 1973, was passed a month later in March 2011. It created a no-fly zone and reaffirmed that member states were expected to help enforce the embargo by inspecting any sea or air vessels believed to be shipping weapons to or from Libya. If discovered, such weapons were to be destroyed. But despite Resolution 1970, The New York Times reported in April 2011 that shipments of arms were reaching Libyan rebels from Qatar. Another in-depth story published in December 2012 describes how the U.S. winked at these shipments despite concerns that some weapons were falling into the hands of extremists. Parenthetically, I might insert, duh. The article goes on: In fact, the nature of our military strategy in Libya made partnering with Qatar necessary. The Obama administration wanted to avoid getting immersed in a ground war, which officials feared could lead the United States into another quagmire in the Middle East. As a result, the White House largely relied on Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, two small Persian Gulf states and frequent allies of the United States. After discussions among members of the National Security Council, the Obama administration backed the arms shipments from both countries, according to two former administration officials briefed on the talks. ``The UAE was asking for clearance to send U.S. weapons,'' said one former official. ``We told them it's okay to ship other weapons.'' But the American support for the arms shipments from Qatar and the Emirates could not be completely hidden. NATO air and sea forces around Libya had to be alerted not to interdict the cargo planes and freighters transporting the arms into Libya from Qatar and the Emirates, American officials said. Again, that would be a direct violation of the U.N. resolution that we helped pushed into international law. The article says: This pattern of winking at violation of the U.N. arms embargo of Libya was repeated after Qadhafi's ouster. With the war in Libya at an end and the one in Syria ramping up, the direction of the arms pipeline simply reversed itself. Whereas weapons had been coming into Libya from Qatar, they now headed out of Libya back to Qatar and from there on to either Mali or Syria by way of Turkey. A June 21, 2013 New York Times story points out that local militias were organizing these shipments--including flights this year from Tripoli and Benghazi. But these shipments out of Libya are said to have been taking place for a year, beginning several months before the 9/11 attack in Benghazi-- that killed these four American patriots. To sum up, the U.S. approved and cleared a path for a pipeline of weapons into Libya during the revolution in 2011. That pipeline would eventually reverse course to provide the same spare weapons to rebel in Syria. Both efforts seem to violate the U.N. resolutions which the United States helped pass in early 2011. But late in 2011 the United States realized its revolution on the cheap in Libya had a worrisome downside. Thousands of dangerous anti-aircraft weapons were loose in Libya, attracting militants who might wish to use them to commit terrorist acts against civilian air traffic. Something had to be done. So the article goes on to talk about how we sent people into Libya to try to reclaim the weapons that we had helped provide, including surface-to-air missiles. The article says: A month later, just three days after the 9/11 attack in Benghazi, the Times of London reported that a Libyan ship carrying 400 tons of weapons, including SAM-7 surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles, docked in Turkey. This was the largest known shipment of weapons to Syria at the time. The ship's captain, Omar Mousaeeb, was from Benghazi. The article goes on to make light of the allegation that this is a phony scandal. If it's so phony, why is there so much in the way of effort to keep Congress from knowing what really happened? Reports have been that we have CIA agents with direct knowledge of what happened during the death of our four patriots. They are being polygraphed every 30 days to keep them quiet, and demanding to know if anyone has leaked any information to Congress or the media because this administration is doing absolutely everything they can to keep us from getting to the truth of what happened there. And I have been greatly encouraged this week, and in a trip to the Middle East, where, over the safety and the future of the United States, people in a bipartisan way were very concerned about our involvement in Syria, that we should not get involved in Syria, that it would be a huge mistake. Some say Members of Congress should never travel outside their district or Washington, D.C., but what I have seen, and especially from a trip to the Middle East last week, we're not getting the straight information from this administration. If we want to know what's really going on, where we are appropriating money, where we are making policy through our control of the purse strings--or lack of control-- we've got to go to those areas and talk to the leaders involved. It's amazing what you find out. When leaders of allied countries tell us we don't understand you, what you are doing. Do you not know you went to war in Afghanistan for the Muslim Brotherhood--against the Muslim Brotherhood? There you were fighting the Taliban, and then you go to Libya, and--well, first to Egypt. We have helped the Muslim Brotherhood in the wrong places, and it needs to stop in Syria as well. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

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

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, this is a day of remembrance. It is a solemn day. It is a day that brings back tragic memories for all of us. And then, in some ways, it brings great hope. We all remember where we were on 9/11/2001. And I know there are some that say, I just can't take seeing what happened that day; I don't want to see any more video. And I would only submit, it is important not to forget. To fly planes into buildings, use them as bombs, is an act of war, just as dropping bombs in Pearl Harbor was an act of war. Even though there were no boots on the ground at Pearl Harbor, even though there were no boots on the ground in New York City or Washington, D.C., using bombs, whether planes or missiles are personally set, they're acts of war. I wasn't aware until this past weekend that there's only been one time when article 5 of our NATO alliance has been triggered. That article of the NATO alliance is a mandatory requirement, and it requires that when any signatory to NATO, any member of NATO is attacked in an act of war, then all other members of NATO must take it as if they've been attacked in an act of war and go to war against whoever attacked one of the NATO members. The only time that's been triggered was 9/11 of 2001 when the United States was attacked. Because of the treaty, it's not a voluntary act on behalf of the member states of NATO. It doesn't require the request of the attacked country. But it had gone without my notice, but the countries that were part of NATO immediately, that day, 9/11/2001, were instantly at war with whatever country attacked us. The problem was we didn't know who attacked us; and, as a result, it did end up eventually causing other countries to go with us into Afghanistan and Iraq. Actually, within about 4 months of going into Afghanistan, with less than 500 special ops and intelligence individuals, the Taliban was defeated. And then came our mistake, where we added tens of thousands of American troops and allied troops and we became occupiers instead of those that defeated the Taliban, and left the country back in the hands of those who should have had it. But 9/11 should truly evoke the emotions that we had that day, as people were trapped 1,000 feet or so above the street surface and had to make a decision, do I want to burn up in a horrible burning death, or do I jump to my death? I think most all of us resolved that day, including those of us who were not in Congress, that it should be our job, as a Nation, to ensure that Americans were never put to a choice like that again, ever. Actions we knew had to be taken, and authorization of use of military force was passed. In the haste to get it passed to give the President authority to go forward, it had far too much flexibility. So we have been able successfully to rein some of that in in the past months. More work has to be done. But in the Middle East, the question is coming up in the last few days from leaders over there who did not wish to be identified publicly, but the questions were asked: Do the people in your government not understand that on 9/11 you had radical Islamists, Muslim Brotherhood people, al Qaeda, trained by the Taliban, but Muslim Brotherhood at the core, that attacked you? And you went to war, you said, against al Qaeda, the Taliban, and that the Muslim Brotherhood supports them. And you're at war with them. And then do you not remember that that's who you've been at war with? And this administration, the Obama administration, has said they're not engaged in a war on terror. They're only at war with al Qaeda. And they mistakenly thought al Qaeda was on the run. Well, if they were on the run, it was a run toward killing more people. And these leaders in the Middle East have asked: If you could remember that, then why did you come into Egypt and demand the ouster of your ally, with whom you had agreements, with whom you were working, with whom you were making sure, as best that you could, and the Egyptian leader Mubarak could, that he would try to maintain as much peace with Israel as possible? So you had all these agreements with him, just like you do with us. And then Qadhafi was a bad man. But after 2003, when you invaded Iraq, it scared him so badly that he became your ally. You had many agreements with him, he and family members, particularly family members. I remember meeting his son here, who said he was meeting with people in the administration, was going around Capitol Hill meeting. I didn't have a meeting with him, other than just meeting him, someone introducing him. But this was Qadhafi's family here because after 2003, he had become our ally. And as some in the Middle East have pointed out, he was doing everything he could to provide you information with who the terrorists were. He was your partner. You had agreements with him. You had signed agreements, verbal agreements. He was your partner, and you turned on him. And even Assad, as bad a guy as most people knew he was and is, you had Secretary Clinton out there saying, oh, Assad's a reformer. He's going to be okay. But we have watched you, with the Northern Alliance, with Mubarak, with Qadhafi, with all of these people who were your friends, your allies with whom you had agreements, and you tossed them aside and ran them out of office, only to give control to the Muslim Brotherhood. We do not understand what you're doing; and privately we ask among ourselves here in the Middle East, Which one of us, your allies, will you turn against next? Which one of us will you decide is a throwaway, you don't need us anymore? We're concerned, but we don't want to tell people because we don't want them to take that as a sign they need to be coming after us and us be the ones they discard next. That's no way to have an international policy. It's no way to be the greatest peacemaker in the world, when your allies worry because they've seen you completely disregard signed agreements, verbal agreements, pats on the back. I mean, you know, when you see the videos of our great Secretary of State Kerry sitting with Assad, having lavish meals and meetings and then all of a sudden he's such a horrendous ogre that you've got to hurt him somehow. And this stuff about America is the only one that can effectively hit Syria, so we have to be the ones. Why wouldn't it be someone who is in harm's way who actually could perhaps put boots on the ground, go in and destroy chemical weapons? For heaven's sake, to see Vladimir Putin end up playing the high card, being the diplomat was incredible. It should have been the U.S. administration that said that we're going to do, actually, what George W. Bush did before the Iraq war. He tried every diplomatic approach he could. He went to the U.N. repeatedly. They got resolutions passed ordering Iraq to open up their weapons systems, ordering Iraq to do the right things, which they refused to do. The first reaction of the much- maligned George W. Bush administration was to go to the U.N., get agreements, get resolutions passed, and then enforce those resolutions. So we've come to a sad day, now 12 years after 9/11 of 2001, where we're not the ones who proposed diplomacy before we come in and act like a bully in a country in which there was no national security interest, just as our Secretary of Defense Bob Gates said before the administration bombed Qadhafi, destroyed his air force, and made it possible for the rebels, including all the al Qaeda that were immersed within them, to take over Libya; and that ultimately led to a year ago, when our Ambassador, Sean Smith, Ty Woods, and Glen Doherty were killed and others wounded. Bad decisions have consequences. Most everyone is familiar with the old adage that those who refuse to learn from history are destined to repeat it. The trouble is you cannot learn from history until you learn what the history was. So when some may be tempted to ask what difference it makes with what happened at Benghazi a year ago, it makes a difference in avoiding repeating history because we could not learn from history because the administration was hiding the truth. I have come to meet and know surviving family members of those we lost in Benghazi. They feel like the blood of their loved ones should be enough to require truth. They would like to think if there was anything accomplished by the loss of their loved one, it could be that we could learn our lessons to be sure it didn't happen again. Unfortunately, after two U.S. Embassies were attacked and people died in the late 1990s during the Clinton administration, the truth was not effectively and completely learned, and we didn't learn properly from those lessons. So we have to learn another lesson at Benghazi, which was a year ago today. But we can't learn a lesson when we don't know what the truth is. And it scares our allies. They don't know if they can trust us. Members of Congress can be a big help in letting allies know that, hey, we appreciate the peace you're trying to bring. We appreciate what you're trying to do. Let us know if there's something we need to take up, hearings we need to have in Congress, an appropriation we need to get rid of because it's doing more harm than good. Let us know. It's a wonderful thing to have working relationships with people on the other side of the world that are in the hotspots. I continue to communicate with Ty Woods' widow. Ty and Dorothy have a young son. She said he's got so much of Ty in him that he's more than a handful. Because that's an American hero. Ty and Glen were two men who heard that our people were under attack; and rather than go on planning for a campaign trip the next day or sitting down and having meals with others, casually going through conversations, whatever is done, that's not what these two former SEALs did. We knew there were two former Navy SEALs, but it's outrageous that when the names were released, this administration used the words ``they were killed while seeking cover.'' I didn't know Ty Woods and I didn't know Glen Doherty. I had never met them personally. I certainly have come to know them vicariously since. But I know enough SEALs, former and present, to know that those two former Navy SEALs did not die seeking cover. I knew it instantly when I read that. What an outrage. When I was in the Army at Fort Benning, we were not at war. We should have gone to war with Iran over the attack, the act of war in 1979 against our Embassy. And I think if we had demanded their return within 48 hours or it would be the entire hell that America could bring to bear would come down on Iran if one hostage was harmed, and I always felt during those first few days when they kept saying the students had these hostages, that if we had had a backbone and made a demand and been willing to back it up, they would have released them. And if they had not and we had shown them we were not a paper tiger or a toothless tiger, that we would not have lost the thousands and thousands of Americans we have since. And it would not have been able to be used as a recruiting tool to recruit radical Islamists by telling them, look at what they did in Tehran. They fled Vietnam. The next incident is 1979. They did nothing. They were totally helpless, begging us to let their people go. That's all they would do. There was a failed rescue attempt, which I would submit failed because of the leadership at the White House and the restraints that were put on them from the beginning. But there is a price when proper decisions are not made. And that weighs heavy on any President. I know it weighs heavy on President Obama. But, for heaven's sake, we have got to learn. It's been 12 years. A year ago, when it was just 11 years, our lessons had not been learned. And so more Americans die in Libya. I know that people in this administration mean that they have love and respect and admiration for those who were killed in Benghazi; but I would humbly submit that love, respect, and admiration that leads to lies and coverups are not actually love, respect, and admiration. It is the lowest form of contempt. These heroes deserve better. One of the greatest speeches I ever heard was by a man named Barack Obama. I heard the speech. It touched me deeply. We shouldn't be a red State or a blue State. We shouldn't be black or white. We should be Americans. And I want so desperately for this country to come together in that way, and I know it can happen, because I saw it happen on September 12, 2001. I was a judge at the time, and I watched as hundreds of people came into our town square, as they did all over the country. America came together. There was no red America, blue America. There was not a single hyphenated America in this country on 9/ 12. We all held hands, embraced, touched in some way, as we sang ``God Bless America'' and ``Amazing Grace'' and prayed together. And I looked around and my heart soared as I saw Americans--skin color didn't matter, creed didn't matter, national origin didn't matter, age didn't matter. We were Americans standing together. But you can't have trust, you can't stand together when you know someone next to you is not being truthful. They are being deceptive. They are covering up. So it's heartbreaking that this article today from CBS Interactive, Inc., says: One year after the September 11, 2012, terrorist attacks on Americans in Benghazi, Libya, no arrests have been reported but the Justice Department says investigators have made very significant process. On down, it says: Last month, government officials confirmed that sealed criminal charges have been filed against suspects. They're said to include Ahmed Khattala, who gave interviews in Benghazi with several news organizations, admitting he was at the scene of the attacks but insisting he was not the ringleader. Khattala also said nobody from the U.S. Government had attempted to question him. On further, it says: The Obama administration continues to keep a great deal of information under wraps, citing an ongoing investigation, national security, and other reasons. The secrecy is an ongoing point of contention with Republicans in Congress. The article goes on to say: Tuesday, the House Oversight Committee sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, demanding the Benghazi survivors be made available for interviews with Congress or else they may be subpoenaed. According to the letter, the State Department told Congress on August 23 that it was not prepared to support the request for transcribed interviews. If that doesn't change within 2 weeks, Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, Republican of California, said, I will have no alternative but to consider the use of compulsory process. The FBI, CIA, Director of National Intelligence, Defense Department, State Department, National Security Agency, have all rejected or failed to answer multiple Freedom of Information requests made by CBS News, as well as appeals of the denials. The agency cites exemptions related to ongoing investigations of national security. There's an article today by John Sexton from Breitbart, saying: It's been nearly a year since the attack which killed four Americans in Benghazi. During that time, various minute-by- minute accounts of the attack have been published. In addition, the administration's decisions to refuse additional security requests and to revise its talking points after the attack have been examined in detail. Further down, it says: The general outlines of the CIA effort have been reported. One fact which has not been highlighted is that the U.N. arms embargo of Libya, which the United States helped pass in 2011, makes shipping weapons in or out of the country of Libya a violation of international law. Indeed, the way the U.N. resolution is written, even knowingly allowing such shipments to take place may be a violation of the agreement. Yet we keep hearing that guns were being shipped from Libya, perhaps to Turkey, perhaps making their way to al Qaeda rebels. Because the rumor that keeps surfacing is that the Turks that we got weapons to are the ones that decided where the weapons would go. And those did not go to people who had any abiding love or even patience with Christians, as we have seen as Christians have been decapitated, killed, maimed in horrendous ways in Syria by those this administration would have been supporting had we bombed Assad. This is all tragic. We need to learn from history, but we've got to know the truth to do that. I love Darrell Issa, but the quote should not be that if the information is not forthcoming, as he says, ``I will have no alternative but to consider the use of compulsory process.'' In the name of Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Ty Woods, and Glen Doherty, it should not be considered; it should be done. There should be a select committee to get to the truth. We should use all compulsory methods at our fingertips, including cutting off funding to any Federal agency that refuses to comply with proper oversight by Congress, because a Constitution that can be nullified by one of the three branches is a worthless Constitution. And if Congress cannot do meaningful oversight and examine what the money we are appropriating is going for, then that money should not continue to be appropriated to anyone who will not allow knowledge of how it's being spent and if it is being misused. This has to stop. On 9/12/01, as a district judge in Texas, I was so heartened that on 9/12 we came together. On the congressional delegation trip last week in the Middle East, two Democrats I don't agree much with politically, but I got to know them a lot better, and I care deeply about them. They are very, very good people. We have the same desire for this country's freedom, liberty, peace, longevity of life--different ideas of how to get there. I've been encouraged over the last week because of the way we can talk honestly, without impugning anyone's motives, and try to work toward answers. That's what I saw on 9/12, people wanting to work together. But I keep coming back to this fact that people in this administration need to understand, and our own Republican leadership needs to understand: we have got to get to the bottom of these matters; we have got to get the truth. Jesus said, ``You will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.'' He was talking about a particular truth. But sometimes the truth comes out and it hurts the person that was seeking the truth or the people who were seeking the truth. And I would humbly submit, here it doesn't matter. We just need the truth. One of the things that people around the world, as I've talked to people around the world, even going back to my summer in '73 of being an exchange student in the Soviet Union, people have admired the way the United States would expose the truth no matter how ugly it made it appear. People admired that. Even in the Soviet Union, when they were not getting truth, privately--they couldn't say it publicly, but privately there were college students that pointed this out, We really do admire the way you bring out truth. And your own government's embarrassed, but somehow you manage to keep going on because you deal with truth. One, in particular, said, I am concerned about my country because we don't get the truth. Standing and looking at an exhibit in Moscow with a couple of Russian college students, I was amazed. One of them pointed to Gagarin. And I said, wow, Gagarin, the world's first man in space. There was an account that he had been killed during test piloting a jet in the Soviet Union. I was surprised that the two Russian college students would say, Yeah, we know that didn't happen. I said, You don't believe what your government is telling you? And he said, No, our government frequently does not tell us the truth. Well, I didn't know if Gagarin was killed testing a jet plane or not, but I was struck by the fact that these Soviets, college students, knew that their government lied to them routinely. And they said, You seem to get to the truth in your country--it has taken a while with Watergate, but you seem to keep working toward the truth, and we don't do that here. We just have to accept what we're told. I believe the expression was ``there's nothing to be done.'' Well, in America, there is something to be done. We have got to get to the truth. We owe it to the heroes that have given their last full measure of devotion for this country. We owe it to those who have put their lives on the line. That means getting to the bottom of the rule of engagement for our military as well so that we don't have situations as we just read about this summer, a lieutenant--obviously very young--in charge of a roadblock at a security checkpoint. From the account--and I do want to do further investigation to get to the bottom of it--when waving, trying to get the attention of three people on motorcycles to slow down, to stop for the security--they were going fast, with no indication of slowing down--the lieutenant ordered shots be fired above their head. They didn't slow down. Knowing there had been people killed, Americans killed by so many green-on-blue attacks, knowing that his men were at risk if they had a bomb, he finally ordered his men to fire on the motorcycle riders; two died, one lived. That lieutenant is now reported to be doing 20 years in Leavenworth. That's just wrong. That's just wrong. I've been in Afghanistan and talked to our soldiers there--soldiers, sailors, marines--and they tell me privately, Look, we have a hard time deciding, do I want to risk just letting someone kill me or going to prison when I get home? I kind of think I'd rather die as a hero and have an NAS burial than to be an embarrassment to my family by going to Leavenworth when I get back to the U.S. We owe the 9/11 victims, the 9/11 survivors, the Benghazi victims, the Afghanistan soldiers, sailors, and marines that we have lost, we owe those who died in Afghanistan and Iraq, we owe them the truth. We owe them good rules of engagement so their lives are not needlessly put in jeopardy because of political gamesmanship. We are owed the truth. And when Ambassador Chris Stevens' last words to his State Department colleague and friend, Greg Hicks, were, ``Greg, we're under attack,'' everything should have stopped. The personal, hand-picked representative of the United States President was under attack. Everything should have stopped. I really think if it had and this administration had done everything they could to get help to these people, this President would have won in a huge landslide because he stood up for people, our Americans who were in harm's way. A year later, we don't even know what he was doing. We don't know what the Secretary of State was doing. We can't talk to the CIA agents, and they keep getting polygraphed every 30 days to make sure nobody's leaking any information to Congress because apparently that would be embarrassing. I mentioned to some people earlier today about the doctrine of spoliation. It's a legal doctrine that applies in courts of law. And whether in a court of law or in the court of public opinion, credibility always matters. We have seen, this week, a briefing by people who may well have gotten their talking points from the same person or persons who altered the talking points a year ago, falsified them, and handed them to what I believe was an innocent Susan Rice and sent her out to unknowingly be a dupe to spread things that weren't true about a video when it wasn't true at all. How do we know what we get in a classified briefing if we don't know who it was that made true intelligence into lying intelligence a year ago? We need to know so we know we can have more faith in what Susan Rice, John Kerry, Secretary Hagel, General Dempsey, in the things they're saying. Where did your information come from? Is it somebody that created some of the lies we got in the past or is this a totally truthful source? It matters. It matters. It matters when we have Christian Navy SEALs killed in Afghanistan and American flag-draped coffins are mixed with Afghan flag-draped coffins. And an American chaplain is not even allowed to pray in Jesus' name, even though a chaplain may be a Christian and be taught that Jesus said, ``If you ask for it in my name, it will be given.'' Being prevented--as the First Amendment said the Federal Government should never do--from freely exercising his religious beliefs, and then compounding the problem by bringing an imam in Afghanistan to stand and give a Muslim prayer over our SEALs that includes basically the words that, in the name of Allah, the merciful forgiver, the companions of hell, where the sinners and infidels are fodder for hellfire, are not equal with the companions of Heaven. The Muslim companions of Heaven are always the winners. We let an imam speak in his language, say words that, when examined, appear to be gloating over the dead Navy SEALs that should have never been allowed to take off in that chopper, that should never have been allowed to stay on after the Afghans pulled out the Afghan soldiers on the manifest and put other Afghan soldiers on that apparently were disposable to them. It should have stopped there. There were so many places it should have stopped. But we can't get all the answers about that, how it came about, why our best and brightest were put in harm's way. We can't really get to the truth as to why a good man--I've spoken with him personally, privately; I like him very much--Leon Panetta, why he would tell people who did not have security clearances that it was SEAL Team Six that took out Osama bin Laden; why Joe Biden, as Vice President, I know he meant no harm to our SEAL Team Six, but when he outs a SEAL team as the one that took out Osama bin Laden. And as one SEAL called his mother and said, Mom, you've got to get my name off all of our family stuff online; we've been outed. One parent said his daughter-in-law looked out the window right after Vice President Biden outed his SEAL team took out Osama bin Laden, the Marines had provided her a guard because they knew what it meant. It meant this administration had exposed our valiant fighting forces, our SEALs, to danger they should never have been in. This is a day of remembrance, but if it is not used to get to the bottom of what happened a year ago and what has happened in the 12 intervening years since then, find out where we've made our mistakes so that we can correct them so that we do not have more Boston bombings or attempts like we had in Times Square--thank God for local police and people paying attention there. And thank goodness for a sweaty rear end of a bomber that was prepared to take out a plane and was attempting to do so on Christmas. The Divine Providence, as our Founders and George Washington so often referred to as God's overseeing, will not protect us forever when we will not protect ourselves. God is good all the time. All the time God is good. But it's time to be better friends to our friends. It's time to stand up and be better enemies to our enemies. It's time that the blood of those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice was honored with the truth. I hope and pray in the days ahead we will have the resolve, as Members of Congress across the aisle, to stand firm and say, Give us the truth. We don't care who is made to look bad, Republican or Democrat, let the chips fall where they may. The blood of our devoted, life-giving patriots cries out for truth. Let's finally get to it. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, my dear friend, Randy Forbes, for all that you do on behalf of religious freedom. I know it is not merely Christian freedom, but it is religious freedom, and it is under attack. When we look at what the Constitution says, I know it has already been read, but so often we forget the first word. We just blow right past the first word of the First Amendment, and that is that ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.'' Why was it that they singled out Congress, because they mentioned States in some of the other amendments. In the 10th Amendment, anything that is not prohibited to the States, that power is reserved to the States and the people. So why is it that they singled out Congress? It is because this was intended for Congress and not for the States. Because the people that voted for these amendments knew that every one of the States had some laws that dealt with some aspect of Christianity, whether it was the oath that was required to be taken, or in some cases, a belief in Jesus Christ. There were all kinds of State and local university laws that had to do with religion, and that, if you wanted to be part of this, you had to believe this way. It was supposed to be a restriction on Congress. We've gotten so far afield from that now we think that we are not allowed to even bring up a hymn here in Congress. Whereas, my friend Randy Forbes knows, and Trent Franks--you all know, right down the hall the man who coined the phrase ``separation of church and State,'' Thomas Jefferson, as President came to church every Sunday he was in Washington, and on some occasions he brought the Marine band to play the hymns. It was the biggest church in Washington for much of the 1800s right down the hall in what was the House Chamber back then. Now look at what has happened. We see these incursions on the freedom of belief, and Christians are persecuted and forced to endure the slams and the arrows that should never be endured. Like SEAL Team 6, for example, those heroic members that were put in harm's way in a situation they should never have been put in in Afghanistan, after SEAL Team 6 was outed as the one that took out Osama bin Laden. You can see the DVD, a recording of the Ramp Ceremony. They have an imam come up in his language and do a Muslim prayer over the American flag-draped caskets, and we know some of those guys were devout Christians. He says a prayer that when you get the interpretation, basically it condemns them to hell, that they will never defeat the Muslims, the followers of Allah. It turns out today we see persecution after persecution of Christians. When you look at the underpinnings of this Nation, it was Christians. About a third of the people that signed the Declaration of Independence were ordained Christian ministers. If you look at what drove Lincoln, it was coming closer and closer to a walk with God. Some of the most powerful Christian messages ever delivered include the second inaugural address of Lincoln. Why? Because the Christian faith that he heard John Quincy Adams right down the hall talk about drove him to come back into politics and to get back involved to try to eliminate slavery. He knew that it was difficult for God to bless America when we were treating brothers and sisters by putting them in chains and bondage. The next big step toward true Christian brotherhood and sisterhood in America came from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. What was he? He was an ordained Christian minister. And now within 50 years it has become only acceptable to persecute Christians. This administration and so many have taken a stand--yes, it is an outrage that poisonous gas was used by anyone in the Middle East, but you don't hear the administration or others talking enough, including us in Congress, about the persecution of Christians. One article here says ``Syrian Rebels to Christians: Flee or Die,'' an article by Bob Unruh, who used to be with the AP. He talks about the report. Over and over Christians were told, you either denounce your Christianity or die, and we've done nothing about it. That was written in June. We have an article September 9. The village of Maaloula has been taken over by Syrian rebels associated with al Qaeda, who have stormed the Christian center and offered local Christians a choice--conversion or death--as they screamed ``Allah Akbar.'' Well, there is too much persecution of Christianity. That was never supposed to be the case. That was what so many said would be the salvation of our little experiment in democracy. It is time to stand for freedom of religion, not freedom to persecute Christians from Washington. I appreciate my friend very much for yielding.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it's always such an honor to speak here on the floor. Some have said that you'll regret being in Congress. Well, it's where the fight for America is. I appreciated so much the comments, as I sat here for some time listening to the former majority leader of the House, talking about the need for bipartisanship, the importance of bipartisanship, the importance of working together. The deepest regret I experienced in listening to that wonderful speech by my friend from Maryland was that I didn't have a transcript of that speech to read him every single week that the Democrats were in the majority here on this floor and every single time that they came forward with a closed rule allowing no amendments. In fact, each time that it came to the floor, the Democratic majority, during those 4 years between January of 2007 and January of 2011, it was the most closed Congress in the history of the country, with the least number of open rules, the least amount of bipartisanship. They rammed through the most destructive bill in American history in the last 100 years, that being the ObamaCare bill, without a single Republican vote. There was no bipartisanship. Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed the comments from my friend, the former majority leader. Gosh, I wish I could have read that back to him over and over during the 4 years they were in the majority. He has such a great sense of humor, Mr. Speaker. I know he would have laughed over and over as I read it to him. In fact, there was a time that the majority leader was coming down the aisle and we were about to vote on the card check bill, which was going to eliminate secret ballots for elections. The secret ballot would have been eliminated for elections to be a unionized group or not to be. I was kidding around with my friend from Maryland as he came by, and I said, Word here on the floor is that you're about to vote against your party and against the card check bill so that you're not going to be in agreement to eliminate secret ballots. He's so intelligent and has such a great sense of humor. He said, The odds of that happening are infinitesimal. I said, It's just that everybody here on the floor knows that before Nancy Pelosi became Speaker, she had promised John Murtha would be the majority leader. And if you hadn't had a secret ballot, John Murtha would have been the majority leader instead of you. He laughed. He has a great sense of humor. So I'm sure if I were able to go back in time and read our former majority leader's comments today about the importance of bipartisanship, he would probably laugh as he did when he voted to end the secret ballot for union elections, even though the secret ballot is what got him elected as majority leader. But are some amazing things going on. It was huge when this Congress did something a few weeks ago that people said couldn't be done and that was with regard to the agriculture bill and that was many years ago, the agriculture bill, which was quite small, comparatively, combined with the food stamp bill. And I wondered when I got here 8\1/ 2\ years ago why was food stamps part of the agriculture bill. It was explained to me that this is strictly for political purposes, because there are not enough farmers that have enough representation in Congress to ever get a farm bill passed by itself, and that there's enough people concerned about the waste in the food stamp program and the abuses in the food stamp program that it might have a hard time just passing on its own without having a lot of restructuring and efforts to clean up the waste, fraud, and abuse. So by putting them together, you combine enough votes from both sides of the aisle to get a farm bill with food stamps passed. But if you separate them, you won't pass either one, at least not in that current form. So it was really historic what was done and why a number of us voted for the agriculture bill without the food stamps attached. But we kept making it very clear, we're not out to end the food stamp program. We know there are people who need food help and we want to help them, so we are not for taking food out of the mouths of children that can't feed themselves, even though we were continually told that by people on the other side of the aisle. It broke my heart because I had a bunch of good friends, even though they're at one end of the political spectrum and I'm at the other, but they'd come to the floor and say something that they surely, surely, I hope they didn't mean. But they did say it, that Republicans are trying to take food out of the mouths of children. Well, that was rather tragic of them to say that since that was simply not true. And the heartbreak of having friends come down and make allegations that absolutely, unequivocally were not true came rushing back as I heard our former majority leader say that we were trying to eliminate food to the hungry when we made the point over and over. I know it is tough being in the leadership of either party. You're constantly doing stuff. He probably didn't hear where we said over and over, We're not eliminating the food stamp program; we're separating it from the ag bill, that's all. So I will make sure that our friend understands and gets the message. We actually were not out to eliminate the food stamp program, but we sure do need to clean it up. I took grief for just telling of a constituent that had mentioned that he was standing in line at the grocery store behind somebody who had crab legs, and he was wishing he could afford to have crab legs and he was looking at his ground meat. Anyway, then when that person in front of him got ready to pay for the crab legs, he pulled out a food stamp card. I forget which Washington rag it was, but one of them--and it may not have been a Washington rag. But the left wing went nuts talking about how I am accusing people of squandering precious food stamp money on crab legs when that was not the case at all. Then right after that, one of the Washington papers did have a front page story, and in part of that story was a picture out here where seafood is sold, a massive amount of crabs for sale with a big red sign saying, ``Food stamp cards welcome.'' Breitbart, I've got so many great friends there, brilliant people, and even though they're really brilliant, they like me okay. They ran with the story about how the left wing made a big deal out of it, and all they had to do was go to a seafood place. Anyway, I also saw a picture that was not in the paper, massive crab legs, and there was that red sign that they take food stamps. So, obviously, it would seem that the left wing blogs, in their attempt to smear me, actually exposed, once again, their ignorance. So there are a lot of things that need to be fixed up. We want to help people that need food that can't provide for themselves. But if they can work, it is a good thing to push people to reach their God- given potential. The problem with that, especially for African Americans--and I think they're the worst hit group in all of America with regard to unemployment. This President's policies have absolutely devastated African American communities in this country with a massive, high unemployment rate. And so I sure hope that we can change things because the unemployed of whatever race, creed, color, gender, they deserve an opportunity. They deserve a chance at pursuing happiness. But these policies of this administration are making that increasingly difficult. That's why it really focused people's attention recently when the President came out in full support and actually made it happen and said: You know what, I am just going to speak into being new law and cancel old law. I've said before, some of the things that this administration, this President have done are so unconstitutional. One of the things that ought to end up resulting is a massive class action by all of the people who took his constitutional law course to want their money back, because for any President to say I rammed through ObamaCare without a single Republican vote, we didn't get any input from those people, we didn't want it. But you know what, it is such a disaster, and I'm hearing from people that I've called fat cats before, big business folks, they're saying it's going to devastate their businesses. So tell you what, I am going to postpone for a year the big business requirement, big business being anything over 50 employees, I'm going to postpone their requirements to follow the law, just choose not to enforce the law so they can get away with not following it for a year. Well, I have listened to some of the President's incredible, amazing eloquence, some right here from this second podium here, expressing concerns for Americans, but especially the poor and downtrodden. Now to me, somebody that's making $11,000 has got it tough. It's tough to live on $11,000 right now, but that's considered the poverty rate. It's right about $11,000. So under the ObamaCare bill that was shoved through the House and Senate, unconstitutionally because it included a tax and raised revenue that did not originate in the House, and hopefully we'll get the Supreme Court's action on that and they'll do the right thing unless somebody knows something about Chief Justice Roberts that I don't. Anyway, it didn't originate in the House. I think we should ultimately get it struck down for that reason. They took a bill from the House, deleted every single word and substituted therein about 2,500 pages is what my copy was, for a tax credit for first time home buyers who were veterans or in the military. So, obviously, it was not germane, and hopefully the Supreme Court will still do the right thing and strike it down. But in the meantime, people are having to make preparation to live under it. That includes Congress. Except for the leaders and the committee staff members, all of us in Congress are going to be forced into the ObamaCare exchanges come January. So I've heard the President's speeches about caring so deeply about the middle class, and our former majority leader was talking about the middle class and what we need to do for them. But here again, I keep coming back to ObamaCare. I was shocked when I read in the ObamaCare bill that if you cannot afford to buy the minimum health care mandated by the Federal Government in ObamaCare, then you're initially going to have a 1 percent income tax, but then it is going to go to 2.5 by 2016. I thought, that's crazy. My friends across the aisle, President Obama, they're always talking about how they care so deeply about those who are struggling and doing everything they can to get by. It just is shocking to come to realize they have no clue about the suffering that somebody making $14,000 is going to have thrust on them by ObamaCare when they can't--if they're only making $14,000, it is unlikely their employer is going to be able to pay $7,000 for an insurance policy, so they will be on their own. We have heard over and over that employers are trying to get down below 50 employees. I know a restaurant back in Tyler, my hometown, they indicated they are going to sell off a couple of their restaurants to get under 50 because they can't afford to meet the mandate. So a lot of people are losing their insurance, despite the President's assurance you wouldn't. That's happening all over the place. And it is happening, ironically--and this is kind of rich. It really is rich, and I hope America can see the humor. So many of our friends across of the aisle said over and over at these microphones, If you like your insurance, you can keep it. And then they passed a bill without a single Republican vote that says all those people that said that, you can keep your insurance, they're not keeping, not one of them is going to keep their insurance. So it's kind of rich. It's a little humorous if you like sick irony. All these speeches about if you like your insurance--they're just quoting the President--you can keep it, turns out they're all wrong and every Member of Congress is going to lose their insurance come January 1, unless they retire before January 1, then they actually can keep their insurance. And then we find out today that actually there is an issue because the way ObamaCare was addressed, it did prevent the leaders of both parties, as I read it, and committee staffs from having to be under ObamaCare. So the leaders, they're protected. They don't have to be under ObamaCare, and the committee staffs won't have to. But all the rest of us, all the rest of the Members of Congress, the rank and file, we'll be under it. And now we find out there is a huge ambiguity because it doesn't say whether or not the Federal Government can continue to pay the 72 percent of the health care costs, the health insurance costs for Members of Congress. Right now Members of Congress, we are on Social Security, despite what the email that has been going around for 20 years says. We pay Social Security tax. Despite all this stuff about a golden parachute and you can retire and get every dime you make, I think that changed during Ronald Reagan's time as President. So you don't have a golden parachute. I think most Members have a 401(k)-type thing where the government will match up to 5 or 6 percent of what you put in, but it is the same retirement program that every single Federal worker across America has. People forget that Newt Gingrich--and I appreciate my friend from Maryland bringing up Newt Gingrich. He's an amazing guy. He is a big idea guy, and I like the way he thinks. We don't agree on all his big ideas, and he doesn't agree with all of my big ideas, but he comes up with some good ideas. In the Contract With America, one of the big ideas that was immensely popular, way over 70 percent popular, was that Members of Congress ought to live under the same laws that everybody else in America does. And that passed. That was part of the contract, and they lived up to it. It became law, and so Members of Congress have to live under the same laws as everybody else does. That's why, after I've been cooking ribs to share in a bipartisan manner--and not many days go by when I don't have somebody on either side of the aisle ask, Louie, when are we going to get ribs again? Well, the Architect of the Capitol found out. I thought he was a little overzealous, but he feels like I violate some of the codes that everybody else in America has to live under, and so I can't cook ribs. We've had all kinds of things. The media wanted to come do something on me cooking ribs. President Bush liked my ribs. People on both sides of the aisle do. They may not vote for anything I'm for, but they love my ribs. And it was a nice time. But the reason I can't cook ribs anymore is because we're living under the same laws as everybody else did. And apparently there's a law that said you can't have a fire within 10 feet of wood in a building structure, so they shut me down. We're living under the same law as everybody else is. And then it comes to ObamaCare, and the decision by the--and it wasn't by Congress. I was grilling our Republican leaders just earlier about exactly what's happening. The Office of Personnel Management, under the Obama administration, has decided that the Federal Government will go ahead and, come January, we won't keep our same insurance. I've got a health savings account. They made sure I'm not going to get to keep my insurance, and we can't figure out what happens to the HSA. I'd like to drop ObamaCare insurance and just put money into a health savings account. But they've even screwed us over with ObamaCare to prevent that kind of thing from happening. So, anyway, it looks like the decision by the Obama administration will be that Members of Congress will have 72 percent of our health insurance paid by the taxpayers, and what we have to borrow from China, of course, or other places. Well, that's nice, but if America is not playing under those same rules, it doesn't seem fair for us. And I'm hopeful, when we get back, maybe we can get a bipartisan bill through that just says everybody in America can opt out of ObamaCare and not pay a fine, not pay a tax or whatever you want to call it, and provide what they feel like is appropriate. But it all ought to be fair across the board. And now, the issue has gotten rather large since we find out the IRS truly has been targeting, after 2010, when the President said, you know, how much they wanted to stop the Tea Party; he felt they were a threat to America. They were a blessing to America. They were a threat to an oppressive government, because everybody I've run into, I've talked to people of all kinds of national origins, all races, from both genders, I mean, all kinds of folks at Tea Party events. And the only thing I can find they have in common: they're all paying income tax. They're all paying income tax. And the President felt like this group needed to be gone after, and he made comments to that effect. And somebody, and we need to find out whom, was the top person in the administration, but it appears it at least goes back to the President's own hand-picked council, as far as who knew, who participated. And of course there's been a denial, just like there was during Watergate, but we'll see what the truth is, even though there's a lot of obfuscation in the process. But with regard to the IRS, the thing's very clear: we should not have the IRS involved in our health care at all, ever. And yet they are a central part of ObamaCare. And then we find out this week, reading the story, it's changed some, but basically, a couple were wondering why law enforcement showed up at their home, when they had just looked online for a pressure cooker and a back pack. Turns out, apparently, at work one of them had looked at something else. They were no threat to anybody. But the question keeps arising, wait a minute; who's monitoring every Web site that every American goes to? Well, must be the NSA, apparently. But I did attend a classified briefing, so I can't go into anything there. But it appeared, before the briefing, very clear to me, and I still feel this way, that when you blind yourself as to who the enemy is, as we have, purging all kinds of material from our FBI training material, State Department, intelligence material, as to who radical Islamists really are and what they actually believe, you blind our law enforcement, our security people, from the ability to see our enemy, we're not protected. And then when you have an open border where people are coming across at will, and Border Patrolmen have told us three to five times faster than they ever have since we started talking about just handing out legal status, anybody that happened to be here by a certain date, all this talk about amnesty, citizenship, all these other things being talked, do they get benefits, not get benefits, all this talk has increased the number of people coming in by about three to five times. The border's not secure. When you don't control what kind of terrorists may be coming into your country, and you don't train your law enforcement, your terrorist-discerning folks who it is that are the terrorists, and you keep pulling back our ability to see who our enemy really is, then it appears the solution is to have the Federal Government more intrusive than any of us ever dreamed it would be. And then, you couple that with what we found out yesterday, and this article's dated August 1, 2013, and it's titled ``Exclusive: Dozens of CIA Operatives on the Ground During Benghazi Attack.'' And in part it points out CNN has learned the CIA is involved in what one source calls an unprecedented attempt to keep the spy agency's Benghazi secrets from ever leaking out: Since January, some CIA operatives involved in the agency's mission in Libya have been subjected to frequent, even monthly polygraph examinations, according to a source with deep inside knowledge of the agency's workings. The goal of the questioning, according to sources, is to find out if anyone is talking to the media or to Congress. It is being described as pure intimidation, with the threat that any unauthorized CIA employee who leaks information could face the end of his or her career. In an exclusive communications obtained by CNN, one insider writes, ``You don't jeopardize yourself, you jeopardize your family as well.'' Another says, ``You have no idea the amount of pressure being brought to bear on anyone with knowledge of this operation.'' Agency employees typically are polygraphed every 3 or 4 years, never more than that,'' said former CIA operative and CNN analyst Robert Baer. In other words, the rate of the kind of polygraphs alleged by sources is rare. So says the CNN article. ``If somebody is being polygraphed every month or every 2 months, it's called an issue polygraph, and that means the polygraph division suspects something, or they're looking for something, or they're on a fishing expedition, but it's absolutely not routine at all to be polygraphed monthly or bimonthly,'' said Baer. A source now tells CNN that the number, talking about the number of people at Benghazi mission, was 35, with as many as seven wounded, some seriously. While it is still not known how many of them were CIA, a source tells CNN that 21 Americans were working in the building known as the annex, believed to be run by the agency, talking about the CIA. He goes down, and he talks about Congressman Frank Wolf, a dear friend. He says, Wolf has repeatedly gone to the House floor asking for a select committee to be set up, a Watergate-style probe involving several Intelligence Committee investigators assigned to get to the bottom of the failures that took place in Benghazi, and find out just what the State Department and CIA were doing there. More than 150 fellow Republican Members of Congress have signed his request. And just this week, eight Republicans sent a letter to the new head of the FBI, James Comey, asking that he brief Congress within 30 days. In the aftermath of the attack, Wolf said he was contacted by people closely tied with the CIA operatives and contractors who wanted to talk. Then suddenly, there was silence. And I can verify that problem as well from some of the people that were going to talk to me and then all of a sudden they went silent and said, no, I'm not going to talk. ``Initially they were not afraid to come forward. They wanted the opportunity, and they wanted to be subpoenaed, because if you're subpoenaed it sort of protects you. You're forced to come before Congress. That's all changed,'' said Wolf. Speculation on Capitol Hill has included the possibility that U.S. agencies operating in Benghazi were secretly helping to move surface- to-air- missiles out of Libya, through Turkey, and into the hands of the Syrians rebels. It's clear that two U.S. agencies were operating in Benghazi. One was the State Department. The other was the CIA. The State Department told CNN in an email that it was only helping the new Libyan government destroy weapons deemed ``damaged, aged, or too unsafe to retain,'' and that it was not involved in any transfer of weapons to other countries. But the State Department also clearly told CNN they ``can't speak for any other agencies.'' And the CIA would not comment on whether it was involved in the transfer of weapons or not. So perhaps that was going on, but we still have got to get to the bottom of why four great, heroic Americans were allowed to be killed, were put in a situation like that. What difference does it make at this point? It makes a difference at this point, or a year from now, or 2 years from now, or 3\1/2\ years from now because people need to understand, they need to understand clearly. When somebody's life is taken, normally, if a criminal law is involved, the statute of limitations are a lot longer. And Eric Holder, I can assure you, will not be Attorney General for the next 4 years. Three and one-half years from now we'll have a new administration. And we will hopefully get to the bottom of these scandals. And they're not phony. We know that because the President has assured us, back when they first arose, he was going to get to the bottom of it. And unlike what one of the family members of those killed at Benghazi told me, there, at the ceremony, Secretary Clinton said we're going to get the guy that did the video. And all they wanted was to get justice from those who caused the death of their loved one. We owe that to them, Mr. Speaker. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Senate Concurrent Resolution 22, 113th Congress, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it is an honor and a privilege to be here to speak. At this time, I yield to my friend from Kentucky (Mr. Whitfield).

Mr. GOHMERT. I thank my friend from Kentucky. I just had seen an article that's really an exclamation point, really, of what the gentleman was saying. The headline is: Two Americans Added to Food Stamp Rolls for Every Job the Administration Says It Created. I mean, how tragic. What an exclamation point on those facts that were laid out by my friend, Mr. Whitfield. Thank you. There's news being reported today that Attorney General Eric Holder has announced the opening of a new front in the battle for voting rights--at least so he says, his brand--which is rather ironic because this administration, and particularly the Attorney General, the Department of Justice, had talked about, in essence, how the Supreme Court had eviscerated the Voting Rights Act and just rendered it basically nothing by its terrible decision. Yet if you look at the words of the Supreme Court in that decision, the Supreme Court points out that the factual data does not bear out the attacks by this administration continuing on the States that had done wrong, if you will, sinned back 50 years ago. There was racial discrimination in this country at the time of the Voting Rights Act, and there is racial discrimination today; but it has moved. The Voting Rights Act has accomplished a great deal in our efforts to move toward equality of opportunity around the country. And so it has accomplished something that is very good and very important to the country. But, amazingly, when the Voting Rights Act was extended--with support from people on both sides of the aisle--they decided that, gee, since some of us have districts where there is now racial discrimination, even though at least six of the States that were originally gone after in the South by the Department of Justice, they had better racial equality in voting than the average for the entire country. Yet this administration decided our goal is to punish those States that did not vote for this President--we're going after these States; we're going to continue to punish them; we're going to continue to be punitive to them. We're going to ignore areas like Massachusetts, where there's now more racial disparity than in at least six of the States-- maybe all of them--in the South. But as I understood it, Massachusetts, unfortunately, has moved into the arena of being a State that has significant--most significant racial disparity. And yet the Voting Rights Act did nothing to address those areas of the country where over the last 50 years discrimination has grown, it's raised its ugly head. Yet this administration said, no, we're too busy punishing States who corrected their problems and are doing so much better than the rest of the country. Why? Because we can. Actually, that is the reason the Voting Rights Act was extended without the Gohmert amendment that would have made sure that the Voting Rights Act applied across the country in any area where there was racial discrimination. But in a bipartisan manner, a majority forced the extension for 25 more years, which would mean--now, I don't even recall who all was in office back then. I was a little kid. I didn't know who was discriminating and who wasn't. I had no part in it. And people who had no part of the discrimination that was going on back then--the discrimination that needed to be addressed, the discrimination that needed to be corrected--for some reason, have people in a majority of places that voted to extend it, keep punishing areas that are no longer committing wrongs, no longer sinning. We want to keep punishing them because if we open it up and apply these same punitive things across the country and come up with a new formula, gee, we're not going to be able to keep punishing these areas for their sins of 50, 60 years ago. We may have to punish our own States because racial disparity has grown there. So the Supreme Court did the proper thing--legally, fairly. Now we see this administration saying, oh, it turns out we can use the Voting Rights Act to continue to punish Texas. Why? Because we can; because we want to. So they're coming after Texas, as announced today, again. At some point, I hope we get to the place that the President spoke of when he spoke at the Democratic Convention so eloquently, talking about there's not a red America and a blue America, we're just Americans. I loved that speech. I thought it was fantastic. It caused me to rise up and take notice, wow, this guy is saying the things I believe in. He's so right. And yet his policies have been diametrically opposed. They have racially divided us; continuing to go after political enemies; continuing to have this administration's Internal Revenue Service weaponized in a way that Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson could never have even dreamed they could have done. So, hopefully, the court to which the administration has gone in Texas will do the right thing and say, you know, Mr. Attorney General, we remember your comments about how you don't have the power really to do this anymore since the Supreme Court struck section 4 down. And so either we believe what you're saying now, or we believe what you said out there after the Supreme Court decision. And that becomes a real problem when you have an Attorney General that says different things to different people, because the highest law enforcement officer in the country needs to be trusted. He needs to have respect and adherence for and to the law. We have an Attorney General that's been held in contempt. He's been in contempt of Congress; he's been in contempt of the law; he's been in contempt of the actual facts--repeatedly. We need a different Attorney General. I asked President Bush to appoint a new Attorney General when there was a scandal over national security letters. I thought it was the appropriate thing to do. When someone's credibility is hurt, even if they didn't even know what was going on, it's time to have new leadership and change what's going on. And we got a new Attorney General. Yet I'm amazed at how my friends on the other side of the aisle keep clinging, as does the President, to an Attorney General who is in contempt of Congress, contempt of the law, and in contempt of facts; an Attorney General who would have the nerve to testify that he's never even heard of anyone attempting to prosecute a reporter, when he knew as he said it he had okayed and given his blessing to the persecution of James Rosen with Fox News. So he either lied to the Congress in his testimony, or he was a part of a fraud upon the court. Because the allegations in the affidavit and the application for a warrant before the court going after James Rosen claimed he had violated the law, set out the law he had violated, that he was a flight risk, that he was a risk to destroy evidence; so either he believed the things that he approved, which means he lied to Congress, or he spoke truthfully to Congress and committed a fraud upon the court. Either way, we need the highest law enforcement officer in the land to have more credibility than that, and yet here he is doing the same thing, saying one thing one place, claiming another in another place. It is so critical that we be able to trust our government, which brings us back to the issue of NSA spying. Now, I was a freshman in 2005-2006 in the 109th Congress. I was on the Judiciary Committee, and we had some very rancorous debate between our own party behind closed doors, out in the committee room, here on the floor, over the PATRIOT Act, over the extension of power over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courts. I was very concerned, even though we had a Republican administration and a President that I liked and respected, George W. Bush, smarter and wittier than people gave him credit for, a good, decent man. But we have to consider the possibilities and we have to be specific in our laws. When we debated these changes before the Judiciary Committee back in the 109th Congress when I was a freshman, there were people, my Democratic friends across the other side of the aisle, that were very concerned about an abuse of power that might be occasioned if we don't tighten up the PATRIOT Act. I am just anal enough, I read the bill as it existed. I read the law as it existed. I was pushing for some things to be changed, and it did cause me some concern that the title of what basically is section 215 of the PATRIOT Act as it was at that time before amended: Access to records and other items under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. As amended, it would read: Access to certain business records for foreign intelligence and international terrorism investigations. So I knew those were the titles, so it really applied to foreign intelligence and international terrorism investigations. My Democratic friends across the aisle that we would often consider way left had serious concerns. I understood their concerns, but I thought they were being way too fearful of government because the law, we could make it specific enough that it would not be abused by a Republican or Democratic administration. As I read through, having been a judge and a chief justice and had to consider from a legal standpoint what do these words mean? what does this word mean? can this be considered vague, ambiguous? is this considered arbitrary and capricious? is there room for misunderstanding? I actually had some concerns behind closed doors. I was asking people from the Bush administration, Justice Department, I'm a little uncomfortable about this; what does this mean? One of the things I asked about was, in the reference to the proposal for the amendment, it says, ``the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation or a designee of the Director (whose rank shall be no lower than Assistant Special Agent in Charge) may make an application for an order requiring the production of any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items) for an investigation to obtain foreign intelligence information not concerning a United States person''--well, I was comfortable with that language. That seemed to protect U.S. citizens pretty well. And then there's this disjunctive preposition ``or,'' this disjunctive ``or.'' Okay. Well, it can be that or it can be this. The other aspect was ``to protect against international terrorism.'' Well, I felt like at the time I was okay if we are really seriously to protect ourselves from international terrorism. Again, that doesn't involve an American citizen unless you can establish with probable cause that an American citizen is involved in international terrorism. And then we get a second disjunctive ``or''--``or clandestine intelligence activities.'' And I raised the issues behind closed doors in our Republican meetings and when we met with justice officials: I'm uncomfortable with this because it doesn't say ``international'' in that part. You have the disjunctive ``or,'' but you left out ``international'' there. I would really be more comfortable if it said, ``to protect against international terrorism or clandestine international intelligence activities.'' I was told: Congressman, we know you're a judge and you get caught up in words sometimes, but look at the title of the article. The article says, ``Access to certain business records for foreign intelligence and international terrorism investigations.'' So you shouldn't have to be concerned. This is only about intelligence. It's only about foreign contacts. And we were assured repeatedly behind closed doors and in debate that this amendment to the PATRIOT Act would make it more difficult for an administration to abuse it--Republican or Democrat. I was still a little uneasy, and I know that when there is a disparity between language within a law and the title of the law, the language within the law itself takes priority over the title, I know that, but it was somewhat comforting. If you read on down--this was as we were trying to amend it and as the Justice Department under President Bush was pushing--it says, ``An investigation conducted under this section shall,'' and then it has, ``(A) be conducted under guidelines . . . (B) not''--and there's an ``and,'' so this is important; you can't go without (B)--``and (B) not be conducted of a United States person solely upon the basis of activities protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.'' There were some concerns during this debate over amending section 215 of the PATRIOT Act back in the 109th Congress that we don't want the administration gathering intel about someone if it is all having to do with their activity that is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. So, for example, if someone were burning a United States flag or burning a Holy Bible, the Supreme Court tells us those are protected activities protected by the First Amendment, and therefore you could not use those to go gather intelligence data about an American who was doing those things. Now, of course, we have the U.N. and former Secretary Clinton and President Obama and others saying, We like what the U.N. is saying. Basically, if we adopted what the U.N. said, it would still be true, our Supreme Court would allow you to burn a Bible and a flag, but you could never, ever do anything like that to a Koran, which then would allow our radical Islamist friends who want an international caliphate to check the box that they created and was discovered during a raid some years back, that one of their 10-year goals was to subjugate the United States Constitution to shari'a law; and as soon as we adopt a law that says you can destroy a Bible and a flag but not a Koran, they can check that box. But under the proposed amendment in 2005 to the PATRIOT Act, or the official title under title 50, War and National Defense, chapter 36, ``Foreign Intelligence Surveillance''; chapter IV, section 1861, so paragraph (3) after (2), that says, ``An investigation conducted under this section shall . . . (B) not be conducted of a United States person solely upon the basis of activities protected by the First Amendment''--we get to paragraph (3). And this was an issue that was very contentious. There were groups boycotting and demonstrating and saying, Hey, this is all about library books, we don't want the Bush administration being able to go in and get a list of books we've read. Well, I contended then and still contend now that to do such a thing of an American citizen you should have to have probable cause that an American citizen has violated the law and get a warrant to do that. But this didn't require a warrant. This is allowed under the PATRIOT Act if it was for foreign intelligence purposes and for international terrorism investigations, according to the title. But unfortunately, in the law itself, it said, ``or to protect against international terrorism or clandestine terrorism activities.'' And I told people at the time: I'm a little uncomfortable with that, because ``clandestine intelligence activities,'' what is that? What if it's just somebody going somewhere asking questions, not doing it in public but going privately to individuals and saying, ``I'm really concerned about what the administration is doing on this or that; what do you know about what this administration is doing? What have they done to you?'' Would that be considered as somebody doing clandestine or private intelligence activities? I was told: You're being paranoid here, Gohmert. Look at the title again. It's ``international terrorism.'' It's ``foreign intelligence.'' This is not about American citizens. Look at the overall context. But those words hanging out there after a disjunctive ``or,'' it was a little uneasing. But I had enough people in the Justice Department, on my committee, with the administration at that time that said: No, gosh, no. You're looking for things where there aren't any. This is not an issue. But this paragraph (3), ``In the case of an application for an order requiring the production of library circulation records, library patron lists, book sales records, book customer lists, firearms sales records, tax return records, educational records, or medical records containing information that would identify a person''--wow, that's kind of scary when you consider that entire list of things that the Justice Department might be going after. But it says, ``the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation may delegate the authority to make such application to either the Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the Executive Assistant Director for National Security. The Deputy Director or the Executive Assistant Director may not further delegate such authority.'' So they wanted to assure us that only people that were looking at foreign intelligence and foreign terrorism who had the big picture, not some low-level rogue agent, would be pursuing anything like this, and we were told repeatedly: But it's all tied to foreign terrorism.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, so much is happening in the world today, so much that is really earthshaking in its potential effect. In the Middle East, I've spoken before about the potential rise of a new Ottoman Empire that, unfortunately, our own country, this Obama administration, has helped jump-start. In Egypt, we supposedly had a friend. There were comments to direct attention to. Back on June 2, the BBC reported an interview in 2009 where during the interview the President was asked: Do you regard President Mubarak as an authoritarian ruler? President Obama said, in part: He has been a stalwart ally in many respects, to the United States. He has sustained peace with Israel, which is a very difficult thing to do in that region. But he has never resorted to, you know, unnecessary demagoguing of the issue, and has tried to maintain that relationship. So I think he has been a force for stability and good in the region. He points out, obviously there have been criticisms, but he saw him as a force for good in the region. That's rather amazing when you look at what happened--we recall it was an Arab Spring, that we've later since realized was more of a nightmare winter. Certainly, the people of Egypt did not see it as a ``spring'' after President Morsi got around 13 million votes from the potential, as I understand, 50 million or more that could have voted. And he took over; and he began creating problems; and he became dictatorial; and he started violating his own constitution and taking actions that only a monarch or a tyrant should be taking. But going back to the disposition and deposal of Mubarak in Egypt, it creates problems for a country when their leader on one occasion says, as the President did: He has been a stalwart ally in many respects, to the United States. He has sustained peace with Israel, which is a very difficult thing to do in the region. But he has never resorted to, you know, unnecessary demagoguing of the issue, and has tried to maintain the relationship. So I think he has been a force for stability and good in the region. What kind of message does it send to the world from what has been referred to as the remaining superpower in the world when its leader says to the world, this man has been a force for stability and for good, and then, not so long later, the same U.S. leader says he's got to go? He's got to go. He just needs to be done. Well, if he was a force for stability and good, if you were accurate in those comments, then one would think to get rid of him would bring about instability and bad--to use the antonyms. But push, cajole, make efforts to force Mubarak to leave, we did. And as the President said, you know, he had been an ally. That doesn't look very good when other nations start trying to determine how should we deal with the United States. In one of my trips overseas meeting with foreign diplomats, I was told that diplomats from China regularly stop by and ask, Have you learned that you cannot trust the United States yet? Because one of these days you are going to figure that out; you can't trust the United States. They'll say they're your friend one day and then turn around and be your enemy soon after. One of these days you're going to figure out the United States can't be trusted, they're not your friend, and we're ready to be your friend whenever that happens. Just let us know. We're always ready to be your friend. You can trust us. Well, I'm not so sure about that, but I am concerned about the U.S. lack of credibility. So Mubarak was ousted and the Muslim Brotherhood took over Egypt. The people of Egypt, on the whole, very good, decent people. The moderate Muslims that reside there didn't want Muslim Brotherhood, didn't want tyrants, but enough people didn't come out early on. The Muslim Brotherhood had the best organization, and anybody with any intelligence in the region or anybody that watched news other than CNN could figure that out, that the Muslim Brotherhood was going to take over, but they were not what the rank-and-file people really wanted. That became clear when the rank-and-file people saw Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood member who actually technically said he was withdrawing since he was leader of Egypt. But his comments, so disparaging and slanderous of Israelis and Jews, and certainly uncomplimentary of Americans, did not make him someone that the United States should endorse so wholeheartedly. In Libya, though Secretary Gates, Secretary of Defense, said we have no national interest in Libya at all, we had a President that decided unilaterally--at least, unilaterally in this country. He did have the support of the 57 States that comprise the organization Islamic Council and he had support of some of the NATO countries that got a lot of oil from Libya. He went in unilaterally, when it certainly did not appear there was any will of a majority of Congress to use American assets, military assets, to take out Qadhafi. Make no mistake about it, Qadhafi was a man who had blood on his hands, there's no question. Qadhafi was a man who had been engaged and supported terrorism. But interestingly, after 2003, when the United States, under President Bush, went into Iraq because both Democrats and Republicans, most of them, believed he was a threat, and according to the CIA notes, some guy named Joseph Wilson also believed that they were trying to get uranium, and even though there had been reports of yellowcake uranium having been taken out of Iraq, President Bush went into Iraq and in record time Saddam Hussein, his defense became the mother of all weak defenses and he was ousted. All of a sudden Qadhafi, in Libya, went from a man who had been supporting terrorism to a man who was afraid of the United States and all of a sudden wanted to be our dear friend. There was a document that was made public that says the United States rescinded Libya's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism in June of 2006. Libya renounced terrorism and weapons of mass destruction in 2003 and has continued to cooperate with the United States and the international community to combat terrorism and terrorist financing. On July 20, Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure confirmed to the Malian press that Libya, Algeria, and Mali planned to coordinate military and intelligence efforts to fight security threats linked to al Qaeda in the lands of the Islamic Maghreb in the Sahel-Saharan region. Interestingly, Qadhafi had a true conversion experience when he became afraid that the United States might invade him next because of his support for terrorism, and he actually and legitimately did became an ally in the war against terror. In fact, when we look at things that the U.S. did--this is from The Washington Post, certainly not one of my biggest fans. But July 9, 2009, they reported that: Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi, who former President Ronald Reagan once denounced as a ``mad dog,'' supped on pasta just two seats away from President Obama at the Group of Eight summit today and even secured a handshake with the U.S. President. It talked about Qadhafi attending the summit, and it said, as Obama was shaking hands with Qadhafi, there were families of Pan Am 103 victims gathered at the British Embassy in Washington, it goes on, because they still were concerned about the blood he had on his hands. So that was rather interesting that all of a sudden this was a man we could shake hands with, be friends with, and work deals with. Of course, Senator McCain was one of those who had gone over and felt like there was an opportunity to be friends. In fact, with regard to Mubarak, Senator McCain, supportive of the Obama administration and Secretary Clinton, had said this: the case of Mubarak is a great example that Mubarak was a great friend of the United States. Mubarak's predecessor concluded Camp David agreements and he stuck to it. Basically, there was a stable relationship between Egypt and Israel. With regard to Qadhafi, this article from Reuters from August 14, 2009: Senator McCain and the delegation with him expressed their deep happiness to meet the leader-- Talking about Qadhafi. and praised him for his wisdom and strategic vision to tackle issues of concern to the world in his efforts to sustain peace and stability in Africa. So there were bipartisan feelings when the Obama administration started that, gee, Mubarak was an ally, Qadhafi had become an ally as somebody who could be trusted, and all these things. They're easy to find on the Internet, just a Bing search away from finding these things. So the world watches this and they look for consistency. Because one of the things, for those who are fans of baseball, some umpires call balls and strikes with a different strike zone. But having been an umpire and having played baseball, you can live with somebody that calls a ball just off the outside corner as a strike as long as he's always consistent. So, you know, you can trust this umpire. He skewed a little bit, but he's consistent, so you can always trust him. Consistency is critically important in the area of foreign affairs, yet we don't seem to have been very consistent when we used our military resources to help oust Muammar Qadhafi after he had a conversion experience and was doing what he could to help us fight terrorism outside of Israel. Some referred to him as the best friend we had in getting inside information on terrorism to help us combat it. There was the sense here in Congress we had no business getting involved in Libya, especially as the reports emerged that al Qaeda was backing rebels and we didn't know how extensive that al Qaeda involvement was. But we knew it was there. We knew there were radical Islamists that were trying to drive Qadhafi out, and this administration did not pause long enough to get an answer to the question: If we drive Qadhafi out, will we be more safe in America or less safe? Because, despite this desire to please the organization of Islamist Council and others in NATO, the number one obligation of this Congress and this President is to provide for the common defense of the people in this country. We took an oath to support this country under this Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. The reasoned analysis of Libya during this so-called Arab Spring that was really a freezing winter was that we are going to be in more trouble if Qadhafi is thrown out than if he is kept there--at least, those of us who looked at it besides the OIC and some that were getting oil from Libya who felt otherwise. But most people could see you're helping create instability into the region. If you look at the map of the former Ottoman Empire, you can see it around north Africa coming around up through the Middle East and Turkey, and you can see this starting to take shape. We helped get rid of Mubarak and all of a sudden we get a radical Islamist in charge of Egypt. We helped not just merely with words and coercion but with bombs to get rid of Qadhafi. Many believe it is doubtful Qadhafi would have fallen, and certainly wouldn't have fallen when he did, if it weren't for all our bombing and air support to help the al Qaeda-backed rebels to throw him out and ultimately have him tortured and killed. So where was the reasoning about how much this would help America, to allow radical Islamists to take Egypt and Libya? And then coming on around, as things fomented in Syria, it looked like initially these were not al Qaeda-backed rebels in Syria, and perhaps, as some believe, if we had acted quickly enough, if we had someone that wouldn't vote ``present,'' if we had acted quickly enough, maybe we could have supported rebels who were not al Qaeda rebels, not radical Islamist rebels. But as it has degenerated in Syria now, and even as recent as this week, people are admitting that it looks like Assad really is more in control now. It is degenerated to the point where our national security interest is not to get into the middle of that fight. You have a tyrant of a leader on one hand, and you have radical Islamists, most of whom would like to destroy the United States as well, who are challenging him. Where in the world is the interest in spilling American blood or treasure in getting into Syria? With regard to Syria, we can look at comments that this administration had about Assad. CNSNews.com reported, March 28, 2011: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on Sunday, drew a contrast between Syrian President Bashar Assad and his late father and predecessor, and said U.S. lawmakers who recently have visited Damascus regarded him as a ``reformer.'' She made the startling comment while explaining why the United States will not intervene on behalf of Syrian civilians revolting against the regime as it has done in the case of Libya. President Assad has been very generous with me in terms of the discussions we have had. This is Secretary of State Kerry, continued. ``And when I last went to--the last several trips to Syria--I asked President Assad to do certain things to build a relationship with the United States and sort of show the good faith that would help us to move the process forward.'' He mentioned some of the requests, including the purchase of land for the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, the opening of an American cultural center, noninterference in Lebanon's election, and the improvement of ties with Iraq and Bahrain, and said Assad had met each one. ``So my judgment is that Syria will move; Syria will change as it embraces a legitimate relationship with the United States and the West and economic opportunity that comes with it and the participation that comes with it.'' Also in March of 2009 from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, it says: In early February, in a reversal of a longstanding U.S. policy, the U.S. Department of Commerce approved a license to sell Boeing 747 parts to Syria . . . A few weeks later, the U.S. Treasury Department authorized the transfer of $500,000 to the Children with Cancer Support Association, a Syrian charity associated with President Bashar Assad's wife, Asma. Both decisions were seen as a softening of U.S. sanctions and an important U.S. diplomatic overture. So it goes on, our cozying up with Assad. Perhaps that's why, when others around the world were saying that you have some moderates who were rebelling against Assad and that perhaps we can help them, this administration had already started having good feelings with the Assad administration, and perhaps that contributed to the slowness to want to move and act. One thing is very clear at this point--it should be to anybody who looks objectively--Syria is not a place the United States should be involved in right now because, when the winner between two forces fighting is not going to be helpful--no matter who it is--to our country and when our oath and obligation is to this country, we should not get involved in that. There are stories about gunrunning, running guns from Libya to Syria. Hopefully, at some point, we'll know exactly what the story was on that and is on that. Was it ongoing? Was it going on when Chris Stevens was involved? Hopefully, our leadership will allow us to pursue that properly and get the information so that we know exactly what happened, because we still have not gotten to the bottom of what happened in Benghazi, and there are families of dead patriots who died in Benghazi who deserve to know the answers. So we supported and were thrilled--I say ``we,'' meaning this administration, not the Congress, necessarily--and seemed to be pretty impressed with Morsi's taking over. Though reports came out of the slanderous things he said about Jews and Israelis and Americans, this administration seemed to be thrilled with his taking the position that he did, and seemed to be comforted by his saying--this is a Texas paraphrase--You know, I may have been part of the Muslim Brotherhood, but I'll kind of back off of that for a while. If you look at what he did, here are developments as reported by FOX News in Cairo in 2012: In June: Morsi was elected President with 51.7 percent of the vote. He was sworn in. He became Egypt's first civilian Islamist ruler; In August: A gunman kills 16 guards near the border with Israel; Morsi scraps a constitutional document which handed sweeping powers to the military, and he ousted Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, who was Head of State after Hosni Mubarak's fall in February of 2011; In November: Morsi decreed that he would have sweeping new powers for himself. Later that month, the Islamic-dominated constituent assembly adopted a draft constitution after a process boycotted by liberals and Christians; In December: Morsi annulled the decree of giving himself increased powers after all of the rancor and the people began to rise up in Egypt. Later in the month of December, 64 percent of the voters in a two-round referendum backed the new constitution in a vote that was marred by low turnout. The people of Egypt could see what was going on. Egypt plunged into political crisis with demonstrations by Morsi supporters and opponents, and they sometimes turned deadly; Coming through April 2013: Sectarian violence north of Cairo kills four Christians and a Muslim; In May: Morsi carried out a cabinet reshuffle, which fell short of opposition demands. Later in May, gunmen kidnapped three policemen and four soldiers in the Sinai peninsula. They were freed on May 22; In June: Egypt's highest court invalidated the Islamist- dominated Senate, which assumed a legislative role when Parliament was dissolved and a panel that drafted the constitution. The Presidency says the Senate will maintain its powers until a new lower house is elected; Later in June: Egyptian and foreign nongovernment official employees were given jail sentences, ranging from 1 to 5 years, from working illegally, causing international outrage. We know there were some good people who were jailed for nothing except trying to help people; On June 15: Morsi announced the ``definitive'' severing of relations with war-torn Syria; On June 21: Tens of thousands of Islamists gather ahead of a planned opposition protest; On June 23: Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi warns the army will intervene if violence erupts; On June 28: The U.S. says nonessential Embassy staff can leave after an American is killed during protests; On June 29: U.S. President Barack Obama urges Morsi to be more ``constructive'' as the death toll rises. The Tamarod ``rebellion'' campaign, which called rallies for June 30, says more than 22 million have signed a petition demanding Morsi's resignation and a snap election. The reports are that the largest demonstration may reach 33 million. There had never been a demonstration in the entire world of as many as 20 million people, but the people of Egypt rose up. They recognized that radical Islamists in charge of their country were not a good thing even though the leaders of our country and the executive branch could not see the obvious. In having talked to Egyptians who were furious with CNN--because most of them don't get FOX News, and so they're relegated to CNN. They were furious at how CNN seemed to take the side of the Muslim Brotherhood over and over, and they related that CNN was basically a part of the Muslim Brotherhood, at least as conveyed to me. There were people very upset. Why are they not more objective? And I tried to explain to them, Look, you have to understand that CNN has gotten such low ratings at times in the last couple of years that sometimes we've got more people watching C-SPAN--they're that bored-- than watching CNN. Even though we're not part of the Nielsen ratings with the coverage here in the House, there are estimates. How sad is that for the once great Cable News Network? What's even sadder is that this administration, with all of its assets and intelligence ability at its fingertips and disposal and with supposedly all of the people it could ever want--the people they thought were the best in the world at analyzing foreign situations-- they thought Morsi was a good thing. Then, as you look at the map and as you see this jump-start of an Ottoman Empire having developed, wow, a problem occurred. As I've said on this floor, Egyptians have caught me and have said, Hey, you're in Congress. Quit helping the Muslim Brotherhood. They're not good for Egypt. We don't like their tyrannical nature. We want to have a government where we have some say. We don't want tyrannical people who are Muslim. We don't want that. Just as in Afghanistan, moderate Muslims say, We don't want radical Islamists, like the Taliban, controlling our country. I can't blame the administration for the constitution that was forced on Afghanistan--that forced shari'a law, that forced a centralized nation. Many of them I've met with over in Afghanistan. Together with the Northern Alliance leaders we've met with, they've said, Look, if you could just give us a more federalist government like you're supposed to have in America where States have more power; if you could let our regions elect our governors instead of the President appointing them and elect our mayors instead of the President appointing them; if you could let us have more control, we can keep the Taliban from taking over. We're Muslim, but we don't want the radical Islamists. Don't leave us in a situation where that's what we have. That's what we left them with and appeared to encourage in Egypt. It's certainly what we left Libya with, and four Americans were dead in Benghazi as a result. Bad decisions, unfortunately, at the level of the highest positions in the United States of America have terrible consequences all around the world. As I've mentioned, an elderly African from west Africa told me before I left a couple of years ago, We were so excited when you elected a Black President in America, but we've seen America. It appears to be growing weaker and weaker, and you're not taking the strong stance you used to. We're concerned because, if America does not stay strong, we will suffer around the world, those of us who count on you to stand for freedom and what's right. Please don't get any weaker. There are people around the world pleading that, and they don't even ask us to be the world's policeman. They just ask us to stand strong so that, if we were needed to stop an outright injustice that could threaten the world, including us, we could step in. But unfortunately, in the Middle East, nobody fears the United States and nobody is threatened by the United States. They see us as a paper tiger. It has been amazing, though. If you just watch certain cable news networks--and even FOX I don't think has done quite an adequate job of really capturing what has been going on in Egypt. This is for the whole history of mankind. We are talking about a major, incredible, earthshaking revolution that has gone on in Egypt. These are people-- moderate Muslims, combined with Coptic Christians, coupling themselves with liberal secularists--who don't want radical Islam running Egypt. So this grand scheme of building a great caliphate, a new Ottoman Empire--whatever you want to call it--ran into a huge problem when these incredible, freedom desiring Egyptians rose up in greater numbers than has ever arisen anywhere in the world in the whole history of mankind. This is incredible--incredible--and people need to recognize and need to be encouraged, not by the Arab winter that was originally called an Arab Spring, but by the true spring that is now happening in Egypt as moderate Muslims and Coptic Christians and caring secularists have arisen together and said ``no'' to radical Islam. We want freedom. We want a say in our government. In having visited with a friend who has been over there and has taken pictures and talked to people, she said it was amazing to see the Egyptian pope have people--Muslims--come up and say, We are so sorry for the way Christians are being treated in Egypt by the Morsi administration. We are so sorry. We hope we can change this to where we can live together in peace. That's what they want. Twenty, thirty million people coming out in protest? That would scare the little, puny Occupy Wall Street people to death. It's incredible. The people of the United States, Mr. Speaker, need to understand we are living in a time that we are witnessing extraordinary international events, even when people at the highest levels of this country do not recognize how extraordinary it is. Perhaps they do, but perhaps they're embarrassed because radical Islam, through the Muslim Brotherhood, is now taking over Egypt and Libya and trying to take over Syria and putting our allied King Abdullah in Jordan in the hot seat, trying to force agreements out of him over the threat of deposing him. People over in the Middle East get it. The people in Russia and China, leaders there, they get it. This is a big deal. But perhaps our administration has been embarrassed by not recognizing the real truth of what was going on. I thought it would be helpful to just look at some of the photographs just recently taken during these demonstrations to get more of a feeling of where the Egyptian people are as this most extraordinary of revolutions is taking place. And it's important to note that you can talk to people in Egypt that say, Look, we want to be friends with the United States. We like the United States, but we cannot stand the fact that your government, we believe, really helped force us into having a Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamist in charge of our country. We didn't want it. You forced the elections on us before we were ready. Some would say, Well, they chose their own elections. We were helping. We could've delayed them until more people had time to participate. But all the information that I was hearing here on the Hill, that was nonclassified, indicated that if elections occurred when they did, the Muslim Brotherhood would win. They were the most organized. And if they could be delayed to a time where the people themselves had a chance to organize and be heard, that there really would be a good turn in Egypt. But this administration did not help, did not delay the elections long enough to allow the true Egyptian people to be heard, and as a result, no matter how unfair it may be or how fair it may be, the Egyptian people, millions and millions of them, have a terrible perception of the leadership of the United States. They make clear they like America, they like the United States, but the leadership currently did them great harm. We know that when the President was elected, as he went around and spoke in the Middle East, some said that this was going to really increase the love and affection between the United States and majority- Muslim countries. The polling data seems to say just the opposite: that our country, because of the leadership of this administration, is respected and admired far less than it ever was even under the Bush administration, because at least under the Bush administration they knew that Bush would be consistent, whether they liked him or not. So I think it would be helpful to look at some of these pictures, one of the big posters that was being used during the revolution. Make no mistake. When the Egyptians put messages in their big banners and signs in English, they want the message coming to America. The message these Egyptians had: Egyptians spoke. Al-Sisi listened. We the people have spoken. So they're appreciating the military leader that--after 20 million, 30-plus million Egyptians arose that dwarfed the small number of votes that Morsi got in the early election, the people of Egypt spoke. This was a revolution, an uprising by the people. And the military heard and witnessed the people rising up, and it answered and said, Okay, Morsi goes, because they recognized, as did the vast people across Egypt, that he had violated the Constitution. He had become a tyrant. He had become a dictator, and he had to go. Our administration here was slow to recognize. It's very sad because we do have a very intelligent President in the United States. Yet, the image they have in Egypt is that he sided with the wrong people, that the masses in Egypt did not want. So on this same poster where they're praising the leader of the military in Egypt for listening to the majority of adults in Egypt and doing the right thing for democracy, they have a red ``X'' through our great President's face. It's terribly unfortunate. It does not actually do what this President and most of us in this country hoped--well, at least majority-Muslim nations will look on us more favorably, and this is what we're seeing. I have another poster here during the massive protests. From what I was told by people that were there, they got really upset as CNN kept saying this is a coup, this is a coup, trying to diminish the importance of what was happening with 20 million, 30 million Egyptians rising up. So obviously they mean this for United States consumption. But these are things that massive numbers of people in Egypt were supportive of. It's a revolution, not a military coup, 33 million Egyptians protesting peacefully against Morsi, the tyrant and terrorist, who was supported by the USA. They want to make sure that we understand this is the real people of Egypt rising up. We need to be supportive of that. Another sign: New supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood. Anne Patterson, hands off Egypt. There were multiple of those signs around as people were gathering. They've seen what this administration did, and they didn't like it. These were the masses. The symbol of the Muslim Brotherhood was in the same circle with CNN because they began to feel in Egypt that CNN was not reporting accurately, that the people did want to live in peace with Christians and did want to live in peace with secularists, and not at the hands of a Muslim Brotherhood tyrant. This sign, in both English and their language, says, ``Obama supports terrorism.'' Well, of course President Obama doesn't support terrorism. Of course he does not. But the way it looked to Egyptians when we were supporting a terrorist, they presume we must and our President must support terrorism. We know he doesn't, but they don't know that because this Nation, this administration has supported terrorists in Libya and Egypt, and is now trying to get support for terrorists in Syria. Another sign during the demonstrations obviously for U.S. consumption: My dear American friend, when you get killed by terrorists, do not blame anyone but your President Obama and his administration. Well, that's ridiculous. When we're killed by terrorists in America, we should not blame the President. There may be negligence in America by many people when it occurs, as I believe happened with the Boston bombing. We were given information that was not properly utilized because of the handcuffing that has gone on within our FBI, within our intelligence community, within our State Department, and the purging of training material to keep us, as one intelligence officer said, from being able to see who our enemy is. We have hurt ourselves in a terrible fashion in our ability to understand who wants to kill us. I don't support any of these signs. I don't think they're proper. But I think it's important to understand what the people in Egypt are seeing and thinking so that we can give them the proper perspective on American people. You can't really read the whole thing on this one, but it is basically making it clear this is not a coup, it's the people: Thanks to our great Army that supports our great revolution. In the October Revolution in the Soviet Union, Lenin appeared there in St. Petersburg and persuaded some people to support his revolution, but that revolution, that little gathering would not have done any good, as historians know. It was not until Trotsky went across to the military, across the river--I've been there--and he got up on something and he starts speaking eloquently to the military. Once he convinced the military to side with Lenin, then there was a true revolution that occurred. Nobody called that a coup. It was a small handful of people around Lenin rising up, but they convinced the military to support the October Revolution. As a result, there was a revolution and not just a tiny little uprising, which it would have otherwise been without Trotsky's eloquence. That's why it's important to understand that when 33 million in Egypt rise up, this is not an in-house coup. This is the masses of a great country rising up to say, We yearn to be free, and we don't want a radical Islamist controlling our country. And it's important for people of the United States to understand this is where we are. And 33 million people, the vast majority of the adult voters in that country, want to make clear they want to live in peace with Christians, secularists. Those are the people we can hold accountable and trust more that they will do the right thing because the support for the persecution of Christians around the world, the persecution and the killing of Christians, the torturing of Christians around the world, is growing like never before, and this great nation that arose based on Judeo- Christian ethics stands idly by as the last public Christian church in Afghanistan closed, as the last Jew, publicly admitting Jew, leaves. That's when Afghanistan still had vast American presence. Even today, we could still turn the tide if we choose to, but we are not. And there may be an accountability issue some day with the judge of all judges. Because as John Quincy Adams argued, right down here below us in the old Supreme Court chamber downstairs, in the Amistad case, as he stood there representing Africans who were free Africans, but then they were wearing chains, and they were said to be slaves because they had been captured by other Africans and sold and brought to the Caribbean and then put on the Spanish ship the Amistad, and then they landed in America by mistake, and the Africans wanted to be free and the Spanish said, No, they're our property. Ultimately, the Supreme Court downstairs--you can find online, Mr. Speaker, the last part of John Quincy Adam's oral argument as he was literally frightened because he knew if he had not done an adequate job to argue his case, that those Africans would wear chains for the rest of their lives, and their children would and possibly their children, if he did not do an adequate job in representing them. He didn't feel good about the first 2 days of his argument. So he finishes by asking, Where is Chief Justice Marshall? And he ran through the names of every justice that had been on the court and was dead. One of the Justices of that nine-Justice Court had died during oral arguments one night. It was not during the arguments themselves, but during the course of the arguments. So they were down. He asked where he was. He asked where the solicitor general was that had last argued a case against him in the early 1820s. And he ends up pointing out, in essence, they've all gone to meet their Judge, and the biggest question about their lives is did they hear, Well done, good and faithful servant? John Quincy Adams won the case, and those Africans left as free as they should have been. But some of us have a fear that if we do not do more to support truth and justice and the American ideals that this country was founded on, there will come a day of judgment; and but for grace, it would be a horrible thing. But we still have an obligation to do the best we can, to meet our sworn obligations, and to let people like this in Egypt know that we want to stand with free nations and be friends of free nations. Here's another big banner that was there during the Egyptian protest: Egypt will remain a civil state. Live, freedom, social justice. And then with an American in the picture, the caption says: We know what you did last summer. They've gotten the wrong impression of the people of America, and it's up to the Americans to demand our leadership give the people of Egypt the proper impression that we do care about freedom-loving people. Here's another one. It's hard to read, but: Obama and Patterson support terrorism in Egypt. Well, we know that's not true, but there are masses over there that believe that. We've got to correct that, and the way you do that is by supporting people who really do want to be free. And another picture that just came from Egypt, I was told the Egyptians love America, but they don't trust our leadership. We have an obligation. Our obligation is to the United States of America. And in this Congress, our obligation is to our oath, to fulfill our oath. And those of us who are Christians, to whom oaths mean so much more, we owe everything we have, owe everything we can do to support our Constitution and to protect people in this country from all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to protect our Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. And there are some who would say, you know, the Muslim Brotherhood, they got pretty violent over to Egypt and Libya and other places, and there are Muslim Brotherhood members in the United States. As one Egyptian article pointed out with pride, gee, they can be proud, they have six Muslim Brotherhood members who are high level confidants in this administration, in important positions of really advice in this administration. The Muslim Brotherhood members here in America, as I understand it, did not support the Boston bombing because their position is we are doing such a great job of infiltrating and getting key positions of advice where we can monitor and watch and talk people into doing what we believe should be done, we don't want to stir up violence in the United States now; but maybe at some point it'll be necessary, but right now we're doing so well helping infiltrate the government and take over that we don't want violence right now. It may wake up the American people. But the truth is anyone in this country or around the world that wants to subvert our Constitution to sharia law is an enemy of the United States. Whether they live here domestically or they live abroad, if their allegiance is to subvert the U.S. Constitution to sharia law, they are our enemy. And they are people from whom we took an oath to protect our Constitution and this country. The people of Egypt, God bless them, they have arisen and made clear, we don't want radical Islamists running our country. We don't want to see Christians persecuted and killed and tortured, as has been going on. Those are the kind of people this Nation should befriend and not try to rush in and shore up those who would persecute, torture, and kill Christians and Jews and secularists that just want to be free. Mr. Speaker, we have an awesome obligation. We have an obligation to the people of the United States of America to get things right around the world so we do not put Americans at risk. And for those who would try to put a racial label on anything, there's nothing racial about wanting right and truth and justice. And I wonder where they were when I was supporting Alan Keyes. It's not about race; it's about truth, justice. It's about the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness with which we were endowed by our Creator. But just like any inheritance, any endowment, if we're not willing to protect it, if we're not willing to fight for it, we will lose it. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, this evening, we had a difficult vote-- not difficult for some, but for some of us, it was. On the one hand, we had the President, who had announced he was going to do the unconstitutional even though he had pushed through ObamaCare without a single Republican vote for it, and people are beginning to realize just how devastating this is. They've lost their doctors; they've lost their insurance, and they're going to lose their insurance; people have been forced from full time to part time, and now they're seeking more part-time work to make up the difference; they're being told they're losing their benefits. This extra whammy for American workers was going to be even more devastating if the individual mandate went through. Somebody making $14,000 was either going to buy insurance he couldn't afford or pay extra income tax. Some of us knew if we would just let the whole thing go through, then people would be hurt, and they would demand repeal; but I had to vote not to make people suffer. Let's put off the suffering as long as possible and then, hopefully, repeal it.

Mr. GOHMERT

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

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you. I appreciate those observations so much, and it brings to mind our colleague from down in central Texas who is also a former district judge. He and I share that, but he was a district judge twice as long as I was. So many people say, Well, you've got to have compassion. Despite the allegations from friends on the other side, we have compassionate Republicans, and our hearts break for people. For one thing, there are all of those people who are out of work who really want to work now, and we haven't created that environment--through ObamaCare, through the welfare state, through the problems with not respecting and adhering to the law when it comes to securing the border. The government has the obligation, from both a Biblical perspective and a secular perspective, of enforcing the law and of making sure the people within its boundaries are protected who are lawfully there. That is the obligation. Sometimes defendants would come before me as they'd come before Judge Carter, from central Texas, during his days on the bench. They'd know you were a Christian, and they'd bring a big Bible and try to play on your senses--well, you've got to have compassion. I've got a big Bible here, and God has worked in my life, so now don't sentence me harshly. Judge Carter had one gentleman come before him who said, Judge, I know you're a Christian, so you've got to have forgiveness, and you've got to forgive me. Judge Carter replied, Sir, individually, I do forgive you, but the State of Texas sentences you to 20 years in prison. There is a difference. Individually, you can have that compassion and should, but when you're acting as the government, people expect you to have respect for the law, adherence to the law, so that there is a country in which people can come and feel safe, at least reasonably so, and understand that the law is going to be applied across the board. We have also been joined by our friend from Alabama. I am proud to have had him join Congress back 2\1/2\ years ago in the great sweep, so I yield to my friend Mr. Brooks from Alabama.

Mr. GOHMERT. Those are wonderful points, and it brings back to mind what someone has said before. The example of being on an airplane, the instruction we're all given when you get on an airplane is if there's a loss of cabin pressure, you lose oxygen, then you must put your own mask on before you help others. Let's face it, America is struggling right now in a number of ways, but particularly economically. This is the worst recovery from any recession we've ever had, the longest, the poorest recovery from any recession. We're still struggling, having millions and millions of Americans out of work; and it's not because of a lack of compassion that we say we need to follow the law, we need to respect the law. It is out of respect for the rule of law, for this country. We're in a position as government, we have got to make sure that we follow our oath, that we do the best we can to make this country as strong as possible because we know there is no other country in the world that has as many people wanting to come visit or live in this country. This is number one in the world for people wanting to come visit or live. But if we do not keep it viable, keep it strong, get the mask on, get the oxygen flowing again, get the patient strong again, then this is not going to be a place that others in the world are going to want to flee to as a refuge. It is very critical what we do here. My friend from Minnesota brings up the point about taxes being paid. Congress some years back passed--and there are a couple of different kinds of child tax credits where actually if you're an American that's authorized to file income tax and you have a Social Security number, then you can claim those child tax credits. So we have people who are getting more money back because of the tax credit than they actually paid in, and Congress made clear you have to have a Social Security number in order to do that. But as I understand it, there were some people at the IRS who in between line dancing sessions had determined that, you know what, there's a lot of money out there by people who don't have Social Security numbers that if we got them to pay taxes, even though they're not legally here, if we got them to pay taxes, think about all the extra money that'll flow into the Treasury. So why don't we, as a regulatory body, and we know Congress didn't authorize it, but why don't we just give them a tax ID number, even if they're illegally here, so they can be paying in all of the taxes to help the country. And an analysis earlier this year by different groups indicated that we may be, because the IRS authorized people to pay taxes into the system with tax ID numbers rather than Social Security numbers, we're probably paying out between $1 billion and $4 billion to people who are claiming child tax credits that are not authorized to claim those because they're illegally here. We had newspaper reporters go out, people in the media, go out and do their own investigations and find a house here or a house there where a whole bunch of different people are claiming that they live and that children are living there by the scores that aren't actually living there. And so it comes back and raises the issue, like Mr. Brooks was pointing out and my friend, Mrs. Bachmann, was pointing out that it doesn't necessarily follow that just because you give people legal status, all of a sudden you're going to be flooded with new tax dollars coming in. I also want to point out there's this issue that keeps coming up about compassion. There is no more compassionate people in the world than the American people as a group. You'll find individuals extremely compassionate around the world. I've been in places where I'm deeply moved by how wonderful they are; but as a Nation of people, this is the most compassionate Nation in the history of the world. And individually, people in this Nation have done more to assist those suffering around the world, and it would seem to be the healthiest thing to do as a Nation, to make sure there is respect for our law, adherence to our important laws, and then make the country healthy. Capital, we know--money, that is--investment money comes in. It flows, as the saying goes, capital is a coward. It flows into countries where it feels the safest. Make this country a strong country again economically so then we are able to go, as so many churches have, to Latin American countries, to countries around the world, and reach in and help them not by giving them a fish, as the old adage goes, but by teaching them to fish and providing them a means to have food and to make a living. That's a compassionate kind of thing. There is no reason that Mexico should not be one of the top 10 or even top five economies in the world; and if we were the proper kind of neighbor, we would lure the hardest working Mexicans into America. We would help them have a strong, vibrant economy. But that will never happen until they have respect for and adherence to the law, and that means ending corruption. So it is critically important we live up to our oaths here. Some of us have even paid parking tickets we didn't owe because we had a Park policeman that didn't know the law. It doesn't matter. The law is important to respect and to follow, and we cannot become a healthy Nation until we have that out of the Government of the United States. We have a couple of minutes left, and I'd like to yield to my friend, Mrs. Bachmann, to finish our time.

Mr. GOHMERT. I thank the gentleman from Alabama. Those were really amazing numbers that you provided, and we'll talk about those further. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I would like to yield to my friend from Minnesota (Mrs. Bachmann) for such time as she may consume.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, we are here to talk about something that is a rather important subject. Immigration has helped make us the greatest Nation in the world, and we want that to continue. We do not ever want our borders closed; we want them secured. Here to help in this conversation is my friend, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Barletta), to whom I yield such time as he may consume.

Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate my friend from Pennsylvania's comments. It is interesting, and it really is heartbreaking, when you see so many people, like all of the masses that were here in Washington, to protest over the ObamaCare bill. Anyway, it is rather dramatic. The unions are now coming out. Of course union leaders were all for ObamaCare. Many of us said back at the time: Do you know what, when the union members find out what the union leaders have done to them in supporting ObamaCare, they are going to be exceedingly upset. Now when you look at the results of ObamaCare forcing so many people to part-time work--as my friend from Pennsylvania was alluding to, people now have been relegated to part-time work--they may lose that. When you combine the devastation of ObamaCare and people that are losing their jobs and are being forced to part-time work and now having to do more than one part-time job with less benefits, and then you add on it the Senate bill, especially for African Americans here, it is absolutely devastating. It is a devastating one-two punch to the gut of America when you look at the Senate bill and how many Americans will be really troubled to find employment. We have other people that are here that also wish to be heard. I yield such time as he may consume to my friend from Louisiana, Dr. Fleming.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I appreciate very much my friend from Louisiana. We do border at our State lines there. We can be just the best of friends and never worry about somebody being moved into the other person's district for redistricting purposes. But I appreciate so much the perspective. As a person who spent his professional life and his training all geared toward helping others, administering to others, and addressing their needs, I appreciate that perspective of an excellent physician here. At this time, I would also like to yield such time as he may consume to my friend, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. I thank my friend from Nebraska. A wonderful point. I know that there are people on both sides of the aisle who are motivated, again, by doing the right thing. But when you know that you have a tyrant on one side in charge of the country and you know that now perhaps it would have been different if we'd gotten in earlier, but at this point al Qaeda or the most radical Islamists, brutal killers, are driving the rebels, there is no good reason for this country to expend any blood nor any treasure to get in the middle of that conflict, and I appreciate so much my friend pointing that out. It points to the problem in the Middle East with regard to the American position. This President had his administration help the rebels in Libya when we knew--hey, people were saying it right here--we know there are al Qaeda supporting the rebels. We're not sure how extensive it is, so let's get to the bottom of it before you just launch in and eliminate Qadhafi. Because Qadhafi was giving us more information on terrorist elements in the world than most anybody but our best friend, Israel. He was being helpful. And though he had blood on his hands for which he should have paid, you have to choose between the lesser of two evils. As Secretary Gates said at the time, there is absolutely no United States national security interest at stake in this Libya crisis, in the rebellion, and yet this President went headlong. And when you know, as one Egyptian paper reported, bragging, they have six Muslim Brotherhood members that advise this administration--and there are a lot more people sympathetic to Muslim Brotherhood that advise this administration than that. When you know that that is going on, then it makes sense, they're going to make stupid decisions. They're going to always, like they did in Egypt, say, well, let's rush in and help, even though it allows the Muslim Brotherhood to take over Egypt. I've heard so many people say they've talked to people from Egypt who have said we don't want the radical Islamists in charge, we don't want the Muslim Brotherhood. We don't want them in charge. We want a moderate Muslim government so that we can live in peace and not tyranny, like Afghanistan did under the Taliban. And now, to the disgrace of this Nation--this, the greatest Nation in the history of the world--this administration is about to leave Afghanistan--which we should have done probably in 2002, but now we're about to leave it in the hands of the Taliban. If we had left in 2002, the Taliban had been totally destroyed. They were gone. The people that were members were in such disarray they did not have any real presence in Afghanistan. Why was that? It wasn't because tens of thousands of American troops went into Afghanistan and wiped out the Taliban. No. It was because of the heroic sacrifices of those within the tribal groups called the Northern Alliance at that time. General Dostum led those troops, and the United States provided less than 500 special ops intelligence people in Afghanistan and provided them air cover, gave them some weapons. And they routed the Taliban within a matter of 3 or 4 months. In the last famous battle with General Dostum leading, these Northern Alliance tribesmen, on horseback, with weapons, riding uphill into the strong area where the Taliban was located, with bullets, RPGs flying all around them, killing many on horseback, but they never stopped. They went up there to the fortress and they defeated the Taliban. Now this administration says, as a result of how forceful those Northern Alliance were in defeating the Taliban, well, those are war criminals. No, they know how to fight the Taliban. Clearly, we don't because the Taliban has come back. I would submit that this administration releasing Taliban leaders to go back and be in charge is not a good thing. Because we had four Americans that were killed at the same time this administration was pleading, oh, please, please, come talk to us. You don't have to have any preconditions, just talk to us. We look weak because this administration gives every appearance of being weak because it's getting terrible advice. In that part of the world, they don't understand turn the other cheek. As Christians individually--individuals of us here that are--you are to turn the other cheek. But as a government official, you provide for the common defense. And you make sure if others do evil to people in this country or threaten this country, that they are punished because the government is not given the sword in vain. People misunderstand that and think, oh, if we will apologize enough for all of the Americans who have laid down their lives--not for some great empire, but for other nations to continue to speak their language, to continue to have their own identity, and to continue to have freedom that was taken away. This country has sacrificed for freedom like no one in the history of the world. In the past, there were some selfish, very selfish motivations. Our selfish motivation has normally been that we want these people to be freer so that we can be friends and freedom will be catching. But as we've seen, if you are not educated in how to sustain a democratic republic where you actually could govern yourself, if you don't understand how to do that, you will lose it. We've watched in Turkey, which, after Ataturk made those great changes to the government--yes, Islam is the most widespread religion in Turkey, but it was a secular government where other people could also worship. We see that being removed little by little in Turkey. And I hear from Turkish friends who are frightened of what's happening. Now our government seems to be on the wrong side in each of these disputes. We're out there trying to work with the Taliban while they're killing Americans. Shouldn't that at least be one precondition? Would you stop killing our American soldiers that are training your farmers, training your government officials, could you stop killing them long enough for us to have our talk? Because what needs to be done is you kill an American, we're going to wipe out a whole bunch of your folks because we are about protecting ourselves. I still feel guilty for 1979, being in the United States Army when we were attacked. It was an act of war against our embassy in Tehran and we looked weak to the world. And it's still used as a recruiting tool. Forget Abu Ghraib--the best recruiting tool is the way we left Vietnam, the way we did nothing to avenge or even to truly get our people out of Tehran after that act of war. I love the leadership of Ronald Reagan, but in 1983 he had a Democratic Congress. People that worked with him, when I blamed him for withdrawing from Beirut after attack, that showed weakness, they said the Democrats made clear he didn't have a whole lot of choice. But that gave a sign of weakness. USS Cole, we basically did nothing. Nobody paid as they should have. If we're going to protect this Nation, we have to take care of things at home. Stop all the waste, fraud and abuse so that people who truly need help get it, and those who can work have the opportunity to work, not with some do-nothing government program but with a real job where you make real money and you accomplish real things. Because one other thing that ObamaCare is doing is a disaster to our American friends. I've been told by people, look, I used to work full time at McDonald's, and now, because of ObamaCare, they cut me to part time. So now I don't have the benefits I had before, and I have to go back and forth between Burger King or Arby's and McDonald's because everybody's cutting to part time because of ObamaCare. Regardless of the incentives for passing the bill, regardless of all the desire people express about giving people better health care, they're having worse lives. It's the slowest recovery, the worst recovery in American history--other than from the Great Depression. And like Morganthau, the Secretary of the Treasury, said in 1940 in his own handwriting, he said, we have spent more money than anyone in history trying to end the Depression, and we created nothing but debt. No better off, they were no better off. It was not until World War II began and we got drawn into that by Pearl Harbor being bombed and seeing liberty under attack through our European friends, we got drawn into it. And then the government started doing their number one job--provide for the common defense--and lo and behold we came out of the Depression. The government did the most important thing for it to do: provide freedom, protect Americans so they can grow the economies, so they can be entrepreneurs. When the government does the most important job--provide for the common defense--it ended the Great Depression. Now we have people in government that think, though they may not have ever been successful in business, that they can tell people who have been and who are how to run their business so much better, and it's hurting this economy. Oh, not with companies like General Electric, those who have gotten plenty of crony capitalist help. I would also advise those who don't want to see reform of welfare-- that I think can only occur when we get all public assistance in one appropriation, in one committee, then we can get real reform. And we will save so many billions and billions and billions--heck, maybe trillions of dollars over a 10-year period. We will save so much money that they will be able to throw it away on many more thousands of Solyndras. They can have all kinds of crony capitalism with the money we can save by providing incentives to get back to work, by providing incentives to finish high school and to go to college if you need to. But not everyone needs to go to college. You don't have to get a college degree to learn how to weld. I was over in Marshall, at the TSTA facility, the institution there. They're teaching welders, and they're making great money when they leave. And it's true of other institutions that teach those kinds of vocational training. But instead, we now have more people on food stamps than ever in history. What has happened to this country when those of us who want to get the country back running by reforming welfare are vilified and accused of wanting to take food out of the mouths of children? How wrong that is. We want more children with more food. The same way I've been vilified for saying children need to be taught English. Even if they're just newly arrived from Mexico, teach them in English. Maybe they need some beginner courses to get them there. But don't teach them in Spanish, help them move into English. Why? Not because I or people like me hate those Hispanic children, it's because we love them. And we know that if you teach them in English, as my friend, Commissioner Ramirez, former City Councilman Ramirez, said, his parents from Mexico said they couldn't speak Spanish at home. His father said you can be anything in America you want to be but you've got to speak good English. It was true. And I am thrilled to death that Gus' new restaurant in Tyler is working out so well. But he wasn't allowed to speak Spanish at home, and the sky is the limit. For someone born in this country, they can be President of the country. Instead of being a manual laborer speaking Spanish, they can be president of the company. So who really cares more about people? Those who rail against us who want to reform the entitlements we're told they are, that were supposed to be a hand up, not bait to be lured into a rut they could not get out of. That is immoral. I know for some people--Star Parker, and there are others--who talk about how they have pulled themselves up, they're an inspiration. But there are too many that did not have the ability to pull themselves up or the wherewithal, and shame on us for luring them into a rut they couldn't get out of. It is time to reform that. But I can also say, as the attacks on the Christian religion have grown and grown exponentially, this country is in deeper and deeper trouble and will continue to be. The assault and the intolerance upon Christianity is incredible. People came to this country in the early days, Founders, Columbus when he discovered--he didn't know he was in a new country or a new continent. He thought he found a new way to Asia. But he claimed the land for his king and queen and also his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He wrote in his own journal it was the Lord that put it into his mind that he could sail west and get to the east, and it was the Holy Spirit that comforted him all the way. And you look at George Washington's writing, the father of this country, without whom there would be no country today as we know it, a noble, honorable, honest man. Faults, yes. This country didn't begin to start really reaching its potential until we dealt with the blight of slavery and the horror that was in America. There has not been any kind of blight on our soul like slavery in American history until we started killing babies. Slavery had to go. After we did away with slavery and more people were encouraged to be entrepreneurs and we came into the 1900s, we still needed a civil rights movement to set things straight. And Christian leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., who had studied the Bible and wrote touching things like those letters from the Birmingham jail, they knew Christ was their salvation and they knew they were supposed to ensure that brothers and sisters treated brothers and sisters as such. There were vile Christians, but I would submit those weren't really Christians. They didn't understand Jesus' teachings. But it was the church that was behind the revolutionary movement. It was the church that was strongest behind the abolition movement. It was Christian leaders who were strongest behind the civil rights movement. Now this Nation, our government at least, seems to be at war with Christianity. We can have a little group complain that, Oh, we didn't feel comfortable in the military because of the prayers that were said or crosses worn or things that were said about Christianity. We have examples of someone being told you can't give someone a Bible when they need one because you may be prosecuted or thrown out of the military. Under the rule some are trying to push through, if you have a dying friend that asks you, ``Is there a God?'' under the order some would have, you couldn't even tell them what you know with all your heart. It's gotten to be a problem. I love Ronald Reagan's quote back in 1984. He said: The frustrating thing is that those who are attacking religion claim they are doing it in the name of tolerance. Question: Isn't the real truth that they are intolerant of religion? They refuse to tolerate its importance in our lives. The teachings of Jesus would allow people to make whatever choices they wish--choose not to believe in God; choose to be an atheist; choose to be an agnostic and say, ``I just don't think there's enough evidence''; choose to be a Buddhist; choose to be a Muslim--because all children are acceptable in God's eyes. I believe God's will is not for any to stumble, that they will all come to eternal life. But the war that has been declared, as it appears to be, the gloves are off against Catholicism as a form of Christianity, all these different religious beliefs against abortion, those who have beliefs religiously against birth control, those who have beliefs about marriage being what it has been for most of the world's history and without which marriage between men and women we would not have had the future generations that even exist today. You say, ``I support that traditional marriage,'' and now you are to be drummed out of your job, drummed out of having friends, eliminated from the public sector. Ronald Reagan was right: the real intolerance, the real hatred is from those who choose to impose their beliefs and force them onto others. Mr. Speaker, today still, nonetheless, was a good day. We made a big move toward what will one day, if we are faithful, allow us to take some of the burden that we have been putting on future generations and the $50,000 or so we have already humped onto the backs, shoulders of children that don't have jobs yet. We made a first step toward the day when we can reform them; we can start encouraging people to their God- given potential instead of luring them into ruts. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. I object.

Mr. GOHMERT. I object.

Mr. GOHMERT. I object.

Mr. GOHMERT

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