Louie Gohmert

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Today, when the House opens for regular session, we will be led by visiting chaplain Reverend Jerome R. Milton. This extraordinary man is a friend, and he is an inspiration to me. To borrow from a testimonial sermon of his, Reverend Milton, as a very small child, was left to die with his brother and sister in a rundown California motel. The San Diego County welfare department found them and placed them in a horrific orphanage, called the Hillcrest Orphanage, where abuse of all kinds imaginable and unimaginable were inflicted upon them. Many of the children in such terrible conditions committed suicide, which included his brother and sister. After the horrors of this orphanage, he was placed in 13 different foster homes, where he suffered more unfathomable abuse and inhuman treatment. Finally, as Jerome says, ``God heard the cry of the lamb,'' and he was placed in his 14th home, that of Dadie Florence Johnson Brown. She could not read or write, but she was a good woman with a big heart and a stronger will. She took Jerome, and she said she could not imagine all the abuse he had been through, that it just sounded too unbelievable, but she looked him in the eye and said, Don't let your abuse be your excuse. She said, Someday, you can be a great juvenile judge or a case worker or something special. But there was a lot of rebellion and anger in the young man. He hated lots of people and things, and especially God. Ms. Brown would not heed Jerome's pleas to leave him alone. She kept praying for him every single day by name. She said she knew there was good in him, but prayed that God would not let him end up in jail or in prison, because she knew God could do something very special with him. He eventually tried the praying thing himself, but he was very cynical. He wanted to go to college, he wanted to be a coach, but he knew no one who had money. Then he found out he could run really fast, and he could play football really well. Though his teacher told him he was too black and too stupid to ever amount to anything, he proved her wrong when, just 4\1/2\ years later, he taught in a classroom right next to hers. As Reverend Milton says, God moved him from foster care to people care. This angry, black, abused, hopeless shell of a downtrodden young boy had God-given potential. This is what Dadie Brown saw in him. Before she died, she told Jerome, All you can do for me is, if you can do for a group of children what I've done for you, then my living will not have been in vain. She said, I don't have $1 million, but I hope I made a $1 million difference. When she died, she had raised 44 children, giving hope to each one. Jerome says she led him to Jesus and that Jesus opened his heart. He providentially met and married Charlene Olgis, and together, they have nine children. Six of them were adopted through the foster care program. Tyler, Texas, is where two Heisman Trophy winners grew up, Earl Campbell and Johnny Manziel, but it is also the mission field of Reverend Jerome R. Milton and his wife, Charlene, and that's where they've invested their lives. He is the senior pastor of the Greater New Pleasant Hill Baptist Church in Tyler. He has been there for 25 years. He established the Dadie Florence Brown children's home for homeless mothers and abused children. He has been the head track and field coach at Bishop Gorman Catholic High School for 24 years, leading his team to 10 State track and field championships, and he has helped 150 athletes earn scholarships. He has also been the Tyler Citizen of the Year, winning the T.B. Butler Award. His work toward spanning race and religion and all types of barriers is boundless, and his list of accomplishments would take all day long to read. He has blessed our town, our district, our State, and our country. It is an honor and an inspiration to know him and to count him as a friend. I so look forward to having my friend as a visiting chaplain today at noon eastern time when he opens the official part of this session in Congress. God bless America, and God bless Jerome Milton.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, our visiting chaplain today is Reverend Jerome R. Milton, pastor of the Greater New Pleasant Hill Missionary Baptist Church in Tyler, Texas. As a small child, he was left with his brother and sister in a rundown motel in San Diego to die. They were placed in a horrific orphanage, where despicable abuses were inflicted, ultimately resulting in the suicide of his siblings. Jerome was eventually placed in the home of Dadie Florence Brown, the 14th foster home. This uneducated but strong-willed lady told young Jerome that, despite all he'd been through, ``Don't allow your abuse to be your excuse.'' She knew God would make him something special, and she prayed for him every day. Jerome could run fast and play football well and got a scholarship to do both at UCLA. As he says, God moved him from foster care to people care. He and his wife, Charlene, have nine children, six of them adopted. In addition to being a pastor, he's the head track coach at Gorman Catholic High School, leading his teams to 10 State championships, and has been Tyler's Citizen of the Year with the T.B. Butler Award. His work has spanned race, religion, all types of barriers, and he has blessed so many lives, including mine.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to follow my friend from Pennsylvania (Mr. Altmire) and before that my friend from Georgia (Mr. Woodall). It made a lot of sense. In fact, the last vote we took today was to eliminate the word ``lunatic'' from our Federal law. I don't have a problem with lunatic being used in the Federal law. Apparently, I was the only one here on the floor that didn't have a problem with using the term ``lunatic.'' In fact, it occurred to me that not only should we not eliminate the term lunatic at a time when we are facing national bankruptcy if we don't get serious about our issues but we should also use the term to identify those who want to continue doing business as usual around this town. It's time we got serious. One of the things that would help the administration get serious, because it is a big deal and not because CBO has no clue what it's going to cost, as illustrated by them initially scoring, I believe, $1.1 trillion, then $800 billion, and now $1.6 trillion taking effect. Maybe $1.8 trillion. They don't have a clue. They're not allowed to use real historical reality, real rules to score. They use a fictitious static rule that is just so inaccurate. It would be a joke if it weren't so sad as to what it's done to good legislation. Because of the emphasis on tax and all the people that are going to be hit with a tax because this administration and the Democratic Senators down the Hall--at least their leadership--continue to play games of cat and mouse and of chicken with the future of our financial stability and economy, I think it's important to look at taxes. The President, for example, and Majority Leader Reid in the Senate say they want to help the middle class, the poor working folks. So, apparently--and I know former Speaker Pelosi said we need to pass the bill so we can find out what's in it, but it's obvious from Leader Reid's comments and the President's comments, those two people never read the ObamaCare bill. It's a bit of interesting reading. I did go through it all before I voted against it; a lot of interesting stuff. I don't know why the President needs his own commission, the Noncommissioned Officer Corps. There were toss-outs to the big pharmaceuticals, AARP. If you saw somebody endorse this bill, then you could find a provision in here, if you knew what to look for, where they got their little pound of pork. So it's quite interesting. But Mr. Speaker, I would encourage the President and Harry Reid, since they have slapped this bill on the backs of every American, they really ought to read what they've done to Americans. There are a lot of people that have. There was a good article, it seemed to be--I don't know Guy Benson, but a political editor for Townhall.com wrote on September 20, 2012, he was talking about the President: Barack Obama's re-election racket has been running millions of dollars worth of advertisements claiming that Mitt Romney's ``plan'' will raise taxes on middle class Americans. This isn't true; Romney promises precisely the opposite, and FactCheck.org has called out Democrats for repeating the debunked charge. But to paraphrase Bill Clinton's DNC speech in Charlotte, it takes some brass to preemptively criticize someone for doing what you've already done yourself. Before we get to the latest dreary punch line, let's go back to the video tape. And online it had a video that could be punched, and it was President Barack Obama speaking. Part of his quote says: I can make a firm pledge: Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes. The article goes on: This man's ``firm pledges'' aren't worth very much, are they? Kate touched on this last night, but it's worth another spin, if only to marvel at the sheer hypocrisy of it all. The Congressional Budget Office has determined that millions of Americans will get socked by the ObamaCare mandate tax, 80 percent of whom are middle-income citizens. Nearly 6 million Americans--significantly more than first estimated--will face a tax penalty under President Barack Obama's health overhaul for not getting insurance, congressional analysts said Wednesday. Most would be in the middle class. The new estimate amounts to an inconvenient fact for the administration, a reminder of what critics see as broken promises. And the Budget Office analysis found that nearly 80 percent of those who'll face the penalty would be making up to or less than five times the Federal poverty level. Currently that would work out to $55,850 or less for an individual and $115,250 or less for a family of four. Average penalty: about $1,200 in 2016. It goes on to point out: CBO also said there will be 30 million people without insurance, though all but the 6 million will be exempt from the tax. The exempt Americans are a combination of illegal immigrants and those with incomes too low to pay income tax. The article says: Just so we're clear: ObamaCare raids $716 billion from almost-insolvent Medicare to chip in toward its own $2 trillion price tag, raises premiums on average families, increases national health care spending faster than doing nothing would have, swells the deficit, exacerbates the national doctor shortage, is insanely costly and difficult to comply with, and raises taxes by $500 billion on the backs of millions of middle class families--and the country will still have 30 million people lacking health insurance. What a deal! And most of that dysfunction doesn't kick in until 2014. If it had kicked in in 2012, you would have seen a different President elected, I'm sure. But in any event, what the ObamaCare bill requires--and one further comment. When a bill is based on a fraud, it's probably not going to end up being a good bill. The ObamaCare bill--and I hear people talk about 2,700 pages, 2,500, 2,600--let's see. My version here--this is one we got from the official printer-- 2,407 pages. But it's interesting, the title of the bill: Resolved, That the bill from the House of Representatives (H.R. 3590) entitled ``An Act to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modify the first-time homebuyers credit in the case of members of the Armed Forces and certain other Federal employees, and for other purposes,'' do pass with the following amendments: Strike out all after the enacting clause and insert--ObamaCare. So they took House bill 3590 that was an act to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modify the first-time homebuyers credit in the case of members of the Armed Forces and certain other Federal employees, and for other purposes--this is a tax credit for our military members--they struck, as it says: ``Strike out all after the enacting clause and insert'' ObamaCare. That's a fraudulent bill. That bill did not originate in the House, it originated in the Senate. The Constitution requires that any bill that raises revenue must originate in the House. It started as a fraud. This bill became a fraud when it was enacted and it was asserted that this originated in the House. It did not. We had a tax credit for first-time homebuyers for our military. There was nothing germane about ObamaCare to a tax credit for our military. That's why I say a bill that starts out as a fraud is probably not going to be real good for a lot of folks. So, though the President promised people all across America over and over that if you make less than $250,000 then you will not see your taxes go up, well, let's take a breather from the so-called fiscal cliff--the truth of the matter is we went off of that back in August 2011 when we passed that ridiculous debt ceiling bill that is going to further gut Medicare, on top of what ObamaCare did to it, and also gut our national security. But looking back at ObamaCare and the tax consequences--and Madam Speaker, that's why I keep saying the President really ought to read the bill that bears his name, that people refer to as ObamaCare. He really ought to read it. Majority Leader Reid really ought to read the bill because he'll get to the part that has a mandatory provision that the Supreme Court had to take up: Is this mandate a penalty or a tax? And of course the intellectual gymnastics that our Chief Justice had to go through to say, between pages 11 and 15 of the opinion, that this is a penalty, it's not a tax. Because under the anti-injunction statute, no Federal court would have jurisdiction to take up the case if it's a tax because you would have to wait until 2014. Because under the anti-injunction statute, under Federal law, no Federal court could take it up until the tax is actually imposed and the person filing suit is actually someone against whom that tax is imposed. So they would have to wait until 2014 in the intellectual gymnastics of the Chief Justice, he says, between pages 11 and 15. So Congress called it a penalty. It is really a penalty. They knew what it was. It's a penalty. It's not a tax for these purposes because, you know, it's just being assessed against someone if they don't buy this basic health insurance policy. And it's estimated that will cost thousands and thousands of dollars. Then, of course, you get on over to around page 60. And after he said, It's a penalty; therefore the anti-injunction statute doesn't prevent us from taking jurisdiction. And now that we have jurisdiction, we'll take it up. And now we take it up, and we say, It's really a tax, so it's okay. Boy, that kind of intellectual lack of integrity in any Federal entity is a danger to the ongoing of the Nation. But for those of us that did read the bill, you will find that if someone is making 133 percent of the poverty level or more, they must buy the basic ObamaCare policy. Well, 133 percent of the poverty level for one person would be $14,856. So anyone in America who makes more than $14,856, as an individual--and in case those at the White House don't know, $14,856 is less than and not even equal to $250,000--but if you make $14,856, as an individual, when the tax fully kicks in, you will pay an extra 2.5 percent income tax as a penalty for not buying the ObamaCare health insurance bill. And so you will get popped with an extra 2.5 percent tax, which will be $371 slapped on the people that can afford it the least. This ObamaCare bill slaps $371 extra on somebody that can't afford health insurance at a time when they can't afford to pay the extra tax. Well, congratulations. That's why I really wish the Senate majority leader and the President themselves would read this bill so they know what they're doing to people so that when they say, This isn't going to hit anybody with any extra tax if you make less than $250,000--if they continue to say it, they'll know that is simply not true. If you are a couple and you make $20,123 and you cannot afford-- between the two of you, you are just scraping by with $20,000; gas prices are up because of all the money flooded into the market created by our Federal Reserve; inflation is going to be kicking in big time this next year; and it's going to be a struggle for any couple that's making $20,000. It's going to be tough. Prices of everything are going to be going up. So at a time when they will not be able, probably, to afford several thousand dollars for the ObamaCare basic policy--some estimates have been that it will be around $12,000--well, then, you are going to pay an extra $503 in a tax penalty because ObamaCare mandates it. Let's go to a family of six. If you are a family of six and you make $41,190 and you cannot afford thousands and thousands of dollars for the basic ObamaCare health insurance policy, then this poor family, struggling with six folks--I grew up in a family with four kids. When times were good, we ate beef. When times were not, we would have Beanee Weenee. I happen to like it just fine, but it's still a struggle. For those who continue to struggle, as I heard Jay Leno once say, Four words: Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, one of my favorite meals. But, nonetheless, it is going to be hard to afford even macaroni and cheese. If you have a family of six, you are making $41,190, and you can't afford thousands and thousands of dollars for the ObamaCare basic policy, then, hello, you are going to pay over $1,000 additionally in your income tax. I hope and pray that somebody in the majority--because I know the hearts of so many of my friends across the aisle. They care deeply about people suffering in America. I know they do. They really do care. That's why I want them to read ObamaCare, as I did, and see what you are doing to the poor and the downtrodden in America. The President is still running around saying, you know, if you are making less than $250,000, you are not going to have any extra tax. Wrong. Read your own bill. Speaker Pelosi said, We will pass the bill to find out what's in it. They still don't know what's in it. That's why somebody has got to stand up and tell them what's in this bill is taxes on people that cannot afford it. If they cannot afford thousands of dollars for a health insurance policy, they're not going to be able to afford $1,030 in extra income tax that our President and all the Democrats passed without a single Republican vote. They're not going to be able to afford that. I guess that's why ObamaCare is going to provide for an additional 17,000 or so IRS agents. Because with this poor family of six making 133 percent of the poverty level, you are probably going to have to chase those two adults down in that family of six and get blood from a turnip because they don't have the $1,030 to pay in extra income tax. If they did, they might try to buy some form of health insurance. But even if they spent $1,030 on the health insurance policy, from the estimates we've seen, that still would not be anywhere near enough to buy the basic policy required by ObamaCare. This is going to devastate the working poor in America. And again, I go back. Any bill that starts as a fraud is probably not going to be good for America. So we come back to all of the rhetoric about taxes. Look, too many people in the House and Senate have forgotten that in July of 2011-- that's the real time we were facing a fiscal cliff. And S&P made clear, Look, if you don't cut at least $4 trillion over 10 years, which is $400 billion a year, we were running a deficit at that time around $1.5 trillion over what we were bringing in. And they were saying--and I thought it was pretty modest--if you don't cut at least $400 billion of the $1.5 trillion you are overspending, then you are going to get downgraded. Leaders in both parties really didn't take that seriously. So they came back with a proposal for a supercommittee; and if the supercommittee didn't reach an agreement on $1.2 trillion over 10 years, a $120 billion reduction from the overspending of $1.5 trillion--that should have been a drop in the bucket. That's nothing. We should have been able to cut that much, and we didn't do it. So now the sequestration is looming, and we come back to this issue again. But I'm shocked that so many people have already forgotten. When we failed to cut $4 trillion over 10 years from our budget back in the summer of 2011, we got downgraded, and things got more expensive. Tim Geithner back then was saying, August 2, the world comes to an end financially. We're going to hit the financial ceiling. It's going to be disastrous. Then, basically, the interpretation of what he was saying is, when we get to August 2, Just kidding. We're going to be okay for a little longer, but we're about to hit it anyway. The financial cliff was approached, and we went over it. Now we're bouncing down the cliff from ledge to ledge. I'm hopeful that at some point we'll say we've fallen far enough. Let's not go all the way down to the bottom of the abyss. Let's start climbing out of this vast hole we've dug for ourselves that we've been plummeting down. Let's get back on top. You're never going to do that bringing in $2.4 or $2.5 trillion and spending over $3.5 trillion. And we want to eliminate the word ``lunatic'' from the Federal code? That's lunacy to think you can keep spending over a trillion dollars more than you bring in, when you're bringing in about $2.5 trillion, and not pay the price. It is immoral for one generation to be spending money that the next generations haven't even had an opportunity to earn. It is narcissistic to say we are so important in our generation that we are going to lavish money on ourselves uncontrollably so that future generations will pay for our self-indulgence. The history of America is one generation after another making sure that the generations that follow would have it better than they did. When we come to this generation, my generation--and it's embarrassing, but we've been so self-indulgent, so self-absorbed that we would spend future generations' money. They are kids, some of them are not even born, and they are going to have to bear the cost of what we're doing. As one of our Republican friends said just about an hour ago, Be quite sure any deficit spending now will be a tax on someone at some point. It's just the way it is. We keep hearing that everybody needs to pay their fair share, and I hope that beginning now when people hear ``fair share,'' they'll think about a flat tax. Steve Forbes has been talking about it for years. Rand Paul had an article out a year or so ago proposing a flat tax. My friend, Mike Burgess, has a proposal. Many of us have proposals. Look, you talk about wanting Warren Buffett to pay what his secretary does, yet you haven't made one proposal that will bring Warren Buffett to paying what his secretary does. That's crazy. That's why we shouldn't eliminate the word ``lunatic.'' It really has application around this town. Warren Buffett ought to take heed. He runs around telling people, yeah, rich people should pay more taxes. Well, he's not. He's not going to pay more, not on any of the proposals that the President has him running around endorsing. How about a flat tax that says 15 percent for capital gains tax, what Warren Buffett normally pays, 15 percent for his secretary in income tax, 15 percent for gift tax, and a 15 percent corporate tax. Let's just go 15 percent across the board. The irony is that the economy would so explode--so many more people would be employed, so many more people would be making more money--that the revenue would actually come in in greater amounts. We would actually get greater revenue, and there would be less pain and less suffering in America. A couple of years or so ago, an 80-year-old lady in east Texas said: I grew up here in east Texas in a home that had no electricity, no power. We had a wood-burning stove; and now the electricity, propane, everything is so expensive, my Social Security doesn't cover it. It looks like I'm going to have to go back to a wood-burning stove just to exist. This could be a cold winter. It doesn't have to be like that. It ought to be an economic renaissance. The more fair we are here in Washington--you make more, you pay more; you make less, you pay less. I'm one of those that likes two deductions: one for charitable giving and the other for the mortgage interest deduction. We can negotiate over numbers. That's not a problem. We could compromise. We can reach an agreement, a compromise over numbers, but let's don't compromise on a principle that is so basic and simply says, if you make more, you pay more. It's an easy concept. You make more, you pay more; you make less, you pay less. That's fair. For Heaven's sake, let's do this. Let's take that ObamaCare burden off the working poor in America that are going to get socked with that tax. We were told for so long, if we don't do something, there will be maybe 30 million people in America who won't have insurance. Then we get to the bottom of it and we find out, well, now we're going to have lots of people paying lots more taxes and we're still--oh, and we're gutting Medicare. Because of ObamaCare, we're gutting Medicare by $716 billion so the seniors will have less health care. Oh, I know, some of our Democrat friends have said not to worry, we're only taking that from the health care providers--the doctors, the hospitals. We're taking that from them. We're not taking it from you, seniors. You don't have to worry. You will have Medicare. My foot. Those health care providers who have $716 billion sucked out of the system will not be able to provide service to all the seniors, and that's why we start hearing stories now about how ObamaCare is going to work. Some say the age may be 75 that is tossed out by the panel. It won't be a death panel, but it will be a panel that says, You're 75. No hip. No, no. You're too old. You don't get a hip. You don't get a knee. You're just going to have to suffer because you're not productive anymore. That is outrageous. Every individual has value. I would just like to conclude with words from my friend Dick Morris, who said: I know there is a disagreement on when life begins in America, but for Heaven's sake, we ought to agree that life ends when you die. That's why ObamaCare needs to go. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

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

Mr. GOHMERT

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

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. It's uplifting to hear my friend, Dan Lungren from California. What an amazing public servant he has been. I fought battles with the man. I know his heart. And he's going to be sorely missed. He cares so deeply about this country. Such is the lot of people whose country has leadership decided by elections. Sometimes good things happen, sometimes they don't. But democracy ensures that a people are governed no better than they deserve. So whether someone liked President Reagan or President George H.W. Bush or President Bill Clinton or President George W. Bush or President Barack Obama, the truth is that at the time they were elected President, we as a Nation overall got the President we deserved at that time. One of the most impressive speeches I've ever heard was given by Senator Barack Obama at the Democratic Convention. And I love the way he talked about America, coming back as one America. Not a red America or a blue America, but America. Just one country. And it was one of the things that I drew great hope from on 9/12/2001 as people around the country gathered around, as we did in our local east Texas town, and people of all races and ages and gender, and we all held hands and we sang hymns and patriotic songs. And I looked around the circle and was deeply moved because I knew that day there were no hyphenated Americans, there were just Americans. And we were together. And everybody standing there in that square holding hands, we shared the love for our country. We wanted to see it strong. We wanted to see it recover from that devastating blow from people intent on evil, based on hatred. That senator that wanted one America has presided in such a way that we seem more divided than ever--more people on food stamps, more people below the poverty level, more people struggling than ever before. We were told if the $900 billion giveaway stimulus proposal--porkulus some called it--if that was passed, we would be recovering very quickly. And if we did not pass that stimulus, porkulus, whatever you want to call it, if we didn't pass that bill in early 2009, the country might well reach unemployment rates as high as 8, 8.5 percent, as I recall. Well, guess what? We passed it and things got worse. It was a terrible bill. It was not the way you fix an economy in danger, suffering. What's so tragic right now, Mr. Speaker, is how many people across America are struggling, out of work. I'm not just talking manual laborers or older workers, I mean all ages, well-educated, poorly educated. We've got people out of work around this country that are really in desperate straits. Some take different approaches. I was shown numbers that indicated at one point that when people are unemployed, many of them will look full time for employment, for substitute employment, but on average may have 30 minutes a week--for an average--until the last 2 weeks of the unemployment benefits, and at that time it may go as high as an average of 10 hours or so of the last 2 weeks looking for employment. This President is demanding that we extend unemployment benefits for another year for those who have been unemployed for a year. We also know that in his JOBS Act--it was really a JOBS Act for lawyers because they created a new protected class called the unemployed; so that if you had been unemployed for 2 years and you go apply for a job and the employer looking for a worker considers the fact that you didn't look for a job for 2 years and instead hired somebody that had been out of work for a month and was desperately spending all his or her time looking for employment, if you considered the fact that somebody had been unemployed, how long they had been unemployed, then you would be sued under the President's proposed bill. So it was going to be a great boon to trial lawyers, to plaintiffs' lawyers because they would be suing on behalf of every unemployed worker who went and looked for a job for the first time in a couple of years. I mean, you could have that kind of scenario, not look for a job for a year or two, go look for a job, and then turn your case over to a lawyer to sue anybody that didn't hire you because you didn't show any particular motivation, and most employers want motivated employees. So we know that the President has made this proposal; he wants to extend unemployment for another year. Just to show what a worthless organization--they're smart people; they're very good people; they're a good organization, but their rules are so pitiful, so unrealistic, so unmoored to the foundation of good economic projections--we have the Congressional Budget Office, CBO. They come in, and apparently--I was reading an AP story. I didn't see the CBO numbers themselves, but the story said that, according to CBO projections, extending unemployment for another year for those that have been unemployed for a year now would cost $30 billion. But the great thing is that $30 billion of paying people to remain unemployed would create 300,000 jobs. So what a great thing for America, for our economy if you spend $30 billion and create 300,000 jobs. Until you start looking at the numbers and you go, Wait a minute. Wait a minute. We're spending $30 billion. We're told if we do that it will create 300,000 jobs? Well, that's not very smart. That's $100,000 that we would be spending for every job we create. What kind of math is being utilized by the White House and by CBO? I mean, how stupid are Americans? Oh, yeah, great idea. Let's let the government spend another $100,000 to create one job that may not be but a part-time job, pay $20,000 or so. Well, I'll bet if we offered people across America, made an offer, we want to create 300,000 jobs this month and so we're looking for bids. Who will come to work for less than $100,000? I'll bet you would get 300,000 people working very quickly for a whole lot less than $100,000 a job. So that kind of math is what has gotten us in trouble. It's why we need an alternative to CBO scoring that deals realistically with what we're engaged in, because it's only when we have a scoring system for bills that is wedded to legitimacy and historical reality that we will begin to have better legislation. Because when you have a group that has such ridiculous rules to score bills that it will come in and say ObamaCare, yes, it will cost $1.1 trillion, and then they have their Director called to the Oval Office and reminded, apparently, that the President promised it would cost less than $1 trillion and they rescore it and come back with $800 billion--with a wink and a nod, apparently--and then after it passes, they come back and say, Oh, you know what, it was actually more than a trillion. Now we're told maybe $1.6 trillion--who knows, 1.8, maybe 2.0. Who knows. But any entity whose margin of error for scoring bills in Congress is plus or minus 100 percent margin of error does not need to be allowed to do any more scoring. We need to do a competition of it. It's what Americans do well. When we compete as a nation, when we have people in America competing, we do better. So let's have competition for scoring bills. I was having a wonderful discussion with one of the best economic minds in the country, Arthur Laffer, and I said I was hoping that maybe we could get someone else to score bills--Moody's, S&P, others. My office had checked with Moody's. They said they don't score bills. He said, They will if you pay them, and I bet you you could get it done for a whole lot less than what it cost to keep CBO going. So think about that. We start having a competition for scoring bills so that we can get legitimate bills, not one where America is promised it will cost $800 billion only to find out it's going to be more than twice that amount even before it really comes into fruition. We need competitive scoring. Then, over a few years of time, we will begin to see who's more accurate and who's not. We will be able to score the scorers. Because until that time, we will continue to limp along and have ridiculous mathematics like CBO telling us that ObamaCare will cost $800 billion and shortly later coming back and saying it's probably going to be $1.6 trillion. A margin of error of 100 percent is intolerable. It's time for a different means of scoring. Let's have competition. I think that you would end up having some of the universities in the country have their--whether it's economic or finance departments. Texas A&M has a great department that does a lot of projections and calculations. I know there are schools around the country that do that. We could make a competition. And the better you are at scoring, perhaps the more you get paid for scoring bills because you're more accurate. Make it a competition. Because in the meantime, having an entity that scores bills, that is used to condemn a bill or raise a bill to the heights, is bringing us down to economic ruin. It's one of the little parts of the puzzle that needs fixing. So we have a President who continues to be vague on what he will accept to avoid what people are calling the fiscal cliff. Well, I might remind people that the fiscal cliff was gone over in August of 2011. Some have already forgotten. We were told if we didn't have a debt ceiling increase by August 2, we were going over the financial cliff. It was financial Armageddon. Everything would melt down. It was all going to be just this horrible financial melee. It was a disaster. We could not allow ourselves to get to August 2 without having a debt ceiling increase. Some of us made proposals, and we took a look at what was being proposed. And we said, Are you kidding, a supercommittee? That's not going to do any good. They will never be allowed to reach an agreement. Some of us were told, Well, of course they'll reach an agreement because if they don't, there will be these massive amounts of devastating cuts to our defense and devastating cuts to Medicare. They'd never allow $300 billion or so to be cut from Medicare on the other side of the Capitol here. And I reminded my friends they just cut $700 billion from Medicare for ObamaCare. This President and the Senate were pitting our seniors against younger workers in America. They're pitting our seniors on Social Security and Medicare against younger workers. What kind of President, what kind of party, what kind of Senate does such a thing? Why would you pit younger workers against our seniors? But that's what occurred with the debt ceiling bill. That's what occurred with the 2 percent cut to the Social Security tax. It sounded like a great idea, and now we find out 2 years later, actually, that 2 percent reduction in the amount of money that workers pay into Social Security, it was a very small amount, relatively speaking, to the amount of debt the United States and workers are having to run up because of the poor economy. But we were told, Oh, it may save them $60, $80 a month. It may be such a great thing. And yet $60, $80--as important as that is to any individual worker--meant that last year, for the first time, the Social Security taxes coming in did not cover the Social Security checks going out. It meant that this administration pushed through a bill with Leader Reid down in the Senate pushing the way for it. It meant that seniors' checks were not covered by the Social Security taxes being paid by at least 5 percent. There were projections then that it was a 5 percent shortfall last year, and this year it's going to be a 14, 15 percent shortfall. That wasn't supposed to happen for several years. Republicans and Democrats were debating in years past--since I've been here in the last 8 years-- about how, no, that wouldn't happen until 2018. Others said, no, that won't happen until 2048. Well, it happened last year in 2011. The money coming in from Social Security tax did not cover Social Security payments. And so what's the proposal by this President and Leader Reid? It's, let's gut Social Security even further. Let's make it bankrupt even quicker. Listen, what's going on? I know we all have the goal of making America stronger, but we're seeing that what is happening is hurting the economy. It's making America weaker. And for all of the talk this fall about, gee, we may have turned the corner economically if it weren't for our czar, the Federal Reserve czar, Bernanke, creating money out of thin air, then the economy would be even worse than it is today. But I think the President owes Mr. Bernanke a great thank you for helping him win reelection by creating so much money out of nothing. But the trouble with that is next year Americans will pay a very severe price, as we see inflation start to take hold. But the President, Mr. Bernanke, they knew that that inflation wouldn't really kick in now before the election. So it helped him win reelection. And then we would get into next year, and then the inflation would start kicking in. And then with a poor economy and inflation, we're back to the end of the Carter years. And with the President having cut the permits down in half for drilling on Federal land from what they were under the Bush administration, he was able to receive the benefits of the permits done during the Bush years so he could say, Look, we're producing more on Federal land. Isn't that great. Well, yes, but now we're going to start seeing the consequences of cutting in half the number of permits during the Obama administration's first term; and there will be a price to pay in our energy costs over the next 4 years. We hear people saying over and over and over again Americans must pay their fair share. The rich must pay their fair share. Everyone must pay their fair share. And on that, I am in 100 percent agreement with our President, with Leader Reid at the other end of this building, with my friends across the aisle, the Democrats here who want everybody to pay their fair share. I'm in 100 percent agreement. We absolutely should do that, make everybody pay their fair share. You know, lots of folks use the metaphor, Let's make sure everybody has some skin in the game. Well, if you really want to have everyone pay their fair share, there is an easy answer; and, fortunately, it would drive this economy to brand-new heights. It would drive this country and our economy to a new economic renaissance. It would be incredible. And all of our friends around the country who are suffering, who don't have even $3 a gallon to pay for gasoline, it would help them when they can't handle the rent going up and the groceries going up. It would help them as we saw the economy become more vibrant because after 4 years, if Tim Geithner were really honest, he would come forward and say, as Secretary of Treasury Morgenthau did in 1940 when he wrote: We have spent more money than any country in history, and we have nothing to show for it but more debt. That's what a Secretary of the Treasury who wanted to be honest would say after 4 years of the most incredible spending beyond anything that Secretary Morgenthau, under Roosevelt, could have ever dreamed. Well, here's a good answer. When you hear the term ``fair share,'' think flat tax. You want people to pay their fair share, make a flat tax. Now, the President has had his friend Warren Buffett, one of many of the megarich in this country--in fact, the megarich Wall Street apparently support the President four to one over Republicans. It's one of the great, amazing misconceptions in America. Wall Street executives and their spouses donate four to one to Democrats over Republicans. So I would like to see the fat cat Democrats and the fat cat Republicans all pay their fair share. I'm tired of hearing Warren Buffett say he doesn't pay as much a rate as his secretary and he wishes the rich were taxed more. What hypocrisy is that? Holy cow. It's really easy. We've made it easy. Just write the check to the U.S. Government, IRS, however you want to. We'll cash it however you want to write it. You want everybody to pay their fair share? Let's pay taxes at a flat tax rate. The great thing about a flat tax is when you make more, you pay more; when you make less, you pay less. The other thing about a flat tax, it doesn't just need to be a flat tax on income; it ought to be a flat tax across the board. Some think there should be no deductions. I'm in favor of two. A brilliant mind, even though he went to Harvard, Arthur Laffer, has an idea, and he's talking in terms of two good deductions: a mortgage interest deduction and charitable deductions. Frankly, I don't want to see a cap on charitable deductions, because that plays right into this administration's desire to have government be the end-all, be-all charity, even though as we've seen from Katrina under a Republican administration and we've seen from Sandy under a Democratic administration, the Federal Government is not the best answer for getting help quickly enough to people. It was the private sector that got gas, water, and help most quickly to people who suffered from Hurricane Katrina and from Hurricane Sandy. But a proposal to cap charitable contributions as deductions would end up killing charities and forcing people to come begging, Oh, please, government, would you please give me a morsel, give me another crumb. So whichever party happens to be in power gets more power, Republican or Democrat, we've got to stop that cycle of dependency. We have got to help people reach their God-given potential. When you hear about fair share, you want an equal percentage tax, let's have one for Warren Buffett and the same rate for his secretary. Let's make the income tax, the corporate tax, the capital gains tax, the gift tax, the estate tax, let's just make them all 15 percent across the board. I'll never have a problem with an estate tax, but it is outrageous to make people sell the family farm or sell the business or get in hock up to their ears for something their parents have worked a lifetime to build up. People like Warren Buffet, the ultrarich, they're not going to have to worry about the estate tax because they're able to pay megabucks for lawyers and brilliant financial analysts to come up with a way--usually involving life insurance and different things--to take care of their estate tax. So it's not the megarich. When people say they're going after the rich fat cats, England did that in 2009. An article last week pointed out that in 2009, England increased to 50 percent, in addition to all the other taxes they have, the tax against people making 1 million pounds or more, and that next year England went from having 16,000 people who were making 1 million pounds or more a year to 6,000. They dropped from 16,000 people making more than 1 million pounds a year to 6,000. That's an incredible drop, a two-thirds loss. So there was no additional income made--or, it's not made--it's taken. There was no additional income taken by raising the taxes on the rich because they're too elusive to nail down. So you might as well set up a system that doesn't keep punishing the middle class. The truth is, when you raise taxes on the ultrarich and you keep spending to match that--and actually this administration and some friends in this Congress want to keep raising the amount we spend instead of getting realistic. When you keep doing that, what you hurt is the middle class. They're the ones that suck it up because the middle class--when you work at a store or a factory or a mechanic's garage, any of the places that the middle class work, when you work there, you can't just pick up your factory if you're a worker and move wherever you want where the taxes are less. The owners of the factory can, they can move. They don't have to pay the higher tax. The workers can't. As you see what happened in England, when that happens everywhere, when you raise taxes on the ultrarich, they move because they can. And who has to suck up all that extra money that has to be provided for, that the government doesn't have? It's the middle class that does. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for yielding. It is an honor, privilege and a pleasure--all three--to be here to pay tribute to our friend Ralph Hall. I think I'm the only one that has spoken that was actually represented by Ralph Hall, and so it's not my first testimonial for the gentleman from Rockwall. In fact, in 2001, it looked like there was a new redistricting map the legislature had come out with, and it was going to put my home town of Tyler in a different district. During my years on the bench, I had been concerned about some of the Federal laws that were luring people into ruts they couldn't get out of without any hope, and that's when I first thought about running. But I knew, and I said publicly, as long as Ralph Hall is my Congressman there's no need for me to run. I know that man, I know his heart, I know his convictions--not criminal convictions, I don't know of any of them--but I know the convictions of his heart, and I know him to be a man of conscience, a moral, upright, decent man who had a wonderful wife, and there was no way there was a need for me to run as long as Ralph Hall was my Representative. I was told by some Republican leaders, look, he's a Democrat, you ought to run against him anyway, and I said no way. I couldn't do any better than Ralph Hall. I'm well represented. But in 2003, finally the legislature actually did redistricting, and we ended up in a different district, and I ran. But I've been amazed not only by the incredible knowledge of science and technology and the workings of this body, but as others have alluded to, the sense of humor. But now one thing I've noticed, a lot of times around here people get a good joke, they just keep it to themselves, whereas Ralph shares even funny material. We had a college coach here that was going to speak to a big group of Members of Congress, and somebody told him, just start off with something funny and you'll be fine. He was nervous, and he said, I don't know anything funny. So Ralph said, well, what would you like it on? He said, well, what about education? He said, here's your joke: A teacher tells her first-grade kids that they've got to come back and tell some family story that is told around the family. Everybody in the classroom the next day had their story, but little Johnny never raised his hand. Finally, she said, Johnny, everybody's done their family story but you, don't you have one? And he said, well, I do have one, it's even got a moral, but I don't know. The teacher said: Well, is it clean? He said sure. She said, Well, go ahead and tell it. So Johnny got up and said, Well, my Aunt Katie was in the Air Force as a pilot, and she got over hostile territory. My Aunt Katie always was prepared for the worst. She had a bottle of whiskey, an Uzi, a 9mm and a knife in the cockpit with her just in case something happened. Sure enough, she got hit, she's going down. She ejects, drinks the bottle of whiskey real quickly, and then sees all these enemy soldiers coming at her, wipes out a couple dozen of them with the Uzi, takes the 9mm, wipes out 12 more, and then hits the ground. Three more come at her, and she takes them out too. The teacher said: Good grief, that's a family story and you say it has a moral? He said, Well, I don't know if you'd call it a moral, but it's what everybody in our family knows, and that is, when Aunt Katie's been drinking, you don't mess with her. So, anyway, I was impressed that he shared that, but more than anything I'm proud to have shared time here and seen a true Representative at work. It's been my honor. Thank you, Ralph, for all you've done.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Senate Concurrent Resolution 60, 112th Congress, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There's so many problems in the world. There's so many problems here in America. There's so many things that are being hidden, kept secret, that need to have sunlight hit them and come to be known, because sunlight truly is an illumination of not only facts, but creates cleanliness when shining light comes upon things that have been hidden. We have so many things yet to resolve, so many people that are now in poverty that have not been in the past, an economy that's in trouble, a Congress that can't seem to find its way to reduce spending, so we keep digging deeper and deeper holes. But with all the problems in this Nation, we are the most blessed nation in the history of mankind. Solomon's Israel did not have the liberties for the individuals that we have. It didn't have the assets that we have. It didn't have obesity as a major health problem for the nation's poor, as we do. We are so richly blessed. So amidst all the skirmishing, debating, fussing and arguing, we are about to go out of session for the last few moments before we hit Thanksgiving. It's a time when people should pause and understand, without dwelling on our problems, that we are so richly blessed. It's time--as the Founders and as those leaders throughout our great history have every year paused--to thank God for the blessings which we have. Some people see us fussing and debating and getting angry at times. We have such different views of the way to fix things. I see my friend, Eliot Engel. We don't vote on a lot of things the same way, but I know his heart and I know he's a great, honorable man. I don't agree with Ed Markey very often; in fact, we are usually crossways in our Committee on Natural Resources. He and I think we can reach some agreements on some issues regarding natural gas. Louise Slaughter, she didn't let a bunch of my amendments through when she was Rules chair, but I like her very much and she is a friend. Carolyn Maloney, she thinks we should eliminate private guns and I believe the Second Amendment should be enforced, but she's a friend. Having friends in a body in which we disagree over things on the best way forward is another one of those blessings. So before we recess for Thanksgiving, it is such an honor to get to remind people, you know, we have so many people who have blessed our Nation who were not born here. There are people like the President, who was born in Hawaii but was not educated for his early years, is not aware so much of the history that many of us grew up being taught. So it's a real honor for me to get to share some of our history as we approach the Thanksgiving holiday. For example, James Madison was given credit as having more to do with our Constitution than any of the other Founders. When he was President, March 4, 1815, he had this proclamation--a guy that should know what the Constitution means and that it was never intended to prevent a people from prayer and thanking God for our blessings, either in a governmental setting or a nongovernmental setting. It was never meant to force people to pray, but never intended to prevent governmental leaders from leading prayers. This was James Madison, March 4, 1815. He said: No people ought to feel greater obligation to celebrate the goodness of the Great Disposer of Events and of the Destiny of Nations than the people of the United States. And to the same Divine Author of every good and perfect gift we are indebted for all those privileges and advantages, religious as well as civil, which are so richly enjoyed in this favored land. I now recommend a day on which the people of every religious denomination may in their solemn assemblies unite their hearts and their voices in a freewill offering to their Heavenly Benefactor of their homage of thanksgiving and of their songs of praise. Abraham Lincoln, in the midst of the worst war in American history-- more Americans died in the Civil War than in any other war of this Nation--in July of 1863, the middle of the Civil War, our President, Abraham Lincoln, provided these official words. For those who are on the Supreme Court and did not have a proper education about our history, these words might be surprising, but Abraham Lincoln made these an official proclamation when he said: It is meet and right to recognize and confess the presence of the Almighty Father, and the power of His Hand equally in these triumphs and in these sorrows. I invite the people of the United States to assemble on that occasion in their customary places of worship and in the forms approved by their own consciences to render the homage due to the Divine Majesty for the wonderful things He has done in this Nation's behalf, and invoke the influence of His Holy Spirit to subdue the anger which has produced and so long sustained a needless and cruel rebellion. Andrew Johnson, October 28, 1865, as President of the United States, he succeeded Abraham Lincoln, as we all know, after the terrible atrocity of Abraham Lincoln's assassination; came at the end of such a cruel war that saw family member fighting and killing family member, and so much destruction, so much hate. Andrew Johnson's official words as President of the United States in 1865: Whereas it has pleased Almighty God, during the year which is now coming to an end, to relieve our beloved country from the tearful scourge of civil war, and to permit us to secure the blessings of peace, unity and harmony, with great enlargement of civil liberty; and Whereas, our Heavenly Father has, also, during the year graciously averted from us the calamities of foreign war, pestilence and famine, while our granaries are full of the fruits of an abundant season; and Whereas, righteousness exalteth a nation, while sin is a reproach to any people. I recommend to the people thereof that they do set apart and observe the first Thursday of December next as a day of national thanksgiving to the Creator of the Universe for those great deliverances and blessings. Ulysses S. Grant, as President, responding as did those already mentioned--and actually every President each and every year--I'm just selecting specific official proclamations. This one was President Ulysses S. Grant, 1869. He said: I, Ulysses S. Grant, President of the United States, do recommend that Thursday, the 18th day of November next, be observed as a day of thanksgiving and of praise and of prayer to Almighty God, the Creator and the Ruler of the universe; and I do further recommend to all the people of the United States to assemble on that day in their accustomed places of public worship and to unite in homage and praise due to the bountiful Father of All Mercies in fervent prayer for the continuance of the manifold blessings he has vouchsafed to us as a people. Rutherford B. Hayes, 1877, said these in his official proclamation: The completed circle of summer and winter, seed time and harvest, has brought us to the accustomed season at which a religious people celebrates with praise and thanksgiving the enduring mercy of Almighty God. Let us with one spirit and with one voice lift up praise and thanksgiving to God for his manifold goodness to our land, his manifest care for our Nation. I earnestly recommend that, withdrawing themselves from secular cares and labors, the people of the United States do meet together on that day in their respective places of worship, there to give thanks and praise to Almighty God for His mercies, and to devoutly beseech their continuance. Chester A. Arthur, November 1881: It has long been the pious custom of our people, with the closing of the year, to look back upon the blessings brought to them in the changing course of the seasons, and return solemn thanks to the All-giving source from whom they flow. The countless benefits which have showered upon us during the past 12 months call for our fervent gratitude, making it fitting that we should rejoice with Thanksgiving, that the Lord, in His infinite mercy, has most signally favored our country and our people. That was Chester A. Arthur. Grover Cleveland in 1885: The American people have always abundant cause to be thankful to Almighty God, whose watchful care and guiding hand have been manifested in every stage of their national life, guarding and protecting them in time of peril and safely leading them in the hour of darkness and danger. It is fitting and proper that a Nation thus favored should, on one day in every year, for that purpose especially appointed publicly acknowledge the goodness of God and return thanks to him for all his gracious gifts. That was Grover Cleveland in his official proclamation of 1885. And again, there were proclamations every year by every President. So we're selecting just a few, as it being fit and proper, as our country has done every year of its existence since we had a Constitution in 1789, to declare a time of thanksgiving to God for our blessings. Benjamin Harrison. This is November 1, 1889: Now therefore, I, Benjamin Harrison, President of the United States of America, do earnestly recommend that Thursday, the 28th day of this present month of November, be set apart as a day of national thanksgiving and prayer, and that the people of our country, ceasing from the cares and labors of their working day, shall assemble in their respective places of worship and give thanks to God, who has prospered us on our way and made our paths the paths of peace, beseeching him to bless the day to our present and future good, making it truly one of thanksgiving for each united home circle as for the Nation at large. Benjamin Harrison, November 1889. Grover Cleveland, November 1893, said: While the American people should every day remember with praise and Thanksgiving the divine goodness and mercy which have followed them since their beginning as a Nation, it is fitting that one day in each year should be especially devoted to the contemplation of the blessing we have received from the hand of God and to the grateful acknowledgment of His loving kindness. On that day, let us forego our ordinary work and employments and assemble in our usual places of worship, where we may recall all that God has done for us, and, where, from grateful hearts, our united tribute of praise and song may reach the throne of grace. Let the reunion of kindred and the social meeting of friends lend cheer and enjoyment to the day. And let generous gifts of charity for the relief of the poor and needy prove the sincerity of our thanksgiving. Can't help but parenthetically note that the greatest blessing in giving comes not from a government that forcibly takes people's money but from people who give from the bounty of their own hearts to those in need. It makes us better people. Another, William McKinley, in 1897 officially proclaimed, ``In remembrance of God's goodness to us during the past year, which has been so abundant''--he put in quotes--``Let us offer unto him our Thanksgiving and pay our vows unto the Most High.'' McKinley went on: Under his watchful providence, industry has prospered. The conditions of labor have been improved. The rewards of the husbandman have been increased, and the comforts of our homes multiplied. His mighty hand has preserved peace and protected the Nation. Respect for law and order has been strengthened, love of free institutions cherished, and all sections of our beloved country brought into closer bonds of fraternal regard and generous cooperation. For these great benefits, it is our duty to praise the Lord in a spirit of humility and gratitude, and to offer up to Him our most earnest supplications, that we may acknowledge our obligation as a people to Him who has so graciously granted us the blessing of free government and material prosperity. William McKinley, October 1897. Theodore Roosevelt, as President of the United States, said these words in 1903, officially proclaiming: The season is at hand, when according to the custom of our people, it falls upon the President to appoint a day of praise and thanksgiving to God. During the last year, the Lord has dealt bountifully with us, giving us peace at home and abroad, and the chance for our citizens to work for their welfare unhindered by war, famine, or plague. It behooves us not only to rejoice greatly because of what has been given us, but to accept it with a solemn sense of responsibility, realizing that under heaven, it rests with us ourselves to show that we are worthy to use aright what has been entrusted to our care. In no other place, and at no other time has the experiment of government of the people, by the people, for the people been tried on so vast a scale as here in our own country in the opening years of the 20th century. Failure would not only be a dreadful thing for us, but a dreadful thing for all mankind because it would mean loss of hope for all who believe in the power and the righteousness of liberty. Therefore, in thanking God for the mercies extended to us in the past, we beseech Him that He may not withhold them in the future. That was Theodore Roosevelt, 1903. William Howard Taft, 1909: The people of the United States are wont to meet in their usual places of worship on a day of thanksgiving appointed by the civil magistrate to return thanks to God for the great mercies and benefits which they have enjoyed. During the past year, we have been highly blessed . . . It is altogether fitting that we should humbly and gratefully acknowledge the Divine source of those blessings. Therefore, I hereby appoint . . . a day of general thanksgiving, and I call upon the people on that day, laying aside their usual vocations, to repair to their churches and unite in appropriate services of praise and thanks to Almighty God. William Howard Taft in 1912, without any problem from the Supreme Court, officially proclaimed: A God-fearing nation, like ours, owes it to its inborn and sincere sense of moral duty to testify its devout gratitude to the All-giver for the countless benefits it has enjoyed. For many years, it has been customary at the close of the year for the national Executive to call upon his fellow countrymen to offer praise and thanks to God for the manifold blessings vouchsafed to them . . . Wherefore, I, William Howard Taft, President of the United States of America, in pursuance of long-established usage and in response to the wish of the American people, invite my countrymen, wheresoever they may sojourn, to join on Thursday, the 28th day of this month of November, in appropriate ascription of praise and thanks to God for the good gifts that have been our portion and in humble prayer that His great mercies toward us may endure. It's worth noting that William Howard Taft was the only person in American history to have been elected to Congress, to have been elected President of the United States, and after making these official proclamations every year as President of the United States, where he officially chided Americans to thank God for our blessings, he then became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He is the only one in our history to have been in Congress, President, and on the Supreme Court, and in his case, he was actually Chief Justice. He never failed to thank God officially, publicly, as President of the United States. Woodrow Wilson, October of 1913, officially proclaimed this: The season is at hand in which it has been our long respected custom as a people to turn in praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God for His manifold mercies and blessings to us as a Nation. The year that has just passed has been marked in a peculiar degree by manifestations of His gracious and beneficent providence . . . We have seen the practical completion of a great work at the Isthmus of Panama, which not only exemplifies the Nation's abundant resources to accomplish what it will and the distinguished skill and capacity of its public servants, but also promises the beginning of a new age, of new contacts, new neighborhoods, new sympathies, new bonds, and new achievements of cooperation and peace. Then Woodrow Wilson put these words in quotes as he quoted from the Holy Bible, ``Righteousness exalteth a Nation.'' Then Wilson put in quotes, ``Peace upon Earth, good will towards men,'' which is also from the Holy Bible, ``furnish the only foundations upon which can be built the lasting achievements of the human spirit . . . Now, therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate Thursday, the 27th of November next, as a day of thanksgiving and prayer.'' Apparently, he didn't know to say ``a moment of silence.'' He, as every President before him, commended a time to prayer and invited ``the people throughout the land to cease from their wonted occupations and in their several homes and places of worship render thanks to Almighty God.'' John F. Kennedy, October of 1961, officially proclaimed these words. Having become President some 9 months earlier, this was President Kennedy's first Thanksgiving proclamation: The pilgrims, after a year of hardship and peril, humbly and reverently set aside a special day upon which to give thanks to God . . . I ask the head of each family to recount to his children the story of the first New England Thanksgiving, thus to impress upon future generations the heritage of this Nation born in toil, in danger, in purpose, and in the conviction that right and justice and freedom can, through man's efforts, persevere and come to fruition with the blessing of God. This will be the next to last, Mr. Speaker. Yet it is important, just as every President every year has proclaimed a day of thanksgiving to God, to our eternal and omnipotent source of all blessing, so every President has done it. President Obama has done it. It is just so important. We see surveys done of schoolchildren in America--of high school students, of college students. They're asked, To whom did the original pilgrims give thanks? So many say the Indians, say each other, and do not understand what has been part of our history since that early Thanksgiving with the pilgrims when they set it aside to celebrate with the Indians, in gratitude to the Indians; but the purpose was a proclamation of thanksgiving by every heart to Almighty God. As some try to rewrite our history, it must be said that, for the Nation's whole history, each year was a proclamation of thanksgiving to God. It's even worth noting, Mr. Speaker, that here in the House Chamber-- where you and I are dwelling right now--above all the doors in the gallery, it has the side profile of the greatest lawgivers in the history of man. Some are sometimes surprised to see Napoleon, but he gave us the Napoleonic Code. Louisiana still uses that as the basis of its law. There are Popes who were considered great lawgivers of mankind. Some have heard of Hammurabi. We have him up there. The Justinian Code, he's up there. But the only one who is considered a great lawgiver, who does not have a side profile is directly in front of you and above you, Mr. Speaker, because he was considered the greatest human lawgiver. He is faced as a full face, not a side profile, and around which all the other great lawgivers as thought when this Chamber was built, he was thought to be the greatest. He had 10 pretty good ones apparently, and that is the face of Moses. I was noting, as I listened in recent years, to oral argument before the Supreme Court as lawyers argued, including my friend Ted Cruz, who was arguing on behalf of the State of Texas. They were arguing as to why Texas should be allowed to keep a monument on its State capitol grounds to the Ten Commandments. It was combined with a case from Kentucky as to whether or not Kentucky should be allowed to keep a posting of the Ten Commandments publicly posted. As I listened to this great oral debate before the Supreme Court on whether or not there could be a calling out, a noting of the Ten Commandments, and as I looked at the Court, I looked up on the marble wall to my right. There, looking down on us, carved into the marble wall was Moses holding two tablets with Hebrew written on the tablets. I have been told by people who have gotten tours over there--one individual said their official tour guide said Moses is holding the 10 Bill of Rights, but, Mr. Speaker, you and I know those were not the Bill of Rights. Moses was holding and depicted as holding the Ten Commandments. It has been a part of our history. I want to close before we conclude here with the first Thanksgiving proclamation since we had a Constitution. It was written in 1787. It was ratified in 1789. As it says, as it is dated in the year of our Lord, 1787, Washington had a Thanksgiving proclamation that he made October 14, 1789. Mr. Speaker, I will conclude with this before recessing for an official Thanksgiving, the first Thanksgiving proclamation by the Father of our Country, George Washington. Some have tried to rewrite history and say he was a deist. We know a deist is one who thinks there is some force that set things in motion and then lets nature take its course. They believe that if such deity of such force still exists, such force never interferes with the ways of nature or man. That's a deist. George Washington was not a deist. His own words, official as they were, make that very clear. His words, his official proclamation, given the third day of October, A.D., 1789, Washington said: Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits-- That means he is not a deist. He believed God provided this Nation benefits. Washington goes on to say: --and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness. Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being Who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been able to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us. And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our national government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us); and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best. George Washington's official Thanksgiving proclamation, October 14, in the year of our Lord 1789. And as we finish and recess for Thanksgiving, the official day this year proclaimed by this year's President, President Barack Obama, I am, Mr. Speaker, profoundly grateful and, as all these Presidents mentioned, thankful to God for my blessing. I know they're not earned. There was nothing I ever did in the womb to deserve to be born in the greatest country in history, but I was blessed because generations before were blessed, and it is an honor to rise up and call them blessed for the opportunities that were given us through their devotion and thanksgiving and hard work and acknowledgment to God for our blessings. Mr. Speaker, I was blessed with an older sister, whom I love. I'm blessed with two younger brothers, one who died a couple of years ago, and for my youngest brother, Bill, whose birthday we'll celebrate November 17 as a Baptist pastor and my friend. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, violence is continuing to erupt in the Middle East. Unfortunately, it remains true that for every action there is a reaction. So when this administration decided to push its ally, President Mubarak, out of leadership in Egypt, it was assisting in creating instability around our other ally, Israel. And that instability continues to grow. One of the things that was helpful from Egypt while President Mubarak was in charge, at least there were some efforts to restrict the transfer of rockets into the Gaza Strip. So there were some tunnels that would be found. The tunnels had to be kept small, so they were able to get smaller rockets into Gaza. But now that there is a new regime, apparently the bigger rockets are getting into Gaza, and they pose more and more of a threat as they continue to be fired into Israel. The action is not only the fall of an ally, President Mubarak, but the assistance in bringing to power in Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood. They want to see Israel gone, and they would also not mind seeing the United States gone. It's important when formulating foreign policy that the United States, particularly the Obama administration, decide are we going to be assisted with our own personal security here in the United States by the actions that we take, or are the reactions that are going to be caused by our actions actually going to cause greater threats to our closest allies and to ourselves. And, unfortunately, that's what we're seeing. In fact, I saw an article in May of 2010 which indicated that this administration, the Obama administration, sided with Israel's enemies in demanding that Israel disclose any nuclear weapons. We'd never sided with Israel's enemies in trying to push Israel into doing something against its own interests. When you're a very small country surrounded by countries that want to see you go away, it is important that they not know all of your defenses. Going back in the Old Testament, you find history, King Hezekiah showing all of their treasure and all of their defenses. All of their defenses they had in their armory, he showed them to the leaders of Babylon. As a result, ultimately that kingdom was lost to the Babylonians. You don't show other nations, even people you think are friends at the moment; they may turn into enemies. It is important that your enemies, and even your friends, not know all of your defenses. And yet we sided with Israel's enemies, or at least this administration did. The result we saw within 2-3 days, the flotilla head from Turkey to challenge the blockade of the Gaza Strip. It was a legitimate, lawful blockade that was trying to keep rockets out of Gaza that would inflict death and terror upon Israel. A legitimate blockade. The only things being kept out were weapons, rockets, things that would kill the Israelis and terrorize our ally. But that's what happens. You have challenges to a nation when that nation's enemies see their strongest ally pull away and siding with that nation's enemies. That's why it was so important, and I began pushing at that time, to have Prime Minister Netanyahu invited to speak here in this Chamber. And a year later, to his great credit, Speaker Boehner, at the urging of many of us, invited Prime Minister Netanyahu, and he gave the best speech I've heard here in Congress. It helps when a nation's enemy sees their strongest ally siding with them. On the other hand, when a nation's enemies see the strong ally, in this case the United States, turning on an ally, as this administration had with President Mubarak, and helping people who want to see Israel gone from the map take power, it encourages Israel's enemies. This administration also had relations with Qadhafi, who had opened up--he had blood on his hands from prior years, not a good man, but he had opened up his country, abandoned any nuclear weapons pursuit, and become an ally. I have seen individual family members of Muammar Qadhafi here in Washington to meet with administration officials. And then, lo and behold, a year and a half or so ago, this administration sides with the enemies. And at the time we knew al Qaeda was contained within the revolt, and we sided with the al Qaeda-backed revolt to drive out Qadhafi. That appears to have inspired the violence in Tunisia. And so we have seen Israel's enemies and our own enemies actually grow in strength--Tunisia, Libya, Egypt--coming on to surround Israel, and any threat to Western values that are found in Israel is a threat to our own existence. And it's important that someone in this administration make repeated note of that because the result here recently has been further violence to our friend and ally, Israel. So we have this report, November 15, 2012, three people were killed as rockets fired from Gaza struck southern Israel escalating violence. They died when a four-story building in the town of Kiryat Malachi was hit. There had been about 200 rockets fired into Israel. Israel's Iron Dome was able to intercept many of them, but couldn't possibly intercept as many as 200. ``Hamas' political leader Khaled Mashaal vowed to continue the `resistance' against Israel,'' Reuters news agency reported. This ``resistance'' is just another word for ``violence.'' They're inflicting violence on Israel and then turning around and blaming Israel for defending itself and trying to continue to grow world opinion against the tiny nation of Israel when it's not Israel that is demanding the total annihilation of its enemies in surrounding countries. They just want to live in peaceful coexistence. But this administration has helped its enemies take over the countries surrounding it. And now we're aware of enemies coming into Jordan, beginning to incite a potential revolt there against another ally who must wonder is this administration going to turn on him next. King Abdullah has not been someone with whom we've agreed on all things, but he has kept a relatively very peaceful border with Israel. So necessarily he would wonder, Because I've kept the peace with Israel on their border, am I going to be targeted next? And the answer needs to come very loudly and very clearly--and it doesn't seem to be much of a muffle at all--that we support those who will prevent violence against Israel, against their Western values, against their desire to just live in peace and be left alone. And yet we've helped their enemies build violence and potential for more violence around it. This story from Sky News reported that the rockets hit near Tel Aviv deeper into Israel. Palestinian militants target Israel with nearly 150 rockets, striking the outskirts of Tel Aviv as Israel continues airstrikes. And there has been a problem: Since this administration helped create the environment in north Africa and in the Middle East where those who want to see Israel destroyed could take power, more violence has occurred, not less; more people's lives are in danger, not less. There's less freedom of worship, not more. The things that we believe in--freedom of worship of all people or no worship if people choose not to worship--these kinds of things should be kept inviolate. And yet we've seen, as this Nation took over Afghanistan, more Americans have died in about half the time under Commander in Chief Obama as died during the 7 years and 3 months under President Bush in Afghanistan, American military. Over 70 percent of those killed in Afghanistan have been under Commander Obama in about half the time. We've seen violence escalating against Americans in Afghanistan. We've seen the last Christian church, public Christian church pull out of Afghanistan. This administration should be encouraging freedom of worship, encouraging the liberation of women, of children. And yet for all its help, it's created environments in Libya, in Egypt, in Afghanistan, in Iraq where there is more and more violence, more and more oppression against women, against children, against Christians, against Jews, against anyone who wants to worship other than in a radical Islamist way. Sometimes we wonder who's in charge in this administration because somebody's got to figure it out. So I was glad to hear President Obama say yesterday, Don't be accusing Ambassador Rice of going out and lying. And we know that something is not a lie unless somebody knows that it's not true when they say it. The President apparently indicated that she was given the information that was untrue, to go out and spread those untruths. And if she didn't know that the statements she was told by the White House to go out and tell were not truths, then she was not lying. And she should be given credit for not lying if she didn't know those untruths she was telling were not true. But then it raises more and more questions. You know, who is in charge there? Woodward's book raises the issue of the President coming to meetings over crises and not even knowing who's going to be coming to brief him on things; whereas, a strong leader would come in and, I want to hear from this person, this person, this person. Who's making the decisions? Who does know what's true and not true in this administration? Who can we depend on at 3 in the morning when we have public servants who have been sent into harm's way to do this administration's bidding, who is going to answer that phone and say, The people that we ordered into harm's way on our behalf are in trouble? Right now, get them all the help we can give them. Who's going to answer that call? Why does it take 8 hours to get the people ordered into harm's way some help? We're stronger than that. We've got vehicles, planes, things that can get there faster. So why are people trying to cover up who makes those decisions? Who decides not to help the people we have in harm's way? And if we don't figure that out, how can we expect anybody to ever come forward and sign up to put their lives on the line for their country? We have the greatest military in the history of this country. The men and women who have served this country throughout our history have been extraordinary, but never with the power and the ability of the military that we have now. It's extraordinary. But when this administration creates rules of engagement that even go one step worse than telling our people, When you're fired on, you can defend yourself, but if you're not fired on and somebody raises a weapon and they're going to shoot at you, they look like they're going to shoot at you, you have got to wait to make sure they're going to shoot at you before you shoot back, that's the kind of impression our military has gotten in the field in the past. But as I've talked to military members in Afghanistan, it's their impression that the rules of engagement are such that now when they're fired at, they can't fire back if they think there might be a civilian somewhere that might get hit, because if they do and they hit a civilian, even defending themselves in what in America would be self- defense, sent into harm's way might get them sent to prison when they get home. So they are tasked with an unenviable position of deciding, Do I want to defend myself against death and risk going to prison when I get home, being jailed by the country that I'm trying to defend, to serve? We've got to get some answers of who's making the decisions that are getting our military killed, that have gotten an Ambassador killed, that got two former SEALs killed. We have got to get some answers. Who's covering this stuff up? Somebody is. We can't get the story straight. General Petraeus is supposed to appear tomorrow. We need an independent prosecutor to do an investigation, not with the intention, as apparently Fitzgerald had, of ``getting somebody,'' so that he goes into the investigation into whether or not Valerie Plame was outed and he finds out the answer and decides to do what he can to get somebody inside the Bush administration, even though he knew that Scooter Libby was not responsible and was set up. He should have been truthful. You should always be truthful. But the prosecutor was not honorable in the way that that was pursued. If he knew the answer as to who had outed Valerie Plame, that it was not Scooter Libby, it was not Karl Rove, he should have been honorable enough to own up to that instead of asking for more money and trying to set up other individuals. So with those kinds of things going on, it's understandable how people would expect that having an independent counsel might not be a good idea. But when there are clearly conflicts of interest, when you have an FBI that is investigating information that involves the Director of the CIA, when you have an Attorney General that has information that needs to go immediately to the Commander in Chief, to the President of the country, we need to find out, did it go there, and if not why not. And, if so, what in the world is the President doing with this information because now he's saying they didn't get it until after the election. Why so long? Where are the problems here? Why are the stories different? Why are the stories that were told different from the evidence those people had in their hands when they told their stories? The answers need to be found, and there's clearly a conflict of interest. We do not need to return to the days of an FBI Director who investigates, not to report to the Commander in Chief, but to gather information so that he can get it and use it or provide it to someone else who can use it to force people to do what they want. So what happens when an FBI Director comes into office honorably, with the best of intentions, as it appears J. Edgar Hoover did, to battle organized crime that was such a blot on this country. When you're in power too long, as Stalin, who should have known, said, With power dizziness. So there has to be accountability. It's what the Founders had in mind. Checks and balances. We've seen with the Supreme Court's decision in ObamaCare that they're going to allow unconstitutional laws to go forward. They're not going to be the ones to rein in violations of the Constitution that are contained in bad legislation: You guys in Congress need to figure that out. Our Chief Justice punted on that one. So it's back to us. Members of Congress have the purse strings. And if the administration will not properly appoint a special prosecutor to investigate, not with the intent of putting someone in jail but to see if there is something that needs to be prosecuted, if they're not willing to do that, then we need to cut off funds to those areas that are refusing to do justice. Because an Injustice Department should not be funded, at least the parts of it that are doing injustice. There are parts that are serving nobly and well. Fund those parts. We have the power of the purse to check and balance an administration running amok. So when an administration takes actions to make sure that people who are illegally voting have the chance to illegally vote, we need to look at what areas we are funding there. Because if there's a Justice Department that is assisting--complicit--in seeing that people not legally allowed to vote, vote, then we have the power of the purse strings to do something about it, and we should. And if the Senate fails to rein in injustice, they need to be exposed, those who stand in its way. Because that's the great thing about America. When Americans get the truth, they stand on the truth and stand for justice. They always have. But they've got to get the truth. And sometimes these days it's hard to know what's true. When you have an administration sending out different stories, and then we find out that they knew all along that it was a violent, coordinated attack on our Ambassador, that the two former SEALs that were killed were not killed seeking cover, as this administration released that they were. You had one on the top of a building using a machine gun, fighting to the end to protect others. That's not a man seeking cover. That's a man giving cover to others. That's a man laying down his life for his country. And this administration did not serve him as he served it. We need to get to the bottom of what's going on. Whatever it takes, lawfully, ethically, we need to get to the bottom of it. We need to require that if this administration is going to continue getting funding, it better start protecting those who are protecting it. And if that means that in order to protect those who are in harm's way, then let's fund those who are in harm's way protecting us and not fund the rest until they are committed to protecting those of us who are in harm's way. We can do that. Social Security, despite the lies that were told by some in the last couple of years that, oh gee, if there's a shutdown, Social Security recipients, you're not going to get a dime. Garbage. Those are lies. And people need to know if and when those things start getting told, they are lies, whoever would tell them, because the law has been passed previously that if there is a government shutdown, Social Security recipients will get their Social Security checks. They will be coming. Because the money will continue to come in. Just because there has been a government shutdown in the past did not mean that people didn't have to send in their tax payments. They have to come. You commit a crime if you intentionally refuse to pay taxes. So the money comes in. Social Security checks will go out. We've had bills in the past, and we'll have them as soon as we start a new Congress, that will ensure that those Americans who are standing in the gap, who are in harm's way for us, those men and women wearing uniforms, should never have to worry about whether or not their paycheck will be forthcoming; that regardless of what kind of games get played here in Washington, they're going to get paid. They ought to know that. We ought to pass that bill like we have with Social Security to make sure those in harm's way don't have to worry about that. And then the message needs to be loud and clear that an administration that refuses, whether it's intentional or neglect, negligence, that fails to ensure the protection of those protecting us, you're not going to get funded until we get commitments to make sure it's done in the future. And when you obfuscate the truth and you keep us from finding out who made these decisions that got our people killed, what in the heck were they doing over there in the first place? Our embassy's not in Benghazi. What was going on? Who gave the order for Ambassador Stevens to be there in harm's way? Until we can start finding out those answers, it's going to be impossible to make sure that we protect those who are protecting us in the future. And what kind of message does that send to our allies? In Israel, a year ago, a minister told me that they routinely get visits from Chinese diplomats who say: Hey, have you figured out you can't trust the United States yet? Because we'll be your great ally. We'll be a lot better ally than the United States has been. All you've got to do is let us know when you figure it out. You can't trust the United States; they'll break their word, you can't count on them. When you find that out, let us know. We'll keep coming around because you'll find out at some time. Listen, there never needs to be a time again ever when a United States ally is betrayed by the United States. When we make an agreement with an ally, with a friend, that agreement needs to be kept. People need to know that this country keeps its word. Even when it hurts, we keep our word. And that seems to be a problem lately. You want to go back to when America began to grow economically and become a power economically? After the War of 1812 that dragged on for 2 years really destroyed so much, including the fire in this very building--this section was not here yet, but the central part of the Capitol, fires were set. The smaller Federal offices out here in what we now consider the Mall, they were burned. The White House was set on fire--even though the interior was completely destroyed, the exterior shell was left in place. But that also was true of much of the country, devastated. But there were loans that had been taken out by Americans from British banks before the War of 1812. Those in British banks might have suspected that as a result of our war with Great Britain, 1812 to 1814, that at the end of the war we would not pay our debts. But instead what happened, those American forefathers, foremothers, they agreed, look, we made a promise to pay back our loans to the banks in England, we're going to stand good for our word, despite the fact that their country destroyed so much of ours. And it was after the world took note that Americans had such incredible honor, that even after a war with Great Britain they would stand behind their commitments to pay back their loans to the British banks, people said: Wow, this is a country we can do business with, and American economic power began to grow to where it is now the strongest economic power in the world. Now, people are beginning to wonder: Should we end the dollar as an international currency because we're not sure you can trust the United States? It's time people quit wondering whether they can trust the United States. There's only one way that will happen, and that is when we have an administration--and this one's been reelected for 4 years, so it has to be this one--stops playing games, stops covering up truth, stops giving mixed signals, and is forthcoming: Here are our policies; we have made agreements; we stand by our agreements. King Abdullah, we may disagree with you on a bunch of things, but we have agreements, and we will keep our agreements. This administration needs to make those things clear. When someone attacks an ally of ours with whom we have agreements, we stand by our agreements. That's the way you prevent wars. Because what we're seeing right now in Israel, with this enhanced and heightened violence that's beginning to occur, people have seen this administration pulling back from our commitments to Israel. That's the way it appears to Israel's enemies. So of course the rockets have gotten bigger that they've been able to smuggle in and construct there in Gaza. The rockets are flying farther into Israel--right now up to their capital at Tel-Aviv--because this administration has not stood firmly enough with our ally. We need to make that clear. This Secretary of State should not be authorized by the President to tell Egypt, sure, the Muslim Brotherhood appears to be back in charge; sure, Israel is our ally; sure, you want to see Israel wiped off the map; but here's a billion and a half dollars. That's not the message that should be coming. The message that should be coming from this administration is: not one more dime until you start keeping your agreement to protect the border of Israel, not another dime. That ought to be the message. Because Israel is our ally. And if you, Egypt, are going to be our ally, you're going to have to protect our allies as well. That's not an entangling alliance; that's a country that stands by its agreements. Don't make agreements unless we intend to keep them. Yet we've seen this administration repeatedly throw our allies under the proverbial bus. It's got to stop. People have got to know in other countries they can trust our word. And just like the West African told me when I was there 2 years ago, you've got to tell the people in Washington to quit getting weaker. We were so excited when you elected a black President, but we've seen America get weaker. You've got to tell people in Washington to quit letting your country get weaker, because if America grows weak, we have no chance of peace in this life. That was echoed by others, other West Africans. It's time to stop growing weaker. It's time to stop breaking our word to our allies. It's time to make clear to Israel's enemies that Israel is our friend, you better back off or you're going to have us militarily to answer to. Is it any surprise more rockets are flying at Israel? This administration wins 4 more years and the violence just gets greater against Israel, Israel then forced to defend itself when they just want to live in peace. They want the countries around them to stop demanding their obliteration from the map. If the U.N. is going to persist in helping those who want to see a member of the United Nations wiped off the map, then the U.N. does not need to continue to have the United States as a member. That's the way it ought to be. It ought to be clear. We joined the U.N. The U.N. has a charter that will protect its member states. And if you're going to assist those who want to obliterate Israel, then we will no longer be a part of the United Nations because it's not united, it's anti-Semitic. It's not united, and we will not be part of an un-United Nations. It's time to get serious because people are dying around the world, including our own Ambassador. It's time to quit covering for the truth. Let us get down to what the truth is. Let the chips fall where they may. Let us find out who did what wrong so we can correct it for the future. And I hope and pray there was no criminal activity--certainly there was negligence, but you don't know until we get a proper investigation. An Attorney General cannot properly investigate himself. An Attorney General cannot properly investigate his boss. One department, the FBI, cannot properly investigate another agency unless that department's ultimate boss, the President, is aware and coordinates. And now that we know that did not happen--according to the President, he knew nothing. Like Sergeant Schultz from the old Hogan's Heroes, I know nothing, I know nothing, not until after the election. My administration kept me from knowing anything that was going on so I didn't make these decisions, somebody else made those decisions. I didn't know anything until after the election. They kept all this stuff from me, so I had plausible deniability. I didn't know of this stuff. It's time somebody knew, but we're not going to get to the bottom of it until we have an independent investigation by someone with the power to do that properly. And if the executive branch will not do what the Constitution would require in a conflict of interest situation like this, then we need a select committee to do the investigation, get to the bottom of it, just as the Watergate committee did. Let the chips fall where they may, because when people, in government and out of government, see that the government is actually interested in truth, then government gets the truth. People have more faith in the government, and we have a better country. And I hope and pray that day will come. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

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

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, well, my head is spinning a bit after hearing my friends across the aisle. I heard our former Speaker ask about whether we're better off now than we were 4 years ago, and actually ask how can people who perpetuated this economic disaster ask that question. And it was amazing, because former Speaker Pelosi and I were on exactly the same wavelength. She was asking: Are we better off now than we were 4 years ago? And I was thinking the same thing that she was: How could people who perpetuated this economic disaster ask that question? But she asked it anyway. You heard our friends talk about the economic disaster. Some of us remember back into the early point of the 21st century when there was an effort by first-term President Bush, George W. Bush, calling for reform of Fannie and Freddie, and I seem to recall my friend from Massachusetts who resisted such reform. In fact, there were people here on the Democratic side of the aisle that resisted such reform; they prevented such reform. There were Members on the Republican side--not all of them, but there were Members who were calling for reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but it didn't happen. In fact, our friends across the aisle were in control of the House and Senate for 4 years. In 2005 and 2006, as a freshman, I often heard our colleagues across the aisle asking how we could do such a terrible, terrible thing of spending 100 to $200 billion more than we had coming in. And they were right, they were right: we should not have been spending $160 billion more than we had coming in. The Democrats were right. And because Republicans did not stay true to what we had promised--our leadership just wouldn't dig in and stop it, even though we had a Republican President, you know, well, we've got a Republican President, don't want to hurt his feelings--we spent $160 billion more than we had coming in. So, the American public sounded like they weren't thrilled with what they heard from the Democrats, but they figured they'd give them a chance. So, November 2006, Democrats--who had promised to end the deficit spending--took over and the deficit spending, rather than coming under control, went out of sight. They passed the Dodd-Frank bill. It has historic overregulation of community banks. Now, why would a group who is so upset with Wall Street pass legislation that devastates community banks that are closest to the community, know the borrowers the best, that have been the real foundation of this country? Why would they strangle out community banks with this massive overregulation that really doesn't hurt the massive, big banks? Well, someone said years ago, follow the money. And if you look at the money that has been contributed to campaigns for many years, you find out that the Wall Street executives and their immediate family normally donate about four times more to Democrats than they do to Republicans. Now, the Wall Street executives have to endure being called fat cats by a Democratic President, but they know, perhaps it's a wink and a nod, I'll call you fat cats, but I'm going to destroy your competition. We'll get rid of community banks. We'll strangle them with overregulation. They can't make loans. We'll threaten them through the FDIC and the regulators to prevent them from making loans that they know are to good, reliable people who have never missed a payment. We'll threaten them not to do that, and we'll choke them out. And the only people to be left are the big investment banks on Wall Street that got us into the big mess in the first place. So if you follow the money and you follow the contributions, you find out, gee, Democrats talk about Wall Street as if they're Republicans, but there are four times more Democrats on Wall Street as executives than there are Republicans. What a shock. Because they talk a good game, I thought for so long that Wall Street executives must be Republicans, the way the Democrats talk. Not so. President Obama got four times more contributions from executives and their immediate family than did a guy named John McCain. So, we look on further. What about jobs? How about when we have a disaster, by British Petroleum, who has been allowed to operate in the gulf coast with 800 or so egregious safety violations, but that's okay. According to the Obama administration, they didn't want to step in. I read an account that at the very time Deepwater Horizon had blown out, and this administration, Obama administration, should have been all over them, the executives of British Petroleum were negotiating with the Democrats to be the one big oil company that rolled out support in favor of cap-and-trade. I said I wouldn't use the term ``crap-and-trade'' anymore, so I'll avoid saying that. But they had a big oil company that was willing to come out and support cap-and-trade. So certainly this administration and the Democrats in the House and Senate wouldn't want to do anything too detrimental to British Petroleum because they're going to come out on our side. That meant that they ended up actually believing BP when they said, Oh, we'll get it under control. Well, they didn't get it under control. So then there was this bipartisan group of experts peer-reviewing what was going on in the gulf coast, and they came back with a report that made recommendations of what should be done. One of those recommendations was not to have a moratorium on drilling, not only of the deep water, but also the very shallow water. They didn't recommend it. And yet this administration goes through and changes the report the way it's printed and put out so that it makes it sound like these experts recommended a moratorium. They did not. But that's the way this administration wanted to manipulate what the American public believed so that the President could sign off on a moratorium. Other than those precious lives that were lost and those who were harmed out there on the Deepwater Horizon rig because this administration had allowed them to continue to operate, the biggest damage to the people in the gulf area was from the President's moratorium. There were people who were making $75,000 in salary working on rigs-- and that was the minimum, basically, from what I was told by people that worked on rigs--and that income stopped, and those families had nothing because this President perverted a report into making people believe that it said we should cut off drilling in the gulf coast, and it devastated so many in the gulf coast region. If you want to look at what the President really thinks about big oil companies, it's very similar to what is said and done about Wall Street. They call the Wall Street executives all kinds of names--wink, wink, nod, nod. We're going to pass legislation that eliminates your competition, and then you'll be in charge, and then maybe you can make eight times as many contributions to Democrats as you do to Republicans in both Wall Street and among Big Oil. How would that happen? Well, if you read the bill that President Obama put together--and it was the second American Jobs Act that was filed, because I filed the first one, because he ran around the country for weeks saying, Pass the American Jobs Act. There wasn't one filed. I figure if he's going to run around America saying, Pass the American Jobs Act, there ought to be one. So I put a two-page bill together that would have eliminated the 35 percent tariff we put on every American-made good by any company in America. If we eliminate that 35 percent tariff, also called a corporate tax, you would see companies flocking into America. You would see people with jobs. They wouldn't be standing in line trying to get food stamps, standing in line trying to get more government help. They would have a job and all the pride that comes from that, of doing a good job and making your own money and making your own way. But we have a group in this Congress, in both ends. They're in the majority down in the Senate, in the minority down here; and it's certainly not all of my Democratic friends, but they think the best way to help a country is just to give away more of other people's money. If you look at the President's proposal in his so-called American Jobs Act, he told people, I'm going to just really take after Big Oil. Well, I was one who actually read all 135 or 138 pages, whatever it was, and in the last part is where he got around to Big Oil, except it doesn't hurt Big Oil. It absolutely devastates and would eliminate all the small independent oil companies operating in America. And those small independent oil companies happen to drill and operate nearly 95 percent of all the oil and gas wells in America. He takes away deductions of the normal cost of doing business that anybody in business is allowed to take as a deduction. Why not? It's the cost of doing business. It's not profit. That way, you only tax the profit. And it eliminates deductions that actually do not help big oil companies. They can't take those deductions. Only the small companies can take that deduction. So the President's plan, when you really look at it, instead of looking at what he says, look at what he did. What he did was provide the elimination of the independent oil and gas companies in America. And you don't have to have been to an Ivy League school. In fact, you're better off maybe in figuring this out if you didn't, because he had a Harvard economic advisor at the time. And of course, Art Laffer, I think the world of him. I think he's maybe the best economic advisor any President's ever had, despite his Harvard education. But you don't have to have an Ivy League education to understand that if this President had been successful in eliminating every independent oil and gas company, as his bill would have done, not only will you eliminate millions of jobs, including those who derive jobs from the independent oil and gas business as well as the business itself, not only would you do that, you would eliminate most of the production in America. What does that do? That drives the price of oil and gasoline way up, dramatically up. Natural gas, oil, all of that goes dramatically up, because the major oil companies in the world are not interested in coming in and operating smaller wells. They go for the big ones. That means there is no competition to the massive oil and gas companies in the world. I was shocked to find out in our Natural Resources Committee that, if you look at all of the big oil companies in the world and if you see them listed just by how much they've got in reserves, the American companies like Exxon are way down the list. The biggest oil companies are those operating as single companies in OPEC nations. And what would this President do? He would do what he has done repeatedly--he would help foreign countries. He would help the bigger folks, the bigger oil companies. I'm sure it would have benefited the fat cats, as he calls them, on Wall Street, but it would have put out of business 94, 95 percent of the oil and gas wells in America. That meant everybody's price went up. How sad is it that one of the few promises that he kept--I don't know, it may be the main promise--was to drive up the cost of energy in America. Boy, has he done that. Now, I love having quotes from people who talk about the Congress being the worst Congress that they can recall, especially Republicans, when the body at the other end of the Hall has not fulfilled the obligation that they are required by law to do, and that's to pass a budget. Not in over 3 years. So how are we going to get anything done in Congress? We've got a Senate down there, controlled by Democrats, who say, We're not going to do our job, and we're going to leave over and over on recess, and we're never going to do our job because, if people saw what our budget really is, they'd get mad at us, so we don't want a budget. We just want to keep spending at these ridiculously high levels. If we work through a budget, we might have to do like the House did when they worked through a budget, and we may actually have to cut some things. How incredibly disingenuous for anyone in America to stand up and say, Gee, we really want to bring down our spending, and yet everything they propose, except for the military, creates more spending. How disingenuous for anybody in America who stands up and says, These Republicans want to cut Medicare; they're going to destroy Medicare, if they've been awake during any of the actual bills that have been passed by the Democrats, especially during that whole long ordeal when the Democrats had the House and they had the Senate and they had the White House, and when America made it clear we do not want ObamaCare. They said, We don't care. We want it. It's going to be more government control. It really was about the GRE, the government running everything, not just health care. By the passage of ObamaCare without one single Republican vote--not a one; it was completely done with Democratic votes, this $716 billion in cuts to Medicare--the Democrats voted that in. The Democratic President signed it in. It devastates Medicare more than anything that has ever been done to Medicare, and it was without one single Republican vote. So how in the world could somebody come in here or anywhere and blame Republicans for wanting to cut Medicare? Now, I blame my leadership. Anybody who is around can find it. We should never have agreed with the Democrats to that stupid supercommittee, deficit ceiling bill. We should not have. I was assured, No, no, no. They don't want $300 billion or $400 billion-$500 billion in cuts in Medicare, which would be a sequester. They will come together, and we'll reach an agreement. I pointed out that these are the same people who cut $716 billion out of Medicare in ObamaCare. So, of course. I pointed out, if they don't have this supercommittee structure and refuse to let there be any agreement, then there is no one in the country who can be blamed for cutting Medicare except the Democrats. But if they get this bill passed on the deficit-raising bill and if it requires a supercommittee to reach an agreement--if they can get that through and get us to go along with it, thinking that they're going to actually reach an agreement--then they can stonewall and not reach an agreement no matter what we offer, and then they get a twofer. They get hundreds of billions in cuts to our national security at a time when our national security has not been in this kind of jeopardy since 9/11. Actually, on 9/11 it wasn't in the kind of jeopardy we are in right now, today. Under this administration, we have seen a win in Iraq turned into a loss because of just the total abandonment of what we created in the way of a friend in Iraq. Maliki--now, he's no friend of mine. He says I can't come back in the country. Yet if I put myself in Maliki's situation, who is the leader of Iraq--and I know Obama has said we're leaving and we're not leaving anybody or anything; we're leaving--and if you see America is pulling out and if you see all this radical stuff going on across the border in Iran, well, you realize America is not going to be around to keep any stability, and I'm going to have to start doing what Iran says. So what did we do? We created a country. We had a victory. Even though President Obama, as a Senator, was against the surge, everybody said it worked, that we'd won. Then he pulled us out in such a way that he snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory. Now you've got Iraq that is under heavy influence by Iran. Thank you, President Obama. We've got Syria that is run by a tyrant. Perhaps Syria was the only place we should have intervened, and this President still hasn't gone in and helped there-- oh, no. Because the 57 States that make up the Organization of the Islamic Conference were all for us going into Egypt and going into Libya and taking out two people with whom this administration had agreements. They loved the idea of America taking out and helping take out people that were allies of ours. They loved that. Some of us in this body were saying, Don't do this. We don't know who's going to take over. These could be some radicals who will even empower the radicals more. I mean, you look across at Tunisia and Libya and Egypt and Iraq and Iran and Syria and Lebanon. You look at these countries and come on over to Afghanistan--that this President is losing as we speak--and Pakistan, which has been harming us all they could while still taking our money. Thank you, Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama. You look, and you go, oh, my gosh. This is the makings. This is the massive beginning of a new Ottoman Empire that President Obama can take great credit for. Yes, we're in big trouble here in America, but, wow, look what he has helped do in the Middle East. It's a new Ottoman Empire. Thank you, President Barack Hussein Obama. This will be quite a legacy for you. I'm not one of those who says he is not a Christian. All I know is that's between him and God. What I do know is he has helped jump-start a new Ottoman Empire and left our friend and ally Israel so vulnerable in this sea of radicalism that he has helped bring to the surface. How could any of us who were around in '79 not be reminded of President Carter? He has got to be happy--thank you. Now I'm not the worst President in the world. But at the time, he thought we'll just turn our backs on the Shah--not a nice guy, but he was creating some form of stability. When he was gone, President Carter called Ayatollah Khomeini a man of peace. What a welcome thing. He came in, and he was the supreme leader when our Embassy was attacked, which is an act of war--just as it was in Libya, just like it is in Cairo. It's an act of war. Any commander would make it clear, except President Carter and President Obama, that you've attacked American soil. You've attacked us. Under everybody's form of international law, you either straighten it out, or we're coming in because we have a right under international law to protect ourselves, and if it means taking your government out because of what you've done or have allowed to be done or have helped foment, then we do it. In Egypt, this administration helped bring about what they thought would be a great thing, an Arab Spring. It's turned into an American winter. At the same time, this administration was blessing and loving the Occupy Wall Street movement, even though they were clearly a bunch of Democrats, a bunch of kids with iPads, iPhones out there. There was rape, drugs, all kinds of illegality and immorality out there abounding. This administration is saying this is a good thing. You see the signs all over the place. Let me show you. At the Occupy movement, you would see signs like this: ACAB, all cops are--some people said ``bad,'' but I've been corrected. The B stands for something to do with fatherless children. ACAB, that's at the Occupy Oakland movement. You can look at pictures and see all these Occupy movements and see ACAB everywhere. Well, I was a little shocked when my staff points out, Look at that. This was on a wall in Egypt, and I need somebody to explain how, among all this Arabic writing by the radicals that have charged our Embassy in Egypt, how in the middle of all this Arabic do we get ACAB? Who's doing that? There were rumors of some type of collusion, but who among those radicals in Egypt is writing ACAB, which is what you see at all the Occupy movements in America? Somebody has got some explaining to do, I would think, but not to this administration, because this administration thinks both the Occupy movement and the Arab Spring are a great thing, even though it's brought to power radicals who want to destroy America, who want to destroy Israel. How frustrating for our friend Israel. When we had friends come in here in the last hour, they were talking about Fannie and Freddie. On a personal basis, I like Barney Frank. He is a brilliant guy. But it's not that hard to go back and find quotes from him about the wonderful condition that Fannie and Freddie were in, and it's not hard to find people here on Capitol Hill that can explain how he stood in the way of the reforms that some here on Capitol Hill wanted to do. We also heard from him that in 2010, that there was a bunch elected that don't understand Congress and a free society. They were called ``extremists.'' These freshmen that came in saying, You know what? Everybody should pay their fair share. It shouldn't be 51 percent of Americans paying for everybody else just because Democrats want to keep people beholden to them so they'll keep voting for them. Once they get more than half of all the voters who are getting more than they're putting in, we've lost the country. It will be in complete demise. It may be 10 years or so, but once we get to that point, historically, you do not get that country back. We would not either, absent a miracle of God. We were told during the conventions that the Republicans do not have a franchise on God. Everybody at the Democratic convention was saying, We love God; we worship God; we love Israel; we like Jerusalem as a capital. We heard all this stuff until there was a vote, and, holy cow, we saw plain and clear that everybody in the Democratic convention does not want God mentioned. They don't want to hear about God. They don't want to hear about Jerusalem being the capital of Israel. They don't want it. They apparently side more with the Palestinians than they do those who were possessing and in that land 1,600 years before there was a man ever talked about named Muhammad is all you can figure. King David was there in Hebron, which now we're told, Oh, do the Israelis have history in this land? It's where David ruled for 7 years, about 16 to 17 centuries before anybody had ever heard of Muhammad. How would they not have a history in that land? I was talking to Prime Minister Netanyahu about the history in the land. He mentioned the story of Ben-Gurion, who led the ragtag forces to fight their way back to Jerusalem after overwhelming forces had driven them out. The story was--and this was the first I had heard it, was when the Prime Minister mentioned it to me, but I've heard it a number of times since. He said Ben Gurion was challenged with, What is your voucher for claiming this land? And Prime Minister Netanyahu used the word, ``Bible.'' I'm sure it was a Torah. He said that Ben Gurion held up a Bible and yelled, This is my voucher. Do they have a history in the land? How blind do you have to be to not see it? With cap-and-trade legislation, thankfully, we had just a handful of enough friends on the Democratic side of the aisle that we were able to stop that, or it would have tripled or quadrupled the price of gasoline. It would have devastated industry. Industry would have had to leave in even bigger numbers from this country. We were told about the Bush stimulus, that they got bipartisan votes on the Bush stimulus. I guess so. Any time either party talks about giving away other people's money, we're going to get a bunch of Democrats to go along with the Republicans that mistakenly agree to that. While standing right here in this aisle as he came by, I asked President Bush a question. We had found out that $40 billion of the $160 billion Bush stimulus was going to go to people as rebates, even though they didn't pay an income tax. Standing right up there, that's when I asked the question: Mr. President, how do you give a rebate to somebody that didn't put any bait in? It's not a rebate. It's welfare. Call it what it is. My friends across the aisle in the last hour said they couldn't even get 100 votes to support President Bush's effort to save the economy. He's talking about TARP. I would have supported President Bush's efforts to save the economy, but unfortunately that really good man, smarter than most people around here give him credit for, witty, clever, just a joy to be around, but the problem there was he listened to Hank Paulson and his cronies who were going to bail out their buddies who give four to one to Democrats over Republicans. That's what happened. Paulson did get his way, but we didn't have 100 people on the Republican side of the aisle vote for that because there was a former FDIC Chair named Isaac. He and a bunch of economists had some recommendations. These were free market recommendations. The projection was even then that we have at least $700 billion in banks overseas that American companies and American individuals had earned overseas. They know that if they bring it into the U.S., they'll have to pay 40 to 50 percent tax with all of the interest and penalties, so they just leave it in banks overseas. They'd love to bring it in here, but we're the only country that double taxes because we don't let people bring in money without hammering the heck out of them, even though they've done a favor, done a good thing and earned money overseas that they'd like to bring here into America. Proposal-wise, all you have to do is say that instead of borrowing 41 cents to 42 cents out of every dollar and coming up with $700 billion to give away to Hank Paulson so he can enrich his friends under that bill--I read it. It was a disaster. I couldn't vote for that, because I read it. It would let him give money to anybody he wants to, loan money to whoever he wants to, pay more than fair market value if, in his mind somehow, some way, some day, it might have some possible way of helping our economy. We don't do that in America, and that bill did it. That's why you didn't have 100 votes on this Republican side of the aisle for it. Our leadership made a mistake in supporting it on that Friday. I just call them like I see them. That was a mistake, but that's where we are. We heard, in the last hour, about Republicans who say my way or the highway. Are you kidding me? We reached across the aisle during ObamaCare, saying, look, there's a bunch of these things we can agree on, insurance for people in your household under 26. We could do it for insurance across State lines. There were a number of things we could agree on. Insurance companies shouldn't be able to punish people for having a preexisting condition when the insured has acted in good faith all along the way and the insurer messes them around. We were willing to work things out. They said, we've got the votes. We don't need your votes, we don't want them. Well, the truth is we want Democratic votes on the Republican side, but we don't want to keep taking other people's money to give it away. I have heard in here so many times, well, you know, Jesus talked about helping other people, the orphans and widows. Well, a lot of us belong to churches, and we believe in doing that, that that is what Jesus said to do. But I can't find anywhere in the Bible where it says, go ye, therefore, take somebody else's money--because you don't want to do your own--take somebody else's money and help the widows and orphans and other people. He said you do it, you help them. When you do that, I can personally tell you, when you do that you're individually blessed. That's why Jesus said he knew it would bless the giver more even than the one who received the gift. In fact, you want a real example, what did Zacchaeus do after he met Jesus? He went and cut taxes. We don't even have to get into the fact that he was going to give a 4-1 rebate, did, to the people that he had wronged. You don't hear that around here. To continue to hear our friends talk about ending Medicare as we know it, that disastrous ObamaCare bill will end Medicare forever when you cut $716 billion. When you create this ObamaCare monstrosity, it's a government takeover of so many things, and it's disastrous. Yes, we're having to leave here, and I'm not happy about it. I didn't want another CR passed. We should have demanded that this Democratic majority at the other end of the hall stick around until they got a budget as the law requires them to do and don't leave until you do it, and let's stay here and get it. I can promise my friends across the aisle that all we have to hear is any inclination that the Democrats, controlled by Harry Reid in the Senate, as dictated by President Obama down Pennsylvania Avenue, if they want to work a budget out together, and we can work these things out together, we will come back in a heartbeat. We will be ready to go. We saw with that supercommittee, just as I predicted in July of last year, they didn't want an agreement. Apparently my friends who were talking in the last hour didn't know, but Pat Toomey and some others made a proposal that would have caused more taxes to have to be paid by the wealthiest in the Nation. The top 1 percent paid 39 percent of the taxes. Well, if they get 39 percent of the income they should, but they only get 13 percent of the income. They wanted them to pay more. There was a proposal in good faith by Republicans, we'll raise revenue, and it was reported here locally that, gee, some of the Democrats said, you know, this may do the trick. We may get to an agreement now. This is great. Thanks for doing this. Since you're willing to raise revenue on the rich, we can reach an agreement. Then they go away, and they must have talked to Harry Reid and President Obama, and you can see the game playing. You have got to go back and tell them we're not going to reach an agreement because our best hope for winning the Presidency again and having control in the Senate is if we tell America the Republicans won't reach an agreement, they are a do-nothing group. I hope and pray people will look beyond that and see who really is the do-nothing. We have got jobs bills down the hall. This ought to be a day of renaissance. This ought to be a day when the economy is booming. We now know we could be exporters of energy. We could be energy independent and export energy. But this President has a war against all of the below--that means all of the energy below the ground--that we could be using and exporting. He has got a war against it. All he is in favor of--as he said, he is for all of the above--that means wind and solar. Well, guess what? The sun doesn't always shine, the wind doesn't always blow. So if that's what you want for energy it means you are going to have a coal plant, a natural gas plant, something, a hydroelectric plant, and then you are going to have two or three times as many transmission lines. When you mandate wind and solar, and they don't provide energy all the time, they can't, then you are going to have a source from somewhere. Now we are doubling and tripling and going to force the price of energy to go up because we're going to demand Solyndras and that kind of thing so this administration can reward their cronies. We're at trouble within and without. I just want to remind my friends, this was reported in The New York Times, December 9, 2008, ``5 Charged in 9/11 Attacks Seek to Plead Guilty": At the start of what had been listed as routine proceedings Monday, Judge Henley said he had received a written statement from the five men dated November 4 saying they planned to stop filing legal motions and ``to announce our confessions to plea in full.'' They were pleading guilty. We got the transcript. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed admitted guilt. He admitted. He confessed to all kinds of heinous kinds. Then this administration, President Obama and Eric Holder announced they want a New York City show trial that would have endangered New York yet again, as if they hadn't had enough trauma, and would have put a trial in there. Immediately these guys withdraw their plea. We're not going to plead guilty, we can get a show trial in New York. These guys who are running things here don't know what they're doing. What a disaster that would have been. As far as the great contribution, the great work that's being done in Afghanistan, we took a war where we were making progress, and here are the actual DOD numbers. You see that under Commander in Chief Bush there were 625 Americans, our precious, priceless men and women, who were killed from October of 2001 to the end of 2008, 625 precious lives. Bush goes out, President Obama comes in, January of 2009, and by the end of August there had been a subtotal of 1,474 additional American men and women killed under Commander Obama. Not only that, 14,817 people had been wounded, Americans had been wounded, lose arms, lose legs, disastrous disabilities, under Commander Obama as compared to the 2,638 terrible wounds that were inflicted on Americans under Commander Bush. Our President has been in command of 70 percent of the deaths in Afghanistan, though he has been commanding half the time, and has 84 percent of the wounds. The parents of one of the SEAL Team 6 that was killed on the Chinook August 6 of 2011, they were in the briefing. They have said this publicly, that's why I will say it again. One of the parents asked, ``If this was so terrible, this was such a hotbed, you knew it was a hotbed, a lot of aircraft, American aircraft have been fired on recently, why would you allow this Chinook to go in? Why wouldn't you send in a drone?'' The answer from the general who was doing the briefing, they said was, because we're trying to win the hearts and minds in Afghanistan. You're letting our SEAL team be killed when you are trying to win the hearts and minds? That's not the job of the military. The military's job is to go in, defeat an enemy, and come out, and we've got to get back to that. This President has presided over 70 percent of the deaths in Afghanistan, a disastrous job. It's time to bring the President home, as well as bringing our military home. We could just say what President Bush did in October of 2001. We are going to provide embedded troops. We are going to let the enemy of our enemy be our friend. Not to this administration; they are the enemy. The enemy of our enemy is our enemy to Obama. But I have met with them a couple of times this year. They are our friends. They're Muslim. They're our friends. They don't want to live under the tyrannical rule of the Taliban. And they're willing to fight, as they have, and die with Americans for that freedom. And so we don't let a renegade group like the Taliban that wants to destroy America be out. Make no mistake, the Blind Sheik was the object of release by a candidate named Morsi in Egypt. He said, I want the Blind Sheik released. When I'm elected president, I'm going to demand and I'm going to get it. Just a day before 9/11 this year, last week, you had the brother of the al Qaeda leader, Zawahiri, saying he was ready to broker a deal that would prevent lots of violence. He also knew the day before that there was an obscure video nobody had ever seen and wasn't going to inflame anybody, but he knew that his buddies, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian Government, the Egyptian television stations would convert that, translate that into a language that they would inflame people that they would do violence in the Middle East. And they did. The second day of that broadcasting here is Zawahiri saying, Hey, I can broker a deal. Just release the Blind Sheik, some other murdering thugs, and we'll work a deal out. This administration has offered to release other murdering thugs of the Taliban and to buy them an office in Qatar if they'll just sit down and talk. That's not the way you do foreign diplomacy. You reward our friends so others want to be our friends and you punish our enemies so they don't want to be our enemies. This President has it backwards. He said, They'll look at me different because I'm the first President to have ever grown up in a Muslim country--the years he spent in Indonesia. Well, I wonder if that might be true. Maybe they will. Maybe they'll want to be friends. Well, the proof is in. The approval rating of the United States in those Muslim countries where we've been was 33 percent--which was terrible--under President Bush in 2008. And now under this President we see a report it's now 15 percent, under this guy who was going to be our President and the Muslim countries would love us. They don't. Because in Muslim countries the real people, the people that we really need to reach out to, not the leaders that hate us and want to destroy us but the real people, they respect a country who understands who's their enemy and who's their friend. They have no respect for a country that tries to do what would be the equivalent of a child--and I've been there on the schoolyard, picked on by bullies. I was little growing up. But I can tell you, I had my nose bloodied many a time. You don't win respect nor love from a bully by giving him your lunch money or begging him to be nice to you. Not only do they not love you, not respect you; they gain even more contempt for you. And that's what we're seeing happen. This President is trying to buy affection from people who were bullies, who are radical Islamists that want to destroy us. You're not going to get love and affection. You get contempt. It helps other people join in the fight against us. This President is doing great damage to us. And it's time to bring his Presidency to a peaceful, law- abiding end with the election. Things look tragic around the world unless we have a new Commander in Chief and a new leader who wants to rein in the spending. And one thing I'll promise my colleagues across the aisle, if you want to go back to that runaway spending that was too much in 2008, that Speaker Pelosi presided over and Harry Reid had in the Senate and that ended in the last day of September, you want to go right back to that total amount being spent, I'm with you. I'll vote. I'll do it bipartisan and I'll bring a bunch of people with us and we'll bring down a trillion dollars a year in spending. How about that? That's pretty bipartisan, isn't it? Go back to a Democratic budget of 2008. Well, I offer that. Let's see how many Democrats are bipartisan enough to take us up on it. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

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

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Madam Speaker. The things that are going on right now in the world are deeply troubling. For those of us who have studied history, it becomes even more disturbing when we make the same mistakes again, mistakes that get people killed who have entrusted their lives to their government, who say, I'm willing to lay down my life for you. I give my life in service to you. As some of the military, some of our outstanding military in Afghanistan this year have told me sincerely, I'm willing to lay down my life for my country. Please don't waste my life. The decisions of a President who has never really gotten involved in foreign affairs, his experience before coming into public office is as a community organizer. That can be fine if you adequately study history and really understand, not from the standpoint of an Indonesian school child and the limited viewpoint that that may yield, but from the standpoint of someone who has studied history inside and out and understands such things as the axiom that when a nation's enemies see that nation's strongest ally or allies pulling away from it, that's when they move. The old axiom that among nations, weakness is provocative. Two years ago, I'd seen an article, and this may have been the one I'd seen because the title is ``Obama votes against Israel.'' This is an article dated May 29, 2010. And it points out in the article that the White House sided with Israel's enemies, something that this Nation didn't normally do, and basically demanding that Israel disclose all their nukes. Well, those who study the Bible, biblical history, may recall that King Hezekiah was a very good king in Israel, and things went pretty well, but Isaiah was sent to confront Hezekiah about what he had done with visitors who had come from Babylon. God knew what had been done. But Isaiah asked and Hezekiah explained, and this is the New Texas Paraphrase Version, but in essence he said, You know, all of these wonderful leaders came over from Babylon, so I showed them all of our treasure, and if you get into the strict interpretations, the translation, he basically says, I showed them our armory, all of our defenses. Isaiah points out, You fool. You're going to lose the country because you've done this. No matter what point in history you are, when a nation shows all its defenses to its enemies, that information at some point in time will be used to take down such a foolish nation. Even when a nation discloses all of their defenses to friends, to staunch allies--because as we've seen, we thought the U.S. had an ally in Castro in Cuba, and yet once he was in power, he turned rather remarkably against the United States. Those things happen. Power changes in different countries; and if they have information, if they have weaponry, if they have the wherewithal, then sometimes a former friend can turn into an enemy. So it was no surprise to me, being a student of history, that when it came out through the media that, gee, the Obama administration has taken a shocking position when looked at historically against Israel's well-being, then was it a shock that the flotilla left within only mere days to go challenge the blockade at the Gaza Strip? Nobody should have been surprised by that because the world, Israel's enemies, had been shown that this administration was willing to pander to Israel's enemies to try to make Israel's enemies think, you know, hey, we're one of you guys. We're just friends. We want to be friends with everybody. It doesn't work that way. You don't throw your friends under the bus, and you don't gain friends by paying off enemies. It has never worked. It will never work. It gets people killed. So Israel's been in a bit of a bind. When we see the way this fiasco over the last year and a half has been handled, some might say, look, this is no time to be talking about these things. For goodness sake, decisions are being made as I speak that will either let people live or get people killed. If we don't talk about it now, when will we talk about it? Let the historians write that nobody would stand up and say this is a mistake? Let's don't repeat the terrible chapters of history. Let's get it right. All of us who served in the United States armed services took an oath and had it cross our mind, you know, the time may come where I do have to lay down my life for my country. But after I had a soldier say that in Afghanistan, I had to realize, you know, I had that in the back of my mind. I'm willing to lay down my life. I hope it doesn't get wasted. Well, the thing is every American that has laid down their lives for their country didn't do it for this administration or any other. There are ideals that this country was founded on and stands for even now. But we're in the midst of a crisis, and part of it created by our own mishandling, and we have got to make sure that we do not continue to make the same mistakes and continue to pander to our enemies and continue to provoke them by showing weakness. We owe the lives that have been laid down that are even now coming, being brought back into this country. We owe them an obligation to make sure that others do not lose their lives unless it really counts. I come over here nauseated today upon hearing reports about--and I pray God they're not accurate--about what may have happened during the 8 hours or so the body of our great ambassador was missing. But, we also know, well, gee, the Embassy in Cairo released a statement and they were basically condemning anybody that would produce a provocative film that might offend Muslims. Good grief. How many movies have been produced that provoke and insult those of us who are Christians? Thank God that most of us, as Christians, understand that that does not justify going and killing people and burning people and burning up buildings. We understand that we believe in freedom of speech, that God gave us freedom to make choices. So in the most ideal country, others will have freedom to choose right and freedom to choose wrong. But if it's too wrong, we have criminal laws, domestically, to deal with those issues. But you would hope someone, before any further action is taken to condemn Americans for using freedom of speech here, would analyze the situation--as they did not before they first condemned and even had a general officer of our military call and ask about maybe not producing a film, not pushing it out there, whatever it was he asked: Don't use your First Amendment rights that I'm supposed to be fighting for you to have. Don't use those. That will make my job easier. Well, actually, the general doesn't know, it makes it more difficult. Let's look at this. Let's analyze it a moment. A friend, Patrick Poole, asked a question that made me start asking questions. Let's look at it. We heard about this film that all of a sudden on 9/11--shouldn't that ring a bell--on 9/11 provoked riots. It provoked people in Cairo climbing up the walls of our Embassy. And it's easy to watch these things happen. You know historically that people will push the envelope, and these people did in Cairo: Well, I wonder if the soldiers will stop us if we go up to the wall. And maybe they go up and spray-paint on the wall: Ooh, nobody stopped us from there. How about if we climb on the wall? Well, no soldiers. They watched. They didn't do anything; they just watched. Oh, let's push it a little further. Let's climb up the walls. Wow, we're up here on top of the walls and these soldiers that are supposed to protect the Embassy have done nothing. Let's take down the American flag; that's always popular here. Let's run up an al Qaeda-type flag. And nothing was done. That is provocative in its weakness. Now, this film is still a mystery. It should make people go: Wait a minute. This doesn't make sense that all of a sudden this film provoked nations of people, masses of people to come out and riot and it would cause them to kill an Ambassador and innocent people, this film. Let's look at this a little more carefully. Then you find a story that it actually turns out there's a report that this movie came out in July. So a movie that nobody notices, nobody pays any attention to comes out in July. Well, if this ridiculous movie, this insulting movie that insults Muslims, we're told--I haven't seen it, don't plan to--but it came out in July, how on 9/11, all of a sudden, does this movie cause people to be killed? I would humbly submit that a lesson to learn here is that when American citizens utilize their free speech rights, their freedoms of religion, that the President and everyone under his command is not to direct that people can't use their freedom of speech and freedom of religion; they're to protect them. The messages that should come out from an administration are not: Don't use your freedom of speech and freedom of religion because we don't want to offend anyone. I'm offended all the time. You don't go kill people because of it. Although it's not recognized under shari'a law, under Western law in a Western civilization--we dealt with this all the time in the court over which I was a judge--provoking words, no matter how insulting, provoking words are never a defense to a physical assault, much less murder. That's what we believe in this country. That's what Western civilizations believe. We should be defending that civilized concept, not pandering to people who are being inflamed by our enemies. So then we find out that the inflammation of people who would kill American citizens and an American Ambassador were inflamed by this film that came out in July, but it was not until it was released through the Egyptian media that it started firing people up. Wow, isn't that remarkable? Right before 9/11. Well, now, if it's an insulting movie-- and from the information we have, the Muslim Brotherhood is basically in control in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood basically could shut down any Egyptian media source, but yet they produce or they get this information, they get the film out. Not only that, because there are some Muslims that may not speak English that might be inflamed into a fire that will burn down buildings and kill people, we'd better interpret that into their language. Gee, why would a foreign country--who this President says has been our ally, and then he said they're not our ally, but they're not our enemy, and then we hear, well, actually, we do consider them an ally. Whatever they are, a friend does not take some obscure film that nobody noticed, interpret it into a language that it knows will inflame people who will kill Americans and put it out there. That's not a friend. That's an enemy of the United States of America. And it is an insult to this government and to the American people that this body would vote for a continuing resolution that allowed the potential for more money to go to enemies that would put out films that will inflame people, that get Americans killed. We owe those who have given their lives better than this, and we owe those who are serving us abroad and serving here at home and may be sent better than this. So there are those who may say we should not be talking about this. If we don't talk about it now, others may give their lives. Let's save their lives for something more important than a mistake by an administration. Our Ambassador to Libya is a hero. I've been to too many funerals of brave men and women who have given their lives for this country. So when I read a report or a media source that discloses the name of a former SEAL team member who is acting as private security at our facility in Libya and the report is--doesn't put it in quotes, but the report says that the administration released the information that this former SEAL member was killed while running for cover. Now, I recognize that there are enough in the mainstream media who are so loyal, they take their marching orders--they may not lay down their lives, but they will lay down their reputations for this administration. Somebody may be willing to come forward and say, You know what? It's not exactly what the administration said. Maybe we misinterpreted that in the story. It doesn't matter. The story came out, and the administration owes those who have given their lives for this administration better than that. Because I can guarantee you, I know enough SEAL members and I know enough SEAL team members that that SEAL team member was not running for cover when he was killed. If he was running, it was to get to a place from which he could conduct a better assault upon the enemy. That's the way they think. They don't think, ``Run for cover.'' They think, ``Where can I get to the best position to fight, to save those entrusted to my care?'' That's an insult, and I hope I never see another report like that from this administration or any Republican administration, because it's an insult and we owe better than that to those who are fighting for us. Who made the decision in the Egyptian Government, in the Egyptian media to take this July obscure, and from what we hear, pitifully made film and blow it up in the Middle East, figuratively speaking-- figuratively speaking, blow it up in the Middle East--so that people who heard it and saw it would blow up Americans? Who made that decision? And who made the decision--we need to know-- who made the decision to release a statement that was provocative in its weakness in saying, you know what, people over here are getting upset because some idiot made a film back in the United States, and so we need to be sure not to insult Muslims. When have I ever seen anything from this administration say, you know what, we need to not make films in Hollywood that insult Christians, people like Mother Teresa, that deserve better treatment than that. When have I seen that? We haven't, because this has been, in the past, a free country, where we have freedom of speech and freedom to make stupid, ridiculous, insulting movies. But the obscure film this State Department apologized for had to be translated. It was translated by somebody. It had to be put on Egyptian television by somebody. Who could that have been? And I would submit that until we find out, there should not be a dime of American money nor money that Americans have had to borrow in order to send to Egypt. It shouldn't go over there. It shouldn't go to Libya. And it's time we wake up and quit playing stupid, silly games like this administration is doing with our dear friend, Israel, and understand decisions have consequences. And when this administration sided with Israel's enemies in May of 2010, it had consequences. People were hurt. People were killed. When this administration, perhaps pouting, whatever the reason, well, I'm going to--and Beyonce, Jay-Z, I understand they're fantastic entertainers. But you've got a country named Israel that has been a friend, that has enemies at the gate, and there's not a better way to say it. While we are pandering and playing and actually trying to make our enemies like us by offering to buy them offices in Qatar, to let their murdering thugs out so they can murder again, while we're playing these games thinking, gee, maybe our enemy will start liking us, the enemy is at the gate. And those centrifuges that are spinning in Iran are a modern-day mass of gas chambers that are being constructed for Israelis and for Americans. Read what their leaders have said. Listen to what their leaders have said. There's one way to stop them, that is, to be serious that we will take out anyone who wants to annihilate Americans or America. And when they know we're serious, we may not have to go do it. But it cannot be a bluff. People need to know the American people will not allow innocent American citizens to be target practice. And for those who do not know enough history to know that in the song that our marines are so proud of, that I, as a grade school child, learned to sing in public school, to the shores of Tripoli, marines have been fighting our country's battles. Those shores of Tripoli came when the Muslim Barbary pirates were attacking American ships. And at that early time in our history, we didn't have a navy. Earlier we did not have marines. And it was flabbergasting to people like Thomas Jefferson who were sent over there to negotiate. Why in the world would you attack Americans? We've never attacked you. You ought to look at us as peace-loving. And it was a shock when they were told that actually, under our religion, we believe that if we die while attacking infidels, which we consider you to be, we go straight to paradise. Jefferson and others were shocked. This doesn't mesh with most world religions. What religion would think it okay where actually you would get to paradise by killing innocent people? Thank God that the vast majority of Muslims don't believe that. But it is pure folly to ignore those that do. We owe those who serve the United States of America better than this. And to those who would say this is a political season, we should not be talking about anything but jobs, I would say before this economy can thrive, we have got to fulfill our oath to provide for the common defense because an economy won't last much longer if we don't protect those who are Americans here and abroad. I pray for the wisdom of President Obama, for the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for those who are serving abroad these United States of America, and for our leaders in Congress, that though we are so close to an election, what will matter more is the fulfillment of our oath and the protection, as best we can, of those who are trying to protect us. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

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

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, in the summer of 1973, it was a real honor for me to be selected to go on an exchange program. Of course I had to borrow the money to go and had to pay that back by working hard to take care of the loan, but I went on an exchange program to the Soviet Union, 1973, that summer. It was quite an eye-opener for me. Despite how wonderful the country was made to sound and how great it was that the government, they proclaimed, was the safety net for everybody in the country, they were proclaiming because the government was in charge of everything and in charge of everybody's business, there was 100 percent employment. They talked about how wonderful their socialized medicine was. There were eight Americans on this program that were allowed into the Soviet Union that summer, and we all had very different backgrounds, had different political views. There were a lot of big hearts in the group on both ends of the political spectrum. But, for me, a kid growing up in east Texas, it was an extraordinary education. Because even though people talked about how wonderful it was to have socialized medicine, everybody had a safety net because the government was the safety net, that country's economic system was rotting from within. I went to a medical school. It reminded me of pictures of American medical schools from 40 to 50 years before. We went to an economic exhibition, kind of like a world's fair in Moscow, at one point. It reminded me of the pictures from a 1940 or early 1950s world's fair, you know, things like tractors sitting out there with people oohing and aahing over tractors. I'm going, good grief, because I knew we didn't need a world's fair to see tractors like that. You could go to any used tractor dealer and find tractors that nice in the U.S., but everybody was told how wonderful it was. During the course of the summer, during the course of my time down in the Ukraine, I got to be good friends with a few of the students there. They were very standoffish at first. I spoke some Russian back in those days, and they spoke better English than I did Russian. But one guy in particular, he'd bring his dictionary with him and translate, because both of us--you know, it's amazing. You take a language course--I had two years of Russian at Texas A&M. You know, you're taught to converse about, ``I'm going to the library'' and ``I have a dog'' and these kinds of things, but when you want to talk about really serious life issues, we weren't prepared for those things. We needed a dictionary so we could get our ideas across. At one point he said, ``You seem surprised that our country wouldn't want better.'' He grabbed my shirt and he said, ``We don't have material this good.'' I just had, you know, a regular polo-type shirt. He said, ``We don't have material this good for our individuals, and we fought two world wars on our soil. We don't have it as good as you do in your country, that's obvious. But people will always be reluctant to leave the best they've ever known for something they're not sure about.'' When we got to 1989 and the Soviet Union fell because of the economic disease and decay that was pushed into the death spiral by President Reagan's actions, followed by President George H. W. Bush, it collapsed. Then we began to see all of the economic problems that were eating away at that country because the government tried to be the safety net for everything and everybody, and it won't work that way. At a collective farm, way out from Kiev, I was surprised. I have worked on farms and ranches, and you usually try to get your work done before midafternoon when the sun gets its hottest, and that means you start early, start as close to daybreak as you can, and midmorning is prime time. Here it was midmorning, and these farmers were sitting around in the shade there in the farming village. I had been looking out at these fields. You could hardly tell what was cultivated and what wasn't. They looked terrible. They had some really nice gardens right around their individual dwelling places. Yeah, those were kept up. Those they got to have for themselves. But the fields just didn't look good at all. I tried to be nice, and in my best Russian I could, I said, ``When do you work out in the fields?'' They kind of laughed, and one of them said in Russian, ``I make the same number of rubles if I'm here or if I'm out there, so I'm here.'' Boy, was that a lesson in why a big, huge, nothing but safety net country can't work. Free markets work until they decide it's time to be socialistic, progressive, whatever you want to call it, and so they go that way. Then the free market forces fail because they have been taken over by progressive socialist structures. Now, it's a good thought. I mean, it's a wonderful idea to think, gee, well, we'll just decree, as did the Pilgrims, as did the early New Testament Church, we'll just bring everything into a common storehouse and split it equally. It sounds like a great idea. As the Apostle Paul found, as the Pilgrims found, eventually you have to say, You know what? This isn't working out very well. We're going to have to have some strict rules. The Pilgrims found, if you divide it up into private property and allowed people to eat what they grew, not only do they grow enough for themselves, but they actually would grow enough to use, trade, barter, sell, and that could be very effective. I heard my friend across the aisle mentioning earlier about the so- called Ryan voucher care, and I know they know--and in fairness to my friend Paul Ryan, and it was great to see him on the floor this evening--that actually anybody over 55 gets Medicare. The Paul Ryan proposal, it's not exactly like the bill that I previously proposed, but, you know, my friend's brilliant. He's on the right track. He says, if you're over 55, you get Medicare. Now, I would go a step further, because I know what's being proposed for those under 55 is going to end up being so much better giving control back to patients, getting control back between the doctor and the patients instead of having an insurance company or the government between the patient and the doctor. This business is a safety net. Clearly, they're not talking safety net. They're talking government takeover of everything. But Paul Ryan's plan would make sure that those under 55 had health care--and had it affordable. And so there are all kinds of reforms that need to be made. We did not need a full takeover of health care by the government. My friend had mentioned that, because we kept passing bills to repeal ObamaCare--and actually there were very few bills that dealt with a massive repeal of ObamaCare, but there were many bills that picked out specific parts. Look, friends across the aisle, you surely don't want to be responsible for this terrible part of ObamaCare. So when people go back and say, Oh, you voted to repeal it 33 times, well, there were different aspects, and we couldn't even get our friends to vote to repeal parts that they knew, once they found out after they passed it, what was in it. Wouldn't even vote for things to be repealed that they knew would not be good. My friend said that, basically, the President called us here and asked us to pass his American Jobs Act. And I was so glad he brought that up. I'd about forgotten about the American Jobs Act. He came and stood right there, Madam Speaker, and told us, I forget, 16, 17 times: Pass my bill, right here, right now, over and over. And so I kept wanting to get a copy of the bill. He was chastising us for not passing it. Well, show it to me. Let me see it. So we kept calling the White House trying to get it. A week later, it was clear there was no bill. So I figured, well, if there's no bill, and he keeps running around the country spending all the taxpayers' money flying around on Air Force One, what sounded and looked like campaign stops, but government paid for it all--so he's out there saying over and over and over, Tell Congress to pass my American Jobs Act. Pass the American Jobs Act. He had banners: Pass the American Jobs Act. American Jobs Act. I thought, Well, good grief, if he's going to keep telling us we need to pass the American Jobs Act, there really ought to be one. So I put a 2-page bill together that would eliminate the 35 percent tariff that we put on all American-made goods here in America, made by any company in America. It's called a corporate tax; an insidious tax because it deceives people into thinking that, gee, if you tax the evil old mean corporations, then we don't have to pay it. Baloney. If a corporation, a company doesn't pass that tax on to its customers, clients, people buying its services, then they go out of business. That's how it works. Thirty-five percent tax. The highest tariff that any country in the world puts on its own goods. And we were doing that. So mine says, let's eliminate that. And we'd heard from people around the world that, good grief, if you just dropped your corporate tax 12 percent, manufacturing jobs would come flooding back into this country. You want to talk about pro-union. I know this side of the aisle wants to see the government unions grow more and more. I can never understand that. I can understand retired government workers needing a union because they don't have leverage. But to have government workers in a country where the government is the people. All of us that are elected here, we're public servants. Everybody that is hired by the Federal Government is supposed to be a government servant. We work for the people of America. Why in the world would you need a union to conspire against the people of America? Because, obviously, the role of any government union would be to get government bigger and bigger and more and more benefits, to the detriment of those who are paying for all of that. So, anyway, I don't understand why we need Federal Government unions. Neither did Franklin D. Roosevelt. But that's where all this goes. By the way, when we eventually got a copy of the President's idea of a Jobs Act, we found that although he had been telling everybody in America he was only going to increase taxes on millionaires and billionaires, what he did was increase taxes on everybody that made over $125,000 individually. He said he was going after Big Oil. He's going to end the giveaways to Big Oil. But when you look to around page 130 or so, the pages that dealt with oil companies, they were not going to affect the Big Oil companies at all. But since 94, 95 percent of all the oil and gas wells in America are drilled and operated by independent oil companies, run by Americans, you look at what was eliminated, it was really only the things that were going to devastate the independents, some of them basically mom-and-pop-type services that worked on oil wells, gas wells. It's going to shut them down. They wouldn't be able to afford business. It would eliminate the passthrough deduction for investing in wells. If the independents can't get people to invest in the wells, they can't drill them. But the Big Oil companies, they don't have to get people to invest in oil wells. They've got enough money to do that. It was incredible. I couldn't believe it. I got it to CPAs that do work for independent oil and gas companies, small ones, and they were saying, Oh, my word. If this goes into law, we'll be out of business. We can't stay in business. What does that do? It ends 94, 95 percent of the oil and gas wells in America. It also means that gasoline goes up even further than the doubling that this President has already done. Oh, wind energy. We heard about wind energy, smart grid. Think about it. We've had these hearings in our Natural Resources Committee. Doc Hastings has done a fabulous job. Amazing the stuff you find out. And what we found out even just this week, last week, actually, when you talk about using wind or solar energy, since wind doesn't blow all the time and sun doesn't shine all time, and since we don't have an effective way to hold electricity, there's no massive battery that we've developed yet that holds significant amounts of electricity, so you have to use that electricity immediately, because you can't hold it. When we get to the point where we have some way to hold electricity, then we're on our way. Then solar, wind, those things will be a whole lot more helpful. But as it is, if you declare we're going to have to have wind energy and we're going to have to use solar energy, then for those times when the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining but people still need electricity, then you're going to have to have a coal-fired power plant, you're going to have to have a natural-gas powered plant, a nuclear powered plant. So you're going to have to have all of those things standing by to produce the energy when these other things don't. You're going to have to have different sets of wires taking electricity from the regular power plants and also send them out to the windmills way out wherever they are, where they're out there chopping up endangered species, birds and all, and bring that electricity in. You're going to end up having to have different wires going out to solar places. And so actually you're going to be paying two and three times as much for energy because you have to have two to three times the infrastructure just so that you can say we're getting some of our power from wind and from sun. What it did was set up more government. You read the bill like I did--and yes, I'm anal enough, I read some of these stupid bills, including the President's idea of a Jobs Act. It created more government. It took over more control over the Internet. It took over more control of cable. It's just a disaster. So I hear about the President's great ideas for helping the economy, and I say thank goodness the President didn't pass that disaster because the economy would be doing even far worse. Well, except for the people that suck out the millions and hundreds of millions and billions, like the President's friends at Solyndra and things like that. By the way, I see today this article, September 13, 2012: ``AP reports weekly U.S. jobless aid applications jump to 382,000,'' by Christopher Rugaber. Anyway, jobless claims jump to a 2-month high. Not exactly the progress the President says was happening. I've been mentioning, ever since I found out from Gold Star parents Billy and Karen Vaughn, they told me two-thirds of the deaths and the wounds of our military in Afghanistan have occurred under President Obama. I couldn't believe that. So we got the official numbers. I've got a poster around here somewhere. I don't have time to use it right now. But when we got the official numbers, it turns out 70 percent of those who have been killed in Afghanistan have been killed under President Obama's command, even though he's been in command in Afghanistan only half the time of President Bush. Eighty-four percent of those people losing arms, legs, hands, terribly disabling wounds from IEDs and other injury sources, 84 percent of those have occurred under Commander in Chief Obama compared to the 16 percent that occurred under President Bush in Afghanistan. Article here from Breitbart by Tony Lee: On the somber 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, nearly 2,000 members of the U.S. military have died in Afghanistan since the war started in response to the attacks in 2011. By the way, this President Obama, when he was running for President, called it the ``good war.'' But this article by Tony Lee goes on and points out what I've been talking about ever since Billy and Karen brought that to my attention, and I was greatly sorry that I did not know that without them pointing it out to me. It was also interesting to read an article by John Nolte, 12 September, 2012. Obviously, I like the guy. I like his cynicism. He says: Oh, that awful Mitt Romney. Just a few minutes before the White House itself disavowed the Cairo Embassy apologizing for free speech, Romney rightfully condemned the appeasing statement in no uncertain terms. And as a result, all day long, the corrupt media has been on a rampage to make Romney pay for the unpardonable sin of criticizing Their Precious One. You see, there's no precedent for a political opponent immediately criticizing a sitting President after a foreign policy crisis. Oh, wait. Then it has reference to other articles where that's gone on, a flashback to Kerry slamming Bush. Over and over it's happened when it's a Republican President. The article says: So with the entire institution of the media circling the wagons for Obama today, in a futile attempt to rescue him from his own foreign policy blunders, we now have CBS News riding to the rescue in order to give the same President who condemned Romney before he condemned the terrorists an opportunity to further politicize this tragedy: ``There's a broader lesson to be learned here. Governor Romney seems to have a tendency to shoot first and aim later.'' That's what President Obama had to say. Yes, that's the President talking about spouting off too quickly. But the President is right about Mitt Romney: guilty as charged. Romney did shoot first to defend the principles of free speech that the people who work for Obama in Cairo were so eager to fritter away. Yes, that damn Mitt Romney saw this outrageous example of simpering in the face of terror coming from American officials and immediately spoke out against it. It goes on to make a great point. Romney stood up for free speech. The movie that's been fussed about sounds like a ridiculous thing that should not be done, except that this is America where people, whether it's Howard Stern or anybody else, they have a right to say things, no matter how offensive they may be, unless they go so far that they actually harm other people. Another article: ``No Record of Intel Briefings for Obama Week Before Embassy Attacks.'' This was written by Wynton Hall, 12 September, 2012, and it points out: According to the White House calendar, there is no public record of President Barack Obama attending his daily intelligence briefing--known as the Presidential Daily Brief (PDB)--in the week leading up to the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and the murder of U.S. Libyan Ambassador Chris Stevens and three American members of his staff. I've got to say. I read an account and a story of the administration reporting the name of one of the other three killed as part of the Libyan Embassy personnel. They gave that man's name, pointed out he was a former SEAL team member but was in a private security force. Then, according to the article, the administration reported that he was killed while running for cover. Madam Speaker, I know something about SEAL team members. In the mind of a SEAL team member or a former SEAL team member, he is never running for cover. He is running for a place, if at all, from which to launch a better attack. Even in death, this administration can't be respectful to the people that have laid down their lives for this administration. Even though the White House says that, gee, the President does read briefings, he just hasn't been getting them personally, I would hope that he would start doing that. There are people's lives at stake, and he is President. He's such a fantastic campaigner, and I know it's inconvenient, but I sure hope that he'll get back to being President. To give credit where credit is due, it was very wonderful of the President to take a minute and a half or whatever it was, a minute, minute and a half, to pay tribute to those who laid down their lives for their country at the Libya Embassy where they didn't have adequate security, and where this administration enabled al Qaeda and others to take over the government. It was nice of him to take a minute and a half to pay tribute to them giving their lives in the middle of his campaign event before he went on with the celebration. I recall President George W. Bush. People here know we certainly had our differences, and I certainly disagreed with him on a number of things. But I had great respect for the man. He said: How can I go play golf when I am Commander in Chief and I have sent soldiers, our military, into harm's way? It just doesn't feel right for me to be out on a golf course having a good time when our men and women are in harm's way. But it did look like a fun celebration there that President Obama was having in Las Vegas. Another article: ``Libyan Official: U.S. At Fault in Attacks.'' Written by Awr Hawkins, 12 September, 2012. He points out that although the head of Libya's National Assembly has formally apologized for the killing of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, other higher-ranking Libyan officials refuse to apologize and continue to contend the U.S. is to blame. The story talks about those contentions. Hey, it was our fault. Kind of like the ridiculous claims that sometimes those of us who were judges or prosecutors heard from a guilty rape defendant who said, ``Well, you know, she was asking for it.'' Excuse me? That was abominable what happened at the Libyan Embassy. It is a tragic fact that this administration, against the will of Congress, without even asking what the will of Congress was, said, Well, gee, the U.N., Organization of Islamic Conference, they want us there. So, why not? We ought to go. That's all he needed. He didn't care what Congress thought. He enabled them. He used American bombers. And then when the American public obviously was upset, eventually, that it was taking so long-- hey, hey, keep in mind, it's not the U.S.; it's NATO. He may not have gotten a briefing that let him know that over 60 percent of the NATO military is American military. Here's a flashback article. I just think it's important, when these terrible things are happening around the world, that we take a quick look at how we got where we are so maybe we don't keep doubling down on things that get Americans killed and hurt our national security. This article by Dana Loesch, 12 September 2012, ``Flashback: Obama Admin Endorsed Muslim Brotherhood,'' it points out from a New York Times article even August 1 this year, it said: Leon E. Panetta, the United States Defense Secretary, said on Tuesday that President Mohammed Morsi of Egypt was ``his own man,'' a strong declaration of American support for Mr. Morsi, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood whose future course in Egypt remains a great unknown to the Obama administration. Well, it didn't keep us from enabling him to be there. Another article: ``Obama Admits He Lost Egypt As American Ally.'' It goes on to talk about how the President, because of our turning our back, or stabbing a man with whom this administration had made agreements, who was trying to uphold the Israeli-Egyptian Accord that was brokered by President Carter--one nice thing that President Carter did. President Obama now admits, well, they're not really an enemy, but they're not an ally. We lost them as an ally because of the incompetence of this administration. ``Obama Declines Meeting With Netanyahu,'' and let me just finish with this. Although he doesn't have time for Netanyahu, apparently he has time to attend a Jay-Z and Beyonce fundraiser. They're fabulous entertainers, I understand that. But there's a country to run, there are Americans being killed, and it's time somebody around this town picked up the responsibility and acted responsibly. I don't think doing a CR is the way to do it, but certainly not running off to fundraisers when people are giving their lives for you on foreign soil is the way to go either. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it's a difficult day, difficult week in the world. And I appreciate the tribute of my friend, Bill Flores, for a great American hero. I also want to pay tribute today to our U.S. Ambassador, Chris Stevens, and the three others who were killed in Libya in the service of their country. We grieve for their families. We grieve for their friends and all who may have come to harm and will come to harm; hopefully, no more, but our thoughts and prayers are with them. It is important, during times when Americans are attacked on American soil, American buildings are attacked, which is what an American Embassy is, that the world understand that there will be consequences. For those who sometimes want to ask, well, aren't you a Christian, don't you believe in turning the other cheek? The answer is, yes, individually. But there is a different charge for the government. There is a different charge for the people who have the responsibility of government and protecting the people and their rights. The United States Government has the obligation to protect our citizens, to protect those who are serving this country, and as far as our military, to give them everything they need to win, whatever it takes, give them rules of engagement to allow them to win, whatever it takes, and then come home. So it grieves me much, also, to see a time when people are dying, not for a wishy-washy government in Washington, D.C. that can't decide what its priorities are, but for the ideal for which America stands and for what it represents, for what it represents to people who yearn for freedom around the world. And it does not help when an administration, in response to American attacks on American soil and American individuals, the administration ends up asking Americans to give up their First Amendment rights for which our servicemembers are fighting. It doesn't help when a general calls an American and asks an American to give up your First Amendment rights rather than proclaiming to the world, We're the United States military. You've attacked our country. You've attacked our brothers and sisters, and you will pay for that. When we took an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, it means that when enemies who are foreign enemies attack on American soil--attack Americans because they're Americans--we have an obligation if they were not protected and they got hurt or killed. We have an obligation to those who would serve behind them--to those who are in this country--to protect them for the future. That doesn't come when an administration or even a general turns around and says, Hey, I know I took an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, but we think, by your utilizing your First Amendment rights, it may be offending people around the world, so why don't you just subject your First Amendment rights to shari'a law. So it's okay to burn a Bible. That's okay. It's okay to burn a flag. Okay. That's all right. But just, for heaven's sake, don't say anything that might offend someone of the Islamic religion. I, personally, don't think anybody should do that, but I certainly do think we should defend ourselves against radical Islamists who want to annihilate this country and destroy our way of life. We have an obligation. We took an oath to do that, not an oath to say: Let's give up the Constitution. I took an oath to defend and subject it to shari'a. No, no, no. Let's give that up so that maybe the people who are killing Americans and the people who are attacking our Embassies won't feel so offended, and maybe they won't kill people. That is not the role of a general. It's not the role of a general to tell former military members that they should never speak out against a Commander in Chief when, as former members of the military, they're in a good place to be able to judge what's going on. It is and it should be a crime within the military to create problems for good order and discipline by publicly demeaning or condemning anyone in your chain of command. In my 4 years at Fort Benning, we knew that. President Carter drove me crazy with his ineptitude, with his inability to make decisions, to make the tough calls, and in his pathetic handling of the attack on our American Embassy in Tehran for which America still pays in the pathetic way it was handled. For those of us who have been in the military, there is an obligation when you see the same mistakes being repeated. Since you know that those in uniform cannot step up and criticize the chain of command, we have an obligation to do that, and it is not helpful for anyone with stars on his shoulders to tell former military members, Oh, this is not appropriate for you to criticize my boss. How about the person with stars on his shoulders stepping up and doing the criticizing privately on behalf of the soldiers he is supposed to be commanding and protecting? There are stories that are coming out. Time will tell. This one is from Fox News today. It's entitled ``U.S. Officials Suspect Strike on Benghazi Post `Coordinated,' Timed for 9/11 Anniversary.'' U.S. officials are increasingly suspicious that the murder Tuesday of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three other American officials was not the result of a protest against an anti-Islam film, but instead was a coordinated terror strike timed for the 11th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. A senior administration official told Fox News they are exhaustively investigating every angle of the attack in Benghazi, and an earlier assault on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, and there are early signs the Benghazi assault may have been planned. The official cautioned, though, that the administration has not jumped to any conclusions about what happened, saying it would be ``premature'' to do so. The article goes on down, and it quotes different people. One is Pete Hoekstra, the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who told Fox News that the attack appeared to have the markings of an al Qaeda or an al Qaeda-affiliated strike. It quotes him as saying: ``We've been talking for years about the desire of Al Qaeda, radical jihadists to celebrate the anniversary of 9/ 11. All my background, all of the conversations that I've had over the last 18 hours lead many people to believe that this was just more than a mere coincidence.'' Hoekstra noted that the supposed protesters--purportedly angry over a film that ridiculed Islam's Prophet Muhammad-- didn't attack in Tripoli. They attacked in Benghazi, ``where it so happens our Ambassador is.'' And they happened to be ``fully armed and fully equipped,'' he said. Hoekstra noted that al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri had recently released a video calling on militants to attack Americans in revenge for the killing of an operative in Pakistan. The message said his ``blood is calling on you, inciting you to fight and kill the crusaders.'' Hoekstra said the film may have been just a cover to carry out such an attack. Two intelligence officials also said the attack looked ``coordinated.'' London-based think tank Quilliam reached the same conclusion, saying the Benghazi strike appeared to be a ``well-planned terrorist attack that would have occurred regardless of the demonstration (over the film).'' Also, the brother of Zawahiri was nearby during the separate protest at the American Embassy in Cairo on Tuesday. There is so much going on, but one of the last things that people ought to do is say it's time to give up First Amendment rights. One of the goals that we know of for the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States within 10 years--it was one of their 10-year goals--is to subjugate the U.S. Constitution to shari'a law. There are great patriots who have called upon Americans to, perhaps, make it illegal to speak out and offend or to do anything that might offend worshipers of Islam without saying the same thing about any other religion whether it's Buddhist, Christian, whatever. If they have their way and if we make the mistake of curtailing our constitutional rights to avoid offending people who want to annihilate us anyway and who want to have an international caliphate where they rule over us anyway--those they don't destroy--we make a major error. There are those who say there should be no criticism among Members of Congress and people in the government as to the handling by the Commander in Chief, but since we know people in uniform cannot speak out when they see mistakes by their commanders, we have an obligation to them to speak out. But I do make this pledge to my friends across the aisle that, in any criticism, I will endeavor to ensure that I, personally, do not ever make the kind of wild-eyed allegations against this President that were leveled at President Bush by them. How quickly some people forget. Also, I understand this is a political season, it is a time when people are running for election and reelection. We all know that. But we have a friend. We have a prime minister of a friendly nation who has been mistreated by this administration, who deserves better treatment by this administration, who deserves to have this administration and this President keep their words that have been given to our friends in Israel, and it wouldn't hurt to meet with such a leader. We know that in July that there were people who came to the White House for meetings in the White House, one of whom was a member of a known terrorist organization. That terrorist was allowed into the White House. Obviously, from the hearing we had with the Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, from a response she gave to me, she was ignorant of fact that we had a terrorist going into the White House for meetings. But by the next day when she testified, I believe, across in the Senate, she had become aware that we had a member of a terrorist organization meeting in the White House, and apparently this administration intends to continue meeting with members of known terrorist organizations, from what was said back in July. And yet, the President--though he had time for meetings with known terrorists--will not carve out a little time to meet with the prime minister of our dear friend Israel at a time when Israel and many in the United States suspect that Iran may be 2 months away from having the nukes to carry out another Holocaust. We don't know the specific days there may be, but it would seem that you wouldn't necessarily need a rocket to have pinpoint accuracy if it's carrying a nuclear weapon. And now that we've seen trouble on the borders of Israel, all around Israel almost, it doesn't seem it would be impossible to get one smuggled in. Rockets have been smuggled in by the hundreds that are routinely fired into Israel from the Gaza Strip. That's why there was a legitimate legal blockade to try to prevent those types of things from coming into the Gaza Strip, but they came in anyway, and they continue to come in. We owe our friend, our ally, who this President has pressured, has cajoled, has ridiculed, has snubbed, and taunted by just saying, Trust us, we'll take care of Iran, don't worry about your national security, trust us. No nation should be told that they cannot invoke self-defense when their nation is at risk of being annihilated. I remember learning in college that President Eisenhower had ordered that people from towns surrounding areas of these concentration camps where, when totaled together, was 6 million Jews that were killed, murdered, tortured, maimed, and he ordered that the people from the towns be required to come help clean up. The reasoning was so that no one could ever say the Holocaust never happened, because they cleaned up the atrocity. I remember thinking that was a little overboard for General Eisenhower. Really, you had to rub those peoples' noses in such horrible affliction? It hasn't been that long ago that I had these thoughts, and now we have people, like leaders of countries like Iran, that is about to have nuclear weapons if we don't intercede, who have said just that the Holocaust never happened, it was a hoax. Unbelievable. It is unbelievable to me that in a matter of decades since World War II, since that horrible Holocaust, such an indictment against the human race, that people could do that to one race. It's just almost unfathomable that even in Europe, where those atrocities were committed and genocide was attempted, that we would see this growing anti- Semitism raising its ugly head again. And at the same time anti- Semitism is growing even in Europe, a civilized area, an educated area, it grows around the world, as we see people in the Middle East begin to have dreams of a new Ottoman Empire where every religion will be subjected to some of what we've seen happen in those countries where we helped bring about an Arab spring that's turned into a winter nightmare. This is not a time to play petty personal games, to snub leaders of friends, of allies, even when you disagree with them, for heaven's sake. Take a little time from a fundraiser, take a little time that you don't go to the golf course, and meet with the leader of a country that sees hatred for its people, anti-Semitism, the racism, the bigotry growing around the world, that is scared for its own existence, that can't be sure we're going to be there with them because of the actions of this administration. Take a little time to meet with them. It is an inconvenient thing to have to be President when you are really best at running for office, but take some time and be President and meet with our friends. The messages that are going out to those whom we seek to make allies for the future is not a good message. The people that have laid down their lives for the American ideal deserve the best we can give them. So on this day when we grieve and our flags are at half mast for the atrocity committed against our ambassador and others, our thoughts and prayers are with the families, and our thoughts and prayers are that our leadership will become what it should be to protect America. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, at this time I want to yield to my doctor friend from Texas, a former student of Texas A&M University, as myself, a guy who, as a junior in college when I was a senior in college, helped tutor me to make a 98 on the final exam of our accounting course. I yield such time as he may consume to my friend from Texas (Mr. Flores). Recognizing American Hero Brian Bachmann and All First Responders Across America

Mr. GOHMERT. How much time is remaining, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. GOHMERT

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

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, 11 years ago today, the worst attack in American history on American soil occurred; more loss of life than Pearl Harbor. It was a day that those of us who are alive and old enough to know what was happening will never forget. It was a day of commitment as well that we would do whatever was necessary to protect our country, that we would do whatever was necessary to prevent future such attacks from occurring. I recall there in east Texas where I live, I was a judge at the time. The day after, September 12, 2001, was an extraordinary day as well. It was a day that I also will not forget. I had never seen communities come together as we did across America on September 12, 2001, not in my lifetime. In World War II, from history, I've read accounts about some in America that felt like war with Germany was a bad idea, that we ought to be nice to them. There were even people that were divided in America back then. But the overall resolve was to protect democracy, make democracy safe--``Make the World Safe for Democracy'' was the slogan. But we were so united on September 12, 2001. There in Tyler, Texas-- and I know it happened all over east Texas the same way--people came together. It didn't matter what race anyone was. It didn't matter where they came from, their national origin--man, woman, religious preference didn't matter, we came together as one people. There were no hyphenated Americans that day--no Anglo-Americans, African-Americans, Asian- Americans. We were Americans. We stood united, and we wept together and we prayed together and we held hands and sang together. Here in Washington, D.C., once again today we sang ``God Bless America'' without regard to party, without regard to House, Senate. I think there was less mention of the word God today. I'm grateful for Speaker Pelosi, who at the end of her remarks asked for God to bless and comfort those who lost loved ones on 9/11 and asked that God would still bless America. I'm grateful she did that. Other leaders did not. Andy McCarthy--Andrew McCarthy--was the prosecutor of those who were involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He is a man that understands the Constitution. He understands the law. He is a fantastic prosecutor, a brilliant mind, and a great writer. And I won't read the entire article, but it's an article worth noting from Andrew C. McCarthy, entitled ``Remembering 9/11 . . . At Least for a Day.'' He says: It is difficult to say what's harder to believe: that it has been 11 years since the 9/11 atrocities, or that national security has become an irrelevant issue in the most consequential Presidential election in decades. The first observation reminds us that today is a day of remembrance: of the loss of nearly 3,000 of our fellow citizens; of the bravery of those who willingly gave their lives to save others; and of the heroism of the men and women who put on the line all that they have. That includes the love and well-being of their families, on whom the burden of American national security has been imposed while the rest of us go on with our lives--too often, without giving them a first thought, never mind a second. No matter which political party has been in power since 9/ 11, there has been a great deal of bloviating about the ``rule of law.'' It is as if we had evolved beyond anything so crude and benighted as armed force and national interest-- especially national defense. Let's remember today that we have the luxury of living under something resembling the rule of law only because dedicated Americans sacrifice themselves to confront evil--in this case, the adherents of an evil ideology, Islamic supremacism, that is closer to the law of the jungle. And for those who do not understand--I'm saying this parenthetically, it's not in the article--Islamic supremacism is not talking about all of those who worship and follow Islam and Islamic teachings. We have friends around the world who do not want to live under totalitarian, radical Islamic supremacism, such as the Taliban, such as al Qaeda. They don't want to live under that, and they're Muslims. They want to live their lives. They want to worship in their own religion without totalitarians telling them how they must. Unfortunately, as in Afghanistan, those Muslim friends, and Pakistan, for that matter, Iran and Iraq as well, there are Muslims who have admired the United States until we abandoned them. Going back to Andrew McCarthy's article: The rule of law has precious little to do with why we have gotten through 11 years without a reprise of 9/11. A better explanation is that terrorists who have been captured or killed cannot commit more terrorism. I'll insert, parenthetically, there are terrorists who were captured, some confined at Guantanamo Bay, some confined at other facilities, who have been released and who have been found again on the battlefield killing Americans. They were captured, prevented from enacting further terrorism, and then released under some false notion that that would win friends and influence people, only to have other Americans killed by these same thugs. Back to Andrew McCarthy's article. He says: On the matter of evil, it is good to remember that it exists. Evil is not a misunderstanding, a cultural gulf, or a natural reaction to political policies adopted in pursuit of American interests or Israeli self-defense. That brings us to the second observation: the fact that national security concerns are absent from the 2012 campaign, even with tens of thousands of Americans at arms in distant hellholes, even with tens of millions of Americans enduring the increasingly overbearing government that has been the cost of heightened vigilance in an era where barbarism is met with political correctness. The United States defeated the ideological threats of the 20th century because we were unafraid to see evil for what it was--to diagnose it and understand it. Today, we ignore it, rationalize it, and assume we are somehow to blame for it. For the bipartisan ruling class, 9/11 is about ``violent extremism''--as if irrational, wanton killers, seized by a ``psychological disorder,'' committed mass murder for no better reason than to visit on the world's most famous office buildings the most shocking case of ``workplace violence'' in history. The ``violent extremism'' narrative is nonsensical. It defies reality as well as history. But it is a convenient fiction. It miniaturizes the enemy. With the killing of bin Laden, the President can now portray the enemy as defeated-- even as al Qaeda resurges, even as Iraq has become an Iranian-influenced shari'a state that works against the United States and Israel. He says parenthetically: (Remember when ``victory'' was defined as a ``stable'' ``democracy'' that is a ``reliable ally''?); and even as Afghan Islamists turn their weapons on their American trainers, and the administration pleads with the Taliban to negotiate (remember when ``victory'' was defined as a ``stable'' ``democracy'' that ``prevents the Taliban from returning and giving safe haven to al Qaeda again''?). The ``violent extremism'' canard allows the administration to declare victory even as we are being humiliated. That's an excerpt from Andrew McCarthy's article regarding today. Mr. Speaker, it is tragic that around the world the United States has had allies who trusted us, who put their security in our hands, even to the extent of losing political power, losing political office, like some of the Polish leaders who trusted America to help them with a missile defense. It wasn't as much a defense against Russia; it was concern for potential missiles in the Middle East that this Nation has not done enough to stop. But those who staked their political careers on the trustworthiness of the United States came up empty in Poland. Mubarak had agreements with this administration, met with this administration. Qadhafi had agreements with this administration, met with them, talked. We had Senators from both sides of the aisle, although one of our Republican Senators says he didn't send that message. It wasn't his tweet, he says now, that he was meeting with Qadhafi and that he was an interesting man. But, regardless, we know that there were people from both sides of the aisle that went and met with Qadhafi because Qadhafi, after President Bush gave the order to invade Iraq, Qadhafi believed he was next if he didn't do something and end his nuclear proliferation, so he did. He became an ally, even though he was a murderer with blood on his hands. He reached agreements. He promised he would not attack Americans again. And, once again, someone who trusted agreement with the United States came up short. Some of our allies in other parts of the world and other countries have to be wondering if they're next. I visited with leaders in other countries who say the Chinese are constantly coming around saying, Have you figured out yet that you can't really trust the United States to keep their agreements? Hey, you can trust us. Well, whenever you come around, including in Israel, there are Chinese constantly there saying, When you figure out you can't trust the United States, we're ready to be your friend, your ally. There should be no better ally in the world than the United States. But we have different administrations, and different administrations are better about keeping their words with allies than others. The Northern Alliance in Afghanistan fought with us and for us to defeat the Taliban by early 2002. Over the years, they have buried family and friends who have been our cofighters against radical Islamists in Afghanistan. We abandoned them. This administration did not want to talk to them. And I was told by some of the Northern Alliance leaders earlier this year that one of the leaders of the Taliban that this administration released for humanitarian purposes ended up announcing he's back leading the Taliban as one of their leaders. And he announced on Afghan national television that under shari'a law, if anyone in Afghanistan had not been supportive of the Taliban in the past, they need to come in and ask forgiveness and get the Taliban's protection, because, as the leader said, told people who watched the national television channel in Afghanistan, that everybody in the world knows the United States has lost in Afghanistan. So all they have to do is wait until 2014 when this President has promised the United States will be out, and they'll be back in charge. Certainly, President Karzai has enough fear of them that he is giving them an awful lot of freedom and control in the area. Regardless of what anyone may say or prove about President Karzai, he's not stupid. He knows we won't be there to keep him protected. So it looks as if he may be trying to placate the Taliban. Why wouldn't he? The United States sure is. I hear friends here on the floor talk about the lessons of Vietnam. The lessons of Vietnam are not that it was an unwinnable war. That's very clear. This came from one of the leaders at Hanoi Hilton as he told Sam Johnson as the Americans left the Hanoi Hilton, including John McCain. Sam says one of the most ruthless leaders was laughing, saying, You stupid Americans. We had just carpet-bombed them for 2 weeks after they'd walked out of the Paris peace talks. He said, You stupid Americans. Don't you know, if you had just bombed us for one more week, we would have had to have surrendered unconditionally? To those who were sent to fight in Vietnam, this Nation owes an apology for leaving them over there to fight without an order to win and come home. That should be the lesson of Vietnam. I was shocked to hear from the parents of one of the SEAL Team Six members who was killed on the Chinook--Billy and Karen Vaughn were the first ones to mention it. I'm embarrassed I didn't know--that two- thirds of the Americans killed in Afghanistan have been killed under President Obama as the Commander in Chief. I found that hard to believe, so we got the numbers directly from the Department of Defense. I've got a poster here. President Bush ordered Americans to war--or to go fight in Afghanistan. We found out that's where the terrorists were trained, where the plot was supposedly hatched to kill thousands of American innocent victims. So we have a list from the Department of Defense, from their own Statistical Information Analysis Division. If you look at the number of American deaths--of our fantastic men and women in Afghanistan--from October of 2001 through the end of December of 2008, there were 625 American casualties, Americans killed--valiant, brave men and women of our armed services killed in Afghanistan--every one of them a treasure. But when we get down to the just over 3\1/2\ years since, in the war that Candidate Obama called the ``good war''--a term I don't know of anybody who has ever been in the military would use about a war, but he called it the ``good war.'' Well, in President Obama's good war, though he has been Commander in Chief less than half the time of President Bush, it isn't two-thirds. Seventy percent of the American military men and women who have been killed in Afghanistan have been killed under the command of Commander in Chief Obama. It gets worse when you look at the total wounded in action. During the 7 years and 3 months that President Bush was President, or was Commander in Chief over the war in Afghanistan, 2,638 precious American men and women were wounded. When you visit our incredible men and women who have been wounded-- who have lost arms, legs, who are severely disabled--you end up walking away being the one who is uplifted with the incredible, incredible American spirit--with the spirit of our American men and women. They are such a blessing but not to the extent, you would think, that anyone in America would want to leave our military men and women in Afghanistan without a clear purpose, without rules of engagement that let them defend themselves. We'll be talking more about that in the days to come. In the just over 3\1/2\ years that the Afghan war has been under the command of Commander in Chief Obama--as compared to the 2,638 precious American men and women who were wounded--during half the time, approximately, this President has been in command, over 14,817, or 84 percent, of the men and women have been wounded in Afghanistan. Now, we have fantastic leaders in Afghanistan--some of our Nation's best--but when you get out into the field and you talk to the men and women, sometimes you get a little different story. There is a poll that came out last week indicating a massive lack of morale among our military men and women in Afghanistan. How could there not be? They've been told they're going to have to stay in Afghanistan. We're going to be there for 2 more years or so. They don't have a clear mission. It's basically to train people who may kill you during or after the training. You're not allowed under the rules of engagement to properly defend yourself. Then our men and women in our Armed Forces are supposed to hope and pray that they're not one of the last ones killed on the way out. I would have thought people would have understood the lesson of Vietnam, not that there are wars such as Vietnam or Afghanistan that are not winnable. Vietnam was winnable. Afghanistan initially was won. We took our eye off the ball. President Obama did inherit a terrible situation in Afghanistan, and then he has more than doubled down on the men and women who have been sacrificed--giving their lives, their arms, their legs in service to this country. We should not allow those precious men and women's lives to go without proper consideration. So many in our military have stepped up and said, I will go. I will defend America. I called after 9/11. I was told I was too old. I said, I've got friends that I was in the Army with years ago. They're still in. They said, Yes, that's because they're still in. If you had stayed in, you could still be in, but you're too old to go back now. Though I was too old to go back into the Army that I had served 4 years of my life in, I found another place of service, and I have to speak on behalf of our men and women in our military. I have to beg, Mr. Speaker, that our leaders in Washington, and in particular the leader, the Commander in Chief, either give our military a proper mission or get them out of Afghanistan. Give them proper rules of engagement or get them out now. Don't make them sit around for 2 years wondering if they're going to be the next one that leaves in a casket. Let them win and come home or bring them home now. They can win. They're that good. With Pakistan, I kept talking to people that say most of the supplies are coming from Pakistan to supply the Taliban. Then cut off the supplies. We have the ability to do that; we just haven't had the will. Develop the will and cut off the supplies to the Taliban--cut them off--or bring our people home now. Don't let one more American lose an arm, a leg, both arms, both legs, or come home as another death. Give them the orders to defeat the Taliban. Come hell or high water, do it. Do it now and then come home or bring them home now. We owe them that much. Is it any wonder the suicide rate is so high? How are we treating our allies on this, the 11th anniversary of 9/11? From the Israel media, Haaretz, comes this report today. I'll read it verbatim. The White House declined Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's request on Tuesday to meet U.S. President Barack Obama during a U.N. conference in New York at the end of the month. Parenthetically, I will insert that this is the same President who has told the Taliban, Look, we'll buy you offices in Qatar; we'll let the rest of your murdering thugs out of confinement if you'll just sit down and talk to us. Apparently, the President's schedule just doesn't allow a meeting with what has been a phenomenal ally, a believer in the value of life and liberty in Israel. The article goes on: An official in Jerusalem said the Prime Minister's office sent the White House a message stating that although Netanyahu will spend only 2\1/2\ days on U.S. soil, he is interested in meeting with Obama and is willing to travel to the U.S. Capitol specifically for that purpose. The official added that the White House rejected the request and said at this time Obama's schedule does not allow for a meeting. The White House's response marks a new low in relations between Netanyahu and Obama, underscored by the fact that this is the first time Netanyahu will visit the U.S. as Prime Minister without meeting the President. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak reportedly tried smoothing things over, but Bibi--or Prime Minister Netanyahu--is having none of it. ``The world tells Israel, `Wait. There's still time.' And I say, `Wait for what? Wait until when?' Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don't have a moral right to place a red light before Israel,'' Netanyahu told reporters on Tuesday. ``Now, if Iran knows that there is no red line, if Iran knows there is no deadline, what will it do? Exactly what it's doing. It's continuing, without any interference, towards obtaining nuclear weapons capability and from there, nuclear bombs,'' he said. Relations between the U.S. and Israel have been strained during the entire Obama term. Obama's call for Israel to retreat to its 1967 borders was widely seen as a slap to our ally. Obama's support for ousting the late Hosni Mubarak from the Egyptian Presidency paved the way for what now looks like an Islamist takeover in Cairo, endangering the longstanding peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. President Obama has also not visited Israel during his Presidency. Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney visited Israel in July 2012. More news today. This is from Mohammed Abu Zaid with the AP, dated September 11, 2012: Egyptian demonstrators climbed the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo today and pulled down the American flag to protest a film that they say is insulting to the Prophet Mohammad. This was updated 2:07 p.m. eastern time. CNN reports that U.S. security guards fired a volley of warning shots as the crowd gathered outside the Embassy walls. CNN adds that the Embassy has been expecting a demonstration and cleared all diplomatic personnel earlier from the facility. The Associated Press reports that Embassy officials say there was no staff inside at the time. Reuters reports that protesters tried to raise a black flag carrying the slogan: ``There is no God but Allah and Mohammad is his messenger.'' The news agency says about 2,000 protesters have gathered outside the Embassy and about 20 have scaled the walls. The AP says the protesters were largely ultraconservative Islamists. Iran's FARS news agency says the protest is aimed at a movie being produced by a group of ``extremist'' members of the Egyptian Coptic Church in the United States. Parenthetically, I will mention that we've seen in recent days that this new government in Egypt that the United States has to bear partial responsibility for being in place has now seen the return of crucifixions in Egypt, the barbaric manner of killing people by making them suffer as much as possible before they breathe their last, just as Jesus, himself, did in laying down his life for others. Also, it is remarkable that you have people who say, as they did with the insulting cartoon depicting Mohammad or someone appearing to be situated that way, as a violent person, and in response there were riots and people were killed, which kind of seems to make it not a cartoon but a prophecy. Back to the article: CNN says the film in question is a Dutch production. The AP says clips of the film are available on YouTube, show the prophet having sex, and question his role as the messenger of God's words. This would clearly be insulting, having sexual relations, it questions his role as a messenger of God's words--of course that would be insulting. It's ridiculous to have anything that resembles that, just as it is absolutely ridiculous and despicable to demean Christianity, to call it a hate group when it's bounded by Jesus, who showed the ultimate love for all humanity. It's despicable when someone burns a flag, but it's not illegal, it's not illegal to burn a Bible. It's despicable, but it's not illegal. Yet, personally, I anticipate, if history shows what the radicals will do, they will follow the example. Unfortunately, there will be more rioting. Somebody will tragically be killed by these cutthroats. Then some will say, see, we need to change the law in America where you can burn Bibles, you can burn the flag, you can desecrate any religion--just not Islam. Then the goal, as found in the archives after a search warrant, showed one of the 10-year goals to be subjecting our Constitution to sharia law. And that will be a box that can be checked off. Back to the article: After the protest, the U.S. Embassy issued this statement on its Web site: The embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims, as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. How about the Christians in Egypt that are being barbarically killed for their religious beliefs? Wouldn't it be nice if this administration would condemn those activities and do what it takes to stop them? Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our Nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others. The Grand Mufti of Egypt, Sheikh Ali Gomaa, strongly condemned the movie. ``Freedom of speech does not warrant desecrating sanctities,'' Gomaa said in a statement Sunday. And he's right. But those freedoms exist in America. The old adage that was attributed to Voltaire for most of the history since, including during the revolution--I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it--used to mean something in this country. Now, it's been subjected to ideological terms that would have it say more, something on the order of, I disagree with what you say, so I want you imprisoned, I want you to lose your business, I want you to have no friends, I want to take all your money, I want to destroy your life. What a turn over the last 200-plus years from our Constitution's establishment and writing in 1787. Of course, it took longer than that to be ratified. Eleven years after 9/11, what has gone wrong? You know, not only were there mistakes in Vietnam under both Democratic and Republican Presidents, our embassy was attacked in Tehran in 1979. Those of us at Fort Benning, I didn't know of anybody that was dying to go, but I knew an awful lot of people willing to go and die in defense of our country. Under everybody's definition of international law, when you attack an embassy, you have attacked, you have committed an act of war against that country. If the host country cannot protect the embassy, then that country who owns that embassy, that uses that embassy, has every right to bring the full military power to bear to defend it. I still carry the horrible realization, I believe, if we had defended our embassy in 1979, thousands and thousands and thousands of precious Americans would not have had to give their lives since. Our embassy has been attacked in Egypt. If the government that the Secretary of State has promised $2.5 billion--I don't know, some of it may have already gone over there--if they're not going to be able to defend our embassy, then we need to take action to defend it. I also think it's time to revisit the Carter-era idea that we should never take out government leaders. I think it's time to have this debate again. Which is more immoral: to go to war with a country where at the time you go to war most of the people of that country like you and respect you, and yet are going to die, many of them; or to take a position, look, it's your country, you're free to establish whatever government you want. But if you put in place a government that declares war on the United States, that says we are the annihilation of the United States, their way, their people, then we will take that government out and we won't rebuild it. You'll be free to pick whatever kind of government you want. It's time to have the debate. Wouldn't that have been better in Afghanistan rather than forcing a centralized government on a tribal region that has since become so corrupt that the money that we have spent, spent by the billions in Afghanistan, given to Afghanistan, has made its way to other places besides the intended objects. Talking to some of our soldiers over there who have trained farmers. They said the billions that have been spent and sent to Afghanistan to create farming projects had not, any of it, made it to the region where they were training the farmers. It was wasted effort. So they would travel around over there wondering, will they be the next IED death, or will they be the next IED dismemberment? The thing is, a good foreign policy says the enemy of our enemy is our friend. A good foreign policy says we will not try to buy off the bullies in the world to make them like us. As I've said for years, you don't have to pay people to hate you; they'll do it for free. Save that money. Use it to rebuild relations with former allies that have been let down. But don't keep giving money to people who hate us. We don't need to be nation building. We need to let nations live in peace under their own discretion. But if they declare war or set as a goal our annihilation, shouldn't we at least talk about taking out the government rather than going to war with the people? I think it's time to have the debate again. There's too much death and loss of life in Afghanistan. It's hard to believe 70 percent of American lives lost in Afghanistan of our military have occurred under Commander Obama. Eighty-four percent of all the wounded have been wounded under the command of Commander Obama. It's time to talk about these things whether the Presidential candidates want to talk about them or not. We owe that to the people we have put in harm's way. As this is the anniversary of 9/11, it's another opportunity for me to recall the memory of Ross McGinnis. I hadn't gotten an email from Tom asking me not to forget. He knows I will never forget his son. But I went to his funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. I had become friends since then with the McGinnises. I have been to all the funerals of those who have died while in service in harm's way from my district. I have been to too many of those such funerals. But this wasn't a person from my district in east Texas. It was a guy from Knox, Pennsylvania, a young man who graduated from high school and gotten into trouble at the end. Ross's mom doesn't want me to forget that. He was given a second chance. They let him graduate. He joined the Army, and Ross found his niche. I haven't seen any pictures anybody had of me during officer basic training at Fort Riley, Kansas, in 1974; but I don't think I was smiling, if somebody has them. It was a difficult time. It was hot, humid. But there are pictures of Ross going through basic with other soldiers, and he's got a big old smile. He had a beautiful smile. And the guys with him are not so smiling. There are pictures of him after he got to Iraq, and the heat was obviously wearing down his friends, fellow servicemembers. But he has a big old grin. His platoon sergeant told me that he was such a piece of enthusiasm in their midst. He was uplifting to the other soldiers. Ross was a gunner on a Humvee, and as it was going through a town, whether shot or thrown, a grenade goes into the bed of the Humvee where there were four of our soldiers, including Ross's platoon sergeant from Long View, Texas, Cedric Thomas; a soldier from Tyler, my hometown, Sean Lawson; and two other soldiers. And they said that Ross yelled, Grenade, and he looked back, but Ross was the only one in a position to jump out and save himself. But when he looked back and he saw each of the four cringing in their corners, he obviously knew those four soldiers were going to die. So instead of jumping out and saving his own life and four soldiers being lost, he didn't jump out. He jumped in. He covered the grenade. Took the full blow himself. Gave his life. And four of our soldiers are alive today because of what Ross did. Just as on the statue downstairs right below me, below where I stand, the statue of Father Damien, the Catholic priest from Hawaii, on the side of it is John 15:13, the words: Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. Ross had a lot of love. The accounts after 9/11 after those planes flew into buildings here at the Pentagon, there in New York, those incredible heroes on the fourth flight that went down in a field in Pennsylvania, those heroes went running in, willing to lay down their lives to save others, as Ross did. There at Arlington National Cemetery the Army chaplain did a wonderful job. Taps was played. It always gets me. It got everybody there. A 21-gun salute is an emotional thing at a funeral. And as everyone stood to turn to go, Sergeant Thomas came up, knelt down before the remains of Ross, put his hand on the remains of Ross McGinnis, bowed his head in prayer. He was followed by two others that Ross had saved. The fourth was still in Iraq. They put their hands on Ross's remains, bowed at the knee, bowed in prayer. And it was obvious what they were doing. Whether it's on Memorial Day, Veterans Day, the 9/11 anniversary, there cannot be too many occasions when we as a Nation stop and do what those three soldiers did: thank those who have laid down their lives for the rest of us, for our liberties; thank those who have sacrificed life or limb or suffered terrible disability for us and our lives and our liberty. And then, to thank God for people who are still willing to lay down their lives for us. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Isn't this the point at which Speaker Pelosi 4 years ago turned off the lights and microphones and wouldn't let us make speeches? I'm just curious.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, these are interesting times we live in, and it's nice to follow my friend, Mr. Shimkus, a graduate of the United States Military Academy, a servant of this country in the military, and still a servant in this country. It's good to call him friend. Hopefully he calls me friend, as well. These are troubling times. When the name Justice Department depicts something other than justice, it's a very troubling time. Some of us are extremely familiar with the prosecution of what most would consider the most significant, largest prosecution of terrorism support and funding in the United States history, which occurred in Federal district court in Dallas, Texas. It was begun under the Bush Justice Department, all part of the aftermath of 9/11 because, as President Bush indicated, we can't just go after the people that actually plotted and carried out the events of 9/11, who plotted and carried out other terrorist attacks against the United States. It's not enough. We've got to go after those who have supported those efforts at terrorism, have supported the killing of innocent people around the world. And particularly, we have to protect Americans. And for those who have supported terrorism and continue to support terrorism, the United States must step forward in order to protect itself. The Justice Department in November of 2008, I believe, got convictions of the individuals they had prosecuted in the Holy Land Foundation trial. Not only did they get convictions, they got over 100 different counts in which they got convictions. Through that, there were names of coconspirators who were named and set forward in the pleadings, and evidence was introduced, admitted into evidence at trial that showed there were groups and individuals in the United States that were supporting terrorism, and there was significant evidence to support that. In fact, two of those groups, CAIR and the Islamic Society of North America, ISNA, had moved that their names be stricken from the pleadings as named coconspirators in supporting terrorism. At that time, the acting U.S. Attorney did a very good job not only in the prosecution, but also in the pleading to the Federal district court there before Judge Solis, and he established plenty of evidence so that Judge Solis found there was plenty of evidence to support the coconspirators continuing to have their names in the pleading, and they were not satisfied with the ruling of the Federal district court. They appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ended up ruling that, yes, there was plenty of evidence to support the fact that CAIR, ISNA, and others were supporting terrorism, so their names would not be stricken from the pleadings, they would be kept in the pleadings as named coconspirators of terrorism. After that very successful prosecution that was in conformity with President Bush's promise that if you're not with us, you're with them, and those who support terrorism would be made to account, that began the first stage of the prosecution of supporters of terrorism. Those were people and individual cases, those were organizations right here in America that were supporting terrorism, funding terrorism. Yes, they were supporting charities. Yes, they were giving money to good causes. That acted as a cover for them also funding terrorism, funding known terrorist organizations who had actually killed people and destroyed things, committing acts of war. Then, the Attorney General became Eric Holder. The President, the Commander in Chief, became Barack Hussein Obama. We know it's okay to use the President's full name, because he proudly uses it when he goes to Muslim nations. In fact, the first nations the President went to and apologized for America's arrogance and divisiveness, dismissiveness were Muslim nations. In fact, going to Cairo, he snubbed America's ally, Israel's ally, Mubarak, who is not a fine, upstanding wonderful man but a man who had managed to keep some peace along the Israel border, a man who had agreements with this government just as this government had agreements with Qadhafi, despite the blood on his hands from terrorist involvement himself. In fact, I've read of reports of people even from our own Senate who have been over there, one who had tweeted that he had met with Colonel Qadhafi: ``He was an interesting man. I met with him at his ranch.'' I understand that Senator now says that tweet didn't come from him. But there were Americans from this government negotiating with Qadhafi, working out agreements, and then they turned their backs on people with whom they had worked agreements: Mubarak, Qadhafi. I don't think we should have worked agreements with Qadhafi because of the blood on his hands, American blood on his hands. But it had been done, and yet this Nation turned its back on allies. It was no surprise to me to read that the King of Jordan--another person with whom we have a relatively good relationship--had sought an appointment with Ahmadinejad in Iran once he saw the way this administration not only turned its back on allies, but also would contribute to bombing to get them out of office. It's an amazing thing. Then, being part of the Judiciary Committee here in Washington, some of us became very troubled that despite all of this substantive evidence--I've got a stack of it in my office from that Holy Land Foundation trial--substantiating allegations, at least to the satisfaction of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and the district court, that CAIR and ISNA and others should be named coconspirators, this Justice Department chose not to prosecute anyone else. Once again, using the old tactic, Well, the Bush administration didn't prosecute them. They did stage one, they got the initial prosecutions, and if those were successful, they intended to continue looking and pursuing all those who were implicated and could have cases proved, especially where there was substantial evidence, as there was with CAIR and ISNA. Instead of prosecuting CAIR and ISNA, this administration--and there's no question about this--despite the fussing and nay-saying of some once proud journalists of some once proud journalistic television networks, once proud newspapers, despite their failure to do their homework, despite their taking the easy road and simply asking opinions, Well, what do you think about these terrible accusations, and getting opinions instead of simply digging and looking at the facts and presenting the fact, they sought opinions on things that people had not even read. They asked opinions about letters that people had not read. They asked opinions about general tenor without actually showing people the tenor of the letters. And, unfortunately, some are always willing to respond without having read or reviewed the matter before them which they are being questioned about. But the facts are the facts. On the White House's own Web site, last time I checked, there were references to ISNA. There are references to ISNA's president, Imam Magid, who, as I understand, has now written a letter wanting condemnation of me and others who simply set out factual recitations to five different departments and then asked the question, Would you please investigate to see the extent of Muslim Brotherhood influence in this administration in this department. We know there's Muslim Brotherhood influence. The question is how much influence is there? When the White House's own Web site was carrying compliments, such as those spoken by Denis McDonough, the number two person in our National Security Agency, complimenting Imam Magid for the wonderful prayers he had given inside the sanctity of the White House itself, for the White House's iftar celebration during Ramadan. Compliments to Imam Magid, the president of the main coconspirator, for the wonderful introduction he gave the number two person in the National Security Agency. And within the FBI itself--it took until 2009 for the FBI to finally write a letter saying, Gee, because of all this evidence that came out about CAIR supporting terrorism in the Holy Land Foundation trial in 2008, we have suspended our relationship with them. At one place in the letter, they referred to it as a ``partner'' or a ``partnership.'' So there's no question there is Muslim Brotherhood influence in this administration. Anybody that says otherwise will likely find that they will end up at the lowest level of Nielsen ratings in their history, or at least in 20 years or so, because they simply are not doing their homework. It's much easier to bash the messenger than it is to actually do homework. And in fairness, I know there have been lots of budget cuts. It's tough for some entities, some networks to do the research they once did when they were much more popular. But, nonetheless, the truth is the truth. Facts are facts. The question remains: Just how extensive is the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in this administration? We know that the ACLU and CAIR have been demanding documentation of what trainees have been taught in our Justice Department, in other departments, making FOIA, Freedom of Information Act, requests trying to get information on what we are training our undercover agents, if any we have. Apparently, this administration has no problem outing people we have undercover in dangerous situations. At least somebody who has information about the very inner workings of this administration has leaked classified information. It remains to be found out who it is, but it is somebody that has access to some of the most important classified inner workings. Yet you've got CAIR and the ACLU demanding information about the information that was used to train these people. And the facts are that if you ever disclose that--and as I understand, our Justice Department was preparing to provide all that information to CAIR and to ACLU--and if they provide all of the information on exactly how people who have been undercover in radical Islamic situations, it will be easy for those individuals to be outed and killed because they'll know what their training is and their approach to radical Islam. They'll know the methods and means of our undercover, of our intelligence. And yet this administration continues to cater to such requests to accommodate complaints about CAIR. CAIR individuals can call the White House, as apparently was written up in material in the media after last August. They were complaining about people who were going to give a seminar to hundreds of law enforcement individuals. CAIR makes one call, as it was reported at least, makes a call to the White House. The seminar gets canceled. Hundreds of law enforcement individuals do not end up being taught about the inner workings of those who want to kill and destroy our way of life. And CAIR is happy. Just how far does the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood go? We know from the evidence in the Holy Land Foundation trial that ISNA is the largest Muslim Brotherhood front organization in America. And President Obama has had President Imam Magid in the inner sanctum of the State Department to listen to the speech that he gave, trying to upstage Prime Minister Netanyahu when he was on his way over here in May of last year. The report was that Imam Magid had actually given him advice on what he should say. Who knows, perhaps what Imam Magid said was, Oh, yes, Israel has agreed to go back to the 1967 boundary lines, so you can include that in your speech. Who knows. We wanted an Inspector General investigation to find out in the State Department, Defense Department, intelligence department, in these five departments just how extensive is the Muslim Brotherhood influence. We know it's there. Most Americans know it's there. There are some that still drink the Kool-Aid and refuse to acknowledge the facts that have been proven in court. There are facts that actually the prosecutor of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings has pointed out in his article--that's Andrew McCarthy--he has pointed out, We proved to New York jurors, wonderful New York jurors, beyond a reasonable doubt that there was this radical Islamic presence in America; and they did want to take over our country, that there is a civilization jihad. Some want to do it radically with violence. Some want to take over from inside our own governmental and civic organizations, and they're working toward that goal. There's no question about so many of these things. The question is, How far does the influence go? That's what we need to know. So we asked the question, and we had Attorney General Holder before our committee last year. And he was asked the question, Did you or did politics have any consideration in the refusal to prosecute any of the other named coconspirators about which the Fifth Circuit said there is plenty of evidence to support their involvement? Was there political involvement in that decision? Well, we didn't know it at the time; but since then, more recently, in the last couple of months, we've had the Attorney General testify before our committee that there are political aspects to justice, from his standpoint, which fly in the face of everything that any good law school, any legitimate law school has ever taught its law students. Justice is supposed to be blind. That's why the statue that depicts justice, holding the scales of justice, is blinded, is wearing a blindfold. Because justice is blind if it's real justice. And if justice is not blind, if we're looking to who it is and politically what the consequences will be, it's not justice. There are no political aspects to justice--or it's not true justice. And I'm afraid that's where we've gotten to in this so-called Justice Department. So we had the Attorney General say, Oh, no, no, no. There is no political involvement. In fact, I said to my friend Trent Franks, Gee, in fact, the U.S. Attorney handling that--I believe it was quoted in a newspaper--I believe it was the Dallas News--he said there was no politics involved in those dismissals because there was just no case there. There was no evidence to support it. Well, I happened to have read that Dallas Morning News report, and I happen to have read the quotes from that acting U.S. Attorney. And yes, he did say it was local; politics weren't involved. But that is not what he said. He says no, the evidence wasn't there, which is entirely different since he was not under penalty of potential jail when he spoke to a reporter, but he was under potential penalty of jail. If you ever commit a fraud upon a court by not giving all of the information or misrepresenting to a judge or tricking a judge by not being truthful, you can be looking at jail time. Lawyers before me knew that. I didn't care about politics, but I cared about truth. I cared about it in the Bush administration. So when we found out there were abuses of the National Security Letter, I was furious. And I grilled the Bush director of the FBI at that time. I was surprised there weren't more Democrats that were nearly as outraged as I was because that was so offensive. It was so improper. It was so unjust. I don't care who the President is; justice is justice. And for our Attorney General to act like oh, no, no, there wasn't anything. And then I know. I read the pleadings of that U.S. Attorney where he said there's plenty of evidence to support the name of CAIR and others being in here. And he convinced the Fifth Circuit of the same thing. So he was either lying to the courts or he was lying to the paper about the evidence. And now, after having had the head of civil rights of this Justice Department, Mr. Perez, testify that gee, there was no political aspect in the decision not to pursue the New Black Panther Party for what they did at a polling place in Pennsylvania, and now we have found out this week, Human Events has a great article, ``Federal judge rules political appointees interfered with voter intimidation case.'' That's from August 2, posted at 2:12 p.m. There's one from the American Spectator about the fact that Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general, is one of the most destructive forces against the rule of law in this Nation, including being the man responsible for the DOJ dropping charges again the New Black Panthers for voter intimidation in Philadelphia during the last Presidential election. It goes on to talk about he appeared before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Constitution, which is a subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, and it goes on to say that he questioned Assistant Attorney General Perez over the administration's commitment to First Amendment rights. His questions were prompted by a Daily Caller article from late last year in which Perez was quoted as warmly embracing the proposals of Islamist advocates in a meeting at George Washington University, among them a request for a legal declaration that U.S. citizens' criticism of Islam constitutes racial discrimination. Well, we know that one of the 10-year goals of the Muslim Brotherhood is to subvert the U.S. Constitution to sharia law. And once they convince enough people that it should be a crime to burn a Koran or to criticize Islam, then they can check that box. I believe in the Bible. My eternity is based on belief of the Bible. But I also know under the U.S. Constitution, you can burn a Bible. I took a pledge and was willing to lay down my life, my 4 years in the Army, for our flag, but I also understand it's constitutional to burn a flag. And yet we have people in this injustice department saying they want to make it a crime to criticize Islam. No wonder they're purging their training materials, eliminating references to Islam. As one intelligence officer of this government told me, we are blinding our ability to see our enemy, and that can and will have dangerous consequences if we don't turn it around. Mr. Speaker, wrapping up here before we take this August recess that isn't a recess because we will be in pro forma session, we're willing, most of us, Republicans are willing to come back. All we have to know is that the Senate is finally doing something to pass some of the jobs bills we've sent their way. And in fairness, what we need is Republican leadership that will say okay, Senate, you want this bill, then you are going to have to pass some of the economic and jobs bills that will get this economy going, but we haven't used the leverage Republicans in the House have. And, unfortunately, with all of the talk about agreeing to another CR, it just means that we'll have finished out 2 years without cutting anything significant, as we promised 2 years ago after the biggest wave election in American history since the 1930s. It's time for Americans to make clear you want Congress to do what was promised when the Congressmen got elected. And if we do that, it doesn't matter how obstructive the Senate is, it will make it even more clear if we use our leverage and say: Hey, people, the government is shut down on weekends, you seem to live okay. Let's get back to just essential needs of the government. Allow a shutdown of other things. Pass my bill that will make sure our military gets paid during a shutdown, we know Social Security recipients will still get their payments in the event of a shutdown, and keep the government shut down until everybody understands we're going to start living within our means as a Congress, like all Americans have to do, or declare bankruptcy. They have to do that. We can't afford to declare bankruptcy. We must get this government under control. I hope that constituents across the country during this month will make that clear, and we'll replace the Senators who are standing in the way of getting this economy going, that we'll replace the administration who is creating injustice and allowing radical Islamic jihadists to have any influence at all. The Secretary of Homeland Security sat there and told me that it did absolutely not happen, that a member of a terrorist organization had been allowed in the White House; 6 days later, she not only admits to the Senate that it did happen after she told me absolutely not, but she said: Oh, but it's okay; we vetted him three times. It's time for a government that is more considerate and concerned about providing for the common defense, of getting out of the way and letting the economy grow than they are about playing favorites, playing to their cronies, and playing against religious freedom. And with that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

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