Louie Gohmert

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Some people don't want to call it that and it may be unilateral at this point, but there is a war using terror going on and we either fight it, or we will be overwhelmed by it. So we should be in it, yes.

Mr. GOHMERT. Pardon?

Mr. GOHMERT. Yes.

Mr. GOHMERT. The gentleman raises a very good question. The problem has been apparently that the Attorney General and the President don't want to charge them with what they've actually done, committed an act of war against this Nation. They want to charge them with a criminal violation and bring that to court. And if they do not charge them with the act of war that brought about the deaths of thousands of Americans, innocent Americans of all walks of life, if they don't want to charge them with the most heinous act of war against this country in our history, and charge them simply with a criminal violation, then they can bring them into the civilians courts.

Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate Mr. Shadegg making the point he does about why would we bring them to trial here in the United States, especially in New York City. There are a lot of people that have never picked up the Constitution. We've got a little pocket Constitution here. But in article I it talks about the legislative powers. Over in section 8 it says that ``Congress shall have power to'' and you go down to ``constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court.'' So President Bush made a mistake when he tried to create tribunals by the executive branch without getting Congress involved, and the Supreme Court rightfully struck that down and said you can't do that because article I, section 8 says this is something that Congress must do. So then Congress did that. We had the Military Commissions Act of 2006, and this is the bill that's been slightly amended here this year, but it still says that, in section 948c, persons subject to military commissions: any alien unprivileged enemy belligerent is subject to trial by military commission as set forth in this chapter. I am in the process of drafting this legislation right now that we will file this week that will say they must be tried in military commissions so we don't have an inexperienced President that doesn't realize the consequences of his actions.

Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate so much my friend's wonderful points. We understand the President just recently, because of the lack of understanding of our military history and the Nation's history, is perhaps apparently the first President ever to fail to understand and believe that President Truman did the right thing in dropping the two bombs that they did. And so if you are an apologist for America, you believe that consistently we have done the wrong things, you have never been really proud of America before, you don't know that the Japanese had committed to dig in and had planned to withstand an assault even to the death of every single Japanese person on the island of Japan. If you don't know these facts, if you don't know the fact that perhaps millions of lives were saved by dropping those two bombs because it brought the war to an end rather than forcing the Japanese, as their leaders intended to do, to die to the last person to repel an invasion, then you would be an apologist, if you simply don't know the facts. But this puts us further at risk. We just simply cannot bow to this. The answer will be when the American people respond and let the White House know and let the Department of Justice know. Burn up the phone lines. Let them know by constant calls. I'm not sure I would email this White House since they have shown what they do with the list. But at least burn up the phone lines letting them know that the Commander in Chief needs to act as a Commander in Chief, and not an apologist in chief and that we should not put our soldiers at further risk by requiring them to gather forensic evidence, that we should not put the people of New York at further risk, and to leave them at Guantanamo to be tried there. People who understand about war understand that in the whole history of mankind, the precedent is if you as a group declare war on another nation and you or your fellow warriors are captured, then you are held until such time as your fellow group will cease the war, whether it takes years, a 100-year war, a 7-year war, whatever it takes until you convince your people to quit being at war with us, then we hold you until the war is over, and then bring you to trial. That's what the precedent normally is. Whether it's 4 years as World War II, whatever the length of time, we hold you until your people are no longer at war with us as a Nation. In this case, if you want to rush them, bring them to trial, fine. Do it with a military commission set up under the Military Commissions Act of 2006. We are going to try to amend it so that the President has no choice, so that this President learns you do not have the choice to put New Yorkers at risk. It breaks my heart to think about the families of those victims of 9/ 11 and what they will be subjected to. As a judge, I saw the faces of family members who struggled with the aspect of going through and reliving the trauma of the terrible crime that was committed against them. I saw those faces. I heard their great suffering. I'm afraid it's not going to be nearly what that will be collectively of a city the size of New York as they have to relive 9/11 on the island. They have to relive the possibility of further terrorist attacks. Certainly terrorist attacks will be threatened during the course of the trial. And, of course, you would expect the defense attorneys to wait until Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and these other terrorists have actually put their feet on American soil so they will be granted all the rights of an American citizen such as they were trying to kill as many of as they could. You wait until their feet are on American soil, and then you file your motion to change venue, then you file your motion for discovery, then you file your motions to examine experts and drag those things out as long as you can. I ended up being asked to take over a civil trial in Texas that several judges had worked on prior to me. It was outside my district. But every judge had been recused for one reason or another. It had gone on for 11 years. I was asked to take it over, and it had been a logistical nightmare. And I was deemed to have done an amazing job in wrapping the case up in 2 years when both parties said when I got into it that they wouldn't bring a case to trial for perhaps 5 years. But even working as quickly as I did and being as forceful as I was as the judge, not taking any extensions, not granting any type of continuances, forcing everything as quickly as could be done, and yet legally, it still took 2 years to wrap that thing up. And that was considered amazing. With what is at stake here, the City of New York should suffer no more. No more. I went to New York shortly after 9/11. I saw the suffering. We should not do that to New Yorkers again. My goodness, they have suffered enough. Having spent 4 years in the Army, being familiar with the military justice system, it isn't a slam dunk for anybody under the UCMJ. There are rights afforded individuals who are tried under the UCMJ. But that is the appropriate place to try people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who says ``We are terrorists to the bone. So many thanks to God.'' We can also be thankful to God that all Muslims, in fact, the vast majority, do not feel as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. This man does not need to set foot on American soil. We need to have a President that starts acting like a Commander in Chief, not an apologist in chief, so that we can keep America as safe as we have been for the last 8 years and not as the terror will be reintroduced by the reintroduction of these masterminds in America. With that, Mr. Speaker, I realize my time is now expired, and I would conclude.

Mr. GOHMERT. Sam said there were no Bibles provided, but they did give them the chance to drop to their knees. They would put a rod across the floor where, when they were beat in the back and dropped to their knees, their knees would hit on the rod and then they were forced to stay with their knees on that rod. And he said, It may not sound like much, but over a period of hours, it becomes so excruciatingly painful that it's just unbearable and you hope and pray you will pass out. That is what has been afforded to Americans before. And we have seen what happened to Daniel Pearl. They say, well, gee, they may treat ours more harshly if we don't bring them to a criminal trial in New York. How much more harshly do you treat somebody than cutting their heads off while they are gurgling and trying to beg for help? I don't think that is a problem. We need to treat these people as the war criminals that they are, that they have admitted to be; otherwise, we put our Nation at great risk.

Mr. GOHMERT

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

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, my understanding of the rules is that there is required to be a copy of the bill, and since we have a manager's amendment, that is supposed to be somewhere. A number of us have been trying to find a copy of the manager's amendment since we are going to be voting on it. I hear some aahs, but isn't there supposed to be a copy, and if so, where would that copy be, since we are about to do this to the American people?

Mr. GOHMERT. And I was just at the desk, Mr. Speaker, so parliamentary inquiry: If you could direct me to that place on the desk where the 200 pages are, it would be very helpful.

Mr. GOHMERT. I take that as a ``no.''

Mr. GOHMERT. Parliamentary inquiry. Does the Speaker know where a copy, as the rule requires, is at the desk so that we can come up and see it at the desk as a requirement of the rules?

Mr. GOHMERT. Parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the wonderful work in the Stupak-Pitts amendment, addressing things like the money on page 110 for abortions.

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, this is well intended. But you read section 501, and it basically says if you make too much to get free health care but you make too little to be able to buy it, you're going to get taxed under this bill. It means well. But it does damage. For those who have paid into Medicare for 40 years or so, who expected to have it, they get cut hundreds of billions of dollars, but illegals are going to get covered. Come on now. In the 1960s they meant well with the Great Society, but they offered a check for every child a woman could have out of wedlock. Meaning well, wanting to help them, but they lured them into a rut with no way out, and they came to my court to be sentenced. We hurt people when we do the wrong things. For the Declaration of Independence, our Founders pledged their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor. This is a ``declaration of dependence'' that pledges Americans' lives, Americans' fortunes, and there is no honor in that.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, we are hearing the requests over and over for unanimous consent to speak outside the rule. You see that we have a lineup of people over here to do the same thing on our side. The majority has the power to extend debate either by UC, as I understand it, and so my inquiry is: Would it be in order to go back and forth, making unanimous consents on each side to speak outside the rule and so we can do this in an equitable way, which appears to be what the Speaker is trying to do?

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

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the abuse of process in not allowing people to come to the people's House and just make statements over 18 percent takeover of the U.S. economy.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. I think my friend from Iowa just made a great point about why there needs to be this rush to bad judgment by the Speaker and by the administration, and it answers the question of our friend from New Jersey about why this rush to bad judgment. That is exactly if the Democrats go home for the weekend, just when they think they are about to get the last vote by adding something that will get their vote, by twisting the arm--I don't know if we are threatening losses of committees, I understand that's gone on around here in the recent past, but they are so close, they think, to getting this vote done, this travesty against the American people, if they go home, they are going to hear about what's going on. What I can't help but come back to, when my friend, Mr. Garrett from New Jersey, asked about why rush? We have heard our President and all of those who seek to make excuses for him trying to make up his mind on what to do in Afghanistan say, He doesn't want to rush and make a bad decision. He wants to take his time. Can you imagine the stress being heaped upon our soldiers who are either in harm's way in Afghanistan or get news, you are about to be sent into harm's way into Afghanistan, and you have a President that can't commit to whether he is going to give them what they need to win in Afghanistan? I can't imagine anything more stressful and debilitating to hear, You are going to send me into harm's way? You've got a report that has been sitting on your desk since August that says if you don't give us the troops we need, we're going to lose this war. That means I am likely going to be killed while you are trying to make up your mind, and you are playing footsie with different groups and shows and doing all these fun things, and we are over here in harm's way; you can't make up your mind. Okay. We will give him that he needs to take his time. We understand that he voted ``present'' probably more than anybody else in recent history in the Senate because he couldn't make up his mind down there, but how about giving us the same benefit of the huge doubt we have about his decision-making? Give it to the Congress. Let us have time so a mistake, a huge mistake, is not made here. This is scary stuff, what is about to be heaped on us. Let us have the same amount of time that he has demanded.

Mr. GOHMERT. Well, I can't name you one without a vested interest that supports this, but apparently just today the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, two different groups, announced their opposition to the House bill. I know from personal experience, when a brain tumor was killing my mother and eventually took her life, these neurologists and neurosurgeons are the ones that knew the most about what was best for my mother in those last years that the tumor was taking her; a brain tumor. Wow. An incredibly brilliant bunch of people, those doctors that work on the brain. They apparently made no bones about it. They were not happy, apparently, that the AMA came out and endorsed it. They made it a matter of the minds on which they have, since they work on the mind, that this is not a bill that's going to be good for America, it's going to devastate America. In fact, the Congress of Neurological Surgeons' president stated, ``Overall we believe this legislation will ultimately limit patient choice by putting the government between the doctor and the patient which will interfere with vital patient care decisions. As it stands, this House bill could amount to a complete government takeover of health care.''

Mr. GOHMERT. I thank my friend from Iowa. I thought it was a point worth making since we heard on Thursday that AARP has now endorsed the plan. They came out at first and endorsed the Obama-Pelosi plan earlier this year, and then they lost so many members that AARP said, Well, we were basically endorsing a concept but not this particular bill, because people were mad about it. They came out on Thursday, and they put their stamp of approval on it. It turns out, apparently, that AARP makes more money from selling insurance than they do from their membership dues. They apparently got a heck of a sweetheart deal that was cut with the administration. So, yeah, they're willing to put their stamp of approval on it because there's money in it for them, not for their members. Now, their members are going to get screwed around pretty big. They're going to have a $500 billion cut to Medicare. They're going to really get hurt badly, but the AARP people who run AARP are going to come out real good. Then I noticed an article tonight that came out, which says: AMA members revolt over ObamaCare endorsement. It turns out the association, or the AMA's board of trustees, failed to obtain delegate approval before endorsing this new Pelosi-Obama monstrosity. Let's see. The president of the Florida Medical Association said: The delegates are pretty upset with the board of trustees right now, and they were submitting an emergency resolution to revoke that endorsement. The trouble is it probably won't come to a vote until Monday. This article says: Rescinding the AMA endorsement would be a significant blow to ObamaCare at a critical point in the debate as reflected in the Democrats' reaction Thursday when they won endorsements from the AMA and AARP. Well, we know why AARP endorsed. Anyway, this says: AMA sources confirm a resolution that would effectively revoke the AMA's endorsement will be introduced during the delegates' conference at the association's general meeting in Houston. The article also points out that the AMA board issued a similar endorsement back in July without delegate approval when it declared the AMA support for the earlier House version of the bill. Then this article points out that, after that endorsement, 10,000 physicians logged onto Sermo.com. Ten thousand physicians. It's an online physicians' community. They logged on to voice their opinions. According to the Sermo Web site, of the doctors who responded, 94 percent do not support the bill, and 95 percent state that the AMA does not speak for them with its endorsement. Isn't that something? The AARP is not speaking, really, for retired people. It's speaking for the executives at AARP who are going to do really well. I understand there are some waivers and some neat stuff for them in there. The AMA board, apparently, is not speaking for the medical doctors in America. I would be glad to yield back.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. You know, I thought about a little limerick Sir Walter Scott wrote. He was around back during those years during and after the American Revolution. But he penned an interesting line that went, ``Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.'' I have heard that all my life, growing up as a kid. ``Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.'' Now, we had the President of the United States come into this Chamber right here and speak from that podium there, and he made the statement that there would be no abortion funded in the health care bill. Apparently, there are other ways that this will be done or can be done. On page 110 of the health care bill we are supposed to vote on tomorrow, Subsection B is entitled ``Abortions for which public funding is allowed: The services described in this subparagraph are abortions for which the expenditure of Federal funds appropriated for the Department of Health and Human Services is permitted.'' Now, we are hearing that tonight we are being held over here, which is fine. I don't mind going all weekend, going the rest of the week, the month, whatever. It is the job. It is fine by me. I think America is safer when we are not in session. But that is fine. But we are hearing that supposedly we are in session because you have people browbeating Democratic Members who have taken the staunch position, and I think the wonderful position, a very moral position, that funds taken from the hands of law-abiding Americans who believe it is murder to kill a baby who is unborn should not go to fund abortion, and they are taking that wonderful, principled position. Now they are being told that they need to buy into this bill and do the right thing and vote for it. We have others who have taken the position that if funding is not in this bill for abortion, they are not going to vote for it. So those who are trying to twist arms and get people to vote for this massive, terrible thing for America, this health care monstrosity, this power grab, as it is, are saying that they need to do the right thing for America and vote for this bill. You have got some who believe what the President said at that podium right there, that there would be no funding in here for illegal aliens to have health insurance. And yet anybody that knows anything about the law knows that if there is no requirement to check the identity of someone who is being furnished free health insurance, then illegal aliens will be provided free health insurance. So there are those friends across the aisle, Democrats who are principled, saying we need language in here so the President will be able to keep his word and he won't look like a liar. We need the language in there so illegal aliens will not be getting free health care, just like the President promised. We have also been told by the President repeatedly, if you make less than $250,000, there will not be any tax of any kind levied on you. Yet we find Section 501, among many taxes in this bill that people are being forced and arms twisted to vote for, it is entitled ``tax on individuals without acceptable health care coverage.'' It turns out the provision basically says if you make too much money to be given free health insurance but you don't make enough to be able to afford to buy health insurance, then this Obama-Pelosi plan will tax you. Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive. And that is exactly what has happened. This monstrosity of a web has been woven, and now it is catching so many in it as we approach this monstrosity of a health care plan.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate my friend from Utah for yielding. Madam Speaker, it is an honor even for a Texan to pay tribute to the team from New York. Even as a kid growing up, you know, when I was 6 years old and was out on the playground, I was one of many who wanted to be Mickey Mantle, as we started playing, and Roger Maris. You know, the first bat I was ever given for Christmas had Bobby Richardson's name on it. Who could forget his incredible grand slam? The New York Yankees have always been a franchise that has prided itself on excellence. Sure, they've had some bad years along the way, but nobody touches their record when it comes to the World Series. It probably goes without saying, but my friend from New York does look good in a New York Yankee's hat even though he's not allowed to wear it on the floor. As I thought about the Yankee team--and you go back to, you know, thinking about an incredible player like Lou Gehrig, and he considered himself the luckiest man in the world. Those were great teams-- excellence on the field of play--and you think about having a closer in the bullpen that, when you get ahead, you bring in Rivera, and he's going to close out, and you're going to win, and he knows it. You know, some of Reggie Jackson's cockiness sometimes bothered me, but you just knew that, come late in the season, no matter whether he'd had a slump or not, the guy was such an incredible baseball player that he was going to come through. You just knew because he knew. As I've thought over the years of the incredible excellence of the New York Yankees--and this takes a real effort on my part to pay tribute to that kind of excellence in New York. They have been good so many times--not just good but great. Then it took me to thinking about all of the cities in America, including right here in Washington, D.C., which have not been so fortunate, you know, and where wins have come so difficultly. It's such a struggle. You lose week after week, and you think, Do you know what we need? Maybe we need a public option for baseball teams. Why is it fair that one city gets to have the corner on the market of all of the excellence in baseball? You know, shouldn't we spread that around the country? You know, not everybody has the money that New York City has to spend on baseball, so let's have more choice. Let's give the government a few baseball teams. That way, people can choose to support the government baseball team when their town really can't afford to have one or they can choose to support the independent baseball teams like those in New York; but we'll probably need to put a cap on New York so that everybody will spend exactly the same amount of money. Nobody can spend more because, you know, there's a bigger TV market in New York, which gives them more revenue and which allows them to pay more for baseball players. Even with a cap, they're able to spend more money, and it just creates unfairness. We should avoid having one team be so excellent, maybe, by spreading it around and by letting people choose a government option baseball team. That's what was occurring to me. I had a conversation this morning with a Democrat for whom I have tremendous respect, tremendous respect. We come at problems from different directions. He was sincerely saying that he believed that-- you know what?--we don't know enough as patients when a doctor tells us we need treatment or when we need an MRI or a test. We don't know enough to say, No, we don't, or, Maybe we shouldn't. We have to rely on the doctors, and the doctors are out to make a profit. You know, when times get tough, maybe they order more MRIs. Who are we to know? We need that help from the government to make our decisions. As I thought about it, can you imagine a baseball team that the government runs? I mean, if the Nats played nothing but government-run baseball teams, they would have been in the World Series this year. I mean it's just that pronounced. My Democratic friend, again, I have the utmost respect. He is truly a good man, but he just believes, in his heart, that people need that help from the government to make their decisions in the most personal areas of their lives. I don't believe that. I believe that you let people spend their own money, that you encourage tax incentives to have health savings accounts of people's own so it's their own money to be spent on health care and that you don't let the insurance companies make those decisions. I don't like them making decisions for me. I'm changing insurance companies at the end of this year, but we don't want the government, some of us, making those calls either. Let's allow the individuals to excel or to fail or to succeed on their own. For those in our society who simply cannot afford to have health savings accounts, let's give those to them, and then let's provide the catastrophic insurance to cover things above that. That's in my health care bill. Then encourage everyone else who can to go in that direction, and let's not allow the government to make those decisions for us. I saw socialized medicine in 1973 where the government makes those decisions for people. They don't get that choice, and they would have loved to have had that choice. If you've got your own health savings account and if the insurance company can't tell you what to do and if the government can't tell you what to do and if you're not sure that the doctor's telling you to get an MRI is the thing to do, then you go get a second opinion. You know, of course, that's where the joke comes in. Somebody like me goes to a doctor, and he says, I think you're ugly. I want a second opinion. Well, you know, you're not a very good athlete either. Anyway, we should be able to get second opinions, not because the government says that we should, not because the insurance companies say we shouldn't, but of our own choice. I believe in the ability and in the propriety of the individuals. That's what the Founders believed in. The truth of the matter is, if I take my tongue out of my cheek, the New York Yankees excel as individuals and as a team. They are given that ability to excel. Thank God the New York Yankees are not a government option, because they showed us what incredible baseball really can be when people are allowed to reach their full potential. That's what I'd like to see all around, including in health care--not a government takeover, not a government telling us what to do and, thank God, not a government telling baseball teams whether to pull a squeeze play or whether they can or can't intentionally walk somebody. Let the baseball teams make their own decisions, and then you have excellence like we saw this year in the New York Yankees.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, an extraordinary thing happened here today, right out here down the hill. There were tens of thousands of people that came out on very short notice. They came out, and these were not the super wealthy. These weren't the Wall Street folks that if you will check, give four to one to Democrats over Republicans. These people didn't care about party at all. They were concerned about the America that they knew, an America where people were given a chance to succeed and a chance to fail. Because as people far more wise than I am have noted over the years, any government that can take away your chance to fail has taken away your chance to succeed. So people came out on very short notice. These were working people. You could see these were not people of leisure. These were people who had jobs, but they felt like this was something so critical they had to come, make their voices heard. You see them around offices all over the Capitol Hill area. It was immensely moving. And the way the people all said the pledge to the flag at the start and honored the prayer as it was said to start the proceedings. And I don't know that I have ever heard a group sing the National Anthem with such fervor as a group. It was immensely touching because the people were up here to let their voices be heard and to let people know that the government does not need to take over 18 percent of this country's economy. Haven't we messed up the car companies enough? Haven't we messed up the banks and the lenders and the housing market enough that we're not satisfied yet until we take over 18 percent of the world's economy and muck it up as well? Do we really have to meddle and take over that kind of thing? The role of the government should be as a referee, not as a player. We shouldn't be out there taking over businesses. You want to speed up the demise of a country, then let the government start becoming the player. Now, the Soviet Union was brutal enough and totalitarian enough. They were able to make a socialist form of government last for 70 years, as a record. Extraordinary. But they were brutal and totalitarian enough, they could force it that far. We won't last that long, not when we've moved the government in charge of everything. Under the bill--I haven't gotten through the full bill, but I have seen some things that are staggering. I do remember hearing a number of our Nation's leaders saying that there was no way Federal dollars would be paying for abortion, so let me just read straight from page 110, subsection B, titled, Abortions for Which Public Funding is Allowed. And I'm reading the quote from page 110: The services described in this subparagraph are abortions for which the expenditure of Federal funds appropriated for the Department of Health and Human Services is permitted. Then it goes on and says, Based on the laws in effect of the date that is 6 months before the beginning of the plan year involved--yeah, right--no money there will be used for abortions, and then there it is in black and white. We were told that if you liked your plan, you're going to get to keep it. And yet you could go over here--actually, that's an easy section to find. You're not going to be keeping it because it says here--and this is on page 91. This says, Protecting the Choice to Keep Current Coverage. The number one limitation on keeping your insurance, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage. The second limitation is the issuer does not change any of its terms or conditions. Good grief. You're going to add beneficiaries to every policy, you're going to change terms and conditions. It turns out that wasn't true either. It is time to be true and faithful in this job to the American people and the job for which they sent us here. It is time to honor the Constitution.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. I so much appreciate my friend, Mr. Smith from New Jersey. Earlier, he was talking about RU-486, and I couldn't help but reflect. You know, we see people who are so concerned, properly, about our environment, about this wonderful garden with which we've been blessed, and they fight against the use of chemicals that may affect this wonderful garden. They go to organic food stores so they can buy food that has never had chemicals used. They exercise. They go to health clubs, you know, to stay in good shape because they're so concerned about living clean, wholesome lives. Then they would think about taking a poison into their bodies, and they know at the time they take the poison that it's not good for them, for sure. They know that the very reason for taking it is to kill a life within. How could we get to this point that such a caring society--one that cares about the environment, that cares so much about the world around us and about the people around us, one that will walk up and just chew out anybody who is smoking because of what it does to their bodies and because of what the secondhand smoke does to them, and one that will protect any others around them from someone's smoking--would take a poison into their own bodies for the very purpose of killing? I mean how does that make sense? How did we get to this point? Then you realize, well, the reason you do that--take a poison to kill a child, a life within--is you're wanting to avoid the consequences of your conduct. That's the bottom line. Then you come to realize, if you live in a society that goes on, say, 35 or 36 years where it becomes completely legal and acceptable to even poison or to kill or to decapitate for the sole purpose of avoiding the consequences of what we do, then you get to a point where people would want to avoid any tough decisions, any consequences. So you would get to the point where we are today where, perhaps, 40 percent or so would be willing to say, You know what? I'm willing to give up my freedoms just so I don't have to worry about consequences anymore. I'm going to give up my liberties, give up my freedoms so that my government will take care of all of my health care decisions from now on. Isn't that wonderful. The government will make our health care decisions. They'll decide which things will be funded and which things will not, and I won't have to think about it anymore. I won't have to worry about it anymore. Just like when I got involved when I shouldn't have and the consequence was a life within me. I didn't have to worry about them because I could just kill that life with no consequences. There is a woman named Abby Johnson who's self-described as ``extremely pro-choice,'' who said she knew it was time to quit in September when she watched an unborn child ``crumble'' as the baby was vacuumed, dismembered, and destroyed. I appreciate my friend Chris Smith's bringing this to my attention. Abby Johnson is from Texas. She said, ``The clinic was pushing employees to strive for abortion quotas to boost profits.'' In former clinic director Abby Johnson's words, ``There are definitely client goals. We'd have a goal for every month for abortion clients.'' The article continued, ``The Bryan Texas Planned Parenthood clinic expanded access to abortion to increase earnings.'' They reported that Johnson said, `` `One of the ways they were able to up the number of patients they saw was they started doing the RU-486 chemical abortions all throughout the week.' '' Yes, that's the ticket. Just give people poison and let them not only kill a life, but poison their own systems. People that wouldn't dream of smoking, it's okay, take this poison, can kill a life, and hurt yourself. Well, World Net Daily did an article and they explained that ``RU-486 chemical abortions kill the lining of the uterus, cutting off oxygen and nutrients, resulting in the death of an unborn baby.'' Just like Chris Smith was talking about, you're starving a child. Johnson said the chemical abortion cost the same as an early first- trimester abortion: between $505 and $695 for each procedure. And Johnson's words were ``Abortion is the most lucrative part of Planned Parenthood's operations . . . they really wanted to increase the number of abortions so they could increase their income.'' Folks, it is wrong. And if you didn't believe abortion was going to get funds under this bill, then you ought to believe it when you read the bill. You go to the trouble to read the bill. And when the subtitle is, and this is Page 110, ``Abortions for which Public Funding is Allowed'' and then read through there, gee, public funding must be allowed for abortion because it's in the bill if people will bother to read it. But we come back to this: We're living in a time when we have got to come back to educating our children that conduct has consequences. And when you make them believe for 35 years that their conduct has no consequences, then you get to the point where we are today. You have a Republican administration running up the deficit and then you have a Democratic administration raising it exponentially because there are no consequences to our conduct. We can break the Nation but we won't go broke. We can, in the face of terrible economic conditions, run up the deficit even more and have no consequences because we know, going back to Roe versus Wade, we have learned in this country you don't have to have consequences to conduct. We have got to come back to sanity while we have still got a country because we are in this country not because of what we did, what we deserve, but because people who came before us sacrificed, because they knew there were consequences to conduct. And we've got all we have today because of them. And the only way we will ever show we deserve what we have is if we can pass on a country with freedom and liberty, where, yes, there are consequences to conduct to those who come after us. And if we don't turn this thing around, they're not going to get the gift we were given. I thank my friend from New Jersey for taking this hour and concentrating his time on such a critical issue.