[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 54 (Thursday, April 28, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H2727-H2732]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
KEEPING COURTS SAFE
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Miss McMorris). Under the Speaker's
announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Gohmert) is recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas
(Mr. Poe). That was very inspirational. I was not sure rice farming
could be that inspirational; but after the gentleman from Texas talked
about it, I feel better already.
Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to be before this body tonight and to
address a number of things on a number of different issues. I have got
to say, for those who have never been on this floor, it is a humbling
experience. And I know that when on January 4, I sat right over there
in that chair on the aisle and when the Speaker, the gentleman from
Illinois (Mr. Hastert), said, ``Raise your right hand,'' and he
repeated the oath that we were going to take, and I raised my right
hand, for some reason, though I have been in here a few times before, I
had never looked above the Speaker's head. And as I looked above his
head, it kind of choked me up. Because above the Speaker's head are the
words ``In God We Trust.'' And that goes back to the beginning of this
Nation and to the fact that God has truly blessed America.
Now, in that context I have a number of things I want to talk about,
a number of things that people within my district there in east Texas,
the first district of Texas, the historical district where the great
American Sam Rayburn was Congressman, later Speaker. I realize that
nowadays that will not happen to this Congressman from the First
District of Texas, but it is humbling to follow those great footsteps
of a great American.
Wright Patman was my Congressman. He served in the first district. He
was followed by a number of folks, like Sam Hall. He became a Federal
judge after serving in Congress, just a great American. He made
Marshall, Texas and all of us in east Texas proud.
So as I began about filling this time as Congressman, these 2 years
that the voters have so graciously allowed me, there are a number of
things that we have undertaken and one of the things I want to mention
is the bill that we filed last week. It is entitled The Secure Access
to Justice and Court Protection Act of 2005.
It does a number of things. We had looked around, and with my
background of having been a district judge, having been a chief justice
of a court of appeals, I have a great deal of sensitivity. And as we
saw that the Federal judge's husband and mother in Illinois were killed
as a result of her efforts and her duties as a judge, we realized
something needed to be done, that it was rather tragic. As we saw what
happened in Atlanta, Georgia, as we saw what happened in Tyler, Texas
around the Smith County Courthouse where I served so many years as a
judge. We realized something has to be done to make people realize that
they can not be threatening the system that has come to mean so much.
It is one of the few things that other countries do not have and that
is a fair, equitable justice system.
Madam Speaker, you have heard me, I am sure, get after the Supreme
Court. I have been rather upset about some of the things and some of
the reasoning that they have used in arriving at some of their
decisions.
{time} 2200
I will criticize judges with whom I disagree. I will criticize the
Supreme Court. It is our American right to do that. Many have fought
and died to give us that right, to secure that right, but when it comes
to threats or violence, they have no place whatsoever in this country.
Our justice system needs to be, if nothing else, the last bastion of
civility, where people can come together. No matter what has occurred
outside the courthouse, they can come together and know that we will
take turns. We will sit down. We will talk in order. We will not talk
over each other. We will give people the opportunity to have a fair
trial, to have due process fulfilled. We will give people the right to
have a speedy trial.
All of these things are so critical, and that is why I am proud to
have filed this bill, and we even had people talking about bipartisan
support. I have the gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner), a bipartisan
cosponsor, staunch Democrat, but I am proud to have him as a cosponsor
on this bill because this is serious, and there are a number of things
that this bill does, and I wanted to briefly touch on some of those.
For one thing, it creates stiffer penalties for individuals who harm
or threaten to physically harm a Federal judge, their families, jurors,
witnesses, victims or informants. And to give you an illustration of
what we are looking at, currently if you were to assault or threaten
someone who was a Federal judge, for example, you would be looking at
zero years to 8 years prison time. Now, if it is a simple assault, it
would be a maximum of 1 year, a misdemeanor; but assault resulting in
any bodily injury at all would get you 5 years in prison or up to 20
years in prison. Assault with a dangerous weapon, this is serious
stuff, that could be anywhere, currently, zero to 20 years. However, if
it was a dangerous weapon, under the bill that we filed, it would mean
a minimum of 15 years in prison, a minimum of 15 years.
I know there are some people that are against mandatory minimums. I
[[Page H2728]]
never cared much for the Federal guidelines when they were imposed.
They do have some purpose, but whatever the crime is, we have always
had minimum punishments. We have always had maximum punishments. If it
is a misdemeanor, the minimum would be a zero or the maximum up to a
year, but we go from there and we try to set a range based on the
severity of the penalty. This is what this bill does.
If you threaten any of the items I have mentioned, then you would be
looking currently at a maximum of 10 years. Well, now, you would be
looking, if you threaten kidnapping, with a minimum of 30 years. If it
is some other type of threat, then you would be looking at 5 to 20
years, but we need to get the message out.
One of the things I ran into as a judge was sometimes you have people
in the State penitentiary who thought it might be a cute idea to
threaten a judge or make some threat through the mail, which would
invoke Federal jurisdiction, and therefore, maybe they could get moved
from a State prison. They did not like to be in a Federal facility.
Having been there, done that, knowing how some of those folks think,
we want to address that, and that is addressed in this bill. Because if
there is a threat and you were in prison at the time you make such a
threat, you do not get moved immediately to a Federal facility. Nope,
that is not the way it works.
The way it works is, you will be tried, and if convicted, you will
get a sentence, and it will be mandatorily stacked on top of the State
sentence. It will not begin to run until the State sentence is
complete. That is fair.
We got a good suggestion from one of the Federal judge friends of
mine with whom I consulted recently. He said one of the problems is
people do not always know the consequences of what they are doing. He
made the suggestion that if this bill passes, as I hope and urge my
colleagues to help me do, if it passes, then he suggested we ought to
put warnings in the State penitentiaries so that they understand, if
they send out a letter that has got a threat in it, it is going to be
stacked. There are so many urban legends that float around our State
penitentiaries, and we need to get that straight by warning them
exactly what will be the consequences of what they do.
One of the problems we have had in this country, and I addressed it
as a judge and I hope that this body will be more consistent in what it
does, what it recommends and what it passes. But we have had trouble
convincing people we are going to keep our word. If a person or a body
has no word, has no integrity, then you have got nothing, there is no
believability. And I have already experienced it. There are just a tiny
few people here in this body who have no credibility with their peers.
That is tragic. That is tragic. A good name is critical.
So I think this, if it is passed, would let criminals know these are
the consequences, and then we follow up and make sure that, by golly,
they are the consequences.
There are some other things that are addressed in here as well. We
would have protection for Federal judges and Federal attorneys,
participants in Federal proceedings, from the filing of false and
fictitious liens. In Texas, we had a problem with that. A number of us,
some of my close friends, our State Supreme Court chief justice had
liens that were filed.
We had a renegade group there who set up a storefront operation, and
they manufactured their own summons, their own type of court system.
They claimed that Texas was still an independent Nation, that they were
not truly a State, and therefore, they were claiming jurisdiction. So
they would send out some notice that you were being sued in their
court, and obviously, people would not show up. So they would secure a
default judgment for millions of dollars, take this actually fair-
looking judgment down and file it with the county clerk. Well, now, it
has asserted a lien, a cloud upon the title of anyone such as the chief
justice there in Texas.
So the good legislators in Texas addressed that, and the way they did
it was by making it a crime to file a false or fictitious lien. That
needs to be done in the Federal system. We have Federal judges who are
now having that very thing done to them, and it needs to be addressed,
and this bill will do that.
We would also make it a Federal crime to publicly distribute certain
Federal officials' personal information over the Internet. There are
apparently Web sites that encourage the killing of judges, the killing
of court officials, the killing of lawyers. This is just
unconscionable, and as Americans and as Members of Congress, we should
not give in or look the other way. We need to take it head-on and let
people know this will not stand; we will fight it.
It also ensures the coordination, on a continuing basis, between the
U.S. Marshal Service and the Administrative Office of the United States
Courts regarding the judicial branch's security requirements. There
have been problems, and we need to have better coordination between
some U.S. marshals. We have got a very good U.S. marshal in the eastern
district. John Moore is doing a good job. He coordinates with the
Federal courts, but that needs to be done better around the country,
and this bill will require that.
Another problem that has never been addressed, and it has come to
light as a result of the Oklahoma City bombing, of 9/11, there was no
provision that would allow, in the event of an emergency, a Federal
judge to transfer venue based on just an emergency, and so that needs
to be addressed. We have addressed it in this bill. In the event of an
emergency situation, rather than having an Oklahoma City bombing stop
all trials because they cannot be moved beyond the jurisdiction, or a
New York City bombing where the city perhaps it could have been where
they were under a greater threat still, so much unknown, would allow
judges to move to another district, even another State if necessary,
whatever is necessary in order to secure a fair and impartial
conclusion to the trial that is before the court. So this would also
address that as well.
There was a provision that was added at the request of others
regarding the appointment of U.S. marshals. I am getting a lot of flack
from the Sheriffs Association, and we may need to look at that, but we
will do that and we will take a look.
We have had a hearing on this already. We should be looking at a
markup next week. So things are looking good, and I appreciate the
leadership allowing us to do that.
United Nations Accountability Act
Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I do have another bill that has not yet
been filed. We are in the process of gathering sponsors for this bill,
and I have simply entitled it the United Nations Accountability Act. It
is high time we did have some accountability from the U.N.
So what this bill does, it just simply says, and I can just read the
first prohibition. It says simply, United States assistance may not be
provided to a country that opposed the position of the United States in
the United Nations. It goes on to define that as meaning that, opposed
the position of the United States means that the country's votes in the
United Nations General Assembly during the most recent session of the
General Assembly, and in the case of a country which is a member of the
United Nations Security Council, the country's votes in the Security
Council during the most recent session were the same as the position of
the United States less than 50 percent of the time, using for this
purpose the overall percentage of voting coincidences set forth in the
annual report submitted to Congress pursuant to section 406 of the
Foreign Relations Authorization Act, fiscal years 1990 and 1991. That
is just the date of the act.
Each year, on March 31, there is a requirement for a new report to be
filed, and in that report, it sets out the votes of all the member
nations. And from that, Madam Speaker, you would be shocked, I imagine,
to know but from that we have gleaned the following information. We
have also gone through and pulled information, most recent we could
find, as to how much U.S. aid is being given to other country.
I want to make this clear. I believe with all my heart every nation
is a sovereign nation. Every nation has the right to make its own
decisions. In the event a nation becomes a threat and threatens those
around it, as Nazi Germany did, as Mussolini's Italy did, as Saddam
Hussein's Iraq did, then it becomes necessary for self-defense. In
[[Page H2729]]
Texas, it is just plain old self-defense. In the event it is reasonably
necessary to protect yourself, it is self-defense. We have defended
this world and our country, and we have done it well, and that is a
different matter.
Barring the situation like that, every country gets to make their own
decisions. However, this is the United States of America. We do not
have to pay people to hate us. We do not have to pay people to vote
against us at every turn in the U.N. They want to do that; that is
fine. What this bill says is you want to vote against us all the time
in the U.N., you want to be a constant burr in our saddle, you want to
cause trouble for this country, fine, but we do not have to pay you to
do it.
Running down some of the countries, do you know, Madam Speaker, the
nation of Egypt, great rich history in that nation, Egypt; apparently
U.S. aid is around $1.86 billion and the percentage of the time that
Egypt has voted with the United States in this last session that we
just got the report from in March, 8.5 percent of the time. They are
voting against us 91.5 percent of the time and we are paying them $1.86
billion.
Let me mention also before I go through some of the other highlights
of nations that were on this list, another thing about this assistance
is defined in my bill. The term ``United States assistance'' means
assistance under chapter 4 of part II of the Foreign Assistance Act of
1961 that relates to the Economic Support Fund. Under chapter 5 of part
II of that act, it relates to international military education and
training and also the foreign military financing program account under
section 23 of the Arms Export Control Act.
In other words, we are not going to send you money, we are not going
to take your people and teach them how to fight and how to fight us
while you are voting against us and actually showing yourself to be a
threat to the very things that we hold dear.
{time} 2215
You want to be just a pain, you want to be a threat, that is your
business, but we are not going to pay you to do that. We are not going
to train your military people, we are not going to train your pilots,
you are just going to get cut off.
Now, I also want to point out that under this bill, if it were passed
and signed into law as is, it would not take effect until after the
March 31, 2006, report comes out from the U.N. By that, it would give
countries plenty of time to understand the consequences of their acts.
Just as I talked about in the prior bill, there are consequences to our
actions. There need to be. And people need to know what those
consequences are. So with this bill, we will give them plenty of time.
They are going to know every time they take a vote that it is going to
cost them. It is their choice, but we do not have to pay them to be
disruptive to what we believe in.
Colombia, for example, they get $574 million. They voted with us 10.6
percent of the time in the U.N. in this last year. Jordan, $559 million
we have sent to them. They are much more supportive than Colombia. They
voted with us 16 percent of the time in the last session. Sudan, $435
million. Actually closer to $346 million. They voted with us 13.3
percent of the time. We have Pakistan. They vote with us less than 10
percent of the time, and we have provided $400 million in aid, just in
financial assistance alone. Ethiopia, $354 million. They vote with us
13.8 percent of the time. Liberia. We give them $224 million, and 13.6
percent of the time they vote with us. Uganda, $182 million.
I mean, this really testifies to the generosity of the soul of
America. Generosity is one thing, and I am proud we live in a generous
Nation; but stupidity when coupled with generosity is not necessarily a
real asset. In fact, I was struck. The dean of one of the schools at
Yale, just a delightful, brilliant man, was telling about being in a
cab, I believe it was in Chicago, and the cab driver was a foreigner.
And they got to talking, and since this dean was not originally from
the United States they got to talking about the attributes of America
or the problems in America. And as they discussed America's strengths
and weaknesses, the cab driver made this comment, and I love it, and I
hope that my fellow Members will remember this. It is a great
observation from someone from another country. He said, America is
particularly lacking in the singular vice of jealousy.
We are a generous country, but we are not a jealous country. Is that
not a great observation from someone who is not from this country? When
you really get to know the heart and soul of America, we are not a
jealous country. When we see another country do well, when we see
another country obtaining freedom and stretching their wings to fly,
this country rushes to their support. We applaud them. We help them
however we can. And it makes me so proud to be a part of a Nation that
is like that, a Nation that is particularly lacking in the singular
vice of jealousy. That is America.
Even so, though we are not a jealous Nation, we do not have to pay
people to hate us. We are paying people to do that very thing. Madam
Speaker, one of the things I ran on and one of the things that drove me
off the bench was that I got sick and tired of seeing case after case
where we were paying people to do what was bad for the country. On the
other hand, we were penalizing people for doing what was good for the
country.
A good example: the marriage penalty. I have heard people talk for so
long about we need to fix the marriage penalty. Well, you know what, it
is real easy. You want to fix the marriage penalties? Even under the
existing code, all you would have to do is say if you are married and
both are working, instead of having thousands of dollars in penalties
because you did the wonderful thing of becoming married, you can file
married jointly or you can file as two single individuals. And in that
case, hey, it is whichever one is better for you. Boom, there goes the
marriage penalty; it is not a problem any more. We do not have to keep
adjusting formulas, it is just fixed, and we no longer penalize people
for doing the right thing.
I have heard elderly couples talk before about they wish they could
get married. They always felt like it was living in sin to be living
together and not married, but they could not afford to get married
because the government would cut some of their Social Security if they
ended up coming together as husband and wife. Well, how tragic is that?
We are paying people to violate their own sense of morals, and this
country should not be about doing that. Likewise, we should not be
about paying countries to do what hurts us.
Going down the list a little more. Peru. We give Peru $180 million-
plus. They vote with us 25 percent of the time. We have Bolivia here,
$155 million-plus. They vote with us 23 percent of the time. And if
somebody is listening and I touch on one of your favorite countries, or
maybe your homeland, and you think, gee, I do not like the way he is
talking about my country, it is like Sergeant Friday used to say, ``It
is just the facts, ma'am. Just the facts.''
We have Kenya. We give them $142 million. They vote with us 12.5
percent of the time. Serbia, Montenegro, $134 million. Now, they do
much better. They are with us, looks like 42.6 percent of the time.
Haiti. We have sent our troops, we have sent people to fight on their
behalf, we have given them money, $132 million most recently; and they
vote with us 18 percent of the time. They really appreciate all we have
done for them, obviously.
India, $128 million, 20 percent of the time. And this is just the
U.S. aid. This is just the direct aid. There are probably all other
kinds of other sources we would have to look into. This is just the
direct financial aid that my staff has been able to dig up. And I do
appreciate Mike and Ashley and Brian doing such hard work on this.
We have Indonesia, $125, right at $126 million. Boy, they appreciate
so much our generosity. They vote with us 8.3 percent of the time in
the U.N. We have Ukraine. I really think the world of Ukraine. These
are independent-minded people. When I was on an exchange program over
in Ukraine back in 1973, they struck me a lot like being Texans. They
are very independent-minded. They just had a can-do attitude. We can
make things happen. Ukraine, I am shocked to say, this great nation of
Ukraine, it voted with us 28.6 percent of the time and we gave them
$113 million.
Now, at this point I would like to point out there is an exception in
here
[[Page H2730]]
in this bill, because we know a country can have a change of regime.
And if they have a change of regime, and the new regime is friendly to
us, then we ought to be able to help them at that point. So there is a
provision here that says that if the Secretary of State determines that
since the beginning of the most recent session of the General Assembly
there has been a fundamental change in the leadership and the policies
of the government of a country to which the prohibition in section A
applies, and the Secretary believes that because of that change the
government of that country will no longer oppose the position of the
United States in the U.N., then the Secretary may exempt that country
from the prohibition that is in this act.
So that song Santana did, ``You Have Got to Change Your Evil Ways,''
of course it talked about ``Jean and Joan and who knows who,'' but this
is talking about these countries. They have to change their evil ways.
And if they do, then we will start helping them again. We see a regime
change, the Secretary of State certifies that they are going to be on
our side now, we want to help them all we can. The fact is, we want to
help all these countries. All these countries should be great to help,
but as long as they are doing what they can to undermine all the good,
the truth, the liberty, the freedom, the things that we hold dear, as
long as they are trying to undermine those things, we should not be
paying the billions of dollars that we are to help them do that, to
undermine our great ideas of freedom and democracy.
I do not know if you can see, but, Madam Speaker, this is a two-page
list, fine print going down here of all the people we are giving money
to that vote with us less than 50 percent of the time. You have the
Philippines, $111 million, 13 percent of the time they vote with us.
Russia, $107 million we have given them. And some people think Russia
is the whole big former Soviet Union. Russia was one of 15 states. I
was intrigued when I was in the former Soviet Union back in 1973. Most
people in America knew so little about the Soviet Union. They knew all
about us, and that was most interesting. They knew we had 50 States;
they could talk about George Washington. You talk to Americans, they
did not know much of anything about the Soviet Union.
We also have South Africa. Most folks felt like South Africa was now
on our side. Freedom-loving people in America went to bat for South
Africa. It was so unfair with the disparity and the treatment between
the races. Under God's plan, as the Declaration of Independence said,
under the Creator's plan all people should be equal. They were created
that way, and by his grace should be that way. But, unfortunately, in
this world of sorrow, it requires people fighting and dying to secure
that right that God gave us. But here is South Africa. We give them
nearly $100 million. They vote with us 11.4 percent of the time.
Bangladesh. Of course, we remember how generous not just the American
Government was in times of suffering, of flood, our people poured out
their hearts, they poured out their finances. And Bangladesh, they vote
with us 8.6 percent of the time.
Angola, $91.75 million in aid we have given to Angola, and they vote
with us 17 percent of the time.
I realize if there is anybody left watching C-SPAN that they maybe
dozed off. I have been a very restful thing for them to have happen
tonight, and I am pleased I could do that. The trouble is, this is
serious stuff. This is our hard-earned tax dollars that are getting
poured down the drain, because some of these countries have shown their
contempt for freedom, for liberty, again for the things we hold dear.
They are taking our money and pouring it down the drain, and feeding
the egos of dictators and people that should not even be touching the
money. Our taxpayers deserve this money. It is their money, and they
should not have their money paid to countries that are going to stick
it in our face.
So, Madam Speaker, if you do not mind, I am just going to continue
down this list. We have Georgia, the great state of Georgia. I remember
when I was in Ukraine, somebody told me about the fellow walking along
the street in Georgia. And the Georgians like to use their hands all
the time when they talk. So this guy was walking along carrying a
watermelon, and a tourist came up to the Georgian, and this is in the
Asian Georgia, not our U.S. Georgia, but he came up to the fellow
carrying the watermelon and asked him, can you tell me how to get to
the town square?
{time} 2230
The Georgian said, ``Will you hold my watermelon?''
The tourist said, ``Sure.''
He gave the watermelon to the tourist and said, ``I do not know.'' He
takes his watermelon and goes on. They like to use their hands. They
have a great sense of humor. We have given them $90 million at least in
aid. They have done a little better. They voted with us 36.7 percent of
the time. Under this bill if it is passed, they will have to do a
little better. If they want to keep having us contribute, because it is
what it is. It is a contribution to a country that has nothing but
disdain for us.
I am not talking about the people. I admire the people in the former
Soviet Union, but you cannot admire or feed a government that does not
believe in freedom and only believes in taking the freedoms of its
people. Now Georgia has made great strides, but there is more to be
done. We do not have to contribute to a government that can not stand
us.
Zambia, we have given them huge amounts of aid, and 12.7 percent of
the time they vote with us.
Nigeria, $80 million, and they vote with us 14.9 percent of the time.
Armenia, $79 million, nearly $80 million just in direct foreign aid,
26.9 percent of the time they vote with us.
Mozambique, right at $80 million, and 10 percent of the time they
vote with us.
Tanzania, $77 million, 11.9 percent of the time they vote with us.
Eritrea, $72 million, 10.6 percent of the time is all they vote with
us.
Here is a shocker. Here is a real shocker. We hear so much talk about
our friends, our neighbors, that we should be supporting each other and
helping each other and I agree with that, we should be good neighbors;
but that neighbor thing is a two-sided thing when it comes to national
policy. I believe in the teachings of Jesus, the golden rule is
critical. We should be loving our neighbor, but I love my children. I
love my three daughters, Katy, Caroline and Sarah with all my heart.
But when they acted up, I was not going to reward that, I was not going
to give positive reinforcement to negative activity. That is just
ridiculous. Simply loving and caring about your neighbor does not
necessarily mean you contribute to their delinquency.
Here the shocker: We give in direct financial aid alone, no telling
how much else, Mexico, $76.8 million and they vote with us 23 percent
of the time in the United Nations. Unbelievable.
According to the most recent report from the U.N., 23 percent of the
time is all that Mexico sees fit to support our positions for freedom,
for liberty, to avoiding suppression, supporting human rights, 23
percent of the time. It is incredible, just amazing. And the thing is
many of us know many Mexican citizens. These are good people. They love
families.
I was recently near where a Hispanic family reunion was taking place
and it was under a big park pavilion, and I thought this is the way
America used to be, families came together for family reunions. I see
great hope for America with Hispanics in America with strong religious
convictions. These things bode well for America, but it does not matter
when you are looking at a country that votes against us so much. That
is not a very friendly thing to do.
The Congo, $71 million, they vote against us 27 percent of the time.
Here with Bosnia we have done so much. So many of our American
soldiers under the Clinton administration went over there to help out.
We are still giving them millions of dollars in financial aid. Bosnia,
they see fit to vote with us 42 percent of the time.
For the record, I have my laptop sitting here and I have not used it
for the entire time I have been speaking.
Ghana, $59 million and they voted with us 14.5 percent of the time.
Ecuador, $55 million, they voted with us 15.7 percent of the time.
Cambodia, $53 million, 11.8 percent of the time they vote with us.
[[Page H2731]]
Honduras, $50 million, they voted with us 23.9 percent of the time.
Turkey, we did such a favor for Turkey of eliminating such a threat
on their southern border, they would not allow us to utilize their
facilities to come in from the north. Our friends in Turkey, we still
give them millions of dollars in direct financial assistance, they vote
with us 34.8 percent of the time.
Guatemala, $50 million plus, they vote with us 23.9 percent of the
time.
Rwanda, $50 million plus, and they vote with us 11.3 percent of the
time.
Macedonia, $49.67 million, and they vote with us 42.4 percent of the
time.
Azerbaijan, $49 million plus, they vote with us 11.5 percent of the
time.
Here is an amazing statistic. With all of the sacrifices that we have
made, DPR of Korea, $45.7 million we are still giving in direct
financial aid, they vote with us 3.3 percent of the time. And we are
still giving them $45.7 million. This is DPR of Korea, but still, we
are giving them $45 million to vote with us 3 percent of the time.
Nepal, $45.31 million, they vote with us 12.7 percent of the time.
Nicaragua, $45 million and they vote with us 26 percent of the time.
El Salvador, $44 million, they vote with us 24.3 percent of the time.
Let me see. We have Mali, $43 million, and 14 percent of the time
they vote with us.
We do a little better with Bulgaria and Romania. We give them each
over $42 million, and they vote with us 44.1 percent of the time. They
can step that up if they want to continue, if we can get this bill
passed.
Kazakhstan, nearly $42 million, and they vote with us 10.9 percent of
the time.
Cyprus, we give them millions, and 40 percent of the time they vote
with us.
Uzbekistan, $38-plus million, and 12.5 percent of the time they vote
with us.
Lebanon, $36.7 million, and they vote with us 8.7 percent of the
time.
Madagascar, nearly $36 million, they vote with us 12.7 percent of the
time.
Poland, we have had such camaraderie with Poland. We were so proud of
their efforts, once again going back to what the foreign cab driver
said, never an ounce of jealousy. We were so proud of what they
accomplished, the way they threw off the shackles that bound them and
grabbed onto freedom. Poland, we are still contributing direct
financial aid, $35 million, basically, and 45.7 percent of the time
they vote with us.
Senegal, $44.3 million, and they vote with us 13.3 percent of the
time.
The Dominican Republic, we give them $34 million in direct aid, and
they vote with us 23.5 percent of the time.
Yemen, $33 million, and they vote with us 8.6 percent of the time.
Brazil, $28 million, they vote with us 14.9 percent of the time.
Republic of Moldova, $27.65 million, they vote with us 36.7 percent
of the time.
Namibia, right at $27 million, 15.1 percent of the time they vote
with us.
Burundi, $26 million, 9.8 percent of the time they vote with us.
Oman, $26 million we give them, and they vote with us 9.9 percent of
the time.
Sri Lanka, $26 million, they vote with us 12.9 percent of the time.
Croatia, $25.7 million in direct financial aid, they vote with us
42.6 percent of the time.
Skipping down, Jamaica, $24 million we give them in direct aid, 12.5
percent.
Some people go that is not that much, $24 million, $25 million, we
are talking about taxpayer after taxpayer, hard working hours, factory
workers, people working outside and earning a living by the sweat of
their brow. We are talking about so many of those type people having
their entire taxation going to a nation that cannot stand us and what
we stand for.
Vietnam, we are still giving them $22 million, and they vote with us
6 percent of the time.
Ireland. This was surprising to me, good friend, but they only vote
with us 42.1 percent of the time.
Cuba, apparently we are somehow giving $21.37 million to Cuba. They
vote with us 7.4 percent of the time.
Chad, $21 million, and they vote with us 22.7 percent of the time.
Morocco, right at $21 million, and they vote with us 11.4 percent of
the time.
Panama, $18 million, and they vote with us 23 percent of the time.
Zimbabwe, $15 million, and they vote with us 7.2 percent of the time.
Down to Mongolia, $14 million, they vote with us 14.5 percent of the
time.
The old Burma, we give $13 million and they vote with us 11.8 percent
of the time.
Paraguay, $12 million, they vote with us 24.7 percent of the time.
Tunisia, $12 million, and they vote with us 10 percent of the time.
Botswana, $11.66 million, and they vote with us 12.5 percent of the
time.
You know, I hold in my heart nothing but hope that these countries
will support the same ideals and the same abstract notions of love and
freedom and liberty and help for others that the United States does,
but I am telling Members, we do not need to pay them to be a thorn in
our side and disrupt the things that we hold so dear. It has been such
a great privilege to serve in this Chamber and to learn a little more
about this Capitol Building as I have been here. So many people come up
from back home, whether it is Marshall or Hallsville or Gilmer or
Jefferson or Center, Carthage, Hemphill, we have had them come from all
over my district. St. Augustine, Henderson, and from all of the towns
around those, Nacogdoches, folks have been up here in numbers. It has
been great and it has been wonderful taking them around this great
Capitol of ours.
But I have learned a lot of things, Madam Speaker. I have learned
just a little more about how wonderfully God has blessed this country,
this Nation from its beginning. Going through the Capitol, I was
reading this in National Geographic and some other sources.
{time} 2245
I knew about the War of 1812, learned about it from great teachers I
had back in Mount Pleasant, Texas. And I just assumed that at some
point our forces rallied together and drove the British troops out back
in 1814 after they had taken the Capitol.
As it turned out, in the War of 1812, when British troops came in
here, there is one story about troops coming up the spiral staircase
and coming into the House Chamber and the commander coming to the
Speaker's chair. Obviously, Madam Speaker, it was not this chair, but
it was back in Statuary Hall, what we call Statuary Hall now. Back at
that time it was not Statuary Hall. It was the House of Representatives
Chamber.
Legend had it he got up there and said, What shall we do with this
den of Yankee democracy? And the British soldiers screamed, Burn it. So
they pulled the chairs and the desks into the middle of the floor. They
set them on fire. They did so at the other end of the Capitol in the
Senate Chamber, and they burned. But as the information that I had
gleaned indicated, all of the public buildings, virtually all of them,
had been burned except for one, and that later became the temporary
House of Congress while they were rebuilding.
But the only reason that what is now Statuary Hall and the other side
of the rotunda where the Senate met did not burn and collapse like most
of the buildings had was because a rainstorm came up that night and it
put out the fire.
Like I said, I assumed that American forces eventually regathered
their strength, came through Washington, and drove out the British
troops. But according to the history that I could find since I have
been here, indication was that the day after the rain, a huge windstorm
came like nobody there had experienced before. It was blowing British
cannon off their mounts. It was given credit for killing as many as 30
British soldiers. There was an explosion of the British gunpowder
stored. The British fled Washington, D.C. of their own.
Insurance companies these days have a provision in their policies
that would say these types of things were probably acts of God, and I
would have to agree. It was by these acts of God that the British
troops were driven from Washington, D.C. It was because of these acts
of God that we secured this Capitol, we rebuilt it and made it even
better.
I love the Capitol dome. That was not the original design. The dome
designed before, I think, was not nearly as beautiful. It was lower. It
was not nearly as artful as this one. It is a design that now has
really become the symbol of
[[Page H2732]]
freedom and democracy around the world, and I am proud to be part of
that.
It is interesting that in the center, in the rotunda, that area was
originally wood, as I understood it; and the wood part had burned.
Apparently, fortunately for me and fortunately for my colleagues if
they like the new dome, the wooden part burned and they had to
reconstruct that. And when they did that after that fire in 1814, there
were those who wanted to do like some of the European buildings and
have a great icon of grace and dignity for that country buried in the
middle, have their remains in the middle. They wanted to do that with
George Washington's remains. He had been buried at Mt. Vernon. That was
in his will. They wanted to finish with a hole in the floor out there
in the middle of the Capitol so people could file by and look down
below and see where the remains of George Washington were. But as it
turned out, they eventually supposedly convinced Martha Washington to
let them move his remains but she passed away before his remains were
moved, and so a great nephew that took over as administrator said,
George Washington said in his will he wanted to be buried in Mt.
Vernon; you are not moving him. They eventually filled in the floor,
and so George Washington's remains are not buried there. We have a
solid floor across the center of the Capitol.
George Washington, what a man he was. I heard a speaker recently, a
college professor, say so many of the third world countries really are
right where we were in the early days of this Nation. And I asked him
to show me their George Washingtons, to show me the men who had power
that were willing to walk away from it for the sake of liberty of the
whole Nation. Some, like South Africa, had such leaders. Most have not.
That is what has separated this Nation and made it great.
George Washington did not really want to leave the Army. He really
did not want to preside over the Constitutional Convention. Each time
he was convinced to do that because he was the man for such a time as
that. And had he not been there and not served and not sacrificed, then
we would not have had this Nation.
He really did not want to be President, but his fellow citizens pled
with him. He served as President. But there is a picture in the rotunda
of him giving up his commission, giving up the power. That just did not
happen back in the 1700s. A man who led the military and won a great
military battle turns in his saber, turns in the power, and walks away
and goes back to being a farmer. It is extraordinary when we think
about it for the time. Too many have come to accept such grace.
When we think about the selflessness during those times of other
people like Governor Thomas Nelson, Governor of the great State of
Virginia, he had a beautiful estate, a mansion there in Yorktown. The
war took its toll on his health and his estate. In the final battle
there at Yorktown, high-ranking enemy officers were staying in his
mansion, and he noticed that his soldiers were firing at Yorktown, but
they were avoiding his mansion. And he asked them, Why are you avoiding
firing at the mansion? You know there are enemy troops there in my
home.
They said, Sir, it is out of respect for you basically. It is your
home. We did not want to do that.
He said, There are enemy troops in there. Fire on my home.
They did. They killed many of the enemy. It helped them win the
battle. But that is the kind of selflessness that has allowed us to win
our independence and gain the Nation that we all have come to know
and love.
As I go through some of the people in my life that taught me, like
B.J. McDowell, who was a high school teacher, I built a pole barn with
him one summer. A great American who had been a Marine in the Pacific.
At one point he had shrapnel that ripped off his entire calf, and I saw
the scar where they later sewed it back on. But he is a brilliant man,
tough as a bulldog. He went out and the hospital ship was out in the
water, and they were taking boatloads of people. But when he saw how
terribly wounded others were, he could not take a position, he said, on
those boats to go to the hospital ship. Even though he was in the
horrible pain, he just waded out in the water so the flies would stay
off. He had the rest of his calf in his hand, and he waited until all
of the more serious people had been taken. The guy loved his fellow
man. He loved America. He was a great American.
There was a guy from Winedale, Texas, who was telling me about
landing at Sicily in the early morning hours. The lights were bright;
he could have read a book if he had one in his landing craft. And as
they got closer to the shore, bullets started bouncing back and forth
across the front of the landing craft ramp. And all the men looked at
each other because they figured, when the ramp goes down, we all die.
They had been trained to come out, run abreast toward the beach as
quickly as possible. The guy in the front of the landing craft said,
Look guys, it sounds like from the way those bullets are going across
here, if we run out abreast, we are all dead men. So why do we not try
something different. Every man line up behind the man in front of him,
grab the belt of the man in front of him, let us try going out single
file, and I will go out first.
He went first. He was killed. But most of the men in his landing
craft made it. That is the kind of selflessness that people exhibited
to make this country great.
One of my classmates, Eddie Johnson, a singing cadet there at Texas
A&M, a great guy, he was flying a jet down in the panhandle of Florida.
His plane malfunctioned. He was told to eject, to punch out, save
himself. He said, If I do, this plane is going to kill a lot of
civilians down below me. I am going to try to get this plane to the
beach.
He did. He saved a lot of lives but lost his own. That kind of
selflessness, again, is what made America great.
On September 11, Madam Speaker, there was an act of mean hatred by
people possessed with evil intentions. But I am telling my colleagues
there is one thing that is stronger than that evil hatred for so many
innocent people, and that is love. That is love. And Americans have had
it. We have had love for our fellow man. We want to help those who need
help, and it is an honor and a privilege to have built on that.
Madam Speaker, it has been an honor and privilege to be here and to
speak about these things.
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