[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 66 (Wednesday, May 18, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H3544-H3545]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           THE RADICAL RIGHT

  (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, the word ``nuclear'' holds special 
meaning in our world. It is a word that has become synonymous with 
chaos, total destruction and annihilation. Nuclear is the word that for 
the last half century has struck fear in the hearts and minds of people 
across the United States.
  For the last 2 months, Republicans in the Senate have threatened the 
nuclear option, like destroying the world was something you planned for 
and even boasted about. Over and over, the Republican-controlled Senate 
threatened to go nuclear, as if they were shouting ``lock and load'' at 
some local gun club.
  For far too long, the Senate majority leader has been a trigger happy 
gun slinger who set aside a Colt 45 and ordered up a thermal nuclear 
warhead in its place. Just imagine the outcome if he had been President 
staring down Nikita Khrushchev during the Cuban missile crisis.
  Today, Senate Republicans released the nuclear warhead and the blast 
zone extends east or west, north to south, incinerating the rights of 
every American. It will be the first strike launched on behalf of the 
radical right aimed at annihilating the safety, security and freedom of 
every American.
  This is not about politics. The real Republican target is the U.S. 
Supreme Court and the judiciary. The Republican leaders said so in the 
House, and

[[Page H3545]]

the Senate leaders said so in the Senate. No fallout shelter will keep 
us safe from the nuclear winter they plunge America into.
  The radical Republican right has an agenda and they intend to use 
every weapon at their disposal to enforce their will upon the American 
people. The radical Republican right wants to dictate what a woman can 
and cannot do with her body. The radical Republican right wants to 
abolish women's rights one court decision at a time. Republicans just 
gave the radical extremist the right to abolish Roe v. Wade. 
Republicans just handed the radical right the keys to our democracy. 
Women's rights will be nuked.
  Republican extremists will replace a woman's right to choose with a 
requirement to be subservient. The Republican Party intends to stack 
the Court and stack the deck against women.
  They intend to violate the environment, too. Republican extremists 
want to stack the courts so their corporate lobbyists and special 
interests are shielded from liability, protected from acting 
responsibly, and given the right to foul the air, pollute the water, 
dump toxins on the ground, and spew carcinogens in the atmosphere.
  Greed is God to these radicals who are attempting to subvert 
democracy with religious idolatry. Run for your lives, America, the 
Republicans are coming. Right wing extremists in the Republican Party 
control the House, the Senate, and the White House, and they want the 
new trophy, and it is called the Supreme Court.
  They want to send their militants into your homes, into your lives, 
next to your death bed, to force their will upon you. The Republicans 
in charge today want to replace the Constitution with the Bible. The 
Republicans in charge today would like nothing better than to enforce a 
literal interpretation of the Bible in every American home, every 
American school, and every American mind.
  The Republican majority leader from Tennessee wants America to return 
to 1925 when the Butler Act in his State told people what to think and 
what to believe. But before the Republicans shout their Hosannas on 
high, let me recite a passage from the Bible. It was used by the 
defense in the Scopes monkey trial.
  Dayton, Tennessee, science teacher, 25 years old, John T. Scopes was 
persecuted and prosecuted for teaching science and not religion in the 
classroom. The great attorney, Clarence Darrow, who defended Scopes, 
called upon the Bible. ``A holy book, a good book, but not the only 
book,'' Darrow said, in defense of a man who was convicted but later 
acquitted by the Supreme Court of the United States.
  And I recall his words today to remind the Senate majority leader and 
every Republican intimidated into hypocrisy to remember the Bible. 
Clarence Darrow quoted Proverbs, chapter 11, verse 29, and here is what 
the Bible says: ``He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the 
wind.''
  Tonight we begin the ice age because the wind is going to be cold 
coming out of that Senate. Remember, ``He that troubleth his own house 
shall inherit the wind.''

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