[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 102 (Wednesday, June 24, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H4645-H4647]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
FAITH THROUGH THE BIBLE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 6, 2015, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I enjoy hearing my friend from Texas, a
former judge down in Houston, talk about love. I do love him as a
Christian brother. We can disagree and still love each other.
I have been surprised in recent years to find some of those of us who
believe in the Book that used to be read here. It was a pretty common
practice on the floor of the House on Sundays down in Statuary Hall,
and even in this room, back when church services were held in the
former House Chamber.
It was attended by the man that first coined the phrase, ``separation
of church and State.'' It is not in the Constitution. It was in his
letter to the
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Danbury Baptists. He came to a nondenominational Christian worship
service down the hall. Of course, Thomas Jefferson would even bring the
Marine Band and have them play hymns. Because although he made clear he
believed in separation of church and State, and used that phrase, he
didn't see any problem with singing hymns and having the Marine Band
play the hymns to accompany right here in the U.S. Capitol.
I have been surprised in recent years at how prominent the Bible was
in our founding, so much so that toward the end of June 1787, the
Constitutional Convention was at wits' end, having a great deal of
trouble, and Randolph from Virginia made a motion that they all convene
together on the Nation's birthday and worship God together in services
under the auspices of the Bible. They came back and were able to reach
a conclusion that we call the Constitution. People like Alexander
Hamilton said that clearly the finger of God was in that, and it all
came into place after they worshipped the Lord and used the Bible in
worship there in 1787.
But it is amazing now, after the Bible was such a prominent part of
our founding throughout our history, now those of us that believe what
is in the Bible are the ones who are now discriminated against. I have
suffered it right here in this town, not to the extent of being harmed
physically, of course. Physical threats are not uncommon, but they were
there when I was a judge as well.
So I am just going to read without comment the Book that has been
read in this Capitol throughout our history, Romans 1:16:
For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of
God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first
and also to the Greek. For in the righteousness of God is
revealed from faith for faith, as it is written ``The
righteous shall live by faith.''
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all
ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppressed the
truth and unrighteousness, because that which is known about
God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them.
For since the creation of the world, His invisible
attributes, His eternal power, divine nature, have been
clearly seen, being understood through what has been made so
that they are without excuse.
For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as
God or give thanks, but they became futile in their
speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Professing to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the
glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of
corruptible man and of birds, four-footed animals, crawling
creatures.
Therefore, God gave them over in the lust of their hearts
to impurity that their bodies might be dishonored among them,
for they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped
and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is
blessed forever. Amen.
For this reason, God gave them over to degrading passions.
For their women exchanged the natural function for that which
is unnatural; and in the same way, also the men abandoned the
natural function of the woman and burned in their desire for
one another, men with men committing indecent acts.
Because I believe the Scripture--love those who don't, love those
because we have all sinned one way or another--there is no room to hate
anybody that has sinned, because we all have. We have all fallen short.
But I am sure my office, Mr. Speaker, will be getting nasty, angry,
bitter calls, as we often do when we refer to the Bible that helped
give us our founding.
{time} 1930
But that is what the Bible said, and I am deeply concerned that we
have Supreme Court Justices, two of whom who have actually participated
in same-sex weddings, thereby showing how biased and partial they are
in favor of such things, against the dignity and history of marriage in
the country, marriage in the Bible.
It has been said many times here over our history, Moses said it came
from God, that Moses, depicted right up above the center door, that a
man shall leave his father and mother and a woman leave her home and
the two will become one flesh.
When Jesus was asked about marriage, he repeated it: For a man shall
leave his father and mother, and a woman leave her home, and the two
will become one flesh. And Jesus added: What God has joined together,
let no man put asunder.
So we have two Justices that have already indicated they believe
otherwise than the law of Moses and Jesus, and they have shown
themselves to be anything but impartial.
So, under the law, 28 United States Code 455, it is mandatory, they
shall disqualify themselves. And if it turns out that they sit in
judgment on a case in which they are clearly disqualified and a part of
the majority, that cannot possibly be a legitimate law change, judges
substituting their law for the law that this country has utilized
throughout its history.
Yes, courts all over the country have substituted their judgment for
State constitutions and laws. And for those who don't believe the
Bible, you have got nothing to worry about. But the indications are, in
Romans 1, God's protective hand will be withdrawn when we continue to
abandon the Nation's founding.
Thank God churches fought for, so many were involved in, the movement
to make the Constitution mean just what it said. We really shouldn't
have had to have a 14th Amendment. Everybody should have been equal
under the law. But it took an amendment, took a civil rights movement,
to apply it across the board.
Now we have judges that will be oligarchs, as they have been, and
they will be making decisions, rather than elected officials, and we
will see how much longer the Nation lasts.
There is no hate, just a broken heart in me, but I will be accused of
being hatemonger this, hatemonger that. That is not the case.
I would like to congratulate our own leadership, Mr. Speaker. This is
The Hill: ``Obama Poised for Huge Win on Trade.''
I would like to congratulate our Speaker, our Republican leadership,
for pushing through the trade deal, leader McConnell, down the hall.
The President could not have gotten this ability to fast-track, to make
deals that we won't know about, without the Republican leadership
making that happen for him. Of course, nobody that I know of on the
Republican side ran promising that we would get such ability for
President Obama, but congratulations go there.
Some people say I am not quick enough to congratulate my own
Republican leadership. I mean, I have congratulated our Speaker before
when he was chairman of the Education Committee. As President Bush
cited in his book, our now-Speaker was very important, very
instrumental in getting No Child Left Behind pushed through.
Of course, when we won the majority in November 2010, got it back
that December, deals were worked out that cost the country a lot of
spending, raised the debt a great deal. Since then, although we
continue to promise that we are going to do something about the debt,
we continue to give the President almost a blank check.
But congratulations on all these. Congratulations on enabling the
President to make these kind of deals. Then we will see if this law,
TPA, is finally one the President abides by and gives us notice,
timely, as he hasn't done in so many other areas, like Guantanamo and
releasing people from Guantanamo.
But we have an article here, I guess, congratulations then would go
to the Commander-in-Chief. Because I don't know that this would be the
lion lying down with the lamb, if this lamb is the Iranian military-
backed forces.
But this article from Bloomberg, June 22, Josh Rogin and Eli Lake,
says:
The U.S. military and Iranian-backed Shiite militias are
getting closer and closer in Iraq, even sharing a base, while
Iran uses those militias to expand its influence in Iraq and
fight alongside the Bashar al-Assad regime in neighboring
Syria.
Two senior administration officials confirmed to us the
U.S. soldiers and Shiite militia groups are both using the
Taqaddum military base in Anbar, the same Iraqi base where
President Obama is sending an additional 450 U.S. military
personnel to help train the local forces fighting against the
Islamic State. Some of the Iran-backed Shiite militias at the
base have killed American soldiers in the past.
Some inside the Obama administration fear that sharing the
base puts U.S. soldiers at risk. The U.S. intelligence
community has reported back to Washington that
representatives of some of the more extreme militias have
been spying on U.S. operations at Taqaddum, one senior
administration official told us. That could be calamitous if
the fragile relationship between the U.S. military and the
Shiite militia comes apart and Iran-backed forces decide to
again target U.S. troops.
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American critics of this growing cooperation between the
U.S. military and the Iranian-backed militias call it a
betrayal of the U.S. personnel who fought against the
militias during the 10-year U.S. occupation of Iraq.
``It's an insult to the families of the American soldiers
that were wounded and killed in battles in which the Shia
militias were the enemy,'' Senate Armed Services Chairman
John McCain told us. ``Now, providing arms to them and
supporting them, it's very hard for those families to
understand.''
The U.S. is not directly training Shiite units of what are
known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, which include tens
of thousands of Iraqis who have volunteered to fight
against the Islamic State as well as thousands of hardened
militants who ultimately answer to militia leaders loyal
to Tehran. But the U.S. is flying close air support
missions for those forces.
The U.S. gives weapons directly only to the Iraqi
Government and the Iraqi Security Forces, but the lines
between them and the militias are blurry. U.S. weapons often
fall into the hands of militias, like Iraqi Hezbollah.
Sometimes the military cooperation is even more explicit.
Commanders of some of the hard-line militias sit in on U.S.
military briefings on operations that were meant for the
government-controlled Iraqi Security Forces, a senior
administration official said.
This collaboration with terrorist groups that have killed
Americans was seen as unavoidable as the U.S. marshaled
Iraqis against the Islamic State, but could prove
counterproductive to U.S. interests in the long term, this
official said.
The militias comprise largely Shiite volunteers and are
headed by the leader of the Iraqi Hezbollah, Abu Mahdi al-
Muhandis. He was sanctioned in 2009 by the Treasury
Department for destabilizing Iraq. Al-Muhandis is a close
associate of Qasem Suleimani, the Iranian Quds Force
commander, who has snapped selfies with the militia leader at
key battles.
Other militias that have participated in the fighting
against the Islamic State include the League of the Righteous
which, in 2007, carried out a brutal roadside execution of
five U.S. soldiers near Karbala. The group to this day boasts
of its killing of U.S. soldiers. In an interview in February,
a spokesman for the militia defended the killings and said
his militia had killed many more American soldiers.
Members of these groups have also been deployed by Iran to
defend the Assad regime in neighboring Syria. James Clapper,
the Director of National Intelligence, confirmed in a June 3
letter to seven Republican Senators, which we obtained, that
``Iran and Hezbollah have also leveraged allied Iraqi Shia
militant and terrorist groups, which receive training in
Iran, to participate in the pro-Assad operations.''
The militias also stand accused of gross human rights
abuses and battlefield atrocities in Sunni areas where they
have fought. The State Department heavily criticized Iran's
support for the Iraqi militias and those militias' behavior
in its annual report on worldwide terrorism, released last
week.
Further down:
With the deadline approaching for a nuclear deal that would
place up to $150 billion in the hands of Iran, the U.S. is
now openly acknowledging in its annual report on
international terrorism that Iran is supporting a foreign
legion, comprising Afghans, Iraqis, and Lebanese fighters to
defend Iranian interests throughout the Middle East.
But the U.S. response to this is inconsistent. In Iraq,
America is fighting alongside Iranian-backed militias. In
Syria, U.S.-supported forces are fighting against those same
militias. The tragedy of this policy is that the Islamic
State has been able to hold and expand its territory in Iraq
and Syria, while Iran has been able to tighten its grip on
Baghdad.
Then another article from Daniel Horowitz, Conservative Review:
Anyone who visits Walter Reed Hospital will immediately see
the irrevocable destruction of Hezbollah. Thousands of our
troops have been incapacitated and mangled by IEDs from
Hezbollah and other Shiite groups in Iraq, all funded by
Obama's ally, Iran. Anyone who was around in 1983 will
remember the 241 American servicemen who were killed in the
Hezbollah terror attack in Beirut.
Guess what Obama is doing with them?
Eli Lake reports at Bloomberg News that our troops are
sharing a base with Hezbollah-controlled Shiite forces, and
we are bailing them out of their humiliating loss to the
Islamic State.
{time} 1945
The article goes on, but it is just exceedingly tragic; but it
explains why the President has been unable to state that we have a
clear strategy in the Middle East because, on the one hand, we have had
the United States military give their lives fighting against the
tyranny and the atrocities of Hezbollah.
On the other hand, we now have the President, the Commander in Chief,
who commands over our forces that he has put in the same camp with
Hezbollah. The hope, apparently, of the administration is, even though
they are still bragging in Hezbollah about killing American soldiers,
that maybe by having them camp in the same camp, they won't be killing
them now. You have got to love that optimism.
As we see the Commander in Chief's troops being forced to come
together with people like Hezbollah--that want to kill them, have
killed them, have maimed them, Hezbollah is clearly supported by Iran--
then we get this, ``AP Exclusive: Document outlines big-power nuke help
to Iran,'' George Jahn, dated today, from Vienna.
The United States and other nations negotiating a nuclear
deal with Iran are ready to offer high-tech reactors and
other state-of-the-art equipment to Tehran if it agrees to
crimp programs that can make atomic bombs, according to a
confidential document obtained Tuesday by the Associated
Press.
The draft document--one of several technical appendixes
meant to accompany the main text of any deal--has dozens of
bracketed texts where disagreements remain. Technical
cooperation is the least controversial issue at the talks,
and the number of brackets suggest the sides have a ways to
go not only on the topic but also more contentious disputes
with little more than a week until the June 30 deadline for a
deal.
With that deadline looming, Iran's top leader, Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei, on Tuesday rejected a long-term freeze on
nuclear research and supported banning international
inspectors from accessing military sites. Khamenei, in
comments broadcast on Iranian state television, also said
Iran will sign a final deal provided all economic sanctions
now in Iran are first lifted--in a sign the Islamic Republic
may be toughening its stance ahead of the deadline.
In any event, that is great news.
Of course, the Senate and House passed a bill that turned
requirements for authorization of treaties upside down. Instead of
having two-thirds of the Senate required to approve a deal, we have
flipped it. Now, it will take two-thirds of a vote in the House and
Senate to disapprove a deal. That makes it easier for the President to
give Iran the nuclear reactors they are hoping.
Mr. Speaker, I brought this up in past years; but here, in
negotiating with Iran, one of our lead negotiators was the same person
who was involved in the Clinton administration negotiations with North
Korea, where they cut this wonderful deal basically saying, in essence,
we will give you nuclear reactors for power if you will just promise
that you won't use them to make nuclear weapons.
This dishonest, evil leader said: All you want is a promise from a
dishonest leader that I won't use them to make nukes? Sure, I will
promise you that. Bring on the nuclear power plants.
Those came, and they were converted. Now, North Korea is helping with
parts of the evil empire to develop nuclear weapons of their own.
When you have somebody involved in that kind of deal with North Korea
sent to negotiate with Iran, we should have known that this would be
coming: Hey, we will give you nuclear reactors. We will help you make
it happen. We just don't want you to use them to make nuclear weapons.
Since Iran has been--at least the leaders have been so evil in the
way they have pursued Israel, in the way they have pursued Americans,
continuing to brag about killing Americans, I don't think anybody
should really be surprised if this deal gets cut and then Iran goes
ahead and uses what we provide them or the P5+1 provides them in order
to make nuclear weapons more quickly than they could have without this
kind of deal.
But ``congratulations'' again go to the Republican leaders in the
House and Senate for pushing through the authority for the President to
have the ability to make these kinds of deals. Who says I can't be
magnanimous and thank Republican leaders?
I hope the American public will wake up and understand, the deal that
has been negotiated is deadly to our ally Israel; it is deadly to the
United States. Make it clear that any party that hopes to have any
chance of having a President elected from their party better not be
part of the deal with Iran because it is going to get more Americans
and Israelis killed.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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