[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 184 (Thursday, December 17, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H9687-H9689]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ISSUES OF THE DAY

  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, here is an article just in Politico by 
Burgess Everett. It is today. It concludes with a quote from Senator 
Charles Schumer of New York:
  `` `Sen. McConnell wants to see the Senate work,' Schumer said. 'But 
the good news for us is, to make it work, he has to do basically our 
agenda.' ''
  That is what we have been telling people for so long, Mr. Speaker, 
that people across America say: We would like to see you guys in 
Washington work together. We would like to see government not shut 
down, that you guys work together and get things done.
  But as we explained repeatedly--and now it has been confirmed by 
Senator Schumer--there is only one way that some folks here in this 
Capitol building will reach an agreement with Republicans. Normally, 
that is if we do exactly their agenda.
  I go back to the spring of 2011, when Republicans resumed the 
majority in the House of Representatives. There was a CR that was going 
to expire. The Government would run out of money at midnight. As I 
recall, it was a Friday.
  It appeared to me--and I have said since then that it certainly 
appeared that Harry Reid believed and the White House believed the 
conventional wisdom here in Washington--that, if the Democrats could 
force a shutdown, then their massive friends in the mainstream media 
would blame Republicans and that would be their best shot at regaining 
a majority in the House and keeping it in the Senate.
  So, basically, to avoid a shutdown at midnight, although our Speaker 
at the time, Speaker Boehner, gathered us together late that evening 
and said, ``Look, we have gotten $29 billion in cuts. I know we said it 
would be $100 billion originally and then $60 billion, but we have $29 
billion,'' it turns out we didn't get those, that we may have spent 
more money.
  In essence, it appears that the Speaker had to basically cave to what 
Harry Reid wanted in order to avoid a shutdown in the spring of 2011. 
That continued to occur. We would come up on deadlines. The Senate 
would not pass any of the appropriations bills, would sit back and say: 
We are not going to do our work. We are not going to comply with our 
constitutional responsibility. We are going to sit back. We are going 
to wait, get bills from the House, and then demand our agenda. If they 
don't give us our agenda, then we will shut things down. Our friends in 
the mainstream media will blame Republicans. Then we will get the 
majority back in the House.
  Finally, in September of 2013, we gave Harry Reid basically 
everything he wanted and he still shut the government down. Just as 
conventional wisdom had indicated, the mainstream media blamed 
Republicans.
  In fact, the mainstream media mantra was so overwhelming that even 
Speaker Boehner got confused or maybe--I guess maybe he did blame 
Republicans because we didn't totally capitulate on everything Harry 
Reid wanted. We gave him most everything he wanted.
  The last thing we did was appoint--this is at 1:10 a.m. on the 
morning of October 1 of 2013--we approved the appointment of conferees. 
Harry Reid wouldn't even approve conferees so we could have a deal 
worked out by 8 a.m. and nobody would miss work. He wouldn't even do 
that. He didn't want a deal worked out. He wanted a shutdown.
  They had already contracted to bring barriers to shut down open air 
memorials so people couldn't even walk down the sidewalk. Apparently, 
the people in this administration believed, if we can jerk around World 
War II veterans, then Republicans will get blamed for that, too. So 
they violated the law. They spent more in shutting things down than 
they would normally spend in keeping them open.
  That violates the law as it exists. They shut down things that there 
was totally no reason to shut down. They brought in more Park Service 
people to help shut them down than are normally ever out there.
  All of that was to try to make people blame Republicans when it was 
clearly the calloused, intentional desire to inflict harm on people, 
including World War II veterans, by some people within this 
administration.
  But America didn't fall for it, and they didn't give Democrats back 
the majority in the House. In fact, they gave Republicans the majority 
in the Senate.
  Today we get this story quoting Senator Schumer, a Democrat from New 
York: The good news for us is, to make it work, Senator McConnell has 
to do basically our agenda.
  Then we find out a story today from Carolyn May:
  ``Senior officials rejected a proposal to incorporate social media 
screenings in the vetting process of foreign visa applicants in 2011.''
  Four years ago this administration said: We are going to continue our 
effort to blind ourselves of our ability to see our enemy and to know 
who our enemy is. That started back in 2009, when this administration 
came into town.
  Basically, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a coconspirator 
named in the Holy Land Foundation trial for supporting terrorism, has 
an open door and they answered their phones at the White House anytime 
they called and complained.
  They wanted documents purged so our FBI agents, our intelligence 
officials, our State Department people, could not be adequately trained 
on what radical Islamists believe.
  This administration still will not even recognize that such a thing 
as radical Islam exists. Not one person in the administration that is 
elected that is making these decisions or that has been confirmed by 
the Senate has an advanced degree in Islamic studies and especially not 
advanced degrees from the University of Baghdad in Islamic studies, as 
one of the world's most renowned experts on Islam does.
  That world-renowned expert on Islam with a Ph.D. from the University 
of Baghdad in Islamic studies makes very clear that the Islamic State 
is Islam. His name is al-Baghdadi. He is the head of the Islamic State.
  As the very learned Carolyn Glick has pointed out, the failure of any 
administration, Republican or Democrat, to recognize that radical Islam 
is a part of Islam is performing a huge disfavor for moderate Muslims 
who want to stand up against radical Islam.

                              {time}  1630

  But, by this administration's saying there is no pluralism in Islam--
it is all good, and there are no bad people who are claiming to be and 
who actually are Islamic--it does a great disservice to moderate 
Muslims who would like to stand up and take it on. There have been 
wonderful friends of the United States who have. President el-Sisi in 
Egypt has, and others have. For some reason, this administration 
chooses to alienate those who are Muslim who would stand up against 
radical Islam, as if they don't have enough problems as it is.
  It was a friend in intelligence, here in the U.S. Government, who 
made that statement that I used a moment ago--``We have blinded 
ourselves of our ability to see our enemy''--and that continues.

[[Page H9688]]

  If this administration had not made that decision in 2011 to not look 
at social media, they could have seen that Malik, which is, surely, not 
her real name, had pledged her allegiance to radical Islam. It is kind 
of tough to recognize when somebody pledges one's allegiance to radical 
Islam if one won't even recognize that there is such a thing as radical 
Islam.
  This article from Joseph Kolb reads:
  ``A proposal to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees to the United States has 
ignited a bitter debate in Washington, but more than 10 times that 
number of people from the embattled country have quietly come to 
America since 2012, according to figures obtained by FoxNews.com.
  ``Some 102,313 Syrians were granted admission to the United States as 
legal permanent residents or through programs including work, study and 
tourist visas from 2012 through August of this year, a period which 
roughly coincides with the devastating civil war that still engulfs the 
Middle Eastern country. Experts say any fears that terrorists might 
infiltrate the proposed wave of refugees from the United Nations-run 
camps should be dwarfed by the potential danger already here.
  `` `The sheer number of people arriving on all kinds of visas and 
with green cards, and possibly U.S. citizenship, makes it impossible 
for our counterterrorism authorities to keep track of them all, much 
less prevent them from carrying out attacks or belatedly try to deport 
them,' said Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies.
  `` `I think it's reasonable to assume that the U.S. Government ran 
the minimum intelligence traces required at the time of entry.' ''
  We know now, as of 2011, they wouldn't even bother to look to see if 
someone who was wishing to come in had made statements on social media 
or had even had his picture taken with known terrorists.
  Of course, we had a great, valiant patriot in the person of Phil 
Haney, in his working for the Department of Homeland Security, who was 
cited for his brilliance in finding over 300 of 400 people who were 
looked at, on whom he had entered data, and who should have been added 
to the terrorist watch list from an organization called Tablighi 
Jamaat. Since there are, apparently, ties with people in that 
organization to this administration--perhaps it is CAIR--they 
complained, and he ended up being chastised and put off, away from the 
ability to enter data.
  His investigation into Tablighi Jamaat and potential radicals within 
that organization was shut down, not by his superior--his superior 
recognized his importance--but by people way up the chain. If that 
investigation had continued, it appears pretty clear there would have 
been people alive today in San Bernardino who are dead.
  ``Numbers obtained from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection show 
60,010 Syrian visa holders have entered the U.S. since 2012, including 
16,245 this year through August. Additional numbers provided by a 
Congressional source showed another 42,303 Syrians were granted 
citizenship or green cards during the same period.
  `` `It is highly unlikely that the 102,313 Syrians who were admitted 
over the past three years were effectively vetted,' said spokesman Ira 
Mehlman, of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. `Even in 
countries where we have a strong diplomatic presence, the sheer volume 
of background checks being carried out precludes the kind of thorough 
vetting that is necessary.' ''
  We know also, from Mark Krikorian's research, that it costs 12 times 
more to bring Syrian refugees here to the United States than it does to 
keep them alive and keep them functioning somewhere in the area of 
Syria. So it is pretty arrogant for the United States to claim we need 
to bring these Syrian refugees to the United States even though we 
could, actually, help and keep alive and keep functioning 11 more 
people in addition to the ones we brought here if we were to just help 
them where they are.
  We also had this report yesterday: ``Chattanooga shooting a `terror 
attack,' FBI Director James Comey says.''
  ``The semantic dance of whether or not to call the July mass shooting 
in Chattanooga a `terrorist' attack appears to be winding down.
  ``FBI Director James Comey twice called the deadly Chattanooga 
shooting that killed four Marines and one sailor a 'terror attack' 
during a press conference with NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton on 
Wednesday. Bratton and Comey spoke after addressing the NYPD Shield 
Conference in New York City.
  `` `We've investigated Chattanooga as a terror attack from the 
beginning,' Comey said. `The Chattanooga killer was inspired by a 
foreign terror organization. It's hard to entangle which particular 
source . . . there are lots of competing poisons out there.'
  ``That response came as Comey was asked to clarify an earlier 
statement in which he linked the root cause of the July 16 rampage by 
Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in 
Kuwait, to the recent Islamic terrorist attack in San Bernardino.
  `` `San Bernardino, as with Chattanooga, another terror attack we've 
dealt with in recent times . . .' Comey began the answer to a question 
about the December 2 terror attack in California.
  ``Abdulazeez, 24, was fatally shot by police after opening fire at a 
military recruiting center and then driving to a reserve center, where 
he killed five.''
  Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely heartbreaking to know that people like 
him are in this country, that they have got information out there on 
social media that indicates their terrorist affiliations, and that this 
administration, number one, will not recognize that there is something 
called radical Islam and, number two, won't allow their people, who 
work for them, to check to see if there is such information about 
people who are seeking to come into this country who will ultimately 
kill Americans.
  Then this story yesterday from Judicial Watch: ``Team led by Middle 
Eastern Woman Caught Surveilling U.S. Facility on Mexican Border.''
  ``A Middle Eastern woman was caught surveilling a U.S. port of entry 
on the Mexican border holding a sketchbook with Arabic writing and 
drawings of the facility and its security system, federal law 
enforcement sources tell Judicial Watch.
  ``The woman has been identified as 23-year-old Leila Abdelrazaq, 
according to a Customs and Border Patrol report . . . Abdelrazaq 
appeared to have two accomplices, a 31-year-old man named Gabriel 
Schivone and a 28-year-old woman named Leslie Mcafee. CBP agents 
noticed the trio `observing the facilities' at the Port of Mariposa in 
Nogales, Arizona on December 2. Schivone was first noticed inside the 
entrance of the pedestrian area while the two women stood outside by 
the entry door, the CBP document states.
  ``When Federal officers asked Abdelrazaq why she was drawing sketches 
of the facilities she `stated because she's never been to the border,' 
according to the CBP report . . . `During the inspection of the 
Abdelrazaq sketching book, CBPOs noticed the book contained writings in 
English and Arabic language . . . There were drawings of what appeared 
to be a vehicle primary inspection area and an additional drawing of 
pedestrian turnstile gate depicting video surveillance cameras above 
the gate.' The report proceeds to reveal that the drawings were 
`partial and incomplete.'
  ``This distressing information comes on the heels of two separate--
and equally alarming--incidents in the same vicinity. A few weeks ago 
Judicial Watch reported that five young Middle Eastern men were 
apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol in Amado, an Arizona town 
situated about 30 miles from the Mexican border. Two of the men were 
carrying stainless steel cylinders in backpacks, alarming Border Patrol 
officials enough to call the Department of Homeland Security for 
backup. DHS officially denies this ever occurred, but law enforcement 
and other sources have confirmed . . . that the two men carrying the 
cylinders were believed to be taken into custody by the FBI.
  ``Of interesting note is that only three of the men's names were 
entered in the Border Patrol's E3 reporting system, which is used by 
the agency to track apprehensions, detention hearings and removals of 
illegal immigrants. E3 also collects and transmits biographic and 
biometric data including fingerprints for identification and 
verification . . . The other two men

[[Page H9689]]

were listed as `unknown subjects,' which is unheard of, according to a 
Judicial Watch federal law enforcement source. `In all my years I've 
never seen that before,' a veteran federal law enforcement agent told 
Judicial Watch.''
  Anyway, there just continues to be more and more bad news from the 
border.
  When I read the article today, I thought: Nogales, Arizona. I read a 
story before about Nogales. Obviously, this is indicating--with the 
Arabic language, with the sketches of the entrance by people from the 
Middle East--very curious behavior from these Middle Eastern folks. I 
went back through articles I had, and this is where I had seen the name 
Nogales, Arizona.
  This is an article from December 27, 2013:
  ``John Dodson, the federal agent who blew the lid off the Justice 
Department's `Fast and Furious' gun-walking scandal, claims the FBI had 
ties to the men who killed U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, in 
2010, near Nogales, Arizona. In fact, Dodson says the Mexican bandits 
who gunned down Terry were working for FBI operatives and had been sent 
to the border to do a `drug rip-off' using intelligence gathered by the 
DEA. Dodson, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, 
Firearms and Explosives, said he doesn't think the FBI was part of the 
rip-off crew, but the agency was `directing the rip crew.' ''
  The point here, I think, that is important is that we know that this 
administration was pushing legitimate gun dealers in the United States 
to sell to people who shouldn't have been allowed to get guns so that 
they could end up going to drug cartels, and they could, supposedly, 
follow the weapons. We know that one of those weapons this 
administration pushed to be sold ended up in the hands of drug cartels 
who killed, apparently, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in 2010.

                              {time}  1645

  So we know there is violent drug cartel activity in the Nogales, 
Arizona, area. Now, this interesting report says that apparently there 
is not just drug cartel activity in that area, there is also Middle 
Eastern activity surveilling the entry areas.
  I think it is also important to remember what this administration 
did, as reported by Sharyl Attkisson, at the time with CBS News, before 
they decided they didn't want someone working at CBS who was exposing 
something that was such a big problem as Fast and Furious.
  In Sharyl Attkisson's article of December 7, 2011, she points out 
communications within this administration, after this administration 
pushed gun dealers to sell to people they shouldn't have, so that guns 
could go to drug cartels in Mexico. They then, according to 
communications as reported by Sharyl Attkisson, in emails that were 
gained, to use the fact that long guns were being sold to people that 
shouldn't have been and that those were being used in crimes, they 
wanted to use that to pass more gun control legislation or rules to 
take law-abiding citizens' Second Amendment rights away from them. 
Absolutely astounding.
  Also, there is an article yesterday in the National Review entitled, 
``Increasing the Number of Guest Worker Visas Will Hurt America's Most 
Vulnerable Workers,'' by Ian Smith. It states: ``Pro-labor advocates 
are criticizing a new addition to the Senate's omnibus spending bill, a 
provision they say will quadruple the number of H-2B visas for 
unskilled guest workers, for a total of more than 250,000.''
  Most of the people I know who are Republicans want to bring down the 
extremely high unemployment level for African Americans and other 
minorities. Yet, this administration has pushed so hard something they 
wanted. They want more people coming in and taking jobs, lowering the 
wages of American citizens and American workers, taking entry-level 
jobs away from those we should be pushing off welfare into jobs and 
working. I know an awful lot of people that would love to work and 
would love to have those jobs.
  Here is another article from December 15, 2015, entitled: ``White 
House Opens Door to CAIR Rep, Ignores Muslim Reformers.''
  This is the problem, Mr. Speaker, in this administration. This 
administration is allowing the foxes to set up and give advice on how 
to run the henhouse. Unfortunately, the henhouse contains law-abiding 
American citizens who are put at risk by this administration's refusal 
to acknowledge that Islam is pluralistic, just like Christianity is. 
There are extremes at different ends, but there is a radical Islam that 
wants to destroy this country. There are others more moderate.
  Like, those in the Muslim Brotherhood, they want to take over the 
United States. But as they have indicated: We are making so much 
progress in taking over the United States without violence. We will 
have to use it at some point, but let's not use violence as long as we 
are making so much progress. That seems to be the theme of the Muslim 
Brotherhood right now in America.
  This administration continues to be complicit in helping people that 
were named in the prosecution of support for terrorist activity, which 
convictions were obtained with the idea that we can go after the rest 
of these named conspirators later. The trouble is, after the 
conviction, within a month and a half, this administration takes over; 
and they not only refused to prosecute the coconspirators, they bring 
them in as their advisers. Is there any wonder there are not more 
Americans being killed?
  I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________