[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 114 (Thursday, July 14, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H4990-H4994]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





                           ISSUES OF THE WEEK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for the remainder of the hour as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my dear friend from California 
(Mr. LaMalfa).


                       In Memory of Sharon Runner

  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from Texas (Mr. 
Gohmert) for so graciously allowing me the time here today. Indeed, it 
is a timely moment, and I want to share it with the American people.
  Indeed, it has been a difficult week for California and for the 
leadership of women who we have seen come forward in our State over 
recent years, especially in the political arena.
  My colleague Representative Mimi Walters from southern California 
earlier this week paid tribute to Marian Bergeson, a great political 
leader in our State in her time who we lost several days ago.
  Well, now we have lost another gem, and that is Sharon Oden Runner. I 
learned of her passing this morning.
  She underwent, some years ago, a very, very daring and amazing lung 
transplant to overcome the condition she had. She fought hard all these 
years and did quite well with that until recent times.
  So this tribute today to her is for her, her family, and that memory.
  Sharon and I came up together in the California State Legislature. 
Back in 2002, we both won terms in the State Assembly. She was just a 
good pal right out of the chute there.
  As new freshman members, we were getting to know our way around 
Sacramento and the State legislative process. Several of the freshman 
bonded. There was a pack of us guys and Sharon, you know, because there 
are a lot more guys in politics, it seems.
  So Sharon, being just a few years older than the rest of us guys, she 
kind of seemed like the one that was keeping us a little more in line 
as we would go about doing our business in the State legislature, 
cutting up a little bit here and there once in a while amidst the 
seriousness or at the events you do around town at night meeting other 
people and such.
  So I soon dubbed her ``Ma Runner,'' lovingly and affectionately, and 
she took that okay. And she was the one who would say, You boys, now, 
you stay in line here, okay?
  But we all had a lot of fun together and worked hard together and 
fought the battles together in the California legislative process.
  It was really fun to see her ascend. When our current majority leader 
here, Kevin McCarthy, became our assembly leader there, Sharon ascended 
right there beside him as the assistant leader for the Republicans as 
well. And she really did well in that role and was effective and just 
really good to get along with and made sure that all the members had 
what they needed in order to do well.
  Sharon's spirit was one of always being so positive, reaching out to 
everybody. She worked to get more women elected to the legislature as 
well.
  And she was one with very strong moral convictions as well, to make 
sure that her faith in God was something that she brought forward with 
her policy and was something that wasn't very far away in how she 
conducted herself and for her family and for those that she came into 
contact with.
  So we had that opportunity to serve 6 years together in the State 
Assembly. And then, with term limits being what they are, we soon met 
up again in that legislative role over on the California State Senate 
side.
  Now, at that point, Sharon was again struggling with her lung battles 
there and got that amazing lung transplant, that life that was given to 
her by a donor that she carried forward for these years until finally 
the issues became too complex. And, again, we lost her this morning.
  So our hearts do go out to George, Micah, Bekah, all of her friends, 
all of her extended family. Those who had a chance to know her and were 
touched and graced by her, we are better for it. We know that we will 
always cherish the memories.
  George and Sharon had a unique time together as the first husband-
wife team in the California State Legislature. He was in the Senate for 
a while, and she was in the Assembly. A lot of history was made by them 
through measures they were able to put on the ballot, the things they 
always fought for morally and policy-wise. They will always be 
remembered as working together.
  Now, as George soldiers on, our hearts are with you. We wish you 
God's strength and peace and only the sweetest memories to your whole 
family.
  We remember Sharon today. God bless her, and God bless her memory.

                              {time}  1615

  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I do so much appreciate my friend, Doug 
LaMalfa, a very touching tribute to what is obviously just a wonderful 
individual that we will be missing.
  For some time now the Democrats have been doing 1-minute speeches. On 
the last day we vote during the week, we are allowed to have unlimited 
1-minute speeches, and for--I don't know--2 or 3 hours, my friends 
across the aisle have been doing 1-minute speeches, and I am so pleased 
that they are doing that. I think that is terrific. That is so much 
better than taking away the civil rights of people who have the right 
to assemble on the floor, to have sessions, to vote on bills, to debate 
bills because the previous violations of the rules by my friends across 
the aisle were just unprecedented.
  I would like to commend our Speaker for this aspect, comparing what 
he did and did not do today compared to what Speaker Pelosi did the 
last day of our session in July of 2008 because today I know leadership 
and staff saw the massive number of Democrats assembled to give 
speeches here, and the rule allows for that. There was no effort to 
shut down debate, gavel us out early, but that is exactly what Speaker 
Nancy Pelosi did in July of 2008.
  We had assembled a group. It may not have been quite as big as the 
Democrats had today, but we had a group over here, and under the rules 
at that time, they were 5-minute speeches, which could still be done, 
but they chose 1-minutes. We signed up for 5-minute speeches. When the 
Speaker Nancy Pelosi saw a number of Republicans, appropriately under 
the rule, here in order, signed up. We weren't just sitting there. We 
had signed up and were sitting in order as we are supposed to. She 
immediately gaveled down the proceeding early, violated the rule that 
allowed us to speak in the order, just as the Democrats did today, and 
this is the way it is supposed to be.
  Yet, earlier this month we had our friends across the aisle--and I 
haven't seen this written up much, but they took positions at their 
microphones and at the Republican microphones. We tried to go into 
session, and we even had Democrats not only sitting where Republicans 
were supposed to be seated on the Republican side, we had them grasp 
microphones to prevent Republicans from being able to be recognized.
  Finally, in the wee hours, we had the Speaker recognize a Republican 
chairman. He couldn't get a microphone. He is standing over here. Why? 
Because of the violation of the rules as the Democrats tried--not just 
tried. They were preventing Republicans from exercising their civil 
rights under Jefferson's rules of the House, under congressional rules, 
and our constituents had a right to be heard, just as our friends 
across the aisle had a right to be heard today.
  Now, in those 1-minute speeches, the massive array we heard this 
afternoon, there were a few common themes, and I think that is 
wonderful. Football is my favorite sport. I enjoyed it in junior high, 
6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12th grade, enjoyed every year of it. It is such a 
team sport.
  We saw a team acting in concert, working together. They all had their 
talking points. They all hit them and hit them hard. Some were very 
unfair, but they, from their standpoint, were acting as a team. But for 
one thing, they kept using the term ``vacation,'' that the House is 
going on vacation. One said a month vacation, I think, but I know I 
heard one say 7-week vacation, another one said 8-week vacation. They 
weren't all together on how long they were attributing to be vacation.
  I have told some of my friends at FOX News and different news 
commentators that when you criticize the month of August, that is 
traditionally, as I understand it--going back to the

[[Page H4991]]

early days of Congress, that has been a month when traditionally 
Congress has not been in session. That is why I love September.
  In July I remember the disastrous bill, when John Boehner was 
Speaker, had the supercommittee, the sequesters that were going to gut 
our military. I will never forget it, after I was rather upset that 
that bill was going to gut our military, our Speaker said: Listen to 
me. Listen to me, those sequesters will never happen.
  Well, I knew they would. I said they would. But we passed some bad 
stuff in July in prior years. I think we have done much better this 
year.
  As far as this ``vacation,'' I am intrigued to know that that is what 
the Democrats are going to do with the time we are not in session, one 
8-week vacation, as one of my colleagues across the aisle said. Eight-
week vacation, that is what they think it is when we are not in 
session.
  But from my standpoint--and I am looking at my friend, Doug LaMalfa, 
over here. I know from his impression and other people that I work with 
on this side of the aisle every day that we don't consider not being in 
session a vacation. August, man, that is a great opportunity to hear 
from your constituents. I know we have at least one field hearing.
  I was requested to come meet again with some of the Egyptian 
leadership, and I have been urged to go visit with some of our friends 
in Israel again. I don't know if I will make that.
  This is a terrific time to get away from the inside-the-beltway 
thinking. It is only when you get away from the inside-the-beltway 
thinking that so many Congresses have gotten addicted to that you hear 
from real common sense. Back home, it is common sense. Inside the 
beltway, it is sense because it is certainly not common.
  It is a great time when we are in recess to reassess in the recess, 
and September ends up being a good month. We don't normally pass 
terrible bills in September. It has happened, but normally when people 
come back after having to visit--because we are not in session, people 
know we are not in session. When they hear from constituents during the 
month of August, they are much more ready in September to do what we 
should have been doing.
  So I know my friends across the aisle, they have their talking 
points, going on this big vacation. They consider it a vacation. We 
consider it an incredible opportunity to clear our heads, to get this 
inside-the-beltway thinking out of our heads, hear from our 
constituents, have some field hearings in different places in the 
country. I find it helpful.

  Last year, the last week of August, I was invited to meet with 
President Sisi in Egypt and the Coptic Christian Pope, meet with him 
again. I was told at the time that I was the only Member of Congress--I 
don't know if it is still true--who had been allowed to meet with the 
Director of Egyptian Intelligence. Anyway, I don't know if I will be 
able to get back there or not during this recess, but it was incredibly 
invaluable.
  I came away from that meeting in Egypt determined to do anything I 
could to stop the Iranian treaty that was not only going to devastate 
the Middle East, that was already starting to spark nuclear 
proliferation, because all of our former allies, before this President 
got ahold of them, they were saying: Wow, we can't count on the United 
States anymore. Iran's going to have nuclear weapons. That is what this 
has made sure. So we have to start figuring out what we are going to do 
to get nuclear weapons for ourselves. The worst possible result.
  The Iran treaty is a treaty. It was a treaty, it is a treaty, and 
that has become even more clear as Iran has violated so many aspects of 
the Iranian treaty. Unfortunately, the Senate refused to recognize that 
it was a treaty. They considered the fine Senator Corker's bill that 
actually turned the Constitution upside down and allowed a treaty to 
proceed as if it were effective and had been ratified with only a third 
of the Senate voting to ratify it instead of the two-thirds that the 
Constitution requires.
  It was that visit in Egypt with their top officials that just 
clarified in my head that we have to stop the Iranian treaty for the 
good of the United States, for the good of the Middle East, for the 
good of our allies, our Muslim allies in North Africa and the Middle 
East, and for our dear friends in Israel. But so far it hasn't 
happened, and Western civilization and the advances we know are more 
threatened than previously.
  The second talking point that we heard repeatedly from our friends 
across the aisle during so many of the 1-minute speeches was the talk 
about we are leaving here without doing a thing about the Zika virus. I 
don't fault anybody who has been standing up here and repeating the 
talking point that we haven't done anything about the Zika virus, we 
haven't done anything about the Zika virus, because there are so many 
bills that get brought to the floor.
  There are so many amendments, so many things, it is just virtually 
impossible to get through them all. I read as many as I can. Some 
people have told me I am probably reading more bills than most people, 
but you just can't get through them all. There is this mentality that 
if we are in session, we have to be passing bills. Any day we are in 
session, we have to be passing the bills.
  Talking to people who were here before, they said it wasn't always 
like that; that you could have hearings, you could have investigations, 
you could have a lot of meaningful things going on without people being 
forced to come over here and vote. But that is the mentality now. 
Whether it is Democrats in the majority, Republicans in the majority, 
gee, if we are in session, we have to vote on stuff.
  So with that understanding, it's easy to understand how so many 
Democrats had missed and didn't realize that, actually, we did vote. 
Not only did we vote to address the Zika virus, we voted to appropriate 
$1.1 billion toward dealing with a potential Zika virus pandemic. So 
for research, for vaccine, for all of these things.
  So I don't fault anybody. I know nobody would have come down here and 
said we didn't do anything about the Zika virus, intending to mislead. 
They just didn't remember that we did vote to spend $1.1 billion 
dealing with that issue.
  Also, probably the most frequently mentioned thing during the last 2 
or 3 hours of speeches by my friends across the aisle was regarding 
guns and gun violence. One of the nicest guys in Congress even used a 
quote from somebody else in saying that Republicans are ``frozen in 
their own indifference.''
  Now, that is deeply troubling. I don't know a single Republican who 
is indifferent to gun violence.

                              {time}  1630

  It is just that we look at Chicago, we look at Washington, D.C., we 
look at where the most murders are occurring in the country, where more 
Black lives that matter are taken, and we look at those places and we 
see whatever they are doing about gun violence, it is the wrong thing, 
because they have an epidemic of gun violence.
  What are they doing?
  Oh, wow; they are the most restrictive cities regarding gun violence 
in the country.
  Now, in my home State, dear Dallas is still mourning the loss of five 
precious lives of law enforcement officers needlessly, senselessly 
taken by an evil that was encouraged by chants and songs repeated over 
and over and over talking about police as pigs in a blanket, fry them 
like bacon, encouraging the devastation and murder of police officers. 
Well, in Texas, that is a capital murder. And we do use capital 
punishment.
  So it is not that Republicans are frozen in our indifference. It is 
just that we look at the kind of gun laws that have been posed and 
pushed by our friends across the aisle and we see that the places that 
their laws have been enacted by Democratic leadership in those cities, 
with massive deaths, especially of the precious Black lives that 
matter; but they don't want to talk about those.
  You don't have to look too far to see what has been going on. It is 
offensive to those of us who are not frozen in our indifference on gun 
violence. We want it stopped.
  When you get beyond the pejoratives that are being muttered on this 
floor against Republicans and you start looking at what the actual news 
is so you can learn what would be the best

[[Page H4992]]

way to deal with gun violence, you see this article today from National 
Review: ``Federal Agencies Can't Keep Track of Their Own Guns.''
  The article says:
  ``The federal government needs to crack down on guns. Its own 
stockpile, anyway. The Washington Examiner reports: The federal 
government has spent $1.5 million on guns and ammo since 2006, and lost 
nearly 1,000 weapons along the way, including Uzis, assault rifles, and 
grenade launchers, according to the House Oversight Committee chairman.
  ``In a hearing to urge tightened control of weapons, Representative 
Jason Chaffetz, chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform 
Committee, said, `The loss of a single firearm is cause for concern--
the loss of what amounts to roughly five a month is unacceptable.'
  ``These guns were acquired by the Department of Homeland Security, 
the Bureau of Land Management, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, for 
use by their agents. Inventory is managed by the General Services 
Administration, the agency tasked with managing the affairs of other 
federal agencies. It's important for certain federal agents to be armed 
if their job requires it. But it's also important for the federal 
government to keep track of its expensive supplies, especially when 
those supplies have destructive potential. And these aren't your run-
of-the-mill weapons. Uzis, grenade launchers, the ever-nebulous assault 
rifles: plenty of firepower for agents who have dangerous jobs. They 
simply vanished, at an alarming clip: 1,000 guns lost over the last 10 
years come out to just under two per week. So sure, maybe it is easier 
to get a Glock than a book''--although, that is simply not true--``but 
only if you're neighbors with the local branch of the Department of 
Homeland Security.''
  This article--and it is not even a recent article--in the Washington 
Examiner by Paul Bedard says: ``Gun prosecutions under Obama down more 
than 45 percent.''
  I haven't been able to find anything that indicates differently; that 
they have stepped up prosecution. My understanding is they continue to 
decline, but they are at least much lower than they were under 
President Bush.
  This article says:
  ``Despite his calls for greater gun control, including a new assault 
weapons ban that extends to handguns, President Obama's administration 
has turned away from enforcing gun laws, cutting weapons prosecutions 
some 40 percent since a high of about 11,000 under former President 
Bush.
  `` `If you are not going to enforce the laws on the books, then don't 
start talking about a whole new wave of new laws,' said a gun rights 
advocate.
  ``In the wake of the horrific mass killing at Sandy Hook Elementary 
School in Newtown, Connecticut, Democratic lawmakers have begun 
preparing a new collection of anti-gun laws, including renewing the 
assault weapons ban, banning the purchase of high-capacity clips that 
spring bullets into guns, and tightening rules on who can buy 
weapons.''
  The thing is this administration was given a heads up twice over the 
older Tsarnaev. He has been radicalized. But because of the purge of 
the training material that the FBI has experienced--Michele Bachmann 
and I and Lynn Westmoreland--and Trent was there for a while--we were 
going through the materials that had been purged.
  It was ridiculous, what they classified them. So we couldn't tell 
you, Mr. Speaker, exactly the things. Some were silly cartoons and 
things. But speaking hypothetically, you had verses from the Koran. 
Actually, there were verses from the Koran that were eliminated. They 
were found to be troubling to the people that were purging the 
materials.
  And who does this administration look to?
  They look to CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations. They 
look to Imam Majid, former head of the Islamic Society of North 
America. They look at a number of groups and individuals who were 
listed as coconspirators in the largest prosecution of support for 
terrorism in the United States history. The prosecution got guilty 
verdicts in, I believe, November 2008, and we changed Presidents, and 
Eric Holder came in as the new Attorney General; and instead of going 
after those listed coconspirators that both the Fifth Circuit Court of 
Appeals and the district court had said there is plenty of evidence to 
support their being named as coconspirators, they didn't go after them. 
They dropped it. They let it go.
  Those are the people that are advising this administration about what 
to purge out of the training materials for the CIA, the intelligence, 
the State Department, Homeland Security, the Justice Department.
  Our folks don't know what they are looking for when they are told to 
go find out if somebody has been radicalized. Twice, at least, the 
Orlando shooter was brought to the attention of the FBI. These are 
caring, well-informed law officers, except when it comes to radical 
Islam, because you have CAIR and others making sure they don't know 
what to look for when they are looking for radicalized Islamic 
terrorists.
  If materials weren't purged, if people who had dedicated their lives 
to studying radical Islam who are not actually Muslims themselves, if 
they were allowed to train as they once were and educate and help our 
officers of the Federal Government know what to look for to find a 
radicalized Islamic terrorist, then the Boston bombing would not have 
happened, the Orlando shooting would not have happened, the San 
Bernardino killings would have not happened.
  This administration has done grave danger, grave harm to this 
country. Yet, it is like the ``Wizard of Oz.'' Don't look at what is 
going on behind the curtain. Look at this shiny object, the gun. Oh, 
they used a pressure cooker. Well, never mind. Still, let's talk about 
the gun.

  Well, if we are going to be honest and you feel like whatever a 
radical Islamist used to kill people, that is what we are going to talk 
about. We are not going to talk about radical Islam.
  By the way, for my Democratic friends who called me a racist because 
I said the Orlando shooter was a radical Islamist, that he had pledged 
allegiance to the Islamic State, we learn when people point out 
mistakes we have made. But Islam is not a race. So it makes no sense to 
call me a racist, as my friends across the aisle did when I pointed out 
that the Orlando shooter pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. They 
were thinking that that meant a race. And it is not a race. It is a 
religion. For a radical Islamist, it is really the makings of a 
theocracy.
  Then, this article from today by Neil Munro out of Breitbart says: 
``Obama's Flack Claims Credit for Dallas Policing As Murders Spike 40 
Percent.''
  I have been so impressed with the Dallas police chief. The things he 
said, the way he has comported is exactly the way I would hope a police 
chief under such a terrible situation would comport himself. But this 
is a real story because he has been utilizing President Obama's 
practices for policing.
  As this article points out:
  ``President Barack Obama's preferred policing practices deserve the 
credit for changing the crime rate in Dallas, his spokesman says. But 
spokesman Josh Earnest does not seem to be aware the city's''--
Dallas'--``murder rate has climbed 40 percent this year as Obama's 
preferred policing practices were implemented.''
  Some of the 2016 dead in Dallas had their pictures in this article.
  The article goes on and says:
  ``The spokesman's July 13 statement came in response to a reporter 
asking a question about the value of the policing changes that Obama is 
pressuring state and local police forces to adopt. `This latest 
tragedy, the murder of the five cops, took place in a community, 
Dallas, that the White House actually touted for having done a good job 
implementing new policing rules? I mean, doesn't that suggest that 
they're either ineffective or insufficient to prevent these kinds of 
things from happening?' asked the reporter.
  ``The police `reforms that have been put in place in Dallas have made 
a difference.' ''
  The reforms that have been put in place in Dallas that have made a 
difference is a quote from Josh Earnest, the spokesman for the 
President.
  He goes on and says:
  `` `That is a reflection of why it's important for other communities 
to make this issue a priority in the same way

[[Page H4993]]

that Dallas has. It's making a difference in the lives and the people 
in Dallas, because it's not just those incidents of concern about 
police conduct that have declined; the violent crime rates declined, 
too.'' '
  That is from Josh Earnest.
  The story goes on. Now that we have finished Josh Earnest's ignorance 
of what really happened in Texas, in Dallas, the article says:
  ``Actually, violent crime is up across the board in Obama's model 
city of Dallas. According to The Dallas Morning News, 67 people were 
murdered in the first five months of 2016, compared to 48 in the first 
five months of 2015. Also, robbery is up from 1,576 to 1,805, and 
aggravated assault is up from 1,501 incidents to 1,747 incidents. The 
relatively good news is that sexual assault nudged down from 336 
incidents in 2015 to 312 incidents in 2016.

                              {time}  1645

  ``The 2016 spike comes after the murder rate jumped almost 17 percent 
in 2015, bringing the city's death toll up to 136 dead for 2015. The 
2016 crime spike is so large that the city's now famous police chief, 
David Brown, has faced pressure to resign.
  `` `Chief Brown's Career Has Lived By Crime Stats, and It Will Die By 
Crime Stats,' said a March headline in the Dallas Observer. According 
to a March 28 report in the Dallas Morning News, Dallas Police Chief 
David Brown's plan to fight a drastic rise in violent crime--including 
a nearly 75 percent jump in murders--by moving hundreds of officers to 
different shifts and on to task forces is creating an uproar within his 
department.
  ``The Black Police Association has historically been supportive of 
Brown but called for his resignation Monday hours before the group met 
with the three other police associations.
  ``Council member Philip Kingston expressed concern Monday about 
Brown's plans. `None of what you've presented here today is 
sustainable,' Kingston said.''
  Anyway, it goes on to discuss this.
  But I am very impressed with the Dallas police chief. I think he has 
comported himself admirably under such horrendous circumstances and 
while going through such grief, losing five of his first-responding law 
officers.
  But people need to know that the kind of things that were being urged 
by my friends across the aisle, that Obama believes are going to make a 
big difference, well, they made a difference. Murders are up 40 percent 
now in Dallas since they followed the Obama rules for policing. Very, 
very tragic.
  I appreciated Dallas Police Chief David Brown's statement when he 
challenged Black Lives Matter.
  ``During a press conference Monday, Brown issued a challenge to Black 
Lives Matter protesters demanding change around policing in their 
communities. `We're hiring. Get off that protest line and put an 
application in. We'll put you in your neighborhood, and we'll help you 
resolve some of the problems you're protesting about.' ''
  Apparently, according to this article by Katie Pavlich, Brown grew up 
in the inner city and decided to become a police officer during the 
national crack cocaine epidemic. He saw a problem in his community, and 
he wanted to fix it.
  Decades later, he is in charge of one the most successful police 
departments in the country--that is, of course, before he started 
following the Obama administration's suggestions for effective policing 
in America.
  Another problem that is rather dramatic--we feel it in Texas, but we 
are not alone. It is a problem across the country, illustrated in this 
article by Bob Price from July 5, ``200,000 Criminal Aliens Booked Into 
Texas Jails Over Past 5 Years, Says Department of Public Safety.''
  ``Nearly 200,000 criminal aliens have been booked into local Texas 
jails over the past 5 years. Those numbers included more than 155,000 
criminal illegal aliens.'' Just shocking.
  So this administration has lost--well, I guess it goes back to 2006. 
So most of the 1,000 weapons were lost during this administration's 
term, some of them on Bush's watch. But the 2,000 or so weapons--that 
we know have already killed at least one Federal agent--that were 
forced by this administration--and someday it is all going to come out. 
Fast and Furious is all going to be exposed at some point, and this 
administration is going to fall further in the estimation of its 
effectiveness.
  We are already seeing things like, oh, here are our policing rules; 
they follow them; murder rates go up. Violent crime seems to go up, 
nearly all of it.
  The border is porous. We have people pouring into the country. The 
Islamic State has made clear they are making use of our porous border 
and our willingness to harm ourselves by bringing in refugees that will 
include Islamic State terrorists. I think we need to take them 
seriously.
  This article from June 28 from James Carafano says:
  ``Flash back 3 years ago, and remember when the Secretary of Homeland 
Security declared `the border has never been stronger.' Well, if what 
is going on at America's border with Mexico is a success, Americans 
should shudder to think what failure looks like.
  ``Unaccompanied children crossing the border is up over 70 percent 
this year. Other categories and overall numbers are on the rise as 
well, reflecting significant increases since 2014. And it is not just 
the numbers that are troubling to Americans. They are worried about 
national security threats on the southern border.
  ``The groups are not just drug mafias--they smuggle, steal, hijack, 
rob, or kill (anything that makes a profit). And it is not just an 
American problem. By some estimates, since 2007, the cartels are 
responsible for over 100,000 deaths.''
  And this is something that a number of my Republican friends, 
especially all of us from Texas, were having meetings about off the 
record with the Director of Homeland Security and the White House, 
demanding that President Bush do a better job of securing our border. 
And they were actually making progress up through 2008.
  Then along came a new President. And they keep telling us, like this 
quote, the border has never been stronger. But the true facts belie 
that. We have diseases popping up where they shouldn't in places where 
immigrants who have come in illegally have come.
  And then, if that is not bad enough, this report from The Federalist: 
``U.S. Negligence is Feeding ISIS' Global Appeal.'' And it goes on and 
documents in the article here just how bad negligence in this 
administration has become.
  I couldn't agree more with one of the later paragraphs and the 
subtitle: ``Weakness Invites Aggression. Muslim extremists around the 
world see that the American Government and much of American society do 
not take this threat''--radical Islam--``seriously.''
  Parenthetically, they talk about guns, guns, guns and won't look at 
the person carrying or using the gun.
  The article says: `` . . . and can't or won't admit its theological 
origins. Rather than feeling on the run, ISIS and the men it inspires 
to jihad must feel emboldened by this.
  ``The Left continually insists, as Muslim Advocates President Farhana 
Khera did at least week's Senate hearing, that by talking about Islam 
in any capacity when discussing terrorism, we are playing into ISIS' 
hands. The argument is that groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda want nothing 
more than for the West and moderate Muslims to attack Islam. To what 
end isn't clear.
  ``Al-Qaeda may be frustrated it can't get the West to believe its 
motives--last week it released a special edition of their magazine, 
Inspire''--this is Al Qaeda--``in which it called on jihadists to 
`avoid targeting places and crowds where minorities are generally 
found' so their religious motives for the terrorist attack will be 
believed. But this isn't because al-Qaeda wants to instigate animosity 
between Muslims and the West. It's doing that by inspiring jihad. It 
simply wants the West,'' especially those of us in the United States, 
``to believe al-Qaeda is fighting a holy war.''
  They believe they are fighting a holy war.
  ``After the Paris nightclub attacks in November, Kerry vaguely 
described ISIS' motives, arguing that while the Charlie Hebdo attacks 
`perhaps' had a `legitimacy' or `rationale that you could attach 
yourself to,' indicating that murder is an appropriate reaction to 
insulting Mohammed, the November attacks were `absolutely 
indiscriminate.' ''

[[Page H4994]]

  Well, this administration, they do not understand the importance of 
securing the border. They don't understand, if they are going to avoid 
being complete hypocrites, that if you are going to outlaw whatever gun 
a radical Islamist uses to terrorize and kill Americans, if you are 
going to outlaw those, then next you have to file the bill that makes 
the possession or purchase of a pressure cooker illegal. And we really 
need to go back to 9/11; they used box cutters.
  Because if we are going to totally continue in this mode of refusing 
to recognize the problem with the murderer, the Islamic terrorist 
murderer, and look at only whatever weapon that murderer is using, then 
we are going to have to keep banning things. I am sure machetes, like 
were used to kill hundreds of thousands of people in Rwanda, we will 
have to outlaw them at some point. It will go on and on as long as we 
continue to ignore the true threat here to American lives in radical 
Islam.
  And I know it sounds good. ``No fly, no buy,'' that is clever. That 
is cute. But then when you have the Attorney General in front of your 
committee and you are wanting to know, what do you use to decide who is 
on the no-fly list, you can't get answers from the prior Attorney 
General, you can't get answers from the administration. They won't tell 
you.
  But they want Americans to get behind this movement to allow a 
bureaucrat, unelected, behind the scenes--we don't even know who is 
doing it--to make a list of people they don't want to have guns. Maybe 
we could get Lois Lerner over there to help. I am sure a lot of people 
would love that. Make a list of who you don't want to have guns.
  Unfortunately, we have seen the numbers that indicate most of the 
people on the no-fly list are people this administration should not 
have let into the country.
  If we are going to do something about the murderers, let's get 
serious about it. Let's address radical Islam. Let's secure our border. 
Let's start enforcing the gun laws we have.
  And let's allow the FBI to be trained to recognize what a radical 
Islamist believes, what they are reading, what they are doing, who they 
are following online, what mosque they are going to where more people 
are radicalized. Those are important things. And until this 
administration allows that to happen, we are going to keep losing 
precious American lives.
  It has to stop. And if it is not guns, it is pressure cookers, box 
cutters, machetes, underwear bombs. We find out, you know, these 
terrorists, these radical Islamists, they have learned how to make 
bombs.
  And on top of all of that, we have the President determined to 
release as many people who want to kill Americans as he possibly can 
out of Guantanamo Bay. Under the rules of war for civilized societies, 
when someone declares war on your country and you capture any of their 
warriors, you hold on to them, in civilized society, until such time as 
their friends and allies say we are no longer at war. Then you let them 
go.
  And if their friends and allies keep fighting for 30 years, you hold 
on to them for 30 years, and then maybe they can help persuade them to 
stop fighting. But you don't let warriors go while the war is still 
going on.
  Because, as we have seen--and it was repugnant to me to have a 
spokesman for this administration say, basically, well, we can't say 
that people we have released from Guantanamo have killed Americans, but 
I guess we could say, in essence, that people we have released--well, 
that Americans would not be dead if we hadn't released certain people 
from Guantanamo.

                              {time}  1700

  My word, let's quit playing the games and quit releasing people who 
want to kill Americans, who are at war with us, who were at war with us 
when they were captured, and whose friends are still at war with us.
  Let's hold them at Guantanamo until their friends say, ``We are no 
longer at war.'' Then they can be released, unless they have committed 
war crimes. If they have, then at that point we will try them for those 
crimes like Nuremberg. That is what a civilized society does. You don't 
release warriors to go kill more Americans while the war is going on.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________