[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 165 (Thursday, November 17, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H6291-H6296]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
{time} 1215
TIME TO LOOK AHEAD
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Curbelo of Florida). Under the Speaker's
announced policy of January 6, 2015, the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Gohmert) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority
leader.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it is an honor and a pleasure to be in this
somewhat hallowed Hall.
The election is behind us. It is time to look ahead. But as everyone
who studies history knows, those who fail to learn from history are
destined to repeat it. And so we go.
We continue too often to repeat the mistakes of the past, but it
looks like the American people wanted a change--quite a change--and I
know there are calls that we get rid of the electoral college, but when
one looks at the map of the United States district-by-district within
the States that voted for the different parties, candidates, one sees
very clearly that you have the big cities that were voting Democrat and
the 90 percent or so of the rest of the country voted Republican. It
really is amazing to see just how distinctive that has become.
South Texas is not highly populated, but is blue. Otherwise, most of
the country that voted Democrat is just large cities, many of which are
failing, many of which have become sanctuary cities, many of which have
high crime rates. So I was a bit encouraged to continue to hear
statements made by President-elect Trump.
There is an article today--with regard to the government, that is--
from The Washington Examiner by Paul Bedard: ``$42 billion in Obama
regulations are on Trump's chopping block. Nearly 50 massive and costly
regulations that cost Americans and businesses 53 million more hours
filing paperwork and that have already put a $42 billion hit on the
U.S. economy are being teed up for President-elect Trump to cut in his
first weeks in office.''
And you go through and you look and top on the list are Head Start
performance standards. Really, education was doing pretty well in my
home State. Back before President Carter created the Department of
Education, between 70 and 75 percent of all employees in the education
system in Texas were teachers; but when you create this big bureaucracy
called the Department of Education, it means for every cubicle we put
here in Washington, D.C., just down the street here at the Department
of Education, every State has to hire additional people to work in
cubicles. But some States are more generous than others. Some have very
nice offices.
But then, for every bureaucrat you put in a State capital office that
is going to respond to the bureaucrats in the Department of Education
here, you have to have additional clerical help, administrative help in
each individual school district. That is people that could be helping
our children. That is people that could be making students brighter
than any other students.
But what are they doing?
They are filling out mountains of paperwork to send to the State
capital so they can fill out mountains of paperwork and send it to the
Department of Education.
To see that just one item within the Department of Education could
cut $42 billion in Obama regulations is incredible. At a time when we
have skyrocketed over the last 7-plus years from $11 billion in debt to
$20 billion in debt, it is just incredible. Incredible. Yet, there is
so much we are costing America.
I am excited about the coming year because the kind of things that
are listed here is just government overregulation; government
bureaucrats from here overregulating. I know most people are proud when
they set new all-time records, which this administration did in new
regulations for the years with regard to pages of regulations. I think
it seems like the Bush administration may have hit 74,000 pages or so
one year, but that didn't create a problem for the Obama
administration. They have blown right past 74,000 pages of regulations.
How is anyone in business in the United States supposed to stay in
business if they have to go through 74,000 pages of new regulations in
addition to the old regulations that may still be in effect?
It is incredible. Like the Heritage Foundation has pointed out, more
persons are committing three or four Federal crimes every day because
we don't know what all the regulations are.
I am very encouraged as we go into the new year that one of the
things we want to accomplish--and Chairman Goodlatte in the Judiciary
Committee has it on his list of things to get done--is really address
the overcriminalization that has occurred over all these years. You
slap a prison sentence on some vague crime or on some vague statute
that says it is a crime if you violate any of the laws or regulations,
and then bureaucrats sit around and dream up things that annoy them,
and all of a sudden somebody can be going to prison for things none of
us knew were crimes.
One guy did know that a substance he was sending through the mail,
since he was a scientist, required ground only. So he checked the box
``ground only.'' He didn't know that some bureaucrat had passed or
created a regulation that said not only do you check the box, you have
to put a little ticker with an airplane with a red line through it. And
if you don't do that, you get arrested, drug to Alaska, where he was
sending it--he didn't even live there, didn't have friends--and held up
there for 18 months or so, I think. It is incredible. We have got to do
right by the American people.
I have been blessed to be able to travel all over the country in the
past year or so. And everywhere I go, it just seems like the economy is
ready to take off. If we can just get this massive, oppressive
bureaucracy in Washington off of the neck of the economy, people will
start having jobs again.
I know some people are worried about the wall or fence, but as you
see people out of work--some of them being paid, apparently, to riot or
picket, the things they do. I remember one picketer out here on The
Mall back during the shutdown said he was getting $15 an hour from
Democratic sources to picket out there at the World War II Monument.
Some of them get paid. Maybe that is all the work they can find.
Well, how great would it be to take that picket sign out of their
hand and say: My friend, we have productive work for you. You can help
your country, you can help yourself by cutting down on potential
terrorism coming across other southern border, by cutting down on
people coming into the country illegally and getting welfare, food
stamps, all these benefits that
[[Page H6292]]
other Americans will have to pay for those who are here illegally. You
can take this trowel, take this mortar, and go over to that brick pile
by our border and just start helping us build the wall. We will pay you
to do that.
I don't know, if they get $15 an hour to come picket in Washington,
they may want $16 or $17 to help build the wall or the fence down on
our border, but we have certainly got plenty of people that can work,
because you see them in the streets all over the country. They have
come out of their safe spaces where their feelings were hurt because
things didn't go like they wanted and nobody has told them, as my late
mother, brilliant as she was, used to say: Well, nothing is fair, and
the quicker you get used to it, the better off you will be.
I would contend--and she would roll her eyes--yeah, but we can take
care of our own little part to make it more fair. And that is what we
are supposed to do. If things are not fair, then you get involved in
government and you try to fix it.
That is why I came to Washington. I saw that things weren't fair up
here, that the Federal Government was luring people away from their
God-given potential. I kept having young women come before me as a
felony judge in Texas for welfare fraud. And the cases were nearly
identical. They pour out their hearts, lay out their situation. They
were bored with high school and somebody said: Well, the Federal
Government will send you a check if you just drop out and have a baby.
Then they find out after they have the child: I can't really live on
this little bit. This is not enough to live on. So they have another
child and another child. These are just the ones that came to my court,
but I would imagine that there are other situations just like this all
over the country.
When I was teaching a joint sociology class at a predominantly
African American school back in Tyler, Texas--a great school that has
done so much good for so many--Texas College--but there were women
there probably in their late twenties, and when we started talking
about this, I was blown away with the intellectual level of these women
and their commitment that we have to fix our Federal system that is
destroying people and their potential.
One lady in her older twenties, God bless her, she came back. She
decided: I have had kids. I have been in debt. I am going to improve
myself. I mean, that is the American Dream. That is what we hope for.
She said, You have got to put that work requirement in and you have got
to make it more forceful.
Another lady said: You have got to put drug tests on there. Man, I
was spending my money I was getting from the government not so much for
my kid, but for my drugs. You need to have a drug test. Don't just give
people money like that. You are ruining them.
I am hearing people across the country that have figured out this
massive welfare state that was created with the best of intentions in
the mid-sixties has done more to pull people away from their God-given
potential and put them into ruts or ditches from which they couldn't
get out of.
Yet, that is not supposed to ever be the role of government, whether
you look to Biblical scripture, like I do. In Romans 13, the government
is supposed to be an encourager of good conduct, help people, encourage
them, direct them to reach their potential. Don't lure them away from
their potential and make them beholden to this big master government.
Encourage them. We need a safety net here and there, but encourage
them. The sky is the limit and get out of the way.
Like Edison said, I didn't fail however many hundreds of thousands of
times. I tried to find the filament that would make a light bulb work.
He didn't fail all those times. He just found that many ways that would
not work in a light bulb, then he found the one that would. You
encourage people to try. Failure shouldn't necessarily be a trophy, but
it ought to get a slap on the back, Come on, you can keep going. You
can do it.
{time} 1230
The government should not lure people away from trying. It was never
intended to be anything but a safety net so you could rebound and get
back on your feet. Instead, we take people off their feet and lead them
away from being productive in the country for themselves.
I have mentioned this before, but I, as a freshman here in Congress,
12 years ago, went to a conference at Harvard. One of the speakers, the
dean there--I was surprised, dean at Harvard Business School--had these
charts, and he showed single mothers' income in the United States, when
adjusted for inflation, from the creation of welfare until welfare
reform, from the mid-sixties to mid-nineties when Newt Gingrich and
Republicans took the Congress in January 1995, did welfare reform. I
know President Clinton now takes credit for it, but he vetoed it. It
wasn't until they had enough votes, basically, to override his veto
that they finally got him on board, and now he likes to take credit for
it. It was the Republicans that drove them there.
He likes to take credit for the balanced budget. He vetoed numerous
things that would have made it balance, and once they had the votes
that would override his veto, he would sign them, and we got to a
balanced budget back in the late nineties.
But that is what we are going to have to do come January, and we
can't give away the farm when we come back. I am encouraged today to
hear our Speaker and leader talking about what we are going to be
doing. And wow, isn't it wonderful that now that Donald Trump is the
President-elect, Republican leadership is now saying: You know what we
are going to do is we need to take care of the military so we don't
suffer there any more than we already have for 8 years. But maybe get
that done for the rest of the year and then, basically, have a
continuing resolution that gets us out maybe to March so that we can
come in with the Congress the people of the United States have said
they now want making the decisions. That makes sense. They have spoken:
Let's let that Congress make the big calls then with the new President
when he comes in in January.
What is so great about that is some of us were talking about that
back in September, and then we were told no, no; we have got to do it
for the whole year, and we are going to have to add this and that. We
can't just go to March because that will destroy the military. We have
got to do everything for the whole year.
A new President is elected named Trump, and all of a sudden, hey,
let's just go to March. Sounds great to me. That sounds like a good
idea. I would have been willing to do that in September as we were
talking about then. It wasn't acceptable then. I am glad it is
acceptable now for a new Congress.
And when we talk about problems in the United States, our military
has been deflated back to a pre-World War II position. We were not a
superpower after World War I. We weren't the main defender of truth,
justice, freedom.
But as you travel around the world, like I have mentioned, in Africa,
where Africans were saying, you know: We were so excited when you
elected your first Black President, but since he has been in office, we
have seen America get weaker and weaker. And you have got to go back to
Washington and tell those people there to stop getting weaker.
This was a group of African Christians. They said, you know: We all
know where we are going when we die, but our only chance for peace in
this life is if America is strong.
Now, the world, so many countries like to deride us and take verbal
shots. Some take other kinds of shots. But some like to fly planes
closely, mocking our ships, and I am looking forward to that happening
under President Trump. I suspect if it happens, it probably won't
happen more than once, and they will learn not to mess with us.
So it will be nice to have a reputation: You are not going to
continue to bully the world. While this administration likes to talk
about bullies in elementary school and send--they like to see little
kids who were bullies in elementary school arrested, threatened.
Well, I was a little bitty kid, and one of my best friends from
elementary school was here yesterday. We were talking about old times.
He and I were the same little bitty runt size, so we got picked on a
lot. But we didn't want anybody to come get arrested, and we figured
out ways that we made sure the biggest bully never bothered us again.
[[Page H6293]]
But to give an elementary school kid an arrest, drag them in for
being a bully? I mean, kids have to grow up, and that is why we are
called adults. We are supposed to have learned and supposed to
understand kids will be kids.
Foolishness can be found in the heart of a child. But some say maybe
Proverbs is encouraging a crime when it says: but the rod can drive it
far from them. Nobody wants a child to be abused, but I know most of my
friends in school, we got paddled at one time or another.
I had friends I played football with, whether it was freshman year,
junior varsity, or varsity, that if they had not been paddled, I had no
doubt they were headed for prison. But they had coaches that cared
about them. They didn't just want to win as coaches. They wanted these
kids to be good adults, so they used discipline. We had some troubled
folks after high school, but the coaches saved a lot of kids by caring.
I mentioned before that I had some coaches that I loved, and they are
more like friends, even though they were adults. My favorite year, my
favorite coach was Willie Williams.
It was interesting, you know. Conservatives are called bigots all the
time. First time I mentioned that here in Washington, that my favorite
high school coach was--happened to be Black, and I never noticed any
racial problems on that team because he was rough on all of us. He was
a very smart man, too, good coach.
I love Coach Williams, and it was my great honor to be invited back
to my hometown a couple of weeks ago when Mount Pleasant was playing
Greenville. Greenville is a lot bigger city. Mount Pleasant had won two
games.
Coach Williams is now retired, but I was told Coach Williams was up
in the press box, that he did some of the calling color for the games.
There were so many thrills there, getting to know the kids and being
with the team on the sideline and rejoicing at good plays. But they
won. Apparently, it was the best game they played. Those kids have a
lot of potential they didn't realize, but they gave me the game ball.
Just so many things that thrilled me there, my hometown where I grew
up, Mount Pleasant, but nothing more than when I got to hug Coach
Williams up there at the press box. That was special.
Although he is substantially older now and gray--and, fortunately,
his memory has not waned at all--Coach Williams remarked: You had a
great team, but it wasn't because you had good talent--that's how I
know his memory had not failed him--but you guys played so well
together. You gave it everything. You played well together, and that is
how you were a winning team.
I really had hopes that that is what would happen. I didn't support
Barack Obama for President, but I really had hopes that we would be
brought together as never before, just the way Coach Williams brought
us together on that football team.
I thought it was rather ironic, one of the liberal press immediately
did a story on my favorite basketball coach in high school. Apparently,
they figured, since they are liberal, well, he is Black, so I guess
Blacks are only good at basketball, so he must have been his basketball
coach. He was my football coach, JV football coach before I went to
varsity the next year. But, ironic, who is the more bigoted, I wonder.
But, nonetheless, it wasn't like our team under Coach Williams. We have
become a very divided country.
In this article from FOX News, Dakota Wood, just this week, points
out our military is no longer large enough, strong enough, or modern
enough to keep America safe, and that is why China is making moves in
the South Sea. It is why Russia is rattling sabers and looking around
them if they should possibly move before a more authoritative
President, a more decisive President like President-elect Trump, comes
into office. So I think the world is scared for the next couple of
months.
Are these countries like Iran, Russia, China, are they going to try
to make a move in the next 2 months because they know this President
may send some rockets or something, may send a SEAL team, but they are
not going to really be final-type activities to really send a message.
So we will see. Hopefully, the threat of President Trump coming in
January will be sufficient to keep Iran from trying to make a move on
Mecca, Russia from trying to make a move on Georgia, Ukraine, Crimea--
Crimea being part of Ukraine, of course, should be--but remains to be
seen.
And then after all of the trauma that has been created by--I just
can't call it the Affordable Care Act because it is so costly. But the
President was proud that it was called ObamaCare initially, and so that
is a better term. People know what it means immediately, know what we
are talking about.
But this article from the Washington Free Beacon, Ali Meyer, says
one-third of adults went without health care due to expensive costs. We
were doing so much better. Most of the people I hear from in my
district, over 700,000 people, were doing a lot better under--before
ObamaCare kicked in. They are not going to be able to afford health
care next year. That was one of the reasons that 90 percent of the
geographical U.S. voted to change parties as President because they
have seen the suffering they have had because their health care has
suffered.
This article says one-third of adults in the U.S. went without
recommended health care due to expensive costs, according to a
Commonwealth Fund survey. The survey actually was conducted in 11
countries--the U.S., Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the
Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United
Kingdom--and this was all within this year, from March to June of this
year, and that is what we find. A third of Americans, now that we have
been under ObamaCare for 6 years, have really felt the pinch, and some
have felt it to their demise or detriment.
Another article from Elizabeth Harrington, ObamaCare premiums are to
increase 27 percent. It points out that a new study obtained by the
Washington Free Beacon shows premium increases under ObamaCare will
actually be higher than the Federal Government's projections, and it
points out they will increase by 27 percent, according to the American
Action Forum.
{time} 1245
It points out that the Department of Health and Human Services
announced last month that premiums would increase an average of 22
percent in 2017. But premiums will actually increase as much as 145
percent in some States.
``The American Action Forum found that the average increase is likely
to be higher than predicted because the agency did not factor in that
nearly half of ObamaCare plans no longer exist, forcing enrollees to
switch to costlier plans,'' if they have them at all.
Then we have this from Lana Shadwick: ``DHS Sued for Ignoring
Environmental Effects of Mass Immigration.'' There is so much damage
that has come from our border not being secured. I heard one of my
friends across the aisle say just this week in the press that our
southern border is secure and that Mr. Trump should come down and see
it. Mr. Trump has come down and seen it, and I have been down there
many times.
To be on the border as I was just in the last month, recent months,
out there on the Rio Grande, it is pretty wide, and yet that is still
where so many thousands and thousands and thousands cross. At 2, 3 in
the morning, we were on a Texas Department of Public Safety boat
because Texas, though they are not authorized by the Supreme Court to
defend our borders, they are authorized under the Texas Constitution
and required to protect our State. They spent millions of dollars. They
have these fantastic boats. We had night vision on the boat. They have
thermotechnology. They could see where people were hiding and what they
were hiding behind. They have other technology. When they would see
people, they would radio it to the Border Patrol. There were agents on
the U.S. side along the riverbank, and we reported some in. We went
down, turned off the engine and sat there for an hour or so.
Finally, the U.S. Border Patrol asked if we would go back to the dock
because those people that we had been watching, they were watching with
their technology, and they weren't going to move. They knew our boats
were there somewhere in the area, and so our boat went back.
[[Page H6294]]
I thought that meant they were saying they know you are in the area
so they are not going to make a move. We can't catch them redhanded
until you make a move. I thought that meant they would interdict and
protect the homeland. No. Homeland security doesn't protect the
homeland. No. What they were saying is: We want you to get out of the
way because there are people--oh, and then there were some we could see
were clearly carrying stuff that was probably drugs. There were only
two or three in those groups of people who were carrying drugs. There
were 17 or 18 groups like that would be wanting to come across, and it
didn't look like they were carrying anything, maybe they had a raft.
So it turned out we leave, and we get radio transmission from Border
Patrol: Okay, all of those folks who you had spotted, they have now all
come across when you left the area, and we have got all of those in the
big groups. But we didn't get those who were probably bringing in
drugs, but we put somebody out at an intersection. They are going to
watch for them.
These people are not stupid. They knew the intersection they put them
in. They weren't going through that intersection.
If I had had any idea that our boat leaving that area of the river,
the Rio Grande, was going to cause President Obama's Border Patrol to
not protect our homeland but to keep welcoming drug dealers, massive
drugs, and lots of folks we don't know what diseases they have--we
don't know if there were any terrorists in there. We don't really know
who they are. They don't carry proper identification. I have seen that
time and time and time again on our border in the middle of the night.
They are not carrying.
I watched two guys. They looked at their own little xeroxed piece of
paper they use for identification, and if they didn't like it, they
switched.
What kind of identification is that?
It is a little piece of paper, it had some English on it, and they
switched. They didn't like the identity they were bringing in. We don't
know who these people were.
So it will be nice come next year to know that our Border Patrol--and
they are frustrated, I know. Most of them really have wanted to do
their jobs. I hear from them. They are so tired of watching their
homeland be assaulted. It just goes on and on, a wave every night, and
we are not protecting our homeland.
We are supposed to protect this place against all enemies foreign and
domestic. Some of those folks aren't enemies. They want to come in for
jobs. Some want to come in for welfare. Some want to come in for food
stamps. Some want to come in, but they have made commitments through
the drug cartels that pay the coyotes to bring them across.
I have been out there at night when they have said: Well, no, I
didn't have $7,000, but they are going to let me work it off in the
city I am going to.
How do they work it off in those cities for the drug cartels?
They help them spread poison to American young people. They are
bringing poison into our country. They come in with good motivation--
wanting jobs, wanting a better life. Yet we have allowed such a massive
insurgence into this country. We need to take some kind of pause and
kind of figure out who in the world is in this country. We know from
FBI Director Comey--such as his testimony is worth--that there are
terrorist cells in every State, and that they are investigating every
State. So we need to figure out who all have we let in here. In the
last 8 years--and, yes, it was going on during the Bush administration,
but nothing like it has just amassed in the last 8 years. We have to
figure out who is here. Even this administration had no idea who they
have let in.
Then when you see the article that indicates that the number of those
wrongly given citizenship is much higher than initially reported--and
this is from Jake Tapper with CNN--that the number of individuals who
were supposed to have been deported but instead were granted
citizenship is far higher than was initially reported by the media
covering homeland security. This is from September: ``On Monday, the
Inspector General reported that 858 individuals from `special interest
countries'--meaning countries that are considered to be `of concern to
the national security of the United States'--were supposed to have been
deported but were instead granted U.S. citizenship.
``But the truth is the report is even worse than reported, with more
than 1,800 individuals naturalized who should have been deported from
the country.
``A reason for the underplaying of the number may have been the
report's focus, which was whether the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services was using digital fingerprints effectively.''
So it goes on to say that there might be 1,000 more--953 more--that
they didn't realize they were supposed to deport because they are
probably going to kill people and create havoc here. With all the
rhetoric we have heard over and over, we don't need a fence, we don't
need a wall, this campaign you don't need any fence or wall down on our
border.
WikiLeaks--and who knows where this stuff is coming from, but I never
did hear outright denials to: Well, we are not sure where that is
coming from.
Yeah, but they are saying this was your email. Did you send this
email?
I just didn't hear people denying the facts that were in what was
released.
Anyway, they leaked an internal memo from Barack Obama's 2008
campaign, and it made very clear that then-Senator Obama believed that
fencing at the U.S.-Mexico border could help cut down on illegal
immigration. Of course, once he is in office, we hear his surrogate,
Janet Napolitano, saying that if you build a 10-foot wall, then they
will build a 12-foot ladder.
So what do they do?
They build a 10-foot fence around the White House. After she made fun
of a 10-foot fence, they built a 10-foot fence to make it higher around
the White House.
I ask: Does that fence work? Because if it works, then we need to
have something like that down on our border. If it doesn't work, then
let's remove the fence from around the White House. But the Obama
administration, though they clamored that fences would do no good, made
their fence even stronger, bigger, taller, and more secure around the
White House.
So I know they said that fences didn't work, but their actions said
pretty clearly: Yes, we know they work. That is why we are fixing ours
up around the White House.
In my own home county, November was a very, very sad time. A 10-year-
old little girl, Kayla, was finally found as friends around the country
were texting, emailing, and praying for Kayla. They finally found 10-
year-old Kayla. Our Smith County sheriff, Larry Smith, reported that
Kayla's body was found in a well next to a home rented by her relative
4 days after her disappearance. The Sheriff said: ``We assure you there
will be no stone unturned as we enter the next phase of this
investigation.''
That is what they did. They arrested Gustavo Zavala-Garcia. He was in
the country illegally. He had been deported for a violent crime in
2014, but because this Federal Government refused to protect the United
States of America from all enemies foreign, this guy comes back in and
killed Kayla. That is the charge.
We have seen this across the country. I know President-elect Trump
has said he is going to do something about it, and, God help us, he
needs to. In government we have a job. As an individual Christian, I am
supposed to turn the other cheek; but when I am acting in the role of
the government, my job is to make sure those who have religious beliefs
can practice and keep their religious beliefs without worrying about
some guy who has been deported five times coming in and shooting them.
If we find here in Congress that the executive branch is not doing
what they should, then we cut off the money. That is what is supposed
to happen. Cut off the money to those who aren't doing the job and send
it over to people that are doing the job. If nobody is doing the job,
then create another department and eliminate that department, and get
somebody until you do protect the country.
There are so many across this country that are suffering and mourning
the loss because the Federal Government did not protect them from some
[[Page H6295]]
immigrant who was a criminal who was deported. We don't protect our
borders. They came back, they killed, raped, and pillaged yet again.
Then there are those who say: Well, let's just go ahead and do a
complete amnesty.
This report is from Robert Rector, a brilliant guy from the National
Academy of Sciences. He says: ``The findings in the report indicate
that if amnesty for illegal immigrants were enacted, the government
would have to raise taxes immediately by $1.29 trillion and put that
sum into a high-yield bank account to cover future fiscal losses
generated by the amnesty recipients and their children.
``To cover the future cost, each U.S. household currently paying
federal income tax would have to pay, on average, an immediate lump sum
of over $15,000.''
Wouldn't it be better to just enforce our borders?
Nobody lets in legally as many as we do in the United States. I don't
know a single person in this Congress that is a xenophobe, whatever
kind of phobe, but we want to do our job. There is an obligation to
make sure that the over 1 million visas--more than any country in the
world--that are handed out by your United States Government go to
people that are not going to be a threat but are to be a blessing to
this country.
The U.N. General Secretary--the new one that just came in--said over
a year ago that the reason there is such a tiny fraction of a fraction
of Christians who are being brought out of the Middle East as refugees
is because they are so historically important right where they are. We
have already recognized there is a genocide of Christians going on
right now in the Middle East.
So what do we do with the Christians?
The government said: Well, we want to leave most of them there. We
like what the U.N. says. Let's leave them over there to be wiped out in
a genocide of Christians.
{time} 1300
I am saying, Mr. Speaker, there will be a price to pay someday by
this country for our callousness to Christians and Jews in the Middle
East that have cried out for help. Instead of helping them, we have
welcomed those who have tortured and created a living hell for them.
And one from September 10: ``Suspect in Brutal Maryland Murder
Deported Twice.''
``Austin Sex Assault Suspect Previously Deported Five Times.''
Then this administration has sent billions of dollars, a lot of it
cash--load up those pallets, put them on a plane, and send them to our
enemy Iran. And we find out there was an IAEA report indicating that
Iran had continued to violate the Iran executive agreement. It is
really a treaty, but the Senate never confirmed it, never ratified it,
so it can be wiped out as soon as Trump goes in. I know I saw a
headline he doesn't think he will do that. I suggest he needs to do
that. It was a rotten deal. There will be a lot of people in the Middle
East and around the world, including America, who will die because this
administration sent billions of dollars to Iran, a big hunk of it just
pure cash.
This article says: ``Iran Pressuring Palestinian Jihadists to Resume
Terrorism Against Israel.'' But they didn't just do terrorism against
Israel. They love to kill and do harm to Americans.
It is time we stood up to our oath and protected this place,
protected our Constitution, our way of life, against all enemies,
foreign and domestic. That is basically the oath I took when I went on
Active Duty in the Army. We didn't know if we were going to be sent. We
weren't sent anywhere. We were put on alert in 1979 when an act of war
occurred in Iran, but President Carter wouldn't defend our people. He
tried way too late and way too weakly to rescue.
But even a successful rescue would have told the world we don't have
a leader in America that will protect the American people because, if
you harm us, then we will come back and get out of your country, but we
will leave you alone. I mean, this was President Carter that called
Ayatollah Khomeini--the biggest radical Islamist terrorist in modern
history--a man of peace when he was welcoming him to the power of an
entire country and its military.
Radical Islamic caliphate had been out of business for many years,
and Carter opened the box. Once Pandora's box was open, many thousands
and thousands of our American military would die in the days to come
because of it, not just military. But when a Taliban--radical Islamist
terrorists--in Afghanistan get control of the country, there is going
to be terrorism spread around the world. That is what happened. When a
radical Islamic terrorist becomes the head of Iran, there is going to
be terrorism spread around the world, and that happened.
Now, this: ``Leaked FBI Data Reveal 7,700 Terrorist Encounters in USA
in One Year; Border States Most Targeted.''
But Andrew McCarthy, a dear friend, wrote a great article:
``Deadliest Lie: Without `Lone Wolf' Lie, U.S. Could Have Stopped
Nearly Every Attack.'' As my friend Patrick Poole has said, there are
no lone wolves, there are known wolves.
Each time we find out these people were on the radar of the FBI, of
law enforcement, and they didn't know how to recognize a radical
Islamist. So I hope and pray that, as a new administration comes in, we
will finally put the Muslim Brotherhood, CAIR and any of the groups
with which it works, on a terrorist watch list. Stop them from giving
advice to the State Department, the White House, the Justice
Department, Homeland Security. Stop allowing them to come in and review
material and tell us what we have to remove from our training material
so that next time Russia says there is a Tsarnaev brother that has been
radicalized and he is going to kill people, the FBI agents who want to
stop terrorism will actually recognize it because they have been
properly trained to do so instead of being treated with some
politically correct garbage that keeps them from recognizing what a
real radical Islamist is. You have got to know what they are reading.
You have got to know what their beliefs are.
When I talked to the FBI agent whose material was completely
eliminated for a time because, apparently, CAIR, named as a
coconspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial,
was bothered by some of that stuff, when I asked the FBI Director at
that time, Mueller, ``You didn't even go to the mosques where the
Tsarnaevs went and ask questions--What are they reading? What are they
learning? What are they saying? How are they acting?--to determine if
they had been radicalized?'' they didn't know what to look for. Mueller
said they did go out there, but it was in their outreach program.
Yeah, go out there and have a meal. Let's get together and be
buddies, but not even investigate when the Russians tell you this guy
is a radical, he is going to kill Americans.
They sent somebody out. They talked to him and talked to his mom. He
said, ``No, I am not a terrorist''; and Mom said, ``He is a good boy,
not a terrorist.'' And then he goes and kills people in Boston at the
marathon because they didn't know what they were looking for.
It is time to get back to fulfilling our oath to the United States of
America to protect this country, to get government out of the way, to
create a level playing field across the country and then let people
compete. Don't reward the losers. Encourage them to pick up and keep
going when they fail because, like Edison, it is not a failure. You
just found a way not to succeed on that, but you will find a way next
time. We keep trying.
It is time to wake up, protect the people within the United States so
that we can continue to be the biggest, brightest beacon of light in
the world where people will want to come instead of a place that was
once great, was once free, was once safe, but now countries around the
world have travel alerts out on our cities because we are not safe
anymore. It is time to protect America and put America first, which is
our oath and obligation. When we do that, we can do more good for the
world than we have done since World War II.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
[[Page H6296]]
____________________