[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 66 (Friday, April 16, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H1880-H1885]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ISSUES OF THE DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Jacobs of California.) Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2021, the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Gohmert) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the 
minority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I saw one study that indicated that these 
masks are very helpful; that, by wearing a mask, you have two-tenths of 
1 percent less chance of getting COVID. So hurray for that two-tenths 
of 1 percent, especially for those of us who have had it or have had 
vaccinations. But I look forward to getting our freedom back at some 
point.
  But you can't have a free society if the media is dishonest. When the 
Founders fought for the right to have free media, they anticipated that 
there should always be a majority of the media who would be willing to 
expose media who were dishonest.
  But we are living in a dangerous time, when what used to be called 
the mainstream media is anything but honest; and that was played out 
before our very eyes and ears as Project Veritas had a CNN--well, as 
this article says--a CNN head, but he had leadership, and he admitted 
quite a great deal about the abuses of CNN, the manipulativeness of 
CNN.
  This article from The Epoch Times--which, by the way, is under fire 
from the Chinese Communist Party, so since this administration seems to 
side with the Chinese Communist Party a great deal, they may be coming 
after The Epoch Times the way the Chinese Communist Party is. But we 
will wait and see if that happens.
  But this story, dated April 14, says a CNN head has personally 
intervened to order the cable network staff to display the number of 
people who have died from COVID-19 in the broadcast, according to a CNN 
technical director who was caught on hidden camera making the comments. 
The goal was to boost ratings, the director said, explaining fear 
really drives numbers and is the thing that keeps you tuned in.
  That is rather tragic.
  A former segregationist President, Democrat, named Franklin D. 
Roosevelt, had said, quite eloquently: ``The only thing we have to fear 
is fear itself.'' And he was right that that should be a big concern.
  But what we are hearing from the undercover tape is that CNN sees 
fear as the best way to increase ratings.
  So another article from The Gateway Pundit: ``CNN director caught on 
hidden camera saying the network is `trying to help' BLM by only 
pushing stories that implicate White people.''
  Well, that is unfortunate. What that shows is that CNN doesn't mind 
being racist. It is very unfortunate that we would stir up that kind of 
animosity; have a major news network, or what used to be a major news 
network, CNN, pushing racist divides.
  Madam Speaker, I have been joined by a friend--hopefully, she doesn't 
mind me calling her a friend because that is the way I see her--from 
New York, an extraordinary Member of Congress. I am thrilled she is 
back.
  I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Tenney).

[[Page H1881]]

  

  Ms. TENNEY. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding.
  I just wanted a moment to take the opportunity to share something 
that I launched this week with Representative Garcia from California, 
and that is the Election Integrity Caucus.
  In that caucus, our mission is to make sure that we have and preserve 
integrity in our election process, and that we have people understand 
just how important the right to vote is and why it is such a sacred act 
and a cornerstone of our constitutional Republic and the democratic 
principles that we hold dear.
  A lot of people don't realize how important their right to vote is, 
and we just want to make sure that people understand that. We don't 
want it to be undermined.
  We think that the Speaker's signature legislation, H.R. 1, undermines 
the integrity of the right to vote. We think every person who has a 
legal right to vote should vote in every election, but just once, not 
multiple times.
  One of the things I wanted to mention because I just have a few 
minutes here, is that we would love to have all the Members join the 
caucus. Obviously, we would love to have a bipartisan caucus, but I am 
reaching out to everyone across the Nation to support our efforts to 
try to bring integrity to our election process and to understand how 
sacred the right to vote is.
  I think it is really great that  Mike Garcia, the Representative from 
California, who won by 333 votes, is joining me. I won by 109 votes in 
upstate New York in one of the longest election cycles in the Nation 
and did not even get sworn in until February 11.
  So we just wanted to make sure everyone understands that we want to 
expand the number of people that vote. You know, you hear all the time 
that the Republicans want to suppress the vote. Nothing could be 
further from the truth.
  We know so many great Americans through our Nation's history that 
have lost life and limb for this sacred right to vote privately, and we 
want those people to exercise that right and feel that their vote 
actually counts.
  I think one thing that my race and Representative Garcia's--also our 
colleague, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who recently was confirmed the 
winner again in Iowa's Second District--shows is that every vote does 
count. And it should be something that people joyfully do, is to 
exercise that right to vote because I think a lot of people don't 
realize, we have a self-governing constitutional Republic; it is by and 
for the people.
  I think one of the enduring themes, one of the reasons I love our 
former President Lincoln was that he used to talk about: Can we save 
the Republic? Can we be self-governing? And we want to be sure that we 
preserve all of that and how great this country is by actually forming 
this Election Integrity Caucus to travel around the country and 
encourage people to register to vote, and to vote.
  And I will add, I just visited the border. And we have a great 
community of refugees where my district is up in New York's 22nd 
District, and I can't tell you how excited so many of these people are 
when they finally get to be citizens, and when they have a chance to 
vote, and when they have a chance to vote privately without somebody 
looking over their shoulder or knowing how they voted.
  We just want to make that act sacred, and we want to make everyone 
aware that they have the opportunity to vote, and their vote is secure, 
and no one is going to take their vote or dilute their vote. We need to 
make sure that we preserve the integrity of our voter rolls.
  It is interesting; I come from New York, and people think of New York 
as being this liberal bastion, which it is. But Article II of New 
York's Constitution talks about the right of suffrage.
  In my own district, the first women to vote in New York State voted 
in Lisle, New York, in my district of New York. So we know how sacred 
that right is for women to have the right to vote. Susan B. Anthony and 
Elizabeth Cady Stanton all hailed from New York State, so we have a 
great tradition of voting, and we want to lead the way toward that.
  I know that we would love to have the gentleman join if he is 
interested in joining our caucus.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the gentlewoman's efforts, 
and I would be thrilled to join that caucus. That is absolutely 
meritorious, and it should be something that all of us work to support 
together.
  Yet, we get cast, as Republicans, as wanting to limit the number of 
voters, when actually, we want more voters; but we need to have people 
vote legally, not multiple times, not voting after you no longer have a 
pulse, but voting as citizens. So I am thrilled. I yield to the 
gentlewoman from New York.
  Ms. TENNEY. And we have many safeguards in place to reserve that 
right to vote, but also to encourage people to go out and realize that 
their vote does count. And wouldn't it be great if every legal citizen 
voted in every election? That would be a true self-governing Republic 
that we all aspire to maintain and preserve.
  Once again, I cannot emphasize enough, we urge everyone to join the 
caucus, including our Democratic friends. I think they would like what 
we are going to be standing for. We are going to be preserving and 
protecting the votes in all districts across the entire Nation, and I 
think it is going to be an exciting initiative.
  I thank the gentleman for being willing to join. I know my time is 
limited today, but I wanted to take advantage of this. And I want to 
also thank the gentleman for taking this opportunity to be in this 
amazing place.

                              {time}  1330

  It is an honor to be elected to this great body, with so many good 
Members on both sides of the aisle, and to be able to do the business 
here for the people of our country in such a tough time, in so many 
ways, as we are emerging, hopefully, from the pandemic.
  I am grateful that you take this time and talk about the news and 
events of the day that may sometimes get missed in the mainstream 
media. I am grateful to you, and I want to wish you the best and 
everyone a great weekend.
  Let's talk about election integrity.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, it brings to mind being in Iraq back in 
2005. Iraq had just had its first true fair election, and people stood 
in line for hours and hours.
  In talking to a police chief, he pointed out one place where there 
was a very long line. We knew that radical Islamists were going to try 
to disrupt the election. There was a suicide bomber who was found in 
the line, and a policeman grabbed him, threw himself on top of the 
suicide bomber. The bomb was set off, and the policeman and the radical 
Islamist were both killed.
  I said: Wow. Did the voters come back?
  He looked a little surprised and said: They never left the line. They 
knew if they got out of the line and did not vote, that the policeman 
would have given his life for nothing. They wanted the policeman's life 
to count, and they were not going to be intimidated by a suicide bomber 
trying to prevent them from voting, so they stayed in line to vote.
  Too many Americans have come to think of voting as too onerous, that 
they don't really have time to do it, that it doesn't really matter, 
when, actually, as we hear and find over and over, elections do have 
consequences.
  It is important that if you are legally allowed to vote, you should 
vote. It is unfortunate that there is a push to have people who don't 
understand--they are not citizens. They haven't been educated yet to 
understand what it takes to preserve a republic, which has allowed us 
to drift toward a more Orwellian-style government, a totalitarian, more 
socialist government.
  Yes, you have to have a totalitarian government in order for 
socialism to succeed. Khrushchev finally came to grips with that. True 
communism is where everybody shares and shares alike, and there is no 
government.
  I remember doing a report in college about a commission that 
Khrushchev set up to figure out a plan to move to where there was no 
government and just pure communism, pure sharing. Ultimately, they 
disbanded the commission because they realized there is no way to have 
no totalitarian government.
  If you are going to have communism or socialism, the government has 
to be big, powerful, and totalitarian enough to take from those who 
earn and give to those who don't.

[[Page H1882]]

  Anyway, elections are important. The next national election, of 
course, will be in 2022. That is something we need to be working toward 
making sure is fair. But it is difficult when you have entities like 
CNN that are more interested in ratings, scaring people, and supporting 
the Democratic Party than they are in reporting the news. It really 
makes it difficult to have free and fair elections when people are 
being deceived.
  It was also interesting that since James O'Keefe, who founded Project 
Veritas, getting the truth out, he had the video of a leader at CNN 
exposing exactly what CNN was about: helping the Democratic Party and 
scaring Americans.
  Twitter, being part of the high-tech oligarchy, has banned Project 
Veritas. O'Keefe, the founder, was first banned, and then, later, it 
was indicated he was banned permanently for violating the Twitter rules 
on platform manipulation and spam.
  So, according to Twitter, if you expose the truth about somebody or 
some entity that Twitter is figuratively in bed with, then Twitter will 
ban you because they don't want the truth out there. They don't want 
the truth about Americans being manipulated by entities like CNN, 
Twitter, Facebook, or Google. They don't want the American people 
finding that out, so they will ban you.
  When any entity is powerful enough that it can prevent people from, 
say, learning about the Vice President's family member, who may have 
engaged in an impropriety, or from finding out that, actually, when the 
current President, at that time a candidate for President, was saying 
that Russia was paying bounties to kill American soldiers, which people 
promoting the story, at least some of them, knew was not true, knew was 
not likely true, that they want that falsity out there. They want to 
hurt a candidate with false news.
  I don't know what the Supreme Court will end up doing, but the 
Sullivan case is there, requiring malice to be shown by a public figure 
in order to prevail in a lawsuit. But it ought to be clear, especially 
with things like this video exposing that CNN is out to destroy Matt 
Gaetz, out to deceive the American public, out to fearmonger to 
increase ratings even though it hurts America. They don't care. It is 
okay, in CNN's leadership mind, to harm America if it helps their 
ratings.
  We have seen the same thing from Major League Baseball and some 
international corporations. They are okay with doing business with the 
Chinese Communist Party and benefiting them, helping them, making money 
for them, if it makes money for the corporation or the sport, even 
though it is greatly to the detriment of millions or, in the case of 
the Chinese Communist Party, hundreds of millions or a billion people.
  It is okay, in the minds of some of these people. It is okay to be 
totally hypocritical and hurt Black-owned businesses in Atlanta, where 
they are so prevalent, and move the All-Star Game to a place that is 
substantially White if it makes you appear woke, even though you are 
hurting African-American businesses and helping White businesses.
  It is okay to help the Chinese Communist Party, which is trying to 
destroy America. They are trying to get to a place where the American 
economy could collapse, and China would survive that economically. If 
they get to that place, then you will see them taking additional 
actions, rather profoundly, to bring down our economy and leave them 
remaining as the only, at that point, superpower.

  We have to be more wise than we have been. We need to call out 
corporations or entities in the United States that are out to help the 
enemies of the United States and stir up divisiveness within the United 
States if they think it creates a profit.
  We are seeing that with CNN. We are seeing that with Major League 
Baseball. It is just a sad time in America.
  This article from Epoch Times says: ``Twitter pointed to a section in 
the company's rules, which states: `You can't mislead others on Twitter 
by operating fake accounts,' and `you can't artificially amplify or 
disrupt conversations through the use of multiple accounts.' ''
  Well, Twitter really has to stretch in order to come up with a basis 
for banning someone who is promoting truth and is exposing truth that 
CNN did not want exposed and, obviously, Twitter did not want exposed.
  This is a story by Allum Bokhari, ``Twitter Permanently Blacklists 
James O'Keefe After CNN Expose.'' This article also mentions: ``In the 
first video, Chester admits that CNN's negative coverage of unproven 
allegations against Representative Matt Gaetz is `propaganda' because 
Gaetz is a `problem for the Democrats.' ''
  Yes, I am told, he is nice-looking. I don't see it, but I am told he 
is nice-looking. He comes across well. I do hear that. I see him come 
across well. He is quite smart, quite clever, and insightful.
  The CNN leader says: ``It would be great for the Democratic Party to 
get him out. So we are going to keep running those stories to keep 
hurting him.''
  ``In further undercover footage posted today, Chester can be heard 
admitting that CNN is unlikely to give a great deal of attention to the 
race of a mass shooter in its coverage if they `aren't White.' ''
  ``Chester also admits that `a bunch of Black men' have been 
responsible for recent violent attacks against Asian Americans and that 
this is a problem because `the optics of that are not good' and CNN is 
`trying to help BLM.' ''
  BLM, let's be fair, they are trying to establish socialism and get 
rid of the constitutional government we have and move to a more 
Orwellian, socialist type of government.
  ``This is pure censorship for political reasons because he has 
successfully exposed CNN,'' talking about Twitter banning O'Keefe. That 
is a comment from Robby Starbuck on Twitter.
  My friend Matt Gaetz says: ``O'Keefe exposes CNN for lying about me 
and Donald Trump for propaganda. Then Twitter suspends him.''
  Conservative commentator John Cardillo says: ``If the left weren't 
terrified, they wouldn't be banning people.''

                              {time}  1345

  So, anyway, it is rather tragic that Twitter has joined in to become 
a part of, figuratively, the ministry of truth that Orwell talked about 
in his novel ``1984.'' I mean, Orwell was apparently in a great deal of 
pain, dying of cancer, had been through brutal cancer treatments. Some 
think that is where he came up with the idea of some of the torture 
that was utilized by the ministry of love, which would arrest people 
with whom they disagreed and would torture them for hours, days, weeks, 
months, or many years, whatever was necessary to finally get them to 
change their story.
  But the ministry of truth were the ones that were constantly 
rewriting history to serve the interests of this totalitarian 
government, and that appears to be exactly what we are beginning to see 
from many in our own media in the United States.
  I was struck the summer that I was an exchange student to the Soviet 
Union, how Pravda always--it was like the ministry of truth that Orwell 
wrote about. They would change any story in order to make the Soviet 
Government the prime player, the prime interested party. They would lie 
about anything.
  In the summer of 1973, I was intrigued by what they were saying about 
this Watergate thing, that that was clearly stirred up by the Democrats 
against Richard Nixon because Nixon had had the courage to be the first 
U.S. President to go to the Soviet Union and to reach out to create a 
viable relationship with the Soviet Union. So the Democrats were 
totally manufacturing Watergate just because Nixon had dared to be 
friendly toward the Soviet Union.
  Well, we know that was not the case, but that is the way the Soviet 
Union would use the media, Pravda, to lie about what was going on to 
make them the central players in everything.
  Obviously, Watergate was real. There was a manipulation of the law. 
If you listen to some of the tapes or read some of the transcripts of 
the Nixon tapes, you are struck by the inconsistency and the ability of 
a President of the United States to be two-faced in talking to 
different people and the manipulative approach to being President.
  So, hopefully, the truth will all come out. Apparently, unless 
Twitter and CNN change their approach to news,

[[Page H1883]]

the truth will not come from Twitter, will not come from CNN. But, 
hopefully, emerging news sources will take the place of the once great 
CNN, unless CNN begins to report more truthfully. That would be a 
welcome change.
  And we can all hold onto that hope that springs eternal in the human 
breast, that maybe someday somebody will take over at CNN that will see 
CNN's viewership surge because they have decided finally to be going 
after real news and truth instead of manipulating things for the 
Democratic National Committee or an entity like Black Lives Matter.
  Of course, they matter. But that is not what BLM is about. They are 
about moving America toward socialism. They are about destroying the 
nuclear family, which the War on Poverty helped do for Black families, 
and now it is all families. We have seen that happen, and Thomas Sowell 
and Candace Owens have both covered that very effectively in their 
recent books.
  This article from Joel Pollak, April 16: ``Patrisse Cullors, a co-
founder of Black Lives Matter, told interviewer Marc Lamont Hill on 
Thursday that there is no contradiction between her radical left-wing 
politics and owning four homes because she is providing for extended 
family.
  ``In the interview on `Black News Tonight,' Hill asked Cullors, also 
known as Khan-Cullors after spouse Janaya Khan, about the truth of 
reports that she had bought four homes since 2016--including a $1.4 
million compound in the remote Topanga Canyon neighborhood of L.A. and 
a vacation home with an airplane hangar in Georgia--and that she and 
her spouse had considered buying exclusive property in the Bahamas 
also.
  ``The reports prompted criticism from within the Black Lives Matter 
movement''--and I would hope that it would--``and questions about her 
source of funds.
  ``She replied that `never taken a salary from Black Lives Matter 
Global Network Foundation,' and that she had other sources of income 
from her work as a college professor, as a TV producer, an author, and 
a YouTube content creator.
  ``In a statement, the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation 
said she had not received any compensation from the group since 2019, 
though she had received $120,000 from the group since 2013 for 
performing specific duties.
  ``She added: `Organizers should get paid for the work that they do.' 
''
  But, now, having spent a summer in the Soviet Union, I know how 
socialism is supposed to go, and there were Soviet friends that were 
somewhat disenfranchised with the Socialist way of doing things. They 
said, yeah, we all receive about the same amount of money, but those 
who have leadership positions or political power, they get to buy 
things the rest of us don't buy. We have all got about the same money 
to spend, but we don't have access to the things that they do.
  So in a true Socialist country, people that want power, if you have a 
shoe store, then we saw it back then, they would take the best shoes 
and save them for people in political positions of power. So when those 
power brokers come in, then they get to pick from the best shoes while 
all the rest are told, well, you either take these or you don't get 
any; there just are no others.
  If you were a power broker, yeah, you had about the same amount to 
spend as everybody else. But everybody else was told there is no toilet 
paper, whereas the power brokers would be taken to the back and allowed 
to buy toilet paper. Those were the days, and that is normally the way 
it works.
  On one occasion I was surprised because a cleaning lady appeared that 
she was going to be running and telling on this Soviet citizen.
  And I said: Why would she go tell on you?
  And he said: Look, in your country, you can get ahead by working 
harder and making more money. In our country, we all make about the 
same. So the only way you can get ahead is if you step on other people. 
So, yes, she will go tell on me, and she will go up a little bit in 
power because that is how you get ahead here in the Soviet Union. You 
step on other people, and that elevates you.
  So that is where some are wanting to take the United States, where 
everybody is getting about the same amount of money, except that, 
apparently, we have leaders like this in the BLM movement who think--
and she said she is ``a trained Marxist''--``and your lived practice.''
  Those are her words. But she is not--well, she says: ``The way that I 
live my life is a direct support to Black people, including my Black 
family members, first and foremost. . . . I see my money as not my own. 
I see it as my family's money as well.''
  But a true Socialist would not say that because a true Socialist says 
everybody shares and shares alike, from those according to their 
ability to those according to their needs. So your family can't be 
foremost if you are a true Socialist. So there is some confusion here 
on what is true socialism, and Ms. Cullors does not have that down very 
well.
  According to the article, she is buying a $1.4 million compound in an 
exclusive part of Los Angeles and a vacation home with an airplane 
hangar in Georgia.
  No, no, no, that is not supposed to happen. If you are a true 
Socialist, you share and share alike. You may think you have earned all 
this money, as she said she had, doing all these different things, but 
a true Socialist would say: No, but we are going to share that with 
everybody.
  Apparently she would appropriately think: I have all this additional 
ability that others don't have, so you should take my money away from 
me, from those according to their ability, and give it to those 
according to their needs.
  So she has got a ways to go before she understands the socialism that 
she is trying to force on the United States.
  The article goes on to read: ``The point of the criticisms, she said, 
was `to discredit me, but also to discredit the movement.' She added: 
`We have to stay focused on white supremacy.'''
  Yeah, don't look behind the curtains at the guy that is manipulating 
things, as we saw in the ``Wizard of Oz.'' No, no, keep looking over 
here at what we will call white supremacy.
  Anyway, ``She responded to claims that Black Lives Matter should 
distribute funds to the Black community by noting that while she was 
sympathetic, the organization was not a `charity' and was not the 
government.''
  So she has got a ways to go before she really understands the 
socialism she is trying to force on everybody else.
  She says: ``Our target should be calling on Congress to pass 
reparations.''
  Well, she doesn't understand that true reparations in a Socialist 
society would take from somebody that had $1.4 million to spend on a 
home and spread it out to everybody else. So she could never own a $1.4 
million home. But, anyway, hopefully others will help her and any other 
leaders with Black Lives Matter who don't understand what they are 
trying to force on America, and we will see if that actually happens.
  Now, I heard our majority leader in what some call a colloquy or 
soliloquy, whatever you want to call it, talking about compassion for 
those who are foreigners. It strikes me, there are so many people 
across America in the lamestream media and even on this floor who think 
it is compassionate to lure people across miles, hundreds or thousands 
of miles even, across horrendous terrain; have them pay drug cartels, 
which thoroughly oppress a country like Mexico; have as much, maybe, as 
25, 30 percent of young women raped, we are told, often repeatedly on 
that journey; have many girls subjected to a life of sex trafficking in 
order to pay back the money they owe to the drug cartels. Others 
subjected to human trafficking and drug trafficking in order to pay 
back the money they owe to the drug cartels. Creating a life as a 
servant, as a bondsman to the drug cartels, where people have no 
hesitation to cut off fingers, hands, arms, or heads and put on pikes, 
like some honest policemen have had happen, as a message from the drug 
cartels that: You don't mess with us.
  Somehow that is compassionate to add to the billions of dollars the 
drug cartels have to terrorize a country or hemisphere. But if you 
really look closely enough at this problem on our southern border, you 
will find that is not compassionate at all.

[[Page H1884]]

  


                              {time}  1400

  The most compassionate, caring, neighborly, Christian thing we could 
do for the people of Mexico would be to secure our southern border, cut 
the billions of dollars going to the drug cartels that they use to 
terrorize a continent, just cut that down to a trickle. They may always 
make some, but you can cut it to a trickle if we secure our southern 
border.
  And then Mexico, because of the incredible people in Mexico, some of 
the hardest workers in the world and with natural resources in excess 
of most of the countries in the world--and actually a better location 
between the Atlantic and Pacific; yes, we are between the Atlantic and 
Pacific in the United States, but it is closer across Mexico from one 
ocean to the other. They are in a prime location. They ought to be a 
top economy in the world. And the only thing that appears to be holding 
them back, the one thing is the corruption from the drug cartels that 
has greatly increased under this new administration. It is a boon to 
the drug cartels that President Biden is helping their human 
trafficking business as he is.
  Now, he doesn't look at it, I am sure, as helping the drug cartels. 
He is looking at it as helping the Democratic National Committee down 
the road when they can give amnesty and make them voters, but that is 
so hurtful to Mexico.
  How about cutting the power of the drug cartels and allowing Mexico 
to keep its own citizens and central American countries that are being 
depleted of good, hardworking people, letting them keep their citizens, 
getting rid of the corruption. We are the main source of the funding 
for the corruption south of our border.
  Compassion would dictate that we stop funding the corruption instead 
of turning a blind eye to that corruption that we are funding through 
the drugs, sex trafficking, human trafficking, cut that down to nothing 
or very little and watch how our good neighbors will explode with a 
vibrant economy, not with terrorism the drug cartels use.
  Chip Roy has a bill to name the two main drug cartels as terrorist 
organizations, and I think that is exactly what we should do. That 
would allow more resources to go towards stopping the terrorism and the 
corruption within Mexico and within Central America. That is what a 
good neighbor would do. That is what real compassion is. Compassion is 
not luring people to situations that destroy their lives.
  The indentured servitude that the drug cartels subject these people 
to is just unfathomable, and it is unfathomable that educated people, 
including here in Washington, D.C., would say, oh, yes, that is a good 
thing that we lure people here, even though they become indentured to 
the drug cartels.
  I have mentioned before, I have been there all hours of the day and 
night, but especially at night because it is easier to get drugs 
across--in the dark, that is. So the drug cartels totally control who 
comes across, when they come across, and in what numbers they come 
across.
  And as the Border Patrol, when they are down there and they don't 
have supervisors watching over them every moment, they will tell you, 
we know when we have a big group come across and we are all having to 
come together to get them in process, that that is when they are 
bringing in large amounts of drugs or some high-value customer perhaps 
from a Middle Eastern country; a place like Yemen, where two terrorists 
were picked up on the terrorist watch list. But, of course, if they are 
not going to be able to get through customs because they are on the 
terrorist watch list, well, for goodness' sake, all they have to do is 
come to Mexico. The drug cartels will charge them extra money, 
somewhere north of $35,000 or so, maybe much more than that, but they 
make a lot of money if somebody wants to come and is on the terrorist 
watch list.
  I was told down there, if you are coming from China, you are probably 
going to pay $35,000 or more; but some of the Middle Easterners, they 
will pay a lot more than that to avoid being detected coming in.
  So let's be compassionate. Let's allow countries south of our border 
to keep their citizens and grow a vibrant economy where people won't 
have to come begging to the United States. They will have their own 
vibrant economy, and they will be blessed immeasurably because of it.


                  A Tribute to Former Speaker Boehner

  Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I do want to say a special word of 
tribute. I know our former Speaker Boehner has been in the media 
recently, and I have been asked about comments he has made about some 
of us.
  Speaker Boehner was an interesting Speaker. I don't know if he knows 
who Machiavelli was, but he employed some of those tactics. I remember 
July, I believe it was, of 2011, when he was pushing a big sequester 
deal. I got up at conference and said--I haven't seen it, but I read 
that he apparently said that I didn't make sense. But I stood up at 
conference. And I can understand sometimes his mind was a little 
clouded. I might not seem to make sense, but I pointed out this 
sequester deal is a mistake. It is a terrible mistake because you are 
going to cost billions of dollars for the military, to our own defense. 
That is our own security.
  I actually said in front of the whole conference, when I was in high 
school, a friend's father was in a poker game, and he thought he had a 
hand that nobody could beat. He was out of money, so he put his home on 
the table, and somebody had a hand that beat him, and he lost his home 
in a card game. And I have known since that time that you never gamble 
with your own security, your family's security, your country's 
security.
  Speaker Boehner said: Louie, listen, those sequesters will never 
happen.
  And I said: Of course they are going to happen.
  And he said: No, because we have the super committee that will reach 
an agreement; because, if they don't, cuts to Medicare will happen.
  I forget if it was $200 billion or $300 billion.
  And I said: Of course there will be no agreement, because ObamaCare 
cut $716 billion from Medicare, from our seniors' coverage for 
healthcare. And they did it without a single Republican House vote. So 
the only way in 2012 the Democrats will be able to run a commercial 
that says Republicans cut Medicare is for the Democrats to prevent an 
agreement by the super committee. So the cuts will take place to 
Medicare, and the defense and the Democrats will get a twofer, I 
explained to Speaker Boehner. They will be able to cut the defense, 
which they have been wanting to do, and there will be a cut to Medicare 
that they will blame on Republicans' unwillingness to compromise.

  As I recall, there were a couple of Senators that even proposed a way 
to raise fees that wouldn't be called taxes, and there was an article 
that said Democrats thought that was going to get a deal worked out. 
Then they met with Democratic leaders and they had to come back and 
say: You really made a good-faith offer, but we are told there won't be 
a deal.
  Well, I tried to explain that that is what would be coming just as it 
happened, but as the Speaker has now admitted, I didn't make sense to 
him because he had said those sequesters will never happen. That was in 
July. Before the end of the year, he had to come before the Republican 
conference and explain why the sequesters were going to happen, but we 
are going try to minimize the damage.
  I also remember another summer when there was a short, funds were 
running out for a particular area of our budget of our appropriations, 
and we were going to have to do something before we went out on August 
break. I asked my dear friend Thomas Massie: Have you talked to 
McConnell? Are we going to get a deal on this?
  And he said: Yes, I was at breakfast with him this morning, and he 
said he and Boehner had an agreement, and we are going to extend the 
funds for a couple of months, and they are going to throw in some 
additional money to help veterans. They have got it all worked out.
  So we are listening as Speaker Boehner gets up, and he says: ``You 
know, what often happens is the Senate passes something and leaves town 
and they jam us, and then we have to pass what the Senate passed. But 
here is what we are going to do''--he even put his finger in the air--
``we are going to pass a bill, and we are going to extend this a couple 
months''--the funding--``we are going put some money in there

[[Page H1885]]

for veterans, and then we are going to pass it, and we are going to 
leave town, and we are going to jam the Senate.''
  And most of the House Republicans jumped to their feet and were 
giving him a standing ovation because the Speaker just told us we were 
going to jam the Senate, even though, according to what Senator 
McConnell told another Kentuckian, he and Boehner had a deal worked 
out. But it got Speaker Boehner a standing ovation and big loud cheers, 
not from my friend, Representative Massie, and myself because we knew 
what the truth was.
  But, anyway, some people, I hear, miss those days where he was 
Speaker and did things like that, or totally missed an opportunity on 
Cut, Cap, and Balance Act. Speaker Boehner said that could never pass 
the House of Representatives. We assured him it could, and it would if 
he would just bring it to the floor.
  So Speaker Boehner finally agreed, and he brought it to the floor, 
and it passed and it was a huge victory, a huge day. But by that very 
afternoon, he was already talking about scrapping that and working a 
deal with the Senate. In other words, he had no intention of carrying 
out the will of the House as we had just passed it, which would have 
been great for lowering the indebtedness and getting America on a 
financially secure path. He was already scrapping the big victory we 
had before it even had a chance to be discussed in the Senate

                              {time}  1415

  So I know there is some that miss those days, but if God grants us 
the chance to be in the majority again, we can't go back to those days 
of manipulation. We have got to be straightforward with the American 
people. We have got to have leaders that will do that. And we have got 
to be about the business of turning this country back to where freedom 
is the watchword for the day, not government oppression, not government 
putting businesses out of business, but letting freedom reign for real 
once again.
  Madam Speaker, with that, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from 
engaging in personalities toward the President.

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