The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“REGULATORY GRIDLOCK” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H215-H220 on Jan. 8, 2016.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
REGULATORY GRIDLOCK
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Jenkins of West Virginia). 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, I yield to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Hardy).
Mr. HARDY. I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, this is our first week back in session after spending the holidays in our districts. While we were meeting with our constituents and enjoying the company of loved ones, the Federal bureaucracy was firing on all cylinders, cranking out thousands of pages of regulations.
Mr. Speaker, I hold in my hand what our regulators were doing on Christmas Eve. In my other hand I am holding 298 pages of what our Federal regulators were doing on New Year's Eve.
This breakneck pace of activity, deep within the bowels of our executive branch, capped off a record year for the Federal Register, the official record of the government's regulatory and other actions.
The grand total for 2015 was 82,035 pages of regulations. This leaves the current administration with an annual page count of nearly 80,000 per year and puts it on pace to contribute more pages of regulations to the Federal Register than any other administration in American history.
Mr. Speaker, this is a perversion of our Founding Fathers' intent and a disservice to the American people.
Article I, section 1, of the Constitution vests all legislative power in a Congress of the United States, not with regulatory agencies.
Article I, section 8, of the Constitution vests all the power to make all laws in Congress to the United States, not with regulatory agencies.
Article II, section 3, of the Constitution clearly states that the President shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed. That means executive agencies execute the laws as Congress intended, not that they make their own.
Mr. Speaker, there is no ambiguity. Federal laws get made right here on this floor and in the other Chamber across the rotunda and nowhere else. But over the past 228 years, the founding principles have been manipulated.
With this massive expansion of the Federal Government's role during the New Deal, agencies were awarded rulemaking authority through acts of Congress. This statutory authority was granted to allow our Federal agencies to better implement the law in a growing, complex Nation. But it was not a blank check.
Unfortunately, far too many here in Congress have been complicit in delegating our sacred lawmaking authority to legions of unelected bureaucrats. How can this be?
We are the first branch of government, the branch that is closest to the people. We are directly accountable to our constituents. It is because of that accountability that we must reclaim that constitutional duty to make all laws.
That is why I am a proud original cosponsor of the REINS Act of 2015 and why I voted to pass that important bill last year. The REINS Act takes the important step of requiring congressional approval of all major rules. This is a huge improvement over the current status quo under the Congressional Review Act.
The default standard for all major rules should be rejection unless they are congressionally approved, not acceptance until rejection.
The Congressional Review Act is a failed attempt to reclaim our exclusive legislating authority. Rejecting one single rule on ergonomic chairs in 20 years is simply unacceptable. We need laws with more teeth.
The bills we passed this week, including the SCRUB Act of 2015, will help in this effort.
Mr. Speaker, something needs to change. Churning out thousands of final rules on tens of thousands of Federal Register pages each and every year is hamstringing our economy and crushing our businesses.
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According to a study done by the National Association of Manufacturers, complying with the Federal regulations costs Americans
$2.028 trillion in lost economic growth each and every year. That is 12 percent of our GDP down the drain.
As a former small-business owner, I can tell you that mom-and-pop shops aren't poring over each and every issue of the Federal Register, and they sure aren't doing it on Christmas Eve. Unlike large corporations that can afford armies of attorneys to navigate the complex Federal bureaucracy, small businesses are left hanging out to dry.
As the people's House, we are advocates for the people we represent. We serve them. We are accountable to them. We owe it to the people to go on record and vote on major rules that impact their daily lives.
I challenge any President or elected official to say that the American people don't deserve the right to hold their government accountable.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, news surfaced today. Here is a story from Ed Morrissey: ``Has the State Department released a smoking gun in the Hillary Clinton email scandal? In a thread from June 2011, Hillary Clinton exchanges emails with Jake Sullivan, then her deputy chief of staff and now her campaign foreign-policy adviser, in which she impatiently waits for a set of talking points. When Sullivan tells her that the source is having trouble with the secure fax, Hillary then orders Sullivan to have the data stripped of its markings and sent through a non-secure channel.''
Then it is quoting from the email: ``If they can't, turn into nonpaper with no identifying heading and send nonsecure.''
The article goes on to say: ``That's an order to violate the laws handling classified material. There is no other way to read that demand. Regardless of whether or not Sullivan complied, this demolishes Hillary claim to be ignorant of marking issues, as well as strongly suggests that the other thousand-plus instances where this did occur likely came under her direction.''
Fox News also noticed the email this morning, although they don't have a copy of it linked. And it is quoting: ``However, one email thread from June 2011 appears to include Clinton telling her top adviser Jake Sullivan to send security information through insecure means.
``In response to Clinton's request for a set of since-redacted talking points, Sullivan writes, 'They say they've had issues sending secure fax. They are working on it.' Clinton responds, 'If they can't, turn it into nonpaper with no identifying heading and send nonsecure.'
``Ironically, an email thread from 4 months earlier shows Clinton saying she was 'surprised' that a diplomatic officer named John Godfrey used a personal email account to send a memo on Libya policy after the fall of Muammar Qaddafi.''
The article goes on later: ``Did those talking points get illegally transmitted on Hillary Clinton's order? If so, then Sullivan may find himself in legal trouble, too. Paragraph (g)''--quoting from the law--
``makes it clear that `each of the parties to such conspiracy shall be subject to the punishment provided for the offense which is the object of such conspiracy.'
``This explains why more than a thousand pieces of classified information have found their way into Hillary unauthorized and unsecured email system--and why the markings have been stripped from them. Hillary herself apparently ordered the Code Red, so to speak.
In an update, the author says: ``There are a few people wondering whether the `TPs' ''--or talking points--``in question in this thread were classified in the first place.
``There are a couple of points to remember in that context: Unclassified material doesn't need to be transmitted by secure fax; if the material wasn't classified, Sullivan would have just faxed them normally.
``Ordering aides to remove headers to facilitate the transmission over unsecured means strongly suggests the information was not unclassified. On top of that, removing headers to avoid transmission security would be a violation of 18 USC 793 anyway, which does not require material to be classified--only sensitive to national security.''
Also: ``State did leave this document unclassified, but that's because there isn't any discussion of what the talking points cover. They redacted the subject headers with B5 and B6 exemptions, invoked to note that the FOIA''--Freedom of Information Act--``demand doesn't cover the material.
``Ordering the headings stripped, and Sullivan's apparent reluctance to work around the secure fax system, makes it all but certain that the material was classified at some level--and Hillary knew it.''
Just breaking news of interest.
Activities of Abdurahman Alamoudi
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, a matter of grave concern continues to arise stemming back from a man who was born in Eritrea named Abdurahman Alamoudi. And this is from DiscoverTheNetworks.org.
He, Mr. Alamoudi, immigrated to the United States in 1979. That would be the same year, Mr. Speaker, you will recall, that radical Islam declared war on the United States, attacked our embassy in Tehran, took over 50 Americans hostage, and held them for over a year.
That same year, that year, 1979, is the year Mr. Alamoudi came to the United States, and then he became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1996.
In 1981, he founded the Islamic Society of Boston. It is not in this article, but I have also seen the documentation of his founding. And it is, I think, worth noting that the Islamic Society of Boston that Mr. Alamoudi founded, the two mosques in the Boston area, one of which produced the Tsarnaev brothers, where they worshipped and learned more about Islam.
This article says, from 1985 to 1990 Mr. Alamoudi served as executive assistant to the president of the SAAR Foundation in Northern Virginia.
In 1990, Alamoudi founded the American Muslim Council. The following year, he established the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council, whose purpose was to ``certify Muslim chaplains hired by the military.''
During the 1992 Presidential election cycle, Alamoudi courted both the Democratic and the Republican Parties. When Bill Clinton emerged victorious, Alamoudi increased his donations to Democrats. He went on to serve the Clinton administration as an Islamic affairs adviser and a State Department ``goodwill ambassador'' to Muslim nations.
In 1993, the Defense Department certified Alamoudi's American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council as one of two organizations, along with the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences, authorized to approve and endorse Muslim chaplains.
Among the chaplains endorsed by Alamoudi's group was James Yee, who eventually would be arrested in 2003 on suspicion of espionage.
Mr. Speaker, it is very reassuring that this man arrested on suspicion of espionage here in the United States was certified by Mr. Alamoudi's group.
In March 1993, Alamoudi disparaged the Federal Government for the
``flimsy'' evidence it had used as a basis for arresting Mohammed Salameh, a suspect in the World Trade Center bombing of February 26 of 1993. Salameh was later convicted and sentenced to life in prison on what, apparently, Mr. Alamoudi thought was flimsy evidence.
It goes on: ``In 1995, Alamoudi helped President Clinton''--
interesting verb that, helped--``Alamoudi helped President Clinton and the American Civil Liberties Union develop a Presidential guideline entitled `Religious Expression in Public School,' which established a legal justification upon which the ACLU would file lawsuits restricting Christmas celebrations and removing Nativity scenes from public schools.
``Alamoudi made numerous controversial statements during the 1990s and early 2000s, including these:
``In 1994 he said: `Hamas is not a terrorist group . . . I have followed the good work of Hamas.
``In March 1996, Alamoudi said he was `honored to be a member of the committee that is defending' Islamic Association of Palestine''--or IAP--``founder Musa Abu Marzuk, who in 1997 would be deported from the United States because of his Hamas-related activities. `I really consider him to be from among the best people in the Islamic movement.'
''--that is a quote from Alamoudi--``Alamoudi added. `Hamas . . . and I work together with him.' ''
In December of 1996, as Alamoudi continued to work with the Clinton administration to find good Muslims to work in the government, Alamoudi told a meeting of the IAP: ``I think if we were outside this country we can say, `Oh, Allah, destroy America,' but once we are here, our mission in this country is to change it . . . You can be violent anywhere else but in America.''
``In October 2000, Alamoudi attended an anti-Israel protest outside the White House, where he proudly declared himself `a supporter of Hamas' and `a supporter of Hezbollah.' '' And apparently there is video of that.
In 2000, Alamoudi literally ``began making regular trips to Libya, where he met with government officials to discuss strategies by which they could create `headaches' for Saudi Arabia.
``In January 2001, Alamoudi attended a conference in Beirut with leaders of numerous terrorist organizations, including al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad.
``In June 2001, Alamoudi was a guest speaker at a Northern Virginia conference where senior Islamic militants from throughout the Middle East were gathered. Many of the speakers denounced the `Zionist entity that aims to destroy the Muslim ummah,'' or community.
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``That same month, Alamoudi attended a briefing on President Bush's faith-based initiative, and the White House invited him to the post-9/
11 prayer service on September 14th at the National Cathedral in Washington.
In September 2003, British customs officials arrested Alamoudi at Heathrow Airport as he was returning from Libya with 340,000 in cash given to him by President Muammar Qadhafi to finance a plot involving two U.K.-based al Qaeda operatives intending to assassinate Saudi Crown Prince, later King Abdullah.
Alamoudi was subsequently extradited to the United States. In October 2003, he was arrested at Dulles Airport on charges of having illegally accepted $10,700 from the Libyan mission to the United Nations.
``With Alamoudi in custody, federal authorities released a transcript of a telephone conversation in which he had: lamented that no Americans had died during al Qaeda's 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya; recommended that more operations be conducted like the 1994 Hezbollah bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires, in which 85 people died; and clearly articulated his objective of turning America into a Muslim nation.
``Alamoudi was indicted not only for his illegal dealings with Libya, but also for tax evasion and immigration fraud. He ultimately pled guilty to, and was convicted of, being a senior al Qaeda financier who had funneled at least $1 million into the coffers of that terrorist organization. He also acknowledged that he had pocketed almost $1 million for himself in the process. In October 2004, Alamoudi was sentenced to 23 years in federal prison.
``During the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development trial of 2007, which examined evidence of the HLF's fundraising on behalf of Hamas, the U.S. government released a list of approximately 300 of HLF's 'unindicted co-conspirators' and 'joint venturers.' Alamoudi was named in that list . . . In addition to the affiliations listed above, Alamoudi has also been, at various times, a board member of American Muslims for Jerusalem; the head of the American Task Force for Bosnia; a board member of the Council for the National Interest Foundation; a director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR''--which, by the way, Mr. Speaker, has very open access to the highest officials, including the President.
They are the ones that got Langley to call off a 2-day seminar for law enforcement on radical Islam and got the rules changed so people that were American experts on Islam could not talk to any U.S. Government group about radical Islam unless they got approval from people like those that CAIR approved of.
CAIR--we are talking also about a named co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial in which convictions were obtained for principals in the Holy Land Foundation for supporting terrorism. I would humbly submit that had Eric Holder not become Attorney General and Barack Obama not become President of the United States, many, if not all, of those co-conspirators would have been then indicted and tried as supporters of terrorism.
Instead, a new President and a new Attorney General came in, and instead of being indicted and tried for supporting terrorism as they were named in the Federal District Court in Dallas and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals said in opinions--there was plenty of evidence to support that they were co-conspirators--well, the new administration dropped the matter, and these people became helpful to the administration in advising on Islam.
It also notes that Mr. Alamoudi was a founding trustee of the Fiqh Council of North America, a board member of the Interfaith Impact for Justice and Peace, a regional representative for the Islamic Society of North America--which was also a named co-conspirator for supporting terrorism--a board member of Mercy International, president of the Muslim Student Association of the U.S. and Canada, a board member of the Somali Relief Fund, secretary of the Muslim Brotherhood Affiliated, Success Foundation, and director of the Talibah International Aid Association.
In fact, in an article back in 2004, Andrew C. McCarthy noted that:
``Abdurahman Alamoudi was sentenced today to 23 years' imprisonment for terrorism financing, false statements on his naturalization petition, and tax violations. The sentence was imposed by Judge Claude Hilton of the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia.
``Alamoudi was influential in the American Muslim circles, and thus in Washington. He participated in several political and charitable organizations, founding the American Muslim Council--an enthusiastic supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah. The federal government permitted him a key role in selecting the Islamic clerics who minister in the military and in the prison system. Over the years, moreover, he occasionally traveled the globe as an emissary of the State Department.
``As we now know, he also traveled to Libya, engaged in financial transactions with Qadhafi's government, and collected hefty sums, including the $340,000 seized from him when he was arrested last year, which were designed to be routed back to his causes in the U.S. without the knowledge of American authorities. All of those activities violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act imposes terrorism-
related sanctions prohibiting unlicensed travel to and commerce with Libya.''
I will parenthetically insert here that it had to be very convenient for Mr. Alamoudi, this convicted supporter of terrorism, to be working for the State Department as he went to different countries and apparently continued to conspire to support terrorism as the State Department funded his travel on its behalf.
But also found was this article. The author was Brian Blomquist and the date is June 27, 2003. It is an article about the esteemed U.S. Senator Charles, or Chuck, Schumer entitled, ``Schumer wants fanatical imams rooted out of jails, armed forces.''
The article says: ``Militant Muslim imams are preaching a distorted, hateful form of Islam to U.S. soldiers and federal prisoners, creating a `dangerous situation,' Senator Charles Schumer charged yesterday.
``Schumer said the problem is that the Pentagon and the federal Bureau of Prisons select Muslim imams on the advice of Islamic groups in the grip of the fanatical Wahhabism strain of the religion.
`` `While the potential Wahhabi influence in the U.S. Armed Forces is not well documented, these organizations have succeeded in ensuring that militant Wahhabism is the only form of Islam that is preached to the 12,000 Muslims in federal prison,' Schumer said at a Senate hearing on extremist Wahhabi Islam, which has been linked to terrorism.
``In February, the New York prison system barred its top Muslim chaplain from its prison facilities after the imam, Warith Dean Umar, said the 9/11 hijackers should be treated as martyrs.
`` `The imams flood the prisons with anti-American, pro-bin Laden videos, literature and sermon tapes . . . The point of prison should be to rehabilitate violent prisoners.' ''
Mr. Schumer is so right.
The article goes on: ``The Bureau of Prisons uses the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences, which is under investigation for possible funneling of money to terrorists, and the Islamic Society of North America, which has board members with terror links, Schumer charged.
``American Muslim Foundation President Abdurahman Alamoudi said his organization had no role advising the Pentagon. Alamoudi said he formerly gave the Pentagon advice on selecting imams, but `they pushed me out.' ''
Well, we know that that was not until right before the British Government arrested Alamoudi and then provided apparently the U.S. Government plenty of evidence to show that Alamoudi was supporting terrorism.
That is why I was so shocked, since the FBI got information from Britain, gathered their own information that they had been gathering at least since 1991 on radical Islamic beginnings here in the United States, that during the Bush administration the FBI would have a partnership outreach program with the Council of American-Islamic relations, of which Mr. Alamoudi was a board member. CAIR was a named co-conspirator for supporting terrorists, which the courts have said there is plenty of evidence to support that they are. While the FBI had gathered such evidence, they were outreach partners with this organization, CAIR, named as a co-conspirator with the Holy Land Foundation.
This article from WND, ``Pentagon admits chaplains from Muslim Brotherhood group,'' published on March 6, 2014, by Aaron Klein said:
``The U.S. Army and Air Force has selected two Muslim chaplains from a program run by an Islamic group closely tied to the Muslim Brotherhood that was named by the Justice Department as an unindicted co-
conspirator in a scheme to raise money for Hamas.
``WND broke the story in 2011 that the controversial Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA, is the official endorsing agency for the U.S. Armed Forces Muslim chaplain program.
``WND further reported that year that the Muslim chaplain program was founded by a terror-supporting convict, while the Army's first Islamic chaplain, who is still serving, has been associated with a charity widely accused of serving as an al-Qaida front.
``Now, ISNA has announced that two of its former applicants for chaplaincy were selected to serve on active duty in the United States Army and Air Force.
`` `The significance of this news is that the Department of Defense .
. . has not selected an ISNA-endorsed chaplain for active duty in over 15 years,' said the ISNA press release.
``ISNA Chaplain Services Director and Islamic Endorsing Agent Abdul-
Rasheed Muhammad said in a statement that the two chaplains selected for active duty are ready to serve Allah and the country--making the statement in that order.
`` `After speaking by phone with both soldiers, it was more than clear both were eager and ready to serve Allah and country'. . . `May Allah bless our new chaplain candidates and their families as they prepare for new challenges and opportunities in the Army and Air Force Chaplain Corps,' said Muhammad.
``While the new chaplains' ties to ISNA has received some attention in the conservative blogosphere in recent days, missing from the conversation is the larger partnership between the U.S. military and not just the ISNA but also other terror-tied groups.
``In fact, Muhammad himself, the ISNA's endorsing agent, has been tied to a group accused of serving as an al-Qaida front.''
By the way, parenthetically, 1993 was the year in which we had another terrorist attack, that being the first attempted bombing, or the first bombing, of the Word Trade Center in an attempt to bring it down and kill tens of thousands of Americans.
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``Since the Muslim chaplain program's inception in 1993, ISNA has been the official endorsing agency of the new chaplains.
``In 2005, ISNA initiated a yearly Muslim chaplain conference that includes leadership talks for chaplains in both the military and the U.S. prison system.
``Discover the Networks notes that ISNA--through its Saudi-
government-backed affiliate, the North American Islamic Trust--
reportedly holds the mortgages on 50 percent to 80 percent of all mosques in the U.S. and Canada.
`` `Thus the organization can freely exercise ultimate authority over these houses of worship and their teachings,' states Discover the Networks.
``ISNA was founded in 1981 by the Saudi-funded Muslim Students` Association, which was founded partially by the Muslim Brotherhood. The two groups are still partners.
``WND previously attended an MSA event at which violence against the U.S. was urged by speakers.
`` `We are not Americans,' shouted one speaker, Muhammad Faheed, at Queensborough Community College in 2003. `We are Muslims. The U.S. is going to deport and attack us! It is us versus them! Truth against falsehood! The colonizers and masters against the oppressed, and we will burn down the master`s house!' ''
Well, Mr. Speaker, with those kind of comments coming at their meetings, it is so wonderful that principles from these organizations have such close ties with the current leadership in the country, in the White House, in the State Department, and in the Justice Department.
This article goes on:
``ISNA was named in a May 1991 Muslim Brotherhood document, `An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America,' as one of the Brotherhood's likeminded `organizations of our friends' who shared the common goal of destroying America and turning it into a Muslim nation, according to Discover the Networks.
``Islam scholar Stephen Schwartz describes ISNA as `one of the chief conduits through which the radical Saudi form of Islam passes into the United States.'
``According to terrorism expert Steven Emerson, ISNA `is a radical group hiding under a false veneer of moderation' that publishes a bimonthly magazine, Islamic Horizons, that `often champions militant Islamist doctrine.' The group also `convenes annual conferences where Islamist militants have been given a platform to incite violence and promote hatred,' states Emerson. Emerson cites an ISNA conference in which al-Qaida supporter and PLO official Yusuf Al Qaradhawi was invited to speak.
``Emerson further reports that in September of 2002, a full year after 9/11, speakers at ISNA's annual conference still refused to acknowledge Osama bin Laden's role in the terrorist attacks.
``Also, ISNA has held fundraisers for terrorists, notes Discover the Networks. After Hamas leader Mousa Marzook was arrested and eventually deported in 1997, ISNA raised money for his defense. The group also has condemned the U.S. government`s post-9/11 seizure of the financial assets of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
``ISNA, meanwhile, has an extensive relationship with the Obama administration, which recently announced it is open to diplomacy with the Muslim Brotherhood.''
Mr. Speaker, this is where I have to say, having visited with leaders in the Middle East, Muslim leaders who are actually friends of the United States, not in official open meetings, but when we get in private, they ask the question: Why does your U.S. administration continue to support the Muslim Brotherhood? Do you not understand the Muslim Brotherhood has been at war with the United States since 1979, and you have got friendly Muslims that want to help you--I would submit that the current President of Egypt is one of those--and yet you are insistent on helping the Muslim Brotherhood that is at war with the United States? Oh, not with violence yet, but they claim they are getting so much accomplished in taking over the United States without violence, that they don't want to use that yet. That will come later if necessary. But right now they are doing such a good job as advisers and in important positions in the administration that they should not be using violence.
Well, back to the article:
``The relationship began even before Obama took office.
``One week before last year's presidential inauguration''--again, keeping in mind this article is from 2014.
``One week before last year's presidential inauguration, Sayyid Syeed, national director of ISNA's Office for Interfaith and Community Alliances, was part of a delegation that met with the directors of Obama's transition team. The delegation discussed a request for an executive order ending `torture.'
``ISNA President Mattson represented American Muslims at Obama's inauguration, where she offered a prayer during the televised event. Mattson also represented ISNA at Obama's Ramadan dinner at the White House.
``In June 2009, Obama senior aide Valerie Jarrett invited Mattson to work on the White House Council on Women and Girls, which Jarrett leads.''
Yeah, that is what you want. You want someone who supports the Muslim Brotherhood's idea that women don't have rights. They have no business showing their face in public or driving or having property. Yeah, that is what you want advising the White House on women's issues, for heaven`s sake.
The article goes on:
``One month later, the Justice Department sponsored an information booth at an ISNA bazaar in Washington, D.C.
``Also that month, Jarrett addressed ISNA's 46th annual convention. According to the White House, Jarrett attended as part of Obama`s outreach to Muslims.
``In February, Obama's top adviser on counter-terrorism, John Brennan, came under fire for controversial remarks he made in a speech to Muslim law students at an event sponsored by ISNA at New York University.
``In his speech, Brennan, who later became CIA director, stated that having a percentage of terrorists released by the U.S. return to terrorist attacks `isn`t that bad,' since the recidivism rate for inmates in the U.S. prison system is higher.
``He also criticized parts of the Bush administration's response to 9/11 as a `reaction some people might say was over the top in some areas' that `in an overabundance of caution we implemented a number of security measures and activities that upon reflection now we look back after the heat of the battle has died down a bit we say they were excessive, OK.'
``WND reported Brennan stated at the ISNA-organized event that the Obama administration is working to calibrate policies in the fight against terrorism that ensure Americans are `never' profiled.
``Speaking at the question-and-answer session, Brennan declared himself a `citizen of the world.'
`` `We need to be looking at ourselves as individuals. Not the way we look or the creed we have or our ethnic background. I consider myself a citizen of the world,' he said.
``Brennan told the audience the Obama administration is trying to
`make sure that we as Americans can interact in a safe way, balance policies in a way that optimizes national security but also optimizes the opportunity in this country never to be profiled, never to be discriminated against.' ''
Yes, that is right. Sure. If you hate America and you want America's Western lifestyle and freedoms destroyed, you want women subjugated, we shouldn't profile people just because they want America destroyed as part of their religious beliefs. That kind of thinking gets a nation in trouble. And, thus, we are in trouble.
This article was published this week, January 5, 2016, from Jennifer Hickey, ``Ripe for Radicalization: Federal Prisons `Breeding Ground' for Terrorists, Say Experts.'' Here we are in 2016 substantiating the statements that Senator Chuck Schumer made back in 2003 that our prisons have been, for years now, a breeding ground for radical Islamism.
Under both Republican and Democratic administrations, we have allowed people who have been named--and for which the Federal courts have said there is plenty of evidence to support that they are co-conspirators in financing terrorism and supporting terrorism--we have allowed them to pick imams, approve imams, put imams in our military and in our prisons. Is it any surprise that 13 years after Chuck Schumer raised that issue, that since nothing has been done about it, that the Federal prisons are a breeding ground for radical Islamists?
This quote from Representative Stephen Fincher, my friend from Tennessee, says: ``Over the years, our Federal prisons have become a breeding ground for radicalization.''
That is supportive of what Chuck Schumer said years ago.
In fact, this article by Carol Brown, December 5, 2014, american
thinker.com, ``Prisons are Breeding Grounds for Jihadist'':
``Muslims comprise 15% of the prison population. This number far exceeds the percentage of Muslims in the general population. It is eighteen times greater, to be exact.''
So there are 18 times more Muslims in Federal prison than the percentage of Muslims in the general population. That raises issues, questions, and problems.
``Put another way, there are about 2.4 million Muslims in the United States and 350,000 of them are in jail. That means more than 12% of Muslims in America are incarcerated.
``Reports on the number of prisoners who convert to Islam vary and are framed in different ways. Some sources estimate 40,000 prisoners per year convert. Others put the numbers closer to 135,000 per year. Some posit that 80% of inmates who `find faith while in prison convert to Islam.'
``One thing is for sure: The majority of those who convert to Islam in prison are black, with as many as one in three black prisoners converting. The number of Hispanic prisoners converting to Islam is also on the rise.
``These numbers are staggering. And the implications are serious, as will be addressed further on in this article.
``There are numerous reasons why conversions to Islam are skyrocketing in our jails.
``Many prisoners feel angry, disenfranchised, and yes, even victimized and wronged by society. Many harbor a deep disdain for America. They are, therefore, prime targets for recruitment to a religious ideology that shares many of these attitudes.
``In addition, Islamic teachings are often framed as a noble code of ethics to live by. Case in point: The Nation of Islam is the largest prison ministry.''
I am sure they are meaning the largest prison ministry in the United States.
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Mr. Speaker, this is going on as I speak. It has been going on for the 13 years since Chuck Schumer brought it up in the Senate, and we don't appear to have learned any lessons from this.
My friend Dana Rohrabacher is pushing that we invite the President of Egypt, President el-Sisi, to come speak to a joint session of Congress. I was talking to Chairman Royce about it. He believes it would be a good idea.
Our majority whip, Steve Scalise, just met with President el-Sisi in Egypt. I am thrilled he did. He is a Muslim leader who understands the Muslim Brotherhood is a threat to freedom in Egypt and in America and in Europe. It is time we did something about it to protect ourselves.
You don't have to profile Muslims, but you should be profiling those who are studying radical Islam, like Qutb, like in his booklet
``Milestones,'' which Osama bin Laden said radicalized him--or helped.
Yet, this administration will not allow our Justice Department, our intelligence departments and agencies, and our State Department to be educated on radical Islam. So, of course, you are going to be admitting a woman who takes a man's name that denotes a terrorist Islamic Jihadist from hundreds of years ago, Tashfeen Malik.
Our Homeland Security has run off people who are real patriots, like Phil Haney, and who are brilliant on the issue of radical Islam. We have run them out.
The message is clear that you had better not study radical Islam and you had better not know anything about radical Islam in Homeland Security because, if you do, we will run you off if we don't do something worse. Thank God Phil Haney had such a clean record. They were looking for anything.
Our country is in trouble, and there are people who want to destroy it. It is ridiculous that anybody still has to say: We know all Muslims are not terrorists. Of course, they are not. But it is ridiculous to continue to allow and to even encourage radical Islamist imams in our prisons to transform prisoners into additional radical Jihadists, who are going to go off like bombs, figuratively and literally, at some point down the road.
We also have to look at our immigration policy when it comes to continuing to allow people like al-Amoudi--who hates America, who considers himself to be a person who could help bring about the global caliphate, a person who is financing terrorism--have his wife come and have a child in America.
Before he started trying to radicalize that country and take power unto himself as if he were a dictator, Morsi's wife--Morsi, the former President of Egypt--had a child here.
Do you think that child was being brought up to love America? Do you think al-Amoudi's child was being raised to love America while his parents were scheming to terrorize it?
Anwar al-Awlaki is one about whom my friends on both sides of the aisle have discussed the proprieties or improprieties of having a President just issue an order to kill an American citizen, Anwar al-
Awlaki, a man who led staffers in Muslim prayers right here on Capitol Hill.
Capitol Hill staffers were led in prayer by a man who, ultimately, the Obama administration--the President himself--considered to be so dangerous he had to take him out with a drone strike in Yemen. He was so dangerous to the United States that we couldn't even risk arresting him later. He had to take him out with a bomb strike.
How was he an American citizen? His parents, who raised him to hate America, came to America on student visas. They studied here and had Anwar al-Awlaki. They took him back to Yemen and taught him to hate America. He became so dangerous that even President Obama felt he had to order a strike on an American citizen, without his having had a trial, without due process. He felt he had to take him out with a drone because that American citizen--an American citizen only because his parents came here on visas--was too dangerous for them to do anything else. It is time we started protecting our homeland, and we need an administration that will do it.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, let me just add that the reports have been that the Obama administration used the NSA to spy on Members of Congress to help it keep the Iran treaty in play. Mr. Speaker, we have got to get to the bottom of that.
If it turns out that our President was unconstitutionally spying on Members of Congress, I do not care if they were all Democrats or Republicans. I do not care. They may have been Democrats. It doesn't matter.
If he were spying on Members of Congress--using the NSA or any other government agency to spy on Members of Congress--we need to find out if it happened. If he were, he needs to be removed from office, period. Otherwise, we can't save the Nation.
I hope and pray those allegations are not true. I hope and pray that the President of the United States did not have the NSA spying on Members of Congress to help him with the Iran deal, to help him as he was supporting the biggest supporters of terrorism in the world. I hope and pray that is not true. I hope and pray it is not, but we need to find out.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded not to engage in personalities relating to the President.
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