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.
“AMERICA'S HERITAGE” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H1762-H1766 on March 11, 2011.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
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AMERICA'S HERITAGE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas is recognized for the remainder of the hour, approximately 48 minutes.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, these are trying times. Charles Dickens said ``the best of times and the worst of times.'' More freedoms than any nation has ever enjoyed in the history of the world are right here in this country. We have been blessed so richly. And lest we begin to think we've been blessed because of something that we did to deserve to be born in America, for all those wonderful people who have immigrated to America, we didn't deserve to be born here or immigrate here. So why did we end up being in the country with the greatest freedoms in the history of the world, since it wasn't because of something we did to deserve to be here?
The answer is very clear. We've been blessed as a nation because of the actions of those who went before us. For those who believe in the Bible, it's full of one incident after another, historically, where it was shown that generations ended up being blessed because of the faithfulness of one generation.
One of the things that was difficult for me to come to grips with as a judge is how often children pay for the sins of the parents. And that's bringing me to where we are today. We are a nation that has done the unthinkable, a nation that has brought in around $2.1 trillion for the last couple of years and yet has spent 3.6, 3.5, $3.6 trillion. How irresponsible could that be? And the problem is future generations will have to pay and pay and pay for the self-indulgence, the arrogance and the self-centeredness of this generation. And it's heartbreaking when you step back and take a good look at what's going on.
Polls indicate that 70 percent or more of American adults believe that this will be the first generation--my generation will be the first in American history that does not leave the country to our children better than we found it. It's why I'm here. We can do better than that, but we'd better hurry. Because if we have 2, 3, 4 more years of what the President proposed, $1.65 trillion in deficit spending, there's not going to be a country. I don't care how much smarter we think we are in this country, how much more intellectual some of the liberals may be here, you can't outrun history.
There are lessons that are established. And if you commit this act, then in the laws of nature and history, you're going to get this result. If you spend too much money you don't have for long enough, you're going to lose your country. It's happened over and over. It doesn't matter how smart you are. It doesn't matter how many letters you have after your name. It doesn't matter if you commit certain acts; you're going to get certain results, just as sure as if it's a scientific experiment that's been proven over and over.
Well, it has been proven. If you spend too much, you're going to lose the country. Now the Germans, after World War I, thought perhaps they could print the money fast enough so that they could pay the massive indebtedness they had after World War I and that could get them on solid footing. Some remember the cartoons from history books. There are people alive today that remember, themselves, wheelbarrows with cash being carried to buy bread. That was a cartoon I saw in my history book.
And, ultimately, as the country's economy collapsed, they became so desperate that they were willing to elect a little guy with a mustache who began to blame those of Jewish origin, leading to the worst holocaust in the history of mankind. Nothing we can be proud of. What led to it? What opened the door for this barbarian to take over such a proud country and lead them into this unthinkable, horrible crime against humanity, over 6 million Jewish people were killed, exterminated? Economic problems, spending too much, owing too much and trying to print money to make it up didn't work. So they got desperate.
Look at the Soviet Union. Most historians give credit to President Reagan because he was unflinching even when some described a defense shield as Star Wars as some fictional, ridiculous thing that we might try to do. On the other hand, President Reagan could see clearly that the truth was that to have a doctrine called ``mutual assured destruction,'' properly called MAD, then that was truly mad. You're going to have two countries racing to make nuclear weapons. The only defense is that you both agreed you'll never put up a defense. So if one country launches its nukes at the other, then the other will certainly launch theirs, and both will be mutually assured that they will both be destroyed. And that's the defense? President Reagan saw that as no defense. It was not a proper defense.
And some called him a nitwit and ignorant. I can identify. I'm accused of those things on blogs every day. Maybe I am. But I know history. And the history and the truth is that by his moving forward with a way to actually defend the people of the United States with a defense shield that would stop incoming nuclear weapons, then the Russians had no choice. They had to try to keep up. They couldn't keep up financially, and they went broke.
I learned a great deal during the summer I spent in the Soviet Union as an exchange student in college. That was when it was truly the Soviet Union. I saw socialized health care up close and personal. I saw it. I went through a medical school, I went through hospitals, I went through clinics and I needed some help at one point. But I knew one thing: I sure didn't want to ever go to socialized medicine. That was for sure. Because the doctors, I was surprised to find out, really weren't respected over there unless it was some national doctor nationally known, otherwise these doctors were like poorly paid plumbers. Plumbers got a lot more respect.
It was a 9-to-5 type job. They'd show up. They didn't care if they hadn't seen you before. They'd see you; it didn't matter whether you got that well or not. That was largely the case. You'd run into somebody that tried to do a good job every now and then, from what the Russian students would tell me; but, basically, you might as well try to heal yourself and be your own physician.
Because when you go to socialized medicine, just as Dr. Berwick has indicated before President Obama put him in charge of our health care, when you go to socialized medicine and you put the government in charge, whether you want it or not, whether you will admit it or not, historically, if you go to socialized medicine, if you go to government-controlled medicine, then you're going to have rationing. Dr. Berwick made that clear. It's not a matter of if. It's a matter of when and how much.
So unless ObamaCare is repealed, we will get rationed care. Our President told people on that side of the aisle the day they were going to vote on and pass ObamaCare that he had some good news: if they would just vote for it, then things would be different. Whereas in the past--
and these are his words--in the past you go to the doctor and get five tests; now you'll go to the doctor and get one test.
Well, for those of us that have experience, I know that if my mother had been given one test, they would never have found her brain tumor. It took 6 days. It prolonged her life for 15 years; and she made invaluable contributions to mankind, to east Texas, Texas and the country during that period and was an invaluable teacher of students, of children in the eighth grade.
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One test, she would have been dead. Six days of tests, they found it. Well, Mother would have been dead.
I have a lady in my district who contacted me when this whole debate started and said: You need to know my experience. I immigrated from England. My mother got cancer over there and died. The sole reason my mother died of breast cancer was because she was in England. And in England, you have to be put on a list. You're on a list to get a mammography. You're on a list to be treated. You're on a list to get radiation or any other kind of chemotherapy. You're on a list, and that is the way you deal with government-controlled health care, because ultimately government-controlled health care does not break the bank because you ultimately, unless the nation just completely goes broke. They say, You know what? We have this much money. And, therefore, we can only give out this many tests. We can only do this many transfusions, this many transplants. We only have this much chemo, radiation. And let's see, sir or ma'am, we don't think you're productive enough, and so you're not getting it. We, as your government, overseeing your health care, have to make a call. Somebody has got to.
That's where government-controlled health care goes. It's where it has to go or it bankrupts the country.
But the good news is, for those who worry about health care bankrupting the country, we may not have to get that far unless we take responsible steps that any right-thinking group of leaders should take, then we could finish out with a whimper. Every country meets its demise at some point. No nation lasts forever, and anyone who thinks so has never studied history appropriately. And this Nation will be no exception.
The only question is are we going to be a generation that takes such responsible steps and follows the rules of history, many of which Jesus laid out. You want to be a generation that is blessed and have your children blessed, here are the rules. Well, we need to follow the rules if our children and our grandchildren are going to be blessed, because the track we are on right now, and all those left-wing blogs that like to take shots at us who are conservatives, they will one day be looked at as such blatant fools because that's the way it goes. A country, toward the end of its demise, the liberals who say there can be no end to this wonderful, hedonistic society, they are the most popular because they are playing to people's hopes. There will be no end to this society. Sure, there will be no end. It will go on. Forget these naysayers.
Well, I'm not a naysayer; I'm a yeasayer. And I would like this generation to say yea to blessing at least the next couple of generations. But it's in our hands. But once the naysayers who are truly the naysayers who say nay, nay, you people who want to be responsible, spend within your means, who want to provide for the common defense, you guys, you're crazy. You're nuts.
I've been called nuts for pointing out the fact that we have actually had people, men, associated with known terrorist groups send over their wives to have children in this country. Then the wife comes back with a baby with an American passport and an American citizenship. You can go online. China provides birthright citizenship. You pay a fee and we will get you an American visa. Come into the United States.
There is a Muslim-owned hotel in New York City, and they were upset online, it seemed like, because people were not giving them credit for being the first group to come up with birthright citizenship. You pay a big fee to this hotel in upper New York, and they would put you up for a month. If you are pregnant, they get you a doctor to help deliver your baby, one of the best in New York, and they had the mechanism in place to help you get that American passport.
And then the most precious gift that anybody could be given, a child, a blessing, not a terror, a gift of a child is born with an American passport, and it is taken back. And in some cases, I hope and pray it is not many, but I know it is happening, they are taken back, and until they are adult, they are trained to hate Americans. And that the greatest thing they could ever do for eternity is help destroy the American way of life.
They look at our way of life and they see rape and crimes occurring in America and they say: See, that is what happens when you don't have a totalitarian, religious sharia law existing where we tell everybody what they can and can't do. We don't allow that kind of freedom because it leads to debauchery. I happen to think that God gave us that much freedom and the freedom to choose; and, unfortunately, some choose wrong. Eventually, every country has too many who choose wrong, and that's when they lose their country.
So it made sense, if you're interested in providing for the common defense, that we would take a look at those who are trying to destroy us. And, by the way, the State Department is not going to take a look at that. I made an official inquiry of the State Department, my office did, and asked: Tell us how many times women have come into this country and had babies when their husband was known to be on the terrorist watch list or associated with a terrorist group. The State Department came back and told us: We can't tell you because we don't check. The husband's name is on any woman's application for a visa, but we don't inquire if there is going to be hospitalization. You wouldn't want it to be specific as to one gender, but you could inquire. And to help keep immigrants from bankrupting our country, it would seem like the State Department would inquire: Are you anticipating hospitalization when you come into this country?
And of course I have a bill on health care that says any immigrant, in order to get a visa, is going to have to show that they have already purchased health insurance for any health care they will need in the United States. We are willing to let people in. We let in more people on visas than any nation in the world. We are willing to let you in, but you've got to pay for your health care while you're here. Well, we don't do that.
One lady had said, The great thing about my daughter coming in and having a baby--and yes, her husband was a member of a terrorist group in the Middle East, on our terrorist watch list--but the good news is she doesn't even have to pay for anything. She can leave with an American passport, and she doesn't have to pay for anything. The Americans pay for it.
We have to stop that. It's nuts. The State Department doesn't inquire if you anticipate hospitalization. And even though the spouse's name is on the visa application, they say, as a rule, we don't bother to check to see if the spouse is a terrorist.
You have groups out here who are condemning Justices on the Supreme Court because their spouse may be politically active. They show themselves to be blatantly extremely partisan, like Common Cause, because they have never raised that issue with a former leader of the ACLU whose husband, late husband, apparently a fine man, but he did have political interests and they were affected by decisions of the Court, and those groups never complained about that. But they only come after conservatives on the Court, like Justice Scalia, Justice Thomas, who believe that the words on the page of the Constitution, the pages, mean what they say. They don't change over time; otherwise, you can have no consistency as a nation.
So it would only make sense that somebody up here in Congress who has taken an oath to provide for the common defense would say: You know, we've noticed that every one of these terrorists in the last--well, since 1991 who have really wanted to do anything to destroy our way of life as a whole, that they seem to have a connection that they are not Muslim; they are radical Muslims. They are radical Islamic jihadists.
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So wouldn't it make sense to take a look?
We know the largest percentage of Muslims in America are peace-
loving. They don't believe that ``jihad'' means you go kill your neighbor. They believe it's an internal jihad, where you change your life and leave the old behind; but there are disagreements over what percentage of Muslims are these radical Islamic jihadists who want to destroy our way of life. Wouldn't it make sense that we'd make inquiry into that? It sure seems to me that we should. Yet Pete King, the chairman of the appropriate committee, wanted to do just that, and he has been under death threats ever since it first came up.
Now, for some of us, we say, Gee, in order to keep my commitment to my oath to provide a defense for this country, I think we need to look at this issue of radical Islam when you have a Major Hasan at Fort Hood who kills American soldiers in their place of refuge while yelling
``Allah Akbar.'' Perhaps we should look at that issue. This is despite the fact that the Defense Department didn't even want to mention the word ``jihad'' or the word ``terrorist,'' did not want to point out the fact that they had made him the imam for Fort Hood or the fact that he had apparently told many people, If I get orders to deploy to the Middle East, I cannot risk spiritually having to kill a Muslim for one of the reasons besides the three for which I'm allowed to kill another Muslim, one being converting to Christianity. I can't risk that spiritually, so I'll have to go on a rampage and kill people here if I get orders to deploy.
Amazingly, he got orders to deploy, and he killed American soldiers--
but none of that was brought up in the record. It's extraordinary that it's not even mentioned in the report. How blind do we have to be?
So we have one responsible committee chairman who says--well, there are plenty of responsible people here. He is the committee chair with jurisdiction. He is going to have a hearing, and he gets blasted in death threats.
So, to my way of thinking, when someone announces ``you know what? I'm going to have a hearing, and we're going to look into whether radical Islam is violent'' and if the radical Islamists respond by saying ``we're going to kill you and kill your family,'' I think they kind of help make Pete King's case. If he says he just wants to have a peaceful hearing and you say ``we're going to kill you for it,'' well, that seems to me they're making his case.
The peace-loving Muslims are not the problem, but there is an element of radical Islam in this country and in this world that wants to destroy our way of life. There will be books that will ultimately, someday, belittle those people who are accusing Pete King of all kinds of impropriety--racism, bigotry, xenophobia--all those things a lot of us are accused of because they don't know us and because they don't know our hearts. Someday, books will point out: Look how silly these people were. They had people saying, We're going to kill you; and they said, Uh-oh, we'd better not make them mad and try to defend ourselves and figure out how to do that. Let's just try to placate them.
History shows, when you try to placate radical Islamists, particularly since 700-800 AD, you're going to not only not placate them; you're going to grow more contempt because, not only do they see you as an infidel, but they see you as a stupid infidel who is trying to pay off the people who want to kill them.
So we know that, in the hearing, our friend across the aisle, Mr. Ellison, testified. He brought up the case of Mohammed Salman Hamdani--
and my apologies if I mispronounce that--who was a Pakistani-born Muslim American. As Mr. Ellison pointed out, Hamdani rushed to Lower Manhattan on the morning of September 11, 2001, to assist in rescue efforts, and died in the collapse at the World Trade Center.
Mr. Ellison was thinking--and I'm sure, absolutely, there was no intent to mislead and that he actually believed what he was saying. But he said, after the tragedy, some people tried to smear his character solely because of his Islamic faith. They spread false rumors and speculated he was in league with the attackers, all because he was Muslim.
So I'm proud to be able to point this out, and I hope that it's a comfort to my friend Mr. Ellison; but in fact, as Matthew Shaffer pointed out in this National Review article last night, he said that, in fact, 6 weeks after the September 11 attacks, before Hamdani's remains were identified, Congress did sign the Patriot Act into law with this line included--and this is in the Patriot Act:
`` `Many Arab Americans and Muslim Americans have acted heroically during the attacks on the United States, including Mohammed Salman Hamdani, a 23-year-old New Yorker of Pakistani descent, who is believed to have gone to the World Trade Center to offer rescue assistance and is now missing.' ''
The article goes on. It reads:
``That is, Hamdani was actually singled out for particular high honors among the thousands of victims of the September 11 attacks. There is little evidence,'' if any, ``of the `rumors' that he did otherwise. You can go to Google and search for Mohammed Salman Hamdani's name, using various time frames from before today's hearings.'' That was yesterday. ``You'll discover two discordant sets of returns, none for sites and news reports accusing Hamdani of being a terrorist and many thousands of pages honoring him as a hero while claiming that he was `widely accused' of being a terrorist.''
They can't find the allegation of his being a terrorist, only those saying he was widely accused and what a hero he was.
``Web pages that do source that claim that Hamdani was `widely accused' of being a terrorist typically trace back to a single report from the New York Post, dated October 12, 2001, and titled `Missing--or Hiding? Mystery of NYPD Cadet from Pakistan.' The piece has been taken offline, but its content is preserved elsewhere.
``His family distributed missing person flyers in the fear that the 23-year-old, who is trained as an EMT, went instead to the World Trade Center to help and was killed. But investigators for the FBI and NYPD have since questioned the family about which Internet chat rooms he visited and if he was political.
``Hamdani, a graduate of Queens College, with a biochemistry degree, had been in the NYPD cadet program for 3 years. He became `inactive' because he needed to work full time, his mother said. Police sources said he hadn't been to work at the NYPD since April, but he still carried official identification.
``One source told the Post: `That tells me they're not looking for this guy at the bottom of the rubble. The thing that bothers me is, if he is up to some tricks, he can walk past anybody using the I.D. card.'
``Hamdani's mother, who has been in the United States for two decades, denied her son was political or a religious fundamentalist. Cops at the Midtown Tunnel reported spotting someone who looked like Hamdani yesterday morning.
``So the Post reported (1) that Hamdani's family believed he died in the World Trade Center attacks; (2) that the FBI asked Hamdani's mother a few background questions after a mistaken sighting; and (3) that an unnamed source felt such questioning implied guilt. No doubt, that was hard on the grieving mother; but frankly, this--a mistaken sighting and very preliminary investigations of many people, most of whom turn out to be innocent--is the kind of thing that inevitably happens after a major terrorist attack.''
So the article points out that Mr. Hamdani has been singled out by this Congress and by people in New York for being the hero that he apparently was. There is no allegation by this Congress, of which I'm aware, of blanket smearing, saying that all Muslims are evil. They're not. The disagreement is over what percentage. Is it 1 percent or 10 percent that is being radicalized and wants to destroy our way of life? It's a question worth looking into.
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Because there were actual witnesses at the hearing that pointed out that their young children had been taken--I say young, a teenager to me is young these days--and had been turned against the United States through a mosque, taken to a foreign country and radicalized to finish the process. Why wouldn't we want to look into that? It only makes sense. Because if you bury your head in the sand, even though you don't see any danger your rear end is hanging out there to some pretty significant danger, and we shouldn't be in that posture as a country.
Now we also know that the Muslim Brotherhood has been active in foreign countries. We've seen what happened in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, other countries around the Middle East. But I would humbly submit that the thing that ought to scare Americans the most about our stature in the world, about the way our allies and friends look at this Nation and about how they perceive whether or not we will be able to--and will--
help in a crisis, came when we saw that King Abdullah, King of Jordan, had made an appointment to apparently work out some kind of deal with a madman named Ahmadinejad. Abdullah, I've met him before, he's a brilliant man, we've visited a couple of times, he's a brilliant man, he has a different world view, but this country in the past has appreciated his ability to keep order and keep peace in his country.
When an ally like King Abdullah makes an appointment with a madman--
possibly to cut his own deal for protection--it ought to send off alarms all over this Nation that we're in trouble. The world perceives us as weak. Our friends have seen we don't stand with our friends. We'll snub Israel. We'll leave them hanging until the last second on whether or not we'll even veto a resolution Lebanon brings to the U.N.--which is what this administration did. We'll snub their prime minister when he comes early on, as this administration did. Oh, sure, the administration tried to warm up to him right before the election and tried to jockey for political help back in the fall of 2010, but our allies and our enemies are not as stupid as some in this town think. They see the way we treat our friends, our allies, those who have stood with this country through thick and thin, and they've seen the way we've turned on them.
They see what we've done with enemies of ours, as Qadhafi has been in the past, as Ahmadinejad has been, as Kim Jong Il in North Korea has been, and they say, gee, if we go strongly against this country, the Obama administration will come rush to see what they can give us to try to make us friends--obviously they won't make us friends, but we'll take whatever they've got to give. In fact, in the case of North Korea and the Clinton administration running over there and saying, look, we'll build you a nuclear power plant if you will just quit trying to make a nuclear weapon. You'll give us a nuclear power plant? Doesn't that have nuclear fuel? Yes, it does. We might be able to take that fuel and make a nuclear weapon? Sure, yeah, I mean, it's possible. But if you'll just promise us you won't do that, we'll give you the nuclear material, the facility, we'll show you how to do it. Well, sure. Okay. Yeah, we'll give you that promise. And of course we provided them what they needed to go nuclear and build nuclear weapons. It makes no sense. We ought to be smarter than that.
But we didn't learn our lesson with North Korea that you can't placate a terrorist leader, so this administration has talked about sanctions. And we've had some sanctions against Iran, and I really think that they're going to work by 2015 or 2020, but unfortunately by then, Iran will have nuclear weapons, and they will have the ability to say you either withdraw your sanctions or we're going to use the nukes that we've now sent on yachts and are outside major places you care about to blow your major cities up. It's a crazy way to defend the country, to placate your enemies.
I've had this bill--I've filed it three Congresses and I'm hoping now that we're in the majority we'll get it passed; it seems like I pick up more supporters every time--called the U.N. Voting Accountability Act. It simply says that any nation--you know, they're sovereign nations, they can do what they want as long as they don't come after us, don't commit crimes against humanity, but they're sovereign nations, so basically what it says is any nation that votes against a U.S. position more than half the time in the U.N. will receive no financial assistance of any kind from the United States in the subsequent year. As I've said before, you don't have to pay people to hate you, they'll do it for free. We can save the money, we need to save the money.
We heard that President Mubarak--really a king, but called President Mubarak--one report said he had $70 billion in a bank, now there's only
$7 billion. Where do you think he got that money? We've been giving him somewhere around $2 billion a year for years. We have propped up so many evil people in countries where they devastate their own people, we shouldn't be giving them money for that. Let charitable groups go in and give aid directly to the people. They do a great job of that, better than the government because we as a government usually have to give it to the government, and then the government uses it to go in their bank accounts and to do what they will with their people. It doesn't make sense.
I was also a little surprised to find out how much we help Lebanon because they were short on some of their weaponry, and the U.S. was of some assistance to help them rearm last year. And I was trying to remember, oh, yes, why was Lebanon a little short on weaponry? That's right. They were killing Israelis--our friends and allies--back 5 years ago. That's why they were short on weaponry. But not to worry, U.S. to the aid; we'll provide military weapons to our enemies, to the enemies of those who are dear, devoted friends like Israel. Yeah, we'll equip your enemies. We'll sell jets to countries that won't recognize Israel. Three billion dollars for a friend in kind of an oasis in the middle of a lot of hostility is a small price to pay, but unfortunately when you pay billions to Israel's enemies $3 billion is not enough.
So why, instead of running up the tab, why don't we as a nation quit funding Israel's enemies, quit helping their enemies, quit helping to put in place--as President Carter did by pulling the rug out from under the shah--apparently not a nice man what he did to his people--but by President Carter pulling the rug out from him, he fell. And of course President Carter welcomed Khomeini as a man of peace, and then we shortly found he created a terrorist state like none before in history. Good job.
We've got to stop doing those kind of good jobs. We've got to get back to the basics of providing for the common defense, quit condemning those who are not xenophobes--they're not phobes of any kind--but they see the world through a clear window, the window of history, and see that if you help your enemies, they will destroy you. You help your friends, they remain your friends, and they remain vital and helpful to you in the world picture.
One other thing we did to Israel last year--I believe it was in May I read that this administration for the first time voted with all of Israel's enemies to require them to disclose any and all nuclear weaponry. Because people in leadership in the appropriate places here in America apparently have not read the Old Testament. They have not read history. You can go back and find where Hezekiah was the king. And I know there are some journalists who think that Jews came from Poland, but actually there's archaeological evidence to show that they were actually in Israel 3,000 years ago and that King David was King of Israel around 1000 or so B.C.
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And of course we know Mohammed lived 600 or so A.D. So 1,600 to 1,700 years before there was a Mohammed, there was a King David ruling over Jews in Israel. They have a history in the land. We voted with Israel's enemies. And the lesson from Hezekiah was, as you can read from the Old Testament, Isaiah was sent to Hezekiah. He knew what he had done. Pardon the Texas paraphrase, but he said, in essence, What have you done? He said, Oh, these great Babylonian leaders came over, and so I showed them all our treasure, and I showed them our defenses.
And Isaiah, in essence, said, You fool. Because you've done this, you'll lose the country.
You don't placate your enemies and think they're going to be your friend if you give them things, you show them all your great defenses, because they'll figure a way around them and you will lose your country.
Every country meets its demise and heads to the dustbin of history at some point. We've got to rein in the ridiculous deficit spending. We've got to quit hurting our friends abroad and quit helping our enemies and be about the oath that we all took in this body. And if we will do that, if we will follow the precepts that history--and even FDR said, Follow the teachings in the Bible. People have found it a help for ages--if we do those things, future generations will be blessed because of us, and not condemned.
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