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“WE NEED TO KNOW WHERE WE COME FROM TO KNOW WHERE WE ARE GOING” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H2380-H2385 on April 26, 2013.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
WE NEED TO KNOW WHERE WE COME FROM TO KNOW WHERE WE ARE GOING
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
It is indeed an honor for me to yield to a friend, a man that I am delighted was elected to join us last year, my friend, Mr. Yoho from Florida, for such time as he may consume.
The Second Amendment
Mr. YOHO. I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I have heard many gun control supporters say that the Second Amendment is outdated. They point out the phrase ``a well-
regulated militia'' as their proof that armed and alert citizens belong in the 18th century and not the 21st century. We saw last week in Boston that they couldn't be more wrong.
When the Constitution and the Second Amendment were written, the story of the Boston struggles during the Revolutionary War was still fresh in America's memory. British troops looked at every American as a threat and treated them like virtual prisoners in the communities that they built. That's why our Founders made sure that it would be law, and a birthright for every law-abiding American, that everyone would have the freedom to protect themselves.
These days, many of America's enemies don't wear the uniforms of a nation. They try to avoid confrontation with our military and our police force; and they lurk in our streets, they hide out in our universities, and they wait for our defenses to go down. They don't save their hatred for our heroes in uniforms. They unleash it on anyone who is free.
The line between crime and terror is a thin one. Any victim of a violent crime has experienced terrorism in its most intimate and intense form. When we talk about guns and we look at the true meaning of the Second Amendment, it's clear that the passage of a couple of centuries hasn't changed its intent much.
The Second Amendment is a uniquely American value, as relevant today as when it was written. No other nation before ours has trusted the people to arm and protect themselves. When tragedies happened in Tucson, in Aurora, and in Newtown, guns were to blame. When the tragedy happened in Boston last week, we rightly blamed the person and not the instrument.
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Allowing law-abiding citizens to exercise their freedom of self-
defense can help keep us safe, and I will fight to protect this precious constitutional right.
Mr. GOHMERT. I thank my friend from Florida.
At this time, I'm proud to yield to a friend from Wisconsin (Mr. Duffy). I'm proud Wisconsin and Texas are in the same country because Wisconsin has certainly produced some great Americans.
Protecting Our Children
Mr. DUFFY. I appreciate my friend from Texas yielding.
Over the past 5 months, our Nation has seen unspeakable horrors bestowed upon the children of our country, from the massacre in Newtown--the 23 innocent, young first graders who lost their lives--to just recently in the Boston bombing, where many lost their lives, but specifically, a third grader, Richard Martin, lost his life.
Richard, a couple weeks before, had just made his First Communion. There is a picture of Richard in a sharp white suit with a proud, toothless smile. He lost his life in Boston. His little sister, Jane, who was by him was also hit by the bomb. She lost her leg. She was just starting to take Irish step dancing classes. She will now be in recovery for months and years from that bombing.
We have to look at what's happening in our country with regard to violence against children. As a country, we have to soul-search about violence against our children, and we have been soul-searching. Our families, our communities, we've been soul-searching in this institution about that very violence. We've had a conversation about: How do we protect our children? How do we keep them from this violence and scourge that is spreading across our country? But we soul-search.
Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, dozens--if not hundreds--of babies have had their lives taken from them, where they've been murdered, left to lay in cardboard boxes, left in toilets trying to swim for air, only to have the backs of their necks snipped, basically decapitated. That kind of horror is being bestowed on children in America, and yet where is the media? Where are the protests? Where are the congressional hearings?
Listen, where are the parents on Air Force One flying to the White House having a meeting with the President? Where are the high-powered meetings with the Senators across the aisle? They're not happening.
I don't have the picture for you today, but many have seen it, a picture of the courtroom where the Kermit Gosnell trial is going on. There's a section reserved for the media--the media that loves great stories, loves fanfare. There's a section reserved for the media at this trial and there's nobody there. There's been a blackout. The media has refused to cover this story.
How about a poor, immigrant mother who can't speak English, who looks to her local community organization in Philadelphia, who gets a recommendation for an abortion to go to the nice-sounding Women's Medical Society clinic, a clinic that is well known for its filth and well known for its health violations. Poor minority immigrant goes to this clinic for an abortion, and she loses her life.
So I think we have to ask: Where is NARAL? Where is NOW? Where is Mrs. Barbara Boxer, standing up for poor minority women who are losing their lives in Philadelphia at the hands of an abortion provider? Where are they? The silence is deafening. Can't hear them.
There's no voice given to that poor minority immigrant. There is no voice given to these little babies who are so vulnerable at the start of their lives and they're voiceless. But no one--even those who say they stand up for women and babies, they're unwilling to stand up at this time.
However, if you are a white, privileged law student from this town, the doors swing wide open and the media wants to cover your story. They want to cover your point of view. But when we're talking about an abortion clinic that provides late-term, partial-birth abortions where babies are born alive, there is no outrage; there is no story.
Where is the NAACP for these minority babies? Where is La Raza? Where is the Black Congressional Caucus? Where is Maxine Waters? Where is the leader of the Democrat Party? Where are they, lending their voice to these atrocities, this murder?
You know, I'm a father of six. I've been there for the birth of all my babies. I know we have a lot of parents in this institution and across the aisle. Listen, newborn babies coming out, they are voiceless; they're defenseless; they rely on us for everything.
Here's a picture of my sixth baby, MariaVictoria, Mighty V, just born. The pictures of the babies that died in Philadelphia are bigger than this; they're more developed than this. And yet no one wants to stand up and shed light on these atrocities and these unspeakable horrors, the dehumanization, the desensitization of what happened in Philadelphia.
I think we have to ask ourselves why. Why aren't my good friends on the other side of the aisle, who have families, who have had children, who care about minorities and the poor and care about children--I know it because I hear them--where are they? Why won't they join us to expose this? Is it that they care more about the abortion clinics than poor defenseless babies that are born alive and aren't provided care, aren't provided love, but are abandoned and left to die? I can't believe that's true. Is it that they agree more with partial-birth abortions that are botched and babies are born alive and they're not willing to provide aid? I cannot believe that; not offering lifesaving treatment for the most vulnerable among us.
I think we have to look around in our communities, in our country, we have to look at this very institution, and we have to be better than this. We are better than this.
We might disagree on abortion. I'm a pro-life guy. I know we have a lot of people who are pro-abortion in this institution. I can accept those distinctions. But how can anybody come forward who even supports abortion and say, I'm not going to defend a baby that's born alive? What kind of position is that? Or that you won't lend your voice to this cause? You can come out and say, I support abortion, but I don't support this.
This is wrong. We're better, as Americans, than that. We're better Congressmen and -women than that. We have bigger hearts than that. This is unacceptable in our country.
We're going to have the abortion debate for a while, and that's okay, but we have to draw the line somewhere. When do we step forward and say we are going to defend the most defenseless and the most voiceless among us? When does that start?
I think in this institution most of us have agreed that that starts at birth--at least. I think it starts at conception, but everyone has agreed it starts at birth. So why, when we have this atrocity, this death of our children in Philadelphia with Dr. Gosnell, haven't people loaned their voices to these children? They deserve better than that.
So I think it's incumbent upon this institution, our communities, our country, and the media to make sure that we provide a voice, we provide a platform for those babies because we care more about those lives than we care about the abortion industry, and we care more about those babies than we care about exposing the horrors and atrocities of partial-birth abortion. We're better than that.
I'm going to tell you this: though we may disagree on some issues, we do agree on protecting these little ones as they come into the world. I'm going to continue that fight.
I know the gentleman from Texas is passionate on this topic and has a lot of things to talk about today, but I appreciate him yielding a few minutes for me to chat.
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Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate my friend from Wisconsin so much in giving voice to those who have no voice. We hear so often on this floor from people who mean what they say as they say: We have an obligation to help the most vulnerable amongst us, to help those who cannot help themselves. And having held my first-born child in both hands--I could have held her in one, but I didn't want to take a chance--I held a child that was smaller than some of these in this tale of horror of abortions, to think that someone could take scissors and cut the back of the neck and cut the spine and literally kill a child, it's virtually too much to take in.
I hope others will see the wisdom of what Sean Duffy was talking about. But it does seem people have been desensitized to so many things they need to be re-sensitized to. Every country, no matter what its strength, how strong, including this country that has become the strongest country in the history of the world, which is already the most free country in the history of the world, more freedom, more opportunity than anyplace, including the great Israel under Solomon as king-- we are told that there's never been a king wiser than Solomon--but the way this country was founded, the way it was molded, the way we gave credit to the Creator, to divine providence, to the Lord, as referenced in the date of our Constitution itself--and it's dated in the year of our Lord 1787--they knew, and they pointed out repeatedly, that our rights, our liberties, will not last beyond this country's recognition that all rights, all freedoms, all gifts, all liberties come from a source. George Washington referred to the Divine Author of our blessed religion in one of his writings. It is actually the prayer that he included in his resignation as commanding general of the Revolutionary forces.
And I know that in this Nation we accept everyone, all religions, all people, no matter what their religious convictions are, including no religious convictions whatsoever. But it is critically important that we know where we come from in order to have any idea where we're going. And it is the nature of man, it is the nature of humanity, that as a Nation reaches a peak--some in my history classes in college would refer to the cycle that countries go through, some referencing back to the ancient Greece government--that there was a cycle of its rise and fall. I felt like it was more of a bell-shaped curve that once you reach the peak, then people take their freedoms, take their opportunities for granted, they stop believing that there's a threat to those. And as they get less and less sensitive to the fact that all glory, all liberty, is fleeting, then they would lose them. Whether it's the cycle of rise and fall or a bell-shaped curve, it depends on us.
Tom Brokaw had described the Greatest Generation as those who recognized the danger of fascism and the oppression that existed in the 1940s and rose up and fought against it. Unfortunately, the guy that knows our history so well, that could write a great book on the Greatest Generation, could turn around and a few short years later be completely desensitized and show himself to be part of anything but a great generation because he could not even recognize a threat to this civilization's existence.
So, hopefully, people, situated as is he, will begin to recognize there are people that want to destroy our freedoms, they want to take what has been made into the greatest country, that's been blessed more than any country in history, and they want to act like there's no such thing as a threat to our security, to our freedom, to our own lives, to our lives and fortunes. Whether there's a threat to our sacred honor has been completely up to us. As the signers of the Declaration of Independence pledged, Our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor.
So the question arises: Is there any honor in trying to buy off your enemies, make them love you with cash, make them love you with tanks, make them love you by sending them F-16s, make them love you by sending tear gas to use against those they don't like? Is there any honor in that? We have Muslim Brotherhood, a group in Egypt, the Freedom and Justice Party in Egypt. They helped overthrow Mubarak as this administration here in America turned our back on an ally. And we got Muslim Brotherhood.
I continue to have people approach me, say they're from Egypt, and they get so frustrated; they cannot believe we're supporting the wrong people in Egypt, just as those I've met with in Afghanistan have begged us to stop trying to buy a friend in the Taliban, especially those in the Northern Alliance who lost family and friends trying to fight the Taliban--and successfully defeating them on our behalf by early 2002. Then we took back the weapons that we provided and said, we got it from here.
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Now, 11 years later, we are turning our backs on our allies--the moderate Muslims who fought the Taliban for us--and are now trying to buy off the Taliban, who still want to destroy us. They still want to end our freedom, make us suffer because they consider us so decadent. From what I'm told in Afghanistan--and it has been reported widely in the news--this administration has offered to buy them first-class offices in Qatar so that they'll have a world presence and have instant respectability around the world. This administration has offered to release some of their murdering thugs who have spilled the blood of American patriots in the most cowardly and conniving ways. So they have no respect for us.
I wondered if, perhaps, President Obama were going to be right. Perhaps he will be right. Maybe it will help America with countries that have shown hatred for this country. President Obama said it was going to basically be a game-changer that Muslim countries would have far more respect for us since we had a President, as President Obama said, who grew up in a Muslim country, with admiration for the practices and teachings of Muslims, a President who loved the call for prayer, who loved hearing that.
It has been over 4 years now, and we've seen the polling that, in Muslim countries around the world, this United States' favorability rating has fallen far below what it was under George Bush, who did not grow up in a Muslim country. So we found that that didn't work despite 4 years under this administration of trying to pander to those who want to destroy our way of life, who want to force a caliphate over America as they now are trying to do in Egypt, in Libya, and are trying to do in other Middle Eastern countries.
But our Constitution is what those of us who serve here took an oath to support and defend. That's where we are supposed to stand--in full defense of our Constitution, not the United Nations Charter, not sharia law. We took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.
It has been determined in this country by the courts that people have a First Amendment right to burn, destroy a United States flag--the same flag that has draped countless coffins--bodies--of Americans who, as Lincoln said, gave their last full measure of devotion for our freedom. People have a First Amendment right to destroy that flag--that symbol of freedom and liberty. They've said there is a First Amendment right to destroy Bibles regardless of how holy those books are held to be by so many in America.
A story is written and told of Thomas Jefferson's taking one of his many trips down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol, on a Sunday morning with a big Bible under his arm.
Someone said, ``Mr. President, where are you going?''
He said, ``Well, I'm going to church up in the Capitol.
Well, Mr. President, you don't believe everything they do there.''
He said, ``Sir, I am the highest elected magistrate in this country. It is imperative that I set the proper example.''
Jefferson felt he was setting the proper example by going to a nondenominational Christian church here in the Capitol, which was held down the Hall in what was then the House of Representatives Chamber, now called Statuary Hall.
I have a bill that would require a plaque be put up to inform people of the amazing history. Thomas Jefferson, who coined the phrase
``separation of church and State,'' said there needs to be a wall of separation between church and State. He saw it as more of a one-sided wall where the State would not interfere in religion. Certainly, for this country to be at its greatest, people would bring their religious convictions to the State and make it stronger and better. That man who coined the phrase ``separation of church and State,'' not found in the Constitution, even felt it was appropriate to often have the Marine Band come and play hymns down the Hall for those who were at the Christian worship service.
I'm not advocating we go back to that--there is no need--as we have churches all over this place now, but it is not appropriate to act as if those parts of our history are not true. They are true, they are part of our history; and it was the church that was so strong in the abolitionist movement to try to bring about equal treatment. It was the church--not all churches, because there was prejudice and bias and bigotry in some churches, but those who truly understood the teachings of Christ stood so firmly and strongly against slavery.
Then 100 years later, an ordained Christian minister named Martin Luther King, Jr., fought for civil rights; but he did so as a complete pacifist, not advocating violence, and his efforts succeeded. He freed up young, little White boys, like me, who were Christians to treat brothers and sisters of any race, any color, any creed as brothers and sisters. It's all part of our history--the good parts, the bad parts. We shouldn't try to rewrite history. You've got to know where you came from.
In the wake of the horrors of Boston, people were there, excited to see the finish of the race, of the world-famous Boston Marathon. So many friends of mine have dreamed of qualifying to run in the Boston Marathon. I have a number of friends who have. There is a lot of excitement even in their exhaustion as they near the finish line. That's where cold-hearted, calloused individuals filled with hate could set down bombs knowing they were going to kill very innocent people.
How do you see a little 8-year-old child knowing that child is going to be killed by what you put together and set down? How do you do that? How do you have such evil in your heart that you can do that? How do you have such evil in your heart you set a bomb down knowing that people who are still around it, as you walk away as a coward, are going to have their legs blown out from under them and never walk again? How do you do that?
You have to be so full of hate or evil or some sick religious convictions that somehow you believe that there is someone or something--some deity--that smiles upon that and thinks it's wonderful when you kill or maim innocent people and that somehow you'll be glorified by killing and maiming innocent people.
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It's very tragic.
But we know for some time that the FBI, the State Department, the Intelligence Department, a number of departments have been trying to soften the language that they've used, that they've used to train so that they don't offend people who want to kill us already. I mean, I didn't know anybody back in the eighties that talked about radical Islam, yet 79 people were killed, hostages were taken, an Embassy was taken over, hostages held for over a year. In 1983, people were killed, marines waylaid as our Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up. We didn't really talk about radical Islam.
Yet over time, instead of recognizing the danger to this country, we have people in authority in this administration who've decided that we must not use the terms that accurately describe what our killers believe, our want-to-be killers believe. We can't use those words. They might be offended.
For heaven's sake, 9/11 of 2001 was plotted while Bill Clinton was President. And no one who has any fairness at all about them could ever accuse President Bill Clinton of demonstrating bias or prejudice against Islam. He sent troops to protect Muslims in Eastern Europe.
Whether we agree or disagree that it was appropriate use of American troops and American lives, he sent American lives that were lost to help Muslims. And all the while President Bill Clinton, as Commander in Chief, was trying to help Muslims, there were radical Islamists who were plotting and planning an incredibly egregious and heinous act and attack against the United States of America. And that was before anybody ever used the words ``jihad,'' ``radical Islam,'' or ``al Qaeda.''
There's an article that my staff called to my attention last night in the Washington Examiner, an editorial, posted April 25 at 9 p.m. The title of their op-ed is, ``How the FBI Was Blinded By Political Correctness.'' It says:
As the initial elation over the swift identification and ending of the brothers Tsarnaev manhunt fades, a steady stream of facts are emerging that strongly suggest the need for a more sober assessment of the FBI's performance in the 2 years prior to the Boston Marathon bombing.
FBI counterterrorism agents interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older of the brothers, in January 2011 after receiving a tip from Russian intelligence. Since the interviewing agents thought they heard nothing to indicate Tsarnaev was a terrorist, little else was done and the case was closed 2 months later.
A few months after that, Tsarnaev went to Russia and encountered somebody or experienced something that apparently prompted him to become quite open about his devotion to a radical vision of Islamic jihad. The FBI visited him a second time after he returned to the United States, but again concluded that Tsarnaev was not a threat.
It is speculation now, of course, but it's difficult to believe the Tsarnaevs would have been able to carry out the bombing had they been under active surveillance before the 2013 Boston Marathon.
The editorial from the Washington Examiner goes on and says:
Whatever else may yet be discovered about what the FBI missed, there is no excuse for the agency not grasping the significance of the radical Islamist video Tamerlan posted on his Facebook page, entitled, ``The Emergence of Prophecy: The Black Flags from Khorasan.'' The video explains and glorifies the prophecy of a mighty jihadist army rising from the Iranian region of the near east to conquer the world and establish an enduring Muslim empire. The Khorasan connection is a staple of al Qaeda ideology, and the video's presence on Tsarnaev's Facebook page was a red flag that should have alerted agents to a very real potential danger.
It is quite possible, though, the FBI agents who interviewed Tsarnaev on both occasions failed to understand what they saw and heard because that's what they were trained to do. As the Washington Examiner's Mark Flatten reported last year, FBI training manuals were systematically purged in 2011 of all references to Islam that were judged offensive by a specially created five-member panel. Three of the panel members were Muslim advocates from outside the FBI, which still refuses to make public their identities. Nearly 900 pages were removed from the manuals as a result of that review. Several Congressmen were allowed to review the removed materials in 2012 on condition that they not disclose what they read to their staffs, the media, or the general public.
With the recent proliferation of revelations about FBI blindness on the brothers Tsarnaev, a comment made last year by Representative Louie Gohmert, Republican of Texas, to Flatten now has a tragic resonance: ``We've got material being removed more because of political correctness than in the interest of truth and properly educated justice officials. We are blinding our enforcement officers from the ability to see who the enemy actually is.''
The Boston bombing showed the tragic consequences of that blindness.
This is an op-ed from yesterday by the Washington Examiner quoting me from over a year ago. In fact, on February 16, 2012, I gave a speech from right here on the House floor that was recorded where I talked about this very issue, and something of assistance was a poster. This poster points out the terminology that was used in the 9/11 Commission report because in that 9/11 Commission report, before this administration took over and implemented political correctness, the 9/
11 Commission didn't know they had to be politically correct in the terminology they use, according to the new standards by the FBI, so they referred to ``violent extremism'' three times. They referred to the ``enemy'' 39 times. They referred to ``jihad'' 126 times. They used the word ``Muslim'' 145 times. They referred to ``Islam'' 322 times. They referred to ``takfir'' one time. They referred to the ``Muslim Brotherhood'' five times. They referred to ``religious'' 65 times.
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They referred to ``Hamas'' four times, ``Hezbollah'' two times, ``al Qaeda'' 36 times, ``caliphate'' seven times, and ``sharia'' twice.
And then it's easy to see that when it comes to ``enemy,'' neither the National Intelligence Strategy of 2009 under this administration, nor the FBI counterterrorism lexicon, the words that are allowed to be used by FBI agents in their terminology, apparently it is okay to talk about violent extremism, which is why Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano, she created a Countering Violent Extremism Working Group. Although she could not tell me how many members of the Muslim Brotherhood were part of that working group, we knew that there were some. She also could not tell me how many members of the Muslim Brotherhood who would like to see a giant caliphate in which the United States was included, how many she had in her Homeland Security Advisory Council that she gave secret clearances to. There's no way they could've been properly vetted and still gotten secret security clearances.
But we see with the new FBI terminology and the new intelligence terminology, they can't talk about the enemy. They can't talk about jihad. They can't talk about Muslim. They can't talk about Islam. They can't talk about the Muslim Brotherhood. They can refer to religion; but as we know from the Homeland Security reports that they've yielded, the thing they're worried about really is more people who believe in the Constitution and veterans and Christians who are evangelical Christians. They'll talk about religious there; but, obviously, not in terms of radical Islam. They won't talk about Hamas. They won't talk about Hezbollah. The FBI counterterrorism lexicon doesn't even include reference to al Qaeda or sharia, nor does the Intelligence Strategy.
So the question comes to my mind about that interview, the interviews back in 2011, because I know so many FBI agents that are incredible Americans, real patriots, smart, a lot of wisdom and judgment, but they follow orders like I did when I was in the Army. You do what you're ordered to do, and they do.
But what kind of interview must that have been of the guy who was going to blow off arms and legs and kill a child and who had dreams of killing so many more? What kind of interview must that have been when you can't use the word ``jihad''? You can't talk about his Muslim faith. Did they even bring up Tamerlan's Muslim faith in that interview? I mean, they're not supposed to talk about it. And I do not believe in using religion to discriminate against anybody; but when you find out that there is a radical sect, not like the vast, incredibly vast majority of Muslims who don't want to kill people, and don't want to maim, and don't think it's right to cause that kind of human suffering, but there is a sect, a radical Islamist sect, and they can't talk about it. What kind of interview was that?
Is it any wonder that the FBI came away from their interviews and said, we don't find any problems.
Well, I guess not. If you can't talk in detail about Islamic faith to find out whether someone is a radical, whether his beliefs have now embraced the book ``The Milestone'' that Qutb of Egypt embraced, that some in this country, some that our own Homeland Security Secretary think are wonderful people, they've embraced the same writings that Osama bin Laden said helped radicalize him, if you can't know about those things, how in the world can you do a legitimate interview and find out is this a peace-loving Muslim or is this a radical who wants to kill people? And if I don't get this conversation right, 2 years from now there will be people dead in Boston. How silly must we be as a Nation to blindfold our law enforcement and not let them see an enemy that wants to destroy us.
Now, I've talked to enough intelligence officers, Justice Department officials, people that love this country, Homeland Security, and they are so frustrated with the shackles that they have to wear, figuratively speaking, while they try to protect this country, where you can't talk about the beliefs of people who want to destroy this blessed country. What kind of interviews must those have been when you can't use the terms that let you get to the bottom of what may be a plot to kill people down the road?
There's no problem in the Justice Department. There is a problem with leadership that will not let them do their job, and it needs to change.
I'm blessed to be joined by a colleague, and I yield to Mr. Bentivolio.
Remembering Howard Phillips
Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the memory of Howard Phillips, a statesman, a patriot, and to the very end of his life, a brilliant thinker and tireless organizer for constitutionally limited government. He sought to limit the Federal Government at almost every turn.
In 1974, he founded the Conservative Caucus, which we might call the Tea Party movement of its day. He helped forge the New Right, and perhaps more than any other leader, he never put party above principle.
He organized behind the scenes. He was a mentor to today's conservative mentors; and above all, he believed in the sovereignty of God and not of the State.
He was a brilliant speaker, and a brilliant thinker. Any American searching for the meaning of American values might look to Howard Phillips for guidance.
Tomorrow's young conservative leaders may not learn Phillips' name, but his ideas will live on, and for that, we should be grateful. The conservative movement lost a lion last week, and it is my privilege to remember him.
Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you for that worthy tribute.
Well, I want to reference a part of a Special Order address that was delivered here on this floor February 16, 2012, by me, and in that I had before me a transcript of a hearing where the FBI Director testified, and I pointed out--well, I just read the transcript, as I will do now, part of it. I pointed out before reading that I don't have a problem with the FBI having an outreach program to communities, but I said:
Why would the FBI see the need to make positive outreach into any community of a specific nature?
So after Director Mueller had indicated, yes, we have this wonderful outreach program with the Muslim communities, and those communities are exactly like every other community, I said:
You had mentioned earlier and it's in your written statement that the FBI developed an extensive outreach to Muslim communities, and in answer to an earlier question I understood you to say that Muslim communities were like all other communities.
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So I'm curious. As a result of the extensive outreach program the FBI has had to the Muslim community, how has your outreach program gone with the Baptists and the Catholics?
Director Mueller said:
I'm not certain of necessarily the thrust of that question. I would say that our outreach to all segments of a particular city or country or society are good.
I said:
Well, do you have a particular program of outreach to Hindus, Buddhists, Jewish community, agnostics, or is it just an extensive outreach program to----
He interrupted and said:
We have outreach to every one of those communities.
I asked how he did that, and then he started to filibuster. And I said:
I have looked extensively, and I haven't seen anywhere in any one of the FBI's letters information that there's been an extensive outreach program to any other community trying to develop trust and this kind of a relationship, and it makes me wonder if there is an issue of trust or some problem like that that the FBI has seen in that particular community.
And just so there's no mistaking, let me just read directly from the judge's opinion in the Holy Land Foundation case in response to the effort by ISNA, the Islamic Society of North America, CAIR, Council on American Islamic Relations, NAIT, the Holy Land Foundation and others.
And I read this:
The judge said: The government has produced ample evidence the associations of CAIR, ISNA, NAIT and the Holy Land Foundation, the Islamic Association for Palestine, and Hamas. While the Court recognizes that the evidence produced by the government largely predates the Holy Land Foundation designation date, the evidence is nonetheless sufficient to show the association of these entities with the Holy Land Foundation, the Islamic Association for Palestine and Hamas.
There was plenty of evidence to support that, according to the judge. That was affirmed by the Fifth Circuit.
It's important to note that, out of concern for the FBI's outreach program, and the State Department and the White House for reaching out, bringing in people who courts have said supported terrorism, and these people are being brought in, in the military we say brought inside the wire, in this case, brought inside the State Department, brought inside the White House on a regular basis, brought inside the Justice Department, my friend, Frank Wolf had this language added to the continuing resolution that was passed, that President Obama signed into law. This is language in the law, and my friend, Mr. Wolf included it to reference the FBI's policy.
It says, and this is the language in the law:
Conferees support the FBI's policy prohibiting any formal non-investigative cooperation with unindicted co-conspirators in terrorism cases. The conferees expect the FBI to insist on full compliance with this policy by FBI field offices, and to report to the Committee on Appropriations regarding any violation of the policy.
Well, guess what? We didn't get this from the FBI. We had to get it from the Islamic Society of North America's own Web site. They reported that on Wednesday, February 8--that was last year, 2012--that the American Arab Anti-discrimination Committee, the Arab American Institute, the Interfaith Alliance, the Islamic Society of North America, ISNA, which has been pronounced by the Fifth Circuit as having plenty of evidence to support that they fund terrorism, and have, and then it mentions other groups, including the Shoulder-to-Shoulder Campaign.
But they, it says:
They had an opportunity to discuss the matter with the Public Affairs Office of the FBI. Director Robert Mueller joined the meeting to discuss these matters with representatives from the organizations.
The conversation with Director Mueller centered on material used by the agency that depicts falsehoods and negative connotations of the Muslim American community. The use of the material was first uncovered by Wired magazine.
And that was uncovered by an organization that seems to be right in there with those who were unindicted but named co-conspirators in funding terrorism.
From ISNA, they say:
Director Mueller informed the participants that the FBI took the review of the training material very seriously, and he pursued the matter with urgency to ensure that this does not occur again in the future.
ISNA President, Imam Magid, who's a frequent visitor to the White House, who the White House consults on speeches, or has, and welcomed to the inner sanctum of the State Department, other departments here in Washington, Magid stated:
The discovery of FBI training materials that discriminated against Muslims did damage to the trust that was built between dedicated FBI officials and the American Muslim community. We welcome and appreciate Director Mueller's commitment to take positive steps toward eradicating such materials and rebuilding trust in an open dialogue.
The Director also informed participants that, to date, nearly all related FBI training materials, including more than 160,000 pages of documents, were reviewed by subject matter experts multiple times. Consequently, more than 700 documents, 300 presentations of material, have been deemed unusable by the Bureau and pulled from the training curriculum. Material was pulled from the curriculum if even one component was deemed to include factual errors or be in poor taste or be stereotypical or lack precision.
I guess stereotypical would mean if they point out that terrorists have one thing in common, that would be stereotypical.
ISNA also reports:
It was clear to all meeting participants that the issue of trust between community Members and the FBI needs to be taken seriously by all our Nation's decisionmakers. It was evident the Bureau must strengthen its efforts to build trust.
How about trust from the other side?
How about condemnation of terrorist acts?
How about coming out and making clear all ties have been severed with Hamas and Hezbollah and those who would seek to make terror on innocent people?
Anyway, ISNA's rejoicing because they got the FBI to actually go through and cull material that has words like ``jihad,'' words like
``extremist,'' words that have been purged from the FBI lexicon.
Now, I was one who was allowed, in a classified setting, which I felt was totally unnecessary, to see the names of the so-called subject matter experts. I was allowed to go through material and see what it was.
And it's time, Mr. Speaker, that our FBI agents and intelligence be allowed to remove the blindfolds and see who the enemy is when they do interrogations and questioning.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
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