Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 6 o'clock and 51 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Friday, November 16, 2012, at 9 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, well, my head is spinning a bit after hearing my friends across the aisle. I heard our former Speaker ask about whether we're better off now than we were 4 years ago, and actually ask how can people who perpetuated this economic disaster ask that question. And it was amazing, because former Speaker Pelosi and I were on exactly the same wavelength. She was asking: Are we better off now than we were 4 years ago? And I was thinking the same thing that she was: How could people who perpetuated this economic disaster ask that question? But she asked it anyway.

You heard our friends talk about the economic disaster. Some of us remember back into the early point of the 21st century when there was an effort by first-term President Bush, George W. Bush, calling for reform of Fannie and Freddie, and I seem to recall my friend from Massachusetts who resisted such reform. In fact, there were people here on the Democratic side of the aisle that resisted such reform; they prevented such reform. There were Members on the Republican side--not all of them, but there were Members who were calling for reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but it didn't happen. In fact, our friends across the aisle were in control of the House and Senate for 4 years.

In 2005 and 2006, as a freshman, I often heard our colleagues across the aisle asking how we could do such a terrible, terrible thing of spending 100 to $200 billion more than we had coming in. And they were right, they were right: we should not have been spending $160 billion more than we had coming in. The Democrats were right. And because Republicans did not stay true to what we had promised--our leadership just wouldn't dig in and stop it, even though we had a Republican President, you know, well, we've got a Republican President, don't want to hurt his feelings--we spent $160 billion more than we had coming in.

So, the American public sounded like they weren't thrilled with what they heard from the Democrats, but they figured they'd give them a chance. So, November 2006, Democrats--who had promised to end the deficit spending--took over and the deficit spending, rather than coming under control, went out of sight.

They passed the Dodd-Frank bill. It has historic overregulation of community banks.

Now, why would a group who is so upset with Wall Street pass legislation that devastates community banks that are closest to the community, know the borrowers the best, that have been the real foundation of this country? Why would they strangle out community banks with this massive overregulation that really doesn't hurt the massive, big banks?

Well, someone said years ago, follow the money. And if you look at the money that has been contributed to campaigns for many years, you find out that the Wall Street executives and their immediate family normally donate about four times more to Democrats than they do to Republicans.

Now, the Wall Street executives have to endure being called fat cats by a Democratic President, but they know, perhaps it's a wink and a nod, I'll call you fat cats, but I'm going to destroy your competition. We'll get rid of community banks. We'll strangle them with overregulation. They can't make loans. We'll threaten them through the FDIC and the regulators to prevent them from making loans that they know are to good, reliable people who have never missed a payment. We'll threaten them not to do that, and we'll choke them out. And the only people to be left are the big investment banks on Wall Street that got us into the big mess in the first place.

So if you follow the money and you follow the contributions, you find out, gee, Democrats talk about Wall Street as if they're Republicans, but there are four times more Democrats on Wall Street as executives than there are Republicans. What a shock. Because they talk a good game, I thought for so long that Wall Street executives must be Republicans, the way the Democrats talk. Not so. President Obama got four times more contributions from executives and their immediate family than did a guy named John McCain.

So, we look on further. What about jobs?

How about when we have a disaster, by British Petroleum, who has been allowed to operate in the gulf coast with 800 or so egregious safety violations, but that's okay. According to the Obama administration, they didn't want to step in.

I read an account that at the very time Deepwater Horizon had blown out, and this administration, Obama administration, should have been all over them, the executives of British Petroleum were negotiating with the Democrats to be the one big oil company that rolled out support in favor of cap-and-trade.

I said I wouldn't use the term ``crap-and-trade'' anymore, so I'll avoid saying that.

But they had a big oil company that was willing to come out and support cap-and-trade. So certainly this administration and the Democrats in the House and Senate wouldn't want to do anything too detrimental to British Petroleum because they're going to come out on our side. That meant that they ended up actually believing BP when they said, Oh, we'll get it under control.

Well, they didn't get it under control.

So then there was this bipartisan group of experts peer-reviewing what was going on in the gulf coast, and they came back with a report that made recommendations of what should be done. One of those recommendations was not to have a moratorium on drilling, not only of the deep water, but also the very shallow water. They didn't recommend it. And yet this administration goes through and changes the report the way it's printed and put out so that it makes it sound like these experts recommended a moratorium. They did not. But that's the way this administration wanted to manipulate what the American public believed so that the President could sign off on a moratorium.

Other than those precious lives that were lost and those who were harmed out there on the Deepwater Horizon rig because this administration had allowed them to continue to operate, the biggest damage to the people in the gulf area was from the President's moratorium.

There were people who were making $75,000 in salary working on rigs-- and that was the minimum, basically, from what I was told by people that worked on rigs--and that income stopped, and those families had nothing because this President perverted a report into making people believe that it said we should cut off drilling in the gulf coast, and it devastated so many in the gulf coast region.

If you want to look at what the President really thinks about big oil companies, it's very similar to what is said and done about Wall Street. They call the Wall Street executives all kinds of names--wink, wink, nod, nod. We're going to pass legislation that eliminates your competition, and then you'll be in charge, and then maybe you can make eight times as many contributions to Democrats as you do to Republicans in both Wall Street and among Big Oil.

How would that happen?

Well, if you read the bill that President Obama put together--and it was the second American Jobs Act that was filed, because I filed the first one, because he ran around the country for weeks saying, Pass the American Jobs Act. There wasn't one filed. I figure if he's going to run around America saying, Pass the American Jobs Act, there ought to be one. So I put a two-page bill together that would have eliminated the 35 percent tariff we put on every American-made good by any company in America.

If we eliminate that 35 percent tariff, also called a corporate tax, you would see companies flocking into America. You would see people with jobs. They wouldn't be standing in line trying to get food stamps, standing in line trying to get more government help. They would have a job and all the pride that comes from that, of doing a good job and making your own money and making your own way.

But we have a group in this Congress, in both ends. They're in the majority down in the Senate, in the minority down here; and it's certainly not all of my Democratic friends, but they think the best way to help a country is just to give away more of other people's money.

If you look at the President's proposal in his so-called American Jobs Act, he told people, I'm going to just really take after Big Oil.

Well, I was one who actually read all 135 or 138 pages, whatever it was, and in the last part is where he got around to Big Oil, except it doesn't hurt Big Oil. It absolutely devastates and would eliminate all the small independent oil companies operating in America. And those small independent oil companies happen to drill and operate nearly 95 percent of all the oil and gas wells in America.

He takes away deductions of the normal cost of doing business that anybody in business is allowed to take as a deduction. Why not? It's the cost of doing business. It's not profit. That way, you only tax the profit. And it eliminates deductions that actually do not help big oil companies. They can't take those deductions. Only the small companies can take that deduction.

So the President's plan, when you really look at it, instead of looking at what he says, look at what he did. What he did was provide the elimination of the independent oil and gas companies in America.

And you don't have to have been to an Ivy League school. In fact, you're better off maybe in figuring this out if you didn't, because he had a Harvard economic advisor at the time. And of course, Art Laffer, I think the world of him. I think he's maybe the best economic advisor any President's ever had, despite his Harvard education. But you don't have to have an Ivy League education to understand that if this President had been successful in eliminating every independent oil and gas company, as his bill would have done, not only will you eliminate millions of jobs, including those who derive jobs from the independent oil and gas business as well as the business itself, not only would you do that, you would eliminate most of the production in America.

What does that do? That drives the price of oil and gasoline way up, dramatically up. Natural gas, oil, all of that goes dramatically up, because the major oil companies in the world are not interested in coming in and operating smaller wells. They go for the big ones.

That means there is no competition to the massive oil and gas companies in the world. I was shocked to find out in our Natural Resources Committee that, if you look at all of the big oil companies in the world and if you see them listed just by how much they've got in reserves, the American companies like Exxon are way down the list. The biggest oil companies are those operating as single companies in OPEC nations.

And what would this President do?

He would do what he has done repeatedly--he would help foreign countries. He would help the bigger folks, the bigger oil companies. I'm sure it would have benefited the fat cats, as he calls them, on Wall Street, but it would have put out of business 94, 95 percent of the oil and gas wells in America. That meant everybody's price went up. How sad is it that one of the few promises that he kept--I don't know, it may be the main promise--was to drive up the cost of energy in America. Boy, has he done that.

Now, I love having quotes from people who talk about the Congress being the worst Congress that they can recall, especially Republicans, when the body at the other end of the Hall has not fulfilled the obligation that they are required by law to do, and that's to pass a budget. Not in over 3 years. So how are we going to get anything done in Congress?

We've got a Senate down there, controlled by Democrats, who say, We're not going to do our job, and we're going to leave over and over on recess, and we're never going to do our job because, if people saw what our budget really is, they'd get mad at us, so we don't want a budget. We just want to keep spending at these ridiculously high levels. If we work through a budget, we might have to do like the House did when they worked through a budget, and we may actually have to cut some things.

How incredibly disingenuous for anyone in America to stand up and say, Gee, we really want to bring down our spending, and yet everything they propose, except for the military, creates more spending. How disingenuous for anybody in America who stands up and says, These Republicans want to cut Medicare; they're going to destroy Medicare, if they've been awake during any of the actual bills that have been passed by the Democrats, especially during that whole long ordeal when the Democrats had the House and they had the Senate and they had the White House, and when America made it clear we do not want ObamaCare. They said, We don't care. We want it. It's going to be more government control.

It really was about the GRE, the government running everything, not just health care. By the passage of ObamaCare without one single Republican vote--not a one; it was completely done with Democratic votes, this $716 billion in cuts to Medicare--the Democrats voted that in. The Democratic President signed it in. It devastates Medicare more than anything that has ever been done to Medicare, and it was without one single Republican vote.

So how in the world could somebody come in here or anywhere and blame Republicans for wanting to cut Medicare? Now, I blame my leadership. Anybody who is around can find it.

We should never have agreed with the Democrats to that stupid supercommittee, deficit ceiling bill. We should not have. I was assured, No, no, no. They don't want $300 billion or $400 billion-$500 billion in cuts in Medicare, which would be a sequester. They will come together, and we'll reach an agreement. I pointed out that these are the same people who cut $716 billion out of Medicare in ObamaCare. So, of course. I pointed out, if they don't have this supercommittee structure and refuse to let there be any agreement, then there is no one in the country who can be blamed for cutting Medicare except the Democrats.

But if they get this bill passed on the deficit-raising bill and if it requires a supercommittee to reach an agreement--if they can get that through and get us to go along with it, thinking that they're going to actually reach an agreement--then they can stonewall and not reach an agreement no matter what we offer, and then they get a twofer. They get hundreds of billions in

cuts to our national security at a time when our national security has not been in this kind of jeopardy since 9/11. Actually, on 9/11 it wasn't in the kind of jeopardy we are in right now, today.

Under this administration, we have seen a win in Iraq turned into a loss because of just the total abandonment of what we created in the way of a friend in Iraq. Maliki--now, he's no friend of mine. He says I can't come back in the country. Yet if I put myself in Maliki's situation, who is the leader of Iraq--and I know Obama has said we're leaving and we're not leaving anybody or anything; we're leaving--and if you see America is pulling out and if you see all this radical stuff going on across the border in Iran, well, you realize America is not going to be around to keep any stability, and I'm going to have to start doing what Iran says.

So what did we do?

We created a country. We had a victory. Even though President Obama, as a Senator, was against the surge, everybody said it worked, that we'd won. Then he pulled us out in such a way that he snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory. Now you've got Iraq that is under heavy influence by Iran. Thank you, President Obama. We've got Syria that is run by a tyrant. Perhaps Syria was the only place we should have intervened, and this President still hasn't gone in and helped there-- oh, no. Because the 57 States that make up the Organization of the Islamic Conference were all for us going into Egypt and going into Libya and taking out two people with whom this administration had agreements. They loved the idea of America taking out and helping take out people that were allies of ours. They loved that.

Some of us in this body were saying, Don't do this. We don't know who's going to take over. These could be some radicals who will even empower the radicals more. I mean, you look across at Tunisia and Libya and Egypt and Iraq and Iran and Syria and Lebanon. You look at these countries and come on over to Afghanistan--that this President is losing as we speak--and Pakistan, which has been harming us all they could while still taking our money. Thank you, Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama. You look, and you go, oh, my gosh. This is the makings. This is the massive beginning of a new Ottoman Empire that President Obama can take great credit for. Yes, we're in big trouble here in America, but, wow, look what he has helped do in the Middle East. It's a new Ottoman Empire. Thank you, President Barack Hussein Obama. This will be quite a legacy for you.

I'm not one of those who says he is not a Christian. All I know is that's between him and God. What I do know is he has helped jump-start a new Ottoman Empire and left our friend and ally Israel so vulnerable in this sea of radicalism that he has helped bring to the surface.

How could any of us who were around in '79 not be reminded of President Carter? He has got to be happy--thank you. Now I'm not the worst President in the world. But at the time, he thought we'll just turn our backs on the Shah--not a nice guy, but he was creating some form of stability. When he was gone, President Carter called Ayatollah Khomeini a man of peace.

What a welcome thing.

He came in, and he was the supreme leader when our Embassy was attacked, which is an act of war--just as it was in Libya, just like it is in Cairo. It's an act of war. Any commander would make it clear, except President Carter and President Obama, that you've attacked American soil. You've attacked us. Under everybody's form of international law, you either straighten it out, or we're coming in because we have a right under international law to protect ourselves, and if it means taking your government out because of what you've done or have allowed to be done or have helped foment, then we do it.

In Egypt, this administration helped bring about what they thought would be a great thing, an Arab Spring. It's turned into an American winter. At the same time, this administration was blessing and loving the Occupy Wall Street movement, even though they were clearly a bunch of Democrats, a bunch of kids with iPads, iPhones out there. There was rape, drugs, all kinds of illegality and immorality out there abounding. This administration is saying this is a good thing.

You see the signs all over the place. Let me show you. At the Occupy movement, you would see signs like this: ACAB, all cops are--some people said ``bad,'' but I've been corrected. The B stands for something to do with fatherless children. ACAB, that's at the Occupy Oakland movement. You can look at pictures and see all these Occupy movements and see ACAB everywhere.

Well, I was a little shocked when my staff points out, Look at that. This was on a wall in Egypt, and I need somebody to explain how, among all this Arabic writing by the radicals that have charged our Embassy in Egypt, how in the middle of all this Arabic do we get ACAB? Who's doing that? There were rumors of some type of collusion, but who among those radicals in Egypt is writing ACAB, which is what you see at all the Occupy movements in America? Somebody has got some explaining to do, I would think, but not to this administration, because this administration thinks both the Occupy movement and the Arab Spring are a great thing, even though it's brought to power radicals who want to destroy America, who want to destroy Israel. How frustrating for our friend Israel.

When we had friends come in here in the last hour, they were talking about Fannie and Freddie. On a personal basis, I like Barney Frank. He is a brilliant guy. But it's not that hard to go back and find quotes from him about the wonderful condition that Fannie and Freddie were in, and it's not hard to find people here on Capitol Hill that can explain how he stood in the way of the reforms that some here on Capitol Hill wanted to do.

We also heard from him that in 2010, that there was a bunch elected that don't understand Congress and a free society. They were called ``extremists.'' These freshmen that came in saying, You know what? Everybody should pay their fair share. It shouldn't be 51 percent of Americans paying for everybody else just because Democrats want to keep people beholden to them so they'll keep voting for them. Once they get more than half of all the voters who are getting more than they're putting in, we've lost the country. It will be in complete demise. It may be 10 years or so, but once we get to that point, historically, you do not get that country back. We would not either, absent a miracle of God.

We were told during the conventions that the Republicans do not have a franchise on God. Everybody at the Democratic convention was saying, We love God; we worship God; we love Israel; we like Jerusalem as a capital. We heard all this stuff until there was a vote, and, holy cow, we saw plain and clear that everybody in the Democratic convention does not want God mentioned. They don't want to hear about God. They don't want to hear about Jerusalem being the capital of Israel. They don't want it. They apparently side more with the Palestinians than they do those who were possessing and in that land 1,600 years before there was a man ever talked about named Muhammad is all you can figure. King David was there in Hebron, which now we're told, Oh, do the Israelis have history in this land? It's where David ruled for 7 years, about 16 to 17 centuries before anybody had ever heard of Muhammad. How would they not have a history in that land?

I was talking to Prime Minister Netanyahu about the history in the land. He mentioned the story of Ben-Gurion, who led the ragtag forces to fight their way back to Jerusalem after overwhelming forces had driven them out. The story was--and this was the first I had heard it, was when the Prime Minister mentioned it to me, but I've heard it a number of times since. He said Ben Gurion was challenged with, What is your voucher for claiming this land? And Prime Minister Netanyahu used the word, ``Bible.'' I'm sure it was a Torah. He said that Ben Gurion held up a Bible and yelled, This is my voucher.

Do they have a history in the land? How blind do you have to be to not see it?

With cap-and-trade legislation, thankfully, we had just a handful of enough friends on the Democratic side of the aisle that we were able to stop that, or it would have tripled or quadrupled the price of gasoline. It would have devastated industry. Industry

would have had to leave in even bigger numbers from this country.

We were told about the Bush stimulus, that they got bipartisan votes on the Bush stimulus. I guess so. Any time either party talks about giving away other people's money, we're going to get a bunch of Democrats to go along with the Republicans that mistakenly agree to that.

While standing right here in this aisle as he came by, I asked President Bush a question. We had found out that $40 billion of the $160 billion Bush stimulus was going to go to people as rebates, even though they didn't pay an income tax. Standing right up there, that's when I asked the question: Mr. President, how do you give a rebate to somebody that didn't put any bait in? It's not a rebate. It's welfare. Call it what it is.

My friends across the aisle in the last hour said they couldn't even get 100 votes to support President Bush's effort to save the economy. He's talking about TARP. I would have supported President Bush's efforts to save the economy, but unfortunately that really good man, smarter than most people around here give him credit for, witty, clever, just a joy to be around, but the problem there was he listened to Hank Paulson and his cronies who were going to bail out their buddies who give four to one to Democrats over Republicans. That's what happened.

Paulson did get his way, but we didn't have 100 people on the Republican side of the aisle vote for that because there was a former FDIC Chair named Isaac. He and a bunch of economists had some recommendations. These were free market recommendations. The projection was even then that we have at least $700 billion in banks overseas that American companies and American individuals had earned overseas. They know that if they bring it into the U.S., they'll have to pay 40 to 50 percent tax with all of the interest and penalties, so they just leave it in banks overseas. They'd love to bring it in here, but we're the only country that double taxes because we don't let people bring in money without hammering the heck out of them, even though they've done a favor, done a good thing and earned money overseas that they'd like to bring here into America.

Proposal-wise, all you have to do is say that instead of borrowing 41 cents to 42 cents out of every dollar and coming up with $700 billion to give away to Hank Paulson so he can enrich his friends under that bill--I read it. It was a disaster. I couldn't vote for that, because I read it. It would let him give money to anybody he wants to, loan money to whoever he wants to, pay more than fair market value if, in his mind somehow, some way, some day, it might have some possible way of helping our economy.

We don't do that in America, and that bill did it. That's why you didn't have 100 votes on this Republican side of the aisle for it. Our leadership made a mistake in supporting it on that Friday. I just call them like I see them. That was a mistake, but that's where we are.

We heard, in the last hour, about Republicans who say my way or the highway. Are you kidding me? We reached across the aisle during ObamaCare, saying, look, there's a bunch of these things we can agree on, insurance for people in your household under 26. We could do it for insurance across State lines. There were a number of things we could agree on.

Insurance companies shouldn't be able to punish people for having a preexisting condition when the insured has acted in good faith all along the way and the insurer messes them around. We were willing to work things out. They said, we've got the votes. We don't need your votes, we don't want them.

Well, the truth is we want Democratic votes on the Republican side, but we don't want to keep taking other people's money to give it away. I have heard in here so many times, well, you know, Jesus talked about helping other people, the orphans and widows. Well, a lot of us belong to churches, and we believe in doing that, that that is what Jesus said to do.

But I can't find anywhere in the Bible where it says, go ye, therefore, take somebody else's money--because you don't want to do your own--take somebody else's money and help the widows and orphans and other people. He said you do it, you help them. When you do that, I can personally tell you, when you do that you're individually blessed. That's why Jesus said he knew it would bless the giver more even than the one who received the gift.

In fact, you want a real example, what did Zacchaeus do after he met Jesus? He went and cut taxes. We don't even have to get into the fact that he was going to give a 4-1 rebate, did, to the people that he had wronged. You don't hear that around here.

To continue to hear our friends talk about ending Medicare as we know it, that disastrous ObamaCare bill will end Medicare forever when you cut $716 billion. When you create this ObamaCare monstrosity, it's a government takeover of so many things, and it's disastrous.

Yes, we're having to leave here, and I'm not happy about it. I didn't want another CR passed. We should have demanded that this Democratic majority at the other end of the hall stick around until they got a budget as the law requires them to do and don't leave until you do it, and let's stay here and get it.

I can promise my friends across the aisle that all we have to hear is any inclination that the Democrats, controlled by Harry Reid in the Senate, as dictated by President Obama down Pennsylvania Avenue, if they want to work a budget out together, and we can work these things out together, we will come back in a heartbeat. We will be ready to go.

We saw with that supercommittee, just as I predicted in July of last year, they didn't want an agreement. Apparently my friends who were talking in the last hour didn't know, but Pat Toomey and some others made a proposal that would have caused more taxes to have to be paid by the wealthiest in the Nation. The top 1 percent paid 39 percent of the taxes. Well, if they get 39 percent of the income they should, but they only get 13 percent of the income.

They wanted them to pay more. There was a proposal in good faith by Republicans, we'll raise revenue, and it was reported here locally that, gee, some of the Democrats said, you know, this may do the trick. We may get to an agreement now. This is great. Thanks for doing this. Since you're willing to raise revenue on the rich, we can reach an agreement.

Then they go away, and they must have talked to Harry Reid and President Obama, and you can see the game playing. You have got to go back and tell them we're not going to reach an agreement because our best hope for winning the Presidency again and having control in the Senate is if we tell America the Republicans won't reach an agreement, they are a do-nothing group. I hope and pray people will look beyond that and see who really is the do-nothing.

We have got jobs bills down the hall. This ought to be a day of renaissance. This ought to be a day when the economy is booming. We now know we could be exporters of energy. We could be energy independent and export energy. But this President has a war against all of the below--that means all of the energy below the ground--that we could be using and exporting. He has got a war against it. All he is in favor of--as he said, he is for all of the above--that means wind and solar.

Well, guess what? The sun doesn't always shine, the wind doesn't always blow. So if that's what you want for energy it means you are going to have a coal plant, a natural gas plant, something, a hydroelectric plant, and then you are going to have two or three times as many transmission lines.

When you mandate wind and solar, and they don't provide energy all the time, they can't, then you are going to have a source from somewhere. Now we are doubling and tripling and going to force the price of energy to go up because we're going to demand Solyndras and that kind of thing so this administration can reward their cronies.

We're at trouble within and without. I just want to remind my friends, this was reported in The New York Times, December 9, 2008, ``5 Charged in 9/11 Attacks Seek to Plead Guilty":

At the start of what had been listed as routine proceedings

Monday, Judge Henley said he had received a written statement

from

the five men dated November 4 saying they planned to stop

filing legal motions and ``to announce our confessions to

plea in full.''

They were pleading guilty. We got the transcript. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed admitted guilt. He admitted. He confessed to all kinds of heinous kinds.

Then this administration, President Obama and Eric Holder announced they want a New York City show trial that would have endangered New York yet again, as if they hadn't had enough trauma, and would have put a trial in there. Immediately these guys withdraw their plea. We're not going to plead guilty, we can get a show trial in New York. These guys who are running things here don't know what they're doing. What a disaster that would have been.

As far as the great contribution, the great work that's being done in Afghanistan, we took a war where we were making progress, and here are the actual DOD numbers. You see that under Commander in Chief Bush there were 625 Americans, our precious, priceless men and women, who were killed from October of 2001 to the end of 2008, 625 precious lives.

Bush goes out, President Obama comes in, January of 2009, and by the end of August there had been a subtotal of 1,474 additional American men and women killed under Commander Obama. Not only that, 14,817 people had been wounded, Americans had been wounded, lose arms, lose legs, disastrous disabilities, under Commander Obama as compared to the 2,638 terrible wounds that were inflicted on Americans under Commander Bush.

Our President has been in command of 70 percent of the deaths in Afghanistan, though he has been commanding half the time, and has 84 percent of the wounds.

The parents of one of the SEAL Team 6 that was killed on the Chinook August 6 of 2011, they were in the briefing. They have said this publicly, that's why I will say it again. One of the parents asked, ``If this was so terrible, this was such a hotbed, you knew it was a hotbed, a lot of aircraft, American aircraft have been fired on recently, why would you allow this Chinook to go in? Why wouldn't you send in a drone?''

The answer from the general who was doing the briefing, they said was, because we're trying to win the hearts and minds in Afghanistan. You're letting our SEAL team be killed when you are trying to win the hearts and minds? That's not the job of the military. The military's job is to go in, defeat an enemy, and come out, and we've got to get back to that.

This President has presided over 70 percent of the deaths in Afghanistan, a disastrous job. It's time to bring the President home, as well as bringing our military home. We could just say what President Bush did in October of 2001. We are going to provide embedded troops. We are going to let the enemy of our enemy be our friend. Not to this administration; they are the enemy. The enemy of our enemy is our enemy to Obama. But I have met with them a couple of times this year. They are our friends.

They're Muslim. They're our friends. They don't want to live under the tyrannical rule of the Taliban. And they're willing to fight, as they have, and die with Americans for that freedom. And so we don't let a renegade group like the Taliban that wants to destroy America be out.

Make no mistake, the Blind Sheik was the object of release by a candidate named Morsi in Egypt. He said, I want the Blind Sheik released. When I'm elected president, I'm going to demand and I'm going to get it.

Just a day before 9/11 this year, last week, you had the brother of the al Qaeda leader, Zawahiri, saying he was ready to broker a deal that would prevent lots of violence. He also knew the day before that there was an obscure video nobody had ever seen and wasn't going to inflame anybody, but he knew that his buddies, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian Government, the Egyptian television stations would convert that, translate that into a language that they would inflame people that they would do violence in the Middle East. And they did. The second day of that broadcasting here is Zawahiri saying, Hey, I can broker a deal. Just release the Blind Sheik, some other murdering thugs, and we'll work a deal out.

This administration has offered to release other murdering thugs of the Taliban and to buy them an office in Qatar if they'll just sit down and talk. That's not the way you do foreign diplomacy. You reward our friends so others want to be our friends and you punish our enemies so they don't want to be our enemies. This President has it backwards. He said, They'll look at me different because I'm the first President to have ever grown up in a Muslim country--the years he spent in Indonesia. Well, I wonder if that might be true. Maybe they will. Maybe they'll want to be friends.

Well, the proof is in. The approval rating of the United States in those Muslim countries where we've been was 33 percent--which was terrible--under President Bush in 2008. And now under this President we see a report it's now 15 percent, under this guy who was going to be our President and the Muslim countries would love us. They don't. Because in Muslim countries the real people, the people that we really need to reach out to, not the leaders that hate us and want to destroy us but the real people, they respect a country who understands who's their enemy and who's their friend. They have no respect for a country that tries to do what would be the equivalent of a child--and I've been there on the schoolyard, picked on by bullies. I was little growing up. But I can tell you, I had my nose bloodied many a time. You don't win respect nor love from a bully by giving him your lunch money or begging him to be nice to you. Not only do they not love you, not respect you; they gain even more contempt for you. And that's what we're seeing happen.

This President is trying to buy affection from people who were bullies, who are radical Islamists that want to destroy us. You're not going to get love and affection. You get contempt. It helps other people join in the fight against us. This President is doing great damage to us. And it's time to bring his Presidency to a peaceful, law- abiding end with the election.

Things look tragic around the world unless we have a new Commander in Chief and a new leader who wants to rein in the spending. And one thing I'll promise my colleagues across the aisle, if you want to go back to that runaway spending that was too much in 2008, that Speaker Pelosi presided over and Harry Reid had in the Senate and that ended in the last day of September, you want to go right back to that total amount being spent, I'm with you. I'll vote. I'll do it bipartisan and I'll bring a bunch of people with us and we'll bring down a trillion dollars a year in spending. How about that? That's pretty bipartisan, isn't it? Go back to a Democratic budget of 2008. Well, I offer that. Let's see how many Democrats are bipartisan enough to take us up on it.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

The things that are going on right now in the world are deeply troubling. For those of us who have studied history, it becomes even more disturbing when we make the same mistakes again, mistakes that get people killed who have entrusted their lives to their government, who say, I'm willing to lay down my life for you. I give my life in service to you.

As some of the military, some of our outstanding military in Afghanistan this year have told me sincerely, I'm willing to lay down my life for my country. Please don't waste my life.

The decisions of a President who has never really gotten involved in foreign affairs, his experience before coming into public office is as a community organizer. That can be fine if you adequately study history and really understand, not from the standpoint of an Indonesian school child and the limited viewpoint that that may yield, but from the standpoint of someone who has studied history inside and out and understands such things as the axiom that when a nation's enemies see that nation's strongest ally or allies pulling away from it, that's when they move. The old axiom that among nations, weakness is provocative.

Two years ago, I'd seen an article, and this may have been the one I'd seen because the title is ``Obama votes against Israel.'' This is an article dated May 29, 2010. And it points out in the article that the White House sided with Israel's enemies, something that this Nation didn't normally do, and basically demanding that Israel disclose all their nukes.

Well, those who study the Bible, biblical history, may recall that King Hezekiah was a very good king in Israel, and things went pretty well, but Isaiah was sent to confront Hezekiah about what he had done with visitors who had come from Babylon.

God knew what had been done. But Isaiah asked and Hezekiah explained, and this is the New Texas Paraphrase Version, but in essence he said, You know, all of these wonderful leaders came over from Babylon, so I showed them all of our treasure, and if you get into the strict interpretations, the translation, he basically says, I showed them our armory, all of our defenses.

Isaiah points out, You fool. You're going to lose the country because you've done this. No matter what point in history you are, when a nation shows all its defenses to its enemies, that information at some point in time will be used to take down such a foolish nation.

Even when a nation discloses all of their defenses to friends, to staunch allies--because as we've seen, we thought the U.S. had an ally in Castro in Cuba, and yet once he was in power, he turned rather remarkably against the United States. Those things happen. Power changes in different countries; and if they have information, if they have weaponry, if they have the wherewithal, then sometimes a former friend can turn into an enemy.

So it was no surprise to me, being a student of history, that when it came out through the media that, gee, the Obama administration has taken a shocking position when looked at historically against Israel's well-being, then was it a shock that the flotilla left within only mere days to go challenge the blockade at the Gaza Strip? Nobody should have been surprised by that because the world, Israel's enemies, had been shown that this administration was willing to pander to Israel's enemies to try to make Israel's enemies think, you know, hey, we're one of you guys. We're just friends. We want to be friends with everybody.

It doesn't work that way. You don't throw your friends under the bus, and you don't gain friends by paying off enemies. It has never worked. It will never work. It gets people killed.

So Israel's been in a bit of a bind.

When we see the way this fiasco over the last year and a half has been handled, some might say, look, this is no time to be talking about these things. For goodness sake, decisions are being made as I speak that will either let people live or get people killed. If we don't talk about it now, when will we talk about it? Let the historians write that nobody would stand up and say this is a mistake? Let's don't repeat the terrible chapters of history. Let's get it right.

All of us who served in the United States armed services took an oath and had it cross our mind, you know, the time may come where I do have to lay down my life for my country. But after I had a soldier say that in Afghanistan, I had to realize, you know, I had that in the back of my mind. I'm willing to lay down my life. I hope it doesn't get wasted.

Well, the thing is every American that has laid down their lives for their country didn't do it for this administration or any other. There are ideals that this country was founded on and stands for even now.

But we're in the midst of a crisis, and part of it created by our own mishandling, and we have got to make sure that we do not continue to make the same mistakes and continue to pander to our enemies and continue to provoke them by showing weakness.

We owe the lives that have been laid down that are even now coming, being brought back into this country. We owe them an obligation to make sure that others do not lose their lives unless it really counts.

I come over here nauseated today upon hearing reports about--and I pray God they're not accurate--about what may have happened during the 8 hours or so the body of our great ambassador was missing.

But, we also know, well, gee, the Embassy in Cairo released a statement and they were basically condemning anybody that would produce a provocative film that might offend Muslims. Good grief. How many movies have been produced that provoke and insult those of us who are Christians? Thank God that most of us, as Christians, understand that that does not justify going and killing people and burning people and burning up buildings.

We understand that we believe in freedom of speech, that God gave us freedom to make choices. So in the most ideal country, others will have freedom to choose right and freedom to choose wrong.

But if it's too wrong, we have criminal laws, domestically, to deal with those issues. But you would hope someone, before any further action is taken to condemn Americans for using freedom of speech here, would analyze the situation--as they did not before they first condemned and even had a general officer of our military call and ask about maybe not producing a film, not pushing it out there, whatever it was he asked: Don't use your First Amendment rights that I'm supposed to be fighting for you to have. Don't use those. That will make my job easier.

Well, actually, the general doesn't know, it makes it more difficult.

Let's look at this. Let's analyze it a moment. A friend, Patrick Poole, asked a question that made me start asking questions. Let's look at it. We heard about this film that all of a sudden on 9/11--shouldn't that ring a bell--on 9/11 provoked riots. It provoked people in Cairo climbing up the walls of our Embassy. And it's easy to watch these things happen. You know historically that people will push the envelope, and these people did in Cairo: Well, I wonder if the soldiers will stop us if we go up to the wall.

And maybe they go up and spray-paint on the wall: Ooh, nobody stopped us from there. How about if we climb on the wall?

Well, no soldiers. They watched. They didn't do anything; they just watched.

Oh, let's push it a little further. Let's climb up the walls. Wow, we're up here on top of the walls and these soldiers that are supposed to protect the Embassy have done nothing. Let's take down the American flag; that's always popular here. Let's run up an al Qaeda-type flag.

And nothing was done. That is provocative in its weakness.

Now, this film is still a mystery. It should make people go: Wait a minute. This doesn't make sense that all of a sudden this film provoked nations of people, masses of people to come out and riot and it would cause them to kill an Ambassador and innocent people, this film.

Let's look at this a little more carefully. Then you find a story that it actually turns out there's a report that this movie came out in July. So a movie that nobody notices, nobody pays any attention to comes out in

July. Well, if this ridiculous movie, this insulting movie that insults Muslims, we're told--I haven't seen it, don't plan to--but it came out in July, how on 9/11, all of a sudden, does this movie cause people to be killed?

I would humbly submit that a lesson to learn here is that when American citizens utilize their free speech rights, their freedoms of religion, that the President and everyone under his command is not to direct that people can't use their freedom of speech and freedom of religion; they're to protect them. The messages that should come out from an administration are not: Don't use your freedom of speech and freedom of religion because we don't want to offend anyone. I'm offended all the time. You don't go kill people because of it.

Although it's not recognized under shari'a law, under Western law in a Western civilization--we dealt with this all the time in the court over which I was a judge--provoking words, no matter how insulting, provoking words are never a defense to a physical assault, much less murder. That's what we believe in this country. That's what Western civilizations believe. We should be defending that civilized concept, not pandering to people who are being inflamed by our enemies.

So then we find out that the inflammation of people who would kill American citizens and an American Ambassador were inflamed by this film that came out in July, but it was not until it was released through the Egyptian media that it started firing people up. Wow, isn't that remarkable? Right before 9/11. Well, now, if it's an insulting movie-- and from the information we have, the Muslim Brotherhood is basically in control in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood basically could shut down any Egyptian media source, but yet they produce or they get this information, they get the film out. Not only that, because there are some Muslims that may not speak English that might be inflamed into a fire that will burn down buildings and kill people, we'd better interpret that into their language.

Gee, why would a foreign country--who this President says has been our ally, and then he said they're not our ally, but they're not our enemy, and then we hear, well, actually, we do consider them an ally. Whatever they are, a friend does not take some obscure film that nobody noticed, interpret it into a language that it knows will inflame people who will kill Americans and put it out there. That's not a friend. That's an enemy of the United States of America. And it is an insult to this government and to the American people that this body would vote for a continuing resolution that allowed the potential for more money to go to enemies that would put out films that will inflame people, that get Americans killed.

We owe those who have given their lives better than this, and we owe those who are serving us abroad and serving here at home and may be sent better than this. So there are those who may say we should not be talking about this. If we don't talk about it now, others may give their lives. Let's save their lives for something more important than a mistake by an administration.

Our Ambassador to Libya is a hero. I've been to too many funerals of brave men and women who have given their lives for this country. So when I read a report or a media source that discloses the name of a former SEAL team member who is acting as private security at our facility in Libya and the report is--doesn't put it in quotes, but the report says that the administration released the information that this former SEAL member was killed while running for cover.

Now, I recognize that there are enough in the mainstream media who are so loyal, they take their marching orders--they may not lay down their lives, but they will lay down their reputations for this administration. Somebody may be willing to come forward and say, You know what? It's not exactly what the administration said. Maybe we misinterpreted that in the story.

It doesn't matter. The story came out, and the administration owes those who have given their lives for this administration better than that. Because I can guarantee you, I know enough SEAL members and I know enough SEAL team members that that SEAL team member was not running for cover when he was killed. If he was running, it was to get to a place from which he could conduct a better assault upon the enemy. That's the way they think. They don't think, ``Run for cover.'' They think, ``Where can I get to the best position to fight, to save those entrusted to my care?''

That's an insult, and I hope I never see another report like that from this administration or any Republican administration, because it's an insult and we owe better than that to those who are fighting for us.

Who made the decision in the Egyptian Government, in the Egyptian media to take this July obscure, and from what we hear, pitifully made film and blow it up in the Middle East, figuratively speaking-- figuratively speaking, blow it up in the Middle East--so that people who heard it and saw it would blow up Americans?

Who made that decision? And who made the decision--we need to know-- who made the decision to release a statement that was provocative in its weakness in saying, you know what, people over here are getting upset because some idiot made a film back in the United States, and so we need to be sure not to insult Muslims.

When have I ever seen anything from this administration say, you know what, we need to not make films in Hollywood that insult Christians, people like Mother Teresa, that deserve better treatment than that. When have I seen that?

We haven't, because this has been, in the past, a free country, where we have freedom of speech and freedom to make stupid, ridiculous, insulting movies.

But the obscure film this State Department apologized for had to be translated. It was translated by somebody. It had to be put on Egyptian television by somebody. Who could that have been?

And I would submit that until we find out, there should not be a dime of American money nor money that Americans have had to borrow in order to send to Egypt. It shouldn't go over there. It shouldn't go to Libya.

And it's time we wake up and quit playing stupid, silly games like this administration is doing with our dear friend, Israel, and understand decisions have consequences. And when this administration sided with Israel's enemies in May of 2010, it had consequences. People were hurt. People were killed.

When this administration, perhaps pouting, whatever the reason, well, I'm going to--and Beyonce, Jay-Z, I understand they're fantastic entertainers. But you've got a country named Israel that has been a friend, that has enemies at the gate, and there's not a better way to say it.

While we are pandering and playing and actually trying to make our enemies like us by offering to buy them offices in Qatar, to let their murdering thugs out so they can murder again, while we're playing these games thinking, gee, maybe our enemy will start liking us, the enemy is at the gate. And those centrifuges that are spinning in Iran are a modern-day mass of gas chambers that are being constructed for Israelis and for Americans.

Read what their leaders have said. Listen to what their leaders have said.

There's one way to stop them, that is, to be serious that we will take out anyone who wants to annihilate Americans or America. And when they know we're serious, we may not have to go do it. But it cannot be a bluff. People need to know the American people will not allow innocent American citizens to be target practice.

And for those who do not know enough history to know that in the song that our marines are so proud of, that I, as a grade school child, learned to sing in public school, to the shores of Tripoli, marines have been fighting our country's battles. Those shores of Tripoli came when the Muslim Barbary pirates were attacking American ships. And at that early time in our history, we didn't have a navy. Earlier we did not have marines. And it was flabbergasting to people like Thomas Jefferson who were sent over there to negotiate.

Why in the world would you attack Americans? We've never attacked you. You ought to look at us as peace-loving. And it was a shock when they were

told that actually, under our religion, we believe that if we die while attacking infidels, which we consider you to be, we go straight to paradise.

Jefferson and others were shocked. This doesn't mesh with most world religions. What religion would think it okay where actually you would get to paradise by killing innocent people?

Thank God that the vast majority of Muslims don't believe that. But it is pure folly to ignore those that do.

We owe those who serve the United States of America better than this. And to those who would say this is a political season, we should not be talking about anything but jobs, I would say before this economy can thrive, we have got to fulfill our oath to provide for the common defense because an economy won't last much longer if we don't protect those who are Americans here and abroad.

I pray for the wisdom of President Obama, for the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for those who are serving abroad these United States of America, and for our leaders in Congress, that though we are so close to an election, what will matter more is the fulfillment of our oath and the protection, as best we can, of those who are trying to protect us.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 3 o'clock and 18 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until Tuesday, September 18, 2012, at noon.

Madam Speaker, in the summer of 1973, it was a real honor for me to be selected to go on an exchange program. Of course I had to borrow the money to go and had to pay that back by working hard to take care of the loan, but I went on an exchange program to the Soviet Union, 1973, that summer. It was quite an eye-opener for me.

Despite how wonderful the country was made to sound and how great it was that the government, they proclaimed, was the safety net for everybody in the country, they were proclaiming because the government was in charge of everything and in charge of everybody's business, there was 100 percent employment. They talked about how wonderful their socialized medicine was.

There were eight Americans on this program that were allowed into the Soviet Union that summer, and we all had very different backgrounds, had different political views. There were a lot of big hearts in the group on both ends of the political spectrum.

But, for me, a kid growing up in east Texas, it was an extraordinary education. Because even though people talked about how wonderful it was to have socialized medicine, everybody had a safety net because the government was the safety net, that country's economic system was rotting from within.

I went to a medical school. It reminded me of pictures of American medical schools from 40 to 50 years before. We went to an economic exhibition, kind of like a world's fair in Moscow, at one point. It reminded me of the pictures from a 1940 or early 1950s world's fair, you know, things like tractors sitting out there with people oohing and aahing over tractors. I'm going, good grief, because I knew we didn't need a world's fair to see tractors like that. You could go to any used tractor dealer and find tractors that nice in the U.S., but everybody was told how wonderful it was.

During the course of the summer, during the course of my time down in the Ukraine, I got to be good friends with a few of the students there. They were very standoffish at first. I spoke some Russian back in those days, and they spoke better English than I did Russian. But one guy in particular, he'd bring his dictionary with him and translate, because both of us--you know, it's amazing. You take a language course--I had two years of Russian at Texas A&M. You know, you're taught to converse about, ``I'm going to the library'' and ``I have a dog'' and these kinds of things, but when you want to talk about really serious life issues, we weren't prepared for those things. We needed a dictionary so we could get our ideas across.

At one point he said, ``You seem surprised that our country wouldn't want

better.'' He grabbed my shirt and he said, ``We don't have material this good.'' I just had, you know, a regular polo-type shirt. He said, ``We don't have material this good for our individuals, and we fought two world wars on our soil. We don't have it as good as you do in your country, that's obvious. But people will always be reluctant to leave the best they've ever known for something they're not sure about.''

When we got to 1989 and the Soviet Union fell because of the economic disease and decay that was pushed into the death spiral by President Reagan's actions, followed by President George H. W. Bush, it collapsed. Then we began to see all of the economic problems that were eating away at that country because the government tried to be the safety net for everything and everybody, and it won't work that way.

At a collective farm, way out from Kiev, I was surprised. I have worked on farms and ranches, and you usually try to get your work done before midafternoon when the sun gets its hottest, and that means you start early, start as close to daybreak as you can, and midmorning is prime time.

Here it was midmorning, and these farmers were sitting around in the shade there in the farming village. I had been looking out at these fields. You could hardly tell what was cultivated and what wasn't. They looked terrible.

They had some really nice gardens right around their individual dwelling places. Yeah, those were kept up. Those they got to have for themselves. But the fields just didn't look good at all.

I tried to be nice, and in my best Russian I could, I said, ``When do you work out in the fields?'' They kind of laughed, and one of them said in Russian, ``I make the same number of rubles if I'm here or if I'm out there, so I'm here.''

Boy, was that a lesson in why a big, huge, nothing but safety net country can't work. Free markets work until they decide it's time to be socialistic, progressive, whatever you want to call it, and so they go that way. Then the free market forces fail because they have been taken over by progressive socialist structures.

Now, it's a good thought. I mean, it's a wonderful idea to think, gee, well, we'll just decree, as did the Pilgrims, as did the early New Testament Church, we'll just bring everything into a common storehouse and split it equally. It sounds like a great idea.

As the Apostle Paul found, as the Pilgrims found, eventually you have to say, You know what? This isn't working out very well. We're going to have to have some strict rules. The Pilgrims found, if you divide it up into private property and allowed people to eat what they grew, not only do they grow enough for themselves, but they actually would grow enough to use, trade, barter, sell, and that could be very effective.

I heard my friend across the aisle mentioning earlier about the so- called Ryan voucher care, and I know they know--and in fairness to my friend Paul Ryan, and it was great to see him on the floor this evening--that actually anybody over 55 gets Medicare. The Paul Ryan proposal, it's not exactly like the bill that I previously proposed, but, you know, my friend's brilliant. He's on the right track. He says, if you're over 55, you get Medicare.

Now, I would go a step further, because I know what's being proposed for those under 55 is going to end up being so much better giving control back to patients, getting control back between the doctor and the patients instead of having an insurance company or the government between the patient and the doctor.

This business is a safety net. Clearly, they're not talking safety net. They're talking government takeover of everything.

But Paul Ryan's plan would make sure that those under 55 had health care--and had it affordable. And so there are all kinds of reforms that need to be made. We did not need a full takeover of health care by the government.

My friend had mentioned that, because we kept passing bills to repeal ObamaCare--and actually there were very few bills that dealt with a massive repeal of ObamaCare, but there were many bills that picked out specific parts. Look, friends across the aisle, you surely don't want to be responsible for this terrible part of ObamaCare. So when people go back and say, Oh, you voted to repeal it 33 times, well, there were different aspects, and we couldn't even get our friends to vote to repeal parts that they knew, once they found out after they passed it, what was in it. Wouldn't even vote for things to be repealed that they knew would not be good.

My friend said that, basically, the President called us here and asked us to pass his American Jobs Act. And I was so glad he brought that up. I'd about forgotten about the American Jobs Act. He came and stood right there, Madam Speaker, and told us, I forget, 16, 17 times: Pass my bill, right here, right now, over and over. And so I kept wanting to get a copy of the bill. He was chastising us for not passing it. Well, show it to me. Let me see it. So we kept calling the White House trying to get it. A week later, it was clear there was no bill.

So I figured, well, if there's no bill, and he keeps running around the country spending all the taxpayers' money flying around on Air Force One, what sounded and looked like campaign stops, but government paid for it all--so he's out there saying over and over and over, Tell Congress to pass my American Jobs Act. Pass the American Jobs Act. He had banners: Pass the American Jobs Act. American Jobs Act. I thought, Well, good grief, if he's going to keep telling us we need to pass the American Jobs Act, there really ought to be one. So I put a 2-page bill together that would eliminate the 35 percent tariff that we put on all American-made goods here in America, made by any company in America. It's called a corporate tax; an insidious tax because it deceives people into thinking that, gee, if you tax the evil old mean corporations, then we don't have to pay it. Baloney. If a corporation, a company doesn't pass that tax on to its customers, clients, people buying its services, then they go out of business. That's how it works. Thirty-five percent tax. The highest tariff that any country in the world puts on its own goods. And we were doing that. So mine says, let's eliminate that. And we'd heard from people around the world that, good grief, if you just dropped your corporate tax 12 percent, manufacturing jobs would come flooding back into this country.

You want to talk about pro-union. I know this side of the aisle wants to see the government unions grow more and more. I can never understand that. I can understand retired government workers needing a union because they don't have leverage. But to have government workers in a country where the government is the people. All of us that are elected here, we're public servants. Everybody that is hired by the Federal Government is supposed to be a government servant. We work for the people of America. Why in the world would you need a union to conspire against the people of America? Because, obviously, the role of any government union would be to get government bigger and bigger and more and more benefits, to the detriment of those who are paying for all of that. So, anyway, I don't understand why we need Federal Government unions. Neither did Franklin D. Roosevelt. But that's where all this goes.

By the way, when we eventually got a copy of the President's idea of a Jobs Act, we found that although he had been telling everybody in America he was only going to increase taxes on millionaires and billionaires, what he did was increase taxes on everybody that made over $125,000 individually. He said he was going after Big Oil. He's going to end the giveaways to Big Oil. But when you look to around page 130 or so, the pages that dealt with oil companies, they were not going to affect the Big Oil companies at all. But since 94, 95 percent of all the oil and gas wells in America are drilled and operated by independent oil companies, run by Americans, you look at what was eliminated, it was really only the things that were going to devastate the independents, some of them basically mom-and-pop-type services that worked on oil wells, gas wells. It's going to shut them down. They wouldn't be able to afford business. It would eliminate the passthrough deduction for investing in wells. If the

independents can't get people to invest in the wells, they can't drill them. But the Big Oil companies, they don't have to get people to invest in oil wells. They've got enough money to do that.

It was incredible. I couldn't believe it. I got it to CPAs that do work for independent oil and gas companies, small ones, and they were saying, Oh, my word. If this goes into law, we'll be out of business. We can't stay in business. What does that do? It ends 94, 95 percent of the oil and gas wells in America. It also means that gasoline goes up even further than the doubling that this President has already done.

Oh, wind energy. We heard about wind energy, smart grid. Think about it. We've had these hearings in our Natural Resources Committee. Doc Hastings has done a fabulous job. Amazing the stuff you find out. And what we found out even just this week, last week, actually, when you talk about using wind or solar energy, since wind doesn't blow all the time and sun doesn't shine all time, and since we don't have an effective way to hold electricity, there's no massive battery that we've developed yet that holds significant amounts of electricity, so you have to use that electricity immediately, because you can't hold it. When we get to the point where we have some way to hold electricity, then we're on our way. Then solar, wind, those things will be a whole lot more helpful. But as it is, if you declare we're going to have to have wind energy and we're going to have to use solar energy, then for those times when the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining but people still need electricity, then you're going to have to have a coal-fired power plant, you're going to have to have a natural-gas powered plant, a nuclear powered plant.

So you're going to have to have all of those things standing by to produce the energy when these other things don't. You're going to have to have different sets of wires taking electricity from the regular power plants and also send them out to the windmills way out wherever they are, where they're out there chopping up endangered species, birds and all, and bring that electricity in. You're going to end up having to have different wires going out to solar places. And so actually you're going to be paying two and three times as much for energy because you have to have two to three times the infrastructure just so that you can say we're getting some of our power from wind and from sun.

What it did was set up more government. You read the bill like I did--and yes, I'm anal enough, I read some of these stupid bills, including the President's idea of a Jobs Act. It created more government. It took over more control over the Internet. It took over more control of cable. It's just a disaster.

So I hear about the President's great ideas for helping the economy, and I say thank goodness the President didn't pass that disaster because the economy would be doing even far worse. Well, except for the people that suck out the millions and hundreds of millions and billions, like the President's friends at Solyndra and things like that.

By the way, I see today this article, September 13, 2012: ``AP reports weekly U.S. jobless aid applications jump to 382,000,'' by Christopher Rugaber.

Anyway, jobless claims jump to a 2-month high. Not exactly the progress the President says was happening.

I've been mentioning, ever since I found out from Gold Star parents Billy and Karen Vaughn, they told me two-thirds of the deaths and the wounds of our military in Afghanistan have occurred under President Obama. I couldn't believe that. So we got the official numbers. I've got a poster around here somewhere. I don't have time to use it right now.

But when we got the official numbers, it turns out 70 percent of those who have been killed in Afghanistan have been killed under President Obama's command, even though he's been in command in Afghanistan only half the time of President Bush. Eighty-four percent of those people losing arms, legs, hands, terribly disabling wounds from IEDs and other injury sources, 84 percent of those have occurred under Commander in Chief Obama compared to the 16 percent that occurred under President Bush in Afghanistan.

Article here from Breitbart by Tony Lee:

On the somber 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, nearly

2,000 members of the U.S. military have died in Afghanistan

since the war started in response to the attacks in 2011.

By the way, this President Obama, when he was running for President, called it the ``good war.''

But this article by Tony Lee goes on and points out what I've been talking about ever since Billy and Karen brought that to my attention, and I was greatly sorry that I did not know that without them pointing it out to me.

It was also interesting to read an article by John Nolte, 12 September, 2012. Obviously, I like the guy. I like his cynicism. He says:

Oh, that awful Mitt Romney. Just a few minutes before the

White House itself disavowed the Cairo Embassy apologizing

for free speech, Romney rightfully condemned the appeasing

statement in no uncertain terms. And as a result, all day

long, the corrupt media has been on a rampage to make Romney

pay for the unpardonable sin of criticizing Their Precious

One.

You see, there's no precedent for a political opponent

immediately criticizing a sitting President after a foreign

policy crisis. Oh, wait.

Then it has reference to other articles where that's gone on, a flashback to Kerry slamming Bush. Over and over it's happened when it's a Republican President.

The article says:

So with the entire institution of the media circling the

wagons for Obama today, in a futile attempt to rescue him

from his own foreign policy blunders, we now have CBS News

riding to the rescue in order to give the same President who

condemned Romney before he condemned the terrorists an

opportunity to further politicize this tragedy:

``There's a broader lesson to be learned here. Governor

Romney seems to have a tendency to shoot first and aim

later.''

That's what President Obama had to say. Yes, that's the President talking about spouting off too quickly.

But the President is right about Mitt Romney: guilty as

charged. Romney did shoot first to defend the principles of

free speech that the people who work for Obama in Cairo were

so eager to fritter away. Yes, that damn Mitt Romney saw this

outrageous example of simpering in the face of terror coming

from American officials and immediately spoke out against it.

It goes on to make a great point. Romney stood up for free speech.

The movie that's been fussed about sounds like a ridiculous thing that should not be done, except that this is America where people, whether it's Howard Stern or anybody else, they have a right to say things, no matter how offensive they may be, unless they go so far that they actually harm other people.

Another article: ``No Record of Intel Briefings for Obama Week Before Embassy Attacks.'' This was written by Wynton Hall, 12 September, 2012, and it points out:

According to the White House calendar, there is no public

record of President Barack Obama attending his daily

intelligence briefing--known as the Presidential Daily Brief

(PDB)--in the week leading up to the attacks on the U.S.

Embassy in Cairo and the murder of U.S. Libyan Ambassador

Chris Stevens and three American members of his staff.

I've got to say. I read an account and a story of the administration reporting the name of one of the other three killed as part of the Libyan Embassy personnel. They gave that man's name, pointed out he was a former SEAL team member but was in a private security force. Then, according to the article, the administration reported that he was killed while running for cover.

Madam Speaker, I know something about SEAL team members. In the mind of a SEAL team member or a former SEAL team member, he is never running for cover. He is running for a place, if at all, from which to launch a better attack. Even in death, this administration can't be respectful to the people that have laid down their lives for this administration.

Even though the White House says that, gee, the President does read briefings, he just hasn't been getting them personally, I would hope that he would start doing that. There are people's lives at stake, and he is President. He's such a fantastic campaigner, and I know it's inconvenient, but I sure hope that he'll get back to being President.

To give credit where credit is due, it was very wonderful of the President to

take a minute and a half or whatever it was, a minute, minute and a half, to pay tribute to those who laid down their lives for their country at the Libya Embassy where they didn't have adequate security, and where this administration enabled al Qaeda and others to take over the government. It was nice of him to take a minute and a half to pay tribute to them giving their lives in the middle of his campaign event before he went on with the celebration.

I recall President George W. Bush. People here know we certainly had our differences, and I certainly disagreed with him on a number of things. But I had great respect for the man. He said:

How can I go play golf when I am Commander in Chief and I

have sent soldiers, our military, into harm's way? It just

doesn't feel right for me to be out on a golf course having a

good time when our men and women are in harm's way.

But it did look like a fun celebration there that President Obama was having in Las Vegas.

Another article: ``Libyan Official: U.S. At Fault in Attacks.'' Written by Awr Hawkins, 12 September, 2012.

He points out that although the head of Libya's National Assembly has formally apologized for the killing of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, other higher-ranking Libyan officials refuse to apologize and continue to contend the U.S. is to blame.

The story talks about those contentions. Hey, it was our fault. Kind of like the ridiculous claims that sometimes those of us who were judges or prosecutors heard from a guilty rape defendant who said, ``Well, you know, she was asking for it.'' Excuse me?

That was abominable what happened at the Libyan Embassy. It is a tragic fact that this administration, against the will of Congress, without even asking what the will of Congress was, said, Well, gee, the U.N., Organization of Islamic Conference, they want us there. So, why not? We ought to go. That's all he needed. He didn't care what Congress thought.

He enabled them. He used American bombers. And then when the American public obviously was upset, eventually, that it was taking so long-- hey, hey, keep in mind, it's not the U.S.; it's NATO. He may not have gotten a briefing that let him know that over 60 percent of the NATO military is American military.

Here's a flashback article. I just think it's important, when these terrible things are happening around the world, that we take a quick look at how we got where we are so maybe we don't keep doubling down on things that get Americans killed and hurt our national security. This article by Dana Loesch, 12 September 2012, ``Flashback: Obama Admin Endorsed Muslim Brotherhood,'' it points out from a New York Times article even August 1 this year, it said:

Leon E. Panetta, the United States Defense Secretary, said

on Tuesday that President Mohammed Morsi of Egypt was ``his

own man,'' a strong declaration of American support for Mr.

Morsi, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood whose future

course in Egypt remains a great unknown to the Obama

administration.

Well, it didn't keep us from enabling him to be there.

Another article: ``Obama Admits He Lost Egypt As American Ally.'' It goes on to talk about how the President, because of our turning our back, or stabbing a man with whom this administration had made agreements, who was trying to uphold the Israeli-Egyptian Accord that was brokered by President Carter--one nice thing that President Carter did. President Obama now admits, well, they're not really an enemy, but they're not an ally. We lost them as an ally because of the incompetence of this administration.

``Obama Declines Meeting With Netanyahu,'' and let me just finish with this. Although he doesn't have time for Netanyahu, apparently he has time to attend a Jay-Z and Beyonce fundraiser. They're fabulous entertainers, I understand that. But there's a country to run, there are Americans being killed, and it's time somebody around this town picked up the responsibility and acted responsibly. I don't think doing a CR is the way to do it, but certainly not running off to fundraisers when people are giving their lives for you on foreign soil is the way to go either.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 9 o'clock and 2 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Friday, September 14, 2012, at 9 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I want to yield to my doctor friend from Texas, a former student of Texas A&M University, as myself, a guy who, as a junior in college when I was a senior in college, helped tutor me to make a 98 on the final exam of our accounting course. I yield such time as he may consume to my friend from Texas (Mr. Flores).

Recognizing American Hero Brian Bachmann and All First Responders

Across America

How much time is remaining, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker, it's a difficult day, difficult week in the world. And I appreciate the tribute of my friend, Bill Flores, for a great American hero.

I also want to pay tribute today to our U.S. Ambassador, Chris Stevens, and the three others who were killed in Libya in the service of their country. We grieve for their families. We grieve for their friends and all who may have come to harm and will come to harm; hopefully, no more, but our thoughts and prayers are with them.

It is important, during times when Americans are attacked on American soil, American buildings are attacked, which is what an American Embassy is, that the world understand that there will be consequences.

For those who sometimes want to ask, well, aren't you a Christian, don't you believe in turning the other cheek? The answer is, yes, individually. But there is a different charge for the government. There is a different charge for the people who have the responsibility of government and protecting the people and their rights.

The United States Government has the obligation to protect our citizens, to protect those who are serving this country, and as far as our military, to give them everything they need to win, whatever it takes, give them rules of engagement to allow them to win, whatever it takes, and then come home.

So it grieves me much, also, to see a time when people are dying, not for a wishy-washy government in Washington, D.C. that can't decide what its priorities are, but for the ideal for which America stands and for what it represents, for what it represents to people who yearn for freedom around the world.

And it does not help when an administration, in response to American attacks on American soil and American individuals, the administration ends up asking Americans to give up their First Amendment rights for which our servicemembers are fighting.

It doesn't help when a general calls an American and asks an American to

give up your First Amendment rights rather than proclaiming to the world, We're the United States military. You've attacked our country. You've attacked our brothers and sisters, and you will pay for that.

When we took an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, it means that when enemies who are foreign enemies attack on American soil--attack Americans because they're Americans--we have an obligation if they were not protected and they got hurt or killed. We have an obligation to those who would serve behind them--to those who are in this country--to protect them for the future.

That doesn't come when an administration or even a general turns around and says, Hey, I know I took an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, but we think, by your utilizing your First Amendment rights, it may be offending people around the world, so why don't you just subject your First Amendment rights to shari'a law. So it's okay to burn a Bible. That's okay. It's okay to burn a flag. Okay. That's all right. But just, for heaven's sake, don't say anything that might offend someone of the Islamic religion.

I, personally, don't think anybody should do that, but I certainly do think we should defend ourselves against radical Islamists who want to annihilate this country and destroy our way of life. We have an obligation. We took an oath to do that, not an oath to say: Let's give up the Constitution. I took an oath to defend and subject it to shari'a. No, no, no. Let's give that up so that maybe the people who are killing Americans and the people who are attacking our Embassies won't feel so offended, and maybe they won't kill people.

That is not the role of a general. It's not the role of a general to tell former military members that they should never speak out against a Commander in Chief when, as former members of the military, they're in a good place to be able to judge what's going on. It is and it should be a crime within the military to create problems for good order and discipline by publicly demeaning or condemning anyone in your chain of command. In my 4 years at Fort Benning, we knew that. President Carter drove me crazy with his ineptitude, with his inability to make decisions, to make the tough calls, and in his pathetic handling of the attack on our American Embassy in Tehran for which America still pays in the pathetic way it was handled.

For those of us who have been in the military, there is an obligation when you see the same mistakes being repeated. Since you know that those in uniform cannot step up and criticize the chain of command, we have an obligation to do that, and it is not helpful for anyone with stars on his shoulders to tell former military members, Oh, this is not appropriate for you to criticize my boss. How about the person with stars on his shoulders stepping up and doing the criticizing privately on behalf of the soldiers he is supposed to be commanding and protecting?

There are stories that are coming out. Time will tell. This one is from Fox News today. It's entitled ``U.S. Officials Suspect Strike on Benghazi Post `Coordinated,' Timed for 9/11 Anniversary.''

U.S. officials are increasingly suspicious that the murder

Tuesday of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens,

and three other American officials was not the result of a

protest against an anti-Islam film, but instead was a

coordinated terror strike timed for the 11th anniversary of

the September 11 attacks.

A senior administration official told Fox News they are

exhaustively investigating every angle of the attack in

Benghazi, and an earlier assault on the U.S. Embassy in

Cairo, Egypt, and there are early signs the Benghazi assault

may have been planned. The official cautioned, though, that

the administration has not jumped to any conclusions about

what happened, saying it would be ``premature'' to do so.

The article goes on down, and it quotes different people. One is Pete Hoekstra, the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who told Fox News that the attack appeared to have the markings of an al Qaeda or an al Qaeda-affiliated strike.

It quotes him as saying:

``We've been talking for years about the desire of Al

Qaeda, radical jihadists to celebrate the anniversary of 9/

11. All my background, all of the conversations that I've had

over the last 18 hours lead many people to believe that this

was just more than a mere coincidence.''

Hoekstra noted that the supposed protesters--purportedly

angry over a film that ridiculed Islam's Prophet Muhammad--

didn't attack in Tripoli. They attacked in Benghazi, ``where

it so happens our Ambassador is.'' And they happened to be

``fully armed and fully equipped,'' he said.

Hoekstra noted that al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri had

recently released a video calling on militants to attack

Americans in revenge for the killing of an operative in

Pakistan. The message said his ``blood is calling on you,

inciting you to fight and kill the crusaders.''

Hoekstra said the film may have been just a cover to carry

out such an attack.

Two intelligence officials also said the attack looked

``coordinated.''

London-based think tank Quilliam reached the same

conclusion, saying the Benghazi strike appeared to be a

``well-planned terrorist attack that would have occurred

regardless of the demonstration (over the film).''

Also, the brother of Zawahiri was nearby during the

separate protest at the American Embassy in Cairo on Tuesday.

There is so much going on, but one of the last things that people ought to do is say it's time to give up First Amendment rights. One of the goals that we know of for the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States within 10 years--it was one of their 10-year goals--is to subjugate the U.S. Constitution to shari'a law. There are great patriots who have called upon Americans to, perhaps, make it illegal to speak out and offend or to do anything that might offend worshipers of Islam without saying the same thing about any other religion whether it's Buddhist, Christian, whatever.

If they have their way and if we make the mistake of curtailing our constitutional rights to avoid offending people who want to annihilate us anyway and who want to have an international caliphate where they rule over us anyway--those they don't destroy--we make a major error. There are those who say there should be no criticism among Members of Congress and people in the government as to the handling by the Commander in Chief, but since we know people in uniform cannot speak out when they see mistakes by their commanders, we have an obligation to them to speak out.

But I do make this pledge to my friends across the aisle that, in any criticism, I will endeavor to ensure that I, personally, do not ever make the kind of wild-eyed allegations against this President that were leveled at President Bush by them.

How quickly some people forget.

Also, I understand this is a political season, it is a time when people are running for election and reelection. We all know that. But we have a friend. We have a prime minister of a friendly nation who has been mistreated by this administration, who deserves better treatment by this administration, who deserves to have this administration and this President keep their words that have been given to our friends in Israel, and it wouldn't hurt to meet with such a leader.

We know that in July that there were people who came to the White House for meetings in the White House, one of whom was a member of a known terrorist organization. That terrorist was allowed into the White House. Obviously, from the hearing we had with the Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, from a response she gave to me, she was ignorant of fact that we had a terrorist going into the White House for meetings. But by the next day when she testified, I believe, across in the Senate, she had become aware that we had a member of a terrorist organization meeting in the White House, and apparently this administration intends to continue meeting with members of known terrorist organizations, from what was said back in July.

And yet, the President--though he had time for meetings with known terrorists--will not carve out a little time to meet with the prime minister of our dear friend Israel at a time when Israel and many in the United States suspect that Iran may be 2 months away from having the nukes to carry out another Holocaust. We don't know the specific days there may be, but it would seem that you wouldn't necessarily need a rocket to have pinpoint accuracy if it's carrying a nuclear weapon. And now that we've seen trouble on the borders

of Israel, all around Israel almost, it doesn't seem it would be impossible to get one smuggled in. Rockets have been smuggled in by the hundreds that are routinely fired into Israel from the Gaza Strip. That's why there was a legitimate legal blockade to try to prevent those types of things from coming into the Gaza Strip, but they came in anyway, and they continue to come in.

We owe our friend, our ally, who this President has pressured, has cajoled, has ridiculed, has snubbed, and taunted by just saying, Trust us, we'll take care of Iran, don't worry about your national security, trust us. No nation should be told that they cannot invoke self-defense when their nation is at risk of being annihilated.

I remember learning in college that President Eisenhower had ordered that people from towns surrounding areas of these concentration camps where, when totaled together, was 6 million Jews that were killed, murdered, tortured, maimed, and he ordered that the people from the towns be required to come help clean up. The reasoning was so that no one could ever say the Holocaust never happened, because they cleaned up the atrocity. I remember thinking that was a little overboard for General Eisenhower. Really, you had to rub those peoples' noses in such horrible affliction? It hasn't been that long ago that I had these thoughts, and now we have people, like leaders of countries like Iran, that is about to have nuclear weapons if we don't intercede, who have said just that the Holocaust never happened, it was a hoax. Unbelievable.

It is unbelievable to me that in a matter of decades since World War II, since that horrible Holocaust, such an indictment against the human race, that people could do that to one race. It's just almost unfathomable that even in Europe, where those atrocities were committed and genocide was attempted, that we would see this growing anti- Semitism raising its ugly head again. And at the same time anti- Semitism is growing even in Europe, a civilized area, an educated area, it grows around the world, as we see people in the Middle East begin to have dreams of a new Ottoman Empire where every religion will be subjected to some of what we've seen happen in those countries where we helped bring about an Arab spring that's turned into a winter nightmare.

This is not a time to play petty personal games, to snub leaders of friends, of allies, even when you disagree with them, for heaven's sake. Take a little time from a fundraiser, take a little time that you don't go to the golf course, and meet with the leader of a country that sees hatred for its people, anti-Semitism, the racism, the bigotry growing around the world, that is scared for its own existence, that can't be sure we're going to be there with them because of the actions of this administration. Take a little time to meet with them. It is an inconvenient thing to have to be President when you are really best at running for office, but take some time and be President and meet with our friends.

The messages that are going out to those whom we seek to make allies for the future is not a good message. The people that have laid down their lives for the American ideal deserve the best we can give them. So on this day when we grieve and our flags are at half mast for the atrocity committed against our ambassador and others, our thoughts and prayers are with the families, and our thoughts and prayers are that our leadership will become what it should be to protect America.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 7 o'clock and 29 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, September 13, 2012, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, 11 years ago today, the worst attack in American history on American soil occurred; more loss of life than Pearl Harbor. It was a day that those of us who are alive and old enough to know what was happening will never forget. It was a day of commitment as well that we would do whatever was necessary to protect our country, that we would do whatever was necessary to prevent future such attacks from occurring.

I recall there in east Texas where I live, I was a judge at the time. The day after, September 12, 2001, was an extraordinary day as well. It was a day that I also will not forget. I had never seen communities come together as we did across America on September 12, 2001, not in my lifetime. In World War II, from history, I've read accounts about some in America that felt like war with Germany was a bad idea, that we ought to be nice to them. There were even people that were divided in America back then. But the overall resolve was to protect democracy, make democracy safe--``Make the World Safe for Democracy'' was the slogan.

But we were so united on September 12, 2001. There in Tyler, Texas-- and I know it happened all over east Texas the same way--people came together. It didn't matter what race anyone was. It didn't matter where they came from, their national origin--man, woman, religious preference didn't matter, we came together as one people. There were no hyphenated Americans that day--no Anglo-Americans, African-Americans, Asian- Americans. We were Americans. We stood united, and we wept together and we prayed together and we held hands and sang together.

Here in Washington, D.C., once again today we sang ``God Bless America'' without regard to party, without regard to House, Senate. I think there was less mention of the word God today. I'm grateful for Speaker Pelosi, who at the end of her remarks asked for God to bless and comfort those who lost loved ones on 9/11 and asked that God would still bless America. I'm grateful she did that. Other leaders did not.

Andy McCarthy--Andrew McCarthy--was the prosecutor of those who were involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He is a man that understands the Constitution. He understands the law. He is a fantastic prosecutor, a brilliant mind, and a great writer. And I won't read the entire article, but it's an article worth noting from Andrew C. McCarthy, entitled ``Remembering 9/11 . . . At Least for a Day.'' He says:

It is difficult to say what's harder to believe: that it

has been 11 years since the 9/11 atrocities, or that national

security has become an irrelevant issue in the most

consequential Presidential election in decades.

The first observation reminds us that today is a day of

remembrance: of the loss of nearly 3,000 of our fellow

citizens; of the bravery of those who willingly gave their

lives to save others; and of the heroism of the men and women

who put on the line all that they have. That includes the

love and well-being of their families, on whom the burden of

American national security has been imposed while the rest of

us go on with our lives--too often, without giving them a

first thought, never mind a second.

No matter which political party has been in power since 9/

11, there has been a great deal of bloviating about the

``rule of law.'' It is as if we had evolved beyond anything

so crude and benighted as armed force and national interest--

especially national defense. Let's remember today that we

have the luxury of living under something resembling the rule

of law only because dedicated Americans sacrifice themselves

to confront evil--in this case, the adherents of an evil

ideology, Islamic supremacism, that is closer to the law of

the jungle.

And for those who do not understand--I'm saying this parenthetically, it's not in the article--Islamic supremacism is not talking about all of those who worship and follow Islam and Islamic teachings. We have friends around the world who do not want to live under totalitarian, radical Islamic supremacism, such as the Taliban, such as al Qaeda. They don't want to live under that, and they're Muslims. They want to live their lives. They want to worship in their own religion without totalitarians telling them how they must.

Unfortunately, as in Afghanistan, those Muslim friends, and Pakistan, for that matter, Iran and Iraq as well, there are Muslims who have admired the United States until we abandoned them.

Going back to Andrew McCarthy's article:

The rule of law has precious little to do with why we have

gotten through 11 years without a reprise of 9/11. A better

explanation is that terrorists who have been captured or

killed cannot commit more terrorism.

I'll insert, parenthetically, there are terrorists who were captured, some confined at Guantanamo Bay, some confined at other facilities, who have been released and who have been found again on the battlefield killing Americans. They were captured, prevented from enacting further terrorism, and then released under some false notion that that would win friends and influence people, only to have other Americans killed by these same thugs.

Back to Andrew McCarthy's article. He says:

On the matter of evil, it is good to remember that it

exists. Evil is not a misunderstanding, a cultural gulf, or a

natural reaction to political policies adopted in pursuit of

American interests or Israeli self-defense. That brings us to

the second observation: the

fact that national security concerns are absent from the 2012

campaign, even with tens of thousands of Americans at arms in

distant hellholes, even with tens of millions of Americans

enduring the increasingly overbearing government that has

been the cost of heightened vigilance in an era where

barbarism is met with political correctness.

The United States defeated the ideological threats of the

20th century because we were unafraid to see evil for what it

was--to diagnose it and understand it. Today, we ignore it,

rationalize it, and assume we are somehow to blame for it.

For the bipartisan ruling class, 9/11 is about ``violent

extremism''--as if irrational, wanton killers, seized by a

``psychological disorder,'' committed mass murder for no

better reason than to visit on the world's most famous office

buildings the most shocking case of ``workplace violence'' in

history.

The ``violent extremism'' narrative is nonsensical. It

defies reality as well as history. But it is a convenient

fiction. It miniaturizes the enemy. With the killing of bin

Laden, the President can now portray the enemy as defeated--

even as al Qaeda resurges, even as Iraq has become an

Iranian-influenced shari'a state that works against the

United States and Israel.

He says parenthetically:

(Remember when ``victory'' was defined as a ``stable''

``democracy'' that is a ``reliable ally''?); and even as

Afghan Islamists turn their weapons on their American

trainers, and the administration pleads with the Taliban to

negotiate (remember when ``victory'' was defined as a

``stable'' ``democracy'' that ``prevents the Taliban from

returning and giving safe haven to al Qaeda again''?). The

``violent extremism'' canard allows the administration to

declare victory even as we are being humiliated.

That's an excerpt from Andrew McCarthy's article regarding today.

Mr. Speaker, it is tragic that around the world the United States has had allies who trusted us, who put their security in our hands, even to the extent of losing political power, losing political office, like some of the Polish leaders who trusted America to help them with a missile defense. It wasn't as much a defense against Russia; it was concern for potential missiles in the Middle East that this Nation has not done enough to stop. But those who staked their political careers on the trustworthiness of the United States came up empty in Poland.

Mubarak had agreements with this administration, met with this administration. Qadhafi had agreements with this administration, met with them, talked. We had Senators from both sides of the aisle, although one of our Republican Senators says he didn't send that message. It wasn't his tweet, he says now, that he was meeting with Qadhafi and that he was an interesting man.

But, regardless, we know that there were people from both sides of the aisle that went and met with Qadhafi because Qadhafi, after President Bush gave the order to invade Iraq, Qadhafi believed he was next if he didn't do something and end his nuclear proliferation, so he did. He became an ally, even though he was a murderer with blood on his hands. He reached agreements. He promised he would not attack Americans again. And, once again, someone who trusted agreement with the United States came up short.

Some of our allies in other parts of the world and other countries have to be wondering if they're next.

I visited with leaders in other countries who say the Chinese are constantly coming around saying, Have you figured out yet that you can't really trust the United States to keep their agreements? Hey, you can trust us. Well, whenever you come around, including in Israel, there are Chinese constantly there saying, When you figure out you can't trust the United States, we're ready to be your friend, your ally.

There should be no better ally in the world than the United States. But we have different administrations, and different administrations are better about keeping their words with allies than others.

The Northern Alliance in Afghanistan fought with us and for us to defeat the Taliban by early 2002. Over the years, they have buried family and friends who have been our cofighters against radical Islamists in Afghanistan. We abandoned them. This administration did not want to talk to them.

And I was told by some of the Northern Alliance leaders earlier this year that one of the leaders of the Taliban that this administration released for humanitarian purposes ended up announcing he's back leading the Taliban as one of their leaders. And he announced on Afghan national television that under shari'a law, if anyone in Afghanistan had not been supportive of the Taliban in the past, they need to come in and ask forgiveness and get the Taliban's protection, because, as the leader said, told people who watched the national television channel in Afghanistan, that everybody in the world knows the United States has lost in Afghanistan.

So all they have to do is wait until 2014 when this President has promised the United States will be out, and they'll be back in charge. Certainly, President Karzai has enough fear of them that he is giving them an awful lot of freedom and control in the area. Regardless of what anyone may say or prove about President Karzai, he's not stupid. He knows we won't be there to keep him protected. So it looks as if he may be trying to placate the Taliban. Why wouldn't he? The United States sure is.

I hear friends here on the floor talk about the lessons of Vietnam. The lessons of Vietnam are not that it was an unwinnable war. That's very clear. This came from one of the leaders at Hanoi Hilton as he told Sam Johnson as the Americans left the Hanoi Hilton, including John McCain. Sam says one of the most ruthless leaders was laughing, saying, You stupid Americans. We had just carpet-bombed them for 2 weeks after they'd walked out of the Paris peace talks. He said, You stupid Americans. Don't you know, if you had just bombed us for one more week, we would have had to have surrendered unconditionally?

To those who were sent to fight in Vietnam, this Nation owes an apology for leaving them over there to fight without an order to win and come home. That should be the lesson of Vietnam.

I was shocked to hear from the parents of one of the SEAL Team Six members who was killed on the Chinook--Billy and Karen Vaughn were the first ones to mention it. I'm embarrassed I didn't know--that two- thirds of the Americans killed in Afghanistan have been killed under President Obama as the Commander in Chief. I found that hard to believe, so we got the numbers directly from the Department of Defense. I've got a poster here. President Bush ordered Americans to war--or to go fight in Afghanistan. We found out that's where the terrorists were trained, where the plot was supposedly hatched to kill thousands of American innocent victims.

So we have a list from the Department of Defense, from their own Statistical Information Analysis Division. If you look at the number of American deaths--of our fantastic men and women in Afghanistan--from October of 2001 through the end of December of 2008, there were 625 American casualties, Americans killed--valiant, brave men and women of our armed services killed in Afghanistan--every one of them a treasure.

But when we get down to the just over 3\1/2\ years since, in the war that Candidate Obama called the ``good war''--a term I don't know of anybody who has ever been in the military would use about a war, but he called it the ``good war.'' Well, in President Obama's good war, though he has been Commander in Chief less than half the time of President Bush, it isn't two-thirds. Seventy percent of the American military men and women who have been killed in Afghanistan have been killed under the command of Commander in Chief Obama. It gets worse when you look at the total wounded in action. During the 7 years and 3 months that President Bush was President, or was Commander in Chief over the war in Afghanistan, 2,638 precious American men and women were wounded.

When you visit our incredible men and women who have been wounded-- who have lost arms, legs, who are severely disabled--you end up walking away being the one who is uplifted with the incredible, incredible American spirit--with the spirit of our American men and women. They are such a blessing but not to the extent, you would think, that anyone in America would want to leave our military men and women in Afghanistan without a clear purpose, without rules of engagement that let them defend themselves. We'll be talking more about that in the days to come.

In the just over 3\1/2\ years that the Afghan war has been under the command of Commander in Chief Obama--as compared to the 2,638 precious American men and women who were wounded--during half the time, approximately, this President has been in command, over 14,817, or 84 percent, of the men and women have been wounded in Afghanistan.

Now, we have fantastic leaders in Afghanistan--some of our Nation's best--but when you get out into the field and you talk to the men and women, sometimes you get a little different story. There is a poll that came out last week indicating a massive lack of morale among our military men and women in Afghanistan. How could there not be? They've been told they're going to have to stay in Afghanistan. We're going to be there for 2 more years or so. They don't have a clear mission. It's basically to train people who may kill you during or after the training. You're not allowed under the rules of engagement to properly defend yourself. Then our men and women in our Armed Forces are supposed to hope and pray that they're not one of the last ones killed on the way out.

I would have thought people would have understood the lesson of Vietnam, not that there are wars such as Vietnam or Afghanistan that are not winnable. Vietnam was winnable. Afghanistan initially was won. We took our eye off the ball. President Obama did inherit a terrible situation in Afghanistan, and then he has more than doubled down on the men and women who have been sacrificed--giving their lives, their arms, their legs in service to this country. We should not allow those precious men and women's lives to go without proper consideration.

So many in our military have stepped up and said, I will go. I will defend America.

I called after 9/11. I was told I was too old. I said, I've got friends that I was in the Army with years ago. They're still in.

They said, Yes, that's because they're still in.

If you had stayed in, you could still be in, but you're too old to go back now.

Though I was too old to go back into the Army that I had served 4 years of my life in, I found another place of service, and I have to speak on behalf of our men and women in our military. I have to beg, Mr. Speaker, that our leaders in Washington, and in particular the leader, the Commander in Chief, either give our military a proper mission or get them out of Afghanistan. Give them proper rules of engagement or get them out now. Don't make them sit around for 2 years wondering if they're going to be the next one that leaves in a casket. Let them win and come home or bring them home now. They can win. They're that good.

With Pakistan, I kept talking to people that say most of the supplies are coming from Pakistan to supply the Taliban. Then cut off the supplies. We have the ability to do that; we just haven't had the will. Develop the will and cut off the supplies to the Taliban--cut them off--or bring our people home now. Don't let one more American lose an arm, a leg, both arms, both legs, or come home as another death. Give them the orders to defeat the Taliban. Come hell or high water, do it. Do it now and then come home or bring them home now. We owe them that much.

Is it any wonder the suicide rate is so high?

How are we treating our allies on this, the 11th anniversary of 9/11? From the Israel media, Haaretz, comes this report today. I'll read it verbatim.

The White House declined Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin

Netanyahu's request on Tuesday to meet U.S. President Barack

Obama during a U.N. conference in New York at the end of the

month.

Parenthetically, I will insert that this is the same President who has told the Taliban, Look, we'll buy you offices in Qatar; we'll let the rest of your murdering thugs out of confinement if you'll just sit down and talk to us. Apparently, the President's schedule just doesn't allow a meeting with what has been a phenomenal ally, a believer in the value of life and liberty in Israel.

The article goes on:

An official in Jerusalem said the Prime Minister's office

sent the White House a message stating that although

Netanyahu will spend only 2\1/2\ days on U.S. soil, he is

interested in meeting with Obama and is willing to travel to

the U.S. Capitol specifically for that purpose. The official

added that the White House rejected the request and said at

this time Obama's schedule does not allow for a meeting.

The White House's response marks a new low in relations

between Netanyahu and Obama, underscored by the fact that

this is the first time Netanyahu will visit the U.S. as Prime

Minister without meeting the President.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak reportedly tried

smoothing things over, but Bibi--or Prime Minister

Netanyahu--is having none of it.

``The world tells Israel, `Wait. There's still time.' And I

say, `Wait for what? Wait until when?' Those in the

international community who refuse to put red lines before

Iran don't have a moral right to place a red light before

Israel,'' Netanyahu told reporters on Tuesday.

``Now, if Iran knows that there is no red line, if Iran

knows there is no deadline, what will it do? Exactly what

it's doing. It's continuing, without any interference,

towards obtaining nuclear weapons capability and from there,

nuclear bombs,'' he said.

Relations between the U.S. and Israel have been strained

during the entire Obama term. Obama's call for Israel to

retreat to its 1967 borders was widely seen as a slap to our

ally. Obama's support for ousting the late Hosni Mubarak from

the Egyptian Presidency paved the way for what now looks like

an Islamist takeover in Cairo, endangering the longstanding

peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.

President Obama has also not visited Israel during his

Presidency. Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney

visited Israel in July 2012.

More news today. This is from Mohammed Abu Zaid with the AP, dated September 11, 2012:

Egyptian demonstrators climbed the walls of the U.S.

Embassy in Cairo today and pulled down the American flag to

protest a film that they say is insulting to the Prophet

Mohammad.

This was updated 2:07 p.m. eastern time.

CNN reports that U.S. security guards fired a volley of

warning shots as the crowd gathered outside the Embassy

walls.

CNN adds that the Embassy has been expecting a

demonstration and cleared all diplomatic personnel earlier

from the facility.

The Associated Press reports that Embassy officials say

there was no staff inside at the time.

Reuters reports that protesters tried to raise a black flag

carrying the slogan: ``There is no God but Allah and Mohammad

is his messenger.''

The news agency says about 2,000 protesters have gathered

outside the Embassy and about 20 have scaled the walls.

The AP says the protesters were largely ultraconservative

Islamists.

Iran's FARS news agency says the protest is aimed at a

movie being produced by a group of ``extremist'' members of

the Egyptian Coptic Church in the United States.

Parenthetically, I will mention that we've seen in recent days that this new government in Egypt that the United States has to bear partial responsibility for being in place has now seen the return of crucifixions in Egypt, the barbaric manner of killing people by making them suffer as much as possible before they breathe their last, just as Jesus, himself, did in laying down his life for others.

Also, it is remarkable that you have people who say, as they did with the insulting cartoon depicting Mohammad or someone appearing to be situated that way, as a violent person, and in response there were riots and people were killed, which kind of seems to make it not a cartoon but a prophecy.

Back to the article:

CNN says the film in question is a Dutch production.

The AP says clips of the film are available on YouTube,

show the prophet having sex, and question his role as the

messenger of God's words.

This would clearly be insulting, having sexual relations, it questions his role as a messenger of God's words--of course that would be insulting. It's ridiculous to have anything that resembles that, just as it is absolutely ridiculous and despicable to demean Christianity, to call it a hate group when it's bounded by Jesus, who showed the ultimate love for all humanity. It's despicable when someone burns a flag, but it's not illegal, it's not illegal to burn a Bible. It's despicable, but it's not illegal.

Yet, personally, I anticipate, if history shows what the radicals will do, they will follow the example. Unfortunately, there will be more rioting. Somebody will tragically be killed by these cutthroats. Then some will say, see, we need to change the law in America where you can burn Bibles,

you can burn the flag, you can desecrate any religion--just not Islam.

Then the goal, as found in the archives after a search warrant, showed one of the 10-year goals to be subjecting our Constitution to sharia law. And that will be a box that can be checked off.

Back to the article:

After the protest, the U.S. Embassy issued this statement

on its Web site:

The embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the

continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the

religious feelings of Muslims, as we condemn efforts to

offend believers of all religions.

How about the Christians in Egypt that are being barbarically killed for their religious beliefs? Wouldn't it be nice if this administration would condemn those activities and do what it takes to stop them?

Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001,

terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are

honoring our patriots and those who serve our Nation as the

fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for

religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We

firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal

right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.

The Grand Mufti of Egypt, Sheikh Ali Gomaa, strongly

condemned the movie.

``Freedom of speech does not warrant desecrating

sanctities,'' Gomaa said in a statement Sunday.

And he's right.

But those freedoms exist in America. The old adage that was attributed to Voltaire for most of the history since, including during the revolution--I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it--used to mean something in this country.

Now, it's been subjected to ideological terms that would have it say more, something on the order of, I disagree with what you say, so I want you imprisoned, I want you to lose your business, I want you to have no friends, I want to take all your money, I want to destroy your life.

What a turn over the last 200-plus years from our Constitution's establishment and writing in 1787. Of course, it took longer than that to be ratified.

Eleven years after 9/11, what has gone wrong? You know, not only were there mistakes in Vietnam under both Democratic and Republican Presidents, our embassy was attacked in Tehran in 1979. Those of us at Fort Benning, I didn't know of anybody that was dying to go, but I knew an awful lot of people willing to go and die in defense of our country.

Under everybody's definition of international law, when you attack an embassy, you have attacked, you have committed an act of war against that country. If the host country cannot protect the embassy, then that country who owns that embassy, that uses that embassy, has every right to bring the full military power to bear to defend it.

I still carry the horrible realization, I believe, if we had defended our embassy in 1979, thousands and thousands and thousands of precious Americans would not have had to give their lives since.

Our embassy has been attacked in Egypt. If the government that the Secretary of State has promised $2.5 billion--I don't know, some of it may have already gone over there--if they're not going to be able to defend our embassy, then we need to take action to defend it.

I also think it's time to revisit the Carter-era idea that we should never take out government leaders. I think it's time to have this debate again.

Which is more immoral: to go to war with a country where at the time you go to war most of the people of that country like you and respect you, and yet are going to die, many of them; or to take a position, look, it's your country, you're free to establish whatever government you want. But if you put in place a government that declares war on the United States, that says we are the annihilation of the United States, their way, their people, then we will take that government out and we won't rebuild it. You'll be free to pick whatever kind of government you want.

It's time to have the debate. Wouldn't that have been better in Afghanistan rather than forcing a centralized government on a tribal region that has since become so corrupt that the money that we have spent, spent by the billions in Afghanistan, given to Afghanistan, has made its way to other places besides the intended objects.

Talking to some of our soldiers over there who have trained farmers. They said the billions that have been spent and sent to Afghanistan to create farming projects had not, any of it, made it to the region where they were training the farmers. It was wasted effort. So they would travel around over there wondering, will they be the next IED death, or will they be the next IED dismemberment?

The thing is, a good foreign policy says the enemy of our enemy is our friend. A good foreign policy says we will not try to buy off the bullies in the world to make them like us.

As I've said for years, you don't have to pay people to hate you; they'll do it for free. Save that money. Use it to rebuild relations with former allies that have been let down. But don't keep giving money to people who hate us. We don't need to be nation building. We need to let nations live in peace under their own discretion. But if they declare war or set as a goal our annihilation, shouldn't we at least talk about taking out the government rather than going to war with the people?

I think it's time to have the debate again. There's too much death and loss of life in Afghanistan. It's hard to believe 70 percent of American lives lost in Afghanistan of our military have occurred under Commander Obama. Eighty-four percent of all the wounded have been wounded under the command of Commander Obama. It's time to talk about these things whether the Presidential candidates want to talk about them or not. We owe that to the people we have put in harm's way.

As this is the anniversary of 9/11, it's another opportunity for me to recall the memory of Ross McGinnis. I hadn't gotten an email from Tom asking me not to forget. He knows I will never forget his son. But I went to his funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. I had become friends since then with the McGinnises. I have been to all the funerals of those who have died while in service in harm's way from my district. I have been to too many of those such funerals.

But this wasn't a person from my district in east Texas. It was a guy from Knox, Pennsylvania, a young man who graduated from high school and gotten into trouble at the end. Ross's mom doesn't want me to forget that. He was given a second chance. They let him graduate. He joined the Army, and Ross found his niche. I haven't seen any pictures anybody had of me during officer basic training at Fort Riley, Kansas, in 1974; but I don't think I was smiling, if somebody has them. It was a difficult time. It was hot, humid. But there are pictures of Ross going through basic with other soldiers, and he's got a big old smile. He had a beautiful smile. And the guys with him are not so smiling. There are pictures of him after he got to Iraq, and the heat was obviously wearing down his friends, fellow servicemembers. But he has a big old grin. His platoon sergeant told me that he was such a piece of enthusiasm in their midst. He was uplifting to the other soldiers.

Ross was a gunner on a Humvee, and as it was going through a town, whether shot or thrown, a grenade goes into the bed of the Humvee where there were four of our soldiers, including Ross's platoon sergeant from Long View, Texas, Cedric Thomas; a soldier from Tyler, my hometown, Sean Lawson; and two other soldiers. And they said that Ross yelled, Grenade, and he looked back, but Ross was the only one in a position to jump out and save himself. But when he looked back and he saw each of the four cringing in their corners, he obviously knew those four soldiers were going to die. So instead of jumping out and saving his own life and four soldiers being lost, he didn't jump out. He jumped in. He covered the grenade. Took the full blow himself. Gave his life. And four of our soldiers are alive today because of what Ross did.

Just as on the statue downstairs right below me, below where I stand, the statue of Father Damien, the Catholic priest from Hawaii, on the side of it is John 15:13, the words: Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

Ross had a lot of love.

The accounts after 9/11 after those planes flew into buildings here at the

Pentagon, there in New York, those incredible heroes on the fourth flight that went down in a field in Pennsylvania, those heroes went running in, willing to lay down their lives to save others, as Ross did.

There at Arlington National Cemetery the Army chaplain did a wonderful job. Taps was played. It always gets me. It got everybody there. A 21-gun salute is an emotional thing at a funeral. And as everyone stood to turn to go, Sergeant Thomas came up, knelt down before the remains of Ross, put his hand on the remains of Ross McGinnis, bowed his head in prayer. He was followed by two others that Ross had saved. The fourth was still in Iraq. They put their hands on Ross's remains, bowed at the knee, bowed in prayer. And it was obvious what they were doing.

Whether it's on Memorial Day, Veterans Day, the 9/11 anniversary, there cannot be too many occasions when we as a Nation stop and do what those three soldiers did: thank those who have laid down their lives for the rest of us, for our liberties; thank those who have sacrificed life or limb or suffered terrible disability for us and our lives and our liberty. And then, to thank God for people who are still willing to lay down their lives for us.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Isn't this the point at which Speaker Pelosi 4 years ago turned off the lights and microphones and wouldn't let us make speeches? I'm just curious.

Mr. Speaker, these are interesting times we live in, and it's nice to follow my friend, Mr. Shimkus, a graduate of the United States Military Academy, a servant of this country in the military, and still a servant in this country. It's good to call him friend. Hopefully he calls me friend, as well.

These are troubling times. When the name Justice Department depicts something other than justice, it's a very troubling time. Some of us are extremely familiar with the prosecution of what most would consider the most significant, largest prosecution of terrorism support and funding in the United States history, which occurred in Federal district court in Dallas, Texas. It was begun under the Bush Justice Department, all part of the aftermath of 9/11 because, as President Bush indicated, we can't just go after the people that actually plotted and carried out the events of 9/11, who plotted and carried out other terrorist attacks against the United States. It's not enough. We've got to go after those who have supported those efforts at terrorism, have supported the killing of innocent people around the world. And particularly, we have to protect Americans. And for those who have supported terrorism and continue to support terrorism, the United States must step forward in order to protect itself.

The Justice Department in November of 2008, I believe, got convictions of the individuals they had prosecuted in the Holy Land Foundation trial. Not only did they get convictions, they got over 100 different counts in which they got convictions. Through that, there were names of coconspirators who were named and set forward in the pleadings, and evidence was introduced, admitted into evidence at trial that showed there were groups and individuals in the United States that were supporting terrorism, and there was significant evidence to support that.

In fact, two of those groups, CAIR and the Islamic Society of North America, ISNA, had moved that their names be stricken from the pleadings as named coconspirators in supporting terrorism. At that time, the acting U.S. Attorney did a very good job not only in the prosecution, but also in the pleading to the Federal district court there before Judge Solis, and he established plenty of evidence so that Judge Solis found there was plenty of evidence to support the coconspirators continuing to have their names in the pleading, and they were not satisfied with the ruling of the Federal district court. They appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ended up ruling that, yes, there was plenty of evidence to support the fact that CAIR, ISNA, and others were supporting terrorism, so their names would not be stricken from the pleadings, they would be kept in the pleadings as named coconspirators of terrorism.

After that very successful prosecution that was in conformity with President Bush's promise that if you're not with us, you're with them, and those who support terrorism would be made to account, that began the first stage of the prosecution of supporters of terrorism. Those were people and individual cases, those were organizations right here in America that were supporting terrorism, funding terrorism. Yes, they were supporting charities. Yes, they were giving money to good causes. That acted as a cover for them also funding terrorism, funding known terrorist organizations who had actually killed people and destroyed things, committing acts of war.

Then, the Attorney General became Eric Holder. The President, the Commander in Chief, became Barack Hussein Obama. We know it's okay to use the President's full name, because he proudly uses it when he goes to Muslim nations. In fact, the first nations the President went to and apologized for America's arrogance and divisiveness, dismissiveness were Muslim nations. In fact, going to Cairo, he snubbed America's ally, Israel's ally, Mubarak, who is not a fine, upstanding wonderful man but a man who had managed to keep some peace along the Israel border, a man who had agreements with this government just as this government had agreements with Qadhafi, despite the blood on his hands from terrorist involvement himself. In fact, I've read of reports of people even from our own Senate who have been over there, one who had tweeted that he had met with Colonel Qadhafi: ``He was an interesting man. I met with him at his ranch.'' I understand that Senator now says that tweet didn't come from him.

But there were Americans from this government negotiating with Qadhafi, working out agreements, and then they turned their backs on people with whom they had worked agreements:

Mubarak, Qadhafi. I don't think we should have worked agreements with Qadhafi because of the blood on his hands, American blood on his hands. But it had been done, and yet this Nation turned its back on allies. It was no surprise to me to read that the King of Jordan--another person with whom we have a relatively good relationship--had sought an appointment with Ahmadinejad in Iran once he saw the way this administration not only turned its back on allies, but also would contribute to bombing to get them out of office. It's an amazing thing.

Then, being part of the Judiciary Committee here in Washington, some of us became very troubled that despite all of this substantive evidence--I've got a stack of it in my office from that Holy Land Foundation trial--substantiating allegations, at least to the satisfaction of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and the district court, that CAIR and ISNA and others should be named coconspirators, this Justice Department chose not to prosecute anyone else. Once again, using the old tactic, Well, the Bush administration didn't prosecute them. They did stage one, they got the initial prosecutions, and if those were successful, they intended to continue looking and pursuing all those who were implicated and could have cases proved, especially where there was substantial evidence, as there was with CAIR and ISNA.

Instead of prosecuting CAIR and ISNA, this administration--and there's no question about this--despite the fussing and nay-saying of some once proud journalists of some once proud journalistic television networks, once proud newspapers, despite their failure to do their homework, despite their taking the easy road and simply asking opinions, Well, what do you think about these terrible accusations, and getting opinions instead of simply digging and looking at the facts and presenting the fact, they sought opinions on things that people had not even read. They asked opinions about letters that people had not read. They asked opinions about general tenor without actually showing people the tenor of the letters.

And, unfortunately, some are always willing to respond without having read or reviewed the matter before them which they are being questioned about.

But the facts are the facts. On the White House's own Web site, last time I checked, there were references to ISNA. There are references to ISNA's president, Imam Magid, who, as I understand, has now written a letter wanting condemnation of me and others who simply set out factual recitations to five different departments and then asked the question, Would you please investigate to see the extent of Muslim Brotherhood influence in this administration in this department.

We know there's Muslim Brotherhood influence. The question is how much influence is there?

When the White House's own Web site was carrying compliments, such as those spoken by Denis McDonough, the number two person in our National Security Agency, complimenting Imam Magid for the wonderful prayers he had given inside the sanctity of the White House itself, for the White House's iftar celebration during Ramadan. Compliments to Imam Magid, the president of the main coconspirator, for the wonderful introduction he gave the number two person in the National Security Agency.

And within the FBI itself--it took until 2009 for the FBI to finally write a letter saying, Gee, because of all this evidence that came out about CAIR supporting terrorism in the Holy Land Foundation trial in 2008, we have suspended our relationship with them. At one place in the letter, they referred to it as a ``partner'' or a ``partnership.''

So there's no question there is Muslim Brotherhood influence in this administration. Anybody that says otherwise will likely find that they will end up at the lowest level of Nielsen ratings in their history, or at least in 20 years or so, because they simply are not doing their homework. It's much easier to bash the messenger than it is to actually do homework. And in fairness, I know there have been lots of budget cuts. It's tough for some entities, some networks to do the research they once did when they were much more popular. But, nonetheless, the truth is the truth. Facts are facts.

The question remains: Just how extensive is the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in this administration? We know that the ACLU and CAIR have been demanding documentation of what trainees have been taught in our Justice Department, in other departments, making FOIA, Freedom of Information Act, requests trying to get information on what we are training our undercover agents, if any we have.

Apparently, this administration has no problem outing people we have undercover in dangerous situations. At least somebody who has information about the very inner workings of this administration has leaked classified information. It remains to be found out who it is, but it is somebody that has access to some of the most important classified inner workings.

Yet you've got CAIR and the ACLU demanding information about the information that was used to train these people. And the facts are that if you ever disclose that--and as I understand, our Justice Department was preparing to provide all that information to CAIR and to ACLU--and if they provide all of the information on exactly how people who have been undercover in radical Islamic situations, it will be easy for those individuals to be outed and killed because they'll know what their training is and their approach to radical Islam. They'll know the methods and means of our undercover, of our intelligence. And yet this administration continues to cater to such requests to accommodate complaints about CAIR.

CAIR individuals can call the White House, as apparently was written up in material in the media after last August. They were complaining about people who were going to give a seminar to hundreds of law enforcement individuals. CAIR makes one call, as it was reported at least, makes a call to the White House. The seminar gets canceled. Hundreds of law enforcement individuals do not end up being taught about the inner workings of those who want to kill and destroy our way of life. And CAIR is happy.

Just how far does the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood go? We know from the evidence in the Holy Land Foundation trial that ISNA is the largest Muslim Brotherhood front organization in America. And President Obama has had President Imam Magid in the inner sanctum of the State Department to listen to the speech that he gave, trying to upstage Prime Minister Netanyahu when he was on his way over here in May of last year.

The report was that Imam Magid had actually given him advice on what he should say. Who knows, perhaps what Imam Magid said was, Oh, yes, Israel has agreed to go back to the 1967 boundary lines, so you can include that in your speech. Who knows.

We wanted an Inspector General investigation to find out in the State Department, Defense Department, intelligence department, in these five departments just how extensive is the Muslim Brotherhood influence. We know it's there. Most Americans know it's there. There are some that still drink the Kool-Aid and refuse to acknowledge the facts that have been proven in court.

There are facts that actually the prosecutor of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings has pointed out in his article--that's Andrew McCarthy--he has pointed out, We proved to New York jurors, wonderful New York jurors, beyond a reasonable doubt that there was this radical Islamic presence in America; and they did want to take over our country, that there is a civilization jihad. Some want to do it radically with violence. Some want to take over from inside our own governmental and civic organizations, and they're working toward that goal.

There's no question about so many of these things. The question is, How far does the influence go? That's what we need to know.

So we asked the question, and we had Attorney General Holder before our committee last year. And he was asked the question, Did you or did politics have any consideration in the refusal to prosecute any of the other named coconspirators about which the Fifth Circuit said there is plenty of evidence to support their involvement? Was there political involvement in that decision?

Well, we didn't know it at the time; but since then, more recently, in the last couple of months, we've had the Attorney General testify before our committee that there are political aspects to justice, from his standpoint, which fly in the face of everything that any good law school, any legitimate law school has ever taught its law students.

Justice is supposed to be blind. That's why the statue that depicts justice, holding the scales of justice, is blinded, is wearing a blindfold. Because justice is blind if it's real justice. And if justice is not blind, if we're looking to who it is and politically what the consequences will be, it's not justice. There are no political aspects to justice--or it's not true justice. And I'm afraid that's where we've gotten to in this so-called Justice Department.

So we had the Attorney General say, Oh, no, no, no. There is no political involvement. In fact, I said to my friend Trent Franks, Gee, in fact, the U.S. Attorney handling that--I believe it was quoted in a newspaper--I believe it was the Dallas News--he said there was no politics involved in those dismissals because there was just no case there. There was no evidence to support it.

Well, I happened to have read that Dallas Morning News report, and I happen to have read the quotes from that acting U.S. Attorney. And yes, he did say it was local; politics weren't involved. But that is not what he said. He says no, the evidence wasn't there, which is entirely different since he was not under penalty of potential jail when he spoke to a reporter, but he was under potential penalty of jail. If you ever commit a fraud upon a court by not giving all of the information or misrepresenting to a judge or tricking a judge by not being truthful, you can be looking at jail time. Lawyers before me knew that. I didn't care about politics, but I cared about truth.

I cared about it in the Bush administration. So when we found out there were abuses of the National Security Letter, I was furious. And I grilled the Bush director of the FBI at that time. I was surprised there weren't more Democrats that were nearly as outraged as I was because that was so offensive. It was so improper. It was so unjust. I don't care who the President is; justice is justice. And for our Attorney General to act like oh, no, no, there wasn't anything. And then I know. I read the pleadings of that U.S. Attorney where he said there's plenty of evidence to support the name of CAIR and others being in here. And he convinced the Fifth Circuit of the same thing. So he was either lying to the courts or he was lying to the paper about the evidence.

And now, after having had the head of civil rights of this Justice Department, Mr. Perez, testify that gee, there was no political aspect in the decision not to pursue the New Black Panther Party for what they did at a polling place in Pennsylvania, and now we have found out this week, Human Events has a great article, ``Federal judge rules political appointees interfered with voter intimidation case.'' That's from August 2, posted at 2:12 p.m.

There's one from the American Spectator about the fact that Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general, is one of the most destructive forces against the rule of law in this Nation, including being the man responsible for the DOJ dropping charges again the New Black Panthers for voter intimidation in Philadelphia during the last Presidential election. It goes on to talk about he appeared before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Constitution, which is a subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, and it goes on to say that he questioned Assistant Attorney General Perez over the administration's commitment to First Amendment rights. His questions were prompted by a Daily Caller article from late last year in which Perez was quoted as warmly embracing the proposals of Islamist advocates in a meeting at George Washington University, among them a request for a legal declaration that U.S. citizens' criticism of Islam constitutes racial discrimination.

Well, we know that one of the 10-year goals of the Muslim Brotherhood is to subvert the U.S. Constitution to sharia law. And once they convince enough people that it should be a crime to burn a Koran or to criticize Islam, then they can check that box.

I believe in the Bible. My eternity is based on belief of the Bible. But I also know under the U.S. Constitution, you can burn a Bible. I took a pledge and was willing to lay down my life, my 4 years in the Army, for our flag, but I also understand it's constitutional to burn a flag. And yet we have people in this injustice department saying they want to make it a crime to criticize Islam. No wonder they're purging their training materials, eliminating references to Islam.

As one intelligence officer of this government told me, we are blinding our ability to see our enemy, and that can and will have dangerous consequences if we don't turn it around.

Mr. Speaker, wrapping up here before we take this August recess that isn't a recess because we will be in pro forma session, we're willing, most of us, Republicans are willing to come back. All we have to know is that the Senate is finally doing something to pass some of the jobs bills we've sent their way. And in fairness, what we need is Republican leadership that will say okay, Senate, you want this bill, then you are going to have to pass some of the economic and jobs bills that will get this economy going, but we haven't used the leverage Republicans in the House have. And, unfortunately, with all of the talk about agreeing to another CR, it just means that we'll have finished out 2 years without cutting anything significant, as we promised 2 years ago after the biggest wave election in American history since the 1930s.

It's time for Americans to make clear you want Congress to do what was promised when the Congressmen got elected. And if we do that, it doesn't matter how obstructive the Senate is, it will make it even more clear if we use our leverage and say: Hey, people, the government is shut down on weekends, you seem to live okay. Let's get back to just essential needs of the government. Allow a shutdown of other things. Pass my bill that will make sure our military gets paid during a shutdown, we know Social Security recipients will still get their payments in the event of a shutdown, and keep the government shut down until everybody understands we're going to start living within our means as a Congress, like all Americans have to do, or declare bankruptcy. They have to do that. We can't afford to declare bankruptcy. We must get this government under control. I hope that constituents across the country during this month will make that clear, and we'll replace the Senators who are standing in the way of getting this economy going, that we'll replace the administration who is creating injustice and allowing radical Islamic jihadists to have any influence at all.

The Secretary of Homeland Security sat there and told me that it did absolutely not happen, that a member of a terrorist organization had been allowed in the White House; 6 days later, she not only admits to the Senate that it did happen after she told me absolutely not, but she said: Oh, but it's okay; we vetted him three times.

It's time for a government that is more considerate and concerned about providing for the common defense, of getting out of the way and letting the economy grow than they are about playing favorites, playing to their cronies, and playing against religious freedom.

And with that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 8 o'clock and 29 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Friday, August 3, 2012, at 10 a.m.

I thank my friend from Minnesota, my very, very dear friend.

This is an important day, Priests for Life marking 20 years. As a Christian, as a Southern Baptist, it is an honor to pay tribute to the Catholic priests who have stood strong, stood for life, that precious one of the trilogy that was set out in the Declaration of Independence. But first life. Only if you have life can you then go to liberty and have a chance at a pursuit of happiness.

For those of us who believe the scripture written in the Old Testament, as did our founders, most all of them--in fact a third of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, over a third, were ordained Christian ministers--but certainly George Washington and even Ben Franklin, even though some history teachers mislead their students these days. They all believed in those scriptures.

When you look at the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel, it's a little scary, because, as I've read, one of the

things that God was angry over was that people had fallen into such incredible idol worship that they were willing to sacrifice their own children. That is so abominable. How could anybody love such idols and idol worship such that they would sacrifice their own child and allow the taking of their own child's life?

And then I thought about abortion in this country, and we have no room to talk. For 20 years, Priests for Life have known that, and they have stood firm that the most essential right of our Creator is life, and you can't get to liberty until you start with life.

And then the irony of all ironies, today, the first day that the Catholic church and really all of us who are Christians, all of us who believe in freedom of religion, all of us that in fact actually believe the Constitution means what it says have been slapped down by this administration. Regardless of what the Supreme Court says, the First Amendment makes clear, as my friend from Nebraska (Mr. Fortenberry) says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of

religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

And we have friends, Christian friends, who believe with all their heart it is a right to practice their religion, and they have these religious beliefs, and this administration has demeaned them to the point that it would release a quote as was pointed out by Amy Payne with the Heritage Foundation today, when quoting the Health and Human Services Department:

The Obama administration will continue to work with all

employers to give them the flexibility and resources they

need to implement the health care law in a way that protects

women's health while making commonsense accommodations for

values like religious liberty.

Values nothing. It's a constitutional right that this administration is trodding on and trampling and stomping on. And if it will take this right, what's next? Can Jews not worship on the Sabbath because it's inconvenient? But maybe this administration will help try to accommodate that value.

Or how about communion? Maybe this administration will find at some point it's really not healthy, and so they'll try to accommodate the religious conviction, the freedom of religion, as a value. They'll try to work with people who believe this to the core of their hearts.

You go back to the founding. We didn't even have a Constitution. Ben Franklin sat for 5 weeks, virtually, listening to all the rancor back and forth. He finally rises, 80 years old, gout, trouble getting up, overweight, a couple of years or so from meeting his Judge, and he points out, We've been going for nearly 5 weeks. We've got more noes than ayes on virtually everything, and he asks:

How has it happened, sir, that we've not once thought of

humbly applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate our

understanding? In the beginning contest with Great Britain

when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this

room. Our prayers, sir, were heard and they were graciously

answered.

Now that's not a deist, and it's someone who does not believe in the accommodation of a religious value. He believed in religious freedom. Not only that, he believed in the power of prayer because in that same speech that we know is his speech, because he wrote it out in his own hand, he says:

I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live the

more convincing proofs I see of this truth: God governs in

the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the

ground without His notice, is it possible that an empire

could rise without His aid?

Ben Franklin said:

We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writing--

Not that we're accommodating, but that we believe in--

We've been assured in the sacred writing that unless the

Lord build it, they labor in vain that build it. I firmly

believe this. I also believe without His, God's, concurring

aid, we will succeed in our political building no better than

the builders of Babel.

Now, here we are over 200 years later trying to accommodate what Ben Franklin said that stirred the hearts of those and even stirred Randolph to say, You know what: Let's take a break. Let's go listen to a preacher preach the word all together as a constitutional convention and then come back. And they did and they came back with a new spirit and they gave us a Constitution that this administration is now trodding and trampling upon.

God, the God of which Ben Franklin spoke, without whom we will succeed in our political building no better than the builders of Babel, is now being told by this administration that they'll accommodate as best they can, but make no mistake, they're trampling on the rights that Priests for Life have been preaching about for 20 years.

I thank my friend for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, with due deference to my friend from New York and my friend from Utah--and I do mean that literally--I rise in opposition to this bill.

What we've seen over the last year and a half is a Presidency that had the most disdain for Congress in the confirmation process of any President I'm aware of, and I'm quite familiar with the history of the United States.

Not only has this President made recess appointments when there was no recess, not only has this President appointed czars that were beyond the reach of Congress--although we could have made it within our reach; we could have just cut off every dime for anything that did not come before congressional approval--but with this latest tactic of having a recess appointment when there wasn't a recess, all of the talk across the country about the appointing of czars with no accountability to the Senate, I really did expect some of my conservative friends in the Senate at some point to move a bill on this subject. I expected it to be a bill that would send a loud and clear message to the President that, if you feel like some of these don't need to be appointed, you come talk to us about it, and let's talk about no more recess appointments. Let's talk about some of these others.

Instead, it's almost a pat on the back to the President to say, Look, you've ignored us; you've made us irrelevant. You've done all of these things, as you've said, Congress won't act so you're going to act. The President has gone out and made speeches like the king or Caesar: as I speak, so it is the law.

And even though Congress has duly passed immigration laws that the President has stood up, and as he spoke, he made law and ignored Congress completely. The message we're sending back here is: Mr. President--as in some old movie--thank you, may I have another. Look, you just keep ignoring us, and we'll keep making ourselves more and more irrelevant.

I would like to make one other point, too. Here we are in a desperate situation where our military, our very national security is at risk for being cut to the extent that we will no longer be secure. I would humbly submit that a better bill would be, Mr. President, if these are not all that important, let's get rid of all of these. There are board members. There's commissions. I mean, there's things in here, there's a director of the Women's Bureau. I don't see one for the Men's Bureau. There's director of all kinds of things here that it just seems like are redundant, that could be done away with. If they're not important enough for the Senate to take a look at them, Mr. Speaker, I would humbly suggest that maybe they're irrelevant and immaterial enough that we just do away with the positions. And accordingly, I would urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this provision.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

There is nothing like being vilified to get your senses acutely attuned. We had a hearing in Judiciary last week--on July 19, actually--in which Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano appeared. During the exchange that I had with Secretary Napolitano, I said these words. They're from the transcript:

And this administration seems to have a hard time recognizing members of terrorist groups who are allowed into the White House. You're aware of that happening, aren't you?

Secretary Napolitano: Absolutely not.

This week, apparently, somebody brought her back into the loop when she testified before Pete King's committee. There are a couple of articles here about it that are rather interesting. One is from The Hill, by Jordy Yager, apparently posted today, July 26:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told lawmakers

on Wednesday

that a member of an Egyptian militant group labeled by the

United States as a terrorist organization was vetted by three

U.S. agencies before visiting the White House. Napolitano

said the State Department, the Department of Homeland

Security and the Secret Service all thoroughly examined the

Egyptian man, Hani Nour Eldin, before his visit to

Washington, D.C., where he met with Members of Congress and

senior administration officials.

Then there is a quote in the article from Secretary Napolitano that says:

``As we move forward, we are going to continue to have

visitors to this country that the State Department and others

feel are useful to bring to the country, to have discussions

moving forward, who say they're members of a political party

that in the past has been so designated.''

Another quote:

``He was vetted before he got a visa against all known

terrorists and other databases for derogatory information.

None was found. As he entered the United States, we, too,

vetted him against all of our holdings, including terrorists

and information from a variety of sources, and no derogatory

information was found. Before he entered the White House, he

was vetted a third time by the Secret Service. No derogatory

information was found. So then we can have some confidence

that this was not a security breach in that sense.''

Napolitano said she knew ``of no such intention'' by U.S.

officials to release Abdel-Rahman, the Blind Sheikh.

Chairman King said, ``The administration, whether it's this

administration or another administration, may feel that some

of these people can be dealt with, can be worked with, but if

that's to be done, to me, it would seem it would have to be

an open process, a transparent process, where Congress and

the people would know who was being let into this country.''

Napolitano, according to the article, conceded that King

made a ``fair point'' and that she would look into whether

efforts were taken to notify Members of Congress.

It's a little pesky detail. There do happen to be laws on the books that were apparently ignored in that process.

The problem is, when the Secretary of Homeland Security says there is no derogatory information, when the information we have indicates he is a member of a group that we have named as a terrorist organization, then it would seem that the obvious thing would be the fact that he is a member of a known terrorist organization, which would, to most of us, or at least to many of us, be considered derogatory information. The fact that we can't dig up minute details of specific acts of misconduct, nonetheless, should not be necessary when someone is a known member of a terrorist organization, an organization designated by this government to be ``terrorist.'' It's an amazing thing.

But then we're told in an article by Joel Gehrke from The Washington Examiner on July 25:

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano

told Congress today to expect more members of designated

foreign terrorist organizations to visit the United States.

``I think you are right in pointing out that as we move

forward we are going to continue to have visitors to this

country that the State Department and others feel are useful

to bring to the country to have discussions moving forward

who say they are members of the political party that in the

past have been so designated,'' Napolitano told House

Homeland Security Committee Chairman Pete King during a

committee hearing this morning.

Napolitano was defending the decision to host Hani Nour

Eldin--a member of Egyptian Parliament elected on the

political party platform of the Islamic Group, which the

State Department has designated a foreign terrorist

organization--at the White House.

Just as a reminder, Mr. Speaker, in our hearing, I said these words:

This administration seems to have a hard time recognizing members of terrorist groups who are allowed in the White House. You're aware of that happening, aren't you?

Her answer: Absolutely not.

So the evidence seems to be pretty clear. He was a member of a known terrorist group. He was allowed into the White House, but the answer by the Secretary of Homeland Security to that happening was: Absolutely not.

She didn't say that we had vetted him many times and that, even though he was a member of what we in the State Department had designated as a terrorist organization, we still thought he was safe. She said it just absolutely did not happen. Absolutely not.

The article goes on from The Washington Examiner:

``I think we have to add more nuance to that,'' she said,

when King mentioned that Eldin is part of a designated

foreign terrorist organization. ``We have to know what the

group was. Is it now a political party that is running the

government of a country that has strong ties to the United

States?'' She added that he went through three stages of

vetting, and ``everyone who looked at this person felt

confident that he was not a security risk to the White House

or to the United States.''

King charged the Obama administration with violating a law

in hosting Eldin at the White House. ``It appears as if the

law was not complied with in that he did not apply for a

waiver, and Congress was not notified, which is also

required. It does not appear that either the letter or the

spirit of the law was complied with.''

When King reiterated that complaint about the process by

which Eldin was allowed into the country, Napolitano

conceded, ``On the process, that's a fair point to make.''

There is a reason we have laws, and you would hope that someone who is a Cabinet official in the top position of our Homeland Security would think that it is important to comply with the law.

Just as we've seen massive amounts of money go to places that have leaders who say they want to eliminate Israel and the United States, we see this kind of conduct from this administration.

And I have reporters asking me if I want to apologize for five separate letters that were written to five separate inspectors general of five different departments with different facts pertaining to that department in each letter, and the facts in the letter are true. The simple question was not an accusation or allegation, because it's pretty obvious there is influence by the Muslim Brotherhood in America. The question is: How much influence is there, and where is it coming from? It is an amazing thing to see all of this transpire.

Obviously, it's great fun and sport to attack a messenger that is not liked by certain people in the media, but what we keep seeing that is amazing and that is happening with what was once the proud tradition of journalism in America is our national security being sacrificed on the altar of political correctness. Why isn't the mainstream media making a big deal about a Secretary of Homeland Security who one week says, Absolutely not, it was not a member of a known terrorist organization that got in the White House, and a week later she admits, It did happen, but we properly vetted him three different times?

I hear about what apparently is being grossly overlooked also that I get as I speak to Muslims in other parts of the world who are our friends, who have fought with us, who have buried family members and loved ones because they want to live in freedom like we do. They don't want a strict group like the Taliban dictating their lives. They're moderate Muslims who want to live in peace. What they keep bringing home to me is what this administration misses entirely. When the President of the United States, when the leaders of this country, this administration, meet with members of known terrorist organizations and will not meet with our Muslim friends who have fought with us instead of against us from other parts of the world, the message has a chilling effect on our friends wanting to continue to be our friends because it appears to be the most dangerous place in the world to be, in the category of ``friends'' with the United States, because it means this administration is one step away from abandoning them in favor of ties and relationships with groups that we know have been terrorist organizations.

It's not just the meeting with. It's not just a danger or lack of danger of someone coming into the White House. Of course they can check them with the metal detectors to make sure they're not carrying anything. It goes beyond that. It devastates our friends. It destroys hope around the world for people who are hoping that we'll stand up as we once have, not for the Muslim Brotherhood who want an international caliphate which includes the United States and the United States to be added to the 57 Muslim states that comprise the OIC; it's what we're doing to our friends.

I hope and pray that people in the mainstream media will get past the enjoyment of vilifying and trying to destroy the messenger and look at the message, that they'll get beyond the lazy tactics of calling someone, getting

with someone and saying, ``What's your opinion about these allegations?'' and getting a response of, ``Well, gee, we don't think there is anything to them,'' instead of digging the facts out and presenting them as the once proud journalist tradition was here in America. There are still journalists doing it, but I hope that that practice will be extended. We're hurting ourselves, but unfortunately we also hurt our friends when we do that.

Mr. Speaker, for those who say there is no evidence of any Muslim Brotherhood influence in America, I would urge them to go back and review the evidence in the convictions of the Holy Land Foundation trial obtained in November of 2008 before this administration began embracing the named coconspirators like CAIR and ISNA, when they were named as coconspirators of supporting terrorism. I would hope they would go back to the 1995 trial where Andrew McCarthy did a stellar job, and the Clinton administration awarded him for his incredible work in proving that there are people in America who want to establish shari'a law as the law of the land and subvert our Constitution. He proved it beyond a reasonable doubt among some wonderful New York citizens in New York City.

And as Andrew McCarthy has asked: ``What's happened since 1995 to make that evidence no longer true?'' It was true then; it's true today.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.