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Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, these are serious times in which we are living. Supposedly there is a Chinese curse that says may you live in interesting times. We certainly do.
I have really been shocked that the mainstream media has not done more in the way of stories on the Americans, the four Americans, on a boat that were hijacked and then killed. Of course it made some news on February 22 when it happened, but it appears it didn't survive much of a 24-hour cycle.
This was an act of war against America. This was an act of war against four peace-loving people who apparently had the gall to travel around and offer Bibles to different places and apparently were spending American blood and treasure in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, only to find out that they were persecuting Christians in a manner that is reminiscent of why people came to Europe and tried to create a country in which Christians could worship freely without being persecuted, tortured, imprisoned, or killed simply for their religious beliefs.
In this case, though, it was a matter of Barbary pirates. I know that most people apparently in Washington have not learned enough from history, but there are so many history lessons that make very clear what Ronald Reagan used to say when he said no country ends up being attacked because they are too strong.
What Barbary pirates have seen and what people around the world have seen, including those in Libya, Turkey, Lebanon, and Iran, is that we have been promoting weakness in the United States and promoting a very weak vision of ourselves around the world.
This story from February 22 indicates that the pirates fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a U.S. Navy destroyer that was following the hijacked yacht with four Americans on board. Then gunfire erupted, and four Americans who had been taken hostage were fatally wounded. They were killed.
I don't know what this administration needs to see in the way of current events or why this administration will not learn from the myriad of lessons from history that when you're dealing with pirates, when you're dealing with religious fanatics--people who want to destroy you and who could care nothing about your life, your pursuit of happiness--you don't placate them; you don't try to negotiate with them; you don't show that, gee, we don't know what to do--or what you will get is more piracy, more terrorism.
There is only one way to respond, which is the way that the United States did in its early days, in the early 1800s, with Thomas Jefferson as President. Some don't go back that far and learn history. All they want to do is look at a fictional approach to U.S. history that says, in essence, gee, we're mean; we're colonialists; we have subjugated people all around the world to our imperialist whims. Unfortunately, despite all the hyperbole and the rhetoric, what we have done is expend American blood and American treasure in the name of freedom, not just American freedom but the freedom of Iraqis, the freedom of Muslims in Eastern Europe, the freedom of people all across Europe--in France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Poland. All across, Americans have given their lives in the name of freedom. All across the Pacific, they have given their lives, their last full measure of devotion, for freedom.
With no racist view but absolutely, as Jesus said, ``Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.''
In the case of Americans, we've lain down lives for people we didn't even know because the concept of freedom was so important.
In our earliest days, Washington, of course, was quite concerned that, in having won the Revolution, we were still not strong enough to survive. So often you'll see in a new government's trying to arise in a country that it overcommits to other obligations with regard to military, and they lose their young nation. Washington was afraid of that. Through the 1790s, we had Barbary pirates. We had pirates off the coast of North Africa who were capturing American ships and taking American sailors hostage. They would either kill them or they would torture them, but they would ransom them if they had not killed them. At one point, I'd read that as much as 18 percent of the American budget was being spent to pay ransom to get American sailors back.
At one point, Thomas Jefferson was the one who was sent over on behalf of the United States to negotiate with these Muslims about why they were attacking American ships. The discussion apparently included the question:
Why would you attack American ships? We've not harmed you in any way. We're no threat to you. We're not threatening you.
One history lesson indicates that Jefferson was told: Well, under our religion, if we are killed while we are taking action against an infidel, like Americans, then we go straight to paradise, and we're rewarded.
Jefferson was shocked because, as a man who was so well-read, he couldn't believe that any world religion would encourage the killing of innocent people and that the killing of innocent people would gain you a trip to paradise. So he got his own English copy of the Koran, which is still over in the Library of Congress. He couldn't believe it. He wanted to find out for himself.
American history students will know that we finally created the United States Marines. Those who are not familiar with the history may still be familiar with the Marines' Hymn that says, ``From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli ..... '' Well, it was the shores of Tripoli to which the marines were sent with the message:
We can't continue to pay ransom to bloodthirsty religious zealots, and so we are at war with you until you stop.
It was only then when Americans showed strength that they could not be pushed around, that they would not be taken hostage without a response, and that there would be American blood and treasure spent in the name of freedom to anyone who tries to threaten the freedom of Americans on the high seas or on American soil.
Because the marines fought so valiantly and fiercely and fearlessly, those pirates, the Muslim pirates, learned a valuable lesson of, gee, maybe we ought to leave these people alone for a while--and they did for a long time.
Yet in 1979, after the Carter administration had welcomed back the Ayatollah Khomenei as a man of peace, as one who would bring great peace to the region, the Carter administration had snubbed its nose and abandoned a man who didn't seem to be a very nice man--the Shah of Iran--and rather put all our eggs in one basket with this wonderful man of peace, the Ayatollah Khomenei, who it turns out would also like to see the United States destroyed, and viewed Americans as infidels as well as the original Barbary pirates did.
I was in the Army at Fort Benning when the hostages were taken. No one at Fort Benning that I knew of was dying to go to Iran, but most everybody I knew at Fort Benning was willing to go and thought we should go because an act of war had been committed against the United States. Under everyone's interpretation of international law, when a United States Embassy or a United States compound is attacked in any nation, it is an attack on that nation's own soil. It is an act of war. This is under everyone's interpretation of international law.
If you go back and if you review the television footage of the day--and I'm relying on my memory of those days because we were certainly paying attention--we didn't know who might be sent. It turns out none of us were sent from Fort Benning because the Carter administration, as eloquent as President Carter was and as peace-loving and as well-meaning as he was, felt surely these people in Iran will see how much I care. They'll see how much I really love them, and we'll negotiate. They'll be impressed by our words. They'll be impressed by our negotiations, and they'll let our people go.
But that's not the way those folks who view us as infidels and who need to be killed work.
In fact, if you go back to your own experience--back to a schoolyard--if a bully is picking on you or especially if a smaller person is picking on a bigger person and you don't defend yourself but instead say ``let me pay you money if you'll leave me alone,'' not only does that smaller person not have respect for the bigger person, but the smaller person will have nothing but hatred, and now you've added contempt because he can't believe somebody is such a coward and so weak when he appears to be so big and strong that he would pay someone who hates him to leave him alone.
So you get hatred, you get contempt, and you get more violence. And that is what we've seen. We have continued to this day to pay the price for the message that was sent in 1979 and 1980 for appearing to be so weak and helpless in the face of Iranians--we were told initially students--who committed an act of war and then gave our hostages to the Iranian Government.
Now as I watched all this unfold, it appeared to me, as a young man in the Army, that--you know, the Ayatollah's spokesman kept coming out and talking about the students--the students attacked, the students have the hostages. That seemed to me, as an inexperienced person in the way of foreign policy but someone who had studied a great deal of world history, that that was their back door for Iran, that was their way of saying, look, we don't know if the United States is going to be the powerful country we're afraid they might be or if they're really the toothless tiger that we saw tuck their tail between their legs and run out of Vietnam. So let's just test. Let's talk about the students taking the hostages. Let's talk about the students committing the atrocity of invading the embassy. And if America steps up and says you either get our hostages back from the students within 48 or 72 hours or we're coming in and we're addressing this act of war against the United States of America and we're getting our hostages back, and if you kill them, we will be at war with anybody who condoned that action, and that would include the Iranian Government that allowed this to happen and did not intercede when they could have. That's what you have to do and that's what we didn't do.
So it appeared, as it all unfolded, that after 2 or 3 days the Ayatollah realized America is as weak as we hoped they were. This President Carter, he thinks he's a man of peace, we see him as a man of nothing but weakness, as the poorest leader the Americans could offer. So they quit talking about the students have the hostages, the students attacked the embassy, and they started talking about we have the hostages because they gave us time to show whether or not we would react with strength and they saw we reacted with weakness. You can't negotiate with people like that. You instill more contempt on top of the hatred.
And of course I filed, in all three Congresses I've been a part of--and this Congress will be no different--my U.N. voting accountability bill that basically says if you vote against the United States more than half the time in the U.N. in any year, you will receive not one dime of financial assistance from the U.S. in the subsequent year. Now some say, gee, that seems so heartless. Well, the fact is we have been paying money to prop up regimes like Mubarak's. Is it any wonder that the report is he has billions of dollars in the bank when we've been paying Egypt billions of dollars that doesn't appear to have really gotten to the people and helped them? We're doing it all over the world. We're paying tyrants who hate us and would like to see our way of life destroyed with American treasure. It doesn't buy love, it doesn't buy happiness, it buys contempt. And as I've said repeatedly, you don't have to pay people to hate you, they'll do it for free.
In a time when the United States is struggling so with economic issues of just staying afloat, why should we be paying tyrants that hate us and paying people who have not helped their people? I mean, you look at the money that we poured into the Palestinian group and see how much of the money we paid in to help the homeless Palestinians has been paid toward building homes. It should be a no-brainer. Palestinians, so many of them, hate the Israelis because they have no homes. So they're told, well, blame the Israelis. So they do, and they grow up hating them. Well, why not, with the billions and billions of dollars we've paid out of this country to the Palestinians, why have they not used it to build homes so those people won't continue to hate Israelis and hate Americans?
It's no secret, we're not buying affection with the billions of dollars we're spending overseas. It makes no sense to these countries who hate us that we keep giving them money, but they figure if we're that stupid, sure, they'll take our money, and all the while the dollar gets weaker and weaker and you have more and more claims from people we're giving money to to get rid of the dollar as a reserve currency. And when that happens--if it ever happens--then our economy is in for just the fastest spiral down anyone could possibly imagine. Dollars are required to buy much of the oil in the world. We keep showing this kind of stupidity in our foreign policies and there will be consequences. There were consequences for four Americans who were hijacked and then killed.
As a former judge and State Chief Justice of a Court of Appeals, when I hear stories, I'm constantly looking for evidence so that I can find out, is there any substance to the story that's been heard? Now we see that there was a naval destroyer following, shadowing the hijacked boat of these Americans who were simply going out trying to help people in the world. They were not a threat to anyone, they were providing Bibles and hope from what we can find out.
Well, how does that compare to the incident of the captain of the Bainbridge being taken hostage by three pirates and how it concluded? There were conservative talk show hosts that said, hey, we disagree with so much that President Obama has been doing to this country and in our name, but it looks like he got this one right. Well, a story was circulating--and I was curious whether it had truth to it--that when the SEAL team was deployed, the order was a little different than normal, where instead of the order saying go rescue their hostages and they put together their own game plan for how you go about achieving the goal that's ordered, that this order was a little different, it just said go to the ship and receive further orders there, a little different for a SEAL team, that's what we were hearing, and that they did the drop at night. They had the SEAL team there, and for basically 3 days they had a bead on all three of the pirates in the boat with the captain they had taken hostage, and that at any moment they could have taken out all three pirates for that 3-day period. But the story went, what was circulating, was that the President's order said do not use deadly force under any circumstances unless the life of the captain is in imminent danger of immediately be taken. Only under those circumstances are you to use deadly force.
Well, when a pirate group attacks a ship, it is an act of war by those pirates. And this administration's response here is just to have a Navy destroyer tag along and try to negotiate.
And they were in the process of trying to negotiate, apparently, when the rocket-propelled grenade was fired at the Navy destroyer and then the four hostages were killed.
Well, the story was the administration didn't want to take any action against the pirates. We'll just negotiate our way through this.
And it's one of the problems with being one of the most gifted orators in American history, if you're that gifted of an orator, the temptation arises for you to think you can talk people into anything. People that hate your country, when they see that you really sympathize with them and not your own hostages as much--certainly there's sympathy for the hostages--but if they perceive that there is sympathy for the pirates or for those attacking Americans, then, sure, they're willing to negotiate, but it appears to be weakness.
And, obviously, these pirates in February were not impressed with America when they took the Americans hostage, committed an act of war, and even had a naval destroyer behind because they perceived we were weak.
Well, the story about the captain of the Bainbridge that was going around was that for basically 3 days, the SEALs were not allowed to take out the pirates, that they could have at any time. And then we heard on the news during that that the captain, while the pirates may have been falling asleep, was able to get out of the boat, get into the water.
As soon as I heard that, I thought, Wow, he was trying to give the SEALs clear shots at the pirates. He must have figured, as I did, that they surely would have taken an open shot if they knew they wouldn't jeopardize the American captain. And so by his jumping out of the boat, it gave them a clear shot to take the pirates out without jeopardizing the captain; but no shots were fired. That surely had to perplex him. It sure did me and many others. Why didn't they just take out the pirates before they drug him back in the boat?
But our American SEALs did nothing. Not because they couldn't or wouldn't; but the story was they were doing that because the President had issued an order that they were not to use deadly force. And the story was going that the captain, when he went out of the boat and these guys came to their senses, that they put their guns down to grab him and put him back into the boat and therefore he was not under immediate threat of death so the SEALs were not allowed to kill him.
It must have perplexed the captain that nothing was done when he got out. But nothing was done. The story went that these SEALs were following orders.
And then came an occasion when one of the pirates that had a gun on his arm or over his shoulder waved his weapon in the direction of the captain and that that's when the SEAL team commander realized he's waving his weapon at the captain, we cannot take a chance. The order to shoot was given--that could have been given anytime for 3 days and ended that terrible ordeal--was given not by the President but by the commander on the scene. And our well-trained SEALs did a remarkable job in taking out two of the pirates and rescuing the captain.
he story went it could have happened anytime, but the order of the President restrained them from doing that because he was convinced they could just surely know how good and loving and peaceful we were and they would eventually let these folks go.
Because this administration apparently had not learned the lesson that Thomas Jefferson had to learn. You can't deal with peaceful negotiating efforts or even paying people money or snubbing your allies and friends to try to convince them that you're really a great person they ought to love. Those things don't work. You have to go to war against them and let them know when they attack Americans, when they attack America that we are coming after them.
We don't have to be at war with a country. We don't have to be at war with an entire race or group of people. There's no need in that. But you go to war with the people that are at war with you, and this administration has not done that.
We have four Americans who are dead. Obviously, this administration didn't want Americans to die. Of course they didn't. That's a terrible thing. And they didn't want it--would loved to have avoided it, certainly. But it's not enough to intend good consequences. You have to study your history lessons and do so objectively, learn from history so you don't repeat the mistakes of the past. And that's what we've been doing.
And as much as I respected and think Ronald Reagan was one of our greatest Presidents, in 1983 when our
Marine barracks was blown up and we withdrew from Beirut, it appeared to be further evidence of weakness. And I can't help but believe from people I've talked to that were part of the administration that if he had to do it all over, he would do it in a different manner.
But he had advisers telling him accurately we're in Lebanon on a peacekeeping mission. We have finished the mission. There is no need to keep staying there. Let's go ahead and get out. There's no reason. We've finished our job. Let's get out before any other Americans get killed.
The problem was when we did, it appeared to be follow-up weakness added to what President Carter had shown on behalf of this country.
And now we see it on the high seas.
We have a naval destroyer. We have SEAL teams. We have Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, we have Air Force that can achieve things nobody in any prior service could have ever dreamed could be accomplished. We have a better military than I ever dreamed we could have had back when we had just gone to an all-volunteer Army and I was concerned about our national safety. Amazing military. Smart, motivated. And yet despite that, we're showing weakness.
Now, the story that was going around was that the captain that ordered the fire got a hot call from the White House saying--really chewing him out, that the SEAL team around didn't know what was being said but they knew that their commander was getting chewed out royally. And supposedly the story that was circulating was that he eventually said, That's fine, sir, and that apparently wasn't the President but said, You can tell the President that if he wants to continue this rear-chewing of me and my team, we're going to arrive at Andrews Air Force base, wherever they came in, at a certain time and the media knows, and you can dress them down there. Or you might want a good photo op and you could be there--told the President he could be there to congratulate them. And of course there was a wonderful photo op, and these great heroes were welcomed by the President as he should have.
That was the story going around back after the attack on the Bainbridge.
And so ever since then, I've been looking--I'd heard this story. I was wondering is there any evidence of similar activity that might give substance to that story. And how we handled these four Americans, these loving, caring Americans being killed on the high seas seems to be that kind of evidence, that this is our mode of operation. You commit an act of war against Americans, you commit an act of war against our ships, and we're going to send a Navy ship to follow you and try to offer you bribes to leave us alone and leave the people alone, but you don't have to worry much.
But after the rocket-propelled grenade was fired, it all went bad and four Americans are dead. It's shocking. We need to show strength.
And I was a year ago in April in West Africa with a group called Mercy Ships that brings healing. The lame walk, the blind see. They bring a ship into a port of a country that needs health care and they provide treatment to thousands of people. And I had gone to see this for myself.
And before I left the ship after the days there over the Easter break, some of the West Africans wanted to visit with me. And the oldest, a wonderful, wonderful man, I don't know how much education, but a smart man, great wisdom, he said, in essence, we wanted to make sure you understood as Africans we were excited when you elected a black President. We were excited. We thought it was wonderful. But since he has been President, we've become very concerned and a bit afraid because we see him showing weakness for America. And we need you to please convey in Washington that America is the hope for people, Christians like him. People who want peace around the world, we're their hope. And if you show weakness, and if you weaken America, we don't have hope in this world.
As Christians, they knew where they would go in the next life. But they also knew that America stood for hope in this world. And when we show weakness, as we have been doing, then it signals the tyrants to have their way. And we've got to stop that.
Now, may I inquire how much time is remaining?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman has 25 minutes left.
Mr. GOHMERT. I wanted to shift gears because we have been doing so much talking about the continuing resolution, which is just an ongoing funding of the way things are going, except for amendments that have been adopted to the CR. And we have talked so much about health care and the President's bill that many call ObamaCare.
And in the CR that was debated for over 90 hours, with an open rule until a unanimous consent agreement was reached, you know, 80 hours or so into the debate, it was the first open rule we have had like that in years. Certainly we didn't have such an open debate and an open rule during the last 2 years during the Democrats' control of the majority in both the House and the Senate. We didn't have an open rule here. And we were advised that it was the first time in America's history that there was not an open rule where you could bring, anybody could bring amendments to the floor and offer them to a bill.
Now, it's not a pretty thing to watch, all that debate going back and forth. And I know I hear some people say, you know, you guys shouldn't bicker so much back and forth, but they show a lack of knowledge about what the Founders intended. And Justice Scalia put it so well to a group when one asked do we have more freedom in America because we have the best Bill of Rights in history. And Scalia, as only he could do, abruptly said, basically, well, no, even the Soviet Union had a better Bill of Rights than we do. And I had forgotten, but back in college, during one of my history and world courses, I had written a paper on the Soviet Government and their Constitution, their Bill of Rights.
And Justice Scalia was exactly right, they had more promises in their Bill of Rights than we do. But as Justice Scalia so aptly pointed out, the reason we have more freedoms in America than any country in history is because the Founders did not trust government, so they put as many impediments in the path of creating laws as they could. Because they knew if they made it too easy to pass laws, then it would be too easy to subjugate Americans and take away their freedom and have government get bigger and bigger until they basically took away people's freedom and their way of life to which they had become accustomed. They knew that. They had seen that. They learned that from their vast reading of history.
They had such great knowledge of the writings of the philosophers and historians. They understood all that. They did not trust government. So they were not going to be satisfied to have one House as a representative body because it might be too easy for one body, one group to take over control of that one House and then ramrod through all types of oppressive legislation like ObamaCare, for example.
So they were so worried about that they created a second House of Representatives, ended up being called the Senate. And they were selected a different way, by the State legislators, so that they would be responsible to the State legislators so that they wouldn't end up taking away States' rights, and certainly wouldn't allow the House of Representatives to take away a State's rights.
So they thought, gee, two Houses. But even that wasn't good enough because they realized, you know, we could do like as has been done before and have a Prime
Minister elected by the legislative body, and he would be the top executive. It's not good enough. It's not enough of an impediment or an obstacle to passing laws. We still want to make it harder to pass laws. So let's create a separate executive branch and have the Executive, the top Executive, the President elected by the entire country, and at least elected by the entire country's Representatives. But that was going to be a different format.
And then they set up the judiciary branch. And both the President could veto and even the judiciary, as it turned out, was going to be able to veto things if it got through the House and Senate and yet took away some constitutional right. They thought they created a good enough system that wouldn't be as abused as the entire system was in the last few years.
They could not have imagined that a 2,900-page bill, ObamaCare, could have been crammed down the throats of American citizens that poll after poll showed did not want it. They would never have imagined that the Senate would not be independent enough and would be so taken over by one political extremist group that they would pass through such an oppressive bill that would force a government takeover and government control of everybody's health care, that would force every American to have their medical records sent to a central repository that supposedly General Electric would handle because they are good cronies with this administration; and they would take care of every American's records because the Federal Government would have control of all of that.
And not only that, they would take control over all the health care insurance companies. They would take control over ordering what would be allowable under health care, what would not be allowable under health care, all in this massive bill that would provide for supposedly hundreds of thousands of regulations that would follow to interpret those 2,900 pages.
They could never have imagined that it would get that bad in this country that the system they created to throw obstacles in the path of government creating laws that the American people did not want, and certainly not that a majority of Americans didn't want, and by golly, they got it through. They rammed it through. They used carrots. They dangled benefits. They added all kinds of pork to bills.
They threw in something for the big pharmaceuticals. They threw something in for the trial lawyers. They threw something in for the AMA. They certainly threw a big juicy bone in there for AARP--well, a bunch of juicy bones, actually. They threw all these things in for all these interest groups except for the one who poll after poll said we don't want it. Don't do this.
You promised us you would negotiate a health care bill on C-SPAN and we would be able to see who was out for the people. So all the people could assume was that because none of that was done on C-SPAN, other than a dog and pony show after it was basically done and about to be crammed down the Republicans' throats anyway, we had a little summit and it got crammed down our throats anyway and Americans didn't want it.
Well, I did go through the original 1,000-page bill. I went through the 2,000-page bill. I put off going through the 2,900-page bill because who knew if there would be a fourth or a fifth on top of that. I didn't want to end up going through yet another bill that wasn't going to be the one that really was the one that was seriously going to be made law, so I put it off.
And when I got around to going through and reading the 2,900-page bill, you know, I will admit, I was wanting to look at what the sections did, their effect. And so I was struck by finding, really, ingenious or insidious language and drafting provisions, depending on your viewpoint, for example, with abortion. There was a section there saying, you know, you couldn't have Federal funds for abortion, but over in the section that was going to allow it, instead of mentioning the word ``abortion,'' it just referred to the section. So if you went online and did a word search for the word ``abortion,'' you wouldn't see all of the provisions that allowed for abortion in Federal funding; you would only find a restricted group, that kind of really clever hiding what was going on.
I passed over a lot of the numbers that were utilized. So it was a bit surprising to find out here recently, and going back through, and Ernie Istook, a former Member here I served with, now with the Heritage Foundation, yesterday provided me with copies of specific pages of the bill. Again, this is public law 111-148 and 111-152.
But if you looked at, let's see, consolidated print -26, here it says down here: Hereby appropriated to the Secretary out of any funds in the Treasury, not otherwise appropriated, $30 million for the first fiscal year.
And it goes on, and another page says: There are hereby appropriated to the trust fund, the following, and it appropriated 10 million for this, 50 million for that, 150 million for that, another 150 million, another 150 million.
And you go through these, and it's staggering how much money was actually not authorized, but they used appropriating language. Because, as many people know, and I am finding more and more that are watching C-SPAN, but they know, gee, normally you have a budget. Well, there was no budget last year. The majority didn't want people to see exactly how the money would be budgeted, so they didn't bother with one in election year. First time in decades, as I understand it. But we didn't have a budget. And then we had this, beginning of this continuing resolution stuff. But normally you will have a budget. You will have an authorization for expenditure, but then it had to be followed up with an appropriation.
Well, ObamaCare went straight to it and appropriated vast amounts of money. In fact, in this first year of 2011, fiscal year 2011, there is $4.951 billion appropriated in the bill. They apparently not only overran all the obstacles and hurdles that the Founders put in our way to come up with so that we would not come up with legislation that Americans did not want, they overcame that. Then, just to make sure that it would be difficult to ever stop this by unfunding it, they actually didn't just authorize, they appropriated $105.464 billion in this ObamaCare bill, over $105 billion from 2011 through 2019, $105 billion.
Now, the rules get a little complicated around here, and any amendment that seeks to rescind a prior appropriation is going to be subject to a point of order objection and not be allowed because it legislates in an appropriating bill, and under our rules you can't legislate in an appropriating bill.
So the only way--and these people that put this language in here, they knew it. When they were telling America we know we are broke; we have got to rein in spending, all the while they were sticking in $105 billion of spending in one bill, not authorizing, not saying, gee, you may not be able to afford this 5 or 6 or 7 years from now. So, instead, they just said we are appropriating it and you can't do anything about it, because under the House rules you try to bring up an amendment to rescind that, it's subject to a point of order objection and we can keep it from coming out.
The only way that I understand that this $105 billion that's now been appropriated by the last Congress, the only way that can be taken out is to have a provision in the original bill from the appropriators, not an amendment, a provision that rescinds this $105 billion of appropriations in this prior law from last year, and it's in the original bill. And then the Rules Committee waives any point of order objections to that rescission being in the appropriating bill. My understanding is that's the only way we can get it done.
The amendments we were trying to do and that we got done apparently are not going to accomplish that. We are going to have it in an original committee bill rescinding all of this massive amount of money. Right now, we will be borrowing 42 cents of every dollar of that $105 billion. It's irresponsible. It's almost inconceivable, except here it is in black and white in front of us.
America deserves better than this.
I told some folks back home, I have mentioned before, it strikes me that this government in this last not just 4 years, but even going back into the last few years and especially the TARP bailout that was such a disaster and should never have been passed, that this government became like a parent who had an overwhelming desire to spend and could not control their own spending.
So the parent goes to the bank and says, You have got to loan me massive amounts of money. And the bank says, How are you going to pay it back? You are not going to live long enough to ever pay this back. And the parent says, No, but I have got my children here, and they are going to have children and those children will have children. So my children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren, I am pledging they are going to pay back all of this self-centered massive amounts of money I am throwing upon me and my friends, and I am pledging and promising my children will be indentured servants for the rest of their lives because I can't stop spending.
Now, in a case like that, you would probably have the Child Protective Service come swooping in and say you are an unfit parent. You have no business having children when you are selling your children's future for your own use of money now. How irresponsible that is. Do you care nothing about the children that you can't quit lavishing all that money and paying your friends for doing nothing?
You can't control your spending, so that your children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren can have freedom like you had it? You can't control that? You're an irresponsible parent, and you shouldn't even have these children if you're going to do that. I've heard the Child Protective Services in Texas come in on a lot weaker claims to take children away from parents than that. It's irresponsible what we're doing. And to pass a bill that was against the vast majority will of the American people and to stick in $105 billion of spending is just irresponsible. It's got to stop.
On one final note before my time concludes, having been a judge and a State chief justice, I'm sensitive when I hear judges threatened. And especially in the wake of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting and the loss of life in Arizona, we really should not be provoking actions to the point of violence or threatening actions. And I have certainly had my share of death threats as a judge. But it was usually only when they included my family that it got serious. And we have a group that's held itself out for years now, Common Cause, as this wonderful nonpartisan group. And yet you see over and over, like you did here recently with the rally they held in California with Van Jones--such an impassioned socialist--speaking and stirring people up against Justice Thomas and Justice Scalia.
Justice Thomas himself, after one of the most embarrassing episodes in American history, the way he was treated as he went through the hearings for confirmation to the Supreme Court, he said himself, it's a modern day lynching, high-tech lynching. And in his book, ``My Grandfather's Son,'' where he describes coming out of poverty, severe poverty, and making it on nothing but hard work and his brilliant intellect he achieved the great heights he has. And I have heard him say himself, he started out in college as an angry black man and left-wing extremist who came to realize more oppressive government is not the answer. But he also came to see firsthand, as he has described it, that if you're an African American and you spout the words that the liberal left tells you to say, then they love you. But if you dare--as he points out, otherwise I wouldn't use these words--but he says if you dare to step off the plantation and think for yourself, then here comes all the groups that come after you. And we have seen that with this attack from Common Cause that they are using to fundraise this attack after Justices Thomas and Scalia.
And, again, I look for evidence, are they nonpartisan? Well, it seems like they only come after conservatives, mainstream Americans, but they encourage left-wing extremism on a wholesale basis. But to be attacking Justices Thomas and Scalia and stir up sentiment, they sent out the e-mails urging people to come, they sent out the notices of what they were doing, urging people to come. They knew who they were sending those to. They urged these people to come. And what they got was the friends that they had invited saying that they wanted to string up, basically lynch, one of the most honorable people in the America, Clarence Thomas, that came from the most oppressive background and fought and worked his way up, as he would tell you, with the help of loving grandparents to the status that he has, and they want to do a high-tech lynching of him now.
Except the people that they stirred up aren't going to be satisfied with high tech. They want to lynch him, and they want to lynch his wife. And when you look for evidence, well, have they been saying this all along about other incidences that were similar? Well, when we got a national leader of the ACLU, they never mentioned one word about perhaps she should recuse herself from things that involve the ACLU, and our sympathies go out any time anyone loses a spouse, but when people on the Supreme Court who came from leftist backgrounds had spouses that had direct interests that were affected, Common Cause was silent. Oh, no, they raised their money on going after people that are mainstream conservatives and believe in the Constitution meaning what it says.
And after bringing this up at a press conference this afternoon, we get word that Common Cause has come out and said, we apologize. We never meant for them to say that. No, actually, that's not what they said. They came out and said--this is laughable--they didn't come out and condemn people that want to lynch a Supreme Court justice or justices and their spouses, family and torture them and do these terrible things. No, it didn't say anything about that. It just said this is laughable because they are still raising money. And it is time the Justice Department started being fair about justice and not ``just us'' at their Justice Department but look into Common Cause and look at whether they really deserve to be called ``not for profit'' and ``nonpartisan'' because what they are doing to stir up Americans against honorable Americans is intolerable. America deserves better.
The adage is, Democracy ensures--America, any country--Democracy ensures that people are governed no better than they deserve. My hope and prayer is we deserve better in the next election.
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