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ISSUES OF THE DAY
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Jacobs of California.) Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2021, the gentleman from Texas
(Mr. Gohmert) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I saw one study that indicated that these masks are very helpful; that, by wearing a mask, you have two-tenths of 1 percent less chance of getting COVID. So hurray for that two-tenths of 1 percent, especially for those of us who have had it or have had vaccinations. But I look forward to getting our freedom back at some point.
But you can't have a free society if the media is dishonest. When the Founders fought for the right to have free media, they anticipated that there should always be a majority of the media who would be willing to expose media who were dishonest.
But we are living in a dangerous time, when what used to be called the mainstream media is anything but honest; and that was played out before our very eyes and ears as Project Veritas had a CNN--well, as this article says--a CNN head, but he had leadership, and he admitted quite a great deal about the abuses of CNN, the manipulativeness of CNN.
This article from The Epoch Times--which, by the way, is under fire from the Chinese Communist Party, so since this administration seems to side with the Chinese Communist Party a great deal, they may be coming after The Epoch Times the way the Chinese Communist Party is. But we will wait and see if that happens.
But this story, dated April 14, says a CNN head has personally intervened to order the cable network staff to display the number of people who have died from COVID-19 in the broadcast, according to a CNN technical director who was caught on hidden camera making the comments. The goal was to boost ratings, the director said, explaining fear really drives numbers and is the thing that keeps you tuned in.
That is rather tragic.
A former segregationist President, Democrat, named Franklin D. Roosevelt, had said, quite eloquently: ``The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.'' And he was right that that should be a big concern.
But what we are hearing from the undercover tape is that CNN sees fear as the best way to increase ratings.
So another article from The Gateway Pundit: ``CNN director caught on hidden camera saying the network is `trying to help' BLM by only pushing stories that implicate White people.''
Well, that is unfortunate. What that shows is that CNN doesn't mind being racist. It is very unfortunate that we would stir up that kind of animosity; have a major news network, or what used to be a major news network, CNN, pushing racist divides.
Madam Speaker, I have been joined by a friend--hopefully, she doesn't mind me calling her a friend because that is the way I see her--from New York, an extraordinary Member of Congress. I am thrilled she is back.
I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Tenney).
Ms. TENNEY. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding.
I just wanted a moment to take the opportunity to share something that I launched this week with Representative Garcia from California, and that is the Election Integrity Caucus.
In that caucus, our mission is to make sure that we have and preserve integrity in our election process, and that we have people understand just how important the right to vote is and why it is such a sacred act and a cornerstone of our constitutional Republic and the democratic principles that we hold dear.
A lot of people don't realize how important their right to vote is, and we just want to make sure that people understand that. We don't want it to be undermined.
We think that the Speaker's signature legislation, H.R. 1, undermines the integrity of the right to vote. We think every person who has a legal right to vote should vote in every election, but just once, not multiple times.
One of the things I wanted to mention because I just have a few minutes here, is that we would love to have all the Members join the caucus. Obviously, we would love to have a bipartisan caucus, but I am reaching out to everyone across the Nation to support our efforts to try to bring integrity to our election process and to understand how sacred the right to vote is.
I think it is really great that Mike Garcia, the Representative from California, who won by 333 votes, is joining me. I won by 109 votes in upstate New York in one of the longest election cycles in the Nation and did not even get sworn in until February 11.
So we just wanted to make sure everyone understands that we want to expand the number of people that vote. You know, you hear all the time that the Republicans want to suppress the vote. Nothing could be further from the truth.
We know so many great Americans through our Nation's history that have lost life and limb for this sacred right to vote privately, and we want those people to exercise that right and feel that their vote actually counts.
I think one thing that my race and Representative Garcia's--also our colleague, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who recently was confirmed the winner again in Iowa's Second District--shows is that every vote does count. And it should be something that people joyfully do, is to exercise that right to vote because I think a lot of people don't realize, we have a self-governing constitutional Republic; it is by and for the people.
I think one of the enduring themes, one of the reasons I love our former President Lincoln was that he used to talk about: Can we save the Republic? Can we be self-governing? And we want to be sure that we preserve all of that and how great this country is by actually forming this Election Integrity Caucus to travel around the country and encourage people to register to vote, and to vote.
And I will add, I just visited the border. And we have a great community of refugees where my district is up in New York's 22nd District, and I can't tell you how excited so many of these people are when they finally get to be citizens, and when they have a chance to vote, and when they have a chance to vote privately without somebody looking over their shoulder or knowing how they voted.
We just want to make that act sacred, and we want to make everyone aware that they have the opportunity to vote, and their vote is secure, and no one is going to take their vote or dilute their vote. We need to make sure that we preserve the integrity of our voter rolls.
It is interesting; I come from New York, and people think of New York as being this liberal bastion, which it is. But Article II of New York's Constitution talks about the right of suffrage.
In my own district, the first women to vote in New York State voted in Lisle, New York, in my district of New York. So we know how sacred that right is for women to have the right to vote. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton all hailed from New York State, so we have a great tradition of voting, and we want to lead the way toward that.
I know that we would love to have the gentleman join if he is interested in joining our caucus.
Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the gentlewoman's efforts, and I would be thrilled to join that caucus. That is absolutely meritorious, and it should be something that all of us work to support together.
Yet, we get cast, as Republicans, as wanting to limit the number of voters, when actually, we want more voters; but we need to have people vote legally, not multiple times, not voting after you no longer have a pulse, but voting as citizens. So I am thrilled. I yield to the gentlewoman from New York.
Ms. TENNEY. And we have many safeguards in place to reserve that right to vote, but also to encourage people to go out and realize that their vote does count. And wouldn't it be great if every legal citizen voted in every election? That would be a true self-governing Republic that we all aspire to maintain and preserve.
Once again, I cannot emphasize enough, we urge everyone to join the caucus, including our Democratic friends. I think they would like what we are going to be standing for. We are going to be preserving and protecting the votes in all districts across the entire Nation, and I think it is going to be an exciting initiative.
I thank the gentleman for being willing to join. I know my time is limited today, but I wanted to take advantage of this. And I want to also thank the gentleman for taking this opportunity to be in this amazing place.
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It is an honor to be elected to this great body, with so many good Members on both sides of the aisle, and to be able to do the business here for the people of our country in such a tough time, in so many ways, as we are emerging, hopefully, from the pandemic.
I am grateful that you take this time and talk about the news and events of the day that may sometimes get missed in the mainstream media. I am grateful to you, and I want to wish you the best and everyone a great weekend.
Let's talk about election integrity.
Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, it brings to mind being in Iraq back in 2005. Iraq had just had its first true fair election, and people stood in line for hours and hours.
In talking to a police chief, he pointed out one place where there was a very long line. We knew that radical Islamists were going to try to disrupt the election. There was a suicide bomber who was found in the line, and a policeman grabbed him, threw himself on top of the suicide bomber. The bomb was set off, and the policeman and the radical Islamist were both killed.
I said: Wow. Did the voters come back?
He looked a little surprised and said: They never left the line. They knew if they got out of the line and did not vote, that the policeman would have given his life for nothing. They wanted the policeman's life to count, and they were not going to be intimidated by a suicide bomber trying to prevent them from voting, so they stayed in line to vote.
Too many Americans have come to think of voting as too onerous, that they don't really have time to do it, that it doesn't really matter, when, actually, as we hear and find over and over, elections do have consequences.
It is important that if you are legally allowed to vote, you should vote. It is unfortunate that there is a push to have people who don't understand--they are not citizens. They haven't been educated yet to understand what it takes to preserve a republic, which has allowed us to drift toward a more Orwellian-style government, a totalitarian, more socialist government.
Yes, you have to have a totalitarian government in order for socialism to succeed. Khrushchev finally came to grips with that. True communism is where everybody shares and shares alike, and there is no government.
I remember doing a report in college about a commission that Khrushchev set up to figure out a plan to move to where there was no government and just pure communism, pure sharing. Ultimately, they disbanded the commission because they realized there is no way to have no totalitarian government.
If you are going to have communism or socialism, the government has to be big, powerful, and totalitarian enough to take from those who earn and give to those who don't.
Anyway, elections are important. The next national election, of course, will be in 2022. That is something we need to be working toward making sure is fair. But it is difficult when you have entities like CNN that are more interested in ratings, scaring people, and supporting the Democratic Party than they are in reporting the news. It really makes it difficult to have free and fair elections when people are being deceived.
It was also interesting that since James O'Keefe, who founded Project Veritas, getting the truth out, he had the video of a leader at CNN exposing exactly what CNN was about: helping the Democratic Party and scaring Americans.
Twitter, being part of the high-tech oligarchy, has banned Project Veritas. O'Keefe, the founder, was first banned, and then, later, it was indicated he was banned permanently for violating the Twitter rules on platform manipulation and spam.
So, according to Twitter, if you expose the truth about somebody or some entity that Twitter is figuratively in bed with, then Twitter will ban you because they don't want the truth out there. They don't want the truth about Americans being manipulated by entities like CNN, Twitter, Facebook, or Google. They don't want the American people finding that out, so they will ban you.
When any entity is powerful enough that it can prevent people from, say, learning about the Vice President's family member, who may have engaged in an impropriety, or from finding out that, actually, when the current President, at that time a candidate for President, was saying that Russia was paying bounties to kill American soldiers, which people promoting the story, at least some of them, knew was not true, knew was not likely true, that they want that falsity out there. They want to hurt a candidate with false news.
I don't know what the Supreme Court will end up doing, but the Sullivan case is there, requiring malice to be shown by a public figure in order to prevail in a lawsuit. But it ought to be clear, especially with things like this video exposing that CNN is out to destroy Matt Gaetz, out to deceive the American public, out to fearmonger to increase ratings even though it hurts America. They don't care. It is okay, in CNN's leadership mind, to harm America if it helps their ratings.
We have seen the same thing from Major League Baseball and some international corporations. They are okay with doing business with the Chinese Communist Party and benefiting them, helping them, making money for them, if it makes money for the corporation or the sport, even though it is greatly to the detriment of millions or, in the case of the Chinese Communist Party, hundreds of millions or a billion people.
It is okay, in the minds of some of these people. It is okay to be totally hypocritical and hurt Black-owned businesses in Atlanta, where they are so prevalent, and move the All-Star Game to a place that is substantially White if it makes you appear woke, even though you are hurting African-American businesses and helping White businesses.
It is okay to help the Chinese Communist Party, which is trying to destroy America. They are trying to get to a place where the American economy could collapse, and China would survive that economically. If they get to that place, then you will see them taking additional actions, rather profoundly, to bring down our economy and leave them remaining as the only, at that point, superpower.
We have to be more wise than we have been. We need to call out corporations or entities in the United States that are out to help the enemies of the United States and stir up divisiveness within the United States if they think it creates a profit.
We are seeing that with CNN. We are seeing that with Major League Baseball. It is just a sad time in America.
This article from Epoch Times says: ``Twitter pointed to a section in the company's rules, which states: `You can't mislead others on Twitter by operating fake accounts,' and `you can't artificially amplify or disrupt conversations through the use of multiple accounts.' ''
Well, Twitter really has to stretch in order to come up with a basis for banning someone who is promoting truth and is exposing truth that CNN did not want exposed and, obviously, Twitter did not want exposed.
This is a story by Allum Bokhari, ``Twitter Permanently Blacklists James O'Keefe After CNN Expose.'' This article also mentions: ``In the first video, Chester admits that CNN's negative coverage of unproven allegations against Representative Matt Gaetz is `propaganda' because Gaetz is a `problem for the Democrats.' ''
Yes, I am told, he is nice-looking. I don't see it, but I am told he is nice-looking. He comes across well. I do hear that. I see him come across well. He is quite smart, quite clever, and insightful.
The CNN leader says: ``It would be great for the Democratic Party to get him out. So we are going to keep running those stories to keep hurting him.''
``In further undercover footage posted today, Chester can be heard admitting that CNN is unlikely to give a great deal of attention to the race of a mass shooter in its coverage if they `aren't White.' ''
``Chester also admits that `a bunch of Black men' have been responsible for recent violent attacks against Asian Americans and that this is a problem because `the optics of that are not good' and CNN is
`trying to help BLM.' ''
BLM, let's be fair, they are trying to establish socialism and get rid of the constitutional government we have and move to a more Orwellian, socialist type of government.
``This is pure censorship for political reasons because he has successfully exposed CNN,'' talking about Twitter banning O'Keefe. That is a comment from Robby Starbuck on Twitter.
My friend Matt Gaetz says: ``O'Keefe exposes CNN for lying about me and Donald Trump for propaganda. Then Twitter suspends him.''
Conservative commentator John Cardillo says: ``If the left weren't terrified, they wouldn't be banning people.''
{time} 1345
So, anyway, it is rather tragic that Twitter has joined in to become a part of, figuratively, the ministry of truth that Orwell talked about in his novel ``1984.'' I mean, Orwell was apparently in a great deal of pain, dying of cancer, had been through brutal cancer treatments. Some think that is where he came up with the idea of some of the torture that was utilized by the ministry of love, which would arrest people with whom they disagreed and would torture them for hours, days, weeks, months, or many years, whatever was necessary to finally get them to change their story.
But the ministry of truth were the ones that were constantly rewriting history to serve the interests of this totalitarian government, and that appears to be exactly what we are beginning to see from many in our own media in the United States.
I was struck the summer that I was an exchange student to the Soviet Union, how Pravda always--it was like the ministry of truth that Orwell wrote about. They would change any story in order to make the Soviet Government the prime player, the prime interested party. They would lie about anything.
In the summer of 1973, I was intrigued by what they were saying about this Watergate thing, that that was clearly stirred up by the Democrats against Richard Nixon because Nixon had had the courage to be the first U.S. President to go to the Soviet Union and to reach out to create a viable relationship with the Soviet Union. So the Democrats were totally manufacturing Watergate just because Nixon had dared to be friendly toward the Soviet Union.
Well, we know that was not the case, but that is the way the Soviet Union would use the media, Pravda, to lie about what was going on to make them the central players in everything.
Obviously, Watergate was real. There was a manipulation of the law. If you listen to some of the tapes or read some of the transcripts of the Nixon tapes, you are struck by the inconsistency and the ability of a President of the United States to be two-faced in talking to different people and the manipulative approach to being President.
So, hopefully, the truth will all come out. Apparently, unless Twitter and CNN change their approach to news, the truth will not come from Twitter, will not come from CNN. But, hopefully, emerging news sources will take the place of the once great CNN, unless CNN begins to report more truthfully. That would be a welcome change.
And we can all hold onto that hope that springs eternal in the human breast, that maybe someday somebody will take over at CNN that will see CNN's viewership surge because they have decided finally to be going after real news and truth instead of manipulating things for the Democratic National Committee or an entity like Black Lives Matter.
Of course, they matter. But that is not what BLM is about. They are about moving America toward socialism. They are about destroying the nuclear family, which the War on Poverty helped do for Black families, and now it is all families. We have seen that happen, and Thomas Sowell and Candace Owens have both covered that very effectively in their recent books.
This article from Joel Pollak, April 16: ``Patrisse Cullors, a co-
founder of Black Lives Matter, told interviewer Marc Lamont Hill on Thursday that there is no contradiction between her radical left-wing politics and owning four homes because she is providing for extended family.
``In the interview on `Black News Tonight,' Hill asked Cullors, also known as Khan-Cullors after spouse Janaya Khan, about the truth of reports that she had bought four homes since 2016--including a $1.4 million compound in the remote Topanga Canyon neighborhood of L.A. and a vacation home with an airplane hangar in Georgia--and that she and her spouse had considered buying exclusive property in the Bahamas also.
``The reports prompted criticism from within the Black Lives Matter movement''--and I would hope that it would--``and questions about her source of funds.
``She replied that `never taken a salary from Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation,' and that she had other sources of income from her work as a college professor, as a TV producer, an author, and a YouTube content creator.
``In a statement, the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation said she had not received any compensation from the group since 2019, though she had received $120,000 from the group since 2013 for performing specific duties.
``She added: `Organizers should get paid for the work that they do.'
''
But, now, having spent a summer in the Soviet Union, I know how socialism is supposed to go, and there were Soviet friends that were somewhat disenfranchised with the Socialist way of doing things. They said, yeah, we all receive about the same amount of money, but those who have leadership positions or political power, they get to buy things the rest of us don't buy. We have all got about the same money to spend, but we don't have access to the things that they do.
So in a true Socialist country, people that want power, if you have a shoe store, then we saw it back then, they would take the best shoes and save them for people in political positions of power. So when those power brokers come in, then they get to pick from the best shoes while all the rest are told, well, you either take these or you don't get any; there just are no others.
If you were a power broker, yeah, you had about the same amount to spend as everybody else. But everybody else was told there is no toilet paper, whereas the power brokers would be taken to the back and allowed to buy toilet paper. Those were the days, and that is normally the way it works.
On one occasion I was surprised because a cleaning lady appeared that she was going to be running and telling on this Soviet citizen.
And I said: Why would she go tell on you?
And he said: Look, in your country, you can get ahead by working harder and making more money. In our country, we all make about the same. So the only way you can get ahead is if you step on other people. So, yes, she will go tell on me, and she will go up a little bit in power because that is how you get ahead here in the Soviet Union. You step on other people, and that elevates you.
So that is where some are wanting to take the United States, where everybody is getting about the same amount of money, except that, apparently, we have leaders like this in the BLM movement who think--
and she said she is ``a trained Marxist''--``and your lived practice.''
Those are her words. But she is not--well, she says: ``The way that I live my life is a direct support to Black people, including my Black family members, first and foremost. . . . I see my money as not my own. I see it as my family's money as well.''
But a true Socialist would not say that because a true Socialist says everybody shares and shares alike, from those according to their ability to those according to their needs. So your family can't be foremost if you are a true Socialist. So there is some confusion here on what is true socialism, and Ms. Cullors does not have that down very well.
According to the article, she is buying a $1.4 million compound in an exclusive part of Los Angeles and a vacation home with an airplane hangar in Georgia.
No, no, no, that is not supposed to happen. If you are a true Socialist, you share and share alike. You may think you have earned all this money, as she said she had, doing all these different things, but a true Socialist would say: No, but we are going to share that with everybody.
Apparently she would appropriately think: I have all this additional ability that others don't have, so you should take my money away from me, from those according to their ability, and give it to those according to their needs.
So she has got a ways to go before she understands the socialism that she is trying to force on the United States.
The article goes on to read: ``The point of the criticisms, she said, was `to discredit me, but also to discredit the movement.' She added:
`We have to stay focused on white supremacy.'''
Yeah, don't look behind the curtains at the guy that is manipulating things, as we saw in the ``Wizard of Oz.'' No, no, keep looking over here at what we will call white supremacy.
Anyway, ``She responded to claims that Black Lives Matter should distribute funds to the Black community by noting that while she was sympathetic, the organization was not a `charity' and was not the government.''
So she has got a ways to go before she really understands the socialism she is trying to force on everybody else.
She says: ``Our target should be calling on Congress to pass reparations.''
Well, she doesn't understand that true reparations in a Socialist society would take from somebody that had $1.4 million to spend on a home and spread it out to everybody else. So she could never own a $1.4 million home. But, anyway, hopefully others will help her and any other leaders with Black Lives Matter who don't understand what they are trying to force on America, and we will see if that actually happens.
Now, I heard our majority leader in what some call a colloquy or soliloquy, whatever you want to call it, talking about compassion for those who are foreigners. It strikes me, there are so many people across America in the lamestream media and even on this floor who think it is compassionate to lure people across miles, hundreds or thousands of miles even, across horrendous terrain; have them pay drug cartels, which thoroughly oppress a country like Mexico; have as much, maybe, as 25, 30 percent of young women raped, we are told, often repeatedly on that journey; have many girls subjected to a life of sex trafficking in order to pay back the money they owe to the drug cartels. Others subjected to human trafficking and drug trafficking in order to pay back the money they owe to the drug cartels. Creating a life as a servant, as a bondsman to the drug cartels, where people have no hesitation to cut off fingers, hands, arms, or heads and put on pikes, like some honest policemen have had happen, as a message from the drug cartels that: You don't mess with us.
Somehow that is compassionate to add to the billions of dollars the drug cartels have to terrorize a country or hemisphere. But if you really look closely enough at this problem on our southern border, you will find that is not compassionate at all.
{time} 1400
The most compassionate, caring, neighborly, Christian thing we could do for the people of Mexico would be to secure our southern border, cut the billions of dollars going to the drug cartels that they use to terrorize a continent, just cut that down to a trickle. They may always make some, but you can cut it to a trickle if we secure our southern border.
And then Mexico, because of the incredible people in Mexico, some of the hardest workers in the world and with natural resources in excess of most of the countries in the world--and actually a better location between the Atlantic and Pacific; yes, we are between the Atlantic and Pacific in the United States, but it is closer across Mexico from one ocean to the other. They are in a prime location. They ought to be a top economy in the world. And the only thing that appears to be holding them back, the one thing is the corruption from the drug cartels that has greatly increased under this new administration. It is a boon to the drug cartels that President Biden is helping their human trafficking business as he is.
Now, he doesn't look at it, I am sure, as helping the drug cartels. He is looking at it as helping the Democratic National Committee down the road when they can give amnesty and make them voters, but that is so hurtful to Mexico.
How about cutting the power of the drug cartels and allowing Mexico to keep its own citizens and central American countries that are being depleted of good, hardworking people, letting them keep their citizens, getting rid of the corruption. We are the main source of the funding for the corruption south of our border.
Compassion would dictate that we stop funding the corruption instead of turning a blind eye to that corruption that we are funding through the drugs, sex trafficking, human trafficking, cut that down to nothing or very little and watch how our good neighbors will explode with a vibrant economy, not with terrorism the drug cartels use.
Chip Roy has a bill to name the two main drug cartels as terrorist organizations, and I think that is exactly what we should do. That would allow more resources to go towards stopping the terrorism and the corruption within Mexico and within Central America. That is what a good neighbor would do. That is what real compassion is. Compassion is not luring people to situations that destroy their lives.
The indentured servitude that the drug cartels subject these people to is just unfathomable, and it is unfathomable that educated people, including here in Washington, D.C., would say, oh, yes, that is a good thing that we lure people here, even though they become indentured to the drug cartels.
I have mentioned before, I have been there all hours of the day and night, but especially at night because it is easier to get drugs across--in the dark, that is. So the drug cartels totally control who comes across, when they come across, and in what numbers they come across.
And as the Border Patrol, when they are down there and they don't have supervisors watching over them every moment, they will tell you, we know when we have a big group come across and we are all having to come together to get them in process, that that is when they are bringing in large amounts of drugs or some high-value customer perhaps from a Middle Eastern country; a place like Yemen, where two terrorists were picked up on the terrorist watch list. But, of course, if they are not going to be able to get through customs because they are on the terrorist watch list, well, for goodness' sake, all they have to do is come to Mexico. The drug cartels will charge them extra money, somewhere north of $35,000 or so, maybe much more than that, but they make a lot of money if somebody wants to come and is on the terrorist watch list.
I was told down there, if you are coming from China, you are probably going to pay $35,000 or more; but some of the Middle Easterners, they will pay a lot more than that to avoid being detected coming in.
So let's be compassionate. Let's allow countries south of our border to keep their citizens and grow a vibrant economy where people won't have to come begging to the United States. They will have their own vibrant economy, and they will be blessed immeasurably because of it.
A Tribute to Former Speaker Boehner
Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I do want to say a special word of tribute. I know our former Speaker Boehner has been in the media recently, and I have been asked about comments he has made about some of us.
Speaker Boehner was an interesting Speaker. I don't know if he knows who Machiavelli was, but he employed some of those tactics. I remember July, I believe it was, of 2011, when he was pushing a big sequester deal. I got up at conference and said--I haven't seen it, but I read that he apparently said that I didn't make sense. But I stood up at conference. And I can understand sometimes his mind was a little clouded. I might not seem to make sense, but I pointed out this sequester deal is a mistake. It is a terrible mistake because you are going to cost billions of dollars for the military, to our own defense. That is our own security.
I actually said in front of the whole conference, when I was in high school, a friend's father was in a poker game, and he thought he had a hand that nobody could beat. He was out of money, so he put his home on the table, and somebody had a hand that beat him, and he lost his home in a card game. And I have known since that time that you never gamble with your own security, your family's security, your country's security.
Speaker Boehner said: Louie, listen, those sequesters will never happen.
And I said: Of course they are going to happen.
And he said: No, because we have the super committee that will reach an agreement; because, if they don't, cuts to Medicare will happen.
I forget if it was $200 billion or $300 billion.
And I said: Of course there will be no agreement, because ObamaCare cut $716 billion from Medicare, from our seniors' coverage for healthcare. And they did it without a single Republican House vote. So the only way in 2012 the Democrats will be able to run a commercial that says Republicans cut Medicare is for the Democrats to prevent an agreement by the super committee. So the cuts will take place to Medicare, and the defense and the Democrats will get a twofer, I explained to Speaker Boehner. They will be able to cut the defense, which they have been wanting to do, and there will be a cut to Medicare that they will blame on Republicans' unwillingness to compromise.
As I recall, there were a couple of Senators that even proposed a way to raise fees that wouldn't be called taxes, and there was an article that said Democrats thought that was going to get a deal worked out. Then they met with Democratic leaders and they had to come back and say: You really made a good-faith offer, but we are told there won't be a deal.
Well, I tried to explain that that is what would be coming just as it happened, but as the Speaker has now admitted, I didn't make sense to him because he had said those sequesters will never happen. That was in July. Before the end of the year, he had to come before the Republican conference and explain why the sequesters were going to happen, but we are going try to minimize the damage.
I also remember another summer when there was a short, funds were running out for a particular area of our budget of our appropriations, and we were going to have to do something before we went out on August break. I asked my dear friend Thomas Massie: Have you talked to McConnell? Are we going to get a deal on this?
And he said: Yes, I was at breakfast with him this morning, and he said he and Boehner had an agreement, and we are going to extend the funds for a couple of months, and they are going to throw in some additional money to help veterans. They have got it all worked out.
So we are listening as Speaker Boehner gets up, and he says: ``You know, what often happens is the Senate passes something and leaves town and they jam us, and then we have to pass what the Senate passed. But here is what we are going to do''--he even put his finger in the air--
``we are going to pass a bill, and we are going to extend this a couple months''--the funding--``we are going put some money in there for veterans, and then we are going to pass it, and we are going to leave town, and we are going to jam the Senate.''
And most of the House Republicans jumped to their feet and were giving him a standing ovation because the Speaker just told us we were going to jam the Senate, even though, according to what Senator McConnell told another Kentuckian, he and Boehner had a deal worked out. But it got Speaker Boehner a standing ovation and big loud cheers, not from my friend, Representative Massie, and myself because we knew what the truth was.
But, anyway, some people, I hear, miss those days where he was Speaker and did things like that, or totally missed an opportunity on Cut, Cap, and Balance Act. Speaker Boehner said that could never pass the House of Representatives. We assured him it could, and it would if he would just bring it to the floor.
So Speaker Boehner finally agreed, and he brought it to the floor, and it passed and it was a huge victory, a huge day. But by that very afternoon, he was already talking about scrapping that and working a deal with the Senate. In other words, he had no intention of carrying out the will of the House as we had just passed it, which would have been great for lowering the indebtedness and getting America on a financially secure path. He was already scrapping the big victory we had before it even had a chance to be discussed in the Senate
{time} 1415
So I know there is some that miss those days, but if God grants us the chance to be in the majority again, we can't go back to those days of manipulation. We have got to be straightforward with the American people. We have got to have leaders that will do that. And we have got to be about the business of turning this country back to where freedom is the watchword for the day, not government oppression, not government putting businesses out of business, but letting freedom reign for real once again.
Madam Speaker, with that, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the President.
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SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 167, No. 66
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