Issues of the Day

Floor Speech

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Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus), my good friend, great patriot, and veteran.

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Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I thank Mr. Shimkus for the wonderful tribute being paid. We will have to stand up here at some point and pay a wonderful tribute to Mr. Shimkus.

Obviously, there is a great deal of trouble going on, a lot of troubled people in this country. It is interesting, recently, my wife had flown up to be here in Washington for the President's speech on the White House grounds and, flying back, she noticed there were people with the BLM, Black Lives Matter, paraphernalia, things on there saying ``BLM,'' ``Black Lives Matter.''

It was interesting to hear, apparently, some of the comments, and the comments had to do with the free plane tickets they got to fly up to protest here. One person said, yeah, they got a free minivan the whole time they were here.

Somebody is paying for those items to come up and threaten and assault. Thankfully, there weren't near as many batteries with the actual physical part of the assault, just threatened assaults.

My wife and I, when we left the White House grounds up from the closed Pennsylvania part, trying to get down to our car in front of the Willard, we ended up being chased by a mob. The mob was on its way, and they were very loud and aggressive as they ran toward us, so I thought we will cut through the Willard, because I knew we would never make it all the way around the next block.

There was a door there, a glass door, and I kept knocking on the door, and there were people at the other end of the hall. They could see us. Nobody would come open the door.

Finally, the mob was getting closer as they were running toward us, and I said: Look, if they get here before this door gets open, you go ahead around the corner. I am sure they will be all enthralled with beating me. I don't think they will come after you. Just get around the block. There are police at the other end of the next block. Just get there while they are after me. Don't try to stay and defend me.

But out of nowhere, this guy just comes up behind me--he worked for the Willard--scanned his card, opened the door right before the crowd got there.

But it is just amazing, you know, who wants to inflict violence like that, and, more particularly, who is it that is funding people to come up and create havoc like that?

In an article by Katharine Gorka a couple of days ago in The Federalist, entitled, ``How the 1960s Riots Foreshadow Today's Communist Weaponization of Black Pain''--clearly, there has been pain this country. George Floyd's death was so unnecessary. It was outrageous.

But who is paying?

Who is stirring up all this violence to create more pain, more suffering, and more damage?

It is a question worth finding an answer for.

I have thought numerous times about David Horowitz. I introduced him to someone some years back and said that he used to be a Socialist; and David, now 80, said, Louie, I wasn't a Socialist, I was a Communist. I was a complete Communist, man.

David has written before about his turn from being a Communist in the sixties. One of the things that he had said hit him very hard was they were preparing for protests, and someone else was trying to encourage efforts to make the police overreact so that they would hurt one of them. David didn't want anybody to get hurt or killed. He was told, We want the police to kill somebody because then we can ramp it up, and they won't be able to stop us. He never signed on to get somebody killed.

But if you study the Marxist revolution going back to 1917, the October Revolution--of course, there was one earlier that year--but the Bolsheviks weren't the strongest party, the group of people at that time. There were so many things that could have gone wrong, but one thing they wanted to do--it is right out of the Marxist playbook--was to create such chaos that your little group may have a chance to weasel into power and take over.

We are seeing a lot of that play out in this country. Fortunately, we have people in authority in the Federal Government--at least most places in the Federal Government in this administration, not all. We could improve some of the President's appointments who didn't turn out quite as strong as we had hoped. But we have to get to the bottom of who is paying, who is trying to get this thing all stirred up.

This article from yesterday's, Washington Times, Jeff Mordock: ``Attorney General William P. Barr told federal prosecutors last week to charge violent demonstrators with a range of offenses, including sedition, a charge usually reserved for someone plotting to overthrow the government.''

But that bears looking back at the Federal sedition charge, 18 U.S. Code 2384 is seditious conspiracy.

Some people I hear talk about it as this is treason. If you look at treason, both in the Constitution Article III, section 3, it is more about levying war against the United States Government. 18 U.S.C. 2381 is treason, and it is giving aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States. So it is a tough go.

But if you look at the seditious conspiracy: ``If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.''

So that could very well come into play.

Madam Speaker, I bring it up hoping that those who think it is just fun to create havoc, maybe throw Molotov cocktails or even pay for them or help supply them, help fund people who are going to come throw them or create havoc, then you are looking at 20 years just under that statute alone.

I know under the doctrine of Posse Comitatus, from my days in the Army and since then, that some people are confused about the doctrine. They say that the President can never commit troops against American people. But we saw the Clinton administration utilize vehicles and equipment--it had to have people helping from Fort Bliss, as I understand it, from back in those days--that ended up leading to the death of 70 or 80 people there outside of Waco. The President can, but he has to do it himself. That was one of the confusing things back then. President Clinton, as I recall, was asked about it and he said something like, Oh, that is Reno's deal.

Well, you couldn't utilize what was utilized against David Koresh with his confused personality, problematic as it was. Even that, you couldn't use military resources without the President's approval. So we never found out how in the world the orders were given, if the President himself didn't give it. That was a violation of the law.

But here in 10 U.S. Code 253, it says, ``The President, by using the militia or the armed forces, or both, or by any other means, shall take such measures as he considers necessary to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy . . .''

But you note the words ``domestic violence.'' It goes on.

``If it so hinders the execution of the laws of that State, and of the United States within the State, that any part or class of its people is deprived of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by law . . .''

So it is wide open to being used in some of these riots where people's life, liberty, and certainly their property is not being protected, it is being overwhelmed. I think the President is right to give Governors and mayors the chance to protect their people, but at some point if it is not done, this ought to make clear to those Governors and mayors who aren't protecting their people, the President has authority to send in people to put down what appears to be sedition. This violence really is Marxist violence.

It says in their title, Black Lives Matter. But if you look at what they are in favor of, it is not about Black lives mattering; it is things like destroying the family. Of course, BLM calls it the Western- style family, and that alone is just completely fiction.

The families we have traditionally known in the United States since our very inception weren't Western style. These were Middle Eastern. These came from Moses and from Christians or Jews who believed what Moses said was inspired or provided by God. He said that a man shall leave his father and mother, a woman will leave her home, and the two will become one.

Years later Jesus is asked about marriage and divorce. He quotes Moses verbatim and then adds the line: What God has joined together let nobody separate. So we didn't come up with that type of marriage. It is not Western style. We have to give credit where credit is due. It is Middle-Eastern style. It is from Moses. It is from Jesus. So you can't really take credit for that.

But, then, again, when you are a Marxist group dedicated to the overthrow of the government and replacing it with a Socialist, Communist, Progressive, whatever you want to call it, that is the way they go. That is the direction. You destroy the history so you can't learn from prior mistakes and you can't learn from prior successes, you just rewrite the history. Orwell had a lot to say about that.

There is a study--as this article from The Federalist points out by Joy Pullmann--up to 95 percent of 2020 U.S. riots are linked to Black Lives Matter. That is quite a good article and quite informative.

But then this article by Edwin Mora says that a pro-Communist China group is funding a Black Lives Matter-linked organization. It points out that a pro-Communist China group, the Chinese Progressive Association in San Francisco, is actively funding a venture by Black Lives Matter cofounder and unabashedly anti-capitalist, Alicia Garza.

Another article by Peter Hasson from 2 days ago points out that Black Lives Matter cofounder Alicia Garza in 2015 said that capitalism must be abolished for Black lives to matter.

So, basically, they are pushing for the destruction of our Constitution-based government, and they are creating all kinds of chaos.

So it shouldn't surprise anybody who saw the article yesterday by Douglas Ernst that that Jesus statue that is 90 years old was destroyed at St. Patrick's Cathedral in El Paso, the quote here is: I am in shock.

But that is what Socialist, Communist, Progressives push. If you look at what Communists, Socialists have done, it is clear: you have to get rid of any belief in anything except the government.

As I have mentioned before, when I was an exchange student in the Soviet Union, there were eight Americans that summer from the U.S. We went to the former city--it was the only recognized Christian seminary in the Soviet Union at the time--of Zagorsk. There was a building--as you would turn into the walled area of Zagorsk, there was a building there with a painting of Lenin's face and above it Lenin. Below it was ``Lenin s nami,'' Lenin is with us. So you may be turning in here to learn about Jesus, but just remember it is Lenin who is with us, nobody else. That is the message.

It actually made me nauseous to go into an old church in Moscow that had a stained glass window with big gorgeous colors; instead of Jesus with all the children suffering to come under Him, it was Lenin sitting as Jesus is often depicted surrounded by the children. It was a bit sickening to go into the massive cathedral there in what was then St. Petersburg originally, then it became Leningrad. But that gorgeous, massive cathedral had been converted to a museum of atheism and evolution--just incredible.

But that is where this all has to go if you are going to have a successful destruction of the freedoms we have and go to government control and government ownership and no private property. That is where it all ends up, if we don't get it stopped. It will mean the end of the country that afforded the greatest opportunities individually, the greatest assets individually, and the highest standard of living.

It is tragic that we have poverty in the United States, tragic that we still have any homelessness at all that hasn't apparently improved a whole lot since the War on Poverty started trillions of dollars ago, but even so, we still had the highest standard of living and opportunities, I would submit, in history. It is what freedom and private property has brought--innovation, the greatest innovation in the history of the world. But that is all in jeopardy right now, and Americans better wake up. It is all at risk.

These Marxist revolutionaries need to be stopped. It is sedition. It is a violation of Federal and most State law, and it is time to put it to an end. If the Governors and mayors who have been allowing this to go on--depriving Americans of their life, liberty, pursuit of happiness on their own property--then it will be time for the President to use these Federal statutes to step in and bring peace to the country once again, so we can go through our lives without worrying about being chased by a mob that is upset with you just because you went and heard a speech.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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