Pat Fallon: “I was sitting here not planning to speak at all, then I heard words from the other side of the aisle. They were flowery…”

“I was sitting here not planning to speak at all, then I heard words from the other side of the aisle. They were flowery, they were eloquent, they had passion, they were articulate, they were powerful, and even moving probably to some. Nevertheless, were they true? I heard about protecting speech, the First Amendment, and our beloved Constitution. Who is not for protecting speech, our beloved Constitution, and the First Amendment? So does the gentleman from Maryland and our friends across the aisle really believe that? Then when I heard about slippery slope and setting a precedent, on February 4, 2021, Marjorie Taylor Greene was removed from her committees for things that she said before she was a Member of Congress. On November 17, 2021, Paul Gosar was censured for a cartoon that his staff posted. A tasteless cartoon though it be, it was speech. So we are protecting speech, are we? It is speech that we disagree with, calling the deliberate killing of innocent civilians resistance, claiming a bombing of a Gaza hospital was done by the Israelis that killed hundreds of people when we knew that was not true, and yet Ms. Tlaib doubled and tripled down on that. That was false, and that was a lie. And then repeating and celebrating a genocidal chant ``from the river to the sea.'' That is not a cartoon, and that is not saying some things, Mr. Speaker, that you said before you were a Member of Congress.…”