Issues of the Day

Floor Speech

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Mr. GOHMERT. Brain Aneurysm Awareness Month

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Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Florida for those words and comfort that they will hopefully bring.

I think most Americans, especially those that knew anybody who fought for our country in Afghanistan, are aware of how poorly things went a year ago when the Biden administration, it appeared, tried to emulate the disastrous leaving of Vietnam when so much was left behind, including our allies.

Like in Vietnam, allies were left there, many of whom were killed. Of course, 13 of our servicemen were killed that never should have been and did not need to be if we had left properly, as some of our Northern Alliance allies, a part of the Afghan people who fought for us and with us beginning in October 2001, about a month after 9/11--many died fighting for us and with us.

We helped provide them weapons, and we had about 300 or so Special Operations people who were embedded with them, and they took the fight to the Taliban. Within 6 months, there was no organized Taliban left in Afghanistan. Some of them fled to Pakistan or other surrounding countries, but they had been defeated with the great help of General Dostum, who was the commander who was the overall commander of the Afghan forces fighting against the Taliban.

President Biden and his advisers, for whatever reason, decided it was better to leave tens of billions of dollars of equipment and weapons for our enemies to use against our allies and probably one day use against the United States itself.

We saw this kind of disastrous exit from Vietnam. An estimated 2 million or so people who helped us and were sympathetic to us were killed in Southeast Asia. I just thought surely we would never be that stupid and that callous to allow allies to be harmed like that.

I met with some of our Northern Alliance allies, along with a few other Members of Congress, numerous times. Of course, there was the great Afghan hero of the war between Afghanistan and Russia. Unfortunately, our intelligence agencies here in the U.S. did not pick up on the importance of Shah Massoud, Lion of Panjshir, being assassinated by the Taliban within a day, day-and-a-half or so of 9/11 about to occur. Had they been awake and not asleep at what was going on, they would have anticipated the Taliban was about to do something to cause great harm to the United States.

They knew once we realized that the attack originated from Afghanistan that we would be coming and looking for allies, and we would certainly want Massoud and his brother and all those others who wanted the Taliban gone, we would be using them and working with them to eliminate the Taliban. So, the Taliban eliminated that great Afghan hero before 9/11.

In numerous meetings with our Afghan allies for a decade or more, going back to the Obama administration days, they were telling a few of us: Look, we know you have to leave at some point. We know that. But what we are begging is that you help us amend the Constitution that you forced on us. We like it; it is based on sharia law. But this is a country that is perfectly suited for the federalist system where you have so much power in your country in the States and our country, they said, in the provinces. But right now, the Constitution that you gave us, forced on us, the President appoints the governors, the mayors, the chiefs of police, and it is a system made for corruption.

It sounded to me like the way things were going over there, the times I went to Afghanistan, and you are hearing the reports of what was going on, whether it was Karzai or Ghani, that they may well have taken a great deal of money, like the old Roman days, and whoever gave the most money would get the best governorship.

They were appointing governors that didn't even live in the province that they were going to be governor over. They were not allowed to have militias like they wanted, as Zia Massoud told me more than once in trips to meet with them.

In fact, the Obama administration did not want me meeting with our allies. They did what they could to keep me from meeting with our allies, even though the Obama administration basically threw them to the curb and was anxious to work deals with the Taliban.

In fact, the colonel there at the Embassy in Afghanistan, I told him that I have a meeting with Massoud, Dostum, numerous of our allies, and he said: We can't let you do that.

I said: I am not asking you for a ride. Massoud is sending a vehicle, and they will make sure that I am protected. They are not going to let me be killed because they want to protect the relationship.

The colonel said: Well, we are not authorized to let you do that.

I said: You see the gate over there? When the car gets here, I am going to get in that car, and I am going to go meet with our allies. I know the Obama administration has rejected any type of relationship with those people that fought for us and with us, who lost family members, but I am going to go meet with the allies that have sacrificed so much to help us, help both of us.

Well, they ended up getting a car, and I was told before the vehicle that Massoud was sending: Will you let Massoud know we are going to bring you there?

Michele Bachmann went out there with me. She had not met them before. Mike Burgess went out there.

But all they wanted was for us to help them fix the Constitution we forced on them. They needed a federalist form of government, and that is what they said: If you will help us get that, we can elect our own governors, and we can elect our own mayors, pick our own police chiefs. Then, each province will have a militia because when you leave, the Taliban is going to try to take back over, and then they will eventually want to hit you again. But if we are allowed to elect our own governors and mayors, we will be able to have a militia in each province. So, when you leave, then we will be able to band together and whip the Taliban again. But if you leave it like it is and keep negotiating with the Taliban--which the Obama administration had been doing basically the whole administration--then we are all going to be killed. Then they will hit you again, and then you will want to come back to Afghanistan and try to find allies, but we will all be dead, and no one will be crazy enough to help you again. So, just help us elect our own governors.

I said: What makes you think we can help you get your Constitution amended? It is your Constitution now.

He said: You are paying most of our government's annual budget, so if you say the Constitution needs to be amended or we are not going to pay this year's budget for you, then it will be amended, and we will be able to protect ourselves from the Taliban whenever it is that you leave.

I know Secretary Pompeo also negotiated with the Taliban, but there is no way President Trump would have ever allowed our troops to leave and leave tens of billions of dollars' worth of equipment for our enemy to someday use against us. He wouldn't do that.

And on the other hand, the Taliban knew that if they did anything to our folks during a projected move of coming back to the United States that President Trump would bomb them back to the Stone Age so they would not have done what they did. They perceived America to be weak under this administration, and we lost 13 soldiers, military members that should never have been lost.

So as if that wasn't enough damage, I see this article, I just saw it today, it is dated September 12 by Daniel Greenfield. It says: ``White House Democrats have a history of fighting against terror victims suing Islamic terrorists. The Obama administration battled American terror victims suing the PLO. In 2015, after they won a $218 million judgment against the terror group, Blinken, then only a Deputy Secretary of State, intervened claiming that the lawsuit threatened `several decades of U.S. foreign policy.'

``But now Biden is fighting 9/11 victims''--that is American victims--``on behalf of the Taliban.''

We have this administration helping the Taliban fight in court against 9/11 victims. The rhetorical question arises to the Biden administration: Whose side are you on? You are helping the Taliban.

The article goes on: ``At stake are billions'' of dollars ``being held by the Afghan central bank fund in the United States.

``A decade ago, 9/11 families sued the Taliban, al-Qaida, and Iran. The court found that the Islamic terrorists were responsible and a judgment of $6 billion was handed down.'' That is for the 9/11 families.

``The verdict was described as `symbolic' at the time. CBS News commented that `it would be near impossible to collect any damages, especially from the Taliban or al-Qaida.' But that was before Biden turned over Afghanistan to the Taliban. Since Afghanistan has assets in this country''--in the U.S.--``including $7 billion in bank funds, it's now entirely possible to collect that . . . `' $7 billion, or it would be if the guy who let the Taliban take over wasn't also in the White House.

``Biden officially announced that he was splitting the $7 billion between the families of the victims and a `trust fund' to provide `humanitarian aid' for the people of Afghanistan.''

In other words, we are going to help the Taliban out to make the people of Afghanistan feel better about the Taliban being in charge. That is what is going on here.

Biden officially announced that he was going to make that split.

``The $3.5 billion was placed in a separate trust that would be `separate and distinct' from the around $800 million the Biden administration has already spent on aid to Afghanistan. Officials admitted that the money could actually be used for matters other than `humanitarian aid.'''

In other words, it could be used to help the Taliban itself, the people that killed 3,000 or so Americans on 9/11, the worst attack on American soil in American history, and this administration is making sure they get billions of dollars.

The article goes on: ``The media headlined it as, `Biden frees frozen Afghan billions for relief, 9/11 victims.' But a Biden official admitted that it was done to stop 9/11 families from getting access to the money.''

``As a Lawfare blog post noted, `the administration's . . . `'-- talking about the Biden administration's--``' . . . plan would insulate nearly half of the Afghan assets at issue from these attachment efforts.

``What Biden actually did was take the money off the table for the 9/ 11 victims. And it got worse.

``Secretary of State Blinken claimed that the administration `will continue to support these victims and their families, recognizing the enduring pain they have suffered at the hands of terrorists, including those who operated from Afghanistan prior to the September 11 attacks. These victims and their families should have a full opportunity to set forth their arguments in court.''' This article says: ``Blinken, like his boss, lied.''

``While the 9/11 families would have their claims `heard in court,' neither Biden nor Blinken mentioned that the administration would be advocating against . . . `' these 9/11 victims.

``On the same day as Biden's executive order reserving $3.5 billion for the terrorists, his Justice Department filed a statement of interest in court arguing that the judgment for the victims of terrorism was too large and that actually turning over the money''--the $3.5 billion--``to them''--or all $7 billion to them--``would interfere with the Biden administration's foreign policy in Afghanistan.''

Like we have a policy in Afghanistan? No. All the rare Earth minerals, the things that could have paid us back for ridding the Afghan people of the Taliban, well, not only were they allowed to come back and take over, but they made deals with China to let them have the rare Earth minerals. In other words, this administration just exponentially magnified the loss in life, assets, and money that they lost for America.

``Now a magistrate judge has repeated back most of the DOJ's arguments, ruling against the 9/11 families who were laying claim to the other half of the money. Judge Sarah Netburn's arguments closely mirror the contradictory positions of Biden and the DOJ. And they reveal the underlying corruption behind the ambiguous status of Afghanistan's central bank.

``Netburn, like the Biden administration, contends that the Afghanistan bank enjoys `sovereign immunity' because the country itself was not sanctioned as a terrorist state, only the Taliban were. And that the Taliban once again control Afghanistan is irrelevant, according to the judge, because Biden hasn't recognized the reality that this is actually the case.

``Banks don't enjoy `sovereign immunity' and neither do the Taliban. Netburn and Biden act as if there were some entity representing Afghanistan that is not the Taliban. That position might make sense if they were backing a resistance movement to the Taliban. But they are not.''

It was sad enough that this administration's mishandling of negotiating--we should have been negotiating with our allies to leave the country in their hands with an amended constitution. Instead, we left it in the hands of our enemies.

As some of our allies there have said, the day will come when the Taliban will hit America again. Next time it will be harder. They have got more money. They have got tens of billions of American assets to utilize or sell and use the money, but the difference will be this time after America loses thousands of lives at the hands of the Taliban and America comes to Afghanistan seeking allies to help them defeat the Taliban, as we did in 2001 and 2002, we will all be dead, those of us who were America's allies, and no one will be stupid enough to trust the United States again. What a tragic, horrific blunder by this administration.

Now, the exit was the blunder, but turning against the 9/11 victims' families, that is not a blunder. That is very intentional by this administration. Being much more helpful and sympathetic to the Taliban, who were terrorists that hit this country, and have never apologized and will never apologize, instead of standing against them and making sure they never commit terrorist acts again, this administration wants to be sure they get billions of dollars; like the Obama administration was ensuring that Iran got the largest state sponsor of terrorism. So I guess at least we can say that is a good thing. This administration, the Biden administration, is at least being consistent with the Obama administration.

The Obama administration helped the Taliban. The Obama administration did not help the 9/11 families. Now, the Biden administration is working against the 9/11 families, and they are actually helping the Taliban with more money than the Taliban has ever had. An amazing development.

If things don't get turned around soon where we have a wiser administration next time with Republicans in the majority come January that helps get back to using more common sense, then this will be a horrific chapter in the book rise and fall of the United States of America and how we helped our enemy ultimately destroy ourselves because of some misguided, hairbrained idea that you can give your enemy billions of dollars, give them tens of billions of dollars of military equipment and weapons and think you were going to come out just fine on the other side.

I want to address some energy issues. This article from NPR, August 25, reports that ``California is poised to set a 2035 deadline for all new cars, trucks, and SUVs sold in the State to be powered by electricity or hydrogen, an ambitious step that will reshape the U.S. car market by speeding the transition to more climate-friendly vehicles.''

It is a long article, but it does not deal with the reality that we are already seeing take place as this administration and people in some States are demanding to get rid of all fossil fuel immediately and quickly, but China will continue to own hundreds of coal-powered plants. Unfortunately, China doesn't utilize the scrubbers and things that allow American coal plants to have much more clean operation in producing electricity.

In fact, I have heard experts and people with whom we have consulted say there will be so much pollution coming from China that even if the U.S. totally eliminated every single coal plant, the air would not be improved because of all of the pollution that will be coming our way from China.

My good friend, Thomas Massie, has more patents than anybody in the House or Senate. Even though he got an MIT education, he is a brilliant guy. Thomas Massie has pointed out that actually plugging in one electric vehicle is about the equivalent of plugging in 17 refrigerators, and this administration wants everybody to start buying electric vehicles, so everybody has electric vehicles and the sooner the better.

But the fact is that even if half of the cars that run on fossil fuel now were replaced immediately with electric vehicles, then first of all, we would end up causing no telling how many children around the world to be used as slave labor more than are being used right now in order to gather and mine the lithium and the things that are needed to produce electric cars.

And we won't even bother to talk about right now the massive problem in dealing with that many batteries with all that lithium and what will be done with all of that. We don't know. We are just going headlong into trying to have all electric vehicles.

Mr. Speaker, you can't make an electric vehicle right now--not one that is any good--unless you use fossil fuel. And you have to have natural gas as feedstock to make so many of the products that are used in the vehicles. I guess you could do like Fred Flintstone and have one made out of stone and wood.

Why would this administration want to take us back to the Stone Age?

It seems some of these policies are determined to do that.

In fact, here is an article from The Epoch Times: ``States to Ban Gas-Powered Cars Despite EVs' Human, Environmental Costs''.

It was written by Katie Spence on September 12.

She points out some of these hidden costs that I have been alluding to, she says, ``According to politicians like Newsom and President Joe Biden, electric vehicles, or EVs, are `zero emission' because they use lithium-ion batteries--consisting of lithium, cobalt, graphite, and other materials--instead of gas.

``Thus, starting in 2035, California will ban gas-powered vehicle sales, while several other States plan to follow suit, citing that as a goal and `critical milestone in our climate fight'.

``Additionally, according to a statement from Biden, banning gas- powered vehicles will `save consumers money, cut pollution, boost public health, advance environmental justice, and tackle the climate crisis'.

``John Hadder, director of the Great Basin Resource Watch, disagrees, pointing out to The Epoch Times that `industrial' nations might benefit from the transition to EVs, but it's at the expense of all others.

`` `This expansion of [lithium] mining will have immediate consequences for front-line communities that are taking the ``hit'' '.

``For example, Copiapo, the capital of Chile's Atacama region, is the location of one of the world's largest known lithium reserves.

`` `We used to have a river before, that now doesn't exist. There isn't a drop of water,' Elena Rivera Cardoso, president of the Indigenous Colla community of the Copiapo commune, told the National Resources Defense Council.

``She added that all of Chile's water is disappearing because of the local lithium mine.

`` `In all of Chile, there are rivers and lakes that have disappeared--all because a company has a lot more right to water than we do as human beings or citizens of Chile.'

``In collaboration with Cardoso's statement, the Institute for Energy Research reports that 65 percent of the area's limited water resources are consumed by mining activities.

``That's displacing indigenous communities who have called Atacama home for more than 6,000 years, because farmers and ranchers have cracked, dry soil, and no choice but to abandon their ancestral settlements, according to the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development.''

Now that is so interesting.

But where is the compassion?

We are so determined to have electric vehicles so that we can say to the world that we are cleaning up the world when we are not cleaning up the world. We are making the world a disastrous place so that woke liberals here in America can think that all is right with the world when actually they have put children into slave labor by creating this market causing countries to dry up like Chile.

It is rather tragic, and people who mean well and think they are doing great need to understand the damage they are doing to the planet and to people who don't live in Martha's Vineyard.

Another issue that is particularly troublesome, Mr. Speaker, we have had a bipartisan effort in this body to work and to fight to stop genital mutilation. Yet now, after years of working together and trying to stop such a horrendous practice, we now have people who claim to be exceedingly liberal and caring, and they are pushing to have little children's genitalia mutilated, cut off, and eliminated and have those children take puberty blockers that will likely stunt their growth, make them infertile, and destroy the wonder that would have been their lives without the so-called caring people pushing them to destroy their bodies.

According to the most extensive study ever done by people who have been through sex change surgery, the Swedish Institute followed people who had been through sex change surgery for 30 years. And what was the most disturbing to me of the result of that 30-year study was that if you have sex change surgery, Mr. Speaker, you are 20 times more likely to kill yourself, to take your own life.

We had a press conference.

Marjorie Taylor Greene has a bill that would stop this kind of outrageous abuse of children.

You see, Mr. Speaker, my background, I have been a prosecutor, and I have been a litigator. I have been a felony judge and a chief justice before coming to Congress. I am quite familiar with the laws of Texas and Federal laws. Most States have very similar laws because we have advanced so as a people that we have understood that children need to grow up in innocence. It is so much more productive.

Some have felt that it may well be that Americans have been the most ingenious and most productive in creating new inventions and that our patent system before it got screwed up in recent years by Congress encouraged individual inventors to come up with new things. But I have read indications that some people believe it is because we encourage children to use their imagination in growing up, and they have developed more imagination.

Now we have got some people who think they are do-gooders, but they encourage genital mutilation of a child that can never be fixed. Oh, Mr. Speaker, you can do a transition back, but it is so devastating. It is horrific.

That is supposed to be an advanced civilization doing this to children?

The studies, and Dr. Paul McHugh--who was the head of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, which is the first hospital in America to do sex change surgeries back in the sixties--points out that it is child abuse to give puberty blockers because of the adverse effects on the body to then do gender mutilation.

Mr. Speaker, I presided over criminal felony trials. Even if someone underage, a child, or a minor consents, the laws have made clear we recognize they are not mentally and judgmentally mature enough to give consent for anybody to do anything with their private areas.

I have sent lots of people to prison. So if an adult takes advantage of their immaturity, people have been sent to prison for that all over America. And the huge majority of Americans agree that it was the right thing to do when they sexually abuse a child, even if the child consented, because we know they are not mature enough to give legitimate consent.

Yet we have adults who should be mature enough to say, you are not going to touch this child's body.

They have to come of age, the age of majority, and make their own informed decision and give their own informed consent.

No one else should ever be able to do that in their place because these kids are the ones who have to live with their bodies for the rest of their lives, even though they are 20 times more likely to kill themselves because of what the adult gave consent for them to do.

I am hoping at some point there will be laws in every State and through Congress that we will do, as we have done with sexual assault of a child laws, where most States, if not all, that I am aware of, say we are going to extend the statute of limitations to a certain number of years past the time when they would become adults.

So that if any adult gave permission for someone to have perfectly functioning organs removed, changed, puberty blockers, and the child later feels that was an assault, then let them sue within those extra years of statute of limitations. I think it would be a good idea to do something like that.

Adults should not have the right to consent to destroying or harming a child's body, and especially when it makes it 20 times more likely they will take their own life because of what some adult did on behalf of the child.

Well, we had a young lady named Chloe Cole, a beautiful person, she is 18. Actually, this article by Christine Buttons from The Daily Wire, September 20, talked about the press conference we had.

It says: ``An 18-year-old detransitioned woman gave a powerful testimony on Tuesday against the `gender affirming' model of care that led to her irreversible medical transition as an adolescent.

``Chloe Cole spoke at a press conference in front of the''--it was in front of the Capitol--``in support of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene's new bill, the Protect Children's Innocence Act, that aims to shield minors from assessing the permanent body- and life-altering medical treatments that they may later come to regret.''

Chloe said: `` `How did we get to the point where nearly every pediatric institution in the country considers it best practice to remove the healthy breast tissue of children while administering drugs typically used to chemically castrate high-risk sex offenders?' Cole said of the widespread acceptance of radical gender theory in medicine driving `gender-affirming care,' which effectively puts children in the driver's seat to dictate the terms of their own sex change.

`` `I believe Americans deserve to know the truth about this radical and perverse ideology, marketed as necessary and ``live-saving'' healthcare,' said Cole. Cole opened her speech with a chilling statistic.''

She said, `` `Over the past decade, there has been as high as a 4,000 percent increase in children being referred to so-called ``gender clinics'' across the United States. I was one of these children.' A recent UCLA survey found that the number of trans-identified teens has doubled in the last 5 years to about 300,000 in the United States, while the rates of adults identifying as transgender have remained the same. According to the Gender Mapping Project, only a handful of pediatric gender clinics existed in the United States a decade ago. Now over 200 have spawned to meet the growing demand of adolescents who identify as transgender seeking medical transition.''

I read an article that the former head of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins had written, pointing out that 80 percent of children, boys and girls, who identify or seem to have gender dysphoria--is what it is now called in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual-V.

Dysphoria--if you look it up--it means confusion, sort of an antonym to euphoria. People are encouraging people to become more and more gender-confused.

Dr. McHugh pointed out about 80 percent of those who have confusion about their gender growing up, if they never have counseling, they never have some do-gooder adult encouraging them to have their genitalia mutilated and their life shortened, and perhaps most likely a good chance of infertility, that if they are just left alone, go through childhood, 80 percent transition into exactly what they are biologically without any problems whatsoever.

Yet, we have people in this country that want to create laws against anybody allowing a child to go through childhood and then adjust, and not have the physical horrors that these surgeries cause.

I was deeply moved by Chloe Cole. She is a beautiful person. She was very unfortunate in having people think they knew better and encouraging her to take steps that she should not have taken, as she will tell you now.

We are supposed to be the ones that are mature and help children avoid going through horrors, and, yet, we have even got States passing laws--don't you dare help this child. Let's help the child go through genital mutilation, even though it will be his or her body.

As Dr. McHugh has pointed out and studies have pointed out, you can go through sex change surgery or gender reassignment surgery--whatever you want to call it--DNA-wise, biologically, you are still the same gender you were before the surgery, and your DNA will remain the same.

Now, who knows, I read a Swedish study this year about the mRNA vaccines. It was interesting, it says there is radiation at the point of the injection, and more radiation found in the liver after the vaccination with the mRNA vaccines. But the study documented that they found that the mRNA ends up going to the liver and rewriting the body's DNA for them. We don't know where all that is going to end up, but it certainly doesn't appear to be going a good direction.

I have got no problem with people continuing to get the vaccinations and the boosters, I think that is fine, so long as the wonderful doctrine that we developed making healthcare better than it has been in the history of the world, called informed consent.

That doctrine that requires that a physician or healthcare provider advise the patient of all the potential risks of a vaccination, treatment, surgery, whatever, and then letting them talk to their doctor and making their own mind up about whether or not to go through with it.

If we could do that, and I would submit, also allow the healthcare providers and the pharmaceuticals to be liable for any damage that they cause if they don't allow informed consent and allow the individual to make up his or her mind, unless it is a minor. We don't allow minors to make decisions normally unless it is in the sick area of genital mutilation that I was just talking about.

If pharmaceuticals are that excited about continuing to make tens of billions of dollars providing vaccinations, vaccines, great, just stand good for whatever damages you cause. It sure seems like that would be the right thing to do.

I won't have time to get to it, but this article from Jennifer Margulis and Joe Wang, The Epoch Times, September 10, the headline is, ``'Unethical' and up to 98 Times Worse Than the Disease: Top Scientists Publish Paradigm-Shifting Study About COVID-19 Vaccines.''

It points out the boosters for young people may cause 18 to 98 actual serious adverse events for each COVID-19 infection-related hospitalization theoretically prevented. So for each hospitalization prevented, they are saying 18 to 98 actual serious consequences to the body will result.

It is going to be an interesting week next week. I look forward to seeing what more damage that Congress can do to our economy, to our country. I hope that people, Mr. Speaker, will let their Members of Congress know what they agree with and what they disagree with.

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