Issues of the Day

Floor Speech

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Mr. GROTHMAN. Madam Speaker, it is always difficult to follow the always interesting Congressman Schweikert.

There are a variety of issues that we haven't addressed for a while but that are in the news and demand some attention.

First of all, I noticed our President Biden was down near the Mexican border and was quoted as saying, when he was asked whether he would go a few more miles to the border, he said there are more important things to do. One of the more shocking statements in an administration of shocking statements.

It has come out recently that in November we had 73,000 got-aways at the southern border. Now, I would like to point out, there are two groups of people who are coming here who shouldn't be here. One group insists they are asking for asylum, and they turn themselves in to the Border Patrol, they get an interview, they are registered to come in here and are given a date to appear before some tribunal.

The other group--the more dangerous of the two, I think--are those people who don't want to be seen by the Border Patrol. They want to sneak across the border and are what the Border Patrol refers to as got-aways.

In November, the highest number that I can remember, the Border Patrol estimates there were 73,000 got-aways. They are more dangerous because, for example, if you are sneaking drugs across the border, you don't want to turn yourself into the Border Patrol, you want to sneak across somehow.

That 73,000 was a 23 percent increase in the estimate compared to the prior month. A huge increase. Like I said, for people who have a criminal background--because our Border Patrol is able to check as to whether you have a prior criminal background in the United States or a prior criminal background in Canada. But again, if you molested somebody or committed harm, you would try to sneak across the border.

Why are more people sneaking across the border?

I assume it is because it is getting easier and easier. We have a shortage of members of the Border Patrol there. They are busy doing the administrative work. Because they are doing more administrative work, they don't have time to guard the border, and as a result, we have an all-time high.

Not only more people probably who are the type of people who would commit crimes, we have more of the type of people who bring drugs across the border. If we do have anybody from foreign countries who wanted to cause harm to the United States, they would be got-aways. That is the way to come here.

I think it is entirely scandalous that President Biden would be so breezy as to say: I have more important things to do than see what is going on at the border. It was very disappointing.

I could argue maybe some poorly run campaigns, that President Biden was only mildly struck down by the results on November 8.

I hope the American public wakes up--I don't think they were educated on these numbers enough--wakes up to the huge number of people coming across our border.

I also hope the American public remembers that the 188,000 people who die every year of illegal drug overdoses in this country it doesn't just happen; it happens because we are neglecting the border where so much of the fentanyl comes across.

I would also like to point out that America is not anti-immigrant. I think it is so slanderous when he says that.

Last month, I attended a ceremony in West Allis, Wisconsin, where they swore in, they estimated, over 100 people to be new American citizens. We were told by the representative there that last year was the first year, in her memory, in which we swore in 1 million new, all- legal citizens.

So don't let anyone tell you that America is not being kind to people from other countries who want to come here. Last year, 1 million people managed to legally be sworn in as citizens. That is quite enough.

I don't think we are being at all nice, we are being cruel to our own country to allow so many other people to come across here--73,000 got- aways, and approximately 100,000 other people, I believe, when the figures are released, coming across in October.

The next issue to talk about that has been in the news is in my home city of Milwaukee, or the city of my birth: there were 211 murders that took place. Milwaukee, when I was growing up, depending on the year, was either the safest or second safest city next to San Diego, among the 25 biggest cities in the country.

We now have--and the population has fallen since that time--we have now hit today 211 murders, which is an all-time record for Milwaukee; they never before even hit 200, now we just blew by that number. Probably by the time we are done we will be up around 220. There is going to be all sorts of analyses as to what causes it.

Some people are going to say it is caused by lack of good schools, but I want to point out that in the future when we analyze this number--and there should be an analysis done on the number--we should look a little bit at the family situation of the murderers, insofar as what type of family were they brought up in and what type of family do they live in now.

I do believe there has been significant breakdown of the traditional family in this country over the last 50 years, and I personally think that is the primary reason why we are blowing by the 200 figure in Milwaukee right now.

In any event, as this horrific year in Milwaukee is analyzed, I hope, given all the money we spend on studies, that some work is done studying the people who are caught for these murders, the background they have, and they realize that, in the future, as we try to avoid more murders in Milwaukee, we don't do silly things like look at the guns; we look at the background of these people; look at the war on the family that has been going on in this country for over 50 years and try to work our way back to where we were in the 1970s and the 1960s and, even more, the 1950s, when the murder rate in this country was a fraction of what it is today.

I will point out, even when you look at the 211 murders, we have top- of-the-line medical care now. The number of murders has skyrocketed over what it was, say, 40 years ago or 50 years, skyrocketed over what it was 55, 60 years ago, despite the fact that medical care was nowhere near as great at that time.

So I hope people look at the family and analyzing what we can do to get that murder rate back down a little bit toward where it should be.

The next issue I want to address today concerns the efforts being made, which I believe will be successful, to remove the vaccine mandate for our brave soldiers, sailors, and airmen and women who operate in our Armed Forces.

Earlier today, I talked to Lieutenant Colonel Theresa Long, who is from Fort Rucker, Alabama, and is a whistleblower, as to what is going on with the vaccines for our servicemembers today. I would hope that all members of the press would be crowding on a chance to talk to her on her observations at Fort Rucker and throughout reports made to the military on what is happening after our soldiers get vaccines.

Right now, a lot of the focus, understandably, is on the fact that the effort to require vaccines is reducing the number of recruits. It is causing people to leave the military at a time when we need more people in the military, and that is a big problem.

But I think we have not spent enough time looking on the fact that the military members who do not want to get these vaccines may very well be right.

If you look at the number of soldiers and sailors aged 19 to 40 who are getting cancer, who are getting pulmonary embolisms, who are getting heart problems, myocardial heart problems, are all increasing significantly over what it was 3 years ago.

Indeed, she has seen things at Fort Rucker she has never seen before. And one has to wonder whether it is the huge number of military members who are getting these vaccines. She feels that this has been really a fraud on our servicemembers telling them that these vaccines are all safe, when we have the most in-shape group of people in this country, people in the military, aged 19 to 39 and, despite being in such good shape, particularly males 19 to 39, we see a significant increases in deaths from sudden cardiac arrest.

We see, among the women, an increase in miscarriages, perhaps an increase in infertility.

We have big problems here. I think before we advise these healthy people in their 20s and 30s to get the vaccine, they ought to sit down with Lieutenant Colonel Long and look at the figures which she has been talking about, a whistleblower trying to save the troops under her from getting any more life-threatening events.

So I hope that Congress weighs in here. I hope the Biden administration shows a little bit of sympathy with the soldiers and removes even the request that people under 40 get the vaccine. I hope that Congress weighs in in that regard, requiring that the medical personnel in the military be a little bit more forthcoming on the results that they see, the health problems that have become apparent in our troops today, compared to 2 years ago, and compared to 4 years ago.

You are going to find more bad things going on, and it seems to me common sense that, given the great increase in vaccines on these young people, you have to kind of assume that the vaccines are causing these additional problems.

So I hope that Congress wakes up. I hope even more that our slumbering media wakes up, who should be looking out for the poor and defenseless--I don't like to call our military poor and defenseless, but when they try to kick them out of the military, they kind of are-- and see whether the government is, in their policies here, are they looking out for the good of the pharmaceutical industry or are they looking out for the good of our troops?

In any event, there are three issues that we deal with tonight: The bad outcomes of the vaccines on our troops; the new, all-time high in murders in the city of Milwaukee; and the record-high number of people, number of got-aways crossing the border that apparently President Biden does not think is a serious problem.

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

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