Louie Gohmert

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I appreciate Mrs. Cammack having this Special Order. Madam Speaker, we ought to be concerned about the most vulnerable among us. Most Americans believe in God, a Heavenly Father. Is it hard to imagine that it would be extremely important to such a Heavenly Father that we protect the lives that are most vulnerable, most innocent, particularly? Could there be anybody more innocent, more vulnerable, than a child that is still in the womb? I met Ramona Trevino some years back, and she had been a director of Planned Parenthood, I believe, in Sherman, Texas. She became shocked, having a teenaged daughter, that they were taught that they should come between a daughter and her mother. Earlier, when they had directors' meetings of other Planned Parenthood facilities, the number they were most interested in is how many girls you are getting on the pill and how early in age. The earlier, the better, because they are more likely to forget to take the pill and get pregnant, and then they would get to destroy the life of an unborn child. That is something that if there is a Heavenly Father, as I know there is, he would have to be very upset with us for allowing that to happen.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding the time and for managing it. This is very important. We take 1 week a year to acknowledge the importance of the Bible in America. The Bible was at the foundation of the great awakening in the first half of the 1700s, the second great awakening in the first half of the 1800s, the 1700s. Many attribute that to leading to the liberty that drove the Revolution. The second great awakening leading to the desire for liberty that brought a war that ended slavery, no country had ever done that before. Fight a war? Lose 500,000, 600,000, 700,000 people in a war that would free people who were called slaves at the time? It took this Bible at the basis of an ordained Christian minister named Dr. King fighting for civil rights that brought us more freedom, that brought the Constitution into a fuller embrace of what this country is supposed to be about. C.S. Lewis talked about in this world, as the Bible teaches, that the prince of this world is not God. But Lewis said imagine being behind enemy lines and you get messages from your home headquarters, and you don't pick them up and read them. Well, we have a book of messages from our home headquarters. You don't have to believe that. We have the freedom to believe or not to believe so long as we don't run this out of American society. This has to be the basis of morality. Otherwise, we lose the rights that are afforded us under our Constitution.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I looked at the video anime and was trying to figure it out. I couldn't see it. I am told if you stop it frame by frame, you can see what my Democrat friends are talking about. I couldn't see it. I tried to freeze-frame, and I saw what I was told was supposed to be our colleague, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez. I was insulted for her. If that is supposed to be her, that is really unfair. Madam Speaker, I didn't see the violence being talked about. We should not condone violence. The reason it is so hard to sit here and listen to the condemnation from the other side is because when there was violence against us, there was no condemnation. My wife and I went to a speech at the White House, and I have yet to hear anybody condemn the attempted violence on us. We were chased for two blocks. Rand Paul was on TV when he was chased because he had cameras and Secret Service around him. We didn't have that. If it weren't for a guy popping up and opening a locked door, we would have--I told Kathy: Look, I am afraid they are going to get here before this door is opened. You run on down to Pennsylvania Avenue. There are cops down there. They will be beating on me; you just get away. Nobody has condemned all that violence that I have ever heard. This is where we ought to be able to come together. Oh, and by the way, people who committed violence and did crimes in this building need to be punished. For many of them, the most serious crime was obstructing an official session of Congress. I didn't know it was a crime in 2016, but most of the Democratic Party committed a felony right here in this Chamber by obstructing an official session of Congress, not 6 hours like January 6, but 26 hours.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I certainly appreciate my friend General Bergman for using this time to pay tribute to veterans. I have seen the statistics from an article in 2018, 71 percent of young Americans between 17 and 24 are ineligible to serve in the military; 24 million out of 34 million people in that age group. The demographics of the military as of 2018 indicate that there is just under 1.29 million people serving, men and women serving in the military. That is less than 0.5 percent of the U.S. population. We owe our military the deepest amount of appreciation and thanks. And I just went back to the office this afternoon and got another plea from another servicemember. These people are the very tiny, few volunteers willing to step up and defend America at all costs, including their own lives. Jesus said that is the greatest love there can be. They love their country. They love those they serve with. They are willing to face anything, except corrupt, high-ranking officers who are so busy sticking their heads up the atriums of the White House that they are not concerned enough about their own men. We saw that in the exit of Afghanistan. We saw servicemembers die because commanding officers didn't care enough about their own troops. This notice says: You either take the vaccination--without regard to whether you have had bad reactions to things in there, like the warnings say--we want to experiment on you like we did the Tuskegee Airmen. This is wrong, and we should be standing up for our servicemembers, not only saying thank you, but thank you and you shouldn't have to serve and follow orders that are experiments that we have outlawed such experimentation on our servicemembers. Thank you, we owe you a debt of gratitude, and we are going to be fighting for you here.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, in recent days, I have been doing some research. In fact, one of the things I was looking at is the average income over the last couple of decades going back to 1991, and this was average annual wage according to the Social Security Administration, so maybe somebody would take issue with their accuracy. But according to their numbers, during the Clinton administration, the average American's income went up each year about $1,000 a year. So over President Clinton's 8 years in office, the average income went up about $8,000 over those 8 years. Under President Bush, it was a little more than $1,000 a year during his 8 years. But during the Obama administration it was between a $7,000 and $8,000 increase during the Obama administration. Then during the 4 years of the Trump administration, the average income went up about $2,000 a year. It was between $7,000 and $8,000 for the 4 years, a dramatic increase. But I was shocked, as I was looking at different numbers, to find that the net worth for Black households in America during the 8 years of the Obama administration went down by 30 percent, on average. During the Trump administration, it didn't go down. It went up significantly. As I look at what is being proposed in the Build Back Better program, and I see this administration having canceled the Keystone XL pipeline, which certainly was going to, and has, caused an escalation in fuel prices and energy prices, and of course, President Biden released the penalties that had been put on the Russian natural gas pipeline, so it is doing great now, and took off some of the penalties on Iran--anyway, we have seen the price of energy going up significantly. It brought back to mind yet again the Honorable John Dingell's comment. He was looking forward to pushing through, in essence, a socialized medicine program through the committee he was chair of in 2009 and 2010, but he was famously asked about the cap-and-trade bill. He responded that the cap-and-trade bill is not only a tax, but it is a great big tax. He explained before that when you raise the price of energy, you are not hurting the billionaires, the megawealthy. It is an inconvenience to them when you raise the price of energy, be it electricity, propane, natural gas, coal, whatever it is. It is an inconvenience to the very wealthy, but to those who are on fixed incomes, those who are scraping by working so hard every week and just getting by, if you increase the price of gasoline, electricity, energy, you just devastate those households. It is not just a little tax to them. It is devastating. The inflation that comes with an upward explosion of the price of fuel and energy, but especially fuel, as this administration has done, it inflates the price of everything. There is just not much of anything, unless you are buying from some pickup truck or some roadside kiosk--otherwise, you are having to pay a lot of extra energy costs, whether it is for the ingredients of something you are buying or whether it is the product getting to market. But usually, it is all of the above. The energy prices inflate costs of everything, basically. That is what has happened to the working poor in America. That is what has happened to seniors on fixed incomes. They are being devastated as prices continue to skyrocket, with no end in sight. On a trip some years back during the Obama administration, some of us went to Germany, and we met with some of their energy leaders. In one meeting, the driver of our little van was from Berlin, and he sat in and listened. I was talking to him privately after the meeting, and he said I hear all these rich people talking about how great our green energy is in Germany, but I have had to go from having one job to having three jobs, hardly ever getting to see my family, so they could brag about our green energy. But it is destroying my family. It has completely destroyed my family time. I am having to work these two other jobs just to cover our energy costs. So it is kind of hard listening to them brag about it when it is coming out of my hide. I am the one, and people just like me all over Germany are the ones, who are paying for them to be able to brag about our green energy because it is costing us a tremendous amount in the way of personal time, family time, and additional time working to pay for their bragging. As we look at these issues and the costs skyrocketing in America, who has benefited? Well, China has benefited dramatically. We know they are still on course to have 100 new coal-powered energy plants go online over the next couple of years. They don't care. Of course, when we had coal-powered plants here in the U.S.--there are not many left--but when we had them, they have scrubbers in there that are taking pollutants out of the air before it ever gets out of the stacks to the air. If we are doing the coal burning here in the U.S., it is not so hard on our environment as it is in China or India, but especially China, because when people are just struggling to survive and to have enough money to put food on the table for their families, they are not that worried about how their yard looks or how things look, how the environment is. The same is true not only for an individual but for a country. If the economy is struggling, the people in that country are not as interested in cleaning up the environment. We will have to wait, they think, until we are making decent money, and then we can worry about the environment. Here in the United States, though, if you go back to 2007, every year since then, including through the Trump years, we have been producing 1.3 percent less carbon dioxide. We can debate about what that does to the environment, whether it makes the temperature warmer. I have read where experts have said if you have a choice between the temperature getting slightly warmer or slightly colder, you want warmer because if it is getting slightly colder, that means there is less time for crops to grow. If it is slightly warmer, not too much warmer, then you have more time for crops to grow. You have more food, and you have fewer people starving. There are a lot of areas for debate, but for those who are concerned about carbon dioxide emissions, we have been on the right track. We continue to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide we are putting out in this country. So there is nothing about building back better. This has been going on for a long time. Largely, we are told by the experts, that is because we have been converting coal plants to natural gas, and natural gas is such a clean-burning fuel. For those who want to get rid of all fossil fuels, if they would just take a serious look at all the things in the room in which they are located or the car in which they are located, they will find that so much of what we have that has made our lives easier, helping people rest better, is as a result of the use of fossil fuel. There are so many products that cannot be manufactured without natural gas as part of the manufacturing process. You have to have natural gas to make so many products. I was looking at getting some plastic composite boards for part of the area in our backyard so they wouldn't deteriorate so often, and they are expensive. But when they last for decades instead of a matter of short years, it looks like a good thing. That is using recycled plastic, finding more and more uses for that plastic, fiberglass. There are so many things we can't produce. Synthetic fibers, so much of the carpets and rugs we have are synthetic. The toothbrush, you wouldn't have a modern-day toothbrush--and I realize that, yes, there are people who have used bark off of certain trees to brush their teeth. I get that, but I kind of like having a modern-day toothbrush myself. You wouldn't have that without fossil fuel, particularly natural gas. People say we need more electric cars. We need to get rid of fossil fuel. You cannot currently manufacture an electric car without the use of fossil fuel. Even if you don't use fossil fuel to power the vehicle, you are going to have to use it in the production of things within the car or there will be no car. So, I don't know, maybe someday somebody will build a wooden car, but wooden batteries are not going to work. For those of us that recognize how the length of life has gotten even longer during our modern history, medicine advances have just been extraordinary. There is a great book, ``The Five Thousand Year Leap'', that points out that when settlers came to America, they used basically the same type of farming methodology and tools that have been used for thousands of years. There hasn't been a whole lot of change. But if you look at the last 150 years in the United States and in Western civilization, you see dramatic increases and advances in the way that we have progressed, whether it is farming, medicine. Heck, if you go back 100 years or so when medical historians say in the early 1900s, up to that point, for the whole of human history, you had a better chance of getting sicker after seeing a doctor than you did at getting better. And then you look at the--since 1910, 1920--some say it might be the 1918 protocols during that pandemic--but around that time, you started having a better chance of getting better after seeing a doctor. And look at where we are now. People go to the doctor and expect to be made well because we have been able, by the grace of God, to develop some different cures. Life has gotten longer. Life has gotten better quality. So much of what we have is made by the use of fossil fuels. We need to do it cleanly, as cleanly as possible. But, again, when you take an economy in the direction that the build back better Biden administration has been doing as we head to the toilet with this economy--and there is no end in sight for this race to the bottom--then you realize we have come so far and now we are going in the wrong direction. There have been times, like World War II when we were struggling mightily, but we are not going through a world war right now. We should be doing well. And we saw, during the Trump administration for the first time in decades, something had happened. In 1990, when I brought a friend to speak to our Rotary Club, he had said, We are going the wrong direction. We are becoming more and more reliant on foreign countries for our energy. It has been years, he said, since we have been energy independent, and we are going the wrong way and it is going to destroy this country, if we can't produce the energy we need. Mr. Speaker, 30 years later--not even 30 years later--we were energy independent, the biggest producer of fossil fuels in the world. And we used it cleaner than anybody else. Virtually almost every other country, maybe some small ones, do a little better. But China knows that they are not going to be breathing their own air, it turns with the planet, and we end up breathing as much as they do right here in America. Not the clean air we produce more of every year for many years, but the polluted air that China is letting off as they continue to move toward putting us in their wake as they move toward becoming the greatest economy in the world. And spending money, massive amounts of money we don't have, creates not only inflation but it weakens this country. Mr. Speaker, I have heard some in recent days say if we are not careful, we are going to end up like Greece. And actually, if you look at the debt that we had at the end of the Obama administration, we were already Greece. The difference is, we got to produce our own currency. Greece was using the euro, so they didn't get to decide to create a lot more money in their system. And the dollar was the world standard. It was the world currency. I know there are companies, including China, they are advocating against the dollar being the world currency and that it is used to buy oil in the world market, but that hasn't happened. I am very thankful for that. But if we were not the world currency, and we didn't produce our own money, then we would already be in as big a trouble as Greece is because of the recklessness. And we are seeing it like never before in this administration. Yes, it is true the Obama administration, with the Democrats helping them, they hit between $1.5 and $1.6 trillion deficit in one year. Well, this administration, this Democrat majority are working very hard to eclipse that by a lot. We were warned back when we had over a trillion-dollar deficit more than one year, the agencies that rate country's economies and their currency and their debt, they may have to rate, downgrade, our debt. Standard & Poor's did that because we wouldn't get our spending under control--not enough. If any other rating agency had downgraded our debt, then the cost of borrowing money would have gone up dramatically and we would have ended up spending more paying interest than we were taking care of seniors who were counting on their fixed income. So there are some dark days ahead if we continue on this course of spending money we don't have. It is like everything this administration can see to throw money at that might help create more Democrat Party voters and they are throwing money at it. So people were shocked, including Democrat friends, they were shocked to hear that this administration is proposing paying $450,000 to legal immigrants that were separated from a child. Well, we know that did happen some during the Trump years. We know that it has continued to happen during the Biden years; that it happened under the Obama administration. And it can be a good idea until we are sure that an adult with a child that is already breaking our laws by coming in illegally is actually related to and, hopefully, the parent of that child instead of part of the drug cartels that continue to use them in sex trafficking. And we have had people that turned out not to be related to the child they were claiming, and we have been able to interrupt that. And so it is important that we don't just take this at face value, especially when we have reports of children being recycled to come across with people over our border illegally. So under the Biden administration, if you think, Okay, these people come in, they break U.S. law, we are going to give each one $450,000. And that might not mean much to somebody who has a son that sold paintings for $500,000, and I wouldn't object if the Biden administration wanted to give each illegal immigrant a painting that Hunter Biden had done. If they said, Here is your half a million; here is another painting that Hunter Biden has done. Enjoy it. Maybe you can sell it for half a million and you will be set for life. Let's try that. Mr. Speaker, $450,000, if you look at the Social Security administration, the wages, well, for 2020, the most recent numbers we have, the average income for an American last year was $53,000--like $53,300 or something like that--but $53,000 a year. Now, the rate is normally around 22 percent. There is data that indicates the effective rate paid for income tax may be around 13 to 14 percent. Let's just round it and say that the average American making $53,000 a year pays 20 percent income tax. That would be $10,600 a year that a person making $53,000 would pay in Federal income tax. If you took all $10,600 of Federal income tax coming from the average wage-earner of $53,000 a year, and if you took that $10,600 and applied that toward the $450,000 President Biden wants to give to each of these illegal immigrants, it would take 42\1/2\ years of the average American wage Federal income tax to pay one person who broke the U.S. laws and came into the country illegally. That is what appears to be justice to the Biden administration. And how is our President looking to the rest of the world? The story today, as he came into the G20 Summit, he came in--according to the article I saw--20 minutes late. He said, in essence, sorry to be late. He had been trying to get past the elevators--they had a problem with the elevators and that is why he was 20 minutes late. Somebody needs to help him. I think it would be helpful not to leave people from the biggest countries, except for China and Russia, they didn't come--their leaders didn't come--but the rest, let's show them a little more respect by not making them wait 20 minutes for our President to show up. I think that would be a good thing. Kind of lend a better atmosphere to those type of meetings. Perhaps then you wouldn't have foreign reporters saying things like: President Biden looks like he needs a nursing home and a hot bowl of soup. We need to help our President give a better image of America. I know there is no intention for our President causing problems like that, none whatsoever, so I am avoiding in engaging in personalities. But I think it would be good--there are so many people helping the President--to help him represent our country well. So in an article here, a $450,000 payment to illegal aliens would exceed various programs for American citizens. And, of course, we, in Congress, did a good thing in recent years. We felt like the families of those people who have lost a loved one in combat, they should have been getting more than the measly thousands of dollars they were, so we increased the amount that the family of an American hero who was killed in combat would get. It was increased to $400,000. Well, we find out that the Biden administration wants to provide more than we provide to the family who has lost a loved one in combat representing and defending our country and our national interests. Someone who crossed the border illegally, according to this administration, should get an extra $50,000 more than those who died for this country. We also know--and I am pleased that Secretary Buttigieg is back from paternity leave because we do have a real crisis in our supply chain. We didn't have this problem during the Trump administration. It sure seemed to be a good idea the way we were manufacturing more of the things we need in America. I am not a big fan of tariffs, but as I told President Trump, since you are simply using them as a tool to get better trade deals then I will vote for those tariffs for such use, so that we can get more fairness in our agreements with foreign countries. That worked out. President Trump did make some good deals. We are seeing all that fall aside as this administration seems to be more dedicated to helping China, Russia, Iran, and OPEC nations do better with their economy than we are here at home. I realize there are some people here in Washington that feel like America has more than it deserves. I believe God has blessed us more than we deserve in America. We are seeing those things change as we have continued to forget more and more just who the source is for the blessings in this country. In fact, what occurred to me is, instead of build back better, as we see the economy in shambles, prices going through the roof, more and more people now being fired, the economy appears headed in even deeper trouble the further we go. Maybe instead of build back better, we could call it Biden's bulldozings of our blessings. Here is an article from Fortune. No sign of relief. The global supply chain crisis could last well into February. And as I thought back, Vice President Harris--it seems like it was back in August when she was speaking to some folks--somebody made fun of her for saying: You may want to order your Christmas presents early this year so you make sure you have them. I didn't know why anybody would make fun of her because, as it turns out, she was actually exactly right. Apparently she knew back in August we were going to have trouble getting the things we need in America. I have been amazed to see car lots more empty than they have cars. Shocking. I have never seen some of these car lots with so few cars ever in my life. There is an article from The Hill: More people in Manchin's, Sinema's home States want to hold off on new spending. That is from polls--an article by Mychael Schnell from The Hill. People have been trying to convince Senator Manchin and Senator Sinema that they just need to sign off on spending trillions more dollars. But recent polls apparently are showing that people in their home States appreciate them not agreeing to more and more of the runaway spending that would just increase inflation. One other thing people are noticing--a Washington Times story from Stephen Dinan titled ``Biden administration expands no-go zones where ICE can't arrest illegal immigrants''--so millions more are coming in, and fewer and fewer are being deported. Mr. Speaker, I think it is important for people to understand that this feeling that we need to secure our borders doesn't come from any kind of xenophobia. I look at the Hispanic culture, and though generalizing can be dangerous, generally speaking, I see faith in God; I see a hard work ethic; and I see a devotion to family. Well, those are things I believe made America the great country it has been. We need more of that help. Mr. Speaker, if you look at the contributions that immigrants have made from countries all over the world to this country, to make it as powerful and as great as it is, we want immigration. No country in the world, even those bigger than the United States, is as generous with providing visas as the United States is--over 1 million a year. But as Milton Friedman pointed out, if we are going to provide welfare in this country, which started back in the 1960s, then we can't have open borders or this country will be over very soon. It will be overwhelmed with people coming in. It will destroy the golden goose that some look at the U.S. as being, and there won't be any country to flee to looking for a better life. Some in allied countries tell me: If you lose your freedom in America, there won't be any freedom in the world. We will all lose our freedom pretty quickly if you lose yours. This is critical stuff. But I think the biggest danger of people swarming across our border, as they have been doing this year unimpeded, is the danger that Benjamin Franklin pointed out. He didn't go into detail, but as most people here remember, he was asked by a lady as he left the Constitutional Convention at the conclusion: What have you given us? And as most everybody here knows, he replied: A republic, madam, if you can keep it. A republic, a republican form of government, that is with a little R, not the Republican Party. A republic is what the Romans came up with after they looked at democracy from the Greeks. They actually had a real democracy where most everybody participated in the big decisions. Fortunately, they realized you can't let everybody vote as a juror in law cases, so they restricted those law case juries to only having 501 people. As I understand it, it was 501 people on the jury that voted to make Socrates drink poison as his penalty. That is what you see, Mr. Speaker, when you have too many participating in a process. It gets out of hand. You get a handful, they start running, and they get people fired up. Before you know it, Mr. Speaker, one of the finest men in the country is ordered to drink poison. Mr. Speaker, you have to be careful. That is what the Romans realized, so they created a republic. We like the democratic idea that people get to vote and participate in government, but let's have them elect representatives, then the representatives study the issues, and they vote on behalf of the rest of the country. If we don't like how they are voting, then we throw them out in the next election and select another representative. That is the republic form of government. Republics generally have not lasted more than 200 years. We are 30 years or so past the 1789 ratification of our Constitution. Some would say: Well, when we pass 200 years, we are living on borrowed time. We know history, but not enough. Too many of our schools quit teaching history because the Federal Government got involved in education. Is education an enumerated power under the Constitution for the Federal Government to be involved in? No, it is not. But in 1979, President Carter created the Department of Education. As a result, the percentage of teachers in education has dropped dramatically. Nearly three-fourths of the employees in K-12 education in Texas were teachers. But then after the Department of Education comes along, you got more bureaucrats here making more requirements for the folks in Austin and every State capital. So those folks have to hire more people to answer the mandates of the Department of Education in Washington. And to get their information, they have to mandate more people in every school board in elementary school. I had a fantastic public school education in elementary school, middle school, and high school. In elementary school, we had a principal, the principal had an assistant, then there was the janitor, then there were the people who worked in the cafeteria, and that was it. Now, every school has to have so many people working in the administration gathering information to send to the State capital so they can send it to Washington. As I recall, it was either late eighties or early nineties, I think it was early nineties, but I was on the board of Former Students of Texas A&M. I was asking the president, we had some other people there who worked on analyzing SAT scores. I said: I understand the SAT test has now been recalibrated so that students will do better than they have in the past for answering the same number of questions right. Yes, it has been recalibrated. People were embarrassed that SAT scores were a lot lower now than they used to be. If you took the SAT in the early seventies, your score now would probably be around 200 points higher than it was back then. I was intrigued by that. Why did we have to recalibrate the SAT? Well, it was so people wouldn't think schools were failing during the nineties. So SAT scores came back up not because they were doing better but because the scoring was recalibrated. That was a rather interesting illumination on education, but we continue to see problems. As both Republican and Democrat Presidents have been pushing more control, I think President Trump tried to give more control back locally. But what has happened is the Federal Government has taken more and more control right here in Congress. We continue to pass stuff that says: You don't get your money back. Of course, we know the money comes from the States up here. But we are not going to give you your money back unless you do this, that, or the other like we tell you. Well, one of the mandates has been you had to pass this federally mandated test, and the federally mandated test was extremely light on history. I am told that there are times when there isn't any history, maybe one history question, and it is not always good history, if a question is asked. So I hear from schools back home: We have to teach to the mandated test because if any student doesn't pass the federally mandated test, we don't get all of that Federal money that came from us back to us. They keep it for that student. So to avoid not getting back even as much of our own money as we should, we have got to get people prepared to pass the test. So some schools, they got rid of music, they got rid of art. And some of us are big advocates and we go: Wait a minute. Do you not understand that when it comes to music, it comes to art, you are getting synapses to fire in the brain that might not fire otherwise, and if you can get more synapses firing, then the student's brain can accumulate more, work better, and then overall do better scoring? Look, we have got to get them to pass the test, I am told, and those things, music, art, are not on the test, so we have got to concentrate on making sure the students are ready for that federally-mandated test. Well, that is a shame. Music and art add dramatically to life. And there are some awesome art teachers. They didn't do too well with me. Apparently, there is an art gene in my background. My dad was artistic; had a daughter that was very artistic. But it was a latent gene in me. I see what it adds in the art contests that all of the Representatives, I think most of us have in our districts, but you see the incredible products that these kids are able to create, and it is really inspiring. Yet so many are having to cut back or get rid of art altogether. Why? Because of the Federal mandates from here on high, on Mount Olympus, on Capitol Hill. It is important, also, on how we treat people. When I go to the border, I don't mistreat anybody that comes in illegally. I try to help all I can, but they have come into the country illegally. And we need to get back to the Trump policies before we get overwhelmed. And going back to the point that Benjamin Franklin made: It takes work to keep a republic. It doesn't just happen. That is why it has happened so rarely. That is why the United States of America is such an anomaly in history. There has never been a country like this. Even Solomon's Israel didn't have all of the individual opportunities, all of the individual assets and comforts that we have here in America. It is an amazing place, but it takes work. It takes education of our children, training them up so they understand what it takes to preserve a republic, a representative form of government, and getting stronger and stronger as we have done until more recent years. When you have people flooding in, I mean, 2 million people this year, this administration has 3 more years, so are we going to have 8 million, at least 8 million more people enter this country illegally? They are not coming from countries that understand how to preserve a republic. And I will tell you some of the very best citizens we have in this whole country are people who went through the process of becoming legal citizens, and I hear from them a lot in my district. They love America because they know how it can be outside of America, and they don't want our country becoming like those countries they came from. People from Venezuela, people from Central America, from Eastern Bloc countries are some of the best citizens we have got, some from Russia. My cousin married a Russian, and she knows. We were talking about it last week, and she is feeling a sense of urgency. We are losing what we have had. We are becoming more like the place I was so anxious to leave. It takes work to keep a republic and to enjoy the blessings we have received. People who are flooding in, they have never been trained on what it takes to preserve a republic. And one of the big issues to so many people during the COVID pandemic has been the unprecedented grab of power that the Federal Government has never had before. Never. We have had pandemics that were a lot more deadly than COVID, but no one has ever had the nerve to tell people who were not infected, who had thriving businesses, that they had to close down their business. We are going to let these people open. We are not letting you open. Thirty years ago, they would have opened anyway, probably 20 years ago, and they would have won in court without question. You can't shut down business. It is unprecedented. And for heaven's sake, to tell churches they couldn't open. For the huge majority of our history, when there was a time of emergency, including a pandemic, people felt like they needed to be in church praying; that they needed to be asking God for help. And for the first time in our history, we didn't have a President that issued a National Day of Prayer & Fasting, asking God to help us. For the first time in our history, we had a national proclamation: You have got to close businesses. You have got to close churches. You can't meet. In some places States said you can't even sing in church because you open your mouth. We can't allow that. And I know there are still a lot of mixed signals on masks. It is interesting. There are cloth masks. I had a mask getting on a plane with, one of the SHEMA97 masks designed in Israel. It has four layers of cloth that are ionized to kill germs. They don't just catch them. They will kill germs. The flight attendant said: I can see your nose, so that mask can't be any good. It can't be any good, she says. And she was wearing one of the little blue-and-white masks. Talk about not doing any good. Although, in fairness, I have read that there were some studies that said those little blue-and-white masks can decrease your percentage of getting COVID by 0.2 percent. So 0.2 percent, that is what it is, great. Wear one of those little, cloth masks. But then we see down in Florida that has been the most open, that they have fewer cases percentagewise. They are doing better than any other State in the country and they have been the most open State we have had. So it is interesting. And I have an article here from The Gateway Pundit. ``It Wasn't Just Beagles and Monkeys--Fauci's NIH Also Funded Medical Experiments on AIDS Orphans in New York City.'' I read somewhere else that these were Black orphans that had AIDS, and the Fauci NIH was doing experiments on them, according to this article of Jim Hoft. They reported that 25 children, those Black orphanage babies, died during the drug studies they were doing on those poor little babies. An additional 55 children died following the studies while they were in foster care. Tim Ross, director of the child welfare program at Vera--I am looking for what that stands for--the Vera Institute, that as of 2009, 29 percent of the remaining 417 children who were used in drug studies had died; 532 children that are admitted to have been used now. That was in the last 20 years. I don't know if Dr. Fauci has been asked if he knew about that. We found out he lied about funding gain of function in China. Another article from Fox Business, Elizabeth Faddis, that Dr. Fauci is facing a demand from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to divulge information regarding the alleged use of an experimental drug on puppies. I guarantee you, as more people find out that NIH was using orphan Black AIDS babies for drug experiments, that killed many of them, there will be even more cries from both sides of the aisle on answers. I thought we were so far past anything like that. I mean, after the outrageous Tuskegee experiments, I can't believe we have been doing that same stuff in the last 20 years. Somebody needs to be held accountable for these things. We are in deeply troubling times, and there is a good chance that if we don't get back to making sure children in America know how to sustain a republic, we are headed for losing it. It is because of a fear of that, a fear of the loss of freedom, that caused me to leave the bench and run and try to get elected to Congress so I could make a difference in legislation, so we could try to salvage this little experiment in self-government. But it seems pretty clear it is not going to last much longer. You can't absorb 8 million people, who not only most of them don't speak the language, but they are adults who have no clue, have never been educated. They have certainly got the capacity to learn, but they have never been educated on what it takes to preserve self-government and the blessings that we have in this country. If they are not educated on that, if they are simply handed $450,000 each, then that is all they know. Wow, this is a country where you come in, demand money, they give it to you. You can't sustain a country like that, and we won't. No one ever has. In Rome, there was one Caesar that figured that bread and circuses were being given to keep people peaceable, and it was keeping them from working. He tried to do away with it. But by then, it was too late. Let's act now before it is too late. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, as my friend has noted, there are so many crises that are going on right now. We have the economy being harmed even more by policies of this administration with the President and all of those working with him and for him demanding that everyone be vaccinated. And the President himself has said we need to protect the vaccinated from the unvaccinated, and he said the way to do that is to make sure all the unvaccinated are vaccinated. So this administration's solution is we have got to protect the vaccinated from the unvaccinated by making the unvaccinated get the vaccination. That does not protect you from the unvaccinated. It makes no sense. And some doctors have said, if somebody put out a vaccine that killed 200 people, they would immediately slam the brakes and say, Whoa, wait, let's hold up. We have got to find out what the problem is here. But we know from reports that have been made that there are people that have died from having the vaccination. We are thrilled that the vaccines were produced so quickly. President Trump got a lot of the red tape out of the way. However, it ought to be a choice after talking, between a doctor and a patient, and the doctor understanding the risks inherent because of the biological makeup of this person for taking the vaccination, and then let the individual decide. But if the vaccination works as good as we were told originally it did, then there should be no vaccinated person really concerned about those that are unvaccinated because they would be protected. I am glad that the administration is starting to have cracks in their adamant position that having had COVID and having antibodies is just not nearly as good as having a vaccination. I am glad they are starting to--some of them at least--observe the science, that it is probably a little better if you had COVID, had the antibodies, as far as your future and fighting it off. So I am encouraged by that. But then, I see this article from October 19. As we talked about before, the President, I believe, he is doing something illegal in saying you have got to have the vaccination. And then he comes out and says, we are going to have OSHA put together a rule requiring everybody to have the vaccination. But the President, himself, does not sign an executive order, which could be taken to court. It is just the general policy of blackmailing companies, private firms, that we are coming after you if you don't force your employees to have the vaccination. It is really a bit insidious. You don't even really give people a chance to file suit. You just state a policy you are going to follow and then have everybody follow it, it makes it much more difficult to sue. But this article says, ``OSHA will not enforce 29 CFR 1904's recording requirements to require any employers to record worker side effects from COVID-19 vaccination.'' The Biden administration is forcing you to take the jab in order to work. And simultaneously, the Biden administration does not want the employer to tell them about workers who were injured by the jab. Simply more evidence that the vaccine mandate is not about your health. So that is a little disturbing. You would think if anyone cared about science and really cared about people, you would want to know about every abnormality, every adverse consequence of taking the vaccination, because we are really concerned about individual health. But that is not this administration. They are putting out that we don't want to know things that are bad. I was informed about a person that had the vaccination, and immediately died after the vaccination; was full of blood clots--not one, but many. And the physician noted the cause of death was blood clots from a vaccination. And then the family was told the health official will not certify a death certificate if it blames the vaccination for the death. So the widow is in a real bind because you have got to have a death certificate in order to legally move forward and get things changed after the person died. You got to show proof. And yet, the health officer refusing to attribute the cause of death to what it really was, according to the doctor, the vaccination. So that is pretty remarkable that the government does not want to do its job in protecting people. I would think that if someone in government really cared about people instead of caring about being a dictator, they would say, We want to know exactly what happened after a vaccination that went wrong and which vaccine was it so we can document which ones are safer than other vaccinations. But that is not, apparently, what is going on in this country right now. So we really need people stepping up and letting this administration know, letting their Members of Congress, their Senators know that they expect them to speak up. We want complete transparency. What works; what doesn't work. We don't want the government hiding things from us anymore. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, we are living through interesting times. I understood that was also a curse, ``May you live in interesting times.'' We certainly are enduring that. An article from the New York Post, October 18, 2021, is titled ``Biden secretly flying underage migrants into NY in dead of night.'' Now, what we have come to see at the border in Texas is that this administration has learned that, gee, we have a record number of people pouring into this country illegally, but if we can ship them away from the border quickly enough, people don't see them amassed by the thousands. So if they don't see them, no harm, no foul. I guess they are thinking if no one is in the forest to hear a tree fall, does it really fall? Well, the truth is, when you abandon the rule of law, then a Nation based on the rule of law will not last much beyond that. This is devastating to the country, and some would say, well, you know what, it is so compassionate to invite people. Well, when you hear from doctors that probably 25 percent of the women they see have been raped along the way, you see children separated from their parents in order to come to this country to give them a better chance of staying in the United States so the parents can someday follow, you see people that become indentured servants of the drug cartels selling drugs, sex trafficking, human trafficking, that is not very compassionate. It seems the most compassionate thing that the United States Government could do for our friends and neighbors to the south, would be to secure our southern border so nobody comes in illegally. That would keep out the drugs, the fentanyl, those things that are killing 70,000 people a year in the United States. But the big thing for our neighbors would be that the tens of billions of dollars pouring across our border to the drug cartels that allows them to corrupt every level of Mexican Government would stop and people wouldn't have to live in fear of the drug cartels controlling Mexico, controlling countries to the south. That would be the compassionate thing to do. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Good).

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I couldn't agree more. And it is not compassionate to lure people, lure children into this country away from their parents with some hope down the road maybe they get back together. That is not compassionate when you lure people to their detriment. In fact, if the U.S. Government were susceptible to being sued by people that have been lured into the country to their detriment and by the open border policy that ends up causing them to be basically, totally under the control of the drug cartels, then there would be attractive nuisance lawsuits against this President and against our Federal Government for not securing our border and drawing people in who are then harmed. There are constantly people being found that are dead that tried to make it in, and yet, the drug cartels being so heartless, they don't care if they die or not. But they do want to continue to add employees or indentured servants all over the country. It is just rather dramatic how this President, this administration is doing so much to aid and abet the drug cartels in getting their servants all over the country in cities and, yet, it is true we have Americans that are paying for the drugs, paying for sex trafficking, and we should be doing so much more as a Federal Government to prevent those things from happening. There is an article here from Politico of all places: ``It's not just Republicans. Everyone's mad at Biden over migration.'' You have got Daily Mail from October 20: ``Facebook admits users can share information on illegal immigration and being smuggled: Arizona Attorney General calls for investigation into tech giant for `facilitating human and sex trafficking.''' So, once again, just like with our elections, you have got the Democrats in positions of power in the government working hand in hand with the tech giants for something that is just terrible for human beings, and that is facilitating human and sex trafficking.

Mr. GOHMERT. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. GOHMERT. To some degree.

Mr. GOHMERT. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GOHMERT. I did read results of one study that indicated that if you wear a mask, you are two-tenths of one percent less likely to get COVID. So there is that. There is at least two-tenths of one percent that it is apparently helpful but we don't know the results of long- term wearing a mask, the additional CO2 that may be taken in, or germs that are kept in a mask that would have not been breathed in repeatedly. We don't know the results of all that. That is fine, but that is still very different from forcing someone to have an injection, which we know can have very adverse effects. And that is why it ought to be an individual decision to make. But then again, it also contributes to a crisis in enough people doing jobs that allow us to have a supply chain that is intact and getting people the things that they need. Little did I know--you may have anticipated it--but there were people making jokes after the Vice President had said several weeks ago--it may have been in August--that people needed to get their orders in now so they would get things by Christmas. Wow. Apparently, they saw this coming. But the point that has been made by my friend about the various opinions from the same people, when it comes to Dr. Fauci, when it comes to the President, it is hard to find an issue that they haven't been on more than one side of. Fauci would say, no, don't use a mask. Yes, you should use a mask. And then he says, use a mask. And then he is saying at a baseball game you do not need to wear a mask, not social distance. He has given different opinions, and it reminded me of Winston Churchill's comment about Keynes, the economist. Of course, a lot of people say that is Keynesian economics. But if you look back and do some research on the guy, often when he got into debate and was confronted that some theory he had wasn't true and didn't work, he would immediately take the other position and say he was not for that, he was for this. So Winston Churchill had once said--I believe this is close to verbatim. He said if you put two economists in a room, you would have three different opinions unless one of them was Sir Keynes, in which case you would have an unlimited number of opinions. I am getting that impression from Dr. Fauci. Apparently, even Dr. Fauci needs to come to grips with the fact that when he says the U.S. never funded any gain-of-function research--okay, the evidence is there. He had us going for a while, but the evidence is in, and that is absolutely not true. Hopefully, in all the myriad of opinions he has, he will come around and find the truthful opinion when it comes to his group contributing to gain-of-function research that helped weaponize the COVID virus.

Mr. GOHMERT. My friend has such a great point. To have the Attorney General of the United States jump into the issue of disagreements at school board meetings is absolutely astounding. We have record crime, especially in cities controlled totally by Democrats. Crime is going up tremendously. I know that Merrick Garland knows the Constitution, or at least he has at one time. He knows that there is no mention in the Constitution of a Federal role in education. Yet, he sends out a memo saying-- basically, it is pretty intimidating--that we are going to start digging into these school board meetings and using the Justice Department to go after people who have differences of agreement that happen to agree with Dr. King that people should be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin. Who would have believed that 40 to 50 years after it seemed we were so close to Dr. King's dream being realized that you would have an administration totally committed to undoing Dr. King's dream and going back to judging people by the color of their skin instead of the content of their character? It is just shocking. Of course, the saying in Washington is and has been for many years, no matter how cynical you are, it is never enough to catch up. Well, we find out, after Attorney General Garland sends out the letter that he is going to go after these people that are in disagreement, lo and behold, it turns out his son-in-law and daughter make a tremendous amount of money selling things in support of critical race theory, judging people by the color of their skin and not by the content of their character. It is Panorama Education Company founded by Xan Tanner. They sell surveys to school districts, according to this article from Callie Patteson, that has a nationwide focus on ``social and emotion climate,'' which is interesting. I guess they are wanting that climate changed as well. With contracts in more than 50 of the 100 largest school districts in the U.S., Panorama Education claims to be supporting ``13 million students in 23,000 schools and 1,500 districts across 50 States.'' Panorama Education Company's cofounder Xan Tanner is Attorney General Merrick Garland's son-in-law. It then goes on to talk about the 21 different States where they are spreading this stuff. Their surveys reportedly give justification for new curricula in schools, which parents have recently taken issue with, such as critical race theory. But since 2017, the company has raised $76 million from investors. Just last month, Panorama Education struck a $60 million private financing raise with General Atlantic. It is rather amazing. Just when you think you can't get more cynical about what this administration is doing, we find out, gee, there is pecuniary gain afoot here on this issue of the Attorney General weighing in on school board meetings. Of course, that is kind of flying in the face of the idea that white supremacy and climate change are the two biggest dangers to America. For those of us that had incredibly good constitutional law professors, we know those professors would say: Where is the Federal nexus? There has to be some Federal reason, something that gives the Federal Government the right to come in and control school board meetings. Of course, shortly after I got here, I had a law that I was working on. Having family involved in schools--my mother was a schoolteacher--I know back then the administrators had the teachers' backs. But now, because of so many lawsuits so easily and quickly filed, administrators would say things to teachers like: Look, I realize this student is a total disruption to your class, but his mother or father, or both, will file lawsuits, and we don't need a lawsuit, so just do the best you can. And that would disrupt the education of other students. My thought was, as a judge, I had what was called judicial immunity. You might not like my rulings, but you can't just sue because you don't like the rulings. It was judicial immunity. I thought, what if we created an educational immunity? You may not like what a school does, or a teacher or principal, but unless they have committed a crime, you can't sue them. That would allow things to get to the place where they used to be. When I was growing up, if you had a problem with a teacher or some issue in the school, you went to the school board meetings--like the Attorney General is trying to stop now. If somebody on the school board or too many on the school board didn't see it as a problem, then you ran for the school board, got elected, and fixed it. But because of lawsuits, that has totally changed the way schools have had to approach things. So what if we gave them educational immunity? I had asked the national education folks. They came and I made the presentation, and I was totally shocked when they said: We are not sure that we could support that. I said, but it would keep your teachers from being sued at the drop of a hat. People could go complain to the school board, but you couldn't just go after a teacher. Well, it turns out, they eventually got back to me and said they wouldn't be able to support that bill. I was just mortified--mystified, too. Why would they not be behind that? Then one of my friends who spent his life in education said, Louie, do you not understand the biggest cash cow, the biggest moneymaker for the teachers unions, is liability insurance? If you take away their liability, then the teachers unions can't sell and make money off of liability insurance. There goes that big cash cow. Yes, it would make life easier for teachers, but the unions, the people who are making money from unionizing teachers, will not ever support something like that. So, just, again, going back to the old adage: No matter how cynical you get around here, it is not enough to catch up. I am constantly being reeducated on that issue. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend from Virginia.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend from Virginia more than he can ever know, and I am glad he is here. But along the lines of rights that we have had, and that the Constitution has assured, we are finding civil liberties still are being trampled. I have an article here by Glenn Greenwald, and it is just an excellent summary on what the title tells us: ``Civil Liberties Are Being Trampled By Exploiting `Insurrection' Fears.'' We have people in this body who are constantly referring to the insurrection on January 6. We have heard the President and others say that it was the worst attack on democracy ever. Even a person whom I don't often agree with, FBI Director Christopher Wray, even he pointed out that, gee, it is kind of tough for those of us who recall 9/11 to say January 6 was a worse attack on democracy. If you were just judging by time, I heard from Attorney General Garland and spinning the news, many, I think 2 to 300, were charged with obstructing an official session of Congress for 4 to 6 hours. But, Mr. Speaker, if you go back to June 22 of 2016, we had 26 hours of obstruction of an official session of Congress. Congress twice tried to go back into session and was prevented each time. It was about 26 hours before the efforts of so many to obstruct Congress finally were withdrawn so we could have Congress again. I didn't realize back then that this offense was out there. I knew there were many violations of House rules that went on, but then, Mr. Speaker, when you see, oh, my gosh, just obstructing Congress carries up to 20 years in prison. I would be interested to know if any of those people who were obstructing an official session of Congress realized that they were committing a Federal felony carrying up to 20 years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine. But fortunately for them, Paul Ryan was Speaker and chose not to really do anything. Those are the kind of things that when the American public sees that people are doing things wrong who are supposed to be making the laws and following the laws and yet they are the worst violators, it is not helpful nor healthy for the country. I know one of my constituents--and I am not defending any crimes that have been committed--but he is a guy, he was on Ellen after rescuing dogs in a hurricane; he was arrested for his role in the Capitol. What I have learned from him and his family, gee, these people are being so mistreated. We have heard from other people. But we had a Federal judge here who said: Enough is enough. He finally held the warden in contempt. As I understand, the warden has lost the job of being warden. There is an article from Sarah Lynch saying that the jail violated the civil rights of a U.S. Capitol riot defendant, but these folks not being allowed to--at least some of them--not to shave, not to get a haircut, and I thought we were decades past those days, because I know all the county jails with which I am familiar, they would make sure people were dressed out, had a haircut and shaved, if they wanted to, before they came to court, that they were not going to have them forced into an appearance like the Unabomber looking like some wild, crazy person making it easier for a jury to convict them because they looked like a Neanderthal. Yet, that is exactly what the D.C. Jail has been doing. It was reported that after the judge held the warden in contempt, that there was a late-night effort by the people at the D.C. Jail that, as I understand it, is partially under the control of the Bureau of Prisons, but they sent people to start scrubbing the black mold that was causing problems for some of the prisoners, painted areas that were disgusting and that they let some of these folks who were arrested because of the January 6 events, let them know that we hold you accountable and you are going to pay for it. Then some noted the terrible smell of cleaning fluid on their food that they couldn't eat. Many are tired of eating bologna sandwiches for months and months in a row. I do know this: the reports we have been getting indicate that the folks here who are being held in pretrial confinement and are being punished--although that is unconstitutional to punish somebody while they are awaiting trial and not having been convicted--that they are not treated nearly as well as bloodthirsty murderers who are being held in Guantanamo. I have been down there more than once. I have seen how things go there, and it is rather tragic that American citizens are being treated so much worse than individuals who want to destroy America and who have killed and participated in the killing of thousands of Americans. Here is one from Gateway Pundit: ``Newly Released Video Shows January 6 Political Prisoner Jeremy Brown Saving a Female Trump Supporter Who Was Trampled By Capitol Police.'' That is from October 20. Here is an article that was this summer titled, ``Six Months Since the January 6th Attack on the Capitol.'' It points out that it works out to be an average of three defendants arrested every single day, including weekends, since January 6. Nearly 235 defendants have been charged with corruptly obstructing, influencing, or impeding an official proceeding, or attempting to do so. And this article from Sarah Lynch, October 13, ``Jail Violated Civil Rights of Capitol Riot Defendant, U.S. Judge Says,'' and a copy of that order. But AG Garland tried to blame D.C. for conditions at the jail and treatment at the jail when actually he is in charge of what happens to pretrial prisoners that the Department of Justice is going after. So nice try, but we need people here facing up to their responsibility. Mr. Speaker, I will just conclude with a comment that I never ever thought I would hear myself say, but after seeing the partisanship, the use of official position to help a daughter's and son-in-law's finances, thank God Mitch McConnell didn't bring him to be confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I was unable to vote on September 30, 2021 due to not being physically present in the District of Columbia. Had I been present, I would have voted as follows: NO on Roll Call No. 311. Today I was unable to vote on the Continuing Resolution due to being at an important hearing outside of the District of Columbia on behalf of a highly decorated Marine who is currently confined. The Democrats had a conclusive number of votes to pass the bill in the House of Representatives and my recorded vote of ``no'' would unfortunately not change the outcome. However, with the liberties of an American patriot and service member, Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Stuart Scheller, hanging in the balance, I came to his assistance to testify in person on his behalf. When a member of Congress with my prior experience can potentially help someone who has repeatedly risked his life for our nation, it seems I have a duty to fight for the liberty and rights of all American citizens. A weighty decision had to be made, but protecting the legal rights and liberties of Americans, particularly one who has sacrificed so much, was the only choice to make. It is unfortunate that Democrats continue to spend at unsustainable levels and without any appreciation of the fact that their irresponsibility today jeopardizes the freedom of all Americans--those living today as well as those not even born yet.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the chairman's efforts in regard to this bill. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, in the 1980s, as Representative Nadler said, Congress enacted harsh penalties for Federal drug offenses, including mandatory minimum sentences. In the 1986 act, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, it did create 100:1 sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine, meaning an individual convicted of selling 5 grams of crack cocaine would receive the same sentence as someone convicted of selling 500 grams of powder cocaine. Earlier, years before, Representative Dan Lungren--he had been here in the eighties--in 1986, when this was passed, said that Republicans were told in 1986--with a Democratic majority--by Representative Charley Rangel, that if they did not support the huge disparity, then they did not care about Black neighborhoods and the scourge that crack cocaine was creating and how it was ruining Black neighborhoods. So it easily passed because in 1986, no one wanted to be called a racist. This law contributed to the growth of the U.S. Federal prison population from the 1990s through 2000s. In 2010, Congress passed the Fair Sentencing Act, which reduced the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine from 100:1 to 18:1. And as I recall, at the time, I thought it would be good to go 1:1; that is what we did in Texas when I was a judge. But if I recall correctly, there were some Republicans that said we can't go all the way to 1:1, but we will agree to 18:1. If that is not right, the chair can correct me, but that is what I recall. Because I didn't see why we didn't go ahead and go 1:1 back then and just fix it. But that was what happened. It went from 100:1 to 18:1 disparity. But in 2018, Congress passed--President Trump signed--the First Step Act, which made the Fair Sentencing Act retroactive. This law allowed those sentenced for Federal drug offenses relating to cocaine prior to the passage of Fair Sentencing Act to move for a resentencing under the new law. The EQUAL Act before us today truly lives up to the name of equalizing sentences for similar crimes and would eliminate the Federal sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine and allow those convicted under the prior law to move for resentencing under this new standard. At the State level, more than 40 States do not treat crack and powder cocaine differently in their sentencing structures. Passage of the EQUAL Act now would align Federal sentencing laws with the vast majority of States. And I would like to also say in a prior hearing Mr. Jeffries indicated that he intended to go forward and would try to push a bill, as the chair also had hoped, that would finally eliminate the sentencing disparity and go 1:1. In that hearing, I made the comment that if Mr. Jeffries would draft a bill that did just that, then I would support that. And I am very pleased that Mr. Jeffries, who is a man of his word, he did exactly what he said. He prepared a bill that fixed this problem. I am pleased to agree and to be part of what Mr. Jeffries prepared and what the chairman has seen through our committee, and glad we are finally going to deal with this problem and do right by the people that are sentenced under it. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend Mr. Jeffries mentioning Cedric Richmond and also Kelly Armstrong who were such an important part of bringing this bill to this place. Of course, Congressman Cedric Richmond has passed on to his just reward. Of course, that means going to the White House to work. Mr. Armstrong is still here laboring in the field. He was unable to be here and asked that I read this statement from him into the Record. He said: ``I wish I could be here today, but I am grateful to Representative Gohmert for sharing my remarks with the Chamber. ``I am proud to support passage of the EQUAL Act, which will finally provide sentencing parity for Federal crack and powder cocaine offenses. ``This bill will also provide relief to those who have been sentenced under the previous unequal guidelines. In 1986, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act created a 100:1 sentencing disparity for crack cocaine and powder cocaine offenses. For instance, the law created a 5-year prison sentence for distribution of 5 grams of crack cocaine. At the same time, an individual would need to possess 100 times that amount of powder cocaine to receive the same sentence. ``The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 reduced the disparity from 100:1 to 18:1. The First Step Act of 2018 was supposed to make the 18:1 change retroactive. The EQUAL Act not only provides sentencing parity for crack and powder cocaine offenses, it also solves the retroactivity and implementation issues. ``This is not being soft on crime. It is being smart on crime. Many Americans struggling with addiction are no stranger to the Federal prison system. We know that addressing substance use disorder and mental health challenges are the most effective way to help these individuals as well as improve our communities. ``The answer isn't to lock people up for crimes of addiction. We tried that method for decades, it does not work. In an increasingly partisan time, the EQUAL Act is an example of how commonsense legislation can receive bipartisan support from across the political spectrum. You don't have to look further than the prime sponsors of this bill. ``I am a conservative Republican from North Dakota. Congressman Jeffries is a Democrat from New York City. We disagree on a lot of issues, but we have come together to support this bill because it is the right thing to do. It is also why this bill has broad support from across the ideological spectrum. ``The House Judiciary Committee reported the EQUAL Act favorably by a vote of 36-5. The bill also is supported by dozens of group ranging from the ACLU to Americans for Prosperity. ``Thank you to everyone who has worked so hard to bring us to this point. I urge everyone to support the EQUAL Act.'' That ends the statement by Mr. Kelly Armstrong. Let me just say in conclusion--and I appreciated the comments of Mr. Jeffries regarding treatment--what I saw during my decade on the bench was, whether it was crack cocaine or powder cocaine, it was incredibly additive. And every now and then somebody might be able to deal with their addiction in a 30-day program, but normally it took a lot longer than 30 days. Something I thought Texas did right was have an up to 12 months substance abuse felony punishment facility. Some thought it was strange that a strong conservative, like myself, used that as much as I did. I saw that this is so additive and it needs a length of time to help people change their lives for such a time that they have got a better chance of making it out, understanding just how addictive those substances are, all coming from cocaine. I know the second checks act dealt with some of those issues, but it might be something else we can do in the future, where if you are convicted of an offense where you are an addict, then a long-term substance abuse facility where you are only with people with your same problem. And it is a lockdown facility, you don't have a choice of going anywhere. And as I have sat and watched some of the encounters in the meetings, like AA, that you have there in those facilities, boy, they have a BS- detector. They don't let people get away with anything. They have been there. They know, and it had a better success rate than any other program that I had seen. So this is a great start toward getting the right thing done, and I appreciate Mr. Jeffries, and in the past, Mr. Richmond--I know it was his desire--and Chairman Nadler, for making this happen. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time

Mr. GOHMERT. I continue to reserve the balance of my time, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, we had a bill today regarding abortion; and when I think about saving lives of innocent babies, one name that comes to mind is Henry Hyde, and another name that comes to my mind is Chris Smith. We have some people that have worked tirelessly, selflessly on this issue, and one of those people is Chris Smith. He is a leader. I am proud to yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith).

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate so much my friend Mr. Smith's dedication to this important--it is not just an issue; it is an important cause. It is so important. We are told in law school that there can be nothing more noble than speaking up for those who are unable to defend themselves, and that is what I see when I see my friend, Mr. Smith. This bill we took up today, to vote on, allows abortion right up to the moment of birth. I struggle with that. I mean, I understand there are people that really believe it is not a child; it is just a mass of tissue. But when the child can be seen, as we were talking about earlier before we began the Special Order, when you look at the TV screen, you know that is your child. And it is a child. You can make out all the parts. Then it is not just a mass of tissue. But for heaven's sake, when it is a viable, living child, capable of living completely on that child's own--I have seen some tough things as a felony judge, some pictures, which I wish I had never seen. But to see what is done to a living child in the name of a right is just heartbreaking. I appreciate so much my friend's heart on this issue. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my good friend, if he cares to share anything else.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate so much my friend talking about loving the ones alive, the baby, the mother, because so often the focus is only on mothers that have had an abortion and good for them and not on those times when their hearts are deeply broken and that love needed to nurture and care for them. I am just grateful that we worship a God that believes in second chances, and there is nothing that we can do to separate us from that love. I had the privilege of hearing a lady named Ramona Trevino. I was guest-hosting somebody's radio show, and I had her on so that more people could hear her story. It is amazing. She is a brilliant, brilliant person. She was top of her class in high school, and I believe it was at 15 that she became pregnant. In the Hispanic community they had looked at her as a rising star, going to be a great leader, and then she became pregnant, and there were those who encouraged her to go ahead and have an abortion. She didn't. But she was so smart. Eventually there was an opening she saw for director of Planned Parenthood in Sherman, Texas, and so she applied. And because she was obviously so smart, she got the job. And she continued to raise her daughter. But they were teaching the people who worked at Planned Parenthood that the most important statistic that the directors reviewed in their directors' meetings were how many young girls are you able to get on birth control pills. That was a more important number than how many abortions you did that month. The big money came from the abortions, of course, but the numbers that they really pushed at the directors' meetings: How young are you getting them on the pill? And how many are you getting on birth control pills? And to do that, they were trained to tell the child: Look, your mother obviously, I am sure, will not approve of this, and you don't have to tell her. This is between you and me, and I will keep your confidence. I will let you know that I am your friend, and I will be here for you. It was building to, as they were taught, the younger you get a girl on birth control pills, the more likely she is to forget some day and become pregnant, and that is when they made the big bucks, off the abortion. It began to bother Ramona so much that they were teaching their employees to come between somebody like her and her own daughter. And then to really affirmatively get young girls on birth control pills because they were more likely to forget and get pregnant, encouraging them to have a really wild sexual life so that they could get pregnant became more than she could take, and she had to leave her position. It was just too much. She sounded the alarm on that for years. But just the idea that you use dishonesty to try to make a customer-- not a patient, but a customer--out of a young child and our laws all over the country say this person is not legally eligible to make a binding contract without adult advice and supervision; and yet that is where the focus is, get those girls pregnant so that we can make money on an abortion. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.