[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 186 (Friday, October 22, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H5824-H5829]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           CRISES IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Stansbury). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 4, 2021, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Gohmert) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.
  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.

[[Page H5825]]

  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.

                              {time}  1300

  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. GOOD of Virginia. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding.
  There are so many crises in this country right now. While many of us 
recognize that this President was a hard left radical, probably most of 
us underestimated the speed and the effectiveness with which he could 
ruin just about every situation, every issue in our country.
  It is hard, therefore, to identify what is the greatest threat to the 
country right now, what is the greatest crisis that faces our country 
right now--with no hope on the horizon, by the way, for any of them to 
get better under this administration; whether it is the vaccine 
mandates, things we couldn't imagine just a year or two ago.
  When this President ran for office, he said he wouldn't issue a 
vaccine mandate if he would win, and now we see today where people are 
being laid off. Those who were heroes over the last year and a half are 
now zeros and are getting fired from their jobs. Those who kept us safe 
on a daily basis, the first responders, the healthcare workers, our 
military. So is it the vaccine mandates?
  Is it the out-of-control reckless, irresponsible, unprecedented 
spending that we see? I mean, we already have 28, $29 trillion worth of 
debt, which is some 80 to $90,000 per American and yet, we find 
ourselves today with the majority party trying to determine how they 
can come together for another 5, $6 trillion, whatever the amount might 
be. Is it the spending?
  Is it our education system? Whether it is the product that we are not 
getting with how much we spend on education, the Federal mandates, the 
intrusion into local and State education. Whether it is the teaching of 
CRT or that sort of philosophy where there is transgender policy. 
Whether it is masks and vaccines on children, which as others have 
submitted--and I would agree--is child abuse with no demonstrated 
medical justification for masks on children or vaccines for young 
adults who are at almost no risk from COVID.
  Are those the greatest issues?
  Is it foreign policy? We have got China saber-rattling, shooting off 
missiles. We have the debacle in Afghanistan. North Korea, Iran, and 
Russia certainly have no reason to fear us under this President.
  Is it the 30 percent rise in violent crime while our police are at 
threat of their funding being reduced or they are being undermined and 
harassed? They are told to stand down in the face of looting and 
violence in their cities.
  Is it massive inflation? The hidden tax on every American, where 
their savings, their hard-earned resources, are being depleted by too 
many dollars chasing too few goods?
  Is it the breakdown of the supply chain and what that is going to 
mean in the coming months ahead?
  Is it our declaring war on American energy, forcing us to again 
depend on foreign provision from hostile nations for our energy; the 
jobs that are lost in that? The higher gas prices?
  But I submit to your point, Congressman Gohmert, immigration, illegal 
immigration, and the invasion, the absolute invasion at our southern 
border may be the biggest crisis.
  As you know well, the Constitution says in Article IV, Section 4: It 
is the responsibility of the Federal Government to protect the States 
from invasion, and that is clearly not happening.
  And I submit, as we talk about this issue, never in the history of 
our country has our own President intentionally done more to harm the 
Nation than what this President has done with the invasion at our 
southern border.
  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. GOOD. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GOHMERT. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. This is the greatest country in the world, as 
you know, Congressman Gohmert. There is a reason why people from all 
over the world want to come to the United States. Never in the history 
of the world has a nation been more welcoming to immigrants, to people 
from all corners of the globe who are seeking a better life, seeking 
freedom. No nation in the history of the world has given more 
opportunity to people of all backgrounds, all ethnicities, all 
nationalities who come here legally seeking to join us, to strengthen 
us as a nation, to make us a stronger nation, a more perfect Union, 
people from all religions, all faiths, all races, all ethnicities 
seeking desperately to come to the United States of America, a country 
that is under assault for who it is as a nation by those on the left, 
by

[[Page H5826]]

those on the other side of the aisle who condemn this country and want 
to change and transform this country into that from which these people 
are fleeing.
  I had a reporter say to me once, well, there is not an easy fix here 
to the immigration situation. And I said, well, it may not be easy, but 
it is simple: All we have to do is go back to the policies that were 
working a year ago that had largely defeated illegal immigration at our 
southern border.
  We know that walls work. I have had the privilege of going to the 
border three times, twice to Arizona and once to Texas, in my first 
nearly 10 months here serving in this Congress, something that 
apparently our President has never done, and our Vice President has 
certainly never done during her time as the ``border czar.''
  But as I went and saw firsthand for the first time in my life--I had 
driven past the border previously just from a car and I could see the 
meager fence that was there before the previous President, but I had 
never actually gotten out and visited and walked and talked with the 
people who live there, the people who are subjected to this illegal 
invasion, these folks, some of which are very dangerous, but all of 
which are coming very desperately for different reasons, coming on 
their property, vandalizing, invading, threatening, and in some cases, 
harming.
  I met with a rancher family who had a family member killed by an 
illegal alien. But meeting with ranchers, law enforcement officials, 
border patrol, those on the frontlines living with and then also 
working as best as they can under this administration--frankly, against 
this administration--to try to do what they can to deal with the border 
crisis.
  Walls do work. The enforcement that we had in place a year ago was 
working, ending catch and release, establishing MPP--the remain in 
Mexico policy--turning folks away through Title 42 policies. We were on 
the way to fixing our illegal immigration situation.
  But this administration with complicit help and support from this 
Democrat majority in this Congress is not just neglecting our southern 
border, not just failing to fix our broken illegal immigration 
situation, but they are part and parcel complicit and intentional in 
facilitating this invasion, and as you know all too well, as you have 
already touched on, hiding it from the American people as they do it.
  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.

                              {time}  1315

  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. GOOD of Virginia. Madam Speaker, once again, I'll say how 
privileged we are to be among the some 5 percent of the world's 
population that gets to live here, in spite of all the things that we 
are battling through and we are struggling through as a Nation, the 
crises we are facing, the tyranny of this current regime that is 
leading us.
  Our first President, who I believe was our greatest President, I 
believe divinely inspired, appointed by God to be that first President 
for the United States, who would not be king, refused to be king. And 
instead, we find ourselves today with one who seemingly would be king, 
if he could; or thinks that he is king, it seems, by actions.
  In a free country, which we still are, to some degree----
  Mr. GOHMERT. To some degree.
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. To some degree, it is not the government's role 
to protect us from ourselves. We choose, in a free society, to endure 
or be exposed to some risks for our precious

[[Page H5827]]

freedoms. We are a Nation of the people, by the people, for the people. 
A Nation whose founding documents proclaim our God-given right to life, 
liberty, and the pursuit--not the government provided--but the pursuit 
of happiness.
  And here we find ourselves today, something we could almost not have 
imagined even a year or two ago, where our most precious, most basic of 
freedoms, have been under threat, under assault, or worse, stripping 
away from us in the name of a pandemic, in the name of an emergency.
  The American people should make no mistake, that COVID policy needs 
to be viewed through a long-term lens. There is no such thing as a one-
time exception. What we will endure or accept or submit to today 
becomes the pattern, the model for the future.

  And, again, our most basic freedoms we have seen are freedom of 
movement, where we can go; our freedom of assembly, who we can be with; 
our freedom to work and to provide for ourselves and our family, to 
open our business, to frequent a business, to worship. And then the 
most basic of freedoms of all--our freedom of our person. That we now 
have a President, again, who a year ago, because he would not have 
gotten elected otherwise, said he would not enforce a vaccine mandate, 
later said he did not have the authority to enforce a vaccine mandate. 
And you know better than I, constitutionally, has no authority to 
enforce this vaccine mandate.
  Setting aside whether or not it is helpful or justified medically, 
just speaking legally and constitutionally, the Federal Government has 
no authority to do this. Certainly, the executive does not have the 
authority to act like a king and do this. And certainly, he does not 
have the authority to compel businesses to do that which he does not 
have the authority to do.
  And yet, we see a total disregard. This was a President that ran as 
the uniter in chief, and instead, he is the divider in chief, 
separating and dividing people based on vaccine status. Demanding that 
people disclose their most basic of personal information, whether or 
not they have received a vaccine, and then under threat of penalty of 
their job and worse, not be able to, again, go where they want to go 
and do what they want to do, if they don't comply with the heavy hand 
of the Federal Government.
  And in this terrible, terrible spending package, which is not just 
the trillions of dollars, but it is what is in it, one of many, many 
terrible things in it that the American people need to know about it is 
making the penalty for a business that doesn't comply with this vaccine 
mandate up to $700,000 dollars per occurrence.
  And to your point, what a shame, what a travesty that our own 
government is lying to us about COVID and about the vaccine. Here, we 
know that medicine and science is supposed to be challenged. It is 
supposed to be debated. It is supposed to be learned from. We don't 
want the same medicine from yesteryear. We want the very best from 
today, that we don't just hold on to what was before. We get a medical 
diagnose that is troubling, we get a second opinion; we consult with 
more than one person. We learn. We establish the evidence.
  But as you know, this government, this Federal Government, this 
executive administration, with their complicit allies in the media and 
in Big Tech, shuts down any dissent--to your point--on the stated 
narrative, the approved narrative, no matter how many times over the 
doctor in chief, the celebrity doctor in chief is proved wrong or 
contradictory--whether it is on gain of function or whatever it might 
be--any dissent is shut down on the risks of the vaccine. And there are 
risks.
  And some people understandably make the decision that for them, 
because of their health, because of their youth, because of their 
exposure, or because they have natural immunity because they have 
already had COVID, or the religious reasons or whatever it might be, 
they decide they don't want to have the vaccine. And this government 
and their complicit allies that we have already mentioned, are lying to 
us that there are risks to the vaccine.
  They obviously have been lying to us about the efficacy of the 
vaccine, because as you made the great point, we are going to force the 
unvaccinated to get the vaccine that doesn't protect the vaccinated 
from the unvaccinated. They are lying to us about the efficacy of 
masks.
  As you know, what we are forced to wear in this Chamber when we are 
not speaking at the lectern, pretending that a cloth mask makes a 
difference. There is medical documentation for that, which there is 
very little conclusive evidence to that effect, as you know.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Yes, I yield to the gentleman.
  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.

                              {time}  1330

  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. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, this administration, this 
executive branch of government, as you said, is weaponizing its 
agencies, its departments, its resources against the American people.
  On the COVID vaccine mandate that you were mentioning, what greater 
weapon can we use than to strip folks of their ability to earn a 
living? But it is part and parcel with this government, this 
administration, this Presidential regime which believes that the 
greatest threat to America is Americans, conservatives, patriots, those 
who vote the wrong way, as they see it, those who might have supported 
the previous President, those who show up to school board meetings, 
those who don't get a vaccine that they say you have to receive.

[[Page H5828]]

  They are weaponizing the IRS. Here in this budget that they want to 
approve, the trillions of dollars, they want to hire some 85,000 more 
IRS agents so they can be more effective in their assault on the 
American people.
  Here we are turning the Federal Government against parents who show 
up at school board meetings to express their concern for their children 
or what is being taught in their schools, which they have to pay for, 
by the way, that they have to fund.
  You see that this administration looks with contempt upon the 
American people, with contempt upon our law enforcement and first 
responders, with contempt upon our military. They have told our 
military that the greatest threat to the country, in addition to 
climate, is white supremacy in the military, racism in the military. We 
see the CRT forced upon our military, while we have the Chairman of the 
Joint Chiefs saying he wants to understand what white rage is.
  I would like for him to understand what China is doing, what is going 
on in Afghanistan, what is up with North Korea, what is up with Iran, 
what is up with Afghanistan. Instead, they are focused on weaponizing 
the Federal Government and all of its resources against our very 
citizens.
  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?

                              {time}  1345

  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. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Gohmert for 
allowing me to participate with him.
  The final thing that I will add is we certainly have agreement and 
recognition, as I think most Americans do, that we have surrendered 
control of K-12 through college of our education system to the hard 
left radicals, and it is refreshing to see parents engaged and parents 
standing up and saying that this is not what they are paying for and 
this is not what they are going to stand for.
  That is the silver lining of the pandemic, as more parents became 
aware of it.
  I will make one more reference to my final words here on the spending 
package that is being debated by the majority as they are trying to 
come to an agreement to bring it to the floor for a vote.
  It would take it a step further, as my friend knows, it would take it 
to not only free community college, which is a step toward free college 
and probably eliminating faith-based institutions that wouldn't be 
eligible for the free college, by the way--the marketplace

[[Page H5829]]

would probably eliminate them as families chose the free public 
education--but it would take it to the preschool and the childcare that 
is now proposed to be free. Faith-based institutions would not be 
eligible for the free childcare, daycare, and preschool. That is an 
assault on the choice that families make.
  Then the requirement in this bill would be that daycare workers and 
preschool workers would have to have a college education, and that is 
an assault on those home-based daycare and preschool facilities because 
this administration and their allies in academia are determined to get 
control of our children now from age 2 or 3 in preschool and beyond at 
your provided taxpayer expense.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for allowing me to be with him.
  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.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Schneider). Members are reminded to 
refrain from engaging in personalities toward the President.

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