[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 104 (Tuesday, June 15, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H2812-H2813]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        BRIEF SUMMARY OF ISSUES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2021, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Grothman) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GROTHMAN. Madam Speaker, we are back here after 3 weeks in our 
districts, and I think our minds should probably be on the border and 
the thousands of people--tens of thousands of people streaming across 
every month, or perhaps on the economic problems caused by higher 
inflation. But, instead, there was a few brief statements made by one 
of our prominent TV anchors that causes me to feel I have to speak 
tonight.
  While we were gone, we celebrated both Memorial Day and the hundreds 
of thousands of American soldiers who have died for our freedoms. We 
celebrated another anniversary of D-day, the landing in Europe. And 
when we think about Memorial Day, we can't help but remember other 
names of battles during World War II: Okinawa, Iwo Jima, the Battle of 
the Midway, the Battle of the Bulge, as well as all the soldiers who 
died fighting the communists in Vietnam and Korea.
  It is a time for superlatives talking about the heroic efforts of 
these great men and women.
  Unfortunately, on a formerly major network, NBC or MSNBC, Brian 
Williams decided to compare or supposedly compliment all of our brave 
troops by comparing them to people who fight under the most evil banner 
I think that has existed, or one of the two most evil banners that has 
existed in the last 100 years, and that is the banner of antifa.

                              {time}  1945

  Antifa is an organization. If we had their flag here before us, it is 
virtually identical to the flag used by the communists in the early 
1920s in Nazi Germany. The socialist flag at the time, the communist 
flag, allied with the Soviet Union, which at the time millions of 
people were dying as they adjusted to life without the czar and life 
under communism.
  The Soviet armies were soon responsible for killing millions and 
millions of Ukrainians as they guarded the food so the kulaks would 
starve to death, the communist armies that in Red China caused tens of 
millions of deaths, the communist armies in Cambodia, these countries 
with their anti-God philosophy, proud in Red China when the final 
Christian churches were closed.
  Of all things, to compare our troops at D-day with antifa, I cannot 
imagine a greater insult to give these soldiers. I wish more of them 
were still alive so they could respond to seeing on television a TV 
anchor trying to compare them--these brave men to keep the world free--
to compare them to antifa, a group whose flag is almost identical to 
the communist flag.
  By the way, it is not surprising that we have a red flag for Nazi 
Germany and a red flag for the Soviet Union. Red at the time stood for 
socialism.
  Our young children should be educated on the comparisons between the 
two. During the 1920s, there were times when both ideologies entered 
into joint strikes because they both wanted to get rid of what existed 
of a free country in Germany at the time.
  We would like to hear from NBC. Shame on you, NBC, the once-proud 
network. Would you respond to the statements by Brian Williams 
comparing the men who died at D-day, the men who landed on European 
soil to free Europe? Will you respond to your anchor implying they were 
the equivalent of antifa, a group connected with communism? Shame on 
that once-proud number one network in America. What do you think of 
what you have done?
  The next issue I would like to comment on that I heard about again 
and again when I was back is an issue that is not surprising. To a 
certain extent, some of the policies of the past are responsible for 
this, but recently, we have had a new round of checks go out, a greater 
increase in the money supply, both M1 and M2.
  Not surprising, when the government prints money, we see an increase 
in the amount of gasoline, an increase in food prices led by an 
increase in soybeans, an increase in lumber, and massive increases in 
homebuilding.

[[Page H2813]]

  I am scared to death for the younger generation as a new economic 
ideology seems to have taken over in which there is a feeling that you 
can spend yourself into prosperity. When I look at the degree to which 
housing costs have skyrocketed within the last year, it is perhaps not 
surprising, given the degree to which money is being printed. But it is 
going to be much more difficult for a young couple to buy that first 
house today compared to 12 years ago.
  It is important that everybody in this Chamber sit back and question 
the idea that is being approved by the Federal Reserve that America can 
become wealthier just by printing money. America will not become 
wealthier by printing money. America will have inflation, and that 
inflation will strike hardest at commodity prices and hardest at 
housing.
  So everybody in this Chamber, before we vote for any more spending 
bills, ought to look at the rather boring charts of M1 and M2 as we 
analyze the money supply and look at the cost of all commodities over 
the last year as this Chamber has decided that the way to create 
prosperity is to print more money.
  I do feel it is also important to address one more time the crisis at 
the border and the variety of bad things happening because of that 
crisis and not caring like we did only a few months ago as to who 
crosses the border.
  I don't think we have spent enough time addressing the drug crisis in 
America. It has been around so long, it becomes boring even to think 
about it. Except recently, we hit the point at which 90,000 Americans 
had died of drug overdoses in a 12-month period.
  When I talk to people at the border or my local drug enforcement 
administration, they both agree that this is in part happening because 
more drugs are coming across the border. In part, it is predictable 
that more drugs are coming across the border because it is easier to 
get across the border. More people are crossing the border. But even 
more so, as marijuana becomes legalized in the country, it is no longer 
profitable to bring marijuana across the southern border.
  I heard an anecdote of a significant amount of marijuana coming 
across the border, and the people who owned it couldn't sell it. 
Because the marijuana produced by the now-legalized agriculture 
operations in the United States--not surprisingly, because we now do 
genetic engineering, that sort of thing--the marijuana produced in the 
United States in States like Colorado and Washington is superior to the 
marijuana brought across the Mexican border.
  Well, if the Mexican drug cartels cannot make money selling marijuana 
or bringing marijuana across the border, how are they going to make it 
up? They are going to make it up by bringing more and more dangerous 
drugs--meth, cocaine, heroin, but above all, fentanyl. They are going 
to bring more and more fentanyl across the southern border. Now, we 
have 90,000 deaths in this country in 1 year.
  A little bit of my district touches Milwaukee County, not a huge 
county, by nationwide standards, about a million people. Last year, 540 
people died of drug overdoses in Milwaukee County. There were about 200 
murders, which is the all-time record, and everybody couldn't believe 
200 murders. There were over 500 illegal overdoses.
  Now, what do we do about that? Well, clearly, one of the things we 
have to do is we have to prevent these drugs from coming into the 
country in the first place. It is disappointing that we put the 
security of the border on the back burner and think of excuses not to 
deal with it.
  But in addition to thinking of all the people running across the 
border, take a minute to think about the 90,000 people, many very young 
people, dying primarily of fentanyl but also other illegal drug 
overdoses, and ask yourself: What is this body going to do to stop it?

  Of course, other problems are at the border. We have gone from 
checking in or touching about 17,000 people a month to 180,000 people a 
month. As far as got-aways, people who aren't even checked in, our 
Border Patrol estimates we have gone from about 6,000 this time last 
year to about 30,000 now--just massive increases.
  I would guess between got-aways and people who are checked into the 
country, we are looking at 60,000 or 70,000 a month instead of under 
10,000 a month at this time last year. It is truly a crisis.
  Quite frankly, this body ought to be doing nothing else but dealing 
with that crisis until it is solved. The fact that we had under 10,000 
people crossing the border only 4 or 5 months ago shows it is not 
something we don't know how to solve or that it is impossible to solve. 
It is that we are willingly allowing a massive increase across the 
border.
  Of course, that massive increase, since the drug cartels charge 
people to come here, also increases the power of those drug cartels, 
both in the United States and their country. It, to a degree, results 
in separation of children from their families, as unaccompanied 
children come here, as well as a given number of children are probably 
rented by people to come here because they know supposed intact 
families have a better chance of being allowed in this country than 
single people, who are still frequently turned around.
  In any event, there is a brief summary of issues. I hope I was 
enjoyable. And I hope NBC will let us know what they were thinking when 
Brian Williams decided to say that our soldiers landing on D-day were 
like antifa.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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