[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 80 (Wednesday, May 11, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H4854-H4856]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





                 HONORING THE LIFE OF MARGARET MUELLER

  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, tonight one of the first things I will 
address is to talk a little bit about one of the heroes of Wisconsin's 
Sixth Congressional District, a woman by the name of Margaret Mueller, 
who passed away late last year.
  One of the things we do in this job is we sometimes try to advise 
young people on what they should do with their lives. A lot of times 
those conversations revolve around occupations, and that is perhaps as 
it should be. I recently attended an event at a local high school where 
I talked about encouraging children to go into the STEM-related fields 
and go into an occupation there.
  Margaret Mueller was a farmer's wife. When that farmer died, 
unfortunately, at a relatively young age, she, of course, wound up 
having to run the farm and ran the farm for a little under 40 years. Of 
course, being a farmer is one of the most important occupations because 
they provide us with food, but not only that, one of the most difficult 
occupations because not only did she have to be a businesswoman, but 
she had to know how to handle all of the chores that you have to do on 
a dairy farm. That dairy farm was in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin.
  She, as many people were, was a pillar of her church, St. Gregory's 
of St. Nazianz, Wisconsin. I knew her because she was a pillar of the 
Republican Party and a delegate to the 2008 convention in Minneapolis.
  But the reason I am bringing this up tonight is I always feel when 
people plan out their lives, they should have certain goals, and I 
wonder how many of the young people today will succeed in having such a 
huge impact that Margaret Mueller had on Manitowoc and Sheboygan 
Counties.
  She wound up having 11 children. Six of them were still minors at the 
time her husband passed away. Not only did she have 11 children, but 
she left behind 33 grandchildren, 47 great-grandchildren, and 9 great-
great-grandchildren. If you add it up, that is right on the button 100 
living descendants.
  It occurred to me that while she didn't go to college that I know of, 
the impact her life had on the people of Sheboygan and Manitowoc 
Counties was greater than virtually every young child has on their 
community today.

                              {time}  2015

  I look at the names of all the grandchildren and great-grandchildren 
and such in the obituary. I know there are many of them because as I 
get around my district again and again, people come up to me and say: 
You know my mom. You know my grandma.
  They are all great people. I asked them what they were doing. It 
seems that not only did she have 100 descendants, but 100 descendants 
of people you would be proud to have as your children.
  Again, when I think of Margaret Mueller and people like Margaret 
Mueller, I think very, very few young people today will have the impact 
on society that she had of raising 100 descendants who get out and 
about the community, who are good, hardworking, honest citizens of this 
country. They impart the values that Margaret carried in the church in 
St. Nazianz and that she instilled on her children. What a legacy.
  Margaret, you are so missed.


                  Dobbs versus Jackson Women's Health

  Mr. GROTHMAN. Madam Speaker, while we were gone on break, there was 
leaked a potential opinion in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health court 
case, and I think us politicians are supposed to weigh in on it.
  I have been, in the last 25 years as a public official, somebody who 
has been active in the pro-life cause. I don't remember reading a lot 
about that cause growing up. In 1973, I think a lot of Americans were 
caught off guard when abortion was ruled to be, apparently, a 
constitutional right by then--what I would consider--a very liberal 
court. At the time, I think the churches and the pro-life movements, 
which had not really gotten going yet, were surprised and caught off 
guard. Nevertheless, it is important that right now we decide how 
America is going to view abortion.
  Decisions are going to be made in district attorneys' offices.
  Decisions are going to be made in attorney generals' offices.
  Decisions are going to be made by women and their partners as to what 
is right and what is wrong on abortion.
  Now, I feel that though this was a court decision, and a properly 
decided court decision, I think it is somewhat horrific that it took 
over 49 years between Roe v. Wade and the decision that so many of us 
were waiting for. But that decision is only the first decision. Like I 
said, there are going to be decisions in State legislatures. There are 
going to be decisions made in district attorneys' offices, whether they 
decide to prosecute or not, whether they are going to make public 
statements that they don't intend to enforce these laws anyway. In 
Wisconsin, abortion will be made illegal right away, one of the few 
States that abortion is still legal on the books. There are going to be 
decisions made by the individuals themselves and their partners.
  What determines how people make up their mind? It has been my belief 
as a pro-life legislator for the last over 25 years, that while there 
are pro-life organizations which are doing a good job of taking out ads 
and putting up billboards, and while there are pregnancy counseling 
centers which are doing a very good job, collectively the clergy in 
this country have kind of dropped the ball.
  This is a very important decision for the last 49 years--I think it 
is now a little bit below it--but a lot of those years, there have been 
close to a million abortions a year in the United States.
  It would seem to me that as a clergyman, one of the problems you 
would have is you are supposed to think of 52 different speeches to 
give every year, and it would be hard to cover 52 different topics. If 
you are a clergyman in an individual parish or church for 5 years, that 
means you have to come up with over 250 interesting things to say. I 
think a lot of clergies would be looking for more things to say.
  Nevertheless, I would bet in an average year, most clergy, even in 
churches that are nominally pro-life, manage to go all year without 
discussing this topic. It is a topic that should be easier to discuss 
now than it was over 50 years ago. For one thing, we have ultrasounds.
  In 1973, when abortions were ruled legal in the United States, we did 
not have ultrasounds. I am sure everybody listening out there has seen 
the picture of the ultrasounds. Nowadays, if a woman is going to have a 
baby, it is relatively normal at three, four months to show everybody 
the ultrasound. It is so wonderful. You can no longer pretend, as you 
could in 1973, that that is just a piece of tissue.
  Madam Speaker, I have toured abortion clinics as part of my research. 
When I was in the Wisconsin legislature, I authored a bill that 
required a 24-hour waiting period. And to my surprise, the local 
abortion clinics let me go through there. And I discovered going 
through the abortion clinics that the employees of the clinics made a 
point of always describing the pre-born baby as--not a fetus, they 
wouldn't use the word fetus--as tissue. And I always thought that the 
employees were probably educated to use the word tissue because it made 
it sound like it wasn't an act that it was, that you weren't ending the 
life of a little baby. It made it sound like something less than that.
  Madam Speaker, we can no longer call it tissue. Nobody would look at 
a baby three months after conception and call that tissue today. We all 
know because of an ultrasound that we have a little human being in 
there. Given that, it should be so easy for the clergy to alert or to 
instill the appropriate values in their flock as to people who have to 
make a decision about abortion.
  Nevertheless, I do believe that to this point, the American clergy 
have been pretty wimpy and pretty out to lunch--not all of them, but 
way too many of them. I think because of the lack of stepping up to the 
plate on this issue, polls do not show America as appalled with 
abortion as they should be.
  Madam Speaker, the purpose of this speech is to ask any clergy, who 
happen to be listening at home, or in case you are a parishioner of a 
church and your clergyman has never broached

[[Page H4855]]

this topic, I would think sometime in the next 7 or 8 weeks--because 
most of you have already had to come up with different speeches, 
probably in the hundreds, in the course of your career--that you find a 
way to address this topic.

  I should point out that there are individual churches who are bravely 
already addressing this topic. Churches like the UCC church, the 
Episcopalian church, have been out in front saying that abortion is not 
that big of a deal, or they think it is a big deal and it should be 
allowed. I think the nominally pro-life churches are where the problem 
rests.
  And I think if you go to a church out there, you should ask your 
clergyman: Are you going to address this topic or are you going to 
still give the flock something without offending anybody, without 
scaring anybody, and therefore, not address the issue.
  We will now have an opportunity to do something, to reduce the 
hundreds of thousands of abortions in this State every year but it 
comes down to what the American people think. The attorney generals 
that they vote for, are you going to call your district attorney if he 
refuses to do something?
  Like I said, I have been dissatisfied with the clergy, their response 
over the last 50 years. But we are going to find out now because the 
ball is in their court as to what they do to influence their flock's 
view of abortion. And if they do their job, there is going to be a lot 
less abortions in this country. If they just go and hide, this new 
decision that everybody is so excited about, is going to have no impact 
whatsoever.
  Sadly, many of us have been waiting for this day for decades, but the 
result of Dobbs v. Jackson is, I think, largely going to be determined 
by what the churches make of it.


            Effects of Vitamin D Supplementation on COVID-19

  Mr. GROTHMAN. Madam Speaker, the next topic that I will bring up and 
that I have talked about at this microphone before, but I still feel 
has to be mentioned again because the public health professionals of 
this country continue to drop the ball, is the effect vitamin D can 
have on your health and whether or not you are going to get COVID.
  There was a study done recently by a Dr. Dror in Israel. And you 
could say that he should have had more people in the study. But 
according to his study, people who had adequate levels of vitamin D or 
if you had inadequate levels of vitamin D in your system, you were 11 
times more likely to die of COVID and 14 times more likely to be 
hospitalized.
  Now think about that. I have personally known nine people who have 
died of COVID. I have no idea how much vitamin D they had in their 
system. Nevertheless, it is relatively easy to increase the vitamin D 
in your system. It is relatively inexpensive to increase the vitamin D 
in your system.
  Dr. Dror used a threshold of 20 nanograms per milliliter, which is 
not very much. It should be very easy for the average American citizen 
to take a couple of vitamin D pills a day and greatly decrease your 
chances of getting COVID.
  Like I said, for whatever motivation, the public health establishment 
does not educate people on that. I have lectured hospital 
administrators on this. It would seem to me that if a person who is, 
say, 60 and up, or anybody who has any other preexisting conditions 
ought to routinely get a vitamin D test when they go to see a doctor. 
And if they would get that test and it came back at 16 or 17, they 
should be very alarmed. The doctor should tell them to take vitamin D, 
and I am sure they would.
  I have heard a person involved in the administration of hospitals 
saying, Well, you can't get patients to do anything anyway. That is 
preposterous. Of course, we can get patients to take vitamin D. People 
are scared enough that today they are all--I see right now people 
wearing masks, despite the fact that there is some evidence that they 
might not be effective and despite the fact that they don't make you 
feel that good.
  If you take a patient and show them that their vitamin D levels are 
below 20 nanograms per milliliter, and tell them that they are 11 more 
times likely to die of COVID than someone with adequate vitamin D, I 
would think in almost all cases, people will go out and get that 
vitamin D and get some zinc with it and greatly reduce their chances of 
dying of COVID.
  Some people will say that vitamin D may not be the thing that keeps 
people healthy. There may just be a correlation there. The same thing 
is true of things like diabetes or COPD. We would never say, Oh, we are 
not going to talk about diabetes and the increased chance of COVID 
because you can't prove it caused the death of COVID. All you are 
showing is a correlation.
  This is not the first study that came down the pike this way. There 
are studies mentioned by a professor at the University of Chicago; I 
talk routinely with a professor at California Berkeley. Top-flight 
people know that vitamin D saves lives. When you look at the over 1 
million Americans who have died of COVID, you have to wonder how many 
would still be alive today if the public health establishment and the 
doctors of this country were on board in trying to save these lives.
  One of the complaints of doctors is that they feel that they will not 
be reimbursed by the insurance companies or Medicare adequately to 
cover the cost of the vitamin D test. I know if you get a vitamin D 
test at home, it costs like 40 bucks. I don't know what it costs a 
doctor, but let's face it, tons of money flow through the medical 
institutions today.
  If the only reason that we are not educating people about vitamin D 
is these hospitals feel they need more money, that is pretty pathetic.
  I encourage anyone out there to Google ``vitamin D.'' Learn a little 
bit more about it. If you are going to a doctor, even if you have to 
pay for it yourself, make sure you get a vitamin D test and make sure 
you have an adequate amount of vitamin D in your system.

                              {time}  2030


                         Southern Border Crisis

  Mr. GROTHMAN. Madam Speaker, my final topic tonight is, one more 
time, the border.
  I was down on the border again about 3 weeks ago. Things that 
Americans should know: the number of people streaming across the border 
is very high. In March, it was 153,000 people let in here.
  A lot of time, I think when politicians or commentators talk about 
what is going on at the border, they misstate the statistics because 
they get the number of people who come here and the number of people 
who show up at the border and are turned away confused.
  But, in March, we were at 153,000; a year ago, we were at 63,000; and 
2 years ago, we were at 11,000. We are at a difference between 11,000 
people coming in the country and 153,000 people coming in the country.
  President Biden's appointees have said they inherited a mess. They 
did not inherit a mess. They inherited, in March, 11,000 people coming 
here, and right now, we are at 153,000.
  It is not rocket science as to what has to be done. We have to go 
back to the Migrant Protection Protocols in which people are held in 
Mexico pending a hearing. If they have to sit in Mexico, they will not 
show up here in the first place.
  Right now, we have a system in which we know that people who show up 
who are not from Central America or Mexico will be given a court date 
and allowed in the country. With complete confidence that that is going 
to happen, they will come here. And the drug cartels, which may be 
making more money bringing people here than drugs, will make sure that 
everybody around the world knows that now you can come to the United 
States.
  I mentioned first the Migrant Protection Protocols because if you 
talk to the Border Patrol, even more than more money, and they 
certainly need more money, they just need a change in attitude of the 
Biden administration.
  I really feel that we are losing the country south of the border. We 
cannot continue to take over 150,000 new people a month who are not 
appropriately vetted.
  Of those 153,000, about 60,000 are what they call gotaways, which 
means they haven't even met with the Border Patrol. They could be 
criminals who are coming here. They could have criminal backgrounds. 
They could be bringing in drugs.

[[Page H4856]]

  Nobody seems to care, and something that is totally appalling, the 
Biden administration doesn't seem to care.
  I will also point out that over 90 percent of the fentanyl in this 
country comes across the southern border. We are right now at a point 
where 110,000 people are dying every year of fentanyl poisoning, 
illegal drug overdoses in this country, the vast majority of which is 
fentanyl.
  I think the idea that the people of this body or the people in the 
White House do not seem to care a great deal is horrific. Some people 
think it is a victimless crime to possess fentanyl or to sell fentanyl. 
They think it is not a violent crime, that we have too many people in 
prison, and that it is not that important to check people coming across 
the border.
  By the way, we should be getting more dogs at any time down there in 
the upcoming budget, the drug-sniffing dogs. They just do a tremendous 
job at the border.
  In any event, the American people have to speak up. The idea that we 
spent $40 billion, or passed a bill for $40 billion, yesterday and 
couldn't come up with a couple hundred million dollars for our border 
is a callousness toward the families of those people who are dying of 
drug overdoses I cannot fathom. But I am not in the majority. I don't 
determine what we vote on around here.
  In any event, I hope and pray that, in the future, the people of this 
body and the people of the White House view the 110,000 people who die 
every year of drug overdoses as a tragedy, that they put themselves in 
the position of the parents, or the siblings, or the children of the 
people who die of the drug overdoses.
  I will point out, 110,000 is twice the number of people who died in a 
12-year period in Vietnam. Think about that. I am old enough to 
remember Vietnam. It was a big deal. People protested. So many people 
are dying. Every year, twice as many people die of illegal drug 
overdoses in this country as died in 12 years in Vietnam.
  I hope people in this Chamber decide to do a little more to deal with 
the problem. I hope our President decides to do a little bit more to 
deal with the problem.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________