[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 153 (Thursday, September 22, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H8106-H8110]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ISSUES OF THE DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Carter of Louisiana). 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. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Rutherford).


                     Brain Aneurysm Awareness Month

  Mr. RUTHERFORD. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from Texas for 
yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Trinity Love Hoblit and the 
Hoblit family. I rise today to recognize and bring to the attention of 
our country a horrible condition.
  Trinity Love Hoblit was born with a rare form of primordial dwarfism 
and at age 9 was diagnosed with multiple brain aneurysms. Despite 
undergoing numerous surgeries to treat and prevent future symptoms, 
Trinity suffered a fatal aneurysm on June 30, 2015, at only 14 years of 
age.
  Throughout her young life, Trinity underwent a variety of medical 
treatments, leading to several hospital visits. Her mother remembers 
that during those long hospital stays, Trinity would always think of 
the other children first. It was her love for others and her desire to 
make a difference within her community that now lives on through the 
foundation in her name.
  In 2016, Olivia and Phil Hoblit established the Trinity Love Hoblit 
Foundation, located in Amelia Island, Florida. It is for the purpose of 
raising awareness, support, and funding for neurological research, 
training, and treatment for those like Trinity who suffer from brain 
aneurysms and other cerebrovascular conditions.
  Most recently, the foundation began research on determining if 
medical history and genetic markers increase a person's risk of 
developing these brain aneurysms.

                              {time}  1715

  Brain aneurysms affect an estimated 30,000 Americans each year and 
can occur at any age and without any preexisting conditions.
  Brain Aneurysm Awareness Month, this month, is a time to raise 
awareness for the signs and symptoms that can help with early 
detection, like:
  Severe headaches,
  Pain above one or both eyes,
  Blurred or double vision,
  Difficulty speaking or swallowing,
  A numbness or weakness on one side of the body, and
  Painful seizures.
  These are all signs that can be symptoms and help with early 
detection.
  Thanks to higher levels of awareness and research developments, we 
are one step closer to finding a cure.
  On behalf of Florida's Fourth Congressional District, I thank Olivia 
and Phil Hoblit and the Trinity Love Hoblit Foundation for their 
lifesaving work in northeast Florida and across the country.


             Making Homeownership More Accessible to Heroes

  Mr. RUTHERFORD. Mr. Speaker, as inflation takes a toll on families 
throughout our Nation and housing costs soar, many of our first 
responders and educators struggle to find affordable homes in the 
communities that they serve.
  For this reason, I introduced H.R. 3172, the HELPER Act, which would 
establish a new one-time-use home loan program for law enforcement 
officers, firefighters, EMTs, paramedics, and pre-K-12 teachers.
  Modeled after the successful VA home loan program, the HELPER Act 
would make homeownership more accessible to our local heroes by 
removing the downpayment and mortgage insurance premium requirements 
that can put homeownership just out of reach.
  The HELPER Act has strong bipartisan, bicameral support from over 90 
Members in both Houses of Congress and more than 225 different 
organizations across the country, including 108 mayors from different 
cities around the country.
  As we all know, everything is more expensive these days, and the 
HELPER Act would prevent our first responders and educators from being 
priced out of home buying in the very communities they are sworn to 
protect.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Florida for those 
words and comfort that they will hopefully bring.
  I think most Americans, especially those that knew anybody who fought 
for our country in Afghanistan, are aware of how poorly things went a 
year ago when the Biden administration, it appeared, tried to emulate 
the disastrous leaving of Vietnam when so much was left behind, 
including our allies.
  Like in Vietnam, allies were left there, many of whom were killed. Of 
course, 13 of our servicemen were killed that never should have been 
and did not need to be if we had left properly, as some of our Northern 
Alliance allies, a part of the Afghan people who fought for us and with 
us beginning in October 2001, about a month after 9/11--many died 
fighting for us and with us.
  We helped provide them weapons, and we had about 300 or so Special 
Operations people who were embedded with them, and they took the fight 
to the Taliban. Within 6 months, there was no organized Taliban left in 
Afghanistan. Some of them fled to Pakistan or other surrounding 
countries, but they had been defeated with the great help of General 
Dostum, who was the commander who was the overall commander of the 
Afghan forces fighting against the Taliban.
  President Biden and his advisers, for whatever reason, decided it was 
better to leave tens of billions of dollars of equipment and weapons 
for our enemies to use against our allies and probably one day use 
against the United States itself.
  We saw this kind of disastrous exit from Vietnam. An estimated 2 
million or so people who helped us and were sympathetic to us were 
killed in Southeast Asia. I just thought surely we would never be that 
stupid and that callous to allow allies to be harmed like that.
  I met with some of our Northern Alliance allies, along with a few 
other Members of Congress, numerous times. Of course, there was the 
great Afghan hero of the war between Afghanistan and Russia. 
Unfortunately, our intelligence agencies here in the U.S. did not pick 
up on the importance of Shah Massoud, Lion of Panjshir, being 
assassinated by the Taliban within a day, day-and-a-half or so of 9/11 
about to occur. Had they been awake and not asleep at what was going 
on, they would have anticipated the Taliban was about to do something 
to cause great harm to the United States.
  They knew once we realized that the attack originated from 
Afghanistan that we would be coming and looking for allies, and we 
would certainly want Massoud and his brother and all those others who 
wanted the Taliban gone, we would be using them and working with them 
to eliminate the Taliban. So, the Taliban eliminated that great Afghan 
hero before 9/11.
  In numerous meetings with our Afghan allies for a decade or more, 
going back to the Obama administration days, they were telling a few of 
us: Look, we know you have to leave at some point. We know that. But 
what we are begging is that you help us amend the Constitution that you 
forced on us. We like it; it is based on sharia law. But this is a 
country that is perfectly suited for the federalist system where you 
have so much power in your country in the States and our country, they 
said, in the provinces. But right now, the Constitution that you gave 
us, forced on us, the President appoints the governors, the mayors, the 
chiefs of police, and it is a system made for corruption.
  It sounded to me like the way things were going over there, the times 
I went to Afghanistan, and you are hearing the reports of what was 
going on, whether it was Karzai or Ghani, that they may well have taken 
a great deal of money, like the old Roman days, and whoever gave the 
most money would get the best governorship.
  They were appointing governors that didn't even live in the province 
that

[[Page H8107]]

they were going to be governor over. They were not allowed to have 
militias like they wanted, as Zia Massoud told me more than once in 
trips to meet with them.

  In fact, the Obama administration did not want me meeting with our 
allies. They did what they could to keep me from meeting with our 
allies, even though the Obama administration basically threw them to 
the curb and was anxious to work deals with the Taliban.
  In fact, the colonel there at the Embassy in Afghanistan, I told him 
that I have a meeting with Massoud, Dostum, numerous of our allies, and 
he said: We can't let you do that.
  I said: I am not asking you for a ride. Massoud is sending a vehicle, 
and they will make sure that I am protected. They are not going to let 
me be killed because they want to protect the relationship.
  The colonel said: Well, we are not authorized to let you do that.
  I said: You see the gate over there? When the car gets here, I am 
going to get in that car, and I am going to go meet with our allies. I 
know the Obama administration has rejected any type of relationship 
with those people that fought for us and with us, who lost family 
members, but I am going to go meet with the allies that have sacrificed 
so much to help us, help both of us.
  Well, they ended up getting a car, and I was told before the vehicle 
that Massoud was sending: Will you let Massoud know we are going to 
bring you there?
  Michele Bachmann went out there with me. She had not met them before. 
 Mike Burgess went out there.
  But all they wanted was for us to help them fix the Constitution we 
forced on them. They needed a federalist form of government, and that 
is what they said: If you will help us get that, we can elect our own 
governors, and we can elect our own mayors, pick our own police chiefs. 
Then, each province will have a militia because when you leave, the 
Taliban is going to try to take back over, and then they will 
eventually want to hit you again. But if we are allowed to elect our 
own governors and mayors, we will be able to have a militia in each 
province. So, when you leave, then we will be able to band together and 
whip the Taliban again. But if you leave it like it is and keep 
negotiating with the Taliban--which the Obama administration had been 
doing basically the whole administration--then we are all going to be 
killed. Then they will hit you again, and then you will want to come 
back to Afghanistan and try to find allies, but we will all be dead, 
and no one will be crazy enough to help you again. So, just help us 
elect our own governors.
  I said: What makes you think we can help you get your Constitution 
amended? It is your Constitution now.
  He said: You are paying most of our government's annual budget, so if 
you say the Constitution needs to be amended or we are not going to pay 
this year's budget for you, then it will be amended, and we will be 
able to protect ourselves from the Taliban whenever it is that you 
leave.
  I know Secretary Pompeo also negotiated with the Taliban, but there 
is no way President Trump would have ever allowed our troops to leave 
and leave tens of billions of dollars' worth of equipment for our enemy 
to someday use against us. He wouldn't do that.

                              {time}  1730

  And on the other hand, the Taliban knew that if they did anything to 
our folks during a projected move of coming back to the United States 
that President Trump would bomb them back to the Stone Age so they 
would not have done what they did. They perceived America to be weak 
under this administration, and we lost 13 soldiers, military members 
that should never have been lost.
  So as if that wasn't enough damage, I see this article, I just saw it 
today, it is dated September 12 by Daniel Greenfield. It says: ``White 
House Democrats have a history of fighting against terror victims suing 
Islamic terrorists. The Obama administration battled American terror 
victims suing the PLO. In 2015, after they won a $218 million judgment 
against the terror group, Blinken, then only a Deputy Secretary of 
State, intervened claiming that the lawsuit threatened `several decades 
of U.S. foreign policy.'
  ``But now Biden is fighting 9/11 victims''--that is American 
victims--``on behalf of the Taliban.''
  We have this administration helping the Taliban fight in court 
against 9/11 victims. The rhetorical question arises to the Biden 
administration: Whose side are you on? You are helping the Taliban.
  The article goes on: ``At stake are billions'' of dollars ``being 
held by the Afghan central bank fund in the United States.
  ``A decade ago, 9/11 families sued the Taliban, al-Qaida, and Iran. 
The court found that the Islamic terrorists were responsible and a 
judgment of $6 billion was handed down.'' That is for the 9/11 
families.
  ``The verdict was described as `symbolic' at the time. CBS News 
commented that `it would be near impossible to collect any damages, 
especially from the Taliban or al-Qaida.' But that was before Biden 
turned over Afghanistan to the Taliban. Since Afghanistan has assets in 
this country''--in the U.S.--``including $7 billion in bank funds, it's 
now entirely possible to collect that . . . `' $7 billion, or it would 
be if the guy who let the Taliban take over wasn't also in the White 
House.
  ``Biden officially announced that he was splitting the $7 billion 
between the families of the victims and a `trust fund' to provide 
`humanitarian aid' for the people of Afghanistan.''
  In other words, we are going to help the Taliban out to make the 
people of Afghanistan feel better about the Taliban being in charge. 
That is what is going on here.
  Biden officially announced that he was going to make that split.
  ``The $3.5 billion was placed in a separate trust that would be 
`separate and distinct' from the around $800 million the Biden 
administration has already spent on aid to Afghanistan. Officials 
admitted that the money could actually be used for matters other than 
`humanitarian aid.'''
  In other words, it could be used to help the Taliban itself, the 
people that killed 3,000 or so Americans on 9/11, the worst attack on 
American soil in American history, and this administration is making 
sure they get billions of dollars.
  The article goes on: ``The media headlined it as, `Biden frees frozen 
Afghan billions for relief, 9/11 victims.' But a Biden official 
admitted that it was done to stop 9/11 families from getting access to 
the money.''
  ``As a Lawfare blog post noted, `the administration's . . . `'--
talking about the Biden administration's--``' . . . plan would insulate 
nearly half of the Afghan assets at issue from these attachment 
efforts.
  ``What Biden actually did was take the money off the table for the 9/
11 victims. And it got worse.
  ``Secretary of State Blinken claimed that the administration `will 
continue to support these victims and their families, recognizing the 
enduring pain they have suffered at the hands of terrorists, including 
those who operated from Afghanistan prior to the September 11 attacks. 
These victims and their families should have a full opportunity to set 
forth their arguments in court.''' This article says: ``Blinken, like 
his boss, lied.''
  ``While the 9/11 families would have their claims `heard in court,' 
neither Biden nor Blinken mentioned that the administration would be 
advocating against . . . `' these 9/11 victims.
  ``On the same day as Biden's executive order reserving $3.5 billion 
for the terrorists, his Justice Department filed a statement of 
interest in court arguing that the judgment for the victims of 
terrorism was too large and that actually turning over the money''--the 
$3.5 billion--``to them''--or all $7 billion to them--``would interfere 
with the Biden administration's foreign policy in Afghanistan.''
  Like we have a policy in Afghanistan? No. All the rare Earth 
minerals, the things that could have paid us back for ridding the 
Afghan people of the Taliban, well, not only were they allowed to come 
back and take over, but they made deals with China to let them have the 
rare Earth minerals. In other words, this administration just 
exponentially magnified the loss in life, assets, and money that they 
lost for America.
  ``Now a magistrate judge has repeated back most of the DOJ's 
arguments, ruling against the 9/11 families

[[Page H8108]]

who were laying claim to the other half of the money. Judge Sarah 
Netburn's arguments closely mirror the contradictory positions of Biden 
and the DOJ. And they reveal the underlying corruption behind the 
ambiguous status of Afghanistan's central bank.
  ``Netburn, like the Biden administration, contends that the 
Afghanistan bank enjoys `sovereign immunity' because the country itself 
was not sanctioned as a terrorist state, only the Taliban were. And 
that the Taliban once again control Afghanistan is irrelevant, 
according to the judge, because Biden hasn't recognized the reality 
that this is actually the case.
  ``Banks don't enjoy `sovereign immunity' and neither do the Taliban. 
Netburn and Biden act as if there were some entity representing 
Afghanistan that is not the Taliban. That position might make sense if 
they were backing a resistance movement to the Taliban. But they are 
not.''
  It was sad enough that this administration's mishandling of 
negotiating--we should have been negotiating with our allies to leave 
the country in their hands with an amended constitution. Instead, we 
left it in the hands of our enemies.
  As some of our allies there have said, the day will come when the 
Taliban will hit America again. Next time it will be harder. They have 
got more money. They have got tens of billions of American assets to 
utilize or sell and use the money, but the difference will be this time 
after America loses thousands of lives at the hands of the Taliban and 
America comes to Afghanistan seeking allies to help them defeat the 
Taliban, as we did in 2001 and 2002, we will all be dead, those of us 
who were America's allies, and no one will be stupid enough to trust 
the United States again. What a tragic, horrific blunder by this 
administration.
  Now, the exit was the blunder, but turning against the 9/11 victims' 
families, that is not a blunder. That is very intentional by this 
administration. Being much more helpful and sympathetic to the Taliban, 
who were terrorists that hit this country, and have never apologized 
and will never apologize, instead of standing against them and making 
sure they never commit terrorist acts again, this administration wants 
to be sure they get billions of dollars; like the Obama administration 
was ensuring that Iran got the largest state sponsor of terrorism. So I 
guess at least we can say that is a good thing. This administration, 
the Biden administration, is at least being consistent with the Obama 
administration.
  The Obama administration helped the Taliban. The Obama administration 
did not help the 9/11 families. Now, the Biden administration is 
working against the 9/11 families, and they are actually helping the 
Taliban with more money than the Taliban has ever had. An amazing 
development.
  If things don't get turned around soon where we have a wiser 
administration next time with Republicans in the majority come January 
that helps get back to using more common sense, then this will be a 
horrific chapter in the book rise and fall of the United States of 
America and how we helped our enemy ultimately destroy ourselves 
because of some misguided, hairbrained idea that you can give your 
enemy billions of dollars, give them tens of billions of dollars of 
military equipment and weapons and think you were going to come out 
just fine on the other side.
  I want to address some energy issues. This article from NPR, August 
25, reports that ``California is poised to set a 2035 deadline for all 
new cars, trucks, and SUVs sold in the State to be powered by 
electricity or hydrogen, an ambitious step that will reshape the U.S. 
car market by speeding the transition to more climate-friendly 
vehicles.''

                              {time}  1745

  It is a long article, but it does not deal with the reality that we 
are already seeing take place as this administration and people in some 
States are demanding to get rid of all fossil fuel immediately and 
quickly, but China will continue to own hundreds of coal-powered 
plants. Unfortunately, China doesn't utilize the scrubbers and things 
that allow American coal plants to have much more clean operation in 
producing electricity.
  In fact, I have heard experts and people with whom we have consulted 
say there will be so much pollution coming from China that even if the 
U.S. totally eliminated every single coal plant, the air would not be 
improved because of all of the pollution that will be coming our way 
from China.
  My good friend,   Thomas Massie, has more patents than anybody in the 
House or Senate. Even though he got an MIT education, he is a brilliant 
guy.   Thomas Massie has pointed out that actually plugging in one 
electric vehicle is about the equivalent of plugging in 17 
refrigerators, and this administration wants everybody to start buying 
electric vehicles, so everybody has electric vehicles and the sooner 
the better.
  But the fact is that even if half of the cars that run on fossil fuel 
now were replaced immediately with electric vehicles, then first of 
all, we would end up causing no telling how many children around the 
world to be used as slave labor more than are being used right now in 
order to gather and mine the lithium and the things that are needed to 
produce electric cars.
  And we won't even bother to talk about right now the massive problem 
in dealing with that many batteries with all that lithium and what will 
be done with all of that. We don't know. We are just going headlong 
into trying to have all electric vehicles.
  Mr. Speaker, you can't make an electric vehicle right now--not one 
that is any good--unless you use fossil fuel. And you have to have 
natural gas as feedstock to make so many of the products that are used 
in the vehicles. I guess you could do like Fred Flintstone and have one 
made out of stone and wood.
  Why would this administration want to take us back to the Stone Age?
  It seems some of these policies are determined to do that.
  In fact, here is an article from The Epoch Times: ``States to Ban 
Gas-Powered Cars Despite EVs' Human, Environmental Costs''.
  It was written by Katie Spence on September 12.
  She points out some of these hidden costs that I have been alluding 
to, she says, ``According to politicians like Newsom and President Joe 
Biden, electric vehicles, or EVs, are `zero emission' because they use 
lithium-ion batteries--consisting of lithium, cobalt, graphite, and 
other materials--instead of gas.
  ``Thus, starting in 2035, California will ban gas-powered vehicle 
sales, while several other States plan to follow suit, citing that as a 
goal and `critical milestone in our climate fight'.
  ``Additionally, according to a statement from Biden, banning gas-
powered vehicles will `save consumers money, cut pollution, boost 
public health, advance environmental justice, and tackle the climate 
crisis'.
  ``John Hadder, director of the Great Basin Resource Watch, disagrees, 
pointing out to The Epoch Times that `industrial' nations might benefit 
from the transition to EVs, but it's at the expense of all others.
  `` `This expansion of [lithium] mining will have immediate 
consequences for front-line communities that are taking the ``hit'' '.
  ``For example, Copiapo, the capital of Chile's Atacama region, is the 
location of one of the world's largest known lithium reserves.
  `` `We used to have a river before, that now doesn't exist. There 
isn't a drop of water,' Elena Rivera Cardoso, president of the 
Indigenous Colla community of the Copiapo commune, told the National 
Resources Defense Council.
  ``She added that all of Chile's water is disappearing because of the 
local lithium mine.
  `` `In all of Chile, there are rivers and lakes that have 
disappeared--all because a company has a lot more right to water than 
we do as human beings or citizens of Chile.'
  ``In collaboration with Cardoso's statement, the Institute for Energy 
Research reports that 65 percent of the area's limited water resources 
are consumed by mining activities.
  ``That's displacing indigenous communities who have called Atacama 
home for more than 6,000 years, because farmers and ranchers have 
cracked, dry soil, and no choice but to abandon their ancestral 
settlements, according to the U.N. Conference on Trade and 
Development.''
  Now that is so interesting.

[[Page H8109]]

  But where is the compassion?
  We are so determined to have electric vehicles so that we can say to 
the world that we are cleaning up the world when we are not cleaning up 
the world. We are making the world a disastrous place so that woke 
liberals here in America can think that all is right with the world 
when actually they have put children into slave labor by creating this 
market causing countries to dry up like Chile.
  It is rather tragic, and people who mean well and think they are 
doing great need to understand the damage they are doing to the planet 
and to people who don't live in Martha's Vineyard.
  Another issue that is particularly troublesome, Mr. Speaker, we have 
had a bipartisan effort in this body to work and to fight to stop 
genital mutilation. Yet now, after years of working together and trying 
to stop such a horrendous practice, we now have people who claim to be 
exceedingly liberal and caring, and they are pushing to have little 
children's genitalia mutilated, cut off, and eliminated and have those 
children take puberty blockers that will likely stunt their growth, 
make them infertile, and destroy the wonder that would have been their 
lives without the so-called caring people pushing them to destroy their 
bodies.
  According to the most extensive study ever done by people who have 
been through sex change surgery, the Swedish Institute followed people 
who had been through sex change surgery for 30 years. And what was the 
most disturbing to me of the result of that 30-year study was that if 
you have sex change surgery, Mr. Speaker, you are 20 times more likely 
to kill yourself, to take your own life.
  We had a press conference.
  Marjorie Taylor Greene has a bill that would stop this kind of 
outrageous abuse of children.
  You see, Mr. Speaker, my background, I have been a prosecutor, and I 
have been a litigator. I have been a felony judge and a chief justice 
before coming to Congress. I am quite familiar with the laws of Texas 
and Federal laws. Most States have very similar laws because we have 
advanced so as a people that we have understood that children need to 
grow up in innocence. It is so much more productive.
  Some have felt that it may well be that Americans have been the most 
ingenious and most productive in creating new inventions and that our 
patent system before it got screwed up in recent years by Congress 
encouraged individual inventors to come up with new things. But I have 
read indications that some people believe it is because we encourage 
children to use their imagination in growing up, and they have 
developed more imagination.
  Now we have got some people who think they are do-gooders, but they 
encourage genital mutilation of a child that can never be fixed. Oh, 
Mr. Speaker, you can do a transition back, but it is so devastating. It 
is horrific.
  That is supposed to be an advanced civilization doing this to 
children?
  The studies, and Dr. Paul McHugh--who was the head of psychiatry at 
Johns Hopkins, which is the first hospital in America to do sex change 
surgeries back in the sixties--points out that it is child abuse to 
give puberty blockers because of the adverse effects on the body to 
then do gender mutilation.
  Mr. Speaker, I presided over criminal felony trials. Even if someone 
underage, a child, or a minor consents, the laws have made clear we 
recognize they are not mentally and judgmentally mature enough to give 
consent for anybody to do anything with their private areas.
  I have sent lots of people to prison. So if an adult takes advantage 
of their immaturity, people have been sent to prison for that all over 
America. And the huge majority of Americans agree that it was the right 
thing to do when they sexually abuse a child, even if the child 
consented, because we know they are not mature enough to give 
legitimate consent.
  Yet we have adults who should be mature enough to say, you are not 
going to touch this child's body.
  They have to come of age, the age of majority, and make their own 
informed decision and give their own informed consent.
  No one else should ever be able to do that in their place because 
these kids are the ones who have to live with their bodies for the rest 
of their lives, even though they are 20 times more likely to kill 
themselves because of what the adult gave consent for them to do.
  I am hoping at some point there will be laws in every State and 
through Congress that we will do, as we have done with sexual assault 
of a child laws, where most States, if not all, that I am aware of, say 
we are going to extend the statute of limitations to a certain number 
of years past the time when they would become adults.

                              {time}  1800

  So that if any adult gave permission for someone to have perfectly 
functioning organs removed, changed, puberty blockers, and the child 
later feels that was an assault, then let them sue within those extra 
years of statute of limitations. I think it would be a good idea to do 
something like that.
  Adults should not have the right to consent to destroying or harming 
a child's body, and especially when it makes it 20 times more likely 
they will take their own life because of what some adult did on behalf 
of the child.
  Well, we had a young lady named Chloe Cole, a beautiful person, she 
is 18. Actually, this article by Christine Buttons from The Daily Wire, 
September 20, talked about the press conference we had.
  It says: ``An 18-year-old detransitioned woman gave a powerful 
testimony on Tuesday against the `gender affirming' model of care that 
led to her irreversible medical transition as an adolescent.
  ``Chloe Cole spoke at a press conference in front of the''--it was in 
front of the Capitol--``in support of Representative Marjorie Taylor 
Greene's new bill, the Protect Children's Innocence Act, that aims to 
shield minors from assessing the permanent body- and life-altering 
medical treatments that they may later come to regret.''
  Chloe said: `` `How did we get to the point where nearly every 
pediatric institution in the country considers it best practice to 
remove the healthy breast tissue of children while administering drugs 
typically used to chemically castrate high-risk sex offenders?' Cole 
said of the widespread acceptance of radical gender theory in medicine 
driving `gender-affirming care,' which effectively puts children in the 
driver's seat to dictate the terms of their own sex change.
  `` `I believe Americans deserve to know the truth about this radical 
and perverse ideology, marketed as necessary and ``live-saving'' 
healthcare,' said Cole. Cole opened her speech with a chilling 
statistic.''
  She said, `` `Over the past decade, there has been as high as a 4,000 
percent increase in children being referred to so-called ``gender 
clinics'' across the United States. I was one of these children.' A 
recent UCLA survey found that the number of trans-identified teens has 
doubled in the last 5 years to about 300,000 in the United States, 
while the rates of adults identifying as transgender have remained the 
same. According to the Gender Mapping Project, only a handful of 
pediatric gender clinics existed in the United States a decade ago. Now 
over 200 have spawned to meet the growing demand of adolescents who 
identify as transgender seeking medical transition.''
  I read an article that the former head of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins 
had written, pointing out that 80 percent of children, boys and girls, 
who identify or seem to have gender dysphoria--is what it is now called 
in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual-V.
  Dysphoria--if you look it up--it means confusion, sort of an antonym 
to euphoria. People are encouraging people to become more and more 
gender-confused.
  Dr. McHugh pointed out about 80 percent of those who have confusion 
about their gender growing up, if they never have counseling, they 
never have some do-gooder adult encouraging them to have their 
genitalia mutilated and their life shortened, and perhaps most likely a 
good chance of infertility, that if they are just left alone, go 
through childhood, 80 percent transition into exactly what they are 
biologically without any problems whatsoever.
  Yet, we have people in this country that want to create laws against 
anybody allowing a child to go through

[[Page H8110]]

childhood and then adjust, and not have the physical horrors that these 
surgeries cause.
  I was deeply moved by Chloe Cole. She is a beautiful person. She was 
very unfortunate in having people think they knew better and 
encouraging her to take steps that she should not have taken, as she 
will tell you now.
  We are supposed to be the ones that are mature and help children 
avoid going through horrors, and, yet, we have even got States passing 
laws--don't you dare help this child. Let's help the child go through 
genital mutilation, even though it will be his or her body.
  As Dr. McHugh has pointed out and studies have pointed out, you can 
go through sex change surgery or gender reassignment surgery--whatever 
you want to call it--DNA-wise, biologically, you are still the same 
gender you were before the surgery, and your DNA will remain the same.
  Now, who knows, I read a Swedish study this year about the mRNA 
vaccines. It was interesting, it says there is radiation at the point 
of the injection, and more radiation found in the liver after the 
vaccination with the mRNA vaccines. But the study documented that they 
found that the mRNA ends up going to the liver and rewriting the body's 
DNA for them. We don't know where all that is going to end up, but it 
certainly doesn't appear to be going a good direction.
  I have got no problem with people continuing to get the vaccinations 
and the boosters, I think that is fine, so long as the wonderful 
doctrine that we developed making healthcare better than it has been in 
the history of the world, called informed consent.
  That doctrine that requires that a physician or healthcare provider 
advise the patient of all the potential risks of a vaccination, 
treatment, surgery, whatever, and then letting them talk to their 
doctor and making their own mind up about whether or not to go through 
with it.
  If we could do that, and I would submit, also allow the healthcare 
providers and the pharmaceuticals to be liable for any damage that they 
cause if they don't allow informed consent and allow the individual to 
make up his or her mind, unless it is a minor. We don't allow minors to 
make decisions normally unless it is in the sick area of genital 
mutilation that I was just talking about.
  If pharmaceuticals are that excited about continuing to make tens of 
billions of dollars providing vaccinations, vaccines, great, just stand 
good for whatever damages you cause. It sure seems like that would be 
the right thing to do.
  I won't have time to get to it, but this article from Jennifer 
Margulis and Joe Wang, The Epoch Times, September 10, the headline is, 
``'Unethical' and up to 98 Times Worse Than the Disease: Top Scientists 
Publish Paradigm-Shifting Study About COVID-19 Vaccines.''
  It points out the boosters for young people may cause 18 to 98 actual 
serious adverse events for each COVID-19 infection-related 
hospitalization theoretically prevented. So for each hospitalization 
prevented, they are saying 18 to 98 actual serious consequences to the 
body will result.
  It is going to be an interesting week next week. I look forward to 
seeing what more damage that Congress can do to our economy, to our 
country. I hope that people, Mr. Speaker, will let their Members of 
Congress know what they agree with and what they disagree with.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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