Issues Mainstream Media Ignores

Floor Speech

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Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about some issues that I feel the mainstream media is ignoring. If anybody is listening here today, please put them on page one where they ought to be.

The first issue I am going to talk about is Ukraine.

I have felt all along that this is a disaster. It is obviously a disaster for all the family members of both the military and the civilians who have died during this conflict. It has the potential to become a huge disaster for the other countries in Europe and the United States of America, given the potential of what Russia is able to do.

Nevertheless, until apparently very recently maybe, the Biden administration has not been looking for an end to this war. Now, maybe the United States cannot broker an end, but maybe France or Turkey or Israel can. They should be encouraged to go down that path.

Every day the war continues, more people die. Every day the war continues, it is more of an economic catastrophe to Russia, an economic catastrophe even more to Ukraine.

In the relatively recent background, we had huge numbers of a much closer relationship with Russia, and I thought Russia was moving slowly toward being a more westernized country, having McDonald's and what have you.

But in any event, the sooner this war wraps up, the better. Above all, the sooner the war wraps up, the less likely it will become a war in which there are huge catastrophes as things get worse. I think there are some of my fellow Members who would not mind getting American troops involved in Ukraine. I do not want to have that happen.

I hope we get a little more pressure out of the press corps to say let's look for off-ramps for both of these countries and see what we can do about beginning a peace, as well.

The next topic that I think hasn't been reported on enough is the border. Just because the border is a mess does not mean we ought to not be reporting the new numbers of people who are coming here every month. They are released every month.

We recently got the totals for October 2022. When I am talking about the numbers here, I am talking about the people who come into the country. My colleagues sometimes refer to the number of people who are met by the Border Patrol. Many of these people are still turned around and sent back. I am not talking about encounters. I am talking about people who really come here.

I think since last Congress came in, we have had two new numbers come out. First of all, we had September 2022. I am going to be talking about the numbers for this year, a year ago, and 2 years ago.

Two years ago in September 2020, 15,000 people came across the border who we really didn't appropriately vet. Last year in September, 116,000 people came across the border that we really didn't vet. This year, 178,000 people in September came across the border. That should be a banner headline in every newspaper in the country. It hasn't been. It should be covered.

Now, let's look at October, the numbers that just came out. Two years ago, in October 2020, a little under 20,000 people entered the country. In October 2021, it was about 99,000, so jumping from 20,000 to 99,000. This year, miraculously, just like September--actually, a couple hundred less--178,000 came across the border.

Again, we go from 19,000 to 99,000 to 178,000. The situation keeps getting worse. I don't think, if there is such a thing as a responsible media, they are doing a good enough job of explaining the degree to which this number is growing. Just because it was a horrible situation and we were at 140,000 in August doesn't mean we ought not talk about the fact that there were 178,000 in the most recent month.

We know, of course, this huge increase in the number of people coming here almost certainly means that there is an increase of fentanyl streaming across our border. We are at 108,000 deaths a year from illegal drugs in this country. When I think of all the parents, siblings, and children who are without sons or daughters or mothers or brothers or sisters, it just breaks my heart.

That also ought to be a banner headline, and I am sure that this huge increase of evil coming across the border means probably more fentanyl and probably more deaths of tens of thousands of Americans.

We are going to be working on appropriations bills soon, and I sure hope the 108,000 deaths of people every year from illegal drug overdoses in this country--twice the number of people who died in 12 years in Vietnam--is something that Congress takes into consideration when we put together that budget.

The next thing I would like to look at is sad news from the city of my birth adjacent to my district. Earlier this week, Milwaukee had its 197th murder. That is tied for their all-time high. Obviously, we have about 5 weeks to go, so barring a miracle, Milwaukee, like so many other big cities in this country, just has a horrific crime problem-- 197 deaths.

There will be analysis about it, but I have a feeling that one more time they will not get to the real root cause. To me, the real root cause here in Milwaukee, as in so many other big cities, is a breakdown in the family.

It is true we could use more police. It is true we should not constantly be attacking those police as racists so that they are afraid to do their jobs. But I hope in some of the analysis of the pundits, analysis of the talking heads out there, we talk about the decline of the role of husbands and fathers in families as one of the problems out there.

When I was a child, Milwaukee, depending on the year, had the lowest murder rate of the 25 biggest cities in the country. We were right down there with San Diego. Now, we are hitting records at 197. Given that we have about 6 weeks to go in this year, you are almost certainly going to clear 200 murders for the first time ever.

Please, journalists, pundits, talking heads, when you analyze what went wrong in Milwaukee, how come we are so much worse than we used to be, please look at the broken family, look at the role of fathers in their families, and also look at the role of families and their fathers.

One of the problems we have--and George Gilder talked about this at length--it is very important for men to become part of a family. A 25- year-old guy who is married with two kids at home is much less likely to engage in criminal behavior, much less likely to take illegal drugs, than a 25-year-old guy who is out there on his own without those responsibilities. It is sometimes not talked about. This breakdown in the family not only hurts the kids, but it hurts the men, as well.

If you will notice, the vast majority of people who are committing these murders are men. We always talk about what we can do about the children, what we can do about the single moms. Let's spend a little bit of time saying what we are going to do about these guys who don't have a family that they are connected with.

In any event, I hope a little bit more thought is given when, later this week, everybody in the Milwaukee area is expected to weigh in on those currently 197 deaths.

My final comment for the press to look into a little bit for today is, earlier this year, there were reports from people who like to pay attention to military matters. Given what I would argue is the recklessness of the Biden administration, we have more danger of war in the future than we have had in a long period of time. There have been articles about aircraft carriers. There were articles regarding training exercises with France.

The aircraft carrier, I think it was the Theodore Roosevelt, one of our big aircraft carriers, which costs huge amounts of money. There was a French submarine involved in training exercises with the United States. That French submarine was able to sink that aircraft carrier. I think that should cause concern for people.

I mean, we build these aircraft carriers--first of all, we have about 5,000 people on the aircraft carrier, so if an aircraft carrier ever sinks, you have about 5,000 people dying right there, which by itself is a huge tragedy. Secondly, I think we have to begin to stop and look at: Are we spending a lot of money on fighting past wars?

Aircraft carriers were very important during World War II. They had a use still in the Vietnam war, which is hard to believe was about 40 years ago. They have a use in places around the world. I really believe antimissile defense, cybersecurity, building more submarines of our own would perhaps be a wiser use of our military dollars than having 11 or 12 aircraft carriers. I think they may be more useful in future wars. Hopefully, we will not have another war, but I think if we did, they would be more useful.

I encourage the press that follows this sort of thing to pay a little bit of attention to what we found out when we had training exercises with France, read a little bit about what would happen with the hypersonic missiles that are out there today, and wonder if maybe it is more important to deal with hypersonic missile defenses than aircraft carriers, which I think in major battles with, I will say, first-class military enemies could be sunk relatively quickly, together with all the people aboard the ship, and focus a little bit more on high-tech things.

In other words, look at what war will look like in 2025 or 2024 rather than what war looked like in 1944 and 1943.

So, there are some issues for you all, both the people who like to watch C-SPAN and some issues that should be taken up by our press corps.

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