particularly those that are mid sfra stream in projects. we feel general that the problems we have had project specific and site specific and we have been aggressively and actively reaching out to airport sponsors, is this presenting a problem, how can we work with you to manage through the match issues so we get to a successful project consistent with the provisions of the aip program. what you can tell your constituents, if they have not been in contact with their local office. >> they have. >> we need to sit down and work through a plan to manage it. >> that would be helpful. and we also, i hope you can commit to making sure that cold weather airports such as the ones you just discussed, get the flexibility they need to complete infrastructure improvement with the short construction season issue and this is again, they are waiting for awarded funds to be released

so they can try to get the construction done through the summer season. >> two aspects to that, the faaizatifaa authorization act has a frame work of which we priorityize cold weather airports and we are working on the impmentation of that. and what we are doing right now is making those determinations of where do we have an airport with a short construction season that has a specific need to get something done quickly and we are making those a priority as we move through the system in recognition of the unique circumstances they face. >> okay, good, because you came in the summer, otherwise i'm going to make you come to deluth when it's 20 below zero, so we have to try to fix it. i really appreciate that. >> absolutely. >> and last, i wanted to just ask about the pilot fatigue issue, in the final order of the new regulations that it only

applied to commercial pilots and not cargo pilots, can you expand on why the faa chose to do this, and i have concern about commuting practices, i know that it was touched on and some pilots commute across the country to their hubes and we have the issue with where the faa is not following through with the request from the inspector general about this commuting issue. >> well, first of all, as it relates to the pilot fatigue rule. as we talked about, the rule as it's currently drafted does exclude the cargo industry, but i have been very vocal in suggesting that the cargo industry should abide by the provisions of the rule, we have encouraged them to do that, secretary lahoud has encouraged them to do that and it's something that we have stressed, it should represent a good business practice for them in ensuring a safe system. we will continue to meet with the cargo industry to apply aspects of the rule to make sure that they have an understanding

of what compliance looks like and i -- again, i encourage them to abide by the provisions of the rule. we could not make it work from a cost benefit standpoint so we are asking for their compliance. as it relates to the provisions of commuting, clearly pilots have a responsibility to report to work fit for duty. and this is one of the things that we wanted to address in the fatigue rule. and i think we have come a long way in doing that. there's a level of personal responsibility that exists in the pilot community and i think the pilots heard that. they understand they bare the responsibility and we have to be vigilant that they have the opportunity for rest so they can report to work fit for duty. >> thank you very much, and look forward to working with this, and we will put a few more questions on the record, thanks. >> thank you, voting has started, senator cantwell has probably already voted and

racing back here because she has a couple more questions that she'd like to ask, but in the meantime, senator blount wants to finish his questioning. >> i was failing to watch the clock and no, you were not rude at all and i was taking time that should have gone to others and did. what i was going to ask you about, was on -- we talked about the columbia, missouri airport the other day, on the airports like that, that have moved off essential air service, the things that the faa can do to encourage their ability to stay off of essential air service, do you have ideas thereof ways that those kinds of airports that need to be planning for more travelers and more service could get some assistance in doing that? >> senator blount, as we talked about, columbia is to be congratulated to being able to get themselves off the essential air service program and how do

we ensure they stay there. sat down with their staff to see what we knew about columbia and encouraged them to meet with the leadership at the columbia airport, what i talked about with them is that one thing we will certainly need to do is in recognition of the fact that the airport's master program is quite old, we probably need an update there, and the faa is certainly willing to be working with them on that. well, that would be helpful and i think, you know, as the airports move to where they are not getting the essential air service support, things that we can do to help them stay there is beneficial and make money as long as we have a air service program and we can help people stay off of it, it's hard to imagine that it's not a better investment than the esa support that we would normally give

those same airports. so thank you for looking at that. >> thank you. >> thank you, chairman. >> thank you, what i need to do now is because we have got, senator globeachar who is finishing her third book over there -- >> i'm tweeting about you, no, i'm not really. you wish. >> i wish. senator cantwell is on her way back, i would like to recess this for a couple of minutes with your foreberarance. >> certainly, sir. >> thank you.

>> on tomorrow morning's washington journal, marilyn geewax and jim tankersley will discuss where u.s. financial markets are headed. the executive privilege claims will be examined and roberto ramirez from the census borough talk about hispanics in the u.s. and how they do in education, employment and income. washingt washington journal live at 7:00 a.m. eastern. >> if all of us decide on the same time that we would tighten our belt and spend less, guess

what? we all end up poor because all of our spending falls at the same time, this is the kind of stuff that we are supposed to know. this is stuff that we have known since the 1930s. the attempt of everyone to slash spending at the same time because they have too much debt is self defeating. >> who is going to tell them the truth. we've to tell them the truth. if we do not tell them the truth our country fails. we must succeed in this, and we will succeed in this. we will reach them through the media and politics and fop culture, pop col which you are, we should not be afraid to get out there and quit preaching to the choir, but get out and be influencers in pop culture.

>> watch these videos online at the c-span video liesh. this is c-span3, with politics and programming throughout the weekend, and telling the american story on american history tv. get our schedules and see past programs at our websites and you can join in on the conversation on social media sites. >> on tuesday, the heritage foundation held its weekly policy discussion known as "the blogger's briefing" artur davis spoke on his decision to be a republican. and he seconded the nomination of barack obama at the democratic national convention, other speakers were study committee chairman, jim jordan and jenny beth martin. this is an hour. >> we will go ahead and get started. i hear we are out of food,

sorry. i guess it pays to show up early, right? there's a subway next door. or arby's right? todd will not like that. thank you for joining us here at the bloggers briefing, if it's your first time, welcome, thank you for tuning in today, for those of you who are new, basically we will have three speakers, we are going to give them a few -- an opportunity to make some remarks and then we will have them take your questions, we are excited to have all three of them join us today, we will begin with artur davis, he represented the seventh congressional district in alabama for eight years as a democrat, and held leadership positions within the party and was one of the first members of congress to endorse barack obama in 2008. today, he has a different

perspective on things as a result of some of the policies that were pursued in the after math of obama's election and he will share his thoughts on those issues as well as other things that may be on your mind. join me in welcoming artur davis. >> thank you, todd, thank you ladies and gentlemen, thank you. rob, after the introduction, some of you are probably wondering why the heck i'm here. i'll tell you a little bit more about that. let me begin by thanking all of you for coming out today, and those joining us online and through television, we thank you for joining us. i did get the memo that you prefer the comments to be on the short side, only problem is, as someone who used to be an elected official, short may not mean to me what it does to you. perhaps to me, it means i have

talked too long already, for me it means we have six minutes to go, we will try to create a happy medium around that. let me, you know, start out by saying one thing about where we are right now, heritage. i turned 45 years old this year. which by the way, i'm thankful to the gray hairs in the room for making me not the only old person who is here today. you know, i know people looking at this but there are a lot of incredibly young people sitting in the room right now, so i'm thankful for the gray hairs, i turned 45 years old in october, so when i got interested in politics in the early 1980s, president reagan had just come to power. heritage was kind of the only game in town when it came to smart, creative policy ideas, and a lot of the things that president reagan did, a lot of

the ideas of change came because of president reagan, a lot of the rest of it came in hall ways and from people that were associated with this foundation for a very long time, so, as someone who is kind of a new convert to the republican party, but not such a new convert to conservatism, this is like being in the cathedral. so i'm honored in that sense. you know, rob eluded to the fact that i switched parties a few weeks ago and did it the new fashion way, i did a listing on my blog about it. and i have gotten some attention, you know, some publicity for it, most of it not deserved. yes it's a little unusual for someone who used to be a democratic elected official to switch parties. yes it's unusual, frankly for an african american democratic elected official to switch

political camps. i kind of get all that. but i want to put it in some perspective, president obama in 2008 got 53% of the vote. which by the way is the biggest merge that anybody running for president of the united states has gotten since 1988 when george w. bush got elected. president obama as approval rating today, depending on the poll you are looking at, he and govern romney have been pretty much tied for each other at 45 or 46 for most of the last several weeks. artur davis is not the only person who was in the obama camp in 2008 who has been in political migration. by my harvard math, which is probably badly flawed.

ten million americans or so have shifted camps. and i brought these notes with me, because i want to share with you for a few moments, some things that people have writ enme in the course of the last several months. all of these quotes are from people that identify themselves as democrats or people who say they voted for barack obama and do not identify their party. i want to read you this because it provides clarity for why i'm literally a pebble in an ocean of change. one lady wrote me, "i figured out of the middle of the worst in the economy in my life, how to start a business and make money. and i just paid one-third of what i earned not to my kid's college savings or to my retirement but to the federal government. and i am tired of being told i did not pay my fair share.

another guy wrote me again, this is a person who identified himself as an obama supporter four years ago. he said that his employer has just sent out a notice that it is shifting to a higher deductable health care plan that provides stingier benefits than the ones today. this gentlemen wrote to me, they told me their reforms would not change my insurance, why did they lie to me? that is his quote. another guy said that he volunteered in the obama campaign, here is what he wrote me, i'm tired of being told that if i want the worst teachers out of my kids' school and want state employees to pay for their retirement the same way i do, it means that i hate teachers and

dispise public service. and another gentleman said, i voted for obama because he said business as usual was over in washington, promise broken. now, a lot of our friends on the left would not find any of that terribly poetic, there's nothing about this being the moment when the rise of the oceans will begin to cease. no poetic declaration that we are the ones we have been waiting for. but the comments i just read to you, there's a powerful kind of way to them, it's the way people talk around the dinner table. it's the way that ordinary people talk to themselves about politics and they are making a case and people like them who do not have a forum or may not have

a access to a computer to write a guy like me. regardless of their level of voice, they are saying we have changed our political faith because the people we used to listen to either did not tell us the truth or they got it flatly wrong. so, i want to just start by saying to my friends on the right. you know, and that is not everyone here, but it's a lot of you, we don't really have to heckle the other side. we don't really have to shout down the other side, we don't have to cut the president off in his press conferences, because the more the other side keeps talking, the more the other side keeps making its arguments, the more people are beginning to move our way. i firmly believe that. and they may be moving our way not on the wings of remarkable

poetry but to wings of their common sense. that is point number one. now, point number two, i want to confess. a deep envy i had toward conservatives, for a simple reason, part of it is that you won all the elections in alabama and my old side didn't. there's a thing that i envied on the people in the political right, 40% of america call thengzs conservatives and 20% call themselves liberals, at any given time, the guys in the center right, you get to spend a lot of your time arguing to people while their ideas are right and why they ought to vote based on beliefs. my old side used to kill me. we had to spend a lot of our time telling people the things you think are not right, you do not really think them.

they may be important to you but they are not important in this scheme of things so you ought to vote for what we think is important, and it was amazing how that worked out for my old side. if you kind of look back at the history of elections, again there are all these young people in the room, in your 20s, so i know ancien politics to you is bush versus gore, you think, republicans have won a lot of elections, republicans and conservatives more or less won by telling people that the status quo was working and that they out to give it a chance to continue and by saying the other side was too extreme. argue ably one time conservatives won in 2000 when the other side was in power by saying we will give you a more ethical version of it. you have won a lot of elections by talking about the status quo. but you know what always fascinated me, as a sympathetic

observer, for all of the elections you won talking about the status quo, i have always had a sense the election that you cared most about could not have been more different from that kind of appeal, i'm talking about 1980. 1980. ronald reagan came to the country. and he did not have the luxury of saying what we are doing is working. let's continue it. what we were doing had wrecked the economy, what we were doing had caused the u.s. to lose the first war. what we were doing had causesed the united states to follow second to the soviet union and for the only time since world war ii in the early '80s, the early '80s were the only time since world war ii where side of the value scale was on the wane

and the other side was on the asensation, so ronald reagan could not come to the country and say what we are doing is working. and he could not speak to a republican country, because 52% of the country called themselves democrats. so, instead of making an appeal to keep things the way they are, and not take a chance of risk, the election that so many conservatives cared the most about, the one i think you trade all the others for in some ways is 1980, when ronald reagan had to come to this country and say we appear to be in the dulldroms and losing our way, we can do better if we recover what has always been best in our tradition. and ladies and gentlemen, for those of you who do not remember that time. it was a very powerful call that

touched people working on ship yards. people living under the shadow of political tyranny, touched blacks in south africa, touched people all over the world who loved hearing the clarion call of freedom. for all the people in your 20s who were here, people in the 20s in the 1980s were almost genetically predisposed to be democrats, all the teaches told them that was the way to government all the college professors told them that. all of a sudden they fell in political love with the guy who was 70 years of age who was not a part of their culture, who was not a part of their lifestyle but who spoke powerfully to their sense of education. blue collar americans. people who work with their

hands. who had been taught understandably in some cases that the republican party of their day was the party of economic royalism, all of on a sudden they found a party that connect with their lives and faith, and it was the republican party and all of a sudden, blue collar people who worked with their hands found a home in a conservative party. now, i mention all that before i take your questions for a very simple reason. i have a hunch that this may be 1980 all over again. the challenges we are facing all of a sudden our leaders act as if we are weak. what do our leaders tell us over and over? we were elected to govern. we were elected to lead, but we have to check in and make sure

madrid and athens is sailing properly. we never heard that before. we have never heard our government say that our wellness depends on athens and madrid. this may be a time when 20 years from now, that this young people that are here will be standing here, but i think this will be a time we remember. so, for those of you in the room who are part of the center right, i'm happy to be here with you. the first president i remember is ronald reagan. yes, i do remember the preacher in my church telling everyone vote for jimmy carter, that is a different story. the first presidency i remember is ronald reagan, i remember how he turned the country around and if you were in the camp of people who thinks we need turning around right now, by the

way, that doesn't mean, that mitt romney has to be ronald reagan, there has been one, there will not be another one, but it means one very simple thing. boldness matters in politics, boldness is rewarpded in politics, clarity is rewarded in politics, governor walker can tell you that in wisconsin, governor christie can tell you that in new jersey, clarity is rewarded in politics. and the last thing governor romney needs is advice from a new guy. but the last thing out of my mouth before i take questions is this, i think the american people are ready to hear a clarion call. i think they are ready to hear the man who would lead us tell us that we can control our own destiny. not madrid or athens, we can control our own destiny, and i think people are ready to have sense talked to them again. that is my little speech at the

outset, with that said, i'm going to take some questions and be mindful of the time and going to start with this gentleman. and everyone who -- introduce yourselves so i know who you are. >> oh. all right, so, congressman, i wanted to see, there's been a lot of criticism of eric holter over the last year or so, a lot of people are calling for him to resign, and i know you were one of the ones as a democrat that was one of the ones with congressman -- leading the charge against attorney general gonzalez, do you still have confidence in attorney general holder, everything that is going on with the justice department going on now? >> let me say a couple of things about the attorney general. i'm going to try to not personalize my comments, you

eluded to the times i raised questions about the firing of the folks, my old side made a mistake, and we kind of personalized it a bit, and we made it a lot about attorney general gonzalez, and frankly, sometimes we seemed so mad at attorney general gonzalez that people stopped hearing what we were saying about how u.s. attorneys were selected and dismissed. i think we made a mistake in doing that. so, i'm going to bend over backwards to the other side and make the same mistake, i want to say two things about the department of justice that caught my eye. the first one, fast and furious is something i have a hard time understanding, i was a junior federal prosecutor in alabama, i was 28 years of age and i tried cases, a lot of drug and gun case. you know, i never got to work in the high confines of the department of justice, those are above my level. but we had a basic principal.

we did a lot of undercover operations. don't let guns and drugs walk. okay. for those of you who do not watch cop shows in a room, when you do an undercover operation, yeah, do your deal, but don't let the bad guys leave with guns or leave with drugs. i had to understand that when i was 29 years old trying cases in montgomery, alabama and i probably would have gotten fired if i got that wrong, because people may have gotten killed due to my carelessness, i have a hard time understanding that if i had to get it right as a 29-year-old, why people who are much more experienced in the department of justice seem confused about all of it. so i do not understand how it even came to be. yeah, and i think the republicans on the hill are absolutely right to try to get to the bottom of it. and second thing that bothers me. again, this is, you know, i have no idea how you guys will relate to