weapons that have empowered people to engage in a kind of civil war within that country. we are going to look at this very closely in the foreign relations committee and we are evaluating whether or not we would even have a joint hearing or round table, not hearing but roundtable discussion in mexico and explore all of the ways in which we can be the most helpful, i think the administration is on the right track but we are going to look carefully whether there is more we are able to do. because this is a national security threat to the united states of america, and we are partly inadvertently in some cases turning the of your ray and others complicitous in the problem. we'll the mexicans our best effort to try to respond.

>> sam stein with the huffingtonpost.com beat use book about the use of the filibuster by you stopped short of endorsing the one proposal out there by senator tom udall to revamp the rules of the senate. i wonder if you're planning on signing on to the proposal and when you think is the landscape for achieving the reform on january 24th. >> it's quick to be very strong. i do support that 3 >> it's quick to be very strong. i do support that proposal for the basics of the proposal. i think we want to protect the rights of the minority, the founding fathers envisioned in the constitution and i think it is critical to do it. what goes around, comes around, and clearly having been on the minority i understand that power. but we have to find a way to guarantee that as i said, it is being used not as a day to day tactic that has no accountability but that it is being used in a way that in cages the nation in a legitimate

debate about something substantive, and as long as that takes place, i think it is a fair place to have that kind of fiscal if you will to try to find the way to get the 60 votes. today you don't have to do that, you don't even have to talk to ken gist announce you're going to be opposed to something and it effectively shuts things done and there is no accountability and whether -- the reason is or who is doing that. that has to stop. and i am completely supportive of the efforts to try to guarantee that we make it a responsible process. >> right in front, sam. >> [inaudible] for ratification of the other human-rights treaties particularly the disabilities and others, and i'm just wondering i know there are a lot of lessons from s.t.a.r.t. but if there are any particular lessons you think could guide work going forward, and particularly where it has been

of sound bites and not a discussion so i would be interested in your reflection. >> ausley in tend to seek the majority leader's support in bringing another treaty to the floor of the senate hopefully sooner rather than later. i need to run through a number of traps and talk with colleagues and workout which treaties that will be. there are several possibilities. but i think it is imperative has just said, we've got to do the business of our nation. there are several treaties, one of them for instance is the law and you know the list of them, but the bottom line is there's very broad support in the military community and the business command, the chamber of commerce, the environment community, brought by partisanship even for some of

those and my hope this if we reach out to people early enough, have discussions with them early enough, do this sort of groundwork as necessary i hope we could avoid people taking the quick hasty ideologically inspired or outside interest groups inspired positions of opposition until the have had a chance to evaluate what is at stake and that is my prayer with respect to all of those kind of issues and i hope out of today's discussion and beyond this will not be the only one obviously, we are going to be talking about a lot of these things in the senate among ourselves and there will be a national dialogue on this i hope. hopefully we can really have a good campaign for 2012 but not lose sight of what we are here to do and what the interest of the country are and not just with respect to those treaties

but as i said, with respect to this enormous agenda staring us in the face that has been gridlocked now for too many years. president nixon talked about energy independence. president carter took major steps to try to move us toward energy independence. since september 11th, 2001, not only have we not reduced or energy independence by 1%, which actually increased by 25 for 40%. so, we have become more indebted and bound because we failed to invest in these obvious alternatives that would not only liberated us from borrowing money from china so we could buy oil from someone else and then follow the atmosphere and make people sick and send them to the hospital and spend more money on that, avery and virtuous cycle. not only are we doing that, but we are not turning that around

so we are actually creating those jobs here at home that reduce all of those negative impact. the irony of this is in public life i've learned in the years i've been here very few public issues where you get to benefits for doing one thing. usually it is one for one normandie 1.542. here you get five or six benefits because you clean up the air and you are healthier. you reduce dependency on foreign oil. you are not sending money to terrorists through back channels. you're making american free to make certain kinds of foreign policy decisions because you have more leverage because you're not dependent on other people who can hold you up because you are indebted to them for the supply of your energy. you have better health, more jobs in america fund increased our national security. how many things to you get that kind of benefit for? for one big choice. i hope that we will get their

and i am going to do everything in my power to help get us there. thank you very much. >> thank you, chairman. [applause]

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] thank you. appreciate it. >> [inaudible] doing the opposite of what the bank is. >> good for you. where are you doing that from? >> italy. [inaudible conversations]

i have been told to have some interesting things going on. >> people in the senate and -- [inaudible conversations] >> i'm glad you did. thank you very much. how're you doing on dimare; all right? >> [inaudible] blank we hope you can visit. [inaudible conversations] >> i think people are going to have to be thoughtful about it. i think unfortunately the key is we don't want people to be isolated and somehow separated.

the whole purpose of our democracy is to be interactive and talk to people. i love going to eve ensler people are frightfully pretentious sometimes and disagree with you forcefully but you can have a debate about it. you know, we can agree or disagree, but we can do it in a -- we can just agreed to disagree. that is what i was trying to talk about when you have pat moynihan and these other figures, the disagree, but they can be friendly in their process. now it's gotten angry and people are somehow better, and i think one of the reasons -- i should have talked about this. if one of the reasons is that a lot of americans are feeling this slide in their savings and their job and their income and their health care and their

day-to-day lives and the policy us responding, so the lack of response from washington is just driving people sort of you know, the deficit is dealt with, and there is the frustration builds up and i think people are taking that out on so i hope a lot of people will think about the degree to which we are to blame buy not responding to some of these things or the increasing lack of stability. >> effective step back to the filibuster -- >> all of those will be a cumulative. no one think it's going to do it. [inaudible conversations]

>> tonight, television and radio host tavis smiley hosts a form called "america's next chapter." one of the topics discussed was the recent shooting in tucson. the first example of the answer been found in the problem would be the shooting in tucson and

this conversation the country is involved in about stability. tell me how it is that that is the way forward if it requires a heinous act like that to get us to have a conversation about civility. i have heard members of congress for the last week passing themselves on the back and sticking their chests out reminding us that we are no -- not republicans or democrats. we are all americans. we were all americans a week ago before it happened . it can take an act like this to make us realize we are all americans. >> you can see this at 8:00 p.m. eastern and 5:00 p.m. pacific on c-span. tomorrow on "washington journal

," a discussion on the 112th congress and the obama administration. also a discussion of china's president hu jintao's visit to the united states. that is live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. tomorrow on newsmaker as "." on "newsmakers," kathleen sebelius discusses the health care reform law. >> go to c-span.org to r