something he wishes to do. in my mind, i think in the minds of many area jews it's something that we hope happens. it's something the president has clrly expressed he hopes happens. he hashe has said repeatedly that america believes it is in their interests. israel to hear prime minister benjamin netanyahu say it, he will go anytime anyplace to discuss it with president abbas. i think the onus is on president abbas. i think we have all seen the president of the united states of america has invested tremendous political capital on it. it has not always been the most fantastic political winner for him, but he has put his money where his mouth is, and he has tried hard to move the process forward, and he will continue

try, but as you said this is up to the parties themselves to negotiate. >> yes sir? >> thank you so much for your testimony. no question that america's military and economic power are critical to protecting our allies, but other factors may be. for instance, america's standing in the world, our culture and values but could you talk about how those could affect foreign policy? >> can you flush out your question in the but more? -- flesh out your question a little bit more? >> sure. to the extent that the u.s. is able to project a culture and values to the rest of the world and has strong alliances, how middle east? >> sure. i would argue that the u.s.- israel alliance is part and parcel of our values. it in fact helps protect our closeness with a strong democratic ally in the middle east, following through on our

word, and building our alliances with our other allies to sanction iran, part and parcel of our bond, our word and our values. and it is itself an expression of our values. domestic values -- it is part and parcel of the missing values, followed through on marriage equality, health care. they are all common interests with israel. we estimate democrats see many of our domestic democratic priorities -- we as jewish domestic democratic priorities as part and parcel with israel and shared values. we see a lot of this projected through the prism of our u.s.- israel alliance, if that makes sense. >> thank you very much. robert? >> david, i want to thank you

for the extraordinary you and your group does. -- ordinary work you in your group and dies. -- it is no secret that there is a particularly well funded effort to reduce the vote count on the democratic side partly for present, and the jewishthis couple months ago -- just a couple moments ago, gallup came out with its newest poll numbers in the jewish community, which has a is an obama gaining 60 -- to 25% for governor romney. i, for one, believe we have ani say unapologetically that president obama is in fact the strongest president when it comes to america's relationship with israel since harry truman. i was wondering if you could just elaborate quickly on a few points.

the fact that under the obama administration, israel has received bunker-busting bombs for the first time, the fact that we have engaged in the in the history of the state of israel, under the leadership of president obama, and maybe just talk about president obama's ago. >> sure. i think, congressman, in the energy that is called a softball. -- in the industry is called a softball. something he did not brag about but it came out much later i something that would have been a political winner for thehe rightly realize that it was more important to do it and do it.

the exercises speak for themselves. but just exercise ever -- largest exercise ever. the last thing you said is the most telling, what he does in the most private moments when it is and to our president personally, himself, when he personally intervened to save the lives of israeli diplomats in israel's embassy in cairo when they were besieged. when israel asked for help to fight forest fires, he put forward all the response that america could muster in the region. he got on a plea to afghanistan. it was reported that the first question he asked getting off on afghanistan was, "r they on the it they me?" you are right about the broader point. there is an incredible exercise underway, it is d.b. is an--

devious and underhanded. the sad part about this is bad this is an issue that should not be partisan. it should be bipartisan, if there was ever an issue. there is decades of history of partisan issue. what i am posing in my testimony, what i am asking to consider, in these pieces of the platform, not only are the right thing to do, i stand on the unprecedented, proud record of achievement that this president has amassed, but it also hopes to salvage the facts with the -- to establish the facts and the fact pattern to deprive the other side from engage in what is a deeply unfortunate, deeply disturbing, cynical effort to try to woo votes for purely political reasons, to turn the west is relationship is to -- u.s.-

israel relationship into a never be. thank you. >> david, your testimony is and will receive and we thank you for it and we thank you for the death of the testimony. > -- breadth of the testimony. >> thank you so much. >> we look forward to hearing from you and your organization in the next few months. >> thank you for this opportunity. >> our next presenter is the chair of the board of directors of the national committee to preserve social security and medicare. this organization is one of the most effective and trustworthy sources for social security, medicare, and medicaid advocacy at our country. the committee works for older americans who want our nation's

health and income security programs secured for the future. doctor, we're happy to have you and we look forward to your testimony. >> thank you. on behalf of the millions of members and supporters of the social security and medicare i want to thank chairman strickling and all the members of the democratic platform committee for your invitation to testify today. i would also like to refer you to my written testimony in your development of your platform. i will just use a few moments to make a few key points. first, i hope that the platform of the democratic party not only defense critical social insurance programs but considers language in support of modest improvements that will modify -- modernize the benefit structure for some groups. democrats can be proud of their history of helping seniors this lives. democrats created social security, medicare, medicaid. democrats lifted millions of seniors out of poverty and

retirement. it provided for workers survivors and the disabled. from that proud heritage. frankly, the american people don't want you to. in our polling, we have found that across party lines, large majorities of voters 77% overall, strongly reject it cutting social security and medicare benefits to reduce the deficit. they oppose all specific benefit cuts that are currently being talked about, and say that they would reward those who take a strong stand in favor of these programs at the polls. we all know that without social security, over half of older americans would fall into poverty. essential to so many social security benefits are modest. the average monthly benefit is only $1,229. that is about $15,000 a year. beneficiaries cannot afford

cuts, especially to preserve tax breaks for wealthy millionaires and billionaires. what is more, cuts to earn benefits would disproportionately hurt women and communities of color. both groups have endured a lifetime of income and wealth inequality in this country. the national committee police that social security's finances should be strengthened by ensuring that the wealthiest among us, those who have benefited so much from this nation, pay their fair share. in fact, if payroll taxes were applied more fairly to all workers, solvency could be a short period what's more we could pay for needed improvements that would help the social security meet all the needs of all americans but particularly for a vulnerable population. these improvements include providing social security credits for care givers,

improving survivor benefits, enhancing the special minimum benefits, strengthening the cost-of-living adjustments by adopting the cpi for the elderly chained sepiolite, restoring student benefits for children and to the age of 22 at offering equal benefits for same-sex married couples and partners. at the same time, we urge you to unpopular options for solvency. adjustment due to change cpi cutting benefits by altering the benefit formula. we ask you to reject all of those. in terms of medicare, 47 years ago next week, president johnson built on fdr's the

legacy by providing health security to older americans through the creation of medicare and medicaid. seniors at health insurance. 35% of seniors live in poverty. today, medicare continues to be essential for middle incomeover half of medicare beneficiaries had annual incomes of less than $22,500. sittings of less than $53,000. -- savings of less than $53,000. having guaranteed access to help the insurance coverage is also color. 2/3 of african-americans and latinos have incomes below 22,000, and they make up a large below the poverty level. people from communities of color are at greater risk for certain chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes. as a result, communities of color have a disproportionate stake in ensure and the future of medicare. the democratic party should

build on provisions of the affordable care act that have already resulted in extending the solvency of medicare part a by an estimated eight years lowering part be out of pocket costs for beneficiaries offering free preventive services, and reducing the prescription drug costs. but it is not enough to protect medicare. that is why the democratic platform should support providing medicare coverage for a hearing aids, dental care, interest, routine vision and foot care, as well as establishing an annual catastrophic cap on beneficiaries out of pocket spending for medicare covered services. unfortunately, the house passed the gop ryan budget would take medicare in the wrong direction by ending medicare as we know it, privatizing it for the benefit of insurance companies making it harder for seniors to choose their own doctors

cutting prescription coverage and for preventative services, and increasing the medicare eligibility age to 67. we reject all of these proposals. the national committee believes more over that the platform should insist that seniors and people with disabilities have access to high-quality and affordable long-term care services and support available at home and in the community. funding for these services is prior did primarily for and paid for by medicaid. medicaid remains of final safety net, and it is especially important also to communities of color. sadly, millions of existing medicaid beneficiaries will likely for go needed medical assistance and becomes thicker if a proposal in the ryan budget to block grant medicaid became law. establishing a federal blended

rate would reduce payments to states. instead, what is needed is the medicaid expansion, and that is in the affordable care act. to make this work, all states red and blue must cover all marble seniors, people with disabilities and children. finally, we are concerned that medicated-managed care may not be a proper for individuals newly eligible for medicare and medicaid benefits. we urge you to supports scaling back these demonstrations until they can be evaluated for their efficacy. in closing, democrats will win the confidence of american voters by being unapologetic defenders against the tax -- against attacks on america's social safety net. voters know that cutting benefits to those of when the recession is not shared sacrifice. instead, ordinary americans want to know that someone is fighting for them, someone is standing up for them, as other middle-class institutions like pensions retiree health plans, crumbled 3 -- crumble.

they want to trust in the pillars still standing. social security, medicare, and medicaid. that puts them first. thank you fight for them by drafting a platform that puts them first. thank you for this opportunity to testify. >> doctor, thank you for your testimony. we have some time for questions. are there questions? it appears that you -- oh here we have some questions. go ahead. >> thank you for coming and actually, all of your work the past two years particularly with the social safety net. as you mentioned this is a critical factor, critical set of factors for families, quite frankly, all families, across all generations, quite frankly. but there is also a piece in the discussion right social service workers, in certain states where there is a penalty in the

social security system. i wonder if you could touch on that a little bit. >> public service workers penalized by the social security system -- >> government pensions -- >> and elimination programs? so, there has been an ongoing conversation about public others, it might qualify for social security, who actually that has been an ongoing debate has been concern to the democratic party for a long time. it should be part of any package taken up with regard to how we modernize the social security program. we need to make sure that benefits are adequate for all americans, including public service workers who might be harmed by that provision. >> thank you.

>> yes, congresswoman? >> thank you for that powerful testimony. oftentimes we forget that social security and medicare provide quite a bit of assistance for the disabled. could you elaborate a little bit about that in terms of the disabled and how important social security and medicare is for our disability community? >> absolutely. when people think about social security, they think of it as a retirement program. social security has three primary benefits. retirees, the disabled population, and survivors of workers who have died young. in the disability program often social security is the only thing for workers who become disabled in the midst of their working career, that they can eat and access to to support them in their disability. it is very important for people of all ages who have become

disabled, and social security steps in to provide not only that disabled worker with support, but also their family members. >> are there any other questions? doctor, thank you for your testimony, and thank you for the wonderful work your organization does. >> thank you very much. >> we appreciate you being here. up next presenter -- the political director of the southwest region council of the international brotherhood of carpenters. bill represents 500,000 union workers advocating for approved jobs and protection of their rights.

we are very happy to have you and we look forward to your testimony. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i am honored to be here. i serve as the director of social projects for the international union. on behalf of the five order 50,000 members of carpenters and -- on behalf of the 550,000 members of carpenters and shriners, i want to thank you for the opportunity to some of those comments. workers' compensation and payroll fraud are issues of vital concern to our members contractors, and the country. payroll fraud comes in two forums. first is the intentional misclassification of employees as independent contractors. workers get irs 1099 forms at the end of the tax year instead of a w-2's. second, paying workers off the books with no reporting to state and federal authorities or workers' compensation carriers. violations not only encompass

federal and state tax evasion workers' compensation fraud but it also includes racketeering, money laundering mail fraud, criminal conspiracy. the victims include the employers who play by their rules, our health-care system, workers, state and federal and local revenues. payroll fraud is not limited to small construction projects. the fine violation on public and private jobs, residential industrial commercial construction, even military bases like fort knox. these violations are not caused by confusion over definitions of employment. these people now exactly what they are doing. construction is a fiercely competitive industry and irresponsible contractors who do not pay taxes workers compensation premiums, or over time gain a significant competitive edge over law- abiding employers. my payroll fraud becomes common, employers face the prospect of losing businesses if they don't join in. honest employers face a double and dignity. first, they continue to lose work and their employees go on a planet. -- on unemployment. then their workers' compensation premiums go up, leaving them even less competitive.

a 1984 study by the irs found at employers ms. classified employees as independent -- ms. classified -- misclassified employees as independent contractors, and nearly 20% of construction employers did so. the gao put the irs in 1984 numbers into $2,006, and any federal tax loss of 2.7 $2 -- $2.72 billion. workers in massachusetts more recent state study found that 14% to 24% of construction workers in massachusetts, is classified. 14% in maine, 14.9 in new york. the 2007 study of the new york city construction industry found that 25%, 50,000 construction employees, were missed classified or pay off the books, resulting in an estimated loss of 500 to $37 million and he doesn't federal, state, and

local taxes work anders compensation, health care cost shifting. those numbers fail to reflect the true frequency and cost of payroll fraud. for instance, in florida investigation of their workers' compensation premiums fraud discovered that a billion dollars was laundered through check cashing stores by two -- by 10 contractors in less than two years. all this work is compensation premiums. clearly, state, local, and federal government would benefit substantially if we recover those taxes that are owed on unpaid contractors who violate the law. the cost of medical treatment for work is indicated -- the employer is cheating on workers' compensation, and is often shifted by health-care

providers to those of us who do have insurance. driving up everyone's costs. a study in california found an astonishing $100 billion in unreported workers' compensation carriers, resulting in on his employers and dangerous occupations such as carpenters paying as much as eight times more for insurance. a majority of states have recognized the problems created by federal fraud. since 2003, 33 states have passed over 97 measures to improve law-enforcement trade states include california, colorado, new york, louisiana oklahoma. these represent a broad political spectrum reflecting the bipartisan cooperation and support from the business community as well as labor. following the lead of these states, the united states department of labor, and this administration has signed memorandums of understanding with the irs and 13 states to battle this problem. unfortunately, congress has lagged behind.

numerous bills have been introduced against the tremendous business interests who fail to understand the tremendous harm being done to employers. similar measures should be passed by congress and included in support of this platform. measures to make failure to properly close by an individual as an employee a violation of the fair labor standards act. continuing to fund at the u.s. department of labor initiatives to increase the number of investigators to improve the sharing of information and cooperative enforcement actions with the irs and states and provide grants to states for information technology and other state initiatives to improve enforcement. support for amending the internal revenue code allowing the irs to declare an issue by a fine regulations, eliminating the role that allows teachers to qualify for a safe harbor to continue violating the law perpetrated by not paying employment taxes, and eliminating the industry practice of the safe harbor that allows illegal behavior.

it is time to level the playing field for law-abiding taxpayers for the benefit of everyone. my comments have address illegal practices in the construction industry. the payroll fraud is all too common, and trucking, restaurants landscaping, hotels, and elsewhere -- on its businesses and taxpayers deserve better protection from those who violate the law. if we can summon the will to do what needs to be done revenue will be recaptured from those who wrote it and fewer burdens will be based on law-abiding businesses are working families will have more likely to realize the american dream. thank you. >> thank you, bill, and the problem you have highlighted is pervasive. i know it exists in ohio and probably every other state in this nation. are there questions of bill before he steps aside? anyone?

well, thank you so much, sir. >> thank you. >> well, the mayor is here and so it is my privilege to introduce our next presenter mayor kevin johnson. he is serving his second term as the mayor of sacramento, california. he is also the second vice president of the united states conference of mayors, and the first vice president of the national conference of black mayors. as mayor of sacramento he has worked to improve public safety and increase economic development, a champion excellence in education, and he tackles the issues affecting urban communities. mayor, we look forward with great enthusiasm to testimony. thank you for being here. >> awesome, i want to thank everyone for giving me your important time for this issue did have 101 things you could be doing for your communities, so thank you.

i would like to thank chairman strickland and members of the community for the opportunity. as the chairman engine, i am the mayor of sacramento and the second vice president of the caucus of mayors. let me recognize the conference of mayors. president, michael nutter. i guess you are wearing two hats today. phillies are on the role too -- on a roll, too by the way. >> we like that. >> executive director of the u.s. conference of mayors, tom coughlin, and past president and tone of your voice up. -- antonio villagioso. i want to acknowledge all the mayors who participated for the and valuable input. we represent 1300 cities, and each of the cities are over 30,000, and we are not partisan

by -- that speaks volumes to what we are trying to do in thisi would also like to thank president obama for his leadership. yes to that asked unprecedented access to the white house -- he has given us unprecedent access to the white house, he has allowed us to sit down with cabinet secretaries on a regular basis and senior officials in ways that have not previously happen. the first lady came and addressed our body on a number of occasions. we as mayors are extremely thankful. we also want to thank the administration for their bold action in terms of passing health care, high-speed rail, raised the top -- raced to the -- race to the top, energy efficiency, and the conservation block grant. many successes in the first four years. we still have a long ways to go. one of the things that we did through the u.s. conference of mayors week ago, we met in philadelphia and got together collectively about 100 mayors from around the country and talked about what our collective responsibilities are, what can we do to really make sure that we are front and

center when it comes to major topics that are facing this country. we released something called "the u.s. metro economies." i want to applaud a couple of key findings that set the context for my remarks. it is very clear that american cities are the lifeblood of this country. . key findings. 84% of the u.s. population is in metro economies. 84%. secondly, 86% of the nation's jobs are in metro economies. thirdly, 90% of the nation's gdp is in metro economies. u.s. cities are global power houses. in fact, some of our ty have greater economies than countries. for instance new york is larger than mexico and south korea. los angeles outpaces switzerland and chicago outpaces sweden.

there's a number of metro economy that's are larger than states. miami has larger economy than arizona and houston's gdp is higher than georgia. these numbers will continue to grow as time goes on. over the next 30 years you're going see a 32% increase in the metro population around this country. we believe where businesses occur and where people live and where innovation is born. that's partly why we are so thankful to have an portunity to share with this particular committee today. we as mayors stand ready to be a part of the solution. we want to put our country back on track. just last week, mayor nutter hosted us to a 2.5 day seminar. we got a chance to prepare document called building a better america. efocused on ten major issues that we thought were importa

in cities around the focus. i won't mention all ten. more importantly it's about creating an urban agenda. let me start with investing if infrastructure. that will keep our cities competitive in the 21st century. secondly keeping people in our cities safe and secure through public safety as a top priority. primarily role of government. thirdly, ensuring that all of our children have access to a high quality public education. we believehose are three most important things for us as mayors around the country. these priorities we believe are transformative and obtainable, they unify our intest and transcend our party and geography. they improve the lives our

citizens and sustaining the promise of the american dream. first let me dive little bit into infrastructure. what is infrastructure? infrastructure are our roads, waterways, bridges, our railways, energy grids. things that bring us together. things that connect us with our cities. by investing in infrastructure, we provide both short term and longer term jobs. it helps our ports and exports and it reduces congestion. further more, thinking about infrastructure, the u.s. spends only 2.4% of its gdp in infrastructure. meanwhile, europe spends 5% and china invest 9%. it's clear we're moving in the wrong direction in the 1980ser. at 3%. if we fail to act our cities are going to increasingly sufficient congestion under employment and certainly a long term cost. what we mayors want to say very

loud and clear, we as cities want to be a part of the solution. when you think about how we get our country back on track states play a critical role but we believe cities where th rubber need to roll. our aim in addition to infrastructure is also public safety. we know that we need to keep air cities secure and safe. the u.s. mayors know that crime affects our streets and our people. unfortunately, with budget cuts already stretched thin, cities are increasingly ha tout fundamental services for its citizens. we have identified a few ways in which our party, the democratic party and president obama can ensure that the aid directly goes to public saty. first, we must support local law enforcemt by supporting key programs the cops hiring grants, and second chance.

secondly we must have a paradigm shift and focus lot of our energy on prevention. we wt to be proactive. thirdly, in this is something that's near and dear to president, i guess in this case, our president nutter, is gangs and illegal drugs. we all know that there's so much gang on gang violence. young kids, african-american in particular are impacted in a negative way. we have to make sure we come up with solutions and part that is inner governmental partnership and combination of tough enforcement and prevention. the last thing i'll talk about briefly in term of public safety and it's a little bit

nontraditional. it's our floods and our levies. we cannot places around the country very similar to what happened in new orleans and katrina that can impact us. lastly is education. this is t one that's probably near and dear to my heart in particular because we as mayors cannot have a great city without great schools. unfortunately many of our schools and cities around the country are not meeting the bar. it's a moral impettive when you think about achievement gap. it's a competitive dynamic. we got to get our schools back on track. we believe very strongly that you have to have a well educated and highly skilled work --

workforce. we rank now unfortunately 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math among the 34 developed countries. what makes matters worse, is in the next 20 years, we're going to have 120 million jobs. unfortunately we're going to be able to fill0 million of those jobs by our children. that means 70 million jobs will be outsourced to children in other countries. that is not the america we believe in. just under under investing and lack of prioritizing under investing and lack of priority will cripple our education system. that's why we as mayors want to be a part of the solution the president has been far and above one of the key leaders on these issues. we want to prioritize early education which and all know is

very important for our student we want to reform k12. we got to increase graduation rates. we want to improve our access to higher education by ensuring college affordability and completion pell grant. we want to expand and improve on community college system. our community college system is so important when it comes to aining and career tryouts for young people. we want to create a skilled workforce. the last thing i'll say on education is, there's policy that's also very important. we're in lock step with the president from a bipartisan support and secretary duncan. we believe very strongly that we need to re-authorize e.s.c.a.

we want the federal government to move in a very swift way. we got to bring congress together and get this reauthorization passed. it fails, our nations cities and students wl be impacted in a very negative way. mayors stands ready and we urge our party to hold us accountable. we want to be a part of the soution. that's under mor nutter's leadership as well. the urbanagenda is critical for moving this country forward. we believe very strongly by focusing on infrastructure and job creation, public safety and education, that we will get our communities back on track. we also think that the u.s. conference of mayors, we said this before, there's other things thatwe know are very important. exports and advanced manufacturing and small business energy independence and jobs housi and community

development tax reforms balancing our budget and certainly reducing our deficit. we as mayors again stand with is administration in this country and look forward to the months ahead. we want to be willing partners we believe in the values of democratic party. we believe in everything we stand for and we believe there's a lot of work to be done. sign us pup >> thank you mayor. thank you for your leadership. are there questions for the good mayor? mayor nutter >> thank you. not so much a question. i do want to thank mayor johnson for coming in and clearly laying out the case for cities and partnership as we mve forward in strength in this platform for the role of cities and a new city federal partnership and in particular thank you for your comments with regard to public safety and the issue of violence

all across the united states of america. for some of us believe that response we've had to international terrorism very important r this country. but unfortunately on a daily basis many of us experience domestic terrorism in our cities. we need a much larger and comprehensive response to those issues so that people can be safe not only as they fly but also as they walk around their communities. thank you >> congresswoman? >> god to see you. thank you for that clear and testimony as well it's very important for us to hear and includein this platform. coming from oakland california, many of the ours you raised are similar to all urban areas. public sector job cuts,

primaryings firefighters and police officers and teacher, next door neighbors, they experience the brunt of public sector job cuts. that of course is part of the republican in terms of deficit reduction. and public sector jobs has been the primary pathway to the middle class for people of color -- african-americans and latino and asian-pacific americans. what in terms of your city in terms of an urban agenda is the impact of the public sector budget cuts as it relates to services and jobs and keeping our community safe? >> first of all i'm a big fan of yours thank you. i appreciate the question and tha you for the work that you do obviously in the bay area. i'm the mayor of sacamento and we're the capital of california which is 8th largest economy in the world. as a capital city in

sacramento the majority of our jobs are public sector jobs as a capital city. when the economy is hit hard our community is hit a lot harder than most cities that have a diverse kind of workforce. we don't have a diverse workforce. think there's two thing i would say. number one the lifeblood of our communities are police officers our firemen, teachers. we've got to everything that we can to make sure they're not making choices between pang the mortgage and buying groceries. we've got to make that as a priority. secondly. we have to figure out a way to grow the pie. the private sector can play a critical role in growing that pie. government jobs we want to keep and keep strong. we also rely heavily on the real

estate industry in sacramento. we were hit by the foreclosure crisis like many other communities around the country. that's an opportunity to create public private partnerships. that is the answer going forward. it's public and private partnerships. they are not mutually exclusive. >> mayor, thank you for that really amazing rivetting series very thoughtful concepts we all need to think about. i know in the brief amount of time, we allowed you couldn't speak to everything. i am curious because you mentioned the word corrected responsibilit whether you as elected official, u.s. counsel of mayor. any comments you would like to make on the unprecedented attack

on our voting rights that as an elected official i think is a almost terrifying attack on our basic democracy and whether the cities so many of our citizens live. >> certain things are nonnegotiable. for especially the african-american and proud of this party in 1964 and 1965 you think about the voting rights act and howong and hard we fought to be able to have that right and privilege. now folks a talking about creating schemes and ways to disenfranchise folks all again. that's not something we as mayors should allow to happen. i don't want to speak on behalf the u.s. counsel of mayors because this is permanent to --

personal to me. i can i can assure you, we feel strongly doing what we can to make sure no oneis disenfranchised. >> i just wanted to thank you. also comment on the fact that the priorities that you have identified for us are equally as important to rural communities. i come from a large state where half of our population, i can tell you that the issues most important those communities are things like public safety, and infrastructure and education. i appreciate the work that you're doing on those issues and i appreciate the fact that.s. conference of mayors are pushing thatgenda. >> i would like to sigh one -- say one thing on that.

i know doug peterson spoke earlier representing the farmers unn. i thought his points were appropriate. in this metro economies report i did not realize just what the percentage and the numbers were that metro economies represent in this country. on the flip side we have many rural mayors that are part of the work we're doing. we look at them as extreme partners. please don't look that the as something we are turning a deaf eye on one part of our community because we need all. we all have different strengths and different parts of the equation. i certainly agree and i appreciate you pointing it out. it is very consistent with the u.s. conference of mayors and what we want to do as well >> mayor thank you so much. thank you forour leadership and appreciate your testimony. we appreciate you coming. thank you so very much.

>> i know all the questions were from the left side of the room [laughter]. our party is on track. thank you. >> well our next presenter is mr. tom greeceson. he -- to meet and to network with other professionals as well as local, state and federal elected officials and candidates. also known as dembiz promotes program of interest to democratic. >> thank you governor strickland and thank you members of the

committee for having me attend this meeting. i am here in my capacity as vice president of the democratic business council of northern virginia. we refer to at dembiz. i want to thank ron pierce who is with the dnc small business owners council for invitation for us to be represented and make this presentation today. we feel that dembiz can serve as a model to other communities.

probusiness, this is a term that's become a weapon and seeks to separate those who place -- those who somewhat argue do not. pro-business implies there's only one other camp you can be and that is anti-business. the pro-business camp has been -- democrats have been left in a category that influence that we are anti-business. by extension anti-american and conservatives wrap the economy in a flag and make it their own. democrats lie champions of core values of justice. in the last election we saw that the gop designed to convince

americans those core values make us and our president social lip. words do matter. in a culture that's increasingly driven by sound bites the best slogan. in 2008 yes we can spoke to millions of people. young people, poor people minorities seniors. all who had never bother to vote before came out and supported the president. the party holding the flag when the economy collapsed in 2008 was the gop. that brings us to today. jobs in the last four years, it has come down to jobs. this is an endless debate about what and who creates those jobs. words matter when the polarization puts the republicans in one camp

pro-business and pro-jobs and leaves democrats only champions for entitlement programs. democrats can't win local, state and national elections without rebuilding our credibility as business center, pro-economy advocates. we begin in our area to try to change the conversation among democrat who are business and professional people in northern virginia. one of the most strongest economies in the country. dembiz we talk about messaging and perception and misguided notion that we have to cut reduce and eliminate to strengthen our american economy.

to paraphrase tip o'neil our business is local. those organization are the champions of local businesses that have traditionally embraced the pro-businessman tra -- mantra of the republican party. incrsingly and extension of the gop. the creation of the democratic council, democratic business council is not the answer to chamber of commerce. this is not a matter of feeding a mentality of opposing camps. in finding business people who understand and value the importance of social issues, we create a different discussion in a new form around how we can meet the basic nee of the many while supporting the people, comny and organizations that comprise our local economy.

members of dembiz understands that the political process provides change. this is about creating a partnership between the business community and tse who are in the business of government. democrats must craft a convincing message about how we value business and its relationship to government. democrats are not a party of smaller government, we are a party of better government. we must carry that message to the business community through a

cadry of people who believe that message our continued sustainability is largely based on word of mouth. we want committed people to help advance our goals. our democratic business council is based on a membership model but not every organization that is in this sector needs to be modeled in that way to be successful. we have a pack, which allow us us to directly support democratic candidate. our chief goal is education over fundraising. we focus on getting great speaker to our breakfast, people who have wide appeal, name recognition and serve to draw our members friends of our somebodies and just people that are simply interested in hearing us speakers in the topics we discuss. our format encourages open discussion. we create stakeholders in the initiatives and the agenda the democratic party by giving people in the business and

professional community a chance to really talk with elected officials with candidates and with public administrators. we give our members and guests access to people they might not otherwise be ail to connect with. we give decision makers and people influences in their own networks. it is my hope that the democratic party at the national level would encourage the formation of local democratic business councils as a boots on the ground approach to reshaping the public perception of democrats. we don't have to compromise our core values to be seen as a pro-business party. we have to help others to see how business serves a greater goals in our society.

language and message to take these idea us out to the community. convincing voters one person at a time that democrats are also pro-business. thank you very much. >> thank you sir. think the record shows that across the years even across the decades that the business community does better under democratic administration than they do under republicans. are there questions >> thank you very much for your helpful testimony. i appreciate your point about the partnership that's possible between government and biness. food safety is one example where over time there's been improvement for the american people and their. i wanted to ask you a little bit about universities. universities are not only a way for individualso get a leg up in their life but also serve a socialconomic growth.

>> northern virginia one of the biggest universities in the state of virginia actually is george mason university. there we actually work closely with the faculty and students to try to reach out as members of the business community and also try to have the individual who are part of the faculty and who actually can bring value to our discussion about public policy issues and be part that discussion and be part of that partnership. i would agree that outreach by democratic organizations to youthses can -- universities can be extremely helpful >> thank you very much for your reference and for your input. you talk about how dembiz is engaged in messaging and perception. i wonder if you can help us with that. one of the thing republican party seems to have been very

good at is wrapping themselves in small business and using small business as something to hide behind in support of policies that are neither supportive of small business people or small businesses themselves. you care to comment on that? >> i agree with you completely. when democrats are in office, when democrats actually adopt policies those small businesses actually thrive. having democrats promote policies and actually god for the economy and good for all the citizens in our region. >> i want that thank you very much for the opportunity to be here. >> tom, we thank you for being

here. our next presenter is allison herbert. allison is the legislative director of the human rights campaign. during her wor >> , she has spearheaded the organization federal and legislative efforts on capitol hill. h.r.c. is the largest single rights organization working to achieve equality for lesbian gay, bisexual and tran gender americans. allison we thank you for coming and we look forward to your testimony >> thank you very much. i want to take a personal privilege what an honor to be here. we are the largest lesbian and gay bexual transgender civil

rights organization. i thank you for the opportunity to be here today before you. i would like to begin by thanking the democratic party for its long standing commitment to lgbt commuty. we obtained tremendous progress in address widespread

discrimination. despite these historic advances and others achieved at the local state and federal level there is still a great deal more that needs to be done. i come before you today to ask that the democratic platform once again reflect strong support of the right of lgbt people. i urge to expand the party's commitment to equality by unequivocally supporting the right of gay and lesbian couples to marr it also calls for repeal of the discriminatory defense of marriage act or dom the federal law denies even lawfully married gay and lesbian couples

a myriad of rights and benefits such as equal access to social security survive budgets, equitable taxation. because of doma, the gay and lesbian service member now able to serve our nation openly are still not treated equally. their partners and spouses lack access to health coverage, housing assistancend other benefits afforded to other military families.

earlier in year, president obama made historic statement in support of marriage equality. hi words have fundamentally changed the national conversation on this issue. inspiring more and more americans to move forward on their personal journeys towards supporting equaty.

an impact their ability to obtain the skills and education they need tsucceed in life. in recent years, high-profile of like condi issue of bullying and harassment our nation's schools. this problem is not a new one and does not only affect lgbt youth are those perceived to be gay and tranche tender. it has contributed to entirely

too many tragedies and we as a nation must do more to ensure that all you have the opportunity to learn and flourish in safe and respectful in garments. i urge you to include in the platform called for strong measures to combat bullying discrimination and harassment that are explicitly inclusive of sexual orientation and gender. >> thanks to the lifting of the hiv traveon immigration ban we are all reminded of the importance of our continued fight against this epidemic. hiv and aids remains a critical issue for people, andit affects particularly young people and gay and bexual men of color. i ask that the platform continue

to call for robust funding of prevention care and research. prevention programs must be comprehensive, science based andocused on communities that they are intended to serve. hr 3 recognizes the role race based organizations play in tackling the problem but we are keenly aware that religion is too often used as a platform to discriminate against lgbt people. with the federal courts continuing to grapple with questions of belgae btlgbt equality, the federal dgie sheriff means critically important to our commites well-being. perrin impartial judges

recognize tha the constitution's guarantees compared to all americans. on behalf of the human rights campaign, i think for the opportunity to testify today. we are grateful for the democratic party support of the community in championing our quality. >> thank you so much for being here and for your testimony. are there questions or allison? -- number four alison? >> just a comment. so wonderful to see you alison, and has always been a pleasure working with you. i think you have educated all of us and has been an important statement as we move forward for civil rights for all americans. i thank the committee for your work in your testimony as well.

>> are there other questions? i think this platform could be an historic platform, based on some of the things you have discussed in your testimony. think >> will have more coverage tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. eastern and 8:00 p.m. eastern. >> the political parties are holding hearings and advanced of the convention this democrats voting this weekend on their final platform recommendations in destroyed -- in in detroit. c-span's coverage of the conventions begins monday, august 27 with live coverage and the democratic convention from

charlotte, n.c. tuesday september 3. >> in a few moments, at nasa's briefing on its rover curiosity. and a look at the future of private, commercial space flight. and part of the bullying prevention summit. several live events to tell you about tomorrow. the education department hosts the second day of a forum on a bullying. and at 9:30 a.m. eastern the center for american progress hears from the labor secretary about jobs and education in the latino community. nasa's rover curiosity landed on

mars. officials spoke with reporters from the jet propulsion laboratory in pasadena, california. [applause] >> i think that the deal brought some tears to the eyes. let me introduce the panelists we have today. we will get an update on the rover and an outlook for what to look. -- come next. joining us we have michael watkins, the mission manager. miguel from jpl the chief

engineer. sarah from jpl she is the high- rise investigation scientist. and john of caltech the project scientist of the mission. >> good morning everyone. welcome to mars, welcome back to march if he were here last night. the surface mission of curiosity has begun. for a long time, those of us on the project knew we had to go through some big events. but we built this rover not just to land on mars but to actually try weimar's and execute a beautiful science mission. we have ended one phase of the mission and to be a joy a lot of folks on our team.

another part has just begun. it is really the fundamental reason we built a rover. we are just starting admission. we are not ending it. two hours after landing. just before 1:00 a.m., curiosity called us from mars odyssey. mars odyssey was overhead. it comes around two hours later. mars has rotated. it was still over the horizon. we were able to have a short talk with curiosity. she told us she is in service nominal mode. she quickly transitioned to surface and nominal mode. not in safe mode. she is otherwise very healthy. we have some images that we will show and they little bit. we are a go for activities. those are dominated by boring activities, checking out the

rover. making sure its is healthy. deploying the antenna. then we employed the mast. the rover looks like this right now. you are used to seeing in it with its eyes up and antenna deployed. we are stowed down here. we are about to deploy this little internet that allows us to talk directly to the earth that can actually send adapted to us and more easily talked to buy us. -- by us. a day or or so we will have these beautiful panoramas. as for now, the first order is to make sure our communications are healthy. that is a prime activity. last night we got one other beautiful piece of of

information. our hazcams are the still cameras that point mostly at our wheels. we are concerned that they will kick up some dirt. we have little clear covers on them. those are the images we got last night. they are the first things we were talking about. this is that picture. now that we are awake and three have digested it with less adrenaline, it is not such a great picture anymore. [laughter] it is beautiful because of what it means that that is dust kicked up by the landing in event. we want to get rid of those covers. you can see our beautiful shadow.

we hope to get the rear and front and down. you can see our shadowed there. let's go to the animation and remind you where these hazcams are. they're looking for mobility hazards. there pointed at the ground. they have a wild field of view. vesco to the next image. last night after landing we fired all of our pyros. there is our image. we're looking out the back. he can see the left rear wheel. you can see the hinge in the field of view. it looks like a spring on the lower right side. on the upper left as part of the rtg, the power source.

several of the folks that worked on assembling those said they never got a picture this good. they could never get the lighting right on the earth. this is the definitive control image of how the rover is supposed to look. on the side you are going to see some hills on the far edge. we're going to show that later. i really love these images. later we're going to get magnificent color panorama's and 3d images, but the first images are always the best ones to me. when you land on mars it is new every time. this is a new place on mars. we go on vacation to see a different part of our planet. we're seeing a part of mars we have never seen. this is oriented to look like

the landscape on earth. we will continue to get the front version of this. over the next couple of days we will be sending down the imager that is in color. after we get the rsm up, we'll get some nice black and white panoramas. this is our new home for a while. we need to explore it. then we will have for the hills. we hope we can actually see the mountain of gale. we are at a very slight tilt. we are 3.6 degrees negative in pitch. these are pretty small numbers.

we landed on this table. it is pretty flat. we are in a good spot. where exactly is this spot on our map of mars? to talk about that we have miguel. >> thank you. good morning. i hope you have enjoyed the roller coaster ride last night. i want to get another round. maybe we have to wait a few more years. it looked beautiful from other monitors. we have not had the time to look at the data carefully. it'll be coming soon. right now the rover is full of edl data set that will help us understand and bring our

knowledge to even higher levels. we are very excited waiting for that data. i am going to talk to you about our best knowledge of where we landed. it might change once we get the data. next picture. we did land inside the crater. [laughter] we know that. you can say our landing is 7 kilometers by 7 kilometers. if we could get the next picture please. this is where we think we landed. it is two kilometers east of the center of the landing site, a few hundred meters north. let me explain where we get that from. this is based on the ground

navigation by the navigation team. as you saw yesterday, it gave us incredible precision. we see the software of curiosity with that very precise data. curiosity is using its own navigation instruments. it is a relative instrument. i can take an initial seed of what the velocity is and then it can apply to the atmosphere and its own rockets. it is that reckoning. it is kind of like the odometer. in essence, it is based on one of the last piece of telemetry when it touched down.

i touched down and this is where we are. we need to analyze it. we send corrections that we did. we actually get other indications from the data we saw in the telemetry that gives an impression that we did very well. one check we do is that eventually after propagating the inertia measurement unit for several minutes, and eventually we removed the heat shield in the radar stars looking at the ground. we can see how well the inertia measurement did. to give this altitude related

to the ground. it is so well that we have to look at the data again. it is hard to believe. we have not been able to get our simulations to work that well. it was a correction of few meters in altitude. that is influenced by how well was our last attitude fix based on the stars. just like sailors did, we use the stars. i think that is great. we did the final look at the stars. curiosity did that, it took the navigation data from the ground and into get all the way down and guided it down.

that is our estimate. we have to wait for precise localization by high-rise. that is all i had to say. thank you. >> speaking of high-rise you heard a lot about how odyssey was listening to msl. the orbiter was also there. mro was watching. we normally take pictures of the surface. we can get pictures of two resolutions of 30 centimeters per pixel. what we did this time, if you

can go to the graphic, there is mro coming along and we actually took a picture with hirise. this shows our image. [applause] if we zoom in, there we go. [applause] this is a testament to the hirise team at the university of arizona. we've been working on getting this together since march. we have been updating it as msl has been getting closer. the final commander sent out a

couple of days ago. this was taken six months after it entered the atmosphere. mro was about 340 kilometers away from msl at the time the picture was taken. you can see the lines on the parachute. you can see the hole in the top. the inset image is stretch differently so that you can see the parachute clearly without saturation. and let's see. i think that is the last one. we can go to the last one. hirise has taken over 120 pictures of gale as part of the characterization process. i really think this is the coolest one. [laughter]

now john will talk about what we see on the surface. >> let's just go to the first graphic right away. we would get you back into the hazcams. here is our standard color superimposed on top of the ctxdem showing the topography of the crater. you can see the well-defined crater rim toward the middle. to help you understand what we're going to be seeing in the hazcams, let's get oriented. north is up toward the top of the image. if you go counterclockwise it takes you into the northwest quadrant. there you see the rim.

the northern rim is considerably lower in elevation than the summit of mount sharp. you can see where the rim is breached a little bit there. remember the topography of the rim. you will have to keep that in mind. mount sharp itself will represent a topographical rise. if we go to the next image, this is really spectacular. what has happened here is they word to take the hazcam image. it is a fisheye lens. there's a lot of distortion. this is the view you will see if you are a hazcam.

there retarding toward the rim of the gale crater. this cannot be a better position to live in. we get to see rearwards and forwards. you heard us speaking about the alluvial fan that we think we landed close to. this is bringing materials in from the rim which is not our destination. we're getting a free sample without having to drive over there. in the foreground you see a scene that is very familiar to you from other images of mars, what is undoubtedly a windswept plain with course grain size distribution.

we do not yet know what that diameter is. you can get the sense that there is a bunch of particles there that are bought the same size. in the upcoming ones we will be discussing this, trying to figure out where to go and what to do. this will be part of the story. a target like this is interesting because one of the things we are going to want to do after the commissioning is analyze it. we would like something representatives of mars. this is a target for us to think about. by sampling it, we have a sample of what is the most global sample a mars that we can measure. in the next one, this is tough. i think the edl guys were seen a vision like this a few hours ago.

the curvature is taken out. we are looking toward the southeast. you have the shadow of the rover there. this was the first indication we are looking southwest because the sun was setting behind us. i forgot something important. is it possible to go back two? to the first one? >> stand by. >> one more. there we go. if the go to the southwest part a notice the black line that goes from northeast to southwest. that is a dune fields that lies at the base of mount sharp. that black line will be our frame of reference. we have landed somewhere to the north of that black line. we are looking toward the base of mount sharp.

that black line we believe is the dune field. as you work upward in the image, we believe you see the outline of mount sharp itself in the setting sun. the upper part is the horizon. you should see a slope that goes from above that black line of dunes sloping to the upper right. you have a little bit of adventure before you. i will be sleeping when the next downlink occurs. joey will be able to talk to you about the data we will get down without the dust cover entire resolution, possibly even full frame. we think we have landed and the hazcams are picking up

topography on both sides. that is it for me. >> we will open it up. i will try to memorize the order i see hands coming up. we will work our way over. >> could you refine the landing time? what was the landing time? >> i will have to get that to you after this conference. we will get it for you. >> excuse me. could you explain what is just out of the landing site? it looks like it might be the

dune areas. how far are you from what you consider to be the foothills of mount sharp. >> the dunes that you see is a rather narrow dip. you see it slicing through the area. we are a few kilometers away. the typography where it starts to steepen up, where we would like to access it is a few kilometers away. they are slicing through the landing. >> get him back the microphone. >> does that mean to get to the mountain you would go north

around the dunes? is there any reason why you cannot go straight? >> we would never want to just drive across the dunes. we have this beautiful topography. we study those to find the paths that would give us the least resistance. if the science justifies it we will happily take that route. >> can you tell me what has happened to the lending? it pops off of flies in another direction. do you know how far away it is? >> it flies away.

it has a close algorithm. it is very rudimentary. we want to crash as far away, 400 meters away. we told it to go essentially toward the north. we do not have telemetry on that part. the only way we will find out is through hirise taking an image. we think it will be hundreds of meters. it is designed to do that. >> you estimate that this is six minutes after an injury one minute before landing. that is after the heat shield

popped off. have you looked for that in the image? >> we have not in this image. i do not know if we would be able to see it in this image. we will be taking images of the landing site in the days to come. we might be taking an image within the next day. that one would be a little hazy. we're taking a very good image six days from now and another 112 days from now. we will be able to look for with the other components landed. >> what is your best estimate for the resolution of what we're seeing here with the parachute? >> 33 centimeters. >> i think there were a couple of more. >> the image we're trying to

help is to localize the landing with respect to topographic features we can see to aid the dynamic solution. we hope to have that in a couple of days. >> irish television. a blotched appeared in both of the images looking out across the plains which they were interpreting as possibly the landing stage impact. this picture came down much quicker than many of us expected. it seemed that it could be. did any did you think that you saw evidence of the landing stage impact? >> that artifact has been talked about. it could be associated with the landing. we do not know. it is too early to tell what it is.

we would like to take a look at it again. if it is a transient feature we just have that one image. it might tell us where to look when we get all of our cameras up. we are just starting to trickle down thumbnails of the next couple of days. it'll take a little while to get that. >> we are glad to take one more question from the road. >> the distance to the rim we're seeing, you have some distance. to give us some sense of how far we are away from the large topographic features you are talking about. >> let's pull up the image again of the first one.

there we go. the ellipse there is 20 kilometers. we landed to the right of the x in the middle, 20 kilometers to the rim. something like that. >> we will take one here in the front row and then we will move back here. >> just curious on the residual fuel. what was the touchdown speed? anyway you can appreciate what speed you hit? >> i will ask my friend and colleague adam. >> 140 kilograms. that is my memory.

>> that sounds about right. we ended up with a lot which is a good thing. >> as opposed to the opposite? >> yes. the touchdown speed as reported by the sensor is [inaudible] we were coming up. .75 meters per second. there is an error in the sensor itself. you could not tell that. it is going to require more analysis. it will be very useful to be able to really find what the true velocity is.

we can only give you what the spacecraft think its velocity was. that is .75 meters per second vertically. it is a very small number compared to previous attempts. we will see what it does. it will be nice for the control point of view. >> maybe gauging the difficulty between phoenix and the imaging of curiosity coming in, was it tougher? >> it was tougher because of the relative positions of the spacecraft.

the team guesstimated that they have an 80% probability of getting that image. this was a great shot. >> based on what you know right now, could you update us on when you expect the delivery of high-resolution black and white photos, color imagery, and the first panorama. you mentioned thumbnails coming down and maybe the first full video from the dissent camera. >> we are still in the nominal plan. in one of the earlier conferences, richard cook gave an approximate list of dates.

we start to get the front hazcam in a couple of hours. in the next day or two we start getting better resolutions. we have a single frame caller from the molly instrument. in looks like a panoramic image you are used to seeing. it looks like a regular camera. that will be the first color image we will get. it is about two days from now. >> we will come forward to you. if you cannot find where it

came down, how high a priority would it be to go check out those new impact craters as compared to all the other work you like to do? >> an inevitable question. in terms of where the sky crane came down with all the hydrazine, we would prefer to avoid that. i do not doubt that if the path takes as near it, we will study it. those blocks are rejected so far down track we do not have any hope. shucking the surface might give

us exposure without any contamination. that does not seem like it is in the cards. >> on purpose we instructed it to fly away from where the science is. we gave a command to the spacecraft. if you drop a line east west, you go north of that line. the direction depends on the orientation at that time. we want to do a turn with the thrusters away from the spacecraft. we would make that more difficult. >> how many pictures has msl returned so far?

what time is the high beam supposed to be deployed? >> it has returned four thumbnails, two images with the cover down, and one rear hazcam with cover off. high gain deploy is in the afternoon mars time today. about 12 hours from now or so. >> you mentioned one of the first things he might like to do is do an analysis. what sort of variations in the soil is there one? what might you be looking for that is different?

>> there are two separate objectives. the one we are also out after its composition of bedrock. we infer it is going to represent local prophesies that happened that form the bedrock. the soil in a place like mars will represent an average of dust that has blown around the planet and other materials that have worked their way over long distances. while we have no independent way to demonstrate that what we might demonstrate must be analogous to what was measured with viking, every time we sampled this has a very high

sulphur content. we would like to know what minerals are in that soil. by analyzing it we can get a better understanding of what the composition of the soil is. certainly where we landed and also by inference globally. indeed one of the most global questions we could address. >> just a mechanical standpoint were you surprised at the amount of dust on the cover given how high the engines were? does that tell you anything about the consistency? >> that is a good question. we were surprised. the images that have the dust covers off still shows some dust on them.

a little bit got in there. the desk comes and goes. this'll probably below its off. it will wax and wane. the other interesting observation is that if you look at the image, you will notice the wheel is on relatively firm ground. we did not get any sinkage. that is an inferential science observation that this has bearing strength. it is probably firm. we might use to draw it somewhere else to get our scoop out. we really do want to be soft material.

>> you mentioned the health of the material. are there any anomalies at all? a lot of folks have a lot of trepidation going in. did you ever imagine you would be here this morning with the vehicle in the shape it is in telling us the story? >> there are no anomalies that are outside the expected range that we expect. some are reading higher than we expected. a reading is within the accepted sounds to move forward. there is no real anomaly that is causing us to slow down. because we're engineers every little thing that is different

folks want to take a look at. why is it different? that will continue. we're still moving forward. in terms of success, each of us would answer that differently. we all believed it would land successfully. we were not worried. we would not have designed a two-year service mission if we did not think it would land successfully. it is a very complex vehicle. we are a little bit concerned that we will land in a safe mode and it would take awhile to get out of it. you landed healthy but did not get the communications past and have to sit and wait. we have great telecom performance. this has all been fine.

i think we're pleasantly surprised at how smooth it is going. do you want to comment? >> he explained it very well. if we felt there is no chance of success we would not be doing it. we have trained ourselves for eight years to think the worst all the time. that is what you do. you are constantly thinking ways that things can go wrong so you can do something about it and then you can never turn it off. especially the few days coming to the landing when you also know that you do not have time to recover. the pressure is even higher. a landing is like a rocket launch.

it is that type of violence that is so unforgiving. even until this day, we were very nervous on this launch. those are things that we practiced much more. you can actually count the number a mars landing is with one hand. we want to be totally sure that these things will work. that is what we will continue. we will continue trying. we will be nervous the next time the matter how well this one worked. >> nbc news.

just a couple of questions that i may have missed. is there any marty imagery? on the mro picture, what is the difference from when it was taken? >> there is no marty data right now. in about two hours we would get another pass with the orbiters. we might get some thumbnails in that. as of today they are not down. >> mro was 340 kilometers from mso. >> we do hope to hold another conference this afternoon.

>> let me say something else about the deployment. it starts about 11:00 mars time. it ends in the afternoon. >> we will go back to john johnson. first, emily. >> do we have any information on the health of any of the science instruments? >> we have many of them. they are all fine. >> if you get 406 scientists there'll be 407 different opinions. it is very early. if you have any kind of different ideas that are floating around about things you're seeing in the foreground? >> i think it is still early. there's only a limited amount of information that we can draw

from this. we had a great discussion this morning. i think most people feel we're on a gravel plane of mars with the uniform grain size distribution. is that the rim in the background? everybody agrees on that. we have a lot of discussion about the alluvial fan and how we may explore the ellipse. i am amazed we did a crowdsourcing exercise. people got quads. we had a remarkable amount of agreement which is mostly a testimony to the relative simplicity of the geology. that is a good thing. we are a complex based craft.

>> i am sorry. john johnson is next. then we will come back here. >> i just want to follow up on the last question about the health of the science instruments. you say the instruments have so far checked out. can you say anything specifically about what do you feel confidently everything is in shape? >> do you want to comment on that? >> there is a series of tests is that related to the performance. today it was electrical tests that worked well. >> of what happened to that dust storm that was talked about a couple of days ago?

>> it dissipated. a beautiful, clear day. >> we have not completely checked out the instruments. there's a lot of scientific calibration and complex modes that will take us a long time to get through. we're not completely out of the water. we have weeks if not months before we are completely confident. >> one major observation that we planned today is an observation for five hours. there is plenty of time to do that. that is 100% data collection. >> will mro be able to pop of the rover? will the arbiter have any role in helping the rover navigate

apart from relaying the data? >> yes. we will be able to see the rover. we already have images planned for later this week to look at the rover. they should look great. it will be more than just a single pixel.

minutes.

>> my name is darryl and i mississippi professor of government at dartmouth and i'm also the coordinator of the centers more on peace program. it is my great pleasu to welcome to dartmouth and to introduce to you admiralilliam fallon. admiral fallon spend more than 40 years serving in the united states military. he began his career as a naval aviator in the vietnam war and then served in a variety of positions and eventually command positions culminating first in his position as combatant commander in the united states specific command which is the position that is responsible for all u.s. military forces, plans and operations in the entire region of asia. he was subsequently the combatant commander of he united states central command which has the same responsibility but for all u.s. forces in the middle east. these arearguably the two most important positions in the

united states military, and had oral fallon is the only person that has served in both positions. since his retirement, from the united states navy four years ago, admiral fallon has begun a second career of public service and served in a variety of boards and commissions and panels related to higher education, related to various congressional commissions and also for the private sector. admiral fallon is an expert will only on u.s. national security policy but u.s. foreign policy. about two minutes ago, before we walk out here, he said what are you going to say in the introduction and i gave him a 22nd version of this and he said forget all that stuff. just say to use to fly airplanes and he wishes he still did. [laughter] with that please join me in welcoming admiral william fallon. [applause]

thanks for the kind introduction short and sweet and following my mother's good advice to be seen, be seen and be gone. i hate to stop making excuses but as you can probably hear, i just spent an hour and a half a bunch of undergraduates herend i was screaming at them to make up for an hour a a half. that is actually not true. i think this comes from chasing my grand kids around montana last week. come back here. come back here. anyway i'm delighted to be here with you today. at the dartmouth this is my last visit to the campus and i like what i see. i particularly like th factor that's about 40 degrees cooler and very grateful. timing is everything.

let me get into it. just to talk a little bit about the middle east and our interest in the policies related thereto. is an area of high interest and a fair amount of my path that's been in the area. but what i would like to begin with is this. american interaction with the extent of the middle east actually came early to the young nation through the u.s. navy and its deployments against part in the 19th century and in fact until recently the u.s. presence and focus in the middle east region has been primarily maritime overseeing u.s. economic and security interests with only a small footprint. now, my first persona experience in the region was about 35 years ago and i was

actually visiting in the capacity and a professional capacity as a aval officer. this 35 years ago is not very distant at least for some of us at a certain age, but it is a relatively recent from the historical perpective considered but from this course back a couple hundre years ago sustained u.s. engagement as recent has only been predated by my visit for about 30 years. it's pretty upsetting. i was arriving at the mediterranean seaport he might ask what is the admiral know about the middle east and west we pay any attention to them at all and there's an awful lot

written and written on the campus and many people know many things my perspective is a little bit different than some might have encountered and i visited ever country from the arabian peninsula through southeast asia and all of the waterways. much as occurred on this part of the world in the last four decades and for better or worse by an unseen for most of it and it's the most vivid experience in life revolved around people to the diverse culture of this region a woman by the name of dela so let me set the scene. 1977 and on the first aircraft

carrier to ever visit the state of israel and te u.s. navy ship to ever call in this country so we enter the harbor, and a couple of us went to the shore to set up some things and we are greeted by this short energetic woman that seems to be everywhere and she comes up to me and cubs my hand and hugs me and says my name is gela and i am pleased you are here we are so happy you come to visit us fifth and we have people that want to share your enthusiasm

she was a wonderful woman from azerbaijan in the early country and she seemed to know everybody in the country. it doesn't matter whether they are jewish or arab or christian who were visiting she seemed to know everybody and her enthusiasm for people and the possibilities of people doing things togher is quite contagious. i asked her what she down here employed at the israeli government or the u.s. navy hired her. she looked at me strangely. no, i came because i want to welcome you. we want to welcome you. meet my friends. stayed in touch and have seen how many times and the last 30

some years and remarked to several people that if she were the president, maybe not likely to be the prime minister, if she were the president of this country, things would have happened probably a lot faster. she showed me what was possible. she would take me out when we have time and introduce me to people every religious and cultural and travel persuasion we could imaginend it's actually a pretty diverse country and people are in lebano and jordan and egypt and in turkey and just about every place else in the region i have to tell you i have to confess she is not quite so enthusiastic today about the longer-term as she s back in those days. but she still has an optimistic view of people. so i took a lot of lessons from that first meeting and i keep in mind. anything is possible if people are willing to work for it.

and she certainly is. i digress. back to the policy. the policy-making and execution in this region has been shaped and pressurized by political and economic and security factor you might ask so what. what's different. for this reason and legislatures. while the middle east is complicated by acutely conflicting religious and ethnic and social issues and there's land the sand the vast desert areas, millions of square miles of mostly parhed earth, rocks and sand. sand on the move shifting constantly in the wind coming and there is the silence the emptiness, the absolute absence

of sound in the desert that envelops the census like a shroud. i didn't appreciate this until i actually experienced it. i've vented asserts many places. they've never been keeping that in the desert as i have in several places in the middle east to have this feeling. it presses down on one everywhere. is an assault on the senses. it is an ever-present reminder of the unforgiving environment in which the survival is a today where people with with a shrewd interaction. ..

>> millennium here has featured change and conflict, alliances, they often shipped. now the united states. with a little more than half a century of experience in the region, half a world away, has inserted itself in endeavors to craft a policy. it can be grouped into three main categories. economic political and security. in the economic sphere, the dening issue the participated in renewed american interests in

the 1940s and continues to shape engagement today can be expressed in one word. oil. the energy sector, by vast petroleum and natural gas, reserves in the region of the industalized another development in the nations of the world. >> recogzed by the u.s. and on other inustrial countries, created a harjo carbon dependency that magnify the influence of this region of the world economic and political status. the middle east embargo in the 1970s and the returning spike in the 1980s sent shockwaves

rippling through the financial market. persistently high price of oil was a result, and resulted in small behavioral changes from the u.s., japan and western europe. namely reduced consumption albeit slight, in a pursuit of alternative energy sources. you demand from china and india to power the developing country has had baseball in the middle east and identity resources. the ripple effect of supply and sensitivity have maintained a high level of u.s. interes in the region. a major factor in the energy business in the available supply since the 70s has been the international oil cartel, opec the organization of petroleum exporting countries, which has

influenced supplies with a resulting impact osupplies on other nations. by the way replacing the railroad commissioner of texas for those with memory. as the arbiter of world oil prices. of course, this country tends to t in its interest unanimity will not act in opec's behavior. the track record of the group in line with various wars and international tensions have resulted in higher prices and is a major factor in the world economy. with high impact and high interest world leaders. opec has blamed a new factor in the past decade, which h supported the unusually were on a historic basis, high prices would be interesting will futures is an asset class and world financial market. i believe this is truly becoming a factor in keeping the markets up.

u.s. policymakers have achieved on spotty success in moderating oil price fluctuations. supply and demand for oil and gas will continue to be at or near the top of economic concerns regardless of declining u.s. imports from the region because of worldwide energy needs. virtually all of these are conveyed by sea, along with other commerce in the region. these commercial lifelines are the economic lifelines of the world and special interest of the u.s. and its identity for addressing this interest, the u.s. navy. of particular concern are the three major merits. potential choke points through which they a all energy exports in the region. strait of hormuz, and the suez canal. more than half of the oil and

gas coming out of the golf actually continue around through india and through northeast asia. the straits are high interest all throughout the world. as we are aware, these points, namely iran, yemen somalia and egypt, our current points of purity and stability. we mentioned previously but to emphasize again the interdependence and counter activity of wrld economies guarantees the impact of events, good or otherwise, in this region for world economic and political entities. given the near instantaneous transmission of information around the world, the combination of high energy

demand limited reserves and nearly continuous turmoil and attention on the region. the latest anxiety and potential for interference or manipulation of the energy flow. segueing into the topic of security is a driving factor of interest for t u.s. we note in stabity, conflict in wars are continuous hallmarks. the postcolonial era in the region is featured conflict of one kind or another spending the entire middle east through the north african area and beyond the call. in addition to concern about energy resources, the region feature commonlyn the cold war. and witnessed the emergence of authoritarian leaders almost everywhere. the creation of the state f israel has proven to be an

enduring flashpoint in arab and israeli relations. in a split up since the 1940s. the u.s. has had a robust marathon presence the end of world war ii. but only a modest few ships in the gulf through the 1970s. u.s.ilitary forces became much more attentive with the rhizome rise of the iranian revolution procedure of the iraqi war in 1980. it was a series of bloodletting that was in the status quo antebellum between iraq and iran. president jimmy carter came into office not long after the oil embargo in 1973. having been deeply disturbed of the economic impact and u.s.

dependency, he famously declared the energy crisis the moral equivalent of war. this concern heightened by events in iran and the soviet invasion of afghanistan, led to another declaration, the so-called carter doctrine, as stated by president carter in his state of the union address in january 1980. let our position be absolutely clear. an attempt by an outside force to gain control of the persian gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the united states of america in su an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force. this message was aimed primarily at the soviet union. this restateme of previous and more general warnings by truman and nixon, started wheels

turning in washiton and elsewhere. in fact, the time the u.s. had scant military capability in the region. and it recently begun strategizing about potential middle east contingencies. establish a task force was directed to focus on the area with the aim of ensuring stability and commerce. a few years later under president reagan, that reservation was upgraded to full combatant status as the united states central command. the high-level military attention that continues today was institutionalized man. u.s. forces again, primarily rathon, began spending more time particularly in the gulf. with both wrong in iraq as they jockey for advantage. throughout the 1980s. relations between the u.s. and around were contentious setting

the stage for what has become a decade-long of animosity distrust and posture. this has evolved to the situation today in which iran is working hard to achieve an upper hand against preemptive action and nuclear weapons capabilities. saddam hussein's invasion of kuwait in 1990 and the resulting us-led coalition from iraqi forces led to the first large-scale introduction of u.s. ground and air forces for the region. this influx of man and woman power and culture was viewed with anxiety and the gulf states. especially in the kingdom of saudi arabia. but it's a good, albeit reluctantly, in order to counter the aggression. expulsion of saddam's forces from kuwait featured a diverse coalition of forces and throhout the region, carefully assembled by the u.s. and is is

considered the high watermark of regional security cooperation debate. iran, of course did not join the coalition despite a decade-long conflict with iraq in fact, agreed to terms ending hostilities with saddam, shortly after the latter invaded kuwait. in the aftermath of the first gulf war u.s. retained a higher profile military presence in the region. mostly naval and air forces, but including a substantial ground capability in kuwait. the focus now is to contain iraq, as if saddam continues suppression in the south of iraq threatening neighbors against western interference. it is noteworthy that eventually all u.s. military presence is were removed from the kingdom of saudi arabia.

tensions remained high in the '90s as they frustrated every effort to stabilize the region. despite enthusiastic intentions by president george h. w. bush and his administration to leverage the cooperation experienced during the gulf war to encourage settlements of these really in palestinian issue, no real progress was realized and that security situation continued to feature almost constant conflict by military and terrorist actions and all-too-familiar creature of the amnesty between the sides. attacks against the u.s. on september 11 2001 headined the seriousness of security threats posed by radical islamists, organized by al qaea on the direction of osama bin laden. thes attack attacks had huge

repercussions on the world. the complexity and enormity of regional security issues and second, the consequences of perception by people. it is ironic that many of the radicals that caused so much pain and last decade, were the same people who we supported with financial material resources just a few years previously in afghanistan and the struggle against the soviets. the complex and seemingly contradictory lines of activity in the region merit our attention an attempt at understanding. the second issue here of perceptions, our own people in the region is related to the previous one. a key attribute of our perception of the middle east is generalization. a common inclination for simple understanding but one fraught with peril was to know our differences but people won't

together. this oversimplified perception coupled with the enormity of fear, outrage and the desire for reliation, which ripped our nation and elsewhere, post 9/11 complicated our ability to pan strategically. we would do well to remember that the middle east defines generalization. after 9/11 we witnessed afghanistan to expel al qaeda, the invasion of iraq in increasing hostility and relations with iran and the movement of forces throughout the nation. let me summarize rent security issues and the repercussions today. the wars in iraq and afghanistan and their consequences. finally, the continued threat of

radicals enter attks supported by regional entities. linkages about that lingering mistrust of u.s. intentions continues to motivate potential terrorists. we are focused on regime change, following the iraqi model. u.s. support for recently deposed and currently challenge governments is viewed with great suspicion. moving to the social dimensions of u.s. poliy, we were immediately in uncharted waters. the unprecedented events commonly referred to as the arab spring have challenged conventional thinking and appear to be moving in multiple directions. first, let's talk about some background. after our initial foray in the 19th century the significant

event next to occur in the region was present franklin delano roosevelt on his way back from tehran he went to malta and including egypt, and then boarded a u.s. navy ship, interestingly. which set sail for the great lake. in a period of a day and a half psident roosevelt entertained free three visitors. images and pictures of him at the time showed a serious situation and how ill he was. when he asked to meet with three leaders in the region. individually first, mhmoud ahmadinejad from saudi arabia. king farouk of egypt.

in the emperor of ethiopia. i am seeing pictures of these events and they were entertaining if nothing else. a picture of this it was a u.s. navy heavy cruiser with guns an anchors in the middle of the lake. part of the suez canal passage. along comes the destroyer bearing the king of saudi arabia and his entourage, which were in the hundreds. they all came aboard and pictures of the king and the president sitting together. in the line of what must be 100 watching intently. it is noteworthy that politics

not oil highlighted each of these conversations with the president. king farouk was interested in getting out of egypt. the king returned to ethiopia. a very strenuous terms against the formation of the jewish state. as we know the end of control which borders arbitrarily the powers set in motion events and activities which vexed policymakers today. governments which replaced the orioles were headed without

exception at one time or another. the absence of democracy individuals and groups, including well-known entities like the muslim brotherhood in the [inaudible name] party generally did litle to address the need of advancements of individual citizens. with the cold war's backdrop regional leaders often they were, seeking economic and military support, and we usually reward them for their cooperation by t great powers. the u.s. has often found itself in regional policy dilemmas as it strives toboost democratic processes, yet not alienate longtime supporters who are otherwise stab economic security arrangements. ultimately vertical sediments

and solutions must be found and should be the long-term aim of the united states. but where to focu first to with issues in the region, it is understandable that policymakers are often challenged with the issue du jour. something comes up every day. and we have to deal with it. but we do it at the expense of the long-term issues. the three big challenges in the region today that overshadow all else, by the way their linkage between these two, first, the uprisings and protest are in record numbers. second, upon its request for nuclear weapons while continuing to inflate revolution nd export terrorism. third, the long stering impasse between the israelis and palestinians. some are of the view that if

only palestine were solved, everything else would be resolved. i don't embrace that view. but i do believe that a solution, no doubt imperfect, and not without risk and anxiety must be found fothis problem. the status q is untenable for both parties. the resolution of the conflict is a crucial and vital national security interest of the united states. the u.s. us american leadership is an essential component, catalyst and conference provider if we are ever to see a google lucian accommodates israeli security interests and palestinian sovereignty. iran, with the first shock waves of the postcolonial era itself would be to overthrow the shop, has exchanged one type of authoritarian rule for the other, albeit with some trappings an government. the right to return to the historic dominance in the

region, but they continue to arrange things to start trouble in and around palestine and israel and neighboring iraq and afghanistan. as with other top issues in the region, this one has many layers of complexity, including centuries-old competing disputes, and anti-americanism as part of their credibility and visions of historic renderer. resolution of this issue will involve the u.s. and require a vast reservoir of intern pension planning, terrible executions and a lot of patience. the last of the challenges is how to deal with the monumental achievements in the end of the colonial period or the popular movements sweeping the region are the clear indicator of dissatisfaction with the recent status quo. out with the old and easily understood message. what remains to be seen is what

macs. have seen a revolution and governing from the past, more often than not, some degree of chaos, or at least untidiness and dues. we are inclined to admire actions that oppose tyrants. the problem, of course, is without her international and institutional structure of governance, the process is a little different. it is no small matter to establish the training and experience and checks and balances necessary for a functional government. the challenge of establishing representative governments functional government institutionsin which citizens have trust and confidence and is daunting and unsettling for us to watch. what should we do? first things first. we must ask ourselves before we can credibly convince others of the righteousness of our policies. these steps have to be reduced

and the government must be put on financial footing that than it sounds. we should fix primary education. it is abysmal in far too my places in this country. we need torefocus innovation and emphasize research and development. that is the future cop. do not accept mediocrity for fear of offending. it is all too prevalent today. we have an unparalleled legacy of national behavior based on principle and values in this country. let's return to basics. let's hold our officials accountable. act responsibly and for the common good. treat people with dignity and demonstrate good behavior. people notice if we offer a good example and walk the talk, we enter policy discussions with credibility and competence. we tend every day business with principled action.

policies should follow a description of fairness and collective good and freedom of choice. we don't turn our backs on friends. the principle preference. engaging on the three big issues. bad news with the festering israeli conflict does not get better with time. iran is not just going to melt away in the desert heat. the revolutionary wave of self-expression will continue. we can help, by example, and by assisting with the tools of institutional government. this is not easy. it is going to require planning and patience and go full employment of all aspects of american national power. keeping in mind that changes everpresent technology advances with astonishg celebration, human behavior is reliably, if unpredictably,

return. 200 years ago an adolescent found an interest in economy and national reputation, in the middle eas and north africa. not a big issue and a long way from home, but vexing. her leadership established policy decided on a course of action and used the capabilities of government to resolve the issue. the message of those actions when a long way to establish the reputation of the united states. we have many good reasons to act as a major power in a beacon of freedom that we have becomas a nation. the middle east needs today more than ever, american leadership. the sand will continue to shift but we should not shy away. people in the region act on yearning for change freedom and choice. the region has great geopolitical importance for the

u.s. and these are reasoned thoughtful, and carefully planned engagement. let me finish with a few wines from hov longfellow. we can make our lives sublime and departing, leave behind us footprints on the sands of time. thank you very much you have been kind, and i will be happy to try to take your questions. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> what i learned from iraq where shall i begin. i have an answer when i showed up on the scene over there actually in 2006 the first time during the war.

the response was i cannot undo what has happened in the past but i can work on where we are now and what we are going to do inhe future. what we did was the lesson here is that it is extremely complex. before we jump into such endeavors again, we need to do an awful lot of studying, i believe a lot more than we did at that particular time when the war began. because the old adage that things are often not as they appear was oh, so true. we learned a lot of hard lessons at every level. some very challenging circumstances, we had engagements that rival those of world war ii in intensity and casualties unfortunately. they went time and again to what

they were asked to do. at the end of the day, it is all about people. you have to have a level of trust. somebody asked this question today. let's talk about trust. without trust at every level we can't succeed unless you are a dictator or tyrant and can dire things that hpen, not for long. so we spent the better part of the year trying to build trust with the iraqi people. because of the end of the day, it is their country. and they had to step up and take over and solve the problems. it is easy to say from a distance that we should've done that earlier on, but we didn't. they didn't trust us and they weren't sure what we were going to do. some of them are probably going to walk away the first opportunity d some thought we were never going to go away. and everywhere in between. we have to work at establishing trust, nicky back out of that

you get back to higher things, it's a good thing. we act based on principle and we try every time to do the right thing to have a measured response to the challenge. it would be nice if everyone in the world were basically decent human beings. they are not, unfortunately. they are not at all. but we spend our too muc time in my opinion digging ourselves out of holes that we jump into instead of taking a preventive step that we could and should be doing and let me give you a couple of examples. there are many troubled areas in the world. areas and regions and people that could use our help in the system. but we have this aversion to doing things in many cases, spending money to engage in international affairs. it is really tough.

it is a tough sell on the hell and i used to try to convince the leaders that he would fund an ounce of prevention today, we would prevent -- look at all the chileans we have whistled away in last decade. i had a fraction of that money during the early part of the war when i was in the pacific. i was thinking of the good i could do in indonesia and the philippines and malaysia and india. i don't mean giving things to people. dead set against the basic welfare business, is empowering them to fix things to get competent at running their countries and running their infrastructure and they do it. in many cases they need help our help. this ia much better use of our resource than digging ourselves out.

i think we have seen is before. r? >> i'm sorry, i feel my failed my duty here. i am not supposed to talk until the microphone gets in front of your face. the helpful people will take care of that. >> youalk about spending money. my question is would you address your thoughts on the ceiling and endless desire of the corporate and plitical pressure by companies that make a lot of money by selling military equipment what we have now and what is accurate, is that they are trying to force greater expenditures through congress and even the military people are asking for and if we are the only remaining super power, we over militarized.

>> the problem with this is that we live in an era of sound bites and in opinions. and we are constantly bombarded by people who have something to say about an issue of which they generally know little. but they focus on an issue. so let's pick this or that company, who is lobbying to build more at abc or whatever that thing may be and should we buy two of these, 20 of these or 200 of these. who knows. the bigger picture issues and my sense. we have a decade of expansion of the department of dfense budget, and regrettabl most of that money has been whisked over to the side and form places. during that time. we unfortunately invested very little in the future.

the wise household and business does ear-term things midterm things, and long-term planning. in the u.s. government spending arena, that equation is usually out of chilled. soou could find every angle on these arguments and find a piece of this is absolutely accurate in the piece that is not accurate. we know that defense spending is going to come down. with certainty. it's started already an it will continue. exactly what the level is, it remains to be seen. it ought to be $333 billion because i don't have a visibility. but i will tell you one thing. there's an awful lot of stuff that is wasted. and it is wasted for 100 reasons. in the process.

just the process itself consumes incredible amounts of money. the big thing that i believe first things first, instead of haggling over the 233 or 243 we need to get the bigpicture right and get the budget going. that means some things will calm down and some things will have to go up. but instead of haggling over my pet project or my influence for my contract or my lobbyist thing, my opinion, the guys that are elected that we have elected need to get their act together and they are long overdue to come up with a coherent plan that gets us in a state of solvency where we actually hav credibility when we talk. can you imagine is talking to untries, maybe other than greece about getting your financial house in order with all that we have seen? come on. i would say that the challenge

and i was talking to a student today, a bunch of bright young people, in my opinion we have an opportunity to play with balls and juggle balls. people in this country are confused. they can't see the really important things stuff that of interest, but at the end of the day, what kind of impact will it have on the future of the country? little to none. so i would ask that the discourse focused on the big items rather than in his 3995, and of course these are billions because that is the number two shorter in washington. there are some things that we need. some things we can do without. and you have some people that have been working pretty hard. they actually have to institute these budgets.

i had my ersonal preferences. i am a guy that was always inclined to go witsmaller, leaner, meaner reasons. the least i had some span of control. the next student? >> okay, go ahead. >> from a strategic perspective is the u.s. aligning with israel a gesture is in the middle east region? >> are you going into the media? >> i don't want to give you a hard time, but i will. >> this is the kind of framing and this is a question i have heard before and seen all the time, that doesn't do justice to the issue. the issue for us is to believe what i say about the principle

being the guiding light of execution of policy, crafting execution. the principle is israel is the only country in the entire middle east that has a true democracy. now, it is not pretty, and it is rewed up and they can't make a decision and they have 100 other things wrong and there are so many other parties they ought to do tmselves a favor and outlaw half of them, but i have enough trouble here without getting involved in israeli politics. they are an exemplary democracy where people have a say on who is in the government, what they do a what they spend on how they act. regrettably, that can't be said about many other places. people remotely in the region. what do we support?

is a pain in the neck? we disagree? under different approaches and lack of tact? again, big balls and little balls, this is an exemplary kind of goernment that takes care of its people. this is what we want to encourage. and then there is a lot of history, which we could spend an hour on. but on the other hand just because we support democracy and just because we uphold the oppounities for freedoms and choices doesn't mean that we can condemn our behaviors. and so, again, much easier for somebody like me on the outside i was is there a couple of weeks ago, so they probably don't want to hear it again but there are some things that they ought to tend to businesses do. of all the things that keep

people in jerusalem awake at night, and there are a lot of them, you have to live in state where death and danger lurks everywhere. in a lot of cases this applies to a lot of countries. there has been a lot of mayhem and terror. people are tired of it. on the other hand, if they don't solve this issue and come to an agreement with the other people who live in this region, this is not going to get better. it's going to get worse. the results on either side are going to continue to try to force something and it will blow up. so we have a challenge. we have to work with them. we have to encourage them. we have to insist on them and again, longtime friends, they have supported us and many

things we supported them for a lot of reasons. you could go back to these claims and counterclaims. one of the biggest problems in the middle east is fact -- don't bother me with facts. this is about perceptions. i was in washington on the hill and i was a dumb young whippersnapper that thought he knew too much. and i was in the hearing and being pummeled by some witness that was outrageously expounding on something that was just not true. so i grit my teeth and waited until the chairman said what you have to say out that. and i said well, m chairman in my world, i deal with facts. and i have not heard many facts aretoday whereupon the chairman leaned across the table and pt his finger out towards my chest and lectured me for the next

five minutes and said you have something to learn son. the perception is you guys are screwed up in this amount. in the middle east the legends have become enduring myth. many people in this light on 10 region believe things that are absolutely not true. they have heard the story so many times and it becomes part of the fabric of life. it is really tough to change these opinions. some years ago they figured out in an era of relative peace, not in work. maybe the conflict and bloodletting will make them come to their senses. we are the only likely facilitator to broker a deal

that might be enjoying in this area. we will just have to work on it. it's a long answer but it's typical of the issues and there is almost nothing that is simple. nothing that appears as they say. maybe in the background. i will work my way back. okay. >> i would like you to comment on an early news show today. they interviewed a former ambassador from syria. his comment was bashar as-assad'ss never going to stop fighting. the opposition is never going to stop fighting. and he said it was up to the u.s. to stop it. which i interpreted as sending troops in. would you comment on this? >> i don't think i would sign up for that description.

i think bashar as-assad's days are numbered, it's a matter of time. he will not go easily her quietly, but it is pretty obvious that the level discontent and discord is significant. at the end of the day hehas in my opinion, a strong quarterly of supporters but it is a distinct minority in the country. they all have to be weighing their options right now. there is the opposition, and as it gets older fortunately we will see more iolence. but i don't think it's going to last forever. for us to jump into this frying pan if i were still in the region and this was my responsibility, one of th first questions i would ask is what you want me to do. ..

and we've discovered the cost of these things is extremely high. that's not our m.o., discernly and one would think that despite desire to help out -- that this is snag we're probably just going to have help along and -- but i don't think it's a great idea for us to jump in the middle of it. somebody on that side?

richard? >> yes, sir. much of the turmoil in the middle east seems to involve sunni muslims versus shiite muslims. and i gather these animosities and rivalries go on or go back for centuries. and they just have increased in violence. in countries when the animosity has been around so long and continues to exist, what's the news there? >> most of the countries don't have a much of a conflict within the country. bahrain is probably the exception right now because you've got a sunni family leadership that's about 20% and the rest of the population is about 80% shia. but often it's very small shia minorities.

the issue has been iraq. where about half the population is shia. and the sunni and the kurds share the rest of the country. there were a lot of things offered back when i was still serving out there. and one of them was that because iran was shia, and they were helping the iraqis that in the blink of an eye, as soon as we left, the place would turn into a shia strong hold, twice as big as iran today. and that sent tremors afear through all the gulfies the gulfies being those countries on the south side of the arabian gulf. and back here in washington they had a lot of adherence to that idea. and i used to shake my head and

say, wait a minute, i don't think this is going to play out this way. yes, the leadership in baghdad right now maliki and his government o's a lot to the iranians. most of them took shelter in iran when they were being purse cuted by saddam. and it's heavily dominated by shia. but these people have been around a long time, and one of the things we don't pay attention to, but they do, is that iran is overwhelmingly shia but iran is run not by arabs. it's run by persians. and their few in my opinion from my research and experience is that the arabs are -- they are out there but they are not at our level. the shia arabs in iraq are well

aware of this. and so however much support maliki may get from iran, the idea that iran is going to go in there and call all the shots i think is highly unlikely. we're not going to solve the shia and sunni split in islam. that's for the -- to rumble on about. it's a factor with the shia, because at least in the middle east and there's so many centuries of domination by the sunnis that they have not unexpectedly a persecution and -- perception. you get a little irrational from an outside view, but it doesn't have to be this way. give you an example. in a previous life out in the pacific, one of the areas which i had in my area of responsibility was indonesia. it's overwhelmingly muslim.

much greater population than any country in the world islamic population, and they are not radical at all. their brand of islam is very benign. i mean, they are devout muslims. they are not giving in to these extremes which goes back to some of my earliest impressions to this region. i think most of it has to do with the environment. this is really tough territory. go back and look at the violence i don't know thousand is brown or yellow. it should be red with all the blood that's been spilled there. it's really interesting when you start peeling the onion back on some of these. for example, shia iran working with olaway-dominated syria to

help the decidedly sunni hamas extremists in gaza. interesting. again, the hamas guys are looking for whatever help they can get. the iranians are looking to incite trouble anywhere they can do it. it's like a marriage made in heaven. like the crooks and criminals anywhere in the world. so it's a factor and concern. no doubt about it, my conversations with king abdullah in saudi arabia and king abdullah in jordan, the other gulfies the am roddies they worry about it. i was thinking why are they worried about it? they are all worried about the retribution thing so maybe they feel guilty for centuries of -- they weren't even around. so maybe they are concerned, but it's not as big of a

concern as some people might put it up to be. gentleman with the silver hair. >> this will be the last one. >> the hook? to bring it back to the navy a little bit. in the arabian sea and arabian gulf, the naval buildup that's going on now what do you think would happen if you think the iranians attempted to close the straits or created an incident in the gulf? >> well, first of all, it's back to basic. as i indicated historically our presence is maritime. the countries out there don't want a u.s. foot print ashore of -- much of any dimension. it doesn't fit with more of the conservative countries so the navy is really the way to go. the iranians, they might try. they will do it at their perle. it's just at their peril but

it's not a question. they can't match up against us. unfortunately you get a lot of posturing and then political reaction. so we're getting back to budget stuff now we're stretched kind of thin. there's not a whole lot of slack in aircraft carriers. my son is a naval i have a yater. just finished his fifth session, he said guys are being sent back on a six-month turnaround. this is where it takes courage from the leaders. there's too much tactical detail for this audience. but there are ways to do this. we can demonstrate power. periodically show that we have muscle and the where withdrawal and and the wherewithal and training to execute what we

need to do. the message needs to be sent sometimes to these guys, because sometimes they have short memories or there's zealotry and their enthusiasm may overlook their brains. my experience out there was when i dealt with the iranian navy they were a pretty professional lot. but the revolutionary guards that have been given the upper hand by humaney now or hom anyway they are not so disciplined. they have some cowboys in that crowd. that's one of the dangers is one of these yahoos screws up and somebody thinks they are really in jeopardy. and something starts. 123w4 if they start it, they may have temporary success, but it's not going to be for long, and the thing i always say is iran lives and dies with its oil and gas exports. they all come out through the

gulf. so if it gets closed, that's the nail in their coffin as far as their ability to continue to sustain themselves, so talk is cheap. but the thinking needs to be cautious mindful and we ought -- it bugged the heck out of me because media was always trying to insight me to say some tidbit that they can trumpet back down the house pipe. this is an area that is much better done quietly not just this particular thing, but the whole business of operating in this region. that's how the locals like it. and that's what they are used to and that's probably what we ought to think back and start doing. but we've got to get back in the mode of thinking and planning long-term. important things first and then worry about the little things. ok? it's been a pleasure to be with you. thank you very much.

>> thank you so much. [applause] >> thank you so much. [applause] >> i would do a dance. but you don't want to see that out there. very kind of you putting up with this. thank you. >> coming up in a few moments a look at financial regulations and the economy. "washington journal" is live at 7:00 eastern with segments on this year's senate races and banks that still o'the government money from the tarp bailout. and at 10:00 a.m. eastern more of the coverage from the democratic national committee drafting committee. several live events to tell you about this this morning. the education department hosts the second day of a forum of bullying. that's on c-span 2 at 8:30

eastern. and the center for american progress labor secretary hilda some license about jobs and communication in the latino community. >> look for our -- >> i had no idea about the experiences of many of the people who are essentially my predecessors or correspondents or diplomats in berlin. despite all the time i spent in germany, i didn't spend a lot of time thinking what would it have been like to have been a correspondent there in the 1920's and 1930's. what would you have noticed and not noticed and how would you have acted? >> andrew in a golf course can i -- nagorski. >> now a look at financial regulations and the economy. from a recent hampton's

institute. this includes the secretary for financial institutions, this is an hour and 15 minutes. [applause] >> good afternoon we're glad to be here to talk about economics finance regulation wall street and various other things financial over the next hour-to-hour and 15 minutes. so hope you stay with us and enjoy it. let me start by introducing the panel. to my near left is ken miller, the president and ceo of ken miller capital who is one of the more prolific writers and best thinkers on wall street. he has also been served successfully as vice chairman of merrill lynch capital markets and cdit credit. credit suisse first boston. he served on a number of boys viacom kinder care

learning and lowe's corporation. it is a long list. he is an active member of theouncil of foreign relations. board member on the committee of u.s. china relations. we'll ask him about china today which is one of his areas of expertise. in the middle here is cyrus amir-mokri assistant secretary of financial institutions. a post once held by sheila bair in a previous administration. cyrus is most recently served as a senior counsel to the chairman of the commodities futures trading commission where he was also the agency's deputy representative to the financial stability oversight council. he has also been a partner at the law firm focusing on a complex securities a antitrust litigation. to my far left is one of the legends of wall street joe

parella, chairman and ceo of parella, weinberg and partners. he has also been a several senior positions at morgan stanley including vice chairman chairman of institutional securities and instite investment banking. and of course he was the founder of cofounder of waser stein pa rella and before that with his late parter bruce situationerstein ran first banking desk. memmably in my own experience my very first business story in 1982 was about boone pickens's first takeover attempt of citi service and bruce and joe were on the other side of that deal working for citi service. it was a memorable way to be introduced to the world of business i must say. cyrus, let's start with you. just because this is such a this is the second anniversary, this weekend of

the passage of dodd-frank the financial regulation bill. and we'll talk a little bit about you know how wall street feels about these regulations. whether they make sense or not. whether there's overreach but as a member of the administration that helped push them and pass them and is now in the very very complicated process of trying to get them up and running just give us a sense please of where we stand with dodd-frank at this moment in time. >> sure joe. i the bottom line in my view is that very well first of all dodd-frank includes some essential reforms for the financial system that were t in place. you all remember where we were in the fall of 2008 with the financial system at the ink about.

needed to strengthen the financial institutions. we needed to reform our regulatory structure. we needed to put in place reforms to improve some of the shad dough banking system and how it works. bring the derivatives market into the light of day. it's overall you know those, the basic contours of what the financial system should look like have been put in place through the legislature. the regulators have been working extremely hard over the past couple of years to further define those contours. they have, you know tre has been a lot of articles especially in the past week

for instance and this has been a criticism that a number of peole have mentioned over the past couple of years as to why isn't this going more quickly? i think there was a judgment made very early on that the results of the rule writing should be the to calibrate properly the details of the reform effort to get things right. emphasize quality over speed and that's what's been going on. and when you look at where we are two years from the crisis, i think basically in the area of clarity with respect to where the rules are headed there has been significant proess. 90 plus percent of the rules have been proposed. many of them finalized. many imptant ones have been finalized. many other important ones are soon to be finalized. and also i think our

financial institutions are much better off than where they were a couple of years ago. >> well to take one example. if too big to fail institution was on the brink of failure would dodd-frank would the federal government be able to close it down? >> i think what you have joe, in the legislation and in the rules at the fdic a the d have put together are the basic outlines of what would happen in the instance of major financial institution whose failure would have financial stability implications. what that basic outline of action is going to be. so if you put title two together with some of the other authorities for instance at the federal reserve and the fdic have you have the basic template for how it's going to happen. >> joe what is your take on

the amount of regulation about basically what the government has done in a regulatory framework since the financial crisis? >> well there's a certain fundamental things that happened to to the world of finance and it sort of raises a question in my mind and again i'm speaking personally not for my firm and that is whether or not the creativity and ingenuity and in some cases diabolical nature of certain kinds of individuals that exist in all walks of life can be kept up with by regulators? so, you know impolice it in the word regulation is that somehow there's real regulation going on and that

one's able to protect the society from the excesses of the events that happen on a regular basis and have happened throughout history on a regular basis in our industry. so if you look at the financial system it basically evolved from a very low-tech paper-based system to and i might add privately-owned so that the people who worked in the industry had their houses if you will on the table every day up for capture if they misbased and lost money. and that system evolved to one that was very technology-driven rather than paper-driven and one which was publicly held so that the institutions had

permanent capital which got pushed to the limits because of the pressure on public companies to perform. and then that all culminated and this is a very short history with the demise of the barriers between the things that were once security companies and deposit-taking federally guaranteed institutions. and so and these aren't my thoughts because, you know ihaving started a company six years ago that now has 425 people in it i don't i have never read dodd-frank okay? so you kw it's, how many pages? okay. the original glass-steagall act was around 35 pages. so i haven't read it. and i don't spend a whole lot of time obsessing about it because in a sense i'm in what you callhe shadow banking industry and in a

positive way. just about every business that commercial banks are in today are being set upon by new entrants that are picking apart the different businesses they're in with the exception of two things. market-making and lending. those are there is nobody trying to get into the lending business in a big way. so so i'm like i come from the school that says these pele are so smartnd so crafty and so creative and many times in a very positive way that it is very hard for people that are sitting in a building reading e-mails and looking at charts and stuff to know what's really going on and to prevent the next debacle and even in the best-run-instutions like jpmorgan. we allheard foronths and months that they were the best-run. you know they woke up one

day and some guy called a whale in london cost them $6 billion. okay? so in other words, i'm not against regulation. all i'm saying is in the words of henry kaufman, who was the chief economist for many years at solomon brothers and who a lot of people have a high regard for, who is an economist. he says dodd-frank enshrined too big to fail. >> cyrus we'll give you a chance to respond to that in a minute but ken i do believe, had some thoughts also about you know basically what needs to be done to rein in wall street d to regulatory and otherwise, right? >> well i do have some thoughts about it joe. i think the problem with regulation is that it as joe said it enshrines a certain protocol and then people make it their job to get around that.

so remember the body cunt in vietnam. people shoot for a target. then there are unintended consequences like the whistle-blower part of dodd-frank which tends to chill internal discussions. and then there is the sheer complexity of it. but my basic issue with dodd-frank and on balance i agree that it is a step forward, a good step forward but my basic problem is again taking up on joe it's not going to solve the cycle problem. there will be additional panics because it's in the nature of banking to run businesses on leverage. which means they borrow 10 to $30 for every dollar of equity they can rely on and when people change their mind about the stability of the institution there's a run on the bank.

and as merwin king the bank of england guy said when the's a run on the bank the only rational thing to do is to participate. so i have some ideas about what to do about wall street but it gets down to my perception that we've allowed wall street to get away with a worshipping at the altar of short-term greed. i can talk about that later. >> you will get a chance to. cyrus why don't you respond. >> let me just make a -- joe made a number of very important and interesting comments. there are a lot of them. let me unpack a couple. as to whether there should be regulation or no regulation i think, i don't think that is really the debate. i think the there does need to be regulation. i seem to recall that david hume once made this point