push forward and advance the cyber security provisions that were included in a bill that unfortunately did not advance last week. what of the implications? one of the things we need to do is to see what we can do to maybe put additional guidelines or policies in place. if the congress is not going to act on something like this, the president wants to be sure we are doing everything possible. the legislation calling for

minimum performance standards on the cyber security front for critical infrastructure that the u.s. government would help develop with private industry. this standard would have to be followed by elements of the private sector that have responsibility. obviously, there are a lot of people that came out and misrepresented what was in that bill. the critical infrastructure of this country is under threat. they are developing advanced technologies and we have to improve our defenses on this issue. president obama has called on us to keep pushing on congress and doing what we can under executive branch authorities. >> how serious are the threats?

from theoretical vulnerability to actually being attacked. >> when you do in that assessment, you take a look at what the capabilities are. then it talks about the vulnerabilities of the target of the attack. right now, i can tell you with great certainty that the vulnerabilities are there, the capabilities are there, so it is a question of intent. whether certain actors are going o operation alliealize the capabilities of. we see intellectual property rights are just robbed. it is a system that is privately owned and privately operated space. the government is not trying to

go in and regulate. clearly, the market has not developed in a way to satisfy cyber security requirements. if they did, we would not have billions of dollars in losses that companies are now writing off. the american people are going to be at risk. the water we drink, the electricity that we depend upon, the hospital that requires that type of support. that is increasingly at risk. >> give us an example of a vulnerability. let's take the ... the great. grid.icity it has the vulnerability of

being disabled or crippled. >> there are cyber intrusions that go in and operationally prepare the environment to map it, or understand it, infiltrates data, or then you understand it and take actions to destroy it. we are seeing a lot of intrusions and infiltrations'. the next that is disruptive, disabling types of attacks. electric grids, water treatment facilities, mass transportation systems, railways or trains. if those intruders can determine how they can interfere in the command and control systems of these systems, they can do things. they can put trains onto the same tracks and bring down

electric grids. >> who is most interested in doing this? >> bad guys. [laughter] >> define bad guys who would want to cripple u.s. infrastructure. is in other countries? >> first of all, you look at foreign countries. some that have tremendous cyber capabilities. do they want to bring down critical infrastructure of the united states right now? no, because they rely on the economy for a number of reasons. there are certain foreign actors who would do it in an instant. they fortunately do not have the capability at this time. you also have international criminal groups. you can do things to increase your criminal intent by bringing down infrastructure.

there can be all kinds of different reasons. >> when you say you were looking at what the executive branch can do without congressional action, are you talking about executive orders? >> executive orders are a good vehicle to direct departments to do certain things so the nation is protected. the president priority is to protect the safety of the american people as well as the prosperity of the american people. we delivered our legislative year.e to the hehill last unfortunately, the senate bill went down last week. we can now wait. we are doing things in conjunction with others, working to make sure we can better safeguard our environment but also be able to respond and be

resilient. if you take down some part of our critical infrastructure, he went to be able to recover very quickly. >> one final question before we go to the audience. this leak investigation that is going on. everybody has accused members of the administration of leaking sensitive operation details for the president's political benefit. they cite the hunt for and raid for osama bin laden. they talk about a virus in iran, selecting drone target and the president's involvement. i think some have cited the foiled terrorist plot in yemen.

what do you say in response to that? >> a couple things. there are investigations under way so we have to be respectful of that process. secondly, the president has made of lear that a nny leak information should be vigorously pursued and prosecuted if there was a violation of one's responsibilities in terms of protecting classified information. there have been some devastating leaks. it is unconscionable what has gone out. the president has made it clear to his senior team that for whatever reason if someone is trying to advance their own interests or the one to be able to cultivate a relationship with a reporter, there are very, very critical national security matters that require their to be

protection of that information so it does not get out so we can keep the american people say. without a doubt, anybody who has released any of this information should be held to the requirements and if necessary deal with the judicial system appropriately. >> there has been damage from some of these leaks. >> absolutely. there has been a conflation from people out there making claims about individuals who have leaked national security secrets for political purposes. it is easy to point fingers at the white house. frankly, i think a lot of the allegations are irresponsible. we need to make sure we are dealing with these issues in a very serious manner because the security of the united states is at risk.

we want to be able to be as transparent as possible with the american people. you mentioned when there was this instance when there was an ied that al qaeda was trying to put on an aircraft. unfortunately, information was leaked. when that operation came to a conclusion, we do have an obligation to tell the american people about what the threats are coming from al qaeda. it is mixing apples and oranges. we need to make sure leaks of national security secrets need to be pursued and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. that should not inhibit us from talking to people. the president feels strongly about engagement. i have said things about our counter-terrorism program in

terms of what we do, our ethics and values as a people. i will be mindful of our national security matters. sometimes there is tension between these things. >> we are going to questions. you all know the rules. let's start here. >> i was going to take the question back to yemen. he mentioned that it is one of the poorest countries in the world -- you mentioned that it is one of the poorest countries in the world and will be increasingly water insecure. you did not mention anything that we are doing to assist in that or direct that. i wonder if you could comment on what is is it of the king issue in that poor country. >> i think i did mention water a

couple times but did not mention specific projects. it is part of our program to look at ways where water can become more available. the water tables are being depleted in yemen rapidly. you have a population growing exponentially. as you mentioned, it is one of the most water consuming crops in the world. there are a number of things and we have talked to the yemenis and the saudis. that is not a question of building more plants along the coast. it is also a question of trying to develop communities that have a better opportunity. the population of yemen is concentrated in some real densely populated areas in just

a handful of cities. so, water development and projects that are going to allow them to address their longer- term water requirements is absolutely the central. we would like to try to work with the world bank so we can have some aid that will address the infrastructure deficiencies that exist in yemen. even their existing water system is sub-optimal. i think there are greater efficiencies that can be put into the system. saudi arabia has similar types of issues, but their population is not as concentrated in these urban centers without the availability of desalinated water. the way to address the water problem has to be multifaceted. some of it is going to be developing communities in other areas, and also a combination of

what types of projects will be able to generate more water that exists in the water table but is not available right now or desalinization project. >> right here at. >> i am a fellow at the university of virginia center for national security law. i was doing to of research on al qaeda's relationship with indigenous tribal structures. i think your assessment of the regime is correct. i have seen a lot of progress and i think the administration should be commended. i also think there are significant improvement in the security situation in the south. i have some concerns about implementation on an indigenous

basis in terms of security on the one hand and development on the other. it was clear to me from the leaders that i interviewed that economic desperation is the primary driver of al qaeda recruiting in the country. some of these regions are so desperate that it is hard for the government let alone our security apparatus to get out to some of these places. the concern i have is how do we do this diligence and who will be doing a going forward? thank you. >> we have a lot of challenges ahead in terms of addressing the multiple needs of the yemeni people in different parts of the country cannot many of which are remote and distant -- of the country, many of which are

removed oremote or removed frome government. i think what the president is trying to do -- he is a southerner from the area, so he knows the people in that area. there is going to have to be a period of time with you are going to have to develop trust in individuals so the mechanisms are in place. as money flows down, it will float down to the right places. corruption has been rampant for years in yemen. the president is trying to address that. we are talking about a short period of time. there have been complaints in the south that as a result of military forces, you do not have the police coming in or the regeneration of the communities or the shops have not been repaired.

that is difficult to do even in the united states. in a place like yemen which is seriously challenged, the instruments of interaction with local communities have been interrupted as a result of what aqap has done. what we need to do is make sure what is pumped in at the top flows through the people and the mechanisms that are going to give you confidence to derive benefits. this is going to take a while. we are counting on the president to do as much as he can. two years from now, we're still going to be facing some enormous hurdles. yemen is one of the most backwards part of the world. it is beautiful. but trying to have a country-

wide system where you can connect the government to the people in a sustained way is really tough. >> yes, someone in the middle here. the lady in the middle. if i may ask to keep your questions short because we do not have an lot of time. >> thanks. what gotuch appreciated thi the most attention putting in a broad context. the reason i think the drone program gets so much attention is because of the use of legal force which tends to get people's attention. i would like to understand more about the framework in which we are operating. this is one of the concerns a lot of americans have about that program. you described this in turn a

conflict that we are trying to assist the yemeni with in drivnig out aqap. the u.s. has a strong interest in making sure it is granted in the rules of law. are we granting that in the concept of being a party in yemen? if not, what is the legal basis for the use of lethal force? >> i would draw the distinction between what you said and what the reality is. first of all in terms of the basis for the use of lethal force, the operation of the use of lethal force provided the basis for the u.s. government and military to take action against al qaeda because it presents a threat to us. aqap clearly is one of the most active al qaeda franchises

worldwide and has been determined to carry out attacks against us. while we have aided the government in building the capacity to deal with the insurgency that exists on the ground, we are not involved in working with the yemeni government as a part of that insurgency. what needs to be made clear is there are individuals in al qaeda that are determined to kill americans whether in the homeland or other parts of the world. to a great extent to thwart those attacks. when we do not have those opportunities to prevent these individuals from carrying out the attacks, if our only recourse to take legal action to provide our partners with assistance or to do things with them to mitigate the threat, we

will do it. so, there is uncertainty -- aqap is a very interesting organization. you look at al qaeda. there are some pakistanis up there in al qaeda, but mainly they are arabs. the arabian peninsula is mostly made up of yemenis. they are not determined only to carry out attacks against americans. and a lot of them are trying to gain ground. that actually put up their flags. controlling the territory. they are trying to unseat the

government. we are trying to help the yemenis thwart that insurgency and push it back. it is counter to our interests and the arabian peninsula as a whole. where we get involved is to mitigate those terrorist threats. al qaeda in the arabian peninsula has some very creative and determined murderers that have gone to great lengths to try to find ways to put ied's on aircraft and carry out attacks on a daily basis. we are not going to sit by and let our fellow americans the killed. if the only way we can prevent this deaths is to take direct action against them, we will do so. >> this gentleman right here. then the lady right there. >> thank you so much. what is your assessment of the

claim from five members of congress that the muslim brotherhood has deeply penetrated the u.s. government? [laughter] >> i would refer you to the five members of congress who made that remark. i have no idea what it is they are making reference to. [laughter] i really cannot address that statement. >> i wanted to give you a chance to give us a report card on al qaeda at large. how they are doing in the arabian peninsula. you mentioned that you disrupted their recording operations. can you give us more specifics? >> i will start with yemen. there is a lot of attention paid to when there is an ordinance dropped by somebody

against a terrorist organization. that is what gets the focus them back on a daily basis, -- gets the focused. on a daily basis, there are operations under way thwarting these plans. you know there are different phases and in operation, from fund-raising to identifying operatives and materials or whatever else. there is a continuum there. regularly, we and the yemenis are disrupting things taking place on the continuing. on a regular basis, we are doing that. in yemen, two things are in very positive directions. one is since the president has

assumed the presidency, there is a new consistency in what the government is doing on the terrorism front. our ability to work with them and the intelligence, military, security -- that has increased significantly since he has come on. secondly, thankfully, the military has been able to reverse the gains and the momentum of aqap in the south. they have dislodged and number of those units. -- dislodged a number of those units. there are several hundred hard- core, committed, full-time fighters. then there are part-time tribal fighters that will join them because they are in their area. i do think psychologically as well as geographically there have been significant gains made by forces being able to demonstrate they can push them

out. it is the concept of clear holeville. they have been degraded significantly in terms of the number of operatives and leaders that have been taken off the battlefield. they will continue the pressure on them because that is the wellspring of al qaeda that has sprung. just because they have been bad the damage, that does not mean they do not pack a lethal punch. we know what they did on 9/11. there are a lot of individuals attracted by the al qaeda propaganda that went to carry out these attacks. we have degraded that. i am concerned about the growth of the franchises. you look at iraq or syria.

yemen, then you look at africa where you have an lot of areas that have been able to take the vantage of a vast expansion of territories that are ungoverned. in mali, there are areas in the north where al qaeda has been in with tribal areas and others that present a continued threat. right now, al qaeda elements in africa pose a regional threat but there is the concern they could use their growth to look to the north to europe and even beyond. unfortunately, al qaeda has not gone away. i know memory sometimes fades since 9/11, but the appendages of the al qaeda still exist and continue to grow. that is why we have to work with our partners.

no matter how many drones you have up there, we are trying to give space to the countries to be able to take the situations on themselves and be able to carve out the cancerous tumor of the al qaeda. >> we only have a couple minutes left. let's take two more questions as long as they are short. >> i wanted to follow up on a question. who threatens the critical infrastructure? your response was "bad guys." what is the sense of collaboration among those bad guys? >> thank you. pass the microphone over. >> i would like to address your attention to nigeria and see what your assessment is. is this an existential threat to

the state? >> those are two very big questions to answer in two minutes. >> in terms of collaboration among various groups, one phenomenon i would point to is that there are a lot of individuals who have been a part of different types of intelligence and security agencies abroad who have developed and refined their capabilities in the cyber realm. sometimes, these individuals will retire or move on to other pastures, and sometimes they set up their own efforts. sometimes they maintain relationships with their previous employers in the government. so, what we are seeing in different places in asia, there are a number of activities emanating from asia sometimes

very hard to distinguish whether it is coming from a state sponsor or working on behalf of a state-sponsored or coming from an organized criminal group or a business that is trying to advance its commercial interests. we are seeing more and more common features. we are seeing the dna that is flowing downstream. frequently, it comes from the skills that one acquires and the government. i think we have to be mindful there are relationships there either born out of a pedigree or how they develop these skills or because different types of organizations have common cause. on nigeria, it is a very serious concern that we have and

the government has as well. you have the domestic dynamics that are under way in terms of the north and the south. they have been the elements of a domestic phenomenon that now has these terrorist dimensions. what constitutes terrorism? international terrorism. just like aqap has an insurgency against the yemeni government, there are elements of the group in nigeria that have a far-end target in their sights and continue to go after them. it is an existential threat. one of the things we have learned is that these organizations have the potential to expand at a rapid

pace. it is critically important to nip it in the bud but i also think it speaks to the need to take the actions to eliminate the manifestation of the terrorist threats and actions. so, aqap had its roots in al qaeda corps, but it will take advantage of the real problems in yemen. there is a core there that has a domestic political agenda but also fed by a member of the underlying conditions that either because of discrimination or perceived inequities in the system, they are able to recruit -- the teenagers in africa that are being attracted and pulled into these

organizations. $10 or $20 is something to attract a person to sign on with a terrorist organization. 15 or 16-year olds do not know any better. you really have to tackle the problems that exist because the terrorist groups are taking advantage. president obama even though he has agreed to end authorized the actions we need to take to keep the american people say, he continues to drive home that these are just temporary measures. we need to be able to address those conditions or factors that are contributing to these terrorist organizations being able to exploit the conditions that exist in other countries. there is a much broader set of issues that need to be tackled. these countries need to develop an institution that the people

can have confidence in. judicial reform, legal reform, rooting out corruption -- these are part of a broader security effort that the president has insisted that we pursue. >> john brennan, what house adviser on counter-terrorism, thank you. -- white house adviser on counter-terrorism, thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] "washington journa [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

>> you can see all of this event shortly in our video library at c-span.org. later this month, we will air every speech and event at the

democratic and republican conventions. today cannot live coverage of president obama. -- today, live coverage of president obama. more "book tv" today at 7:00 p.m. eastern. >> sunday, look for our interview with andrew nagorski. >> i had no idea of the people who were essentially my predecessors and berlin. despite all of the time i spent in germany, i had not spent a lot of time thinking what it would be like to be a correspondent there in the 1930's and how you would have operated and what you would have noticed or not noticed, much less how you would have acted.

>> sunday at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> the house and senate are out of session now for the august recess. among the meetings happening this week, the air line pilots association annual air safety forum. the tsa chief is one of the key speakers. here is a brief look at his comments. >> -- then the continuation on christmas day, 2009. then this most recent one in 2012. those have succeeded to the point of actually being a plot against the u.s. we were aware of two female suicide bombers in 2004 on a moscow.out of imasc

we believe because of an insider issue, these two women brought down those two airliners and killed all aboard. that is something we see continuing. the challenge for tsa and everybody interested in the safety and security of passengers and cargo is what is going on here. the intelligence is such a there is no known credible or specific information relating to individuals trying to get on an aircraft today. that being said, our concern is a concern i had at the fbi overseeing counter-terrorism efforts.

those who we believe and deserved additional scrutiny at a checkpoint if they are trying to fly. those are not the ones who cause me the greatest concern. it is those who we do not know about and those who have acquired the wherewithal, the knowledge, and the skills -- whatever it is that allows them to build or improvised explosive devices that they concealed on their person, in their bags, or shipping something on cargo. >> earlier today at the air line pilots association. our live coverage of that event continues at this hour on c- span2.

labor secretary hilda solis fantasized the latino community 's contribution to this country on tuesday. her remarks came during a forum on issues confronting latinos. this is an hour and 15 minutes. >> good morning and welcome. i am the executive vice president of external affairs and i am thrilled to have all of

you joining us this morning. we have a fantastic lineup here today to talk about the importance of the latino community and talk about what the obama administration has done and continues to do to ensure opportunity remains strong for all americans including latinos. to pick us off, we have a wonderful keynote speaker that embodies the success of the latino community. secretary hilda solis. latinos are a growing and a vibrant demographic in the united states, and their successes and challenges are closely intertwined with the future of our nation. this community has observed great achievements such as the appointment of judge sonia sotomayor to the supreme court

and a growing political influence. this community is also experiencing significant challenges. latinos make up the highest number of those uninsured and have lost their homes and wealth that disproportionate rates under the great recession. these disparities run deep. they are critical stakeholders in future policy debate, yet we rarely hear the public discourse include more accurately capture the true contributions and impact of that community. in fact, it is often examined only in the heated political debate over immigration policy. let me be clear. here we are committed to creating common sense immigration policies that serve not only the latino community but all communities. we need to have a broader

conversation that includes immigration but also addresses the successes and challenges in the economy, education, health care, business development, and on and on. latinos have always been a part of the american story. today more than ever, they are our future. a conversation about them is a conversation about all of us. in the last four years, we have seen a number of initiatives to provide a pathway. we have worked hard to show how strategies, health care reform, and investments in education grow the community. we can think the administration for pushing and reforms to level the playing field and the supreme court for protecting some of the changes that are helping latinos today including keeping the affordable care act intact. challenges remain and we must

discuss what lies ahead and what else remains to be done and how to get it done. we want to make sure this important community is part of the dialogue and make sure our decision makers understand their well-being matters to all of us. that is why i am thrilled to have secretary solis start this discussion. her story is an american story of hard work, accomplishment, and service. secretary solis has served since 2009 as the secretary of labor and was the first latino woman to serve in the united states cabinet. prior to confirmation as secretary of labor, hilda solis represented the 32nd congressional district in california. in congress, her prayer is included expanded access to affordable health care, -- her responsibilities included expanding access to affordable health care and has opened

countless pathways to middle- class growth. she offered the green jobs act which provided funding for job training for veterans, displaced workers, and individuals and families under 200% of the federal poverty line. she became the first woman to receive the john f. kennedy profile in courage award in 2000 for her work on environmental justice issues. she is an admirable colleague, a champion for worker rights everywhere, so please join me in welcoming the honorable hilda solis. [applause] >> thank you so much. what a great introduction. thank you so much for having me this morning. good morning, everyone.

it is good to be here again at their other home bending so many of you are here at the very important time in the political process. i think everyone knows their research and dialogue plays a critical role in guiding our efforts in developing public policy and programs for all american people. i want to thank everyone for your commitment to this important work and for convening this important forum. thank you for making sure we keep building upon the ladder of success that opportunity for latinos. we know our nation will only be as strong as our growing communities of color. in particular, this occasion is about the latino community. since president obama took office, very real progress has been made on behalf of latinos. this president has achieved so much for our community.

the supreme court's decision to uphold the affordable care act is a huge victory for latinos and for the millions of americans who will continue to benefit from this legislation. as many as 9 million latinos will now receive health insurance because of the law. if you have a pre-existing condition, he will be guaranteed health care. lord knows patinas suffer from high rates of asthma, cancer, and diabetes. if you are a woman, you will not be discriminated against with higher premiums. many latino elderly senior citizens will continue to save hundreds of thousands of dollars for their prescription drugs. young latinos will be able to stay on their parents planned until the age of 26.

that is real progress. we are so fortunate to have a president that not only appreciates our hard work but also has the courage to build upon it. making this country fair for everyone especially in the communities that we represent is so important. a president who appointed the first latina to serve on the supreme court who also comes from humble beginnings and who also this president major our sister could represent us as ambassador to el salvador. because of president obama, hundreds of thousands of our sons and daughters can now step out of the shadows and live without fear and realize the american dream. yes, on everything from employment to education to health care and immigration,

this president has delivered. like the president says, we have only just begun. we have some very serious headwinds ahead of us. there is no silver bullet to solving the challenges of our time, and we still have more work to do. we need to keep moving forward. we need to keep building on that ladder of success and opportunity for latinos until every person in our community is thriving. i am thrilled to be a part of this conversation. at the department of labor, we play a critical role in providing the tools and resources necessary for latinos to succeed. this work includes making sure that workers note that they have a right to a clean and safe workplace and the right to be paid wages that they earned. 8 also includes making sure that latino workers have access to

quality job training programs that give them the skills that employers are looking for. this has been the number one priority of this is administration since the president took office. we know to compete and win in the 21st century, we need to develop a skilled work force that is ready to take on the jobs of the future. we have invested billions in dollaof dollars to train americn workers. so much of our focus has been making sure those training dollars make it into underserved communities. this is particularly important for latinos as we of the fastest-growing segment of the american workforce. yet as you know, we took one of the hardest hits in this recession. entire communities were devastated, and so many are

still hurting today. the unemployment rate peaked at 9.3% for white workers, but it peaked at 30% for latinos. there has been a racial disparity in our recession and a recovery, but we have made progress and we are going to continue on that path. last friday, i announced that the unemployed are rate for latinos dropped nearly a percentage point last month to 10.3%. that means over the last two years, the unemployment rate has dropped nearly 3 points. more than four out of 10 new jobs have gone to latinos. compared to the last three recessions dating back to 1991, this is the fastest rebound the latino community has

experienced. latinos are going back to work. we are not just landing a job. we are going back to work in high-paying industries like manufacturing and business services at twice the rate we are finding jobs in the low-wage sectors. we have got to continue on this trend. that is why president obama continues to work toward an economy built to last. that is an economy built on the scale and innovation of american workers. where education and training is afforded to everyone in this country. the president recently launched an $8 billion fund that is very critical for the latino community as a growing number of them are attending community colleges. in many ways, that is the perfect fit. community colleges provide

accelerated degree programs and training that set people up for jobs in their community at a very low-cost. community colleges provide industry-recognized credentials. something workers need and something employers want. whether that is an associate's degree or a license or certificate. we are bringing together employers, community-based organizations, and community colleges to give workers the skills that employers need. we want to match what students are learning in school with what businesses are looking for. we are helping employers match what their needs in an office or on the factory floor happen to be. we are trending up -- training up to make sure they can secure

good jobs and get on pathways toward meaningful careers. i know today's discussion will focus on veterans. that is a big concern of mine at the department of labor. the department of labor plays an increasing role in supporting our veterans. we awarded $30 million in grants aimed at providing homeless veterans with job training to help them succeed. last year, i introduced the veterans gold card which allows a post-9/11 veterans to get six months of job counseling and personalized case management and services at our 3000 local centers. we also developed a job bank to match the skills and experience of veterans with employers. we have created my next move for

veterans, an online tool to help veterans translate their military skills into civilian jobs. i am firmly committed in making sure we serve our nation's heroes and heroines just as they have served us. we want and need to do more on behalf of veterans and for every american looking for work. that is what president obama's vision of america is also built on shared values, where everyone gets a fair shot and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules. that is the america latinos have always believed. -- believed in. so, that vision is also shared by our president. that is why he believes the wealthiest among us should pay their fair share. to raise the revenue, we need to

grow our economy and invest more in job programs. it is wrong in my belief to balance our budget on the backs of working class people. just this week, house republicans voted to extend the bush tax cuts for the wealthiest and showered millionaires and billionaires with a $1 trillion tax cut. how do they plan to pay for it? by getting investments needed to create jobs and strengthen our economy. congress should be lifting up working people, the long term unemployed, and the middle class. that is why president obama is urging congress to extend the middle class tax cuts for 98% of americans making less than $250,000 for another year. if they do not come to the typical middle-class family will

see its taxes go up by $2,500. just think about how many latino families would be affected. we are going to keep putting the pressure on congress to do the right thing on behalf of our families to keep teachers, firefighters, and police officers on the job. to put construction workers back on the job rebuilding our roads and bridges. no community has suffered more in my opinion than those latino contruction workers. that is what is at stake. i am happy to be a part of that discussion. i went to thank all of you for being here this morning. -- i want to thank all of you for being here this morning. he went to see something done. on behalf of our president and

myself and others, i think you for being here. thank you very much. [applause] >> a fantastic way to start off our conversation and our morning. this is ensuring the ladder of opportunity remains strong. we will have two panel discussions and the concluding conversation with cecilia mu from the white house. i am going to ask my friend to come up and moderate the first panel. michael is the vice president for economic policy here the center for american progress. michael? >> our panel should probably step up here. jim needs to sit here.

i'll sit on the end. we are very well organized. let me introduce our panel. i will start with ana harvey in the middle. she is the assistant administrator for the office of women's business ownership and oversees the efforts to promote the growth of women-owned businesses through programs that provide business training and counseling, access to credit and capital, and networking opportunities. she manages a web of business centers located in almost every state. she established a highly successful multilevel communications company with clients from fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and non-profit organizations. sheet served for two years as a

director for cultural tourism in d.c. and is a past president and ceo of a chamber of commerce. welcome back. she is the chief economist for the u.s. secretary. she is currently on leave from her position as a professor. the center for research and analysis in london and the center for the study of poverty and inequality at stanford university. she serves on the board of the industrial laborers review. andrea has also published economics journal's and has written on the path to immigration. she has an award from the

employment association. she got her pst -- her ph.d. from uc-berkeley. he is the adviser for the white house counsel. in this role he essential to the development of housing and finance in articulating that policy to the press and advising the president upon communications and legislative strategy. so, that is our goal. we have three gold medal winners in my eye. the ouster was something depressing. of the great recession, you're probably familiar with that. i would like to start off with asking you each in the areas

that you worked in to talk a little bit about how in those areas latinos have been affected by the great recession. then we will get to the upbeat side about what we're doing out it. >> i like to start by reminding people where we came from. i think we all have a short memory. i think it is good to remember that in december 2007 we had the worst recession since the great depression. when president obama took office, 800,000 jobs were lost per month. when president obama took office, we stopped losing jobs. by one year later, we were creating jobs while private

sector job creation. many of those jobs have gone to latinos. four out of 10 jobs in the past year have gone to latinos. given the you are right, it can be depressing, we know that a minority communities such as african americans and latinos have seen things improve across the board. that includes african-americans in minority communities. a think we do see that things have turned around. it is good to remind ourselves also that a lot of that has come about because of the policies that have been put in place. there were many that helped latinos in minority communities.

the summer jobs program helps subsidize appointment for latino workers. work opportunity tax credits hire disadvantaged workers. that largely helped the latino community and minority communities. we have seen them reach out greatly to minority communities. about 30 million latinos have been held by the payroll tax holiday. they have been held by the extension of unemployment benefits. we are lending a hand and providing a lifeline, but we have to remember that those policies are something that stimulates the economy.

it is actually a win-win. the secretary mentioned training which is very key in helping people displays and dislocated in the jobs. >> thank you. i just wanted to say something first. something that has not changed is that the hispanic community is an entrepreneurial community. we have always been and will always be on triple. one of the things that is easy for all of us is how many credit card offers you got a few years back when money was cheap and easy to come by. in my experience as a small- business owner, i actually had a

line of credit and i received a letter that says you will no longer have that line of credit. fortunately, it did not really kill me. but that really affected a lot of small businesses. the fda really kicked in a very quickly with the recovery act. in terms of the lending and rescuing small businesses. that did not stop hispanics that were actually losing the jobs. they said, if i cannot find the job, i will make it myself. it is very important to note that, yes, it has affected

hispanics quite a bit. it has kicked in in an incredibly strong way to help hispanics. i want to tell you very quickly , 21% of the naturalized hispanics in the country are actually self-employed. it is quite a few of us. 31% are self-employed. it is very important to know. there are lots of programs. i can talk about it later. they suffer because of a crunch a few years back. >> it is hard to fully understand the impact of the housing crisis without talking

about its impact on the latino community. the latino community, in the run up to the bubble, invested an incredible amount into housing. well really skyrocketed in the years to the lead up. and then, of course, when the bubble burst, and saw the white out because of the direction of the investment. in a sense, it is part of the success story. the other part of the story as well. as a result, you see really brutal numbers around the latino community. i think there was a recent study that said summer in the neighborhood of a 40% of all homes in predominantly hispanic communities are under water. the foreclosure rate among hispanics are somewhere in the neighborhood of 12%. it is more than twice that among

whites. it is 50% higher than african- americans. they are really difficult numbers. i can get into how the programs we laid out really focus on the latino community. in an effort to try to get back on its feet, which is important because they have suffered relevant to the population. it is also relevant because it will be central to cover the housing market generally. if you look to the increase in hispanic home ownership over the last year, it is greater than any other group. in the last year, roughly 1.5 million -- roughly 0.5 million new hispanic commoner's in the market. it is the net sum of all the new

homeowners in the united states. if you took up the new hispanic home owners would have a net loss to homeowners. the fact that we are not in the red is the result of hispanic home ownership. making sure this community gets back on its feet, both those who are struggling and those who are looking it is just going to be hugely important. >> i think the afford worst hit states are in california -- so,

a drama mentioned of the recovery act. the administration has done a great deal. notwithstanding those terrible commercials in the olympics. there were a huge success, as you noted. let me come back to you. is there one program that you do not think has maybe gotten the attention? is there one program may be the department of later -- department of labor that you don't think has gotten enough attention that has made a significant difference that you would like to dive into a little bit more? >> as i said, it is pretty good right now. about 3.6 million jobs have been . a big part of the recovery act

was about giving income suorts and tax breaks to the middleass. all of those things are really key because you put it into the pockets of those were most likely when they are unemployed. they have a high market to consume. they just go on and spend the money and that money makes its way through the economy. i think our training programs have been very crucial in helping people who make those transitions. a tremendously successful program has been the community college to career fund. we make sure we are training people for those skills that are needed.

that is very much in line with what we have learned. in training people in those higher demand sectors, making sure we place hispanics. they have suffered from the backtracking in huge numbers. they are making their way through sectors. that has helped tremendously.

>> there is so much. the positive is, there is the situation that if you do 200 things, it seems like less than it is. it makes an impression. it is frustrating. there are probably too -- there are probably more than 200 things thahave bn done. what you most want people who are subjected to those ads to derstand what is being done? >> in college-educated. my mom sayi am pretty smart sometimes. but i did not know there was help for small businesses. i did not know the are ways that the hispanic community could help.

we to go back and tell our communities. how'd you build a business. you come up with a wonderful idea. nobodys an expert on that. the have the drive and the desire to build a business. to make it in the united states, you have to put that in writing. how do i build a business? to improvise my way to success? they have an incredible network about 14,000 of us in the country.

they would sit with anybody through the businesses to see if that idea will be a viable. you need to actually switched gears and adapt your idea. whatever little money he might have. it is very importa to know that we have a wonderful program in terms of counseling and training. you have your business plan already. it is l written down. of course, you need capita you need catal to start business. that is something they do very well. they're not a lender. i interact with a lot of

businesses. thr work wh bank they guaee loan to small businesses. was fantastic that we have. depending on the business, they would guarantee up to 75% of the loan. we pushed it up to 95 the loan s that banks will have the confence to start lending. that was keye omic in 2009, $4.4 billion have been supported in ofoan. at is just fpanior his. so, we can help with loans if you want to buy some. more machinery. that is very important.

it is coun, th capital, and, of crs contracts we want to put in everybody's minds that the federal government could be an incredible client for all of us. the transformation of my business is when i was in the private sector. f. this is my pitch about women. of all the billions of dollars spent in small businesses, we cannot q make 5% of all that. it is pretty hard to believe. with pushing through to the federal government as a client, it is not for everyone. you really have to become a very

robust business to deal with. counseling, capital, and contracts. these ar what are very important. >> i do not know. it seems to me you missed the most important thing. marginal tax rates. could you respond to that? i mean, seriously. you went through three things. top mginatax te does not art four latinos, any small business, having marginal tax busiss is the most important thing for small businesses. >> it is. why don't jump into that. it is very important. we had a 17 tax breaks for small businesses and the last three years or so.

some of themxpired and some of them continued. i did hear from smallusesse -- actually, i was in xas. you know, i get tax breaks for hiring new people. it would really allow me to an long-term. that is something that is important to create that certainty. >> they are having the tax deduction. the presiden put into the budget in the 2013 budget to give the tax credit of 10% to those small businesses that are gring the businesses and their payroll. they are having 17 of them. i just mentioned a few. i have to say. when you look at the surveys

that were done of small businesses, high taxes do not rank at the top. the highest-ranking concern is demand. this feder contracting and this new target to make it 22% in to this federal contract ar one way of approaching. helping them go to markets abroads another way of expanding the market. it does not seem to be a tough concern. >> you are correct. >> i think, the other thing, just to draw a distinction, there have been actual measures aimed at creating employment, as sed to measures that are just you're wealthy. we assume if you're throwing money, you'll do good things. which is a distinction. >> that connection is very

important. the department of labor are working together because you have all this work force development. we are actually working together. you actually make sure that whatever industry you want to start, the could connect with labor. >> i do not know if you want to jump in on the tax discussion. maybe you can talk from the kinds of things in the housing area where the administration has taken action don't, well, part understood. >> the latino community, especially. there are a few numbers that i find about the impact of the programs we have.

thac toredi is enormous on the housing side. for today, not for in five hispanics purchasing a home are getting it through the fha it is a remarkable number. just to put it in perspective, that is compared to one in seven in 2004. the committees are depending upon government-backed lending. it is off the charts. it is just extremely important. another numberhat i find interesting in t abohe impact of the programs that we rolled out today, that helped of boards of 200,000 hispanic families modify their loans to a

more sustainable path going forward. roughly, 1/4 of all beneficiaries of the program are hispanic. we rolled up the neighbors stabilization program a few years ago, which is $7 billion. and roughly2 in $3 are going to people of color. so, if you actually lay out the numbers that we rolled out,he degree to which they disproportionately help this community is always surprising me when i go lifted the numbers. again, if you go back to the opening frame is that this committee has been particularly hard hit in this market. sta reasoat it will be targeted in a way thall when think about the narratives that are missing in

the housing discussion, it is often the people get lost in the numbers. the often focus on raw numbers and appreciate the degree to which communities are being helped. e st number, i guess, which is more forward-looking, which is money that is going directly to states to spend in a way wilr struggling communities. it looks like there are still sorting through what makes the most sense. if you go back to the number, which is a 40% of homes and largely hispanic communities that are under water, it will be something that even as we pull out of the recession, it is soing the community struggle with for a long time.

it will really help latino communities especially in general. recently, we have increased incentives. we have seen a real shift in the market. it was largely taboo only a few years ago. it does not perceive to be inherent in any way. you have seen an interestg shift in way thalenders th aboutisfrom a borrower who is distressed or underwater. the have began to be a little more aggressive and how they have provided that relief. over the last several months you ve seen a shift so that now ree get relief. fils, our sense isthe 300,000

that going forward, more and more families will see their majorve equityo down.what we re lenders, that focus on production as . and are somewhat optimistic expectation over the next year or so, you will see the market really shift in the direction of proving more production whh helt has been so beaten up. >> you know, one of the things that she keeps coming back to is the demand in the economy and one of the big things limiting that is the overhead of the debt particularly, in certain communities which are more constrained by it. >> you end up with a family that

is deeply under water. they would like to be able to sell their house and move to a better job. they put all their money into deleveraging. you cannot have a choice. that or, you walk away from a home. ware sto not suringly,heand in thos communities suffered. we help facilitate more quickly in those communities. it willnleash dem much more quickly. rw hangor yea tcome a quick wrap up of home pricereciatn. you just see committees that are really going to have a dark cloud for a long time unsse find aay to e. >> of vacant homes an all sorts

of properties. thlues are dowe market it c jt feednelf. one of interesting things that the housing market is that you often have a spiral that either goes down or up. you change the dynamics and such that you end up with a positive reinforcement cycle. " the numbers in the lt few months have been pretty good, by and large. you see a reinforcing cycle going up. even if you do it at an actual level, you have pockets of distress. that kind of positive cycle. our focus is to make sure that those distressed cmunities have a way out from undert distress goi fward. >> lete ask yo

obviously, this administration came in at the beginning of the great recession. my question is a little tricky. you know, after a longviouy, ths ministration came in at the ginng of t recession. mystn ittle icky, but, fba has been doing the types of things you described for a long time, counseling, credit, and the rest. in response to the great recession, in its aftermh, there been a changin its that changed because of that? obviously, a new administration came in. things would change anyway, but approach, a particular focus are there particar things that ren response to that as opsed toust the gene mission? ye rst of all, you do see this new relevance that really ramp

up everyone else. one thing ti can ink about quickly is that, for all businesses, it is very important. that as missiobeginning in exporting. we have a great program right now president's initiative tuble exp 90% of your clients are outside the borders of the united states. it is soing quired newev, erms of pushing small businesses. it is very easy to continue doing what we have done, but really, it is the new vision of what a small businesses and what the potti of sm businesses, at this point. exports -- you have new programs suat go through states orting exporting. that is one thing that is important say.

i want to gohrough my three we have -- c's an we have a d. disaster missions. the relevance of this agency has changed. the partnership we are trading withther agencies, like the department olabor, department of commerce. s.p.a. haseen elevated to a vel. we have completely renovated all of this paperwork that we have for lending. people were reluctant to deal with the sba because of the paperwork that would take months to get a loan. by the time you needed the loan

you were either out of business or something happened. all of that has changed. we have electronic filing. is is a rpoe nee we a not aeactive agency anymore. we just want to be thewhen you need it, so we can rpond icke in the world is youth that particularly affects the lati community it is a young community, aside you mentioned some traing initiatives but some of them are to retainxist wkers. at ig do in the youth field? >>le and we have ma he strides in the latino community in t of education, we still lag behind.

52% of latinos now have a high still debris or college, 50% have college or more. we still need to make prress. one way in which latinos make progress is tting trained. our training programs are key in reaching out to the community, in particular to young people. let me tell you about a few of our proam as i said before during a recovery act, there was money for summer jobs and year round of climate for poor, young people. a huge share of those jobs went to the latino community. about 80,000 js goin to latino teenagers. that money has run out. the secretary and president have out tohe prisector to get mmments from private ts forng duringhe sumr.

id to jtothe ivat dvand youtabt one-ird themer opuniedowi sha we know,onetheless, ese oprtunit open doors dn e ad for young peopl it is ve itant that they start their careersn th. is yearseen very scessful seor. in terms rams have tar uth prm, wch is geared towardvanted you. it hpspl cplete their ged, finish gh sl, but also to makr about 30% of those areerved -- serve are latinos. we have 130 job corps centers

around the country. that is a redeiaprogra he disadntaged youth. also, about 20% of communy are latino it is a vy effectivegram inerms o making surpeople tercas,inish gh com and it pled in jobs. 65%f pele that gonto ou tioninobor o eeven aigheshar o schooghee programs tardards consuction jobs, getting people the skills to geto the nstruction sector. dee abou0%f those going thro you breuild ainos as we. we have many of our program that really reach out to latino young we have been sssful placing

them in jobs and having them get higher earnings down the road, too. >> jim had told us that he d ve tleavearly, nust getak labor are a r abive employs. observed, have there been actions to deal wi tt? >> y areertainlyight when businses eling e pinch, the first t t cuul thin tt ulbemp ing wi. etremdously healthat dep thete odds of safd administration has been tremendously active, especiay reaing into the lat commit osha fines the latino comty

es su asesth adarlyuctionect ha hecial example oire investitors w bingua w other abt 700 estitorsn e department havbe hired fr the beginning of is administration who speak other langge areble rea wait an hour has ba ge success. making surere is compliance. we have done minimum-wage overtime proteions. e 2009,0 million has en receredn ck wages on abou a tf th minority wrs. many o them reaching out to industries and occupations that are low paying, hitting particularly hard the latino community. there has been a huge success in the past year.

ofccp, o o contract aompliance progr, we overseeing theehioof l co making sure there are no scminations, abusthings of this sort. they have recovered $12 million in remedies on behalf of minority, women workers who suffered from discrimination or reduced was. you talk about changes in priority. that has been a priority because we want to make sure there are good jobs being created for everybody and th treach yby. >> i will turno the auence in the secondour questions, but did want toskne last ing ouoth. great recession. we are digging our way out, making progress. whe we are nogoingto aoint to gt

longer digging ourselves out, worrying about the long-term producti of growth obvisly, latinos are a growing part of the population, work force, more business ownerip.int have been done, i have some what focused the recession, digging out of the recsion. how do you feel like what you are doing, what the administrati wan to do prospectively, and hopefully will have an opportunity to do -- i guess a two-part question -- how do you see the things that have been on helping in the long term? what are the key things you have not been able too, policy- wise, that you wouldike to be able to do as we go ahead, to >> in tes the ct

hispanic communities in the fure, what we would li t see -- of course, hispanics are opening at businesses all over, but we still lack hiring. l we co it ourselves. there is always the need to get on the attorney payroll and something likea, said,e create businesses, but now we say we create jobs. we want to makeure th businesses that we touch, at any business that starts, has that idea of how big you want grow. it is not just ab getting an ll sayi you are a business owner, but i call women my little sprouts. there are a lot of women sprouting everywhere. how many of them are hiring t

wo or thpeople? we want them to be more robust. we know they a embedded in the mmy,hey wa to vest ir t sit is imrtant. >> i think as you have all heard, businesses, they're looking for workers. that is what we havse in the recovery. thosncer are becoming mo impoan i thinthese programs that i mentned t 2013 bget, college community funds, will be helpful f the lin

commity. co nsti, retail thorhere tve beditionlyloye to transition to manufacturing, high-paying jobs, professional and business services. thats exactly what we are seeing now. e thing whichsrue, there has been a complete turnaround in the manufacturi stor. weaw aut 1 milln bsos etween 2000 and 20 ha theongestpell of jo gr inan m ctor is an see wht reeeg today. reque skills our program need to bryuch in le wi tatkills beinsought aer it is our role to make sth we ee thosensnsnd ctain communities g

ce to newhoses coming upn the ecys it kps owing wha aicrophgoing around is pele haveuestions in anc fore clddeifouelf at would be t. >> am withhe nional sociion ofpa my questorioishe nepartmentf labour. e figures on housing. few peoplkn tt 12 months ve bn s out oa total 800. ha been 641,0mongen er blusehol so younce. i point thisut becse even day hhlig thias por

atthsa time this has ppened, latinos have aount adiale . that is whye do not see a spike in home ownership. my question for the department moh new eholdsre beiy foed. as long as a renter a house, thadoes not make a dent on home ownership. the same thing occur with young unemployment young minity grps other folks to enter the work fve month, is that onef th major reasons why made in the unemployment rate? >>lis s secrntned, ake ti a umployment rate november 2010 at3. it h been coming downin the lasn

la month, from 11% down to %. are definitely sg a dt. many of th newobs th haveenreat. the other good news about that, the reas why the unemployment -- 99%f the -- ople of the labor force. >> rental. do you alsee a d w2 workerd1099woers? contra a they get a099

end the >> oneood twe ab t-this othe j whi latos are going into are in high ping, hig cturing, pfessiol an highying an ofr by bene. in fact, we eina moveme tards better js, i terms of qualiworse. for hispanic link, hat small busswners eld by sba liommucation the aecsigning with rp. does that have any future? >>es

this imething that we ntto have seeople who ve th o50e a vibrantl a eve wenm t to makeurven with theves dwhat whicis open the new siness o have aew partner with ae going to ar witaionwe -- wehere areoing to starth nionwe whe ople who wan tste thbusiesseuld tap into pro. 140 esunthe counto give th t assistanwant. there willro for aa.ase mtionour years, we

ant su that reces ey need sta business. ha e hiome has alysconnect betwn puic servis and thr aby learn a ac t anffti effi and scant mentioned aumr portunitie a you goingonsure w gettingo op tt ed itt,nd oanizns t>> let me talk about t partment of larams. ainings, elly hispans e

dispportnatelyreseed in our progm. he hi bal iestitors opho can go out into the toth mmunities. sol' min ountry needs to be se by t depart of labour. are making re thawe vet themunies ngspo unity, that we r o a e local le ,at ywhms of sba < wha mentied is so calor u unfoatelheoese

nciera man of the fdst cou've ge toarketing and o i t the oma aintrationd qu hi i was a pt of those efrt to catthinks -- ke today. bveyou can go back he theybahas to ofrel for sma bines but it iso cru that the sba or deparen labor ey dot reec to she, that the unity. they havver hea of thi it is efftt habeen made bthe admtrio if you have a nfous to comeweld be pp ce t wor mhayo

nstitu kw out it. messag cntin oevernesend e let people ow what ou progra are. one rehy whave diffent ograms is because etarie e secretary sis, lieve ere is differentomnities a affected by differentblems. we need to maksure wav prrams targeto youn do not have higscho degree,o olrorkers w another job at the end oe life all ogmsy diert t g on p you to ly helps ach out. >>ld ao encoaghe mediet tsee e befit of letting linosnoout . was approacd nolonggo

with howhe uld bdog this the only 't make tenovel abt to m treuld be aeriessi emn th med to e how ey c hthis comnity, gageh -- ibeijinth agencioulde help --ag name is sally greenberg. i am the head ofhe nat umerleague. we coordinated child labor n. that focus on d labor in the united ss, ilungm worker k would seem that your discuionf 300 to 400 fa

' ks around t woer work, intoe lucve kinds of professions woua grgoal som the job up in familie have a great wor eic, ambiti but some of t are i am wondering whatour thghtsow woved th kids m tadslya ec shlkers. prm a g rtisam i

g thatommu asal migs tonsitio to tseobs th a ver teory, very adocvery i unprotected,trtionnto otr jobs in the ecomy. one the pgrams th has be very scefu help thition. latos, we a very ofreeurial, and we te t r counti. tend toav mo mobil at h pounits. but our ogms ut to thosniti a thank you. minute bak a then co bk r our next, a great pane >> whilehe libraf congre haa newxhibt, books that shed america.

in t bks wersen for thr fluenc america and americiew on bianw yocajo in you think should be included.oks >> we call that books that shaped america, opposed to other with the we considered, like changed america. we think books smelly have an impact on american society. so many books have had such a culte and society.amer indeed, the very essence of wha a th earliest book is aually ben franklin's book othe electrici. ofrse, ta's bo sparked, shaped the american revolution. novelists are a critical part of american culture. manyem i of thntified who we were becoming, the aspirations we had as a nation. othersold about experiences

that we had uniquely as americans. impoto lrtant at nonfiction and books that were either self- help, bke briers of cen kinds. we looked for many books that were innovative, that showed america as an innovative country that used books and orieto insre going to the lerally or intellectually. >> if you want to participate in an on-line discussion with roberta schaefer, associate librarian for the library of congress, one that we will air, e-mail us. >> here on c-span, we are live at the event center in denver, colorado. president obama is set to speak here shortly. one of two campaign event he is

doing in colorado. plou,who was criticized byndra sh limbor her stance on health insurance. >> i am here not only to introduce the president, but to talk to you about the clear choice that we face in this election. this is a choice that will affect each and everyone of us, well as ourends, lod ones, and every woman in america. [applause] and that is why it is so pernafor each o us personal. becausen wubcly members of congress, i became more awarehan ever that this

election will decide whether the rights that generations of women have fought for will be rolled back. and make no mistake about it, those rights can be rolled back, and in the blink of an eye. thankfully, we have a president who has consistently -- [applause] he has consistently proven that he will defend our rights. especially our right to quality, affordable health care. [applause] because, you know, wn it comes down to it, the vision behind president obama's health care reform is really quite simple. it is that our access to basic health care should never depend on where we go to school or where we work, and especially,

never what gender we are. [applause] and obamacare is already working. it is insuring millions of young women across this country have access to the care we need. as of one week ago today, than to obamacare, women are starting to get access to preventive care, like cancer screenings and well woman visits, and contraception, at no extra cost. [applause] and when obacare fully takes effectwe will never again be denied coverage because of a pre-existing contion, like having had a cesarean section. [applause] and never again will we pay more than men for the same insurance, simply because we are women.

[applause] in each of these ways, president obama is moving us forward. [applause] but mr. romney is offering us all the dangers promises, to take us backwards. i have to take him at his word. because he said, on day one, he is going to kill obamacare dead. at would take away lifsaving eventive ce fromillions of americans, and that is an ng ck of vision from someono says that he wants to lead our coury. you know, we have already seen what mr. romney pa's lack of leadership looks like. when i was verbally attack this year, the difference between

president obama and mr. romney became very clear. after those attacks, i was heartened by so many americans, many of you, who reached out to meported me,o matter what any once politics were. president obama was one of them. he defended my right to speak with being attacked, and he condemned those hateful words. ubut yo know, mr.omney co only say, that those were not the word that he would of chosen -- woulhave chosen. mr. romney, you are not ing to be the candidate we choose. [applause] because imr. romney cannot stand up to extreme voices in his own party, we know he will

never stand up for us, and he will not defend the rights of generations of women have fought r. [applause] rember, i even though it is 2012, we are still having the debates that we thought were won before i was even born. debates about access to raceptioand whether a woman has the right to make her usown health care decisions. and we must remember we have a candidate, president obama, who understands the importance of women getting access to the care they need when they need it. [applause] >> and we must remember that we have another candidate, mr. romney, who wants to take all that away.

as we register to vote, as we walk into polling places, as we cast our vote, we must remember, and we will remember. [applause] because, denver, president obama has had my back. he has had your back, all of our backs. now we are going to have his. [applause] colorado, please welcome the president of the united states, barack obama. [applause]

[a hello, denver. [applause] it is great to be back in denver. f more years. four morars. ur morepplause] s thank you. tellyou wh. we when colorado, i will get another four years. [applause]

a couple of people i want to acknowledge. first of all, i want to say thank you to sandra for that wonderful introduction. [applause] she is one ugh and poised young lady herriendse was bra to stand up for herself even greater things as time goes on. plse her bigou [applause] e yeur mors. a colether pe iant to knledge, youmayor, micel hancks in t h one of theest centers in the thesemicel bentt is in

country, micel bennett is in a passionate aocate fo myr fn co-milies. air sectary o ortaonired of listing . representative pen d hee dio? [alause] fill i wt to anowlge anotr campaign cr, johnegand pil being, isr.has bn two and half ren do e wa aurawho lt d ones in th

the rslives miely, sin that time, we hav had aer k creek, i think we can allckwlge,we h e to put an end to th kiseeless vionce, whether it is in aor whether it is in a pe cree tucson, whether it is in cities across america where too many lines are cut short because of senseless violence. it has to stop. as an american family, as one american family, we are going to have to come together and look at all the approaches we can take to try to bring an end to it. i want yll to know thatur

thoughts ars of the entire nation remain with those in aurora. even though the perpetrators of these act have receivea lot of attention, the attention on them will fade. will replace it are the sties of heroism and hope we have seen e will remember. that is what will matter. that is what we wi now you. the strength and resilience -- lue. the strength and resilience and the care and lov of americ people. ged to avor televisionplete set for yourable is broken, you are aware there is a pretty intenscampaign going on right and the reason is intense is because the choi we face in

november could not be bigg. its nott a b two candidates, or even just between tes. more than any election in re mo, this is a choice bet ferenttally d par our y's fute. the direction that you ce, eirhat you choose en you walk into that voting booth three monthsrom now will have a direct impa, not just on youlives, but the lives of your children and the liveof your gradr [applause] that is true for everybody, t s espeally true for the women in this country. [applause] from working mothers to college en it comes to the economy, it

is bad enough thaturonents nt to takes ck te sa policies of the lastade, dec same policies that got us into this mess in the first place, the same policies that sought jobs going overseas, ende seeing people's wages and income going down, even as theost of evhi f heah ca to college were going up, policies that constituted the worst financial crisis sincehe great depression, and whave now ent ree and a half years trying to recover from. ats bagh. but when it comes to a women's ght to make her own healt care choices, they wt to take us back to the policmore ten ry colorado, you ha to me su ths pp [

the decisions that affect a woman'sealth, theyre not olicians re not up to insurance companies. they are up to you. [applause] and you deserv are who l fit keep it tt way. is the prve been, that is the president i will be if i get a second term as president of the united stat. [applause] on the issueshat maer, you do thatre the e fst term. s what we did. ppuse]

afoabarct, also own obamacare. [applause] not have to take my word for i actually liked the name, cause i do care. that is why we fought so hard to make ihappen. ardarlps sure u doot hav to worry about going broke just because one your loved es it insures insurance companies can no longer place lifetime limit on your care. the can reject of your premiums without reason. they can no longer drive of your coverage wheyoneed the most. they can no longer discriminate against children with pre- existing conditions. and pretty soon,hey will no longer be able to deny you covered because ofre- extingondition, like breast cancer or cervical cancer, or ch you more for care just because youre a wan.

canno that anymore, don't they know? [appuse] this is a law that allows young adultsnderhe age to stay on their parents' health care plan [applause] d has helped 6.6 million young americans. if you are a little bit over 26, it gives seniors a discount on eicription drugs. a discount that has already saved millions of seniorsn medicare hundreds of dollars each. right now, nearly 13 million americans are getting a rebate fr insurance companies. thatght, the are sending under the law, we capthe

amount of money they can spend on administrative costs, c care.es, instead of your health when they violate that rule, they have to send you a check. last year, obamacare secured new access to preventive care, like mammograms, cancercreenings with noopiague, no deductible, no out-of-pocket cost for cl 2lln [applause] last week, insurance companies began covering even more services. nowost health plans are going to begin covering the cost of contraceptive care. [applause] i understand this is crucial for women. doctors prescribe contraception not just for family planning,

but as a way to reduce the risk of ovarian and other cancers. and it is good for our health re syste in general because we know the overall cost of care is lower when women have access to contraceptive services. and listen, wgnize ny peopave stnglyeld religiou views on contraptis w we major churches and other houses of worship do not have to provide it, they do not have to y for it. we worked with catholic hospitals and universiti to find a solution that would protect religious liberty and a woman's health. [applause] th is, ied on contraception at some point, and more than half of women between the ages 18 ave strugg t afford it. we are chgi that.

before health care reform many health care plans to charge high deductibles or co-payments for these preventative services, or they did not cover them at all. according to one study, hal ll wom put off the care they needecause of that. how many of you have gone without care that you needed, or a checkup beuse you knew that fordt not beble suncco pay? and you had to choose between gas and groceries and your kids nesocr uniform. i do not think a working mom in mamgramt cahave to waot neight [applause] i do not think a college student in colorado springs should have to choose between that she needs.entive care that is why we passed this law. it was the right thing t.

[applause] now, my opponent has a different view. has sandra said, he said he would take theffordable care act and kill it dead, onhe first day of his presidency. kill it dead. unrstand what it mns. 26-year-old, 6 million young people, do not have health insurance. credited care is gone. seniors pay more for prescription drugs. --reveive care is gone. pre-isting conditions you are out of luck. ene says hwould g rid of planned thene said he would support an extreme measure in mississippi that could have out of some forms of contraception.

then he joined a part of his party to support a billhat would have allowed any emplo to deny contraceptive coverag to their employees. emers to dece- your boss telling you what is best for your health and safety. let me tell youometng, denver. at youet. cark your boss should companies should controlhe carehayou get. i doot think politicians should control the care that you get. i thihere is e person that shoulde the decisions on health care, and that is you. you should make that decision. [applause]

is running as the candidate of conservative values. there is nothing conservativ about a government that prevents a man fr mak own health care decisio he says is candide of freedom. but the chance to determine for yourself the care that you nee wheyou nded is the ability to change jobs or start your own business without fear of losing your health insurance. we are not going to go back to the days when it was acceptable to charge women re than men for health care, and we are not going to go back to the days when women with pre-existing conditionske being a cancer survivor, were denied affordable care. we are not going to take more than a milon young people off of their parents' plan. we are not g bkwards, denver. we are moving forward. [applause]

and understand, at a time when women make up nearly half of the workforce, an increang share of finneily e are not just health issues and not just women's issues. these are economic issues. they affect every family in america. think about it. ink out what it means when woma is the breader for hery e taking less pay home, doing the same work aa manstau she is a woman? that is not right. when my opponent's campaign was basked if he would fight for equal pay, his campaign said, w will get back you othat. that is not a good answer. [laughter] w're going to getk ou that? he will not say what he would do you have my answ.

up folding the principle of equal pay for eal work was the first ll i signed into law, the lilly ledbetter act. first ll i signed. [applause] and one other thing. today is the three-year anniversary of sonia sotomayor taking her seat on the supreme court'. [applause] yesterday was the two-year anniversary of elena kagan taking her seat on the supreme court. [applause] so let us be very clear. the next president could tip the balance of the court in a way that turns back the clock for women and families for decades to come.

the choice between gng ckwards and moving forward has never been so clear. and let me say this. when i talk about women's issues, i am talking about experiences that i have seen in wn lmy oe. everybody kns michelle. [applause] the fact that we are partners in this process, this journey of life, haseen my source of strength. i want to make sure that she has control over her health care choices. i want to make sure that when she is working, she gets the pay -- paid as much as men. but now, she does not, even

though it a tough job. mywn mom would heen av b rsld thi. my sister and i lost her to cancer when she was just 52 years old. she got to meet michelle, but she never got a chance to meet her granddaughter's or watch them grow up. i often think about what they have happened if a doctor had caught her cancer sooner, or if she would have been able to spend less time focusing on how she would pay herild moime on getti well. she is still with us. she is in a better place. [applause] think, we are not going to n america ere they will have your opportunities than somebody's son. i do not want them to have fewer choices than anyone's boys do.

ago, i had the il to travel across the country and meet americans om all walks of life, i heard so many stories like mine. i decided, nobody else should have to endure the heartbreak of a broken healthcare system. no one in the wealthiest nation on earth should have to go bro cause ey get sick. no one should have to ll the uger or s that the that they can and cannot make for themsels cotraine becse of some politicians in washington. and thanks to you, we have made a difference in people's lives. thanks to you, there are folks that i meet today who have gotten care, and there cantor has been caught, and i got treatment. and they are living full lives. and it happened because of you. becausof your efforts four years ago.

and then we have come too fo turn back now. we have too much work to do to implement health care. we have too much work to do to create good jobs. we have too many teachers that we have to hire. we have too many schools we have to rebuild. we have too many students who still need affordable, higher education. there is more hope to generate. there are more troops that we have to bring home. there are more doors of opportunity that we have to open to anybody that is willing to work hard and walk through those doors. we have got to keep building an economy where no matter what you look like, oere yome , yoke i here, if yo [applae] so that you can leave something behind forhegeraon. ,hatsha at s

s why i am running for president of the united states of america. th is y i asking for your vote. i still believe in you. if you still believe in me, and if you are willing to stand with me, and knock on some doors with me, and make some phone calls with me, talk to your nehbors and friends about what the stakes are, we will win colorado. if we win colorado, we will win this election. will finish what we started and remindhe world why america is the greatest tion on god blee united states of america. [applause] ♪

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[applause] [cheers and applause] >> president obama, and another appearance in colorado later. you can see this event later in our video library.

in ahead, the political parties are holding their platform hearings. democrats voting this week on their final platform recommendations in detroit. republican start their platform process at the tampa convention site. c-span's complete coverage begins monday, august 27. >> mitt romney campaigned in the battleground state of iowa for a second day. last night, he attended a private fund-raiser. the bombing campaign announc thpresident will be and i was beginning next monday with the first joining him at next weekell.

-- the obama campaign announced the president will be in iowa next monday with the first lady joining him next week as well. >> good morning, thank you. what a warm welcome, you ar very kind. the to be back. -- good to be back. itlm lik secon home. e oat enjoy the fine food and hospitality and the warmth of thcounity. ft ofcognizant of the the imparought and e'rernbout wat s doing in the agricultural commutynd in various industries. we're looking for more rain.

there are other things in her mind as well today. the tragedy in wisconsin, the temple was invaded by a gunman who was motivated by hate, religious hate, it makes it even more tragic. tragic to have the people who are known for their peace ability and their loving nature be so brutally attacked. we are thinking of them. this is a difficult time f a lot of americans. the american people are tired of being tired. this economy has been tough for a long time. normally, whenou have a recession, you put in place policies that cause a quick rebound. when ronald reagan was president, unemployment was 10.6%. ionoba month ame roaring back

te this president's policies have not done that. president obama came in with a lot of promises, he said we could measure progress by number of things. if we were hing progss and success by whetr people could find a job. ife hi borrow $187 billion, he wouldp unemployment below 8%. it has not been below 8% nse. it is now 42 straight months with unemployment above 8%. that is not the full picre. that includeose are looking for work, but they're also people who dropped out and people who have part-time work that need full-time jobs. when you add those and, it is 15% of americans.

then there are the peoplo o job they have had in the past. thesalso said when he was running that he would reduce the cost of health insurance by $2,500 a family. it has gone up by $2,500 a family. re prices doubled,ood toy.touge dd-as people are falling into poverty, having to go on food stamps. this is very different than the record that occurred under ronald reagan. the president's policies have failed the american people. the best predictor of future performance what ha happened in thpast. that is a meare -- do you know

what has happened to the median income of america, it has dropped by $4,000 a family? think about how tough this is on the american people. he cut the deficit in half, how has that worked out? instead of cutting in half, he doubled it, and more. the first president in history trillion. deficit of $ he is on tra in four years to put together almost as much debt held by the public as all of the prior presidents combined. now and then i speak to groups like hered i say i did not kn how any oyou could vote

for a democrat. we have a president and people around him who are making it harder for the coming generation. i hope young people understand. these policies build trillion dollar deficit a year and are putting in place debt obligations you'll have to pay as young people. my generation will be gone. you'll be paying the interest on the principle throughout your lives for burdensome -- burdens that paid r us.its not just bad. it is immoral for us to continue to spend money that is getting passed on to you. [aus past performs b oing to be, i think peopleis

understand that if this -- if they vote to reelect president obama, they have a good idea growth, and the potential for an ecomic calamity given the massive debt bank and unfunded liabilities. i offer a very different view. i believe that we are on the verge of an extraordinary rebound in america's economy with good jobs and incomes again. [applause] itmy view different course the one that has been laid out by president obama and instead, build an economy based on freedom, economic freedom, allowing people to pursue their dreams,

to enhance their skills, to reach for personal achievement. if we do these things, you will see the economy come back ere are five steps wod take. it would get america working again. number one, we have got to take advantage of america's extraordinary energy resources. [applause] all of them.ake thadvantage of wee enormous advaage relative to other couries. there was an artic in the washington post who lood at eadies that within 10 years, america could be the largest energy producer inhe world. think of that. it means that manufacturing is

going to want to come back here because of the low cost o energy. [applause] the best ay to get was to go up and to grow up a permit a middle-class is to have jobs come back and have employers competing. that is whanto do a areand ks have kills succeed. what happens that central campus, if you are able to come here and get skills that will allow them to be successful in the jobs of today. i want better education programs for people who are adults and four young people. our schools are performing in the bottom of the world.

think of that. america, the place that invented public education has on average stood at performance in the bottom. how can we possibly imagine that our industries and our economy will lead the world if those coming through our education system are performing in the bottom third? i want to make sure that we finally put our kids first, our parents first. i want to make sure that every parent has a choice of which school to send their child to and every child has the sixth -- a chance to succeed. [applause] in that spirit, there was an extraordinary accomplishment. to recog providing people with skills an opportunity would enhance the entire nation.

welfare w reformed. present clinton and the republicans in congress at the time came together on a bipartisan basis and said welfare in the future is going to require work. people who received payments from government are going to be required to work. there is a punitive measure -- not as a punitive measure, but as a gift. there were some who said this would be terrible. the know what happened? as a result of putting work together, the number of people on welfare was cut in half, poverty was reduced. it was an extraordinary success. senator obama was opposed to putting work together with welfare. w he is esident. aew days ago, he put tha original intent in place with a

very careful executive action. he removed the requirement of work from welfare. it is wrong to make any change that would make america more of we must restore work into welfare. past performance is a good measure of what is going to happen in the future and the president's past opposition to work requirements are pretty good indication of what he has now when ias serving as gno i we to work to try toxtend and imp and require even moreork reirements because i want more people working if they're going to seek government assistance. [applause]

#3, we have to make sure that trade works for america. nations like ours -- [applause] nations like ours that are it high.oductive -- the output s the highest of any r nation. w've made m staff and services per person than any other nation on earth. because we are high productivity nation, it is good for us to trade with other nations. i want to have more trade with places like latin america. bea are in the same hemisphere, and a lot of folks speak the languages of latin america. i wao take advantage of those opportunities to sell more

ods across the world. i also wanto crack down on an natit cheats. we will not let peopl run over nd sur is to grow a strong middle-class with more take-home pay. the fourth element is to finally get america to cut the deficit and get on track to have a balanced budget. [applause] if business people around the world and here at home think that at some point america is going to become like greec o spain or italy or california -- [laughter] that whenidding about it -- in some ways.

they will have a hard time investing in america. we will have to show them that we are serious about reining in our excesses'. i will begin by looking at every single government program and ask this question, it is this program so critical it is worth borrowing money from china to pay for it? at the top of my list of programs we do not need is one that cost $100 billion a year. that is obamacare.

by the way, that does not mean that health care is perfect. we have to do some reforms in health care. i have some experience during that, as you know. i want to make sure thathose th pxistg nditio are ableo innce an people do not have to worry about getting dropped from their coverage and that health insurance is available to all people. i want to bri theost of health care down. the president said he would lower their premiums by $2,500 and they have gone up $2,500, should tell them it will not work. you were goi to see health insurance premiums skyrocket. the american people are not gone to stand for it.

number five, a champion small business. some of the last 15 years -- [applause] the last 15 years, i think it is 64% of all the jobs credit in america were cread by small business. -- created in america were created by small business. we now have hit a 30-year low in new business formation. people in small business have pulled back for a lot of reasons. i want to champion small business. the small businesses are how we create jobs. my priity is jobs. my priority is more jobs and more take-home pay. for middle income americans. i want to make sure t t rates on small business are not raised.

the president would raise to them. i want regulators to see their job as encouraging business, n crushing it with unneeded regulations. i believe in the right of people to organize and join unions, but i do not believe that unions should be forced on people who do not want to join unions. going to have a demonstration that makes it easier to start a business, grow a business. small business these days, they're having a hard time getting loans. community banks are not able to help them athey have in the past. they put in place this bid bill called a dodd-frank del and it was designed to keep the big banks to -- from getting to bed. the bigger banks have gotten

bigger and the smaller community banks are the ones getting crushed by this legislation. the legislation has had the posite effect of what was needed. eveing in my power to help small business succeed so we can have more jobs and more taken pay in america. -- take-home pay in america. 're going have 12 million, new jobs in america during my term. americans will see more take- home pay. i know what is going to happen. the reason i know that is because iaven tmerin people. if we gegovernment out of wa if it is a friend of economic freedom, you will see those things blossom again as they have in the pas

i missing something about the and entrepreneurial spirit in this -- i haveeesomething about the entrepreneurial spirit in this country. how did you start your company? she said, m husband lost his job and he tk a class in upholstering. i thought that was an unusual class to take. and then she said, because she was the better business mind, she started a company and hired her husband as her first employee. she went on to hire 39 more people in an upholstering business. she now has one of the leading upholstering business is in her region i met and other guy -- and other guy. he did not do so well in traditional high school. he was number 2 in his class, from the bottom. he went to his dad and he asked

for a loan. he tried to buy one of these girdto ma hamburgers -- hamburgers.ke he realized he did not have enough money to begin a restaurant. the amount of money was only sufficient to make sandwiches. so we got some tables, set them up in a garage, and started king sdwiches. now jimmy john has 1500 he employs 60,000 people, 60,000 people. it is what makes this economy the most powerful and dynamic in the world. what is happening in washington is youe a president and

bureaucrats around him who had never worked in small business. never worked in the private sector, who do not understand what it is like to have these burdens come from washington. i want to make america the best place in the world for entrepreneurs, innovators, and small businesses. why? because i want more jobs and more take-home pay for the american people and i'm going to get it done. of, we take care o people cannot take care of

themselves. when it comes to the spirit of america, i want to restore the spirit of independence. i do not want to install a spirit of dependence on government. i do not want to america to become like europe. four years ago, when candidate obama took the stage at the democrats' convention and made all of his promises, he stood in front of greek columns. my guess is that he will n want to remind us of greek i have a different view about the role of america. i wa in poast l year and got to meea worl hero. he said the world needs american leadership. we need you. we need american leadership, and we spoke for a while, and following our chat he effector mp

that is something i welcomerom a hero like that. i love the power of individual people changing the world, changing their lives, changing it is the storof america. e fers explain h america would be different from any other nation on earth. the timeteur rigs. whaty s was that the creator in dallas with rights, among those life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. as a young person strives to make the honor roll, a recogne that as pt ofhe f ameca, individual achievement and initiatives. ennndua glback t ol t get a bter skill or trade, will acknowledge that individual achievement. when a person starts a business and grows a, we congratulate them, we don't denigrated. when thesi said the

other day that if you have a business, you did not do that, someone else did that for you, i was taken aback. he said you took me o of context. then i read the ctext, it was evenorse tn the quote. [alause] he said these people that start these businesses and so, they did not build it. they think there are smart, but a lot of people are s. i am not sure where h was going with that. my vieis we celebra people who are hard-working and smart and take risk and build enterprises. it lookst government and the source of our greatness. i look at the american peles urce ofurt is when a kid gets the hono roll, i realizhat kid h toake the bus to get to school. but when he makes the honor roll, i don't credit the bus driver, i credit the kid who

makes the honor roll. and when jimmie don made sandwiches in his garage, and he worked 18-20 hour days, and when other people came and join him, i credit him with having built that enterprise, not government. this is a time to recognize the have a government do the job it was intended to do, which is to encourage liberty, freedom, and risk taking and to acknowledge and celebrate those who have been successful. i do not want to turn america into something we would not recognize. i want to restore the principles that made us a hope of the earth, and with your help, if we win in iowa, we are going to take back the white house. thank you so . [applause]

>> i do not envy the harmony of the republican party. they squelched the base, we welcome it. they deny differences, we bridge them. they are uniform, we are united. the choices this year --he choices this year are not just between two different personalities or between two political parties. there are between two different visions of the future. two fundamentally different ways of governing. their government and pessimism, pure, and limits, or hours of hope, confidence, and growth. [applause] >> c.e. bennett -- c-span has aired every minute of every major -- every major party conditions since 1964.

live on c-span starting monday, august 27. >> today, author mike will lofgren talks about his book, " the party is over." tonight at 8:00, a discussion on what is known as standard brown got lost from the american constitution society, right here on c-span at 8:00 eastern. tomorrownewt ginich will lk about the 2012 race. that gets uwa l at 8:30 a.m. easternn ashington na" also hspan. >> sunday, lk for "q&a" interview o "hitler land." spent the time i

in germany, had not spent aotimt would it have been like being a correspondent in the 1920's and 1930's, and how would you have operated? what would you have noticed or not noticed, and much less, how would you have acted? >> andrew nagorski, sunday on "q&a". >> earlier today, nasa scientists held a briefing to provide an updat on the rover curiosity landing on mars. today nasa released additional photographs on the rim of the crater where the rover landed. from pasadena, california, this is an hour. >> good morning and welcome to nasa's jet propulsion laboratory in pasadena, california. we will get straight to today's march report. i will introduce the speakers for today's news conference. we have jennifer, the more signs

laboratory mission manager with the jet propulsion laboratories. justin mackey is an imaging scientists from the mars science laboratory mission. john is the project scientist for that mission from the california institution of technology. >> michael is the principal investigator for the marsh defends imager on msl. he is from san diego. don is the principal investigator with southwest research institute in boulder, colorado. we will begin with jennifer. >> be good morning. we have some great news. sol 2 has executed flawlessly on the rover. we accomplished the main things of getting our antennas session to work and have now confirmed that all of our antennas and all of our links on the rover six

worked perfectly. i just want to congratulate peter and his team because there has been an enormous amount effort to realize that work. they are sending us hundreds of megabytes of data. fantastic work on the telecom team and fantastic or by odyssey and mro rovers. we feel very confident that we have lots of data capacity now with all of these links. that was one of the major objectives of the first part of the mission. that is fantastic. theover mel has the irs them deployed, consistent with what the actual -- has the rsm deployed. it is pointing away from the sun. i also wanted to talk about the fact that we have cleared the anomaly.

it was related to the nonvolatile memory. the engineers have been working with them and they understand the problem. we actually got data that shows the instrument is completely healthy. rems is the weather instrument we have on the rover. we had an anomaly with it yesterday. healthy and is now help th will be operating tomorrow. all good news. as far as the other systems, the power system is very healthy. the radio isotope generator is watts.115 mosque we have more power than we

expected and that will be able to keep the grover awake longer. we also have some thermal data indicating it is warmer than what are predicts say. we are still looking at why that is. it could be that the internal models are a little different for gail and our models for the broker or a little different. we are investigating that -- our models for the rover are a little different. the advantage is that in warming up actuator's to move the arms and drive, we will have to use -- we will have to use less energy. as far as our plans for the next sol, which are planning sol 3 right now. very exciting, we are going to

do the full color panorama. those who have been working on that for the last several months are very excited. there'll be some amazing images from that. on sol 3 we are getting ready for the flight software transition. couple folks have been working on that for over a year. they have generated hundreds of files with thousands of commands that we have to execute over the software transition creek we will uplink those on the antenna the morning of sol 3. that is very exciting. we will to make sure we got to the new software. one of the other issues we are looking at, you can see where the antenna is here and s earth sets, there is a little bit of

an occlusion. we don't actually have horizon to horizon coverage of the antenna so today we are going to operate a high gain in 10 at all the way through a process so it can characterize what the occlusion is so we can be consistent with what the capability is. i would like to introduce my colleague to the left. we have been working together for 16 years. we are wrote -- we were both very young on mars pathfinder and you can make an assessment where we have come. justin mackey builds and is operating the hazcam and the navcam on msl. if you bring up the first image here, this is the anti-soun

image. go ahead and bring up the first image. if you look up here at the rover, it is the first image that we took. i have the rsm in the direction of where it was pointing when we took this image. you can see the shadow of the arm in the image and you can see that the mast is deployed. the reason we take this image is we did a sun find to update and make sure that our understanding of the azimuth ankle was correct. then we take the anti-sun image to make sure is 180 degrees off the shadow of where the sun is on the other se. since the antenna session work rate yesterday, it will probably work even better today based on

that degree of the update. dustin mackey is the owner of the cameras who took this image. i will pass it off to him to talk about that image and the other images he took yesterday. >> this is our first image from the navcam so it is notable in that sense. not only were they used to check out the attitude and positioning system of the rover, which were rare well. the shadow should be in the center of the image. it may look below off-center but that is because we used the left navcam to obtain that image. it is a great shot because it does show mars. you can see in the lower left portion of the image of the robotic arm. there is a cover with the curiosity logo on there. their, the pixilated rover

that is in the center of the image. this will be active once the rover starts moving. the lower right side of the image shows one of the wheels. when this came down over night we were happy to see that the rover is relatively dust free. there was some concern that we kicked up a lot of dust and during landing. this shows that it is not that bad. the next graphic, just to give you a quick overview, shows the navcam, a stereo pair of cameras in the field of view. the cameras are designed to provide navigation and planning assistance. we do 360 degree panorama's and use those stereo images to do

drive planning. the cameras were be here at -- were built here at jpl. we take the same design that we used on the last mission and built them for msl. they are working very nicely. we checked out the cameras with that image and we are very happy. all the exposure times are as expected. after that image, we acquired a 360 degree panorama. this graphic shows the thumbnail images from that panorama. we downlink those and put together this mosaic. these are being generated at jpl by the multi image processing

lab. we will be down linking the full resolution versions of these images over the next day or two. the next graphic shows what we call a koehler projection. we took a panorama of the deck to document the state of the deck after landing. it is low resolution but you can see the rover of their -- there. q. can see the shadow of the rsm pointing to the right. -- you can see the shadow. we will get the full resolution version of those images down and we are looking forward to that. the next slide shows the first two fl range images we have downloaded.

this is a great shot pointed to the north. you can see in the near field these dour marks that the descent engine is made on the surface, which kicked up some of that dust that we saw in the hazcam images on landing day. near the middle of the image it is sloping downhill and then there is a little drop off near the middle of the image. beyond that you go all the way out to the horizon and you can see the north crater rim of scale greater -- gale crater. we are very excited to see the system working. based on what we have gotten in the last 12 hours, we have declared the navcams commission and ready to use. i will turn over to john. >> if we can go to the next one

there, you will see the same image that justin was just talking about. we are looking to the north, so that is the rim of gale crater that is facing the northern lowlands of mars. has been deeply dissected and what struck sen team about the image, you would be forgiven for thinking that nasa was trying to pull fast one on you and put a road map of the mojave desert and took a picture. the thing that is amazing about this is to a certain extent, the first impression you get is how earth like this seems, looking at that landscape. you are also looking at the same direction the alluvial fan is coming from. all of the sedentary material,

what we can confirm in terms of looking at the hirise images is that all those materials are derived from the erosion of those mountains there. that is the source for all this material. it is kind of fantastic to look out across their and see something that has really attracted people to particular parts of mars for years and wonder what it looks like you landed on landscaped with an alluvial fan that was created by water. there you are looking toward the watershed that deliver those materials. in the middle ground, you can see some dark looking features that are scarps, 2-3 meters in height. we have no idea what those are. they are related to the bedrock that is exposed. in the immediate foreground you

see this little low that justin mentioned. a los low, 1 or 2 degrees away from the rover and for that depression, -- a low slope. we don't know geologically what that means. in the foreground is something that is particularly interesting. these are these thrusters impingement excavation areas. what is cool about this is we got some for retrenching -- trenching.free this is a freebie, right off the bat. what is cool about this, we will resume in to the mark on the side. we estimate right now that this is approximately a half meter in

with. what chiusi beneath e soil is bedrock. cardoza -- let you see beneath the soil is bedrock. some of you may remember the phoenix a landing. what we are looking for here is the diversity of materials. so we see our first glimpse of bedrock. apparently there is a harder, rockier material beneath this when you are a gravel and pebbles -- beneath this of gvel and pebble sprit we are already getting a glimpse into the sub service. -- into theubrface. we already have an exploration hole drilled for us. we will have some underanding of the debt of the bedrock. we have never done this before

withover missi. i am going to turn it over to mike to show you some really cool stuff. i have two things to sheriff you today. first is not directly related to my role on msl, but to my role in the mro project. i am the team ader for the imaging system on mro. one of team members for my compy wa targeting mro up here as part of her duties and she brought to myttention the first thing i am going to show you. i need to set the stage because it will come on screen and flash off after a couple of seconds. what you are going to see is a picture we took on august 1 of the landing area. obviously the lander and its other pieces are not in that image. the second image will come up a

few seconds later, the igee took on the seventh at the same time that hirise was taking the picture you have seen in the back of the room. it is 120 of the resolution of hirise. we can compare image to image but we also cover 50 tis more area, and hirise does. it is typically 30 kilometers wide. where were looking sideways at the surface and the entire image is like 275 kilometers long. we cover a huge section of marcella lee take theses.e imag looking at the after image, she found something belote.

i will draw your attention when und something alogical cod. -- a little odd the first graphic will flash between before and after. look over at the right to the upper left of ttayetnd you see thesee black thing is clicking on and off. if we go to the next slide, there will be another flickering image. you will see six spot. ken edgett came in and saw this on the screen from the door of the room and said what is that? it is very obvious to people who know mars' v well, d very

obvious to people who sdy galehawere differe six intrigued ballast masses -- entry ballast masses. they hit the surface and disturb they are about 12 kilometers down range from the lender. they have a 1 kilometer dispersal. these are what was thrown off just before the straighten up and fly right phase. that is where they hit. we are all very pleased that it worked pretty the edl guys were veryxcitedo see these. this was another test of all the

modeling that have done for edl, to do tell them how in merktf x come through the atmosphere. once mro is allowed to turn its payload back on, we will be able to do that test to look for these other large features. that is my first story. the next is an animation. this is the first 25 seconds of the video in thumbnail form. the first part of that you were in the dark. then it popped off and use all it moving away. this is a thumbnail resolution video but it gives you an idea

of the kind of actions we are going to see in the near future. that was six seconds of dark taken about 2.5 minutes before we landed. the next slide will show you something you have seen before. this is that thumbnail i showed a couple of days ago of the heat shield at a distance of about 15 meters. it is about 4.5 meters across. you have been hearing us and saying just wait until you see the good stuff. this is the good stuff, and it is quite spectacular. you can actually see this ditching in the thermal blanket -- the stitching in the thermal blanket. eventually we hope to have that same animation i just showed you in this resolution.

i was going to do a coupl of these thumbnail andhen representative -- foolion once, but i don't have time for that. the next one is a high resolution view of the vehicle sitting on the groun the vehicle is 0.7 meter off the ground. it is about 0.9 meter wide, about 1 yard wide. you can see a pavel that is 5 centimeters across. -- a pebble tha is 5 centimeters across. we are seeing some color differences in the material, but i think the way the filter is reacting tohat is being affected by the elimination

conditions. something that is darker looks colored. we took hundreds of this image and we are adding them together and getting spectacular spaal tion out ofhat. the camera is not in focus at thrface t n as much out of focus as i thought it would be. so it is really nice. the next one i think is another -- this is a hirise view. the color line is the one taken about 30 seconds before touchdown. you are looking at a little white b, that is the site of the rover.

it is located where we know from the closer images that it is. it is ry hard tshow you at th scale, you should look at the image that ll be on the web. there is bunchf rock f the core of that image. there is a very sharp little rock to the southwest of the rover by about 50 meters. i look at this and say there are plenty of places we can go. there is a question about if it is safe to move the rover. there is nothing undert are around it.

so today's presentation was to fulfill the promi of having a slightly better pictures. they are more than slightly better and we took some great images on the way down. >> it is tough to compete with these fantastic images, but i will report a snapshot of the first observations we have of the radiation internment on the surface of another planet, which is quite remarkable in itself. yesterday was the 100-year anniversary of the disco of lactic, cosmicayon eth bytor hesith his hot air balloon in eastern germany. exactly 100 years later, yesterday, we make the characterize it -- or characterize tst measurements theadiation

spectrum t srfacof ma. the next slide is zooming in on the p decof the rover, showing where the window is. it points toward these the net so we characterize and measure charged particle radiation coming in from the atmosphere as well as neutral particle radiation, neutrons and gamma rays. we have learned a lot in the last 100 years. we know that the two types of radiation in space are driven in large part by the sun. they go with the solar cycle. it is a very interesting time because the entire nominal mission service operations will be right around solis maximum. you can se the data in white

and the prediction of the solar cycle in red. we'll have an opportunity to get a good characterization of both the galactic cosmic ray background and also the solar energetic particles as a result of flairs or solar dorms on the sun -- solar storms on the sun. the cosmic rays very an 11- year cycle. it happens on a scale of hours to days and it can be very intense yester d the sun was very quiet in the locatn of mars. the measurements we have are primarily galactic, cosmic rays. this i just a snapshot, close to the raw data that we observe

from the surface. is was 3.5 our observation with about one minuteime resotion, one frame per minute of data storage. the mast had not beepl yet so it was partially obstructing our field of view. we had not done a correctionn the plastic detectors. these are arbitrary units but we have put for reference the average dose rate that we observed. we have local over months rad and we are starting to characterize

radiation on the surface. although it is a quiet time on no a large contribution froms solar energetic particles. you can see the spike in that plot. it is the contribution from heavy ions that are the biggest effect for biological organisms, whether microbial life or astronauts on future missions to mars. what we will achieve with rad over the next days, months, and years, will be to characterize and accumulate statistics and gather energy spectra of each of these heavy ion eve dance. -- heavy ions. it will help us understand and

radiation dose on thetribution suace. this is just a snapshot, but we do see thexciting elements of what we will be collecting and accumulating over the next months and years as we continue with our mission. so stay tuned for future results. >> we will began with questions here at the jet propulsion wait for micron to come over to u. -- for a microphone. >> my question is for john. can we bring up the image of the close-up in the trench. is that something we can bring up? >> it will just take a minute.

>> it some sort of at the top of the trench. can you speculate onhat w cause a linear feature like that? >> sure, why not? [lter] that is an entirely reasonable suggestion. at i something the teamas talkingbout i ink should just wait to get the mast cam data down, but yes, it is a reasonable idea that there could be for actors bill with some cementing material. >> one re question here and

then a question on the phone line. wld tikek about the temperature and the radiation. are you completely comfortable with the condition on mars about >> as far as the rover itself,i? we don't have any concerns about the temperature being a little higher. normally when we l on mars we update our therm models to be consistent with what we see. we woke up sever times over last nht to get telemetry point all t the whate ll thosehi date m theyay dferent nifitraint n cotrhat we did not

expect. if things get too warm, we might a short operating time. for we let the cameras cl down, for example. we are still working on that. the higrempes are ll fantastic us for struggle whs ho much energy we have to use to heat the actuators to drive andove the arm. is is good news that front. >> all of the temperatures are with the opetingange of r instruments thes -- all the model have a temperature variation and we are within the range ofhat. ken go ahead. >> the dead rock you see, is

is it formed later -- the bad rock. >> i think yre asking if th is the floorfrater or s lat o bedrock. >>iven t eletion and the projection of the geometry of the rim of the crer, itould py high up to the floor of the crater. s, our first guest is iuld be potentiall know how hard it is yet and people have different feelings about how hard the mateal needs to bbefore i is a rock. we will finout, so i just

leave the th that. it is probably not the floor of the crater. he rk is excavat pretty deep so atea soil you are sitting on is pretty distbing are you going to have to drive away to getome undisturbed soil? >> that is a great questn. that is at the core of the team discussion right now. thereis obviously an opportunitthere. the estion is,wouluse the instruments therewe have this thingle intermission thatdoot h inis an option there

asar acontaminati g the potential combun products related t it, we have done a lot of studiesere at jpl. most of us a reasonable vel of condehi a sol or two, it dnot proposeuch of a risk ev witheg to interpretation of science data. right thi thie have evaluate carefully d thinkbout what weight do there. >> we will take one on e phe li and then i will me bk o. go ahead on the phone. >>h regard to the time l with jpl is pretty fast in relsing images. e question is, you are pushing

the envelope of immediacy. even thoug the rerno see sml stu, things of biological origin juouat you. if your going to release these thes and somethi jumps is clearly anomalous, possibly occur biological or will hold the image ust put it ohere? ige is an estate that does not look natural -- do you have somebody screening of the images? >> we will just see how it goes. oulicyight n is to releasall the ages. hey outnd somng about wha folksnnterpret.

be on the tm might want to interpret in terms of features that we might see. approach will alwayse to take an iegrated look, using cafuy abouthat we arethin doing, and then make a statement. if there was ever anything as profound as you are describing, we would take our time wh it, no matter how much jumpi up and down there would be in the baground. >> we are going next to leo. >> the first cosmic ray experiment on the moon was an irish experiment th a lot of interest in believe it or not. even looking at the early data, what do you hope from it?

can you sayt this stage wha it wo o surce from what you see so far? what sor rtion dosage? >> it is complexnvirnt the atmosphere difies the radiation spectra d sooes the surface. characterizing the neutron ternment othe surface is one of the most interesting questions,ea thead instrument is much more than just a simple dosimeter. it is like a thumb nail from an image point of view. is the energy sectothat is a fution of time. to be able to compare tse back into the transport models is really our goal

undending t transport we can improur model and hold that back in so we can design the most effective shielding for astronauts when we send them to march in the future. >> the navca panorama is yo first look at the neighborhood, iyou i was wondering what your immediate thoughts are about the scientific potential of the site in have landed on. >> i think i incredibly high. everhing we see there suggests a remarkable range of diversity. i chose to single out the issue of the depth of the soil bece

this is auestion that our scientists have wondered about for a long time. we have an instrument now they can reach down to a depth of 50 centimeters and look for hydrogen bearing substances. the image sows us right away that itill not be ice. so we are good fo planetary otection on that one, as promised. instea it looks like bedrock. when t insent was first built, the hope was that it mighsear force one day. in t meantime, all these hydrated minerals were discovered on mars. in terms of applying its to do think it ieally exciting. the greathin aut it is that weet an immediate calibra point of the depth of soil so that as we drive away, the interpretation of the data will always involve interpreting a muilayer system. we already have a hard datapoint

on the debt to the hard rk. if wee to use our other science instruments there to see what is in there, we get composional information as well. that is just one example of hown be used to fire out pobms th haveoteen a before. there is a ton of others out there that wean see. >> we will take the phone line next. please go ahead. bob >> my question is for john. i wtruck by your description of the early view of gale crater bearing some renceo the view of the jave dert. if you couldivgeology class here tk about scape?produce is sort of thshort version oit is, let

me try to paint theicture this way. my first experience with mars was when spirit an opportunity landed. when spirit landed, a lot of the folks that work on previous mars missions had a feeling it was a lot like pathfinder. when opportunity lead, it looked completely different. those of usovices wonred at the time if nasa was making up the data. until we soe all of these blueberries, and then resell t context for that and thought we could not make that up. it is justoo wei. now this time, with curiosity, we landed somethihat los very mars like but it also looks earth like, with those mountains

in the background. it looks a lot like what you see out in the mojave desert. it is really cool, and it makes you feel at home. without the geology lson, and the great experience there is that we are looking at a place that feels really comfoab. what will be interesting is to find out all the ways it is >> we have one here at the front of the room and then we will go to the phone lines again. >> i think we now know the landing site location down to eight or 10 decim places. can we get the time of landing down to two decimal places? >> i think i have the time on my phone here.

>> it will go to the next question and thecome back and answer that one. >> this is for john. now that we know where the ballast came down, is it safe to say they are too far away for curiosity to go and check out those new, fresh impact craters? is that just not possible? >> a lot of us hoped that those ings would come down close to where we landed. ngs really far away not that far away, but the obstacle is this dune field that ave

no desir to dri as unless we hav lke haveand arof tmount that has flow that will benterting in their own right. tn- oaroundrmous dune fld. >> inexicom anstnomer and the es is, nas has developed meteorolicalondion prove ther

we wilalso be mearing t a wheth froth d those will be. we oy g theata dowon day, sll not be real time. you madeerences to koehlerhat may or may not be tre i the image. can you -- some references to color. can you walk us through what

migh be able to be observed and phograed, or e extent to whichars he colorare seeing right there? >>ou see breitbart street eig was times brighter than tw ar sdond it. what you are gtin less linkagehatight intohat rk area. itdifficult to do in a shadowed area like that. anmati wld this image was officially processed that i would not contend that this is what mars looks like. i was interested in just showing you quality of whathe surface lookike. this cames hera dofilter camcorder mesol.lor

the builder has red, green, and ue patches on that exactly match up with the pick list of your camera. then use some interpolation techniques terage all those colors together. w to this imae on the our camera did thatinterpolatiod compression. it works in a dfent mathemical color space it isy icultor meo gi sa that cologht wrong.

have calibratigets, it will te images of re w a seethe sfa of mars and is inrmiowere gng. haveultipl-e mastams have w hirectlym the plight software message sent to usrom the fltware message. it is time. weid net thasign :3 tause o t lifime to mars til no

e rst hazm im weaken tween one a twoinut after at. 7 utc. ther qstion at t b >>ha is theve l o th cruise fm rth toars a amplions of at outureannedght to mars? ware ill ting a neutral pararticl nths of --if assume ane seven

the orr of a sbertthe astronomal doses the iifareheres can rea oo ke i don't know. i don't know.