the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's rooms, washington, d.c., september 16, 2013. i hereby appoint the honorable thomas j. rooney to act as speaker pro tempore on this

day. signed, john a. boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the prayer will be offered by our chaplain, father conroy. chaplain conroy: let us pray. almighty god of the universe, we give you thanks for giving us another day. we thank you that you give us a share in your creative work, having endowed each with unique and important talents. on this day, we ask your bressing on the men and women of the people's house who have been entrusted with the care of this great nation's people. because of the great blessings you have bestowed on our nation, may we embrace the opportunity to build a better world beyond our borders as well. bless all those who work in the nation's capitol. may their work be appreciated by the american people for their faithfulness and service to our nation is truly edifying.

may all that they do this day be for your greater honor and glory, amen. the speaker pro tempore: the chair has examined the journal of the last day's proceedings and announces to the house his approval thereof. pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1, the journal stands approved. the chair will lead the house in the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. without objection, the house stands adjourned until noon

>> let me clear that separate and apart from those negotiations over the security council resolution, the president has made clear and others have made clear that the threat of u.s. military action remains on the table. >> i want to be clear, was there any consideration by the white house given there was an active manhunt to cancel today's economic remarks? >> no. >> obama care is just two weeks before the healthcare insurance exchanging open up and 44% of americans think it's a bad

idea. 70% of americans say they don't understand it well or only understand it some. given the fact that it's the president's signature achievement, where is the disconnect? is it the white house that has failed or what do you blame? >> i think we've discussed for many months and years now the concerted ongoing effort to attack repeal, defund and delegitimate mies the affordable care act. and that effort is obviously backed by huge amounts of money and it continues. but i would point to other polls that note for example on the uninsured, there was the poll that you scythed i think that talks about how many americans don't understand the law even those lacking insurance but the pew poll

found 66% plan on getting insurance in the next few months. they will finally have affordable options they lacked in the past. in adugs in august a poll asked uninsured americans if they would get insurance next year and 60% said they would taking advantage of options that never existed for them before. this goes to the heart. there has been an enormous amount of energy and money spent by opponents of obama care. healthcare reform that passed congress, was signed into law by the president, was upheld as constitutional by the u.s. supreme court. it was passed into law three and a half years ago. and rather than doing things to help the economy grow, rather than helping kids get an education, rather than doing things to attract jobs in the united states, republicans in congress and particularly the

house have continued to wage olitical battles of the past tilting at windmills in many cases when it comes to the 40th attempt to repeal or defund or delegitimate mies obama care. in the meantime as i said last week millions of americans have enjoyed the benefits of obama care getting refunds on premiums and access to services they didn't have before. and when it comes to the implementation of the marketplaces, when that takes place, there will be a situation where americans will no longer be prevented from getting insurance because they have a preexisting condition. the answer that republicans have had to this now is simply do away with it, they offer no alternative. they offer no hope of a better situation when it comes to healthcare for all those millions of americans. they say sorry we're going to take away the refunds, we're

going to take away the benefits that you've already enjoyed all n the name of an i had logical agenda. we are implementing the affordable care act. and millions of americans will have insurance, affordable insurance for the first time because of it. millions of seniors are paying less for their prescription drugs already because of it. millions of young people can stay on their parents insurance up to age 26 because of it. nd the republicans will have to explain beyond meetings of their core supporters why it is they want to take those benefits away from the american people. and why they are doing it, if hey can't do it they'll tank the world economy. that's what they are lage out there this faction of one party on capitol hill. do this or pay the price. i don't think the american people want that. we s there some rollout

should anticipate for these americans who don't understand it properly here is what it looks like? >> i think you are going to see that in the public education campaign kicks you have at the beginning of october. there will be staff in community health centers and public announcements and outreach efforts. the six months from october to march will be key in raising knowledge in americans. groups to attack the law have started and have been ongoing for a long time. ads from insurance companies have not. there are effort working to undermine people getting the facts they need. they are trying to prevent americans taking advantage of the benefits provided by a law passed by the congress, signed by the president, unupheld by the supreme court.

you just were talking about [inaudible] there are folks concerned about the implementation of healthcare reform that immigration will fall off the agenda. what is the message to those concerned about these issues and his devotion to getting that done? >> our absolute focus on getting immigration reform passed by both houses and signed into law has not changed at all. what we saw was a remarkable bipartisan vote in the senate on comprehensive legislation that achieves all of the objectives laid out by the president and because we're having an economic conversation here with these deadlines looming, would if made law provide enormous economic

benefits to our country, greater economic growth, making sure millions of americans are brought into a system where they pay taxes and businesses across the country play by the same rules. where legal immigration is reformed so the best and brightest who study in our schools are able to stay here and start businesses. there are many reasons to support comprehensive immigration reform. if economic growth is what you care about then support immigration reform because the enfits are enormous for our country. >> the president has been [inaudible] the what does the president have in mind going into this discussion that he can unstick the u.n. or that you it out? >> you mean with regards to syria? there is no question as we've

said many times efforts to hold assad accountable by the united nations have been blocked over the last several years. there is now an opportunity thanks to negotiations between the united states and russia to help change that. and again, there is a process under way where the specifics of a resolution are being worked on in new york at the united nations by the members of the security council, the permanent members. and we will push for the strongest possible enforcement language to be included in that. it's important to note that separate and apart from that the threat of u.s. military force remains on the table. and that threat has been an important forcing mechanism pism to this process that helped bring about a process where russia for two years had thrown up road blocks to

diplomatic process in holding assad accountable took a significant step and put its credibility on the line in order to push forward this proposal to remove assad's chemical went frns his control. and syria which never admitted for years and yearsed the chemical weapons stock piles although it has some of the biggest in the renalen in the has sedtl sign the chemical weapons convention and agreed to the propose toll have those weapons placed under international supervision and destroyed. that is significant progress. you're saying that it could come as soon as september --

>> i am pointing you to the fact we made clear the president would have announcement in the fall about his nominee for fed chairman. i have no change to that guide tons offer. note imply meant that a to those who thought fall had already arrived. does it strategyically is there any reason why you would hold off on announcement like that until you get the obama care deadline and budget renewal out of the way? >> i am not going to engage in conversations about nomination announcement process, i'm just not. we said roughly when that will come and when the president has been announcement to make it he'll make it. then we'll have an excellent briefing where we discuss the nominees credentials. >> can you read part of the

public campaign in terms of the resident making a case against pushback when it comes to the obama care deadline and the budget fight in terms of any campaign on the road, in terms of how he works with congress in the next few weeks? >> i think the president made lear in his remarks that he is previewing what our approach is as we enter this period of fairly intense discussion about our economic way forward and so the answer generally speaking is yes. he made pretty clear that he would not negotiate over raising the debt ceiling. the flirtation, the mere flirtation by members of the house of representatives in 2011 with default did harm to our economic. you would think that those who claim to have the american people and the middle class at

heart when they make policy decision that is their goal is to help the american economy would never even consider flirting with default. unfortunately there say faction within the republican party concentrated especially in the house of representatives with apparent influence beyond its numbers that seems to think that is a good idea, that seems to think that threatening to with hold benefits from a health insurance reform law in exchange for congress paying the bills that its already racked up is a good approach to doing the business of the american people. it is not. >> is there anything that the white house has been able to rule out in terms of any potential terrorism? [inaudible] how do you manage that

potential angle? >> again, i think in an ongoing situation like this, we have to have the investigation take place. the president has been briefed multiple times and will continue to be briefed on the situation as events unfold. who have been displaced almost 7 million over 100,000 have been killed, what is the president's message? the reports we're seeing out of those communities say there say lack of urgency when keeling with the problem. you are separating the political resolution from the chemical weapons and that's what the president did last week. but what's the message to those people who have been displaced or those who have been killed. >> we believe assad has to go.

he has lost his legitimacy to lead a people he has murdered with the use of chemical apons and we have provided enormous humanitarian support to the people and we have provided substantial and continue to provide increase our aid to the opposition both the political opposition and the military opposition. we believe however that ultimately through the geneva two process this can only be resolved through political negotiation and settlement. that's the only way to achieve where syria is allowed the best possible future. we're going to work with our international partners and opposition to help bring that about. when it comes to and it's important for those of you who report on this to make clear the distinction that we have tried to make clear from the beginning that the

contemplation of using u.s. military force was and is in response to assad's violation of an international prohibition against the use of chemical weapons. because the use of chemical weapons represents a threat to the united states in the long term, certainly a threat to the renalen. and we as an international community and the united states as a leader in that community must ensure that prohibition remains strong. >> what is the response to those who say that the urgency with which the white house has responded to the chemical weapons issue is undercut by two years delay -- many of the people who have been suffering for the last two years wonder why the military was only being used as a threat for the chemical weapons issue? >> we are not using u.s. military to fight somebody else's civil war. we are providing assistance to

the opposition. we are providing aid to the syrian people. and we have working with our partners placed significant part of n assad as our effort to help bring about a political settlement that in our view can't include assad in control. >> has the u.s. been in discussions with allies like grain and france regarding what countries might contribute to any security force to ensure the safety of the inspectors. >> the it's has been in close consultation with the united kingdom and france about the u.n. security council resolution as well as other members of the security council. we have been in regular consultation with grain and france on the issue of syria. when it comes to the mechanisms and month dalties of implementing the framework, that process is still very much

under way and i don't have any specifics about what those mechanisms would look like or who would participate. is so i just don't have any answers on those. >> are those ongoing discussions? >> yes, they are. >> the situation in the nafle yard, the president saying we eed to pull together [inaudible] >> two things, i would say that the president as he does in all these case when is he has a top position to fill is going about the process of deciding on a nominee. d he will do that taking the time necessary to select a nominee. we also have a pending deputy homeland security secretary nominee that we would like the

senate to act on right away, highly qualified person who should be confirmed right away. but in the meantime the president is working on potential secretary nomination. 12 are er question, dead now. what does the white house think about this particularly? since president obama has been in office, seven mass shootings. there has been momentum. people have seen death, destruction and felt the pain. why has there not been some kind of movement on some kind of new gun control law? >> well, again, as you just noted these are unfolding facts on an unfolding and ongoing situation and investigation with regards to this particular . ooting which is tragic

and as the president said since this is taking place on a military ins city lation, the fact that men and women who understand the risks they are taking when they work for the military and potentially get assigned overseas in dangerous places do not imagine they were taking those kind of risks when they showed up for work this morning on a domestic military installation. but it is far too early to say anything about who did this and the broader meaning of it. when it comes to common sense legislation to reduce gun violence, the president has been very clear and he was very clear with his significant disappointment with the senate in its failure to pass common sense legislation that was supported by an overwhelming

majority of the american people by majorities in blue states, purple states and red states. and that was a shame. and we will continue to work to take action to improve gun safety in this -- to reduce gun sflines this country through executive action and hopefully congress will take action to reduce gun vipes as well. >> i understand we do know for a fact these were shooting deaths. inaudible] >> and countless other deaths as you know. and this is why we should take action to reduce gun violence. we should take common sense action supported by americans rom every part of the country.

>> there are some positive comments coming out of iran today, the u.s. delegation chief talked about provocative acts [inaudible] . did the president's remarks last night, did they achieve the desired affect. is there more reason for optimism now about a diplomatic track? >> i would say a couple of things. one, we hope this new government will engage to reach a diplomatic solution that will address the international community's concerns about its nuclear program. and we remain red do i engage with iran's government to achieve a peaceful resolution to the nuclear issue. we remain ready to engage with the government on the basis of mutual respect to achieve a peaceful resolution.

now actions of course speak louder than words. and it has always been the case that we are ready to engage in he b-5 plus 1 or bilaterally to achieve this resolution. but we have also been clear that iran has failed to live up to its obligations under international resolutions and needs to in aver final way foresake its nuclear weapons program. we will continue to engage or make ourselves available to engage. and the president made clear in his interview we remain hopeful there say possibility of making progress on this issue. >> [inaudible] >> there are no plans for the president to meet with his y rainian counter part next week. >> thanks very much.

>> [inaudible] >> there are no plans for thoim meet. i didn't say he wasn't on the schedule. there are no plans for him to meet with the iranian president. >> first and foremost our thoughts and prayers go out to the families who lost a loved one during this flooding in colorado. yesterday the president called the governor for an update on the situation and expressed his concern for the citizens affected by the flooding including those individuals still missing. he commended the first responders working to save lives. the president's direction fema president travelled to colorado today. fema has two incident

management assistance teams and an officer on site to coordinate with state and local officials to identify needs and short false directing response. five search and rescue teams, colorado task force one, missouri task force one, utah task force one and nebraska and nevada task force one are on the ground to support rescue operations in hard hit areas. as is the case in situations like this. fema staged commodities to the hardest hit areas. and we have and fema has more detail about the kind of assistance its providing and the commodities they have on location to help individuals hard hit by this historic floogged. thank you.

>> we joined this breefing fairly deeply despite. it's on our website in its entire tifment updating on the shooth at the washington navy yard this morning. as of 2:15 this morning police are saying at least 12 people have died in things at the navy yard. d.c. police chief said in a news conches that 12 people were confirmed dead. people are being told to stay in their homes and out of the area as authorities search for two other suspects. one of the shooters has died. they are wearing military style yuan forms. there is no under indication of a possible motive at this time. this has interrupted business on capitol hill. the senate gaveled in but after

brief remarks they went into recess. the pentagon is on tight security as two men remain on the loose. president obama smoke about the attack this afternoon during a briefing on the economy. >> i've been briefed by my team on the swafplgtse we still don't know all the facts but we do know that several people have been shot and some have been killed. so we are confronting yet another mass shooting. and today it happened on a military installation in our nation's capital. it's a shooting that targeted our military and slan personnel. women who en and were going to work doing their job protecting all of us. they are patriots and they know the dangers of serving abroad but today they faced the unimaginable violence that they wouldn't have expected here at

home. so we offer our gratitude to the navy, local law enforcement and the doctors who have responded with skill and bravery. i made it clear to my team i want the investigation to be seemless so federal and local authorities are working together and we will do everything in our power to make sure whoever carried out this act is held responsible. we send our thoughts and prayers to all at the navy yard who have been touched by this tragedy. we thank them for their service. we stand with the families of those who have been harmed. they are going to need our love and support. as we learn more about those who died today, we will honor their service to the nation they helped to make great and obviously we're going to be investigating thuroughly what happened as we do so many of these shootings sadly that have

happened and do everything that we can to try to prevent them. >> live tonight our series on first ladies continues. helen taft was a woman of combination. taft inaugural gown. she marked this occasion not only her entry into the white house but added it as a mark own first ladies of the united states when she donated her gown to the smithsonian institution. she's the pa tran of first ladies collection and she established the tradition they would donate their inaugural gown to the smithsonian institution. >> meet helen taft tonight live at 9:00 eastern on c-span and

zahn. also on c-span radio and cspan.org. >> 15 years ago book tv made its debut on c-span2. >> love death and money are the three human concerns. we're all keen students of love. we are fascinated by every aspect of the matter in theory and practice. maybe not as much as ken star. >> and since then we brought you the top non-fiction books and authors every weekend. more than 9,000 authors have appeared on book tv including presidents. >> i wanted to give the reader a chance to understand the process by which i made decisions, the environment in which i made decisions and the people i listened to when i made decisions. this is not an attempt to rewrite history. it's not an attempt to fashion

a legacy. it is an attempt to be a part of the historical narrative. >> also supreme court justices. >> every single justice on the court has a passion and a love for the constitution and our country. then you know that if you accept that as an operating truth which it is, you understand that you can disagree. >> and nobel prize winners. >> for me what is interesting is the negotiation of a moral position do no harm, love somebody and respect yourself. all of that is reduced, simpfide notions. the philosophers have spent their lifetime trying to imagine what it is like to love

a moral life, what existence s what responsibility is. >> we visited book fairs and festvals around the country. >> and book tv is live at the l.a. times festival of books in west l.a.. >> there is our signature programming in depth each month. >> if you say to a child anywhere in this country once upon a time the child will stop and pause and listen. now you better cash the check. you better have more to say after that. but that phrase is still magical. >> and every week afterwards. >> my father already in the diplomatic service, his job had been to be press et jay in belgrade. my mother wanted me to be born in progress. then my father was recalled in 1938 and he was czechoslovakia

en the nazis marched in in 1939. > book tv has shown over 48,000 hours of back television. . throughout the fall we're marking 15 years of book tv on c-span2. >> the middle east institute hosted a discussion on human ights. >> good afternoon. if everyone could take their seats. i'm the vice president of the middle east institute. welcome to the second session

of our conference, securing gypt's future. are those you might have missed our tables, we are selling the middle east journal. one of the only peer-reviewed middle east journals out there. a lot of interesting issues involving egypt. please stop by there after the break following this panel. the second panel examines the challenges of overcoming the extreme polarization and division in egypt and was entitled am a working towards national reconciliation. this panel will look at the factors that triggered the first revolution in 2011 and led to the second in 2013. we will examine how these acing demands -- basic demands are

going to be met or can be met in this next phase of egypt's political development. 'm going to introduce them very briefly. longer bios are in your program books. check those out. to robbins left, is the chairperson of the egyptian initiative for personal rights. an important and independent egypt rights organization. the deputy director of regional programs at the atlantic council she has a long history of journalism in egypt. an entrepreneur and community organizer of a foundation that organizes and promotes social and economic development. and, an associate professor of

government at american university. she is currently leading a project about urban governance and social justice. i hope you can all check that out online. leading this discussion is the amazing robin wright. she is with the wilson center. before entering the think tank world, she was a journalist and a reporter for 140 countries for the washington post and the new yorker. she's known for her excellent books on the middle east. including her recent, rock the casbah. i cannot think of anybody who is more ideal to moderate this panel. i thank you all. it is an honor and a privilege to have you all. >> i'm delighted to participate

with this panel in what i think is the most important subject facing egypt today. we faced that we spent the money talking about the politics and the muslim brotherhood. the real issue and exciting dynamic and important development in the past 30 months is the emergence of this extraordinary group of activists and people were taking their face in their own hands and doing something about it. we cannot forget that all of this started into tunisia and egypt because of economic ssues, not politics. a young street vendor in tunisia. a young blogger/businessman who exposed corruption issues. i wanted to do a couple of things on this panel. i want to have each one of them give us a status report on the

critical issues that came from that original freedom and social justice movement. and, how the situation differs from 30 years ago, on the e.u. of the uprising. i will begin with that and we will get into a debate. hopefully, before we open this up to questions, deal with the tangible and realistic all see recommendations that we can make for the region and for those of us in the outside world. let me start with host thom -- hosam, if you could take us through the issues that have triggered the passions of the egyptians and motivated them to act, what are the things that have changed? how much better off or worse off are egypt and today and what does that mean for what appens next?

>> the short answer to this is that institutions and policies, in most respects, people in charge of implementing the policies and institutions, have not changed. from a human rights perspective, they are the same eople. the people have changed. i agree. so, there was the slogan that you mentioned. freedom and social justice. there was a more popular slogan during the 18 days. the people want the fall of the egime. that has not happened. the regime stayed intact.

of course, in analyzing this, i did not want to abandon the themes that were covered in the first two panels. politics had everything to do with it. following the overthrow mubarak, it was a coalition of convenience between the military and the islamists. i promise not to spend our time talking about islamists, the military wanted the space to preserve the regime. the islamists contains the square and led the political regime. they marginalize the opposition. the people disrupted that coalition of convenience and eight gave the chance to the military council and to forces of the state to rebuild and reassemble to preserve the state that we fought one mubarak was overthrown. we all thought there was going to be a lot of hard work ahead stop we felt that we can take on the world. we cannot be defeated.

we overthrew a dictator after 30 years in power with 18 days of revolt. what can defeat us? of course, then, we spent a few months thinking about the evolution. the regime has fallen. what are we going to do question mark are going to have a memorial here? how are we going to organize? to the lecture question, 30 months later, after this arrangement fell and the new arrangement is in place, in terms of accountability for the crimes of the past, we have seen nothing. he economic policies are the

same. the abuse of security forces. the backbone of all these regimes. mubarak's staff and morsi. no interest in reforming or holding accountable these security forces. we are still trying to keep the small democratic sphere that we have that is controlled by the ngos and the labor unions. we are still fighting to keep the the rights that we established during the last few years of mubarak and the 18 days. none of the laws that emulate these rights have changed. if you look at the legal framework. the constitutional policy and the people that are still in power, that has not changed. the people are not going to be silenced. i think it is the people that

move against mubarak and turned from support of the military to demanding an end to military rule and demanding elections among civilian candidates and the people who filled the square on the first day of morsi in office and filled the square in unprecedented numbers to demand more see's return. -- more see's return -- morsi's return. a lack of tolerance to any questions. that is not going to last. we learned that you can enjoy your honeymoon right now. at some point, he will are going to be asking you about serious questions and you're going to have to answer about your conduct in government. >> let me turn to you and you can take whatever slice of this

issue -- economic, gender, justice. >> people toss numbers about. they can be indicative but -- often, it is often not seeing he wood for the trees. egypt had 34 lean in their reserves and then it went down to 13 billion. the thing is, even though they had those reserves and the country was growing at about 5.6% in growth, there is a great deal poverty. if the country had been doing better, economically, we might not have had the january revolutions. if morsi's government have been

able to get a handle on economic problems, there might have been fewer people out on the street. as it stands, the poverty level has risen it is over 25%. in the rural areas, it is almost 70%. that is in rural areas. that is a lot of poor people. tourism is down. blessedly, the suez canal flows. people are sending money home but, the unemployment level has shot up. and what that means is that you have more discontented people who ask questions and less willing -- you have more

discontented people demanding their rights and you have discontented people who had enough and will put up with things that they might not have put up with. it is not a coolant since that it is not a coincidence that the xena phobia and hostility -- people of had enough -- it is no coincidence that the xena phobia -- xenophobia and hostility that people have been experiencing, people had enough. stable policy is not one that is changed. you know that you need to put food on the table for families and you need to have those factories up and running again. you cannot do that without political stability. we have not had political stability in some time. we have not had interim

government. matter how hard they try, they do not have a mandate. it is a tricky time. economically speaking, i think, things will get worse before they get better. for every day that they spend tired and hungry, i think they're going to get angry. hat ever honeymoon -- what ever honeymoon we have, that will not last. >> extraordinary work, for those of you who do not know the story. he has done work in the slums of cairo and tried to develop social alternatives in a very imaginative ways.

perhaps you can share some of your experiences and tell us what has changed in the last 30 months. what are the problems? what do you think is most important to them? >> i apologize -- what i see is that we are a group of revolutionaries who decided to stay away from politics. most of us were injured during the revolution and we moved to work with the people that we fought for in the first place. we took a straight and we want to make education, health, environment and create jobs. we were struck by the reality on the ground and how bad it

is. throughout -- i did get an apartment there and i spent two or three days. >> that is every week. >> every week. it gave me a completely different perspective as to what is happening. we should talk about presenting the egyptian people. actually, the reality on the ground is different. you see what people want, people on the ground want completely different things. what is different, this time, coming to the states and sitting with the pain was is that most panelists do know what the problems are. i listen to the panelists and the answers are perfect.

security, economy, solving the politics, i think the issue that remains since mubarak is, how? how are you going to make a normal egyptian citizen feel a change in their daily life. this is the heart of the issue. every political priority that you see and everyone on the ground does not have an answer as to how, with a very complete answer, how we're going to change the daily life of egyptian citizens. i have been through the muslim brotherhood, i -- nobody knows how to do it. they have some ideas. we talk about -- i was critical about what happens before -- what happened

before the revolution. they have can creep points on -- can create -- concrete points on charity work with normal egyptian's and that was our idea. the egyptian revolution did something good. the revolutionaries are not that bad. they changed my life. we face two kinds of force. one is a vicious type of war. the other is not so vicious, but is there. the first one, we faced as an ngo. it is a war of interest. there are financial interests

to people who want the system to be that way. for example, the garbage. my apartment overlooks a mountain of garbage that is 30 meters. i do not know how many feet that is. 100 feet? 30 meters. that is a lot. he government -- the garbage company -- they do not throw in the main dump, they throw it in our area and in front of the house. when you try to sell it and talk to the company, we discover that the local council has taken money from each car that goes in and dumps the garbage. nevada what we try to do, -- no matter what we tried to do, they would not push back

against the company. another example, i find police report filed against me and i find acorn order. -- a court order. idiculous accusations. > such as? >> for example, somebody said i insulted and beat someone up. and the police asked me to come. i said, who is this person? i've never seen this person and i know nothing about it. the person against it was the teachers. teachers in the area. the teachers charge 100 pounds for students to do private lessons.

we do the lessons for 10 pounds for the students. who were really -- the ones who were really hit were the teachers in the area. of course i was a revolutionary. i would not give in. i realized that if you want to get things done, you have to do some concessions. hat we did -- i would not give bribe -- what we ended up doing was telling the students and teachers was that we would pay you 500 pounds. bots, use it with the students for two months after class -- but, you will sit with the students for two months after

class and will only give you the money if they can write. if people are surprised, this is normal. children can read and write. we said we would give them 500 egyptian pounds and we would test them before and after. once they passed the exam, we would give them the money. we had things very good with the government and there is american center that we want to open. the american center would have served half a million people every year. it only cost $1 million to pen. not having this medical center resulted in 20,000 people dying every year. we said, you know what, why don't we do it?

that is in the beginning. we have the money. where is the problem? general electric said they would pay for. o problem. it has been two years now and the american center has not been opened. the government will take -- we will take the rest. we'll have it open. i can tell you some a stories and discuss some the details. that is what i want to get into, eventually. if iming government, what do i do to make the people live a better -- >> say that. -- save that. >> the second war is branding.

verybody wants to. the medical center. this is what was one of the big things that the muslim brotherhood did that was isastrous. i publicly said that. i told them that i am being asked, someone was stood against the regime and you are telling me to give clinical concessions -- political that is the time. i told them, i am being asked, someone who was put against the old regime and we were fighting -- now political concessions? no, you are definitely going the wrong way. change.see this type of everyone wants to make sure what

is my opinion and what is going on. i cannot bear the risk of being branded political. an ngo is a political -- apolitical. are you this side or that side? to be fair, aned, lot of the ngo's have. they do amazing have ao be honest -- directly accepting

of the government. they are filling a gap. the cancel fear their educational or medical needs. they are closing the gap. that needs toue be solved. the government needs to be aware. -- ngo's >> we will get into that in a minute. activist that he lost his sight in one eye from birdshot. , how are youoday doing? he said, i am doing fine. i am lucky. a lot of people lost no thighs. egypt today versus 30 months -- a lot of people lost both eyes. before.day versus

>> i want to think about in terms of where normal egyptians sense, ifat, in some in one of to be born the informal areas, you are born into a position of ea illegal just because you happen to be born in a certain residential area. for the last for the year -- for the last 13 years, citizens are not equal in egypt. public resources, like education, like health care, like transportation, is there a fair distribution? no. the egyptian government relies on ngo's and others to perform basic social services or chart supposed to be what a government does in the public interest for citizens.

85% of all cairo is informal housing areas. nook construction. in a lot of wealthy areas are building. are a child in one of like areas in a place this, one elementary school for all those people. no health care. no libraries. on the opposite side of things, i think one thing we have to is that there were tremendous activism over social issues. not about a new constitution. they were not about elections. not about religion. social justice, dignity, and the fall of the regime. the regime has not fallen. one of the things i think is

activists, the egyptian people, young people, my fellow political scientists, many of them would say durable authoritarianism, this will last a long time. young people have come out and they have been joined out by a whole cross-section of people. i think what needs to happen is that the demand has to be placed not on the muslim rutgers but on the state. brothers, but the state. all the problems you are talking about, the egyptians are aware of. activism has to be much more targeted to make amends for a new school. it for clean water. constitution,n article 68, it says every egyptian has the right to's -- to shelter, healthy

food, and water, i think it is. that is article 68. --the government constitutions are a beautiful thing. we have many. the last was not so bad. respect andernment protect and fulfill those? what i would say if there is tremendous mobilization going on. many committees are still working and they are doing a lot of good work, but i think the activism has to demand representation. it is very interesting in the thatonstitution of 2012 people are afraid of local democracy. 75% of the population of the has elected mayors. egypt is one of the few countries throughout the world

that has appointed mayors and appointed governors. government inocal egypt, there is local administration. laces that have hundreds of thousands of millions of people that look at them that have no representation. why? have municipal elections in egypt? the local people sconces were discounted in 2011. councilsve executive burning things with no representation. we have local popular committees , but actually, they are not representative and do not sustain themselves financially. especially in elections, when you have national elections, as we say in the u.s. and other places, "all

politics is local." in egypt, for one decade, politics has become criminalized and/or monopolized i local government. the question is, how do you get and allow all this incredible activism and energy and try to institutionalize it so people to not have to go to traffic will square?- trafalgar people need a way to represent and negotiate their interest. -- i do not know if anybody can answer this, what percent of education and health care is provided at the government? what i ngo's? does anybody have any idea?

is her microphone on? can you hear her? no. >> it is me. the problem is not the microphone, it is me. as an egyptian citizen you are entitled to health care and it should be free. just because you are entitled does not mean you are going to get it. that is why the muslim brotherhood it so well. they provided services the government failed to provide. being able toy of say this percentage is provided. there really is not away. you can say that the ngo's keep peeking -- keep picking up slack. >> majority, minority? education butblic everyone spends their money on

private lessons. i think it is important this is a policy of the egyptian government. to reduce -- the policies have been to cut back on services for years and cut back on education and public service and to privatize health care. just a surprise that there are are very poor public services in egypt now. i do not have those numbers and they are hard to come by. concessions or -- how the system, getting anything done in false so much corruption. 30 monthsrse than ago? how difficult does it take live? how much does the average person have to payoff? how does it affect life?

income, the ability to get angst done? -- income,c services the ability to get things done and to get basic services? >> again, i grieve -- i agree it is not a coincidence. we had an opportunity in january 2 011 to have a is continuation. -- a discontinuation. process of a senior level of administration to see who needs to be transferred and who needs to be prosecuted. even an attempt by the very first cap net that was appointed after mubarak -- by

-- very first cap net mubarak appointed after to prevent future corruption. the root of corruption, like conflict of interest laws, public dispose and, transparent budgeting, publicly accessible achieving processes and final outcome. the military council in power they came to power after mubarak had a vested interest in maintaining mood barrick -- mubarak. pass any of the prevention laws that at thetally were drafted

request of the government. the supreme military council did not want to pass it. we all felt that finally someone would introduce a democratic --date, it was very quickly morsi and the brotherhood intention,eir true which was not to reform the state to take over at the state. how do we utilize the structures, whether it is the corruption and abuse of police force, or the corrupt yurok receipt, how do we make sure it continues to work while preserving the privileges and current allen's of power under our leadership for our benefit? that backfired in their face.

ultimately, they refused to work for the new government. there was no attempt to reform the bureaucracy that we could face ofported in the this strike of the bureaucracy. the same we are in position, exactly the same secrecy. working in the same manner. it was former barrick's -- it .as mubarak the head of that authority was selected on july 1 as the new head of the general intelligence service. someone who was facing is suddenlyharges the replacement as the director

of general intelligence. that gives you an idea the state -- an idea as to the direction the state wants. ,ven in the constitution setting up an anticorruption body to bring them together and bring them some tooth, some teeth to fight corruption, that idea is scrapped. so that we keep the current anticorruption structure as in effect it as it is. the process is still exactly the same. that will ensure even more secrecy in the future, especially for the military budget will have to be entered as one figure in the new constitution. culturecompletely that

is an important factor of this. we cannot do human rights work without photocopying a file of a i am representing -- i still have to pay to photocopy. it is endemic. that is a result of the institutional makeup that encourages corruption. >> the fee that you pay goes in pocket, rather than the government revenue. >> it is part of his salary. he is not paid the minimum wage. thes calculated to include direct out-of-pocket fees we pay. it really is a part of the salary. it is seen as that i the government. so you deal with this government on the ground with

the people. "strike."ned the word interesting. little bit more power, they are striking over not getting salaries or getting fired. i remember right after the revolution there were strikes -- everyone was going on strikes. arehave to wonder if things not getting any better, if this endemic corruption is getting worse, in part because the economy is imploding. at what point do you see -- how much tolerance is there? what is next? where should we look? stability versus freedom. or rights. be it economic or political.

imagine how long be -- twons can tolerate months? 3, 4, 5? this is only my assumption. it is not getting better. the things are not getting better. it is not getting worse. the curfew has been hard on people. most of them are drivers so the curfew is a disaster. the average tolerance -- in my all egyptians.ay -- they are in

and there are- many other areas not planned. government wants to allocate a budget and they .annot because you do not know report.ead the >> 85% of new housing, 65% of cairo? so i think the tolerance level is one year. of giving all the benefit of the doubt. will startk people to move. >> i want to press you on that. what do you say when you say "start to move"?

>> the majority of egyptians, of people, most people do not know that, are not people like us. we were not the majority of people. people were of the people who were low income families. they have their own personal issue with their police. un-satisfaction. we are talking about the same thing. protest. i will be honest, they went down , people closed the road i think it is going to be very disruptive.

every area will use their own way to try to make a sound. make a noise. is the only way the government is going to ask. that is what i mean by move. i do not mean another wave in the streets. >> absolutely. >> it is important to note that while of course the country is completely consumed now in this andt waiting for battles to -- end, the protest did not stop even though the a country -- the country is in this mode. the entire talk is about defending the egyptian state in the face of this. the protest did not stop. this month we had labor strikes in august.

in exactly the same spots, because the root problems were never addressed. the strikers used to strike against mubarak and are striking again now. moved andry tanks arrested people. they were put to a military trial. they prolong their strike and tell their colleagues are released and then the military force would force the owners of the factories to give some concessions. in a few months we are going to .ave strikes in mahal first of all, there has never been a vision of where we went from. >> what are the issues for the workers? >> they are not political issues.

one to have tech now workers who have the movement against once they start to strike and a fine military tanks surrounding the factory, it becomes political. it becomes about military authoritarianism. brothers should really look where did we go wrong. the people that were part of the they should do exactly the same. how come we do not have a process where we look at the inequality at least, the last 10 years? the underlying root causes of the problems that we have right now? he do not understand them, and therefore we apply the same measures.

and continued this problem. what governments do, what the instead of passing a new law against demonstrations and impose new restrictions on independent labor union so we can control the labor unions -- it.rak did it, morsi did there were problems. you read any newspaper here in america and they say they have the same background paragraph, they failed to be inclusive. these are the two cases always made against the brothers. and we say, no. it was much worse than this. they praised the police publicly for killing protesters.

they organize mass arrests and sexual assault. just before they had started collecting the petitions, the discussingjority was a law against ngo's and judiciary and demonstrations and a law for labor unions that was theear attempt to rewrite rules of the game but to control the public fear. on this is being used to theify and legitimize fictions. how do we close this revolutionary season that started two years ago? and this now returns to total reform. the words were identical to what we used to hear in 2007 by the

progressive elite. it egyptians do not result -- revolt. forget about this revolution and start introducing reform. replacingnother r the revolutionary r. the are going to be up for same surprise that caught them unprepared in january of 2011. this state that we have right now is not going to be reformed. we have two scenarios right now. one scenario is going to be a political deal. what peopleg to be are going to say -- what about my minimum wage? what about democracy? a are going to ask questions. theother scenario is

security crackdown will continue. they are going to be completely defeated. that is when people are going to ask serious and hard questions. the next one, i am worried, is going to be a real revolution. people are going to realize it is not about the faces or names of those in power. it is about the structure of the state. literally and morally bankrupt, , andicient, repressing us right now they want this big daddy stay to protect them, but ultimately they are growing tired or the war on terror will come to an end and the people will realize the big daddy is the problem, not the protection. [applause] that, is theup on

laws ornti-terrorism the terrorism "will be man" going to make it almost impossible -- the terrorism "boogeyman" going to it almost ifssible, more difficult, they are using laws to basically , does thator unions make the next round bloodier? or more difficult or more traumatic? we had those rules before january 2011. those laws are not new. now it is the war on terror.

it was always the need for the state to protect itself. talked about corruption earlier. corruption is endemic to every part of our life in egypt. it starts at the top. the further down you go to more morally defensible it is. they are making lousy salaries and have children of their own. where are they going to get the money from? is it will hope appeal to certain -- egyptians are patriotic. beennly numbers that have right were the remittances. , they send trouble it in. there is going to be a point when they say, enough.

i think of the state thinks that to keepre going accepting this -- you cannot close this. the door that was opened in january 2011 you cannot close. in the same way that after january 2011, everyone who got a salary thought that they were entitled to more and therefore everybody want to strike. in egypt you know what happens when you strike hurt either you will get fired or arrested or worse. people are not going to stop. when this dies down at the moment, and it will die down, i think it is possible actually that the current government is aware of that. the interim government is currently desperately spending about 22 billion egyptian pounds, which is just over $3 billion which is a quarter of what the gulf arabs just gave us on infrastructure. that is really where it is at the moment. people don't have water or gas.

the can't get to their hospitals because they don't have roads. we just really need the infrastructure. even though this new government doesn't have much of a mandate, that is where the money is going. so if the state thinks that people are going to sit down and go away, i don't think so. >> i just looked at my watch. it is going so fast. so interesting. i want to open it up to your question. let me ask one more of diane. we have seen all this money pouring in from the gulf. $12 billion from the saudis and the uae. how long will that last? how vulnerable does that make the state in the long-term? at one point during the brotherhood the joke was little

doha i was trying to buy big egypt. >> i can speak to the first part of your question. i think it is interesting. now we have billions of dollars pouring in from the gulf and a lot of that is going not necessarily to infrastructure, a lot of it is going to buy petrol and wheat and provide food. but that is not obviously going to solve any of the endemic problems. the problems are also structural. i think one of the things that is interesting to point out about the continuity of the mubarak regime and the morsi regime is that it is a very neoliberal framework.

you would have expected a different sort of policy. there was an opportunity for innovation and an opportunity for a new direction. the muslim brothers, the fjp is still building affordable housing in the desert. they are still talking about building cities in the desert and they are ignoring the assets and capabilities and what you can do informal areas. it is the old kind of -- we need foreign investment, it is a neoliberal policy and that has not changed and they are in such economic predicaments now that they are going to be using this money for basic needs. it is not going to change a situation. i would go back to something that was said and analyze the tremendous challenges that egypt has. the question i have is, why

haven't political parties in egypt done a better job of trying to channel and lead local efforts and trying to change the demand size of things. why should we expect economic elites to change your policy? why should we expect the military to change its policy unless they are forced to at some level? the question becomes, in brazil and argentina and south africa, how have people been able to hold their governments accountable? i think there has been a failure of political parties, but there is an opportunity to go local. there is an opportunity to work with ngo's, to demand elected mayors and elected governors and demand elections and municipal elections quickly and not think these things are unimportant. again, if political parties can

operate nationally and throughout all areas in cairo, that is a tremendous opportunity there. the young activists, i think -- it is not just political parties -- the young activists and the innovators really have to target the state. they have to demand new policies. they have to demand new services. they have to target those things in very tangible material ways that matter so much to people. egyptians all over know the solutions to these problems. they know how their government works or doesn't work and how to get things done. it is a tremendous loss that that knowledge and those citizens are not valued as democratic actors. they can't participate. i think any new government has to reach out and create many more spaces, not to retrench as

it is, not to talk about terrorism all the time, but talk about inclusion and the rights of people to participate. >> it is probably a lot easier to say than to do. we are talking about the real world, not the ideal world, unfortunately. let me open it up to your questions. i hope there is a female. right here. i do think we have had a female question all day. >> i have two questions. we have been amazed at the ability of egyptians to organize, mobilize, cleanup streets, get people together, demand, have a whole entire campaign.

i tell you, when it began in 2011, people all over -- and i work with the nonviolent movement -- people were sending experts to go to egypt and learn about their methods. it was massive, how they were able to organize, mobilize and stay committed to one vision. >> what is your question? >> why has that not followed through? why is it the fact that once mubarak was gone somehow people retreated and said someone else can take the stand? that is one fundamental question that i just can't imagine. with that kind of ability, what happened that they owed follow through, why was there not a vision afterwards? >> it's been three years, right?

a lot of us, once we go in the media, we are really negatively attacked. a lot of us decided to be low profile. one of the things that we learned is that anyone who is going to be solo is going to be singled out. for me to bring an organization or some kind of real power, you have to think, one, you need real grassroots support. for me to actually say i represent the people, i need to actually win the people and understand what the people need. the first thing we did -- i am not the only one, there is a group of us -- we moved with the people and try to understand what the people are. number two, if we really are sincere about our revolution and our love for our country, it is not about me becoming a minister or president, it is about us

knowing exactly how we're going to take egypt from point a to point b. if i don't have that answer, then i am not ready to stand up on stage. we are in that process. any politician and anyone who will accept the position and appear on stage and does not have an answer on how you're going to take egypt from point a to point b is unethical. we know exactly what we are doing and what happened and we are just trying to take our time to understand the problem. when we are on stage and we are all young, so the age factor -- we are losing almost every war, but we are trying to win the age war. when we are ready on time, we know exactly how to solve the real problems. now we can say, yes, the revolution succeeded. and it was a success. >> thank you.

>> you talked about continuing dissatisfaction and the continuation of protests. i think the suggestion is that it is going to blow up again in the foreseeable future. my question is, what is going to be the outcome this time? it is very easy to forget that the both in january 2011 and this summer, this popular movement ended in a military intervention. it was a military that brought down mubarak and morsi. what other people going to do next time? you know you have a situation when you have a small dog that

yaps and a big dog comes around the corner and takes care of things. the big dog is the military. what is that dog going to do this time? is it going to turn against protesters rather than against a government? >> thank you. do you want to take that? >> i will have to resist the urge to engage the metaphor. obviously. i think your question is related to the question of what happened to the political -- why our political parties not and a question about what happened to the grassroots movement. ok, it is complicated in that

when mubarak was overthrown, we did not have a roundtable national process to agree on the rules of the game, right? we had big daddy or the military place, and the military decided the generals were going to write the rules of the game. we are going to consult, we might even call a public referendum, millions will come, but then we are going to write what will actually go into the constitution and the framework of the transition. then they singled out the muslim brothers and said and i pick him. they were part of the committee that would draft the proposed amendments to the constitution, etc., that started the question of who gets the ear of the generals and leaders. it was not a matter of who organizes faster or who goes out

and builds a movement, it became a matter of who really influences the decisions of the generals. that was really what killed the post-mubarak political parties. on the one hand, it was a competition for who gets to sit in the lap of the generals. on the other hand, they could not trust that if they went and spend the next four years building a movement and bypass this next election and conceded that they're not going to win it, in four years time when they come back the rules of the game will allow them to actually compete. it was a foundational moment and it was being written in the most untransparent, undemocratic ways. of course, that was a huge distraction. what happened to the grassroots was what happened to this. when mubarak was ousted we had a few months where we could travel everywhere we wanted in the country. as a human rights organization that we used to run away from

state security -- it used to be impossible for us to go to a village in the aftermath of sectarian violence and not be picked up and thrown out of the village by the security officer. we have the entire country. we would enter cultural centers and palaces. the entire country was open to us. that is early 2011. by the summer of 2011, all of the government media and government officials and ministers at the time started saying that january 25 was a conspiracy. it was funded by the west, we are going to start an investigation into who funded this conspiracy and who undermined the mubarak regime. the capitalist started this investigation and assigned a minister of justice to do the fact-finding and suddenly the media is saying, april sixth,

they were flown to the west and they were told how to destabilize the situation. all of these people attacked the state and rode down mubarak in one conspiracy. of course, that was effective, and that was the refusal to change the ngo laws come up to change the funding rules, and with being completely shut out of the policy level, the policy circles, it had a big impact on the stability of this grassroots movement to continue. morsi's rule did not change that. i don't know what is going to happen, but i agree with the analysis that says it has been three waves. those that actually wants to

hand us over designation to the -- there was another wave to get the american military to concede. there has been a third wave against the religious right that was going to destroy this nascent democratic process. there were different actors of course in every wave. i think there will be a fourth wave that will come soon unless people in power realize that this state that was born in 1952 has become a dead body that we are trying to pretend is alive for a few years now. it is time to say that this nation-state project has failed. we need a new republic and the new republic must be based on these new values for it to be acceptable and to not suffer the same crisis of legitimacy and

the same crisis of delivery that has really brought down all these presidents. until we get to that point, what i see right now is going to be a political sphere that is heavily controlled by the military with some political parties competing in a formal political process that is going to yield results just like the -- they have a constitution, they have a referendum and elections, etc. but the process collapsed. probably, the roadmap is going to be step two. but what comes out of it is not going to have the legitimacy or the acceptance to make it an enduring political system. >> we only have four minutes left, so i want to get to the

last bit of business we have. that is the policy prescription. what are the recommendations? if the other three of you would wrap up with giving your thoughts on to be tangible and realistic and not dreamy? >> i don't really think it is a big secret. what i do think is there a resistance of how it is going to be done. i think there will be no economic success without a political consensus and i think there will be no political consensus without accepting all parts of egyptian society. what we have at the moment is not feasible. what we have is a small group of people making decisions for a very large group of people. the large group has said that

they won't do it. >> we know what doesn't work. what will? >> i think you need to open up. >> we needs tangibles, specifics. what is it, particularly the people who brought us the revolution, what can they do now? >> that is the place i would like to be. let's say we have 300 people, right? our work, according to the ministry of justice, we have -- we affected around 100,000 people in the last two years. if you go through ngo's and you get 300 people and everyone averaged reaching out to 50,000

people, you're talking about 15 million people. you are supporting two things. one, easy access to funding. number two, easy access to implementing the projects. >> you said no dreaming. >> i did the proposal called the citizenship development fund that is exactly what the government needs to do in terms of healthcare starting with the medical centers, in terms of the youth centers. i have a detailed plan on what a government can do right now. in terms of policy, i think the fact that they should do -- i am being kind of hopeful, is that providing ngo's with very quick accessibility for implementing

projects. if i'm taking a lot of time and effort and actually raising the funds in gathering the people and doing the work, i shouldn't be stuck with government approval. the government should have a committee that actually fosters or makes easier access or ngo's that are the only ones who can actually touch the citizen and make his life better. it is as simple as that. that is my recommendation. the ngo's is going to be the number one savior for whichever government is going to come. i don't care which other one comes, as long as you let me help and you help the people that we are calling for, then you are good to stay. if there is any government official that wants to make a proposal that is very detailed, i will be happy to share it and push for it to make the life of egyptians better. >> once again, the pinch-hitter.

>> i think that some of these things that need to happen are not ideal. i think there is tremendous act activism and that activists need to be much more specific in their target. for example, again, there needs to be a democratization of local government. there needs to be in the constitution elected mayors, elected governors. there needs to be targeted reforms of local government, of local administration to make it more representative, to make it more effective. i think one of the things that i would really push for and i know the human rights community has for a long time, without a right to information law it is extremely difficult to know anything about what the local government is doing. there needs to be a right to information law so that local people can ask their governments what is happening. this has been tremendously effective in india. it took 10 years of activism that the right to information law in india led to social audits all over the country,

freedom of information act so people could figure out what their communities needed. there needs to be from below -- i am not imagining that the government is going to have a change of heart. i think activism needs to think about social justice and a built environment, housing policies and the fair distribution of public resources. egypt is a very strange place. people talk about the military which owns a lot of land in egypt. the state doesn't, the military does. we have to think about the price of land and who gets the land. again, i think what needs to happen is local activism demanding the transformation of the state and state policies and particular policies which people find very enervating. >> i get the last word on this

and i will use it. those are all great ideas, but when you are just trying to get the garbage cleared from your area or maintain a job and you are a driver in the middle of a curfew, this is where i worry. we outside can talk about lots of great ideas -- because there are ideas out there. how do you get from point a to point b. i guess i would call myself guardedly pessimistic. i think there is such a gap between the tough realities that egyptians are living through and how much flexibility there is within a political system.

it is increasingly tolerant and willing to use any tactics it needs to achieve stability and what egyptians want. egyptians are torn, i think. there isn't that kind of that kind of flexibility of organic movement that we do get into something that gets brittle and confrontational and eventually bloody. this concerns me a great deal. please join me in thanking an extraordinary panel. thank you very much. >> here is the latest at the shooting at the navy yard. were killed and several others wounded today opened fire at the navy yard. washington metropolitan police chief cathy linear said one shooter was dead and one officer was wounded with an engagement

with at least one gunman. officials identified the dead alexis. as aaron the navy yard is a few blocks from the nationals baseball stadium. the game tonight has been canceled. the u.s. senate met for brief time and recessed moments after dabbling in. after that, the sergeant at arms from the senate announced that the senate complex was on lockdown. the pentagon also under special security is afternoon while the investigation continues, some eight hours into the instant. beenrs of congress have tweeting their reaction to the shooting today. senator bob casey says my thoughts and prayers are with all those impact did buy the shooting at the navy yard. thank you to all of our brave first responders. eric cantor said he was deeply sanded and -- sad and by the

navy yard tragedy. tom harkin said today is a sad day in washington. all the victims of the navy yard shooting are in my thoughts. we will continue to watch the situation and bring you updates as available. tonight, our series on first ladies continues. taft was a woman of a combination. the helen taft inaugural gallon. occasion, ands added it on the mark of ladies when she became the first first to the donate her gown smithsonian. she is the founding patron of the first lady's collection and established a tradition that first ladies would donate their

gallons to the collection. every first lady afterward who had an inaugural all had and in our girl down and donated dad inauguralhad an wn and donated it to the smithsonian. >> we were interveners on the side of the fcc in this case. we were supporting the determination that there was a concern with these bottleneck companies controlling who are the winners and losers on the internet and that they have the right, legal authority and the authority under the first amendment and elsewhere in the two mutations act, to protect consumers and protect competition by prohibiting these gatekeepers from favoring certain content, services, and applications over others. >> our position has been to

oppose the adoption of net travel of the rules on both neutrality onet both policy and other grounds. this is an important poor and in terms of the policy issue, an important point in the terms of issues, there were no findings that the internet providers have market power. sp's block or slow content? case, tonightf the at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. more from the middle east institute on egypt and its political future. one of the panels featured a discussion of egypt's relationship with the international community.

this begins with an introduction by the institute's senior vice president. >> good afternoon, everybody. , we areake your seats starting our fourth panel of the day and we have a lot to discuss. i am with the middle east institute. welcome. last and oneto the of the most interesting panels of the day. you could please sit down. we talked throughout the day about what egyptians can do to move forward on their political path, to work toward greater stability, greater democracy, rater prosperity. we talked about what egyptians can do to work toward national

reconciliation, healing the wounds. we talked about how egyptians can work to meet the demands and needs of the people or bread, freedom, and social justice. now we want to change the path and talk about a little what the international can -- international community can do to help egypt along on its path stability,ter prosperity, and democracy. he have with us today a panel of academics and analysts who have been writing on the u.s.- egyptian relationship and are well placed to discuss this topic with us today. my left, we have any hawthorne am a senior fellow at the atlantic council where she has been writing on egypt. before joining the atlantic council, she was at that advisingt of state u.s. policy toward the arab countries. next to her is

the director of languages at the middle east institute, a well- known columnist for the egyptian paper "al sharouk." next we have a chairman of the board and ceo of a publishing house and director of the regional center for strategic studies in cairo. ad now then the process -- professor at the university of texas at austin. this panel is in capable hands of michael, a senior fellow at the century foundation where he has written on the u.s.-egyptian relationship. michael, i would like to hand the panel over to you. thank you so much for joining us. it is a real privilege and an honor. >> thank you, and thank you so much for persevering. it is my job to agitate our

panelists so we will get an argument to keep you awake. egypt, from the start of the arab us pricing, was seen as the .enter of gravity world believe because of what happened in egypt, because of its historic role, would have refound implications for the region, and for that reason, singled out the transition in egypt and its potential success is something the international community wanted to prioritize. the international community and the united states has not always been able to adjust to these changing times, and the results of international interaction and engagement with egypt are clearly something of a mixed bag and at times have yielded disappointing results from the

perspective of the international community. and i would like to start with i would like to ask him whether egypt really wants international support in the wake of the popular uprising of june 30, the military intervention on july 3, we have seen a mood of hyper nationalism sweep across the country where state media has stigmatized foreign countries, chief among them the united states, stigmatized contacts with those countries, and has suggested far flunks conspiracies about the rest of the world and the intentions of the rest of the world regarding egypt. this suggests a consultative picture based on this current mood. doesn't egypt think its relations with the outside world are important, and doesn't care about outside assistance and international support? >> let me start by thanking the middle east and student for

inviting me to much and thank you for getting me to start this discussion. tell you that egypt cannot stay away from the international community. i am sure that a lot of egyptians will meet to -- we'll need to have good relations with other countries. the framework we are talking about, what kind of relations that we want with the united states, in particular, which might some egyptians will do and if you remember "fiddler on the roof" where the gentleman at the time said long live the czar, but keep them away from us. to have the international community using the opportunity of egyptian mounting problems in he theo take off what

most important things that egyptians like to have, which is their independence, and that kind of independence has to be translated into a certain framework, and i would emphasize egyptian-american relations. president obama has said recently that we cannot keep the relationship with egypt as business as usual. the business as usual never was defined. do we have business or do we have a number of values that the united states wanted to maintain in egypt? i think the long list of his is ist we have often completely ignored. i mean, here we talk about the united states in particular and other international community -- if you want to make the frame of a relationship based on

, and inity of interests the case of the united states, a long list of american interests in egypt as well. usually the debate about egypt and the relationship with united states is centered around the aid -- should we cut off aid or not cut off aid? i was never in my life interested in aid to egypt, but it is important. however, that was in exchange for other interests in asia. part of the dozens in asia is called something called wasflight, and overflights an important interest. having access and easy access and in a way first to run access to the suez canal was a major interest for the country that has a lot of partnerships and relationships and has to go get secured from the suez canal.

the country that is making egypt a surplus in the balance of trade -- that is also an interest. in the american debate, and some of it i hear today, was completely different from the kind of debate we had back in cairo. regarding these particular points, that this relationship is based on interests, reciprocity, and in that sense i think i used the opportunity that we need a serious dialogue about an assessment of egyptian- american relations that has been injuring four 40 years now and would help the interests of both countries. we founded the past few weeks, couple months, that this in to ahip is coming stage of tension, that has to be explored and investigated. >> jason, maybe you can touch on what you think those interests

are and perhaps what they should doesnd assess for us what this bilateral relationship look like and where it has gone wrong, perhaps, on both sides? >> to pick up on the question kate raised where the relationship should go from here and what the international actors can be doing. beginsng that question with an assessment of what the united states has done in the past and what it has done wrong in the past and it comes to egypt. big mistakes the u.s. has historically made in its relationship with the dip. opiniono neglect insight egypt, and the second is to support the kind of civility that was talked about in the first panel, because it is convenient, authoritarian stability, and not take

seriously the long-term risk of that arrangement. if we want to talk about business as usual between the u.s. and egypt, i am not sure if it has really changed, although obama has said it will change. is this as usual between the two countries means basically what was called the bargain, which is the u.s. supports authoritarian rulers in egypt and they in turn islamists.tremist the problem with that bargain during the past 40 years is that it produces people like rahman, it produces people like zawahiri, and mohammed atta. while continuing to have some value, but much less valuable

than they were during the cold rights the importance of star has shrunk significantly, for example. those are the wargames between egypt -- that the egypt and the u.s. participates in. if we do a fresh cost than if it analysis of the traditional u.s.-egyptian partnership, we itikfind from a realpol perspective that it would make sense to change things. >> in the midst of what is a pro-nalistic moment, military order emergent, there has been a contradiction in the sense that suggestions that the aid relationship the reformed or changed are also met with nationalistic fury, and yet this type of dependent relationship. there is a bit of a contradiction there. mohammed, maybe you can touch upon the nature of that connotative relationship, where you have a military, the biggest

beneficiary of american aid, and yet a broader political climate where foreign entanglements are being stigmatized. clearly, a strange dichotomy there. >> sure. lets her mind everybody that egypt received a lot of aid, $76 billion in aid, and the average anytian will not enjoy pleasure of this $76 billion aid because [indiscernible] in daily see this life. this equation between egyptians and american relationships was the basis for cooperation. i believe the events in the last two months proves this equation

needs to be revisited completely. it does not work anymore in this changing dynamic. [indiscernible] was not so significant to the relationship on the two sides [indiscernible] nowadays it is. it is a big factor for everybody. for the military, for the muslim brotherhood, for the liberal .gyptian voice 82% of egyptians do not want any kind of aid from the united states. if we are to reflect the revolution, the aid should be stopped because that is what the revolution wants. --elieve there are requests the equation should be change. the relationship was based on three foundations. security. [indiscernible] it played an important role

and it does not work anymore. egypt is not a strong ally of saudi arabia. third country after israel and the united states that does not have a relationship with iran as of today. second was military relations, and here the u.s. establishment has syria leveraged over the egyptian military. the last two months has shown that to be a wrong assumption. andminister of defense chuck hagel call each other almost every day, and clearly do not use violence to disburse [indiscernible] and he did exactly the opposite and nothing happened in terms of the changing equation of the relations as we speak. [indiscernible]

apache helicopter, but no serious discussion of stopping the aid. others,posing one of my freezing the aid for several months. we have full democracy by that months, and i would freeze the 849 months. tos would send the message the military of egypt that it is business not as usual. we need a serious democratic process. means for the region, and excluding islamists. you will not have a stable egypt. it will -- [indiscernible] unlessll freeze the aid we have a fiscal transition and several months left based on the

roadmap announced in cairo. islamistske to see brought in, and then we should resume the aid. [indiscernible] the old relationship does not work anymore. >> on one level, the u.s. has shown it has limited influence on political events in egypt. , if in factmation aid was suspended, one, would the u.s. have influence and would it change the trajectory of political events in the country? >> i do not think if the united states spends more military or -- to suspend military or economic aid it will have any influence over the decision-making of the egyptian authorities. they will do what they think is in the best interest of the country.

couldhe longer term it make a contribution to the political evolution, which is a complex process that is mainly dependent on domestic factors, but international factors always play a role in every country's internal political diploma, whether the country wants to demolish that or not. what is important for the united states right now is to actually take steps that make its own position and its policy, our policy, much more clear, even if we do not have an immediate effect on egyptian [indiscernible] >> ok. the u.s.-egyptian t andionship has been adrif

has been lacking in focus for a long time. at the time of the january 25 relation, that was a moment for the united states and egypt to try to refashion the relationship into something that made more sense for the new egypt and made more sense for the u.s. interests that go beyond security and strategic interests. the foundational events, the key element of the u.s.-egyptian relationship, the cap david follett by the peace treaty is something that is a distant memory now for the vast majority of egyptians were much too young to remember it. it is not a meaningful event in the consciousness, and it means so much for the united states either. it is important to u.s. interests, but does not serve as an emanating -- animating force for the u.s. and egypt. at the time of the revolution,

the united states should have started to restructure its relationship to egypt to have it include goals that go beyond security and strategic cooperation. that did not happen for reasons that we can discuss later on the panel. now i think the united states faces a real moment of truth where we have to make a decision about what is really important to us with respect to egypt. for that reason i think we should suspend aid and tell -- until egypt is more clearly on a democratic path, and that will make it clear that the u.s. interests in egypt include a successful democratic rosses, that that is something is in the units interest, that if we continue military aid, business as usual, the signal we will send is that we accept what the egyptian government is doing, and i do not inc. united states government should send that signal. i think we should send a different signal. continue, you just asked

the question, what does the u.s. want from egypt right now? it does not have much to do with the peace treaty because that is self-sustaining. it does not have much to do with overflight rights or suez canal ,assage rights because the u.s. that is not a big priority. the main priority would be to one request -- these do not create more terrorists. do not create more terrorists. do not reproduce the exact domestic policies and repression of the mubarak era that we went through in the 1990's that led to such a harmful spiral -- a horrible spiral of violence. that would be the top right are you. -- the top priority. >> [indiscernible]

of thingsl make a lot in the egyptian american track, much more tense than it is now. one factor that is completely excluded from that kind of logic, the assumption called the insertion [indiscernible] and countries as old as egypt, talked about human dignity, the idea that the minister of defense of the united states called the minister of defense in egypt and asked them to stop doing that or doing that. i think that is exactly what egypt did for 70 years with the british occupation. not on the agenda in egypt right now, for the revolutionaries or the reformers. veryare not considered

well nowadays. however, i have another suggestion, that we need to define our relationship. are we partners, strategic allies, are we enemies, are we friends? these terms -- i mean, these things i can't define what the relationships between the united states and italy, guided state in turkey, united states and thailand, and any other country in the world, and that is what i want u.s.-egyptian relations to be exactly like. we do not want a a privileged relationship that leads to orders coming from washington to cairo. he can talk, negotiate, we can ask and seek common interests. many of the facts that were said, we in the 1990's warned the united states over and over rising,w terrorism is

since a cold war event called the war in afghanistan involve russia. it was to give jihadist into afghanistan -- as we get into in egypts, we were hit by a wave of terror and we warned and warned and warned the united states of these the result wasthe an to the united states. that was not our doing, give him a visa to the united states. was living in hamburg, when the plan was formulated. it was the international community for reasons that a lot of hours to discuss, that helped in creating certain bands of people that we think began to change the world into a better

place or an islamic place or in a slum account if it -- or an islamic caliphate. i came to washington in 2003 and warned against the iraqi war. many of the lectures made sometimes in a second-draft message that that should not happen. the united states egyptian relationship should be considered like this, either as a state right kind of [indiscernible] >> there are warnings now coming from the other side. those were earnings were not listen to from the united states. decade ofisastrous foreign policy by the united states in the region. now there are warnings coming from the united states. the u.s. has a divergence of opinion about what is happening ofegypt and an understanding the dangers represented by the current course here if this is a

relationship of equals is it your ally and friend given a fair hearing? divergence inte understanding the objective reality of what is happening? when you see that theory of the case on the united states'side and many of its allies in the western world, you come away with a different reading of the basic dynamics of what is happening in egypt than you have on the egyptian side. two different narratives about what is happening. >> if you allow me a couple minutes. states looks at egypt as a crisis and it has to be inclusive with each other and live happily ever after. that is not the case in egypt. we are talking about the moment in which abraham lincoln faced

before the civil war and in which the united states lost 600,000 people, when it was the declaration of independence [indiscernible] egypt is living exactly in the ofent of 1953 in germany, 1979 in the iraq, in which countries are faced with historical moments in which you have to decide what to do the state. the basic values of what we have in egypt, of what people are trying to do, succeeding or failing will depend on a lot of factors. not one of them is the united the egyptian movement, the revolution, whatever you call it, is seeking a democratic, civic and modern state. this is the idea that the

.ounding fathers of egypt there's no question in the united states about these three goals. if we are partners, not as followers or dependence or intoing, you can come terms of what should be done in egypt. we heard today that there is a roadmap and this could be the proof in the pudding here. i was not saying that the united states will have a say in egypt if it cut the military aid or whatever aid or assistance it gives at this time. i said in the beginning i was never a doozy yesterday about the aid for economic and other reasons. but to pressure them, make them

do the right thing, make them do something that will have a backlash. do not forgive the 1950's. >> do you believe in that general description -- [applause] >> unfortunately, no. the state of egypt is a mess. this state is failed. the republic of 1952, the military made people believe that they owe him [indiscernible] the state failed. in 2015, the arabic language is 40%. they cannot write their name. they are nonfunctional. that is a lot of the state. i believe i will call it the

cairo elite. they ruled the state and the state serves them. none of them went to public school, state schools. [indiscernible] my son will never -- [indiscernible] the state serves their thisests, and now we want state to serve the same kind of elite again. it is time for change. mubaraklution against will change, but we failed, or see failed us, and now we're returning back. it is a mess. [indiscernible] egypt, and most irons cannot communicate. the last chapter of this crisis ash i am -- of this crisis --

these people in sinai cannot work, cannot go to -- [indiscernible] they want to reproduce more smart army. they learned from this. now they want to defend the state. injections are abroad because of this failed state. [applause] >> is this working? where iall due respect said i think the real existential threat to egypt is not the muslim brotherhood.

it is not withstanding the disaster that was more sees -- morsi's tenure. the real threat is poverty, ignorance, underdevelopment, egyptians not treated with dignity and respect, tortured by their government, whose government does not make efforts to build a better life for them. all the things mohammed mentioned. that is the real threat to egypt. that is the crime that egyptians have suffered under four decades. this is not the responsibility of the united states to solve its problem. there are things we can do to help and there are things we can do to hurt. i think we should be clear on s facing real problem egypt are. egypt and the united states will continue to cooperate going forward. on security and strategic matters, those are very important interests to the united states.

what we cannot have with this egyptian government is a partnership. in my view, when there is an egyptian government that takes genuine steps toward a democratic specific state and a state that respects the right to its citizens, that is the kind of egyptian state the united states can build a close relationship with with all of the benefits. in the meantime, i would never argue for cutting relations. i do not think we should permanently cut our aid program. we will have close, strategic cooperation. thingsoes not do those because it is a client state of the united states. the unitedes with states on the things that are in its own interest. that is how it should be. egypt is not pursue counterterrorism or peace with israel because of a billion dollars in u.s. military aid. -- pursues those

things because they feel it is in their interest. this is where the united states should pull back, reassess, stop and think about how it wants to position itself. it is also clear that most egyptians at this moment do not want the united states to pursue a close partnership with it. , takeeed to step back stock, and take a deep breath. that is where we are. what are the strategic interest that underpin it? what are the relations about? it cannot be about the bilateral relationship. there has to be something under that. what are the convergences of interest that can sustain this bilateral relationship .42? -- going forward?

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ther eis the reverse. what are the interests in maintaining this. .ypt has we have the older ways. there is also the mission to

make the world savfe for stability. egypt was important in doing this. something. yesterday only. we talked about this. millions about 20 people in it. there are other quarters in cairo. even the numbers, that means 75%.ve i know more than what you know. there are a lot of good things

in egypy as well. y did better than some and countries.other capable of a interests? are we going to move from one revolution to another? i hear about judging the government and muslim brothers but not the revolutionaries. that is a cycle that can work out in terms of very noble and very respectable kinds of

values. it took the country downhill. muslim us to the brothers. queda. us to al is on fire.egion united states is interested. not theaid we are ones doing this. morsi.me back under he ordered to blow up the gas pipeline and kill egyptian

soldiers. know, that is a major interest. disciplineor as a of its own are something of a interest. we have the best motor factories in the world. economice is a lot of interest in the region. the military was not given the money or made a bright start. it was to make them work.

it was every two years in each on of the interests. here we cannot have it both ways. we talk about strategic issues, strategictant goals, posture. we say they have to follow that one. we want to work very hard to reach into a modern country. that is why we were fighting people who tried to take the country to the middle ages. i am surprised they did not find one study about 2012.

it is very closed. problems.uge written constitution reps.pt's elected there is a disconnect where they are actions. aren't these the results of the prophesies? >> this is twice. might note we referring to this. .he judiciary refused

only the muslim brotherhood, only the supervision -- number -- never the constitution. that constitution really was approved by the high constitutional court. morsi three, president himself, he said we will amend it. that is the first time in history that the day the constitution was made the constitution was voted for is the same day in which the president is telling his people we need to amend the constitution because he knows the egyptian people are angry. that was approval of that constitution in that way.

>> amy, there is a lot of talk about aid that has -- and having recently returned from egypt, it is clear the diplomatic community in the international community more broadly is out of ideas. not knowing what to do next. estimation and thinking beyond simply the question of foreign military systems, what is the near-term agenda for the united states and more broadly, for the international community? >> i think it has a positive and negative elements. it has a positive and negative elements. it could be the united states and other international actors laying out much more clearly in a way injections can understand. we have failed to do that so far.

what they can offer to egypt far beyond foreign aid. not something that is that beneficial to egypt anymore. it was a bit on autopilot. what are all the other things that the international community and the west can offer egypt? this is what you did needs to succeed, not more foreign aid. that actually creates the kind of dependency i think egyptians really do not want. it is helping in the wrong -- long run. united states should lay out a vision of what we can really offer that is moving in a positive direction politically and economically. we have not done that yet. we did not do it after january 25 and we have not done it now.

that is a positive vision of what is at stake. what is the benefit of a strong relationship with a democratizing egypt that is moving in a positive direction? it isore negative sense, important right now that the united states government does not do anything or take any steps that would lend support or endorse in any way what is going on right now in egypt. we should step back, stay a lot -- say a lot less. that is not mean criticizing every moment. that is not always appropriate or penetrating into the egyptian consciousness. i do not think egyptians want to hear that right now. we should avoid lending our endorsement to what is going on. there is a wide crackdown on many egyptians.

many troubling development. egypt want the united states to support the roadmap map and endorse what is happening in egypt. i do not think the united states should. and are pulling back saying we will acknowledge it. we will recognize it. we will congratulate you. in the meantime we're not going to contort ourselves to what is going on when it is not a democratic path. one thing in terms of aid would be debt relief, to forgive the debt egypt accumulated especially during the mubarak years. that is something the u.s. has not put on the table. the only time obama did it was to offer a billion dollars of debt relief.

a bad idea -- i think this is a bad idea that the egyptians have called for. this is something that is very possible. it took a lot to get them to that would release this and use those resources for development projects in the interest of the egyptian people. it would have worked out very well for egypt. it costs the u.s. money to do this. costs thes - it treasury money. no matter how much we might want to do it, the united state congress is not going to support that kind of initiative. >> that is very instructive

tummy tuck. if you are not willing to actually spend money in a basic way that egyptians are calling for that would help , then what burden does that say about the other stuff? >> we did offer that. egyptianted it to the government. they said they would like immediate budget support. that is what the united states proposed to do. that is what held up in congress. >> i want to say one word here. there is this relief in aid. .his includes the winning party this is a dilemma or a nightmare.

there is no severe egyptian. there is the landscaping in egypt. maybe there is support of the which is aherhood new generation of terrorists. >> one of the effects was a reconvergence of relationship uae and saudi stepping in to provide aid to egypt and different relationship emerging with qatar and turkey. this ishink representative of a new regional alignment? is this a set of relationship

that will indoor going forward? are you concerned that despite ae talk of nationalism that new kind of dependency is emerging? any kindorried about of dependency. . wish that we started june 30 as everybody could be disturbed about emergency situations, i have to understand this situation that is only another couple of months. the situation is quite different. i want to get back directly to your point. that was the reliance of the .nited states during these countries supported egypt.

that is the core of the alliance that was working with the united states. it was working with israel on how to do it iranian state and also with the situation that the united states got trouble. the middle east. that is what we were working. that was the anchor. then there were changes that took lays in january 2011. in 2011. we started to have a strange relationship with countries like egypt with all the problems we have. qatar.e a country like turkey started to talk about coming back to a kind of turkish, not kind of dominus,

but not -- dominance but not wanting to repeat history. that is the one that was out split. the libyans and moroccans are approaching egypt? we are on the frontline that we were in the 1990s. we are now in the frontline of writing terrorism. revolutionaries. he signed within something called the fairmont agreement where he agreed he would change the constitutional example. he did not. make aed that he would coalition government of all included. .e did it he started the process of

brother is a shift in egypt. we were into the process of .he will not be thegypt durin solver. he will be part of the coming election. they have the full right to come back into the process to veto the process before it starts in strategicall the interests. it will have a lot a lot the wisdom. you can probably leave it in. [applause] there are microphones that will be passed around. please state your name and affiliation. i will make this morning real. please ask real questions and not speeches. please keep it to a question.

i will keep it right here in the front row. i am from georgetown university. this question is direct died toe doctor. theg a prominate figure in scene of journalism, to what extent do you think there is a strongm movement toward the freedom of the press along with freedoms,, economic "herost important part of majesty journalism?" to what extent now there is a amongst in egypt

those that are drafting? toward the freedom of press? egyptian media has changed drastically since the beginning of this century. thatf the major changes took place was the explosion of technology. also the printed press. the movement to the states private and independent sectors. that happened in the late years of mubarak. then came the revolution and the whole explosion became doubly so. for variations in the relationship to the constitution of 2012 and then in the current debate in egypt. the majority of egyptian media the nobody is seeing

egyptian government television. it is the private press. there is a very strong coalition. now between the egyptian people who came out in tens of millions .n july 26 there are just women and. that is what we got. , the army, or intelligence and security community. and christians out of the church. they decided that egypt is not going to be here. that is not the direction that

we started with in 1922. i think the media now is taking double positions. almost all of it. a seriousaking attempts not through movement of coming into the street but to the articles related freedom of the press. what kind to suggest of changes will happening. others are doing the same in other fields. there is much more organization. the freedom of the press will be like this. >> a quick follow up.

, onee issue of the press of the most dismaying elements for me in the role of the press on both sides. in terms of propagating conspiracy theories, the idea that ambassador anne patterson is supporting arms terrorism in egypt, that the united states is actively plotting to participate the country. the role of the press in stigmatizing defense. it is this weekend now. people might have different views about the current transitional process. traitorsrly are not to their country. how was egypt going to democratize with a press that is often times conspiratorial and

irresponsible? quacks that is shameful. i will agree that when you are politicale of mobility for about three years anyare not making m justifications. >> right over here. >> hi. i am with the atlantic council. i wanted to approach this idea of foreign funding. you mentioned that we cannot talk about investment in so far with political stagnation. one of the things that counters is an act of civil society yet civil society in egypt lacks a lot of times the resources and

capabilities to act on domestic funding. i want to get your perspectives on foreign funding. there were reports of activist who were being investigated which were subsequently denied. this --that state now? does this foreign funding still make sense? >> let's remember what happened in december 29th 2011. there were several offices. they had this trial. -- sent to anent average five years in jail. i would like to distinguish

foreignthe government funded and nongovernment foreign funded. any fund given by u.s. aid or government or affiliate are not worth combining most egyptians. the ways they reduce make them.does not it depends on local funding. you did not teach them how to raise it. i doubt there is any government fund without an agenda. whether you give it to an ngo or government. they should have some expectation. it is not a charity. government-funded most egyptians will not like.

they are not the government. is imperfect. it makes more hurt than more help to most egyptians. to touchy else want on that? >> i agree that foreign funding of egyptian ngos is very controversial and not widely popular in egypt. however, it is part of international law and norms that ngos have a right to receive funding from any partners around the world. as long as it does not promote terrorism or violence. even though it may be very unpopular it is still a part of a freedom of association and something the united states and other countries should defend. in that regard in the verdict in

trial of themthe working for german funded democracy organizations in egypt, it really is a thorn in the side of u.s. egyptian relations. it is not something that is driving calculations. the fact that this was handed down into barrick and citizens were committed for carrying out peaceful democracy activities with the full knowledge of the government is something that is really shameful. until that is resolved in some way this will be a block and a withy strong relationship egypt. i wanted to follow about what you said with the press. it has been incredibly disturbing to see what has been in the united states.

the is another reason why united states cannot continue this this with egypt. these are in the state own craft as well and privately on the media as well. i appreciate and welcome what you said to condemn this. i will not believe that this will stop anytime soon. it is very disturbing and does not bring credit to egypt. all the way to the back of the room. this question is for amy. i noticed you ended your last point on what gives credit to egypt. are in washington we have tendency to focus on what egypt is doing wrong which is very fair.

the sentiment in the region is that the obama administration has just dropped the ball on the arabs ring completely. -- aaron spring completely. spring completely. can you share with us what you think the obama administration's from today moving forward to do to rehabilitate that image? should they try to rehabilitate the image? a lot of us who have been following egypt closely feel that stepping back really happened about 18 or 20 months ago. clearhas not been a position on the lot of things that have happened in egypt coming out of the u.s. government with this idea we are no longer the central player to egypt. this is their process and they need to own it. >> shouldthink president obama

>> be doing and saying to the egyptian people? i this very moment i do not think united faith, i think we should say a lot less. i do not think they are penetrating. think the immediate things the united states should do is suspend our program in till egypt is returning to or on a democratic path. they are inserting in terms of democracy and human rights. we should offer a clear vision of what the united states could work with egypt on one's egypt is more clearly on a judiciary to democratize trajectory to democracy. i thought we should have done this earlier. to provide an incentive of what is at stake.

the things i think we should do. i think what we should not do is orh to embrace or approve accept exactly what is going on in egypt. politically, that is for egyptians to decide. the united states does not necessarily need to be actively supporting in any way. it is not in our strategic interest. left-hand side. >> hi. i have a question for the panel in regarding to what is going on in egypt right now in our relationship with egypt vis-a- vis the rise of the russians and china. >> let me tell you something. egyptian military officials love the united states.

they love to come here. a left to spend some time here and learn english. would you prefer to been some months in moscow, they would boldly say no. [indiscernible] it will not change anytime soon. [inaudible] >> i love both countries. i'm saying the u.s. is slowing the diminishing because of so many reasons are it at the same otherou get the rise of players like china. >> i get it. is russia or china going to play a bigger role in egypt going forward? >> yes.

it is climbing not only in egypt. i believe more influence of china and russia in the region is not real. there is a huge difference between the two countries. the egyptian elite are here. there is no threat of switching it. re: oriented now? -- are we oriented now? that inclination of egypt is the total i donment, outside of that not think it was only morsi

whose plan was to come back to playing the game. he went to china, brazil, india. i am one of the people that say let us have a good relationship with everybody. it yields not that much. there's very little in russia or china. the egyptian army and industry all trade banking and investment calls. tore are much more attuned the alliance. we have a very meek kind of relationship that i thought it was helping for egypt and the list as well.

there is a legitimizing factor. ultimately they will have a good relationship with the rest of the region. >> woman on the right-hand side here. >> i can see that there is a link tween the media in egypt and the democracy. a lot of people here are really authored by our media. i want you to comment on what is needed here in the united states? the media here is hashing the administration.

i would like to know your command. >> i cannot -- i am not a chairman of the russian post. do not look at me. >> i believe most news about egypt are from those who are in the ground here. they report what they see and what they witness. this is big news anywhere in the world. when he kill a few hundred people or 16,000 it is huge front-page news. it does not matter who kills them, whether they are armed or not.

is not important for reporters. i do semi-porting as well. it is huge news. that is why most egyptians criticize the american coverage. they criticize morsi. they criticize the killings. they criticize everybody huge is not have a standard. trying to apply egyptian standards for american does not apply. i believe it is very there reporting about invents -- event in egypt. [applause]

let's just stop. we are not going to take speeches from the floor. [indiscernible] a year ago the whole media would be talking about this. >> it is widely reported. >> nothing was mentioned. >> they were unfair and you know it. i want to ask this question.

economy, priority was economy, economy. the u.s. does not support the economy. in our opinion it is not support the revolution. i am optimistic about egypt's future no matter what. the u.s., are they going to push for and invest in egypt in support of the actual economy in egypt there are other ways doing u.s. aid or are they going to wait to see whoever comes in power and then go about it? have a real plan to support the egyptian economy? >> i agree with your point very much. there are two things the united states can offer to egypt. investments really has to do

with business people perceive the security environment in egypt. there is not much the united states government can do that is really in the hands of the egyptians. there are a lot of american businesses that were interested in investing in egypt. almost exactly a year ago the u.s. chamber of commerce organized one of the largest delegations in the world to , 100 ceos and leaders of top american businesses went to egypt. they had a very productive week there. as they were giving their press conference, a mob of protesters was breaking into the u.s. embassy. the forces were nowhere to be seen. the actually did -- undid positive messages they had taken away and they were reluctant to invest.

they have so much going for it in terms of talent and human capital. when businesses look at egypt they want to see security, stability. that is not happening right now. in terms of trade, the obama admin stretch and made a big mistake by not offering a free trade agreement as something egypt in the u.s. could work together toward. a complex process, hard. thea variety of reasons obama administration decided not to offer that to egypt early on. that would have been something very positive for egypt to work toward. i hope in the future that might be back on the table. i find myself being in the addition of the debbie downer on this panel. so be it. i think the answer to your question is no.

they are not the kind of incentives to provide a serious economic relief to egypt. the structural programs and not go very far. they were not helpful. we are not going to see a free- trade agreement that did not not happen under the bush administration. to me veryd it plainly. he said if you look around the region, the u.s. signs free trade agreements with countries with which it does not trade. that is when you look at it, when there is no trade to begin with. with egypt he have a trade surplus. thee's no incentive for kind of trade that would be beneficial. that is important to clarify.

there is a risk of moral hazard in which egyptians might keep expecting that somehow egypt aid will bring relief. i hope to some extent clarity can be helpful. >> many times i got here to washington. instead of the money going to egypt, you will use it as an incentive for american business to do business in egypt. we have a lot of success stories. that is the kind of relationship they look for. we will have a win-win situation. our exports improved by a quasi-kind of free trade area

and a certain kinds of commodities that is made by egyptians. but with an israeli component. we got over a billion dollars of exports as a result of this. that is one of the ways in which you are not giving anybody else. you're giving to your own workers and investors. >> we are running out of time. wait for the microphone please. thank you. my question is taking into fact thation the ap shutting down on the media channels might have a different opinion from the channels that

are being permitted to work. in youngest detained ever because ofn history the political opinion or being out. let's get to the question. what is the role of the protecting then civil rights of the egyptians? >> we will take one more question and then bundle them together. right here in the middle. my question is to jason.

like what you articulated, that we should ask the regime in egypt to at least stop producing more terrorists. personalize that? what would be your plan to do that after 3000 or 4000 killed? we will start with that question. i think it begins with something that has run through several panels. immediatelyn ending the crackdown against the muslim brotherhood, allowing muslim brotherhood figures who are in self-imposed exile to return, basically getting them to buy into the political process so that they will feel included and

so you will not have a return to the 1990s where you just basically have a single party state with nominal participation. then you have the muslim brotherhood is simply being in jail. that would be a basic step. .t is not require a magica wand it just requires political will. political friends to ask what the united states can do to a particular organization. nobody knows about the finances or international connection. it is proven that they are keen on keeping it. we have to be inclusive in.

we should notme, a allow again what happened in germany and eireann. fascist organizations that capabilities to torpedoing the futures of country. they paid a very heavy price. the freedom and justice party will participate in the coming elections. evenee with people who say with all the martyrdom time -- type of talk, it allowed to be heard. the current balance of power in asia allows that no one should be taken out of freedom of expression and getting out.

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] >> a police officer shot today are expected to survive. 13 people are dead including a gun man. authorities continued a search for second potential suspect. the navy yard is located about a mile from the capital. because of this, the senate postponed scheduled vote on thecial nominations and senate complex has been on lockdown. officials have lifted some of the restrictions on their side of the capital. ibo are now allowed to leave the senate building but only senators and staff are allowed to enter before tomorrow. members are tweeting. center ms. gaskell -- senator haskell says it makes me so sick. --

the last one from senator jack reed -- at the united nations earlier today, ban ki-moon discussed serious it use of chemical warons and declared it a crime and a violation of international law. here is more. a report of the mission to investigate allegations of the use of chemical weapons in syria has concluded that chemical weapons were used on a relatively larger scale in an ,rea of august -- damascus causing numerous casualties,

particularly among civilians. this morning i summoned to the member state of the united nations. posted it online for all the world to see. deserves highrts praise. they faced danger circumstances ing a sniper attack. they good -- they did a good time while having a standup. a team of experts deserves high praise. they face dangerous circumstances including a sniper attack. they did their job in record time. working with experts from the organization for the prohibition of chemical reference it is the

best. the report makes for chilling reading. the testimony from survivors and medical personnel and first responders. they have collected biomedical evidence and dozens of soil and environmental samples. it has provided an impartial and independent account. the results are overwhelming and indisputable. 85% of the samples tested possible for sarin. the majority of the rockets were fragments were found to be carrying sarah and -- sarin. this is a war crime and a grave violation of the 1925 protocol and international law.

it is the most significant use of chemical weapons against citizens since saddam hussein used them in 1988. the international community has a responsibility to ensure that chemical weapons are never used as an instrument of warfare. there will is a chemical weapons convention.>> that was part of the general's remarks today. you can see all of his comments tonight at 8:00 eastern here on c-span. you can also read the un chemical weapons report by clicking on the link on the front page of our website www.c- span.org. helen taft was a symbol of firsts.

this is her inaugural gown. name added it as a mark of first ladies in the united states when she donated it to the smithsonian. she is the founding patron of the collection and established the tradition that first ladies would donate their gown. taft, wife of the 27th president, tonight at 9:00 eastern on c-span and c-span , also at c-span radio and www.c-span.org. obama markedident the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the financial crisis. he spoke about his policies to strengthen the economy as congress continues negotiations

on raising that that ceiling. brieflyident spoke about the shooting at the washington, d.c., navy yard. this is about a half hour. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states.

>> good afternoon. please have a seat. before we begin, let me say a few words about the tragedy unfolding near not far away at the the navy yard. i have been briefed on the situation. we still do not know all the facts, but we do know some have been shot and killed. we are confronting yet another mass shooting. today it happened on a military installation in the nation's capital, a shooting that targeted the military and civilian personnel. these are men and women going to work, doing their job, protecting all of us. patriots. they know the dangers of serving abroad, but today they faced the unimaginable violence that they

would not have expected here at home. so we offer our gratitude to the navy and local law enforcement, federal authorities, and the doctors who respond with skill and bravery. as this investigation moves forward we will make sure whoever carried out this act is held responsible. in the meantime, we send thoughts and prayers to all at the navy yard who have been touched by this tragedy. we thank them for their service. we stand with the families of those who have been harmed. they will need our love and support, and as we learn more about the courageous americans who died today, their lives, families, patriotism, we will honor their service to the nation that they help to make great. obviously, we will be

investigating thoroughly what happened, as we do so many of the shootings, sadly, that have happened and do everything we can to try to prevent them. in recent weeks, much of our attention has been focused on the events in syria, the chemical weapons used on innocent people, including children. over the weekend we took an important step in the direction towards moving towards syria's chemical weapons under national control so they can be destroyed. i want to be clear that even as we have dealt with the situation in syria, we continue to focus on my number one priority since making sure we

recover from the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes and building our economy for everyone that is willing to take responsibility for their lives has a chance to get ahead. it was five years ago this week that the financial crisis rocked wall street and sent an economy already in recession into a tailspin. it is hard sometimes to remember everything that happened during those months, but in a matter of a frightening few days and weeks some of the largest investment banks in the world failed, stock markets plunged, banks stopped lending to families and small businesses, the auto industry, the heartbeat of american manufacturing was flatlining. by the time i took office, the economy was shrinking by an

annual rate of more than 8%. our businesses where shedding 800,000 jobs each month. it was a perfect storm that would rob millions of americans of jobs and homes and savings they had worked a lifetime to build. and it also laid bare the long erosion of the middle class that for more than a decade has had to work harder and harder just to keep up. in fact, most americans who have known economic hardship do not think about the collapse of lehman brothers when they think about the recession. instead, they recall the day they got the gut punch of a pink slip or the day the bank took away their home, the day they got sick and did not have health insurance, or the day they had to sit their

daughter or son down and tell them they could not afford to send them back to college the next semester. so those are this door is that guided everything we have done. it is what in those earliest days of the crisis caused us to act so quickly, to stop the downward spiral and put a floor under the fall. we put people to work repairing roads and bridges, teachers in the classroom and first responders on the street. we health responsible homeowners modify the mortgage so they could keep their homes. we help to jumpstart the flow of credit to help small businesses keep the doors open. we saved the american auto industry. as we worked to stabilize the economy and get it growing and create jobs again, we started pushing back against the trends that had been battering the middle class for decades. we took on a broken health-care

system, ended our addiction to foreign oil, placed new rules on big banks, rules we need to finalize before the end of the year to make sure the job is done. we also changed the tax code that was too skewed in the favor of wealthiest americans. we locked in tax cuts for 98% of americans. we asked those of the top to pay a little bit more. so if you add it all up, over the past 3 1/2 years, our businesses have added 7.5 million new jobs. the unemployment rate has come down. our housing market is healing. our financial system is safer. we sell more goods made in america than ever before. we generated more renewable energy than ever before. we produce more natural gas than

anybody. health care costs are growing at the slowest rate in 50 years. two weeks from now, people will finally have a chance to buy quality affordable health care on the private marketplace. we have cleared away the rubble from the financial crisis and have begun to lay a new foundation for economic growth and prosperity and in our personal lives. people have refocused on the things that have really mattered.on this five-year anniversary we should take note on how far we have come from where we were five years ago.

but that is not the end of the story. we are not yet where we need to be. that is what we have to focus on. all the remaining work that needs to be done to strengthen this economy. we need to grow faster, more good-paying jobs, more broad- based prosperity. we need more ladders of opportunity. even though the businesses are creating more jobs that have broken record profits, the top 1% of americans took home 20% of the nation's income last year, while the average worker is not seeing a raise at all. that understates the problem. most of the gains have gone to

the top .1%. in many ways the trends that have taken hold over the past few decades of a winner take all economy where if you do better and better while everyone else treads water or loses ground hum that those trends have been made worse by the recession. that is where we should be focused on. that is what i know americans out there are focused on. if congress begins another budget debate, that is what congress should be focused on. how do we grow the economy faster? how do we create better jobs? do we create better jobs and incomes? how do we increase income for those that have been locked out of opportunity? how do we create better retirement security? that is what we should be focused on, because the stakes for the middle class could not be higher.

in today's hypercompetitive world, we have to make the investments necessary to attract good jobs, that pay good wages, and offer high standards of living. although ultimately, the success will depend on all the innovation hard work of the private sector, all the grit and resilience of the american people, government will have a critical role. and making sure we have an education system that prepares workers for a global economy. the budget congress passes will determine whether we can hire more workers to upgrade transportation and communications networks or fund the research and development that has always kept america on the cutting edge. so what happens here in washington makes a difference. what happens on capitol hill will help determine what will

happen for the average american. at the moment republicans in worried aboutot helping the middle class. i say at the moment because i am still hoping that a lightbulb goes off here. so far the budget ideas revolve primarily around even deeper cuts to education, even deeper cuts that would gut america's scientific research and development, even deeper cuts to america's infrastructure investment -- roads, bridges, schools, energy

gris -- these are not the policies that would grow the economy faster. they are not the policies that would help grow the middle class. in fact, they do the opposite. up until now, republicans have argued the cuts are necessary in the name of fiscal responsibility. our deficits are now falling at the fastest rate since the end of world war ii. i want to repeat that -- our deficits are going down faster then any time since before i was born. by the end of this year --- [applause] by the end of this year, we will have cut the deficit by more than half since i took office. that does not mean we do not still have some long-term fiscal challenges, primarily because the population is getting older, and they are using more health

care services, so we still have changes we have to make, and there is not a government agency out there or program out there that still cannot be streamlined, become more customer friendly, more efficient, so i do believe we should cut the programs we do not need. we need to fix ones that are not working the way they are supposed to or have outlived the initial mission. we have to make government faster and more efficient. that is not what is being proposed by the republican budget. instead of making necessary changes with a scalpel, so far republicans have chosen to leave in place the so-called sequester cuts that have cost jobs, harmed growth, are hurting our military readiness, and top independent economists say this has been a

big drag on our recovery this year. our economy is not growing as fast as it should and we're not creating as many jobs as we should because the sequester is in place. that is not my opinion, that is the opinion of independent economists. this sequester makes it harder to do what is required to boost wages for american workers. the economy is still slack. if republicans want the economy to grow faster, create more jobs faster, they should want to get rid of it. it is irresponsible to keep it in place. if congress is serious about wanting to grow the economy faster, the first order of business must be to pass a sensible budget that replaces the sequester with a balanced plan that is fiscally sound and

funds investment like education and research and infrastructure that we need to grow. this is not asking too much. congress' most fundamental job is passing a budget. congress needs to get it done without triggering another crisis. without shutting down the government or worse, threatening not to pay this country's bills. after all the progress, the ideas of reversing that progress because of an unwillingness to compromise or an ideological agenda is the height of irresponsibility. it is not what the american people need right now. these folks standing behind me, these are people that are small

business owners, who almost lost their home, young people trying to get a college education, and all of them went through tough times during the recession, in part because of the steps we took and primarily because of their courage and determination and hard work, they are in a better place now. the last thing they are looking for is for us to go back to the same kind of crisis situations we have had in the past. the single most important thing we can do to prevent that is for we can do to prevent that is for congress to pass a budget without drama that puts us on a sound path for growth, jobs, better wages, better incomes. look, it has never been easy to get 535 people here in washington to agree on anything. and budget battles and debates, those are as old as the

republic. right now the house of republicans right now, the republicans controlling the house, democrats controlling the senate. so this is always going to be tough. having said that, i cannot remember a time when one party promises economic chaos if it cannot get 100% of what it wants. that has never happened before. that is what is happening right now. you have some republicans in the house of representatives are promising to shut down the government of the end of this month if they cannot shut down the affordable care act. if that scheme does not work, some have suggested they won't pay the very bills that congress

has already run up. this would create massive economic turmoil. those kinds of actions are the kinds of actions that we do not need. the last time the same crew threatened this course of action back in 2011, even the mere suggestion of defaults slowed economic growth. it was not that long ago. keep in mind, and initially the whole argument was we are going to do this because we want to reduce the debt. that does not seem to be the focus now. the the focus is obamacare. affordable care act has been the years now.1/2 y determined iturt

was constitutional. it was an issue in last year's election. the candidate who called for repeal lost. [applause] republicans in the house have tried to repeal or sabotage it several times. they failed every time. the law has helped millions of americans. young people were able to stay on the parents plan up until the age of 26. seniors getting additional discounts on the prescription drugs. ordinary families in small businesses getting rebates from insurance companies because they have to actually spend money on people's care instead of on administrative costs and ceo bonuses. a lot of the horror stories predicted about how this was going to shoot rates way up and there were going to be death

panels, none of that happened. in two weeks the affordable care act will help millions of more people. there is no serious evidence that the law, which has helped to keep down the rise in health- care costs to the lowest level in 50 years is holding back economic growth. so repealing the affordable care act, making sure 30 million people do not get health insurance and people with pre- existing conditions continue to be locked out of the health-care insurance market, that is not on the agenda for economic growth. you will not meet an economist who says that is the number one priority in terms of boosting jobs in this country. at least not a serious economist. i understand i will never convince some republicans about the merits of obamacare.

i understand that. and i am more than willing to work with them where they have specific suggestions that they can show will make our health care system better. remember, initially this was like repeal and replace the replace thing has gone off to the wayside. now it is just repeal. the larger point is after all that we have been through, after all the work to come back from the depths of a crisis, are some of these folks really so beholden to one extreme wing of the party that they are willing to take the entire economy just because they cannot get their way on this issue? are they really willing to hurt people just to score political points? i hope not. but in case there is any confusion, i will not negotiate

over whether or not america keeps its word and meets its obligations. i will not negotiate over the full faith and credit of the united states. this country has worked too hard or too long to dig out of a crisis just to see the elected representatives here in washington purposely cause another crisis. let's stop the threats, let's stop our political posturing, keep the government open. pay the bills on time, pass a budget, work together to do what the american people sent us here to do, create jobs, grow the economy, expand opportunity. that is what we need to do. [applause] and as far as the budget goes, it is time for responsible

republicans who share these goals, and there are a number of folks out there who i think are decent folks. i have disagreements with them on some issues, but i think genuinely they want the economy grow and want what is best for the american people. time for those republicans to step up and decide what they want to prioritize. originally they said they wanted deficit reduction. deficits are falling fast. the only way to make further long-term progress that does not slow growth is with a balanced plan that includes closing tax loopholes at the expense of the middle class. the only way to do it. they said they wanted entitlement reform. but their leaders have not put forward serious ideas that would not devastate medicare or social security.

i have put forward ideas for sensible reforms to medicare and social security and have not gotten a lot of feedback yet. they said they wanted tax reform. remember, this was just a few months ago they said this would be a top priority, tax reform. six weeks ago i put forward a plan that serious people in both parties should be able to support, a deal that lowers the corporate tax rate for businesses and manufacturers, simplifies it for small business owners, as long as we use some of the money we saved to invest in infrastructure. my position is is folks in this town want a grand bargain, how about a grand bargain for middle-class jobs? so i put forward ideas for tax reform. have not heard back from them yet. congress has a couple of weeks

to get this done. if they are focused on what the american people are focused on, i am confident it will happen. once we're done with the budget, let's focus on the other things we know can make a difference for middle-class families -- lowering the cost of college, in addition the job of immigration reform, taking up the work of tax reform to make the system fair and promoting more investment in the united states. if we follow the strategy i am laying out for the entire economy and is washington will act with the same urgency and common purpose we felt five years ago, then our economy will be stronger a year from now, five years from now, a decade from now. that is my priority. all of these folks standing behind me and everyone out there who is listening, that is my priority. i have run my last election.

my only interest at this point is making sure the economy is moving the way it needs to so we have the broad-based growth that has always been the hallmark of this country. as long as i have the privilege of serving as your president, i will spend every moment of every day fighting to restore the middle classand to give everyone a chance to get ahead. thank you, everybody. god bless you. god bless america. >> flags are flying at half staff after the president signed a proclamation honoring the victims of the shootings at the navy yard.

the flags will stay at half staff until friday. with the navy yard being so close to the capitol, the votes has postponed until tomorrow. people are not allowed to leave the senate buildings, but only senators and staff are allowed to enter. three are expected to survive. 13 people are dead, including the gunman. they are continuing to look for a second suspect in the shooting. >> tonight at our series continues. was a woman of firsts, of combination, and this symbolizes all of that. mrs. helen taft's inaugural gown. occasion, added

ladies whenof first she became the first first lady to donate her gown to the smithsonian. she established the tradition that first ladies would donate their gowns to the collection. every first later after taft has donated their gowns to has donated it to the smithsonian institution. taft.t helen >> it has been 50 years since a bomb placed by segregationists exploded in birmingham's 16th street baptist church. here is a ceremony honoring the victims as speakers recall how deaths became a

catalyst for the civil rights movement. it is two hours. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] ♪

♪ ♪ freedom reign

reign, reign, reign freedom , reign freedom , reign, reign freedom reign, reign freedom ♪ -- lord, com one -- come on

to reignyou are going ♪ [applause] .> church say amen amen >>amen -- >> amen. again.ch, say amen >> i need a few chairs in front to fit some of our people. amen. i need another two chairs in the pulpit. amen. on toglad when they said me us go into the house of the lord. this is the day the lord has rejoice we came to because our found ourselves in it. amen. we are here today to pay honor

and homage to addie mae collins, cynthia morris, denise mcnair, in carole robertson, remembering their sacrifice and their service to the lord. this is a time when we are going to remember our past, reflect on our present, and a time we are going to rejoice and praise the god of our salvation for he has done marvelous work in our site. amen? all right. we are just about there. they're with us. this church, this is what we do. amen. amen. amen. i just need a row of chairs right here. amen. praise god. that is wonderful. reverend thompson, we have a chair for you now. praise the lord. amen.

sister is seated? amen praise god. you, reverend lowery. praise god. amen. all right. ae other thing, i need lebanese in the pulpit. litanies and the full fit. -- hope it. pulpit. good afternoon. we greet you in the marvelous name of our lord jesus christ, and we are here to commemorate the bombing of the 16th street baptist church church that happened 50 years ago and we are glad you are all here for this momentous occasion.

we are going to start our service with prayer, and i am going to asked the reverend william, a former black bear and andhe first -- blackberry the first negros to play for the cardinals and a pastor. amen. he is going to lead us in prayer. all right. we're going to get everybody seated. we're going to pray. the lord is in this holy temple. let all the earth keep silent before him. all right, that is enough chairs. [laughter] all right,, on. -- come on. moses said youe brought enough money, we have enough for the temple. praise the lord.

all right. all right. yes. yes. ok. thank you for your patience. amen. as soon as mrs. mcnair is situated, we will be asking the reverend to lead us in prayer. amen. amen. amen. patience is a virtue. >> amen. >> if we could wait 50 years, amen, we can wait 50 seconds, amen? [applause] all right. the reverend is going to come at this time to lead us in the world the -- word of prayer. let us get centered to hear from the lord. pray. us

god, you have been our help in ages past. you are the hope for years to come. you have sheltered us through many stormy blast. you will be our eternal home. gracious and kind, merciful and withg father, we come heads bowed and hearts full of gratitude. not only have you been good to us, or you are blessing us right now. gathering forthis the purpose for which we have come together. we thank you from bringing us from yonder to hear. thank you for all of the good things we have enjoyed from fine hands. we thank you for the celebration. we thank you for how you

preserve your people and able them to come together on this appointed day to join in the celebration. further, wee go any are asking you to forgive us about all of our sins, -- forgive us, all of our sins, create in us a renewed heart. some have lost their joy, but restore onto us the joy of thy yourtion and the whole of spirit and we will tell someone about your goodness, your mercy, and your grace. father, we thank you for this privilege, for this opportunity to come this way one more time. we pray for the shepherd of this these unitedent of

states, the governor of our state, the mayor of our city -- pray that you will keep them in your love and in your care. be there with them in times of decision-making, that they may knowing that their help comes from you. pray for this occasion, that you will bless every effort we put forth, pray that you will get some glory out of it. be with us now. keep us in your love and your care for we have learned without the, father, we can do nothing, but with the, all things are possible. bless us now that we may be a blessing to others. we are asking these prayers in jesus name, amen. >> amen. >> amen. sing all will stand and

hymn number 50. "great is thy faith. -- by faith." ♪ ♪

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♪ ♪

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>> thanked god that he is faithful when we are faithless. he remains ever faithful, us as heis eyes are on sits on the throne. scripture reading, old testament and new testament scripture, 15, 15 to 21. 13, he readhians, by keith thompson. and we will have the occasion given by dr. christopher hamlin, former pastor 16th baptist church. let us listen as the lord speaks to us through his holy word. >> amen. >> when joseph and his brothers

saw that their father was dead, they said what if joseph bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all of the wrongs we have done to him? they sent a message to joseph saying "your father charged saying the us, you shall say to joseph, please you, thei beg transgression of your brothers and their sins, for they did you wrong. now, please forgive the transgressions of the servant of god of your father." and joseph wept when they spoke to him. then, his brothers also came and

fell down before him and said , butd we are your servants joseph said to them "do not be place. for i am in god's as for you, you meant evil meant it forut god good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve so, therefore,ve do not be afraid. i will provide for you and your little ones." he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. this is the word of god.

>> let us never underestimate the power and the privilege it is to hear god's word. i have beent invited to share with you today comes from the 13th chapter of first corinthians, preceding that paul has just talked about the power and importance of the body, and how all parts of the body are one, all parts are important, none more important than the other, all are lifted up, and all are necessary. now he is going to speak to us about how to live that. if i speak in the towns of mortals and angels that do not noisy gong. am a if i have prophetic powers and i understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if i have all faith so as to remove mountains but do not have love, i am nothing. if i give away all of my possessions and i hand over all of my possessions so to have

boast, i have nothing. love is patient, kind. it is not angry, boastful, angry or rude. it is not irritable or resentful. it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but in the truth. it bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things. love never ends, but as for prophecies, they will come to an end, as for tongues, they will cease, as foreknowledge, it will come to an end, for we know only completebut when the comes, the partial will come to an end. when i was a child, i spoke with a child, i thought like a child, i reasoned like a child. when i became an adult i put an end to childish ways. for now, we see in a manner in

late. iw i know only in part then will know fully even as i have been fully known, and now faith, hope and love abide these three and the greatest of these is love. this is god's word. [applause] >> good afternoon. pastor price, attorney general the honorable andrew isng, governor, and this bentley,yor -- mrs. mayor and mrs. bell, dr. joseph jesse, and reverend jackson and dr. and mrs. scrubs,

mr. and mrs. mcnair and the mcnair family, and members of addie mae collins, cynthia robertson, all who lost their lives 50 years ago today, my brothers and sisters. pastor, i thank you for inviting me to share in important memorial worship service. i think it is important for me ofbegin by invoking the name the late reverend john in the context of 16th street baptist church, we are grateful to the lord for his pastoral leadership at a most difficult time in the life and history of this church and our community. the late and former mayor of band, oftendavid told the story of his recollection of september 15,

1963. he shared that immediately after the bombing of this sacred place, he hurried down from his home church at first united methodist and saw robert, dynamite bob chambliss near the church watching. often times those that perpetrated such crimes would watch from a distance the end result of their work. unfortunately, mr. chambliss and those who worked with him miscalculated. the end result of what he and others ignited did not ultimately destroy this place, but galvanized an ongoing movement that brought about progressive change in birmingham, alabama, our nation, and our global community. yet, unfortunately, four young girls lost their lives. yes, unfortunately, two boys also lost their lives that same dreadful day.

yes, unfortunately, several others were hurt, most severely sarah collins rudolph who is with us this afternoon, and yes, our church was ruthlessly damaged. yes, there are those even now carrying the weight of that day with them. we will remember those most affected by the bombing of this sacred place. we honor them, we commemorate their loss of innocence, and even now continue to grieve when we think about what they might have become. so, we have returned to this sacred ground 50 years later so that it can all see the progress and the results that have been made in our city, our state, our nation, and global community. an ancient prophet of the old testament and leader of his people, joshua, encourages people as they move from slavery

to liberating freedom to take stones from the riverbed and a memorial so succeeding generations would know what happened at that location. to the living stones that do testify of courage and resilience, of persistence and patience, of hope and conviction , that even the darkest days does break forth in a resounding symphony and cadence of hope and forward momentum. day, brothershis and sisters, to remember, and in remembering, we also come to nudge our community to move forward. while we celebrate major account which miss that have been made in these past 50 years, accomplishments quantified in the after main -- affirmation of the honorable andrew young being appointed as the first african- american u.s. ambassador to the u.n., dr. richard arrington the

elected as the first african- american mayor of birmingham in 1979, dr. condoleezza rice, a homegirl, affirmed as the first african-american woman to serve as the 66th u.s. secretary of state, in honor of honorable terry sewall, being elected as the first african-american woman to represent district seven in the house of representatives, and the affirmation of the first african-american, the honorable eric holder serving as the 82nd general of attorney our country, and the election and reelection of the honorable barack obama as president of the united states. [applause] as we celebrate these accomplishments and so many others, we are mindful that there is still work to be done,

especially in a state such as alabama, where there are no african-americans or hispanics serving in statewide, elected positions, and where gains made years past are being eroded, and we have work to do. [applause] so, as we commemorate how far we have come, we do see the need for moving forward, so that succeeding generations will be able to affirm and no and we thatcome this far -- know we have come this far because god was with us, and that we are moving over to because god continues to be with us. 4, inld joshua in joshua the future, when descendents as their parents, what do these stones mean, tell them that the hand of the lord is powerful, and so that you might always feel the lord your god, we

commemorate this day because be with us vowed to and we are still seeing the results of god's activity in and throughout. in the raging blast on dynamite hill and collegeville, and throughout birmingham, godless with us then, and god is with us -- god was with us then, and god is with us now. the wind fell in north birmingham, god was with us then, and god is with us now. in this meaning water felt in kelly ingram park, -- stinging water felt in kelly ingram park or the pain inflicted at the schools, got it is with us then and now. birmingham jail, the capacity-filled holding jails and fair park, and ultimately in

deliberations that came through the court and sheer determination of people's indomitable spirit to let no one turned him around, god was with .s then, and god is with us now this afternoon, as we commemorate how far we have come, as we testify to the results that are obvious and work for results yet to come, we still proclaim god was with us then, and god is with us now. glory, holly lilia -- -- holly lilia, god's truth does march on. amen. >> i say amen for the carlton reese memorial choir. >> amen.

♪ ♪ i'm on my way to freedom land >> i'm on my way >> i'm on my way

>> to freedom land >> to freedom land way, all, lordmy to freedom land i said i'm on my way >> i'm on my way >> to freedom land >> to freedom and >> i'm on my way >> i'm on my way to freedom land >> to freedom land >> if you don't go >> if you don't go don't hinder me >> don't hinder me >> if you don't go >> if you don't go

don't hinder me >> don't tend to me -- don't hinder me >> to freedom land >> i'm on my way journeyan uphill >> it's an uphill journey -- but i am on my way >> but i'm on my way >> to freedom land >> to freedom and >> there is nothing you can do >> there is nothing you can do >> to turn me around >> to turn me around

>> there is nothing you can do >> there is nothing you can do >> to turn me around >> to turn me around >> to freedom land >> to freedom and >> are you on your way >> are you on your way >> to freedom and >> to freedom land wayes, i'm on my -- freedom land >> i'm on my way >> i'm on my way >> to freedom land >> to freedom land >> i'm on my way >> i'm on my way >> to freedom land

>> to freedom and >> yes i'm on my way >> on my way land, yeahom ♪ >> my, my, my. my, my, my. my, my. my, my. ♪ [applause] >> it did not say we were at freedom land, but we are on the way. amen. amen. amen. that is the choir from the movement. that is the choir that served everybody else here in --

everybody else. [applause] the first section that we want to do it this commemoration, and we will move forward, mayor bell , there is a need to deal with the past. past is painful. sometimes the past is bitter, but we need to deal with our past before we can go forward. i can think of no one better to pastulate a member in the -- remembering the past than the first u.s. ambassador to the united states, a lieutenant in army, a foot soldier, civil rights leader, former mayor of atlanta, georgia, a civil rights icon, the reverend andrew young.

[applause] >> i remember a friday morning when martin luther king was visited by the leaders of the black community, and they had lost, thatt we had it was too late, that nonviolence would not work in birmingham, and they pleaded with him not to go to jail, to toup north and raise money try to get people bonded out of jail because there were several hundred people in jail. we had the entire core of the legal defense fund, constance

motley, all here full-time working on cases, but we could not pay the bonds, and the people who were there had signed their names on the bonds. so, if the bonds were foreclosed, they could lose their homes. so, this was a mass movement where everybody was involved, and this was the clutch moment. dr. king listened and said little or nothing, and then he got up and went to the next room , and he stayed a long time and came back with his overalls on. said, "i am sorry, you are but the onlyt, thing i can do in clear people in is join the

jail of whom i sent to jail." so, he left. now, this was a movement that was really characterized by the fact that there was a unified withdrawal of support from the entire birmingham economy. boughtdays, nobody anything but food or medicine. so, the community was united, but this was crunch time. we still had people like ruth there, and drew, when the barricades were set up, they would drive to the back of the church, but that picket signs input the picket the trunk, and the come out on the other side of town. so, we had a unified community, but this was crunch time. went to jail,ing

there had been about 500 people who stood up in church claiming to go with him -- [laughter] about -- less than 50 showed up, and four preachers. that is how it was. most of the preachers were already in jail. jail withobably in your brother, two, but that was the day that o'connor decided to turn on the dogs. after everybody had gone to jail, the crowd was there minding their own business, but angry at the way reverend king was handled as they roughed him up putting him in the jail in the paddy wagon. bul -- bull connor said clear the park and we said

we would clear the park am a but he said that was not good enough -- park, but he said that was not good enough, so we turned on the hose and the dogs and decided he was going to humiliate the nation. and myis is my story remembrance, so i am going to tell it the way i remember it. [laughter] [applause] do not remember anyone getting hurt but fred cheryl burke -- fred shuttlesworth. he stood up in front of the fire hoses, and they mowed him down and rolled him down the street with the firehoses. smart that i, or jumped behind a tree. [laughter] i went from tree to tree, and i did not hardly get wet. [laughter] job. had another i had to come back here and

reorganize the young people out down, street, calm them but then i had to go over there to the motel, put on my suit, and then i had to go downtown to the episcopal diocesan house, the carpenter house, because even as all this was going on in the streets, there were businessmen sitting there talking with us about how to resolve this problem. out of those discussions, 100 businessmen, led by a fellow by the name of sidney spier and chuck morgan, who later came to georgia with the aclu, and helped me get to congress, and others, and 100 businessmen signed an agreement that desegregated birmingham a

whole year before the congress acted. here, i sent to people all over the country, any you get 100 is this meant to stand up, the government can change. now, i said that in new york, and a fellow by the name of harry oppenheimer heard me and said would you think that what happened in south africa. i said i suspect it would. he said "would you come there and make that speech?" well, i did, and lo and behold, it was not long before the movement in birmingham began to sprout some seeds in south africa, and the business community and the movement began to the process -- after the election of jimmy carter -- to get nelson mandela out of jail, freestablish a relatively

and democratic south africa. now, i think that more happened here. camearch on washington from here because those students wanted to get out on highway 11 and walked to washington, and that just was not the way to do it. but, what happened was a celebration that we just honored threers later where presidents and the representatives of two others thed with us to commemorate america presenting the negro with a bad check.

[applause] was what the speech was about. but my final meeting was easter sunday with dr. king in jail, and they were talking about putting an ad in the paper that got him upset, and he started writing the letter from the birmingham jail around the times,"of "the new york and when he finished, it was a good thing they had talked for the paper because he was writing on the toilet paper. he was writing from the birmingham jail, and we had a meeting over on 6th avenue and more people showed up and could get in the church, and there were 7000 people on that easter sunday, and we decided we were going to march down the street, three or four blocks to the jail just to let our leaders know that the movement was still alive, and lo and behold, there

onnor again, with his fire trucks and his police dogs, so we got down on their knees. you have to put black folk on their knees when they are scared run,se if they stand, they and you are scared. if you put them on the knees, they prayer. -- they pray. when they are on their knees -- jesus." "help me, [laughter] said. is with this movement, we are going to the jail. mercy, and heve started walking. the people followed. i sat there and beside them and connor say stop

them, and the firemen dropped their hoses, the police dogs were not barking, and we walked right on through between those fire trucks. [applause] and when we got on the other great godster said seaghty done parted the red one more time. [applause] ,o, without we had a victory but we should have remembered there is no remission of sins without the shedding of innocent blood, and that unearned suffering is redemptive. so, we are here to honor not only the four little girls, what and johnny robinson who were killed just because they were black at the same time , and so, the message that i remember is that when things

they can turn around very quickly, and be triumphant, thereat after every cross is a resurrection. no's remember, no cross, crown. [applause] >> and the church said -- amen -- >> amen. >> thank you, reverend young, for remembering the past, but we need to remember the present.

50 years ago, we had the governor that stood at the university of alabama trying to block black students from getting into the doors, and today we want to hear what our governor robert bentley has to say in the present. governor otter bentley to speak on the -- robert bentley to speak on the present. [applause] >> it is going to be hard to follow that. [laughter] everybody.oon, >> good afternoon. >> as birmingham goes, goes the nation. no truer words were spoken than those expressed by reverend fred charles worth -- fred shuttlesworth when he personally invited a young soldier to join

him in the crusade for equality in birmingham, alabama. ed pastor, as we know, with dr. martin luther king jr., and that -- those words spoken by reverend shuttlesworth turned out to be no exaggeration. personal honor it is for me to join in today's historic occasion, in this case of worship, that has become a -- place of worship that has become a monument in itself to the struggle for civil rights. these walls represent the strength, determination, the loss, yes, the pain, that have come to define the civil rights movement in alabama. we are surrounded by the living examples of those who fought for , and who haveon now dedicated their lives to the cause of justice.

it is an honor to stand here among you, and on behalf of the state of alabama, thank you for allowing me to participate in this momentous occasion. 1963, iy in alabama in never gave much thought to the segregated society that we had become. growing up in shelby county, i never gave it much concern until women,ions of brave men, and even innocent children .orced me to think about it in september of 1960 three i was a 20-year-old college student at the university of alabama -- 1963i was a 20-year-old college student at the university of alabama. i was studying to become a physician. earlier that summer, in a hot

day in june, i walked across the campus where a crowd had gathered. hundreds of students, news reporters and police were outside of the administrative offices. wasgovernor of alabama there. i remember standing on the sidewalk when a policeman came to me and he said "son, you had better get out of here, or i am going to arrest you." that put fear in my heart to know that i was going to be arrested, but i could only imagine the fear that many here in this room must have endured and then overcome to keep fighting, and pushing, and challenging the need for racial equality in our state. 15th, 50 yearse ago today, i was back home for the weekend to attend services at my hometown church, not too many miles from here.

having heard of the ongoing and ever increasing acts of violence that had been taking place in birmingham, i had begun to develop a greater awareness for the magnitude of what was happening in alabama. that a bombd spread had claimed the lives of four little girls inside of the place of worship, like many across realizeion, i began to the extent some will actually go to in order to forcefully attempt to suppress men and children, just simply because of the color of their skin. four little girls, addie mae collins, cynthia wesley, carole robertson, and denise mcnair, who are now forever linked with the cause of justice. the events of september 15 made the nation and me really take comprehend what

was taking place in our state. the tragic and deadly bombing of rage,ned disbelief, violence, and rioting, also inspired at least one person to stand up and declare publicly that birmingham is dead. by the time the sunset on that day, birmingham and alabama were forever scarred by hatred and anger. what a contrast it was to the way that that day began. -- youthed sunday sunday. having seen the successful integration of the birmingham public schools five days earlier, the children were front and center as they took on the responsibilities within the church that were normally reserved for adults.

i am still struck by the title of the lesson that was taught that morning. the lesson was "the love that forbids." gives."love that ford gives."kes me -- for it struck me that while bombings, killings and humiliation had been perpetuated upon its very own, this church chose to teach love and forgiveness. that lesson may very well have beenforgotten had it not for that hate-filled act that occurred that morning. it is a lesson that we must all remember and take to heart's the john when hes in told his disciples, a new commandment i give to you that

you love one another just as i have loved you. you are also to love one another. birmingham may have been 1963.ed dead that day in that is what the nation heard and believed at that time, but birmingham is not dead. it certainly still bears the scars of its turbulent past as does our state. at times, those scars hide our true beauty. today, we choose to honor the memory, the work, and the sacrifice of those who sought a better vision for birmingham. today, we choose to look beyond those ugly scars and focus on what birmingham really is, and what it can be. ?hat will birmingham look like

what will alabama look like? what will our nation look like 50 years forward? that is up to us. .hat is up to the people as those prophetic words that were spoken 50 years ago -- "as birmingham goes, goes the nation." blessd bless all of you, this church, and i am honored to be with you here today. [applause] >> also to give us reflections on the present, the mayor of the city of ermine ham, the arctic

-- of birmingham, the architect of the 50 years forward campaign, the one who has engaged us and ignited us to look forward this year, putting a spotlight on our city so that the world can see where we are today, our mayor, william a. bell. [applause] >> thank you. thank you, thank you, thank you. to pastor price, in remembrance of 16th street baptist church, to the families of the young ladies and young men that lost their lives 50 years ago, to our honored guests, to all of our elected officials, federal, state and local, it is a great

honor that i stand before you as the mayor of this city that has taken time out to remember it's past, to remember it's losses. this has been a remarkable year .or the city of birmingham as i think back about the events ,f some 50 years plus ago knowing that you had conflict between the governor, the leader of this city, and the leader of the movement, that governor wallace was standing indoors and bull" connor was attacking children with hies -- look atd dogs, and you today, standing on a podium, you had the governor of the state of

alabama, governor robert bentley, the daughter of martin luther king, bernice king, and the current mayor of the city standing united together to talk about how far we have come. ain't got a good god? god a good god? to be a part of this country loss process that today we have leadership at all levels he calls african-americans have the right to vote. ain't god a good god? when you think there was a time when young black children would

have to take secondhand books that were often times 10, 15 tors old and be subjected pass college exams, but we did it anyway. now some of those very same children from this city go to major universities across this country. good god?od a when you think about there was a time when the only black as this in this city that you could wear a suit and tie was dr. gaston. i you have all the corporate now you -- now you have all these corporations. tight god a good god -- ain' god a good god? marksaught that 50 years the time of jubilee, a time to say thank you for bringing us

where we are. we appreciate you putting us here in this place, at this time, but jubilee is also a time to recognize because god has brought you so far, you have to have faith that he will take you farther. ain't god a good god? reverend price, we know on that xine had tearsma in her eyes, and we know that sarah, who was loaned up in that bombing as well, was hauled off to the hospital, not knowing what the fate of her sister was. you know the pain that went all across this city, as carole's families founds out their fate. they showed that love was in their hearts and that god would see their fished through --

would see them through. we say thank you, thank you, thank you, but ain't god a good god? god has established this city to lead the way, because all the stars that we have on odds, we are peeling them off today. we are peeling them off today to say because of good men and women who came together and said we cannot allow our churches to innocent cannot allow lives to be taken, we must change, and they came together and made that change. there is no shame in that. we have got to let the rest of the world know that we are proud of the fact that we not only changed or mccain, we are proud of the fact that we not only changed this country, but we started a movement that has gone around the world come and birmingham has gone for it. it is time to take their rightful place in the sunlight to make a recommitment to do

what is right for our fellow man, who stand up against injustice, to march when necessary, and put yourself on the line, just like others put themselves on the line for me and you to be here on this day. i want to thank you for making this a special occasion. i want to thank all of you for giving birmingham a second to let a second chance the world see who we really are, a second chance to not be defined by our past him but to be defined by our present and the future we hold in our own hands. that future cannot be as bright as we needed to be, because just like once upon a time a would not let you learn how to read got childrenw we who denyt night -- themselves and education, and we have to change that. once upon a time we had individuals who were thrown in

jail because they were walking on the rights of -- the wrong side of the street. that we have people sitting in jail and they do not do any work. you people sitting in jail and they are content with their lives. we have the got to let them understand they have to pray for god to deliver them, but we got to work so that when they are delivered from their bac ounds, that they have a reason to become decent and honest citizens. we got work to do, people, but today is the beginning, today is the day to give thanks from where we come from and eight day 4 -- a day for us to say let's go to work. it's jubilee time, people. thank you. [applause]

♪ ♪

i got a job all god's children we've got a job to do we can't get freedom till we get through we got one more job i've got a job that don't you know that all of us children

e a job we've gota job to do freedom till we get through we're fighting for freedom me of you might not hear us freedom for governor wallace freedom one time for the city jail freedom one time for the city hall freedom the constitution of the united

states freedom freedom freedom justice justice justice freedom freedom freedome freedom we got a job to do we cannot get freedom until we get through freedom for our lives ♪ [applause] >> amen.

past.rd about the we have reflected upon the present. we need to rejoice about our if god is for us, who can be against us? let's talk about our future. have the u.s.st congresswoman from the seventh congressional district, the one who on this past week led the tireless effort to get congress to do something they have not and in about eight years, that is have bipartisan support fourss a bill to award the little girls the congressional medal of honor. [applause]

the entire birmingham allegation got that publisher, so let's hear from our congresswoman. quote, "they are the martyred heroines of a holy crusade for freedom and human dignity, and said this afternoon in a real sense they have something to say to each and every one of us in their deaths. they say to each of us, white and black alike, that we must substitute courage for caution.

a cd each of us that we must he concerned, not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy who produced the murderers. that weaths says to us must work passionately and unrelentingly for the realization of the american dream. kingartin kneluther eulogy, september 18, 1963. my brothers and sisters, i am supposed to talk about rejoicing over our future. but i want you to know that we have so much more work to do. while many of us are proof positive that progress has been made -- and i am grateful that that progress was made --

indeed, that progress was made on the backs, the backs of those that were murdered among those that fought, those that marched, those that prayed. we, who are the direct beneficiaries of that movement, we owe them a debt of gratitude. [applause] enough that we just say thank u. action -- thank you. louder than words. instead of rejoicing, let us say that we are happy, if cautiously optimistic. .e have lots of work to do the best way that we can honor the legacy of these four little , they are, by the way emblematic of the sacrifices of so many, we cannot go a moment

further in this program with out each and every family member. so will the mcnair family please stand? deniseily members of mcnair. [applause] will the robertson family please stand. the family members of carole robertson. [applause] will thes -- morris family please stand, the family members of cynthia wesley. [applause] survivor. one lone

there were five little girls that were in the basement of that church 50 years ago. one person lived, lived to tell the story, lived through much pain and agony, but through it all, she held her head up high, with great unity. -- with great dignity. it is my honor, to welcome, to and up now sarah rudolph the family of adding nate collins.- of addie mae [applause] i believe there is great irony and symbolism that because of the senseless deaths of four

lack girls from birmingham that another black girl from selma and now gets to walk the halls of congress. [applause] not only did i get to walk the halls of congress, i want you to know that when i am frustrated, which is often -- [laughter] let's face it, we live and we have a very dysfunctional congress right now. we cannot come to terms with anything. but i was happy to know that we could come to terms and agree on a bipartisan basis that this nation must pay honor and tribute to those who have sacrificed, so that we can live up to the democratic ideals that this country and our constitution uphold. so i want you to know ten

i feel tired, when i do not think i can take it anymore, i walk past that glorious picture known aspitol of one shirley chisholm, the first african-american woman to walk the halls of congress, and i want you to know when i walked past that portrait, the only portrait of an african-american tol, i getion's capi a pit in my stomach. myself,little stride in and i know that i cannot be no ways tired. ,ecause they fought the fight and if they can do it, we can, too. more importantly, we must do it. when i -- when our round brothers and sisters suffer from

the same injustices that we did 50 years ago, we have worked to do. when our prisons are overbr imming with people of color, men of color, we have work to do. when city and counties in error nation who are -- in our nation who are led by people of color are in bankruptcy, we have work to do. do,here is lots of work to theyust as a desk just as spoke to us 50 years of, they are speaking to us today, and they are saying, what shall we do? what will you, the millennial generation, do? it is not enough that we reflect. we must educate ourselves to the movement for which they died. that is how we can pay honor to them. parks thatse of rosa

we can continue. it is important that we remember that the price of freedom is never free. it was paid by somebody. still being paid by people, and we owe it to move this nation forward. art and 13 said -- martin luther the said the arc of universe is long, but it is bent toward justice. i have the honor of introducing our next speaker who helps to ise sure that that arc bending towards justice. [applause] nation's first black attorney general, eric holder has built an enduring legacy.

[applause] attorney general eric holder has built an enduring legacy for being an influential visionaries at the justice department. he will be remembered for being force, keeping the dream of those four little girls alive. his life and legacy is proof positive that their lives meant notuch and their deaths was in vain. in fulfilling their legacy, he has made effective change to our country's laws, making sure all americans are protected. i am proud of his recent decision to change the disparities tween crack cocaine

and powder cocaine in our nation's court system. attorney general holder stands up for our communities of color and changes the disparities between crack and cocaine because you can go to jail just as long with powder cocaine as crack. he has called for major changes to our nation's criminal justice system to reduce overcrowding, and i am especially proud of him for standing in the gap on the voting rights act. [applause] the recent supreme court case tried to take -- or did take the teeth out of -- but we have a person on the watch, watching over our democracy, and his name

is attorney general eric holder. i want you to know that he has great ties to the great state of alabama, three has married one of its daughters. dr. sharon malone, will you please stand. [applause] dr. sharon malone is a native owned mobile, and is a sister of a foot soldier of the civil rights movement, vivian malone jones. who, along with another student, courageously walked past torch wallaceto in -- george to integrate the university of alabama. let me just say, when you see that we still have fraternities and so were days that choose to block because of race in our

nation and our state, we have to say there is work to be done. millennial's, we have to whereere will you stand, will you stand when in justice and in equity arises? let us hope that we all have security, like attorney general holder, to uphold this nation's constitution and fight for what is right. i present to you all the 82nd attorney general of these united states of america, attorney general eric holder. [applause]

>> i am not sure if i ever heard an introduction like that. i think it was supposed to be an introduction, not a speech. thank you for those kind words. and thank you for welcoming me active birmingham this afternoon and bringing together so many civil rights pioneers and passionate citizens for today's very important observers. i look at this front row and i see before me legends, legends. dr. lowry. [applause] i just met with him. he is 91, 92, 91? he says he wants the car keys back. [laughter] he is still doing it. andrew young.

[applause] reverend chase. my man, reverend jackson. it is an honor to stand with all of you, governor antley, mayor bell, many other leaders and guests who are here today, as we remember the four little angels-- and that is what they were, angels -- that were taken from us 50 years ago today, as we mark the steps forward that our country has witnessed since that terrible tragedy. and as we recommit ourselves as a nation to the unfinished work before us and the ongoing journey towards equality,

opportunity, and justice that must remain our common cause. as others have said, taking from carole, mae, denise, and cynthia marked a seminal moment. these four girls -- and they were girls, not yet women -- they had come to this historic church, along with sarah and others who were here with us, to attend a service entitled the love that forgives. just after they began to assemble, the peace of this congregation was shattered. their young lives were taken and the liberal foundations of this church was cracked apart an unspeakable act of hatred. 50 years later, the magnitude of this monstrous crime and the human and moral costs of other

bombings of lynchings, and murders that punctuated not only the civil rights era, but the entire 20th century, they are impossible to encapsulate and difficult to comprehend. to bearernoon we come witness to these acts, and we pay tribute to the brave women, men, and especially the innocent children who, throughout history, have endured hatred, who have suffered violence, and render tremendous sacrifices in order that future generations might truly be free. it is fitting we commemorate their contributions in a city that has been both touched by ,ragedy and defined by progress where the scars of our past can still be seen and where forward movement is evident. it is important we mark the anniversary's of this and other milestones, from selma, two

birmingham, to tuscaloosa, to the march on washington, not because we wish to dwell on and in perfect pass, but because like the heroes who once stood in these pews and took to these dogs andreets, braving bombs, we too love this country. that is what moved people in 1963, a desire to be free and to show our love of this country, even when this country did not show love for us. [applause] my father was born in barbados in the west indies. he served his country proudly in world war ii. in uniform, he was told he had to get to the back of a train. in oklahoma he was told he had to go around back to get a hamburger.

he was born in barbados, raised wondered whatnd kind of country could do that to a man in uniform, in uniform. and yet he loved this country. he loved this country more than any man i think i have ever known. but he is not atypical. the people of his generation suffered greatly to suffer greatly and unfairly, and love this country. , inelieve, as they believed the entering promise of the declaration that marked the birth of our republic and the constitution that's at the great american experiment in motion. we come together today because we are still striving, as they once did, to realize a dream that dr. king shared with us to do years ago last month, on the steps of a memorial to america's great emancipator, when he spoke of an alabama where children of

all backgrounds would be able to play again, to learn together, and to grow together. we recognize that here and now, despite the remarkable progress this nation has seen over the past half century, despite the victories won and the protections secured by so many who have gone before us, and despite the fact that i have a great honor of standing before you as the 82nd attorney general of the united states of america, serving in the administration of the first african-american president of the united states, that their work has become our work. and it is far from over. every day in cities and towns across this country, the struggle for equal rights, equal opportunity, and equal justice goes on. the fight against hatred against violence, and against the kind of bigotry that once led eight- filled criminals to bomb a house

of worship, that work must continue. ever leavesis hate us. it is like a lurking virus and must always be identified, confronted, and defeated. it is up to every member of every generation to seize opportunities like this one, not merely to reflect upon our past and to rejoice in our future, but to protect the advances that we have inherited and to extend the legacy that has been an trusted to each and every one of us. this afternoon we stand -- i stand asked i stand on the shoulders of untold millions, seemingly ordinary citizens, but all truly extraordinary, who have fought to make real our ofion's founding promise equal justice. to these brave individuals whose names and stories are in too

many cases lost to history, we owe i/o our deepest -- io our deepest thanks. we pledge -- i pledge -- that their contributions will always be treasured, and we affirm that activists ands, passionate citizens, have broadened our focus to include the cause of women, of latinos, of asian americans, of native americans, of lesbians, of days, a people with disabilities and others who still your for opportunity and for fair treatment. in the days after this church was bombed, these were the values and the high ideals that drove the many residents of birmingham and others throughout america to offer support to the families of those lost or injured. in total, more than 8000 people attended a memorial service for

the bombing's young victims, strangers from all races, all backgrounds, and all walks of life, including 800 members of the clergy came to this city to mourn with the bereaved, to weep for those who have been taken, and to help rebuild the lives that had been forever altered. among the mourners was the reverend dr. martin luther king jr., who delivered a stirring eulogy in which he urged his fellow citizens to substituted courage for caution and to work passionately and unrelentingly for the realization of the american dream. he seized upon a glimmer of hope in a moment of darkness and national heartbreak, declaring that even the most devastating of losses can lead to positive change. he recognized outpourings of grief and anger must shape this -- shake this country out of complacency and give way to a

fresh sense of resolve, and along with her diverse crowd that stood with them that they in the city of the villainous bull connor, the courageous fred shuttlesworth, and the extraordinary letter that he had written five months earlier from a local jail sale, he reminded a nation, especially in times of division and despair, we as americans are united not just by our values, but by our shared aspirations and our common humanity. we are still bound to one another. we are still bound to one another. and to the history of this howl and place -- this hallowed place on by our struggle to build a more perfect union, a struggle that has defined this country since its earliest days and must continue, even now, to push us forward. in the years since the bombing, countless individuals have worked to bring about sweeping transformational change.

millions of voices urge the congress to pass and president lyndon johnson to sign the civil 1960 four, which outlawed discrimination against racial, ethnic, national, and religious minorities, and equal opportunities of voter registration requirements, and millions called for and worked to secure the landmark voting rights act of 1965, which empowered the justice department to fight unjust attempts to .bridge voting rights ac this is a fight that we will continue. [applause] in these achievements, the legacies of these young girls will always live, although we

took them to their arrest -- to their rest five decades ago and this afternoon as we lurk forward to the futures we must ld an fight against the forces against the advances we have seen, i want to assure you that so long as i have the privilege of serving as the attorney general, i will do everything in my power to ensure that enforcement of these and other protections continue. [applause] this means using every tool and authority available to the justice department to hold accountable those who commit eight crimes, including acts of highest -- motivated violence. it is fighting to ensure that every eligible american exercises his or her right to vote. [applause]

unencumbered by discriminatory rules, regulations, and procedures that intentionally or not discourage and disenfranchise. it means challenging unjust laws and expanding workplace protections, and it means implementing the changes i announced last month from modified charging policies to an updated framework for compassionate release, and an emphasis on alternatives to incarceration in order to reform -- [applause] order to reform our criminal justice system to address unwarranted disparities and to make the system smarter, fairer, and more effective for everyone in this country. and i areues determined to invest in proven innovations while safeguarding the achievements that earlier

generations worked so hard to achieve. and we will not stand by and allow the slow unraveling of the progress for which so many sacrificed so much . that ain't going to happen. but at the same time, we also understand, as you understand, as you must understand, that government will never be able to attain these results were bring about the progress that we seek on its own. today we affirm that it is our duty and it will always be the responsibility of every american and every person in this church today and every person who hears my voice to confront injustice wherever it is found, to isolate those who act out of hate, and to make real the brighter future and a more just world that addie

denisenthia, carole, and never had the chance in which to live. [applause] as the father of two young daughters who are now almost women, it is heartbreaking, it is heartbreaking for me to look at photographs of these little heroines, as i have so many times over the years come and see how innocent and how full of youth they were when taken from us and denied the chance to be remarkable women that they might have been. our nation lost something precious on that sunday. was honoredummer, i to stand with president obama, and let's think about that -- president barack obama --

[applause] i was honored to stand with president obama in the oval office as he paid sitting tribute to their sacrifices by signing a bill that posthumously awarded to then the congressional gold medal. [applause] to be here today among members of the community that knew them best and love them most, as we firmly resolve as individuals, as patriots, and as citizens of a great nation, not merely to shed tears, but to keep looking forward together. last month i joined the president on the mall for a ceremony celebrating the 50th anniversary of the march on washington. thisched as a l from church rang out from the steps of the lincoln memorial, right

where the stop where dr. keene once stood, to remind us of the tribes and tragedies that you shared, past and we all and to call every citizen to remember the parts we must play in writing the next chapter of the great american story. this afternoon, we pledge that although our journey may be long and the road ahead will be anything but easy, we will never -- we will never stop working to forge the more just society that all of our citizens deserve. we acknowledged that this is our -- we acknowledge that this is our time, our moment, and this is our breathtaking opportunity to make the positive differences that we seek, to strengthen the ties that bind us to one another, to stand firm in the face of discrimination and hate, to work for he's in a world too often riven a conflict, and to stand up and to speak out with

one voice, as one people, for the dignity of a promise cap, the honor of a right redeemed, and the values that must continue to drive our ongoing pursuit of a more just and more perfect union. so thank you. may god continue to bless our journey. may god bless the memories of all those we have lost. may god bless those four little girls. and may god bless the united states of america. thank you. [applause] >> amen.

reflect onr past, the president, rejoice over our future, and now it is time for us to respond. learn theoteworthy to lessons of history or live the lessons of history, we must live out everything that we have been challenged to do today. sewell hasan recognized the families. we will recognize the families forn as we told the bells the four girls and the two boys who lost their lives on that sunday 50 years ago. attorney general holder also called out the legends that are elder king, and reverend jesse jackson. sat so dr.rosa parks king could march, and dr. king

marched so reverend jackson ran, and reverend jackson ran so that rock obama could swerve as 44th president -- could serve as the president of the united states. i want to recognize in our presence today one who introduced the nation, many of the people in this nation, to the story of the four little girls, and that is actor and director spike lee. [applause] we also have mayor kevin johnson from sacramento here, who used phoenix suns.e [applause]

our first lady of the city , sister bell. federal elected officials here today. would you stand. any other federal officials here? amen. state officials? i want to recognize our state elected officials. [applause] members of our city council and local elected officials, will you please stand. any members from the county, if you will also stand as well. amen. amen. and where would we be without the efforts of the foot soldiers . if you are a foot soldier from 1963, would you please stand.

[applause] amen. all right. wife and governor's the state of alabama, the first bencof alabama, sister tley. thank god for all of you as well. at this time we are going to ask shelton to lead us in a litany reading. this litany was authored by gail and it is to honor the

names of the four girls. call and response litany. after the reader reads, we will respond with we honor your names. we will ask pastor shelton to lead us in that. amen. collins, denise mcnair, carole robertson, and cynthia wesley, we honor your names because you are always referred to collectively as the four little girls, but you are each unique, beautiful individuals with personal dreams, aspirations, and desires. mae, denise, carole, cythia, we honor you

because you were preparing to serve on youth day in god's house, and although your earthly bodies perished, your were given as living sacrifices, and, acceptable unto god, thus your reasonable service was a competition. ande mae, denise, carole, cynthia, we honor your names because you were created in image, and your budget resulted in liberation for the oppressed, from the berlin event symptom ofgnant racism in all its manifestations. addie mae, denise, carole, and cynthia, we honor your names because the enormity of your sacrifice was the galvanizing moral imperative which led to the enactment of laws in

furtherance of liberty and justice for all. addie may, denise, carole, and cynthia, we honor your names because although your life's were extinguished prematurely, the atrocity of your death showed the light on hatred and injustice, and you have become the mbyte a-month of light. -- the embodiment of light. addie mae, denise, carole, and cindy, we honor your names because the brilliance of your names because your father in heaven's name is glorified. we honor your names because your light shone on those engulfed in the darkness of evil and the shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of peace. disney's, carole,

cynthia, we honor your names because the night is far spent and the day is at hand, and you compel us to cast off the works of evil and continue to work for justice, clad in the armor of light. carole,e, denise, cynthia, we honor your names inause you were blameless an the midst of a divided and perfect nation, and you shine as a light across the world. >> we honor your names. carole, may, denise, cynthia, we honor your names because we confessed that when you were taken, we did not understand why you had to die, for we see through a glass

darkly, but now we are assured that all things work together for good to them that love god, to them who are the called according to god's purpose. >> we honor your names. carole, may, denise, cynthia, we honor your names and reflect on your lives and loss because we have been commanded whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good there be any virtue or there be any praise to think on those things, and so we think of you. >> we honor your names. denise, carole, cynthia, we honor your names

because by your light we now see. >> we honor your names. [applause] >> we will prepare to have a moment of silence as we told the bells in remembrance of -- we toll the bells in reverse of the four girls and the two boys who lost their lives that day. will the family of addie mae collins stand. we remember addie mae collins. [bell tolls] will the family of cynthia morris wesley stand. we remember cynthia morris wesley. [bell tolls]

will the family of carol roberts on stand. robertson. carol [bell tolls] will the family of the nice mcnair stand. -- will the family of denise mcnair stand. we remember denise mcnair. [bell tolls] gill the family of virtua ware stand. we remember virgil ware. [bell tolls] and will the family of johnny robertson stand. we remember johnny robertson. [bell tolls]

let us never forget their lives, their legacy, and the lessons that we have learned in these past 50 years. we are prepared to believe now, and i will ask that we all stand as we prepare to sing the hymn of the movement, "we shall overcome." i will ask elder king to come up here please. amen. congresswoman sewell, if you will come. the governor and his wife, the attorney general and his wife, will you please come. the mayor and his wife, would you please come. come on off. up.ome on

we're going to grab one , and there iss only one person that can lead us in this hymn. come on, bishop. [organ plays] ♪ we shall overcome. >> ♪ we shall overcome we shall overcome we shall overcome someday

i do believe we shall overcome someday overcome ♪ i do believe we shall overcome someday

♪ heartin my i do believe we shall overcome someday god will see us through god will see us through god will see us through someday

heartn my i do believe overcome ♪ day >> i want to lead in a different kind of benediction on today, and one of the reasons i wanted you that is because of the window straight in front of part of theop balcony. it was explained to me earlier this week at that window is all about. there was a black man in that

window. is pressing that left hand is open. the right-hand is pressing njustice, and inequality, and his right hand to reconciliation and forgiveness. may we leave here today, pressing together against andstice, inequality, keeping our hands open at the same time to reconciliation, peace, and forgiveness. and now may the lord bless you and keep you, david lord make his face to shine upon you and to be gracious unto you, and to give to you his peace.

>> we shall overcome. >> ♪ we shall overcome we shall overcome we shall overcome someday deep in my heart i do believe we shall overcome someday ♪ in a few moments the u n secretary-general's comments on the use of chemical weapons syrn about 10 minutes, senator

leaders harry reid and mitch mcconnell comment on the shooting today at the washington navy yard. then you will hear president obama's speech on the economy and the fifth anniversary of the economic crisis. and live tonight at 9:00 eastern, our series first ladies influence and image focuses on helen taft. >> good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. thank you for your patience, for waiting. today marks a grim but necessary step in the world's efforts to combat chemical weapons. the report of the united nations mission to investigate allegations of the use of

chemical weapons in syria has concluded that chemical weapons were used on a relatively large scale in the ghouta area of damascus on august 21st, causing numerous casualties, particularly among civilians. this morning i submitted the mission's report to the security council and the member states of the united nations. we have also posted it on-line for all the world to see. the team of experts led by professor ake sellstrom deserves high praise. they faced dangerous circumstances, including a sniper attack. they did their job in record time while upholding the highest professional and scientific standards. working with experts from the organization for the prohibition

of chemical weapons (opcw) and the world health organization, who, they showed the united nations at its best. the report makes for chilling reading. the team gathered testimony from survivors, medical personnel and first responders. they collected biomedical evidence and dozens of soil and environmental samples. the mission has provided the world with an impartial and independent account. the results are overwhelming and indisputable. eighty-five per cent of the blood samples tested positive for sarin. a majority of the environmental samples confirmed the use of sarin. a majority of the rockets or rocket fragments recovered were

found to be carrying sarin. the findings are beyond doubt and beyond the pale. this is a war crime and a grave violation of the 1925 protocol and other rules of customary international law. it is the most significant confirmed use of chemical weapons against civilians since saddam hussein used them in halabja in 1988 - and the worst use of weapons of mass destruction in the 21st century. the international community has a responsibility to ensure that chemical weapons never re-emerge as an instrument of warfare. syria's accession to the chemical weapons convention and its belated acknowledgement that

it possesses chemical weapons are welcome developments that come with strict obligations. i also welcome the agreement reached over the weekend between the russian federation and the united states on a framework to eliminate syria's chemical weapons. i urged, this morning, the security council to act urgently to ensure enforcement and compliance with this plan. after two and a half years of tragedy, now is the time for the security council to show leadership and exercise its moral and political responsibilities. there must be accountability for the use of chemical weapons. any use of chemical weapons by anyone, anywhere, is a crime. but our message today must be

more than that, do not slaughter your people with gas. there must also be no impunity for the crimes being committed with conventional weapons. the united nations commission of inquiry reported last week on a host of horrors being committed by both sides in the conflict, from murder, rape and torture to indiscriminate shelling of civilian neighborhoods. yet arms continue to flow to the country and the region. the humanitarian situation is desperate. people are living under siege. families face intolerable choices between the risk of remaining in place and the risk of taking flight. communities that once lived in relative harmony are now torn with sectarian tension.

one third of the country's people have fled their homes -- the largest flows of refugees and internally displaced persons in many years, causing instability across the region. all of the killing must end. the fighting must end. we need to do everything we can to bring the parties to the negotiating table. i stand ready to convene the international conference on syria in geneva as soon as possible. i look forward to meeting with foreign minister lavrov of russia and secretary kerry later this month and hope we will be able to set a date for the conference at that time. the un mission will return to syria as soon as it can to conduct the other investigations

for which it was established. my hope is that this incident will serve as a wake-up call for more determined efforts to resolve the conflict and end the unbearable suffering of the syrian people. thank you.>> thank you very much. mr. secretary general, based on the munitions and the delivery systems, have you made an assessment of who is to blame, and if so, how do you propose to hold them accountable? you.ank the determination of the team has been able to determine objectively that sarin was used on a relatively large scale, as i said. team's job to

determine whether and to what extent chemical weapons were used, not who used them. it is for others to decide whether to pursue this further to determine responsibility. we may all have our own thoughts on this, but i will say this was a grave crime and those responsible must be brought to justice as soon as possible. thank you. general, thetary- u.s. and the russians have given one week to clear the sites, so will you be sending inspectors back very soon to syria? >> yes. to returned the team to syria to continue their other areasn and for a final reports. i have discussed this matter the the director general of

they haveeneral of confirmed their readiness as soon as possible. >> thank you, mr. secretary. you have talked about the need for accountability. how are you proposing that this be done for war crimes, as you mentioned? are you personally ready to use the tools available to you a secretary-general for guaranteeing there is such accountability? >> as i have repeatedly said, those perpetuators who have used chemical weapons or any weapons of mass distraction in the future will have to be brought to justice. this is a firm principle of the united nations and international law and international humanitarian law. promote this and when to

do this must read the subject of ongoing discussions in the security council. i will be ready to discuss this matter. at this time, i do not have a clear answer. thank you. officials say three of those wounded in the shooting at the washington navy yard's are expected to survive. 13 people are dead including the gunman. authorities continue the search for a possible second suspect in -- theoting reportedly shooting increasingly appear to be the work of a lone gunman. the violence led to a chaotic day at the navy yard with several police officers lining the blocks and helicopters circling the sites, many fearing a terrorist attack. the navy yard is located about two miles from the capitol.

obama signed a proclamation directing that the flags be lowered to honor the victims of the shooting and will remain so until sunday. prayer, senateng leaders spoke about events and their appreciation for the u.s. capitol police. -- >> republican leaders morningi heard this that there was an incident at the navy yards. traffic was tied up. i did not know what it was. and of course, when i came to the capital, i knew something was up, because i saw our police officers. their weapons, automatic weapons, which they usually do not carry.

everyone on constitution avenue and other places. aboutwas saddened to hear the events here in washington. the prayer by the chaplain -- at the navy yard this morning. details.know all the we know at least that there is one dead. and i don't know all the details. do not know a lot of the details of this tragedy or the perpetrator or perpetrators may be. according to the reports we have gotten, several people were killed. several were injured. including a washington police officer in the military police officer. my sympathy is with the families of those who died.

injuredse who have been . in my wishes go out to all those who work in the navy yard complex, which is just a short defense from here, and the surrounding neighborhood. as usual, you have to recognize , theirst responders professionalism -- i do not know all about it, but i am certain it was there. my thanks for the brave law enforcement officials on the scene and to put their lives on the line. and today we realize that they really do put their lives on the apitolo keep this c complex safe and in the city safe. i urge everyone to follow law enforcement directions for their own safety. the shooters, to my knowledge, are not done and apprehended. of them mighte

be. we will all continue to follow the situation as it develops. this,ce president aced on -- based on this, as i indicated, i've spoken with the sergeant at arms and republican leaders and advised that everything i've said and i'm going to suggest, but in light of the events at the navy yard, we have decided to recess the senate until tomorrow morning. was scheduled for this evening will be rescheduled. so, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent -- >> if the majority leader would just suspend, just a few observations about the events of this day. a few thoughts about the tragic events of the navy yard, the victims, and their families. the men and women of our military have courageously put their lives on the line in many dangerous places around the world. it is painful for all of us to

think about, having to worry about their safety when they come home, too. many people in the area and across the country will be directly affected by this terrible tragedy, and we pray for them all. these kinds of incidents always remind us how fragile life is. they also remind us who work in l how much the capito we owe to the men and women who work hard to keep us safe every day. i want to take this opportunity the secretary and his team, the chief of the capitol police and his team for all they do day in and day out. and for everyone working through this tragedy -- i want you to know we are thankful for your hard work and your sacrifice. everyone is deeply grateful, especially on days like this.

yourappreciate very much statement. i had in my office this morning a police officer. number onhat is the your batch? i do not remember exactly. it was 3000-something. i looked on my badge. it was 363. we are thankful for the work these men and women do it is significant -- do. it is significant here it they do all they can to protect us in all the people who work in this complex. >> along with directing the flags be lowered in honor of the victims of the navy yard shootings, politico writes that

resident of obama condemned the shootings as a cowardly act before a previously scheduled speech marking the fifth anniversary of the economic crash. here are the president's remarks. >> ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states. >> good afternoon. please have a seat. before we begin, let me say a few words about the tragedy unfolding near not far away at that is art of why

our event today was delayed. i have been briefed on the situation. we still do not know all the facts, but we do know some have been shot and killed. we are confronting yet another mass shooting. today it happened on a military installation in the nation's capitol, a shooting that targeted the military and civilian personnel. these are men and women going to work, doing their job, protecting all of us -- patriots. they know the dangers of serving abroad, but today they faced the unimaginable violence that they would not have expected here at home. so we offer our gratitude to the navy and local law enforcement, federal authorities, and the doctors who respond with skill it clearry.i have made

to my team that i want this investigation to be seamless of that that role and local authorities are working together. as this investigation moves forward we will make sure whoever carried out this act is -- whoevernsible. carried out this cowardly act is helpless possible. in the meantime, we send thoughts and prayers to all at the navy yard who have been touched by this tragedy. we thank them for their service. we stand with the families of those who have been harmed. they will need our love and support, and as we learn more about the courageous americans who died today, their lives, families, patriotism, we will honor their service to the nation that they help to make great. obviously, we will be investigating thoroughly what happened, as we do so many of the shootings, sadly, that have happened and do everything we can to try to prevent them. in recent weeks, much of our attention has been focused on

the events in syria, the chemical weapons used on innocent people, including the need for a firm response from the international immunity. over the weekend we took an important step in the direction towards moving towards syria's chemical weapons under national -- under international control so they can be destroyed. are not there yet, but if properly implemented, this agreement could end the threat these weapons pose not only to the syrian people, but to the world. i want to be clear that even as we have dealt with the situation in syria, we continue to focus on my number one priority since i took office. making sure we recover from the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes and building our economy for everyone that is willing to take responsibility for their lives has a chance to get ahead.

it was five years ago this week that the financial crisis rocked wall street and sent an economy already in recession into a tailspin. it is hard sometimes to remember everything that happened during those months, but in a matter of a frightening few days and weeks some of the largest investment banks in the world failed, stock markets plunged, banks stopped lending to families and small businesses, the auto industry, the heartbeat of american manufacturing, was flatlining. by the time i took office, the economy was shrinking by an annual rate of more than 8%. our businesses where shedding 800,000 jobs each month. it was a perfect storm that would rob millions of americans

of jobs and homes and savings they had worked a lifetime to build. and it also laid bare the long erosion of the middle class that for more than a decade has had to work harder and harder just to keep up. in fact, most americans who have known economic hardship do not think about the collapse of lehman brothers when they think about the recession. instead, they recall the day they got the gut punch of a pink slip or the day the bank took away their home, the day they got sick and did not have health insurance, or the day they had to sit their daughter or son down and tell them they could not afford to send them back to college the next semester. so those are this door is that-- those are the stories that guided everything we have done. it is what in those earliest

days of the crisis caused us to act so quickly, to stop the downward spiral and put a floor under the fall. we put people to work repairing keep and bridges,to teachers in the classroom and first responders on the street. we helped responsible homeowners modify their mortgages so they could keep their homes. we help to jumpstart the flow of credit to help small businesses keep the doors open. we saved the american auto industry. as we worked to stabilize the economy and get it growing and create jobs again, we started pushing back against the trends that had been battering the middle class for decades. we took on a broken health-care system, ended our addiction to foreign oil, placed new rules on big banks, rules we need to finalize before the end of the year to make sure the job is we put in new protections

that cracked down on the worst practices of mortgage lenders and credit card companies. we also changed the tax code that was too skewed in the favor of wealthiest americans. we locked in tax cuts for 98% of americans. we asked those of the top to pay a little bit more. so if you add it all up, over the past 3 1/2 years, our businesses have added 7.5 million new jobs. the unemployment rate has come down. our housing market is healing. our financial system is safer. we sell more goods made in america than ever before. we generated more renewable energy than ever before. we produce more natural gas than anybody. health care costs are growing at the slowest rate in 50 years. two weeks from now, people will --nally have a chance to buy

people who have been locked out just because they had a pre- existing condition, they will finally have a chance to buy quality affordable health care on the private marketplace. we haves means is cleared away the rubble from the financial races and have begun to lay a new foundation for economic growth and prosperity -- from the financial crisis and have begun to lay a new foundation for economic growth and prosperity. and in our personal lives. people have refocused on the things that have really thingsd.all of these happen because of the grit of the american people. we should be proud of that. on this five-year anniversary we should take note on how far we have come from where we were five years ago. but that is not the end of the as any middle-class family will tell you or anyone striving to get into the middle class --

we are not yet where we need to be. that is what we have to focus on. all the remaining work that needs to be done to strengthen this economy. we need to grow faster, more good-paying jobs, more broad- based prosperity. we need more ladders of opportunity.for people who are currently poor, but want to get into the middle class. even though the businesses are creating more jobs that have broken record profits, the top 1% of americans took home 20% of the nation's income last year, while the average worker is not seeing a raise at all. that understates the problem. most of the gains have gone to the top .1%. in many ways the trends that have taken hold over the past few decades of a winner take all --onomy where if you do better where a few do better and better and better well everyone else

treads water or loses ground, those trends have been made worse by the recession. that is where we should be focused on.that is what i am focused on. what i know the american standing beside me as well as all of you out there are focused on. as congress begins another budget debate, that is what congress should be focused on. how do we grow the economy faster? how do we create better jobs? do we create better jobs and incomes? how do we increase income for those that have been locked out of opportunity? how do we create better retirement security? that is what we should be focused on, because the stakes for the middle class could not be higher. in today's hypercompetitive world, we have to make the investments necessary to attract good jobs, that pay good wages, and offer high standards of living.

although ultimately, the success will depend on all the innovation hard work of the private sector, all the grit and resilience of the american people, government will have a critical role. and making sure we have an education system that prepares workers for a global economy. the budget congress passes will determine whether we can hire more workers to upgrade transportation and communications networks or fund the research and development that has always kept america on the cutting edge. so what happens here in washington makes a difference. what happens on capitol hill will help determine what will happen for the average american. -- not only the pace of our quality of the opportunity for this generation and future generations.

at the moment, republicans in congress do not seem to be focused on how to grow the economy and build the middle class. i say at the moment because i am still hoping that a light bulb goes off here. so far the budget ideas revolve primarily around even deeper cuts to education, even deeper cuts that would gut america's scientific research and development, even deeper cuts to america's infrastructure investment -- roads, bridges, schools, energy grids. these are not the policies that would grow the economy faster. they are not the policies that would help grow the middle class. in fact, they do the opposite. up until now, republicans have argued the cuts are necessary in

the name of fiscal responsibility. our deficits are now falling at the fastest rate since the end of world war ii. i want to repeat that -- our deficits are going down faster then any time since before i was born. by the end of this year -- [applause] by the end of this year, we will have cut the deficit by more than half since i took office. that does not mean we do not still have some long-term fiscal challenges, primarily because the population is getting older, and they are using more health care services, so we still have changes we have to make, and there is not a government agency out there or program out there that still cannot be streamlined, become more customer friendly, more efficient, so i do believe we

should cut the programs we do not need. we need to fix ones that are not working the way they are supposed to or have outlived the initial mission. we have to make government faster and more efficient. that is not what is being proposed by the republican budget. instead of making necessary atanges with a scalpel, so far least republicans have chosen to leave in place the so-called sequester cuts that have cost jobs, harmed growth, are hurting our military readiness, and top independent economists say this has been a big drag on our recovery this year. our economy is not growing as fast as it should and we're not creating as many jobs as we should because the sequester is

in place. that is not my opinion, that is the opinion of independent economists. this sequester makes it harder to do what is required to boost wages for american workers. so, economy is still slack. if republicans want the economy to grow faster, create more jobs faster, they should want to get rid of it. it is irresponsible to keep it in place. if congress is serious about wanting to grow the economy faster, the first order of business must be to pass a sensible budget that replaces the sequester with a balanced plan that is fiscally sound and funds investment like education and research and infrastructure that we need to grow. this is not asking too much. congress' most fundamental job is passing a budget.

congress needs to get it done without triggering another crisis. without shutting down the government or worse, threatening not to pay this country's bills. after all the progress, the ideas of reversing that progress because of an unwillingness to compromise or an ideological agenda is the height of irresponsibility. it is not what the american people need right now. these folks standing behind me, these are people that are small business owners, who almost lost their home, young people trying to get a college education, and all of them went through tough times during the recession, in part because of the steps we took and primarily because of their courage and determination and hard work, they are in a

better place now. the last thing they are looking for is for us to go back to the same kind of crisis situations we have had in the past. the single most important thing we can do to prevent that is for we can do to prevent that is for congress to pass a budget without drama that puts us on a sound path for growth, jobs, better wages, better incomes. look, it has never been easy to get 535 people here in washington to agree on anything. and budget battles and debates, those are as old as the republic.it is even harder when you have divided government. right now the house of republicans right now, the republicans controlling the house, democrats controlling the

senate.democrat in the white house. so this is always going to be tough. having said that, i cannot remember a time when one faction of one party promises economic chaos if they cannot get 100% of what it wants. that has never happened before. that is what is happening right now. you have some republicans in the house of representatives are promising to shut down the government of the end of this month if they cannot shut down the affordable care act. if that scheme does not work, some have suggested they won't pay the very bills that congress which would run up. cause america to default on its debt for the first time in our history and would create massive economic turmoil. interest rates on ordinary people would shoot up.

those kinds of actions are the kinds of actions that we do not need. the last time the same crew threatened this course of action back in 2011, even the mere suggestion of defaults slowed economic growth.everybody here are members that. -- remembers that. it was not that long ago. keep in mind, and initially the whole argument was we are going to do this because we want to reduce the debt. that does not seem to be the focus now. now the focus is obamacare.so, let's put this in perspective. the affordable care act has been the law for 3 1/2 years now.it passed both houses of congress. the supreme court determined it was constitutional. it was an issue in last year's election. the candidate who called for repeal lost. [applause] republicans in the house have tried to repeal or sabotage it

about 40 times. they failed every time. the law has helped millions of americans. young people were able to stay on the parents plan up until the age of 26. seniors getting additional discounts on the prescription drugs. ordinary families in small businesses getting rebates from insurance companies because they have to actually spend money on people's care instead of on administrative costs and ceo bonuses. a lot of the horror stories predicted about how this was going to shoot rates way up and there were going to be death panels, none of that happened. in two weeks the affordable care act will help millions of more people. there is no serious evidence that the law, which has helped to keep down the rise in health-

care costs to the lowest level in 50 years, is holding back economic growth. so repealing the affordable care act, making sure 30 million people do not get health insurance and people with pre- existing conditions continue to be locked out of the health-care health insurance market, that is not on the agenda for economic growth. you will not meet an economist who says that is the number one priority in terms of boosting jobs in this country. at least not a serious economist. i understand i will never convince some republicans about the merits of obamacare. i understand that. and i am more than willing to work with them where they have specific suggestions that they can show will make our health care system better. remember, initially this was like repeal and replace the

replace thing has gone off to the wayside. now it is just repeal. the larger point is after all that we have been through, after all the work to come back from the depths of a crisis, are some of these folks really so beholden to one extreme wing of their party that they are willing to take the entire economy just because they cannot get their way on this issue? are they really willing to hurt people just to score political points? i hope not. but in case there is any confusion, i will not negotiate over whether or not america keeps its word and meets its obligations. i will not negotiate over the full faith and credit of the united states. this country has worked too hard or too long to dig out of a

crisis just to see the elected representatives here in washington purposely cause another crisis. let's stop the threats, let's stop our political posturing, let's keep the government open. pay the bills on time, pass a budget, work together to do what the american people sent us here to do, create jobs, grow the economy, expand opportunity. that is what we need to do. [applause] and as far as the budget goes, it is time for responsible republicans who share these goals, and there are a number of folks out there who i think are decent folks. i have disagreements with them on some issues, but i think genuinely they want the economy grow and want what is best for

the american people. time for those republicans to step up and decide what they want to prioritize. originally they said they wanted deficit reduction.as i said before, our deficits are falling fast. the only way to make further long-term progress that does not slow growth is with a balanced plan that includes closing tax loopholes that benefit corporations and the wealthiest americans at the expense of the middle class. the only way to do it. they said they wanted entitlement reform. but their leaders have not put forward serious ideas that would not devastate medicare or social security. i have put forward ideas for sensible reforms to medicare and social security and have not gotten a lot of feedback yet. they said they wanted tax reform. remember, this was just a few months ago they said this would be a top priority, tax reform.

six weeks ago i put forward a plan that serious people in both parties should be able to support, a deal that lowers the corporate tax rate for businesses and manufacturers, simplifies it for small business owners, as long as we use some of the money we saved to invest theinfrastructure. infrastructure are businesses meet -- need to create good jobs. my position is if folks in this town want a grand bargain, how about a grand bargain for middle-class jobs? so i put forward ideas for tax reform. have not heard back from them yet. congress has a couple of weeks to get this done. if they are focused on what the american people are focused on, faster growth, more jobs, better future for our kids, i am

confident it will happen. once we're done with the budget, let's focus on the other things we know can make a difference for middle-class families -- lowering the cost of college, finishing the job of immigration reform, taking up the work of tax reform to make the system fair and promoting more investment in the united states. if we follow the strategy i am laying out for the entire economy and is washington will act with the same urgency and common purpose we felt five years ago, then our economy will be stronger a year from now, five years from now, a decade from now. that is my priority. all of these folks standing behind me and everyone out there who is listening, that is my priority. i have run my last election. my only interest at this point is making sure the economy is moving the way it needs to so we have the broad-based growth that has always been the hallmark of this country.

as long as i have the privilege of serving as your president, i will spend every moment of every day fighting to restore the middle class and to give everyone a chance to get ahead. thank you, everybody. god bless you. god bless america. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] later, president obama called the navy secretary to express his condolences about the yards andt the navy also the agency director to commend the response. >> lawmakers continue to give their thoughts about what happened today. the representative jeff denham of california tweeps --

congressman sam farr -- and the last tweet from senator dianne feinstein -- now, here is part of the white house briefing. we pick it up with a question about the budget. >> the president has been engaged all year long to find common ground and his willingness to do that remains. recall the interview that he gave to abc over the weekend. but it is incumbent upon republicans to find common tound and not threaten either shut down government or default, for the first time in our history if they cannot get what they want on an ideological agenda. that is just not the right way to do things and it certainly is

not right for the american people. chuck? came out with the report on chemical weapons use in syria. i wonder how the report might play into the situation? >> we have a report from the united nations. what we know already, the u.n. said,as confirmed, as we and michael weapons were used on a relatively large scale in damascus on august 21 and the attack resulted in numerous casualties, particularly among civilians. the u.n. states that the blood samples tested positive for sarin gas. the u.n. also states that they collected clear and convincing evidence the surface rockets containing the nerve agents sarah and were used in the attack. as we have discussed many times, the u.n. has been clear its mandate was not to determine responsibility. -- findings and the report

the findings in the report support the conclusion the world already reached, that the assad regime was responsible for the chemical weapons attack on august 21. this information comes at a time when the united states has made move toogress in our put the chemical weapons under international control so they can be destroyed. the progress we have made thus far could not have been achieved without the threat of force and president obama's decision to explore this diplomatic path. the credible threat of military action brought russia to the table, help us reduce this agreement, and forced aside to acknowledge his regime's chemical weapons and join the chemical weapons convention. it is worth noting a week ago today, i believe, president assad in a taped interview appeared on the network claiming that serious did not have chemical is. a week ofeen quite

change in the syrian position. the dots here, the report itself does not assign blame, but given the evidence laid out, you say it makes later that assad was responsible? >> i'm seeing the answer to that is yes, it supports what we believe is already overwhelming evidence, not only that chemical weapons attacks occurred on a large scale and that syrian nerve gas was used and the only group capable of delivering that it wasin the means delivered through surface to surface rockets and using the that was used is assad regime. even though the u.n. mandate obviously was not to assign responsibility, but just come to the conclusion that chemical weapons were or were not used, the information provided in that report that the syrian nerve agent was delivered on rockets -- the syrian nerve agent was

delivered on rockets, surface to surface rockets that only the assad regime has, i think, makes makesresponsibility -- clear responsibility. >> with all of the attention on what has been going on in geneva, over the past week, the steering government has stepped up its attacks on rebel areas. more than 1000 people killed in just the past week. is there concern, while we are all focused on this one aspect, the chemical weapons issue, that assad is consolidating his grip on power and his grip on power and has cracked down on the rebels? >> i would say one thing. our position in support of the our policy of providing assistance to the opposition, including the military opposition, remains unchanged. we have stepped up that commitment and we will continue to step it up.

our conclusion is the only way this conflict can be resolved is through political negotiation remains unchanged. and that is a view we share with the russians. the use of the chemical weapons has always been distinct from war, civiling civil conflict in syria. the threat of force that the president issued was in response to a side's use of chemical weapons against civilians on a large scale. the diplomatic breakthrough we have achieved and we continue to work with the russians and the united nations to implement came about because of our forceful insistence that the international community heal -- heal withlation this violation. and if achieved, and there is a long road ahead of us, but if achieved, we would go beyond the

original objective of military force, which is to deter aside from using chemical weapons again, to make clear that the consequences of using those weapons are so great that he would not use them again. this agreement, if successfully implemented, would've sure that he could not use them again because they would take from them all is chemical weapons and destroy them. that would be a significant achievement for the syrian people and our allies in the region and a significant achievement for the united states, russia, and the rest of the world. >> the president in his address to the nation said he asked congressional leaders to delay the vote. the offices of eric cantor and john boehner, the congressional leaders and the house but supporting the president have both said on the record that the president never reached out to them to even notify them of his vision to ask tongass to delay the vote. is that something the

white house -- not have details of conversations between everybody in the white house and the leadership. it was quite clear when the president went up on capitol hill that this was a matter under discussion, that he believed it was the right thing to do to postpone the votes to pursue this diplomatic channel. i think the american people would rightly expect that is the approach that was necessary given me possibility of achieving our objectives not with force, but through the process that would take a side's weapons away from them. yes? the president expressed some annoyance with the fact that people who worked for him yet beat up in the press. referring to larry summers. thehe just as upset when defense force was forced to resign? >> the statement put out a statement yesterday and i would refer to a statement about the appreciation for the services

that larry has performed for his country during a very difficult time. any annoyance? >> i would point to what the president said at the time. the wake of mr. summers's withdrawal? >> i would refer you to the statement. house concludee that it was unlikely summers could get through because of the senate banking committee -- >> i would point you to the letter that larry issued and the statement the president put out yesterday. it was all hisng decision? >> again, i would point you to what larry said and what the president said. >> is that a question? >> again, i would point you to what larry said and what the president said. >> there were democrats and the banking committee that were

opposed. that was a problem in terms of these syria situation. the president had a lot of democrats any house and senate pushing back on him. i wonder if you can give us an idea, after almost one year into his second term here, what is the state of the presidency in terms of the president getting his fellow democrats to move his agenda? a useful timeis to ask the question, again, five years after the bottom fell out thehe american economy and world economy. the actions taken by the president and overwhelmingly by ensurets in congress to what was already the worst recession of our lifetimes did not become the great depression of our lifetimes, the second in the lifetime of the united states. that could not have been achieved without significant cooperation and work with

democrats and republicans. my question is about today, not 2009. >> i think what the president said when he came to the congressional consideration of authorization with regards to syria is that many americans -- and i think in particular democrats -- in the congress when it came to members of were wary of another military action by the united states in the middle east. and he understood that. after all, we have just been through a dozen years in which the american people in particular, families, military families, men and women who served in uniform and their inilies, have sacrificed ongoing wars in iraq and afghanistan. the bordernt ended

in iraq as promised and is winding down the war in afghanistan. reluctance and skepticism is completely understandable given the experience we have had as a nation. he made clear why he believed and continues to believe that we as a nation and we as an international community cannot turn a blind eye to the blatant use of chemical weapons against civilians with terrific consequences. mindful all along that most americans understandably, as you said to the nation in his statement, which we would not have to confront that challenge. so, i do not think the president has any -- i think the president made clear he has a deep understanding for that kind of reluctance. >> a couple things. you mentioned the talk about the shooting and the president offered his thoughts and prayers.