tv Washington Journal CSPAN November 20, 2015 7:00am-10:01am EST
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operations. and then the center for public integrity on how well they deter and punish corruption. ♪ ♪ these are picture from the bbc twitter page showing two gunmen have taken 170 people hostage in the capital of mali and west africa. three hours reported dead and no one is taking responsibility and there are no formal connections to the attack that took place in paris. national the french assembly approved giving the french president a three-month extension of broad emergency powers. arrest without a warrant. in the united states yesterday, the house of representatives place a bill that would refugees coming to the united face its of will
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passage in the senate and the president is expected to veto this bill. for our first hour this morning, your thoughts on the events that took place in the house yesterday when it came to syrian refugees. you can give us a call at these numbers -- you can post in our twitter page or on our facebook page and you can also send us an e-mail. " usa today" breaks down the action that took place in the house of representatives yesterday. the bill is being decried -- incribed as a pause
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applies to iraq a refugees to come to the united states. we will start off this morning with kathy in silver spring, maryland, honor democratic line. what do you think about the events in the house yesterday? caller: thank you for taking the call. onhought it was despicable the gop side as well as the committee hearing. my main point is, in the united states within the last two years, the people that shot up all those movie theaters, the school kids in sandy hook, the churches in south carolina-they were near their syrian nor muslim. hear thead when you republican candidates get on stage and the first thing they is thereforeabout and grandparents coming here and some of them were refugees from communist places. now we have an issue with refugees. i would like everybody not to
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forget that nobody is from this country. we all need to remember that. you mentioned republicans but 40 democrats joined in on this vote. caller: i was absolutely dumbfounded when i heard that this morning. i have no idea why they would do that. this is fear. isl wants istly everyone to be in fear and as long as you do that, you will do these absurd moves. process -- weting are afraid of being attacked wein but half of the attacks live through day today are not foreigners and not muslims. the fact that we are putting these religious tags on things is pretty shocking. the country is supposed to be founded on separation of church and state. to lakeland,o next florida, and are independent line. caller: good morning, the gop is
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so hypocritical about the syrian refugees. we could have secured our southern border for how many years now. i am just curious -- what will we do about the southern border? we are just going to take care of the syrians and not the southern border? that's all i have to say. it's the hypocrisy. for corporate america to say we are going to leave that southern border porous and attack syrian refugees -- host: let's hear from anthony and wilmington, illinois, republican line. good morning, what you think about the actions in the house with many republicans signing on to this legislation? caller: i agree totally with the vote. my point is why is this our president not following public opinion? this needs to stop.
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you cannot economically afford this. put this totally country into a tailspin accepting all another country. they are cutting veteran support right now in the states. the home care has stopped for veterans. because there's not enough money. host: go back to the vote, why do you agree with the vote specifically? we have to draw a line somewhere. henry is up next in memphis, tennessee, independent line. caller: good morning, i agree with the vote and the reason is because -- i don't think it went far enough. i think they should make it across the board. stop all immigrants and refugees from coming into this country. look howpeople can stupid and foolish and how ignorant the republican party really is.
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let's stop all of them and let's see how the people feel when the jews and the italians and the irish and the cubans and all the other races of people who are allowed to come in and walk in freely who could easily become a terrorist, when they can't come either, let's stop everybody deal.his let's use it across the board and not just say the syrians but everybody, thank you. host: your thoughts -- if you are a refugee, 202-74 3-8003.
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it was 40 or so democrats that joined with republicans in support of this measure in the house and it passed overwhelmingly. others are reporting it faces an uncertain future in the senate. the president said he would veto the legislation and want to get your thoughts. the numbers will be on the screen. millville, new jersey, democrats line. morning, people got to find out if there city is a sanction city, i live eight miles from a town -- am i allowed to say the town? host: go ahead. caller: bridgeton, new jersey. i have lived or almost all my life.
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my friend said this is a sanction city. i said oh, my goodness. a lot of the mexicans hide out there. i don't know if they want to send the refugees here. they have the room. his foot obama sticks in his mouth again saying the religious people should be allowed in are. soigious people snap, too that is not a fair saying. these people expect us to live like malls and move underground? we cannot do that. we go on and whatever happens happens. host: as far as syrians and iraqis coming in, no changes needed in the vetting process? caller: what process? needed how they
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this passed overwhelmingly in the house yesterday with 40 democrats giving support and to republicans voted against it. if you want to give your thoughts on what happened yesterday, the numbers will be on the screen. michigan is up next in our republican line, farmington, michigan, hello. calling because i totally am in support of what's going on in the house and i hope the senate has the good sense to follow through. i want to remind people that on 9/11, what happened was five people legally getting on a plane and taking matters into their own hands, deciding to become pilots. nobody stopped them. wewas all totally legal but changed the entire airline industry in the way we board planes and what we go through based on a threat, based on the fact that that happened and we had to change things to keep us safe.
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now we have a situation in paris where we found that a syrian refugee came in on a passport that was illegal , that was isvetted and was a member of i dos we not see. the common that went down in pennsylvania had not been boarded by the american people? it would have hit one of the buildings and washington, d.c. and the tragedy would be far worse. what would have happened if the suicide bomber outside that bydium had not been red flag a fantastic security guard who thought something was suspicious. how many people would have died had he gotten entry? we have to change our ways and cannot sit back and say this is not compassionate. werew republicans and we all for taking care of the people of syria and having refugees come in. absolutely, that's the way you do things. its consideration and nothing to
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do with religion and nothing to do with politics. it's the way we are raised. it's our american belief system and it's what we should be doing for people. at the same time, we have to sit back and look at what happened in france and say whoa, put our foot on the brakes. host:" the hill reports" - dan from michigan, independent
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line, go ahead. my comment is i think if the american people would refugees, that these most of them have been in these refugee camps in lebanon and jordan and the conditions they have been living in, they did not want to come here. they prefer to go back to syria. after some of these people waiting nearly four years and the rapes and so on and terrible things that have been going on, the last resort they had to leave because they realize there they could go back. it is destroyed in the country is in worse shape than it was. you've got the russians, us, france fighting everybody in the country is no place to go back to. these people were not in fear of defending their country. at the very least as americans, i believe we should consider especially the children and take
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these children in and take care of them and put life forward just like the pro-life advocates believe in pro-life. it's not only at the beginning of life but it's all throughout life. we have always been that kind of people and i believe the american people, if they look at what they were thinking about, they would reconsider closing the doors totally to these refugees. --t: from twitter arthur from memphis, tennessee, democrats line, good morning. morning, you just have to look at who started this mess, george bush and dick cheney. thank you. int: what happens now an
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light of what we see in paris? he's left us. florida, independent line, good morning. caller: it's amazing to me how and of your callers call in talk about the refugees as if they were in a room having a conversation with them and are relaying that to you. none of them have talked to any of these people and have never been over there. they are sitting there saying we should just let the men because they need to come in. every one of those callers needs into and send themselves syria and look at what's going on. in are their able-bodied men this group of syrians that need to come here when they can take back their own country? did our sons and husbands and fathers go during the civil war? they fought until was over. what to the syrians do? they run and leave their country.
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they say we don't want to fight for anything. we want to go to america and get in for free and they are not vetted. everybody knows there is no way to check the background on these people because they don't have a computer system like we do. they don't have a fingerprint system like we do and they don't have any records. who will give them to them? we are not going to get any information. to allow them to come in is an insane process of saying let's continue to do the things we see going wrong and maybe they will change. that is the academy of india chrissy. thank you. -- that is the epitome of idioc racy. the fbi director talking about the paris attacks --
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that's from "the new york times." from massachusetts, democrats line. caller: good morning. inelieve we should let refugees that need help. 1939de mistakes back in when we did not allow jewish people in from germany. we made mistakes in 1955. we need to remember what has happened before. history repeats itself. so many americans are for not letting anybody come in that needs help.
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fight, should go we start the draft in this country? with they allow their children go? better that we did it this way? draft soather see the children would have a way to get an education. if they want to fight, go fight over there. if we are willing to have troops on the ground, let their own children go. sayinge republicans are is not being politically correct. these people are ignorant. to put people like this in the white house and run this country? this is ludicrous. it cannot happen. when i talk about having
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able-bodied men from syria coming here, that's not happening. the rest of them are women and children. wants to take them in less than any other country. it has nothing to do with money. talking about the bill that was approved in house yesterday that would limit the amount of syrian refugees coming in to the united states. if you are a refugee, 202-748- 8003. from twitter "the washington post" takes a look at the presidential candidates.
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may from maryland talking about the bill passed in the house yesterday, you are on the independent line, go ahead. morning, i have 2 points to say to my fellow americans who suffer from attention deficit disorder. isis was the remnants of the republican guard from saddam hussein when we invaded them in a rack -- in iraq. there was a civil war there and sunnis and and the
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now they are taking their revenge. it's incumbent on us to take in these refugees because we had a helping hand in creating isis. is i cannothing believe the amount of blatant leadersgoing on in our and everybody is silent about it. they want to alienate muslims in this country. this is what europe has done and that's why you have these nefarious people slaughtering people because of how they are treated. they are not assimilated into the society and that's what will happen in the united states. by passing this bill, donald trump says these unbelievable words and nobody is refuting it. the media is not challenging him ,n these insane statements
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for muslimsbadges in shutting down mosques, this is insane. 47 democrats supported this bill that was voted on in the house yesterday and one of those was representative brad g who spoke out in favor of the legislation. [video clip] >> i cannot sit back and and more the concerns of my constituents anywhere in public. this legislation does not shut down the refugee asylum process. if it did, i would not support it. we are simply asking the administration to reassure us that those coming to the united states do not pose a threat to the american people. we should not accept anything less from our federal government. . proud of our american
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legacy as a welcoming nation and i have devoted much of my professional life to that concept and idea. proudthis legislation, in my v, simply does not diminish that legacy. rather, this legislation will protect that led just that legacy into the future and reassure americans that we are working to protect them. host: our next call is from linda in charlestown, indiana, democrats line, good morning. caller: good morning, i would like to tell my congressman and governor and everyone -- i would hope if i had a woman and child come banging on my door that i would have enough courage to let them in and help them. host: women and children only? should it be expanded? caller: i think they should be who comes toyone my door and says there is a
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murderer chasing me, i hope i would have enough courage to help them. host: 18-24 months is the length g, is thatr vettin enough time? think they are doing a sufficient job, hopefully. host: the u.n. is appealing to the united states over this issue in "usa today." dawn from our independent line -- caller: i would just like to see the politicians and the media slow down and not react to the
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from new york, this is my rep. what do you think about the vote in the house yesterday? caller: i do not agree. hello, by the way. i do not agree with it. i'm ashamed of any democrat that votes for it. i just wanted to say that somebody mentioned something airplane.9/11 they were all here through visas. they were not refugees. i would gladly take refugees in my neighborhood, and my house. beforee vetted two years they bring them over. up theyou would bring -- thebout the ss luis ship that was turned away from , and went and canada
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back to die in germany. ashamed of the americans who forget our history. they need to learn history. donald trump needs to learn history. this lack ofmed of compassion of these people. who wants to leave their country? who would want to live in syria the way that assad and the rebels are bombing it. ? ? these people need help. maybe they can go back to their country after everything is settled, but we need to help them. host: let us hear from terry in dayton, ohio. good morning. go ahead. caller: i am sitting here ers and i to other call
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say to the democrats that i am ashamed that they cower towards only trying to renew their seat in the next election instead of doing what is right. this whole fear mongering and bb rational lawmakers out here just trying to scare people reminds me of 2004 when george bush was up for reelection and they scare people into believing that he was the only one that was going to be able to protect us from -- sphere of the unknown this fear of the unknown. president obama has been doing ly possiblehuman against a congress that is totally against him just because of the color of his skin. they sit here and create these bills out of nowhere. it is just appalling. i'm so ashamed of the usa right now and this country and that we have these wackos out here who are running for president. into thejust feeding
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stupidity of people who know nothing. they don't know anything. they don't read anything. they don't know history. for us to just sit back and the media feeds on to this nonsense, it is just disheartening. willw that good heads prevail, i hope in the end. right now, i am ashamed. i hope you would show the 47 democrats who voted for this bill and put their names on blast so they can be voted out in the next election. this is just ridiculous. i thank you for allowing me to have this time to voice my concerns. host: one of the democrats that took to the floor yesterday was alifornia democrats who spoke against the legislation. he stood next to a picture of his parents who are placed in japanese internment during the war. here's what he had to say yesterday. [video clip] . they do not commit treaso. they simply look like the enemy
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and that cost my family that eir freedom. the mayor of roanoke, virginia said that the japanese and turn meant was a model of how we should do the syrian refugee crisis. it does not take urge to condemn those comments or wisdom to say that the world war ii policies were a product of fear and hysteria. what takes wisdom is that recognizing history is now repeating itself in what takes kurds is sending a message to the world that america will protect innocent people regardless of their nationality or religion. that is what my mother and father deserved 70 years ago and that is what these refugees deserve today. (202) 748-8000 for democrats and (202) 748-8001 four republicans and (202) 748-8002 for independents. post" posted the
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names and phone numbers of the offices. they come from delaware, illinois, and many others. visit posting of the 47 democrats on the website, including the number for their offices. you can find that on "the huffington post." here is peter on the independent line. caller: good morning. i wonder why nobody is commenting on the remarks that senator ted cruz made a couple -- iys ago when he wanted don't know about talk, but he wanted to threaten president obama face-to-face about president obama's comments that the republican party are cowards . mind this image come to my of it boxing fight between jack johnson and the great white hope
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from the previous century. i just wish that president obama and ted cruz would meet face-to-face because i think president obama would make mincemeat out of him. thank you very much. host: john from akron, ohio, democrat line. you're next. caller: thank you for taking my call. we cannot bring these people and as syrian refugees. what we have to do is because the people in this country have a mindset of that right now. what we have to do is take them to mexico and bring them in as illegal immigrants. they will have all the rights and privileges and all of the 10-20,000,000 illegal immigrants in this country have right now. bring them in as syrian refugees, then we have to go through the big fat man in the north pole and ask him which ones have been knotty and nice? thank you, pedro.
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page ofe front "the washington post" talks about one of the nation's largest insurers and how they are dealing under the president's health care line. the headline -- largest u.s. insurer may leave obamacare program, saying unitedhealth group will scale back marketing for the exchanges in 2016 and will decide by midyear whether it is worth participating in 2017 as it is seeing expected revenues drop. earningany now projects $425 million less in the fourth quarter of 2015 as customers and had anticipated and failed to sign up for the controversial help a lot to "we cannot sustain these losses," ceo stephen j hemsley told investors. "we cannot really sub dies -- subsidize a market that does not appear, at the moment, to be sustaining itself. " on the republican line, hi. caller: muslims are evil people and i've lived next to them
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might highlighted they are very evil. as far as a muslim president, we arty have one. they come here and it for 10 like they are not married. are seven women to one husband and they claim they do not have won because they do not get married and are civil law. they get married in their house that they get thousands of dollars of food stamps and i cannot get a piece of bread. i cannot get health insurance for i did think it is totally wrong to bring anymore syrians mexicans or any other refugees or whatever the hell they call them into our country. host: "the wall street journal" takes a look at the global reaction to syrian refugees. the story says "goodwill toward syria refugee fades." there facing increasing hostility in the wake of last week's striking attacks face
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reversal from international civil be generated for syrian refugees after the drowning of a young boy on the turkish coast in september. antiterrorist units have stateted 18 islamic members plan to go to europe and were taking a bus into greece and then had to germany, according to turkish officials. politicianse now, are trying to restrict or limit the open-door policies that allow hundreds of thousands of migrant, many of them from syria, to enter europe this year. jackie from kentucky, you're next. good morning. caller: good morning. i am calling because i have a concern. -- thetue of liberty things that are wrote on it say give us your week, your poor, your sick. i do not know exactly what it says. i'm up to my high 60's. but anyway, i can tell you this. father came all
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the way across this ocean called the atlantic ocean. and he came here and he started out from the shores of england because my people were welch. they came -- he and his brother came on a ship from there over here to america. .is brother died on the trip my great-grandfather's got off that vote -- my great-grandfather got off that both. when they had to go and check for diseases, they had to be checked for all kinds of problems that they might have. certified that they were able to come into our country. grandfather's father -- that is to i'm talking about, this man fought in the war with
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teddy roosevelt. .e went on a hill there it was like a mountain, i guess. men,e brought down five carried them out of the battle mortally wounded. e, but heready fin dropped his weapon to go and get these men that were mortally wounded and brought them down. my great-grandfather was wounded times for this and he wound up in syracuse, new york in the hospital there. host: what does it say about what we are doing now for those coming into our country? caller: let me explain this to you. teddy went to see my
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great-grandfather. wrote a booklt that shows the hospital and tells about what happened during the war. he said, "thank you for your courage and your compassion to that it neededaw to be done." i will tell you what this has to do with it. d of time, that perio we as america stood up and brought people in here -- yes, we did, by the thousands and droves. that is what built new york and all of our states. that is what made us america. host: that's jackie from kentucky. it was yesterday during the debate before the vote was taken that the south carolina republican trey gowdy spoke in favor of the legislation and spoke of it and part of a broader context of the current
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foreign policy being practiced by the obama administration. here is trey gowdy from yesterday. [video clip] >> this is a factor administration officials noted that isis may well use the refugee program to infiltrate our country. this is also a fact, mr. speaker. the margin for error is zero. it is zero. the presumption should always be in favor of national security and public safety because that is the preeminent role of government. it is our constitutional duty, mr. speaker. place in charge of national security can provide the national assurances, we k to aid those who need aid where they are. in conclusion, the president says that we are scared of widows and orphans be that is what passes for debate in this day and age. with all due respect to the president, what we are really afraid of, mr. speaker, is a
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foreign policy that produces so many widows and orphans. he is the commander-in-chief, mr. speaker. his job is to make our home safer. you can also make the homeland of the refugee safer. he can restore order to the region and defeat that jv team that he once thought he had contained. that would be the very best thing we can do for those who aspire to a better, safer life. is diana from virginia on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i agree with people. i hear what they are saying. we are a country of immigrants. i come from immigrants, but i also have ancestry in native america. the u.s. to this day has not fulfilled all their promises to the native americans. i want question is -- where is the money going to come from to give these refugees housing, food, everything else they are going to need? we cannot even help our own
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elderly my father who worked all his life. he paid into social security only to get $1200 a month. that is not enough to live. he cannot even be provided assistance with housing, medical care, or any of that. where is the money going to come from to help these people? my other point is -- i do have -- are they willing to fight for their own country? i do know that they have a problem with coming in and integrating into the u.s. and people have brought up the fact that they need to stay within their culture. are they willing to fight for their country so that they can live within their culture? that is my question. host: from yesterday, the french national assembly giving the french president new powers for a three-month extension that is expected to be approved by the senate. "the new york times" highlights that the emergency bill would
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extend the powers of in 1955 emergency law to allow the dissolution of radical groups running mosques and other places of prayer, the blocking websites and social media that glorified or incite terrorism, and the use of electronic tagging for those placed under house arrest. authorities are able to make an arrest without a war, but as soon as the property is seized, the regular legal system kicks in. in terrorism cases are already allowed to be charged within six days. this is josie on the independent line. caller: good morning. first, i'm opposed to letting them in and the reason that i am is that as long as we have homeless vets that we are not taking care of, we don't have any business taking care of anybody else. they are already coming through
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the southern border if people are paying attention to the news. they have already got it figured out. they do not have to wait to be vetted. all they have to do is make their way to mexico and they are in. they are already doing it and they are already in custody. this business about women and children -- that is just psychobabble and people need to discard that. if they are paying attention, a lot of these children and a lot of these women go around killing people. you can look at it on their own property and the videos that they show you. concerned, i do not think we need to take anybody in until we take care of our veterans and our elderly and our infrastructure. we don't have it. we don't have any business doing it. they can take care of them and their country where they have their culture, their language, and they are more comfortable in the way of living. it would cost us a lot less
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money and maybe we could take care of our own. thank you. host: mark is next in virginia on the democrats line. to talkif people -- not to rogge torry -- derogatorily but wake up and think about what's going on here, this is a dialect of an action. they have created a situation to create a reaction and people are and will be willing to voluntarily give up their civil liberties in the constitution. if they are worried about housing these people, housing has already been created by dick cheney and halliburton. fusion,lled fema, reeducation centers, and death camps. host: mark from clearwater, florida on the republican line. your next up. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. democratsknow all the
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out there how it's working with the sanctuary cities. are nice hard-working people and we have tons of americans being killed by illegal aliens. this is not about republicans are the devil and america is no good. this is about protecting our neighbors could i guarantee that -- liberal democrat locks their house and a car night.ay and why would they lock their house and car up every night? we are not racist or haters. we are people who want to live in peace and know who is coming in. we are protecting our neighbors and ourselves. host: god bless america. this is jane. caller: hi. host: you are on. go ahead. caller: my name is jane and i am from marshall, north carolina. i believe that we should help refugees. we are, after all, the united
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states of america and i believe that people are running on fear and forgetting what our values are as americans. if we are not going to help , that we in my opinion helped create this problem anyway, we need to take the sign down in new york. host: you can see the action that took place on the floor yesterday if you go to our website at c-span.org could this is washington democrat to mcdermott speaking against the legislation. he spoke about the process that he had a bringing foreigners into the country, specifically recounting his experience helping a woman from iraq come to the united states. [video clip] >> i helped a woman, for who two a translator for american troops in iraq. she was so good that she saved lots of people's lives. she was so good that the enemy put a mark on her and said they
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were going to kill her. so she had to go into hiding. from january 2007 until september 2007 to get the papers and the witnesses and all the information necessary to get her into the united states. somebody who had put her life on the line for us. took niners and it months to get her in. and herr mother brothers and sisters, who were 16 and 12 and nine, it took them two years to get into this country. we have a robust system that is working. this bill is pr baloney and we ought to vote no. it is sending the wrong message. it is sending the message that
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only white christians can come into the country. host: mary jane on the aboutican line talking the vote in the house yesterday. good morning. caller: i was going to counter to a guy that called it was a bit earlier, saying that it was bush's fault that we have created all this problem. actually, no. the surge worked. the fact of the matter was that when we left there, we should have demanded that we should be able to stay with the contingency of maybe 5000 people. people have made friends with those people were able to give them guidance. this would have never happened if we would have stayed. i listened earlier today on c-span and one of the fellows , please do not do what we did in iraq to afghanistan by leaving only zero people there. i camera ever seeing everybody's purple fingers when they voted. that was probably a day that i was so happy. it was right around now where it seems like, too, that they all
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voted and they were pleased that they were bringing democracy into a world that had nothing. if we really want to be compassionate and caring about these people that have lead, let us take in the orphan children. there are plenty of families that would take these orphan children. we can bring them up with a value system that maybe they can understand how to live in this world. i just do not understand why we would bring a group of men over here that possibly could give us harm. we do not need that. ,e have to think of our safety but bringing the children -- oh my gosh, yes. we should do that for sure. remember those purple fingers. 80 that is what we should do when we vote. they be we would not have this duplicitous voting. you know they are devoted. to see their faces when they did that was absolutely stunning. i just hope that we can all
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figure out a way to get around the situation and help these people over there. thanks an awful lot. host: up next, we will hear from martha in franklin, indiana. go ahead. it comes to mind of the ib ebola scare. ge.s a bunch of outra two years is a long time to get here. nothing has happened to us. name one thing that has happened to us since president obama has been our president. -- we have got to let these refugees on in here. two years is a long time. thank you. that is all i have to say. host: mississippi is next and that is where larry is. good morning. caller: good morning. the lady is wrong. president obama wanted to leave forces there, but the iraqi government said no.
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be underrs had to their rule and the accident we killed somebody, they could kill them or send them to prison. people do not listen. the president wanted to leave forces there, but the iraqi government said no. that is why he didn't leave anybody. they want to blame this mess on president obama. this is the republicans mess. that's as general howell said, you break it, you own it. the republicans broke it. they own it. have a nice day, sir. host: do you support the president's current strategy on isis? caller: yes, i do. yes, i do. i just watched the congressman on the floor -- pardon? host: you're on. caller: i watched the congressman on the floor that you showed and he is exactly right. they only want to take in white christians and that is wrong. this country is racist. oh, i am so angry as a black
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soldier that serve this country. i'm so angry with the government right now. from harker heights, texas, republican line. go ahead. caller: hello? -- host: you are on. caller: i feel that these borders should be closed and the refugees should be sent back to their own country and build up their country and not try to flee over to the united states. it takes away jobs from our people that we need and that is all i have to say. in a that is elise heights, texas. if you go to the world section of "wall street journal," the headline says "hopes dim for an anti-terrorism coalition." it says, "mr. obama on thursday say that russia and iran as an ally must decide whether to back defeatd or
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extremists. at some point, the russians and the iranians are going to have to make a fundamental decision -- do they actually believe that and win prop up assad on the ground militarily inside a syria against all the opposition or do they actually think that it can win with the help of the u.n. and have a government that is truly legitimate?" marie in new york, you're on. go ahead. caller: i think all this nonsense that they are playing on people's fears is terrible and does not represent the united states. there is no price files -- profiles encourage, especially running on the gop side for president. it is very typical of finding a wantsoat that everybody to blame the syrians for leaving the country. it is a two-year process. you get in with a visa.
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a french national can get in with a visa and they can be a terrorist. the refugees are not the problem to begin with. all this fear mongering and everything else shows no current on the part of the people that want to be our president. , want someone with courage enough to stand up for our values and what is right to leave this country, not a coward that will play to people's fears. they key. host: one more call and that is in virginia. caller: yes, my mother had a saying and it is -- charity begins at home. stay inople need to their own country. we should make a safe place for them. i have seen films of what is going on in greece and england and i do not think we want that here.
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we don't have jobs here now. they raided social security. we have to take care of our own people first. these people need to stay in their own homeland. host: that is the last call that we will take on this topic could comin. coming up, we will be joined by one of the developers of the searc search tactic in iraq. frederick kagan joins us next. damienn in the program, paletta will discuss cryptic connections and how they are you being used by terrorist and how that's reigniting discussion over data collection and surveillance of the united states. pricerst, recovery in tom and share of the budget committee. one of the things that he talked about with reporters is that the house and the efforts of why
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they want to block syrian and iraqi refugees from entering the united states. [video clip] act of terrorism that we seem to have one after another after another. the real challenge and the real problem is is that the united states does not have a strategy. the administration has not defined a strategy. they refuse to engage in this issue that when make it so we actually defeat isis and stop terrorism coming from that entity. what the house did this past week was to say because the homeland security secretary and because the director of the fbi says, we are not able to be certain that folks coming in in the refugee program are actually coming here and not having any association with terrorist groups, they are not able to say that. since they are not able to say that, they stop the program right now and put it on a posture of making certain that they are able to that these individuals and a proper way.
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that is what the american people are clamoring for. >> obama has said he will veto this. what would be the next house step? >> what they need to ask themselves and with the american people need to ask themselves is what does it mean when a president vetoes a piece of legislation that is solely for the purpose of protecting the american people? it's a very troubling time. , as alln the president of our conference does and those individuals who voted for this piece of legislation, to recognize the concern that the american people have about this issue. this is not child's play. this is a very, very serious issue. to have the president say, even in spite of his homeland security secretary saying that they are not appropriately able to that these individuals -- that is not the republican conference in the house. that is not republican senators and governors. is his homeland security secretary. to have the president say he is not going to listen to that and continue to allow people into this nation that he cannot with
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any degree of certainty know at all that they do not have past ties to terrorism, this is a very, very troubling event. announcer: "washington journal" continues. ist: our first guest frederick kagan of the macon enterprise institute and director of the critical threats project to talk about the current strategy against isis. good morning. guest: good morning. host: remind folks briefly about your role in iraq and about the surge. tost: i had the opportunity do a study of the u.s. strategy in iraq in 2006. i put out a report in december advocating for a change in strategy and additional forces that subsequently helped persuade the president that there was an alternative to the strategy of retreat that was being suggested at the time. host: you wrote a recent piece taking a specific look at isis. do and do not in response to the paris attacks and a prayer rolls to the s urge and what can be applied to
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isis. guest: this is not a recommendation for another surge. this is about developing an appropriate strategy for the crisis that we have now. that is what we try to lay out in a brief format and we have done this in longer formats as well. it's what the core elements of a strategy against isis and for larger objectives in the region need to be. host: you start by saying that one of things that the initiation should do is take the gloves off against isis in iraq and syria and going on to talk about engagement and the risk involved. can you expand on that? guest: i think it was very clear that the administration has adopted extremely restrictive us -- approach to the rules of engagement when u.s. aircraft are allowed to engage enemy targets. a a little -- result of that, lot of u.s. aircraft have come back without dropping bombs are so forth. iyone who knows me knows that am not a big airpower enthusiast.
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i do not think that you can win wars from the air, but we can do a lot more damage to this organization if we were prepared to accept some risk in terms of collateral damage. i think the administration -- all this is shifting and they are generally prepared to accept the risk. host: shifting how? can you expand on that? guest: there are a lot of rules and the ethics of collateral damage have been established. for the first six years of this administration, we have operated on a reasonable understanding what kinds of risk and collateral damage they are willing to accept. you take every possible effort to ensure that it doesn't cause civilian deaths. attacking a legitimate target, it recognizes that may be inevitable and may happen. what we have seen here that is in syria and iraq, the a ministration has been unwilling to accept any risk. ofa result, there are a lot targets that could be attacked and should be attacked that would damage the organization,
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that should be attacked now because it would force the organization more on the defensive and force them to think about how to protect themselves and disrupt their operations more. that would give us a bit more time and opportunity to develop and evolve a more sophisticated strategy for dealing with them. host: here the numbers if you want to talk to our guest. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] (202) 748-8000, (202) 748-8001, and (202) 748-8002. you would say to put u.s. forces in iraq. can you expand on that? guest: there is a strong argument that the president and the secretary of state keeps repeating and that is putting thousands of troops on the ground in invading iraq. no one is advocating that. what we are talking about is expanding the special operations forces footprint that we have in iraq and moving our troops more forward and allowing them to
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function as air controllers, to call in airstrikes, to advise iraqi units in particular closer to the fight, which is how you are more effective as an advisor. my estimate is that you would probably require 10,000-50,000 groups on the desk troops on the ground total, most in support roles and emergency overwatch. we would be talking about 3000-4000 guys going forward. the president keeps reassuring people as this this is a good thing that u.s. troops will not be involved in combat. host: why not? guest: we are either involved in this fight or not involved in this fight. there is a difference in saying that our troops should not carry the burden of this war because we do not think it is effective or saying that we are not going to put our kids and confident -- and conflict because this risk. if you are advising people, you have to go into con that with
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orm -- combat with them there is very little credibility. host: there's an op-ed taking a look at ground troops. leadership opposes putting ground troops in syria and they know it because the more andpation in iraq to isolate having just made a colossal mistake. why would we make it against? is his point fair? guest: i do not think so. we have a very simplest view of the 2003 original sin argument. that is fundamentally where we say we should not have invaded. what we did was wrong and therefore anything that involves anything remotely like that is wrong and anyone who advocates that is wrong. the reality is that it's a lot more complicated than that could the invasion of 2003 was not handled well. time that ag at the lot of mistakes were made. we learned a lot of lessons.
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none of which is particularly appropriate here. no one is talking about sending 750,000 troops to invade these countries. the question is -- what are we trying to accomplish? i think we have to start imagining that we have some sort of time machine where we can go back to 2003 and redo this all over again. we are where we are. what do we need to do? -- we need toisis defeat isis and we need to defeat assad and we have a variety of problems present -- posing a threat to us. 2000 and three was a disaster and we shouldn't do anything like that. it does not respond to the circumstance. host: what do you do with isis and syria? lot more's a complicated and i do not think the conditions are set for putting significant american boots on the ground into syria. in syria, the problem is that the president keeps saying sometimes the right thing about what we need to do in syria, which is that we need to get a sunni arab force with local
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force -- what i'm afraid he means is kurds. we need to have a sunni arab , which is true. the problem is that our policy -- refused to give to the arabs the one thing they most want -- support against assad. we are telling them that we can fight isis, but we refuse to help the side. killing them and using chemical weapons. we have to reckon is that we have that the the business of helping the sunni arab opposition against assad. wet is the community bee most need to engage. host: our guest is frederick kagan. your piece is what we need to do and not do in response to paris. our first call is from charles in windsor, ohio. go ahead.
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caller: good morning. i'm surprised. all these republicans are calling up hopping mad about these terrorists. z andd huckabee and cru santorum and they all went to the sunshine meeting or whatever. this reverend jeffreys gets up advocating for executing gay people. host: what do you want to address specifically to our guest here? caller: i am saying -- is this not terrorism when our candidates are acquiescing to this, saying this should be ok? host: ok, charles. let us go to alex. alex the next -- is next in maryland. caller: good morning kiss my question is -- do you support hillary clinton's current stance on the need for a broader
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approach in syria? do you think we need a united coalition front and not go in there alone like we did previously in iraq? guest: i do not support one candidate or another on the republican or democratic side. we did not go alone into iraq. we had a coalition in iraq. we never operated alone. we should have an alliance and we do have an alliance, in fact. the issue that is being discussed now needs a bit more nuanced because the argument that some people are making is that we need to form a grand coalition with the russians. we need to have a coalition that ensures the russians and iranians engage in this problem. that is very problematic because the russians and iranians are in the business of supporting the regime and not in the business of fighting isis. as we track where closely where the russian and strikes have
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occurred, they are predominantly not against isis targets. they are against targets in the opposition, some of which we have been supporting, in direct support of the assad regime. secretary is imagining that he will do a magical deal with the russians whereby they get assad to go. that seems unlikely to me. even if it happens, we are over personalizing this conflict. this is not about getting one person to go. we need assad to go, but if assad and his deal is that his regime amazing power in syria, and a lot of those folks are named assad because this is a family business he is running, you will not get peace and you will not get the sunni arabs on board. you will not bring any kind of order or security to syria. the war is want to continue to rage and expand. it will continue to radicalize populations across the globe. the problem is a very seductive argument now that says we need to form an alliance with the russians. it misses the point that what the russians are trying to do is
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antithetical to what is need to happen to establish security in syria. host: surely is up next. you are up next with our guest, frederick kagan. to use theould like scenario of bringing the syrians into our country. i want you to think now about a family that has a home and they have money and their family is protected. they look over and the distance and they see these people over there and some of them are poor and this and that. so the man leaves his house. he goes over to take care of them. while he is taking care of them, they slip around the house and kill his family. this is a no-brainer. i was alive during world war ii. america was kept safe because we did not have people infiltrating our country.
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enough that i should not even really be worried about this, but i'm telling you -- we are going to lose america if we allow these people into this country, who we know our training children and women to be terrorists. host: mr. kagan? guest: america was kept safe during the second world war because we put 13.5 men and willing -- women into combat to andat the forces of germany japan. i do not think we should be critically proud of the instance of rounding up the japanese-americans in this country could i think it did little to nothing to help secure this nation. i do not fully understand the enthusiasm with which people are picking what i think is an embarrassing moment in american history. this is a secondary issue. we are talking about whether to refugees.000 syrian personally, i think we should accept the refugees. arerefugees are people who
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fleeing terror. full isis put sleepers and among them? probably. isis is working on infiltrating anyway. unless you imagine that we are either going to close the whole border entirely or imagine that we are going to have an amazing transformation in the efficiency of our border security across the board, then keeping the syrian refugees out is not going to be an adequate protection. in any purely defensive and domestic response to this will be inadequate. what is it that we need to be concerned about? are there muslims in america? yes. do they support isis? overwhelmingly no. do some of them do? probably. we just had a discussion about how we feel about having the government listens everybody's phone calls and invade everyone's privacy and all that. personally, i think that
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discussion went too far in the direction that the government should not do any of that. i very concerned about how you 's civilmerica liberties in the context of defeating the stretch. the more that we focus on law enforcement capabilities to defeat this threat, the more you're heading down the road for the state where the government has to listen to everything and follow everything. host: there's a debate about encryption technology being used. guest: if you follow this argument to its logical conclusion, will you get the nsa full powers to listen everybody and go down that road? because all that creates folder abilities. i'm not comfortable with an absolutist answered that says, yes, we will give the government all the powers it needs to do this in a defensive faction. we have to accept some risk, but otherwise, we are not americans anymore. we need to keep them focus as we talk about this. host: steve is up next and he is from shelbyville, indiana.
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you are on with our guest. go ahead. morning, gentlemen. i really enjoy listening to you. .ou sound real intelligent the women are-- paying out the tribes to keep them at bay. i'm curious about that. guest: we did not pay off the tribes, but what we did was is in, theynt our forces an work closely with the tribes. we persuaded them with thinking we were going to help them win and that is what they wanted. the tribes were willing to fight against al qaeda in iraq, but they do not want to lose to al qaeda in iraq. they were willing to reconcile with the iraqi government, but they do not want to be victims of the iraqi government. we told him that we would make sure we win against al qaeda in iraq.
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in the course of that, we did pay them salaries to help protect their areas and so forth, which was important. we do not rent tribes. that does not work very well actually. you have to establish a common interest aces with people. if you just go to an area and start handing out money, you're just engaging in a bidding process to see who hands out more money and that is not a good solution. money is important. more important was the commitment that we gave to them come which unfortunately we subsequently violated, that we were going to help protect them, help them fight against al qaeda in iraq, and help mediate on their behalf with the government. host: from chattahoochee, florida, tommy. go ahead. you are on. --ler: i would like to know what is he a branch of expertise and why should we listen to you? [laughter] i'm a military
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strategist. you can look at my resume online. months on thel 18 ground in afghanistan, advising various military commanders and so forth. that -- let me put it to you this way. take a look at what i am arguing. i ama look at why am arguing it and being as transparent as i can possibly be, laying out what i think did do not ask you to take my word for anything could you take a look at the arguments i've described in the fact that i put out and you come to the pollution of whether you think it is working or not. host: ron from pontiac, illinois. frederick kagan is on our show. go ahead. caller: good morning, mr. kagan. at the risk of over some publication, i look at what is going on in syria as primarily a sunni-shiite issue, and i would
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be more concerned about iran having control of numerous capitals in the middle east than isis if i was to way it out. jordanent, the king of and a former cia assistant director are concerned about a world war iii scenario. at the risk of a world war iii scenario, is it possible for turkey to enter the fray and overthrow assad and then we deal with isis? guest: you put your finger on a really important issue, which is this is a sectarian war. ,t's a sectarian war in syria iraq, and throughout the gulf, in fact. it is global. that is one of the principal wevers of the violence that see in the global radicalization that we have seen. the iranians are a major driver of that.
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the iranians are backing the most sectarian forces in syria and iraq and elsewhere and they are feeling the sector. the problem is -- and i appreciate the fact that the color is highlighting the broader implication of this sectarian conflict. when you have sunni populations or's shiite populations feeling they face a threat from sectarian actors on the other side, and mobilizes them behind the fighting forces that they think will protect their communities. been a deliver strategy that al qaeda and iraq has relied on since 2004. , but a sunni group deliberately attacked the shiite population and retaliate commit atrocities immobilize them behind al qaeda in iraq. that is the strategy that they are pursuing also in europe now. to goad european
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governments into committing atrocities against the population in europe to help radicalize it. unfortunately, it works. this is a successful approach. i think the color highlights is super important fact that we need to recognize that the sunni-shiite sectarian war is a major threat to us and a challenge for our security in the iranians are playing a very maligned role in that war. it goes to the issue of the grand coalition. can we line up with the iranians and the russians when they are lined up with assad and the sectarian forces on the shiite side? , but that iscare the side they are lined up on. all that will do is add fuel to the fire and read a lot of guys -- radicalize the comfort further. needost important thing we to do is reach out to the sunni arab population and say that they have an alternative to isis or al qaeda affiliates. host: if the u.s. should
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respond, they should not worry about the iranian response to our actions. can you expand on that? guest: i recognize that if we were to put more forces in iraq, forcesuite likely that would attack us. they said as much of it possibly would. what i recommend as a mitigation strategy is to literally be prepared for that and have forces in place and to make it clear to the iranians and all parties in iraq that we will defend ourselves against them if they start shooting at the embassy and so forth. we have to recognize that that is a real possibility as we get into trying to do what i think we need to do in iraq. it is very easy to say why should we run that risk? the answer is that we are on a path toward complete failure. we have to decide whether we are actually comfortable saying we are going to subordinate our policy in the region toward
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iranians and put ourselves entirely under their control, so that if they do not like we are doing, they will threaten the embassy and we will start. that is subordination to a sectarian actor that is a problem. we do not want a war with iran and we do not want a war with iran and iraq. yet different hair -- we have to prepare ourselves for the conflict and the turk and essentially prevail. host: hello. caller: good morning. i'm glad to hear you talk strategy about the iraq war and is war that president obama going. i think people need to understand that iranians are far seas. they are lined up with the russians because they are fighting a tribal war. drawisis wants to do is the world in a war that they believe in in biblical history.
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they believe that if the superpowers join on them, all the muslims in the world will come to their aid. president obama is absolutely right. you covert activity to fight terrorists with terrorists. let the covert activity people take care of it. let the special ops take care of crisis. do not bring goods on the ground so isis people can say, look at the world superpowers joining on us. muslims, rise up. help us fight. they believe that jesus and god will rise up in that area in syria and help defend them against the world. is that youroblem asked the question of how many bits we need to have on the ground for isis to be able to make the argument that americans are attacking them? the answer is too. they have been making this argument consistently. this is already a premise of their propaganda that we are attacking them. this very little difference between having the current force level that we have and these are
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boots on the ground. i have been there and seen these guys. this whole boots on the ground thing has been bizarre. isis calls it the footless war in response to our continuing to say that we do not have boots on the ground. .hat gives them propaganda we have got something like 3000 pairs of boots on the ground already could if we have 10,000 pairs of boots on the ground instead of 3000 pairs, does that affect isis narrative? no, not in a meaningful way in terms of them saying we are fighting americans. it would affect the narrative and another way. i want to highlight something. when of the interesting characteristics of sunni islam, even more than people generally, is that there is a believe in that community widespread that if you're doing well in the world, then a lot is smiling upon you. if you are doing badly in the world, all is not supporting it. that is why you see rapid bandwagon and rapid falling away for sunni movements.
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the problem we have right now is the isis narrative is that they are winning and it's a pretty accurate narrative. when you have a group in that community who is able to say we are winning, it is much easier for them to make the case that they actually do have divine support. the single most important thing that we can do from the standpoint of affecting the isis narrative is to make it clear that they are losing. make them start losing. make them start failing. we don't have to get up and say that allah is drawing blessing from you. all we have to do is defeat them and that argument will reinforce itself within that community. people who are wavering will start to say, looks like they are not on the right path after all. host: this is not the first time you have been asked this question. if you are on twitter says, how do you fight against ideology? guest: it's a great question. with think back to the cold war. andought the cold war against communism. how did we do that?
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communism manifested itself and the existence of the soviet union and became identified with the soviet union to such a degree that when we actually defeat of the soviet union, communism was very probably discredited as an ideal. you will hardly find any state these days that identifies itself as communist despite lunatic north koreans and the chinese have even modify their position. case, the ideology of the isis is pursuing has become very closely identified with isis and al qaeda. can we defeat the ideology per se? no. can we defeat these groups? yes. if we defeat these groups, it will damage the credibility of the ideology, both for the reasons i spoken earlier with the way the sunni community tends to view these things, but also because people do not abstract ideologies from the organizations that claim to represent them. i think -- can we kill this
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ideology? no. this is an ideology that has reemerged from the very earliest days of islam. the good news is that every time it has emerged in islam, it has been rejected. i am confident it will be ultimately rejected as well. the question is -- how rapidly and what cost -- at what cost? host: our guest is frederick kagan joining us. robert, good morning. you're on with our guest on independent line. caller: good morning. i do not know if i'm looking at things like everybody else. is a deal that has been dealt with kind of wrong back at 911 with the wrong people. people should be taking care of their own problems. if all the superpowers in the world get together and isolate
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the middle east and take away the weapons that we gave them to kill us with, tell them, look, if you want to deal with the world, you're going to have to be civilized people. again that the people who are making the money off of these wars -- they're going to keep it going forever. it's like the refugees coming in over can now. we cannot afford to bring those people over here. want themif people here, we are going to get them because the people making money off of it get the taxpayers money to do all this with. they will be getting their way.
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>> the muslim community is not the middle east. a problem, fundamental problem is ae muslim community problem everywhere. not a problem only in the middle east. something where we can just contain this. even if it was feasible. what the caller was suggesting would require a much greater of military force and taking weapons away from people areas of many hundreds of troops.s of we need to recognize that this is already spread. something that can be contained. we need to stop actually using of containment as a
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framework for think being how to deal with this problem. this morninges 80 hostagesf mali released.been guest: it is connected in the sense that the groups -- i'm in the sure the groups have been involved in this -- obviously the french who went into mali. sure there's a enthusiasm to pile on the isis attack. very well.doing anduse the french went in touristscattered the but didn't establish anything to the terror structures. this is a mistake we keep repeating over and over again. repeated this in libya as well where there's a significant in libyachise now
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wrong a million other things. because we conducted that a drive byike shooting. to recognize that it's a very seductive argument that and deal with the problem let the locals handle it. the problem is the locals can't a lot of these cases. unless you're prepared to provide assistance to forces able to establish some kind of governance, some some kindructure and of security force, then all of theseains as a result of kinds of raids will be temporary. that's what we're seeing in mali. host: from killeen, texas, line.ican caller: into mention that the veterans that we -- these are a volunteer force that served in many wars including vietnam all up.way
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they volunteered to go and go to ourign soil and defend country and children and family. so the enemy would not come here. we don't put boots on the ground there. what do we want to do when the enemy is here? going to choose not to put boots on ground here in the united states when it gets rough here? people need to be staying there and defending their own country. states need to develop the train of thought like they had in world war ii. need to get that train of thought that we are the way. nation that leads the we accomplish things gi going over there and fighting and defeating the enemy. we need to do. to change the strategy, change the people in the white house. congresspeople out of and the senate are afraid to stand up for the rights of our nation and quit using political corrective actions because votes. trying to gain
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think it's been very distressing to see how debate about how to react to paris has turned into argument about u.s. immigration policy. it is a classic example of have the argument that we won't off instead of --ing the arc that we argument that we need to be having. accepting 30,000 refugees will not be determined threat. it's red meat to both sides of the political aisle. common problem. i think it goes to the point that the caller was making, we focused on our own we just dynamics that wrap everything into the conversations we're already having instead of really asking questionsthe hard about what's the problem here. what actually is the threat. approaches might
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be successful and what approaches aren't successful. we really need to start fighting that harder and stop just wrapping everything into the going to beat are vote getters and so forth. i'm here to tell you, i know for sure that any strategy put out against isis is not going to be getter. it is not. because if it's effective, it's going to be complicated. risky, going to involve doing things we don't want to do. to involve making .ncomfortable arguments host: can we prepare them for theible attacks here in u.s.? guest: we have to look at our law enforcement forces. to ask ourselves how comfortably we are with various jurisdictions we've been put obligation. on the law enforcement. we as a nation have to find an betweenate balance
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protecting ourselves domestically and destroying our civil liberties. very tough balance and it's something we'll have to work on. it's not going to be the solution. that, i think we need to focus on thinking through the actual solutions. from -- jimmy from line.lvania, democrat's caller: i'm ashamed to say i'm a democrat. you get all of these refugees in. who's going to feed them? you harry reid, the president democrats and some of the republicans don't like the refugee bill. up some ofng to give your pay to pay for these people get fed. are we going to take them fromth taxpayers here -- from the unitedrs here in states who are structuralling now to -- struggling now to make a living. the president said, i have a strategy. his own people that he talks to
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saying his strategy isn't working. all he's doing is to run his and drop it in the next person's lap. i don't think it's right. ever ran thiswe country the way he should have. he's a politician. that's all he wants to do. talk about politics and all that stuff. host: thanks. distressingnk it is that the president seem to unwilling to recognize that the not working. hard.s i can't say that often enough. i'm not in the business of lampooning or ridiculing people. incredibly difficult. we went into iraq, we fought the iraq war. clearly made mistakes. you like in george bush. in january 2007, he got up and the strategy is failing and
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i'm adopting a new strategy. in that.o shame that's what you look to a leader to recognize a strategy that isn't working and you upognize that and you come with a new one. it should be evident that the pursuing int we're iraq and syria is not succeeding. i have a hard time understanding the president actually thinks it is succeeding, i love to know definition of success is and why he thinks it looks good. but his determination to to defend this strategy and not to be little to i woulder it -- what suggest or something else. when you have something that's not working, recognize it that it's not working. say it's not working and come up new.something i think that's in many respects most worrisome part about the discussion. host: you authorization from
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congress to these things. does the authorization from the satisfy that? guest: i think the 9/11 authorization and the iraq war theide the president with authorizations that we requires to do what he's doing. one of those people i would stay between the constitutional powers of the executives and the war powers act, the president has the authority to do what it is he do.s to he makes war powers to congress. congress can decide what it will do. i don't think this is an issue of authorization. i think this is an of strategy. thinks what he's doing is worrying. i think it isn't. i'm wrong. host: from tom from kentucky 0 the independent line. go line. caller: the generals and retired that are beginning to vent their frustrations with the obama policy. i have a question and i beg you time to state why i
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ask the question. is it possible that the congress could remove obama and charge and have himson tried before the supreme court and let these general officers come in and state the case against him? the reason i ask that question is, obama has a strategy to fail and europele east .nd the united states he is trying to bring the country down and install father didhe way his in kenya. we need to get this man out of there a way to accomplish it? you. tost: i would never advocate impeach a president because i disapprove of his policy. call, texas a
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republican line roger, go ahead. caller: hello. the only reason -- i don't it that a man is can advocate the death of another and claim it's in the name of god? all it is the beast that no man against. that's all this boils down to. thatope already declared this is world war iii. the beaste time of when the beast rises up, he will military power toond any man's ability resist. caller.ank you guest: i think that isis is a great evil in the world. i think it's appropriate to talk when you talking about groups like this. i don't think that it's beyond the capability of any man to
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resist. i think it's something that can be defeated. i think it's something that will be defeated. i think that it is something that must be defeated in order america to be secure and in order for the world to be secure. aboutng on how to go defeating it, how to succeed in essential.le is host: what does a victory look like then? guest: victory looks like a in these isis scattertions to terrorist elements. of some kind of governance in iraq and syria. i'm not going to prejudge what that needs to be. is it representative government or is it in the border change. i don't know. what i know is that it can only work if the governance is population.d by the what we need to do is to help defeat in evil,
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while simultaneously peep -- region the people of the to determine what kind of governance structure they will be find legitimate so they can live in peace. question,sked a saying its partitioning syria in germany. guest: in a certain sense syria has been partition. the problem you have the west and you have isis stand in the east. the issue isn't so much how to whether the or partition it. the issue is who's going to run it. right now none of the people parts of it are acceptable to us or the local population. important is the question exactly where the borders are drawn and more important is the we defeat the evil groups there. how do we get the iranians and russia out. host: i know it's not in your --
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what faces the next president when it comes to this issue of isis? guest: the next president is likely to have a situation that is15 months worse than it now. isis is only part of the problem. is part iraq and syria of the problem. yemene isis in we have isis preference in europe and it will continue to spread. i think that on the current trajectory, the next president be one of several ongoing wars that the next president is going to have to face. the next president is going to have to hit the ground running than an idea to solve a strategy how to get this. host: frederick kagan joining us to talk about the strategy against isis. thanks for your time. coming up, we're going to continue our talk about the terrorist attacks and also the beingtention that's brought on by legislators that technology used to keep phonement from spying on
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text and e-mail communication. witkin at theon center for public will discuss a new report looking at how states are with their activities. first i want to let you now city's tourspan across the united states, focusse, new york is our this week as we explore the life.y and literary >> i think the most important part about syracuse is what you learning about which is our history. our history really informs who city today. we have a proud history of first the native americans and first form of democracy that they brought to this land. then of course, very personal to me because what brought my family here was building the eerie canal. the history of the canal and how it gave immigrants jobs, first
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from western europe and then greatplaces, then the migration from the south also informs how we are. hered large manufactures and the great migration brought up labor from the south here. changed, we have to pivot and change with that. somedislocations with that. in a city and you have a family history, you can't of where youghost are. i think one of the future of the city of syracuse is directly to who we've been in the past. worka city of people who very hard and want the best for their children. peoplecity filled with who want to solve problems. you will see us continue to be debate,the national working on issues of income equality, building infrastructure. infrastructure is the backbone of our economy here in syracuse, how we were that's
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put on the map. we'll continue to say for our country to stay on the map and relevant.mically we have to invest in infrastructure. we want to solve problems and be a part of that solution. we want to make sure that everybody gets to enjoy the benefits of the richest and best country in the world. >> "washington journal" continues. is damian guest paletta covers national security issues. good morning. attacks have sparked a of of debate about this idea encryption technology. can you tell haas that is. a textherever i send message to you, let's say we iphones and we send it through imessage, that youage can only be read by from your iphone and read by me who sends it. apple can't read it and government can't read it. aple design messages in stuck
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way where it's encrypted. somethingexample of that's gotten popular in the past few years. lot of companies are offering serviceses of e-mail or text messaging services that allow you to encrypt your people who that aren't intended to read it can't read it. was seen a very popular evolution and technology. than a decade in progress but also since the edward snowden in 2013 and there aboutvernment anxiety government snooping and hackers getting access to personal been a big, there's push to make our information more private. enforcement in law feel like there's danger in this as well. they want this information to be feel secure but at the same time, they don't want people terrorist, pedophiles and that sort of person to have the ability to trained secret
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they can't gett access to. since the paris attacks, there's been a intense debate about needs tohe government get access to information. extend on should capitol hill then? guest: the problem on capitol hill, they don't know what has to do. something has to do done. there needs to be a conversation about this. dialogueds to be a with silicon valley. code.ust encryption and enforceake -- if you the law and pass the law and say this information cannot be completely encrypted, then potentially russia can get sea accessnd china with get se to it. host: our guest will talk about issues of data and surveillance and privacy when it to the internet.
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on political spectrum hillary clinton was in new york as part of a discussion on what to do about isis. she had to say. >> we should take the concerns enforcement and counterterrorism professionals seriously. warned that encryption accessingt them from terrorist communications and preventing a future attack. we know thereand, are legitimate concerns about government intrusion, network creating new vulnerabilities that bad actors can and would exploit. we need silicon valley, not to view government as its adversary challenge our best minds in the private sector to work with the best minds in the public sector. develop solutions that will both keep us safe and protect
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our privacy. host: damian paletta from silicone valley. responding? guest: if this was two weeks ago, you would say give us a break. will ignore you. this a lotlley sees differently after the terrorist attacks. be in a't want to situation where they discovered their encryption technology was used. any's a nightmare for company to be participating in a terrorist attack. the point she made is very interesting. she said, law enforcement have some very valid points but on other hand, privacy advocates have good points too. answer.n't have an i think the white house doesn't have an answer. lot of people feel like there butto be discussion here they don't know exactly what to do. dialogue that's beginning on the hill. the house and security committee
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will be conversations with companies. on the other one they can't try to pressure these companies the resist that. if you pressure u.s. companies their encryption policy. they have to be came. other hand, timing is you have the essence here. in a situation where five or ten years to figure out. message toat my text you is encrypted. only you and i can see it. there's this idea out there that can come innt through a backdoor in extreme circumstances that can go to the technology company and say, we need to read damian paletta's certainsage on this date. lot of folks in the technology that's kind of unworkable. or it'st's encrypted
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not. if the government has a key to decrypt certain informations who's to say they will not go get what they want. i think that's one the big risks there. host: damian paletta is our and talking about the issues of surveillance and technology. ralph is from the independent line. please. caller: thank for the call. weas just wondering why don't have better satellite systems? desert where everything in the open. if you can't see them flying with tanks and jeeps running down the load. why we aren'ttand using more of that technology. guest: it's an interesting point. after the islamic state took ramadi in iraq and they took the town and there was these videos
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miles of truck convoys flag. the islamic state people were wondering why can't they wipe out that whole stretch militant? that's a great question. the government is very careful about telling us what they do don't have realtime access to. obviously, there's a government national geospatial agency that has best access to satellite on the planet. thesee really hard on things. that sort of information tracking is one thing they're looking at. what we're talking about is something different. the messages that go back and forth. host: charlotte up next, line, hi. caller: good morning. so many people call in on so many guests these days c-span that don't seem to be up all.at's happening at
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i'm just amazed. when i hear people who don't to realize that the president strategies are working. have been working. that we have driven isis out of the areas numerous areas where taken over and had control. to realizeans need that we have to make a choice. up next.ia guest: quick point. this is a different kind of terrorist network. qaeda, they had -- they sought refugee in afghanistan they plan these external terror attacks. islamic states had territory that they control. territory.f lost audio] they trying to
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theain the group within iraq and syria and also southeast. challenge. a host: there was a cia director that talked his concerns over encryption. a little bit what he had to say. significant been a increase in the operational security of a number of these operatives and terrorist networks as they have gone to school on what it is that they need to do in order to keep their activities concealed from the authorities. as i mentioned, there are at the technological capabilities that are available right now exceptionally difficult both technically as well as legally for intelligence therity services to have insight thee need to uncover. think this is a time for particularly europe, as well as here in the united states for us a look and see whether somet there had been
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intentional gaps that have been create and intelligence and security services to protect the people that they are asked to serve. the past several years, the cost of a number of unauthorized and a lot of hand wringing over the government's to try toe effort uncover these terrorists. policy andeen some legal and other actions that are ability,t make our collectively to find these terrorists much more challenging. i do hope that this is going to be a wake up call in areas of europe where i think there has been a misrepresentation of what the intelligence of security services are doing. that areorridors designed to undercut those capabilities. host: damian paletta read lines. the guest: this is extremely interesting. this is monday after the friday
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night attacks. obviously he has access to a allow more information than i do about what happened. the things that was confusing about his comments is this. exactly how the terrorist planned this. we don't know what kind of they used. echnology we don't know whether they were making phone calls to syria. he was sending this message so quickly suggest dark areaswere some that they didn't have access to. public policy or this kind of hand wringing backlash prohibited him from access to. it's hard for us to know exactly what new powers he's trying to get until we know exactly how the terrorists off.d this that's something that will take a long time. set the stagehe directors don't make public comments. he's trying to send a signal to
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and the hillpeople and white house potentially that with this cool it pendulum swing. host: one of the phrases he used school. gone to your paper recently talked about how they teachte savvy. guest: one of the things that made them stand out is their tech savvy. polished well hollywood style propaganda videos. know which social media apps are the hardest for the government to penetrate and which ones are the weakest. they put together like a for their members pointing them towards certain apps they should use. government has been very careful to -- obviously we
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know they can penetrate. hack into symptom apps. app -- some apps. want to fear the terror networks towards certain things story"washington journal" there's a source. it list the types of apps and safe, moderately safe and unsafe. it talks a little bit about that technology. there's a chart provided there on the website. wood hear from lydia from stock, illinois. caller: thank you for this opportunity. i'm correct, i like to have someeither confirmed or in way looked into. i believe the bush family, the bush-walker side of the family, the walker side of the family is involved in theulating some of surveillance platforms.
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believe they're involved in the construction of the utah facility. the previous guest is also part very powerful family that constructs policy. the american enterprise institute but also a for newthe project american century which was the all of this int fore by making a necessity us to have a big military east.ce in the middle guest: it's interesting. i'm not sure about a lot of the history with the bush family. she did mention this utah facility. story about this fill ago.al months it was a mysterious facility built out in the desert. host: built by whom? guest: it's on a government military base.
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serve thee was to nsa. it's kind of out. it uses a tremendous amount of to cool the computers. .here's not much access to it the government has agreed, the congress and the white house law that would end this database program the 29th of november. one of the question what will utah. to this facility in what kind of data they need to store if all the telephone records will be housed within the government. sandra,t's hear from republicans, indiana line. caller: i don't think we can withouterrorism -- he hadbout
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hundreds of sex slaves. a murderer and a thief. he started islam. founder of islam. is their prophet i think a false prophet. we much teach about the radical side of islam because they are acting out what muhammad proposed years ago. is alive through the koran, 14 years ago. andteachings of hate today.e are with us guest: i will say, we've seen the past few days, a lot more discussion on the campaign howl about muslims and american might feel towards them and what fears americans might have. i wonder how this debate is going to play out as the
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progresses and lot of feel safer.art to i think there is going to be thispublic discourse about specific religion. host: how is technology used by of isis?ation guest: it's a great question. twitterseveral thousand accounts that are used by and -- state him talents militants and supporters. and blast out their message twitter suspend them and they keep sending messages out. if they find someone who is sympathetic who might be a potential convert or be attracted to their message, they a direct message via twitter. i'm fairly certain based on that theatements government made, the fbi have access to those direct messages twitters. what happens then is problematic for the government.
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militant willate send direct message to the sympathizer. let's say someone in the united states, who say go to this encrypted. it's we'll take our conversation there. then they will take their conversation off of twitter off direct message from twitter into this dark space. fromnows what they'll plan there. it will be something kind of very dangerous, something potentially devastating or it be kind of just more propaganda. we don't know. i'm sure the government is out.g to figure that that's how this all fits together. from theon is up next democrat line. the love think at people are hesitant or not reluctant to give up their freedoms for security when it comes to being online. prevent if the government is given access to decrypt
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messages. fromo we prevent them abusing it? also instead of looking at technologies a we have. innovating things to be able to identify whether activity.terrorist from that side of the world there is no innovation. how do we -- is it possible that start innovating things? guest: yes that's a great question. i think that's the center of this debate. why siliconeasons valley is receptive to having questions, they feel if they're not at the table, they will be on the table. participate. sort ofd put some boundaries and safeguards to government any access can't be taken advantage
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of. that the nsa directed down, thisrt of shot idea that the government will key to get half a into these messages. it can only work if the company the other half of the key. so the government can't start what it wants. it can only get in when it has company.ssion of the host: dallas, texas, brian independent line. go ahead. guys to talking about the internet and going to sites.k there's been several journalist that have been able to talk with sites.rorists over these is that -- brannan is the one who lied about them spying on us. insteadd be prosecuted of being cia director. terrorists have known that they
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signified on since -- spied on since the clinton administration. american people didn't know that they were being spied on. going to find some way of communicating. also, most the terrorist in france were on a watch list but them. is watching guest: it's incredible -- one of the things that struck people french after the charlie hebdo shooting in january of this year, after they that domestic terror attacks that killed 16 or 17 people, givepassed a new law to their surveillance community a potentiallyer to track these things down. attacks inrorist paris. it happened under everyone's nose. they're wondering what happened. truth is, it is very hard to
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stop all of these attacks. if they stop 99 out of 100, that's still not considered a success. gruesomecould be very and horrifying event. the intelligence has their hands full. especially with all of these fighters who gone to syria and iraq to fight and melted back into the communities. it's hard to know who they need to monitor. the united states maybe only a of those folks. potentiallyhere's thousands they have to keep their eyes on. hebdo with the charlie shooting. aboutdiscussion surveillance on the internet in attacks.paris damian paletta of the "washington journal" our guest. on the phone.xt from georgia, republican line.
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sir p thank you pedro and thank you c-span for call. my i just wanted to -- the basic the battle against isis, i think one of the things that i'm with is battlem maybe on one front. i think there's another front. the thing that we're and the internet is our civildo want liberties protected. battle against relate itgoing to back to one other thing. don't cut me off pedro.
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do do have a tendency to that with me about everything 120 days when i call. that being said, if you look at in a full spectrum, when you at that, right now a lot of being told that the country, the your protection of us american citizens, want to protect ourselves, our families and everything is being placed on the moral high ground. question, when president obama drew his red all the children and and those women being --thing were
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points sheof the raises is interesting. the issue of civil liberty and security i think is a -- in this country it's fabric. very strongly that civil liberties are a big part of of what makes america great. the freedoms that we have. but at the same time, obviously very well embraced idea that we can to do everything we secure ourselves and protect ourselves. obviously this is an attack in was one american who was killed. american --he love this pendulum swings right after act. they passed patriot lots of more government power to americans.ect although the bill remains controversial. then you have the edward snowden disclosures where a lot of said, we want civil
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liberties back. that was a very controversial as well. now we have huge terrorist attacks is one of great allies. we americans are saying, remember being up set about the stuff. where can we get this balance. that's this challenge, is there a balance. host: someone on twitter asked paris.he reports in guest: there had been reports of .hat some of the communications via it encrypted. like your credit card numbers and stuff. features as far as i can tell are not encrypted. it's possible but i can't that.m host: do you know if those chats are monitored? guest: i don't know in. government won't tell you what they do and don't monitor.
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pretty creative but i don't know. i imagine there's some government guys love to watch the video game networks. host: sandra from napels independent line. caller: my question is pretty sophomoric in the sense of understanding the recruitment internet. here it is. simplem hearing is very for an individual who is sympathetic to isis to reach out be found by recruiters and then they go away to the corners to have these conversations. guest: that's a great question. i'm sure that is taking place.
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fbi, whether it's cia, i don't know who is doing it. not a sophomoric question. it's a great question. i'm sure that's been discussed highest level of our counterterrorism. question is, you have to be pretty good in disguise. it's like finding a child predator online. speak theo be able to lingo. you have to be able to convince them. sure these islamic state guys are no dummies. they trying to sniff out a rat as well. be sophisticated in how you do it. approach.reat host: mohammad from richmond, virginia democrats line next. myler: thank you for taking call. i'm trying to make a comment lydia talking about islam. to tellsk that lydia
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you if she has ever read one koran, she will say no. she get all that information that she's spreading a muslim andi'm i'm proud to be a muslim. like isis and al qaeda -- side of islam. they're spreading false religionon using the justifyguise to whatever they have towards humanity. that lady saying the same thing -- guest: muhammad i wonder what i ask you what the last week has been like for you? what conversations has it sparked if your family. tell us about what it's like as a muslim to witness the publics and see
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response? week,: the events of last made me be ashamed. are usingese people to justify their selfish, inhumane attitude to towards mankind. that.is not like they are spreading their hatred. some christians believe that muslims do not believe in jesus christ. believe in jesus christ. it's in our book. all the prophets. the big difference between christianity and islam is, some believe that jesus christ is god. we don't. isbelieve that jesus christ of god.t of allah host: thank you for your input.
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guest: absolutely. on the one hand you have to sort of put this in historical context. there has been tension between between islam and judaism for thousands of years. of people this about kind of the past. as this caller mentioned, people verypret the koran differently. americans see september 11th, they see the events that happened in paris and maybe that's kind of the only interaction with islam they have. the president and president bush tried to do this as well. tried to distinguish between al qaeda, islamic state muslims thatons of peaceful in the united states. but at the same time, there's a and anxiety about
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what happened. talkednew york timeses" about the nasa had a program. you said the program to swoop up going away. could that be replaced by somebody else? guest: absolutely. nsa program that ends november 29th allows the the callt to warehouse records, who you called, what the length ofand the call on millions of americans. we're talking potentially records.of if they need to go through and they getugh and if some sort of permission, this to this person. arrangement this information will be warehoused the telecommunication company. if the government need this, they have to go to to these
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firms. there can't be expedition.fishing we're not going to know all the details of how the program works. obviously requires some cooperation from the corporate business sector. so far, we know the nsa they feel like they can get this by the endhe ground of this month. i think the question is, is that going to be it or as we've seen past, are there going to be sort of spin-offs of this program that might be concept secrets. host: anthony from mount sinai new york, democrats line. you so much. the last caller from richmond, virginia, i couldn't agree with him for it's so unfortunate that the american people are some of being exposed the factions. there's only one god. it's almost different languages describing that god. money investigat
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investigating benghazi than 9/11. i have deep concerns. nowel as though we were we're trying to do the same. hornets nest. we've been warned about this and we're at the point now where we can't afford it. the lives of the young men and have to be sent into these battlefield against see.emy that we we don't know how to defend unmanned army.st it's horrific where we find at this late stage. loyalty to my country always, but loyalty to my leader when deserve it. i find it hard to trust the people that are in power in this country. barack obama first signing statement was to grant immunity telephone industries to having spied on americans prior
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9/11. the at&t executive that pointed that out, mr. klein who was on prior to a class action lawsuit it was washed away. wanted to know if "washington journal" will do any reporting on being able to distrust or our leaders? guest: i think that is the heart doa lot of stories that we that in different newspapers. trying to shine a light on practices, inconsistencies. this, the things about about guantanamo, about the war in iraq, this stuff is really hard. there's not a -- this is 21st century warfare. it's not nation state versus nation state. what the u.s. trying to do is really hard to find the bad guys and-in a country full of people not be bad guys and
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doing dangerous things. the way to do that, i think lot of tension on capitol hill and people's kitchen table. hear it around thanksgiving dinner around the country. issues.e really hard healthy to have a nice public debate about it. but at the end of the day, not going to be an choice. host: joe from maryland, on the independent line. you're on with our guest damian paletta. caller: thank you. i have a question, is there any ofcussion regarding the use i.d.s on potential immigrants as it means to controlling surveying those individuals to address the concerns about terrorism? with: i'm not familiar that. it sounds like initially big backgroundeen on checks, screening and that sort of thing. obviously it's very difficult to
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do a background check from someone who comes from a country doesn't exist. localn't call their school board to check their history. allsure they will be open ideas. baltimore, from maryland. caller: hello. ahead.ou're on, go caller: why can't they just disable --the use led apps the terrorists use? guest: very fair question. good question. i think the idea is that -- obviously disabling twitter will be very challenging. lot of first a amendment implications of that. one of the other concerns, if you disable -- let's say there's a install niche app out of valley that's popular
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with terror groups. let's say you wipe that thing appsthere will be some new that will pop up in south korea or germany that they will towards. we might not have as much access and have that much influence in american government. that idea has been debated and it's been talked about. it's not too far out in left field. it's something that gotten a lot of attention. it's one of those things where water will find the crack. that's something that they wrestle it. host: when if comes encryption feels, who ares you looking to in the next couple of months? to watch're going closely. mike mccall the chairman of security committee, he's taken a big interest in this. lawmakers good mix of on this committee. also going to watch the intelligence committees in the house and the senate. chairman buhr and vice chairman
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feinstein in the senate. they have a classified hearing on tuesday. i was outside. one of the first things they mentioned was that the and ha how itue needs to be studied. watching the cia fbi director and director. they feel a little bit more justified in bringing this to the public's attention. president, if the president decides to engage in decides to convene a meeting of silicone valley, that the dialogue moving. host: damian paletta, thanks for your time. take at segment will look at transparency and openness and state government. look at the takes a and open how honest they are with information. you can learn about this report from center for public and
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integrity. gordon witkin will be joining us segment as "washington journal" continues. >> every weekend, 48 hours of events that tell our nation story. sunday morning at 10:00 eastern. road to thees, white house rewind, looks back political campaign walker bush.her better herbert then at 5:00, we're live franklin roosevelt the radio theram back story with american history guise
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of virginia history professor peter and university richmond president ed ayers birtherdw griffith the a nation. weekend,history tv all every weekend on c-span 3. >> book tv, 48 hours of and authors.oks our featured programs includes the 30 second annual miami book fair. live coverage starts saturday at 10:00 a.m. eastern afterwards with historian neil kissinger.kie book >> he's a rarity of the 1950's. it's what made his contribution distinct. a major stand out from the people who thought
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[indiscernible] >> he's interviewed by carla ann robs. sunday night at 8:00 former editor of the london base and author of the book islamic state. >> methods used to take over syria and iraq and with al qaeda. on booktv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span two. >> washington journal's continues. by gordon witkin. good morning. what is the center and tell us about it. gordon: it is a nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative newsroom. we have been around for about 25 years. we focus on non-form -- longform
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investigative journalism which has to do with how the federal government and in this case the state government, works or does not work. particularly, the influence of money and special interest power on the governing process. latest report takes a look at the idea of integrity within the government. were you trying to examine? gordon: the state integrity investigation is our second effort. the first was in 2012, to look at openness and transparency, -- as nextand ethics within the -- the feeling on returning this, a lot of the action seems to be in the state these days. at the same time, coverage of statehouses has been decimated at well documented with journalism. wanted to get granular and look at how things were working
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in the states. we hired a freelance reporter with expertise in that state, in each of the 50 states. we interviewed 100 -- determine what are the metrics, very down and dirty. what are the metrics he would look out to examine these things. we came up with a group of 235 specific questions to try to help us measure openness transparency and state government. we opened up with -- overall grade and an overall score. host: nobody did well on this grading system in 2015? gordon: the results were sobering. the highest grade was a c. [no audio]
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gordon: then that makes sense to do it in 2015. importantly, we also added a group of questions into any 15 -- 2015 that had today with information to citizens by a state government with an open data formats to allow people to openly use and size the data. the results on that category were poured. look and examine as the issues and what happens with at -- give examples and stories about what you have found. gordon: there were systemically poor scores and a couple of categories.
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access to information and public records, we found to be shot through with loopholes. exemptions for all kinds of different branches of government , in light of loopholes and a lot of difficulty the citizens had in getting access to public records. ethics found that the enforcement process in many states was weak. the ethics enforcement agencies funded.ost all partly many of them were unable to initiate any investigation on their own. states scored well in a couple of categories. we found increasing openness in state budget processes, with some exceptions. robustd a very -- fairly and if statech how money was being spent in the matter with which it was designed. host: investigating corruption in the state government -- if
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you want to ask questions about what they found and your state specifically. is our life for democrats, 202-748-8001 is the line for republicans, and 202-748-8002 is the life for independence. you can find the report on our website. the first call is michael from miami, florida on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. -- according to your grading scale from corruption? [no audio] gordon: has gone after assets, particularly drug investigations.
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and questions about whether assets or secure initiatives have been used as a way to fund law enforcement, rather than as a way of enforcing them all. it was not a focus in this particular work. host: a source came out from "usa today", a missouri lawmaker introduced -- a veto by the governor and prohibit cities from buying plastic bags at the grocery store. this is actually sort of the tip of the iceberg on a larger issue. which is that state legislatures are citizen legislators. they meet just a few months a once every twoes years. i think most of us at some level feel sort of warm and fuzzy about citizen legislator. the potential, you have a
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citizen legislator for the conflict of interest in voting in situations like you just said, are extreme. the legislators are largely responsible for -- accusing themselves on issues with which they have a conflict of interest. we found that that rarely happens. host: democrat line. a ofr: sadly, there is corruption in south dakota. rated at,t we are only three states are lower. i think it is wyoming, michigan, and nevada. we do not have enough information. --nothing gets investigated nobody investigated, i do not know how much money we owe.
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suicide at a school in south dakota. we do not seem to be getting the right answers. the whole family committed suicide. this state.eef with there are too many people who do not know what is going on, or they do not want us to know what is going on. thank you. bfive record refers to a program were immigrants are allowed expedited access to the u.s. or go ahead of the line if they are investigating -- investing in u.s. jobs and locating companies within the u.s.. that program has been subject to a fair amount of abuse and a fair amount of controversy. this is indicative of a larger issue, which is that we found that some of the lowest performing states, not all, some of the lowest performing states,
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like the dakotas, wyoming and etc. planes or western states were under -- a philosophy, a libertarian philosophy of extremely limited government. i would have to tell you, nonestly, i do not think what a investigative -- jc attitude in the western and plains states. i covered the rockies for a wild, there is just a strong belief in limited government. choice, there are fewer of the exacting systems that you -- looknd elsewhere into ethics allegations or those sorts of things. 2012, a, weng, in had on this that i thought was
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illustrative. a reporter asked the state senator -- the state senator asked a reporter, this is our philosophy of government. this is what we believe, and he said, do you know why you don't have to use turn signals in the state of wyoming? because -- that is a libertarian attitude we plains.roughout the a call from the democrats line. questions one some why the investigations are not prioritized as much. indiana, there are over a hundred -- republican state representatives. our unit was publicized and brought to justice.
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i do not think any of them -- been -- resigned. backlash -- if you cannot publicize or out these people. or you cannot let us know who is doing these things without investigating. i have been investigating and keeping and i on indiana for a while, and trying to turn bike -- back to. are beingople are blinded by the media around us, the media will not report it. you cannot find it on a news channel anywhere or your local channels. that is what most people -- we are a poor state.
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gordon: unless there are firm findings -- by a state ethics enforcement body. throughess that they go , and in some cases, the existence of the allegations by law and policy, more or less cap -- kept under wraps. a fairlys a state with limited view of government. the state house has been controlled by a more conservative, republican group for quite some time. i say that as someone who's career began at the indianapolis star and spent a fair amount of time at the statehouse. host: alan from washington dc on the independent line. caller: i appreciate the work that the center for integrity
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does. , has the cpis this looked at for example, the various departments of the federal government in the same context? i think that is so important. i looked at the department of education very closely for years . the level of corruption and ness --this --opaque conflict of interest is just astounding. i would take my question off the air, thank you. gordon: the center is not done the same type of study on the federal government agency by agency. vastld say that the majority of our work, as a washington-based watchdog, is focused on the federal government. how the federal government spends its money, and the way that money and special interest
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power affects the process. guestgordon witkin is our taking a look at corruption on the state level and what it has done. line.on the republican sir.r: yes i've been complaining about my sincen, my disabilities 2000, until now. nothing is happening. -- i worked for --ear in vietnam [indiscernible] what have you done as far as -- the state, is -- my
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fingers are [indiscernible] host: thank you. familiar withot what the caller's individual situation is. virginia has scored poorly on the surveys. it has scored particularly poorly, it got an f on our 2012 survey. we took a lot of grief for that. there was backlash centered on what a lot of critics said was the virginia way. we have the virginia way here, everything is above the board. this is a small neighborhood. we have never had a major scandal here. your findings are off base. since then, virginia had a massive scandal involving the governor and his family.
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. a lot of that scandal was centered around disclosure, not but by the governor, questions from disclosure by immediate family members as to what the relationships where and gifts they were receiving from a local businessman. he was trying to push a product and wanted the governor and the governor's family help. passedhen, virginia has ethics enforcement laws. they are very improved in the survey, but they were -- there are a lot of folks who believe that these laws have loopholes. larger point. there are a number of places that we have a reaction centered around where we have not had a major scandal here. i do not understand how you could for -- score us poorly. , your state to that in very few of these systems
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checks and balances that might fare it out. it is not unusual that you have not had a lot of big corruption cases. host: take a look at new jersey and bridge gate. how did that factor into your findings? sey, in regard to this particular project has a fascinating history. we found in 2012 that new jersey scored the highest, which was a shock to everyone who is familiar the various problems in jersey's reputation. we found in states that had problems, particularly new jersey and illinois, that previous scandals in the case of new jersey, scandals going back to the -- administration had a shame and embarrassment affect. the cost -- it caused new jersey to pass tough laws in the with
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ethics, disclosure, and gives --gifts. -- some cases, the governor before. droppedvey, the score in part because of the problem surfaced by bridge gate and a lot of controversy -- not a tight profile about the blemish the state ethics commission from new jersey. host: hollywood, 40, good morning -- hollywood, florida. caller: what category does our state fault in? read my paper on sundays, there are a lot of articles that talk about some of the problems in the state. could you please comment on that gecko -- ?>> this hearing will --don:
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gordon: problems with ethics enforcement and problems with disclosure by legislature relationship with lobbyists and things of that nature. it was not the worst, it was not the best. a lot of states, florida among them, scored a d on our survey. host: little elm, texas from the republican line. caller: in texas, they just lower the taxes on homes. they also increased in benton county where i live, the exemption from 15,000, to 25,000. i would like to know if you have -- you said something about the government. have you ever investigated the the groundof
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agreements that the federal government concludes from the president, down to mayors of local states and cities. have been exempted from their retirement plans. for example, if they get a retirement built up over a 10 , and it says maybe they have 400,000 or maybe a -- if they areon in government and business and working for the government. that exemption applies to all of their funds that were built up. either pensions, or retirement or stocks if they have that too. i know that the government, the senate and house, if you look at their net worth conceive where their investments are.
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that means that whatever they make on those investments is added to their funds is exempted. host: sorry to interrupt. gordon: i'm not familiar with this specific provision. the issue of various kinds of exemption has come up from our survey. particularly, in regards to things like legislative disclosure. many states now require legislators at some level to disclose their outside income, jobs. they also asked that their biggest closures of their immediate family members and those are filed in a central repository in the state. the ethics enforcement agencies in many states do not have the toget for the staffing verify the accuracy of some of those disclosures. states, there is a
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barrier to get over in terms of transparency. many of these disclosures are not online. some states, you actually have house to to the state look at the legislative disclosures. many of them are just in stacks of paper or in files. there are a lot of problems in terms of transparency and completeness and enforcement of legislative, financial, and karen disclosures. host: from twitter, did you find more corruption in republican politicians or state? gordon: i don't think we can make a judgment there. there was plenty of reasons to go around. i emphasize that what we were trying to look at where the systems that were in place. rather than simply counting corruption cases.
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i think in something like 12 states in the last three years, legislative leaders have been convicted or ousted based on some sort of malfeasance. the poster child is new york, where we had some 14 legislators either convicted or charged with malfeasance just in the last wo.r or to have twork -- we trials going on in new york. senator, these are paid to play corruption trials. what manyaying bare people in new york believe is a really deep-seated culture of corruption. -- williamn witkin
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wilson of north carolina from the democratic line. want to know have you seen any relationships between the states with their private prison industry and the private school industry? gordon: that is a good question. this study did not look specifically at those questions. month --ubject for a multiplicity of subjects that we are interested in looking at for the future. many states have gone in the direction of privatizing some of their present. as part of that process, there has been controversies and questions. florida is one state that has had a problem, as to what sort of lobbying and influence to get .hose contracts it is being exercised by the
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companies that run the private prisons. jeremy,ssachusetts, thank you for calling. go ahead. caller: i just wanted to ask a few questions about the massachusetts family court system and child service protective system. how divorced fathers are financially ruined, and the kids usually end up in the child service protective system. how they are forced by the state to be put -- drugs or directly close to the pharmaceutical industry. that is my current situation in massachusetts. thank you. withn: i am not familiar the particular issues that the caller referenced. but i can say there have been many issues in terms of the ethics disclosure and then spent transparency in massachusetts.
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the massachusetts legislator has had a lot of problems because of the house and they had been convicted of very -- different types of crimes. we found a massachusetts was particularly challenged in the access of -- open records laws. there are many exemptions as to what citizens can get. a couple of branches of government have made extensive inorts to exempt themselves part, or a whole from open records laws. until fairly recently, it was difficult in some cases to find out how massachusetts legislators had voted in the committee. host: michigan, republican line, don is up next. caller: i'd like to ask the , theeman, as we all know special interest groups not only in washington, but every state
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government in the united states, is a huge problem. toy are a huge problem as what has been done with policies that we are try to put through with votes. we all know they have a huge percent and all of this -- in all of this. i wonder why nothing has been done about this. anybody that has ever brought it up recently, that i know of, they said they would do something about it, nothing becomes of it. that i believe is a huge problem in all of the government in the united states. this should be something done. there -- there should be something done. i think the special interest groups need to be cake out of washington. they need to be kicked out of the state governments and i
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believe we would see a lot more things being done. last inmichigan came in our survey with a f. we found, there has been very little of the kind of disclosure , transparency, and ethics initiative that we solve in many -- that we saw in many other states. the power of lobbyists and special interest is strong in every state capital. that thehe issue, is power of those who want to retain the status quo is greater in the power of those who want to bring about some change in how the system works. i would also mention something we saw again and again, many receivethe legislators for what is done
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correctly, a very difficult and that breaking work. as a result of the modest fees they are paid, that can provide fertile ground for lobbyists to have more power. there are state legislators who feel that their salary is so low , they routinely want their dinner to be bought by a lobbyist. it is possible that increasing the salary for this work, accompanied with other reforms, might have some effect on that system. salaries inslator the current atmosphere will be tough. host: taking a look at transparency and openness, how easy or hard was it for you to get the information from the states involved? gordon: it varied.
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there were two kinds of questions. all of our topics asked about the law and what laws exist. that took some doing, but the laws are on the books. we then asked a parallel question, which had to do with a practice, how well the laws are implemented. that is more of a journalistic -- i would add that if you look at the project site, you will find if you click through the scorecardeach state's , you will find each specific question listed. an explanation of how he answered it, why we entered it, a list of who we talked to to come up with the answers, and specific citations of the relevant state law policy or exiv
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