cummings of maryland. the chair: the gentleman is recognized. mr. cummings: thank you for yielding. i rise in strong support of a great bill, fiscal year defense of 2010. by including the national guard and reserves, we ensure that d.o.d. does not present quonk an incomplete recommendation regarding the misrepresentation of the -- the representation of gender and ethnic specific groups within the armed services. my passion is to ensure that our armed services are representative of america and of the leadership -- and that the leadership line he reflects our diversity and this amendment ensures when the study and competition of this is calculated, the national guard and reserve are included. we can and must do better for the sake of future gender and ethnic-specific groups that will join the ranks to ensure minority representation and leadership. with that, i yield back. the chair: the gentleman from california. mr. mckeon: we'll reserve the balance of our time. the chair: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from new jersey. >> i yield one minute to our friend and colleague the out

cummings: how much time is remaining? the chair: one and a half minutes for the gentleman from maryland and 3 1/2 to the gentleman from california. mr. cummings: we are talking only about providing security to u.s. flag vessels carrying united states government cargos, operated by united states citizens. surely we can provide that. with that, i yield to the chairman of the armed services committee. the chair: the gentleman is recognized. mr. skeleton: i rise in support of this amendment. there may be requirement to redraft part of it at a future date, but i think the purpose and the intent are correct. piracy is here. it's an age-old problem. from the marines' hymn, the phrase, the shores of tripoli, that was a successful piracy -- anti-piracy effort on behalf of the united states marines. we have to do our very best to protect america, american vessels, americans that are sailing the ships and particularly the government cargo that's on them. so i applaud mr. cummings for making this substantial step in the right directi

cummings: i want to thank the gentleman, mr. johnson, for yielding, and chairman conyers, chairman scott torques mr. issa, and the entire judiciary committee and the house leadership for recognizing the importance of this legislation by bringing it to the floor today. mr. speaker, while our soldiers fight in iraq and afghanistan, many citizens across our nation are facing terrorism right here at home and right in their own neighborhoods. people are being murdered in broad daylight and their kill remembers walking free. because we do not protect witnesses to crimes from threats against their safety, if they cooperate with the police f. they testify in court, or even if they are listed as witnesses to testify in court. this epidemic of witness intimidation is a menace to our civil soing and a plague on our entire justice system. in fact, it was the deaths of angela and carnel dawson and their five children, ages 9 to 14, that first motivated me to address this issue. i can remember very vividly sitting at a funeral with two adult

cummings. >> mr. lewis, i've listened to your testimony very carefully and you know, i understand and read about you're a great man. i think one of things you have tried to do today is to walk a very thin line. you just heard republicans and democrats say to some dree that whatever was said to you about losing your job and the board being dismissed, basically what we've said is i don't buy it. let me -- i assume the minutes are accurate from your board meetings. these things you vote on. the minutes from board meetings -- >> yes,sir, we do -- >> i'm talking about december 22nd, 2008. >> let me read something to you. it says, you've apparently -- mr. lewis reported a series of calls. and you talk about a number of things. this is one thing i found interesting. the second point. this says -- this is what you told your boys, it says the treasury and fed stated strongly that were the corporation to invoke the material adverse change mac clause in the merger agreement with merrill lynch and fail to close t

cummings has done us all a great favor. nothing is going to help law enforcement more than our trying to help the protection of the witnesses out there who view these crimes. criminal street gangs have been a major concern all across this country and new jersey. law enforcement -- and truly law enforcement cannot do its job if we do not do this legislation. i don't believe, mr. speaker, that there is a more significant thing that we can do and reversing the losing battle that we face at this point and attack street crime and ending modern-day organized crime on the streets. you need viable witnesses who are not left to chance and risk and will not be frightened or intimidated. in 2007 the survey was conducted in new jersey by the state police. the respondents in four new jersey municipalities out of every 10, that's 43%, reported the presence of street gangs in their jurisdiction during the previous 12 months. not only in cities but in suburban communities. as a former mayor, i know how tough it is for our cities and commun

that is elijah cummings of maryland and the acting chairman today. they'll hear from keith hall the bureau of statistics. live coverage on c-span2. >> the consumer index experienced a small uptick and the european central bank held rates steady yesterday. signaling expectations that the global economy may just had bottomed out. i'm encouraged by the marginal improvements like consumer confidence but even this good sign is accompanied by a sobering counterpoint increased consumer spending that yet to translate by actual spending of consumers of businesses or businesses rather, families are saving and i don't blame them. they see that more than 1 in 4 unemployed workers has been unemployed for over six months. and that the median duration of unemployment is now 14.9 weeks, a record high since the series started in 1967. the cumulative effects of the recession seven conservative months of loss totaling 6 million jobs have left these ordinary, very hard-working americans in on precarious footing. when the person is laid off the person experiences, quote,

but he graduated from harvard college summa cum laude in 1985. he was a marshall scholar at oxford university, where he got a master's degree in 1977. he graduated cum laude from the harvard law school in 1980, where he was developments editor of the "harvard law review." he then clerked for judge richard wilkey in the court of appeals for the district of columbia, then for supreme court justice harry blackmun. then he served -- and he worked as a lawyer in the distinguished washington firm covington and burling. and then as attorney advisor in the department of justice's office of legal counsel. he then served in the clinton administration as assistant secretary of state, was unanimously confirmed by the senate, served there from 1998-2001, when he returned to the yale law school, becoming its dean some five years ago. he comes from a very distinguished family. his father was the first korean lawyer to study in the united states. he attended harvard law in 1949. he was then counsel for -- father, that is, for the first korean democratic governme

cummings and also mr. kucinich raised earlier. mr. kucinich seemed to be hung up on the fact of when there was a significant indicator that merrill lynch was in rapid decline. rather than focus on november of '08. we can go all the way back to fall of '07 when they mounsed an almost $8 billion loss and mr. o neil was forced into retirement. there's a long history of decline here, all be it it accelerated to some degree around the time of your purchase. but there was significant evidence that they had overloaded with collateral debt obligations and other complex derivatives and they were in pretty tough straits for a while. isn't that true? >> yes,sir, it is true. >> let me a you, there's a couple of e-mails and unfortunately they are very small up there. let me try to help you. one is from chairman bernanke to a selection of the board of reserve governors. and this is december 21st, 2008, around the time that your thinking about this material adverse change being existent or not. this is from chairman bernanke, i think the threat to u

and i know that chairman cummings brought up the consumer confidence. that when we talked about that a lot last month because there's increases in unemployment but at the same time the consumer confidence numbers are going up which may again help with people buying things; is that right? >> that's correct. >> sort of as we look at what -- what the glimmers of hope here to summarize just from my perspective, we have the fact that the companies seem to be not in every sector but some of these companies seem to be evening out or actually seeing some -- some improvement. we have consumer confidence up. what are the other glimmers of hope that you see? >> just to me a lot of it revolves around consumer spending even the profitability of companies relies on consumer spending picking up. >> uh-huh. >> having -- like i say, having the consumer confidence pick up is a good sign. the consumer confidence doesn't always track well with consumer spending but it does for major changes. that's the sort of thing, i think, that i find encouraging, you know, the -- i don

judge sotomayor graduated from princeton in summa cum laude me and private capital and was one of two people sue in the highest award that princeton guess to undergraduates was, she went on to yale law school which launched a three decades-long career in the law. with so when commentators have questioned whether she was smart enough i said you can't make up why did a capra, you can't make up did you have these high awards and you are summa cum laude, phi beta kappa, these are facts. that should go into evidence. since graduating the judge has a very interesting legal career, she has worked as a private sector is a litigator, she has been a district court and appellate court judge then she has taught law school class's but the one experience with numbers that particularly resonates remaining is that immediately graduating from law school she spent five years as a prosecutor at the manhattan district attorney's office which was one of the busiest and well thought prosecutors' offices in our country. at the time it paid about half as much as a job in the private sector but she wanted the

she graduated from princeton summa cum laude and f.b.i. bet at that kappa and was one of two people to wint highest award that prifnston gives to undergraduates. she went on to yale law school which launched a three decades'-long career in the law. so when commentators have questioned whether she was smart enough, i'm lirks you can't make this up. you can't make up f.b.i. bet at that cap pavment you can't make up that you have these high awards and that you're summa cum laude and phi bet at that kappa. these are facts that should go into evidence. since graduating, the judge has a varied and interesting legal career. she's worked as a private -- in the private sector as a litigator. she's been a district court and an appellate court judge and she's taught law school classes. but the one experience of hers that particularly resonates for me is that immediately graduating from law school, she spent five years as a prosecutor at the manhattan district attorney's office, which was one of the busiest and most well-thought-of prosecutors' office

her academic standing at princeton was summa cum laude, a graduate of the yale law school, where she was a member of the board of editors. then in her practice, she was an assistant district attorney in manhattan, a position which gives very extensive experience in many important facets of the law, something i know from my own experience years ago as an assistant district attorney. then she was in private practice on -- with a very prestigious new york law firm. then served on the united states district court. and more recently on the court of appeals for the second circuit. the hearings will give judge sotomayor an opportunity to respond to a number of issues which have been raised about her background. i think that chairman leahy was correct in moving the hearing date so that the confirmation process could be concluded in time for judge sotomayor, if confirmed, to sit with the court during september when the court will decide what cases it will hear. a great deal of the important work of the supreme court of the united states is decided on what cases they decide not to hear. and pe

she graduated summa cum laude. she began her career as a prosecutor in new york city, the district attorney of manhattan was a wonderful [unintelligible] i remember when bill clinton nominated her, the republicans controlled the senate, and they put a hold on the nomination. they place an anonymous call on her -- hold on her, but would not come forward. in june 1998, they were trying to hold her up, because they thought they would nominate her for the supreme court. the republican controlled senate finally released her nomination. she was confirmed overwhelmingly. they thought it was so important to hold her up in a disgraceful amount of time. when the rugged marshall was nominated, he was facing stiff opposition and it did not make any difference that he was first in his class, where he was part of the legal defense fund. he had all kinds of hostile questions, he was appointed solicitor general. he was the winner of 29 out of 32 cases before the supreme court. other lawyers thought that they may have one case, he

she graduated from princeton semanko mulally -- summa cum laude and hi nbbetta kappa. some question if she is smart enough. you cannot make up that you have these high awards. it is a fact that she is a phi betta kappa. she has a very interesting legal career. she has worked in the private sector as a civil litigator. she has been an appellate court judge. the one experience of hers that resonates for me is that immediately graduating from law school, she spent five years as a prosecutor during one of the most busiest offices in our country. at the time, it paid about half as much as the job in the private sector. she wanted a challenge. she took the job as a prosecutor. before i entered the senate, i was a prosecutor. it was in minnesota. i was very interested in this experience that we have in common. one of the things i learned and i know she understands is that as a prosecutor, the law is not some dusty but in your basement. you have seen the damage that crime has done to the community and the havoc it can wreak. yet interacted with the people going to prison. you

other notable selections include terry cummings, danny manning, lamar odom and darius miles. >> the angels have won five straight and sit atop the a.l. west. a game and a half ahead of the rangers. they begin a three-game series in arlington. crushes the offering from padilla. a two-run jack. his 13th of the season. angels up 3-2. next batter, moralis. back-to-back jacks for moralis. angels win it 5-2. easy out there, guys. always a lot of fun until somebody gets hurt. rivera, his eighth home run in june that ties him for the second most in major league baseball. the angels have won six straight and 13 of their last 16. >> the a.l. central leading tigers continue their nine-game three city road trip in oakland. 6-1, they trail. rick had been 7-1 in his last 10 starts, he goes 4 1/3, allowing five earned runs, mark ellis and sweeney both homer. oakland has -- [inaudible] >> back to wimbledon now, serena williams on a collision course with her sister, taking on daniella, first set on serve, serena, big two-handed backhand. set up break points. gees. the ball clips the net, falls in. serena w

and then graduated cum laude from baltimore county. it's that attitude and we can provide for our children and then our families can be health and supportive. >> thank you. next we are going to hear from juan carlos. come on up, juan. he's a great young father who is participant in a wonderful job program called, year up. and the president visited it today. juan, tell your story. >> i want to say thank you to president obama for this opportunity and fatherhood. i came from el salvador and i didn't speak english, and i enrolled in high school and graduated. and i would leave my house and come back in the middle of the night. i would do my homework on the train and bus. and i enrolled in this excellent program to give me the opportunity to achieve in america. and i have a beautiful daughter, she's driving my crazy, she's only 16 months. i don't know, after she was born, i totally changed. i became more mature. before she was born, everything was me and my fiance. and now when i go to the stores, i see clothes and books. and that's what i

she graduated summa cum laude and phi beta kappa. she run on and excelled at law school and became -- began her legal career as a prosecutor in new york city end of the da of manhattan, bob martin baller wrote a wonderful op-ed piece in the your time say what a wonderful prosecutor and she was. i remember when president clinton has nominated her to the second circuit to. republican controlled senate to put a hold on her nomination, they tried to block her and i made more than a dozen speeches on the senate urging those who placed anonymous call on her at least have the courage to come forward and say who you were -- they didn't. the end in june 1998 there was a call and on wall street journal that said we all know there were tried to hold her up because they were afraid that president clinton might nominate her to the supreme court if there is a vacancy. when the supreme court ended without a vacancy the republican controlled senate finally released her

she graduated summa cum laude. she went on and became -- she began her legal career as a prosecutor in new york city and the da of manhattan wrote a wonderful op-ed piece saying what a great prosecutor she was. i remember one president clinton had nominated her to the second circuit. the republican-controlled senate put a hold on her nomination. they tried to block her. i made more than a dozen speeches on the senate urging those who placed an anonymous hold to at least have the courage to come forward and say who you work. they did not. in june 1998 there was a column which said we all knew they were trying to hold her up because they were afraid president clinton might nominate her to the supreme court if there was a vacancy. when the supreme court term ended without a vacancy the senate finally released her nomination. she was confirmed overwhelmingly and not one word was spoken on the senate floor against her by those who felt it was so important to hold her up for a disgraceful. of time. this brings me -- for

along with the bill because of the negotiations with david pierce, the minnesota democrat anding a cum tour -- agriculture chairman its was an opportunity, i think, as markey called it, a fishing pole expedition of some kind where he was able to personally get some republicans as well. >> speaking of those who crossed the aisle, there were party switchers. a number of republicans voted for the bill. 44 democrats voted against it. what about those party switchers? >> the republicans, 8 altogether, mary bony know mack, chris smith from new jersey, franklin bianda from new jersey were the three we most likely expected. the other republicans we had on the fence and a couple moved over. david reiker from washington state was one. he is in a tough district. he has had close re-elections. that was a tough vote for him. the other two interesting republican votes for the bill, mike castle from delaware and mick kirk from illinois both are weighing senate bids in 2010. those are both states that trend blue, so a vote for the environment for these two could help them down the line. the other yese

cummings for five minutes. >> thank you very much, madame chair, and i also want to thank you, professorwarren, for joining us here today. in the work of the congressional oversight panel of the government accountability office, and especially the inspector general, continue to provide congress with critically violations of the financial recovery efforts. in the latest monthly report, it is an impressive assessment of the stress test conducted by the treasury and federal reserve on the 19 largest bank holding companies. the report observes that the basic methodology and economic assumptions underlying in the stress test are reasonable and conservative. the report goes on to identify logical and important criticisms of the test. the panel's finding that concerns me most is that it calls for increased transparency. i have long been an advocate for the highest levels of accountability and visibility in the vault -- in all aspects of the economic recovery. i've often said that in order for the obama administration to come out of this crisis, the public must have a sense of confidence, they m

cummings. i join you in welcoming commissioner hall before the committee this morning. the increase in the unemployment rate to levels 9.4% is disturbing for several reasons. first, the higher unemployment rate reflects greater hardship for american workers and families. second, along with other economic data, it reflects a continuing weakness in the economy. and third, the higher unemployment rate underscores the unrealistic nature of the administration's economic assumptions based on the idea that the stimulus spending would cap rising unemployment. the payroll report shows the economy continues to reextract. 345,000 job drop in may payroll employment is a significant monthly job loss. and is broadly based in many industries. although the overall pace of job loss was not as terrible as in recent months, manufacturing continues to suffer large employment declines. there's some tentative evidence suggesting the economy may bottom out in coming months. for example, financial market conditions have improved. some measures of manufacturing activity have stabilized. and som

introduced that will expand on health centers, and i might just add that senator specter and congressman cummings have introduced legislation. >> and there's going to be grants made available, also, for prevention demonstration projects. so there's different ways that this will be funded. >> and several of us actually serve on the appropriations subcommittee, congressman honda and myself, and that subcommittee actually will have a key role in funding many of the health initiatives that come out of whatever health care

. >> >> cumming caution was one of the smartest things that i did. returning after graduated in hitting the pavement looking for that first job was very critical. you see behind me 3 statements with the clare booth institute. i would like to add focus on changing lives. we will talk about how each when you can impact your culture and her country's future. many times when we're at this age and are high -- in our lives, we felt uncertain about what are calling as -- our calling is. you're calling is to make a difference in the lives of people that are around you. when you do so, you are impacting the culture around here and the country at large. when the issues to focus on today is the notion of heroes. i have done a lot of writing and researching on this subject recently and i have to say that my generation pretty much shows you guys an apology. -- pretty much owes as an apology. in the media and culture, we have been feeding the pop culture. as a representative of the generation that is creating and distorting the images of what a hero really is, i w

cummings said. and tremendous pressure on everyone. they think you're playing a game. they think you're throwing this thing out as a red herring in that they think what you're really trying to do and what some people suggest you might have been doing was to leverage taxpayer support by falsely putting this mac out there. the fact that you're going to let this deal crash, walk away, even asserting -- you don't have to win the mac, as you said before, you don't have to win it. this deal needs to stop and then i think the weight of all of the forces that play there with lehman and everything else, were in some pretty deep trouble. so what i'm asking you is, was that your strategy here? did you use this mac as leverage to force bernanke and paulson to come in with taxpayer support. and i want to note your own firm was in pretty tough shape at the time. everyone seems to think you were the white knight and strong party, as mr. kucinich has indicated, you know, bank of america had its problems too at this time. but tell me what your strategy was and your negotiations there a

cummings said is a very weak economy that's got some future challenges ahead. there's been a lot of spin in washington these past months about the impact the stimulus and it's almost like we're listening to baghdad bob again from iraq tell us about how the country is winning the war as the u.s. troops are rolling into his city. last january, two top administration economists argued if we enacted the stimulus which has added, you know -- will add almost a trillion dollars to our debt, that if we did that, we would keep the unemployment rate at or below 8% this year. this level has already been exceeded; correct? >> correct. >> isn't there from an economic view looking at the poster in watching the rising unemployment which trails the economy as we all know but looking at the president's projections of 8%, 8.1% versus the current 9.4%, is that statistically significant in unemployment? >> yes, that's a significant difference. and to reach an 8.1% average for the year we would need to see the unemployment rate drop to well below 8.1% for a good portion of the year

cummings of maryland. you may proceed. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. mr. bernanke, as i've listened to you carefully, i think i get it. i think i get it. you are so -- you were so intertwined in this thing and following up one mr. mchen try's questions it's hard to see where your participation ended and where paulson's began. and i just take you to your own statement. one of the first things you say in your background is on september 15, bank of america announced an agreement with merrill lynch. i did not play a role in arranging this transaction and no federal reserve assistance was promised or provided in connection with with that agreement. is that accurate, yes or no? >> yes. >> all right. oops well then you go on to talk about all the things you did do. i'm confused. let's talk about this whole situation with one of the things you did. this is your statement. it says in responding to the bank of america and these discussions, i, talking about yourself, expressed concern that invoking the m.a.c. would entail significant risks and then you go on to talk

and she believed he was egged on by other people in the cabinet particularly komer cummings who was hoping she believed the big expansion of the court will allow him to become a justice. but he could not ordinarily have gotten it in the other way. harold ickes, she writes about it obliquely. she says, she did not like to criticize fdr even after his death but she said she thought it was a rare failure of political judgment on fdr's part that he did it but harold ickes road in his diary angrily that frances perkins was trying to oppose the court packing plant. >> we have another question. >> at the back of the room you had mentioned that there were some things that were cut from the budget that you had written so much more and without pointing figures by guest at doubleday. would you like to do that? >> i think much of the fault is my own. the book kiai, the original book i wrote what had been in 900 page book, too long, too long but frances perkins had done so much. she has done as much as many presidents, was as a bald and has many things. we were trying to find places to cut. her persona

her academic standing at princeton was summa cum laude, a graduate of the yale law school, where she was a member of the board of editors. then in her practice, she was an assistant

harvard college, oxford, harvard law school cum laude. has had pa distinguished career in the federal government, having serving as assistant secretary of a state from 1998 to 2001. he has done exemplary work at yale. his father was the first korean lawyer to study in the united states. yesterday i spoke at some length about dean koh and inserted his extraordinary resume in the record. it took some eight pages to list all of his honorary degrees, all of his publications, and all of his awards. when we search for the best and the brightest to come to washington, dean koh is a perfect match for that description. and if his nomination is to be rejected, it certainly will be a signal to people who have an interest in public service that they're better off not treading in these waters because the politics is so thick that even individuals of such extraordinary credentials can be rejected by the united states senate. i strongly urge my colleagues to support this nomination. i've been in this body a while. i've never spoken with such enthusiasm