why the fifth circuit court well because the fifth circuit court covers only texas louisiana mississippi all oil producing states and oil bought and paid for politicians from those states over the years have made sure that the fifth circuit chart court is chock full of judges with literally humility of lee millions in oil investments and lots of drinking buddies in the industry pretty handy so another hearing and things actually got worse reminds me of a senate committee hearing last year on the financial meltdown when goldman sachs executives were put up on the sacrificial table and gutted by our lawmakers take a look. you are the bookie you are the house you have less oversight and less regulation as you all began this wild wild west of tranches waterfalls equity traunch is the residual where housing as you began all that you have less oversight in a pit boss in las vegas and when you hurt your employees in these emails and look at these deals said god with a shitty to. god what a piece of crap. when you hear your own employees or read a vote though to email to you can't feel anything

and he also filed a pleading with the fifth circuit court of appeals. now, i know as a former judge and chief justice, lawyers are not supposed to file pleadings and try to persuade based on fact that they believe or know not to be true. it's called fraud upon the court. and there's punitive actions that lie in that case. but the information that u.s. attorney jacks provided to the district court and to the fifth circuit court of appeals seems to be very authentic and very well done. obviously a very capable lawyer. there are no punitive actions that can be taken for misleading a newspaper. and on the other hand, perhaps he doesn't know what was in the memo that was requested from march of last year. but we're now getting into some very serious grounds when the attorney general of the united states will not be forthcoming, changes his answers a number of times about who consulted or didn't consult, who's in his department, who's not in his department, who participated. and so we have a lot of explaining to get to. and i hope the legit mate explanations

we have a lawsuit -- actually it is actually several different lawsuits because the fifth circuit court of appeals is somewhat byzantine in this process. we are challenging over 40 individual drilling plants in the gulf right now. most of these have been granted since the spill. that is what is important for prude people to understand is that very little has changed. ken salazar, you know he will go down in history as he wants to keep the boot, his boot on the heel, on the neck of bp and so the boot, when you look into the history of the loot it turns out that secretary salazar, there was virtually no greater champion of expanding drilling in the gulf than ken salazar. .. we possibly can to try to make sure this never happens again. please look at our web site and see our policy recommendations on a report we just released, companion report to the wildlife polk and thanks again so much. [applause] >> i will take a tight leash on myself. >> please pass the sign in sheet around. folks can sign it as it comes around to you. thank you all so much and thank you to john and peter for being he

lawsuit i would say it's one of lawsuit but it's actually several different losses because the fifth circuit court of appeals is byzantine in this process. we are challenging over 40 individual plants in the gulf right now. most of these have been granted since this bill and that's what's important for people to understand is very little has changed. ken salazar, he will go down in history as he wants to keep the boot on the heel of bp. so when you look into the history it turns out secretary salazar, there was virtually no greater champion of expanding drilling in the gulf than ken salazar in you know an interesting look at how someone station in life, political station might change things when president obama was a senator he had an excellent record on offshore oil drilling . he posed as fervently as did joe biden and rahm emanuel. they all voted against expanding offshore oil drilling in the gulf, and then a few years later the situation is different now they have different calculations to make and come out on the other side and so it's just very disappointing in that regard. i'm going to wrap

today's hearing before all 17 judges on the fifth circuit court of appeals has to do with a series ofplano, texas, school district. they stopped one group of students from handing out candy cane pens with a religious message attached to it at a school party, which is why this is called the candy cane case. a couple other incidents cited prohibit students from writing merry christmas on cards for troops overseas. even one girl's pencils were confiscated because they mentioned god. we wanted to ask your team, are elementary school students too young to have first amendment rights. and here is the first amendment before we get started. congress shall make no law establishing an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the free exercise of speech. seems like a simple question, can kids too young to vote, drive or drink have freedom of speech? >> well, unfortunately many rights that children -- that adults enjoy, children don't enjoy in schools. and there are a number of ways in which their civil liberties are limited and restrained and often violated

fifth district. however, this exception fails to address these very serious concerns. the parties involved in litigation on leasing would first have to determine that there is no court within the fifth circuit that would be available to consider the case. only after determining that there was no court in the fifth circuit, then the parties will be permitted to file in florida or alabama. in short, section 202 will prohibit the courts in florida and alabama from considering and rendering a decision in lawsuits on leases for energy development, production and exploration off their coasts. my amendment would strike this section, it makes no changes to the overall bill, provides a simple solution to address this bill's unwarranted restrictions on which courts will be able to review these leases, should they pose a threat to the gulf coast area. i urge its adoption and i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from colorado rise? mr. lamborn: i claim time in opposition to this amendment. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. lamborn: thank you. i yield myself such time as i may consume.

that decision was upheld by the very conservative fifth circuit court of appeals in new orleans but it wasn't good enough for the supreme court. and in a really horrific decision the overturned the decision fight-for saying that the type of the violation i should back up the second there is a noteworthy supreme court case from 1963 during the that says a prosecutor has an affirmative duty to turn over any evidence that could possibly exonerate a defendant. they never gave this information to thompson or his counsel but the supreme court said was even though there were other brady violations in the new orleans district attorney's office, they were different types of violations and therefore there wasn't a pattern and practice. yes, that's what they actually said. it's a quite extraordinary decision, one of the worst decisions i've ever read and john thompson now working on behalf of the other wrongfully convicted persons is out $14 million moscow. when president obama k2 office he said one of the qualifications wasn't intellectual rigor but empathy koppel the conservatives miaskovsky an

court. and you're saying i have no basis for saying what i did? there is a basis for what he said before the fifth circuit and before the trial court. so i don't appreciate the allegation that i am making unfounded allegations. >> i'm just responding to what you said. you essentially said that he would take a position in order to maintain a position. that's certainly what you implied. >> i raised the issue. sir, i don't know how many cases you've ever tried in court or prosecuted, but i can assure you, if you tried a case and you had someone with the impeachment material that was available from mr. jacks on his inconsistencies and you didn't pursue it, you would not be an efgtifective tr lawyer. these are basis of impeachment of his stating that there was no politics involved because there was no case there. >> the gentleman's time has expired. >> mr. chairman, what the attorney general is trying to explain why there was no inconsistency and he kept getting cut off. could the attorney general respond to the question? >> i was responding to the allegations about me having no basis for my statements. >> wel

court. and you're saying i have no basis for saying what i did? there is a basis for what he said before the fifth circuit and before the trial court. so i don't appreciate the allegation that i am making unfounded allegations. >> i'm just responding to what you said. you essentially said that he would take a position in order to maintain a position. that's certainly what you implied. >> i raised the issue. sir, i don't know how many cases you've ever tried in court or prosecuted, but i can assure you, if you tried a case and you had someone with the impeachment material that was available from mr. jacks on his inconsistencies and you didn't pursue it, you would not be an efgtifective tr lawyer. these are basis of impeachment of his stating that there was no politics involved because there was no case there. >> the gentleman's time has expired. >> mr. chairman, what the attorney general is trying to explain why there was no inconsistency and he kept getting cut off. could the attorney general respond to the question? >> i was responding to the allegations about me having no basis for my statements. >> wel

court. and you're saying i have no basis for saying what i did? there is a basis for what he said before the fifth circuit and before the trial court. so i don't appreciate the allegation that i am making unfounded allegations. >> i'm just responding to what you said. you essentiallsaid that he would take a position in order to maintain a position. that's certainly what you implied. >> i raised the issue. sir, i don't know how many cases you've ever tried in court or prosecuted, but i can assure you, if you tried a case and you had someone with the impeachment material that was available from mr. jacks on his inconsistencies and you didn't pursue it, you would no be an efgtifective tri lawyer. these are basis of impeachment of his stating that there was no politics involved because there was no case there. >> the gentleman's time has expired. >> mr. chairman, what the attorney general is trng to explain why there was no inconsistency and he kept getting cut off. could the attorney general respond to the question? >> i was responding to the allegations about me having no basis for my statements. >> well, c

the fifth circuit certainly can't be the only circuit with expertise on the subject of offshore energy. i believe we have a responsibility to protect access to the courts, and senator mcconnell's bill jeopardizes that for the people that do not have the luxury of going far off to another state. to bring a lawsuit. and so, meanwhile, the house has passed a bill last week that seeks to open -- now it's getting personal -- they seek to open the eastern gulf of mexico off of florida, that which senator martinez and i have off limits in law. for obvious reasons we have it off limits in law. it's the largest testing and training area for the united states military in the world. we have two letters from two successive secretaries of defense, including the present one, secretary gates, that says you can't have oil drilling and related activities. they use the word "it is incompatible with the military training and testing mission." that is the largest training and testing area for the u.s. military in the world. it's the gulf of mexico basically off of florida. and, of course, you all have heard me over and over talk about all the dry holes. there's not much o