in american two thousand and eight and it's now run by corrupt bankers here's what senator chuck grassley says it's as if the new york fed used a i.g. as a front man to bail out big banks all over the world it took nearly two years for the public to learn these details and they were only revealed because congress wouldn't take no for an answer taxpayers deserve to know what happened with their money the militia had someone redstone go in front of congress to get the seven hundred billion for wall street and goldman sachs he could have said you know some the rest i'm going to be like give me the money away. but i need the money and i need to face the game sumner redstone new media by i need the money going away but all these details obviously the new york fed. it was a front man it is a front man that's his role but it really ties in with this whole cantor exchange in this all these golden making a movie really martin scorsese needs to direct it's going to be his epic last film of the mafia film of all mafia. yes well we did see a preview of the new film coming out. the editor and director

warren. >> thank you chairman baucus, ranking member grassley and the committee. want to start wi a reminder that i am a chair of a bipartisan five-member panel so while i will do the best to oversight panel any additional sentences are my own and my colleagues may have different, different views and different nuances so i want to make that disclaimer. since weast met before this committee, much has changed in the financial markets and in t.a.r.p.. a year ago, our country was in the dst of what seemed to be a deepening financial crisis, on the edge of economic collapse. it is easy now to forget the panic that gripped the markets in the fall of 2008. a very real threat that it would spread through the broader economy, devastating families, small businesses and communities. t.a.r.p. has had a profound effect is part of a corrugated government response to bring our economy back from the brink of collapse and everything i say and the work we do in oversight is in that context. i also want to say at the beginning, with we raised issues from our very first report which

things about one of my republican colleagues and shows up in their campaign brochures like senator grassley but that's okay because i still like him a lot. senator graham is an extraordinary member who not only has a thoughtful way of looking at these important decisions, but putting them in a perspective which few members can. and during the course of his statement, i -- timing is everything. kagan's many nomination comes less than 100 days before an historic election when a closely divided court reflects a closely divided country. her fate would have been in doubt on the other side of the table under normal circumstances after all she is the choice of a democratic president, but now that we are in a political season of contrast and confrontation, elena kagan faces stiff odds in winning many supporters on the other side. for many months the senate has focused on her nomination but as senator cornyn reminds us a few years back we focused on the nomination miguel estra think d virtually every republican senator and most sitting here today came to the floor to speak about miguel speak about t

chuck grassley will likely vote for it again.ion. it does not do enough for the liberal priorities, does not do enough to limit the size of big banks, does not do enough to prevent a future crisis. çif you are keeping score at home, that makes scott brown the 41stç vote. of course, that could change, if a person sent to washington than to fill byrd's seat is a democrat, as well as someone willing to vote for the bill. çhost: we have confirmed with s office that senator brown is not yet ready to make a decision. çyour magazine's would you make the case, based on your reporting, about this, about some of the concerns that your colleagues have? guest: sure, and it is not just myself and my colleagues but also concerns that senator brown himself has stated that we are not -- that were not addressed by the democrats in the conference committee, despite their claims to the contrary. there is these issue of the bill's cost, which is the original reason why scott brown said he would not be voting for the bill that came out of the con

chuck grassley will likely vote for it again.mit the size of big banks, does not do enough to prevent a future crisis. çif you are keeping score at home, that makes scott brown the 41stç vote. of course, that could change, if a person sent to washington than to fill byrd's seat is a democrat, as well as someone willing to vote for the bill. çhost: we have confirmed with s office that senator brown is not yet ready to make a decision. çyour magazine's editorial says this is a bad bill. would you make the case, based on your reporting, about someçf the concerns that some of your colleagues have? guest:çlh2f sure, and it is not me and my colleagues, but senator brown has stated himself, things that were not addressed in the conference committee. first of all, thereç is the ise of cost. that is the original reason scott brown said he would not be voting for the bill thatç camen a conference committee. house and senate negotiators, when they met to reconcile the senate version of the bill, had a problem in order to meet the de

senator grassley, you characterize very well what i feel is perhaps the best way to sort of identify what we are confronting, social security, and also medicare and all of the private pension and health systems that we have facing us in the future, that we simply have a very substantial demographic shift. it reflects the impact of increasing the normal retirement age, because of work in this room back in 1983, we are still going to be shifting from a position of 3.3 workers down to about two workers between now and 2035, just over the next 25 years. this is a dramatic shift. the reason for this is not really because we are living longer. it is because of the drop in birthrates that occurred after the post world war ii birthrate. we shifted from roughly three children per woman down to two children per woman. even with the help of emigration, it is pretty substantial that we still have a much lower number of people entering our population, and that is causing the aging shipped we will be experiencing over the next 25 years. it is not just all about the fact we are living longer. as fa

when asked in these hearings by senator grassley on tuesday of this week whether the second amendment codified a preexisting right or whether the right to keep and bear arms was created by the constitution, she replied, i never really considered the question. when senator grassley asked whether the second amendment right was a fundamental right, miss kagan said it was because the majority of justices in the mcdonald case said so. the kagan view of rights is that they are whatever a majority of the supreme court rules at a particular time in a particular case. but under that philosophy, what the court grants, the court may take away. if miss kagan does not know whether our unalienable rights to defend ourselves from criminals and tyrants comes from god as the declaration of independence states or from government, she cannot be trusted to protect our god-given right to self-preservation. during these hearings, miss kagan also acknowledged that heller is -- had precedential weight and agreed to abide by it, but refrained from adding her views for weather the case was rightly decided. whe

and senator grassley next. >> thank you, mr. chairman, after thorough review of her record and committee testimony and much deliberation, i've concluded i cannot support the nominee to be justice. when determining whether an individual should be confirmed to be a justice, we should look at their impartiality, commitment to the rule of law and legal expertise. in my opinion, judicial experience is not an absolute prerequisite for serving as a justice. however, since solicitor general kagan lacks any judicial experience and has extremely limited experience as a practicing attorney, we don't have any clear substantive evidence to demonstrate her ability to transition from a legal scholar and political operative to a fair and impartial jurist. solicitor general kagan's testimony before the judiciary committee did not persuade me that she would be able to make this crucial transition. in her testimony, she failed to answer mainly the questions posed to her. she was not forthcoming in discussing her views of basic principles of consti

they could be described as grassley light or a footnote. i think you're supposed to say without objection. >> i think so. and i do. >> i am struck by this. i did not know that you were that involved in the 1986 tax bill. i was the only member who voted no. i heard from bob dole after that directly. i thought he did that. that sort of struck me as being interesting in terms of history. i did not realize you played such a large role. that tax act. the real-estate industry in the ditch. it put agriculture in the ditch. and for five years after that, at town hall meetings, people were complaining about it. i could raise my hand and say i voted no. i do not know what all that means except to say that it was -- i was interested in your comments about that. the way i view it in terms of what happened in the real world, in kansas as opposed to what was proposed and what was hailed at the time as a historic tax measure. i'm not asking you to reply. i apologize if i stepped on your toes. in your testimony, you note that certain provisions of the egtr

guest: i am still not sure because charles grassley, republican from iowa, he voted for the bill on final passage, not support the bill on the cloture version, he voted with republicans to continue to filibuster. because they are still -- the democrats are still down a bow -- a vote with robert byrd's passing, it is still unclear whether they have enough votes for cloture. host: what happens now if you are senator harry reid? what is your approach? guest: it could be to wait until next week. the governor of west virginia said he will appoint a replacement i believe by this coming sunday. which means we could have a new senator next week. and that vote could be all it takes to get this thing done. the democrats do now have the support of senator maria cantwell. she was against the regulatory reform bill, the first version that cleared the senate. she said she will support the conference report. so, next week, the could be ready to go. host: financial regulation just one of many bills out there. take a step back and speak about this senate agenda. three, four weeks left before the august br

this was wrapped together in a bipartisan bill by senator baucus and grassley in the finance committee and that bill had a bunch of tax breaks for businesses and it turned out it did not look very much like a jobs bill, but more like an inside washington deal. democratic leadership kind of blew that up, and the unemployment benefits still had to wait for later. and there were various fits and starts. you may recall, senator bunning held up a temporary extension and got a lot of bad press and republicans were sort of aghast at that. then over the coming weeks and months, the terrain sort of shifted on the deficit. the republicans in the senate felt more and more comfortable making the argument that, sure, extend unemployment benefits, but they should be paid for by cuts to other programs. the federal government is very large, they made the argument that you should cut benefits. democrats argue, well, this money kind of goes directly into the economy, using deficit spending to juice the economy a bit, and they say extending unemployment has never been paid for before. in any event, we fi

words of a letter signed by a bipartisan group, senators leahy, sessions, feinstein, hatch, specter, grassley, durbin, graham, cardin, cornyn and coburn, a very, very bipartisan and broad spectrum group of supporters, they said this, congress has debated the need to address the crack-powder disparity for too long. we now have the ability to address this issue on a bipartisan basis, and they supported this legislation which is, again, why it passed in a bipartisan fashion through the united states senate. my colleagues, i urge support of this legislation. i am pleased that the leadership on both sides of the aisle will be supporting this legislation. we do so for the same reason that senators cornyn and hatch and gram -- graham and sessions all support this legislation. it's the right thing to do. it will enhance, not diminish, prosecution, and it will lead to better justice in america while at the same time making sure that we penalize and hold accountable those who would addict our children and our fellow citizens. and i urge support of this legislation and yield back the balance of my time.

senator grassley established that. is it a satisfactory test? let me move on to another question. i don't think i'm making too much progress. one of the grave concerns which has risen out of the -- out of recent confirmation proceedings with chief justice roberts and justice alito, and i've spoken about this subject extensively on the floor citing how emphatic chief justice roberts and justice alito were on deferring to congress. it's a legislative function. it's not a judicial function, they say. if you engage in fact-finding, if the court does that, the court is transgressing into the %-ngressional area. and then you have a case like citizens united and others, and you have the declarations by the chief justice of modesty. you've adopt that had standard. his more emphatic citizen was not to jolt the system. is there any way you can look at citizens united other than being a tremendous jolt to the system? >> senator specter, as an advocate this is one i've taken a strong view on which is that it was a jolt to the system, that there were -- there was a great deal of reliance inter