and we went straight to helman and nimruz province. very complex dynamic environment that we were operating in but before i begin it talk to you about the operational picture, i just want to give you a snapshot of afghanistan. when we got there i want to set the frame here so you understand what we're dealing with. afghanistan ranged 180th out of 1 86 on the world bank list of developed countries. 20 percent of the babies won't reach their first year of life. there is a 44 year life span for your average citizen. it has a less than 20 percent literacy rate and girls in afghanistan will marry by the time they are 15 and will likely birth their second child by the time they are 20. so this is the long-term effects of violence and civil wars within a failed state by every measure. the marines who are currently still in southwest afghanistan, they are surrounded by very conservative culture. in 2010, this is not true now but narco trafficking and helman province alone was the fourth largest trafficker of heroin in the world. the taliban co

then christopher helman from about theill be here impact of drought. first a news update. >> more on the health care law. drug policy reforms will be outlined today to focus on diverting nonviolent drug offenders into treatment instead of into prisons. millions of americans will be able to get that under federal health care reform. many experts recognize the country cannot arrest itself out of the problem of drug addiction. one of the accused bombers was living on state welfare benefits. and his wifenaev and daughter received the benefits. those benefits ended in 2012 when the couple stopped meeting the income eligibility levels. both of the parents received benefits and dzhokhar and tamerlan were recipients of the benefits when they were younger. obamants show the administration was warned as early as 2010 that an electric car maker was not meeting targeted goals tied to a half billion dollar government loan. they continue to receive money until june of 2011 when the energy department suspended its support. the company received $192 million before it

southwest bureau chief from forbes, christopher helman. [no audio]

host: christopher helman, thinking so much. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] 2013. i hereby appoint the honorable rodney l. davis to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, john a. boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the order of the house of january 3, 2013, the chair will now recognize members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning hour ebate. the chair will alternate recognition between the parties with each party limited to one hour and each member other than the majority and minority leaders and the minority whip each, to five minutes but in no event shall debate continue beyond 11:50 a.m. the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. smith, for five minutes. mr. speaker, the senate immigration bill never secures the border. it plans to mostly secure the high-risk sectors which are less than half the border, and there is no guarantee this will happen