on the local level, chapters partner with local community faith based and civic organizations and we've also stepped up efforts to ensure communities to 11 organizations of current disaster information. i would like to acknowledge to ms. durden the good work united way has been doing in this area. in addition we cultivate its strength in partnerships with such diverse groups as help nationwide to national association of colored people to the legal services corporation in the buddhist foundation and an additional we've worked closely with national association interpreters, translators to national virtual translation center, national council of la raza, national disability rights network and save the children. we've also worked with pat rights groups such as u.s. humane society. seeing my time is short i will move on to say that the red cross is also involved and continuing to improve

the local decision making. this simply says to the school districts, have a plan, or don't have a plan, but you've got to tell the parents and let them make their judgment on the -- on the valid i have to the plan so they can decide as a parent, then, whether they want to go forth. this is not just a tribute to phylicia, though it is in some part. it is an effort to prevent these tragedies from happening again. that's why the national parent teachers association, the national school boards association, and the national education association as well as colleagues on both sides of the aisle have supported it. i thank the gentleman for yielding. mr. gohmert: reclaiming my time, i did want to yield to you, i wasn't sure with the way the conversation was going if you had adequate time respond and i want to give you that chance and had the time to do so. and i do appreciate the gentleman's position. and i would say that if it pertained to school trips, field trips that crossed state lines and particularly as here whe

they forced farmers, local residents, local shopkeepers to contribute to the insurgency.they call this protection money or gifts. in many cases as opposed to receiving actual cash, because in rural areas there's not a lot of money floating around. they actually receive physical items. they will get motorcycles, vehicles, mobile phones. because the insurgents and change votes all the time to try to avoid detection like the type that killed us money. they will demand that the locals find a phone unit and the chips that go inside them. and afghanistan is a country where the phone system is pay-as-you-go so they will demand a card that provide credit on those phones. food, even medical care. one of the interesting thing i found was a hospital in pakistan which is owned by a drug smuggler. and taliban soldiers can go there and seek medical care. they also even pay for taliban soldiers to come and take r&r in pakistan, incredibly. the taliban also protect drug shipments as they leave the farm areas and head toward the border areas. that will involve actually providing armed hea

i want to thank all the folks at state, local, federal level who help our fellow citizens in disaster. in myrtle beach we had a huge fire. the fire did a lot of damage to myrtle beach. it's not just hurricanes. the red cross was there so hurricanes are what we're talking about. so coastal communities can be hit by many different ways. ron osborn, the director of the emergency management division office of the general could not be here but he prepared a report about hurricane preparedness and i'd like to submit it to the record. they're doing a major exercise in south carolina today. ron is a very smart guy and i'd like to put this in the record. >> without objection. >> and one final thought, as you talk about -- you know, when you go down to the coast of south carolina, land is obviously very valuable. but when -- there are a lot of minority communities. where do they go? their people have been literally there generation after generation after generation and where do they go and what do they do. from someone who may live in nebraska or in the upper part of south carolina where hurric

they are a force multiplier for the local and state responders and again, after with your leadership upon my confirmation one of my first visits is general mckinley commanding the national guard bureau having worked closely on that relationship, and again, we have a very strong statewide mutual aid system under pnac and we leverage that with national guard so as the unit's rotate in and out we have capability to identify other states and in addition to that there is a lot of work done to make sure that things such as joint operation center are ready to go and support each other and i think it is a good team and it is a key component of the national defense strategy but most important they are the first of the assets available to the governors on the authority and those governors can request from other state governors additional guard units as part of their authority managing a disaster. as far as the reserve component there's actually requirements provided post-katrina emergency reform act. for fema the bill building more response and training capabilities within our reserve force an

on the local level, we partner with local community organizations and have stepped up efforts to ensure organizations have disaster in permission -- information. i would like to acknowledge the work done in this area. we called it a strong partner shops -- develop strong partner -- developed a strong partnerships with various organizations. in addition, we worked closely with the national association of judicial interpreters and translators, the national virtual translation center, the national council of la raza, the disability rights network, and save the children. worked for groups such as u.s. humane society. seeing that my time is short, i will move on to say that the red cross is also involved in continuing to approve our response in a cost-effective way. the most vulnerable are magnified by disasters at the same time the charitable donations are decreasing. like many, we are faced with financial challenges. the major disasters of 2008, wild fires, flooding, and hurricanes, created expenses that far outpaced the nation's. with that, i will conclude my presentation. if you have que

on the local level chapters partner with local communities to my face and civic organizations and also stepped up efforts to assure that committed these two and one organizations hacker disaster information. it relied to a knowledge to ms. durden the good work that the united way has been doing in this area. in addition we cultivated, and strengthen partnerships from such diverse groups as hope nationwide, the national association of colored people, the legal services corporation and the buddhist foundations. in addition we were close to the national association judicial interpreters, translators, the national rich will translation center, national council later, national disability rights work and save the children, and also worked with groups such as u.s. him in society. seeing that my time is short i will move on to say that this red cross is also in moral two in continuing to improve our disaster response and cost-effective way, the economic turndown in the post magnified by disasters at the same time that the donations to charitable organizations are decreasing. like many nonprofi

most states and local governments cannot offer that level of protection. many cannot afford to offer even basic protective services for instances during a trial within which the procedures -- that the proceedings in a small town might be all too evident to gangs in the area. h.r. 1741, the witness security protection grant program act directs that the attorney general to award grants to state and local governments to establish and maintain witness protection programs. mr. speaker, it is very clear that this not only is a well worthwhile program whose time has come but that in fact it could be a real cost saving to the taxpayers from the federal level. federal prosecution tends to be more expensive. in the case of gang, drug and other activities, there is almost always a dual nexus, one in which the state or local courts can try the gang members one in which the federal government can find federal statutes to try under. unfortunately, without an effective witness protection program, localities may often choose to move a case to federal court where witness p

i mean, the economy has to be about making a living in our local communities. and we are going dead wrong if we can't have a business model that rewards local success and gives people in a community -- they're willing to take a risk, to do a job, provide a service, related to their customers. if they don't have a place in the economy in the auto future of this country. you know, it's almost as though each one of the manufacturers wants to have one dealer on steroids that can sell to everybody in the country over the internet and it just ain't going to work. so mr. chairman, and mr. walden i appreciate you having this hearing. my hope is that we can find a way where there is a place that includes our local car dealers who have been doing so much for so many for so long. thank you very much. >> thank you, mr. welch. you have time? if you have an opening statement, a 3-minute opening statement. now would be the time. give yourself a second and get situated there. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate this hearing and the circumstances that bring us here today.

they force farmers and local residents, local shopkeepers to contribute to the insurgency they call it protection money. in many cases as opposed to receiving actual cash because in rural areas there is not a lot of money floating around percolate actually receive physical items. they get motorcycles, mobile phones because the insurgents change phones all the time to avoid detection. they will demand the locals provide them with phone units and the chips to go inside them and afghanistan is a country where the phone system is pay as you go so they will demand a card that provides credit on the phone. food and even medical care. one of the interesting things i found a hospital in pakistan that is owned by a drug smuggler and the taliban soldiers can go there and seek medical care they even pay for taliban soldiers to go to r&r the taliban also protects drug shipments as they leave the farm areas and head toward the border area. that will involve actually providing arms to protect drug shipments as they go down the afghanistan highway and on the smuggling trails and also involves increas

she said you speak locally, you dress locally and know what is going on so you must be working for someone else. >> host: i did fine that in pakistan, of course, when the plumbing breaks, the central intelligence agency does get blamed. sometimes words fail using. the vocabulary doesn't reach, and you can call this book a work of journalism but it's better than that. there's should how much serious art tis industry and objective and i keep coming back to the amazing objecttivity of a young person writer who was able to achieve in a portrait of this incredibly complex society. so, i do have to warn you one thing. i think you may be in real physical danger. not from the pakistani intelligence agency but from your peers who didn't good to pakistan, who stayed home on a campus and are trying to write the great american novel. this is a great piece of writing, and nicholas schmidle. the book is to live or parish forever, and i am just plain jealous, congratulations, nick. >> guest: thanks. >> pat robertson is the found are of the christian broadcasting network. here he provides advice on how to

so i didn't have to dress in local clothes. before i went to the taliban area as i was telling my hair to try to blend in because the fear factor was there and bangladeshi good will into any village, talk to people, ask questions. it was very easy to work. a very simple country in terms of simple people that don't come with a lot of psychological baggage the pakistanis to often. >> host: that is their tradition which is very different. but in your book explains to the degree why extremism hasn't gotten the attraction in bangladesh which is another huge muslim country. >> guest: right. bangladesh in 1971 many people will tell you bangladesh fought for independence to free itself of the is dramatization that pakistan was trying to impose. geographically, i mean, india, the second largest country in the world, ferret largest was in the middle of pakistan and bangladesh sogegian graphically it was an unattainable notion that these would be one country. the pakistani establishment based in the west wing pakistan as we know was tryin

information, all the local service data, in a standardized form. this is vital because it gives people the power to hold local government to account and to develop new public services. they would be able, for instance, to have services like local verses that have worked for you that tell teenagers when every sports center is open. they also allow you to compare councils to see which are providing value for money so residents can demand the same from their own local authority. but today we're enacting further steps towards true free come of information. -- freedom of information. there are over 100,000 public bodies producing a huge amount of public information. these range from school league tables to health outcomes in the health service to public sector job vacancies, but most of this information is kept sort of locked up by the state, and what is published is mostly released in formats that means the information can't be searched or can't be used with with other applications like, for instance, an online map. now, this stands in the way of true

we have seen innovative prepared this efforts between the local and state governments, in states such as florida. but these are not replicated across all of the states vulnerable. we have to conclude that community prepared this and private and public collaboration, and mutual dependence is lacking. this will create realistic -- business and government are making the case that crisis preparedness is essential to the economic and physical survival. there is very little margin for error in terms of the efficiency with how we respond to and recover from a disaster. they have seen the value of businesses designate an officer to work with the government to recover from a crisis. this and the collaboration enhance the resiliency because if something bad happens, the officials are talking at the right time about the right issues. i look forward to your questions. >> it is an honor to testify before you on behalf of the red cross. we will share with you the details, about how to respond to the challenges facing the american people. i would like to thank him for his work and the appreciation o

[laughter] >> unfair. >> is it worth building up local belief systems, local interpretations of faith in areas where accidental guerillas might be emerging or has globalization basically meant that's not possible? that those belief systems have lost much of what is distinctive and it's not doable. >> well, the answer is very simple. it depends. [laughter] >> but the explanations are a little more complex. when i was in indonesia in the 1990s i was working with ex-members with a separatist muslim organization that was across three different provinces in indonesia. those guys were xenophobic, traditional, orthodox, socratic. they had a strong overtone to their theology. they believed in charms. they were very much like traditional northern western islam in their belief system. a large number of the people that were working with me in the 1990s joined g.i., the al-qaeda ally in 2001. those guys had an arab-centric world view. they had a completely different theology to the j.i. guys and d.i. was focused not only in indonesia. they had a global focus. why would people join two such theolo

first is the local community. readers come to our coverage from everything from the local school system to with the obama administration is doing. second, we have a large and growing national audience. 90% of our page views are outside the market and we have never spent $1 marketing ourselves out of this market. our job is to serve these two audiences and to do it on multiple platforms at the same time the cut costs and explore new -- new ways to invest in technology trade is a tall order, but that is what we're doing great we were one of the first papers to invest heavily in building a web site. our reporters are on facebook and twitter. we won an emmy for a video. we're trying to enhance what they have always done, which is good storytelling. which is formed a new unit in the newsroom which is going to do just that, multimedia storytelling. people often ask me if i believe we're going to have printed newspapers and the future. the answer is that i do not know but they will be around for many years to come. i do

if we did that, it would be sending printing presses to state and local governments. bonds would be as good as cash. that would give the printing press to sacramento. that would be very dangerous. what if local governments are compelled to freeze employment and start to be a better. we are in very tough times. host: we have someone on the democrat line. caller: what about the outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries? i am a victim of an outsource. i work for a company that had a facility in south carolina. it made components for electronics for the automotive industry. all kinds of industries. they shut the plant down and put 1000 people out of work. they shipped the equipment to china and to mexico looking for slave wages. i am unemployed and not on the tax roll. i do not have any purchasing power. this company gets tax breaks by moving those jobs abroad. can you comment on that? guest: done a cast -- dynacast has to survive. that is the company you were speaking of. the context is much the fund by the government in washington. it as neglected the fact that some of o

by the end of 1966 of local movement of local african american activists had not only the student nonviolentcommittee, a grass roots innovation that was led to associated with the black power. by the end of 1966 at only have they succeeded in registering in the majority of african american voters, but they had created an independent countywide political party tech challenge the local white democrats for control of the county courthouse. and it a political party that was a a mere shadow of the normal democratic party which revolved around a foreign policy, but they created a radically democratic party that all people have the right and hold within them the possibility to control or make the decision that affects their lives. they said the sharecroppers and people with limited educations ought to become the sheriff's. it ought to have a right to become probate judge. so it is a remarkable story of transition and possibility going from a complete and absolute supremacy to the creation of this independence. >> how does that happen? >> grass roots organizing. with a handful of people deciding tha

so you need local regional planning. local folks putting the plan together to determine what is the best way to move forward and so that is the principle i think we need to adhere to, bottom-up rather than top-down as far as planning the chance mission system of the country. i would also suggest under these conditions and given the fact we are going to have to move in more in efficient transmission system we are going to have to move the transmission across the state lines that we may run into difficulties and we may run into delays and quite frankly the national best interest isn't being served. so i think we have got while we are having the local planning we have got to also make sure we don't have impediments put in the way that is going to prevent that local planning from being implemented. we've got to make sure the overall national policy of moving across the state lines is dealt with. and for that reason we do think that there is quite have to be some 40 on the federal level as far as siding is concerned. but agai

this package is only going to shore up state and local governments.ost: we have an opinion caller from florida. -- an independent caller from florida. caller: what our economy in trouble, we have an undue burden on all americans. are we the world's keeper? are we meant to be over in the middle east salting everybody's problems? guest: mixing foreign policy in our domestic economic circumstance is a mistake. we have some problems with our economic problems abroad. we will always have some issues. to blame it on the un is silly. to limit on foreign policy problems is also selling. -- to blame it on foreign policy problems is also silly. if you think about it, most of the policies are determined in washington. the u.n. does not determine what our foreign policy is. it does not determine our economic policy domestically. it does not determine how we deal with china or others. we determine that. what beijing does has little to do with what the u.n. says it should do. conservatives like to use the jargon that is not helpful. host: here is a tweed question.

still, the state and local level provides an important venue for all parties to be heard. state regulators know the geography and citizenry better than any federal agency can. our processes are transparent and give all parties a voice. what some may consider roadblocks and impediments we consider process. let me tell you more of what we're doing in vermont. it has a planning process that analyzes potential transmission constraints over a 20-year horizon and considers various alternatives including targeted energy efficiency programs that would address any identified, reliable issues. the process ensures that solutions to transmission constraints 11 the long-term needs of consumers at the lowest cost. after decades, without major investment, the public service board has approved three major transmission projects from 2005 to 2008 with total projected capital over half a billion dollars. at the regional level, these without any transmission investme investment, more than 4 million has been placed in service and new england since 2002. despite the activity on the say the and

we the local taxpayer make royalties and the private company created jobs and made money. that's the way you do it. we cut our consumption from a million gallons of fuel a year to 850,000. and when gas was $4 a gallon, that is very significant. around the country, we did some simple things like change the lights, in a stop light from the 150-what the bulb to an l.e.d. bulb. in every intersection, could you save $800 per intersection and multiply that across the country, the carrot versus the stick we're seeing now. and you may have talked about this before i got here, but we were faced within days of getting the stimulus package which arrived as a 455-page document and came back to conference with 1,071. i carried it around in my car, of which we had four or five hours to read it. we got it at 9:00 clock on friday morning and passed it that afternoon. and we passed the stimulus bill. only three had been passed. so what every local government, every business, every state in the union tightens their belt when their revenue is down. what do we do? we go up 8%. we passed an 8%

the local communities, league of cities, counties are all very enthusiastic about this. administrator lisa jackson put out an announcement about this program. i'm sure there will be hundreds of applications from all over this country. climate change is one of the most serious issues facing our country. we held hearings. and brought in representatives from all the federal agencies. and they alltel us that they can see the impacts of climate change on the federal lands across the country. i mean people are talking about bug infestation and they're talking about the effect of this bug infestation which has a devastating effect on our forestry and our trees. and then we have the fire issues. the fire season is now one month longer on each end, so we have drought, bug infestations and longer fire seasons. we have all these things happening because of global warming and climate change. and we have to deal with that. and we have to have our communities involved. we have to our rural communities involved. so i think the investments that we're making here and the research that we

local levees in south louisiana failed again. they failed in katrina, they failed in rita, they failed in gust aff and ike and as the administrator knows because he is from florida, the people of south florida are very concerned about their water management issues and whether their dikes and levees and water will hold and that's the subject of another hearing. recovery has been frustrating for loggle lo governments despite many impriveyfplgts which i will mention in a moment. i believe we're still relying mr. fuge gate too much on trailers in order to jump start recoveries and we're going to be pressing hard on new housing and shelter options from this committee. i will continue to say that providing these communities with $5 million in community loan assistance is probably not what charleston or savena or miami or new orleans or atlanta or baton rouge or any number of communities they can't do much with $5 million and that's a all the law allows them to borrow. so administrator few gate from fema will discuss the 2008 response t

this legislation focuses on the centers for disease control as well as state and local capabilities for responding to food-borne illness. it has three main provisions. first, direct the centers for disease control to enchance food borne systems to improve the collection, analysis, reporting and usefulness of data on food-borne systems. this includes better sharing of information among federal, state and local agencies and as well as with food industry and the public. it includes developing improved epidemiology tools and procedures to better detect food-borne disease clusters and improve trace backs to identify the contaminated food products. our state is proud to be the home of hormel and land of lakes and general mills -- many other food processing companies -- and they are eager to help with this. often they know the best way to trace back these food-borne illnesses and they want to have safe food and they are interested in helping. second, it directs the centers for disease control to improve food-borne illness surveillance including providing support to state laboratories and agenc

, regionaling and you need local folks to decide what's the best way to move forward on this.o that's the principle that we need to adhere to, the bottom up from the top down as far as planning the transmission system of this country. i would also suggest under these conditions and given the fact that to have a more efficient transmission system and we'll have to move the transmission across state lines that we may run into difficulties and incumberences and we might run into delays that the national best interest is not being served. so i think we've got to -- while we're having the local planning, we've got to also make sure that we don't have impediments put in the way that will prevent the local planning from being implemented. we've got to make sure that the overall national policy of moving across state lines is dealt th and for that reason we do think that there is going to have to be some authority on the federal level as far as siding is concerned. again, it should be a focus on certain qualifiers. as we look at that siding authority. first of all, there should be fac

the bill strengthens our committee to -- commitment to our state and local partners by providing $3.96 billion for grant and traping programs, including $33 million for emergency performance grants, our one true all hazards grant program, $950 million for state homeland security grants, $887 million for the urban area security initiative, which targets the highest risks of terrorism, and $800 million for firefighter assistance grants. within that $800 million for firefighter assistance grants, $420 million is for safer staffing grants, personnel grants, and $380 million is for basic equipment and training grants. the additional funding for safer is part of a targeted and temporary effort to stem the tide of layoffs and ensure our communities are protected by an adequate number of firefighters. in addition to the increased funding, the supplemental appropriations bill just passed allowed the waiver of certain restrictions and broadens the use of safer to allow the grants to be used for the hiring, rehiring and retention of firefighters for fiscal years 2009 and 2010. madam chairman, one

more power for local government we agree but let's not stop there. why not abolish the regional quangos that have taken away from local government. we support great independence but why can't the prime minister say today that these watchdogs should be freely elected and not appointed by the whip's office? this is -- i accept this is a difficult decision for him in a way it's a difficult decision for me 'cause it means giving up patronage. we will back a parliamentary standards authority to supervise all matters relating to mps paying expenses but there are still serious questions to answer, not least how it relates to this house and to whom it will be ultimately accountable. the problem is, mr. speaker, the prime minister has promised changes countless times before. he promised it for his labour party two years ago again in his first statement as prime minister in the house, again in his speech on liberty in the autumn of 2007. he promised it in two queen speeches when he specifically pledged a constitutional renewal bill and it was first moved in no

, is on paper -- local, zoned paper. it will give you a page of local metro coverage. because they're offering you their international and national coverage and you cannot get that on line anymore for free, because they're going to back up on that, you are going to see this sort of modern version of the the zoned papers which were previously regional or metro news. that is the worst case scenario. i would rather see locally owned papers survive. i do not know if that is going to happen. i do think that journalism has a value and eventually that value will restore itself. it is bigger cannot make it through the transition, we're going to see new start-ups. they're going to pay for with online subscriptions for these new start-ups. here's the thing we also missed. in my time as a journalist, we lost a lot of subscriptions. the gas, the trucks, the wood pulp, the lost money there. it made it harder is forced to see the future -- it made it harder for us to see the future. it is $20 per month to get "the baltimore sun." if y

at the local, state, and national level. and i'm certainly would be willing to entertain language that would suggest that there ought to guarantee that these would listen to our states and our communities and what their priorities are. i wouldn't want to mandate that be the only criteria we use in determining these issues. >> mr. chairman, with all the new programs that we've got, what we're afraid of is having a bunch of stove pipes that don't really address the needs of the state or the local -- and i'm sure senator coburn would be happy to revise this to make sure that the three most important things of each of the communities would be considered as well. but the information ought to be coming that direction. we've got so many federal programs already, workforce investment act is one of those, we have stove pipes what you can use the money for. just because you have a bigger need over here and you don't have anybody that qualifies doesn't mean this money can be shifted over here. >> mr. chairman, that stove pipe issue is

211 call specialists of america 25 states send people to the community and there were hundreds of local volunteers that responded. as the result of that in lonrho, to 11 responded to more than 111,000 calls in two months. the call volume peaked at 7,358 the day that rita hit. after 2005 we were even better prepared for 2008. going into the hurricane season in 2008 we had a partially integrated telephony, statewide disaster plan, centralized the sastre database and 24 hour day 70 a week coverage. 211 louisiana answered more than 170,000 calls between gustav hitting august 31st and a december 16th 2008. in the peak of that we were assisted by the 211 system of california which was invaluable expanding capacity and a today window when ike hit texas and the timber texas 211 answered 157,000 calls an absolutely incredible response. inland, the aftermath of hurricane ike caused flooding and wind damage throughout the midwest. the 211 in missouri and iowa, indiana and ohio place significant roles in the recovery effort. lagat one tero nine preparation is well under way and i'm pleased to repor

on the local level, chapters partner with local community, faith-based and vividdic organizations. we have also stepped up efforts to insure that community two on one organizations have current disaster information. i would like to acknowledge ms. sternun. in addition we've cultivated and strengthened partnerships with such groups as hope nationwide, the national association of colored people, the legal services corporation, and the buddhist foundation. in addition, we work closely with the national association of judicial interpreters, translators, the national virtual translation center, national counsel of la raza, national disability rights network and save the children. we've also worked with pet rights groups such as the u.s. humane society. seeing that my time is short, i'll just move on to say that the red cross is also involved in continuing to improve our disaster response in a cost-effective way. the economic turndown and needs of the most vulnerable are magnified by disasters at the same time that the nation's charitable organizations are decreasing. like many non-profi

communities to me their local employment means. >> mr. chairman, you have a national commission that will set the priorities and is going to set the priorities and everybody is going to be subservient even with their input there are going to be subservient to a national commission and what we need is of the state's to reign supreme on how this money gets spent where rather than to have to go through the exercise of demonstrating to our bureaucrat in washington that disagrees with the savings it needs. we all know that happens now and every program have got. if you have the federal nexus with the news around the state's next the states don't end up with the flexibility and another is a state commission but there's also 20 new programs run by the federal government in this title of this bill. 20 new federal programs. one of we don't need that new federal program in connecticut over oklahoma? why don't we just get them the money and give them the flexibility to spend money. they're not stupid. we don't need washington telling us how we spend

they said, look, we have needs at the local level and there are resources at the federal government, but sometimes those two things aren't really in sync. and so what this is it says simply that the assistant secretary of homeland security will hold hearings if this amendment was passed and those hearings are really about the subject of whether current allowable uses of grant funds are sufficient to meet the daily needs of the -- the daily security needs and the transit security needs of these local agencies. then after that happens, after that conversation happens in these hearings to come back to congress and to report. and i think that this is one of these areas where there's a great deal of common ground. there's uncertainty sometimes at the state and local level about how federal funds fit into their agenda. we all know that we in the congress are trying to help and this is a structured way to have that conversation. because when it comes down to it there's nearly 12 million americans that are riding on passenger trains each day. and that six times as many as fly in our sky. and

because they support the local powers. the local dictators. some people think there is democracy in the west or in america and in europe. which is not true. because maybe you have some freedom here, some democracy. but it's very limited. you must -- you must have a lot of money to be elected president. if you do not have money, you cannot be barack obama. you cannot be. in our region, dictatorship is very visible but here dictatorship is more hidden, but they are connected together. and that's why when our organization was closed down, our organization was closed down in 1991. because we stood against the gulf war. so there was -- we didn't hear big voices or the american authorities or the global powers say, why you? you closed this association. so the problem is, we are not really oppressed by our local regime only. we are oppressed globally and, in fact, you cannot separate the global from the local. now, they use one word, glocal. it means they are collected. the other thing is, of course, is the struggle. is a continuous struggle but we a

the decision in connecticut where a local -- some local municipality decided to trample the fifth amendment, just walk right in and take somebody's private home in order to make a strip mall so they could tax the strip mall. and the supreme court jumped to the defense of the local government saying, oh, that's just fine and they just ignored the fifth amendment. and so we see this continuously growing government and if you take look at where we're spending money, it's just absolutely amazing. and here's an example, this is a town that is supposedly almost bankrupt, i think it's in rhode island. the city on the verge of bankruptcy spends $550,000 in stimulus money for a skateboard park. now what in the world is the federal government doing, doing bicycle racks in d.c. in million-dollar neighborhoods, skate parks somewhere else? we're putting it all in here and claiming somehow it's going to make unemployment better and yet the numbers are going nuts. the president, what's going on with the white house press corps, he claims it just created 150,000 jobs and yet you see the data going, we're a

they often are the mainstays of the local communities, they contribute substantial taxes, support local supports the community events and have good reputations. they are the established, hard working and struggling in a horrible economic environment and soon their employees will be out of work. by one estimate the termination notices may cost upwards of 190,000 well paying jobs. in the validity of the cost issue is a particular interest since the press reported yesterday the house majority leader said he has spoken to the white house auto task force and an acknowledged that the automakers will say no immediate cost savings from closing the dealerships. mr. henderson, you say gm is going to be more accountable, let's talk about accountability -- two mid the closure decisions, however, the maine, where they may come amid the recent decisions to reverse closures of 41 dealerships. mr. anderson, you say gm will be focused on customers and less talk about customers -- how is it the mustard eliminated dealerships which compete with each other for price, quality and service. it has been set ou

first, the local community. readers who come to us for our coverage of everything from local school system to what the obama administration is doing and how it might affect local businesses. second, we have a large and growing national audience but comes to us for coverage of washington -- the of the redskins or the u.s. government. as i said, 90 percent of the page views on the web are from outside the market and we never spent a market the dollar marketing ourselves outside the market. our job is to serve the audience is and what on multiple platforms. at the same time that would cut costs and explore new ways to make money on digital platforms. it is a tall order, but that is what we are doing. we will one of the first major papers to invest heavily in building a website. today our reporters are at face book and twitter. it may surprise you to know our newspaper won an emmy for travis fox the deal covers. our reporters are carrying video cameras and learning to use new media to enhance what they have always d

these are local situations. tip o'neill said all politics are local. this digital television transition is local as well. >> are analog repeaters an issue? i was told that albuquerque was not as prepared because they have so many repeaters. >> only poll broadcast companies were to transition to more. low-power stations are not yet transitioned. some of them are transition and some are not. it could be years before all of the transmission facilities in the united states are operating in digital. that is going to be a long-term transition on top of what we did for full power stations to date. >> we thank you very much. we appreciate it. >> thank you. >> tomorrow on "washington journal," michael f. linder and john lot -- michael ettlinger and john lott. the nathan guttman washington journal, a lot at 7:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. this week, on "newsmakers," senator jon kyl prepares for senate confirmation hearings. >> i was reading last night. there is a lot of reading involved. i was reading very troubling things last night. she said that you can int

we restored $400 million to this legislation, money to help our local police, our local sheriffs, our state police as they do their job in very tough times. as a matter of fact back home, providing safety to our citizens. this legislation has been very responsibly considered. and while our appropriation is less than the president requested, it still goes a long way to adequately fund all the accounts in the bill. now the gentleman makes light of a 1% cut, but understand a 1% cut in a $64 billion bill is $644 million. $644 million is $200 million above the scaap hole we had to fill. $200 million above the $400 million in the state and local law enforcement assistance grants that we filled. so the gentleman, 1%, when it is said like that doesn't sound like much. but this bill we bring to the floor today is below the president's request and at the same time, we have provided funding for scaap. we provided funding for state and local law enforcement to the tune of $400 million above the president's request. state and local law enforcement across the country -- and i would just imagine in

the state should be involved because they are the most knowledgeable about local issues but it in the the day we have to get a regional transmission grid bill. at you have heard here there are literally thousands upon thousands of megawatts of renewable energy that this country needs to deploy and we need to deploy it now. if we start now we are years and years away from our goal line so please, let's have this conclusion and bring it to oni thank you for an opportunity to speak here today. our next witness is christopher miller. he is president of the piedmont in our mental council, focused on conservation issues in the piedmont region of virginia. we thank you for being here sir. >> thank you congressmen markey. thank you for the opportunity to testify on behalf of piedmont in parliament the council and also for lynn trustingly and conservation organizations throughout the country. we are happy to be a member of the land trust alliance in we have been working hard on this issue with them. they asbestos to express some of their concerns. i have a couple of maps, which i hope the staf

to not define our response by capabilities but by what is needed to support an impacted state and local government, recognizing there are many parts of that partnership. but as an example, it doesn't seem to me to be very effective in search and rescue operations that if we're not reaching the injured quickly, that we're mobilizing, staging, assessing and it's still two to three days into the event, we haven't changed that outcome. so i would radser take the approach of let's define what that outcome should be. let's work in partnership and say rather than to wait and bring it from the outside, how do we build that communication within the states? and from the federal response, how do we do that. but speed and stableation needs to be based not on what we can build but look at what could happen. and go if that does, have we got all the parts of the team working together? including our support from the national guard, from our active duty and reserve components to achieve that? and not merely go we're going to incremently improve something. and i think that starts getting back to the crux

to building, zoning, even local planning. this is part of our liberty. where we live, what we eat, how we run our lives, this is what it's at stake. this is a fight between the globalists and those people who do believe in liberty and justice. we call them patriots. we call them people around the world who do believe in these western values of dignity for the individual and freedom and justice. even our diet has been targeted by those claiming that animal flat lens make meat the enemy of climate. we won't have bash be cues in our back yard even hamburgers. no one could ever go that far? what is going on here is laying the foundation for a large -- for extensive controls that are now up to the individual or up to the local government being given to a central government. if you aren't frightened by this, you should be. we have a movement of zealots who cannot admit they made a mistake and always attack the other person rather than having an honest discussion, with coupled with self-serving interests. they have joined in a polit

we have a local government corporation and the capacity to bring the coalition together to help deliver this project in our state and provide service for 440 mile texas debone court or that senator hutchison mentioned, you bring texans together along the gulf coast corridor to new orleans and east coast and south central corridor into oklahoma city, little rock and memphis and ultimately into the midwest. this project, impressive in itself, will require a unique part of of federal, state and local officials and the private sector and we would very much look forward to working with this committee with amtrak to make that happen. thank you for having us here. looking forward to questions. >> miss fleming, we welcome you and ask you to make your remarks. >> mr. chairman, ranking no. 19, thune, ranking member hutchison, thank you for the opportunity to discuss passenger rail, and the reinvestment act. the $8 billion provided by the act for high speed and other intercity passenger rail project have focused more attention on and generated a great deal of anticipation about the possibility of

dealers because you felt the local dealer was underperforming? can you provide us a number? >> first of all, with regard to the multiple sister platforms, we had to do six of those and they are not our request. it's because we have stand-alone dealers. if there's a jeep or a dodge stand-alone only dealer and we don't do a dodge version of the van, then they can't be supported. we have stopped making those and the dealer body stand-alone is not viable any longer. that's the reason for it in the cost. the answer is we can provide you with a list. it's not a large number of those points that we are going to be going back into, but i can give you that number. >> would each of the companies provide us with the number of the dealerships that you are going to close and that you will then replace because you felt the current dealerships were underperforming? i want to ask mr. lopez and mr. whatley. you heard the manufacturers suggest you're a burden and a cost center. you say you are not. >> yes, sir. >> they say they advertise for you, they -- >> i have