mr. cole: mr. speaker, by direction of the committee on rules i all up house resolution 600 and ask for its immediate consideration. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the resolution. the clerk: house calendar number 134, house resolution 700. resolved, that the requirement of clause 6-a of rule 13 for a 2/3 vote to consider a report from the committee on rules on the same day that it's presented to the house is waived with respect to any resolution reported through the legislative day of september 5, 2014, providing for consideration or disposition of measures relating to the ongoing humanitarian crisis on the u.s. southern border, border security, and related immigration law. section 2, it shall be in order at any time through the legislative day of september 5, 2014, for the speaker to entertain motions that the house suspend the rules as though under clause 1 of rule 15, relating to measures addressing the ongoing humanitarian crisis on the u.s. southern border, border security, and

mitchell. >> right. >> the entity includes mr. shep and mr. mendez. >> right and the various members. >> and that's what is before you so mr. shep is shaking his head when i see that i'm needing clarification. >> i'm not at the directors hearing. >> i'd like someone to clarify. if you're finished with our rebuttal >> i won last question. >> i have a question too. >> we can skip over that. >> during the directors hearing for example, this evening we have a lot of public against mr. mendez. during - and i don't see anything for mr. mendez wellness clinic 33 at the directors meeting when was the audience there >> there were supporters in opposition and a hearing with the same turnout as well. >> thank you. >> that's one of my questions. >> you do background checks an applicant. >> correct. >> and on this case who is the background done and what's the scope. >> in this instance it was only on terry are a mitchell and again what's the dependent e stent of the background it's criminal. >> the defenders and if a life scan had been done on mr. - >> an

now mr. chairman, mr. m people -- mr. chairman, many people voted for nixon, most republicans and a lot of democrats. i did not. but those who did have h no way of knowing that the man in whom they had placed their trust would so abuse it. no one who voted for richard nixon need be ashamed of that vote for no one could have known what was happening or what was to occur. we've been disappointed in him, and i know that the vast majority of people who supported him do not condone the way he abused that power. mr. chairman, to permit such behavior, to go unanswered can only have the affect of destroying the american people's faith in our constitutional form of government. i yield the balance of my time. >> the gentleman from new york, mr. fisher is recognized. >> thank you mr. chairman. mr. chairman, in the way article i concerns obstruction of justice, article ii as i understand it is based on abuse of power, or expressed in the negative, the constitutional duty to take care that the laws are faithfully executed. we heard so

mrs. lowey: mr. speaker, as we close this debate, i'd like to address my remarks to our distinguished chairman with whom i have worked for quite a while and just once again i would like to say, this bill deserves a no vote and i look forward to working with you in a bipartisan way to pass a real , comprehensive immigration reform bill and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from new york yields back. the gentleman from kentucky is recognized. mr. rogers: mr. speaker, this is a fair bill. it solves a crisis on our border. it does so in a financially safe way, responsible way. it strengthens the border. it humanely treats those who are in our custody now. and arranges for them to be humanely returned to their home families, where the presidents of the three countries told us, we want these children back. and so this bill will do that. i urge an aye vote and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from kentucky yields back. all time for debate has e

mr. royce: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that the committee on foreign affairs be discharged from further consideration of house resolution 699. i ask for its immediate onsideration by the house. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman will withdraw his request until copies are at the desk. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? mr. royce: mr. speaker, i'm going to ask unanimous consent that the committee on foreign affairs be discharged from further consideration of house resolution 683, 6683, and ask for its immediate consideration. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the resolution. the clerk: house resolution 683, resolution expressing the sense of the house of representatives on the current situation in iraq and the urgent need to protect religious minorities from persecution from the sunni islamist insurningents and terrorist group the islamic tate in iraq, ifil expands its control over the areas in northwest

mr. ringel? how would the department treat the request today? >> it's treaty similarly but since i have been appointed we made procedurally changes and added staff in my department to specifically target these types of public record -- well, all record requests really, and so we have a better procedure in place to identify those planner who is are involved with processing materials so in fact -- for example ben fu and don louis were not the only two planners working on the case but the primary respondents to the records request so as part of that some of the records other than not provided to him because they were not in their possession but of other planners. >> so you're developing the pot cols but seems there are changes you're making in the department. >> there are draftic changes we're making. i am changing the metric policies and it will be brought to the planning commission for their approval and then forward to you for yours. >> questions? >> if i could follow up. when you say mr.

mr. cole: mr. speaker, for the purpose of debate only i yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from massachusetts, my friend, mr. mcgovern, pending which i yield myself such time as i may consume. soap the gentleman is recognized. mr. cole: during consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks . the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. mr. cole: mr. speaker, yesterday the rules committee met to report a rule that would provide for same-day authority for any resolution reported from the committee on rules related to the ongoing humanitarian crisis on the southern border, border security, and related immigration law through september 5 of 2014. additionally, the rule provides suspension authority through september 5, 2014, on the same topics. mr. speaker, this rule is very straightforward. it allows the house the maximum

mr. ram would have been informed of that if the supervisor knew of it and that he would have taken some disciplinary steps? >> he would have informed if they felt the department wasn't in compliance or the planners weren't responding in a timely fashion and to my understanding there was no knowledge of that of the supervisor at that time so in other words we felt they responded in a timely fashion and responding mr. ringel of all of the emails in possession of the planning department. >> you said you agreed with the report of our staff and in relation to the chronology and how this happened. is that correct? >> that's correct. >> in the report it does mention a number of times the gentleman asked for various records he was entitled to under the sunshine ordinance act and under the open records act, and was not given them and was given them later than the period he asked for them. you're aware of that? >> yes. >> okay. so what you're saying when you agree with your report you are agreeing

mrs. lowey: mr. speaker, mr. speaker, i'm pleased to yield two minutes to the gentleman from texas, mr. gallego. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas is recognized for two minutes. thank you, mr. speaker. if you read what reporters are already saying, they are saying that this isn't a serious bill that will ever become law. that opportunity was lost yesterday when the original bill was pulled. they are saying this bill does nothing because it isn't going anywhere once it leaves the house. the perception of the press and the american people is that this is all political theater. why don't we prove them wrong? why don't we cancel our travel plans and commit to staying here until we can agree on an actual solution to this border issue that we can put into a bill that might actually have a shot of becoming law? any single one of us who is married knows the importance of compromise. imagine what happens if you walk into your house every day and you tell your spouse, i really don't care what you think toda

mr. chairman. i think this particular issue is one of the most serious offenses alleged against the president. it relates back to one of the remarks i made in the opening session of this committee when i suggested that the liberty of this country is enormously fragile and had been subjected to an assault of which the likes we have not seen in our lifetime. i think in this particular case as an activity of the plumber indicates the insensitivity of the president to the constitutional obligation that he had as the president of this country to protect the people in their liberties. one of the bases, the points of a free society is that the law enforcement authority of that society is accountable. and the moment you destroy accountability of law enforcement authority, you jeopardize and endanger freedom of individual citizens and when the president denied the opportunity of the legitimate, law enforcement institutions of this government, the federal bureau of investigation and cia denied taki

mr. dennis? >> mr. chairman and my colleagues on the committee, i think perhaps this article, if the proof were here, would be more important in many respects than article i that we dealt with earlier, but the difficulty as i see it is whereas on article one you had a difficult matter of balancing proof and deciding whether the weight lay and whether a case had been made beyond a reasonable type of a dou doubt, i decided it had not been, but while you had that kind of a problem there, here where you might have the serious case if you had the evidence, you just don't really have the evidence. and i can't believe that we're going to impeach the president of the united states without the facts. now, it's difficult to go over the same ground, but let's just look quickly at what we're talking about. first is the irs. i was just talking about that a moment ago. the japanese had a sense in the old days they called dangerous thinking. and maybe on the basis of the conversation of september 15th you could convic

mr. slavitt, mr. cohen also was asked in his last appearance here in january about the issue on the risk corners and the risk sharing. the question came up about what if there is not enough money in the risk corridor to actually cover the premium shortfalls that the insurance companies are experiencing? and would he look to -- that was mr. cohen -- would he look to supplementing those funds from general revenue of the treasury of the united states? he couldn't answer the question. i asked him if he could provide us with a legal memorandum upon which he relied to obtain the ability to get funding from other sources if the internal funding was not enough to cover the cost of the risk corridors. that was january. i'm still waiting. i would like to know if i'm going to receive an answer to that question, and if so, when that answer might be forthcoming. fact of the matter is, both the department of health and human services and the white house failed to heed internal and external warnings about the lack o

thank you mr. pacheco can you switch to the other microphone if we're going to use that other microphone if you like and hello, everyone. >> my name is brenda r vi suffer from various medical problems but yo go into that. i was a member of the waterfall and there was a supervisor running that and i can't tell you all the names it got so terrible to bad that i left and i said i don't want to go into there there were employees engaging into their own products so i left and went simplifier i went to ocean street it was rebuilt and there was a person there they were very, very nice i went into the store and explored think medications you can take you don't have to smoke it you can put it into our tea or bread and butter whatever helped you to eat so like i said i left and came back and walked if and said oh, my gosh i was surprised by the medical professionalism i was impressed to help the other patient so anyway, i something happened i wasn't there are a person called me on the phone telling me do you

first would be for mr. kupiac and mr. carfang and mr. wilson.dealing with the issue of too big to fail which of course, is the wall street reform part of the dodd-frank act. it strikes me that since 1984, there were 18,000 community banks. now there are fewer than 7,000. the chairman indicated since 2008, we've lost 800 community banks. these are important banks to our communities. and with that kind of consolidation, it seems to me that not only hurts access to capital in rural areas but it also poses itself a systemic risk. i guess starting with mr. kupiec, are community banks, are they important to providing access to capital in our smaller rural main street communities? and by this consolidation, are we by it's very nature, promoting systemic risk? two things this act purportedly trying to prevent? >> absolutely. there's an fdic study a year or two ago when i was still there, and they looked into the community bank issue, and community banks are especially important in rural areas. in small towns and in places where large banks don't want to

mr. ringel and your investigation whether he violated or not the ordinance is that. he doesn't directly supervisor the people collecting the information or respond to mr. ringel regarding the matter so the way i see it there is no violation against the director except that he oversees a lot of departments with a lot of responsibilities. >> but the record right now as you're aware and comes from the sunshine ordinance that he did violate the ordinance and the question is are we going to sustain that or do something else, so given the fact there has been a finding that the director of planning of the city and county of san francisco violated ordinances relating to open governments and providing materials under the sunshine ordinance do you think it might have been -- not have been appropriate for him to come before us and told us why he thought we should not sustain this? >> well, again i am here on his behalf -- >> i understand. >> and we respectfully disagree with the finding and we agree

mr. magruder, mr. chapin, mr. porter, mr. crow, mr. ehrlichman, mr. coleson, all indicted and judged guilty of crimes. in remarks committed to this committee mr. colson i thought spoke rather eloquently to this point. he said and i'm quoting, if i have come to know one truth out of the morass known as watergate it is in our free society when the rights of one individual are threatened the liberties of all of us are threatened. what is done unto everyone may be done unto everyone. there is one other man i reacted to rather poignantly, that was mr. magruder when he was sentenced by the judge. he looked up at the judge and said, your honor i am sorry, i lost my moral compass. my ambition obscured my judgment and now i must look into the eyes of my wife, and see her pain, in the eyes of my children and see their confusion, in the eyes of my fellow man and see their contempt. but he said america will survive the jeb magruders and the watergates and i happen to agree with that principle. mr. chairman, the future of america is not dependent upon the success,

mr. wilson, i want to get back to you. in september 2012, icba survey found 55% of bankers decreased their mortgage business or stopped providing higher priced mortgage loans and higher priced mortgages that took effect in 2010. i wondered if your bank still does offer an issue mortgages and if so, have you decreased the number of mortgages because of regulatory uncertainty? >> yes, sir. most all of our mortgages would have fallen into the higher priced mortgage and we do not have the staff capabilities to escrow insurance and taxes. >> again, the last few seconds, thank you so much, all of you for being here and we do want to figure this out. we need to clean this up and ultimately i want to see community banks that are vibrant in our communities again and with that i yield back, chairman. >> the chair recognizes the gentleman from colorado. >> thank you, mr. chair. somebody mentioned the incredible cost of dodd frank to the system, but i just want to start that before dodd frank in the

mr. rose, can we go to your report? >> yes, mr. chairman. our recommendation is on page 36 of our report and based on discussions with the department of public health we do have a couple of revisionses to our recommendations which i will enunciate now. again, based on the expenditure data submitted by the department of public health, we recommend that you amend the proposed resolution to amend the not to exceed contract for children youth and families by 915,175 [speaker not understood] to the recommended 19,90 4.52 and adults by 53 3,554 from the requested 23 million 135,605 to the recommended 22 million 60 20 62. the total recommended reduction and the not to exceed contract amount is a million 4 48,718. we requested [speaker not understood] to the recommended, and this is the first, supervisor, instead of [speaker not understood] it should state 42,506 instead of 516, 5 14. and then in the second recommendation we recommend that you amend the proposed resolution, page 1 lines 14 through 17 to correctly state that the contract amounts are

mr. cain we tried weeks to get mr. cain the come and talk and we had to subpoena him to get him to come for the deposition last thursday. the american people have this information only because the committee has been asking questions and that's why the commissioner is here today. the individual hand-picked by the president to clean up this agency and that's why here here today to answer the questions. until we clear up all the facts and statements about louis learner's emaims, we'll continue to press for the truth. with that, i yield to the ranking member of the subcommittee, mr. cart wright. >> thank you, mr. koskin for coming today. we schedule these things on these little dohickies and it asks you, do you want to make this a recurring entry. when i see this, i want to say "yes" at this point. at this point, i am concerned that committee republicans are no longer using these hearings for the purpose of investigating what happened to the groups that were the subject of the inspector general's may 14th, 2013, report. th

mr. fugate says the v.a.'s failure to fix issues was depressing. veterans affairs department officials also testified at this hearing with members questioning why it was taking so long for the department's records to mirror the defense department's. this is just over two hours. [inaudible conversations] >> good morning. this hearing will come to order. i want to welcome everybody to today's hearing titled "assessing inadequacies in v.a. data usage for and services provided to visually-impaired veterans." my name's mike coffman, and prior to hearing testimony and asking questions of our witnesses, i ask each member state his or her name to assist our witnesses in identifying who is speaking. thank you for your cooperation. now let us begin. this hearing focuses on continued problems within v.a. that have caused its contribution to the vision center of excellence to stagnate, allow ared v.a. systems to continue to operate in noncompliance with section 508 of the americans with disabilities

seeing no questions, mr. rose, we'll go to your report, please. >> yes, mr. chairman, supervisor mar. on page 46 is our recommendation based on the budget submitted by dph. we recommend that you amend the proposed resolution to reduce the contract ton exceed amount by 8 million 4 63,117 from the requested 71,269,013, to [speaker not understood] and we recommend that you approve this resolution as amended. >> thank you, mr. rose. seeing no questions or comments, we'll open item number 12 up to public comment. anybody wishing to comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. [gavel] >> so move approval of the amendment. >> we can take that without objection. [gavel] >> and then the underlying item as a midved -- >> so moved. >> we can take that without objection. [gavel] >> madam clerk, can you call item number 13? ~ >> item number 13, resolution approving amendment no. 4 to airport contract 8974.9, construction management for terminal 3, boarding area e refurbishment project between pgh wong engineering, inc., and the city and county of san franc

[laughter] >> mr. president, aside from the special prosecutor's role, do you agree with the bar association that the law applies equally to all men, or do you agree with governor rockefeller that former president nixon should have immunity from prosecution? and specifically, would you use your pardon authority, if necessary? >> well, let me say at the outset that i made a statement in this room a few moments after the swearing in. and on that occasion i said the following. that i had hoped that our former president, who brought peace to millions, would find it for himself. now, the expression made by governor rockefeller, i think, coincides with the general view and the point of view of the american people. i subscribe to that point of view. but let me add, in the last 10 days or two weeks i have asked for prayers for guidance on this very important point. in this situation, i am the final authority. there have been no charges made. there has been no action by the courts. there has been no action by a

mr. ringel of all of the emails in possession of the planning department. >> you said you agreed with the report of our staff and in relation to the chronology and how this happened. is that correct? >> that's correct. >> in the report it does mention a number of times the gentleman asked for various records he was entitled to under the sunshine ordinance act and under the open records act, and was not given them and was given them later than the period he asked for them. you're aware of that? >> yes. >> okay. so what you're saying when you agree with your report you are agreeing that in regard to your department your department did then violate the particular rules relating to the obligation to turn over these materials at the time they should have been turned over? >> yes. we will contend those will not willfully done in that manner. >> but they were violations and you accept the fact that your department violated those regulations whether willful or non willful. the materials that are

mr. cummings: mr. speaker, as i close, i want to remind all of my colleagues several references have been made to the oath that we take every two years in this chamber. and every two years we extend in this chamber and say i will swear and support and defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. the first words we say. but it's interesting that in the beginning of that swearing-in is that we will defend the constitution of the united states of america. and yesterday, we had a very interesting argument in rules when one of the members of the rules committee questioned whether when one becomes a public employee, whether they then lose their rights as an american citizen. and it is clear that those rights do stand no matter whether you are a public servant or whether you are a janitor at some coffee shop. and we are in a situation today where we need to be very clear what's happening. not since mccarthy has this been tried, that is the stripping away of an american citizen's constitut

. >> mr. tonko for five minutes. >> thank you mr. chair. mr. slavitt welcome and you earlier with true national stats and i received information. we have been waiting to get information and in the 20th congressional district in new york 11,000 residents who were previously uninsured now have quality affordable health coverage because of aca. a number of uninsured residents in my district has declined by 23%. 214,000 individuals in the district including 437,000 women and 54,000 children now have health insurance that covers preventative services without any co-pays, coinsurance or deductible and 260,000 in -- now have insurance that cannot place annual lifetime limits on their coverage and up to 37,000, 37,000 children my district with pre-existing conditions can no longer be denied coverage for health insurance purposes. i think that's a tremendous bit of improvement. we obviously want to continue to grow those numbers but it's comforting to know that kind of success is coming by the way of our district. and so mr. slavitt part of the promise

mr. forbes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr.nk you for being here and for mentioning the need for transparency and as you talked about our inability to prosecute the individuals that were released, this administration is not exactly had a stellar record on prosecution of people at gitmo. when you look at the fact that the lead prosecutor for the 9/11 terrorists had specifically said he would have had a guilty plea out of all of them within six months and this administration came in, shut down his prosecution, destroyed all of his pretrial work and we've been five years and still haven't brought them to trial. secondly, i don't think even you would argue that the conversations that took place in 2011 complied with the law. and basically what we're trying to get across is that we're a nation of laws. you can't pick and choose just because they're convenient or not convenient which we're going to enforce and which ones we aren't. the third thing is this, you said this, there are limits to trade where we would make and somewhere we

. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. koskinen, the very first question you got in your testimony today was something to the effect, mr. santos, my colleague, put the question to you whether you were aware you were under investigation by the department of justice and this is a very public hearing. this is a very, very public. we invite members of the press to come to these hearings and these hearings are televised and i think it's important we don't lead the public down the wrong path on what the truth is here. mr. koskinen, have you ever received a target letter from the department of justice to say you're under investigation? >> no. >> has anyone, anyone told you verbally that you're under investigation by the department of justice? >> no. >> has anyone, anyone said to you verbally anything that would hint to you that you're under investigation by the department of justice? >> no. >> has anyone, anyone said anything to you to hint to you that you might be the target of a justice department investigation some time in the

mr. nixon should stay and fight it out. i talked with a ward boss who owns a bar in st. louis city and said the regulars in the bar feel a resignation will hurt the country and the country was falling apart. what will the russians think? they will think we are weak. many people are still arguing indeed the president's guilt or innocence and if the president's statement tonight falls short of a confession, it it comes out to be as some people said another checkered speech, then many people here will still a say that president nixon has been unjustly ousted from the white house. this is sandy gilmore, cbs news in st. louis. >> the man who president nixon defeated for the presidency in 1968, hubert humphrey, and burdened with the vietnam war as his principle difficulty, getting to the presidency himself of president nixon defeated him by 7/10 of one% in a very close race. hubert humphrey was interviewed in minneapolis by wcco tv. >> wishing to keep it out of partisan politics and says resign

mr. cummings: mr. speaker, as i close, i want to remind all of my colleagues several references have been made to the oath that we take every two years in this chamber. and every two years we extend in this chamber and say i will swear and support and defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. the first words we say. but it's interesting that in the beginning of that swearing-in is that we will defend the constitution of the united states of america. and yesterday, we had a very interesting argument in rules when one of the members of the rules committee questioned whether when one becomes a public employee, whether they then lose their rights as an american citizen. and it is clear that those rights do stand no matter whether you are a public servant or whether you are a janitor at some coffee shop. and we are in a situation today where we need to be very clear what's happening. not since mccarthy has this been tried, that is the stripping away of an american citizen's constitut

. >> mr. duffy i'll say the attorney wanted to hear from the city a permit will be required i'll say yes, a building permit is required we see the documents where the area has been remodeled and i don't see any permits so we've got that issue and the plumbing permit we need a building permit in my opinion to show what the true intent is in the area and if you want to keep it as a legal use or whatever you need a building permit to show that and that will forever be on the record but the plumbing permit we can't do that. >> okay. okay commissioners the matter is submitted >> my take is that it should be continued because the permit itself the plumbing permit the permit holder should have time to get the necessary permits required to complete the plumbing permit work does that makes sense. >> that's my hunch i'm interested in hearing from others but seems like it is an adequate in and of itself to say the department heads are saying it is required because of the tint removal of the unit i apprec

[music] >> one couple who were riding with us, morning and afternoon, mr. and mrs. lee. mr. lee was the dialysis patient and he's probably in his 80's and every time we would drive up to buchanan street, the hospital, mr. lee would say, "good job, fine driver, number one driver" and he would go like this [thumbs up gesture]. and then as brian would be helping him off the van, mr. lee, i heard him so often say, "brian, if anybody gives you any trouble you send them to me and i'll take care of them." and here great big old brian would say, "henry, you're the first one i would try to get help from." and he says, "the second one is elsa." [laugh] so we knew that we were being relied on by brian. a few weeks back, mrs. lee called brian early in the morning to tell him not to bother picking them up because they were already at the hospital. mr. lee was ill and she had taken him to the er. the next day or so, brian, on his lunchtime, found out that mr. lee had been admitted to the hospital and he went up to mr. lee's room and just stuck his head in just to say hello. and the minute

mr. chairman, for calling this hearing on a critical subject. the black lung compensation program is critical to those who work in the mining industry for worker's compensation, and it's absolutely our responsibility to see to it that the information is accurate and the program has great integrity. understanding that we have three votes at 10:45 and understanding the stars of our show are our witnesses rather than me, i'll ask unanimous concept that my entire statement be entered into the record and turn it over to the chairman to introduce our guests. >> we're joined by senator harkin, and he missed only by seconds my commendation of his service in the senate, especially as it relates to minors. so we're grateful that he's here with us. and first of all, i'll introduce our first panel, and then we'll get right to the testimony. and i would urge the, more than urge the witnesses to keep, because of what senator isakson referred to, our votes, keep your statements to five minutes and, of c

mr. weiss, mr.ealy, do you agree that your products are just as addictive as traditional cigarettes? >> i agree they contain nicotine, and is we acknowledge nicotine is addictive. >> so you agree? do you agree, mr. healy? >> yes. >> mr. myers, if that that is te case and they're addictive, then what possible argument can they make in order to keep these products on the market or targeted towards children? >> it's particularly the reason we're concerned about the kind of marketing that we've seen and use of flavors that we think have traditionally been shown to the appeal to children. >> for in the thought of santa claus brings thoughts of nostalgia, childhood cookies and big, white beard. most children would not think of santa needing an e-cigarette despite this promotion to the contrary. other examples, including images of blu's mr. cool bring back flashbacks of similar strategies used by traditional tobacco companies. mr. myers, do you think there is a chance that these images could appeal particu