mr. cohen, four minutes. the chair: the gentleman from tennessee is recognized for four minutes. mr. cohen: thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate you yielding. as some of my colleagues said so eloquently during last week's judiciary markup on this bill that the majority's attempt to turn routine exercises of presidential discretions into constitutional violations is nothing but a show and a pretext to attack the president of the united states. the hearing we had reminded me of a woody allen saying in a movie called "bananas," acting is -- he said this is a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham. that's what this bill is. that's what that hearing was. that's what this proceeding is. h.r. 4138 would establish a process by which one house of congress could sue the president when it determines the president failed to faithfully execute a law. one house. not two houses. they talk about the separation of powers. separation of powers is executive and legi

be mr. cohen, when it comes to the comcast/time warner cable proposed merger, what's the biggest hurdle that you see facing comcast? >> guest: so what a surprise we should start with that question. well, obviously, we're going to have a serious governmental review of the transaction. but i'll be honest with you, i think the transaction is a lot less scary, it's a lot less large and a lot less complicated than some people would like to make it. so when you think about it in the video space, this is not a horizontal deal. we don't compete with time warner capable anywhere. there isn't a consumer in america anywhere who has a choice between buying comcast products or time warner cable products, and at the end of the day, we're going to have under 30% of the market, so not particularly scary. there's one thing that is appropriate to think about and to discuss, it is the implications on the broadband side. and i think there's a very good story there as well. lots of pro-competitive impacts, pro-consume

mr. cohen on the fact that the u.s. has to show to the european publics the vitality of the transatlantic relationship, particularly to the younger generation like myself who has come to a world where we take it as a precondition, we take it as something for granted. but back to ukraine, i think, that it seems that the ukraine crisis illustrates a crisis of the transatlantic relationship because i think that e.u. underestimated the attractiveness of its own model while on the other hand the u.s. got very late wake-up call. had the e.u. put membership on the table we could have a -- of this -- averted this crisis i think. yesterday, mr. rasmussen called the defense summit something remarkable, defense summit in december. personally i think it was a remarkable failure. as we're heading towards the nato summit in wales and nato is electing a new secretary-general do you believe it is time to have a serious dialogue, a transatlantic dialogue when it comes to security and defense? and that we need t

mr. cohen on the fact that the u.s. has to show to the european publics the vitality of the transatlantic relationship, particularly to the younger generation like myself who has come to a world where we take it as a precondition, we take it as something for granted. but back to ukraine, i think, that it seems that the ukraine crisis illustrates a crisis of the transatlantic relationship because i think that e.u. underestimated the attractiveness of its own model while on the other hand the u.s. got very late wake-up call. had the e.u. put membership on the table we could have a -- of this -- averted this crisis i think. yesterday, mr. rasmussen called the defense summit something remarkable, defense summit in december. personally i think it was a remarkable failure. as we're heading towards the nato summit in wales and nato is electing a new secretary-general do you believe it is time to have a serious dialogue, a transatlantic dialogue when it comes to security and defense? and that we need t

those initiatives mr cohen who hit him. it's so new. i mean. just ridiculous the suffolk how insurance innocent appear before an attitude open connelly jamaica. the results have yet to be announced. and even death. the mood to go to. two thousand and fourteen is the year of the bible and honey with some of gold dust in the number of bible based the steam out the cf has taken the us box office bombs based on the successful teaching in theory the month jesus has returned to the silver screen ten years off to mt gibson's controversial and fun and the passion of christ the aim of offering point is that the church the film is produced by mom. the nest and his wife of devout christian music. just go with them all the time. over the spring remember these two seater was part of your health too we'll take it. of the story the dynamic grown from the story. the bitterness into the cost groups does is break and interpretations the key from the lake and the port to think that huge thanks to the legal work without making it any less germanic haunted house mo

will no longer gets away with it he's going to use the loo and the coconut and sugar the initiative mr cohen who hit him. it's so new to this war. did he not. just ridiculous. the suffolk how insurance innocent appear before an attitude and peter connelly jamaica. the results have yet to be as adults entrants will be laid to teresa tend to break the world record for the longest khartoum has ended up in the smaller the tight mini pitch foliage it hit the line moving around i responding to joe wanted me to stick with a record of the american semifinals set in two thousand and eleven restoring a practice session in kenya about kanye in the french alps that the accident happened remarkably the driver suffered only minor injuries the eye. chiefs. the week but once again. but the epicenter of the campaign for the european of actions in may also you will go visit we believe the fight against poverty must be the center of attention in the next european elections for several reasons first because the european parliament is the home of european democracy should be the vessel started to worry about pub

mr. cohen, how long has comcast had its eye on time warner? guest: so, it is interesting. it is easy to answer because we did file our rs4 with a proxy. so, i think it is safe to say that we always are interested i n looking at possible attractive acquisition opportunities and for probably a year or two before this was announced, there on lateen on -- off and conversations about whether it made sense for comcast and time warner to be put together. over the course of a year, there were discussions among multiple players in the industry with comcast and with others about cable consolidation, most theicularly on conversations between charter and comcast and charter and time warner cable and charter and time warner cable and comcast. and then ultimately, the deal was struck between time warner cable and comcast. so we are very disciplined in the way in which we think about financial transactions. we want to make sure anything we do is financially accretive for our shareholders. cable under the leadership of neil schmidt is functioning at the highest level it ever has, and real

mr. cohen, for the purposes of a unanimous consent request, so that this house can address replacing the real antiquity that is our broken immigration system. mr. cohen: thank you. i appreciate you yielding and i would ask unanimous consent to bring up h.r. 15, to demand a vote on the bipartisan immigration reform bill that reduces our deficit by $900 billion over the next two years according to the nonpartisan congressional budget office, and $200 billion in the first year and gives people an opportunity to participate in the shadows of government and yet be tax paying citizens out in the front of society and be americans and contribute to our economy and provide workers that we need to be a 21st century economy that is effective in keeping us as the world's number one economic power. the speaker pro tempore: the chair understands the gentleman from utah has not yielded for that purpose. therefore the unanimous consent request cannot be entertained. as the chair advised on january 15, 2014, ev

a spirit in putin's speech that is vengeful and triumphalist at the same time, and committed as mr. cohen just said, to the notion of this new union, which is actually an old name, and empire with the capital in moscow. a good friend of the russians, a former member of the communist party in cosmic stan, now president of has expand -- of catholic stan is issuing warnings about independent state in the region. andrews pakistan openly saw that, and so forth. -- and whose pakistan --uzbekistan saw this openly, and so forth. >> doctors were crossed -- dr. scowxroft, do you think the sanctions have had any impact? >> i think we have done the minimum that we needed to do. and i think we will see what happens now. i agree with much of what he just said. i misjudged putin. as i say, he was filled with venom at the united states at the end of the cold war, but he's not a dumb man. he's a smart man. and i thought that after he had ruled for a while, and after medvedev had his turn as president, that putin would see that they got a lot farther with sugar than he was getting with vinegar and that he

. >> guest: that was--that i--is mr. cohen, who was also on the impeachment committee and is now secretary of defense. c-span: if you go down the list, you see caldwell butler, who's no longer in the congress, larry hogan, who went on to run for governor of maryland, wayne owens, the congressman from utah, and liz holtzman. >> guest: right. uh-huh. c-span: anybody else on there besides... >> guest: well, you have... c-span: ...mr. rodino in the middle? >> guest: ...yeah, rodino in the background, and you have--what's the name... c-span: (unintelligible). >> guest: ...from maryland on the fa--on the last--the last one there, senator--he's senator now from--no, he's the--the dark-haired fellow. he's got his hand up to his face so you can't... c-span: senator sarbanes. >> guest: that's right. that's who it is. c-span: we're going to go to some other photographs. where were you allowed to be in the--you know, were you allowed to get closer in the hearing room, compared to the... >> guest: the--the hear... c-span: ...others? >> gue

cohen. >> thank you very much, mr. president. there are two things that i wanted to interject in the conversation about folks, some of the feedback that i've heard and agree with from my time in the shelter, is that we've got to begin to address safety. not only people's personal safety, but their physical belongings and ensure that we've got workers, staff persons that are in the shelters and doing the outreach that are culturally competent and that they're able -- that they're also speaking multiple languages. i know that they are, but i also know that sometimes it's a challenge to find talent in that area. and we need to figure out a way and see -- it's not a regional strategy of homelessness. there are counties around us that don't have a strategy and they send their folks to us for us to address. and if we develop an outstanding model, that's wonderful, but maybe we should be sending other counties our bill, but that's just an opportunity for the worker to begin to figure out and put some good thought to, and we need to also

mr. president. supervisor cohen. >> thank you, madam clerk. i have two piece he to discuss today. first i'm introducing a hearing request on the deficiencies in property management for mco real estate investment trust. emco is headquartered in denver and has properties in 24 states including four properties right here in san francisco. [speaker not understood], la salle, bayview, shore view, which is approximately over 600 household units. over the years i personally have tried to work with the enco- to begin to address some of the deficiencies and improve the services to the residents but have been really unsuccessful. i've heard complaints from constituents about unequal enforcement of rules, harassment of children and women by enco staff or contracted staff, retaliation against residents for making complaints. some properties have been without a property manager for up to six months leaving them without a system in place to handle maintenance service requests. so, without any reservation, i'm looking forward to hearing that -- hearing that request. i have an in memoriam for a g

brezinski and general scowcroft as well as roger cohen of the "new york times." let me say that mr. brzezkinski was a senior advisor of the president carter and held many other prestigious foreign-policy positions. scowcroft was a military assistant to richard nixon and deputy assistant to national security affairs during the ford and nixon administration. that was with henry kissinger, right? and he holds the medal of freedom in 1993. queen elizabeth made him an honorary knight of the british empire. and roger cohen has been a foreign correspondent of the "new york times" for more than a decade. he now writes a column for the "times." he is an author of several books on foreign policy and also a biography of norman schwarzkopf. it is hard to know where to start this discussion, but let me just start the discussion. is this the new cold war? why don't we start with you, dr. brezinski? >> obviously, we don't know for sure, but it is beginning to look that way. it may not end up that way, but it is beginning to look that way. in fact, if i could just take two minutes, i would like to

a spirit in putin's speech that is vengeful and triumphalist at the same time, and committed as mr. cohen notion of thishe new union, which is actually an old name, and empire with the capital in moscow. russians, ad of the former member of the communist party in cosmic stan, now president of has expand -- of is issuingan warnings about independent state in the region. openly sawistan that, and so forth. -- and whose pakistan --uzbe openly, and sos forth. crossed -- dr. do you think the sanctions have had any impact? >> i think we have done the minimum that we needed to do. we will see what happens now. i agree with much of what he just said. misjudged putin. as i say, he was filled with venom at the united states at the end of the cold war, but he's not a dumb man. he's a smart man. he hadhought that after ruled for a while, and after medvedev had his turn as president, that putin would see that they got a lot farther with sugar than he was getting with vinegar and that he would change. he hasn't. and that tells you more about him and we need to worry about it. also, about the soviet uni

mr. cohen has a couple good points. i'm in favor of a kill switch. say if things go crazy with your algorithmic trading, you find a quick way to shut it off. >> chris, what do you make of all this? >> it reminds me of 20 years ago when jerry corgan left the fed in new york to become essentially the protector of the otc derivatives market and goldman was always sponsoring these meetings to talk about back office, structural office. i sit on a finra committee that talks about this all the time but we never talk about half the volume on the big board is from program trading. >> what are you saying? >> i think this is a beautifully executed diversionary tactic by goldman to focus us on structural issues instead of asking why we have program trading in the first place. >> those issues exist and if we weren't doing this way, wouldn't all the activity -- >> we have a market of lily pads. we have over a dozen -- >> a great way to put it. >> they're supposed to communicate efficiently in realtime and expose -- >> and they don't. they keep all of the orders in

supervisor cohen. >> thank you very much, mr. president. ladies and gentlemen, it's wonderful to see you as we celebrate women making history in their everyday lives. today i have the pleasure to honor a woman that is called by the name of [speaker not understood]. and today olga is president of seiu local 87. and unfortunately she couldn't be here with us today. she's actually in washington, d.c. advocating on behalf of women and the labor community. but i am very proud to have her sister iris here to accept the award on her behalf. olga was born in las vegas, nevada. she was the eighth child in a family of 10 children. she grew up in los angeles and was raised by a strong woman who also was a community activist and single mother. olga was lucky enough to be the only child in the family born under a union health plan. and her mother always thought that this was a sign of things to come for olga, and we all know that her mother was is always right. as a teenager olga worked with [speaker not understood] in the community and it is really her

mrs. a in me morian off behalf of supervisor cohen for me young. >> with that, without any further business, we are adjourned. [gavel] you. >> ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ in landing a contract with the sfoifk is pretty champ but now with the opened contracting center visitors can get opportunity at the new state of the arc facility and attend workshops and receive one-on-one technical assistance and learner what you need to become a primary contractor or what information to be a subcontractor and a created bed public commission it will help people to assist people to compete for and performance open city contract a lot of small businesses do have the resources to loblth the opportunity so one of the things we wanted to do was provide ways to access contract >> access to the plans spiefkz and a data place basis ease contracting opportunity and funding or capital training. this is and other documents that needs to be submitted. to compete is a technical skill that it takes to win a scheduling for a popular to you can win a professional services job or how to put together a quote it's all those technical pi

jeremy coburn he joins us live now from london mr cohen you're live on r.t. international thank you for being with us what was your reaction when you learned about the league and what it revealed. what was your initial reaction when you learned about the leak and what it actually revealed . well the link that came out yesterday was something where of journalists are taking a photograph or document and and released it was apparently some kind of position paper of what the british government may or may not do and subsequently the foreign secretary made a lengthy statement to parliament yesterday and the prime minister took questions on it. and obviously meetings and happening with the you. my own view is that what is happening in the ukraine is going to have to be resolved politically the end of the day i think military intervention by anyone who is wrong and i think expansion of nato beyond its existing area is also wrong i regret sloops the organization for security and cooperation in europe wasn't given the premier role it should have been given the end of t

mr. edward zach and at the suggestion of supervisor cohen on behalf of the entire board of supervisors, for major kurt chun you lee and ms. jean lun. >> and madam clerk sly any more business front of the board? >> that concludes our business for today, mr. president. >> ladies and gentlemen, we are adjourned. [gave >> would you please a call the roll. >> director brinkman. director heinecke is expected director lee. sxhoom. director rubke. you have a quorum >> thank you. okay. let's see where edward going through the presentation now >> wait a minute my have to get our microphones turned on. these little things are not calibrated so it takes a while to figure out how to you turn them on. okay >> the announcement of the public. >> announcement of the sound providing device please be advised their prohibited and anyone who is responsible for one going off maybe asked to leave the room and phones set on vibrate please turn them off and a motion to approve the minutes. >> all in favor, say i. opposed? so okay conjectures we have. >> item 5 mr. chairman the communications please be advised with

mrs. a in me morian off behalf of supervisor cohen for me young. >> with that, without any further business, we are adjourned. [gavel] >> good morning. it is already the 25th day of march of 2014. welcome to the san francisco county transportation of authority. my name is john avalos of the chair of transportation authority. our clerk of the committee of the board is erika cheng. today's meeting is being broadcast by s fgtv staff of jessie /hrar sin and coal man. thank you for your service. madam clerk, would you please call the roll [roll call]. >> very good. next item please. >> march 25th 2014, this is is national item. >> we can go with the public comment on the minutes. any member of the public would like to comment. seeing none, we'll close for the comment. >> let's have a roll call vote [roll call]. >> minutes passed. >> great. let's go on to our next item, please. >> item three, treasury report, this is an information item. >> thank you, ms. cheng. colleagues, i begin our report this month in recommend /pwrapbs of joseph flanagan who passed away in early march. many of us knew him f

mr. edward zach and at the suggestion of supervisor cohen on behalf of the entire board of supervisors, for major kurt chun you lee and ms. jean lun. >> and madam clerk sly any more business front of the board? >> that concludes our business for today, mr. president. >> ladies and gentlemen, we are adjourned. [gavel] oor >>> >> i would like to call this meeting to order. please respond when i call your name. commissioner link ton, madam chair johnson, present. mondejar is absent and all members are present . the next regularly scheduled meeting. commission meeting will be held on tuesday march 18, 2014. at 1:00 p.m.. please be adviced that the ringing of and use of cellphone, pagers or other similar sound producing electronic device. are protected at this middle east meeting. please be adviced that a member of the public has 15 minutes to make pertinent public comments on the agenda item unless the commission adopts a period on the item. the member of the public who wish to speak to the commission please provide a card and commit the -- submit the card. there are no reportable actions. the

mr. gerhardt, is clear to me you're qualified. and i would like to see somebody of your caliber be on that committee. and, so, i'm more than willing to move you forward with positive recommendation. supervisor cohen? >> thank you, supervisor yee. i'm also happy to move forward mr. gerhardt to this position. i think that i do want to acknowledge supervisor campos' concerns with city college we all share, but in terms of today's purposes and your qualifications, of over 13 years in experience in higher education, i do think that you would be fit for this position, especially since you were designated or selected by the former chancellor and then reconfirmed by this new one. so, with that i would just like to make a motion to appoint mr. gerhardt to the treasury oversight subcommittee for seat 1. >> okay. roll call, please. >> on the motion as stated, supervisor campos? >> no. >> campos no. stackv? supervisor tackv? >> aye.

mrs. a in me morian off behalf of supervisor cohen for me young. >> with that, without any further business, we are adjourned. [gavel] >> good afternoon. today is march 3rd, 2014. welcome to the local agency formation commission otherwise known as lafco. and joining meeting with the san francisco public utilities commission. my name is john avalos, the chair of lafco, and we are joined by our public utilities commission members and the vice-chair is also here. she will be sharing the podium with me and we will be chairing together. on the lafco side, madam clerk, could you read the role, please? >> yes, commissioner avalos? >> present. >> commissioner avalos present. commissioner campos? commissioner campos abseptember. absent. commissioner breed? commissioner pimentel absent. commissioner mar. here. >> we have a quorum. >> our clerk is melissa miller and we are broadcast by sfgov-tv staff john ross and jonathan [speaker not understood]. and the public utilities commission clerk is donna hood. so, with that i welcome everyone to our joint meeting. this meeting is to get an update. okay, let

. >>> william cohen, republican senator from maine, former defense secretary, here with me right now. mrcretary, thanks very much for coming in. >> good to be with you, wolf. >> is there a peaceful resolution that will allow crima to remain part of the sovereign country of ukraine, but will meet the minimal needs of russia? they see -- they say they have some strategic interests there. >> well, they do. and that's something we have to take into account. russia has some very special interests in crimea. but that issue could have been we know what the policy is of the russians. they have guns, they have gas, they have gay bashing policy. those are the things that perhaps they -- that stand for russia. but in this particular case, they could have solved this very easily, without the use of force. >> how do you solve it? what's your recommendation? >> two things. number one, we keep talking to them. that's better on -- >> the president spent an hour on the phone with putin yesterday. >> very important to keep talking. also to take action. we have to make sure there is a penalty associated wi

mr. president. supervisor avalos? >> present. >> avalos present. supervisor breed? >> here. >> breed present. supervisor campos? >> present. >> campos present. president chiu? >> present. >> chiu present. supervisor cohen? cohen present. supervisor farrell? >> present. >> farrell present. supervisor kim? kim not present. supervisor mar? mar not present. supervisor tang? >> present. >> tang present. supervisor wiener? >> present. >> wiener present. supervisor yee? >> present. >> yee present. mr. president, you have a quorum. >> thank you. ladies and gentlemen, could you please join us in the pledge of allegiance? i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands; one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> madam clerk, do we have any communications? >> there are no communications today, mr. president. >> all right. could you read the consent agenda? >> items 1 through 8 comprise the consent calendar. these items are considered routine. if a member objects, an item may be removed and considered separately. >> colleagues, would anyone like to sever any of these items? roll call vote on items 1 through 8. >> on items 1 throu

mr. updike. we had an original item before us. it was more square footage than it is today and they did a thoughtful analysis to come back to be respectful of what supervisor cohen was speaking about, within their needs and desires within their community, but also be respective and came back with reduced square footage decrease. i see similar concerns you don't like to see square footage increases. when you dig deep, [speaker not understood], the building they had before, the marked reality was it was going to be some increase. from my opinion, i think our budget committee's opinion, not to speak for my colleagues, but they did a very respectful job of being mindful of that and coming back with the recommendation. i will support t. if my colleagues have any questions, please come to committee and we can talk about it there as well. >> supervisor kim. and then followed by supervisor campos. >> i want to thank the budget committee for reducing the square footage and having that thoughtful conversation at committee. one other thing i'll bring up i didn't bring up in my original comments, i'm not clear they have [speaker not understood]. we have so many conference a

transportation authority finance committee and i'm cohen and to my left are katie tang and commissioner david chew. the clerk of the committee is mrs. erica chang and i'd like to take a moment to acknowledge and thank jim smith and nono for their wonderful work at sfgovtv and helping broadcast it meeting. are there any announcements? >> no announcements. >> could you call 2 of 4, the consent calendar. >> items 2 and 4, these items are routine and any of the consent calendar items may be removed ask considered separately. >> would anyone like to sever any of these items? okay. seeing none. is there a member of the public that would be

transportation authority finance committee and i'm cohen and to my left are katie tang and commissioner david chew. the clerk of the committee is mrs. erica chang and i'd like to take a moment to acknowledge and thank jim smith and nono for their wonderful work at sfgovtv and helping broadcast it meeting. are there any announcements? >> no announcements. >> could you call 2 of 4, the consent calendar. >> items 2 and 4, these items are routine and any of the consent calendar items may be removed ask considered separately. >> would anyone like to sever any of these items? okay. seeing none. is there a member of the public that would be interested in severing these items. okay, seeing none. we call item number 5. >> can we get a motion for the consent calendar. >> get a motion to approve the consent calendar, second by tang and motion made by chew. this motion passes, can you call item number pa. >> state and federal legislative update. this is an action item. >> great, my favorite update, how are you? >> fine, thank you very much. >> we need to buckle down because we have a lot of work to do right now. >> we do. >> a lot of the work

mr. president? richard cheney, william perry, william cohen, donald rumsfeld, robert gates, leon panetta, chuck hagel, it doesn't matter whether they are republican or democrat, they all say the same thing. they're going to stop this heinous situation, and they don't because they can't. look, we need to listen to survivors. survivors who are going to solve the crisis of sexual assault in the military because they're going to solve it because they're going to speak up, and they have. excuse me. survivors are telling us that the only way to stop this horrible epidemic of sexual assault is to take the decision about whether to prosecute serious crimes like sexual assault out of the hands of the commanders, give it to the professional, trained military prosecutors outside the chain of command. now, there are many people who misconstrue this and they think we're' going to take it completely outside the military structure. that is not what we do. what we do is we say the professionals should deal with this. right now, you have to report to your commander. now, we would never allow the c.e.o. of a corporati