. >> mr. don? >> mr. chairman, one last comment. i think we have far to the contractors. when i read we have four -- 240,000 contractors in the arena as in afghanistan and iraq put together and 80% of them are foreign nationals it seems to me that this is just a gravy train of money for these defense contractors, number one, and for all these contractors and i think almost anybody in this country, almost in the average american would say that it's ridiculous that we are still spending all this money hiring all these foreign nationals and doing, committing all the waste fraud and abuse and allowing it to go on over there and i think it's really sad and it's really shameful. thank you. >> i think the other question we asked were part of that question is what is inherently the governmental responsibility and what is not. what are we doing with some of these people? are they doing a job that should only be entrusted to somebody that is a u.s. citizen or a member of the armed services or in some respect responsible in the chain here, security strikes me as one of those things

in a second panel we have don hamm, executive officer of assurant self, mr. collins, owned by united health group. mr. brian sassi, am i saying that right? sassi who is the president and chief executive officer of wellpoint inc. and ms. karen pollitz who is the research professor georgetown university health policy institute. welcome to all of our witnesses. is the policy of the subcommittee to take your testimony under oath. please bid bison of the right and the rules of the house to be it buys the council during your testimony. kiewit to be represented by counsel during your testimony? mr. hamm you would? any time during the questions if you want to get advice from counsel, just let us know and we will allow the. council cannot testify but the cannon fisa. mr. collins? mr. sassi? ms. pollitz? so then let me have you raise your right hand and take the oath. do you swear or affirm the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in the matter pending before this committee? let the record reflect that the witnesses re

don that head.  . >> johnny: it's a run again tonight for mr.ncoln. >> rob: obviously you know i don't like being the underdog. so poor teddy. >> johnny: i understand that, yes. >> rob: , what are we teaching the youth of america? >> johnny: right. >> rob: poor teddy. >> johnny: adam dunn with a shot to right and right in the has jay brucone down, one pitch >> rob: speaking of mr. bruce, hitting .17 # off lefthanders, ..283 on base percentage, 1 home run in four ribs, 13 and 26 against righties and he is hitting about 60 points high near his right. still .231. a learning icl. >> johnny:  ru, 13 againsthanders? >> rob: 13 against right- handers. so whatever they know, whatever the scouting report is against jay bruce, they are just -- he sn't made thadjustment, you know. so they are just exploiting that weakness right now. so if you make the adjustment there is no reason to go back and try to pitch whatever the scouting report is on him. he has a hole inside, a hole outside, he is young kid 22 years old. >> johnny: lookat these young guys a

don and from maryland. but i agree with you on the fact that mr. brinkley was a good man. and i am from north carolina. and read your articles everyday, you know, when i am going to get "the washington post". president obama, i want to know what your take on him giving a good speech in cairo, and then the people critiquing him the way they do. he is trying to set up a new type of relations in the middle east. and we all know that the middle east is really controlled by the desires of god. and i would like to know your take on that. guest: what worries to me about the president's approach to the pal -- palestinian approach is historical and the honest broker, brokering the differences of israel and the forces, the hamas and all the rest who want to destroy israel. because israel is a salient of our values, in a dangerous and inhospital neighborhood, it seems that the united states is an ally of israel and gets many awards from that association. host: as we jump around about the policies in iran? guest: it's thrilling what is going on in iran. in the run-up of the election, twittering, i don't know the v

don, i'm from hagerstown, maryland. but i agree with you on the fact that mr. brinkley was a good man and i'm from north carolina and i read your articles every day, you know, when i'm getting "the washington post." president obama, i want to know what your take on him giving a good speech in cairo and then you know, the people critiquing him the way they do. he is trying to set up a new type of relationship in the middle east and as we all know, the middle east is really controlled by the desired of god. i'd like to know your take on that. guest: what worries me about the president's approach to the israeli-palestinian dispute is it seems unhistorical and unworthy of the united states to try to position itself as so-called honest broker, above the fray, brokering the differences between israel, a nation, member nation of the united nations, and the forces, the hamas and all the rest, who want to destroy israel. because israel is salient of our values in a dangerous and inhospitable neighborhood, the united states is not merely a disinterested ar bitter, the un

mr. siegelman in the subsequent trial in montgomery in the miller district was questioned by me. and he said emphatically that to his knowledge there was no conspiracy of which don siegelman was a knowing member. now, i followed the law and held that the government had failed to prove the first elm of a conspiracy charge, namely the existence of the conspiracy. and although unnecessary to reach the second element, it like wise failed to prove that mr. siegelman knowingly became a member of any conspiracy. so i announced my decision and to my utter amazement in view of the remaining substantive charges against mr. siegelman and mr. henry, the government moved to dismiss the case in its entirety. and i granted the motion and dismissed it with prejudice. pare parenthetically, dr. bobos case had been severed because he wanted to appeal my failure to dismiss the charges against him on double jeopardy grounds and i didn't want to unduly delay the trial of the case. 11th circuit upheld my decision against him and there was a subsequent appeal by the government of my exclusion of evidence based on an alleged violation of the competitived y by -- bid law, but despite the

mr. president, i'm afraid that dean koh is just another in a line of radical nominees by this administration that the senate should not confirm. i think back to don johnson, who was also nominated to the office of legal counsel, who said america is not at war post-9/11. and that instead of a, instead of embracing the provisions of the constitution that recognize the president's powers as commander in chief to protect the american people, we ought to instead resort to a paradigm that says, well, this is really just a law enforcement matter. if it's a hraurplt matter, then you're -- law enforcement matter, you're going to prosecute the terrorists after they kill innocent life. and just like don johnson, who said we're not at war, harold koh has encouraged and facilitated the investigation and perhaps prosecution of american military personnel and who knows who else, including lawyers who have provided legal advice as well as perhaps the intelligence officials that relied on that advice to get actionable intelligence that we've used to deter and indeed to defeat terrorist attacks on our own soil. so i hope my colleagues will join me in voting agains

mr. president. we all have expenses when we tried the first cigarette. in the little book i wrote about myself i tal talk about that experience and i will relay it. my brother, don, is 12 years older than me and came home from the marines corps smoking "ko ox l" cigarettes and he agreed to take his little brother hunting. there is not much to hunt in searchlight but it is time to get together with your brother and we had a 22 rifle and we hoped we would see a rabbit but mostly for a chance for my big brother to be with his little brother. he was smoking. he smoked a lot. we were driving out on a dirt road, what we called the railroad grave. and i kept saying, don, give me a puff, give me a puff. as a boy, i was, maybe, ten or 11 at the time. and finally, he said, okay, as he is driving alone. here's what you do: take it like i do and just suck in as hard as you can. i did anything my brother asked me to do. i did that. i can still feel that, mr. president. that was the last cigarette i ever smoked or ever wanted to smoke even though my entire family smoked -- not me. it hurt too bad. but, mr. president, for others not having had the experience that i had, smokin

mr. president, pipelines networks stretch across the entire country. they run under our homes, they run by our schools and offices. most people don't even know they're there in fact, the former bellingham police chief don pierce who was on the scene back in 1999 was recently quoted and he said: as i was standing there, none of it make any sense, because wreaks don't catch on fire. i don't think i knew that there was a gas pipeline that ran under there. the chief of police didn't know there was a gas pipeline underneither that. mr. president, nationwide the office of pipeline safety oversees more than 2.3 million miles of pipeline that transports hazardous liquid and natural gas across communities in the entire country. they perform an important service bringing oil and essential products to our homes an businesses. prior to this accident in bellingham, washington, i rarely heard about themselves myself, and like most americans, i just assumed they were safe. at first i thought this bellingham explosion was a fluke, something that never happened. but, then, when i started to investigate this issue, i was astonished by what i learned. it turned out that what happened in bellingham was -- that day was not

mr. buyer: the royal college of physicians i'm indicating with regard to reduction of prevalence of smoking of .5 and one percentage point per year of places around the world. 2% c.r.s. this is c.b.o. i don' know where you're getting your facts. this is c.b.o. . the last time i checked c.b.o. is the united states. yeah. c.b.o.'s the united states. now let me also move to harm reduction strategies. here's why i'm really upset. i'm upset because what we really should be doing if we really had an interest in improving public health, it's we should be migrating populations. moving populations. and when you move populations, you also want to inform people with regard to choices and the risks associated with products. we do that every day. in the types of automobiles in which we buy. whether are you going to wear your seat belt. i suppose, i don't know, you want -- do you wear a helmet to work when you drove your car today? i guess it's a choice you could make. people make harm reduction choices every day. in the foods we eat. what we drink, whatever we consume. we make these decisions every day. how come we don't apply harm reduction strategies to tobacco? we should. so in the marketplace rig