they told us congress didn't have to pass a law. and that they would eliminate cramming on its own. as you well know, chairman leibowitz, the telephone industry's efforts to stop cramming were a huge failure, and -- but my question to you is, why might the d.a.'s self-regulatory effort have a better chance of succeeding? >> well, let me just start by saying as you know, we brought a major cramming case today. a contempt order against a company that violated, action against a company that violated an order. i heard senator toomey say a 20-year order and i wondered when i got to the commission, why do we have 20-year orders? we have them because this contempt actually came 13 years after we put this company under order. more than $50 million in injury to consumers with bogus charges on their, placed and their bills. we want to work with you in this committee in a bipartisan way to stop cramming. with respect to the digital advertising alliance, i think they have made meaningful progress, and -- i do think that, do not track, will be available for consumers i'm optimistic by the end of

of baseball legend roger clemens the forty nine year old former pitcher is accused of lying to us congress in two thousand and eight when he denied using performance enhancing drugs former new york yankees pitcher on the pettitte arriving at court on tape here to testify against his former teammates pettitte stated he recalled a conversation in which clemens told him he had used human growth hormone clemens is the thirty nine year old quote misremembers the champ between the per if clemens is fined guilty he could face a prison sentence. for his biggest basketball star could be making its way back into the n.b.a. alongside the league's own. russian team owner and recur olenka reported to have a verbal agreement in place to sign a three year deal with mikhail prokhorov brooklyn nets the c.s.k. moscow forward is currently preparing for a yearling semifinal bottle against poland and i crossed next weekend the thirty one year old has a longstanding relationship with the nets owner and is expected to join the newly relocated club after the euro league season ends curling assigned with the army

josie, as you know, the president hasn't been at all shy about using congress as a punching bag in thepast. don't be surprised if he tries to roll mitt romney into that mix in the future. josie. >> a tough fight ahead. emily live in d.c. thanks so much for that. with an event like the one we're telling you about right now. it's easy to argue over who is the bigger drunk. last night actor george clooney hosted a star-studded fund- raiser for president obama. the event raised 15 million bucks. clooney's girlfriend, salma hayak and roberter -- robert downey jr. the elite spent the night mingling on clooney's basketball court. >> we weren't invited. >>> hello. coming up, all brand new at 6:00. >>> she brought her baby to the emergency room with a fractured skull. and now a hartford county woman is behind bars. i'm jeff hager. i'll have the details. >>> and is it a rip-off or a very good keel. when you should and when you shouldn't get one of those extended warranties. those stories and a lot more all coming up brand new at cuff. now a preview of what's ahead on world news at 6:30. >>> comi

the clinton administration used those dollars to provide a bailout to mexico after congress rejected it. the current fed used it to guarantee money market funds. those may have been the appropriate efforts but those decisions should have been made by congress, not by the federal reserve. so under this bill, we end that as a slush fund. we apply the $50 billion to reduce the deficit. we, in effect, return the fed to what the fed should do in return for congress our constitutional role to act in those matters of emergency. >> what you're trying to do is rein them in and go back to the established principles or mission of what they originally should have been and get it more in line wi w

the clinton administration used those dollars to provide a bailout to mexico after congress rejected it. the current fed used it to guarantee money market funds. those may have been the appropriate efforts but those decisions should have been made by congress, not by the federal reserve. so under this bill, we end that as a slush fund. we apply the $50 billion to reduce the deficit. we, in effect, return the fed to what the fed should do in return for congress our constitutional role to act in those matters of emergency. >> what you're trying to do is reign them in and go back to established principles or mission of what they originally should have been and get it more in line with what most people think the fed's mission should be? >> yes. >> thank you. congressman frank, quickly, with regards to the bill you've got, why do you believe it's important to have -- i'm kind of curious, all of the fed members be appointees versus fed regional president will replace those with appointees, why do you think that's important? >> to say one thing in response to your previous question, the bigg

happened is both republican and democrat administrations relayed to the fed have used that in effect to circumvent the power of congress. the clinton administration used those dollars to provide a bailout for mexico after congress rejected it. this this bill we end that as a slush fund. we apply the $50 billion to reduce the deficit. and we in effect return the fed to what the fed should do and retain for congress our constitutional role to act in those matters of emergency. >> so what you're trying to do is rein them in and go back to established principals or mission of what it originally should have been and get it more in line with what most people think the fed's mission should be. >> yes, sir. >> thank you. >> congressman frank, quickly, with regards to the bill that you've got, why do you believe it's important to have, i'm kind of curious all of the fed members to be appointees versus regional presidents going to replace those. why do you think that's important? >> first, i want to say one thing. despite your previous question, the biggest power of the federal reserve had to intervene freely was section 133 whi

well i think i'm from the secret service and governor scott is just protecting us congress and our to god is all this isn't in the law abiding citizens are not the problem it's the bad guys the problem and if you outlaw guns outlaws are going to have the guns the secret service has already determined that there will be no guns inside the inside the convention and in their head with the inside senator i would rather write inside the security guard wrecked so why are you they remind us that the days that i was sitting at tampa at the to is that a violation of the second amendment. if they want to take their guns away yes it is and i saw the secret service and i don't own a gun violate don't have a gun and i don't particularly like guns but we have to respect the constitution you can't because of what we like about the constitution changes to the ballot box that's the way we change this law so if you a secret service is really against a change at the ballot box so the secret service is wrong because they are not allowing guns inside the security perimeter be mayor of the police departmen

our tactic now is to pressure congress or us congress to call for transparency in this agreement and and to stop efforts right now to create a and actually to renew this fast track. provision that allows such trade agreements to fast track through congress within ninety days one expired in two thousand and seven but they're trying to renew it again so that the p.p. can just go through congress without them questioning being able to question or change the agreement at all so it's really up to the public to be aware and to pressure their representatives against getting letting this trade agreement passed there where is there anyone in congress who's a who's on your side in saying way wait a minute this is this is pretty crazy let's let's take a look at this before assuring this through yes representative ron kirk and actually darrell issa just released the leaked february two thousand and eleven tax on his form called keep the web open and although it's not the current dropped it it creates a good model for what we'd like to see with the t p p and what corporate rights with a t p p esta

monetary policy, has it as part of its unintended or intended consequences, allowed those of us in congress to engage in really bad fiscal policy? in many ways, is it an institution through its action that allows us to get away with bad acts? and secondly even though this is a one off, but in the discussions, the fed is holding art heading towards 2.9 trillion, what's the plan? at some point when do they move back to the normalization of their portfolio, and what is the potential cascade effects when moving back to a normalized portfolio? and without i yield back. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank the gentleman. now i want to move to our first panel. first i want to introduce represented kevin brady from texas, an eight term republican congressman representing the eighth district. he is the sponsor of h.r. 2180, the sound all act, and vice chairman of the economic committee. also with us today is the ranking member of the financial service committee, representative barney frank, 16 term democratic congressman representing the fourth district of massachusetts. he is the sponsor of h.r. 3420.

congress. they're people just like us. we're made of the same thing. so if we are able to live by those rules, perhaps that will influence and support congresspeople to say, this is how we want to live because it's easy for us to say compromise and we go home and do the opposite. >> well, thank you. i think this is not necessarily going to be a top-down process. you know, there's not going to be a secretary of mindfulness. [laughter] but what we want to do what i think is infused this into current programs that are already happening and redirect money rdb spent on programs that aren't happening, which i think leaves a lot of common ground for right and left dichotomy we deal with now to say okay, let's figure out how we can spend the money better and we know this stuff works. here's the science and let's move in that direction. i don't think it's going to be necessarily top-down. i think you are likely right that we need to be role models. we have got to get away from the politics or if you don't agree with me 100% of the time i don't like you anymore.

therefore, i would strongly urge the congress to work with us to reach a consensus about our defense priorities, recognizing the budget realities that we face, not the ones that some would like to pretend are not there. i understand from my own experience that congress has the right to question some of our decisions and to make changes. that right is inherent in the legislative process. the congress also has a responsibility to make sure that we protect a strong, national defense. the bottom line is, we cannot cut a half a trillion dollars from the defense budget and not cause some pain. but the price for that pain should be a 21st century force that can effectively defend our country. in what remains a very dangerous world. we can do this, but we have to do this together. let me say another word about sequestration. again, i'm grateful to the house for recognizing the importance of stopping sequestration. but by taking these funds from the poor, middle-class americans, homeowners and other vulnerable parts of our american constituencies, the guaranteed results will be confrontation,

that we look at this report in light of the innovations that are also possible and not let the congress stop us. make the congress do the right thing. thank you very much for coming today. [ applause ] >> thank you so much. we couldn't be more pleased to join in presenting this report with the national organization for women and the institute for women's policy research. heidi heart and terry o'neill have spent a lot of time, as we have, as our great staff, especially web phillips, have committed a lot of time and energy to producing this document. so i'm going to first introduce dr. carole estes who is chair o the foundation. she's a professor of sociology at the university of california san francisco. she's the founding and former director of the institute of health and ageing, former chair of the department of social and behavioral sciences, school of nursing ucfs. she's a member of the institute of member, of the national academy of sciences, and past president of the society of america, the american society on ageing and the association of jerntology and higher education. she's also served

they're working on the final version of the so-called bocar rule for hedging by the bank using congress february, jp morgan chase sent a 67-page letter to these agencies complaining that the proposed rule was way too broad. they said that the rule would hurt american companies. they said the new rule would impose high costs on banks and companies and the american economy. they said the banks need to hedge their trades in order to protect the safety and soundness of banking itself. and my own personal favorite, they complained that the proposed rule wrongly assumes that banks will try to, quote, camouflage prohibited trading in order to evade the law. the nerve! the problem is, it seems that at the very moment jp morgan chase wrote that letter, they were engaging what ceo jamie dimon now calls stupid hedge bets with depositor's money. if they're correct and the actual losses turn out to be double the current figures, there might even have been some camouflaging going on. so listen, you good men and women in the financial regulatory trading community, jp morgan chase is probably not the b

has it, as part of its unintended or intended consequences, allowed those of us here in congress to engage in really bad fiscal policy? in many ways, is it an institution through its actions that allows us to get away with bad acts? secondly, even though it was a one off, but in the discussions, the fed is heading -- their holdings are, what, heading towards $2.9 trillion? what's the plan? at some point, when do they move back to normalization of their portfolio? what is the potential cascade effects when moving back to a normalized portfolio? with that, i yield back. thank you, mr. chairman. >> i thank the gentleman. now i want to move to our first panel. i want to introduce representative kevin brady from texas. an eight-term republican congressman. representing the eighth district t he is the sponsor of hr-4180, the sound dollar act. also with us today is the ranking member of the financial services committee, representative barney frank. he is a 16-term democratic congressman, he's representing the fourth district of massachusetts. he's the sponsor of hr-3428. i will now recognize cong

restricted from gradually drawing down the size of the ground forces in the years beyond 2013, congress would be forcing us to reduce readiness. we'd have to cut training and to support the equipment and all of that wouhealth care congress wa making this more critical to invest in new technologies that are critical to the force we need for the future, i don't think any of us in the administration or on cape. therefore i would strongly urge the congress to recognizing the budget realities that we made, not with theins. >> i understand from my own experience that congress has the right to question am of dough sessions. congress also has a responsibility to make sure that we protect a strong national defense. the bottom line is we cannot cut a half a trillion dollars from the defense budget and not cause some pain. but the price for that pain should be a 21st century force that can effectively defend our country. in what remains a very dangerous world. we can do this but we have to do this together. let me say another word about sequestration. again, i'm grateful to the house for recognizes the importance of

as the fed tries to do more, congress is using that in the white house as an excuse not to take the key steps necessary to create the business climate for recovery. if, in fact, the dual mandate is the right answer and the fed is in charge of the economy, they're certainly not doing a good job. weakest recovery since the great depression. lowest number of workers in the work force. despite the stimulus, the bailouts, auto bailout, housing bailout, stimulus to cash for clunkers, there's fewer americans working today than when president obama took office. at the end of the day, it's our responsibility. >> mr. chairman, thank you for yielding back to me. >> i thank the gentleman. i yield five minutes to congresswoman maloney from new york. >> thank you very much. thank you for calling this hearing. i would like to ask mr. brady to respond to a statement from alan blinder in their paper of 2010. they argue that the federal reserves actions during the economic crisis were more powerful and effective than anything that congress did fiscally through the stimulus. i would argue that the fed's p

the way it used to be. congressten to cut off trade with china because of issues like individual dissidents. that era has passed. so this tragedy for mr. chen has brought human rights way up the agenda for the united states and china. what i think will happen realistically is secretary of state clinton and the president, when he's in contact with their counterparts, will now be raising mr. chen's case time after time and making sure that they bring up his name in conversations, asking about him, say we're still watching him, we're still concerned about his fate. and i think that will probably for a time prevent the kind of abuse that he was suffering when he was in virtual house arrest in the provinces just a couple of weeks ago. what transpired in the embassy, i have not received a firsthand report. clearly high-level american officials, the highest possible level for this kind of issue, an assistant secretary of state, department legal adviser who have both have long experience, harold coe the legal adviser in the

therefore, i would strongly urge the congress to work with us to reach a consensus about our defense priorities, recognizing the budget realities that we face, not the ones that some would like to pretend are not there. i understand from my own experience that congress has the right to question some of our decisions and to make changes. that right is inherent in the legislative process. but congress also has the responsibility to make sure that we protect a strong national defense. the bottom line is we cannot cut a half a trillion dollars from the defense budget and not cause some pain. but the price for that pain should be a 21st century force that can effectively defend our country in what remains a very dangerous world. we can do this, but we have to do this together. let me say another word about sequestration. again, i'm grateful to the house for recognizing the importance of stopping sequestration. but by taking these funds from the poor, middle-class americans, homeowners and other vulnerable parts of our american constituencies, the guaranteed results will be confrontation, g

us. congress is dealing with debt reduction.e are looking at what we have to cut, whether it is the defense budget, but the biggest problem is health care costs, and the biggest part of that is costs related to chronic disease, obesity, diabetes. host: we will look at a statistic on diabetes that comes out of the report as we listen to a call out of new york city. crag, democrat. caller: i would like to set i do not know why people were beating up on michele obama as she was trying to give people good information. people resent the government so much that when they give out good information and people do not want to hear it. when people were poor, they used to be skinny. now there is a mcdonald's on every corner. the value of food -- sugar, white flour starch, but you also have people that are afraid to let their kids go out and play because there is a safety factor. there is also a video games the detectives to sit down. they would rather have their kid inside and they sit there eating potato chips and junk food as they watch t

first, congress should stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas and use that money to cover moving expenses for companies that bring jobs back to america. second, congress should help the millions of americans who worked hard and made their mortgage payments on time, and save $3,000 year. third, congress should help small business owners by giving them a tax break for hiring more workers and paying the higher wages. small businesses are the engine of economic growth in this country. we shouldn't be holding them back. we should the making it easier for them to succeed pierre for, -- to succeed. fourth, companies are hoping americans to work and lessening our dependence on foreign oil. fifth, creating a veteran's job corps. our men and women have served our country with honor. i need you to call your members of congress, right the minimill, -- write them an email, tweet, and let them know we cannot afford any longer to get things done. tell them no is the time to take steps we know will grow our economy and create jobs. you are working harder. your meeting your respon

congress imposed the obligation on hydraulic fracturing operations using tools and the guidance explains how to do that. >> and this assertion of regulatory responsibility in this particular lane involving diesel was actually insisted upon, is that correct, or ruled upon by a court? >> the court determined that hydraulic fracturing was covered under the uic class 2 program that was in 2001. congress took action in 2005 that limited that permitting requirement only to hydraulic fracturing using diesel fuel. and so what the guidance -- proposed guidance does is indicate how that should be implemented. >> why did it take seven years from that legislation to today to get around to proposed regulations? >> the -- what we did initially at the epa was a memorandum of agreement with companies involved in coal bed methane hydraulic fracturing indicating they would not use diesel fuels. and what's happened is a shift in the industry so that there is now more hydraulic fracturing that's outside that realm of the coal bed methane. and that's why the initial steps we took we no longer view as suffici

additional designations, using new authorities that congress has given us to apply, even greater pressure on the financial sector in iran, which has culminated most recent lip in t ly with the lechbt slachs the president signed last year focusing on iran's export of oil and transactions with the central bank of iran. we have seen this combined effort of our authorities and working with the international community, and i cannot overstate the importance of the -- the effect that we are able to generate when we have our international partners working with us, with the eu working with us, japan, south korea, australia, switzerland, i mean, you name it, we have a -- and the united nations as well. a very, very broad-based coalition of countries, not doing exactly the same thing, but all pushing in the same direction of applying pressure on iran really as part of this dual track strategy and, you know, the impact of that that we have seen particularly sort of through the fall of last year and into the spring of this year is, really, you know, a very significant deterioration in the iranian econ

us live from capitol hill is ken baron. he is covering this story for "national journal." he focuses on congress and national security issues. thanks for being with us. >> my pleasure. >> if you could summarize what the republican argument is and what the democrat argument is and why the white house is threatening a veto. >> it's a long list of issues. number one is, i guess, the top one, budget number. the republicans came out with more than the democrats did. and they're sticking with that number despite the veto threat, despite claims that goes against the spirit of the bipartisan agreement to find spending and come to a greater deficit deal. that's number one. this's language in the bill from republicans that serve to slow

us go to massachusetts. caller: i would like to give a shout out to my ap gov class. does congress help its constituents or the national government and how do you guys think that devolution and bureaucracy impacts those? guest: let us do with them one at a time. when we look at members of congress, that have multiple roles to play. they write laws. they provide oversight for the rest of the government. they provide constituent services. all three are valuable. constituent services speak to the idea that as a member of congress, i am here to represent you. let us not fault them when they come home and deal with a constituent who need a passport or someone who has never ceased their social security benefits. this is constituent service. this is what we elect them for, to represent us in front of our government. devolution is an antiquated term. it goes back to the 90's. it is important because it speaks to federalism and the role of the national government. devolution was used by conservatives in the 90's and still is to describe the political philosophy that government should be lim

information from him giving him to the pentagon and the iraqi national congress then giving him to the journalists and they said if you don't believe us iraqi national congress call the pentagon so you have the circular reporting and you had the new york times admitting that it was using one source for all of its information and weapons of mass destruction and it was you know self affirming by going to the pentagon which to put this stuff on paper it was. a lot of exaggerations partial information sometimes the whole information but on balance a very one sided view of iraq's w m d program and a lot of these stories the journalist didn't want to look into because the editors told them to run with were going to be supportive of the administration is the patriotic thing to do i think that there was on the part of the media too much of of in a sense getting into the upcoming war and not enough look at do we really need to go there were some journalists out there raising the alarm bells the seymour hersh is the walter pincus of the world but unfortunately those great investigative reporters there are usually exiled when the he dissolved an

there was nothing that i used, the president hasn't used in the state of the union that wasn't in the nie that the congress first realize it was wrong and there were no wmds. >> after the presentation and then i was, my appearance was seconded by my british and spanish colleagues. they agreed. they had the same intelligence. but as the weeks went by, suddenly this mobile van that was supposed to be making bacterial elements we discovered, it couldn't be. it was a piece of junk almost. and yet, six weeks after we had captured this thing, the cia was still saying it was designed to be for bacterial warfare. pie intelligence staff by now said we've looked at this thing. don't say ta anymore. and six months later in august, the cia was putting out a report saying that they stood behind their original judgments of last year even though we hadn't found anything. so they stuck with it. >> do you worry the healthy skip tickism about american intelligence could be taken too far? >> when we look at iran right now, negotiations going on, there's so much disbelief about what the u.s. says about the possibility of iran

first, congress should stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas, and use that moneyver moving expenses for companies that bring jobs back to america. second, congress should help the millions of americans who have worked hard and made their mortgage payments on time refinance their mortgages at lower rates and save at least $3,000 a year. third, congress should help small business owners by giving them a tax break for hiring more workers and paying them higher wages. small businesses are the engine of economic growth in this country. we shouldn't be holding them back we should be making it easier for them to succeed. fourth, if congress fails to act soon, clean energy companies will see their taxes go up and could be forced to lay off employees. these companies are putting americans to work and helping break our dependence on foreign oil. congress should extend these tax credits. and finally, congress should help our veterans returning from iraq and afghanistan by creating a veterans job corps. our men and women in uniform have served this country with honor. now it'