both which of failed my opinion is the us congress is more interested in being paranoid and aggressivethan taking care of americans needs like health and education and science so i don't have a lot of optimism that much is going to change at all. the n.s.a. is destroyed and shut down completely. why did companies like verizon provide information to the government then. i think a lot of these companies that provided wholesale spying information were trying to curry favor with the government a lot of them get. grants and and contracts from the government tax breaks and they don't want to be on the bad side of the u.s. government they want to make money for their shareholders and that's the bottom line it's not the privacy of their customers. and one more question briefly the recently the u.s. supreme court handed down decision unanimously saying that police needed to get a warrant in order to look into the mobile phone data of american citizens do you think the supreme court may eventually consider a case against the n.s.a. or and they may be able to weigh in on this in some way. i would

ukraine search for energy security has in the country's biggest gas producer seeking funding from the us congress and that means figures with close links to the likes of the us secretary of states and the us vice president taking up positions on the board no doubt in the hope that some families friends can be polled back in washington and that's to count explains for some top u.s. officials ukraine is not just about politics it's about business for family and friends but one connection leads to another and the business is now finding its way into the u.s. congress a week after vice president joe biden's son joined the board of ukraine's largest gas producer secretary of state john kerry's former senate chief of staff signed on to lobby congress on behalf of that same ukrainian energy company another gentleman from team kerry joined the von archer who was once john kerry's advisor and been learning his presidential campaign these people are no strangers to each other divonne archer and joe biden's son worked as business partners with john kerry's son in law christopher heintz oh yes and buddhism o

federal courts, as justice kennedy reminded us, congress has advocated their responsibility and the judges have not had a raise in 20 years. forcing talented judges to leave public service and go into private mediation which is a loss to all of the system. even a quasi i judicial body like the board of appeals, it's an important body in people's lives to come somewhere they maybe able to have an opportunity to have their cases heard, an opportunity to have their day in court and an opportunity to change a view where they have been wronged. it's important that when people come in, they come in as equals. so the gentleman who has the architect and the lawyer in my eyes is the same as the young lady where english is not her first language and she gets the same attention, same respect and same opportunity. the one thing i can guarantee is that not everybody will like my decisions. but, the good side of that is that i will always be prepared, i will be knowledgeable about the law, i will be compassionate, i will be impartial, i will be intellectually curious so that if someone is having a diffi

twenty two thousand and one rather but it was shut down under pressure from us congress for decades raiders at the base helped intercept signals in the americas russia now wants to reopen that facility movie seen by experts to strengthen the strategic cooperation with cuba and that was of course just one of the many deals discussed and signed off in latin america professor ian show earlier from the gentle school of international affairs where the brics nations will soon grow out of their underdog status he thinks bits of be philosophical to you and it's going to also reduce the power of the new liberal institution of the washington consensus you're looking now at a bricks consensus is a totally different world give you got the ball a multiple of water we have become bullets john is the world's largest order it's head of the world bank individual and now brits together i think we're going to change this whole get a pretty good dollar receive you and all of you are going to be in and we're looking even if you were we cannot call the shots in the economy are you going to lead in politics of in

and as a member of congress from 59 to 73 he saw firsthand how the fbi used the methods like the nsa to data difficult compromise on the members of congress to force a vote on the key issues. he opposed the stand and he says my question to you is what can you tell us about the potential for the executive branch to use the nsa as an internal policing unit able to control the congress and the judiciary for the personal scandals and outcome from all of this as the hoover fbi did in his day? >> i get in trouble with my editors and journalists i work with the story and when i do give those previews when i had a momentary loss of control -- [laughter] -- [laughter] there's all these headlines after my colbert report saying it the greatest story.

us. >>> congress and communities continue to be split on how best to handle the child migrant crisis on the border. the law has to be changed up speed up deportation of child migrants. it's essential they say. house republicans say they deserve protections, delaying deportations, allowing them to stay. in arizona protesters on both sides of the issue rallied after hearing that 40,000 child migrants will be transferred. >> they have relatives here already. illegals. >> should we break the law and not allow the children to have a fair trial. >> we'll take the country back right now. >> for more, i'm joined from los angeles, and al jazeera contributor michael sure, and with he from washington bill schneider, an al jazeera contributor, professor at george gavin university and scholar at the think tank third way. >> nearly 60% of americans disapprove how obama is handling the crisis. the om good news is 66% disapprove the way republicans are handling the issue. >> is it fair to say the migrant crisis it damaging democrats. >> even though i cover politics, it doesn't come out to a calculus. i

this is what he wants to see traction on even though he's being hammered by congress. he used this stop to push congress to do more. >> we have the same priorities that ordinary families do. the same sense of urgency about the cost of college or the need for increases the minimum wage, how to make child care more affordable and early childhood education. if that's what they were thinking about we could help out a lot more families. a lot more people would be getting ahead. the economy would be doing better. >> reporter: now this comes as word has come from the commerce department that the economy grew in the second quarter by 4%, dell. >> so libby, congress, what is it work on this weekend? what still has to be done before they leave for the august recess? >> reporter: five-week reverse coming up in just a couple of days. of course president obama is pushing them on that front. he's pointing out the fact that they are slated to leave town friday. >> i've only got a couple of years left, come on, let's get some work done. then you can go to the next president. look, we've got j

forf congress wanted to ask all of the models that the fed does use, they could. >> is congress going what the heck to do with a bunch of the models that the fed uses? if me a break. >> in general, not. you talk to the staff of the monetary policy committee and you bring in the staff from the fed who makes these models and presents these models to the fomc. >> congressional staffers are going to understand how these models worth? economists.hem are i went to school with a few. it would not be outside of their general purview and what they do. whether or not their bosses understand would be a different question. if you want to know what the fed looks at, just ask for it. anytime you use a model, you are subject to the old staying -- saying of garbage in, garbage out. [laughter] details know all of the of the economy. millions of interlocking pieces. no rule can take all of them into account. used some sort of role before hand or some sort of model, you never would have predicted that the entire country would at the same time have suffered a housing crisis. it had never happened before.

us tonight. >> thank you very much, ed. >> you bet. what is the atmosphere in congress at this hour as this is unfolding? well, i think most of the republicans are embarrassed by this legislation to create the lawsuit. and most of the democrats are furious that we're not using this time to help the american middle class, help the economy, by creating jobs instead of giving tax breaks to send jobs overseas let's give them to company to bring jobs back to the united states allowing students to refinance their student loans and saving them $50 billion to the american families if we just did for students what we did for banks in letting them refinance those loans and providing minimum wage increase that so desperately needed in so many places across this country for so many workers. and making sure that women who work get paid equal to men in the job for the same kind of work. but the republicans have chosen something else. they've chosen to try to divert the attention, they've done nothing on behalf of the american people. this is the least effective congress in the history of the country. and they still go

also joining us, congress duncan hunter and a member of the armed services committee.g the white house on what we knew ahead of last week's shootdown. phillip, let me start with you, professor. they entrusted you with an extraordinary mission, to go over there and try to figure out what was happening in ukraine. apparently they were begging us for technology including that that would help counter these surface-to-air missiles. and we did not send it, is that the essence of it? >> yeah. they've been asking, begging for help. and basically their requests essentially have gotten lost in the file of our bureaucracy. >> could we have done it? >> probably not in time to save flight 17. but the sooner you start, the sooner it gets there. if we don't start now, it won't be there by the fall. and putin is very clear. he's going to continue supporting the rebels and bleeding ukraine unless they actually get some serious help. so if you don't want this thing to just keep bleeding away with more tragedies, the ukrainians have to be helped. >> they're sitting there, their air space

joining us, congress mman. start with the bill. if you can help us understand it a little bit. right now we're hearing so much about the bill that treats unaccompanied minors coming in from the central american countries different than unaccompanied minors who might come in from mexico, say. what specifically would happen if this bill were enacted? what would happen to an unaccompanied minor coming in from central america that's not happening right now? >> well, to put it very simply, right now they wait about two years before they get a hearing to determine whether they're going to stay in the country or whether they're going to go back. this would make that about a two-wo two-week process. the way the law is written now, if you come from a con tig wous state, mexico or canada, obviously we're talking about mexico here, that process is a matter of days. a border patrol agent can determine whether you qualify for asylum, refugee status or visas available for kids who are trying to get here and immediately hand them over. part of the reasoning is we can do that safely and direct

who among us gets five weeks of paid vacations so we can go out and stump for our own job. this congressize they're getting further and further separated from what the american people sent them to d.c. to do for us. #. >> and hogan, is this congress actually doing something by not doing something? >> well for the base. they like the fact that they're keeping some of these bills from going through because they don't like the bills. but goldie's absolutely right. it's not the number, it's the substance of the bills that they're passing. but look, i do want to address this impeachment deal. this isn't something new, president clinton was actually impeached. george bush had impeachment charges filed against him as well. leadership starts at the top. this president hasn't really led from the front. he has punted to congress on most of his biggest issues from the beginning, and this is the result of a lack of leadership is that we have a congress who say they're doing nothing. >> hogan, goldie, thanks both for being with us this morning. >> thank you. >>> now a word for our digital viewers and

there's one reason you should run for congress, all of us should run for congress. and it is congress's work schedule. this is the work schedule between now and the election. there are zero workdays for them in august, 10 workdays for the whole month of september, two days in october and they don't in fact have any sustained period of work at all after tomorrow until at least the end of the year. sweet. but their longest vacation of the year, the more than five weeks they're taking off starts tomorrow, which means we are down to the wire in terms of weather they are going to do anything of substance. today the crowning achievement of the house on the last day before we go tomorrow, was that the house today had authorized a lawsuit against president obama. no democrats voted for it, all but five republicans did vote for it, and the five republicans who didn't, the five republicans who voted no apparently did so because the lawsuit does not go far enough. it doesn't go impeachment far enough. what's interesting, is that while it was the republicans who voted today to

a president right now, what he can use to product congress to do something is to take the authority of his, and do something bold and in that instance extend a protection and a process for two years. i hope that is the product that moves congress as a whole forward. >> you mentioned the president said pointedly in the rose garden recently that he will go as far as he can under the law to reform the immigration system. the 2012 --tioned that would provide relief for young people, how far would you like the president to go to expand this law for larger number of undocumented migrants for another 4 million estimated parents of young immigrants in the country that some people would like to see covered by this? others would say 8 million, covered by the senate plan not accepted by the house. how far would you like the president to go and how far realistically do you think he is likely to go? >> groups and the categories that were eminent in the bipartisan bill passed in the senate, i think that has to be the ground floor. those are large numbers. we are also talking about reunification, loo

you have done an excellent job in holding all of us in congress, in the department accountable. you are a key stakeholder in this whole debate of the department of veterans affairs. you need to be active, engaged in the process of long term reforms for the department of veterans administration. so i want to thank all of the vsos as well for your continued effort you have been doing and keeping an eye on what is happening with the department, and for joining us today. once again, mr. chairman, i want to thank you for having this very important hearing. with that, i yield back the balance of my time. >> thank you very much. to my friend mr. michaud. i want to recognize some participants in the audience with us from the american league boys nation, who joined us here today. welcome to all of you, and thanks for being here. we're glad to have you with us. [ applause ] >>> this morning we're going to hear from the honorable sloan gibs gibson. to you, sir, we owe a great debt of gratitude for stepping in as number two and then stepping up as my ranking member has said, during a very t

we made it and the average american if he uses good sense can do something like that too. >> how have relationships between the members of congress changed over the course of the past 58 years? >> about the same. there used to be a guy on the committee. i would always tell whether the media was going to be there because he'd show up. that's the tip is things were pretty important that day. the business of the house has been a little bit corrupted. not a lot but a little because it's interesting to note -- it's interesting to note that that money or rather that relationship with the media is one that generally scares the member of the house. it also is a situation where if you watch the members -- and do this on c-span or something like that and watch. he's not talking to his colleagues. he's got his eye on that television up there. all of a sudden, you have a guy that is making a big speech to the television. which is quite different than it would be were he to make his speech to somebody he was having a real discussion of important issues. just to return to one point, i have done pretty well because i learned something. and that

we have these two terrific young castro brothers who are representing us in congress and in the city hall. we have come a long way but we should not forget the discrimination. [applause] >> thank you. unfortunately we've run out of time, adages wanted to ask you all to please help me thank ignacio garcia and nicholas costs for a great discussion -- nick kotz. take you very much for coming. we appreciate it. [applause] [inaudible conversations] visit booktv.org to watch any of the programs you see here online. type the author or book title in the search bar on the upper left side of the page and click search. you can share anything you see on the booktv.org easily by clicking share on the upper left side of the page and selecting the format. booktv streams live online for 48 hours every weekend with top nonfiction books and authors. booktv.org. >> booktv continues now with an interview from our college series. professor jacqueline maria hagan sat down with booktv to discuss her book "migration miracle." in the book she looks at the role that religion and the church fully in helping mi

until last week i sent a letter to congress asking them to increase penalties and give us flexibility to move the migrants through the system faster. yesterday i asked congress to fund these efforts. about half of the resources would go to border security enforcement and extradited people who don't qualify for humanitarian claim. about half ago to make sure that we are treating children humanely and further tackle the real problems in central america. and so right now congress has the capacity to work with us and work with faith-based groups and not-for-profit to helping to care for these kids and the ability to work with all parties concerned to directly address this situation. instead they want to see a solution and the supplemental offers them the capacity to vote immediately to get it done. of course, in the long run the best way to address this is what the house of representatives to pass legislation fixing our broken immigration system, which includes funding for additional thousands of border patrol agents and something that everybody down here indicates is a priority. this bil

i would hope that congress would get serious about partnering with us. 's not a matter of accepting exactly what we say but if they're going to reject our reforms, they need to come back -- >> with some alternatives. you notify the congress you are sending six guantÁnamo detainees to uruguay. there's still a lot of tension up on the hill about the fact the administration did not notify about the swap involving sergeant bergdahl. do you think that will complicate further transfers? >> the president has made it very clear that he would like to see guantÁnamo closed. we will continue to work within the law to do everything we can to close it. we feel it is very clearly not in our interest. you have legal authority issues how long you can hold people and under what authority. >> do you know if sergeant bergdahl has spoken with his family yet? >> i don't know. as you know, he is back on active duty as far as capacity where he could handle it. he is still under the care of all of our doctors there. he is still getting medical treatment. >> you have promoted wom

>> i made that comment, and i think it was true, because the congress voted for us to be set up, a lot of members of congress didn't want us at all, and the families know that better than anybody else, they had to fight for the commission. the president didn't want us to do an investigation in the administrative branch. they didn't give us enough money. less money than any other commission had gotten. they didn't give us enough time, and it was in the year of the presidential election. so it was the most partisan time in washington. i looked at all of those factors and figured, we've been set up to fail. and so it was -- we had to fight. we had to fight to get more money, fight to get more time, fight to get access to documents we needed. we had to fight to get people to testify to make our cases. nothing was easy. without the kind of bipartisan group we have with us, without the work of all these commissioners, we would never have been successful, i think a lot of people thought we had been set up to fail, and it would have been sad if we had. >> i would simply add that there's no suc

i think that gives us broad permission to take what executive action we can to help fix a broken immigration system, because they're frustrated that congress will not act. taking executive action along the lines of what the president was talking about in the rose garden a few weeks ago would allow us to redirect resources to the border to deal with it very that is particularly important because a house republicans have decided that they're going to head home for the month of august without the president supplemental request, which is exhibit 1000 in the case of the broken republican congress. what we do in case on all ofs, the test these things is are we on solid legal footing. the president insists that that analysis is done before we take any executive action. now, i don't think that is going to stop the republicans from necessarily suing us, so we do what we think we should, not what we think drives the republicans. >> should we expect more executive actions on immigration specifically and just to clarify on the honduras, the story was right, it's not locked down, but they broadly described what he is considering, right? >> i'm not goin

republican or democrat, to make those designations and then to use those sanctions that are available under the act, which was passed by congress, signed into law in the 1990s by president clinton. they are there to be used. they are effective tools when they are used. we saw this about a decade ago when the tools were used very effectively against vietnam when it was a very gross abuser of religious freedom. we saw some real benefits for persecuted religious people in christians alike in vietnam. we then removed them from the cpc list to encourage the good behavior we had seen to reward the progress that had been made, and unfortunately they slipped right back into their old patterns of behavior and became an abuser again. so we find ourselves in 2014 recommending that vietnam, for example, again be shifted over to cpc status. that's another designation we would like to have made. we need to make those did he say i go n -- designations. they need to be made known. >> and the violators, we have it now. >> exactly right. the tools are there in the legislation to put travel restrictions on people, officials who are responsible fo

. >> americans, congress, those who are concerned about protecting our constitution and using the one tool that congress does have to halt what is going on, this lawlessness coming from the top. the one tool they have are articles of impeachment. let's get going on that. and it's not necessarily, sean, a lawsuit being filed by congress. because you don't bring a lawsuit to a gunfight. >> just remember this person we're watching here, sarah palin. despite ner attributes, she impeached herself. she walked off the job two years in. what a strange person to be talking about impeachment. today speaker boehner was asked about her comes and he responded. >> sarah palin called your movement for a lawsuit against the president, bringing a lawsuit to a gunfight that president obama should be impeached. what's your response to governor palin? >> i disagree. >> what about those who tong about impeachment? >> i disagree. >> i love the face of this guy when he gets that very sad look. it's very human. why am i in this bunch of crazies. how did i get in this crazy car. stop the world, i want to get

and congress is committee structure for overseeing homeland security continues to be dysfunctional. we use our word in a report it came from members of congress and key positions. this splendored jurisdiction is episodic and inadequate and threatens our national security. this dysfunction has lasted for far too long and our friends at the annenberg public policy center have run in recent days this advertisement in the news ever giving you the flowchart, if you will, of oversight some 90 committees roughly over homeland security. that of course, completely unacceptable. on the positive side, the director of the national intelligence and the national counterterrorism center on ensuring that the various intelligence agencies work together and there has been real improvement there and that is progress. as noted the report also talks about how we have done our work a decade ago and it calls for bipartisanship too often go unheeded and we hope that our actions point in the direction of our political leaders might come to agreement on the difficult terrorism challenge that we face today and in th

flow of immigration to the united stat states, he was -- he announced that he would be asking congress, us, to cooperate with him and provide him with $2 billion in additional funds to deal with the humanitarian crisis, a crisis, as i indicat indicated, that was produced as a result of his activities. so in the same breath, at that moment when he asked for more money to take care of the crisis, he announced that he will deliberately and openly go around the congress of the united states and the constitution and unilaterally change immigration law again through a enforcement policy. he said -- quote -- "today i'm beginning a new effort to fix as much of our immigration system as i can on my own, without congress. as a first step, i'm directing the secretary of homeland security and the attorney general, directing them to move -- to move available and appropriate resources from our interior to the border. i've also directed secretary johnson and attorney general holder to identify additional actions my administration can take on our own within existing legal authorities to do what congress r

us. >>> congress is turning its back on president obama's immigration plan. the house committee chairman says the $$3.7 million is too much. homeland security delivered a message to future immigrants thinking about coming to the united states. >> our border is not open to illegal migration, and our message to those who are coming here illegally, to those contemplating coming here illegally into south texas is we'll send you back. >> johnson toured a temporary detention center in new mexico and says immigration and customs enforcement will run out of money next month. >> three of america's wealthiest men are urging restorm. sheldon aidele ston, warren buffet and another published an op-ed saying: >>> more united states troops are headed to the philippines as part of an agreement between the two faces. the move is signing the spotlight by soldiers deployed there. many amerasians face discrimination and a life of poverty. >> this woman is a single mother but has endured a life of hardship and poverty. her father, a serviceman, left her and her mother when she wa

use the word illegal once. not once. the "washington post" june 30th. it's okay that congress won't act on immigration. the l.a. times july 5th. a mounting backlog of immigration courts. business week this week, with immigration reform dead on capitol hill president obama will use executive authority to make changes to the law himself. nbc's matt lauer urging voters to share thoughts on twitter, by calling on immigrants by hashtag refugee riders and never to be called illegal. nbc using undocumented. ditto cbs. the "l.a. times" and the associated press have announced a ban on the term illegal immigrants. that makes things easy, doesn't it? like dispensing with the term global warming and ta da! it's climate change. who can argue with that. by saying we have immigration crisis, anyone against waves of illegals are anti-human being, they're not for illegal immigration reform, they're against immigration reform. leave out illegal part and you might forget the billions spending processing the tens of thousands of illegal kids dumped into the country and tonging they are citizens into country, they're not. and those

what about using this law, why it can't congress or president just say this is not about sex trafficking this law doesn't apply there. for they go back home. they get turned a way. we are allowing bus loads to come to the border in the san diego area to cross in to the united states. why not turn them around? >> refer to this loophole from tuwaitha deals with people from -- children from central america. the other migrants from mexico and canada they are turned away. i think right now what we're seeing these children are not being processed fast enough and any sort of legislation like this is meant to process them faster, but there is more than just that going on here. what we need to do is actually stop this migration. this migration is really more tied toward what president obama did back in 2011 with his daca act allowed for young people to be brought -- children to be -- once they're brought to the borders that they could actually stay here. then you have happen is in central america a lot of misinformation about this law, all of you'd is en, well things are bad right now you can com

because president obama has taken the turn to bipartisan congress and say he is going to use his pen and phone to work around the congress and use executive action he is really giving the public the impression that he has kind of given up on the congress which is part of his job. they are a co-equal branch of government and he is giving up and leaving the building and going out for snack food and talking about anything but his job when he is at social gatherings it has been reported he is planning his post-presidency and a move to new york and the message the voters are getting is he is fed up with the job itself and the best thing to do is try to be seen like he is work with the congress. get the war you want and you won't get the congress. president obama has been given credit by the public to be work with the other side even when they say no. >> he writes as an excuse for in excusable actions the republicans refuse to act because they see the president as the former constitutional law professor at war with the constitution. he uses sympathetic terminology there but he is wrong? >>

as the successful operation demonstrates, we are employing investigative tools that congress has given us to protect our citizens and businesses. we've leveraged our strengths by partnering with agencies all over the world and in the private sector. if we want to remain effective in protecting our citizens and businesses, however, our laws and resources must keep pace with the increasingly sophisticated tactics and growing numbers of our adversaries. our adversaries are always adapting, so must we. in my written statement i describe several legislative proposals and resource increases that will assist the department in its efforts to counter this threat. these proposals include an amendment to the computer fraud and abuse act and several other proposals. we look very much forward to working with the committee to address these issues. we also need additional resources at the department to continue to disrupt botnets including hiring new attorneys as indicated in my statement. thank you again for the opportunity to discuss our work in this area and i look forward to answering any questions

the fda's office of hematology and oncology products has aggressively used the tool provided by congress to be innovative in clinical trials. in the past eight months cancer drugs been approved using the accelerate pathway. won approval is based on the trial of 111 patients. an example of research and approvals happening faster and smaller clinical trials as in the case in the best. small sized trials accelerate approvals do have drawbacks. they may not include a diverse population which may yield an incomplete picture of how the drug might work in a broader population. small trials accelerated approval came to be seen as deadlier cancers where there are no other good therapeutic options. i want to stress that the risk benefits tolerance of a cancer patient they see a poor prognosis may be much different than for those with other of able treatment options. and, therefore, the same acceptance of reduced dat data n which today' to base fda approvy not be appropriate in other fields or for other diseases. finally, i want to stress the importance of researchers, pharmaceutical companies, and

as soon as possible, congress must authorize at least 1,000 additional visas for this fiscal year to get us through these next critical months. it's the moral obligation of every member of congress, not to just co-sponsor h.r. 4594, the bipartisan afghan allies protection act that i've introduced with my friend and colleague adam kinzinger and senators mccain and she houston in the senate. we -- sheheen in the senate. as congressman kinzinger pointed out, it doesn't matter where you stand with the iraq war. it's where we stand in keeping our commitments. innocent lives are at stake. american honor is on the line and our future actions could be compromised if people don't trust us. it's our duty to save the lives of those who risk so much to help us when we needed them. they need us to co-sponsor h.r. 4594, to protect innocent lives and american honor. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the chair recognizes the gentleman from north carolina, mr. jones, for five minutes. mr. jones: mr. speaker, thank you very much. i'm on the floor today because i believe that congress must p

congress. you don't believe that is your responsibility. you will have a conversation with us, but we won't have the ability, even though we put -- whatnctions in place you have said today is that congress is relative relevant to raising concerns, not relevant to whether this is going to be approved by congress or have sanctions waived. that is something that all of us -- serve in this body congress is playing no role other than raising questions. way that we is some will figure out to deal with that. it's a major lapse in our responsibilities. i thank you for your continued concern. the goalposts are moving. i take the prerogative of the united states congress and incredibly seriously, as does president obama and secretary kerry. merely a believe it is conversation. we believe it is a consultation. we believe you have oversight authorities and legislative authorities. we have worked very closely to provide you with real-time information, often in classified sessions. we will continue to do so. that in our interest congress knows what we're doing every step of this negotiation

looking of theth appreciation fact that so much legislation came out of congress within a half.year and legislation that remains with us today. medicare, civil rights sex, education policy. it is a good time to try to accomplished,t we and how we accomplished it. it is also the relationship between president and congress. right now we are in gridlock and people are wondering why can't presidents do more? and people are interested. something special about this time? did congress work differently? was it an easier place to do different -- to do business? johnson certainly had his opposition not only among some republicans, but also within his own democratic party, especially when it came to the voting rights act and the civil rights act. wasn't anyarder, different for president johnson versus what barack obama faces today? was. we have nostalgia. there was a lot of civility, a lot of comedy, legislators were more willing to legislate. look back to 1963 when kennedy was killed, all of bottledage and that is up in congressional committees. seconderal calls it the branch of government. lyndon johnson was aware of this. part

congress. the gentleman from massachusetts brings a critical issue to the house floor. the use of force by u.s. armed forces, and the appropriate role for the congress in that decision. any military officer will tell you that the support of the people is critical to the success of the sustained combat operation. as the representative body, that responsibility falls to us. it's an obligation that i know all of my colleagues take seriously, and it is why i expect overwhelming passage of this motion this morning. and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized. mr. mcgovern: madam speaker, i'd like to yield five minutes to the gentleman from new york, mr. engel. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york is recognized for five minutes. mr. engel: madam speaker, i rise in support of h.con.res. 105. it reaffirms our belief that u.s. troops should not be deployed in a sustained combat role in iraq without specific congressional authorization. i yield my southwest five minutes. since last d

>> i made that comment and i think it was true because the congress voted for us to be set up an awful lot of the members of congress did not want us in the members of the family know that better than anyone else. the president didn't want us. he thought he could do an investigation in the administrative branch. they did not give us enough money. they gave us less money than any other commission they had done. they didn't give us enough time. and it was in the year of the presidential election, so it was the most partisan time in washington. we looked at all those factors and figured, my god, we have been set up to fail. so we had to fight to get more money. we had i to get more time. we had the fight to get access to documents we needed. we had to fight to get people to testify to make our cases. nothing was easy. and without the kind of bipartisan group that we had with us, without the work of all of these commissioners, we would never have been successful because i do a lot of people thought we had been set up to fail and it would have been sad if we had. >> i would say that there i

we can't use the pension thing because we already used it. >> the funny thing is when you cover congress has to be paid for, this thing known on capitol hill as pension smoothing is everybody's favorite gimmick paying for. can we do pension smoothing? when you talk to people about this nobody really opposes it. they just want to make sure it's spent on what they want. democrats want to use this to extend unemployment benefits or something in the senate having to do with a fund for coalminers who are owed payments. republicans proposed to use this to repeal the medical device tax. >> the big thing here, dehaven't raised he gas tax. that strikes me -- their their arguments against the gas tax and who gets hit bay gas tax, but that's the problem. given that we haven't raised the gas tax in 20 years, that means it's fallen by 39% in real terms and cars have gotten more fuel efficient. so the gas tax is like a user feel. you pay for the road. >> because you're driving on the road. so gas tax should go up because you need to collect more per gallon because people use fewer gallons of gas for t

us. last congress, the senate took up a similar package only to see political gamesmanship get in the way. we competent let that happen again. millions of sportsmen and women across this country expect better. the american people deserve better. there is too much in this bill that we agree on to let it fail once again. senators hagan and murkowski have worked diligently for months to craft a bill that has an incredible amount of support both in the senate but most importantly back home in the states that we all represent. let's pass this bill once and for all. madam president, i yield the floor. madam president, i have six unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. i would ask unanimous consent these requests be agreed to and these requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. tester: with that, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the s

congress fails to act. he urged members of the cabinet to be creative. john boehner is vowing to sue the president for using actions to bypass congress. president obama is not backing down. >> i'm going to keep taking action on my own to help the middle class. they criticize me for this. boehner cease suing me for this. i told him, i would rather do things with you. pass some laws. middle class families can't wait for the republican congress to do stuff. so sue me. as long as they are doing nothing, i'm not going to apologize for doing something. >> he criticized republicans for playing politics with plans to build highways and bridges that could affect up to 700,000 jobs. >> people want to see results. and objectively, if you look at the agenda i'm putting forward, the things we are trying to get done like just fix some bridges and roads, it really shouldn't be controversial. not crazy. not socialism. it's not, you know, the imperial presidency. no laws are broken. >> all right. listen to this. it's going to be trickier for reporters and voters to find out which people are taking free trips overseas. they

us. when a member of congress hit in his office because he didn't want to talk to us, we said we that wecould hear him breathing on the door. so for us, that was the process of creating this commission and you can imagine the lumley finally did create a and it was signed into law the day before thanksgiving 2002, for us that was the beginning again. and this time we had to meet the commissioner and he's like, who are these people? and there are a few bumps and bruises along the way. once we got introduced, we knew that we were in good hands, and of course, they stand behind a report that is releasing today. and so we knew that we had a great team of people these people are still here today and they are doing whatever they can to make our nation stronger and safer and more secure and i would love to be able to introduce them all as they release their new reports. so with that, i'm going to invite the congressman up to the stage and they are going to give a few remarks and then we will open it up for all commissioners for q&a. thank you so much. [applause] >> thank you so much. >> kerry te

us on twitter. washington journal continues. is joining uslli for the next 45 minutes talking about efforts in congress to approve veterans healthre in the wake of the many problems the v.a. has had, particularly in the health care area. thank you for being here with us this morning. we have you with us because a deadline awaits next week in congress. there are efforts to pass both a bill in the house and senate and get legislation out and approve before the august recess. what does congress primarily want to do to fix some of the health care problems, particularly the ones we saw at the v.a.? you are correct. the house and senate already passed measures now being conference. they have a conference committee that consists of lawmakers from both sides of the aisle and chambers, sitting down and trying to work out some of the differences between the two bills. we believe, because we have been involved in some of the discussions and have been privileged to be asked our advice and counsel on some of the measures, we believe they are very close to reaching a deal now. we were a little disappointed when they did not reach a deal prior

would remind us that we are americans, and that we try and work together and solve our problems through not only rule of law, but this opportunity to work together with members of congress from all across this country. so i am delighted that, in fact, you have succeeded in rounding us up and getting us to do that. i note that we've had one member that has just appeared, and i did not know if any member seeks additional time. i want to thank this panel. anything you have in writing if you'll leave for us we'll put that in the record. this panel is now -- gentleman does seek time. for one minute. >> 30 seconds. >> gentleman is recognized for a minute. [ inaudible ] >> one sentence i hope people pay careful attention to. congress should work to pass long-term reauthorization bill well before the expiration date set forth in hr-5021. >> and i really concur with the gentleman, also, and that's what we're here to try and do today. ahead of time. wish i was an on-time delivery but not everybody can be u.p.s. thank you very much. this panel is excused. we now call the gentleman from new jersey, mr. garrett, we're delighted that mr. garrett is here. evidently he's going to be re