A queer double standard

By Ellen Ratner
The 1945 novel written by George Orwell titled, "Animal Farm: A Fairy Story", provides a useful lens by which last week's resignation of Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig can be viewed. Both Orwell's novel, and Craig's "novella" illustrate the hypocrisy and absurdity of the self-anointed "regimes" that draw their power, not from earned legitimacy, but through harassment, fear and intimidation.



Sen. Craig pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. He was guilty of that dangerous behavior heretofore referred to as "the wide stance." The scene of his crime was the men's room at the Minneapolis airport. The senator happened to practice the wide stance in front of a not so wide audience – the wrong audience, who happened to be an undercover cop. Aside from the fact that I find it a bit disturbing that our police officers who are supposed to be tracking down would be terrorists, in their favorite place to terrorize – an airport, would rather stake out the stall of a men's room. It begs the question of entrapment. The definition of entrapment from thefreedictionary.com is: (a) To lure into danger, difficulty, or a compromising situation, or (b) To lure into performing a previously or otherwise uncontemplated illegal act.

Craig may have had an entrapment defense had he not decided to be his own attorney and plead guilty to a misdemeanor – disorderly conduct. Plenty of senators and congressmen and even presidents have been charged with disorderly conduct, some before office, some during and some after having left office. Sometimes they don't have to confess their sins to the court, but to the court of public opinion like the good senator from Louisiana, Republican Sen. David Vitter. Earlier in the summer, Vitter asked for mercy for his sins, invoked the name of God in his apology for being on "the Madame's list" several times, and he was "good to go." As quoted in the Fox News website, "Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling. Out of respect for my family, I will keep my discussion of the matter there – with God and them. But I certainly offer my deep and sincere apologies to all I have disappointed and let down in any way." Vitter was known to be a frequent patron of the world's oldest profession.


My question for the Republican Party who forced Craig to resign this week is, why Craig and not Vitter? My conservative counterpart, Jim Pinkerton, on Fox News's "Long and Short of It", gives the party's reasoning: It's because Vitter apologized, and because the Republican Party stands up for family values. OK Jim, I guess you want me to believe that there is a huge difference between the crime of soliciting a prostitute and the crime of disorderly conduct. As in there is a huge difference between selling marijuana vs. cocaine? Both offenses are punishable by imprisonment.

Or does the difference have to do with the sex of the partner in crime or sexual orientation of the partner(s) in the would-be crime. What if Vitter was on a male prostitute's list? Or what if Craig was in a unisex restroom and the person in the stall next to him was a woman and not an undercover male police officer?

I think anyone who answers the question honestly can say that the difference between Vitter's get-out-of-jail-free card and Craig's lock him up and throw away the key to the Senate men's room, has to do with the fact that the Republican Party is deeply homophobic. Again, from thefreedictionary.com: Homophobia: (a) Fear of or contempt for lesbians and gay men. (b) Behavior based on such a feeling.

The Republican Party claims that Sen. Craig had to go because Republicans stand for family values. Why didn't Vitter have to go?

Perhaps Craig's expedient flush and Vitter's reprieve also had to do with the Republican head count in the Senate. The Republicans have had an issue with heterosexual sex in the past. Remember when our country was preoccupied for more than a year with the President Clinton impeachment? Republicans tried to impeach and remove President Clinton over a charge that stemmed from questioning his legal heterosexual conduct.

Perhaps the answer to why Craig and why Clinton, but not Vitter comes down to Orwell's satire on totalitarian regimes – all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. The Republicans are willing to flush one of their own if there is any hint of homosexual conduct and especially if that seat is a securely held Republican seat. They will, however tolerate a complete flush of family values if there is heterosexual misconduct and it's in a not-so-securely-held state. Louisiana is, after all a "purple state," not fully red or blue.

So when the Republicans play the family value card, they are really playing the political expediency card. Granted, I'm no Larry Craig fan, but I do believe that the cornerstone of a democracy is that all should be treated equally.

Rove worse than Clinton

By Ellen Ratner
Last week I was walking by the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, the White House's next-door domicile for White House staffers. I couldn't help but notice a long line of people waiting to get in. I stopped to ask the people in the long line what they were waiting for. All of them were there for a faith-based roundtable. Many of them were recipients of faith-based grants – a brainchild of Karl Rove. It's hard to say if Karl Rove was hosting them, but it would not surprise me given the fact that this was Rove's last week in the West Wing, where he served as the president's "architect" and political director for most of his tenure.



One of the administration's first acts in office was to establish this faith-based cash cow with taxpayer dollars. There has been much discussion about how these faith-based grants have been given out. There are many indications that they were given to states and districts that could be very helpful politically to the Republicans and the Bush administration. In January 2005, the Los Angeles Times revealed that faith-based grants had been disproportionately doled out in swing congressional districts and swing states. Karl Rove has overseen much of the "how much" and "to whom" would receive these grants, but he does so under the cover of executive privilege because he lives in the White House.

Republicans used to attack the Clinton administration for using polling data to make decisions, including deciding on the location of President Clinton's vacation spot. Karl Rove, however, has used the resources of the federal government, i.e. U.S. taxpayer dollars, in ways the Clinton administration could not imagine. In an article last week, the Washington Post documented how Karl Rove directed federal assets, i.e. U.S. taxpayer dollars, for Republican gains. One of the most egregious expenditures was for senior White House staff visits to Republican Christopher Shay's Connecticut district. Officials made seven trips in the six months to Shay's district preceding the November election. According to the Post, these visits marked "significant" events such as one visit to present a $23 government-funded weather alert radio to a local elementary school. One might say these visits "paid off" for the Republican Party, as Christopher Shays was the only New England Republican who survived the November election. I doubt a thank you note was sent to American taxpayers.

What may have been started in the Clinton administration, or even before, was brought to a new level by Karl Rove in this administration. Rove and the office of political director for the White House cost taxpayers well over a million dollars a year. That means, in simple terms, at least 200 tax-paying Americans work a full year to fund the political operations of the White House.

The question is, why do taxpayer dollars need to fund what is clearly a political operation? The president is president of all Americans, not just those who are members of his or her political party. Yes, the president is also head of his respective political party when he is in the White House, but there is to some extent a clear bright line on many political functions that take place in the White House. For example, the annual Christmas parties, large shrimp included, are funded directly by political parties. I think this bright line needs to be brighter and thicker. For starters, the office of political director needs to be funded by the party and not the taxpayers.

Secondly, the office of political director should not be in the White House for the sake of transparency. Yes, transparency – that pesky hallmark of an open society. With the political director's office being in the West Wing, the communications, as well as the visitor's log, fall under that widening umbrella called "executive privilege" and therefore remain under cover of darkness. If the political parties funded the political director of the White House, as I believe they should, the director's office would be at party headquarters. Communications of this office could be open for public scrutiny, especially in the case of suspected malfeasance. The Secret Service's WAVE record, which documents White House foot traffic, would also give a very good indication as to the when's and what's of the White House, as the WAVE record does not live under the executive privilege umbrella. In addition, it would be almost impossible for a president to protect most e-mails under executive privilege.

The West Wing would, of course, still house the president's legislative director and congressional liaison. Those positions are meant to advance a president's governing agenda, which is of course politically driven, but is open to dialogue and scrutiny by the American public. Of course deals are made behind the closed doors of the Congress and White House, but ultimately, those deals are made public in black and white ink on the bills and budgets.

American people deserve to have complete openness about who gets executive branch grant money and contracts as well as when and where this money is given. Having a political director paid for by the taxpayers and residing in the White House opens the system up for misuse and abuse of taxpayer dollars. Finally, for those who would tell me to give up my self-anointed job as political watchdog, I have three words for you . . . President Hillary Clinton.

Instant gratification to blame for recent trends

By Ellen Ratner
The events of the last week and a half have been very disturbing. They form a pattern and represent an underlying problem in our culture. The collapsing of a bridge in Minnesota, the collapse of the sub prime mortgage markets and the problems with the space shuttle, while different, share common causes – failure to make sound investments and an addiction to instant gratification laced with a healthy dose of denial.



You don't have to be JP Morgan the banker to understand what happened with the Sub prime crisis. Loans were made to people who with a wisp of a downturn in their lives could never repay the loans. Some were loaned money at an absurdly low "variable" rate with no hope of getting the income to make the higher payments when the rate changed. Some loans were made to homes that were valued by the loan officer way above their market value. Other loans were made without anyone checking the real financial income or records of the loan recipient. Wall Street was only too happy to buy into the fantasy that there was going to be real money behind these mortgages.

What is so amazing about these crises is that pretty much any thoughtful American could have told you what was going on. With credit card companies sending applications in the mail at breakneck speed, with Ditech and other mortgage companies sending out offers, advertising on TV and radio and with telemarketers calling during many dinner hours with low mortgage offers, it was obvious that credit was pretty loose. How come none of these Wall Street geniuses could figure this out?

The bridge in Minnesota is another example of not dealing with an obvious reality. In 2005 the American Society of Civil Engineers sent out a postcard "Greetings from America's Crumbling Infrastructure." It went out to many media outlets and pointed to their 2005 report which gave bridges in the United States a "C" grade. The 2005 report said that 27.1 percent of the nation's bridges are structurally unsound. The warning was ignored.

As I write, many Americans are on pins and needles wondering about the safety of the space shuttle. Yes, as amazing as it seems, NASA let another shuttle go up without fixing the "foam on takeoff problem." The shuttle is aging, we lost a crew in 2003, and we are still sending people up in the shuttle. Why don't we have one with new technology? Why do we put astronauts at risk?

These three incidents are related. They are related by our inability to look to the future as a country and as individuals. The Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, can't plan a budget that manages replacements and repairs. Any viable business budgets capital expenditures for repair and maintenance, but not our elected officials. Individuals have been brainwashed by a modern culture that tells kids from the moment they can sit up and watch TV that they need to have material things to be as good as the kid next door. We are addicted to instant material gratification. The concept of "layaway," has given way to credit cards for college kids to get them addicted early. With our economy being flown on a kite, it is only nature that what goes up, must come down. Let us hope that the shuttle will come down safely.

Homeless soccer scores big

By Ellen Ratner
I just got off the plane after attending a weekend wedding near Copenhagen, Denmark. The weather was beautiful, and there were tons of tourists. Right outside of my hotel were huge crowds attending the fifth annual Homeless World Cup. There were 500 athletes from more than 48 countries in attendance. Companies including Nike were sponsors, and there was help from the Danish government. The Crown Prince was scheduled to attend the final game, and the latest news reports had Scotland winning.



The games began in 2003 after a conference of the International Network of Street Papers. Two men, Harald Schmied of Austria and Mel Young of Scotland, were looking to unite homeless people around the world and settled on street soccer. Eighteen countries participated in the first games. It had become such a success that by the 2005 games, more than 50,000 spectators came with 27 nations represented. The games were supposed to take place in the United States in 2005, but because of Visa issues it became an impossible.


The games are not just a once-a-year event. There are practices and competitions held all over the world. Local communities in the U.S. have become involved, and it is a way to bring focus, as well as services, to the homeless all over the country. According to the Homeless World Cup website, research conducted one year after the 2005 Edinburgh World Cup (4 percent of the players went away with a new motivation for life, and 77 percent said it changed their lives forever. This was repeated after last year where 73 percent experienced what they reported to be a permanent life change.

Reporting a life change is one thing, but making measurable changes is another. Homeless World Cup has proven that these changes can be measured. Out of the approximately 500 players from the 2006 games, 35 percent have secured regular employment, 44 percent have improved their housing situation, 39 percent chose to pursue education, 93 percent have successfully addressed their addiction issues (not all homeless soccer players have addiction issues) and 72 percent continue to play football. Fifty thousand homeless people from across the globe participate in the tryouts for their teams.

The homeless problem in the U.S. is a confluence of many problems, including drug addiction and mental illness. Much of it is from bad luck, lousy health and a lack of opportunity. Many homeless people hold full time jobs and work hard to maintain their families. There isn't much pride or sense of self worth when you are homeless. The World Homeless Cup is the first international recognition to the problem of homelessness and to creating a world community to address the problem found in every country of the world.

I couldn't help but wonder though what would have happened if the United States had granted the visas in 2005. Would it have been covered as a serious sporting event? Would it have made it to the front pages of the newspapers like it did in Denmark? Would 50,000 Americans come to watch the tournaments? Would any governors come to open the game? Would George Bush or Laura Bush attend? I am afraid I know the answers to the above questions. No, No, No, No and No. Sadly, we are a country that has left the homeless without any real programs to bring these citizens back into our communities. If President Bush can promote T-Ball on the White House lawn, then he certainly can promote homeless soccer. That would be a much needed signal from a deeply religious president about caring for "the least of these".

Maria Leavey Breakfast Transcript

By
Speaker Pelosi:

Thank you very much Michael. Good morning again to all of you. Again welcome to the Speaker's office. I say that because this is the place where I meet with the leadership on a regular basis to plan what's going to be happening in the near-near, in the near, and the not-so-near on the house floor.


On my way over, I thought is it better for me to just talk about this week then back up from there because it is a very intense week for us or should I just speak to you the way I speak to my caucus about what our responsibility is and then apply this week to that. Why not do that.
I believe that our responsibility, and this is the consensus that we have in our caucus, is to take the country in a new direction the American people called for in the last election, and that new direction applies to what we do and I put it in four areas;
1. How we protect the American people, which is our first responsibility,
2. How we grow our economy through innovation,
3. How we strengthen families, healthcare, education, job security, et cetera,
4. And how we preserve our planet.
And I'll go into those in a minute. How we do all these things in a fiscally-sound way; no new deficit spending, pay-as-you-go, in the most honest and open process, and living up to the highest ethical standard. I believe that the biggest ethical challenge facing the U.S. is the war in Iraq, and that's the frame in which we conduct our business in our caucus -- how do each of the things that we do fit under one of those frames. The accomplishment that I am very proud of that we have achieved or that we are on the road to achieving in those categories I think represent a difference – how to protect the American people.
We have to constantly remind, and that's one of the issues I dealt with before coming in here, that our responsibility is to provide for the common defense, to protect and defend the American people. But at the same time we take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. We don't have to take a choice between security and liberty. Our founders had it figured out. They lived in a time of conflict so it wasn't anything new to them on what would become known as the homeland. That we do, as we protect the American people, keep our promises, that we have this year passed and the President threatened to veto and I hope he doesn't, the largest increase in benefits for veterans , 6.7 billion dollars in the history of the veteran's administration. This is an incredible thing. I'll get to the war later. I have that a as A national security issue and an ethical issue.
The approach that we take is what we said in the campaign; we have to be smart and strong in how we protect the American people. But our strength in the world is not only about our military might, its about our greatness in terms of how we have a military second to none that enables us to form strong diplomatic alliances in order to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, maintain the peace, eradicate disease, alleviate poverty in the world, and reverse global warming; some of the things that can't happen unless we work together and they cannot happen effectively unless America takes its rightful place in the global economy.
All of the things that I mentioned, the four, are well-served and in fact must be predicated upon sound science. So what we want to do is have a major investment in science to make us technologically the best in the defense of our country so that we can, with that arsenal, prevent war. War should be a last resort. That's how the military prepares for it, as a last resort, not as a pre-emptive strike as the President, without a basis, went forth. But you have to be strong in order to be great.
So science in terms of innovation; we have an innovation agenda which hopefully the conference will be finished that we can take up this week.
Let me just say, in relation to this week in topic one, we will be probably bringing to the floor a FISA (foreign intelligence surveillance act) bill. The administration wants to have FISA, a foreign intelligence surveillance act, which gives them carte-blanche and no other branch of government weighing in. That's what they're using every excuse in the book to get. That's what they tried to get in that March meeting in 2004, that's what they're trying to do now. We believe that FISA is fine. If there's some changes that need to be made, we stand here ready to discuss them with the administration in terms of length of time and things like that. But this week we can have a FISA bill that addresses the main concerns that they have addressed. Really it's about clarification, but with an understanding that we will not give them the ability. And they will use it, they will say "but for them we could have been able to collect on people dangerous to our country." This is central to who we are as a country as you know.

Mike Tomaski:

Just a point of clarification, you're opposing this bill.

Pelosi:

No, were presenting a bill. We're presenting but we're opposing what they want to do. They told us that there are some things we need to clarify and we said we're happy to do that. But now they're saying . . . . What they wanted is that the Attorney General will sign off on what can be collected. Absolutely not.

(Laughter)

And of course not that under any circumstances that would be acceptable, but you have to give them points for gall.
So in any event, science, technology equip us to protect the American people, whether its in surveillance or whatever it happens to be, in a way that, and I was asked to honor our oath of office and to promote not only the strength of America, but also the values of America throughout the world. Science, technology, our innovation agenda to pay commitment to competitiveness, to keep America number one, to keep good paying jobs and businesses in the United States, to build an economy where many more people participate in the economic prosperity of our country.
I firmly believe that unless we have legislation, which I have been tasking for, to have a progressive economic initiative so that people feel they are a part of what's happening in the success of our country. First of all, it's the right thing to do, but it would be almost impossible to get any immigration bill, any trade bill, anything else passed. I mean, people feel left out. How many people in America think that they lost their job because of trade and immigration? Some have, but not anywhere near the number who think. We care about the reason the did but in terms of addressing the concerns they have, it doesn't matter why they don't have a job. We have to have job creation, job training initiatives, that escort any of these other bills, or at least is in tandem with them.
And we believe that all of that technology begins in the classroom so that takes strengthening families. Education is a key piece of that. Science tells us so much more about how a child's brain develops, how 80 percent of a child's brain is developed by the time he is in 3 years old and our public policy has to match that so that every child in America has that opportunity. And by 5 years old, if they're getting behind, by the time they go to school, they're not ready to learn and read, they start falling behind. The state of Texas, just to give you an example, projects its prison needs twenty years out by reviewing the reading skills of children in third grade. So we want to do something very different. It's not about just let's do what we like to do before incrementally . . . We have to be sure that this is based on the soundest science. And to this end we had a children's summit attended by four/ five hundred scientists and people associated with child development. And it ranged from all kinds of things; what having economic stress and insecurity in their families did to the children's development, being homeless or insecure about their housing. So it's all connected in an agenda about people and about what it means to strengthen families in that way. Again the connection to innovation; science helps us teach children, education trains our scientists for the future and that's where we have to make a major investment.
Then it takes us of course to the important issue of health care, so important to children. If absent the war, I think healthcare would be the overriding issue in the country. It's an economic issue, it's a personal security issue for people, and it's an issue of grave uncertainty. We talked about Maria earlier, no health insurance. I've been talking to the head of the NIH, CDC, those kinds of policy makers, about how we can have, forgetting for a moment who pays, whether its single-pay or employer-based, some combination, public, private, non-profit, whatever, just what would be the best possible healthcare for our country. And it would be science-based, personalized care.
Ellen and I may be diagnosed with the same thing. What works for her may not work for me, but there's a lot of boiler plate about what . . . Many women in America, for example, getting chemotherapy shouldn't have it. We have the science, we have the thing-a-ma-bob that tells us you shouldn't be having this but most women cannot have access to that. Many people in America have diabetes. Some of them receive state-of-the-art treatment, some receive no treatment, and some receive the wrong treatment. In the world that we want to create, this should all be available. But the key to it, which is a value I think we all share, the key to it is the most privileged, affluent person in America's healthcare is better served if the poorest person in America has access to healthcare. Because the registering of everybody into the system is instructive as to what works best, especially when you're talking about individual, personalized – personalized, what works for this person. The science is there to help us make those determinations. My view is that we have a moral responsibility to go in that direction.
And then you know, you're involved with prevention , nutrition, early intervention. Again a study of many more cases to take you to a place as to what really works best. And look – 2-billion dollars a week in Iraq, a little more, ten billion dollars a month. Just think what we could do if we decided we're going to have a war on cancer, because every family in America is affected by cancer. Do you know anybody who doesn't have somebody close to them . . . ? So that could be the lead but it really has to go to the other diseases as well. So thinking again, not incrementally (or) how do we patch this together, (rather) what is our global approach to this and now let's work back. If we spent the same amount of money that's being spent we could do this, and many more people would have access to healthcare. So again in terms of children and strengthening families, these things are connected. You go back to the innovation agenda in terms of job creation because economic security of course is essential to the strengthening of the family.
Believe it or not I'm trying to be brief. Protect our people, grow our economy, strengthen our families, (and) preserve our planet. The Secretary General of the U.N. sat in here a few months ago and told me if we don't act by 2012, it may be too late for the planet. That's not me saying it, that's the Secretary General of the U.N. We only recently have heard our President admit that the science, again we get back to science, our friend, science has made it clear. I was in Greenland Memorial day, I think. But in any event, all that you have heard about the ice caps melting is almost old. It has accelerated so much more than that. So anything that should have provoked us to action is now has a sense if urgency that is so much greater. Again we know what we have to do about it. This week we have our energy bill on the floor. It's more of an energy independence bill that will segue into the global warming aspects of it.
But getting back to jobs in America, progressive economic jobs, we can have a green jobs revolution here, in terms of how we educate people, train them in all of this, take jobs to the neighborhoods. This global warming issue is as local as your neighborhood and as global as the whole planet. That is why we're working with the mayors. The mayors have a ten-point program on strengthening cities, strengthening families, strengthening America. 10-point program, do you know what number one is? It's not housing, it's not transportation, its not education, it's not healthcare; it's climate change because they know what the cost is to the community. We can create a whole, as I said, an industry. We can tax for the technology to get the job done. Related to that is the bio-fuels piece of it. Whether you're talking about chicken fat or turkey litter or switch grass. We leap-frog over the corn alternative to cellulose, and almost anything can make the car go or electrify a town. We have to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and also do it in a way, and that's why I formed this new select committee on global warming and energy independence. The task is to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, reverse global warming change and do it in a way that invests in the technologies to do so.
If I ruled the world we would do it with a cap and trade that was the right cap and trade that would create under it a market for the carbon trading that would just change everything. Once the market forces are there, the technology will be attracted, the venture capitalists there, everything changes. We want to do so in a way again that brings in . . . because in the underserved community where they don't have a great deal of economic opportunity, this is all new. So these green collar jobs bring our people up.
The war. I mean this is the biggest frustration of all not to be able to end this war. As I said, it's an ethical challenge, it's a grotesque mistake, I've called it, it's a huge moral catastrophe for our country. Where we are right now is we've passed our defense authorization bill and the Senate is in the process of passing theirs what we're going to add to ours is Webb this week. We added Skelton two weeks ago which was a time certain for beginning the redeployment and ending the redeployment. And we're going to send out defense authorization bill to conference with theirs with timelines with Webb and that will be a strong case. We won't be taking up the funding of it until September. So I'll be pleased to answer any more questions you have on Iraq, but just to tell you what's happening this week because we said every week we will pass judgment on the conduct of this war and last week we did "no permanent basis." We're dealing with people when you talk to them I think they think we're going to stay there forever. I'm going to meet with the President tonight on this subject. I've been asking him for a meeting. He has not been particularly receptive until now and now we're going to meet tonight and so I'll be interested to see what he has to say. I'll let you know.
In any event again, I thank you for being here and (I'm) pleased to take any questions you may have.

Mike Tomaski:

I read where Jay Ensley is going to introduce language today to impeach the Attorney General of whom you spoke. How do you feel about that? Would you support that?

Pelosi:

Well I would like us to stay focused on our agenda for this week. I tell you our big issue today and tomorrow will be S-Chip, the biggest increase – 90 billion dollar bill that we're bringing to the floor on S-Chip to ensure that the 6 million who are there and expand by five million the number of children who are ensured access to quality healthcare for all Americans is our goal. Specifically we start with our children so I want the focus to be on that. We'll do our legislation today on lobbying reform. I don't know if you've seen but it's been endorsed by all the groups. It took some time but I am very proud of the product - we're going to do our energy bill this week as well. So I'd like to see it be a week where we just everyday go out there and say the legislation process has worked its will and this is what we're sending to the President.
I have no objection to somebody introducing whatever they do, but I would hope the focus would be on accomplishments that we have for the American people. There is some sentiment in the public that a lot of what we do it political when it comes to the administration, believe it or not. It would be impossible to exaggerate how they have taken our country down in terms of democratic principles- they the White House. However what we want to do is show accomplishment and then say, "okay we've made this difference, now lets deal with some of these issues." We've for a long time jnow had Henry Waxman and others, Mr. Conyers and others pointing out what they are doing wrong. We have a contempt of congress that is lively right now. The committee acted, hopefully the administration will respond. If they do not we'll have to act upon that. So we have a full plate. If they want to add that to the plate, that's fine but I don't want it to be at the expense of reform, children's health, energy independence. We may have electoral reform this week if in fact the bill is done. This is the culmination of a great deal of work, from HR1, our first bill to make America safe, 9-11 commission recommendation which was just passed by us on Friday, Thursday night by the Senate. We'll have a signing tomorrow, Harry Reid and I, and send it on to the President. It's taken some time because of the rules in the Senate but we've gotten a great deal done. I'd like to keep the focus there. I called many months ago, many months ago, for the resignation of the Attorney General. It's an outrage.

Ellen Ratner (Talk Radio News): Two comments, one, national standards for education, so that education in Massachusetts is the same as in Mississippi, and secondly, gangs are allowed, or they're not allowed, but they're happening in the military, but openly gay people cannot serve.

Nancy Pelosi: On the first issue, I think you would be very pleased on the work that George Miller, Chairman George Miller has done on No Child Left Behind. He . . . in fact, I almost think we should change the name, because it is so different. Because No Child Left Behind has not, shall we say, evoked a positive, universal positive response. But it's so different. They went into that with the idea that the administration was committed to funding No Child Left Behind in the absence of the 50-billion dollars, 9 to 10-billion dollars a year that was necessary to make it work. It couldn't work. So now George Miller has completely revamped it, listened, had hearings all over the country, hearings here in Washington, and it won't be ready be ready before we leave, but it will be ready when we come back. Everybody who had any complaint about No Child Left Behind is now on board with the new bill. I'm very proud of it. People not being able to serve in the military, we are so far behind in our thinking, and in our practice. The rest of the world, all of our allies do, not that we shouldn't even if they didn't, but all of our allies do. And certainly, gay people can serve patriotically, effectively in every way and sometime soon we will look back at this and say, can you believe that they ever had such a provision? So, I don't support Don't Ask, Don't Tell. I agree with General Shalikashvili that it's time to take another look at this. Yes Marie?

Marie Cocco (The Washington Post): Madam Speaker, the public is showing very high disapproval of Congress, a Democratic Congress and there's a perception that the Congress has not accomplished what the Democrats were sent here to do. And I have a perception myself, that, for example you mentioned the S-chip is on the floor today. Previously a non-controversial bill that now is facing a veto threat from the President, that Republicans who voted for it in 1997 are gonna vote against it apparently. I'm wondering if you can give us your impression of why the public is so frustrated with Congress and whether you think the White House is on a deliberate strategy to block and block and block so that it would drive your poll numbers down.

NP: The Congress is at an all-time low and I think that most of it is over the war in Iraq. It is such an overriding issue. I also think that the prolonged debate on immigration without an effective outcome had an impact on the public's view of Congress. In the absence of something that related to their lives, healthcare, job creation. That's why I say if you're not going to do what people need, it's hard for them to think it's important. When you're doing something else that isn't, which they maybe ambivalent about, or something that they may oppose. But it's not helping them. And it, in fact, threatens them. So those two things what I understand, I mean, I know the war. The minute we did not send another bill back to the President's desk, which we couldn't do. The Senate gave us one shot to get a bill on Iraq. The President vetoed it, we couldn't get another bill passed the 60 votes to send something back. But the public, even if they know about that, just do it. And I'm with them, just do it. You have the support of the public to end this war, just do it. And when we didn't do that, we just plummeted. And I'm with them. I think it's awful that we haven't ended this war and we couldn't get a bill on the President's desk. But, it's about the Senate making sure that the President is not being out in the spot. Yes, they want to stop us from doing things, but you can't stop things a couple of ways. You can veto them. But they want to protect the President from these vetoes, whether it's s-chip, you name it. And that's what this is about is protecting the President from all these vetoes and themselves from having to make bad votes as well. But put to the test, they will mostly vote with us. Much of what we have passed has had bipartisan support. That's what it is. I'm a realist, as Jules knows about these things, and Tom too, but the fact is that on every issue you name, whether it's the war, healthcare, education, the rest, we're double digit, if not 20 points more ahead of the Republicans. In our tracking in our marginal races, our members who are here who are what we call front line, they're in marginal races, they're an average 10 points ahead of the named Republican opponent. The named member and the named opponent. It's not generic, it's specific. Even in the Republican races, where Republican marginals were ahead of them, not by ten, but maybe by two or something, usually we're down by four, we're up by two. So from a standpoint of maintaining a majority and having the public with us on the issues, and the generic is huge, the generic is always in the teens, would you vote for a Democrat or a Republican for Congress and bigger for pres. so they're still with us on those issues. How congress functions as an institution is unpopular and we have to change that. But I'm more interested in making sure that they are supporting Democrats. I have a responsibility as Speaker of the House to try to turn it around. But remember one thing, when somebody gets elected as President of the United States, everybody gives that person a fresh chance. It's a person. The person is the presidency. The person is that branch of government, that's how the public sees it. So either a Democrat or Republican, they want that person to succeed, at least in the beginning, and then you see what happens after that. With the congress it's been an unpopular mocked institution for a very long time. So you take that, you add the war, you add immigration, you add your own personal gripe, what do I have to, you know, what good thing can I say about Congress? And as I say, I myself am very disappointed that we in Congress have not been able to end this war. But I have it in perspective and it's not a thing that would change our behavior. Except once we get our work done to make sure this communicated very clearly, because Republicans have been very effective in saying, oh they're not doing anything. They don't say, we have 60 votes to block and it'll take them longer to do anything. But you know what, that's the game we're in and no complaint and no whining. Just get out there and get it done.

Terrance Heath (The Bilerico Project): On strengthening families, as a working dad with a 4-year-old and another one on the way and as a . . .

NP: Oh congratulations!

TH: Thank you. And as a gay dad, I'm interested in how we do this in a way that supports the reality of American families, families where both parents are working, families were children are growing up in households where parents are not married, or can't marry, or are single parents. Both in terms of education and especially healthcare.

NP: Those families are affected by improving the situation for everyone as well. You know, you've always heard me say education for all children, because we can't hope for a trickle-down effect. We have to start where the kids are and work up. Last night, I don't know what the status is . . . we haven't gone in yet, no . . . I've been up so long, I don't even know what time . . . we passed the Ledbetter Bill last night. Next we'll do some pay equity legislation that Rosa Deloro has. We have to . . . I believe that, and this is a generality and all generalities are false, including this one, but I do believe that many of my Republican colleagues do not really have a clue what it is like to be, having to deal as a single mom, a working mom, the challenges that families face and so they don't relate to it in terms of public policy. It's almost a survival of the fittest mentality and we're trying to change that and trying to say, it's in your vested interest that these children have the best opportunity. And so that's why we keep taking it to science. For a long time, they wouldn't even want hearings on this subject. They didn't want the documentation, because then they would have to act upon it. And I went to this homeless, not a homeless, a transitional housing facility in Providence, Rhode Island on Saturday to see the progress of what they were doing. And the stories of these moms, they had a home, and then they just couldn't make the mortgage payments and they were on the street and what it did to the children and how frightening it was, now you're situation is not like that. You know, what you're talking about is not to the poorest of the poor, although that's our responsibility. But even in the working poor situation, that why we want this S-chip. May I just indulge myself for a moment. One of the proposals that is on the Senate, that the Senate has an S-chip that it isn't a compromise, Democrat or Republican, it was just something that they had on their bill. It says, that a fetus is a child and should be treated for healthcare reasons as a child. But you cannot treat the pregnant mother who is carrying the child. Does that tell you everything you need to know? So I said, I don't know if we have to have an anatomy lesson, but I had five children in six years, I can tell you something about this subject. But does that tell you anything you need to know? Again the generality, they don't share our value in this respect. I don't mean that they don't love children. They don't share our values in terms of this as a community. This country is a community and everybody's success is related and that we have to do it. And we can do it. We can do it. And what our friend is documentation, scientific evidence for understanding the challenges, understanding the solutions. And what I need your help to do is the following. If I can get my caucus held together, on S-chip, on energy, on Iraq, just hold them together, on the farm bill, hold them together, I can take them to this progressive place, because it's sequenced that way. Once you accept a certain set-up circumstance, we stipulate to the same set of facts, we can go to this progressive, this economic agenda, and we have to move quickly with it. And then we're talking about what we're doing. What we did in the farm bill, on nutrition, is spectacular in terms of indexing, of insuring. They'd better vote on this today, no, I left last night when the war was being debated and I don't know how far they got there. And if we can do that, nutrition, healthcare, take pieces of it, then say, okay, if we recognize that this is an important thing to do, then it would follow, then we have to go with this other piece. Anything is possible after that.

Steven Clemons (The Washington Note): Madam Speaker, thanks so much for your time. There seems to be one bit of conflict brewing in Democratic circles and I think it was also in your talk this morning. On one hand, where I'm totally supportive, I think this country needs is this sort of major progressive economic package, the kind that gives an overhaul public infrastructure, training jobs, it's in conflict with the page on a fiscally conservative message, which you know, people like Jon Chait of The New Republic says that the great Democrats are the fiscal conservatives today and we've stolen that from the Republican party. My worry is that that narrative is a trap, that if you were to expand the Democrats in the House and Senate, and take the White House, you've put yourself in a box where you can't make the kinds of investments, not all sorts of budget expenditures are equal. Some have greater multiplication effect on lives and status than others. But with all due respect to our blue dog friends, it's a very crude measure of fiscal conservativeness, whether you've expanded the budget or not. I wonder whether you think that detention brewing here. I know it is in intellectual circles, but I feel this coming, that when you inherit this mess, somebody's gotta basically say wars of the kind we've had are really bad and if you really want to invest in the country and really take us to the level that you're talking about, the narrative fiscal conservativeness doesn't really get you very far.

NP: Well, when I first came to Congress, Ronald Reagan was President. At that time, I thought that if we could get rid of the debt service, the interest on the national debt, which was huge and money right down the rat hole, you didn't get anything for it. You didn't get anything for it; you just paid the money to foreign governments in some cases. So I have always thought that we should reduce the national debt and therefore the national debt service so that gave us more money. And we had pay-go under President Clinton and we had four Clinton budgets which were in surplus. We were on track of eliminating the national debt in about eight years from when he left office. We came out on a trajectory of 5-point-6 trillion dollars in surplus. In almost no time at all, the Republicans turned it around with their tax cuts for the rich into a deficit of several billion dollars, which was a swing of about 10 trillion dollars. I don't think it's right to heap that on the next generation. They did it with tax cuts. Pay-go, we have to do pay-go. Can you just imagine what the tab would be if we didn't have pay-go right now, because we have so many things left over, so many responsibilities, so much left over, it's almost unaffordable, unless you make the tough decisions. We had to make a tough decision in the farm bill about having . . . and that's what really more what the fight about, it was not about if we would do this nutrition or all these other things, but how they were paid for. So that it was coming out of crop insurance, and some benefits to oil companies and things like that, not out of increasing taxes. But at some point, we have to increase taxes and that's a decision that we'll have to make. But I see Pay-go as a friend. Now, you said two things: you talked about that, and you talked about building the infrastructure of our country. In the Clinton years, that dynamic was, Robert Rubin is all about reducing the deficit, Felix Roatan about invest in infrastructure. I think we have to do both, we have to put our best minds together and say, the investments in infrastructure are capital investments, they're not operating costs, and how do we work this out? And there are arguments there too. But any economist that will tell us that the fiscal soundness of this country has an impact on the economy. Any economist will tell you, and Robert Rubin first among them and I don't always agree with him, but on this I do: nothing brings more money to the federal treasury than investing in education. There's nothing you can do, no tax thing, no credit, no this, no that. Invest in education, lifetime learning, and you will grow you're treasury to do whatever else you need to do. We have to debate about how we make the capital improvements. We wish the CBO would score differently on investments in education, healthcare prevention and things like that because they reap a big benefit and reduce cost to the country. But they don't, so that's the debate. To me, that's the debate that we have to have. How do we go with capital improvements when we can't take that out of operating costs. But I do not think that we should heap mountains of debt on the future generations and that's what we would do if we didn't have some fiscal discipline in my view.

Ezra Klein: You've spoken a bit about SCHIP this morning and I had two questions on that. One, what was the decision making process in the House that led to Medicare Advantage Plans and Medicare pay cuts being rolled into that bill. And number two, the President has said very clearly that he will veto the house and senate version of that bill, and given that needs to be reauthorized, how far are you willing to fight on that? Which is to say that if he doesn't sign your bill, will you not authorize the program and force this bill back?

Speaker Pelosi: Well the program expires at the end of September so there's a short fuse on this. The President philosophically is opposed. We had a big fight with him to get $750 million for the short fall that Republican and Democrat governors were asking for, and we had it in the supplemental bill. They didn't want to do that. What was the motivation to go to the Medicare Advantage? Two. First we needed the money because we wanted to insure five million more children. Some of it was covered by the tobacco tax, but the senate only goes up to $35 billion, we're going up to $90 billion. We have $50 billion for children and then we have money for poor seniors on Medicare for rural health. So we needed the money, and because Medicare Advantage is a rip. A rip. The people are paying, best case, 12 to 19 percent, and Charlie Reingold says he knows of 30 percent more for their prescription drug benefit then they would under Medicare. Complete rip. Take money from the tax payer and put it in the shareholder of a health insurance company's pocket. You know this Humana? What's the one who's what his name's family? Frist? HCH? Their stock was up even before the prescription drug bill. They are big Medicare Advantage people. Their value has gone up like 7 times. This was designed to destroy Medicare, to unravel Medicare. You've heard of Uncle Sam? This is Uncle Sucker. This is so unbelievable a rip. It's a way to go over there and say the party is over. We are going to pay for children's healthcare, poor seniors on Medicare, rural poor, and we had to have a Medicare fix for doctors who could no longer afford to take Medicare patients because the reimbursement was so much lower. Now we didn't do everything there, but we went down the path. So we had the need and there was a grave injustice, which was predictable. Which is making a lot of people rich at the expense of the taxpayer and more importantly at the expense of the healths of the children and our seniors in our country.

Klein: What if the President vetoes (the SCHIP Bill)?

Speaker Pelosi: Okay, here's the fight. He thinks that they should be in the private market, which they can be with this plan. He's going to fight us on tobacco tax and children's health. Welcome to the discussion. (Laughing from crowd) Children's health, Medicare Advantage rip: welcome to the discussion. So this will be a defining debate for us. And how the president can . . . I mean, 43 governors have signed the letter supporting. Now, will we have our number? The senate will probably have a compromise number between house and senate, that's the way it always is. we would hope for the highest split possible there, but 35 is where they could come to the floor with 60 votes and 90 is where we're hoping to come off the floor.

Tom Oliphant: I'm just curious in advance whether, from people you trust in the past few weeks, you have a sense of what's going on in Iraq?

Speaker Pelosi: I've had a pretty good idea about what's been going on in Iraq. And it's not a pretty sight. It's a terrible sight. The question is what will be the report in September? General Petraeus, I always keep thinking about this report, something we used to say in appropriations . . . the plural of anecdote is not data. (Laughing from crowd) So, they will tell us about an isolated 'well over here hey did that, here they did that' and we have to keep the standard high. That is to say, 'is this worth what we're doing?' I'm very concerned that they will kick the can further down the road or talk about a few anecdotal successes that they'll try to pass off as the situation in Iraq. The corruption, the no bid contracts, by the way, that's almost no bid and no performance contracts. Any piece of it that you take is terrible on the ground in Iraq. The civil war is terrible in Iraq we have no business being in it. So I think the standard people want to see is don't tell me anecdotally that you captured and held for five minutes someplace because some local Sunni decided to shoot his neighbor but what's the political change that is there? If there is no political change, there is no way that we should have our troops stay there.

Oliphant: (Will there be) residual forces in Iraq?

Speaker Pelosi: Depends on what the residual force is. The best I hear from the administration is like 70,000 troops, so that's not residual, that's a force. They will have to have some troops there to continue to fight the al Qaeda which weren't there before we went . . . well we wont have to go into that kind of detail, we can just speak short hand to each other on that, they'll have to have someone to fight al Qaeda, to protect the embassy and the forces that are there. The force protection is always important. The smaller the force, the more danger it is for the forces that are left there that's really what the tragedy of it is. There are those who want to leave troops there to train the Iraqis. I've abandoned that a long time ago. We may have to have that, but the fact is that when General Patraeus was in charge of that, Woodrow Wilson scholar, Renaissance man, Princeton PhD, head of 101st Airborne Division, with all of qualities that he had, they made no progress in training the forces. So, the record shows that that didn't happen. So what we want to see is how honest they will be, how complete their report will be no just about these little things, and what is the change in the politics. Now they just went out of session, the Iraqi government, so I don't see much advance on the political side of it.


Adele M Stan: Madam Speaker, I'm almost overwhelmed considering everything that you're talking about on the agenda in trying to . . . and then there's this whole other question about the constitution and given what's going on with the Attorney General and really with the administration . . . the whole executive branch, in a sense. And as you might imagine, there's a bit of a argument going on among liberals over impeachment versus the legislative agenda of taking care of, quote/unquote, the people's business. And I am one of those people who does have great concerns over the future of the Constitution if these guys are allowed to get away with some of what they're getting away with in terms of consolidation of power, and I'm wondering if you can speak to that.

Speaker Pelosi: Again, I take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. So it is a primary concern for my colleagues and for me, at least speaking for the Democrats, to uphold that constitution. And the . . . not only the president, but the Republicans in general, have not had high regard for the system of checks and balances that is in the Constitution of the United States. You don't have to look too far in terms of how they view the prerogative to declare war, which (is) spelled out in the Constitution. How they deal with matters that relate to collecting on American citizens in our country. Before we won, they were trying to strip the courts of the power of judicial review of actions taken by Congress. The principle of judicial review was established in Marbury vs. Madison over 200 years . . . a long time ago. And yet, do you know that on the record, and you can look it up, they have said, some of the Republicans here, that Marbury v. Madison was wrongly decided. (laughter from the audience) Now this is what we're dealing with here. So people talk about how you're doing out there and it's like 'You don't really have any idea and I don't want to scare you or frighten you.' So the principle of checks and balances and that is not one that they have subscribed to. The question of impeachment is one that is something that would divide the country. The American people want an end to the war and they want a new direction in terms of economy and health care and education. And . . . I don't know what our success . . . I know what our success can be on those issues. I don't know what our success could be on the impeachment of the president. I do know that we have instituted very aggressive oversight of the White House. Again, look to the Waxman committee, the judiciary committee, the appropriations . . . other committees of the Congress have been vigorous in the oversight activities. In fact . . . and George Miller was telling me that when somebody refused to come to his committee, it was like the 13th high-level, high-level, many more, but high-level official that resigned when received an invitation to testify before Congress, and this was a couple of months ago. Since then, we've had Harriet Miers and all the rest of that. So we are doing oversight, which was absent for six years . . . not, I mean, before Bush became President, they had oversight on electricity use in the Lincoln Bedroom. I was in a meeting once . . . a hearing of... on the Dept. of National Labor Relations Board. President Gould, they asked him 'When you came here to testify today, in the trunk of your car, did they put like boxes of things to bring, to deliver to Congress to make the trip worthwhile for the taxpayer?' I mean, they're saying this to the chairman of the NLRB. In other words, just taking you here was not worth it. So maybe they took some other material. So this is the kind of oversight that they had then. And then as soon as Bush became president, none in terms of intelligence, in terms of anything else. So I . . . you know, I share your view. The frustration over the war leads you to say 'Let's impeach him.' But the question is how successful would that initiative be. More importantly, how divisive would it be to the country? How much of an obstacle would it be, to some might appear political, to block our new direction that will make a difference in the lives of the American people. And we have a very intense agenda to do that. If I were not the speaker and I were not in Congress, I would probably be advocating for impeachment.
(laughter from Pelosi as one of the staff says she will be going down the line to someone who hasn't spoke yet for one more question)

Harold Meyerson: Yeah, uh, Madam Speaker? What's the status of your discussions with Chairman Dingle about fuel efficiency standards and where do you think the caucus will come down finally on that series of questions?

Speaker Pelosi: In our first bill that will have this package, our Independence Day package, is largely the Independence Day package . . . we're going where we have the most consensus. It's very bold. It's very broad. It will . . . it does not in the bill that we will send to the floor have the café standard in it. Café standards are in the Senate bill. We don't need to put it in the House bill. The chairman would like to take this up in September as part of cap and trade and all that. That's when you're really going to see a monumental fight. Whatever the disposition of café standards is in this bill, you know, in other words, someone might bring up another amendment or we go to conference and it's in the Senate bill. But when you start talking about cap and trade, cold to liquid, all of those things, you're talking about either being of the past or of the future. And we will have . . . you know, I respect all of my chairmen very much. I think they're very effective. But not any one of them is going to stand in the way of the air that America's children breathe, the water they drink, the safety of their food or whatever it is. So I always say to them 'No offense, it's not about you. It's about the children. I took an oath. I gaveled that gavel down on behalf of the children and not the status quo.
Washington DC is the city of the status quo. For so many years, I would come from California, a very entrepreneurial state, where every time I met with my constituents, you're meeting with a roomful of dreamers. Dreamers with a plan to do something great for our country as we go forth. You'd be all revved up when you come home, and then you'd go back to Washington and you hit a wall. Every single time. And people would say to me, 'Don't you know that money always wins in Washington DC?' You can fight the fight . . . just a question of how long it will take, but money will prevail. I realize that more fully as Speaker because there's certain things that are so self-evident about the decisions we have to make about fuel economy emissions, all the rest of it, that there's a great resistance to here. And again, with all the respect in the world for Mr. Dingle, and I work with him every day on s-chip, on so many other issues. So the idea that we have this conflict is really a disagreement on one major initiative. But it doesn't mean we don't work closely on other pieces of it. But we're going to need your help on this to go out to the public, to make them understand what is possible . . . as possible for us to need, to go forward with an emissions standard that is . . . does what we need. It reverses global warming. And we cannot say to the rest of the world, India (and) China in particular, that 'You should be doing this. And until you do it, we're not going to do it first.' Well, that's not what leaders do and our country is a leader in the world. So I anticipate that we will have a healthy debate on the subject, that our success will depend not only on our debate and maneuvering internally, but on the outside mobilization. And for this (to) appeal to you, nothing less is at stake than the planet. We can't move away from here. We can't send it to the hospital. It's our responsibility to keep it healthy and it is urgent that we do so. And we have all of the knowledge that we need to do it and we have the technology and the tasking for future technology to make us a world leader in exporting that technology. It has every advantage to us. But whether it's the coal industry, the oil industry, auto industry, you name it, they . . . there is a status quo mentality that, you know, a year or two, buy them a year or two, you buy them millions of dollars. So the longer they can keep this going, the better it is for them, the worse it is for the air we breathe. It's going to be a fight. I need your help on this. We really need to show the difference to the country about what is possible and what is holding it up. But it's stunning to see that there is this science. How can an industry that had for 30 years from the middle-70s was the last time we increased the café standard. For 30 years, they have resisted an increase. It hasn't been good for business. It hasn't been good for the industrial base and the technological base of our country to have that industry take such a major downturn in the loss of jobs than the rest. So we have a lot at stake in this and again, ever respectful of the distinguished service of the distinguished chairman, this is a fight and I love him dearly and I depend on him greatly on so many matters. But we have to prevail in this. It's the right thing to do. If nothing less, for the air that our children breathe. So I thank you for your question. I hope that we can work together to pound this out because you're only talking about a few votes. A few votes that could go one way or another on this and make all the difference in the world. And again, I know that you know what is at stake, so I won't go to that place.

Closing Remarks

Speaker Pelosi: I thank you for coming this morning, for the questions that you asked, the concerns you expressed, the communication that you transmit to so many other people. I was thrilled to death to see the YouTube debate just to go into another generation of communication, and I'm hopeful. Let me tell you why I'm hopeful. I know my staff and you all want to go, (laughing from crowd) but as you may have read, you may have written, but you may have read, that I did some traveling in the early part of my speakership. I went to thank our troops for their service, the patriotism and the courage of their families and their contribution to our country. I wanted them to be sure to know that we all respect what they do although we don't respect the policy that took them to that place. Of course in my travels I probably went to maybe 8 Middle Eastern countries. I went on two different trips and I met with presidents prime ministers and kings and got the royal treatment just they couldn't be more respectful; of the office of speaker. But the most important part of it for me were the young people that I spoke to, and women, I made a point. Young people women and dissidents. And they young people in every country, I don't care if I was talking to about a graduate student from Harvard who was back home in Saudi Arabia for holiday, or a kid on the street in Damascus, or young organizers in west bank or people in Israel or Lebanon or wherever it was they all said the same thing,West Bank, it was just remarkable, and it sounded very much like what young people say in America. They said, 'we wonder,' especially went you have this coming from the privileged, 'if the leaders have the political courage to make the difficult decisions for peace. We want to know that they don't use war or the threat of war as an excuse not to do what they need to do to build us a future. We feel cheated of a future in terms of growing the economy, healthcare, education, stopping global warming,' whatever it is so that they have a chance. They communicate, as you know, you being young, you communicate with each other in all the new technologies that make email look obsolete almost, and the idea that leaders would say we wont have dialogue was so foreign a notion to them: that 'They're not going to talk to each other to find out how they can solve some of these problems.' So that gave me a great deal of hope, the impatience of youth, which has always been a great pert of our country, may change. Possible and inevitable, and it says that these aspirations are shared. And you hear in the Middle East, young people are suicide bombers. Well, yeah some are, but that's not the message I got. And I told the president this. We are going to be obsolete if we don't show the young people that there are alternatives to war and that we know how to stop them once they are started and that the future can be better than having our resources, the bulk of our resources and most of our intellectual capacity on our most destructive avenue of resolution of conflict. It's just ridiculous. So I thank all of the young people who are in communication with each other. Know your power. Everything is possible, we just have to make sure the American people pound away here. Because the forces oat work here are rich and entrenched and it just takes a few to prevent us from unleashing the future, which is what we have to do. I'm optimistic that its possible because we are right. I'm optimistic its possible because we listen and try to incorporate other views. We want to be pi-partisan in what we do. And once we can get to the floor that is what does happen. But it's a challenge, and one I'm privileged to have as speaker of the house, ill close by telling you what its like being the speaker of the house. Fabulous. (Laughs) Absolutely fabulous. (Laughs) When are we doing this again? (Crowd member says "Next month!" (Everyone laughs) Thank you, Michael.