Host you can join the conversation on twitter, twitter. Com cspanwj. Or join the conversation on facebook, facebook. Com cspan. Lets look at some of the headlines. Usa today. The president and republicans jousted again yesterday. Host the headline on the story from the New York Times. republicans are calling the impact overstated and citing spending as a key issue. Here is what americans are saying. The wall street journal has a new poll. You can see the breakdown of numbers on the opinions of what each is opposing it to do. A 29 Approval Rating in terms of the sequester. 57 disagree with what the republicans are doing. 1 5 of respondents do think sequester cuts are a good idea. Austerity has killed off government jobs, says the New York Times. Host looking at some other stories. This from usa today. Host here is another headline about the misuse of power. We like to hear your thoughts this morning. Caller president obama will release over 10,000 dangers illegal aliens that are guilty of drunk driving, rape, murder. He is going to release all these people to this is on the same day that the sequester would go through. There is no need to release these people. We have the money to send these people back. The paper is wrong about 300. Host where are you getting your number . Caller off of a news program. Host do you know which one . Caller we have almost 1 million illegals come through our county each year. Host hundreds of detainees have been released in recent days in an unusual effort to save money. Host a couple other stories in the news. Chuck hagel is confirmed as defense secretary after a battle and as budget cuts loom. From michigan on the democrats line. Caller good morning. About the sequester it is a madeup thing between the parties. The budget has been going down as a percentage of spending. The budget has gone down five years in a row. I did nothing there is a question mr. Obama it is going in the right direction. This will be a dark summer if the sequester happens. I wish republicans would wake up. Democrats are organizing against them now. Host ben bernanke warned congress that the spending cuts would dampen Economic Growth this year. This is from the Washington Times. Jan, go ahead. Caller if they are having trouble coming up with a budget, most of them are the attorneys. They all built their hours they all bill their hours. They are used to charge into some division. Everything goes somewhere. I would love to know what they do with their time. They took how many minutes to vote on being adjourned so they had to stay there. This is like kindergarten. It is embarrassing. We need infrastructure and people that could make things happen. I watched a bunch of guys and they made up information. We need to get more women in there. We could be doing five things at the time. Host here to tell us more is ginger gibson, a congressional reporter with politico. What happened on capitol hill yesterday and in the white house . Guest there has been no actual progress. We did not get closer to a solution yesterday. There was a lot of talking yesterday. Mitch mcconnell and john boehner will bring forward alternative bills. Each side is willing to put forth a proposal. They might bring forward more than one. There are some disagreements about giving the president more flexibility. John boehner said the senate needed to move and used colorful language. We did not see bills or talks. There was no changes as of yesterday. Host we are seeing the president on the road. What is their role . Guest a lot of pressure from the white house that something needs to be done. Not seeing a lot of it sitting down at the table. The first place we will see bills get past is the senate. They will put forward a proposal that is half tax increases and a lot loopholes and tax credits. Private jets, oil and gas, things of that nature. That is through some discussions with the white house. But not bipartisan talks. Host one of your colleagues has a story with this headline. President obama and john boehner are talking but not to each other. He offers a nonstarter. Are we hearing details about what the republicans and the white house might offer . Guest some would like to give the president flexibility over the sequester cuts. Mitch mcconnell said he would agree with that. That would allow the administration to decide where those cuts go into effect. A program that provides food for pregnant women and their children, head start, taking deep cuts under the sequester. That would allow the cabinet secretaries do decide. Other republican proposals that is hard to get bipartisan support. We are hearing from the white house that taxes and closing loopholes has to be part of the discussion. Host ginger gibson, thank you so much. Chris in wyoming, good morning. Caller i think compromise republicans and democrats get together. I dont think we need a lot of new taxes. We are addicted to spending in this country. Politicians have given us what we have asked for. Were still addicted as a society to spending. The key word everybody keeps using is deficit reduction. How about Debt Reduction . That would be something, some shortterm plan for a balanced budgets. Host a story says banks have seen their second most profitable year in 2012, from the Washington Times. Host there of the numbers and surging back up in last year. Sam in georgia. Caller i would like to make a comment about the immigration and the requirements. Lawyers in georgia charged 2,000, 4,000, 10,000 and they dragged the cases out forever so they get more money. They are using the immigrants as a meal ticket. Immigrants have no choice but to pay if they want to be legal and have a better life in this country. Especially if you plan to marry somebody from another country. You have to spend to5,000 to go over there. Meet the person for one day and come back and go through some expensive paperwork to get involved in this country. The immigrants are sometimes uneducated. The ones that do come over here have to live in unsanitary conditions. The work for a fraction of what the regular American People do. The chamber of commerce gets taxes from the government and use that money to write the unions. Host you mentioned immigration. Heres a story from the Washington Post. Host don from ohio, what story is catching your eye . Caller hi, libby. There are so many things. Immigration. If congress would have been doing their job, we wouldnt be having this problem with immigration. That should have been taking care of. The people that was running on the green party, the socialist party, constitution, libertarian in the president ial election. Those people should get together and call that another party. We the people of the United States. We are not getting our moneys worth. They should take a 20 cut in pay. They have not been doing their job for four years now. 40 years. Tax reform has been put by the wayside. We wouldnt have that problem today if they had been doing their job. Host thank you for the call. A look at the Washington Times. We have a question about defense. A couple of foreign news items. The administration is close to indecision on syria. Officials said the Obama Administration is close to deciding direct assistance to rebel forces in syria. This from afghanistan. This is from the New York Times. Host lets hear from joan from new york. Good morning. Caller good morning. Just a couple of comments. In the fiscal cliff deal, obama got tax increases. He gave his hollywood friends tax cuts. The first thing he says after that is, lets cut farm subsidies. There is something wrong with this picture. I think we should throw away the keys to air force one and two. They are costing us millions of dollars every time they get on a plane. Thank you. Host good morning. Caller good morning. I am concerned about the situation going on. I think there is an underlying problem. When they figured out the books and dutch trade, they realize president bush had not put the afghan war or the iraq war on the books, nor did they appropriate the money for the drug plan that was instituted. That is how the debt got to be so high. Everybody is saying president obama created this debt. The debt has gone down under president obama. He has made a lot of savings. There is something wrong in the Republican Party. Host what did you think about the confirmation of chuck hagel as secretary of defense . Caller i think that mr. Hagel had not been around the congress in a long time, which meant he did not know all the ins and out of that ever think that happened. I think he was nervous and didnt do a stellar performance because i think he was nervous. I am sure he has the chutzpah to do the job. Host we have some comments about the chuck hagel confirmation. Host chris is concerned about the media. Dorothy in baltimore, go ahead. Caller how are you doing this morning . The reason why we cannot get anything done on the sequester is Social Security and medicare. The republicans want Social Security and medicare dealt with. They really do. This is what they want. If they could get that, they would go along with everything. The border thing and the immigration thing. This has been going on for 40 years. We need to put new people and there. We need to screen the people that are going to run for office. Asked what we want. Maryland togo from pennsylvania to francis. Caller good morning. I was watching it House Committee on immigration yesterday. It was one of the House Committee members. He mentioned the fact that 40 of all illegals come here through International Airports like harrisburg, pennsylvania. He said they overextend their visas. When they do that, they are illegal and they do not go back to their original country. He said 40 of all illegals come through that way. That is not hard to stop. Do not give as many visas. I think every black i heard on cspan, they love obama. This is crazy. Host how do you know what raise our callers are . Caller i can tell. I am a writer. I have heard this for 40 years. That is why he swore his hand on the bible. Host you think Martin Luther king was a radical . Caller it is in a book i have. He was told to tell dr. Martin luther king not to be around a man. Host we have a picture from the Washington Times. There is a memorial on the mall. We will be talking more in just a moment about another African American who will be memorialized in the u. S. Capitol. There will be a statue for rosa parks commemorating her civil rights fight. Christine from delaware. Caller hi. I want to say i have been listening to them talk about releasing illegals that they already have detained before this sequester even hit. If they do releas the illegals go off and murder an american citizen, obama should be held responsible for that. That is an impeachable offense. He is doing that to harm the americans. Host here is the headline in usa today. Are st. E house andn ic ice it is all about budget cuts. We will talk about sequestration for food safety and transportation. Robert in california, good morning. Caller good morning. Thank you for cspan. You educate me every time i watch. We are all americans and we should stick together. How does the world look at us . We are supposed to be the greatest country in the world. I do not get it. They are not doing their job. They are causing this country to be embarrassed to the world. Host a comment on twitter from fred. What programs the is the president want to cut . Another comment on twitter about chuck hagel. Rory from florida is our next caller. Lets go to nelson in colorado springs. Good morning. You are on the show. Caller thank you. There is a lot disrespect for the president of the United States. They talk about senator mccain and there is a presentation before him. They knew the budget cut was coming two years ago and nobody did anything. Are the senators to include the president take a 20 pay cut . Host thank you. Rosa parks will be commemorated in a statute in the capital. In her now to tell us more is the sculptor, eugene daub. Thank you for talking with us. Tell us how you were selected to create the sculpture . Guest it was decided by the nea, and it was a national competition. There were over 150 entries. That was narrowed down to five finalists and they competed. Host this will be in statuary hall in the capitol building. The first fullsized statue of an africanamerican in the capitol. Guest the first African American woman in statuary hall there is one other in the capitol. It is a tremendous honor and privilege to do this and im excited about today. Host we will see the unveiling in just a couple of hours. What did you learn about rosa parks . What about her did you want to communicate for your piece . Guest quiet strength and dignity, a determined look but not anything unpleasant or challenging. Just a quiet, determined person with a tremendous amount of courage. Host a parks made history back in 1955 by refusing to move in the back of the bus. She is making history again this week. Weve not seen the finished product. What were the logistics in getting it across the country and getting it set up in the capitol guest my part him not to coordinate the movement of that. She was in a crate for a while. I saw some photographs. She weighs 2,700 pounds. She was lifted up with an extension grain and guided into statuary hall. Host your firm has done other sculptures. Guest i dont think there are any as highprofile as this one. We have done jefferson and lincoln and lewis and clark and other famous people. Rosa just creates a stir and i think it is timely with black History Month and her 100th anniversary. Everybody loves her and remember sir. Host eugene daub, the sculpture of the rosa parks statue. Leaders of congress and president obama will be on hand. Thank you for talking with us today. We will look at the Voting Rights act coming up. Our guest will tells more in just a few minutes. We will be right back. [video clip] you have to understand the primary concern the number one concern was with National Security. What would they say about lockheed . I am of the opinion of that based on how they acted, they would have favored a bailout of lockheed because it supplied the United States at the time with its top fighter jets and reconnaissance airplanes. I think you can make an argument that they would have supported the bailout of chrysler back in the 1980s but not the bailout of chrysler today. What is the difference . Chrysler back then made tanks and they were our only tank manufacturer. It is interesting when chrysler comes out of debt and repays the government loan and comes back to health. The main way they do so is by selling off the tank division. And plowing the money back into the company. Author and university of dayton Professor Larry schwei kart will be on indepth at noon eastern on book tv on cspan2. At one point he had to write a small paragraph that said people are asking what happened with charley. Elaine and john and not charlie and john. Somebody mustve said, where is charley. Steinbackoad wrote about a page and a half. That never appeared in the books. Editors went in and exploit the land entirely. Almost 30 days of elaines presence with john on the west coast. There are basically on a vacation. The author contends that steinback so many liberties it could not be classified as fiction. Washington journal continues. Host the Supreme Court hears about the Voting Rights acts today appeared to talk about that we have [video clip] a we have ari berman and Hans Von Spakovsky. Why was it put into place . Guest the states ratify the 15th amendment. What happened is we get the jim crow era. Black voters were disenfranchised in the south. There was a need for more congressional action to enforce the promise of the 15th amendment by abolishing literacy tests and to give their right to vote for minority voters. Host the voting right act has various sections. Section 5 is in play today. Guest the entire Voting Rights act is not being questioned today. Section 5 is the special provision that was supposed to last five years. It required a small number of covered jurisdictions to get pre approval from the government of any change in the voting laws before they could become effective. It has been renewed four times at what expire in 2031. Host it is just one part but you see the crucial aspect of the law. Guest it shifts the burden of proof onto the states to prove their voting changes are not discriminatory. The congress would strike down Voter Suppression lost in places like alabama. What happened is section 5 was designed to make sure places like alabama had to go through the federal government. Theres nothing like it in the Voting Rights acat. Host how crucial do you see section 5 to the law . Guest it was needed in 1965 because of the widespread discrimination in the self. In the south. Today it discrimination can be easily remedied through section 2. That bans discrimination in the voting contexts. Section 5 was put in place because governments were trying to evade Court Decrees. There has been the kind of discrimination in decades. Host you can join the conversation and here are the numbers to call. Republicans, 2027370002. Democrats, 2027370001. Independents, 2026280205. Host people remember that as bloody sunday. It was signed by president george w. Bush. Why are conservatives trying to destroy the Voting Rights act, a piece you had in the nation. Guest there is still a split among conservatives. You have amicus briefs being filed in support. I do think theres a split within the Republican Party. Theyre moving away from supporting section 5. The Republican Party itself is more conse