Killed far too off by Police Officers without justification. Thats a problem we have to tackle. All right your emails. This one from ptaylor who writes about the president s response and eric holders response. Makc gardners death about race. Guest this is a free country. I support the right of those st. Louis players to express sympathy with the people all across america who are protesting Police Brutality. Charles barkley has a right to express his views as wrong as i believe they are. But this is america. Were all entitled to expression. Protest in new york city last night, particularly in manhattan. How concerned were you that might get out of hand . I didnt believe it would get out of hand. In new york, we have a long history in the aftermath of these type of tragedies where there is a real or perceived injustice in the context of Police Brutality or use of Excessive Force of responding forcefully yet peacefully, engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience or marches, expressions of outrage but doing it in a peaceful fashion. It was done when an african immigrant was shot 42 types by four Police Officers reaching for his wallet or his keys on his way into his apartment. There was peaceful responses when shawn bell was shot 50 times by Police Officers on the eve of his wedding day. He was an unarmed young africanamerican man. The response was peaceful. So in new york, we will continue to be aggressiveseeking change. You state here in washington overnight, not back up to new york . I was here in washington overnight. I will be back in new york tomorrow at the session. Back to calls. Pennsylvania, lawrence, welcome on our republican line. Caller congressman, im a 75yearold white wobbly. Whats a wobbly. Caller you could do some research. You will find out. The Justice System is not broken, congressman. It cant be broken. And you as a lawyer know full well how much lawyers and the law are involved in this whole mess. And it is a very difficult mess. I trace it back to 1937. What happened in 1937 was the harrison stamp act. The entire war on drugs is the root cause for all of this. That is what has to be changed. Whats happening in d. C. Right now has to be addressed. I mean, senator andy harris, boehner and the rest of the congress thats going to go against d. C. Law and interfere. Thank you very much for your service. And thank you, cspan. Larry tweets about body cameras. He has another view. Ause sep. Separation. Guest i think to lawrences point, he raises a very good point in our failed war on drugs that has resulted in the over incarceration of individuals in the prison system. 50 of the people behind bars are committed largely nonviolent drug offenses and 8 of the people who are behind bars actually engaged in violent crime. Thats a stunning statistic. Its one where i think democrats and republicans can agree that we need change. The other area where we can move forward is to reevaluate the militarization of local Police Departments. To roll back the military surplus program. I voted against that amendment at the time, believing military surplus equipment in a post9 11 environment in new york city, experiencing the horrors of 9 11, was a useful thing. But i think we have all got to reevaluate that program at this instance. Ant we saw in ferguson was aggressive, military like response on american soil. That was unfortunate. Host on this bipartisan effort on incarceration, we have seen this with republicans and democrats. Is any legislation coming out of that . Guest is any legislation coming out of that . I think that there will be its great hope that we still have divided government even though republicans will control both houses of the United States congress. We still have a democrat in the whitehouse. He still has two years left. He has a job to do. We can put partisan politics aside. We are heading into a president ial cycle. But i think americans are tired of the perpetual campaign where as soon as one ends, the next one begins. And theres never any opportunity to govern. Lets hear from maryland. Robert, good morning. Caller good morning. How are you doing . Good morning. Caller i just want to say to you, i agree mentioned nin e thinged abothing things with the nazis. Its identical in the rise of the nazi party in germany and here. Im for education in this country just like a lot of people in institutions and a lot of german jews didnt believe what they saw. Put from point to point all the way up during the rise of the nazi party, the same thing is happening with the extremist republicans in this country. They are undermining, they are holding back. The same things happen. German who was a propaganda minister to perpetuate that. The same thing is happening with fox news. Lets go back to his comment. What have you heard from your republican colleagues in terms of reaction to not only eric garner but the ferguson decision last week . There has been a lot of silence from many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who havent necessarily addressed this one way or the other. There are many republicans in the congress who believe that we have a broken criminal Justice System that we have an over criminalization problem in america, that we spend too much money on incarcerating individuals in an inefficient fashion and there are threats to liberty when theres the opportunity for government overreach in taking away your liberty through an aggressive system. I think on the historical point that the caller raised, we have to look at the legacy of slavery if were going to look at anything. We have overcome a lot in this country. But we have a long way to go. We moved from slavery to reconstruction to the jim crow to the civil rights back in 1964 and 1965, Voting Rights act. But we have to figure out what more needs to be done in order to make sure that equal protection under the law is truly a reality for everybody. You mention president obama two years left on his term. Writing about his decision. The headline is container in chief, talking about the second time in two weeks he is addressing a racial issue and a decision by the grand jury. What do you think the president s best role is in these situations . Is it important for him to visit ferguson or new york . Where do you see his role . I dont think he needs to visit ferguson or new york or cleveland. The attorney general is the appropriate person in that regard. The attorney general has visited ferguson, of course, he is visiting cleveland today as i understand it and we hope to see him in new york at some point soon. The president has indicated that this is a problem that has persisted in america for far too long. There are a lot of people in america unfortunately who believe it will never change. He has given us his promise it will change, it will be different because hes invested. We will have to translate those words into action now. A couple more calls for congressman. Lets hear from missouri. Barbara, hello. Caller hello. What i want to ask this representative of our government is, whats going to be done about the existing abuses, the ones regarding Michael Brown and tamir and mr. Garner . Something has to be done about the existing conditions. Its obvious that we have gotten to the fill point. This federal government must take over the policing that is happening at the state level which is nothing but a continuation of jim crow laws in the body of the police. That we in a country can believe that Darren Wilson was so afraid of an unarmed teenager and he had guns and an automobile and all the power of the police force behind him that he was so afraid because hes a policeman that he has the right to murder people. Okay. Is it appropriate for a federal takeover of Police Departments . You raise an important point about Darren Wilson and whether the use of force in the manner in which it was deployed was excessive or not. One of the things to point out about Darren Wilson that i find interesting is he was 64, 210 pounds. He had a badge, a gun, a police force behind him if necessary. Yet he chose to fire that weapon apparently more than ten times striking Michael Brown on six different occasions. Thats why many of us believe we needed the benefit of a trial. I do agree with the point that there is an inherent conflict of interest between local prosecutors and the police department. Because prosecutors rely on the police each and every day in order to move cases forward through the criminal Justice System. Theres a symbiotic relationship. Its very hard to then turn around and expect that those prosecutors are going to aggressively go after Law Enforcement officials who engage in the excessive use of police force. Thats why six members of congress, myself, charlie rango and others in august called for a federal Justice Department investigation of the violation of eric garners civil rights. We do need to look at a state by state level on whether we need independent special prosecutors to step into the breach whenever Law Enforcement officers are accused of using Excessive Force. One more call from your district, brooklyn, robert, good morning. Caller good morning. I got go quick questions. The first one, i think theres a problem because the democratic party, they change the law from mayor bloomberg when there was a black man running for mayor. And then there was a black man for governor and they told him to step down to the governor could learn. Its not how you represent black people in new york, which is a democratic state. Even the union all this manner of people at the picket line. Most of the people manner of people is not working. They have their man in the wrong circle and parttime job. Caucasian people are working. What that means these are people that work inconsistently. We will get a response. Its good to hear from someone from brooklyn. I appreciate the thoughts you have expressed. You address a broader frustration as it relates to the economy. We experience the worst economic collapse in this country since the Great Depression in 2008. There were many Financial Institutions largely responsible for that collapse. They have rebounded. Ceo compensation is way up. Corporate profits are up. Stock market is up. The middle class and those aspiring to be part of the middle class are struggling. This is one of the issues where Congress Needs to come together to help turn the economy around to make sure that all americans can benefit from our economic recovery. Congressman jefferies. Good to be with you. In 15 minutes, we will take you live to defense secretary chuck hagel. We will provide an update on the militarys efforts at responding to Sexual Assaults. On the senate floor today, members holding several rounds of votes on president obamas executive and Judicial Branch nominees. A farewell address by senator jay rock early if of West Virginia who is retiring after 30 years in the senate. The house today will be voting shortly on a bill that would nullify the president s executive order on immigration. For more about that and government funding legislation, we talked to a capitol hill reporter. The road to the spending bill and the end of the 113th session of congress has a stop in the u. S. House with immigration and a floor congrerida congressman. He said why is the house, particularly leadership, interested in taking up this bill today . Well, i think house gop leadership is taking up the bill because, number one, the bill would try and nullify president obamas immigration executive orders. Number two, its really considered a show vote, a symbolic vote. Its not going to get to the senate. President obama just issued a veto threat if it even got to the white house. Its a way to kind of give republicans, you know, an outlet to express their frustration. It will not become any action. Its just a way to satisfy a lot of conservatives who want to attack the president s executive orders. You are writing that in your latest article on the hill that leaders are planning to unveil their spending package on monday. They are calling this a tell us, how does the issue of immigration, the president s executive actions, play into what the house will do next week. The cromnibus is a combination of a longterm spending bill known as an omnibus spending package. So the spending package will fund most of the government until next september through the rest of the fiscal year for most of the Government Agencies. However, the cr portion will only fund the department of Homeland Security for a couple of months. House gop leadership, they feel that this is a way to give republicans more of an opportunity and time early next year, once they take control of both the house and senate, to attack president obamas immigration orders, maybe this will give them a chance to coordinate how they could possibly defund the executive orders. Its unclear how they would do that. But it definitely gives them a way to kind of have another showdown next year once they have power. What role is senator ted cruz and conservative republicans, what role are they having in tieing the immigration debate into the spending debate . Well, ted cruz came out at the front of this yesterday. He stood outside with a bunch of house conservatives basically calling on all of congress to defund president obamas immigration orders. Thats really not sitting well with Republican Leadership in either chamber. They wont dont want to shut down. Mcconnell, boehner have said no more shut didndowns. Everyone acknowledges this. It almost was like deja vu yesterday as ted cruz stood outside with the house conservatives. It reminded everyone of the leadup to the october 2013 Government Shutdown when he led the charge to defund obamacare at that point. At this point i think a lot of the Top Republicans in the house and senate, they learned their less sorn ons from the 2013 shu. The republican approval numbers dropped after the end of those 16 days. They dont want to go through that again if they want to take the white house in 2016. You are writing about some of the disagreement on the democratic side in terms of the spending measure. You wrote this week, pelosi in a tough spot at democrats split over gop funding bill. Why is she in a tough spot . A lot of democrats, the white house, they want an omnibus spending package. So a lot of democrats are upset that they have this cr portion that would only fund the department of Homeland Security for a couple of months. A number of democrats have argued that only funding that department for only a short period of time really could put u. S. National security at risk because theres kind of this up in the air situation as far as the budget goes at that agency. The other thing is that, with a cr, that basically is the same level of funding as the previous year. That does not allow the agency to start new programs that they want to do on counterterrorism. It kind of puts a Homeland Security in a tough spot. There are some democrats who are kind of suggesting theyre not going to rule out voting on this package because i think some are acknowledging at this point that republicans will need democratic votes. What does the word from the white house, what kind of spending measure . A 12 bill omnibus spending package. 12 Appropriations Bills that fund the entire government through next september. Thats the ideal situation here. Thats what the senate and House Appropriations committees have been working on for more than a month now. Its kind of sad for them to see all of their work kind of going up in flames as far as the Homeland Security portion of this package. This is how this is what republicans are trying to do to satisfy their base. And a way to attack the immigration order. Follow rebecca at twitter and read more at thehill. Com. Josh earnest announced the president will make an announcement tomorrow morning regarding his defense secretary nomination. The current and outgoing defense secretary chuck hagel will be live here at 1 30, a few minutes from now. He will provide an update on his departments efforts as preventing and responding to Sexual Assaults. Chuck hagel speaking to reporters at 1 30 eastern. We plan to bring you an event with tom perez highlighting a report showing that millions of American Workers are victims of wage violations. Thats live at 2 00 eastern time. As long as the event with defense secretary hagel allows us to, we will get that to you as well. Speaker john boehner spoke about todays immigration legislation in the u. S. House. He reacted to the grand jury decisions in ferguson and new york city saying both are serious tragedies and the American People deserve more answers about what really happened. Good morning, everyone. We are weeks away from the start of a new American Congress with a Republican Senate and the largest house gop majority that we have seen in 90 years. Senator mcconnell and i have pledged to focus on the American Peoples priorities, starting with jobs. We expect to keep that pledge. This week and next, we are working to complete work on a number of important items. The president thumbed his nose at the American People with his actions on immigration. The house will make clear today that we are rejecting his unilateral actions. Then the U