Adam Schiff

Looking at the unique characteristics in Egypt and the accelerated time frame for Egyptian elections in September, parliamentary elections, the presidential elections to follow sometime thereafter, how is USAID keeping pace with that?

This is a generational opportunity for tens of millions of people to enjoy a better form of governance and an opportunity for a better future, and I think we need to seize this opportunity to assist them in every way.

Are we losing the battle for hearts and minds if they are going to be celebrating assassins where the victims are people preaching tolerance?

But there is no doubt in my mind that if they see an opportunity, just as they saw an opportunity in Somalia, as they have seen an opportunity in Yemen, they are going to do what they can to influence the outcome.

We want American help. We remember America was with us when we became independent in the 1960s.

If the Egyptian people don't see any progress in the economy, we may trade one authoritarian regime for another.

I am one of those who believes that, absent international authorization, the United States, acting alone, would be stepping into a situation whose consequences are unforeseeable.

I think this period is one of the most promising, potentially, that we have seen in decades, with the transition that is going on in the Middle East and North Africa.

It is just excruciating to watch the Libyan people attacked by their own government, with all the powerful machinery of the Libyan military.

What has made these revolutions so powerful is they have been indigenous. They have not been at the tip of the American spear or imposed from outside.

So I am all in favor of whatever investment we can make in these people-powered revolutions.

I honor their service, and I hope this hearing can help provide them with the resources and support they need to do their jobs in the safest and most effective way possible.

Last summer the Station Fire ravaged the Angeles Forest, burning 160,000 acres over 50 days and threatening thousands of homes in my district and several adjacent districts.

We depend on them to protect our families, our homes and our forests, and they dedicate their time, and sometimes their lives, to that calling.

The suggestion in terms of the FBI database and how they report and track is worth pursuing.

Mr. Speaker, today we again find ourselves in the regrettable circumstance where we must act to remove a Federal judge from the bench. The task before us is not one that we would welcome, however it is an important responsibility entrusted…

Our constituents of California don't support the restrictions.

I want to put one last coat on the private funds, state funds, issue.

The only thing I would also suggest, and I think it is a positive change and one that I supported, is I think we do need to keep an eye on making sure that it does not distort the type of cases that LSCs take on given the financially…

They have a lot of donors who will not give to them because of the restrictions.

I would love to see us at the federal level do what we did in California, which I would love to see us do a joint reauthorization of OJJDP as well as COPS, and try to provide equivalent funding in both programs.

Despite these increasing corrections expenditures recidivism rates remain very high.

State spending on corrections accounts for over $10 billion annually, almost 10 percent of the general fund, greater than average for the nation.

A recent Pew study shows that one in thirty-one adults is currently under correctional control, up from one in seventy-seven back in 1982.

As long as you did not preclude them from doing that?