Transcripts For CSPAN2 New Jersey State Of The State 20240713

Up and rush things through. For the third time in history a president is on trial in the u. S. Senate. Watch live tuesday when the trial resumes at 1 00 eastern on cspan2. Now new Jersey Governor Phil Murphy delivering his second state of the state address in trenton. Lieutenant governor oliver, Senate President sweeney, speaker coghlan, majority leaders kane and brad nick. Members of the legislature included in the rocket escort that came in with me, chief justice radnor, associate justices of the supreme court, judge grants, members of the cabinet, former governors gloria, mcgreevy, and cody, tammy murphy. Distinguished faith leaders, veterans, members of organized labor, fellow new jersey and. Five weeks ago today our state was shattered by the gunfire of antisemitism and hate. In jersey city, harold and police detective, joseph feels, and three innocent people were murdered in what we now know was an act of domestic terror fueled by a vicious and unjustifiable hate. This was an act of hate against the Jewish Community and Law Enforcement but it impacted everyone. Hundreds of schoolchildren and their educators were held in lockdown including in a Catholic School across the street. Worried parents feared the worst. Africanamerican residents hid in their homes. Without the tremendous response of everyone in Law Enforcement i shutter to think how much worse that they could have been for jersey city and for our state. If ever there was a time for us to recognize the bravery and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform it was that day. We have several honored guests with us today and through them the opportunity to give thanks to our entire Law Enforcement community for their hair was in, selflessness, sacrifice and service on one of our most trying days. I would like to ask laura seals, the widow detective joe seals, mike kelly, deputy chief dexter bowen detective bob done to please stand. [applause] december thank you, december 10th also highlighted how closely out tremendous communities of faith are. All of us, regardless of where we worship or by what name we call our creator were affected that day. One of my heroes, senator Robert F Kennedy quoted the greek playwright ask elyse on the evening of the assassination of doctor Martin Luther king jr. And those words still give us comfort, quote, and even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until in our own despair, against our will comes wisdom through the awful grace of god. Over the past weeks we have been brought together as one new jersey family. First in shock, then in morning and now in our commitment to stamping out antisemitism. I want to be clear, we are committed to ensuring that our communities of faith have the resources they need to be safe. I will probably sign legislation to provide additional security aid for our house is a 4 ship and to expand the definition of and penalties for domestic terrorism. [applause] i think both sides of the aisle for the support and in particular my friend, assemblyman Derek Scherer for championing this cause, thank you. The scar of antisemitism on our state is still fresh. The grief of four families is also still fresh. Lets us commit to using the new year to heal the rift in our society. This is new jersey. When someone tries to pull us apart they only ever succeed in bringing us closer together. [applause] and i know we will heal. We gather today at the dawn of a new year and a new decade. The day sentiments before us are filled with potential and bursting with opportunity and yet even as the new year unfolds our mission does not change. Together we must build an economy in a state that works for every new jersey family. Our values of not shifted. We are on the side of the middle class and all those working someday to get there. We have taken on the tough fights that matter. We are working to change the culture in trenton and we are putting the needs of our families ahead of the wellconnected and entrenched special interests. [applause] and our work will not slow down. Joining together we must continue to make Smart Investments for our collective future, restore fiscal responsibility and change trentons culture. Looking out, this is a room packed with people who are proud to call themselves New Jerseyans. We find, nobody among so much, our history, like the state where the game of College Football was first played. To that end i see one favorite son who has come back to intensify the jersey pride we feel on the banks, lets welcome home the returning head football coach of the Rutgers University scarlet knights. [applause] and the gentleman to his immediate right, i would like to thank bob archie for his years of Outstanding Service to our states Flagship Institution of higher education, thank you. [applause] im watching closely as rutgers undertakes finding its next great president because so many respects, so goes new jersey. The donovan new decade is a time of optimism but we also find it a time of growing anxiety but more than ever we must stay true to our firm promises and hold firm to our commitments. We have already done so. Over the past year by working together we have made new jersey a better more hopeful place to call home and we will continue to do so and because of this i am proud to report the state of our state is stronger and fairer than ever before. [applause] some might say two years into this journey we are halfway through. Im leaning towards saying we are a quarter of the way through. [applause] but that is another speech for another day. But already and just two years, New Jerseyans are seeing results because we are doing what we were all sent here to do, investing in them. Every family worries about how they will make ends meet or cover an unexpected expense. That is why we are raising the minimum wage to 15 an hour. [applause] it is why we created and expanded tax breaks for working families. Why we [applause] why we are attacking the sources of high property taxes and providing more Property Tax Relief than ever before. Too many families wrestle with how they balance work and family particularly in a moment of need so we expanded paid family leave and guaranteed the right to earn sick leave. [applause] some families, military families, are also anxious about their futures and whether they may soon be deployed. We owe it to them and the veterans who preceded them to create a state where their places secured and where they feel supported. [applause] our families lose sleep over the cost of Health Insurance coverage was how to pay their medical expenses or the financial turmoil and unexpected accident or illness will cause. In start contrast to donald trump we are protecting the Affordable Care act which has benefited millions of our residents. [applause] i remain incredibly proud of the work we have done to protect the tenets of the aca and to establish the statebased Health Exchange which will go online later this year. [applause] but the simple fact is despite the progress the cost of healthcare is still too high. Our residents, our families and our businesses all struggle with the high cost of coverage, the cost of medications, high deductibles, outofpocket expenses and more. With implemented smart policies like the historic reforms to protect consumers from surprise outofnetwork bills. Amen. But we can do more. So im establishing an office of healthcare accountability and transparency in the Governors Office to work across state agencies and lead critical efforts to reduce Consumer Healthcare costs, make insurance more affordable and improve price transparency. [applause] to ensure that we have the facts im directing the part of banking and insurance to work with this new office to track the actual cost residents pay for the Healthcare Services that they receive and armed with this data we will make smart decisions to limit Cost Increases and sets new standards for quality and transparency. We have some of the nations, frankly the worlds leading hospitals and healthcare facilities. We are home to groundbreaking research and treatment, we need to ensure that these are accessible to everyone. We will also seek to better integrate behavioral and physical healthcare especially [applause] especially for our young people. It will allow us to better identify and treat youth healthcare issues like anxiety, depression and suicide. This will also be a powerful tool to further combat our Opioid Epidemic as well as the broader fight against addiction and Mental Health illnesses that when left untreated lead to tragedy. The preliminary numbers suggest new jersey saw a 3 decrease in the number of individuals lost to opioids last year after three years of doubledigit increases. This is not a number to celebrate. 3021 lives lost is still 3021 precious lives too many but it should give us a measure of confidence that our targeted, evidencebased and datadriven whole of government approach is the right one. And we will continue the strong partnerships, the first lady has created across the state, government officials and legislators, healthcare practitioners, faith leaders and Community Activists to combat our black and infant Maternal Mortality crisis, amen. [applause] she will not stop, we will not stop until new jersey is the safest state in the nation to give birth. [applause] so, to be clear, we cant do all of what i just said alone. We need our hospitals and providers, insurers and consumers to join us in these efforts. Im proud we are fighting the trump administrations efforts to block women from receiving Vital Information critical to them to make important decisions. [applause] together with protected funding for planned parenthood and womens healthcare. [applause] we and the Prior Administrations tweet your effort to starve these critical facilities but this must go beyond providing funding to make up for the loss of title x money. It is about protecting a womans fundamental and constitutional right to full reproductive freedom. [applause] so lets commit to codifying a womans fool reproductive rights in state law. [applause] at a time when these rights are under attack nationwide lets make it clear where new jersey stands. [applause] our families worry about their childrens futures and whether they can afford one. Together we have expanded prek and made Stem Education more widely available. We have become the first state in history of our nation to make education available to every single child in our Public Schools. [applause] it gets better. Today our Public Schools are ranked as the very best in the entire United States of america. [applause] let us thank our educational support professionals who do this outstanding work every single day. But we are not done. In this 400 first year since the first enslaved africans arrived on the shores of this continent we are committed to furthering the work of the Amistad Commission and Stakeholder Group to ensure the africanamerican story is made real, not just for all our students but educators as well for the new armistead journey program. [applause] likewise with the rise of antisemitism we renew our commitment to the mission of the new Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education as well. [applause] we are putting a College Education back within reach, we open the doors to a tuition Free Community College Education to thousands of eligible students. And we have also put in place safeguards to combat college deaths. For those when the opportunity we reinvested in Workforce Development and apprenticeships like never before. [applause] we are building a new jersey where everyone belongs and everyone matters. We are seeing the reinvigoration of our cities from newark to kansas, trenton to patterson, elizabeth to Atlantic City. Atlantic city just approved for the second time in as many months. Proof that our collaborative and cooperative approach to turning Atlantic City around is the right path to take but we owe tremendous gratitude to Lieutenant Governor sheila all of her and her team at the permit of Community Affairs for this progress. [applause] expecting chance of she love our people want new jersey to stand at the forefront of the national fight for justice so we Work Together to allow the expungement of records of residents whose futures have been held back because of past positions. Once again weve given residents on probation their right to vote. And we are giving up immigrant community the ability to earn a drivers license. We received the far reaching and transformative recommendations of the criminal sentencing and Disposition Commission led by former chief justice portend former president giles shifts. I want to thank senators Sandra Cunningham and nelly go for serving on the commission. Lets all of us recommit to enacting its recommendations which include the elimination of mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses. [applause] lets lead the way for creating safe communities and neighborhoods through criminal Justice System that lives up to that allimportant word justice and lets do this not just because it is the right thing to do, which it is but because our state will only be stronger and better when everyone is a full participant in our economy, our democracy and our society. [applause] i have also spoken often about wealth disparity as a persistent issue that separates and segregates our communities. It harms predominantly black and latino families and prevents our state from fulfilling its potential. These disparities have deep roots and complex causes. Overcoming them will require us to leave behind old ways of thinking so we can ensure bless you, that no residents get left behind as we dont miss a thing up here. So on that basis im creating a new task force, government officials, academic researchers and faith and Community Leaders with the specific charge to address wealth disparity from all angles and all causes. Their work will better inform our work in closing these gaps and ensure that the communities that have historically been left behind can help us lead. Where residents have felt marginalized and left out weve worked to renew their faith that they have a place in our family and specifically for our lgbt queue plus community, we are making sure they will never fear for who they love, how they identify or who they are. [applause] amen. Despite the in action in washington, new jersey is now leading the nation in sensible gun Safety Measures and our communities are stronger and the gun lobby is weaker. [applause] we did that together. Likewise we know Climate Change is real. Instead of denying reality we are acting on it. To win the next generation we are working to be the first state in america to incorporate Climate Change education across our k12 state education standards. And we are going to make the fight against Climate Change a cornerstone of the innovation economy. Two years ago when our Administration Took Office new jerseys Clean Energy Future was stalled. Today we are on our way to the ambitious goal of 7500 megawatts of offshore wind energy by 2035. That is a big deal. That is enough energy to meet half of new jerseys entire retail electric needs. It will remove billions of tons of fossil fuel pollution from our air and it will create tens of thousands of good paying union jobs. And in two weeks i will unveil new jerseys new Energy Master plan, our comprehensive roadmap for arriving at our goal of a 100 Clean Energy Economy by the year 2050. We are working to protect every school and home in new jersey from the dangers of lead. I applaud especially, amen. I applaud especially essex countys mayor, and many legislators, by the way for their partnership to fasttrack the elimination of led Service Lines in the city of newark, but we all know this is a statewide problem. It extends far beyond all lead and water lines as well, lead paint is a much bigger problem, amen. It is not just the urban challenge, it extends to suburban and Rural Communities as well. When i proposed my plan for taking on our lead crisis in always it manifests itself i did not shy from acknowledging that it will require significant investment. This is an acknowledgment shared in this chamber as well. We will need funds to replace old deadlines and remediate lead paint and homes. We will be mobilizing an army of plumbers and pipefitters, remediation express, carpenters and laborers among so many other tradespeople. Lets Work Together now to come to an agreement on what this investment needs to be so we can put it before the voters this november and invest in our communities that much faster. [applause] over the past two years, since the beginning of our administration and our Work Together our economy has responded by adding and supporting 72,000 new private sector jobs. In 2019 we set and then reset record lows for unemployment since the state began keeping records in 1976. The wages are increasing, more people are entering the workforce. This is all good news but none of this progress happens by accident. Economic progress does not happen on its own, social progress does not happen on its own. It only happens when we Work Together and when we put the people we serve ahead of everything else. We didnt achieve this despite our progressive economic policies, we achieved this because of those policies. [applause] and yet we are not done. Many of our residents are anxious about their place in an increasingly unsettled Global Economic and political climate. A stronger state is a more resilient state, more fiscally responsible and better prepared for any weakening in the economy and more capable of protecting families i giving them the tools and opportunities they need not just to get by but to get stronger. Changing the culture also means we start making the hole deeper. We cant lose sight of what makes us stronger and fairer. Smart policymaking and staying true to growing and strengthening our middleclass. These are the key lessons we learned the hard way in the Great Recession. We built a surplus the state hasnt seen in years, we are watching literally every penny. Last year i took the steps necessary to ensure we made the first honesttogoodness deposit into our Rainy Day Fund in more than a decade and we are working i finally got the attention of the cpas with that one and we are working in partnership with our public workforce to find hundreds of millions of dollars in healthcare savings and efficiencies without scapegoating them and i say thank you for your partnership. There are several more opportunities for partnership especially with our educators ntsbs who have experienced unfair and unsustainable Consumer Healthcare Cost Increases under chapter 78. I look forward to working with labor leaders and legislators in this new session to provide them relief. Just as we did in collaboration with state workers we will reduce healthcare costs without sacrificing healthcare quality while at the same time generating Additional Savings for our property taxpayers and lets not forget that the overwhelming number of educators ntsbs are themselves new Jersey Property taxpayers. [applause] this is the kind of win winwin approach we need as we take on the root causes of our high property taxes and seeks to bring stability and relief to our middleclass and our seniors. We have restored more than 500 million in formula based aid to our Public Schools and every new dollar in state aid is a dollar that is shouldered by property taxpayers and working with the Lieutenant Governor and the Senate President we have renewed a commitment to shared services. For the past two years at our request Nicholas Platt and jordan glad, a democrat and republican have served as our administrations shared services plaps and works hard to bring communities to the table together and today we have more shared Service Agreements under consideration than ever before, 980 at last count, and still more coming in. [applause] at the same time to help these communities we have enhanced both capacity and capabilities at the department of Community Affairs to provide greater inhouse assistance and unveil new programs to spur more Townsend School districts to look at new ways to Work Together. We can all agree our collective task is to fix the gimmicks in trenton and not raise property taxes but at the middleclass the hardest. [applause] some in trenton claim the best way to make our state stronger is to undo common sense middleclass building accomplishments that we all have made together. They want us to make the same false and failed choices made a decade ago, trenton tried their way and history is clear. That way failed. New jersey held its way through economic recovery because their choices fails to create jobs and failed to raise incomes as they failed to keep new jersey from falling behind. Together we must choose differently. Im going to fight every day for the middleclass values that built new jersey in the first place. It is why im not giving up the fight for a millionaires tax so we can ease the property tax burden [cheers and applause] and a millionaires tax will allow us to ease the property tax burden on millions of middleclass families and seniors and it will do more to help fund our Public Schools. Majority of residents all political stripes support this. We should too. The millionaires and corporate ceos made fine and they will in the next one hits. Thanks to the federal tax system the richest 400 americans now pay a lower tax rate than the nations middleclass, that is the first time that has ever happened, the answer to ensure we come out of any rescission stronger than we went in is not to tell the middleclass and the most vulnerable perhaps another day but not now, that choice was made in the last recession and the middleclass paid the price. We lagged in no small part because we were stuck in an oldfashioned belief that when a job is lost in a recession all the worker has to do is get it back once the economy recovers. The Great Recession proved the fallacy and foolhardiness of that old way of thinking. Many of the jobs lost never returned and more workers were left without the skills necessary for the new jobs that beckoned. We will not repeat that mistake. We will make new jersey a National Leader in welcoming and maintaining the jobs of tomorrow. We have been ranked literally the smartest state in the nation. That is good news yet i have met ceos and Corporate Board chairs his first question about new jersey is whether we have the homegrown workforce they need and on the flipside i have talked with new Jersey College graduates afraid they cant find the employment they want with the skills they have. For us to succeed we need to close this gap. I directed our jobs and Economic Opportunity counsel to generate a plan to do just that. Doctor smith ellis, education commissioner doctor lamont, labor commissioner rob a cerro angelo, and tim sullivan and members of my policy staff among so many others. Today im proud to present this plan which we are calling jobs in j and tomorrow i will visit the East Brunswick campus of Middlesex County Technical Schools to highlight the new effort. [applause] jobs nj is how we assure the state prospers in good times and overcomes tough times. It is a way to ease the anxiety so many feel as they wonder how the future will work for them and not against them. It has a Clear Mission, to better align our Education System to meet the future needs of both employers and workers and do better at matching our workers with potential employers. Jobs nj will clear up after ongoing job training so residents can continue to learn and compete as the needs of employers evolve with new technologies and new economic realities. It will close longstanding structural and Racial Equity gaps that have kept some of our residents from job training and Skill Development whether they come from historically underserved communities or a new immigrant or formerly incarcerated individual reentering the workforce. It will also help the differently abled to be full and equal participants in our Economic Future and will dovetail with our nonstop efforts to make our state the home for the leaders in the innovation economy. [applause] last month with great pride i announced four new appointments to the Economic Development Authority Board and they are with us today. Any bauer, aisha glover, rosemary hicks, and marcia marley. Congratulations. [applause] they mirror our state and its diversity and breadth of experience and recognize Economic Development isnt 1sizefitsall but that the unique needs of each business and each Community Must be given full consideration. We now know that some Companies Receive tax credits they did not deserve into credit for jobs they did not create. They didnt just hurt their own reputations, they hurt the reputations of the many more good corporate actors who have done exactly what they said they would do. I have spent over a year working alongside a Senate President and speaker and many of you to create a new system of incentives, one complete with Greater Transparency and safeguards and common sense caps. Once again i firmly believe a target and responsible incentive system is important to our Economic Future. We all share this view and we should have gotten this done. Unfortunately the legislative session ended yesterday without a final agreement on tax incentives but today start a new legislative session and i am just as determined to finish the job as i was yesterday and as i was on october 1st, 2018, when i first put forward the case of a new way of doing things. [applause] lets get this done now. There are thousands of jobs, overwhelmingly union jobs waiting for us to do so. Lets keep send a clear and unmistakable message that we can successfully tackle the big issues and put the interests of our taxpayers ahead of the special interests and i look forward to our continued partnership to fix nj transit. As you have heard me say many times we will fix nj transit if it kills me and it might. At the end of the day we still must answer to the commuter his train was canceled or whose bus is over capacity and i wont be happy until we that are thousands but lets be clear, the series of reforms we are undertaking to change nj transits fundamental operations and the hundreds of millions of dollars in state budget investments we have restored are unquestionably improving things, data clearly shows cancellations are now and ontime performance is up. [applause] this past year we saw the first three classes of prospect of new rail engineers complete their classroom work and one week from today i will celebrate another. A significant step in restoring the depleted ranks of licensed professionals we need to keep the lines running. Nj transit is investing hundreds of billions of dollars in new rolling stock, railcars, locomotive engines and buses to updated fleet for increased commuter comfort and greater reliability. These steps as we all know are long, long overdue. The Prior Administration left nj transit to wither on the vine. They allow the ranks of rail engineers to be depleted. I want to thank the union women and men who have hung in despite extraordinarily difficult working conditions. [applause] amen. Soon nj transit will announce a 10 Year Strategic Plan and beyond that a 5year capital plan to guide the agency through this new decade. These are not just new plans. It is the first time they have ever been done. If a transit if a Transit System doesnt know where it is going it is never going to get there. That is what our strategic and capital plans will change. In a few weeks i will be back to present my fiscal 2021 budget and certainly have more to say about nj transit then but it will take more than just dollars and cents to raise nj transit to where we know it can be and where our commuters need it to be. It will also take a Clear Mission and a clear vision. For the first time, nj transit will now have both and all of us will have a new set of standards by which we can track its progress. All of what we have accomplished is changing the trajectory of our state but i was also elected to move the needle in trenton and to change a culture many new jersey and feel is out of step with their lives and behind the times in which we live. That is why all we have done to restore fiscal responsibility has mattered so much, increasing our surplus, putting away funds for a rainy day, honestly making our pension payments. This is changing the culture but we can and must do more to gain the trust of our residents and decrease their rightful cynicism. In the coming weeks i will propose a series of ethics reforms which among other things to strengthen financial disclosures, playing pay to play requirements, expand transparency and increase awareness generally to the goingson in trenton. It has been more. [cheers and applause] it has been more than a decade since the executive and legislative branches undertook comprehensive ethics reform. It is time now for us to look at a new with a whole of government approach that ensures we all live under the same laws and play by the same rules. And nothing, i repeat nothing more exemplifies the need to change the longstanding culture than the pernicious sexism and abuse that still creeps across these always at conferences and meeting rooms. [applause] we all must be disgusted by the stories which women across the entire spectrum of race, age, and experience tell of their mistreatment by men who felt empowered if not protected by trentons culture. For too many is too many people in power have turned their eyes away from behavior they knew was not only happening but was pervasive in trenton. We know that trenton is often resistant to change and this is a most egregious failure. Today i am calling for all of us to Work Together to tear down the existing system and replaces with one that treats everyone with equal dignity and respect. I am calling in my partners in government. [applause] amen. Amen. Im calling on my partners and government to join me in this mission and im calling on those who have stood idly by and allow this behavior to flourish to start speaking up and speaking out when they witness injustice. To my fellow men we can and must do better not just by changing [applause] not just by changing our own behavior but by making the conscious choice to not ignore the behavior of others. [applause] and to the women listening we will listen and we will act. Our administration has enacted several groundbreaking reforms to make our system survivor focused instead of geared to the protection of abusers. Law enforcement now has clear new directives for investigating crimes of Sexual Assault, ensuring greater empathy for and support of survivors. [applause] we updated the states discrimination and Sexual Harassment policies so they lean more directly in support of state employees who have experienced Sexual Harassment or discrimination. I signed this. [applause] i signed the Sexual Assault victims bill of rights and just yesterday i signed a series of bills to protect survivors and encourage people to speak up and legislation to create a new commission on campus Sexual Assault. [applause] this is progress, but it is not nearly enough. We can all point to the number of women serving in the legislature, in the cabinet or in other important positions in our government and claim that misogyny no longer exists. We can believe all we want that this is a problem somewhere else in government. We would be fooling ourselves to think that. Misogyny is alive and well but together. Together we can change that. We can do this and we must do this. And we must do this together. [applause] amen. Two years ago we began a journey to renew our new jersey values, a journey to restore investment in our people, restore our sense of fiscal responsibility, and change trentons culture. We are taking on challenges which developed and deepened across the generation. Has passed leaders neglected the problems facing ordinary new jersey and while taking care of the special interests and the wellconnected, not just taking themselves. Putting self interests before the common good. The next day headline before the longterm work. Those with deliberate choices. Because of that the challenges left to us wont be solved overnight. Many cant. We owe it to the people of new jersey to be honest about that. The easy way out would have been to continue pursuing shortcuts that could paper over our problems and make us feel good in the short term but i refuse to let our problems become bigger. Where others have focused only on the next election we are focused on the next generation. [applause] im proud that we have made headway in attacking our challenges fairly and honestly. Today and to gather not only are we making different choices, we are making better choices and that no point have we sat back and claimed mission accomplished. Im not going to lose sight of who it is we have to look out for. In our effort to make new jersey stronger, we will not and never leave out our middle class or those striving as i was growing up to join its ranks. Our job is to lift new jersey up and make it stronger and fairer and more resilient to the unknowns of tomorrow so our residents can feel more secure not just in their futures but in their childrens. We are now two years into this journey together and look how far we have come. We have so much more to do and so much more to fix. As we continue to do so we will continue to be who we said we would be and we will keep making new jersey stronger and fairer for everyone who calls our state home. Thank you, may god bless us and the people we represent and continue to bless the great state of new jersey and the United States of america. [applause] live coverage of the president ial candidates in iowa continues. At 10 25 eastern in des moines. Sunday at 4 00 pm eastern, Senators Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg and former governor deval patrick. On monday at 4 30 p. M. Eastern senator Elizabeth Warren followed by senator Bernie Sanders at 5 30 p. M. In des moines. Watch our unfiltered coverage of the president ial candidates this weekend on cspan, online, cspan. Org or listen from wherever you are on the free cspan radio apps. Presents portions of programs from our archives as many of the president s running for the democratic president ial nomination. And on after words, cnn analyst argues that Large Tech Companies are failing to keep consumer data secure. Then on monday, tune in for programs from our archives on the life of Martin Luther king jr. Also, syndicated columnist jackie kingman, you can find a full schedule on your Program Guide or online at booktv. Org. Now booktv begins with Los Angeles Times Diplomatic Correspondent Paul Richters talk about the work of u. S. Ambassadors in the middle east. [inaudible conversations] good evening, everybody. Im bradley graham, im the coowner of politics prose along with my wife, lissa muscatine, and on behalf of everybody here, welcome. Thank you very much for coming. Were very pleased to have paul richter with us here this evening. You know, paul and i crossed paths a lot when i was a journalist with the Washington Post covering the pentagon and he was reporting for the Los Angeles Times based in washington. Over several decades paul wrote about National Security and foreignat policy on both the pentagon and then the state rt