Cspan, created by americas Cable Television companies and brought to you as a Public Service by your cable or satellite provider. [inaudible conversations] okay. Good afternoon. On Bradley Graham, coowner ofcs politics and prose along with my wife, and our behalf of everybody here at the gaithersburg book festival, thank you so much for coming. This is of course the seventh annual festival here in gaithersburg. This is the fifth Consecutive Year the politics and prose has been your as the official bookseller. We really want to commend the gaithersburg staff and all of festival sponsors and volunteers for working so hard, especiallyy hard this year given the weather to make today possible. And thank you all really for coming out. You are all a very hardy bunch. A few quick administrative notes. Qu that would be a good time to turn off your cell phones or anything else that might go beep. Second, if you are tweeting today, please use hashtag gdf come and third would really wan your feedb
Okay. Good afternoon. Im bradley graham, im the coowner of politics prose along with my wife, lissa muscatine, and on behalf of everybody here at the gaithersburg book festival, thank you, thank you so much for coming. This is, of course, the seventh annual festival here in 2008ers burg gaithersburg. This is the fifth Consecutive Year that politics prose has been here as the official bookseller, and we really want to commend the gaithersburg staff and all the festival sponsors and volunteers for working so hard, especially hard this year given the weather, to make today possible. And thank you all, really, for coming out. Youre all a very hearty, hearty bunch. A few quick administrative notes. Now would be a good time to turn off your cell phones or anything else that might go beep. Second, if youre tweeting today, please use hashtag gbf. And, third, we really want your feedback. So, please, at the end fill out a survey. Theyre available at the back of the tent or on the gbf web site.
Welcome to your world this morning im John Henry Smith and stephanie has the day off and faithful celebrating christmas and the day traditions say jesus christ is born and also praying for an end to a jeer of year of violence and suffering. Pope francis delivered his traditional Christmas Mass to tens of thousands listening outside in st. Peters square and asked for reconciliation in the middle east and in africa. Translator only gods mercy can free humanity from the many forms of evil, at times monstrous evil which spawns in our midst. Reporter meanwhile in the syrian capitol damascus the Christian Community celebrated christmas overnight, hundreds lined the streets to watch fireworks and sing carols not far from where the syrian army is fighting antigovernment rebels and christians makeup 11 of the syrian population many of whom fled since the start of the war, in the u. S. President obama and the first lady put out their holiday message a short time ago. Today like millions of ameri
Secretarys began the enhancements last month we have seen a real stepingup, that frankly together with the events in europe including paris of actually leading to much greater willingness on the part of European Countries in particular to extend their willing tons share willingness to share information. To the extent that you can in an unclassified seting can you existing databases is gathered by allys and partners . It would be appropriate in another seting as to how the information is disseminated. Okay, i will academy accept that. In rough figures how many people are on the terrorwatch list . Just checking to see what the on the terrorist terroristconsolidateed watch list we are talking just under a million. Under a million. Okay. What countries, and this could be for anyone, constitute the greatest threat and attempts to enter the United States i legally that would be, you know, perhaps flaged by being on these lists in. I cant of those million records there are the subsets of the
Officers who are under the supervision of much more experienced officers. I think it is also worth noting we are talking about Foreign Service officers. These are people who have gone through a very rigorous, Competitive Program to be admitted to the service. Many are lawyers or have worked in Immigration Law or have been teachers. Many are former military. Rep. Duckworth by no means are these inexperienced people. They get about the same amount in terms of quantity of training as somebody we are sending into harms way. Im sure you are proud of our officers, and i thank them for their service. We must do everything in our power to protect our country, but we can do it without evolving into demagoguery and focusing on imaginary problems. I agree we must consider any and all options to improve our refugee process, but lets remember these refugees are fleeing the same terrorists we are fighting, isis and the a side regime. Turning our backs on people who are being persecuted and killed th