The committee will come to order. Thank you all for coming today and to the witnesses for joining us today as we examine the current state of the u. S. Russia relationship and the strategy to deal with the Russian Federation. Its timely to assess the relationship with russia and as weve recently celebrated the 30th anniversary of the events that led to the collapse of the soviet union, the fall of the berlin wall, solidarity, selection, victory in poland and the baltic demonstrations among others. Many former soviet states had become prosperous democracies with memberships in nato and the eu. Mr. Putin has taken russia down a much darker path. Today Many Russians suffer with oligarchs enriching themselves to control the major industries. Russia rates its elections to ensure onlensure a week from und politician speak the cut. Russia is targeted and expelled humanitarian organizations and three Media Outlets labeling them as foreign agents. The russian people are in humanity imprisoned a
The committee will come to order. Thank you all for coming today and to the witnesses for joining us today as we examine the current state of the u. S. Russia relationship and the strategy to deal with the Russian Federation. Its timely to assess the relationship with russia and as weve recently celebrated the 30th anniversary of the events that led to the collapse of the soviet union, the fall of the berlin wall, solidarity, selection, victory in poland and the baltic demonstrations among others. Many former soviet states had become prosperous democracies with memberships in nato and the eu. Mr. Putin has taken russia down a much darker path. Today Many Russians suffer with oligarchs enriching themselves to control the major industries. Russia rates its elections to ensure onlensure a week from und politician speak the cut. Russia is targeted and expelled humanitarian organizations and three Media Outlets labeling them as foreign agents. The russian people are in humanity imprisoned a
The speaker pro tempore on this vote the yeas are 218 and the nays are 185. The motion is adopted. Without objection, a motion to reconsider is laid on the table. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, the Unfinished Business is the vote on the motion of the gentlewoman from new york, ms. Velazquez, to suspend the rules and pass h. R. 4406, as amended, on which the yeas and nays are ordered. The clerk will report the title. The clerk h. R. 4406. A bill to amend the Small Business act, to improve the Small Business Development Centers program and for other purposes. The speaker pro tempore the question is, will the house suspend the rules and pass the bill, as amended. Members will record their votes by electronic device. This is a fiveminute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc. , in cooperation with the United States house of representatives. Any use of the closedcaptioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressl
Veterans issues and how lawmakers are working to improve Veterans Affairs programs. The event was hosted by the American Enterprise institute. Lets try to get started here. Good morning. Welcome to aei and welcome to our program today. The value of our veterans, our conversation with representatives, mike levin and brad. Im gary smith, im a senior scholar here as strategic studies and im director of aeis program on american citizenship. I amng toi skip a set of am going to skip a set of introductions since we will be talking the next two hours. So those joining us here in joining online or watching on cspan, if you want lengthier bios go to the website and go to the link for the page and you will see everybodys biographies. Let me begin by giving a quick overview of the proceedings. We will first hear from representative mike levin, the recently a district that runs recently elected congressman from californias 49th district, a district that runs along san diego to southern Orange Coun
Democracy, glasnost, in general, in a word , perestroika, they went to visit these people, came out and talked to me, nothing. Why are you telling us that everyone is equal . The speed with which this restructuring occurred showed that soviet society, in principle , was a capitalist society, democracy, it was clear that this was freedom, this was liberalism. I remember a great sense of freedom among the people, but people did not know many things about the collapse of the soviet union, they were carried away by western ideas, we can be friends, the americans are with us they started talking about how we need to democratize, they saw us as friends and partners, and they sincerely wanted to help. Why did i come, i am the commander. Should russia completely copy all western conditions . American democracy now is also on the scale of russia; there is something about you russians that europe does not understand. Stand, who are they, newbies, this is a passenger with me, a reporter, a direct