[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 10516-10520]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        THE PROGRESSIVE MESSAGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, my name is Keith Ellison, and I claim this 
Special Order time on behalf of the Progressive Caucus. I am very 
pleased to be joined by my dear friend from the great State of Ohio, 
Mr. Dennis Kucinich.
  The Progressive Caucus has a Web site we refer people to, which is 
cpc.grijalva.house.gov. I urge everybody to check it out because it has 
a lot of excellent information.
  This we call The Progressive Message. Today, we are going to focus on 
three topics, Mr. Speaker. They will be in the areas of: (1) historic 
health care; (2) the travesty of justice perpetuated on Eric Holder; 
(3) the voter ID issue that is proliferating across the country, that 
of trying to restrict and suppress the votes of Americans. So that's 
our Progressive Message for today.
  I want to introduce the first subject by saying that today was a 
historic day. The historic health care bill was passed many, many 
months ago; but until the Supreme Court of the United States said that 
this bill was constitutional, that this act was constitutional, it was 
always in jeopardy of being overturned. In the Progressive Caucus, many 
of us were signatories and cosponsors of H.R. 676, which is the single-
payer bill--or health care for all and Medicare for all.
  Personally, I think today is a dramatic step forward in the quest to 
make sure that all Americans are covered and can go to a doctor. This 
is a very important step--it's an advance--so I'm happy to see it.
  With that, I would like to just turn some time over to the gentleman 
from Ohio for any comments he may care to make about the health care 
bill or about the Supreme Court decision.
  I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
  Mr. KUCINICH. I want to thank the gentleman from Minnesota, 
Congressman Ellison, for his leadership in the Progressive Caucus and 
to thank him for yielding me some time to talk about this momentous 
decision by the Supreme Court. First of all, a little bit of context.
  I represent Cleveland, Ohio. There are many people in Cleveland who 
are uninsured. There are many people in Cleveland who could not afford 
health care. There are many people who are

[[Page 10517]]

working who can't get their families covered.
  This issue of health care reform is one of the defining issues in our 
country, and it's one that we finally grappled with in 2010 to come up 
with a bill that not everyone agreed with. As a matter of fact, as Mr. 
Ellison will remember, I didn't agree with this. I was not satisfied 
with health care reform within the context of a for-profit system 
because I wanted a not-for-profit system. Yet, while we had a for-
profit system, one of the things we needed to do was to make sure 
children with preexisting conditions would be covered; to make sure all 
of these lifetime caps on the amount of money that people could claim 
for expenses were removed; and to make sure that people were given a 
fighting chance with the insurance companies.

                              {time}  1750

  What's happened is the Affordable Care Act finally took a step in the 
direction of reform. It's an important step, and the Supreme Court has 
said you can do that under Congress' taxing authority, but it's just a 
step.
  All of us understand that there are still millions of Americans who 
are finding health care out of reach, even with the help that the 
Affordable Care Act offers. That's why at the State level there are 
still States, such as Vermont, that are looking at how they can go 
forward with a single-payer plan within their State.
  Mr. ELLISON. Let me just ask the gentleman a question.
  You had an amendment that we were trying to move onto the Affordable 
Care Act which would allow States, if they chose to, to pursue 
alternatives like a single-payer system.
  Do you recall your amendment?
  Mr. KUCINICH. Keep in mind that the Employee Retirement Income 
Security Act essentially would stop States from going forward, so we 
asked basically for a waiver of that. The amendment would have provided 
for a waiver so States would have no legal bar to pursue a single-payer 
system. That was essentially passed in committee and then stripped out.
  The point is we can enable it. Congress can facilitate that. The 
passage of affordable care, plus the Supreme Court saying Congress can 
move on health care, Congress can take a step, finally puts us in a 
position where we can elevate health care to the highest level of 
public concern.
  Every American who is out there tonight who's worried about whether 
they would be able to get access to affordable health care suddenly 
realizes that it is possible. For those poor people across America who 
are wondering whether they are going to be shut out by one aspect of 
the Supreme Court decision, now it's up to the States to reaffirm the 
position of the State in the life of their citizens by saying, if 
you're a poor person, we're not going to use the Supreme Court decision 
to block you from having access to the resources of the government with 
respect to health care.
  I think that we need to recognize that we've taken a big step here. 
As someone who wasn't sure at first, as someone who, in a sense, 
reluctantly voted for the Affordable Care Act on the hope that by 
proving we could have reform within the context of a for-profit system, 
that it would open the door for further reforms, I'd say this is a 
great day. It shows that it's possible to reform that for-profit 
system.
  I'm hopeful, as we're celebrating today, that we look down the road 
to what we're going to do in the future, which is to restart our 
efforts here, restart the effort for a single-payer system, knowing at 
least that we have the assurance that more people are covered, that you 
don't have to worry about your child 26 and under, whether they are 
going to be covered under the policy, that you don't have to worry 
about a child with a preexisting condition, that you don't have to 
worry about long-term caps, that you don't have to worry about if 
you're a senior where that doughnut hole is going to cause your budget 
to get crushed. What you have now is the government finally taking the 
side of the people and putting us in a position where we now are able, 
with integrity and with drive, to move towards the future where someday 
we're going to keep working for that single-payer system.
  Mr. ELLISON. I don't know if this happened to you today, but it did 
happen to me. I started thinking about all the door knocking that I did 
and thinking about the health care horror stories that I heard.
  I just want to ask you today, when you reflect on 57 percent of the 
people filing for bankruptcy being motivated by medical debt, when you 
hear about people getting a lifetime cap and not being able to get any 
additional health care, even when they've got cancer or if they've got 
cancer, then they get dropped.
  Mr. KUCINICH. The gentleman is right. The gentleman is correct. When 
you think of how many people--most bankruptcies, they're connected to 
people not being able to pay hospital bills. Any single family has 
known the dread of having one individual get ill in the family, and 
everything people worked a lifetime for, they lose.
  Mr. ELLISON. The gentleman might reflect on the fact that many of 
these people you're referring to have insurance, and I yield to the 
gentleman.
  Mr. KUCINICH. Oh, that's right.
  Think about this now. You can have insurance, and if you run up 
against lifetime caps on coverage, you're out of luck. So many 
Americans have gotten in trouble financially because, even though they 
have insurance, they can't pay the bills. The bills have sent Americans 
into poverty.
  We need to realize that we've taken a step in the direction of a 
substantial support for the American people and their health care with 
the Affordable Care Act, but it's not the final step.
  Again, I am here to share with you, Mr. Speaker, my willingness to 
continue the effort towards a universal single-payer, not-for-profit 
health care.
  You know what? Now that we've proven that reform of health care is 
possible, now that we have proven that health care is no longer the 
third rail of American politics, now that we have proven that the Court 
will uphold an effort by the Congress to move towards health care 
reform, well, now that we've proven that, we can say it is possible to 
go to a place where we can have health care for all under a not-for-
profit system.
  I thank the gentleman for his leadership, and I look forward to 
working with you as we chart a new course in America for health care 
for all. Thank you.
  Mr. ELLISON. Thank you.
  And to the gentleman from Ohio, who I know has some things to do, I 
just want to say that when the final chapter is written on the 
improvement and the advance in health care in America, there will 
certainly be chapters on how Dennis Kucinich, through your leadership 
as a Member of the House of Representatives bill that you introduced 
through your Presidential run, where you really made health care a 
front-burner issue, you will have a chapter that will designate your 
great contributions to the American people to get quality, affordable, 
universal health care.
  So I do thank you today, sir, because I can tell you that today is 
somewhat of a reflection. You should think about how your campaign for 
President and other work you have done really did move the ball down 
the track. So I thank you, and I honor you for it.
  Mr. KUCINICH. I thank the gentleman. Thank you very much.
  Mr. ELLISON. We're joined by my good friend, John Garamendi from 
California.
  Congressman Garamendi, on a day like this, you must be full of 
thoughts about health care reform, the big lift, and all of the things 
that occurred.
  What are some of the thoughts that occur to you today, Congressman?
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you, Mr. Ellison. Thank you so very much for 
your consistent and strong voice on what we really need to do here in 
America to take care of people.
  At the beginning of the day and at the end of the day, our task is to 
fulfill that message of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 
This day really, in many ways, fulfills that.
  Think about it. Can you have life without health care? Well, probably

[[Page 10518]]

not for very long. Most everybody I know has had a sickness at one 
point or another. If you don't get health care, you may very well lose 
your life.
  Happiness? We know that most of the bankruptcies--this is before the 
great crash--are a direct result of health care and not having 
sufficient insurance or not having insurance. With regard to happiness, 
wow.
  Of course, liberty. You just think about the number of Americans that 
are literally chained or tied to their job because they have health 
care there. If they want to leave, if they want to pursue a different 
course, they want to improve, they can't, because they are tied to 
their job because of health care. They can't get it.
  Today, the Supreme Court said that what this House did with the 
Affordable Health Care Act is constitutional. It is constitutional. It 
is possible for us. As we just heard from Mr. Kucinich, it is possible 
for us to reform the health care system.
  My thoughts are so happy for America, so happy for that man that I 
saw 5 years ago that was on his deathbed, and he said, If I can just 
live another 5 months, I'll be on Medicare and I can get the treatments 
that I need without bankrupting my family. Today he probably will be 
able to get that. It's a good day.

                              {time}  1800

  I was the insurance commissioner for 8 years in California. And if 
only I had this law, if only this law were in place, I could have 
hammered those insurance companies that were discriminating against 
people who had preexisting conditions. But I didn't have this law. So 
they were able to get away with discriminating against women because 
they are women. Because they are of child-bearing age, they may have a 
child; and it might cost the insurance companies money.
  My chief of staff had a child who was born with an ailment. That kid, 
from the day of conception to the day after he was born, had insurance. 
As soon as the insurance company found out that that child had a 
serious problem, they stopped the insurance. The family almost went 
into bankruptcy; but for the friends and support around them, they 
would have done so. That is over.
  Every child born in America will continue to have health care 
coverage, whether they are healthy or not. It's a good day. It's a good 
day for the children. It's a good day for the people of America.
  Mr. ELLISON. Well, Congressman, I share your joy today. And I want to 
let you know that the fact is that there are a lot of really important 
parts of this bill, and not enough Americans understand what's in the 
bill.
  I can remember back a couple of years ago when I was trying to have 
community forums in my district, and people who didn't understand the 
need for health care reform would get loud and boisterous in these 
meetings. And I would let them talk. I wouldn't let them disrupt the 
meeting, but I would let them talk. And some of them expressed 
themselves in very passionate ways.
  One of the things they said to me was, Did you read the bill? And 
they wouldn't ask the question. They would basically make an accusation 
that I didn't read the bill. Of course I had read the bill.
  And I think it's now a good idea to really help people understand 
what good things are in this bill. For example, I think it's important 
for people to understand that already in the bill, if you have a child 
under the age of 26, that child can be on your health care insurance. 
No more worries that your college graduate kid, who has not yet got 
that job, is just out there with no insurance. If you are a woman, they 
can't discriminate against you anymore. If you have a preexisting 
condition and you are a child, even at this moment, they can't 
discriminate against you. And when the bill is fully in effect, they 
won't be able to discriminate against anyone.
  If you are a senior, we're helping to make the cost of prescription 
drugs more affordable by filling the doughnut hole. Also, for Medicare, 
we have a provision in there that's helping to make sure that 
preventative screenings are free in order to have healthy, strong 
seniors to prevent them from getting sick. There's a medical loss ratio 
which says that the insurance company has to devote 85 percent of their 
receipts into health care, not all this other administrative stuff, 
including exorbitant pay.
  So as we sit back and reflect on what is actually in there, I think 
it's important to make those points.
  Is there anything you would like to add?
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Let me just take up some of those numbers because 
they're very, very exciting.
  Thirteen million Americans will receive $1.1 billion in rebates 
because the insurance companies have overcharged them. That didn't 
happen before this bill. I didn't have that power, as insurance 
commissioner, to do that; 54 million Americans that are in private 
health insurance plans will receive free preventative services as a 
result of this legislation.
  Mr. ELLISON. Fifty-four million--wow.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. And, of course, women--millions across this Nation--
will receive free coverage for comprehensive women's preventative 
health services: Pap smears, breast x rays and the like. In 2011, 32.5 
million seniors received one or more preventative services. In 2012, 14 
million seniors have already received these services.
  105 million Americans will no longer have a lifetime limit on their 
coverage. Before this bill was in effect, if you go up to $100,000 or 
$200,000--if you had a serious illness, you could go through that, 
bam--that's it. You don't get any more coverage. No longer. No more 
limits. Lifetime limits are gone.
  Seventeen million children with preexisting conditions can no longer 
be denied coverage by insurance companies; 6.6 million young adults--
what you were just talking about--you are talking about my daughter. 
She graduated at the age of 21, 22; lost her insurance. The day after 
this bill passed, she said, Dad, can I get back on your policy? The 
answer was yes. Actually, it took 6 months, but it did happen. 5.3 
million seniors in the doughnut hole--this is the drug coverage 
portion--have saved $3.7 billion on prescription drugs already.
  Now, our good friends, the Republicans, want to repeal all of this. 
So you go through this list: 13 million Americans will not receive a 
rebate if the Republicans succeed in repealing the bill; 54 million 
Americans will not receive preventative services; 6.6 million young 
Americans will not be on their parents' coverage between the age of 21 
and 26. There are a lot of takeaways from what the Republicans want to 
do with their repeal.
  Mr. ELLISON. If the gentleman would yield, I think that is a very 
important point to make. Sadly, as soon as the Affordable Care Act was 
upheld, our friends in the Republican Caucus immediately said, Well, 
we're going to have a repeal vote. Well, they've already had a repeal 
vote. What are we doing this over and over and over again for? Well, 
we're doing it for a very important reason: to make a political point.
  As they were announcing another repeal vote--another repeal vote--we 
haven't done anything about student loans this week, which are 
expiring. We haven't done anything about jobs. And we haven't done 
anything about the transit bill, which is due to expire. I mean, it's 
just really amazing how much time we have for stuff that doesn't 
matter, just political gamesmanship.
  But, you know, I must share this with you, Congressman. I'm saddened 
by the fact that our Republican friends won't join with us in this 
awesome good thing that happened to the American people today. I wish 
they would finally come around. It's like, look, you know, you fought 
the health care----
  Well, first of all, between 2000 and 2006, you had the White House, 
the Senate, and the House of Representatives. You didn't do anything 
except give a bunch of money to Big Pharma. And we're trying to fix 
that right now.
  But all this stuff they talk about. Oh, we want to sell insurance 
across State lines. We want to do tort reform. They

[[Page 10519]]

could have done all of that. They didn't do it because they didn't want 
to do it. Now they say that's what they would have done, but that's not 
what they did do when they could have done it. So there you go with 
that.
  So now we, the Democrats, went and took up health care. After many, 
many years of trying, we get it through. They fight it tooth and nail. 
To their credit, none of them supported the final vote on the 
Affordable Care Act. They were solid and unanimously against conferring 
the benefits that are contained in the Affordable Care Act.
  Well, now they got around to saying the bill was unconstitutional. 
It's unconstitutional. And you heard this hue and cry day and night. 
And they even called themselves ``constitutional conservatives.''
  Well, the constitutional Court has said, This bill is constitutional. 
So you would think they would say, Okay, okay. We just wanted to make 
sure it's constitutional. Now we're ready to join hands with you and 
celebrate this great thing to make sure all Americans can go to the 
doctor. But what do they do? They schedule a repeal vote.
  Here's what I want people to know, Congressman: according to the 
Congressional Budget Office--which is a nonpartisan entity--if they 
repeal this bill, it will add to the deficit $230 billion. These are my 
friends who never tire of saying, Oh, we're conferring debt on our 
children and grandchildren. They always say that. I'm sure it's been 
tested by, you know, some high-paid individual who does that kind of 
stuff. They never tire of saying, Our children and grandchildren, we 
are piling debt on our children and grandchildren.
  But if they strip the Affordable Care Act, as they plan on doing on 
July 11, they would drop a big debt and add to the deficit.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you so very much, Mr. Ellison. And thank you for 
your leadership on this and so many other issues.
  I'm looking at that sign next to you: ``Republicans' No-Jobs 
Agenda.'' A repeal of the Affordable Health Care Act and the Patients' 
Bill of Rights is not going to create jobs. In fact, it is going to 
make it very, very difficult for small businesses because the 
Affordable Health Care Act actually helps small businesses.
  Mr. ELLISON. Right.

                              {time}  1810

  Mr. GARAMENDI. They don't have the mandate. Small businesses don't 
have the mandate. But what they do have is an opportunity. They have an 
opportunity to get health insurance at an affordable cost, which 
they've never had before. Small business, one-person, or husband and 
wife, perhaps, and two or three employees, it literally was impossible 
for them to get affordable health insurance for themselves and for 
their three employees.
  Under this bill, they can get it. It's subsidized, to be sure. But 
they can finally get insurance. And across the State of California and 
across this Nation we're finding thousands upon thousands of businesses 
for the first time going into the insurance market, able to buy 
insurance, getting coverage for themselves and their employees while 
providing what insurance must do, which is the knowledge and the 
stability that is necessary for the finances of that business to 
succeed.
  The other thing--and I'm just going to pick up one more that's very, 
very close to me--in California, the Affordable Care Act provided 
funding for 1,154 clinics. Way back in 1978, when I was in the 
California legislature, and in 1976 as a member of the Assembly, I 
authored legislation to establish the Rural Health Act. And that built 
clinics in the rural part of California. And today, as a result of 
that, there are clinics all across the State of California, and the 
Affordable Care Act keeps those clinics in business.
  This is where many Californians and across this Nation Americans 
access the health care system. It's there in their community. These are 
the community clinics that are so critically important in providing the 
health care that Americans need. The call for repeal kills these 
clinics. These clinics will die if this bill is repealed.
  So out across the State, even in the most conservative part of my new 
district, Colusa County, there are clinics that are dependent upon this 
legislation and will be able to continue as a result of the Affordable 
Care Act, found by the Supreme Court, including Chief Justice Roberts, 
to be constitutional. This is constitutional. The legislature, 
Congress, and the Senate and the President have the power to solve one 
of the great America dilemmas: The health care system.
  Over time, we'll change this. We'll make modifications. Among those 
modifications ought to be an expansion of Medicare, which is efficient, 
effective, and universally available to every American over the age of 
65. How good it is. How hard and how determined people are--if I can 
just live to 65, I'll have Medicare. It's a great program. We ought to 
expand it. We ought to make it universal.
  Mr. Ellison, I don't know how much time you have.
  Mr. ELLISON. We've got about 30 minutes or so.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, there are things we can talk about.
  Mr. ELLISON. I would actually like to take up what happened with Eric 
Holder today.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Let's talk about that.
  Mr. ELLISON. The Holder case, Eric Holder, when he came in office, 
this program, the Fast and Furious, was ongoing. It was a gunwalking 
program. The original theory was that if you put some guns into the 
stream of commerce, then you can find out who's buying them, who's 
selling them, and try to get to the bottom of some of these cartels 
that trade in illegal guns, straw purchasers and so forth. Well, it was 
a poorly conceived plan, and tragedy occurred. A border enforcement 
officer, Officer Terry, was killed as a result with one of these guns. 
We all pause in his honor and offer our sincere condolences to his 
family.
  When Attorney General Holder found out about this program, he shut 
the program down. But then, of course, as facts came to light, it is a 
legitimate source of investigation. And he submitted to nine hearings, 
8,000 pages of documentation. But when it finally got down to it, when 
there was information that was of a deliberative nature--not on the 
facts of what happened to Officer Terry, but just exchange of 
information--and pending criminal information, which everyone in this 
room should know is not for public consumption, when that information 
was sought, the administration, the White House said, No, we're going 
to exercise executive privilege. Obviously, if the President exercises 
executive privilege, the Attorney General has to abide by that 
decision.
  And despite all those facts, today on the House floor the Republican 
majority, instead of dealing with jobs, instead of dealing with health 
care, instead of dealing with renewing the student loan interest rates, 
which are about to double; instead of dealing with the transportation 
bill, which is about to expire, we go do a witch hunt on Eric Holder. 
It's really too bad.
  Any thoughts on this issue you care to share?
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, I do. And like most of my Democratic colleagues, 
we just walked out of this Chamber and said this is not worthy of the 
dignity of the House of Representatives. And we weren't going to honor 
this process with our presence.
  Let's go back here. The Fast and Furious programs actually began in 
the George W. Bush administration, I think, around 2005, 2006. And 
there were two iterations of it, two different projects that were 
underway out of the Phoenix office of the ATF. And they were trying to 
find out who the gunrunners were. We've all watched the Western movies 
and the gunrunners. Well, there are American gunrunners that were 
running guns to the narco folks in Mexico. We wanted to find out what 
is going on here, where are these guns coming from. And that was, once 
again, during the George W. Bush administration and had gone on for 2, 
3 years.
  The Obama administration comes in. Eric Holder is chosen as Attorney 
General. And the program continued. The

[[Page 10520]]

tragedy occurred. An agent was killed. And from there, Fast and 
Furious--this is now what we call the walking of the guns--became 
known. Eric Holder shut it down. In that process, a letter was written 
to the Senate committee saying that it didn't exist. Clearly, an error, 
I am told. But this House doesn't know today. Never investigated by the 
committee. But I am told that there was information that the office in 
Phoenix, Arizona, misled the office in Washington, D.C., and a letter 
was sent forth that was incorrect. That should be the subject of the 
investigation: What happened here; what actually went on in Arizona.
  Not one witness from the actual operation was called to testify. Not 
one. So this is really a very strange and botched investigation. If you 
want to get to the bottom of it, you've got to talk to the people that 
actually did it. It didn't happen. The Democrats on the committee 
demanded several times: Bring forth the people who did the Fast and 
Furious from the Bush administration into the Obama administration. 
Bring them forward. Get their testimony. Find out what happened. Find 
out about the communications between the Phoenix office and the 
Washington, D.C., office. It didn't happen.
  So in terms of an investigation, you have a partial investigation 
focusing on the end of the story rather than on the full story. And 
today, the first time ever in the history of this Nation, this body 
voted to hold in contempt a Cabinet official on a half-baked, 
insufficient investigation that purposefully ignored calling witnesses 
that were actually engaged in the Fast and Furious operation and who 
were responsible in the Phoenix office for that operation.

                              {time}  1820

  It was a farce. It was a political event, and we walked out. Not a 
good day.
  And as you said a moment ago, there are things we must do. Men and 
women and families across this country are hurting. They're unemployed. 
They want jobs. They want to go to work. Transportation, where's the 
transportation bill? We never did get one out of this House that was 
meaningful. We just passed a little thing so we can get to conference. 
It had nothing in it, but it allowed us to go to conference. Where's 
that bill? How about student interest rates, where's that bill? And 
what about the jobs program?
  What if the September 2011 proposal that President Obama put forward, 
the American Jobs Act, what if we had taken that up? Three million, 4 
million Americans would be working today. What if we had done that? But 
it didn't happen. Our colleagues on the Republican side refused to 
bring it up in this House and refused to allow it to be brought up in 
the Senate. That's sad. That's a very sad thing for America. It is one 
of the great ``we should haves,'' but we were prevented from doing so.
  Mr. ELLISON. Well, Congressman, I have some obligations that require 
me to curtail our hour a little early. You can carry on if you like.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, I, too, must go. But I thank you very much for 
allowing me to talk about three very important things. I appreciate 
that, Mr. Ellison.
  Mr. ELLISON. You are famous for nailing the need for a greater 
investment in manufacturing and supporting American jobs, and I thank 
you for all of the great work you're doing.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. You must mean Make It in America. Spend our tax money 
on American-made equipment and jobs, not on Chinese or Japanese or 
anybody else, but on American jobs. We can do that.
  Mr. ELLISON. We can do it.
  Let me wrap up by saying it has been a great evening, a great day for 
the American people. The Affordable Care Act has been vindicated in the 
Supreme Court. Unfortunately, the day is somewhat marred by the 
unfortunate behavior of the majority in trying to go after Eric Holder. 
Nonetheless, it's another day in Washington.
  The Progressive Caucus will be back next week. Thank you very much.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________