cannot do it without this bill. to do that, we have to restore america's faith in our ability to take strong, corrective action against the bad actors that perpetrated this crisis. yes, this is our moment to act and yet we cannot. the other side of the aisle will not let it happen. derivatives were exempted, as i say, from regulation in the commodities futures modernization act of 2000. that law created massive regulatory loopholes, like the enron loophole, which prohibited the commodities futures trading commission from overseeing electronic exchanges. the london loophole -- allowed for -- the swaps loophole, which allowed for unregulated

bilateral trades through brokers, swap dealers and direct party-to-party negotiations. together these loopholes have been responsible for some of our nation's worst economic crises. they must be closed. i first became aware of the problem of unregulated derivatives during the western energy crisis. the year was 1999 when enron traders fleeced californians for approximately $40 billion in artificially inflated electricity and natural gas prices. without federal oversight rules in place, it took us some time to realize what was going on in california. and then when we did, the parties in power would not believe us. we learned the hard way the dangers of having no paper trail, no one to raise the alarm, no cop on the beat to

enforce penalties. some experts told us this was just supply and demand. i even remember going to the white house and hearing these exact words. we didn't know that traders were in it just for greed. that's why i will never forget the day senator cantwell, another long-time champion for derivatives reform handed me a copy of the taped conversations between enron traders. these tapes from enron's west coast trading desk demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that energy traders would do anything to make a buck. when a forest fire shut down a major transmission line in tacoma, california, to cut prices, enron energy traders celebrated. here's a quote, "burn, baby,

burn. that's a beautiful thing" a trader sang about the massive fire that threatened homes and lives. the tapes also confirmed that in secret deals with power producers, traders deliberately drove up prices by ordering power plants shut down. when california regulators tried to get money back from enron, their traders joked this -- quote -- "they're taking all the money back from you guys, all the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in california?" end quote. that was the mentality. another one, "yeah, grandma millie, man," replied the second trader. this was an eye-opening experience, it to say the least. in 2002, 2003, 2004, i offered four separate amendments to

restore regulation to derivatives markets, and each time the president's working group on financial markets advocated against the amendments and they went down. our nation's financial experts argued that private parties would protect the public interest by looking out for their own interests. and congress trusted our experts. but the experts were wrong. they ignored the growing risk these products posed to our financial system. in 2007, finally, the senate took action to close the enron loophole when it approved bipartisan legislation that i authored with senator snowe and others. that legislation brought regulatory oversight to electronic commodity exchanges like the intercontinental exchange and it established antifraud and anti-manipulation standards for our nation's electronic energy futures

market. but then they go offshore and go and trade on the london exchange to avoid the law. and so we learned that soon there were other loopholes that remained open. beyond the reach of federal oversight, the derivatives market swelled to the size o of $600 trillion. there were no rules to prevent systemic failure, fraud, or manipulation. no one ensured that these products served any commercial function beyond gambling. and no one worked to make sure traders understood the products they traded. and it turns out traders often use the stockholder value of major financial institutions to gamble in markets they did not understand with bets large enough to put the entire

financial system at risk. they bet on oil. they bet on natural gas. and with the creation of the credit default swap, they began to bet on each other's demise. new exotic financial products were dreamed up like the recent one to trade movie box office futures which was proposed by canter exchange just this year. what public benefit is served by trading box office futures? all it does is create a huge problem for the motion picture industry. in 2000, a.i.g. and layman collapsed under the -- lehman collapsed under the weight of derivatives. this time it was not only western energy consumers who suffered. the unregulated derivatives

market brought our entire economy to its knees. and that's why it's so vital that we learn from this experience and implement the derivative reform proposals that have been put forward by senators lincoln and dodd. let me take a few moments to describe some of the bill's key positions much it will require every trade -- positions. it will require every trade to be reported in real time to the commodities future trading commission so regulators will know for the first time what is actually going on in these markets. they will be transparent they -- transparent. they won't be dark markets. everyone will know. it will require standardized high-volume trades to be cleared through a regulated clearin clearinghouse. this will ensure that everyone in the system gets paid even

when one trader defaults. had we had this system in place, a.i.g.'s collapse would not have posed a systemic risk. swap stealers who sell unclear contracts to end users, which are more risky than clear trades, will be subject to significantly higher capital requirements enforced by the cftc in cooperation with bank regulators. the bill helps small commercial end users such as utilities or trucking companies hedge their risks, but major financial institutions an mutual funds will have to conduct their trading in regulated markets. that is a good thing. it will require that all cleared contracts to be traded on an exchange or on a swap execution facility. trading on exchanges or

execution facilities provide for pretrade transparency, again, light, which is necessary to fully understand and manage the risks being taken by market participants to provide more efficient and accurate pricing and to facilitate more cost-effective risk management. it will require speculative position limits to be set in the aggregate for each commodity instead of contract by contract. position limits provide an important restriction on market manipulation and amount of risk that can build up in any one market participant. for the first time the cftc will be able to prevent speculators from assembling massive positions in a particular commodity such as oil by

assembling large positions in multiple contracts. see how they do that. traders can now simply buy positions on brent crude oil when they exceeded limits in west texas immediate crude oil. and that makes no sense. see, it's a way to be hidden in the size of your trade. aggregate position limits will prevent manipulative practices such as though deployed by the defuncted hedge fund amaranth in 2007 which assembled massive positions on two separate natural gas contracts and manipulated one in order to profit on the other. and let there be no doubt about this, amaranth settled, paid a huge fine in substantial millions of dollars.

further, the fund will close the london loophole so they can't just go around american law by requiring the foreign board of trades adhere at minimum standards comparable to those in the united states and reporting all trading activities to united states regulators on a timely basis. finally, and perhaps most importantly, the bill will prevent fdic-insured retail banks and banks with access to the federal reserve discount window from engaging in extremely risky practice of swaps dealing with a government guarantee. that is really important. this innovative and important provision effectively implements the volcker rule and protects taxpayers. so you can see what a big bill is. remember, it was derivatives that brought the house of cards

down. now there's transparency. there's clearing. there's position limits. and i very much thank the chairman of the committee for negotiating with senator lincoln in achieving this. it is a monumental gain. i very strongly believe that all swaps activities in commercial banking should be distinct so that taxpayers do not supplement or subsidize or guarantee or ensure the riskest activities of large financial institutions. now, there's no denying that opponents of the bill are trying to come up with new and creative ways to block this bill. with so much at stake, it's not surprising that allies of big banks and wall street lenders have already launched a million dollar ad campaign to frame the debate and fight these changes.

they are cynically twisting the facts to assert that this legislation will perpetuate more bailouts in the future. nothing could be further from the truth. the big wall street firms that caused this crisis have hired lobbyists to portray wall street reform as something that is bad for taxpayers. the louders attracters of financial regulatory reform claim ta it will be just -- claim that it will be just another government intrusion in the free market. well, we have found out that the free market is not self-regulating. recently "the wall street journal," reported that opponents of regulatory reform have adopted talking points distributing -- distributed by a messaging firm whose clients include bank of america, chase

card services, and u.b.s. the memo suggests that the best way to kill the bill is to link it to the big bank bailout. my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have adopted these talking points and are doing everything they can to block this bill. this is both dangerous and absurd. if we have learned anything from the recent past, it's that the disorderly failure of massive financial institutions is extremely destructive. and so for the first time with the passage of this bill, we will have a process in place to ensure the most minimal disruption necessary in order to wind down failures on wall street. that's what this is about. and the $50 billion is not government money. the $50 billion is a fund that

the companies contribute to which is held in escrow by the government so that if it has to be used, it can be used. so i stand behind chairman dodd when he emphasizes the level of bipartisan negotiation that has gone into the bill before it. but bipartisan compromise does not mean withholding support until you get everything you want. financial reform is not a zero sum game. we need solutions, not threats, to block meaningful reform of our financial markets. without strong reform, every american who has been blindsided by the profit above else mentality of wall street will lose, lose, lose, and that's what's at stake in these cloture motions. anyone who has taken basic

economics knows that markets only function when market participants have good information. in fact, perfect information, and when the transactions occur free of fraud, abuse, and manipulation. handing control and oversight of financial markets to the biggest wall street banks does not produce a free market with good information, free from abuse, as has been painfully illustrated over the last few days. -- few years, excuse me. accusations of fraud against goldman sachs announced last friday underscore the need for financial reform. now, goldman sachs will have their day in court, but the allegations against the firm cry out for greater transparency at giant wall street banks. let me return to where i began.

i was one of the 40 senators on the telephone in september of 2008 when both secretary paulson of treasury and ben bernanke of the federal reserve talked to senators and said we are a hair's breath -- i'm paraphrasing, but this is the sum and substance of it -- we are a hair's breath away from a major collapse of the entire financial marketplace of our country, and it will be worse than the great depression if it happens. now, i never expected to hear that. i never thought that these market activities could do that. to some extent, i believe that the market was self-regulating, but it isn't, and we found that out in spades. and i think that we are really

deleterious in our duty if we do not address this, if we do not fully debate it on the floor, if everyone that hears the debate doesn't understand what the evils really are that are out there. that naked swaps, the credit default swaps, the hedge funds without any regulation must have transparency, must be regulated and must go over in exchange and be regulated. this bill accomplishes that. this bill protects the american people. i can't understand why anyone would not support this bill. if truly what we believe in and what we came to this office for and what we took our oath of office for was to protect the american people, this bill is mandatory, and not to do it is

malfeasance of duty in my view. not to let us move forward with a robust debate, to waste time with cloture votes day after day, and it looks like they will continue, i believe is really improper. to demand that a bill has to be agreed upon by both sides before it even is debated on this floor as a major bill is something that in this day and age, with the economic troubles of this nation, i thought we would never, ever hear. so bottom line, now is the time to act. now is the time to close the gaps in regulation. it's time to hold the big banks accountable to the people they serve. it's time to put a moral compass into trading. it's time to ensure the taxpayers will never again be forced to bail out big banks because they are too big to

fail. no bank is. and that's what wall street reform will achieve, and that's why i feel so committed to make it happen and why i'm asking for the support of all our colleagues. senator dodd and senator lincoln have assembled the strongest provisions of each of their respective bills into a proposal to reform the bilateral swaps and derivatives market that is more effective than any proposal to date. so i want to thank both of them for their leadership in bringing this bill to the floor. i'm very proud to stand with them, along with my long time colleagues in this effort. senator snowe, senator cantwell, senator dorgan, senator harkin, senator brown and senator nelson of florida. they have worked for a long time

to bring about strong regulation of the derivatives market. so the question remains what will happen? will this bill be allowed to see the light of day? will this bill be able to regulate fraud, manipulation? will this bill be able to see that the american taxpayer is protected so that we can say truly in good conscience never again will this happen in the united states? so i say to the other side stop this nonsense, let this bill come to the floor. come down to the floor. debate it. vote against it if you don't like it. that's the american way. i don't believe that when a bill comes out of committee by a majority vote, regardless of how that majority is achieved, whether it's bipartisan or the

product of one party, that it should be refused debate on the floor. we have a chance to change that. i hope the republicans will. i hope we will debate and pass this bill. i thank the chair. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from georgia. mr. isakson: madam president, i rise for a second to talk about the financial services bill. i do want to say something in advance of that, though. i'm sorry chairman dodd is not on the floor. this friday is the last day americans can go under contract on the first-time home buyer tax credit and the moveup tax credit. i had the privilege of working with the banking chairman on that legislation in the fall of last year and its extension, and i felt a sense of reward today when the announcement came out that for the first time in 36 months, homes in the 20 test markets the united states values actually went up by .6%.

that's not a lot of money, but it's the first time in 36 months. the chairman created an environment to allow that debate to take place, and this senate voted 100-0 to pass it, and the american people have benefited from it. as i tell so many who call me, it's not going to be extended because credits like that are designed to do what it has done, and that is bring the marketplace back, hopefully stabilize values and move forward. but i do want to talk about the -- and i commend senator dodd for setting an environment where that could take place, which brings me to my point on the bill before us. senator feinstein did an excellent job of talking about wall street and some other people that certainly need to be held accountable where there wasn't any transparency, contributors to the problem and the difficult problem that derivatives caused in the whole mess, but there is another story out there i want to bring up because when we do get to debate on this bill, when we get to a point, it's my hope we really are going to have a debate and an amendment process because there are some things that

aren't in this 1,407-page bill that ought to be. what i specifically want to talk about is freddie mac, fannie mae, moody's and standard and poor's. you know, when the market began to collapse, a lot of those derivatives that were talked about were bets one way or the other against the housing market which in many ways had been overheated in america because of the approval of something known as a subprime mortgage. but the devil in those details that caused us so much problem, there originally was no market for subprime mortgage. they were b, c and d credits. they were down payment assistance loans. they were higher risk loans by their definition, but they got securitized, and two things happened. first moody's and standards rated them as investment grade, aaa investment grade bond or securities. secondly, freddie mac and fannie at the behest of the united states congress, us, started

buying those securities to meet the desire to have more affordable housing in america. a noble goal but a goal that was being achieved by loaning people money that could not pay it back, loaning them the down payment they didn't have, by not validating the credit, their employment or anything else. and so when this thing really did collapse, when everything went down and went down fast, it was in large measure because freddie and fannie created the marketplace that started the buying of these securities around the world, these mortgage securities, number one, and equal with that is moody's and standard rated them as investment grade when they obviously were not. now, i would think that as we move towards a debate on this bill when that time comes and it would come, that it would be a bill that included freddie mac and fannie and included moody's and standard. and i do understand there are some references to moody's standard, but i would submit the

best accountability for moody's and standard is for them to be paid by the purchaser of securities, not the creator of them, because then they are accountable to the people who actually get stuck holding the bag, not the guy who created them and then duched and run. which is some of the stuff that senator feinstein was talking about. i also want to talk about the quality of lending. there are provisions in this bill to talk about shared risk and risk retention. there are provisions for a mortgage banker to retain 5% of the risk in a loan. that's a well-intended move, but as i said the other day on the floor and as i reminded people in this body, when the savings and loan collapsed, when the r.t.c., the resolution trust was created, when that crisis cost the american people three quarters of a trillion dollars, savings and loans in america didn't have 5% of the risk, they had hundred% -- they had 100% of the risk. they made those loans with deposits they had of their

depositors and they were paid back over time. but when we took away their preference on deposits of $10,000 or less against the banking industry and when because they began losing money we allowed them to form service corporations and get into businesses they didn't know anything about, they finally collapsed and imploded with hundred% risk, not just 5%. so i would submit that another thing that needs to be incorporated in this is for us to put some underwriting standards, minimum standards so that anything that doesn't meet them has to be an insured mortgage by an mgic or a p.m.i. we ought to go back to the good old days of the 1960's, 1970's, and 1980's where you had to have a job and a verification to borrow money, where you had to get a credit report. where you didn't have an appraiser drive by on the street or you had a legitimate appraisal. where you couldn't spend 25% or

30% or more of your monthly payment as a percentage of your gross income or a total of 38% on all debts you had, including that payment of at least a year or more in duration. the real estate industry, the housing industry, america, with those very standards which were the standards of the 1960's, 1970's and part of the 1980's ended up having a vibrant housing market. 65% homeownership, the largest of any company in the world, but when the idea of wall street to get greedy, when our idea of forcing freddie and fannie to be purchasers of resort, the rush came to create the mortgage, to sell the paper, to produce the income that the investor wanted, the quality of the house, the qualification of the buyer, the legitimacy of the loan came in question. so i look forward to a point in time when we get to this debate that we'll talk about three things. number one is that freddie mac freddie mac and fannie mae were,

in fact, government-sponsored institutions and today are a lot more government sponsored than they ever were. secondly, if we exempt them, we leave the potential and the temptation for them to be used as a dictated purchaser of certain kinds of paper that get us right back in the same problem again. and if moody's and standard's do not have an accountability to their rating standards when something happens like the subprime loans, then we are leaving open the opportunity for most of what happened that was the principal cause of the collapse to happen again. i think we have a responsibility not to do that. and i hope to become a part of a debate on that part of this legislation that closes the loophole, that takes away this idea if you just have 5% shared risk, it's a safe loan, and instead make sure the underwriting to the borrower is what we count on, because after all that's going to be how the money is paid back. we know for a fact that freddie

and fannie were a major part of the problem, and we know that lack of quality underwriting was a major contributor to the quality and the security. somewhere it ought to be addressed, but in these 1,407 pages, to the best of my reading and looking, it is not. that is unfortunate and it's a mistake, and i hope when we get to the final debate we'll correct that error or else we will not have addressed a major contributor to the problem to our taxpayers and our voters and our citizens. and with that, i yield back the floor. mr. carper: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. carper: while the senator from georgia is still on the floor, i want to say it's great to have him back. he had pretty serious health challenges and it's great to see him back on his feet. he mentioned in his remarks, three days or so, the first time

the home buyers tax credit has been extended. we're seeing an enormous uptick in sales of homes. i was pleased as a former member of the banking committee to be involved and encourage my colleagues to support what is a very good idea. and the other thing i want to say while he's still on the floor, he and i are -- we don't agree on everything. we agree on a lot of stuff. i would like to invoke the 80-20 rule which senator mike enzi from wyoming talks about. i used to say to him why do you and ted kennedy, when senator kennedy was with you, they were senior democrat and republican on the health, education, labor, and pensions, i'd say to mike enzi, i'd say how come you, one of the most conservative members of the senate, arguably one of the most liberal members of the senate, get so much done. a very productive committee regardless of whether ted kennedy was the chairman or mike enzi was the chair. mike enzi used to say ted and i

believe in the 80-20 rule. 80% of the stuff we agree on, 20% of the stuff we agree. what we decided to do is focus on the 80% on which we agree, set aside the 20% on which we don't agree, come back and worry about that another day. there's a whole lot more that we agree on than we don't agree on. my hope is we'll have an opportunity to bring this bill to the floor and do what we used to do here in the senate. that is people actually offer their amendments. we have a chance to debate those amendments and we vote them up or we vote them down. and one side wouldn't line up to vote against those amendments. i think a lot of the amendments go along party lines and they depend a lot more, in some cases on geography, some cases on the business climate in a particular state. we'll have a couple days through

here voting not for cloture, not to bring the bill to the floor. i would just say to my colleagues, i'll be voting with you, working with you on some of your amendments. my hope is you'll do the same with some of mine. my hope is we can really get past this sticking point and do what we're sent here to do and that is to legislate and that is to govern. i know that's what is in your heart as well. i just wanted to share that. mr. isakson: if the gentleman would yield, i want to thank him for his good wishes and i enjoy working with the former governor, now senator of delaware. i look forward to that where we're finding 80% common ground. mr. carper: it's out there. i thank my colleague. i want to take a minute or two to look and step back and think about how we got into this mess with the housing bubble that led us literally almost to the brink of disaster in this country. part of what happened is market forces were not allowed to work. regulation was not -- regulations were not enforced.

the regulators were in many cases, too many cases asleep at the switch. i'll just take -- talk a little bit about housing markets. i'm a guy who as governor and as senator, i always pushed real hard -- i was a congressman before that -- pushed real hard for homeownership. i loved the idea that people own a home, own a piece of the rock. for many people, that's the biggest part of their savings, their life savings, they own a home. they use that not just for a tax shelter but to send kids to school and at the end of their life to live off, in mequome. homeownership is a good thing. there's the housing market heated up and housing price es with going up, up, up, and folks assumed they would go up for ever. they didn't. few things go up forever, and that includes housing prices. we had a number of folks who were looking out at folks, other people who want to become homeowners and people who didn't have the ability to become a homeowner didn't have the

financial wherewithal to be a homeowner, were kind of sucked in to or duped into buying homes and were taking on maybe exotic mortgages with the hopes that they would somehow be able to pay for those and the homes would keep going up over time. it didn't work out that way. i think part of what went wrong here, aside from the 134u78gs that house -- from the assumption that housing prices would always go up, regulators were asleep at the switch, the other thing that went wrong here is sort of the basic concept that to make markets work for there to be some market discipline, there has to be skin in the game. there has to be skin in the game. others have talked about this, even today, on the floor. you have in some cases mortgage brokers who would say to people who didn't have the ability to be homeowners, don't -- you need not bother telling us what your income is. you tell us you're okay and your income is good and we'll take your word for that. in too many cases that happened.

the regulators allowed that to happen. we had mortgage brokers originate a mortgage and pass the customer on to a bank or mortgage banker, and they would write the mortgages, allow the mortgage to be done. so the person ends up with a home, ends up with a mortgage. the mortgage is passed on by fannie mae and freddie mac. fannie mae and freddie mac bundled them together, bundled a bunch of mortgages together and created an investment instrument through securitization. those securities were then kind of blessed by the credit agencies. the credit agencies, the mortgage to brokers, they make their fee. the bankers make their fee. they're out of it. fannie mae and freddie get some sort of fee for securitizing the loans. they're kind of out of it. credit agencies make their fee and they're out of it. we end up with folks owning these securities, in some cases all around the world. slice and dice these securities

acquired by different investors. too many of the players in this business didn't have any skin in the game. and at the end of the day, when folks started defaulting on their mortgages, not making their payments and those investments, mortgage-backed securities were out there owned by a bunch of different investors, they turned into what i call swiss cheese, and they had a lot of holes in them. holes created when folks stopped meeting their mortgage payments. eventually when it turned into swiss cheese, they became in many cases illiquid, unmarketable. they gathered on, in some cases on the books, the balance sheets of financial institutions. despite all these tricks we tried to create and these gimmicks we tried to create or financial tools we tried to create to deal with the risks, it didn't all work. and in the end it came tumbling down. one of the things we want to do, we want to make sure in the legislation that we're working on, that regulators actually regulate. a second thing we want to make

sure is that a lot of folks have -- we want to make sure that we actually -- we're asking somebody what their income is. we want to verify it. so people don't end up taking on risks they can't obviously meet. we want to make sure that people have skin in the game, that the banks, the financial institutions have skin in the game, that the shareholders of those institutions are at risk. otherwise, what reason should they have, you know, why should there be any discipline? there won't be in too many cases. we -- there are some people who think we ought to kind of mandate capital standards for risky activities, raise the capital standards, should do that by mandates, by legislative fee california i don't know that that's a -- by legislative fiat. i don't know that that's a smart thing to do. it's different from, dramatically different from capital standards, different from other countries.

it sort of puts our institutions at a competitive disadvantage. we have to make sure that our regulators are coordinated with other regulators around the world and we actually do have standards so when financial institutions are involved in riskier behavior, the capital requirements are higher and the liquidity requirements are higher. the last point i want to make, somebody gave me today a, some, i don't know if you call them talking points. but what our version is as democrats, the idea that we're on the side of not so much the financial institutions, we're certainly not on the, necessarily on the side of wall street but we're on the side of regular people, many of whom have been damaged by all this. and among the points that i would want to leave us with is in terms of the things we're for is we want to have in place strict new regulations to stop wall street from, really from gambling with money, our money in the end.

we want -- we're not interested in more taxpayer bailouts. the idea of actually creating this $50 billion fund that would be paid for by the financial institutions themselves, to contribute to that when later on big institutions get into trouble, we actually have the money literally there available to use to shut them down and to retire them in an orderly way that doesn't disrupt the financial system that's one of the things that we're for. we want to tie in too big to fail. we want to put a new cop on the beat in terms of consumer protection for consumers at least working with the largest 100 or so institutions that have over $50 billion in assets among the bank holding companies. and we want to, i think this is important too. we want to -- in the course of this debate, we want to put consumers in control, with information in plain english. as i listen to this debate and had a lot of folks visit with us and talk about the issues that are before us, we could probably use more plain english here on the floor than not. sometimes i hear our colleagues,

our staff and folks that visit with us. they're talking about stuff that reminds me of the old saying, i remember albert einstein's theory of relativity. somebody asked mrs. einstein do you understand your husband's theory of relativity? she said i understand the words but not the sentences. that's what she said. i understand the words but not the sentences. i hear so much of the debate. i understand the words and some of the sentences i understand, but not all of them. i want to make sure at the end of the day when we finish, we bring the bill to the floor, we actually understand the sentences and not just the words we're actually debating. we go through conference with the house, we actually do understand not just the words, but the sentences, the paragraphs and pages, the whole kit and caboodle and at the end of the day we really will have taken some big steps to greatly reduce the likelihood that we're ever going to have to go through this again, certainly not in our lifetimes and hopefully not

again ever. with that said, madam president, i mention it's sort of our democratic vision. i would hope the republicans would share that. i think in many cases, maybe on an 80-20 basis they probably do. if we ever get a chance to get a bill to the floor, we'll find out. in the end i think there's a lot we agree on, we'll find common ground, we'll address this and move on to other important issues and challenges that face our nation. with that having been said, dam president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. durbin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: ask consent the quor cal be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: mr. president, again today for the second day in a row, we have failed to break the republican filibuster on the wall street reform bill. the votes are very clear, with one or two democrats who are -- one who is opposed to breaking the filibuster and the other absent, there was not a single vote in support of moving to the debate on the wall street reform bill. tomorrow there will be another opportunity, and it appears that

the other side, the republican side of the aisle, has decided that they don't want to debate this issue. the senate is -- as an institution is designed to give people a chance to express themselves, beth by votes and amendments that they might off offer, and that is what we've offered. it's interesting to me, this bill, which is before, the financial stability act -- just to check on how many pages. we count pages around here now. 1,400 pages. okay? and i'm not being critical of the size of this bill. it's a big challenge to make sure that we pass the laws that are necessary to promote financial stability. but it wasn't a few months ago that the republicans were arguing that the health care reform bill was so big that we had to have it right out here in front of us and we shouldn't be negotiating behind closed doors, secret negotiations on the bill.

it ought to be right here on the senate floor. let's have the amendments. now comes this bill on wall street reform and the republican position's exactly the opposite. we don't want, they say, to have an amendment process on the floor. we want you to agree ahead of time behind closed doors on what the bill is going to say. i don't know if they've noted the inconsistency of the position but it's fairly clear. i think that they probably have some good ideas to change this bill. i'm anxious to see their amendments. i think we have some good ideas to improve the bill. i'd like to offer a few amendments. it's almost sounding like the united states senate, isn't it? i mean, amendments on a bill and votes and speeches, debate? i mean, really sounds like the good ole days here's. but, we don't have the good ole days anymore, we just lurch from one vote to an empty floor, to

the next vote, to an empty floor, to the next vote. and people who are following this on the outside have to be wondering what we're trying to achieve. and unfortunately for some what they're trying to achieve is absolutely nothing. they want to stop the senator from acting. they believe that it's in the best -- their best political interests, maybe in the best interest of the country from their point of view that we do nothing. how could you take that position when it comes to wall street after what we've been through as a nation? how could you take the position that we should do nothing when it comes to the wall street banks and financial institutio institutions? these banks and financial institutions got away with murder. when it came to corrupting our economy and leading us into the most painful recession in modern memory? how could you take the position, as some republicans have, that we should not debate or vote on a bill to try to avoid that catastrophe from recurring? that, to me, is so basic and fundamental. it strikes me that the american people have it right.

they understand what we've been through and they understand that after the great minds of wall street made the greatest mistakes in modern economic history, they came whining and crying to the federal treasury to bail them out. they asked for hundreds of billions of dollars from hard-working families across america to get through their individual economic crises at their banks and their financial institutions. and i will concede that i voted for that idea because the alternative was a disaster in our economy. well, after sending the money to wall street, they showed their gratitude by giving one another bonuses, multimillion-dollar bonuses for their bone-headed stupidity that led us into this mess and then deciding that once this were solvent again and moving forward, they would stop loaning money to businesses across america who are trying to survive and get out of this

recession. i mean, it is the ultimate in irresponsibility and it's what we've come to expect from some of the people on wall street. ai mentioned earlier that many f us have been reading this book, "the big short" by michael lewis, and he tells the story of how we got into this mess, how these people dreamed up ways to create these financial instruments which almost defy description, where they would take thousands of mortgages from all around the united states and package them into a little bundle and put some code name on them that only the insiders could understand and then decide to sell them in pieces, tranches, they called them, and they were betting that the value of real estate would continue to go up and the default rate would not. and they guessed wrong on both counts. the default rate on these rotten mortgages increased and the value of the homes and businesses and other entities underlying value began to decline and the bottom fell out.

lewis tells the story about those who saw it coming and ended up making a lot of money because they shorted the market, as we say, they guessed that the real estate bubble was going to burst. how many more times do we need to go through that as a nation before we change the rules on wall street in terms of their conduct and what they can do? we think it's time. this bill is a product of the senate banking committee and a lot of hard work. senator dodd, the democratic chairman of the committee, met for several months with the republican senator who ranks number one on that committee, richard shelby of alabama, and they couldn't reach an agreement. so senator dodd then said, i'll meet with is that right corker of tennessee, also on the committee, and sadly that didn't result in an agreement either. and then senator dodd said, let's have a hearing and let's nut bill right on the table and let people offer -- let's put this bill right on the table and let people offer amendments to it. the republicans prepared over

400 amendments to this bill, and when senator dodd called the hearing, they refused to call a single one of them, not one of them, to be put on this bill or voted on. so the bill comes to the floor in that situation and the republicans refuse to let us move forward. that's because urn the senate rules, you need 60 votes. we only have 59 on a good day here and we clearly need republican help to move this bill forward. they have decided as a party caucus to stand by wall street and to stand against reform. i don't understand it. i can't imagine that they are hearing anything that's different than what i hear when i go home. and when i go home, basically people tell me that they believe that it's time for accountability for the banks and the speculators on wall street and they believe that we ought to do it now. they want to see us as a cop on the beat. they want to see the government keeping an eye on these big financial institutions, establishing standards of conduct, establishing margin

requirements so that we know that they're not overextended again as they were leading into this recession. and they've got to make sure that we're doing something that's going to avoid a replay of what we've just been through. there's another aspect of this bill that when i spoke to one of the republicans during the vote today, i said to him, what is the problem here? why aren't you joining us in this wall street reform? don't you -- don't you hear the same things at home that we do? oh, he said, my big concern is the consumer financial protection agency in here. well, it's the wrong person to raise that issue with. because i happen to believe in it. you know, we have created safety standards for the inspection of certain products across america when you buy toys for your kids at the holidays, you want to make sure they don't have lead paint on them or tiny pieces that the kids might ingest and choke on. the consumer product safety commission is supposed to watch out for those sorts of things,

and they do. but when it comes to our financial instruments that we have as part of our daily lives, there's no real watchdog. i'm talking about mortgages on our homes and credit card agreements, student loans, automobile loans, retirement plans, things that make a big difference in our lives an can go bad and can cost us dearly. this bill sets up within the federal reserve an agency for consumer financial protection. it will be the strongest consumer financial protection law in the history of the united states, and it isn't a massive bureaucracy. what it basically does is empower consumers across the country so that when they sit down to sign an agreement, the basics are explained to them. it also puts that watchdog to keep an eye on those banks when they start sneaking in new terminology, these tricks and traps that can explode on you at

a later date. well, that's the part this one republican senator says has to go. we don't want this consumer financial protection. well, the senator may not want it, the banks don't want it either. they don't want someone looking over their shoulder. but i think the american people not only want it, they deserve it after what we've been through. i was standing in the airport when -- in chicago on monday on my way out here and a fellow came up to me, a businessman in chicago, and said, oh, what a coincidence, i'm on my way out to see you. i said, good. he said, i'm here so that we can exempt our business from the consumer financial protection agency. and i said, save the money on the air fare because i'm not voting that way. i don't think we ought to start carving out all of the special interest groups that come here and say, we're the good guys, we're not the cause of the

problem. the problem is if they are, in fact, good guys and good gals, if they're hon nest their dealings, if they're treating customers honestly. if they really are conscious and ethical, what are they worried about? this is an agency we created to go after the bottom feeders, the predators who are out there taking advantage of consume centers the name of consumer credit. this happens so many times in the time that i've served in congress where you come in and say we want to protect consumers from the worst in the financial industry and the big banks come in and say, oh, no, it's just a foot in the door. pretty soon they'll be looking at us too and they stop any kind of basic surveillance. right now in illinois, in fact, a couple of blocks from where i live in springfield, illinois, are a couple of operations that take this to the extreme, pay day loans, title loans, same-day loans, it's an outrage. it's an outrage that my state

allows them to get by with it. they tightened the laws a couple of times, but they're slippery. they find a way out of it. they are charging outrageous interest rates and they -- they do it until there is to this where to turn. i introduced a bill, cap on interest rates. a usury bill. i said if you want to meet every creepy, crawly, slimy reptile in the financial industry, introduce a usury bill and they will all slide under your door to come in and meet with you to tell you how you just don't understand. yes, they will say to me it's 108% a year annual interest, but it's not what you think it is. it is what i believe it is and it's a ripoff of consumers that's got to come to an end. i'm joining with senator kay hagan of north carolina to put an end to some of these business operations. i just don't think they do any good for america. it's been about 10 years ago

that senator jim talent, a governor from missouri, put an amendment on a bill that didn't attract much attention. the amendment he put on exempted military families from being business clients of these pay day loan operations. why would he exempt military families? because the pentagon had reported to him that at many military installations around the united states soldiers, air force and others, were borrowing money from these fly by night operations, couldn't pay it back and got so deeply in debt they had to be discharged from the service. men and women trained to serve in our military because of the debt they incurred at these rotten operations, fly by night operations, had to leave the military service. and pentagon was saying to this senator and others, we invested a lot of money training that person and now they're gone. so we said 10 years ago that we were going to provide that these

pay day loan operations could not lend money to military families and it passed and it became the law. well, if we're protecting military families and our national interests, why aren't we protecting all families in that's my point of view. i think that senator kay hagan of north carolina agrees with it. and i believe we should move forward with it. and i believe -- there are people that exceed that limit and take advantage of folks. well, those are the kinds of things that are at issue here. and so this week if you've tried follow what's going on in the senate, sometimes there's been a big yawn because the floor is empty. no one's here because we're lurching to the next filibuster vote. we're going to ask the republicans again tomorrow, now is it possible for us to bring up this bill? a bill that will put consumers in control when it comes to some

of the most basic decisions they have to make? now is it time to have strict new regulations to stop wall street gambling from happening again in our financial sector? now's the time to make sure the agreements that we entered into are in plain, understandable english. now's the time to end taxpayer bailouts once and for all. banks and financial institutions, not american taxpayers, should foot the bill for their own mistakes. if the republicans object to that, offer an amendment. stand up here and say i think we ought to be ready to bail them out. i don't think they will. and it's time for consumers to have the information that they need to compare rates so they can make the financial choices that are right for them and their families. the american voters get it overwhelmingly. they want us to pass this bill. but the wall street lobbyists get it too. this morning an analyst came

forward and said that the wall street firms are spending every day on capitol hill $120,000 for lobbyists. they are working the phones. they're working the corridors, they're doing everything they can to kill this bill. these special interest groups have a lot at stake here. if we do, in fact, come through with this reform, the party's going to be over at some of these banks and they though it. so they're fighting it tooth and nail. if we have a consumer financial protection agency, they're going to change the way they do business. they won't makes much money. they're going to be held to honest standards and they don't like it. so they're spending a fortune, begging the republicans to continue this filibuster to stop the wall street reform. i hope that a few republicans will break ranks and join us. if they do, i think many others will follow. but it will take a few courageous forward-looking people to stand up and say

that's enough. two filibusters in a week are enough. by wednesday, by tomorrow, if we can get three or four republicans to step up, we can start an honest bipartisan debate that leads to the kind of reform we need to make our economy stronger, create more jobs and protect american taxpayers from ever being soaked again for another bailout. mr. president, i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island is recognized. mr. whitehouse: thank you, mr. president. may i ask that the pending quorum call -- the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, i'm here because for the second day in a row, the republican

minority has once again sided with the wall street bankers and taken their side in the battle that the american people want us to have to clean up wall street and see to it that the kind of economic damage that reckless gambling by wall street created across our whole economy never happens again. we want to bring sensible oversight, firm oversight to these wall street banks, and we want to create an independent consumer financial protection agency so that there is an institution out there that is looking out for the little guy, the person who can't hire a lobbyist, who can't hire a lawyer, and who has to take it or leave it when the bank comes

calling. the history of what brought us here is instructive, and it says a lot about the motivation of what is going on on the republican side. we began with the most colossal bank failure, economic meltdown since the great depression. this body had to appropriate hundreds of billions of dollars to prop up the financial sector and save it from complete and utter collapse from a global financial meltdown. that's how dangerous the way wall street was playing was. it took us right to the brink of global financial meltdown and it required unprecedented and unpopular actions by congress to

keep that from happening. so you would think that the lesson that everybody would take from that experience is that wall street needs to change. there needs to be regulatory reform. this cannot be allowed to happen to american families again because wild speculators on wall street are playing unregulated games with other people's money. but from then until now, we have seen no republican bill. chairman dodd laid down his first bill on november 19 of 2009, and republicans didn't answer with an alternative of their own. no basis to negotiate back and forth. they just criticized his bill, and that was that.

negotiations continued, persistent negotiations to try to get some republicans to support wall street regulatory reform, and they went nowhere. were senators negotiating in good faith but being reeled in at the end by the leadership? was it just a way to waste time with false negotiations to keep us from getting to this business? i don't know. i'm not a mind reader. but what i do know is that there was no republican alternative. so eventually, chairman dodd said okay, we're going to hearing. we have got our bill. bring your amendments. let's have a republic debate in the banking committee about how we regulate wall street. and on march 23, chairman dodd could be veend that markup --

convened that markup. i know our committee members came expecting a long haul. they were expecting late nights and many days. they were expecting the kind of effort that we saw when we did the health care reform bill, and i had the pleasure to serve on the "help" committee with chairman dodd. day after day, week after week, hundreds of hours of hearings, we went through amendment after amendment after amendment. we accepted 160, i think, republican amendments in that process. still didn't get their support, but at least there was a public discussion. but when the banking bill took up this bill -- the banking committee took up this bill with that same expectation that there were going to be long, arduous hours of hearing, public debate, amendment, what did they get? the ranking member said, we have no amendments. we don't care to discuss this. call up the vote on the bill. we don't want to do anything in the public light of day. vote the bill out.

and so the chairman had no choice but to do that. he had no choice but to vote the bill out with no amendment. so here we're, we've gone from the worst financial disaster the country has seen since the great depression until this point and the republicans have no bill, no reform to offer, and when it comes to their first opportunity when they're hands is force in the committee, they have no amendments, nothing to say. and now we try to move to the bill and here we're, stuck. and i see the majority leader on the floor. would it be convenient to yield to him? mr. reid: i thank the senator from rhode island for his usual courteousness. i would ask -- i have a cloture motion at the desk and ask that it be reported. the presiding officer: the clerk will report.

the clerk: cloture motion: we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to proceed to calendar number 349, s. 3217, the restoring american financial stability act of 2010, signed by 17 senators as follows: mr. reid: mr. president, i would k that the names be waived, the reading of the names. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask that following the period of morning business, tomorrow, april 28, the senate proceed to the motion to proceed, s. 3217, that the time until 12:20 equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, at 12:20, the senate proceed to vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to s. 3217 with the mandatory quorum being waived. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. reid: again, mr. president, i would ask the record not appear interrupted and that my friend from rhode island could continue his remarks. the presiding officer: without objection, the senator from rhode island is recognized.

mr. whitehouse: i thank the majority leader for his steady and strong leadership through these times. so it was pretty clearly foreseeable after the financial meltdown that something was going to have to be done here, and yet the republicans came with no bill. when it bill was finally called up in committee, they came to the committee hearing and he had no amendments. now they have come to the senate floor and we want to move to debate the bill. we're not here voting on the bill. we're ehere trying to get their clearance to bring up this bill to discuss it and go through the senate process of debate and amendment and they're objecting to that. so what is the common theme of a party that has no bill, that offers no amendments, and that wants no floor debate? the common theme, mr. president, of those things is wanting to

cut deals in the dark. wanting to have their deals not see the light of day until they're already buried in a bill. some of them would probably even turn around and object to some of the things that they argued to get in. we should be prepared to do the public's business in the light of day. in fact, after the most public process we've ever seen on health care, we took criticism from the other side for a couple of occasional moments when people got together and cut a deal. but those were the exceptions in a hugely public process, ranging across several committees that took weeks and months, in which everybody knew where we were going, what we were doing and what our priorities were to help the american people. this is the exact opposite.

they don't want to do anything in the light of day. they don't have a bill that they're prepared to show the american people with their ideas, when you ask them, well okay, here are our ideas. how would you change those? they have nothing to say, they don't want to debate, discuss, amend. when we call them to the floor to say, okay, here we go. let's have this discussion for the american people, they say, nope, we don't want to have a discussion. not until we've gone into a back room and gotten our deals. because we know what they look like in the bright light of day. that's where we're. and, frankly, it's unfortunate and it's -- it's really a shame for the american people because every day that we continue with this is another victory for the wall street mischief. every day that we're delayed here is another day that the champagne corks are flying out the window of the investment

banks on wall street as they celebrate the fact that, you know, more highly leveraged gambles can go through because we haven't regulated. more mortgage brokers can go out and sell junk mortgages to folks and take advantage of them with conditions that are buried deep in the fine print. more people can get stuck in credit card tricks and traps that are unregulated by an independent consumer financial protection agency to stand up for them. and, of course, the c.e.o.'s continue to get huge bonuses without the kind of governance that this bill would put over executive compensation. why do they do it? well, the relationship between the other party and wall street is pretty well-known. it has been publicly reported that leaders of the other party went running up to wall street not too long ago to have, their

favorite, closed-door, private meetings in the shadows, no publicity, no press. they went discuss what took place in those meetings. but you know they went up there to offer their services to wall street, to help defeat this legislation. they just do want to talk about it. so that's been pretty well established. and it runs afoul of the desires of the american people. two-thirds of americans want us to take action on this. as those of us who spent time in public life know, usually people care about issues that relate to them very immediately. they care about pocketbook issues, they care about their family, the roof over their head, the paycheck. for a lot of folks in america, wall street is a long way off. and it's almost a kind of hypothetical concern for a lot of americans, but they have it just as strongly as they care about the economy right now, because they know that wall

street has been taking advantage of america for too long, that the risks of it for ordinary families when it gets out of control are too great, and that wall street needs to be reined in. they know that. and that's why they want us to act. and that's why it's a shame that the minority party here is refusing to allow us to even go to the bill and have a public debate in the light of this chamber in the light of day about our ideas. we've told the american people what our ideas are. they're in the bill. here are our ideas. our ideas are a strong consumer financial products safety commission, an independent consumer financial products protection agency to look out after the little gievment how often have you looked at a credit card application and seen how many pages of small print are in it? look at a mortgage, look at any kind of commercial credit, and all that small print, the lawyers and the lobbyists have done their work. and too ofng it's the -- and too

often it's the person who signs on the bottom line who ends up discovering that they signed up for a raw deal. nobody is looking out for them. nobody is putting at the top of the contract, "green light: this is fair, we've taken a look at it. safe, good to go, good housekeeping seal of apriewvment" or, yellow light. careful, you might want to really know what you're doing before you sign up for this. or red light: bad deal. dangerous for consumers. look out. simple, helpful information for american consumers to get. an independent commission to help advise consumers in those ways and have some regulatory authority over the people who put those products together. that's what we want in this bill. it's not fan sivment it's not tricky. it's just a way to unwind the gotcha contracts that too many americans have had to put up with for too long because wall street and the bankers have been writing those contracts and

there hasn't been discipline over them. so that's one of the ideas that we're out there with. if they have a better idea, where is it? i don't want to deal in the dark. come out here on the floor and tell us in the bright light of day what better idea you have than a consumer financial protection agency that is independent and out there to help the ordinary folks. we would also consolidate bank regulators so that a bank, a big wall street bank can't shop around and decide which regulator it won' wntses to wane it. you shouldn't get to choose your regulator when you go out on the field of commerce t allows game playing and it is not right. we should strengthen regulation over all financia firms and no e allowing them to change their charter-to-a void rules they don't like. that's not complicated. that's simple. it's clear.

i a our position in the bright light of day. if they have a better one, where? i am neat going to deal that one away in the dark t wouldn't be right. there are provisions that would crack down on c.e.o. compensation, to make sure that shareholders have a real say in executive pay and to make sure in particular that the compensation committees of the board who set executive pay aren't just the pals and the golfing buddies of the people whose multimillion-dollar pay and bonuses they are approving. to make sure that it's independent directors who are on the compensation committee and making those decisions. that's our position. it's clear, it's out there in the bright light of day. it makes sense. if they have a better idea, bring it.

we're happy to listen to it. but this room is empty of republicans right now. there are no ideas. there are no alternatives. all they want to do is deal with stuff away in the dark. and it's wrong. they will attack it. they will attack it. they will say that a provision in this bill that provides for the banking industry to fund an orderly failure and wipe out of an existing bank so that the government doesn't have to come in and bail it out, because there's no provision for an ordinarily failure, they will shea that that is actually taxpayer-funded bailout legislation. i mean, they couldn't be more wrong. the argument doesn't even makes sense. for starters, there's no bailout. the bank isn't bailed out. it's put out of its miss rhode

island but it's put out of its misery and sold off in an organized way. so as far at taxpayer funded bailout, there is knee bailout. and as far as taxpayer funded, it's industry funded. there's no taxpayer money in the deal at all. we make the industry pay to basically have a funeral plan for their colleague banks that fail. so that the taxpayer doesn't have to be there. they turn that completely inside out and they do so, why? not because it is true. we know that. but because they have a pollster who has taken a poll and who has discovered that, guess what, the american public doesn't like bailouts. and doesn't like bailout bills. so, ah-ha! the geniuses discover that they're going to call this bailout bill because that makes it seem unpopular. doesn't matter that it's not true.

a little confusion never hurts when you don't have a position of your own that you're willing to bring out into the light of day. but that's what they have to say about that provision. that's actually a provision that i think makes a lost sense. there has to be a way to have an orderly close huer of a bank that's become insolvent so that the taxpayer don't have to prop it up because people worry, what does this mean for the global financial system. you have to have an orderly way for banks to fail for managers to be fired, for shareholders to lose their money, for all the consequences of failure in a real market system to happen but in an orderly way. that's what the bill does. so, you know, you can go through this bill idea by idea, and i'm willing to stand by the democratic ideas. i actually had some amendments that if we could get to this bill i'd like to see called up because i think we could improve t i would love to see us reverse

a decision called the marquette decision, a decision by the supreme court that said, the rules for a bank are determined by the state where the bank has its harks where it's domiciled. and if there's a conflict between a state law that protects a consumer and the state law for where the bank is, it's the home of the bank that wins. how did that all work out? what happened is that the banks figured out the states that had the worst consumer protection laws in the country and they moved there. not for nothing does your credit card usually come from one or two or three states. and the result of that is that the power of the states of the united states of america, the sovereign power of the states of the united states of america that they had since before the revolution to protect consumers

from exorbitant interest rates, from rates that were called usury, because they were too high, they were illegally high, was taken away from them. nobody in congress made that decision. it kind of slipped through in the back of that supreme court decision all those years ago and the industry saw their opportunity and they adapted. and now if you want to know why you're paying a 30% interest rate on your credit card when your home state has an interest rate cap of 18%, it's because of that decision. i'm for putting that choice back in the hands of the states to protect their own consumers from these global, international, multinational banks. global, international, multinational banks, huge wall street banks couldn't give a hoot about rhode island, but if they have to obey rhode island law, that's another question.

rhode island law or colorado law or california law or vermont l law. you name it, the states should be able to protect their consumers the way they always had until this decision. it's part of american history. from exorbitant and cruel interest rates. so i would like to see that amendment. but the bill as it is is something we can be proud of, and it is just a shame that here we are with two votes now back to back, with the republicans refusing to allow us to even enter that debate. and i've racked my brain to try to think of a way to explain why they're doing this and there really aren't any good reasons. one is just to prevent progress on anything, anything and everything. the politics of obstruction prevent -- if it has president obama's name on it, if it would

reflect well on him no matter how important it is to the american people, forget it. job one is to deny any victories, any support to obama, irrespective of the merits. we've seen plenty of evidence of that and maybe that's the reason. reason two, they've got interests, special interests that they want to protect wall street interests, banking industries, people who don't want to see an independent consumer financial protection agency looking over consumer contracts and stick being up for the little guy. that could be another reason. and that would explain why they don't want to put their positions on the record anywhe anywhere. that's why they won't write a reform bill. that's why they won't put forward a reform amendment in the committee. that's why they won't come to this floor and allow us to debate this bill. they know that their arguments are running against the public

interest, the consumers of the american people and the needs of our country and are just to protect wall street, and they don't want that in public. so they're willing to have this fight, they're willing to blockade even going to this bill just for the purpose of protecting the darkness in which they want to cut deals to protect wall street and the special interests behind them. that has got to stop. and like many of my colleagues, i'm prepared to stay here, to keep banging away at this, to come and vote over and over again, to spend days and nights on this issue until we get the job done. and i take some comfort from some of the stories of history, one of which is the biblical

story of jericho, when joshua and the israelites surrounded jericho, they didn't go and negotiate and ask them, "would you please open the door? we'll give you what you want." no. they went around the city time after time, seven times they went around the city of jericho blowing their horns, blowing the ram's horn. and on the seventh day, on the seventh tour around jericho when they blew their horns, joshua said to the his wralite -- the israelites, let out a great shout, and they let out a great shout and the rams' horns blared and the wall went flat. so neighbor will take seven times around this bill before the walls of obstruction the republicans have put up to protect the dark deals they want to do for their special interests, neighbor will take seven times. maybe it will take 17 times.

maybe it will take 27 times. but when you look at the damage that wall street caused to this country, with its speculative, dangerous practices, with its unregulated, uninhibited excesses. this is important. this is one that we need to win for the american people. this is one that we need to win for the safety of our economy going forward. this is one that we need to win for every family that lost their job because the financial catastrophe washed through the business that they worked for. they've never been to wall street. they have no interest in the financial industry. but they're just as out of work as anybody else because of what splashed and sloshed across this country from what happened on wall street. those are people we can't forg

forget. those are people we can't let down. rhode island still has the third highest unemployment in the country. we're in our 27th month of severe recession. it's been compounded by historic flooding that has 2,000 rhode islanders still out of their homes. the flooding sure isn't wall street's fault but it compounds the harm that wall street inflicted to the entire economy and they're focused so intently in my home state of rhode island. so as far as i'm concerned, mr. president, we are here, we are they're stay, we're going to get this done, and we cannot be discouraged by the republican obstruction. thank you very much. i yield the floor. and i would note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call roll.

mr. whitehouse: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island is recognized. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, may i ask that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: we have some closing business here. i ask first unanimous consent that the senate proceed to a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: i ask unanimous consent that the judiciary committee be discharged from further consideration and the senate now proceed to senate resolution 498. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. res. 498, designating april 2010 as

national child abuse prevention month. the presiding officer: without objection, the committee is discharged and the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. whitehouse: i ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: i now ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of senate resolution 501, submitted earlier today. the presiding officer:he clerk will report. the clerk: s. res. 501, recognizing and supporting the goals and ideals of sexual assault awareness month. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. whitehouse: i ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, and any statements relating to the resolution be placed in the record at the appropriate place as if read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, i

ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. wednesday, april 28. that following the prayer and pledge, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, ask there be a period of morning busines business -- and there be a period of morning business for 90 minutes, with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the republicans controlling the first 30 minutes and the majority controlling the next 30 minutes. that following morning business, the senate resume the motion to proceed to s. 3217, the wall street reform legislation, as provided for under the previous order. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, under a previous order, at 12:20 p.m. tomorrow, there will be a cloture vote on the motion to proceed to the wall street

reform bill. if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it adjourn under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until 9:30 a.m

today in the senate a second vote to move forward to the financial regulations belfield 57-41. next, a portion of the debate before the vote. it's 35 minutes. >> mr. president, let me also say that my good friend and neighbor from new hampshire, senator gregg, to to the floor yesterday to his expressed his outrage that saw the need to ten centers on the committee voted for amendment offered which lost

the debate 12-10 to begin the process, began the process of breaking up too big to fail financial institutions that pose a catastrophic risk to the economy and quite frankly i've been listening to senator craig's statement and wonder the plan that he is living on. apparently he has missed the fact that due to the degree of recklessness and illegal behavior of wall street that the american people continue to suffer through the worst economic crisis since the great depression, the damage done by wall street in bringing this economy to a blinding holt is incomprehensible. millions of people having lost their jobs, their homes, their savings coming young people trying to get the job market to begin a career in their life unable to do that because of the greed of wall street and the

fact that just yesterday we could not get one republican vote to proceed to begin the debate on how we finally reform will street is beyond my comprehension. this debate needs to be going forward and we need to pass strong underlining legislation that makes sure what happened in gear and a half ago never happens again. mr. president, i also find it interesting that we have some of our conservative republican senators like senator gregg who day after day tells how much they dislike the big government, don't like social security, don't like medicare, don't like big government but apparently they have no problem with a huge financial the institutions which control a very significant part

of our economy. in the last 15 years, the six largest banks in this country have more than tripled in size obviously a tough economic time for every sport, including the pga tour. t >> tom, we talk about how he was protected. folks say tiger was protected.as the masters was a safe place for him to come back. how will the atmosphere be different here? >> i think that's interesting, dari.diff we're going to have to see howhi that unfolds. one of the reasons for that see perception about augusta national is because of the badging system and that essentially every ticket has a holder, and that holder's identity is known by augusta national. not only that, but it'sly, generally perceived to be the most genteel and perhaps the most knowledgeable fan base. of course, you could make the argument that the open championship across the pond is more knowledgeable -- they invented the game, et cetera -- but within the states, augusta national is seen as havingeter

reverential patrons and fan bases and crowds that gather. how will he be received away be from that here in charlotte? we're going to have to see. this is a relatively young tournament here, less than ten years old, and it has really gained in prestige. it draws very big crowds.ig it was supposed to be beautiful weather as we get into theweat weekend here, dari. how is woods going to be received now? how close will he be to n galleries? what will they say? that will be the drama within the competition that continues to play out and bare scrutiny. >> tom rinaldi in charlotte. tom, always a pleasure.arlo thank you.u. >> thanks, dari. >> back to the nba playoffs. the mavericks have been no strangers to heartbreaking losses in the postseason of late.ma 2006, nba finals. dallas a 2-0 lead in the series with the heat. only the lose next four and watch miami celebrate fan title on their home floor. the following year the mavericks dominated the regular season, winning a franchise record 67 games.

the heartbreak came much earlier, dallas falling to the e eighth-seed warriors in six in the first round, becoming just the third number-one seed to lose in the opening round.aigh and in 2008, the mavs lost in the first round for the second straight year, this time they te fell to the new orleans hornets in five games. dallas was dominated in theost series, losing all three games on the road, an they were outscored by 13.5 points per p game in the fourosnba seasons, m have much postseason success to show for it.s dallas has won just 46% of its playoff games during the span, and the mavs are on the brink oh being eliminated in the firstso round for the fourth time in the last seven seasons. let's get the inside scoop onng this mavs-spurs series from espndallas.com writer jeff kaplan. and, jeff, the mavericks are in deep. of the 189 teams to be in a 3-1 series hole, only eight have climbed out to win the series. do you have any reason the believe dallas could be thedall ninth?

>> well, it's interesting.ams. a quarter of those teams, two guys have been on those guy. rick carlisle coached one of the teams and shawn marion was on the phoenix suns that overcame a 3-1 deficit to the los angeles lakers. not a great lakers team back then in '06. it's going to be tough. i think the one string of hope that dallas clings to is that i these two games in san antonio, they were right there at the end, even though the games h didn't quite seem that way, they still had a shot to win. so i think they're clinging to that, if anything. >> i was reading, you brought uh shawn marion, of course. i heard he is the guy that, well, now at this point trying to motivate his teammates because he said he's been here t before. he's got it done. is this true? is he in the locker room tryingt to fire up the troops saying, we can do this? >> yeah, he did tell the guys that.e of course, when dirk was asked about that, he said, yeah, wells you know how shawn is.alf and dirk's kind of a glass-half-empty kind of guy. he's looking at this thing as a struggle.ng and it's going to be.ggle

this team came in as the number-two seed. dirk kept saying that with the. trade with caron butler, brendan haywood, that they had a new toughness this team hadn't had before, more depth, more scoring and really built for ther playoffs. and that whole thing has beene n shattered here in four quickqu games with san antonio. they've completely taken them out of their offense and dominated them basically in every phase. >> who has been the biggest disappointment for the mavs in this series? m >> well, for me it's jason kidd. kidd is a guy, this is his third playoffs now with the mavs, ands they've had very little success. he was supposed to be a guy that was going to be the calming influence, the old, wise veteran who could get this team through adverse times, late-gameough situations, and in the playoffs it just hasn't happened.ns. he was on the floor in the thiro quarter of that massive meltdown in san antonio in game four that really changed the whole face of this thing. 11 straight possessions without a bucket. and kidd was unable to get the team to settle down, refocus and get back in the game.

so he's the guy shooting 28% on. the series. he's just incapable of getting in the lane right now to break down the defense, kick it out. his three-point shot isn't falling.e so i'd have to say jason kidd with caron butler being a very close second.lane >> give us a feel of the talk in dallas. if the mavericks are ousted tonight by san antonio, will this mean the end to this whole dirk nowitzki era in dallas? will the team be blown up toth start over? >> well, they can only blow it up to a certain extent. dirk can opt out this summer, but he is due some $20 million next year. he says he doesn't want to play anywhere else, and i believe that. so you got to imagine that dirk is going to be back in a mavericks' uniform next year. jason kidd is in the first year of a three-year deal. 3 shawn marion came over. he's in the first of a five-year deal. jason terry still has two yearsy left on the contract. it would be tough to get rid of him. you do have erick dampier's contract to work with over the summertime. caron butler has an attractive contract you can package.utle

so the expectations is they can package some attractive contracts and do a sign and trade for a superstar or star-type player. i'm questioning now which superstar necessarily wants to come into this situation. q this is a very old team. it's the oldest team in the c league. it's not getting any younger. t they have a coaching situation that's interesting now, havingei benched caron butler and shawn marion, two starters in the series. it's an interesting situation. if the mavs can't somehow dig deep inside themselves and figure out how to get out of this mess.re o >> quickly before i let you go, got to ask, how is mark cuban holding up, jeff? >> well, i don't know if you saw him at the end of game four standing behind the mavs' bench, but it was that typical mark cuban look as if he had just dropped his lollipop in the sand, you know, the droopy-eyed scowl, and you know how mark can be. he's up if the team's doing well. if it's not, it's a bad, bad l

scene. he was present in the spurs' locker room after game three in san antonio, in the mavs' locker room.was after game four he was nowhere to be found. s i don't think he's happy. he shelled out big bucks for this team. >> he's the ultimate super fan.l he did do the deal that dirk nowitzki thought would bring some toughness, but against san antonio, it has not materialized just yet.s in they're running out of time. jeff, always a pleasure. thanks. >> linda, thank you. >> for more of jeff's thoughts, log on to espndallas.com. read his column "been there, done that." read why the mavericks trying to stay positive and focused. they are on the verge of yet another collapse. read jeff kaplan. >> straight ahead on espnews, why a fight on saturday is must-see tv. floyd mayweather could be in for floyd mayweather could be in for the fight of his life.zzas are just ten bucks each, so we could get all the kids at our son's sleepover their favorite. not sure why it's called a "sleep" over. yeah! anncr: any pizza at pizza hut is just $10. any pizza any size, any crust, and any toppings - only $10.

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>> linda cohn, dari nowkah with your rapid recap. the big question in l.a., the lakers forget what happened in oklahoma in time to stop the thunder in game five? >> also making news, how about jamal crawford. the former knick, now of the hawk, the winner of the nba's sixth man of the year award. crawford received 580 of a possible 610 votes. he averaged 18 points per game in just over 31 minutes off the pine. >> former wildcat, too. >> that too. winner take all game seven in

phoenix tonight. the nhl's best story of the year, the coyotes playing host to the red wings. detroit looking the keep hope alive for a third straight trip to the stanley cup finals. >> well, the fighters are there. it's saturday night at the mgm grand in las vegas. undefeated. floyd mayweather, jr., steps into the ring to face 38-year-old sugar shane mosley. it is a wba welterweight title fight. they're there. they're ready to go. you can see extensive coverage on espnews getting you set for that fight beginning on wednesday. you can get a preview on espnews right now. let's call it right now as we welcome in espn box's dan

rafael, who joins us. first off, dan, we know may weather, he's exciting leading into a fight. but his fights are not always exciting. why should we watch this one? >> well, if you're interested in seeing two of the best fighters in the world face each other in the ring in a fight many people wanted to see for many years and the fact that mosley usually makes excellent fight, this is a probably a fight you want to tune into. most people have behind manny pack how on the pound-for-pound list floyd mayweather number two and shane mosley number three. so it's two versus three. >> mayweather a perfect 40-0 record. mosley talk about having speed and power that mayweather has not seen before. you've seen a lot of fights. how accurate is that statement? >> well, i think that shane has something there. i mean, the fact is that if you look at all of the fights that floyd has fought in his entire career, i would say that shane

is probably either the fastest, maybe the second fastest behind zav judea. he's a very fast fighter, shane mosley, even though he is 38. as far as power goes, mosley is a tremendous knock-out puncher in the welterweight division. he's proved up from the light-weight division, as heavy as the junior middleweight division and he's back in the welterweight division where he dominated for several years. he's a tremendous puncher. floyd has faced other good punchers, but he hasn't faced a guy who can deliver the punch with the power mosley has. that's the question, what will happen if mosley catches him with one of those fast terrific punches? we haven't seen floyd's chin tested. this would be first time in my estimation he's stepping into the ring with a truly elite welterweight fighter. >> you mentioned, too, sugar shane mosley is 38 years old. in what way have we seen any effects of age? >> well, in his last fight, which was over a year ago in january of last year, he sure didn't look 38 or 37, if that's

what he was at the time. he fought antonio margarito at a fight where margarito was supposed to run right over him. guess what happened? shane mosley dominated every moment of every round and knocked him out in the ninth round in a tremendous performance to win one of the welterweight titles. shane has had some inconsistency, no question about that. there have been fights where he has not looked his best, but even when he's lost fights, he's usually been in them. it's not like he's thoroughly been dominated except maybe first fight against vernon forest in 2001 or 2002 where he suffered a very severe head-butt early in the fight. win or lose, mosley comes to fight. most of the time he wins. and if you look at his resume, at least from the welterweight division up, his resume is much more significant than the resume of floyd mayweather. that's one of the things that makes the fight definitely intriguing. >> dan, quickly, do you expect mayweather to be unbeaten when saturday night comes and goes in. >> it's one of those fights where he's a big favorite in the sports books in las vegas. i don't know if i agree on the width of the odds. i guess the way i look at it is

shane, a little bit older. ryan zimmerman, again tonight, will not play. he's available for pinch hitting duties. happy to have you with us tonight. nats xtra pregame brought to you by the washington ford dealers.

you talk about tough losses. last night was one. two of the last three games, extra inning affairs. >> yeah. last night we got down early. we got all the way to the 10th inning, battling back. after a strikeout and a walk, a little blooper. throws his bat in disgust. marlon byrd, the wind blowing sto so strongly. we end up coming up short by a run. we'll play again though. pretty good pitching. >> and look at the amount of days the ball club has been over .5 00 since 2006. 12 times this year. they're 10-10 right now. >> this club should play .5 00 baseball. they've pitched well. i.net think you've seen the strength of the pitching staff

as good as it's going to be. the bullpen has been lights out. defense has improved immensely. base running, we have a lot of guys getting stolen bases. we'll look at that later. offense; without without dicker dicker man, we've still been able to get some. if we play .5 00 all yearlong, that's a huge improvement. >> josh willingham, last nierkts talking about the fact it doesn't matter if you lose by one run or ten. a loss is still a loss. >> any time you lose, it really doesn't matter how. it's the same. having said that, it's good to be in every single game like we have been. you know, you realize you're not going to win them all. you want to, but you're not going to win them all.

i wouldn't say it was -- it hurts anymore to win a close game. a loss is a loss. >> one of the guys who's swinging a good bat these days, adam dunn. he got on tracking friday night. >> yeah. when we talked in that interview on thursday, he said he was comfortable. he's a .250 lifetime hitter. he's going to have bad streak. he's going to strike out. he's also driven in 100 runs every year. when he gets hot, he gets white hot. he's swing good right now and finally starting to get some pitches hit. >> let's go to wrigley. debbi is there. a little chilly tonight? 45 degrees or so. you had a chance to visit with adam and talk about his immaterial i improvement in that batter's box. >> reporter: we did. we talked about a number of

topics. we talked about the texas long horns, his defense and improved offense. but we begin with what he think abouts the makeup of this ball club. >> that's a good question. probably the one word would be relaxed. it's a really relaxed team. confident, very confident team. there's so many different personalities on this team that somehow we make it work. >> reporter: we've talked a lot about improved defense this season and just yourself at 1st base. it seems like you're more comfortable there. is there that something you've worked on? >> yeah. it's more repetitions over there. in game situations, you know, it's just about feeling comfortable with what you're doing. i'm starting to feel a lot better over there. when you feel confident, you're going to be a lot better.

>> reporter: seems like you're back in the swing of things offensively, especially your last six games. are you feeling better at the plate at well? >> again, i've been feeling good. it's just, you know, it seems like it's far from the course every year. just battling, struggling early. hopefully things are starting to come around and hopefully the power numbers will start coming back. expwhrr before i let you go, what did you think of colt mccoy? >> i think that's a great fit for him. he's going to get to sit back and learn. obviously it's a great offense for him because he doesn't have the strongest arm in the world. he's going to be a really good one for a long time. >> reporter: when you watch the draft, do you ever wonder, "what if?" >> i try not to. that was one thing, when i decided to play baseball, i

wouldn't look back. you start wanting -- wondering what if. i like to think i make the right decisions sometimes. >> reporter: adam, of course, back in the day was a pretty good high school quarterback. we're glad he made the right choice and chose baseball as well. by the way, he has 24 home runs here at wrigley. we'll see if he can add to that tonight. >> thank you, debbi. stay warm in chicago. you were a pretty good football player too. you chose baseball. do you ever look back and think about it? >> i've thought about it, but not very long. those are big boys and they beat you up. my family was raised on baseball money. all of my family's improved their life because of that. i wouldn't have this job if i hadn't played baseball. i love the game.

i love football and the contact, but i definitely made the right choice. >> we're better off too. time for the fox keep your edge spot. talking about adam dunn. look at numbers, his career at wrigleyfield. 24 home runs, 51 runs scored, 45 driven in. just as he keeps the nationals the edge, you too can keep your edge with just for men mustache and beard. hernandez tonight. trying to get the nats back on track. [ laughs ]

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what a changeup. reyes, way out ahead, and the mets not able to do anything. >> livan gets his fourth start tonight. three starts, all quality thus far for the right hander. his e.r.a. 0.75. opponents hitting .159 against hernandez. that leads me to fire a question about, if you're sitting in that batter's box trying to figure out how in the world am i going to hit this guy? the offspeed pitches have got the batters out of whack. he uses every single corner of the plate. tell me, how in the world does a guy get a hit off him? >> it's tough.

i hated guyslike livan hernandez, because you had to think about something other than getting your bat started. fastball pitchers, guys that throw hard, you just get it started. don't worry about breaking ball. just let your eyes react to the spin of the ball. he's just a unique pitcher. moyer is the equivalent to him left-handed. but look at space he gets here. he has an arm slot that's high three quarters. he repeats that over and over and over again, no matter how, what type of pitch he throws. the first one there was a sinker. this one is more of a changeup. this is a breaking ball. he's still got the same distance and releases the ball at the same spot. it the gives the hitter a deception. some get that ball in an area where you can see and recognize the difference in the arm an as. there's the breaking ball. he throws them all. this is a screw ball type pitch

where he's releasing that ball and turning it inside out. that looks like it's a long way. this is a closeup picture, breaking ball. what it allows you to do is get on top of the baseball. he is always on top of the baseball with his hand. what we're going to show you is i've got a ball here. what i'm talking about an arm slot. this is high three quarters. this is straight over the top here. livan releases the ball, no matter where he throws the fastball, the curveball, the screw ball-type changeup, or that real soft curveball in the same spot. we're showing you the distance between his cap to where he releases the ball. it's showing you how consistent he is with his arm slot. some pitchers, a lot of pitchers, when they throw the fastball, they throw theball right here. see the difference between the

distance between your head and the release point on the fastball and the breaking ball? it's more of a distance. as a hitter, you're able to see that. not only the spin of it. sometimes when they go to kill the ball, they do what we call telegriefing and end up killing the ball like this. livan does not do anything to give away his pitches. he throws the fastball, the curveball, the changeup all the same from the same slot. he's got such great balance. it all starts with balance. to be able to get in the same spot, once he gets over the rubber, to strike, not overstride, and have that ball fall in that arm slot over and over again. >> we have sat there behind home plate at the ballpark here in washington, watching him pitch. the tantalizing curveball comes in at 61. the guy's waiting for the curveball and he blows the 86-

mile-an-hour fastball. what's coming next? >> because he doesn't give anything away, they're guessing with him. a lot of times he'll throw that 84-mile-an-hour fastball right down the middle. a guy will just look at it. because he has such good deception. same thing with that curveball. if you can get in that mind i'm going to sit on that slow curveball, and you're able to gear down that much, you're able to hit it a country mile. but you're not able to do that. he never changes his arm slot consistently. right there, right there, right there. >> that's why at age 35, he can still pitch with the best of them. >> i won't be surprised if he pitches another three or four years. >> that's good. that leads us to our nats xtra poll question. at age 35, livan has made 415 starts. will he make it to 500? yes or no? >> i think so.

you look at the way pitchers make up pitching staff. you put a hard thrower, say steven strasburg, and put livan between them. you have a huge difference in the way the batter looks every day. sometimes you have left hander and left hander. you want to split them up. livan can pitch for a winning ball club for a long time because he adds that mix, that difference. and his endurance. 30 starts or more. >> and the cubs are going to throw left hander tom gorzelanny. it's his 4th start, 0-2. >> he's having a good start to the year. he's not winning because the team has not scored more than 2 runs per outing. he got send back to double-a

after winning 14 games for the pirates in '07. he dropped a full earn run and gained a full run in '08. they shipped him tout triple-a in '09. he is going to walk a lot of people. he isn't going to strike out very many people. but he's just a basic, major league left hander, 5th starter, that goes out there, gives you six innings and tries to keep your ball club less than five runs. >> he is 3-1, three starts, careerwise against washington. we'll take a break and give you an update on strasburg tonight. mcdonald's bacon and cheese angus third pounder.

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call or click today. ryan zimmerman out of the lineup again tonight. six straight starts he has missed, although he is available for pinch hitting

duty. you're taking a batter out of the lineup that's hitting .326, a couple home runs, and 3-4 career against gorzelanny. gonzalez, in his place, starts at 3rd. he's 8-24 over the past 11 games. still looking for his first rbi and one error in 51 games after the all-star break last year. nyjer morgan leads off in center. desmond will be batting 2nd. dunn is in the cleanup spot. justin maxwell gets the start in right field and gonzalez at 3rd. livan hernandez will be on the mound. now for the chicago cubs, marlon byrd, the centerfielder, had three hits last night.

fifth time in the past eight games. he's hitting 19-36, a .528 batting average. he has at least three hits in his of those games. ryan theriot leads off at shortstop. fukudome, he's in right field. derrek lee is at 1st base. byrd is the cleanup batter. soriano in left field. soto is catching, and tom gorzelanny on the mound. nats xtra pregame here on masn. great to have you with us for game two of the three-game set with the cubs in chicago. steven strasburg, starting tonight for the nationals in

redding. kind of a cold night. let's go up there. >> we're through three innings here in redding. strasburg has hit 96 on the fastball so far on the speed gun. he looked pretty good so far. it's about 50 degrees here. it is scoreless. strasburg off to an excellent start. >> well, here's at latest on what's taking place. strasburg, e.r.a. 0.2, 7 hits, three walks. >> this is not the last game he's going pitch down here. i think it's the next to last game. he's way too good for that

league. you know, send him up to triple- a. he's dominating like they hoped he would. he's not walking anybody. tonight, a no-hitter. six strikeouts. reward the man. take him to the next level. >> talking about triple-a. bush bernadena gets the honors. syracuse is in 1st place in the league with a record of 5-2. here's a guy who last year had to be put on the shelf after he broke that i think ankle. he really fought his way back. probably one of the fastest guys in the entire organization. >> nobody knows that much about him. we know his name, but i've watched him play in spring training and watched him go through the fundamentals. he has a great arm.

he has pop. he's a guy that you may see here pretty quickly. we're getting kind of thin on that bench. it's very difficult to manage when you have zimmerman down, willie harris banged up. if willie doesn't get well, he'll be called up. i think he's going to be a real player. i like everything about him. he's gotten shorter with the bat. he's a guy that i think will be a big part of this club for a long time, maybe as a fourth outfielder. >> he's got the speed. maxwell's got the speed. harris has got the speed. nyjer morgan may go back to the old sliding routine of head first. we'll talk about that. different states, different rates. not with priority mail flat rate boxes from the postal service, if it fits it ships anywhere in the country for a low flat rate. so shipping for the chess champ in charleston is the same as shipping for the football phenom in philly? yep.

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welcome back, everybody. the nationals and the chicago cubs. a little talk these days about nyjer morgan and his steal bases and the fact the nationals lead the league in stolen bases. nyjer has stolen five and thrown out four times. >> he's sliding feet first, and he doesn't like that. it's a big concern for him. he worked all spring training not to fly head first. i know one thing, when you start not being successful, you go back to what you were successful doing. we're seeing a lot of guys stealing here. we do have 20 stolen bases, which leads the national

league, tied for the lead. >> apparently jim riggleman says if he wants to go back -- but i think last yeerks breaking the hand, that was just a freak accident. >> a lot of guys slid head first. >> you were head first. >> i slid head first at times. i didn't steal very many bases. to avoid tags, i'd go head first. how many did you get? >> none. >> if nyjer feels good about driving, he can pad himself. freak accident he broke his hand last year, no question. >> remember last year he stole 22 in a row. let's see if he can start a streak tonight. thanks for joining us. that's nats xtra pregame. sit back and enjoy this ball game tonight as the nats try to beat the cubs and stop the

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