even. it goes on and on and on. the oldest one in the series is probably veethv.jubilair in which the republicans said, you know what, this whole gerrymandering thing just too difficult for us. we're going to declare open season. there is going to be no judicial remedy. we can't figure out one, so don't have one. it's not just me saying that. the a.b.a. section on election law said in its volume, look, basically it's game over for court review of gerrymandering. what immediately happened after that was the republican party went to work with that green light signal and did the red map project, which created massive bulk gerrymandering through the battle ground states. this was not an easy plan because in some cases, they had to spend millions of dollars to win one or two state legislative

seats so they could then control the state legislature, so they could then change the districts consistent with the bulk gerrymandering scheme. and the result is states like senator brown's where, when he was reelected, he was on the ballot with president obama who was also reelected, and the majority of the votes cast in his state for members of congress were cast for democrats, and against that background, many more republicans than democrats actually went to congress in that election. a similar thing happened in pennsylvania, and my recollection is that on the same set of facts, senator casey, the democrat reelected, president obama reelected, and a majority of pennsylvania votes cast for democratic members of congress, the delegation was 13 republicans and five democrats. somebody is messing around and it was a 5-4 republican supreme

court that opened that can of worms and unleashed red map on the political landscape. they have a chance to review that now, and senator mccain has written a bipartisan brief, asking him to wake up and smell the coffee about what's gone wrong here. we'll see whether they do or not, but clearly that was a decision that has benefited the republican party at the polls, and clearly it was 5-4. then you go to the voting rights act cases. there were two of them. in the first one, bartlett versus strickland, the court -- the five republican meems t-ed up a -- members t-ed up a new standard that they mentioned but didn't act on. when it came to the home run pitch, shelby versus holder, they created this new theory that very conservative judges like posner, that basically it stands on thin air, has no basis whatsoever in any real legal

theory. they knocked the part of the voting rights act out that requires states with a wretched history of abuse of minorities and democrats voters at the polls to get preclearance from the department of justice or from a court before they can go in and change their state laws to scare people or keep people away from the polls. well, with that knocked out, guess what? all these legislatures across the south went straight to work. they passed law after law after law to deny people access to the polls. and over and over again, the courts that reviewed those and the appellate courts that reviewed the district court decisions found that the laws had been intentionally discriminatory, that the legislature had intended to keep people away from the polls, and that they had intended to discriminate against democratic and minority voters, that they chose to do that deliberately.

now, of course, you can go back after all that litigation and you can clean it up and try to get the laws stricken and all that, but in the meantime, you have had election after election in which the affect at the polls was had -- the effect at the polls was had. they couldn't have been wronger about the notion that if you lifted the preclearance requirement, everybody was going to be fine, those were just the bad old days, it was a whole new america, racism didn't exist. efforts by one party to keep the other party, voters away from the polls weren't anything to worry about. move along, nothing to see here, folks. they were just plain dead wrong. they had absolutely no clue. they have been proven dead wrong since. but again, both those cases were 5-4, all republicans together. and of course the big programly came when the big special interests that so often are the core backers of the republican party decided that they felt

really constrained by having to live under campaign finance limits. they wanted to be able to spend unlimited money in elections. well, that's fine. it reminds me a little bit of the story of the french philosopher who touted the magesty and equality of the french law which forbid both rich and poor alike from sleeping under bridges and begging for bread. well, guess who actually sleeps under bridges and begs for bread. it's not rich and poor. and guess who can take advantage of a rule that you can spend unlimited money in politics. only those who meet two conditions. one, they have unlimited money to spend. and two, they have got a good reason to spend it. in other words, really big special interests. the court's decision presuming that this spending was going to be either independent or

transparent has been turned to a mockery by events since. they sufficiently obviously did not know what they were talking about. facts have borne out that they did not know what they were talking about. they were completely dead wrong. and interestingly, since then, despite the presumption of their decision having been cut completely out from underneath it, the court has shown no interest in a correction. they have shown no interest in correcting their error. they seem completely happy, 5-4, those five republican appointees, completely happy to have the landscape of american politics polluted with this money. and there again it wasn't just one decision. it was a bunch of them. citizens united was the big one, tradition partnership v. bullock another, mccutcheon versus f.e.c. another, davis versus

f.e.c. yet another, easy free enterprise freedom club pack versus bennett, yet another. all 5-4. all of the republicans lining up, all throwing out precedent that had stood for -- or laws that had stood for 100 years. so janus fits right into this pattern of 5-4 decisions. indeed, it's actually a little bit worse, because something weird happened early on when one of those 5-4 republican five judges on the supreme court signaled to the corporate supporters of that ideology that he was interested in taking a whack at unions in a particular way. there is a pet peeve of the union-busing right wing and the corporate -- union-busting right wing and the corporate sector

which was a decision abudv. detroit department of education. that allows the unions to collect some dues from members on the ground that their work to members has benefit to other members. so you break out their wages work which helps everybody from their political work which you can disaggregate from and it allows you to collect certain dues, not complete dues but certain dues from nonunion members. so what abood did was to help keep union members from the service from nonmembers who benefit from their work. of course, if that is that were to hangar the balance of power between corporations and unions would shift further towards corporations. the story told quite well in "the new york times" by a reporter named adam liptac, a supreme court reporter.

i'll read his story. in making a minor adjustment to how public unions must issue notifications about their political spending, justice alito didegreesed to raise questions about the constitutionality of requiring workers who are not members of public unions to pay fees for the union's work on their behalf. justice sonia sotomayor saw what was going on. to cast serious doubt on long-standing precedent, she wrote in a concurrence is a step we historically take only with the greatest caution and reticence. to do so as the majority does on our own ination and without adversarial presentation is both unfirst 100 days unwise. mike at a. car i carvin also sow what was going on. he and a libertarian group promptly filed the challenge justice alito had sketched out. sailed that he had invited. indeed, mr. carvin asked the lower courts to rule against his

clients, a christian education group, and 10 california teachers so they could high-tail it to the supreme court. let me interrupt my reading of the story for a second and make the point, this lawyer wanted to lose his case in the courts below. it is rare for lawyers to go into a court wanting to lose. you have to have kind after weird motive to take a case into court that you want to lose. the obvious motive here is that mr. vin had heard the signal from mr. alito that he was willing to rule his way if he'd just bring the right case. so it didn't matter whether he won or lost. losing is actually quicker. gets you right up to the some of the not interested in litigating the matter truly on the merits, only interested in getting as quickly as possible to the supreme court. why? because he knew that 5-4 he'd get the right decision. and i will tell you that when

you are a lawyer, the most sickening feeling that you can have is to go into court with the belief that the judges you're going to argue before are prejudged against you, and the confidence that carvin must have had to lose a case deliberately below -- to want to lose a case deliberately below 10 that he could high-tail it up to a court that he knew was going to rule his way because he knew he could. that is not american justice in the way it should be delivered. as it turned out, they took up the case. it was called fredericks. it was going to be 5-4, just as expected. and then justice talia unexpectedly passed away. and if you read about how the press took that it was very

clear that the fix had been in on this case. corporate america had high hopes, "the wall street journal" said, because the supreme court appeared poised to deliver long-sought conservative victories. since when should a court be poised to deliver long-sought conservative victories, not fa fair, dispassionate adjudication? but that's the reporting of the friendly "wall street journal." and those longsought conservative victories were going 0 it take the form of, and i quote here, body blows that business had sought against consumer and worker plaintiffs. in cases that had been carefully developed by activists to capitalize on the court's rightward tilt. come on! this is not adjudication any longer. it is just the exercise of

political power and these 5-4 partisan decisions by the supreme court are degrading the reputation of the supreme court, they're degrading the integrity of the supreme court, and they are degrading the role of the judiciary in our vaunted scheme of constitutional government in the united states of america. with that, i will yield to my distinguished colleague from oregon. mr. merkley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: mr. president, our nation was founded on a powerful principle encapsulated by the first three words of our constitution -- we the people. we were meant to be a in addition, in the words of abraham lincoln, of the people, by the people, and for the people.

not a nation by and for the most powerful, not a nation by and for the most privileged. yet time and time again, we are seeing a complete and total corruption of the vision of our constitution. we have seen this earlier this year with one trumpcare bill after another designed to rip health care away from 20 million pour million americans to deliver tax giveaways to the richest thi in america. we have seen it in conversation a budget just recently that reversed that and said in order to give $4.5 trillion of tax giveaways almost entirely to the richest americans we will take -- take $1 trillion out of medicaid and half a trillion out of medicare. we've seen this powerful

conversion of standing our constitution on its head, and now we have the supreme court fully participating in this effort in a case called janus v. afscme. it's the very epitome of the principle of a nation so corrupted that it honors the opposite of what our constitution stands for. the sole purpose of this case, janus v. afscme, is to undercut the ability of workers to organize. this is an assault on the freedom of working americans to associate with their coworkers. it's an assault on the freedom of working americans to negotiate a fair wage. it's an assault on the freedom of americans to fight for fair benefits and a safe workplace.

bottom line, it's an assault on the freedom of workers to participate in the wealth they worked so hard to create. in short, this is the right to exploit, that our supreme court, majority of five, is so determined to elevate. now, i've read the constitution, and i have never seen embedded in it a right to exploit, a right to cheat, a right to take advantage of, and yet here is the majority of the court prepared to fight for exploitation on behalf of the 1% of americans at the very top. the key strategy in this case is to attack the finances of workers when they organize. former president jimmy carter

once stayed every advance -- said that every advance in this half-century -- social security, civil rights, medicare, one after another -- came with the support and leadership of american labor. it has been workers banding together to say we can create a better foundation for families to thrive. and that hasn't just created a better foundation for those who belong to unions. it's created a better foundation for all workers. we saw them successfully band together and fight for 40-hour workweek, fight for minimum wage, fight for sick leave, fight for health and safe working conditions, again, benefits that every worker enjoys because workers were able to organize and fight to receive and win these provisions. so what is really going on in

this janus case? well, any organization, in order to function, has rights and responsibilities, rights are kind of the rewards you get for participating and responsibilities are the requirement that you be part of the team and you contribute to the effort. when i was small, probably just three or three years old, my mother had a book that she would read to me that involved the animals in the barnyard, and animal after animal was asked to participate in making the bread, and animal after animal turned it down. but when the bread was baked, they wanted a full share, even though they had refused to participate in the effort to create it. and this is what janus is all about. it's about the right to the rewards divided from any

responsibility to get the work done. so when workers organize, they say, we are going to have to be able to have the finances to drive this organization and to do that, we need to have every worker contribute some fair share. and those fair share fees mean that all the workers are in it together, we're all contributing, they all benefit from the rewards. forever the courts have said, yes, with the reward goes the responsibility. that's true of any organization. it's fundamental in how organization work. you don't show up here on the floor, you don't get to vote. at every -- every organization has its responsibilities that go with its rewards. but the 1% have chosen a strategy that says, we will take one organization in america and

that's workers' organizations, and we will drive an absolute wedge between the responsibility and the reward. now, these fees that we're talking about, these fees are not fees -- these fair share fees aren't fees that go to political purposes. they don't go to donations to candidates. they don't go to organizing campaigns walking door to door for a candidate, they don't go for advertising on the television or the w they're simply the cost of having a team that works to negotiate and an agreement, an agreement with a company. so i find it absolutely evil that a majority of the supreme court is excited about embracing

this righ right to exploit other workers by saying, in this one case in america, you get the rewards without the responsibilities. now, if the court was applying that to a stockholder in a company, the equivalent would be to say, the stockholder doesn't have to contribute to the costs of the management of the corporation, and so they can demand back their share of what the management spends on their salaries and on their office spaces and on their private jets and on their trips to do whatever they do, of the time they spend negotiating the acquisitions to build the size of the company or striking deals to sell their products. that would be the equivalent that the stockholder gets the rewards of all that negotiation without having to participate in the cost. but this is not a situation in which five justices want to

apply a consistent principle, because their goal isn't to honor the constitution, and their goal is not fairness. their single goal is to demolish the ability of workers to organize, to get a fair share of the wealth they worked to create. we can see that already our nation is in trouble on this principle. for the three decades after world war ii, we had workers who had a strong ability to organize and demand a fair share and we saw a revolution from 1945 through 1975. individuals who had lived in shacks, individuals who had been wiped out by the great depression, suddenly were able to buy on a single worker's income -- didn't even take two incomes -- a single worker's income, a three-bedroom

ranchhouse, a based, a single-car garage and were still able to save money for an annual camping trip and perhaps save some to help their children launch themselves into life. that's what we had when workers got a fair share. but in the mid-1970's, the multinational companies says let's undercut the american worker by making our goods overseas in china and importing them and that way we will demolish the jobs here in america, and we, the company, will have made things at the lowest price in the world and sold at the world market price. we'll make a lot more money. and this strategy worked for the multinational companies. they made vast sums of money for their stockholders and for their executives. but this application of different rules for foreign workers and domestic workers really gaif a huge advantage --

gave a huge advantage to our competitor overseas and to a company that spanned both shores and can move its production overseas. so we saw the loss of 50,000 factories. we saw the loss of five million factory jobs. and we saw the loss of enormous, enormous number of supply chain jobs. and we saw without those payrolls being spent in the community enormous loss of retail jobs in the community. but it made the wealthy wealthier and that was the goal of the strategy. so here we are facing this case that will come before the court later this year where the court has essentially already declared their positions. four members of the court were on the previous version of this

when the court tied 4-4, and neil gorsuch was added to the court has been very clear on which side of they stands. now, should we put an asterisk by neil gorsuch's name. should even a 5-4 decision with gorsuch in the majority even carry weight in our society? because this is the seat that for the first time in u.s. history was stolen from one president and delivered to another. the majority of this body right here stole the seat undermining the integrity, dishonoring the oath, responsibility for advice and consent, and damaging the legitimacy of the supreme court. and it was done because it was a strategy to enable the 1% to rip off ordinary working americans. and the prize for that was a position on citizens united that now allows the wealthiest

americans to continue to fund campaigns across this country, to drown out the voice of ordinary people, and this case, the janus case, this case that says we will take one organization, that of the workers and divide the rewards from the rights. now, we know who is behind this strategy. it's the koch brothers through their organizations, the national right to work foundation, the liberty justice center. they were behind the strategy for the theft of the supreme court seat. they were behind the massive increase in third-party spending that polluted the campaigns across this country. they are behind this strategy to destroy the vision embedded in our constitution. eleanor roosevelt once said, i'm opposed to this legislation because it gives employers the

right to exploit. eleanor roosevelt was a real champion for workers, and she called a spade a spade. right to exploit is not a right that any member of this body should pursue, and it certainly shouldn't be pursued by the supreme court. now, we know that there is a chapter two to this strategy. the first is get the supreme court say you can divide the rights from the responsibilities so, therefore, you as a worker don't have to contribute to the cost but you benefit from the rewards. pretty soon very few people are contributing and, therefore, it undermines the financial ability of the union to negotiate. but then they have a second strategy. a fund raising letter sent out last year by the state policy network, this second strategy -- by the way, the state policy network is an alliance of 66

state-based think tanks that are designed and funded by the koch brothers and their friends to undercut the ability of workers to get a fair share of the wealth they create. they said here's our plan, to defund and defang our opponent, the unions, to deal a blow to the less ability to control government. fancy words but what they really meant, our goal is to take and undo the ability of workers to organize to get a fair share of the wealth they create. one evil act after another funded by the koch cartel. now, in our nation we've stood up to this type of abuse time and time again. the american his -- the american historian who created the phrase the american dream, he said in each generation there is a group of americans who rise up to take

on the forces that appear to be overwhelming us. so we need to call on the people of the united states who believe in the vision of our constitution to be that group to rise up and take on this effort to turn our constitution on its head, to strip we the people out of our constitution and replace it with we the powerful, to stand up against this type of right to exploit, whether it's a bill here on the floor of the u.s. senate or it's a begotten majority of the supreme court. thank you, mr. president.

i ask unanimous consent that my intern have the privileges of the floor for the balance of the day. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: thank you.

the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call in the process be

vitiated. the presiding officer: the senate is not in a quorum call. the senator from oklahoma is recognized. mr. inhofe: thank you. mr. president, i'm not the first guy to stand up here and make this observation, but i've got serious concerns with how the nominee confirmation process has been going this congress. there is a blatant lack of respect to the senate nomination process and an unprecedented level of obstructionism. you know, i've been here for a number of years, so i've -- i know what to compare it with. i've never seen it so -- so many people being delayed in confirmation knowing they're ultimately going to be confirmed and they're well qualified civil servants. the democrats are forcing cloture votes on nominees when we have well over 60 votes in support. last week we held a cloture vote on scott palk. scott palk is from oklahoma. he's a guy that everybody likes. he doesn't have any enemies out

there. in fact, he was actually nominated by president obama. he wasn't even nominated by this president. and he ended up getting 79 votes. but still the stall was there and we had to wait and wait and wait. meanwhile, things are not getting done that should be getting done. furthermore, the agency's positions that -- we've heard the ever-held roll call votes are being occupied -- forced occupy floor time. there's no reason for the votes except to delay the work of our courts and agencies. i'm respectful to the leader and how he's prioritized judicial novel knees. these are extremely important and will ensure that the rule of law is upheld for possibly decades to come benefiting all americans. however, there is an agency that is doing work that is also important to all americans and needs appointments and the

agency is the environmental protection agency. if there's been one agency over the last eight years that has run around and expanded its authority beyond congressional intent, it's the e.p.a. anyway, putting confirmed appointees in place at the e.p.a. will allow the president and scott pruitt to be successful in their effort to right size that agency. he's talked about that quite a bit. it's a blow to the agency that needs to be right size. he needs help to do that. last week i highlighted here on the great things that scott pruitt is doing as administrator and i was able to visit with him yesterday at the e.p.a. and witness firsthand the implementation of new policies that will bring about positive changes in an agency that is run roughshod over the american people. with the repeal of the clean

power plan and reforming the agency by ending certain processes and creating greater transparency within the e.p.a. science advisory committee, he's really doing a great job. by the way, yesterday we had this event over there. this is having to do with the scientists. there are three scientists -- scientific advisory boards in the e.p.a. these are supposed to be scientists who advise the policymakers as to what they're supposed to be doing, and we discovered that during the last administration in just one of these, six out of seven of the appointees actually were recipients of grants from the e.p.a. in fact, i was over there and i gave a little talk about those six actually received $119 million and they're supposed to be unbiased in making policy. obviously, this is one of the

many things that he is going to make sure no longer will exist. he's putting -- he's making it impossible for anyone who serves on a scientific advisory board to receive any grants from the e.p.a. how reasonable is that? yet, that is still a practice -- one of the many things he is cleaning up. there is a lot of work to do and they need administrators. the environmental protection agency has now voted out five saystant administrators -- assistant administrators and general counsel nominees, and i hope we can move swiftly to get these well-qualified nominees to the e.p.a. unfortunately democrats targeted two of these nominees and have disparaged

them and their work and background. dr. michael dosserren will be an excellent assistant administrator for office safety and pollution prevention and bring much-needed expertise to the office in charge of implementing the t osca reauthorization bill. the tosca was a huge success. it's the first major reform bill in 40 years and we were able to get that through, and yet we need to have the person as the assistant administrator to make sure that it's done right. so this dr. dorsen has endured a campaign against him that misrepresents who he is p and his record. there are groups working to paint dr. dorsen as an industry scientist. what you won't hear is that much of his career experience comes

from the e.p.a. itself where he worked for 15 years. during his years at the e.p.a., he helped establish the integrated risk information system which helps to identify and document the potential dangers of chemicals found in the environment. he also had the honor of receiving four bronze medals from the e.p.a. for this commendable work. dr. dorcen served on the e.p.a. scientific advisory board for six years and held leadership positions and roles with a number of relevant toxicology organizations. since his time at the e.p.a., dr. dorcen has devoted his career to protecting public health by founding his own nonprofit that works to develop, review, and share risk assessments on various chemicals. his nonprofit work is mostly on behalf of government with a minority of the work done at the

request of various industries. many of these industries are very pro-environmental industries, and as well as providing pro bono assistance for those who need help. in other words, he used his expertise to help people that needed help and were not table to get it in any other way. naturally the industry work is the part of environmental activists have focused on to prove his claim of research is a rubber stamp for dangerous chemicals. they hold a perspective, which is a myth, that working at the request of industry must mean that you're evil. as always, the reality is much different on many occasions there were risk assessments that did not support the industry sponsor and were lower than the safe levels set by government. furthermore, he has provided

expert testimony against industry on several occasions. unfortunately, the coordinated attack on dr. dorcen will persist and a good man's reputation will continue to be put at risk. i ask that the leader find time for dr. dorcen as soon as possible so he can get back to the agency he served for many years and ensure that those who seek to tear him down do not win. i also ask the leader to prioritize another nominee that has also faced unfair, false attacks. i have known bill waren for years and have no doubt he is the best choice to head the office of air and radiation. i regret that his first nomination during the george w. bush administration was blocked by senate democrats. it is my hope that we can correct that wrong and confirm

him as one of the assistant administrators. he has served the public and is widely recognized for his knowledge of the clean air act. the clean air act is one that has been very, very successful. in fact, i was one of the original cosponsors of the clean air act. it has performed very well and he was involved in that also. so there's no one more qualified to head that air office than mr. he has consistently been recognized as a leader and top lawyer in environmental law from chambers u.s.a., legal 500 united states, and the wash tonian -- washington ian magazine. he is also under attack for working on behalf of the industry. the environmental industry and its -- and it is an industry as

they are working to secure money for themselves by pursuing an agenda of their sponsors. anyway, they are lobbying against him because he wants to make regulations workable with the scope of the statute of the regulated community. this is very curious to me. because if we want environmental regulation to improve our air quality without putting entire industries out of business, a balance that is part of the clean air act and those words are used in the clean air act the rules need to be workable and implementable without undo harm to our economy. it is time to return some of the commonsense to the law, to the environmental protection agency, we have taken the first and only step with the confirmation of scott pruitt and bill wehrum is the next step toward that goal. right now there has only been one confirmation, and it is that

of scott pruitt. with the repeal of the clean power plan sitting before the e.p.a., i ask that the leader prioritize mr. wherum confirmation so we can get the office of air and ra radiation -- and radiation. again, we have five e.p.a. nominees that have been voted out of committee and we're now into november and only have one e.p.a. appointee confirmed. we need to do better than that. and i think with these two, i think this is going to happen. let me just repeat, though, some of the things that are going on in the environmental protection agency. scott pruittnd in his -- pruitt in his meeting yesterday called to the american people -- we knew it all the time, but people on the outside didn't know it. we found out that on the

scientific advisory board of the obama administration, that he actually -- they -- they in that board had six of the seven on the board were direct recipients of grants from the e.p.a. and they were making policy decisions for the pea. now -- e.p.a. how bad is that. we added it up, i say to the chair, and it came to $119 million has gone to six people who are on the board making decisions that affect the -- this. he will clean it up. he has the guts to do it and he is doing it. now, with that, i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. mcconnell: mr. president.

the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i ask that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule 22, that at 11:30 on thursday, november 2, there be 30 minutes of postcloture time remaining on the eid nomination, equally divided between the leaders or their designees, and that following the use or yielding back of that time, the senate vote on the confirmation of the eid nomination and that, if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, and the president be immediately notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to legislative session for a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the consideration of s. res. 320, submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 320, supporting the goals and

ideals of national domestic violence awareness month and so forth. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: now, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. thursday, november 2. furthering that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed. finally, following leader remarks the senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the eid nomination under the previous o officer without objection. mr. mcconnell: if no further business before the senate, i ask this it stand adjourned under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until senate stands adjourned until

[inaudible conversations] meant the subcommittee and national security will come to order. without objection