lankford: sure it was. the issue was a municipal tax credit that comes in for a federal tax subsidy. are theave said is why people of oklahoma paying for a stadium somewhere else or helping to offset the cost? thing, a local priority with a sports team in a local region they need to pay for. , is there any way to retrieve some of this money? is there any way to hold some of these people accountable? sen. lankford: the federal government, it is difficult to hold people to account. government employees are not held to account the same way they would be in a business. if there is overspending in a business and the contract went bad, right now the group that is held to account is the taxpayer. not the contractor, not the employee. we have a lot of great folks who serve the federal government and work very hard in difficult situations. but when a major mistake is made, people should be held to account. it is too difficult to claw back any of these funds. we can say, here is a grant. they can certainly pay for it

well, this year, his success ker senator james lankford has no shortage of material. mary bruce on the money trail. >> reporter: remember these guys? the llamas on the loose that took over the internet? after their great escape, the federal government took time to tell the owners, they needed permission from washington to showcase the animals. just one out of 100 examples of alleged federal overreach and wasteful spending, highlighted in a new report. it's the kind of federal pork that makes taxpayers squeal. $65,000 to study what happens to bugs when the lights go out? $2.6 million on a weight-loss program for truck drivers. and $375,000 to study the dating habits of seniors. leaving the study's author asking, government spending or match.com? we couldn't find any lawmakers coming to the defense of this spending. pennsylvania congressman joe pitts, who oversees some spending, is pointing the finger at the agencies spending the money. why are we seeing $2.6 million for weight-loss programs for truckers? >> it's just mind boggling. i'm sure they'll come back with some

a few minutes left with the senator lankford. dorothy, good morning. >> guest: good morning, dorothy. >> caller: good morning. i have a suggestion, but when the man called in and talked about welfare. one thing that could be done is that when people come in-- welfare should be employment office or tell people get employed and get help, so you come there come with your resume or whatever and then someplace they can send you to get trained up for work and it's a temporary thing. help people to get work. that should be mandatory. number two, regulation, now you write about some things-- i had a friend that had a problem with the bank and i tried to help her i think she said she-- her thing came to 60 cents over what she had in the bank. the bank went down and charged her $36 and even the stuff she had the money for them they said they could do that because she was 60 cents short of everything. , you should regulate that because they charged her like $400. that's what you should regulate and like you said there are too many regulatio

>> senator lankford? >> several things we've talked about, one is the biometric validating this is the person standing in front of me. do we have any way to track a number or a guess of how many people would try to come through and have a document that's false? >> so for visa waiver, it was 0.02%. >> pretty good off the top of your head. >> i've got it written down. >> where we had biometric hits on them. >> where that person -- >> they're showing you a document -- >> none for national security. they were all for immigration admissibility issues in relation to entering under the ve isa waiver program. >> we caught it all at entry? that's based on facial recognition, i would assume that we have looking at the passport and what we see and taking as well? >> reviewing the passport, performing the system inquiries on that, taking the fingerprints and comparing them against the information on those fingerprints which is our biometric watch list, which includes criminal information and other types of databases.

senator lankford came up with $105 billion in spending.on't we give every member of congress $10 million in mad money. they can do whatever they want with it. wouldn't add up to $5 billion put hard caps on discretionary spending an controls on entitlements spending. they could take 10 million and play wit for all of these crazy things. melissa: i like that idea. what do you think, jessica. >> i don't hate it yet. give me a few minutes. i'm sure i will come up with a reason. entitlements, we're paying social security to dead people. that is going bankrupt. we really need to address that. a few things in it "washington free beacon" didn't like i think are interesting. we spent 1.2 million to build robots to help the elderly get dressed. that i think actually could end up paying dividends for us. don't have to have personal care with everyone living so long. melissa: isn't the problem though, when you have the people spending money so far away from people making it inevitably you don't make the sane decisions? >> that's a good point. d.c. sti

(sot: senator james lankford/ (r) oklahoma :24- :29) "there are many individuals that have a real problem, myself included, with large amounts of federal dollars going towards the single largest provider of abortion in the country." (sot: senator dick durbin/ (d) illinois :30-:32) "this is a delayed tactic, a political tactic." after last week's clinic shooting in colorado, democrats want the committee investigating planned parenthood disbanded. (sot: rep. diana degette/ (d) colorado :40-:46) "my humble suggestion as a congresswom an from colorado is that we all take it down a notch." accepting syrian refugees... and another vote to get rid of obamacare could slow down budget talks. (sot: senator mitch mcconnell (r-ky)/ sen. majority leader :53-:59) "i think the president should have to take credit for the debacle that this legislation has created." passing a budget is the first big test for new house speaker paul ryan. but there's hope: congress reached a deal on a 5-year transportation bill. it's budget done. it's an election year. no one wants to be blamed for a government shutdown - e

. >> reporter: waste watcher republican senator james lankford, who compiled the list, is pulling washington on notice. >> they get away with it because no one's watching, and that's the challenge. >> reporter: but david, watchdogs say, don't expect to see any of this change any time soon. despite the $105 billion identified in the study, its author tells us, he's confident he'll see more of this kind of government spending. >> keeping them honest tonight. live on capitol hill, mary bruce, thank you. >>> now, to a fall from grace for the man once considered one of new york's most powerful politicians. former assembly speaker sheldon silver facing up to 130 years in prison now, found guilty today of federal corruption charges including bribery, extortion and money laundering. >>> there is still much more ahead on "world news tonight" this monday. and on this cyber monday, the major retailer, its website crashing, and our business correspondent with three eye-opening deals tonight. $200 off an apple laptop? a cruise for just $300? we'll go down the list. >>> and take a look at this tonight. th

but senator james lankford says the white housea& is *vague* about what information the vetting actually can *confirm*a&"so with the backround checks coming out of syria right nowa& they are checking to see are you on a terrorist watch list.?. do we know any criminal background information about you? if there is a noa& thena& it's *not* that we know that you're oka& it's that we don't have you on the list. that's a lack of "negative" information." lobbyists have been working overtime on both sides of the refugee issue a& on the campiagn trail, gop senator mark kiki of illinoisa&a& is blasting his democratic rival representitve tammy duckworth in a tv ad for voting against tighter restrictions on the syrian refugees."isis disguised as syrian refugees u.s." no date set for a senate vote on this issue. and some democrats are concerneda&but won't say *how* they will vote . i want to make it clear that weweave to have the most stringent security screening " most republians think the best way to pass the refugee bill is to attach it to the omnibus spending bill of 1.1 tririion dollarsa& needed

we rely on this situation that the department answered lankford have talked about where you've admitted us, and i think it's consistent with what our fbi director has said, essentially with the porous borders we saw previously in the "charlie hebdo" attacks that some of the attackers actually had traveled to yemen for trainin trained wih al-qaeda and then committed the attacks, and then we see the situation where europe is frankly overwhelmed in terms of the number of foreign fighters that have traveled to join up with isis and then returned to their shores. and so we've seen the fbi director say, listen, if you haven't made a ripple in the water in syria we may not know. we could basically for our databases until the cows come home but if information advocates in the database, then would not going to know and someone, therefore, it's not going to get that extra level of scrutiny that they should receive. and so i want to get at this issue of where are the countries that we're having the most album with come up with a lack of robust intelligence to make sure that it's not so much buildi

jameslahoma republican lankford has released his report.n the first 45 minutes we will take a look at some of the findings but we also went to hear from you. if you had the ability to cut a government program, what program would you cut and why? for republicans, (202) 748-8001 for democrats, (202) 748-8002 for independents. if you are to share your thoughts on what government programs to cut on e-mail that is journal at c-span.org. the washington times takes a look at this report released yesterday from the oklahoma freshman republican james lankford. he writes that he replace senator tom coburn who for years was singling out 100 item spending 105 billion in spending and 800 billion and regulatory constraints on the economy that he says the government should rethink. one of the things he found targeted the small and the big. of those programs the $5,000 national parks documentary on roger howell. social security's practice of social security benefits and unemployment benefits of the same person. there are other facts that he appeared on thi

senator lankford unveiled the report on capitol hill and also took questions from reporters. >> goodere. the concern that we're going to lose our focus on debt and spending. there are lot of national issue wes face. all of them very important to us. but the debt issue still remains as one of the primary issued that has to be resolved and can be resolved of. there's this belief it's so large and so difficult to take on, it's not fixable. it is fixable, so, what i want to have is some way we can plain in place and identify these issues. let me say what i mean by this. on our current pace, lefts say we were to actually put into place the budget we have and actually philadelphia fulfill it. in ten years we would be back to balanced. we'd go from 450 bill in deficit spending to balanced budget in ten years, let's hypothetically say the 11th year we had 50 bill century surplus. if we had a $50 billion surplus in the 11th year, with with did that, we would have to continue to do it every year for the next 460 years to pay off our debt. if we had a 50 bill surplus it would take 460 years to

senator james lankford talks u.s. -- talking about policy in the middle east. in 45 minutes, a discussion for the nsa phone metadata collection program. we will talk to the former nasa general counsel. relatedlook at sports concussions. david savage, a supreme court reporter, reviews the high court's upcoming cases. >> this is now a federal terrorism investigation, led by the ei. the reason for that is the investigation so far has developed indications of riley radicalization by the killers. ♪ host: that is fbi director james komi commenting on the situation in san bernardino. he mentioned that so far the couple has not been attached to any terrorism network. linked to terrorism, it would be the deadliest attack on u.s. soil

we're relying on the situation senator portman and lankford have talked about where you've admitted to us that -- and i think it's consistent with what our fbi director said, essentially with the porous borders we saw in the "charlie hebdo" attacks that some of the attackers actually had traveled to yemen. and then we see the situation where europe is frankly overwhelmed in terms of the number of foreign fighters who have joined up with isis and then returned to their shores. we've seen the fbi director say if you haven't made a ripple in the water in syria, we may not know. we could query our databases until the cows come home but if the information never gets in the database then we're not going to know and someone may not get the same level of scrutiny they should receive. i want to get to the issue where are the countries we're having the most problem with with a lack of robust intelligence to make sure it's not so much filling out a form, we'll provide you what you've got. who is giving us the most who is not giving us the most? i find it hard to believe that they're providing us

. >> reporter: waste watcher republican senator james lankford who compiled the list is putting washington on notice. >> they get away with it because no one's watching, and thas the challenge. >> reporter: but watchdogs say don't expect to o e any of this study, its author tells us he's confident he'll see more of this kind of government spending. mary bruce, abc news, capitol hill. >>> and when we come back,,amy schumer and serena williams like you've never seen them before. >> the big reveal. batman versus superman. "the skinny" is next. >> announcer: "world news now" abc stations. are verb nay. slug >>> skinny, so skinny >>> it is time now for "the skinny." and topping our headlines this morning, that new video from psy. i know you've been waiting for it. >> just when you thought it was safe to click on to youtube again, it's been three years since we last saw the korean pop sensation when he nearly broke the internet with ngnam style. >> and now psy is out with an even creepier videdetitled "daddy." >> where did you get that body from? where did you get that body from? >> i got it fro

james lankford, my junior senator from oklahoma, cory gardner, lamar alexander and i think two other senators are looking to propose rule changes, and i think it's -- it's overdue. and i want to mention one other thing, too, mr. president. i said back in -- i think it was 2006 that i would never vote for another omnibus bill like we are prepared to vote for, and i said that was the last one. i want to serve notice that if enough people did this, we wouldn't find ourselves in this position. however, we are still in this position. and the reason i'm standing here today is to get on the record why i am going to support this. we have one thing that was -- back when i had the highway bill, we were trying to put additional things on the highway bill. one was to lift the ban on exports of oil and gas. and we were not successful in doing it, so at that time i made the announcement we have a couple other chances, the last one being the omnibus spending bill, and got a commitment that that would be on that bill. so i said at that time if that's the case, if we end uplifting the ban on that bil

lankford: mr. president? the presiding officer: senators are reminded that they will refer to each other in the third person. the senator from oklahoma. mr. lankford: thank you, mr. president. that was actually the first thing i was going to say. i aprooshappreciate the senator acknowledging that, according to senate rules. my simple statement was not sphwendz texpwendz tointendedto. i'm looking for what was offensive rhetoric that was stated multiple times by the senator from california. as i tried to think back what was offensive rhetoric of me saying that children have ten fingers and ten toes and unique d.n.a. and a unique fingerprint, doesn't seem to be offensive. i never talked about criminalizing anything. i heard multiple times through a conversation on the floor that i was criminalizing, criminalizing, criminalizing. i actually was speaking out for millions of children each year that die. and to say would we not want to reconsider the new science that has been available in america for decades now, to

. >> reporter: and the rest of us in brooklyn, steve lankford, cbs 2 news. >>> in money watch this morning, a key date for americans needing health insurance. and clean air comes at a price in china. >> jill wagner is live at the new york stock exchange. >> reporter: good morning. oil prices bounce back a bit so that sent the markets higher yesterday. the dow gained 103 points and the nasdaq composite was 18. what could be the most watched fed meeting of all time starts today. they'll likely decide to raise interest rates for the first time since the financial crisis. some say it's over due. and others argue it could derail economic growth. today is the deadline for millions of uninsured americans to sign up for obamacare if they want coverage to start january 1st. there's been a spike in activity on the website. and people in china are so desperate to get a breath of fresh air that they are willing willing to pay for it. sales of vitality air, a canister of clean canada air, they are spiking since beijing last week. each canister cost about $60. some air. >> thank you very much. >>> calli

lankford: mr. president, when you're home, television is on, phone starts to ring, your dog is at the back door barking, kids need help doing homework, occasion will occasionally you - occasionally you can forget dinner is on the stove. if you forget about it too long, your house patches on fire. you can suddenly miss out on something that's very important. our nation is dealing with a lot of issues right now -- terrorism, immigration, dealing with banking issues and our economy, education, transportation, and i do have a concern that we have forgotten this year we still have $450 billion in deficits and $19 trillion total in debt hanging over our heads. now, if we were in any state in america and we were faced with that, the legislative branch would work and would make hard decisions and would balance their budget. every single state at the end of their legislative session comes to a balanced budget. but we don't. we just overspent. it's happened now so many times consecutively, it's built up to $

ncicap.org] >> coming up, a look at wasteful spending by the federal government according to james lankford, bob

coburn, it's a great and heavy responsibility to join others like senator james lankford and john mccain to try to carry forward the coburn legacy of stopping wasteful washington spending and to bring some kind of oversight to this. you can find the full list of a hundred wastebook entries on my web site as well. as you glance through it, ask yourself if the federal government is really being frugal and as underfunded as it claims to be. ask yourself, are we really cutting to the bone, is there no more fat left to cut? we hear that continually. sequester-level spending has brought to us the brink that there's just nowhere else to cut. it's my hope, my only hope, that this report gives congress something to chewy on the -- and the end of bad puns too, i hope -- before debt and deficit saddles taxpayers and they finally strike back at this lunacy. but i would commend this waste book to all who can read it. you can reach it on our web site as well. with that, mr. president, i yield back. the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. mr. kaine: mr. president, i rise in support of the eve

and james ff flake lankford have published two books just this year, 100 plus billion dollars were spent on frivolous things. yet you squeeze every dime out of the middle class people. and yet just blow t it makes me angry. host: that's grand george, new york. "usa today" this morning, an interview with presidential candidate john kasich. spovegly on what he would do to defeat isil, saying rejecting mr. trump's proposal to borrow muslims from -- bar muslims from the united states, he jount lined his approach. building an international coalition, increasing coordination of intelligence agencies, dealing with concerns about encryption software, and tightening visa requirements. he said the u.s. ground troops would have to be deployed soon orer later to defeat the self-proclaimed islamic state, but we have to go on the ground and in the air and destroy isis in the coalition. you do not reclaim territory, do not destroy no enemy from the air. it never has. this is the fantasy, an ability to put off hard decisions. the longer we put off hard decisions, the more complicated going there is goin

lankford: mr. president, senator collins, who is my friend and colleague from maine, would strike a provision in this bill to funding planned parenthood and would continue directing federal funds toward that organization. earlier this year, with senators ernst and paul and other colleagues, we introduced legislation that prohibits taxpayer dollars from funding planned parenthood and reasserts congress's support for directing those funds to current providers of women's health care. we absolutely should support health care choices for women. but planned parenthood is the single largest provider of abortion in the country. directed increased taxpayer dollars to health centers provides quality health care, those options to women without providing the to the largest provider of abortion in the country. i would urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment. with that, i yield back. mr. enzi: mr. president, i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be

mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the lankford amendments to the resolution be agreed to, the resolution as amended be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: so, mr. president, i now ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10:00 a.m. thursday, december 17. following the prayer and pledge, the morning business 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. further, following leader remarks, the senate be in a period of morning business until 6:00 p.m., with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: so if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate is adjourned until 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. pro tempor. mr. hatch: i ask that the quorum call be dis m