. >> next question, senator clare mccaskill tweeted this week about her weight.s feeling fat and she had to go to the gym. and as you know, congressman aaron shock, he posed kind of half naked for the "men's health" magazine. do we have the picture of his rock-hard abs? >> oh, i'm getting the vapors. >> gathdear god, there it is. remember back in the days when we didn't even know fdr was in a wheelchair? okay, none of us were alive, but there were those days when we didn't know much about our politicians. are we getting too much information from our politicians? robert? >> look, we're getting too much information when family values, former senators larry craig and john ensign discuss their sex life. but when it comes to clare mccaskill and congressman aaron shock, i think there's great. i love their message. it's empowering. my worry, carol, is this. it's great for congressman shock to have abs like the situation, but when we discuss his right-wing policies, he sounds like the situation. >> dana. >> oh. well, senator mccaskill is my senator, and honestly, i would

i am proud to have cosigned senator mccaskill's letter, as did the entire democratic leadership team, and i look forward to the f.t.c.'s respon response. i'm also proud to cosponsor the bill we're considering today, senator menendez' "close big oil tax loopholes act." the legislation will put an end to taxpayer handouts to the five largest integrated oil companies and use the $21 billion in savings to reduce the deficit. this $21 billion is an excellent down payment on our effort to get the nation's fiscal house in order. the bill repeals a host of byzantine tax provisions that only a lobbyist could love, such as the deduction for -- quote -- "tertiary injectants" and the deduction for "inning tangible extraction -- intangible extraction costs." small- and medium-sized firms are exempt. the legislation, even though some might like to go further, deals with the big five -- exxonmobil, shell, chevron, conocophillips, and b.p. now, i've heard pundits from the hard right parrot big oil's talking point that the giveaways would increase gas prices for the consumers. the facts beg to differ.

we bumped into senator mccaskill. saying she's grateful for the attention here now, grateful for the assistance here now, grateful for the responders looking to see if there's anyone alive, but she says looking from above, she understands the economic devastation here and she's hoping the attention doesn't pass in a few days. >> we went up -- our first chance to get above it, went up with the governor and the head of fema this morning, and it is -- from the air, you get the scope of what happened because you realize that there is this green, and in the middle of the green, there is this wide path. just brown as far as the eye can see. it's -- and frankly, on the ground, you get a sense of the loss that is emotional. the pictures don't do it justice. >> when you see these homes, that one just ripped off the top, in some places the house is gone. >> the top two floors of the hospital are gone, just gone. and you don't see that very often, where a tornado is so powerful on a building that large will do that kind of damag

and there are democrats witness that, claire mccaskill, who agree with that.s under attack now by moveon.org, by the left. it will be a tough road for those kind of democrats to make that case. i have don't think they are going to have the backing of the administration on that one. >> i have to argue we got great clarity this week. john boehner came out and gave a speech where we referred to this and he said we'll go dollar for dollar with you guys. you know, you want a $300 billion increase in the debt limit? we want $300 billion in spending cuts somewhere. so the ball is in your court. that actually frames this issue. the other thing he did is talk about the mechanism of this. which is important. what the white house has been saying is we want a debt cap. if you go above the debt, a certain level, automatic new tax increases come in. that is like saying we can't help ourselves, we spend too much. you, the public, pay. instead boehner said no, what we are going to do is having spending caps. we go above the spending level, we, congress, has to cut somewhere e

has promised a vote on whether to split from the united kingdom he spoke to justice minister in mccaskill about his vision for a possible full independence. today i'm in edinburgh talking to kenny macaskill who is the scottish justice minister he's a member of the scottish national party which of course recently gained enough to be able to promise a referendum on scottish independence within the next five years kenny macaskill thank you for talking to us now tell me first what would scotland gain from independence well being control of our own resources for you to responsibility for the problems we face in our country and to be able to stand up and speak to the issues that matter to us. keeping charge at home and making sure that we have a voice abroad and how would it work economically and socially well scott from the rich country we have the largest oil and gas producer in the unit union we not only have a bone to employers of oil and gas but we never go to in terms of renewables or geography for the first time in our history it's probably advantage so we've got great potential in the t

to senator claire mccaskill who's been here and congressman billy long, mayor woolston, to craig fugateet a lot of attention, but he heads up fema, our emergency response at the federal level. he's been going from us the tus joplin and everywhere in between tirelessly doing outstanding work. we're grateful for him. gale mcgovern, the president of the national red cross who has contributed mightily to the rebuilding efforts here. most of all to the family and friends of all those who have been lost and all those who have been affected. today we gather to celebrate the lives of those we've lost to the storm here in joplin and across the midwest, to keep in our prayers those still missing, to mourn with their families, to stand together during that time of pain and trial. and as reverend brown alluded to, the question that weighs on us at a time like this is why. why our town, why our home, why my son or husband or wife or sister or friend, why. we do not have the capacity to answer. we can't know when a terrible storm will strike or where or the severity of the devastation that it may cau

check out this tweet from missouri senator clair mccaskill. i'm tired.ng and feeling fat. maybe talking about it publicly will keep me on track as i try to be more disciplined. off to the gym. hey, it worked for new york senator kirsten gillibrand. after losing baby weight she took to voeg magazine to show off her slimmed down figure. it is not just a woman thing. male lawmakers also seem obsessed with their political body, so to speak. take illinois congressman aaron shock proud owner of these six-pack abs on the cover of "men's health." and by the way, do we really need to know that barack obama is stinky or snory in the morning or hates picking up h dirty socks? there was once a time americans did not even know franklin delano roosevelt was in a wheelchair! but now it is a topic that carries a lot of political weight and one we can't get enough of, because frankly, they won't let us! so "talk back" question today -- are politicians revealing too much. facebo facebook.com/carolcnn. i'll be eager once again to read your comments. >> come on, carol. don'

missouri democrat claire mccaskill said americans need to hear why the companies can't spare $2 billion a year. >> how do you explain to your how do you explain to them that we think that instead of $125 billion, instead of $123 billion of profit big oil's going to make this year, they need to make 125. >> reporter: in turn, texas republican john cornyn accused democrats of trying to score political points, instead of addressing the real issue. >> this is not an energy strategy, this is a public relations strategy. this is a "how do i get reelected" strategy. it does not solve the problem or the pain that americans are feeling at the pump. >> reporter: democratic leaders have said they will have another go at repealing the oil tax breaks, as part of a broader deficit reduction plan to be considered later this year. >> ifill: now, to a second economic story. this one exploring why more good jobs have not been created in recent years. economics correspondent paul solman has our report as part of his series on making sense of financial news. >> reporter: america's seemingly chronic economi

listen to claire mccaskill on the issue of pakistani funding. >> we've got to be very careful about being condemning pakistan at this point. we need the roots to our troops to pakistan. we need their airspace for our predator program that's been very effective in wiping out terrorists. so i think we've got to use this as a leverage point. >> i spoke to al rogers, the chairman of the house appropriations meeting yesterday, alex, and he said funding for pakistan will be examined coming up in the next few weeks and months. however, i spoke to one off the record who said, look, the u.s. and pakistan is a very bad marriage but it's one we have to stay in because t. of the children. what are those children? those are the dozens of nuclear weapons that pakistan has. if they were do get into the wrong hands, catastrophe in the united states. one house republican of texas that says, no funding should go to pakistan until they can prove that they did not know bin laden was there. look for more seasoned veterans of capitol hill who have a lot of intelligence, national security experience to say desp

senator clair mccaskill, a long time earmark opponent, says she knows the way things work and doesn't buy it. >> somebody's going to call the defense department and say this is what it heavelps, this is whi want it for. if it locks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, it is a duck. it is an earmark. >> reporter: most representatives said they would not agree to an interview. until the pentagon ultimately decides, we won't know for sure if lawmakers successfully steered pork to their districts. regardless, some deficit hawks say members of the house armed services committee should have used the hundreds of millions of dollars they found in pentagon savings to help pay down the sky-high deficit, not for even more government spending. dana bash, cnn, washington. >>> we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars here. put that into a special fund for the pentagon or should we say pet projects? joining me now, steve ellis, the vice president of taxpayers for common sense. steve, thanks for coming in on the holiday weekend. is it disingenuous for congress to talk about cuts while fu

senator mccaskill. welcome. >> i would like to fall on the chairman's question he just asked. we have a difference between two different agencies that say that a five day delivery you all say it's going to save 3 billion the regulatory commission said it would generate 1.7 billion. i don't know how much of that difference is attributable to the loss of business that inevitably is going to occur when you can't do this six day delivery. you have an advantage right now that was six day delivery. if you were looking at this through the very cold lands of a pure business model, you are giving away the major advantage have when you give away that sixth day. can you speak to why there is such a wide disparity between the savings the two agencies came up with, and you know, what keeps us from going up to four? and aren't we really if we are not careful, if we go to five, aren't we talking about the beginning of a death spiral here? >> let me address a number of the questions. first of all, to repeat what i said to the chairman, we do not want to go to the 65 but financially we are in

senator claire mccaskill knows the way things work and doesn't i would it. >> somebody is going to call department and say this is what it represents. if it looks and walks and quacks like a duck, it's a duck, it's an earmark. >> reporter: other secures millions to benefit their districts and rejected cnn's requests for interests to explain. most said the pentagon will make it a competitive process. the gentleman who did talk to us said if he can help his district in this post-earmark world no apoll jeelz. >> none whatsoever. i'm doing my job. >> reporter: until the pentagon decides we won't know for sure if lawmakers successfully steered pork to their districts. regardless, some say members of the house armed services committee should have used the hundreds of millions in pentagon savings to pay down the deficit, not for more government spending. dana bash, cnn, washington. >>> losing a parent is especially hard on children. losing them to war is really tough. we go inside a camp where all the children have one thing in common, a parent is a fallen service member. you love the aroma of

mccaskill: thank you, madam president. i want to just briefly rise and make some comments about the people at home that i'm so proud of. over the past three weeks, my home state has been the sight of heartbreaking destruction that resulted from a series of severe weather incidents throughout the state. we have also had the privilege of witnessing great acts of bravery, compassion, and neighbors being neighbors in response to these incidents. i wanted to take just a moment today to recognize the incredible character of missourians and particularly to recognize the contributions made by the citizen soldiers and airmen of the missouri national guard. today, weeks after the historic flooding began, we continue to see its life-altering effects in my state and others all along the mississippi river. my prayers and those of my colleagues go out to all who have and will continue to have their lives altered by this tragedy. i'll continue to work with my colleagues in the missouri delegation to make sure that the federal government

mccaskill: i ask that the quorum call be set aside. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. mccaskill: i've listened to the last couple of speakers, and while i certainly respect senator coburn's commitment to fiscal responsibility and he and i have worked together on a number of projects in that regard and have the same view of many of the spending habits around here, i've got to say i'm a little confused by the opposition to this legislation by my friends across the aisle. you know, we have two ways to spend money around here. one is through the appropriations process. the other is what i call tax goodies. and what these goodies are, they're called tax expenditures. what these do is they basically say to whatever group has successfully lobbied for them you're not going to have to pay all your taxes. so there's two ways that we deny the treasury money. one is by spending money. the other is by telling people you don't have to pay the money that the tax code says you owe. and -- and we put into the tax code special deals. now, many of the special deals are done because the c

[laughter] [applause] >> to send a clear mccaskill who has been here, and congressman billy long. mayor wolfston, to craig fugate. he heads up fema, our emergency response. he has been going from tuscaloosa to joplin, tirelessly. gayle mcgovern. the president of the national red cross, which has contributed to rebuilding effortshere. here. most of all, to the family and friends of all those who have been lost all those affected. today, we gather to celebrate the lives of those we have lost in the storms in joplin and across the midwest. to keep in our prayer is, those still missing. to mourn with their families, to stand together during this time of pain and trial. alluded to,brown the question that weighs on us at a time like this is why? why our town. why our tomes? homes? why my son or husband or wife or sister or friend? why? we do not have the capacity to answer. we can't know when a terrible storm will strike or where or the severity of the devastation that it may cause. we're't an't know why tested with the loss of a loved one or the loss of a home where we have lived a lif

estimate this will be the last question i asked and we are joined by senator mccaskill. i want to talk about a business opportunity to read the last white feel about the six day delivery, and i said why was agnostic on that and if there could be a way to save substantial amounts of money not as much as 3 billion but through the negotiations, then i think we ought to consider that. if we can't find substantial savings we are not going to consider that as much the we talked about the opportunity costs cut and of not having that sustainability. i think there is -- we talked about this before. someday somebody will look back at the postal service and say we had a post office in every community in america and went to every door six days a week. why didn't we think of xy or z in being able to exploit that all business model, just talk to us very briefly about the opportunity cost of eliminating the mail delivery whether it is expressed or doing the work for fed ex and ups, let's talk about a little bit if you would. >> you know we would rather not eliminate saturday delivery.

that is a very big project. >> thank you. >> senator mccaskill? >> thank you.i got a tweet from my last round of questions. i did not mean to sound flippant about hipaa. what i was trying to say about hipaa is that the bottom line is we had unintended consequences and costs. what you talked about -- we clearly did not get that down because most people who go to the doctor's office are not reading the long thing they have to read, and they signed. i bet most people in this room would admit it that those of the doctor they are not reading the whole thing they signed. you have to sign one or two or three every time ago which adds administrative cost. and there were unintended consequences in terms of finding people who might have been -- diseases who are very unique and rare, trying to find people for research purposes. hipaa has stood in the way of some things. does not mean we should not work on privacy but i just want to be cautionary that we are careful as we move forward on privacy because so much of the success we have had in this space in our country in the

senator mccaskill. >> one of the things missing from this is the value that a lot of this activity provides to the consumer. i'll give one example. the value of being able to low case where this is is very important to my privacy because they now have the technology that if this gets stolen from me or if it gets left j, i can remotely go and wipe it clean. that protects my privacy. that is incredibly important to me because frankly, i don't want people in here, and so have you all looked at the value that has come to the consumer both from the robust technology that's been developed and the incredible ability we have to do so many things, the fact that it's free, or almost free, i mean, you pay for some apps and some have geolocations, most of them don't, and what it provides is an amazing internet experience primarily funded by the marketing, anonymous behavioral marketing, so what studies have been done to show the benefits? i think most consumers frankly asking if i want privacy, is like asking if i love my country. of course i want privacy. we did hipa, and we sign the paper at the doct

we propose what we call statutory caps in law and discretionary spending, we propose corker mccaskill in the senate, the cap on the overall government spending as a share of gdp than a week of the debt cap which is we kept the debt as a percentage of the economy which is the course we put in the budget and reinforced with triggers so it sequesters what we use in the past so we put out three kinds of spending caps in the budget so we see the budget as a option for which to select from to try to advance the dialogue in an agreement but in and of themselves alone i don't think the conference would accept >> you talked about the budget caps. some of the press accounts talked about triggers that would trigger tax increases. >> spending is our problem, michael. look, even keeping the bush tax cut permanent, our revenue still go back to where the stokely have been. we go back to where the historical revenue linus spending goes from 20% of the economy of to 40% of the economy and then it goes up from there. spending is a problem and we want to keep focused on spending. the other thing is if w

estimate this will be the last question i asked and we are joined by senator mccaskill. i want to talk about a business opportunity to read the last white feel about the six day delivery, and i said why was agnostic on that and if there could be a way to save substantial amounts of money not as much as 3 billion but through the negotiations, then i think we ought to consider that. if we can't find substantial savings we are not going to consider that as much the we talked about the opportunity costs cut and of not having that sustainability. i think there is -- we talked about this before. someday somebody will look back at the postal service and say we had a post office in every community in america and went to every door six days a week. why didn't we think of xy or z in being able to exploit that all business model, just talk to us very briefly about the opportunity cost of eliminating the mail delivery whether it is expressed or doing the work for fed ex and ups, let's talk about a little bit if you would. >> you know we would rather not eliminate saturday delivery.

senator mccaskill, longtime earmark opponent, says she knows the way things work and does not buy it.ent and say this is what it represents. this is what i want it for. if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, it is a duck. it is an earmark. >> reporter: other law makers in both parties secured millions that could benefit their districts. rejected cnn's request for interviews to explain. the pentagon will make it a competitive process. congressman that did talk to us said if he can still help his district in the post earmark world, no apologies. >> none whatsoever. >> thank you. >> i'm doing my job. >> pentagon ultimately decides, we won't know for sure if some lawmakers successfully steer pork to tharg districts regardless some deficit hawks say members of the house armed services commission should have used hundreds of millions of money they found in pentagon savings to pay down the deficit. >> you hit it here and it pops up someplace else. >> go figure. >> exactly. thanks so much, appreciate it. >>> we want to turn to the bin laden investigation. mary s

. >> one of the questions that senator claire mccaskill brought up, as you decide what you're going tobuiyou rebuild this city is missing a major medical facility and there are doctors needed. what's the thinking for doctors and this facility? >> this facility, mercy st. john's, will be here. we're part of the mercy health system. they are committed, they've already met bit with all of our senior leadership. we will be bigger, better than we are now. we will be preparing to build a new facility. in the meantime we're going to have mobile hospitals put in, basically like m.a.s.h. units, similar to what has happened to kansas before when communities have been destroyed. we will have the capability of taking care of emergency patients, surgical patients. i'm having equipment set up at memorial hall today. we'll actually have full dpra and cat scan and mri capabilities today. we will be functioning as a hospital. obviously not on a 370 bed capability like we were before, but mercy and st. john's will be here. we're here to take care of the patients and we will rebuild. >> all right. sean,

missouri's top officials wrapped up a helicopter tour of joplin, and here is sound bite from claire mccaskill sure that we get all of the help we need. pleased that a disaster declaration came as early as it did which means that the people can get help today and tomorrow and can rebuild. we have to obviously pay attention to this long after the cameras are gone, because this is going to, if you see it from the air, you will realize this is not going to happen overnight and it will take months, and this community is going to need all of our support for months to come. >> and now, here is why the sunshine was a big deal today. soon, things could get ugly again. an area no the weto the west an south, mainly kansas city, will be subjected to storms later this afternoon. i want to go to my colleague t.j. holmes who has found amazing stories of survival. where are you? t.j.? >> well, this is the hardest hit of joplin here if you make your way that way, if you will, and that is where the hospital is, and st. john's getting so much attention. but today, quite frankly, we have watched this neighborhoo

>> bethany address and number of your questions, senator mccaskill. we did not want to go to the six -- the six to five. it is an option: ford and is tied directly to the loss of that contribution of first-class mail. if i had an answer to stop that, we would get that in place now, that america is changing, bills are being paid online. that is 18 cents that comes out of our coffers. the difference between our estimates and what the prc estimate is two things -- their estimate of revenue loss, $600 billion, hours, $200 billion. there are a lot of opinion polls, many customers in the past used to make sure they deliver -- that we deliver mail on saturday. they have moved away from saturday. it is by far the loudest thing of volume. many businesses are closed saturday, and what we have been told his people did not look at their mail on saturday as much as they do the rest of the week because they are busy with other things. the $200 billion vs $600 billion, as part of the difference. the other part of the difference is an estimate as being able to say, t

and senator menendez, along with senator brown, senator mccaskill, later today will introduce legislation that our side agrees with which will say take all that money and put it to deficit reduction. there are some who would have preferred to put the money into encouraging independence from particularly foreign oil, but because the deficit is such a huge problem, because we might have a dispute with our friends on the other side of the aisle as to where the money ought to go, everyone can agree it would be worthwhile to take a little bit of the burden off the taxpayers, have the oil companies pay their fair share, and stop these ridiculous tax breaks and subsidies to big oil, to the five big oil companies. and so i would ask speaker boehner to show some good faith. some on his side of the aisle have said these subsidies don't belong. they were created when oil was $17 when we worried about production here. oil went over $100 a barrel again yesterday. the oil -- you don't have to worry about their desire to explore. they're looking for every place they can. they don't need a tax subsidy to

. >> talking about libya, [unintelligible] >> senator mccaskill and senator john kerry and the administration have been talking about -- senator john mccain and senator john kerry and the administration have been talking. senator john mccain has been to benghazi. he mentioned to me yesterday that he has spoken with senator harry reid and the anticipated, based on what harry reid told him, that we would likely turn to such a revolution within a week or two after we get back. >> on the ryan bill, might it be a liability to the polls next november? given the results of the new york special election, that this budget might be a liability? >> i can only " president clinton again. standard & poor's has sent us a signal, the u.s. is on the verge of having its credit downgraded. the united states of america. all this talk about how you can do anything about the big crisis that they're talking about without medicare is nonsense. medicare will be part of the solution. the 2012 election will take care of itself. about a year-and-a-half from now. i would think -- that we will hopefully have done somethin

estimate this will be the last question i asked and we are joined by senator mccaskill. i want to talk about a business opportunity to read the last white feel about the six day delivery, and i said why was agnostic on that and if there could be a way to save substantial amounts of money not as much as 3 billion but through the negotiations, then i think we ought to consider that. if we can't find substantial savings we are not going to consider that as much the we talked about the opportunity costs cut and of not having that sustainability. i think there is -- we talked about this before. someday somebody will look back at the postal service and say we had a post office in every community in america and went to every door six days a week. why didn't we think of xy or z in being able to exploit that all business model, just talk to us very briefly about the opportunity cost of eliminating the mail delivery whether it is expressed or doing the work for fed ex and ups, let's talk about a little bit if you would. >> you know we would rather not eliminate saturday delivery.

i ask that following my remarks, senator mccaskill be recognized to speak for up to 15 minutes. and following her remarks, that senator sessions be recognized to speak for up to 20 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. morning business is closed. under the previous order, the senate will resume consideration of the motion to concur in the house message to accompany s. 990, which the clerk will report. the clerk: motion to concur in the house amendment to s. 990, an act to provide for an additional temporary extension of programs under the small business act, and so forth and for other purposes, with an amendment. mr. whitehouse: madam president, i ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business for up to ten minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: madam president, 50 years ago on this day, john f. kennedy addressed a joint session of congress and he presented to our nation a bold challenge. he said -- quote -- "i believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out of landing a man on the m

we propose what we call statutory caps in law and discretionary spending, we propose corker mccaskill in the senate, the cap on the overall government spending as a share of gdp than a week of the debt cap which is we kept the debt as a percentage of the economy which is the course we put in the budget and reinforced with triggers so it sequesters what we use in the past so we put out three kinds of spending caps in the budget so we see the budget as a option for which to select from to try to advance the dialogue in an agreement but in and of themselves alone i don't think the conference would accept >> you talked about the budget caps. some of the press accounts talked about triggers that would trigger tax increases. >> spending is our problem, michael. look, even keeping the bush tax cut permanent, our revenue still go back to where the stokely have been. we go back to where the historical revenue linus spending goes from 20% of the economy of to 40% of the economy and then it goes up from there. spending is a problem and we want to keep focused on spending. the other thing is if w

we propose what we call statutory caps in law and discretionary spending, we propose corker mccaskill in the senate, the cap on the overall government spending as a share of gdp than a week of the debt cap which is we kept the debt as a percentage of the economy which is the course we put in the budget and reinforced with triggers so it sequesters what we use in the past so we put out three kinds of spending caps in the budget so we see the budget as a option for which to select from to try to advance the dialogue in an agreement but in and of themselves alone i don't think the conference would accept >> you talked about the budget caps. some of the press accounts talked about triggers that would trigger tax increases. >> spending is our problem, michael. look, even keeping the bush tax cut permanent, our revenue still go back to where the stokely have been. we go back to where the historical revenue linus spending goes from 20% of the economy of to 40% of the economy and then it goes up from there. spending is a problem and we want to keep focused on spending. the other thing is if w

one of them from myself and senator vitter, senator coburn and senator mccaskill and senator begich and a bunch of other people that said it's not related to small business but it's certainly related to the deficit. what it does, it says -- the president mentioned this in his state of the union address -- we have thousands, maybe tens of thousands of pieces of surplus property that the federal government owns that we're not using. we pay money to keep them secure, we pay money for the utilities, for the upkeep. we're not using them. we ought to sell them. we can't give them away -- if we can't give them away to the state governments and homeless groups, we ought to sell them. that's going to be offered as an amendment to the small business bill. my hope is my colleagues will support it. senator landrieu who chairs the small business committee and senator snowe who is the ranking republican, previously the chair, have worked on the underlying bill for something like six years, six years. it passed -- again, i'll say, pretty year by unanimous consent. we need to get it done. we need to ge

and third, that senator wyden's work, senator stabenow and senator mccaskill will work on trade enforcement, making sure these trade rules and trade laws that are in effect will actually be in force so that we can protect american jobs. when we pass these trade agreements, it's always cost us jobs. it's about time we take care of communities and workers that suffer from it. i thank senator webb and i yield back my time. mr. webb: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia. mr. webb: i would like to speak today on the pending nomination of professor goodwin liu for a seat on the ninth circuit court of appeals. i would like to begin by saying regretfully i will be voting against this nomination, for reasons that i will explain, but at the same time i want to emphasize my profound respect for this institution and for my fellow senators from both parties, and i believe it would be wrong to vote against a cloture motion whose intent is to proceed forward with debate on the merits of someone who has been nominated to be a judge. i made this point loudly and clearly when

mccaskill: mr. president, this is a place that runs on words. the united states senate is a place where there's always a great deal of speeches and words that are spoken, and every once in awhile there's something that comes along in life when words are so completely inadequate. and what has happened in my state in the last few days is very difficult to express in words. but i did want to take a few moments to recognize an incredible thing that's occurring in -- in the southwest portion of my state. having been there all day yesterday, arriving very early in the morning and spending time with the people of joplin, with missourians who have come to joplin from every corner of our state with federal officials, i do want to take just a -- a short amount of time to recognize the tragedy and to rejoice in the response. because so many parts of this response, in fact, are the kinds of things that we should celebrate. the loss of life is staggering. an f-5 tornado, we now know the strongest tornado classification. in fact, this is the most devastating

senator mccaskill is in missouri, as she should be, with her constituents. feinstein and klobuchar are chairing hearings. but let me get right to my position. you know, the republicans, we're not going to call this the ryan budget because whether it's the ryan budget, the toomey budget, whatever, it is the wrong budget for america and it -- it continues the republican -- the radical republican attack on women that they began in h.r. 1. it started to attack us by taking away our health care, our family planning. now they're back at it again. the republican budget takes away our health care, and there's no ifs, ands and buts about it. and we're not going to put up with it. no matter what we try to take away from us, we're not going to let it happen. what do i mean by this? well, let's start with medicare. medicare is the single-most important health care program in america for seniors. women are the majority users of medicare because we live longer. now, when the republicans want to talk about taking away or changing medicare as we know it, what is it that the

how many teachers -- i know senator mccaskill talks to teachers a lot and tells us this. how many teachers tell us they reach into their pockets -- these aren't wall street bankers. they are teachers. they are sometimes making as little as $45,000 a year. how many reach in their pockets? do senators preach into their pockets and buy folders for our office, buy pens? do senators do that? do most business people like that reach into their pocket to take care of their children? so many teachers do, to buy construction paper, to buy pens, to give kids money for lunch sometimes. clearly, teachers play a role that most people in this country don't play. david faucet, a columbus drama teacher. mr. faucet has helped generations of new immigrants and low-income students see something greater in themselves, more than just a poor immigrant child trying to make it. he encourages students to learn language and speech and culture through lines of a play or a musical, through elocution lessons and his guiding presence. again, another teacher that focuses on the individual, unique needs