mr. cardin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator maryland. mr. cardin: i i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cardin: mr. president, i come to the floor today as the ranking democrat of the senate foreign relations committee to discuss the importance of treaties to the united states and to express my strong support for the ratification of a number of treaties whose consistency with current u.s. law coupled with the tangible and material benefits they would deliver to u.s. citizens, businesses, and law enforcement authorities should make their ratification uncontroversial. treaties enhance and increase stability in an uncertain world. they offer a framework for u.s. global engagement in which we can work to promote american values such as equal rights, freedom of navigation, and the promotion of global commerce. and yet, with the 1 i 14th congress drawing to a cloarks the senate has not yet ratified a single treaty, something i consider to be an extraordinary state of affairs

mr. cardin: thank you, mr. president. let me thank senator blunt for his leadership in bringing this nomination to the floor. senator schumer, i want to thank him also in the manner which this was handled by the rules committee. i know that kelly on staff did a lot of work. i really do thank all that were involved in bringing forward this nomination. mr. president, you've heard from my colleagues, from senator mikulski and senator blunt the extraordinary qualifications of dr. hayden. she has the academic credentials. she has the experience. she has the proven leadership as we saw in enoch pratt free library in baltimore, what she was able to do i would like to add one more dimension to this if i might. that's the person that she is. she is admired by all. she knows how to bring people together. she has incredible people skills in addition to having the technical skills to be an extraordinary c.e.o. and to be able to manage a complex operation. the library of congress is a complex operation. it takes a great deal of manage

mr. cardin: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: madam president, first let me thank senator whitehouse for his extraordinary work on behalf of an issue that affects the united states and the global community, and that is the reality of climate change and the impact it is having on the united states and on the global community. senator whitehouse and i, along with eight other members of this senate, represented the united states at the coke 21 conference in paris in which over 190 nations came together on an action plan to deal with climate and climate change. that could not have happened but for the u.s. leadership, and i'm proud of the work that was done by the united states in setting up a blueprint for us to deal with the impact of climate change in the international community. and we can talk about the specific aspects of climate change and the impact it's having on the security of america. you can talk about the number of climate refugees, people who will be forced to leave their lands because of the rising sea level. w

mr. mcgurk: so, senator, isil has always talked about external attacks, and i think i talked about this in 2013. senator cardin: but as they start to lose territory, is it likely they will accelerate that part of their campaign? mr. mcgurk: their core banner has been the caliphate, maintaining and expanding their caliphate, and as i mentioned in my written testimony, he said, we may lose all of our territory, including mosul. and this is what director brennan testified to last week. this is extraordinarily difficult to stop. we have to remain vigilant. this is why we have a global coalition not just for iraq and syria but to make sure we are working with interval so that as these people try to travel, they can be picked up, and we are doing better at that now, but we have a ways to go, and we cannot let up, because it was al qaeda in iraq, and they split in two directions, one about a state like caliphate entity, and another one in syria, which does not really have the notion of establishing a caliphate, but they are both al qaeda. they both went to kill anyone who does not agree with them, and isil will conti

louis cardinals pitcher mr. mitch harris.. >> you're stranding there in the brand standing there at the brand-spanking new stadium there at ft. brg, north carolina, what does it mean to play the very first game on a military base? >> this is awesome. it feels beautiful. these guys have done a great job. it's just exciting, being from both sides of things here, i'm excited to see the men and women that get to interact in such a closed in park here and really get to feel the atmosphere. it's going to be awesome. >> mitch, i was down in washington, know a ton of service men and women who were so excited when you made your debut last year. you have a great story about how you prepped for the big league, while you were still serving. the you tell us about that. >> yeah, so, i was on an amphibious ship, had a larger flight deck, and one of the cooks onboard was from the dominican republic. cs1 nunez. so we would throw. and he helped keep my arm in shape when we were deployed and i give him a lot of credit for helping me get back to