mr. cardin: mr. president -- mr. cardin: mr. president, if there's no further business to come before the senate, i ask that the senate stands adjourn under the previous order following the remarks of senator murphy. the presiding officer: without objection. the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut is recognized. mr. murphy: thank you, mr. president, i offer to offer some words in support of ukraine as we approach the one-year anniversary of russia's full-scale invasion. although the united states government made public warnings about this premeditated attack for months in advance, it is still frankly shocking in retrospect when you think about what has occurred over the last 12 months. russia trying to expand its borders through invasion. and maybe we were naive to think that this practice went by the wayside after world war ii. it was common practice for powers for centuries beforehand. but the world has seen a level of brutality and devastation that is hard to contemplate. how unthinkable it was that in 2022, a maj

mr. cardin: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: mr. president, i take this time to celebrate the success of the affordable care act. we just completed the open enrollment period for 2023. over 16 million americans signed up for health coverage under the affordable care act. that's about a hundred percent increase from the first year's enrollment in 2014. less than ten years. we have doubled the number of enrolees under the affordable care act. it is contributed to a substantial reduction in the number of uninsured, which in and of itself is an important goal in health care. uninsured individuals have less ability to access quality care in this country. that's something we all need to be concerned about and do our best to make sure everyone has access to health care. but they also contribute to what's known as cost shifting and it causes a dislocation of health care facilities in the proper locations in our chunty -- comunty. it also makes our -- community. it also makes our health care system less efficient. if an individual doesn't ha

cardin. >> thank you, mr. chairman. but mr.cauley from nebraska with its nebraska, maryland, any say in the country the fentanyl crisis is a crisis. we are losing citizens every day to fentanyl. the tragedy here is there's a lot of innocent users dying from fentanyl not expecting it to be laced with fentanyl. so this is an urgent issue in our nation. thank you for holding an early hearing on this subject. it is not an easy issue we talk about supply and demand. the demand side is a little challenging here because aside from nebraska pointed out people do not expect they'll be dealing with fentanyl laced product. so we will always deal with demand but let's talk supply. supply is complicated because we have the cartels and the distribution networks. then we have supply of the precursors which are taking off in the fentanyl itself to the precursors. so you mentioned the cartels you have task force to deal with that. what do you need d from us in order for us to make an impact on the viability of these cartels question think opera

cardinal came walking in one by one. and the first bishop got down on my knees approximately where mrs. kennedy is sitting, mrs. gunther is sitting. and my husband ted is sitting, and he called up to mrs. parks, who was seated in a wheelchair and kissed foot. and i lusted and i still feel moment that said it all with that gesture. so by the time the bishops and cardinals got to the pope was almost anti-climatic, but they cleared the room out of still sitting at the end of this big hall and then the doors open and the pope comes out with his white hat and his heavy robes and his staff, and he can barely walk. he is in so much pain. and parks sees that or feels that. and she asks me to get up out of her wheelchair, to walk to him and course, mrs. parks asked me to do anything. i did it. and i helped her. and at that time, all my crosses fell on the ground. and you hurt? it was embarrassing, but we continued to walk and the pope was so appreciative of mrs. parks going to meet him. he didn't have to walk to her that he listened even deeper than i think he would have if we had waited. and the protocol. and then he r

mr. shubsky, who was the first deputy, wrote a statement, and the chief, well, the gray cardinal of customsin fact was responsible for the fight against smuggling . for all these customs, for all the schemes of yanukovych, well , bentley. well, in short, there, believe me. well, there is not much i can say at all ok, about this person, we are also now showing that the department has suddenly become ill as well, and taking advantage of the opportunity, i will just pass it on if i take it once, suddenly this gentleman is looking at mr. cherkaskyi to write a statement about dismissal now - this is the best thing you have because we, within the tsc, will definitely hand over cases to law enforcement agencies for all your schemes starting from 2021 in some state, i don't know how many billions of losses were caused. exactly, don't stay in office and get sick until the next time someone there will cover you, we won't or did i really think that everyone resigned , it turns out that someone went on sick leave? well, if we have already started talking about these resignations in the state customs se

mr. chairman. >> thank you senator cardin. senator grassley. >> i am sure your family and everybody that knows you is proud of the responsibilities you assume. i'm going to follow up on the first question the senator asked you about spending the ed billion dollars and it deals with a bill senator thune and i introduced on the funding accountability act. you said that you would make public the report when you are done with it so this bill emphasizes doing that annually so we can compare one year with the previous year. if confirmed would you direct them to update suspending regardless of whether this bill passes were not? >> thank you for the question. i've worked a long time in government and have seen a lot of the initiatives that you've undertaken to increase transparency. it's so essential that we build trust and i think that by sharing whatever we can in the law about the going forward plan is going to help build the trust. i will work with this committee to figure out the best manner in which to make this public and the f

mr. natalya, but over the last year, the mood of belarusians has somehow changed the full-scale war of russia against ukraine cardinallyto your observations as sozreniya i do not hear your question over the last year somehow the mood of belarusians has changed radically and the attitude towards russia has been freed by russia with its invasion of ukraine well, and the role of russia in belarus here, well, of course , russian troops will be placed in the fact that they conduct themselves quite freely on the territory of belarus enough a-a pakharskie yes, just like the president in all the territories, this is also the eyes of love of the exact neighbor, here of course in the country and to the regime itself, the army is married, and this , i think, in the end can lead to to some serious protests, it's a different matter that this energy is accumulating and at a certain moment, i think that this is the cover of this, and another question . returning to the opposition , whether united or not, do you remember and what then it is clear that sooner or later the known war will end and well, i am sure that putin is already app

that you will grow such a cardinal 17 or more times, but there are certain problems, but they are not as powerful as it looks from the figures for the month of january only, mrvgeny, why there was such a problem in the russian budget. i realized that january is not indicative . but it is possible, as far as we know how to lead to a deficit. maybe we can somehow increase this pressure and then achieve success during the year, uh, for the second month in a row in russia there is a huge deficit in the budget, the excess of expenditures over revenues, and this is because revenues are falling, expenditures are increasing. yes, but revenues have fallen very much, especially oil and gas revenues, that is, the main revenues of the russian budget are somewhere around 45-46% of the federal budget of russia, and they asked very strongly why because they are starting work little by little and sanctions of course we would like a lot more sanctions, especially lowering the ceiling on oil in general, a ban or refusal to buy oil by foreign countries well , ideally, in general, as they say, iron instead russia, but the fact is that the sanctions are working, and we need to c

cardinal george pell is underway in sydney. the controversial influencer andrew tate will remain in custody in romania for at least another month, after an appeal against his detention was rejected. mrming an organised crime group. they've denied any wrongdoing. our correspondent in bucharest, lucy williamson, has more. the court behind me had a short statement today saying it rejected the request by the tate others to overturn their continued detention. the two men have been in custody for more than 30 days and are due to remain until the end of february. their lawyers say that they have not seen any convincing evidence against the two men and a new legal advisor has been brought in by the brothers from the us law firm. she was in court today and she has been arguing that there continued detention without charges and without any previous criminal record is a violation of the international human rights law. that has been rejected by the courts here today. the two brothers will now stay in custody until february 27 and prosecutors will have until then to bring charges against them or to ask thejudge to extend charges against them or to ask the judge to extend their detention once aga

cardin. >> thank you, mr. chairman.let me assure my colleagues whether it is nebraska or maryland, the fentanyl crisis is a crisis. we are losing citizens every day to fentanyl, the tragedy here is there are lots of innocent users dying, not expecting it to be laced with fentanyl so this is an urgent issue in our nation, thank you for holding an early hearing. because it is not an easy issue. we talk about supply and demand, demand is sizable but challenging because as the senator from nebraska pointed out, people do not expect they will be dealing with fentanyl laced product. we will always deal with demand but let's talk supply. supply is complicated because we have cartels and distribution networks and then the supply of the precursors taking over from the fentanyl itself manufactured through the precursors. you mentioned the cartels and the task force to deal with them. what do you need from us in order for us to make a real impact on the viability of these cartels. we operate in trapping ago drugs and so many activ