mr. cassidy: mr. president? i rise today -- the presiding officer: the sna is in a quorum call. mr. cassidy: i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. officer without objection. mr. cassidy: i rise to discuss the 1,000-year flood that hit my state a few weeks ago. we call it the great flood of 2016. and 13 people lost their lives. $8.7 billion in damage occurred in just a few days. and just an example of the enormity, here are the power outages that followed the flooding. this is baseline before the flood. the lights went out, and all this reflects homes substantially flooded. now, there's no substitute for witnessing the aftermath of the disaster yourself, but i'll try and paint a picture for the damage of this terrible event and the situation that my constituents are currently trying to rebuild from. again, an unprecedent the weather event. the national weather service deemed it a once-in-a-thousand-year event. no way to prepare. wasn't as if there was a storm system off the coast of africa that was proceeding across the atlantic ocean. less than a quarter of the population had flood

mr. cassidy: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are. mr. cassidy: i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cassidy: i rise to speak about obamacare and the incredibly negative impact it's having on millions of americans. let's just speak about it's impact upon the middle class. there is a recent article in the "wall street journal," august 26, which spoke about how obamacare is pushing the burden of health care cost to the middle class, and it speaks about how deductibles have risen 256%. but, mr. president, wages have only increased 32%. it also has -- goes on to say how folks are spending like 32% more on health care, but they're having to cut back on groceries, restaurants, entertainment, clothing. everything else is being cut back as health care consumes more and more. now, the logical question is, if under obamacare this was supposed to change -- the president promised that premiums would fall $2,500 per family -- why not? a good example: a physician friend i know, a neurologist in baton roug

mr. cassidy: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. cassidy: mr. president, i have spoken on the floor twice now to tell the stories of the devastation caused by the great flood of 2016 and the depth of need families in louisiana have. since i last spoke, about 10,000 people more have applied for individual assistance through fema, and now about 150,000 folks in louisiana have applied for individual assistance. this is a serious, immediate issue, and we need help for those who are in great need. in all the debate back and forth, some people have forgotten or never realized how massive this disaster was, an unprecedented event. the national weather service deemed this as a once in a 1,000-year event. 20 parishes have been declared disaster areas, and the city of dillam springs, 90% of homes flooded, and in about half of the structures flooded, it will cost owners over 50% of the value of the building to repair. 90% of the housing stock in this town has been flooded. according to estimates by the advocate newspaper, the paper in the baton rouge area,

mr. cassidy: i rise today to honor corporal monroe jackson. it's been a tough, tough summer in louisiana. not only did we have the floods of which i spoke yesterday but we had a shooting with civil unrest afterwards and then three officers killed and several others shot. and so i will speak today to these officers. on july 17, the three men i mentioned gave their lives while protecting power community when ambushed reporting to a 911 call. deputy nick touile, nick simmons and officer chad montgomery were also injured during this attack. thankfully deputy simmons and officer montgomery have returned home to their families, but deputy touille remains in the hospital. please keep him in your thoughts and prayers. speaking of those who died, corporal jackson was a ten year veteran of the baton rouge police department, a loving husband to his wife tanisha and father to his four-month-old child mason. following the shooting of mr. sterling, he wrote on his facebook page i want to send prayers out to everyone affected by this tragedy. please don't le

mr. cassidy: mr. president, i rise again today to bring attention to the devastating floods to my state of louisiana, being called the great flood of 2016. in a few days 7.1 million gallons of rain fell in louisiana, more than fell from katrina. the flooding caused $8.7 billion worth of damage to homes and businesses. a flood event of this magnitude is such a low probability it's called a thousand-year flood. to put this in perspective, statistically, the last time a flood of this magnitude would have occurred in this area would have been 500 years before christopher columbus discovered the americas. it is hard to comprehend, but this chart may help. we all know the devastation caused by hurricane sandy and of katrina, rita and wilma in 2005. here is the -- and this is from the 19 -- excuse me -- 1871 chicago flood. this is the fourth-largest disaster -- i'm sorry, the fifth after the 1906 san francisco earthquake. in the last 100 years, this is the third-largest disaster in american history. , the 20

mr. trumka: >> on "newsmakers," bill cassidy talks about the flooding in his state, the all agenda for congress, funding the fight against the zika virus, and more. sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 6 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> rappers tony blackman and stickman talk about why they started rapping at a young age. this is a portion of the panel discussion for the panel of civil and human rights in atlanta. [applause] >> all right. so, just to set the tone for the conversation, we have so much talent, each and every one of you, we could spend this entire evening talking to you, so we're going to get into a number of different topics today. i want to try to hit on as much as we possibly can, which means i'll sometimes move the conversation along. please don't write a song about me, like i don't want the next reagan to be this indian boy -- i don't need that. i'm all good. so, but just, you know, if i -- i want to keep us having a real conversation here. the other thing is i don't want this to be like any other panel. i would like to get as deep as possible into some of these topics that a lot of people ski