mr. franken. >> aye. >> mr. coons. >> mr. blumenthal. >> mr. chairman. >> aye. >> mr. chairman votes are 11 yeas, seven nays. >> the senator from texas. >> so you don't think i'm trying to pull your leg, there was a complete substitute -- >> they emailed into our office at 4:16 yesterday. >> ok. trust me. my brother in law is a good guy. i know you have. he has done the prayer at the opening of the session several times. i must say, it has nothing to do with it. one of the things he has found the biggest thrill when he has been been visiting clergymen for the senate is being able to spend the day on the floor, and so many senators, republicans and democrats alike, i yield to senator feinstein. >> thank you very much. i want to thank you for allowing me to hold the hearing. i want to report to you that we heard from one bereft and grieving father, who lost a precious son at sandy hook. we heard from the trauma surgeon there, who took care of their bodies. and talk about what these weapons, what the bullets do when they explode inside the body. we heard from the head of

mr. franken. >> no. >> mr. coons. >> yes. >> ms. hirono. mr. grassley. >> aye. >> mr. hatch. >> aye. >> mr. sessions. >> aye by proxy. >> mr. cornyn. >> aye. >> mr. lee. >> aye. >> mr. cruz. >> aye. >> mr. flake. >> aye. >> mr. chairman. >> no. >> mr. chairman, nine yeas, nine nays. senator grassley. >> can i ask, is it going to be possible to get this done before the chairman and i go for a briefing, like how many more -- >> don't believe so. i don't know about your schedule, but i have a number of other amendments. so i'd be happy to -- >> in that case, we will -- we're not going to be able to finish, and because of the -- senator grassley or senator fine tine and i are able to talk about the nature of this briefing, so we will -- we will recess subject to the call of the chair, but -- and we will get this bill completed. i appreciate the honesty of the senator from texas' answers. we stand recess subject to the call. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] >> well, the senate judiciary committe

mr. franken. >> no. >> mr. coons. >> no by proxy. >> mr. blumenthal. >> no. >> ms. hirono. >> no. >> mr. hatch. >> no. >> mr. sessions. >> aye by proxy. >> mr. cornyn. >> aye by proxy. >> mr. lee. >> aye by proxy. >> mr. cruz. >> aye. >> mr. chairman. >> no. >> mr. chairman, the votes are eight yeas and 10 nays. >> the amendment fails. not necessarily because of this last amendment. i was thinking of some of the discussions of what kind of firepower people need in their homes. one of the discussions sounded almost like somebody had been one to these movies, the zombie takeovers. i've always been perfectly satisfied in my .45 i have at home. others too. even we have people escaping from prison announcing they were going to kill me, i felt pretty comfortable with that. i didn't feel necessary to shoot up my neighborhood with a semiautomatic assault weapon. i guess depends on how good a shot they are. senator cornyn. >> mr. chairman, we certainly won't ask you to inventory your arsenal that you maintain at your home in vermont. >> we will lose a quorum. >> before senat

mr. franken: thank you, mr. president. i rise to talk about the budget that we're proposing. as three -- has three basic giending principles. first, we must protect our fragile economic recovery by creating jobs and investing in economic growth. i remember when we did this during the clinton administration. president clinton proposed as a deficit reduction package raising income taxes on those that -- those above $250,000 to 36.9% and every republican voted against it. every republican voted against it, and many of them went on record saying that this was going to cause a recession. some members of this body voted against it saying that was going to cause a recession, it would be clinton's recession. 22.7 million jobs later, the deficit -- there was no deficit. we had a surplus. this idea that we hear from the other side that every time you raise taxes, you hurt the economy just defies history. all we are to do is looking at recent history. and especially now at a time when there's such disparity in income, growing disparity in income in our country, and what we're trying to

mr. franken. >> no. >> mr. coons. >> yes. >> ms. hirono. mr. grassley. >> aye. >> mr. hatch. >> aye. >> mr. sessions. >> aye by proxy. >> mr. cornyn. >> aye. >> mr. lee. >> aye. >> mr. cruz. >> aye. >> mr. flake. >> aye. >> mr. chairman. >> no. >> mr. chairman, nine yeas, nine nays. senator grassley. >> can i ask, is it going to be possible to get this done before the chairman and i go for a briefing, like how many more -- >> don't believe so. i don't know about your schedule, but i have a number of other amendments. so i'd be happy to -- >> in that case, we're not going to be able to finish, and because of the -- senator grassley or senator fine tine and i are able to talk about the nature of this briefing, so we will -- we will recess subject to the call of the chair, but -- and we will get this bill completed. i appreciate the honesty of the senator from texas' answers. we stand recess subject to the call. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] the >> coming up -- >> wednesday, senator rand pa

mr. franken. >> aye. >> mr. graham. >> no by proxy. >> mr. cornyn. >> no. >> mr. lee. >> no by proxy. >> mr. chairman. >> aye. >> mr. chairman votes are 11 yeas, seven nays. >> the senator from texas. >> so you don't think i'm trying to pull your leg, there was a complete substitute -- >> you're not the one that talked about my brother-in-law. >> there was a complete substitute at your office at 4:16 yesterday. is when we got the language. >> i was on the floor introducing it on monday. >> i'm not saying you personally delivered it to our office. i'm saying your shop emailed it to our office at 4:16 yesterday. that's my only point. thank you. >> all right. and trust me my brother-in-law's a good guy. >> i had the honor of meeting your brother-in-law. >> i know you have. and he's done the prayer at the opening of the session several times. i must say just for -- it has nothing to do with this thing, but one of the things that he's found the biggest thrill when he has been the visiting clergyman for the senate is being able to spend the day on the floor. and so many

mr. franken. thank you. mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. mr. franken: i rise today to talk about the promise of biomedical innovation in our country, as senator klobuchar was. i talk about the importance of biomedical innovation because in my home state of minnesota, there are 400 medical device companies and there are more than 30,000 employees support our economy while creating high-quality jobs. and they do it while saving patients' lives and improving their lives. but the industry is being punished for its innovation and -- and growth. the medical device tax is cutting into the proceeds that go toward research and development and work force training. and by taxing companies on the first dollar of sales, they are especially hurting the very small companies, start-up companies which may not be in profit yet. and that's why i'm happy to join with senator klobuchar, with senator hatch in filing this amendment to the budget resolution to allow for the repeal of the medical device tax. this amendment is an important first step towards fully repeal

mr. franken. >> aye. >> mr. graham. >> no by proxy. >> mr. cornyn. >> no. >> mr. lee. >> no by proxy. >> mr. chairman. >> aye. >> mr. chairman votes are 11 yeas, seven nays. >> the senator from texas. >> so you don't think i'm trying to pull your leg, there was a complete substitute -- >> you're not the one that talked about my brother-in-law. >> there was a complete substitute at your office at 4:16 yesterday. is when we got the language. >> i was on the floor introducing it on monday. >> i'm not saying you personally delivered it to our office. i'm saying your shop emailed it to our office at 4:16 yesterday. that's my only point. thank you. >> all right. and trust me my brother-in-law's a good guy. >> i had the honor of meeting your brother-in-law. >> i know you have. and he's done the prayer at the opening of the session several times. i must say just for -- it has nothing to do with this thing, but one of the things that he's found the biggest thrill when he has been the visiting clergyman for the senate is being able to spend the day on the floor. and so many

mr. chairman. as chair of privacies of the committee, senator franken takes of these issues with some frequency and i reminded when i first came to this committee someone noted the work privacy cannot be filed in our constitution but we have established that right and most of us believed it is a very important right that we cherish and wants to protect and that is what this conversation is about. we are trying to take a document, constitution in this case, written many years ago, and apply it to the modern world. at times we have had to struggle with that. the telephone was beyond anyone's imagination when the constitution was written. the trafficking that goes on on computers, 20 or 30 years ago was unthinkable. i will tell you serving as chairman of the subcommittee that deals with the military and our intelligence operations the capacity that we have for surveillance is dramatically improving and we are using it to our benefit to keep america safe and i am glad the we are. we may lead the world in that category and i want us to continue to but when it comes to this emerging technology that chall

franken. >> thank you, mr. chairman, congratulations. thank you for coming to my office. we had a great discussion on issues that matter to me. he did talk about climate change for a little bit. and when we talk about the issue of wildfires, we have the director of the forest service here and i asked him if the size of these fires, the intensity of these wildfires, you talk about invasive species and bark beetles that are living in higher altitudes. whether they felt that this was exacerbated by climate change and they said yes, without hesitation. so i know that a big part of what you're going to be working with is mitigation and the effects of climate change. we talked about that. thank you. >> i know that senator johnson brought up lewis and clarke, that is an issue that is important to us in southwestern minnesota. also northwestern iowa. the secretary said it was a priority. just as places you know where all of the local governments have not just paid 100% of their share, but also paying on top of that to get water that isn't being delivered there. is there a differe

mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator franken. senator grassley. >> once again, thank you for coming up here. i want to follow up on your response to senator cruise and i think he talked about introducing a bill. do you believe congress has the constitutional authority are hitting the president's ability to use strong aircraft for lethal force against american citizens on u.s. soil? and if not, why not? >> do i think the congress has the ability to pass a bill? >> the legislation -- congress has the constitutional authority to pass a law prohibiting the presidents of utility to use lethal force against american citizens on u.s. soil. >> i'm not sure such a bill would be constitutional. that might run contrary to the powers the president has. i would have that concern. >> okay. your basis is because of article ii? >> i believe so, yes. >> one last question in that area. given the belief it would be caught to two chanel to use lethal force against american citizens on u.s. soil and an instant his eyes he said, with that theory extend to permitting the executive branch to use enhanced interrogat

mr. wallison your narrative on international finance narrative? did you find that was similar to that of dr. franken how was a different? >> it is somewhat similar but applies only to banks which is somewhat different from dodd/frank and in the case of systemically important institutions it could be any. there are similarities and differences but with basil they try to micromanage the assets that banks hold in we should have learned the lessons what happened in the financial crisis that has been completely ignored that banks were herded into owning not all the mortgages, but also mortgage-backed securities. overdoing the same thing at the same time with the basal regulation. that was a huge mistake. we paid for it. net asset mortgages declined in value, mortgage-backed securities declined and all banks look weak at the same time especially with mark to market accounting. it is a big mistake through basal womack one and womack to and during the same thing now with basal iii. so the average between equity with any asset they want to carry and that means they will look different that means is they're n

mr. chairman. as chair of the privacy subcommittee, senator franken takes up these issues with some frequency. and i'm reminded when i first came to this committee someone noted that the word privacy cannot be found in our constitution. but we have established that right and i believe most of us believe it's a very important right that we cherish and want to protect. that is what this conversation is about. we are trying to take a document, the constitution in this case, written many years ago, and apply it to the modern world. at times we have had to struggle with that. the telephone was beyond anyone's imagination when the constitution was written. internets and all trafficking that goes on through computers. 20 or 30 years ago was unthinkable. i will tell you serving as chairman of the subcommittee that deals with the military and our intelligence operations, the capacity that we have for surveillance is dramatically improving. and we are using it to our benefit to keep america safe. i'm glad that we are. we may lead the world in that category. i want us to continue to. but when it comes to

franken. >> thank you. i want to thank all the witnesses for being here today. we met a few weeks ago, mr. heslin. i want to thank you for being here, for sharing your store of -- story. i read your testimony. jesse sounds like he was a remarkable young boy. in your testimony, i read that the last words he said were run or run now. the witnesses are disputing if he said "run" or "run now." and that he was shot -- >> he was shot two times in that was not the fatal shot. he was one of five students in his class killed. 10 of those students survive. it was stated by several surviving student debt jesse yelled "run, run now. >> he was coming -- >> the fatal shot was in his forehead. it exited behind the hairline. he looked at adam lanza in the eye. he did not run, he did not turn his back. >> i want to thank you for your courage to be here despite how painful it is. all minnesotans have you and your family and all the families that are here in their prayers and thoughts. we are trying to do what we can do to save lives. i talked about this in my opening statement. imagine this, i imagine that. so far

mr. franken, mr. hatch, and mr. lee. the presiding officer: the measure will be received and appropriately referred. mr. leahy: i thank the chair. mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum and ask the time be equally divided. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call: quorum call: quorum call: quorum call: mr. cardin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: i ask that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. the question is on the taranto nomination. mr. cardin: i will ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote: vote: vote: the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? hearing none, the yeas are 91, the nays are zero. the nomination is confirmed. the presiding officer: under the previous question -- orb, under the previous order, the