mr. lankford: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. lankford: mr. president, i was in a conversation with a group of oklahomans just last week. the issue of net neutrality came up in that conversation. a gentleman there who publishes content on the internet said he's very concerned about net neutrality and wanted to make sure that the content that he had he could continue to publish and he would not have to go to every single i.s.p., inter net service provider across k the country and negotiate a deal with them. and that's what happens with net neutrality. i said it's very interesting. has that happened to you? have you faced that? and he said no, but i'm afraid i might. here's the problem we have with this conversation about net neutrality. for 20 years the internet functioned under a very clear set of rules. the federal communications commission had a set of rules for both content providers and for the fiber, the internet service providers. a clear set of rules. they couldn't violate any trade practices. they couldn't do monopolies. they couldn't

mr. lankford: mr. president, i ask for the ability to be able to have unanimous consent to have a colloquy with chairman isakson. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. lankford: mr. president, i do want to thank chairman isakson for the work that he's done on this. it's been a long road to be able to work through to reforming the v.a. the v.a. is exceptionally complicated. there are a lot of interests that are engaged with this. he's heard a lot of voices from all over the country and all over this town to be able to help resolve some of the issues and bring them together. this is exceptionally important, though, for our veterans, especially for our veterans that live in rural areas very far from health care. so section 101 of this bill requires the v.a. to give access to community care for a veteran or veterans -- when a veteran or veteran's referring clinician agree that furnishing care or services in the community would be in the best interests of the veteran after considering certain criter

mr. tillis: thank you, senator lankford. i withent to turkey. i spent nine days, met with business leaders, met with president erdogan. i hosted a delegation to talk about how north carolina and turkey could build stronger economic advertise. we both have textile and furniture industry. as senator language ford said, the turkey of today bears no relationship to that turkey i visited about seven years ago, the turkey i visited a few weeks allege. i'd like to be talking about how we help turkey take the fight to the terrorist organizations that are threatening their homeland. i'd like to work more with turkey as we have this week to identify isis leaders, detain them, and make that region safer. i'd like to be a member of the senate armed services is committee -- i sit right next to senator sullivan -- fighting for additional n.d.a. provisions that underscore our commitment to turkey. but now i am ape at a fork in the road. right now i've only got one position to take. that is to put turkey on notice for their bad actions as a nato ally and for th

senator lankford: cooperation, communication between d.h.s. and y'all are consistent right now? mr. evanina: that's correct. senator lankford: thank you. i yield back. >> mr. evanina, welcome. delighted to have you here today and appreciate the service that you provided. . nator king: this is a very serious challenge. that brings me to your comment page --question 16 of the prehearing questions, you said i remain concerned that we may still be underestimating russian capabilities and plans to influence the 2018 midterm and future elections. that's a chilling statement. could you elaborate on that a bit? mr. evanina: thank you, senator. i would say anyone in my profession for intelligence community would underestimate the potential of the russian federation, putin, or intelligence services and their capabilities. more importantly their intent. i think what we saw in the last election cycle their intent is there. the first statement, that opportunity for us, analytical community, federal government, to provide enhanced training and awareness of the deep fake and partner op with the pri

with that the chair recognizes senator lankford. >> mr. chairman, thank you very much.ss haspel, thank you for your over three decades of work for our nation. the lack of recognition that you have had for three decades from our nation because you've served in a way that no one has seen, so this is an opportunity we get to be able to say thank you to you. >> thank you. >> for a lot of years of a lot of service being able to protect our nation. it's also pretty remarkable in some of the dialogue today as i go through the very long list of people that have recommended you and that are both republican and democrats and to be able to see the reports that have been written by the inspectors general about you, about previous doj about you, that have cleared you of any concerns and that have reaffirmed you and whether it is president obama's director of the cia, john brennan or whether it is jim clapper, director of national intelligence for president obama, henry kissinger, john mclaughlin, mike morell, mike mull casey, john neg row upon day, leon upon net at that, george tena

mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator lankford. senator manchin. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. thank you, secretary, it's good to be with you. first of all, we finally got a bill called jesse's law and i think i sent you a letter on that and i want to follow up on that because it's just a common sense piece of legislation, this beautiful girl jesse grub as you know had an injury and she was an addict and she was trying to clean up and she was doing very well in rehab and went -- had a running injury and went to a michigan hospital and she told the doctors her parents were with her and she was so proud of being a recovering addict and wanted to be careful about her markings on her -- all of her transcripts as far as her admission to the procedure she was going to need. to me i just thought it was common sense that we market as if are you allergic to penicillin, something very critical. it wasn't. she got discharged, discharging doctor didn't see it, gave her a prescription of oxycontin and she had overdosed by that evening and died. so what we're saying is this piece of legislat

lankford. >> thank you, mr. chairman. let me add to that conversation a little bit before i jump into questions. i'm one of the skeptical individuals that so far has not evolved on this issue of marijuana. i have a hard time believing if only more of our parents smoked more marijuana our kids and families would be so much better and employment would be so much better if more of our employees smoked more marijuana. i have a hard time believing that. as far as med inial issues this is issue this nih has done work on. it has several billions dollars that appropriations has allocated to them to be able to study pain medication that is to address that. was entirely appropriate taae we have an opioid epidemic. i've not swapped an opioid epidemic switch to marijuana hand say we solved the problem. we didn't solve the problem so i would love to continue to maintain this. there are ways to manage other different kinds of things to manage pain. but our preference would be our nation doesn't become more addicted to marijuana to solv

lankford as fiscal year 2019 process moves forward in appropriations. >> i want to recognize the vice chairman of the full committee for an opening statement as well. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i note that both senator shelby and i are very anxious and i know chairman lankford and senator koontz you are, too, to get all the appropriations bills through in regular order. i am worried, mr. secretary, and that's why i'm going to have to leave to work on another one of the bills but we have this tax bill which some praise, others consider as i do a corporate tax give away. corporate ceos are happy with the results, stock buybacks are booming. j.p. morgan chase is estimated it could reach an all time high this year but vermonters feel that washington has put the corporations ahead of their own interests. whether it's a relative pittance working families receive in relief, amounts so low that some polls have shown that more than half of americans report not noticing an increase in their paychecks or the rising health care premiums they face, they feel it was a bad deal. on top of that, the tax cuts were put on the nation's credit card. also what they find is the irs has

lankford and ranking member coons. congratulations on the new chairmanship, mr. chairman. when i grow up i want to be you. i want to thank chairman pai and chairman simons for coming here today. congratulate chairman simons for your recent confirmation. i truly look forward to working with both of you regarding the concerns of montana. i would love to have you both back out in the state. chairman pai has been out there before. chairman pie, i recently returned from leading congressional delegation to china. i lead a delegation there every year. i spent five years working there with proctor & gamble back in the '90s. i fear that we are losing the race to 5g. the united states led and we won the race to 4g but i am concerned that we are falling behind. one of the big obstacles, access to spectrum. china has the ability to set aside large swaths of prime spectrum while the u.s. has difficulty opening up even modest amounts of prime 5g spectrum. my question is what is the commission doing to deal with this very important issue and ensure the united states remains the worldwide leader? >> senator, thank you fo

mr. lankford: ask unanimous consent the senate resume legislative session for period of morning business with senators permitted to speak up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. klobuchar: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. klobuchar: senator blunt and i were here on the floor earlier to talk about the bill that just passed through the senate unanimously and that is a bill dealing with the sexual harassment and other harassment rules of the congress. this was a joint effort, and i wanted to take an opportunity, first of all, to thank everyone that was involved in this. first and foremost, senator blunt, who has been a true partner. we have worked on everything together from adoption to tourism, and last month when he took over from senator shelby's able leader the rules committee, he and i worked together on changing the senate's rules for the first time in the history of the senate to be more family friendly and work with senator tammie duckworth so that her baby will be allowed on the floor, as will other children of male

mr. president, thank you for the time today. i'll be back next week and i'll be back every week until we see justice served for pastor brunson. thank you, senator lankford. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: all postcloture time has expired, and the question occurs on the nomination. 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 wishing to change their vote? if not, the yeas are 49. the nays are 46. the nomination is confirmed. under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table, and the president will be immediately notified of the senate's action. the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion. we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate to bring to a close debate on the nomination of joel m. carson, iii, of new mexico to be united states circuit judge. the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. the senate will be in order. t