Floor Statements

Mr. President, yesterday I mentioned to the Senate that I had been reading a book by Caroline Kennedy called ``A Patriot's Handbook.'' I have been looking at the book. It was given to my wife for Mother's Day a number of years ago.

I mentioned yesterday that I read about one of John McCain's experiences in a Vietnam prison camp. It will take me just a minute and a half or so to read this, but this is what I paraphrased yesterday that I will read today. It is ``The Mike Christian Story'' by Senator John McCain in his book ``Faith of Our Fathers.''

Mike was a Navy Bombardier-navigator who had been shot down

in 1967, about 6 months before I arrived. He had grown up

near Selma, Alabama. His family was poor. He had not worn

shoes until he was 13 years old. Character was their wealth.

They were good, righteous people, and they raised Mike to be

hardworking and loyal. He was 17 when he enlisted in the

Navy. As a young sailor, he showed promise as a leader and

impressed his superiors enough to be offered a commission.

What packages we were allowed to receive from our families

often contained handkerchiefs, scarves, and other clothing

items. For some time, Mike had been taking little scraps of

red and white cloth, and with a needle he had fashioned from

a piece of bamboo he laboriously sewed an American flag into

the inside of his prisoner's shirt. Every afternoon, before

we ate our soup, we would hang

Mike's flag on the wall of our cell and together recite the

Pledge of Allegiance. No other event of the day had as much

meaning to us.

The guards discovered Mike's flag one afternoon during a

routine inspection and confiscated it. They returned that

evening and took Mike outside. For our benefit as much as

Mike's, they beat him severely, just outside our cell,

puncturing his eardrum and breaking several of his ribs. When

they finished, they dragged him bleeding and nearly senseless

back into our cell, and we helped him crawl to his place on

the sleeping platform. After things quieted down, we all lay

down to go to sleep. Before drifting off, I happened to look

toward a corner of the room, where one of the four naked

light bulbs that were always illuminated in our cell cast a

dim light on Mike Christian. He had crawled there when he

thought the rest of us were sleeping. With his eyes nearly

swollen shut from the beating, he had quietly picked up his

needle and thread and begun sewing a new flag.

I witnessed many acts of heroism in prison, but none braver

than that. As I watched him, I felt a surge of pride at

serving with him, and an equal measure of humility for

lacking that extra ration of courage that distinguished Mike

Christian from other men.

I mentioned this yesterday because I had it in my mind when we saluted the flag. I said yesterday--and I will repeat and paraphrase today--when we salute the flag, we should remember the Mike Christians of the world who sacrificed so much so that we can salute the flag.

Mr. President, I love baseball season. I have never had the good fortune of having a team I grew up with, as has my colleague, the senior Senator from Illinois--Cubs fan, where he lives, White Sox fan-- but I have loved baseball since I was a little boy. I love baseball season. I go to games. I think I can go to one this Saturday, unless something comes up. But I do go home at night--and I have spoken with the Republican leader about the pleasure we get from watching a little bit of the baseball games every evening. I do enjoy that.

I have watched over the years these managers. I spent so much time in southern Nevada, in Las Vegas. The baseball team most everyone in Las Vegas watched and listened to was the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the manager for much of that time, after I came back here, was Tommy Lasorda, and he was like so many managers, he was a character. He was a showman. I assume he picked some of the times to pick a fight with the umpire because he was upset with a call, but I think part of it was his idea that the team needed something a little extra. Tommy Lasorda would go out there, and he was famous for kicking the dirt and yelling loudly at the umpire and making sure he used a lot of swear words. That was the manager. He wasn't the only one. Tommy Lasorda comes to my mind. And, on occasion, he would get thrown out of the game.

Why did he do this? Was he upset at the call? At times it got real ugly, with chest thumping and, as I indicated, kicking dirt. Lou Pinella was famous for that. He would kick dirt sometimes on an umpire and it usually got him kicked out of the game. As I indicated, they tried to keep it clean, but those baseball managers and players sometimes have a vocabulary that is for locker rooms and they would say mean-spirited things to the umpire, and certainly what they said wasn't suitable for children.

A lot of times they exited the game after being told they were ejected to divert attention from what was going on with their team. It was a gimmick many times, a distraction meant to sidetrack one side and rally the other.

In the House of Representatives, the Republican leadership is trying a similar tactic by threatening to bring a lawsuit against the President of the United States. They are searching desperately for something--anything--to keep the radicals within their own pockets over there happy. That is hard to do, as we have seen. They want to do this to divert the American people's attention from their very own inaction.

The Presiding Officer doesn't have to take my word for it--no one has to--because conservative pundits are falling over themselves to criticize this ploy. Even last night, Sarah Palin--what did Sarah Palin say? She said, ``You don't bring a lawsuit to a gun fight, and there's no room for lawyers on our front lines.'' That is Sarah Palin. That is what she thinks of the action by the Republican leadership in the House. She wants to go even further, whatever that is.

One Republican pundit said it was political theater. Another called the lawsuit feckless.

However they choose to label it, there is one thing that conservatives, liberals, and moderates agree on: This lawsuit is nothing more than a political stunt. It is nothing more than kicking dirt at the umpire. This feeble attempt to pick a fight with President Obama is intended to draw attention away from the House's inertia on issues important to the American people, such as immigration. More than a year ago we passed immigration and the other House has refused to do anything about it, creating lots of problems, and causing this great country of ours to go further in debt. One trillion dollars would result in reducing our debt if we could pass that legislation. We did it; the House should do it.

All we are asking is that the middle class get a fair shot, whether it is raising the minimum wage, whether it is student debt, which is stunningly high--the highest debt we have in America today is student debt, $1.3 trillion. We need to do something about fair pay for women, that they get the same money men get for doing the very same work. A fair shot--that is what the American middle class deserves, and the House Republicans are refusing to give them any shot at fairness.

Instead of considering all of these important legislative initiatives--I mentioned only a few--the tea party House is content to put on a show, to kick a little dirt--a big, expensive show, in many instances. Who pays for the charade they are talking about over there? The American taxpayers.

Let me give one example. Benghazi. Benghazi was a tragedy, but there is no political conspiracy. Here is what they have done, mostly in the House: 13 public hearings, 15 Member and staff briefings, over 25,000 pages of documents from the White House. Now they are using taxpayer money on a large-scale stunt that isn't new for them. They have other stunts such as the supposed lawsuit. But they have now set up a 12- member Benghazi panel they are creating. They intend to spend $3.3 million this year--this year, which has just a few months left in it-- $3.3 million, as they try once again to turn a real tragedy into some kind of a conspiracy.

To put that number in perspective, think about this: The Benghazi panel will outspend the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs. The House Committee on Veterans' Affairs has 25 Members of Congress and it has about 30 staff members. The Benghazi little program they are putting on over there will spend more money than the entire Veterans Affairs' Committee in the House.

We are still waiting for the House to come together with us to do something about the veterans emergency we have. They have forgotten about what is going on around the country. We need thousands of new personnel in the Veterans Affairs Department, and the House refuses to complete the conference with Chairman Sanders.

Much like the other sideshows put on by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, this so-called lawsuit is baseless. When Sarah Palin thinks you are going too far, you better take a look at it by the tea party-driven House over there. And the House direction of the lawsuit--people keep asking the House leadership: On what are you going to sue him? They do not know. They are working on it. But they are going to have a lawsuit. They are going to kick around a little dirt. I am in no position to offer legal guidance, but I have been in court a few times. You know your case is in big trouble when you cannot specify the reason you are filing the lawsuit.

So the leadership in the House of Representatives should put aside this ill-fated venture and leave the chest-bumping and dirt-kicking charade to baseball managers.

President Obama is doing something to solve problems, and Republicans are suing him because they want to do nothing, and that is sad. Republicans in the House would be better served spending their efforts and resources passing legislation, giving the middle class a fair shot.

Mr. President, I yield back the time.

I ask unanimous consent that the time be yielded back.

On behalf of Senator Udall of Colorado, I call up amendment No. 3469.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on that amendment.

I have a second-degree amendment at the desk.

Mr. President, I have a motion to commit S. 2363, and it has instructions.

I ask for the yeas and nays on that motion.

Mr. President, I have a second-degree amendment at the desk.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

I have a second-degree amendment at the desk.

I have a cloture motion at the desk.

I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum under rule XXII be waived.

I now move to proceed to Calendar No. 438, S. 2244.

I want the record to reflect how much I appreciate the hard work of the Senator from North Carolina, Senator Hagan, working on this bipartisan bill. She did it with the ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Senator Murkowski, and they have done good work coming up with this bill.

But the Senator from Alaska spoke this morning about her desire for consideration of amendments. Typical, typical, typical of the last 6 years here. This bill has 26 Republican cosponsors. This bill was brought up 2 years ago. They have worked hard to improve the bill since then, and you would think with 26 Republican cosponsors to this bill we could move forward on it. But, as usual, they come down here and they say, well, a good bill, but we want to have a bunch of amendments.

I am all for consideration of amendments on this bill. We all are. But the Republicans can't agree on what amendments they want.

I just met with a number of people earlier today about this and explained to them how we used to do things. There wasn't on virtually every piece of legislation a necessity to get cloture on a bill and now even to get on a bill we need cloture, as we find on the bill we just finished some procedural work on, the sportsmen's bill. It affects millions and millions of Americans, but they want amendments. They want amendments because they want to kill the bill as they have tried to kill everything in the last 6 years.

So I repeat, I am all for consideration of amendments. But as we have repeatedly done, we need to have a list of amendments from which to work. Senators have for decades and decades started with a list of amendments and worked through those lists. So I ask Republicans, if you want an amendment process, bring me a reasonable list that leads to passage of the bill.

They can't do that because they can't agree on what amendments they want, and there are so many examples. Energy efficiency is something similar to this, where the senior Senator from New Hampshire worked on a bill with--it doesn't matter if it was the senior or junior Senator-- Senator Portman. They worked together on this legislation for months and months--in fact, about a year--and we had a bill on the floor and we were moving forward. I was told before the bill, by the Republicans, let's get this done; it is a great bill.

So I am again reflecting on what happened with the history here.

They said before recess, we need a sense-of-the-Senate on Keystone. I said we have an agreement. Why do we need to do that? But I said OK, a few hours later, you want that, let's do it, because this bill is important.

We need to do that. The recess was a week. We came back. They said: Well, we want to change things a little bit. We want an up-or-down vote on Keystone. They keep changing things. That is not right.

I said: OK, we will vote on Keystone.

They couldn't take yes for an answer. We agreed for an up-or-down vote for Keystone. They wouldn't take it. It is the same thing on this, a bill the Republicans support. They oppose their own legislation. So we are going to move forward.

Now we have the terrorism insurance legislation that I just moved to proceed to. This is an important piece of legislation. Let's hope we can get this done. If we can't, construction in America--whether it is in Indiana, Nevada, Maryland, Iowa, Oregon or Mississippi; it doesn't matter where it is--won't go forward because people won't be able to get insurance.

So I would hope we can get this bill done, but we will see. There are discussions going on, and we will get the same: Yes, I think we can work something out. But when it comes right down to it, Republicans can't agree on what they want. I hope on that important piece of legislation we can get a list of amendments from the Republicans. I am told they are willing to do that. I hope that in fact is the case, because it would be a shame for our country if we couldn't get this done.

The economy is doing better. We added almost 300,000 jobs last reporting period. But if we can't get this done and we can't get the highway bill done, it is going to be a slam to our economy.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, there is a cloture motion at the desk.

I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum call under rule XXII be waived.

Mr. President, I move to proceed to legislative session.

Mr. President, there is a cloture motion at the desk, and I ask that it be reported.

I ask that the mandatory quorum call under rule XXII be waived.

I now move to proceed to legislative session.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at noon tomorrow, July 10, the Senate proceed to executive session and consider Calendar Nos. 903, 695, and 895; that the time until 2 p.m. be equally divided in the usual form on the Donovan nomination; that upon the use or yielding back of that time, the Senate proceed to vote, with no intervening action or debate, on the nominations in the order listed; that there be 2 minutes for debate, equally divided in the usual form, prior to the votes on the Silliman and Smith nominations; that all rollcall votes after the first be 10 minutes in length; further, that if any nomination is confirmed, the motion will be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to the nomination; that any statements related to the nomination be printed in the Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate resume legislative session.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule XXII, on Tuesday, July 15, 2014, at noon the Senate proceed to executive session and vote on the motions to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar Nos. 839 and 842 in the order listed; further, that if cloture is invoked on either of these nominations, on Tuesday, July 15, 2014, at 3 p.m. all postcloture time be expired and the Senate proceed to vote on the confirmation of the nominations in the order upon which cloture was invoked; further, that there be 2 minutes for debate prior to each vote; that if any nomination is confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate resume legislative session.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the energy committee be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 291 and H.R. 356; that the Senate proceed to their consideration and the consideration of the following calendar number items en bloc: Calendar No. 256, H.R. 255; Calendar No. 226, H.R. 330; Calendar No. 359, H.R. 507; Calendar No. 353, H.R. 697; Calendar No. 361, H.R. 876; Calendar No. 362, H.R. 1158; Calendar No. 399, H.R. 2337; Calendar No. 369, H.R. 3110; Calendar No. 54, S. 247; Calendar No. 57, S. 311; Calendar No. 60, S. 354; Calendar No. 129, S. 363; Calendar No. 118, S. 476; and Calendar No. 120, S. 609.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the committee- reported amendments to S. 247, S. 311, S. 476, and S. 609 be agreed to; the Coburn amendment to S. 311 be agreed to; that the bills be read three times and passed en bloc; and the motions to reconsider be considered made, with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of H.R. 272.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read three times and passed, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.