i think the f c c letter goes a long way the f c c actions go a long way without getting too technical about it they have taken a number of steps to prevent what are called fails to deliver and therefore to try to stop the naked short selling situation but i have discovered something that appears to be a way around the f c c rules here's the transaction broker a shorts a thousand shares at the end of thirteen days which is the period he has to produce the shares he's been unable to find any probably hasn't even looked but he has this rigo requirement under the f c c rule to produce a thousand shares so he goes to broker b and says quietly sell me a thousand share broker b says i don't have any broker raises doesn't matter just sell me a thousand shares so i can cover broker b says all right i'll sell you a thousand shares so you can cover and i will there be no doubt there will be no passage of money this is just a deal between the two of us are all over the end of thirteen days broker b has to deliver a thousand shares so a broker a sells the same thousand phantom shares back to broker b and they ping pong these back and forth for as long as they want so you can have a situation where people are selling shares that don't exist taking commissions on the sale and the profits of the sale and never ever having to produce the shares i think it is serious enough that we ought to have a hearing about this in the banking committee and i've spoken to the chairman of the banking committee senator dodd and asked him if it wouldn't be possible for to have such a hearing at some point in the future and he's expressed a willingness to do that i can understand we can't set a time for that right now there are too many other things going on in the banking committee but i'm delighted to know that he's willing to cooperate with us in examining this and i would like to suggest several things that i would like to discuss at that hearing first by the way i want the officials of the d t c see to have the opportunity to come in explain how it really works i have seen a letter to the editor in the wall street journal where they say this article is inaccurate and i don't want to be relying on this article if it is inaccurate and i think a congressional hearing is a good place for those who are running the d see to explain to us how it really works and i would like the f c c to come in and give us their background and information as to how their rules are working to try to stop the naked short selling but i have these two additional recommendations that i would hope we could get done by regulation and if not i'm prepared to introduce legislation to deal with them first i think there should be a rule that says that there cannot be borrowing that brokers cannot borrow for short sales more stock than is on deposit with the d t c see think that's just obvious if there are three million shares of z company on deposit at the d t c see people should not be able to short sell four million shares i've seen the situation where people with these small companies and all of this happens primarily i little companies they were small companies in an effort to defend their stock against the short sales that are rolling already are buying stock and it's electronically credited to them and end up on paper or at least on computer owning more shares than exist how can that be as somebody buys the stock for his company and ends up owning one hundred ten percent of the issued stock and people are still selling that stock you know you're dealing with phantom shares so my first recommendation would be that the d t c c cannot make available as loans for short sellers more stock than they have on the positive once they have reached the point that one hundred percent of the shares they have on deposit have been loaned out they can't loan out anymore i thinks that's just an obvious common sense recommendation but it doesn't apply now and secondly i think there ought to be a rule that says that our broker cannot be paid a commission on a short sale until the shares are delivered back to the business model a broker sells five thousand dollars worth of stock you can do it every day you can get five thousand dollars every day without ever having to cover the stock and he gets a commission on making the sale so if you say no there will be no commissions paid and tell the stock is delivered you will have a significant impact on stopping this activity now people who hear the calm the complaints about naked short selling say it only represents a tiny percentage of the trillions of dollars worth of trading activity that goes on in american markets every day they're right it is only a tiny percentage but that small comfort to those who have gotten a few dollars together formed a business gone to the market to try to raise some capital to support the business put on the marketplace say twenty five percent of their shares holding the other seventy five percent for themselves and then getting some support in the market so that the shares edge up from twenty five cents to fifty cents to a dollar to a dollar and a quarter and then suddenly see the short sellers come in and say ok we will drive that stock back down from a dollar and a quarter to two and a half cents and we will do it by selling stock that doesn't exist and in the process we will ruin the company the one thing that convinced me that this was real was when the investment banker sat me down in front of a screen and showed me the stock trading of a company that has been out of business for three years and the stock trades regularly every thirteen days you know exactly what they're doing the brokers are rolling the stock back and forth every thirteen days so they're meeting the f c c requirements that they're delivering but the shares they are delivering to each other back and forth do not exist the company was driven out of business by the short sellers who made it impossible for them to go to the capital markets as i said at my opening mr president this is a tiny matter is not in of all very many people but for the people to the people who are involved it frankly can be a matter of life and death and there are enough of them starting businesses and creating entrepreneurial activities in the united states that we owe it to them to find out exactly what is going on with respect to this and that's why i've asked chairman dodd to consider a hearing on this matter let us hear from the f c c to let us hear from the d t c to let us hear from those in the marketplace who have actual experience with this and see if the present s c c rules are sufficient or if we need to do additional things along the lines of the two items that i have suggested president under the previous order the senator from north dakota is recognized for up to thirty minutes the president wednesday morning of this week following a discussion and debate that we had a fairly robust debate about the issue of iraq and the war in iraq on wednesday morning of this week the president's homeland security adviser frances townsend was on the a b c good morning program and she said some things about al about terrorists that reminded me of a period several years ago just prior to the start of the iraq war it reminded me of being in a room where top secret classified briefings are given to members of congress briefings by now secretary of state briefings by the vice president briefings by the head of the c and mr tenet vice president cheney and others participated in these top secret briefings and they told us things in those toxic secret secret briefings leading up to the decision about  the authorization to use force against iraq they told us things that we now know not to have been true did they know that when they told us i don't know we now know of course the yellowcake denies era from niger was a single source a man that they did scribe this curveball a fabricator and an alcoholic a single source that they now discovered to have been a fabricator a former taxi cab driver for god's sake in baghdad single source gave rise to the description to the world and to this congress and top secret classified briefings that there were mobile chemical weapons laboratories in iraq and the list goes  on the reconstitution of nuclear weapons weapons of mass destruction we now know of course that the facts were at odds with what we were being told reason i mentioned that is that wednesday's appear president's homeland security adviser frances townsend on the morning show on a b c reminded me a bit of what we experienced several years ago from this administration a description by franc townsend about terrorism in the terrorist threat and al qaeda is completely and was completely at odds with what we know to be the truth let me go through just a bit of what the president's homeland security advis is being interviewed about the national intelligence report issued this week the report said that al qaeda is rebuilding retraining and getting ready to strike in the united states again in light of that report miss townsend was asked if she still believes the u s is winning the war against al qaeda and terrorism absolutely she said absolutely we're winning was asked about pakistan allowing a to have a safe haven in the country of pakistan she said well it's a sovereign country and that the president of pakistan has been a good partner in our war against terrorism when asked she said the u s is quote safer unquote today against al qaeda because she said quote we have challenged them and we are on the office and the game is overseas it's almost as if the president's top security adviser failed to read the national intelligence estimate but even if she failed to read the end i perhaps she could have been expected to read the newspapers because we have let me go through just a couple of them july sixth is that one was reading just in recent days one would read by joshua partlow in the washington post the western baghdad district of west rashid confound the prevailing narrative from the top u s military officials that the sunni insurgent group al qaeda in iraq is the city's most formidable and disruptive force over the past several months the mahdi army has transformed the composition of the districts neighborhoods by ruthlessly killing and driving out sunni's and denying basic services to residents who remain perhaps one might have read the newspaper reports on july twenty six point mcclatchy papers while the us press is his war against insurgents linked to al qaeda and iraq osama bin laden's group is recruiting regrouping and rebuilding in a new sanctuary along the border to begin with between afghanistan and pakistan senior military intelligence and law enforcement official said the threat from radical islamic enclave in worse than is more dangerous than that from iraq which president bush and his aides call the central front in the war on terrorism said some current and former u s officials and experts bin laden himself is believed to be hiding in the region guiding a do generation of lieutenants and inspiring allied extremist groups in iraq and other parts of the world or perhaps one could go back to february senior leaders of al qaeda operating from pakistan in the new york times over the past year have set up a band of training camps in the tribal regions near the again border according to american intelligence and counterterrorism officials american officials said there is mounting evidence that osama bin laden and his deputy as you are a had been steadily building an operations hub in the mountainous pakistan tribal area of north was their stand now to the adviser to the president in the white house on terrorism issues let me say for this august two thousand and one the presidential daily briefing report put in the hands of president george w bush said this the title was quote bin ladin determined to strike in us that was in august of two thousand and one the p d p put in this president's hands july two thousand and seven intelligence assessment from the u s quote al qaeda better position to strike the west think of that six years have intervene six years and the president's homeland security advisor one who deals with this issue of terrorism and counterterrorism says we are winning the war on terrorism things are going just fine things are better and yet in six years we go from this a presidential daily briefing titled bin laden determined to strike the united states in august of two thousand and one to this assessment six years later al qaeda better position to strike the west i ask the question are we really winning i think we would expect the homeland security adviser to be dealing with facts let me describe the facts in the national intelligence estimate the national intelligence estimate just really in both a classified and unclassified version the un classified version says this al qaeda is and will remain the most serious terrorist threat to the homeland we assess the group has protected or regenerated key elements of its homeland attack capability including a safe haven in the pakistan federally administered tribal areas operational lieutenants and its top leadership so now we have a report that says that osama bin laden his top deputies are in a safe haven six years after they murdered thousands of americans they are in a safe haven there ought not be one square inch of ground on this planet that ought to be a safe haven for the leaders of al qaeda and when miss townsend says when asked about it she says well pakistan is a quote sovereign country therefore safe haven must be all right there's no sovereignty anywhere in this world for osama bin laden elza wherry and the al qaeda leadership  safe harbor safe haven or sovereignty anywhere in this world what have we done instead of in six years deciding to destroy the leadership of al qaeda well our country decided based on information provided by this administration information we now know not to have been true the governor not i don't know but information about yellowcake about aluminum tubes about chemical weapons labs about weapons of mass destruction was not true we decided to take action against the country of iraq the facts are these al qaeda was not in iraq it is now it is not the central feature in iraq our intelligence estimates tell us that the central part of iraq is sectar violence it is shia killing sunni sunni killing shia and shia and sunni killing american soldiers it is a civil war sectarian violence a religious war of sorts with problems between the  back many many many centuries now people asked this question and reasonably so should we six years after two thousand and one the devastating attack against our country that killed thousands of innocent americans should we expect or have expected that we would have brought to justice dead or alive the leadership of al qaeda and destroyed the leadership of al qaida in my judgment the answer to that is yes the homeland security advis at the white house from townsend says well we are winning that assessment regrettably i wish it were true that assessment regrettably is an assessment that comes only by ignoring all of the facts this administration made a calculation that turns out to have been wrong on money many fronts instead of fighting terrorism first which i think most americans would have understood and accepted and believed the most critical element in the fight to provide security for our future instead of fighting terrorism first this administration decided to take other action in other areas we now have one hundred forty thousand to one hundred fifty thousand american troops in and many are going door to door in baghdad today as i speak it is the case that there is an al qaida presence in iraq because iraq has attracted terrorists but that is i said the intelligence community that the intelligence committee itself and said that is not the central feature of what is happening in iraq the central feature of what's going on iraq is sectarian violence and a civil war that's why the majority of this congress has decided it is time to change course it has not been the case that the description by those who want to change course in this chamber who said let's decide immediately precipitous need to withdraw all troops from iraq that is not the case troops would remain for force protection to fight the terrorist elements that do exist in iraq where they can be fought successfully and to train iraqi troops because after all the iraqi troops are what will be necessary the iraqi soldiers and the police force will be necessary to provide security in that country it is time long past the time for this country say to the iraqis you now have a new government so that hussein is dead executed he was on he's gone he was a brutal dictator saddam hussein is dead you have a new constitution you have a new government and now the question remains do you have the will to take back your own country and provide for your own security are there sufficient able bodied iraqis to take back the security responsibilities for their country if not there is no amount of time in which the american soldiers and this country can provide security for a country in the middle of a civil war and so we must change course and that change in course in my judgment is what will allow us to fight terrorism first and if we do not do that we will six years from now i'll continue to read about osama bin laden and the al leadership in a safe harbor or safe haven haven living free escaping justice and planning additional attacks against this country my point is what has happened in my judgment is wrong the first  central fight is the fight against terrorism and we are not waging that fight because those who attacked this country previously are now in a safe haven planning additional attacks against our country that doesn't come from me that comes from the national intelligence estimate that represents the best esther but by all the intelligence services in this country mr president one cannot solve a problem if one is going to ignore the facts or distort the facts and i say wednesday morning when i listened to miss towns basically misrepresent what is happening and seem as if she has failed to see all of the evidence that exists the evidence that we have received in the national intelligence report and other evidence as well it does not surprise me that this administration is on a course that is not the course that represents this country's best interests president bush has said on previous occasions we'll deal not only with the terrorists who dare attack this country we will deal with those who harbor them and feed them and how's that that's the president's statement president says as a part of our offensive against terror we will also confront the regimes that harbor and support terrorists president when president bush was asked about osama bin laden that i don't think much about osama bin laden don't care much about osama bin ladin what fact is that represents the principal threat to this country why senator conrad and i offered the amendment that we did it on the defense authorization bill last week the wednesday paper the day that ms townsend appeared on television here's the new york times same people same threat it says in the headline nearly six years after the september eleventh attacks and hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives expended in the name of war on terror we posed a single insistent question are we safer after years of war in afghanistan in iraq targeted killings in yemen pakistan and elsewhere the major threat to the united states has the same name and the same basic look as two thousand and one al qaeda led by osama bin laden else they worry plotting attacks from mountain hideouts near the afghan pakistani border the intelligence report continuing to quote the most formal assessment since the september eleventh attack about the terrorist threat facing the united states concludes that the united states is losing ground on a number of fronts in the fight against al qaida and describes the terrorist organization as having significantly strengthened over the past two years if ever we need leadership good leadership thoughtful leadership courageous leadership leadership that will confront the facts and understand the facts and not misrepresent the fact it is now at a time when a terrorist organization is planning additional effects against this country for this administration to say that things are fine we are winning don't worry there's a sovereign apparently safe haven for the leadership of those who planned to attack us it is unbelievable and it must change and if the administration won't change its sell in this congress of the american people must change mr president i want to turn to one additional subject briefly and i do that because a number of us have been concerned about the issue of competence for some long while and i don't i take no pleasure in coming to the floor to point out someone's flaws or to point out weaknesses sort of point out areas where we are not succeeding but it seems to me this country has to be brutally honest with itself and that includes this administration in terms of what it's doing and how well it's doing it and what kind of changes they're necessary to fix what's wrong and to safeguard and provide security for this country one of the examples of serious trouble with respect to just solving problems and addressing issues was the response to hurricane katrina this devastating hurricane hit our country and it laid bare hole whole area of the gulf coast it was unbelievable what it did to families to the homes structures the consequences of it and the cost of it and its toll on human lives and treasury and so on is is not even yet calculated i think everyone in this country saw what happened as a result of the response to famous i come from a state in which flooding ten years ago caused the evacuation of a city  fifty thousand people the largest evacuation in american city since the civil war we understand a little about fema fema rushed in in the middle of that unbelievable flood in the red river where an entire city of grand forks north dakota nearly an entire city was evacuated thema rushed in with james lee witt it had become a world class organization and it did it an unbelievable job i can't say enough about that organization fema was first rate and i think everyone in that city who was helped by that organization understood the quality of the federal emergency management agency fast forward and discover that the major appointments to fema under this administration were political cronies that had no experience in emergency response of parents and so it wasn't surprising that fema deteriorated dramatically as an agency and its response to katrina hurricane katrina was abysmal i want to describe it with one photograph if i might because this describes what happened with respect to hurricane katrina and i'm describing this because this week something happened the final end finally ended the chapter on this sorry story this man is paul malveaux is sitting in front of an eighteen wheel truck in florida his truck by the way is a refrigerated truck he used  here's what happened hurricane katrina hit one of the need in the deep south when when people and property and everything was devastated they were trying to figure out how to deal with them one of the needs was for ice they needed ice in the middle of that that scorching heat they needed eyes so fema contracted with truckers tall ice going to haul ice and eighteen wheel trucks refrigerated trucks to help the victims of katrina so here's paul melville paul was in florida at the time he got a call invited to contract with the maha life so he drove his eighteen wheeler to new york city and picked up a low device let me tell you where he went i've got a map that shows that paul went from florida up to new york city to pick up some ice and in newburgh new york and then they told him go to carthage missouri with his refrigerated ice so he went to eighteen wheeler drove to carthage missouri to deliver ice to the victims of katrina then fema said when he got to carthage missouri you know we want you to go to montgomery alabama with your truck with that truckload of ice for the victims of katrina and then he got to montgomery alabama and here's what happened to him he was over  hundred other truckers refrigerated trucks holding ice for the victims of katrina sat for twelve days this is a picture of paul malveaux sitting in his lawn chair with a little grill even after twelve days he sat there and finally finally they said to him we want you to take your ice truces think of this the taxpayers paid over fifteen thousand dollars for this low device he was told the ice was for the victims of katrina and hundreds of other truckers had the same circumstance he was sent to missouri to alabama sat for a dozen days on the tarmac of a military installation and then told ok now you should take that ice up to massachusetts and put it in story this week two years later after spending over twenty million dollars that ice was taken out of storage in massachusetts massachusetts and discarded because they felt it was probably contaminated after two years so finally it ends the saga about falling ice to the victims of katrina how do i know paul malveaux because i asked paul malveaux to come to washington to testify about this he didn't want to do it i sat in the parking lot of a grocery store one sunday on the phone with paul malveaux and said paul i want you to come at a hearing we're holding to tell the story people need to understand what's wrong only by understanding what's wrong can we get this fixed paul came up to washington d c and testified before a hearing and told us what had happened some people wouldn't fall ice from new york to missouri to mississippi and then told to offload it at a warehouse in massachusetts ice for the victims of katrina if there is one story that demonstrates the complete absurd incompetence of the response to hurricane katrina it is the story of calpol melville a good american who just want to do the right thing and contracting with a federal agency that was  incompetent came up with this absurd experience and i have tried since to find out who is the decision maker in government that sides we're going to haul ice from new york to massachusetts to missouri and mississippi that's supposed to go to victims of hurricane katrina and we're going to spend all of that money and do it incomparably who's responsible who made those decisions and you cannot find out who that unnamed person is that makes that kind of byzantine decision that in my judgment fleeces the american taxpayer that injures those who were who were victims of hurricane katrina by withholding by not getting the ice to the victims that needed it so i wanted my colleagues to know because i've spoken about this before that this week finally at last that long long last the ice that was put in storage as a result of this gross incompetence has now been discarded because they felt perhaps after two years the ice was contaminated it is a sad story in my judgment of the fleecing of america and my hope is that we have sufficiently embarrassed and sufficiently made accountable those in fema and in this administration so this will never ever happen again it is not what the taxpayers deserve and certainly isn't what victims of hurricane katrina deserve and mr president that same incompetence regrettably is steeped in other areas of an administration that seems as i indicated as of wednesday mornings interview with miss townsend seems content to ignore facts mr president let me just say i have come to the floor on occasion and spoken well of those that i think do a good job in this administration and elsewhere i wish i could do that this morning but i think it's very important for this congress in this country when you see incompetence and when you see that we are developing a strategy that doesn't work and is not going to w that we must change course and we must expect better and my hope is that a group of us in congress to the hearings that i have held on these issues and through the discussions and senator reid and others have worked on in our  last couple of weeks my hope is that we will change course with respect to the issue of iraq for example which is the overriding and the important issue i hope one of the changes in course will be that we decide our priorities are to fight terrorism first and that is not what we're now doing let us decide to fight terrorism first that ought to be the goal if the terrorist camps are reconstituted if the threat to our country from al qaeda and from us on some of bin laden elsworthy and others represents a greater threat now the senate continues in a period of morning business offering general speeches no votes today after a late night last night working on a student loans and grants bill during his time on the floor this morning majority leader harry reid said the senate will be taking up more higher education legislation next week along with homeland security spending u s house not in session today after having finished legislative business for the week yesterday last night a congressional delegation jumped on planes bound for iraq to investigate the situation there live coverage of the house as always is on c span the senate here on c span to general speech today in the senate as we await the arrival of senators to the floor no voting today on the senate floor and we do expect a shorter friday next week the senate will begin consideration of a bill reauthorizing the higher education bill governing financial programs we also expect work on homeland security spending which is the first of the twelve appropriations bills that the senate and the congress debates every year live coverage of that debate will be here on c span to the house not in session today next week members will begin work on commerce justice and science spending live coverage of the house as always is on c span the senate again here on c span to made was thursday we went through the executive calendar and as a good presiding officer knows executive council we actually take up a nomination submitted by the president that they need senate confirmation in and we deal with those and army presiding officer spent a number of years in the house of representatives i was there a dozen ten years and i think of resigning ops he was there for about as long maybe maybe even longer and one of the funniest people i a republican administration to ask him to serve in the department of defense where he was a senior aide in the secretary's office in raleigh played for i think about three or four four years subsequent to that that pete guy was asked to serve a variety of roles he's been our acting secretary of the air force he has been a the under secretary of the army the interim secretary the army and for the last week or so now he has been the secretary of the army mr mr president i would i acting secretary air force secretary of the army is a very high compliment and they really reflect the kind of person that he is he is a person who tries to figure out what is the right thing to do and to do it routinely consistently treats other people who waited that he would want to be treated great values great work ethic and just a terrific public servant to the people of this country and i am delighted that he has now been asked to serve and confirmed by all of us as our secretary of the big job tough tough time to serve in that capacity but i know he will have our full support and he certainly has my support in my mind long time admiration having said and i'd like to  just disagreeing on on issues to try to find ways to bring us to together and i've been reflecting a good deal on the debate i had to an opportunity long with the two of our colleagues senator ben nelson in senator mark pryor to have breakfast meeting with the senator and with secretary gates and the pentagon earlier this week to is the first time i've ever had a chance to any personal time with that was secretary gates who came to us is the one of people who served on the iraq study group but you may official in intelligence very bright able guy also a very i think a very good heart and someone who over back was with us was remarkably remarkably candid in his observations not someone who tried to sugarcoat the what's going on and i encouraged about the maybe the prospects are somewhere down the line finding consensus here in the united states patient patience goes then with respect to to our involvement there we've been involved for over four years we've lost thousands of lives we spend hundreds of billions of dollars money that we've largely borrowed from folks like the chinese like the south koreans like the japanese because these are money that we don't have so we simply increase our nation's indebtedness to pay for this this war burden and in many cases they are tired of it is as i think most of us are and we would like to see the beginning of the beginning of the end and frankly beginning a new beginning at the same time for the people  think for the most part the people in our country want to see it and i think most of us realize that we're going to have a military involvement there we're going have a presence in iraq for maybe for several years and if you look at kosovo we've been out of kosovo for ten years we're still there militarily the war ended in korea lowered over fifty years ago we still have a significant military presence and i think it's likely we're going to have a military presence in in the in iraq for some time questions what should they be a year from now and i would suggest a year from now we're still going to have troops in iraq probably tens of thousands of troops hopefully not one hundred forty one hundred fifty thousand troops what will they be doing my hope is that they will be policing a civil war my hope is a they won't have to be involved in trying to keep so nice for him and shiites in vice versa my expectation is that we're going to continue to be a need to to train into equipping to supply iraqi armed forces and police will be need for counterinsurgency operations against the really bad guys there may be an opportunity or need for us to help police the borders of syria of iraq with syria and iran borders which leaked like sieves today those are the kinds of responsibility that i suspect will be called upon our troops we call band perform but my hope is we won't need as many of them not nearly as many of them they will not be as numerous nor as visible and hopefully not as much in danger as they have been the last four years on the iraqi side when i heard four or four or four half weeks ago about a month ago when i was was last there are a lot of iraqis don't want to be there in such great numbers either they don't want to be as like it is probably tomorrow but of a number of them would realize that we have sacrificed and we've given our our our our our lifeblood a lot of money a lot of patience with that with them and i think for a lot of folks today they realize that in the appreciate that they don't want to be as numerous or as visible and eventually they want to have their country back with us is not as an occupying force although some see as that but but but have us playing a diminishing role but what i think we have here is is the a growing consensus in this country to to begin reducing our presence not not this month not this summer maybe not until later this year but i think we need to send a signal our president needs to send a signal to the people of our country into the congress that there's not to continue forever we don't want to do it's not sustainable it's the end and it should not be our responsibility forever eventually the iraqi people have to decide whether or not they want to country or not they've got to step up they've got to be willing to make the difficult choices that at least their leaders and to this point in time their leaders have been reluctant around able to do and i i don't want to provide  a strong defense for an action on behalf of the iraqi parliament in the iraqi leaders but i would remind us that we've just seen here this week in the united states senate institutions been around for over two hundred years how hard it is for us to come to consensus on difficult issues of that country where they've had basically two years of experience they're in a middle of a civil war with an insurgency why sometimes they struggle to make through a democratic process to make difficult decisions not surprisingly and i think it should be a surprise to them or to to to any of us having said that i'm impatient with their ability inability to to make the tough decisions around here sometimes it takes we'll hold off making that call decision until we're always like staring into the abyss we have when that this is the fourth quarter the game is not a game but it's the fourth quarter and we're late into the fourth quarter i said the deputy prime minister ever so they call the shot clock and he had not an actual in in the rack in professional basketball we have a sho clock has begun to run and the iraqi team has a team is still on the sidelines you arguing about what are the rules of the game who's going to get into the game what played a call who's going to take the shot meanwhile the shot clock is running and what the iraqis need to do is the pretty in the parliament where where the hatred between the sunni's the shiites is such that it makes it hard to ever feel or think like a a team but somehow they have to find a way to put that behind them and they have to begin making that is difficult decisions that they've been unwilling and unable to make the iraqi people or are waiting for leadership just like in this country or any country is it with democratic tradition the other people yearn for leadership strong leadership their leadership and the iraqi people are looking to their leaders to show that they can work together to figure out how to share this enormous oil wealth of their country a country they're capable of something today something like three hundred million barrels of oil at seventy dollars a barrel do the math is a man i should say five million barrels of oil today finally just one day seventy dollars a barrel is three hundred fifty million dollars they're pumping less than two million they're leaving literally on the table something like one hundred eighty million dollars over that almost two hundred million dollars today on the table revenues that they won't won't realize because he simply can't figure out how to work together they need to figure that out gathers figure  which made it to the a pilot plan for showing the all revenue the problem has to act on them we're going to take them out of august not entirely off will be in session till the end of the first week in august we come back right after labor day so we had about twenty eight days meanwhile i'm the as the iraqi people responded provides us with an opportunity to achieve again redeploying our troops this year and there's plenty of work that they could do in afghanistan and in some cases there's an opportunity for them to be station not far away if needed in other cases frankly we need a lot of back here governor who was commander chief of my national guard i understand full well how how much we relied on the national guard especially in times of emergency with the middle of winter hurricane season like we we have right now there's plenty of work for them to do plus they have families here guard and reserves and they're being asked to do things that were as a former naval flight ops or served in vietnam but eighteen years as a reserve naval flight ops and we never were asked to do and we're asking our troops to make extraordinar for these troops to try to do and simply to in some cases to come back and be with their families after extended separation and some cases to come back and go to war and their with their old employers and in some cases to go back to their businesses which are and to many instances in trouble some cases out of business and be able to resuscitate those businesses are very fresh life into them there's plenty to do in the meantime the iraqis for them they've got three hundred fifty thousand people in their military and home people as you can do this we can help in we will have we've done our nose we've done a lot in i think we're prepared to do more but the signal that i would hope the president would send to to us once we hear from general petraeus and ambassador crocker in the middle of of  september is not that we're going to surge for another year or two or three but there we're going to be began redeploying our troops they're not going all the our year from now they'll be play for some of them to do i've talked about  four or five major responsibility to take and pursue a year or so from now for some time after that but i think that since the kind of signal the american people are waiting to hear and i think it sends a real strong message to the iraqis as well that there that our patience is not in that we have expectations of them that they need to step up again and i was poaching algy they need to step up to the plate and this is their time this is their country it's not our country this is their country they want to have a country they have to make a decision they want to have a country and to do the things that  are necessary to bind their people together and to have her to build an institution a country that they're taken and i can survive and persevere and hopefully to prosper mr president as we are in this week week  and seen a lot of ups and downs here in the united states in a week that is seen a more than it's been wasn't usual degree of accuracy this is a place where we actually mostly like each other have pretty good ability to work judicial nominations in spite of what is going on in recent years really relative to how republicans had treated democratic nominees of president clinton as majority leader i take very seriously the senate's constitutional duty to provide advice and consent with regard to all presidential nominees but especially judicial nominees the judiciary is the third branch of our federal government and as entitled to great respect the senate shares a responsibility with the president to ensure that the judiciary is staffed with men and women who possess outstanding legal skills suitable temperament the highest ethical standing the floor statement that i have given on more president clinton and his judicial nominees with great disrespect leaving almost seventy seventy nominees languishing in the jewish committee without even hearing some of them mr president were there for four years with nothing happening and of course republicans have had their complaints most of which i feel unjustified but they're entitled to their opinion about the where handful of nominees were traded in the early years of the bush administration the partisan squabbling over judicial nominees reached a low point last congress when majority leader frist threaten to use the so called nuclear option in the elegant parliamentary maneuver the would have changed senate rules and i way to limit debate on that is nominations that would have long term rent to own negative ramifications for this body at the time i said that was the most serious issue i'd worked on in my entire time in government that the republicans would even consider changing the rules so that we would become basically the house of representatives the founding fathers i was never prouder of the senate and went turn back this misguided attempt to dismantle the constitutional role of the senate just to confirm a few more judges was present i felt that had a vote taken place that would never have happened there were people who step forward there i had a number of republicans come to me and say i'm not going same thing publicly but what is being attempted here is wrong but remember mr president we only had forty five democrats the time so we had the very very careful but what happened and rather than take a chance on a vote i was so happy and we had fourteen senators seven republicans and seven that's stepped in and said that's not the way it should be and we were able to negotiate and what that negotiation was is we let some sense some judges go and we that after down votes here would have happened but it didn't work out that way and we averted the showdown as a result of the goodwill of fourteen democratic and republican senators and it went away and that's the way it should have done should have gone away but in the two years since a new crops and fizzled i worked hard first with senator frist analysing mcconnell to keep the process for considering judicial nominees back on track i said then that if the nuclear option had been initiated and i became the leader i would reverse that and i felt so strongly that was wrong even though we would have an advantage at the time  and i'm sorry i did the right thing with the decisions they made but i worked with senator leahy and specter make sure that both nominees receive proper fair and thorough consideration in the committee and on the senate floor after senate democrats gained a majority in last november's elections i publicly pledge that the senate would continue to process judicial nominees in due course and in good faith i explained that i could not commit to a specific number of confirmations because the right way to measure the success of this process is the quality of the nominees rather than the quality of the nominees and ultimately judges i said the senate will work hard to confirm mainstream capable experience nominees for the product of bipartisan cooperation president bush made a wise decision beginning of this congress by not resubmitting a number of controversy of judicial nominations from previous years i took that as a sign of good faith and i've tried to three more than were confirmed in this similar year in the class clinton term but we we've confirmed three and clearly a nomination in the one circuit where there was some dispute about whether the seat should be filled by californian someone from idaho is also confirmed twenty two district court nominees and we continue to vote in the roles of the steady pace as usual confirmation process working well as i said we've confirmed twenty five judges it's certainly working much better than it works and i respect the consent is processing president clinton's nominees as a result of judicial vacancy rate is an all time low i've said here on the floor and i've said publicly this is not payback time with judges we're going to treat republican nominees different and they treated our nominees but all this hard but all this hard work cannot prevent good faith disagreements about the merits of particular nomination judge southwick would be confirmed by memorial day obviously i can only commit to my own actions not the actions of others but i did miss present urge strongly that the judicial committee hold here on this and they did i urged strongly that this matter be moved as expeditiously as possible and it has i urged the visual unity to do everything it could to move this along and they did again this way the jewish committee has not yet voted on judge southwick but as reported in the press some republicans are already threatening to retaliate against rejection of southwick nomination by slowing down senate business as president how much more could they slow it down what is going on this year is untoward closures been filed about forty five times on things that really i don't understand why they're doing what they do and so this is sold senseless i think that reaction would be complete that action would be completely unjustified my pledge that the democratic majority would consider judicial nominees  cases and no problems i accepted those representation and after having accepted them push very hard to move this nomination along but the facts of his background and his decision ma  is differently than had been represented to me just going must still do its work with care and should only report those nominees who deserve a lifetime appointment to the federal bench that nomination  judge southwick has already been treated more kindly than the dozens of clinton nominees including nominees to the fifth circuit we've held a hearing i repeat almost seventy languish no hearings southwick has been unable to convince usually committee members of his suitability for the federal bench that's his misfortune mr president remember about seventy nominations of president clinton never even had a hearing southwick had a hearing and it to this point he's been unable to convince the jewish committee that he is the person for the job senator leahy has stated any time senators lott and cochran ask him to put him on the counter for a vote he will do it and they haven't asked him to do that yet why because this stage it appears that the democrats are going to oppose this nomination but generally said any time they want to test the vote they can do that maybe they i know that they  process we can't promise that the outcome of that process will be to the liking of republican senators now mr president the primary concern that has been raised about jeb southwick is that he has joined decisions on the court which demonstrate insensitivity to the rights of racial minorities and others for example in the richmond case he voted to uphold the reinstatement with back pay of a white state employee as a racial epithet about an african american coworker i ask unanimous consent that the dissent in that opinion by judge king be made part of the record not objection so ordered judge shot which says that the decision was about technical issues but the dissent in the case by judge king is eloquent and mispresent i mean eloquent eloquent i haven't read that opinion part of my conversations with mcconnell but i've read it i understand it and i i have a totally different view and i had a prior reading that opinion judge words are eloquent here is part of what he says and i quote there are some words which by their nature and definition are so inherently offensive that their use establishes the intent to offend race is highly sensitive it's highly sense of his presence throughout the entire united states but especially in the states that comprise the fifth circuit it took the courageous action of judges mostly federal judges on on that especially to carry out the supreme court's desegregation decisions and destroy the vestiges of the jim crow era yet even today no african american from mississippi sits on that court despite many qualified african american will decide whether to report his nomination for senate they choose to report the nomination i'll schedule action on this as quickly as i can if they reject the nomination and action will also be on the merits of mr president after i read the opinion just of the case i went and i visited personally with that cochran i think the world of thad cochran i've served with him now in congress for twenty five years sir a lot i've served with him for twenty five years i went to both of them and said i know how strongly you feel about judge southwick but here are the facts and i read to them i read to them the dissent of judge can i read to him the full dissent anyone cares to hear what judge king had to say only has to look at this congressional record i also told them that the magnolia bar association african american bar association the state of comes but they should not treat is an affront or an outrage it is simply the way in which the founders envisioned the senate would work as a partner with the president deciding who is entitled to lifetime appointments that are branch again mr president hearing was present if he can't convince that committee that he's the man for the job that's our process and certainly at a sub one time we yes and when we get a democratic president they process these nominations in the manner that we have done that will be fine i would be it's the way we're supposed to work things out around here whatever happens with the south nomination the senate will continue to process  nominations in due course and in good faith as i've pledged i repeat i know how strongly that the distinguished republican leader feels about judges i think there are a lot of things that are just as important he feels strongly about this and i accept that but i would like i would like everyone to look at the record as to what's happened in this nomination this move and move expeditiously they can have a vote any time they wish in the judicial committee no votes take place almost every thursday they can schedule any time they want but i think it would be asking quite a bit for someone to think that when a committee of jurisdiction of any issue turns something down we should take it up here on the floor that isn't how things work and i would only say mr president i would think based on the decision made by the participating by judge southie of anyone has any concern about the feelings of the members of the his present majority leader is recognized we were hoping to clear a number of the president's nominations today the export import bank united states two nominees were ready to clear securities investor protection corporation one nominations national oceanographic and asked atmospheric administration and we had someone there to clear the securities investor protection corporation we had an usual there that's been cleared on our side all these  cleared on a side their whole hold up are with them and with minority so we're trying to clear the freds nomination we can't do it unless the republicans agree to it there his nomination that the senate then proceed to the consideration as sixteen forty two with the other provisions of the previous order remaining in effect that objection so ordered is present i believe there is no business now to