Senate Coverage -- (February '06)

Since "Free Republic is an online gathering place for independent, grass-roots conservatism on the web. We're working to roll back decades of governmental largesse, to root out political fraud and corruption, and to champion causes which further conservatism in America.", I and others think it's a good idea to centralize what the goes on in the Senate (or House).

So if you see something happening on the Senate/House floor and you don't want to start a new thread to ask if anyone else just heard what you heard, you can leave a short note on who said what and about what and I'll try and find it the next day in THE RECORD. Or if you see a thread that pertains to the Senate, House, or pretty much any GOV'T agency please link your thread here.

C-SPAN what a great thing. Where you can watch or listen live to most Government happenings.

C-SPAN 3 (most places web only) carries a variety of committee meetings live or other past programming.

A great thing about our Government is they make it really easy for the public to research what the Politicians are doing and saying (on the floor anyway).

THOMAS where you can see a RECORD of what Congress is doing each day. You can also search/read a verbatim text of what each Congressmen/women or Senator has said on the floor or submitted 'for the record.' [This is where the real juicy stuff can be found.]

Random tidbits from yesterday's Senate circus ...

WYDEN: ... Our citizens are going to spend more this year complying with the Tax Code than this country spends on higher education.
9 . THE ALTERNATIVE MINIMUM TAX
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I have waited many hours here many times. I never make a fuss about it. I will just leave the floor and----
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, before the Senator leaves, what amount of time would the senior Senator from West Virginia like?
Mr. BYRD. I have 61 pages, large type. But that will take about 20 minutes--15, I think. ...
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, last week, the Judiciary Committee held an important hearing. That hearing should be the beginning of the process of congressional oversight into what has been called ``the President's program.'' This is a domestic spying program into emails and telephone calls of Americans without a judge's approval, apparently conducted by the National Security Agency. Having participated in the hearing and reviewed the transcript of the Attorney General's testimony, I understand the fear that this administration is engaged in an elaborate cover-up of illegality. I urge them to come clean with us and the American people. ...
It sounded at our hearing as if what the Bush Attorney General and former White House counsel was saying is that this particular ``program'' is limited because they were afraid of public outrage. The Attorney General said as much to Senator KOHL and confirmed to Senator BIDEN that the Bush administration does not suggest that the President's powers are limited by the Constitution to foreign calls. Their descriptions of the President's program seem to have more to do with public relations than anything else. It was even branded with a new name in the last few days after it has been known for years as simply ``the President's program.''
Senator FEINSTEIN was right to observe after the Attorney General dodged and weaved and would not directly answer her questions: ``I can only believe--and this is my honest view--that this program is much bigger and much broader than you want anyone to know.'' The Attorney General's strenuous efforts to limit the hearing to ``those facts the President has publicly confirmed'' and ``the program that I am here testifying about today'' suggest that all of us must be skeptical about the secret games the Attorney General was playing through controlling the definition of ``the program'' to include only what he understood to exist at the beginning of last week. Senator FEINSTEIN was not fooled. None of us should be. Such limiting definitions are what the Bush Administration used to redefine ``torture'' in order to say that we do not engage in ``torture'' as they redefined it. These are the word games of coverup and deception. It is not al-Qaida surprised that our Government eavesdrops on its telephone calls and emails. Al-Qaida knows that we eavesdrop and wiretap. It is the American people who are surprised and deceived by the President's program of secret surveillance on them without a judge's approval for the last 5 years--especially, after the Attorney General, the Justice Department, the head of the NSA and the President have all reassured the American people over and over that their rights are being respected--when they are not. ...

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Vermont for his characteristic kindness and courtesy. I thank the distinguished Senator who has been alone in opposing this act [a reference to FEINGOLD and the USA PATRIOT Act, I think] in the beginning, at a time when I wish I had voted as he did.
In June 2004, 10 peace activists outside of Halliburton, Inc., in Houston gathered to protest the company's war profiteering. They wore paper hats and were handing out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, calling attention to Halliburton's overcharging on a food contract for American troops in Iraq. ...
In the case of the ``peanut butter'' demonstration, the Army wrote a report on the activity and stored it where? In its files. Newsweek magazine has reported that some TALON reports may have contained information on U.S. citizens that has been retained in Pentagon files. A senior Pentagon official has admitted that the names of these U.S. citizens could number in the thousands. Is this where we are heading? Is this where we are heading in this land of the free? Are secret Government programs that spy on American citizens proliferating? The question is not, is Big Brother watching? The question is, how many big brothers have we? ...
This administration has so traumatized the people of this Nation, and many in the Congress, that some will swallow whole whatever rubbish that is spewed from this White House, as long as it is in some tenuous way connected to the so-called war on terror. And the phrase ``war on terror,'' while catchy, certainly is a misnomer. Terror is a tactic used by all manner of violent organizations to achieve their goal. This has been around since time began and will likely be with us until the last day of planet Earth.
We were attacked by bin Laden and by his organization, al-Qaida. If anything, what we are engaged in should more properly be called a war on the al-Qaida network. But that is too limiting for an administration that loves power as much as this one. A war on the al-Qaida network might conceivably be over someday. A war on the al-Qaida network might have achievable, measurable objectives, and it would be less able to be used as a rationale for almost any Government action. It would be harder to periodically traumatize the U.S. public, thereby justifying a reason for stamping ``secret'' on far too many Government programs and activities. ...
Attorney General Gonzales refused to divulge whether purely domestic communications have also been caught up in this warrantless surveillance, and he refused to assure the Senate Judiciary Committee and the American public that the administration has not deliberately tapped Americans' telephone calls and computers or searched their homes without warrants. Nor would he reveal whether even a single arrest has resulted from the program. ...
I want to know how many Americans have been spied upon. Yes, I want to know how it is determined which individuals are monitored and who makes such determinations. Yes, I want to know if the telecommunications industry is involved in a massive screening of the domestic telephone calls of ordinary Americans like you and me. I want to know if the U.S. Post Office is involved. I want to know, and the American people deserve to know, if the law has been broken and the Constitution has been breached.
Historian Lord Acton once observed that:
Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.
The culture of secrecy, which has deepened since the attacks on September 11, has presented this Nation with an awful dilemma. In order to protect this open society, are we to believe that measures must be taken that in insidious and unconstitutional ways close it down? I believe that the answer must be an emphatic ``no.''
I yield the floor.

Mr. FEINGOLD. I understand an agreement has been reached to have the cloture vote on the motion to proceed tomorrow morning and then a cloture vote on the bill on that Tuesday after we return from the recess.
I point out the agreement essentially implements the schedule that would have been followed had I required the Senate to go through all the procedural hoops necessary to reach a vote on the White House deal. It, of course, maintains the 60-vote threshold for passing this legislation.
I thank the two leaders for working with me. I have no desire to inconvenience my colleagues or force votes in the middle of the night, as I understand the majority leader was threatening.
I have been trying all day to get an agreement to allow debate and votes on a small number of amendments to this bill. I do not understand what the majority leader is afraid of or concerned about in rejecting this reasonable request. So while I do not object to the agreement that will be propounded in a few minutes, I hope once we are on the bill tomorrow, I will be able to offer amendments and have them voted on.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. FEINGOLD. I understand an agreement has been reached to have the cloture vote on the motion to proceed tomorrow morning and then a cloture vote on the bill on that Tuesday after we return from the recess.
I point out the agreement essentially implements the schedule that would have been followed had I required the Senate to go through all the procedural hoops necessary to reach a vote on the White House deal. It, of course, maintains the 60-vote threshold for passing this legislation.
I thank the two leaders for working with me. I have no desire to inconvenience my colleagues or force votes in the middle of the night, as I understand the majority leader was threatening.
I have been trying all day to get an agreement to allow debate and votes on a small number of amendments to this bill. I do not understand what the majority leader is afraid of or concerned about in rejecting this reasonable request. So while I do not object to the agreement that will be propounded in a few minutes, I hope once we are on the bill tomorrow, I will be able to offer amendments and have them voted on. ...
Mr. FRIST. ... There is overwhelming support. The outcome is determined. Yet we have been in a quorum call for most of the day, and using the rules of the Senate. Again, people say: Well, if it is a filibuster, why aren't people talking all the time? With the rules of the Senate, you do not have to be talking, but you control the Senate in terms of time. With that, we are able to file cloture motions, and then you wait another 30 hours, and it is a series of cloture motions, which stretches the time out, again, really wasting precious time on the floor of the Senate when we should be governing, answering, responding to the problems of everyday Americans, the challenges of everyday Americans.
11 . USA PATRIOT ACT ADDITIONAL REAUTHORIZING AMENDMENTS ACT OF 2006
Mr. GRASSLEY [Referring to the movie, "Groundhog Day"] And this is the film's true triumph. It is a very, very funny movie, in which all of the themes are invisible to people who just want to have a good time. There's no violence, no strong language, and the sexual content is about as tame as it gets. (Some e-mailers complained that Connors is only liberated when he has sex with Rita. Not true: They merely fall asleep together.) If this were a French film dealing with the same themes, it would be in black and white, the sex would be constant and depraved, and it would end in cold death. My only criticism is that Andie MacDowell isn't nearly charming enough to warrant all the fuss (she says a prayer for world peace every time she orders a drink!). And yet for all the opportunities the film presents for self-importance and sentimentality, it almost never falls for either. The best example: When the two lovebirds emerge from the B&B to embrace a happy new life together in what Connors considers a paradisiacal Punxsutawney, Connors declares, ``Let's live here!'' They kiss, the music builds, and then in the film's last line he adds: ``We'll rent to start.''
15 . POPULARITY OF ``GROUNDHOG DAY'' -- (Senate - February 15, 2006)
The following bills and joint resolutions were introduced, read the first and second times by unanimous consent, and referred as indicated: ...
By Mr. ALLEN:
S. J. Res. 31. A joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relative to require a balancing of the budget; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
30 . INTRODUCTION OF BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
Mr. ALLEN. Now, to control spending, I have revived a pair of ideas that Ronald Reagan advocated when he was President. In Ronald Reagan's farewell address to the American people, he said there were two things he wished he had accomplished as President, and what he wanted future Presidents, both Republican and Democrat, to have. They were the line-item veto and a constitutional amendment to balance the budget.
As always, and so often, Ronald Reagan was right. That is why I have made the line-item veto and the balanced budget amendment the first two points of my three-point plan to bring fiscal accountability and responsibility to Washington. ...
The President of the United States, in my view, should have the same power I had as Governor of Virginia, and that is the line-item veto. Together with Senator JIM TALENT of Missouri, last September we introduced a constitutional amendment to provide the President with line-item veto authority. It is high time for that. The reason we need a constitutional amendment is that there were times when we were trying do it statutorily. I would be in favor of statutory methods, rather than an amendment, but the Supreme Court struck down the last effort. I think the President, as well as the Congress, ought to be accountable for some of these spending items that create such controversy and are absurd or wasteful. By the way, we need to vote on this. If this goes to the States, I have no question that the States will quickly ratify such a constitutional amendment because, after all, they give their Governors such power.
Secondly, we need a balanced budget amendment. This is something many States have, the Commonwealth of Virginia, and virtually the rest of the States. One of the best ways, in my view, to eliminate the Federal deficit and limit the size and scope of the Government is to wrestle it down with the chains of the Constitution. ...
The third part of my plan is ... what I call the ``paycheck penalty.'' The paycheck penalty says to Members of Congress, if you fail to pass all your appropriations measures by the start of the fiscal year, October 1, which is your job, what you are paid to do, your paychecks will be withheld until you complete your job.
32 . STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
Mr. DURBIN. Now comes the PATRIOT Act. If there is any suggestion in the majority leader's remarks that anything that has happened on the floor of the Senate yesterday or today in any way endangers America, I think the record speaks for itself. That is not a fact. The current PATRIOT Act, as written, continues to protect America until March 10. We could continue debating right here on the floor of the Senate up until March 9 and even on March 10, and we would never have a gap in coverage of the PATRIOT Act as a law. So there is no endangerment of America, no lessening of our defense against terrorism by the possibility that the Senate might stop, reflect, consider, and even debate the PATRIOT Act.
I am sorry that my colleague, Senator Feingold of Wisconsin, is not here to speak for himself, but he has been an extraordinary leader on this issue. He has taken a position which I think is nothing short of politically bold, if not courageous, in standing up and saying, even in the midst of terrorism, we need to take the time and debate the core values and issues involved in the PATRIOT Act.
What has Senator Feingold asked for? He has asked for an opportunity to offer perhaps four amendments, four amendments, and he has gone on to say that he doesn't want days or long periods of time to debate them. He will agree to limited debate on each amendment. Nothing could be more reasonable. What he said is the Senate needs to face reality. This is an important bill. It involves our constitutional rights. And whether I would agree or disagree with any of Senator Feingold's amendments, I would fight, as long as I had the breath in my body and the strength to stand, that he have the right to express his point of view and bring this matter to a vote in the Senate. That is not unreasonable, nor is Senator Feingold unreasonable in his position. And for the suggestion to be made on the floor that somehow we have dragged this out for a lengthy period of time overlooks the obvious.
The offer was made for two votes tomorrow on Senator Feingold's amendment and then a cloture vote tomorrow on the bill and, if cloture were invoked, pass the bill tomorrow. That offer was rejected by the Republican majority. ...
What Senator RUSS FEINGOLD of Wisconsin has asked us to do is to consider amendments to the PATRIOT Act. What is wrong with that? That is as basic as it gets. That is why we are here. And whether I would vote for or against those amendments, I would defend his right to offer them, and I hope that the record will reflect what I have just said. He was ready to stand, offer the amendments with limited debate, and then move this bill to a cloture vote tomorrow, which, if it were invoked, would see the passage of the bill as soon as tomorrow. That offer by Senator Feingold was rejected. ...
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I find my colleague's comments in response to my statement that the problem is that we are seeing this whole pattern of obstruction and postponement--it is not just one bill, it is this whole series of bills--I find his comments responsive to several of the things I said but not really responsive to this pattern. I really just want to make that a comment and not get into a long debate about it. But I do want to point out that pattern of the things that I mentioned, like the PATRIOT Act as my colleague pointed out, it is time to bring this to a close.
This thing is going to pass overwhelmingly, and that is exactly right. I rejected options to continue to amend this forever. The problem, in part, that got us to this point is every time we come to an agreement which is a bill that, as written, will have overwhelming support in this body, somebody will come forward and say: One more amendment, one more amendment, one more amendment.
It is exactly right. It is time to bring this to a close. This will pass with overwhelming support--not today, as it should have, or tomorrow or Monday or Tuesday, but on Wednesday morning. It is going to pass with overwhelming support. ...
41 . PROGRAM -- (Senate - February 15, 2006)

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