emergency spending designation which is kind of freeze it up as you pay as you go balance budget restrictions. but they believe, the republicans believe that deficit spending is a serious issue with voters. and remember when jim bunning came out and blocked benefits. whoa joe bun, he s kooky. and now behind him just a few months later. never thought they would see that. thank you martin kady. and coming up the hurricane, hurricane alex had stirred up trouble for cleanup efforts in the gulf, now it s a tropical storm. we re live in pensacola. plus, congressman ed markey, who s been ripping bp for not considering hurricanes in their response plan. he joins us next. and stay up to date on the gulf oil spill including how you can help. logon to our website oilspill.msnbc.com. i m a random windstorm.
brownsville, texas. where violent winds and powerful rains wrecked homes. flooded neighborhoods and killed at least three people including a 5-year-old child. the weather channel s stephanie abrams live on south padre island. stephanie, bring us up to date on this situation right now. reporter: well, as you re mentioning, the worst of the damage and the deaths were actually south of the border in mexico. here in texas, no deaths and very minimal damage. the biggest problem was the flooding. we did have record rainfall. the wettest june day in mcallen and also into brownsville, texas. here in south padre five inches of rain. now the rain and the surge cannot take out the dunes. they re very big, very strong, a little bits of erosion on them, but overall they re pretty good. the maximum wind gusts that we had here was 66 miles per hour and that was actually on the causeway bridge, which at a time, was actually shutdown, but has now reopened. the other thing that this storm le
he never lost an election, in fact, never got less than 64% during running for the senate. we want to get your reaction to the debt and service of robert byrd. the numbers are on the screen. and if you live in west virginia, we especially want to hear from you this morning. we have set aside a line for you. joining us on the line from politico. is martin kady. you wrote he is the guardian of a round that so few understood. guest: it is a sad day for the united states senate and for west virginia. if lyndon baines johnson was the master of the senate, robert byrd was the keeper of all of its rules and traditions and things that most americans, when you tune into c-span, don t really understand. use either terminology unparliamentary removing, but robert byrd was the master. not just as longevity more than 50 years but through his own hard work, he decided he was going to be an inside player. he would master the roles of the senate. he would figure out through his caree
considered, and i would hope that we could somehow move beyond the bork style of confirmation proceedings and come up with a way that would be respectful of the candidates, respectful of the president in making the choice. that does not mean it has to be a rubber stamp, but i think it is highly destructive and very bad for america. actually, i do not think it is true anymore since pork, because there is this you have almost a camp atmosphere now in a lot of the hearings, where there are very carefully crafted questions senators ask that are almost designed to reveal something more about the senator then to truly and disinformation. having observed all of the post- bork once. i am not talking about just the supreme court. i was talking just about the supreme court. i think right now you have an unusual minuet going on, where you have sort of stage questions and very cautious answers. and i do not know if the elena kagan hearings will move or from that. marie has probab
democrats to advance the bill to extend unemployment benefits, passing a hurdle by a 60-44 vote. scott brown, a and b is no, susan colin and george voinovich. it will extend long-term on and when the benefits and cobra until may 5. the wall street journal lead editorial argues extending these benefits is an incentive not to work. we want to get your thoughts this morning. the phone numbers are on the screen. here is the editorial. it says here, quoting lawrence summers that was lawrence summers writing in his concise encyclopedia of economics published in 1999. do you agree with the wall street journal or disagree? you can start dialing in now. the brookings institution, whose panel of economic activity reported this month jobless insurance extensions correspond to 0.7 or 1.8 percentage points of the 5.5 percentage point increase joining us on the phone is martin kady of the politico to talk about what the senate did yesterday. they approved a cloture vote, a proced