I met with Japanese Ambassador Ryozo Kato this morning to receive a direct briefing on the resumption of U.S. beef imports. Japan’s ban on U.S. beef adversely impacted Nebraska producers, who have suffered $850 million in lost beef sales since the ban began in 2003. Ambassador Kato assured me today that following the recent inspections of U.S. production plants, U.S. beef shipments are good to go, which is great news for beef producers in my state and across the country. He told me that it is Japan’s wish to see beef trade between our countries remain on stable ground in the future. He also mentioned that he’s been serving and enjoying US beef throughout this ordeal.

I’ve been in communications with Ambassador Kato for some time now, working together to reopen this important agricultural trade. I’m pleased with this latest progress and look forward to quickly resuming a strong beef trade between our two countries. U.S. beef is the best and safest in the world. There is no reason we shouldn’t be allowed to get back to where we were before the trade ban was originally instituted in 2003.

I think that he said what the Iraqis would like to see happen and what he hoped the American public would believe. He didn't address the real problem - Iraqis fighting Iraqis - but rather, he talked about terrorism.

Look beneath the speech and you see no plan. How do you solve it?

There wasn't much there. I felt fairly bored.

I did find interesting the difference between him and the President's National Security Adviser, who said this wasn't terrorism in Iraq, that it was sectarian strife.

I didn't get the sense that he was being fully honest with us.

I think it was a wonderful speech clearly embraced in a bipartisan manner. With all of the hype about boycotts, I'm glad it was so well received.

I'm optimistic that the Senate will vote on their version of the legislation. That gives us the month of August to work on it. Given that it's an election year, the sooner that we can vote on it, the better. We're expecting them to break the filibuster with 60-plus-one on Monday.

We have so many vulnerabilities and no structure to address them as they relate to chemical security.  This tiered system is a good approach.

The Senate and House are playing politics with the war on Lebanon and I won’t be silent.

First came the shameful bi-partisan, one-sided resolutions passed by both Houses of Congress, which gave total support to Israel’s onslaught against Lebanon with barely a concern for the hundreds of innocent Lebanese civilians killed or the devastation to that country’s infrastructure.

Piling insult on his injury, Senate and House Democrats have insisted that the Prime Minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki embrace the Congress’ pro-Israel stance. Should he fail to do so, they threatened pressure on Speaker Hastert to withdraw his invitation to have al-Maliki address Congress, or force a boycott of his speech.

What they objected to were al Maliki’s statements made last week in Iraq in which he urged the international community “to take a quick and firm stance to stop this [Israeli] aggression against Lebanon, to stop the killing of innocent people and to stop the destruction of infrastructure. Read more...

We had all the right people in the room.  We got to the root of the problem, which is that prosections for illegally employing illegal aliens dropped from 192 in 1999 to 4 in 2004.  That's the problem.

Although there's much talk about fixing the immigration problem, there's no evidence that they've followed-up their words with action.

What's going on in Iraq is a Civil War.  Victory over Saddam Hussein is completed.  The soldiers' work is completed.  Since the President relies on the War Powers Resolution of 2002, it is imperative to repeal those powers, bring the soldiers home, and cease involvement in this Civil War.