In response to a question about how long U.S. troops are expected to stay in Afghanistan, Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen said today that his “expectation is that we will have a long-term relationship with Afghanistan.” He emphasized that the “best number” he can offer right now is that we need to “turn the tide” against the Taliban in the next 12-18 months. Watch it:

Later in the press conference, Mullen said leaders in the region are “very wary” that the U.S. won’t make a long-term commitment to them. He explained that when he travels in Afghanistan and Pakistan, “the question that comes up either directly or indirectly is — are you staying this time or are you leaving?”

Last month, the House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which aims to transition America to a clean energy economy while combating climate change. After the bill’s passage, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) tweeted that she wanted to “fix” the bill’s cap on carbon pollution because it would “unfairly punish” Missouri’s families and businesses.

Appearing on a conservative Missouri radio show this morning, McCaskill reiterated her belief that the House bill will “hurt a state like Missouri that is so coal dependent.” Asked where she was “on the cap-and-trade,” McCaskill said that her position would make her “friends on the left very unhappy“:

MCCASKILL: Well, I’m going to make people, my friends on the left, very unhappy and I’m going to make those who don’t think global warming is real very unhappy because I’m probably going to be working with a group of moderates in the middle to try to come up with a bill that doesn’t punish coal-dependent states like Missouri. We’ve got to be very careful with what we do with this legislation.

McCaskill added that she wouldn’t “vote for the version ever that was voted on last year in the Senate” and that she doesn’t “think the version that passed the House will pass the Senate in the same shape,” so she’ll work to “craft it in a way that is very gradual.” Listen here:

As the Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson noted after McCaskill’s initial tweet, “the cap-and-trade system the House passed fully protects states now dependent on coal, with multi-billion-dollar programs for advanced coal technology.” In fact, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), an architect of the bill, told WNYC’s Brian Lehrer on Monday that the House took the Senate’s regional concerns into consideration when they crafted the legislation:

WAXMAN: We tried to keep the Senate in mind and adopted a bill that eliminates some of the regional disparities and bad results. The Senate is particularly sensitive, when you have two senators per state, to what’s going to happen in their state. And that’s why we drafted a bill that is, wasn’t really partisan, but more bridging the regional differences and some of the partisan differences by making sure no country and no industry had to bear more of the burden and that the ratepayers, where ever they may be in this country, are protected from steep increases.

Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), who represents a coal district and was very influential on the bill, is confident that the legislation doesn’t disproportionately harm coal. “My focus in the shaping of the bill in the Energy and Commerce Committee was to keep electricity rates affordable and to enable utilities to continue using coal,” said Boucher. “Both of these goals have been achieved.”

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Last week, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) claimed that Judge Sotomayor may not be fit for the Supreme Court because she served on the board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (now known as “LatinoJustice PRLDEF”), a highly regarded civil rights organization. On Monday, a group of 25 leading Latino organizations, including the Hispanic National Bar Association, the National Council of La Raza, and the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, sent a letter to Sessions slamming his questionable attacks on LatinoJustice PRLDEF:

LatinoJustice PRLDEF is a strong and vibrant institution and its work serves not only the Latino community, but the nation as a whole because it advances the basic American principles of equal opportunity and equal access to justice for all in our society. While we each have the right to disagree on specific issues, LatinoJustice PRLDEF’s body of work deserves our respect and yours. Attacks on Latino advocacy and civil rights organizations are not new – we have seen figures in the media mischaracterize and slander our good works, using provocative terms that fan the flames of ethnic animosity. We expect and are entitled to better from a sitting member of the United States Senate.

Sadly, however, Sessions has a long history of these kinds of attacks. Indeed, his own nomination to the federal bench was rejected by the Senate in 1986 because of Sessions’ record of bringing racially-motivated prosecutions, belittling African-American attorneys, and describing the NAACP as an “un-American” and “Communist-inspired” organization that “forced civil rights down the throats of people.” Twenty-three years later, Sessions hasn’t changed one bit.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) has tried to portray himself as an upstanding lawmaker dedicated to fiscal restraint. He has frequently criticized “wasteful spending” in the federal government and even called President Obama’s spending plans “reckless.”

Last month, Politico published a chart illustrating the transportation costs from the offices of all 100 U.S. Senators. Topping off the list was Cornyn, who has spent over $150,000 on travel costs during the first half of the 2009 fiscal year.

When a local ABC News affiliate in Dallas (WFAA) asked him about his expensive travel habits, Cornyn called Politico’s report “a cheap shot.” The reporter then asked the obvious follow-up, “In what sense was it a cheap shot? They were using the Secretary of the Senate information?” However, Cornyn wouldn’t budge and instead decided to dig in:

CORNYN: Oh yeah, not every state is the same. When you represent a state as big as Texas and traveling home from Washington D.C. every weekend, it unfortunately costs some money.

The “Texas is a big state” defense seems plausible on its face, but the same records Politico reported show that Texas’s other U.S. Senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison (R), spent nearly 43 percent less on travel than Cornyn during the same period ($87,651).

Moreover, California Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who represent a state similar to Texas in size and population (and one that’s further away from Washington, DC), spent less than Cornyn on travel combined (Boxer $72,473; Feinstein $29,917; Total $102,390).

But also, WFAA reports that Cornyn and his staff spent more than $55,000 in taxpayer money on a three day retreat to St. Michaels, MD in February and that “a third of the costs, $17,353, was Cornyn’s alone”:

He was reimbursed for $7,750 in incidentals. The senator’s per diem, a daily allowance, was $5,226 for the three-day trip. For a 162-mile, round-trip journey from Washington, D.C., transportation to get the senator to Maryland cost taxpayers $4,377.66.

Referring to Cornyn’s defense, watchdog group Public Citizen’s Tom Smith said, “I agree senator. It is a big state, and most big cities where he’s spending most of his time have real good airline service. He should be flying coach with the rest of us.”

Cornyn said he does fly commercial but admitted that he also takes more expensive charter jets. When asked if he would “change anything” regarding his travel expenses, Cornyn replied, “No, I wouldn’t. I believe the travel I do is essential.”