I was in meetings and then my car all day as I drove home from Pittsburgh, so I don’t know what the hell happened today. The first thing I did after getting home and reading my email was to look to see what the Senate did today. Okay, so they approved the budget. That’s truly “embracing the suck,” good for them.
But then they did this:
Notice that it is a Cloture Motion, which means a few things. First of all, it means that when Harry Reid asked for universal consent to pass this House-amended legislation, someone objected.
So, not having unanimous consent, he had to file for cloture. Then he had to wait for cloture to “ripen.” Then he had to actually hold a cloture vote. And this vote, since it doesn’t deal with nominations, still requires 60 votes to succeed. This was a filibuster of a bill to award the Medal of Honor to various deserving recipients.
Finally, 29 Republicans (a strong majority of their caucus) actually voted for the filibuster of Medal of Honor recipients.
At least, that’s how it looks in the congressional record. In reality, this bill was the National Defense Authorization Act , and the Republicans who filibustered it were doing it because the House passed their version and left town for the rest of the year. That meant that there wasn’t enough time left for the Senate to consider or pass any amendments and still have the bill signed before the end of the year. Our Congress is a joke.
In any case, I’m sticking with my original story. Thad Cochran and Lindsey Graham and Lamar Alexander and Mitch McConnell all filibustered Medal on Honor winners because they don’t like Obama. You can look it up, right on the Senate website.