The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Republicans holding America's unemployed hostage in exchange for continuing the Bush tax cuts for the "two percenters" and the sweetener of the Jon Kyl-Blanche Lincoln "Paris Hilton Amendment" reducing the estate tax finally got what they wanted Thursday night. The House approved the Obama-McConnell tax cut compromise by a vote of 277 to 148. The tax bill now goes to the President for his signature.

The "ninety-niners" hostages were killed during the hostage exchange. They are collateral damage in the GOP class war against America's middle class.

Over in the completely dysfunctional and broken Senate, Republicans reneged on their pledges to vote for the omnibus spending bill, which reflected months of bipartisan negotiations, and included earmarks benefiting both Republicans and Democrats. There is no honor among thieves.

That move left Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid several votes shy of the 60 votes he had at the beginning of the day needed to overcome a filibuster and essentially vaporized a year's worth of bipartisan work by the Appropriations Committee. This is the kind of bad faith Americans can come to expect from Republicans for the next two years.

Republicans were now threatening to hold all Americans hostage by shutting down the government on Saturday, the deadline to continue federal appropriations. Rather than turn over more hostages to the Republicans, Harry Reid pulled the omnibus spending bill and will submit a continuing resolution for a vote on Friday to keep the government operating into next year. Reid was forced to punt the appropriations bills to the next Congress, something which has happened with regular frequency in recent history.

The dickishness of Sen. John McCain was on display last night. After Spending Bill Implodes, Reid Schedules Vote on DADT Repeal | TPMDC:

Minutes later, in one of the most chortling colloquies of the 111th Congress, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) gloated over the defeat of the spending bill.

Kirk, the most junior member of the Senate asked, "Did we just win?"

McCain responded, "I think there's very little doubt that the Majority Leader of the United States Senate would not have taken the action he just took if we didn't have 41 votes to stop this monstrosity."

Kirk continued, "so for economic conservatives, a 1,924-page bill just died?

"A 1,924-page bill just died," McCain responded laughing.

Updated with video.

So much for that "country first" lie McCain peddled during his presidential campaign.

As a consolation to furious Democrats, Reid filed cloture on both the DADT repeal and the DREAM Act, and scheduled a cloture vote on Saturday.

The stacked cloture motions imply that Democrats expect one — likely the DREAM Act — to fail. But, according to a Reid aide, if the filibuster is broken, the final vote on DADT repeal will come Sunday night.

Running parallel to all this is START, which the Senate will continue debating tomorrow and again next week.