They Got the Votes!

Six Republican senators joined with the Democrats to break a filibuster for a three-month extension of the unemployment benefits that expired on December 28.  The vote was 60-37 (Dem Mark Begich of Alaska couldn’t get there).

Thank you to these “good” Republicans — Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Dan Coats of Indiana, Dean Heller of Nevada, and Rob Portman of Ohio — for doing the right thing — at least procedurally — for both our long-term unemployed and our economy.

But now they move to the substantive vote — and they still have to find a way to pay for the thing, so it’s far from done.

Then, of course, it would take a miracle to get it through the House, where 207 of the GOP seats are considered safe, so no incentive to rock the boat there .

These Four Pygmies

From “A Shameful Day in the Senate,” Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast:

“Every strong political movement, besotted with the fragrance of its own power, hits the point of overreach, and the pro-gun movement hit that point yesterday in the morally repulsive Senate vote on the background-checks bill. We all know the old cliché that the National Rifle Association has power because its members vote on the guns issue, while gun-control people aren’t zealots. Well, Wayne LaPierre and 46 craven senators, that ‘majority’ of the Senate, have just created millions of zealots, and as furious as I am, I’m also strangely at peace, because I’m more confident than ever that the NRA will never, ever be stronger in Washington than it was yesterday.

“You cannot oppose the will of 90 percent of the public and expect no consequences. You can’t have people saying what Rand Paul said, that monstrous comment of his about Newtown parents being “props,” and think that you haven’t offended and infuriated millions of people. You can’t introduce amendments that encourage more interstate transfer of weapons and give it the way-beyond-Orwellian name ‘safe communities’ act and think that karma will never come back around on you. And you can’t sneer at the parents of dead 6-year-olds and expect that God isn’t watching and taking notes.

“Sickening. The whole thing. The four cowardly Democrats, too. Max Baucus, Mark Begich, Mark Pryor, and Heidi Heitkamp. Heitkamp won’t face her voters again for five years. Baucus has been around long enough to be able to be bigger than this. Begich and Pryor, who face reelection next year, have the least lame excuses of all, but they are cowards too. They have to know they did the wrong thing. If Joe Manchin could do what he did—and trust me, I’m from West Virginia, and I know Joe, and our families knew each other, and the whole thing. If Manchin could do what he did, from a state every bit as tough on this issue as theirs, these four pygmies really have to be ashamed of themselves.”

The NRA Has Already Won

Oh, big whup — the debate on gun reform is going to proceed after a GOP filibuster attempt was defeated 68-31.  And shame on you, Mark Begich of Alaska and Mark Pryor of Arkansas for voting with the GOP.  That special circle in hell for cowards awaits.

Nothing like walking by your dead child’s room and thinking, “What a great victory to stop that filibuster.”

So we’ll get a debate on gun reform, we’ll get votes on gun reform, we just won’t get any real gun reform.

Broader background checks?  Sure, a good thing if the Manchin-Toomey deal passes.  But we need to deal with the semi-automatic weapons and large ammo clips, and that ain’t gonna happen.  More dead kids?  That’s definitely gonna happen.