If you read the story in Politico earlier today about what the Democrats are secretly trying to do with Appropriations Chair Robert C. Byrd, trying to back seat him and replace him as chairman with Washington State dim bulb Patty Murray, the following montage of the very senior Senator from West Virginia announcing the omnibus appropriations bill coming tonight in the Senate sure could be entered as evidence why it needs to be done. 



Here's all you need to know about what the Senate is trying to do tonight.  The Democrats are hopelessly behind in getting their mandatory appropriations work done for the year.  They can't get it all done individually, so they've packaged the remaining 11 of the 12 into one big bill, loaded with too much spending and too much pork, but almost acceptable to President Bush and the Republicans in the Senate.

Anytime there is an omnibus anything in the Senate, conservatives should get nervous. But there are three amendments that are going to be voted on tonight that will determine whether this bill gets passed or not. 

The first one is by Mitch McConnell, and is an amendment that will provide an additional $70 billion dollars for the war effort, without any timetable for withdrawal stipulations.  My sources tell me that if this amendment doesn't get tacked onto the bill, the whole measure is dead. 

The second amendment is authored by Wisconsin anti-war Senator Russ Feingold, which is another trip to the McConnell woodshed, demanding that there is an effective declaration of surrender and retreat from Iraq.  This measure is almost doomed to fail, as every one of the other 60 plus attempts by the Democrats this year to cut and run in Iraq.  If, somehow, this gets 60 votes and gets attached to the bill, the omnibus appropriations bill is dead.

The third amendment tonight is going to be a Feingold-lite withdrawal measure by Michigan Senator Carl Levin.  It also is a deal-breaker, if it gets cloture tonight. 

There has been a lot of fury from the border security conservatives who read the Washington Times story Tuesday morning, claiming that Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is behind language to defund the Southern border fence, something that her staff has been denying all day long.  The money is still there.  The language is the same language that's been passed by the Senate three times this year.  But that's one of the things that's wrong with omnibus bills.  There's too much precedence for funny business being buried before being openly debated. 

The likely scenario is Feingold and Levin gets beat tonight, McConnell gets attached, and the bill gets passed tonight.  If McConnell's amendment goes down, then Harry Reid has a mess on his hands.  He will be looking at the end of the year, his first in the majority, with a government shutdown looming that will be his fault.  He won't have time to break these things out individually, and his only other option is to start serving up continuing resolutions as a stopgap, and punt the issue down the road, a procedure becoming very familiar to Reid.  

We'll update this thread as we see what the Senate does tonight.

UPDATE #1 - 7:31PM EST:  The Feingold Amendment has now been thoroughly debated and voted on.  24-71, meaning that the majority of Democrats in the Senate have cut and run on the cut and run resolution.  They've surrendered on their effort to surrender in Iraq.  Here's video of Ted Kennedy, one of Feingold's seemingly few remaining allies, in action, right before the vote, trying to rally the members of the Senate to raise the white flag.





Nice try, Senator Kennedy.  You came up a wee bit short of the 60 you needed.

Update #2 - 8:40PM EST:  As expected, the Carl Levin authored Feingold-lite cut and run bill out of Iraq just failed in its quest to get the 60 votes necessary for passage, 50-45.  Now the Senate Democrats have to decide how bad they want to get something done this year by voting for the McConnell $70 billion dollar war supplemental.  Voting is going on right now.

Update #3 - 9:00PM EST:  Mitch McConnell's vote just came in at 70-25.  If you had any doubts about who runs the Senate, tonight should have been very, very clear.  The new omnibus approps package now goes back to Nancy Pelosi, who has to hold her nose and vote for it, because she now realizes she's alone at the end of the do-nothing Congress plank.  Harry Reid just left her side.