Senate debate on Iraq for Frid & Sat, Feb 16 & 17 [View All]

[TayTay]

The Senate has decided to debate the war on Iraq after all. However, since this is the Senate, it will be done in a round about way so as to deal with the arcane rules that govern the Senate. (Oy vey!) Sen. Harry Reid announced this evening that he has scheduled a cloture vote on whether or not to bring House Resolution 63, the one that the House is currently debating, to the floor of the Senate after recess week. (Yes, this is another debate about whether or not to debate. Don't complain about the rules, resistance is futile.)

So, there will be a cloture vote or a vote on whether or not to shut off debate and actually proceed with calling the bill up for actual debate on the floor of the Senate. (Still with me?) Should this get 60 votes, the number needed to shut down a filibuster, then the actual House bill will come before the Senate the week of Feb 26th and that would mean even more debate on the War in Iraq. (Yeah!!!!) Ahm, still with me here? I believe this is the bill in question: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c110:1:./temp/~c1101J4MUl::

We are actually no farther along on the debate about the debate than we were last week. Sen. Reid wants to bring up the House Res, cuz it is a very 'clean bill' without any messy side arrangements. Sen. McConnell, the Senate Republican Minority Leader hates the nice clean bill because he greatly fears that a lot of his Senators will vote for it and embarrass him and the President. (The House Bill expressed disapproval of the troop escalation and does so in under 100 words. Very unSenate like.)

Sen. McConnell wants to bring up the McCain bill: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c110:5:./temp/~c1101J4MUl::
And is mightily miffed that he might not be able to because Sen. Reid, as is his michevious right, might be 'filling the trees' on this and there would be no room for this as an amendment and no room for the amendment that Sen. Gregg from NH wants to introduce that says that Congress has no intention of ever shutting off funds for the war. (Cheeky little monkey. Imagine intoducing that.) Ah, still with me? Good onward.

So, there will be six hours of debate on whether or not to call up the House bill for debate starting on Friday, Feb 16th at 12:30 pm. There will be six hours of debate, equally divided, with alternating half hour periods between Democrats (expcept for Sen. Lieberman) who want to debate the escalation and the war in Iraq and the Republicans (with Lieberman, no doubt) who don't want to debate the war. Then on Sat, Feb 17th, there will be a cloture vote at 1:45 pm that will determine if the Senate gets to debate the bill or if it is still being filibustered. (There, now that is clear as a bell, right?)

This has angered a lot of Senators, some of them Presidential candidates who were supposed to be elsewhere in primary states pledging their undying love to corn-based ethanol and First-in-the-nation primaries and stuff. Too bad. They have all had to move their schedules around or miss one of the biggest votes this year in the Senate. (Sen. Obama has not committed to making it back for this yet. I bet he does though.)

Also, I wouldn't be surprised to see Sen. Kerry on the floor again on this either tomorrow afternoon or Sat morning. So, set the taping devices to stun and keep and eye on C-Span 2.

That's about the best I can do on explaining the debate. It should be a doozy again. I recommend keeping an eye on it, if you can.