Somber Harry Reid: "Mr. President, this has been a very difficult time...I was hoping that my friends on the other side of the aisle that a small group shouldn't dictate what happens around here."
Um, yeah.
"We're going to keep the bill off the Senate floor." Proposes having more GOP amendments. "Hopefully, we can do that in the next several weeks...One of my colleagues who has worked very hard on this came into my office and shed some tears."
Bets, anyone? Mine: Lindsay "Hissy Fit" Graham.
Reid extols the DREAM Act provision in the bill that promises illegal alien college tuition discounts not available to Americans and law-abiding immigrants--in violation of a federal ban on such special treatment.
Whines some more about lack of support for his cloture vote.
Reid vows that he will "put aside hurt feelings" and "move on with the anticipation that this bill is something that the country needs" and "hope we can figure out a way to do it."
Thank God. Reid has said that if this final cloture failed, he will drop the bill. While it can of course resurface again, this was their best chance to force it through. The closer we get to election season, the more scared Republican senators will be of alienating their base, although they have already done that anyway. Right now, I -- and a lot of other conservatives -- are breathing a huge sigh of relief.
Michelle Malkin has been liveblogging from the Senate floor:
I liveblogged the vote on the Coburn amendment earlier this morning. The roll call deserves its own separate post. Everything you need to know about your US Senators' commitment to the rule of law is right here. Note that GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain didn't bother to cast a vote:
The Coburn Amendment states:
EXISTING LAW.--The following provisions of existing law shall be fully implemented, as previously directed by the Congress, prior to the certification set forth in paragraph (1):
(A) The Department has achieved and maintained operational control over the entire international land and maritime borders of the United States as required under the Secure Fence Act of 2006 (Public Law 109-367)
(B) The total miles of fence required under such Act have been constructed.
(C) All databases maintained by the Department which contain information on aliens shall be fully integrated as required by section 202 of the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002 (8 U.S.C. 1722).
(D) The Department shall have implemented a system to record the departure of every alien departing the United States and of matching records of departure with the records of arrivals in the United States through the US-VISIT program as required by section 110 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (8 U.S.C. 1221 note).
(E) The provision of law that prevents States and localities from adopting ``sanctuary'' policies or that prevents State and local employees from communicating with the Department are fully enforced as required by section 642 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (8 U.S.C. 1373).
(F) The Department employs fully operational equipment at each port of entry and uses such equipment in a manner that allows unique biometric identifiers to be compared and visas, travel documents, passports, and other documents authenticated in accordance with section 303 of the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002 (8 U.S.C. 1732).
(G) An alien with a border crossing card is prevented from entering the United States until the biometric identifier on the border crossing card is matched against the alien as required by section 101(a)(6) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(6)).
(H) Any alien who is likely to become a public charge is denied entry into the United States pursuant to section 212(a)(4) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(4)).
Here are the GOP senators who opposed it (I won't list the Dems, because we all know they hate America already):
The bill just avoided cloture with a 33-63 vote -- again -- but there is still another vote coming up at 5:00. Let's hope we can avoid that. It will help slow momentum, but it won't kill it completely. Keep the pressure on your senators. Get their phone numbers and/or e-mail addresses here, on the official Senate website.
Also, call the National Republican Senatorial Committee at (202) 675-6000, and the Republican National Committee at (202) 863-8500 (option 1). Tell them all -- politely, of course -- that you will not support any senator who lets this bill pass. Remind them that this bill would be national suicide, costing taxpayers trillions of dollars and that you don't want it passed.
If it does pass, John Hawkins of Right Wing News is ready with The Payback Project. Hopefully, he won't have to use it. Here is the plan if the bill passes:
If the amnesty bill in the Senate passes, The Payback Project is going to work through the end of the primary season to defeat any Republican senator up for reelection in 2008 who votes for it.
Some of the ways we're going to do that include,
* Googlebombing the targeted senators with negative articles (I know some people are claiming Googlebombing no longer works. They may be right. But, my expectation is that it will work fine because they were saying the exact same thing last year and it worked like a charm).
* Writing articles like this about each targeted senator, "What Republicans in South Carolina should know before they vote for Lindsey Graham."
* Making YouTube videos similar to these aimed at the targeted senators.
* Building up or acquiring in-state email lists of Republicans to use in an effort to convince as many Republicans as possible in the targeted states not to vote for the targeted senators.
* Making ourselves freely available to the local press to explain, as conservatives, why Republicans shouldn't support the targeted senators.
* Raising money for viable challengers to targeted senators.
Our goal will be to either defeat these senators in the 2008 primaries or, if that's not possible, to cause enough early damage to cost them 5k-10k votes in the general election.
The point of that will either be to put more senators willing to listen to us into office or hurt the targeted senators enough that the GOP will never go against the base again on an issue this important.
Keep the pressure on. Keep fighting. With any luck, this bill will die in the Senate.
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