We already knew Lisa Murkowski and Josh Hawley were spineless sellouts, but this Saturday night, they both proved it.
Senate Republicans advance Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' but final vote hangs in balance:
Senate Republicans narrowly advanced a budget bill that is pivotal to President Donald Trump's second-term agenda ahead of a self-imposed 4 July deadline.
In a 51-49 vote largely along party lines, the Senate has moved to open debate on the bill, a key initial hurdle that Republicans scrambled to overcome. Two Republicans joined Democrats in opposing the move to take up the bill.
Party leadership had been twisting arms for the initial vote on the "Big Beautiful Bill" on Saturday, following the release of its latest version - all 940 pages - shortly after midnight. [...]
The bill's fate on the Senate floor remains uncertain, as Republicans in the chamber continue to quarrel over the bill's provisions. Vice-President JD Vance travelled to the Capitol on Saturday night to offer a tiebreak vote, though party leaders were ultimately able to negotiate majority support without his help.
Meanwhile, Democrats say they will drag out the process in protest at the bill, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer saying his party will force Republicans to read out the nearly 1,000 pages of text before the Senate can begin debate and potentially take up a final vote.
As USA Today reported, the final outcome of the bill is far from certain at this point:
If the Senate is ultimately successful, the House would have to vote on the upper chamber's changes in order to reach Trump's desk by his self-imposed deadline of July 4. The Senate has trimmed the House version from about 1,100 pages to 940 − and still faces votes on what are expected to be dozens of amendments.
The success of Trump's domestic agenda for tax cuts and border security hangs in the balance. Republican approval of the spending blueprint would allow a majority of the 100-member Senate to approve all of Trump's priorities included in it through legislation later in the year, rather than needing 60 votes to overcome a filibuster for each measure.
I fully expect all of them to cave to Trump, no matter how damaging to their own constituents and political futures that might be, because apparently they're all still more afraid of Trump and his brainwashed constituents than anything that resemble sanity these days.
