Rand Paul rode a wave of publicity following his 13-hour filibuster, but he also raised the ire of some of his fellow Republican senators and at least one Fox News host.
We put one of our reporters on a buswith a bunch of gun-rights guys going to Albany to call out Andrew Cuomo for being Hitler and taking away their guns. Here’s what happened.
John McCain is worried that Rand Paul’s 13-hour filibuster will embolden reformers who want to change the Senate rules.
As one of the guardians of the mess that is today’s Senate he’s right to be worried, but not for the reasons he thinks.
McCain believes — or appears to believe — that Paul reignited the filibuster reform movement because his scene on the Senate floor somehow embodies everything reformers hate about the Senate. This is precisely backwards. Read More
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Late this morning Sens. McCain and Graham went on the floor with what amounted to a pro-drone counter-stroke against Rand Paul’s filibuster last night. We’ll try to bring you some of the color about it shortly. Read More
TPM Reader SR is heartened but amazed if this could really have happened …
Steve Benen touched on a sentence from a First Read report on Obama’s dinner with Republican Senators:
“[O]ne senator told us that he learned, for the first time, the actual cuts that the president has put on the table. Leadership hadn’t shared that list with them before.”
So what’s next after Rand Paul’s 13-hour-long filibuster marathon?
First the technical stuff. Once Paul yielded the floor in the wee hours of Thursday morning, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) filed cloture on John Brennan’s nomination to be director of the CIA. That sets up, at the very latest, a Saturday vote to end debate and put Brennan on the glide path to confirmation.
It could happen earlier if Paul and other objecting senators decide their concerns have been addressed. But what made the filibuster such a remarkable and rare success is that the vote might now fail if Eric Holder and the Obama administration don’t provide Paul an answer to his question by Saturday.
That’s not how the world looked yesterday morning. Read More
New York NRA official barred from having guns after altercation with wife.
North Korea Threatens to Nuke the US.
Silvio Berlusconi Convicted and Sentenced to Year in Jail.
Rep. Peter King to Step into Boxing Ring for Exhibition Bout.
And my quick take on why Rand Paul filibuster was awesome and makes the case better than anything else for why we need filibuster reform.