And the compromise Toomey-Manchin bill – the simplified background check bill, the one proposed by one Democrat with an A rating from the NRA and one Republican, the one that included prison terms for any government official retaining those records – goes down to defeat, 54 to 46. That’s 54 votes in favor of the bill and 46 against it, so by 21st century Senate rules, that means the side with 54 votes is the loser.
As with so many things over the last five years, the person to blame for this is Harry Reid, who after 2011-12 had no reason whatsoever to leave the old filibuster rules intact. It’s not like we didn’t know the GOP had shattered the filibuster record in three consecutive Congresses, except we totally did. Instead, the Man With No Balls let himself get rolled again, and again, and again, and a Senate with a Democratic majority is completely unable to pass a Democratic bill.
Then again, if Republicans didn’t live in pants-shitting fear of the NRA, this wouldn’t be an issue. But that shouldn’t be a surprise either. After all, pants-shitting fear is what it means to be a Republican, ever since an attack on New York and Washington DC made red America soil its britches.
We get the government we deserve. Twenty dead kids is the price of doing business, because we as a nation are too chickenshit to take on the chickenshits.