UPDATE: Dems broke the filibuster at 2 a.m. EST.

You know, I'm beginning to wonder if the refusal to operate in good faith isn't a form of official malfeasance. Because voters should impeach these senators for simply refusing to do their jobs - like voting for this bill, which funds their unemployment benefits:

Senate Republicans said Thursday that they would try to filibuster a massive Pentagon bill that funds the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an unusual move that several acknowledged was an effort to delay President Obama's health-care legislation.

Late into the night, Democrats emerged from a huddle confident that they would muster the 60 votes needed to thwart the GOP effort at blocking the military spending bill. An antiwar liberal said he would set aside his reservations and support choking off the filibuster to keep the chamber on a timeline of holding a final health-care vote before Christmas. The vote on the defense spending bill was to occur after 1 a.m. Friday, too late for this edition.

The maneuvering came as Democrats were still trying to round up a 60th vote on the health-care legislation. Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.), the last holdout in the Democratic caucus and the focus of an intense lobbying campaign by White House officials, rejected an abortion compromise aimed at bringing him on board. Nelson has said he would not support the package unless it explicitly bars the use of federal money for abortion services.

If Nelson's support can be secured over the weekend, Democrats are hopeful that they will be able to begin clearing the parliamentary hurdles that would allow final passage of their version of the legislation by Christmas Eve. That would meet their self-imposed deadline to pass the measure and begin negotiating with House Democrats to craft a final version to send to the president.

Republicans have said their goal is to block the bill and force Senate Democrats to go home and face their constituents, hoping for some supporters of the measure to return after New Year's too fearful to back the legislation.

If the filibuster on the $626 billion defense bill succeeded, Democrats would have to scramble to find a way to fund the military operations, because a stopgap funding measure will expire at midnight Friday. Such an effort might have disrupted the very tight timeline on health care.

Republicans have provided the backbone of support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and many have praised Obama's troop increase in Afghanistan, so the plan to oppose defense spending Friday morning put them in an unusual position. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) cited the thousands of earmarks in the bill in explaining his opposition, and others cited factors not related to health care.

But Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) was blunt in explaining his support of a filibuster. "I don't want health care," said Brownback, a member of the Appropriations Committee, which crafted the Pentagon funding bill.

[...] Democrats were furious. They believed they had a deal with Sen. Thad Cochran (Miss.), the top Republican on the Appropriations Committee, but by Thursday night Cochran was saying he was unsure how he would vote.

UPDATE: Dan Pfeiffer at the White House blog makes the following acute observation:

The depth of the hypocrisy involved is stunning. Back in 2007, when Congress was debating how to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible close, many of these same folks launched blistering accusations about Democrats' commitment to our troops. Here are just a few of the things they said:

"Playing politics with the critical funding that our troops need now is political theater of the worst kind." – Sen. John Cornyn, [Press Release, 4/26/07]

"We have plenty of time and plenty of opportunity to have political debates... but it’s just unconscionable to me to tie the hands of the very troops that we all say we support." – Sen. John Cornyn, [Transcript, Senate Republican News Briefing, 4/10/07]

"Every day we don’t fund our troops is a day their ability to fight this war is weakened." – Sen. Mitch McConnell, [Press Release, 3/31/07]

"No way to treat the troops, and it is entirely inconsistent with [Senators’] expressions of support for the troops." – Sen. Mitch McConnell, [Congressional Record, 10/4/07]

"I don't understand this attitude of, ‘We can play with; we can risk the lives of these troops by waiting until the last possible minute to get the funding to them." – Sen. Jon Kyl, [FOX News Transcript, 4/10/07]

"Our obligation to those troops must transcend politics." – Sen. Jon Kyl, [Press Release, 11/8/07]

Now though, as we debate not foreign policy but health care, the Department of Defense funding can wait? Incredible.

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I don't agree with Bob Schieffer all that often but I do agree with most of his points on this one. From CBS News' Face the Nation, Nov. 1, 2009--A Class in Nation-Building 101:

SCHIEFFER: Finally today, as the president tries to develop a new strategy in Afghanistan, I wonder if this is the real lesson that we’ve learned in Afghanistan so far, that nation-building, like charity, probably begins at home, at least the way we seem to be going about it in Afghanistan.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Terrorism poses a threat to America’s national security, but is trying to build a Western-style nation in Afghanistan by funneling money to its leaders really the best way to combat terrorism?

I guess what set me off is that story about how we’ve secretly put the president of Afghanistan’s brother on the CIA payroll. He’s the one who is supposed to be mixed up in the drug trade. The idea was that, by doing that, he’ll help us pave the way to building a democracy there. Now, that’s good work if you can get it. But I don’t see how that is making us safer.

Whatever the size of the military force the president decides on for Afghanistan, I think he needs to be paying more attention to where the money is going for the non-military spending there. Incredibly, no one really seems to know. The judge by what we’ve gotten from it so far, we’d be much better off with some nation-building back home. Our infrastructure is already a mess.

We could start at the Oakland Bay Bridge, where a 5,000 pound part of the top fell off into the traffic below. That would certainly make us safer, for sure.

In Afghanistan, we’re having to relearn what we should have already known, that we can help others but we can’t do it for them. And when we have to pay others to help themselves, I don’t see how that helps anyone but the guy getting paid.

And gee, I wonder how many of the people voting for this expensive pork barrel of a bill are the same Blue Dogs who are restricting health care because of "fiscal responsibility"?

The Democratic-controlled House is poised to give the Pentagon dozens of new ships, planes, helicopters and armored vehicles that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates says the military does not need to fund next year, acting in many cases in response to defense industry pressures and campaign contributions under an approach he has decried as "business as usual" and vowed to help end.

The unwanted equipment in a military spending bill expected to come to a vote on the House floor Thursday or Friday has a price tag of at least $6.9 billion.

The White House has said that some but not all of the extra expenditures could draw a presidential veto of the Defense Department's entire $636 billion budget for 2010, and it sent a message to House lawmakers Tuesday urging them to cut expenditures for items that "duplicate existing programs, or that have outlived their usefulness."

While the administration won a big victory when the Senate voted July 21 to end the F-22 fighter-jet program, the House's imminent action demonstrates its continued rebellion on many other Obama administration military spending priorities. Gates continues to struggle with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who are loyal to existing military programs benefiting contractors that provide jobs and large campaign donations.

House appropriators want to buy, for example, extra C-17 transport planes and F-18 jets, as well as four extra military jets used by lawmakers and Pentagon VIPs. And they want to keep alive a troubled missile-defense interceptor program and continue the troubled VH-71 presidential helicopter program.

Gates vowed in April to fundamentally overhaul the military's "approach to procurement, acquisition and contracting" and urged Congress to support the termination of many traditional weapons programs in favor of more spending on counterinsurgency efforts and operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In this round, those Democratic and Republican lawmakers who support maintaining or expanding programs that Gates proposed to eliminate or trim appear likely to prevail, because an unusually restrictive rule for floor debate agreed upon Wednesday will allow only amendments that could strip less than half of the spending the administration did not request.

Roughly $2.75 billion of the extra funds -- all of which were unanimously approved in an 18-minute markup Monday by the House Appropriations Committee -- would finance "earmarks," or projects demanded by individual lawmakers that the Pentagon did not request. About half of that amount reflects spending requested by private firms, including 95 companies or related political action committees that donated a total of $789,190 in the past 2 1/2 years to members of the appropriations subcommittee on defense, according to an analysis by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonprofit watchdog group.

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On This Week Paul Krugman pointed out the Republican's hypocrisy on military spending:

Krugman: What's so wonderful is watching Republican congressmen saying "but this will cost jobs". The very same Republican congressmen who were denouncing the stimulus plan saying government spending never creates jobs but, cutting defense spending costs jobs. It's wonderful.

Hmmmmm...why does that sound familiar? Oh yeah..Barney Frank predicted it on Meet the Press in February.

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Frank: Well, two things. First, watch this face, David, because some of the arguments you've been hearing now about how government spending never helps the economy, you're going to hear the absolute reverse when military spending comes up. We have an airplane, the F-22, that is designed to defeat the Soviet Union in a war, and I think we can save billions. The defense budget has gone way up under George Bush. But somehow to my Republican friends enormous amounts for the war in Iraq--which I thought was a mistake--hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars for weapons to fight the Cold War, they don't count those. But you're going to hear an argument about how important military spending is for the economy.

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On Meet the Press Barney Frank calls out the Republican's hyprocrisy on never having any problems with spending for the military but complaining about social spending and on their sudden love of bipartisanship. And of course true to form David Gregory manages to change the subject just as Frank really starts to lay into them.

MR. GREGORY: Senator, will, will Republicans in the Senate try to delay passage?

SEN. ENSIGN: Sure. First of all, we only got the bill at 11:00 last night, OK? The--it was so complex. This is--this is almost $1 trillion. You don't get do-overs with $1 trillion. If you get this thing wrong, $1 trillion isn't like, "Well, we did it wrong, we'll try it again." A trillion dollars...

MR. GREGORY: Will it pass--do you think it'll pass this week?

SEN. ENSIGN: It'll pass this week. But we want some time to go through it. We want some time for the American people to be able to look at it. Getting it at 11:00 on a Saturday night and, and just having, you know, a day and a half to look at $1 trillion in spending I don't think is adequate.

MR. GREGORY: Congressman:

REP. BARNEY FRANK (D-MA): Well, two things. First, watch this face, David, because some of the arguments you've been hearing now about how government spending never helps the economy, you're going to hear the absolute reverse when military spending comes up. We have an airplane, the F-22, that is designed to defeat the Soviet Union in a war, and I think we can save billions. The defense budget has gone way up under George Bush. But somehow to my Republican friends enormous amounts for the war in Iraq--which I thought was a mistake--hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars for weapons to fight the Cold War, they don't count those. But you're going to hear an argument about how important military spending is for the economy. So...(unintelligible).

Secondly, they talk about this wasteful spending. Let me talk about it. I'll be flying out of here this afternoon to go over to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where they're about to lay off cops and firefighters. That's the wasteful spending that my colleagues are talking about, money to go to the states to stop from laying off cops and firefighters. Money to help keep teachers going. Those are jobs. There seems to be this notion that if you hire someone to do something useful, that somehow becomes social spending and it doesn't count. In fact, these have dual purposes. If you keep cops and firefighters and teachers from being laid off, you're improving the quality of life, I think, or preventing a deterioration.

Secondly, as to the bipartisanship--again, I want to congratulate my Republican colleagues that they're not too old to learn. Because I was in Congress in 2001, two, three, four, five, six, when the Republicans controlled the House, the Senate, the White House and they pushed things through. There was none of this concern that one-party rule was a bad thing. Now that they're not the party, they've decided that that's a bad idea, and it's always nice when people know new things. But we had an election last year which had pretty decisive results in the White House, the Senate and the House, and it did say that public spending for improved infrastructure to keep bridges from crumbling, to keep cops and firefighters working, that that's a good thing.

MR. GREGORY: Congressman:

REP. PENCE: Well, less than 5 percent of this bill is for roads and bridges and infrastructure. And let me, let me be clear with Barney. I, I don't, I don't have any problem with some spending on infrastructure and making sure that people's unemployment benefits aren't lapsed. The point is, is what, what should most of this bill be about?

MR. GREGORY: Right.

REP. PENCE: No one is saying that spending by the federal government isn't going to have some benign positive effect on the economy.

REP. FRANK: David, we--excuse me, but...

MR. GREGORY: Well, let, let's just...

REP. PENCE: It's what, what will be the most effective to turn this recession around?

REP. FRANK: Mike, you just ignored what I said. You just ignored what I said. As I understand, one of the big cuts that had to be done--and I think Senator McCaskill and others were trying. But to get any Republicans at all, you had to adopt a cut that's going to mean policemen and firemen are going to be laid off.

SEN. ENSIGN: That's not true, Barney.

REP. PENCE: That's not true.

REP. FRANK: It's not just infrastructure.

SEN. ENSIGN: That's not true.

REP. FRANK: You're cutting off aid to the states. Aid to the states is to prevent...

SEN. ENSIGN: Hold on. All right, David...

REP. FRANK: ...this budget crunch from laying off public employees.

SEN. ENSIGN: Yeah.

MR. GREGORY: Let, let's get--I want to get to the--we're going to get to some of the cuts and whether they're wise in just a moment.