Today in Congress: Friday! Friday! Gotta pass the NDAA on Friday (then take a recess)!

We so excited. We so excited. Gotta make my mind up. Which seat will I take? Recapping yesterday's action:

The House put in a full day yesterday, you'll no doubt be pleased to know. They mopped up a few of the still-lingering suspension bills, and debated two motions to instruct the conferees on the surface transportation bills, but most of the day (and late into the night, as well), they worked their way through the pile of amendments to the defense authorization bill. With the help of some large en bloc offerings, sometimes packaging 20 or so individual amendments together for one vote, the House managed to move pretty quickly through a significant chunk of its 142 permitted amendments. Included in the day's work: the expected rejection of the amendment from Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA-09), providing for the orderly withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, and; a Republican-splitting battle over indefinite detention of terrorism suspects, embodied in the fight between the Smith/Amash and Gohmert amendments. Who to root for in a fight between Reps. Justin Amash (R-MI-03) and Louie Gohmert (R-TX-01)? Not hard: Amash. Though Amash is a wild man, and you would ordinarily be very wary of throwing your lot in with him, Gohmert is easily one of the most Neanderthal jackasses you're ever likely to have the displeasure of seeing in the House, and you can be pretty sure that if there's a difference of opinion on something and he's representing one side, that's the side that's public policy poison.

By the way, as a result of the late night in the House, the usual source of our projected morning floor schedule, "The Nightly Whip," was not published. Usually, it's counterpart, "The Daily Whip," is not published in time for us to post by 9 a.m. But today it was up early, since Members face early votes. So down below the fold, you'll get the slightly more thorough "Daily Whip," complete with a brief description of the bill, links to the text and committee report, etc.

The Senate passed six quick unanimous consent measures, and two mildly contentious appointments to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (operating under a "painless filibuster" 60-vote agreement), and saw consideration of an Iran sanctions bill blocked by Republican objections. But even while the two votes Fed appointments were dispensed with absent the drama of a full-on cloture vote, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) had to file for cloture on the motion to proceed to the FDA user fee bill, as well as on the next judicial nomination up for consideration (that of Paul Watford, to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals). Those are the 87th and 88th cloture filings of the 112th Congress. That's still 49 filings short of the 2nd all-time highest total and 52 shy of breaking the all-time record outright, but it looks like we may have a long and contentious remainder of the session still ahead of us. And if there's a lame duck session, well, who knows what might happen?

Looking ahead to today:

The House returns to work today after a late night, with eyes trained on finishing up the mountain of amendments to the NDAA, and a vote on final passage before breaking for'you guessed it'its next recess, this one leading up to Memorial Day and running through the middle of the following week.

The Senate took the opportunity to break early and head into the weekend, but they plan to be back at work next week, taking their Memorial Day break the following week.

Today's floor and committee schedules appear below the fold.