Today in Congress: let's talk about yesterday

A little bit different on the format today, since there's no "today" in Congress, per se. There will be a pro forma session in the Senate, but no business will be conducted. It's Memorial Day weekend, and that means they're outta here. In the Senate, it means a recess next week. In the House, it means coming back to work from this past week's recess on Wednesday of next week. Why Wednesday? Because normally they'd come back on Tuesday, making it a three-day weekend. But you peasants are already getting a three-day weekend, and Congress is better than you, so that must mean they get a four-day weekend. Voilà! Wednesday.

No serious surprises yesterday in the Senate, but I felt like you should get a wrap-up, because of how much was still on the table, and if you've been reading along at all, you might actually end up wondering over the recess what happened to all that stuff they kept agreeing to agree to, but never actually following through on.

Well, what ended up happening was that they did get around to the FDA bill after all. They shot down all the amendments (tabling two of them), and passed the bill. Then, they moved on to not passing the student loan bill, by a vote of 51-43-1. Yep. Another victim of the "painless filibuster." All the obstruction of the regular filibuster, but in a convenient, travel size.

There actually is a committee meeting scheduled for today, so I'm putting that below the fold, along with yesterday's Senate floor wrap-up, which I included so that you could see the full recitation of the traditional pre-recess flood of executive appointments and military promotions passed by unanimous consent. It never fails.