Update 4: The Senate passed their 2-year budget deal with a 71-18 vote after time ran out on Rand Paul's stall. Now it goes to the House, where Paul Ryan will likely need to do more than pay lip service to bringing up a bill for the DREAMers.
I am seeing reports that the House Rules Committee will meet at 2:30 to take up the bill. Also, this happened, so perhaps I was unfair to Mitch McConnell.
Update 3 Feb. 8, 2018: (Karoli)
Mitch McConnell has recessed the Senate until 12:01 am, at which time the government will officially be shut down, just as Donald Trump demanded. Rand Paul was his willing toady. My hypothesis below stands. Nothing has convinced me this wasn't the plan.
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Even with Nancy Pelosi's epic 8-hour Speech on Stilettos yesterday, it seemed as though we would get a vote out of the way in the Senate and the House would be a close, but done deal.
Except now Rand Paul is on the Senate floor yammering about liberty and blocking the Senate vote. He just tweeted this twaddle:
It's typical Rand Paul argle-bargle but it is just weird that he's doing it over this bill when he was just fine with handing out nearly One-Trillion-With-A-T dollars in tax cuts.
And then there is this:
Oh, please.
Indulge me for a minute and consider that this is not really Rand Paul's Stand Against Government Waste.
This is what Mitch McConnell said in January when the government shut down the first time.
“Should these issues not be resolved by the time the funding bill before us expires on Feb. 8, so long as the government remains open, it would be my intention to take up legislation here in the Senate that would address DACA, border security and related issues as well as disaster relief.”
Everyone interpreted that bolded clause to mean if DEMOCRATS agreed to keep it open.
Now we have a Republican shutting it down.
Here's a question to ponder. Is this just a display to weasel out of the DACA issues? Rand Paul is, after all, the junior Senator from Kentucky, McConnell's home state.
It seems like Rand Paul shutting down the government would give Mitch McConnell the opportunity to go back on his word, not because Democrats shut down the government, but because Republicans did.
After all, the head of the Republican party called for a shutdown. Three times in two seconds, and did so over his demands that immigration issues be handled his way or no way.
He tweeted this around the time it became apparent the government might shut down.
I hope my hypothesis is wrong here, but I don't trust McTurtle as far as I can throw him. Talk me down.
Update:
Does this look like McConnell is particularly bothered by what's happening right now?
Update 2:
And then I see tweets like this:
