Put Your Spelunking Gear On: All Senate Republicans Cave On DHS Funding Except Two...

Sens. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) are the only conservatives with a spine left in the Senate. Remember this vote.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is most pleased.

The stalemate over funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was broken Wednesday as the Senate voted 98-2 to proceed to legislation that would prevent a partial government shutdown.
Democrats agreed to support the DHS bill after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) stripped out provisions inserted by the House that would reverse President Obama’s executive actions on immigration.
The only votes against proceeding to the bill came from Sens. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.).
“Democrats will support getting on the House Homeland Security funding bill. In exchange, the leader will provide the only amendment, [it] will be a clean Homeland Security funding substitute,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said.

Mammoth Cave: GOP Leades take Cave to a Whole New Level...

Our feckless leaders have caved again. Is it third party time?

Via Washington Post:

Congress approved a plan to end Washington’s long drama over the “fiscal cliff” late Tuesday after House Republicans surrendered to President Obama’s demand to let taxes rise on the nation’s richest households.

The House voted 257 to 167 to send the measure to Obama for his signature; the vote came less than 24 hours after the Senate overwhelmingly approved the legislation.

House Speaker John A. Boehner (Ohio) and most other top GOP leaders took no public position on the measure and offered no public comment before the 10:45 p.m. vote. Boehner declined even to deliver his usual closing argument, leaving House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) to defend the measure as the “largest tax cut in American history.”

The bill will indeed shield millions of middle-class taxpayers from tax increases set to take effect this month. But it also will let rates rise on wages and investment profits for households pulling in more than $450,000 a year, marking the first time in more than two decades that a broad tax increase has been approved with GOP support.

The measure also will keep benefits flowing to 2 million unemployed workers on the verge of losing their federal checks. And it will delay for two months automatic cuts to the Pentagon and other agencies that had been set to take effect Wednesday.

Many economists had warned that the scheduled tax increases and spending cuts would have plunged the economy back into recession.

Conservatives complained bitterly that the legislation would raise taxes without making any significant cuts in government spending. ...

Komen Caves: Will Fund Planned Parenthood

At least VP Joe Biden can have his pink-ribbon harvest peach yogurt again.

Shameful cave:

We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives.

The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends and all of us at Susan G. Komen. We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not.

Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation. We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair.

Our only goal for our granting process is to support women and families in the fight against breast cancer. Amending our criteria will ensure that politics has no place in our grant process. We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities.

It is our hope and we believe it is time for everyone involved to pause, slow down and reflect on how grants can most effectively and directly be administered without controversies that hurt the cause of women. We urge everyone who has participated in this conversation across the country over the last few days to help us move past this issue. We do not want our mission marred or affected by politics – anyone’s politics.

Stupak Claims he hasn't caved

After hints a compromise on abortion was in the works, Rep. Stupak claims,

“Everyone’s going around saying there’s a compromise—there’s no such thing,”

The Weekly Standard reported:

“Everyone’s going around saying there’s a compromise—there’s no such thing,” Stupak said...

“Members don’t have a whole lot of appetite to vote for the Senate bill as a stand alone bill–that’s for sure,” Stupak said...

Stupak Prepares to Fold?

The best hope of stopping Obamacare is Rep. Bart Stupak and other blue dog democrats who are opposed to abortion coverage in the Senate bill version of Obamacare. Unfortunately, Stupak is signaling he may be ready to cave in.

Rep. Bart Stupak said he expects to resume talks with House leaders this week in a quest for wording that would impose no new limits on abortion rights but also would not allow use of federal money for the procedure.

“I’m more optimistic than I was a week ago,” Stupak said in an interview between meetings with constituents in his northern Michigan district. He was hosting a town hall meeting Monday night at a local high school.

“The president says he doesn’t want to expand or restrict current law (on abortion). Neither do I,” Stupak said. “That’s never been our position. So is there some language that we can agree on that hits both points — we don’t restrict, we don’t expand abortion rights? I think we can get there.”

Obama Gushes: "Pelosi's the Best Partner Any President Could Ever Have"

Of course, Nancy Pelosi had to cave in on the "Cadillac" health care plan tax. Does Nancy look like she is heavily medicated in the above picture to anyone else?

At a pep rally for Democrats in the Capitol, Obama said, "I hope you don't mind me singling out one of the best partners any President could ever have, and that is your unbelievable Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi."

H/T Weasel Zippers.

House Liberals Ready to Cave On Public Option

House liberals are signaling they are ready to cave on the public option in order to pass Obamacare.

From an Interview with the Top House Liberal:

I asked Grijalva if he could support the bill if such a change were made, even if it lacked a public option or other similar concessions sought by liberals…

Asked if he was suggesting that he’s open to supporting such an outcome, Grijalva answered in the affirmative, but insisted that he would have to evaluate the changes in conference before making any decision....