Every year the Defense Authorization includes some big controversy. This time it’s provision measure that would mandate indefinite detentions of terrorist suspects in military custody and open the door for those indefinite detentions to extend to US citizens. Mark Udall is trying to strip out that provision.

Even in the Era of New Dysfunction, Congress usually manages to pass a defense authorization bill. The forces of nature demand that the war machine gets to set its budgets on time, even if the budgets for food stamps, welfare, the NIH, the Department of Education, etc., have to sit on pins and needles and [...]

This was the first vote on the Afghan war since the killing of Osama bin Laden. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi gave it a huge boost by announcing she would vote for it this morning, in defiance of the Obama Administration’s strategy.

The last time Congress voted on withdrawal from Afghanistan was on March 17, and withdrawal got 93 votes, including 8 from Republicans. Since then, Osama bin Laden has been killed in a counter-terrorism mission in Pakistan, taking some of the rationale for war away. Several members in both parties have since questioned the mission in Afghanistan and whether the pace of withdrawal could be accelerated.

The Senate continued a mad rush in their fairly productive lame duck session today, passing a food safety bill and filing cloture to end debate on ratification of the new START treaty.

Senate leadership has planned a vote on a free-standing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell legislative repeal, unencumbered by the defense authorization bill, to come to the floor sometime in the lame duck session, perhaps next week. Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins are co-sponsoring the bill, which will have the same language as what was in the defense authorization bill. Harry Reid will co-sponsor as well, and they will use Rule 14 to bypass the Senate Armed Services Committee and bring it directly to the floor.

Alas, the final vote was 57-40. Reid, I’m assuming, voted no on procedural reasons, so he can reconsider it later. But I’d say DADT repeal is dead for the year.

The idea that the schedule would doom DADT is basically an excuse, and the result of policies taken months and years ago, particularly to have a Pentagon study get released December 1, necessarily squeezing the time frame.

Republicans united in the Senate to block a $3.2 trillion dollar tax cut today, stopping consideration of an extension of tax rates for every worker in America on the first $250,000 of income. The final vote on the motion to proceed was 53-36. All Republicans, at least the ones who showed up, voted against the tax cut. So did Russ Feingold, Jim Webb and Joe Manchin, Joe Lieberman, and maybe more (will get a roll call when it’s up). I’m guessing Feingold just wants all the tax rates to expire; that would fit with his posture as a deficit hawk.

The lame duck session, which in its first week has lived up to its name, just got a bit more interesting.