Breaking: Bunning and Senate leaders strike deal, republic is saved

Roll Call reports:

Under increasing pressure from Democrats and members of his own party, Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) Tuesday night abandoned his one-man filibuster of a one-month extension to unemployment benefits and other programs.

In the end Bunning agreed to a deal allowing him one vote on an amendment to pay for the bill’s $10 billion cost. That proposal was offered by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) last Thursday at the start of his filibuster, but Bunning rejected it because he feared his amendment would not pass.

Reid has also agreed to give Bunning two votes on amendments to a larger, one-year extension bill that is currently under consideration in the Senate.

Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said he was pleased a deal could be reached.

“Bunning is coming back now, he has accepted our offer to have one offsetting amendment, which is an offer we made last week, and now he’s accepted it. I think it’s a new offset, we’re waiting to see. So, we’ll see where it goes,” Durbin said. “So it would give us two votes: offset amendment and final passage of the short-term [unemployment insurance].”

The Senate is expected to vote Tuesday night on the short-term bill, which also includes payments for doctors and highway spending as well as other items.

My hat’s still off to him, though, for the point he was trying to make about PAYGO. Of course, the MSM didn’t paint the issue in this light, instead choosing to falsely call what Bunning was doing a “filibustering” of extending unemployment benefits (as Roll Call did above), while CNN portrayed Bunning as willingly wanting to hurt “Thousands of Americans.”

Related to all this, did you know that over the weekend two of Bunning’s offices received bomb threats? Of course you didn’t, because the MSM was too busy demonizing Bunning to cover the story on a national level. Gateway Pundit has the predictable details.