Today, after the failed cloture vote on the immigration reform bill, Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) took to the Senate floor to talk about his age.

Sen. Robert Byrd has addressed hundreds of issues in his 49-year Senate career, but his speech Thursday was unusually personal. It dealt with his own advanced age, tremors, slow gait and delegation of duties he once held close.

Byrd, 89, stood on the Senate floor to defend his energy and mental acuity, even as he acknowledged that aging takes a toll. The West Virginia Democrat said he wanted to respond to recent accounts of his Senate work, including a June 14 Associated Press article noting that aides or fellow senators sometimes prompt him to respond to colleagues' questions or remind him of their names.

Tonight, after reading this article, I remembered that I had recorded the Senate happenings all day today, because of the immigration debate and the cloture vote. While some people will just browse this post and move on, I thought some of you might want to hear his entire speech. So here it is.

Captain Ed asks, "Now what?"

Noam Askew has some post-cloture vote analysis.

The death of the Amnesty Bill is a defeat for the Senate Democratic leadership. If Scary Harry hadn't agreed to pushing this bill by unorthodox means, we might still be debating it.

Michael Illions has a summary of candidates and how they voted. You need to remember this information come election day.

Ted Kennedy kept asking, "What are you for?" We kept responding, "Secure borders", but he wasn't paying attention. Even after the vote, he had no idea how many people opposed it.

Sam Brownback had trouble following the leader. Maybe he couldn't decide which vote would be most popular until the end. Tsk tsk. He probably wishes now that he missed the vote. Not quite the type of person we need in the White House, is it?

"The American people won today".

The immigration quote of the day comes from Vince Lombardi, via John Hawkins,

"I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is the moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle-victorious."

President Bush looks like he could cry.

I guess President Bush is going to have to wait for that bill signing after all…

We, the people, made a difference today. We stopped this bill for the second time. We refused to surrender, and we made an impact. Heck, we even brought down the Senate phone system today.

I want to thank those U.S. Senators who had the backbone to stand up and object to the way Harry Reid was conducting the debate (or lack thereof). I want to thank them for knowing what was right and not backing down when almost everyone else in the Senate seemed to be opposed to them. I want to thank them for representing the people, not only of their home states, but of the entire United States Of America.

A few weeks ago, President Bush asked the Senate to find the courage to do the right thing, and today as a group, they finally found it. Yes, we sent them to our nation's capitol to handle the tough issues, but we did so with the idea that they would listen to our opinions, and not special interest groups, when it was time to make those tough decisions. We have a lot to do on matters pertaining to immigration, and I recommend that the Senate start with securing our borders. President Bush was able to find $4.4 billion to sweeten the immigration bill with. If he is serious about immigration reform, and securing our borders, maybe he will recommend that Congress appropriate that $4.4 billion for border security and enforcement of our current laws.

Most of all though, tonight I want to thank you, my readers, for doing your part to kill the Amnesty Bill. Whether you called your Senators, emailed them, faxed them, or just helped spread the word so others would know to call theirs. You made a difference. You saved our country.

For that, I am eternally grateful.

Every time they announce another Democratic debate, a hairdresser receives his $400.

From Johnny Isakson's website:

“It is clear we have a crisis in confidence among the American people over our commitment to secure the border,” Isakson said. “Because past promises have yet to be fulfilled, the confidence level in the Congress and in the Administration to secure the border and to pay for enforcement measures is too low for immigration reform to proceed.”

…

“We pass emergency supplementals for various things in this body. We’ve done it in response to Katrina. We’ve done it in response to Iraq. I would submit that the American people would tell you there’s no greater emergency right now than securing our border,” Isakson said. “An authorization is a promise, and an appropriation is a commitment. It is time that Congress makes a commitment and makes border security a reality.”

I am still quite peeved at both Isakson and Chambliss, but seeing that Isakson is not up for re-election in 2008, he has a little more time to prove he will actually start listening to the people from the State of Georgia again.

From Senator Chambliss' website:

A lot of people have asked me why I became involved in this process initially, and there is a very simple answer: folks in Georgia sent me to Washington to engage in the issues that are important to America, and if we don’t secure the border and fix our broken immigration system our children and grandchildren will suffer the consequences of our failure to act.

Senator Isakson and I participated in the process early on because we wanted to ensure that our views and concerns were expressed and that, first and foremost, the border security triggers were included in the bill. I believe our contribution to the process was critical in strengthening key components of the legislation. While it wasn’t incumbent that everybody agree with the overall bill presented to the American people, it was important that we have a meeting of the minds to allow a full and fair debate on this critical issue. Unfortunately, the parameters that the Majority Leader set for this historic debate did not allow all senators the opportunity to offer and vote on amendments to the legislation. I believe this is too important an issue to restrict the rights of senators and the voices of their constituents.

Too often politicians talk and don’t listen. Georgians made their voices heard loud and clear and we have listened. The resounding opinion we heard was: we do not trust the federal government to enforce the laws in this new legislation because it has never enforced our immigration laws in the past; we need to secure the border the first and then deal with the collateral issues. Due to the tremendous response from Georgians, Senator Isakson and I communicated to President Bush that Congress must pass, and he should sign, a supplemental appropriations bill to fully fund the necessary expenditures to secure our borders first and separately from larger immigration reform legislation.

The debate must continue, because the status quo is not working. I will continue fighting for border security and I will continue to oppose amnesty for those who have broken our laws. Georgians demand no less than our fullest commitment to this critical issue.

I must say, I was quite disappointed with him during the first Amnesty Bill battle, but he came around before the second battle ensued. The question now is, do I support him come election day? We'll see what he does between now and then.