Senate Ratifies START Treaty, 9/11 First Responders Health Care Bill

The Senate vote on the START treaty, held just a few minutes ago, was 71-26, with all 26 “nay” votes from the Republican’t Party. In other great news from this extremely productive “lame duck” Congress, the Senate a little while ago also passed the 9/11 health care bill – free health care for 9/11 first responders – by unanimous consent (although only after overcoming days of Republican obstructionism on this seemingly non-controversial piece of legislation).

So…since we seem to be on a roll here, how about putting a national, renewable energy standard up for a vote?  One more try on the DREAM Act? Hey, you never know!

By the way, all this productivity seems to be helping President Obama politically. According to a new poll for CNN, Americans by a 59%-37% margin say that Obama’s “doing enough to cooperate with Republicans in Congress.” In contrast, by a 68%-28% margin, Americans say that Republicans are not doing enough to cooperate with President Obama.  Also, by a 46%-28% margin, Americans blame Republicans more than Democrats “for the lack of cooperation between the two parties in Washington.”  Finally, Americans view Democrats equally (47%-47%) in terms of favorable/unfavorable, while Republicans are at 42%-50% (-8 points) favorable/unfavorable. All in all, it looks like Republican obstructionism isn’t paying off for them right now, while Democrats appear to be reaping the rewards for actually getting s*** done for America.  What a concept! 🙂