Much has been made of Republican Senators finally finding their guts to say no to Trump’s wildest and most outrageously unlawful actions. It was put to the test in an appropriations bill to fund ICE and CBT with $70 billion for the next three years, where amendment after amendment was offered to address the myriad schemes to circumvent the Constitution and law and accomplish Trump’s wildest fantasies. The Republican Senators failed the test.

The Senate voted early Friday to fund immigration enforcement agencies for the rest of President Donald Trump’s term after a revolt by Republican senators held up the bill’s passage for weeks.

The bill passed 52-47 along party lines, with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) joining Democrats in opposing it. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colorado) did not vote.

Putting all the amendments aside, one might wonder whether the unconstrained actions of ICE and CBT, from beatings to murder, from arresting citizens to deporting people to African dictatorships and South American prisons, from detaining people in fetid prisons to denying them medical care, was a good idea. The question is not whether people who are removable should be removed. They should within the confines of the law and Constitution. The question is whether mass deportation somehow justifies the constant errors, needless violence, disregard for human life and safety and inhumane treatment in the process.

But then it will be really, really hard to deport millions of people? Yes, doing things like deportations according to law is harder than doing it without any legal constraints. That’s pretty much true of all government functions. Law is a constraint on government, and it’s what distinguishes us, or at least used to, from fascism. Even when it gets in the way of an outcome you really, really want.

But then there were the amendments.

The bill’s prospects were endangered last month by the Trump administration’s decision to set up a controversial fund to pay people who claim they were wrongfully prosecuted or investigated.

The fund alarmed many Senate Republicans, who feared it could be used to compensate people convicted of attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Republicans refused to advance the bill until the administration addressed their concerns.

Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, tried to quell those concerns Tuesday in testimony before the House Appropriations Committee, saying the administration had abandoned plans to set up the fund. But Trump himself has not said the fund is dead, telling reporters that he was unsure of its fate.

Since his testimony in the House, Todd Blanche went from Auditioning Attorney General to the guy who got the gig, with Trump announcing that the lawyer who represented him personally before and now represents him personally since will be nominated to be the next attorney general. And Blanche said so, even if he refused to put it in writing. Even if Trump still loves the idea. Because no member of the Trump administration would ever go back on their word after giving Congressional testimony.

Just like when RFK Jr. told the physician Senator Bill Cassidy, whose re-election was killed by Trump even though he dropped to his knees and opened his mouth to accept his punishment, that he wouldn’t screw with childhood vaccines. Cassidy said he would vote against the bill, but caved in the end, even though he had nothing to lose.

But the Senate defeated every amendment to restrict the fund, including one from Tillis to bar the use of federal funds in connection with the fund, which Democrats argued did not go far enough. The amendment failed on a procedural vote, with 12 Republicans and three Democrats voting for it.

An amendment from Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) that would have set aside $100 million to compensate law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 also failed on a procedural vote.

The “settlement that wasn’t” also included a get-out-of-audit card for Trump, his boys and his businesses, which apparently didn’t get enough airtime given Slushgate to concern the Senate.

The Senate also rejected an amendment from Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) to bar the use of federal funds or private donations to build Trump’s proposed White House ballroom without congressional authorization. Seven Republicans voted with Democrats to take up that amendment, which failed on a procedural vote.

If this was the Great Republican Revolt of 2026 that pundits claimed reflected Trump losing iron-fisted control over the Republican Party, its members finally remembering what was hanging beneath their penis (Lindsey Graham, excepted) and deciding to earn their paycheck rather than being a rubber stamp for their lord and master, it died an ignominious death as the reconciliation bill passed. It’s as if they’ve forgotten that Trump started a war with Iran that he can’t figure out how to end because he never had a plan to begin with.