PAUL-GRAHAM STANDOFF: The legislative standoff between Sens. Rand Paul and Lindsey Graham continued last night and threatened to derail amendments to the Senate’s annual defense policy bill. “We are committed to an open amendment process, it looks like we are not going to get it so far, and I just ask that whatever is causing my good friend from Kentucky to object to these amendments will be satisfied by some change,” said Sen. Jim Inhofe, the senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee who is shepherding the bill’s passage. Inhofe warned that the National Defense Authorization Act may now be passed without any votes on the hundreds of filed amendments.

Paul took to the chamber floor again to object to a batch of 10 proposed amendments as Graham stood firm in blocking Paul’s legislation prohibiting the indefinite detention of citizens accused of terrorism. The pressure surrounding Paul’s indefinite detention legislation intensified after the Senate defeated by 30-68 a motion by Inhofe to table an amendment sponsored by Sen. Mike Lee that prohibits the practice. “A few minutes ago on the Senate floor 68 senators voted to give a vote on the Senate floor on whether or not anybody accused or captured and accused of crime would get a trial by jury,” Paul said. “This is not about me. This is about one senator from South Carolina who so much objects to the Bill of Rights that he doesn’t want it to apply to people accused of a crime.”