The World’s Greatest Deliberative Body
By 
Hard to see how governance gets more responsible than this:
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) killed a hard-earned cryptocurrency compromise amendment to the bipartisan infrastructure bill because his own amendment, to beef up the defense budget another $50 billion, was rejected by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Shelby had tried to tack it on to the cryptocurrency amendment.
After that, a few other senators tried to bring it back around, to get a vote on just the cryptocurrency amendment (which would pass). Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) tried, but Shelby insisted that his amendment be tacked on — Carper said no. So Shelby objected to the crypto amendment.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) tried to strike the crypto language from the bill altogether, but Shelby insisted that his amendment be tacked on again — Cruz said no. Shelby objected again.
So that’s basically it for the crypto amendment, which took the better part of the weekend for senators and the White House and hammer into a compromise.
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), one of the key negotiators on the amendment, sounding very vexed, told reporters that he’s “frustrated with this whole place.”
It’s a real wonder other nations haven’t copied the American form of government.