Congressional Republicans were plunging to new lows last week with dozens in the House opposing the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, 180 of them refusing to condemn the March 16, 2021 mass shooting in Atlanta, and 175 of them refusing to vote for the Jan. 6 commission to investigate the origins of the mob that attacked them that day. This week, though? This week, the Senate Republicans make their House counterparts look like amateurs, topped off with their filibuster of the Jan. 6 commission.

Senate Republicans used a bipartisan technology bill designed to make the U.S. more competitive with China to drag out floor time in an effort to derail the vote on the commission. The lead villain through most of Thursday night in these antics was Wisconsin’s village idiot, Ron Johnson, who spent hours blocking a bill that has his own stuff in it. He and Rand Paul have hijacked the place, and Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema handed them the keys.

Mitch McConnell, of course, is happy to watch his minions tear the place down. He’s not going to intervene with his Republicans to make the place work, which suggests he’s pretty sure he’s got Manchin and Sinema in his back pocket. If anything could break through their skulls to convince them it’s time to grease the Senate’s skids by getting rid of the filibuster, it would be the GOP’s performance this week on this issue—the attack on them. But that won’t be tested—not this time, anyway—because Majority Leader Schumer agreed on a schedule to basically reward the vandals and postpone the remaining votes on the China bill so that Republicans could sink the Jan. 6 commission before going off on holiday until June 8.

It’s sure clarifying things for another one of those moderates who tends to give the two cover. Montanan Jon Tester is enraged over these shenanigans.

Speaking of bullshit, Manchin remains off in his own little world, where he has “faith” that “there’s ten good people” on the Republican side who will take the pressure off of him and do the right thing.

And I don’t even know what this is supposed to be from Sinema.

From the royal “we” to the fact that she could do something to pass the “For the People Act”—nuke the filibuster—but she’s going to keep refusing to do that. At the same time she’s tweeting that out from her personal account, she’s tweeting out her joint statement with Manchin imploring Republicans—literally, “we implore,” they say—to “work with us to find a path forward on a commission to examine the events of January 6th.”

Because that always works.

It works so well that Republicans successfully filibustered the Jan. 6 commission Friday. After wasting an entire day of debate blocking a bipartisan bill they’ve been working for weeks. Because at heart, they’re “good people.”

Six Republicans voted with Democrats on the commission on Friday. Six. Which is not 10, in case Manchin is not good at math. Eleven senators—nine of them Republicans and Sinema—had skipped town already to start their long weekends and didn’t even bother to vote on this. (Sen. Patty Murray, the other missing Democrat, had a family emergency.)

Manchin’s learning from Collins, though, how to sound sincere and fretful. “I’m very disappointed, very frustrated that politics has trumped—literally and figuratively—the good of the country,” he told reporters after Republicans filibustered the commission. That and a quarter will get you a phone call, if you can still find a phone booth.