Here we are, 18 hours later, and Senator Ted Cruz (R–Ted Cruz) is still faux-a-bustering on the Senate floor—a futile publicity stunt that will neither affect the timing nor the outcome of today’s procedural vote. “Reid needs 60 votes in order to break the attempted filibuster and formally kick off debate on the House bill,” CNN reports. “There are 54 members of the Democratic caucus, which means the support of at least six Republicans will be required.” Once debate begins, Reid needs merely 50 “yeas” to strip the bill of any legislation pertaining to the defunding of Obamacare.

(It’s actually sort of a brilliant move by Reid, who set up this somewhat confusing voting system on Monday. Republicans who genuinely want to avoid a government shutdown (or, at the very least, a Ted Cruz–centric news cycle for several days) are totally justified in voting to shut Cruz up because the bill, as it stands—that is, before Reid and the Democrats vote to strip it of everything Republicans like about it—is G.O.P.-friendly. And lo, here’s a statement from McConnell’s spokesperson: “Senator McConnell supports the House Republicans’ bill and will not vote to block it, since it defunds Obamacare and funds the government without increasing spending by a penny.” Again, this is true, but not for long. And Cruz is also not wrong when he says that “[a]ny senator who votes (to move forward with debate on the House bill) is voting to give Harry Reid the authority to fund Obamacare”—he is just making a terrible mistake in assuming that voters know enough about arcane Senate procedure to understand why this is true.)

In any event, given the public opposition to Cruz’s behavior amongst high-ranking Senate Republicans—including that from Senate Minority Leader and junior varsity basketball manager Mitch McConnell and Minority Whip John Cornyn—corralling 60 votes needed to move forward with the inevitable amending will not be difficult to do. Standing nearly solo in Cruz’s corner: Senator Mike Lee, the Tea Party’s man in Utah. Lee spoke on behalf of Cruz around 11 p.m. last night.

“Is that . . . Ted Cruz looks different?” your blogger’s television-watching partner asked.

“Jesus, Ted Cruz looks horrible,” your blogger responded.

Just then a chryon identified the man as Lee.

“Wait,” we backtracked. “Does Ted Cruz look horrible? Or is confusing Ted Cruz and Mike Lee actually flattering for Cruz?”

This was far from the stupidest debate that occurred yesterday evening.