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Senate Votes 57-40 Against Defense Bill and DADT Repeal

The Senate has failed to end the Republican filibuster of the National Defense Authorization Act, which contains an amendment to begin the process to end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Democrats needed 60 votes to advance the NDAA for debate on the floor. The vote failed 57-40.

Republican Senators who recently expressed public support for repeal but expressed procedural concerns—such as Sens. Scott Brown, Lisa Murkowski, Dick Lugar and Olympia Snowe—voted no. After a heated exchange with Majority Leader Harry Reid on procedure and amendments, Maine Republican Susan Collins voted yes. Collins was the only Republican to support cloture.

Only one Democrat, newly-elected Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, voted no.

The vote means that repeal of the 17-year-old ban is extremely unlikely to be changed by Congress in the next several years.

Working on the roll call ...

WATCH: GOP Exploits Byrd Funeral Footage in Anti-Obama Attack Ad

The family of the late Sen. Robert C. Byrd is slamming the West Virginia Republican Party and its nominee for the U.S. Senate after using an image from Byrd's memorial service in a television attack ad.

The 30-second spot by Republican John Raese's campaign slams "Obamacare" and links President Barack Obama to Gov. Joe Manchin by displaying an image of the two Democrats at the Byrd memorial ceremony. Raese and Manchin are running in a special election for what remains of Byrd's term.

The Raese campaign refuses to pull the image claims it "had no idea" the image was from the memorial.

Byrd was history's longest-serving member of Congress when he died at 92 on June 28. Byrd was very lackluster on LGBT rights and boasted a dismal 22% rating from the Human Rights Campaign. Byrd did support 2009's Matthew Shepard  Act.  In May 2010, the ailing conservative Democrat surprised observers and announced he would support a compromise toward repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" ... but only after insisting upon a 60-day congressional review period. Watch the spot AFTER THE JUMP ...