(Newser) – Bernie Sanders took to the Senate floor about 10:30am today to speak out against the tax-cut deal—and kept on going until about 7pm. All told, the 69-year-old spoke for 8 hours and 37 minutes, notes the Huffington Post. "You can call what I am doing today whatever you want,” said the Vermont independent. “You can it call it a filibuster, you can call it a very long speech.” No votes were scheduled today, so Sanders technically wasn't blocking any business.



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He got brief breaks from Democratic senators Mary Landrieu and Sherrod Brown, reports NPR, and MSNBC notes that no Republicans were even in the chamber. Sanders has referred to the extension of tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans as a "moral outrage." Today, he added: "If (Obama) caves in now, who's going to believe that he's not going to do the same thing in two years?" Click here for more. Sanders' Twitter feed here had updates during the speech.

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