No need to go on at length about Doug Jones' win in yesterday's Alabama special Senate election. The turnout in the Black community was spectacular. I especially liked the exit poll showing that women with children under eighteen living at home went big for Jones. This is a Lysistrata moment.
With Jones replacing Luther Strange, we only need Susan Collins to flip and the tax bill is defeated. Collins is flippable, since her excuse for voting aye was a series of promises from McConnell that the House Republicans have made it clear they will not honor. But wait, you say. The Senate will slow-walk Jones' seating until the tax bill passes. No doubt. But consider. There are 48 Democratic Senators [47 without Franken]. Last time I checked, there were 24 hours in the day. If each of those Democratic princes and princesses can bestir him or herself to deliver thirty minutes of random talk a day, the Democratic bloc can stage a collective filibuster that will stop passage of the bill until Jones is seated. Couldn't McConnell kill the filibuster with a point of order that requires only a simple majority to overrule a pro forma ruling from the chair? Yes, but there is a good deal of evidence that McConnell is unwilling to take that extreme step, since it would consign the Republicans to impotence the next time the Democrats seize control of the Senate.
At least it is worth a try. What is wrong with the Democrats in the Senate? [Do not flood the comments section with answers.]
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For LFC and others who may be following the Chilean presidential run-off election.
It's still too close to call. By law polls cannot be published for two weeks before the election (this Sunday) and anyway, the polls were so far-off for the first round (November 19), maybe intentionally to create a band wagon effect for the right, that no one believes them much.
The rightwing candidate, Sebastian Piñera, a billionaire stock market speculator on the Forbes list, has been playing dirty, spreading rumors that if Guillier, (a TV news anchor converted into politician, about as leftwing as Hillary Clinton), is elected, Chile will end up like Venezuela (a symbol of chaos created by the left for many people).
Guillier, on the other hand, has refused to promise measures if elected, for example, the end of the privatized retirement system of individual pension accounts, which would please the voters of the Frente Amplio, a coalition of parties and movements to the left of Guillier, whose candidate, Beatriz Sanchez, got an unexpected 20% of the vote in the first round. Sanchez herself has said that she will vote for Guillier, but some of the more radical members of the Frente Amplio say that they will not vote for him. The Frente Amplio attracts a large number of radicalized young voters who may not want to "dirty their hands" voting for Guillier, whom they see as just one more "neoliberal".
It is possible that current president, Michelle Bachelet, who backs Guillier, the candidate of the center-left coalition which backs her, will close Punta Peuco, a special more comfortable jail set up to house human rights violators from the military and send the torturers to a normal jail (separated from the regular prison population for their own safety). The left and the human rights movements have long demanded that measure and if Bachelet does close Punta Peuco, that could swing the election in favor of Guillier. However, the behind--the--scenes power of the Chilean military is considerable and Bachelet may not do that.
Note of clarification:
The human rights violators from the military committed their crimes during the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990).
If Collins dlips, that means there are 50 votes for the bill, so it still passes on tiebreak.
Never mind. I forgot Corker is also a nay.
Corker is now a yea, and Jones will not get to vote, so Collins's vote is doubly superfluous.
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