So, Now Obama Will Have Filibuster-Proof Majority in the Senate

So, with the recent party switch of Arlen Spector to the Democratic Party and the projected seating of Al Franken as the Democratic Senator from Minnesota, the Democrats will have 58 seats in the U.S. Senate. Along with the two independents (Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a democratic socialist, and former Democrat Joe Lieberman of Connecticut), both of whom regularly vote parallel to the Democratic caucus on a range of issues, the Democrats essentially now have the 60 votes to prevent a filibuster in the Senate. The filibuster is a procedural tactic that minority parties have historically used when they know they will lose a straight vote on the Senate floor on an issue particularly contentious to their party constituents (or, more likely, the corporate interests to which their party is most indebted). With that magic anti-filibuster number of Democratic and allied senators established, now Obama can be the practical progressive his supporters still believe that he is without fear of Republican obstructionism in the Senate. Let's see what he does with his newfound power.

The only worrying aspect of all this is Joe Lieberman's bordeline insane support of every form of militarism against Arab (and Persian) nations in the Middle East, which means that he may choose to caucus with the Republicans to filibusters attempts to prevent further killing of brown people in that region, even when the initial auspices for doing so are specious, to say the least (lies about non-existent weapons) or start new conflicts based on unsubstantiated allegations that nation-states would (against every proliferation pattern in modern military history*) supply a rogue agent with a nuclear device (as neo-cons allege nonsensically about Iran).

Cross your fingers for sanity.





* No country in the nuclear age has provided nuclear technology to anything other than a fellow nation-state, so why would someone seriously believe the Iranians would give one away to a proxy agent they have no real control over? Who would they give it to, Hezbollah? The Israelis would rain nukes on them in response to any nuclear attack on their soil. I wish people in the corporate media would ask questions that showed any type of understanding of military history, proliferation as regard proxy armies, etc. For example, Reagan didn't give the Contras nuclear submarines (LOL). Nation-states *never* give their most potent weaponry to proxy armies (they sensibly keep them for their own militaries).