Did you know there are elections tonight in the heartland where real Murkins live? They all look like a snooze except for the Republican primary for the Kansas Senate, which pits DeMint-endorsed Jerry Moran against Palin-endorsed Todd Tiahrt. Either way it’s good news for Republicans, but one way is good news for the Mama Grizzlies and the other is good news for the principled centrists. TalkingPointsMemo has live results but they seem more interested in the fate of Barnes and Noble tonight.
Wonkette asks the question the lamestream media is afraid to ask:
Will Kansas and Missouri explode from all the abortion and be raptured as “We Are the Champions” blares throughout the country?
Also too, consider this an open thread.
beltane
If the kooks are all raptured tonight, I will be the one blaring “We Are the Champions”.
fraught
They’re going to play “We are the Champions” at the rapture? I wish I’d known that. Will the real Freddie Mercury be there? When do tickets go on sale? I’m so psyched now!
Cat Lady
I always laugh when I think of people being raptured. It would look something like this.
Spaghetti Lee
Bah. Heffington already lost, so my life is over.
Tiahrt, Moran, not a hair’s worth of difference between ’em. But I’m rooting for Moran because it’s always fun seeing Erick Erickson be wrong.
beltane
If Proposition 19 passes in California, I will be forced to blast “Low Rider” followed by some Grateful Dead, in honor of Jerry’s memory.
General Stuck
I’m not sure Kansas can outwingnut the two clowns in TN lead by the Grand Poohbah of Crazy Zach Wamp/
If we were to have Sharia law in this country, wingnuts would be walking around with no hands from getting them chopped off with all their thievery, so the fear is real.
btw – I once lived in Mufreesboro for a short time and am happy to report no shortage of redneck fools there.
via TPM
marcopolo
I haven’t followed this too closely on a state-by-state basis but today here in Missouri we had Prop C on the ballot (ballot language here along with some analysis), the short and dirty of which, when it passes (which it will as it is getting about 75% of the vote currently) state law will prohibit the government from penalizing folks who don’t buy health insurance and some other stuff. As the language was a little confusing and there was not a direct linkage to the Health Care act that passed this year lots of pundits will no doubt interpret the results any which way they care to.
Also too, my energy voting level was about as low as I can remember and I vote in every election. I have election ennui.
demimondian
I was struck by the pure Poe-try of your title, DougJ…after I figured out that you hadn’t called this post “The Tell-tale T-shirt”
Kristine
Harvested the first tomato of summer today, a Black Crim. Sliced it along with a storeboughten variety, add some homegrown basil, and topped it with lemon vinaigrette. Summer on a plate.
beltane
@General Stuck: Wingnuts ought not to learn phrases like “Sharia Law”. They don’t understand what they are talking about, yet they repeat these meaningless words over and over again like parrots on meth.
Someone needs to teach them the Japanese equivalent of “I f**k goats”, tell them it has something to do with Islamofascism, and then let them lose on TV.
General Stuck
And then there is the Tea Bag wizard from Kentucky, and his way with words.
Abe Lincoln he ain’t
Gus
@beltane: If Prop 19 passes, I will be forced to move to California.
atlliberal
If Jim Demint is now considered a “principled moderate” (Rather than a far right partisan) the political spectrum is completely screwed up and doesn’t mean anything anymore.
Ana Gama
Teatard Pete Hoekstra was defeated in his bid to be the GOP candidate for Governor of Michigan! This is good news for us.
Mnemosyne
@marcopolo:
How many have you had? I swear we’re going to have something like 6 or 8 elections this year in California. What happened to only making people vote once a year?
Brachiator
Very, very cool.
A Cask of Amontillado for you (unwalled).
DougJ
@demimondian:
I’d never do “Tell-tale T-shirt”, it just doesn’t work.
marcopolo
And so it begins:
Interesting side note: the reporter on this story used to be a GOP operative.
And for the real fun we have St Louis Post Dispatch readers comments:
tom
Michigan actually nominated a sane Republic, Rick Snyder (former CEO of Gateway and current venture capitalist), to run for governor, beating out wingnut Peter Hoekstra and a couple of other idiots. One of them, Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard, proposed introducing an anti-immigrant law modeled on Arizona’s. I didn’t all realize those illegal Canadians were such a problem here.
New Yorker
No, we’re too busy talking about how self-hating Jew mayors in the sinful cauldron at the center of East-Coast Fake America are allowing the terrorists to win by building a 600 foot tall statue of Osama bin Laden taking a shit on Jesus, the American Flag, and Ronald Reagan in the spot where the World Trade Center once stood.
Or at least that’s what I learned from reading “Commentary”.
beltane
@tom: Those illegal Canadian slip down below the border to taunt us with tales of their soshul-ist health care system. It is bad for morale and must be stopped.
MikeJ
@tom: Motherfuckers come down here passing off those “quarters” as real money.
Lev
Wait, is Hoekstra allowed to run for Governor and House at the same time, or is he not going to be in the House this time next year?
DougJ
@New Yorker:
I find the stuff where the Commentary crowd talks about “self-hating Jews” extremely disturbing. I can’t put my finger on it but it seems genuinely anti-Semitic in a way that most things are not. I can’t get through the articles where they talk that way, I start to feel sick.
Ana Gama
@tom: Tom, the Detroit Free Press is reporting that Dems & left leaning indies crossed over to vote for Snyder, just to keep Hoekstra off the ballot. I know that’s what I did.
marcopolo
@Mnemosyne: Only 2 elections this year so far, the local races in April and the state and national primaries today. I was quite energized in April when, for the first time in my life, every candidate and issue I supported/opposed went my way. I will try to gin up some enthusiasm to get out and do some work for Robin Carnahan in September or October but I don’t feel it right now.
tom
@Lev: Since Hoekstra lost the nomination for governor, that’s no longer an issue.
Ana Gama
@Lev: Hoekstra is not running for the House this time. :o)
Lev
@Ana Gama: Wow…two cheers to Michigan, then!
tom
@Ana Gama: Same here!
zattarra
@Ana Gama: Same here. In a general election I will not vote for the Republican candidate but in the primary today I voted Republican (open primary in Michigan) just to cast a vote for Snyder since he was the best chance of not having Pete Hoekstra win.
Moses2317
The good news from Michigan is not only that two bad Republicans – Hoekstra and Mich. AG Mike Cox – were defeated for the Republican nomination, but also that the more progressive of the two Democrats – Lansing Mayor Verg Bernero – won the Democratic nomination for Governor.
Check out this video of Mr. Bernero tearing into a Fox News anchor. This is a guy that we can be proud to get behind!
scav
I can’t be the only one that keeps reading Tell-Tale Tiara and I can’t help but expect it’s already been well-mined . . .
Redshift
@atlliberal: Yeah, where did that come from? I’m pretty sure DeMint would consider “principled centrist” to be an insult.
Or is there some joke here that I’m missing?
Roger Moore
@beltane:
This works surprisingly well, especially if the idiots in question are drunk. I saw a great example while sitting in the bleachers at a Dodgers/Giants game. After about 6 innings of verbally abusing Barry Bonds- to no effect, because he knew how to ignore that shit- they decided to give Giants’ CF Tsuyoshi Shinjo a turn. Not knowing any Japanese insults to throw at him, they turned to a group of Japanese schoolgirls who were, obviously to anyone not too drunk to notice, there mostly to see Mr. Shinjo play. Instead of telling the drunkards an effective insult, the girls told them to say “Shinjo kawaii!!”, so I got to hear a gang of drunk Dodgers fans telling the Giants CF how cute he was.
ETA: Roger Moore +1
Ana Gama
@zattarra: I won’t either. Had Andy Dillon won for the Dems, I really would have had to consider a vote for Snyder. It would have been hard and I’m glad that won’t be the case. I really do believe the two best candidates won, though.
jeffreyw
@Kristine: Well done, ma’am.
Kristine
@jeffreyw: You inspired me. I enjoy your food posts and photos.
suzanne
21 weeks to go, and I went from moderately rounded in the abdominal area to oblate spheroid in, like, a DAY.
I dread the waddling. Please, God, don’t make me waddle.
Church Lady
@atlliberal: Thank you. I was waiting for someone to notice that. If DougJ now considers DeMint a “principaled centrist”, I’m ready to be raptured because the world as we know it has ended.
Ana Gama
@Moses2317: He’s our own Anthony Weiner.
Michael
Bad news in Kansas, though – Birther/Racist Nutcase Kobach walked away handily with the GOP Secretary of State nomination. If he wins in the fall, anticipate minority and urban caging as well as Birther challenges to Obama’s candidacy in 2012.
General Stuck
@suzanne: I don’t know how you all walk around all day with those things.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal
@Ana Gama: It’s not really at all hard to vote for a moderate Republican candidate for governor if the Democrats nominate an idiot. I voted for Arne Carlson twice and I’d do so again in a heartbeat if Mark Dayton wins the DFL nomination. Of course, even in the 1990s, that came with the added benefit of watching the Minnesota GOP froth at the mouth in opposition to their own governor.
jeffreyw
@Kristine:
Here’s one for you, then.
Winson Smith
I live in MO-7.
Billy Long won the (R) primary for Blunt’s seat. Google him. He’s like a walking Tea-Party stereotype.
On the doomed Democratic side is a cheery Mormon who wants to cut taxes and stop wasteful spending. I’m assuming that since 9 Republicans were already running to replace Roy Blunt, they ran out of space on the ballot, and he just spilled over onto the Dem primary ballot.
Mr. DINO clobbered the only other Dem, who has a PhD in economics, a law degree (both from Oxford) and wanted to focus on the economic benefits of immigration reform. He should really move back to New York and run there.
Kristine
@jeffreyw
Lovely.
Apropos of nothing, I noticed that the little reply arrows don’t show up on my iPad. Wonder why?
YellowJournalism
Colbert is taking Laura Ingraham to task tonight. She can’t hold her own against him, and I think she just claimed that his calling her a banshee would be offensive to Native Americans. (Huh?) This was in response to her writing about how Michelle Obama ate nothing but ribs.
No, no racism to see here, folks.
scav
@YellowJournalism: banshee? ! I actually went and double-checked, that’s Irish. They’re now native? It’s that history-melting-like-pocket-watches thing again, ’cause I’m hallucinating that they were even once the dreaded immigrant threat or something.
burnspbesq
@New Yorker:
Who is that woman? She’s quite something.
burnspbesq
@Kristine:
If you click on the time-stamp, the reply button magically appears.
burnspbesq
@scav:
My kid and his cousins are the sixth generation born in this country. They think of Ireland as some sort of theme park.
Mike G
I’d say ‘Get a Brain, Moran’ but that would be a drawback for him in relating to the Repig base.
asiangrrlMN
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal: That’s not the question, though. Would you vote for Emmer over Dayton? ‘Coz no way in hell would I vote for Emmer no matter what. I would vote for Ratface Pawlenty over him, and that’s saying a lot.
Sigh.
Albatrossity
As an actual resident of the state of Kansas, where real muricans live and vote, the more depressing news of this election is that Brownback will almost certainly be our next governor. We have a legislature that is wingnutty already, and vetoes by Dem governors have been the only things holding them back from enacting Palin-esque policies. No longer will that be true. Should be an interesting four years or so…
Michael
@YellowJournalism:
In order to be less offensive and to assuage her ethnic sensitivities then, I think it would be far more appropriate to use the ethnically neutral term “c**t” to describe her.
les
Huh? Moran’s entire campaign is that he voted against every single proposal in the House since ’06, and that he mourns his lost freedoms. This is centrist?