Month: August 2014

Charles Pierce at Esquire has been writing about the crazy politics of Mississippi under the recurring caption of “Mississippi, Goddamn” to express the appropriate level of opprobrium. But Mississippi today is not much different than the Mississippi depicted in the classic movie O Brother, Where Art Thou?: “Well, it’s a well-run campaign. Midget and broom and whatnot. Devil his due. Hell of an organization.”

You may have thought that the Mississippi GOP primary ended some six weeks ago with a narrow run-off victory by incumbent Senator Thad Cochran over his Tea Party and “Kochtopus” funded rival, Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel. McDaniel has been alleging that “I was robbed!” and refusing to concede the election to Cochran. McDaniel was bent out of shape over Black Democrats voting in Mississippi’s open primary GOP run-off for Senator Cochran. “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.” McDaniel alleges this is “voter fraud.”

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Democratic candidate for governor Fred DuVal today issued a statement to Congress on its failure to address border security: “Get back to work!”

I am sure that most Americans share DuVal’s frustration with Congress, there’s just one problem with his plea to “Get back to work!” Congress’ August Recess Is America’s Only Required Vacation:

The Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 requires that the House and Senate take a break “not later than July 31 of each year,” or in an odd-numbered year “that Friday in August which occurs at least thirty days before the first Monday in September (Labor Day) of such year to the second day after Labor Day.” Congress can stay if the country is in a state of war, but that hasn’t happened since 1941. (Lawmakers can come back early if both houses agree to it.)

Fred DuVal also released his Plan to Fight Border Crime and Fix Broken Immigration System, Twenty-One Actions in Twenty-One Weeks:

Fighting Border Crime and Fixing Our Broken Immigration System

Twenty-One Actions in Twenty-One Weeks

FIGHTING BORDER CRIME

CRACK DOWN ON DRUGS AND ORGANIZED CRIME

1) I will crack down on the greedy smugglers and coyotes that profit from unlawful immigration. I will direct the Arizona Departments of Public Safety and Homeland Security to swiftly launch anti-smuggling operations in collaboration with federal and local law enforcement.

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Earlier this year I posted about the Arizona Republican Party’s Winter State Committee Meeting, This week in the Arizona GOP’s war on democracy, at which the AZ GOP made it abundantly clear that they want nothing to do with so-called “independent” (no party preference) voters.

Independents are part of  “the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.” (Dr. Strangelove).  Tea-Publicans really do not want independents playing in their primary election, and adopted  resolutions to exclude independent voters from their primaries:

There was a “Resolution Urging The Institution of Caucuses to Nominate Candidates for General Elections,” because “Republicans should nominate Republicans without the threat of outside interference.” In other words, the Arizona GOP is opposed to Arizona’s semi-closed primaries in which registered independents are allowed to vote. They want a caucus where only the GOP crazy base is allowed to vote to preserve the purity and sanctity of the “precious bodily fluids” of the Arizona GOP. In fact, the resolution calls for an amendment to the Arizona Constitution “to allow parties to nominate candidates for each partisan office by caucus.”

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