Last Week in Politics

Kansas.  Oh, am I in love with Kansans right now.  I want to send a donation to Kansas voters who decied that changing their State's Constitution was just not something they were interested in doing.

What makes me even happier is how surprised the pundits and the Forced Birth Folks were by the outcome.  There they were, thinking that the Supreme Court's majority seeking to impose their religious beliefs on the rest of us was just the world righting itself on its axis.

Not so fast, honey bunch.  Apparently, voters in Kansas want to be able to make their own decisions about their own bodies, without the government intervening.

I am, once again, struck by how small government conservatives have no problem inserting the government between me and my body.

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My friend, Daniel Hernandez, was the only one of his siblingss who didn't win on Tuesday.  

He's a good hearted young man with lots of potential..... and he would have picked up the phone to talk to me if I called.

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Kari Lake is the Republican running for Governor.  Her opponent, Katie Hobbs, is the current Secretary of State.  Through Fast Eddie and JannyLou  I met her well before she announced her run for Governor; I was impressed.

But even if I didn't know her, I'd vote for her, just to spare my state from being run by someone who knows there was fraud and who has the evidence but who won't turn it over to anyone but the authorities.  She has yet to identify who, exactly, those authorities might be.

She wants to arrest Katie Hobbs for malfeasance of some unspecified dimension.  Donald Trump thinks she's great.  Her Republican opponent in the primary, conceded by saying that she was going to return to her family and her business interests.  She made no mention of support for the woman now carrying her party's banner.

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Peter Thiel, the tech squadrillionaire who does not believe that democracy and freedom can coexist, has invested tens of millions of dollars to promote his one time colleague, Blake Masters's, run for Senate. 

Masters has called abortion a sacrificial ritual, likening it to genocide as he calls for a nation wide and total ban, with no exceptions.  Apparently, living breathing moms are quite unimportant.

Masters has plastered the town with posters.  Reflecting, I suppose, his apocalyptic view of our country, the posters have his name in white letters on a totally black background  I'm not the only one who finds them vaguely menacing.

Mark Kelly runs to the center, touting the good deeds he's done with the power bestowed upon him.  Republican mayors in bright red Maricopa County have appeared in tv ads supporting him.  Without a contested primary, he goes into the general election with lots of money.... but not Peter Thiel money.

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And then there's Mark Finchem, our very own Oath Keeper and election denier who is the Republican nominee to be Secretary of State.  

He's already on record disputing the November, 2022 election results.

That's right, the election that hasn't happened yet, for which the ballots have not been printed, with or without bamboo in the paper.

It's gonna be a wild ride.