Mississippi

Right-wing populists-- who are sometimes referred to as teabaggers-- have pretty much taken over the Republican social policy agenda. But have been largely unable to beat Chamber of Commerce Republicans in primaries this year, the way they did manage to do in 2010 and 2012 by replacing longtime Senate incumbents like Bob Bennett (R-UT), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Dick Lugar (R-IN) and beating Establishment candidates in Delaware (Mike Castle), Florida (Charlie Crist), Nevada (Sue Lowden), Colorado (Jane Norton), Texas (David Dewhurst) and Kentucky (Trey Grayson).

What's wrong with voters who allow themselves to be suckered by conservative politicians?I was listening to an amazing broadcast on KCRW the other night. It was a discussion between an anchor who didn't know it was amazing and a beat reporter who was just as clueless. The reporter was babbling to the anchor about how 6 officials of the L.A. County Sheriff's Department were convicted of obstructing a federal probe into violence against inmates in county jails.

This morning, Taegan Goddard took a look at the much-talked-about NY Times piece from a few days ago, Where Are The Hardest Places To Live In The U.S.? Clay County, Kentucky was the hardest and the Times compared Clay to Los Alamos County by showing specific contrasts: "Only 7.4 percent of Clay County residents have at least a bachelor’s degree, while 63.2 percent do in Los Alamos.

One down...Mississippi dodged a bullet last Tuesday when Democrats turned out in strong enough numbers to save doddering Senator Thad Cochran from certain defeat at the hands of reactionary white supremacist Chris McDaniel.

Karma's a bitch, y'allStunning upset last night as Thad Cochran's team managed to inspire enough African American Democrats to come to the polls to defeat bigoted teabagger Chris McDaniel by just over 6,000 votes.

Voting rights was a priority of the African-American Civil Rights Movement. The struggle to secure these rights achieved real traction and impact in the early 1960s. While the Jim Crow South was rife with voter suppression, there was no place more in need of voting reforms than Mississippi. Although black Mississippians comprised nearly 50 percent of the state’s population in 1960, less than 7 percent of its eligible black constituency was registered to vote, representing the lowest percentage in the union. In some counties, no blacks were registered to vote.

Amazing new Gallup poll was released yesterday. Gallup's analysis: "Americans' confidence in Congress has sunk to a new low. Seven percent of Americans say they have 'a great deal' or 'quite a lot' of confidence in Congress as an American institution, down from the previous low of 10% in 2013.

Competing with Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity just endorsed this anti-American garbageJune 24 is the date of the next round of exciting primaries.

Democrats regularly win statewide races in Maine and South Dakota, though DSCC executive director Guy Cecil, some kind of a self-loathing Beltway creature, has written off both states to the Republicans in November. He's much more excited about spending DSCC millions down in Mississippi on behalf of homophobic, anti-Choice Blue Dog Travis Childers. Don't forget, the last two times Democrats won Senate seats in Mississippi were when John Stennis was reelected in 1982, having first become a senator in 1947, and when James Eastland was reelected in 1972, having first become a senator in 1942.

Sunday morning we asked what it's like to be a Blue Dog in America today. And the picture that emerged was far from pretty. When looking at the natural progression from Blue Dog-- the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- to plain old Republican, we focused on the freak from Kansas who led the anti-gay and anti-Choice forces of hatred and bigotry in her badly afflicted state, Janice Pauls, finally finding her natural home in the GOP.