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Mid-Term Election 2022: August 2 Primary, Arizona Edition [UPDATE-2]

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[Updates will appear at the bottom.]

There are a lot out there and will probably still be dribbling in through tomorrow. Use this thread to chat about them. The big one is the Kansas abortion issue, and it looks like the good side has a resounding victory.

In one of the most red states in the Union. Kansas. Go figure. Take that you conservatives at SCOTUS.

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Rayne here, taking the reins on this post. Apparently bmaz and I were writing posts about the primaries at the same time.

Let’s use this one bmaz started to focus on his own state, Arizona, because there’s plenty to dish about in the Grand Canyon State.

Biggest story is the GOP primary for the governor’s race. There’s been a big field, eight candidates with three withdrawn; of the eight in the running, there’s one unofficially withdrawn candidate and three write-ins.

What a mess. But now we get to the hot mess.


Kari Lake is a Trumpy Big Lie election truther. I’d use stronger terms here but I don’t want this to reflect on bmaz (though he’s probably thinking what I’m not saying).

How batty does a Trumper have to be for the National Review to exhort AZ GOP voters not to cast a vote for a GOP candidate? Kari Lake is that bad. She wants to decertify the 2020 election results and call it for Trump even though doing so might jeopardize a 2024 run for Trump.

Fortunately, AZ voters appear to be paying heed. Lake has been behind GOP opponent Karrin Taylor Robson all evening.

Let’s hope the final results resemble these early numbers.

More results as they come in from the dry heat.

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bmaz observes long-time sportscaster Vin Scully has died.

Scully called games for the Dodgers from 1950 to 2016, the longest career of any sportscaster of any sport. He was an institution. He has been and will be missed.

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Not a good night for QAnon-Arizona in Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District.


With 43% reported, there’s no realistic way for Watkins to pull out a win let alone a tie coming from the basement.

But I’m sure there will be some spin put on this because the grift never ends. There must be some conspiracy theory which will prop up this fail and bring home the bacon.

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UPDATE-1 — 12:35 PM ET — 03-AUG-2022 —

Oh great, another election truther won their primary — this time for AZ’s Secretary of State.


Mark Finchem was at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. I don’t know if he made it inside the Capitol Building that day; he has not been charged for trespassing.

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UPDATE-1 — 2:15 PM ET — 03-AUG-2022 —

I don’t know about bmaz but I just received my first fundraising email from Sen. Mark Kelly for his re-election campaign based on the outcome of yesterday’s primary.

What’s amusing is that Kelly’s email never mentions Blake Masters by name, only says Kelly now has an opponent. Was this an email drafted before the primary was finished, prepared for any eventually? Or is this Kelly’s campaign helping voters a la Lakoff, not naming the elephant?

Whatever the case, super Trumpy MAGAnoid Blake Masters is now the AZGOP candidate for U.S. Senate opposing incumbent Mark Kelly.

Masters shouldn’t be too glib about his win because of 622,098 total GOP votes cast, 379,218 were not cast for Masters. If those GOP votes are adamantly against Masters, they may not turn up in November for him.

Masters drew fewer votes than AZGOP gubernatorial candidate Karrin Taylor Robson, who won with 238,486 over super Trumpy MAGAnoid Kari Lake. Compare to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs who won with 311,210 votes.

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The AZGOP candidate for Secretary of State is the problematic Mark Finchem, an admitted member of the Oath Keepers who was at the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021. He won over three other competitors, though he shouldn’t be too smug about it. He may have won with 243,403 votes, but there were 350,398 GOP votes cast for other AZGOP candidates.

The outcome of the Democratic primary race for Secretary of State between Adrian Fontes and Reginald Bolding has not yet been determined as 31% of the votes cast are yet to be counted. Fontes currently leads 52.8% to 47.2% over Bolding and is likely to maintain a lead.

Here’s Fontes if you’re not familiar with him:

Bullshit Brigade: State and Local Election Day Edition [UPDATE-1]

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[NB: Check the byline, thanks. Update(s) will appear at bottom of this post. /~Rayne]

It’s election day across the country with lots of local and state elections still underway. The race receiving the most national attention is Virginia’s gubernatorial race between Democrat Terry McAuliffe and GOP candidate Glenn Youngkin.

A lot of people are getting themselves worked up right now over what recent polling suggested would be a tight race. I can’t and won’t look; I don’t need more anxiety over the continued Trump effect on governance. Vote count may not be settled tonight if the race is very tight — take a deep breath and look away for a while.

Here, have some fresh bullshit to occupy your wattage.

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We need deprogramming so badly in this country when hundreds of people are readily motivated by conspiracy theories to show up and participate in pop-up events over a couple days.

Especially events which are based on the belief a person dead for more than two decades will appear.

These people actually believe John-John is walking the earth and will run as Trump’s VP in 2024. There’s even a real person who they believe is JFK Jr.; I don’t know why the Kennedy family hasn’t sued this person already to prevent any grifting done in their deceased family member’s name.

These folks are completely out of touch with reality. What can they be made to do with a gentle nudge to their wacky irrational beliefs?

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It’s not just the Average Josephine showing up on location to see the second coming of a dead Kennedy scion. It’s members of the media who’ve been permitted into White House pressers tweeting conspiracy theories without any skepticism whatsoever.

Newsmax’s Emerald Robinson shouldn’t be granted a press pass to federal offices anywhere because she’s got serious issues. This tweet, which was removed as it violated Twitter’s terms of service related to misleading health information, reveals a stunning lack of journalistic acumen. She regurgitated nonsense which had been debunked six months ago without any effort on her part to check it for credibility.

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“Critical Race Theory” = dogwhistle to white nationalists who won’t admit on camera they are racist fucks who vote for racist fucks.

Critical race theory isn’t being taught in K-12 public education. At best depending on the state and school district, K-12 students may hear that enslavement of humans is bad and the root cause of the American Civil War. On the worst end of the K-12 education spectrum students may hear bullshit claims that enslaved people were happy being treated like animals without agency and autonomy.

The only people widely teaching critical race theory outside universities are the GOP and talking heads who support them. Instead of explaining to the public the true history of enslaved people in America and the economic impact of slavery as taught in university-level coursework, they tell the public CRT is inverse racism.

As if long-oppressed minority groups have the ability to teach inverse racism when racism by a dominant white class is their lived experience. Rejecting white’s racism while teaching factual history is merely the continuation of America’s decolonization.

Sadly, that brings us back to the race in Virginia, where the nasty old closeted white supremacist above who can’t and won’t explain CRT has voted for the racist GOP gubernatorial candidate.

A racist gubernatorial candidate who may have won his seat as of 8:25 p.m. EDT while I was writing the last of this post, damn it.

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Here’s the final piece of bullshit I want to call out RTFN: Do NOT blame progressives for McAuliffe’s loss. Progressives have been busy trying to get Biden’s agenda passed. They are NOT to blame for the piss-ignorant intransigence of West Virginia’s corrupt Joe Manchin and Arizona’s kawaii con artist Kyrsten Sinema.

Old machine Democrats need to look long and hard in the mirror — this includes McAuliffe who went on national TV this weekend instead of pounding the pavement and knocking on doors during that time slot. Hell, why didn’t he attend a Black church in a key district instead of going on that useless Press the Meat with GOP’s buddy Chuck Todd? So many stupid mistakes like that, running a race like it’s 2006.

What other bullshit did you see today which might need deprogramming? Do tell.

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UPDATE-1 — 02-NOV-2021 11:50 PM —

Here’s some not-bullshit, a palate cleanser:

Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu won the mayor’s race in Boston. She’s the first Asian American mayor for the city; she’s also a progressive Democrat who is tight with Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Hamilton County clerk of courts Aftab Pureval won the mayor’s race in Cincinnati, becoming the city’s first Asian American mayor. He defeated an older centrist Democrat David Mann to win.

Michigan state house representative (MI-15) Abdullah Hammoud won the Dearborn mayor’s race, becoming the first Lebanese American in the city with the largest Lebanese American population in the U.S.; Hammoud is Arab and Muslim.

Former Obama senate intern Justin Bibb won the Cleveland mayor’s race, replacing term-limited Frank Jackson. Both are Democrats; Bibb is the first new mayor since 2005 and at 34 the second youngest mayor ever.

All four of these new mayors are persons of color and more progressive than the incumbent and opposing candidates. All of these races make the case it’s not progressives who lost the VA governorship.

But wait, there’s more:

Former chief deputy attorney general of New York Alvin Bragg has won the race for Manhattan District Attorney, becoming Manhattan’s first Black DA. He will inherit the Trump org-related investigations and prosecutions from Cy Vance.

I may need a celebratory nightcap for that one! As it’s after midnight here and many votes are still being counted in races west of here, I’ll check back in the morning.