These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

(By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari Goldstein.)

Voters turned a skeptical eye toward conservative-backed measures across the country Tuesday, rejecting an anti-labor law in Ohio, an anti-abortion measure in Mississippi and a crackdown on voting rights in Maine. Katharine Seelye, NY Times

Note to the American voter: Let last year serve as an object lesson for next year: Never, ever vote Republican again even for dog catcher. That especially goes for Tea Bagger Republicans.

Maine reinstated same-day voter registration. Mississippi ditched the Republicans' Personhood Amendment that would've essentially banned all family planning involving abortion. Ohio told Gov. John Kasich to go fuck himself with his anti collective bargaining proposal to public unions.

And, in perhaps the sweetest victory of all, Russell Pearce, president of the Arizona state senate and the major architect of the morally hideous SB 1070, got recalled along with many of his fellow Tea Bagger Republicans. One can easily imagine Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker sadly turning from the TV in his office and hanging himself behind huge portraits of Ayn Rand and the Koch brothers.

Ah, I love the smell of Republican piss in Brooks Brothers trousers in the morning. It smells like... Well, you know what. Recalling Tea Baggers and evangelicals, bigots, corporate love dolls and other assorted and sundry scumbags getting viciously cock-punched 5000 times from coast to coast in a single night: These are a few of my favorite things.

More telling than the raft of electoral victories across the country is where they took place. Arizona, Ohio, Maine and Mississippi have been for many years among the most crimson of the red states. While it may be too premature to be predicting whether last night's victories is an accurate bellwether for next year's general elections (A year, after all, is an eternity in politics), they certainly are not cause for celebration in Tea Bagger circles.

In a brief but exuberant reaffirmation of the power of the ballot box, American voters in some of the most conservative states told lawmakers to stop legislating morality at the expense of the family unit. And Ohio workers who turned out to vote down the collective bargaining restriction in greater numbers than they did to vote for Kasich delivered a stinging left hook to anti-unionists. Voters in Arizona thoroughly rejected the SB 1070 on which the odious Russell Pearce had staked his entire political capital by primarying his noxious ass out of the state senate as had Wisconsin voters earlier this winter.

All that remains to be seen now is how fast Fox "News" will play down the Occupy Wall Street movement's influence over these elections and referendums. Fox, you might remember, a year ago was crowing about how influential the Tea Baggers were in handing the House majority to the GOP.

And if President Barack Obama is as smart as he projects himself to be, he'll take as quick a note of the turning tide and the winds of change as he did the night after election night 2010 when he rolled over and showed his belly to the GOP to be rubbed after it was obvious they'd grabbed the majority.

Because, as voters showed last year, Democrats can get voted out of office just as quickly as can Republicans and it's time that Obama stops going to $30,000 fundraisers orchestrated by the well-heeled and started seriously considering the needs and concerns of the other 99%.