The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has just struck down Utah’s gay marriage ban. That’s the first federal appeals court to do so. A huge development.
The news came just moments after a federal judge separately struck down Indiana’s gay marriage ban.
Note that there’s a separate case before the 10th Circuit on Oklahoma’s gay marriage ban. Today’s decision suggests Oklahoma’s ban may be tossed soon as well. The Utah case was argued before the court in April, just a week before the Oklahoma case came up for arguments.
Matt Kibbe, Freedom Works: “If the only way the K Street wing of the GOP establishment can win is by courting Democrats to vote in GOP primaries, then we’ve already won.”
Ed Kilgore on why Cochran’s runoff win was the product of unique set of only-in-Mississippi circumstances.
Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) ahead in Democratic primary but with absentee ballots still outstanding the race is too close to call.
1. You break into the courthouse with the ballots the night you’re losing not the night you’re winning (classic rookie mistake).
Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy Gillespie, New York City, September 1947.
Top Tea Party lawyer, J. Christian Adams, says he’ll review election observer reports before deciding on whether to pursue legal action.
TPM Reader RF steps back to look at the big picture on the Mississippi runoff and doesn’t like what he sees …
I read the pieces on the Cochran/McDaniel runoff in Mississippi. The punches and counter-punches we see thrown in this race are laying bare what the GOP really thinks about the intersection of voting and race. As soon as Cochran announced he was hiring someone to focus on getting African American Dems to vote in the run-off, the McDaniel Campaign and it’s allies have been beating the voter fraud drum.
As you’ve probably heard, Thad Cochran, improbably – almost unbelievably if you go back to late on primary night – came back to beat Tea Party challenger Chris McDaniel. It’s important to note that Cochran fielded a much more together and aggressive GOTV operation than they did in round one. And I think a careful analysis of the vote totals will suggest that that increased margin was more about turning out Republicans than pulling in Democrats. Still, it seems clear that Democrats played some role, quite possibly a very important role in Cochran’s victory. And the fact that almost by definition a lot of them were black Democrats, courted by the Cochran camp, is going to put gas and kerosene and everything flammable on the bonfire of intra-party recrimination. This will not go down easily. See here for more.
It’s still early and it’s still close. But as of this moment, 42% of the precincts are reporting and Thad Cochran is holding a consistent mid-single digit lead over Tea Party Republican McDaniel. If that holds – a big if – it’s going to be like putting the nitro and the dynamite and the plastique of GOP crazy in one can and tossing it into the oven for the evening.