Prepare for Swell Saturday

Super Tuesday was really super this year, with 22 separate state primaries and caucuses – many by more than one political party. Still, super sometimes got felt kind of overwhelming, as it was very difficult to keep up with the results of each state’s competition, once they all got moving later into the evening.

A more realistic sort of excitement will be available to us this Saturday, which won’t be super, but it sure will be swell. Let’s call them the Swell Saturday primaries. Four states will have primaries or caucuses this Saturday. The primaries will be in Louisiana, for Democrats and Republicans alike. Republican caucuses will be held across Kansas, where Barack Obama won handily over Hillary Clinton on Tuesday. Democratic caucuses will take place in Nebraska. The state of Washington will have caucuses for Democrats and Republicans.

If you’ve got the attention span to last beyond the super glitz of Super Tuesday, Swell Saturday may well be worth your time. Tune in, America.

Nitpicker Ran Out Of Nits In Kansas

The Nitpicker, a blogger once found at nitpicker.blogspot.com, seems to have run out of nits. Once, the Nitpicker brought a sharp progressive bit of news from the Kansas political scene. We’re sorry to see that the Nitpicker is no more.

That’s how independent news blogs often go. It’s an exhausting regimen for a person to hold up, given the fact that bloggers usually receive little if any money for their work, and have to hold down a day job in addition to their writing. It’s the establishment political voices, from Huffington to DailyKos, that draw in the big bucks, due to their insider contacts. Yet, we here at the Progressive States Directory prefer the smaller, truly alternative voices, because we’ve found that they’re more interesting and more trustworthy.

Goodbye, Nitpicker. Where you fall, the Kansas Equality Coalition rises, one thousand members strong.

Kathleen Sebelius Orders an End to Discrimination

It’s not a story that many of us outside of Kansas have heard about, but people in Kansas are celebrating a major cultural and legal turning point. Governor Kathleen Sebelius has signed an executive order that bans any agency of the Kansas state government from engaging in discrimination against people because of their sexual orientation.

Jason Dilts of the Kansas Equality Coalition writes, “Being alive when a historic and significant event occurs is interesting; being able to watch history unfold and witness a historic act is an amazing privilege. I was witness to an amazing privilege on August 31, 2007. That is the day Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius issued an executive order banning discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered state employees by adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of protected classes that can not be discriminated against in employment. This order does one, simple thing: it makes the State of Kansas a fair employer. It brings our state government in line with close to 90% of America’s Fortune 500 companies and mirrors the non-discrimination policies of many of the state’s largest private employers. As the Governor explained when she signed the order, it brings Kansas into the 21st century.”

Congratulations, Kansas. Now, if you can just keep evolution in high school biology classes for three years running, the 21st century Kansas rumors will be confirmed.