[MoJo has more primary coverage: Read my report on Michigan's gubernational results, and Nick Baumann's take on Missouri's primaries for US House and Senate.]

"This is the final curtain: the ending of the Kilpatrick dynasty."

So concluded Detroit political consultant Eric Foster in the Detroit Free Press' report on the primary defeat of Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick.

Cheeks Kilpatrick, a seven-term Democrat, represented Michigan's 13th congressional district, which includes large parts of Detroit. Her defeat is largely attibutable to one of the worst scandals in that city's history. The salacious saga centered on her son, Kwame, Detroit's disgraced former mayor, who had an affair with his chief of staff, lied about it under oath, and spent millions in city funds fighting public disclosure of text messages and secret settlements. The former chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Cheeks Kilpatrick lost to state Senator Hansen Clarke;  at 11:45 p.m., Clarke had 46 percent of the vote and Cheeks Kilpatrick 40 percent. The Free Press described Hansen's win as a "stunning upset victory."

Here's more from the Freep as the results roll in:

The defeat could spell the end of a 14-year congressional career for Kilpatrick, who has been dogged by the legal problems faced by her son, former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, now serving time for violating probation on state felony charges and awaiting trial on federal charges of tax evasion and mail and wire fraud.

The race has been among the most watched races in the state.

A subdued crowd at Kilpatrick’s election night party in downtown Detroit waited for the final numbers to roll in, hoping that absentee ballots might reverse the trend...

At Clarke's party at the Centaur Bar in Detroit, the mood was much more upbeat. Cheering erupted as Clarke greeted the crowd.

"What’s missing is a congressman willing to work in the city," said Detroit city councilman Gary Brown. "I hope he can bring the Michigan delegation in Washington together."

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[More MoJo primary coverage: Nick Baumann reports on the Missouri primaries for US Senate here.]

Big labor, at least in a manufacturing state like Michigan, still wields some major political muscle. That's one takeaway from Tuesday's Democratic gubernatorial primary in Michigan, in which labor's pick, Lansing mayor Virg Bernero, easily defeated state House speaker Andy Dillon. Most media outlets called the race for Bernero early in the evening, and with 50 percent of voting precincts reporting, Bernero led Dillon by more than 40,000 votes.

Bernero, once seen as the underdog candidate, trailed Dillon in the polls for most of his primary campaign. But recently labor groups like the AFL-CIO and AFSCME mobilized their members and ramped up their ground campaign on Bernero's behalf, and as a result, the blunt Lansing mayor surged in the most recent polls. A fiery politician, Bernero is largely seen as a defender of the working class, especially the auto industry, and will garner even more support from Michigan's still-influential unions heading into November.

While Bernero sounds like a classic Michigan Democrat, Rick Snyder, who easily defeated longtime Rep. Pete Hoekstra in Michigan's GOP gubernatorial primary, is hardly your typical Republican. The former CEO of Gateway computers, Snyder trounced his more established Republican opponents, leading Hoekstra by 63,000 votes with 53 percent of precincts reporting. Like Bernero, Snyder got off to a rocky, unassuming start, but quickly gathered momentum as voters latched onto his job-creation message in a state blighted by 13 percent unemployment.

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In David Corn's piece this morning, Rep. Bob Inglis told a story about meeting up with some constituents who earnestly regaled him about the sinister origins of the number on the back of your Social Security card. "That number indicates the bank that bought you when you were born based on a projection of your life's earnings," they told him.

Good times. But it got me wondering: what number on the back of your Social Security card? I haven't owned a physical Social Security card for decades, so I couldn't check. Luckily, Marian is more conscientious than I am and managed to dig hers up. Sure enough, there's a number on the back. But what's it for?

To my disappointment, a Google search didn't turn up much. However, I did run across a blog post that recounted a few interesting tidbits about Social Security numbers. Interesting, but not what I was looking for. Pay dirt was in the comments. I figure we could all use a laugh now and then, so here it is: the meaning of the numbers. Enjoy.

F. Howles: Here’s one to research. What’s the red numbers on the back of a social security card for?

Captian Jack Sparrow: Does anyone know what those red numbers on the back are for. I am very curious as well.

freedomfighter: about that serial or whatever on the back…im researching it but from what I’ve gathered that is a bank routing number linking you as property of some royalty british bank.

golbguru: Do you have a reference for this statement: “but from what I've gathered that is a bank routing number linking you as property of some royalty british bank.” ? As far as I am concerned that’s total BS.

freedomfighter2: I’m actually looking for documentation but all I remember is hearing about it in some google video…not the most reassuring evidence, but for now until im disproven I suggest leaving it as an option…when i come across the video ill post it.

Puzzled: I’m still trying to find out more about the numbers on the back of Social Security cards. My friend’s card has red numbers. Mine are of another color and I don’t know why.

Puzzled: By the way, about that thing that you think is BS, with your SSN being tied to some royal british bank is in fact completely true. Your SSN is tied to Social Security Administration which is tied directly to the Federal Reserve System, which is privately owned by stock-holding banks, one of which is Barclay’s, a Royal Britich Bank, as well as several American banks, which are also British owned and controlled.

Beaver: I heard an urban legend that the red numbers on the back of the social security card are your EIN, employer ID number. If you’re just a regular John Doe citizen, you’re an employee of the US Corporation, and are in fact yourself a corporation. That’s why you use the number on the front, your employee ID number (SSN). Supposedly, if you have a replacement card issued to you, the number on the back will come in red ink, and you can use it to declare that you’re a soveriegn American and not a citizen OF the United States....If you use the number on the back, the “tracking number for blank cards” printed in red ink, you’re claiming ownership of the card and the chattel property it represents. You are the chattel property. If you don’t, they “own” you. You’re their chattel property, and you’re being used as collateral on the bankruptcy the US Govt. filed to the international banking houses back in the 1930’s, the time of the great depression.

ChelC: came upon this when someone referred me here:

http://activequote.fidelity.com/mmnet/SymLookup.phtml?QUOTE_TYPE=&scCode=M&searchBy=F&searchFor=76E52351078&submit=Search

They told me to enter the year of my birth, followed by the red number. Select Mutual Fund and Fund number. You will find out what yours is if you have one. So, if I was born in 76, I would enter 76xxxxxxxx.

Fed Up: I called Social Security headquarters asking about this. The representative had the following four answers: 1) “No idea, hold on.” 2) “Hold on, I have never heard of that.” 3) “I am still checking, I have never had this question before.” And finally 4) “It refers to when the card was issued. It is a reference number, having nothing to do with your SS #.”

RON: The # on the back of your ssn card is “Priority Exemption Acc. #” The letter represents the Federal Reserve Bank that hold the bond the 8 digits is the acc. #

chandra: Is there a way to research the federal reserve bank that corresponds with the letter???

a good samaritan: There’s ten bonds associated with one SSN at the Fed. The number on the back of the card is only one of ten numbers which identifies the bond it’s associated with. The bond, which is held by the Fed, has an account associated with it. This is the account talked about called “Private Exemption”. The only way to take control of these bonds/accounts is through the Depository Trust Company.

Strobel: Looking for more information on the red numbers on the back of the SS card. A guy I met told me he pays his monthly bills using that number. It is supposedly a bank routing number attached to the British bank some people here have mentioned. Does anyone have any more specifics on this?

No One: well to answer your questions about the red numbers on the back of your cards when i was working for the government i learned that during the great depression the government started investing in the world market in our names and using our ssn #’s so that if that ever happened again they could pay out the unemployed.

Falcon: So far in my research I have heard many different theories on how to go about capturing your STRAWMAN, charging up your treasury account, and discharging your debt. The problem is, they are all theories!

Please beware my friends of people who want to charge you money for this information. I paid out a pretty penny so far and the information I received is conflicting. I have some friends that are working with a “Patriot” who has gladdly accepted many thousands of dollars from them as a fee to help them and so far all that has happened is they got there bank accounts closed for righting fraudelent checks. Nobody has been arrested though so that is interesting but I am following there progress closely.

At this point, as you can see, it's actually getting kind of pathetic. These stories always seem pretty silly, but there are plenty of bottom feeders who prey on the kind of people who believe this stuff.

But of course, I don't want to leave you without the answer. What is the number on the back of your Social Security card? Here's the answer:

FedWorker: The numbers on the back are inventory control. Each paper blank now has a number and must be accounted for

And a bit more detail from a speech by Donald Walton, a U.S. bankruptcy trustee, on eight "key signs that can identify a subject social security card as either legitimate or fraudulent." Here's #7:

7. Sequential Control Number. On the rear of a legitimate card there is a sequential control number. The control number is a combination of alpha and numeric that bears no relation to the actual social security number on the card. However, the computer records of the Social Security Administration should show a correlation between the control number and the social security number and name on the card.

Of course, he would say that, wouldn't he? He's probably a bankruptcy trustee for the Bilderbergers.

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Lafayette, Louisiana—One of the larger themes behind this trip has always been, amorphous as it might sound, to make some sense of the map. Part of that is geographical: Do these towns with the funny names on the map really exist? Did Vermont quietly leave the Union without anyone noticing? But it's cultural, too. You develop an odd sense of what a particular region is like if you spend your entire life reading about it without ever once walking its streets and talking to its people. For most of my childhood, for instance, my mental image of Atlanta came exclusively from old photos from Civil War anthologies: black-and-white, bustling with horse-drawn carriages, and prone to periodic outbreaks of cholera. Think of it as cultural autodidacticism.

So on that note, it was kind of awesome to arrive in the Cajun country of southwest Louisiana and discover that, in the heart of a region possessed by a "This is America, Speak English!" nativism, you can go to a gas station, or a convenience store, or a diner, or anywhere else locals tend to gather, and with a little bit of luck, hear people speaking an Old World tongue passed down from their exiled Canadian ancestors and kept intact over three centuries. For lack of a better analogy, it felt a bit like Samwise Gamgee's first encounter with the elves.

Whether Cajun will surivive a fourth century is unclear; the handful of aging fluent speakers I talked to all had the same complaint: The younger generations just don't feel the need to keep the tradition alive. And that's probably true. But if Cajun  fades away as a spoken dialect, it's at least sticking around a little while longer in musical form. In Lafayette, at the epicenter of Acadiana, we caught a twinbill show at a local bar featuring two popular Cajun bands, the Pine Leaf Boys and Feufollet (which translates to something like "Will-o-the-Wisp," I think). Both groups were young—twentysomethings, mostly—but the crowd covered a much wider range, all there to hear the distinctive accordion- and tambourine-flavored Old World rhythms.

Anyway, this was really just an excuse to post some cool (and pretty unique) music, so here are the Pine Leaf Boys:

And here's Feufollet, below the jump:

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