(Permanent Musical Accompaniment to This Post)
Being our semi-regular weekly survey of what’s goin’ down in the several states and where 20 years of schooling will put you on the day shift.
We begin with a plaintive cry concerning tariffs from the heartland. Kansas, to be precise. From the Kansas Reflector:
We know thanks to data from the last time he was president. Trade associations project that soybean exports to China would drop 52% while corn exports would drop 84%. The last time round, Trump cushioned the blow by sending farmers payments through the Commodity Credit Corporation—$12 billion in 2018 and $16 billion in 2019. Republicans in the U.S. House plan to ban such payments in the latest Farm Bill.
Of course, this plaintive cry apparently didn’t even reach as far as Wichita. From The Kansas City Star:
Republicans on Monday rejected a proposal offered by state Rep. Rui Xu, a Westwood Democrat, who suggested that the full Legislature should consider sending a letter to Trump and Kansas’ congressional members advising against any tariffs that would harm the state economy. “We’re all kind of dancing around it, but I think it’s unquestionable that the proposed tariffs by the incoming president would have really damaging effects to the Kansas economy,” Xu said.
Sen. Virgil Peck, a Havana Republican, said no such letter would be taken seriously. “A lot of things the feds could [do] or even we do sometimes negatively impact the state of Kansas. So unless that part is removed, that’s sort of a poison pill for me,” Peck said. Rep. Sean Tarwater, a Stilwell Republican, called Trump “a shrewd negotiator” and said it would be “a bad move to undercut what most of the United States has voted for.”
Hey, Sean. Next time you’re in the unincorporated region of Kansas City suburbs you represent, tell the 8,000 or so residents there with their median income of $330k that a) 49 percent, and dropping, is not “most of the United States,” and b) their fellow Kansans in actual towns where the median income is far lower are going to get slammed and, as a result, the cost of crudités in Stilwell is going to go through the roof.
We move along through the Real America until we arrive in Hancock County, Indiana, where a local county commissioner got elected despite several obstacles, including being in home confinement in Nevada at the time.
Last week, Jessup was elected to the Hancock County Council as one of three Republican candidates. He received over 15,000 votes while both Democrat challengers barely cracked 10,000 each. Jessup, 49, has been held in Las Vegas since June 26 after being arrested in Hancock County and extradited to Nevada. He was granted house arrest on Aug. 10 after posting a $100,000 bond and has been staying in the area as his case progressed…. Witnesses who were with Jessup and the victim corroborated the woman’s story to detectives, adding that Jessup said “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” multiple times throughout the night. At the time of his arrest, Jessup reportedly told police there was “nothing criminal” about what he’d done while describing the incident as a “f***ed up, drunk night.”
Well, Commissioner Jessup certainly will be staying in Nevada for a while.
And we conclude, as is our custom, with a whole heapin’ helping of the great state of Oklahoma, courtesy of the Blog’s official Caribbean Cowboy, currently d/b/a the Bahamian Buckaroo, Friedman of the Plains, and from nondoc.org. First, St. Isidore runs over the First Amendment.
Attorney General Gentner Drummond contends using public funding for religious charter schools is a violation of Oklahomans’ religious liberties, one of many points of contention between the attorney general and the state superintendent. After the AG’s office declined to renew the contract of the attorney representing the State Board of Education, the board has hired new counsel after expressing distrust toward a temporary attorney—who was sent straight from the AG’s office. Meanwhile, Walters announced the purchase of more than 500 Bibles on Thursday to be used in advanced placement government classrooms. Later that afternoon, he asked state superintendents to send students and parents an 85-second video of him praying “in particular” for President-elect Donald Trump and railing against “woke teachers unions” and the “radical left.”
This is, of course, insane.
Next—stop slapping yourselves, Oklahomans!
On Nov. 7, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond issued a formal opinion affirming the State Athletic Commission’s authority to regulate slap fighting.
“You’re striking your opponent without the opponent doing anything to protect themselves, and so I think when you do that, I think you actually take the sport out of it,” Chairman Mike Bower said during the July 10 meeting. “Where’s the sport? It’s not like you’re blocking the blow or anything like that. You’re basically just trying to show that you can sustain being hit by an opponent without any protection. And so, I’ve got some concerns. One of our No. 1 responsibilities is the safety of the fighters.”
Finally, whoopee! Cocks will be fighting unregulated.
On Sunday, about 2,000 people attended a daylong event at Southeast Expo Center hosted by the Oklahoma Game Fowl Commission, a 501(c)(4) group that pushed legislation decriminalizing and/or reducing penalties for cockfighting crimes in 2023 and 2024. As the 2025 session approaches, the organization again intends to support bills reducing penalties in Title 21, Section 1692.8, which prescribes the punishments for cockfighting approved by voters in 2002.
This is your democracy, America. Cherish it.
