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" (Permanent Musical Accompaniment To This Post) Being our semi-regular weekly survey of what&amp;#039;s goin&amp;#039; down in the several states where, as we know, the real work of governmentin&amp;#039; gets done, and where there&amp;#039;s a marchin&amp;#039; band still playing in that vacant lot. Paul Ryan&amp;#039;s assurances aside, it sure has been a bad couple of weeks for people who believe that most political problems can be solved at the local level. Nonetheless, our tour indeed does begin this week in Missouri, where a city councilman got caught posting racist pictures of the president and, by way of explanation, presented a well-nigh undeniable case for why he did it. Tinsley responded on Monday night. &amp;quot;I apologize from the bottom of my heart,&amp;quot; Tinsley said. That was followed by an explanation. &amp;quot;At one time, I was a very active republican, very opposed to Obama,&amp;quot; Tinsley said. Res ipse loquitur, beeyotches. Let us move along, then, to Alabama, where the federal judge who drove the railroad that delivered Don Siegelman to prison got caught doing injudicious things to his wife. Atlanta police arrested the 55-year-old judge on Aug. 10 and charged him with misdemeanor battery after his wife called 911 from a hotel and said he was beating her...Fuller was released from jail and is free on $5,000 bond. He was scheduled to appear in court on Friday in Atlanta but the hearing has been delayed until Sept. 5, records show. Of course, your tax dollars continue to be at work here. Federal rules on judicial conduct and discipline don&amp;#039;t include a provision for withholding the pay of U.S. District Judge Mark E. Fuller of Montgomery, and the court system can&amp;#039;t quit paying a judge just because he was arrested, said judicial ethics expert Russell E. Carparelli. A circuit judicial council is looking into whether Fuller should be disciplined. &amp;quot;During this course he will continue to receive his salary,&amp;quot; said Carparelli, a former state court judge in Colorado and the executive director of the American Judicature Society at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Whew. Now I&amp;#039;m not obligated to buy an apple from Judge Fuller any time soon. I am relieved. In related news, there remains a bipartisan consensus that the poors should starve in the dark and freeze. We move along now to California, where the city of Los Angeles has managed to buy its way out of its cops&amp;#039; killing someone, which is what cities do best, because the essential difference in ass-covering between the average city and the average corporation is not vast. The settlement was approved by a 12-2 vote. Two council members who have served with the LAPD voted against the payout, saying the shooting appeared justified. Councilman Mitchell Englander said the officers could not see the driver&amp;#039;s hands when he fell so could not be sure whether he had a weapon. The dead guy was staggering away from what appears to be a serious automobile accident and it&amp;#039;s open season because the cops couldn&amp;#039;t see his hands? He probably couldn&amp;#039;t have found his hands with, well, both hands. Justification is a very elastic concept these days. Moving north to Minnesota, there&amp;#039;s a pol named Ron Erhardt -- not the former coach of the New England Patriots, alas -- who does not seem to react very well to surveys, especially those dealing with gun control. He does not react well, but he does react ironically. Your affiant, following the procedure used with each candidate, reminded Mr. Erhardt that GOCRA&amp;#039;s policy was to give a special &amp;quot;F*&amp;quot; grade to candidates with no voting record or survey, as set out in the &amp;quot;How will this information be used?&amp;quot; section of the introduction...Rep. Erhardt responded, yelling, &amp;quot;Give me a double F! No more surveys! You come near me, and I&amp;#039;ll blow your head off!&amp;quot; Rep. Erhardt then disconnected the phone call. The call&amp;#039;s duration was 78 seconds. And we conclude our tour, as is our custom, in Oklahoma, where Blog Special Downdraft Correspondent Friedman Of The Plains, sends along this wonderful example of modern, data-based content creation across several platforms. Remember when &amp;quot;backshooting coward&amp;quot; was about the worst thing you could call an Oklahoma cowpoke? Now we&amp;#039;re polling ourselves on whether or not it&amp;#039;s a good thing? Shane wept. This is your democracy, America. Cherish it. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a29809/the-labs-go-gun-crazy/>