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" (Permanent soundtrack to this recurring feature...)      TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 Welcome back to our weekly survey of the activities in the several states, where, as we all know, the real work of governmentin&amp;#039; gets done and, apparently, is still getting done outside the bubble of the little hootenanny of mendacity they&amp;#039;re throwing here on the Gulf coast. The big noise \u2014 and one not entirely unrelated to the doings hereabouts \u2014 is the fact that a judge pretty much took the voter-ID law in Texas and applied to that state&amp;#039;s legislature what the great Bill Russell used to refer to as a &amp;quot;Wilson sandwich,&amp;quot; as in, &amp;quot;Oyez, oyez, don&amp;#039;t bring that weak shit in here, motherfker.&amp;quot; It has been a bad week for Texas as far as finagling elections goes. The other day, another court took its Rhodesianesque redistricting plan and laughed it back to 1861, where it belongs.... Earlier this week, a separate three-judge panel in Washington threw out Texas&amp;#039;s redistricting plans saying the maps drawn by the Republican-led legislature undermined the political clout of minorities who are responsible for the state&amp;#039;s population growth. The Texas Attorney General, a guy named Greg Abbott, went appropriately crazy in response.... &amp;quot;This is actually a national trend, where states are trying to do a better job of securing the integrity of the ballot boxes, and yet courts (are) pushing back against that, seemingly promoting and allowing illegal voters to participate in the election process,&amp;quot; Abbott said. A similar law in South Carolina, where minority citizens never have had trouble voting, got taken to court this week, too. During morning testimony, state Sen. George &amp;quot;Chip&amp;quot; Campsen III cited examples of fraud that he took into consideration while drafting early versions of South Carolina&amp;#039;s law. These included vote buying, voter rolls indicating a woman who showed up at the polls had already voted, and press reports of voters being registered in both South Carolina and North Carolina. Wait for it. But under questioning from Justice Department attorney Anna Baldwin, Campsen, a Republican, said the examples he gave did not involve the type of fraud that requiring photo identification would address.&amp;quot;None of the examples you gave in your testimony involved incidents of impersonation?&amp;quot; Baldwin asked. &amp;quot;Correct,&amp;quot; Campsen answered. He also said he could not find cases of voter impersonation in South Carolina, but added that the state lacks the tools to root them out. Thanks for playing there, &amp;quot;Chip.&amp;quot; We have a lovely parting gift for you here from James Crow Gifts of Beverly Hills and Bug Tussle. Let us leave the chambers of the law and move on out to Arizona, where white-supremacist Russell Pearce may well have caused projectile vomiting on the part of Lady Liberty for the last time.... Illegal immigration was a major focus of the 2011 recall race that Pearce lost to a fellow Republican now in a different district, but the issue has faded somewhat as a top-tier concern as even Pearce emphasized education and economic concerns in the primary race. Squish! RINO! Away with him! We wander north, then, to Binghamton, New York, and back into the halls of justice where the only justice is in the halls, and where the judges aren&amp;#039;t afraid to pack more than Blackstone under their robes, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. Or not. The commission found that Sgueglia should not have used his decision-making authority for his own benefit, noting the permit has no restrictions and covers 20 pistols. The misconduct was compounded, the ruling stated, when Sgueglia accidentally discharged a .38 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver, while attempting to repair it, in his chambers during a break in court proceedings on Jan. 21, 2010. Perhaps Hizzoner should stick to fixing parking tickets. The defendant is discharged. HEY-YO! I got a million of &amp;#039;em. And let us conclude our abbreviated tour \u2014 because there some nothing happening somewhere nearby very soon \u2014 in the great state of Oklahoma, where the Tulsa City council may have developed the universal string theory of religious confusion. City Council Chairman G.T. Bynum says he&amp;#039;s never heard of an atheist giving the invocation before, but he says plenty of non-Christians have delivered the opening prayer. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ve had Muslims, Buddhists. We&amp;#039;ve had Jewish folks come in, we&amp;#039;ve even had a wiccan come in,&amp;quot; said Bynum. He says it&amp;#039;s required by law. Either everyone gets a chance or no one at all. Nerren says atheists like him favored the later, but his invocation and those that will follow are a compromise.  I&amp;#039;d have bought a ticket for the Wiccan, I&amp;#039;ll tell you that. This is your democracy, America. Cherish it. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a15546/texas-voter-id-ruling-12206596/>