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" (Permanent soundtrack to this recurring feature...)      Welcome back to our 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; goes on and the pumps don&amp;#039;t work &amp;#039;cause the vandals took the handles. I often point out to those optimistic souls who adhere to the notion that the Republican party will one day soon not be demented that you have to look down into the states, to those people the party is running for state legislatures and so forth, because that&amp;#039;s the farm team. Those are your congressional candidates ten years from now. So, in that spirit, let&amp;#039;s begin in Wisconsin, where a local feller, who already briefly had bestowed upon him the zombie-eyed granny-starving seal of approval, has some interesting thoughts on ladyparts and the ladies who own them.... The newspaper quoted him as saying his father warned him, &amp;quot;Some girls rape easy&amp;quot; - meaning that after the fact they can change what they say about whether sex was consensual. On Wednesday, Rivard told the Journal Sentinel that the article did not provide full context of his comments and that his father&amp;#039;s exact words had been slightly different from how they appeared in the Chetek Alert. He told the Journal Sentinel that his father had advised him not to have premarital sex, and he took that seriously. &amp;quot;He also told me one thing, &amp;#039;If you do (have premarital sex), just remember, consensual sex can turn into rape in an awful hurry,&amp;#039; &amp;quot; Rivard said. &amp;quot;Because all of a sudden a young lady gets pregnant and the parents are madder than a wet hen and she&amp;#039;s not going to say, &amp;#039;Oh, yeah, I was part of the program.&amp;#039; All that she has to say or the parents have to say is it was rape because she&amp;#039;s underage. And he just said, &amp;#039;Remember, Roger, if you go down that road, some girls,&amp;#039; he said, &amp;#039;they rape so easy.&amp;#039; Dude, about your explanation? Needs a lot of work. I think you&amp;#039;ve managed to insult everyone with whom you went to high school and their parents. The 25-year class reunion ought to be a real delight. Let us leave America&amp;#039;s Dairyland, where almost everything, including the alibis, are pretty cheesy, and check in with Friedman of the Plains, the blog&amp;#039;s Official Oklahoman, who sends along a tale of law enforcement gone wrong, and the democratic process by which people can get justice.... He said the neighbors overheard him telling his horse about recent developments in Okay. The neighbors talked to Frye for a minute and then left to call the police, he said. &amp;quot;I talk to my animals like they&amp;#039;re human even though they don&amp;#039;t talk back,&amp;quot; Frye said. &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s a lot of good things going on in the area, so I was talking to my horse about those things. I was happy about all of it.&amp;quot; I do not know what America is coming to when a man can&amp;#039;t get stoned and talk to his horse in his yard without his neighbors calling in the law on him. Maybe the horse was vitally interested in what the zoning board was up to in Okay. Maybe the horse thought that things were not all okay in Okay. I already would rather see Frye&amp;#039;s horse on the Sunday shows than either David Brooks or Peggy Noonan. What is wrong with people these days anyway? Much as we&amp;#039;d like to keep discussing climate change with Paco Frye&amp;#039;s horse, who probably has a better handle on the issue than, say, Jim Inhofe, to name only one famous Oklahoman, we have an appointment to keep in Florida, where the state legislature has decided that it doesn&amp;#039;t have anywhere near enough reactionary Jeebus in its life.... Florida&amp;#039;s religious freedom caucus will be a place where all legislators who are committed to preserving and strengthening our remarkable religious freedoms can collaborate - regardless of party or ideology. It will help ensure that the over 90 percent of Floridians who are not on the polar extremes have the greatest voice on issues of religion and religious freedom. It will help us work together to ensure that our timeless religious freedoms remain the right of all Floridians for many generations to come. Countdown for when the new &amp;quot;religious freedom caucus&amp;quot; starts talking about ladyparts and the ladies who own them: five, four, three, two... Elsewhere in the Sunshine State, which gave us, among other highlights, the 2000 presidential fiasco and the Terri Schiavo circus, Republican legislators have had enough with this &amp;quot;independent judiciary&amp;quot; stuff.... &amp;quot;It is important for the judiciary to remain independent and impartial, but in order for that to happen citizens must be knowledgeable about the court&amp;#039;s decisions and voice their concerns when the court oversteps their authority,&amp;quot; said Slade O&amp;#039;Brien, state director of the conservative group Americans for Prosperity that has been running ads about the Supreme Court. &amp;quot;We are calling attention to the court&amp;#039;s decisions that have in fact politicized the bench,&amp;quot; O&amp;#039;Brien said. You see? Court makes decision that gives wingnuts a big old sad. Wingnuts throw big old, well-financed tantrum. Presto! The decision is unacceptably &amp;quot;politicized.&amp;quot; Magic! And we would be remiss if we didn&amp;#039;t conclude with the Arkansas state representative Jon Hubbard, and the novel theories about slavery that he propounds in his new book, if by &amp;quot;book&amp;quot; you mean spittle with a binding attached. &amp;quot;... the institution of slavery that the black race has long believed to be an abomination upon its people may actually have been a blessing in disguise. The blacks who could endure those conditions and circumstances would someday be rewarded with citizenship in the greatest nation ever established upon the face of the Earth.&amp;quot; And what do we have for the runners-up, Jonny? This is your democracy, America. Cherish it. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a16193/labs-of-democracy-13609735/>