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" (Permanent Musical Accompaniment To This 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; gets done, and where the ghost of Belle Starr, she silently sits. It seems unavoidable that we start this week in Oklahoma, because Blog Special Abandoned Cowtown Correspondent Friedman Of The Plains has been very busy rounding up news doggies of all sorts, and some of them are prime, indeed. For example, it seems that a local citizen-activist \u2014 Twitchy! \u2014 has developed a unique version of the idea of political persuasion. Let us all open our Bibles to the Gospel According To Charles Augustus Milverton, and featuring, in a Special Guest Appearance, our old pal, Agenda 21, the secret UN plan to steal all our golfs from us. Gerhart sent the email March 26 to Sen. Cliff Branan, promising to make the senator a laughing stock unless the Senate Energy and Environment Committee passed a bill dealing with a United Nations plan. Branan, R-Oklahoma City, is chairman of the committee. The senator turned the email over to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. Misspelling one word, Gerhart wrote: &amp;quot;Branan, Get that bill heard or I will make sure you regret not doing it. I will make you the laughing stock of the Senate if I don&amp;#039;t hear that this bill will be heard and passed. We will dig into your past, yoru family, your associates and once we start on you there will be no end to it. This is a promise.&amp;quot; If this letter did not reek of stale Budweiser, I will be the most amazed person in the world. But the citizen-activist remains undaunted because making a public jackass of yourself is really OK because...FREEEEDOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM! &amp;quot;Political pain and embarrassment will be necessary if the citizens expect to regain control of this Senate down here from the state chamber of commerce and special interests,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;The time for &amp;#039;nice&amp;#039; behavior is over with.&amp;quot;  Burp. Last week, Gerhart claimed his email was constitutionally protected free speech. He also said the investigation of the email was an attempt to harass him because the Sooner Tea Party tactics are effective. At the news conference, Gerhart told reporters &amp;quot;the scuttlebutt&amp;quot; at the Capitol was that the senator reacted the way he did to the email because the senator was worried the tea party would uncover infidelity. Because that&amp;#039;s what the original Tea Partiers did in Boston. They all got dressed up like Indians and roamed the town, trying to see where Thomas Hutchinson was shacked up with the downstairs maid. They then hung their lanterns on the Unauthorized Nookie Tree and formed the Committees of Concupiscence with like-minded patriots in the other colonies. Meanwhile, over in Broken Arrow, they&amp;#039;re standing firm in their resolve to follow the mandate of the gospels that pig must only be served in the name of Je-HEEEEE-ZUS! &amp;quot;It was explained to me that Oklahoma Joe&amp;#039;s would be supporting a camp intended to educate children on science, which we were proud to do,&amp;quot; Davidson said. &amp;quot;The Camp Quest organizers, prior to the event date, made no mention of their nonreligious beliefs or that Camp Quest is intended to foster nonreligious beliefs in children.&amp;quot; So, what are we worried about here? That the Special Atheist Money wouldn&amp;#039;t be any good? That the counselors would stand up in the middle of dinner and tell the children out loud that the brisket comes from animals that descended from other animals, and not from the hand of God, who figured Adam and Eve would need something to serve with the sweet tea in the Garden Of Eden? When barbecue starts become collateral damage in the culture wars, everything&amp;#039;s gone too far. Alas, we must leave Oklahoma \u2014 although them Jesus ribs sure do look tasty \u2014 and move to one of our favorite new stops along our weekly tour, the great state of North Carolina, aka The Normal One, where folks seem bound and determined to make up a lot of ground in a hurry in the crazy parade. Kaufmann replied: &amp;quot;Yes, I do understand that the ACLU is suing Rowan County and I think they have clearly articulated why they are not comfortable with prayer before the commissioners meetings. I wanted you, as my representative, to know that I do not think the proposed bill is a good solution to that problem. ... Would you be comfortable with a public prayer to Allah before a legislative meeting in Raleigh?&amp;quot; Presnell equated Islam to terrorism and added, &amp;quot;We just need to start taking a stand on our religious freedom or it will be whisked away from us.&amp;quot; Intrigued by the logic of Ms. Presnell&amp;#039;s argument that a threat to religious liberty will loom over us if we let Muslims pray in public, and perhaps considering subscribing to her newsletter, I enlisted the aid of the Blog&amp;#039;s Director Of Research, Mr. Google, to see what else we could find of Ms. Presnell&amp;#039;s thoughts on other subjects. Yes, there were other thoughts on other subjects. Oh, Lord, yes, there were. &amp;quot;God made that life, and if you were raped, then I still would not have an abortion. I&amp;#039;d have that child, and if you didn&amp;#039;t want it, there are many places that would take that child. I feel very, very strongly about that...They say, &amp;#039;Oh what about when the life of the mother is in danger?&amp;#039; You know what, God can take care of that, too. I don&amp;#039;t believe there&amp;#039;s a situation where if you don&amp;#039;t abort this child, you are going to die too.&amp;quot; Maybe not so much with the newsletter, after all. And we conclude in where-the-fck-else Kansas, where a local politician has been struggling with political correctness and pretty much falling ass-backwards into the ditch. Saline County Commissioner Jim Gile said it was a &amp;quot;bad choice of words&amp;quot; Tuesday when he used the expression &amp;quot;nigger-rigging it&amp;quot; in a heated discussion with Commissioner John Price. Gile, 68, who is serving his first term after taking office in January, used the phrase during a discussion about whether to hire an architect to design repairs to the county&amp;#039;s Road and Bridge Department building. In a recording made by County Clerk Don Merriman of the study session, Gile, who is white, can be heard to say the county needed to hire an architect to design the improvements rather than &amp;quot;nigger-rigging it.&amp;quot; His comment brought laughter from others in the room. Salinan Ray Hruska, who attends most commission meetings and study sessions, asked Gile what he said. &amp;quot;Afro-Americanized,&amp;quot; Gile replied. Ha, ha, ha. Bite me. &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;s like that congressman from Alaska,&amp;quot; Commission Chairman Randy Duncan can be heard to say of Gile&amp;#039;s comment.Duncan was referring to Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, who in a recent radio interview called Latino ranch workers at his father&amp;#039;s farm &amp;quot;wetbacks.&amp;quot; Yeah, he&amp;#039;s an idiot, too. Gile said Friday that he meant to say &amp;quot;jury-rigged.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I had it (jury-rigged) on my brain and this came out,&amp;quot; Gile said. &amp;quot;It was a bad choice of words. I&amp;#039;m sorry.&amp;quot; Actually, pard, one of those words is almost never confused with the other, at least not by higher primates. I hate to think what might have come out of your mouth had you wanted to refer to a &amp;quot;hung jury.&amp;quot; I believe it is your brain that is &amp;quot;jury-rigged&amp;quot; and that the duct tape is coming loose. This is your democracy, America. Cherish it. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a18133/the-labs-resort-to-blackmail/>