(Permanent Musical Accompaniment To This Post)

Being our semi-regular weekly survey of what's goin' down in the several states where, as you know, the real work of governmentin' gets done, and where the best is always yet to come, that's what they explain to me.

Let's start in Texas, where eccentric state officials have slid down a long and greasy pole from the days when Jim Hightower was one of them. Here's the state's agriculture commissioner with some holiday cheer.

Miller wrote: "If one more person says Happy Holidays to me I just might slap them. Either tell me Merry Christmas or just don't say anything." The post is accompanied with an image of a cowboy on a steer riding under a pharmacy sign that says "We will never take the Christ out of Christmas."

The gang fight between the shepherds and the Magi is always my favorite part of any Christmas pageant.

Let's skip up north to one of America's newly founded banana republics. Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their Midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin, has managed to guarantee that elections in that state will be a complete sham for the foreseeable future.

The campaign finance measure dials back restrictions on money flowing into state political campaigns, some of which had been struck down by court rulings. The signing of the measure dismantling the Government Accountability Board kicks off a six-month transition to new elections and ethics commissions that will succeed it on June 30. The GAB, made up of six nonpartisan former judges, oversees elections, campaign finance, ethics and lobbying. The bill replaces it with two separate elections and ethics commissions overseen by appointees, most of them partisans, made by legislative leaders and the governor.

And why is this happening? Were the members of the GAB hiring strippers and buying meth on the state's dime? Were some of them revealed to be carnivorous reptiles from the planet Shrelb? Are they the Gamesters of Triskelion? No, it's because they did their job and raised some questions about the source of Walker's re-election quatloos.

But in recent years, the GAB and Kennedy fell out of favor with many Wisconsin Republicans for their role in the investigation into secret coordination between Walker's 2012 recall campaign and several so-called "issue advocacy" organizations. The board's growing list of critics described the GAB as a rogue agency and accused it of partisan bias after it assisted prosecutors in the John Doe investigation. The state Supreme Court halted the probe in July, saying it had no basis in law.

Punchline?

Republican supporters of the bill to dismantle the GAB say it will restore confidence in the oversight of elections and elected officials.

Yes, voters in Wisconsin can now be completely confident that all of their future elections will be rigged.

And we conclude, as is our custom, in the great state of Oklahoma, where Blog Official Figgy Pudding inspector Friedman of the Plains brings us the sad case of a sheriff's deputy who lost his job, but who had the single most amazing explanation of his actions that anyone has produced, ever.

The Oklahoman reports that the Fire Civil Service Commission held a hearing Monday and unanimously voted to terminate Capt. Denton Morgan. Morgan's attorney says he will appeal the decision. An Oct. 15 police report says a UPS Inc. pilot reported a green laser shining multiple times into his plane as he landed and took off from Enid Woodring Regional Airport.

OK, so that sounds bad. Why would anyone do that kind of thing?

Morgan told officers he and his wife were medicating cattle with his dart gun, which has a green laser sight attached to it, on his nearby property.

That sounds plausible to me, although how the cows got to the altitude of a UPS plane is something of a mystery. It might make more sense if it were sheep.

This is your democracy, America. Cherish it.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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