(Permanent Musical Accompaniment To This Post)

Being our semi-regular weekly survey of what's goin' down in the several states where, as we know, the real work of governmentin' gets done, and where the fool's gold mouthpiece, the hollow horn, plays wasted words.

Let us return this week to the great state of Michigan, where people are still wondering why their tap water looks like a Vulcan's blood and what Rick Snyder, their narcoleptic governor, is doing about it. Some of these folks have found a new and innovative way of answering that question. Let's Google "Snyder RICO" and see what pops, shall we?

Fascinating.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, April 6, in Flint U.S. District Court, alleges Snyder, his former Chief of Staff Dennis Muchmore and others attempted to balance the Flint city budget through a pattern of racketeering activity. "He wants to run the state like a business," attorney Marc J. Bern said of Snyder. "Well. The citizens of Flint, as shareholders in the corporation of the state of Michigan, I don't think they were treated in an appropriate way." The lawsuit alleges that officials misrepresented the suitability of the Flint River water as the city's drinking water source for roughly two years and billed Flint residents at rates that were the highest in the nation for water that was unusable, resulting in the city's budget deficit being reversed. Ultimately, the lawsuit claims the actions resulted in a $3.3 million surplus for the city.

That "running the state like a business" shot is a nifty one. I don't play a good enough lawyer in this shebeen to calculate the odds of this action succeeding, although I do know that the standards of evidence for a RICO suit, especially on the civil side, are fairly complex, and the private businesses named in the suit are going to raise holy hell. Nonetheless, this is a significant ramp-up of the pressure on Snyder and his administration. And there is one cause of action that I find especially lovely.

The suit claims officials committed mail fraud by continuing to mail water bills to Flint residents, which they allege fraudulently misrepresent that the city is providing safe, clean water to its residents. They further allege officials continued to make statements claiming the water was safe despite being aware of growing concerns over the quality of the water. The lawsuit also alleges the defendants committed wire fraud by allowing residents to pay their water bills online or with credit cards despite knowing the water was toxic.

Charging—and, occasionally, overcharging—people for water they knew was bad has always been the spoiled cherry on top of this arsenic sundae. I'm glad someone at least will have to go through discovery on it.

From there, let's skip on over to California, where god-bothering schoolboard members have not yet learned the lessons of Dover, Pennsylvania, with regard to what happens when you lose a federal lawsuit.

On Feb. 18, U.S. District Judge Jesus Bernal ordered the board to end its years-long tradition of "reciting prayers, Bible readings and proselytizing at board meetings." The school board has been opening its meetings with religious invocations since November 2013. On March 7, the board voted to hire the Murrieta-based law firm Tyler & Bursch to handle their appeal. In the meantime, Bernal wants the three board members leading the spiritual charge in the district to pay the legal fees of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Wisconsin-based group that sued the district over the prayer issue, along with anonymous district staff, students and community members. Bernal ordered board president Andrew Cruz and board members James Na and Sylvio Orzco Thursday to pay a total of $202,971.70 to the Freedom From Religion Foundation for their attorney's fees and other costs.

They keep taking these cases to court. They keep losing. They keep sticking all the taxpayers with huge legal costs. How long is it going to be until this becomes as much of a political problem for folks as some poor woman trying to game the EBT system is? God, apparently, only knows.

In their November 2014 suit against the district, lawyers for the Freedom From Religion Foundation argued that Na "often injects religion into his comments" at the ends of meetings and Cruz regularly closed meetings with a Bible reading, in addition to the prayers used to open meetings. The four members of the school board that Bernal enjoined from "conducting, permitting or otherwise endorsing school-sponsored prayer in board meetings" weren't just opening the meeting with a prayer—something that government agencies around San Bernardino County do—but often repeatedly stopped meetings to make long expressions of their faith, according to regular meeting attendees. In one case, Na reportedly mentioned or discussed Jesus 10 times in one board meeting. The Freedom From Religion Foundation argument also noted that students are not just encouraged to attend—the board even includes a student member—but are often required to, including students whose discipline cases the board is discussing behind-closed-doors portions of the meetings.

I'm assuming that these invocations of the Savior were not along the standard school board lines of, "Jesus H. Christ, this bill for copying paper is high."

From there, we take the bullet train down to Mississippi Goddamn, where Governor Phil Bryant is discovering that even corporations that lurrrrve his state's "business-friendly"—to wit, low wages and no unions—environment don't much like being associated with bigotry. Not even in Mississippi, they don't.

Today, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation's largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization, announced that executives from GE, the Dow Chemical Company, PepsiCo, Hewlett Packard Enterprises, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, Choice Hotels International, Inc., Levi Strauss & Co., and Whole Foods Market have signed onto an open letter addressed to Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant, Lt. Governor Tate Reeves, and House Speaker Philip A. Gunn urging state lawmakers to repeal HB 1523—a discriminatory measure signed into law yesterday despite outcry from the business community, fair-minded Mississippians, and LGBT equality advocates.

Mississippi's sister states are none too pleased, either.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the ban Tuesday, the same day Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant signed the measure, which supporters say will protect those who have religious objections to same-sex marriage. Opponents to the measure say it's intolerant and will lead to discrimination. Last week Cuomo, a Democrat, banned state-funded travel to North Carolina after lawmakers there blocked anti-discrimination protections for gay, lesbian and transgender people. In a statement, Cuomo said the Mississippi law is a "sad, hateful" measure and that he will not allow any official state travel to that state until the law is repealed. The state of Vermont is also banning for now official travel to Mississippi because of that state's passage of a law that allows religious groups and some private businesses to refuse service to gay couples.

And remember all those wonderful commercials in which states with "business friendly"—no regulations; exploding fertilizer plants—environments sought to steal industries and jobs from states that treat their citizens less like cattle? Sauce for the goose, baby.

Earlier Tuesday Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, invited PayPal to bring 400 jobs to Vermont after the company said it was backing out of a move to North Carolina because of a new law in that state that restricts protections for lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender people. Last week Shumlin banned all non-essential state travel to North Carolina to protest the law.

Going around, coming around. Shoes on other feet and all that. Next up—and who could've guessed—South Carolina. By the time the yahoos are finished, Vermont's going to have lifted the economy of most of the southern United States. I look forward to UVM's joining the SEC.

We leave Mississippi and move on to Missouri, which is closer to Mississippi these days than simply one syllable. The crusade against people who help ladies with their ladyparts there is inching ever closer to simply tossing people in jail for doing so.

Notwithstanding these legal objections, yesterday, the committee, led by State Senator Kurt Schaefer, began hearings on two bills to hold Kogut in contempt for not turning over the documents. If charged, Kogut could face 10 days of jail time as well as a $300 fine. The last time contempt proceedings were initiated in Missouri was in 1903. Missouri's Attorney General has already cleared the St. Louis Planned Parenthood clinic of wrongdoing after an extensive investigation. "We can't continue to pretend like these attacks are theoretical or merely rhetorical. Politicians in Missouri and across the country are threatening to take us back to the days where reproductive health providers were jailed for providing abortion – and it's women who pay the price," said Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood, in response to the proceedings.

Senator Schaefer seems to be a bit of a nut on the subject.

In a letter to University of Missouri officials, state Sen. Kurt Schaefer (R-Columbia) argues that Lindsay Ruhr, a graduate student in the School of Social Work, is illegally using public funds to conduct her dissertation research on the state's law that requires a 72-hour waiting period before a woman receives an abortion. Ruhr is using Planned Parenthood data to analyze the effects of the law on women's decision making. In Missouri it is illegal for public employees and facilities to use state money towards "encouraging or counseling" a person to have an abortion not necessary to save her life. "This is a concerning revelation considering the University's recent troubling connections to Planned Parenthood," wrote Schaefer. "It is difficult to understand how a research study approved by the University, conducted by a University student, and overseen by the Director of the School of Social Work at the University can be perceived as anything but an expenditure of public funds to aid Planned Parenthood."

I searched in vain for the avalanche of rightwing tomes that ensued defending Ms. Ruhr's right to free speech on her campus. I'll keep looking as soon as Sharper Image delivers the electron microscope.

And we conclude, as is our custom, in the great state of Oklahoma, where prodigal Official Blog Bison Whisperer Friedman has returned to The Plains in order to bring us the tale of how no parent has the right to know if their kid's gym teacher is packing.

Senate Bill 1036, by Sen. Jason Smalley, R-Stroud, exempts records containing those names from the Oklahoma Open Records and Open Meetings Acts. It is a followup to a bill passed last year allowing schools to arm teachers and other personnel. The provision is intended primarily for small, remote districts with little or no on-site security and limited access to law enforcement. SB 1036's House sponsor, Rep. Jeff Coody, R-Grandfield, said administrators and school boards want to be able to keep the names secret for the safety of the personnel. Some opposition to the bill was voiced by those who thought parents should be able to find out who at their children's schools are carrying guns.

What the hell is wrong with you parents, anyway? And surely this bill's proponent's aren't implying through this "safety of the personnel" argument that the mere presence of a firearm makes firearm violence more likely? What would Wayne LaPierre say?

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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