(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 you’re sick of all this repetition.

We begin back in Etowah County in Alabama, home hunting ground of Roy Moore, the Gadsden Mall Creeper. However, the Don Juan of Cinnabon isn’t the only character around those parts, as our friends at AL.com tell us.

But ethics disclosure forms Entrekin filed with the state reveal that over the past three years he has received more than $750,000 worth of additional "compensation" from a source he identified as "Food Provisions." Entrekin did not deny that he received the money...Entrekin told AL.com last month that he has a personal account that he refers to as his "Food Provision" fund. And Etowah County resident Matthew Qualls said that in 2015 Entrekin paid him to mow his lawn via checks with the words "Sheriff Todd Entrekin Food Provision Account" printed in the upper-left corner. AL.com viewed a photograph of one such check.

I’d buy that photograph and hang it on my wall.

The money in the account was allocated by federal, state and municipal governments to feed inmates in the Etowah County jail, but was not used for that purpose and was instead personally pocketed by Entrekin.

Man, that’s both hands, the feet, and a Hoover SuperVac in the trough right there. Well done, sheriff. Try to leave the hot stove where it is, though.

Let’s skip on up into Tennessee, where the state legislature confronted a very important issue and hid under the bed. From The Tennessean:

A House committee declined to pass a resolution that stated Tennessee denounces white nationalism and neo-Nazism… The subcommittee's sole Democrat, Rep. Darren Jernigan, D-Old Hickory, made the first motion, which was met with silence by the subcommittee's four Republican members, Reps. Bill Sanderson, Bud Hulsey, Mary Littleton and Bob Ramsey. After being cut off by Sanderson, subcommittee chairman, from discussing the resolution, Clemmons was immediately granted a second motion to talk about an unrelated bill on studying state government contracts.

What would even be the obviously phony reason for opposing something like this?

The House Joint Resolution, filed in the Tennessee General Assembly just days after the deadly August “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., stated that white nationalist and neo-Nazi ideology “remain very real threats to social and racial progress." It asked law enforcement agencies to consider the groups “domestic terrorist organizations," and to pursue criminal charges against them as police would in other types of terrorism. If approved, the House would have resolved to “strongly denounce and oppose the totalitarian impulses, violent terrorism, xenophobic biases, and bigoted ideologies that are promoted” by the groups.

Glad you asked.

The Republican subcommittee members didn't respond to emailed questions from USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee regarding the resolution.

Gutless is as gutless does.

We ease on over the border into Kentucky, where Tea Party doofus Governor Matt Bevin got caught on stage during a performance of Bad Historical Analogy Theater. From The Lexington Herald-Leader:

During an interview Tuesday on WVLC radio in Campbellsville, Bevin called teachers who oppose Senate Bill 1 “selfish” and “ignorant,” comparing them to disloyal Americans who hoarded rationed goods during World War II. “This would be like people having mass demonstrations about, ‘No I want my butter, I want my sugar, I’m going to keep all my steel and my rubber and my copper, and to heck with the rest of you people, you better keep giving me mine,’” Bevin said.

If you read that quote and thought, “Geez, that Kentucky governor seems like quite a dick,” rest assured that you’re not alone. The state’s Republican speaker of the house agrees with you.

“I have not seen the exact comments of what was said today, I’ve only heard bits and pieces of them, but if they are as I’ve been told, I think they’re inappropriate and I think that they show a lack of understanding of the people who are impacting the lives of our young people in this state. He’s not talking about many of the teachers that I know, many of the teachers I still consider friends and many of the people who are still active participants in the education community. For us to lose focus on the fact that we’ve got to do something about this problem is inappropriate, but it is made exponentially more difficult when people make indefensible statements,” he said.

Up in Minnesota, they’ve busted three homegrown terror-loons on gun charges, and the three also are suspected of bombing a mosque and trying to bomb a women’s health clinic. From CBS:

The statement said the three men are suspects in the Aug. 5, 2017, explosion at the Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington, Minnesota, and an attempted bombing of the Women's Health Practice in Champaign on Nov. 7. The suspects were identified as 47-year-old Michael B. Hari, 22-year-old Joe Morris and 29-year-old Michael McWhorter. All are from Clarence, Illinois, a rural community 35 miles north of Champaign-Urbana.

This Michael Hari is quite a cat. The Chicago Tribune has the skinny on him. Apparently, Hari was fairly well-known among the camo-and-crystal-set crowd.

Hari describes some of his political views in a federal lawsuit he filed last month against the Department of Agriculture in which he complains it was cutting in on his food-safety certification business, Equicert. "The People of the United States have rejected the Marxist doctrine that the government shall own the means of production," he wrote. Under the screen name "Illinois Patriot," Hari posted 19 videos to YouTube in the past two months, most of them anti-government monologues delivered in a smooth, matter-of-fact voice. He wears a balaclava that obscures all but his eyes. In a March 11 video titled "A Cry for Liberty," Hari criticizes the Justice Department as "a political animal," and calls the government "completely illegitimate."

That’s not the best part, though. This is the best part. Also from the Trib:

A former sheriff's deputy who most recently ran an agricultural food safety certification business, Hari is among more than 200 vendors interested in winning the mammoth and controversial construction project. "We would look at the wall as not just a physical barrier to immigration but also as a symbol of the American determination to defend our culture, our language, our heritage, from any outsiders," said Hari, 46, one of a handful of Illinois applicants.

Hari's proposal calls for two 26-foot concrete walls built on a 30-foot packed earth berm. In between the two walls would be more packed earth, topped by a narrow pedestrian roadway, like the Great Wall of China. That would turn the border wall into more than a barrier to illegal immigration. Hari foresees a traversable tourist attraction on par with the Washington Monument.“They can use it for patrolling, but it's more for the public," he said. "People can go up there, walk it or bicycle it. We're probably the only ones who have submitted a proposal making it recreational."

Yes, YouTube Balaclava Bomber Guy wanted to build a big, beautiful wall with a bike path down the middle. Something for authoritarian yahoos, and something for granola-crunching hippie cyclists. Bipartisanship!

And we conclude, as is our custom, in the great state of Oklahoma, where Blog Official Post Hole Consultant Friedman of the Plains brings us a considered opinion from a “lawmaker” regarding the teacher walkouts in that state. From the Tulsa World:

Rep. Jeff Coody said the $10,000 raise for teachers and raises for state employees that educators are demanding will cost roughly one-third of what the legislature appropriates each year, so he has an unfavorable view of their planned April 2 walkouts. "Honestly, it’s akin to extortion. It’s probably not doable, and you all are going to suffer as a result of it," Coody told the students Monday. Coody said students’ preparation for standardized testing will be interrupted. Students shot back they’re already suffering because underfunded schools have made their classes too big and cut offerings like Advanced Placement courses.

I think this guy buys his dictionaries in the same store where Matt Bevin goes to buy history textbooks.

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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