(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 now’s not the time for your tears.

We begin back in Mississippi, where, a couple of weeks back, we took a look at the sad and dangerous conditions inside that state’s prisons, particularly the legendary and terrifying Parchman State Penitentiary. In the interim, and against considerable odds, things have become worse and the body count keeps climbing. From the Clarion-Ledger:



MDOC on Wednesday night identified the man as Thomas Lee, 49, who pleaded guilty to capital murder in 2014 for the death of Grenada police Capt. Wayne Haddock. Lee was serving life without parole. Haddock was struck by a fleeing car in 2011 while attempting to lay tire spikes across a highway to stop a car, in which Lee was a passenger.

Officers found Lee in his one-man cell in Unit 29 at Parchman after 10 p.m. and performed CPR before he was pronounced dead, MDOC said. The coroner said the death appeared consistent with hanging, but cause and manner of death are pending an autopsy.

Ten men have died while in MDOC custody since Dec. 29. Eight of them were inmates at Parchman. MDOC has attributed some of the deaths to gang-related violence.



As The New York Times reports, Mississippi’s newest governor, Tate Reeves, is pleading—well, helplessness, I guess. And the problems at Parchman and elsewhere certainly long predate him. Parchman is currently on lockdown, and almost everybody believes that, if the lockdown is ever lifted, the place is going to blow higher than heaven.



“Can we do more to provide for peace? I believe we can,” Mr. Reeves said. “To do so, we must get to the heart of the problem. And it starts with bringing order to Parchman.”

(Note: We were tipped to this story through the work of the Mississippi Center For Investigative Reporting, a non-profit news outfit founded by Jerry Mitchell, the great Mississippi reporter who cracked open the files of the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission. That scoop that helped convict a number of people, including the murderer of Medgar Evers, for unpunished crimes they’d committed during the bloodiest period of the Civil Rights Movement. Jerry has a memoir of that work coming next month called Race Against Time. I’ve read it. You should, too.)



Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves has a serious problem on his hands. Rogelio V Solis/AP/Shutterstock

Elsewhere in Mississippi, the immigration issue is playing out in a classic Mississippi fashion. Which is to say, pretty much like it’s playing out everywhere else. Again, from the Clarion-Ledger:



Within three days of arriving in Mississippi in 1999 — weak, tired and with nothing but the clothes on his back — a 19-year-old from Guatemala found work at a Tyson chicken processing plant. The man, who asked to be identified as E. Miranda because he entered the U.S. without permission, had a friend in Carthage who worked in a chicken plant.

Miranda had grown up in a home made of dirt and wood with no electricity, where his entire family slept in a single room. His friend had described an entirely different existence in America and lent him about $4,000 so Miranda could pay smugglers and come to Mississippi.

“He said that here in the United States, the jobs are not so hard like they are in our country. You get more pay, you get more money working here,” Miranda said. Miranda went with his friend to a Tyson plant, received an ID badge and started working as a chicken cutter. After his first day on the cutting floor, his arms were sore, his hands hurt, but he didn’t quit. “That was the reason we were here. We continue working, even if it was so hard.”



ICE agents raided seven Mississippi poultry plants last August, busting a couple hundred workers. The owners of the plants escaped largely unscathed. Like I said, just like it works everywhere else. We are all Mississippi now.

We skip on out to Colorado, where the state legislature is up for grabs this November and, this being the era of legalized influence-peddling, the price of a legislative majority has gone zooming into the ionosphere. From the Colorado Sun:



The latest campaign finance reports show Republicans hold a slight edge against Democrats in terms of super PAC fundraising through the end of 2019. The Republican-aligned Senate Majority Fund raised nearly $679,000 in 2019, compared to the $667,000 haul by its Democratic counterpart, Leading Colorado Forward, according to campaign finance reports filed last week. The Democratic group also received an additional $40,000 transfer from its predecessor, Coloradans for Fairness. The two parties are eyeing a handful of seats that will hold the key to controlling the chamber, where Democrats hold a 19-16 majority. The Democratic majority in the House is much wider, and is expected to hold.



Let us invoke once again the words of the founder of this glorious new era in advanced democracy, departed Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy:

"The appearance of influence or access, furthermore, will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy."



OK, boomer.



And we conclude, as is our custom, in the great state of Oklahoma, where Blog Official Challah Wrangler Friedman of the Plains—buy his book, too—bring us the saga of how one lone Republican legislator is holding the line against the invasion of nut-based milk-like products. From News9 in Oklahoma City:



State Rep. Jim Grego (R-Wilburton) says milk that doesn't come from a goat, cow or "other hooved mammal" should not be labeled as milk in the state of Oklahoma. That would include soy, cashew, coconut and almond milk. The bill calls for a "ban on all products that do not meet the requirements of subsection B of this section, including plant-based products mislabeled as milk.”



I don’t know how Rep. Grego got sideways with Big Almond, but I think this can be placed carefully in that ever-expanding pile of Things Republicans Are Mad About Because They Think It's Weird.



This is your democracy, America. Cherish it.

Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page here.

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

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io