Oklahoma Schools Are Getting “God Bless the USA” Bibles That Leave 17 Amendments out of the Constitution

(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 there’s a marching band still playing in that vacant lot.

We begin here in the Commonwealth (God save it!), where ICE has arrived to ply its curious trade. From WCVB:

Edwards Hips’ family said he was taking his 5-year-old daughter, who has autism, home from the hospital on Sept. 16 when he noticed he was being followed. The family said he pulled into the driveway and was able to get into the house, but alleges that federal agents tried to use the child as a bargaining chip to get him outside.

“If you touch her, we’re going to have problems,” he said in a video provided by the family. “Come here so I can see those IDs,” an agent responded. Mejia’s wife, who asked not to be identified, said agents were taunting him at the expense of a child. “How do you explain something like this to a 5-year-old? It’s not easy, and sometimes I don’t find the good words to talk with her,” she said.

“That should never happen, and we’ve got many kids in the state who are not going to school right now. They’re afraid,” Gov. Maura Healey said about the case. “I’ve got pediatricians talking about high anxiety rates among young kids right now whose parents have been involved in some of these detentions, and it’s just heartbreaking.”

I think if you are a big old tattooed dude surrounding someone’s daughter and asking her father to come out, it’s very hard to make the case that you’re rescuing the little girl. But then again, I am not a spokesperson for this tack hammer of a government.

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, wrote on social media that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents “never used a 5-year-old girl as ‘bait.’ The target, Edwards Hip Mejia [sic], ignored law enforcement emergency lights to pull over and drove back to his house. He fled from the car, gave officers the double middle finger, and darted inside his house. He abandoned his 5-year-old daughter in the car. Officers helped rescue the child and called local police to report the abandonment,” McLaughlin wrote.

McLaughlin described him as a “criminal alien target” and said he previously faced arrest for domestic abuse and strangulation. His wife disputes this claim, saying he is not a criminal. The father, who has been in the country for 24 years, was ultimately detained Thursday by ICE and is being held in Plymouth. The family said they are living in fear, not attending church and not sending the children to school.

Tricia, someday you are going to have a job in which you are required to tell the truth and, sister, you are going to be so out of practice.

We move out west, where Nebraska and Colorado are glaring at each other over the North Platte River. From The Denver Post:

“Are we going to lose our water?” a woman seated near the front asked at the event earlier this month—the first question of the night.

Residents of the Eastern Plains community have found themselves caught in the middle of a political dispute over water between Nebraska and Colorado. Nebraska’s renewed plans to build the Perkins County Canal—named for the county just over the border—could divert much of the South Platte River winter water supply relied upon by the area’s agricultural economy. Some landowners have also faced unprecedented threats by the Nebraska state government to use eminent domain to seize the land needed for the canal in Colorado if they don’t willingly sell.

The conflict over the South Platte River and the construction of a canal across the states’ border has simmered for years, though officials in Colorado have dismissed the plans as “a political stunt” and a “boondoggle,” while also characterizing them as “unwise” and “unlikely.” But the issue boiled over this summer when Nebraska surprised Colorado leaders and took the fight to the U.S. Supreme Court.

This doesn’t fill me with joy and confidence. Meanwhile, back on the front line, the flexing has begun.

“We’re here to put our gloves on,” Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen said during a July 16 news conference announcing the lawsuit. “We’re going to fight like heck. We’re going to get every drop of water.” Colorado’s leadership has rejected the allegations and called the lawsuit a waste of time and money. At the town hall in Julesburg on September 8, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser pledged to fight for the state’s water supplies and promised to protect rural and agricultural communities. “We cannot be afraid to litigate or fight for our rights in Colorado,” he said. “I’ve gone to court against Google, against the United States. Going against Nebraska? I’m not concerned about that.”

The local farmers seem to have a good beat on things and can see clearly their status as future collateral damage.

“This is a conflict between the states of Nebraska and Colorado,” Sedgwick County Commissioner John Fryar said. “But it’s really about water use on the Front Range and how it trickles down through the South Platte and gets to Nebraska. We just end up being collateral damage. It’s really not about us—we just end up being roadkill.”

This political era is so loaded with slogans. “We just end up being roadkill” is only the latest.

And we conclude, as is our custom, in the great state of Oklahoma, whence Blog Official Corridinho instructor Friedman of the Algarve brings us a tale of why the Bible and the Constitution do not mix entirely well. From KFOR:

Oklahoma teachers are getting a closer look at the God Bless the USA Bible that has been placed in many classrooms across the state. Some were surprised by what they did not see. In the back, the Bibles included the Constitution, but Amendments 11–27 were missing. Previously, State Superintendent Ryan Walters had said that including the Constitution was an important part of the Bibles, as well as its religious teachings. “We’ve been clear in our guidance and standards that the bible would be used in its historical context,” said Walters back in January when asking for funding for the Bibles.

Suspend your entirely understandable confusion over what in the hell a God Bless the USA Bible is and consider what’s left out of it. Abolish slavery? Women’s suffrage? Equal protection? Birthright citizenship? Income tax? Direct election of senators? Two terms only for presidents? Votes for 18-year-olds? Not in our Bibles, baby. (Walters, an old favorite around this table at the shebeen, also proposed that all state high schools will be required to develop Charlie Kirk clubs and then announced he’s leaving his gig to head up something called Teacher Freedom Alliance to continue his theocratic mission. We’ll miss you, Ryan, you Bible-banging nuisance, you.)

This is your democracy, America. Cherish it.