This Week In Commentary

“Nevada’s economy is already suffering from the chaos caused by President Trump’s trade wars, which have blown a $350 million hole in our state budget,” Nevada Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro and Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager said in a joint statement this week.

In July 2020, just several months into the COVID pandemic, Colorado Public Radio published a remarkable story about how the virus was spreading just as a “brain drain” weakened the state’s public health agency and the governor was turning to outside tech entrepreneurs for help with disease testing.

State lawmakers took a step toward removing fluoride from public water supplies in Louisiana, despite health care professionals attesting to its time-proven effectiveness in limiting dental disease.

Oklahoma lawmakers are clearly scared to death of their constituents, and who could blame them?

After all, voters in recent years have forced our lawmakers to come face-to-face with the terrifying reality that average Oklahomans can band together to circumvent the Legislature’s will and force the passage of new progressive laws and block boneheaded conservative policies.

In short, by taking matters into their own hands by expanding Medicaid access for the working poor and reducing the state’s over-incarceration rates through criminal justice reforms, voters have repeatedly been serving lawmakers an unwanted reminder that the influence of rural Oklahoma is dwindling as the state’s population continues to shift to more politically diverse urban centers.

I can understand how that must be a scary prospect for a Republican-led governing body whose members typically take immense pride in thinking up conservative policies.

Alabama has nation-leading rates of death from heart disease and strokes. More Alabamians die from gunfire each year than in New York State. Infant mortality is about twice as high among Black Alabamians as among whites.

Those are the fruits of poverty and systemic racism. Our ability to cope with all this, never great to begin with, is shrinking. Hospitals are closing. OB-GYNs don’t want to come here.

But instead of alleviating this misery, the Legislature seems determined to maintain it.

Even exacerbate it.

I’ve always thought the bumper sticker “Friends of Coal” was odd. Why be a friend to a fossil fuel? Especially one that’s caused so much disease, death and destruction in the state.

It feels like Oklahoma officials have lost touch with reality and think President Donald Trump must be the biggest idiot on the planet.

It’s not every day we get a chief federal prosecutor who has admitted being a big fan of an alleged sex trafficker and rapist, but here we are.

Federal government transparency since January has eroded in spectacular ways.

The Trump administration has barred access to major news organizations it doesn’t like. It has deleted more than 100,000 pages on government websites, erasing information on health, census data, the Jan. 6 insurrection and even the country’s founding documents.

In late January, the administration halted all federal scientific communication with the public from health agencies. Not to mention one of the most alarming features of President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement: Federal authorities release scant information about people they detain, often leaving community members with no idea about who’s been arrested, why they were targeted or where they are.

But Republicans in Washington aren’t alone in their hostility to open government. 

I broke some bad news to my children last week: Their days of eating Fruit Loops and Lucky Charms cereal for breakfast could be numbered.

Shocked, they immediately demanded to know why.

Apparently Oklahoma Senate lawmakers hate rainbows, Toucan Sam and colorful marshmallows. They’ve decided to use their valuable and limited time this session to declare war on the manufacturers of popular children’s foods and diet soda.

Our legislators are merrily chugging along with a plan that they believe will force manufacturers to ban 21 different food and color additives in foods, drinks and medications.

Some of those are found in our family’s favorite foods – and I bet yours, too.

I am once again asking Ohio lawmakers to please just feed the children. For all that is good and decent, at long last, may we please at least just make sure schoolchildren aren’t going hungry?

The Wizard of Oz means so many different things to so many different people.