A Republican Oklahoma state senator this week introduced a bill mandating that journalists complete a licensing process requiring criminal background checks on every member of the news media, licensing through the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the completion of a “propaganda free” training course via the Oklahoma Department of Education, a $1 million liability insurance policy, and quarterly drug tests, the Oklahoman reports on some Fourth Reich bullshit in the Sooner State.
“He’s asking journalists to undergo more scrutiny than he did. The bill is an egregious violation of the First Amendment. I wonder if it’s a knee-jerk response on his part, because there are journalists in Oklahoma, myself included, who think the good senator may be a couple of McNuggets short of a Happy Meal,” Johnston County Sentinel editor John Small said when asked to comment on state Senator Nathan Dahm’s bill, titled the “Common Sense Freedom of Press Control Act.”
While it’s likely the bill is just some MAGA assclown jerking off rather than anything that’ll ever be taken up let alone passed given the legal beating it would face, Dem state Representative Mickey Dollens isn’t so sure. “I would have said this bill has no chance of advancing, but based on extremist legislation passed in recent years, I wouldn’t put it past them,” Dollens said, calling it “yet another example of how radicalized GOP lawmakers in Oklahoma have transformed the Republican Party.”
In a related example of that transformation, the Oklahoman also reports that Republican state House member Justin Humphrey this week introduced a bill banning “students who purport to be an imaginary animal or animal species, or who engage in anthropomorphic behavior commonly referred to as furries,” from public schools, requiring their parent or guardian to come pick them up if they show up in a furry costume. If the parent/guardian is unavailable then “animal control services shall be contacted to remove the student.” Oklahoma’s legislative session begins February 5th.