McCurtain County, Oklahoma in the southeast corner of the state, is Oklahoma’s 3rd biggest county. It’s big— and it’s empty… just over 34,000 people. It’s overwhelmingly white and the morons [see previous post] who live there are proud to wear the monicker “Little Dixie.” The county borders on Arkansas, Kansas, Texas and Missouri. With a per capita income of just $13,693, it’s one of the poorest counties in the state… and a breeding ground for hatred, virulent bigotry and MAGAism. In 2016 Trump won 80.7% of the vote in McCurtain County— and after watching him in action for 4 years, the county have him 82.7% of its vote in his failed reelection bid.
Why even bother bringing up a hellhole like McCurtain County? There are lots of places like it— and the people who live there can vote, just like normal people do. And even the registered Democrats vote Republican there. McCurtain is in the news today. Eddy Dempsey represents the county in the state House. He claims the comments published by the McCurtain Gazette-News don't reflect how the county really is. How is it, then? Sheriff Kevin Clardy, Sheriff’s office investigator Alicia Manning, Jail Administrator Larry Hendrix and District Commissioner Mark Jennings, all Republicans of course, got together after a county Board of Commissioners meeting last month and discussed hiring hitmen to kill a local reporter, Chris Willingham, while lamenting that modern justice no longer includes lynching Black people. And Rep. Dempsey is completely wrong— at least 82.7% the voters in his county are exactly reflected in that discussion between people just like them, including some they had elected.
In the discussion (which was taped and partially released), the sheriff said “I’m worried about what I might do to him. My papaw would have whipped his ass, would have wiped him and used him for toilet paper... if my daddy hadn’t been run over by a vehicle, he would have been down there.” [UPDATE: a partial transcript has surfaced.]
Jennings replied that his 86-year-old father, in response to an opinion published in the newspaper, once “started to go down there and just kill him,” according to The Gazette.
“I know where two big, deep holes are here if you ever need them,” Jennings allegedly said.
Clardy, the sheriff, allegedly said he had the equipment.
“I’ve got an excavator,” Clardy is accused of saying during the discussion.
“Well, these are already pre-dug,” Jennings allegedly said.
Jennings allegedly talked about knowing hitmen in Louisiana who could “cut no (expletive) mercy.”
A brief discussion about assaulting local judges followed, according to The Gazette.
Jennings, the commissioner, then discussed how many people might run for sheriff, according to the newspaper story.
“They don’t have a goddamn clue what they’re getting into,” he said. “Not this day and age. I’m going to tell you something— if it was back in the day, when Alan Marston would take a damned Black guy and whoop their ass and throw them in the cell, I’d run for fucking sheriff.”
Clardy responded by saying, “Yeah, it’s not like that no more," the newspaper reported.
Jennings then said [reflecting Trump and MAGA ideology] Black people have more rights than others, according to The Gazette.
“Take them down to Mud Creek and hang them up with damned rope,” he said. “But you can’t do that anymore. They’ve got more rights than we’ve got.”
The discussion followed a bizarre recounting of a house fire that killed a woman, according to The Gazette.
Clardy, the sheriff, recalled how his son, Kyler Clardy, a deputy with the Sheriff’s Office, talked about preheating an oven to 350 degrees and leaving the dead woman’s body inside of it for 15 minutes, according to the Gazette.
According to The Gazette, with the woman’s corpse still wrapped in a body bag, Kyle Clardy joked about going to eat barbecue.
Now that’s it’s all public and Oklahoma is embarrassed at the way the world is looking at it, MAGA Gov. Kevin Stitt has demanded everyone involved resign. A better solution would be that 82.7% of McCurtain voters would be forced to go to civics lessons and not be permitted to vote until the course was completed and they could prove that they understand the difference between being an American and being a MAGAt. Bonus question on the test: why would it be fair to blame what happened in McCurtain County on Fox News and, more specifically, on Tucker Carlson?