Markwayne Mullin Will Totally Fight You – by Ben Domenech

If you do manage to get Mullin talking, he has a lot to say. He s fed up with Washington and its ways. He thinks both parties are shot through with corruption and bias and he wants off-the-wall people to solve problems. He has tons of friends in the House, where he spent a decade before moving to the Senate at the last election. Among them is Kevin McCarthy, who he feels particularly indebted to because of the personal help McCarthy offered when Mullin and his son were in California. His teetotaling rubbed some members the wrong way Paul Ryan couldn t believe he asked for sparkling water when they met for a beer on the Speaker s porch in the Capitol but it s founded in a drunken episode where a hammered, hungover Mullin had to haul sheetrock in the Oklahoma heat through a marathon of vomiting. He never touched the stuff again, and his wife keeps him on that straight and narrow which is also probably why he s built like a Hemsworth.

The Stilwell Strawberry Festival is a sight. The beating sun does not deflect people from the warring food trucks, where the best funnel cake in the state, drenched in strawberries and powdered sugar, is advertised alongside Chicken on a Stick. A competitor promises Giant Chicken on a Stick. A large tent advertises various sizes and shapes of knives for sale; there s a poster in the back of Donald Trump as Rambo No man, no woman, no Commie can stop Trump. The parade consists overwhelmingly of two things: giant bright-colored pickup trucks where a young girl in a sparkly glitter-shined gown sits on a blanket on the hood and waves to the crowd, her sash for Best Smile or Brightest Eyes wrapped around her as her proud high-BMI father drives lazily and smiles; and candidates for the Cherokee Nation district office, which include a plethora of names combining the best of west and east. One candidate, Wes Nofire, has a flatbed truck with a full band backing an electric guitarist playing Johnny Cash, while dressed in a full Bigfoot costume. Nofire hosts symposiums that bring a lot of tourists, the nice white-haired lady behind the local GOP table, which stocks brochures and the latest copy of Hillsdale s Imprimis newsletter, tells me. There is no Democrat table.

via thetransom.com

Fascinating America.