The latest resignation of a Trump administration official was good news in farm country.

Scott Pruitt, Environmental Protection Agency chief until he stepped down early this month, understandably drew the ire of farmers in Kansas and beyond with his attack on the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), a federal mandate that requires ethanol and biodiesel to be blended into the nation’s fuel supply. Pruitt led deliberate efforts to undermine ethanol as the EPA granted an unprecedented 1.6 billion gallons in waivers aiding oil producers. Many oil refineries were exempted from complying with the RFS, to include some making huge profits that received the equivalent of a massive government handout through the waivers.

The moves hurt farmers who grow corn and other grains used in ethanol production, with an estimated economic impact of billions of dollars in lost markets for ethanol and corn.

Pruitt also was embroiled in various ethics-related scandals. Numerous federal and congressional investigations eventually were his undoing.

But in Kansas and other farm states, his biggest transgression by far was his run on ethanol and the RFS.

Meanwhile, President Trump remained oblivious to the harm done in rural parts of the country where he enjoyed enthusiastic voter support. On Twitter, Trump said in part after Pruitt’s resignation: “Within the Agency Scott has done an outstanding job …”

The current plight of farmers apparently doesn’t matter to a president busy exacting his own economic toll on rural America with an escalating trade war.

Trump went on to tweet: “We have made tremendous progress and the future of the EPA is very bright!”

Not if the agency lands another failed administrator, a point addressed by one staunch conservative in the U.S. Senate.

Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, of Iowa, the nation’s top ethanol and biodiesel producer, said Pruitt “is about as swampy as you get here in Washington, D.C., and if the president wants to drain the swamp, he needs to take a look at his own cabinet.”

Ideally, the next EPA director would be more mindful of sound policies tied to agriculture and its part in producing clean renewable fuels. But considering the Trump administration’s track record, there’s scant hope of as much.

— The Garden City

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It turns out the maelstrom that President Donald Trump created when he sided with Russia over his own intelligence community was simply a matter of a missing contraction. Or so the president would have Americans and the rest of the world believe. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Only a day earlier, Trump shocked and horrified America and its Western allies by appearing to take at face value Russian President Vladimir Putin’s smirky denial of any involvement in meddling with the 2016 U.S. election cycle. Trump essentially told the world that Putin’s disclaimer outweighed the American intelligence community’s abundant evidence of the Kremlin’s interference in the campaign.

That’s what Trump said Monday.

On Tuesday, though, he delivered a severe case of whiplash.

Speaking at the White House before a meeting with Republican members of Congress, Trump said he had reviewed the transcript of his news conference in Helsinki with Putin at his side, and realized he misstated what he meant.

To briefly review, here’s what Trump actually said on Monday: “They think it’s Russia,” he told reporters in Helsinki, referring to American intelligence officials. “I have President Putin — he just said it’s not Russia. I don’t see any reason why it would be.” In another moment at the news conference, he called Putin’s denial “strong and powerful.”

Tumult followed. Leaders of Trump’s own Republican Party denounced his embrace of Putin over America’s intelligence community, and his refusal to acknowledge the incontrovertible evidence that Russia indeed had interfered in the presidential campaign. That evidence was bolstered by the Justice Department’s indictment of 12 Russian military intelligence agents for their alleged involvement in the meddling effort. House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin, had to remind Trump that Russia “is not our ally” and “remains hostile to our most basic values and ideals.”

On Tuesday came a mind-boggling flip-flop. Trump said he realized “there’s need for some clarification.”

“I said ‘would’ instead of ‘wouldn’t.’” In other words, Trump now was claiming that what he meant to say in Helsinki was, “I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia.” Trump also said he accepted “our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russian meddling in the 2016 election took place.”

Hmm. Can we believe him, particularly after the fawning admiration he has shown for Putin — before and during the Helsinki meetup? If Trump truly believed that his intelligence officials were on the mark in their conclusions about Russian meddling, then why didn’t he read Putin the riot act? Why didn’t he make it clear that the ex-KGB agent should be held accountable for his government’s actions?

We’ll see whether this sorry episode has lasting repercussions for American diplomacy.

For most world leaders, a blunder and walk-back of this magnitude would deal a crushing blow to their credibility.

But that may not happen here: Trump and truthfulness are already estranged.

— The Chicago Tribune

There’s a not-so-new self-defense weapon that needs its own defenders in Texas. And you can count us in.

That’s because it’s pretty clear that Texas law discriminates against the pink kitty key chain, especially popular among women who carry it for protection when they’re walking to their cars at night, or into a dark parking garage.

In Texas you can be thrown in the county jail for a year or be fined up to $4,000 if you’re caught with this 3-by-2 inch plastic item dangling from your steering column.

That’s ridiculous when it’s legal to openly carry a loaded handgun or long-bladed Bowie knife capable of fatally slicing and dicing an adversary.

The kitty key chain is illegal under section 46.05 of the Texas Penal Code, which puts it in the same category as illegal brass knuckles, which users slide onto their hands to cause greater damage when they throw a punch.

With the key chain you put your fingers through the cat’s eye openings, make a fist, and strike an attacker with the pointed cat’s ears that protrude.

OK, sure, someone could lose it and use the kitty to attack and stick a neighbor in the heat of an argument. But that could happen with a dinner fork, too.

The problem here could be that the key chain sells for $5 online, instead of the $500 it might cost for a 9-mm Glock. The kitty doesn’t have a powerful, moneymaking lobby that contributes to lawmakers who in turn could peel back restrictions.

Perhaps there’s no one in Austin demanding carrying rights for the kitty, because what’s in it for them?

But consider what Irv Miller, president of the online company Self Defense and Security Products has to say. He sells the expensive stuff and the kitty, and says the key chain is his No. 1 seller by volume.

“It’s very effective if used properly and quickly,” he says. Making it illegal “denies women the right to carry something simple and effective if they choose not to carry a gun.”

We’re not saying the key chains are a women’s-only weapon, but Miller says women are by far the biggest purchasers.

So ladies, your right to carry these little critters legally may depend or your making some noise in Austin. Better yet, the same lawmakers advocating for other self-defense weapons should recognize the hypocrisy of excluding this affordable security item.

State lawmakers, it’s time to give the kitty key chain its due. That’s our cat call.

— Fort Worth Star-Telegram