Former Gov. Bob Riley's official Capitol portrait was unveiled this week.

Many things can happen during the legislative session—sometimes even legislating!

To avoid voters missing out on stories about their legislators that they might have missed, Reran Tragedy provides the following handy digest of this week’s legislative “activity.”

-Gov. Robert Bentley pushed for the federal government to allow the state to cut thousands of impoverished children from a government-funded health care program so the state did not have to raise taxes. Meanwhile, his administration continued to push for flinging state tax dollars at possible employers. This actually happened.

-Caving to outrage from women’s groups, Sen. Clay Scofield,R-Guntersville, pulled back on his bill to require mandatory use of a transvaginal probe ultrasound before a woman can have an abortion. He then gave a television interview prompted by a change to his Facebook page. During the interview, he asserted that, while the bill does not force women to look at an image of the zygote or fetus they are about to abort, he feels that the women need to see the ultrasound because he thinks many women are not cognizant of what the basic concept of abortion really is and tend to get really depressed about having had an abortion and stuff when they look at ultrasounds during future pregnancies or, from how he described it, abortion scrapbooks they make or whatever. This also actually happened.

-Meanwhile, several senators discussed other things that can be put in women’s and perhaps men’s orifices to emotionally bribe women out of abortion, while taking health care away from poor children to give taxpayer funds in the form of unmarked bills to the first men in nice suits they see on Dexter Avenue in Montgomery. This probably did not happen but it seems entirely plausible right now.

-The official portrait of former Gov. Bob Riley was unveiled. Critics immediately began examining it with magnifier lenses to spot the puppet strings attached to the former governor by his alleged Mississippi Gamblords.

-Firefighters rallied in front of the Statehouse. The demonstration led to endless “We Didn’t Start the Fire” jokes and references around the Statehouse all day. All day.

-In related news, legislators, including Sen. Scott Beason, R-Gardendale, reiterated that Jefferson County should go die in a fire.

-Democratic members of the Legislature were going to do stuff, but deemed their homeshopping businesses more lucrative than actual participation in a branch of government in which they are rightfully only nominally a part of anymore.

-Though the state is in such dire budget straits that it is seeking to cut health coverage for poor children, Senate Health Committee approved another abortion-related bill by Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, that would allow health care workers who are not into abortions to not be a part of abortions. This actually happened too.

-Confident that education in Alabama has no other pressing problems in need of their intense focus, the House Education Policy Committee approved a bill that would allow high school students to leave campus and go to churches to learn about Jesus stuff they could easily learn during non-school hours in which plenty of Jesus can be fit. Additionally, the measure requires students who do not partake in daily Jesus time to be taken to a cramped, windowless room of their schools and have the word “Jesus” shouted at them without relent for the balance of the class period. Especially the Jewish ones.

-The House unanimously passed a bill creating new incentives for movie productions in the state. Following the vote, all members of the chamber shouted “Free money! Yay!” and Dougied.

-Meanwhile, the stench emanating from the rotting, oozing holes in the state’s budgets could only be described as that of “death” by those who worked around the Statehouse this week. It grew so bad it actually suffocated two of the seven golden retrievers that live in Gadsden Republican Rep. Blaine Galliher‘s office.

The dogs “Lucky” and “Tort Reform” will be memorialized on the House floor on Tuesday.

-The House Ways and Means-Education Committee approved a bill exempting diabetic supplies and medications from state sales taxes provided it does not require revenue to actually come form somewhere else in a cash-strapped state that refuses to raise taxes.

-Sen. Shadrack McGill, R-Woodville, did not embarrass himself by saying something silly in public for the second straight week. In response, Senate leadership bought him an Optimus Prime battle mask and promised that they would consider letting him eat cookie dough ice cream for breakfast on Friday, but warned him that if he did, it would probably make his little belly hurt.

-A group of manatees visited the Legislature to campaign for Alabama to do more to preserve the state’s coastal wildlife. They were all eaten.

-Unlike the first three weeks of the session, no one actually broke down and cried out about the futility of expecting good things to happen in the Legislature in a state where expectations are low and the concept of “progress” in any of its meanings is a joke—a joke that inspires pained laughs between spitting out teeth and coughing up blood by those who actually have a grasp on the state’s true problems and do not view the political process here as a prostitute into which you inject needs for power, profit, or your darkest insecurities and hatred related to those you do not understand.

Well, no one broke down if you don’t count that guy who drove his car into that wall shouting “It ain’t worth it! It ain’t never gonna be worth it!”

But at least he lived.

If you think that is actually worth it.

-The Senate approved a bill making it illegal to a cop’s gun, contrary to apparent widespread public belief that disarming police is a good idea spread by the #TakeCopsGunsLOL hashtag on Twitter.

-Nothing improved in any way whatsoever.

Reran Tragedy is Weld’s satirical blog about politics and life in Alabama and the South. Much of what you will read here is fictionalized, except for all the parts that are unfortunately true because they are about politics and life in Alabama and the South.

The artist known as Cal Alabaster Jr., if that is his or her real name, may or may not also be the author of the Alabama humor blog called “King Cockfight.” If true, you may read Cal’s work there at kingcockfight.wordpress.com. You can also follow Cal on Twitter @KingCockfight or email Cal at king.cockfight@gmail.com.