PRESIDENT OBAMA’S STIMULUS PKG. - STRINGS TO HANG OURSELVES BY?

– AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING
– MY PERSPECTIVE ON LAST WEEK’S DEBATE
– PRESIDENT OBAMA’S STIMULUS PKG. - STRINGS TO HANG OURSELVES BY?
– ANNOUNCEMENT
– TIDBITS
– OCPAC MEMBERSHIP REPORT

– AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING
Our speakers for this week’s meeting will be James Dunn, CarolynMcClarty and Gary Jones. Dunn and McClarty are the newly electedRepublican NATIONAL Committee Man and Woman representing the State ofOklahoma, while Jones is Oklahoma’s State Chariman. After many yearsof having excellent representation out of Lynn Windel and BunnyChambers, James and Carolyn are now attending the RNC meetings,hopefully trying to spread Oklahoma’s conservative values and ideologyto the members from other states. During our meeting I want the 3 ofthese speakers to evaluate the condition of the Republican party on anational basis as well as get their perspectives on how the partymight rebuild for a better future. Also, I have asked them to commenton the recent meeting where Michael Steele was elected as the newChairman of the RNC.As an aside over the weekend, Steele showed himself to be a coward,inept, moderate, or perhaps all three when he tried to throw RushLimbaugh under the bus on a national talk show for Mr. Limbaugh’sstatements that he hopes President Obama fails in his efforts to fullysocialize America. Limbaugh took Steele to the woodshed in masterfulfashion on Monday’s program.

– MY PERSPECTIVE ON LAST WEEK’S DEBATE
About 30 minutes before our meeting was to start, restaurantmanagement summoned me as a producer from CNN was on the phone. I wasasked if they sent a camera crew, could they shoot the debate. I toldthem they better hurry and they were set up with only about a 5 minutedelay in our starting the debate. Ron Jenkins, I believe of theassociated press, also showed up to cover our program.We started of with Senator Patrick Anderson (R-Enid) handing outpackets explaining his legislation which would declare English as theCOMMON language of Oklahoma. His packet also contained RepresentativeRandy Terrill’s (R-Moore) legislation which would make English theOFFICAL language of Oklahoma. Senator Anderson, well prepared, alsocited legal cases and information from other states which supportedhis premise that at least parts of Representative Terrill’slegislation were unconstitutional or a bad idea.Then is was Representative Terrill’s turn. In my opinion Terrillsimply out-lawyered Senator Anderson. Terrill methodically dissectedpiece by piece Anderson’s arguments, and of course it would be a raremoment for Terrill to ever be out done when it comes to passion orcommunication skills. I was very impressed with the quality of the 10or so questions from the audience. As I have said many times, we havea lot of very sharp people who attend our meetings.I really appreciate these two lawmakers coming to our meeting to havean honest discussion on an important subject.One of the reasons we moved to Italiano’s was the close proximity tothe State Capitol, which would make it easy for lawmakers to attendour luncheons. I try to always introduce any elected officialsattending our meetings and assuming I didn’t miss anyone, we had 6State Senators and 4 State Reps present for the meeting. One of theRepresentatives present was freshman Mike Christian (R-OKC).Representative Christian represents South Central OKC, which may havethe highest concentration of Hispanics of any district in the state,especially for a district represented by a Republican. The problemsassociated with illegal aliens is probably the number one issue toRepresentative Christian and the citizens of his district.The very next morning, Representative Christian and his wife wereinvolved in a traffic accident where both of them were sent to thehospital. The wreak was the result of the driver of the other vehiclemaking an illegal U turn in front of Mike. The other driver fled thescene of the accident. Sources tell me there is some evidence tosuggest the other driver was an illegal alien. If that is eververified, we must demand OKC Police Chief Billy Citty and especiallySheriff John Wetsel what they are doing to work with ICE (ImmigrationControl and Enforcement) to reduce the population of illegal aliens inOKC and Oklahoma County at large? Mike and his wife have now beenreleased from the hospital are recovering at home.

– PRESIDENT OBAMA’S STIMULUS PKG. - STRINGS TO HANG OURSELVES BY?
Several weeks back I wrote that President Obama didn’t care where hespent money, he just wanted to flood the economy with paper currency.While I was correct about his desire to flood the economy with papercurrency, I was wrong when I said he didn’t care where he spent themoney. He cares very much. Obama is a very shrewd and calculatingpolitician. He has actually been very crafty in determining where tothrow money to reward his base constituencies as well as make evermore people DEPENDENT on government.Last week there was an article in the Chattanooga Times Free Pressthat indicated the governors of Tennessee and Georgia might turn downthe parts of the stimulus package that deals with unemploymentbenefits. It seems as though any state taking those benefits wouldhave to expand their system and then be obligated for increased costsbeyond the 2 years when the stimulus money would run out. This wouldbe nothing other than a long term, unfunded federal mandate.Conservatives know that the best way to see people NOT go back to workis to extend or increase benefits. Many people don’t like thesewelfare hand-outs (un-employment benefits don’t come from a worker’spaychecks, but from a government fund, supplied by payments fromemployers FORCED to pay into the fund by government fascism). Thesepeople want to return to the work force after a job loss as soon aspossible. However, there are others who have different values. Somesee it as an opportunity to sit around on their butts, chill out, gofishing or work for cash while at the same time they are drawingbenefits from the unemployment funds paid by their former employers.Many of these former employers are struggling to stay in business.Speaker Benge and President Pro-Tem, Senator Coffee have bothindicated a caution toward the stimulosus monies coming to the state,not wanting the strings attached to create ongoing obligations for thestate. I applaud them for that but at the same time hope they arewatchful. It appears HB 1384 by Representative Randy McDaniels (R-OKC,Edmond) may get our necks in a noose and thus increase futureunemployment costs to businesses when the Presidents’ newly printedmoney runs out.One more example of strings attached. This past week I bumped intoGary Ridley, agency Director for the Oklahoma Department ofTransportation (ODOT). He confirmed a rumor I had heard that all ofthe road and bridge projects funded by the stimulosus monies will besubject to the Little Davis Bacon Act, or as we used to call it on astate level, “prevailing wages.”Here is how that works. If a road or bridge contractor normally paysone of their workers $18 dollars an hour, that will have to change tothe prevailing wage for these federally funded projects. Theprevailing wage is determined by the amounts paid for such work inother states of a particular region. Those amounts are based onreports submitted by union boss thugs. Therefore, the contractormentioned above might have to pay his workers $25 dollars per hour forthe same work, simply because of the federal government is sending usthe money. In the end, the taxpayers get less road and bridge workdone as the money doesn’t go as far because of the artificiallyinflated wages.The increased unemployment benefits as well as prevailing wagemandates are agenda items for union boss thugs. Do you understand why?Do you see the clever calculations of the Obama administration? Do youunderstand the danger for states in taking these goodies from thefeds?

– ANNOUNCEMENTS
TULSA AREA Oklahomans for Sovereignty And Free Enterprise (OK-SAFE)will hold their monthly town hall meeting, Tuesday evening, March 3rdat the Hardesty Libarary, 93rd and Memorial in Tulsa. The meeting willbegin at 6:45 p.m. The topic will be information about Real ID, Bio-metrics and Data Collection. There will also be a quiz on ourcountry’s foundation. The winner of the quiz will win a free book. Iurge Oklahomans to support OK-SAFE, not only financially, but be sureand sign up to receive their e-mail alerts. Now that OK-SAFE has afull time Executive Director, they have a much greater ability to keeppeople informed than I do, as I wade through the deep waters of lifetrying to juggle the many things with which I get involved. To getconnected, log on to www.ok-safe.com.

– TIDBITS
1) U.S. Representative Mary Fallin announced at the Oklahoma County Convention that she would file her papers today to become a candidate for governor and not run for re-election for her congressional seat. Other names being mentioned are U.S. Representative Tom Cole and State Senator Randy Brogdon (R-Owasso). Representative Fallin will be atough opponent in the primary race and if she wins, the generalelection also. It is my hope that Republican voters will choose themost conservative and principled candidate possible and then getbehind that person. That may or may not be Mary Fallin, depending upon who else enters the race.What I hope Republicans don’t do is support a candidate because wethink that person is the only one who could win in November of 2010. Worse still would be because we believe a particular candidatedeserves to be our nominee, or in the words of Representative DavidDank (R-OKC) in referring to Mary Fallin, “maybe it’s her turn.” Tha tis the kind of attitude that has given us candidates like ErnestIstook, Bob Dole, George W. Bush and John McCain over the years. Rather than evaluating all the candidates and choosing the one withthe best ideology, convictions and commitment to good governmentthrough biblical principles.2) If I remember correctly, the Gaylord family used to own theOklahoma City Times, an evening paper and the Daily Oklahoman, amorning paper. Through the years they merged and became the Oklahoman.Maybe it is TIME to change their name to the Oklahoma behinder?
Case in point, on February 14th the Oklahoman ran the editorial “When indoubt, scare’em.” The editorial blasted Senator Brogdon (R-Owasso) forhis efforts to remove excessive personal information from our driverslicenses and prevent other states or international interests frombeing able to access state data bases.In my opinion, were the Oklahoman not so far behind the times and ifthey were to do a little research, they would understand the federalgovernment attempted to impose bio-metrics on state IDs in 1986.International biometric plans were laid in 1995, both of which pre-dated 9/11. The bio-metrics required by REAL ID, other security laws,initiatives, treaties and agreements, are not needed tools againstterrorism, but the fulfillment of a global biometric ID system.

The main entities driving this issue today are:
1) The Departmentof Homeland Security (DHS),
2) The American Association of MotorVehicle Administrators (AAMVA) and
3) The International CivilAviation Organization (ICAO). The AAMVA is an INTERNATIONAL association of motor vehicle and law enforcement officials. The information I have just shared comes from the STOP REAL ID COALITION.This past Saturday there was an article posted on WorldNetDaily (wewill call WND the aheaders, not the behinders) by Bob Unruh. Thearticle was titled, Life With Big Brother, RADIO CHIP COMING SOON TO YOUR DRIVER’S LICENSE? - Homeland Security seeks next-generation REALID. The gist of the article has President Obama’s newly chosen chiefof Homeland Security supporting “enhanced drivers licenses” whichcontain radio frequency chips. Washington State already has these newdrivers licenses as an option for people wanting to travel back andforth between their state and Canada without having to have apassport. Other states are also considering these enhanced licenses.If everyone were required to carry these kind of licenses, agovernment agent could attend an OCPAC meeting (or any otherorganization’s meetings) and know everyone present at the meeting aswell as a treasure trove of information about them. To read thearticle log on to http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageld=90008One of the reasons Senator Brogdon is such an outstanding Senator, isthe vast volumes of time he devotes to reading and research on a widerange of issues. As our government is rushing us down the path towarda surveillance society its not Senator Brogdon that is out of touch,it is in my opinion the Oklahoman who is behind the times, thebehinders.
3) This past Friday, modern day tea parties were held at locationsall over the nation. Even though is was organized on virtually thespur of the moment in OKC by Alan Webb of Edmond, they had a greatturn out of 300 at the Capitol as reported by the Oklahoman. I heard asnippet of the speech by Stuart Jolly, state Director of Americans forProsperity, on radio and what a great job he did of saying no to theendless bailouts, foisted upon us by the socialists now in control ofthe White House and Congress.
4) Harry Dent, best selling author, speaker and economist was in OKCweek before last with his perspective on the economy and all thegovernment manipulations intended to prevent people from experiencingpain. The key point I want to make is his insistence that thegovernment should not interfere with natural economic law and thusallow our economy to find its equilibrium. The good news is there wasa full crowd at the Cox Convention Center. That means a lot of peopleheard an important message. Dent is best known for his study ofpopulation demographics, people’s habitual spending practices and theeffects of those practices upon an economy.
5) Congratulations to semi-retired attorney Jerry Fent. Mr. Fent hasin recent years earned the reputation of being the guardian oftaxpayer dollars and the State Constitution. He has on severaloccasions successfully taken the legislature before the State SupremeCourt for violating the Constitution. Especially effective are hisefforts to expose “log rolling” where the legislature puts more thanone spending item in a bill for a special appropriation when theConstitution expressly forbids such practices.At question in Mr. Fent’s most recent challenge was bondedindebtedness incurred at the end of last year’s session to improperlyuse another $25 million for the “American Indian Culture Center”alongthe Oklahoma River, $25 million for holding dams on the Arkansas Riverin Tulsa (something Tulsa taxpayers turned down, I believe twice) andanother $25 million for repairs for flood control dams throughoutOklahoma.The latter is the only of the 3 item I might justify state dollarsgoing to, but they should be appropriated, not borrowed. While thehigh court has frequently agreed with Mr. Fent, they often have notdone so in a timely manner, thus preventing taxpayer monies from being unconstitutionally spent.

– OCPAC MEMBERSHIP UPDATE
We finished the month of February with 124 dues paying members. With very strong growth numbers and are way ahead of where wewere in 2007, our off election year to year comparison. If we can continue this growth it will put us in a position to have even more influence in making Oklahoma a more conservative state in which tolive and prosper. If you have not joined as yet, please follow theinstructions following my sign off.

I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday.
Charlie Meadows
charliemeadows7@gmail.com