This post is a week late. Sorry.

+ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING
+ TEA PARTY ANNOUNCEMENT
+ SECURING THE PETITION PROCESS
+ SENATOR JONATHAN NICHOLS RESPONDS TO LAST WEEK’S E-MAIL
+ WHY EVERY CONSERVATIVE SHOULD TAKE THE TULSA BEACON!
+ CHRIS BENGE WANTS OKLAHOMANS TO PAY HIGHER PROPERTY TAXES?
+ OCPAC MEMBERSHIP CONTINUES TO GROW

+ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

This week’s meeting will be about the agenda of the sustainabilitymovement, “new urbanism,” light rail and the LEED program. Few peoplerealize that the whole “sustainability” movement is a direct result ofthe United Nation’s Agenda 21 conference. Our first speaker will beAmanda Teegarden, Executive Director and research analyst with OK-SAFE. Amanda will take about 10 minutes to give an overview of the bigpicture for sustainability. Our second speaker will be Randy Bright,an architect from Tulsa who sees the push for sustainability down toits minutia. Randy is also a columnist for the Tulsa Beacon Newspaperand does some of the most reasoned and informative articles on theshort comings and economic futility of light rail that I have readanywhere. I have been wanting to have this meeting for a long time.Don’t miss this meeting if at all possible.

+ TEA PARTY ANNOUNCEMENTOWASSO AREA

This coming Saturday, May 30th the Owasso TaxpayerAlliance will host a tea party to highlight Tax Freedom Day. That isthe day each year that the average American finishes working to paytheir taxes and then they can start on earning money to pay rent ormortgages, transportation, food, clothing and so on. The date changeseach year depending on new taxes and average income. This year’s dateis May 29, so after Friday you can work for yourself rather than thevarious jurisdictions of government. Speakers will include SenatorRandy Brogdon, Representative David Derby, Tulsa County Assessor KenYazel, Pastor Jason Murphy, J.B. Alexander and others. The event willbegin at 11:00 a.m. and the location is the Friendship Park, at 8400Mingo Valley Expressway, just North of the YMCA. Bring your friends,family, lawn chairs, flags, signs and tea bags. The group will becollecting tea bags to deliver to the Owasso City Hall in protest ofthe city’s proposed debt increase of 61% since November of 2008, just7 short months ago. For more information call James Parsons at (918)284-7032 or james@owassotaxpayer.com.

+ SECURING THE PETITION PROCESS

Circulating a petition to increase taxes like the teachers union hasrecently completed seems to glide through the process without so muchas a whimper of trouble. However, let some group or organizationcirculate a petition to reduce the size of government, slow its growthor protect property rights for citizens and the process has so manyhurdles to overcome that it has almost become impossible to get it toa vote of the people.Therefore, two reform measures were authored by Senator Randy Brogdon(R-Owasso) to improve the opportunities for citizens to use thisvaluable process for the good of Oklahoma. SB 800 changes the processto require all protests regarding the ballot title or gist statementto be determined before the signatures are collected. Another reformmeasure is HB 2246 which extends the number of days allowed to collectsignatures from 90 days to one year. This is important since Oklahomarequires the highest number of signatures of any state and at the sametime has the shortest time period to collect those signatures.Both of these measures passed the Senate and House with huge bi-partisan support, veto proof support. However, because it is the endof the session, if the Governor vetoes these measures or fails to signthem (that automatically vetoes them) then there will be noopportunity for the legislature to override his veto. Therefore, it isVERY IMPORTANT for folks to call Governor Henry’s office and leave amessage that you want him to sign SB 800 and HB 2246. Please do so assoon as possible. His office number is: (405) 521-2342. Again, this isvery important, please act on it right away.

+ SENATOR JONATHAN NICHOLS RESPONDS TO LAST WEEK’S E-MAIL

In last week’s e-mail I nominated Senator Nichols for the legislatorwhore of the year award for his authoring legislation to collect DNAsamples from people convicted of violent misdemeanors. However, afterreading the list of offences, several clearly had no connection toviolence. By 10:00 a.m. I had received a second call from SenatorNichols, not complaining about the dubious nomination, but my wordingwhich implied he was against the second amendment. He assured me hehas always voted to expand the rights of gun owners and always votedagainst more restrictive gun regulations.I re-read the paragraph in question and believe it was poorly written.The following more clearly reflects what I was trying to say. SenatorNichol’s legislation adds another level of intrusion upon a personsprivacy and future threat to their liberty if that person is convictedof illegally transporting a fire arm, illegally in possession of afirearm or illegally discharging a firearm.With the possible exception of the last one, none of these 3situations have anything to do with violence. Also, with the possibleexception of the last one, all of them are un-constitutional. Ibelieve lawmakers should be finding ways to restore our secondamendment rights, not adding more penalties for unconstitutional lawswhich shouldn’t even exist.My apologies to Senator Nichols for implying he was anti-secondamendment. During our conversation he did inform me it was lawenforcement and the district attorneys group that came up with theparticular misdemeanors to be included into the legislation. Of coursethat is the reason for the “whore of the year” nomination, which isintended for a lawmaker carrying legislation to expand governmentbecause a powerful group within government wants either more money ormore control.He agreed that my concerns about law enforcement coming back yearafter year for more tools and it being a slippery slope was a validpoint. He also informed me he ran this bill to head off legislationthat some lawmakers wanted in which everyone simply arrested for amisdemeanor of any type (arrested only, but not convicted) would haveto give up their DNA.Of course my thought process would say his bill is already theslippery slope. The best way to head off the type of legislation he isconcerned about is to DEFEAT IT, not come up with a middle of the roadcompromise. His house author to this legislation is Lee Denney (R-Cushing) and OCPAC’s 2006 House RINO winner. Based on statements byRepresentative Denney, she isn’t carrying legislation for lawenforcement, she has stated she wants to find as many ways as possibleto expand DNA collections. Big Brother is who Representative happensto be.One final thought on this issue. Just remember, there is always acertain amount of tension between government and its enforcement armon one hand and responsible people on the other hand who simply want areasonable amount of privacy and as much liberty as possible. Whenreading our Declaration of Independence, it is clear that we formedour government to PROTECT our God given, let me say it again, Godgiven rights to life, LIBERTY and the pursuit of happiness (throughone‘s ability to own and control their own private property).Yet, when we get to the Constitution we see that people can lose anyor all three of their God given rights if we act irresponsibly andviolate certain societal standards. Of course we can only lose thoserights through due process by a “fair and impartial” jury (you won’tfind the politically correct “jury of our peers” in the Constitution).Breaking un-constitutional laws doesn’t fit the bill to lose God givenrights or our rights that are enumerated in the Second Amendment.

+ WHY EVERY CONSERVATIVE SHOULD TAKE THE TULSA BEACON!

My two favorite newspapers in Oklahoma are the Oklahoma Constitutionand the Tulsa Beacon. The Constitution is quarterly and thus isn’t somuch about “daily” news, but geared more toward conservativecommentary and perspectives. The Tulsa Beacon is a weekly and reportsnews less timely than a daily, but has the ability to delve moredeeply into news events than a daily that has to meet tighterdeadlines. The Beacon has a stellar line-up of syndicated columnistsas well as great editorials by staff and columns by locals.As an example of greater depth on reporting, a few weeks back therewas the controversy over the legislature rejecting a song of theFlaming Lips from being the official state rock song. Daily newspapersreported the controversy stemmed from a band member wearing thecommunist symbol on a T-shirt at the State Capitol the day the Senategave their approval for the song. Another objection came fromlawmakers who remembered how embarrassed city officials were duringthe ceremony which named a city alley after the Lips. During anacceptance speech, the band’s leader used crude and vulgar languagewhich probably shocked many in the audience.What I had not seen in any of the daily papers was any insight intowhat appears to be some of the band members view of Jesus. The Beaconhad a front page story which exposed some of the groups lyrics such asin their song “Jesus shootin’ Heroin”, their view on death to babiesin a music video titled “Christmas on Mars where a guy was eating asausage which turned into a dead baby. Another song titled “CharlieManson Blues” glorifies murder and then their song “Drug Machine InHeaven” glamorizes suicide. Reading the lyrics of these songs minus afew words that had to be deleted gave me the opinion that these bandmembers and the people who listen to these songs, assuming theyunderstand the words, are all a bunch of sick puppies.After exposing the verbiage in some of their songs, the Beacon printeda quote from Governor Henry who issued an executive order proclaimingone of their songs as our official state rock song. Governor Henrysaid: “Not only are the Flaming Lips among the most original bands inrock music, they are great ambassadors for Oklahoma. They are fiercelyloyal and proud Oklahomans, and their fellow Oklahomans are evidentlyjust as loyal and proud about this Oklahoma born-and-bread group.”Excuse me Governor Henry, have you been spending too much vacationtime on planet MONGO or are you smoking some hallucinogenic tobaccolate into the night which makes you sleep too late and exhibit badjudgment. I am not loyal to this group nor do I have any pride forthem and I think they are shameful ambassadors for Oklahoma. I thinkmost Oklahoman’s with decent values would only have contempt andsadness that anyone would value them, at least for the work mentionedin the Beacon’s article.Governor Henry, you claim to be a Christian and you attend a Baptistchurch in Shawnee. Do you think your fellow church members would agreewith your heaping such honor on this group, given their apparentdisrespect for Jesus and things that are decent? How would you respondif your Pastor preached about God’s perspective on honoring what issick, perverted and evil?The Tulsa Beacon did a great job covering this story as they do somany other stories and issues. The values and perspectives on theeditorial page of the paper are very conservative. There is also awholesome and decent Christian influence to the paper. I havesubscribed for the past 3 or 4 years and wouldn’t be without thepaper. I urge others to do the same. As of June 1st the annualsubscription rate for residents of Tulsa county will be $35 and allothers will be $40. To subscribe, send a check to: Tulsa Beacon, P.O.Box 35099, Tulsa, Ok 74153 or call (918) 523-4425. If you do so beforeJune 1st you will save $5 for a one year subscription. To subscribe tothe Oklahoma Constitution Newspaper it is $12 per year. Please sendyour check to: The Oklahoma Constitution, P.O. Box 53482, OklahomaCity, Ok 73152.

+ CHRIS BENGE WANTS OKLAHOMANS TO PAY HIGHER PROPERTY TAXES?

This past week State Senator Jim Reynolds (R-Del City) releasedinformation that his legislation SJR 5 was being held up in aconference committee by House Speaker Chris Benge (R-Tulsa). Eventhough different versions of the bill passed in both the House andSenate, if the final version were allowed out of the conferencecommittee and then passed by both chambers of the legislature, thenthe measure would be on the ballot for the 2010 elections. The measurewould reduce to annual cap or maximum amount by which our propertytaxes could be raised from the current 5% to only a 3% increase.This is what happens when a Speaker of the House is a liberal ormoderate Republican. They often kill good bills or pressure theircaucus members to support bad legislation. Speaker Benge is a reallynice fellow; however, we need people in places of authority who havethe right ideology, good character, integrity, consistency and again Isay the right ideology. Relationships or friendships are important,however they should count on the list somewhere after the previouslymentioned attributes.If this makes you mad, don’t just get mad at Speaker Benge. Justremember, it was the Republican House members that voted to haveSpeaker Benge as their leader. They could have elected a trueconservative such as John Wright as the speaker. If that hadoccurred , we would probably be able to vote on such a measure nextyear.

+ OCPAC MEMBERSHIP CONTINUES TO GROW

I mentioned last week we were just 1 membership away from utilizingour full $1,000 matching membership challenge. Several stepped up andjoined this past week, easily passing our target of $1,000. We alsocontinue to have people sign up to have their checking accountsdrafted at either $15 or $30 per month. We are now approaching $500per month in drafts, which is a huge amount as it almost raises$12,000 in a 2 year election cycle.I appreciate every basic membership at $50 per year, but those joiningat the Elephant Provider level ($180 annual or $15 per month) or theElephant Provider and RINO Hunter level ($360 annual or $30 per month)really supercharge our fund raising efforts. As people have grown totrust our efforts, we are able to raise ever more funds without havingto pay people to raise money nor do I have to spend much time doingso. For that I am so thankful, as I am always covered up with thingsto do.

To join, please follow the instructions following my sign off.I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday

Charlie Meadows Charliemeadows7@gmail.com

To join OCPAC fill out the following and sendyour check to:OCPACP.O. Box 2021Edmond, OK 73083