+ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING
+ ANNOUNCEMENTS
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+ TURNPIKE AUTHORITY RAISE RATES?
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+ RADICAL?
+ THE EXCESSES OF THE OBAMAS
+ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING
Our 12 noon luncheon for Wednesday August 19th will be held at Italiano’s restaurant, 4801
+ ANNOUNCEMENTS
On Monday evening they will show part 1 of 3 in a DVD series titled The Money Masters. It is a historical document that traces the origins of the political power structure. The modern political power structure has its roots in the hidden manipulation and accumulation of gold and other forms of money. The development of fractional reserve banking practices in the 17th century brought to a cunning sophistication of secret techniques initially used by goldsmiths to fraudulently accumulate wealth. With the formation of the privately-owned Bank of England in 1694, the yoke of economic slavery to a privately-owned “central” bank was first forced upon the backs of an entire nation, not removed but only made heavier with the passing of the three centuries to our day. Nation after nation has fallen prey to this cabal of international central bankers.
Representative Dan Boren,
Following that meeting, he will travel to the Pryor Mid America Expo Center for a meeting scheduled to start at 3:00 p.m. If you live anywhere near these areas go to these meetings to let him know what you think about his performance as your Congressman.
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2009 is the 30th year for the Oklahoma Constitution Newspaper’s Conservative Index. You can log on to their web site at www.oklahomaconstitution.com (click on the red box, upper right hand corner on their home page) to see the 10 pieces of legislation used for this year’s index. They will explain the grading system and you can then bring up the Senate or House scores and see how each lawmaker voted on each issue.
What I am going to show below is how they ranked or compared to each other from most conservative to least. I will show the Republicans first and then the Democrats. Following each name will be a number which will represent their score for this year’s index and the second number will represent their average score for however many years they have been in the legislature. On average, the Republican scores are down this year, because they are in charge and as such will either produce smaller and improved government or expand it like the Democrats have done in the past. Last year there was only one Senate RINO (Republican In Name Only) nominee, but not this year as there are many.
SENATE REPUBLICANS
1. Randy Brogdon (Owasso) 90 93
2. Anthony Sykes (Moore-Duncan) 90 90
3. Bill Brown (
4. Jim Reynolds (OKC) 73 71
5. Cliff Aldridge (
6. Gary Stanislawski (
Every one below this line is a RINO nominee
7. Mike Johnson (Kingfisher) 53 58
8. Steve Russell (OKC-Mustang) 53 53
9. Mike Schulz (
10. David Myers (
11. Ron Justice (
12. Bryce Marlett (Woodward) 50 50
12. Dan Newberry (
14. Glen Coffee (OKC-Bethany) 46 61
15. Cliff Branan (OKC) 43 62
16. Todd Lamb (OKC-Edmond) 40 65
17. Brian Crain (
17. Clark Jolley (
17. Jonathan Nichols (Norman) 40 63
20. John Ford (
21. Don Barrington (
21. Brian Bingman (
23. Jim Halligan (
24. Harry Coates (Seminole) 39 44
25. Mike Mazzei (
26. Patrick Anderson (
Senate Lawmaker of the year is Randy Brogdon of Owasso. Runner-up for lawmaker of the year is Anthony Sykes of
With the departure of Brogdon, they will be the only 2 conservatives with enough experience to serve as the leadership in the Senate.
SENATE DEMOCRATS
1. Charlie Laster (
2. Constance Johnson (OKC) 33 14
3. Tom Ivester (
4. Susan Paddack (
5. Richard Lerblanche (Hartshonre) 30 20
6. Jim Wilson (Tahlequah) 30 16
7. Kenneth Corn (Poteau) 23 22
7. Charles Wyrick (Fairland) 23 22
9. Jerry Ellis (Valiant) 20 28
10. Randy Bass (
11. Debbie Leftwich (OKC) 20 23
12. Roger Ballenger (
13. Judy McIntyre (
14. Earl Garrison (
15. Jay Paul Gumm (Durant) 13 26
16. Mary Easley (
17. Andrew Rice (OKC) 13 19
18. Tom Adelson (
19. Sean Burrage (Claremore) 10 23
19. John Sparks (Norman) 10 23
21. Joe Sweeden (Pawhuska) 6 19
22. Johnnie Crutchfield (
Next week I will do the House members.
+ WHY DID THE TURNPIKE AUTHORITY RAISE RATES?
It was announced a few weeks ago that the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority would raise rates an average of 16% on the 10 Turnpikes in
They claimed that with the downturn in the economy there were not as many vehicles traveling our toll roads, especially trucks which pay higher fees and are supposedly where most of profitable revenues are generated. In addition, they said they hadn’t raised rates for 8 years or so, therefore it must be time to do so now!
Senator Randy Brogdon (R-Owasso) immediately suggested he would author legislation next year to bring the authority under legislative oversight and I couldn’t agree more with those sentiments.
I have several problems with the decision to raise those rates. An inside source has told me, the turnpike authority was still operating in the black without raising rates, even with the downturn. In addition, as of 2005 (the latest year I have their budget book) they were turning over an ever increasing amount to The Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) each and every year. I believe the amount in
2005 was around 35 million dollars. That means the fees were high enough to cover all bonded indebtedness, maintenance, operations expenses and still have enough left over to give to ODOT. That actually means the fees were too high as ODOT doesn’t deserve a penny from the OTA.
When rates get too high, especially on trucks, they have in other states and to some degree here decided to take regular surface highways and stay off the expensive turnpikes. I have a friend who had an owner operator rig who used to take loads from the East Coast to one of the warehouses in the
Another question I have is about the bonded indebtedness for the Turnpike system. If the bonds are staggered, surly some are paying off in a timely manner which will free up more of the revenues since those debts will no longer require payments.
Perhaps, the real concern for the citizens of
Is there a possibility the real purpose for the increase is to make the OTA more attractive to someone in the private sector for a long term lease like several states have already done? Will that allow the state to get more up front money for such a lease? Also by raising the turnpike fees now, will that moderate the amount of fee increases a private vendor would impose upon drivers once they got control of our system?
The national average cost to travel on turnpikes is 9.4 cents per mile, but in
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This past Tuesday,
According to the Oklahoman he indicated he had two employees in his foundation seeking to get every dollar and more for
The major theme of his giving is to help underprivileged children which certainly seems laudable. However I believe Kaiser to be very liberal and thus question the effectiveness of his giving, even though it is certainly his right to do. Early childhood development or education seems to be one of the major beneficiaries of his largess.
If I am not mistaken he has been the driving force behind a 3 year old pre-school pilot program in the
In the paper he was quoted as saying: “We have a greater number of kids in early childhood education than any other state proportionally,” he said. “Its kind of nice to be known for something nationally that doesn’t emanate from (state Rep.) Sally Kern.”
Now for a few of my opinions. First off, I don’t know Mr. Kaiser, and probably never will. However, I do know State Representative Sally Kern and I have a lot more respect for her understanding of what is needed to benefit children in the education arena than that of Mr.
Kaiser. I wonder if Mr. Kaiser would be willing to dump tons of his own money as well as petition for taxpayer dollars into early education if he were to research the vast body of studies, many of which show that early childhood education helps children in the short run, but appears not to have any long term benefits?
I suspect Mr. Kaiser is either a secular or religious humanist and if so probably wouldn’t watch the DVD (FOUR CENTURIES OF AMERICAN EDUCATION by David Barton) which we showed at an OCPAC meeting a couple of weeks ago. Were he to watch it, and should the scales that I believe to cover his eyes fall off so that he could understand its message, he might totally re-arrange his efforts to help children and their families.
It may be a little foolish of me to say so, but I believe Sally Kern, a veteran teacher, may know more about the root problems in our education system than any other lawmaker in the state legislature, bare none. I also believe, if given a chance and the authority, she could probably do a better job at charting a course to improve education for children than any other lawmaker in the legislature. If I am correct in my assessment, I would suggest that Mr. Kaiser would be better off desiring to have 148 more lawmakers similar to Sally Kern, rather than to be wasting his time making snide remarks about her.
One final thought, again if I am correct in my opinion that he is a liberal, it is so typical when liberals efforts or propose policy that have unintended consequences. He appears to be so proud of the extra tens of millions of stimulus dollars his efforts have been able to bring to
+ MARK SHANNON ON TARGET BUT RADICAL?
Mark Shannon does the local afternoon drive talk radio show on KTOK’s 1000 AM from 4 until 7:00 p.m.. As with anyone on radio, there will always be things said that people will have some amount of disagreement. However, this past Monday and Wednesday, the only 2 days I had the time to listen, he produced some of the finest talk radio I have ever heard. On Monday his expose of the Industrial Areas Foundation and their efforts to co-opt some of the area churches for liberal political efforts, especially the Catholic churches was just excellent. It was so valuable and Mark did a stellar job reporting information from his friends that went to spy out the strategy discussed at a meeting influenced by this group.
On Wednesday, he really went after the Southern Poverty Law Center, exposing it as the fraudulent watchdog for which they lay claim.
Several years ago I went to hear the SPLC founder, Morris Dees, when he was speaking to a large crowd at OCU. At the time, I thought if an
F5 tornado dropped down and took out the place and everyone in it, almost every liberal leader in OKC along with a handful of conservatives like myself would be gone from OKC.
I am not going to say they have never exposed some bad folks. But from time to time the SPLC has some success in interfacing with law enforcement to push them toward declaring conservative groups as possible terrorists. People who are concerned about the second amendment, abortion, morality, honest money and other constitutional matters are usually nothing more than patriots concerned with the socialist direction in which America is headed.
This past Wednesday, the SPCL announced that the militia movement was on the rise again and that they were using face book and the internet for recruitment. Mark stood up for the militias and suggested a measured push back against the federal government’s unconstitutional mandates that are making us all slaves.
It was great radio and Mark always peppers it with humor even thought he is dead serious about much of what he is saying. Besides his normal humor, on Wednesday it was quite humorous as he sounded more radical than R.J. Harris or any of the “Paulies” he regularly likes to thump.
All I can say is keep it up Mark, it was truly great talk radio especially your more radical parts.
+ THE EXCSSES OF THE OBAMAS
During the election cycle last year, then candidate Obama indicated Americans weren’t going to be able eat as much or drive the big cars like we have been able to do in the past. It appears he meant that those changes in lifestyle were for all Americans except himself, his family and of course close friends or his favorite entertainers.
When Bill Clinton was in the White House, his obvious excesses were women. I really couldn’t identify an excess for George W. Bush, maybe someone can help me out with that, but the excess of the Obamas is becoming crystal clear for anyone with the intellectual honesty to admit it.
Since the Obama’s have been in office there have been an endless number of vacations, and expensive trips only to be exceeded by an endless train of pop culture entertainers or movie stars performing in the White House, like hordes of court jesters playing for royalty. I understand that the Obamas must have security when they travel and therefore it is very expensive. However, I must ask, do they not even have a twinge of guilt at spending so many taxpayer dollars for their pleasures when our nation is bankrupt and many people are suffering greatly because of the recession? Probably not, because people with an arrogant attitude of royalty never do.
I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday
Charlie Meadows
Charliemeadows7@gmail.com
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