Tuesday, March 30, 2010

CALVEY WINS ENDORSEMENT

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

++ ANNOUNCEMENTS

++ GOOD NEWS & A SITUATION THAT MAKES ME MAD CALVEY WINS ENDORSEMENT

++ THE OKLAHOMAN, BETTER LATE THAN NEVER OCPAC MEMBERSHIP UP-DATE

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING Our 12 noon luncheon for Wednesday,

March 31, 2010 will be held at Italiano’s restaurant, 4801 North Lincoln in OKC. This week we will have 3 of the known candidates for the First Congressional District, which is basically Tulsa County.

Appearing will be Nathan Dahm, Fran Mo-Ghaddam and Kenneth Rice II.

Each candidate will have 4 minutes to speak and then undergo an intense question and answer session. In addition, U.S. Representative John Sullivan, the incumbent Congressman will send a letter of which I will distribute to our members, since he has a scheduling conflict and is unable to attend. He will not be eligible for our endorsement, but our voting members may be persuaded to vote for “NO” endorsement if the chose not to endorse one of the other candidates. This is all very important, though a U.S. Representative represents the people in a certain district, none the less, that person makes decisions that affect people in every state of the union.

++ ANNOUNCEMENTS

+ OKC AREA - This Wednesday, March 31st, U.S. Senator Tom Coburn

will conduct a town hall meeting from 2 until 3 p.m., at the Spring Lake Technology Center, 1900 Spring Lake Drive, in OKC. As always, I urge conservative to attend these meetings and ask questions that set a conservative tone during the Q&A time of the meeting. The location is only 2 or 3 miles from Italiano’s, so anyone wanting to attend following our OCPAC luncheon will have a short trip to the event.

+ TULSA AREA - This Friday April 2nd, OkForTea will be hosting a

rally which will include having the Tea Party Express bus arrive around 4:00 p.m. The tea party actually begins at 2:00 p.m and will include several speakers such as State Senator Randy Brodgon, also a candidate for Governor. The location will be the Tulsa Fair Grounds, which is at 4145 East 21st Street. It is important to attend these events so the Democrats don’t think they have whipped us into acting like a bunch of cowed dogs, running for cover with our tails tucked between our hind legs.

+ OKC AREA - Next Tuesday April 6th Mr. John McManus, President of

the John Birch Society, will be speaking at the Character Inn, 520 West Main in downtown OKC. The time is 7:30 p.m. with adult admission $10 and students $5. This is not a meal, so reservations are not necessary and tickets can be purchased at the door. The title of the talk is: STEALING THE AMERICAN DREAM - HOW ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION AFFECTS YOU!

This is a very serious matter as a week ago Sunday an estimated 200,000 marched in Washington, demanding, not asking for amnesty.

Though they were told to only bring American flags, many couldn’t restrain themselves as Mexican flags we abundant as well as flags from other counties. Along with that there were signs promoting “revolution” as well as pictures of the communist revolutionary Che Cavaro and other communist figures. Even if you understand the seriousness of this issue, grab a friend who doesn’t and come on down.

Now that the big hurdle for health care has been achieved, the Obama Administration will begin its push for amnesty for illegal aliens.

++ GOOD NEWS & A SITUATION THAT MAKES ME MAD!

The Demonrats in Washington have taken a giant step toward shoving their health care bill down the throats of Americans, though the majority of us did not want it. The good news is, legislation is progressing toward success to allow Oklahomans to amend our Constitution to allow any individual or business in Oklahoma to opt out of this federal health care legislation. There are actually two pieces of legislation moving through the process to allow us to vote on the matter. The Healthcare Freedom of Choice Act with the slightly better wording is HJR 1054, authored by Representatives Mike Ritze (R- Broken Arrow), Mike Reynolds (R-OKC) in the House, and Senator Randy Brogdon (R-Owasso) as the Senate sponsor of the legislation. The other similar legislation is by Senator Dan Newberry (R-Tulsa) in the Senate and Representative Mike Thompson (R-OKC) in the House.

Now please pay close attention to understand what makes me mad about this situation. The principle author of HJR 1054 is Representative Mike Ritze, also a medical doctor. Dr. Ritze has been working almost non stop on crafting and working towards passage of this legislation since last August. He has traveled out of state, met with a couple of lawmakers from other states and worked with ALEC (a national organization for conservative lawmakers) to craft what has become model legislation. I believe there are now 36 other states with similar legislation crafted upon this piece of legislation. Dr. Ritze has also spoken at and attended many 10th Amendment events as he is a huge advocate of pushing back against an out of control and unconstitutional federal government.

Then along comes Senator Newberry with his legislation and guess who his House sponsor happens to be? None other than Representative Mike Thompson, a candidate for the 5th CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT. If I were a betting man, I would speculate that Dr. Ritze’s bill will not be the one to pass, but rather the Newberry-Thompson bill.

There are a couple of reasons, first anyone with any political savvy and insider information would believe that House leadership does not care for Representative Reynolds and the same from Reynolds toward leadership. Since Reynolds is a co-author with Dr. Ritze, leadership will probably not allow HJR 1054 become the vehicle to carry this important matter.

However, I believe there is a more important reason leadership will not allow Dr. Ritze’s legislation to go all the way. House leadership has a key staff person who is a close friend of a key person in the campaign to elect Mike Thompson to the 5th Congressional district. I believe a decision has been made to allow Mike Thompson to get credit for passing the important health care freedom of choice legislation to help him win the 5th Congressional race.

I believe Representative Thompson is in desperate need of some important piece of legislation to show for his 6 years in the legislature and this is going to be the bill. He has in the past authored some important highway legislation, but he was just carrying legislation for state agencies, something anyone could have done, as ODOT and the roads and bridge contractors would supply the lobbyists to get that kind of legislation pushed through the legislature. It just makes me mad that Representatives Ritze, Reynolds and Senator Brogdon are not likely to get the credit for passage, though all of them are huge advocates of 10th Amendment issues and have really worked on this issue.

I could have written this e-mail on Thursday, March 11th, but it wouldn’t have been fair to Representative Thompson as he attended our meeting last week in an effort to win our endorsement. I personally like Mike Thompson and I don’t blame him for wanting to be the author of this legislation, he even referred to it last week at the meeting in his presentation. Believe me, I had to bite my tongue about what was going on so as not to influence the outcome of the vote.

I have brought this up so the readers will have an idea of how things work. Also, when you see or hear political commercials in the future by Mike Thompson about his efforts to pass this important legislation, you will have an idea of what went on behind the scenes.

++ CALVEY WINS ENDORSEMENT

This past Wednesday culminated our 2 week effort to interview the 6 Republican candidates running for the 5th Congressional District.

While every candidate received some votes, former State Representative Kevin Calvey was picked by our voting members to receive our endorsement. I was a little surprised that he won without a run-off ballot. Kevin has a great grasp on the issues, is well read and has really developed his intellect. On top of that he is aggressive and not afraid to take a stand on the tough issues. He really came across as conservative and with a keen understanding of the Constitution.

With that said, I thought 2 or 3 of the other candidates did very well in the interview process. It is really too bad some of these fine Oklahoma candidates couldn’t replace some of the liberal lawmakers in the other states.

By receiving our endorsement, Kevin Calvey now joins Mark Costello, labor commissioner candidate, as the second person to receive our endorsement for a state wide or Congressional race. Congratulations to both Kevin and Mark as our interview process is not easy.

++ THE OKLAHOMAN, BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

Finally, this past Friday and only 2 weeks after the fact the Oklahoman finally printed a story on the front page of a secondary section of the paper about Moshe Tal’s court case victory over former OKC City Attorney Bill Burkett. There was no mention of the date of the verdict, probably since they weren’t exactly “Johnny on the spot”

with breaking news. Of course the old saying is “better late than never.” They reported that Burkett will seek an appeal. We will see how that news is reported.

++ OCPAC MEMBERSHIP UP-DATE

As of last Wednesday, we are very close to having 160 dues paying members so far this year. Starting now through the end of April we will have a matching membership challenge. For every new member, whether at the $50 basic level or the Elephant Provider ($180) or the Elephant Provider and RINO Hunter ($360) level, your dues will be matched by an additional $50 contribution. So far I have $500 dollars for the challenge, but will try to find another $1500 to make a target of $2000 for the match. We really appreciate the support from so many people from all over the state of Oklahoma. We have even added a third member from out of state. Thanks to our friends in Colorado, Michigan and now Mississippi for helping us make Oklahoma a more conservative state.

I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday.

Charlie Meadows

Charliemeadows7@gmail.com

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