Monday, June 28, 2010

JASON REESE, DESPERATE AND NOW IRRATIONAL

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING
++ ANNOUNCEMENTS
++ GOVERNOR FORUM-STRAW POLL AT STATE COMMITTEE MEETING
++ JASON REESE, DESPERATE AND NOW IRRATIONAL
++ TIDBITS


++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

Our 12 noon luncheon for Wednesday, June 30th will be held at
Italiano’s restaurant, 4801 North Lincoln in OKC. Invited to appear
before us this Wednesday, will be David Holt and Matt Jackson, the
Republican candidates running to replace the term limited Senate
President Pro- Tem, Glen Coffee. The district covers parts of Bethany,
Warr Acres and points North in OKC. In addition Bob Barnett, Bob
Bradway and Rob Johnson (Bob, Bob & Rob) have also been invited to
appear as they are running for the term limited senate seat, currently
held by Senator Mike Johnson. All members present having their dues
paid as of June 16th will be given a ballot to determine which
candidate in each of these races we will endorse. Of course “no
endorsement” is always on the ballot as an option.

++ ANNOUNCEMENTS

** MONDAY - MUSTANG AREA - Americans For Fair Taxation are
sponsoring a meeting this Monday evening, 7:00 p.m. at the Mustang
Community Center. Don’t be misled by recent news stories. Learn the
true details of this federal sales tax proposal which: 1) eliminates
all federal income withholding taxes, 2) eliminates all FICA taxes
including employer contributions, 3) gives you control of 100% of your
paycheck, 4) abolishes the IRS, 5) eliminates all corporate and self-
employment taxes, 6) eliminates all gift, estate, and capital gains
taxes, 7) restores financial privacy to all citizens, 8) ensures
social security funding, and replaces all federal government revenues
with a national sales tax on ONLY new goods and services at the retail
level. For more information call (405) 392-4324 or (405) 517-7245 or
www.OKFairTax.org .

** THURSDAY - TULSA AREA - Oklahomans For Sovereignty and Free
Enterprise (OK-SAFE) will have their regular monthly Action Forum
meeting this Thursday evening, 6:45 p.m. at the Hardesty Regional
Library, 93rd and South Memorial in Tulsa. They will review the 2010
legislative session, discuss some of the ramifications regarding “The
Smart Grid”, and HB 3028, the Oklahoma Energy Security Act. There is a
question as to its relationship to the 2008 bailout. Conservative
activists and Constitutionalists are encouraged to attend.

** JULY 6TH - ADA AREA - The Ada Tea Party number 8 will be held
one week from this Tuesday, more on this next week.

** JULY 8TH - OKC AREA - There will be a homecoming celebration
for Miss Emoly West, the newly crowned Miss Oklahoma. There will be no
cost to attend, but a $10 contribution to the Children’s Miracle
Network is requested if you would like to have your picture taken with
Emoly. More on this next week.

** JULY 9TH & 10TH - YUKON - The fifth annual Reclaiming Oklahoma
(now America) For Christ Conference will be held at Trinity Baptist
Church in Yukon, 600 N Cemetery Road (exit I-40 at Garth Brooks Blvd
and go 1 mile South). Friday evening will begin at 6:30 p.m. and
Saturday morning will begin at 8:30 AM. The one person Glen Beck has
had on his program more lately than any other person is David Barton
of the Wallbuilders Ministry out of Aledo Texas. David will be
speaking 3 times between Friday evening and Saturday morning.

Another speaker will be Ken Ham, founder and director of the Answers
In Genesis ministry. Ken may be doing more to bring people back to an
understanding of the importance of inerrancy of the Scriptures and why
you can have confidence in their reliability of than almost any other
person in America. He persevered against strong opposition to build
the new Creation Museum in Northern Kentucky. I believe there have
been over 1 million people tour the world class museum in the
approximate 3 years since it has been open. Also speaking will be
culture warrior Rick Scarborough of Vision America and Bailey Smith of
the Bailey Smith Ministries.

There is NO admission to attend, but a love offering will be taken.
The past 4 years the conference has been held in the Hardeman
Auditorium on the campus of Oklahoma Christian. We were near capacity
last year so it has been moved to Trinity as their new auditorium will
seat nearly 200 more people. With stadium seating, it is really
comfortable. For more information log on to www.reclaimamericaforchrist.org
or call (405) 796-PRAY.

** JULY 10TH - LAWTON AREA - There will be a candidate forum on
Saturday, July 10th from 10:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. at the Great
Plains Technology Center (Bldg 100), 4500 SW Lee Blvd in Lawton.
Candidates for National, State, County and local offices have been
invited to speak. Several have already confirmed. Attend so you can
find out for yourself where they stand on Healthcare, REAL ID, the
economy, national defense and other issues. You will be allowed to ask
questions and get answers.

++ GOVERNOR FORUM-STRAW POLL AT STATE COMMITTEE MEETING

I attended the state committee meeting this past Wednesday and want to
congratulate Matt Pinnell for his election as the new State Chairman
of the Republican party. Following the meeting folks attending the
luncheon got to see something rare for this election cycle. That was
U.S. Representative Mary Fallin showing up for a candidate forum as
she has been ducking, weaving and hiding from these kind of events and
for good reason.

Senator Randy Brogdon had one of those rare opportunities to reveal
the distinctions between Mary and himself and he has to be elated with
the results. The majority of the state committee is made up of
establishment Republicans, but they handed Senator Brogdon a huge
victory as he obtained 54% of the vote to Mary’s 42%. Robert Hubbard
came in 3rd with 3% and Roger Jackson received 1% of the vote. One of
the most amazing aspects of the event was the fact that Mary obviously
made a huge effort to get her people to wear her Fallin T-shirts and
attend the event.

The majority of the Brogdon volunteers were attending the block party
at the Ford Center where Senator Brogdon spoke prior to the luncheon.
Randy also got to have some fun as he introduced “Joe the Plummer” to
the crowd. By the way, OCPAC had a table outside and one inside the
Ford Center for the Beck event. I peeked into the auditorium during a
slow time at the table and it looked like 6 to 8 thousand people in
attendance. Everyone I talked with after it was over seemed to really
enjoy themselves.

One of the frustrating features of this governor’s race for people who
care about issues is the inability to find out what Mary stands for
other than the usual pink, puff and piffle that is found on web-sites
and campaign literature of candidates who want to play it safe, depend
on their high name ID and huge campaign war chest.

However, last week Mary addressed the Edmond Republican Women’s club.
As a result, the front page article in the Edmond Sun had a couple of
important tidbits if you know what to look for. First, Mary said she
was happy the Legislature had passed legislation to move the State
Medical Examiners office to be in close proximity to UCO. She
indicated, “The challenge ahead of us as a state will be how to fund
that move and how to fund the facility itself that’s estimated to be
about $30 million,”… The ME’s office will remain on the Undiversity of
Oklahoma Health Sciences Center campus until lawmakers find a way to
pay for the state BOND issue.

Now folks, please understand, if it is best for the citizens of
Oklahoma to move the ME’s office to Edmond I am all for doing so.
However, I am so opposed to these bond issues which add to our state’s
indebtedness and require ever larger amounts of tax dollars to re-pay.
In addition, once the interest is paid back it usually doubles the
cost of the project. If this is a high priority, then the state should
set it as a priority. That might mean cutting back expenses in some
areas or having government completely get out of areas which the
private sector should be doing if the market demands so funds can be
freed up for such a project.

Huge sums of current tax dollars must now be used to pay back bonded
indebtedness, incurred by past projects like this or others with much
less value. It is sad to see that Mary is contemplating supporting and
increase in our state’s debt.

Mary also revealed her shallowness regarding education as she said:
“We’ve got to focus on education to keep our children in the state of
Oklahoma.” Truth is, about this time of the year, a number of our
Oklahoma children, of whom we have focused on educating, leave the
state, sometimes for opportunities elsewhere not available here, but
most generally because they WANT to leave the state to experience
living in another place, they want to experience something different.
In many of these cases, these same young people return to Oklahoma in
either a short time or later in life. That is called liberty to do
what one wants, it is the free market and Mary or no other politician
will or should try to prevent that from happening.

Another worn out phrase, she used regarding education went like this:
“I support quality education,” “One of my main focuses in my platform
for governor will be improving education, having more accountability,
more standards, more parental involvement in education, and also
working toward strengthening the core curriculum.” This tired old
Republican dribble reminded me of an article I wrote in the Oklahoma
Constitution Newspaper in the Winter edition of 2003.

The article was titled: “Have Oklahoma Republicans Become the Best
Friend of the OEA Union? I in particular took on 3 people in the
article. Republican chairman Gary Jones, Lt. Governor Mary Fallin and
Jim Williamson who had just been selected at the new minority leader
in the Senate. Fallin, Jones and Williamson were the front men, the
talking heads for the Republican strategy called “fund education
first.”

I was particularly harsh on Williamson who said: “Its time for us to
stop talking and start acting to give Oklahoma’s children the first
class, grade A education they deserve by funding education first.” My
response to Senator Williams was: “Give me a break, does this guy
really think spending more money on education will produce a ‘first
class, grade-A education?” My article was so stinging, that I, along
with Steve Byas and Ron McWhirter, the later two are the owners of the
paper were invited to meet with several leaders so we could talk about
the issue. Ron and I met with the leadership.

As it turned out, Oklahoma revenues were still down as a result of the
recession which began in 2000 and was exacerbated by the attack on the
World Trade Center. Therefore, the “fund education first” verbiage was
in my opinion simply strategy to get out in front of the Democrats who
were in power at the time from having an excuse to try and pass a
“temporary” state wide one penny sales tax increase. I think my
opinion is correct as the “fund education first” verbiage has not been
followed since and is only brought up on occasion by the Democrats who
are now out of power.

That verbiage was superficial at that time, just like Mary’s verbiage
is now. Let me ask this question, how does government force parents to
become more involved in their children’s education? We can set higher
standards all day long and demand more core curriculum all we want,
but until we solve the problems which prevent the children from
achieving those higher standards, until we re-establish discipline and
respect in the schools and until we get rid of political correctness,
revisionist history, and poor methods of teaching reading and math, we
can set the standards higher until the cows come home and it won’t do
a bit of good. Most importantly, until we reinstate teaching values
and character based on Judeo/Christian principles, we will continue to
struggle in producing a quality culture.

Fellow Republicans, Mary plays it safe, as evidenced by her reluctance
to show up at forums and debates. Elect her if you want, but know
this, she will not support real change if it has any political risk to
her or future majorities for the party. She thinks and acts inside the
box. She WILL NOT be a game changer, she will pick around the edges
with minor reforms, whether it be in education or tax reforms. She’ll
not likely take a chance on upsetting the education industry with real
reforms which need to occur in primary, secondary, technology centers
and higher education. When it comes to re-structuring our taxes to be
more business friendly and reducing the size of government necessary
to accomplish such, she will not be the person to get that job done.
The only viable candidate to have a chance to get those jobs done is
Randy Brogdon!

++ JASON REESE, DESPARATE AND NOW IRRATIONAL

Reese was the first Republican candidate in the state to announce his
intentions to run for a state wide office, that being for the spot of
State Labor Commissioner. After over a year of campaigning, not able
to raise sufficient money for a state wide race, and as of the most
recent ethics report, only having a little over $600 in the bank, he
has finally resorted to desperate attacks against front runner Mark
Costello.

Mark is a very successful businessman who is quite capable of funding
his own campaign and thinks special interest groups and their hordes
of lobbyists are such a corrupting influence, the he has pledged not
to take contributions from such. He will not even take a contribution
from OCPAC even though we are not a single interest PAC and we do not
employee any lobbyists.

Mark Costello’s passion for the free market form of capitalism and
efficiency in government has him so effectively conveying his message
to voters that he has surged ahead of Reese. Mr. Costello recently
released his plan to merge some agencies, as Frank Keeting and more
recently Chris Benge have suggested. I am sure Mark has drawn on their
ideas, along with those of the recently deceased Tim Pope who wanted
to abolish the labor department and merge its duties into other
agencies. I am also sure Mark infused his own ideas into his plan, but
Jason Reese has accused Mark of plagiarism.

Accusing Mark of such is like a candidate who creates a push card and
then accuses every other candidate who creates a push card of
plagiarism. Drop by our Wednesday meeting sometime and look at the 20
or so push cards on our tables and you see that they all look very
similar. The pictures change, sometimes the colors are different and
sometimes the message is a little different, but often they are very
similar. Is that plagiarism? Of course not, perhaps Mr. Reese will
learn the definition of the word some day through some sort of a
continuing education course for lawyers.

It is sad to see how irrational a candidate becomes when he resorts to
desperation. He issued a press release last week not only blasting
Mark Costello, but he also took a swipe at the members of OCPAC.
Referring to Mark he said: “He and his extremist allies in the
Oklahoma Conservative Political Action Committee (OCPAC) have
repeatedly and very publicly attacked me as somehow less than
Republican for merely suggesting common sense reforms to our
immigration laws…”.

Reese came to our interview process in hopes of receiving our
endorsement, was treated very respectful and even received 4 votes
from our members. The other candidate not winning our endorsement was
State Representative Tad Jones, who called me after the debate to
thank me for the opportunity and commended us on how fair the process
went. Now Reese paints with a broad brush and calls the members of
OCPAC extremists.

Jason reminds me of a person who went out on a date and then goes
berserk because they aren’t asked out on a second date. We may seem
like extremists to Jason because most of the people who attend OCPAC
would fit on a political spectrum as Constitutional moderates, about
the same position as our founding fathers. Reese is much more liberal,
as evidenced by his early and out front support of John McCain.
Support, not as the result of McCain becoming the nominee, but from
the beginning.

I would speculate that Reese’s support for McCain’s was because of his
push for amnesty for illegal aliens. Mr. Reese, has been an
immigration attorney, and as such has written about his opposition to
HB 1804, the legislation for the State of Oklahoma to deal with
illegal aliens. What he wrote and said in public for his reasoning
during the debate on 1804 was different from the reasons he gives
today for his opposition to the legislation.

Bottom line, Mr. Reese is a Republican, but not particularly
conservative. I don’t believe he cared much for conservatives. He is
way too immature to be elected to an important office such as Labor
Commissioner as he is not able to understand that when people chose
one candidate over another based on issues, it is not personal, just
political. However, I do want to thank him for putting the Reese’s
peanut butter cups on every chair at the state committee meeting last
Saturday, it is my favorite candy it was so good.

++ TIDBITS

** BETHANY SUPPORTS ARIZONA

Week before last, the city of Bethany passed a resolution supporting
the state of Arizona for their efforts to crack down on the massive
number of illegal aliens in their state and all the problems that
comes with such. The resolution will be sent to the Governor and
leaders in the legislature to encourage them in their efforts. I don’t
live in a city limits, but for those of you who do, why don’t you give
your city councilman and mayor a call and ask them to follow the
leadership of Bethany?

** 5TH DISTRICT FORUM OUTCOME

I attended the 5th district forum last Friday and thought the outcome
had some interesting results. The crowd was huge, perhaps over 300
people in attendance and of course it was broadcast live on KTOK. I
believe all the candidates did well in their presentations, though
there are some real differences between these candidates.

It was not surprising that Kevin Calvey won and his 47% showing was
very strong. James Lankford came in second with 33% and is clearly the
other candidate with momentum. Mike Thompson had to be disappointed
with his distant 3rd place showing as he received only 8% of the vote.
In the same week that the Democrat Barry Switzer held a fund raiser
for Shane Jett, he only received 6% of the vote in the straw poll.
Right on his heels, Rick Flanigan, the non politician statesman,
received 5% and the newcomer to the race, Mr. Harry Johnson received
1%. The biggest shocker was that Dr. Johnny Roy didn’t receive one
single vote. Dr. Roy has some support in the Edmond area, but it
appears starting early and having great radio adds may not be the
difference he needs to do better in the race today over 4 years ago.
Congratulations to Kevin for his strong showing. Kevin has been
endorsed by the members of OCPAC.

** CELEBRATE THE SIGNING OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

Regardless of where and how you celebrate the 234th anniversary of the
signing of the Declaration of Independence this coming Sunday, July
4th, may you do so with the reason for the celebration in mind. The
Declaration is the philosophical basis upon which the Constitution
sets. It is like the first course of masonry or a stem wall upon which
a building is constructed. Of course the Declaration sits upon the
“foundation” that bedrock of Judeo/Christian principles. Those are the
things that made this nation great and only a return to this order
will save this nation.

** OCPAC MEMBERSHIP UPDATE

We have now surpassed 250 dues paying members, breaking our previous
record of 217 dues paying members. All I can say is thanks so much for
your support as we work to make Oklahoma a more conservative state and
of course a much better state. If you have not joined as yet and would
like to do so, please follow the instructions below.

Charlie Meadows
Charliemeadows7@gmail.com

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

How does one join? The last post says to follow the instructions "below" but below the last post is only the end of the web page - I cannot see a link or any additional text...?

Any help would be appreciated - I have been trying to join since April of this year.