LAST WEEK GOOD MARY FALLIN, THIS WEEK BAD MARY FALLIN

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING
++ ANNOUNCEMENTS
++ OKLAHOMA LOST A PATRIOT - WYANE TAYLOR
++ LAST WEEK GOOD MARY FALLIN, THIS WEEK BAD MARY FALLIN
++ ATLAS SHRUGGED THE MOVIE
++ THE OKLAHOMAN-JERRY FENT AND COMM. DOAK
++ KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF OUR RUN-OFF ELECTIONS

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

Our 12 noon luncheon for Wednesday, April 20th will be held at
Italino’s restaurant, 4801 North Lincoln in OKC. Our speaker this week
will be U.S. Representative James Lankford. I wanted to wait to have
Congressman Lankford until he had been in Washington a few months so
he could share a good perspective of how he is relating in the
Capitol. I want to urge folks to arrive early to get a good seat. Our
new carpet should be installed and hopefully we will have our new
maximum seating available after doing some re-arranging. We should now
be able to seat close to 150 people which is about 25 more than
before. We will try have Rep. Lankford start speaking by 12:05 p.m. so
we can have as much time as possible for questions and answers. As a
particular point of interest, James has done a lot of work on the
budget proposed by Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin). Congressman
Ryan actually spends quite a bit of time in Oklahoma, can anyone tell
me why and what does he usually do when he is here?

++ ANNOUNCEMENTS

* TUESDAY - ADA AREA - The Ada-Seminole area tea party will meet
Tuesday evening, 6:30 p.m. at the Pontotoc Technology Center in Ada.
The meet in the Industrial Arts Classroom. Pastor Dan Fisher will be
doing his “Black Robe Regiment” presentation followed by Keith
Shankle. Mr. Shankle will be doing a presentation about he Federal
Reserve and its ties to international finance and the promotion of
socialism. Much of his presentation comes from information found in
the definitive authority on the Fed, which is the book, Creature From
Jekyll Island. If you live within 40 or so miles of Ada, these
presentations will be well worth your time and effort to attend.

* TUESDAY - TULSA AREA - The Tulsa Area Republican Assembly will
hold their monthly meeting at the Golden Corral, 71st and Mingo Street
in Tulsa. Members and friends gather at 6 for dinner with the meeting
beginning at 7:00 p.m. The speaker will be Dr. John Swails, Director
of the Center for Israel and Middle East Studies at ORU. Dr. Swails
has taught classes on 20th Century Middle East, Radical Islam, Modern
Israel, World War I, II, the Holocaust, Church History, Historical
Geography of Bible Lands and Biblical Hebrew. This should be a most
interesting meeting to attend and you won’t even have to pay tuition
to profit from his knowledge.

* THURSDAY - OKC AREA - The Business and Professional chapter of
the John Birch Society will have their monthly breakfast meeting this
Thursday morning at the Character Inn, 520 West Main in downtown OKC.
The breakfast buffet is served at 7:15 and the speaker begins around
7:40 a.m. The speaker is not confirmed as yet, but the meetings are
always informative and the fellowship among conservatives and
constitutionalists is always great.

++ OKLAHOMA LOST ANOTHER PATRIOT - WAYNE TAYLOR

Late last week Wayne Taylor, President of Taylor Foam, went to be with
the Lord after a fairly short bout with an aggressive form of lung
cancer. Wayne was a lifetime member of the John Birch Society and a
consistent member of OCPAC. His oldest son Bryan is currently the
Mayor of Bethany. Wayne has supported many good conservatives over the
years and he will truly be missed by his family and friends. His
funeral will be today the 18th, 2:00 p.m. at Covenant Community
Church, 2250 N. Mustang Road in Yukon.

++ LAST WEEK GOOD MARY FALLIN, THIS WEEK BAD MARY FALLIN

Last week I suggested praise for Governor Fallin’s decision to disband
the Ethnic American Advisory Council and also her decision to not take
the federal dollars which would have tied us to Obama Care, though she
had to be brought to the later decision. Unfortunately it does not
appear that Governor Fallin will have much consistency regarding good
decision making.

First, I want to address a horrible appointment she has made as
revealed on Mike McCarville’s blog. Governor Fallin re-appointed the
liberal Democrat Pete Regan to the Transportation Commission. Regan is
not just any liberal Democrat, but a young rising star in the Democrat
party. Regan has been the chief of staff for Congressman Dan Boren and
according to McCarville, his other mentors include Daddy Boren,
President at OU, George Nigh, Mike Morgan, Brad Henry and yes, Mike
Turpin. Regan nearly defeated Jeri Askins 4 years ago in the Lt.
Governor’s race.

As McCarville writes: “There are those who say Regan is a Democrat-
candidate-for-governor-or-Congress-in-waiting. That could mean he’ll
face a Republican nominee in the future, using his background (and
appointment by Fallin) to boost his candidacy.”

Some responses are as follows: “Incredible” said a longtime Tulsa GOP
warhorse. “It’s almost an insult to us (Republicans) in Tulsa… what,
we’ve got no one qualified for that appointment?”

Another response: A bewildered Southern Oklahoma Republican who spent
hours campaigning for Fallin and who holds a party post in the county,
asked about the appointment, searched for words: “Surely Mary has a
good reason for this, but boy, it hurts.”

Of course Mary’s number one spin doctor Alex Weintz responded with:
“Regan is a highly-regarded member of the Transportation Commission:
Peter Regan is a well qualified applicant with deep ties to the Tulsa
community and a long record of service. Governor Fallin was looking
for the candidate she felt would be the most engaged and effective on
the transportation commission, and that person is Peter.” All I can
say about Mr. Weintz’s spin doctoring is blah blah blah.

Governor Fallin, if you want a conservative government, not only do
you have to root out liberal Democrats, but you have to be sure and
not appoint them to important positions in government. If you don’t
wake up to that fact, they will undermine conservatism. I wonder if
you really care about conservatism or do you understand what it is
beyond the superficial?

Sources have also told me Governor Fallin stated at a recent meeting
that we should not pass the bill to prohibit embryonic stem cell
research. She indicated it might not look good to people outside of
Oklahoma and thus give Oklahoma a harmful national image. That might
harm our ability to attract jobs and improve our economy. Too bad Mary
has chosen to parrot the blathering nabobs from the State Chamber of
Commerce along with the editorial page at the Oklahoman on this issue.

These folks, who get their panties in a wad over image rather than
substance evidently haven’t got the message as yet. Maybe they need to
watch a little more of Oprah’s programming. About a year and a half
ago, Oprah exclaimed hope about embryonic stem cell research while her
friend Dr. Oz was on the program. He had to break the bad news to her
and tell her it was a dead end. It had no hope, the hope was in adult
stem cell research, not embyronic.

If Mary would listen to pro-life advocates they have been saying the
same thing for a long time. Eight or so years ago the citizens of
California voted to pass bonded indebtedness to the tune of $5 BILLION
(if my memory serves me correctly) for the purpose of state subsidized
embryonic stem cell research.

As of today, there are no beneficial findings, but a couple of things
have occurred. First, California has paid to divert scientists and
researchers away from promising efforts to jobs that are likely to end
up in futility. Second, it has added to the California’s bankruptcy
problems. The financial woes in California couldn’t have happened to a
more deserving majority of people who would vote to borrow money for
this purpose.

This is just one more piece of evidence as to how much influence the
State Chamber has over the Governor. What that means is that Oklahoma
conservatives are going to have to spring to action over and over
again when the Chamber is wrong on issues. Unfortunately, unless more
people wake up and get a little more discernment, we will lose most of
those battles, because the Chamber’s bought and paid for Governor as
well as majority in the legislature are solidly entrenched.

++ ATLAS SHRUGGED THE MOVIE

First for the answer to last week’s question about the former Ayn Rand
devotee who used to be a sound money gold bug. As I posed the question
that person eventually found a high placement job which requires a
presidential appointment and Senate confirmation. I had a lot of
responses and quite a few got it correct. It was Alan Greenspan, the
immediate past Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

As of Sunday, the movie has grossed nearly 2 million dollars which is
considered very good for a limited release low budget production with
little or no paid advertising. It will continue to play through this
Thursday and then a decision will be made if it will continue on the
big screen. It was reported that the average attendance over opening
weekend was 6,000 for each of the 300 theaters in which it opened. The
Saturday showing when we went was almost full and reports indicated a
Friday evening showing at Quail Springs was packed. It was also
showing at the Warren in Moore.

There were a couple of semi-spicy bedroom scenes, but no nudity. No
doubt the movie represents the morality of Rand the author. Beyond
that, the movie exceeded my expectations for a low budget movie in
both production quality and acting.

Now to the good stuff. It was probably a little less than 50 years ago
that I read the book, but the movie really brought back memories. The
book had a huge impact on my thinking, which along with other
conservative influences started me down a conservative path in life.
That is probably why Hollywood liberals, movie critics, Democrats etc.
hate the movie and are very critical of it. They know the danger when
powerful conservative ideas are presented in story format with an
ability to shape the thinking of a reader or movie fan.

Perhaps one of the most important things to remember when reading the
book or watching the movie, is that Ayn Rand understood certain
aspects of human nature. She well understood there are always a
certain number of people who always look for an easy path in life. If
that means becoming a blood sucking leech, a cancer, a parasite, a
thief or what other name you want to think of, there are those in
society who are quite comfortable in their low moral conduct which
comes from their lousy character traits. In their own minds they can
justify almost anything they do, any form of thievery. God’s word
speaks of certain kinds of people who can sear their own consciences.

On the other hand, there are also the producers in life who sometimes
tolerate a lot of abuse before they finally fight back. They may fight
back hard or in some cases, when the odds are really stacked against
them, they simply fade away and quit producing. This is where we are
in America today and Ayn Rand had a great deal of foresight when she
wrote the book. I urge folks to see this movie as it does such a good
job of portraying the varied reactions of people when faced with
difficult odds.

++ THE OKLAHOMAN, JERRY FENT AND COMM. DOAK

Saturday’s edition of the Oklahoman had an editorial regarding Jerry
Fent questioning the constitutionality of Insurance Commissioner John
Doak moving his office to Tulsa. I believe Jerry is obviously correct
when he says the Oklahoma Constitution requires certain elected
officials (it would include the insurance commissioner) to keep “their
office, public records, books and papers at the seat of government.”

Now for the other side of the story. The insurance commission has
maintained an office in OKC and Tulsa for probably the past 20 years
or more. Commissioner Doak will continue to keep his office in OKC
with all the required constitutional requirements, as well as have an
office in Tulsa. With today’s modern technology, it is easy to keep an
office in OKC and have available what is also needed to do the job in
Tulsa at the same time. Mr. Doak is expanding the office in Tulsa but
also reducing the size of the OKC office. When it is all said and
done, the state will be leasing less total space than before and thus
cutting down on the overhead of the office. While Commissioner Doak
will be in the City as needed, his decision will also cut down on
overhead because of lower travel expenses.

Jerry hasn’t filed a lawsuit as yet and perhaps he is just sending a
warning shot across the bow of an elected official, should he really
get outside of the constitutional requirements. Hopefully he will talk
with Commissioner Doak to check these things out before he files a
lawsuit, time will tell.

++ KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF OUR RUN-OFF ELECTIONS

The federal government has set certain time requirements before
elections to allow for members of the military serving overseas to
have time to vote in their elections back home. As a result,
lawmakers, led by Gary Banz (R-MWC) have introduced legislation to
eliminate run-off elections. That is a VERY BAD idea.

There are untold numbers of people serving in office today as a result
of run-off elections. Governor Fallin is an example as she had to win
a run-off election when she first ran for Lt. Governor, Brad Henry is
another or else Vince Orza might have been the governor in place of
Henry. Without a run-off election, newly elected Senator Ralph Shorty
would not be in office, also in the recent non-partisan OKC city
council race, Dr. Shadid would not be office, though 62 percent of the
voters chose him over the leading candidate in the primary race.

The list just goes on and on. Any complaints about the costs of the
run-off elections are bogus to those who insist that taxpayers pay for
partisan primary elections, as elections are one of the most important
priorities for a government of self determination. If government wants
to save money, one solution would be to have the political parties
pay for their own primary elections or else chose their candidates
through political caucus meetings. Otherwise, Banz and others of his
ilk need to suck it up and fund elections before many of the improper
functions of government.

But an important part of the debate about primary elections is that
the people won’t have a final majority say in who serves without them.
Election schedules can be adjusted and any complaints about the costs
of elections are bogus. If you agree, please call or e-mail
Representative Gary Banz at (405) 557-7395 or garybanz@okhouse.gov and
tell him, NO WAY, to eliminating primary run-off elections. Contacting
your own representative and Senator will also be helpful.

I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday. For instructions on
how to join OCPAC, please see below.

Charlie Meadows
Charliemeadows7@gmail.com