IMPORTANT ACTION ITEM

++ IMPORTANT ACTION ITEM

Folks, SB 1629 passed out of committee on Monday 7 to 2. However, 3
Republicans voiced strong reservations about the measure and may not
support it in future votes. Therefore, we are putting the call out to
folks wanting our lawmakers to say NO to creating the infrastructure
to implement Obamacare. I would go so far as to say, NO to this plan,
at least during this legislative session. We should at least give time
to see if the U.S. Supreme Court rules against the measure or if
President Obama is defeated this November and the law is repealed by
Congressional Republicans as they are promising.

Therefore, a call is being issued for citizens wanting this
legislation stopped to come to the State Capitol, this Thursday
morning (3-1-12). We will meet in the Governor’s Hall, 2nd Floor, on
the South side of the building at 9:00 a.m. We will have handouts, a
copy of SB 1629, SB 999 and briefly discuss these before we pair up to
visit our State Senators.

Following is the information published by our Accountability
Committee:

SB 1629 just passed out of committee and will soon come up for a vote
on the Senate floor. SB 999 is also well on its way. SB 1629 says in
part, “The Health Insurance Private Marketplace Network Trust is
authorized to administer a premium assistance plan for individuals…”.
That’s right. Our state government wants to get into the business of
“helping” with insurance premiums for citizens. SB 999 has our
medical providers sharing our medical records with the state and
federal governments WITHOUT OUR PERMISSION. These bills have all the
markings of the early steps of a government administered universal
healthcare program (Obamacare).

Your help is needed, please show up at the Capitol if at all
possible.

++ ANNOUNCEMENT

I forgot to mention in Monday’s e-mail, that I have about 100 free
passes to this year’s Auto Show which will be held at the State
Fairgrounds starting on Thursday and running through Sunday. If you
are in the market for a new vehicle or just want to go and see what’s
new, come by and get a couple of tickets.

Thanks for your time and attention.

Charlie Meadows
Charliemeadows7@gmail.com

ACTION ITEM

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING
++ ACTION ITEM

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

Our 12 noon luncheon for Wednesday, February 29th will be held at
Italiano’s restaurant, 4801 North Lincoln in OKC. We are very
fortunate to have as a speaker this week, Mr. Ward Connerly, founder
and President of the American Civil Rights Institute. The organization
is a national, not-for-profit organization aimed at educating the
public about the need to move beyond race, and specifically, racial
and gender preferences. Mr. Connerly has gained national attention as
an outspoken advocate of equal opportunity for all Americans,
regardless of race, sex, or ethnic background.

As a member of the University of California Board of Regents, Mr.
Connerly focused the attention of the nation on the University’s race-
based system of preferences in its admissions policy. He eventually
led a petition effort to stop racial preferences in student
admissions. As such, Mr. Connerly has been profiled on 60 Minutes,
Parade magazine, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal,
Newsweek, and virtually every major news magazine in America. He has
also appeared on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Crossfire, Hannity $
Colmes, Meet the Press, Dateline, NBC Nightly News, CNN, C-Span, and
by this Wednesday afternoon he will have made the big time with an
appearance at OCPAC (sorry folks, just couldn’t resist).

Actually, Mr. Connerly is in Oklahoma regarding the State Question
which will be on the ballot this November to eliminate race based
preferences in various applications in the State of Oklahoma. Just
last week, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take up a Texas case on
the same issue. Therefore we couldn’t have him at OCPAC at a more
appropriate time. Arrive early if you can to get a good seat.

++ ACTION ITEM

* Last year, much to my surprise, under significant pressure from
grassroots activists, the State Legislature and Governor, decided not
to create an Obamacare required, health care insurance exchange.
Governor Fallin even sent a $50 plus million early innovator grant
back to the “bankrupt” federal government, much to the chagrin of the
Oklahoman and the State Chamber of Commerce. Hearings were held during
this past Summer and now it is time to say yea or nay.

This past Wednesday, Oklahoma’s Joint Legislative Committee on Federal
Health Care Law issued its Final Report, recommending the
establishment of a state based insurance exchange and the creation of
a public beneficiary trust as administrator.

As a result, several grassroots groups led by http://www.ok-safe.com
just issued a Joint Press Release indicating that both of these
recommendations continue to align the state of Oklahoma with the
provisions of “Obama Care” and are contrary to many Republican
campaign promises as well as recent public statements by Republican
office holders.

Mentioned 278 times in the Obamacare law, the exchanges are the
defining component in planning and implementing the law, without the
exchanges there is NO Obamacare.

Committee Chairman, State Representative Glen Mulready (R-Tulsa) has
admitted that, “There is no doubt that a state-based exchange falls
under the umbrella of federal law.”

The Cato Institute and the Heartland Institute, in addition to
numerous grassroots organizations, have told this legislature that the
strongest position for a state to take, if they really oppose
Obamacare, is to not establish a state-based exchange, or yet another
trust.

Many grassroots organizations in Oklahoma reject the Final Report as
well as the establishment of either a state-based exchange or another
trust. Trusts, unknown to most Oklahomans, can solicit and receive
federal grants, and operate without legislative oversight. The trust
mechanism is providing political cover for those Republicans in the
Legislature who wish to appear as if they are opposing Obamacare, but
are actually working to establish the means to implement it.

Bottom line, I believe our Republican lawmakers are acting like
cowards, afraid of standing up to the federal government on an issue
beyond the federal governments “enumerated powers” or else they are
caving in to the heavy hand of the desires of the State Chamber of
Commerce.

In a recent OCPAC e-mail, I re-published a press release by Wisconsin
Governor Scott Walker about Wisconsin’s total rejection of these
exchanges and His disbanding of the committee tasked with creating
such. Too bad Oklahoma’s Republican lawmakers don’t have the courage
of Governor Walker and the state of Wisconsin.

SB 1629 by Senator Brian Bingman (R-Sapulpa) is to be heard today,
February 27th. This bill establishes a Health Insurance Private
Marketplace Network Trust. The committee substitute language for SB
1629 appears to be a re-work of last year’s controversial “Hub” bill.

SB 1629 follows the costly path of inserting a middleman into the
traditional business model, which will ultimately cost us more in the
long run.

YOU NEED TO CALL TODAY! Please call Senator Bingman’s office at (405)
521-5528 and leave a message that you are opposed to SB 1629 because
you are opposed to any kind of framework necessary to implement
Obamacare. In addition, please call your personal State Senator with
the same message. If you do not know the number for your personal
Senator, just call the Senate switchboard at (405) 524-0126 or 1 800
865-6490, give them your Senator’s name and they will patch you
through to your Senator’s office. Calling is the most effective way to
contact your personal lawmaker.

PLEASE ACT NOW!

I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday.

Charlie Meadows
Charliemeadows7@gmail.com

Events

Saturday, February 25th will be a busy day with a lot of events.

* OKC AREA - The Oklahoma Republican party is helping to facilitate
an appearance by Presidential Candidate Ron Paul. The location is on
the North Steps of the State Capitol, scheduled to start around 12
noon. Congressman Paul is scheduled to appear sometime between noon
and 1:00 p.m. for a campaign stop before he is off to Michigan. I know
his Dr. Son who lives in Texas was here 4 years ago on behalf of his
father, but I believe this will be Congressman Paul’s first visit to
Oklahoma as a Presidential candidate. Expect the energy level to be
high. There is no cost to attend and I am sure there will be plenty of
campaign materials available for those attending.

* ADA AREA - There will be a special “UNDERSTANDING ISRAEL”
conference held from 8:45 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. in the Dorothy Summers
Auditorium on the campus of East Central University (1100 East 14th
St.) in Ada. The cost at the door is $15 per person. The first speaker
will be Daryl Hedding, ICEJ Strategic Development Director. Raised in
South Africa, he spent 3 years in Israel as a teenager while his
father served as chaplain for ICEJ. He returned in 1998 to serve as
the accountant at the Jerusalem headquarters. The next speaker will be
Michael Hines, the ICEJ0-USA Media Director. Michael was raised in
England, worked 5 years for ICEJ’s media team in Israel and analyzes
Middle East events from a Biblical perspective. He explains the
spiritual nature of the conflict raging in the Middle East. The final
speaker will be Chuck King, the worship arts minister at Heritage
United Methodist Church in Van Buren Arkansas. He is a worship leader,
song writer in both English and Hebrew and is a recording artist. He
has led concert tours in South America, Australia, New Zealand, the
Philippines and America.

* GUTHRIE AREA - There will be a special meeting Saturday evening
with a power point presentation about the United Nations, Agenda 21
Program. The location will be in the “Gallery Graziozo” on the SW
corner of Oklahoma and Second streets in downtown Guthrie. The meeting
begins at 6:30 p.m. Your don’t have to look too deeply into Agenda 21
before you realize it is a global plan which will put at risk our food
supply, private property rights and especially our liberties. I highly
recommend attending, even if you need to travel some distance for this
meeting. If you might desire to eat before the meeting, I might
recommend The Boneyard (really good food at moderate prices, about 3
blks South of downtown on Division street.) or, Gages Steak House
(really good food, nice atmosphere and a little more expensive), in
the basement of the Victor Mall, across the street West of the Pollard
Theater. Arriving at 5:30 for the Boneyard would be plenty of time to
make the 6:30 meeting, allow a little more time for Gages. My wife and
I are usually at the Boneyard at least once a week, it is that good
and at reasonable prices.

++ PRAISE FOR LANKFORD & SULLIVAN

A huge amount of praise to Congressmen James Lankford and John
Sullivan for voting AGAINST the extension of the “so called” payroll
tax cut. Sullivan has the most conservative voting record of anyone in
the Oklahoma delegation, including our 2 U.S. Senators, according to
The New American Magazine’s Freedom Index. It was particularly
important to see Lankford part ways with Oklahoma’s 2 “go along to get
along” Republican Congressman Tom Cole and Frank Lucas, both of whom
need to be replaced, but it probably won‘t be this coming election
cycle.

The last time Congressman Lankford was at OCPAC, I on more than one
occasion, suggested that Speaker Boehner was a softball player (even a
little league T-ball player), in over his head against the hard ball
players in the Obama administration.

Two reasons this should have been opposed. First, it is not a payroll
tax cut, but rather a reduction in the revenues going into the Social
Security Trust Fund. By reducing the revenues going into that fund, it
will require one of two things from the federal government. One would
be for the Trust Fund to call more of the IOU’s due immediately to
make their monthly outlays, thus hastening the day when all the monies
borrowed from the Trust Fund are repaid in full. Of course this can
only be done by borrowing more money from China, or cranking up the
printing presses as there are no more Social Security excess revenues
to borrow from. Once all the monies have been repaid, either rates and
or ages will have to go up, or SS checks will need to be reduced by
about 30%. While the older folks should care about this, young workers
should care even more.

The other option would have been for the Republican controlled House
to demand spending cuts equaling the monies paid into the fund to keep
those monthly checks coming to the elderly and disabled without
increasing the deficit and of course the national debt. That was the
plan when the 2 month extension was passed late last year. However,
they rolled over like fat pigs and caved again, dropping the demands
for spending cuts. That is because House leadership is made up of a
bunch of sniveling cowards who have been so out maneuvered by Obama
that they have lost all moral authority to lead in the difficult times
ahead.

What is their legacy? Two years in control of the body, that according
to the U.S. Constitution has the responsibility for the origination of
all spending (budget) and taxation bills. In 2 years they have cut
virtually nothing and watched the national debt rise dramatically.
They should have gone to the wall, demanding the $100 billion dollar
real cut for the finish of the 2009-2010 budget year or shut down the
non-essential parts of the federal government. When they settled for
the phony $30 billion dollar cut, they signaled they lacked to
intestinal fortitude to stand up to Obama on future confrontations.

If the Republicans lose seats in the House or fail to get control of
the Senate, and I hope they don’t, it will be because they have
betrayed the conservative base of the party and the gift of a majority
handed to them in 2010 by the Tea Party efforts. This was an important
vote for Sullivan and Lankford to separate themselves for House
leadership and the rest of the go along to get along Republicans.

The Republicans failure to show leadership and demand reasonable cuts
in government spending over the past 2 years may end up costing
themselves the White House. After all, why would thinking
conservatives get all fired up about electing more Republicans when
the party has been driving toward the edge of the Grand Canyon at 50
miles per hour rather than the Democrats that have been driving toward
the edge at 75 miles per hour? What we must have are leaders who are
willing and capable of turning our nation away from the edge of the
cliff and restoring our prosperity and moral compass.

I will try to have next week’s e-mail out by Sunday evening as there
will be some important action items at the state legislature in which
our readers will need to respond.

Charlie Meadows
Charliemeadows7@gmail.com

WATER RIGHTS - TRIBAL SOVERIGNTY VS. THE STATE ++ THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE NUTTY AT THE CAPITOL

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

++ ANNOUNCEMENTS

++ WATER RIGHTS - TRIBAL SOVERIGNTY VS. THE STATE

++ THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE NUTTY AT THE CAPITOL

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

Our 12 noon luncheon for Wednesday, February 15th will be held at

Italiano’s restaurant, 4801 North Lincoln in OKC. Our speaker for this

week’s meeting will be Oklahoma’s Attorneys General, Scott Pruitt. On

the evening of the OU - OSU Bedlam football game last November, Fox

News sponsored a presidential candidate forum with the three panelists

being the Attorneys Generals from Oklahoma, Florida and I believe

South Carolina. The format was for each candidate to appear by

themselves with the three AG’s as they presented questions in rapid

fire with follow up questions if clarifications were needed. I wanted

Mr. Pruitt to come and give his perspective on the remaining 4

presidential candidates based on his time with them. If you are

vacillating or struggling as to who to vote for on March 6th, come to

this meeting and perhaps Scott’s perspective will be helpful. In

addition, I have asked that Mr. Pruitt give us an up-date on some of

the hot topics he is dealing with at the AG’s office. I recommend

arriving early as we will start at 12 noon sharp, move through our

announcements quickly and then give as much time as possible to Scott

as he will have a lot of information to present.

++ ANNOUNCEMENTS

* VOLUNTEER NEEDED - After another stellar meeting this past

Wednesday, I am determined to find one or more volunteers to video our

programs to put them on the internet or record them for pod casting on

our blog site. If equipment is needed, we can purchase it for this

use. Many of our programs need to be heard by an audience beyond those

in attendance at our weekly meetings. If you have the skills, please

contact me, we might have 2 or 3 people doing this in case someone

needs to miss a particular meeting. We will not record our candidate

interview meetings.

* EVERY SUNDAY MORNING - Our good friend Glen Howard hosts “The

Senior World” radio program every Sunday morning on Oklahoma City’s

blow-torch talk radio station, KTOK 1000 AM. The show airs from 10

until 11:00 a.m. when many of us are at church. However, you can log

on to http://seniorworldradio.com/ and listen to any of the past

programs archived through pod casting. I was even a guest a few weeks

back, talking about OCPAC and the up-coming legislative session.

Perhaps as many as a third of Glen’s programs have as a guest, a

person who recently spoke at an OCPAC meeting. All of the Senior World

programs are taped and as such our speaker last Wednesday, at the end

of our program, was rushed out to get into the studio with Glen to

tape the show which will air this coming Sunday. Many of those in

attendance thought our speaker, Mr. Benjamin Domenech, was one of the

best if not the best speaker we have ever had. I was blown away at how

clear his presentation was regarding the move toward full blown

socialism in health care and why it is impossible to work, especially

long term. Check it out, Glen has some great shows on KTOK radio.

* TUESDAY EVENING - ADA AREA - Hey guys and gals, round up your

valentine and take them to the Ada Tea Party meeting in Ada which

starts at 6:30 p.m. The location is the Chamber of Commerce meeting

room, 209 West Main Street. Speaking this month will be Catherine

White. The title of her presentation is: Connecting the Dots -

Understanding the Times.

* THURSDAY EVENING - TULSA AREA - OK2A (Oklahoma 2nd Amendment)

will host their Tulsa area meeting on Thursday evening, February 16th

at the 2A Shooting Center. The location is 4616 East Admiral Pl, with

the meeting beginning at 6:30 p.m.

* FRIDAY EVENING - OKC AREA - Oklahoma County’s annual Lincoln/

Reagan Day Dinner and Auction will be held at the Marriott Hotel

Ballroom, 1515 Northwest Expressway in OKC. Speaking will be political

strategist and former Presidential advisor, Dick Morris. RSVP by this

Wednesday, February 15th by contacting Whitney Harbour at (405)

285-5465. The cost to attend is $60 per person for general seating.

* VIDEO ABOUT ATHEISM - Last October we had Gary Crossland, author

of the book THE MERGED GOSPELS, do a Christian apologetics

presentation at our OCPAC meeting. It was just excellent and I have

particularly enjoyed the audio version of his book. He has just

produced a humorous video about atheism. It is very clever and has a

strong message at the same time. I think it takes about 10 minutes and

is produced with real excellence. I strongly suggest giving it a

viewing, http://mergedgospels.com/MG/001.html

++ WATER RIGHTS - TRIBAL SOVERIGNTY VS. THE STATE

If you have received our e-mails for any length of time, you will know

that I was a supporter of Randy Brogdon for Governor during the 2010

Republican primaries. Mary Fallin prevailed in that effort and since

she has become Governor, I have wanted to be fair to Mary when she

does what is good, but will still be critical when I believe she is

making a mistake.

With that said, I have been impressed with her stand regarding water

rights and Oklahoma’s Sovereign Tribes. She is displaying the

strongest exposition of leadership on this issue that I have seen

since she has been in office.

Over the past several years, we have devoted at least 6 programs at

OCPAC regarding Tribal Sovereignty and/or water rights. In the past,

it has appeared that both sides indicated they wanted to work out an

agreeable deal between the tribes and the state of Oklahoma to best

serve all the people of Oklahoma. However, there seemed to be little

movement toward that end until recently when the City of Oklahoma City

proceeded to purchase the storage capacity at Sardis Lake in

Southeastern Oklahoma with the intention of building a large pipeline

to central Oklahoma to supply water for central Oklahoma for many

years to come. A similar agreement has existed with Atoka lake and has

worked well for many years.

When OKC bought the water storage rights and I am sure in their minds

the water also, at least two of Oklahoma’s tribes then filed a lawsuit

in Federal Court, claiming the water belonged to them. Even though I

don’t believe any of the Tribes spent any money to build the lake,

they cite treaties from well over a hundred years ago, claiming the

water is theirs.

Sardis lake is one of the newer lakes in the state and was built by

the Army Corp of Engineers, primarily to be used for water supply. The

cost of building the lake was to be paid for by the State of Oklahoma.

The State was more irresponsible than the worst drunken sailor when it

came to paying off the loan, and as such, the feds took the State to

court to pay up. That set the stage for OKC to offer to pay off the

debt for the water storage rights and in their minds I am sure they

believed the water would be theirs also.

Since that time the Tribes have been trying to make their case in the

media and now Governor Fallin has taken the lead by responding with a

request for water adjudication, which would be a long and expensive

court proceeding. If it were to occur in state courts, I believe the

advantage might go to the State. If it proceeds in federal courts, I

believe the advantage might go to the Tribes.

Over the past few years, the various tribes have spent millions of

dollars running high quality TV commercials about themselves. Many

prominate people appear in these ads, particularly those run by the

Chickasaw Tribe. They are always warm and fuzzy and try to project a

best foot forward on behalf of the tribes. I have had many people ask

me why are they running those ads since they are usually not selling

anything, other than themselves.

My answer has always been one of speculation. I believe they are

trying to build favor in the eyes of Oklahomans and especially the

media. As I said they have become a huge source of revenue for many of

the TV stations in Oklahoma as well as newspapers and as such, those

medial outlets may be hesitant toward being critical of the tribes if

occasion should arise.

What might that criticism be? I don’t believe most Oklahomans know

just how much of a legal advantage tribally owned businesses have over

non tribally owned businesses. I am not even talking about the casinos

in which the tribes have a monopoly. That’s right, once Remington Park

was purchased by the Chickasaw Tribe, no one other than a tribe owns a

casino in Oklahoma.

Over the past 10 to 15 years I believe the tribes have been pushing

the envelope as far as they can, trying to find out just how far they

can push the meaning of tribal sovereignty. In other words, they

rather like being considered as a sovereign nation within a state and

having all kinds of legal advantages. To me, it is nothing more than

reverse discrimination.

With 39 federally recognized tribes in Oklahoma, I believe it to be

very divisive and will become worse as time goes on. With the wealth

created by the casinos, the tribes are purchasing ever more

businesses. I have half jokingly said that someday, almost everyone in

Oklahoma will eventually work for the government, that is, a tribal

government.

As I have said in the past, treaties between the government and the

various tribes were entered into to solve an immediate problem.

Usually to put an end to killing one another. However, these treaties

in the long term now present some difficult problems for a modern

society. A society which should be striving to treat everyone equally

at least in the eyes of the law. The problem is that today, Tribal

Sovereignty now gives significant legal advantages to one group of

people over other groups of people.

While I recognize the legal agreements, I believe they are

particularly harmful to the majority of people in Oklahoma. Truth is,

dissolving those treaties probably must occur at the federal

government level and I don’t believe there is much movement in that

direction at this time. I do believe the U.S. Government can

unilaterally detach itself from any treaty at any time we might so

believe it to be in the best interest of our nation.

Please, should anyone want to write about how we stole land from the

Indians, you need to understand that ownership of property was a

European concept brought to this continent by our forefathers. Prior

to the arrival of Europeans, Indians didn’t own land, as the nature of

their pantheistic religion of shamanism had them as part of creation,

something to be a part of, land was not something to own. All tribes

were nomadic, some more so than others. Often times they would

displace one another in certain areas before they moved on to other

areas.

However, there did come a time when private ownership of property did

become a reality and as such we made treaties giving the ownership of

land to various tribes. Thus the movement of the 5 civilized tribes to

various parts of what is today Oklahoma.

The Biblical principle is that a house divided cannot stand. I believe

the divisions created by the 39 nations within the state is beginning

to show what kind of problems will develop. Will the state have its

hands so tied by the various tribes that it will be impossible to

develop a comprehensive plan to meet the water needs of the State of

Oklahoma for decades to come?

There is plenty of water in Oklahoma to meet our needs for decades to

come as well as excess water that we could sell to out of state

interests to pay for increased collection and distribution

infrastructure capabilities throughout the state. In my estimation, it

is shear foolishness and emotionalism to think that it would be

harmful to the citizens and state of Oklahoma to build a collecting

pool on 2 or 3 of our rivers about 5 miles North of the Red River to

gather water and sell it to North Texas, just before we lose it as it

flows into the salinity of the Red River.

Every day, we wave by-by to millions of gallons of water, worth

millions of dollars each year as it exits our state. Why you might

ask? Emotional regionalism and disagreement over who owns the water. I

do not support selling stream water that runs into the Red River up-

stream of Lake Texoma. I also don’t support selling any underground

water to sources outside of Oklahoma and I don’t agree with selling

lake water outside of Oklahoma. I would prefer to see those excess

water sources re-distributed to other parts of the state when

practical.

We don’t have water shortages in the state, we have a distribution

problem. Our real problem is how to get the excess water from the wet

part of the state which is in the Southeast to the other parts of the

state without harming the water needs and quality of life for the

people in the Southeast. We need to be able to do that at as

reasonable cost to those who need the water. Determining payment for

that water will be a challenge. If the state is the primary owner of

the water, that problem may be easy to solve.

++ THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE NUTTY AT THE CAPITOL

With the session under way, legislation is passing and being defeated.

One of the frustrating things is how little regard some Republicans

have for liberty. Representative Steve Martin (R-Bartlesville) has

proposed legislation to allow law enforcement to pull people over to

determine if they have liability insurance as the drive down our

roads.

I certainly have no problem with requiring liability insurance or a

responsibility bond to assure a person has the where with all to

compensate for damages caused in an accident when they were at fault.

I am not opposed to stiff penalties for those driving without such

coverage, but government crosses the line when it allows law

enforcement to stop people to check for such when there is no

reasonable suspicion to believe a person is driving without. Laws like

that display the evidence of a police state.

Then Representative Jeanie McDaniels (D-Tulsa) indicates we need to

create a law which requires a person riding in the back seat to wear a

seat belt. Seems current law only requires people in the front seats

to wear seat belts. I believe our real mistake was when we required

people to wear seat belts in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, no

argument from me, people are definitely safer with seat belts on than

without and I urge people who are concerned for their safety to wear

them. However, a serious principle is at risk here.

There is always a certain amount of tension between a desire to have

liberty in one’s life on the one hand and the desire to be at peace

and be safe on the other hand. People that love liberty tend to be

more of a risk taker. Whereas, people who care more about peace and

safety are more adverse to risk taking. In the perfect world, each of

those kinds of people are capable of living near each other. However,

when the peace and safety crowd determines to pass laws which limit

the personal liberties of the risk takers, then friction begins to

take place.

Proper laws in a free society, let me say it again, “a free society”

are laws which regulate the behavior of one person or group of people

toward others. However, once government decides it can pass laws which

protect people from their own actions, then that government no longer

respects a person’s liberty and takes on the philosophy of “statism”

or fascism. As it digresses, government will soon see its

responsibility as controlling where people go, when they go, what they

eat, how much they can weigh, if they can own weapons, and on and on.

One of our founders said, once a people care more about peace and

safety than they care about liberty, they will soon end up with

neither. Would to God more of our lawmakers understood that our

founders fought our war of Independence, shed their blood and died so

we could have liberty. None of them died so the government could tell

us that we had to wear seat belts in our autos, helmets when we ride

our motorcycles, bicycles or horses. None of them died so government

could control our weight, health or demand we eat nutritious foods. As

a matter of fact, they didn’t die for very much of what goes on in

society today. As for me, I prefer liberty any day over the hoped for

illusion of peace or the concerns about my personal safety. I am

perfectly willing to count on my own judgment and common sense to keep

me from irrationally unsafe activities. Also, if and when I make a

mistake, I believe it is up to me to take care of those problems.

On the flip side, I also believe there is a good chance we may have a

large number of bills passed this year which will chip away at the

many years of foolish liberalism heaped upon the people of Oklahoma

during the decades of rule by the Democrats. Time will tell.

I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday. For instructions on

how to become a dues paying member of OCPAC, please read past my sign

off.

Charlie Meadows

Charliemeadows7@gmail.com

CHARLIE’S PICKS - SPECIAL ELECTIONS, 2-14-12, VALINTINES DAY

As always, please accept that these are simply my opinions based on
varying levels of research into the candidates. These are primarily
for voters who are undecided as yet. Some may have information of
which I am not aware and thus have a different opinion and that is
just fine. This may be forwarded if you chose. If you do not receive
the weekly e-mail from OCPAC and would like to, please send an e-mail
to: charliemeadows7@gmail.com with the word add in the subject line
and I will add you to our list. Your name will not be shared, loaned
or sold to anyone.

Senate District 20, WAYNE MURPHEY - The district includes all of
Logan, Noble, Pawnee and most of Kingfisher Counties. There are 4
candidates in this Republican primary. I have attended several
candidate forums, asked questions and talked with all of them If I
needed clarifications from them on the issues. The 2 conservatives in
the race are Chris Humphries and Wayne Murphey, both of them are
pastors and both of them are home school dads. However, Chris was
unable to raise anywhere near the kind of money to be competitive and
thus is NOT a viable candidate. Wayne Murphey is the ONLY viable
conservative in this race. He received OCPAC’s endorsement, along with
the endorsements from OK2A (Oklahoma’s effective 2nd Amendment
organization) and I.R.O.N., Oklahoma’s leading organization trying to
deal with the invasion of illegal aliens.

The other 2 candidates, Phil Berkenbile and A.J. Griffin are more
moderate Republicans. Both of them are a little squishy when it comes
to eliminating the state income tax, on 2nd Amendment issues,
corporate welfare and both of them have taken significant
contributions from lobbyists and unions. Berkenbile is the recipient
of the strong arm letter sent to lobbyists from the powerful House
majority leader, Dale DeWitt, a moderate in his own right. As I said
in a previous e-mail, the strong arm letter had a hint of “pay to
play” and the lobbyists took it serious as he raised nearly 3 and a
half times (about 70K) the money that Wayne Murphey was able to raise.
None the less, Wayne Murphey is the father of Jason Murphey,
Oklahoma’s most conservative State Representative and as such the
Murphey name is well liked in most parts of Logan County, which has
the largest portion of Republican votes. I expect Mr. Murphey to win
on Valentines day, my wife and I will both vote for Mr. Murphey.

Senate District 46, JASON REESE - This district includes most of
the North central part of OKC, downtown and parts of South central
OKC. Jason Reese, while solid on the life issues and school choice,
Jason is NOT a reliable conservative on most other issues. In my
opinion, the members of OCPAC made a mistake when they voted about 2
to 1 to endorse Reese. Our safety valve is that the finance committee
determines the amount we give to those our members endorse. We gave
him an all time low amount of $100. In talking with Jason, he kind of
laughed and said, if elected, he might be the first person OCPAC
endorsed and then possibly receive our RINO Award at a later date.

While I believe he might be a negative influence in the Republican
senate caucus as he is articulate, and while I personally like him, I
only endorse him because of who he is running against. His Democrat
opponent is Al McAffery, the most liberal Democrat in the House with a
lifetime score of an 11 on the Oklahoma Constitution Newspaper’s
Conservative Index. In addition, McAffery is not just a homosexual,
but he is a flaming homosexual, working hard to advance the homosexual
agenda. May I suggest Jason Reese as simply the better of the two
candidates.

House District 1, JOE SILK This district encompasses the far
Southeast corner of Oklahoma with McCurtain county making up most of
the district. Joe won an impressive primary victory against 3 other
Republican candidates, but it will get much tougher on Tuesday. The
Republican who died in office last year was the first Republican to
ever hold office from this district. With a 7 to 1 Democrat
registration advantage, it will be very difficult to keep this seat,
especially since 2 independent candidates will also be on the ballot.
One of those independents is the daughter of the deceased Republican
office holder.

Over the months I have had several conversations with Joe and found
him to have excellent values, and core conservative instincts. He is a
former missionary and a home school dad. He only woke up to state
issues a couple of years ago, but is learning fast. He is very open to
dialogue about ideology. If he can somehow eke out a victory, I
believe he will soon be ranked in the top 10 most conservative members
of the House. I strongly suggest a vote for Joe Silk.

House District 71, YOUR CHOICE This district is in the Tulsa area. I
believe there were 7 candidates who filed for this office. One was
disqualified, and one withdrew. Three of the candidates came to OCPAC
for the interview process, one didn’t bring a completed survey and was
therefore not allowed to vie for our endorsement. Our members strongly
voted to make no endorsement in that race as the 2 ladies which did
appear were not very conservative. One of the candidates husband has
been a member of OCPAC for some time and I expect his wife to win, but
I hesitate to make an endorsement without being able to go over issues
with her.

OKC School Board district 4, CRYSTAL HODGES The following schools
are located in this district: Capitol Hill elementary, Edgmere
Elementary, Eugene Field Elementary, Gatewood Elementary, Hawthorne
Elementary, Sequoyah Elementary, Wilson Elementary (this is where I
attended K and 1st grade), Classen School of Advanced Studies, Emerson
High School, ASTEC Charter School, DOVE Charter, Independence High
School Charter, Harding Charter School, as well as Taft Middle School
and Northwest Classen Highschool. All 3 candidates are registered as
Republicans, though school board races are non-partisan. However,
Patrick Gaines has a sign in his front yard, supporting the ultra-
liberal homosexual Al McAffery and the other lady in the race has
spoken highly of the liberal Democrat on her web page or face book
postings, that is according to a reliable source. Crystal Hodges came
to OCPAC and impressed our members with her intelligence, conservatism
and passion to make a difference in the government schools, even
thought she is a home school mom.

Guthrie School Board, Wards 1 & 7 TRAVIS SALLEE & SHARRON WATTS -
Anyone, living in the Guthrie School District, regardless if they are
registered as a Republican, Independent or Democrat, may vote in this
race. In addition you get to vote for the candidates in both wards 1 &
7. Though these races are non-partisan, I believe membership in a
particular party should be based on what the party stands for and as
such it means a lot to me. The two incumbents are both Democrats,
while both Sallee and Watts are Republicans. Both Republicans have
insisted on carefully evaluating any proposed school bond proposition
to make sure the funds are really needed as well as reasonable in
their amount. In the past we have had irrational proposals offered to
the Guthrie patrons, who have responded with resounding defeats of
those bond proposals.

There are probably many other school board elections, I simply don’t
have the time to evaluate those other than the ones I have mentioned
above. May you vote with wisdom.

Thanks for your time and attention.

Charlie Meadows
Charliemeadows7@gmail.com

MY PERSPECTIVE ON THE FIRST DAY AT THE CAPITOL ++ OCPAC PRESIDENTIAL STRAW POLL RESULTS

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING
++ ANNOUNCEMENTS
++ MY PERSPECTIVE ON THE FIRST DAY AT THE CAPITOL
++ OCPAC PRESIDENTIAL STRAW POLL RESULTS

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

Our 12 noon luncheon for Wednesday, February 8th will be held at
Italiano’s restaurant, 4801 North Lincoln in OKC. Our speaker this
Wednesday will be Mr. Benjamin Domenech from Virginia. Mr. Domenech is
managing editor of Health Care News and a research fellow at The
Heartland Institute founded in Chicago in 1984. The institute’s
mission is to discover, develop and promote free-market solutions to
social and economic problems. Benjamin joined the Heartland Institute
in 2009 after several years working and writing on national health
care policy, beginning with a political appointment as speechwriter to
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson. In addition
to his work with Heartland, Benjamin is currently editor of THE CITY,
an academic journal of faith, politics, and culture, published by
Houston Baptist University. I really look forward to meeting Benjamin
and hope to pick his brain about the huge subject of healthcare. You
won’t want to miss this meeting.

++ ANNOUNCEMENTS

* TUESDAY EVENING - GUTHRIE - OK2A (Oklahoma 2nd Amendment) will
hold their monthly meeting for the Guthrie chapter, 7:00 p.m.,
February 7th at the Patriot Industries Gun Store, 211 East Oklahoma
Ave.

* THURSDAY MORNING - OKC AREA - Presidential candidate Rick
Santorum will make an appearance at H&H Range in OKC on Thursday
morning, February 9th at 9:00 a.m. H&H is located on the North side of
I-40 about 2 blocks East of Meridian (400 S. Vermont). There is no
charge to attend.

* THURSDAY AFTERNOON - TULSA AREA - Rick Santorum will also
appear at the Mabee Center on the campus of ORU (7777 S. Lewis Ave) in
Tulsa at 1:30 p.m. Again, there is no cost to attend. It is my
understanding the Santorum campaign contacted Chairman Matt Pinell to
inform him they wanted to come to Oklahoma. It should not be construed
to be an endorsement by the Republican party as they will try to
facilitate appearances for any of the contending candidates wanting to
appear in Oklahoma.

* THURSDAY EVENING - ADA - OK2A will hold their monthly meeting
for the Ada chapter, 6:30 p.m. February 9th at JD’s Café (911 N.
Broadway). If you plan to eat, please arrive at least 30 minutes
early.

* THURSDAY EVENING - STILLWATER - OK2A will hold their monthly
meeting for the Stillwater chapter, 6:30 p.m. February 9th at Mexico
Joe’s (311 E. Hall of Fame Ave.). Please arrive early if you plan to
eat.

* THURSDAY EVENING - MOORE - The Sooner Republican Assembly will
hold their monthly meeting at Earl’s Rib in Moore. The program will
start at 6:45 but folks will gather at 6:00 p.m. if they want to eat.
Cleveland County Sheriff Joe Lester will be the speaker. Visitors are
welcome.

++ MY PERSPECTIVE ON THE FIRST DAY AT THE CAPITOL

* THE LEGISLATIVE PRAYER CAUCUS - I felt much better on Monday and
arrived at the Capitol in plenty of time to participate in the
formation of the Oklahoma Legislative Prayer Caucus. It was an
impressive crowd that assembled in the Rotunda and an impressive
number of lawmakers who have signed on the be a part of the Caucus. I
was told by one of the organizers, they have started off with 76
members which is 52% of those currently in the legislature.

As I watched the lawmakers who were gathered, both Democrats and
Republicans, walk up to the microphone to introduce themselves before
they signed the proclamation, it caused me to reflect.

Accepting the notion that they are all brothers and sisters in the
Lord, I pondered as to why many of them are on opposite sides of many
of the issues that are wrangled over at the Capitol, especially within
the Republican party. I would suggest that God is not of a divided
opinion on issues and that He has no confusion or vagueness about
every problem faced by our leaders, so why the division between
professing Christians?

Perhaps, the same question could be asked as to why we have so many
different denominations or expressions of Christianity? Quite often
those differences exist because of honest differences in
interpretation or understanding of God’s Word. In addition, some
adhere to a particular flavor of Christianity, not so much based as a
result of a close personal examination of God’s Word, but more so out
of family tradition. Then of course some may be ill motivated,
participating for the purpose of personal gain, participating out of
selfish ambition (James 3:13-16), or even worse motivated by anger as
a result of rejecting a valid discipline brought to them at some point
in time through other Christians.

Truth is, we professing Christians sometimes find ourselves serving
God out of a divided heart. Loving God with half of our heart and
loving the world with the other half of our heart. Sometimes our
commitment toward Him is only in degrees and unfortunately, many of
those professing to be his, have never taken the time or effort to
read His Word with an open heart, prayerfully asking Him to reveal
Himself to them through His Spirit. Bottom line, not much interest in
developing a relationship with the God of all Creation.

There is a powerful scripture found in I John 1:5-7, for my purposes
here a particular part of verse 7 which goes like this: “but if we
walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one
another ….”. The word light is both a reference to God and a word used
to describe our understanding of Him. As I said earlier God is not
confused and he is not of a divided opinion on issues. He knows what
is truth and what is good versus what is wrong or evil. The problem is
with us. May I suggest, that when we are divided on issues, that is a
result of us not walking in the same light as He is in the light. That
could be the result of one person understanding God’s perspective on
an issue and the other person not having that understanding. It could
also be the result of neither of them having an understanding of God’s
perspective on an issue. Again, true fellowship in Him occurs when 2
or more people are all WALKING in the light of God’s understanding.

One of the great problems in the Church today, is the failure of
pastors to teach about God’s principles as to how they should apply to
public policy. Many pastors will never, or rarely, touch those
subjects. Some will, and do a good job, while others, such as Jeremiah
Wright, or locally, Robin Myers, do so, but in my opinion fail to
rightly divide the Word of God and thus teach great error. Regardless,
these are the kinds of churches from which our lawmakers come.

With all that said, I have a sincere hope that “IF” the members of
Oklahoma’s Legislative Prayer Caucus will humbly come together in
prayer, sincerely seeking God’s understanding, unity and direction, it
will become a real difference maker. We should pray for this as these
people in authority carry out their function as lawmakers for the
State of Oklahoma.

If that will occur in true sincerity, who knows, that might even begin
to cause them to seek God’s perspectives on the issues in which they
must make decisions.

* GOVERNOR FALLIN’S ADDRESS - I got back from lunch in time to get
a good seat to hear the Governor’s second state of the state address.
Once all the pomp and ceremony ended and the Governor began, I must
confess I got really sleepy and must of dozed off for a couple of
moments, because when I perked back up, the Governor was going down a
list of things in which she wanted to increase spending. I leaned over
to a person next to me and asked if the Governor was a Democrat or
Republican which certainly evoked a smile?

Then she began to get down to her ideas on reducing the size of
government, increasing efficiencies and reducing taxes. Currently
Oklahoma has a graduated tax system with 7 brackets. A person actually
starts paying a minimal amount on the first dollar earned and then
reaches the top tax bracket of 5.25% upon earning about $14,000. Our
current system has a good number of exemptions, credits, carve outs
and kick backs which can effect the amount of our overall tax burden.

The Governor’s plan is to eliminate many of the exemptions, credits,
carve outs and kick backs and replace them with a more simple plan,
one with only 3 tax brackets, but based on a lower income tax rate.
She wants couples making less than $30,000 ($15,000 for individuals)
per year to pay no state income tax, those making from $30,000 to
$70,000 ($35,000 for individuals) per year to pay 2.25 percent and
those making above $70,000 (above $35,000 for individuals) per year to
pay only 3.5%. In addition, she wants to see additional quarter point
drops in the income tax rates based on any year there is a 5% or
greater growth in tax revenues to the state. Under that scenario, in
the best of conditions, it will take a minimum of 9 years to totally
eliminate the income tax for those earning between 30 and 70 thousand
a year and 14 years to totally eliminate the income tax for every
Oklahoman. She wants her plan to take effect starting January 1st of
next year (2013).

While, this is much better than what we currently have, I would prefer
a modification to this plan. With my wife retiring in less than 2
months and my entering into semi-retirement as of January 1st of this
year, we would fit in the category of paying no taxes starting next
year and thus be at the maximum benefit level. However, I would be
most willing to give up our maximum benefit for a better plan.

Here is my problem. The concept of a graduated income tax was crafted
in a library in London England in 1848 by a man named Karl Marx. The
concept of a flat rate plan is from God’s Word as expressed through
the concept of tithing. The poor were to pay 10% of their first fruits
(earnings), the middle class were to pay 10% and the wealthy were to
pay 10%. In much of the national debate for tax reform, most
conservatives are proposing a flat tax on our earnings or a national
consumption tax (sales tax) known as THE FAIR TAX, which is also a
flat tax, but on spending rather than on earnings.

My problem is that the Governor continues to support a Marxist
philosophy of a graduated income tax rather than the Biblical model of
a flat tax. I would much rather see the rate reduced to the same level
for everyone, perhaps that would be somewhere around 2.25%? Then
strive to step it down under some kind of a formula.

Of course Democrats and other liberals will scream that the sky is
falling and that the insensitive Republicans are trying to reduce the
size of government on the backs of the poor and the middle class.

Truth is, the middle class will benefit from a lower tax burden and
while the poor may at first have to pay a very small amount more, that
is very important that they have to pay something. If not, we have the
dangerous situation existing which is the opposite of our Founders
when they were suffering from “taxation without representation.” That
opposite and dangerous situation could best be described as
“representation without taxation”. Under that scenario, people can
vote to receive benefits from government (their neighbors’ money) and
yet not have to pay for any of the costs of government.

In the long run, the poor will benefit when job growth occurs as a
result of a better business environment develops. Also, when
businesses have to compete for employees, wages also rise, which will
also benefit the poor.

Exempting the poor from paying anything is an easier sell to the
public, but it is Marxist in its ideology and thus morally wrong.
Hopefully, through negotiations the final product will resemble a
Biblical model rather than one designed by the Father of Communism,
Karl Marx.

++ OCPAC PRESIDENTIAL STRAW POLL RESULTS

First, I want to say a huge thanks to everyone that cast a vote in our
Presidential straw poll. I respect everyone’s decision and thanks to
so many of you for your kind words of encouragement toward me
regarding my efforts and more particularly the things being
accomplished by OCPAC.

We conducted a straw poll last year and kept the percentage totals
separated between those voting by e-mail and those voting at our
meeting. Four years ago, Ron Paul won the straw poll at our meeting
with about 45% of the vote, though we only allowed dues paying member
to vote at that time. Through the e-mails Ron Paul won with about 43%
of the vote. I don’t remember the other totals, but Governor Huckabee
came in second at our meeting and through the e-mails.

I will be a little more exact and specific for this year’s poll just
completed:

Members casting ballots at our meeting gave Ron Paul 50%, Rick
Santorum 36%, Mitt Romney 8% and Newt Gingrich 6%.

Non members casting ballots at our meeting gave Rick Santorum 39%, Ron
Paul 22%, Mitt Romney 19% and Newt Gingrich 19%.

The total for everyone at our meeting was Rick Santorum at 38%, Ron
Paul 36%, Mitt Romney at 14% and Newt Gingrich at 13%

Now for those voting via e-mail:

Ron Paul won with 47% of the vote, Rick Santorum was at 34%, Newt
Gingrich at 14% and Mitt Romney finished last with 6% of the vote.

If I add all votes cast, both from our meeting and on line, Ron Paul
wins with 44% (very similar numbers to 4 years ago), Rick Santorum is
second at 35%, Newt Gingrich at 13% and Mitt Romney at 8%. I believe
many of the Santorum people of today were probably Huckabee people of
4 years ago.

The size of the sampling was based on 241 votes cast. Please remember,
this is not a scientific poll, but rather a measure of the thinking of
people who are more active and involved than the average voter. I
expect the vote on the evening of March 6th in Oklahoma to possibly be
quite different.

One of the things I have said many times in the past is that elections
are first about the quality and character of the voters and secondly
about the candidates. I have also said that the majority usually (not
always) makes the wrong decision on presidential and congressional
elections! Why do I say that? It is fairly simple. If the majority had
been making the correct decisions over the past several decades, then
we would not have seen the decline in our nation and we would not be
facing the very difficult problems we face today. I will take it one
step farther. Should America re-elect President Obama this November, I
believe America will have lost the ability to self govern itself, or
at least, govern itself for good.

Now, there isn’t a snow ball’s chance in Hell that Obama will win in
Oklahoma and probably the same can be said that there is no chance
that he could lose in California, Illinois, or New York. If that turns
out to be true, won’t it just go to show how different the ideology
and values are that have been inculcated into the people in these
different parts of America? I would say the division is deep, huge and
it will be problematic to deal with in the future. If Obama is re-
elected, folks better pray that the Republicans take control of the
Senate in a rather large way and increase or at least hold on to their
lead in the House.

This division is spiritual at its core. Oklahoma is what it is because
we are a state were a large number of its citizens hold to some level
of respect toward the God of the Bible. I am afraid, that too many of
the people in the other states I mentioned serve a God of their own
imaginations! Oh Lord God, please bring us to a place of repentance in
our nation. Please start with your own people.

I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday. If you have not
joined OCPAC as yet, please do so now. We finished January with 154
dues paying members and already several have joined in February. We
are running ahead of last year’s schedule. Instructions on how to join
will follow my sign off.

Charlie Meadows
Charliemeadows7@gmail.com

Just a couple of quick announcements...

Just a couple of quick announcements

1) I plan on sending out the regular e-mail Tuesday morning. Sure
would like to have more Presidential Straw Poll votes before I report
the results next Tuesday. Therefore, if you haven’t already sent me an
e-mail with your choice for President, or didn’t vote in person during
last Wednesday’s meeting, please do so now. I will continue to tally
the votes until midnight on Monday. Just send an e-mail with your
choice for president to: charliemeadows7@gmail.com , you do not have
to be a dues paying member to participate.

2) Last year we had Lea Carawan, Executive Director of the National
Prayer Caucus, speak at OCPAC about the many accomplishments in
Washington toward stopping the censorship of the Christian influence
upon the founding of our nation. We were informed that many states
were forming state prayer caucuses where Christian lawmakers from both
sides of the isle could gather for prayer to seek God’s help toward
proper governance of each state. Many of the people participating
understand that the core of our problems are spiritual in nature and
the issues we wrangle over are actually the manifestations of that
spiritual battle. With the first day of session beginning on Monday, a
historic gathering will occur to start Oklahoma’s Legislative Prayer
Caucus.

Therefore Christians are asked to gather at the Rotunda in the Capitol
from 9:30 until 10:30 a.m. on Monday, February 6th for the following
reasons:

* To support the formation of the Oklahoma Legislative Prayer Caucus,
a bi-partisan group of state legislators united to defend America’s
right to trust in God

* Signing the Oklahoma Call to Prayer Proclamation

* Reaffirming our national motto: In God We Trust

Also, don’t forget the 8th annual prayer gathering in the House and
Senate chambers on Sunday afternoon from 2 until 4:00 p.m. Please park
and enter on the West side of the Capitol. I have been really sick
since last Wednesday evening and finally went to the Doctor Friday
afternoon. Have felt some better on Saturday, but don’t know if I will
try to get out on Sunday. This is an important time to sit in the
chair of your own state Senator and House member to pray for them on
the day before the session starts. I hope to make it, but time will
tell.

Thanks for your time and attention.

Charlie Meadows
charliemeadows7@gmail.com

PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS ++ OCPAC MEMBERSHIP

This posting is from January 24th.

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING
++ ANNOUNCEMENTS
++ PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS
++ OCPAC MEMBERSHIP

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

Our 12 noon luncheon for Wednesday, January 25th will be held at
Italiano’s restaurant, 4801 North Lincoln in OKC. Our first speaker is
a mystery speaker and will take only about 5 minutes to share an
important situation. Our main speaker will be Jenni White, founder and
Executive Director of Reform Oklahoma Public Education (ROPE). In
addition, I will make a proposal to our members for consideration to
take OCPAC to a higher level. I will only be speaking in conceptual
terms, we will probably vote on February 1st to change our by-laws,
based on the discussion this Wednesday, feedback and our ability to
fully think through what has to be done to bring it to a vote of our
dues paying members. Don’t miss this week’s meeting as it, along with
so many other meetings are always full of important and substantive
information.

++ ANNOUNCEMENTS

* TUESDAY EVENING - EDMOND AREA - Our good friend Stuart Jolly,
State Director of Americans For Prosperity, has organized and is
sponsoring a forum regarding school choice. It will be tonight,
January 24th from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the University of Central
Oklahoma’s Constitution Hall, located in the Nigh Center in Edmond.
Tickets are free, but it is preferred folks register at www.putkidsfirst.com.
On the panel tonight will be former Congressman J.C. Watts, State
Senator Gary Stanislawski (R-Tulsa), State School Superintendent Dr.
Janet Barresi, John Fund of the Wall Street Journal and Jeff Reed of
the Friedman Foundation.

* FRIDAY EVENING - MOORE AREA - The Oklahoma City and Norman TEA
PARTIES, along with KQCV radio (800 AM), are sponsoring a “Renovate
Washington” event this Friday evening, January 27th at First Baptist
Church of Moore (NE 27th & I-35). The featured speaker will be “Joe
the Plumber”, famous for his confrontation in 2008 of then candidate
Obama on the issue of redistribution of wealth. A banquet dinner
begins at 6:00 p.m. and the open meeting begins at 7:15 p.m. Tickets
for the banquet are $17 and can be purchased by calling KQCV at
521-0800. There is no charge for the open meeting. This should be a
lot of fun and a big boost to the OKC and Norman tea parties.

* SATURDAY AFTERNOON - OKC AREA - Oklahomans for Sovereignty and
Free Enterprise (OK-SAFE) is hosting a legislative training seminar
this Friday afternoon from 1 to 5:00 p.m. The location will be the
Village Library, 10307 North Pennsylvania in OKC. The information
presented by Amanda Teegarden is probably the best training a person
can get when it comes to understanding the legislative process and how
to be effective at citizen lobbying.

++ PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS

In my perspective on presidential politics last week, I indicated the
belief that if Mitt Romney were to win in South Carolina, he would
probably go on to win the nomination. Well, last week turned out to be
a very bad week for Mitt. Not only did he find out that his previous
razor thin win in Iowa was reversed to a win for Santorum, he was
soundly defeated in South Carolina by Newt Gengrich.

While I don’t trust what either of these two flip floppers say today,
I have to admit, it would almost be worth paying admission to see a
debate between Newt and President Obama. Newt is head and shoulders
ahead of any of the candidates in this race when it comes to debating
skills and the ability to relate information that connects both
substantively and emotionally with the American people.

During this primary process, Mitt has never been able to build much
above that 25 or so percent of his base. During the process, several
candidates have risen to or near the top, only to fall from that
perch. Newt is the first one to rise to the top, fall like a rock and
then ascend again to near the top. The next state up for grabs will be
Florida. I believe if Mitt wins Florida, he will be the likely
nominee. If on the other hand, Florida is won by Newt and that is
likely, I believe he will be the likely nominee as he certainly has
old MO (momentum) on his side right now. My prediction is based on
human nature and how people respond to information and certain
situations. Newt was flashy and easily won the two debates last week
which is why he has risen to the top again.

Just remember, when Super Tuesday arrives in Oklahoma in March,
regardless of what has happened in previous state primaries, your vote
for the candidate you believe is trustworthy and would govern the best
is the right thing to do. If your candidate loses, you did NOT waste
your vote. You will have voted for the person you believed would make
the best president. As I said in last week’s e-mail, I won’t go back
through the reasoning right now, I will be voting for Ron Paul though
I have some problems with three or four of his positions. There has
not been a candidate in this race that doesn’t have weaknesses or
isn’t errant on certain issues in my opinion.

++ OCPAC MEMBERSHIP UP-DATE

My wife and I left shortly after the Clouds Over America conference
last Saturday for one of our little mini trips to different
communities in Oklahoma, this time to McAlester. Since we returned
home Monday afternoon I have been so busy running around like a
chicken without a head that I have not had time to get an exact count
on membership. But based on the memberships that I received at last
Wednesday’s meeting, those that came in the mail and several that were
paid during the Clouds conference, I would expect we are now
approaching 140 dues paying members which will probably break our all
time record for this early in the year. I can’t thank folks enough for
your confidence and support for what we are doing at OCPAC. If you
have not joined as yet, please consider doing so as soon as possible.
Instructions on how to join are below.

I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday.

Charlie Meadows
Charliemeado...@gmail.com

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HOME SCHOOL DEBATE AND SPEECH CONTEST ++ PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS

This posting s from January 16th.

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING
++ ANNOUNCEMENTS
++ HOME SCHOOL DEBATE AND SPEECH CONTEST
++ PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

Our 12 noon luncheon for Wednesday, January 18th will be held at
Italiano’s restaurant, 4801 North Lincoln Blvd. in OKC. I am often
asked if people may attend if they are not members? The answer is a
resounding YES, as many of those attending are not dues paying
members. Sometimes we even have enemies or spies attend. This
Wednesday our speaker will be Mr. Mike LeMay, a talk radio show host
at a Christian station in Green Bay Wisconsin. Mike is a Christian
apologist and watchman on the wall for spiritual counterfeits. He will
be speaking at the Clouds over America Conference about a 2 hour
interview he did with President Obama’s most recent spiritual advisor.
For our meeting he will be talking about the Fox Valley Conservative
Forum and the attempt to re-call Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. I
don’t think most people understand what an all out effort the left is
making in Wisconsin to stop the loss of power by organized labor in
America. They are in a political war beyond anything we have
experienced in Oklahoma.

++ ANNOUNCEMENTS

* TUESDAY EVENING - OKC AREA - The OKC area chapter of Oklahoma
2nd Amendment (OK2A) will meet this Tuesday evening, January 17th at
H&H Gun Range (400 S. Vermont Suite 110) in OKC. The meeting will
begin at 6:30 p.m. with the featured speaker being Dr. Tom Vineyard,
pastor of Windsor Hills Baptist Church. While serving as a missionary
in Africa, he was robbed and severely beaten at his home while unarmed
and in the process of trying to protect his family. His story is a
stark reminder of why we need to have the freedom to own and carry
firearms to defend our homes and families. In addition, Sarah
McKinley, the young mother from Blanchard who successfully defended
herself and baby on New Year’s Eve by shooting and killing a drug
enraged intruder will be in attendance to receive OK2A’s Courage
Award. I have to be at a meeting in Guthrie, but sure wish I could be
at this meeting to hear Tom and thank this young lady for her
courageous actions.

* THURSDAY EVENING - MOORE AREA - The Sooner Republican Assembly
will meet this Thursday evening at Earl’s Rib in Moore, with the
dinner starting at 6 and the meeting beginning at 6:45 p.m.. They have
invited all the mayoral and city council candidates in the Moore and
Norman areas to speak about their up-coming races. Please bring any
questions you may want to ask. This should be a great time to ask
questions about their understanding of Agenda 21 and its front name,
sustainability.

* FRIDAY AFTERNOON, EVENING & SATURDAY MORNING - CENTRAL OKLAHOMA
- Clouds Over America III will begin at 2:00 p.m. on Friday and run
to 6:00 p.m. There will be a 30 minute break and then from 6:30 to
7:30 a buffet dinner will be served. From 7:45 until 9:00 p.m. Dr.
Paul Jehle of the Plymouth Rock Foundation will speak along with Mr.
Art Thompson, CEO of the John Birch Society. Then the conference will
resume on Saturday morning at 9:00 a.m. and continue until 12 noon.

The cost to attend the conference is $25 per person or $40 for a
couple. Students may attend for $10. There is no charge for senior or
full time pastors and their wives to attend. There is an additional
charge of $25 per person to attend the evening banquet and hear the
speakers. Senior or full time pastors and their wives attending for
the first time may attend the banquet without charge. Pastors who have
attended before may attend the banquet for only $10 and $10 for their
wives. In addition, if senior or full time pastors live outside of
Oklahoma County, lodging will be provided free. The deadline for
reservations is Wednesday evening at 5:00 p.m. Pastors please call
(405) 348-1745 on Tuesday or Wednesday. All others please call (405)
348-9991 to RSVP. Again, there will be 11 speakers with this being the
most substantive conference held in Oklahoma during 2012. Please make
every effort to attend.

++ HOME SCHOOL DEBATE AND SPEECH CONTEST

I had the opportunity and privilege to be a judge this past Thursday
and Friday evenings as well as Saturday morning for the Oklahoma-Texas
regional qualifier round for a national home school speech and debate
tournament. With somewhere over 200 students entered, it was an
amazing experience.

Thursday evening I was judging biographical speeches. These speeches
had a maximum time limit of 10 minutes with the speeches having to be
prepared and memorized by the students. The first student did a 9
minute speech about Karl Marx and the effects that his ideas have had
upon the world over the past 160 years. I was particularly impressed
as I would guess 7 out of 10 people 25 and under who were educated in
the government schools have never heard of Marx, and then of the 3 who
might have heard of him, they couldn’t tell you much about him. Don’t
believe me? Start asking anyone you see 25 and under if they have ever
heard of Marx. Other speeches were about Sigmund Freud, Al Capone, one
young lady gave a compelling speech about her great grandfather who
was a heavy bomber pilot in WW II.

On Friday evening I was judging impromptu speeches which had a maximum
time limit of 7 minutes. The young people were given a list of topics
then they had 30 minutes to research and prepare a speech. They were
allowed to use notes on a 3X5 index card, but no electronic devices.
What were some of the topics chosen? One speech was about the question
of whether or not Japan was decommissioning their nuclear power
capabilities too quickly? Another was about Iran’s capabilities to
prohibit the flow of crude out of the Arabian Sea? Then there was a
speech about the possibilities of Iraq being able to prevent sectarian
violence without outside help? This is just a sampling of the type of
difficult speeches which had to be delivered. These kids did an
incredible job.

Then on Saturday, I had a brief orientation for judging debates.
Having never been a contestant or trained regarding formal debate
contests, my only hope is that the team I didn’t pick as a winner were
not thrown to the lions! Having been active in Toastmasters for about
3 years, I was very comfortable judging speeches, but a formal debate
was a challenge for me to accurately score such an event.

Bottom line, these young home schooled kids, I would guess they were
between 12 and 18, were an outstanding example of the good job their
parents are doing in the training-up of their children. Most of these
young people will go on the accomplish a great deal in life and make
outstanding parents and citizens. This was the first time this
tournament has been held in Oklahoma. Several OCPAC members served as
judges, if we are fortunate enough to have it in OKC again, I would
suggest as many folks as possible serve as judges. It will give you
real hope for the future.

++ PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS

As this field shaped up several months ago, I said the only 3
candidates I was considering for my vote were Michele Bachmann, Herman
Cain or Ron Paul. I have had some level of disagreement with every
person in the race.

When a person has held office before and has a track record, I believe
it is more important to examine how they have governed rather than to
give priority to the words they as espousing now when they want our
votes. I do recognize that people can change their opinions, but the
principle of their past governance is generally more important.

I believe Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich are all
politically expedient flip floppers with Newt being the king of the 3
of them. I wouldn’t call Santorum a flip flopper, but rather a
professional deal maker and compromiser. His endorsement for Arlen
Spector (at first a Democrat, then a Republican & back to a Democrat),
perhaps the most liberal Republican to ever serve in the Senate, is
hard to forgive. At that time, Specter was in a close Republican
primary race against a more conservative Pat Toomey (just elected to
the Senate in 2010) when Santorum and then President George W. Bush
publicly endorsed Specter who eventually won the race. He stabbed
Pennsylvania conservatives in the back and they couldn’t wait to throw
him out in the next election. Santorum lost by 18 percentage points.
For me, he is a person that would be very hard for me to trust, given
his track record, though he is solid on social issues. I just can’t
get too excited about John Huntsman, someone President Obama selected
to be our Ambassador to China. I believe Gary Johnson has dropped out
and is running as a Libertarian, which is where is probably needs to
be.

Though people are telling me their thoughts, I can’t for the life of
me understand why Michelle Bachmann sank like a rock after the Iowa
straw poll. I liked Herman Cain regarding some issues, but became
convinced he wasn’t up to the task, especially with his needing to
frequently clarify himself and the people he selected caused a
question in my mind about his abilities. The high powered attorney he
hired to deal with all the sexual allegations didn’t do Herman any
favors with me when his statement about the alleged multi year affair
went something like this, “it was a consensual relationship and it is
none of anyone’s business.” Sorry, wrong answer for me.

Therefore, through the process of elimination I am left with only one
candidate and that is Ron Paul. I don’t necessarily disagree with his
ideology of non-interventionism regarding foreign affairs. However, I
don’t know how to get to that posture after intervening as the world’s
policeman for the past 120 years or so. I don’t know how to unravel
that web of entanglement overnight without giving encouragement to
those who now hate us?

I would love for Ron Paul to be a U.S. Senator, but as the President
and Commander in Chief, that concerns me. I also believe he
underestimates the threat of Radical Islam, both here and abroad. In
addition, his flip flop on illegal immigration really bothers me,
especially his opposition to building a fence. I believe an effective
fence along the full border with Mexico is one of the highest spending
priorities in America. The funding should come out of our military
budget. It is a higher priority than keeping troops in any nation
anywhere else in the world. While it is technically true, that fences
can keep people in as well as out, it is a silly argument as no one is
suggesting people should not be able to travel outside the U.S.. I am
also not so sure that Paul sees our trade deficit as the serious
problem it is and I don’t know that he knows what to do about it. I
was very disappointed the Donald Trump debate didn’t happen as I
believe the trade issue would have been the focus of that debate. If
we don’t fix that issue, we can’t have a REAL economic recovery.

What I do like about Ron Paul is that I believe he and Bachmann are or
were the only 2 candidates really committed to the kind of spending
cuts needed to pull us back from the brink of the debt disaster.
Though I believe both of them were wanting to get that done too
quickly. I also appreciate his understanding of the evils of the
Federal Reserve and his fight to eliminate it and replace it’s fiat
federal reserve notes with gold and silver backed currency.

I also appreciate that he is probably the only candidate in the race
that would work to get the U.S. out of the United Nations and the UN
out of the United States. I also support his efforts to eliminate
foreign aid, even to Israel. I personally am a supporter of Israel and
believe in their right to live in the land that God gave to them,
which is especially difficult when they are surrounded by irrational
aggressors who want to see them destroyed.

What most Americans who support Israel don’t understand it that the
aid to Israel has been the leverage used by the United States to
interfere and pull Israel back every time they have been on the verge
of delivering a crushing blow to their aggressor neighbors. My idea of
supporting Israel would be to sell them the military weapons they need
and trade with them as much as possible. Also, there is nothing to
keep Americans from sending financial aid to Israel through private
efforts, but it should not be through our government.

Of course the strongest aspect of Ron Paul is his fight for liberty.
He really understands what our founders fought for and why we must
strive toward liberty over dependency. We must also lean toward
prudent risk taking over the temptations to prohibit or severely limit
risks in the name of safety or the illusions of peace. Ever increasing
safety regulations are one of the greatest risks to our liberties as
well as making us soft as a nation.

I guess you could say, I am willing to roll the dice on the things in
which I disagree with Ron Paul in favor of supporting him on the
things in which he is right. While the greatest need in our country is
a Spiritual awakening toward Biblical Christianity, the manifestations
of that need are our rotting culture and the growing tyranny of the
state and more particularly the federal government.

While Ron Paul may not be the best leader for a Spiritual awakening,
he is the person willing to fight the tyranny of excessive and immoral
government. I will be voting for Ron Paul, regardless of whether or
not he has a chance to win! Many will disagree and that is fine with
me. Citizens tend to make their minds up on a Presidential election
based on their own research rather than the endorsements of others.
That is because there is so much opportunity to evaluate a candidate
on their own. If Romney wins in South Carolina, I believe he will
probably be the Republican nominee, not that South Carolina does such
a good job at picking the candidate, they don’t. Other than Ronald
Reagan, they chose George H Bush, Bob Dole, George W Bush and John
McCain. Other than Reagan, what a bunch of establishment Republican
moderates.

I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday.

Charlie Meadows