Monday, August 17, 2009

OKLAHOMA STATE SENATE RANKINGS FOR THE 2009 SESSION

+ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

+ ANNOUNCEMENTS

+ OKLAHOMA STATE SENATE RANKINGS FOR THE 2009 SESSION

+ TURNPIKE AUTHORITY RAISE RATES?

+ OKLAHOMA’S WEALTHIEST PERSON SPEAKS IN OKC MARK SHANNON ON TARGET BUT

+ RADICAL?

+ THE EXCESSES OF THE OBAMAS

+ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

Our 12 noon luncheon for Wednesday August 19th will be held at Italiano’s restaurant, 4801 North Lincoln in OKC. I want to show a DVD I acquired at the Freedom 21 Conference this past weekend. The title of the DVD is Why Financial Chaos? The Trilateral Commission Endgame by Patrick M. Wood, Editor of THE AUGUST REVIEW. For more information about his organization log on to www.augustreview.com.

+ ANNOUNCEMENTS

MOORE AREA - The Moore group of Educators of Liberty will meet at the Moore public library, 225 South Howard on Monday evening August 17th from 7 until 8:30 p.m. Educators of Liberty was created to inform individuals of their shared stake in defending their unalienable rights against abuse. Each of us has the responsibility as sovereign citizens to gain enough political and economic education to make correct choices.

On Monday evening they will show part 1 of 3 in a DVD series titled The Money Masters. It is a historical document that traces the origins of the political power structure. The modern political power structure has its roots in the hidden manipulation and accumulation of gold and other forms of money. The development of fractional reserve banking practices in the 17th century brought to a cunning sophistication of secret techniques initially used by goldsmiths to fraudulently accumulate wealth. With the formation of the privately-owned Bank of England in 1694, the yoke of economic slavery to a privately-owned “central” bank was first forced upon the backs of an entire nation, not removed but only made heavier with the passing of the three centuries to our day. Nation after nation has fallen prey to this cabal of international central bankers.

TULSA AREA - On Monday evening August 17th, Representative John Wright will be speaking at the Six O’clock Women’s Club which meets at Cowboy Sarkies, 5840 South Memorial in Tulsa. Dinner starts at 6 and the program begins at 7:00 p.m.. Representative Wright is running for Lt. Governor, it is time to get out and hear the candidates, find out what they stand for and ask them questions.

McALESTER, MUSKOGEE & PRYOR - This Tuesday August 18th, U.S.

Representative Dan Boren, Oklahoma’s only Congressional Democrat will hold his only town hall meetings during their August break. He will be at the Thompson Auditorium in McAlester starting at 8:00 a.m. He will then travel to the Muskogee Civic Center for an 11:30 a.m. meeting.

Following that meeting, he will travel to the Pryor Mid America Expo Center for a meeting scheduled to start at 3:00 p.m. If you live anywhere near these areas go to these meetings to let him know what you think about his performance as your Congressman.

+ OKLAHOMA STATE SENATE RANKINGS FOR THE 2009 SESSION

2009 is the 30th year for the Oklahoma Constitution Newspaper’s Conservative Index. You can log on to their web site at www.oklahomaconstitution.com (click on the red box, upper right hand corner on their home page) to see the 10 pieces of legislation used for this year’s index. They will explain the grading system and you can then bring up the Senate or House scores and see how each lawmaker voted on each issue.

What I am going to show below is how they ranked or compared to each other from most conservative to least. I will show the Republicans first and then the Democrats. Following each name will be a number which will represent their score for this year’s index and the second number will represent their average score for however many years they have been in the legislature. On average, the Republican scores are down this year, because they are in charge and as such will either produce smaller and improved government or expand it like the Democrats have done in the past. Last year there was only one Senate RINO (Republican In Name Only) nominee, but not this year as there are many.

SENATE REPUBLICANS

1. Randy Brogdon (Owasso) 90 93

2. Anthony Sykes (Moore-Duncan) 90 90

3. Bill Brown (Broken Arrow) 80 80

4. Jim Reynolds (OKC) 73 71

5. Cliff Aldridge (Midwest City) 63 75

6. Gary Stanislawski (Tulsa) 60 60

Every one below this line is a RINO nominee

7. Mike Johnson (Kingfisher) 53 58

8. Steve Russell (OKC-Mustang) 53 53

9. Mike Schulz (Altus) 50 65

10. David Myers (Ponca City) 50 61

11. Ron Justice (Chickasha) 50 58

12. Bryce Marlett (Woodward) 50 50

12. Dan Newberry (Tulsa) 50 50

14. Glen Coffee (OKC-Bethany) 46 61

15. Cliff Branan (OKC) 43 62

16. Todd Lamb (OKC-Edmond) 40 65

17. Brian Crain (Tulsa) 40 63

17. Clark Jolley (Edmond) 40 63

17. Jonathan Nichols (Norman) 40 63

20. John Ford (Bartlesville) 40 60

21. Don Barrington (Lawton) 40 55

21. Brian Bingman (Sapulpa) 40 55

23. Jim Halligan (Stillwater) 40 40

24. Harry Coates (Seminole) 39 44

25. Mike Mazzei (Tulsa) 32 65

26. Patrick Anderson (Enid) 30 59

Senate Lawmaker of the year is Randy Brogdon of Owasso. Runner-up for lawmaker of the year is Anthony Sykes of Moore. Senate Freshman of the year is Anthony Sykes of Moore. Newcomer of the year is Gary Stanislawski of Tulsa. The RINO (Republican In Name Only) of the year is Patrick Anderson of Enid. There were six Democrat Senators that scored higher or tied Senator Anderson. There were also 19 Democrats in the House that tied or scored higher than Anderson. This is the second time he has won the RINO award in his 5 year career. Runner-up for RINO of the year is none other than two time RINO winner, Harry Coates of Seminole. Coates announced this past week that he is running to be the next President Pro Tem after Glen Coffee is term limited out of office. Others said to be looking at that position are Bingman and Crain. All I can say about that group of 3 is God help us if the Republican Senators don’t elect someone like Reynolds or Aldridge.

With the departure of Brogdon, they will be the only 2 conservatives with enough experience to serve as the leadership in the Senate.

SENATE DEMOCRATS

1. Charlie Laster (Shawnee) 33 29

2. Constance Johnson (OKC) 33 14

3. Tom Ivester (Elk City) 30 37

4. Susan Paddack (Ada) 30 36

5. Richard Lerblanche (Hartshonre) 30 20

6. Jim Wilson (Tahlequah) 30 16

7. Kenneth Corn (Poteau) 23 22

7. Charles Wyrick (Fairland) 23 22

9. Jerry Ellis (Valiant) 20 28

10. Randy Bass (Lawton) 20 26

11. Debbie Leftwich (OKC) 20 23

12. Roger Ballenger (Okmulgee) 20 20

13. Judy McIntyre (Tulsa) 20 17

14. Earl Garrison (Muskogee) 13 29

15. Jay Paul Gumm (Durant) 13 26

16. Mary Easley (Tulsa) 13 25

17. Andrew Rice (OKC) 13 19

18. Tom Adelson (Tulsa) 10 25

19. Sean Burrage (Claremore) 10 23

19. John Sparks (Norman) 10 23

21. Joe Sweeden (Pawhuska) 6 19

22. Johnnie Crutchfield (Ardmore) 0 15

Next week I will do the House members.

+ WHY DID THE TURNPIKE AUTHORITY RAISE RATES?

It was announced a few weeks ago that the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority would raise rates an average of 16% on the 10 Turnpikes in Oklahoma.

They claimed that with the downturn in the economy there were not as many vehicles traveling our toll roads, especially trucks which pay higher fees and are supposedly where most of profitable revenues are generated. In addition, they said they hadn’t raised rates for 8 years or so, therefore it must be time to do so now!

Senator Randy Brogdon (R-Owasso) immediately suggested he would author legislation next year to bring the authority under legislative oversight and I couldn’t agree more with those sentiments.

I have several problems with the decision to raise those rates. An inside source has told me, the turnpike authority was still operating in the black without raising rates, even with the downturn. In addition, as of 2005 (the latest year I have their budget book) they were turning over an ever increasing amount to The Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) each and every year. I believe the amount in

2005 was around 35 million dollars. That means the fees were high enough to cover all bonded indebtedness, maintenance, operations expenses and still have enough left over to give to ODOT. That actually means the fees were too high as ODOT doesn’t deserve a penny from the OTA.

When rates get too high, especially on trucks, they have in other states and to some degree here decided to take regular surface highways and stay off the expensive turnpikes. I have a friend who had an owner operator rig who used to take loads from the East Coast to one of the warehouses in the Ardmore area. Often times a truck is not allowed to arrive at a warehouse before an allotted time. If he was running ahead of schedule, he would not take the Will Rogers and Turner turnpikes because of the excessive cost. That will be even worse now that the rates have been raised. Truck traffic on 2 lane highways make them more dangerous and those highways usually haven’t been built to as high of standards as our turnpikes or interstate highways. Thus more damage to our 2 lane highways.

Another question I have is about the bonded indebtedness for the Turnpike system. If the bonds are staggered, surly some are paying off in a timely manner which will free up more of the revenues since those debts will no longer require payments.

Perhaps, the real concern for the citizens of Oklahoma may be a hidden agenda for the motive for increasing of the fees. In an August 11th article in the Edmond Sun there was discussion about privatizing Oklahoma worker compensation system know as “CompSource” along talk about privatizing our lottery systems and turnpikes. The following statement came from House Speaker Chris Benge: “Privatization of either the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority or the Oklahoma Lottery Commission would inevitably require a dramatic increase in both tolls and lottery sales in to MAXIMIZE THEIR VALUE AND ATTRACTIVENESS TO WALL STREET BANKERS,” Benge said.

Is there a possibility the real purpose for the increase is to make the OTA more attractive to someone in the private sector for a long term lease like several states have already done? Will that allow the state to get more up front money for such a lease? Also by raising the turnpike fees now, will that moderate the amount of fee increases a private vendor would impose upon drivers once they got control of our system?

The national average cost to travel on turnpikes is 9.4 cents per mile, but in Oklahoma it was only 4.7 cents per mile before the increase. Bottom line, if our lawmakers ever try to privatize our turnpike system, the consumers in Oklahoma will have to pay much higher fees. In addition, I believe should the turnpike system come under effective oversight and efficient management, the rates could actually go down as the bonded indebtedness is retired. Asking candidates for Governor, Lt. Governor, Treasurer and Attorney General where they stand on the issue of privatization of our turnpike system is something we should all do.

+ OKLAHOMA’S WEALTHIEST PERSON SPEAKS IN OKC

This past Tuesday, Tulsa’s George Kaiser, Chairman and majority shareholder of BOK Financial Corp. and head of Kaiser-Francis Oil made a rare public speaking appearance as he was the speaker at the downtown Rotary Club in OKC.

According to the Oklahoman he indicated he had two employees in his foundation seeking to get every dollar and more for Oklahoma’s fair share of the stimulus funds. He indicated his foundation along with personal trips to Washington had helped get more than $40 million extra dollars for Oklahoma. Kaiser is a very generous man, it was reported that last year only Warren Buffett and Bill Gates exceeded his charitable contributions.

The major theme of his giving is to help underprivileged children which certainly seems laudable. However I believe Kaiser to be very liberal and thus question the effectiveness of his giving, even though it is certainly his right to do. Early childhood development or education seems to be one of the major beneficiaries of his largess.

If I am not mistaken he has been the driving force behind a 3 year old pre-school pilot program in the Tulsa area.

In the paper he was quoted as saying: “We have a greater number of kids in early childhood education than any other state proportionally,” he said. “Its kind of nice to be known for something nationally that doesn’t emanate from (state Rep.) Sally Kern.”

Now for a few of my opinions. First off, I don’t know Mr. Kaiser, and probably never will. However, I do know State Representative Sally Kern and I have a lot more respect for her understanding of what is needed to benefit children in the education arena than that of Mr.

Kaiser. I wonder if Mr. Kaiser would be willing to dump tons of his own money as well as petition for taxpayer dollars into early education if he were to research the vast body of studies, many of which show that early childhood education helps children in the short run, but appears not to have any long term benefits?

I suspect Mr. Kaiser is either a secular or religious humanist and if so probably wouldn’t watch the DVD (FOUR CENTURIES OF AMERICAN EDUCATION by David Barton) which we showed at an OCPAC meeting a couple of weeks ago. Were he to watch it, and should the scales that I believe to cover his eyes fall off so that he could understand its message, he might totally re-arrange his efforts to help children and their families.

It may be a little foolish of me to say so, but I believe Sally Kern, a veteran teacher, may know more about the root problems in our education system than any other lawmaker in the state legislature, bare none. I also believe, if given a chance and the authority, she could probably do a better job at charting a course to improve education for children than any other lawmaker in the legislature. If I am correct in my assessment, I would suggest that Mr. Kaiser would be better off desiring to have 148 more lawmakers similar to Sally Kern, rather than to be wasting his time making snide remarks about her.

One final thought, again if I am correct in my opinion that he is a liberal, it is so typical when liberals efforts or propose policy that have unintended consequences. He appears to be so proud of the extra tens of millions of stimulus dollars his efforts have been able to bring to Oklahoma. However, I believe that money will soon be wasted on some liberal programs and then the kids he has a passion to help will be strapped with the soon coming heavy tax burden to pay back the heavy debt load Mr. Kaiser helped tie them to. We could call it debt slavery. Perhaps the saddest part is that the kids of today and tomorrow have no say in all this debt they are being put under. That is another form of taxation without representation.

+ MARK SHANNON ON TARGET BUT RADICAL?

Mark Shannon does the local afternoon drive talk radio show on KTOK’s 1000 AM from 4 until 7:00 p.m.. As with anyone on radio, there will always be things said that people will have some amount of disagreement. However, this past Monday and Wednesday, the only 2 days I had the time to listen, he produced some of the finest talk radio I have ever heard. On Monday his expose of the Industrial Areas Foundation and their efforts to co-opt some of the area churches for liberal political efforts, especially the Catholic churches was just excellent. It was so valuable and Mark did a stellar job reporting information from his friends that went to spy out the strategy discussed at a meeting influenced by this group.

On Wednesday, he really went after the Southern Poverty Law Center, exposing it as the fraudulent watchdog for which they lay claim.

Several years ago I went to hear the SPLC founder, Morris Dees, when he was speaking to a large crowd at OCU. At the time, I thought if an

F5 tornado dropped down and took out the place and everyone in it, almost every liberal leader in OKC along with a handful of conservatives like myself would be gone from OKC.

I am not going to say they have never exposed some bad folks. But from time to time the SPLC has some success in interfacing with law enforcement to push them toward declaring conservative groups as possible terrorists. People who are concerned about the second amendment, abortion, morality, honest money and other constitutional matters are usually nothing more than patriots concerned with the socialist direction in which America is headed.

This past Wednesday, the SPCL announced that the militia movement was on the rise again and that they were using face book and the internet for recruitment. Mark stood up for the militias and suggested a measured push back against the federal government’s unconstitutional mandates that are making us all slaves.

It was great radio and Mark always peppers it with humor even thought he is dead serious about much of what he is saying. Besides his normal humor, on Wednesday it was quite humorous as he sounded more radical than R.J. Harris or any of the “Paulies” he regularly likes to thump.

All I can say is keep it up Mark, it was truly great talk radio especially your more radical parts.

+ THE EXCSSES OF THE OBAMAS

During the election cycle last year, then candidate Obama indicated Americans weren’t going to be able eat as much or drive the big cars like we have been able to do in the past. It appears he meant that those changes in lifestyle were for all Americans except himself, his family and of course close friends or his favorite entertainers.

When Bill Clinton was in the White House, his obvious excesses were women. I really couldn’t identify an excess for George W. Bush, maybe someone can help me out with that, but the excess of the Obamas is becoming crystal clear for anyone with the intellectual honesty to admit it.

Since the Obama’s have been in office there have been an endless number of vacations, and expensive trips only to be exceeded by an endless train of pop culture entertainers or movie stars performing in the White House, like hordes of court jesters playing for royalty. I understand that the Obamas must have security when they travel and therefore it is very expensive. However, I must ask, do they not even have a twinge of guilt at spending so many taxpayer dollars for their pleasures when our nation is bankrupt and many people are suffering greatly because of the recession? Probably not, because people with an arrogant attitude of royalty never do.

I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday

Charlie Meadows

Charliemeadows7@gmail.com

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