OKGOP Chair, Pam Pollard had scheduled EPA Director Scott Pruitt to be the keynote speaker at the State Republican Gala in Moore on May 5, according to an invitation sent out by the party. The event is meant to be a fundraiser for the OKGOP.
 
   Pruitt said the event was approved by the EPA’s ethics counsel. But Pruitt said it was instead, an error on the part of the OKGOP and Chairman Pam Pollard, that violated the law.

“What happened was the folks that invited me sent out an invitation post that didn’t comply with federal law and federal ethics law. So we're not going to be able to attend,” Pruitt told FoxNews Radio host Brian Kilmeade Thursday morning.

​​  Environmental Protection Agency Administrator and Former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt will not be appearing at a Republican gala next week, he said Thursday morning on conservative radio. His decision to withdraw comes amid an accusation his appearance would violate federal law.

  Privatizing state functions of government does not lead to less spending. Often just the opposite! It leads to state funds being diverted to legislative campaign donations, as those contractors then buy their biggest customer, by donating to political campaigns.

  Politicians try to sell us on the idea of privatizing as being more accountable to the residents.  But too often the contractor is only focused on being accountable to a committee member, in the legislature.

  That's not to say that privatizing is bad. It can be good. But the regulations of an industry are often purchased by a contractor, in such a way as to drive out his competitor.
  This is also true in your county and municipal govt. It is especially true of your school district.  I've been especially involved in reforming a particular budget process for one state agency.

  I've watched as my message has been drowned out by an army of contractors who are only interested in the status quo. They completely resist reforms because they worry that if the agency doesn't continue channeling 75% of the state department's budget through private corporate contractors, they could lose their gravy train.

  Despite the efforts of the governor's Criminal Justice Task Force, Our Prison system is still exploding. Our convicted Oklahoma population is still growing at an alarming rate. We were at a record rate of 61,000 last November, but recently we exceeded 62k.
​
  A major  essay is published in today's Oklahoman. The journalist clearly makes the case to blame the legislature in general; and singles out Senate Judicial Committee Chairman, Anthony Sykes.

  Sykes has been angling to become our next Attorney General. That scheme seems thwarted by the appointment of Jeff Hunter to replace Scott Pruitt, who left to join the Trump Administration.

  Sykes has been clearly kowtowing to the law enforcement and prosecution lobby. He sees their endorsement as essential. But he also seems personally driven to punish, punish, punish.

​  Sykes has stood for some great conservative policies, but it would be foolish to characterize his current crusade as representing conservatism, as Oklahoman's define it.

OKLAHOMA CITY - John High visits the capitol often.

He advocates for the rights of those with disabilities. But. now, he's fighting for his own.

“I am being discriminated against, since I'm in a wheelchair, an electric wheelchair, I'm being discriminated to be able to go there,” High said.

KFOR reports:
He was going to the House Gallery to watch lawmakers, but staff quickly turned him away at the door.

  The floor sergeants told High, because of his motorized chair, he can't watch session from the gallery seats.

  The capitol has a special lift installed, but it was not designed for the newer massive electric machines which High prefers.

   With the 'shoe on the other foot', the House Freedom Caucus members are urging their moderate counterparts in the 'Tuesday Morning Caucus' to get on board and keep the promise of the Republican Party, to finally repeal the onerous ObamaCare legislation.

  Last month we heard from loud moderates in Oklahoma who trashed the Freedom Caucus for not supporting a less comprehensive reform of ObamaCare.

 We wonder if there will be a similar treatment of the Tuesday Morning Moderates?

  It's Thursday night and not one of the 7 member Oklahoma Delegation has given any indication. Every one of them campaigned on a promise of full repeal.

  We're watching and keeping score. we hope all 7 of the delegation will make their fellow Oklahomans proud by standing in support of this effort.
  
Some Sooner apologists for the least conservative delegates wrote some brutal criticisms of the Freedom Caucus for blocking a partial reform package. We'll see if those same critics are as harsh on the Tuesday Morning Moderates?

  Pryor Public Schools Are awash in education money. The state has shut off the tap to them and 70 other school districts who are thriving.  The economy of Pryor is booming, along with the Mid America Industrial Park, situated just to the south of the city.
  In the early days of of the Oklahoma territory, townships and enclaves formed a collective for the cause of educating children. It was called a "school district". It was designed to be isolated from politics and other governing matters.
  But eventually the entities decided to have county governments oversee the collecting of property taxes for education, so that school board meetings could be free of the task of collecting education taxes.

  When Alfalfa Bill Murray presided over the territorial Constitutional Convention, the consensus led to a guarantee that the state would make sure every corner of the state had at least some school district covered. That stipulation led to a presumption that the state had to make sure each district was adequately funded. Hence the backup funding that we now have.

by David Van

 Kyle is facing a probe of campaign finances. He had a tough last couple of years outside of the senatorial scope.
  My heart aches for his situation. He exemplified character in ways I am not at liberty to discuss.

​developing....

The First District Committee of the OKGOP met last week for a standard organizational meeting. Several new members were elected to the committee by their respective county GOP organizations. Two veteran faces were among them.

•   Grace Farmer is the Chairman of the Washington County GOP. She has served in that post for several terms. She was elected to the post of First District Committee Chairman nearly 10 years ago.
•   Jerry Buchanan is a former Tulsa County GOP Chairman  He more recently was placed on the First District Committee by the 2009 Tulsa County Convention. 

   In 2011, Buchanan was replaced by Don Wyatt. That didn't stop Buchanan from seeking a leadership post on the committee. The OKGOP Rules do not demand that the 20-member committee chooses a Chairman and Vice Chairman from among their own membership. Buchanan was elected Vice Chairman in 2011 and remained in that post until his resignation, last week. Buchanan is also a current member of the State Election Board; an appointment made by the governor's office.

  According to the National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO), the United States NATIONAL Census Bureau found that approximately: 

• 45.6% of the country's school system revenue came from state sources,
• 45.3% came from local sources.
• 9.1% of school system revenue came from federal sources.[1][2]

  As you can see, most states divide the funding responsibilities rather evenly between the county and the state.
  But Oklahoma School Districts have expected far more of the state than their own local funding sources.

Oklahoma school funding breaks down this way:

• 49.2% of the average Oklahoma  revenue comes from state sources.
• 38.6% ​comes from local sources
• 12.2% comes from federal sources

8:00  I met up with the campaign bus at the parking lot of a south Tulsa Walmart. They had a large and comfy chartered coach. About two dozen invited guests were aboard. Some were Gary Richardson's law associates, past clients, family friends, civic leaders, or just big fans of the message Richardson's campaign is advancing.  Every passenger was given a Richardson campaign tee shirt.

 8:30 We were on the road.  I sat by a former Richardson client. He's a professor of history at Oral Roberts University. We were en route to the Oklahoma History Center, on the campus of the Oklahoma State Capitol.
​10:15 The Monday morning weather was beautiful and when we arrived at the venue there was a crowd in the large hall. the team had set up a perfect backdrop.. the Oklahoma Capitol building. It was in disrepair and scaffolding and tarps cloaked most of the exterior. How fitting for this populist message of Richardson's

A prominent Oklahoma attorney told me, recently;

  Perhaps the least reported narrative of the 50 year drug war is the role that liquor and other pharmaceutical distributors have had on the effort to keep their indigenous competition suppressed through the criminal code.
  The idea that the world's highest incarceration rate is fueled by an effort to help liquor maintain it's market share, is too devastating for many Americans to find peace with. 
  It was easy to sell the notion of criminalizing 'the damn hippy drugs' in a decade when the generation gap was a massive culture war. Parents and older generations wanted to rid society of the long haired young men with unkept beards, tie-dyed apparel, and generally 'make them kids get jobs and speak normal again'... Groovy!
   But we've wholly lost our collective appreciation for natural remedies, holistic solutions, and ability to address a problem without a patented product from the drug store; or a proper tax-stamped purchase from the bottle shop. 

Bob Linn made a bold thesis, rebuking the spineless politicians and preachers for hanging a fine public servant out for media ridicule.

  Dr. Everett Piper, of Oklahoma Wesleyan University; reposted an excellent thesis from Bob Linn; regarding the Oklahoma House Page program, and the effort made by it's director, to protect the children entrusted to our lawmakers, by the parents.
  Two weeks ago, a large group of known cross-dressing teens were coming to the capitol for the day.  In anticipation of this, the page program's director made an effort to let the kids in her care know that they can have special access to some private restrooms, in the event that they are confronted with males being in the female restrooms.
  Sadly, the page program's director was publicly reprimanded for taking this initiative. Not one legislator came to her public defense. Not one clergy group came to her public defense.

  Tulsa's had some really inept and corrupt county election board secretaries. And the State Election Chief, Paul Ziriax, doesn't seem to be elevating the standards.
  Gwen Freeman was just appointed to the post, due to the heavy lobbying of Senator Dan Newberry. The last county chief, Patty Bryant, got her job in a similar manner, when former Senator Jim Williamson intervened. Her team corrupted some really bad situations, leading to judicial intervention and many Tulsans going without representation for over a year. She was a real estate agent before getting the sweet gig. She leaves the job and her $90k salary at the end of the month.
  Gwen Freeman did used to be a Tulsan. But she and her daughter have been living in Tennessee and Texas for the past decade or so.
She was a country singer, freelance interior designer, and radio talk show host. None of these positions appear to include overseeing hundreds of employees during county wide elections. None of this points to encouragement about public trust. 
So with all the great candidates in the Tulsa area, Why does Senator Dan Newberry go find Gwen (a long time friend) in Texas and lobby for her to get the job? Why is she allowed to make up a 2nd resume after her first resume is rejected?

​  The drips and chunks started in the overnight hours. By daylight it was flooding out the basement.

  Oklahoma's state capitol building got a taste of the sewage that they usually sent out.
​
  The entire state is under various flash flood advisories, today. But Oklahoma City's infrastructure sent a message back to the capitol building; to wit;

"We can't take any more of your crap!
​In fact, we're sending back some of the stuff you recently deposited down our pipes."

  This usually happens when massive rain water gets into sewage treatment lines, instead of stormwater drainage channels.

Ride the bus to the GOP State Convention.
Charter Bus to OKGOP Convention for Delegates
Saturday, May 6, 2017 from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM (CDT)
Reasor's, 51st & Harvard, Tulsa, OK - Register at Eventbrite
​
Convention Schedule:

• 7:00-9:00AM – Convention Registration*, Atrium
• REGISTRATION CLOSES AT EXACTLY 9 am.
• 7:00-5:00PM – Vendor tables on display, Atrium
• 7:30AM – Prayer Breakfast with Dr. Everett Piper, Fellowship Center
• 9:00AM – Convention Begins, Worship Center
• NOON – Buffet BBQ lunch* with “Oklahoma Fosters” Panel Discussion, Atrium
• 5:00PM – Convention Adjourns