Shortly after congress was disrupted by violence, while certifying presidential elector reports, Congressman Markwayne Mullin spoke to KFAQ radio host, Pat Campbell. We carried that interview.
​Almost immediately, Mullin decided not to do anymore interviews on the topic. Until this month.
Mullin's former colleague, Trey Gowdy, asked Mullin to talk about what happened, and Mullin decided to tell Gowdy's Fox Nation audience even more than we've ever previously heard. 
The January 6th details Mullin shared include.

• Actually watching Ashley Babbitt being shot. 
• Planning to confiscate a sidearm from a capitol police officer.
• Creating a 'choke point' to impede the storming of the House chamber.
• Contesting the capitol police strategy, and prevailing, leading to members evacuating via the back stairs.
• Debriefing and consoling 50 injured capitol security personnel.

Dean Summers is a creative artist who travels a few states, going to swap meets and flea markets, to sell his wildlife art. His MosaicSkulls.com is growing a fanbase. Some of his more popular pieces are from recovered road-kill deer & elk. His commerce helps clean up the roads and make them safer, while providing customers with wall pieces for lodges & cabins. He recovers antlers which animals naturally shed annually, and he decorates them with his signature gems or other colorful accessories. Summers says he finds these items, or others just drop them off for him. But he also finds them on nature hikes and drives.
​
Govt. Piracy
Section C of the statute authorizes the State Wildlife Dept to sell the art and keep the procedes for the govt. agency.

  While the mentally ill, as a whole, are no more violent than the general population, folks suffering acute psychosis may, in their confusion, harm themselves or others.
​  Mr. Kunzweiler's young adult daughter likely suffered just such an episode. We are not able to discuss a diagnosis at this time, but the good news is that neither dad nor daughter were critically wounded, when she apparently assaulted her father and herself.
 A last report, Dad was home recovering, and daughter was receiving inpatient hospital care, but facing felony assault & battery prosecution. 
Another district attorney, Jack Thorp; is assigned to handle the criminal law matter, by directive of AG John O'Connor.

Editor's note: As an Oklahoma leader in advocacy & training professionals & families on how to better care for those with serious mental illness; I highly commend the leadership of D.A. Steve Kunzweiler on this issue. Steve & I have discussed the challenges at length, multiple times. 
As a past president of the National Alliance on Mental Illness(NAMI)-Tulsa, I can confidently recommend their free;

• Services to families facing mental illness challenges.
• NAMI also trains law enforcement, faith communities, and consults to govt. leaders. 
• NAMI provides supportive services for individuals in recovery from acute mental illness conditions.

 NAMI Tulsa can be reached through their website or by phone: 918-587-6264. They have an office at 7th & Boston, in downtown Tulsa.
 NAMI Oklahoma has several other  local affiliates, like the Edmond chapter, which the Costello family has been deeply involved with.
  The Mental Health Association of Oklahoma is also a great organization with resources for housing needs, as well as learning, support groups, & a vast array of connective links for the mentally disabled.

Tulsa Public Schools has a new board member, and she's bringing ne accountability to the community for how the school district spends about $700 million each year, and what kind of education results are happening for that money.
 E'lena Ashley sat down with SoonerPolitics and FreshBlack.coffee for a discussion of her first 4 months in office.
Elena's not the only TPS board member seeking answers and reforms. She's quickly building consensus with other veteran board members for answers to the money issues.
This summer, the governor called on the State Auditor to audit the TPS records and provide recommendations as merited. 
​Listen to the interview, here.

  Last week, in Oklahoma City, Attorney R Kyle Alderson was confronted with serious allegations in a civil suit he has been litigating for nearly a year. Candidates for District Court Judge have limits on their professional behavior, which include some involvement with political parties.
​  Yesterday we learned that Alderman withdrew his name from a race for District Court Judge. It's not yet clear if last week and this week are connected?
  Alderson has been a municipal judge for Pawnee, OK, as well as Tulsa, OK. The law firm of Titus Hillis lists Alderson as a part of their law firm while concurrently presiding as a municipal judge.
  Alderson represents a defendant in a case brought by a member of the Oklahoma Republican Party, against the party leadership, claiming violations of the OKGOP charter bylaws.
  It's not clear if the members of the OKGOP's presiding authority (the State Committee) was even notified of the lawsuit, but the 4 Central Committee members were named in the lawsuit.
  Judges (and judicial candidates) have certain rules prohibiting their actions in certain groups, because it could present appearances of bias, especially if an association expects their members to give preference to fellow members (i.e. Fraternal groups, secret societies, & groups with political agendas).

  The August runoff election is very tight in many races, and the ballot is bigger than most previous years.

  Click here to go to the very latest official state results, as well as links to every county election board and the municipal, county and school district results.

  2022 is a big year in electoral politics and the impact can direct national policy and global impact.
​
  Both of the state's seats in the US Senate are impacted by this election. Many statewide offices are also on the ballot.

Tulsa's perennial political operative, Paul Tay, has been released from the Tulsa County Jail, this week.
8 months ago, the District Attorney's office dropped some of the charges related to his August 2021 arrest. At the time, law enforcement claimed he's kidnapped, beaten, and sexually assaulted an Oklahoma City woman.
It appears that his 12 months of confinement have totally cost the man everything. 

•  His home
• His belongings
• His reputation

A research into his legal records show that Mr. Tay has once again showed more intellectual skill than most members of the Oklahoma Bar Association; in legal filings and advocating his legal rights.
Mr. Tay has some unique personality traits. Some suspect a chronic mood disorder is at the core of his outbursts and bizarre political tactics.
A few years ago, Mr. Tay reached out to Sooner Politics within a few hours of his release from jail. He'd already filed for the mayoral race in those hours.

​ Oklahoma historian, John Dwyer, has published his 2nd volume of Oklahoma history. ​SoonerPolitics now carries Mr. Dwyer's latest narratives in our Oklahoma History Blog. His media site has some great articles taken from the pages of his great literary treasury.
 This story features the mastery of the young prodigy lawmaker, in his legislative prowess.
It is perhaps the best state history textbook we've ever reviewed. Every high school student should be studying state history from this text.

UPDATED

  In January of 1921, 'Sophomore' State Representative, Geeorge Schwabe, of Nowata, became the first Republican Speaker of the Oklahoma House. He and his fellow Republicans swept into office in the biggest shift of legislative seats that Oklahoma has ever had.  A total of 40 seats moved from Democrat to Republican, including the delegation from the newly booming city called Tulsa,

In 1919, Oklahoma's State House had 79 Democrats and just 30 Republicans. A very unpopular Democrat president named Woodrow Wilson was in the White House, but rumored to be under his wife's control after a major stroke. Wilson's bid for a 3rd presidential term was terminated.
 The Kansas Flu (referred to as the 'Spanish Flu') had devastated the world. Oklahoma historian, John Dwyer, details the pandemic, here.
In Oklahoma, farmers were devastated by market changes and lowered demand after the Great War. While oil wealth was concentrated in the few, in the cities, Oklahoma was a very rural state. Democrats in Oklahoma opposed extending voting rights to women & minorities. While suffrage was granted on paper, county election boards imposed reading competency tests and other barriers. 
The old Democrat guard had no answers for the bad state of affairs, and Republicans actively demanded accountability.

 The Oklahoma legislature has a legacy of wavering between socialism & fascism. Both of which have a junkyard of failures. We have pictures to prove it.
  When US Senator Bob Kerr prevailed upon the federal budget, to fund a massive network of flood-prevention reservoirs which became our most popular lakes, the State legislature decided to go full 'Sim City' in the early 1960s.   Not only were our state parks expanded (back then camping was still a very popular byproduct of the still emerging automobile age).
 No, the state felt compelled to really get into the lodging, convention, and hospitality industry. For decades, the state has poured millions in tax dollars into a massive network of lodges and resorts which were pitched to the legislature not only as a startup which would "pay for itself.. but yea, would make money to help fund core govt. services!"
Where Oklahoma Democrats loved economic socialism, today's Republicans love economic fascism.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a ruling stating that states can prosecute crimes against Native Americans, committed on Native American reservations if the defendant is non-native. The case Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta clarifies some confusion and difficulty had by law enforcement attempting to find justice for victims, despite there being limitations on state law enforcement officials to either investigate or prosecute crimes on Native American designated land.
The decision was penned by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and was joined by Roberts, Thomas, Barrett, and Alito, with a dissent from Gorsuch, along with Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan; The Post Millennial reports.
The case is primarily about jurisdiction, and the question, as framed by Kavanaugh, is "Under current federal law, does the Federal Government have exclusive jurisdiction to prosecute those crimes? Or do the Federal Government and the State have concurrent jurisdiction to prosecute those crimes?"

Our take:
​Gorsuch revealed too much in his dissenting opinion. He went on to recount, on a very generalized and stereotypical narrative, how the American Indians were persecuted in other regions of US Territories.

The PostMillenial just published this breaking story.

  This past week, Oklahomans were summoned to the election polls for a civic tradition as old as democracy, itself. 
  But of the roughly 2 to 3 million Oklahomans who practically could vote, only about 526K actually got registered & did cast a ballot.
   Just 4 years ago, about 848K were actively voting.  We're not counting the separate 45K independent and minor party votes in these totals. Independents who voted in Democrat primaries are counted in the Democrat tallies.
  The only significant practical difference is a statewide question about cannabis medicine policy on the ballot.
  Republican primary voter participation dropped 21% from 4 years ago. This drop happened despite having both US Senate seats in play this year. There were no US Senate seats on the ballot in 2018.

  The Oklahoma voters produced some big surprises in the June 28th Republican primary.  A State Senator and two House members were rejected by their own constituents. In the Senate, Jake Merrick lost his bid for his first full term after winning a special election 15 months ago, to complete Stephanie Bice's term for SD22, when she departed to join congress as our 5th District member. Kristen Thompson will be the party nominee in the November general election.
  Two of Tulsa's delegation to the Oklahoma House of Representatives were handed defeats by challengers. In a district straddling Tulsa and Okmulgee County, Logan Phillips lost to Chris Banning by a 25% margin. Phillips was first elected in 2018, raising no campaign funds in the pursuit. He was reelected in 2020.
  Wendi Stearman lost a close race in HD11 which straddles northern Tulsa County and half of Washington County. The seat has historically been a Bartlesville claim, and a Bartlesville businessman defeated her with a significant edge in Bartlesville precincts. Stearman was a freshman legislator & rose quickly in leadership while getting some landmark bills pased into law.

  Gentner Drummond appears to have a lead of just less than 2% as of the 10pm hour. The few remaining precincts are in the OKC metro area. Unlike last election cycle, Drummond has a slightly larger cushion than the 200+ votes he lost by in 2018.
  The current AG, John O'Conner, has not run for office previously, and he initially turned down Gov. Stitt's overture when the vacancy emerged.  But in his short service in the office, he's championed several causes and cleaned up several legal messes. Several daunting challenges remain in 2023 and beyond.
​  Drummond will face only a token challenge from a 3rd party candidate, in November.

  Avery Frix & Josh Brecheen(Brah-KEEN), two men with legislative experience, eeked out the two tickets to an August runoff.
 Muskogee Police Chief, Johnny Teehee was in 3rd with just 600 votes less, or 1%.
  The race attracted 14 Republicans, about half of them with some sort of legislative experience.
  The results were wildly different from county to county, with some counties casting over half their ballots for a candidate, only to see him end up further back in the pack, in Oklahoma's 2nd largest district(in square miles).
  This sets up a classic runoff. Twenty years ago, Oklahoma lost a congressional district  after the 2000 census. As a result, Much of CD2 & CD3 were combined. Classic 'Cherokee & Creek' territory were combined with 'Chocktaw and Seminole' territory.