Progressives in the press always talk about conservative culture warriors when all conservatives are doing is staying put as progressives keep wanting to expand genders, sexualities, and God knows what else as well as normalizing all sorts of stuff and making deviant all sorts of normal stuff.

We’ve gone from lesbian and gay to lesbian, gay, and bisexual to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, and a plus — I have given up and just say “the alphabet gang.” When you add it all up currently, it actually works out to be LGBTQQIP2SAA, i.e. the alphabet gang.

But somehow we’re the culture warriors.

If I must be a culture warrior, let me ask an impolite question — why is there no data on any genders other than males and females getting COVID? Why is that exactly?

Afghanistan debacle is big government in action

The ongoing debacle in Afghanistan has become a military rout, international humiliation, and humanitarian crisis for the United States. But it’s also a lesson in the fallacy of thinking bigger government is better government.

It’s notable that many stories of successful rescues from Afghanistan are the result of private individuals and organizations acting independently of the U.S. government. That’s not surprising. Independent actors respond to changing circumstances … by changing tactics. With big government, the tendency is to stick with a flawed process regardless of outcomes and any change in course must first wade through a morass of red tape.

Big government is also plagued by hubris. Those in charge too often think they really are smarter than the average citizen and stubbornly insist their choices are best. Thus, when President Joe Biden was asked about the sight of Afghans desperately clinging to the outside of aircraft to escape and plummeting to their deaths, he dismissively responded, “That was four days ago, five days ago.”

Oklahoma Educators Need to Read, and Follow, Directions

Read all the directions. Teachers used to say this before every test. Following them was implied. Students who skipped directly to the first question often made mistakes. Sometimes extra credit was hidden in the directions. Unfortunately, Oklahoma educators seem to be having trouble with both reading and following directions.

For example, at a school board meeting on June 7, Oklahoma City Public Schools Superintendent McDaniel talked about the impacts of SB658 on the district’s continuing plan to mandate masks in schools. While Dr. McDaniel correctly pointed out that the bill requires the school board to put a mask mandate on the agenda of every board meeting until they are repealed, the law also requires that the county must be “under a current state of emergency declared by the Governor.” The governor recently affirmed his plan not to impose a new emergency order. Superintendent McDaniel fell into one of the classic blunders: he failed to read all the directions.

Educators seem to have asked an unreliable friend to describe the directions contained in HB1775. Based on the unreliable friend’s abysmal summary, they are loudly announcing their intent not to follow. Numerous statements on Twitter, some by self-identified teachers, show a profound misunderstanding of the law’s directives.

Here’s what the bill actually says: schools can’t force students to learn that they are inherently bad because they are a certain race. Schools can’t discourage students from treating people of every race equally. Every requirement of the law falls into one of those two categories. It specifically allows the teaching of historical facts, including any atrocity perpetrated by one race on another. It does forbid teachers from asserting that past atrocities by one race make current members of that race responsible for those atrocities, or predisposed to committing them again. Students of every race deserve the opportunity to forge their own path, free of racial baggage. While that may still be a dream, further burdening them at the schools they are required to attend is not the solution.

Redistricting committees announce congressional map submission deadline

OKLAHOMA CITY – The chairs of the Oklahoma Senate and Oklahoma House of Representatives redistricting committees announced Oct. 10 as the deadline for public map submissions for congressional redistricting.

The public can submit congressional redistricting maps to the Senate via email at redistricting@oksenate.gov or to the House via email at redistrictingoklahoma2020@okhouse.gov. Public map submissions are limited to one submission per person. Submissions must be from Oklahoma citizens. Each map must include a statewide plan for all five congressional districts. More information on the parameters for public map submissions can be found here. Detailed instructions on how to submit a map can be found here.

“Our series of in-person and virtual town halls were successful and helped us maintain our commitment to an open and transparent process that incorporates input from the public. Now is the time for the public to submit congressional redistricting maps, and we welcome their contributions to the process,” said Sen. Lonnie Paxton, R-Tuttle and chair of the Senate Select Committee on Redistricting.

The Senate and House redistricting committees earlier this month wrapped up a series of in-person and virtual town hall meetings on the congressional redistricting process. The Senate and House held 29 town hall meetings about both legislative and congressional redistricting around the state and online. Recordings of those meetings are available on the redistricting websites of the Senate and the House.

“We are counting on the public to take ownership of congressional redistricting just as they did for legislative redistricting,” said Rep. Ryan Martinez, R-Edmond, chairman of the House State and Federal Redistricting Committee. “Oklahoma will maintain five congressional seats that will require adjustments to account for population growth and other factors prescribed in law. Public input will once again be vital to getting these districts drawn properly for the next decade.”

"I consider Afghanistan a boneheaded mistake, unforced error," said David Walters, a former Oklahoma governor who is now a member of the Democratic National Committee's executive committee. "There is no real excuse. This was morally and politically a disaster and just bad policy."

OKLAHOMA CITY – Care Providers Oklahoma, the association representing Oklahoma’s skilled nursing professionals and residents, today released the following statement in response to President Joe Biden’s announcement that all skilled nursing staff must be vaccinated:

“Oklahoma’s skilled nursing facilities, through a combination of successful vaccination campaigns and rigorous safety protocols, are now clearly the safest places in Oklahoma for vulnerable seniors when it comes to COVID protection. In the week of August 8-14, for example, the state’s Epidemiology Report indicates that skilled nursing and long-term care (LTC) settings had just 44 new COVID cases among residents across over 600 facilities, representing just .28% of the state’s total portion of new cases. That number has fallen precipitously since the last week of December 2020, when skilled nursing/LTC reported 443 new cases among residents, representing 2.4% of the state’s total caseload. As the Delta variant continues to explode across the state and country, Oklahoma nursing homes have largely kept COVID under control and offered the most successful protection to their residents available anywhere.

“For that reason, it is extremely frustrating and disappointing to see the Biden Administration single out nursing homes as the only health care provider facing a federal vaccination mandate. More importantly, this mandate will transform the current workforce shortage in the skilled nursing profession (where administrators report upwards of 20% of jobs are going unfilled) into an untenable crisis that could result in facility closures and the complete abandonment of vulnerable seniors.

“INVESTING IN OKLAHOMA’S FUTURE IS MY PRIORITY”

“I am excited to launch my campaign and it comes with my commitment that I will be a strong fiscal conservative watchdog for the state.  I have built a successful small business in Tulsa by leading with trust and sound financial advice.  I will take that same leadership to serve the citizens of Oklahoma.”

TULSA, OKLAHOMA – Mike Mazzei announced today that he is officially launching his campaign for State Treasurer. 

“We need leaders in our state that have the private sector experience that can navigate the chaos surrounding our country.  We need to prioritize our investments and we need to ensure that our state is fiscally sound.   

Mazzei continued, “As a conservative, I have always made decisions on what is best for the people I serve, whether it is in business or in public service.  I have built my business out of trust and confidence, and it is the same approach that I will take as the State Treasurer.  There are many challenges facing our state and we must have a common sense approach to solving those.”  

“Governor Stitt placed his trust in me, and I am now asking the voters to do the same for this next chapter for our state.  Protecting and investing in our state’s future has never been a higher priority and we can do it together.”

OKLAHOMA CITY - Attorney General John O’Connor today urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to fight back against illegal robocalls and caller ID spoofing by moving up the deadline for telephone companies to implement caller ID technology.

The current deadline for compliance for some companies isn’t until June 2023.

Attorney general O’Connor said the deadline is too far away.

“Oklahomans are being victimized by these unlawful robocalls and spoofing,” Attorney General O’Connor said. “That is why the deadline for companies to comply needs to be sooner than later. Oklahomans, mainly our elderly, who are our most vulnerable are being preyed upon and in some instances having their identities stolen or having money stolen from them. That is why I joined the large, bipartisan group of my colleagues to encourage the FCC to move up the deadline.”

There were 51 attorneys general who signed the letter to the FCC.

A little bit of sanity amid the insanity that is the United State Congress. The fact that this vote was so narrow shows just how devoted the modern Democratic Party is to their religious sacrament of abortion.

Lankford Protects Lives of the Unborn, Successfully Prevents Taxpayers from Being Forced to Fund Abortions

WASHINGTON, DC (August 10th) – Senator James Lankford (R-OK) this evening offered an amendment, which he introduced earlier today, to the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion Fiscal Year 2022 budget to prohibit the use of taxpayer dollars for funding of abortions and abortion-related discrimination. The amendment ensures that the budget will comply with the long-standing Hyde Amendment, which bars the use of federal dollars to pay for abortion, and the Weldon amendment, which protects health care providers who refuse to participate in abortion from discrimination. The amendment was adopted by a vote of 50-49.

A 2020 Marist poll found that 60 percent of Americans, including 37 percent of people who identify as pro-choice, oppose the use of taxpayer dollars to pay for abortion. Earlier this year, Lankford introduced a similar amendment to the Fiscal Year 2021 Budget Reconciliation bill to ensure health-related funding was compliant with the Hyde amendment. The amendment failed and Lankford voted against the reconciliation bill in part because it would fund abortion for the first time since 1976.