Lawmakers and the State Treasurer are facing a dire condition of their own making. A couple years ago, Natural gas was booming. So lawmakers hiked the taxes on Gross production. Meanwhile, they kept giving some of that tax revenue to windmills, just for sitting there, on the prairie.
​ We were 'fat & sassy'.  We spent money based on a confidence that Natural Gas prices would stay around $2.70 per standard unit. But that lofty projection is 50% higher than our current reality of $1.80. 
  Part of this 20-year-low market price is due to wind energy competing for industrial market share. As a result, the state is actually collecting less in tax revenue. We may have $150 less to fund core state services, just from this one market price swing.
  Consumers and utilities  are getting lower prices. But the big picture is that tax hikes are a dynamic factor. As Ronald Reagan used to remind us..."the power to tax, is the power to kill". And killing the state's most reliable industry will have dire consequences  for families all over the state.
Zack Lee of the Petroleum industry legislative advocacy team, went into much the same details in his column for state news outlets, this week.

 Rep. David Smith is a freshman Republican from McAlester whose police-state bill puts soviet block nations to shame. HB3359 would allow any cop to demand the papers of any citizen, any time they get curious (or vengeful). It even allow a cop to lock up any law-abiding citizen without any charges. 
​  This would put Oklahoma under a perpetual curfew state, but only for those the police selectively decide to go after. 
  The new law would shield cops from any civil lawsuits arising from a person being fired from jobs or failing academic requirements because of a cop's suspicions that they are 'up to no good'.
  This bill would not require a police report of any crime. Just the suspicion that unless detained, a crime might have occured.
   This is the year when we're finding out the real character of the nearly 50  new legislators in the House of Representatives. Some are a grave concern. This bill clearly places Rep. David Smith on the growing list of predatory operatives seeking to rob good people of their privacy, liberty, and constitutional right of peaceful assembly.
  The bill rests in Rep. Chris Cannady's Judiciary Committee. Cannady has been a practicing defense attorney and understands individual rights to remain silent and the constitutional requirement to due process.
  Oklahoma has not seen such an Orwellian bill like this since Senator Barrington's 'Hoodie Bill' of 2015. That bill was mocked on national TV by Bill O'Reilly and many other national commentators.

  The cops will clearly harm communities by disrupting employment, family cohesion, and health needs by this kind of legislation. We completely expect Rep. Smith to tell the people of Oklahoma just who is requesting this bill, or if he just came up with it all by himself?

  The State House & Senate will meet at noon, today, for a joint session in the larger House Chamber. The keynote speaker will be the Governor of Oklahoma.  several legislative agenda items will be unveiled, but the biggest news will be his healthcare rollout. The federal block grant that he claims to have secured for Oklahoma is said to resemble the program that the state of Indiana currently provides it's residents. Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP) is currently being sued in Federal court because of a new work requirement it imposes on enrollees.
  The plan has a token enrollment premium and no pre-existing conditions or annual deductible. But a new requirement to work 20 hours per week (at gainful employment) has some saying that the federal rules were violated, and jeopardizes the federal grant.
  Utah has a plan, using a similar block grant funding, but the end product of the legislature resulted in the federal govt. rejecting the format and refusing to fund it... leaving Utah's lower income residents without a way to get medical emergencies paid for.
   There are three entities who have to come together for this strategy to be viable. The Governor, the legislature, and the Federal Health & Human Services leadership.

  Liza Greve of the Oklahomans for Health & Parental Rights, just released her best SuperBowl advertisement  in the effort to gather families together for defending parental authority to direct health decisions.
  The ad draws a connection to the past struggles and victories, and connects them to the upcoming deep-state effort to harass and slow-walk parents who wish to retain authority in making important health decision for their own children.
  Liza told SoonerPolitics that the Health Dept. used to provide an online comment portal for citizens to give feedback, either in favor or opposition to a proposed agency rule.
But she says that last time the Health Dept opened the portal, Her allies overwhelmed the comments in a way the Dept. was not expecting. She says the portal was taken down and the online service was never restored. ​

 
  The Health Dept claims that public comment starts tomorrow, but they do not instruct the public on how to communicate that comment. It is suspected that institutions supporting the new rule have been fully informed.
  She says that her massive organization will only be given one opportunity for one person to give a 2 minute statement at the final board meeting.
  Hopefully some legislators will get answers on how to be certain that all public comments get publicly posted ahead of the March 5th Board of Health Meeting.

by David Van Risseghem - Editor.
  So far, the best Democrat legislation I've seen, this session. Rep Collin Walke is calling for the implementation of the Mental Health Courts in all 77 Counties. Currently, this judicial option is only accessible for the district court judges in a small number of counties. It's part of the reason why so many nonviolent mentally ill people are still in the criminal court system and dying in our jails. This bill (HB2934) gives unstable people with a history of serious mental illness an option for probation which includes mandatory treatment via mental health professionals and available treatments. The vulnerable ill people can have some measure of regained justice, compassion, and restoration to productive life by our legislators seeing illness as what it is, and rescuing the ill person from the grasp of the acute condition.
  The courts have a duty to keep the communities safe, but this measure is only for those ill persons not charged with any violent crimes. Law enforcement & prosecutors repeatedly confirm to me that most often the seriously mentally ill are arrested on the pretext of some flimsy narrative. The truth is that the cop doesn't want to see a psychotic person left on the streets or in the homes of children. So cops try to make the jail become the mental hospital which the patient needs.
  I may be missing something in the weeds of this bill. And yes, the state does need to fund this money, because they've largely abandoned the mentally ill and left the counties to just lock them up.

 I'm very open to hearing any amendments to this bill. But it's time for the Republicans to join this Democrat from Oklahoma City who finally decided to show some leadership in the matter. 

  In a bold declaration, Rep David Hardin called federal efforts to curb constitutional rights a violation of the rights of the several states and the people.  HB2781 essentially says that the federal govt has forgotten their place and the limitations that the states have placed on the federal entity. 
  For citizens determined to retain their constitutional rights, this bill reads like a tent revival sermon.  It lays out a thesis for what limited role the federal entity is allowed, and then declares all other rights and responsibilities rest with the sovereign states, to govern their own domains within their own borders.

  What is even more compelling is the penalty that law enforcement and other government agencies will pay, for cooperating with federal overreaches of law. It further allows individuals to sue state & local entities for attorney fees associated with the defense of these rights.
  The law only pertains to otherwise law abiding conduct. Thus it becomes ineffective when the citizen is involved in committing a crime, separate from federal gun laws and regulations.

by David Van Risseghem - 
 Under Senator David Bullard's bill, not the employee donating the life-giving blood, but his boss; would get $20 per pint, from the state.  SB1113 was filed early, and will be considered in the February start of the 2020 session of the Oklahoma legislature.  This sets up an added pressure for employees to give regularly, and stipulates that the employee cannot receive any compensation for the blood. But the employers will monitor and report each employee's donation, when it was made, and to which blood distributor.
  Those employees who do not produce for the employer's benefit, will be apparent and it could be yet another endangerment to that employee's job security. This social coercion effectively punishes employees who refuse, or are unable to donate blood. Some employees may have diseases or any of several health issues that make their blood unsafe for others. Other employees may have philosophical & religious objections to sharing blood with distributors.  We already see the social pressures put on individuals who object to forced drug injections in the name of vaccinating against dozens of diseases.

​Dahm & Moore Set The high marks for the two houses of the Oklahoma Legislature. 
  In our inaugural publication of legislative commitment to preserving & advancing individual freedom in Oklahoma, This year's 57th Oklahoma Legislature celebrates a very robust year of commitment to constitutional rights.
  We look at hundreds of bills to find a good sampling of floor votes which represent a broad spectrum of freedoms and we evaluate how each lawlaker weighed & cast their votes. We also looked at how leaders of committees conducted themselves and the vast power they hold.
  We added bonus points for legislators who took the time to draft and promote bills which are essential to protecting & advancing constitutional liberty.
What is the Freedom Index? 
  The Freedom Index seeks to identify how diligent a lawmaker is, to protecting individual freedom for the people of Oklahoma. We gathered a set of various bills which indicate many forms of freedom. Free Speech, Self Defense, Free Association, Vocational Freedom Economic Freedom, Parental authority, Healthcare access and options. Travel and Privacy.