One simply has to scroll the comments of the local blog post to see the speculation, anger, gossip, doxxing and fear gripping the local community. As of the time of this printing, the first visible comment, made by someone clearly under the impression that a local child-abducting sex ring is operating in the city, reads: “People watch your kids!!!!!”

As Oklahoma State Capital News reported this morning, a recent operation promoted by Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s office as a human-trafficking bust nicely illustrates the harm wrought by the politicization of the attorney general’s office and the extraordinary expansion of its size, scope and reach.

“Republican” legislators have funded Drummond’s operation to levels that are difficult to come to terms with, increasing appropriations from $11 million for fiscal 2021, to $47 million for fiscal 2027. They have essentially turned that office into yet another law enforcement agency, keeping in mind that state government that is already stricken with siloed law enforcement functions, split among so many agencies that counting them requires the fingers on two hands, and administrative overhead that costs state taxpayers millions each year.

The new, vast law enforcement operation in the Attorney General’s Office overseen by someone who is political and thus unchecked as he takes on both hats: both enforcer and prosecutor.

This eviscerates the vital principle that the designers of our justice system have traditionally maintained: a wall of separation between on-the-ground law enforcement and the elected prosecutors who serve as a check and balance on that law enforcement by making the decision to prosecute, or not prosecute.

This conflict of interest was vividly and unabashedly illustrated by Drummond’s 2026 campaign for governor commercials, where his Hollywood-level video production team produced footage of Drummond personally participating, bulletproof vest and all, in raids.

Those commercials sent a chill up the spine of the observant and thoughtful student of the American legal system and the importance of that check and balance. Justice is not served when the politicized prosecutor himself, film production crew in tow, knocks on the door to serve the warrant, especially when he subsequently uses that footage in his campaign ads.

And, as a notable aside, the reliance on the legislators to give him this massive bureaucracy, this great power, provides the most likely explanation for why Drummond always seemed to be in the right position, at the right time, to give a good deal to the legislators who had gotten themselves into trouble: from the powerful house speaker’s close ally, Terry O’Donnell, to the “unofficial” letter for Ryan Martinez, the House Budget Vice-Chairman, to the Ty Burns affair, somehow Drummond was involved in matters concerning those who, in the view of this writer, had greatly betrayed the public trust.

Describing this conflict of interest has been on the Oklahoma State Capital whiteboard for a very long time, along with so many other educational pieces attempting to educate the wider public on the many areas of policy where, due to the ever-expanding size of an increasingly opaque, inefficient state government, abuses are spiraling out of control.

But there are so many of these stories, and more concepts are being added to the whiteboard faster than I can get those educational pieces published, that it has stayed there: on the whiteboard.

That’s where this piece was set to stay for a while, because there are so many pressing articles to write. But, that changed last week, when the story first leaked of Drummond’s office overseeing a sex-trafficking bust in the state’s first and best capital city, home base to the Oklahoma State Capital, a community I know well, having represented it for four years as a city councilman and twelve more as a state representative, and today, as the editor of the Oklahoma State Capital, with a specific focus on increasingly providing coverage of local events that simply aren’t being reported on in the local media.

The Facebook post from a local news blog featured a red siren, accompanied by the text, “Five arrested, three victims recovered in Guthrie human trafficking operation,” followed by the mugshots of the five arrestees.

To those who didn’t click through, that’s all they saw.

Now, let’s do a thought experiment. Stop here.

What are you thinking?

You are no doubt envisioning a police raid on a facility guarded by those five hoodlums, with helpless victims trapped inside, to be liberated by Gentner Drummond’s courageous agents.

To those who didn’t click through, that’s all they saw: the mugshots, the one-sentence description that would lead the observer to believe that these five people had conducted a human-trafficking ring in our town.

Those who did click through to that blog encountered a more indicting headline: “Five arrested in human trafficking operation; three victims recovered.”

Drummond’s subsequent release, released through his three-person communications team funded by the taxpayers, upped the ante, seeming to describe 15 victims of the human-trafficking ring: “Attorney General Gentner Drummand’s Human Trafficking Response Unit, in conjunction with several law enforcement partners and Skull Games Solutions, arrested five individuals and recovered 15 potential victims during a trafficking bust last week at a Guthrie hotel.”

That release triggered the Oklahoma City television news stations, which were quick to run with their impression of the story’s specifics. For instance, from News 9: “Five people were arrested and 15 potential victims were recovered during a human trafficking operation last week at a Guthrie hotel, according to the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office.”

Now, this was really catching my attention.

Was there really a human-trafficking ring operating from our town?

How had the local police department missed this large of an operation, conducted inside the city limits no less?

Were the local hotel proprietors in on it?

They surely would have known had 15 victims been kept on the premises, and thus would most assuredly be culpable.

But, as Scott Adams said, when it’s too on point, watch out; it’s probably not true.

And something just wasn’t right.

It was time to ask some questions.

And those questions would still be being asked were it not for the last vestige of remaining check and balance still in the system: the local district attorney.

When the probable-cause affidavits landed on his desk, newly elected District 9 Attorney Jeremiah Gregory had a decision to make.

It was clear that the Oklahoma City media had run with a misleading narrative.

Would he tell the public?

Or would he play the political game, do his part, set up the five arrestees for a quick and easy case and not expose the wider details?

Gregory, in a Facebook post released Tuesday evening, did the former. In an incredible action of courage you won’t often see in government, he explained what was in those affidavits, took to Facebook and brought transparency to the case, and in so doing exposed the truth to the wider public.

Gregory explained that a private contractor, while holding a law enforcement training class with local law enforcement, had purchased fake online ads for prostitution services, inviting inquiring prostitution solicitors to come to a hotel room to pay for sex.

The five arrested individuals had purportedly responded to those ads.

There was no trafficking, as Gregory would explain:

“The Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office issued a press release yesterday afternoon stating that this operation ‘recovered 15 potential victims during a trafficking bust last week at a Guthrie hotel.’ This is wholly misleading. As I have confirmed with the Guthrie Police Department, the ‘15 potential victims’ the press release states were ‘recovered’ were actually profiles on the internet. These names were given to the class to teach enrollees how to use open-source information to identify and locate persons who were possible victims of human trafficking. To state that ‘15 potential victims’ were ‘recovered’ is a gross misrepresentation of the facts. Law enforcement never made in-person contact with any of these fifteen individuals. The public has been led to believe these ‘15 potential victims’ were found at this hotel. This is patently false. The public deserves the whole truth and nothing but the truth from their elected officials, and I cannot sit idly by and permit this aggrandizing misinformation to continue circulating in our community.”

Now that the truth is known, given how this was handled and reported, one has to ask: “How much of the news reported in the mainstream media is completely false?”

For Drummond, this was just another hit-and-run press release. He’s a politician, and he’s behaving as politicians behave. He will move on and may not ever bother to issue a clarification.

But for the community, there’s a lasting effect.

One simply has to scroll the comments of the local blog post to see the speculation, anger, gossip, doxxing and fear gripping the local community. As of the time of this printing, the first visible comment, made by someone clearly under the impression that a local child-abducting sex ring is operating in the city, reads: “People watch your kids!!!!!”

That local blog, which made that report, still hasn’t updated it. Nor has it followed up with Gregory’s explanation.

Of the Oklahoma City media, it appears that only Fox 25 has run with the updated story, adding the correction to the print version of its previous reporting.

So, as of now, most of the people of the town are still in the dark as to what really happened.

They may never learn the truth.

But you, the reader of this publication, know the truth.

And you now know the great danger of allowing politicians to break down the long-held and well-proven checks and balances of our legal system.

And you know the great harm done by those “Republican” politicians, nearly all of whom campaign on a platform of smaller state government, but to subsequently grow a government of unimaginable size and scope that is destroying the tried and proven norms that have made our nation great.

More to follow.

Stay tuned.

How a Courageous District Attorney Just Exposed the Danger Of Letting Politicians Play Police
Click the title to read the full report at Jason Murphey Blog




September 16, 2026 at 06:19PM - J Murphey

When Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, House Speaker Kyle Hilbert and Senate President Pro Tempore Lonnie Paxton came together, with only hours of public notice, to push through yet another government-backed corporate incentive program—this time, the aluminum smelter giveaway to an entity from the United Arab Emirates—they appeared to have everything lined up.

What they didn’t account for were 200 residents of a small Oklahoma town.

Those residents were willing to put their names on the line, stand in the way, and force a public reckoning over a deal that, absent their intervention, was being put on the fast track.

If you are a regular reader of these editorials, you are by now familiar with the specifics of the $250 million taxpayer-funded giveaway, filed by House appropriations officials Trey Caldwell and John Kane and Senate appropriations officials Chuck Hall and John Haste on a late-May weekend, as the 2025 legislative session came to a close.

The taxpayers who would foot the bill and the Inola residents who would be directly affected by the project were attending graduations, spending a Saturday with family, running weekend errands, mowing the yard, attending kids’ activities, or watching out for that weekend’s severe weather. They were not refreshing the Legislature’s bill-tracking system.

By that Tuesday at 3:11 in the afternoon, Hilbert’s Rules Committee chairman, Mike Osburn, had brought the bill to the floor.

Osburn is the House apparatchik who has since become notorious for conducting the Soviet-style secret show trial of Danny Williams—a proceeding in which Williams has already been convicted, even though the charges against him have yet to be made public.

By 3:26 that afternoon, Osburn was done with his dirty work on the giveaway, making a mockery of the House of Representatives’ role as the people’s House, where the people should have at least the scantest chance to have their voices heard.

Now, as the 2027 session approaches, there’s every reason to believe that state Rep. Tom Gann will once again propose the Gann Plan, the effort to reform House rules to prevent these never-ending abuses. And there’s just as much reason to believe that the powerful House speaker isn’t inclined to give up his power to quickly approve corporate welfare giveaways before the people can have their voices heard.

But that aside, there’s still a check on that power that’s threatening to bring down the entire house of cards.

Notwithstanding the machinations of a system designed to bypass public transparency and foist upon the people the policies they do not support, there’s still the power of local government.

It’s a power the people of Inola have availed themselves of, with just over 200 signing a petition to call a local election to prevent smelting operations within their city limits. The city’s jurisdiction is a crucial part of the government giveaway through a local tax increment financing program—one of the favorite tools of those who perpetuate this form of corporate welfare.

And now, under the threat of that action, their city council has started to represent their concerns, placing a moratorium on smelting activity.

It’s a sensational example of how grassroots action can still make a difference, even when so much of government has been taken out of the people’s control.

But the ability of city councils to hear the voices of those they represent would take yet another hit if one of the scariest proposals you have never heard of were to advance.

That bill was filed in the last legislative session as Senate Bill 647 by Avery Frix in the Senate and Preston Stinson in the House, and it’s likely to return in the 2027 session.

The special interest motivating it appears to be the homebuilding industry, represented by lobbyist Ryan Martinez, a former legislator and high-ranking lieutenant of then-House Speaker Charles McCall.

The bill would shift discretion over local land-use decisions away from locally elected officials by restricting what they could consider when voting on zoning applications. Although residents would still be allowed to speak at public hearings, the Frix-Stinson bill provides that a city cannot base its decision solely on the presence, number or intensity of public opposition unless that opposition is accompanied by what the bill terms “objective and relevant facts.”

In practical terms, a packed council chamber full of residents opposed to a development would not, by itself, be enough for their elected officials to reject it. The proposal would therefore place a state-imposed limit on how much weight local officials could give to the expressed wishes of the people they represent when making local zoning decisions.

If this bill were in place, how far-reaching would its effects be?

Would it allow Inola city councilors to simply point to state law and say, “There’s nothing we can do. Call your legislators,” knowing full well that the Legislature is rigged against them?

What about those Broken Arrow residents who weren’t open to the idea of a mosque potentially setting up shop next door?

And, of course, there are the Edmond residents—those who appear to be the prime targets of the bill—who are reluctant to see entire new apartment complexes pouring massive amounts of new traffic onto an already overloaded street grid.

The developers, under the banner of a woke housing justice argument, make bank when they build massive new developments. This bill would keep them in that business, even though they will be long gone while the citizens—those who will still live and work in the affected area—will be left to experience the consequences.

It’s an ever-growing problem. More and more, power is being taken away from the local level and placed where it is inaccessible to the people.

And I have seen it occur through the years. Too many local officials love to embrace what I have termed “learned helplessness,” even when their inabilities are simply perceived inabilities. This bill would hand them a powerful tool to dodge responsibility.

They hate being caught in controversy, and they really enjoy passing the buck to higher levels of government.

“Call your congressman” or “Call your legislator” is their deflection. “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do.”

They do not want to be the next Inola City Council, facing the overwhelming pressure of political and corporate interests on one side and their constituents on the other.

But perhaps they should be careful what they wish for. If legislation such as Senate Bill 647 were to pass, one could make the point—with tongue only slightly in cheek—that perhaps taxpayers should save the expense of paying local officials to occupy pointless positions and simply employ the services of an AI to carry out the formula promulgated from a big building far, far away.

This is one of the very real problems that I look forward to demonstrating firsthand as part of the upcoming citizen training sessions: showing real-life examples of fearful local officials claiming helplessness, to the frustration of local residents. But we won’t be taking those local officials at their word. Rather, we will explain what their abilities really are and also why they might prefer to just stay in their own helpless reality.

Stay tuned.

The 200 People Who Are Flummoxing Oklahoma’s Most Powerful Politicians and a Most Dangerous Bill You Have Never Heard Of—Until Now
Click the title to read the full report at Jason Murphey Blog




September 29, 2026 at 08:28AM - J Murphey

It’s the question I train voters to ask whenever a politician comes looking for their support.

Of all the questions I can give them, it may be the closest thing there is to a magic bullet:

“Let’s fast-forward several years beyond the end of your time in office. Looking back, what will be your criteria for determining whether your service was a success?”

It sounds simple.

It isn’t.

You would be amazed at how effectively this stumps the politician who is in the political world out of ambition, not principle. He will stumble all over himself trying to articulate what he thinks you want to hear—and, more likely than not, completely fail.

Now, I won’t give the perfect answer here. Stay tuned, though. In the future, it is my intent to offer these classes online for the paid subscribers of this publication. (We’ve got to weed out those establishment characters who lurk in the free subscription pool, you know.)

But, though it’s not exactly an apples-to-apples situation, a few days ago I posed a variation of this question to Jake Merrick as he visited Logan County, explaining and building support for his newest endeavor: The Colony.

You can read my write-up of his endeavors here.

I asked, “How will you judge the success or failure of your efforts?”

Without missing a beat, responding on pure instinct, Merrick replied: “When you ask the average conservative on the street, ‘Where do they go to get their information?’ They will say they go to The Colony.”

Merrick has given this a lot of thought. He knows what he wants to do.

And it’s an ambitious target. It’s going to be a very heavy lift. But having observed Merrick’s endeavors over the past five years, I’ve noticed that there’s something driving him—a sense of genuine purpose that’s at the heart of his actions.

It’s not about money.

It’s not about reputation.

It’s not about any of those deep, often dark, narcissistic psychological elements that so often drive the most colorful and interesting personalities into the public-policy arena.

I believe that, for Merrick, it’s really about a true calling.

And though I normally wouldn’t bet on the success of an effort to build a news network from the ground up, dependent on the engagement of contributors from all 77 counties, this could very well prove to be an exception.

Merrick is a believer—in the project, and in the concept that Oklahomans are ready for a people-driven news service that actually informs and educates all the way down to the local levels of government.

It’s a fascinating concept to think about. Could a network not driven by corporate advertising money, or polluted with the pro-institutional views of leftist-minded media personalities, get the word out and keep the public engaged in the policy debates? Could that informed electorate, in turn, give a potentially incoming Mike Mazzei administration the confidence to stand on principle, truly return the size of government to constitutionally compliant levels, and weather the storm of institutionalist resistance that would follow such dramatic reforms?

Keep an eye out for Merrick’s new rollout. It’s going to be an interesting follow.

Here is another interesting follow: Jim Shaw, fresh off his impressive and dramatic electoral defeat of the establishment forces who have fought him so hard, at every level, since his stunning 2024 upset of one of Oklahoma’s most powerful politicians, has taken his effort to the next level with an intriguing online series dubbed Transparency Throwdown.

Through the seven editions of these episodes, Shaw has done something unusual for a sitting state representative: publicly explain House procedures and practices that ordinarily receive little attention. His recent episodes have addressed unrecorded votes, public participation in committees, and the Legislature’s internal rules used to hide the politicians from accountability to their employers: the voters.

The reason this is so rare?

There’s a whole machine designed around funneling new state representatives into an awful system that’s built on trickery and deception, in a way that many of those representatives never understand or realize to begin with, much less have the ability to articulate.

Worse, for the few who have the intellectual power to understand how bad things really are, even fewer have the courage to articulate those observations in a public manner, because the system is built to punish those who do.

Jim Shaw is sending a message: he’s not going to change. While most new state representatives are well on the path to complete assimilation by their second term, Shaw is moving in the other direction.

His social media has become a must-watch resource for those who want to truly understand what’s going on in their state Legislature.

To the average politician, Shaw’s actions may look like political suicide: Telling the truth for everyone to hear? Who does that?

But it’s not. It may seem counterintuitive to the insiders, but it’s exactly what the people are asking for. Having now secured his home electoral base by thoroughly trouncing the forces of the establishment, Shaw joins a small class of those who hold the values of the people, whose public persona, actual words, and deeds actually match the campaign materials deployed by almost all candidates in this state but followed through on by only a few.

Shaw becomes one of just a handful of Oklahoma elected officials who have a promising future representing the true values of the people on a wider and bigger stage.

Both Jake Merrick and Jim Shaw are working to build something that lasts. Both seem to operate with a sense that the point of public life is not just to win the next election, but that the only way we are going to save our state and nation is through sharing the truth—and then believing that Oklahomans, once informed of the truth, the actual facts, will do the rest.

Stay tuned.

This state government is just starting to get interesting.

The Next Generation of Getting the Truth Out: Jake Merrick, Jim Shaw and Building Something That Lasts
Click the title to read the full report at Jason Murphey Blog




September 22, 2026 at 08:35AM - J Murphey

One simply has to scroll the comments of the local blog post to see the speculation, anger, gossip, doxxing and fear gripping the local community. As of the time of this printing, the first visible comment, made by someone clearly under the impression that a local child-abducting sex ring is operating in the city, reads: “People watch your kids!!!!!”

As Oklahoma State Capital News reported this morning, a recent operation promoted by Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s office as a human-trafficking bust nicely illustrates the harm wrought by the politicization of the attorney general’s office and the extraordinary expansion of its size, scope and reach.

“Republican” legislators have funded Drummond’s operation to levels that are difficult to come to terms with, increasing appropriations from $11 million for fiscal 2021, to $47 million for fiscal 2027. They have essentially turned that office into yet another law enforcement agency, keeping in mind that state government that’s already stricken with siloed law enforcement functions, split among so many agencies that counting them requires the fingers on two hands, and administrative overhead that costs state taxpayers millions each year.

The new, vast law enforcement operation in the Attorney General’s Office, overseen by someone who is political and thus unchecked as he takes on both hats: both enforcer and prosecutor.

This eviscerates the vital principle that the designers of our justice system have traditionally maintained: a wall of separation between on-the-ground law enforcement and the elected prosecutors who serve as a check and balance on that law enforcement by making the decision to prosecute, or not prosecute.

This conflict of interest was vividly and unabashedly illustrated by Drummond’s 2026 campaign for governor commercials, where his Hollywood-level video production team produced footage of Drummond personally participating, bulletproof vest and all, in raids.

Those commercials sent a chill up the spine of the observant and thoughtful student of the American legal system and the importance of that check and balance. Justice is not served when the politicized prosecutor himself, film production crew in tow, knocks on the door to serve the warrant, especially when he subsequently uses that footage in his campaign ads.

And, as a notable aside, the reliance on the legislators to give him this massive bureaucracy, this great power, provides the most likely explanation for why Drummond always seemed to be in the right position, at the right time, to give a good deal to the legislators who had gotten themselves into trouble: from the powerful house speaker’s close ally, Terry O’Donnell, to the “unofficial” letter for Ryan Martinez, the House Budget Vice-Chairman, to the Ty Burns affair, somehow Drummond was involved in matters concerning those who, in the view of this writer, had greatly betrayed the public trust.

Describing this conflict of interest has been on the Oklahoma State Capital whiteboard for a very long time, along with so many other educational pieces attempting to educate the wider public on the many areas of policy where, due to the ever-expanding size of an increasingly opaque, inefficient state government, abuses are spiraling out of control.

But there are so many of these stories, and more concepts are being added to the whiteboard faster than I can get those educational pieces published, that it has stayed there: on the whiteboard.

That’s where this piece was set to stay for a while, because there are so many pressing articles to write. But, that changed last week, when the story first leaked of Drummond’s office overseeing a sex-trafficking bust in the state’s first and best capital city, home base to the Oklahoma State Capital, a community I know well, having represented it for four years as a city councilman and twelve more as a state representative, and today, as the editor of the Oklahoma State Capital, with a specific focus on increasingly providing coverage of local events that simply aren’t being reported on in the local media.

The Facebook post from a local news blog featured a red siren, accompanied by the text, “Five arrested, three victims recovered in Guthrie human trafficking operation,” followed by the mugshots of the five arrestees.

To those who didn’t click through, that’s all they saw.

Now, let’s do a thought experiment. Stop here.

What are you thinking?

You are no doubt envisioning a police raid on a facility guarded by those five hoodlums, with helpless victims trapped inside, to be liberated by Gentner Drummond’s courageous agents.

To those who didn’t click through, that’s all they saw: the mugshots, the one-sentence description that would lead the observer to believe that these five people had conducted a human-trafficking ring in our town.

Those who did click through to that blog encountered a more indicting headline: “Five arrested in human trafficking operation; three victims recovered.”

Drummond’s subsequent release, released through his three-person communications team funded by the taxpayers, upped the ante, seeming to describe 15 victims of the human-trafficking ring: “Attorney General Gentner Drummand’s Human Trafficking Response Unit, in conjunction with several law enforcement partners and Skull Games Solutions, arrested five individuals and recovered 15 potential victims during a trafficking bust last week at a Guthrie hotel.”

That release triggered the Oklahoma City television news stations, which were quick to run with their impression of the story’s specifics. For instance, from News 9: “Five people were arrested and 15 potential victims were recovered during a human trafficking operation last week at a Guthrie hotel, according to the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office.”

Now, this was really catching my attention.

Was there really a human-trafficking ring operating from our town?

How had the local police department missed this large of an operation, conducted inside the city limits no less?

Were the local hotel proprietors in on it?

They surely would have known had 15 victims been kept on the premises, and thus would most assuredly be culpable.

But, as Scott Adams said, when it’s too on point, watch out; it’s probably not true.

And something just wasn’t right.

It was time to ask some questions.

And those questions would still be being asked were it not for the last vestige of remaining check and balance still in the system: the local district attorney.

When the probable-cause affidavits landed on his desk, newly elected District 9 Attorney Jeremiah Gregory had a decision to make.

It was clear that the Oklahoma City media had run with a misleading narrative.

Would he tell the public?

Or would he play the political game, do his part, set up the five arrestees for a quick and easy case and not expose the wider details?

Gregory, in a Facebook post released Tuesday evening, did the former. In an incredible action of courage you won’t often see in government, he explained what was in those affidavits, took to Facebook and brought transparency to the case, and in so doing exposed the truth to the wider public.

Gregory explained that a private contractor, while holding a law enforcement training class with local law enforcement, had purchased fake online ads for prostitution services, inviting inquiring prostitution solicitors to come to a hotel room to pay for sex.

The five arrested individuals had purportedly responded to those ads.

There was no trafficking, as Gregory would explain:

“The Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office issued a press release yesterday afternoon stating that this operation ‘recovered 15 potential victims during a trafficking bust last week at a Guthrie hotel.’ This is wholly misleading. As I have confirmed with the Guthrie Police Department, the ‘15 potential victims’ the press release states were ‘recovered’ were actually profiles on the internet. These names were given to the class to teach enrollees how to use open-source information to identify and locate persons who were possible victims of human trafficking. To state that ‘15 potential victims’ were ‘recovered’ is a gross misrepresentation of the facts. Law enforcement never made in-person contact with any of these fifteen individuals. The public has been led to believe these ‘15 potential victims’ were found at this hotel. This is patently false. The public deserves the whole truth and nothing but the truth from their elected officials, and I cannot sit idly by and permit this aggrandizing misinformation to continue circulating in our community.”

Now that the truth is known, given how this was handled and reported, one has to ask: “How much of the news reported in the mainstream media is completely false?”

For Drummond, this was just another hit-and-run press release. He’s a politician, and he’s behaving as politicians behave. He will move on and may not ever bother to issue a clarification.

But for the community, there’s a lasting effect.

One simply has to scroll the comments of the local blog post to see the speculation, anger, gossip, doxxing and fear gripping the local community. As of the time of this printing, the first visible comment, made by someone clearly under the impression that a local child-abducting sex ring is operating in the city, reads: “People watch your kids!!!!!”

That local blog, which made that report, still hasn’t updated it. Nor has it followed up with Gregory’s explanation.

Of the Oklahoma City media, it appears that only Fox 25 has run with the updated story, adding the correction to the print version of its previous reporting.

So, as of now, most of the people of the town are still in the dark as to what really happened.

They may never learn the truth.

But you, the reader of this publication, know the truth.

And you now know the great danger of allowing politicians to break down the long-held and well-proven checks and balances of our legal system.

And you know the great harm done by those “Republican” politicians, nearly all of whom campaign on a platform of smaller state government, only to subsequently grow a government of unimaginable size and scope that is destroying the tried and proven norms that have made our nation great.

More to follow.

Stay tuned.

How a Courageous District Attorney Just Exposed the The Danger Of Letting Politicians Play Police
Click the title to read the full report at Jason Murphey Blog




September 16, 2026 at 06:19PM - J Murphey

Just days after the conclusion of the November, 2024 election, the sun was just dropping into the western sky over Oklahoma’s capital city, illuminating the exchange between newly elected state Rep. Ryan Eaves and his two new compatriots. A thoughtful observer couldn’t help but note: Eaves wasn’t in Atoka anymore. He was about to enter the capital-city machine. The Borg was calling, and it demanded assimilation.

The event?

It no doubt baffled the average Oklahoman, who might mistakenly presume that once the general election takes place, political fundraising takes a break. It was a political fundraiser headed by one of Oklahoma’s most powerful politicians, incoming House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, and attended by a who’s who of lobbyists and monied special interests.

Why, one might ask, would politicians be holding a fundraiser just one month after the conclusion of the 2024 election cycle? This wasn’t 2026. The politicians, even if they knew they would be running again in two years, almost certainly didn’t know whether they would have the grave misfortune of facing a brave opponent willing to play the rigged game—a game that ensures incumbents are reelected at a rate that would make the Soviet Politburo blush.

To understand this phenomenon, one must first understand the dastardly nature of the system.

One of the OSC subscribers recently wrote in, asking for an article describing how the tentacles of monied special interests reach through consultants to ruin Oklahoma’s officeholders long before they are actually officeholders—while they are still candidates.

It’s an analysis I’ve developed over many years of observing election cycles, and one I will include in my upcoming book on the science of running for office as a grassroots candidate. The book will serve as a practical guide to challenging for a state House seat on a limited budget, using a standardized set of strategies. Applied consistently over time by a candidate—or a team of candidates—willing to adopt a House district and persist until the voters seat them, those strategies educate the public until such time as the people reclaim their House seat from monied special interests and their political enablers.

Knowing how consultants drive good candidates into the hands of monied special interests—and being able to explain it—is a vital part of educating those candidates while they are still in a position to save their own souls.

It is truly a mission, not just for the people of the district, but for the candidate. He is someone entering a dark place, thinking it is going to be a great adventure. But for most, it is truly a path to a destination that, in the long run, will benefit neither the candidate nor those who know and support him.

Put simply: Human beings aren’t designed for long-term exposure to massive power and its second-order effects. Unless he understands what is happening and can establish lines of defense early, he stands little chance of holding his own.

First and foremost, he needs to understand what drives his political consultant: It’s money, of course.

That consultant needs the candidate to spend money—even when it requires the candidate to take out debt. The consultant often makes money when the candidate spends his, profiting from that spending by passing along inflated prices or perhaps taking a percentage from the vendor.

The logic?

The enticement used by the consultant to keep the money flowing?

“Spend just a little more. Just one more poll. Just one more mailer. We are so close.

If you win, the lobbyists will pay off your debt. And the polling says we can win this; we just need a little more spending.”

Not wanting to have wasted all the time and money previously committed to the endeavor, the candidate is hard-pressed not to chip in that last $10,000—or maybe $20,000.

So the consultant wins no matter what happens. And maybe the consultant was right. Perhaps that last wave of expenditures really is just enough to push the candidate over the top.

But the candidate? He wins only if he loses and, through some twist of fate, isn’t sent to the big capital city to become beholden to the special interests that would pay off his debt.

Sure, he will have to work hard and pay it off on his own. But he will still be in the real world—and he will not be owned by others.

The “winner” of the race—the candidate whose campaign now owes him thousands of dollars, with the assurance that lobbyists will help pay it off—will spend his first months in office worrying about how to restore his personal finances and save enough money to discourage future challengers from taking him on.

This means keeping an array of the state’s special interests happy. And doing that not only requires the candidate to mindlessly repeat the most-told lie of the politicians, “I don’t let that money affect my vote,” but requires violating many of the principles he purported to hold as a candidate.

Reconciling these two competing interests—principle versus money—is the art that rots the brain. It is about embracing the cognitive dissonance required to convince oneself that it is acceptable to betray one’s word if it is done for some greater purpose.

Perhaps that purpose is running for higher office. Maybe it is simply loyalty to one’s own personal budget—a budget that feeds the family and makes the house payment. But whatever it is, it is at odds with truth and honesty. And the process of reconciling the two takes what once was an honest individual and turns him into a slimy politician.

So, when that idealistic, hopeful, positive candidate for office goes to hire a consultant, he must know and understand the intensity and seriousness of the game that is about to ensue. And when that consultant suggests, “Just spend another $20,000. The lobbyists will take care of it,” he must be prepared to see it for what it is: the road to perdition.

And it’s not just about driving the candidate into the hands of the lobbyists, either. It’s about sending him to become a pawn of the state’s alpha politicians—the ones who do their best to place themselves between the lobbyist and the recipient in order to launder the loyalty. Why should the lobbyists get all the credit for saving the candidate from personal bankruptcy when an alpha politician can broker the deal and earn the trust and support of new legislators for his own ambitions?

When that new candidate allows the consultant to drive him into the arms of the lobbyists, their PACs, the politicians and other elements of the Capitol swamp, it is the machine perpetuating a sick, dishonest status quo. And it all starts with that innocent suggestion: Just one more mailer, one more text message, one more direct-to-TV commercial, just one more personal loan—and victory is assured.

And one would certainly be right to suspect that, as Ryan Eaves made his way into that capital-city event venue on that late afternoon in early December, he had no clue as to his destination: intended assimilation.

To his right walked patient zero of the game: one of leadership’s high-ranking yes-men, floor leader John Pfeiffer. Pfeiffer managed to be in the room with leadership for most of his legislative tenure, rarely voting no and likely becoming the one most abused by the system. Reportedly, he was the fall guy who had to take the heat when leadership reneged on a commitment to hear a bill, leaving the downtrodden Pfeiffer to break the bad news: “We don’t have ‘time’ to hear your bill.”

To his left—that was Marcus McEntire, the now-former state representative who had just walked away from his seat after a bitter final term in which his disgruntlement with the conservative electorate was front and center in the corporate press. The press so enjoys highlighting disgruntled Republican legislators who are unable to come to terms with the fact that their own electorates do not share their liberal worldview.

Now, to the person who wasn’t in the know, this seemed very strange. Why was McEntire escorting Eaves to the slaughter? Shouldn’t he be back home in Duncan, in the real world?

That, of course, is the big joke.

McEntire was already transitioning into the good life: lobbyist. It was a shocking abuse that another legislative freshman, Rep. Jim Shaw would rightly recognize and attempt to shut down with his House Bill 3727. The bill met its fate in a stinging 2–6 committee vote in February—a vote that told you everything you needed to know about those who opposed it: an unholy coalition of establishment Republicans and liberal Democrats. Yes, even though lobbyists funnel so much to establishment Republicans, the Democrats stay on board with the legalized corruption of allowing politicians in the revolving door to transition into lobbyist without a cooling off period.

So, in that one picture, we had the proverbial 1,000 words: the freshman taking his first step into the Borg, escorted by the machine’s foremost yes-man on one side and the leftist legislator, now turned special-interest lobbyist, on the other.

Once inside, the freshman legislators had their campaign funds augmented with thousands of dollars in contributions.

And, of course, most quickly fell, just days later, voting the party line to advance the most authoritarian, nontransparent rules package in modern legislative history while tabling reform proposals.

So, the question becomes: What is the answer?

First and foremost, it is incumbent upon readers just like you to educate your incoming freshman representatives.

Were I to defend those freshman legislators who were making bank at that 2024 event, I would suggest that they had no clue. They went in blind. And that is a defense for them.

But the next class of freshmen mustn’t be given that defense.

For you, the reader, must give them—and future generations of candidates—the truth: the knowledge that the greatest lie told in the Legislature is, “I can take the lobbyists’ money without it affecting me.”

Then, it is incumbent upon the people of Oklahoma—the normies, those who aren’t trapped in the capital-city mindset—to continue building, organizing and getting stronger. They must reach the point at which the brave candidates who do know the truth will not just reject the sick system, but will also have a viable alternative: a real option to govern without taking special-interest money and without going into debt to pay the consultant-and-vendor ecosystem.

My belief: It would take a group of dedicated individuals in each House district who will, first, dig-in, understand the many bad votes being cast by their legislator and know how to explain them and educate the local electorate and, second, dedicate the time and energy necessary to reclaim their district. This will transform the state, officially recapturing it from the institutionalists and placing the people’s House where it truly belongs: in the hands of the people.

Much more is to come as we explore the means and methods by which we could make this happen, one House district at a time.

Stay tuned!

Did you know? Original news and opinion articles published by Oklahoma State Capital Media may be republished free of charge under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license and OSC’s editorial permissions. Learn more: here.

How the Monied Special Interests Reach Lawmakers Before the Voters Can
Click the title to read the full report at Jason Murphey Blog




September 15, 2026 at 08:18AM - J Murphey

Fair warning: the following article is sure to aggravate the soul of the idealistic citizen. It offers a detailed primer on the sickness of state government, a system in which the powerful often take care of the powerful while jumping at opportunities to take action against those without perceived political power. For the many good-hearted readers of this publication, hang on, because it’s going to be revelatory.

Watch state government long enough, and one observes many frustrating inconsistencies. A politician who does one thing on Monday does the exact opposite by Friday, defending the inconsistency with a gaslighting pomposity that shocks and offends—until it doesn’t; because it’s just how politics works in the Oklahoma City swamp world.

That politician, in explaining the inconsistency, will likely grab onto the thinnest of threads to explain why the situations aren’t analogous.

But once in a while, a set of circumstances comes down the track so stunningly analogous that even the most naive observer has to stop calling it coincidence and accept reality.

One such example took place a few days ago.

It offered a quintessential illustration of how the politician who, in this writer’s view, was perhaps the most political of Oklahoma’s 21st century statewide officeholders, carried out a four-year term of self-promotion that stunned the observant mind. Yet for all of his righteous pomposity, one thing was consistent: when it came to holding the truly powerful to account, he was all talk and no bite, somehow finding a way to give the connected an out while saving his pointless, self-promotional grandstanding for those who were not so privileged.

Such was the case when Oklahoma’s secretary of state, unexpectedly deprived of delicious McDonald’s food, was forced to content himself with free admission to the Edmond Police Department’s latest mix-up with what appeared, at least from the subsequent open records footage, sans audio, to be an irate local gopnik.

Given the seriousness of the circumstances, Ben Lepak may not have fully appreciated the uniqueness of his front-row seat to the exchange. But he didn’t have long to let it sink in. Oklahoma’s political attorney general, Gentner Drummond, full-on in pursuit of a Republican gubernatorial nomination, had his communications team of not one, not two but three taxpayer-funded employees dashing off his condemnation of Lepak, the state official whose most important responsibilities include issuing LLC certificates and enrolling the Legislature’s latest tyrannical edicts into the state register.

For Drummond, Lepak’s misdemeanor arrest for alleged public intoxication by the Edmond Police Department offered yet another chance to deliver a patented Drummond knee swipe at his foremost foe, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt. Drummond bashed the governor for appointing Lepak to the job, specifically pointing to Lepak’s previous intoxication incident as disqualifying.

As Drummond’s three-person communications team stated:

“After reviewing footage from law enforcement body cameras, it is clear that Secretary of State Ben Lepak was thoroughly inebriated and very likely lied to law enforcement about how much he had to drink and how he and his car both arrived at the same place without him driving it. This conduct is thoroughly unbecoming of a such a high ranking state official, and I am demanding that Gov. Stitt fire him immediately.

Given the fact that Mr. Lepak had been arrested just a few years ago after being found unconscious in a running vehicle, Gov. Stitt should have known better than to elevate him to such a senior leadership position. Gov. Stitt has made countless errors in judgment like this during his tenure in office, including most recently when he intervened to help a campaign donor avoid further jail time. He cannot undo those past mistakes, but he can help our state avoid further embarrassment by firing Mr. Lepak immediately.”

Drummond’s press release, sent out just four days after the incident, provides a quintessential example of how thoroughly he has politicized the attorney general’s office.

It’s a longstanding tenet of the justice system: innocent until proven guilty. In days past, a serious-minded prosecutorial official handling a case would simply allow a court filing to speak for itself, avoiding the grandstanding that has become all too common in today’s social-media-driven world.

And if the case wasn’t on that official’s desk—as it isn’t here—the proper course was to give the responsible prosecutors the needed room for system to work sans politicization in the court of public opinion. They should be able to make a decision without worrying about the politicized chief prosecutor’s interference and public peacocking, potentially biasing a prospective jury.

Not anymore. The justice system under Drummond has degenerated into a social-media driven spectacle, peacocking a new set a feathers for every changing news cycle, especially when there’s a chance to take a swipe at a perceived political enemy: Stitt.

But commentary on Drummond’s many politicizations of the justice system is, unfortunately, simply par for the course by now. What makes this particular abuse so spectacular is the eye-popping contrast with Drummond’s response to an almost identical situation: the fall of 2022, alcohol-related arrest, by—you guessed it—the Edmond Police Department, of the powerfully connected House Appropriations vice chairman, Ryan Martinez.

Martinez, found in the parking lot of The Patriarch, an Edmond bar, after reportedly being refused service, also downplayed his level of intoxication—just as Drummond now claims Lepak did.

Martinez provided the body cameras with the quintessential example of how the political class believes it is above the law: He told Edmond police that he didn’t think they could arrest him because of his legislative privilege.

The Legislature was engaged in one of its costly, seemingly never-ending special sessions at the time, an abuse that became a hallmark of the McCall/Treat era. Martinez reportedly suggested officers that the special session may have given him protection from detention, even suggesting that they call Stitt himself to confirm it. The irony was hard to miss: Martinez had not long before labeled Stitt a “racist.”

It was a sensational claim to make, but Edmond police never flinched. They simply did their job. Martinez was charged with a felony: actual physical control of a vehicle while intoxicated. It was a much more serious charge than the public intoxication charge now facing Lepak.

Team McCall wasn’t about to let one of its most connected lieutenants be sidelined. Throughout the ensuing legislative session, Martinez continued to take on a prominent role in representing the McCall team, receiving reappointment as vice chair of Appropriations and remaining in the presiding officer rotation at the head of the House.

In March 2023, it was Martinez who infamously defended the House’s refusal to let state Rep. Tom Gann ask questions about the massive corporate welfare giveaway, and frankly, a special law, to the German Volkswagen corporation. Martinez indicated that because the issue had been discussed in the closed-door Republican caucus meeting, it was OK to proceed.

That Martinez was onstage, front and center, representing Team McCall and its failure to allow not just debate but even questions on this important matter spoke to the team’s arrogance regarding public perception and transparency. They clearly just stopped believing the public even cared about this concepts.

This set the stage for how, two years later, Team Hilbert would handle the subsequent corporate welfare giveaway for the United Arab Emirates-based company’s Inola aluminum smelter: proceeding quickly, with very little public input or even knowledge of the proposal before final passage.

During that same legislative session, the House officially censured state Rep. Dean Davis, someone who had also experienced an unfortunate late-night exchange with police. The hapless Davis, simply didn’t have the connections of Martinez.

By May 2023, House leaders McCall and Wallace were issuing their perfunctory, self-congratulatory, end-of-session budget press release. Amid the usual education funding platitudes—“the highest level of education funding in state history”—Martinez was highlighted by McCall, front and center, for his work on the document.

Then came the day of reckoning. House leadership had stood behind Martinez, keeping him influential throughout the 2023 session, even after he had exercised such bad judgment in trying to escape the consequences of his alleged actions. In August 2023, the walls started to close in as Martinez pleaded guilty to the felony charge.

The question then became: Since the Oklahoma Constitution prohibits felons from holding office, would Martinez need to resign?

Now the McCall/Echols team had a bit of a predicament on its hands. That organization infamously took care of its own, having notoriously stood by McCall’s close lieutenant, Terry O’Donnell, as he was first charged and then let off the hook by—you guessed it—Drummond, after O’Donnell had allegedly sponsored legislation that would benefit his relatives.

Would Drummond be willing to protect the political establishment once again?

Here’s where things got very tricky.

Allowing Martinez to remain in office turned on a narrow legal distinction: whether his guilty plea and deferred sentence amounted to the judicial declaration of guilt that would trigger constitutional suspension from office. In this writer’s view, treating that distinction as permission to remain in office required torturing and contorting the law into its most generous interpretation for a politically connected officeholder. Drummond’s office supplied that interpretation in an advisory letter, giving McCall what looked very much like political cover for keeping Martinez in his seat.

Note that this wasn’t an official opinion. Such an opinion would have gone onto the books, where Drummond could forever—and rightly—be judged for issuing a legal absurdity, not worth the paper it was printed on, for the presumed purpose of allowing a powerful politician to retain his seat.

Instead, it was an “advisory” letter in which the AG decided he could play the role of attorney for the McCall machine, giving McCall, the politician, a piece of paper to use in defense of the indefensible and quite the abuse of the taxpayers dollars that are funding that office.

One has to feel for the hapless deputy general counsel charged with putting his name on the letter. In an incredible footnote, he had to admit: “Despite my interpretation, I could see a court reaching a different conclusion.”

As an aside, always read the footnotes. That’s perhaps a subject for a future training course in our citizens’ academy on audit analysis, legal letters such as this, and how to tell when a political game is being played.

Former state Rep. Mike Reynolds was going to give the courts exactly that opportunity. Filing a pro se petition, he called the bluff of the McCall/Drummond machine. Martinez checked out of office to become a lobbyist and dark-money campaign fund manager for McCall.

Here, in a most ironic turn, he would advocate for legislation that would tie the hands of the Edmond City Council in the very community he had “represented.” When considering new development projects, the council would find it more difficult to take local residents’ views into account. It’s one of the most frightening pieces of legislation, one most readers have probably never heard of, but one with enormous implications for local public policy.

It’s not as though Team McCall couldn’t have seen this coming. During the 2018 campaign, Martinez’s rocket ride into the Team McCall leadership group faced a challenge. Specifically, his 2018 primary challenger made an issue of the fact that, in a 2014 alcohol-related incident, Martinez had struck another vehicle, been placed on probation, and been required to use an interlock device.

Defending Martinez in the press? That was McCall’s foremost right-hand man, Jon Echols, who boldly declared that the “attacks” on Martinez were “flat-out character assassinations” and further explained: “It makes it hard for me to recruit candidates when they’ve got to deal with these extreme personal attacks. ... It gives all of us a bad name.”

Beyond the implications of Echols vouching for Martinez before Martinez’s 2022 arrest, the reader begins to see behind the curtain. The revelatory fact is that Echols was recruiting the candidates who would comprise the century’s most institutionally minded, big-government legislators—a far cry from the earlier, first generation of Republican leaders. Why was Echols interring in Republican primaries? Is it too much to ask the machine to not feed the machine with their handpicked candidates and to simply trust the people, the voters of those districts to decide?

But it’s not just that. It goes back to Drummond, the very individual who was so quick, four days after an alleged incident involving Lepak, to call out Stitt for having the bad judgment to appoint him.

After a clear attempt to give Martinez the cover needed to continue holding his seat, Drummond most certainly didn’t similarly call out Echols for his role in vouching for Martinez to the voters of House District 39. Echols had interfered in a Republican primary, only for those voters, notwithstanding Echols assurances, to later suffer great embarrassment when body-camera footage emerged of their intoxicated representative arrogantly seeming to suggest that police might not be able to detain him because of his status as a member of the Legislature.

Fast forward to 2024, and enter Drummond, on the scene of a garish, self-indulgent Capitol swamp event, the type of thing that would perhaps make the ancient Romans blush. It was a who’s who of the Capitol swamp scene: a $23,750 dinner financed by lobbyist groups ranging from AIPAC to OG&E to ONG to CAMP, the state’s premier consulting firm, and even a state agency, hilariously and officially denoted in state ethics reports as the “Grand River ‘Damn’ Authority.” Your eastern Oklahoma utility rates at work for you.

This isn’t just another article breaking down a liberal Democrat’s bad votes.

This is of proposals made by, supported by—or allowed to advance under—Republican House leadership.

For you see, Mike Mazzei is in an uncomfortable position.

Sure, he can expose Munson’s liberalism, a liberalism extraordinarily out of touch with Oklahoma voters. But when he does so, he will also be indicting the leaders of his own party’s legislative leadership both past and present—and even other statewide candidates, such as attorney general candidate Jon Echols.

Oklahoma Republican gubernatorial nominee Mike Mazzei has an embarrassment of riches.

His opponent Cyndi Munson, absolutely nails the stereotype of the radical left that Oklahomans have come to associate with a Democratic radical: with perhaps an exception for the university towns, she’s an inner-city liberal whose ability to appeal to Oklahoma values goes absolutely no farther than the massive, punitive turnpike loops surrounding the state’s two metropolitan areas.

It’s a left-wing radicalism that’s demonstrated by the most cursory review of Munson’s decade of voting for left-wing causes in the state House.

Tax hikes?

For sure.

No self-respecting left-wing politician goes before the voters without a solid resume demonstrating that she has done her part to levy a heavy toll on the people—a people already so heavily taxed that it is reasonable to suggest that 50 percent of one’s income is taken through either direct taxation, passed-on costs, or the second-order effects of taxation.

Those second-order effects are extraordinarily destructive to the health of society, as they entice both parents into the workforce, placing their children in the hands of others.

Munson certainly did her part to add to that burden with her support of HB 1010XX, a nearly $500 million revenue-raising monstrosity believed to be the largest tax increase in the history of the state. It included an especially punitive provision raising the gasoline tax—a tax that must be paid by the hardworking and productive person who is seeking to do right, work hard, and be a net contributor to the social contract.

Left-wing woke liberalism imported from blue-state America?

Of course.

In a plan that can only be described as straight from the streets of San Francisco, Munson was on board with the “needles for junkies” program, co-sponsoring SB 511 and essentially putting the state on the side of those who enable the people seeking self-destruction and addiction to the most debilitating habits—a sick approach that even the most basic observers of human nature learned long ago, just doesn’t work.

Or consider Munson’s vote to table grassroots champion Molly Jenkins’ proposal; it would have allowed Oklahomans to know how many illegal-alien invaders are in the school system. That is an important metric—one of the most important metrics—for understanding why funds are being diverted from rural school systems to Oklahoma City. It’s a vital number for understanding why, according to the SEO-baiting listicle site WalletHub, Oklahoma once ranked “50th” in the nation in education, a joke index, but a now-dated reference almost every Oklahoma liberal instinctively declares to this day.

That’s transparency Munson doesn’t want you to have, even though your taxpayer dollars are paying the bill and even as entire inner-city school districts are being taken over by the illegal invasion. Those districts are incentivized to keep bringing in the illegals to keep the money flowing.

How about setting up “implicit bias” training for Oklahoma maternity nurses?

Yes, Munson was on board with ensuring that, instead of focusing on delivering babies and saving lives, certain Oklahoma nurses would potentially spend their time trying to understand how their “implicit” biases affect their judgment.

It was extraordinarily insulting to health care professionals everywhere: the nanny state attempting to help them come to terms with their supposed racism—or, as HB 3088 defined it:

“Implicit bias” means a bias in judgment or behavior that results from subtle cognitive processes, including implicit prejudice and implicit stereotypes, that often operate at a level below conscious awareness and without intentional control.

What about the latest blue-state craze of turning human beings into tree fertilizer?

Yup. When a Washington state company specializing in this new form of human-body composting—a new disposal method of choice for adherents of the woke religion of Mother Earth environmentalism—came to Oklahoma, it hired prominent leftist lobbyist Jason Dunnington.

Dunnington found an ally in Munson, who, though she missed the vote on fourth reading, was there to advance the bill on third reading.

Speaking of environmentalism, what about the green-energy invasion?

Of course. When grassroots leader Jim Shaw sought to place commonsense constraints on the invasion of government-subsidized wind turbines, Munson was there to vote against Shaw’s amendment and ensure that meaningful protections would not be extended to those seeking to protect their piece of rural Oklahoma from the destruction wrought by unsustainable green-energy adherents. One can only imagine how an empowered “Governor Munson” would step on the green energy gas, if the left comes back into national prominence in 2028.

How about attacking the sanctity of Oklahoma’s elections?

Oh yes, you’ve got that, too.

Munson supported HB 3317, lifting the notary cap for no-excuse absentee ballots from 20 to 50. It was a 2020 election-year initiative, as the leftists continued to pick at the weak point in Oklahoma’s election system in what I believe was a clear attempt to save Kendra Horn and the Democrats’ hold on Congressional District 5.

How about giving criminals a free pass and moving toward cashless bail?

Yup. SB 252, co-sponsored by Munson, was undoubtedly the state’s response to the cashless-bail craze in the blue states—a watered-down version, perhaps, so as not to entirely offend red-state sensibilities, but an initiative lauded by leftists who were no doubt salivating at the opportunity to point to red-state Oklahoma as leading the way.

The surveillance state?

For sure. Munson was on board with HB 1712, the nearly $4 million pilot program to test tracking every mile you drive and sending you the bill. Once again, it was a potential environmentalist tool for controlling the population’s ability to travel, opening the door to congestion-based pricing and an Orwellian future that, though hard to imagine, is being driven by some very powerful special interests and could easily return with a fury the next time there is a Democratic administration in Washington, D.C.

Spending?

It wouldn’t be a liberal Democratic candidacy without indefensible spending, and we’ve got plenty of that.

Perhaps the best example is the infamous off-the-top sales-tax diversion program that Munson allowed to stay on the books, co-sponsoring HB 1571, even after it was revealed that the program had financed a cow-food vending machine.

Yes, cows now have their own vending machine, financed by money diverted away before it can even reach the appropriations process.

We’ve only scratched the surface, but the observant reader of these articles knows that something isn’t right.

This isn’t just another article breaking down a liberal Democrat’s bad votes.

This is of proposals made by, supported by—or allowed to advance under—Republican House leadership.

For you see, Mike Mazzei is in an uncomfortable position.

Sure, he can expose Munson’s liberalism, a liberalism extraordinarily out of touch with Oklahoma voters. But when he does so, he will also be indicting the leaders of his own party’s legislative leadership both past and present—and even other statewide candidates, such as attorney general candidate Jon Echols.

But Mazzei is well advised to not pull his punch.

He should indict the whole system.

Indict Munson.

Indict the Legislature.

Indict Echols and every other statewide candidate who supported these initiatives.

The people of Oklahoma will appreciate the honesty. And, let’s face it: those legislators, many of whom supported Drummond, are likely already conspiring over how to run over Mazzei, just as they did Kevin Stitt.

By coming out strong from the start and understanding that enough conservatives still remain in the Legislature to protect his vetoes, Mazzei will have a strength that Stitt never did. Unlike Stitt, he would be allowed to govern, bolstered by the enthusiasm of the people—an enthusiasm that Mazzei traded away when he flip-flopped on the corporate-welfare matter involving the United Arab Emirates smelter in Inola.

When he indicts the process, Mazzei will prove Drummond wrong. As Drummond closed his campaign for governor, he did so with what appeared to this writer to be some sort of heavily altered voice audio—too altered not to be distracting—attempting to portray strength and present Mazzei as weak, clearly using the Mazzei flip-flop to make that point.

Was Drummond right?

Time will tell. But if Mazzei is willing to indict not only Munson, but the entire sick Oklahoma City Capitol swamp, he can show Oklahomans that he is truly on their side. For once, the governor’s mansion can stand above the swamp instead of becoming another outpost within it.

Readers are invited to share or republish this article in its entirety. Attribution is appreciated: Jason Murphey, Oklahoma State Capital Media, with a link to OklahomaStateCapital.com.

The Republican Fingerprints on Cyndi Munson’s Radical Record
Click the title to read the full report at Jason Murphey Blog




September 3, 2026 at 01:18PM - J Murphey

It no doubt perked the ears of those who were listening attentively to the leaked OkACTE audio, which you can find online at OklahomaStateCapital.com, as Gentner Drummond briefly referenced one of the most important issues facing the state: the now-out-of-control homelessness blight in too many of Oklahoma’s cities.

As social-justice-minded city officials continue to turn a blind eye to what they would call the “plight” of the “unhoused” population, a natural and ongoing tension has built up between Kevin Stitt’s executive branch, which has sought to act, and the city officials who are reluctant to act, or worse: passively allowing the state’s urban cores to devolve into a Mad Max, post-apocalyptic wasteland.

In the leaked audio, Drummond provided a chilling hint as to the identity of the individual who is likely to be in the room—and perhaps even making the decisions—when his executive branch sets policy on this issue.

That person?

Wendy Drummond.

Gentner said that Wendy would make homelessness part of her platform as the state’s “first lady.”

If that sends a chill or two up the spine of those who know exactly what the state is facing in this regard, it’s because Wendy Drummond has very prominently spoken about her support for Joe Biden during the 2020 campaign.

While Biden drove home the George Floyd-era social-justice mindset and planted the seeds of COVID tyranny, Wendy Drummond was sending him money in Gentner’s name—or at least that’s how the Drummonds described what happened.

That explanation, whether meritorious or not, should not put the matter to rest. Wendy Drummond’s admission may allow Gentner Drummond to dismiss further discussion of the contribution as an unfair attempt to drag his wife into the political debate. But that is precisely why the leaked OkACTE audio and its revelations matter. If Wendy Drummond is going to play a role in shaping public policy, then voters have a legitimate interest in understanding her political views and affiliations. At that point, the central question is not which of the Drummonds wrote the check, but what the donation reveals about the political perspective of someone who may wield significant influence in the next administration.

When Drummond spoke of Wendy Drummond’s role in the next administration, he did so before a group of state employees whom he likely presumed to be allies on all things related to big government. He may have assumed that they would appreciate the fact that she had made that donation to Biden, notwithstanding that it was made at a time when Biden had fully embraced the George Floyd-era social-justice movement and COVID-era authoritarian policies.

But once outside that room, the median Republican voter will likely recoil at the prospect of a Biden supporter shaping policy in an area that demands a clear understanding of human nature and incentive structures—not the kind of liberal thinking that has repeatedly failed when tested against reality.

If the executive branch goes all in on California-style homelessness policies, the damage will be long-lasting and consequential.

Keep in mind, this is the same state government that has already experimented with the “needles for junkies” program—a program currently on life support, but almost certain to make a comeback next session as state Rep. Daniel Pae, the liberal brain trust behind the proposals, has already declared that he will bring it back and will no doubt seek to leverage his endorsement of Drummond to maximum effect.

And Drummond’s judgment in suggesting that Wendy, of all people, is the one who will take the lead on the homelessness issue should rightly concern Republican voters.

And that’s why the second-most important position on the ballot on August 25 is the role of first lady.

It does matter who the governor’s spouse is—who serves as Oklahoma’s first lady—and it is nearly as important that she share our values as it is that the governor does. She will inevitably be one of the most influential people in the governor’s life, and she will most certainly shape his priorities, decisions, and actions.

And make no mistake, this was an overlooked factor in the 2024 presidential race. It wasn’t simply the difference between Trump and Harris that mattered, but also that Americans couldn’t stand the prospect of four years of a fawning corporate press promoting Doug Emhoff. The Melania Trump-versus-Doug Emhoff comparison was to the Democrats’ great detriment.

And, as a humorous aside, as popular as Mary Matalin has been with conservatives over the years, one would be hard-pressed to suggest that conservatives should elect her president for the shock-and-terror prospect of James Carville as the nation’s first lady.

And it’s not just about who the first lady is, either.

It’s about the people who surround Drummond and will be empowered.

Anyone who has been on social media in recent days will have observed first-hand the sheer emotional desperation of the establishment personalities working so hard to get Drummond across the finish line.

I would suggest that we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg.

Those forces—especially those in the Legislature, which Drummond, in the OkACTE tapes, described as being willing to “direct opposition to the president of the United States” himself—are on the precipice of overrunning the executive branch. Their frenzy was illustrated by a post from House Speaker Pro Tempore Anthony Moore attacking the conservative-minded Freedom Caucus in response to its support for Mike Mazzei and celebrating the electoral losses of Freedom Caucus-aligned conservatives throughout the nation.

Moore, a likely front-runner in the soon-upcoming battle to succeed House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, has, through his unwise public posting, so neatly summarized the arrogance and hubris of Team Drummond and the forces of the wider monied establishment as they prepare to control all levels of state government.

And thus, this article’s reminder to voters: It’s not just whose name is on the ballot on Tuesday; it’s about the army of those who will be empowered once that person takes the oath of office.

Drummond’s wording, from that same recording, when describing his many legislative endorsers is notable. As he puts it, they are with him “in direct opposition to the president of the United States” himself. There’s an intensity to that statement that will lead the observant to the following prognostication: If Drummond loses on Tuesday, look for a barely contained case of TDS to emerge, with an animosity that matches Drummond’s current case of SDS (Stitt Derangement Syndrome)—a case that even most liberals seem to have shaken off, as Stitt has no doubt delighted them with his own turn leftward over the last term. But not Drummond. He’s still got it, and badly. It will be difficult to find an instance in which Drummond exercises personal restraint and refrains from unnecessarily bashing Stitt.

Once freed of the constraints of the electorate, a lame-duck Drummond’s last few months in his self-described stepping-stone job—a stepping stone that, as it turns out, leads nowhere—will leave little to keep him or his TDS in check.

Let’s just hope that on Tuesday, the voters of the state provide the chance to test this prognostication.

Introducing the second-most important position on Tuesday’s ballot.
Click the title to read the full report at Jason Murphey Blog




August 22, 2026 at 11:52AM - J Murphey

In the upcoming days, as the leftist forces that propelled Drummond’s campaign return to their true roots by supporting the inner-city liberal Cyndi Munson—a candidate whose woke, left-wing views are unprecedented in the history of Democratic nominees—there will be a tendency for those who understand the importance of electing Mazzei to try to justify the Mazzei flip-flop.

They should not.

Justifying the unjustifiable will rot the soul of the grassroots movement, just as the special-interest money has long ago compromised the majority of Republican officeholders.

I remember it like it was yesterday.

The Republican Party was celebrating a very rare accomplishment: bucking the in-power, off-year election-cycle trend and picking up seats in Congress—inspiring Glenn Beck to declare that George W. Bush would be a Republican FDR, a transformative president whom generations of Americans would look back upon with absolute admiration.

But for Oklahoma Republicans, that excitement was greatly tamped down, as they faced a disaster the implications of which are still being felt to this day: Democrats held the state House. They held the state Senate. And an openly pro-choice governor would be coming into power: Brad Henry.

Little Dixie had struck again, perhaps because of an anomaly—the cockfighting vote—but nevertheless, it was a devastating election night. Henry, so very out of touch with Oklahoma values, would become a transitional figure, pushing Oklahoma’s entire judiciary dramatically leftward and spearheading so many policies that placed the state into the seemingly everlasting purgatory of mediocrity in which it now finds itself.

I was reminded of this as I reviewed the precinct map of this weeks election results.

Times have changed.

This time, it was Little Dixie’s precincts that carried the day for the people.

Many of the children of the old-guard Democrats who put the pro-choice, big-government Henry in the Governor’s Mansion—helped along by cockfighting and a Toby Keith jingle—are today’s Republicans.

And they just saved the day.

It’s so very surreal to zoom in on Mike Mazzei’s win in McAlester, the very heart of Gene Stipe’s evil empire, and come to terms with how that town—and the many like it all across southern Oklahoma—just saved the state from once again being ruled by someone with values that are so very out of touch with Oklahoma voters.

They voted against a campaign backed by perhaps the most sophisticated political operation in state history—a mélange of dark-money groups funded by unimaginable millions—albeit handicapped by one of the most unlikeable statewide candidates Oklahoma has ever seen. He had spent four long years eviscerating the normal, accepted standards of officeholder propriety and politicizing his statewide office on a scope and scale unimaginable to those who understand how a public servant should conduct himself while operating on the taxpayers’ tab.

Drummond’s campaign ads began just days after the conclusion of the 2024 election cycle, ensuring that Oklahomans were forced to suffer through a perpetual political-ad cycle, with very little relief dating perhaps all the way back to 2023.

Now, as one looks at the precinct map, it’s clear:

Little Dixie saved the state.

It’s such a different world. And for those of us who remember how it used to be, it’s still hard to fully appreciate.

Here’s what is also very notable about this: McGirt has backfired on those politicians who went all in on siding with the tribes.

For you see, it was Little Dixie that put Drummond into the attorney general’s office in 2022.

It’s Little Dixie that just sent Drummond home.

I suspect that, whether tribal members or not, just about everyone in Little Dixie is starting to realize the insanity of McGirt. And though, in 2022, tribal-member Republicans may have been motivated by Drummond’s pro-tribal stance, it has since backfired.

Thus, once again, as one looks at the precinct returns with a bird’s-eye view, just as in the primaries, one once again sees that old Sequoyah-versus-Oklahoma line reconstituted.

Fascinating.

Two other observations of note.

While much of the farm and ranch country went for Drummond, keeping the election close, some of those western cities didn’t.

One can look at Garfield County as an example of this. Rural Garfield County went for Drummond. Enid went for Mazzei. Similarly, Lawton went for Mazzei as well—a real warning sign to the local—and perhaps the most leftist—Republican in the Legislature, Daniel Pae, who endorsed Drummond.

There was an exception to Drummond’s western Oklahoma rural-country strength: Major County.

Here, there is a pocket of Mazzei support in a sea of Drummond.

There’s something about the rural denizens of that county that, I believe, allows them to put principle above perceived self-interest.

And as a fun fact, when Kevin Stitt beat Mick Cornett in 2018, the precinct providing the largest margin of victory was a Major County precinct.

And notably, in the 2014 primary, Mary Fallin’s worst precinct?

Yup.

It was in Major County.

Now, for why this was even a close election in the first place: in northeastern Oklahoma, where ranchland meets the tribal regions, Drummond didn’t lose support like he did in Little Dixie.

He should have, but he didn’t. In fact, he flexed.

And that is undoubtedly the impact of the proposed government-subsidized aluminum smelter that Drummond made into his foremost attack on Mazzei.

In Rogers County precincts where Mazzei should have won, instead, Drummond took 80 percent of the vote. That effect spread into Wagoner and Mayes counties, and had Drummond pulled it off and won on election night, it would have undoubtedly been on the strength of this issue.

In fact, with perhaps tongue firmly planted in cheek, one could certainly be forgiven for suspecting that Mazzei’s investment in his own campaign was simply a hedge against a large pro-Drummond investment in the Kalshi market, considering the way Mazzei handled the whole smelter affair. He continued poking at what was perhaps the most dramatic major policy reversal in Oklahoma politics: one night firmly allied with the concepts of the free market, and the next all in on the massive, government-subsidized monstrosity that had been approved by the state House just three days after its introduction, before almost any of those impacted likely even knew the proposal existed, and being fast tracked through the permitting process in a way that should offend land owners everywhere.

Now, though the observant voter was rightly just as offended by Drummond’s sudden and nakedly political discovery of the importance of this issue as it was by Mazzei’s flip-flop, one must realize that people value integrity. And once that perception of integrity lost sets in, it isn’t coming back during the campaign cycle.

One simply can’t horse-trade so openly and then expect to persuade people to have faith in one’s integrity—or to believe that one is telling them the truth. If Mazzei wants that enthusiasm factor to come back in 2030, he’s going to have to earn it, and that will be a heavy lift.

And the fall out from this wasn’t just limited to those east-of-Tulsa counties. For those who were not directly impacted, there was likely a massive enthusiasm damper. Sure, the majority of Republican voters, unlike those in the smelter’s fallout zone, weren’t motivated by fear for their livelihoods. They were motivated instead by the death by a thousand cuts caused by the special-law corporate-welfare giveaways that are sinking the republic beneath a horde of corruption. But that isn’t motivating them by means of immediate survival instinct. They can probably survive yet one more cut to keep the Darth Vader–like Drummond at bay.

But seeing Mazzei flip-flop after a brutal second term of being betrayed by their previous “grassroots” choice, Kevin Stitt, simply told them: It’s going to be the same old thing again.

In the upcoming days, as the leftist forces that propelled Drummond’s campaign return to their true roots by supporting the inner-city liberal Cyndi Munson—a candidate whose woke, left-wing views are unprecedented in the history of Democratic nominees—there will be a tendency for those who understand the importance of electing Mazzei to try to justify the Mazzei flip-flop.

They should not.

Justifying the unjustifiable will rot the soul of the grassroots movement, just as the special-interest money has long ago compromised the majority of Republican officeholders.

The Mazzei campaign must remember, first and foremost, that the art of politics is not about getting 99 percent of the vote. It is rather about securing 51 percent. They must learn from their mistake, understand that they have lost part of their support base, and move on.

Continuing to poke at the problem—to justify what cannot be justified, including a betrayal of free-market principles as well as transparent and open process, and an embrace of corporate welfare on steroids, along with the unconstitutional special-law-making expressly prohibited by the state constitution—will repeat the mistakes of the Stitt administration and make it much harder to govern with any enthusiasm going forward.

The Munson record speaks for itself—stay tuned to next week’s update—and it will prove incredibly unpalatable to the vast majority of Oklahomans. My best and most heartfelt advice to the Mazzei campaign and its supporters is simple: point out and expose the liberalism of the opposition, then explain Mazzei’s desire to return to the small-government principles that have long been abandoned in Oklahoma government, and everything else will take care of itself.

Keep it simple.

The Great Rising Power: Grassroots Social Media

With just a little financial support, James Taylor would have beaten Robert Franklin to become the state’s next superintendent of public education.

It was a forgivable error: assuming James Taylor didn’t have any chance of beating Robert Franklin, who was clearly being driven into office by the education-establishment machine—a machine whose government financial and vendor-driven special interests ensure that its reach far outscales the state’s nascent grassroots community.

But as Franklin arrogantly doubled down on DEI, leaving it to special-interest money to run the “Robert Franklin is a MAGA Republican” ads, even a modicum of financial support could have exposed Franklin’s true beliefs, and he would have lost.

When the campaign-finance reports come in, we are likely to find that James Taylor was outspent by an eye-popping factor, both in direct campaign spending and in the amount of dark money deployed during the final days of the campaign.

The bigger question for those center-right dark-money forces that could have exposed Franklin—in essence, the school-choice money—might be: Why even bother?

With Mazzei potentially winning the Governor’s Mansion, the question now becomes: Will he appoint the board members who will put the DEI-loving Robert Franklin in check, much as Stitt’s board did to the great opponent of all things DEI, Ryan Walters?

At the end of the day, the effort to force Walters out was the work of Drummond, who, as attorney general, made it extremely difficult for Walters to pursue his agency agenda with effective legal counsel, and Stitt’s board members, whose coup de grâce was to ensure Walters could not appoint an agency attorney of his choice.

Once your own lawyers aren’t on your side, there’s very little room to move, and Walters knew the wisdom of leaving the building.

A Mazzei-appointed board could easily put Franklin into the same box.

It could pass its own standards and, with the support of the agency’s board-hired lawyers, set the agenda at State Board of Education meetings.

So, the school-choice money ensured that Drummond would never fulfill his dream of occupying the Governor’s Mansion, while perhaps understanding that, with Mazzei, it would get a two-for-one result, courtesy of Drummond, Stitt, and all the others who did so much to stop the will of the people from being heard when they asked Ryan Walters to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic that is the state’s public education system—a broken system that, as should be clear to any open-eyed observer, Franklin has no clue how to fix. This was most notably demonstrated in his post-win News 9 interview, where he offered no concrete specifics and instead repeated the great “listicle” fallacy that “Oklahoma is 50th in education.” Apparently, no one has told Franklin that the WalletHub clickbait listicle, which spawned that particular talking point back in the days when the corporate media were frenzied against Walters, now has Oklahoma at 49th. But a sound bite is a sound bite, so updating it for accuracy isn’t in the cards, even for the presumed-to-be superintendent of public education.

And for all those who are confused about why Oklahoma Republicans could elect both Mazzei and Franklin, the answer is simple: James Taylor simply wasn’t given the means, methods, or special-interest dark-money air cover necessary to inform the people that Robert Franklin was most certainly not, in fact, a “MAGA Republican.”

But, the power of grassroots social media certainly got the word out to a large audience.

When Elon Musk bought X and the censorship machine of the radical left-wing Democrats was defeated in 2024, robust social media and an open internet were preserved. With these technologies, the inevitable day approaches when, no matter what the corporate media does to reframe or even stifle the truth, it won’t matter. People simply don’t care about those dying media entities, because they no longer need gatekeepers and because the truth can be found online, and it’s only going to get stronger.

Every content creator, old-school blogger, Substack publisher, podcaster, X community administrator, and grassroots lawmaker who turns on a camera and explains what is really going on is doing their part to replace corporate media—and this is how the people reclaim their state government.

Are There Enough Conservatives to Give Mazzei a Veto-Proof Majority?

The great Senate purge of conservatives continued on Tuesday night, with two more of the more conservative-minded incumbents going down to defeat.

This has reportedly led at least one prominent political-analysis talking head to declare that Senate President Lonnie Paxton is now a kingmaker.

He is not.

With Mazzei’s win, in clear opposition to the elements that hold power in the Legislature, the coalition of conservatives in the Senate now has the ability to provide Mazzei with something Kevin Stitt never had: a veto-proof bloc capable of keeping the Legislature from simply running over the governor.

Stitt, infamously, spoke loudly and carried no stick.

Absolutely no stick.

In fact, one of his office’s key appointees, Dustin Hillary, helped lead the dark-money effort to reelect the very legislative coalition that had repeatedl

Super Surreal Observations From Election Night
Click the title to read the full report at Jason Murphey Blog




August 28, 2026 at 12:25PM - J Murphey

Beginning shortly after 7 p.m. and continuing until roughly 7:45, I’ll be sharing my screen from the OSC Election Monitoring Command Center as the first precinct results begin to arrive.

The idea is simple: instead of waiting until after the election to study the precinct-level results, I want to see if we can begin analyzing them live, as they come in—w…

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Join Me in the OSC Election Night Command Center
Click the title to read the full report at Jason Murphey Blog




August 25, 2026 at 06:37PM - J Murphey