After initial explorations, the Sooner Tea Party newsletter suggested a good down payment would be the passage of Constitutional Carry which had been defeated nearly every session starting at least in our memories in 2009. The tall building crowd had a couple of minor changes they wanted and negotiated with the bill's author on their own, and they laid down arms and the bill passed into law. Those that were regular readers of the STP newsletter would have recognized the change in the newsletter's stories at that point; we simply had little reason to fault most of what the legislature was doing so we shifted more into judicial corruption and soft on crime movements and exposing their poster children. In 2020 there was some continued corporate welfare on the 2020 Trump Index, even less problematic bills in 2021 although we continued making the Trump index, and in 2022 there were so few objectionable laws passed that we saw less need to publish the index. We had worked ourselves out of a job it seemed.

We also had a governor that was such a breath or fresh air after eight years of Mary Fallin and his actions during the covid mess left little to criticize.

But there was another vector driving things; we had recruited John Bennett for GOP Chairman and STP needed to change from being critical to being constructive in order to set Bennett up for success. More than any other reason this is why the STP newsletter stop being emailed out each week. The legislators and the tall building crowd understood what we were saying by ceasing publication; we were willing to negotiate and we were a control function in the Bennett camp that hopefully would prevent the far right radical.... I hate to call them Christians... so I'll call them christo facisists..... from derailing the direction of the GOP under Bennett's leadership.

What a disaster that became. A dozen of us that had banded together to recruit Bennett and sweep aside most of the credible opposition did our jobs. But it turned out that Bennett's campaign manager, one Leslie Nessmith, had been working for some of the City Elder and Eklesia religious fanatics and along with OCPAC they had sunk their fangs into Bennett so deep that he was corrupted. The key glue that held these nut jobs together was the Pentecostal faith, many were preachers, abolitionists, and had the firm conviction that “Gawd” would bless their efforts only if they cleansed the leadership of those with other religions. They then took this to a higher level and began “cleansing” the GOP, illegally supporting Jackson Lahmeyer against an incumbent U.S. Senator, and pushing other religious kooks for Governor and other offices.

The second that Bennett's leadership team realized that STP and nearly all of the group that recruited Bennett and got him elected were not going to allow the GOP to fall into the clutches of religious fanatics the Bennett leadership team lashed out with libel, closing down access to the GOP by closing off the State Committee meeting, even scrubbing ALL of the contact information for GOP County officials off the GOP website and requiring that any contact come through their email system.

That led to a lawsuit against Bennett, and initially against the other three members of the Central Committee for refusing to follow Party bylaws, and initially even the Party was included in the lawsuit due to some ill advised legal advice that had been given. Within weeks though the Party and all three of the other Central Committee members had been dropped from the lawsuit and the lawsuit was a pure equity suit, asking for action instead of damages, and the true nature of the lawsuit was a derivative action lawsuit, which is where an outsider sues on behalf of the Party to force Party leadership to follow the bylaws.

For Bennett he was way in too deep, he had lost control of the Party thanks to the State Committee standing up against him, the corruption and evil behavior from his leadership had spun out of control, and he had a secret that had him terrified of exposure that came out in early 2022 so Bennett was terrified of being exposed in court and lawyered up. We would show up at court and face three, even four lawyers hell bent on preventing the bylaws of the Party from being followed. They all agreed, the plaintiff had Constitutional rights and he had legal rights given to him by the Party including the right to use the Statutes of the State of Oklahoma if the bylaws were silent on any issues, but they argued in court that these rights were not enforceable due to a political party having the Constitutional right of association. In other words the Party could decide who it associated with and the Courts had historically refuse to get involved in Party infighting. The problem was the court decisions on these issues isn't that cut and dried; first involvement was in the Jim Crow days when the Democrats were refusing to allow minorities to be involved. Next was a landmark case out of Louisiana where the court stripped redistricting of district boundaries out of the control of political parties to enforce the one man one vote right. In the end the final say from the Supreme Court was that states and the federal government COULD subject political parties to our laws as long as their was a state need or purpose and that the impact was as minimal as possible.

So the State could control political parties to prevent discrimination and ensure stable and non radical political parties to ensure that people had a say in things. Financial reporting was implemented, all parties had to track spending and donations and account for everything. Ethics Commissions were formed and subjected political parties and candidates/officials to rules out the whazoo.


Now within weeks of the original lawsuit the lawsuit was boiled down to one thing; asking the Court to make Bennett follow the Party bylaws. Address the scandals, which had caused many of his original appointees to resign in disgust at Bennett's refusal to fix the problems, allow Party members with grievances to have due process and adjudicate the cases using Party bylaws. Meaning make the State Committee do its job and sort out the problems and clean up the mess. The impact was less than minimal as far as what the Court needed to do; make the actual controlling leadership of the Party rein in a corrupt Chairman and his cronies.

And Judge Mia ruled against this and dismissed the lawsuit claiming she had no jurisdiction. Party bylaws are specific; anything not covered in the rules allowed Roberts Rules of Order or State of Oklahoma Statutes to decide the matter. Within the Statutes there is a process called a derivative lawsuit where corporations or unincorporated associations could be forced to follow their bylaws by ANY member of the association/corporation. The GOP is an unincorporated association, with zero founding documents at the Secretary of State or at the Election Commission as it was grandfathered in. There are no copies of the Oklahoma GOP bylaws in any state, local, or federal system, it is without a doubt an unincorporated association and thus subject to this Oklahoma Statute created specifically to ouster rogue officials. Part of this statute states that one a derivative lawsuit is filed the judge is forbidden to dismiss the lawsuit unless she warns the organization and its members in writing. Judge Mai refused to follow the law and give the State Committee and the Republicans in the State notice of the lawsuit and her decision to dismiss it. To give them or any one of them the chance to object and ask that the lawsuit continue and the bylaws be followed.

Why? Because Judge Mai was a Republican along with the majority of the other judges at the Courthouse and specifically she was running against a challenger in a election slot dominated by the Republican Primary elections. Pissing off the GOP was on the last of her list of things to do if she wanted to get re elected. Worse, one of the crooked lawyers running Bennett's defense was Kyle Alderson, who was running for election against an incumbent judge in Tulsa County. Alderson was not only a Republican, he was working as an assistant GOP Counsel in a leadership role for Bennett to prevent the bylaws from being followed.

And it gets worse, not for the STP plaintiff, but for the judges and Bennett's attempts to continue the corruption. Judicial cannons are the laws that regulate judges and judicial candidates and one of those cannons, with the force of state law, prevented judges from belonging to groups that practice Invidious Discrimination. Which is any discrimination that is arbitrary, irrational, illegitimate, or offensive.

Judges are prohibited from belonging to such groups because it damages the reputation of the judicial system, creates controversy, offends large swath of the public, the public rightfully sees that if the judge condones such behavior in their private life they will not project impartiality and integrity. His basic belief in fairness and equality are found to be lacking. If the discrimination is irrational and not linked directly to a legitimate purpose such as say refusing men to join the Daughters of the Revolution or women to join the Knights of Columbus, both examples where the group is devoted to a small select group of individuals, then judges cannot belong to the group. In some states the judge is required to inform himself of any problems and either resign immediately or he is given one year to work on changing the offending practices or bylaws causing the discrimination.

Google this link and click on it to download one state's rules on judges belonging to discriminatory groups.  [download]
This information didn't become known to us until early summer of 2022, both the judicial cannon and Judge Mai's being a member of the GOP, and Judge Mai had already dismissed the lawsuit and had not recused herself as she should have from the entire case. Over and beyond the fact that she couldn't be a Republican, as a member of the group she ought to have immediately recused for conflict of interest EVEN if she wasn't running for re election during a Republican Primary election date. Ditto on Kyle Alderson, as a judicial candidate he was bound by the same judicial cannons as well as by the State Bar Association rules. He couldn't participate in a lawsuit involving the GOP and in fact shouldn't have been a Republican either much less working for them while running for office in Tulsa.

And by application it is far, far, worse. Both Judge Mai and Kyle Alderson where not only members of a group that practiced invidious discrimination, they were condoning the same discrimination, ensuring it continued unabated, fighting for the discrimination to continue. As both are lawyers and either judge or judicial candidate, they were aware of the prohibitions and requirements for recusal yet both refused, practicing fraud upon the Court itself. Worse, Bennett's legal team were pursuing $30,000 in lawyer fees and sanctions against the plaintiff for daring to attempt to ask the Party to follow its own bylaws.

In nearly all court cases in Oklahoma we follow the New York rule where the only attorney fees or sanctions are awarded in cases where the plaintiff KNEW he had no right to sue. So called SLAP suits where wealthy plaintiffs attack activists or whistle blowers in the court system, aiming to beat someone down by forcing them to defend themselves from a worthless lawsuit. Oklahoma has the OCPA act where citizens that find themselves being sued for practicing civil rights or Constitutional rights can ask the court for sanctions and attorney fees. Bennett and his legal team claim that the STP plaintiff suing to protect their rights of association somehow violated Bennett's rights of association. They have even asked for attorney fees for a federal lawsuit they filed against the plaintiff that was thrown out by the federal judge as being without basis. The plaintiff never knew of the lawsuit as service had not been done and the federal judge threw out the case in a few days, questioning why any lawyer would file such a federal lawsuit knowing that the court had no jurisdiction. Despite losing the lawsuit, on their own, with no answer by the plaintiff, Bennett and Alderson want to be paid for their time.

The OCPA was designed to protect whistle blowers and those involved in activism and politics. It was not designed to punish people for trying to protect their Constitutional rights.

Once the plaintiff was aware that Judge Mai and Kyle Alderson were both Republicans and running for election or re election in a primary election while the lawsuit was going on they were confronted in a closed hearing in front of Judge Mai as the law required. Judge Mai was dumbstruck and kept sending pleading looks to Kyle Alderson to get her out of the mess they had created. She was asked to recuse herself and strike down the earlier decision to dismiss the lawsuit based upon the fraud committed and the violation of judicial rules. The next day Alderson dropped out of his judicial race, conceding to the incumbent judge, and a week or so later Judge Mai recused herself and transferred the lawsuit to another judge in Oklahoma County, a Democrat judge.

On the 19th of January we go into court to find out where the new judge stands. There is no question that there was fraud involved. There is no question that legally STP was right on every single issue, that the lawsuit was illegally dismissed without notice to the members of the GOP, and that any ideas of asking for sanctions or legal costs using a state statute designed to protect whistle blowers and activists itself is a violation of the OCPA. It is an open courtroom, anyone is welcome to attend, find the details of the hearing and read all of the filings in the case at this link to oscn. The hearing is at 1:30 pm at room 201 Judge Timmons Court room.

*****

And lastly, the long time readers of the STP newsletter were aware of the decades long support of John Bennett by STP and many have asked why he would turn on us in such a manner. Bennett was elected in 2010 with major STP support, endorsements, ads, massive outlays of literature dropped into the distict and we are talking a pallet load. This continued when requested at EVERY single re election when Bennett was about to loose. Many the time John Bennett would call and say “Al, I hate to ask this as I am always asking for help....” and STP would stand up to defend the guy. We all thought he was a decent man and the real deal as a patriot.

Once Bennett called us after the Speaker of the House and the Floor Leader had flown down to meet Bennett in Talequah. In return for thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the two, Bennett agreed to ask STP to back off and allow the to develop their administration. We agreed for several reasons; first we had said all we had to say about them and had no other negative info, and two, we knew that Bennett would be stripped of his Committee chairmanship if we continued to go after House leadership. Without a chairmanship Bennett would be unable to raise significant contributions to keep him in office. And our decision was put in this way, tell them that power if fungible and so is the exposing of corruption; we can easily switch our attention to the #3 House leader, Chris Kannady at the time, accomplish the same goals and not endanger Bennett.

This paid off as relations between STP were better with House leadership so one Christmas Eve when Bennett called once again asking for our help after being attacked by a newly elected House member, we ran a quick story on the attack by the incoming Republican House member and that very night on Christmas Eve she was calling Bennett to apologize after House Leadership had called her threatening hell on earth if she didn't. Bennett told us a few day later that he refused her call but called her back on Christmas day after being told she had been ordered to apologize to him. Leadership went on to force the woman to apologize to the Caucus on organizational day a few weeks later and the woman apologized to her class of incoming House members as well.

So after literally making this man successful, why would he turn on us? First was the influence of the religious crazies he had surrounded himself with after the election. Second was early on Bennett was pressured somehow into funneling thousands of dollars per month to one Miles Rahimi, a current candidate for the next GOP chair position. Money was tight, the phone was turned off in early June for non payment, the rent hadn't been paid in months to the non profit that owns the Party HQ. Why funnel $4,000 a month to a crony for dubious videos, especially when Rahimi was advertising unlimited videos and organizational support for $1500 on his website? Not only that, Bennett and his Executive Director lied to the Budget and Finance committee about the contract they had signed with Rahimi, claiming it was a “gentleman's” agreement and not a contract. Hell the Budget Committee couldn't pay the bills at the time and were pressured at every meeting to pay off Rahimi first.

*****

And it gets worse, at one point Pam Pollard, the current National Committee woman for the GOP, had taken four or five cases of sexual harassment to Bennett and his Executive Director asking that they be investigated and dealt with. The exact reply was “We will not 'Brent Kavanaugh” these men.” The women were told to come forward in public or not complain. Now these were all young, good looking, married women with kids that made the mistake of volunteering at the GOP or one of its projects. One of the alleged perpetrators was the assistant General Counsel and when the issue was brought up in court filings the guy replied to the paper without once mentioning the alleged sexual harassment despite him being directly accused of being involved. In court filings by refusing to refute or address an issue you are directly admitting it to be true. You cannot deny the accusations at that point. One of what be believe was one of the victims, or an additional victim of sexual harassment, came forward and described what she was subjected to. Allegedly Pollard had text messages and other forms of proof of the alleged acts and showed this proof to Bennett and his Executive Director to no avial.

*****

And we are not done yet. There was an appointed General Counsel that dropped out the day of the first State Committee meeting where he as to be confirmed. STP had recruited the man after Bennett had given the green light. At the time we helped him write his statement of recusal from nomination thinking it was about the recent problems that Bennett had become involved in including the sudden closing of the GOP State Committee meetings. The nominee expressed his lack of confidence in Bennett and the lack of transparency in the leadership; Bennett stood up before the State Committee and lied, claiming that the nominee had “important legal stuff” and was too busy to serve.

Later we find out from another source inside the GOP that the incoming General Counsel had recommended the prosecution of the former GOP Chairman for embezzlement after allegations arose that he had emptied the GOP bank account in his final days as Chairman and even after he was no longer Chairman as Bennett had been elected. Had this been to pay rent or utility bills it could have been understood but something like $43,000 had been funneled to the former Chairman and his cronies, leaving the incoming administration broke and in debt after a hugely profitable State Convention. Bennett and his leadership team argued against turning the evidence over to law enforcement which led to the nominated General Counsel resigning in disgust. As far as we are aware, nothing was ever done to recover the embezzled money. One could argue that before he was replaced it was a grey area but after being replaced as Chairman any spending was indeed legal embezzlement.

*****

But there was more reason for Bennett to turn on the STP and his other backers, something that came to light when Bennett filed to run for Congress in the spring of 2022, while the lawsuit was still going on. The short version is that Bennett appears to be lying about his military record, a case of stolen valor, faking combat status and lying about a head injury. Bennett had told numerous groups stories bout his wartime heroics, something that the average combat vet just doesn't do, and claimed that a roadside bomb was the cause of his head injury. After a fellow Marine veteran comes forward, we find out that not only was Bennett claiming a Purple Heart, he had numerous Combat Action Ribbons (CAR) posted with his military memorabilia in his Sallisaw office. The problem was that CAR awards cover each war, you only get one for that war, and it was highly suspicious to see four or five shown in a veteran's memorabilia. Not only that it was improper even if earned; you displayed ONE CAR and added small pins called devices to signify that you had fought in a combat role in more than one war. Bennett had no clue on how the awards were to be displayed. It gets worse, it turns out the head injury was said to have happened during a motorcycle accident in Taiwan, according to Bennett's relatives, an off duty accident, not a combat injury. If this is indeed true displaying the Purple Heart is stolen valor indeed.

It gets worse, the retired Marine Major that accused Bennett of lying about his military service just happened to be a past commander of the Broken Arrow TOW unit that Bennett claimed to belong to as a National Guard/Reserve soldier. So the Major calls the unit, explains who he is and asks them to verify that he had commanded the unit a few years prior, once that was confirmed the Major asked them about John Bennett..... not in their records as ever being associated with the unit. And Bennett was putting out press releases while in office claiming his participation in summer camps with this unit.

Even worse, the Marine Major was “swatted” by Bennett's office. Someone at Bennett's office speaking for Representative John Bennett called into a national military veteran suicide hotline claiming to be the Major's brother and saying that Bennett's office was asking for an intervention claiming that the Major was making threats and was out of his mind. Claims of guns being pulled and angry outbursts, none of which were true. We didn't get the hotline transcript but we did obtain a copy of the outreach team report on this incident and it confirmed that the call came from Representative John Bennett's office. The result as that cops showed up out of the blue at this medically retired Marine combat vets apartment with weapons drawn hell bent on protecting this man from himself and protecting society by coming in with weapons drawn.

And there is no end to this list of accusations. The Major shows up at Bennett's office after being referred to the Muskogee VA, given a business card for a specific woman that would help him and this was intimately arranged by Bennett himself we are told, only to find a hostile reception, taken to an unused office by the woman case worker and grilled about claims of faking back injuries. The guy was in a back brace worn on the outside of his clothing and had been medically discharged due to a combat injury, retired medically. So after questioning Bennett the guy leaves and drops by a Sallisaw Walmart as it was close and there was no Walmart in his small town, notices that Bennett's office manager was lurking around, and found himself body checked into a set of shelves by the office manager, violently. An apology was quickly given despite the obvious intent and the medically retired Major asked to be escorted out of the Walmart by security after the attack. Driving back to Bennett's office immediately got the Major only claims of denial with Bennett claiming that the office manager hadn't worked for Bennett in months. Then as the Major was leaving up drives the office manager carrying Sonic bags, he had picked up lunch for Bennett and others at the office on his way back from Walmart. The Major asked Bennett how this all looked and Bennett just mumbled “Not good.”

In earlier campaigns Bennett faced one Tom Stites, a wash out from the Air Force Academy, and Stites was stretching the truth by claiming veteran status. Bennett was quick to demand that STP push that issue and even publicly called for Stites to present his DD214, which would have given his veteran status and reason for washing out of the academy. Little did we know that Bennett himself was very likely lying about his own military service as this Marine Major didn't show up until years later.

*****

There you have it, the mystery is solved. Bennett turned out to have been living a lie according to the accusations and his leadership at the GOP was a gold plated disaster. The RINOs refused to call a Central Committee meeting based on the accusations presented in a letter to them by the plaintiff prior to the lawsuit despite phone calls and messages stating that if the Plaintiff would provide the cover by mailing the pre lawsuit letters they would then act and investigate and put Bennett up on charges. After weeks of non action, the plaintiff just sued all of them. Their hope was that Bennett would be damaged, sued by himself, then they could step in and take over. AJ Ferate was one of the lawyers defending the three Central Committee members in court, stating that while the plaintiff had legal rights there was no way to enforce those rights. And who ran for GOP Chairman once Bennett resigned? AJ Ferate. By refusing to protect the Party by following the bylaws, AJ Ferate, Pam Pollard, Steve Curry, and Shane Jamison ensured that they controlled the Party once Bennett was out.

And have you seen the notices and flyers from a couple of groups that are claiming to try to end the corruption in the GOP in Oklahoma. They appear to be behind former State Rep. Sean Roberts, which is a huge problem not because of Roberts but because once again we are seeing radical christo fascists trying to gain control of the State GOP. Some of the sponsors of these groups are Ecklesia, the radical abolitionist group, their former Gubernatorial candidate Mark Sherwood, Taxpayers Unite which the radical “Moto” or Adam Modissette, and Jake Merrick one of the last abolitionist candidates that won office a few years ago. Adding to the mess is none other than John Bennett featured as a speaker at one of the rallies. See the Facebook ads below. Another group pushing these radical religious agenda is Oklahoma Liberty and Integrity Group on Facebook. Well, what they appear to stand for seems innocuous but those they are partnered with say all one needs to know.

The problem with these radicals is that they are anything but Christian. They are fascists that want to require religious affiliation tests, Christians need not apply to run for office, unless they belong to a narrow range of fundamentalist sects such as Pentecostal. They fought bitterly to undo decades of Pro Life legislation on the theory that “Gawd” wouldn't bless their efforts to end all abortion, including those abortions where the life of the mother was at risk. Of course repealing the existing anti abortion law was foolish when we knew that any absolute prohibition of abortion would be struck down, at least that was the case when all of this was tried. They openly admit that birth control is next.

These christo fascists are no different than the radical liberals. They want to control everyone and force them to live as they decree. There is a reason they are called the American Taiban.

It would be wise to check closely on any of these groups that are claiming they want to clean up corruption in the GOP. They indeed were most of the corruption during the Bennett administration. Nothing would drive away moderates and independents than allowing christo fascists to control the GOP. They are maybe 8% of the voter base, have never been able to put together a coalition or work with other groups to advance the Republican agenda. While the STP tried to work with the crazies in the past we learned over and over that they were incredibly toxic and dangerous to the Party.

*****

Our last story concerns a horrendous persecution of a lawyer in Wagoner County. Tulsa Police and the local prosecutor finally had enough of the guy because not only was he a dang fine attorney, he was exposing a lot of corruption within the Police Department and the Tulsa County D.A. Office and the Court system.

The false charges they chose were rape. A horrendous crime in my opinion. Were I on a rape trial jury and was convinced that a defendant was guilty, that there was a solid defense, and everything was correct and just, well I would deliver the verdict and offer to carry out the death penalty if warranted. Rape is just that bad of a crime.

There are several stories about this case and they outline a horrible set of lies used to persecute this innocent man. The ex wife went through a long custody battle and never once brought up allegations of any kind against this kind and gentle man. Only after she re married to a man from Belgium and needed to take full custody of a ten year old daughter so she could move to Belgium did these allegations come out. The actual “victim” was a current girlfriend of the man, they had been living together but for whatever reason the lawyer wasn't returning her calls or texts that day so the woman showed up at his house in North Tulsa. Not sure if they were in the process of a break up or what but the woman shows up unannounced, the couple wind up hitting a couple of bars for drinks and dinner, then back to the lawyer's home where they spent the night.

Five days later the woman decides she wasn't sure what had happened that night so she makes a rape complaint and asks for a rape kit to be taken. Usually three days is the max for a rape kit. Later the woman confesses during a conversation that she was talked into filing the charges by the ex wife that now wanted sole custody of their daughter.

The Tulsa County D.A. had to recuse, they had been outed by this guy many times, as he had done to the Police Department including proving that a woman detective had lied about rape, breaking down on the witness stand and admitting she made up the rape charge to avoid disciplinary action for screwing another co worker. She admits to fabricating the rape charge against a defendant and to this day she still works for the Tulsa Police Department as a sex crimes investigator.

Enter Joyce Thorpe, wife of Wagoner County Jack Thorpewho is the D.A. of Wagoner County and four other counties in his district. Joyce worked as the Tulsa office for the Attorney General for years and was in charge of grand juries and moving criminal cases here there were conflicts like in this case. This is political gold, you can shift cases over to D.A.s that will carry water for the establishment and when D.A.s get caught needing to bust a local power broker they can scream conflict and push the matter out of their hands to protect their own political future.

The persecution of this young lawyer can be found at this link. One of the things, one of the few things you can see online is the court minutes from late last year where the judge refused to recuse themselves and a half of dozen witnesses for the defendant where not allowed to testify. The entire record is basically sealed despite only one particular transcript of a hearing being actually sealed. On most of the other cases the petitions and motions are stored in PDF files available to download but not this case because it is proof of the outrageous judicial behavior and prosecutorial abuse. The case has defense subpoena going back one year that have yet to be honored, there is no other explanation other than this young man is being railroaded and pushed to trial on a fake rape charge from an ex girlfriend he had lived with who cannot even testify if she was raped or not. Worse, in December the Wagoner County D.A. Office petitioned the court to strip the young lawyer of his law license so he cannot earn money to hire other attorneys to defend himself. Among the reasons given in the motion were that he did his job as a defense attorney. In one example the judge shut down the evidence gathering hearings and demanded that all evidence be submitted to the Court clerk to be filed in the case. Well this case was a rape case and it just so happened that the “victim” and another friend of the accused where discussing the case and the “victim” posted a picture of her... who haw... along with the caption about how many miles the defendant had put on the thing... What was the lawyer to do? Not file the exculpatory evidence in the rape case and let his client to to prison for rape that he didn't commit? Not a single instance of allegations in that motion to revoke the lawyer's license was valid, it is an obvious attempt to ruin the man and strip him of a means to earning a living while stretching out the court date into the far future to force the guy into making a plea deal.

We have written dozens of stories about the corruption in Wagoner County where Jack Thorpe is in charge. Assistant D.A.s that drunkenly drive over neighbors and are fired then rehired at one of Thorpe's other county offices. The story of the Wagoner County Commissioner that was buddies to Jack and Joy Thorpe getting accused of child molestation or worse by his own step daughter during a civil deposition. The opposing lawyer was none other than the drunk assistant D.A. that had been transferred to Creek County, working as a civil attorney on the side and when the young woman broke down on the witness stand and said that the county commissioner/step dad had been molesting her or worse the drunk broke in and took charge as this was for sure a criminal matter. After hearing the details his advice to her was to get some help and nothing more was done. This is in a court room with a court reporter working. Months later, the day after STP ran the story, we get a call from Joyce Thorpe asking us to call Jack Thorpe's office and put in an open records request to get the new letter Jack and sent to the OSBI asking them to investigate and recusing himself from the matter. The OSBI did talk to the victim and some of her friends we learned and all were hopeful that the Wagoner County Commissioner would be arrested and taken to trial on molestation charges. And nothing happened.....This is how they set things up.

This same Wagoner County Commissioner gets caught embezzling from a young partner and enlists the local sheriff department to stalk the guy, gets Mays County to dismiss a traffic ticket that had already been adjudicatd and the fine paid off by the defendant, in order to recharge the driver with being a felon in possession of a handgun. The problem was that the guy took a plea deal on a deferred prosecution and successfully completed the deal and was never a felon as a result. His plea deal never said he was a felon and couldn't possess weapons. In fact he took the plea deal with a small court costs to ensure that he could hunt in the future. One Wagoner County judge looked at the case where Jack Thorpe was trying to revoke this plea deal and shut down Thorpe, calling it unimaginable that Thorpe could renege on the long closed case. That didn't stop Mayes County, from declaring that the case was not closed, that it was a new offense despite the ruling of the Wagoner County judge, and pushing the young man to stand trial for one simple reason; if he was in jail he couldn't continue fighting the Wagoner County embezzlement civil case and recover his stolen assets.

And to make things worse, the drunk assistant D.A.? Was the original prosecutor that cut the plea deal and we had the dirt bag on a taped phone call admitting that the original case was B.S. and that he forced the plea deal only because of the publicity the case received. The drunk went so far to say that had he had to deal with the alleged “victim” again they would be calling the SWAT team on him too, that she was crazy and the defendant was in no way guilty. And that he would work on Mayes County to get them to drop the charges as he knew the young man was not a felon.

Then there was the Wolley case, a set of grandparents accused of unspeakable crimes with zero evidence. The local grand jury saw the evidence and heard testimony and refused to indict the grandparents. The arresting officer that was in charge of the crime scene was outed by his supervisor as saying he knew the couple were guilty before he arrived on the death scene. This was a meth baby, born to a daughter of the grandparents who forced her into rehab and sued for custody of the meth baby. He had a host of medical issues, as did the older brother, due to drug use during their conception and pregnancy of their mom. The local head of the DHS abused children unit went to their church and testified to changing both of the kid's diapers and never seeing any signs of abuse, medical experts in child pathology testified that there was zero evidence of any abuse. We wrote a half dozen stories about this horrific abuse of prosecutorial power and eventually with enough public pressure the criminal charges were dropped. But to this day the older drug baby is still in foster care, being used as a shield to avoid being sued by the family for abuse of process. As long as the system can pretend there was abuse they are immune from lawsuits, even though the SANE nurse recordings and transcripts show that the child never made any accusations but in fact defended his grandparents.

Hit our blog site and scroll down through the stories and you can read the exhausting details and see the copies of transcripts and other evidence for all of this. Wagoner County is a hot bed of corruption, these radical christo fascists are a huge danger to the Republican Party and must be sent packing, and there are many stories on the persecution of this innocent young attorney on fake rape charge. His next court date is the 20th of January at 10 am in room 401 and I plan on being there and encourage others to show up in Wagoner County to watch the corruption in action.
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According to the document above that was supplied by a previous political opponent, Tom Stites, Bennett left active duty with the pay grade and rank of E-7 Gunnery Sergeant well short of a 20-year (minimum) active duty retirement. It is important to point out that Gunnery Sergeant is one rank below the rank of First Sergeant, with an oddity in the ranking system that has the career path split at First Sergeant/Master Sergeant,both ranks being E-8. Bennett could have received an early medical retirement from a line-of-duty injury sustained for instance from enemy action in a combat zone. However, he would not have been allowed to leave active duty and join the Marine Corps reserves and receive the promotion to First Sergeant and retire after serving combined active duty and reserve time of 20 years. A Marine has to be physically fit to join the Marine Corps reserves and be considered for promotion. Bennett made the same comment to the Tea Party as he did to Hendrix - his vehicle hit an IED during the 2nd battle of Fallujah (Nov 2004) With the type of injury claimed he would not be deploy-able to make a deployment to Afghanistan after the claimed date of injury until he received a lengthy and extensive evaluation.


The second bullet point about Bennett's claimed reason for retiring early is from Bennett himself, he in fact told the Tea Party this story way back in 2010, that a roadside bomb caused head trauma and early retirement. He did retire as a Gunny Sergeant, with sergeant being the lowest NCO rank, staff sergeant next, then gunnery sergeant, then master sergeant/ first sergeant (both E-8), master gunnery sergeant, sergeant major, then the highest NCO rank being Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps.


Now there are many variations depending upon the unit but a sergeant will command a squad of 13 Marines with the actual number depending upon the type of unit. A staff sergeant will assist a 2nd Lieutenant in command of a platoon of 43 marines or a section leader in a weapons platoon . A gunnery sergeant might be a platoon leader in charge of a weapons platoon with the more experienced moving up to the company gunnery sergeant in charge of beans, bullets, and band aids so to speak. Master sergeants serve as operations chief or assistant operations chief of a company of Marines, at this level they are pushing paper and logistics, not tech experts or leading men. A first sergeant serves as the senior enlisted advisor to a company or battery commander, supervision of the lower ranks, sorting out human resource issues, not out leading men or working logistics. A master gunnery sergeant serves as the operations chief of an infantry battalion, between 500 and 1200 men depending upon the unit's purpose.


So First Sergeant is a step up from logistics or squad command to supervision. And the size of the Marine Corp is important, only around 181,000 in active service, around 91,000 in reserve units, and the room to advance is small. To become a sergeant takes almost five years statistically as 16% of the entire Marine force are sergeants, over double that to become a staff sergeant which around 9% of the entire force , nearly 15 years to make it to gunnery sergeant which are 5% of the entire force, and nearly 19 years on the average to make it to master sergeant/first sergeant 2% of the force which are. A marine must meet both time-in-service and time-in-grade to be eligible for consideration for promotion. Because of these time limitations, it takes on average 19 years for a marine to reach the rank of 1st Sgt. First Sergeant is a step up in supervising authority and responsibility from that of an E-7 Gunnery Sergeant


Are you seeing the problem here? With only 13 to 14 years of service, with being supposedly blown up in 2004 around ten years into his service, his advancement would have slowed to a crawl if he had memory damage as he claimed which led to his retirement. Marine NCOs advance only with great fitness reports, so many are skipped for advancement due to the limited number of slots available and they leave the service as they aren't likely to advance further. Promotions are handled by a promotion board and basically those with the longest service in grade, in that rank, move to the front of the list. There are merit promotions but they are rare and you cannot make it to first sergeant through merit or it is very rare.


Next up is that due to the extremely limited number of billets available the Marines expect longer service in exchange for promotion to master sergeant or first sergeant. And there are limits to years served, a sergeant is out at 13 years, a staff sergeant is allowed 20 years, a gunnery sergeant is allowed 22 years, a first sergeant or master sergeant is allowed 27 years, and a sergeant major is allowed 30 years. The retirement pay balloons with these extra years, few first sergeants would want to quit at 14 years if any.


The fourth bullet point on that document above mentions Bennett's final posting, the Third Intelligence Battalion and this is where things get interesting. Not only is the battalion a headquarters group, not a combat group, it is stationed in Okinawa and didn't send a contingent to Afghanistan until 2009, two years after Bennett had left the service. How did Bennett get to Afghanistan if his unit didn't arrive until two months after he had left the service.


Another interesting rumor has been floating around, that booze and a moped and a mountain road were the likely cause of any head trauma Bennett might have suffered. An alternative rumor was it was a nearly identical story except it was a motorcycle in Georgia. This would explain Bennett's retirement, a loss of memory loss would indeed have him denied re enlistment.


The fifth bullet point in the document above is the clincher. This is from the Marine Corp Records Branch and there is NO PURPLE HEART or CAR, Combat Action Ribbon. Without the CAR you cannot call yourself a combat marine. Now you might remember from the previous installment of this saga that being blown up by a roadside bomb is a way to receive a CAR, therefore John Bennett would have had a CAR listed on his list of medals were he indeed blown up while on duty. Add to that the improper display of a large amount of CAR ribbons, far in excess of the normal, for a guy with a desk job it seems as his last posting.


Now we do have that last award, four years volunteering in a rest home and as a girl scout leader....maybe the Purple Heart came from selling cookies or dumping bed pans?