How Many Prohibitions Do We Keep?

  As a 'teetotaler', I am glad our nation ended it's "war on liquor" 81 years ago. While I personally discourage leisure consumption, The abuse of the legal code for the sake of oppressing personal freedoms which we don't personally approve of, is really not in keeping with the founding principles of our nation.

• We don't make atheism illegal. 
• We don't make swinger clubs illegal. 
• We don't make fortune-telling illegal.

  I urge continued prosecution of those who endanger the public or exploit children through liquor marketing and consumption, But if the fella next door sips a bourbon before bedtime, that's his business. I hope he sleeps peacefully.

  I'm just glad that organized crime was dealt a deadly blow by removing the prohibition amendment. Al Capone and other racketeers made millions off illegal liquor.

  Now if others draw a parallel between liquor then, and hemp, today; we might have an intellectually stimulating discussion... 

David Van Risseghem

Can The OKGOP Leadership Do Better?

   As the Oklahoma Republican Party nears a state of full saturation in state government, the concern is not so much whether the Republican lawmaker is being heard, but rather; does the Republican politician even speak for the conservative electorate who sent him to the capital. There will always be the opportunist seeking to hitch his horse to the back of the party wagon. But that politician is primarily self-seeking, whose aim is principally to get himself re-elected.

   As the local town folk shake off the last bit of Democrat dust and seek leaders who will provide good government.  That goodness is also defined by how free the people can remain. 

• How few regulations we bind upon the backs of producers. 
• How little taxes we extract from income earners.
• How efficiently we solve state challenges in cooperation with other private & public sector solutions.
• How the great traditions and values of our diverse families are celebrated, rather than maligned.

   What message will our massive majority of elected officials support in unity and great resolve?  Can anyone command the respect and trust of the elected officials, so that the legislature produces sound conservative legislation? Is there a person with sufficient moral authority to insure that state agencies adopt regulations which reflect the strong commitment to liberty which our founding fathers fought & died for?
   I believe our Republican Party needs now, more than ever; to be disciplined in how we identify state challenges. Last Winter we watched a sneak attack of compromised Republican senators who sought to give away the Oklahoma Electoral College votes to a compact of mostly liberal states. It is reported that the OKGOP chairman (David Weston) voiced some displeasure in this sly maneuver. But the Bingman-controlled senate just ignored Weston altogether.
 Why is that?
   Even the local Republican party apparatus is confused by some of Weston's actions. This past Spring, Weston demanded the resignation of a County Chairman, citing a "state party rule" which bars her from her county chairmanship if she files for elective office. There is no such rule; and Weston should know this. To date there is no record of retraction or apology from Weston for seeking to prohibit the County Chairman of her full participation in the party (an infraction so serious that it should result in Weston's removal from office).
   Last Winter the party leadership planned one of the biggest formal fundraiser events, at the Tulsa Renaissance Hotel Ballroom. The details of the event eventually helped get the ball cancelled (postponed, but never rescheduled). Those details upset large numbers of Tea Party members because the headliner (Mike Huckabee) was promised a percentage of the event proceeds. But more specifically, the proceeds were earmarked to go to HuckPAC, where they would be redirected toward opposing the Tea Party candidates in states like Kentucky & Tennessee. Dinosaur senators like Alexander & McConnell were among the biggest intended recipients of  funds from the OKGOP Ball.

Senator Randy Brogdon

   We do have better options. We just need to encourage good leaders to come up to the platform and lead.  When I look around for better options, one name comes to mind. The Sooner State GOP has a rare opportunity to choose a well-known and highly respected former state senator for our next state chairman. Senator Randy Brogdon is said to be considering the race for GOP State Party Chairman. With sufficient rank-and-file support, we could see  a leader like Brogdon lay the groundwork for a successful effort to be the next state GOP chairman. And that is good news for conservatives who want political discipline and a clear conservative message to be promoted throughout the state and exported to the rest of the nation.
   The passion of the values voters, liberty advocates,  and the visionaries who see the potential in a state which puts off the bondage of mounting taxes, debt, and oppressive regulation; want a more effective leader who can channel the energy and conviction of the Tea Party into a Republican return to the sound governance which respects freedom and rewards the industriousness and ingenuity of the free market.

David Van Risseghem

   We need to do better than this current confused effort. We need a better state party leader whose capacity to lead is proportionate to the overwhelming majority of voters' choice.

Of Christianity and Liberty

  Pastor Chuck Baldwin posted a very well written and compelling thesis on the misguided efforts of contemporary preachers in the area of eschatology (end times prophecy). 

  "Now that the GOP has control of both houses of Congress in Washington, D.C., and with a pro-war Democrat in the White House, we can expect an escalation of foreign wars during the next two years analogous to those of the G.W. Bush years. And, unfortunately, most of the Christian war fever seems to be predicated on the erroneous John Hagee theology that modern-Israel is Bible-Israel and, somehow, it is America’s responsibility to fight all of Israel’s wars.

  The war fever demonstrated by too many Christians and conservatives is destroying our country. Endless wars abroad; hundreds of thousands of innocents killed--many of whom are our Christian brothers and sisters; trillions of dollars of deficit spending to fund these perpetual, unconstitutional wars of aggression; a burgeoning Police State at home under the rubric of “we are at war”; ad infinitum.

  Worse still is the way Christian war fever has turned the nations of the world, not only against America, but against Christianity. How are our missionaries supposed to take the message of the Prince of Peace to a people whom we have just bombed into the Stone Age, killing their parents, children, brothers and sisters, etc.?"

  Were we, as United States citizens, a meddling nation from our founding? Certainly not. We were the nation folks could remove to, in order to stay out of the destructive an violent aggressions of  other continents.

  Benjamin Franklin wrote a pamphlet called, “Information to Those Who Would Remove to America.” It was intended to be a guide for Europeans who were thinking about relocating to this country. In it, he said, 

  “Hence, bad examples to youth are more rare in America, which must be comfortable consideration to parents. To this may be truly added, that serious religion, under its various denominations, is not only tolerated, but respected and practiced.”

Franklin continued, 

“Atheism is unknown there; infidelity rare and secret; so that persons may live to a great age in that country without having their piety shocked by meeting with either an Atheist or an Infidel.”

Franklin went on:

   “And the Divine Being seems to have manifested his approbation of the mutual forbearance and kindness with which the different sects [Christian denominations] treat each other; by the remarkable prosperity with which he has been pleased to favor the whole country.”

  Noah Webster (himself an outspoken Christian, of course), said,

 “The religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and His apostles, which enjoins humility, piety, and benevolence; which acknowledges in every person a brother, or a sister, and a citizen with equal rights. This is genuine Christianity, and to this we owe our free Constitutions of Government.”

Pastor Chuck Baldwin

Chuck Baldwin concluded with this;

I, for one, would never want a so-called theocracy administered by the likes of the vast majority of Christian teachers and pastors today. Are you kidding? Most of them can’t even govern a small congregation of believers who are ostensibly assembled under the same ideology, same eschatology, same ecclesiology, etc. Have you been to a church business meeting lately? You really want those people dictating national laws? God forbid!

No! There is no Moses on the scene today with new revelation dictating God’s will for the nation. That being said, there is no mistaking the fact that America has a deeply-rooted, rich Christian tradition.

America’s founders, even those who were not professing Christians, as we understand the term today, acknowledged that fact.

So, Liberty is, and ought be the message of our common heritage.

• It is Liberty which Christ declared as he began his teaching ministry.
• It is Liberty which Paul defined as the central mindset of our new testament principle of worship
• It is Liberty which our diverse collection of colonies found as a binding principle to build a nation upon.
• It is Liberty which flowed through every tenet of the Bill of Rights.
• It is Liberty which drove our unequaled economic legacy through industry and trade.
• It is Liberty which we have turned our backs on, in a return to totalitarian, socialist, and punitive legislative, executive, & judicial abandonment of all that history should have taught us.

David Van Risseghem

Obama Looks For A New Political Base

Press Corp reporter: "Mr. President, Why are you planning to grant amnesty to millions of illegals?"

Obama: "Because they will do the jobs Americans don't want to do."
Press Corp reporter: "Like what?"
Obama: "Voting Democrat."

David Van Risseghem

Mullin Election Case May Become A Supreme Court Battle

The late Earl Everett, candidate

 Oklahoma's congressional delegation involves 5 Representatives, one of whom is Republican Markwayne Mullin, representing the traditional "Little Dixie" Democrat region and the Eastern side of Oklahoma.

  His little-known Democrat challenger was Earl Everett, a retired school teacher & Korean War veteran.  Earl died on Sunday, about 50 hours before the polls closed in the general election he was a part of.

  Now, the poorly-written state law indicates that a party nominee needs to be replaced by a substitute candidate (of the party's choosing), and the state is supposed to scrap the general election for that office & replace it with a special election involving all the living candidates plus the one replacement candidate. But the law seems silent about how to initiate the action? Does the dead person's party need to file a Contest Of Election with the state election board, in order to initiate the remedy? Or does the Governor have to be omniscient and even while campaigning in her own re-election she needs to be aware of the life status of every candidate in the state? If it's the governor's job to know and initiate all action, I can just imagine the resulting daily robo-calls to all party nominees:

• [phone rings to candidate during a stump speech]: "Hello, this is the governor's office, calling  daily, to make sure every candidate is still alive. If you are alive, press 1 ."

  It would be sensible to assume the affected party needs to notify the election board that they no longer have a living candidate, even though voting is already underway. 

Wallace Collins
ODP Chair

  Everything seems to hinge on whether the Democratic Party filed the contest by Friday at 5pm. (assuming a contest is needed to trigger the nullification of the 2nd District balloting). The Oklahoma Democrat State Chairman, Wallace Collins, complained to the media, last Friday; but there remains no report of a filing of contest at the state election board.

"Hello, this is the governor's office, calling  daily, to make sure every candidate is still alive. If you are alive, press 1 ."

  It's sort of a "statute of limitations." and I do not believe it can be extended after the fact.    And it may be subject to certification by the 2015 State legislature, as was mentioned in the legal case involving the Tulsa District Attorney case (Kunzweiler v Jordan)

  This is going to be challenged by Democrats in Oklahoma District  court & deferred to  the Oklahoma Supreme Court. 

Badly-written laws result in governance by edict & questionable precedent.

  If this does result in a December ruling from the Oklahoma Supreme Court, it could trigger a  Federal case.

David Van Risseghem

  And this may even go to the US Supreme Court, because in Bush v Gore, the Federal ruling states that the power to determine a state's representation was given to the legislatures of each state and not the courts of those states.