Yes, I’m a registered Republican. No, I’m not changing the title of this blog. Unfortunately, we now live in UPSIDE DOWN WORLD. Maddeningly, our Republican Governor – Kevin Stitt – and the Republican SUPERMAJORITY Oklahoma legislature, is going Big Business for $1000 Alec.
Oklahoma, once considered to be the reddest state in the 50, is now Tyrannyville thanks to the economic development mantra of the group that used to be for ‘the people’; the property owners, those who had worked hard for a living and wanted to protect their investment/s – the Republicans. Nope, not any more.
Friday, May 24th, ROPE Report hosted Whitney Mullica and Kelly Wilson of PikeOffOTA (Citizens For Responsible Transportation) to talk about how the Oklahoma Transportation Authority – the pseudogovernmental agency peopled with unelected bureaucrats unaccountable to the public – work with members of the business development community to develop tolled roads that, not only must the citizens of Oklahoma pay to use, but that removes their property from them using the force of the state.
You can find the full video on our Rumble and YouTube channels. I suggest you watch the whole thing – it is very informative when hearing all the information at once – but until you have the time, watch the very short pieces I’ve clipped from the whole, below.
Though many people do eventually cut a deal with the OTA for the ‘sale’ of their house and property to the Authority, many people refuse. It doesn’t matter, however, because the state kicks them off the property anyway only to wait – in some cases – over A YEAR to have the issue settled by the court. This is OUTRAGEOUS and citizens of Oklahoma simply shouldn’t tolerate this kind of nonsense.
Here, Kelly shows that, while eminent domain is used to remove property owners from their property, the ‘surplus’ land ‘left over’ after the turnpike has been created, is then sold to the public. Many times, the purchasers of the land are people who benefitted in some way through the OTA turnpike process in the first place. While this is not illegal, personally benefitting from the process of removing the property of a citizen using the force of the state is ethically and morally wrong. If people can’t police themselves along moral and ethical lines, why is the state not protecting citizens by preventing this kind of behavior?
Could it be that ‘the state’ would rather have the money afforded it by the rich and powerful – especially when it comes time to be re-elected?
Below is the most important video you’ll see if you really want to know the way citizens are being tyrannized by Oklahoma’s governmental bureaucracy because this video connects all the dots. Suffice it to say, ‘the people’ simply don’t matter in the face of business interests that want to enrich themselves.
Here, Kelly provides THE CIRCLE OF GOVERNMENT INTERESTS – the ways in which the rich just keep getting richer off the backs of those whose property is seized by eminent domain to create roads they’ll be forced to pay to use. Rinse and repeat. It’s like shampooing your hair.
Who’s going to protect the citizen now when all the people whose job it is to PROTECT THE RIGHTS AND PROPERTY OF THE CITIZEN are essentially in on the deal to benefit from government contracts and government planning and government’s support of private business and public/private partnerships…..
We’ll never get our liberty back until we figure out a way to get a tire iron in this wagon wheel right here!
So…PLEASE SHARE WIDELY!! Help us educate all Oklahomans about what’s happening right under their feet!
This morning (Wednesday, May 22nd), Michael and I had our friend Julianne Romanello on the podcast to talk about “land grabs” – ways in which the government (federal or state) is working to get their hands on your land. Though I had gone into the interview with one idea – that we’d talk about our last several podcasts (solar, wind, biosludge) and weave those together so that everyone got the idea of how they intertwined (which we did – check out 24:26 on the full video where Michael pretty much brings it all home) – the way the interview unfolded kind of shocked me. And that’s pretty dang hard to do!
In the clip below, Julianne is explaining how requirements being placed on us, like those for insurance, for example, are leading us down yet another pathway into the arms of government control. Think on this; what if the government mandates insurance, but the only insurance provider is the government… You have to take the few minutes to watch this. I swear it will open your eyes – if they’re not open already – and certainly give you yet another thing to have to think about if they are.
In all honesty – this has to stop – but if we can’t get people to CARE ABOUT WHAT’S GOING ON and make intelligent votes, we’re screwed.
In fact, in the clip below, Julianne shares with us her vision on how all this one-world-government garbage is finally going to be installed. Trust me when I say, it won’t be in one fell swoop, it will be little things year after year – like the frog in the boiling pot scenario – just like what has been happening at a rapid pace since Obama took office.
Sincerely, please share these videos, or share this blog – do what you can to wake up those around you – because if you don’t, this will continue unabated and THEN it will be too late.
Don’t forget to tune in to our live podcast on Wednesdays and Fridays at 9am in the morning on our X, Rumble, YouTube, LinkdIn and Facebook accounts – though starting the first week in June, we will be doing only a Wednesday podcast through summer. We’ll return to our two-broadcast-a-week schedule the 3rd week in August.
See the full video on our Rumble and YouTube channels.
On our podcast Friday, May 17th, Michael Grande and I took election data that had been provided by former HD31 candidate Karmin Grider, and went through it on air – live. It wasn’t pretty, I can assure you, but you can see the full video for yourself on our Rumble and YouTube channels. If you’ve ever wanted to see how to look up candidates on the Oklahoma Ethics website, you can forward to 1:11:20 on the live video where I walk you through the process.
We began our video with state Senator Jessica Garvin. She was elected to SD43 in 2020. This year, Senator Garvin is being challenged by McClain County Assessor, Kendal Sacchieri. We interviewed her about school financing April 3rd of this year and it was a fascinating interview – if not frustrating as a taxpayer.
Senator Garvin has some very low contribution stats when it comes to donations from her district. So where DOES her money come from if it isn’t coming from people who would elect her in her district? Here is the YouTube link to this short.
We talked briefly about Senator Greg McCortney as well, though we’ve talked about him with Karmin before in February of 2024. McCortney is being challenged this year by fellow Republican Jonathan Wingard.
This video is a bit over 2 minutes, but it’s very well worth the watch to see who funds Greg McCortney’s Senate campaigns – very instructive.
Now let’s jump to the Oklahoma House.
We’ll start with Oklahoma Representative Kevin Wallace. Representative Wallace has been in his HD32 chair in the legislature since 2014. He is the head of the Appropriations and Budget Committee in the House – a very important assignment. So important in fact, that over the course of his 10 years in the House, he’s run almost ONE MILLION dollars through his campaigns.
From there, let’s talk about Representative Mark McBride. He was elected to the Oklahoma Legislature HD53 in 2012. In Oklahoma, Representatives are only allowed to serve 12 years (thank goodness!), so Representative McBride will not return to session in 2025. Four candidates are running for that seat – all Republicans: KATHREN STEHNO (who ran against McBride last term), JASON BLAIR, NICK POKORNY and HEATHER BOSS. HD53 will need to do their DUE DILIGENCE on each candidate.
It might be interesting to know who funded Mark McBride’s campaigns over the course of a dozen years in the legislature because it surely wasn’t people in his district.
Our next House member is John Talley from HD33, who was elected in 2018. Talley has been challenged by fellow Republican Brice Chaffin twice and this year, former ROPE Board member Molly Jenkins is running to take his seat.
Only 1.2% of Talley’s campaign financing comes from INSIDE his own district. Maybe that’s why Jenkin’s campaign motto is NO LOBBYIST MONEY? Find the ROPE Report Short here on YouTube.
Next, we’ll talk about Cynthia Roe from HD42, elected in 2018. Hers is one of the lowest funded campaigns from inside her district. Roe couldn’t even garner a tenth of one percent of her campaign finances from her own district. Why? Maybe the answer explains why she has two challengers this year – Matt Huggins and Tony Bowen.
The last House District member we profiled in our Friday’s ROPE Report Live podcast, was Representative John Pfeiffer from HD38, elected in 2014. Representative Pfeiffer had absolutely the worst rating of all the legislators we reviewed for Friday’s podcast for in-district donations. In fact, according to data assimilated by Karmin Grider from Oklahoma Ethics Commission data,
John Pfeiffer had only NINE PEOPLE IN HIS DISTRICT DONATE TO HIS CAMPAIGN OVER 10 YEARS
Who in the world could John Pfeiffer serve if for over 10 years, only 9 people financially supported his campaigns?
Interestingly, part of Pfeiffer’s district happens to be Blackwell, a town which our V1SUT Vantage Substack author and podcast regular has hammered numerous times in numerous different articles from allowing drag queens to perform in a public park and associated issues with their city council and city attorney, to GIVING Frank Lloyd Wright’s Price Tower to a group of what look to be BitCoin scammers.
This year, Pfeiffer does have a CHALLENGER in Marven Goodman. If you are in the district, look him up. It would certainly appear that HD38 could use a Representative of the PEOPLE and not the corporate.
In closing, I’d like to point out – for those who think it’s really no big deal that these elected officials are bought and paid for by corporatists – how the election cycle actually works and how the educated voter gets screwed.
Here’s how it very often works: Campaign consultants (or legislators themselves), find people in districts who they believe can win an election because they have some kind of name recognition – usually they own a business. The candidate then raises money through his/her candidate campaign and their consultant may tap into a direct network of PAC’s funded in great part by 501C4’s (dark money) to buy items like mailers – sometimes two a week at approximately $6 thousand a pop – push polling through text messages, Facebook/social media ads and, if possible, radio and TV.
Because they know that most people have no idea where to get information on voters (even though the thing in their hand they use to watch incessant cat videos on social media uses Google and could pull up a candidate’s website with a basic search) and because they know that most people believe something they read due to personal confirmation biases, they know that putting together slick mailers and ads that stick to specific talking points and misuse, or misinform readers about candidates, will win votes.
So yes, people in their district may elect candidates, but the process is highly suspect and works only because people remain (willfully?) ignorant of how to vet candidates.
So what is the answer to getting representation in the state capitol that care about their district and not their corporate sponsors?
SHARE THE INFORMATION YOU GATHER ABOUT CANDIDATES WITH OTHERS; neighbors and friends are more willing to believe you than an ad. SET THEM STRAIGHT. Post to social media, call, stop by – whatever works. This is really the only way. We’re never going to beat these people with money – they’ll always have more than us. The only way to beat the game is by waking up others and getting information directly to them that they can use to vote – and in turn influence others on their own.
Wednesday, May 14th, author “Mary” of the Substack V1SUT Vantage joined Michael Grande and me on our ROPE Report LIVE podcast – which broadcasts live on YouTube, Rumble, X, LinkdIn and Facebook every Wednesday and Friday at 9am – to talk about test scores vs academic achievement in Oklahoma public education. Just the week before, “Mary” had written an article, “OK School Performance & Deceptive Data: Parents & School Board Members Untrained to Assess Student Outcomes“, and we wanted the chance to discuss the data she had uncovered on the state’s School Report Card website.
Many years ago – 2016 to be exact – the OSDE under the leadership of then-Superintendent Janet Barresi, created the “A-F school report card”. ROPE was so against it, we wrote a blog about it (Oklahoma’s A-F Grading System Get’s An “F”), we wrote letters to the Governor and Superintendent and Jenni spoke before the State School Board warning them about the adoption of the grade card.
Our primary objections were 2: 1) the only REAL reason to create the grade card was to get President Obama’s end-around No Child Left Behind. As a Conservative organization, we objected to President Obama’s notion that he could ignore the Constitution and go around Congress to make his own law (waiver) simply because he believed Congress would not act to reauthorize the NCLB and 2) because the measurements used meant nothing and could disguise poor student test results.
Sadly/oddly/not shockingly, the school grade card today is essentially the same as the one from 2016. Here were the categories and their percentages: Student Achievement (33%), Individual Student Growth (17%), Growth of Bottom Quartile (17%) and Whole School Performance (33%). If you don’t believe me, check out the categories and POINTS (now) of the updated grade card. Not much difference there, just a whole lot of words to describe how it is that the State isn’t really being transparent with taxpayers and parents – I’d imagine so they can continue to get money from the feds as when the whole grade card thing started.
Here’s a short clip of Mary talking about what she found when she wondered why Achievement Scores are so high in schools housing primarily failing kids.
This is, of course, nonsense, but I pointed out in this other clip from the podcast, that since at least the mid-70’s, public education has been dumbing down education and then trying to cover their tracks. In the clip below, I show how the ‘recentered’ ACT scores made it look like students were doing very well, when in reality, they were doing MUCH WORSE on the test than 2 decades before.
If you’d like to see the whole video, you can find it on our YouTube or Rumble channels.
If you got anything out of the podcast or the research – PLEASE SHARE!
…there are those who believe “ObamaCare” was made to be so difficult to navigate in an effort to crash America’s current health care system. The thought here is that if it becomes too hard to get health insurance, the public will clamor for SINGLE PAYER and just let the government handle the whole ball of wax – none of these silly exchanges – no, we’ll just move America over to the same side of the abacus as England and Canada and nationalize health care. After all, we’re of socialist stock (eye roll).
I believe this is exactly what is happening to public education in America today when I look at the recent history of education ‘reform’.
Second; from the start, you act as the hand of benevolence by reaching out to states in their time of monetary need with ‘free’ money to keep education programs running (State Fiscal Stabilization Funds) where you hook states into a four pillared education reform system that includes national standards and state longitudinal databases.
Third; you play on America’s competitive spirit by offering states a grant where you can Race to the Top of education accountability and results, providing money through a program that continues to perpetuate the four pillars of education reform.
Fourth; you do NOT re-authorize the existing ESEA, but instead, go around Congress completely to create waivers for the worst parts of the law (such as the part where ALL children must be ‘proficient’ in English/LA and Math by 2014). This, in essences creates your own ala cart law menu that keeps states hooked into the all-important four pillars, but also adds something called “accountability measures” for schools such as Third Grade Reading Retention programs, A-F grading scales and teacher accountability measures.
Fifth; you spend 6 years selling the plan to legislators while managing the whole scheme from behind the curtain of private, non-profit organizations within which taxpayers have no representation, propping up the system with huge infusions of cash from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and big business such as Exxon/Mobile and ‘happy to help’ players such as the US Chamber of Commerce.
Sixth; after you have states on their nationalized educational track through your promoted “pillars”, you scare states into keeping all their ‘accountability’ measures by threatening their Title 1 funding. Though states/districts have no idea what will really happen to them if they don’t go along, states take the waivers and in exacting the instructions, districts self-destruct trying to figure out how to keep pressing the bar for their money like a lab rat for its pellet. *Teachers are afraid of having test scores held against them to the point of losing their jobs so they turn on administration. *Administrators turn on parents who are told they must implement ‘reform’ measures and that they can’t opt out of state tests the A-F grading system utilizes scores to create school grades (page 9) without forcing complete ruination of their school;
Schools are expected to test 100 percent of eligible students enrolled in that school during the testing window for every OSTP exam for which they are eligible, regardless of FAY status.
Schools that do not test a sufficient percentage of eligible students will be penalized as follows (all percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number):
The school’s Overall Letter Grade will be reduced by one whole letter grade if fewer than 95 percent of all eligible test records have valid scores.
The school’s Overall Letter Grade will automatically be reduced to an “F” if fewer than 90 percent of all eligible test records have valid scores.
Seventh; you collect lots and lots of data by digitizing the Common Core State Standards states had to take to get an RTT or Waiver, then, you pay two testing “consortia” to create digital online test questions that will align so perfectly that everyone who looks at the scores will be able to tell which standard the students got right and wrong on their exam. Since we so admire the European system of everything including schooling, can’t you believe this will imagine an end result that sounds like, “Sorry Johnny, you can’t be an engineer because you missed several math-related test questions indicating you are not engineer material.” You also collect all kinds of miscellaneous data for federal programming such as the “Safe and Drug Free Schools” that includes very detailed information on discipline incidents (that, by the way, don’t just fall off the internet when your child needs a clean record for college and career applications!). You then use this information against schools when they decide they are dumb enough to come crawling back for more money and or ‘waivers’ from existing unconstitutional federal education laws to further put the screws on them to get what you want.
(Sadly, a whole lot of the links in the original piece above from 2014, are no longer working)
Friday, May 10th, Jenni and Michael spoke with Representative Sherrie Conley about the passage of her bill HB3958 and what she’d like to see happen with the bill after she’s out of the legislature at the end of the session.
You can find the FULL video on our YouTube and Rumble Channels.
There are two clips from the full live video that we’d love for you to see.
First, Representative Conley talks about the number of lawsuits being filed in the state regarding school employees who have sexually or physically abused their students. Many of these lawsuits are settled for MILLIONS of dollars, but public schools don’t ‘make’ money. Public schools are appropriated tax dollars to function.
Consequently, if a school employee is ‘allowed’ (see the story of Shawnee Coach, Ron Arthur) to continue working at a public school with allegations of sexual impropriety that were never investigated and the school is sued for damages by the child/children involved, that school has to pay out a settlement to the students and parents which consists SOLELY of tax dollars. If the settlement or lawsuit damages exceed the amount of money the school has on hand, it must go to the taxpayers and force them to pay more taxes to pay for the lawsuit/settlement.
Taxpayers, then, have a vested interest in making school officials do the morally right and ethically thing by their students.
In the next short, Representative Conley makes it clear that, because Oklahoma has mandatory reporting laws for child endangerment, the Superintendents and Principals who know/knew that children are/were being sexually abused by school employees, should be brought up on criminal charges once investigations have been completed and school employees formally charged with child predation.
On Wednesday, May 8th, ROPE Report Live hosted NeAnne Clinton, a property owner from Enid, Oklahoma who is fighting a 10,000 acre solar farm installation just south of town between the municipal airport and Vance Airforce Base.
Over the course of an hour and a half, NeAnne walked us through some major concerns about this solar farm, including a lack of transparency by the County Commissioners, the danger of lithium ion battery fires and the destruction of private farm land. (Please see their website GARFIELD COUNTY CONSERVATION COALITION for more information)
Though the ‘climate change club’ wants to shriek like Chicken Little about the sky falling, their ‘fixes’ literally make no sense. In fact, between wind and solar, there is no way to believe that either method of energy is producing less waste and better living conditions than natural gas or oil.
Let’s break it down.
China makes nearly all solar panels creating supply chain and autonomy issues for the US
It costs about $20-$30 to recycle one panel, when sending it to the landfill costs between $1 and $2
There are mainly made of glass and silver, the former which has very little recycling value at present
No plans have been made to dispose of the waste which is expected to generate 315 metric tons by 2030
they are mined in developing countries – creating human rights issues and a geopolitical instability in battery components
creating battery-grade lithium uses massive amounts of energy, that ironically we’re trying to conserve by using solar energy
lithium batteries often end up in landfills
recycling lithium batteries is difficult and expensive
Lithium ion batteries cannot be extinguished if they catch fire and use inordinate amounts of water to control, or firefighters foam which contains cancer-causing PFA’s that easily pollute water sources like aquifers
In the meantime, solar energy corporations like the one attempting to set up shop in Enid – NextEra – are not being transparent with landowners or the City of Enid about the benefits to citizens.
May 30th, Oklahoma legislators debated a bill that would allow public schools to “employ or accept one or more volunteer chaplains”.
SB36, a bill by Senator Nathan Dahm, was originally a bill dealing with the Freedom of Information Act – allowing the public access to audio and video footage collected by law enforcement from drones or other video and audio sources. It was heard and passed in the Senate on March 1st.
The bill was then introduced as a Committee Substitute in the House General Government Committee (4.9.24) where the original House author (Rep. Jon Echols (R) was removed and Rep. Kevin West (R) was added. The title and all previous language of the original bill was struck in the Committee Substitute and new language added allowing the addition of Chaplains in public schools.
The bill was then heard on the floor of the House (4.24) where it passed 54 to 37.
This process is not at all transparent, firstly. There are many deadlines and rules that control the ways in which bills are introduced into the legislative process and bill language is to be in place prior to the opening of the legislative session. To change the filed language – especially after it has already passed one house of the legislature – creates confusion in Oklahoma citizens that fouls transparency – a process that should not be encouraged by our elected representatives.
This bill is also an excellent example of the ever-blurring line between church and state.
“The quickest way to kill and erode the value of religious faith in Oklahoma is to cloak it in the coercive power of the state.”
What exactly does he mean?
For America’s Founders, the Establishment Clause in the Constitution was so important that it was listed as number one of all the Amendments. We have only to study the plight of the Pilgrims – who found tremendous religious persecution in their home country of England – to understand why this was such an important issue to our country’s framers.
The foundation of the idea that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”, was that, if the federal government was unable to establish a national church – as England had with the Church of England – then its people would be free to worship as they chose. Additionally, if the state could tell people who, what or when to worship, again, the people could not be free to worship as they chose.
There are also laws regarding religious discrimination in the United States to help make sure no individual is favored, or denigrated, for their belief system in any way.
So, not only can governments within the United States not dictate the religious practices of its citizens, it can’t discriminate among the religious practices of its citizens either for any reason. One individual can’t be allowed to keep a Christian Bible on their desk, while another is fired for wearing a Hijab to work, for example.
According to SB46, “…a chaplain shall be a person who obtains an ecclesiastical endorsement from their faith group certifying that such chaplain is…A minister, rabbi, priest, imam, lay leader, or similar functionary of the faith group…”, and “Sensitive to religious pluralism and able to provide for the free exercise of religion by all students…”
Herein lies the issue; there is a very large difference between the practice of religion privately and the practice of religion inside an government institution.
For example, as a practicing Christian and a citizen of the United States, I would never consider violating the bounds of religious tolerance for those who practice Islam privately. As I have written in another article, however, because Islam has an historic, practiced, hatred of Christianity, I strenuously object to having state tax dollars devoted to the religion in any way. Yet, if a parent who signs up for the ‘school choice’ voucher in Oklahoma chooses to have state money used for their child to be educated in a Madrasa, it will be. If SB46 passes the Senate, an Imam could counsel children in a government school.
And then there’s this.
Lucian Greaves, the head of the Satanic Temple also threatened to establish a school of Satan in Oklahoma after the ‘school choice’ voucher bill was signed. At that time, I mined that matter with several legislators as a reason to vote NO on the voucher bill, but was simply told, “That will never happen in Oklahoma.” Yet, Iowa had to house a Satanic alter in their state capitol building thanks to anti-discrimination measures employed by the Satanic church after several types of Christmas displays were allowed.
Apparently the legislators I spoke to were unaware that After School Satan Clubs are ‘exploding in popularity‘ thanks to free speech lawsuits filed by supporters in response to Christian Good News Clubs allowed to be held on public school campuses. Satan Clubs now have chapters in Pennsylvania, Ohio, California, and Connecticut.
Many well-meaning Christians now see public schools for what they are – indoctrination centers for all kinds of un-Christian values – and wonder why they can’t combat the religion of Climate Change, LGBTQIA+, or SEL by inserting Christian values instead. After all, US public schools were infused with Christianity until 1962 when the US Supreme Court decided that prayer in schools created an establishment of religion (Engel vs Vitale). Why not work to bring that back?
As a Christian, I get it, but Christianity in America isn’t the same today as it was in the 1960’s, and any way used to pump Christianity into ANY public institution will cause an output of taxpayer resources for an equal amount of anything from Islam to Satanism. Is that really what Christians want?
So do Christians just give up on the idea of our mission to bring others to Christ? Absolutely NOT.
First of all, we need to do everything we can to make sure schools are focusing on their abysmal proficiency scores ONLY. Toward that end, we should lobby to get any after school social clubs removed from government schools altogether.
Then, Christians could concentrate on creating private organizations to pick up kids and transport them to churches for after school Bible lessons and tutoring help. Many parents would appreciate the ability to work later hours and have their child get help in their studies – their child’s exposure to Christianity would just be a bonus.
Yes, a return to Christ would help all society, but we must not allow ourselves to fight that battle in government schools. We must absolutely realize that if we do, we’ll open the door to taxpayer supported religious messages from groups that will warp the minds of students to their own ends – including turning them against Christianity – no matter how pure our intentions.
Wednesday, May 1st, Mic Rosado and Gina Desmarais spoke to Michael and Jenni about the Pandemic Treaty being created by the World Health Organization (WHO) – an ‘agency’ of unelected, bureaucrats that should have absolutely no ability to dictate the lives of Americans whatever, but empowered to a large degree by the Biden Administration.
While there are those saying that this will save lives during the next pandemic, Mic and Gina have read the agreement and say it will bring unprecedented control over the lives of Americans if it is signed by the US and state legislators won’t act to preserve the sovereignty of their citizens.
Listen to this short clip to get an idea of how badly we need our legislature to act on this matter. Then, write your Senator ASAP and tell them that they must pass SB426 to protect Oklahoma citizens from WHO overreach.
Find the full video on our YouTube or Rumble channels.
April 20th, Governor Stitt played at giving with one hand and taking away with the other.
On the one hand, Governor Stitt signed ‘controversial’ ‘immigration’ bill HB4156; a solid bill that provides deportation and fines and/or jail time for those found to commit ‘impermissible occupation’, defined thusly
“A person commits an impermissible occupation if the person is an alien and willfully and without permission enters and remains in the State of Oklahoma without having first obtained legal authorization to enter the United States.”
All Senate Republicans voted for the bill as did all Republicans of the House. Democrats voted in blocks against the bill in both chambers.
While many ‘press’ headlines center around the word ‘controversial’, only one headline contained the fact that an Executive Order on immigration was signed by the Governor on the same day as his signature was inked to the bill.
During a press conference of the signing, the Governor announced the task force, saying, “Our hands have been forced by the unprecedented border security crisis that has seen more than 52,000 Chinese Nationals, along with terror organizations, illegally infiltrate and wreak havoc on our great nation and state,” he says. “Simply put, we will not tolerate threats to our communities and we will not become home to sanctuary cities.”
I just signed HB 4156 in response to Biden’s failure to secure the southern border— we must be a law and order state.
I’m also announcing the launch of a Task Force to explore opportunities for those here contributing to our communities and economy.https://t.co/OvQlCRsgWd
Since Oklahoma passed a state question deciding the use of medical marijuana in 2018, there has been a steady rise in violent crime in once idyllic rural countrysides thanks to Chinese national-run marijuana grows. This has largely stemmed from the fact that the Oklahoma legislature not only got off flat-footed on the creation of laws to regulate the ‘medical’ marijuana industry after the question was passed, but then found themselves apparently unprepared to regulate the NEW state agency they created to regulate the industry.
Reading the Executive Order signed directly after the bill, is instructive. Here are the first two whereas’:
Note the wording in the second paragraph, “…honest, hardworking Hispanic or OTHER international migrant populations here…”. How is anyone here in the state illegally, honest. This begs many questions then. Are shoplifters honest? What about murderers?
The EO then goes on to blame the Biden administration for not issuing VISAs or permits (how can he be blamed when he’s allowing millions of people to flood the borders of this nation illegally – there’s no possible way to keep up with the backlog that kind of volume of humanity would generate) to those immigrants who have “long filled gaps in Oklahoma’s workforce”.
In fact, it’s almost as though the EO says, ‘We have a bunch of Chinese Nationals who are causing crime in Oklahoma, so we’re going to get these people out of the state, but everyone else here illegally is honestly working to fill jobs too good for legal Oklahomans and we need them to stay, so we’re going to figure out a way to make that happen’.
Here is what the Task Force is assigned to do.
Who will serve ON the Task Force?
Look at #5. Is Oklahoma a border state? What about an international airline hub? No? Why then is there a Mexican Consul located in Oklahoma?
According to the largest post to the Oklahoma Mexican Consul page on the Mexican Consulate website, the Oklahoma Consul can help to REGISTER Hispanics to VOTE. As to what the Twitter page for the Oklahoma Mexican Consul says, one wouldn’t know unless one was fluent in Spanish.
According to the Oklahoman, the Mexican Consul was opened last year (5.20.23), to provide people with their “Mexican passports, birth certificates and other government-issued documents” in order to keep them from having to journey to Little Rock, AK, Kansas City, MO, or Dallas, TX – the latter of which is a four hour drive from Oklahoma City.
HB4156 is being lauded among Conservatives as helping to stem the tide of illegal immigration in Oklahoma, but clearly, that’s not the bottom line. If the bill is going to be signed and touted as ‘controversial’ yet the Governor goes on to sign an EO for a task force to make ‘honestly’ illegal aliens, legal, what exactly does the bill mean then?
No, Oklahomans do not want high crime rates – certainly not drug trafficking crime which tends to be graphically violent – but Chinese nationals are not the only ones here in Oklahoma committing drug crimes.
In January, Representative Justin Humphrey – a former law enforcement officer with years of experience in drug court – filed HB3133 to have drug trafficking become an act of terrorism. This bill blew up in the media, but not for the terrorism designation for drug trafficking. It blew up because he identified two Mexican cartels – the Sinola and New Age – as primarily trafficking in fentanyl, a drug responsible for many tens of thousands of deaths across the US and a skyrocketing number in Oklahoma according to the Oklahoma State Department of Health.
Because Humphrey also used the word ‘Hispanic’ in the bill, a firestorm ensued in which Humphrey was accused of racism. This prompted him to comment, “I believe these continual accusations of racism present an indisputable danger to America freedom and democracy.” (Apparently, the Legislature is aware of this issue and did add fentanyl to the Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Act this year through SB1280 – a bill that doesn’t contain the word ‘Hispanic’.)
In fact, the Governor’s EO goes out of its way to eliminate any appearance at all of considering a member of the Hispanic population as here NOT ‘honestly’.
Biden won 63% of the Latino vote in 2020 and is now appealing again to Latino voters by saying that they are the reason he won the election against President Donald Trump. According to Oklahoma Watch, Hispanic voters outvoted Black and Asian voters in the 2022 Oklahoma mid-terms by a large margin.
In fact, the RNC helped open an Hispanic Community Center in south OKC, where former Oklahoma Republican Committeewoman, Pam Pollard said they were “also going to be doing voter registration”. Clearly, the Latino vote is important and catering to that vote is something the Oklahoma GOP hopes to do.
Last year, Oklahoma Senator Michael Brooks (D), an Hispanic, proposed a bill to allow illegal immigrants to gain state driver’s licenses. The only thing an illegal person here in Oklahoma had to do to obtain a DL was show that they had been paying their taxes. This ignited a firestorm among Oklahoma citizens who believed that such cards could be used to allow the owner to vote illegally.
So it would seem that politics is out in full force when looking at the scope of HB4156. After all, our Governor is nothing if not a ‘workforce’ governor who sees it as his job to “make Oklahoma the state where it’s easiest to start and grow a business’. Yes, government MUST get out of the way to do that, but that will absolutely not happen by making lawlessness legal and more efficient.
It’s my job to make Oklahoma the state where it’s easiest to start and grow a business.
We’re already seeing it happen before our eyes. We’ve cut regulations, got government out of the way— we’re now Top Five in Real GDP growth.https://t.co/t8vkBAXBxh
President Biden will undoubtedly go down in history as one of the worst presidents in all American history – especially on immigration. If the President won’t act to stem the tide of people illegally entering the United States, Oklahoma, should act in its own best interest to protect its citizens. It should secure its own borders from those wishing to enter illegally, whether they bring crime and brutality, OR NOT.
Just like President Biden’s student loan bailout is a slap in the face to all the hardworking young people who have worked hard to pay their way through colleges and universities, ANY attempt to give people who come to Oklahoma illegally an end around the immigration system is a slap in the face to those who have come here the right way – the HARD way – the EXPENSIVE way – the way that includes NATURALIZATION.
Today in Oklahoma, rather than a tapestry of Oklahomans of different international backgrounds united together under the Oklahoma flag, we have different areas of our cities and towns devoted to Hispanic populations, or Asian populations, or Islamic populations (including taxpayer sponsored Madrasas) – many of whom came to Oklahoma but can barely speak a word of English.
Cynically, maybe this is the reason the Superintendent of one of the largest Hispanic population schools in Oklahoma is so annoyed about HB4156. Mr. Brewster’s X feed is full of similar posts. Is there a reason that a taxpayer funded Superintendent shouldn’t be fired for advocating lawlessness? Or is lawlessness just really fine anymore – especially if it occurs in the Hispanic population?
Deeply disappointed with our Governor and legislature.
I have never been ashamed to be an Oklahoman until today.
Governor Stitt is a professing Christian. Just a basic reading of the Old Testament of the Christian Bible would confirm that Jewish communities did not welcome ‘outsiders’. Yes, they were to be kind to those who lived among them, but they were not to intermarry, or allow others outside their faith to serve in their governments or in their Temples. Why? Because when they let down their guard and assimilated those of other faiths, their communities lost their identity in their God and quickly became affiliated with those of the outsiders.
Thanks in large part to unchecked immigration at the federal level, this country is completely different in values today, including that of national pride, than even during the 1960’s with all its generational upheaval. One has only to look at the demonstrations on college campuses in favor of Hamas – a known terrorist organization – to see that statement as absolute truth.
Should Oklahoma be a state closed to immigration? Of course not. Our country has been richer for the many legal immigrants it has welcomed from across the world over its several hundred years, as is our state. However, Identifying people here in Oklahoma illegally as ‘honest’ is wrong and on the very dangerous downhill side of a very slippery slope.
Allowing Oklahoma to develop its own system for vetting and assimilating people into the state because ‘we need workers’, or because they are already here working, is wrong.
In Biden’s economy, it may be hard for many to feed their families. Are we going to allow these families to steal food from grocery stores because Biden won’t do anything about inflation except print more money? Biden is paying off student loans. Because of this, are we to allow every student who wants to attend a school of higher learning for free to do so?
Actions have consequences and allowing lawlessness – especially lawlessness based on identity – has arguably the most far-reaching and frightening of all to the safety and security of ALL Oklahomans. The bill passed by Oklahomans to protect Oklahomans from unchecked illegal immigration and signed by Governor Stitt is a good bill. The Governor shouldn’t even consider providing an end-around.
