Weekly News Headlines and Commentary – Week of 1.6.25
Speaker-Elect Hilbert’s Legislative Priority Personifies Everything Wrong With Oklahom Government
ROPE2.org – After reading about our Speaker-Elect’s legislative priorities for the upcoming session, I thought it important – not only to write about it – but to talk about it in a live video (1.3.25). According to the Speaker-Elect, if he passes a cell phone bill and a budget, the House will have been more productive than in previous years.
So what’s wrong with a cell-phone bill? Watch the video, or read the article, either way, I’ve outlined it in bullet points, so it’s easy to follow and understand. Please, explain to those you know who will listen, exactly why this is bad. Oklahomans truly need to understand why we send legislators to the state Capitol, and it’s not to usurp local control and individual liberty.
Oklahoma Government Is Turnign Our Kids Into Commodities – The Women of Broken Trust Speak Out
ROPE2.org – In case it’s hard to share videos, I’ve put together an outline of our interview with Sherrie Conley, Roberta Lewis and Dayna Mooney of Broken Trust. It has three clips embedded and links to the live podcast and might be easier to share with others…
Social Media Post Calling Out Gubernatorial Politics Gets Tons Of Pushback – Makes Point Of Post
ROPE2.org – Though I’ve been at this investigation/writing gig for nearly 20 years, I have been known to publish some stinkers, but this wasn’t about what readers thought it was about…
Robert Bryce Substack – One of the members of one of my ‘climate change is a hoax’ groups turned me on to Robert Bryce. Wow. This guy makes debunking climate change look like a child’s game. He is so easy to read and makes so much sense that I almost order you to read this article and then surf some others.
In this piece he shows that the amount of money going into climate change today is 21 times more than it was 10 years ago. Guess where all that money is coming from? YOUR POCKETS! Again, you’ll want to be with us live to talk to CFACT’s Peter Murphy on Friday (1.10) to hear more and why we’ve got to make this STOP.
Wyngard Files Bill To Eliminate Wind Energy Tax Credit, Save Taxpayers Money
Oklahoma Senate Media – File under “Really Great News”. Although Governor Mary Fallin in one of her few acts of conservative sanity, stopped wind turbine tax credits in 2017 a whole lot of wind energy companies were grandfathered in.
“Senate Bill 239 would eliminate the zero-emission subsidy for wind production after tax year 2025. Eliminating this tax credit will save taxpayers up to $16 million annually.”
It may not be on my timeline – of course I want them all gone next week – but this is a great start and this bill deserves the support of ALL Oklahomans!
Oklahoma Judge Issues Split Decision In Student Pronoun Case
The Oklahoman – So, on one hand, the Board created a rule that was, as the judge said, “valid and enforceable”, but then found that the Bord violated the student’s right to due process by not providing the student an opportunity for a hearing before the Board denied the student’s request to change their pronouns in their school records.
Gosh, is it just me, or does it seem like so much to do with education is simply off course?
Oklahoma To Obtain Drone Monitoring System After Mysterious Sightings In Other States
The Oklahoman – Without any kind of public discussion, Governor Stitt instructed public safety commissioner and homeland security adviser, Tim Tipton, “to procure the systems to support state and local law enforcement in responding to recent unmanned drone activity.”
“Drones and unmanned aerial systems are an exciting new industry here in Oklahoma,” Stitt said. “We want to make sure that industry has room to thrive.”
Awesome. They also collect TONS of information about American citizens as well thanks to all kinds of run-amok federal laws that allow the government to spy on its citizens.
Then, you have renown psychologist Peter Breggin warning that the drones people have reported seeing are “part of a psychological operation to justify a huge power grab by the federal government” likely as a way to control Americans.
Only a select few – and certainly not us plebes – really know what’s going on, but I can say this; as so many other comments our Governor has made in the press, his justification for spending tax dollars on equipment that would help the police ‘respond’ to drones is nothing less than concerning. What does this mean? How would they be used?
Again, our Governor justifies something that could affect all Oklahomans via the idea that ‘it’s good business’. At some point, I sure wish he’d see our liberty as ‘good business’.
Nailing Normal and New Narratives
David Arnett Substack – Really a great article about how Oklahoma ‘news’ tilts left though people like the Editor at the Tulsa World will kick and scream and say it doesn’t. What’s that old saying about, ‘you can’t fix a problem you won’t admit to having’ or some such thing?
This is why ROPE Report will constantly call attention to local substacks/blogs/reporting. The only really great reporting is the reporting done by locals who have skin in the game. Make sure you’re following these people – like David, and our friend V1SUT, Restore Liberty (Wendi Montgomery Dial), Oklahoma State Capitol (former Rep Jason Murphy) and the Sooner Sentinel (former Logan County Commissioner, Marven Goodman) –
Investigative Report: A Bold Bid to Reshape Oklahoma’s House of Representatives
Sooner Sentinel – Here, Goodman dissects and discusses Tom Gann’s filed legislation to change the way business is done in the Oklahoma House. Please read and then let’s support Gann’s effort. It’s the only way to put the power back in the laps of ‘the people’ where it belongs.
Government Strangles The Economy; Each Fed Regulator Kills 100+ Jobs
PJ Media – This has to be put into your internet savings bank and used over and over and over again anytime government wants to see themselves as ‘helping’ us.
Here’s an excerpt from the article: from a 2017 Auburn University study – Each $1 million change in the regulatory budget is associated with a change of about four regulator jobs. With our new update, we now find that a 10% cut in the regulatory budget results in a loss of 21,756 regulatory jobs. Given the average jobs impact of 3 million jobs over the five-year horizon, our updated analysis finds that one regulator costs the U.S. economy the equivalent of 138 private sector jobs per year. Each regulator costs the U.S. economy $11 million annually.