Kyle Hilbert

An-Op Ed Received After Today’s Video With Jason Murphy On The Ethics Of The Oklahoma Legislature

Though I haven’t edited the video to shorts yet, if you didn’t see this morning’s live video with former legislator and current author of The Oklahoma State Capitol on Substack, Jason Murphy, I suggest you do. You can find it on our YouTube and Rumble channels. If you’re not paying attention to the Oklahoma legislature, she better be. They’re not only not acting very “Red”, they’re also not acting very ethically either.

The following is an Op-Ed I received after the video.

Where Is the Oklahoma Ethics Commission When We Need It Most?

By Domesticated Warrior – domesticatedwarrior@gmail.com

When we think of government ethics, we often assume there’s a safeguard in place to ensure that public officials are held to the highest standards. In Oklahoma, that safeguard is the Oklahoma Ethics Commission—an independent agency charged with enforcing rules around conflicts of interest, campaign financing, and transparency in public service. But lately, many of us are asking a very simple question: Where are they?

This session alone, we’ve seen several troubling examples of apparent conflicts of interest among our lawmakers:

Senator Lonnie Paxton, the new President Pro Tempore, has drawn scrutiny for his close ties to PACs and dark money groups, particularly from the energy sector. He also reportedly brushed off concerns about conflicts of interest during a recent Senate Education Committee hearing, suggesting such conflicts were acceptable—rather than disqualifying.
Senator Paul Rosino filed a resolution to oust the head of the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health—while his wife works there whether directly or via a contractor. That’s not just poor optics. That’s a textbook case for recusal, and one that should have triggered an immediate ethics review.
Representative Josh West, co-chair of the mental health caucus, is actively involved in mental health policy while his wife owns a mental health practice. This isn’t about questioning his passion for the issue. It’s about whether his votes and advocacy may directly benefit his family’s business.
Representative Brian Hill, a vocal champion of workforce reform, sits on the Workforce Committee and frequently collaborates with the Oklahoma State Chamber. The same Chamber that holds exclusive $350 fundraising dinners and pours money into legislation favorable to their corporate agenda. Hill’s workforce bills align tightly with the Chamber’s interests, raising red flags about policy being steered by private influence instead of public need.
And most recently, House Speaker Kyle Hilbert violated House rules and called for a bonus vote on a bill that directly benefited initiatives pushed by the State Chamber. It was a maneuver that should have been stopped—not rubber-stamped. Hilbert has received donations from Koch PAC, a major financial backer of the State Chamber and local business chambers throughout Oklahoma. If that’s not a conflict of interest, it’s certainly one that deserves real scrutiny.

Yet in all these cases, the Oklahoma Ethics Commission has remained silent. No public inquiries. No investigations. No statements.

We shouldn’t have to be the ones filing ethics complaints just to get accountability. That’s literally the job of the Ethics Commission—to proactively monitor, investigate, and respond to behavior that threatens public trust. When those charged with protecting integrity fall asleep at the wheel, the system begins to erode from the inside.

We’ve allowed a dangerous narrative to take root in our Capitol: that conflicts of interest are normal, that they’re manageable, or worse—that they’re nobody’s business. But they are our business. Every piece of legislation passed by conflicted lawmakers risks being tainted by undue influence. Every ignored conflict of interest sends the message that the rules don’t apply to those in power.

This isn’t partisan. This is about restoring a basic expectation of fairness and accountability in Oklahoma governance. And if the Ethics Commission is unwilling or unable to do its job, then maybe it’s time we ask a more fundamental question:

Who watches the watchdog?

We need structural reforms: increased funding and independence for the Ethics Commission, greater transparency on legislator financial and familial ties, mandatory recusals in cases of direct personal benefit, and timely public reporting of ethics violations. Because right now, ethics in Oklahoma politics looks less like oversight—and more like a cover-up.

If you’ve lost faith in the system, I don’t blame you. But silence will only allow these problems to deepen. Speak up. Push back. And as we head toward the next election cycle, ask yourself this:

Did your legislator work for the people—or for the people who fund their campaigns?

June 4, 2025 0

Oklahoma’s Republican Supermajority Passes More Democrat Bills Through The House Than Republican Bills

Republicans Lose To Democrats in a Republican Supermajority

Oh, don’t get me started on this two-tiered committee system dreamed up by the House leadership this year. If you haven’t seen my critique of the House on Organizational Day, you might want to take a bit to at least listen to that. It was a phenomenal specter of what we’ve now seen as the House and Senate begin to hear each other’s bills and head for the legislative finish line.

You might even follow that up by reading this overview of what happened to at least one of our House members this year – not a single one of Representative Jim Shaw’s bills were heard on the floor. Not. A. One. In fact, I make the argument that, in a way, everyone in his district should throw their own little Boston Tea Party because I couldn’t find a better current day example of Taxation Without Representation. Honestly, disgusting – but again – I think those of us who have watched politics for a time could have seen that coming.

Former House Rep. Jason Murphy penned a phenomenal article summing up the huge issue of our Republican majority House, passing more Democratic bills out to the Senate than Republicans. I’ve asked his permission to copy some of that into this blog because you need to see his commentary. If you’d like to share his article directly, it’s called, “Why is Oklahoma’s GOP House Protecting Illegal Alien Drivers? The Secret Behind The Blocked Effort to Close The Illegal Alien Driver’s License Loophole?” and you can find it on his Oklahoma State Capitol Substack.

Below is a section from his article:

Navigating even one committee in the House’s smoke-and-mirrors system is challenging enough, especially when certain privileged legislators can kill bills without proper consideration. Navigating two committees, however, is mighty difficult for grassroots legislation lacking institutional support. Such legislation will most certainly struggle to pass through the closed-door decisions of two separate committee chairmen, either of whom can single-handedly halt a bill’s progress.

This essentially created a new layer through which grassroots legislation could be killed without the people closest to the Speaker having to get their hands dirty by refusing to give the bill a hearing before the full house.

So, back to Murphy’s article? What was that case-in-point bill, killed by the system?

It was House Bill 1043. And it was a vital proposal, based on an already enacted Florida law, that closes the loophole by which illegal invaders of our nation are using blue-state driver’s licenses to drive on Oklahoma roads.

Nineteen states reportedly offer driving privileges to the invaders, including New Mexico and Colorado, states that border Oklahoma.

The need for House Bill 1043 became very apparent when Oklahoma City Democrat Arturo Alonso-Sandoval, in declaring his opposition to the reform, reportedly claimed that “many” are using out-of-state licenses.

If Alonso-Sandoval is correct, Oklahoma’s roads are likely buzzing with those who have been enabled by blue states to bypass our driving laws and regulations. They are presumably living in Oklahoma but aren’t following the requirement that Oklahoma residents must obtain an Oklahoma driver’s license to drive on our roads. They’ve found a blue-state-enabled loophole and once again, a way to get around the laws and regulations by which the citizens are governed.

This disrespect for our laws, is sure to have consequences. Anyone who has been in Oklahoma City traffic recently, has no doubt taken note that something is now very wrong: it’s almost impossible to drive through that city without encountering an insane driver who has no regard for the traffic laws—almost as if they have no reason to respect the laws or fear of their enforcement.

House Bill 1043, by Jenkins of the House and Bullard of the Senate, would have closed that blue-state-enabled loophole by refusing to recognize these illegal alien driver’s licenses.

The bill was heard in the public safety committee where it was unanimously approved.

At that point, the legislation should have advanced to the house floor for a hearing before the full house.

But that’s where Hilbert’s new system—and one tyrannical super committee chairman—stood in the way. That chairman, Robert Manger, recently eked out a narrow election win after declaring to his constituents that he was 100% conservative. How, or what he based that on, is unclear, but it was just enough of a head fake to eke out a victory. But what is known, is that according to The Oklahoma Constitution’s Conservative Index—which since 1979 has been Oklahoma’s gold standard for gauging the voting of legislators—Manger actually scored a mere 60% conservative score in 2024.

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But no, the self-declared 100% conservative, Manger, simply refused to as much as give the bill a hearing in his committee.

Thus House Bill 1043 provides us with the perfect case-in-point of how Kyle Hilbert’s new committee system is functioning. It’s another new hallway of smoke and mirrors added to the already crazy house that is the House of Representatives.

So, if after reading that, you can’t see your way to become involved in the 2026 elections in order to get some of the worst offenders of this system out, then please move to another state – like Colorado or California – they’re already ruined. In the meantime, follow those of us reporting on grassroots efforts and let’s push back with everything we have. This is getting nuts.

April 5, 2025 0

OK Senator David Bullard On Bad Bills Moving Through The Legislature So Far – Including Making Anti-Semitism Illegal

Wednesday, March 26th on the regular podcast, I interviewed Oklahoma Senator David Bullard about bills in the Oklahoma Senate. Of course, the discussion delved into a bit more, but we talked about a couple of really bad bills that need to go away. You can find the full version of the interview on our Rumble and YouTube channels.

Here, Senator Bullard talks about a bill just passed by the Senate on the 25th. It’s Kristin Thompson’s bill to stop anti-Semitism.

This is nonsense. Simply a whole lot of grandstanding and virtue signaling by your Oklahoma Senate. Truly, if a person is injured by another person – for any reason – or if property is damaged – for any reason, there are laws that bring perpetrators to justice and our law enforcement divisions are empowered to do that. It shouldn’t matter if someone used a racial/ethnic slur or not. THAT IS THE POINT. When the government begins to tell the people what they can and can NOT say – for any reason – we have descended into a tyranny. And, as Senator Bullard says here, if it’s anti-Semitic to say that Jesus was killed by Jews, all of Christianity is now called into question. No. Just no.

Just so you know, here are the VOTES on these bills (SB991, SB942):

These bills will go on to the House and they need to be stopped there.

We also talked about a House Bill that will be coming to the Senate that is exceedingly bad – HB2298 which will allow nurses prescribing power, “independent of supervision” by a physician. Although this will apply to Certified Nurse Practitioners, Clinical Nurse Specialists, and Certified Nurse-Midwives, these are still positions disallowed from prescriptive privileges without physician oversight currently.

There are several things wrong with this bill and Dr. Randy Grellnar also talked about this particular issue at the beginning of our interview with him when he was on several weeks ago, if you’d like to check out his perspective.

Here, Senator Bullard is talking about some of the issues that he’s concerned about with the bill – and mind you, this bill was run LAST YEAR and VETOED by the Governor.

Hopefully, between Dr. Grellnar and Senator Bullard, you get the idea. THIS IS A BAD BILL because it’s – again – government overstepping the bounds of its job – to protect our liberty – and trampling on issues that are best left to the oversight boards and the doctors themselves.

During the interview, we expanded on that topic – the topic of government trampling the liberty of citizens – and gave numerous examples of wherein the government is ruling us from the top down instead of allowing ourselves to govern ourselves from the bottom up – at the local levels of government where we have the most control. Essentially ‘top down’ systems DON’T WORK and that is what we talk about in the clip below. THIS is the concept ALL our legislators must be made to understand!

Please make a note of these bills and contact your Senator and Representative and tell them to be on the lookout for these bills and to vote NO when they see them.

March 27, 2025 0

Citizens Of HD32 Effectively Taxed Without Representation As Representative Jim Shaw’s Bills Blocked From Hearings

Last year, political newcomer Jim Shaw, driven by the fact that he didn’t want to see wind turbines scattered all over the Oklahoma landscape, or deal with the after effects of having human sewage dumped on the fields around him, decided to run for the Oklahoma House against a very powerful, nearly-termed-out Representative, Kevin Wallace, then House Appropriations Chair.

In a surprising upset, Shaw – with an army of grassroots rural Oklahomans worried about all the same things – beat Wallace in the primary.

This was unheard of. No newcomer out of nowhere beats the House Appropriations Chair running for this 5th term. And so the RINO forces gathered.

Governor Stitt put out numerous messages urging voters in the district to vote for Wallace, including this video, where he called those advocating AGAINST Wallace “Political Animals”.

Everyone from the Speaker of the House Charles McCall, to the Speaker-Elect of the House, Kyle Hilbert, came out to little ‘ole District 32 to churn up support for House Appropriations Chair Wallace.

Speaker-Elect Kyle Hilbert stumps for Kevin Wallace in HD32

Here, you see Kevin Wallace in the background with then-Speaker-Elect Kyle Hilbert (foreground) stumping for Wallace at a campaign event in HD32.

Here is Wallace (L) with (in order), Speaker of the House Charles McCall, Governor Kevin Stitt, Thomas Tillison (broadband and other business owner/Wellston) and Grant Green, Senator for SD28, which includes Shaw’s.

With that much ammunition behind him, Wallace must not have been poling well. And then came the point where Wallace apparently got desperate, and doxed Shaw, toward the end of the campaign, posting pictures of his residence to his Facebook page.

Unfortunately for Wallace and his campaign – funded nearly 100% by special interests and business professionals – none of these measures helped. In the end Shaw prevailed in the general election by a wide margin (3,291 to 2,764).

But then came Shaw’s first day on the floor. Organizational Day, the day on which the House rules would be voted on by the House for the 2025 legislative session.

Shaw had read the rules and didn’t approve of the two-tiered Committee structure and other issues. He had studied the rules in the few days they were available to him and began to debate them on the floor, when he was tersely debated (bullied?) by Counselor to the Speaker (a new leadership position just added this year), Representative Chris Kannady – the same Chris Kannady who openly admitted to working to oust 12 Conservative Republicans from the House in 2018 for being too conservative. The same Chris Kannady attached to the Conservative Alliance PAC – used to fund the campaigns of the Conservative’s opponents – which was fined 45 thousand dollars for, among other things, not filing spending reports.

Here is the Kannady/Shaw exchange on the floor February 7th, 2025. You can find more here in the full live video on YouTube where everything that happened on the House floor during Organizational Day is broken down.

Can it be proven that leadership has blocked Shaw’s bills from hearings? No. However, a simple look at the history of the HD32 election in which Shaw challenged Wallace provides ample support of that contention. In fact, people may look at the clip of Wallace and Kannady on the floor and feel that Kannady was NOT trying to intimidate Shaw, but it is well known that Representative Kannady hates conservatives so much that he actively worked to remove 12 conservative Republicans from the House in 2018 using a PAC eventually fined for unethical actions.

In the end, it matters not the actual reasons Shaw’s bills weren’t heard in Committee because the end result will ALWAYS be the same – the people that voted Jim Shaw into office deserve to be heard. In point of fact, that concept is the MAINSTAY OF OUR REPUBLIC. One would think an attorney with the self-appointed Constitutional knowledge of Chris Kannady would know this. Even young kids know that taxation without representation is the reason colonists dressed as Native Americans and dumped tea into the Boston Harbor in December 1773.

And so it stands that because none of Representative Jim Shaw’s bills were heard in the Oklahoma House of Representatives, the effect is none other than that ALL of the citizens of HD32 have now been TAXED WITHOUT REPRESENTATION and that IS UNFORGIVEABLE.

If this is the way House leadership intends to act for the duration of the session, Oklahomans had better commit to removing each and every one of these individuals for impeding the Constitutional rights of an entire county’s worth of citizens. And just in case you don’t know who these individuals are, here is the list and the link to find them on the House website. It behooves all Oklahomans to get very familiar with these elected Representatives now and to start looking for their replacements as June 2026 looms on the horizon. Included next to the name is that Representative’s 2024 conservative index according to the Oklahoma Constitution. Without a Boston Harbor, removal and replacement will be the only way to get our point across.

Kyle Hilbert – Speaker; 56
Anthony Moore – Speaker Pro Temp; 60
Stan May – Majority Caucus Chair; 63
Nick Archer – Majority Caucus Vice-Chair; 46
Josh Cantrell – Majority Caucus Secretary; 80
Josh West – Majority Floor Leader; 60
John Pfieffer – Majority Deputy Floor Leader; 66
Steve Bashore – Majority Deputy Floor Leader; 80
Tammy West – Majority Whip; 60
Mark Lawson – Majority Leader; 70
Toni Hasenbeck – Majority Deputy Leader; 60
Scott Fetgatter – Tribal and External Affairs; 70
Chris Kannady – Counselor To The Speaker; 63
Collin Duel – Assistant Majority Floor Leader; 70
Gerrid Kendrix – Assistant Majority Floor Leader; 90

February 22, 2025 0

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…

Here’s the Real Hockey Stick

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.

January 6, 2025 0

Speaker-Elect Hilbert’s Legislative Priority Personifies Everything Wrong With Oklahoma Government

According to the Oklahoma Voice this morning, our new House Speaker-Elect, Kyle Hilbert has declared;

“In this upcoming session, if we pass two bills, a state budget and a bill reducing the usage of cellphones in public schools, it will be one of the most substantial legislative sessions that I’ve experienced.”

Full stop.

During the fight to repeal Common Core from state law and remove it from Oklahoma classrooms, the talking points invariably used by legislators to stiff-arm our pleas included “we don’t like education mandates” and “we’re a local control state”. No joke. But then, during those years, one history teacher-turned legislator told me that Oklahomans send legislators to the capitol to “write bills”.

What The Bill Says

Here is the cell phone bill, created by Senate Education Committee Vice-Chair, Ally Seifried; SB139.

According to the press release sent out by Senate Media, the bill, “empower[s] schools to adopt ‘bell to bell’ cell phone policies”, yet the bill summary says, “An Act relating to schools; requiring school district boards of education to adopt a policy prohibiting use of cell phones while on campus during certain time period”. Requiring and ’empowering’ do not have the same meaning – the first includes force.

In fact, the bill goes on to say that it will require schools to set discipline policies for students who break the school’s required policy on cell phone use (the force part). It also allots up to 2 million taxpayer dollars (“if available”, whatever that means) to be granted to middle and high schools so they can buy something to STORE cell phones during the day.

Problems With The Bill

What is the point of a school board? According to state law, individual local school boards have the right and ability to set policy – including policy over cell phones. This bill actively usurps local school board authority. On one hand, we expect parents to execute control over their minor children, yet so much of what the state does actually removes parental executive control in favor of a government policy, rule or law. How can a parent execute parental control if we keep removing their executive function?
This is NEW LAW. How many laws do Oklahomans need to restrain them – or, in this case, their children? What about schools? Could an argument be made that part of the reason public schools in Oklahoma are failing is that they are constrained by state laws that may not have been needed at the local level?
This law forces schools to create disciplinary actions to be meted out when students break cell phone policy. What happens if a school DOESN’T create a cell phone policy? What happens if they don’t create a discipline policy? How many times has state law required schools to create a policy, but then never forced the school to write the policy when they don’t? Tulsa attorney Maria Seidler has told us numerous times, for example, that public schools don’t adhere to all of Oklahoma’s Parental Rights law, but there isn’t an enforcement mechanism in the law to make them, forcing parents to use their own money to sue schools while schools use taxpayer dollars to fight them. How many times has the state forced schools to follow the policies they DO create – about bathrooms, free speech, bullying, or student safety, for example? This law, then, would be meaningless, just like so many others our legislature creates, because there isn’t a mechanism of enforcement.
Schools can apply for a grant to create a place/places for student cell phones to be kept. Two million dollars will be pulled from taxpayer pockets to supply grant ‘winners’. Is there a reason cell phones can’t be turned off as students come into class, dropped into a basket on the teacher’s desk and collected before they leave the classroom? Two million dollars is needed for that?

What Our Constitution Guarantees

The Oklahoma Constitution says the following in Section 2-1: Political power – Purpose of government – Alteration or reformation:

All political power is inherent in the people; and government is instituted for their protection, security, and benefit, and to promote their general welfare; and they have the right to alter or reform the same whenever the public good may require it: Provided, such change be not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States.

How does any of the nonsense written in our Speaker-Elect’s priority bill match with the wording of our state Constitution?

In fact,

It usurps local control of government – which removes the security citizens should have in control of their government and removes any benefit to them by taking the issue out of their hands.
It creates a NEW law, removing power from the people and giving it to government. The more laws government creates, the more individual liberty is constrained and the less benefit or security ‘the people’ receive.
This law is meaningless because it accomplishes nothing. Meaningless laws cause ‘the people’ to suffer. Even if prohibitions were added to the bill that FORCED schools to create policy on this issue, it would do little more than once again remove the power from “the people”/parents to deal with the issue and give it to government.
Taking MORE dollars from taxpayers to buy unnecessary items is burdensome to the liberty of ‘the people’. The economy is hard. Parents need to KEEP THEIR OWN MONEY and decide how to spend it. Interestingly, if parents choose not to pay their taxes so they won’t be used for government frivolity, government will fine them or send them to prison. THAT is how out-of-whack our government is compared to what our Constitution says our government must do or be.

What The Legislature MUST Prioritize Instead

The legislature MUST:

Prohibit PRIVATE BUSINESSES from receiving public funds to do business in the state; ie – remove ALL tax credits and incentives for private business. This would restore free enterprise and a fair economy, creating a benefit for all citizens and security of an even playing field for those who own their own businesses. As example; we spent at least one million taxpayer dollars on a fledgling electric car maker that has never lived up to its promises.
Prohibit taxation of property and income (which is also property). Our state constitution says in Section 2-2 on Inherent Rights; “All persons have the inherent right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the enjoyment of the gains of their own industry“. The bolded terminology refers to property and income. The taxation of such flies in the face of our Constitution’s requirement for the government to provide us protection, security and benefit. The legislature should write a state question to enable the people to change the Constitution to prevent the use of property taxation and start to phase out income tax ASAP (see Rep. Jay Steagall).
Prohibit eminent domain for turnpikes, solar installations, wind turbines or any desire of PRIVATE INDUSTRY to conduct business in our state. Taking the property of ‘the people’ should only be done in VERY DIRE need that would benefit ‘the people’. A private wind turbine company – Invenergy – shouldn’t be able to take property from Oklahoma citizens to create an electric transmission corridor that would allow them to ship Oklahoma wind energy to out of state customers.
Stop giving money to public schools that do not educate children. We are 49th in education and most children in the state aren’t proficient in either reading or math. Uneducated students remove our security and provide little benefit to the state or it’s citizens and taking tax dollars from citizens to support failure removes their security. Public schools often have multi-million dollar sports stadiums full of high school kids who can’t count back change. Stop allowing taxpayers to be robbed for failure.

What “The People” Must Do

Contact your legislator. Remind them of the guarantees our State Constitution provides Oklahoma citizens. When legislation is promoted that does NOT agree with these guarantees, immediately call and/or email and explain why the bill must be voted down.
Until we Oklahomans understand the function of our state government, we can’t educate our elected officials. At least read the Bill of Rights of our Constitution. Then, educate those around you including your legislators. It’s the only way to put government back in the hands of ‘the people’ and out of those who think only of lobbyists, public school bullies and elevating their power quotient for another job in government when they’re through at the legislature.
Track legislation through the legislative website and/or Legiscan and/or follow OKHPR, OK2A, Save Oklahoma Farms And Ranches and ROPE, in order to know what laws are being introduced during the session and how they affect you.

January 2, 2025 2

Kyle Hilbert Or Tom Gann For Oklahoma Speaker Of The House – Hint; Hilbert Pays CAMP, And Is Funded Mainly By PAC Dollars!

No general Oklahoma voter can exercise their vote for one of the most important political positions in the legislature – Speaker of the House. Why, you might ask? Though that’s an excellent and reasonable question, I honestly don’t know, but as long as I’ve been aware, we’ve had to rely on our elected House Representatives to do that for us – often in secret vote.

What, you might say? How can the leader of the House – the one that picks the Committee Chairs, the one that decides what bills are heard, the one that sets the tone for the House of Representatives and can break a tie with their vote on any contentious legislation heard in committee – not be voted on by Oklahoma voters, though he or she would lead one entire half of the body of our legislature? Well, again, that’s a really excellent question.

Here’s what it says about the process in the article announcing Hilbert’s election – because there is nothing on the Oklahoma Legislature website that explains how the Speaker of the House is elected.

Under majority caucus rules, the speaker-designate for the upcoming Legislature is selected through a caucus election on the first Monday in March during election years. The 60th Legislature will be seated after November’s elections and convene for its first session in 2025. The entire body of the House will formally vote on its next speaker on organizational day for the 60th Oklahoma Legislature in early January 2025.

Majority (Republican) caucus rules can change every year, so that’s a comforting notion.

Last year, the current speaker – and longest in the position – Charles McCall, was term-limited (Oklahoma has 12 year term limits for every legislative office). Though 29-year-old Kyle Hilbert of Bristow – who will be the youngest ever to serve as Speaker – was elected by the Republican caucus last spring on the first ballot of the secret vote inside a Republican caucus meeting, Representatives Lonnie Sims and Kevin West also vied for the position. (Here’s a bit about Hilbert according to Ballotpedia.)

But not so fast. There is at least one other vote for House Speaker, so Hilbert’s ascendancy isn’t written in stone.

And why shouldn’t there be another vote? Some of the members of the House at the time of the first vote were either term-limited, or voted out in the primaries. Some still face a candidate in the November 5th election. Why should Representatives who won’t even be seated in the House during the 2025 session vote on the Speaker position instead of the newly elected Representatives who will serve in that legislature?

Recently, representative Tom Gann of Inola has thrown his hat in the ring to challenge Kyle Hilbert for Speaker. (Here’s a bit about Tom Gann from Ballotpedia.)

I thought it might be interesting to compare the two candidates, so I went through the Oklahoma Ethics Guardian System and pulled their Ethics reports from January through August – the first three quarters of the filing year. To make it easy to read, I loaded both Contributions and Expenses data for each candidate into an Excel spreadsheet.

Here is Tom Gann’s. Representative Gann has been in the House since 2016.

Here is Kyle Hilbert’s. Hilbert has also been in the Oklahoma House since 2016.

Totals are at the bottom of each column, but let me recap:

Tom Gann had no contributions for the first three reporting quarters. He had no real expenses other than the loan he repaid himself from 2023.

During that same time period, Kyle Hilbert took $1900 from individuals (including former legislators), $5750 from lobbyists, $61,151.32 from 38 different PACs (9 originating out of state), $20,657.67 from individuals associated with some kind of a business (the entry was John Smith, CEO of XYZ Corporation) and $2950 from two separate tribes – for a total of $92,408.99.

Hilbert’s expenses are not fully listed here. I picked out his payments to other House members – a total of $97,200.00). He also paid CAMP and James Martin Company for his political needs. Both often work together in the world of Oklahoma political consulting.

This is a video of Kyle Hilbert from a KFOR political program on Sunday mornings. Please note. According to him, his job is to get Republicans elected to office.

Clearly, he’s not read the Constitution. That is NOT his job. His job is to protect the liberty of his constituents. Please also note – he was convinced that former Chair of the House Appropriations Committee Kevin Wallace would be re-elected. In a stunning victory for LIBERTY in Lincoln and surrounding counties, citizens came out during a hot July primary to UNELECT Kevin Wallace because he was more interested in special interests than his own constituents – kind of like Kyle Hilbert.

Interestingly, a PAC called the WolfPAC was created in 2023 to work for “Oklahoma’s Legislative Future”. The PAC is run by people I profiled in The Corruption Belt – Diagramming Oklahoma’s Dark Money Web – Political Consultants and PAC Treasurers. The treasurer is Dustin Hilliary, part of the Oklahoma Hilliary Communications network. The Hilliary family are very involved in Oklahoma politics and frequently donate to Oklahoma campaigns.

The following is a quote from a Fox 24 article Oklahoma’s broadband office reboots process for distributing $382 million in federal funds amid concerns:

The Hilliary family are big political donors, including to Governor Kevin Stitt and State Superintendent Ryan Walters. We looked at the Hilliarys’ political contributions since 2015 and found they donated $705,803.20 to candidates and PACS that support them. $249,315.60 of that came directly from Hilliary Communications co-CEO Dustin Hilliary. In April, Dustin was appointed by Governor Stitt to the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, even though Dustin, himself, does not hold a college degree.

Here is an invitation for a fund-raiser for the PAC. Note, that James Martin Company – who is paid many multiple thousands of dollars by Hilbert’s campaign account – is taking RSVPs.

The main donations to the PAC are other PACs, lobbyists and individuals associated with companies or corporations – many of which are the same ones donating to Hilbert’s campaign.

The main expenditures from the PAC fund the campaigns of Oklahoma Representatives – including Hilbert. Why? Aren’t people from their own districts supposed to be supporting their office? Aren’t they to be Representatives of the People, not PACs or other candidates or legislators? If a candidate is receiving money from the campaign of a ‘leadership’ PAC or the Speaker Designate, what does that say about the independence of those Oklahoma Representatives? What happens when a bill is run and the Speaker needs votes? (Notice, not every legislator is on either Hilbert’s or WolfPAC’s list). Some Oklahoma legislators don’t take funds like those described above, thus circumventing any of the questions posed about their consequences.

Don’t Oklahomans have the right to wonder what happens during the next vote for Speaker? Do legislators who got checks feel the need to vote for the person who gifted them of his campaign funds? It surely does beg the question and an answer should be carefully considered.

In contrast, here is a video of Tom Gann during an October 8th Interim Study held at the capitol which described how Oklahomans can lose a host of their Constitutional rights when police officers pull over cars and use data captured by Automatic License Plate Readers.

Hmmm…is it just me, or is there really no comparison between Gann and Hilbert now that we’ve had the chance to look at them side-by-side?

Gann is funded by NO ONE – Hilbert is funded by PACs and lobbyists and individuals who represent/work with large corporations and businesses within the state – people who could very well have a stake in any legislation run through the legislature.

NOW, if any of the issues I’ve brought up concern you, contact your House Rep RIGHT NOW and ask them to vote for Tom Gann for Speaker of the House! (If you don’t know who that is, please slap yourself and then go here) It’s the only way to put government back in its box – the one that exists solely of PROTECTING OUR RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES.

List of PACs Contributing To Kyle Hilbert’s Campaign January through August, 2024

Advance Freedom PAC

Amber Integrated PAC

American Electric Power Committee for Responsible Government

American Fidelity Corp PAC

Architects Political Action Committee

Associated Builders and Contractors Oklahoma PAC

AT&T Oklahoma PAC

Beer Distributors of Oklahoma Political Action Committee

Bondsman Political Action Committee

Brightspring PAC (KY)

Boeing Company PAC

CARE PAC

Cox PAC

Delta Dental of Oklahoma For Oral Health PAC

Dentaquest PAC (MA)

Enterprise Holdings Inc. PAC (MO)

IP-PAC (DC) (also an International Paper PAC)

International Paper PAC (DC)

Invenergy Political Action Committee (IL)

Marathon Oil Company PAC (TX)

OK Beef PAC

Oklahoma Academy of Physician Associates

Oklahoma Committee of Automobile Retailers

Oklahoma’s Electric Cooperatives PAC

Oklahoma Funeral Directors Association PAC

Oklahoma Optometric Political Action Committee

Oklahoma Pharmacists Association PAC

Oklahoma Society of Certified Public Accountants Political Action Committee

Oklahoma Title Political Action Committee

Petroleum Alliance PAC

Pfizer PAC (NY)

Phillips 66 PAC

Plains All American PAC (TX)

Realtors PAC of Oklahoma

Sooner State PAC

The Williams Companies PAC

Thoroughbred PAC

Valero PAC (TX)

38 PACs

9 out of state

October 23, 2024 2

Governor Stitt Calls Us “Political Animals”, The Oklahoman Calls Us “Far Right-Wing” – Who Really ARE HD32 Jim Shaw Supporters?

It is a very sad thing to have to say, but we’ve come to a point in our country when the basic values held by so many in America – particularly rural Americans – of hard work, faith in Jesus Christ, love of family, patriotism, being neighborly and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps without bending the knee and kissing the ring of government, are being out right demonized.

And not just demonized by a media many Americans today have begun to realize merely manufacture government propaganda rather than reporting actual news, but by their own elected representatives and fellow citizens.

This primary season, a young man from HD32 – a district which bumps up against the border of eastern Oklahoma county where I live – decided he had great concerns about what was happening in his backyard.

Plans are being enacted by private ‘green energy’ companies (which get American tax-payer subsidies and couldn’t exist in the free market without them) to create wind generation installations in the back 40’s of these Oklahomans – some of whom have maintained family ownership of their properties since statehood. Most landowners don’t want that, yet absentee owners have sold out for the promise of the dollars they think they can collect while ruining the health and vitality of the land of their on-site neighbors with giant, bird-killing, non-compostable, oil-leaking monstrosities and they’re nervous about keeping their land intact. [If you’re interested in the problems with this ‘technology’, you can find a full podcast on the issue here.]

His own Representative, Kevin Wallace (Chairman of the House Appropriations and Budget Committee – a very powerful position in state government because it holds the purse strings to how Oklahoman’s tax dollars are spent), admitted to dumping human waste on his property as fertilizer twice and then defended it by saying that it was legal in Oklahoma to do so.

Biosludge is a nightmare. It smells so badly that neighbors who live downwind of an application often can’t take full breaths outdoors, it draws flies and it contains everything that goes down the sewers in Oklahoma county from pharmaceuticals to industrial chemicals. Like many of his neighbors, this young man had developed great concerns about what this substance could do to the health of his family and his neighbors, but also the health of the aquifer from which we ALL draw in this region. [If you’re interested in the problems with biosludge, you can find a full podcast on the issue here.]

And these are just a few of the concerns residents in the district have had for years.

After realizing that no one – including Wallace – seemed to be confronting the issues that affected them beyond giving them lip service, entrepreneur and family man, HD32 resident, Jim Shaw, decided he needed to run against his politically powerful representative to try and do something about these issues for his neighbors and himself, running on a platform of Land, Livelihoods and Legacies.

The incumbent conducted his campaign abysmally. Wallace called Shaw (a political newcomer and a neighbor) a liar and a hypocrite via social media, direct mail and video ads nearly daily, and – late in the campaign – posted a Google Earth photo of Shaw’s farm with his address clearly labeled for the public to see, calling him a hypocrite for coming out against ‘green energy’ initiatives when he used a small solar panel bank for personal sustainability. According to one writer, Wallace’s construction company has undertaken numerous state jobs, “raising questions about whether Wallace’s legislative position has intersected with his business interests”. But then, Wallace is no stranger to public money, having accumulated about $68,000 in disaster and commodities subsidies over the last 10 years.

Donors to Wallace’s campaign – during which he spent over $440K just in the pre-run off period – read like a “who’s who” of lobbyist, special interests and PACS. In fact, frequent ROPE contributor Karmin Grider found that – over his entire career in the House – Wallace had collected less than 1% of his campaign funds from people in his district.

One of Wallace’s campaign issues centered on a bill to stop foreign ownership of private land in Oklahoma. Shaw researched and found the touted bill did nothing to stop foreign ownership of private land. When he challenged Wallace on the issue, Governor Kevin Stitt produced an off-the-cuff video supporting Wallace, the bill and Wallace’s role in passage of the bill while calling Shaw supporters “political animals”. (But Wallace did vote for a bill to protect people who put biosludge on their farms from possible EPA fines over ‘forever’ chemicals.)

During the run-off election, House Speaker Charles McCall, Governor Kevin Stitt, Marathon PAC Chairman Thomas Tillison (a PAC which contributed $5k to Wallace in the run-off and whose family contributed $7,600 during the primary), Senator Grant Green and Speaker-elect Kyle Hilbert all came to the district to stump for Wallace. (Photos taken from public posts to Kevin Wallace’s Facebook page)

I awoke this morning to a video in Facebook Messenger and a headline from the Oklahoman.

The article in the Oklahoman labeled those of us who supported (and still support heartily) candidate-now-Representative, Jim Shaw, “far right-wing”.

The video (below) was from a man I’ve become friends with while supporting Jim Shaw for election. He lives on his family’s long-held farm in the district, is wildly intelligent and salt-of-the-earth as they come. This is a timeline he created from pictures he’d taken from start to finish of the campaign featuring all the neighbors, friends and now-friends who came together wanting a leadership change in the district.

THESE are the “political animals” – the “far right-wing” people who overturned a powerful member of the Oklahoma legislature when they believed he didn’t have their best interests in mind.

Call us what you will, but we’re God-fearing, loyal, patriotic, self-sufficient and loving. We’re proudly American. We’re your neighbors. We’re everything all Americans USED to be.

So as the propagandists seek to minimize us, demonize us and destroy us, they should just understand one thing with every fiber of their being;

WE’RE THE FOUNDATIONS OF RURAL AMERICA AND WE’RE NEVER GONNA TO CHANGE.

Video audio: Sturgill Simpson Coal Miner Family From Kentucky.

August 29, 2024 3

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