As our Governor continues down his “more of everything” energy plan road, Oklahomans continue to shine the stoplight against the ‘greening’ of their state.
Nowhere can you find a better example of that push back than the No Wind Turbines rally at the Capitol on Tuesday, from which we broadcast live. If you missed it, you can find the videos of the event on our YouTube channel. There were several hundred people there, though the temps started in the teens and barely got into the 20’s all day!
The Friday after the rally, we interviewed Peter Murphy on the podcast. Peter is with an organization called, CFACT – the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow – which was formed to create truthful content and publish accurate research which would directly counter the deceptive global climate change narrative. They have an extensive advisory board which includes the Lord Monckton, a climate change realist who can be found all over the internet gleefully righting global warming myths around the world.
Michael and I had an extensive conversation with Peter, but two things really need to be brought to the forefront from that interview.
First, after having a conversation via Facebook with several legislators following the rally, it’s readily apparent that there are elected officials who see green technology companies as part of the Free Market Economy. This could be further from the truth, yet people still seem to insist there’s truth to this fairy tail. Below, Michael, Peter and I talk about how very UN-FREE MARKET the green scam is, but you can find the full, live video on our YouTube and Rumble channels.
We also talked about the IRA (Inflation Reduction Act) and how its passage was really just an homage to Biden’s cronies, giving them their own little climate gravy trains. But beyond that, as Peter says, it’s just massive group think paid for with tax dollars stolen from citizens and handed out to a list of donor-base desirables.
President Trump has – so far – seemed unfriendly toward the green energy scam. This bodes well for our ability to pull back on green initiatives nationally once he is president, but there will have to be no further federal funds thrown at this nonsense if we are going to attempt to re-align post-Biden energy policy again toward fossil fuels.
Nevertheless, we will continue to have to fight right here in our own backyard. The deceptive practices of the green energy companies and the willingness of some Oklahoma elected officials to look past those, make it hard to know when or where a green energy scam project will pop up. Like Whack-a-Mole, they seem to appear, but then disappear when too many citizens get wind of the projects, only to reappear again later in a different county. Meanwhile, agendas aren’t being properly posted to warn residents of the impending doom to their land ownership and enjoyment and some county commissioners appear to worry more about the business of climate contractors than the liberty of their own citizens. To top it all off, with an “all-of-the above” energy pusher for a Governor, citizens may be out of luck asking their elected officials to protect their land, livlihoods and legacies and have to once again take matters into their own hands and stand up for themselves.
Continue to follow us and we’ll update as we’re able.
Friday, November 22nd, Michael and I welcomed John Baca – a real estate attorney from Hughes County, Oklahoma – to the podcast to talk about some things he’s been seeing with the influx of wind energy leases in the county.
During the course of the conversation, John told us that over 42,000 acres of land in Hughes county has been leased to wind developers by a relative handful of residents – most of whom are absentee land owners and don’t even reside on the land they’ve leased. This is a problem because those land owners won’t have to see the ravaged landscape that has become their property, or have to listen to the horrifying noise they make, or put up with the light flicker that could drive a person insane. (And read this WELL-RESEARCHED, horrifying article I just read on wind energy and whale deaths on the eastern seaboard. Why are we allowing these supposedly ‘green’ activities to ruin our planet? Are we really this stupid?)
Listen to John describe that problem in the clip below, where he also talks about the leases themselves – they’re over 70 pages long, they have non-disclosure agreements (NDA) which prevents lease signers from providing information about the lease to anyone without getting sued (gosh, that’s transparent) and the easements granted to the wind generation company sign your property away to whomever the company chooses until eternity and their language is incomprehensible to land owners who otherwise might have previously worked with an oil and gas company. Just. A. Bad. Deal. All. Around.
In the next clip, John gets to the bottom line – conservation easements and wind turbine leases are creating a situation in which land owners are unable to use the land for farming and we’re all becoming less able to manage our lives self-sufficiently while wind turbine companies – that already get MASSIVE taxpayer subsidies – use the system even more efficiently to collect more taxpayer dollars.
In further researching the concept of conservation easements, I found this really great article that gives the pro’s and con’s of the practice. Apparently President Trump applied for (and got) a conservation easement for Mara Lago, yet it’s easy to see how this particular tax-shelter would create a HUGE set of loopholes allowing bad actors to take advantage of other people’s property.
In fact, ProPublica (yes, this is a liberal organization, however, liberal organizations actually watchdog ‘conservative’ issues unlike conservatives – who generally tend to love everything labeled with an ‘R’ just because it’s labeled with an ‘R’) did a series of articles on conservation easement tax scams that is quite informative.
An article from 2022 called, “The Tax Scam That Won’t Die“, seems to describe the issue John believes wind turbine companies are using to their advantage. Here is the relevant paragraph:
“The syndicated versions are different (conservation easements). Instead of seeking to protect a bucolic reserve for wildlife or humans, profit-seeking intermediaries have turned the likes of abandoned golf courses or remote scrubland into high-return investment vehicles. These promoters snatch up vacant land that till then was worth little. Then they hire an appraiser willing to declare that it has huge, previously unrecognized development value — perhaps for luxury vacation homes or a solar farm — and thus is really worth many times its purchase price. The promoters sell stakes in the donation to individuals, who claim charitable deductions that are four or five times their investment. The promoters reap millions in fees.”
“During a June 22 Senate Finance Committee markup on retirement legislation, Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., a longtime sponsor of the Integrity Act, identified the projected windfall from a clampdown on syndicated easements as a way to pay for a popular proposal enhancing benefits for disabled police, firefighters, paramedics and EMTs. That bipartisan legislation, months later, got added to the massive, must-pass government funding bill, where no single lawmaker had the power to strip it out.
A big concession sealed support for the deal: Daines and other backers agreed not to apply the law to transactions that date back to when the IRS flagged syndicated easements as abusive in 2016 (though the IRS can still pursue cases from back then). Instead the new limits apply only to transactions that occur after the law’s enactment. Along with a much smaller change exempting the measure from applying to historic buildings, this reduced the projected Treasury windfall to about $6.4 billion.”
This year, however, the US Tax Court “boldly declared the Treasury Regulation section 1.170A-14(g)(6)(ii) as invalid, citing non-compliance with the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) as the primary reason. This particular regulation had previously served as a cornerstone for the IRS in disallowing deductions claimed by taxpayers under the guise of conservation easements, imposing stringent conditions that required the easements to be perpetual.“
So, go figure – the government giveth, the government taketh away, then the government giveth it backeth. Phenomenal. Apparently, the taxpayer will continue to take it in the hind end until the practice is somehow done away with permanently.
In the meantime, neither this, nor Governor Stitt’s “more of everything” approach to Oklahoma energy, is helping regular land owners from getting screwed out of the pleasure of owning their own property (sorry, renting it from the government).
Again, contact your legislators about this issue too…
Wow, what a way to come back from vacation! Friday, September 20th, Michael and I hosted a record THREE guests on the podcast at once – former Iowa Congressman Steve King and Robert Nazario of Freesoil Foundation and Steve Kenkel, an Iowa county official with a job akin to our County Commissioners – all to talk about carbon capture pipelines being created in mid-America and how these can kill us and our property rights.
What is a carbon capture pipeline you ask?
Here’s former Iowa Congressman, Steve King, to explain a bit about it:
According to the World Economic Forum, “To limit global warming to 1.5C, in line with the Paris Agreement, we need to cut current greenhouse-gas-emission levels in half by 2030 and reduce them to “net zero” by 2050.”
So…a carbon capture pipeline is a pipeline that stores CO2 removed from the earth’s atmosphere by carbon capture technology (see below), which can then be sequestered in the ground and used as currency when the WEF wins it’s war on the fiat exchange mechanism we’re all used to now (dollars) and our unGodly rich overlords want to buy a little CO2-producing yacht – or something nice for themselves.
What are “greenhouse gas” emissions?
Basically anything with CO2.
What is CO2? A compound of the elements Carbon and Oxygen which is produced by every living, breathing animal or human on the planet as a bi-product of cellular respiration (the process of breathing in Oxygen, which then powers all our cells by turning it into CO2, which we then breathe out), but also the burning of fossil fuels and decomposition of formerly-living (respiring) things to name a few others. Check out the schematic of the Oxygen Cycle which everyone should have learned in sciences courses throughout our school years. Seriously, it’s this easy to understand –
So stop and think on this a second…if plants use CO2 to create the O2 we breathe, what happens when we remove a huge chunk of CO2 from the air? If you wondered if it could be like putting a plastic bag over your head, you’d be right.
In fact, we know this to be true in practice – and here’s how.
The climate goonies have already started manufacturing these carbon sequestration pipelines and slipping them below the earth’s crust in numerous places – 5300 miles worth of them to be exact.
One of these is Satartia, Mississippi, where a CO2 pipeline rupture injured 45 and forced the evacuation of 200 townspeople.
See, CO2 is heavier than O2 – which should make you wonder how enough of it gets into the upper atmosphere to cause the heating effect we’re all supposed to be scared to death of. In great quantities – like that leaked from a CO2 sequestering pipeline – it flows out of its source and onto the ground – where people are. The following is an excerpt from an NPR article, “The U.S. is expanding CO2 pipelines. One poisoned town wants you to know its story“, which you should read.
Cars stopped working, hobbling emergency response. People lay on the ground, shaking and unable to breathe. First responders didn’t know what was going on. “It looked like you were going through the zombie apocalypse,” says Jack Willingham, emergency director for Yazoo County.
Now, three years after the CO2 poisoning from the pipeline break, some in Satartia see the incident as a warning at a critical moment for U.S. climate policy. The country is looking at a dramatic expansion of its carbon dioxide pipeline network, thanks in part to billions of dollars of incentives in last year’s climate legislation. Last week, the Biden administration announced $251 million for a dozen climate projects that focus on CO2 transport and storage.
Satartia residents are lucky. In Cameroon, Africa in 1986, a large CO2 bubble was released by Lake Kuk. It flowed out of the lake, down the mountain and killed absolutely everything that breathed oxygen for many miles, including 1,746 people and around 8,300 livestock.
Obviously, this ‘scheme’ is riddled with problems. Here are a few others.
Private Ownership Means ZERO ACCOUNTABILITY To Anyone But Investors
Summit Carbon Solutions – the organization mentioned by Congressman King in the above video, as the pipeline pushing organization – is a subsidiary of Summit Agricultural Group – a PRIVATE CAPITAL firm that includes as one of its offerings, Summit Carbon Solutions – all led by one guy, the Chairman and CEO, Bruce Rastetter, who Congressman King calls, “The Republican George Soros Of The Midwest”.
Unfortunately, one of Oklahoma’s own – Continental Resources – is a Summit Carbon Solutions investor, as are TPG RISE, (“a leading global alternative asset management firm, dedicated to the climate investing strategy of its global impact investing platform TPG Rise”, led by Bono and Richard Branson among others) and Tiger Infrastructure Partners (with offices in NY and London) who is excited about ESG and focuses their investments on transportation, digital infrastructure and “energy transition” to include ‘decarbonization’.
So what? Who cares? People are free to invest in what they want, right?
Private Property Rights VS Privately Funded Corporations Seeking Eminent Domain Rights
The full video (which you can find on Rumble or YouTube) shows the frustration the three men have had fighting THEIR OWN ELECTED OFFICIALS to make sure their personal property rights guaranteed by the Constitution are secured.
Private organizations engaged in making money on the back of a community, do anything they can to win the community over. After all, who wouldn’t trust Nick? He just donated a crap-ton of money to the local FFA. Why should I question his motives in getting me to sign a contract for an easement on my property line to accommodate a pipeline I wouldn’t have to see? He’s obviously invested in the community. Sure I’d trust him – even if I had to sign a piece of paper saying I couldn’t divulge the specifications of our contract to anyone.
Here’s a perfect example of this technique. This is Summit Carbon Solutions “aren’t we great” page. They’re great, right? Who couldn’t see that?
Then, there’s the problem we’ve seen here in Central Oklahoma with wind turbine developers. The developers – flush with taxpayer funds from the Biden Administration to power the ‘green agenda’ – donate to legislator’s campaigns, essentially assuring that any legislation they need for their projects could go their way – including the removal of citizens from their land.
No, not all legislators are influenced in this way, however, Senator Jessica Garvin and Representative Kevin Wallace (among others) were booted out of office this summer, in part due to complaints that they worked harder for their donors than they did for their constituents.
We The People can’t regulate private investor firms powering private companies who want access to our land if we don’t want them to have it. All we can do is beg our elected officials to follow the Constitution and hope they’ll side with their constituents and not the ever-knee-bending cries of “ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT” and “GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE” or the big bags of money these investor and taxpayer-powered people have that we middle-Americans don’t.
This is a bad position to be in as an American that can ONLY be rectified by being a LOUD, ACTIVE voice at County Commissioner meetings, Corporation Commission meetings and in the state Capitol with our own – and other – legislators and getting very involved in local elections.
Listen to Robert Nazario talk about the IMPORTANCE OF PROPERTY RIGHTS below. Take the words to heart and get ready to get in the game, because even if you don’t have property, dwindling farmland will effect your way of life and the way of life of your children and/or grandchildren as we’re all funneled into corporate solutions that will allow our Managers to manage us.
None of this ‘green’ nonsense is sustainable, or designed to truly help the planet – it’s designed to help people with money, make and keep their money.
We all carry models in our head that direct the way we perceive and process information. This is nothing new or odd. It’s called Confirmation Bias and it leads to thinking like, “Hey, I’m a ‘nice’ person, therefore other people are ‘nice’ people too”, “my lawmaker is my neighbor, he waves to me on Sunday as he goes to church, he has to be conservative like me”.
People functioning inside their confirmation bias look outside their window, see the thin veneer of public behavior we call society, see it functioning mostly as they expect and worry not about tomorrow. Consequently, when information comes to their attention that describes things beyond their confirmation bias, like the ‘The Great Reset‘, they think it’s nuts – misinformation, slippery slope, utter nonsense. That simply would never happen – and yet Confirmation Bias is one of the reasons so many Jews were murdered before Hitler was stopped – good people believing that mass genocide simply COULDN’T happen.
A thinking person has only to review the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the UN (Agenda 2030 pushed by Klaus Schwab and his friends) to realize that the whole thing is a pipe dream. No group – not even the UN (snark) – is going to end world hunger, or poverty – or any other of the ‘goals’ suggested by this document – they’re all completely impossible in a human, fallen world. Unless, a group of people who want to believe in these goals so badly, contrive ways to force human beings – through treaties, laws, rules and the like – to exhibit behaviors they deem necessary to bring about their goals.
For example; human beings as a rule are not terribly altruistic – they’ll put money in the plate at church, but many wouldn’t think about working at a food pantry or a homeless shelter. This is why socialism – altruism through the use of the currency of others – must be forced. The thought is, “Well, you won’t pay for your poor neighbor’s healthcare bill on your own, so there is a moral imperative for me to force you to do so” whether that’s a government or a world leader.
Let’s look at another example; #7 on the UN’s 2030 list is ‘affordable clean energy’. Solar panels cost an arm and a leg, they’re mostly manufactured in China with parts that come from all over the world that are cost ineffective to recycle, forcing most of them into the – wait for it – very green, nonpolluting landfill (snark). Consequently, the GOVERNMENT, which has the power to fine you, put you in jail or otherwise coerce you – not private businesses which do not have that power – take taxpayer dollars and subsidizes the use of solar technology while creating rules and laws that force the use of this technology at the detriment of the economy and the liberty of humans to make choices for themselves.
Hopefully, you see my point. I think many of us had our eyes opened to this fact during the plandemic.
So, let’s put aside our confirmation bias on the topic of economic development (much of which the Chamber of Commerce has propagandized into us for decades) and listen to a clip from the really great podcast Michael and I did with Julianne Romanello last Wednesday (when is a podcast with Julianne not great, though, really) 8.14.24. The whole podcast was devoted to a discussion about Economic Development activities – especially in small towns – and how the quest to bring more jobs/people to the town can have a rather opposite effect than desired.
Like so many other things, people are conditioned to believe that the idea of Economic Development is a good thing. Of course people want to be able to make a liveable wage – and beyond – in the place where they live. They also want their children to grow up and find work near the family. People also want places to shop and eat and parks to enjoy and all the things that make life – especially in a small town – awesome. These are VERY sensible desires!
But there’s a dark underbelly to economic development models we need to know about.
In the clip below, Julianne talks about the cynical-yet-truthful way in which economic development actually works and how it can play right into the Global Agenda.
In the clip below, Julianne talks about how small towns LOSE their local shared values and so many of the things that made them great when economic development becomes more about supporting outsiders than those who live in the town. In this model, the town gets nudged into a sustainable model, which, of course, drives the town – and everyone in it – down the Global Agenda road.
At the end of the podcast, Michael shared a story about his hometown of Guymon, Oklahoma. It’s truly a sad warning to other towns who desire ‘economic development’ for the creation of “more jobs”.
Please listen to the entire podcast either on our Rumble or YouTube channels. The discussion was very enlightening and one you might want to share with your City Council person or elected official. We truly do have to stop thinking that progress is always the best course. Sometimes just staying where we are is better for us and our development all the way around because progress can march us closer and closer to a new world order.
Pay attention to what the City Council and Economic Development Associations are doing in your town – as well as the local Chamber of Commerce. Be prepared to push back if you see warning signs that someone or something is set to benefit from the development of the economy more than town’s residents. The best defense is ALWAYS a good offense and that starts with knowledge – the kind you can only get from attending your City Council and EDA meetings!
It’s up to all of us to save the AMERICAN way of life for our children and grandchildren.
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.
After our interview with Julianne Romanello Wednesday morning, I felt it would be helpful to add a few links to allow people to further explore the premise of Rights-Based vs Value-Based governance.
At the outset of the podcast, we talked about property taxes and how, once the government taxes our property, we don’t own it anymore. This was arguably one of Jefferson’s biggest issue, which he delineated in the Declaration of Independence by the word ‘happiness’ in the phrase, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. Why equate property with happiness?
One of the reasons the pilgrims left England for lands undiscovered, was the very difficult ability to hold property in a monarchical system. If property rights had not been previously prescribed and legally noted, the King was often considered the owner of all empty lands because he was King by right of God and God provided him the land. This land could be (and was) given to various title-holding individuals depending upon the monarch at the time, usually consisting of Lords, Bishops, Barons, etc., while all non-title-holders were forced to rent land from the King (or the closest title-holder). In fact, even if you were found hunting on the King’s land, you could be fined or otherwise punished. It mattered not if your children were starving and you were unable to find food, all the game on the King’s property was the King’s, end of discussion.
If the King created another Baron in the place of the previous, a renter could be thrown off the property so it could be bequeathed to a new ‘owner’. Obviously, this kind of instability for the vast majority of the English population did NOT create happiness. Thus, one of the rights among men that the Founders desired to enshrine in the Constitution, was the right to own property for oneself; not merely rent it from the Crown, OR ANOTHER GOVERNMENTAL FORM. This stability then, could create happiness of the kind that provided safety and security as the phrase, “A man’s home is his castle” was meant to convey.
Today, however, Oklahomans – like so many other citizens of so many other states – no longer own their own property, but rent it from the King (state), placing us right back where we were when we started.
Why would I say such a thing? Because, as McClain County Assessor Kendal Sacchieri told us – property taxes MUST be paid, or we’ll be thrown off ‘our’ property so that ‘our’ property can be sold to the highest bidder and the taxes paid to the King (state).
What creates property taxes? Look at the illustration below prepared by Larry Stein, Oklahoma County Assessor. It can be found here, with more explanation for the expenditure of County property tax dollars.
You’re property is not your own because nearly 60% of it goes to government schools – government schools who also receive appropriations from the legislature, monies from parimutuel betting, the lottery AND MORE! As I’ve asked perpetually since 2010 – HOW MUCH MONEY IS ENOUGH FOR SCHOOLS TO HAVE – especially when their results are dismal and rare few pupils educated in public schools can read or do math! Here are a few of the other ways public schools get money from an 1889 Institute paper on School Finance.
Please, someone explain to me why our PROPERTY is being attached for government education that already is funded via the appropriation mechanism?
PLEASE, someone explain to me why our PROPERTY is being attached for MORE government education that is funded via the appropriation mechanism?
County government gets the next piece. To me, this is actually legitimate government expense. The County provides road repair and many other SERVICES from which taxpayers benefit. This, could be paid directly to the County as a tax – much like the taxes paid to the state – instead of attaching our property.
Cities and towns should be funded via their own taxes – like those on delivered merchandize (Amazon, etc.) and sales taxes collected within their boundaries (which they already get!) – your property SHOULD NOT BE TAXED TO RUN CITIES AND TOWNS.
The City/County Library should be funded via voluntary donations. Period. Yes, it is important to have repositories of knowledge, but large corporations are welcome to donate these facilities – as are citizens. Our PROPERTY SHOULD NOT BE TAXED to provide disgusting books to minors – which they do.
The City/County Health Department is another item that should be funded privately. There are many indigent clinics run by non-profits. Healthcare is NOT a function of government, it is a function of private economy whether you like that idea or not. The main function of government in America is THE PROTECTION OF INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS. Healthcare is not an individual right and has never been throughout history until the last several generations. Additionally, we all know that government-sponsored healthcare systems became armies of tyranny during COVID. I don’t want my tax dollars used to support tyranny in any form and I certainly don’t want my property seized to pay taxes to a group of people who want to force me to bow to healthcare mandates we’ve since learned DID NOTHING or killed us.
TIFs are a type of property tax that indebt property owners for economic development. You can read more on that here. There is no way property owners should allow ANY form of ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT to attach their property. Back in the ‘old days’ developers shouldered the risk of their developments – but they also owned all the rewards. Today, the PUBLIC is made to shoulder the risk of PRIVATE development, yet our property is taxed without us getting any REWARD at all. In many cases, the TIFF is for an office building or industrial park. Not only do the taxed property owners not reap any reward from this development, but they don’t even get to USE the property they are financing. Most TIFFs are sold to the public as – here, we’ll develop this area to bring in businesses from which you can possibly get a job. WHAT? Not only is there NO REWARD for the taxation of our property, but we might not even be able to become employed by the businesses being brought in through the development? Who in their right mind would give someone on the street the use of their car for the PROMISE that they’ll put gas in it when (if) they bring it back, yet people in cities and towns across Oklahoma actually fall for this scheme and accept the taxation of their property through a TIFF consistently. WAKE UP! STOP IT!
And so, to wrap up my most extensive piece ever on property taxes, please read this twice or three times. Once you understand the argument – because I believe you will – share it with friends AND your legislators. Property taxes are INHERENTLY wrong and must be stopped if Americans (Oklahomans) are to have true freedom.
