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Trenton Rippey With Young Americans For Liberty Pushes Principles Over Politics

Young Americans For Liberty

Wednesday morning, Michael and I welcomed Trenton Rippey of Young Americans for Liberty to the program. We had a great conversation – not only about what YAL does – but about what we should all be doing if we’re going to turn American around from the brink of economic and social destruction. You can find the entire interview on our Rumble and YouTube channels. I definitely suggest watching the entire interview and then passing it on to young people you know.

It was so great to listen to someone younger talk about the problems they are seeing in the country, what they are doing to try and solve those and how important it is to involve others in changing the system.

In the clip below, Trenton talks about how sometimes, all younger people need is to know there are people out there who think like them. Because college campuses are usually bastions of unfree thought that propagandize leftist ideals, it helps for young, conservative people to find a community of likeminded people and YAL can be that.

He also talks about the fact that his generation is finally realizing that no one (human) person is coming to save them and that they have to do it themselves.

In the clip below, Trenton talks about how hard it is to find out about true economic liberty – the free market economy – on college campuses because of the way it’s taught – or should I say ISN’T taught.

It was great to have Trenton on and to hear him talk about the power of following principles over politics – that saving the country isn’t Red or Blue, it’s about the principles of liberty.

In the first video above, he also talks about how YAL members aren’t accepting compromise on liberty issues anymore. For examples, property taxes are WRONG according to the Constitution of the US and the ideals of our Founders, and so are income taxes. They don’t want a percentage reduction in either tax – they want them abolished period. And who doesn’t really, it’s just that we’ve been putting up for too long with the idea that we have to compromise to get what we want.

Trenton makes us remember that our elected officials are not Kings and Queens to be genuflected to with a kiss on their ring. Elected officials are elected TO WORK FOR THE PEOPLE – to be SERVANTS of the people – not corporations with well-funded lobbyists.

Again, it was refreshing to hear a younger person understand the principles of liberty and have a desire to see those expressed – the way they should be – in our government of The People, by The People and for The People! Help a young person get connected to YAL TODAY!

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PikeOffOTA (aka Citizens for Responsible Transportation) Request Bills For 2025

Bills requested to help curb the power, influence and transparency of the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority. Please contact your legislators and ask them to watch for these bills.

OTA SPECIFIC

HB1188 – Title 69, Section 1707 – Abutting property owner rights along turnpikes, including compensation  for damages, devaluation of property or at the request of the property owner, acquisition of property plus all relocation costs incurred by owner. (Rick West) **MIRROR BILL TO SB969

HB1781 – Title 69, Section 1914 (NEW LAW) – Restricting how and where the OTA can advertise. (Shaw)

HB1939 – Title 69, Section 1705 – Sunset location authorizations if the OTA has not commenced physical construction in earnest within five years. (Sterling) 

HB2090 – Title 74, Section 213 –  State Auditor and Inspector to perform a special audit providing a determination of the revenue required to repay the original cost of existing turnpikes, provide an assessment of risk within the agency, conduct a 15 year look back and 10 year projection of maintenance reserved fund balances, deposits, expenditures and explanation of cross pledging refinancing practices, provide explanation of gap between required reserve maintenance fund deposits and actual reserve maintenance funds, provide an explanation of financial impact of cost overruns on the driving forward program. (Menz)

HB2093 – Title 69, Section 1709 – Establishing a bond debt ceiling on the OTA. (Menz) **MIRROR BILL TO SB963

HB2097 – Title 69, Section 1711 – – NEW LAW – Requiring legislative approval via a joint resolution for toll increases. (Menz) **MIRROR BILL TO SB964

SB963 – Title 69, Section 1709 – Establishing a bond debt ceiling on the OTA. (Standridge) **MIRROR BILL TO HB2093

SB983 – Title 69, Section 1705 – Audit by the State Auditor and Inspector prior to Bond Sales.  Auditor can request any information necessary for the determination of the feasibility and economic soundness of any turnpike projects or parts thereof listed in 1705(e) which are to be financed with revenue bonds. (Standridge) 

SB966 – Title 69, Section 1703 – Creation of a Turnpike Legislative Oversight Board.  OTA must annually provide a copy of its most recent annual report to the members of the Turnpike Legislative Oversight Board, in addition to any information requested by such body. (Standridge)

SB969 – Title 69, Section 1707 – Abutting property owner rights along turnpikes, including compensation  for damages, devaluation of property or at the request of the property owner, acquisition of property plus all relocation costs incurred by owner. (Standridge) **MIRROR BILL TO HB1188

SB 964 – Title 69, Section 1711 – NEW LAW – Requiring legislative approval via a joint resolution for toll increases. (Standridge) **MIRROR BILL TO HB2097

Open Records Act

HB2095 – Title 51, Section 24A.5 – Requiring state agencies to reply to open record requests within 30 days.  

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Tassie Katherine Hirschfeld of PikeOffOTA; OTA is Soviet-Style Centralized Planning

Friday, January 31st, our guest on the podcast was Tassie Katherine Hirschfeld of PikeOffOTA, the group that is pushing back against the Oklahoma Transportation Authority and their continued need to displace Oklahoma residents for completely unneeded toll roads for which taxpayers pay multiple times.

The whole discussion was worthwhile and you can see that in full on our Rumble and YouTube channels, though you can find it with public comment on YouTube and on our Facebook page. Seeing the comments is almost as good as the discussion.

One of the most important parts of the interview I think, was when Tassie – who spent quite some time in Cuba doing her Ph.D. research – compared OTA with Cuba’s soviet-style central planning. This is important. America is a Republic in administration and a Democracy in action, wherein the people who make up the citizenry are able to interact with their government officials and – ideally – direct how they are governed. This is NOT how the OTA functions, however, Tassie makes that very clear.

Unfortunately, the problems with OTA are not simple. In the video below, Tassie describes last year’s court case against the OTA in which PikeOff accused them of not following the Oklahoma Open Meeting law. The District Judge agreed that the OTA was not being forthcoming with information and transparent about the ways in which they were doing business and told OTA to stop work on their ACCESS program, but OTA just chose not to and the Judge didn’t make them. Therefore, it was like nothing had ever happened – OTA wasn’t taken to court, PikeOff didn’t win a lawsuit and OTA just went right along as they had before. Where else does this happen in life? I wouldn’t imagine I would be able to get away with not following a judge’s ruling, but OTA did.

It’s going to be very important for EVERY Oklahoman (because this won’t stop and someday this could be YOUR home) to pay attention to legislation this year regarding OTA has REQUESTED. PikeOff has provided that information and I’ve pasted it in below. Please let your senator and representative BOTH know that you want to see these laws PASSED this year! Thanks so much to Amy Cerato of PikeOff, for the information!

OTA SPECIFIC

HB1188 – Title 69, Section 1707 – Abutting property owner rights along turnpikes, including compensation  for damages, devaluation of property or at the request of the property owner, acquisition of property plus all relocation costs incurred by owner. (Rick West) **MIRROR BILL TO SB969

HB1781 – Title 69, Section 1914 (NEW LAW) – Restricting how and where the OTA can advertise. (Shaw)

HB1939 – Title 69, Section 1705 – Sunset location authorizations if the OTA has not commenced physical construction in earnest within five years. (Sterling) 

HB2090 – Title 74, Section 213 –  State Auditor and Inspector to perform a special audit providing a determination of the revenue required to repay the original cost of existing turnpikes, provide an assessment of risk within the agency, conduct a 15 year look back and 10 year projection of maintenance reserved fund balances, deposits, expenditures and explanation of cross pledging refinancing practices, provide explanation of gap between required reserve maintenance fund deposits and actual reserve maintenance funds, provide an explanation of financial impact of cost overruns on the driving forward program. (Menz)

HB2093 – Title 69, Section 1709 – Establishing a bond debt ceiling on the OTA. (Menz) **MIRROR BILL TO SB963

HB2097 – Title 69, Section 1711 – – NEW LAW – Requiring legislative approval via a joint resolution for toll increases. (Menz) **MIRROR BILL TO SB964

SB963 – Title 69, Section 1709 – Establishing a bond debt ceiling on the OTA. (Standridge) **MIRROR BILL TO HB2093

SB983 – Title 69, Section 1705 – Audit by the State Auditor and Inspector prior to Bond Sales.  Auditor can request any information necessary for the determination of the feasibility and economic soundness of any turnpike projects or parts thereof listed in 1705(e) which are to be financed with revenue bonds. (Standridge) 

SB966 – Title 69, Section 1703 – Creation of a Turnpike Legislative Oversight Board.  OTA must annually provide a copy of its most recent annual report to the members of the Turnpike Legislative Oversight Board, in addition to any information requested by such body. (Standridge)

SB969 – Title 69, Section 1707 – Abutting property owner rights along turnpikes, including compensation  for damages, devaluation of property or at the request of the property owner, acquisition of property plus all relocation costs incurred by owner. (Standridge) **MIRROR BILL TO HB1188

SB 964 – Title 69, Section 1711 – NEW LAW – Requiring legislative approval via a joint resolution for toll increases. (Standridge) **MIRROR BILL TO HB2097

Open Records Act

HB2095 – Title 51, Section 24A.5 – Requiring state agencies to reply to open record requests within 30 days.  

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Ageism Dominates Comments On OKC FOX Reporter Payton May’s Post From August State School Board Meeting

I swear, I shouldn’t be surprised by absolutely ANYTHING today, but this one got me.

This was a Tweet from reporter Payton May during Thursday’s (8.22.24) state school board meeting.

I can’t see the comments on the post anymore. I’ve apparently been blocked for repeatedly commenting, but if you go through them, you’ll see a pattern – older people need to sit down and shut up about what’s going on in schools.

Here are the specific comments to which I actively replied:

My predictive text decided to use “funded” for “fined” and I hit sent before I saw that…

This guy actually responded that, yes, he was an ageist, but he hadn’t said anything about drag queens or kindergartners. SMH, RME…

I believe I’ve made my point (and not always nicely, but my dander was up) but I have to say – not that Twitter is an indicative replica of all Americans – we’re in trouble.

The people who commented about the age of the people there for Walters were ugly about it. I mean, why even say something like that? They obviously have absolutely no idea how property taxes work (you don’t own your property because the state forces you to pay taxes on your property that fund local public schools, libraries and technical schools and if you don’t pay them, the state comes in and takes your property from you to pay the bill for those things) and that people on fixed incomes (many collect only Social Security having been propagandized to believe that would take care of them in their old age) are more susceptible to having their property confiscated for lack of funds to pay their property taxes.

More than likely, these people live in apartments and take money from the government for different things on a regular basis, so they could care less what happens to people who don’t pay their property taxes, but I think there’s a bigger issue here.

Democrats/leftists, want abortion on demand – they always have. I can’t make a case for it because it’s never made any sense to me why anyone would want to kill a pre-born infant – not even when I was a young moron who thought she was an atheist. You either don’t have sex, or you use birth control if you’re gonna have sex – you don’t kill babies because YOU were too much of an idiot to protect yourself from getting pregnant.

Soon, it will be old people.

I could wax on about why and how and all of that, but it’s been reported for many years – especially since COVID and so many old people were simply put on ventilators and left to die. The important part of even putting this into a blog for public consumption is to understand that AGEISM – like so many other horribly destructive social trends – is here in Oklahoma.

We must push back against the Democrat death cult. We do it with abortion, but we’ve ignored the looming specter of ageism.

When you hear or see this kind of conversation on social media, or anywhere else, remind people how school funding and property ownership works. Remind them that old people have more skin in the game than the young. Remind them that older folks should be cared for and how much we still have to learn from those who are older.

Don’t let the young demonize the old, because if we do, we’ll end up with the same problem we have with the pre-born now – we’ll be having to figure out how to stop euthanasia programs like those invented by the Nazis to get rid of the medically infirm. It’s happened before, it’s happening in other countries now, it can happen here too.

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