OkieBrent's Soapbox

I’ve been battling the flu for two weeks now.  I hope I’m finally over it.  For two weeks I haven’t been able to write, because I haven’t been able to think.   I’m still not back to 100%, but I’m improving every day.

 

This coming Saturday our Democratic Party County Conventions are scheduled to elect new officers and delegates to the District and State Conventions.  My county, Grady, has had a very active Party and our officers have done a superb job.  None of the current officers are running for another term, and we’re having a very hard time finding anyone willing to run.  Right now, I only know of one person willing to run for County Vice Chair. 

 

I’ve been encouraged to run, but during election season, I spend more time in Oklahoma County than I do Grady County, and I take sides in Primary Elections.  It wouldn’t be fair to Grady County or to Democratic candidates that I do not support in the Primary.

 

Tom Cole announced this week he would not run for Governor, something I predicted the day he was appointed to the powerful Appropriations Committee. 

 

Democrats in the Oklahoma State House of Representatives have started a new website to help get their message out to the public.  This is excellent news…now how about it Senate Democrats, will you follow suit? Please!

 

American Journalism Review just completed a new survey of reporters covering state government.  The news is not good.  There has been a dramatic decrease since their last survey in 2003.

 

This is the outcome for Oklahoma:

 

OKLAHOMA–Down
Paper / FT/ Session help?/ Status
Oklahoman (Okla. City) / 2 / N / Down
Tulsa World / 1 / N / Down
CNHI Newspapers CNHI / 0 / N / Down
Journal Record (Oklahoma City) / 1 / Y / Down

 

Not good – all were down and only the Journal Record adds more staff during the legislative session.

 

There seems to be nothing but bad news when it comes to newspapers.  But some good news comes from the Huffington Post.  Recognizing the importance of good investigative journalism, especially in times with numerous crises, they announced the establishment of a non-profit Investigative Fund.

 

 

The Fund is ready to interview potential editors and reporters and also to start receiving proposals for investigative projects. The focus at the beginning is going to be on investigating aspects of the economic crisis. So please email resumes and pitches — as well any ideas and tips you may have about what should be investigated — to HuffPostFund@gmail.com.

 

 

In my last posting, I asked Tom Cole, Tom Coburn and Jim Inhofe where their outrage was about AIG.  Well, Jim Inhofe showed his outrage and his hypocrisy.  This from ThinkProgress.org

 

Inhofe said, “The AIG situation is clear evidence of what happens when you shovel money out the door with no strings attached and no transparency.”  While Inhofe today demands that federal bailouts come with “strings attached,” he expressed the opposite view in February when he asked, “[I]s this still America? Do we really tell people how to run [a business], and who to pay and how much to pay?”

Remember back at the end of 2008 when America’s Big 3 auto makers were asking Congress for a bridge loan to help them weather the terrible economic situation we find ourselves in?  Remember all those Republican members of Congress refusing to help because unionized workers are paid “too well”?  Remember those same Republicans demanding that the union workers renegotiate their contracts before they would lend a helping hand?

 

Where are all those Republicans today and what are they saying about AIG?  You know AIG – the insurance giant that has so far received $170 BILLION in taxpayer funds to help them keep from going bankrupt.  You know AIG – the American International Group, the company that had a record loss of $61.7 Billion for the fourth quarter of last year.

 

This is from the AP today, “the company says that AIG is contractually obligated to pay a total of about $165 million of previously awarded ‘retention pay’ to employees in this unit by Sunday, March 15.”

 

Senator Inhofe, Senator Coburn, Congressman Cole – where is the outrage?  Why are you not on television demanding AIG “renegotiate” their contracts?

 

AIG is giving “bonus pay” to its top executives in the amount of $165 MILLION because they have done such a bang up job.  It’s “retention pay” to keep such high-caliber employees.  Really.

 

The average payment to executives for these bonuses is $112,000 each.  But, this is just a partial payment of the bonuses.  Executives will be receiving future bonus payments in July 2009.

 

Remember all those Republican members of Congress complaining about union workers making $70 per hour (although that figure is much higher than their actual pay…it’s a long explanation, but that figure includes payment to all UAW retirees, and workers comp insurance, and unemployment insurance, and on and on….).

 

Let’s say AIG executives work a 40 hour week, 50 weeks per year.  Just this first partial payment of the bonus, not including what executives are paid before the bonuses, would equal $56 per hour.

 

Again, I ask my members of Congress, “Where is your outrage?”

I’ve been gone to Sequin, Texas this past week.  My mother’s oldest brother passed away.  I went down with my mom, two sisters and a brother-in-law.  I thought that I’d be able to organize many of my thoughts on many timely issues on the long drive down and back and over the few nights in the hotel room.  But it didn’t happen.  As it should have been, most of my time was spent with family members, some of which I hadn’t seen in years.

 

My uncle, Garland Cummins, had one of the best senses of humor of anyone I’ve ever met.  He was an electrician who had been a plant manager for a gypsum plant, he was a Korean War veteran, and he was a Jehovah’s Witness.  Since returning, I’ve thought about family and how short life truly is.  We really don’t have much time to waste, but you wouldn’t know that by looking at the bills that our state legislators are passing.

 

Our country is in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.  However, the issues being addressed by the State House and State Senate will do little or nothing to help average Oklahomans.  While the crisis is not as bad in Oklahoma as in many other areas of the country, it will certainly hit us harder soon enough.  Yet, instead of addressing the economic woes, our legislators are wasting time debating and passing senseless bills to allow a Ten Commandments monument at the State Capitol, to make English the official language, and to require photo IDs for voters.

 

While Oklahoma’s legislators are wasting time on bullshit, California’s legislators are trying to come up with real solutions to their state’s economic woes.  California is considering legalizing marijuana and taxing it just like alcohol and tobacco.  They estimate it would bring in more than $1 Billion extra per year.  Makes sense to me.

 

When I was in college I wrote a 20 page report on marijuana laws in the United States.  Oklahoma had the strictest laws of all 50 states, perhaps that is why Oklahoma taxpayers spend more than $1.3 million per day on corrections [see this post for more on that issue].   At the time I wrote that paper, marijuana was also Oklahoma’s largest cash crop.  My research showed that most of the confiscated weeds were actually wild stuff growing naturally on its own – not some high-grade herb cultivated and harvested by Oklahomans.

 

What is even more ridiculous about our marijuana laws is the part that also outlaws growing hemp, marijuana’s cousin that has no mind-altering effects.  Bible-believing Oklahomans should believe that hemp and marijuana are creations of God.  They truly are miracle-like plants, having hundreds of practical uses.

 

The original Constitution of the United States is written on hemp paper.  Our soldiers’ uniforms of the past were made of hemp cloth.  Our Navy’s rope and sails were also made of hemp.  Diesel and oil can be derived from hemp.  It will grow anywhere, from Alaska to Florida.  And unlike wheat or cotton, both of which deplete the soil of nutrients, hemp replenishes nutrients to the soil.

 

But what am I thinking?  That makes common sense, something our legislators are lacking.

The Oklahoma Democratic Party’s bi-annual precinct organizational meetings were held tonight.  I hosted the Minco area precincts at our office here.  Only three people bothered to attend (and we had a story about it in the local newspaper).  All three were from the same precinct (the smallest one)…so the other precinct (with more than 500 registered Democrats) has no Chair, Vice-Chair, or Secretary.

 

For the past 10 years or so, we’ve conducted all the Grady County precinct meetings together in Chickasha.  But to hopefully encourage more participation, we had meetings in Chickasha, Minco and Rush Springs.  It didn’t work in Minco, I hope it did in the other areas.

 

County Conventions to elect to county officers and delegates to the Conressional Districts and State Conventions will be held on April 4th.

 

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Possible candidates for Oklahoma’s 5th Congressional District made The Hill today.  Here is what the DC newspaper had to say on the Democratic side:

 

Early possibilities include former state Corporation Commissioner Jim Roth and state Sen. Andrew Rice, who ran against Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) last year.

 

Both lost statewide campaigns in November but ran stronger than Obama.

 

Roth, an appointee and former Oklahoma County Commissioner, lost only 52-48 in a very conservative state despite the fact that he is openly gay. Most see him as the best potential Democratic candidate, given that he won Oklahoma County by six points.

 

Rice, a 35-year-old up-and-comer, sounded nonplused about the race and said Roth would be the stronger contender. Unlike his campaign against Inhofe, Rice would have to give up his state Senate seat to run for Congress.

 

Rice lost Oklahoma County by 8 percent and lost statewide by 18.

 

While not ruling the race out, Rice said: “Frankly, it’s probably more winnable a couple cycles down the road.”

 

Other potential candidates include state Rep. Ryan Kiesel, another young state lawmaker, and state Treasurer Scott Meacham, who is also looking at the statewide office.

 

Kiesel said he has talked to Meacham and both are likely to wait to decide until after the current legislative session ends in May.

 

To read the complete article, click here.

 

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Saturday Night Live included a portrayal of Senator Tom Coburn in their piece on “The Rock Obama”….watch it here!

This past January, using Boone Pickens The Pickens Plan website, I sent emails to both our United States Senators and my member of Congress, Tom Cole, encouraging them to support President Obama’s stimulus bill.  Earlier this week, I received a response letter back from Congressman Cole.

His letter was about 1 ½ pages long explaining why he voted against the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  The part that really struck me as needing a response back (which he will receive from me soon) is the following section.  Congressman Cole wrote: 

“The House just voted to spend 300 percent more on this legislation than was spent in all of World War II, and a staggering 1,200 percent more than was spent during the New Deal.  Moreover, this single bill will cost more than all the money spent on the war in Iraq.”

 Let me take on those three points individually.

1. World War II ended in 1945.  According to an article written in 2004 entitled The Silent March of Inflation by Lowell Miller, “Since 1945, prices, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, have risen over 900%”

Keep in mind this article is 5 years old, and prices have continued to rise in those 5 years.  Miller continues: 

“Chart 1 shows the “progress” of inflation since World War II. What it shows, very simply, is that if you could buy a product or service for $100 in 1945, by 2005 you would have to spend $1045.40 to get the same product or service. If your investments did not rise by over 1000% during that period, you actually lost money, adjusted for inflation.

“You might say that a loaf of bread in 1945 became a slice of bread by 2005, in terms of what you get for a depreciated dollar, or how many extra dollars you would need to account for increased costs. An automobile became a chassis and two tires. A whole hog became a package of bacon. A chandelier became a night light. Your $100,000 was transformed into just $9,563 of purchasing power by rising prices for everything.”

2. FDR’s New Deal was initiated between 1933 and 1938.  According to the Inflation Calculator at InflationData.com, from January 1935 to January 2009, the inflation rate is 1,452.52%.

3. The War in Iraq.  The war in Iraq was unnecessary and probably the biggest mistake ever made by a President and Congress of the United States.  Wasted lives, wasted money, wasted international good will, wasted time, wasted, wasted, wasted.  And Congressman Cole supported it all over and over.  And the waste continues on with Congressman Cole’s support.

Fear worked for the Bush Administration -- our country’s “first MBA President” -- so why not follow in W’s footprints and use the same tactics?  That’s what many of our business CEOs are doing today to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act.

 

SEIU has a great video on this subject -- watch it!

 

-- Scary Movie

That is how much Oklahoma taxpayers spend every day on criminal corrections.  Yesterday the Pew Center on the States released a report showing that spending on criminal corrections by the states is outpacing everything with the exception of Medicaid.

 

From the New York Times today:

 

“One in every 31 adults, or 7.3 million Americans, is in prison, on parole or probation,” a new Pew Center on the States study reports. State spending on prisons quadrupled over the last 20 years, despite the fact that crime dropped 25 percent during that time. “Criminal correction spending is outpacing budget growth in education, transportation and public assistance. … Only Medicaid spending grew faster than state corrections spending.”

 

Something has to change, especially now that we find ourselves in this economic downward spiral. 

 

In 1982, Oklahoma corrections controlled 1 in 90 adults, today it is 1 in 42 adults.  Do we really have that many more criminals, or have our state and nation just made more things unlawful with mandated prison time?  Zero tolerance is an expensive position which Oklahoma and the United States can no longer afford.

 

“Most states are facing serious budget deficits,”said Susan Urahn, managing director of The Pew Center on the States. ”Every single one of them should be making smart investments in community corrections that will help them cut costs and improve outcomes.”

 

Oklahoma Correctional Population, Year End 2007

Rate of Correctional Control:     1 in 42 adults

Total Correctional Population:     65,720

Probation:     26,038

Parole:     2,349

Jail:     9,748

Prison:     23,957

Federal Prisoners:     3,628

 

For the full report, click here:

 

For one-page summary on Oklahoma, click here: