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promoted to primary 7/15

MERRI OK

reddest state xian EDUCATION BEACH FRONT XIAN NATL

see schools yikes ryan walters sup big lie textbooks

1019 bak THIS 7 25

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AN 10 26

Federal judge greenlights taxpayer-funded religious Oklahoma charter school

A federal judge’s recent ruling on a religious charter school in Oklahoma could make way for a precedent that is a direct contrast to the separation of church and state — and a new wave of taxpayer-funded religious schools.

Per Friendly Atheist, Western District Judge David L. Russell of Oklahoma recently ruled that the state violated the First Amendment after denying the approval of the Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School on the basis of religion.

In his ruling, Russell stated that the court is not expressing “judgment on the wisdom of the State of Oklahoma opening up its coffers to charter schools of disparate philosophical or educational persuasions.”

However, once it does, the court can’t deny a school on account of its “religious character.”

While the ruling, which occurred late last month, doesn’t mean that the charter school is close to opening, it does give way to the school being able to continue the steps of becoming established.

Now, the state Charter School Board has to reconsider Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School’s application when the board next reconvenes.

Attorney General Gentner Drummond previously sued to stop the school from receiving the taxpayer funds, but was ultimately stopped by the Supreme Court.

Additionally, Drummond sued the Charter School board earlier this year due to claims the board “didn’t thoroughly explain all the existing problems with the school’s application,” per the outlet.

Despite the recent ruling by the court to give the taxpayer funds the go-ahead for the school, Drummond’s lawsuit is ongoing.

Following the news of the ruling, many close to the situation voiced their opinions on what it means moving forward.

The ruling “opens the door to a dangerous sea change for our democracy,” the legal team of a [pro-church/state separation] group said via statement. “Forcing taxpayers to fund religious public schools violates state and federal law.”

“Ben Gamla will not only indoctrinate students into a particular religion — it will discriminate against families that don’t share the school’s beliefs. We will continue to fight for all Oklahomans, who deserve public schools that are secular and open to all students,” the attorneys added.

As for Drummond, in a statement on Oct. 1, he addressed the ruling saying, “In 2024, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that a religious charter school violates the Oklahoma Constitution, state law and the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court left that decision in place last year.”

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AN 3 26

MAGA accuses Oklahoma’s new GOP senator of being a 'rabid anti-Trump congressman' - Alternet.org

Pesticide use and cancer risk rise together across America’s heartland - Investigate Midwest

A direct correlation can be difficult to determine, as cancer development times can range from months to decades. Overlaying cancer rates onto a map, however, highlights the nation’s top crop and vegetable growing regions, where pesticide use is highest.

The Midwestern states of Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska and Missouri — leading corn-growing states — had the highest rates, while rates were also high in California and Florida, high fruit-growing states.

OKLA PREEMPT LAW FAIL?

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an 8 25

The Oklahoman reports the Aryan Freedom Network and other neo-Nazi groups may sit “on the outermost edges of American politics,” but “several trends have converged since Trump’s re-election”.

“[Trump] awakened a lot of people to the issues we’ve been raising for years,” said Oklahoma resident and neo-Nazi Dalton Henry Stout. “He’s the best thing that’s happened to us.”

Stout wears the initials “AFN,” short for Aryan Freedom Network, on his hat, according to Reuters reporters, and he and his partner “oversee a network they say has been turbocharged by President Donald Trump’s return to the White House.” Stout claims Trump’s attacks on diversity initiatives, his hardline stance on immigration and his invocation of “Western values” is “driving a surge in interest and recruitment” for his organization.

READ MORE: 'Really big bomb': Dems giddy as ugly Republican brawl threatens GOP massacre

What was once extreme now blends more easily into the broader far-right, not because those extreme groups have changed, but because the terrain around them has, said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, a nonprofit that tracks hate speech and extremism.

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“A Proud Boy doesn’t even seem that scary anymore because of the normalization process,” Beirich told Reuters.

Reuters conducted interviews with “a dozen members of extremist groups, nine experts on political extremism and a review of data on far-right violence,” and discovered that ideas once confined to fringe groups are now more visible in Republican politics. This includes election denialism and rhetoric portraying immigrants as “invaders.” Researchers claim Trump’s public support and pardons for far-right figures and Jan. 6 insurrectionists helped normalize those views.

This coincides with a surge in white nationalist activity, with extremists committing a growing proportion of U.S. political violence, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) project. In 2020, ACLED linked such groups to 13 percent of all U.S. extremist-related demonstrations and acts of political violence. By 2024, they accounted for nearly 80 percent.

READ MORE: 'Even MAGA people smell it': Critic says Trump moves show he 'thinks his base is stupid'

Trump has denied that he supports white extremism, and the White House rejects the notion that his rhetoric promotes racism, but Reuters reports Kentucky resident William Bader, the leader of Klan faction the Trinity Knights, is nevertheless energized.

“White people are finally seeing something going their way for once.” Bader told Reuters.

Read the full Oklahoman report at this link.

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'Veterans on Patrol': Inside MAGA's new assault on reality and bizarre conspiracy theory

Thom Hartmann July 12, 2025

In Oklahoma, a domestic militia calling itself “Veterans on Patrol” is systematically targeting weather radars. Their leader, Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer, claims the military is controlling the weather through Doppler radar systems and that these machines are part of a divine affront — a “weather weapon” — that is “mocking God Himself.”

He’s encouraging his followers to sabotage these radars under an operation he calls “Leaning Tower.” This isn’t just fringe paranoia: it’s part of a growing anti-reality insurgency that threatens our democracy itself.

Let’s be blunt: this is insanity. Not just in its content, but in its consequences. And yet, it’s not isolated. It’s one of many conspiracy-fueled campaigns that now animate parts of American life, often backed by violence or intimidation. From QAnon to flat-earth nonsense to vaccine “skeptics” now within the Food and Drug Administration, we’re watching a dangerous erosion of truth, a collapse of shared facts, and an outright assault on the institutions that protect life and liberty.

What’s happening here isn’t just about weather radars: it’s about reality itself.

When people are told not to believe their own eyes, not to trust scientists, doctors, journalists, or even the National Weather Service, society begins to crack. And the people exploiting those cracks — including some of the Trump administration’s most senior officials (see: Bob Kennedy and Stephen Miller, among others) — know exactly what they’re doing.

Veterans on Patrol isn’t just anti-science or anti-government; it’s anti-democracy. It joins a growing list of extremist groups peddling lies and hatred: anti-immigrant, anti-Indigenous, antisemitic, misogynist, anti-Catholic, anti-Muslim. It wraps its destruction in the flag and cloaks its violence in religion. And when Meyer boasts about being responsible for “a lot more than” taking down a radar, we’d be fools not to take him seriously. Oklahoma, after all, remembers Timothy McVeigh.

This latest attack rendered a critical radar system “instantly obsolete,” according to meteorologist David Payne. That radar was designed to save lives, particularly in tornado-prone Oklahoma. When it’s destroyed, people will die. Period. This is not free speech: this is domestic terrorism.

But here’s the deeper issue: this attack is only a symptom, not the disease. The disease is the deliberate poisoning of the American mind with fantasy and fear by a network and system of media and social media owned by anti-democracy rightwing billionaires and filled with Russian trolls. And when truth dies, democracy soon follows.

Because democracy — as Thomas Jefferson so accurately pointed out (“Whenever the people are well informed, they may be trusted with their own government”) — depends on an educated public operating on the basis of shared truths and actual facts.

You can’t have a functioning republic if half the country believes extreme weather is a “liberal weapon” and the other half knows it’s the result of an atmosphere warmed by fossil fuel emissions. You can’t govern when reality itself is disputed. And you certainly can’t maintain civil peace when people are being radicalized into acts of violence based on complete and utter delusion.

The fossil-fuel-billionaire-funded radical right’s war on truth isn’t new, but it’s accelerating. When lies are repeated often enough, they become gospel to those who want to believe them.

Right-wing media outlets, extremist influencers, and opportunistic Republicans have learned — as Josef Goebbels famously preached — that a lie can be more powerful than the truth when it aligns with grievance, fear, and identity and is repeated often enough.

The problem isn’t just gullibility. It’s that these lies are weaponized. And when they take hold, facts become negotiable, science becomes suspect, and even saving people from storms becomes controversial.

Just look at how the “mainstream media” consistently omits from their reporting on Trump’s tariffs that they’re a clear violation of the Constitution and was explicitly called that in an unanimous decision by the US Trade Court, as Robert Hubbell points out so eloquently.

Or when the media ignores the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 14th amendment violations of ICE’s random, masked, warrantless arrests and incarceration of brown-skinned people, including those with Green Cards at the “Alligator Alcatraz” concentration camp, along with those with full, court-ordered permission to be here in America.

What does this mean for democracy?

A shattered consensus on truth makes informed voting impossible. If voters can’t agree on basic facts — like whether the atmosphere is heating up or whether a vaccine works — how can they make rational decisions at the ballot box?

The weaponization of delusion breeds violence. Just like the January 6th attack on our Capitol, these radar attacks are fueled by conspiracy and rage. They don’t just damage property, they destabilize the rule of law.

When truth is optional, tyranny becomes inevitable. Autocrats thrive in the fog of misinformation. The more confused and divided a people are, the easier they are to control, thus the daily Trump Reality Show.

Public trust collapses. Scientists, educators, journalists, and public servants all become suspect. That vacuum gets filled by cult leaders, armed militias, and political demagogues.

:{:{Democracy becomes unrecognizable. Without a shared sense of reality, debate becomes pointless, compromise becomes impossible, and elections become battlegrounds instead of ways to determine a rational direction for our shared future.}:

So what do we do?

We fight back with truth. Unapologetically. Loudly. Persistently.

We stand up for science. For journalism. For civic education. For basic decency.

We hold platforms accountable that spread lies, tweak their algorithms secretly to promote anti-democracy messages, and reject the persistent “mainstream media” cowardice of both-sidesism. There aren’t “two sides” to facts. There is reality and there are lies.

We support platforms, networks, media, newsletters, programs, writers, speakers, politicians, and movements that promote the truth and push back against the creeping fascism that is rapidly overtaking our nation.

So we must loudly and persistently call this out for what it is: an attempt — which has so far been successful at destroying democracy in nations like Russia, Hungary, and Turkey — to engage in social and political sabotage. It’s radicalism, a form of domestic terrorism whose target is democracy itself.

And it’s time to say: enough.

Because without truth, we don’t just lose the weather forecast.

We lose our nation.

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AN 6 25

Donald Trump’s second term is shaping up to be just as much about the past as the future. Not the past as it unfolded, but the version of events as he wants them remembered.

*This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.

There are a few troubling examples of how the president and his allies are actively attempting to reshape public views of the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection — and how these efforts are starting to affect real people and real institutions.

Take Oklahoma. Teachers there are now facing updated social studies standards that instruct students to “identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results” — not to examine election systems or to discuss voter confidence, but to presume that the election was flawed.This language is a quiet but profound distortion: It accepts Trump’s false narrative of fraud and requires educators to teach that falsehood as fact.

This illustrates the insidious consequences of partisan narratives hardening into policy. Oklahoma’s education chief, Ryan Walters, has aligned himself with efforts to eliminate so-called left-wing indoctrination in schools. But he’s supporting these new standards, which contradict the facts made plain in every credible post-election review, from Trump’s own first-term Department of Justice to GOP-led audits. Courts, including those with Trump-nominated judges, rejected dozens of spurious legal challenges, and officials in every state certified the results.

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These facts have been sidelined in shaping what schoolchildren learn, which has long-term implications for public trust in elections.

Or consider the protests against aggressive immigration raids in Los Angeles. Trump has called the demonstrators there “insurrectionists” and is moving military forces into the city.

And what about the convicted insurrectionists who participated in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol? Trump issued them pardons and commutations as one of the first acts of his second term, erasing the crimes and violence of that day — including threats to execute his vice president — from the historical record. (A plaque honoring law enforcement officials who defended the Capitol that day still hasn’t been installed, despite pleas to House Speaker Mike Johnson.)

Trump’s administration is also reportedly developing a plan to pardon the “fake electors” and other Trump allies charged or convicted in connection with attempts to overturn the election, as well as the plot to kidnap Michigan’s Democratic governor, as part of a broader effort to shield MAGA supporters from legal consequences, and perhaps convey the sense that these events never happened.

That is, the president is using both his immense influence and his constitutional authority to bend justice, public education, and public memory toward a false understanding of the past. And his allies are bending to his will.

What does this tell us about Trump’s capacity to reshape perceptions in the face of actual facts? And can anything stand in his way?

Some answers may come from a federal courtroom in Denver, where one of the more surreal chapters of the 2020 fallout is still playing out. That’s where the defamation trial against Trump ally and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell — brought by former Dominion Voting Systems executive Eric Coomer — is underway.

Lindell, who has claimed that Dominion and Coomer were part of a scheme to steal the election from Trump, once promised that this trial would prove him right. But his lawyers seem to be arguing now that he’s so erratic, so impulsive, that nothing he says could be taken seriously enough to count as defamation.

“It’s just words,” said Lindell’s attorney, according to a Denver reporter covering the trial. “All Mike Lindell did was talk.”

That’s a hell of a defense, and itself a rewriting of history. The problem with it is that millions of people did believe Lindell, and still do.

Coomer may get to clear his name in the case against Lindell, but the broader effort to rewrite the past is gaining ground where it matters most: in classrooms, in Congress, and in the minds of voters. Juries and the judiciary can punish lies, but they can’t reach every classroom or undo every pardon.

With so many institutional guardrails already buckling under pressure, the remaining checks are public memory, a free press, and a willingness — from enough of us — to keep insisting on saying what actually happened.

Jessica Huseman is Votebeat’s editorial director and is based in Dallas. Contact Jessica atjhuseman@votebeat.org.}:

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.

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AN 6 25

OKLAHOMA CITY – The Oklahoma National Guard is not planning on participating in the nation’s largest military parade.

The June 14 parade will feature tanks rolling through the U.S. capital’s streets, thousands of soldiers marching and military fly overs to celebrate the Army’s 250th birthday. Additionally, it will also be President Donald Trump’s 79th birthday.

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RWW 05/19/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

Trump is promising tax cuts and a new golden age. Here’s what’s really inside it.

Oklahoma high school students studying U.S. history learn about the Industrial Revolution, women’s suffrage and America’s expanding role in international affairs. Beginning next school year, they will add conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election.

Pardoned Capitol Rioters have 'worked to profit from their connection to the day’s chaos, recording podcasts, announcing runs for public office and advertising merchandise lines.'

The Trump administration has agreed to pay millions to settle a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family of Ashli Babbitt.

The tech CEO isn’t exactly gone yet, but Republicans have stopped bringing him up.

Grand Canyon University misled students about the costs of its doctoral programs. Now it's off the hook.

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05/05/2025 rww

by

Kyle Mantyla

The president complained that due process rights are interfering with his mass deportations.

President Donald Trump attempted to take credit for parts of the economy which he considers “good,” while blaming former President Joe Biden for other parts he considers “bad.”

President Donald Trump offered a message of support to the Jan. 6 insurrectionists when he met with a former Proud Boys militant in Mar-a-Lago over the weekend.

State Superintendent Ryan Walters bypassed oversight to push Christian Nationalism and right-wing conspiracies into public classrooms.

In this segment, I examine the notion that there was something exceptionally Christian about America's founding era. Last week, I fact-checked Charlie Kirk's viral video defense of the belief that America was founded as a Christian nation in the legal sense. Most of what Kirk had to say was irrelevant or incorrect.

The 9/11 truther denounced Trump’s nominee for U.S. surgeon general and claimed the COVID-19 vaccine is “killing millions of people.”

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an 5 25

'North Korea-level propagandizing': OK schools to teach Trump's debunked claim 2020 election was rigged

an 4 25

GOPers mull bill to reject OK academic standards that include 2020 election 'discrepancies'

Nuria Martinez-Keel, Oklahoma Voice

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an 3 25

Oklahoma subcommittee rejects MAGA Republican’s $3 million request for Bibles in classrooms

AN 2 25

Irate parents taught an Oklahoma lawmaker a life lesson I bet he’ll never forget: Do not mess with the education of public school children who have been diagnosed with a disability.

Republican Dusty Deevers emerged last week from the dustup with parents, educators and therapists with a metaphorical black eye, reminding him that Oklahomans don’t like schoolyard bullies.

In case you missed all the hubbub, somehow Deevers got the idiotic idea that too many Oklahoma children are receiving special education services through the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA. That’s the federal law that protects children’s right to a “free appropriate public education” and guarantees that they have access to special education and early intervention services.

He pointed to estimates indicating that as many as 1 in 6 Oklahoma school children are currently on Individualized Education Programs, better known as an IEP, which provides them access to services such as speech, language, physical, occupational and behavioral therapies to help them succeed in school.

Generally, legislators have tacitly acknowledged that these programs help students succeed academically even though state and federal leaders have long provided only a fraction of the funding necessary to operate them at their maximum potential.

But rather than urging his colleagues to ramp up funding and bolster support for those children, the lawmaker from Elgin hatched a harebrained plan to reduce participation numbers by removing eligibility for in-school services. The proposed law would have required parents to seek services on their own dime after school hours. If parents couldn’t afford it or find qualified therapists, too bad, so sad.

The plan also would have prohibited Medicaid from helping to pay for those in-school services as well as covering the costs of sight screenings.

At first the proposal flew under the radar, obscured among nearly 3,100 bills filed for consideration for the 2025 legislative session, but then the ramifications of Deevers’ plan began to dawn on folks and outrage exploded on social media.

Deevers swiftly discovered that there might be one thing almost as scary as incurring the wrath of God — Oklahomans furious that legislators are impeding on their “parental rights.” (You know, that popular buzzword that Republicans like to bandy about.)

Deevers tried to clean up the mess by promising to amend the bill because he said it wasn’t doing what he intended. However, he dumped gasoline on the raging Dumpster fire thanks to a lengthy post on X that revealed that he believes we might have “far over-diagnosed students;” that he wants to audit IEP spending; protect “parental rights;” force schools to stop providing students on IEPs “hormonal birth control;” and exclude “non-educationally necessary services.”

That unleashed a second torrent of anger because any parent who has a child on an IEP knows that schools are not willy-nilly thinking up ways to place children into services they don’t need. And that anybody who has set foot in a school knows how rare it is to hear parents complain that a school is doing too much and overperforming.

It’s much more common to hear they’re not doing enough.

They know that to get a child evaluated for a disability takes a considerable amount of advocacy work from adults in a child’s life, numerous meetings with the school, months of evaluations and tons of paperwork.

Based on the complexities of even qualifying for an IEP, I’d say probably more students need specialized services than are receiving them. Our numbers should probably be much higher.

They also know that parents have an enormous amount of rights when it comes to how children with disabilities are educated. Schools don’t randomly place children on IEPs without parental involvement. Parents have to agree to the placement and can also choose to end those services at any time. Parents get to set the parameters of how often they meet with school leaders and determine how often their child receives services. They can demand a meeting at any time to discuss perceived problems.

And anybody with an iota of sense knows that IEPs are not prescription pads that allow educators to dole out medication or birth control. Medical doctors prescribe that, not speech therapists. In fact, it’s such a farfetched idea, I’ve never heard of that being a concern in Oklahoma. Schools are required to operate within the confines of the IEPs, which parents must sign off on.

But who are we to allow facts to stop some good old fashioned fear mongering?

To Deevers’ credit, he appears to have taken parental feedback seriously. Last week, he announced plans to withdraw the bill and vowed that it wouldn’t be considered in the Legislature.

I hope that more lawmakers will take note, because we often see an unwillingness to take public feedback seriously and plenty of excuses why it should be ignored. A common excuse is they’re only interested in feedback from their constituents.

It’s time for that foolhardy mindset to stop, and the voices of Oklahomans to be taken seriously. People affected by legislation don’t necessarily live within a specific lawmaker’s legislative boundaries, but their tax dollars are keeping the lights on in every office.

I’m glad their message came through loud and clear: Picking on 116,000 children that have diagnosed disabilities is just wrong. And their Legislature shouldn’t be weaponized against them.

YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE. SUPPORT

Oklahoma Voice is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com.

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an 1 25

Lawmakers challenge OK superintendent's Bible initiatives after test scores tank

rww

01/29/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

Right-wing pastorJesse Leon Rodgers is the founder and chairman of the Christian nationalist organization City Elders, which seeks to "establish divine order in spiritual and civil governance" by bringing local pastors together with elected officials and religious-right activists. Rodgers himself is a hardcore theonomist who believes that far-right Christians such as himself are to be responsible for "installing people in civil government."

During a recent City Elders event, Rogers bragged that while his organization already has significant influence over determining who runs for office in his home state of Oklahoma, as it expands its efforts, it will be able to "determine who gets in public office."

"Increase, multiply, subdue; that's the divine pattern," Rogers said. "Increase has to do with expanded spheres of influence and control. I use that word editorially, I use it intentionally, but control is not in the sense of you have to dominate people; we have to dominate the devil. We have to control and be in control of the powers of Hell and darkness. That's the reason for expanded spheres of influence."

"We have a far greater sphere of influence than our numbers presently are in Oklahoma," Rogers bragged, saying that those considering running for governor "regularly call" and ask him if they should run for office.

"As a matter of fact, we had one this past week that's in a very significant office and called and said, 'I just want to get feedback from City Elders whether you guys think I should run for this office,'" Rogers said. "This past week, I had three different ones running for office contact me."

Rogers said his organization is working toward establishing "spheres of influence in every county" in Oklahoma and once that is accomplished, "it won't just be people running for lieutenant governor or for Senate or House, there will be people running for offices across the state of Oklahoma that will go to that local City Elders council and say, 'I want you to pray for me because I'm running for office.'"

"At some point," Rogers declared, "we will determine who gets in public office."

"That's God's design," Rogers added. "That's God's intent. Not that the church be some little group on the other side of the tracks scratching out a little bit of influence. God gave the keys of the kingdom to the ekklesia. It should be godly men and women who determine who gets in public office."

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AN 1 25

In his frenetic first week back at the White House, President Donald Trump allowed immigration raids at schools, sidelined federal employees focused on diversity and ended civil rights investigations into book bans.

*This story first appeared at The 74, a nonprofit news site covering education. Sign up for free newsletters from The 74 to get more like this in your inbox.

But the biggest education story of the week — one that could change public schools forever — broke late Friday afternoon at a building two miles away.

The U.S. Supreme Court, backed by the conservative supermajority Trump secured in his first term, agreed to hear an Oklahoma case over whether the law permits public dollars to flow to an explicitly religious charter school. A decision in favor of the first-of-its kind Catholic school could further entangle the government and religion, dramatically altering the historic balance between church and state.

“The stakes really couldn’t be higher,” said Derek Black, a law professor at the University of South Carolina. While there are Catholic schools that have converted into secular charters, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School’s “ultimate goal,” according to its website, is “eternal salvation.”

“The issue,” Black said, “is whether a religious entity can operate a charter school that teaches religion as truth.”

Related #### Oklahoma Supreme Court Knocks Down Bid for Virtual Catholic Charter School

Trump supports Christianity in the classroom and has vowed to bring prayer back to public schools. But he’s just the most recognizable face of a larger movement that has been building toward this moment — one that includes governors and state lawmakers, right-leaning think tanks and wealthy donors. Those donors have not only financed campaigns to seat conservative justices, but also helped fund the years of legal work that ultimately landed the school’s application before the high court.

Some evangelicals believe the courts have long misapplied Thomas Jefferson’s famous words about “a wall of separation between church and state.” Dismissed by most constitutional experts, this view holds that Jefferson’s aim was to keep the federal government from interfering with religious freedom — not to protect the government from the church.

The debate over the school will culminate in oral arguments before the Supreme Court in late April.

Governors in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, who advocate for weaving the Bible into classroom instruction, have long awaited such a case. “Denying St. Isidore a charter solely because they’re religious is flat-out unconstitutional,” Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt posted on X. “This will be one of the most significant decisions of our lifetime.”

But his state’s GOP attorney general disagrees. Gentner Drummond’s office will argue that both state and federal laws clearly require charter schools to be non-sectarian. That view was summed up by American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, who said reversing the Oklahoma court’s decision “would drive a dagger into the very idea of public education and strike at the heart of our nation’s democratic foundations.”

One justice who won’t be involved in the decision is Trump’s most recent Supreme Court appointee. Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from deliberating over whether to hear the case. While the court offered no explanation, Barrett is a longtime friend of Nicole Garnett, the Notre Dame University law professor who advised the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa on the charter application. Garnett, who had no comment on Barrett’s recusal, also sits on the board of the Federalist Society, a conservative and libertarian legal organization that has influenced Trump and previous Republican presidents on judicial appointments.

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from deciding whether to hear the case. She is a longtime friend of a Notre Dame law professor who advised the Catholic church on the charter application. (Sarah Silbiger-Pool/Getty Images)

But attorneys for the school may not need Barrett’s vote. Four of the other conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch — have all voiced support for greater religious freedom. Over a decade ago, Thomas wrote an opinion suggesting states could establish their own Christian denominations. More recently, in 2022, Gorsuch referred to the “so-called” separation of church and state in a case over whether Boston should fly a Christian flag outside City Hall.

While Chief Justice John Roberts takes a more cautious approach to court precedents, he has sided with the conservative majority in all of its most recent church-state cases. Two of them, *Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue* and *Carson v. Makin*, focused on choice programs at religious schools.

Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents the state’s charter school board, draws on those cases to conclude that charter schools are inherently private organizations — not “state actors.” By keeping St. Isadore closed, the Alliance argues, Oklahoma is discriminating against religion and denying families more options.

“Oklahoma parents and children are better off with more educational choices, not fewer,” Jim Campbell, the Alliance’s chief legal counsel, said in a statement.

Related #### Choice Supporters to Catholic Charter School Backers: ‘Proceed with Caution’

In a brief in support of the charter school, eight GOP-led states said that prohibiting the funding of religious charter schools would compromise their ability to award grants or contracts to other sectarian organizations, like orphanages and groups providing scholarships.

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools dismissed that fear and said a charter is not “merely a grant program.”

“The charter school is a state-created public school under Oklahoma law, and its actions are state actions,” the organization wrote in its brief.

Black agreed, saying that the school’s argument “has no grounding in facts or law.”

The court’s decision to take the case left the law professor with an “enormous pit” in his stomach. Black worries the justices don’t fully understand the complexities of public education funding, particularly the differences between charters, vouchers and education savings accounts.

“That leads to either honest errors, misunderstandings or the ability of other people to lead you astray,” he said.

Experts say it’s hard to ignore the strides evangelical Republicans have made at elevating the importance of Christianity in the classroom.

Red states aren’t just passing voucher programs that allow parents to pay tuition at faith-based schools; they’re also incorporating Bible lessons into the curriculum. If the court rules in favor of the school, Preston Green, a University of Connecticut education and law professor, predicts religious organizations would suddenly “clamour” to open faith-based charters.

Related #### In Close Vote, Texas Approves Reading Program Laden With Bible Lessons

“We’re on the verge of a new system where religious organizations are going to be among the players” running schools, he said. “How do states deal with that reality?”

In addition to allowing public education funds to support a specific faith, a decision in favor of religious charters could also have a devastating financial impact on traditional districts fighting to prevent enrollment loss, Black said. Oklahoma already offers a tax credit scholarship program for school choice, but it doesn’t always cover the full tuition at a private school. Families who want their child to have a Christian education might be more likely to flock to a religious charter school where the cost is fully covered, he explained.

Robert Franklin, a former member of the state’s charter board, is already thinking about those ramifications. Like public school advocates in other red states, he’s concerned that expanding private school choice will hit rural schools the

“Oklahoma is a deeply red state,” he said. “I don’t think we have an appetite for raising taxes around here to support schools.”

Franklin has a unique vantage point on the constitutional dispute that began overtwo years ago. He voted against St. Isidore’s contract in 2023 and says he felt “vindicated” last year when the state’s high court struck it down. But he’s less confident the U.S. Supreme Court will rule the same way.

“It’s a tumultuous moment,” he said. “There are a lot of forces pulling the other direction.”

an 1 25

'Reject this rule': OK schools want to make parents report citizenship status to enroll kidshardest and leave less funding for traditional schools.

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Even 'devout Christians' are appalled as OK mulls $3.3 million bid on 'Trump Bibles' for schools

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Oklahoma State Schools Superintendent Ryan Walters, a far-right Christian nationalist and MAGA Republican, has drawn scathing criticism from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Americans United for separation of Church and State, and others for trying to impose Christian fundamentalism on students in public schools. And Walters has been clashing with journalists as well, including reporters for KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City.

Walters excluded KFOR reporters from press conferences, and the station responded with a lawsuit.

But on Wednesday, December 11, KFOR reported that it had "won a legal battle" against Walters and his allies.

READ MORE:'The next recession starts here': Trump team weighs abolishing bank regulators

According to KOSU-FM (a National Public Radio-associated station in Oklahoma), "State Superintendent Ryan Walters and his press secretary Dan Isett have agreed to allow KFOR journalists into all of the Education Department's news conferences and meetings. The leaders have also agreed to pay attorney fees and damages of $17.91 — a symbolic amount, as 1791 was the year the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified."

According to KFOR, Walters and Isett agreed to "add KFOR to" their "e-mail list for press releases."

KFOR noted, "Attorney fees have yet to be determined, but Ryan Walters and his attorneys did agree to pay them."

Charles Miller of the Institute for Free Speech said of the ruling, "This is a huge victory for journalism."

READ MORE: 'Chomping at the bit': Trump victory has red states feeling 'emboldened' to push far-right agendas

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t rump’s branded $60 Bibles are made in China for less than $3 apiece

3.5 million?

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oklahoma state superintendent says pastor and right-wing commentator suggested his new Bible mandate in public schools

Conservative media figures promoted the new policy as a way to “impose Christian values on the pagans” and encouraged other states to follow suit

WRITTEN BY PAYTON ARMSTRONG

PUBLISHED 07/08/24

Right-wing media figures are praising Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters’ mandate that the state’s public schools teach the Bible, including declaring that the government needs to “impose Christian values on the pagans” and encouraging other states to follow Walters’ lead.

Following his announcement of the new Bible mandate for Oklahoma's public schools, Walters has spoken with Fox News and other right-wing media to promote the policy, including appearing with a right-wing commentator and pastor who has promised to “embrace Christian Nationalism” and apparently “reached out” to Walters about mandating the Bible in schools. Notably, Walters has a history of taking education policy advice from right-wing media figures.

Video

CitationFrom the July 3, 2024, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room

Video

CitationOn the July 2, 2024, edition of Real America's Voice's Just the News No Noise

Video

CitationFrom the June 28, 2024, edition of Fox News' Fox News @ Night

Video

CitationFrom the June 28, 2024, edition of Newsmax's Chris Plante The Right Squad

Related

  1. ### Oklahoma's top education official has a cozy relationship with BlazeTV host Steve Deace, who likens public schools to “Satan’s youth ministry”

10/06/23 12:18 PM EDT

  1. ### Top Oklahoma education official Ryan Walters cheers conspiracy theorist while appearing on her show

01/02/24 5:10 PM EST

  1. ### Remarks from Oklahoma public schools superintendent mirror far-right extremist talking points on the Tulsa Race :{Massacre}:

07/12/23

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July 8, 2024 rww

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Oklahoma Superintendent Orders Public Schools to Teach Bible as White Christian Nationalists Go ‘On Offense’

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MAGA state superintendent backs chaplains in public schools – but not from all religions - Alternet.org

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Oklahoma woman facing murder and kidnapping charges chaired rural county’s GOP - Alternet.org

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:{:{T.W. SHANNON (FORMER OKLAHOMA HOUSE SPEAKER): Listen to this: We've had 2 million people cross into this country illegally because of this open border policy. Many of them are from al Qaeda. I just did an op-ed on Fox.com that talks about how Chinese nationalists — the Chinese party is actually in the United States in rural Oklahoma. }:

:{:{And the worst that he can come up with as a threat to democracy is his political opponent. That sends shivers down my spine. Every American should be concerned when the president of the United States, the most powerful man in the world, considers his political opponent a threat to democracy. }:

That's a problem. Our Founding Fathers are rolling over in their graves. Joe Biden should be ashamed. And the truth is the real threat to democracy are the policies of Joe Biden like the open border that's destroying this country. It is poisoning the bloodline in this country because we are allowing illegals to vote. We're supplying them with all types of resources.}:}:

HARRIS FAULKNER (ANCHOR): Alright, T.W. I'm going to step in for one second. We're going to go now, I'm asking my team. This is the former president.

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in August of 2023, Politico reported that right-wing billionaire Leonard Leo is "best known as Donald Trump's White House 'court whisperer," having "played a behind-the-scenes role in the nominations of all three of the former president's Supreme Court justices and promoted them through his multi-billion-dollar network of nonprofits."

Caroline Ciccone, president of the watchdog Accountable.US, told Politico "Leo spent years stacking the court with ideological kindred spirits. Now he's funding a dark web of special interest groups to push an extreme agenda."

According to a Monday, March 18 report published by Rolling Stone, the billionaire — "long averse to media attention" — in a recent podcast interview first reported by Accountable.US "spoke about his $1.6 billion dark money fund, called the Marble Freedom Trust, explaining: 'We’re trying to really institute a lot of legal and social change through philanthropy.'"

READ MORE:How GOP activists sway SCOTUS to boost 'their historical narrative' with 'no real vetting process': report

The conservative activist, according to Rolling Stone, "also offered his thoughts on how billionaires can help conservatives limit regulations, take over corporate C-suites, reshape America’s education system, and influence our culture," and as a "devout Catholic, additionally discussed his interest in reforming religious institutions."

Speaking "with Joe Lonsdale, the co-founder of surveillance company Palantir and the University of Austin, a conservative alternative college he started with journalist Bari Weiss," Rolling Stone notes, Leo said, "It’s really important that we flood the zone with cases that challenge misuse of the Constitution by the administrative state and by Congress," urging "the ultra-wealthy to support these litigation efforts."

Referring to the conservative-majority high court, he emphasized, "We have a great Overton window in the next couple of decades to really try to create a free society. And I think we should take full advantage of it."

Additionally, as a proponent of the effort to establish a publicly funded religious school in Oklahoma, Leo also "talked about the need to reform the clergy," during the interview, saying, "This is one that I just started thinking about, there’s the whole issue of clergy, and this is a tough one to crack. This may not be for everybody, but my own perspective is: God made us to know him, to love him, and to serve him. And I think our religious leaders need to center more on that, and less on knowing, loving, and serving ourselves, and whatever personal desires or affections we may have."

READ MORE: 'Watershed moment' as group of Christian conservatives find 'sympathetic audience' at US Supreme Court

Furthermore on the subject of education, the billionaire added, "We need to create talent pipelines for K-12 education and for higher ed, something like you’re doing with the University of Austin, so that we remind people that the purpose of higher ed, for example, is to basically build a citizenry that’s committed to the Constitution as it was originally written."

Rolling Stone reports "Leo explained this means recruiting teachers and working to influence education board races, 'so that we can begin to have some sanity and local education.'"

READ MORE:Leonard Leo allies lead effort to establish publicly funded religious school

*Rolling Stone's full report is availableat this link (subscription required)

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Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters campaigned with influencer rejected by school system for video encouraging anti-trans violence | Media Matters for America

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Finally, what happens when you elect a Christian nationalist pastor like Dusty Deevers to a seat in the Oklahoma state Senate? You get lectured about how pornography is a tool of Satan and must therefore be outlawed so that people “can be set free” and give their lives to Jesus.

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Meeting to censure Oklahoma GOP senator was 'held illegitimately': report - Alternet.org

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Far-right pastor Dusty Deevers was elected to a seat in the Oklahoma state senate during a special election in December. Deevers ran as an unapologetic Christian nationalist, vowing to apply “the word of God to every issue” and to push to abolish abortion, pornography, and no-fault divorce, Upon taking office, Deevers immediately introduced legislation that seeks to enshrine those campaign promises into law.

Last Friday, Deeversappeared on the “Conversations That Matter” program, where he perfectly encapsulated the Christian nationalist worldview and bluntly laid it out for everyone to see.

:{:{“Governing is about the use of authority and what is the standard for the use of authority,” Deevers[declared]}:

(https://youtu.be/HYPd7YHE8iI).

“God prescribes servants of his to govern as his mediators on this Earth. So, he has prescribed governing and then he has also prescribed the means for our governing and that means is in accordance with his word. If we do otherwise, then we are essentially usurping the sovereign role of God through Christ, who has been seated above every power in Heaven and on Earth and under the Earth.”}:

“So, that’s our marching orders, and it’s pretty straightforward,” Deevers added. “If you want to talk about Christian nationalism, [this is] what we mean by a Christian nation.”

Deevers asserted that forcing non-Christians to live in country governed exclusively according to the Christian nationalist interpretation of the Bible is an example of Christian “grace,” as such a system of government leads to “the best life for anyone and everyone whether they believe in [God] or not.”

“They’re getting a measure of grace from being in proximity to the true Christianity,” Deevers declared. “Whenever Christians are voted into office, it’s not just good for Christians, it’s good for the wicked as well.”

“[God has] spoken his word how the world is to be ordered and that ordered good is the best life for anyone and everyone whether they believe in him or not,” he continued. “So, it is a grace to all under the jurisdiction of a Christian leader who will bow the knee to Christ, it’s a grace to all of them.”

There is no room for compromise or consensus in politics, Deevers stated.

“Either you’re coming under the rule of God, your Creator, who is also gracious and sent his son, or you’re going to come under the rule of the serpent,” Deevers proclaimed. “So, it’s a serpentine theocracy or a rule of God, and there’s not a space in the middle.”

“Jesus is king and we obey him, and anything he says to do is what is best, and it will happen and accordance with his will and his timing,” Deevers said. “I won’t play politics if you think that there’s a space to take God’s rule and reign and to tamper with it and to practice cunning with the Scriptures.”

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william Vaillancourt @ The Daily Beast: Newsmax Airs Alarming Discussion of Civil War With Federal Government.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt and Newsmax host Carl Higbie mused Thursday about a potential “force-on-force” conflict between Texas and the Biden Administration after the Supreme Court ruled against the state’s Republican governor by declaring that federal agents can remove razor wire laid along the border with Mexico.

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Chaya Raichik—who doesn’t even live in Oklahoma—was tapped for her expertise on the “radical left” and “woke indoctrination.”

The controversial Oklahoma state superintendent of schools suggested, without evidence, that the state teachers union and educators were creating a culture that allowed for rampant sexual misconduct against students.

Woodfill has been endorsed by Attorney General Ken Paxton despite his connection to Paul Pressler, a prominent religious figure accused of rape.

After fist-pumping for Christian Nationalism and running away from the truth, Hawley doubled down on his effort to undo our constitutional system.

A new transcript from a key Hunter Biden witness undercuts many of the claims Republicans are making about “Biden corruption.”

The former president resorted to sound effects when explaining missile defense systems during a campaign rally in New Hampshire.

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2016

oklahoma](https://ballotpedia.org/Oklahoma) held an election for the president of the United States on November 8, 2016. The Democratic and Republican parties held primary elections for president on March 1, 2016.

HIGHLIGHTS

General election candidates and results

Candidates

See also: Ballot access for presidential candidates

The candidate list below is based on an email exchange between Ballotpedia and a public information officer for the Oklahoma State Election Board on September 19, 2016. The candidate names below appear in the order in which they were provided to Ballotpedia—not necessarily the order in which they appeared on the ballot in November.

Presidential candidates on the ballot in Oklahoma

☑ Donald Trump/Mike Pence (Republican) 65%

☐ Gary Johnson/Bill Weld (Libertarian) 7%

☐ Hillary Clinton/Tim Kaine (Democratic)

2020 United States presidential election in Oklahoma

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › 2020_United_States_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election_in_Oklahoma)

In this election Trump also became the first presidential candidate ever to win more than a million votes in Oklahoma. Biden, however, came within 3,326 votes* ...

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2017

while about seven in 10 Americans identify with some branch of Christianity, the share of U.S. adults who describe themselves as Christians dropped by nearly 8 percent between 2007 and 2014, according to a survey by Pew Research Center.

But while Americans as a whole have become somewhat less religious in recent years – largely due to an increase in the share of people who do not belong to any organized faith – those who are religious are even more devout than they were a few years ago, according to the Pew report. (The sum of the percentages of the population that practices each religion may not equal 100 because of rounding.)

These are the most religious states in America, according to the Pew survey.

  1. North Carolina

In North Carolina, 65 percent of adults are highly religious, according to Pew’s index. While 39 percent attend worship services at least weekly, nearly three-quarters say they believe in God with absolute certainty. Of North Carolina adults, 77 percent are Christian, 20 percent are unaffiliated with any religion and about 3 percent are non-Christian faiths, the largest share being Jewish.

8 (tied). Oklahoma

Pew categorizes 66 percent of Oklahoma adults as highly religious because 65 percent pray daily and 71 percent say they believe in God with absolute certainty. Of Oklahoma adults, 79 percent are Christian, 18 percent are unaffiliated with any religion and about 2 percent practice non-Christian religions, with those of Jewish, Islamic and other faiths each making up less than 1 percent of Oklahoma adults.

}:

8 (tied). Georgia

Two-thirds of Georgia adults are highly religious, according to Pew, because 74 percent of adults say they believe in God with absolute certainty and 64 percent say religion is very important in their lives. Of Georgia adults, 79 percent are Christian, 18 percent are unaffiliated with any religion and about 3 percent are non-Christian faiths.

  1. West Virginia

About 69 percent of West Virginia adults are considered highly religious because while 46 percent attend worship services at least weekly, 77 percent of adults say they believe in God with absolute certainty and 68 percent pray daily. Of West Virginia adults, 78 percent are Christian, 18 percent are unaffiliated with any religion and about 3 percent are non-Christian faiths.

  1. South Carolina

Pew considers 70 percent of South Carolina adults highly religious because 69 percent say religion is very important in their lives and two-thirds say they pray daily. Of South Carolina adults, 78 percent are Christian, 19 percent are unaffiliated with any religion and about 3 percent are non-Christian faiths.

  1. Arkansas

In Arkansas, 70 percent of adults are categorized as highly religious by Pew’s index because 77 percent of adults say they believe in God with absolute certainty and 70 percent say religion is very important in their lives. Of Arkansas adults, 79 percent are Christian, 12 percent are unaffiliated with any religion and about 1 percent are non-Christian faiths.

  1. Louisiana

About 71 percent of Louisiana adults are considered highly religious by Pew because 75 percent say they believe in God with absolute certainty, while 68 percent pray daily. Of Louisiana adults, 84 percent are Christian, 13 percent are unaffiliated with any religion and about 2 percent are non-Christian faiths, the largest share being Buddhist at about 1 percent.

  1. Tennessee

Pew considers 73 percent of Tennessee adults highly religious – 78 percent say they believe in God with absolute certainty, while 51 percent attend weekly worship services. Of Tennessee adults, 81 percent are Christian, 14 percent are unaffiliated with any religion and about 3 percent are non-Christian faiths.

1 (tied). Mississippi

In Mississippi, 77 percent of adults are classified as highly religious because 74 percent say religion is very important in their lives and 75 percent pray daily. Of Mississippi adults, 83 percent are Christian, 14 percent are unaffiliated with any religion and about 2 percent are non-Christian faiths.

1 (tied). Alabama

Pew categorizes 77 percent of Alabama adults as highly religious because 82 percent of adults say they believe in God with absolute certainty, while 73 percent pray daily. Of Alabama adults, 86 percent are Christian, 12 percent are unaffiliated with any religion and about 1 percent are non-Christian faiths.

10 Most Religious States

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Oklahoma gives education job to far-right influencer linked to bomb threats at schools - Alternet.org

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Crazy alert! Oklahoma GOP files bill to ban those very scary 'furries' from schools - Alternet.org

Trump is leaning hard on SCOTUS, just like he did on Mike Pence. Will members of the Supreme Court get the Pence “gallows” next? Will they cave to his threats and promises?Trump’s ability to avoid going to jail for his many crimes, and to get revenge on those who’ve tried to hold him to account, is now largely in the hands of the Supreme Court. They’ll soon be hearing cases deciding both his claim of absolute presidential immunity and whether he can be kept off the ballotby state authorities under the 14th Amendment’s provision declaring that any person who’s engaged in or provided aid and comfort to an insurrection can’t hold public office. And now he’s lobbying them hard, from trying to sweet-talk them on Hannity’s show to threatening them with “chaos and bedlam” if he doesn’t get his way.

Mitt Romney’s book tells how multiple Republican senators chose to vote against impeaching him because they were terrified that he’d send his foaming-at-the-mouth hoards against them like he did Romney, two Black election workers in Atlanta, and Nancy Pelosi’s husband. This is how fascists typically seize and hold power: using intimidation and the fear of violence, using well-publicized but controversial people as examples.

Judge Cannon in Florida is acting like she’s been cowed by his threats. He’s apparently loving how E. Jean Carroll is describing the terror she experienced (he amplifies it at every occasion by showing up in the courtroom and discussing it in the media), as he did with Shea Moss and Ruby Freeman: in both cases, Trump’s calculation is that those stories will cause anybody who may cross him to think twice. Like a mob boss, he wields fear more effectively than any other emotion.

So far, it looks like the Court is inclined to help him out; they could have decided either case quickly but are dragging them both out for weeks, presumably to help him get to the election without a conviction and with the stay in place on ballot removal. None of these judges want to be the ultimate villain: the person who prevented Donald Trump from becoming president with the stroke of a pen. Keep an eye on these cases.

— “Largest presidential grift in history”: House Democrats dropped the hammer on Trump and Kushner.Congressman Robert Garcia (D-CA) told the nation, during a floor speech before the House of Representatives, that “Donald Trump and his family, especially the Kushners, participated in the largest presidential grift in history.” And, following up on an investigation and report from the House Oversight Committee, Garcia brought the receipts:

“We have records of 24 governments funneling millions into Trump properties and into Donald Trump’s pockets while he was president, all in violation of the U.S. Constitution,” Garcia claimed, noting Trump was in violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause that forbids presidents from taking payments from foreign governments. “And,” Garcia added, noting that most of Trump’s transactions are still secret, “this is just the tip of the iceberg.” He added:

“Despite the attempted cover-ups, we can still prove that Trump and Jared Kushner were making national security decisions while he and his family were getting bribed and paid by the same foreign powers.”

Meanwhile, Republicans on the House Oversight Committee are desperately trying to tie President Biden into some of the skeezy deals his son was involved with; so far they have no evidence, but claim that won’t stop them from trying to impeach Biden so Trump can claim he’s not the only impeached candidate running in 2024. Just like their sudden opposition to funding Ukraine, these pathetic members of the house and Senate put their reputations and their careers over their country. That’s as craven as it gets.

— A new report finds half of the inflation America has experienced since the pandemic is caused by corporate price-gouging.A new report from the think tank Groundwork Collaborative documents how obscene corporate profits caused about 53% of the inflation we all suffered under during the second and third quarters of last year. While prices consumers paid last year went up 3.4%, for example, the “input costs” (raw materials, rent, electricity, wages, benefits) to big corporations only went up 1%, drawing from data supplied by the Bureau of Economic Analysis and National Income and Products Accounts.

This is happening because in 1983 Ronald Reagan instructed his DOJ, FTC, and SEC to stop enforcing the Sherman Anti-Trust and other anti-monopoly laws, leading to a decade of “Mergers & Acquisitions Mania” as was documented in Michael Douglas’ “greed is good” movie, Wall Street.

The first president since then to begin enforcing century-old anti-trust law is Joe Biden, although his administration has only put their toe in the water: they’re blocking new mergers, but have not yet begun breaking up giant companies like Roosevelt and Taft did at the turn of the 20th century and Gerald Ford did with AT&T in the 1970s. The only solution to this problem will be for Biden to get more aggressive and, by breaking up America’s corporate monoliths, restore some competition to the marketplace.

— Billionaires ask for higher income taxes and even a wealth tax: is anyone listening?A group of over 250 billionaires and multimillionaires presented an open letter to the attendees of the “Billionaire Woodstock” at Davos, Switzerland this week. Calling for higher taxes on the morbidly rich, these wealthy people wrote:

“Our request is simple: we ask you to tax us, the very richest in society. This will not fundamentally alter our standard of living, nor deprive our children, nor harm our nations’ economic growth. But it will turn extreme and unproductive private wealth into an investment for our common democratic future.”

Valerie Rockefeller and Abigail Disney led the charge, with a letter that was both blunt and concerned:

“We are also the people who benefit most from the status quo. But inequality has reached a tipping point, and its cost to our economic, societal and ecological stability risk is severe — and growing every day. In short, we need action now.”

The group Patriotic Millionaires published a new poll of rich people showing that fully 74% are in favor of higher taxes on their own class. An additional 58% supported a 2% wealth tax like Elizabeth Warren has supported for years, and 54% said straight out that extreme wealth is a threat to democracies around the world. Nonetheless, Republicans will go to the mat to protect or pass tax cuts for the morbidly rich, no matter how badly they damage our economy and the American middle class.

— This is what happens when rabid anti-abortion freaks take over: a woman gets 30 years in prison after her baby dies.Lilian was 19 years old when she went into labor with complications and gave birth in a hospital. Her baby was struggling from the beginning and, despite the neonatal unit and incubator, died after a few days.

The local prosecutor — without any evidence — decided on his own that the baby’s death was “proof on its face” that Lilian must not have been “careful” during her pregnancy and charged her with homicide: she was just released from prison after serving 8 years of her 30-year sentence. Lilian is one of nearly a hundred women who’ve had this happen over the past decade in El Salvador, the country that Ronald Reagan famously and illegally“saved from socialism” by supporting rightwing death squads, leading to the death of more than 75,000 civilians in a bloody civil war.

The rightwingers have run the country ever since, and one of their first accomplishments was to put draconian penalties on abortion that have, for decades, been enforced against women who had simple miscarriages or complex births leading to fetal death. The country is now re-examining some of the cases, most of which have no evidence other than the prosecutors’ assertion, leading to as many as 70 women being released from long prison sentences over the ongoing objections of outspoken rightwing legislators, some will affiliations to the American Republican Party.

This is the vision the GOP has for America, and is already being acted out in some states, like with the case of Brittany Watts, who had a miscarriage at home; one of Ohio’s rightwing county prosecutors nearly sent her to prison last month until nationwide publicity forced him to back down. From the Republicans’ point of view, on the issue of abortion and birth control, they’re just getting started.

— Why the discovery that Greenland is losing ice faster than we knew is concerning.Scientists with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratories have foundthat Greenland’s massive ice sheets are shedding fresh water about 20% faster than earlier believed. The island nation is now dumping around 33 million tons of fresh water into the North Atlantic every hour, threatening to shut down the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt thermohaline ocean circulation patterns that bring warmth to northern Europe and stabilize crop yields all over the world. The movie The Day After Tomorrowis premised on just this scenario, although it collapses decades of weather transition into a few days. This could be one of the most dangerous and dramatic consequences of our ongoing addiction to fossil fuels.

— Crazy Alert! Oklahoma Republican submits legislation to deal with the crisis of kids using litter boxes in school.He’s not the first to be freaked out: ever since a group punked a group of conservatives who’d taken over a school board by claiming that kids were becoming “furries,” the story has acquired an outsized following on rightwing hate media and with GOP politicians. In New Hampshire, for example, US Senate candidate Dan Bolduc told supporters at a campaign event:

“We have furries and fuzzies in classrooms. They lick themselves, they’re cats. When they don’t like something, they hiss… and get this, get this, they’re putting litter boxes [in schools] for them.”

While there’s never been a case of “furries” ever documented in any school anywhere in America, the worry about them continues to provoke Republican legislators seven years after the joke was revealed and debunked. The most recent suckeris Oklahoma Republican State Representative Justin Humphrey, the same guy who earlier introduced legislation require women seeking an abortion to get written permission from “the fetus’ father.” These guys are a living, breathing advertisement for the need to teach civics and critical thinking skills in our public schools.

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Top Oklahoma education official Ryan Walters cheers conspiracy theorist while appearing on her show | Media Matters for America

Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters praised conspiracy theorist DeAnna Lorraine during a nearly 25-minute interview on the December 19, 2023, edition of her show. Walters and Lorraine also spread a conspiracy theory about supposed Marxist infiltration in Oklahoma public schools, and Walters touted his efforts “to ensure that we're running the left wing out” in order “to put folks that share our conservative values in this agency.”

Lorraine is a former Infowars host and failed congressional candidate with a long record of spreading outlandish conspiracy theories, including Pizzagate and the QAnon conspiracy theory. (In recent posts, Lorraine said that “Q is the greatest Psyop ever told” and “we’ve been played.”) She also attended the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and has proposed that we “arm our children” to stop school shootings. Her streaming show, Shots Fired with DeAnna Lorraine, is part of the media network of white nationalist Stew Peters, who has spread extreme and violent rhetoric including calling for the deaths of LGBTQ people, journalists, Democratic politicians, and Catholic charity workers.

As Oklahoma’s state superintendent, Walters has pushed right-wing propaganda into public school curriculum and used far-right media programs to attack the state’s education system and teachers. Walters appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press days before his interview with Lorraine, arguing that he is responding to a “higher education push to drive left-wing, Marxist propaganda into classrooms.” Walters previously suggested that he has taken education policy advice from right-wing media personalities, including the anti-LGBTQ social media account Libs of TikTok and a BlazeTV pundit who disparages public schools as “Satan’s youth ministry.”

In the December 19 Shots Fired interview, Walters claimed that Oklahoma’s “education system has been run by Marxists for far too long” and the host agreed, suggesting there has been a communist plot since the 1950s to take over public education. Lorraine also compared the left to “cockroaches” after Walters claimed that “liberals embed themselves” in government agencies. He referred to the state superintendent’s office under his Democratic predecessor as “a captured entity,” and bragged to Lorraine: “I fired over 100 people from our agency in the first six months, and we are continuing to ensure that we're running the left wing out, and we're going to put folks that share our conservative values in this agency.”

Walters also claimed that George Soros — a frequent target of antisemitic conspiracy theories — has “financed” school boards and “government bureaucratic apparatuses.”

:{:{Video}:

CitationFrom the December 19, 2023, edition of Stew Peters Network's Shots Fired with DeAnna Lorraine

DEANNA LORRAINE (HOST): Ryan Walters, I'm excited to talk about you and all of these great wins under your belt. You are just slaying the Marxist left back and forth. Welcome to Shots Fired, how are you?

RYAN WALTERS: (OKLAHOMA STATE SUPERINTENDENT): Look, I appreciate you having me on. I appreciate the work you're doing. And, you know, I mean, that's the thing in education — to get the education system back on track when it's been pulled so far to the left, we have got to operate with a sense of urgency. And so we're playing offense here in Oklahoma. We're going to be aggressive and we're just getting started. But I'm telling you, this education system has been run by Marxists for far too long. Parents know it, our taxpayers know it, and it's time to get going.

LORRAINE: Oh 100%. And some people somehow still believe that this is sort of some big conspiracy theory that the education systems have been hijacked by the Marxist left and, you know, this all sort of happened organically. No, it's not. It's literally in the communist goals. The 45 communist goals for America way back in the 1950s. They state that they want to hide, they're going to hijack the education systems and schools and transform them into Marxist, communist curriculum. So it's not a conspiracy and it's actually happened, and they've been very successful at it.

…

WALTERS: I think that's so important for your viewers to hear is that we are in a very red state, very red state. Every single one of our counties voted for Donald Trump twice, so we are a very red state. But let me tell you, we also have a teachers union who is very well-financed and continue to block legislation and push legislation at the state capital. They have captured a lot of Republican legislators who listen to them alone. And so we've had to fight back against some of them, some folks in our own party who have fought school choice, fought parents rights. We had a legislator that’s Republican that fought to keep pornography in the classroom. And so we have these pockets of influence the teachers union has. But I'm going to tell you, the other thing that's so important is now that I run the education agency is liberals embed themselves in these agencies. So you've seen this with the way —

LORRAINE: Like cockroaches.

WALTERS: George Soros has financed these district attorneys. They've done the same thing with school boards, and they've done the same thing with the government bureaucratic apparatuses. So when I got here, you know, we would pass laws and it wouldn't be enforced because again, my predecessor, a Democrat, loaded this agency up with a bunch of liberals that were never going to hold districts accountable. They were never going to push back on the teachers union. And frankly, this was a captured entity. I mean, the left had captured the state superintendent. So you can pass whatever laws you wanted, they were never going to be enforced on the schools. So it has been a dramatic shift. I fired over 100 people from our agency in the first six months, and we are continuing to ensure that we're running the left wing out, and we're going to put folks that share our conservative values in this agency. And we're going to continue to fight for parents, and we're going to continue to fight — it’s frankly common sense. We're going to keep fighting for common sense to come back to the classroom.

Lorraine and Walters ended the interview praising each other, with the host telling Walters, “You are on fire. I love what you’re up to. I love what you’re doing. Keep going at it because we need strong fighters like you to fight for our schools and our children.”

Walters replied with effusive praise, telling Lorraine, “I love your show, love what you’re doing,” and “I appreciate you fighting for conservative principles and values and your fight for our kids. So really appreciate the time on the show and thank you for the work you’re doing.”

:{:{Video}:

CitationFrom the December 19, 2023, edition of Stew Peters Network's Shots Fired with DeAnna Lorraine

LORRAINE: Ryan Walters, you are on fire. I love what you're up to. I love what you're doing. Keep going at it because we need strong fighters like you to fight for our schools and our children. Tell everybody again where they can find you and follow your awesome work and achievements.

WALTERS: Well, I appreciate that. I love your show, love what you're doing.

...

WALTERS: But look I appreciate the time. I appreciate you fighting for conservative principles and values and your fight for our kids. So really appreciate the time on the show and thank you for the work you're doing.

LORRAINE: Thank you so much, Ryan.

Walters promoted the interview on X (formerly Twitter) by reposting a link from Lorraine to the interview with the caption “OK Superintendent of Education is on FIRE slaying the Marxists!”

//

  1. ### Oklahoma's top education official has a cozy relationship with BlazeTV host Steve Deace, who likens public schools to “Satan’s youth ministry”

10/06/23 12:18 PM EDT

  1. ### Remarks from Oklahoma public schools superintendent mirror far-right extremist talking points on the Tulsa Race Massacre

07/12/23 12:06 PM EDT

  1. ### Public schools are the latest target of the right’s con culture

09/07/23

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/bless-your-heart-klansplaining-crt blackburn

 [[ https://www.mediamatters.org/white-nationalism/remarks-oklahoma-public-schools-superintendent-mirror-far-right-extremist-talking

https://www.alternet.org/oklahoma-judge-rulsa-race-massacre/ judge toss case 100 yo 3x

https://boingboing.net/2023/07/07/oklahoma-schools-superintendent-says-tulsa-race-massacre-wasnt-um-about-race.html ]]

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https://www.alternet.org/the-right-wing/unconstitutional-oklahoma-superintendent-calls-for-framed-copy-of-10-commandments-in-every-class/

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an 4 23  // alt rt macho shitposting?

https://www.alternet.org/appalled-and-disheartened-oklahoma-governor-demands-resignation-of-officials-who-condoned-and-lynching/

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recall trump hdhs ice head was tracking menstrual cycles

They're whining that "globalists" are trying to control everyone. Meanwhile, the Republicans in Oklahoma are pushing a bill that would create a database for pregnant women so they can track if they get abortions.

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an 12 21

deep red Oklahoma, one of the state’s top Republicans, along with his wife, is facing multiple felony charges and the possibility of up to ten years in prison if convicted, according to the Associated Press.

The Republican is Terry O’Donnell, who serves as speaker pro tempore of the Oklahoma House of Representatives. O’Donnell, AP reports, is accused of “misusing his power to change state law so his wife, Teresa, could become a tag agent.” But Mack Martin, O’Donnell’s attorney, told AP that O’Donnell denies breaking the law in any way.

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an 10 21

why a second high-profile Republican in Oklahoma just left the GOP

Jon Skolnik Salon

A second Oklahoma GOP gubernatorial candidate has switched party affiliations over the GOP's opposition to COVID-19 health precautions, inviting other "like-minded...

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https://theintercept.com/2020/08/27/black-lives-matter-protesters:{-terrorism:(style="background-color:#ffcc66ff"):}:-felony-charges

prOSECUTORS AND LAWMAKERS in several states have responded to mass protests against police brutality by charging demonstrators with committing felonies, including terrorism charges. The trend of criminalizing protest has been on the uptick since the 2016 protests against the Dakota Access pipeline at Standing Rock, during and after which numerous states upped charges for protests “near critical infrastructure” as felonies. 

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Since 2016, 14 states have enacted new laws to restrict the right to peaceful assembly,a**ccording to the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, which tracks related state and federal legislation. But in the wake of the nationwide movement in support of Black lives, numerous states have increased the severity of criminal penalties for protesters along political lines and are prosecuting them more aggressively, as demonstrations continue with no sign of slowing down.

just last week, following more than 60 days of demonstrations outside the State Capitol, Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed a law that made it a felony to participate in some types of protests, including camping out overnight on state property.Charges for the same activity were previously classified as a misdemeanor. In Tennessee, people convicted of felonies lose their voting rights — making the new law a tool for disenfranchisement. 

Earlier this month, police in Muscatine, Iowa, apprehended two people they say were attempting to drive a vehicle into the city Public Safety Building and got stuck on a planter. They charged both men with numerous counts, including terrorism. That follows an Oklahoma district attorney’s pursuit ofterrorism chargesagainst five young people, including three teenagers and two people in their 20s. The fourth-term prosecutor also threw felony charges at numerous other people in relation to protests and damage to local and police property in late May. 

The terrorism charges reveal a “false equivalency between people who kill, and people who commit acts of property damage,” said Kate Chatfield, policy director at the Justice Collaborative, a policy and media organization focused on mass criminalization and incarceration. “Maybe not a great thing.” 

“To say that the power of the state will be wielded in this way against political enemies is incredibly frightening,” Chatfield said, drawing a parallel to the post-9/11 era, when many people who had never committed an act of violence were prosecuted for terrorism. “Let’s not ignore the fact that we have a history of this in this country. A very recent history. And a continuing history, unfortunately.”

The nationwide protests prompted by George Floyd’s killing have continued through the summer, though at a lower intensity over the last month — before picking back up this week. Streets across the country swelled with demonstrators after police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, shot 29-year-old Jacob Blake in the back seven times, in front of his children. Blake is paralyzed from the waist down, his father told the Chicago Sun-Times on Tuesday. Protesters burned down a state Department of Corrections building on Monday. The following night, armed white members of a militia group organized counterdemonstrations to protect local property. Video footage from Kenosha shows the militia members chatting with the police. Shortly after the video was captured, one member of the militia shot and killed two protesters, and left a third in serious condition. Police arrested 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse in Illinois on Wednesday and charged him with first-degree intentional homicide. 

“When you hear our president talk about Black Lives Matter as a terrorist organization, or antifa as a terrorist organization, it is the kind of thing that — his statement holds no weight in law, but it sends a message to prosecutors like this that they’ll be supported,” said Thomas Harvey, justice project director at the Advancement Project, a non-profit civil rights group. “And even more frighteningly, I think it sends a message to people like the militia members we saw in Kenosha, and gives them the state and the latitude to commit even more violence than what we see on a daily basis in this country against black and brown folks.”

IN SOME STATES where police have charged protesters en masse with felonies, prosecutors have swiftly dropped them, calling into question the reasoning behind the original charges. 

In Louisville, Kentucky, police arrested 87 protesters who had staged a sit-in on the lawn of a home belonging to state Attorney General Daniel Cameron last month — part of an ongoing  call for accountability in the killing of Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old EMT whom three Louisville police officers shot at least eight timesinside her home in March. (The officers were acting on a no-knock warrant in connection with a suspect who did not live at Taylor’s residence. The police department fired one of the three officers who were involved in June. Local activists including Louisville Black Lives Matter worked with Taylor’s family to develop a list of demands, including firing, charging, and convicting the three officers.) Three days later, Jefferson County Attorney Mike O’Connell dismissed the felony charges and said his office would consider misdemeanors and other violations for prosecution at a later date. On Tuesday, Louisville police arrested another 68 protesters and charged them with obstructing a highway and disorderly conduct, both misdemeanors.

Earlier this month in Washington, D.C., police arrested 41 protesters in the Adams Morgan neighborhood on charges of felony rioting and assaulting police officers. The Metropolitan Police Department said in a tweet on August 14 that it only arrested people “engaged in rioting behaviors.” Between May 30 and June 1, District police arrested more than 100 people on charges of burglary, destroying property, and violating curfew, including at least 40 charges of felony rioting.Prosecutorsdropped most of the charges in both sets of arrests.

In Salt Lake City on Friday, a judge droppedpossible life sentence charges facing protesters who poured paint, broke windows, and posted signs at the District Attorney’s Office building, reducing some charges to lower-class felonies and misdemeanors. In June, West Valley police and FBI agents arrested two men in Salt Lake who had allegedly threatened officers and were headed to protests armed with multiple weapons. Prosecutors later charged one man with terrorism. 

Also in early June, police officers in Columbia, South Carolina, arrested more than 80 protesters and charged three men with instigating a riot, typically a low-level felony or misdemeanor. 

Elected officials participating in the protest have also been caught in the crackdown.In Portsmouth, Virginia, on Monday, sheriff’s deputies delivered a summons charge to the vice mayor, after a resident pressed misdemeanor criminal charges against her for calling on the Portsmouth police chief to resign. Earlier this month, police brought felony charges against the Virginia State Senate pro tempore, a local school board member, local NAACP leaders, and public defenders for injury to a monument and conspiracy, in relation to the destruction of confederate statues in June.

Federal authorities have also carried out their own crackdown on demonstrations, arresting protesters in Portland, Oregon, and New York City in recent months. The FBI has opened some 300 domestic terrorism investigations since late May. Last year, according to the agency, most federal arrests for domestic terrorism involved white supremacy, though the FBI’s Domestic Terrorism Analysis Unit has also investigated a fictional “black identity extremists” movement. The FBI has also quietly investigated white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement in recent years, The Intercept reported. 

AMONG THE MOST serious recent charges against protesters are those of terrorism in Oklahoma.  There,Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater charged three teenagers and two other people in their 20s with terrorism related to their alleged activity during protests in late May. 

“We found it especially inappropriate — and unconstitutional — because it was made with the explicit purpose of silencing protesters who are standing up for Black lives,” American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma Staff Attorney Megan Lambert told The Intercept, regarding the recent terrorism charges. “We didn’t even see terrorism charges for the Murrah bombing,” she added, referring to the 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City.

Read Our Complete CoverageProtests for Black Lives

The terrorism charges, which were filed in June and July, stem from allegations that protesters set fire to a sheriff’s van and caused damage to a local bail bond business. Last month, Prater charged two other teenagers with terrorism in connection to demonstrations at the end of May, bringing the total to five. The DA also charged multiple people with rioting, assaulting officers, andat least five others for incitement to riot for painting murals in the city’s downtown area in June.

Oklahoma Democratic Party Chair Alicia Andrews, the ACLUof Oklahoma, and Oklahoma City Black Lives Matter founder and Executive Director Rev. T. Sheri Dickerson slammed Prater’s move, saying that the charges of terrorism were far too harsh. During a press conference early last month, Andrews said she didn’t condone vandalism or destruction of property but that Prater was using the charges to silence protesters. “‘Use your First Amendment right in a way that we don’t like, and we will ruin your future.’ These charges are an attempt to send a message, ‘We’re tired of hearing about Black lives,’” she said. 

Prater took office in 2007 and is currently serving his fourth term as DA. His current term ends in 2023.He started his career in law enforcement at age 19 as a deputy sheriff, according to his bio. “These people are speaking out against violence that Prater himself has largely been complicit in,” Lambert said. “This is just another example in a pattern from David Prater’s office of upholding white supremacy.” Prater’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Last May, Prater declined to charge officers who killed 17-year-old Isaiah Lewis, who was in the middle of a mental health crisis when police shot him in Edmond. Over the last few months, local activists have brought renewed attention to Lewis’s killing, which has been a focus of some demonstrations in the area. Other cases have gotten less attention, Dickerson pointed out. Derrick Scott, 42, died last May after being apprehended and restrained by Oklahoma City police. In video footage of the arrest released in June, Scott tells officers he can’t breathe and asks them repeatedly to give him his medicine. An officer replies, “I don’t care.” 

“The Scott family is not receiving any justice,” Dickerson said, adding that Scott’s killing was eerily similar to Floyd’s. Earlier this month, police shot 32-year-old James Harmon in the head, saying that he had a weapon in his hand (Oklahoma is an open-carry state). Harmon is still in the hospital. 

“Systemic racism, institutional racism, and white supremacy is so deep-rooted,” Dickerson said, agreeing with Lambert’s characterization of Prater’s office. “There’s really nothing more Oklahoman than that.” 

“This was a state that was formed basically for them to literally lump Natives and Blacks here together,” she said. “And so it has always been very intentional and deliberate, for us to be victims of what I consider state-sanctioned violence and state-targeted violence.”

For the Oklahoma City teens and young adults facing terror charges, “what’s next is they fight for their lives,” Lambert said. The statute carries a maximum of life in prison. “Many of these charged protesters are young teenagers. … So they are facing spending their entire lives in prison simply for, in some cases, attending a protest to try and hold police accountable.” Criminal defense attorneys are still working to get those charges dropped or significantly reduced.   

“Some of the young people were saying, ‘We should go to Kenosha and stand with the young people there,” Dickerson said. “And I was like, ‘How do you choose?’”

==

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320 new drilled/heated

...

In Oklahoma, students are told "Having no petroleum is like a nightmare!"

Before her retirement in 2016, Tara Barker was a public school science teacher in Oklahoma for 33 years. Throughout her tenure, she taught her kids about fossil fuels using Petro Pete—a little boy who looks like an old man dressed as an oil worker.

Petro Pete is part of an education series on fossil fuels proliferated by the Oklahoma Energy Resources Board, a state agency funded by oil and gas producers. According to The Guardian, the OERB “has spent upwards of $40 million over the past two decades on providing education with a pro-industry bent, including hundreds of pages of curriculums, a speaker series and an after-school program—all at no cost to educators of children from kindergarten to high school.”

Barker said the industry’s lesson plans and workshops were helpful to her. “I loved getting the materials,” she said. But the outcome of the lessons always left her feeling like something was missing. “I just felt like they didn’t finish the story,” she said. “They didn’t tell the whole thing.”

The missing things, it turns out, were climate change and renewable energy. Neither is mentioned in “Petro Pete’s Big Bad Dream.”

In this widely taught story, Pete drifts off to sleep and wakes up unable to find anything he normally depends on. He has no clothes; no toothbrush; no comb. His schoolbus never comes, so he walks to school, and when he gets there the clock has a sad face on it. During lunch, Pete wants strawberry ice cream, but there is none. Later, he goes out to play soccer, but there are no soccer balls. “Pete is disappointed,” it says.

Eventually, Pete’s science teacher—the appropriately named Ms. Rigwell—explains that all the things Pete was missing were either made by oil or made possible by oil. “Having no petroleum is like a nightmare,” Pete concludes.

Barker said saw Petro Pete have an impact on students. “It makes the kids feel like, ‘Oh wow, we really need this,’” she said. “It scares them that we’re going to run out.” She said she wanted to make sure she was teaching about the possibilities of renewable energy, too—but the oil industry didn’t provide free material on that. She had to develop that curriculum herself, on her own time.

Today, that alternative curriculum is called the Oklahoma Renewable Energy Education Program. “We call it the other side of the story; the compliment to it,” Barker said. Barker’s group is trying to hold workshops for teachers across the state just like the oil and gas industry does, and have the curriculum accepted in all of Oklahoma’s school districts. But she’s struggling with funding. “We don’t have a grant right now, so we’re using leftover materials and we’re working on what we have.”

The oil and gas industry, of course, does not have this problem. And its bid to influence public education extends far beyond Oklahoma.

Creating pro-fossil fuel kids across the country

There are many more state-specific examples of fossil fuel industry and interest groups funding educational material. The Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Educational Program, for example, is an industry-funded effort to provide workshops and educational material for Ohio teachers. These materials include a worksheet on the environmental benefits of crude oil and gas, a crude oil word find, and an activity placemat for kids.

Culver Company, a consulting firm for energy and natural gas utilities, provides educational material for schools, including aworkbook from kids Grade 3-6. In Natural Gas: Your Invisible Friend, “youngsters explore where gas comes from, how it’s used, and why it’s important to be careful around natural gas,” the description says.

Then there’s the National Energy Education Development Project, or NEED Project, which is sponsored by more than 100 corporate partners, including nearly every major U.S.-based oil and gas company and oil industry interest group. The NEED Project “publishes thousands of pages of K-12 energy lessons online,” according to the non-profit education news publication the Hechinger Report. Those lessons include one where students learn “how to frack a frozen layer cake using chocolate syrup and a syringe-like turkey injector.” Another guide tells the story of Sue Ann, “a sticky pool of oil waiting to be freed.”

These educational materials are not all misleading in their own right. Many actually contain scientifically robust information about how fossil fuel extraction and power generation work. But when these materials aren’t paired with robust climate change education, they paint a false picture in students’ minds about the benefits of fossil fuel use.

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PRUITT STARTED IN RAGA

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fed overreach BS?

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/how-an-oklahoma-prosecutor-launched-malicious-probes-against-criminal-justice-reformers/

no lnx

How an Oklahoma prosecutor ‘launched malicious probes against criminal justice reformers’

Photo of DA Prater via Oklahoma County DA’s office

Written by Filter October 28, 2019

by Rory Fleming

Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater stands accused of firing his investigator for refusing to conduct a bogus criminal probe into supporters of decarceration efforts.

That is according to a Notice of Claim?—a legal document that must be submitted before suing Oklahoma’s state government?—filed on October 24 and reviewed by Filter.

Oklahoma County includes Oklahoma City and, with around 750,000 residents, is the most populated county in the state. DA Prater’s reported general behavior has echoes of McCarthyism and the Red Scare.

William Muller?—a former Oklahoma County DA office investigator, whose law enforcement career includes time on President George W. Bush’s security detail?—alleges that DA Prater demanded he obtain a Multi-County Grand Jury Subpoena for the financial records of Oklahomans Criminal Justice Reform, a nonprofit advocacy organization.

Kris Steele, the former speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, is the executive director of this organization; a probe of Steele was separately ordered. Prater also started a retaliatory probe against the American Civil Liberties Union, focusing on its financial contributions to reform efforts.

Muller initially complied but later refused, saying there was no probable cause—the usual legal threshold for a criminal investigation. Prater also exhibited apathy toward the legal rules about the proper handling of evidence, the Notice claims.

When Muller told Prater that he couldn’t sniff anything out, Prater gave him the cold shoulder. Then, in late January 2019, Muller gave an internal presentation on an unfurling political corruption case. Seemingly out of nowhere, Prater “called two Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Deputies into the office where then [he] lost control of himself and began to yell and curse uncontrollably,” states the Notice.

Prater also personally seized Muller’s firearm, it is alleged, then had the deputies kick Muller out of the building. He then announced Muller’s firing to a law enforcement email list that spans the entire state.

In the context, none of this is even surprising.

A 2015 article from the Oklahoman recounts Prater’s reputation for “tackling crime,” or at least defendants he is prosecuting. He ignores the political decorum expected of prosecutors, having once endorsed Reverend Paul Blair, a hateful fundamentalist who spreads Islamophobic conspiracy theories, for state senate. He has been accused by fellow lawyers, most notably those working on Richard Glossip’s potential innocence case, of witness intimidation.

And he despises even the mildest positive changes to the criminal justice system, as exhibited by his war against his own voters. When Oklahomans, including his constituents, voted by ballot initiative in 2017 to make drug possession a misdemeanor (rather than a felony), Prater unsuccessfully labored alongside anti-reform allies like former Sen. Ralph Shortey (who shortly thereafter went to federal prison for child sex trafficking), to reverse the popular mandate.

Robert D. Gifford, II, the attorney representing William Muller, is a former Assistant US Attorney who has dedicated most of his career to getting justice for the most defenseless victims. One of his most notable cases was the prosecution of Matthew Durham, the young missionary who raped Kenyan orphans as young as six years old.

In a conversation with Filter, Gifford likened Prater to Richard Nixon and called him “the poster boy for prosecutorial misconduct.” He added that, “but for a whistleblower, Mr. Prater’s misuse and abuse of secret grand jury subpoenas would have never come to light.”

On top of being an example of how prosecutors can wreak havoc on their communities when given too much power, Prater’s alleged misconduct shows how it is crucial for district attorneys to have opponents when they come up for re-election.

Prater skated to re-election in 2018 without an opponent, despite a cornucopia of reasons for him to be booted out of office. Hopefully, 2022 won’t tell the same story. Or the Oklahoma State Bar wises up and disbars him, before he does anything worse.

This article was originally published by Filter, a magazine covering drug use, drug policy and human rights. Follow Filter on Facebook or Twitter.

==

desmog

Oklahoma

Earthquakes caused by fracking wastewater injections were a major topic in the race for corporation commissioner in Oklahoma. The corporation commission oversees the oil and gas industry in the state.

One of the main issues Ashley McCray, a 34 year old former activist, was running on was limiting fracking wastewater injection wells to reduce related earthquakes in Oklahoma. Her opponent was the Republican Bob Anthony, who has held the position for 30 years and whose campaign was financed with help from railroad and energy companies, including BNSF, Chesapeake Energy, American Electric Power, and Koch Industries, as well as from fracking pioneer and billionaire Harold Hamm.

While McCray only managed to gain 34 percent of the vote, the local paper The Journal Record credits her campaign with shedding more light on just what the powerful corporation commission does. Industry-caused seismic activity has been a hotbed issue in Oklahoma for years and has managed to cross typical party lines.

==

In the midst of the colossal upset that saw progressive African-American Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum win the Democratic nomination for the Florida governor race, another lesser-known but huge development unfolded in Oklahoma, giving Democrats a clear chance to win the governor's mansion there.

In the runoff elections on Tuesday night, pro-Trump Tulsa businessman Kevin Stitt defeated Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett to win the GOP nomination. He will now face off against former Democratic state attorney general Drew Edmondson, who already won the nomination in June — which is shaping up to be a truly competitive race.

Republicans blew a huge potential advantage by not nominating Cornett, who has campaign experience and is known for bringing the NBA to his state. Stitt, by contrast, has never held elected office, faces questions about his mortgage company's business practices, and said he opposes the badly-needed recent pay increases that ended the state's teacher walkouts.

Edmondson, by contrast, is the Democrats' dream candidate — a Vietnam veteran who has already won statewide office multiple times and has decent name recognition. One poll released in July showed Edmondson leading the race by one point with Stitt as the nominee.

Oklahoma is one of the reddest states in America. It is one of only two stateswhere President Donald Trump carried every single county. But Democrats have held the governor's mansion as recently as 2011.

Republicans in Oklahoma are also reeling from voter resentment amid the massive unpopularity of retiring Gov. Mary Fallin, who oversaw reckless tax cuts that collapsed the state's finances and crippled state agencies. The teacher strikes only scratch the surface — under Fallin's tenure, rural hospitals have shuttered, waiting lists for community help for the elderly and disabled have stretched to 10 years, and there is even a driving limit on state troopers to ration fuel.

In an ominous sign for Republicans, Tuesday night's runoffs also saw the defeat of half a dozen GOP state lawmakers who voted against the tax increase to fund teacher pay— which cannot inspire confidence for a gubernatorial nominee who claimed he would not have signed it.

The upshot is that Democrats now have a real chance to win in a heavily red state, and punch deep into Trump territory. They should heed the anger of voters hurt by GOP misrule, and fight for them.

==

COAL

Okla. firm tops midterm donations

E&E Daily: Thursday, August 23, 2018

Incumbents on Capitol Hill have gotten more money from magnate Joe Craft and his coal company than any one else in the industry, the Center for Responsive Politics found.

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april 2018

walkout in Oklahoma — which could stretch for days — is part of a wave of educator revolts striking states where tax cuts have drained state funding for schools.

In Kentucky, teachers rallied Monday in Frankfort, the state capital, against teacher pension reforms, shutting down schools in a dozen districts. In Arizona, teachers have threatened to strike if they do not get a 20 percent raise and an infusion of money into schools. On Monday,**Gov. Doug Ducey (R**) said it would not happen, raising the likelihood of a standoff between the two groups.

The job actions in Oklahoma, Kentucky and elsewhere were inspired by West Virginia teachers, who won a 5 percent raise after a nine-day strike, emboldening frustrated educators across the country....Oklahoma has faced some of the deepest cuts to education in the nation. Adjusted for inflation, state spending per student has fallen nearly 30 percent over the past decade, according to the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The result? Oklahoma teachers ranked 49th in teacher pay in 2016, according to the National Education Association, a leading union.

In 2015, Oklahoma spent a little more than $8,000 per student, far below the national average of $11,400. The cuts also took a toll on school budgets.

When their state funding took a hit, administrators trimmed electives, programs for struggling students and money for teachers to buy supplies. Eventually, many were forced to cut positions, pushing class sizes and workloads for counselors higher...

Many schools reduced classes to four days a week because they could no longer keep the lights on [literally?]for five. The basics that are a given in most U.S. classrooms — textbooks, curriculum materials, staples, printer ink — are often in short supply in Oklahoma schools.

“I came to the Capitol not just for myself, not just for a raise, but for my students,” said Misti Vann, who teaches at Belfonte Elementary in the tiny community of Belfonte. She ticked off a litany of problems that the dearth of funding has spawned: leaky roofs, drafty windows, balky heaters. “My classroom, my books are falling apart,” she said.

After lawmakers this year again cut the education budget, a fed-up superintendent began polling his colleagues to see whether they would be interested in backing a strike. Then, inspired by West Virginia’s educators, teachers in Oklahoma — who in 2016 made less money on average than their counterparts there — began planning their own walkout, organizing on Facebook. Teachers demanded a $10,000 raise for themselves, a $5,000 raise for other school workers and an additional $200 million in education funding.

...

seemed to have worked: Last week, state lawmakers passed a measure increasing teacher pay by an average of $6,100 and giving schools an additional $51 million in funding — with $33 million of that set aside for textbooks.

“I hope they can come up here and say ‘thank you’ on Monday and go back to the classrooms,” Gov. Mary Fallin (R) said at a news conference last week, a remark that infuriated educators.

Instead, many teachers remain frustrated that the state dedicated only $51 million more for schools, which does little to reverse a decade of cuts. And while some said they were satisfied with their raise, they said they will remain out of the classroom until the state boosts funding.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2018/04/02/fed-up-with-school-spending-cuts-oklahoma-teachers-prepare-to-walk-out/

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https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/oklahoma-gop-candidate-denies-advocating-euthanasia-poor-and-disabled-people

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Official PAC Name:

Location: , 

Industry: FEC Committee ID: C00167213  (Look upactual documents filed at the FEC)

okla leadrship council GOP

https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/expenditures.php?cycle=2016&cmte=C00167213

1Republican Party of Florida$132,0002Direct Mail Systems$32,8933Renaissance Hotels$31,9704Republican National Cmte of Pennsylvania$30,0005Mayo Hotel$18,8316Marriott Tulsa Hotel Southern Hills$13,8257Brogdon, Randy$8,5178Hilton Hotels$7,5009Petroleum Club of Okc$7,22510Vanco Payment Solutions$6,172

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http://www.alternet.org/environment/oklahoma-sues-epa-calling-clean-air-rule-unconstitutional

Oklahoma sued the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday, claiming it exceeded its powers by proposing new rules to reduce pollution at coal-fired power plants.

Attorney General Scott Pruitt sued the EPA in Federal Court, claiming its plan to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions in the next five years is unconstitutional.

Oklahoma claims the agency's timeline for its Clean Power Plan is unrealistic, and that it will need a minimum of eight years to implement the changes.

[clean pwr plan video 101]

RELATED: U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Obama's EPA Limits on Air Pollution

"In sum, due to the EPA Power Plan, simply maintaining electric service across the State of Oklahoma requires substantial expenditures of time, effort, and money by the Oklahoma Legislature, OCC [Oklahoma Corporation Commission], ODEQ [Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality], and other state actors, as well as private utilities," the complaint states.

"These expenditures cannot be recouped. If the State does nothing while EPA implements anything like a 35.5-percent reduction in carbon-dioxide emissions from Oklahoma's coal-fired power plants, the lights will go out in many Oklahoma communities, impacting State governmental operations, as well as the health and welfare of citizens. The same is true of the 33 percent 'interim goal' set by EPA and would be true of even a substantially smaller goal, on the order of 15 or 20 percent."

Pruitt claims that the plan would require "the complete restructuring of Oklahoma's power sector even though it has no chance of surviving eventual judicial scrutiny."

RELATED: GOP Congressman Lamar Smith Declares War on NASA and EPA Climate Science Research

He claims the plan violates at least three statutory bars and two constitutional limitations on federal power. Pruitt said the state can challenge the plan in the D.C. Circuit under Section 307 of the Clean Air Act, but expects it would take at least nine months for a final decision to be issued.

"Even if Oklahoma is able to obtain a stay of the EPA Power Plan in the D.C. Circuit, that is still likely to take months," according to the 19-page complaint. "By that time, Oklahoma will have either implemented or taken irreversible steps towards implementing most, if not all, of the changes described above, meaning that they will be implemented even though the EPA Power Plan is certain to be invalidated. The ordinary petition process under Section 307 is not an adequate means of obtaining the relief required if Oklahoma is to maintain its power sector in anything like the form it exists today and if it is to forgo the massive expenditure of resources required to accommodate the EPA Power Plan."

Federal officials could not be reached for comment after business hours Wednesday.

RELATED: EPA Moves to Regulate Airplane Emissions Under Clean Air Act, Citing Danger to Human Health

Pruitt said in a statement late Wednesday that the plan "forces Oklahoma into fundamentally restructuring the generation, transmission, and regulation of electricity" in a way that threatens the "reliability and affordability" of electricity in the state. He said that decisions on power generation and emissions reductions are best made at the local level.

"The EPA does not possess the authority under the Clean Air Act to accomplish what it proposes in the unlawful Clean Power Plan," Pruitt said. "The EPA is ignoring theauthority granted by Congress to states to regulate power plant emissions at their source. The Clean Power Plan is an unlawful attempt to expand federal bureaucrats' authority over states' energy economies in order to shutter coal-fired power plants and eventually other sources of fossil-fuel generated electricity."

Pruitt seeks declaratory judgment that the EPA Power Plan violates the Clean Air Act and "exceeds Congress's Article I authority and violates the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution." He seeks an injunction preventing its enforcement.

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Citizens Can Sue Fracking Companies for Earthquake Damage, Says Oklahoma Supreme Court

==

http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/5-most-dangerous-states-live-and-5-safest

According to the study, the five safest states to live in are Massachusetts, Vermont, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Hawaii.The least safe states to live in are New Mexico, Tennessee, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Mississippi. Massachusetts is the state with the lowest share of residents who lack health insurance, the second fewest number of fatal occupational injuries, and the second lowest rate of fatal automobile accidents.=

==

Oklahoma scientists pressured to downplay link between earthquakes and fracking

Oil company execs and university bigwigs leaned on the Oklahoma Geological Survey so it wouldn’t blame quakes on fracking techniques.

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former AG, gov cand: BS  BS: Okla dem  http://ballotpedia.org/Oklahoma_Attorney_General_-_Drew_Edmondson

Drew was personally involved in overseeing the tobacco litigation, involving multiple defendants and billions in damages, as well as the state’s litigation against the poultry industry alleging violations of state and federal environmental laws. He was also involved in the state’s prosecution of Bernie Ebbers in the Worldcom case.

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alternet 5/14

3. Oklahoma Bans Increases in the Minimum Wage

While the Obama administration raises the minimum wage threshold for private contractors working with the government, Democrats in Congress push for a $10.10 minimum wage, and Seattle votes in the country’s highest minimum at $15.00 an hour, Oklahoma is going in the exact opposite direction: not only is Oklahoma not considering a statewide increase, but it banned individual cities [6] from even considering such a raise on their own.

The move was widely viewed as a preemptive attack on a movement by the Central Oklahoma Labor Federation to raise the Oklahoma City’s wage to $10.10, in line with that being called for by President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats.

Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin and her fellow Republicans in the legislature argued [7] the bill created a “level playing field for all municipalities in Oklahoma” and protected against “artificial” raises in the minimum wage, whatever those are.

"Mandating an increase in the minimum wage would…would create a hardship for small business owners, stifle job creation and increase costs for consumers," Fallin said. "And it would do all of these things without even addressing the goal of reducing poverty."

Not quite. The statistics on the relation of minimum wage to job creation or loss are murky, but most studies find raising the wage’s overall affect on employment to be negligible. Two things raising the minimum wage definitely does: increases earnings for lower-income workers (by $33 billion in the case of a nationwide raise to $10.10) and lifts almost one million people out of poverty. Neither is something metropolises in Oklahoma are going to find out about any time soon.

4. Oklahoma Punishes Solar and Wind Power Producers

Oklahoma wasn’t done. Unhappy with people who install their own solar panels or wind turbines, an action that helps the utilities by easing the pressure on the companies during peak hours, the state is now penalizing private energy producers through a surcharge [8].

The extra charge applies to those who sell excess energy generated by the panels or turbines back to the grid, known as net metering. It was snuck in as a rider on another bill at the last minute, catching lawmakers and alternative energy groups off guard. It passed without a single dissenting vote.

It didn’t take long for Oklahoman owners of small businesses to point out the absurdity of a law that punishes in-state producers of energy.

“Oklahoma offers tax credits for large wind turbines which are built elsewhere, but wants to penalize small wind which we manufacture here in the state?” Mike Bergey, president & CEO of Bergey Windpower said [8]. “That makes no sense to me.”

Who would support such a bill? The ultra-conservative advocacy group ALEC, which has framed people with solar panels as “freeriders on the system,” though they actually contribute to the city’s power resources. ALEC is in good with Fallin. Thanks to this cozy relationship, Oklahoma is set to become the first state to pass a law of this kind. Where states have deals worked out between utility companies and individual power generators, ALEC is set on repealing them. They now have a template in a last-minute sabotoage in Oklahoma.

==

alec win

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/16/3427392/oklahoma-fee-solar-wind/

Oklahoma residents who produce their own energy through solar panels or small wind turbines on their property will now be charged an additional fee, the result of a new bill passed by the state legislature and expected to be signed into law by Gov. Mary Fallin (R).

On Monday, S.B. 1456 passed the state House 83-5 after no debate. The measure creates a new class of customers: those who install distributed power generation systems like solar panels or small wind turbines on their property and sell the excess energy back to the grid. While those with systems already installed won’t be affected, the new class of customers will now be charged a monthly fee — a shift that happened quickly and caught many in the state off guard.

“We knew nothing about it and all of a sudden it’s attached to some other bill,” Ctaci Gary, owner of Sun City Oklahoma, told ThinkProgress. “It just appeared out of nowhere.”...

As the use of solar power skyrockets across the U.S., fights have sprung up in several states over how much customers should be compensated for excess power produced by their solar panels and sold back to the grid — a policy known as net metering. Net metering laws have come under fire from the secretive American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a group backed by fossil fuel corporations, utility companies, and the ultra-conservative Koch brothers. Forty-three states and the District of Columbia currently have net metering policies in place and ALEC has set its sights on repealing them, referring to homeowners with their own solar panels as “freeriders on the system.” ALEC presented Gov. Fallin the Thomas Jefferson Freedom award last year for her “record of advancing the fundamental Jeffersonian principles of free markets, limited government, federalism and individual liberty as a nationally recognized leader.”

Oklahoma “could be the first complete defeat for solar advocates in their fight against utility efforts to recover costs lost to DG [distributed generation] use,” writes Utility Dive. Net metering survived attacks in Colorado and Kansas and Vermont recently increased its policy in a bipartisan effort. Last year, Arizona added what amounts to a $5 per month surcharge for solar customers, a move that was widely seen as a compromise, particularly after ALEC and other Koch-backed groups got involved.

While any extra charge placed on potential customers is a concern, Gary hopes that like Arizona, Oklahoma’s fee is modest enough to protect her business from serious damage.

Matt Kasper, energy research assistant at the Center for American Progress, contributed to this piece.

==

Oklahoma

Titled, the “Scientific Education and Academic Freedom Act,” H.B. 1551 is also essentially a copycat of Tennessee's version of the ALEC model bill — it failed to pass. A Senate version of that bill, S.B. 320, was also proposed in 2009, but failed to pass through committee.

Key clauses of that bill read (emphases mine),

    "[T]eachers shall be permitted to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories pertinent to the course being taught."

    "[N]o student in any public school or institution shall be penalized in any way because the student may subscribe to a particular position on scientific theories."

Notice how the first bullet is exactly the same in both the Tennessee and Oklahoma bills — also notice how similar bullet number two is in both language and substance in both states' bills.

Rep. Sally Kern (R-84), sponsor of H.B. 1551, is a member of ALEC, according to CMD. She received $12,335 from the oil and gas industry in the 2008 and 2010 election cycles, in total, according to FollowTheMoney.org. Sen. Randy Brogdon (R-34), sponsor of S.B. 320, while not a member of ALEC, received $22,967 from the oil and gas industry while running and losing for Governor of Oklahoma in 2010, according to FollowTheMoney.org.

On the whole, sponsors and co-sponsors from the six states in which the ALEC bill was proposed were recipients of $44,409 in campaign money from the oil and gas industry, a miniscule down payment for some of the most lucrative corporations known in the history of mankind.

==

ALEC Assembles "Most Wanted" List, and Oklahomans Say "ALEC Is Not OK"

by Brendan Fischer [1] — May 6, 2013 - 7:44am

[6]

-- by Brendan Fischer and Nick Surgey --

In anticipation of protests at ALEC's recent meeting in Oklahoma City, state legislators were handed a set of talking points [7] that read "The American Legislative Exchange Council recognizes the first amendment rights of free speech and assembly, and asks that ___ do the same," apparently to prepare legislators for press questions about citizen activism. But ALEC didn't live up to those spoon-fed talking points: ALEC assembled a dossier of disfavored reporters and activists, kicked reporters out of its conference who might write unfavorable stories, and managed to boot a community forum critical of ALEC from its reserved room.

In what might be the biggest anti-ALEC rally yet, the ALEC legislators and lobbyists arriving at the Renaissance Hotel on May 2 were greeted by awave of protesters [8] that outnumbered the conference attendees.

More than 600 firefighters, teachers, environmentalists, and church leaders carried signs reading "ALEC is Not OK" and chanting "backroom deals are ALEC's game/sweetheart deals for corporate gain," while a giant inflatable pig wearing a banner reading "Hi, my name is ALEC" floated overhead. Two big rigs adorned with Teamsters logos circled the convention center, honking their horns and blowing air brakes. Harold A. Schaitberger, President of the International Association of Fire Fighters, told the crowd that ALEC's "sole purpose is to develop the most anti-worker, anti-employee, anti-union, anti-middle class, pro-business, pro corporation policies, legislation and agenda possible."

Inside, white men in dark suits milled in the lobby of the Renaissance Hotel and the neighboring Cox Convention Center. Laughter floated through the hotel bar as corporate lobbyists (with a "private sector" tag on their name badge) huddled with state legislators (wearing "public sector" tags).

Fresh-faced interns hustled through the crowds, appearing exhilarated to be in the midst of dealmaking and power brokerage. Oklahoma City Police Officers in full uniform -- but reportedly off-duty and paid by ALEC -- stopped anyone not wearing a name badge from entering ALEC's sections of the convention center.

"We Know Who You Are"

On the morning of May 3, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin -- an ALEC "Legislator of the Year" in 2009 -- gave the ALEC meeting's keynote address. The short, relatively generic speech was the only portion of the ALEC event open to the press: the task force meetings where prospective "model bills" are discussed and adopted were entirely closed-door and guarded by police.

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TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Oklahoma and Texas have argued for years about which has the best college football team, whose oil fields produce better crude, even where the state border should run. But in a hot, sticky dispute that no one wants to win, Oklahoma just reclaimed its crown.

After recalculating data from last year, the nation's climatologists are declaring that Oklahoma suffered through the hottest summer ever recorded in the U.S. last year— not Texas as initially announced last fall.

"It doesn't make me feel any better," joked Texas rancher Debbie Davis, who lives northwest of San Antonio.

In the new tally by the National Climatic Data Center, Oklahoma's average temperature last summer was 86.9 degrees, while Texas finished with 86.7 degrees. The previous record for the hottest summer was 85.2 degrees set in 1934 — in Oklahoma.

"I'm from Oklahoma, and when you talk about the summer of 1934, there are a lot of connotations that go with that," said Deke Arndt, chief of the NCDC's climate monitoring branch in Asheville, N.C. "That whole climate episode — the Dust Bowl — that is a point in our state's history that we still look back to as transformative."

Yet the summer of 2011, "was warmer than all those summers that they experienced during the Dust Bowl," Arndt said.

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Need That ‘A’ Grade? Try Denying Climate And Evolution

It’s happening in Oklahoma – again.

A bill that would prevent teachers from marking down students who turn in papers that dispute ideas like climate change and evolution was approved by the Oklahoma Common Education committeeon Tuesday by a 9-8 vote.

HB1674 states that students in science classes would be able to make totally unscientific and unfounded faith-based claims, and not be penalized for it. This is a horrible travesty of education, one that I’m sure most teachers would protest vigorously.

From Mother Jones:

Gus Blackwell, the Republican state representative who introduced the bill, insists that his legislation has nothing to do with religion; it simply encourages scientific exploration. “I proposed this bill because there are teachers and students who may be afraid of going against what they see in their textbooks,” says Blackwell, who previously spent 20 years working for the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma. “A student has the freedom to write a paper that points out that highly complex life may not be explained by chance mutations.”

Really? So I can declare that God created the world around six thousand years ago, even though my textbook says something quite different, and get an ‘A’ in science class? Whatever happened to the inquiry method, in which students are required to develop a solid argument based on proven facts?

Of course, this is Oklahoma, the same state that has brought us Senator James Inhofe who famously stated, “Climate change is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”

Twenty-five years after the Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana law that mandated religious instruction in science classes, lawmakers in many states are still trying to water down the teaching of science and push creationism into the public schools.

It’s not just Oklahoma. Just a few weeks into the 2013 legislative session, there are already anti-evolution bills circulating in Missouri, Montana, Colorado, Indiana, in addition to Oklahoma. And in some cases, like this one, climate change has taken a prominent place, along with evolution, as a target for creationists.

These lawmakers have also changed their tactics. Take the bill proposed byMissouri State Representative Rick Brattin: HB291 would require that intelligent design and “destiny” get the same amount of textbook coverage in Missouri schools as the theory of evolution. Brattin insists that his bill is not influenced by religion. After all, the legislator has declared: “I’m a huge science buff.”

Again from Mother Jones:

Eric Meikle, education project director at the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) in Oakland, California, says Oklahoma has proposed more anti-evolution legislation than any other state, introducing eight bills with academic freedom language since 2004. (None has passed.) “The problem with these bills is that they’re so open-ended; it’s a kind of code for people who are opposed to teaching climate change and evolution,” Meikle says.

“An extremely high percentage of scientists will tell you that evolution doesn’t have scientific weaknesses,” says the NCSE’s Meikle.

As Bill Nye the Science Guy puts it, denial of evolution is unique to the United States. The fundamental ideas behind the theory of evolution have been scientific gospel for decades — and yet, defying Darwin, creationists refuse to go the way of the dinosaurs.

Let’s hope this egregious bill never passes.

Related Care2 Coverage

Louisiana Uses Public Funds To Teach Creationism

And On The Seventh Day, God Created A Museum

My Senator Denies Climate Change And Oklahoma Pays The Price

http://www.care2.com/causes/need-that-a-grade-try-denying-climate-and-evolution.html

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koch

Oklahoma Facts

Based in Wichita, Kan., Koch Industries, Inc. is one of the largest private companies in America according to Forbes magazine. It owns a diverse group of companies involved in refining and chemicals; process and pollution control equipment and technologies; minerals; fertilizers; polymers and fibers; commodity trading and services; forest and consumer products; and ranching. Koch companies have a presence in nearly 60 countries and employ about 70,000 people. Since 2003, Koch companies have completed more than $32 billion in acquisitions and investments, and nearly $11 billion in capital expenditures.

Companies in Oklahoma