MAPS III Must Not Pass

Is this the time for a tax increase?

Face it, we are facing a deep recession if not a depression. This is no time to be spending tax dollars on frivolous projects when the state is struggling. MAPS has been a non stop, forever tax increase even though it was initally sold as a temporary tax increase. FIrst passed in 1993, the tax has been a good old boys property improvement club, increasing Bricktown property values or increasing traffic to the clubs and resturants. Next the tax bought new buildings, much larger new buildings, leaving the property taxes straining to pay the increased overhead and staffing costs that went along with these new palaces.

This time, they are wanting to provide for the creation of a 70-acre park downtown, a fixed-rail streetcar system and new convention center downtown, trails and sidewalks throughout the city, state fairgrounds improvements, wellness aquatic centers for senior citizens, and upgrades to facilities at the Oklahoma River at the heart of the metro area

The tax has drawn a lot of opposition, police, firefighters, city employees, there are many that do not want this .777 billion dollar tax increase passed at this time. Of course the objections would disappear if only the politicians would throw some cash their way. The city management refused to play ball though, October 8th was the deadline for changes in the ballot, now all that can be done is to cancel the vote and pay the costs of the elections anyway.

I can find things that are true public needs in the list of projects, but there is a lot of fluff and payoffs for property developers and Bricktown. Bottom line is that this is no time to pass almost a billion dollars in new taxes, it is a good time to allow the tax to end until economic conditions improve a bit.

We have a new activist that is willing to ramrod this new effort as part of a OCA (Oklahoma Constitutional Alliance) Ad Hoc committee. If you are interested in helping out, we have less than one month to make a difference. It can be done, there are formible allies already working against it.

Not This MAPS

Let us know if you want to help staff the OCA committee and work toward this goal

The Battle For The Republic Begins

Folks, we already have the power to stop Obama in his tracks. The Tenth Amendment is the key. The Tenth Amendment is very simple and quite elegant:

‘The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Easy to understand, isn’t it? I would say a sixth grader could easily comprehend the Amendment. So is health care and global climate change legislation a Federal responsiblity? Article One, Section Eight of our constitution sets out 18 enumerated powers that the states granted the Federal Government.

To lay and collect taxes and duties, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the indian tribes;

To establish an uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and post roads (plain old roads needed to carry the mail between the states)

To set patents and copyrights.

To form courts inferior to the Supreme Court;

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high Seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To control the District of Columbia, our nation’s capitol, and to erect forts, magazines, arsenals, dock yards and other needed buildings.

To make laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers.

Conspicuously absent are any mention of health care or environmental laws, so the answer to the question of who is responsible is easy to figure out, the Tenth Amendment says it all, if it isn’t one of the 18 enumerated powers, the states and the people are responsible for those areas. What happened was the Supreme Court decided that a few words imbedded in Article One, Section Eight gave the Feds the right do do anything they wished, the “general welfare” clause and the “commerce” clause.

The commerce clause again is quite simple:

“To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”

How the Justices could warp this into allowing the Feds to usurp States rights and our personal rights is beyond me.

The complete text of the “necessary and proper” clause is also simple:

“To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”

The Justices ignored three simple words, “the foregoing Powers”, which clearly states that the Feds can do what is needed to carry out the eighteen enumerated powers, then they warped that to allow the Feds to stick their nose into anything they wished. It is quite simple, the Feds can contract to build a post office, build roads to carry the mail, hire postmen, none of which are specifically listed, but they are necessary and proper to establish a Post Office.

So the Federal government has been trampling on our rights and State’s rights for many decades. That doesn’t mean we don’t still have those rights, it just means we need to stand up and demand the Feds stop. Last year, the Oklahoma legislature passed two Tenth Amendment proclamations, the first was vetoed by Governor Henry, the second passed in such a way that Henry couldn’t stop it. That proclamation was delivered to Obama, a shot across the bow, stating that the Oklahoma was no longer tolerating the trespass. That was fair warning, now it is time to put teeth into our demands.

Brogdon, Key, Murphy, and many more conservative Oklahoma politicians have already drafted bills to do just that but they need the people to get behind them and make sure those bills get passed.

So, the OCA will get behind these bills, we will ask our Tea Party volunteers to show up at the capitol to lobby for these bills, to take training classes so that the volunteers know how to lobby effectively. The first of these training classes will occur on the 14th of this month, a special class to “train the trainers”, who will then train others to spread out across this great state. The goal is to train hundreds if not thousands of regular Oklahoma citizens to be ready to come down to the capitol and help push these bills through.

The battle will always be local, it does no good for our OKC people to lobby a state senator from Tulsa, he will listen only to those that vote for him, those that he represents. We will need Tulsa voters to influence a Tulsa Senator.

So we need as many volunteers as possible to sign up for one of these legislative training classes as possible. The classes will begin in late November and will continue until the legislation session is ended. We don’t expect everyone to spend a lot of time down at the capitol, phone calls and emails will help, but from time to time, we will need to call out the troops, to make a mass visit to the capitol to let the legislators see our numbers. Like in the movie “Patriot” with Mel Gibson, we don’t expect you to sign up for a long war, rather we will ask you to fire three rounds for us, then go back to your lives, make some money, take care of that family till we need you once again.

So please contact us and sign up for legislative lobbying training ASAP!

Constitutional Convention Third Week in February With Sheriff Mack

The third week in Februrary the Sooner Tea Party is hosting the first Oklahoma Constitutional Alliance convention. All the statewide conservative groups will have booths set up to recruit new volunteers, to pass out information, and to help conduct training seminars. We will have speakers from constitutional groups, state legislators, and we are even bringing in Sheriff Mack, the sheriff from Arizona that stopped Bill Clinton’s attempts in 1994 to enforce the Brady bill by forcing local law enforcement to do their dirty work.

Sheriff Mack is now retired, but he tours the country speaking, writing books, and educating the county sheriffs on their unique power to stop the Federal government in their own county. The Supreme Court decsion that Sheriff Mack made clear the extrodinary power of the county sheriff, they didn’t have to enforce Federal laws in their county, and they could stop an unconstitutional law from being enforced. For more info on Sheriff Mack visit his website:

Sheriff Mack’s website

Sheriff Mack is going to speak at the February convention, a ticketed event, with the profits going to fund matching grants for bulletproof vests for county deputies here in Oklahoma. I was quite surprised to find out that not all counties provided vests for their officers, we all remember the two deputies that recently were gunned down, neither was wearing a vest.

We hope to sell 3,000 tickets, as well as gathering donations to go toward the vest program. Some will ask why we are getting involved, we have enough to do already, but the vest program is designed to pull the sheriffs into a meeting with Sheriff Mack, where he will have a chance to educate them and to answer any questions they may have. If the sheriff of a county shows up, his department gets to participate in the vest program where the OCA will match funds with the county commissioners to purchase bullet proof vests for the deputies.

Not all counties will need vests, and not all counties will have the funds for their part of the vest grant, but we will help them rally the locals and make this happen. The ultimate goal here is two fold, to get the sheriffs to understand that they are the supreme law in their county, that they can kick the Feds out if unconstitutional laws are imposed in their county, and to show the politiicans that law enforcement will back up States rights if they lead the way.

Already we have raised enough money to buy some of Sheriff Mack’s booklets, to hand out to each and every county sheriff here in Oklahoma and to influential legislators. There will be extra copies that we will sell to help fund the bulletproof vest grant fund and to defray the expense of bringing Sheriff Mack to Oklahoma City.

We will also have Sheriff Mack speak to the legislators, to show them that it isn’t only the governor that can call out the state militia, that a posse is the state militia in another name.

The end game is all of this is threefold, to stand up the sheriffs, the legislators, and the people to get ready to stop Obama Care and Cap and Trade at the Oklahoma border. This is legal, it is possible, and much of the ground work has been laid.

Folks, the battle for our Republic has been raging for over a year now. Oklahoma, the reddest state in the Union, needs to lead the other states in this effort. Once we stand up, the others will follow. Already the state senators and represenatives have been meeting with fellow legislators from other states, planning to defeat Obama if the insanity continues. Now is the time for Tea Party people to do more than wave signs and show up at tea parties, we must carry the battle into the statehouse and show the politicians that we want this to happen.

Please contact us for advance tickets for the convention, for the Sheriff Mack speech, and to donate to the vest grant program. If you happen to know a county sheriff personally, we would love to have you help us get one of Sheriff Mack’s books into their hands.

Want To Go On A RINO Hunt?

Few in the Tea Party effort are as protective as I am toward the movement. Republicans are trying like hell to hi jack the movement to serve their interests. Many of us, myself included, are angry at the Republicans as well as the Democrats, after all the Republicans were supposed to be conservative. They have truly betrayed the country.

Unfortunately, we are a two party state. We can not start a new party, it is too hard to get one on the ballot due to ballot restrictions. But there is one thing that we can do, help kick the stuffing out of the RINO Republicans and regain control of the party.

Everyone knows what a RINO is, Republican In Name Only. The Republican establishment backs these liberal Republicans in races in a mistaken belief that only a liberal Republican can win. Right now there is about one third “establishment” RINO Republicans, one third truly conservative Republicans, and the other third are clueless or waiting for a winner to pop their head up.

The goal is to get Tea Party volunteers to rejoin the Republican party, volunteer to be a precinct official, and start gaining control of the Republican party from the precinct level up. They have many, many, vacant precinct positions waiting for people to fill them. Once you are in, you go to about four meetings in a years time, then you are eligible to vote in their internal elections. If we can get a few thousand conservative Tea Party volunteers to do this, we can put the conservative Republicans back in control of the party. Once in, RINOs will not be endorsed, instead the Republican party can declare these RINOs to be acting against Republican values. We can also set the agenda and planks for the party, redefine what it is to be a Republican.
And you know what? A good public a** whipping is just what the RINOs need right now.

So folks, we are going RINO hunting. We need as many people as possible to attend the activist training classes that we are beginning to set up. The first is on the 14th, in Tulsa Oklahoma, the second will be here in OKC. Eventually we will begin holding classes across the state as we line up activist trainers and obtain meeting space.

The establishment RINOs are already on to us, they denied the use of the Republican Party offices for our first training seminar in Tulsa, not a problem, we will rent something. Make no bones about this, it will NOT be the Republicans taking over the Tea Party, it will be the Tea Party taking over the Republican party. There will be no more voting Republican as the lesser of evils, the Republicans will run good, decent, conservative candidates or we will defeat them at the polls like the Tea Party people did in New York state district 23 a few days ago.