Racial prejudice at the Capitol?
Members of a committee assigned with developing a plaza on the state Capitol grounds to honor Oklahoma’s black history are concerned racial prejudice may be blocking their efforts.
Sen. Connie Johnson, D-Oklahoma City, tried unsuccessfully this past session to get legislation passed to give supporters another five years to raise money for the plaza, which now is estimated to cost $10 million. Original estimates were $2 million. The measure was included as an amendment to a Senate bill and passed the House of Representatives, but the amendment was taken out in the version approved by the Senate.…
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Did political ad go too far?
Candidates supported by the Oklahoma Stonewall Democrats in a newspaper advertisment that featured a picture based on the flag-raising at Iwo Jima weren’t told about it in advance, but they should have come out immediately to denouce it, the head of the Oklahoma Republican Party says.
The ad ran last week in two Oklahoma City weekly newspapers. It included a picture of four shirtless men posed similar to the famous photograph of five Marines and a Navy corpsman raising the American flag on Iwo Jima during World War II.…
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Tragic News About Tim Russert
Tim Russert’s death is shocking and tragic. He was one of the most influential journalists in this town, if not the most. Because of him, Meet the Press was pretty much required viewing in Washington — and hopefully in parts outside the Beltway.
I knew him but not well. He belonged to the Gridiron Club, a group of Washington-based journalists that exists solely to put on an annual political spoof. In fact, he was the first broadcast journalist to be admitted to the club (in 2005), which until then, had only allowed newspaper and wire service reporters (the club dates to 1885).…
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Heavy Artillery
This is the cannon that Sen. Jim Inhofe (pictured) has been trying for years to get to Fort Sill. It’s not there yet, but a prototype was on display on the National Mall this week, and Inhofe, R-Tulsa, was there to welcome it.
The cannon will ultimately replace the one that’s been used by the U.S. Army for decades. Fort Sill, the Army’s domestic artillery training base, will get the cannon once it’s in production. Some final assembly will be done in Elgin, which is near Fort Sill.…
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Most OK Reps Vote Against More Benefits
Rep. Dan Boren, D-Muskogee, was the only one of the five U.S. House members from Oklahoma who voted Thursday to extend unemployment benefits.
The legislation passed overwhelmingly and now goes to the Senate. It will extend benefits for 13 weeks in Oklahoma and some other states and for 26 weeks in states with higher unemployment rates.
Boren, the only Democrat in the state’s congressional delegation, said he was thinking of the people in Pryor who lost jobs when the Georgia Pacific paper plant shut down this week because of the slump in the housing industry.…
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Terrill keeps plugging for HB 1804
State Rep. Randy Terrill maintains a federal judge is incorrect in her ruling that halts part of the state’s immigration law that he authored from taking effect.
A presidential executive order issued this week seems to be contrary to last week’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Robin Cauthron, says Terrill, R-Moore.
Cauthron’s ruling halted implementing the private employer provisions of the immigration law, House Bill 1804, which legislators passed last year.
Cauthron ruled that “federal law prohibits use of the Status Verification Systems to verify employment eligibility.”
President Bush this week issued Executive Order 12829, which requires anyone contracting with the federal government to use the E-verify system, Terrill says.…
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John Albaugh and Lobbyists
A couple of years ago, I did a story about Rep. Ernest Istook writing a letter to the Health and Human Services Department trying to protect the sale of ephedra-based diet pills (after he received major campaign help from a company that made them).
While I was working on that story, I found another Istook letter written to the Health and Human Services Department. This one endorsed a petition to the Food and Drug Administration by the General Mills Corp. to allow the cereal maker to promote its products as good source of whole grains.…
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Istook Reiterates: Not a Target
Former Oklahoma Congressman Ernest Istook reiterated today that he was told by the FBI that he’s not a target in the public corruption investigation that snared his top aide.
In an e-mail exchange, Istook, a Republican who represented the Oklahoma City area for 14 years in the U.S. House, declined to answer whether he had received a subpoena to testify before a grand jury — or whether he had testified before a grand jury.
He did say, again, that he had spoken to the FBI and that he was “shocked and surprised” about Albaugh, who worked for him nearly as long as Istook was in Congress.…
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Boren SuperUncommitted
People following the Democratic presidential race this year — and that’s everyone in America, right? — learned a lot about superdelegates _ how they have the power to make up their own minds and even the power to decide the nominee, which they helped to do this year.
But they also have the power not to make up their minds, or announce support for a candidate. And Rep. Dan Boren, D-Muskogee, seems intent on exercising that power.
Though Boren’s district and the state of Oklahoma voted overwhelmingly for Sen.…
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