Wilma Mankiller, former Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, passed away this morning.  Mankiller served 12 years in elective office at the Cherokee Nation, the first two as Deputy Principal Chief followed by 10 years as Principal Chief.  She retired from public office in 1995.  Among her many honors, Mankiller was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Clinton.  

“Our personal and national hearts are heavy with sorrow and sadness with the passing this morning of Wilma Mankiller,” said Chad Smith, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.  “We feel overwhelmed and lost when we realize she has left us but we should reflect on what legacy she leaves us. We are better people and a stronger tribal nation because her example of Cherokee leadership, statesmanship, humility, grace, determination and decisiveness. 

"When we become disheartened, we will be inspired by remembering how Wilma proceeded undaunted through so many trials and tribulations. Years ago, she and her husband Charlie Soap showed the world what Cherokee people can do when given the chance, when they organized the self-help water line in the Bell community," Smith said. 

"She said Cherokees in that community learned that it was their choice, their lives, their community and their future. Her gift to us is the lesson that our lives and future are for us to decide," Smith added.  "We can carry on that Cherokee legacy by teaching our children that lesson. Please keep Wilma’s family, especially her husband Charlie and her daughters, Gina and Felicia, in your prayers.”
 
Mankiller requested that any gifts in her honor be made as donations to One Fire Development Corporation, a non-profit dedicated to advancing Native American communities though economic development, and to valuing the wisdom that exists within each of the diverse tribal communities around the world. 

Oklahoma Senate Pro Tempore Glenn Coffee said,  “Chief  Wilma Mankiller brought honor to Oklahoma and the Cherokee tribe through herleadership not only within our state and among tribal leaders, but certainly her influence was felt across our nation.   She leaves a legacy of service that will be sorely missed by all.”

Tax deductible donations can be made at www.wilmamankiller.com as well as www.onefiredevelopment.org.  

The mailing address for One Fire Development Corporation is 1220 Southmore  Houston, TX 77004.  Her memorial service will be Saturday at 11 a.m. at the Cherokee Nation Cultural Grounds in Tahlequah. 

Tulsa Today Publisher David Arnett said, "The thoughts and prayers of all Oklahomans are with the family in this time.  The memories Chief Mankiller gave us we will carry with honour.  She made a difference and improved our world – all the tribes – all the people."

 

Updated March 31:  With certain unemployment benefits set to expire on Wednesday, some Democrats seem to believe a winning strategy is to allow those benefits to expire and gain a political advantage by blaming the impasse on a single senator – Dr. Coburn. 

In a press release today Dr. Coburn suggests a few stubborn facts may disrupt their plan.

CLAIM:   Senator Coburn is single-handedly blocking the unemployment
extension.

FACT:   Instead of holding a cloture vote on Saturday to advance
the bill, Senator Reid chose to attend an event with the NRA. Dr. Coburn
isn’t responsible for the majority’s decision not to come to work.
(Note congressional record below.)

FACT:   Dr. Coburn and every Senate Republican voted to stay in session and work through this issue.  Forty-nine Senate Democrats voted to go on vacation while four voted to stay.  

FACT:   Senate Democrats voted AGAINST extending unemployment benefits twice last week.

FACT:   House Democrats rejected an agreement reached in the Senate that would have extended these benefits with an offset for one week.

CLAIM:   Congress never agrees to offset “emergency spending”

FACT:   Senate leaders agreed to offset a one-week extension of these benefits last week.  This impasse is between House and Senate leaders, not Dr. Coburn and the rest of Congress.

FACT:   In 1995, emergency spending associated with the Oklahoma City bombing was offset.  

FACT:   Our debt and deficit are as much of an emergency as unemployment.  A job is the best unemployment benefit.  An economy with as much debt as ours can’t create jobs as quickly as we need them.  As Dr. Coburn said last week, Congress could easily come up with an offset to pay for this extension.

CONTINUING EXTENSION ACT OF 2010–MOTION TO PROCEED

(Senate – March 25, 2010) [Page: S2099] 

  CLOTURE MOTION
   Mr. REID. Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 323, H.R. 4851, and I send a cloture motion to the desk.
   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
   Mr. REID. Mr. President, I am soon going to call up an adjournment resolution. But there has always been a misunderstanding as to what an adjournment resolution is. The mere fact we are going to adopt an adjournment resolution tonight does not mean we are going to run to the airports tonight. We have, under this adjournment resolution, the ability to work past tonight, and we are going to do that. We are going to be in a period of morning business tomorrow from 9:30 to 12:30. We are going to be talking about the unemployment compensation extension. That time is going to be equally divided. There is going to be some time spent tonight after this adjournment resolution is adopted, until about 9 or 9:30, talking about unemployment compensation.
   So I want everyone to understand, the fact that this adjournment resolution is adopted does not mean we are all leaving here tonight. In fact, we have until Wednesday under the adjournment resolution. 

 

---

Town Hall Meetings Added:

U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D.will be holding a series of town hall
meetings in Oklahoma this week.  Dr. Coburn will take questions
and address important issues for Oklahoma and the nation at each event.

“I
encourage everyone to attend and participate in these town halls.
These settings give me an important opportunity to hear directly from the
Oklahomans I am representing, and they provide a chance for Oklahomans
to hear my views on current legislation in Congress,” said Dr. Coburn. 

Cherokee Town Hall

Monday, March 29, 2010
3:00 – 4:00 PM
Alfalfa County Farm Bureau
113 S. Grand
Cherokee, OK 73728

Oklahoma City Town Hall

Wednesday, March 31, 2010
2:00 – 3:00 PM  
Metro Technology Center
Springlake Campus Auditorium
1900 Springlake Dr.
(NW of 36th and Martin Luther King, Jr.)
Oklahoma City, OK

Additional Town Halls Added March 31, 2010:

Pryor Town Hall

Thursday, April 1

12:00 pm

Mid America Industrial Park Expo
Center

526 Airport Road, Pryor, OK 74361

 

Miami Town Hall

Thursday, April 1

3:00 pm

Miami Civic Center

129 5th
Avenue Northwest

Miami, OK 74354-4601

 

Guthrie Town Hall

Monday, April 5th

3:00PM – 4:00PM

City Council Chamber

101 North Second Street

Guthrie, OK 

 

 

Much of the media and the western world are again ignoring the appalling slaughters of Christians in Nigeria and other parts of the world and threats of worse to come. 

Over the past weekend (March 7, 2010), Muslims attacked three targeted Nigerian villages, Zot, Dogo and Nahawa, killing 500 Christian villagers (many of them young children). 

 

A Times Online/Reuters report described the brutal massacre as follows:

Witnesses said gangs waited at main entry points to the villages while others went from house to house, setting the homes on fire.  Those who fled were killed at the exit points. Others were slaughtered after being caught in animal traps and nets as they ran in the dark.

Ben Kwashi, Anglican Archbishop of Jos, said he visited one of three villages engulfed by the violence. “I could see kids from age zero to teenagers, all butchered from the back, macheted in their necks, their heads. Deep cuts in the mouths of babies. The stench. People wailing and crying,” he said. . . .

Survivors told The Times that entire families were killed, some to the chants of Allahu Akbar — God is Greatest.   They said villagers awoke to shouting and gunfire at about 3am on Sunday.   “They then set homes on fire and attacked men, women and children.  Many were decapitated,” said Theresa Malinowska, press officer for Christian Solidarity Worldwide.  Staff counted the bodies of four babies and 28 children under 5 in one location alone. . . .
 
Times Online also reported that, after the weekend massacre, frightened Christians were streaming out of the central Nigeria villages after receiving threats of new attacks from the Muslims responsible for the weekend atrocities.

The official U.S. reaction to the Nigerian massacre was very mild.  U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged “all parties to exercise restraint.”  Curiously, the Obama administration’s reaction to Jews building homes in Jerusalem this week was much harsher that the administration’s reaction to the Muslim massacre of hundreds of Christians.

Survivors of the massacre also criticized the Nigerian government for doing “too little, too late.” 

This was only one of a series of attacks.  A lengthy article by Michele Malkin in 2006, entitled Muslims Kill Christians In Nigeria, lists numerous grisly attacks from 1999 onwards. (Click here for more.)

Also this year, in January 2010, about 200 Muslim youths assaulted a female passer-by, and then attacked St Michael’s (Catholic) Church in the city of Jos, Nigeria, killing and injuring several members. The Muslim youths also set fire to local houses, businesses and churches, including a Christ Apostolic Church and two Evangelical Churches of West Africa.  

Coptic Christians in Egypt have also been frequently attacked by their Muslim countrymen.  Just recently, in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, six Coptic Christians were shot to death and nine were wounded on January 6, 2010.  Three suspected Muslim gunmen shot automatic weapons at Christian worshipers from a moving car, as the victims were leaving a Coptic Christmas Eve church service.  

Both in Egypt and in the Palestinian territories, Muslims relentlessly taunt Christians with chants of “abel es-sabbat jibel-ahad” (after Saturday comes Sunday), meaning after we finish with the Jews, the Christians are next.  In the face of such threats, tens of thousands of Christians have fled from Bethlehem, mostly to Israel.   Bethlehem was 80% Christian prior to the Palestinian intifada, and now only a tiny minority of Christians remain.  See Bethlehem’s Christian Exodus, by David Meir-Levi, FrontPageMagazine.com (Click here for more). 

Those of us who respect life need to pay attention to these horrible murders and threats to life, and to insist that all needed steps should be taken to stop such violence.

 

---

About the author:
Elizabeth Berney, Esq. is an attorney who has worked on human rights, securities fraud and consumer safety cases.  She is a mother of three now grown children, grandmother, and Republican candidate for Congress in Queens and Nassau County, Long Island and a contributor to Tulsa Today.  She may be reached at LizBerneyforCongress@gmail.com. 

At any moment Glenn Beck and or Sarah Palin’s “people” may call.  Tulsa Today has requested interviews with both – they have our numbers.  Regardless, this writer and publisher will attend the “Taking Back Our Country Tour” Saturday at the Convention Center and publish reports here.  What follows are questions I hope to ask.

America is undergoing a political paradigm shift – we see the house burning – and from the ground up politics and media, as we have known it, may never be the same.

It is painfully obvious that President Barack Hussein Obama repeatedly fails to tell the truth.  This writer first questioned if Obama was a socialist in May of 2008, but the better term may be “collective” in his foundational ideology oft stated that “only government can solve this crisis” regardless of the crisis.

To the contrary, many believe government is the crisis.  Dramatic reversal of government power over the citizenry in taxation and regulation is the key foundational ideology of the TEA (Taxed Enough Already) movement and Conservatives (regardless of party) nationwide.  With respect to both Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin for their leadership and support of Constitutional government here are our questions:

Question 1:  Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution entrusts Congress “To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign Coin …” It is the complaint of the people that the value of our currency is now endangered by unrestricted excessive deficit spending by Congress.  The First Amendment guarantees the right of the people to “petition the Government for a redress of grievances,” but the U.S. Justice System does not appear engaged on this issue and, should the currency collapse, too slow if not ill-equipped for the task.  What other method, beyond regular elections, are available for the people to petition government on this particular grievance?

Follow Up:  When will public hearings be held on government’s failure to regulate the financial and housing industries?  Does Congress have the courage and honor to accept responsibility wherever it may fall?  If not, should the people hold hearings outside of Washington?

Question:  All involuntary seizure of private funds by government is plunder upon its people.  What percentage of plunder should be allowed?  In your opinion, should that percentage be formally capped at a level less or greater than the percent seized by Kings in the Middle Ages?

Question:  Appointed Chief Justice by President John Adams in 1801, John Marshall asserted that government could do whatever is not “explicitly” or “expressly” prohibited thus creating “incidental or implied powers” which many citizens believe were never intended or allowed by the Constitution.  Would you support a Constitutional Amendment to add the word “expressly” to the Tenth Amendment?

Question:  Would you support a Constitutional Amendment to prohibit government ownership of private companies?

Question: Many conservative media voices say journalism is dead or failed, but that blanket condemnation fails to note the fact that the First Amendment only applies to those who own the press.  Until the Fox News Channel premiered (the same year as TulsaToday.com), there was no national media balancing individual liberty advocates with collective utopia advocates.  National radio talk shows are often competitively restricted from networking with locals not within their respective corporate agreements so what have you done or what can you do to address that issue?  

Follow Up:  Would you support a national alliance of local conservative journalists and pundits pledged to support the original intent of Constitution of the United States of America?

Yes of course, Tulsa Today would also ask the normal general questions of these national media stars.  How is your life and family?  What were the most important events you credit as inspirational in your career?  What do you see yourself doing in five or ten years?  What is the greatest goal you hope to achieve in your public careers?  

These more casual questions are answered somewhat in books both Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin have written (copies available in the Tulsa Today library by the way), but the answers help us all better understand the individual in a personal way.

No matter what the future may bring; the grass will grow and the cattle will graze and Oklahoma will be fine.  Oklahoma is a land of independent energy both human and natural.  Outlaws, Indians, Wildcatters, and world recognized Evangelicals hail from here.  We don’t care what the critics may say if we think we are right and we will fight for what is right as our forefathers have worldwide for generations.

Yes, Woody Guthrie was born a few miles from here, but so were Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks, Hoyt Axton, not to mention rockers JJ Cale, Carl Radle and Leon Russell, and a great deal of other talent.  We have mined riches in the deepest earth to provide power for an industrial revolution.  We have flown in space (when NY and LA where “flyover country” – loved that).  We have commanded armies and served our nation with honor.  We have created art and music.  We pray for our nation.  We ask, yes in demanding tone, that national leadership not betray us, our people and our kid’s future.

Now Mr. Beck and Mrs. Palin, talk to us.  You have the number, just call.  Our public office is two city blocks away from the venue, drop by or allow us to meet you at any time.  We are listening.  We will be watching.  We are your audience, your people, your fellow Americans so rave on, we are taking notes.

 

---

About the author: David Arnett began his career in
professional journalism in 1985 and has published Tulsa Today online since
1996 – years before Al Gore invented the Internet.  He has won two national awards as
a First Amendment Publisher. Arnett is a Constitutional Republican and a  proud pain in the political derriere of the
disingenuous.  On Tulsa Today, his work has exposed international fraud, official corruption and "first connected the dots" which led to prison terms for former-State Auditor Jeff McMahman.  Beginning April 3, he will host "The David Arnett Show" on KRMG radio.  Editorials by Arnett that may also be of interest to readers include:  "Obama’s Most Significant Statement" published October 21, 2008 and "Flame on What Why America"published October 31, 2009.

Editors Note:  Saturday, U.S. Senator Tom Coburn delivered the weekly Republican radio address to the America.  As the nation struggles with questions of health care and government roles in which Senator Coburn is an active voice, Tulsa Today is proud to provide the full text of his remarks for your consideration. 

Hello, I’m Dr. Tom Coburn, a practicing physician from Oklahoma and a
member of the United States Senate.   This week I had the opportunity to join President Obama and my Democrat
and Republican colleagues for a summit on health care.  We had a
respectful and constructive discussion.

While we listened to one another, I’m concerned that the majority in Congress is still not listening to the American people on the subject of health care reform.  By an overwhelming margin, the American people are telling us to scrap the current bills, which will lead to a government takeover of health care, and we should start over.

Unfortunately, even before the summit took place the majority in Congress signaled its intent to reject our offers to work together.  Instead they want to use procedural tricks and backroom deals to ram through a new bill that combines the worst aspects of the bills the Senate and House passed last year. 

The American people have rejected the majority’s plan for good reason.  Their plan includes a half trillion dollars in new tax increases, a half a trillion dollars in cuts to Medicare, job-killing penalties for employers, taxpayer funded abortion and new boards that will ration care to American citizens.  At its core, their plan continues a government-centered approach that has made health care more expensive. Federal and state governments already control 60 percent of health care. If more government spending and control was the answer we could have fixed health care long ago. 

Republicans in Congress have a different vision for reform.  We have put forward several proposals that lay out a common sense step-by-step path to reform.  Our solutions are patient-centered, not government-centered.  We believe in expanding options, not government;increasing access, not taxes; and reducing costs, not quality.  Most importantly, we believe that no one has the right to step between you and your doctor.

I introduced a health care bill called the ‘Patients Choice Act’ last May along with Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina and Representatives Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Devin Nunes of California that includes several step-by-step ideas for reform.  The ‘Patients’ Choice Act’ and other Republican plans accomplish all of the president’s goals,including expanding coverage, without raising taxes, bankrupting the country or rationing care. 

“Our ideas address the core problem in our health care system – skyrocketing costs – by using the only force that ever lowers cost –competition and consumer choice.  Health care is so expensive today because third-parties – government and insurance company bureaucrats – have stepped between you and your doctor. 

“Our solutions restore the doctor-patient relationship and put you – not your insurance company, your boss or the government – in charge of your health care dollars and decisions.  The ‘Patients’ Choice Act,’for instance, provides generous tax credits that let you buy, and keep, the plan of your choice.  We also limit lawsuit abuse which causes doctors to order costly tests that protect themselves rather than you, the patient.

Our proposals to rein in the massive amount of fraud, waste and duplication in our health care system drew widespread praise from Democrats at the summit, including the President.  One in three dollars in our more than $2 trillion health care system does not do anything to help people get well or prevent them from getting sick.  Democrats and Republicans agree that eliminating waste and inefficiency would lower costs and improve access tomorrow. 

The majority now has a choice.  We can continue to make progress like we did at the summit.  Or, they can try to ram through a partisan bill that will divide and bankrupt America. 

I wholeheartedly share President Obama’s desire for more civility and bipartisanship in Washington and I’m proud of the work that we did together when he was a member of the Senate.  True civility, however, is measured by actions, not words.

I was disappointed the President rejected my suggestion that he host another summit.  The President himself proposed that such meetings be televised more than a year ago.  Last year, dozens of Democrat-only summits were held in secret, behind closed doors and produced many unsavory deals.  Had those meetings been open and bipartisan I believe Congress could have passed a bipartisan health bill months ago.  

If the President and the leaders in Congress are serious about finding common ground they should continue this debate, not cut it off by rushing through a partisan bill the American people have already rejected.  If the majority agrees to work together they will find many Republicans ready to help them pursue our common goals of helping all Americans access quality and affordable health care for themselves and their families.

Thank you so much for listening.

---

Audio of the address is available here. 

Video of the address is available here.