Working journalists are coming to grips with inherent differences in ideology within newsrooms throughout America.  They are decades late to that realization, but it may be one early sign that journalism will not forever be “lame-stream.”

The difference between those who believe the myth of Marxist, Communist,
Progressive utopia and those that believe in the proven history of
freedom, limited government, free enterprise, capitalism and equality in
application of law and government policy is important. 

 The first is a delusional radical.  The second is a patriot supporting the Constitution of the United States of America.  The differences in how each report the same news is striking and it matters both in local and national newsrooms.

In Tulsa on the day Christians celebrate the birth of their savior, the Tulsa World dammed capitalism.  Apparently they, in the collective (pun intended), support Communism (the greatest killer of humans in the history of the planet).  That Christmas Day editorial was represented as the official position of the editorial staff of the locally owned paper.  Click here to read Tulsa Today’s demand for an apology from the Tulsa World with a link to the original offending editorial.

The irony of a newspaper which depends on capitalism’s advertising to survive and which doubles in size to profit from each and every holiday is almost too obvious to mention.

January 1, Matthew Boyle of The Daily Caller took the Society of Professional Journalists to task for a campaign to forbid the use of the term “illegal immigrant.”  Boyle writes:

“When I reported that the Diversity Committee of the Society of Professional Journalists was launching a campaign against using the term “illegal immigrant,” I was disappointed that the role models I looked up to as a 23-year-old reporter were advocating a political position, and using their power of the press to do it.

“Journalism is supposed to be about telling the truth. In its code of ethics, SPJ pushes for journalists to “seek truth and report it.” SPJ also says journalists should balance seeking truth with “minimizing harm,” though, and that’s where journalists with liberal beliefs, at least in some circles, go wrong. The “minimize harm” clause is supposed to be “balanced” with the “seek truth and report it” clause of SPJ’s code of ethics, but journalists often will make a case for weakening truth to minimize harm.”

Click here to read the entire analysis on The Daily Caller.

When Americans awake after the Christmas holiday and their traditional New Year celebrations, they will awake in a country very different from the one they thought they had saved in the November elections. Before their newly elected officials could take office in January, and while they were busy shopping for Christmas, congress attacked…

Americans handed Obama’s Democratic Socialists what they thought was a devastating blow in the November elections in which they stripped Nancy Pelosi of her gavel in the House and put Harry Reid on ice in the Senate. Then the people returned to their daily lives in preparation for the Holy Day celebrations and while they shopped, congress attacked!

In the closing week of the lame duck session, the duck didn’t look lame at all. In fact, it was in rare form. Before losing power for the foreseeable future, Democratic Socialists passed the following as a Christmas present to all Americans:

•   They grabbed full control of your food supply via their so-called food safety act
•   They forced our US Military to focus on Gay Rights instead of training soldiers and winning wars
•   They spent a trillion more in money we don’t have, all on their leftist agenda
•   They seized control of the Internet
•   They passed Russia’s START treaty making certain that America is no longer the superpower
•   They expanded labor union powers to prop up corrupt unions in every state at every level
•   They warned all Americans to “expect bad news” in the coming days, as they have allowed our enemies to live among us and cannot prevent coming terror strikes on US soil, in the war on terror they say doesn’t actually exist
•   They made sure that taxpayers were going to pay people not to work for up to 36 months
•   And they only extended tax breaks for employers and investors for another year, making sure that private sector job creation remains stagnate
•   They put a career military officer in Leavenworth for asking who his Commander-in-Chief really is
•   In short, they have done more to destroy this country in the last week than Bin Laden has in his entire miserable life – That’s one hell of a week! They could not have done it without the consent of Republicans and that’s the real story here…

Merry Christmas! Obama is following Hugo Chavez in seizing control of this nation.

It’s a good thing people were too busy shopping to notice, otherwise, people would be storming Washington DC with pitchforks and torches instead of caroling this December… or would they?

Republicans could have stopped all of it, if they had wanted to. Instead, they chose to let Obama, Pelosi and Reid ram all of it through in the so-called lame-duck session so that they could blame Democrats for passage of this anti-American onslaught.

People who think the Republicans they elected in November will shift the direction of this train wreck in 2011 are in for even more surprises. Everything they were elected to stop just passed congress with one exception, amnesty for millions of illegal aliens.

Since Democratic Socialists couldn’t quite get that one passed, they are taking a new tact. They plan on erasing US borders altogether.

Had Republicans wanted to stop any of it, they could have. They didn’t!

Meanwhile, White House resident Barack Obama is so proud of his lame-duck accomplishments that he has headed off for holiday vacation in sunny Hawaii, where those anticipated Christmas terror strikes are a little less likely.

Our nation’s founders are rolling over in their graves. Today’s American’s are ill-suited for freedom and liberty. They are just too busy to even notice, much less react to the hourly anti-American assault on everything the founding fathers handed us only a couple hundred years ago.

Maybe Americans will fight for freedom when they have nothing else left to lose. I have been expecting a huge public revolt for years now and so far, the people don’t seem too concerned with the loss of every freedom they have taken for granted all of their self-centered lives.

I’m writing this column two days before Christmas, but I won’t release it until after Christmas, when hopefully, some will take a few minutes to read between the holidays and notice that their nation was stolen while they were busy shopping.

Here’s hoping for a new year when Americans might wake up and engage in taking their nation back from the political ruling class, all of whom mean us harm! 

About the author:  J.B. Williams is  a featured writer with www.PatriotsUnion.org.

As the Federal Government breaks specific limitations of authority outlined within the Constitution and spends to the point of endangering the currency, it falls to the states and our individual families to decide the future.

In mass November 2, 2010 Americans sent to Washington stark repudiation of Socialist governance.  Maybe these patriots will stand without equivocation and return the Federal Government to its Constitutional role, but on the issue of the limitation of free speech embodied by so-called “Net Neutrality,” both Congress and the Courts opposed it, but the Federal Communications Commission did it anyway.  Consequently, individual liberty in America is under attack – again.  It’s time to talk.

Years ago at an international policy conference featuring Georgia Anne Geyer at the University of Tulsa, I had an opportunity to speak at length with an economist from the European Union.  One of his favorite points was that Europeans were amused that Americans thought of their national economy as one system.  He asserted that it was at least three economies if not more.

Of course there has been global commerce since mankind learned how to build boats and camels found useful for hauling stuff, but that is not economy.  That’s simply commerce.  I suggest there are more like eight American economies (two each on the ease and west coast, the gulf coast, the Great Lakes, mid-central, and western), but other students of economics may disagree.  Regardless of how many, these economic regions are separate economic communities and they vary greatly in their current economic health.  All economy is regional.

Oklahoma is not besieged with over-priced housing or massive foreclosures.  Experienced with oil industry boom and bust cycles and without a large criminal class demanding other people’s property they can not afford, Oklahoma is much better equipped to recover our economic growth despite unfunded pensions and other state government based financial liabilities.

The question becomes; what responsibility do Oklahomans shoulder for the lack of fiscal maturity if not lack of sanity in California or New York?  The short answer is not a dang dime, but the tyranny of bi-coastal congestion promoted by media propagandists in behalf of socialism and crony capitalism might propel us there and threaten all our forefathers fought and died to build.  

Here is a thought for a new Amendment to the United States Constitution:  Any state that declares or is declared insolvent must, before receiving Federal bailout funds, revert to its original controlling document.  Thus removing all other legislation, an insolvent state would have a fighting chance to balance their own budgets.  Let them add back what they can afford after such a default if necessary.  Only services and obligations outlined within a state’s constitution would continue at the “reboot” and, in emergency, be supported by out-of-state taxpayer money. 

More fundamental conversations expected around many Christmas dinner tables this year will focus on the recent Federal Court decision that Obamacare is unconstitutional on its face.  The Commerce Clause of the Constitution addresses “interstate” commerce not individual commerce.  While government can require insurance to drive on public highways, that is totally different from requiring someone not utilizing public facilities or services to purchase a product or be penalized. 

The bottom line is that if the Supreme Court allows Obamacare, then America is no longer a nation of free citizens.

President Barack Hussein Obama Jr. is an anti-colonialist as he outlined in “Dreams from My Father.”  As Dinesh D’Souza details in his book “The Roots of Obama’s Rage,” Barack Obama Sr. was a Luo tribesman who grew up in Kenya and studied at Harvard and abandoned his own two year-old son to pursue Marxist revolution in Kenya.  He was a polygamist, a regular drunk driver (killing others, causing his own legs to be amputated due to injury and, in 1982 killing himself) who believed “we need to eliminate power structures that have been built through excessive accumulation” proposing that the state confiscate private land and raise taxes with no upper limit saying further, “theoretically there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed.”

Of course President Obama claims he is not an ideologue, but he lied about most everything during the campaign and, more to the point from his background, in Obama’s world “ideologues” are the ones with lit fire bombs in their hands.

International Financier George Soros caused the economic collapse of four national economies and America (the big prize) is fifth on his list.  From the preponderance of public evidence, Soros’ non-profit organizations seek to end American sovereignty.  Soros has claimed to be god and says he loves the feeling.  He is the primary funding source for the majority of leftist/socialist/communist efforts in America over the last decade significantly including media.  He is the money behind the coup d’état executed by the Democrat Socialist Party (formerly the Democratic Party) figure-headed by now-President Obama.

Before the reader jumps to a conclusion that this writer is a conspiracy nut, know that for the last seven years I worked as a private employee for county government.  A writer and public information manager during that time, the obvious I can not ignore – while Congress may not read the bills they are passing, some son-of-a-gun with my skill sets authored each bill.  The primary think-tank generating written material for President Obama’s administration is the Center for American Progress; a George Soros funded and influenced organization.

Maybe our newly elected Congress can right this ship of state, but it is sinking at the moment.  Again, it falls to each state to look after its own and to each family and then to each individual.  To quote a television theme song: “What ya going to do when they come for you?”

As for me and my house, our position is direct:  “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (which we interpret as personal property) – That to secure these Rights, governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

My entire life, I believed all responsible American leaders stood strong in support of those concepts, but in public hearings before the U.S. Senate now-confirmed Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan refused to acknowledge to Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn that citizens had any rights before and or surpassing government degree.  Her appointment by President Obama is significantly revealing and one root of growing government distrust.

This 2011 New Year Holiday consider the facts facing our future, talk with family and decide if our current Administration or, even greater, the form of Government has become destructive of Liberty.  This is not a “game changing” consideration.  The game was changed by George Soros and his minions including Barack Hussein Obama.  The question is what are we going to do about it?  

It’s a conversation starter we are overdue to engage don’t you think?

About the author:
An individualist, David Arnett has long argued that government is incompetent if not corrupt at the Federal level, put his life on the line to fight corruption on the state level and questioned almost every “authority” in Tulsa at some point.  Passionately belligerent in the demand for equal treatment under the law, Arnett fought for racial integration of Tulsa Public Schools and equal rights as youth liaison to the Tulsa Community Relations Commission before he graduated from high school.  Arnett is an equal opportunity aggravator.

You are encouraged listen and welcome to call-in between 4 and 6 pm each Saturday on The David Arnett Show on AM 740 and FM 102.3 news talk KRMG to discuss this story and others.  You may also register free on Tulsa Today and comment below.  E-mail of news tips are welcome to editor@tulsatoday.com or by using the contact form on this site.

One of the most respected independent voices on Oklahoma policy from a Conservative perspective, Brandon Dutcher, has proven once again why so many love him. 

On his blog, Dutcher wrote, "Here’s what we know from recent news reports surrounding the Tulsa Public Schools (TPS). The top bureaucrat is earning more than a quarter-million dollars annually to oversee a school district in which half of the sixth-graders can’t read at grade level, but which did manage to borrow $100,000 from your grandchildren to secure a federal earmark for campus police officers who will attempt to enforce the law in the very district that is openly flouting the law."

Now that’s funny.

So when your friends wonder why you pulled your children out of public education – here is one answer.  The most important reason, however, is the quality of education or the lack thereof. 

In the 12 years I worked with Ed Kelley, now editor at The Oklahoman, I often heard him say: “The Legislature can do, maybe, one big thing every session.”

Whether or not that is exactly right, it’s apt shorthand from a seasoned and observant journalist.

Which brings us to the year ahead, particularly the upcoming session of the Oklahoma state Legislature.

For the first time in state history, Republicans will control every statewide elected position. Governor Mary Fallin will work with both the blessing and the bane of having the House of Representatives and the Senate in the hands of the Grand Old Party.

In the past two weeks, there have been news stories and online commentaries featuring a handful of conservatives claiming that House Speaker-elect Kris Steele is not “true blue” enough. They point to a couple of issues they define as central to conservative governance.  

Steele’s critics have ranged from respectful to decidedly not, including a couple of lawmakers.

Members of any majority caucus in any legislative body will rarely agree on everything. They won’t always see eye-to-eye, and that’s nothing new.

Some rumblings are matters of principle from men like Rep. Mike Reynolds of Oklahoma City. In a couple of cases, however, the legislators complaining the loudest are trying to change the subject
— away from their own problems with the law or with ethics strictures.

Kris Steele is a highly committed conservative Republican who is pro- family, pro-life, pro-gun and pro-God. His voting record proves it and he does not have to prove his bona fides to anyone.

His move to trim staff at the state House created consternation, leading most to miss the fact that in making such cuts now he is leading by example in what will undoubtedly be a contentious new round of state agency budget reductions.

Republicans are really and truly in charge of Oklahoma government for the first time in history, and they do have something to prove: That they can govern.

Of all the themes that dominated this historic election year, the economy and jobs were paramount. Mary Fallin’s campaign could not have been clearer about her focus on “jobs, jobs, jobs” – and voters liked that clarity.

With the possible exception of an envisioned new round of anti- smoking legislation, Steele’s priorities so far — for that matter the same can be said for incoming Senate Pro Tempore Brian Bingman – resonate well with Fallin’s executive “to do” list.  These three seem right in the middle of the mainstream of that “leave me alone” tide that animated the conservative surge of 2010.

Not to slight Governor-elect Fallin or Senator Bingman, in this interim period Steele is most clearly articulating what might be called “one big thing” – right-sizing a government that is entering its third straight fiscal year with a significant gap between revenues and spending projections. Last Thursday (December 2), he empowered a staunch conservative to guide a fresh and vigorous round of scrutiny of government programs and expenditures.

That’s not all. Steele is talking nearly every day about disastrously- out-of-whack government pensions and retirement systems, education reforms across the board, taxes and budgets and Corrections reform.

Each of these concerns include moral components, to be sure, yet what unites them thematically is his focus on the size, scope, efficiency and legitimacy of state government actions past, present and future.

Early in my tenure in Washington, D.C., Ronald Reagan clashed with U.S. Rep. Philip Crane, who had opposed him for the Republican nomination in 1980.

As usual, the amiable former actor with a steely interior defused tension, at least somewhat, with a humorous jab at his friend Crane.  Explaining his comparative moderation one day, Reagan quipped to reporters: “Sometimes the right hand doesn’t know what the far right hand is doing.”

Let peace reign in the House of Oklahoma conservatism. And let Steele be steel.

Note: Tulsa Today’s Capitol Editor,  McGuigan is also editor of CapitolBeatOK (an OKC based online news website) and senior editor at The City Sentinel, a weekly newspaper.