Dr. Coburn on passage of Senate immigration bill

By Staff Report

Senator Tom Coburn

Senator Tom Coburn

U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) released the following statement today regarding the passage of S. 744:

“This bill is a historic missed opportunity for the United States Senate.  It is a $48 billion border stimulus package that grants amnesty to politicians who want to say they are securing the border when in fact they are not.  I very much wanted to support an immigration reform proposal that balances our fundamental American values of legal immigration and the rule of law.  Sadly, this bill fails that test.

“Speaker Boehner and House Republicans now have all the justification they need to start over.  I would encourage the House to use President Reagan’s view of immigration as a blueprint.  In his farewell address Reagan described what he saw when he talked about America as the ‘shining city on the Hill.’

Continue reading →

10th Circuit overturns denial of Hobby Lobby injunction

By David Arnett, Publisher

ReligiousFreedomWASHINGTON, DC – Today, the en banc 10th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a major victory to Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., by reversing and remanding the district court’s erroneous ruling.

“Today marks a milestone in Hobby Lobby’s fight for religious liberty,” said Kyle Duncan, General Counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. “This is a tremendous victory not only for the Green family and for their business, but also for many other religious business owners who should not have to forfeit their faith to make a living.”

Oklahoma Attorney General Pruitt said, “This is an incredible win for Hobby Lobby, Oklahoma and every state that joined in the fight to protect our religious freedom. The health care law’s mandate requiring religious groups to violate their lawful beliefs and practices directly goes against the ideals that our Founding Fathers set in place to protect Americans from an overbearing and intrusive government,” Attorney General Scott Pruitt said. “The Court agreed with Oklahoma’s argument that the religious freedoms of Hobby Lobby and the Green Family are protected by federal law, and that they should be granted an injunction to stop implementation of the contraception mandate.”
Continue reading →

IRS auditor reaffirms conservatives were targeted

By Staff Report

InternalRevenueServiceThe IRS‘ auditor told Congress this week that it stands by its determination that conservative groups were uniquely singled out for special scrutiny by the tax agency, rebutting Democrats’ contention that liberal groups also were targeted according to the Washington Times.

The Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration (TIGTA) sent a letter Wednesday to congressional Democrats telling them that while several liberal groups may have gotten extra scrutiny, the IRS didn’t necessarily target those — but it did do so for conservative groups.
Continue reading →

Krauthammer: The ‘Inevitable Seed’ of nationalized gay marriage

By Staff Report

Charles Krauthammer

Charles Krauthammer

Columnist and Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer yesterday claimed the Supreme Court rulings on the Defense of Marriage Act and Prop 8 will “inevitably lead to overturning all the laws in all the states that disallow gay marriage.”

“The Kennedy opinion says that states are sovereign on the issue of marriage and thus the federal government cannot impose its definition on the states,” he explained. “If Kennedy had stopped with that, it would have been a conservative decision. It would have been essentially a way of saying, ‘the status quo prevails.’”
Continue reading →

History discovered during restoration

By Staff Report

OkCapitalFixtures1Nearly one hundred years after beautifully ornate light fixtures were installed in the Oklahoma Senate Chamber 11 of the original 20 fixtures have been discovered in attic space above the sixth floor of the Capitol.  The artifacts were discovered during the ongoing historic restoration of a large conference room on the fifth floor that had been divided up into small offices decades ago.  In connection with the project, Senate Information Systems Director John Warren was moving computer cables above the fifth floor ceiling and happened to notice an opening to a long-forgotten part of the attic.  That led to the discovery of the fixtures.

Continue reading →