Sunday, December 27, 2020

The First Amendment is Once Again Under Attack and Fundamentalists and Politics

 
 
IN THIS ISSUE:
  
 
 
 
 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
Click on the link below to donateand tell us what you want your donation used for in the comment section
 
 
December 27th 2020 Newsletter
 
 
 
 
Support Donald Trump
Call Both Senators and your U.S. Congressman ASAP
 
January 6th is the do or die day for the rule of law and the future of our children. The House and Senate meet in joint session that day for the opening of the electoral ballots and the counting and declaration of the next President and Vice President. Yet with the massive election fraud in five or six states the vast majority of the country is painfully aware of the voter fraud that flipped the vote in those states.
 
The Supreme Court has refused to enter the fight, preferring that the state legislators deal with this as is their right to de-certify an election and substitute their own slate of electors for Trump. Likewise a single U.S. Congressman or Senator can object and throw the two bodies into separate meetings for discussion, debate, and declaring a contested election which throws the selection of the President into the House with one vote per state and into the Senate where there are two votes per state. As Republican states outnumber the Democrat states, Trump and Pence win.
 
Yet as we have seen with Justice Roberts, the Never Trumpers are out there including Mitch McConnell and many others.
 
Please call both of the two Senators and call your own Congressman and demand that they stand up and object and that a failure to do so means the loss of your vote and your support and a primary challenge. Be sure and give your address and zip code and political affilation. Call till you get an answer and rather than get frustrated if you keep getting a busy signal consider that evidence that many others are expressing their outrage. Be polite but be firm, support Trump and the rule of law or be prepared to pay a heavy price for cowardice.
 
James Lankford U S Senate
 
WEBSITE: here
 
PHONE:
(202) 224-5754 (Washington D.C.)
(918) 581-7651 (Tulsa)
(405) 231-4941 (OKC)
 
 
James Inhofe U S Senate
 
WEBSITE: here
 
PHONE:
(202) 224-4721 (Washington D.C.)
(918) 748-5111 (Tulsa)
(405) 208-8841 (OKC)
(580) 234-5105 (Enid)
(918) 426-0933 (McAlister)
 
 
KEVIN HERN's Website: CD 1
Phone:
(202) 225-2211 (Washington, D. C.)
(918) 935-3222 (Tulsa)
 
 
MARKWAYNE MULLIN'S Website: CD 2
Phone:
(202) 225-2701 (Washington, D.C.)
(918) 423-5951 (McAlister)
(918) 687-2533 (Muskogee)
(918) 283-6262 (Claremore)
 
 
 
FRANK LUCAS'S Website: CD 3
 
Phone:
(202) 225-5565 (Washington, D.C.)
(405) 373-1958 (Canadian County)
 
 
TOM COLE'S Website: CD 4
Phone:
(202) 225-6165 (Washington, D.C.)
(405) 321-7369 (Norman)
(580) 357-2131 (Lawton)
(580) 436-5375 (Ada)
 
 
 
 
Christian Fundamentalism and Politics
 
America was built upon tolerance and the rights of others to go about their business and life as they saw fit. The founding fathers were not that far removed from the endless wars of the 16th and 17th centuries and pilgrims coming to a savage new world to escape religious persecution. The founding fathers were more deists than Christian, believing in a higher power more than the “Christian” theology that preached the only path to heaven was through Jesus. Some were indeed Christians and some of their wives were Christian but the majority of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were written by God fearing men more aligned with Deism than Christianity and it shows in their separation of Church and state.
 
Why? Because they had seen earlier generations risk all to avoid a state religion that persecuted all that refused their version of Christian doctrine. They were anxious to not repeat those mistakes in government. Allowing the freedom to choose and to debate choices in order to have a better government was paramount.
 
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. “
 
Right there in the First Amendment, ahead of speech, the press, the right to assemble, or to petition for change. Now uniformity in a society leads to better harmony as more think alike than not yet at what cost? I think the founders knew this above all and realized that a chaotic stable of religious theories was a lesser evil than attempting to hammer all through one mold.
 
Still there was friction. The Quakers, later the Mormons, friction became bloodshed and intolerance led to migration further west in the case of the Mormons. Society changed and around the turn of the 20th century the Fundamentalists emerged, those willing to fight for the “fundamentals”, the aspects of Christianity that they felt were both threatened and immutable. These folks felt that the Bible was infallible, that the Biblical stories were to be taken literally, that Christ was born of a virgin, that Christ died and was reborn, and that Christ died upon the cross for our sins which atoned for their sins both past and future.
 
In the fundamentalist mind the Bible was under attack by logic, reason, and science. Archaeological discoveries were poking holes in Bible stories, science was beginning to explain disease and the physical world, and the explosion of printed matter coming down in cost and up in variety spread knowledge where ignorance once ruled. Modern life was loosening the chains upon people and how they thought. Between 1840 and 1920 Historical Criticism was developed, an investigation into the Bible to understand the “world behind the text.” Comparing stories in the Bible against each other or against contemporary texts surviving from the time the Bible was compiled was a search for both deeper meaning and as a defense against modernism undermining the Bible.
 
It wasn't long before the fundamentalists had become to rigid or radical for a good number within their own ranks and Evangelicalism split off, a group that described themselves as the more rational and moderate branch. The Presbyterian and Baptists were quite concerned with the rise of radical fundamentalist theory so it must have been a relief to see some abandon the theory or it could have been troubling that any moderating minds had left.
 
By the 1970's fundamentalism had established itself deeply in the Southern states of the U.S., the 1925 Scopes Trial showcased the deep divide that Darwinism and other scientific theories and facts had generated in society, especially around the idea that life evolved. As science and research began peeling back the mysteries of life these fundamentalists felt increasingly under attack. Little Timmy didn't die because God wanted to call him home; he died from a microbe that caused a disease. So the split widened between the more rational and moderate Christians and those that looked at every new discovery as an attack on Christianity.
 
Then in the sixties a series of court decisions removed religion from schools. By the eighties the far right religious groups were forming, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, and Pat Robertson had increasing leverage over politics. Yet on a national level and even on a state level their support was rarely in double digit ranges. People simply had evolved past relying upon pastors and priests interpreting the Bible and began relying upon their own view of how government and life interacted.
 
 
Since the eighties the far right religious folks have stagnated. Never enough to have a real impact on a general election, they did have some impact in primaries where enough of their people would get out to vote. On occasion they rise up like they did in 2019 where OCPAC and a group called The City Elders announced a coalition and an effort to impose a religious test upon those running for office. OCPAC was to be the “political arm” of the coalition yet that partnership sputtered out and died a quick death. OCPAC had been ran by an abolitionist that ran OCPAC as a campaign office for Gubernatorial candidate Dan Fisher and OCPAC had rapidly lost both numbers and clout.
 
An executive for a janitorial company in OKC named Bob Linn took over at the low point and many had hoped for a return to the center. What happened was a weekly blog that dived deeper and deeper into radical fundamentalism and instead of coming to the center of American and Oklahoman politics it degenerated into more of a church than a political action committee.
 
Sadly politics is barely mentioned anymore in the weekly blog/newsletter and the stories center around how it is the other churches leading America into communism and destruction. Monday's edition of the OCPAC newsletter spends a good amount of time making that obvious. Below is most of the article that focused on attacking other Christian groups. I have underlined the most troublesome sentences.
 
 
 
 
 
“This film exposes shocking developments throughout the entire breadth of 21st century Christendom. Protestants, Catholics, and the Orthodox church have been infiltrated. Our beloved evangelistic organizations have seen wolves in sheep's clothing rise to the very top.
 
The head of the Russian Orthodox church is a KGB agent. The Pope is a Marxist. The evangelical church has been deeply penetrated. That penetration goes to the very top of institutions we thought were rock solid. This includes the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), the Southern Baptist Church, the former Campus Crusade for Christ (now, CRU), and many others.
 
The evidence is iron clad. I was on the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ and worked with founder and President, Dr. Bill Bright. Sadly, I have been made aware that Marxist concepts have become pervasive at their national conferences over the past few years. It is both clear and stunning. Marxist language is now a part of their programs on campuses throughout the nation.
 
I've also spent many years in the Southern Baptist Church. In addition, my wife and I founded a PCA church in our living room many years ago. In spite of my close relationship with all these institutions, the evidence of their fall from Godliness is overwhelming.
 
In the near future, I plan to focus on the developments within the organization I once knew as Campus Crusade for Christ.
 
It is important to expose these enemies who have crept into Christendom. These have entered our Christian institutions in an effort to destroy the Church. The "gospel" they promote will bear no fruit. Marxist ideology mixed with Bible verses will produce neither salvation nor the health, peace, and prosperity of civilizations.
 
Marxist concepts like social justice, critical race theory and the myths inherent in the concept of "white privilege" are ungodly, contrary to all of the Scriptures, and represent evil and destructive weapons designed to destroy the church, the family, and societies. They are drenched in narcissism and hatred.
 
These ideas, now permeating most of our seminaries and academic institutions (beginning in elementary school), will soon destroy the nation if we do not expose them for the evil they represent.”
 
I think that most of our readers will agree that social justice, critical race theory, and white privilege are damaging theories and if left unchecked would continue the destruction of America. Where Bob Linn and OCPAC loses most of us is in their statements to demonize the vast majority of Christian Churches. More troublesome is the idea that they and they alone have a lock on what is truth and what is fiction. You can kind of understand their thought process, in their world the Bible is the end all authority and as they believe they are God's chosen ones, who else can share this burden?
 
But, attacking Churches like this is beyond intolerant. It is divisive, it is arrogance and pride. It is madness to scream that only your group has the way forward and yet OCPAC allows this to be printed in their name.
 
If there is a litmus test for how Christian a person is it must surely be how much love they spread and how little judgment and condemnation they do. Yet the Bob Linns of this world spread division and hate instead of tolerance and understanding. No one is saying that your Church has to allow gays to attend, the right of association is still here. No one is saying that you have to believe as another believes, that is other than Charlie Meadows, Bob Linn, and OCPAC because they consider you and your Church to be evil if your beliefs are not their beliefs.
 
A battle is about to rage for the soul of America both at the national level and at the state level. The never Trumpers and the radical abolitionists associated with OCPAC and any other abolitionist group needs firmly repudiated and solid Christians need to be placed in power at the GOP Party level and then the power of the Party needs used to push the legislature to restore common sense and good government. If we fail to do this expect massive tax hikes this year as the race to fund the Medicare expansion and to cover the losses due to the pandemic is used to stampede the conservative legislators into supporting tax hikes or exemption closings. Expect a sales tax upon all services including mortgages, insurance payments, and every other un-taxed transaction under the sun.
 
 
 
 
The First Amendment is Being Attacked
 
An Alleged Child Molester is Attempting
to Force the Release of
Journalist Source Material
 
Last year was the beginning of the end for Wagoner County Commissioner James Hanning's political career and perhaps the beginning of the end of his liberty to walk around freely. During a deposition on an embezzlement lawsuit that was counter filed against him his step daughter was deposed as she had worked part time in the office of the rental management company. At the very end of the deposition a simple question was asked: “Why do you not get along with your stepfather James Hanning?”.
 
The answer was a shock, Commissioner James Hanning was accused of molesting the woman in some manner starting when she was in grade school and ending once she left the home in her later teen years. The lawyer for Commissioner Hanning was one Eric Jordan, a sitting assistant D.A. n Wagoner County and later in Creek County. Jordan stopped the questioning, saying that this was evidence of a crime and he questioned the then 26 year old woman at length. Ending with “You might want to seek some counseling for this.”
 
Months later with zero movement on the issue, STP ran a story which broke the issue open and the very next day the local D.A. for Wagoner County, Jack Thorpe, sent a letter to the OSBI asking that an investigation be opened and announcing that he was turning things over to the Attorney General for a conflict prosecutor to be appointed.
 
About one year later and not a thing has happened. Commissioner James Hanning is still in office and other than the original interview with the victim not a single thing has been done or said.
 
So STP was surprised to hear that a lawyer representing Commissioner James Hanning had issued a subpenoa for a recording, one between ADA Eric Jordan and a fellow attorney discussing the Commissioner Hanning case. At the beginning of the embezzlement case Commissioner Hanning and a bevy of other county officials or toadies began an effort to have Paulsen railroaded to prison on false charges in order to prevent him from fighting back. On the recording Jordan first admits that he knew the original charges against Paulsen were bogus and the “victim” was so crazy as to be unbelievable. Here is a link to the first story we wrote about the recordings.
 
In the second story about the recordings at this link, Eric Jordan throws his client under the bus, after a long discussion on how the charges came to be filed against Tyler Paulsen with the following comment:
 
Eric Jordan: “...So that's how the ‘App to Accelerate’ got started in the first place. They didn't know about it until James gave him that. Yeah, that's it.”
 
Eric Jordan is referring to Commissioner James Hanning going down to the Adair city clerk's office and falsely informing them that Paulsen was not supposed to have gun rights. Remember that this is the same man that prosecuted Paulsen using a witness he knew was not to be believed on the very charges that Commissioner Hanning was falsely claiming stripped Paulsen of his gun rights.
 
Later in the tape Eric Jordan goes further, admitting that his client is pushing to get the innocent man prosecuted for a technicality on charges that he knows were unfounded:
Eric Jordan: 00:06:24 :
"Yeah. And so, anyway, moving forward. He doesn't have any authority over any prosecution of Tyler at all. He may think he does. He has none. And that shit’s going to that, that shit is dead.” …........ “We're fine. I think Tyler's going to be fine. There's no f*cking way he's going to prison for this cockamamie bullsh*t. Is it a technical violation? Yes. It's not a prison offense. “
 
Later in the conversation Eric Jordan emphatically agreed with this statement that was made:
 
““It's a bullshit move. I mean, what's he trying to do? Get a f*cking advantage to the litigation.”
 
A bit later in the conversation Eric Jordan made it clear that eight year old children coming forward with allegations of molestation are believed enough that the accused ends up at the police department.
 
Eric Jordan: 01:34:19 Yeah, but I’ve rarely, I've rarely come across a case except for people with major substance abuse problems or what have you. That if an eight-year-old child goes to them with an allegation like that, they ended up at the police department. So, I don't know. Again, I don’t know the history”
 
That makes it pretty clear that anyone other than political elite winds up facing charges if allegations of molestation are made.
 
A few seconds later Eric Jordan talks about if an eight year old could be believed. By this point apparently from Jordan's statements, Commissioner Hanning and his wife are claiming that the victim C is a pathological liar. The victim had said during deposition that she told many people about the molestation including within months after the first molestation, telling her mother about the allegations.
 
Eric Jordan: 01:34:45 Well if it's true, I mean all they do is tell me that she's a pathological liar, this, that and the other. But my only, my only retort to that, which I didn't say out loud is, really you're going to suggest that an eight year old girl’s a pathological liar, cause my experience has been that it would be an extreme rare occurrence that an eight year old girl would be a pathological liar. …..”
 
 
At the end of the conversation Eric Jordan is asked if it bothers him that Commissioner James Hanning might have helped railroad an innocent man:
 
It bothers, you would say, well, why it bothers me, a County commissioner. Now again, this is small, small areas, small town, and I've seen people get elected to positions and then all of a sudden, they think they have power. But as a, you know, a member of the law enforcement community, I'm going to tell you that whatever he did, if he did anything that spurned into action DA's offices in prosecuting Tyler, I'm going to ensure no matter what I have to do, but back channels since my office is not involved, but I will back channel it and ensure that nothing happens because it shouldn't. As a matter of principle, whatever his offense was, and it's a technical violation.”
 
And this was February 9th 2020 and as of today the charges remain against Paulsen despite the original prosecutor knowing the witness was innocent, and even after the original charges were dismissed due to lack of jurisdiction over the case after the Indian SCOTUS case blew up Oklahoma court decisions.
 
You will notice that in the original story we said that we were not releasing everything, just enough to prove the point and give officials the chance to clean up their own mess. The next week we gave a bit more hoping this will prod them to do the right thing. After that we let things cool down as another horrendous story on malicious prosecution was coming out of Wagoner County.
 
Now you have a recording where a sitting Assistant District Attorney throws his client under the bus, admitting that he forced a plea deal on an innocent man, then later sat back and did nothing while his boss D.A. Jack Thorpe allowed false charges to be filed against the same innocent man that claimed his gun rights had been revoked. Then the attorney admits that it was pretty clear that Commissioner James Hanning had a part in pushing the persecution and prosecution of an innocent man. Then the same ADA states that the molestation allegations should have been believed and a a police investigation started years ago.
 
And talk about wondering what color the sky is in his world, you have Commissioner James Hanning's attorney trying to force us to hand over the recordings and start the discussion all over again. After seeing the subpoena we called the silly attorney and told him no, we are not giving over the source of our story or the recording.
 
We are journalists and have protection from the First Amendment and from a state law that states unpublished material isn't discover-able as long as the material can be discovered from other sources. We told the lawyer that Eric Jordan might have a copy of the tape, he will certainly know who recorded the tape and who to ask for a copy or ADA Eric Jordan can just admit that he said what we reported that he said. No need to hear the tape if Jordan admits what he did. And Jordan cannot deny what he said without committing perjury.
 
Mr. lawyer wasn't happy and pressed for the tape. Our response was that it was a valuable property, that it was the kind of tape that could ruin lives so we used only what was needed to prod the officials to do their jobs, we do not want the entire tape out in public if it can be avoided.
 
But if pushed into releasing the tape there will be no reason not to use it ourselves. That caused some sputtering and exclamations of extortion. Hardly, here is the statute on extortion:
 

§21-1483. Extortion or attempted extortion

Every person who extorts or attempts to extort any money or other property from another, under circumstances not amounting to robbery, by means of force or any threat such as is mentioned in Section 1482 of this title, upon conviction, shall be guilty of a felony.
Fear such as will constitute extortion, may be induced by a threat, either:
1st. To do an unlawful injury to the person or property of the individual threatened, or to any relative of his or member of his family; or,
2nd. To accuse him, or any relative of his or member of his family, of any crime; or,
3rd. To expose, or impute to him, or them, any deformity or disgrace; or,
4th. To expose any secret affecting him or them.

 
The tape is our property, we have already discussed what Eric Jordan and Commissioner Hanning have done in exhaustive detail. We have already published stories that have detailed accusations from others in legal filed depositions and court filings, all public records. We are asking to be left alone, not asking for money or other property, just to be left alone and our property (the tape) unreleased.
 
An attorney has already volunteered and stepped forward to handle things for us, asking for the subpoena to be quashed under journalist privilege. Having an accused child molester that had been caught red handed trying to illegally prosecute an innocent man in order to hamper the innocent man from protecting his property from embezzlement trying to bully us into releasing the tape just isn't going to happen.
 
We can see the need if Commissioner Hanning is facing felony charges for child molestation and needs to not be surprised in court with the fact that his own attorney, a sitting ADA, had  thrown him under the bus. Even then Commissioner Hanning needs to go first to the source and get a copy before attacking the First Amendment by attacking a journalist. But if push comes to shove, the rest of the tape will provide for one hell of a story that many in Wagoner County would prefer not be told.
 
The first paragraph of this article has the link to the first story, here is the second story on the Paulsen/Hanning case, Then start reading the archived newsletters from this date forward and you will find more than a half dozen stories on this travesty of justice of a case.