Kirby Investigation Comes Out Monday - Did Randy Grau Involvement Get Covered Up?

Kirby…Kirby….Kirby.... Monday should bring the release of the investigative report on Rep. Dan Kirby and a caucus expulsion will likely occur shortly after.   It might take opening day to expel Kirby from the House proper as they aren't in session but it is a foregone conclusion. Speaker Charles McCall is especially embarrassed as Dan Kirby was one of his higher ranking lieutenants.   But while Kirby isn't the only legislator that has been carrying on like this, Kirby is going to be the poster boy for the shame and embarrassment heaped upon the House of Representatives and the unfortunate women that are unlucky enough to work there. Kirby testified for three and a half hours on Friday, facing the text messages from the second accuser which appeared to have been a consensual relationship, but one that also violated supervisor/employee guidelines and House rules.

Sooner Tea Party Looks Out For The Readers

Sooner Tea Party Looks out for Their Readers

Never be Surprised by another Capitol Scandal with our Handy Scandal Generator

Never again will you be left looking out of touch when a scandal erupts at the Capitol and you are surprised by what happened.   Introducing the Sooner Tea Party Scandal Generator.  It is very simple to use.  Merely print out the pictures below in groups of Legislators, Acts,  and "victims".  Create three 16" diameter cardboard wheels and place each of the picture of the legislators around the circumference, placing a nail or wood screw at the center to serve as an axle. Create two other cardboard wheels using the "Acts" and the "victims".

Hang all three wheels side by side and place another nail or wood screw in the wall at the top or bottom to serve as an indicator and give all three wheels a spin to generate an infinite number of scandals.  Feel free to add your own cast of legislators, victims, or acts.

"Investigating" sexual Harassment

Update on the Dog and Pony Show

"Investigating" Sexual Harassment at the Capitol

A second bimbo eruption hit Rep. Dan Kirby last week.   A long time legislative assistant named Carol Johnson came out of the wood work after accusing Kirby of demanding nude photos and making unwelcome remarks about her body and attire.  Hmmm, how many women keep nude photos of themselves on their phone I wonder…Johnson even admitted to attending a strip club with Kirby and another man in 2013.

Johnson showed up Wednesday afternoon and spoke before the House committee for over an hour, accompanied by the same attorney that obtained the $44,000 settlement for the previous Kirby accuser, Holly Bishop.

Johnson said she reported the harassment to the House HR department in September after "reaching a breaking point."  Kirby denies everything, saying it was a consensual relationship starting in 2012.   Kirby claims the first photos were sent unsolicited by Johnson.

Johnson claims she isn't doing this for money, then why hire an attorney?  The attorney is coyer about the issue, saying they will reassess things at a later date.  Johnson was put on paid leave in September after making her accusations against Kirby the assigned to another legislator before quitting in December for "family reasons".

Konawa Tea Party Presents Charlie Meadows

Konawa Tea Party

(4th) Tuesday January 24, 2017 

7:00 - 9:00 PM

Kennedy Library - The Dougan Room

Konawa School, 701 W South Street

This month's speaker:  Charlie Meadows formerly of OCPAC

America First

America First

Let's Hope Trump Fixes That

The other day I needed some plain butt hinges for a project, an item that isn't used much anymore in modern cabinet shops.   Butt hinges, silly name that it is, are called that because they are mortised into the wood, butting against the wood which carries much of the actual load rather than the screws.  Ten hinges off eBay from a Chinese seller, 99 cents total,  nine cents each…Okay, gonna cost a fortune to get the U.S., right?     Nope, only 63 cents to bring the hand sized package from the other side of the world.

Prior to 2010 you saw few Chinese sellers on eBay as the shipping made it unprofitable to sell small items.  The Chinese needed to sell to importers who stocked the product in the U.S. after arrival via shipping container (less than $2.00 per cubic foot shipping regardless of weight) so the American importer made a good profit margin from selling the cheap items.

That all changed thanks to a U.S. Post Office/China Post/eBay agreement that set up ePacket, subsidized incoming shipping from China and Hong Kong.  Were the deal two ways it could have been defended but here is an example of how it works:

Carol Bush Back Stabs Old Friend

Rep Carol Bush all but Called a Liar by a Long Time Friend

(Her Indian name is: A face that would make a train take a dirt road)

(Jamison Faught of the Muskogee Politico came up with this gem. )

Seems he had contacted the Tulsa Voice after the disastrous interview Bush gave last month where she attacked Christians, John Bennett, Donald Trump, and the entire Republican Caucus.  We had reached out through the article's comments section with no response.  Faught however received a response:

"Joshua Kline, editor of TheTulsaVoice.com, responded to Bush's claim with this statement:

"We stand by Barry Friedman's story, which presented Rep. Bush in her own words. Bush is welcome to contact us directly if she seriously believes she was misquoted or "taken out of context." We'd be happy to go over the audio with her and sort this whole thing out."

Recall that Barry Friedman was a friend of Rep. Carol Bush for around 35 years, a close friendship, you could tell by reading the article.   Bush was such an idiot that she ran her mouth though without a thought in the world about who she would offend or make into an enemy.  She was speaking from her heart though, pro abortion, pro assisted suicide, anti Christian, a complete and total traitor to the voters in that Republican primary that chose her over a decent conservative man.

Even better was seeing the true form of a liberal, Barry Friedman, destroying the very traitor that he helped put in place.  So intent of making a fool out of the average Oklahoman, the average Christian, and all that they look up to and respect.  All we can say is "Slick move, exlax.)

House Staff Attorneys Can't Handle The Job?

 A Letter from a Reader:

Certainly glad the taxpayers have such deep pockets.  I think I can count 12 well compensated House staff attorneys off the top of my head. Apparently that isn't good enough and they have to spend additional taxpayer funds to hire outside counsel ?

Jennifer Shockley

Sue Ann Derr

Mark Harter

Grace Shelton

Andrea Merton

Angela Michael

Erin Kennedy

John McPhetridge

Ryan Bair

Jeff Hubbard

Joel Kintsel

Rick Rose

 

Is House Leadership Breaking Federal Law?

Is House Leadership Breaking Federal Law?

While discussing the secretive investigating committee formed by House Leadership over on a Facebook group called Sooner Politics we must have touched a sore nerve as the Vice Chairman of the committee showed up and politely tried to tell us that things were fine, that secrecy was demanded by federal and state law, and that the dirty old Democrats were making political hay out of the situation.

The Vice Chair, Kevin West,  assured all of us that everything was fine and as above board as possible.  In return we asked him to reply specifically, point by point, to Rep. Perryman's list of objections.  The discussion which you can read at this link,  went on for the better part of a day and even Floor Leader Rep. Jon Echols was kind enough to reply to questions.

Rep. West first brought up the EEOC, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and it was his opinion as well as House Leadership that they were bound by confidentiality rules and laws through the EEOC.  But both are wrong, House Leadership cannot hide behind this law.   Here is what the EEOC says about privacy in investigations:

"An employer should make clear to employees that it will protect the confidentiality of harassment allegations to the extent possible. An employer cannot guarantee complete confidentiality, since it cannot conduct an effective investigation without revealing certain information to the alleged harasser and potential witnesses. However, information about the allegation of harassment should be shared only with those who need to know about it. Records relating to harassment complaints should be kept confidential on the same basis.

A conflict between an employee's desire for confidentiality and the employer's duty to investigate may arise if an employee informs a supervisor about alleged harassment, but asks him or her to keep the matter confidential and take no action. Inaction by the supervisor in such circumstances could lead to employer liability. While it may seem reasonable to let the employee determine whether to pursue a complaint, the employer must discharge its duty to prevent and correct harassment. One mechanism to help avoid such conflicts would be for the employer to set up an informational phone line which employees can use to discuss questions or concerns about harassment on an anonymous basis."

As you can see the employee that makes allegations has zero control as the employers 'responsibility is to prevent such acts from occurring in the future by promptly dealing with any case that comes up.

Next we were told that the EEOC did prevent any of the information from being released accompanied by a link to the EEOC website policy on privacy.  Which once followed and read provided the facts above and this to boot:

"The EEOC takes privacy seriously, but this does not mean that your information will stay private as this often depends on the employee and the choices made during the EEOC process.

If the employee decides to take part in a lawsuit either individually or within a class-action lawsuit, personal information could be made publicly available either within news stories or within the written judgement of the court.  Even if an employees name is not made public, many people post sensitive and personal details on social media to family and friends which can easily be made public online either on purpose or by mistake.

Once public, its difficult to remove the information from the internet. As with all online communication, only post information you don't mind sharing with a current or future employer."

The point being that while the EEOC would not release info, meaning the House itself might not be able to release info in an official EEOC case, once a legal case was filed everything became Open Records.  Not only that but we had also been told that this was not an EEOC investigation, that it was House members disciplining other House members.   Game, set, match…

But I had laid an Easter egg for Rep. West, remarking about the NLRB decisions and sure enough House Leadership came back with the very case I had hinted at, the Banner Decision which is summarized here and Rep. West said their privacy rulings followed his understanding of the Banner Decision.  

The major issue is that House Leadership, represented by Rep. West and Rep. Cockcroft, are demanding secrecy and forced the other representatives to sign contracts stating they will keep things confidential.   Both West and Echols were in our opinion, mistaken in thinking that they could demand confidentiality statements to be signed but in fact they violated a NLRB ruling called the Banner Decision, which delineated earlier NLRB decisions that prohibited employers from muzzling their employees.

The National Labor Relations Board covers both union and non union workers and  private workers.  Whether state, and federal workers are covered depends upon their organization meeting the requirements of this court decision   Smith v. Regional Transit Authority, __ F. Supp. 2d __ (E.D. La. May 10, 2013) [PDF] (whether the entity was created directly by the state, so as to constitute a department or "administrative arm" of the government, or whether it was merely administered by individuals responsible to public officials or the general electorate).

There is the legal basis for House Leadership to follow the Banner Decision.  Is this committee an "administrative arm of the state or is it administered by individuals responsible to the general electorate?  We all know the answer to that question, the committee is administered by individuals responsible to the general electorate.  And it was created by public officials, the Speaker of the House and the Majority leader who are themselves responsible to the general electorate.

But putting the legalese aside House Leadership responded that their secrecy meets the NLRB standards which it should even if the legislature was exempt.  If they are to meet this good standard they

are going to have to prove "objectively reasonable grounds for believing that the integrity of the investigation will be compromised without confidentiality" and that "feared consequences would likely occur without confidentiality." Too meet those goals there are five elements that MUST be met on objectively reasonable grounds:

• Witnesses need protection;

• Evidence is in danger of being destroyed;

• Testimony is in danger of being fabricated;

• There is a need to prevent a cover up; and

• A corruption of the investigation would likely occur without confidentiality.

So in effect neither the EEOC or any other state or federal law is going to prevent the release of the details of the investigation and House Leadership has almost certainly broken federal law by demanding secrecy where the NLRB has said no secrecy is allowed, or even to be suggested.  No one is advocating the release of the name of the young female page but Holly Bishop outed herself by hiring a lawyer and coercing money from House Leadership.

The investigation had better open to the public or the stench will never go away and Speaker Charles McCall will have impaled himself upon the stake of cronyism and cover up.

Did House Leadership Step On a Land Mine?

Will it Explode or Will it be Disarmed?

You'd have to be dead or from Beaver County not to have heard about the investigation of Representatives Kirby and Fourkiller concerning misbehaving with the females down at the Capitol.   New Speaker Charles McCall charged the Rules Committee to investigate sexual harassment claims, wrongful termination claims, and a settlement agreement made by outgoing Speaker Hickman.

Fourkiller was blindsided by the charges which allegedly center on a female page reporting that she "felt uncomfortable" about something Fourkiller had said or done, a very weak premises to announce a public investigation upon.    House Leadership claims that a formal sexual harassment claim was made to the House Human Resources Department in April of 2015.  Once the charges had been filed in 2015 Fourkiller said he was informed of the charges and apologized if he had inadvertently made the girl uncomfortable.  The incident appeared to have ended there with no payment made to the girl.

So a committee comprised of select Rules Committee met on Wednesday to adopt rules for the investigation and scheduled the meetings after announcing that the investigation will be done in secrecy.  At that point all hell broke loose.

First some background.   The House paid Kirby's former Executive Assistant Hollie Anne Bishop and her attorney $44,500.00 after  Bishop started legal action against the House claiming sexual harassment and wrongful termination.  Then Speaker Jeff Hickman claimed there was no sexual harassment but paid the settlement, claiming it was cheaper to settle than fight.  Hickman also authorized paying an outside attorney to represent the House in the matter despite having a dozen qualified lawyers on staff.

When the payments came to light Rep. Kirby resigned, then rescinded his resignation a few days later, which sources alleged was due to a drinking binge, although it was unclear if the resignation was made under the influence of alcohol or if it was the rescinding of the resignation made under the alleged conditions.   Cockcroft appears to be in a rush to settle things, which he calls a "distraction"

When Rep Cockcroft, the Chairman of the special investigating committee, announced the investigation had widened to include Rep. Fourkiller that set a lot of tongues wagging.  Below was Cockcroft's statement on the matter:

 "The Special Investigation Committee has been charged with not only investigating the settlement agreement, but – upon request by House Speaker Charles McCall and Minority Leader Scott Inman in his December 23 letter to the Speaker – the Committee has also been charged with investigating any and all formal complaints filed against current House members. There have been formal complaints filed against two current lawmakers: Rep. Dan Kirby, a Republican from Tulsa, and Rep. Will Fourkiller, a Democrat from Stilwell. These complaints will be thoroughly and fairly investigated by the Committee, and the results of those investigations will be made public.

The Committee will meet on Wednesday, January 11 to adopt the special rules that will guide the Committee's process and to schedule our next actions. In an effort to protect personal information of alleged victims and unelected witnesses, the Committee will conduct its investigation in private; however, the shared goal of all members of this investigation is to present our findings quickly and publicly so that Oklahomans can have confidence that the House of Representatives is a safe, indiscriminate place for employees to work."

There are several problems with this, and all are intertwined.

•  First, why did the investigation expand into a case nearly two years old?   One that had had no action other than the apology for any inadvertent uncomfortable actions by Fourkiller? 
• Second, despite the fact that House Minority Leader Scott Inman had asked about former Rep. Randy Grau's involvement in the Kirby/Bishop scandal in his open letter to House Leadership, why was former Rep. Randy Grau not included in the investigation, an obviously intentional act given that the statement says "any and all formal complaints filed against current" members will be investigated. Why are past House members exempted and why are any charges or allegations that have yet to be formally filed exempted.
• Third, given that Chairman Josh Cockcroft is one of former Rep. Randy Grau's best friends why was Cockcroft chosen to lead this effort?  Cockcroft, Grau, and Elise hall formed a little clique called "The Lunch Bunch" at the Capitol and while three votes sounds like a small number it is huge when you consider that most Speaker races are won or lost by less than three votes.
• Fourth, why did House Minority Leader Scott Inman drop off the face of the map after his very public and very aggressive press conference on December 23^rd?

At the Wednesday meeting Democrat Rep. David Perryman refused to sign a confidentiality contract that House Leadership demanded in order to be a part of the committee.  Upon his refusal to sign the agreement Perryman was forced to leave the room.  Perryman said that signing was unethical and that it would undermine his independence as a legislator.  House Leadership ordered that the investigation occur behind closed doors and that everything that happens at the meeting will be treated as confidential during the investigation but that some of the confidentiality rules will be lifted after the final report.

Perryman was willing to keep the sexual harassment claims confidential if required by state and federal law but the discussions of House Leadership's payment hidden in the bookkeeping under Housecleaning and Supplies should be made public.

We have yet to see a full roster of the committee but Perryman, Meloyde Blancett, and Steve Kouplen were to represent the Democrats, with the later two not making the Wednesday meeting due to the short notice given.  Rep Terry O'Donnell and Cockcroft are two of the Republican members.

 After Perryman made a fuss the initial meeting to set the rules was opened to the press and public, albeit after telling everyone that the meeting was private so many didn't attend as they weren't allowed to attend.  Once the rules were voted on and adopted Cockcroft ordered the others out of the room if they had not signed the confidentiality agreement.  House Minority Leader Scott Inman was not present and has not commented to the media despite many attempts by the media.

Meanwhile Speaker Charles McCall has hired outside counsel despite the dozen qualified and well paid attorneys on House Staff.  The attorney that had handled the initial Kirby/Bishop complaint turned out to be the wife of former House Staff head Chad Worthington, bringing up allegations of cronyism and tainting of the process after picking someone intimately tied into House Leadership.  The hiring of Worthington to handle the EEOC complaint of wrongful termination added another $23,651.38 to the $44,500.00 settlement to Bishop.  An additional $10,000.00 will be paid to another outside attorney, bringing the total to over $78,000.00 so far.

We said that questions were raised after all of this and the next article will shed light on all:

1. First, why did the investigation expand into the Fourkiller case that is nearly two years old?
2. Why was former Rep. Randy Grau not included in the investigation?
3. Why are past House members exempted?
4. Why are any charges or allegations that have yet to be formally filed exempted?
5. Chairman Josh Cockcroft is one of former Rep. Randy Grau's best friends why was Cockcroft chosen to lead this effort?
6. Fourth, why did House Minority Leader Scott Inman drop off the face of the map after his very public and very aggressive press conference on December 23^rd?

Another huge point is the legality of demanding confidentiality agreements and forcing legislators to sign the contracts or be excluded from the investigation.  That will also be addressed in another story in this issue.

Is House Minority Leader Scott Inman Being Blackmailed?

Picture shamelessly stolen from the Lost Ogle and yeah,

Bob, Carol, Ted, and Alice

Strange title, I know, but it was a comedy film in the sixties about two couples, one of which had the husband admit to an affair, then coming home early after a business trip and catching his wife in bed with the tennis pro.   Both agree that turnabout was fair play and discussed it with the other couple, causing the other man to admit to an affair, causing the other wife to demand a wife swapping foursome.  Pretty sordid even for the time so the film didn't delve into shall we say "details".

But the name of the film fits this current scandal like a glove, musical beds at the Capitol, with everyone appearing so perverted and corrupt that anything might happen.   And what did happen might explain the six major questions left by the previous article.

1. Why was Democrat Representative Fourkiller thrown under the bus?  Basically in our opinion Scott Inman needed a sacrificial lamb as it appears it was either him or someone else that had to share the pain that Rep. Kirby was about to be subjected too. More on that a bit further down.
2. Why was former Rep. Randy Grau not included in the investigation? A better question was why was Grau brought up by Democratic Minority leader Scott Inman in the first place? The woman that hit the $44,500 jackpot, Hollie Bishop, had worked for Rep. Randy Grau before Grau left the House. Grau had announced in April of 2016 that he wouldn't run for re-election, stunning many that knew him well as he had only served six years of the possible 12 years. Grau's excuse at the time was to spend more time with his hospitalized grandfather, his two sons, and focus on his law practice. The real reason is alleged to be that Grau's wife, Renee Grau, had pushed him against the wall shortly before he made his announcement and said leave the Capitol or she would be leaving him.

Bishop had joined the Capitol work force in January of 2013, working as Grau's legislative assistant, and according to wide spread rumors and at least one media report had a two or three year long affair with Grau.   Sources claim that Renee forced Grau to have Bishop reassigned in January of 2015 with Bishop being assigned to Rep. Dan Kirby who promptly began sexually harassing Bishop according to Bishop's formal complaint.  Two things stand out; first that Bishop and Grau were alleged to still be bumping uglies long past that time, with wifey Renee putting the ultimatum down in April of 2016.  Bishop, for whatever faults she might or not have, and if these rumors are true was smart enough not to be bumping uglies with both of the men and some would understand someone like Kirby being upset about being the boss but not getting what Grau had been getting.  Yuck…. I know…

Most would believe that if this were true, Grau for his part would not be pleased that Kirby could be horn dogging what Grau might think was his own personal cooter (no, not referring to Senator David Holt) . Does this excuse Rep. Kirby's alleged actions? Absolutely not, but it would certainly explain why the situation developed.  When Renee Grau allegedly laid down the law to Rep. Randy Grau he announced that he wouldn't seek a fourth term as state rep.  Grau must have had a change of heart about something because he filed for divorce from his wife on May 31^st of 2016, only to rescind the suit on June 3^rd.   Another three day drinking spree?  Did Kirby learn that from Grau?

Some sources claim that the Rep. Grau/Bishop affair was common knowledge and the subject of many a joke.  Other sources claim that Grau coached Bishop after Bishop was fired from her House duties in November of 2015, perhaps angling for a nice payoff from the House for alleging that Kirby harassed her.    One might believe that Bishop was a bit upset at being booted after filing a formal complaint against Kirby as well as being a little upset with Grau for not preventing the firing.   Whatever the truth is wifey Renee Grau  was said to have had enough in April of 2016 and allegedly issued her ultimatum.

So why should former Rep. Randy Grau be dragged into the investigation?  First as an alleged affair was common knowledge according to many sources, that would be against House rules for Grau to have an affair with a subordinate if it indeed happened. 

Second it shows the House being unresponsive to enforcing the rules which puts all women at the Capitol at risk (and some male pages over in the Senate but that is another story).  House Leadership's failure to act on even the allegations over a three year period could mean a frightfully large lawsuit.  And being responsive is what the EEOC is all about, the duty to prevent problems and too bad if some eggs get broken doing that

And third, if  the rumors and allegations were true and Bishop was actually putting out for Grau that left Bishop in a less secure position, or perhaps a better way to describe it is as more vulnerable to sexual harassment if she had developed a reputation  whether it was warranted or not. 

Finally if Grau had actually coached Bishop or assisted her in the filing or reporting of the sexual harassment claim then it brings up potential culpability in the settlement as his post as an assistant Floor Leader might have made him privy to details about the settlement or even advocating for a quick settlement without the others on the House Leadership team being aware of his alleged or potential conflict of interest.  Some on the team might have thought that they were paying Bishop off to save Rep. Grau, who really knows?

1. Why are past House members exempted?Other than the allegations against Grau, what other allegations or settlements are out there against House members that either termed out or decided not to run for office again?How many cases were filed and paid?  Including former or at least recent former House members would allow those cases, if any, to be cleaned up.
2. Why are any charges or allegations that have yet to be formally filed exempted from the investigation?This is in line with question #3, are there any charges or allegations in existence where formal charges have yet to be filed?  Opening things up to all allegations or charges would remove this fig leaf and clean out any perverts being protected.
3. Chairman Josh Cockcroft is one of former Rep. Randy Grau's close friends why was Cockcroft chosen to lead this effort?As Reps. Grau, Elise Hall, and Josh Cockcroft were best of friends, constant lunch buddies, and allies that negotiated with Speaker Charles McCall during the contentious Speaker Designate race in 2016 why would Cockcroft of all people be chosen to head an investigation that should rightly be investigating the allegations against Grau?  Was it to prevent Grau from being brought up after House Minority Leader Scott Inman mentioned Rep Randy Grau on December 23^rd?  The "Lunch Bunch", Grau, Hall, and Cockcroft, were initially on Rep. Leslie Osborn's team during the Speaker Designate race.Was covering up the alleged Grau/Bishop affair part of why they dumped Osborn and began supporting McCall?
4. And why did House Minority Leader Scott Inman drop off the face of the map after his very public and very aggressive press conference on December 23^rd?

The Inman  Connection:

 Inman is Alice

Always save the best for last, right?  Just like desert…

  Our opinion, factoring in all the unanswered questions and tying them into other commonly traded rumors and allegations is that House Minority Leader Scott Inman was blackmailed or coerced into A.) dropping out of the discussion on the sexual harassment investigation and B.) throwing Rep. Fourkiller under the bus to mitigate the damage to the Republican Caucus.   Indeed it might have well been "It's either you or Fourkiller"  or it could have been "I'll give you Fourkiller if you leave me alone."   Only a few know that truth but something happened.

And what was alleged to be in House Minority Leader Scott Inman's basket of dirty laundry?  An alleged affair between Inman and the daughter in law of a legislative assistant that worked for a certain Republican Representative.  We omit the name of the state rep for several reasons, one being that their current legislative assistant is a temp, and that if the rumors are indeed true the daughter in law could have or could not have yet crossed the line into a public person.   The rumors are widespread but as with all rumors a bit diverse.  Some claim that the woman was some sort of campaign worker for Inman, others claim that the woman was either running, belonging to, or working for an outside expenditure group.  If that latter part is true, that if the alleged affair was with a woman that was involved in independent expenditures supporting the Inman campaign, then she will be quickly rooted out and exposed and potentially even  prosecuted for campaign law violations as few would believe that there was no campaign collusion between bouts of bumping uglies.

What the rumors do agree upon is that there was an alleged affair and that the mother in law of the woman openly talked about it amongst the other legislative assistants or at least among a few and nature took its course.   Some rumors claim the mother in law became upset with the woman, some say she was merely boasting, and yeah, it would be a queer mother in law that boasted about her son being cuckolded.  But hey, Bob, Carol, Ted, and Alice is alive and well at the State Capitol.

None of the above is hard fact, much of it is likely rumors that are half true or partly true, only a few actually know.  But what we do know for a fact is that on December 23^rd House Minority Leader Scott Inman was a raging bull:

"The taxpaying citizens of the state of Oklahoma should not have to foot the bill for sexual misconduct," said Oklahoma House Minority Leader Scott Inman Friday.

"At a Capitol news conference, Inman said the Democratic Caucus was "shocked and appalled" to read news reports earlier in the week about allegations that money had been quietly authorized to pay a sexual harassment settlement to a female legislative assistant of Representative Dan Kirby, R-Tulsa."

And now Scott Inman is as quiet as a mouse……Why?

As to the actual allegations against both Kirby and Fourkiller, in our opinion we are skeptical that either man is guilty or at least wasn't guilty of picking on innocents.     If the investigation doesn't bring out the exact charges against Fourkiller then politically he is a dead man walking.  One would expect Scott Inman to be demanding openness not abetting secrecy unless of course he prefers to avoid talking about the subject of sexual harassment, cover-ups, and affairs entirely for whatever reasons he might have.  An open investigation will discharge the legislator's duties to the women that work at the Capitol and preclude more lawsuits in the future.

Carol Bush, a.k.a. The Pariah of the Oklahoma Legislature

Carol Bush, AKA the Pariah of the Oklahoma Legislature

Back on Christmas day we ran the story of new Tulsa area legislator Rep. Carol Bush's horrendously offensive interview with a small Tulsa media outlet.  The last story in this newsletter will re hash  the gaffes and trash talk in the interview so this article is going to cover the blowback .  The article had been mentioned on one blog by the 20^th of December but no action had been taken.

The December 25^th 2016 Sooner Tea Party Newsletter went out early, at 5:48 pm and within six minutes the first House members were opening their copy and forwarding it to others.  That night, Christmas night, House leadership had ordered one of the House Whips to contact Rep. Carol Bush and to make an example out of her.  Within hours Bush was calling to apologize to a fellow House member that she had slandered, fulfilling part of the orders she had been given by the House Whip at the direction of House Leadership.  Then on Thursday of this week Rep. Bush had apologized in person to her entire entering class and at 8:58 am on Friday she had apologized to the entire Republican Caucus via the email below:

Subject: apology

Dear members of the Caucus,
 I want to apologize for an article that was recently published in the Tulsa area.  I was not only misquoted, many of the comments were taken out of context.  I have apologized to Representative Bennett and I ask for your forgiveness as well.  I am always available if any member would like to meet with me and further discuss.
 Please know I have learned my lesson with the media and rest assured it will not happen again.  I appreciate your consideration and look forward to working with each of you to further our agenda for this coming legislative session.

 Respectively,

Representative Carol Bush

Keating to Speak At Tulsa Republican Mens Club

 Tulsa Republicans Men's Club

  

Happy New Year!

The Tulsa County Republican Men's Club would like to invite you to our monthly meeting January 11th at Oklahoma Joe's BBQ 6175 East 61st Street, Tulsa, Ok at 11:30am open

and 12 noon gavel down and end at 1PM.

Membership time, Membership time, Membership time...

Men Membership $20

Women Membership $10

Out of County Membership $10

Lunch $15

  We will install officers and have this months speaker Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating who is currently a senior partner in the international law firm of Holland & Knight. Formerly, he was the president and CEO of the American Bankers Association. The ABA is a 140 year old association that represents banks of all sizes and charters and is the voice for the ...nation's $13 trillion banking industry and its two million employees.

One Simple Change to Plug the Billion Dollar Budget Hole

One Simple Change to Plug the Billion Dollar Budget Hole and Put Oklahoma Education Financing in Order for Decades to Come

David Van Risseghem, the Editor of SoonerPolitics.org, wrote a thought provoking editorial last week on the number of kids per classroom. David posted a picture of his kindergarten class  with 33 kids and one teacher and of course there were no teacher aides back then.  Thinking back to my school days there were always between 30 and 40 kids per class yet kids got a better education in those days.

What happened was that HB1017 was signed into law on April 25^th, 1990.  The bill reduced class sizes, raised teacher salaries, and increased spending.   Since then the Oklahoma teacher/student ration has dropped to around sixteen students per teacher.

A Late Christmas Present For Oklahoma County

A Late Christmas Present for Oklahoma County

Sources are telling us that Oklahoma County Sheriff John Whetsel is lining up P.D. Taylor to keep his seat warm as he suspends himself while facing the almost certain to happen investigation of the Multi County Grand Jury.

Dan Kirby’s Advice To All

Never Make a Decision Coming off a Three Day Drinking Binge

Oh the Oklahoma legislature, a gift that keeps on giving to news hounds and comedians.  We held our tongue on the Dan Kirby soap opera mainly because little threads of information have percolated our way in the past that made us question the entire story. 

Do we excuse Kirby's behavior?   Nope, the guy sounds like a creep.  And he earned himself a 43 score on last sessions RINO index so he is the last legislator we would protect.   But recent sources reinforced older information that says that the woman involved probably is likely to have hands that aren't as clean as she and her lawyer might want us to believe.

We still are digging around but the scenario being told is that the woman worked for another legislator before being assigned to Dan Kirby's office and the rumor is that said previous legislator was told by wifey that he gets out of the legislature or she was divorcing his butt.  What we know for sure is that the legislator decided not to run despite his not even being close to terming out.

As to Rep. Kirby's change of heart on his resignation, one source claims that rumors say the decision was heavily influenced by an onset of self pity and  hootch consumption but we haven't asked Kirby if this was the case or if it was a coincidence that around three days elapsed between resigning and returning to fight for his position. 

Being skeptics after all these years covering Oklahoma politics makes us question if Kirby was alleged to be coming off a bender before deciding to resign or coming off a bender and deciding to fight the charges.  Sarcasm alert for the literal minded out there.

State Prisons Are Not Filled With Drug Possession Convicts

State Prisons are NOT Filled with

Drug Possession Convicts

SQ 780 and 781 passed against a lot of opposition mainly because the New York ACLU poured millions of dollars into a misinformation campaign as well as gathering the signatures using paid signature gatherers.  The saving grace is that the two state questions weren't constitutional changes but modified existing statutes by lowering penalties for certain crimes and directing an accounting of the resulting "savings" to government from diverting criminals into drug treatment or other behavioral modification attempts.

One of the targets was the bail bond industry which liberal detest because if you have money or family with money and collateral you can bail out of jail on most crimes while the poor can't pay for bail and remain behind bars till they are tried.   One of the pegs the liberals are hanging their hats on to achieve a no bail system is predictive assessment of arrested criminals in an effort to decide who is safe to release pending their trial and who is dangerous or at risk of re offending.  As in all things of this nature there is a company behind it selling something to the state and federal government judicial systems.  Meet Northpointe who sells such a system.

COMPAS is Northpointe's main product and it sets a ranking for a potential bailee by asking 137 questions about the defendant's background either from criminal records, data basess, or from the criminal.  One of the questions that it isn't allowed to ask is the race of the defendant.  Such things as family criminal history, friends using drugs, fighting in school, or general attitude questions like is it right for a hungry person to steal.

The COMPAS system then spits out a computed ranking so the prosecutor, public defender, and judge have a fig leaf to cower behind should the defendant be released and promptly murder a witness or finish the job if he was trying to murder someone.  Since the invention of public justice systems these sort of decisions have always been in the hands of humans and have been subject to their experiences and learned biases.  Learned biases aren't bad things, learning early on not to date women that drove BMW cars is one example.

The idea behind the COMPAS system is to tweak the justice system so only those that need locked up are locked up, saving human cost along with tax dollars paid into prison systems.  So while the anti bail bond industry folks are pushing these sort of predictive models to torpedo the bail industry another group of liberals is screaming foul over an alleged racial bias in the predictive systems.  Even worse is that some judges have begun using these COMPAS scores to decide the severity of the punishment, how long the person serves in prison as an example.

Now the Oklahoman newspaper trumpeted the allegations that the COMPAS systems were racially biased in a recent article, linking to a tear jerker of a story about two black girls caught stealing six year old's bicycles and scooters, claiming that an evil white person who stole from Home Depot received a lower score than the innocent teenagers that stole from six year olds.  The story even excused the theft as the girls were "running late to pick up their god sister at school", the idea being that the two black girls somehow needed a tiny scooter and bicycle to hasten their trip to school.  

Later on in the story we learn that the teen had a criminal juvenile past but that it shouldn't count as it was a when she was a juvenile…  But the story attacks the algorithms behind the COMPAS system as causing the evil white man to get out on bail while the innocent teen bike thief stays in jail.

The idea is that the algorithms are flawed because more blacks get scored at being a greater risk than whites get scored at being a greater risk.  The system in totality was around 60% accurate which would be amazing if applied to something like the stock market or hiring employees.  The company that made COMPAS claims that the algorithms account for bias is wrong because both black and white outcome is at 60%.  In other words 40% of those ranked  as low risk and released go on to commit more crimes regardless of race.

Several sets of scholars looked at this and decided the problem is that blacks are re-arrested more often than whites it is impossible to make a predictive system like COMPAS have both equal outcomes for both blacks and whites while remaining fair and unbiased.  The different  arrest rates will lead to disparities in the accuracy of the prediction of whether the defendant will continue to commit crimes.

The only solution the scholars said was to treat blacks more leniently than whites, AKA affirmative action for criminals.   Parity is optimal discrimination in their view.

Jailing more defendants lowers crime according to statistics.  The higher incarceration rates starting in the 70's lead to a plummeting violent crime rate because if a criminal is in prison they aren't going to be committing more crimes for that period of their life.   An excellent article on race and crime rates is The Color of Crime.  

Some might say that sending one crook to jail just opens a vacuum for another criminal to steal but these guys don't have limited opportunities.  The second excuse is that as we lock up more criminals we have to scrape up lower level criminals to maintain the arrest rates.  The reality is that criminals have to work very hard to go to prison as only 3% of violent or property crimes lead to prison sentences.  Burglars had half that rate in 2004, 1.6% of arrested burglars went to prison.

Statistics show that almost 44% of released state convicts are rearrested within one year, with the percentage growing to almost 77% rearrested within five years.  The average ex con is arrested 2.9 times after being released from their first state prison stint.   This same criminal commits an estimated 12 to 15 felonies before the law catches them again.   Locking up criminals does lower the crime rate.

The Color of Crime goes on to address the lie that most prisons are filled with drug offenders that aren't going to commit violent crimes.   But only 13% of the total number or prisoners in all American jails are there on drug crimes and when they are it is usually trafficking, in fact only 3.7% of prisoners are serving sentences on simple drug possession and those were the result of plea bargaining to avoid trafficking convictions.  These prisoners had long criminal records.

State prisons are filled with violent criminals and serious property crime criminals, almost 54% violent crime charges and almost 19% were serious property crimes, and around 12% there for trafficking.  That is 85% of state felony convictions, leaving 15% for all other forms of crime including drug possession.

Those that want to gut the criminal justice system further have no qualms about releasing hordes of criminals to prey on the average citizen.   Their ideology is more important than those that lose life or property or family members or are forever ruined by rape or maimed by assault.

Our criminal justice system is working fine thank you.  Locking up criminals has lowered the crime rates.  Going soft on drug users that are committing property or violent crime to feed their drug habit is just going to create more crime and more deaths of law abiding citizens.

Yes, we need to treat drug possession and drug abuse as a mental health problem but that includes getting these degenerates off the streets and depriving them of many civil liberties.  That means we need a low cost method of incarceration that the prisoners themselves are able to fund with their work.  The stigma of being a drug abuser and a convicted violent criminal or thief needs to be strengthened not lessened.