The Noose Tightens Around House Leadership
Evidence Linking to Dark Money Attacks on Conservatives Grows
Last week we exposed the House Leadership's frantic rush to refill campaign coffers after spending so much time, money, and effort defeating conservative House members. While it is true that the actual House Pac didn't openly spend resources, they did divert money from their donors into the actual Pac that did the dirty work.
The Conservative Alliance spent $745,563 taking down conservative Republicans. You can view their major vendors at this link and their donors at this link, or donor we should say as there was only one donor that funneled dark money into the effort, Prosperity Alliance PAC. The filings are as of June 30th of this year so the runoff money isn't reported yet.
Two vendors pop up with an Oklahoma connection, Ring Limted LLC and Campaign Advocacy Managment Professionals, CAMP for short. The latter is Fount Holland's new group. The former is a marketing firm that is widely used in Oklahoma by Fount Holland clients. You can search for who uses Ring Limited LLC by following this link and typing in Ring Limited into the organization name in the Payee details boxes. What you will find is a list of RINO candidates and over $150,000 in spending here in Oklahoma. Also search for Campaign Advocacy and Fount Holland's customers will show up in the search, nearly $800,000 in spending.
1
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$489,266
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2
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$134,780
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3
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$47,450
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4
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$26,451
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5
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$17,048
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6
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$10,810
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7
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$10,425
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8
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$6,634
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9
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$2,400
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10
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$100
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Now Conservative Alliance also used Ring Limited and Found Holland, plus there is an Ohio connection, hardly a coincidence as Nick Everheart was ran out of Ohio pulling this same crap. The same Nick Everheart that is employed by George Kaiser of Tulsa.
Many of Fount Holland's clients used Ring including Boatman (beat Mceachin), Crystal Duncan (Mark Lawson beat her), Babinec who lost in the primary, and Charles McCall, the Speaker of the House. The one conservative candidate that was attacked and defeated but no dark money was used? Found Holland client Jeff Coody......
The Step up Oklahoma fund raiser was held last week. All of House leadership was there, plus Leslie Osborn, Kannaday, Josh West, Brownie McDugle. All the big lobbyist were there for the oil and gas industry, the wind industry, and there was Rep. Chris Kannaday bragging to all that would listen about his part in taking down the conservative legislators and the two pacs that he controlled to do the dirty work.
Kannaday has been draining huge amounts of cash from attorneys, talking about running a bill to roll back some of the workers comp reforms that have kept lawyers out of much of the process of a workers comp claim. Kannaday's own employer deals in this sort of law, so this is Kannaday's honey pot, a way to extort campaign cash. BTW, the two pacs that Kanaday bragged about were said to have been ran by Trebor Worthen and Fount Holland. This appears to be the Conservative Alliance PAC and their funder, Prosperity Alliance PAC. Multiple Ethics Commission complaints are said to have been filed over this unreported, unaccountable dark money that has destroyed conservative legislators.
Will we ever find out who funded the Prosperity Alliance PAC? In a few years, they hide the donors by getting extensions to file their tax returns, as much as two years can pass before they are forced to divulge the donor names, after the election is over.
Rep. Chris Kannaday is also thought to be funding challenges against other more moderate Republicans. In one case the opponent is a no name Democrat with maxed out attorney donors despite having a tiny amount of Democrats in the district. Kannaday has enough cash that he can squander it punishing a fellow moderate.
And who is this Everheart fellow? Nick Everhart runs the Conservative Alliance PAC (Political Action Committee) and it has a checkered past as does Mr. Everhart. The PAC bundles money from rich donors wanting to buy influence, both Americans and foreigners, then supports or attacks candidates in order to gain access to the public officials . Those public officials will know that they owe their soul to the PAC and the PAC will patiently explain what the donor wants and how to accomplish it through blocking or passing legislation.
Everhart was recently ran out of Ohio after a fur ball of a fight against conservative Republicans, leading to Everhart being fired from his job with another company, then convicted of felony charges of theft. Everhart started by gas lighting (attempting to manipulate someone by false statements of concern for their mental well being) the owner of the Strategy Group for Media, which he was president of for some years. When the attempt to kick the owner/founder out of the way failed, Everhart was fired and then charged with felony theft for attempting to steal company information to open up a competing political strategy group. A jury found him guilty of one felony charged and not guilty of a second charge and Everhart was fined $2800 and ordered to perform community service.
As of 2015 he was still facing two perjury charges and one tampering with evidence charges over a Delaware County civil case connected to his firing. Everhart had also been sued and literally ran out of the state by then Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder over slanderous false attack mailings.
And why would a Virginia based PAC come after a state representative in Oklahoma? The trail appears to lead back to Oklahoma billionaire George Kaiser and a cabal of liberal Republican House members. State Representatives Chris Kannaday, Josh West, and Kevin McDugle, with House leadership's blessing, are said to be directing the attacks upon not only Dr. Ritze but a half dozen other conservative legislators. To understand the motivation all you have to do is look at their 2018 GOP Party Platform index scores (Kannady 11 points out of 100 possible, West 11 points out of 100 points possible, and McDugle 24 points out of 100 points possible).
Rep. Josh West had became enraged at Dr. Ritze at the Capitol the day that Senator Tom Coburn announced the referendum on the teacher taxes, accusing Ritze of "starting a civil war" between Republicans simply because Dr. Ritze wanted to attend the press conference to see what Coburn had to say. West was screaming at Ritze to the point that one witness said Capitol police were stepping forward to intervene.
All three, Kannaday, West, and McDugle were veterans yet they decided to gang up on Dr. Ritze and dig around to find anything that could be used to attack Ritze in the election and all three bragged about doing so online.
What they found was a DAV card, Disabled American Veterans, that had been issued to Dr. Ritz in 1986. Ritze had served seven years in the Army Medical Corps and had received an honorable discharge. He spent the next forty years helping veterans that the DAV brought to him for help with their disability cases.
One case involved a D-Day veteran whose records had been destroyed in a fire at the records depot in St. Louis. The combat veteran had been ran over during the beach assault, getting his back crushed and recovering and being discharged. As he aged his back became more and more of a problem so Dr. Ritze helped him change his 10% disability up to the full disability that he was entitled to under law.
Finally, in 1986, the local DAV chapter awarded him a lifetime honorary DAV membership, then issued him a membership card and certificate every few years. The unholy trio of Kannaday, West, and McDugle learned of the card and lobbied the national DAV to order the membership taken away as it no longer fit the current rules of the DAV. A photo of the DAV card was published online when the controversy first arose and there is no doubt that Ritze was indeed a member of the DAV in some capacity until the unholy trio intervened claiming "stolen valor". In a letter to Ritze the national DAV stated that the local chapter had been wrong to re issue the card and membership after the rules change. During those 32 years Ritze never stated that he was anything other than an honorary member of the DAV, which was what Ritze had on his House of Representative bio page.
Speculations on why George Kaiser would get involved funding the Conservative Alliance PAC attacks on conservative legislators aren't new allegations against Kaiser as he is known to support liberal causes and favor growing the scope and size of government. But the PAC set about attacking some of the highest scoring conservatives in the House of Representatives including Chuck Strom who scored 90 points out of 100 on the 2018 Party Platform index, Tom Gann who scored 89 points, Travis Dunlap who scored 68 points, and Sean Roberts who scored 61 points out of 100 possible points. In fact, Everhart, Kannaday, West, and McDugle appears to have attacked every single Republican up for re election that scored above 60 points on the 2018 Index.
And further proof of the George Kaiser involvement is that Nick Everhart runs Citizens for Tulsa, a local group said to be funded by Kaiser and the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce.
Worse the Everhart PAC isn't registered with the Oklahoma Ethics Commission so all of the money being spent is dark money, untraceable and unknown, something that has led three candidates to file Ethics Commission complaints against Everhart's PAC.
And the character of the entire bunch can be best described by looking at one of the three state representatives that is leading the attacks; state rep Kevin McDugle. McDugle markets himself as a former marine drill instructor, a family values kind of guy, and a big Christian. His district stretches across much of Wagoner County. McDugle was also leading the Soldiers Wish non profit until they dismissed all association with him over a scandal that is alleged to include the diversion of donations into McDugle's private bank accounts.
McDugle is a RINO, Republican In Name Only, and his score of 24 points out of 100 was due to 14.5 bad votes out of 19 total votes. In addition to the Soldiers Wish scandal, a court hearing on McDugle's divorce revealed a God awful mess of problems and perversions that was just sickening to sit through.
McDugle had picked up a girlfriend shortly after he was elected in 2016, beginning an affair despite still being married to his third wife. In 2015 McDugle was outed along with 5,000 other Oklahomans in the AshleyMadision.com data dump. McDugle admitted to being a member of the extra marital affair website but claimed it was an "old" membership. Rumors state that he actually met his current girlfriend on AshleyMadision.com.
McDugle's girlfriend was also married to a man in Arkansas and will be for another year or so due to Arkansas divorce laws. That didn't stop McDugle from setting her up with a job at his company, actually the company was co owned by his wife. The two openly traveled together starting in February of 2017 and they flaunted the affair with the still married woman attending legislative functions and legislative trips. During the trial it came out that McDugle was under financial pressure and was actually funding the romantic trips out of the co-owned business.
The court testimony also reveled that McDugle had a long addiction to porn and illicit sex, including rendezvous with CraigsList.com [erverts, and a massive habit for gay porn. McDugle had left his I Pad unattended after giving his young son the password and the browser history and emails arranging hook ups was disgustingly detailed in open court although the court record was sealed the info is out.
McDugle himself testified that he raced up $64,000 in credit card debt for the co-owned company. The company had furnished the couple with between $9,000 and $11,000 per month for years as family income but by the date of the court hearing McDugle had ran the company into the ground in order to devalue the company for divorce settlement purposes. In fact, this company that had provided $120,000 per year in income was now said to be worth only $21.000 if not outright insolvent.
The recently fired general manager was testifying under subpoena that he was told not to accept new business or bill for advertising because the business needed to be valued for divorce purposes. Additionally, McDugle had taken out a $87,000 "loan" from the business in December of 2017, three months before he hired a CPA to evaluate the business for the divorce. The CPA testified that that "loan" was not included in the valuation as it was never intended to be paid back.
McDugle tried to put a happy face on the "loan", saying they did that to avoid IRS penalties because he "overpaid" himself. What that "loan" actually did was evade the FICA taxes and income taxes on $87,000 as well as stripping cash from the business to cheat a soon to be ex wife/co-owner of the business. Hello IRS fraud investigation and perhaps prison time for anyone involved in the fraudulent loan.
Testimony also showed that Mrs. McDugle had came into the marriage 13 years ago with around $240,000 in liquid assets which were sold and invested in the businesses and a home. McDugle admitted under oath that his contribution to the marriage start was just under $50,000 in debt. Yet the court was petitioned by McDugle to sell the marital home and split the proceeds between the couple along with half of the $21,000 that the business was said to be worth.
McDugle asks judge to award custody of the children from his third marriage to his mother instead of Mrs. McDugle and asks that both children be placed on Sooner Care rather than he having to pay for their health insurance and medical costs. Rep. Kevin McDugle asks for his wife and kids to be evicted from the home and the home sold as part of the divorce settlement. This means Mrs. McDugle came into the marriage with a very large, very nice, paid in full home and will be looking at being homeless should Rep. Kevin McDugle have his way in court. And we the taxpayers would be responsible for the medical and dental care of his two children.
Unfortunately this information came out too late to affect McDugle's election where he initially won by just three votes, five votes after the provisional ballots had been counted. The challenger was a local deputy sheriff who had been fired about three weeks before the primary and forced to suspend his campaign in order to get work with the Muskogee Police Department. The local Sheriff was and is a supporter of McDugle, one Chris Elliot of Wagoner County. The deputy had a spotless record and was the public spokesperson for the sheriff before he was let go on spurious reasons. Despite the campaign suspension becoming public knowledge, even discussed on the Pat Campbell Show of KFAQ during the morning drive time, the man lost by only five votes, showing just how few constituents supported McDugle due to his horrible character and horrible liberal voting record. With any luck the Democrat that is running against McDugle in the General election will win as a liberal Democrat will be powerless in the Republican dominated state house and do less damage to the Republican Party than someone like McDugle, what a sad thing for a Republican to have to say.
The attacks on conservative Republicans isn't new nor are there that many legislators that are willing to follow the GOP Party Platform of anti abortion, lower taxes, less government, anti illegal alien, and personal liberty. The State Chamber of Commerce, which itself is ran by the Tulsa and OKC Chamber of Commerce have been the enemies of the conservative Republicans for many years. They favor pro choice policies on abortion, higher taxes on the public in order to make their generated tax credit programs worth more to their member, an increased government including Obama Care in order to shift their medical insurance costs off their payroll costs, increased illegal alien labor in order to keep working class wages low, and anything connected to personal liberty they feel is an attack on the reputation of the state that makes it harder to recruit left coast and East coast companies to set up shop in Oklahoma.
The State Chamber of Commerce has long been the enemy of Second Amendment rights, Tenth Amendment rights that empower the state in those matters not assigned to the federal government by the Enumerated Powers section of the U.S. Constitution. In fact, right after the Tea Party arose in 2009 the State Chamber was telling the local chambers of commerce that the Tea Party had replaced unions and liberal Democrats as their main enemy.
So House Leadership had their hands all over the take down of the most conservative House members. A few years ago these same conservatives made a deal with Charles McCall in return for promises of committee chairs, leadership posts, promises that were never kept either, and in return Speaker Charles McCall stabs them in the back using Chris Kannaday, Josh West, and Kevin McDugle as the hatchet men.
Now McCall finds himself facing an educator caucus majority in the Republican caucus, endangering his tax credits and schemes that big oil and gas paid for, along with a host of other special interest perks that corruption caused to pass. The taking out of a half dozen conservatives might well be the half dozen educators that throws McCall from his Speaker seat.
