What a Bunch of Crooks

The back story on the Bennett lawsuit,

Bennett's Stolen Valor accusations by a retired Marine Major,

who refused to protect the Party and follow the bylaws,

who are the groups trying to take over the GOP at the next convention,

And a good lawyer is being railroaded in Wagoner County

Many have asked the question “What happened to the Sooner Tea Party Newsletter” that was a Sunday night newsletter focused on Oklahoma politics and corruption in the state. Well starting in 2019 a bit of a truce had developed between the Tea Party and the donor class, AKA the State Chamber of Commerce, AKA the tall building crowd. They were tired of fighting and honestly, they had shifted way back to the center as they realized the woke crowd would be the death of them if they continued to appease them by shutting down conservatives and conservative agendas.

Lying John's Team Continues to Disintegrate Around Him

Old Lying John Bennett's team continues to implode, losing team members as the poisonous Chief of Staff Leslie Nessmith and equally as divisive Communications Director Miles Rahimi continue to turn on those that they feel are a threat to their power.

A month or so back Darren Gantz quit after Nessmith and Rahimi warned him that a committee would be placed over him to supervise his work.  Gantz was confirmed by the State Committee on July 16th as Finance Chairman, meaning he worked for them, not John Bennett.   Veteran GOP leader Joe Hart had headed the Budget Committee and between the two they helped drive the GOP out of desperate financial difficulty that it had been left in by former GOP Chairman David McLain.  Mclain had gutted the bank account to the tune of $43,000 in cash, with the transfers posted weeks after he was no longer Chairman of the GOP.

Massive FEC fines had been paid, one was close to $13,000, for late FEC reports we understand.  And there were IRS fines and fees pouring in due to late payroll tax filing and payment under previous administrations.  But Gantz and Hart righted the ship for a few months until Bennett's corruption became too much to bear.

First it was Gantz that quit after his access to the financial records was removed and he was told a committee would be overseeing his work.  Then the Budget Committee learned about the April 26th $4000 per month "contract" that Bennett had awarded Miles Rahimi, despite the Budget Committee not knowing of the existence.  A total of $12,000 had been paid out before the Budget Committee had enough and demanded to see the contract.  At first, Bennett, Bob Dani, and the rest of Lying John's cronies denied that there was a contract but it eventually was forced to the surface.

The contract was for $4000 per month, for four videos.  The problem was that you could go to Miles Rahimi's Project 46.com website and pay $1500 for unlimited videos each month.  What was the extra $2500 per month going for?  Once the reality hit that Bennett had illegally committed the GOP to the contract according to the Bylaws, the Budget Committee stopped approving the monthly payments.  

This lead to pressure being put up on the Budget Chair, Joe Hart, eventually his access to financial info was stripped as well.   Keep in mind that the Budget Chair also owes their loyalty to the Party, not the Chairman.

The final straw for the corrupt Bennett administration was the refusal of the Budget Committee to pay the $4000 payoff each month.  When they realized that decent men were  controlling the Budget Committee Lying John created a new post, "Executive Director of Finance" a position not in the Party Bylaws, and Lying John informed Hart that he was working under the new Director Dwaine  Shroyer.

Hart did the right thing and resigned in protest, leaving no one to oppose the corrupt administration. Now they are free to rob the GOP at will and funnel what few donations still coming in to Lying John's cronies.

Bennett's latest videos show an increasing paranoia, claims that everyone is out to get him and his staff, messages filled with self serving propaganda, basically how wonderful Lying John is and how he is the savior of the Party.  It is these videos that are costing the GOP $1000 per week it seems, poorly produced with Lying John reading off a teleprompter.

Meanwhile Vice Chair Shane Jemison does nothing, as well as the two national committeemen Pollard and Curry.  The game plan seems to be to let Lying John continue to implode despite the damage to the Party, no doubt with the hope that they can put their own crony in place once Lying John is ultimately forced out of office.

The only hope is for 124 members of the State Committee to band together and call for a state committee meeting to remove all four of the corrupt GOP officers.  Which is difficult now that Lying John has removed all the contact info for the County GOP officials, putting in place a contact form that goes through his administration in place of the 70 county GOP pages that were up as late as August of this year.

Budget Committee Denies Thousands of Dollars Funneled into Lying John's Cronies

Great news came in on Saturday afternoon.

 

 I got a text announcing that the Budget Committee has refused to pay the Project 46/Miles Rahimi invoice for the second month in a row. Chairman John Bennett made a contract with a crony for $4,000.00 per month for videos, for four videos per month, most of them glamorizing Lying John and pleading for money.

 

 

At the bottom is the story from earlier this week covering the massive amount of cash that Chairman John Bennett had been funneling to Rahimi who also serves as the Communications Director for the Party. The Party had already paid out $12,000.00 to this Bennett crony. And how does a staff member also be a vendor?

 

 

And Lying John paid out that money illegally as the contract was never approved by the Budget Committee, in fact Lying John Bennett withheld the existence of the Rahimi/Project 46 contract for months, denying it even existed, claiming it was a "gentleman's agreement".

 

 

The procedure for spending in the GOP is clear, the State Finance Committee does a guesstimate of what funds can be raised similar to what the State Equalization Board does, who hands off the information to the State GOP Budget Committee who sets the budget for spending the estimated income, then to the State Treasurer who is supposed to actually write the checks and transfer money to pay the approved expenditures.

 

 

But Lying John and his cronies see checks in the check book and a little money in the bank and bang, it is Christmas time for the cronies.

 

 

And have no doubt about this, the Budget and Finance Committee are well ran, hard working, and honest. Honest to the point that the head of the Finance Committee resigned a few weeks ago in protest to his information being cut off by Lying John's staff and cronies. Remember that this man doesn't work for Lying John, he works for the State Committee and was confirmed by them. Tough luck for Lying John if he nominated an honest man that couldn't be bullied.

Lying John Funneling Thousands of Dollars Per Month to a Cronie

                                                                    Have you seen the latest fund raising video from Chairman                                                                            John Bennett, AKA Lying John?

John is telling all that will listen that the "RINOS" are coming for him and you must donate because they are trying to remove him from office.

Well....... the truth is that old Lying John has been funneling $4,000.00 per month to Project 46, which is ran by Miles Rahimi, the "Communications Director" for the GOP.  Now how can you be a staff member and a vendor at the same time and not have financial and ethical conflicts?

The interesting thing is that Project46.com showed a maximum rate of $1500 per month for their services including unlimited video.  So what is the extra $2,500.00 for?   And the GOP is getting only four videos per month according to the contract between Bennett and the GOP.  Sounds like the GOP is getting bent over a barrel and gang raped.  

The videos produce so far are frankly not that good and consist mostly of Lying John begging for cash and trying to act sincere while reading off a teleprompter.  And those of us that know what is going on know that for months the existence of this Project 46 contract was hidden from the GOP committees that oversee Lying John's spending.  They were told for months that there was a "gentleman's agreement" between the Party and Project 46, AKA Miles Rahimi.  Only to find out  not that long ago that the contract was real and was signed in late May of this year.

Project 46 was paid $4000.00 on September 3rd 2021, again on August 20th 2021,  and again on July 13th 2021.    So $12,000.00 paid to Miles Rahimi's company in roughly 53 days, and if the contract was monthly, he is owed another $8000.00.  June, July, August, September, and October, $20,000.00 in debt or expense racked up in just five months.  And can the GOP get out of the contract or is it even valid since the State Committee has never heard of the contract?

Another interesting point, during staff meetings Chief of Staff Leslie Nessmith was said to be demanding that the Project 46 invoice be paid first, in front of other creditors, long before the 30 day due date.  Why?  Why would Miles Rahimi be paid first?  One has to wonder what the Chief of Staff is getting out of this deal?  Perhaps her own videos processed?  Something else?  Who knows?

Fundraising collapsed a month ago or longer.   Once news that Bennett and the GOP were being sued the donations went further down to a trickle.  The videos mostly promote Lying John, with Lying John  stuck in campaign mode pretty much, pushing an anti vaccine, anti mask, save the babies kind of message.  Not pro life mind you, but the abolitionist message that ultimately will lead to the outlawing of birth control if these crazies get their way.

So with the bulk of the money raised each month being funneled to cronies, the Party is behind despite heroic efforts by the Budget and Finance Committee members who have worked hard since late May to fund the Party.  But videos and fundraising emails were going out talking about "prepping", "crypto currency", and other fringe topics has pretty much put off most normal people.

Yesterday we were treated to a single line message from the GOP email system, well I wasn't, they threw me off the email list months ago for no reason.  But the message announced that the fundraiser was canceled and you know, it just wasn't their fault.  The fund raiser was at first to be something big, Steve Bannon or someone of his stature brought in, someone what would sell tickets.  In the meantime both the OKC and Tulsa GOP groups were running fund raisers non stop and competing with the State GOP effort.   The State GOP found that they literally couldn't sell the tickets, most likely not because of competition, but because Lying John had lost all credibility and people started saying "Let's go Brandon" to John Bennett and the few left supporting him.

None of us in the team that recruited John Bennett, and you heard the video of Bennett agreeing to run in last Sunday's article, thought he would turn on us like he did.  But now that he has betrayed not only us, but the entire Republican base, the same people will take his lying butt out of office kicking and screaming if that is what it takes.

Lying John Gets Caught Again; Thousands of Donor Dollars Blown on Useless Videos

Lying John, has a nice ring to it and twelve years ago had I known the man was like he is I wouldn't have supported him.  Literally no other person in the state has as much invested in Bennett than I did, so if I am going after him you know he has it coming.

Many of you delegates had asked John Bennett during the GOP Chairman race who he was associated, some asked him directly if he was "my guy" or closely associated.  Well, listen to this tape and make up your own mind. At 2:54 he says he will run.

The first tape is the day that Bennett agreed to run for the Chairman slot, a few minutes into the audio file.  It is an interesting audio file, you get to see how things like this are done, the planning of the campaign team that generates the initial support, how and why people are considered as members of the team, a bit of how the sausage is made.

One interesting part is where Bennett and I talk about Speaker Charles McCall and Floor Leader Jon Echols flying down to Tahlequah to give Bennett thousands of dollars in campaign funds just to get him to speak to me about getting off their butts.  Bennett had ran against McCall for Speaker of the House and I had been hammering McCall pretty hard.  I laid off the guy and aimed at Chris Kannady instead, the #3 guy, as McCall could have stripped Bennett of his committee chairmanship.  I understood the message even if Bennett didn't.  Sometimes it is good tactics to pivot anyway.  But how many people can say that the Speaker of the House wanted you to leave them alone bad enough to fly down and shell out serious cash to see if it could be done?

The second tape is just the back half of the first conversation.  

For those that still think Bennett can be salvaged, well if anyone would think that it would be me after putting myself out on the line protecting him for twelve years.  But some times you just have to realize you made a bad investment and to cut your losses.  And if I put someone in office and they betray our movement, I feel morally obligated to take them out and fix my mistake.

The scandal on Miles Rahimi's Project 46 contract finally blew this week.  We have known about this for months but you know, we just weren't ready to trash Bennett, thought he could be salvaged or others that helped him thought so so we were holding off on him personally.   So around the end of May John Bennett, no doubt aided by his staff, signed a $4,000 a month contract with Miles Rahimi for video services.  If you look up that project 46 website you will find it is some sort of pay to play activist or candidate thing.  You spend between $500 and $1500 per month and get all sorts of campaign help and "unlimited" videos made for your campaign.  I guess he was soaking Bennett and the GOP because the contract was for three times that amount and change and was for only four videos per month.

And you might ask, why do we need videos and why do we need to pay $4000 per month?  Well they were mostly videos promoting Bennett and begging for donations.  So I guess we really didn't need the videos, we being the GOP members.

Some people had asked about  this deal for months and we are told that both Bennett and Executive Director Bob Dani denied that there was a "contract", it was said to be a "gentleman's agreement".  In order to do the budget they needed to know how much was being spent, in fact that contract ought to have gone before the State Committee before a dime was paid.  But in fact, these folks were lied to by John Bennett, the contract was signed in late May but people were told that there was no contract.

And those of you that have seen the Bennett videos, remember how he was telling us all that "no one was getting paid down here..."?  Well Lying John strikes again.

Ya'll remember the chant "Lets go Brandon"?

How soon till it is "Lets go Bennett"?

Removed by the “owner” of a Church in Violation of the Republican Party Rules

The "owner" of Fairview Baptist Church The video covers a minute or two before the church “owner” asks me to leave to the overflow room. Asking something is different than telling someone to do something, they could claim later that they asked someone to leave but didn't make them leave. So I made sure the cop gave me a legal order to leave before I would move. As you can see, I was sitting there quietly recording when the guy in the t shirt sticks his head in front of my phone. I was for sure talking as I went past Bennett's staff, letting them know what crooks they were. And note that the cop states that I can stay in the “overflow” room, that I wasn't told to leave the building. The overflow room was one room removed from the main hall where the meeting occurred.

Motivations? And How Refusing to Take Money From a Fool Gets a BBB Complaint Filed Against You

The past couple of weeks we wrote about Miles Rahimi, the communications director of the GOP that unleashed the attack upon the survey that had ran a few weeks back.     It is perhaps time to let out a bit more information about Rahimi so that others can judge him for his actions.

Rahimi had ran for U.S. Senate in the primary that Stephanie Bice had won.  It wasn't much of a run, and once Rahimi had talked about how badly he was treated by Tomahawk Strategies, an Oklahoma political consulting group ran by a couple of guys named Fritz and Wagoner.   Well it turns out any ill treatment seemed to be only  in his head.  Rahimi had approached the consultants asking to be taken on as a client for his run against Stephanie Bice in the primary election.

Initially they were reluctant to accept him as a client.  Rahimi was just another Iranian American like Stephanie Bice and when asked for why he thought he would win his answer was that God had told him so.  After a bit of whining from Rahimi they offered to run a poll for him to gauge his name recognition, even doing the poll for half price.  When the poll came back at less than 2% the consultants declined to work with Rahimi.  They did suggest that he volunteer for the GOP headquarters and become well known in the Party if he wanted to run for office.  And Rahimi followed their advice and volunteered for the previous GOP Chairman David Mclain and was held over to work for the Bennett administration.

What Rahimi did next might remind you of other recent events.  Rahimi retaliated, going to the Better Business Bureau and filing a complaint against the consulting agency.   For refusing to take a fool's money it seems.   Knowing this story actually makes me want to recommend the agency even more.

Who is in Control of the Oklahoma GOP?

 

Who is in Control of the Oklahoma GOP?

Survey Attacked,

Lies Were Told,

Leadership Knew Who Ran the Polling Group,

Some Were Part of Forming the Polling Group

David Van with Sooner Politics put outa good article about the Oklahoma State GOP effort to throttle research efforts put on by a group of journalists who were advised by a few former lawmakers, consultants, and Party leaders.

In the story he recounted how many inside GOP Chairman John Bennett's leadership team knew of the existence of the group Unite With Trump, in fact the idea for the organization came about through the effort to recruit Bennett to run for the Chairman position and  nearly everyone on that ad hoc group that paved the way for Bennett knew of the group.