Okie Funk

(I'm running excerpts from 2012 posts this holiday week. Thanks for reading this blog, and I wish you a great 2013.--Kurt Hochenauer)

It’s no surprise that U.S. Sens. Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn are supporting “legitimate rape” Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin, but by doing so they’re bucking many leaders in their own party, including political operative Karl Rove and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

It’s also shouldn’t surprise anyone that Inhofe and Coburn may even share Akin’s weird, unscientific beliefs about rape and women’s reproductive systems, but the conservative corporate media here won’t hold them accountable for their views.

An invitation published over the weekend by Politico showed that Inhofe, Coburn and U.S. Sens. Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham, both of South Carolina, are serving as honorary hosts at a Wednesday fundraiser for Akin in Washington. Here’s the invitation:

Tom Carpenter, Wexler & Walker Public Policy Associates
Ryan Bradel, Esquire, Greenberg Traurig, LLP
Honorary Hosts
Senator Tom Coburn
Senator Jim DeMint
Senator James Inhofe
Senator Lindsey Graham
Invite you to join them at a Luncheon for
U.S. Representative Todd Akin
Republican Nominee for Missouri U.S. Senate
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Eastgate
710 East Capitol Street, NE, Washington, DC
Suggested Donations: $2,500—Host $1,000 – PACs $500 – Individual $250 – Young Professionals
Todd Akin for US Senate, PO Box 31222, St. Louis, MO 63131

Inhofe, Coburn Raise Money For ‘Legitimate Rape’ Candidate, October 2, 2012

No matter how much political cover Gov. Mary Fallin seeks on the issue from her fellow Republican governors, her decision to reject an expansion of Medicaid in our state is a cruel decision, leaving thousands of low-income Oklahomans without health insurance.

That, in turn, will mean many low-income Oklahomans will avoid seeking medical help for developing illnesses, causing needless suffering and even death.

Fallin announced her decision Monday in a news release. She also has decided the state will not create its own state health insurance exchange, leaving that up to the federal government as outlined in the federal Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The ACA also expanded Medicaid to people under 65 who have incomes at 133 percent of the federal poverty line. The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled, however, that states had the option to not participate in that aspect of the ACA.
The Oklahoma Policy Institute has estimated Fallin’s decision could leave approximately 150,000 low-income Oklahoma residents without health insurance.

Fallin previously had delayed her decisions on the health exchange and the Medicaid expansion until after the election. More recently, she said she wanted to wait until she met with other Republican governors, ostensibly to get political cover from other politicians who have exaggerated the negative impact of ACA and turned it into an issue of partisan politics to oppose President Barack Obama.

Fallin To Poor: Drop Dead . . . Literally, November 20, 2012

If a recent editorial in The Oklahoman is any indication, expect the state’s corporate power structure and most leading Republican politicians here to dismiss scientific studies suggesting a link between the drilling procedure known as fracking and earthquakes.

Expect also that the arguments against such a link will be filled with the same goofy logic and language employed by U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe and his supporters, which includes the editorial board of The Oklahoman, in their attempt to refute the overwhelming evidence of global warming and its devastating impact on the environment.

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, which is banned in some countries, is a process in which water and additives are injected into rock layers to release vast, new resources of natural gas. Opponents of the process contend it can contaminate ground water and pollute the air. The 2010 documentary film, Gasland, outlined the environmental damage that can be caused by fracking.

Recently, some scientists have linked fracking to earthquakes in the United States and even England. The link led to a temporary suspension of the controversial drilling method in England. The basic argument is that the highly pressurized fluid injection of fracking near fault lines can lead to the type of conditions that produce earthquakes.

Baseball Rules Refute Science: Goofy Rebuttal Over Earthquake, Fracking Link, December 13, 2012

(I’m running excerpts from 2012 posts on Okie Funk this holiday week. I thank you for following this blog, and I wish you the best for 2013.—Kurt Hochenauer)

Of course, Oklahoma City’s Kern, another right-wing religious ideologue, likes her God with all the fixings, too, so she issued a statement about Cathy’s remarks opposing same sex marriage. According to a media report, Kern said, “We need to support a business [that] is willing to take a stand for those values that Oklahomans believe and support.” She apparently also said, “We are in a culture war, and people need to start getting involved.”

Kern is infamous throughout the world for once equating homosexuality with terrorism. She has also argued on the Oklahoma House floor that people of color and women don’t work as hard as men or, by logical extension, white men.

Her remarks supporting Chick-fil-A’s corporate bigotry are only worth noting because they are part of a pattern of controversial statements that make Oklahoma seem backwards and archaic.

Here’s an idea: Since Kern is so obsessed about homosexuality, why doesn’t she travel to places that actually allow same-sex marriage and fight her “culture war” where it really matters? Inciting the right-wing religious robots here doesn’t do much for her cause, and it only damages the state’s image in the process.

Grease Mongers Rally Against Equality, July 29, 2012

The official mantra from many Oklahoma Republican and corporate leaders over the last two years or so is that the state is a national “success story” for the way in which it has weathered the 2008 economic downturn.

Another trope that has surfaced these past two or three years is based on the idea that Oklahoma has much to teach Washington, D.C. and President Barack Obama about the way to operate a government.

This, for example, is what Mary Fallin had to say about that issue in her last State of the State speech:

People all across the country are noticing: Oklahoma stands as a testament to the fact that low taxes, limited government, and fiscal discipline are a recipe for job creation.

Our success stands in stark contrast to the record of dysfunction, failed policies, and outrageous spending that occurs in Washington, D.C.

In Oklahoma, we could teach Washington a lesson or two about fiscal policy and the size and proper role of government.

But while it’s true that the state’s unemployment rate remains low—even despite a small rise in July—Oklahoma is hardly an economic miracle or a textbook example of what to do or not to when times get tough. There also remain major problems and the state has hardly recovered from the 2008 downturn.

Let’s outline some of those problems, and see how the federal government in some cases has helped Oklahoma through the largest economic downturn since the Great Depression.

Federal Programs Underpin State Success, August 19, 2012

“Now, there's something I've noticed lately. You probably have, too. And it's this. Maybe just because I grew up in a different time, but though I often disagree with Republicans, I actually never learned to hate them the way the far right that now controls their party seems to hate our president and a lot of other Democrats.”—Bill Clinton in his speech at the Democratic National Convention

Oklahoma City native Elizabeth Warren delivered a well-received speech at the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night, but don’t expect the conservative corporate media here to praise it.

Warren, a former Harvard Law School professor now running for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts, chaired a Congressional panel beginning in 2008 that oversaw the federal Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, and she later helped create the U.S. Consumer Protection Bureau.
In essence, she served as a major watchdog for American citizens during one of the country’s worst economic downturns in history, a daunting task she completed with great skill.

Warren, pictured right, grew up with modest means and was raised by working class parents in Oklahoma City. She attended Northwest Classen High School before leaving the state at a young age. She’s a role model—or should be a role model—for thousands of Oklahoma City area students, who also may come from low-income homes.

OKC Native Elizabeth Warren Earns National Spotlight, September 6, 2012

(I’m running excerpts from 2012 posts on Okie Funk this holiday week. I thank you for following this blog, and I wish you the best for 2013.—Kurt Hochenauer)

The decline in state tax revenues last month and the continued decline in gross production taxes on natural gas will make any income tax cut this legislative session especially irresponsible and unconscionable.

If Republicans proceed with a tax cut, it would represent a complete capitulation to “starve the beast” ideology, which advocates widespread and deep tax cuts, rather than responsible policy, to cut government spending.

Gov. Mary Fallin, pictured right, and other Republicans should drop their tax cut proposals and work to generate revenues for state agencies and educational institutions, which have faced large budget cuts since the 2008 economic downturn. The recent tax-cut debate here has been worth it for some political and philosophical reasons, but the timing is exactly wrong for a cut of any kind. Obviously, the issue is not going away as long as conservatives dominate the legislature.

At a recent forum on the issue hosted by the Oklahoma Policy Institute, Alexander Holmes, a University of Oklahoma economist and a former state finance director, called the math behind some of the proposed cuts “insane.”

Timing For Tax Cut Exactly Wrong, April 10, 2012

Media Matters recently published a scathing critique of The Oklahoman under the new ownership of Philip Anschutz.

The article’s main point is that the newspaper distorts facts about the natural gas drilling method hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and notes its Colorado billionaire owner is involved in the gas and oil industry. The newspaper, according to the article, also supports the controversial drilling method on its editorial page.

Here’s how the article begins:

The Oklahoman’s straight news coverage of the controversial natural gas extraction process of hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") has been slanted in favor of the process under the ownership of energy tycoon Philip Anschutz, who acquired the paper in September 2011. The paper's opinion page has been one-sided -- devoid of voices warning readers about the potential health risks and environmental dangers of loosely regulated fracking activities.

All this is true, of course, and the article is worth reading, but as someone that has critiqued the newspaper for years now I can attest that the newspaper supported fracking on its editorial page under the Gaylord family ownership and has been a leading cheerleader in its new columns for the oil and gas industry for decades.

I mean this is a newspaper that has endorsed U.S. Sen. Inhofe, a toady to the oil and gas industry, and someone who leads the charge against basic climate-change science. In fact, I think it’s fair to say The Oklahoman long ago embraced fracking, which many believe damages the environment and might even be the cause of earthquakes.
So, in a sense, the article doesn’t break any new ground so much as it clarifies and organizes some recent information about the newspaper’s continuing anti-environment bias.

Newspaper, Chesapeake Under Fire, May 3, 2012

I’ve find it somewhat appropriate that the effects of global warming are becoming obvious in Oklahoma, a state that has repeatedly elected a U.S. Senator who claims climate-change science is a vast, conspiratorial hoax.

The temperatures keep going up here, the state is even in the national spotlight about it and U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe’s fight against science and rationality seems punier than ever.
Recently, the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), determined through a recalculation that Oklahoma, not Texas, actually had the hottest summer ever recorded last year with an average temperature of 86.9 degrees. The month of July, 2011 was the hottest month ever recorded at 89.3 degrees.
Previously, the hottest summer on record was in 1934 in Oklahoma as well.

An excellent Huffington Post article on the new data pointed out the longstanding rivalry between Texas and Oklahoma doesn’t extend to scorching temperatures and drought.
Meanwhile, though we’ve had some cooling rains in recent days, the month of May in Oklahoma was the fifth warmest on record with an average temperature at 72.2 degrees, according to Oklahoma Mesonet, which noted the “recent warmth is a continuation of what the state has experienced since early 2010.”

The May temperatures, as most Oklahomans know, followed a mild, warm winter, the 11th warmest in history here, according to Mesonet.

Oklahoma Breaks Hottest Record, June 3, 2012