My Christmas Present

Will Oklahoma Republicans Walk the Talk?

Get used to it, because this is what a 31-to-70 minority feels like. Backbenchers throwing grenades and press releases, hoping for the best. 

Still, like the proverbial broken clock that's right twice a day, even the least-influential members can have something useful to say. Accountability is a good thing, no matter where it comes from.

Let's See a Federal Judge Try to Wiggle Out of That One!

A Saudi husband recently divorced his wife by sending her a text message. Oklahoma should launch a preemptive strike against such behavior by outlawing texting while driving or divorcing.

'Saved by Christmas'

"In my most desperate hour of need, he reached out to me."

GOP Social Engineering Backfired

In a new column in the Washington Examiner, Robert W. Patterson explains how Richard Nixon (with an assist from Bush the Elder) perpetuated destructive social policies whose effects just keep getting worse.

When he signed the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act of 1970 on Christmas Eve 40 years ago, President Nixon missed the irony of starting a campaign to reduce "unwanted and untimely childbearing" just as the country was about to celebrate the "unplanned" birth of a baby born in poverty 2,000 years before.

Two from the 'Stupid Criminals' File

In Oklahoma City, where one gentleman felt the need to reach speeds approaching 200 mph in his Corvette, Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers were able to locate and arrest the man because ... he posted his adventures on YouTube.

Meanwhile in Broken Arrow, where school board officials and the district's top bureaucrat are openly flouting state law, they have -- oh, the hubris -- they have invited policemen to the scene of the crime.

Two Tweets

... came across my Twitter feed this morning within minutes of each other, one from The Onion and one from an American evangelical magazine. I'll let you guess which is which.

• Sanctified Slide Vies for Guinness Book of World Records 
• Christian Weightlifter Bends Iron Bar To Demonstrate Power Of God's Love

Oklahoma Income-Tax Cut Would Help Small Businesses

"A scheduled reduction in state income tax rates now seems likely," Patrick McGuigan reports today, and OCPA economist Scott Moody says this is good news. “Under current law, most small businesses pay their taxes through the individual income tax as sole proprietorships, LLCs, and S corporations," Moody says. "Therefore, reducing Oklahoma’s top individual income tax rate would be a timely shot in the arm for Oklahoma’s small-business community, especially as they struggle to recover from the 'Great Recession.'"

Now That's Entertainment

Here's what we know from recent news reports surrounding the Tulsa Public Schools.

The top bureaucrat is earning more than a quarter-million dollars annually to oversee a school district in which half of the sixth-graders can't read at grade level, but which did manage to borrow $100,000 from your grandchildren to secure a federal earmark for campus police officers who will attempt to enforce the law in the very district that is openly flouting the law.

Marvelous

There are very few things that would cause me to go to a mall on a Saturday the week before Christmas. Meeting this guy is one of them.

Merry Christmas, Little Anne Marie

'The Threat of Sharia Law Is Real'

Blogging at The Washington Post, human-rights attorney Jordan Sekulow says "the people of Oklahoma are ahead of the curve."

Did I Mention You Need to Check Out Another Blog?

Click here.

Barry Bails: Taiwanese Animation Edition

National Publication Looks at Special-Needs Scofflaws

In the current issue of School Reform News, Ben Boychuk reports on the Tulsa-area school districts which are disobeying a new state law providing scholarships for special-needs students.

“It appears the school boards are trying to bait parents into suing them, which will probably happen,” said Brandon Dutcher, vice president for policy at the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs. [Hey, someone should make a movie about that.]

“Since the constitution trumps a mere statute, they claim to be duty-bound to disobey the statute,” Dutcher explained. “At least one recent poll finds Oklahomans, by a margin of better than two to one, disagree with that approach.”

Even foes of the law expressed disbelief at the boards’ noncompliance.

“I can think of no precedent for it in over 40 years of practicing law,” said Bill Wilkinson, a Tulsa attorney and former commissioner of the Oklahoma Department of Human Services.

Mr. Wilkinson is quoted in the article as saying the law places financial burdens on school districts and is open to abuse, but

Dutcher says concerns about parents abusing the special-ed vouchers are overblown. Instead, districts may be responding to financial incentives, he said.

“Broken Arrow Superintendent Jarod Mendenhall said, ‘It’s not about the money,’ and since education bureaucrats are famously indifferent when it comes to money I see no reason to doubt him,” Dutcher said. “Except he also said his district isn’t complying because ‘We don’t have enough money to fund what we do now.’ So, yes, I would say it has to do with money.”

Mendenhall’s office did not return calls seeking comment.

“I try not to chuckle when public-school boosters say they’re worried about waste, fraud, and abuse,” he said. “Especially after all these years of the special-ed bounty system—labeling kids ‘disabled’ who aren’t disabled, permanently altering the course of their lives, just so [the district] can get extra money for the government schools. Now they can’t bear to let any child ‘escape.’”

Nativity 2.0

Will the Tea Party Punish Republicans ...

for the tax-cut compromise?

What Should Your Children Eat?

"We as a nation have a responsibility to meet as well," says Mrs. Obama. "We can’t just leave it up to the parents."

'Economies Rise and Fall with the Family'

"A country that does not adequately value the family’s impact on its economy, in the long run is doomed to battling extended economic recession," writes Dainius Kreivys, Minister of Economy of the Republic of Lithuania. This is a vitally important theme, one I addressed a few months ago in The Oklahoman and will continue to highlight.

'His Highlights Are Sick'

In this new New York Times article, opposing players gush over one of my favorite homeschoolers in the entire NBA.

Well, That Didn't Take Long

The GOP is squishing out already.

'Football and the Limits of Conscience'

I'm a big football fan, but I commend to your attention a new essay in which Owen Strachan, an instructor of Christian theology and church history at Boyce College, argues that

Evidence increasingly suggests that the violence of the modern game tests the limits of the biblically informed conscience.

'Ineptitude and Decline'

"The more I watch this administration at work," writes law professor and blogger Glenn Harlan Reynolds, "the more I think we're seeing the first Nigel Tufnel presidency."

 

Game Day

Lincoln, Jack Henry, my dad, and I are headed to Dallas this morning.

Where's TOTUS When You Need Him?

HT: Brett Farley

And He Hasn't Even Played 20 Games Yet