OCPAC Weekly Insights Monday Edition March 16, 2020
| | This Wednesday's OCPAC Meeting March 18, 2020 Noon to 1 PM | | In Person and... Live on Blue Moose TV & Facebook | | Wednesday's speaker... JACKSON CARGILL | | 2019 United States Senate Page for James Lankford | | Jackson is also... CHRISTIAN HERITAGE ACADEMY'S VALEDICTORIAN of 2020 | | Jackson Cargill is a student leader at Christian Heritage Academy. He will speak to us this Wednesday about what it is like to be on the floor of the United States Senate daily for six months.
He was in the classroom at 6 AM each day with other student leaders from all over America. Then, he rubbed shoulders with the likes of Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Mitt Romney (R-UT), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), James Inhofe (R-OK), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Rand Paul (R-KY), and Charles Schumer (D-NY).
Jackson's father, Lance, is a past Speaker of the Oklahoma House. He will bring with him a number of other student leaders from the CHA Salt and Light club. They will speak to us about the leadership skills they are learning and their perspectives on Oklahoma's political future.
Jackson is more than a 4.0 student and CHA's 2020 Valedictorian. He scored a near-perfect composite score of 34 on the ACT. He was also Captain of the CHA football team. He has knocked on several thousand doors in political campaigns. He will enter Stanford this fall as one of its few but perhaps best prepared Christian conservative student voices.
Don't miss this rare opportunity to hear from one of Oklahoma's finest. | | Bring your friends & family to The Greens this Wednesday! | | We will meet Noon to 1 PM this Wednesday March 18, 2020
LOCATION: The Greens | |
THE GREENS 13100 Green Valley Drive, OKC, OK 73120 Just east of Mercy Hospital.
$20 Full Buffet/Drink/Tax/Tip
$2 if not eating
| | Today's Content
BOB LINN The NBA and its Many Connections to Life in China October 14, 2019 Re-print by Bob Linn
STEVE ANDERSON The Corona Scare Can Help Us
CHARLIE MEADOWS Save the Golden Goose
TEACHERS ENDORSE BIDEN
RACE for U. S. HOUSE DISTRICT 5 The Candidates Coming to OCPAC
LAST WEEK Barry Williams Bible in Government Schools
TODAY AT NOON EDMOND REPUBLICAN WOMEN Meets Today at Johnnies
HEATHER MacDONALD Award-Winning Author Compared to What? CORONA PANIC
CITY ELDERS
BOOKS | | China, Moral Clarity, and the Corporate Balance Sheet by Bob Linn Published Oct 14, 2019 | As I have contemplated the cancellation of the NCAA Tournament and the NBA Season, I am reminded of some of the moral issues which both dealt with in North Carolina in 2016. You may recall that the NCAA threatened to cancel the NCAA basketball championships in North Carolina if they did not allow men to enter women's restrooms. The NBA reacted similarly regarding their All-Star game scheduled there. I'm not making a formal connection between the events four years ago and the demise of their seasons in 2020. However, I thought I'd re-print my October 14, 2019 editorial today. ~rgl | With the NBA making such a stir internationally, I thought it would be appropriate to note that the league owes its existence to the Presbyterian church. James Naismith, who invented the game, was a Presbyterian minister (he graduated from The Presbyterian College in Montreal.) The basketball world feels no allegiance to the Christian message of its founder, however. | When the State Legislature of North Carolina passed HB2 (2016) preventing men from entering women’s restrooms, the NBA immediately cancelled their plans to host their 2017 all-star game in Charlotte. You see, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver had a keen sense of moral clarity when it came to the evils of banning men from entering women’s restrooms. Now, three years later, the keen sense of moral clarity has dimmed. Not just for Adam Silver, but league-wide. Its owners, players, and coaches are all sort of confused by very complicated moral issues which are not nearly so clear as is the moral depravity inherent in preventing North Carolina's men from entering a women’s restroom. There is league-wide confusion regarding China’s policy of harvesting organs from its political enemies, forced abortions, and persecution of Christians (you know, people like James Naismith.) The entire NBA is unable to understand these complicated issues. "The world is a complex place and there's more gray than black and white," Golden State Warrior coach, Steve Kerr, said in response. Of course, the real issue is a market with more viewers than America has people. And, with it, hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues. The actual moral foundations of the NBA are not so much found in the pages of the Word of God. NBA corporate morality is grounded more in the pages one finds in places like Ernst & Young, Deloitte, and other top accounting firms. So much for any potential value in the stylish phrase, Corporate Social Responsibility! | Moral clarity seemed to return to the NBA last Tuesday in Philadelphia. Philadelphia is the home of the NBA’s ‘76ers, a team named in honor of the 1776 Christian-led fight for freedom from political tyranny. I imagine all our readers also know that the Liberty Bell hangs in that city. Two Philadelphia 76ers fans were kicked out of the Wells Fargo Center on Tuesday for supporting the human rights protests in Hong Kong that have pitted the NBA and China against each other over the expression of free speech. | Two Philadelphia 76ers fans were kicked out of the Wells Fargo Center on Tuesday for supporting the human rights protests in Hong Kong that have pitted the NBA and China against each other over the expression of free speech. | The next day, in our nation's Capital, several people at a Washington Wizards game carried signs supporting Hong Kong freedom fighters. Those signs were confiscated. Twenty-nine-year-old Patrick Hedger stated, “I knew I had to say something and take a stand.” James Palmer is senior editor for Foreign Policy. He states, “The NBA isn’t just following Chinese law in China; it’s imposing the Chinese Communist Party’s rules internationally. The NBA backs its players speaking up about American police abuse—but goes into panic mode if fans protest the Hong Kong police.” ________________________ | Back to the present, I'll just repeat a bit from last week's editorial as we prepare to host students from Christian Heritage Academy.
The God of Christianity cannot be reached by the simple reason of the mind of man unaided by Scripture.
Nor can our minds, unaided by Divine Revelation, understand our place in His creation. _______
Scripture is the epistemological treasury of our Creator.
In order to be successful, Christian scholarship must challenge the hypothetically autonomous world of secular intellect. The 21st century stands now in its hour of greatest need.
Man’s task is not heavenly. It is earthly. It is to cultivate and subdue the earth. This is the point of chapter one of our Bibles.
Establishing vibrant and faithful Christian academia is the task before us if we are to re-establish the foundations of Western Civilization.
Only His Book provides unity, meaning, coherence, and intelligibility to nature, history, reason, and morality. Christian thought is not icing on the cake of life. Only by means of the Word of God does man have life.
Biblical thought is the core point of reference on which all other thought is dependent. Christianity transforms the whole man, his culture included. | Christian Heritage Academy (CHA) has, for 48 years, pursued this task. This week's OCPAC speaker, Jackson Cargill, is a product of their institution.
This spring, he will be giving the Valedictory address for the graduating class of 2020. This Wednesday at OCPAC's luncheon, he will be bringing a group of other CHA student leaders on Wednesday to speak to us about the preparation they have received at Christian Heritage Academy.
I look forward to meeting this young, vibrant, and accomplished group of young people. | I hope to see you this Wednesday. | STEVE ANDERSON Political Commentary | A Silver Lining in the Coronavirus | If we are looking for a silver lining in the corona virus there is one! The fear it has created may finally end or at least reduce a taxpayer funded excess that hardly anyone is aware of. | One of the long running 'perks' of government employment has been 'conferences' that government employees attend at your expense.
Usually, they are in someplace very nice. Great accommodations and great food. All this and the travel expenses are paid by you, the taxpayer. Here is an example of one of those 'perks'. | While I was Budget Director and State Comptroller in Kansas, membership in the National Association of State Budget Offices (NASBO) was around $6000. | EVERY state, including Kansas, paid this annually. Members shared information and had a fantastic trip to cool meeting places like Hawaii or St. George. | These trips are made every year. | This is how this scam works:
Since NASBO paid your expenses, you didn't have a travel voucher on file to show these exotic trips to the taxpayers. It was buried in the membership fee. A taxpayer-funded fee so you could have the trip.
There is more to the scam. The "shared information" NASBO provides for members is ALL public record!
I refused to join... I was the only Budget Director in the country to do so
NASBO had their chief executive call me to lobby. He led with the "trip". He was stunned when I told him I would not allow taxpayers to send me anywhere that I didn't need to go!
We ended up agreeing that Kansas would send him our information. And...they would share the other 49 state's information with Kansas at ZERO cost.
Remember, this is public information to begin with.
The corona virus should incentivize states to do what should have been policy a long time ago:
NO EXOTIC TRIPS TELECONFERENCE ONLY
I am not aware of any real advantage to in person conferences. They are simply travel perks funded by unknowing taxpayers. ______________
Steve Anderson is policy analyst for the Oklahoma Conservative Political Action Committee (OCPAC).
Direct questions and comments to:
Contact@OCPAC.us | CHARLIE MEADOWS OKLAHOMA OIL | GIVING UP THE GOLDEN EGG To Save The Golden Goose | Oklahoma is now in CLEAR and PRESENT DANGER | Oklahoma's two most important industries are oil and natural gas. Recent international events have placed Oklahoma’s oil and gas producers in clear and present danger because of Oklahoma’s petroleum tax policies.
Most businesses pay tax only as a percentage of the profits they make. Oklahoma’s oil producers, however, pay tax even if they are losing money. It is called a wellhead tax. It is also known as the Gross Production Tax (GPT). |
An oil producer must send the state a check for 5% of the value of every drop of oil they take from the ground.
Even if they are unable to sell that product for enough money to recover their expenses. | Cleary, the industry is risky and requires huge amounts of cash just to initiate the exploration process.
Then, once oil is found, expenses are even more immense to retrieve, transport, and process. Oil leases, transportation, and refining require huge amounts of cash. | Then, there is a dirty little secret. Even though many of our local companies have beautiful corporate offices or campus headquarters and pay their employees really well, few of them, if any, have been profitable! They have survived on continual debt. In many cases, ever-increasing debt.
If the market becomes flooded with a glut of supply, the price of oil and gas drops. Companies struggle to pay their debt or even survive. | On March 6th, talks between Russia and Saudis Arabia to limit the supply of oil broke down.
Both decided to flood the market.
Oil prices dropped below what is needed for our Oklahoma companies to break even. | Simultaneously... There is a travel panic related to the Coronavirus. | The cruise ship industry is shut down for a period of time. Airline traffic is falling off. Events are being canceled. Fuel consumption in the travel industry and the fuel consumed traveling to events is dropping immensely. All this means that the oversupply will continue to grow. | Last year’s legislature passed the highest tax increase in state history. Much came from a huge increase in the Gross Production Tax (GPT). The Legislature raised the GPT to 5%. Remember, this is what the producer must pay whether he is able to sell the product for a profit or not.
Oil is now around $31 a barrel. Natural gas is around $1.87 a unit. Neither of those prices are profitable for our Oklahoma companies. Already the number of rigs drilling in Oklahoma is down about 60% from just a year ago.
These numbers will drop even more.
Many of our companies have already had to declare bankruptcy. | By the time the markets closed on Monday Chesapeake stock was down to about 15 cents a share, down from a high at one time over $60 a share.
Continental Resources, a far stronger company, saw its stock close around $7.50 a share, down from a 52-week high of $57 a share.
Devon, a company that was able to build their new iconic headquarters with cash on hand just a few years ago saw their stock drop to about $8.50 a share. | Will the legislature save the Golden Goose or will it allow Oklahoma’s petroleum producers to bleed to death? If the latter, it will put financial institutions at risk. Also at risk are the retirement funds for many Oklahomans.
I believe at the very least they should exempt all oil and gas companies producing in Oklahoma from having any (GPTs) for at least a year.
These companies need every penny they can get their hands on. | If you are as concerned as I am, you would be wise to contact your state Senator and state Representative to politely ask them to consider suspending the gross production taxes for at least a year. The economic health of our state may depend upon it.
Charlie Meadows is the founder of OCPAC
He continues as a member of the OCPAC Executive Board as President Emeritus | TEACHER UNION ENDORSES BIDEN | The Teacher's Union (NEA) is the Nation's Largest Union | Socialist Bernie Sanders has received more money from the NEA than Joe Biden according to OpenSecrets.com. However, the recent endorsement will provide the Joe Biden campaign with large sums of teacher-funded contributions. In 2016, Oklahoma's teachers joined with other teacher's across the nation to send millions to Hillary Clinton and other Democrat candidates through the NEA.
Oklahoma teachers who are members of the OEA are a part of this funding effort. (The OEA is a subsidiary of the NEA.) | JOIN OCPAC NOW TO VOTE We are getting ready to interview for HD5 | OCPAC WILL INTERVIEW ALL FOUR TOGETHER
We are working on either April 1 or 8
YOU MUST BE A PAID MEMBER TWO WEEKS PRIOR TO ANY VOTE!
Obtaining the OCPAC endorsement has been a coveted endorsement in Oklahoma political races. OCPAC has thousands of followers statewide and is the oldest, largest and most active conservative club in Oklahoma.
Each of these candidates have connections to OCPAC. Stephanie Bice was our Freshman of the Year. Janet Barresi was endorsed for State Superintendent of Education. Terry Neese was an OCPAC pick for Lt. Governor. David Hill was an OCPAC founder with Charlie Meadows and designed the first OCPAC logo.
Come, be a part of this important race to recover House District 5 from the grip of Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat Party.
TO VOTE, GET YOUR DUES IN BY THIS WEEK. See you at THE GREENS! | | CHILD EVANGELISM FELLOWSHIP Storming Oklahoma Public Schools | | Like all our speakers, Barry Williams was well prepared. He was high energy and covered the amazing development of his ministry. You should consider forwarding this to your pastor, church staff, and church lay leaders. Barry will introduce them to youth and their families who are in need of church homes.
Watch Barry's Presentation here. | | EDMOND REPUBLICAN WOMEN MEET TODAY | | NOON to 1 PM Johnnies Charbroiler 33rd Street in Edmond
MONDAY, MARCH 16 (Today!) | | Compared to What? by Award-winning Journalist, Heather MacDonald | | First, a bit about Heather MacDonald:
Heather is a New York Times bestselling author with articles published in many publications including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and The New Republic.
She has a B.A. in English from Yale University, an M.A. in English from Cambridge University, and a Juris Doctorate (J.D.) from Stanford Law School. She has clerked for the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Her work with the U.S. Congress and the list of her writing awards are too numerous to mention. Her conservative posture is appreciated by many.
Below is her March 13, 2020 article on the misguided response to covid-19. | | Compared to what? That should be the question that every fear-mongering news story on the coronavirus has to start with. So far, the United States has seen forty-one deaths from the infection. Twenty-two of those deaths occurred in one poorly run nursing home outside of Seattle, the Life Care Center. Another nine deaths occurred in the rest of Washington state, leaving ten deaths (four in California, two in Florida, and one in each of Georgia, Kansas, New Jersey, and South Dakota) spread throughout the rest of the approximately 329 million residents of the United States. This represents roughly .000012 percent of the U.S. population.
Much has been made of the “exponential” rate of infection in European and Asian countries—as if the spread of all transmittable diseases did not develop along geometric, as opposed to arithmetic, growth patterns. What actually matters is whether or not the growing “pandemic” overwhelms our ability to ensure the well-being of U.S. residents with efficiency and precision. But fear of the disease, and not the disease itself, has already spoiled that for us. Even if my odds of dying from coronavirus should suddenly jump ten-thousand-fold, from the current rate of .000012 percent across the U.S. population all the way up to .12 percent, I’d happily take those odds over the destruction being wrought on the U.S. and global economy from this unbridled panic.
By comparison, there were 38,800 traffic fatalities in the United States in 2019, the National Safety Council estimates. That represents an average of over one hundred traffic deaths every day; if the press catalogued these in as much painstaking detail as they have deaths from coronavirus, highways nationwide would be as empty as New York subways are now. Even assuming that coronavirus deaths in the United States increase by a factor of one thousand over the year, the resulting deaths would only outnumber annual traffic deaths by 2,200. Shutting down highways would have a much more positive effect on the U.S. mortality rate than shutting down the U.S. economy to try to prevent the spread of the virus.
There have been 5,123 deaths worldwide so far—also a fraction of traffic deaths worldwide. And unlike coronavirus, driving kills indiscriminately, mowing down the young and the old, the sick and the healthy. The coronavirus, by comparison, is targeted in its lethality, overwhelmingly striking the elderly or the already severely sick. As of Monday, approximately 89 percent of Italy’s coronavirus deaths had been over the age of seventy, according to The Wall Street Journal. Sad to say, those victims were already nearing the end of their lifespans. They might have soon died from another illness. No child under the age of nine has died from the illness worldwide. In China, only one individual in the ten-to-nineteen age group has succumbed.
Comparing the relative value of lives makes for grisly calculus, but one is forced to ask: are we missing the forest for the trees? If the measures we undertake to protect a vulnerable few end up exposing them, along with the rest of society, to even more damaging risks—was it worth the cost?
An example: there were 34,200 deaths in the United States during the 2018–19 influenza season, estimates the CDC. We did not shut down public events and institutions to try to slow the spread of the flu. Yet we have already destroyed $5 trillion in stock market wealth over the last few weeks in the growing coronavirus panic, reports The New York Times, wiping out retirement savings for many.
The number of cases in most afflicted countries is paltry. As of today, 127 countries had reported some cases, but forty-eight of those countries had fewer than ten cases, according to Worldometer. At this point, more people have recovered from the virus than are still sick. But the damage to people’s livelihoods through the resulting economic contraction is real and widespread. Its health consequences will be more severe than those of the coronavirus, as Steve Malanga shows in City Journal. The people who can least afford to lose jobs will be the hardest hit by the assault on tourism. Small entrepreneurs, whether in manufacturing or the service sector, will struggle to stay afloat. Such unjustified, unpredicted economic havoc undermines government legitimacy.
President Trump has been criticized for not being apocalyptic enough in his press conferences. In fact, he should be even more skeptical of the panic than he has been. He should relentlessly put the coronavirus risk into context with opioid deaths, homicide deaths—about sixteen thousand a year in the United States—flu deaths, and traffic deaths. One might have thought New York governor Andrew Cuomo a voice of reason when, a few days ago, he tried to tamp down the hysteria in a press conference, saying: “This is not Ebola, this is not sars, this is not some science fiction movie come to life. The hysteria here is way out of line with the actuality and the facts.” And yet since then he called a state of emergency in New York, and he and Mayor Bill de Blasio have all but shut down the New York City economy. They, like most all U.S. politicians nowadays, have shown an overwhelming impulse to be irrationally risk-averse.
Rather than indiscriminately shutting down public events and travel, we should target prevention where it is most needed: in nursing homes and hospitals.
It is hard to imagine that the panicked leaders and populace of today would have been able to triumph in the last century’s World Wars. America’s colleges sent off thousands of their young men to fight and die in those wars; those students went off with conviction and courage. Currently, colleges and universities are shutting down with no hint of the virus in their vicinity. Would today’s panicked leaders and populace be able to triumph in the face of a World War, or some other legitimately comparable threat? Let’s hope that we do not have to find out.
Heather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of The Diversity Delusion (St. Martin’s Press) and The War on Cops (Encounter). | | The OCPAC compact with City Elders.
Significant for both organizations.
Significant for the future of Oklahoma.
____________________ | | Attention Especially our Tulsa Area Residents!
City Elders Our new home the Tulsa Marriott | | This Thursday Morning 8:30 A.M.
It'll be the highlight of your week! | | The Marriott Tulsa Hotel Southern Hills at 71st & Lewis in Tulsa 1902 E 71st St, Tulsa, OK 74136 6:30 P.M. to 9:00 P.M.
Hear the vision of City Elders here. | | OCPAC Mid-Week Lunch is Served | | NOON to 1 PM Wednesday, March 18, 2020
THE GREENS 13100 Green Valley Drive, OKC, OK 73120 Just east of Mercy Hospital.
$20 Buffet/ Drink/Tax/Tip
$2 if not eating ______________________________ | | Bring your children and grandchildren. Build foundation of Biblical thought. Train future leaders. | |
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A proper resistance to tyranny and a repudiation of unlimited obedience to civil government.
In America, the rule of law is crumbling. This book is a blueprint for freedom.
A historic tool providing guidelines for proper and legitimate resistance to tyranny. To rein in a lawless government and restore justice to our nation. Order here.
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| | Capitalism (the free market) is the most ethical system available to mankind. It has a historical track record that trumps all other economic systems. Only capitalism can raise people out of poverty.
Capitalism makes efficient use of natural resources. Only capitalism protects and improves the natural environment.
Economic development, especially in poor countries, is one of the most important things we can pursue to protect our environment.
| | The "social justice" movement today is anything but Christian. Government forced wealth redistribution is contrary to Biblical law.
Biblical justice requires impartiality, proportionality, rendering what is due, and conformity with God's law.
When Christian leaders released (2018) The Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel, they completely twisted the Biblical message.
Our survival as a nation depends on getting this issue right.
| | Increase your political savvy by ordering (and reading) Moment of Truth by Marc Nuttle.
Wed December 4, 2019 OCPAC Guest Speaker Marc Nuttle
Moment of Truth by Marc Nuttle . Marc Nuttle helped build the conservative movement that brought us Ronald Reagan. In Moment of Truth he reminds us that power lies in our hands to create the kind of America we want to leave for our children and grandchildren. ~ U.S. Senator Tom A. Coburn | | Not A Daycare Still an important read | | Dr. Piper is one of God's choice men. He is leading the way in the American Church and in the American Christian University by calling for a return to epistemological bedrock. I urge those of you who have not read his book, Not A Day Care: The Devastating Consequences of Abandoning Truth, to order a copy today. It is available very inexpensively here. | | Help support OCPAC'S mission. Join OCPAC or send a contribution today! To print donation form and mail a check, use the MAIL DONATION button below: | | The button below will enable you to electronically join OCPAC or to make a donation through our website: | | | | | | |
