Search this site
Matching entries from BatesLine
Bobby Koefer, steel guitar wizard, RIP
Steel guitarist Bobby Koefer, one of the last surviving members of the Texas Playboys who recorded and toured with Bob Wills, has died at the age of 95. Here is Bobby's obituary, written by western swing historian Buddy McPeters for publication here at BatesLine: John Robert 'Bobby' Koefer, passed away...
Gist gone
Happy news late this afternoon that Deborah Gist has resigned as superintendent of Tulsa Public Schools. Gist resigns as the state's largest school district faces a hearing on Thursday at the State Board of Education on the loss of its accreditation. The threat to pull accreditation stems from poor academic...
Memorial Day weekend 1973: Saturday night in Tulsa
For fun, I decided to look up the local newspaper from 50 years ago this weekend. I was particularly curious to see what kind of live entertainment was on offer, and what people were watching on TV. (News clips below are from newspapers.com. Click the image to see the original...
Oklahoma Primary 2022: Final thoughts
It's now 7 hours until polls open, but there are a couple of things that came up in the last couple of days worth noting: In the full-term Senate race, I changed my pick from Jackson Lahmeyer to Joan Farr. My vote for Lahmeyer was a protest against incumbent James...
Nathan Dahm in striking distance of runoff
State Sen. Nathan Dahm is within striking distance of making it into the runoff for U. S. Senator Jim Inhofe's unexpired term, according to a new Sooner Poll of the Oklahoma Republican primary. Oklahoma conservatives are beginning to coalesce behind the Broken Arrow legislator. The poll shows U. S. Rep....
Oklahoma Senate 2022: Web links for Republican candidates for Inhofe's unexpired term
An overview of the Republican primary field to complete Jim Inhofe's unexpired term in the U. S. Senate, with links to campaign websites, FEC reports, and social media profiles.
BatesLine at City Elders: Further reading
Video, with links to further reading, of my talk on the recent school board elections, the Democratic candidates who won despite higher Republican turnout, the connections of the donors who made their campaigns possible, and the challenges of bypassing the media to get your message to "normie" voters.
National Popular Vote junkets surface in televised debate
Junkets to exotic locations promoting the National Popular Vote (NPV) Interstate Compact to state legislators continue to make news, seven years after they first came to public notice in the wake of the Oklahoma Senate's surprising February 2014 vote to approve NPV, a plan that would have committed Oklahoma's presidential...
Charles Spurgeon resources
Recently I've returned to the habit of reading a book before bedtime and when eating on my own, leaving aside the digital device and focusing my attention on the printed page. In the past few weeks I've finished Calvin Coolidge's autobiography, Arnold Dallimore's biography of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, a short...
Leftist groups donate $6.3 million to SQ 805
Two out-of-state Leftist organizations contributed a total of $6,336,852.36 in support of State Question 805, the proposed constitutional amendment that will allow temporarily inconvenienced career criminals to return more rapidly to their vocation of victimizing their neighbors. The two organizations, the ACLU and FWD.US, combined to provide 87% of the...
Oklahoma Primary 2020 results
I'll be on Talk Radio 1170 KFAQ Wednesday morning at 8:35 with Pat Campbell to discuss the primary election results. Tune in on your AM dial, listen live online, or catch up later with the Pat Campbell podcast. UPDATE: Here's a direct link to the podcast. A few notes, now...
Oklahoma Primary 2020: BatesLine ballot card
Here are the candidates I'm recommending in the Oklahoma primary elections on June 30, 2020, plus links to detailed analysis and recommendations from other trusted voices.
Coronavirus notes: 2020/03/16
News and opinion on the coronavirus plague, in reverse chronological order (mostly): Here is a coronavirus COVID-19 dashboard and interactive map showing current numbers of cases from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Here is the spreadsheet that feeds the map. As of 7 a.m....
Fundamentalists, Modernists, and media bias at the 1928 Presbyterian General Assembly in Tulsa
Searching through archives, I found this item that I drafted on 3/15/2007, but never finished. Since 2007, Time has placed its archives behind a paywall; the links are all still valid, but unless you pay for a pass, you'll only see an excerpt. But I was also able to find...
Nat Hentoff and how Jesse Jackson sold his soul
A few weeks ago, Nat Hentoff, a long-time columnist for the Village Voice, died. Despite the fact that Hentoff was a political liberal and an atheist, he was remembered fondly by many conservative Christians, particularly for his principled opposition to abortion and his defense of the freedom of speech, even...
OKGOP Director of Communications quits over Trump remarks
Brett Farley resigned his post Saturday as Director of Communications for the Oklahoma Republican Party after the party chairman refused to issue a statement calling on Donald Trump to withdraw from the presidential race. Writing on his blog, Farley said that he sent a message Saturday morning urging OKGOP chairman...
Look for the Chamber label -- then vote for someone else
It may seem counter-intuitive, but if you're a conservative, the Chamber of Commerce is not your friend. Not the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, not the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce, not the Tulsa Regional Chamber. If you're a conservative voting in the Republican primary, look to see whom the Chambers are supporting, then give your vote to some other candidate. If the Chambers are attacking a Republican candidate, she's probably worthy of your enthusiastic backing.
Merle Haggard, RIP: His role in the western swing revival
Legendary country singer and songwriter Merle Haggard died Wednesday on his 79th birthday. It might be going too far to say he saved western swing from oblivion, but Merle Haggard's efforts to honor Bob Wills went a long way toward introducing a new generation to the sound. In 1946 or...
Tulsa County Sheriff special election ethics filings
Many thanks to the Tulsa County Election Board for providing scans of the campaign contribution filings for the candidates in the special election for Tulsa County Sheriff. (For a brief shining moment, campaign reports for candidates and committees in the state's largest counties were filed electronically with the Oklahoma Ethics...
Lee Roy Chapman, RIP: "To force it on eyes that don't want to see it"
A memorial service for Lee Roy Chapman will be held Wednesday, October 14, 2015, at 4:00 p.m. at Cain's Ballroom. All are welcome. A fund for the benefit of his five-year-old son, Kasper, has been set up at GoFundMe. Friends are sharing memories on the "Remembering Lee Roy Chapman" page...
Feed Subscription
If you use an RSS reader, you can subscribe to a feed of all future entries matching 'Ayn Rand'. [What is this?]
