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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...
Flashback: Ayatollah Drew Edmondson shackles petitioners
In 2007, Attorney General Drew Edmondson made national headlines -- embarrassing headlines -- when he indicted three leaders of a petition effort to protect taxpayers and property owners against government-backed greed and then had them shackled and perp-walked out of the courtroom. The spectacle caused publisher and erstwhile presidential candidate...
Tom Coburn's farewell to the Senate
Oklahoma's U. S. Senator Tom Coburn did not suffer from senioritis. He made the most of every minute of the final weeks of his ten years in the Senate. On December 9, Coburn issued the latest and last in his long-running series of reports on government waste. Tax DecoderTom_Coburn-Tax_Decoder-2014.pdf, an...
Do new OKC skyscrapers have to go downtown? A Parisian possibility
Steve Lackmeyer has a story in today's Oklahoman about the dilemma facing Oklahoma City as surface parking downtown is being replaced with new development. Now, [Stage Center] is set to be torn down to make way for a tower rising at least 20 stories into the skyline. And if one...
TulsaNow opposes Vision2
This week civic group TulsaNow announced the organization's opposition to the Vision2 county sales tax scheme. Tulsa Now is a civic organization that was founded in 2001 to promote discussion and strategic thinking about Tulsa's present and future. Here's TulsaNow's official statement; I'll have a few comments to follow. TulsaNow...
Strong Mayor vs. City Manager debate, tonight
A special event coming up in just a couple of hours: There are only a few competitive council races remaining for November, but the ballot will also feature charter amendments affecting the basic form of government. TulsaNow has gathered the former mayors of Oklahoma's two largest cities to talk about...
OKC mayor, MAPS program manager slapped on convention center site
Steve Lackmeyer of The Oklahoman reports that an Oklahoma City citizens' committee (featuring heavy hitters like Larry Nichols of Devon Energy and immediate past Mayor Kirk Humphreys) has recommended a site other than Mayor Mick Cornett's preferred site for the new convention center, funded by the MAPS 3 sales tax....
Vote for a runoff
A survey of 12,000 likely Republican voters done by the Brogdon campaign last week showed Fallin at 37%, Brogdon at 26%, and 37% undecided. The trend over a similar survey six weeks earlier had Fallin virtually flat with a significant shift of undecideds moving to Brogdon, surging by 15 points...
March 4th to the polls; corporate welfare
This week in Urban Tulsa Weekly, a preview of Tuesday's Tulsa City Council primary election and a look down the turnpike at Oklahoma City's vote on "MAPS for Millionaires" -- the 15-month, one-cent sales tax to upgrade the five-year-old Ford Center for an NBA team. There's also a brief tribute...
Farewell, Fred
It's official: Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for President of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people. James Taranto provides...
Coburn in GQ
In the February issue of Gentleman's Quarterly there's a lengthy and generally positive profile of Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, focusing on his campaign against wasteful spending. This early paragraph in the piece illustrates the myopia of many in Washington: But for many of Coburn’s colleagues, what is most surprising is...
Property owners owe Tulsans downtown preservation
An edited version of this piece was published in the August 23, 2006, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The edited, published version of the piece is online in the Internet Archive. Posted on the web September 17, 2013. Property owners owe Tulsans downtown preservation By Michael D. Bates A memo...
TANSTAAFL
The response of the downtown building owners and their lobbyists to proposals for downtown historic preservation is ironic, with their talk of capital and free markets. I didn't hear any of them suggest that it was a violation of capitalism to tax groceries to pay for a venue for privately-owned,...
Unfair to Humphreys?
UPDATE 8/15/2005: Welcome, Buzzflash readers. This blog is mainly about local politics in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Particularly if you're from this neck of the woods, I invite you to visit the home page for the latest entries. To learn more about the author of this blog, read the profile published last...
Landslide!
Wow! No one predicted such a big win, but there it is -- 61% for Tom Coburn and clear sailing into the general election. I'll look forward to seeing the county-by-county breakdown. The heavily Republican midtown precincts I checked tonight -- including four within walking distance of Humphreys' Tulsa HQ...
Club for Growth is not a special interest group
One of Kirk Humphreys' many underhanded attacks on Tom Coburn is that Coburn is a hypocrite on campaign finance reform because he took money from the Club for Growth, which also ran ads in support of Coburn. Either Humphreys doesn't have the intellectual powers to draw careful distinctions or else...
Humphreys support soft in OKC?
Dr. Stones the psephologist (aka Keith Gaddie) has reliable word that former OKC Mayor Kirk Humphreys is losing ground in his home turf -- the heavy GOP precincts in northern OKC and Edmond. Surveys of likely voters show Humphreys at 37%, Coburn at 35% and Anthony at 8% with 20%...
Whirled calls demolitions "improvements"
The Tulsa Whirled 'fessed up in Sunday's edition, owning up to plans not only to demolish the nine-story Skelly building for a small parking lot, but also to demolish the old Froug's Department Store building at 3rd and Main for a heating and cooling system. The demolition of Froug's will...
Istook poll: Coburn best shot at beating Carson
The Wilson Research poll commissioned by Congressman Ernest Istook is out, and it confirms what many have thought -- Tom Coburn is the Republican Party's best shot at holding the Senate seat being vacated by Don Nickles. The poll has Coburn in a statistical dead heat with Brad Carson, while...
Cole pushes $8 million casino interchange
Congressman Tom Cole is pushing for $8 million in federal funds to build an interchange on I-35 just north of the Red River to provide more direct access to the Chickasaw casino. There is an exit a mile south, and there isn't anything else near the casino requiring an interchange....
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