By Theodore King

RINO (Republican In Name Only) Hunter Comes to Oklahoma

Larry Klayman Strikes Back!

The Budget Deal and Dr. No

A Bad Milestone in American Politics

Senator Coburn's Announcement

Senator Coburn's announcement on Thursday evening, January 16th, that he will be cutting short his last term in the Senate by two years was sad news. However, he has fought the good fight for our country; his health and time to enjoy his family must come first. We wish him all the best in his recurring battle with cancer.

RINO (Republican In Name Only) Hunter Comes to Oklahoma

It is necessary for conservatives to challenge and replace moderate Republican House and Senate members who generally view an all powerful federal nanny state as inevitable and, therefore, are weak in challenging the administration's destructive agenda. Taking your country back begins with taking your party back. One of the first to go must be Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a darling of left-leaning official Washington types. Senator Graham has endeared himself to these people for his support of amnesty for illegal immigrants, locking up suspected domestic "terrorists" without charge or trial, "climate change" legislation, and Islamic radicals in the Syrian civil war. Such positions make Senator Graham a "responsible Republican" in their eyes.

In early December, South Carolina state Senator Lee Bright came to Oklahoma to hold a couple of fundraisers for his campaign challenging Lindsey Graham. I attended the Tulsa fundraiser called the "Lindsey Graham Retirement Party," hosted by the Tulsa 9/12 Project. Senator Bright was introduced by former Oklahoma state Senator Randy Brogdon, who mentioned in his remarks that Governor "Mary Fallin needs a primary challenger," and he announced on the afternoon of Christmas Day that he would be challenging her in 2014. The same day of that fundraiser for Lee Bright there was to be a birthday party in Oklahoma City for Governor Fallin; she was to have New Jersey Governor Chris Christie as her guest of honor. I asked Senator Brogdon if he thought Governor Christie would allow Governor Fallin to eat any of her birthday cake. He got a good chuckle from that question. It turned out that Governor Christie's appearance had to be canceled due to inclement weather in Oklahoma City, but I'm sure Governor Fallin will want to have him come another time.

State Senator Bright is likely the strongest contender to challenge Senator Graham for the Republican nomination because he is an elected official who has a political track record. Bright bragged he has the lowest score of any South Carolina legislator by that state's chamber of commerce. "A lot of those people are just in it for the money." On illegal immigration he said, "They are interested only in cheap labor." The conservative Club for Growth, Bright said, gave him high marks for his voting record. He also said he is a big fan of the proposed Fair Tax, which, if enacted into law, would replace the income tax with a national sales tax. "Let's abolish the IRS," he said. About his opponent, Bright said, "I think Lindsey Graham would like to be a Democrat if he could, but the numbers [in South Carolina] to get elected are not there for him to be one."

He promised, if elected to replace Lindsey Graham, to "....be the president's worst nightmare." There were forty people at the Tulsa fundraiser. While not a large crowd, they paid to be there, and they care about getting Lindsey Graham out of office even though he represents a state a thousand miles away from Oklahoma. To defeat Lindsey Graham and elect Lee Bright, visit http://www.brightforsenate.com/

Larry Klayman Strikes Back!

Larry Klayman, conservative attorney and former thorn in the side of the Clinton White House as former head of the legal group Judicial Watch, scored a big win on December 18th in his case against the National Security Agency (NSA) when Judge Richard Leon of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia agreed with Klayman that the NSA had no right to collect all our phone records in the name of national security. This case is sadly far from over, but it is at least a temporary win for our Constitution, and we have Mr. Klayman to thank for it. In the fall issue of this newspaper, I reported that Michigan Congressman Justin Amash had an amendment before the House to defund the NSA's gathering of all our phone records. Congressmen Jim Bridenstine of the first district and Markwayne Mullin of the second were the only two congressmen from Oklahoma who did not want the NSA to collect those records. Both congressmen voted for the Amash amendment. Congressman Tom Cole (4th), James Lankford (5th), and Frank Lucas (3rd) wanted the NSA to keep track of our phone records and voted against the Amash amendment, which was narrowly defeated in the House by seven votes. Do Congressmen Cole, Lankford, and Lucas suspect that we might all be terrorists? Perhaps we should replace them with representatives that trust us.

The Budget Deal and Dr. No

In December, House and Senate leaders worked out a compromise to keep the government funded for the next two years. Republican Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Democrat Senator Patty Murray of Washington hammered out the agreement. House Joint Resolution 59 was approved in the House on December 12th by a vote of 332 to 94, thereby sending it to the Senate for final approval. Only 62 Republicans voted against this bill; 169 voted for it. Congressmen Bridenstine and Mullin voted no. Congressmen Cole, Lankford, and Lucas voted yes. When James Lankford first ran in 2010, he aired a convincing ad in which he said, "Stop spending our money." He has turned out to be just another "go along to get along" disappointment.

The Senate voted on December 18th to approve the deal. The vote was 64 to 36. Both Senators Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn voted no. Dr. Coburn lambasted the deal, stating that Congress will not do the hard work of trimming the budget, and mentioned his new Wastebook 2013 on the federal budget complied by his staff. ou can obtain a copy of Wastebook 2013 by contacting Senator Coburn's office. The National Taxpayers Union released this statement on December 19th about passage of the budget deal:

"With the Senates vote, taxpayers are only assured of one thing: that government will spend more of their money over the next two years, no longer restrained by the reasonable budget caps passed in 2011 [i.e. the automatic spending cuts also known as Sequester cuts].

All citizens weary of "spend now, worry about it later' budgeting have nothing to applaud in the Ryan-Murray Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013. Rather, the only effective spending relief we've seen during the Obama presidency has now been undone. Making matters more difficult for taxpayers, it will take a full nine years before the bill actually reduces the deficit."

Congressmen Cole, Lankford, and Lucas may moan that this was the best they could do given the makeup of the Senate and the White House. However, Congressmen Bridenstine and Mullin, along with Senators Coburn and Inhofe, knew it wasn't in the best interests of taxpayers. President Obama signed the deal into law on December 26th.

A Bad Milestone in American Politics

One of the best articles I have read about American politics of today appeared in the December 2, 2013 issue of The Weekly Standard titled The Real Price of Politics by Jay Cost. Mr. Cost made the case that our federal government is now so large it cannot serve the needs and wants of the people; only those who have inside influence will benefit from its numerous laws and regulations. The most affluent communities in the country today are just outside of Washington, D.C. The most affluent communities used to be in and around cities that produced something of value, not laws and regulations.

Mr. Cost went on to point out a cardinal rule in American politics -- do no harm to the middle class. The middle class may be ignored by a policy; this happens all the time, but never must it be harmed. And yet with Obamacare that is exactly what is happening to the members of the middle class. They are being harmed because their health insurance policies are being canceled or their premiums are going up. Labor unions, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), drug manufacturers, and others were able to benefit from Obamacare because they were in on the process when the law was crafted. Have you canceled your AARP membership yet?

On behalf of The Oklahoma Constitution I offer our condolences to the family of Senator Jim Inhofe on the death of his son Tulsa orthopedic surgeon Dr. Perry Inhofe, who lost his life on November 10th when the plane he was piloting crashed near Owasso.