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Sunday
February 5, 2017
No. 84 of the 128th Year
Fifty Cents Kingfisher, Kingfisher County, Oklahoma USPS No. 295-420
[See Amazon Page 2A]
Amazon tax agreement delivers smiles
Just over a year after a devastating fire destroyed Do-ver High School, the Dover community, faculty, administra-tors and students paid homage to the firefighters who helped contain the blaze.
With the help of Cimarron Electric Cooperative, Dover Public Schools host-ed a Firefighter Ap-preciation Dinner last Tuesday.
The dinner rec-ognized firemen from Dover, Hen-nessey and King-fisher who battled the Jan. 12, 2016 fire, saving the rest of the school complex.
“We are extreme-ly thankful for the hard work and ded-ication of the men who kept this di-saster from being so much worse,” Do-ver Principal Trilla Cranford said.
Firemen from the
three departments and their families were invited to at-tend the dinner as guests, while the meal also was open to the community by donation.
Each of the three departments also was presented with a plaque acknowl-edging the school district’s gratitude.
Meals were de-livered to Kingfish-er Fire Department p e r s o n n e l w h o were in training and couldn’t attend the event.
Cranford and several Dover stu-dents traveled to K i n g f i s h e r o n Thursday to deliver a plaque to King-fisher Fire Depart-ment personnel.
The school dis-trict also raised $1,000 for the Do-ver Fire Department through donations collected at the din-ner.
Dover schools, community say thank youDinner fetesfiremen whobattled blaze
Kingfisher County’s weather for January closely resembled the state’s weather pattern.
An ice storm followed by a rainy spell provided badly need-ed moisture for county cropland during the month.
Officially, Kingfisher re-ceived 1.85 inches of moisture but some areas of the county reported three inches or more of welcome moisture.
The county, however,missed the worst of the ice difficulties that spread misery to some sec-tions of the state.
The Oklahoma Climatolog-ical Service’s Gary McManus reviewed Oklahoma’s January weather as follows:
January 2017 would have been remembered as exceed-ingly warm and dull if not for the visit from a powerful mid-month winter storm.
The storm struck over the weekend of Jan. 13-15 and prompted a state of emergency declaration for all 77 counties by Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin.
An unusually moisture-lad-
en weather system for January, the storm left the northwestern half of the state encased in ice and the southeastern half wa-terlogged.
The freezing line meandered about the I-44 corridor at the beginning of the storm before slowly retreating to the north-west, bringing a mixed bag of impacts from southwestern through northeastern Oklaho-ma.
Far northwestern Oklahoma and the eastern Panhandle were particularly hard hit, with ice thicknesses up to 1.5 inches coating trees and power lines. Catastrophic impacts occurred in that region with widespread tree and electric utility infra-structure damage.
At the height of the pow-er outages, more than 23,000 customers were without ser-vice, many for several days. At month’s end, there were still approximately 700 customers without electric service.
According to the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Man-
agement, 65 total injuries were reported with the storm due to cuts, falls and automobile acci-dents. In addition, two electrical linemen were electrocuted in Beaver County while working to restore services, killing one.
The storm dumped three to four inches of moisture across the far northwest and south central regions of the state, while one to two inches of precipita-tion fell across most other areas.
Another storm the following weekend added to those previ-ous totals to produce a decidedly wet January across Oklahoma.
According to preliminary statistics from the Oklahoma Mesonet, the statewide average was 2.52 inches of liquid precipi-tation, nearly an inch above nor-mal and the 13th wettest January on record. Those records date back to 1895.
January was the wettest on record for the Panhandle with an average of 2.4 inches, close to two inches above normal. North central and west central sections each tallied their fourth highest
totals on record. Skiatook led the Mesonet
with 4.05 inches of rain, although Tulsa was close on its heels at 4.02 inches.
The Mesonet’s lowest total of 0.84 inches came at Hobart. That was the only Mesonet station that failed to record at least an inch of rain during the month.
Although the ice storm monopolized the headlines, the temperatures were certainly noteworthy as well.
An arctic blast on the sixth and seventh of the month plunged Oklahoma into a frigid pool of air not seen in the state since February 2011.
Kenton reached minus 19 degrees on the seventh, and Kingfisher and Chickasha fell to minus 12 that same day.
Wind chill temperatures dropped into the minus teens to minus 20s over a broad region that morning. Forty-five of the Mesonet’s 121 stations recorded lows below zero during that pe-riod and only one station, Tulsa, remained in double-digits with
a low of 11 degrees. Several days later, many
stations recorded highs in the 70s and 80s. Altus reached 84 degrees on the 11th, January’s highest reading on the Me-sonet.
Overall, January was pleas-antly mild with a statewide average of 40.6 degrees, nearly 3 degrees above normal to rank as the 17th warmest on record.
Before the mid-month del-uge, drought had taken firm control over much of the state. Accounts of empty farm ponds, flagging reservoirs, wildfire outbreaks and destroyed wheat crops and grasslands were be-ing reported from all areas of Oklahoma.
By Jan. 10, the U.S. Drought Monitor had 88 percent of the state affected by drought, with 58 percent of that being se-vere-to-extreme.
The Drought Monitor’s in-tensity scale slides from moder-ate-severe-extreme-exceptional, with exceptional being the worst
Filing for munic-ipal offices across Kingfisher County will begin Monday and last through Wednesday.
Candidate filings can be made at the of-fice of County Elec-tion Board Secretary Shawna Butts in the courthouse in King-fisher from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day.
Municipal elec-tions will be held countywide on Tues-day, April 4.
Positions up for election this year fol-low by municipality:
Kingfisher – Of-fice held by Roxie Alexander, four-year term.
Hennessey – two trustee positions, one held by Wes Hardin and one by Logan Macy, and the office of town trea-surer, Teresa Weber, incumbent, all four year terms.
Okarche – Ward 2 trustee, Tammy Schroeder, incum-bent, four-year term.
Dover – elections to fill two vacant trustee seats, four-year terms.
Loyal – trustee position held by Floyd Glazier and town clerk position, Pam Schlegel, in-cumbent, four-year terms.
Cashion – a town wide meeting will be held April 4 to fill one unexpired trust-ee position for two years, Brad Stone, incumbent, and two for four years, Cara Raney and Joe Knott, incumbents.
The t ime and place for the town wide meeting will be announced closer to the meeting date.
Municipalcandidatefiling startsthis week
County, state see warmer, wetter JanuaryOther than subzero spell, most of month pleasantly mild
MORE SMILES — State and local officials soon will be pleased to see Amazon’s familiar smiling boxes stacking up on local porches. The on-line retail giant begins collecting Oklahoma sales taxes on March 1.
The trademark smiles marking online retail giant Amazon’s brown cardboard packages which land with ubiquitous frequency on doorsteps across the state will soon bring bigger smiles to the faces of state and local officials.
Amazon has agreed to begin collect-ing state, county and municipal sales taxes on its Oklahoma sales beginning March 1, a move estimated to bring an additional $29 million in annual sales tax revenue to the state and $27.6 million to municipalities and counties, according to one study.
Gov. Mary Fallin announced the agreement reached with Amazon after about a year of negotiations in her ad-dress Thursday afternoon previewing the upcoming legislative session.
Under the agreement, Amazon will add both state and local taxes at checkout on all its Oklahoma online purchases beginning March 1, with municipalities realizing the first pro-ceeds in their April sales tax checks.
“With the Main Street Fairness Act
stalled in Congress, this is great news when mega retailers like Amazon join Target and Walmart in collecting sales tax,” Kingfisher City Manager Dave Slezickey said. “This provides for city services and helps small brick and mortar businesses stay competitive with online retailers.”
Oklahoma residents have long been required to pay the equivalent of state and local taxes on all online purchases as a use tax computed at the end of the year and remitted along with their state income taxes.
But the self-reporting feature of the use tax, along with confusion as to how much was required to be paid and on what purchases rendered it largely unenforceable.
As a result, a 2011 report indicated that only 4 percent of Oklahomans complied with the use tax requirement.
While other retailers which have brick-and-mortar stores or warehous-es in the state were already collecting and remitting state sales taxes on
[See Weather Page 2A]
APPRECIATION DINNER — At top, Dover Principal Trilla Cranford, far left, and students Alli Turner and Jo-selin Hernandez, far right, present a plaque to Kingfisher Fire Department Capt. Ryan Gibson, Lt. Tyler Sigl, Capt. James Schroeder and Brandon Smith on Thursday at Kingfisher. At left, Cranford and Supt. Shannon Grimes, left and right, present plaques to Hen-nessey Fireman Logan Macy and Dover Fire Chief Bobby Gardner at the din-ner, which drew a large crowd, below.
2A Sunday, February 5, 2017 Kingfisher (Okla.) Times & Free Press
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classification. The month’s fi-nal map reflected a reduction in drought to about 80 percent of the state. The severe-to-ex-treme drought coverage had dropped from 58 percent to 31 percent. About 49 percent was considered “moderate” on the month’s final map.
The Climate Prediction Center’s February tempera-ture outlook shows greatly in-creased odds of above normal temperatures across much of the United States, including Oklahoma.
The precipitation outlook shows slightly increased odds of below normal precipitation across the western two-thirds of the state.
With those two outlooks in mind, and combined with long-range computer mod-eled precipitation forecasts, CPC’s February Drought Out-look indicates a persistence of drought across Oklahoma where it existed at the end of January.
No further development is expected during February, however.
online purchases, Seattle-based Amazon had long argued that its lack of physical presence in the state exempted it from doing so.
The state began talks with Amazon and other online retailers after the legislature passed the Retail Protection
Weather[Continued From Page 1A]
Act, which requires online retailers to either collect sales taxes voluntarily or notify cus-tomers of their responsibility to pay use taxes.
Oklahoma Tax Commis-sion spokesperson Paula Ross told Oklahoma Watch that the tax commission had notified the top 500 online retailers about the new law and initiat-ed talks with a number of them.
A seven-year-old study es-timates the state would collect an additional $300 million in annual revenue if all taxes were remitted on online sales.
That number likely would be lower now since several retailers have begun collecting taxes voluntarily, but Ross said the additional revenue likely will still be in the hundreds of millions.
“This supports our Main Street merchants and makes a more level playing field for
our homegrown brick-and-mortar stores,” State Rep. Mike Sanders said of the Amazon agreement.
“This will immediately in-crease the collection of dollars that will support core state ser-vices for Oklahoma residents, such as education, transpor-tation, health care and more. I hope other online retailers will follow this example.”
Oklahoma joins a growing list of states for which Amazon is now collecting and remitting sales taxes, which may make a dent in its 31 percent share of the online retail market.
Bloomberg reported in 2014 that Amazon customers re-duced their annual purchases by as much as 24 percent after the company started collecting sales taxes in their states.
While the hope along Okla-homa’s Main Streets is Ama-zon’s loss would be the gain of
Amazon[Continued From Page 1A]
Local pharmacist Lar-ry Adams said eliminat-ing some factors from the current health care system could dramatical-ly decrease its costs.
Adams, the owner of Dennis’ Express Pharma-cy, was the guest speaker last Thursday at King-fisher Lions Club.
He said the cause of ever-escalating expenses involved in health care in the United States is multi-faceted, but mostly laid at the doorstep of insurance companies. Adams said insurance companies act as gate-keepers to what doctor the insured is able to see,
what drugs they may be prescribed and at what pharmacy the drugs may be purchased.
Many times, Adams said, the only option is to spend much time driving inconvenient distances to those provider locations when their location of preference is only a few blocks away.
Adams added that many times the doctors, pharmaceutical compa-nies and the pharmacies must also pay to be on the list, which drives up the cost of health care.
In his opinion, Adams said if true free market interaction was in play
in the health care sys-tem, insurance compa-nies would be eliminated from the equation and the cost would drop dra-matically.
Adams said home, business, auto, life and other forms of insurance are a fixture of responsible management to the vast majority of Americans.
However, he said, the umbrella under which health care insurance works has created an unworkable situation that must be addressed in the near future to keep the entire health care system from cratering upon itself.
KHS SENIORS, from left, Hector Saucedo, Braydon French and Shawn Ramirez were guests last week of the Kingfisher Rotary Club. [TIMES-FREE PRESS Staff Photo]
Kingfisher High School seniors Hector Saucedo, Braydon French and Shawn Ramirez were guests last Tuesday of the Kingfisher Rotary Club.
Saucedo is the son of Hector and Veronica Sauce-do.
He participates in cross country, track and soccer.
French is the son of Brian and Stacey French.
He is a member of FC-CLA, FCA and participates in football and wrestling.
Ramirez is the son of Angie Ramirez.
He participates in cross country, in which he earned All-State status, wrestling, track and soccer.
local retailers, the Bloomberg study showed consumers were more likely to shift to other online retailers which are not collecting taxes.
“That’s why it’s crucial that we get as close to 100 percent compliance from all online retailers, either through state or federal legislation or voluntary agreement,” Slezickey said. “That’s the only way to ensure municipalities get their full share of taxes, while providing a truly level playing field for local merchants.”
KINGFISHER LIONS Club member Doug Hauser, right, with guest speak-er Larry Adams at last week’s meeting. [TIMES-FREE PRESS Staff Photo]
Pharmacist discusses health system’s woes
Rotary hosts Saucedo, French, Ramirez
Kingfisher (Okla.) Times & Free Press Sunday, February 5, 2017 3A
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Taylor Fields of Keller, Texas, and Jaron Dulaney of Frisco, Texas, were wed Jan. 21, 2017, at Rustic Grace Estate in Van Alstyne, Texas.
Chuck Moseley of Flower Mound, Texas, officiated the 5 p.m. ceremony.
Parents of the couple are Ron and Lisa Fields of Keller, Texas, and Jamie and Joy Dulaney of Guthrie.
Given in marriage by her father, who wore his fire-fighter dress blues, the bride wore a dress that featured a v-neck in the front and back with a long skirt and train. The large silk bouquet, pre-pared by the bride’s moth-er, included pink proteas, creme camellias and natural greenery.
Michelle Morgan served as maid of honor and Mar-cia Fields, sister-in-law to the bride, was the matron of honor. Bridesmaids were Alex Blue, Stephanie Chiup-pi, Krystal Dulaney, sister of the bridegroom, Amanda Moos, Claire Funck, cousin of the bride, and Tammy Mr. and Mrs. Jaron Dulaney
Hunt.Kyle Miller served as the
best man. Groomsen were Mitchell Fish, James Eppoli-to, Kevin McHugh, Scott Scepanski, Michael Fields, brother of the bride, Bryce Perry and Braxton Tinsley.
Mason Fields, the neph-ew of the bride, was the ring bearer. Flower girls were Kerri Annabell and Geor-gia Hyland and Camille Murray.
Martin Morgan was the pianist and Micayla Mor-gan the soloist during the ceremony.
Special guests included Joe and Jeanette Kloeppel of Kingfisher, the grandparents of the bridegroom; Yvonne Dulaney of Tulsa, grand-mother of the bridegroom; and Steven Dulaney, great uncle of the bridegroom.
A reception was held on the grounds after the cere-mony.
Following a wedding trip to Eureka Springs, Ark., the couple established a home in Frisco, Texas.
Dulaney, Fields exchange vows
Dover School activities for Feb. 7-11 are as follows:
Tuesday - High school basketball, home, Aline-Cleo, 6:30 p.m. (senior night)
Wednesday - Student-led
parent-teacher conferences, 3:30-6:30 p.m.
Thursday- Student-led parent-teacher conferences, 3:30-6:30 p.m.
Friday - No school; Class
B district basketball tour-nament: girls vs. Carney at Lomega, 6:30 p.m. and boys vs. Carney at 8 p.m.
Saturday - District basket-ball tournament
Lomega Schools’ schedule for Feb. 6-12 is as follows:
Monday - Seventh and eighth basketball at Watonga, 4:30 p.m.
Tuesday - Freshman Choosing the Best, first hour; CEC test for juniors, second
Kingfisher Study Club met Feb. 1 in the home of Gerry Plummer with Kelly Joppa serving as co-hostess.
President Nancy Cravens wel-comed everyone present by giving a list of all the events February is noted for such as Groundhog Day, Super Bowl Sunday, Valentine’s Day and President’s Day, among many others.
Roll call was answered by 16 members giving a favorite event of February that meant something spe-cial to them.
The secretary read the minutes of
the January meeting. Plummer, deco-ration chairman, showed some of the items the group will use at the Senior Tea. All other committees will report at the March meeting.
Virginia Hellwege, yearbook chairman, introduced Ruth Ann Satchell, who presented the the program, “Travel Northwest Okla-homa.” It took the group on a tour beginning in Guthrie, Kingfisher, Watonga and up to the panhandle and the Black Mesa, then back to the sights across northern Oklahoma to
Enid and back home.Members present were Betty Beall,
Sherry Blair, Connie Boeckman, Les-lie Click, Cravens, Melda Fischer, Carlene Gooden, Hellwege, Donna Inman, Joppa, Donna Lann, Clairetta Lowe, Carol Neuendorf, Judy Pan-nell, Plummer and Satchell.
The next meeting will be March 1 at the Federated Church with Nancy Hasenfratz as hostess and Hellwege as co-hostess.
The meeting adjourned by reciting the Club Women’s Creed.
Omega Home and Com-munity Education group will meet at 1:30 p.m. Thurs-day, Feb. 9 at Chisholm Trail Technology Center.
Hostess will be Kay Mc-Graw and the lesson will be “Exercise for the Health of It.”
Due to incomplete in-formation provided to the Times and Free Press, Cam-eron Hubbard’s named was omitted from the recently published University of Central Oklahoma Dean’s Honor Roll for the fall se-mester.
Hubbard, a 2013 King-fisher High School gradu-ate, received grades of all A’s and B’s to qualify for the honor roll.
Honor roll addition
Study Club gathers for February meeting
Justin Maddox, right, regional vice president and financial advisor/broker with Invesco, an invest-ment company, was the guest speaker last Tuesday at Kingfisher Rotary. He was introduced by Rotari-an Derek Daugherty, left, an Edwards Jones Invest-ments financial advisor in Kingfisher. Maddox, who lives in Tulsa, reviewed the past 60 years of national and global financial activity. He said regardless of political unrest, war and financial booms and busts, each of those six decades ended with overall high-er investment earnings than with what they began. He said Invesco has employees in over 20 countries around the world and their overall forecast consen-sus is for 2.4. to 2.5 percent economic growth in the U.S. over the current year. [Staff Photo]
Omega HCE meets this week
Advisor talks economy at Rotary
Lomega schedulehour
Wednesday - Elementary after-school remediation; Wednesday Night Kids, 5:30 p.m.
Friday - Raider Roundup, student council; Class B dis-trict basketball tournament
Dover vs. Carney at Lomega, 6:30 p.m.
Saturday - ACT; district basketball, Lomega vs. Friday winners, 6:30 p.m.
Sunday - Local fair, King-fisher County Fairgrounds, 2 p.m.
Dover schedule
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4A Sunday, February 5, 2017 Kingfisher (Okla.) Times & Free Press
VIEWfrom behind the
(A column of opinion by Gary Reid, Publisher Emeritus)
plow
The Kingfisher Times & Free Press(USPS No. 295-420)
Published Every Sunday and Wednesday by Kingfisher Newspapers, Inc. at323 N. Main, Kingfisher, OK 73750
Periodicals Postage Paid at Kingfisher, OK 73750
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to:
Kingfisher Times and Free Press, P.O. Box 209, Kingfisher, OK 73750
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Barry ReidPublisher, Advertising
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Brenda Slater ......................................Office ManagerMichael Swisher............................... Managing Editor Lacey Odell .............................Staffwriter-ProductionHarvey Rollins..........................Subscriptions-Legals
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Gary Reid, Publisher Emeritus
Letters to the editor are an important part of any news-paper and are especially welcomed by the Times and Free Press, whether or not they agree with our views
We do require that letter writers be identified, however, before we publish them. If you believe what you say, you should be willing to sign your name.
Thursday morning an unsigned letter was placed in the front door of the newspaper. It may have contained a second page with a signature. The staff person finding the paper did not see a second sheet. If a signature is presented, we will be happy to print your letter with name intact.
The letter writer asked why we hadn’t criticized Pres-ident Trump on writing executive orders like we did Obama.
The writer said Obama wrote one-third as many execu-tive orders as President George W. Bush did.
We won’t go into the veracity of that comment, but we believe that most of Obama’s executive orders, or memos, were written to skirt laws enacted by Congress and de-signed to destroy rule of law in the U.S.
The writer also commented that Trump is on track to sign more executive orders in his first 100 days in office than Obama did.
While Trump’s executive orders to date are primarily designed to undo damage done by Obama, those who keep track of such things say he has not written more at this point than Obama did.
Trump signed 18 executive orders and memos in his first 12 days in office, for an average of 1.5 executive actions per day. While that may seem like an unprecedented bombard-ment of policy, the number of actions signed by Trump is actually one short of his predecessor.
In his first 12 days in office in 2009, Barack Obama signed 19 executive actions.
The BBC reports that between Inauguration Day and Jan. 31, Trump signed seven executive orders and 11 mem-os; in the same time frame, Obama signed nine orders and 10 memos.
Some executive actions are controversial, some are pro-cedural, and some simply reverse orders signed by prior presidents. Each of the past four presidents, for example, have signed an executive action either repealing (Demo-crats) or reinstating (Republicans) what’s known as the “Mexico City Policy,” a Reagan-era rule that withholds U.S. funds from global organizations that provide abortion services. Trump reinstated the rule with a memo almost immediately after taking office.
Although Trump has signed fewer executive actions than Obama did in his first 12 days, Trump’s have been more varied and impactful. He’s signed an order to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, put in place a tempo-rary delay on all refugees and restrictions on immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries, inked an order that paves the way for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, green-lit two controversial oil pipelines, and signed an order that dramatically restructures the National Security Council. Kudos to President Trump for delaying immigra-tion for Muslims, until they can be properly vetted.
By contrast, Obama’s most scrutinized early orders sought to ban the use of torture in enemy interrogations, shut down the Central Intelligence Agency’s overseas pris-ons, and close Guantanamo Bay within a year. The idea of closing Guantanamo Bay created enough controversy that, by 2011, Obama had essentially given it up. Today, a few dozen detainees still remain at the prison.
The writer also took us to task for blaming billionaire Gerorge Soros for financing the marches opposing Trump policies, implying it is impossible for a shadow figure to be so active in America.
We feel confident that Soros, who finances 208 left-wing organizations (our count from one site), is attempting to undermine American institutions and values and is be-hind much of the unrest, although a Dr. Rick Swier on the 100PercentFedUp.Com site lists 187 Soros-funded groups.
A Muslim woman, who described herself as usually leaning to the left, Asra Q. Nomini, wrote an opinion col-umn in “Women of the World,” stating she did research that showed the pro-abortion women’s march on Washington had 56 ties to Soros.
If the letter writer will drop by the office and sign his or her name to it, we will be more than pleased to run the whole letter.
Until that happens, we will keep it on file.Also, we will limit the writer’s points to those we have
mentioned to this point.One of our favorite columnists of all time was Thomas
Sowell, who recently retired his pen, or typewriter or com-puter – whatever he used to bang out his columns.
We never ran Sowell’s columns in this paper because we had access to the equally talented Walter E. Williams.
We like them both because though each had an earned Ph.D., they didn’t follow the left-wing line so prevalent on college campuses these days.
One thing Sowell wrote that made so much sense to us was this:
“I think this man (Obama) really does believe he can change the world, and people like that are infinitely more dangerous than mere crooked politicians.”
He also commented: “Much of the social history of the western world over
the past three decades has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good.”
Letters to editor need to be signed
Rancher’s rules (Best Of)So you want to be a ranch-
er, huh? There is more to it than joining the cattlemen’s association, buying a hat and sitting at the coffee shop all day. These are the rules all ranchers must obey.
1. You must be at least 59 years of age.
2 . M e m b e r s h i p i s non-transferable. Once you start you cannot quit. There is only one exception to this rule. (See rule number three.)
3. Membership may be canceled or revoked at any time without prior notice by your banker.
4. A rancher’s horse is his most prized possession. It should be a Quarter Horse, but a little Thoroughbred blood is acceptable. Under no circumstances should the rancher’s horse be a Peruvi-an Paso, Paso Fino or any of those foreign jobs that walk funny.
5. The rancher must own at least one cow or steer, preferably not of the Holstein variety.
6. Before you buy ... beg.7. Never take your wife to
a bull sale.8.Under no circumstanc-
es should you let your wife drive. If you do who is gonna open the gates?
9. Keep all work within the family.
10. Don’t expect kind words or praise. That will only come when your dead.
11. The rancher must drive a four-wheel-drive pick-up with at least two of the following in the bed: a dog,
empty beer can, broken shov-el, rolled up ancient barbed wire, broken float valve, horse halter, sack of feed, flat tire, baler twine or a broken plastic sorting paddle.
12. A rancher should feel undressed wearing anything other than a pair of Wran-glers or Levis. None of those
pants with pleats or darts in the front are allowed. I think they call them Dockers. No real cowboy would be caught dead in something called Dockers.
13. A rancher must wear proper headgear at all times. He or she only takes off his or her hat in two instances: at a funeral or when soliciting funds from the banker. The rancher’s hat should either be of the baseball variety, a straw or a beaver hat. At no time should the rancher cover his beaver hat with a plastic rain cover. Beavers love getting wet. So should ranchers.
14. Ranchers do not eat quiche, tofu or alfalfa sprouts. Sprouts are for cows.
15. Under no circum-stances should the rancher belong to any organized club such as the Sierra Club, Gay Rights Legal Defense Fund, Greenpeace or PETA. It’s O.K. for a rancher to attend a cattlemen’s convention as
long he or she stays in the bar and doesn’t go to any meetings.
16. For every hour on top of a horse the rancher shall spend 20 hours fixing fence, pulling heifers or hauling hay.
17. Ranchers never expe-rience “leisure time” but if they do it should be spent doing economic research at the auction market cafe.
18. A rancher must own a dog with good balance. (for riding in the truck). It should not be a Lhasa Apso, Poodle, Schnauzer or any dog with a known heritage.
19. A rancher drinks whis-key, not wine. Water is ac-ceptable as a chaser but not if it comes in one of those green bottles from France or a clear plastic bottle from Fiji.
20. There are four things a rancher never uses: hair styl-ing mousse, a tractor, electric razor or a tax attorney.
21. A rancher pays more attention to the rain gauge and the price of calves than he does the Dow Jones Indus-trial Average.
22. All cattleman must be married because at times you will have to make up additional rules. This is the wife’s job. The wife reserves the right to change the rules at any time. If the husband begins to catch on to the rules the female must change the rules immediately.
23. If things don’t go well or turn out right it is always the husband’s fault.
wwwLeePittsbooks.com
It’s the PittsBy Lee Pitts
By Rep. Mike Sanders The 56th Legislature
starts Monday, Feb. 6. The House convenes at noon, and the governor will give her State of the State address shortly after.
This year again will be a challenging session. Budget talks will likely take up a good portion of our time at the Capitol. As a member of the House Appropriations and Budget Committee, I’m proud of the work already begun on this pressing issue. Before session, we asked five of the state agen-cies that receive nearly 80 percent of state appropriat-ed dollars to appear before the committee, opening the doors to all representatives and anyone interested from the public. The agencies presented their next fiscal year budgets as well as gave us an overview of projects and programs and a glimpse into their decision-making process of what constitutes a valid use of state money. We heard from the state Education Department, the Oklahoma Transportation Department, the Oklahoma Regents for Higher Edu-cation, the Department of Human Services and the Oklahoma Health Care Authority. As the session progresses, we’ll be diving into the budgets of other state-appropriated agencies as well.
You’ll hear a lot this year from sources on both sides of the budget issue – those saying the state still has a spending problem, and those saying we’re cut to the bone and now we must consider we have a revenue problem. The truth is we have both. The state has been through a protracted
recession as a result of our dependence on oil and gas revenue. We know we must diversify, and we’ve worked to do that. But, to attract businesses from oth-er sectors, past Legislatures have voted in a number of tax incentives and credits, which now we must exam-ine to see the true benefit of our investment. We’ve been doing that now through the state’s Incentive Evaluation Commission. That work will continue, and I will keep you apprised of the commission’s recommen-dations. One piece of good news is that most sources agree oil and gas revenues are trending up. On the spending side, I know there is still waste in state govern-ment. To think otherwise is simply to be naïve. While some agencies have been cut to the proverbial bone, I know that as we delve into the line items on budgets we will be able to find areas that can at least be held for a more profitable year.
There are several pieces of legislation that are al-ready getting a lot of talk for the coming session. First, I’m confident we will pass a REAL ID piece of legisla-tion that will comply with federal regulations but will protect the private informa-tion of Oklahomans. I also think there is a legitimate opportunity to pass a teach-er pay raise this year. House Bill 1114 proposes a $6,000 pay raise over three years, which I feel is a reasonable approach given the state’s current economic picture. The big question, of course, will be how to pay for this raise. I know there already are several plans under way to tackle this. I believe we
will find a way. As always, this year I
will be particularly attuned to legislation that affects our rural way of living. I will continue to support rural firefighters, law en-forcement officials, county governments, highway and county transportation fund-ing, rural schools and other issues that affect those who live in my district.
In closing, keep in mind, that more than 2,200 bills and resolutions were filed by the Legislature this year. If historical precedent holds true, only about 400 of those will make it into law by the end of the session. That means we legislators have our work cut out for us to de-cide what will best serve the needs of the people of our state and what can be left on the editing room floor.
I’m proud to serve Okla-homa House District 59. As always, I’d love to hear from you. I can be contacted at [email protected] or (405) 557-7407.
Legislative session begins
Rep. Mike Sanders
By Mat Staver, CEO,Liberty Counsel
President Donald Trump has nominated Judge Neil Gorsuch, a federal appel-late judge on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, as the next Supreme Court Justice. Judge Gorsuch is 49, a graduate of Columbia University, Harvard Uni-versity (J.D.), and Oxford University (D.Phil.), where he studied Natural Law, and a former Supreme Court law clerk. His credentials and experience are stellar.
More importantly, his judicial philosophy is right. Gorsuch wrote a book ti-tled, The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia. One quoted portion of the book states: “Human life is fundamentally and in-herently valuable” and that “the intentional taking of human life by private per-sons is always wrong.”
He sided with the state of Utah’s defunding of Planned Parenthood, and he supported the religious liberty arguments against forced abortion mandates under ObamaCare in Hob-by Lobby and Little Sisters of the Poor.
Gorsuch wrote two piec-es relevant to the proper role of judges. The first is an opinion for National Re-view in 2005 on the subject of Judicial Activism. He stated:
“This overweening ad-diction to the courtroom as the place to debate so-cial policy is bad for the country and bad for the judiciary. In the legislative arena, especially when the country is closely divided, compromises tend to be the rule of the day. But when judges rule this or that pol-icy unconstitutional, there’s little room for compromise: One side must win, the other must lose.”
A few weeks after Justice Scalia’s passing in 2016, Judge Gorsuch gave a lec-ture that details his judicial interpretation philosophy and honors Justice Scal-ia. This excellent article is something similar to what Professor Robert George and Justice Scalia would write:
“Respectfully, it seems to me an assiduous focus on text, structure, and his-tory is essential to the prop-er exercise of the judicial function. That, yes, judges should be in the business of declaring what the law is using the traditional tools of interpretation, rather than pronouncing the law as they might wish it to be in light of their own political views, always with an eye on the outcome, and engaged per-haps in some Benthamite calculation of pleasures and pains along the way. Though the critics are loud and the temptations to join them may be many, mark me down too as a believer that the traditional account of the judicial role Justice Scalia defended will en-dure.”
Judicial activism is de-stroying the judiciary and will ultimately weaken the role of the judicial in the eyes of the people. The only power that courts have is
Gorsuch is ideal choice for SCUSA
[See Gorsuch, Page 5A]
