The Oklahoma Observercast: Recent Episodes
The Oklahoma Observercast
Oklahoma’s public health infrastructure worked hand in glove with the first Trump presidency’s public health response, complete with the botched unemployment software and rollout as well as preemptively reopening businesses in the spring of 2020. But we might consider something else is going on with the state government’s poor oversight of our public health systems: […]
To say Donald Trump is obsessed with immigrants would be an epic understatement. From the moment he rode down the escalator at Trump Tower to announce his 2016 presidential campaign through his 2024 bid to reclaim the White House, The Donald hasn’t hidden his racism and bigotry and devotion to white nationalism. As he prepares […]
It’s official: Oklahoma recorded the nation’s lowest age-eligible voter turnout in the November general election – a Code Red warning that our body politic is on life support, if not in a death spiral. Can anything be done to restore the patient to health? One citizens’ group, Oklahoma United, thinks it has identified the antidote: […]
In a reality where the full spectrum of reproductive healthcare protections has been rolled back or eliminated nationwide by the disastrous Dobbs U.S. Supreme Court decision, Oklahoma legislators still manage to work overtime to reduce women’s rights from every angle possible. When the Oklahoma Commission on the Status of Women picked two of the hardest rightwing state […]
It’s difficult, if not impossible to keep up with state Superintendent Ryan Walters’ antics these days. But we know this much for certain: He’s doing everything he can to dismantle the State Department of Education and straight-jacket Oklahoma’s K-12 schools with his non-stop social media gaslighting and right-wing media appearances in which he uses public […]
If nothing else, the Oklahoma Legislature’s Republican supermajority has proven itself world-class at one thing: virtue signaling. Any piece of legislation they can remotely link to DEI or ESG … anything they can tar-and-feather as “Woke” … anything they think undermines the historical, patriarchal, white status quo … they attack like buzzards feasting on roadkill […]
It took 13 years, but the chickens finally came home to roost for legislative Republicans, who handed Oklahoma governors absolute power over the State Board of Education in response to push-back from Democratic appointees against then-newly minted and wholly unqualified superintendent Janet Barresi. At the time, GOP lawmakers were warned their fit of pique could […]
With the new school year just weeks away, state Superintendent Ryan Walters is busy lobbing one Molotov cocktail after another into Oklahoma’s classrooms in pursuit of his Christian Nationalist agenda. For this week’s Observercast – A Six Gun Or A Fountain Pen – former social studies teacher-turned-state Rep. John Waldron of Tulsa joins us to […]
When lawmakers adjourned sine die late last month, it wasn’t just the end of the 59th Oklahoma Legislature. It was the end of a leadership era, too. Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat and House Speaker Charles McCall are two of the longest serving top dawgs in their respective chambers in Oklahoma history – Treat […]
If the 59th Oklahoma Legislature is remembered for anything, it will be its preoccupation with 2SLGBTQ+ folks, especially transgender Oklahomans. This year session more than 50 bills were introduced that the American Civil Liberties Union identified as anti-2SLGBTQ+. Fortunately, few got so much as a hearing. What did gain traction was open hate speech – […]
The Oklahoma Legislature’s 2024 session has had plenty of headline-grabbing moments: thwarting an attack on judicial independence, undermining The People’s initiative powers, embracing a show-me-your-papers expansion of police powers that could target almost anyone who’s not lily-white. But it’s often the legislation that flies beneath the radar that ends up with the potential to have […]
With the recent death of Owasso High School student Nex Benedict, The Observer is re-posting the August 2023 Observercast in which therapist/counselor Paula Sophia and Freedom Oklahoma’s Nicole McAfee call out bigotry and hatred aimed at our 2SLGBTQ+ friends — and offer ways forward to support them. Sophia’s and McAfee’s powerful, illuminating conversation was recorded […]
Oklahoma legislators have 16 weeks to get it right during the legislative session — to concentrate on the concerns and issues that our state honestly, truly faces — but, if history is any indication, there’s a next to zero chance they will. For an overview of the filed legislation and what we might see in the […]
Higher education in Oklahoma took it personally in December when Gov. Kevin Stitt signed an executive order to “review” all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in the state’s public sector. Never mind DEI programs attract business and position Oklahoma students for global competitiveness, Stitt still made his move in the continuing Culture War on so-called “woke ideologies” […]
What will be remembered about 2023? Way too many lows and too few highs politically? Former Senate President-turned-Observer columnist Cal Hobson joins us for this week’s Observercast – ’23 In A Rearview Mirror – to unpack the good, bad and ugly of it all – and to offer up fearless predictions for 2024.
Michelin’s recent announcement it is closing its manufacturing plant in Ardmore sent shockwaves through southern Oklahoma and the statehouse. The Senate quickly assembled a “select committee” to consider where Oklahoma’s gone wrong in its efforts to lure major economic expansions and investments and to keep major employees from skedaddling and leaving towns high-and-dry after cashing […]
When it comes to workforce development, Oklahoma has huge opportunity: finding ways to get more of the 614,000 Sooners with disabilities employed. During this interim study season at the state Capitol, OKC Rep. Ellyn Hefner explored why only about 40% of adults with disabilities have jobs and why 30% who do are paid below the […]
Earlier this month, for the first time, survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre brought their case for reparations to the state Capitol – thanks to an interim study pursued by state Rep. Regina Goodwin, whose family survived the carnage. Goodwin, who’s now in her fourth term representing the area once hailed nationally as Black […]
In their quest to create a Top 10 state, statehouse leaders seem to think it’s a better bet to throw hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars at corporations that promise a few thousand jobs than to invest in building Oklahoma from the grass roots up. In this week’s Observercast – The Burdens On Everyday Oklahomans […]
Three gun incidents – one resulting in the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old Midwest City High School student – marred the opening week of Oklahoma’s high school football season. For the latest Observercast –Frightful Night Lights – four-term Tulsa state representative and former Tulsa University football standout Monroe Nichols joins us to discuss gun violence, what […]
Tulsa Public Schools kept its accreditation, but don’t think for a minute that state Superintendent Ryan Walters is done wreaking havoc at the state’s largest school district – or sowing chaos in Oklahoma public education. For this week’s Observercast – The Hit Job On TPS – Tulsa Rep. Melissa Provenzano, herself a former principal and educator, […]
Oklahoma’s students returned to class this month amidst arguably the most toxic environment ever, courtesy of state Superintendent Ryan Walters. For this week’s Back-To-School Observercast, teacher-turned-Rep. Jacob Rosecrants, veteran teacher Sandra Valentine and Mid-Del Superintendent Rick Cobb help explain the challenges – and landmines – facing the state’s 500-plus districts, 700,000-plus students, their parents, teachers […]
After the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 anti-abortion ruling, Republicans pivoted quickly to new front in the Culture Wars: launching an all-out assault on the rights of transgender Americans. Oklahoma’s GOP supermajority played its part, following up restrictions it imposed on bathroom use and athletic participation with legislation that banned gender affirming care. For this week’s […]
The state of Oklahoma talks a big game about being “pro-life.” But at the end of the day, we’re all hat, no cattle when it comes to actually walking the walk to take care of our kids. And once again, the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNTS Data Book sets out in stark terms just how poorly […]
An acute teacher shortage. Schools that still haven’t recovered from a decade-plus of the nation’s deepest budget cuts. Private school vouchers projected to divert hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars that could have gone to underfunded public K-12 schools. A state education agency in disarray. A culture warrior state superintendent who wants evangelical Christianity unleashed […]
Who and what are behind the unprecedented attacks on Oklahoma’s K-12 schools? What’s at stake for the 700,000-plus students and families that rely on public ed? And what does it portend for Oklahoma’s future? In GOP Hypocrisy In 2023, former Senate President Cal Hobson joins us for the first in a series of Observercasts that […]
In this era of acronyms in Oklahoma politics— DEI, CRT, and now, ESG— the cost of our Republican supermajority’s hyperpartisan culture wars comes with a cost to the State of Oklahoma. Because government entities are no longer allowed to contract with certain vendors who have environmental, social, or governance policies, the state stands to lose […]
It’s late spring in Oklahoma and lawsuits once again are in full bloom – this time thanks to a Legislature, governor and Statewide Virtual Charter School Board which thumbed their noses at the state Constitution, empowering the creation of the nation’s first publicly-funded religious school. For this week’s Observercast – Freedom From Religion – OKC […]
Hold two opposing ideas in your mind for a minute: First, the state of Oklahoma has a historic amount of money to appropriate this year. However, the Republican supermajority decided to sit on $1 billion of that money and continue to hold state agency budgets flat, underfunding core services for our most vulnerable citizens. One […]
State leaders hailed next year’s education funding package as “historic.” But is it? There’s $625 million in new spending, teacher pay raises and paid maternity leave … but there’s also vouchers for private schools. For this week’s Observercast, The Whole Education Enchilada, veteran public policy analyst David Blatt helps separate the rhetoric from the reality […]
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals refused to stop it. The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board also declined to intervene. Now the U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to stay Richard Glossip’s May 18 execution. Glossip’s corrupt case serves as Exhibit A that Oklahoma’s death penalty system is anything but just. For a special midweek […]
Food fight!!! The 2023 session has gone straight up Animal House entering its final month. The governor vetoing 20 bills, willy-nilly, just to stick it to the Senate; the Senate President admonishing the gov to sober up; the House Speaker ducking for cover behind the gov. What a Stitt show! For this week’s Observercast – […]
Lost in the news of the squabbles over the governor’s, Senate’s, and House’s competing plans to privatize public education in our state is the other front in Gov. Stitt’s privatization gambit: managed care Medicaid. Why should we care? The reasons number in the millions and billions: one million Oklahomans are on Medicaid, and the state […]
At least 4,000 Oklahomans are homeless on any given night – that’s 10 people per 10,000 in the general population. And we’re not just talking adults: Oklahoma City’s public schools served nearly 2,000 children experiencing homelessness in the 2021-22 school year. Yet, last week, Gov. Kevin Stitt arbitrarily dissolved the Governor’s Interagency Council on Homelessness, […]
Buckle up, public school supporters. The governor, Senate president and House speaker all want public dollars to underwrite private education and homeschooling – hundreds of millions of tax dollars that could be earmarked for Oklahoma’s underfunded K-12 classrooms. For this week’s Observercast – The Latest School Voucher Gambit – Tulsa Sen. Jo Anna Dossett, a former teacher, […]
Two years after enduring Winter Storm Uri’s frigid grip, Oklahoma ratepayers are squeezed by a different vise: Soaring monthly bills fueled by utilities’ bungling during the Arctic blast. For this week’s Observercast – Paying For Poor Preparations – AARP-Oklahoma State Director Sean Voskhul joins us to discuss how workaday Oklahomans got the shaft and what […]
For a decade, Oklahoma’s colleges and university endured steep budget cuts, shoving higher costs onto students and driving up student loan debt. Now, higher ed is the targets of statehouse Republicans’ Culture Wars, pilloried over Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs and academic freedoms threatened. All at a time Oklahoma businesses complain they can’t find enough […]
On Tuesday, voters will decide the fate of SQ 820 – the criminal justice reform proposal that, if enacted, would make Oklahoma the 22nd state to legalize recreational marijuana. For this week’s Observercast – Yes On 820 – former state representative, ACLU-Oklahoma executive director and SQ 820 campaign senior advisor Ryan Kiesel joins us to help unpack all […]
A progressive tide continues to surge in Oklahoma’s largest county. Not only did statewide Democratic candidates Joy Hofmeister and Jena Nelson outperform their GOP opponents in the county last November, but more Democrats than Republicans voted in Feb. 14’s county clerk primaries and progressive JoBeth Hamon withstood an establishment, intra-party challenge to claim a second […]
Actions speak louder than words. A Republican statehouse supermajority that brays incessantly about “trusting” and “empowering” parents is doing everything it can, as fast as it can, to usurp parents’ rights to make health care decisions for their transgender children. Think only transgender Oklahomans are in the lawmakers’ crosshairs? Don’t bet on it. For this week’s […]
The all-out assault on Oklahoma public education is underway. Will it end with Oklahomans protecting and investing in a system that welcomes all comers, regardless of race, religion, socioeconomic status, ability or disability? Or will Gov. Kevin Stitt, new Superintendent Ryan Walters and deep-pocketed pro-voucher schemers finally achieve their fondest dreams: steering public dollars into […]
You never know what could happen during a session of the Oklahoma Legislature but one thing is a sure bet: The supermajority will zero in on a bogeyman to help whip up the culture wars. This year’s target is trans Oklahomans, with at least a half dozen bigoted bills threatening gender care and individual liberty. […]
The 59th Oklahoma Legislature kicks off Feb. 6 with Republican supermajorities in both houses threatening to widen the state’s already massive gulf between the Haves and the Have-Nots. Tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the rich. Vouchers that further starve underfunded public schools. Book bans. More restrictions on what can and can’t be taught about history […]
An important subplot in this year’s elections involved the extraordinary tension between Oklahoma’s sovereign tribal nations and Gov. Kevin Stitt. Now that Stitt has been re-elected, how will the governor, tribes and state lawmakers navigate the next four years? And what will it mean for workaday Oklahomans and the state’s economic, social and political future? […]
Two post-election questions linger for beleaguered Oklahoma Democrats: How did a seemingly tight governor’s race end up in lopsided defeat? And how can D’s get more competitive in statewide races? For this week’s Observercast – What’s It All Mean? – Joy Hofmeister’s campaign manager Brigette Zorn helps dissect the disappointing results and chart ways to […]
Last week’s midterm elections were expectations breakers – both nationally and in Oklahoma. State Labor Commissioner Leslie Osborn joins us for this week’s Observercast – State Races, National Rhetoric – to give her take on the state’s Red Wave and what it portends for the 2023 Legislature and beyond.
House Democratic Leader Emily Virgin, former Senate President Pro Tem Cal Hobson and former House Democratic Leader Scott Inman join us for Observercast’s deep dive into Tuesday’s Oklahoma elections — arguably the most consequential ever.
In this week’s Observercast – From One Governor To The Next – former Gov. David Walters makes the case for Democratic nominee Joy Hofmeister in her battle to unseat incumbent Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt in what arguably is the most consequential Oklahoma gubernatorial race this century.
In the midterms four years ago, Kendra Horn shocked the political world, unseating an incumbent Republican congressman who thought he could coast to victory in Ruby Red Oklahoma. This year, Horn hopes to recreate the magic and become the state’s first Democratic U.S. senator in 28 years. For this week’s Observercast – the latest in […]
This year’s gubernatorial and state superintendent elections will determine Oklahoma’s commitment to public education. Will privatizers and profiteers finally get their way, spelling the end of K-12 schools as the Founders envisioned? Democratic Superintendent nominee Jena Nelson joins us for this week’s Observercast – The Future of Public Education On The Ballot – to discuss […]
Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Madison Horn hopes to unseat a well-funded Republican incumbent, Sen. James Lankford, with strong ties to Southern Baptists and an endorsement from former President Trump. In this week’s Observercast – In Conversation With Madison Horn – the political newcomer discusses her non-traditional campaign that’s planted seeds in all 77 counties and hopes to […]
For Oklahoma educators, the culture wars fanned by the far right are making an already tough job even tougher. Just ask former Norman High School English teacher Summer Boismier, who quit recently after getting in hot water for daring share with her students a QR code to the Brooklyn, NY Public Library – giving them […]
Oklahoma is anything but family-friendly. One in five kids doesn’t know where their next meal will come from. Nearly half the women of child-bearing age live in maternity deserts – not a single birthing facility in their home counties. Twenty percent of Sooners remain uninsured. Child care remains unaffordable and inaccessible for far too many. […]
The last two-decades-plus have been tough for unions in Oklahoma, but organized labor is enjoying a renaissance thanks to Starbucks’ baristas. For this week’s Observercast – Brewing Up A Union – Alisha Humphrey, who helped organize her fellow workers at the Nichols Hills’ Starbucks in Oklahoma City, joins us to discuss how the union movement got started […]
Starting this week, as many as 25 Oklahoma death row inmates are scheduled to face lethal injection over the next two years – despite persistent questions about whether the state’s killer cocktail violates the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. State Rep. Jason Lowe, a criminal defense attorney, joins us for this week’s […]
Next week, in the Aug. 23 statewide runoff, Oklahoma Democrats and independents will decide who gets to take on incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. James Lankford in the November general election – Madison Horn or Jason Bollinger. For this week’s Observercast, the first-time candidates join us to discuss why they entered the race, what they’re hearing […]
Oklahoma’s K-12 schools teeter on the brink – underfunded and undermined by venal politicians pandering to deep-pocketed special interests whose goal is to replace the current system with private for-profit or religious education. This year’s elections – especially the races for governor and state superintendent – could well determine the fate of our constitutionally-mandated system […]
Top 10 state? Not when it comes to spending the once-in-a-lifetime federal infusion of $1.87 billion in taxpayers’ capital from American Rescue Plan Act. One national ranking puts Oklahoma’s allocation at 40th. Why the holdup? For this week’s Observercast – ARPA Dollars, Where Art Thou? – state Rep. Meloyde Blancett, who serves on the Legislature’s Joint Committee […]
For 50 years, the rightwing has used Roe v. Wade as the main talking point in their culture wars. But now, the United States, and states like Oklahoma that were waiting with baited breath to ban abortion, will have to confront the reality of what it means to live in world without legal access to […]
All but lost in the regular session’s acrimonious final hours was a massive change in Oklahoma’s health care for the working poor. The Legislature passed and Gov. Kevin Stitt signed legislation that outsources management of Medicaid, even though the current state-run system, administered by the Oklahoma Health Care Authority, is widely heralded as one of […]
The list of slaughters grows – Tulsa, Taft, Buffalo, Uvalde, and Philadelphia now among the American towns plagued by mass shootings. Yet in OKC’s and Washington’s halls of power, elected Republicans resist even modest firearms regulation, considering it an affront to the 2nd Amendment. For this week’s Observercast – It’s The Guns, Stupid – state Rep. Monroe Nichols, […]
It could take generations for Oklahoma to recover from the 2022 legislative session. The Republican supermajority not only gave the state an international black eye with its medieval thinking on reproductive, transgender and civil rights, but it also whiffed on a $9.8 billion budget that did precious little to invest in a brighter future for […]
Oklahoma taxpayers are getting a PhD-level education into the corrosive effects of a statehouse supermajority that brays incessantly about transparency but all-too-often operates in secret: Swadleygate and Epic, back-room corporate welfare deals and bullied agency boards, a $10 billion state budget crafted behind closed doors and rammed through with no public input and scant public […]
You thought past official misconduct in Oklahoma was eye-popping? Corruption on the state’s highest court, 165 county commissioners convicted, Gov. David Hall imprisoned, just to name a few. Today, Gov. Kevin Stitt’s administration is in the investigatory crosshairs of not one, not two, not three, but at least four possible scandals. For this week’s Observercast […]
After the governor signed SB 1100 last week, banning non-binary designations on vital records like birth certificates, Oklahoma has some soul searching to do about what kind of neighbors we want to be. This year’s legislative session has waged a non-unexpected war on the very identities and well-being of our LGBTQ2S friends, family members, and […]
The male-dominated Oklahoma Legislature’s obsession with uteruses threatens to make pregnancies more dangerous and family planning more complex. In this week’s Observercast – Yes, Abortion Care Is Health Care – Laura Bellis, community and contraception advocate, takes us inside the nightmare scenarios people – especially the poor and those living in rural areas – face as the […]
It’s six weeks until the end of the 2022 legislative session and the Oklahoma Legislature’s reason for being – crafting a state budget that funds vital state services – remains a work in progress … behind closed doors, as usual. If past is prologue, only about a half dozen or so budget-writers will know what’s […]
Believe it or not, Gov. Kevin Stitt’s signing today of SB 612 – arguably the nation’s most restrictive anti-abortion law – is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg when it comes to this session’s frenzied assault on reproductive rights. For this week’s Observercast – Abortion! Abortion! Abortion! – Oklahoma Women’s Coalition Board Member Amanda Ewing joins us […]
The first half of the 2022 legislative session was essentially a reprise of the Culture War’s Greatest Hits – a taxpayer-financed pitch to Republican voters to help keep their party’s statehouse supermajority. There were attacks on transgender youth, women’s reproductive rights, public schools and their libraries, making us a Top 10 state for far-right mischief. […]
This is a huge week for public education – and the future of rural Oklahoma. The deadline looms for Senate action on Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat’s voucher bill, SB 1647, that would steal public dollars from public schools and divert them into for-profit and religious schools. In this week’s Observercast – A Camel’s […]
With the candidate filing deadline just a month away and with former U.S. Rep. Kendra Horn’s entry into the race to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, Oklahoma’s 2022 state and federal campaign season is coming into sharper focus. Of special importance to Democrats: Reclaiming central Oklahoma’s 5th Congressional District seat that Horn narrowly lost two […]
Four years after voters made clear they’d had enough of Oklahoma’s punitive approach to crime and punishment, state lawmakers are hellbent on permanently tilting the scales against true, restorative, color blind justice. The Rev. Cece Jones-Davis joins us for this week’s Observercast – Laws Or Justice – to discuss ongoing efforts to secure justice for […]
The last week of February marked the annual Public Schools Week, an opportunity for those who believe in a free public education for all to rally at the state Capitol in support of this pillar of our democratic republic. This year’s emphasis took on special meaning given that Gov. Kevin Stitt, Senate President Pro Tem […]
Last week, Oklahoma executed its fourth inmate in less than four months. Next week, a federal court begins weighing whether the state’s lethal injection protocol constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. The bloodlust gives Oklahoma an international black eye in a civilized world that regards state-sanctioned executions as cruel, unusual, unacceptable and, well, uncivilized. For this […]
On Monday, Gov. Kevin Stitt will deliver his fourth State of the State to a joint session of the Oklahoma Legislature. For this week’s Observercast, we invited House Democratic Leader Emily Virgin, who’s attended 11 of these gubernatorial addresses, to preview what we’re likely to hear and to provide a reality check on what really […]
You’re not mistaken if you’ve noticed a theme in the first three episodes of Year 3 of Observercast: Education in Oklahoma. All signs point to a contentious year for education policy in the Legislature. We sat down with Tulsa Rep. Melissa Provenzano, a former career teacher and principal, to discuss the big ticket items we […]
As if a decade of the nation’s deepest education funding cuts, exploding class sizes, underpaid and worn-out teachers fleeing the profession, steadily declining enrollment in teacher education programs, and skyrocketing emergency teaching certifications weren’t enough … Oklahoma’s public schools now are besieged by a trifecta of Omicron, privatizers and politicians who’ve gone to meddling in […]
Gov. Kevin Stitt’s education secretary, Ryan Walters, dreams of being Oklahoma’s next state superintendent, but his attack on Omicron-besieged schools that halted in-person instruction temporarily to protect the health of teachers, staff and students unmasked a harsh truth: He doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. Somebody who does, Mid-Del Public Schools Superintendent Dr. […]
For our final Observercast of 2021, Fiasco and Failure, Observer columnist and former Senate President Pro Tem Cal Hobson joins us to review the year’s statehouse follies – from Epic Charter Schools to the public health lab to the state-funded lawsuit frenzy over “federal overreach” – and to preview the 2022 session and governor’s race. Observercast will […]
For this week’s Observercast — Twelve Years, Nine Months — we talked with advocates Roseann Duplan and Wanda Felty to learn more about the waitlist to receive services through the Developmental Disabilities Service Division. These services should help those over three years old who would otherwise require placement in what’s called an “intermediate care facility for […]
Gov. Kevin Stitt’s decision to spare Julius Jones’ life last week didn’t calm the debate over state-sanctioned killing – it intensified it. With five inmates scheduled for execution over the next four months, ACLU-OK Executive Director Tamya Cox-Toure joins us for this week’s Observercast – Julius Jones And Quitting The Carceral System – to discuss what’s next […]
The Oklahoma Legislature is back in the saddle this week for what might best be called a not-so-special session. On the agenda: Redistricting, the once a decade, post-census redraw of legislative and congressional boundaries. Former House Democratic Leader Scott Inman joins us for this week’s Observercast to explore hypermajority Republican map-drawing shenanigans, what they mean for […]
The world is watching to see what Oklahoma does in the case of Julius Jones, scheduled to be executed Nov. 18 for the murder of Edmond businessman Paul Howell. The state Pardon and Parole Board, citing doubts about Jones’ guilt, recommended Gov. Kevin Stitt commute Jones’ sentence to life with the possibility of parole. For […]
Believe it or not, the Oklahoma House speaker thinks Hispanics in south OKC and the Panhandle – four hours and a world away – reflect a “community of interest” because they speak Spanish. That’s one way statehouse Republicans are defending their egregious congressional redistricting plan that butchers Oklahoma County in order to serve Rep. Stephanie […]