Let’s start with Mickey’s home in higher education. Unlike most states with a consolidated higher ed system, ours is fragmented, with nearly 30 separate colleges and universities, each with its own president, squadrons of vice presidents, deans, provosts and other administrators and enrollment and business offices. Bring all the two-year colleges under one statewide community […]
Mike Brake
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Ogling open government
They also respected the concept of representative government, which suggests that those elected by the people are empowered to do the people’s business. What emerged from those private discussions seems to have worked out pretty well, for 226 years so far. That’s why we should take a realistic view of the ongoing dust-up over who […]
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Reaping what you gamble
When the Democratic-controlled Legislature effectively handed the tribes a monopoly on casino gambling in 2004, some skeptics suggested that we might pay a price. (Some also wondered why those same legislative leaders and Gov. Brad Henry were raking in so many hundreds of thousands in tribal campaign dollars at the same time, but never mind.) […]
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Be cautious with a dopey idea
California’s experience is instructive. With the passage of Proposition 215 in 1996, that state authorized patients with doctor-issued identification cards to grow or possess specific amounts of marijuana for medical use. Sadly, that system has been widely abused. Storefront pot dispensaries with names like OMG Collective or Happy Meds resemble hippie crash pads more than […]
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Oklahoma’s post election rise
Why and how are we Okies different, and what does that mean for the future? It might help to look at California, which is where four more years of Obama-style tax increases, hyper-regulation and deficits will take us. California just doubled down on liberal policies, electing veto-proof Democratic majorities in its legislature and approving draconian […]
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Rational on climate change
It has become gospel among many on the political left that warmer temperatures are all our fault. Some on the right say don’t worry, be happy. Neither seems aware of the science behind it all. You cannot look at climate in 50-, 100- or even 1,000-year terms. For example, between 900 and 1300 A.D., the […]
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Disaster is ahead for Obamacare
It will cost more than predicted. Despite 20 new taxes totaling $575 billion, the Congressional Budget Office has now projected total Obamacare costs through 2022 at $1.76 trillion, about twice the initial 10-year estimate. And that is still an optimistic figure. Medicare is instructive here: In 1965 when it was first passed, Medicare hospital insurance […]
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Wherefore art thou, Democrats?
Democrats hold no statewide offices. They failed to file candidates for the two Corporation Commission seats up for election this year. Of the 24 state Senate seats up this year, Democrats filed for only 12. In the 101 state House districts, they fielded candidates in just 54. There are Democrats running for all five Congressional […]
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Ballpark naming a balk
Not the Newcastle Casino Lose Your Money Park, it turns out. That illadvised idea lasted less than 24 hours, but it still seems we are doomed to stick the “Chickasaw” label on the park, which has as much to do with baseball as if we’d named it for Snooki. From the moment the ballpark opened […]
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End academic segregation
Sadly, Oklahoma continues to practice a less obvious, but equally pernicious, form of segregation — one based on school size and inadequate academic offerings. Worst of all, recent legislation to address this injustice has been sidetracked by objections from the usual suspects who seem to resist every worthy school reform: the school administrators themselves. They […]