“He was pilloried by many within his own party who said that taking Cole’s approach amounted to surrendering before the fight had even started. More than a month later … it turns out that Cole was, in the main, right,” wrote The Washington Post‘s Chris Cillizza. “It’s the difference between tactics (a series of one-off […]
politics
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Sound off, voters!
In 2012, Barack Obama was reelected with 50.5 percent of the popular vote and 332 electoral votes. He wants to restore taxes on the wealthiest 2 percent to the level before the Bush tax cut, but protect the bottom 98 percent from a tax increase, including households and businesses with incomes under $250,000. Sixty percent […]
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Top cop
Credit: Brad Gregg That buildup, first reported by the eCapitol online service, has some legislators questioning whether Doak has been watching too many gangster flicks. “Is Al Capone back in town?” state Rep. Richard Morrissette, D-Oklahoma City, told the Tulsa World. “Are we looking for stills in the woods? Come on, it’s a joke.” A […]
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Loving our guns to death
So let the people say amen! If only it were this simple. The truth is, people with guns kill people, and in America, we kill more people with guns than anywhere else on earth. In America, where citizens can legally buy assault rifles with high-capacity ammunition clips, disturbed or despondent young white males commit mass […]
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Things to learn in Denver
One key to Denver’s success is how its components connect and work together. Its convention center, transit, public spaces and other developments serve and support each other. The project manager for FasTracks, Denver’s 122-mile rail plan, explained it this way: “This is not a transit-building project. This is a city-building project.” The objective is not […]
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A real maverick
David Prater Credit: Mark Hancock On the other end was Scott Rowland, Prater’s first assistant district attorney. Rowland was at the Oklahoma City Police Department’s homicide division; there was a video he wanted Prater to see. A few days prior, Prater had heard about two people trying to rob a local pharmacy, but that a […]
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Citizen wane
Those two findings were part of the 2012 Oklahoma Civic Health Index, which was developed by a team of faculty and student researchers at the University of Central Oklahoma in partnership with the National Conference on Citizenship. The research team presented its report Dec. 4 to Oklahoma Secretary of State Glenn Coffee. According to the […]
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Medi-can’t
However, with Gov. Mary Fallin’s announcement last month that the state would not expand Medicaid, George will have to stick with her current plan for a while longer. That plan: Don’t get sick. “I tried with DHS (Oklahoma Department of Human Services) to get some kind of medical (insurance), but they turned me down because […]
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Hey, Legislature, nothing’s happening here!
In 1971, the Legislature enacted laws authorizing public school district employees to collectively bargain. The power of employee unions in the district has grown incrementally ever since, including a teachers’ strike that shut down the district in 1979. Although the American Federation of Teachers recently has acknowledged the need for more teacher training and accountability, […]
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What would J.C. do?
Credit: Brad Gregg It might make sense for Republicans to be pondering a change in light of the party’s unpopularity among African- Americans and Hispanics. In the Nov. 6 election, President Barack Obama won 93 percent of the African-American vote and more than 70 percent of the Hispanic vote. Watts, who is African-American and long […]