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#okleg
You can't make this **** up. An #Oklahoma state legislators has introduced a bill that labels only "Hispanic" gang members as terrrorists and subject them to higher penalties for the same crimes if committed by non-LatinX people.
This is fucking racism.
#Film #Documentaries #PublicTV #CasaSusanna #2SLGBTQIA #AmericanExperience
Oh please watch this while you still can on the PBS app/website. A sensitive, well-made documentary--with amazing archival footage and a great soundtrack--about a Catskills retreat for transvestites and transgender individuals (to female). Casa Susanna existed about 60 years ago--at a time when non-gender conformity was a crime that landed people in jail, and several years before Stonewall galvanised the movement for non-gender conforming and romantic minorities.
It aired on 'American Experience' earlier this week, and OETA replayed it overnight Saturday, where I came upon it about a half-hour thru. I went to the app and watched the whole thing.
And this makes me so much angrier, as an Oklahoman, about the anti-2SLGBTQIA bigotry frequently displayed by Gov Kevin Stitt and State Leader Pretend Ryan Walters. Remember--during the #okleg session, Stitt vetoed a bill to renew OETA's charter for another three years--in part because public TV, in his opinion, "elevated" the voices of the 2SLGBTQIA community. The Legislature over-rode that veto and saved OETA (which needs a permanent charter, not one that renews every three years).
Anyway, here's the link:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/casa-susanna/
As for Rob Standridge, he really ought to know better. As the only Republican in Norman's delegation to #okleg, you'd still think that threatening the state funding of the University of Oklahoma would be off the table, right? Because not only is OU a major research university, it's one of Norman's biggest employers and principal economic drivers.
But no. Standridge may have been sane once upon a time (I doubt it), but in the last couple of sessions he's gone full MAGA. Pretty embarrassing for Norman, TBQH.
Norman's other Senate district (SD16) is represented by Mary Boren. Norman's three State House seats are also all Democrat-held: Jared Deck (HD44), Annie Menz (HD45), and Jacob Rosecrants (HD46). Rosecrants is a former classroom teacher.
Hillbilly Humpy ia also the guy who, in the 2023 #okleg session, promoted decriminalising the atrocious "sport" of cockfighting (handing out buttons that read "My Cock, My Choice" even!) Years ago as a first-term solon, he described pregnant women as "hosts" while debating one of a litany of punitive antiabortion laws that Oklahoma passed well before the end of Roe v Wade. He's a real piece of work, and just another embarrassment for Oklahoma.
And his district keeps re-electing him. In fact, he ran unopposed in 2022 if I'm not mistaken. He's from the tiny unincorporated community of Lane, in Atoka County in Southeast Oklahoma. Obviously I'll be steering clear of Atoka County.
#PublicMedia #SaveOETA #Oklahoma #LongPost
A Letter to Everybody from Oklahoma, Where the Wind Sweeping Down the Plain is Toxic:
Emergency broadcasting--and the means to reach rural communities--is one of the reasons many Oklahomans are bitterly pissed at Gov. Kevin Stitt for vetoing a comfortably-passed, bipartisan-supported State Senate bill that would have renewed the charter for OETA.
OETA (Oklahoma Educational Television Authority) is a network aligned with PBS that also has an infrastructure for emergency communications: The PBS WARN system, which uses cellular networks -- crucial for disseminating emergency info to those rural areas that are underserved by cable and/or broadband internet access.
It is one of--if not THE--most-watched PBS affiliate in the country, and has been a good steward of state taxpayer money. OETA is a public/private partnership, in which state monies go toward operations and infrastructure, and maintaining the WARN system. In the Fall 2022 special #okleg session, Stitt also vetoed an $8.19 mn appropriation that came from American Rescue Plan monies that would have been used for upgrades to the WARN system. That should have been a warning bell, perhaps.
OETA is a public/private partnership. And, like all PBS (and NPR) affiliates, only receives a small percentage of its budget from taxpayer monies. It relies largely on the donations of viewers and corporations who believe in OETA's mission from the beginning--in 1956, predating PBS by about 13 years.
Stitt's reasoning for defunding OETA--which will go off the air within 12 months from July 1 if there's no veto override--is basically because he's a homophobic bigot who thinks PBS is too "woke" and spends too much time "elevating" the 2SLGBTQI+ community.
I say "within 12 months" because a state law that governs ceasing operations can keep OETA on the air while it goes thru shutdown prep and also makes provisions for fiscal and material assets once OETA is terminated.
Several years ago, at another time when OETA's charter was due for renewal (every three years), conservative GOP culture-warrior state solons mounted an unsuccessful attempt to terminate OETA. It was met with broad derision from both #okleg Democrats and Republicans alike, and soundly defeated.
But, in the intervening years, we've had that whole Trump thing and all that it entails--including the election in 2018 of Stitt, who had been the founder of iffy Gateway Mortgage, and someone who proudly blabs about his support for Trump at every turn. Stitt wears his White Christian Nationalist social conservative bona fides as if they're patches on one of those suits that NASCAR drivers wear. He even opened his second term in the governor's office a few months ago by declaring Oklahoma, basically, a "Christian" state, claiming "every square inch of Oklahoma" for Jesus. Really constitutionally inappropriate, if not nauseating to Oklahomans who align with other faiths or none.
In the 2018 gubernatorial primaries, Kevin Stitt prevailed--shockingly to some--over Mick Cornett, a relatively moderate Republican who had also been a popular Mayor of Oklahoma City. I vaguely remember it was rural/small town voters who pushed Stitt over the top, as well as Trump supporters in the bigger population centers (OKC/Tulsa). Basically, they thought Cornett to be not MAGA enough to represent their interests. Boy, when Republicans kill their own ...
Oh what a different place we would be in socially had Cornett prevailed. And I remind -- these are still Republicans here. It's just that Cornett -- and current OKC Mayor David Holt -- are what would now be considered Diet Republicans. Cornett and Holt have all the usual Republican baggage (pro-business, pro-cop, pro-whatever) without the odious and dangerous addition of pro-Trump, fascist White Christian Nationalist extremism that seeks to punish women, 2SLGBTQI+, public education, libraries, and so forth.
It sucks here so badly.
Please, please vote--especially if you're sick of the culture wars, book banning, vote if you love your 2SLGBTQI+ friends and relations, vote if you give a damn about education.
This a million times.
Fundamentally, party labels are meaningless: There are conservative Democrats and reasonable, non-MAGA Republicans, not that enough of them show anything resembling the courage of any convictions in the face of the rest of their lunatic, fascist party.
For example: OKC Mayor David Holt is often characterised as an "anti-Trump Republican," and that's fine and dandy (in fact, probably a breath of fresh air to some observers), but just because Holt's not a raving MAGA nutjob (unlike many other prominent Oklahoma Republicans, starting with Gov. Kevin Stitt and about 85% of #okleg's supermajority GOP caucus) doesn't mean he's eschewed some of the other planks of the GOP platform, such as issues surrounding OKC's unhoused population--which has angered some.
[And spare me the "but municipal offices are nonpartisan" stuff. Everybody knows OKC's last several Mayors have been Republicans, at least since I moved to the area 28 years ago].
I keep toying with the idea of changing my Democratic registration to Independent, with the intent of continuing to vote for those whose views align with mine ... funny that "those" happen to be Democrats about 99.9999 percent of the time.
As for RFK Jr., his uncles Jack and Teddy are probably sitting around over drinks somewhere and asking their brother, "Bobby, how'd your kid get so fkd up?"
Also what's in a name? To modern people, John Kennedy is a conservative Republican Senator from Louisiana, not even remotely resembling the young President cut down by an assassin in Dallas 60 (!) years ago this November.
#Elections #CletaDeatherageMitchell
Such an enormous discredit to Oklahoma and if only history had been a ittle different -- In the 1970s she was the #okleg Rep from the district I live in, HD44 in Norman. And she was a pro-ERA Democratic Party member!
I'm not surprised she has bought into Trumpian lies and conservative derangement syndrome, and uses her law degree to push for voter suppression. She's also virulently homophobic and it makes me wonder if she has a hand in perhaps advising those model legislation mills on some of the cookie cutter legislation in many Red states (including OK) that target 2SLGBTQ+ people.
She turned to the dark side a very long time ago.
Paywall-free gift article:
https://wapo.st/3Lg7gpg
The OK Democratic Party has put up a petition demanding that Republican lawmakers in #okleg Oklahoma State House of Representatives -- who HAVE been ARRESTED for various crimes (two of them involving DUI or public drunk) -- are held to the same standard they imposed on Democratic Rep. Mauree Turner (HD88), who was censured and stripped of their committee assignments AND WAS NEVER ARRESTED FOR ANYTHING.
It's rank hypocrisy, and to a large extent also racism and anti-Muslim sentiment.
Sign:
My opinion only: Of course Walters isn't going to disclose why he was 45 minutes late to the annual ceremony that honours the Teacher of the Year. He can't be bothered with honouring teachers when he doesn't respect them (especially public school teachers). He has more than once threatened to force teachers to undergo a mandatory WCN-based "patriotic" approach to teaching history while at the same time he inveighs against "woke indoctrination" that doesn't comport with his own narrow, and rather chilling, beliefs.
Walters is a racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic/transphobic assclown who only won election thanks to two factors: 1. Oklahomans don't show up to the polls the way they should--especially voters in the largest cities (OKC, Tulsa, and Norman, which are 1, 2, and 3 respectively); and 2. #OKLeg Republicans, like Republicans in other places, have manipulated the electoral infrastructure to favour themselves (gerrymandering), thus making heavily Democratic districts (e.g. every State House district in Norman; metropolitan districts in OKC and Tulsa that lean purple if not outright blue) sort of "balkanised" in a Legislature that is severely imbalanced (81-20 Republican-to-Democratic ratio in OK House). This makes Democratic solons automatically "ineffective" while representing their districts. Also the OKGOP caucus wields its power with impunity--if not outright bullying. It's as if they look at their Democratic colleagues when they assert their stands and go, "awww, aren't they cute? Let's swat the fk out of them so they'll shut up."
Not to mention the OKGOP has completely ostracised, last week, an entire district (HD88, which is a chunk of OKC) by stripping its representative, Mauree Turner, of their committee assignments and formally censured them based on accusations of "harbouring a fugitive" in their office during an incident at a recent Capitol demonstration by 2SLGBTQI+ advocates -- an endangered caste in this state thanks to the supermajority GOP.
Good grief.
The guy in the picture is extremist GOP Rep. Justin "JJ" Humphrey (R-HD19). He's from the tiny rural community of Lane in SE OK. He thinks women are nothing more than baby factories--or, to use the word he went viral for several years back, "hosts."
Of course he wants to bring back cockfighting.
https://c.im/@TheDoorOKC@kolektiva.social/109918215329096238
It might help (or disappoint) you to know the hashtags I might be engaging with:
#Democrats
#Progressive
#nba
#mlb
#CollegeFootball
#CollegeBasketball
#Oklahoma
#OKLeg
#OKPol
#OklaEd
#OklahomaRock
#PublicRadio
#History
OK I'm done. Glad the server came back.
Greetings, all. Have not departed Twitter but setting up shop here just in case. Profile-page bio says it pretty much: They/Them, Old, Anti-Fascist, Pro-Cats, Snob. I love Oklahoma (I live there) But We Suck A Lot And It's Embarrassing. Hashtags: #okpol #okleg #oklaed #okcthunder Any other OKTwitter migrants are welcome to follow. #introduction