Free Republic

Four years ago, James Lankford was a Baptist minister making a long-shot first foray into politics and T.W. Shannon was a little-known state legislator. Now, they are rising Republican stars who will square off in a competitive primary for U.S. Senate in Oklahoma Tuesday. The campaign is the latest pressure test for a coterie of national tea party groups with an eye on shaking up the midterm landscape. The national tea party machinery is squarely behind Shannon. The contest, which could be headed to a runoff, also carries broader implications for a Republican Party looking to shed its image as...

Fifth District Congressman James Lankford held a narrow lead over former Oklahoma Speaker of the House T.W. Shannon heading into the final week of their U.S. Senate primary campaign, according to the latest Oklahoma Poll. Lankford led Shannon 41 percent to 38 percent in a survey of 415 likely voters in Tuesday’s election. The survey was conducted June 14-18 by SoonerPoll.com and has a 4.81 percent margin of error. Former state Sen. Randy Brogdon was at 3 percent, with the other four candidates on Tuesday’s ballot totaling 2 percent. Sixteen percent were undecided. The poll results indicate a runoff between...

Cruz is a Republican from Texas. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call File Photo)Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who has largely stayed out of the primary fray this year, stars in a new ad from Senate Conservatives Fund backing T.W. Shannon in the Oklahoma GOP primary for Senate.Shannon faces Rep. James Lankford, R-Okla., and several lesser known candidates in Tuesday’s primary. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., is resigning at the end of this Congress, leaving the seat open.“In Oklahoma, there are a number of good Senate candidates, but T.W. Shannon is a conservative fighter,” Cruz says in the ad.“He has the courage to look Washington insiders...

Don't make me come back there, is more or less what U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn said on the eve of Wednesday night's debate between the two men most likely to succeed him. Lankford presents himself as problem-solver who immerses himself in the details of policy and government. He is dismissive of politicians who show up for press conferences but don't do their homework. He sees himself as a realist with ideals. Or maybe an idealist contending with the realities of governing. His critics say he's just a little too soft on spending. Shannon has signed on with the Ted Cruz-Sarah...

Remember these sixteen names when they run for office again. The sixteen Republicans who voted to proceed were Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), Richard Burr (N.C.), Saxby Chambliss (Ga.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), Susan Collins (Maine). Bob Corker (Tenn.), Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Dean Heller (Nev.), John Hoeven (N.D.), Johnny Isakson (Ga.), Mark Kirk (Ill.), John McCain (Ariz.), Pat Toomey (Pa.) and Roger Wicker (Miss.). List courtesy The Hill.com. As reported by RedState yesterday, this bill would allow doctors to add a person’s name to the national database currently used for background checks, and list them as...

After months of intense, grassroots push-back, opponents of the White House’s Common Core program won another big prize: Oklahoma. This week, the Sooners became the third state to officially dump the President’s education standards, complaining of federal overreach. mary fallin oklahoma governor “President Obama and Washington bureaucrats have usurped Common Core,” Gov. Mary Fallin (R) explained, “in an attempt to influence state education standards. The results are predictable. What should have been a bipartisan policy is now widely regarded as the president’s plan to establish federal control of curricula, testing, and teaching strategies.” And this time, the administration — the...

Retiring Sen. Tom Coburn lashed out at outside groups’ ads attacking Rep. James Lankford in the Oklahoma GOP primary to replace him next year, calling them untruthful and representative of politics in its “very worst form.” Coburn singled out negative ads by Senate Conservatives Fund and Oklahomans for a Conservative Future aimed at boosting the candidacy of tea party darling T.W. Shannon, the former state House speaker who’s drawn the support of national conservatives like Sarah Palin and Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah).

Oklahoma poised to become top oil producer, Continental Resources CEO Harold Hamm says Surging crude production in Oklahoma has the state on the verge of becoming the nation’s third-largest source of oil, according to officials at Continental Resources Inc. by Jay F. Marks Modified: June 6, 2014 at 10:00 pm •  Published: June 5, 2014   Oklahoma is poised to cash in from the ongoing U.S. oil boom, according to one of the nation’s foremost experts on the topic.Continental Resources Inc. CEO Harold Hamm said tax incentives meant to encourage horizontal drilling have done their job, as Oklahoma’s oil production is...

HOUSTON, Texas--The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is taking select Members of Congress on a secret tour of the temporary children’s shelter set up to house the children who entered the country illegally as part of the Texas border crisis. The tour will visit the temporary shelter set up at Naval Base Ventura County later this afternoon. The Congressional delegation will be given a 40-minute tour of the facility where they will witness the interior of the shelter and the care being provided for the unaccompanied minors while they are being housed in their facilities. An email obtained...

Ted Cruztook a victory lap of sorts this week after Eric Cantor's primary defeat. And why shouldn't he? The junior senator from Texas helped fuel the anti-establishment furies that devoured the House majority leader. "This election should be a reminder to all in Congress—Republicans and Democrats alike—that the conservative base is alive and well, and the American people will hold us all accountable," said Mr. Cruz. "Each of us needs to do what we said we would do and tell the truth." If this sounds like a threat, that's because it is.Mr. Cruz is wont to criticize Republican politicians who...

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan can threaten us all he wants; we’re finished with Common Core in Oklahoma. Last week Governor Mary Fallin made it official, signing into law legislation repealing the law’s impact on our state’s education standards. As a state representative, I was proud to have voted to stop Common Core. As a conservative, I’m outraged I had to in the first place. We need to be standing up for school choice, not whitewashing standards that are better for bureaucrats than parents and children. At any rate, the Obama administration is none too happy with us. “We partner...

Ahead of Oklahoma's June 24 GOP Senate primary, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT), the top three conservative leaders in the nation, sent a letter asking Oklahomans to send conservative T.W. Shannon to the Senate over establishment Rep. James Lankford (R-OK), who will represent the status quo. The Senate Conservatives Fund, which also made a statewide television buy on Shannon's behalf, distributed the letter that Shannon as a "principled leader who believes America must return to its founding principles." "He understands that many Republicans in Washington have been too quick to cut...

OKLAHOMA CITY —Oklahomans filing for divorce will now have to go through an extra step if they have kids. Gov. Mary Fallin signed a bill last week that requires married couples who have children younger than 18 to pay for and attend classes before they can split. Those classes will cost anywhere between $15 and $60 and will teach parents about the impact divorce will have on the kids. Many Oklahoma residents have mixed feelings about the new law. “I don’t think it’s a bad idea, but I just don’t agree with people have to go to classes,” Linda Fuller...

The Mount Vernon Assembly – Indianapolis FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Skip Brown skip.brown@iga.in.gov 317-232-9521 The Mount Vernon Assembly to Meet at Indiana Statehouse June 12 and 13 INDIANAPOLIS (June 9, 2014) – More than 100 state legislators representing 33 states will meet at the Indiana Statehouse in Indianapolis on June 12 and 13 to continue establishing the rules and procedures needed for a future state-led convention for proposing amendments to the U.S. Constitution, as authorized by Article V of the Constitution. The meeting is a continuation of efforts that began in December 2013 at George Washington’s historic Mount Vernon estate...

Given how savagely anti-gay the mainstream Oklahoma Republican party is, it’s no surprise that the state’s Tea Partiers are so rabidly hateful that they come across more as dark satire than as serious bigots. To wit: This week, an Oklahoma magazine discovered that last summer, Tea Party state House candidate Scott Esk endorsed stoning gay people to death: “I think we would be totally in the right to do it,” he said in a Facebook post. Esk went on to add nuance to his position: That [stoning gay people to death] goes against some parts of libertarianism, I realize, and...

Education: Oklahoma joins South Carolina and Indiana in opposing one-size-fits-all U.S. education standards that have turned schools into leftist re-education camps, with political statements masquerading as instruction. Not as much attention has been paid to Common Core as has been paid to ObamaCare. But like the faux Greek columns in Denver at Barack Obama's nomination in 2008, they were supposed to be the twin pillars of his legacy. Both, however, are fake promises, Trojan horses for government control of key sectors of American society and our economy. Five years ago, 46 states gave up a big chunk of their sovereignty...

Thursday marked a high point for opponents of Common Core, as Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin signed legislation making her state the third to ditch the national educational standards. In a press briefing at the White House on Monday, though, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan struck back by vaguely suggesting that the federal government may now punish Oklahoma. Duncan asserted that “40 percent of high school graduates” in Oklahoma “have to take remedial classes when they go to college” and only “25 percent of Oklahoma’s eighth-graders in math are proficient.” The Obama administration education chief declared that the Common Core Standards...

Top Oklahoma Republicans are outraged that the Obama administration will begin housing as many as 600 illegal immigrant minors at the Fort Sill Army Base as early as Tuesday—at an estimated cost to taxpayers of $252 per child per day. “Our nation has an immigration problem and a national security crisis, but I don’t believe the answer is for our military facilities to be transformed into a center that houses, feeds, and cares for illegal immigrants,” Sen. Jim Inhofe, the ranking GOP member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement on Friday. “This only encourages parents to...

Oklahoma Dumps Common Core as Dominoes Fall In a major victory for opponents of the deeply controversial Common Core, Oklahoma officially dumped the education standards.

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin signed a bill to repeal Common Core standards in the state on Thursday, saying Oklahomans are “capable of developing our own academic standards that will be better than Common Core.” The state is now clear to formulate new English and math standards specifically tailored for Oklahoma students. “Now is the time for Oklahomans – parents, citizens, educators, employers and elected officials – to unite behind the common goal of improving our schools. That begins with doing the hard work of building new, more rigorous Oklahoma standards,” Fallin said