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The federal government has restored Oklahoma’s flexibility to decide how to use $29 million in public school funding, state officials said Monday. The U.S. Department of Education had withdrawn Oklahoma’s waiver from portions of the No Child Left Behind Act in August, after legislators dropped Common Core guidelines that would have been in place for the current school year. Replacement guidelines—the ones in place before Common Core—weren’t certified until October as being capable of making high school graduates ready for college or the workplace. …

The state of Oklahoma, arguing that the Supreme Court should consider the views of a state government when it rules on the legality of federal tax subsidies to be paid to insurance-buying consumers under the Affordable Care Act, has urged the Court to review that state’s case when it considers the already granted case of King v. Burwell.

Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt announced prior to President Obama’s speech, in which he said that he will grant legal status to immigrants in the country illegally, that the state will bring forward legal action. Pruitt released the following statement: It is anticipated tonight’s speech will again prove our President sees himself as above the law. Regardless of what the President thinks the law ought to be, our constitution dictates that Congress makes the law, it is the Presidents duty to faithfully execute those laws. If the President takes an executive action that violates his constitutional duty to faithfully...

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said President Obama would be breaking the law if he takes executive action on immigration. “He does break the law, and he does it all the time,” Inhofe said on the Senate floor Thursday. Later Thursday night, Obama is expected to announce an executive order to issue nearly 5 million work visas to immigrants, many of whom have children who are U.S. citizens. The administration has said this action is legal and necessary because the House failed to take up Senate-passed immigration reform legislation. Inhofe said this would be “just another one of our laws that...

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) is concerned that President Barack Obama's forthcoming executive amnesty may lead to anarchy and violence. "The country's going to go nuts, because they're going to see it as a move outside the authority of the president, and it's going to be a very serious situation," Coburn told USA Today on Wednesday. "You're going to see — hopefully not — but you could see instances of anarchy. ... You could see violence." Coburn added that Obama, who will make a Thursday evening announcement on his executive amnesty, will be acting like "an autocratic leader that's going to...

OWASSO, Oklahoma - An Owasso man was arrested for maiming after an apparent brawl at a bowling alley. James Thomas Foster bit the ear off another man during a fight at the Coffee Creek bowling alley, according to court documents. Court records state two groups of people were bowling in adjoining lanes on August 31, 2014. One group was a mother, father and daughter; the other group was made up of about seven girls. The mother told police she accidentally knocked over a drink on the shared table between the lanes, and that sparked an argument. The group of girls...

Delays of the Keystone XL pipeline are providing little obstacle to Western Canadian oil producers getting their crude to the U.S. Gulf Coast, with shipments set to more than double next year. The volume of Canadian crude processed at Gulf Coast refineries could climb to more than 400,000 barrels a day in 2015 from 208,000 in August, according to Jackie Forrest, vice president of Calgary-based ARC Financial Corp. The increase comes as Enbridge Inc.’s Flanagan South and an expanded Seaway pipeline raise their capacity to ship oil by as much as 450,000 barrels a day. Canadian exports to the Gulf...

JULY 29, 2014Jonathan Gruber, Extremely Smart Person In an oped for Politico, I explain why ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber’s 2012 admissions that “if you’re a state and you don’t set up an Exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits” matter to the ongoing litigation over the Obama administration issuing those subsidies in federal Exchanges, and why Gruber’s attempts to explain his own words away are not credible. Shortly after submitting that piece, I learned Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt found Gruber’s remarks relevant enough to ask a federal court hearing one of those cases to take notice.Gruber’s...

According to Sen. Jim Inhofe, there may be enough Democratic votes to override President Barack Obama’s expected veto of legislation to authorize construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. The Oklahoma Republican said that Democrats who survived their party's big defeat in the midterm elections want to keep their distance from the president — so much so that many of them would vote to override a possible veto on the pipeline. "After the beating the Democrats took, keep in mind we have another election coming up in 2016," Inhofe told WMAL Radio on Thursday, The Washington Free Beacon reported. "There are...

Strong, pronounced shaking felt in Wichita. Likely felt in Tulsa, OKC, and probably as far away as Kansas City

HASKELL, Okla. – A chicken patty, small scoop of mashed potatoes and carton of milk aren’t enough to sustain a high school boy. But under the school lunch regulations championed by First Lady Michelle Obama, that’s what Haskell High School served recently. Haskell High School senior Darrel Bunch took a photo of one of his recent skimpy school lunches and sent it to Fox 23. “It’s mostly the portions,” Bunch says. “Last year we started getting less food.” “Last year, my boys started calling me, ‘Can you please bring me something to eat?’ ‘We’re still hungry,’ or, ‘This is gross,”...

Sen. James M. Inhofe, an the Oklahoma Republican who once compared the Environmental Protection Agency to the gestapo, is likely to lead the Environment and Public Works Committee when the GOP takes control of the Senate next year. If approved, Inhofe would replace Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), an avowed environmentalist, producing one of the most stark post-election changes in the Capitol. Committee assignments will not be made until Senate party caucuses meet in Washington after the election recess. Inhofe, who has served in the Senate for two decades, is an iconic figure to both environmental and energy lobbyists. He chaired...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Liberal MSNBC contributor Jimmy Williams said the “old white people” in the South who vote Republican are “going to die someday” and hopefully usher in a new era of Democratic rule in the region. Host Krystal Ball, a former failed Democratic congressional candidate, asked Williams whether white Southerners should just be written off by the party, but Williams said never, saying that since they are “for people” and Republicans aren’t, they would eventually win the day. “Mitt Romney only won South Carolina with 53 [percent], John McCain with 52,” he said. “That’s a changing South. Those old white people? They’re...

The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Tuesday put on hold a law that placed restrictions on abortions induced by medication. Reproductive Services in Tulsa and the Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice filed suit against House Bill 2684 alleging it violated provisions of the Oklahoma Constitution. An Oklahoma County district judge last month put a portion of the law on hold. That decision was appealed by the plaintiffs to the Oklahoma Supreme Court. The state's high court sent the case back to district court to be litigated. "This court expresses no opinion concerning the validity of the Act," the opinion said. The...

Ten Commandments Attack Suspect Being Evaluated OKLAHOMA CITY — Oct 25, 2014 A man suspected of driving a car into a Ten Commandments monument outside the Oklahoma state Capitol is under mental evaluation, according to the Highway Patrol. "Investigators will continue to look into the case and coordinate with the Oklahoma County District Attorney on Monday, for any possible criminal charges," according to a news release from OHP Capt. George Brown. Brown did not immediately return a phone call for additional comment on Saturday. The suspect was taken to a mental facility in Oklahoma County, Brown said in the release....

Oklahoma is emerging as the next big shale oil play, with production growing faster than in any other U.S. state apart from Texas and North Dakota.

This ain’t your daddy’s libertarian. More to the point, this ain’t his daddy’s libertarian.First he went after Ted Cruz for trying to characterize him as a dove, now this. By the end of the year, he and McCain will be holding joint filibusters on the Senate floor demanding that America build the biggest nuclear bomb evah. Rand Paul, hawk? In the current budget, the Obama Administration called for the elimination of the Tomahawk missile. This missile protects our troops and allows us to avoid much direct person-to-person combat. Our navy has depended heavily on them…Nobody wants to cut spending, including...

Oklahoma's Supreme Court has ruled that when it comes to informing a man that he is about to become a father, a Facebook post doesn't cut it, legally speaking. In this case, a woman had a three-month fling with a man named Billy McCall in 2011, then realized she was pregnant after they broke things off, reports the Oklahoman. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT She sent him a Facebook message informing of the big news, gave birth in 2012, then immediately put the baby up for adoption. McCall says he never saw the Facebook post and learned about the baby only after it...

A man has been taken in for mental evaluation after allegedly vandalizing the Ten Commandments monument at the Oklahoma State Capitol. U.S. Secret Service Agents say it all started after a man walked into the Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City Friday morning making strange threats against the President and Federal Government. Agents say he then admitted to them that he crashed his car into the Ten Commandments monument at the Capitol, then left his damaged car and walked to the Federal Building. The Secret Service says the man told them that Satan made him crash his car into the...

Someone drove a car up on the lawn of the state Capitol building Thursday night and smashed into a controversial Ten Commandments monument, breaking the stone slab into several pieces, state officials said. The person who did it fled and has not been found, Oklahoma Highway Patrol spokesman George Brown said Friday. This wasn’t a case of a car taking a wrong turn, but a purposeful act, said John Estus, spokesman for the Oklahoma Office of Management and Enterprise Services. Whoever did it repositioned some ramp equipment that happened to be outside the building and used it to get access...