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<p>OKLAHOMA CITY – It's not unusual to see a deer or a cow crossing Oklahoma's rural highways. But an elephant? A couple driving home from church nearly slammed into a giant pachyderm that had escaped from a nearby circus late Wednesday.</p>

It took a while, but Jonathan Nelson finally discovered the secret to getting on the field for No. 22 Oklahoma: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. A string of injuries had held Nelson back since he arrived on campus in 2006, but the last hurdle he had to clear before earning some playing time was convincing secondary coach Bobby Jack Wright that he had put enough meat on his slight frame to play safety. That's where the PB&J came in. Strength and conditioning coach Jerry Schmidt put Nelson on a diet requiring him to eat several peanut butter and jelly sandwiches...

Hundreds of people have been arrested in Texas and around the country what officials say is the largest single strike at a Mexican drug cartel in the U.S WASHINGTON (October 22, 2009)—U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder calls the arrests of more than 300 people in a series of drug raids in Texas and across the country the largest single strike at a Mexican drug cartel operating here. Holder said at a news conference Thursday that the arrests over the past two days were aimed at the U.S. operations of the La Familia cartel. Click here to find out more! Holder...

Deserted Shopping Mall Bleak Symbol Of Fed Bailout Wed Oct 21, 2009 8:00am EDT By Alister Bull OKLAHOMA CITY, Oct 21 (Reuters) - A $29 billion trail from the Federal Reserve's bailout of Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns ends in a partially deserted shopping center on a bleak spot on the south side of Oklahoma City. The Fed now owns the Crossroads Mall, a sprawling shopping complex at the junction of Interstate highways 244 and 35, complete with an oil well pumping crude in the car park -- except the Fed does not own the mineral rights. The Fed...

(TO BE COMPLETED FOR EACH ABORTION PERFORMED) 1. Date of abortion __ 2. County in which abortion performed 3. Age of mother _____ 4. Marital status of mother (married, divorced, separated, widowed, or never married) 5. Race of mother 6. Years of education of mother (specify highest year completed) 7. State or foreign country of residence of mother 8. Total number of previous pregnancies of the mother Live Births Miscarriages Induced Abortions 9. Approximate gestational age in weeks, as measured from the last menstrual period of the mother, of the unborn child subject to

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. (Legal Newsline) - Ryan Leonard, a Republican candidate for Oklahoma attorney general, pledged Thursday to do what he can to promote a favorable business climate in the Sooner State as its chief legal officer.

Note: Photo and video included. SNIPPET: "Chadwick Everett Baker, 33, Arrested In Connection With Incident In SE OKC" SNIPPET: "Bomb technicians said the devices were fake but were made to look like pipe bombs."

OKLAHOMA CITY — As more and more cities and states pass laws banning the use of cell phones – including texting – while driving, this “nanny statism” has finally struck lawmakers in Oklahoma. And that’s unfortunate. Oklahomans tend to pride themselves on the fact that more government intervention is not a good idea. Good old-fashioned common sense is usually acceptable and reasonable laws are followed. Banning cell phones and texting while driving is unreasonable, in the eyes of the Oklahoma Watchdog. Rep. Sue Tibbs, a Tulsa Republican who serves on the House Public Safety Committee, is planning to introduce a...

A Republican businessman cruised to an easy victory Tuesday in an overwhelmingly Democratic state House of Representatives district. • Todd Russ, Republican: 3,029 (55.9%) • Larry Peck, Democrat: 2,388 (44.1%) Results are unofficial until the state Election Board certifies them next week. Todd Russ garnered 55.9 percent of the votes to win the House District 55 seat, which has been held by a Democrat since 1965. He was opposed by Democrat Larry Peck, who recently retired as an agriculture education instructor and FFA adviser at Sentinel High School. Russ’ victory increases the Republican majority in the House to the highest...

TN/OK: Polls Close In Special Elections The polls have closed in Tennessee. The first results are in for early voting and absentee and can be found here. The polls have also closed in Oklahoma. The first results are also in for early voting and absentee and can be found here.

A lawsuit challenging a controversial abortion bill was filed Tuesday in Oklahoma County District Court. The lawsuit alleges that House Bill 1595 by Sen. Todd Lamb, R-Edmond, and Rep. Dan Sullivan, R-Tulsa, covers more than one subject and thus violates the Oklahoma Constitution. The measure requires physicians to provide detailed information to the Oklahoma State Department of Health about the abortions they perform. Information to be reported includes the age, marital status and education level of the woman; the number of previous pregnancies; a reason for the abortion; the method of the abortion and method of payment; the cost of...

Police say three people who robbed a man's Oklahoma flat were caught by his wife in the Philippines, who saw them on the webcam the couple communicate with while apart. Midwest City police Chief Brandon Clabes says officers nabbed the three burglary suspects over the weekend after Maribel Chouinard spotted them and called her husband, an Air Force master sergeant at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City. The husband called police, who found two teens near the apartment and later found the third suspect. Mr Clabes says all three were identified from a photo line-up e-mailed to Mrs Chouinard...

By Andrew W. Griffin Oklahoma Watchdog Posted: October 6, 2009 andrew@oklahomawatchdog.org OKLAHOMA CITY – News reports are noting today that thousands of doses of H1N1 (swine flu) vaccine have arrived in Oklahoma and that these initial doses will be in the form of a nasal spray called FluMist, manufactured by MedImmune. The first community to receive shipments of FluMist will be Newcastle, in McClain County. Schools there will be targeted with a mass nasal spray vaccination program there, before it is shipped to other parts of the Sooner State. H.R. Holman, public information officer for the Oklahoma City-County Health Department,...

OKLAHOMA CITY -- The authors of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act must have figured one way to improve child nutrition would be to improve the kitchens that prepare and serve meals to so many of them - school kitchens. That is, presumably, the reason the legislation included a $100 million school foodservice equipment grant. Through a formula allocation, Oklahoma received 1.5 percent of that, or $1.5 million, to go to the purchase of everything from convection ovens to walk-in freezers, milk boxes to steamers. At Roy Clark Elementary School in the Union Public School District, the kitchen feeds about...

Evidence continues to accumulate from far and wide that the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is lousy with corruption. The latest revelations come from Louisiana and Oklahoma. In the former, the local ACORN Housing Corp. office received contracts worth a combined $625,000 from the City of New Orleans for repairing existing low-income housing and developing new units in poor neighborhoods. The contracts were paid for with funds from federal Community Development Block Grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. An investigation by the Pelican Institute think tank of New Orleans, however, found that no work...

SNIPPET - Quote: Ex-Muslim receives death threats after publishing article critical of Islam -- in Tulsa He criticized all religious belief in his essay. But he's not in fear for his life from an angry mob down the road at Oral Roberts University. "Former Muslim receiving death threats," by Bill Sherman for Tulsa World, October 1 (thanks to Basil): Sabri Husibi, a former Muslim who is now an atheist, says he has been ostracized and threatened with death since publication of a Tulsa World article Saturday in which he was critical of Islam and all other religions. That article can...

About a year ago Red Dirt Report posted about some documents found in an abandoned ACORN office On the second floor of an old building in South Oklahoma City “Little Mexico” neighborhood, there is a room that until recently, housed a branch of ACORN... Left hurriedly and in a shambles, the small office, coated in a layer of plaster dust, still housed computers, documents, registration forms, I-9 employment info and boxes with an IRS return address and others with a return address for an ACORN office in New Orleans. The person working at this office, Adam Carter, had reportedly skipped...

Check this out: Despite the millions of dollars of misused funds, it seems ACORN couldn't pay the rent at a couple of offices in Oklahoma City. When they vacated, they left some computers behind. As a testament to the stupidity of criminals worldwide, the passwords to the computers where written on pieces of paper left inside a desk.

A Republican state legislator released documents Tuesday which he says show the community-organizing group ACORN focused on helping Democrats in three legislative races in the November 2008 election and had developed a game plan to "take power” in Oklahoma within five years. "They say they’re not political, but one of the subdirectories was called political action plans,” Reynolds said. "It was their political plans to take over key targeted races in Oklahoma City to show how powerful they are.” One of the key legislative races mentioned in the documents was the Senate District 43 race involving Reynolds’ brother. State Sen....

By Andrew W. Griffin Oklahoma Watchdog Posted: September 30, 2009 andrew@oklahomawatchdog.org OKLAHOMA CITY – Rep. Mike Reynolds, R-Oklahoma City, said Wednesday he combed through documents from an abandoned local ACORN office because of reports of impropriety at other organization chapters. Oklahoma City-based news and investigative website Red Dirt Report discovered documents in an abandoned local office of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now in south Oklahoma City’s “Little Mexico” neighborhood. Investigators found computers, hard drives, documents, registration forms, I-9 employment information and boxes with return addresses to ACORN’s New Orleans home office, as well as a regional IRS...

A Republican state legislator released documents Tuesday which he says show the community-organizing group ACORN focused on helping Democrats in four legislative races in the November 2008 election and had developed a game plan to "take power" in Oklahoma within five years.

Henry Bellmon, the Oklahoma farmer who became the state’s first Republican governor and turned his party into a political contender, has died. He was 88. Rural upbringing shapes former governor Henry... 03/01/2009 BILLINGS — They’ve never taken the country out of Henry Louis Bellmon. Don Todd rolled the steering wheel clockwise as he guided the 2005 Dodge... Bellmon’s former chief of staff told The Associated Press the former Oklahoma governor and U.S. Senator has died after a long battle with Parkinson's disease. Andrew Tevington said Bellmon died shortly before 11 a.m. Tuesday. Bellmon, who sometimes displayed a political independence that...

A document obtained from an abandoned Oklahoma City ACORN office computer purports to put Senator Andrew Rice, the new leader of Senate Democrats, in the middle of a conspiracy between ACORN and the Oklahoma Democratic Party to target legislative Republicans and elect Democrats.

Police are looking for a man convicted of an Arlington rape more than 10 years ago in connection with the recent rape an 11-year-old girl in Oklahoma City. Melvin Urbina, 33, was sentenced to two years in prison for the 1998 sexual assault of an Arlington woman. He was deported to Mexico after his release in 2001. He returned to the United States illegally and worked in Oklahoma City. Police want to question Urbina about the July 25 sexual assault of a girl who was trying to find some extra chairs for the guests at her godfather’s wedding anniversary party...

Long-secret security tapes showing the chaos immediately after the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building are blank in the minutes before the blast and appear to have been edited, an attorney who obtained the recordings said Sunday. The real story is what's missing," said Jesse Trentadue, a Salt Lake City attorney who obtained the recordings through the federal Freedom of Information Act as part of an unofficial inquiry he is conducting into the April 19, 1995, bombing that killed 168 people and injured hundreds more.

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Only one in four Oklahoma public high school students can name the first President of the United States, according to a survey released today. The survey was commissioned by the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs in observance of Constitution Day on Thursday. Brandon Dutcher is with the conservative think tank and said the group wanted to find out how much civic knowledge Oklahoma high school students know.

Elusive PreK Successes by: Bethany Stotts, September 16, 2009 Some have offered up universal pre-kindgergarten as a solution for America’s educational woes, but CATO scholar Adam Schaeffer argues that the educational “benefits” of government-sponsored pre-k would be transitory at best. “The evidence suggests that the benefits of preschool are limited primarily to low-income children and are likely transitory,” argued Schaeffer in an August CATO Policy Analysis entitled, “The Poverty of Preschool Promises.” In the analysis, Schaeffer examined the three main studies which pre-k supporters cite as evidence that pre-kindergarten provides long-term academic benefits: “the High/Scope Perry Preschool Project, the Carolina...

Oh yeah! As a BYU alum, I just had to post this! It wasn't the best played game ever, on either side, but, the final score is what counts. Best wishes for a speedy recovery to OU's quarterback who was injured midway through the game.

Illegal immigrant held in death of Tulsa cyclist By NICOLE MARSHALL World Staff Writer Published: 9/2/2009  2:24 AM Last Modified: 9/2/2009  5:05 AM State troopers arrested an illegal immigrant Tuesday in the hit-and-run death of a longtime bicyclist and clinical psychologist, authorities said. Roberto Salvador Alvelais-Torres, 28, is accused of striking Beverly Jean Duffield, 74, of Tulsa with a sport utility vehicle and then driving away, Oklahoma Highway Patrol Lt. George Brown said. Duffield was killed Tuesday morning while riding her bicycle near U.S. 75 and the 1700 block of Southwest Boulevard — an area where she was known to ride frequently....

Investigators Searching for Pastor's Killer; Family Searching for Strength to Forgive Posted: Aug 31, 2009 10:22 PM Updated: Sep 01, 2009 10:58 AM Pastor Daniel's family has already forgiven her killer, as OSBI continues their investigation into her death. [Caption under picture...] OKLAHOMA CITY - Investigators continued their search for an Anadarko pastor's killer Monday while family and friends gathered to remember her life and ministry at a funeral service in Oklahoma City. Pastor Carol Daniels was found dead August 23 inside her church near downtown Anadarko. Daniels didn't have a regular congregation but drove the 60 miles from her...

One week later, investigators continue to look into the case of Pastor Carol Daniels, who was found dead inside her church in Anadarko. KSBI-TV's Kealey McIntire gives us a closer look at what documents released by the Oklahoma State Medical Examiner's Office are telling investigators. An eight page document released by the Oklahoma State Medical Examiner's Office confirms that Carol Daniels died from multiple sharp force injuries, but many questions still remain. We took the report to Dr. Howard Kurtz, Professor of Criminology at Oklahoma City University to see what he thinks it reveals. "To do this kind of damage...

Wisconsin Union Fights To Keep Mercury Marine Company Says There's No More Time To Talk POSTED: 5:46 pm CDT August 30, 2009 UPDATED: 9:32 pm CDT August 30, 2009 FOND DU LAC, Wis. -- Mercury Marine may be moving its operation from Wisconsin to Stillwater, but union workers at the company's Wisconsin plant are not letting it go without a fight. They're trying to hold another vote on a 7-year contract that would keep the company there. The contract vote overwhelmingly failed a week ago and an attempted re-vote on Saturday ended when the company said it wouldn't accept votes...

There is no such thing as ‘a right to a job’—there is only the right of free trade, that is: a man’s right to take a job if another man chooses to hire him.” —Ayn Rand, “Man’s Rights,” 1963— If you want to understand the most common reason for unemployment in America—the real unemployment rate of which is now well into the double digits—you need only look as far as Washington, D.C., home of the federal government, for the answer: bureaucratic intervention in the economy in the form of minimum wage laws, “public works” projects, “stimulus” programs and the regulation...

Next weekend, fans of Oklahoma and Brigham Young will congregate outside Cowboys Stadium for tailgate parties, with one discernible difference. One side will be imbibing beer by the gallons; the other, sipping orange juice. Sooner and Cougar fans both share a fervor for their historically successful football teams. But BYU and its football program are worlds apart from any other. "Obviously BYU’s affiliation with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” said Roy Brinkerhoff, BYU’s assistant manager of alumni activities, "that alone creates huge differences.” BYU, located in pristine Provo, Utah, is the largest private and largest religiously-affiliated...

ANADARKO, Okla. — Authorities say the body of a pastor killed inside her small Oklahoma church was "staged," meaning it was moved into an unnatural position, after the murder. Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Jessica Brown said Thursday that the body of 61-year-old Carol Daniels was "staged" in the Christ Holy Sanctified Church in Anadarko, but declined to elaborate. Earlier, police said they were reviewing video surveillance tapes for clues in the brutal killing of Daniels inside her church.

ANADARKO, Okla. — The crime scene inside a small Pentecostal church where a pastor was slain was the most brutal he has seen in nearly 20 years as a prosecutor, the local district attorney said Tuesday. Police have released scant information about the killing of 61-year-old Carol Daniels, whose body was found Sunday inside the Christ Holy Sanctified Church, a weather-beaten building on a rundown block near downtown Anadarko. "I've prosecuted over 50 murders," District Attorney Bret Burns said. "This is the most horrific crime scene I've ever witnessed." He declined to elaborate, saying he did not want to jeopardize...

FOND DU LAC, Wis. – Union workers at Mercury Marine put their jobs at risk Sunday when they rejected a package of wage and benefit concessions the boat engine maker said it needed or it would move their work to a nonunion plant in Oklahoma. Union leaders did not immediately release Sunday's tally but said the vote was "overwhelming" to reject what the company called its final offer. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, Local 1947, represents 850 workers at Mercury Marine, the largest employer in the eastern Wisconsin city of Fond du Lac and the world's largest...

“IT is time to water the tree of liberty” said the sign carried by a gun-toting protester milling outside President Obama’s town-hall meeting in New Hampshire two weeks ago. The Thomas Jefferson quote that inspired this message, of course, said nothing about water: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” That’s the beauty of a gun — you don’t have to spell out the “blood.” The protester was a nut. America has never had a shortage of them. But what’s Tom Coburn’s excuse? Coburn is a Republican senator from...

http://www.reddirtreport.com/news.php?id=12076 OKLAHOMA CITY – The flyer is simple but informative. “Community Organizing at St. Charles.” Sounds innocuous enough. But upon closer inspection, it appears to be further attempts by ACORN-esque organizers to infiltrate well-meaning parishioners in the Catholic Church in the Oklahoma City area, among other places. The flyer reads: “Come to a special training in community organizing for Catholic parishes, presented by Oklahoma Sponsoring Committee and hosted by Our Lady of Perpetual Help parish.” Not much could be found about the Oklahoma Sponsoring Committee, other than a Grace Presbyterian Church flyer online that notes that “the OSC is a...

I'd like to thank PeaceBeWithYou for adding my book to the thread about John Doe #2, and the Hoffman book about the Oklahoma City Bombing. The only concern I have is that PBWY thought perhaps the Midwest accent I referred to in my book was Chicagoan. Sorry PBWY, think more like Decker, Michigan or Flint, Michigan. Good question about the American servicemen's cemetery in Reims, France, Interpol is wondering about the same thing.But here is the post from PBWY, which I will use to head up my own post. Sorry it took me so long to reply to the original...

August 10, 2009, 4:00 a.m. Ten Questions Politicians Won’t AnswerEvasive politicians, not concerned citizens, are dividing America over health-care reform. By Tom Coburn The past week’s debate about health care has shown that in Washington the only things more stubborn than facts are politicians who evade them. In spite of a torrent of independent analyses showing that the so-called health-care “reform� bills moving through Congress will dramatically increase the deficit and cause millions of Americans to lose their health insurance, the politicians leading the effort have steadfastly refused to consider that their ideas and policies, rather than the character...

Remember the good old days, when one only had to watch out for the Federal Government’s twisted interpretation of the commerce clause to justify tyranny? Well those days seem to be long gone. The Obama Administration has been employing an old tactic lately – what some might call an imperial threat – and they’re not doing it overseas, either. The state of Oklahoma is now the target of a direct challenge from US Attorney General Eric Holder, who is using the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as justification to violate Oklahoma’s sovereignty as affirmed by the Tenth Amendment to the...

The Obama administration believes that an inability to speak English is a civil right. It is even more distressing that the administration, legally speaking, may be right. In April President Obama's Department of Justice threatened to cut off federal funding to Oklahoma if that state's voters approve a state constitutional amendment making English Oklahoma's official language, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) revealed. The threat came in the form of a letter (PDF) from Acting Assistant Attorney General Loretta King to Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson. King wrote that "implementation of this amendment may conflict with Oklahoma's obligations to protect the civil...

Recently I received an email from a member of a Tea Party group. The heading was "Oklahoma May Just Be The Place To Live". Why? Here are some of the reasons listed. Oklahoma passed a bill, HR 1330, that allowed them to place the 10 Commandments on the front entrance to the state capitol. It is being done with private money and the ACLU is upset. Oklahoma passed HB 1804 which requires all illegal immigrants to be incarcerated and ship them back where they came from unless they get a green card and become an American citizen. HJR 1003 was...

The Oklahoma congressional delegation wants U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to explain why the Justice Department got involved in a debate by the Oklahoma Legislature this year over making English the state’s official language. The delegation sent a letter to Holder on Tuesday questioning why his Civil Rights division sent a letter to Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson in the midst of the English-only debate reminding him that state entities receiving federal funds have to observe certain laws regarding people with limited proficiency in English. The letter, sent by all seven members of the delegation, asks Holder to explain his...

A wet weather pattern is continuing to set up across the Southern United States from Texas through the Lower Mississippi Valley and into the Tennessee Valley for this week. We are definitely in need of some rainfall to help break drought conditions in Texas but too much rain too fast is not good either.

Here is video from a patrol car dashcam as well as cellphone video of an Oklahoma Highway Patrol Officer pulling over an ambulance and then choking an EMT from the ambulance after they exchanged words. The officer was irate because when he pulled alongside the ambulance, the driver only gave him some kind of hand gesture. The EMT told the officer that there was a patient in the ambulance, but it seemed to make no difference to the officer. The paramedic has now filed a lawsuit against the officer . . . . (Watch Video)

Associated Press - July 21, 2009 4:15 PM ET OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe has been appointed to the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee.

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agents arrested two suspected white supremacists Thursday after a raid at a northern Illinois home, during which agents seized assault weapons, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and purportedly racist materials. Twin brothers Dennis and Daniel Mahon, 59, were taken into custody by agents on firearms violations after arrest and search warrants were served at the Davis Junction, Ill., home. Dennis Mahon was frequently mentioned as a possible suspect but never charged in connection with the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City that killed 168...

Police in Oklahoma City said a man waiting for a bus punched another man in the mouth and stole his bologna and cheese sandwich. Roger Hamilton, 24, told investigators that he was waiting for the bus Wednesday at the Hudson Street bus station and preparing to put mayonnaise on his sandwich when he noticed a man, described as African-American and in his 30s, staring at him, The Oklahoman reported Friday. Hamilton said he asked the man if he could help him and the other man responded by punching him in the mouth and running off with the sandwich, which the...