Oklahoma City - 11:00 am

Oklahoma State Capitol Building

2300 N Lincoln Boulevard

Oklahoma City, OK 73105

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Free and Open to the Public

(This is not an endorsement of any candidate. We have extended an invitation to all GOP Presidential candidates to speak at our Victory 2012 event series and hope to do similar events with all willing parties)

When the Tulsa World takes the time to write three articles, a couple cartoons and an editorial criticizing an elected official for not lining up at the government trough, you can probably bet that a principled conservative stand has been made. A principled stand, by the way, that will result in Oklahoma faring much better than states similar in size.

Earlier this month, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt stood alone among his Republican AG colleagues nationally in refusing to participate in a national mortgage settlement brokered by the Obama administration to reengineer the mortgage industry, shakedown banks, and provide $26 billion in handouts to homeowners who stopped making their mortgage payments. All in the name of “justice”.

And how fortunate for the President that he can tout this deal as particularly beneficial to those swing states that he must carry to win reelection. Obama is a good campaigner, but a poor President. So he stopped being President a long time ago and simply went back to being Campaigner-in-Chief. This mortgage settlement is the latest example of such political decision making.

In October of 2010 a 50-state coalition of Attorneys General announced an investigation into the practices of five of the nation’s largest mortgage servicers. At the heart of the investigation was the faulty practice known as robo-signing where paperwork was not properly vetted by bank officials prior to foreclosure proceedings beginning. The other most egregious conduct was that of dual tracking, where mortgage servicers encouraged homeowners to stop making payments in order to be eligible for loan modifications while simultaneously foreclosing on them when homeowners followed these instructions.

These poor practices and violations of state law deserved to be investigated by the AGs, and homeowners who were wrongly foreclosed upon deserve to have some form of restitution. That is an appropriate role and within the scope of Attorneys General authority.

What was not appropriate, however, was when the Obama Department of Justice hijacked the investigation and morphed it into a multi-billion dollar hand out to homeowners, requiring the banks to engage in loan modifications and principle reduction under the threat of prosecution on numerous fronts if they didn’t.

Attorney General Pruitt rightly refused to engage in a settlement that exceeded what he felt was the appropriate role of a state Attorneys General.

Instead, he brokered his own deal, a better deal. A deal that will result in $18.6 million in damages for those few homeowners in Oklahoma who were victims of bad conduct by the banks, while opting out of the potpourri federal settlement that would have allowed any and all homeowners who were forclosed upon in Oklahoma during a certain time period to get a $2,000 check and a reduction in their principle – even if they haven’t made mortgage payments for months and couldn’t afford their home to begin with. Oklahoma will fare much better than states similar in size. This is because, as OCPA's Brian Bush rightly noted in defending Pruitt's stand, the $18.6 million Oklahoma will receive is actual dollars, while a large portion of the money the other states are claiming is soft money that is based on speculation related to bank write-downs and credits.

The last time I checked, the problem with Washington and politics in America is that we don’t have enough elected officials who are willing to take principled stands against the philosophy of big government and exceeding their authority. Thankfully, we have more than a few principled leaders in Oklahoma, including General Pruitt, and I have the freedom to never subscribe to the Tulsa World.

Tulsa - 2:00 pm

Mabee Center, Oral Roberts University

7777 S Lewis Avenue

Tulsa, OK 74136

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Oklahoma City - 7:00 pm

Jim Thorpe Museum

4040 N Lincoln Boulevard

Oklahoma City, OK 73105

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Free and Open to the Public

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Events are open to the press. Call OKGOP HQ for details (405) 528-3501

(This is not an endorsement of any candidate. We have extended an invitation to all GOP Presidential candidates to speak at our Victory 2012 event series and hope to do similar events with all willing parties)

(Oklahoma City)- Oklahoma Republican Party Chairman Matt Pinnell released the following statement on the third anniversary of President Obama signing the failed stimulus bill into law:

“Three years after President Obama signed his massive stimulus spending bill into law, it’s clear that even by President Obama’s own standards, the bill has been a failure.” said Chairman Pinnell.

President Obama promised that his $825 billion stimulus bill would save or create 3.5 million jobs and keep unemployment below 8% - but since then, we’ve lost more than one million jobs and unemployment has remained above 8% for a record period. Among those aged 18-29, a shocking 44% are either unemployed or underemployed. To make matters worse, President Obama’s 2012 budget calls for even more spending and even more taxes.

“Oklahomans have had enough of President Obama’s failed promises and out of control spending. It’s time for new leadership inWashington that understands the way the economy works and will get out of the way of American job creators,” concluded Pinnell.

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The Facts About President Obama’s Failed Stimulus

Obama and his advisors made many promises about the stimulus – all of which have proven false

• They promised millions of shovel ready jobs “immediately,” but those jobs are still nowhere to be found.
• Obama himself later admitted that those jobs “were not as shovel-ready as we expected.”
• They predicted the unemployment rate would never exceed 8 percent and would drop below 6 percent in 2012, but unemployment has been above 8 percent for 36 straight months.
• Obama promised to lift 2 million Americans from poverty, but 6.3 million Americans have fallen into poverty since he took office.
• Obama promised that spending money on “green energy” would create jobs, but many of those investments, like Solyndra, have failed and did not produce a green technology boom.
• Obama promised to put 1 million electric cars on the road by 2015, but electric car production has failed to meet expectations.

Three years after passing the $825 billion stimulus, the economy is still struggling

• 12.8 million Americans are unemployed, and another 8.2 million cannot find enough work.
• 5.5 million Americans have been unemployed for 27 weeks or longer, and 1.1 million Americans have given up looking for work altogether.
• 1.2 million jobs have been lost since Obama took office.
• There have been 7.7 million foreclosure filings since Obama took office.

The lasting impact of the stimulus is massive debt and wasted taxpayer money

• The stimulus cost $825 billion of borrowed money and will cost even more once interest is paid on that debt.
• Billions of dollars went to companies and projects connected to Democrats’ political allies and donors.
• Half a billion dollars was sent to the now-bankrupt company Solyndra, which laid off 1,100 workers last year.
• Fisker Automotive received half a billion dollars in loan guarantees, and has since laid off employees and moved manufacturing jobs toFinland.

President Obama hasn’t learned his lesson: his new budget calls for more stimulus spending

• Americans are demanding a more responsible, efficient government, but Obama’s 2012 budget calls for more debt and more taxes.
• He wants billions more in stimulus-style spending, adding even more to the debt.
• Barack Obama has no plan to reduce the $15.35 trillion national debt – only plans for more reckless spending.

"I want to congratulate both Katie and AJ on their primary wins last night. These two conservative women will make dynamic legislators, and I have no doubt that conservative voters all across their districts will agree with me on April 3rd," said Chairman Matt Pinnell.

Both Republican women have rock solid resumes:

Katie graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in early childhood development. During her career, Katie has taught special needs children at Tulsa’s Little Light House, as well as pre-kindergarten classes at Montessori and Riverfield schools in the Tulsa area. Learn more at www.KatieHenke.com

A former school teacher, AJ and her husband Trey Griffin own a business selling construction materials to builders across the state. As Executive Director of Logan Community Services, AJ provides help to those suffering in her community so they can become productive citizens and change their lives for the better. Learn more at http://griffinforoksenate.com/

"Katie and AJ are clearly two rising conservative women in our Party that are going to do great things for Oklahoma families in the State Legislature. We at the OKGOP look forward to helping these dynamic women in their general elections ahead," concluded Chairman Pinnell.

OKLAHOMA CITY – Attorney General Scott Pruitt joined attorneys general from Nebraska, Texas, Maine and six other states in a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, expressing “strong opposition” to an upcoming health insurance mandate that requires religious employers to provide coverage for services such as sterilization that contradict their religious beliefs.  

The letter, sent to Secretary Sebelius, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, cites issues with the mandate’s policy implications, potential consequences for the religious employers and its constitutional conflict with freedoms of religion, speech and association as provided under the First Amendment.

“Not only is the proposed contraceptive coverage mandate for religious employers bad policy, it is unconstitutional,” the AGs wrote. “We believe it represents an impermissible violation of the Constitution’s First Amendment virtually unparalleled in American history.”

Attorney General Pruitt and the other AGs said they plan to “vigorously” challenge the unconstitutional mandate in court if not withdrawn by the federal government.

“Any regulation that requires a religious group to violate their lawful beliefs and practices goes directly against the ideals that our Founding Fathers set in place to protect Americans from an overbearing and intrusive government,” Pruitt said. “It conflicts with the most basic elements of freedom provided to all Americans to practice their lawful religion wherever, whenever and however they choose. For that reason, we have asked Secretary Sebelius to not put this regulation into action.”

For a copy of the attorneys general letter, go online to www.oag.ok.gov.