Craig Dawkins .....Liberty Thoughts

Voters Should Stay Open to Third Party Candidates in 2016 It's striking to see RNC officials say that Donald Trump "wasn't their 17th choice" and yet say they want their party to win the presidency in November. There's too much commitment to political parties and not enough devotion to America. Oklahoma will have more than two presidential nominees on the ballot for the first time since 2016. If ever there were a time to reconsider the two party paradigm, it's this year. Even in the DNC, Democrats are sending signals that they aren't enthusiastic about their leading candidate, Hillary Clinton. Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist, won Oklahoma's presidential preference primary. There will be lots of dissatisfaction among many voters of the two major parties. The Oklahoma Libertarian Party became officially recognized for the first time since 2000 and will select its presidential candidate later this month in Orlando, Florida. Currently there are thr...

Smart on Crime > Tough (Stupid) on Crime No it's not new. And it was always something that needed to happen. It's disingenuous for the county sheriff to complain about overcrowding while at the same time pursuing every single incarceration contract he can to hold detainees and inmates from other jurisdictions. The 2008 DOJ report stated the management of the jail was unconstitutional, not the jail facility itself. From the op-ed... "This isn't new. In 2008, crowded cells were among many faults federal Justice Department investigators cited in a harshly critical report about the jail. “Throughout the facility, we found detainees sleeping on the floor and three or four detainees locked in two-man cells,” their report said." http://newsok.com/oklahoma-countys-move-needed-but-will-strain-department-of-corrections/article/5496247

WASHINGTON DC UNION HEADQUARTERS FOR IAFF REFUSES TO ANSWER QUESTIONS ABOUT MIDWEST CITY REPORT A recent report titled, “Geographic Information System Emergency Services Response Capabilities Analysis Final Report” was recently posted on the Midwest City Firefighters Association social media page. The report was published by International Association of Fire Fighters, 1750 New York Avenue, N.W, Washington, DC 20006. No person of authorship was cited. The report highlights eight “key findings” in the executive summary. One startling finding in the report states that the current organization of the MWC Fire Department leaves “approximately 25% of city roads without engine or ladder coverage.” One in four city roads are without engine or ladder coverage? In that same finding, the study alluded to these 25% as not having a four minute response time. Further the report states: “Fire suppression resources are not deployed adequately for the arrival of an effective firefighting force (1...

AFL-CIO IAFF WASHINGTON D.C. UNION HEADQUARTERS ISSUES GIS REPORT (Not a study.) The union headquarters of the MWC firefighters union issued a report using GIS data to analyze from it's D.C. headquarters which streets in MWC it believes are outside the industry standard transit time goal. One of the important aspects of a legitimate study, is that it be done by an impartial third party. These reports that have been generated by the IAFF have been used in various jurisdictions across the US to argue for more union members, aka firefighters. Ironically, as you would expect, these kind of reports issued by the AFL-CIO affiliate never say there are too many firefighters. They have an incentive to make everyone believe they live in a city with too few firefighters. It's a perverse incentive to scare people. While the data in this report may or may not be useful in determining the current and future manpower and structural needs in rescue and fire suppression in our city, it wo...

Better Late than Never...  The Board of Oklahoma County Commissioners did the right thing even if it was late. Whetsel has been routinely and purposely overcrowding the county jail in order to drive revenue to his operation without any concern about the constitutionality of the treatment of those inside the jail. Let's hope Oklahoma County has a new sheriff after the November elections. Whetsel has had too much time for there to be this much wrong with his office. It's time for a change. From the story... "Afterward, Whetsel said he is obviously concerned about the impact on his office of losing more than $2 million in income from the Corrections Department next fiscal year. "We will have to live with the decision," he told The Oklahoman. "We'll just have to do the best we can with what we got." http://newsok.com/oklahoma-county-jail-to-stop-holding-extra-state-prisoners/article/5495566

A "Reckless" Lie vs. a "Deliberate" Lie?  Linked below is a story about OKC Police Sergeant Keith Medley who lied his way into someone's home, according to a federal judge. In today's Oklahoman, a story by Nolen Clay details that the sergeant has received an official reprimand from the OKC Police Department and transferred to a "nonenforcement" position where he will not be making arrests. The article went on to say that had the judge said his actions were "deliberate" rather than "reckless" he would have been subject to the "possibility" of dismissal. Seriously? So lying "recklessly" is SO different than lying "intentionally?" Wow... Our politicians can hang all their lies on such parsing of the facts. Seems the lesson is that lying "recklessly" means you get to keep your job. Good Lord. http://newsok.com/article/5479586

Academic Freedom Should Replace Top Down Model..... To the extent that the premise of the story is accurate, it seems to be more an indictment on the top down education model more than anything. The truth is that teachers should have academic freedom to choose to teach as they wish and be measured on student outcomes. The problem is that when teachers are essentially implementers of curriculum in a top down, bureaucratic model, rife with political competition and cronyism, it's very hard to get any real progress. You want to fix education in these troubled districts? Turn it over to a competitive model and allow parents to take their kids to the schools they like best. It cannot possibly be worse than the current model which has resulted mostly in failure. Make every school one that is free of the bureaucratic model of imposed curriculum and pedagogy. Do it for the children. Screw the educrats and political meddlers who want to control the entire learning process.