Letters to the Editor: Nov. 9, 2016

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Many might think that Gov. Mary Fallin doesn’t have the sense God gave a peanut. She certainly is a sorry excuse for a governor.

So how do you explain the fact that she has never lost an election for public office?

She is at most of average intelligence. She has spent her entire public career using the political class and Oklahoma political moneychangers to promote her career. They have in turn used her for their selfish purposes. The latest example is her proclamation to set aside a day to pray for the energy industry. This is the tip of her hat to the wealthy donors who have financed her political career.

Her unstated message is that the energy industry is a person, too, my friends (thanks, Mitt Romney). Of course, we know that the overleveraged energy industry in Oklahoma has overleveraged their assets, including the good will it used to have with the vast majority of Oklahomans.

We are tired of our safety (think artificially induced earthquakes) being put at risk to promote their bloated profits.

We empathize with oilfield workers who had dangerous jobs, lost those jobs and now are struggling to make house and car payments and sustain an adequate standard of living. But those workers are not unique.

There are hundreds of thousands of Oklahoma workers living in poverty or near poverty or who face unemployment and have the same struggles.

Most Oklahomans have little to no sympathy or empathy for the megawealthy, high-rolling energy barons who have been living high on the hog and are now paying the price often paid by high rollers who roll snake eyes and crap out on their reckless behavior.

It was recently reported in the Daily Oklahoman that Fallin said to the 400 prayerful folks at her energy event at the Tower Hotel that she was just praying for the “needy” as her Bible tells her to do.

Since the energy industry was not even in the womb in biblical times, she seems to have missed the rest of the needy in Oklahoma and left out a few million folks who may also have their struggles in surviving in today’s anti-worker economy in Oklahoma. Now we know why Fallin has been successful in attaining public office and a miserable failure at lifting up all Oklahomans in need, not just the tiny minority who finance her political campaigns. She has played them like a fiddle. But every form of refuge has its price. They have played her like a Stradivarius, too!

Tom Guild Edmond

‘Stimulus’

When a politician — I don’t care who, whether it’s a liberal, RINO or otherwise — says “I want to spend $1 trillion on —” that means they have no idea what that “something” is really going to cost. They haven’t done one bit of homework on the subject. It’s just off the top of their head.

One trillion dollars is a ginormous amount of money.

It’s an absurd, insulting number devoid of any concern of what that means to the average person. Someone in power picks this figure, thinking it’s enough that if they throw it at the problem, maybe some minute amount will stick, actually make a difference of some kind so they can take credit for it. People who are willing to do this are mentally lazy, selfish, aren’t willing to do their jobs and don’t give one damn about you or me.

Doug Rixmann Newalla

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