By Andrew W. Griffin

Red Dirt Report, editor

Posted: October 11, 2012

reddirtreporter@gmail.com

OKLAHOMA CITY – The big green bus parked in front of the Oklahoma State Capitol  -- the one featuring Obama’s glum visage and the phrase “Obama’s Failing Agenda” -- was hard to miss midday Thursday.

But that was the point. The bus was designed to attract attention and about 100 people showed up to hear what critics of Obama’s failed policies had to say – people including U.S. Rep. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma City), Oklahoma Labor Commissioner Mark Costello and Americans for Prosperity’s Stuart Jolly.

“We’re here because Obama is not listening to the majority of Americans who don’t want his Big Government agenda,” Jolly told the assembled crowd.

Jolly explained that while he is based in Oklahoma, he has been touring the country with AFP’s “FailingAgenda.com” message, which includes the $1.7 trillion health-care takeover, a national debt of $16 trillion, more than 42 straight months of unemployment above 8 percent and billions of taxpayer dollars wasted on green energy scams like Solyndra.

This Big Government meddling into the American workplace and in the lives of everyday Americans has gotten out of control and the economy – and people – are suffering.

Said Jolly: “Economic freedom leads to prosperity.”

That said, Jolly said he and Americans for Prosperity are urging conservatives to focus on the hard-hitting details AFP has listed at FailingAgenda.com and to know that plenty of other Americans are looking for a real change.

“We don’t want to talk about crazy things,” Jolly added. “We don’t need to talk about birth certificates.”

On the ground, in AFP’s big green bus (one of three), Jolly said he has seen what is really going on in a battleground state like Ohio, where the intensity there is “far greater than it is here in Oklahoma.”

So, Jolly said AFP is taking dozens of grassroots conservatives to another battleground state – Colorado – and knocking on doors for several days next week to get the word out about Obama’s failing agenda.

“I’m covering hotel, meals and transportation,” he said.

U.S. Rep. Lankford also spoke. He discussed the enormous debt America has incurred and the “trillion dollar deficit” the U.S. managed to have in a single year.

Lankford told the crowd how God had ordained America to be special and to spread it’s message of freedom to the world. Free places in the world – places that weren’t free before – are now free due to America spreading its “freedom agenda.”

He then transitioned into talking about the House committee meeting yesterday in Washington where he heard how the consulate in Benghazi, Libya was left defended by only 5 people. This, after the British left and others fled because Benghazi was too dangerous.

Those violent people, he said, don’t like the U.S. because they don’t like it that women can speak freely and that we have freedoms like freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

Continuing, Lankford reminded the largely conservative crowd that the Obama administration is constantly getting caught fudging the rules, making things up as they go along or putting forth authoritarian “czars” like Cass Sunstein, formerly with the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

Appearing before a committee on which Lankford belonged, the liberal elitist Sunstein explained that democracy as we know it in America is inefficient and that it was better for the government to be run by “well-educated technocrats.”

Also speaking was Labor Commissioner Costello. Making several historical references – saying Obama has more in common with Hugo Chavez than with folks in Hugo, Oklahoma, or saying he has more in common with (monstrous Khmer Rouge Maoist) Pol Pot than folks in Poteau, Oklahoma – he talked about the failed “card check” program aimed at union members.

“Even George McGovern said card check is a violation of our rights,” Costello said.

He noted that here in Oklahoma, business leaders like Devon’s Larry Nichols still think big and take to building skyscrapers, like the Devon Tower that now dominates the Oklahoma City skyline.

But if Obama is re-elected for a second term, businesses like Devon could be further hampered from growing, providing jobs and building on what they’ve already achieved.

 “We have to stand up or our freedoms will ebb away,” Costello said.

Asked what she thought of the AFP “Failing Agenda” event, Mustang resident Linda Bowers said that she is appalled by what Obamacare will bring to America. Bowers said she had a problem with the abortion issue linked with Obamacare and also liked what the speakers said about national security, while troubled about what Obama is doing to Medicare.

Copyright 2012 Red Dirt Report