The Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust

By: Theodore King - The Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust (TSET) is a billion dollar smoked piggy bank for healthcare with very little healthcare being given to Oklahomans. Voters approved a constitutional amendment to create TSET as a state agency in 2000 to spend money from the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) between the tobacco companies and 46 states, including Oklahoma, that sued the tobacco companies for the states’ treating people with smoking-related illnesses. TSET today has collected payments amounting to a billion dollars. By 2025 it may have two billion dollars. Since 2001, TSET has spent the interest from those payments, which amounts to 290 million dollars. TSET is a cash cow milked mostly for the benefit of others, so remotely related to healthcare costs including Medicaid, as to be extraneous to those purposes for which the MSA money was intended.

We believe in the right to life

Published by Theodore King · May 24 · 

"We believe in the right to life, and we believe the unborn have an equal claim to that right as the born." Source: 2010 House campaign website,www.maryfallin.org, "Issues" , Nov 2, 2010

To quote a title of Tulsa novelist S.E. Hinton - “That was Then, This is Now.”

On the Friday afternoon of May 20th, Governor Mary Fallin vetoed Senate Bill 1552 that would have effectively outlawed the practice of abortion in the state of Oklahoma. The bill by Broken Arrow Senator Nathan Dahm would have made it a felony for any doctor to perform an abortion in the state. Governor Fallin's office stated she vetoed the bill because it was too vague and wouldn't withstand legal scrutiny. It is worth noting Senator Dahm arranged legal counsel, at no charge to the state, to defend the bill had it become law. Last year, according to Senator Dahm, she promised him and his legal counsel that she would support their proposed bill outlawing abortion.

Mary Fallin: “That was Then, This is Now.”

"We believe in the right to life, and we believe the unborn have an equal claim to that right as the born." Source: 2010 House campaign website,www.maryfallin.org, "Issues" , Nov 2, 2010

   To quote a title of Tulsa novelist S.E. Hinton - “That was Then, This is Now.”

  On the Friday afternoon of May 20th, Governor Mary Fallin vetoed Senate Bill 1552 that would have effectively outlawed the practice of abortion in the state of Oklahoma. The bill by Broken Arrow Senator Nathan Dahm would have made it a felony for any doctor to perform an abortion in the state. Governor Fallin's office stated she vetoed the bill because it was too vague and wouldn't withstand legal scrutiny. It is worth noting Senator Dahm arranged legal counsel, at no charge to the state, to defend the bill had it become law. Last year, according to Senator Dahm, she promised him and his legal counsel that she would support their proposed bill outlawing abortion. That was then, this is now.

The Billion Dollar Smoked Pig: TSET's Hidden Stash of Cash

The Big Smoked Pig

By Theodore King...  
  This season we read and hear a barrage of press stories about Oklahoma's budget shortfall due to falling oil prices. The legislature is looking for ways to make ends meet including cuts to existing programs that benefit people in need. Just this past week we learned of a shortfall in the state's share of the Medicaid program for the indigent. There is a big smoked pig in our state that should be carved up to take care of some immediate needs. The legislature merely needs to approve a proposed state question that could be placed on the November ballot.