A New Year Begins......

The Grapevine extends warmest wishes to you and your family for a New Year that is healthy, safe from adversity, and blest with the love of family and friends along with a growing knowledge of the Good Lord who so richly provides us with life's bounty.

Happy New Year in 2008!

The 'good 'ol boys' score again in stolen trailer case!

From the Pottowatmie Online Countywide News......http://www.countywidenews.com/calendar/

(Gary Jones stolen campaign trailer) The good 'ol boys score another travesty of justice!

The case of the stolen campaign trailer was laid to rest Tuesday when a City of Tecumseh employee pleaded 'no contest' to a charge of concealing stolen property and was given a deferred sentence.

The charge against Justin Lewis of Macomb will be dismissed if he successfully completes the five-year deferred sentence, including two years of supervised probation, $1,808 in restitution, 100 hours of community service and some court costs.

District Judge Doug Combs went against the recommendation of District Attorney Richard Smothermon in granting the deferred sentence. Smothermon, who handled Tuesday's appearance himself, said he had, "from day one, recommended a three-year suspended sentence if he would disclose who actually did it."

The trailer was stolen from the Branson-McKiddy parking lot the night before the 2006 Frontier Days parade. Decorated to look like a covered wagon, it was a well-known part of the campaign by Gary Jones, who ran against Tecumseh's Jeff McMahan for State Auditor & Inspector last year. McMahan defeated Jones, who is now chairman of the state Republican Party.

Tecumseh Police Detective J.R. Kidney and a sheriff's deputy found the trailer on property belonging to Lewis on Nov. 2, six weeks after it disappeared. In an August preliminary hearing, Kidney testified that "Lewis wouldn't say who brought the trailer to his property but commented that Kidney was smart and could figure it out."

Lewis later told Deputy Jim Patten that he "wasn't saying anything else and would take whatever happens to me." Shawnee attorney and Tecumseh native Allan Grubb represented Lewis. Grubb said he was pleased the judge rejected Smothermon's recommendation and said the DA "wouldn't negotiate" because of the "political ramifications of the case."

December Dates in History!

December 7, 1941, Japan attack the US Naval Base at Pearl Harbor killing 2300 Americans. This event brought the United States into WWll.

In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared December 15 to be Bill of Rights Day, commemorating the 150th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights.


The Boston Tea Party was an act of direct action by the American colonists against Great Britain in which they destroyed many crates of tea bricks on ships in Boston Harbor. The incident, which took place on Thursday, December 16, 1773, help to spark the American Revolution.

Oklahoma AG and Courts Play Favorites?

It seems Oklahoma's legal system is easily influenced by out-of-state groups. When an Oklahoma Supreme Court judge's wife and a few other powerful animal rights advocates in Oklahoma wanted cockfighting made illegal, out-of-state (Humane Society) petitioners were allowed to gather signatures. Then, the Oklahoma Supreme Court allowed the signatures.

The laws controlling the petition process haven't changed. However, the state district attorney's office recently arrested three people, two from out of state, for illegally gathering signatures on an initiative petition. They've been charged with defrauding the citizens of the state. This was the same thing that cockfighters appealed to Oklahoma's Supreme Court: that the Humane Society brought people into the state who illegally gathered signatures.

The referee the Supreme Court appointed to verify the signatures (Gregory Albert) found this to be true. He rejected the petition in his recommendation to the court, but was overturned by the state Supreme Court based largely on the same Supreme Court judges' insistence. It was the first time in Oklahoma history that the Oklahoma Supreme Court went against the findings of its own referee.

The court ignored the laws of the petition process and allowed a very illegal campaign and illegally written bill to proceed to the polls.
In one case the Oklahoma Supreme Court and the Attorney General stated it was legal for the out-of-state people (Humane Society) to gather signatures and influence Oklahoma laws; in the other they arrested the people (with TABOR) doing the same thing.

It's sad the leadership in the Oklahoma legal system chooses when to enforce a law by weighing how much will be taken out of their pocket, who will make the biggest donation to their re-election or what a wife demands.

B.L. Cozad Jr., Indiahoma
Letter to the Editor, originally printed in the Lawton Constitution
Emphasis added