With the new school year just weeks away, state Superintendent Ryan Walters is busy lobbing one Molotov cocktail after another into Oklahoma’s classrooms in pursuit of his Christian Nationalist agenda. For this week’s Observercast – A Six Gun Or A Fountain Pen – former social studies teacher-turned-state Rep. John Waldron of Tulsa joins us to […]

When lawmakers adjourned sine die late last month, it wasn’t just the end of the 59th Oklahoma Legislature. It was the end of a leadership era, too. Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat and House Speaker Charles McCall are two of the longest serving top dawgs in their respective chambers in Oklahoma history – Treat […]

If the 59th Oklahoma Legislature is remembered for anything, it will be its preoccupation with 2SLGBTQ+ folks, especially transgender Oklahomans. This session, more than 50 bills were introduced that the American Civil Liberties Union identified as anti-2SLGBTQ+. Fortunately, few got so much as a hearing. What did gain traction was open hate speech – remember […]

When in doubt, stoke fear. That’s Republican Electoral Politics 101. And it’s on full display in the GOP legislative supermajority’s xenophobic HB 4156 that would give police the power to stop “others” whom they deem potentially guilty of a new crime: “impermissible o...

The Oklahoma Legislature’s 2024 session has had plenty of headline-grabbing moments: thwarting an attack on judicial independence, undermining The People’s initiative powers, embracing a show-me-your-papers expansion of police powers that could target almost anyone who’s not lily-white. But it’s often the legislation that flies beneath the radar that ends up with the potential to have […]

With the recent death of Owasso High School student Nex Benedict, The Observer is re-posting the August 2023 Observercast in which therapist/counselor Paula Sophia and Freedom Oklahoma’s Nicole McAfee call out bigotry and hatred aimed at our 2SLGBTQ+ friends — and offer ways forward to support them. Sophia’s and McAfee’s powerful, illuminating conversation was recorded […]

Oklahoma legislators have 16 weeks to get it right during the legislative session — to concentrate on the concerns and issues that our state honestly, truly faces — but, if history is any indication, there’s a next to zero chance they will. For an overview of the filed legislation and what we might see in the […]

Higher education in Oklahoma took it personally in December when Gov. Kevin Stitt signed an executive order to “review” all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in the state’s public sector. Never mind DEI programs attract business and position Oklahoma students for global competitiveness, Stitt still made his move in the continuing Culture War on so-called “woke ideologies” […]

What will be remembered about 2023? Way too many lows and too few highs politically? Former Senate President-turned-Observer columnist Cal Hobson joins us for this week’s Observercast – ’23 In A Rearview Mirror – to unpack the good, bad and ugly of it all – and to offer up fearless predictions for 2024.