By Theodore King

Although this column deals with federal matters, I begin with a local note. State Senator Randy Brogdon ran an excellent race for governor. He was outspent five to one by incumbent Congresswoman and former three-term Lt. Governor Mary Fallin. He was relatively unknown outside the Tulsa metro area up until the last months of the campaign, and yet he was able to garner almost 100,000 votes statewide in a closed Republican primary with a clear message and an army of volunteers. Senator Brogdon now leads a pro-liberty lobby: freedomsroll.com.

I used to be on the pro-life Susan B. Anthony list, but not now. I unsubscribed. During the Republican primary, that group endorsed Mary Fallin because they thought it would be cute to endorse a female candidate who is pro-life. When two pro-life Republican candidates were running in a primary, Mary Fallin and Randy Brogdon, a pro-life organization that wants to be taken seriously on this, the most serious of issues, should not snub one of them because they wanted a female name on the fall ballot.

In September, Senator Jim Inhofe led a charge to defeat a bill with some very bad elements in it. The odds were against him, but he won at least that round. The Defense Authorization Act for 2011, which had passed the House, was now before the Senate. This was the bill that repealed, subject to approval by the Department of Defense, the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy barring homosexuals from openly serving in the military, and this authorization act also included funding for abortions to be performed at military hospitals. In other words, your tax dollars would be used to abort babies! Speaking before the Values Voters Summit in Washington, Senator Inhofe called on activists to contact their senators to tell them to vote no on this appropriation bill. It must have worked. Tuesday, September 21st, by a vote of 56 to 43, four votes short of the 60 (cloture) needed to bypass Republican opposition and send this bill to the White House for the president's signature, the bill did not pass. Senators Coburn and Inhofe voted no. Senator Reid, Arkansas Senators Blanche Lincoln and David Pryor, joined Republicans in voting no. Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, or Lisa the Selfish, did not vote.

There was another objectionable provision in this bill, the so-called DREAM act, which would allow the children of illegals not born in the country to receive citizenship after serving for several years in the military. No act like this should see passage as long as the federal government refuses to enforce our borders. Majority leader Harry Reid changed his vote from yes to no, after it was clear it would not pass, so that he can bring this bill back up after Congress reconvenes for a lame duck session in November.

In the last two issues, I mentioned the Wall Street Reform Act and Consumer Protection Act of 2009, better known as Dodd-Frank, for Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the bill's authors. When we last went to press, this bill had not yet been signed into law by the president. President Obama signed it on July 21, 2010.

This new law will set aside, and by that I mean print out of thin air, $150 billion for a mini Troubled Assets Relief Package, or TARP. It creates a Consumer Financial Protection Agency headed by a "credit czar" appointed by the president to conduct oversight in all the new "reforms." This new agency will regulate products like home mortgages, car loans, and credit cards, give the Treasury Department new authority to place non-bank financial firms like insurance companies into receivership, regulate the over-the-counter derivatives market, and more! Source: OpenCongress.org Government lending quotas are still in place, requiring banks to lend to losers who can't repay their loans. This was the source of our financial crisis three years ago. This law was created by Democrats to tighten federal controls over the financial sector, not correct the problems that led to this crisis.

Republicans have let it be known that they will defund what they can of this regulatory behemoth, including tackling government mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but they don't have plans to repeal it as long as the Obama administration is around.

An added note: it would be good to insist that the next Republican Congress finally pass legislation requiring the Government Accounting Office to audit the Federal Reserve. This has been Congressman Ron Paul's crusade, and it needs finally to happen.

The Republicans, I believe, will win the Senate in addition to the House. The House prediction is a given at this point, but the Republican take-over of the Senate has been a subject of debate among pundits. The Republicans have 41 senators; they need 10 more to take over the Senate.

They will take seats from Democrats in Arkansas, Indiana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Those are five seats, bringing the total up to 46, but they need another five seats to close the deal. Currently, Democrat Senate seats are close in the blue states of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Nevada, New York, Wisconsin and Washington. Those are nine additional seats the Democrats have to defend. The Republicans have to take only five of those nine seats to win the Senate. All in all, the Republicans could win as many as 12 to 14 Senate seats.

There are two Republican parties: the establishment that tolerates and welcomes Republicans in name only, or RINOs, and those in the Tea Party movement. Senator Lisa Murkowski, with her selfish write-in candidacy after losing her primary to a Tea Party candidate, is an example of the establishment. Last year, I asked to speak to the OSU College Republicans about my book, The War on Smokers and the Rise of the Nanny State. The chairwoman said no because she doesn't believe in the liberty of being heard. The Young Americans for Liberty at the University of Arkansas recently sent me an e-mail, asking me about speaking to their club about my book. The group representing the establishment (that OSU gal, Karl Rove, the Bush family, Cong. Tom Cole, et. al.) talk about God, the flag, and liberty. I believe their concern is just about winning and, once in power, spending. Liberal Washington pundits refer to those in the Tea Party as not being in the mainstream, which is good. The mainstream politics in America has led us to big government and bankruptcy.

The group representing the Tea Parties and groups like Young Americans for Liberty DO believe in limited government and personal responsibility. They are real.

Tea Party-backed Christine O'Donnell's victory in the Delaware Senate primary over Congressman and former Governor Mike Castle is a victory for the Tea Party and the nation. Even if Christine O'Donnell does not prevail on election night, Mike Castle, who as a RINO senator would, along with RINO Maine Senators Collins and Snowe, undermine efforts to fight the Obama agenda, is out of the picture. By the way, if you are disappointed by John McCain's renomination to another term in the Senate, you can visit Libertarian Senate candidate David Nolan's Web site and make a donation to his campaign: www.nolan2010.org

Conservative columnist Joseph Sobran succumbed to diabetes on September 30th at age 64. In 2003, Mr. Sobran was the eloquent guest speaker at a very nice fundraiser I took part in, held in Arlington, Virginia, for Clear Creek Monastery, now Clear Creek Abbey, here in Oklahoma. Mr. Sobran was one of the major contributors to National Review magazine up until his paleo-conservative views clashed with NR founder William F. Buckley Jr. They reconciled shortly before WFB's death in 2008.Mr. Sobran was an expert on William Shakespeare. I remember one of his thought-provoking columns on how people to this day love Shakespeare, as did he, and people to this day love Jesus. He went on to write that people don't hate Shakespeare, but there are people who do hate Christ. In other words, Christ is not a mere historical figure.

About 20 years ago, the phone rang (it has rung since), and the eastern European voice on the phone was that of Justice Marian Opala, who was asking for my father. He wasn't in, and I said, "Judge aren't you on the Oklahoma Supreme Court?" He responded, "Young man, I am the embodiment of justice in Oklahoma!" Justice Opala died on the 11th of October. He was 89. Justice Opala was a Polish native who fought in the underground against the German occupation, eventually being imprisoned by the Nazis after the failed Warsaw uprising in which he took part. At the end of the war, he came to America because Poland had new (Soviet) occupiers. He came to Oklahoma City because he had been befriended by an American soldier from there who sponsored him. He became an American citizen, went to law school, became an attorney, and in 1978 was appointed a Justice of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma by Gov. David Boren. Justice Opala told The Journal Record in 2005:

"I'm very much committed and in love with this nation's constitutional order. That's what fires me up. We protect everybody. We protect the government from abuse by individuals, we protect the individual from abuse by the government, and we protect corporations from abuse by both. That's our system: protect everybody, not just some people. And that's the job I love."

Justice Opala used to address my late great uncle T. Austin Gavin, because he was well-known and distinguished, as "Your eminence." Uncle Austin had been President of the Oklahoma Bar Association and the Tulsa County Bar and was involved in a great many civic and religious matters. I knew Uncle Austin was a great man, and it was really neat that the great Justice Opala held my uncle in such high regard.

"When I grew up, I was not protected by a constitutional order such as ours . . . I grew up between Hitler and Stalin, neither of whom cared about the law. That's the reason for my passion for the orderly process of law. Who else but a foreigner would have that passion?" - Oklahoma Chief Justice Marian Opala in 2005

My thanks to Michael Bates of Batesline.com for providing these excellent quotes.