Read ‘em and weep. Gov. Kevin Stitt says he laments insiders and lobbyists who feed off not just Swadley’s bar-b-que but also ill-advised and perhaps illegal, inflated sole-source contracts that are clearly designed and awarded to ill-prepared friends and donors. However, he has put his own fox, Lt. Gov. Matt Pinnell, in charge of the henhouse while at least four agencies and committees investigate the obvious corruption and self-dealing surrounding Foggy Bottom restaurants and their owner, Kevin Swadley.
What should have been a $4 million renovation of the facilities multiplied to more than $16 million and Mr. Fox – Pinnell, who is asking to be re-elected – approved via email multi-million-dollar contracts while not physically signing or reading them. He also took large campaign contributions from family members who received some of the largesse generated by his own slipshod supervision of the dining renovations.
All this and more will be revealed, documented and proven over the next several months. The Stitt Wandering, Wasteful, Reckless Carnival Show is a pyramid of neglect, led by a businessman who wants to run the state like it is his personal business, ignoring state law and procedures, time after time, and then asks his personally appointed Attorney General, John O’Connor, to clean up the smelly mess and wreckage he leaves behind.
Transparency, openness, accountability. These are just campaign words, as phony as Clueless Kevin’s claim he provided teachers a pay raise. That is a bald-faced lie. He opposed and fought the 2018 salary jump passed by the Legislature and signed by his predecessor, Gov. Mary Fallin.
As President Ronald Reagan said about the Berlin Wall, I say to Liar Stitt: “Take down that campaign spot claiming credit for the educator pay increase. You fought it, denigrated it, opposed it and you are the most anti-public education governor in the history of Oklahoma” or as another almost forgotten voice from the past once queried, “Have you no shame sir?Have you no shame?”
In Stitt’s case the answer is a resounding No!
