BY GARY EDMONDSON
District 43 State Sen. Paul Scott of Duncan has spent the past few months becoming the embodiment of the new Republican Party – the party of racism, rudeness, personal ‘richment and religious hypocrisy.
In early December, he announced a bill to eliminate pre-natal services to some of our poorest citizens – in order to keep undocumented women from receiving Soon-To-Be-Sooner funds.
According to Will Hutchison, reporting for Lawton’s KSWO-TV on Dec. 13, “Sen. Scott said he believes the money going to the program only benefits expecting mothers who are not United States citizens but are living in Oklahoma.”
Well, not everything one believes is necessarily true.
Under an editorial titled “Misguided targeting of prenatal care funds,” those wild-eyed liberals at The Oklahoman pointed out that about 3,600 of the 9,856 women in the program last year were Oklahomans.
But Sen. Scott’s fear of brown women and brown babies made him willing to jeopardize the health of Sooners-Already. There’s the racism.
Oops. It seems that, in his hasty racism, he hadn’t researched the implications of his bill. Once Hutchison informed him that Oklahomans were included in the program and that killing that program would cost the state an additional $90 million in federal funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Scott backtracked:
“If that’s the case, where we would lose all of our CHIP funding, it’s something I would think strongly on and be very cautious about moving forward with the bill that would eliminate all of our CHIP funding because that would affect Oklahomans.”
But Scott’s bill falls right in line with President Trump’s Slaughter of the Innocents policy of family separations at the border.
[Our government shut down over funding Trump’s Wall of Shame. He promised that Mexico would foot the bill. Mexico’s government has not shut down.]
Scott echoed his party leader again when he tired of a political discussion with a Duncan woman on Facebook last month. He decided the proper action was to look up pictures of her husband to post and mock. [Remember Heidi Cruz?]
His rudeness became belligerent when Scott crowed, “You gonna do something or just stand there and bleed?”
That’s a reference to Wyatt Earp’s message to Johnny Tyler in “Tombstone” right after Wyatt has slapped Johnny about the head and shoulders.
Of course, Johnny Tyler was a bar room bully. No true man of the West would threaten such violence toward a woman.
New cyber-bullying laws in Michigan carry up to 20 years in prison as punishment. Other states are taking similar actions. Such laws resulted largely from the immature actions of teenagers.
So, do you want the religious hypocrisy, too?
Take your pick: Scott endorsing Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court by posting a picture of Democratic embarrassment Bill Clinton [party affiliation determines morality] or his response last summer to his x-ray company’s deal with the state.
The state Constitution specifically states “ … nor shall any member during the term for which he shall have been elected, or within two years thereafter, be interested directly or indirectly, in any contract with the State … ”
Using one’s governmental position to get personally richer is a hallmark of Trumpublicans.
At the time, Sen. Scott told The Oklahoman, “I am a member of my church. Believe me, I want everything to be above board.”
Maybe his church is one that sees plain English translations and concocts fancy, symbolic interpretations – just as prosperity gospelteers have glorified greed into a virtue.
Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter is former first assistant to Scott Pruitt, whose grifting ways were even too much for the Trump Administration – surpassing Harding’s and Grant’s as the most self-profiting horde to ever hit Washington, DC. I’m not holding my breath waiting for repercussions.
Racist, rude, personally enriching himself and a religious hypocrite, Sen. Scott must be eyeing higher office. That’s the new Republican Party – until its silent enablers take a pitchfork and dig themselves out of this steaming pile of hatred unfit even as compost.
– Duncan resident Gary Edmondson is chair of the Stephens County Democratic Party
