If You're a Smoker, Beware! The Oklahoma Attorney General is Gathering Evidence...I Guess

I don’t know about you, but all of that rain we’ve been getting has transformed the compound into a veritable Garden of Eden where sprigs of Bermuda grass now outnumber the sandburs 4:1.  In fact, I spent so much time outside dancing naked in the rain Monday that the wife called the Sheriff’s Department to have me arrested for lewd and lascivious public display…we’re still waiting for a deputy to show up.  They’ll probably arrive today sometime although I’m now dressed. 

But, I digress…

As always, I was as thankful as anyone for the rains.  For me, it goes beyond making a dent in the drought that everyone in this area has had to endure for so long.  I’m hoping the rain will cool off some of the hotheads around the state, like that dumbass state representative with the Captain Kangaroo haircut who threatened to douse himself in gasoline and set himself afire in the Supreme Court building across the street.  He said the ONLY thing holding him back is that he is a Christian.  Huh?  Not sure what that has to do with it.  I’m pretty certain Christianity over the centuries had its share of martyrs.  Was it the price of gas maybe…no, that’s pretty low right now.  Couldn’t find a match or Bic lighter perhaps?  Eh well, who cares?  Douse away dummy.

I was reading through the Woodward News this morning while floating across the Olympic size puddle next to the compound.  On page one, was an AP article “Tobacco Trust Fund Tops $1 Billion after Payment” .  Hmmmmm, I thought, this I must read.  So it turns out that Oklahoma’s Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust Fund (a state controlled fund chaired by the State Treasurer) reached a milestone balance of $1.03 billion (yep, with a B) after the most recent payment of $76.9 million from the tobacco industry.  75% of the payment went to the trust fund with the remaining 25% going to “health care appropriations” conceived by the crooks in the state legislature and the state attorney general’s evidence fund.  WTF?  Evidence fund?  What has that to do with a tobacco trust fund, the “work” of which is supposed to go toward fighting cancer and helping those with tobacco addictions.  

Does anyone else here smell a rancid tobacco-stuffed rat?  To paraphrase and misquote P. J. O’Rourke…”Giving money and power to state government is like giving whiskey and car keys to a sixteen year old boy.”

I would really like to know how that billion dollars is actually being spent…particularly the millions being deposited with our loopy Oklahoma AG.  Evidence fund?  I can’t get past that.  What the hell is an evidence fund and why does it need that much money?  Is anybody in this state paying attention?

Oooooh, maybe it’s so they can prosecute camera heads like the guy in Oklahoma City that I read about over the weekend who punched his blind neighbor to steal a cigarette.  How badly does that guy need nicotine?  Okay, so how would the Oklahoma Attorney General use an evidence fund to go after hairballs like this?  Hmmmmm…I’ll bet the AG and his gang of well-intentioned thugs will hold an off-site in Vegas to discuss their plan for dealing with this case.  Or maybe they use the evidence fund to create evidence where it otherwise doesn’t exist?  Seriously, what the hell is this about?

So the entire article about the tobacco trust fund is a lot of crowing about how much $$$ they have and almost nothing about how it’s being spent.  This is just wrong.  Over the past ten years, I’ve buried three relatives who were all dedicated smokers.  In my lifetime, I’ve personally known many more.  Maybe the state should do something to prevent people from starting smoking instead of enriching the AG’s evidence fund. 

Just a thought.