The Oklahoma Political News Service has learned that Sen. Glenn Coffee’s handpicked choice to succeed him as senate leader, Sen. Brian Bingman, is the author of a horrific bill that will make drug lords rejoice and gut the ability to resist foreign drug cartel influence in Oklahoma. Really.

If it were a laughing matter, SB 2298 could be called the “Coffee-Bingman-Morgan Mexican Drug Lord Methamphetamine Stimulus and Fattening of Coffee’s Political Action Committees Act of 2010.” But it’s real, and it is definitely NOT a laughing matter.

Sources inside the Oklahoma anti-drug community say Bingman’s bill effectively guts Oklahoma law enforcement’s ability to interdict illegal drugs and the profits headed to Mexico. So why in the world would a man who is a leading contender to be the next senate leader sponsor a bill that will pad drug dealers pockets and open the flood gates to a new wave of imported meth? There are two plausible answers.

One, he did this all on his own; but while we’ve heard Sen. Bingman is not the shrewdest legislator, sources tell us he’s NOT a bad man. He just consorts with a couple of them.

Second, he didn’t know what was in the bill. Now this one just doesn’t look very good either, but our money is on this excuse. Our sources say this bill likely came from the current occupant of the pro tem’s office. They further say a lobbyist for a very large international company that makes beau coup money off wire transfers is the driving force behind this travesty. Coffee exploited the opportunity, (more on that in a moment) took personal charge of this request, and handed it off to Sen. Bingman. It is incredible to think they actually thought they could get away with this affront to all that is good and decent, but they did.

Sources say this the circumstances surrounding this gutless triumph of power over principle could why some may have misinterpreted the actions of a few courageous Republican senators. Indeed, it appears Sen. Bingman’s reputation as an unsuspecting and easily-duped lawmaker is more than just a stereotype, and that objections to his elevation as senate leader stem from the fear he’ll be a gaffe machine, unable to lead and incapable of resisting the corrupt agendas of Coffee and Morgan, the right hand man who has been foisted onto the state chamber of commerce after a month of begging by Coffee.

Yes, the most likely reason is that Sen. Bingman was given the task to carry the bill in order to complete a nasty little arrangement. Here’s the scenario: a huge international conglomerate who makes enormous profits from unsuspecting drug dealer wire transfers gets annoyed at having to follow a new and effective law regulating such transfers. Putting profits before decency, this prominent member of a large liberal state lobbying entity that specializes in corporate welfare presses any and all who will listen to help them get rid of this ‘annoyance.’ Coffee gets their bill introduced at the highest level, assures them of leadership guidance and suddenly the liberal state lobbying entity makes Coffee’s problem-child disappear, despite the fact that Morgan has nothing in his resume’ to merit his hiring. Multiple sources have confirmed this scenario.

Now the Coffee crowd and his apologists in the press corps are going to dismiss this post because they’ve got no other choice. It’s doubtful the capitol press will inquire. But any reporter can in a few calls confirm this account. Let’s hope they do, but this time we doubt the press can successfully keep the information from the people because of the influence of State Rep. Randy Terrill.

You can dispute the narrative, but you cannot dispute the grave damage to drug interdiction and enforcement this bill will inflict. Rep. Terrill and Sen. Anthony Sykes (made to look foolish last year by Coffee when he lied to Sykes before sending the public safety chairman out do an interview with Dave Jordan regarding the Coffee Department of Corrections lie) authored HB 2245, which Coffee and Bingman are trying to dismantle. This brilliant bill, the first of its kind in America, is a vital tool for law enforcement in investigating and interdicting illegal drugs and drug profits. The vicious Mexican drug gangs use couriers called “mules” to move their profits, but they no longer drive the streets and highways with trunk-loads of cash. To avoid detection, they now wire millions and millions of dollars back home to the drug lords; ironically, HB 2245 placed a fee on suspected drug-related wire transactions, and those funds are being used to fund the anti-drug efforts. A law enforcement legal expert tells OKPNS that the Coffee-Bingman bill is insidious in that it attempts to “carve out every possible exception” to the original bill, effectively cutting off funding, as well as gutting, the ability of law enforcement to investigate and interdict. Unbelievably, Oklahoma Senate Republicans are carrying a bill that would make Tom Hayden proud. Ronald Reagan must be spinning in his grave.

But back to the good guys: Rep. Terrill has beaten the chamber of compromise crowd more times than a rented mule, and we hope he does so again. Try as they will, even the press corps won’t be able to keep a lid on this. Terrill has access to media, and law enforcement loves him. For Sen. Bingman to have come within a hundred miles of this bill is enormously poor judgment. To mess with a Terrill bill that protects our communities, our children and that is used a primary weapon against the drug cartels demonstrates Sen. Bingman is simply not leadership material.

This flaw is ultimately why capitol insiders say Sen. Bingman has no business being senate leader.  Simply put, Sen. Bingman’s lack of savvy is why he was picked: to unquestionably do the bidding of two bad Republicans.

While we don’t want to quarrel with our friends’ conclusions over at Okie Pundit, after today’s revelation, we don’t think those Republican senators they wrote about are behaving in a “treasonous” manner. Quite the contrary: we think stopping a political disaster for Republicans before it happens deserves another word: Patriot.

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