We’re not surprised by it anymore but the basic honesty and goodness of Kingfisher County residents always provides encouragement for the future of our county, state and nation.

A recent incident involved Paul Wood of Cashion, who walked to the back of the newspaper office last Saturday as I was preparing to do a little weekend catching up work.

Wood asked me if I owned the Times and Free Press and I explained that I don’t, but I still get to hang out here.

Then he told me the front door of the office was open and he had entered the empty office and bought a copy of a recent edition and left a dollar on the front counter.

“I hope that’s all right,” he said.

It was more than all right (the single copy price is 50 cents) and I offered him the 50-cent overpayment he had made.

He declined, pointing out he understood how tough newspapers were having it these days.

I came inside the office and locked the front door and put Wood’s purchase money, plus donation, in the cash drawer.

The experience made me a little happier all day.

It is no wonder that anyone who comes to Kingfisher County never wants to leave, and if they do they always feel like they’re coming home when they return – even if they’re just passing through.

Too bad some of the local viewpoint doesn’t spread to the people in Washington, D.C.

The Buzzard Roost Paper

Roy Fisher of Loyal brought a copy of a Texas newspaper he subscribes to, The Buzzard Roost, published in Rising Star, Texas.

I’d never heard of either one.

Fisher thought we might like to use some of the items from the Buzzard Roost in the Times and Free Press.

A number of the items were extremely “politically incorrect,” which doesn’t bother this writer, and others contained some language we don’t use in this family newspaper.

However, we did find this item we think is worth repeating:

“Five Best Sentences”

1. You can’t legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

3. Government cannot give to anybody without first taking it from somebody else.

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

5. When half the people get the idea they don’t have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the “other” half gets the idea it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end for any nation.

Obama, Biden Get Off Scot Free

Chuck Ross of The Daily Caller wrote last week that Attorney General William Barr poured cold water on the idea that former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden will face criminal charges in connection with the surveillance activities against associates of President Donald Trump.

“As to President Obama and Vice President Biden, whatever their level of involvement, based on the information I have today, I don’t expect Mr. Durham’s work will lead to a criminal investigation of either man,” Barr said at a press conference.

He added: “Our concern over potential criminality is focused on others.”

Barr was referring to John Durham, a U.S. attorney investigating various aspects of the U.S. government’s investigation of Trump campaign associates.

Trump and some of his allies have suggested in recent weeks that Obama and Biden broke the law during the course of the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign.

Two Republican senators on May 13 released a declassified list of Obama administration officials who requested intelligence reports that identified Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser.

Biden submitted one of the so-called unmasking requests on Jan. 12, 2017.

U.S. officials routinely make unmasking requests. But Trump supporters have alleged that the requests are evidence that the Obama administration targeted Flynn. Republicans have focused on the Flynn unmaskings because a senior U.S. government official leaked classified details of Flynn’s call with Russia’s ambassador to The Washington post on Jan. 12, 2017.

Biden has not said why he made the request for the report that identified Flynn.

Barr did not say whether Durham has investigated the Flynn unmasking requests.

“I have a general idea of how Mr. Durham’s investigation is going. As I have indicated, some aspects of the matter are being examined as potential crimes,” said Barr.

“Not every abuse of power, no matter how outrageous, is necessarily a federal crime. As long as I’m attorney general, the criminal justice system will not be used for partisan political ends.” This is especially true for the upcoming elections in November.”

Durham is reportedly looking at the activities of the FBI as well as the CIA. Barr said in an interview in 2019 that Durham is also investigating the activities of unidentified “private actors.”

Durham’s investigation is said to have some overlap with a Justice Department inspector general’s investigation of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane probe.

The inspector general found that the FBI made 17 “significant” errors and omissions in applications to obtain surveillance warrants against Carter Page, a former Trump aide.

Barr Above Such Unethical Behavior

Although Biden and Obama obviously violated many standards of ethics and decency during their eight-year run, it is gratifying that Barr and other members of the current administration are proving they are above such behavior.

Now, if Obama would just quit trying to ruin the United States by continuing to interfere in the work of the Trump presidency. He has followed the pattern of the previously worst American president, Jimmy Carter, in that respect.

Rather than a scandal-free reign, as Obama described it to an adoring bunch of sycophants, it was a constantly corrupt eight years.

The New York Post collected a few of the most egregious examples of the Obama-Biden scandals. commenting that it was free of accountability but not scandal.

A few examples follow:

After vote-fraud activist Catherine Engelbrecht ran afoul of Democrats, who accused her organization of intimidating voters in 2012, the Obama administration responded in extraordinary fashion: She was targeted by the IRS — two business audits, two personal audits — but that was only the beginning. Her business was investigated by the BATF, even though it is in neither the A (alcohol), T (tobacco), nor F (firearms) businesses. She was investigated by OSHA, environmental inspectors, and — General Flynn might take note here — subjected to six FBI terrorism inquiries.

In the matter of the IRS targeting Engelbrecht and other conservative political groups, the pattern was not unlike what happened with the Flynn investigation. Political actors drove the investigations: In that case, it was Chuck Schumer, then the Senate majority leader, along with Democrats ranging from Al Franken to Dick Durbin. They demanded IRS investigation of conservative political groups, even identifying targets by name in the case of Crossroads GPS. The House Oversight Committee determined that IRS officials had lied to Congress about the matter. The fact that no one was convicted of a crime in the IRS abuses does not exonerate the Obama administration from the scandal — it deepens the scandal.

Then as now, the left’s answer was a lot of hand-waving, insistence that nothing untoward happened, and unwavering certainty that the victims of the abuse cannot be victims of abuse because they are the bad guys and Obama et al. were the good guys.

Then who can forget the ATF gun-walking scandal, bakery scandals, Department of Justice investigation of non-compliant reporters, Hillary Clinton email controversy, mass surveillance, Obama’s Bundles for Iran, Solyndra, Benghazi, Uranium One, Veterans Health Administration scandal.

You can find an Obama scandal for every letter in the alphabet without much effort.