David Stringer
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Articles by David Stringer
VOTER ALERT! TAX HIKES ON THE BALLOT! Deadline Nears For Filing Statements On Ballot Propositions – David Stringer, Publisher
https://prescottenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/VOTER-ALERT-TAX-HIKES-ON-THE-BALLOT-David-Stringer.wav Seasoned voters know that local politicians trying to raise taxes get a publicity windfall by controlling the official ‘Voter Guide’ sent out just before an election. These information pamphlets, ostensibly intended to educate voters, are prepared at taxpayer expense, and are typically stacked in favor of the propositions seeking higher taxes.
David and the RINO: How To Stop A RINO With A Single Shot – David Stringer, Publisher
Readers will recognize today’s cartoon video as a parable for our time, inspired by the familiar story from the Hebrew Bible, David and Goliath, 1 Samuel 17. In our updated version, Goliath is a swamp creature, Kwong the RINO, who has claimed asylum in Rinoland. He mocks our hero, David, with the claim that his status makes him untouchable. But in Kwong The Rino’s hubris, David sees an opportunity. With a smooth stone and a sling, he slays the Rino with a single shot.
KWONG IN RHINOLAND
With today’s cartoon video, political satire returns to Prescott eNews. Readers may remember our experiment last year with AI generated cartoons. From April 12 to September 20, 2025, we published 24 original cartoons satirizing as many state and local elected officials as we could get to. AI generated content was an experiment for eNews. The concept for a particular cartoon originated with eNews staff. But we relied entirely on Chatgpt for the artwork.
COLUMN: You know when ‘It’s time’
Nearly seven years ago, my wife and I took a Sunday drive from OKC to look Lawton over. I’d applied for the job as publisher of The Constitution and wanted to check things out. My wife was born here at Fort Sill, but it had been several years since either of us had been here, and we meandered around town on a bright summer morning. A cloudless, sparkling summer sky helped the community put on its best face.
COLUMN: Is the tide turning against ‘Big Tech’?
“Big Tech has its Big Tobacco moment.” That’s one summation of this week’s LA case in which a woman said harmful aspects of social media — particularly Meta’s Facebook, Instagram and What’s App, along with Google’s YouTube — contributed to her mental health declines from the time she was 6. The programs, plaintiffs alleged, were “designed in ways that caused or worsened depression, anxiety and body dysmorphia in minors,” according to reporting from Courthouse News Service.
COLUMN: Determining threats that are ‘real’
I struggle to understand how many of our neighbors get through the day. The continued influx of boogeymen in America are apparently unaffected by the semi-annual time change, weather patterns or tariffs and they must be on some sort of protected species list since we can’t seem to eradicate them.
COLUMN: Looking in the mirror for a little grace
I had to smile a bit this week reading the story that Secretary Pete Hegseth was upset that some photos taken of him at a recent press event were “unflattering.” As a result, photographers were banned from future events. I wonder if there’s a press photographer anywhere who hasn’t been blamed every now and again for how their subject is portrayed. To be fair, it’s generally more the editor’s fault than it is the photographer.
COLUMN: The challenge of finding the truth
Knowing newspaper readers are “smarter than the average bear” (as Yogi would say), you’re probably not as inclined to be alarmed as others, but I pose the following question, tongue-in-cheek: Would you support banning a substance which: •Causes death if inhaled in small quantities? •Accelerates corrosion of many metals? •Is found in excised tumors of terminally ill cancer patients? •May cause severe burns? •Contributes to the “greenhouse effect” on the planet?
COLUMN: Are you sure about that? Wanna bet?
Will the Fed cut the interest rate this month? Will President Trump be successful in returning manufacturing to the U.S.? Who will win the 2028 presidential election? Which party will control Congress after the mid-terms? Will Iran launch at attack on Israel before the end of the month? Will Costco raise the price of its hot dog combo order? What nicknames will President Trump say before April? How certain are you? Are you willing to put money on it? kAm%9@D6 2C6 ;FDE D@>6 @7 E96 “H286CD” J@F 42? A=246 :?
EDITORIAL: Let's make the school phone ban permanent
It was supposed to be a one-year test, but a proposal by Sen. Alley Seifried, a Claremore Republican, would seek to make the existing ban on student possession of cell phones during instructional time a permanent rule. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Lindel Fields threw his support and that of his office behind SB 1719 this week. Of the educators we’ve talked to of late, we’ve not found a one that doesn’t see the current ban as a good thing.
COLLUMN: It’s time to get rid of dark money
Kudos to one Oklahoma lawmaker who’s at least making an effort to try and bring some more transparency to the financing of political campaigns. At a Feb. 12 meeting of the Oklahoma Ethics Commission, Tulsa Democratic House member Meloyde Blancett offered a rule change which would possibly include requiring independent groups to disclose more detail on their organizational structure and disclose their top donors.
COLUMN: It’s time to get rid of dark money
Kudos to one Oklahoma lawmaker who’s at least making an effort to try and bring some more transparency to the financing of political campaigns. At a Feb. 12 meeting of the Oklahoma Ethics Commission, Tulsa Democratic House member Meloyde Blancett offered a rule change which would possibly include requiring independent groups to disclose more detail on their organizational structure and disclose their top donors.
COLUMN: The hubris of doubting nothing
There’s an internet meme you may have seen. “Whatever you do today, do it with the confidence of a 4-year-old in a Batman shirt.” While that may bring a smile to your face, it’s also a concept, apparently, rooted in science. A 2017 study called it the “Batman effect,” a result in which young children who impersonated an “exemplar other” (in this case, Batman), were more committed to the task at hand and persevered longer in competing repetitive tasks.
COLUMN: Digital privacy is becoming a quaint notion
Discussion at this week’s Lawton’s City Council session related to a potential loss of privacy if it accepted grant money to employ facial recognition software was interesting — and contained a little bit of naivete: That privacy protection was sacrificed long ago on the altar of technology.
COLUMN: Seeking a little intellectual honesty
The amount of partisan hypocrisy emanating from all corners of the country has reached stunning levels of late. It’s not really new, but efforts of some individuals to be at once supportive and otherwise outraged (depending, of course as to whether your side has the advantage) have resulted in some Oscar-worthy performances. Sadly, they also think the rest of us are either too dumb to notice or too ignorant to care.
COLUMN: Memories worth the price of admission
On a recent trip to South Texas, I found myself with a day with no planned activities. That’s generally rare when I travel, as there’s usually a destination, a timeline to manage, and deadlines to meet. Oddly, this time I had the opportunity to explore, and got to cross off another one of those “that would be cool” activities: a trip to the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Growing up in the era of Apollo missions and the like, I’ve always had a fascination with space.
COLUMN: AI map for news: Rocky roads ahead
If you’re tired of reading this column related to warnings about artificial intelligence (AI) and its risks, particularly as it relates to news dissemination, feel free to skip on to the next author. I become increasingly concerned that, at least in its current form, AI runs the risk of making us all stupider, filled with “facts” that simply aren’t so.
COLUMN: Oh, you mean that deadline?
It took up some space in one edition of the paper this week, but you may still have missed it. The story was that the Post Office will no longer be applying a postmark when they receive a piece of mail. Amongst all the headlines this week, it’s a little thing, but will have some big impacts. Call it a “tradition” if you will, but the postmark, that process has been used for decades as proof that you really did do what you were supposed to do. It meant that you mailed your taxes to the IRS on time.
COLUMN: Are we all becoming “fraidy cats”?
I recall from my childhood that insult was one of the most grievous, a challenge to your sense of self. I don’t know if girls felt it as intently as boys, but among your peers a certain level of fearlessness was required to maintain some level of status within your circle. But a couple of articles I came across this week appear to be normalizing what we would have once rejected. “Biophobia” is said to be the fear of nature.
COLUMN: Was all that hubbub really 26 years ago?
It’s hard to believe that it’s been a quarter of a century (actually 26 years ago now) since we were all sitting here waiting on the end of the world, at least as some people saw it. Remember Y2K? We were all a little edgy wondering exactly how we’d be impacted. It was anticipated that a lot of our early computer technology designers never thought about when the first two digits of the year wouldn’t be “19”.
COLUMN: Future focus robs us of time
We seem to now live in a word in which we must KNOW an outcome, even before it’s occurred. Driven, no doubt, at least partially by a 24/7 news cycle, and the desire to be influential, we’ve morphed into a society of prognosticators, even when we have nothing but opinions — informed or otherwise — to go on. And, like TV weather forecasters, few will ever go back and attempt to see if these bold predictions actually came true. As you might expect, some will go back and report “See?
COLUMN: When safeguards fail, we all lose
There’s a reason why governments move slowly. More often than not, when it gets in a hurry, inevitably mistakes are made; it winds up costing far more than it should, and the benefits wind up being diluted or non-existent. The federal government spent $4.6 trillion to help Americans deal with the impact of the COVID pandemic beginning in 2020 under the Trump administration.
COLUMN: Could AI change balance of Congress?
“I’m glad I’m not as young as you.” A former boss spoke those words to me as he was preparing to retire. A lifelong newspaperman, mostly in Nevada, he looked at the changes he anticipated at the dawn of the digital age and knew his world would be changing. Business would become tougher. All the knowledge he’d accumulated over the years, while still relevant, would be only a portion of what was necessary to be successful in the digital age. kAm$6G6C2= 564256D =2E6C[ 2 =@E @7 FD[ :?
COLUMN: Thanksgiving things I’d rather talk about
I was thinking about a list of “safe” topics that could be discussed around your Thanksgiving without starting World War III and, despite how politically homogeneous your family might be, there’s always that one “crazy uncle”, entitled “Karen” or ultra-extreme convert who doesn’t know how to read the room and make it tough on everyone else.
COLUMN: Can you curb Frankenstein’s monster?
If this newspaper were to publish a story saying you were being investigated for some heinous crime — and there was absolutely no truth in the story — you’d have grounds for legal action. The same outcome would be possible if our story wound up on the internet. But what if the same story was generated by a computer program and, despite unmitigated proof there’s no truth to the matter, that story continues to circulate. You’d want to sue, right? But who would you sue?
EDITORIAL: Dr. Seuss has a lesson for panhandling
Members of the Lawton City Council twisted themselves into metaphorical pretzels this week trying to address the issue of panhandling. It’s the latest extension of a problem they’ve been wrestling with for over a year. We have a bit of a different take: Just ban it. We know there will be folks who’ll say we’re being insensitive to the plight of the less fortunate, and that’s far from the case.
COLUMN: Is state’s aeronautical prominence at risk?
An interesting sidenote to the government shutdown was reported on in the New York Times this week: Nine colleges are now offering training for Air Traffic Controllers, a career for which students have travelled to Oklahoma for decades to train.
COLUMN: Insurance probe is a worthwhile exercise
Lord knows you can argue the value of how the state legislature spends its time. Ask someone and you’ll likely get a response which indicates they spend more time dithering and passing meaningless yet provocative measures, as opposed to “real” improvements to the lives of Oklahoma residents. That opinion is likely overstated, primarily because most of us have a basic distrust of government in general. kAmqFE @?6 DE@CJ E9:D H66< >2<6D ?@E6 @7 2? :?G6DE:82E:@?
COLUMN: Knowing what’s real becomes more difficult
You can no longer believe your eyes. That was the takeaway from some research I did recently on the topic of media literacy. While the amount of truly fake news — information that’s really made up, not just something someone disagrees with — has been growing for some time, artificial intelligence has accelerated the trend so very few of us have the skills to sniff out a well-crafted image designed purely for the intention of misleading people.
COLUMN: A free press serves the public
As media organizations work to improve the level of trust among consumers, there’s another factor that’s playing an increasing role in efforts to do our jobs: The efforts by government organizations to restrict access to a select few communications professionals. What it means is, often, when we’re looking for a particular bit of information, we aren’t allowed to talk to the person most directly involved.
COLUMN: Scamming your way to a miracle
We spend a lot of time these days talking about medicine. Some would have you believe vaccines are unnecessary, or at least the timing of them. Antibiotics when overused can lead the body to build up an immunity and make them less effective, or so I’ve been told. I’ve heard a radio commercial that says you can order your own box of “doctor-prescribed” medicines and save the trip to the doc’s office and the annoying lines at the pharmacy.
COLUMN: Media literacy in our overloaded world
Today begins National Newspaper Week. I’m certain you’ve seen the wide swath of greeting cards available to you in local stores. No? Yeah, me either. Like most other special day or week designations, it will come and go with the majority of attention being pushed out by people who have a vested interest. Like me. kAmr@>6 y2?F2CJ[ x’== 92G6 :?G6DE65 @G6C cd J62CD :? E96 3FD:?6DD @7 ;@FC?2=:D>] {:<6 >2?J[ >J 7:CDE “;@3” H2D 56=:G6C:?8 ?6HDA2A6CD[ 7:CDE E96 $2?
China vows to cut greenhouse gas emissions 7% to 10% by 2035
China, the world’s largest polluter, set a target to cut economywide net greenhouse gas emissions 7% to 10% over the next decade, a strategy that’s seen as too modest to put the nation on a path to net zero and galvanize global climate action. The promised reduction from China’s peak levels — while “striving to do better” — follows President Xi Jinping’s pledge in April to pursue more stringent curbs and to set policies that cover the entire economy, addressing pollutants beyond carbon dioxide.
COLUMN: It’s time for a few cracks in the wall
Cracks are things not generally seen as something good. Crackpots are best avoided. A crack in a building or its foundation demonstrates weakness. Social media has devolved from cat photos and updates of what our friends had for dinner, into a waste-filled cesspool of outrage. It builds a wall around us and tells us “I’ll protect you” all while delivering a newsfeed of rock and mortar we’re to use to build the wall ever higher and more formidable. Well, at least half of it has.
COLUMN: Will assassination be a turning point?
The question was posed this week: Was the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk a tipping point? Would this act — the silencing of someone solely, we presume, due to his political ideology, be the final straw, the one tragic event which would get everyone to ramp down the rhetoric? I fear the answer is no. Admittedly, I wasn’t a fan of Kirk’s. That’s not because I disagreed with him, I imagine there were many things we would agree upon.
COLUMN: A rare instance of bipartisan agreement
It’s hard to find examples (at least for centrists) of any kind of common sense activity coming out of Washington these days. You may have supported the Biden administration’s ARPA programs that, while beneficial at the time, created sinkholes throughout the nation when that funding went away. You may support the present administration’s back-and-forth approach on tariffs and other manner of change, but all of it is more partisan than it ought to be.
COLUMN: Remember when protests meant something?
Remember when protests meant something? We seem to have lost all sense of scale when it comes to protests. Protests used to mean something. Now, it seems any kind of microaggression will warrant someone taking to social media to try and organize a protest. And while some of those may generate some notoriety, few effect any meaningful change. I have some recollection of a time when protests were things of note, rather than just a passing fad.
COLUMN: I think I’m fine with anonymity
That may seem a strange thing to say, coming from someone who puts his thoughts out there on a regular basis, and runs an organization which strives to be a credible information source. Even people I’ve never met have told me they “know” me, based on what I write and what I do.
COLUMN: Waiting patiently is an art form
I’ve determined that I don’t wait well. That’s not necessarily a revelation. However, I’ve determined that as I get older, my level of waiting-related frustration seems to be increasing exponentially. Perhaps it’s knowing — with fewer years ahead than behind — that time is even more precious. If I’m being honest, I was never very good at it. I was that kid sliding in the door as the period bell rang because I saw no value in sitting in the classroom until it was absolutely necessary.
COLUMN: Arresting political opponents is a new low
I have a feeling we’ve reached a new low as a nation. This week one group issued arrest warrants for their political opponents and then federal resources were marshalled to help track those individuals wherever they may be and extradite them back to Austin. This was all triggered, of course, by Texas Democrats, who decided the best way to thwart Gov. Greg Abbott’s plan to speed up redistricting by five years was to take their ball and go home … or as far away from home as possible.
COLUMN: There’s a lesson from every interaction
If, like me, you’re way past tired of people trying to pump themselves up. Some folks will attribute it to helicopter parents who thought everything their sweet baby child did was worthy of rapturous applause, or a “participation trophy” generation which thought blessing us with their mere presence should leave us genuflecting in awe of their magnificence.
COLUMN: Finding truth in today’s environment
I’m not typically going to get “preachy”, foisting my religious beliefs on others or attempting to convince them why my God and interpretation of his Word is the only correct one and something they should follow. Over several decades of writing for community newspapers, I don’t think I’ve ever quoted a Bible verse. Until now.
COLUMN: SQ 836 would like to change how you vote
A year ago, I raised the question as to whether the state should open its primaries to voters registered as independent. Democrats already allow that incursion. But the Republican primary remains open to only registered Republicans. My contention is that closed primaries cater to the party’s hard-core base. In cases where challengers exist, candidates attempt to “out-extreme” one another to get the party’s position in the general election.
COLUMN: Is it blame, or trying to understand?
Despite Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s frustration at those asking questions as to what went wrong when the Guadalupe River left its banks in a matter of minutes, costing the lives of over 120 individuals, there’s a natural inclination to try and figure out what went wrong. You’d assume that information could be used to prevent a reoccurrence. “Who’s to blame? Know this, that’s the word choice of losers,” Abbott said, adding “The way winners talk is not to point fingers.
COLUMN: News consumption gets more confusing
As the note at the end of this column says, I’ve spent over 40 years of my life in the media business. And despite all the technological advances that made it easier to publish a daily newspaper, other economic factors made the job ever more challenging. Multiple times per year, someone comes up with a new shiny object that purports to save local news. In my experience, those offerings make money for the people offering them, providing no meaningful support for local news.
COLUMN: Fan makes me wonder: How low can you go?
When was the last time you heard about someone’s bad behavior and asked yourself “What were they thinking?” With today’s firehose-volume news cycle where, it seems, no boorish behavior goes without notice, I’ll bet the over/under on that for most of us has been 24 hours or less, especially if you spend any time at all on social media. If you’re like me, you silently wish for a little bit of karma to be heaped on the offender.
COLUMN: Maximum effort can still produce wounded pride
I stepped to the plate in the last inning of a recreational league softball game, determined to do something meaningful. This was a few decades ago, and though I’ve never been the most athletic person in the world, I prided myself on using whatever limited abilities God provided me with to the best of my ability.
COLUMN: Dad’s lessons still being learned
Youth is wasted on the young, so they say. We’re unable (or unwilling) to learn many of life’s hard lessons until we have a few years under our belts. It took me many years into adulthood before I began to understand the wisdom my father tried to impart. He’s been gone over a decade now and I feel I’m still learning what he tried to teach me. What I’ve come to appreciate more than anything are the things I couldn’t have learned without him. He was, after all, a child of a different era.
COLUMN: Normandy is still impossible to comprehend
I wasn’t certain what to expect. But it was a confusing combination of solemnity, peace and reverence I came away with after getting to visit the American cemetery at Normandy last month. Visiting the site has been a bucket list desire for as long as I can remember. Getting to be there on Memorial Day was especially thought-provoking.
COLUMN: When you’re suddenly ‘somebody’
Many people struggle their entire lives to be “somebody.” It’s a blessing and a curse, I suppose. There are more than a few famous people who find themselves the target of paparazzi or insistent fans who are emboldened to interrupt any gathering. Years ago, as the editor of the local newspaper, I was proud to have been invited to a local soiree, convinced I’d been accepted by the community as it was a pretty tightly-controlled event. I’d arrived, I thought, and been accepted.
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