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OKPNS 10/13/08 Pucker Up Time for Chesapeake Twins Jeff Cloud & Jim Roth
You need to know why your rates are going up, and why you are getting stuck with millions of dollars in legal bills. You don’t have to believe us, and you don’t have to worry about if the candidates are telling the truth – you can find out for yourself.
ITEM #1 – You paid for $1,123,280.62 for outside lawyers.
The Corporation Commission has almost as many government attorneys as the Attorney General’s office. So why are you paying this much in legal fees? For two reasons: to pay off political supporters and to cover up their own misconduct.
PAYING OFF POLITICAL CONTRIBUTORS
When you look at the contribution reports for Cloud and Roth you will find major contributions from oil and gas attorneys. Here’s the deal – they give $5000 to the Commissioners campaigns, and they get $100,000 or more in taxpayer funded legal fees. Great for them, expensive for you.
COVER UPS
There are two major taxpayer lawsuits that have exposed just how our Corporation Commissioners have been using your tax dollars to buy political support. Here is what a “taxpayer’s lawsuit” is all about. The founders of Oklahoma wanted a check on political power and corruption. If citizens believe elected officials misused taxpayer’s money and if the lawmakers did it knowing they were doing it (ignorance is a defense) then a taxpayers lawsuit holds the elected officials personally accountable.
“Your” commissioners are using your tax dollars to pay for their defense. That’s just wrong. Look, we hate frivolous lawsuits as much as you do, and we can all be sued, and if it is a groundless lawsuit, then the people who file it have to pay the legal fees of those who were sued (it’s called loser pays). So there is a real risk for filing a taxpayer’s lawsuit.
But instead of being like you or me who has to defend yourself against a lawsuit, your Corporation Commission voted to use your money to defend themselves against their own corruption. So what is the lawsuit about? $3.2 Million illegally paid to Phillips Petroleum as part of the Petroleum Storage Tank Program.
Here’s what the suit says: Jeff Cloud and others paid $3.2 million to Phillips even though they knew that it wasn’t authorized. The commission staff said it was wrong, but because of political pressure and cronyism the Commission did it anyway.
The only way to hold the elected officials accountable was for some very courageous citizens to risk hundreds of thousands of their own dollars to file suit. A local judge whose husband is a lobbyist initially dismissed the case, BUT the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that there is merit to the case and they ordered the judge to hear the case. That doesn’t happen very often.
When you look at the court case you realize that this is a serious rip-off of you and the State Supreme Court agreed that this is serious. Guess what? If you send Cloud and Roth back to the Commission, they will continue to use your tax dollars to defend themselves.
Item #2 Illegal Firings and Porn
WHY ARE YOUR TAX DOLLARS BEING USED TO DEFEND PORN USE ON STATE COMPUTERS?
The Corporation Commission fired the head of computer division because she complained that top staff of the Commission was using state computers to look at porn. The commission tried to force her to stop enforcing the law that keeps us from paying for porn use by state employees.
When you look at her lawsuit for wrongful termination, you will see a sick attempt to defend what these staffers were looking at. (Charles Gray was the author of the bill that made it illegal for state employees to be going to pornographic web sites with state computers – HB 1048 in 1996).
Because the Corporation Commission investigator took the approach of “boys will be boys” and defended the Administrative Law Judge who was visiting pornographic web sites, we got stuck with another expensive lawsuit and settlement.
Where is the outrage from any of our sitting Corporation Commissioners? This was a no brainer. You dismiss the person who violated the law and protect the people who run the computer system – but our good-old-boy Commissioners blew it and cost you money once again.
IT JUST GETS WORSE
Those of us who remember the last time the FBI investigated the Corporation Commission can recall the open bribes offered to officials in both political parties. Now the whole process has gotten more sophisticated because now our officials are being rewarded with campaign contributions.
Commissioner Roth supports Chesapeake Energies opposition to a clean coal plant – and he gets over a $100,000 from the natural gas companies employees to run his campaign.
Commissioner Cloud has secret fundraisers with AT&T executives in Texas and it gets caught on tape. Then it starts coming out that Cloud signs were being distributed at corporate offices to employees.
It just looks like it is time to clean house again.
Who’s paying for all the TV spots flooding the airwaves right now? Why do we expect that officials whose campaigns are financed by the people they regulate would support the rate payers?
And finally the whole sick system perpetuates itself by using your tax dollars to defend individual Commissioners who should answer for their own misdeeds. You don’t have to be a victim and you don’t have to continue business as usual. We have two incumbents running and two reformed minded opponents. In this election, we can get real reform over the commission, but the choice is yours.
Supporting documents:
Corporation Commission Settlement pdf
Corporation Commission Legal Costs pdf
Related:
Video: Jeff Cloud Gets Caught!
By Kirk Shelley
I’m not going to sugar coat it, if you are a hard core conservative Republican thank your lucky stars that you can go to the liquor store on election day. You are probably going to want a stiff drink.
To make matters worse, on Wednesday the inside the belt way GOP apologist will announce that the GOP lost because it lost moderate voters and will push for more centralist rhetoric from the grassroots.
I’m going to suggest that the real reason the GOP is going to lose is because it has strangled its grassroots.
How?
#1. Bush’s fiscal policy. W ran on a platform where we would privatize social security, but somehow we ended up with the Prescription Drug Benefit – the largest government giveaway since The Great Society.
#2. George Bush Bipartisanship. Ted Kennedy got his way on education issues and we get No Child Left Behind – the biggest involvement in local schools ever. Keep in mind that this is from the political party that just 15 years ago was still advocating getting rid of the Federal Department of Education.
#3. The GOP Congress who forgot who brought them to the dance. What were the issues that put the GOP in charge of Congress? We were tired of the scandals, the lobbyist, the inside deals. We wanted them to get rid of programs, and not spend money. During the six years of the Clinton Presidency with a Republican Congress the GOP didn’t spend money and we got welfare reform. During the Bush years, the GOP spent money like a drunken sailor and started to get very cozy with lobbyists like Jack Abramoff.
What has been the net result? The GOP got a bump following 9/11. The grassroots was much more concerned with Islamic Fascism than fiscal policy, but since we basically won the wars, the GOP leadership has ignored the concerns of GOP activists.
What is a conservative supposed to do? Vote for the GOP and get ruinous federal spending and devalued currency or vote Democrat and get ruinous federal spending and higher taxes? Elections since 2006 have been a sucker’s bet for conservatives. The bailout deal was straw that broke the camel’s back. You can give me every argument you want that the deal was vital for our economy, but on principle it created the hypocrisy that Republicans are conservative when there is profit involved, but socialist when it comes to losses. Ever since the deal was announced, the GOP ship started sinking like a stone.
All of this doesn’t prove that GOP grassroots support has died. How do you measure grassroots activism? There are some indicators that we need to look at.
Membership in conservative groups – conservative groups have been successful in getting money from small numbers of large donors, but small donors are drying up.
When was the last time you received a letter from a conservative group asking you to return your survey, petition or postcard to your congressman? I’m on large number of these lists and it has been a long time since these groups have asked me to contact my legislator.
Why? Mainly because too many of these groups are tied into the beltway elite and pushing for fiscal sanity would be embarrassing to the Bush Administration. There have not been any good battles for conservatives to fight.
Remember the Republican conservative revolution began with Carter’s giveaway of the Panama Canal. It created a huge number of new conservative donors. A new grassroots movement began as we found out there were conservatives in America and they were willing to finance political battles outside of political parties. These new conservative groups reshaped American politics and gave us Regan and were still there when Clinton came in and created the GOP Congress.
Unfortunately when the GOP took over too many of these “conservative leaders” cashed in to major corporate influence brokers. The disconnect between limited government and corporate desires to get more taxpayers money or less accountability for their excesses cut the GOP off from the grassroots.
While the GOP and major lobby firms have been getting better acquainted what has the political Left been doing? Creating Move On and other grassroots organizations that are connected to vast numbers of people. They have a huge number of low dollar donors and activists. While conservatives have been dismissive of these groups, you can’t deny their growing power and influence. These groups have a sense of community that conservatives don’t have at the moment.
So on Wednesday morning and we look over the political battlefield and you see the smoldering ruins of the GOP it is not a time for conservatives to give up, it is time for us to reclaim our country. There are going to be some serious battles in the next few months and there is not much time to get ready for them.
The biggest battle is going to stop the Card Check Bill. It is legislation that would get rid of secret ballot elections for union representation AND would only give small business a few months to sign a union contract or have the federal government write a two year contract for them. When the Democrats took over the Congress they passed the bill within a month in the House and it was stopped by just a few votes in the Senate.
Then we must stop the reinstitution of the Fairness Doctrine which would kill talk radio.
We are not going to have time to cry, conservatives are going to get ready to roll. But take heart, simply by fighting these battles we can rebuild the grassroots networks and reconnect the GOP to reality.
Mr. Shelley is President of Shelley Strategic Services. He is finally able to resume writing after a very busy campaign season. His consulting for pro-business organizations has included successfully completed projects in Iowa, Oklahoma, Indiana, Kentucky, Nevada, New Mexico, Mississippi, Arizona, Louisiana and Alabama. Mr. Shelley lives in Oklahoma City with his wife and four children.
By Tyler Harber
There are two scenarios that could help McCain win the election, while still losing the popular vote:
1) McCain will earn a great majority of undecided voters, putting him over the top in all the states that have close races.
2) There is a real and substantial Bradley effect that will keep Obama from getting many of the remaining undecideds. One could say that this happened in 2006 to Harold Ford, Jr in the race for US Senate in TN.
I’m more inclined to believe that the undecided voters breaking to McCain is more likely. The reason for this is the same as it was in 96 when Dole won nearly all the undecided votes and in 1980 when Reagan did the same. With Obama outspending McCain nearly 5 – to – 1 and the enthusiasm behind Obama’s race, those who say they are undecided are not likely to vote for him. They are afraid to tell the pollster that they are bucking the “popular” candidate, and generally break away from the race leader.
This would allow McCain to win several key states that could put him over the top in terms of Electoral College votes. This race will be, and really has been for the past several weeks, a state-by-state strategy. Both campaigns are looking at the states they need to win and NOT the national polling averages. As we found out as recent as 2000, you can win the popular vote and still lose the Presidency.Read more…
Video: Tyler Harber with Neil Cavuto (10/29/08)
Hat tip:WilsonResearchStrat
In the wake of the L.A. Times’ refusal to release a potentially damaging video tape of Barack Obama praising and dining with terrorists and their sympathizers, OKPNS received this media advisory today from a new organization called “Private Lives Public Policy:”
PrivateLivesPublicPolicy.org is a 501/c/4 not for profit corporation that was created to battle a dangerous trend — the politically correct media is no longer serving the public interest. If a candidates private life begins to affect public policy issues then we have a right to know abut it. The media is quick to point out when a conservative Republican is charged with public lewdness, but won’t talk about Democrats who’s personal relationships costs the taxpayers money.
By forming this organization we hope to begin an important discussion about protecting that which is genuinely private, but exposing the abuses of the taxpayers money covered up by politicians and their willing allies in the media who excuse it because of their own bias. We do not support or oppose any candidate for public office, but do believe that the people need unfiltered truth and information.
Here’s a little of what you’ll find on the website:
Jim Roth thought it was just fine to put homosexual themed books in the children’s section of the public library.
Jim Roth has never made a secret of his homosexuality. As a matter of fact it is celebrated on homosexual web sites: (Homosexual Victory Fund). Roth attacks those who bring up his sexual orientation as bigoted, but he used his private life to raise money from homosexual groups in his race for Oklahoma County Commissioner.
A reader sent this to us today:
“I’m a political direct mail junkie. I really like the unusual. I can’t wait to see if a piece is effective. But most of mail I’ve been getting this year is rather bland with candidates promising not to be politicians (a promise they broke when they filed for political office) and to love mom and apple pie.
But this postcard take bland to a new level . . . it mentions no candidates, nor an office for that matter. I guess this is truly the “all things to all people” postcard. Possibly it is a dirty trick from someone’s campaign to suppress voter turnout because we will be wondering “now who do I vote for?”
We’ve chronicled Andrew Rice’s persistent use of his brother in his long shot campaign to unseat Sen. Jim Inhofe. Rice’s brother was tragically killed on 9/11. There are those who will say that it borders on exploitation, but it is his brother, and he has every right to do what he deems proper:
A matter has come to our attention that is very disturbing. According to the Green County Values blog, the Rice campaign had been using a picture of a fallen soldier on their website without the family’s permission. It seems they have taken the picture down, but they are still using the soldier’s name:
UPDATE 11:20AM CST – CLARIFICATION FROM ANGELIA PHILLIPS: Although the picture seems to be down, Rice still has Michael’s name on his site, here:
My son’s name is still on the Rice campaign site. I had hoped to speak with Mr. Rice face to face today but he did not show up for the public appearance in my town as he had stated he would…
[And regarding the list of names on Rice's site, including that of her son, Michael] It’s a “tribute”. If you read my latest blog you will understand why this is insulting to me. Under state law it is the only way our fallen’s names can be used so they call it a tribute and get away with it. Fact is this man has called for a surrender in Iraq and this in nothing more than a death roll to him. A “here is why we need to give up and get out now”.
Rice needs to honor this grieving mother’s wishes.
Related:
The Hill: Inhofe touts his advantage
Okiepolitics: Does Jim Inhofe only see sepia and grey?
The Oklahoman’s Washington Bureau: Hillary Promotes Rice
Nobody knows better than Oklahoma GOP Chairman about the damage that results from the press failing to inform the public of corrupt politicians at election time. Could it be another similar pattern is emerging in this year’s election between Corporation Commissioner Jim Roth and challenger Dana Murphy.
The media screw-job by a man Jones kept repeating was a crook points out that a crooked politician’s best friend is a press corps that looks the other way. This past week, we watched as the media breathlessly examined every detail of the now-discredited slime Jim Roth threw against Dana Murphy, but they’ve been struck deaf, dumb and blind to Roth’s misbehavior, and the suspect gang surrounding Roth that was once connected to McMahan.
Readers will remember the 2006 auditor and inspector race was stolen from Jones by the convicted Jeff McMahan despite Jones making virtually all the information available the press during that campaign. The lazy and indolent (and liberal) press ignored Jones’ evidence, and McMahan was re-elected. Witnesses in the trial testified that they had “stolen” the election from Jones, and most observers believe the press was negligent since they ignored Jones and the allegations later proven to be true in court. Incredibly, last week the central figure in the McMahan corruption probe said he could implicate at least 34 more people in the political corruption probe. But the press still is looking the other way regarding the crowd that surrounded McMahan and that now surrounds Roth.
One need to look no further for evidence of press neglect than KFOR’s Sunday television program in which both Roth and Murphy were interviewed. Murphy was repeatedly questioned about the details of a divorce that occurred in the early 1990’s by Roth and the clownish Mike Turpen, a co-host of the program who is connected with organizations and individuals that support Roth. Turpen’s outrageous behavior and journalistic prostitution continues unabated: none of Murphy’s allegations were given any hearing, and nobody in the Oklahoma press has complained. As usual, viewers weren’t not told of Turpen’s multiple conflicts of interest, and Murphy’s points about Jim Roth’s personal and professional misbehavior were ignored, especially the details of Roth’s DUI arrest, which has been virtually hidden by the press from the public with the press’ contrivance.
With time running out, voters must go elsewhere if they want the truth about Roth. In 2006, the voters didn’t have the luxury of so many blogs and other internet news outlets, and the people of Oklahoma paid the price. So once again in 2008, with very few exceptions, the main stream Oklahoma media is in the tank for a politician with a highly questionable background, and the ’see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil’ press corps is working hard to elect another politician who was on the ropes until the press ran in to help him.
We read it, but we can’t believe it.
Jeff Cloud, the incumbent Corporation Commissioner seeking re-election for another six-year term, has been a favorite topic for OKPNS because he’s so, well, entertaining.
We’ve documented his penchants for, shall we say, a lax work ethic. And we’ve criticized him for cozying up to apostate Republicans and trying to leverage his position into a high-paying, low workload position with a company he regulates as a commissioner. Cloud’s done pretty well for himself serving in a variety of jobs that he gained for being a trusted aid to folks like J.C. Watts, Kirk Humphries and Frank Keating. But then he lost track of his conservative roots and began voting with Jim Roth to screw ratepayers.
For most of the campaign, Cloud has led in the polls. But now, the heat has been turned up, and it appears Cloud is trying hard to blow his lead over Democrat challenger Charles Gray. The wheels began to come off when Gray’s sleuthing caught a frantic Cloud getting caught passing the hat at an AT&T fundraising event for Cloud in Dallas recently, and the video has been a hit on OKPNS and on YouTube. In response, Cloud has just plain freaked-out.
In a state with such mental giants as Senators Harry Coates, it’s difficult to imagine what we’re about to announce: Jeff Cloud must be the dumbest Republican politician in Oklahoma.
Okay, be seated before you read this: Cloud went on the Gwin Faulconer-Lippert show on KTOK in Oklahoma City Sunday night and announced that THERE WAS NO FUNDRAISER! That’s right, he denied it happened. No, we’re not kidding: see for yourself. And he goes on to say that the video is a doctored-up version of a basement tape concocted by the mad doctor, Charles Gray. That’s right, it never happened, it’s all camera tricks!!! You know, like the Bigfoot tape and the doctored-up Zapruder film.
But there’s more: Cloud goes on to say he doesn’t take money from those he regulates. That’s right. And the mouthed that roared doesn’t stop there with the insanity. He goes on to say he hadn’t seen Gray on the campaign trail, when virtually everybody familiar with politics knows Gray has been caring for his wife, former state legislator and current Oklahoma County District Judge Twyla Mason Gray as she recovers from several major surgeries resulting from her decades-long battle with breast cancer.
Several sources tell OKPNS that Gray has dropped a bundle on TV time for the last 7 days, and Cloud has been caught unprepared for the charges. So in a fit of pique, Cloud goes on the radio and lies about a fundraiser and about the money he’s taking from those he regulates. Not happy with that fine piece of strategy, he opens the doors to more criticism by insulting women, cancer survivors and care givers.
But all may not be lost for Mr. Jeff Cloud. Remember, it would take follow up by the capitol press corps to make this story grow legs, and of course, we all know how inquisitive that group of “journalists” are, don’t we?
Related:
Examiner.com: Roth Gets Free Ride On “Flashpoint” Program
“Your Vote Counts” Video: The countdown is on to election day “[Cloud's] voting record frankly isn’t much different than Jim Roth’s.” – Rep. Terrill
