Jeff Cloud on a George Soros, Aspen Institute funded trip to Egypt

From the tipline:

Here’s one for you: How is it Jeff Cloud is going to run for CD5 when Mike Thompson has sewn up most of the energy companies in Oklahoma for support? The million dollar question is who’s going to support him?

We have an idea! Maybe Micky “left wings” Edwards and George Soros will help him out?

Related:

So Why Is Commissioner Jeff Cloud Smiling?

Cong. Edwards Responds to OKPNS

Video: Corporate Commissioner Jeff Cloud Gets Caught

From Examiner.com:

It’s not even been one year since Corporation Commissioner Jeff Cloud asked the voters for a new six year term, but he’s thrown his hat into the ring for yet another race: this time the 5th District Congressional seat being vacated by Congresswoman Mary Fallin.

Cloud’s candidacy is already stirring up controversies: the Commissioner is expected to raise plenty of money, but the majority of which will be raised from those that have to appear before him on the commission, setting up possible conflicts of interest. Even more volatile: Read more…

Corporate Commission “Ghost Commissioner” Jeff Cloud on an Aspen Institute junket in Egypt.

Ghost commissioner Jeff Cloud was in Norman last week discussing energy issues. Here’s a synopsis from The Red Dirt Report:

“Obama’s energy plans, Cloud said, “would devastate the energy industry,” particularly the oil and natural gas industry that is such an important part of Oklahoma’s economy.

“I think what we have to brace for – Obama’s tax proposals on the energy industry will be catastrophic for our state,” Cloud said.

Marginal wells, he noted, would most likely be shut off, leading to smaller oil producers shutting down and more jobs lost in a sagging economy.

Additionally, Cloud said, these crippling policies would ultimately lead the United States to rely more on foreign oil, including oil from the volatile Middle East.

“We need to get off Middle Eastern oil,” Cloud said, adding that importation of Canadian oil was acceptable and even good for Oklahoma.” Read more…

Hmmm. Chesapeake Energy must have substantial interests in Canada!

From Examiner.com:

Insiders say Corporate Commissioner Jeff Cloud is still talking about running for the 5th District Congressional seat being vacated by Congresswoman Mary Fallin, who has announced she’ll be running for governor.

Reheated Coffee: Dirty Harry to the Republican Rescue? Read more…

“In between naps, Cloud has let it be known that he is opposing Gary Jones, perhaps the hardest-working chairman the party has seen in recent years.”

There are many informed observers who believe State GOP Chief Gary Jones has a real race on his hands for another term as chairman. Jones, who lost the 2006 race for state auditor to now-convict Jeff McMahan, largely in part due to the refusal of the state media to cover the race, is facing a stiff from challenger Cheryl Williams. Most believe Jones will win if there is a large turnout of Republicans at the state convention, but if the numbers are small, Mrs. Williams has a good chance of unseating Jones due to her small but fiercely loyal group of supporters.

But a comical element to the race us emerging: insiders say one of Jones’ leading opponents is none other than Corporation Commissioner Jeff Cloud, the ‘D’ student who won re-election in the 2008. Cloud’s laziness and proclivity for hanging out with liberals was exposed last year, and he was embarrassed and apparently angered that Jones did not come to his “rescue.” Cloud has not explained to our sources exactly what he wanted Jones to do, since erasing the facts from the media does not seem to be within Chairman Jones’s power.

Observers are still shaking their head that Cloud was re-elected while fellow Commissioner Jim Roth was defeated. Roth and Cloud had virtually identical liberal records on the commission, and many believed that Roth, superior to Cloud in work ethic, intellect and campaign funding, stood a better chance of re-election. In fact, energy lobbyists worked feverishly to get Cloud out of the race so that Roth could run for the full six-year term, instead of the two-year seat Roth held as a result of his appointment by Gov. Henry to fill the Denise Bode vacancy.

But the anti-Obama backlash propelled Republican Cloud to victory and Democrat Roth was swept away in the same wave. Roth’s management team, led by lobbyist Pat Hall, made critical errors, and the strategy used by Roth’s opponent Dana Murphy capitalized on those errors. Jones masterminded the anti-Roth earned media campaign and insiders say was he was critical to the Murphy’s success.

Since his re-election, Rip Van Cloud had resumed his six-year nap, accomplishing little and working on his golf game. But in between naps, Cloud has let it be known that he is opposing Gary Jones, perhaps the hardest-working chairman the party has seen in recent years. For Cloud, hard work is a foreign concept, something that should have him in line for an Obama cabinet seat; but we digress.

At OKPNS, we’ve had our differences with Jones, but it’s hard to argue with success: as Chairman, he was at the helm as Republicans took over the House of Representatives and the State Senate. The old-guard liberal-leaning Rockefeller Republican wing of the party despises Jones because he has succeeded without their money and their help. Two years ago, he defeated their candidate, and now he faces a challenge from the blue-bloods and the Ron Paul forces, a group one long-time observer tells OKPNS that is serious minded but includes a large percentage “of crazies.”

We don’t know about that characterization of the anti-Jones coalition, and we have nothing against Mrs. Williams, but we do know that if the state’s laziest politician is working talking smack against you, then you must be conservative AND hard working. And that’s something that Jeff Cloud simply does not understand.

Related:

OKPNS FLASHBACK: Video: Corporate Commissioner Jeff Cloud Gets Caught!

They were the races that defied the pollsters and the pundits: the two corporation commission seats held by Democrat Jim Roth (2 year) and Republican Jeff Cloud (6 year).

Roth had far more money, more support and was a far superior campaigner, but he lost. Cloud had adequate money, but his support was only lukewarm. The corporate welfare crowd adored Roth, and worked hard to move Cloud out last summer so they could run Roth in the 6-year seat, but according to reports, could not come to an agreement with Cloud over what money he should make. Despite his reputation as being lazy, and his new-found ability to tell the big lie, Cloud won. Further, even Randy Terrill had admitted publicly that there was very little difference in the way Roth and Cloud voted: for the corporate welfare crowd and against ratepayers. So why did the massively-funded darling of the media and rising star lose and a commissioner with a reputation as a D-minus achiever win? What was the difference?

First, the media, especially News9 and FOX 25 in Oklahoma City, began to pick up on the stories broken here on OKPNS about Roth last summer. The tired old establishment daily newspapers were in the tank for Roth, especially the Daily Disappointment, who supported Roth because Roth was using taxpayer funds to help the family and friends of the Publisher to make money. Who can forget the ludicrous video of Roth and the silly little girl interviewing him about his crime fighting debut? Was there a built-in bias against Roth, a sort-of gay Bradley effect? News9’s political analyst Scott Mitchell suggested as much on their coverage Tuesday night.

Related: Want more proof the dinosaur media is dying?  NBC DC Bureau Makes Plea To Staff On Buyout Program

After Roth’s Pat Hall-designed attack ad on Murphy, and the Murphy campaign’s less than muscular reply, reputable polls saw Roth rocket to a 15-point lead, and most pollsters had Roth easily winning re-election. In fact, some pollsters had told OKPNS before the election that Charles Gray had a better shot at Cloud than Murphy did at Roth.

But they were wrong. The Oklahoma Republican tide sunk both Roth and Gray, and the margins of victory for the Murphy and Cloud were far larger than pre-election predictions. Murphy ran a tough grassroots campaign, although the passive strategy employed after the ill-advised Roth attacks could have sunk her. Roth waited too late to go up with ads that defined him, and his attacks seemed extreme, a hallmark of adviser Hall that GOP Chair Gary Jones has been pointing out for years. Hall’s image of a smart adviser has gone in the toilet after his ties to the corrupt former auditor and inspector Jeff McMahan and the disastrous political year he engineered for the Chesapeake gang, who took it in the shorts Tuesday night.

But the bottom line is this: the public found out just enough about Roth, but the truth was kept from them regarding Cloud. After Cloud hinted on a radio show that the video of him being caught at an out-of-state fund raiser was a fake job, only OKPNS followed up on the story that was broken by reporter Jerry Bohnen on KTOK. Further, according to Bohnen’s story, Cloud also said he didn’t take money from those he regulated. Not one media outlet in Oklahoma bothered to question Cloud on that remarkable lie: once again, the Oklahoma media at its finest. But unlike the Pat Hall-managed crook Jeff McMahan abortion of 2006, enough of the media carried information that kept another Hall-Turpen buddy from continuing to loot and pillage the people of Oklahoma.

But unfortunately, a politician who helps abuse the ratepayers for greedy corporations, was returned simply because the public didn’t know what readers of OKPNS knew as far back as last summer and KTOK listeners knew two weeks ago. Now, the greedy corporations who owned Jim Roth will be forced to head to Cloud for comfort, as Murphy is expected to side with Bob Anthony and give Oklahomans two commissioners more concerned with the welfare of the ratepayers than playing golf, sleeping in late and using their position to leverage a job in the private sector for themselves and their family.

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

EEOC Complaint pdf

Corporation Commission Legal Costs pdf

Taxpayer Lawsuits pdf

Related:

Video: Jeff Cloud Gets Caught!

Charles Gray says, “You either work for the people who elect you, or you serve the companies that give you money–You can’t do both.”

 Hat tip: Citizens4CharlesGray

Jeff Cloud: The Dumbest Republican Politician in Oklahoma?

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