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Q: Congratulations on your new position at Phillips Murrah. In a recent Journal Record column, Ted Streuli wrote that the Phillips Murrah Christmas Card was one of his favorites from 2008. How does it feel to work for a firm that does such an outstanding job at extending holiday cheer?
A: …Nothing says ‘aggressive law firm’ like “Ho, Ho, Ho.”
Q: What exactly are you going to do at Phillips Murrah? I assume it will be more than just counting paperclips and making sure everyone turns out the lights.
A: I am working with other P|M members to build a practice group that specializes in emerging energy and environmental issues, including the likelihood of new opportunities (renewables) and new regulations (water and air), among others, from the new Obama Administration and local jurisdictions. We want Oklahoma to be successful in all forms of Energy.
Q: One time a group of attorneys from there bought me several rounds of drinks at a trendy downtown spot and then tried to convince me to start using a “doggie daycare” service. Have they done this to you? Read more…
Here’s a question we would have loved to have heard Mr. Roth answer. What ever happened with your ‘95 DUI case?
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.
It was a very bad night for the political masterminds at Chesapeake Energy.
State Rep. Randy Terrill, who has bitch-slapped the company more times than a New Jersey pimp, completed his dominance of the organization as he easily won re-election to the House of Representatives, where he is the Chairman of the House Revenue and Tax Committee.
If that wasn’t enough, Chesapeake lost their boy, appointed Corporation Commissioner Jim Roth.
Despite the contrivance of the state’s two largest daily newspapers and the riches provided by the companies whose water he carried, Roth went down to defeat at the hands of Republican Dana Murphy. Murphy’s win confounded even the best of pollsters, most of whom believed Roth would win comfortably.
Consultant to Pat Hall and his cohort Mike Turpen, who are on the Chesapeake payroll, were chief strategists for Roth, and are being ridiculed for taking what seemed to be a sure win and turning into a defeat.
Now all eyes are on Murphy to see how she will treat Chesapeake, who bankrolled the vile and vicious attacks leveled on her created by their consultants. “She needs to paddle their butt. They’ll be crawling on the belly to her with cash, and everybody’s watching to see if she puts them in their place, or if she sells out, one corporation insider tells OKPNS. And observers say another big funder has something to fear: AT&T, since it is widely rumored that a Bob Anthony-Dana Murphy alliance is a certainly.
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!
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.
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.
The Corporation Commission races are heating up and the mudslinging has started. Is any of it true, and does anyone care? Hat tip: NEWS9YourVoteCounts
So Jim Roth, the first openly gay activist to hold statewide office, thinks that unsubstantiated charges against Dana Murphy from 16 years ago are relevant to the corporation commission race.
Roth, a career public sector bureaucrat who did favors for rich Oklahomans using taxpayer funds and was then rewarded with career advancement and obscenely huge amounts of cash for his obsequiousness, has apparently decided that morality is the most important issue in the race.
Roth’s dungeon masters have their boy right where they want him: a weak underling, whose job is to protect them, not normal consumers. Nothing frightens them as much as an independent and knowledgeable judge on the commission, so Roth is using his campaign riches to smear Murphy. He’s surrounded by amoral political hacks who share his penchant for lying, obfuscation and dirty tricks. If the Roth tactics look dirty and desperate, it’s because the people around him are dirty and desperate.
We’d like to see the Murphy campaign answer the grotesquely distorted Roth ad. They should do so soon. But in the meantime, since Roth says obscure portions from divorce proceedings 16 years ago are fair game, I wonder what they think about Roth’s involvement in a profoundly stomach-turning act of perverseness and law breaking 13 years ago in a sordid section of Oklahoma City?
We’d like to remind the worst capitol press corps in the world that they still have a job to do. We predicted that the corps would ignore the Roth transgressions nearly 6 months ago! When it comes to the Oklahoma press, predicting they will do nothing is money in the bank!
Related:
“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it and eventually they will believe it,”
Adolf Hitler
OKPNS 10/13/08 Pucker Up Time for Chesapeake Twins
For politicians, especially those caught red-handed doing something wrong or immoral, lying has become the standard practice; that and releasing bad news on late Friday afternoon.The hottest races in Oklahoma are the two corporation commissioner races. Democrat Jim Roth, who was appointed to serve the remainder of Denise Bode’s term, faces Republican Dana Murphy. In the other race, incumbent Jeff Cloud, the RINO Republican whose inadequacies have been chronicled here numerous times, faces former state legislator Charles Gray for the 6-year seat.
What makes these races so fascinating? First, incumbents Roth and Cloud should be doing much better in the polls based upon their massive war chests. Up until the incumbents’ ads began airing, most polls showed the races very close. In the wake of his TV blitz, Cloud has opened up a 15 point lead over Gray according to TV Poll, and Roth has only pulled even with Murphy. Insiders believe Gray and Murphy will have mass media presence before election day, which means the current poll snapshots will see considerable movement in the next two weeks.
Two weeks is an eternity in an election, and as public interest in the race heats up, the regulatory philosophy of the two men could come in to sharp relief. Gray says he won’t take money from those he regulates, while Cloud appears to regard those he regulates as a sort of piggy bank. It’s a fascinating moral quandary for Cloud, whose slack work ethic is legendary, but if Gray doesn’t raise the cash to buy mass media, one wonders if we’re not headed toward another Gary Jones versus Jeff McMahan situation in which the public never knows of the transgressions of the incumbent because the press doesn’t care and the challenger can’t buy enough time to inform. Regardless, if Gray raises the cash, and the press shows even a slight interest in this race, it will be a very, very close race.
For his part, observers say Roth has raised more money than any candidate in corporation commission history, yet he cannot shake Murphy, who lost to Cloud in the Republican Primary for Cloud’s seat 6 years ago. With the collapse of his patron’s fortune, it just may be that Roth is so tainted that he can never get to 50%, and given the expected McCain blowout in Oklahoma, Roth appears primed for upset
Second, in a frightening development for the Roth-Cloud ticket, it appears the voters are at least partially linking the job performance of Roth and Cloud. Except for their sell-out votes, they couldn’t be more different. Roth is an energetic, openly gay liberal Democrat managed by a hapless assortment (the Chesapeake clowns; former Democrat party chair Pat Hall, the consultant to crooks Jeff McMahan and Steve Phipps; and of course, the the circus clown of Oklahoma politics, Mike Turpen), and Cloud is a Republican family man with ties to conservatives and a well-known lazy streak.
There’s one area where they resemble conjoined twins: they vote alike, especially when it comes to screwing the consumers and padding the pockets of the multi-millionaires, billionaires and former billionaires who own them. Roth is mounting a defense by going on the offense. Roth’s lack of private sector experience and his shady past has been well documented. His flair for melodrama is almost comical, but he pulls it off with a straight face. Is ability, and need, to fashion the big untruth far surpasses Cloud’s ability in that regard. But the Roth campaign can feel the heat: anybody watching Roth flee the interview at the University of Oklahoma recently saw a frightened man, and one only had to see a few moments of that phony and comical NewsOK propaganda piece to see a gifted and skilled thespian artfully pulling off a charade.
As for Cloud, his ads are predictably listless, bland drivel that lack the audacity of Roth’s but, unlike the dramatic Roth, Cloud’s ads do not attempt to spin the reality of how he’s voted or his own corporate sell-out reputation.
When former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerry was asked in the 1992 campaign if Bill Clinton was a good liar, he responded, “No, he’s an incredibly good liar.” The two incumbents, whether they like it or not, are joined at the hip in defending their foolish and anti-intellectual decisions and the misery they’ve visited on the people who put them there instead of guarding against those who bought them when they got there. If these races become high-profile, the incumbents will be doomed. If not, the incumbents’ war chests, or the lack of major funding for Murphy and Gray, will most likely spell the difference.
Related:
Video: “Your Vote Counts” Focus Points: “Problems in the oil patch”
