Culture Of Corruption-- Oklahoma, The Bronx... Transpartisan

In Sunday's NY Times Eric Lipton exposed one of the most insidious contemporary conspiracies in American politics: a secret alliance between Republican Attorney Generals and Big Oil. The chart above may summarize one of its key raisons d'être, but we'll come back and look at in in a moment. Because I want to just make it perfectly clear that I'm not trying to just demonize a bunch of Republican hacks in backward states that have one-party control over-- like Texas, Alabama and Oklahoma. Before we get to the corrupt Republicans taking big bucks from Big Oil, let's look at corrupt Democrats where they have one-party control, in this case New York. My friend Jennifer Firestone summed up in an interesting OpED, Anatomy Of A Public Betrayal, in the Riverdale Press about a crooked Bronx pol we've been writing about, Jeffrey Klein. Keep in mind that Klein is an ally not just of the conservative Democrat Andrew Cuomo but also of the purported "progressive" Democrat Bill De Blasio.

Newsflash: New Yorkers are living in an age of political corruption.

Fresh off of his Nov. 4 victory, with Democrats asking for a special legislative session to reconsider the minimum wage, what was the very first bill that our governor signed? The Craft New York Act, to support New York’s breweries and wineries.

State Sen. Co-majority Leader Jeff Klein released a quote applauding the legislation.You might have, too, if the liquor industry was one of the corporate entities instrumental in lining your campaign coffers.

The New York Post uncovered earlier this month that, in a “secret re-election ‘pact,’” Republican co-leader Dean Skelos supported Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s candidacy in exchange for Cuomo withholding support from Long Island Democrats. This deal makes sense in light of Capital New York’s revelation in early September that Cuomo was behind Klein’s Independent Democratic Conference partnering with Republicans.

Translation: Mr. Cuomo brokered the deal in which Mr. Klein’s rogue band of Democrats shared power with Republicans and assisted with Republican legislative priorities for two years-- the deal that wrested the majority leadership from the Democrats in 2012 and handed it to Republican Dean Skelos-- so that Klein could become a “co-president.”

With Mr. Klein and Mr. Skelos at the helm, New Yorkers were denied an increase in the minimum wage to $10.10; the Women’s Equality Act, the Dream Act, GENDA legislation, a moratorium on hydrofracking and campaign finance reform failed to pass; and tenants were left to fend for themselves.

There is a rotten triumvirate at the epicenter of Albany, and we have made its reappearance a self-fulfilling prophecy.

How does this happen in the Bronx? The Bronx is so Democratic that Obama beat Romney 288,378 (91%) to 26,304 (8%)-- by far Romney's worst performance in any of New York's 62 counties. Even a grotesquely corrupt conservative Democrat like Cuomo was able to kill in the Bronx this year, beating Astorino 113,369 (86.6%) to 14,414 (11.0%), Cuomo's best performance in the state and Astorino's worst.



Yes, the only band that mattered... but let's move on to Lipton and his revelations, starting in Oklahoma, where the other party has complete control-- and where the corruption is mind-boggling.

The letter to the Environmental Protection Agency from Attorney General Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma carried a blunt accusation: Federal regulators were grossly overestimating the amount of air pollution caused by energy companies drilling new natural gas wells in his state.

But Mr. Pruitt left out one critical point. The three-page letter was written by lawyers for Devon Energy, one of Oklahoma’s biggest oil and gas companies, and was delivered to him by Devon’s chief of lobbying.

“Outstanding!” William F. Whitsitt, who at the time directed government relations at the company, said in a note to Mr. Pruitt’s office. The attorney general’s staff had taken Devon’s draft, copied it onto state government stationery with only a few word changes, and sent it to Washington with the attorney general’s signature. “The timing of the letter is great, given our meeting this Friday with both E.P.A. and the White House.”

Mr. Whitsitt then added, “Please pass along Devon’s thanks to Attorney General Pruitt.”

The email exchange from October 2011, obtained through an open-records request, offers a hint of the unprecedented, secretive alliance that Mr. Pruitt and other Republican attorneys general have formed with some of the nation’s top energy producers to push back against the Obama regulatory agenda, an investigation by the New York Times has found.

Attorneys general in at least a dozen states are working with energy companies and other corporate interests, which in turn are providing them with record amounts of money for their political campaigns, including at least $16 million this year.

They share a common philosophy about the reach of the federal government, but the companies also have billions of dollars at stake. And the collaboration is likely to grow: For the first time in modern American history, Republicans in January will control a majority-- 27-- of attorneys general’s offices.

The Times reported previously how individual attorneys general have shut down investigations, changed policies or agreed to more corporate-friendly settlement terms after intervention by lobbyists and lawyers, many of whom are also campaign benefactors.

But the attorneys general are also working collectively. Democrats for more than a decade have teamed up with environmental groups such as the Sierra Club to use the court system to impose stricter regulation. But never before have attorneys general joined on this scale with corporate interests to challenge Washington and file lawsuits in federal court.

Out of public view, corporate representatives and attorneys general are coordinating legal strategy and other efforts to fight federal regulations, according to a review of thousands of emails and court documents and dozens of interviews.

“When you use a public office, pretty shamelessly, to vouch for a private party with substantial financial interest without the disclosure of the true authorship, that is a dangerous practice,” said David B. Frohnmayer, a Republican who served a decade as attorney general in Oregon. “The puppeteer behind the stage is pulling strings, and you can’t see. I don’t like that. And when it is exposed, it makes you feel used.”

For Mr. Pruitt, the benefits have been clear. Lobbyists and company officials have been notably solicitous, helping him raise his profile as president for two years of the Republican Attorneys General Association, a post he used to help start what he and allies called the Rule of Law campaign, which was intended to push back against Washington.

...And it is an emerging practice that several former attorneys general say threatens the integrity of the office.

“It is a magnificent and noble institution, the office of attorney general, as it is truly the lawyer for the people,” said Terry Goddard, a Democrat who served two terms as Arizona’s attorney general and who, like Mr. Frohnmayer, reviewed copies of the documents collected by The Times. “That independence is clearly at risk here. What is happening diminishes the reputation of individual attorneys general and the community as a group.”

Scott Pruitt (R-OK)-- the most corrupt Attorney General in America

UPDATE: When Will Malcolm Smith Go To Prison?

The NY Post brings us up-to-date on the repulsive, self-serving Republicrat-- a corrupt Democratic state senator who wanted to run for mayor on the GOP line... and was willing to pay good money for the nomination. The pointed out that he "warned dozens of top New York lobbyists that their clients would be shut out of state politics if they didn’t make large contributions, the feds say in a new filing."

“Smith told the attendees that they should treat the fundraiser as an ‘IPO’ [initial public offering] by donating early while prices were low and while there was still an opportunity to participate,” Assistant US Attorney Justin Anderson wrote Wednesday of the August 2008 gathering in upstate Kingston.

“Smith’s comments implied that those who failed to make contributions to his campaign at that time would find themselves having to pay more later or being unable to accomplish anything with the Senate under Smith’s leadership.”

Smith told the lobbyists then that the Democrats were expected to win control of the Senate in that upcoming November election and that he’d be among the key pols calling the shots for the reorganized legislative body.

Anderson filed the legal papers last week asking White Plains federal Judge Kenneth Karas to allow prosecutors to present the boast as evidence at Smith’s trial.

Linking contributions to future government actions is illegal under New York law.

...The feds want to tell jurors about the fundraiser to provide context of how Smith’s history of alleged shady solicitations stretches long before he was charged in a failed $200,000 bribery scheme to cross party lines and secure the Republican nomination in the 2013 mayoral race.

And if they do allow the new evidence against Smith to be admitted, which seems likely, does that mean they would have to subsequently call Klein in for questioning on allegations of being an "enforcer" to extortion, which he clearly has been? And, by the way, in the September primary, Queens voters rejected Smith quite decisively. His opponent Leroy Comrie, a former city councilman, won in a landslide.