Koch Brothers' Leading Climate Change Denier "Scientist" Exposed as Fraud

Wei-Hock Soon - Paid Liar for the Koch Brothers, et al

For years the Koch brothers and others in the fossil fuel industry have disseminated lies disputing climate change and global warming, usually trying to dress up the lies by using "experts" so as to hide the direct link back to major polluters.  Meanwhile, village idiots like GOP Senator James Inhofe blather on and on about climate change being a "hoax."  The real hoax is the propaganda being disseminated by the Koch brothers, et al.  Now,  Wei-Hock “Willie” Soon, one of the preferred climate change denier experts has now been documented to have been paid millions of dollars to parrot the story line favored by the Kochs, Exxon and others who put making money ahead of the welfare of the planet.  The Daily Beast has details.  Here are highlights:

For decades, the fossil-fuel industry has been underwriting a huge, successful campaign to lie about climate change. Like the tobacco industry before it, energy companies have created a body of pseudoscience, created by paid lackeys, and successfully co-opted the mainstream of the Republican party to their “point of view.”

This week, that campaign took a serious body blow, as one of its leading pseudo-scientific voices was exposed as a liar and a fraud, having accepted millions of corporate dollars to pose as a climate change skeptic.

To be clear, Climate Trutherism is a conspiracy theory. It’s not just that climate change isn’t real, or isn’t certain—it’s that the world’s leading climate scientists and climate organizations (who are all in agreement about it) are perpetrating what Senator James Inhofe calls The Greatest Hoax.

Yet unlike 9/11 Trutherism, and Obama-is-a-Muslim trutherism, the Climate Truther campaign has an air of respectability, a unanimous adherence among Republican presidential candidates. How is that possible?

The answer is money. Lots of money. Billions of dollars, in fact, spent to create an entire industry of scientists, publicists, think tanks, and legislative organizations.

[Wei-Hock] Soon, for example, should never have been given much credence in the first place. Like nearly all of the Climate Truthers’ scientists, he is not a climate expert. He’s not even an astrophysicist, as he is often presented.
The Heartland Institute, one of the leading Climate Truther think-tanks, put together a poster (PDF) of “58 experts [who] don’t believe global warming is a crisis.”  But a review of those “experts” by The Daily Beast found that only three of the 58 actually have any credentials in climatology or atmospheric science. (16 are conservative political pundits, 11 are meteorologists, six are conservative economists, and the rest a hodgepodge.)

What’s not par for the course is Soon’s history of non-disclosure regarding his funding from the fossil fuel industry, which was only revealed because, as an employee of the Smithsonian, the funding documents were covered by the Freedom of Information Act. Greenpeace obtained those documents and made them public.

[N]ot only individual "scientists", but the entire network of Climate Truther think-tanks is a result of industry funding. Some are focused on climate trutherism specifically.

Today, only 42 percent of Americans believe that human-caused climate change is real. Compare that to 13,926 out of 13,950 peer-reviewed scientific articles published between 1991-2012. That’s right, only 24 out of nearly 14,000 peer-reviewed articles reject the scientific consensus that human activity is affecting the climate.   Yes, among actual experts, there is 99.83 percent agreement that climate change is a thing.

Ironically, there’s nearly as much consensus among Republican politicians—on the other side. Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum are all on record as being Climate Truthers. . . . The reason here is obvious: money. With the Koch Brothers alone pledging $900 million to buy the 2016 election, climate change is a clear third-rail for Republican presidential candidates.

So, will the spectacular fall of one of the Climate Truthers’ favorite fake scientists actually derail the campaign? Don’t bet on it. The paid lackey is dead, long live the paid lackey; if not Willie Soon, then someone else will do.

Retired Justice Stevens Condemns Majority in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission

With the sometimes exception of Justice Anthony Kennedy (particularly in the area of gay rights), the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court hold most average Americans in open contempt and have sided with the wealthy, huge corporations and GOP racists.  With its ruling in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, this majority more or less put the government up for sale to big money interests and amazingly found that huge campaign bribes contributions while one is a candidate is miraculously different than a huge bribe while in office.  The distinction, of course defies belief and common sense.  Former Justice John Paul Stevens has condemned the ruling and has suggested a constitutional amendment to protect America's democracy.  A piece in the New York Times looks at Justice Stevens' views.  Here are excerpts:

Justice John Paul Stevens, who turned 94 on Sunday, is a mild man with an even temperament. He has a reverence for the Supreme Court, on which he served for almost 35 years until his retirement in 2010, and he is fond of his former colleagues.

But there was a hint of anger in some of his remarks when I went to see him last week in his Supreme Court chambers. He said the court had made a disastrous wrong turn in its recent string of campaign finance rulings.

“The voter is less important than the man who provides money to the candidate,” he said. “It’s really wrong.”

He talked about what he called a telling flaw in the opening sentence of last month’s big campaign finance ruling. He filled in some new details about the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that led to the Citizens United decision. And he called for a constitutional amendment to address what he said was the grave threat to American democracy caused by the torrent of money in politics.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. started his controlling opinion with a characteristically crisp and stirring opening sentence: “There is no right more basic in our democracy than the right to participate in electing our political leaders.”

But that was misleading, Justice Stevens said. “The first sentence here,” he said, “is not really about what the case is about.”

The plaintiff, Shaun McCutcheon, an Alabama businessman, had made contributions to 15 candidates in the 2012 election. He sued so he could give money to 12 more. None of the candidates in the second group was running in Alabama.

Mr. McCutcheon was not trying to participate in electing his own leaders, Justice Stevens said. “The opinion is all about a case where the issue was electing somebody else’s representatives,” he said.

The occasion for our talk was Justice Stevens’s new book, “Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution.” One of those amendments would address Citizens United, which he wrote was “a giant step in the wrong direction.”

The new amendment would override the First Amendment and allow Congress and the states to impose “reasonable limits on the amount of money that candidates for public office, or their supporters, may spend in election campaigns.”

His own book has, in addition to the chapter on campaign finance, chapters on gun control, the death penalty, gerrymandering and aspects of state sovereignty. Each concludes with a proposed amendment.

Supreme Court: Politicians Can Now Be Totally Bought By the Rich

The rationale behind campaign finance laws has always been to stem government corruption with a view that if the wealthy or corporations could give unlimited funds to candidates running for office it ultimately was no different than bribing them once they were in office.  Sadly, a majority on the United States Supreme Court apparently has no problem with politicians literally being for sale to the highest bidder and bribes contributions made before they are elected somehow do not matter.  Or at least that is the only conclusion to be reached from yesterday's ruling in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission limiting what can be considered bribes under any rational basis is a "unconstitutional" restriction on free speech.  Anyone who doesn't believe there is a direct "quid pro quo" for huge campaign contributions is living in a fantasy world.  The Washington Post looks at this devastating ruling which will likely spur the nation on towards a return to the worst aspects of the Gilded Age.  Here are editorial highlights:

THE SUPREME Court on Wednesday overturned yet another federal law meant to check corruption and influence-peddling in national politics. The ruling shows two things: The Roberts Court’s destructive view on these matters wasn’t changed by the backlash to its Citizens United holding, and Congress must respond by designing new rules that can pass the court’s overly skeptical review. If lawmakers tackle the issue forthrightly, they have some workable options.

The court eliminated an overall limit on how much donors could give to candidates, parties and various other committees over the course of an election cycle. The idea had been to make it harder for big donors to circumvent limits on direct donations to candidates by siphoning them through other channels, or for political leaders to ask for large checks from wealthy individuals.

In the plurality opinion in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. held that the overall donation ceiling is an unconstitutional infringement on free speech because the government can regulate political giving only in order to prevent “quid pro quo corruption,” which is something like direct bribery. The chief justice insisted that combating the purchase of political influence and access is not a sufficiently worthwhile goal. Elsewhere, and without really owning up to it, he overturned a previous court holding in Buckley v. Valeo , the controlling precedent on the constitutionality of campaign finance limits. So much for the judicial restraint that Justice Roberts once promised. 

Individuals, corporations and unions could spend vast amounts of money to manipulate federal elections, sometimes secretly, under fig-leaf restrictions that hardly reduce the potential for corruption or the appearance of it.  

There is one particularly productive response to the Roberts Court that lawmakers should be able to enact immediately: requiring more prompt reporting about where political cash is coming from and where it is going. Americans would be able to evaluate the interests behind the candidates competing for their votes, and members of the court have repeatedly said that new transparency rules would promote accountability and fight corruption without impermissibly infringing on free speech. 

Too bad, then, that Republicans have lately opposed this common-sense reform.

Expect things in the political realm to get much worse.  We will now have the best government one can buy.  The Koch brothers must be celebrating. 

Will Cosol Energy Be Cuccinelli's Undoing?

Consol Energy money time line - click Image to enlarge

With Election Day just 2 days away here in Virginia, more attention than usual is focused on Southwest Virginia, an area of the state where Republican candidates typically dominate.  There is little belief that Democrat Terry McAuliffe will beat the extreme Ken Cuccinelli in the region.  But there is much speculation as to whether or not Cuccinelli will be able to achieve the victory margin to counterbalance the populous urban areas of Virginia where McAuliffe will likely win the day.  If Cuccinelli doesn't win in Southwest Virginia by the margin he needs, the loss may well be a self-inflicted one thanks to Cuccinelli's greed and willingness to accept bribes large contributions from the energy industry in exchange for legal favors.  Here are highlights from the Bristol News:

Southwest Virginia could be a deciding factor in who wins the governor’s seat in Tuesday’s election.

The region was supposed to be a safe base for gubernatorial candidate Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. Here, he should have been able to count on solid Republican support while the heavily populated regions around Northern Virginia and Tidewater cranked out the massive toss-up votes, likely to fall into the hands of Democrat Terry McAuliffe.

But the natural-gas royalties controversy, sparked by a senior assistant attorney general’s help to energy companies being sued by regional landowners, threw that plan into a tailspin.

As a result, state political experts are now echoing a similar refrain about the region becoming a must-win for Cuccinelli.

“If he can’t hold off Terry McAuliffe in Southwest Virginia, then it’s over,” said Geoffrey Skelley, of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

Billionaire environmentalist and McAuliffe backer Tom Steyer seized on the royalties controversy when it broke months ago and hasn’t let go. “I do think this is an incredibly powerful story and one that could change opinions about [Cuccinelli’s] reputation,” he said.

His political action committee, the San Francisco-based NextGen Climate Action, has spent slightly more than $2.4 million on television spots hammering the Republican candidate as a sell-out to out-of-state companies, according to non-partisan political spending tracker Virginia Public Access Project.

Voters across the state have seen the spots a lot. Ads featuring pictures of the attorney general, gas drilling pumps and newspaper clippings have splashed across TVs in Southwest Virginia, near Washington, D.C., and in the Tidewater region.

The ads seem to have resonated with some regional voters, wrote Jesse T. Richman, political science associate professor at Old Dominion University.

Fanning the flames even higher is the more than $140,000 in cash dropped into Cuccinelli’s campaign coffers since 2010 by Pittsburgh-based CONSOL Energy, which owns one of the energy companies being sued.

Cuccinelli needs more than just a win in Southwest Virginia, said Harry Wilson, professor and political analyst at Roanoke College. He needs a resounding victory.  “If Cuccinelli doesn’t win Southwest Virginia then this will be a landslide of epic proportions,” Wilson said.

Simply put, the Republican candidate will count on the rural area as a base of stability while he slugs it out for votes in the state’s more densely populated urban areas. And he has to do it knowing the natural-gas royalties controversy might have muddied the waters just enough to pull that base out from under him.

Cuccinelli in Bristol to Shore Up Support in Southwest Virginia

Consol Energy campaign contribution timeline - Click to enlarge

Certainly over the last 25 years, Southwest Virginia has always been reliably Republican and any GOP candidate could plan on overwhelming voter support absent being "found in bed with a boy or a dead girl" as some have said.  Yet, less than a week before election day, Ken Cuccinelli was in Bristol, Virginia campaigning to shore up support in Southwest Virginia.  Equally, surprising, he only had 30 people turn out.  Apparently, Cuccinelli's acceptance of campaign bribes contributions from Consol Energy is continuing to haunt him. One can only hope that this all demonstrates that Cuccinelli is in real trouble.  Here are details from Tricities.Com:

BRISTOL , Va. – With just a few days left until Tuesday’s election, Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli stopped by downtown Bristol early Thursday to shore up his support base in Southwest Virginia.

Cuccinelli spoke inside the dusty construction site of the Birthplace of Country Music museum, a work in progress that is expected to open next year. And his audience was a friendly crowd of about 30 who responded to his message with claps, hoots and the occasional “amen!”

“The single biggest decision in Virginia that the next governor will make on our budget will be to either support or oppose expanding Obamacare in Virginia with the Medicaid expansion,” he said. “We will not hug Obamacare. We will keep our distance as best we can.”

The attorney general has trekked into Southwest Virginia several times in the last month, with a meet-and-greet lunch held in an Abingdon restaurant and a stump speech from the steps of the Washington County courthouse.

On Thursday, Cuccinelli’s planned path from Bristol was to wind northward to Tazewell, on to Wytheville and then to Galax. A return trip to Bristol is also set for Sunday.

The many stops in a region that traditionally votes Republican could be an attempt to regain any votes lost as a result of a scandal in which a senior assistant attorney general provided legal advice to energy company lawyers embroiled in a federal lawsuit with regional landowners seeking millions in natural gas royalties. The controversy intensified because CONSOL Energy, the parent company of one of the energy companies involved, has dropped $111,044 into Cuccinelli’s campaign since 2012.

McAuliffe’s campaign pointed to the campaign contribution Thursday when offered an opportunity to comment about Cuccinelli’s local stop.

“Ken Cuccinelli is the last one who should be talking about the needs of Southwest Virginia after he took more than $100,000 from the out-of-state energy company his office was inappropriately aiding in its fight against Southwest Virginia landowners,” McAuliffe campaign spokesman Josh Schwerin wrote.

I continue to hope that Cuccinelli's extremism, his greed and his sense of entitlement will be his undoing. 

Consol Energy Scandal Continues to Plague Cuccinelli

I have written a number of times about the improper legal assistance given to energy companies by Ken Cuccinelli's office against Virginia landowners fighting to receive gas royalty payments.  The Virginia Inspector General's office recently found the legal assistance to have been improper, much of it being given long after the Attorney General's office had any legitimate continuing involvement in the litigation.  Cuccinelli has claimed that he knew nothing about the improper actions of his Assistant Attorney General, Sharon Pidgeon.  As noted before, I find Cuccinelli's claimed ignorance unbelievable.  Especially since one of the energy company's parent entities had given $111,000 to Cuccinelli's campaign.  As the Washington Post reports, many in Southwest Virginia seem to likewise believe that Cuccinelli is lying.  Here are article highlights:

WISE, Va. — Amid the struggling businesses and flattened mountaintops strip-mined decades ago, antipathy toward Democrats and what’s known in this region as their “war on coal” is stronger than just about anywhere else in the country.

That has translated naturally into broad opposition to Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate for governor this year. But across the coal fields of far-southwest Virginia, something unusual is also happening: Voters don’t like the Republican candidate, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II, much better.

Cuccinelli’s struggles seem to stem largely from a complex legal case that pits big coal companies against local property owners over the extraction of gas from Virginia land. A lawyer in Cuccinelli’s office intervened on behalf of the companies, and McAuliffe has seized on that to cast the Republican as something other than the defender-of-the-little-guy he has claimed to be throughout this year’s contentious campaign.

Resulting polls, which show McAuliffe and Cuccinelli each capturing well under 50 percent of likely voters’ support in southwest Virginia, reveal a deep vein of economic pain running through a region that presents a study in contrast to the relative prosperity and employment levels of Northern Virginia.

But these voters’ easy suspicions also reveal a vulnerability for Republicans, who depend mightily on running up big winning margins among rural voters in a state where the more populous urban and suburban regions have been trending Democratic in most recent elections. If a Republican doesn’t win by a lot in rural Virginia, there are few other paths to victory.

“Whether I vote for an independent person or I vote for Terry McAuliffe, I know one thing: I am not voting for Ken Cuccinelli, because I can’t trust him,” [Aimee] Compton [of Lebannon] said.

That kind of sentiment has become surprisingly common this election year in a region that has stayed stubbornly red even as the rest of Virginia has tinged purple. 

In a Washington Post/Abt-SRBI poll conducted in mid-September, the Republican took 33 percent of registered voters in southwest Virginia, while McAuliffe drew 31 percent.

“I don’t think the man ought to get elected by somebody that’s paying him. To me, that’s not good politics,” said Eddie Fletcher, a disabled former construction and coal worker from Rowe who is particularly bothered by Consol’s donations to Cuccinelli.

I hope the voters of Southwest Virginia continue to see Cuccinelli for what I see him to be: a corrupt, lying extremist who would be bad for Virginia if elected.  

Cuccinelli's Assistant Improperly Aided Energy Companies

The Virginia Inspector General's report is out and as no surprise, at least to me with an energy company background from my role as in-house counsel to an oil and gas company, report finds that Ken Cuccinelli's Assistant Attorney General, Sharon Pidgeon, acted improperly when she provided legal advice and trial strategy to energy companies embroiled in litigation with Virginia landowners seeking to secure gas royalty payments due to them.  Pidgeon's and Cuccinelli's original excuse was that Pidgeon was defending the constitutionality of Virginia's force pooling statute.  However, her role and assistance continued long after that aspect of the litigation ended.  As noted before, I find it inconceivable that Pidgeon acted alone and without the knowledge of Cuccinelli who just happened to have received $111,000 in campaign contribution from the parent company of one of the energy company litigants.   In my opinopn, both Pidgeon and Cuccinelli are lying.  Here are highlights from the Washington Post:

Virginia’s inspector general has found that a deputy in the office of Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II improperly collaborated with energy companies in a legal dispute over natural gas royalties in southwest Virginia, according to a report released Tuesday.

Inspector General Michael F.A. Morehart said that Sharon Pigeon, a senior assistant attorney general, “inappropriately” used state resources to assist the energy companies on legal strategy in a battle between landowners and coal companies over the extraction of natural gas from coal beds.

The long-running and complicated dispute, in which property owners have accused two out-of-state coal companies of withholding millions in gas royalties owed to them, has become a bitter issue in the Virginia governor’s race between Cuccinelli (R) and Democrat Terry McAuliffe.

McAuliffe’s campaign has pummeled Cuccinelli for his office’s intervention on behalf of the energy companies while highlighting the campaign contributions he has received from the industry. Cuccinelli has maintained that he has done nothing wrong and took steps to correct the situation after his deputy’s actions came to light.

Pigeon told the inspector general that she had intervened to defend a state law that dictates how disputes are to be settled between landowners and energy companies over natural gas extraction from coal beds, Morehart’s letter says.

But after reviewing dozens of e-mails, the inspector general found that Pigeon assisted energy companies directly, in some cases improperly, and continued to do so after a federal court had upheld the law in question, in September 2011. Morehart found that Pigeon’s assistance inappropriately extended to strategy that could benefit the companies in potential state litigation outside the federal court, the letter says.

The legal dispute — which involves perhaps hundreds of landowners and about $28 million in disputed royalties — pits property owners against two of Virginia’s largest producers of natural gas pumped from coal seams, known as coal-bed methane.

The dispute has led to accusations that Cuccinelli, who has stressed his advocacy for the plight of coal workers, has sided with energy companies at the expense of southwest Virginians. And it has given McAuliffe an opening to attract support in a part of the state that has voted heavily Republican in recent years, in part because of the Obama administration’s environmental policies.
“The Virginia Inspector General confirmed today what Virginians have found troubling for months — that Ken Cuccinelli’s office had stepped over the line and improperly used taxpayer funds to advise out-of-state energy companies trying to avoid paying Southwest Virginia landowners mining royalties that are rightfully theirs,” McAuliffe spokesman Josh Schwerin said in a written statement. Schwerin called on Cuccinelli to return campaign contributions from one of the energy companies.

The inspector general opened the investigation after news reports that a U.S. magistrate had expressed shock that Pigeon was assisting the energy companies. State Sen. Phillip P. Puckett (D-Russell) also called for an independent examination. Puckett said at the time that he was troubled because Consol Energy has contributed more than $111,000 to Cuccinelli’s gubernatorial campaign.

Cuccinelli has consistently demonstrated that he believes that he is above the law and that money from donors looking for political and legal favors is the norm with him. 

Ken Cuccinelli's Office Knew of Staffer's Improper Aid to Energy Companies

Ken Cuccinelli has tried to dodge the simmer scandal that is harming him greatly with voters in Southwest Virginia by claiming that his office did not know about Assistant Attorney General Sharon Pidgeon's aid to affiliates of Consol Energy, one of Cuccinelli's largest campaign donors.  As with pretty much everything that comes out of Cuccinelli's mouth, the claims are untrue.  As the Bristol Herald Courier is reporting, Pidgeon continued advising the energy companies against Virginia landowners for months after Cuccinelli's office learned of the ongoing communications.  In short, Cuccinelli has lied yet again.  Just as he has lied about his extreme agenda while in the Virginia Senate and then as Attorney General.  As noted previously, from my experience with the AG's office, it is utterly inconceivable that Pidgeon followed this course of action without the knowledge, much less the direction of her superiors, including Cuccinelli himself.  Here are highlights from the Herald Courier coverage:

A state Attorney General’s Office staffer continued to advise energy companies how to fight landowners suing over natural gas royalties for months after the state’s top law office learned of the communications, a Bristol Herald Courier review of the emails shows.

Whether the communications continued with AG Ken Cuccinelli’s knowledge remains a mystery because his office refuses to say when he personally learned of the emails or when he officially shut down the staffer’s contact with the corporate attorneys.

Despite being in the spotlight, AG staffer Sharon Pigeon went on to suggest how a corporate lawyer might pull the rug out from under one of the landowner plaintiffs.

“How many hats can he (the plaintiff) wear in all this?” she complained in one of two emails sent after her correspondence became the grist of legal debate. “Apparently, he wants the benefits of the royalty being paid, but wants to undermine the system enabling that payment.”

Mention of 52 emails swapped between Pigeon and lawyers for energy companies EQT Production and CNX Gas appeared in court documents in mid-2012. Some of the actual emails — sent from 2010 through 2012 — were publicly filed later that year as part of the court record.

At the time, lawyers representing Southwest Virginia landowners in a series of five class-action lawsuits were arguing for access to Pigeon’s emails to determine whether they would bolster the fight for the royalties.

Pigeon continued to offer advice on how to defeat one of the lawsuits in an email sent to CNX attorney Jonathan Blank on Aug. 28, 2012, and later on Sept. 5, 2012.

In the first email, she suggested Blank could shoot down the case if he could find any mention in state or local records of royalty payments made to one of the main plaintiffs or to his relatives. This is the email where she complains that the plaintiff wears “many hats.”

In the second email, she merely states “To refresh your memory,” and includes a copy of the previous email where she recommends the records search.

Cuccinelli says his office joined the federal lawsuit only to fight the constitutional challenges to the Virginia Gas and Oil Act, which created the escrow accounts.

A Herald Courier review of her emails shows she suggested such courtroom tactics as combating a likely information request to discover other landowners owed royalties, as well as countering arguments against the amount of royalty proceeds they sought.

The emails have become a sore spot in Republican Cuccinelli’s gubernatorial run — CNX parent company CONSOL Energy has poured $140,044 into his campaign since he became attorney general in 2010.

Consol Energy: Ken Cuccinelli Seeks to Paint His Assistant AG As Rogue Agent

 

Not surprisingly, Ken Cuccinelli is striving desperately to depict Senior Assistant Attorney General Sharon Pigeon - who improperly aided Consol Energy affiliated litigants in a lawsuit against Virginia landowners - as a rouge operative who needs to be thrown under the bus.  Having had numerous dealings  with the Attorney General's office - and a former law partner who was Virginia Attorney General - I find it incredible that Ms. Pigeon would have engaged in such extensive assistance to energy company litigants on her own.  Stated more directly, I can only conclude that Cuccinelli is lying to try to save his sorry ass.  He apparently believes that all Virginia voters are gullible cretins (he obviously needs to spend less time in the GOP/The Family Foundation bubble).  The Roanoke Times looks at the fairy tale that Cuccinelli is trying to spin.  Here are highlights:

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s office is distancing itself from the staffer who in a series of emails appears to have advised energy company lawyers in their defense of an ongoing lawsuit over natural gas royalties in Southwest Virginia.

Senior Assistant Sharon Pigeon “was not writing the emails at the direction of anyone in Richmond,” Cuccinelli spokesman Brian Gottstein wrote in a recent email to the Bristol Herald Courier.
Pigeon is now barred from further discussing with corporate lawyers their federal battle against regional landowners seeking gas royalties, Gottstein wrote, and her job of scrutinizing the cases’ potential impact on Virginia’s gas drilling laws has been handed to someone else.

The attorney general’s spokesman, when asked Friday to clarify what working outside the Richmond headquarters had to do with the emails, replied that he will no longer answer the newspaper’s questions because of the way it has covered the story.

“I’m not dealing with you anymore,” he wrote.

Pigeon is the legal adviser to the Lebanon-based Virginia Gas and Oil Board, which oversees the state-mandated escrow account now holding at least $30 million in disputed natural gas royalties. She swapped at least 52 emails from 2010 through 2012 with attorneys representing CNX Gas and EQT Production in their fight against regional landowners seeking those royalties.

A Herald Courier review of those emails shows that Pigeon suggested such courtroom tactics as combating a likely information request to discover other landowners who were owed royalties, as well as countering arguments against the amount of royalty proceeds they sought.

Her electronic messages — and questions about the relationship between the state’s highest legal office and corporate energy lawyers — have become a hot topic in the state’s gubernatorial race. Cuccinelli is the Republican candidate running against Democrat Terry McAuliffe.

Adding to the debate is the role that CNX parent company CONSOL Energy has as one of the top financial contributors to Cuccinelli’s campaign. The company has dropped $140,044 into his campaign since he took over the AG’s office in 2010, according to campaign watchdog Virginia Public Access Project.

Cuccinelli defends Pigeon’s dealings with energy company lawyers as “overzealous” . . . . 

[C]onstitutional law expert Carl Tobias, of the University of Richmond School of Law, questions the contents of Pigeon’s emails and how they appear to offer legal help.  “It’s not in good judgment to be helping one side or the other,” Tobias said. “In this case, it’s sounding like she’s helping the defendants.”

Again, I find Cuccinelli's story line to be  unbelievable.  Like most Christofascists, Cuccinelli believes that the Commandment against lying and bearing false witness does not apply to him.

Republicans Worried About Cuccinelli’s Prospects

Meanwhile, as the ad mentioned in the last post prepares to run, panic appears to be setting in Republican circles.  This is a very good thing because, if the perception becomes one that Cuccinelli has already lost, it may depress Republican turn out.  The risk, of course, is that Democrats become complacent and stay home.  This cannot be allowed to happen because in my view it is crucial that Cuccinelli and the rest of the GOP extremist slate lose, but that they lose by a landslide.  Why?  Because the GOP slate was nominated by The Family Foundation and Tea Party extremists.  A horrific loss may be what the Virginia GOP needs to convince what moderates are left and the so-call GOP establishment to wrench the GOP back from the forces of hate and bigotry best personified by the Christofascists and Tea Party factions.  The Washington Post looks at the growing panic in the Virginia GOP.  Here are excerpts:

National and state Republicans are increasingly nervous about Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II’s campaign for Virginia governor, which they said is lagging behind Democrat Terry McAuliffe because of internal mistakes as well as forces beyond Cuccinelli’s control.

With seven weeks to Election Day, Cuccinelli is trailing in public polls and in fundraising. Republicans are scrambling to improve a field operation that underperformed in 2012. And while McAuliffe has faced scrutiny for his business dealings, the legal cloud surrounding Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) and a probe of how the attorney general’s office has handled a gas royalties case have cast a spotlight on Cuccinelli’s own ethics that neither party expected.

Several Republican officials and operatives outside the campaign, most of whom requested anonymity in order to be frank about the state of the race, said they believe Cuccinelli is down . . . .

“I think McAuliffe has a real advantage in the race,” said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report.

Now that Labor Day has passed, Rothenberg said, voters’ “opinions are gelling. That doesn’t mean the race is over, but there is a significant burden now on Cuccinelli to change the trajectory. . . . He’s going to have to get a significant portion of the people who haven’t made up their minds yet.”

 A Quinnipiac University poll released last month showed McAuliffe leading Cuccinelli among likely voters, 48 to 42 percent. Three other automated polls released this month showed McAuliffe ahead by similar margins.

The state inspector general is investigating whether an assistant in Cuccinelli’s office gave improper legal help to energy companies battling with Southwest Virginia landowners over gas royalties.


Republicans lamented Cuccinelli’s fundraising disadvantage; through June 30, he had raised $7.7 million, while McAuliffe had raised $12.7 million. Fresh fundraising numbers are due Monday.

In a memo on the state of the race issued Friday, McAuliffe spokesman Brennan Bilberry suggested the Cuccinelli team was becoming “shrill” and desperate.
 
“It is clear that the Cuccinelli campaign is seeing the same things in their internal polls that Virginians see in public polls: Terry’s position continues to strengthen while Cuccinelli’s position continues to slip as a result of his ethics scandals and extreme social agenda,” Bilberry wrote.

Again, we need a massive Democrat turn out to hand Cuccinelli, Jackson and Obenshain a massive defeat.  The Family Foundation and Tea Party extremists nominated this nutcases and a devastating loss would be wonderful to hang around their necks.  Such a defeat would lead to delicious back biting and backstabbing within the Virginia GOP and perhaps embolden Republicans elsewhere to seize the party back from extremists and white supremacists.  The Family Foundation and Tea Party extremists need to become persona non gratis within the Virginia GOP from November 5th on forward.

New Ad Hits Ken Cuccinelli on CONSOL Energy Scandal

I have been maintaining for some time that Ken Cuccinelli's "Giftgate" scandal involving money and gifts received from Jonnie R. Williams, Sr./Star Scientific pales in comparison to the Consol Energy scandal in which Cuccinelli received $140,000 in exchange for improper assistance to private energy company litigants battling against Virginia property owners.  Now, a new ad that I mentioned previously is about to hit the airwaves and hopefully educate voters on this scandal.  According to Mike Casey of NextGen Climate Action Committee Virginia the ad will run in the Richmond, Roanoke, and Norfolk markets for the next 10 days starting tomorrow morning.  Casey also noted that the "CONSOL scandal is far, far worse - it's a lot more money, it's a gross violation of public trust, and it involves an active state investigation into his office's conduct."  In fact, Casey added, "it appears that the only reason why [Cuccinelli himself] is not being investigated is because of the loophole in Virginia's Inspector General law."  Here are more details on Casey's remarks via Blue Virginia:

[A]s Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli wasn't just enriching himself with luxury gifts and meals from Jonnie Williams, while pleading poverty...when he was faced with calls to return that money on a $194,000-per-year salary, he was taking enormous amounts of campaign cash from an out-of-state fossil fuel company while his office helped it rip off the people that elected him...Campaign shake-ups, 30-minute Hail Mary commercials, and a YouTube apology video is not going to address the very ugly timing of contributions and favors in the CONSOL scandal...

Ken Cuccinelli must release all of his office's email contacts with CONSOL, he needs to return this dirty money, and he needs to stop ducking questions...He has run from the media, he has run from watchdog groups, and he has run from citizens - it is ridiculous...Ken Cuccinelli's corruption is making us look like some sort of banana republic...This commercial is not going to be the last [Cuccinelli] will hear [on this issue]...

He's in deep trouble in Southwest Virginia and he should be, because that's where most of the people who were hurt by his actions live, and this commercial is designed to ensure that the rest of the state zeroes in on these questions and presses him for answers. We have every confidence that this is becoming not just a Southwest Virginia issue but a statewide issue...

...Being a climate denier and appearing to rent out the top law enforcement office [in Virginia] to an out-of-state fossil fuel company go hand and hand.

Cuccinelli can dissemble all he wants, but the reality is that something stinks to high Heaven and I find it impossible to believe that Cuccinelli's office took it upon itself to improperly aid energy companies without Cuccinelli's knowledge and direction.  If he claims otherwise, there is one word that describes him: LIAR.
 

Democrats Launch Attack Ad Against Cuccinelli

This blog has looked at the highly unusual and unexplained situation where a staff attorney of the Virginia Attorney General's office was offering legal assistance and advise to two energy companies being sued by Virginia residents for allegedly cheating them out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in gas royalties.  The litigation is private litigation and does not involve the Commonwealth of Virginia or any state agencies.  Hence, there is no outward reason for the AG office's involvement.  Or is there? One of the energy company is an affiliate of a company that donated over $114,000 to Ken Cuccinelli's gubernatorial campaign.  Quite appropriately, the Democrat National Committee is running an ad asking that this matter be investigated.  The ad is above.

As noted before, I am well acquainted with the oil and gas industry and was with a large law firm with an extensive oil and gas practice and worked on lease litigation and royalty disputes.  I also was in-house counsel for a large oil company.  I know of nothing from this background that would justify the Attorney General's office being involved in a private lawsuit over leases and royalty payments.  Absolutely nothing.   Nothing that is other than a pay back to a large campaign contributor.  Cuccinelli is a menace and must be defeated in November.