A Real Public Option In Connecticut?

And so it would seem.

The other day for an open thread at ePluribus Media I commented on "the intended public option that should be Sustinet in Connecticut," and it would seem that is to be the case if the Sustinet Health Partnership Board of Directors get their way according to the report they handed in to the Connecticut General Assembly. Jon Walker has the key report paragraphs at FDL and summerizes it all too well, as anyone that has followed Healthcare reform closely would be aware of these realities:

Connecticut Informed That Private Insurance Exchanges Are Bad Deals for Consumers, Taxpayers

...snip...

This report demonstrates what a horrible deal the system of subsidized, loosely-regulated private health insurance exchanges is for both the uninsured and the taxpayers. Using a public health insurance program, the state of Connecticut will be able to provide low income Americans a higher level of coverage at lower personal cost and it will still have a lower overall price tag for the government.

The only entities for whom the design of private exchanges is a good deal are the drug companies, hospitals, and private insurance companies. The exchanges assure customers for the unnecessary private insurance middlemen. Loose regulation of the exchanges prevents the government from using the market power of a large pool to negotiate with the drug companies and hospitals for lower prices, and so they get higher reimbursement fees.

It seems like they might as well being making the argument for a "Medicare for All!" solution but even as only a Public Option it would force the private insurers into an honest battle for customer base, IMHO, much like the Swiss model which is leaps and bounds better than the American model we are trying to reform.

Anyways, maybe we will have a real horse race to compare models of healthcare reform?

State Healthcare Reform Horse Race

...snip...

As we mark the passing of the latest phase of health reform laws implemented on January 1st (scroll the comments there and you will see some interesting comments pointing to what I mean about cost controls and other issues, OK?), the six states Politico suggests following are Alaska, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont and Wisconsin for various reasons ranging from the most resistant to reform in Alaska, to the intended public option that should be Sustinet in Connecticut, and all the way over to the Single Payer movement in Vermont. I would not count Single Payer as out of the question in California, either, though there is no mention of that large movement behind it.

Smoking Out Nutmeg Astroturf Of "Glenn Beck For President"

Maybe? I am not saying for certain that she is fronting another in a long line of AstroTurf groups for the GOP and corporate interests... But take a look and decide for yourself. For all I know, she may just be as crazy as her movement implies?

Via Gawker we get this little bit of giggle:

The Time Has Come to Make Glenn Beck President, Says Clown Lady

Most Americans want Glenn Beck to be our next president and return us to prosperity. The only hiccup? Getting him to run! Fortunately, the clown lady in this video is circulating a petition to change all that.



Her name is Robin Potwora, and the website for her "grassroots organization," Main Street Bites Back, features a number of terrifying robot-voiced videos of illustrated political figures, including the hated Barack Obama.

Aside from this "grassroots" clown gig? Well, given the Torrington, Connecticut address on "Main Street Bites Back" contact page and the name to go with it... I think it is safe to say that she may just be tied to some  very right wing and typical "grasstroots" lobbying money...

The Tobacco Industry to be precise:

"Robin Potwora (left), Executive Director of Smoke Signals Coalition, leads a protest of Connecticut's ban on smoking in bars at Sports Rock USA in Bristol on Saturday. The group is supporting Bill 5138 to amend Connecticut's smoking ban." 

 Curious about the "Smoke Signals Coalition"? I pulled this out of a cache:

Tobacco giant aids smoke ban repeal bill
Waterbury (CT) Republican-American, 2005-02-02
Trip Jennings

Rep. Leonard Greene, R-Beacon Falls, wants to repeal the statewide ban of smoking in restaurants and bars a year after identical legislation died in the General Assembly.
But this time Greene has help from a powerful ally.

Tobacco giant RJ Reynolds has bankrolled a Torrington nonprofit with $10,000 to run radio spots in Hartford, New London, New Haven and Fairfield counties and to pay for direct mailing to every liquor license holder in the state to mobilize support for Greene's bill, said Robin Potwora, executive director of the nonprofit, Smoke Signals Coalition.

"There are more than half a million adult smokers in Connecticut. They understand this is a fairness issue," Potwora said of the statewide ban that outlawed smoking in restaurants in October 2003 and in bars in April 2004, but allows it in private clubs and Connecticut's two gambling casinos.

The 30-second and 60-second advertisements, running on a classic rock station in Brookfield, a hard-rock station in Hartford and country music station in New London, ask Connecticut smokers to boycott buying cigarettes until the smoking ban is repealed.

Just thought you might find this typically funny of nearly every "grassroots" GOP Inc. campaign - like the Dick Armey GOP inc. sponsored side of the Tea party. Typical of these corporate astroturf types, she was anti cigarette taxes too. (I'm shocked, I tell you!)

Anyways... There is smoke. Dare I say fire?


[update] Put this in your pipe and smoke it:

Tobaccoup Road

In 1999, speaking to physicians, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, a Reagan appointee, decried the hold of Big Tobacco on health care legislation.

He called tobacco “the sleaziest, slimiest, most devious industry in the world,” whose members “also are the smartest and the richest," and then added. "...that’s a bad combination.”*

Koop remarked:

The biggest scandal in Washington was the Republican Senate selling out to the tobacco industry.

Always prescient, Koop was drawing attention to a coup d'etat: a bloodless takeover of government by big business...one that would drastically effect us for over a decade and is still derailing healthcare reform efforts today.

Koop warned, "We have lost control of medicine to the business world."

Read on... 

For those who argued against Catholic Parishioners having more oversight over their donations

to the Catholic Church... Is it more than just political donations and actions that the church is trying to hide?

A Roman Catholic priest in Connecticut has been arrested on charges he stole $1.3 million in church money over seven years to use for male escorts, expensive clothing, and luxury hotels and restaurants.

Waterbury police say the 64-year-old Rev. Kevin J. Gray was charged Tuesday with first-degree larceny. Gray is the former pastor at Sacred Heart/Sagrado Corazon Parish in Waterbury.

It seems to me that local parishioners, had they had a little more oversight over where their money goes to, would have caught this one long ago.

Would you not worry about what they were doing with your money, both politically and non-politically, given their recent and previous actions?

Catholic Church role in killing sex-abuse bill downplayed
Published: 08:27 p.m., Saturday, May 8, 2010

The Legislature's Judiciary Committee introduces a controversial bill the Catholic Church finds discriminatory, Connecticut's bishops issue an urgent call to parishioners to protest, and the proposal goes away.

Sound familiar?

On its face, the Catholic Church's recent defeat of legislation extending the statute of limitations for sex abuse echoes the organization's 2009 quashing of a highly controversial Judiciary Committee proposal giving the laity greater oversight of parish finances.

In an April 10 letter distributed at weekend Mass the bishops, including William E. Lori of the Bridgeport diocese, invoked that comparison to again rally the faithful.

"You will remember the now infamous Senate Bill 1098 last year, which was an attempt to restructure the governance of the Catholic Church," they wrote.

Did 1098 cross the line between church and state? A bit.

But it did so a lot less than the Catholic Church, and other churches to be fair as well, have constantly crossed the line into being non-stop political action groups funding policy and issues and they could probably be regulated that way (which isn't saying much given Citizen United and the activist right wing SCOTUS). Never mind the criminal activities that get covered up under the veil of their "religious rules".

Forcing them to be a bit more accountable to their parishioners is a minor blur in the line compared to how they have proven to have misused the churches funds for political actions, sexual indiscretions and cover-ups for other deeply disturbing illegal actions against children.

Hopefully the members of the Catholic churches that fund these actions will take the reigns away from these financial abusers themselves.

Because I would prefer the government keep on its side of the line. On it's side of that famous "Wall of Separation".

But if the Catholic church expects the government to stay on their side of the line than the Church had better get the fuck back on their side of the line. And maybe, just maybe, stop doing so many horrid and criminal things?

[update] PZ Myers at Pharyngula "celebrates" this news with some dark humor:

"Hooray for the Catholic Church! It's a priest who wasn't raping children!"

Father Kevin Gray had better things to do with his time.

Apparently for the past seven years Gray has been spending church money to fund trips to New York and pay for sessions with male escorts, and he also racked up $200,000 in restaurant bills including a large tab at Tavern on the Green.

It is a step up for the church, from child molesters to hedonistic embezzlers. Progress!

Two Polls and Two Really Bad Jokes

Poll 1.


Research 2000 just pretty much confirmed the state of the Connecticut Senate race between Blumenthal and McMahon:

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 5/24-26. Likely voters. MoE 4% (1/11-13 results)

Dick Blumenthal (D) 52 (56)
Linda McMahon (R) 33 (34)

It'd been a while since we polled Connecticut, and quite frankly, I didn't expect to ever come back to this Senate race (the governor's race is another story, and a race for another day to poll).

Poll 2.

These numbers are pretty darn close to where Quinnipiac had them yesterday:

May 27, 2010 - Blumenthal Pins McMahon By 25 Points In Connecticut, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Most Voters Say Vietnam Issue Doesn't Impact Vote


Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal leads former wrestling executive Linda McMahon 56 - 31 percent in the U.S. Senate race and tops the Republican candidate by large margins on every character measure, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

Joke 1.

I blogged about that Vietnam issue being a pile of hooey, having been planted in the media by McMahon and hopelessly being flung around like poop in the right wing blogosphere and media in a desperate attempt to make a non-story into anything they can over at Connecticut Political Reporter. Probably because the joke of a corporatist media would really love to turn this smackdown of a Senate race into a horse race that they want and need to sell papers:

Despite "supposedly" putting his own foot in his mouth last week, Dick Blumenthal still manages to put a good old fashioned WWE Smackdown on Linda McMahon, where Blumenthal keeps a formidable lead, 56-31, over McMahon in the most recent Quinnipiac polling.

Proving that this was the non-story that it really should have been from the start, regardless of the GOP's McMahon planting it, the NY Times doing a bang up job of corporatist stenography for the GOP and right wing Bloggers desperately trying to make more of it than was ever going to be worth.

When McMahon tries to float one we will flush it...

 In the media you will find that they repeat the same thing about this story yet is a taken from a video that is purposely taken out of context by McMahon and the media can't even bother to fact check it a bit before they go with it....

Joke 2. (And this is a long running joke)

Rasmussen does its nuttiest best to give the right wing something to latch onto:

18 MAY 2010
CT-SEN
Blumenthal D 48.0%, McMahon R 45.0%
Sample:
MoE: 500
4.5
Population: Likely Voters

What planet are they polling likely voters on? Is there some hidden Republican Connecticut on a propaganda producing Perelandra that we don't know about?

This is expected of Rasmussen as they are purely a propaganda arm of the GOP and they always produce polls that are so far out of whack with reality for months leading up to primaries and elections, which the corporate media slurps up like a Jeff Gannon kneeling in front of George W Bush passing this disease (and others) off to readers as "news",  and then suddenly, magically, weeks before an election their numbers start to reflect the real numbers of a race.

Rasmussen followed their typical propaganda pattern when they were constatntly predicting that there would be a "President McCain" coupled with a "GOP gaining in the House"... Right up until a few weeks before the election when it became clear they would be so far out of touch with reality at the end of it. And it is like they don't think people will notice this?

For example, from February to April of 2008, Rasmussen showed John McCain leading by an average of 2.6%. Meanwhile, every other poll of likely voters during that time period showed Barack Obama with a 2.6% lead. So from February to April, there was a 5.2% gap between Rasmussen and everybody else.


From September through election day, however, the gap was significantly smaller. The average Rasmussen poll taken during that time showed Obama leading by 3.8% while the average of all other polls of likely voters showed Obama leading by 5.8%, resulting in a gap of 2%.

So in the early months of 2008, the gap between Rasmussen and everybody else was 5.6% compared with 2% late in the cycle. Another important point here is that early in the cycle, Rasmussen's polling accounted for a far larger share of overall polling, meaning that their results played a more important role in shaping horse race narratives in the early stages of the campaign than they did in the latter stages of the campaign.

They are clearly trying to drive a republican narrative and it shows. Some earlier Rasmussen jokes being compiled by Nate Silver:

Here are the results of statewide polling in the 2000 Presidential Election. Although the pollster ratings will eventually involve some fancier math, the numbers you see below are as simple as it gets: I've simply looked at the average error of the last poll issued by each pollster in each state in terms of projecting the margin between Bush and Gore. (A cut-off is established 21 days prior to the election.)





While 2000 was generally a fairly rough year for pollsters, who had to deal with an unenthusiastic electorate, some third-party challengers, and some late-breaking developments like Bush's DUI charge, Rasmussen was the worst of the lot, missing by an average of 5.7 points. They also called 7 states wrong.** Some of this was the result of bias, as they were 3.5 points too high on Bush's margin in the states they surveyed, on average.

If I were a betting man, and I am not, I could see setting up a pool picking the date when Rasmussen starts to reflect reality in the CT-SEN race OR any other race for that matter. They really are that predictable.

An old empty bottle brewed in New Milford showing how out of touch Rasmussen was (looks like pure propaganda to me) during the healthcare reform debate. Just look at the pic to see clearly how out of whack their numbers are:

All you need to know about healthcare polls:

For now...

The right wing keeps trying to push a Rasmussen poll with bad numbers in it for Obama, the public option and for single payer. I dealt with the single payer numbers and public option numbers a little bit (and other interesting things, to me, at least?) at ePluribus Media a couple of days ago and most of the Blogosphere has seen the numbers for Obama start to rise again. Much of these numbers have all been noted to follow the start of of pressure from teabagging. Briefly numbers across the board dropped... But as people began to realize all of the things the birthers/.deathers/teabaggers were saying were as crazy as the things many of them were doing the numbers for those issues and Obama re-solidified. While pollster.com dealt with many of the numbers in a different way, I just want to show you the picture they put together of what I am talking about:


Yes, this one picture deals with the public option but is easily applicable across the board on almost any issue. And I am not even going to get in to the well known right wing bias of Rasmussen, nor their incredibly ridiculous outlier numbers in previous polls. Just remember that they are the one polling outfit that was predicting major leads for the GOP House early into the last election cycle and have, over time, taken a serious beating from many poll savvy people over many of their crazy outliers and polls bordering on the edge of push polls.

Anyways... Some in the media and the right wing are ignoring recent polls and quoting old stuff and even taking stuff out way out of context in order to fit their talking points and narratives. How the heck can any person call Obama and his policies in trouble when he has approval ratings over 50% in 48 of the 50 states? And an Obama 63% approval rate across the entire country?

6 months in we are talking uber popular, both in Obama's leadership and in many of his policies. If anything, the numbers inside the polls, overall and IMHO, show that the solutions they are seeing are not liberal enough for them.
And we can thank the raging, lying loonies on the right wing for helping to solidify those numbers.

While I am certain that many of the people with more experience in reading into polls will have more important things to say about it all, people like the number crunchers at dKos or Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com, but really, and let us be honest here: If a picture is worth a thousand words, that one up there speaks volumes.

The Root Of The Problem: Education

From former New Milford raised a glass and brewed Todd Umbarger and without further comment since it says enough on its own (and I could add an essay to this BUT...) :

click on this for larger

With previous permission from Todd Umbarger.

Todd is a New York-based illustrator and draws the political cartoon "National Concern."

Connecticut State Capitol Police Dumps Cold Water On Radical Tea Party

The Connecticut State Capitol Police reverses their previous decision and revokes the Tea Party's flag raising ceremony when they figured out it was nothing more than a political pity party stunt from a bunch of fringe wingnuts:

Tea Party activists won't be permitted to fly the Gadsden Flag over the state Capitol after all.

State Capitol police today reversed an earlier decision to allow the bright yellow "Don't Tread On Me" banner to flutter from the highly visible flagpole after learning that activists had planned a political rally following the flag-raising ceremony.

"It went from being a flag-raising ceremony to a political event,'' Acting Capitol police Chief Walter Lee said. "They are using it as a launching pad for [candidates for] public office."

Tea Party activists view the flag as a historic symbol of American defiance, but critics say the familiar flag with the image of a coiled rattlesnake is now associated with the controversial political movement.

Why they would consider allowing a political stunt from a bunch of far right wing radical retreads of the John Birch Society ilk with no more political weight than socialists in the United States of America have is beyond reason in the first place?

It would be funny if Socialism was as popular as the Tea Party

Bwahahahaha!

The numbers don’t lie.


The Percentage of Americans viewing “The Tea Party movement” favorably: 37 percent. The Percentage of Americans with a positive image of “socialism”: 36 percent. (Both sources, Gallup).

Yes... The thing the far right wingnut Teabaggers mock as being radical and fringe in America is just as popular as they are.

Kudos to the Connecticut State Capitol Police for recognizing this political stunt for what it is before it happened.

[update] Connecticut Bob and My Left Nutmeg are all over this, as well. Too much serious funny and reality hilariousness not to notice this story.

Dudchik: News Aggregator or the Big CON?

Most "news aggregators" are meant to misinform. This is even truer when they are run by ideologues and propagandists more interested in hyper-partisan talking points than reality.

In order to be shocked by this I would need to be licking the inside of a light-bulb socket. If anyone else is shocked by this perhaps they should be licking the inside of light-bulb socket? This kind of stupid should hurt. Might just realign their synapses in a functioning manner so they can begin using the basic skill of critical thinking.

Sadly, aggregators like that are the first bastion of the lazy journalists as evidenced by the fact that too many of them seem to think Drudge is a legitimate source, as well, and repeat the same mistake of leaving their browser open on it all day long waiting for their next big news story and expecting a different result than the last time they did that.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Rachel Maddow's piece continues on and expands on the brigade of right wing GOP talking pointy heads concerning their fake "ACORN" and "Climategate" scandals and a litany of stupid regardless of the issues below.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Medicare spending rose an OUTRAGEOUS 5% !eleventy!!one!!!

That is according to the CBO:

Adjusted for timing shifts, Medicare spending rose by $7 billion (or 5 percent).

Of course this is reason to be outraged at all that government spending coming out of our pockets, right? Right? Thankfully those fiscally responsible Republicans have come up with the great idea of privatizing Medicare.

Rep. Paul Ryan self-destructively wants to destroy Medicare and Social Security:

He's shilling for Wall Street yet again as he usually does. He wants to privatize medicare and social security although he uses words like "vouchers" to mask what he's saying.

While I understand that pointing out a fact like that is called "attacking" their favoritest Republicans evah - and their ideas - by some defenders of the magic free market faerie dust. And as a moderate liberal I have grown used to the reality of their victim card being pulled out every time they are so wrong it is almost embarrassing to enjoin them in debate... But for now, let us look at how Medicare compares to St. Ronny's vaunted "free market", the free market that Rep. Ryan wants you to turn to solve all of our problems:

The AFL-CIO calls out Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, which has requested a rate hike of up to 30 percent in Connecticut, for example, while spending more than $9.5 million on lobbying activities. Similarly, UnitedHealthcare recently proposed a premium increase for its Medicare supplemental insurance while spending more than $2.6 million on lobbying activities in the first half of 2009 alone.

Golly... You mean under the Republican healthcare plan people could get off of Medicare's outrageous 5% increases in costs and have the privilege of joining the Free Market's 30% increases? And double their pleasure by giving Corporate Welfare "vouchers" to the very people that cause 99% of the problems in American healthcare?

It is all very nice to claim the government will save money in your plan... But the reality is that it will save taxpayers a few measly pennies in taxes and cost them BIG DOLLARS in the free market to replace their plan. And the reality is that a lot of the government programs that faux-conservatives rant and rail about in the name of fiscal responsibility are pretty darn good government programs and they already are the real answers to being fiscally responsible. But they are not the Corporate Welfare you advocate for.

Let's put these to the voters and see how much they love your ideas, OK? While I come up with my sides' slogans for our bumper stickers... Here is the one for the GOP:

Of course, those of you that do support this Corporate Welfare as the cause du jour for the GOP, those of you that are the fringiest Republicans and the Teabagrrrrs in the minority of the minority party, can you please do us all a favor?

Get your own Connecticut GOP candidates on the record concerning where they stand on this.

Because when you do and no matter what they answer, we win.

1000 people show up for free healthcare clinic

I was watching Countdown last night and Keith Olbermann had said that 1000 people got free healthcare at the clinic in Hartford. Most of them had not had access to a Doctor in years. Whether it was the unemployed, the underemployed, the working poor. The common thread among them all is that access to medical professionals is beyond their financial  reach because of our completely broken healthcare insurance for profit. MSNBC's Ed Schultz broadcast from there yesterday, their network had organized the fund raising for this effort, and he had some harsh words for the politicians that are ignoring these people that are in dire straights.



Lives were saved because of this.

American people that had been guilty of nothing more than slipping through the gaping cracks in our winner takes all "social safety nets", ever weakened safety nets because of an unbalanced "free market run amok" rigged to keep the poor in a permanent stasis of desperation, got much needed treatment they will never receive, ever again, if we don't fix things properly.

ctblogger has more video from this at My Left Nutmeg:

From the Keith Olbermann sponsored free clinic today in Hartford. Rep. Joe Courtney made a brief appearance on The Ed Show, while his wife Audrey (a nurse) attended the event. I'm told Ned Lamont also attended.

I don't know what they are doing in Washington.
I know that there aren't any house members here and there aren't any senators here. And I can tell you one piece of information here in Connecticut, the house and the senate passed Universal care for everyone and the governor vetoed it. The public option in this state polls overwhelmingly well, but in Washington, Joe Lieberman, not only is he not here tonite, but he's against the public option.

7:17 minutes:  I could look Joe Lieberman in the eye, and Senator, I don't care if it costs me my job, I don't care, you are a coward.    

Lieberman is not the only one, Ed.

KWIN-uh-pe-ack Poll is up - And so am I...

It is way too early in the morning but I figured I'd check for the latest Quinnipiac poll results for the Connecticut Governor's race:

In an early look at the 2010 election for Connecticut Governor, Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz runs best among possible Democratic challengers, trailing Republican incumbent Jodi Rell 46 - 40 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

Gov. Rell leads 91 - 5 percent among Republicans and 56 - 26 percent among independent voters, while Bysiewicz leads 74 - 12 percent among Democrats.

Businessman Ned Lamont trails Rell 53 - 33 percent and Stamford Mayor Dan Malloy loses 52 - 33 percent, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds.

In a Democratic primary matchup, Bysiewicz gets 26 percent to 23 percent for Lamont, with 9 percent for Malloy. No other contender tops 3 percent.

With no candidate on the right to compare, all I can say is that it looks like Susan Bysiewicz is the early front runner in the race for the Democratic party nomination.

And it looks like Rell may still be able to squeak out on a bit of a high note barring anymore news of the scandal involving Dautrich - AKA: Rell's Brain - and Quinnipiac leaking out. Of course, this poll was, I believe, taken before the news of subpoenas going out in that scandal.

Voters are starting to trend towards a lower opinion of Connecticut political ethics during the Rell years... Quite punch to the gut when you consider Rowland was the previous Governor.

Why this trend? Might just be because of information:

The more information they have, the lower their opinion goes.

Lamont In - Rell Out There Somewhere?

Still waiting on word from Rell on whether or not she will be running - presumably she is having trouble forming an opinion on whether or not to run without Dautrich first poll testing the ideas - but, via Paul Bass, it looks like Lamont is getting ready to run for Governor:

Ned Lamont, who took on U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman three years ago, has formed an “exploratory committee” for a challenge to Gov. M. Jodi Rell in 2010. He plans to talk about Moody’s, not Moody.

Lamont planned to start informing past supporters of his move Wednesday morning, a day after the polls closed on the 2009 municipal elections and attention officially turns to the already crowded 2010 campaigns for governor and U.S. Senate.

h/t to TPMDC for the full press release from Ned Lamont:

NED LAMONT ANNOUNCES FORMATION OF EXPLORATORY COMMITTEE

Norwalk, CT - Ned Lamont, successful businessman, co-founder of the state policy center at Central Connecticut State University, and Democratic nominee for US Senate in 2006, announced that he will be filing papers today with the State Elections Enforcement Commission establishing an Exploratory Committee for statewide office:

"As I have continued to meet with citizens across our state over the last three years, as co-chairman of President Obama's Connecticut campaign and on behalf of health care reform, I have been constantly reminded that Connecticut is not living up to its potential and that too many of our families are being left behind," said Lamont.

"Like businesses, states thrive with strong executive leadership, and they fall behind with weak leadership. As measured by the loss of jobs, young people leaving our state, and the never-ending budget crisis, Connecticut's Chief Executive is simply not getting the job done."

Since the 2006 campaign, Lamont has continued to serve as Chairman of the Board of Campus Televideo, a Connecticut company he founded twenty-five years ago. He is also a distinguished professor of political science at Central Connecticut State University, where he co-founded a policy center which has brought together leading business, labor, and non-profit leaders to formulate a strategic plan for the state of Connecticut. In addition, he serves on the boards of Conservation Services Group, a leading provider of energy efficiency programs, Teach for America/CT, and Mercy Corps, an international non-profit organization that focuses on job training and small business start-ups around the world.

Windsock Joe

We really want to know which way the wind blows, Joe? The other day you were dead set against the Public Option, much to the chagrin of Connecticut voters. And now?

Sen. Joe Lieberman has reached a private understanding with Majority Leader Harry Reid that he will not block a final vote on healthcare reform, according to two sources briefed on the matter.

The unpredictable Democrat-turned-Independent last week publicly stated he would join Republicans in filibustering the Democratic legislation after Reid (D-Nev.) announced he had included a government-run health insurance plan in the bill.

But sources said Reid’s staff is telling liberal interest groups that Lieberman (Conn.) has assured Reid he will vote with Democrats in the necessary procedural vote to end debate, perhaps with intentions to change the bill.

Careful or you'll end up with whiplash if you keep this up, Joe.

Gov. Rell: "The Computer Ate My Homework!"

When you read stuff like this you really don't have to wonder if Dautrich focus group tested this message before she sent it out:

A review of documents provided by the university to The Day also shows that the governor's office did not fully comply with previous requests for public records, leaving out a handful of e-mail responses from Moody to Dautrich, including a message that thanks the professor for his help in crafting Rell's budget speech.

Harris declined to comment on any of the new findings in the UConn documents, but said in an interview this week that the Moody e-mails had been withheld from a reporter inadvertently because the governor's staff had not correctly used the "Find" function in the Outlook e-mail program when complying with The Day's records request.

 1st thing: Harris, she wasn't complying with The Day's record request. You know... Kind of like what happens in a "cover-up". A really big part of this story.  

2nd thing: Was Dautrich Rell's equivalent of Bush's Brain? Because her excuse is what I might expect to hear from a child. Her messaging is all over the place without his focus group tested waste of taxpayers' money asshattery.

Rell's politics and policies were always marginal. Now her excuses for them are too.

Healy Is Still Fat, Drunk and Stupid

Seriously, Healy, is this really a great way for you to to continue to go through life?

"Let this be a warning to those who think they can roll the American people and get away it. Exhibit A is the quick destruction of ACORN - Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now - after several videos showed their members setting up prostitution ring and one member bragging how she shot her husband dead without anyone knowing about it - until she told the tale on tape."

If the pitiful head Connecticut Republican mobile liquor sponge would turn off Glen Beck and the FOX noise for a few minutes he might begin to realize how much of a joke he really is.

I can't do anything about your being fat and drunk, Healy, but here is some Kryptonite for your stupid:

Here’s what ACORN says:

When the actors approached Ms. Kaelke with their provocative costuming and outlandish scenario, she could not take them seriously. So she met their outrageousness with her own personal style of outrageousness. She matched their false scenario with her own false scenarios.

“They were not believable”, said Ms. Kaelke of the two actors. “Somewhat entertaining, but they weren’t even good actors. I didn’t know what to make of them. They were clearly playing with me. I decided to shock them as much as they were shocking me. Like Stephan Colbert does – saying the most outrageous things with a straight face.” While her sense of humor might not be funny to many people, the fact is that she spun false scenario after false scenario and the videographer ate them up.

For example, in response to the set-up by the filmmakers in which they say they are trying get the young woman away from her abusive pimp, she responds that she was abused by her former husband as well (true) and that she shot and killed him (false). He is very much alive and living near Barstow, CA.

However, this is taken as the gospel truth, not just in the film itself, but also by several “news” personalities, indicating that no journalistic standards were applied to making the video or vetting it for broadcast.

And here’s a report from the San Bernadino police department:

An undercover video reportedly filmed in the San Bernardino office for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) was recently released on the Internet. The film depicts a worker talking about her past involvement in prostitution and the alleged self- defense killing of her former husband.

The San Bernardino Police Department is investigating the claims made regarding
the homicide. From the initial investigation conducted, the claims do not appear to be factual. Investigators have been in contact with the involved party’s known former husbands, who are alive and well.

Of course when the video popped, righties didn’t apply their b.s.-filters and like when Cheney said Iraq would greet us as liberators, just assumed all was as it appeared.

Yet again... Joke is you.

Healy is, still, clearly "Fat, drunk and stupid"  if he thinks anyone is buying the Republican snake oil he sells.

McMahon and Schiff Add Names to #CTGOPBattleRoyale

Via tparty at MLN:

This morning, proud non-voter Peter Schiff officially entered the ring of the 2010 #CTGOPbattleroyale. This is the man about whom Stuart Rothenberg wrote earlier this year that he saw:

"...no evidence that he understands how to talk to voters who have the kinds of problems that average Americans in Connecticut face each and every day, no evidence that he'd be effective in the Senate and no evidence that he has even the vaguest idea how to put together a campaign"

But while Schiff will have tens of millions to spend savaging the Republican party, he may actually be late to the main event: Linda McMahon vs. Rob Simmons, which now appears to be a rematch of an under-the-radar fight the two had in 2006.
In late September 2006, as then-Congressman Rob Simmons was busy trying to fend off Joe Courtney in the closing weeks of what turned out to be an historically close election in eastern Connecticut, Greenwich multimillionaire McMahon from the other side of the state contributed $10,000 to the DCCC to help give Simmons that final push off the ledge:

McMahon, Linda E.
Greenwich, CT 06831
World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc.
DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSIONAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE (D)
$10,000
primary 09/29/06

Here is Linda McMahon's unofficial announcement:

Sweeoowweet... Here Doggy

Via Jed Lewison, the happy-go-lucky teabaggers:

A collage from this weekend's teabagger rally in DC (photos posted by NineTwelvePhotos on Flickr):

Aren't they such thoughtful and happy people?

Much like these people, via Connecticut Bob:

Ray Charles disrupts Tea Party!

In a brilliant bit of political theater, the 9/11 tea party in Bridgeport was interrupted by the legendary Ray Charles, singing an American classic! Ann Coulter was on the stage when it happened.

They don't seem to appreciate having their voices drowned out by America, the beautiful, when they are trying to speak. Imagine that? And, of course, those were happy threats of violence they were loudly sharing with the neighborhood.

And please remember to hide the white women because Obama is an angry black man...

Good hypocritical doggy!

Support For Public Option In Connecticut By District

Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com did a great job of breaking down some poll numbers for the Public Option on a district by district level and across the nation. I did a quick cut and paste of the numbers just for Connecticut:

The results beg the question of why some more of Connecticut's Congress critters are not leading the charge for the Public Option? They know the people want it and they have to know that it is the right thing to do.

It is an all around political winner and just plain old common sense good public policy.

Some important notes on this from Nate Silver:

We can systematize these results by means of a regression analysis that accounts for the Obama vote share and the poverty level in each district. (Technically, we'll be using a logistic regession, treating each of the voters included in one of these surveys as a separate data point.) This analysis finds that support for the public option nationwide is about 55 percent, against 36 percent opposed, similar results to what I believe to be the most reliable polls on the subject.

What's more interesting, though, is where we project the public option in individual districts. We find that:

-- The public option is estimated to have plurality support in 291 of the 435 Congressional Districts nationwide, or almost exactly two-thirds.
-- The public option is estimated to have plurality support in 235 of 257 Democratic-held districts.
-- The public option is estimated to have plurality support in 34 of 52 Blue Dog - held districts, and has overall popularity of 51 percent in these districts versus 39 percent opposed.

Obviously, there is a margin of error inherent to this analysis when applied to any individual district. The polls that inform this analysis themselves have a margin of error, and there is an additional layer of error introduced by the statistical process that we apply to the data.

There is some pretty good reasoning behind this data to tell the few Blue Dogs trying to stand in the way of the Public Option to suck it up and do the right thing, as well. Go and take a look at the data yourself. The information is a real eye opener as to where there is some really strong support for the Public Option even in some supposedly "conservative" districts.

Clashes in East Haven Over Immigration

Via the New Haven Independent:

Violence flared in East Haven, as New Haven activists marching to protest alleged police racism tangled with out-of-state “white nationalists.”

The clash happened during an event organized Saturday by New Haven immigrant advocacy organization Unidad Latina En Acción. More than 100 people marched through the streets of East Haven on Saturday, protesting alleged racial profiling on the part of East Haven police. They met groups of counter-protesters along the way, including a visiting band of white supremacists.

Go on over and read the whole thing...

A little healthcare video coming...

I will have an interview with Senator Dodd coming up soon, as well as a little over an hour of footage from a meeting in Hartford between Dodd, Sebelius, DeLauro and some small business advocates that I was at today. Thank you kindly to the Connecticut State Democratic party workers that snuck me in there - it was closed to the public - and to Senator Dodd for giving me the time to take some shaky and slightly comical footage. :) (Note to my amateur self... Next time, open the lens protector for the camera BEFORE starting an interview)

Sadly, and though she had said she would give me few moments, I missed out on putting some questions to Rep. Rosa DeLauro because she had to go while I was interviewing Dodd.

I think you'll find the questions I put to him pretty good. The kind of of questions he probably does not typically get from others out there.

Final notes: I was even asked for a statement from a Tea Party representative there. I'll see if I can find the message on the net (might be at the Dump Dodd site?) since after making the statement in conversation he asked me to record it for him. Not sure if he agreed OR not... But he said he would put it out there unedited. We'll see.

As well, a FOX news correspondent, Shelly Sindland, took some information from me after my interview with Senator Dodd. She said she would try to send me some pics that she had (Ed. Note: updated with a photo and attribution link now), as well. And I bumped into Ken Kreyeske there, covering the event either for his Blog or a paper. I did not get much of chance to say more than hello and shake his hand.

Senator Dodd Diagnosed With Prostate Cancer

Via the Hartford Courant:

U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd has been diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer. Dodd is scheduled to undergo surgery during the Senate's August recess and said he expects to be back at work after a "brief recuperation" at home. "It's something that's very common among men my age,'' said Dodd, who is 65 and the father of two young daughters. "In fact, one in six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer at some point during their life.'' Dodd, a Democrat who is up for re-election in November 2010, said he feels fine. "As you have probably noticed, I'm working some long and hard hours lately,'' he said. "And that will continue."

I am certain that everyone wishes him the best in his treatment and hopes for a speedy recovery. We need his voice to help fight for changes in health insurance and healthcare so that every American can have a chance to receive the kind of treatment he will receive. Via tparty, An email from Sen. Dodd to supporters:

Dear Friend,

I wanted to let you know that I've been diagnosed with an early stage of prostate cancer.

This diagnosis is very common among men my age. In fact, one in six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer at some point during their life.

Luckily, a routine test allowed my doctor to catch it at a very early stage, and my prognosis is excellent - we expect a full and speedy recovery.

I want to assure you that I'm feeling fine. As you know, we've been working hard to pass health care legislation and reform our nation's financial system to protect consumers, and that hard work will continue.

After the Senate adjourns at the end of next week, I'll have surgery to remove the cancer. After a week or two of recuperation, I expect to be right back to work.

After all, as a Member of Congress, I have great health insurance. I was able to get screened, seek the opinions of highly skilled doctors, consider all the available options, and choose the treatment that was right for me.

And I know you'll agree that every American deserves the same ability.

We have health care legislation to pass - and an election to win. And I can't thank you enough for your support.

Sincerely,

Chris

A press conference is scheduled for 2pm today.