incompetence

CT Attorney General Dick Blumenthal never met an energy project he couldn't litigate or regulate out of existence, whether it be for the "save the planet" global warming crusade or the NIMBYism of neighbors opposed to power lines.

So when he got called out on driving his state issued Ford Crown Victoria all over the state he promised to switch his official car to a hybrid

Oops, looks like his carbon footprint is getting floored once again.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, an environmental champion, is no longer driving his state-issued Honda Civic hybrid. He returned the “silver bullet” a few weeks ago to the state garage and traded it for a gas guzzling Crown Victoria.

He said earlier this week that he’s waiting for another Honda Civic hybrid with lower mileage, but refused to take back the one he brought in for repairs.

A few weeks ago, he was driving down I-395 when the dashboard lights started flashing at him. He said this was the second time the car had given him problems, the first was back in May when a battery needed to be replaced, a few days after the check engine light appeared the first time.

Typical liberal: demands the common folk drive whatever the experts order; but makes sure he goes in style for his own ride.

At least Chris Murphy is helping the environment; since he's been scarce in public since the Simsbury Stop & Shop Showdown he's not doing much harm even if he still has HIS gas guzzler.  

Full disclosure: I drive a Toyota Corolla (36 mpg hwy); the Mrs. drives a late model Malibu (33 mpg hwy).

Freshman CT Democrat Jim Himes really stepped in it tonight. Hard to tell whether it was cowardice or incompetence, though neither usually are helpful to prolonged incumbency.

Tonight Himes was holding a forum at the Stamford Senior Center. Now what it was about seems to be an amophrous entity.

Early in the day the Redding Pilot  posted that the Himes forum was about the FAA. I'm sure people in Himes's district complain about low flying planes. The same people would live somewhere else if Kennedy and LaGuardia weren't less than an hour away, though.   

Problem is one conservative blogger from Greenwich got on Himes's e-mail list. And Himes invited people to a forum which appeared to be on health care reform. And the blogger is not a happy camper.

Here's the Himes invite.  

chris –

I wanted to send you an urgent invitation to an important town hall with Rep. Jim Himes this evening, Thursday, August 6th. He’ll be talking to constituents and gathering feedback — this is an ideal opportunity to make sure your support for health insurance reform is seen and heard at exactly the right time.

Our congressional representatives are back home this month, and they’re facing more and more pressure from special interests on health insurance reform. It’s critical that we get out there and show them where we stand

Here's what the blogger said happened

 I went over to see for myself what these special interests looked like. Not a Brooks Brothers suit in sight, unless you count all the Himes staffers, and they spent all their time explaining to an increasingly irritated crowd of older (35-70, I’d guess) constituents that no, the Congressman wasn’t here, that if he did show up he was planning to talk about the FAA and wasn’t going to take questions from anyone. Uh huh.

Now it’s always possible that Himes, as his staff said, was planning to speak about the FAA – nothing better suited for a talk at the Senior Center than FAA matters – and that his crew got a little too enthusiastic urging supporters to show up and drown out the special interest insurance company flacks (they didn’t show up either). But if the man were truly our representative and came across a crowd of a hundred-and-fifty  or so people all of whom wanted to talk about ObamaCare and none of them there to discuss airplanes, wouldn’t you think he’d change his plans and address their concerns?

Particularly since they guy just wrote an op-ed today on health care reform...jeez....like maybe folks might wonder if he'd be willing to break with President Obama on this?

Now this guy is labelling Himes the "Coward of the County":  Harsh.

I'm not ready to label Himes the Coward of Fairfield County yet, but like Lucy Arnaz, he's got some ''splaining to do. 

 ===UPDATE===

It gets worse.

I scrolled further down Fountain's site and guess who invited him to a health care forum tonight?

Jennifer Just, the CT leader of the permanent Obama campaign.

We're going to trust the same people who screw up a town hall meeting with our lives and health? Please  

I suppose it's my turn to once again play the same part as William Holden.

Sadly, our own Republican Senators are trying to save the bacon of the Democrats who have cobbled together a blindingly incoherent, unaffordable and unpopular excuse for a health care reform bill.

It makes as much sense as the British Colonel in Bridge on the River Kwai making sure the Japanese army had the best bridge possible. All doing a good job for the Democrats and saving their bill  is to give them something to show for their extravagant campaign promises.

And folks, weren;t we told rather unequivocally "I won ". Good. It's all yours then. You got your 60 votes. Do something with them.

OK, I know about "bipartisanship" and "good government", but folks, we will really get neither until we finally cause the Obama agenda to hit one big pothole that causes them to stop, look and listen.  Grease the skids on this one and theyll be on to the next extravaganza.

And frankly, right now the Republicans who cooperate are like caddies.  Sure they can recommend what club to use and where to aim; but if the shot works the Democrats get all the credit. If it doesn't, our side will be blamed for suggesting "the wrong club". "We would've had a great public option but for those clueless Republicans who stopped us."   All pain, no gain.

And after all, we are trusting the health of our families to the exact same people who ruined our financial system.

We've done a great job of putting the fear of political oblivion into the Blue Dogs and the Cap & Tr8ers. What do we do to get the same results with Senator Grassley?  

Am I the only one out there who seems troubled the President of the United States seems better informed about a disorderly conduct arrest in MA than the details of the most important policy initiative of his administration?

Who needs to be familiar with the details of something that affects our family's lives every day. Hurry up, just pass a bill. Now, What does it say? Who cares.  So what if one of the top guys wants our loved ones to be cut off if they aren;t "participating citizens". It's all a matter of taking the red pill instead of the blue pill. We'll figure it all out for you later.

For his next act is the President going to say he can see Walter  Reed Hospital from the White House window?...therefore just trust him. ,,,,he stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night. That means he's qualified to decide when your kid needs his tonsils out.

C'mon trolls, Defend this. 

We've been told that the cause of the Great Recession was plummetting home values which rendered financial institutions that lent on this collateral illiquid or insolvent. 

Guess now the value of homes isn't that big a problem anymore. Here's a little-known feature tucked into the Cap & Trade debacle which is guaranteed to cost  virtually every American time and money

The bill forces sellers to have an energy inspection prior to being able to sell their home. Windows, appliances and insulation will have to be inspected and approved by a government inspector and modifications would have to be made for compliance before you can close the sale.

Basically, you won't be able to sell until you go through the expense of bringing your house up to the new code. This will cost a prohibitive amount in many cases. For example, let's say that you own an older house which you bought in 2003 for $250,000 and you now need to sell. Not only has the value fallen to or below the level of the mortgage due the the drop in prices, but you are now faced with re-insulating the entire house, installing new windows, and changing the HVAC & other appliances. The total cost for this type of renovation might easily come to well over 10% of the house's value.

I'm sure this is going to reduce the toxic asset problem all the TARP banks have with underwater mortgages, not.  How many hundreds of thousands of homes will  prove too expensive to retrofit and be simply abandoned upon vacancy?  Bailout II for those banks---green style?

And will ACORN hire all these new "government inspectors"?...hey these will be "green jobs"!

I have a rhetorical question. Is there anything that the Obama Administration doesn't want to regulate?

My only comment on this sad event is had the GOP national braintrust followed this sort of advice. It would not have happened

Sarah Palin barnstormed across Iowa in the closing days of the 2008 election. Accomplished a lot, didn't it.

Get back to me when the GOP leadership attains a modicum of competence, please.

Another week, another wave of bank failures....

Regulators shut 5 banks; 45 failures this year

and more to come....

The number of banks on the FDIC's list of problem institutions leaped to 305 in the first quarter -- the highest number since 1994 during the savings and loan crisis -- from 252 in the fourth quarter. The combined assets of those banks rose to $220 billion from $159 billion.

Didn't Chris Dodd say this wasn't going to happen? 

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) on Monday said he does not expect “many more” banks to fail, in the wake of last week’s implosion of IndyMac Bancorp.

After what Chris Dodd has done with our financial system, why in Wicca's name would anyone leave him in charge of reforming health care?

Regulators seize Florida's BankUnited FSB

BankUnited's failure marks 34th bank to close so far this year, will cost FDIC $4.9 billion

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Regulators on Thursday shut down BankUnited FSB, a struggling Florida thrift whose closure is expected to cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. $4.9 billion.

The failure of the Coral Gables, Fla.-based bank represents the second-largest hit to the FDIC's insurance fund so far -- the costliest was last year's seizure of California lender IndyMac, on which the FDIC is estimated to lose $10.7 billion.

BankUnited FSB is the 34th federally insured institution to be closed this year, and the biggest. The FDIC on Thursday took control of the bank, which called itself Florida's largest banking institution with about $13 billion in assets as of May 2

Hey, my Senator said this wasn;t supposed to happen!

Dodd does not expect ‘many more’ banks to fail

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) on Monday said he does not expect “many more” banks to fail, in the wake of last week’s implosion of IndyMac Bancorp.

Dodd, interviewed on CBS’s “Early Show,” said that Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation head Sheila Bair “has indicated there are problems” with other banks. The senator added that he is “more optimistic” about mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than he is about some lenders that engaged in these “very, very bad mortgages.”

Sometimes think a broken clock gets it right more often than Chris Dodd

The fallout from Chris Dodd's lack of love from his home state continues.

Republican challenger Sam Caligiuri released a web video mocking the "groundswell" of support for Dodd in Connecticut.

We have also learned that Dodd's local support was even worse than thought. Republican state chairman Chris Healy ascertained one of Dodd's alleged "local" donors lived in a different Watertown than Watertown, CT; so he's now down to FOUR LOCAL DONORS 

(I have heard there may be more shoes to drop from Dodd's financial report; stay tuned)

So just four local donors and a trail of stiffed people from his last campaign....  

And Dodd still owes nearly $300,000 from his monumental failure of a presidential race in 2008......including this bit of "fiscal responsibility"

but Dodd owes smaller sums to a Des Moines watering hole Kilkenney's ($220), Clinton, Iowa's Old Town Family Restaurant ($130)....

(Note to CT barkeeps; this guy runs out of on his tab. Make sure he pays cash)

He has paid his lawyers almost $150,000 in campaign funds...hmmm.

Well, given how this is working for the Senator, maybe he ought to call his campaign the "Fab Four"

All that special interest money ain't buying him any love back here  

The Atlantic's Megan McArdle, April 8, 2009

I have to say, the worst allegation I've heard about Chris Dodd is not that he's in the pocket of banks and insurers--financial companies naturally seek to curry favor with the Senate Banking Committee, but I don't really see the case that he's sold us out for his benefit.  No, the more damning case is that the Senate Banking Committee was basically non-functional in the early part of the crisis, because Dodd was running for president.  Even if early action could have saved us money and pain later--and that's a big if--I recently heard a plausible case made that such action was made impossible by his presidential campaign.  But somehow, no one finds that offensive, or even notable.

Well, I did

Ironman , July 23, 2008

I asked this question: 

 Did Chris Dodd run the most expensive presidential campaign in American history?

In the fall of 2007 it was apparent to all that a reform bill was urgently needed to do something about the mortgage mess. House committee chair Barney Frank was ready to proceed. Chris Dodd was in an Iowa cornfield pursuing his pipe dream  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/06/AR2007110602146.html

Sure Dodd and Frank would have passed some liberal bill that Bush would have vetoed...in the winter. By spring the Kabuki dance would have been over and some flawed bill would have been passed and signed probably to the right of what we are now talking about...and which would have been a strong sign that Washington "got it" and was reining in the rogue elements in the financial community.  Didn't happen, and the crisis of confidence was allowed to percolate until a full fledged market meltdown occurred

Once again, just slightly ahead of the MSM's time.