Saturday, January 14, 2006

Open Forum

Sorry for the glacial pace of posts... it's been a very busy week.

Rell's ethics counsel has been identified as the one who recommended a gubernatorial aide (who was later rejected for lying on his application) for a position in the ethics director's office, although apparently she denied ever having done so. Yeesh.

Sens. Lieberman and Dodd still aren't sure how they'll vote on Alito.

An upcoming event to watch for is a live question and answer session with prospective Senate candidate Ned Lamont on this site, which will hopefully happen sometime in the next week. I'll let you know when I have more details.

What else is happening today?

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

How is it that "apparently she denied ever having done so," as the article states "both Bycel and Rubin confirmed in separate interviews that she was the acquaintance"? Is there another link to a different story?

Genghis Conn said...

Here's what I was talking about:
But they disagreed about the discussion that led Bycel to contact Moreland. As Bycel told it: "I said, 'Do you know anyone who would be good [for my office]?' ... She said, 'Oh, hey, there's a kid who's over at the governor's office. He knows ethics really well, and give him a call.'"

Later Friday, Rubin said, "I never would say anything like that," and "I didn't tell him to call.'"


I should have been clearer: she admitted to being the acquaintance, but seems to disagree that she specifically told Bycel to call.

Anonymous said...

Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Some interesting data points from the Q-poll: JDS' favorables dropped 9% points and his 'unknowns' increased by 10% points; DM's favorability stayed flat, but his 'unknowns' increased by 5% points (the outside of the error range).

The trends in general satisfaction have been absolutely flat over a year and a half. Rell's trustworthiness/honesty numbers haven't changed in the least. Increase in ethics in gov't is almost exactly the same as a year and a half ago.

In some ways, it seems that the electorate is becoming cemented in its views, both of Rell and the overall state of the State. This may be why JDS and DM's numbers are moving up, that people are consistent in their views, and frankly, aren't looking elsewhere right now. But looking back over the last year, we had the incredible run up in gas prices, Moody-gate, campaign finance, civil unions, etc., all potentially divisive or wedge type issues, and the only real movement in a year and a half of polls, is the increase in 'don't know' for JDS and DM. You can see the same thing in the hypothetical match up against Rell; both JDS' and DM's numbers haven't changed, but Rell has increased her numbers, why the 'don't know/don't respond' has dropped.

Just something to think about.

Anonymous said...

As kerryfan86 hinted earlier, evidence of the incompetence and stupidity of Susan Bysiewicz's office continues to mount.

Bysiewicz said she had a hard time finding voting machine vendors that could meet Connecticut's requirement of a "full face ballot" - i.e., the full ballot must appear on the screen. Turns out there never was such a requirement.

Bysiewicz recently rejected the company that had been chosen to provide new voting machines because the vendor never received proper certification to meet state and federal requirements. She'll need to start the whole process over again.

VoteTrustUSA points out that Bysiewicz could have prevented the whole problem by simply visiting a Web site or making a phone call:

Updated lists of qualified voting systems are published on the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) website regularly, and the status of pending applications for qualification can be ascertained by a phone call to the ITA Secretariat. Apparently, it did not occur to the Secreatary of State's office to confirm Danaher's claims of imminent certification. In fact, VoteTrustUSA learned through such a phone call that Danaher still has not even initiated the qualification process for the machines that Connecticut was planning to purchase. Connecticut requires NASED qualification before a voting system can be certified for use in the state.

This reinforces Bysiewicz's reputation for being profoundly uninterested in doing her job.

Anonymous said...

A few local newspapers have "discovered" blogs and experimented with their own. Many of the results have been unexciting, and I think newspapers aren't quite sure what to do with blogs. What is striking to me is how few address political topics.

The New Haven Register blogs avoid politics entirely (and you have to scroll to the bottom of the home page to find them).

Among the CT Post blogs, Orphaned City touches on politics, but is rarely updated, and I have a hard time understanding a word he's saying. Common John, another blog, is also rarely updated.

At the Courant, Colin McEnroe, who teaches a blog class at Trinity, has occasional political commentary and probably has the most consistently interesting newspaper blog. (He's obsessed with movies lately.)

Denis Horgan, ostensibly a travel columnist, has returned to his old haunts and makes some comments on political issues. Courant readers may recall that shortly after Horgan and fellow columnist Tom Condon started writing anti-war columns, the Courant changed their job assignments to non-political topics. They also forced Horgan to kill off his personal blog, which he maintained entirely on his own time and which addressed non-travel topics. The controversy over free speech issues raised by the latter action caused a local and even international uproar. A recent blog posting from the Courant ombudsman quotes reader mail stating that Horgan was "sacked", but I'm not sure if that refers to his older job transfer or if he is soon leaving entirely.

The Norwich Bulletin is inviting readers to propose blogs. Politics is notably not on the long list of topics in which the paper expresses interest.

The Danbury News Times has made a similar invitation, though they don't explain what they're looking for.

So why so little newspaper blog content on politics or public policy, when there is some openness to other topics? Fear? Controversy? Worry about "balance"? Scaring advertisers? Diminished editorial control? A resignation to the fact that weeklies often do more to cover local politics than dailies? It's sad to see the lack of commitment to public service and civic discussion as the "Fourth Estate" encounters the "Fifth Estate."

Anonymous said...

mikect: that was a little more of a hint about Susan as I left it to the bloggers to interpret the first sentence in my rhetorical question: After being forced to scrap plans to buy thousands of new high-tech voting machines because no company could meet Connecticut's requirements, state officials revealed Friday that none of those requirements never existed in state law.

Anonymous said...

Whoops, I pushed the send button instead of the check button but it's another issue anyway. what do youawl think will be the fallout if we find out that info learned from the NSA/DoD intercepts were used for political advantage? It's a possibility because its been done before and it's hard as hell to trace but it can be done.

Goooooo Patrick Fitzgerald.

Anonymous said...

c'mon Susie was busy calling every lawyer in the state on her cell phone during business hours asking for coin...who knows how many closings or depositions were disrupted.

Anonymous said...

YeahThe Connecticut Post has a bunch og blogs linked to their site. Boring

Anonymous said...

Rennie's column this week notes how Rell and Moody were together socializing the day before she was suspended.

Rell needs her pc head examined.

Anonymous said...

The New London Day promises to start a few blogs as of Monday, along with a "revamped" Web site. No mention about the topics. The print ad is written entirely in IM glyphs and made my teeth curl. However, the Day does have a tendency to attract good writers, so their efforts might be of some interest.

Anonymous said...

The Register editorial today is on New Haven getting a downgrade in its bond rating.

"In its downgrade, Fitch cited the city’s high debt, its under funded pensions, failure to keep a fund balance of 5 percent, high unemployment and poverty."

From here

The pensions are what bothers me. Isn't King John supposed to be the labor candidate?

Anonymous said...

There appears to be a challenger out there to Congressman John Larson in the 1st CD.

Here is his website. He sounds extremely unconventional

www.gomacgo.net

Sean said...

Does anyone really buy that both Lieberman and Dodd are still unsure about how they will vote on Alito? Maybe Dodd is still unsure, though my bet is that he will be toeing the middle until the very end, then vote against Alito. Lieberman, though, almost assuredly won't be considering voting against Alito. On my blog, I explain that Lieberman is such a moderate, he wouldn't associate himself with Boxer, Kennedy, and some of the left-wing liberals who are voting against Alito as a political statement about Bush and Republicans rather than because Alito is unqualified or unfit for the position.

Anonymous said...

"Isn't King John supposed to be the labor candidate?"

It's an old scam, giving the unions today everything they want and let some future Mayor gouge taxpayers or go hat in hand to Hartford for a bailout.

John Destefano, meet Joe Santopietro, Mike Bergin et al

Anonymous said...

Arlen Specotr only announced that he would vote for Scalito after the hearings were conducted and as he declared them closed. I'd be bothered if Dodd or Lieberman announced there position before reviewing the transcripts just as I'm bothered by any Senator form either side deciding before the hearings are conducted. But I am rahter naive admittedly.

Anonymous said...

Captain Obvious--

Isn't Sen. Murphy the labor candidate as well?

Anonymous said...

Ned Lamont will be in Hartford on Tuesday evening.

Anonymous said...

Johnny De is using another old and discredited municipal budget scam....using widly unreasonable collection rates from delinquent accounts to "balance" his budget.

"Ticket revenue millions short
Andy Bromage, Register Staff
01/16/2006

NEW HAVEN — Money the city banked on collecting from current and overdue parking tags was $7 million under budget through November, leaving a stain of red ink midway through the fiscal year, a report shows.


The shortfall raises fresh questions about whether Mayor John DeStefano Jr.’s administration was overly confident in the city’s ability to collect millions from old parking tags, fines often belonging to out-of-towners who either can’t be tracked down or have no intention of paying."

Guess Wall Street is afraid he's going to turn into Mayor DeStiffano

Anonymous said...

Testing, testing