Tag: dick blumenthal

Hey, @SenBlumenthal: STAND BEHIND the Yellow Line, you nitwit.

The yellow safety line exists precisely so that idiots like Senator Blumenthal (D, Connecticut) might – I repeat, might – have a fighting chance of surviving the sudden appearance of a fast-moving train.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5Wo8p72LZA

Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal learned you should probably practice what you preach when he was nearly hit by a train during a commuter safety press conference Sunday.

Continue reading Hey, @SenBlumenthal: STAND BEHIND the Yellow Line, you nitwit.

#rsrh Blumenthal Chief of Staff threatens website.

(H/T Instapundit) The Connecticut Mirror went with the wrong title with this article by choosing “Once again, Blumenthal appears to misstate his history.” Admittedly, the story itself – that Senator Dick Blumenthal is reprising his unfortunately-successful electoral strategy of lying about his Vietnam service by inflating his role in Roe vs. Wade – is newsworthy.  Not surprising in the slightest, and certainly not a new low for the freshman Senator from Connecticut – but newsworthy.  But it still shouldn’t have been the title.

The title should have been “Blumenthal Chief of Staff threatens website.”

Laurie Rubiner, Blumenthal’s chief of staff, echoed that argument[*] and warned against writing such an “incendiary” story.

“This is a very unfair route you are going down,” she said. “We’ll remember this.”

Continue reading #rsrh Blumenthal Chief of Staff threatens website.

Dick Blumenthal lying about death penalty stance.

The death penalty has been an issue in the recent Connecticut gubernatorial election, and it seems to have spilled over into the Senatorial election, too – mostly because Dick Blumenthal can’t be bothered to remember if he started loving the death penalty in 1990, or in 2005. Then again, knowing Blumenthal… he probably decided that he could claim both and get away with it. It’s a habit with the man.

Below is a sort of timeline, sort of collected quotes that will demonstrate that… well, that Dick Blumenthal lies through his teeth. It’s pretty straightforward, but here’s the executive summary: Blumenthal claimed that he’s been for the death penalty since he first ran for Attorney General, the historical record contradicts that assertation handily, and it’s plausible to assume that Blumenthal’s conversion on the issue had to do with the political benefits from executing a notorious Connecticut serial killer. That last part’s speculative, which is why I write ‘plausible.’

Last note: some of these quotes and excerpts were made available to me. I’ve provided online sources where I could.

Part I: Blumenthal’s shifting narrative.

1990 is, obviously, twenty years ago. But let’s keep going with this: Continue reading Dick Blumenthal lying about death penalty stance.

Dick Blumenthal’s Countrywide problem.

Jerry Brown’s, too.

It’s not often that you’ll see a conservative site link approvingly to a Nation article, but these are odd days.  The executive summary: in 2008 Countrywide Financial/Bank of America – yes, the same Countrywide that gave sweetheart loans to Senator Dodd of Connecticut, who completely non-coincidentally decided not to run for re-election this year – entered into a 8.6 billion dollar settlement with those of its borrowers currently in financial trouble.  The Nation has a variety of opinions – generally unfavorable, to put it mildly – on how well that settlement is working; but the part of the article that should really be drilled down from our point of view is the bit about how this is all being paid for.  You see, in that announcement Blumenthal indicated “This settlement will cost BofA as much as $8.6 billion, but no cost, not a dime, to taxpayers.”

The Nation calls that a flat lie: Continue reading Dick Blumenthal’s Countrywide problem.

Paging Linda McMahon (R CAND, CT-SEN)…

Ace looks upon this video, and declares it the raw material for Linda’s next campaign ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRSpQ1ud9R0

…and I heartily agree. For those without video access, it’s from a primary debate between Dick Blumenthal and Merrik Alpert. Alpert pointed out, in so many words, that under Dick’s tenure as Attorney General Connecticut was one of two states* to have a net loss of jobs. And then Alpert proceeded to ask Dick how many jobs his lawsuits created. Dick’s response was that his lawsuits created jobs because businesses love competition.

No, really, that’s what he said. Presumably, Dick’s argument is if he hadn’t done all those lawsuits then Connecticut would have lost even more jobs. Or that it was only through Dick’s regular sacrifices of marmosets to the Great Pumpkin every Roodmass that Connecticut has so far not been swept out to sea by a vengeful tsunami.

Look, it makes just as much sense as Dick’s actual answer, OK?

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Linda McMahon for Senate.

*Hi, Governor Jennifer Granholm! Thanks for giving us Michigan! Rick Snyder for Governor!

The Inexorable McMahon Job-Creation Ad.

If you missed Dick Blumenthal’s incredibly clueless answer to Linda McMahon’s simple question “How do you create a job?” at the last debate, don’t worry: the McMahon campaign has had boiled it down to a television ad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovIBLQyl7HE&feature=player_embedded

And in the process they managed to do what was I would have thought would be the impossible; they managed to cram two minutes of idiocy into a thirty second clip. Including Blumenthal’s rictus grin; as God is my witness, when I watched that originally I fully expected Dick to end his ‘response’ with the happy declaration that he had just done a Number Two in his pants. Continue reading The Inexorable McMahon Job-Creation Ad.

So, DSCC: which candidate will you abandon…

[UPDATE]: Welcome, Instapundit readers.

…to firewall Connecticut?

Propelled by Connecticut likely voters who say they are “angry” with government, former wrestling executive Linda McMahon, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate, is closing in on Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, the Democrat, and now trails just 49 – 46 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

This compares to a 51 – 45 percent Blumenthal lead in a September 14 likely voter survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll, conducted by live interviewers.

Personally, if I were still a Democrat I would recommend Kentucky and Missouri – actually, if I were still a Democrat I would recommend Nevada, but Reid’s still too powerful in his caucus to make that feasible. Of the other Republican-held Senate seats, New Hampshire’s probably not been dedicated enough money anyway, everybody knows that Ohio’s a lost cause, and the Democrats don’t dare dump Meek in Florida at this point.  This is not the year for Democratic gains.  Which is fine by me: the Democrats do not deserve gains.

One last note: isn’t it just hysterical that it’s the Democratic party that needs to make hard financial choices in the homestretch?  This is why I stopped looking at the cash-on-hand totals; it became irrelevant once it became clear that the Republicans would have enough money to fight on the battlefields of our choosing and that the Democrats wouldn’t have enough money to defend everywhere simultaneously.

Linda McMahon for Senate.

Moe Lane (Crosspost)

PS: The Democrats should also decide whether they’d rather risk losing Connecticut, or Delaware.

Rasmussen: McMahon (R CAND, CT-SEN) within five.

Not quite inside MoE, but we’ve got a month to go.  Rasmussen gives the numbers as being 50/45 Blumenthal/McMahon: as a look at the polls over the last few months show , this race has been steadily tightening since Linda McMahon was nominated.  Which is probably why Bill Clinton had to stump for Blumenthal ; the DSCC was and is not prepared to spend large sums of money on this race, and it shows.  They’re also pretty clearly not prepared to handle the specter of an actual contest in Connecticut, and that also shows.  You know, you hear a lot of criticism directed at the NRSC’s recruitment policy, and some of those criticism is justified, and some of it is not.  But what you don’t hear is much criticism of the DSCC’s recruitment policy… and, frankly, they’ve been awful this cycle, even though they have the advantage of playing largely a defensive game.  Blumenthal represents one of their better gets, and he’s been hemorrhaging support all summer.

Well, maybe Quinnipiac’s poll tomorrow will give the Democrats better news.  Then again, maybe it won’t.

Moe Lane (Crosspost)

PS: There’s a debate scheduled for October 4th between Linda and Blumenthal; at this rate, the latter may be wishing that he had agreed to an earlier one…

Dick Blumenthal (D CAND, CT-SEN) lies on cap-and-trade support.

Lying, in fact, is the best-case scenario. What happened is that Dick Blumenthal, when asked point-blank whether he supported cap-and-trade, told a constituent ‘no.’ Surprisingly unambiguously, as the video below shows:

Note the ‘cap-and-trade is dead’ bit: it’ll be important later. Continue reading Dick Blumenthal (D CAND, CT-SEN) lies on cap-and-trade support.

DOOM declared in CT by… Journal Inquirer.

I don’t pretend to be familiar with Connecticut newspapers, but judging from this article the J-I must be a Democratic-leaning one: there’s a palpable sense of angry disbelief that… that… that Linda McMahon could possibly be wrecking Dick Blumenthal’s smooth ascension to Countrywide Dodd’s Senate seat.  I mean, the author’s saying stuff about Blumenthal that I might hesitate to write, given that he’s – for now – still leading outside the margin of error:

Blumenthal is an even weaker candidate… gives an impression of total obsequiousness as a candidate… A politician who has no respect for himself… A politician who runs away from his party, his president, and his own record…  caught in an embarrassing fairy tale about his combat service in Vietnam… this performance was an award winner for political malpractice and tone-deafness…some sort of independent… The man is so afraid of losing that he is headed for a self-fulfilling prophecy par excellence…  Democrats in Washington and Chicago, calculating ways to hold the Senate should send their money to Delaware or Pennsylvania or Colorado… Unless Blumenthal gets a guts transplant, this race is gone; this candidate is hopeless, doomed, toast.

Bolding mine.  I never thought that I would see a Democrat in Connecticut say that about a Democratic candidate for Senate in 2010 not named Dodd.  At least, not before Labor Day. Continue reading DOOM declared in CT by… Journal Inquirer.