Former U.S. Ambassador and, according to the Q Poll, Republican gubernatorial frontrunner Tom Foley released both his Plan Forward for Connecticut and a new tv ad today.
The Plan is to create jobs, shrink the size of government, and change the culture in Hartford:
4.I will work to develop and market the ‘Knowledge Corridor’ from Enfield to New Haven as a unique national asset combining our well-educated and highly skilled workforce with some of the best academic institutions and infrastructure in the nation
The six page plan looks to be the blueprint for Mr. Foley’s candidacy going forward after his announcement was widely panned for its lack of content.
In conjunction with the plan, Mr. Foley has released a new television advertisement:
No word on where or when it will be running. There is also a 60 second version if you’d like twice the fun.
56 responses so far ↓
That’s a pretty good ad for a candidate who’s been criticized for his somewhat flat delivery. The U2-like background music also signals hope and optimism, in my opinion. Seems the people doing his ads are professional and paying attention.
The Tom Foley people are the Scott Brown people. They aren’t just paying attention, they are leading the way.
There is still no substance. It’s a nicely edited ad, though.
“Leading the way” is a bit of cheerleading, Heath. They made a nice ad. This isn’t Omaha Beach.
“Other/no opinion” leads in the polls. We’ll need a month or so to get a clear view of a “leader.”
That would explain a few things. Still, there’s only so much ads can do. What Foley seems to lack in charisma ( a la Scott Brown) will have to be made up in other ways, such as steadiness, competency, and the less flashier aspects of gaining support and trust. That would seem to be Foley’s strength.
Bill’s point was that the folks that crafted the ad are “paying attention”. But the people who crafted the ad aren’t just “paying attention”, they are the ones that hit on this message that had very successful results in Massachusetts.
To the extent that this fact puts them out in front of everyone else, they are indeed “leading the way”.
“Vote for Bush’s friend Foley. He’ll re-build Connecticut just as he re-built Iraq!” — radio ad, coming soon to CT.
Dear God, please let it be Foley….
I get your point Heath. But again, this is more of a generic message. In Mass., it was health care and foreign policy – very specific policy messages on those – that gave him traction early in January. It wasn’t just “jobs and spending,” which are a part of it but not the meat. That’s why I say this still lacks substance.
Thx for the heads-up, Scoop.
Anderson: Foley has the profile, a real plan, a great TV ad, and tons of cash. He doesn’t need your endless heretical prayers to win this nomination. It is pretty clear that it is going down that track already.
Yip-pie ki-yay! Foley all the way!
How much money did he have to raise for George Bush to get that ambassadorship? And what percentage of Stevens Aviation’s revenues come fro
government contracts?
Scooper, Too bad for you, Bush is gone—-Obama is here. That means Democrats are in big trouble.
>>There is still no substance.
No need – no one pays attention to that stuff anyway.
Leave the white papers for the website so the deep-thinkers can review them there.
No sense in doing a TV commercial with a targeted audience of under 100.
Foley’s finally getting it; if he ever hires a mechanic Fedele will be in real trouble; unless he hires one first.
They’re both a little too calm.
Whichever of the two gets fitted with an electric jock strap first will be the nominee.
Funny, ACR. Funny.
But Heath says he has already HIRED a BUNCH of “mechanics.” What you see is what you get, it seems.
Switching topics, Larson filed his Q4 today. $225K raised, $675K on hand.
And Daria Novak’s numbers are in. If you subtract the in-kind contributions, she had one $100 donation. Is it time for her to get out of the race? lol.
V, you’re serious? You want a substantive policy discussion in a 30 second TV ad?
The White Paper is great but it assumes people know what ‘CT Innovations’ is, etc.
He could ride that one topic, state venture capital, for all its worth. The state should be increasing its VC money and accepting warrants and options in return and working wth private VC to launch new CT startups.
Focusing on 7 growing tech industries is OK. What he misses is that the support staff for those industries, Information Technology etc. should be state-based and not-outsourced out of the country and provide incentives to use state resources and to intern and then hire state grads.
OK. He’s a serious candidate. Finally.
The shame is elections often turn on something other than depth and Lamont could well self-destruct or hitch his wagon to a losing cause (Obama) and public works stimulus projects as the future of CT.
I recognize that our economy is in shambles right now, our state budget is is a gaping red ink stain and that all this will likely be the number one issue for voters, but are we going to see any Republican candidate with any other plank in their platform besides “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs!”….? So far all three declared Republican candidates have made jobs not just the centerpiece of their respective campaigns, but the end all and be all. I feel like voters aren’t going to have much to distinguish between them. The candidates do realize that there’s more to being governor than just helping small business grow, right?
I agree Fuzzy. I think I am going to announce a run for Governor and ask you to help run my campaign.
Things are really tough
so let’s all Vote for Pufnstuf!
Paid for by Pufnstuf for Governor, Fuzzy Dunlop Treasurer
Foley’s plan is a direct rip-off.
I can’t find it, but Jodi Rell had basically the same plan in 2006.
What makes Foley think he’d have better results than Rell did?
Connecticut’s problems are structural as much as anything. But nowhere in his plan does Foley even mention property tax reform.
Anderson, are there any specific parts of Foley’s plan you disagree with aside from this:
“I will work hard … on solving problems rather than partisan bickering and infighting”
By the way, tax reform is a pretty significant part of his plan. I think it’s a safe bet property tax reform would be included in a “top to bottom review of state tax policy.”
GoatBoy, I think it’s worth noting that Foley has Venture Capital experience too.
” Mr. Foley was in business having worked in New York at McKinsey & Company and then Citicorp Venture Capital before founding NTC Group in 1985.”
Hey — Foley is bursting ahead, folks.
This is what someone who wants to win the nomination needs to do: demonstrate that he has a firm grasp on his campaign by doing the things that are required to build name ID and develop a substantive campaign message. He’s doing both — and it’s January.
What’s everyone else on the republican side doing, other than watching?
Scooper,
Proposing California’s Property Tax Reform as the solution to CTs ills again?
Silly boy.
My favorite two Democratic agenda items: SustiNet and Proprety Tax Reform. This is from a party that will not balance the budget as it is now. Let’s factor in the $3.4 Billion 2012 deficit, the $1 billion SustiNet program, and the unfunded Pensions into a new Revenue Plan. Good bye property tax reform. Hello to increased Income Tax, Sales Tax and a minimum 7% cut to State Agencies.
Then, maybe then, Teh Democrats can look at property tax along with their dream of a 12% Income Tax for those earning over $125,000.
And I’m still waiting for Ned Lamont’s balanced budget plan for 2012. His stance on SustiNet. His stance on bond ratings and unfunded liabilities.
Apparently he hasn’t discussed it with his hairstylist yet.
It’s the same thing that lost LaMont in 2006. Lotsa foo. Lots of party syncophants that worship foo. No substance. It’s the anorexic’s diet for the swing voters. Feed them nothing and they will be swayed by your charm.
>>But Heath says he has already HIRED a BUNCH of “mechanics.”
Couldn’t remember reading that so I called Heath; odd that he can’t recall saying it.
That said, Foley can actually afford highly knowledgeable over-paid eggheads and the luxury of a series of focus groups and other expensive past times often called for upon the retention of the deep thinker group.
None of that wins elections.
But that hardly keeps those selling such services from finding new unsuspecting clients every cycle. Once in while one actually wins despite it all and of course Eggheads R Us quickly gets permission to use that campaign in their advertising for the next cycle; thus perpetuating their own kind.
A credible and at least occasionally exciting candidate, along with lots of boots on the ground wins elections when the campaign is executed correctly and methodically.
Make no mistake, Foley is a credible candidate; but so is Mike Fedele and actually a few of the others, save for DeNardis who has zero credibility and the background to prove it.
While there’s nothing wrong with Foley, Fedele might well have the better life’s story to tell.
Mike Fedele does in fact personify what is right about America and in doing so he ratifies the work of the nations early settlers and the Founders themselves.
That coupled with Fedele’s ethnicity which avails the GOP of a large group that tends to vote for the other party, could make him the more attractive candidate should he ever give his campaign a good swift kick.
Thus the need for an electric jock strap.
When the candidate isn’t exciting, things should *get* exciting for the candidate right away.
Oh nuts
Let me add; I know I think everyone on the Foley campaign and none of the above should be taken that any of them aren’t doing what they’re supposed to be.
However, no one has been retained as yet to operate the electric remote.
GoatBoy, if you want to destroy yourself of your self-delusions about Ned Lamont, maybe you should read the following, which came out some time ago:
http://ctblueprint.org/docs/CTBlueprint-ActNow.pdf
Ned is deadly serious about fixing Connecticut’s core problems, even if it means he ends up being a one-term governor.
Everyone knows we are stuck. But twenty years with a Republican at the top has only made things worse, as the buck hasn’t stopped with Rell, or the Dem dominated Statehouse.
PS — It’s Vermont whose property tax reform I like. Try this. Google “Vermont property tax reform”, and do fifteen minutes worth of reading.
Whoops, make that “rid yourself of your self-delusions”…
Whatever happened to the preview function?
And I’m still trying to get used to this new iPhone, which is cool in many ways, but tougher to post from….
ACR, you asked about mechanics, and Heath has disclosed that Foley has hired folks from the Brown campaign. Unless you literally mean someone to fix his car or someone to affix electrodes to his nether parts, those are the mechanics I am referring to.
I agree about the “get exciting” part. No doubt.
As for Lamont, well, that would be a nice gift.
Scooper.
It’s out of date.
It doesn’t have SustiNet factored in; it doesn’t discuss CT’s bond rating and underfunded liabilities problem; and it doesn’t work with Wyman’s 3.4 Billion deficit figures for 2012.
It does mention using the Rainy Day Fund
. Already done isn’t it.?
The problem with a document like that: It is signed off by so many people it is hardly a position paper or living document from the LaMont campaign. Or is it an acknowledgement he’ll always be a couple years behind fiscal reality?
No plan with SEBAC will ever be effective without streamlining the layoff of employees including some with Seniority. Even if it is only 15% of the employees laid off in an agency allowing some senior members to be removed would improve state government. The no lay offs ever stance is juvenile as are the barriers to laying off anyone and everyone with seniority. This ongoing notion that state taxpayers exist to feed and serve SEBAC is perverse and well represented in this paper.
The $700 million in future savings from Medicaid and prison reform etc are nice numbers but the paper acknowledges the savings would be years off as would savings from regionalizition initiatives. In other words zero immediate dollars to help with the 2012 deficit.
I could go on but I promised myself I’d let Fuzzy write the longest messages on this board….
>>ACR, you asked about mechanics, and Heath has disclosed that Foley has hired folks from the Brown campaign.
Deep thinker types.
Exactly who he doesn’t need as if they behave as I’ve witnessed in the past,
they’ll probably run roughshod over a couple of people that have a clue down there including one bright and very young U.S. Marine who started this week and totally “gets it”.
Being Governor and getting the job are two entirely different functions.
Getting the job has more in common with selling some consumer product than not.
>>As for Lamont, well, that would be a nice gift.
We should live so long that the other party decides to fall on their own sword on our behalf.
With everyone trying to be the Scott Browniest candidate they can be, I’d like to take a vote. Which Republican candidate for governor would most like to see pose nude for Cosmo?
a) Oz Griebel
b) Mike Fedele
c) Tom Foley
The way I see it, Democrats have controlled Connecticut’s government, from federal offices to state legislature pretty much for the past 40 years. If anybody has the exact timeline, I would appreciate it.
What’s up with the moderation?
pufnstuf – liberated it. Not sure quite honestly what spurred that one. Usually if they are too long or have more than one link, they are good candidates for moderation. But that one, no clue.
This is OT, but it’s good news…
According to the Washington Post, the U.S. economy grew at 5.7 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter, the highest rate of gross domestic product growth since 2003 and up from 2.2 percent in third quarter.
Errrr the links to the Washington Post seem to be taking you to the wrong articles for some reason. very odd. Here’s a better link from the NY Times
The way I see it, Democrats have controlled Connecticut’s government, from federal offices to state legislature pretty much for the past 40 years. If anybody has the exact timeline, I would appreciate it.
For Congress, the Republicans had 3 out of 5 seats for a while (Shays, Simmons, and Nancy Johnson). Simmons served from 2001 to 2007; Johnson from 1983 to 2007; and Shays from 1987 to 2009. Up until 2001, Connecticut had a sixth congressional district. Maloney (D) had that seat from 1997 until 2003 (when it merged with Nancy Johnson’s).
So from 1997 to 2001, it was 4 D and 2 R
From 2001 to 2003 it was 3 D and 3 R
From 2003 to 2007 it was 2 D and 3 R
From 2007 to 2009 it was 4 D and 1 R
From 2009 to today it is 5 D and 0 R
On the Senate side, Dodd has been a Senator since 1981, Ribicoff was before him, and was Senator since 1963, so Democrats have held that seat since 1963 (when Prescott Bush held it). Lieberman has been Senator since 1989, before that there was Lowell Weicker.
So the Democrats / “Independent Democrats” have held both Senate seats for 21 years.
What’s up with the moderation filter? My last comment is awaiting liberation!
gmr – Liberation complete.
The GDP number is fabulous — but like all the numbers out of Commerce this year, it needs to be taken with a grain of salt. The 3Q GDP number was startling at 3.8%, way above the expected 2.2%, and it boosted Wall street big time.
Two months later, the final, accurate number revealed the actual growth was …..2.2%, which would have done nothng for Wall St. or Obama. This number will eventually be adjusted down to about 4 per cent — still good, but not unexpected, as was the 5.8% number.
The seccond half of 2010 is the real test for GDP.
There are those forecasting a second dip as government stimulus funds start drying up, some Asian bubbles burst, and the Seasonal Census workers are laid off.
CT’s on pace for 140,000 jobs lost by end of the year. We should see some upward revisions shortly on CTs recession woes.
True, GoatBoy. I don’t believe their will be a second dip, I just believe small biz will have the foot on the brakes until there is some clarity out of government related to taxes, regulations and mandates ( E.G. mandatory health care and carbon taxes). So we’ll have moderate to slow growth of @ 1 to 2 %.
Vince, yes the problem is that growth is coming from exporting businesses like Microsoft and retailers like Amazon.
January is usually the month for small cap stocks and the Russell 2000 is stil getting killed. US small business isn’t sharing in this 2% GDP increase.
Foot on the brakes is mild as business closures are increasing.
A 2% GDP is a jobless economy nationally. We know what that means in CT.
It’s doubtful we can add jobs at the 22,000 a year rate we did in the last two recessions and if we start recovering jobs in 2011 we are at minimum of five years away from recovering the jobs lost. That’s the optimistic figure. It’s more likely a 12 year effort as there will be another cyclical recession during the recovery period from 2011 to 2023.
I’m a permabear when it comes to CT’s job growth prospects.
Goat, the govt. needs to implement a strategy specifically geared toward getting small biz to put their foot on the gas. Otherwise, these CT unemployed will be out of work a long time, or, more likely, will be moving to other climes.
Thanks for the breakdown gmr…so, is it fair to say that Democrats have pretty much dominated the general assembly for the past 40 years?
ACR,
Although I don’t think Chris Shays necessarily falls into this category, I do agree with his assessment that Connecticut needs a leader, not a manager right now. All this talk that running a state is as simple as running a business simply isn’t the case; not unless 60% + of the management team of your business is seeking your political destruction, and not unless you’re forced to make life and death decisions about employees of your company. Starting a successful tech company does not automatically make you qualified to run a government.
I also agree with a something that Don has noted previously and that Brian Lockhart has brought up in Political Capitol; Fedele will be hampered by his association with Rell. Connecticut has suffered greatly from her lack of leadership and total ineffectiveness (is anyone on this blog a Rell supporter?) and Mike hasn’t exactly spoken up during his tenure as Lt. Gov… in fact, he’s cited her as a role model.
Bottom line: I’m not buying the business owner as leader schtick from anyone; and I’m wary of anyone who purports to view Em Dot as a role model.
>>Starting a successful tech company does not automatically make you qualified to run a government.
Nor would one expect a B movie actor to come seemingly out of no where and be considered by millions to have been the greatest American leader since George Washington.
Personally, I’m not fully convinced that most leadership qualities aren’t innate with only some of the tasks involved (negotiation, speaking) being honed by education and experience.
IOW’s – I’m not so sure it’s about experience at all, but rather a more natural ability.
Most of us have met at least a few that have some magnetism that exudes so that we would literally follow the individual to the gates of Hell fully expecting to return in short order with the head of Satan on a stick.
Reagan could do that; Rob Simmons can too.
That some readers will disagree wouldn’t leave either example shorthanded.
BTW – Put Corey Brinson on your radar, his speaking ability lends itself in that direction as well.
It’s the entirety of the delivery; not just the choice of words in the speach.
While your mileage may vary, he may already be the best Republican public speaker in the state.
Brinson’s only 29 years old; we’ll be seeing him for years.
I’ve no idea what heights he’ll achieve; but I’m sure they’ll be lofty as there’s something about him that even the casual observer will see, that makes it clear Brinson will prosper at any endeavor that commands his attention.
In what Courant reporter Dave Altimari called “a stunning verdict,” a Superior Court jury in Waterbury yesterday awarded Gina Malapanis, owner of Computers Plus Center Inc., $18 million after finding that state officials had “ruined her business with false claims that she had broken her state contract.”
In a press release sent to various state newspapers in March 2003, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal announced that he was “pursuing law enforcement actions related to contractor irregularities” against Malapanis’ company.
Blumenthal claimed the company had installed generic memory chips in computers sold to the state rather than chips installed by the computer maker and demanded $1.7 million from Malapanis in a civil action. Blumenthal also worked in tandem with Connecticut’s Chief State Attorney and the Department Of Information Technology (DOIT). In a parallel criminal action, Malapanis was arrested at her home by Hebron police. But the charges were dropped after her business had been effectively hobbled.
Previous legal documents shed light on Malapanis’ counter suit. In a complaint brought against Blumenthal seeking damages, Malapanis alleged:
Malapanis also claimed procedural and substantive due process violations under the Connecticut Constitution. She claimed that “the defendant state officials conduct constituted a taking of Malapanis’ property without just compensation.” Malapanis alleged “abuse of process, defamation, tortious interference with contractual relations, and a violation of the Connecticut Antitrust Act. She sought money damages, punitive and exemplary damages, treble damages, costs, and attorneys’ fees against defendant Regan, Bannon, Miller-Sullivan, and Blumenthal in their individual capacities.” Malapanis also sought an “injunction ordering the defendants to expunge all records that relate the Malapanis and CPC being a non-responsible bidder; an injunction restoring the 2001 Contract to CPC and Malapanis, and an injunction requiring defendants Blumenthal and Regan to issue a press release and publicly withdraw their allegations against Malapanis and CPC made at the March 17, 2003 press conference and in the press release.”
Blumenthal is contesting the jury verdict while he holds on to his position as Attorney General and runs for U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd’s seat.
Charges of fatally defective affidavits, the taking of property without just compensation and tortious interference with contractual relations will seem wearily familiar to the Hoffman’s and to the owners of New England Pellet. The Hoffman case is detailed here, and the New England Pellet case is detailed here.
Don,
The story you cite to really drives home a critical quality that an Attorney General must have; being capable of evaluating and weighing the strengths and weaknesses of potential lawsuits, determining whether there is a legitimate case to be made and finally deciding whether to exercise the awesome power of the state. The lives and businesses of the people who the state sues are at stake (in the cited case, the liberty of their owners as criminal charges were pursued), and as we see here, the state, as a party, can suffer financial losses when it brings frivolous lawsuits (also see the $34 million judgment against WestFarms mall for their sham “citizen” lawsuits against Blueback Square for an example of how your lawsuit can turn around on you).
I keep saying it; regardless of what the statutory or constitutional requirements are, the AG is the state’s chief civil litigator, and this requires a specific skill set. This is why Susan Bysiewicz’s candidacy makes almost no sense to me; she is a policy wonk, and has never in her career shown an interest in litigating. She does not have the sort of experience in her background that would lead me to believe that she is capable or qualified of making the important judgments and strategic decisions that the state’s chief litigator is required to make.
ACR, none of these guys are very Reaganesque…
- Foley is, well, flat. His presentation is unexciting and stilted. His campaign commercials remind me of Weekend at Bernies…. I keep expecting to see two goofy twenty somethings propping him up trying to make him look like he’s alive.
- Fedele comes off like a plucky floor salesman in Best Buy. That or one of those consultants from Office Space… when he starts talking about doing an “asset inventory” for the state I start to yawn.
- Griebel is going to get eaten alive by conservatives within the party.
Also, the RNC rejected the so called “purity” test a few days ago that was being pushed by some of the more conservative elements of the party. This test would have required candidates to publicly agree with a certain number of core principles before receiving funding from the national party.
I can’t help wondering however…. How would some of Connecticut’s candidates faired? Fedele is pro choice I believe, and Griebel has declined to commit to not raising taxes. Foley seems conservative by association (with Bush) but I’m not certain what most of his positions are.
Dunlop – I have no argument with any of the 3 assessments you make; hence my repeated call for increased amphetamine laced espressos for either or both Foley & Fedele.
Griebel at least is a fairly convincing and somewhat more forceful speaker.
>>the RNC rejected the so called “purity” test a few days ago that was being pushed by some of the more conservative elements of the party.
…..
How would some of Connecticut’s candidates faired?
Exactly the point, and exactly why it failed.
The only thing the GOP can afford to not tolerate is intolerance itself.
Any such test should be limited to defending Constitutional Rights, most especially the second as that’s a constant target from the left, and the founding principles of the party and ONLY those principles.
That said; while (depending on how the question is framed) like over 60% of New England Republicans, I’m pro-choice; those in the pro-life camp need to be accommodated in some fashion or we’ll lose their support and that’s not something we can afford to lose.
It would be preferable I think for the party to swear-off our schizophrenia.
We’ve had almost from day one.
We literally started the Civil War, freed the slaves and went home.
Doing little to embrace those whose status we had improved.
We eventually got around to a series of acts; but while this was going on Irish immigrants were having a dickens of a time due mostly to their Catholicism and we did nothing at all.
That was a mistake, or a massive oversight that we should have realized at the time as like the Scots, the Irish had their hands full with the British and we already had some experience dealing with them, and knew firsthand they could be a troublesome bunch when inclined.
It was the Republicans that fought for the right to vote for women; yet once again in too many areas we were slow to embrace a new constituency.
Roughly simultaneously, America was the new home for waves of Italians.
Living up to our national habit, the current crop of immigrants was not being well recieved, quite the contrary.
Today Connecticut Republicans universally agree we blew that hand; for today there are more citizens of Italian descent here in percentage, than any other state. Had we aggressively sought the Italian vote 60+ years ago Connecticut would surely be the most Republican state in the union.
The Republican Party needs to be constantly vigilant in the defense of the rights and dignity of the individual.
It’s where we came from in the first place; and we need to focus our efforts from whence we came.
Fuzzy,
Blumenthal has the skills you find lacking in SB, so his errors cannot have occurred as a result of the lack of a skill set. There are a few problems. First, the attorney general’s office has been prosecuting on the cheap. In the NEP case, the affiant who signed the affidavit claiming that one of the principals had or was about to fraudulently transfer assets admitted under oath in a deposition that he had no reason to believe what he asserted in the affidavit was true. The actual affidavit was compiled by the assistant attorney general who was prosecuting NEP; the “investigator,” who did no investigating, merely signed it. The affidavit itself was fatally flawed because Connecticut statutes require that the affiant should have “personal knowledge” of the matter in the affidavit. That was not the case.
Now, no one prosecuting this case lacked the skill set necessary to discover, after reading e-mails available to them before Blumenthal sued, that the attorney general had prosecuted the wrong people. The shortage of pellets that formed the basis of Blumenthal’s attack on NEP was caused by NEP’s supplier, who shorted NEP because he wanted to capture territory developed by NEP in New York and New Jersey.
Everyone who touched this case had skills enough to discover the truth. No one did.
Why?
That is the question that ought to be put to Blumenthal, who is the CEO of the operation.
None of the reporters writing about this case lacked the skill set to discover this injustice.
Why did they not discover it?
At least Simmons reacted to the new botch: http://blogs.courant.com/capitol_watch/2010/01/the-simmons-campaign-reacts-to.html#more
Don,
Obviously, a balance is needed. I still think that experience as a litigator is one of several important qualifications that voters should look for in a candidate.
My biggest concern with Susan mirrors your criticisms of Blumenthal; it is clear that she would be driven more by her ambitions for higher office than anything else… this COMBINED with her lack of real, court side experience, and the power that the Attorney General wields makes for a dangerous mix.
Indeed, I agree with you. Because Blumenthal has sovereign immunity, he cannot be corrected by the usual process, which is to give those who have suffered an injustice at his hands the opportunity to collect damages. The case mentioned here is very unusual.
Precisely because of the sovereign immunity, the courts insist that Blumenthal in his processes strictly follow statutory regulations – one of which is that affiants (those who give sworn testimony on affidavits) have “direct knowledge” of the matter included in the affidavit. Blumenthal’s affidavits, in the two cases I have examined, contain hearsay information supplied by assistant attorneys general or inspectors that simply sign off on the affidavits.
I’ll tell you why this is important. In both the Hoffman case and the NEP case, the sole charge that permitted Blumenthal to attach the assets of both companies was the charge that the principles in those companies “had or were about to fraudulently transfer assets.” In neither case was that true. The permission to seize assets was secured in an ex parte proceeding: Blumenthal presented the fatally defective affidavit to a judge in a court proceeding in which his VICTIMS were not able to answer the charges against them. And on the strength of those defective affidavits, Blumenthal was able to attach assets which a) made it impossible for his VICTIMS to pay lawyers defend them, b) deprived them of their constitutional right to be secure in their property, c) made it impossible for them to satisfy the complainants on whose behalf Blumenthal claimed to be action, d) defamed them unjustly in a premature press release, and much more.
And you cannot sue him, because he has sovereign immunity.
None of this is a result of a lack of skills on Blumenthal’s part – just the opposite.
Now, judges should correct this semi-criminal behavior. News people, always happy to provide oceans of space in their papers to the most photographed AG in history, should pick up on these cases. They don’t. And no one should vote for him – for any reason.
We’ll see if the correctives are applied.
I’m not holding my breath.
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