Back when I was over at CT Local Politics I blogged about Chris Healy's clumsy attempt to use new media to slime CT Reps by setting up Twitter accounts in their names linking to MEET(REPSNAME).com sites containing negative attacks.
Problem was, in doing so, the CT GOP was breaching Twitter's Terms of Service, despite Healy's claims of "parody". Judging by the humor in those tweets, I'm not sure Healy would know a "parody"if it dressed up like like the Pope at a Tarts and Vicars party.
But here's some really bad news from the Left Coast for the "humorists" over at GOP State Central.
California aims to outlaw the growing practice of online impersonation, which is often used for nefarious purposes.
A bill, authored by State Senator Joe Simitian, aims to update laws written in 1872 to recognise that "in the age of the internet, pretending to be someone else is easy".
The bill, awaiting the signature of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, would make it a crime to "harm, intimidate, threaten or defraud" through the internet or other electronic means.
Penalties for such behaviour would be a $1,000 (£600) fine and or a year in jail. Victims would be allowed to sue for compensation.
"Our identity is one of the most personal things we have, and when someone misuses that it seems there ought to be some sort of deterrence," Senator Simitian told BBC News.
"In the days when the original law was written, no-one could have anticipated Facebook or Twitter or even e-mail - all of which are ripe for the kind of online impersonation this bill seeks to address. It seems to be that for anyone who engages in this kind of behaviour there ought to be consequences."
1. The Washington Post is showing the love for Linda McMahon this morning, calling her "a remarkably polished and poised first-time candidate."
McMahon...is ready to embrace the serious success of the company and even the aura of scrappiness it lends her. Then with poise and legalese, she distances herself from wrestling scenes that are sexually explicit and purposefully inflammatory, moments her opponents hope to highlight. That trick is made even tougher by McMahon's star turns inside the ring. While her appearances were nowhere near as regular as those of Jesse "The Body" Ventura, the former governor of Minnesota, her groin-kicking alter-ego nevertheless did combat with her own husband, son and daughter. Watching her recite well-coached corporate talking points to reconcile the two can be a spectacle in its own right.
The Post goes on to lead us through her "well-coached corporate talking points" without questioning their validity. Great journalism, Post!
2. Rob Simmons is not a happy camper. First he was dissed by Joe Scarborough, who gave both Republican Senate hopeful Linda McMahon and Democratic prospective Senate candidate Dick Blumenthal airtime on his Feb 12th "Morning Joe" show. But according to Simmons, ""We inquired, we inquired, we inquired and we didn't get on."
Simmons is also "concerned" about the neutrality of CT GOP head Chris Healy, given his wife Suzan Bibisi's position with the McMahon campaign. According to McMahon's latest FEC report, Bibisi was paid $6,532 on Nov. 30 and a total of $7,206 in December.
A person who "understands the thinking within the Simmons camp" explained:
Another person who understands the thinking within the Simmons camp used far stronger language.
"While the Simmons campaign has held out hope that Healy would prove to be an honest broker, they have since lost confidence based on what they believe are Healy's actions in support of McMahon's campaign and the fact he has a big financial stake that grows each day McMahon remains in the race," the person said.
Healy, during an interview Sunday, said he is still an honest broker and if it can be proved that he asked a delegate or potential delegate to the Republican convention to back McMahon over Simmons, "then I'll quit. ... That's ridiculous." Healy said it is inappropriate for him to support any one candidate, but he said that recently, at the suggestion of some other party insiders, he did ask Simmons whether he would be open to running for the former congressional seat he lost in 2006.
"When people ask me to think about it and make an offer to discuss it with the Simmons people, I have a responsibility to do that," Healy said, emphasizing he was only the messenger.
I remember Anderson Scooper bringing up this conflict of interest at CTLP when we heard the news about Ms. Biblisi hire by the McMahon campaign. He was immediately piled on by the wingers. Wonder if some of those same wingers are amongst those expressing concern now that their candidate is getting buried in McMahon bucks and Healy asked him to bow out of the Senate race and run for Congress. Just as the messenger. #cough#
3. Did you know that Attorney General Dick Blumenthal is the consummate political outsider? Neither did I, but that's the narrative, apparently.
Richard Blumenthal shrugged off the prospect of an Obama campaign visit as "an open question," and has steered clear of Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., whose poor reelection prospects contributed to his decision to retire. "I have been independent of Senator Dodd and everyone else in Washington," Blumenthal, the state attorney general, told Yale University students last week.
UPDATE ctblogger:Today, the Government Administration and Elections committee is holding a public hearing on the Citizens' Election Program. You can watch the proceedings online at the CT-N website.
Make sure to watch the video highlights from the Sunday morning talk shows below the fold.
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), one of a handful of Senate wild cards in this fall's healthcare reform debate, says his concern about the Senate bill is based on the national deficit - not the insurers that dominate his state.
....
"Insurers aren't my biggest concern - I sued them once when I was attorney general, and I'm not afraid to end anti-trust exemptions," Lieberman said. "I am really worried about what this could do to the deficit.
...
One unlikely ally of Lieberman's is state GOP Chairman Chris Healy, who said he agrees with the senator's skepticism about the bill and that he sees few faults in Lieberman's support for home-state interests.
"What we have a lot of here in Connecticut is people in the pharmaceutical industry, biotech and physicians," Healy said. "They're the ones who can figure this out, not the government. Joe Lieberman, even though he's very liberal sometimes, understands that.
"I don't think the industry is going to have their feelings hurt if he's not waving pom-poms. They just don't want Congress to nationalize the management of risk. While I criticize him a lot, to me he's making the most sense out of all the Democrats on this."
In a comment in response to a post today on the Courant's Capitol Watch blog, Connecticut Republican Party Chairman Chris Healy defended the right of crazed right-wing activists to attempt to shut down debate at town hall meetings with members of Congress across the state:
When everyday citizens, most of them who have never been politically active, indicate that they are going to take to streets and shout "enough!" It is somehow un-Democratic. Well, it's un-Democratic because we don't agree with the Democratic Party model - larger goverment, out-of-control spending and demonizing those who disagree.
Give it a rest. Let the people be heard. If leaders can't stand in front of those who sent them there and defend their positions, too bad. Maybe they should go back to Washington and realize that we are paying attention.
Chairman Healy and the Connecticut Republican Party are apparently now officially sanctioning the organized and potentially violent right-wing disruptions of town hall meetings in the coming days by the use of widely distributed anti-democratic tactics such as "yelling," "disrupting," and avoiding "intelligent debate".
Update: Here are the town halls that Chris Healy and the Connecticut Republican Party will be attempting to shut down, denying constituents a chance to talk with their representatives:
Rep. Chris Murphy (CT-05)
Tomorrow, Wednesday, August 5th, 3pm
Simsbury Stop & Shop portico
530 Bushy Hill Rd, Simsbury, CT
Rep. Joe Courtney (CT-02)
Thursday, August 6th, 6:30pm
Woodstock Academy
57 Academy Rd, Woodstock, CT
Rep. Jim Himes (CT-04)
Thursday, August 6th, 5:30pm
Stamford Senior Center, 2nd Floor
888 Washington Blvd, Stamford, CT
This is what the Chairman of the Connecticut Republican Party had to say yesterday on his personal blog about the efforts of state Democratic lawmakers to preserve F-22 funding (in opposition to the efforts of both President Obama and John McCain):
Democrats, by a large, don't have much use for the military. They present missing medals and talk about providing health care for veterans, but the entire culture is foreign to them. So, they rarely take military matters seriously, unless it's something like the closure of a submarine base. But even there, most people, even Democrats, concede it was former Congressman Rob Simmons and Gov. Rell who did all the heavy lifting.
The merits of the (failed) efforts to preserve funding for the F-22 - and his smearing of all Democrats as anti-military - aside, Chris Healy deserves a Congressional Medal of Hypocrisy for that last sentence. In fact, both Governor Rell and then-Congressman Rob Simmons praised Democrats for their help in saving the sub base at the time. This was Governor Rell in 2005:
"We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to 'Team Connecticut:' to the members of Congress, the state agency commissioners and their employees, the Attorney General, the state legislators, the SUBASE Realignment Coalition, the municipal officials and all of the local business and community leaders - and everyone in the community - who came together to achieve this tremendous victory,"
And this was Rob Simmons, on a voicemail to Joe Courtney, at the height of his losing 2006 Congressional re-election effort (h/t HardcoreDem on Youtube):
Rob Simmons paid to unleash his very first TV ad of the 2006 campaign -- a personal and negative attack on accomplished former State Legislator Joe Courtney -- claiming personal success in saving the submarine base from base realignment and closure (BRAC), politicizing a sensitive issue for eastern Connecticut.
Simmons obviously forgot that just a few short months ago, he personally called Joe Courtney to thank Joe for not politicizing the issue and for helping him save the base.
In his own words excerpted from the message, "And I just wanted to say to you how much I respect your decision back on May 13 not to take political advantage of the process, uh, uh, I think that was the, the high road. I think that without the support of, of everybody involved we wouldn't have been successful."
And who was Rob Simmons' campaign manager at the time he was busy losing that race with hypocritical attacks? Chris Healy. Still leaving the "high road" for the exclusive use of his opponents, as always.
Stuff like this is a mere preview of the hurricane of slime and hypocrisy we can look forward to out of the Simmons camp for the next 12 months until the Republican primary.
Happy Thanksgiving! I wanted to take today off, but I also want to make sure that this story doesn't get buried due to the holiday. So I'm both thankful to be an MLN front-pager and to be a constituent of Chris Murphy.
In Hartford and Washington, D.C., Republicans tried Wednesday to link U.S. Rep. Christopher Murphy, D-5th District, to the troubled Haven Healthcare nursing home chain over campaign contributions.
Murphy, who urged federal regulators to crack down on Haven Healthcare this week, accepted $2,500 from company executives in 2004 as a state senator with oversight responsibilities on health issues.
But the press releases by Republican State Chairman Chris Healy and the National Republican Congressional Committee also incorrectly claimed that Murphy's congressional campaign accepted $12,000 from Haven executives.
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