DL’s Endorsement for Insurance Commissioner
I was just going to say that we endorsed Trinidad Navarro for Insurance Commissioner because he is not Karen Weldin Stewart, but fuck that. It is an election year, and the Insurance Commissioner isn’t some bullshit job like Lt. Governor. When Matt Denn was in the office between 2004 and 2008, he was squarely on the side of the insurance consumer, and he had a huge positive impact on Delaware’s small business by fixing how worker’s comp was calculated for companies that have great safety records. Conversely, Karen Weldin Stewart has been a shit show. Anyway, I knew that my usual lazy half-assery wasn’t going to cut it, so I took a hard look at Navarro and this is what I found out.
Trinidad Navarro is exactly the kind of Democrat that this backward piss-poor excuse for a Democratic establishment needs. He annoyed the fuck out of John Daniello when he ran against a sheriff that had been in office since before Delaware’s motto was changed (by then Governor Tom Carper) to “The Usury State.” And here he is again, taking up a campaign against one of the so-called democrats that thinks that large multinational corporations are in need of a champion.
He also has the support of Mitch Crane who only lost last time because of a KWS diluted field. That’s a huge plus in my book, because any friend of Mitch Crane (not named Sneaky Pete Schwartzkopf) is a friend of mine.
What does he say he is running to do? Stand up to the insurance companies that have been coddled by the current IC for the past 8 years. Can he do it? Who knows? Insurance companies are the worst. They don’t make their billions by paying out legitimate claims, or by being guided by silly antiquated nonsense like “fairness.” But at least Navarro says he wants to try to get them to act responsibly. And I’d rather have that than someone who is not neutral, but is openly on the side of the big guys.
So yeah. Fuck it. I guess it does boil down to “He isn’t KWS.”
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The most unquotable endorsement ever.
True. Even after I cut out all the crap about how stuff about how KWS keeps using a 20 year old picture on her lawn signs, it still isn’t very quotable.
For anyone who pays insurance premiums and knows an iota about what the IC is *supposed* to do, “He isn’t KWS.” is the only quote you need.
If KWS somehow survives the primary, I’ll have to use my biennial ticket-split permission card to vote against her in November.
I would outsource the Insurance Commissioner’s job to China before I voted for that train wreck KWS. Go Navarro!
I’m afraid she’s going to win. Not that I want that, but nobody even knows who the Sheriff is outside of political activists. He’s had plenty of time to garner name recognition and hasn’t. Really, what has he even done as sheriff? When Matt Denn became IC, he made the office known by the work he did, therefore making himself more known. Trinidad hasn’t.
I would like to see Navarro make a pledge that if hes elected hes not going to take insurance money for campaigns…That would convince me he’s the real deal. Otherwise, its just more of the same old same old….
His signs have started to appear in the Milford area. That’s always a good sign. Granted, signs don’t vote, but name recognition matters in a primary. He has my support.
Strange logic AQC- “Matt Denn became IC, he made the office known by the work he did, therefore making himself more known. Trinidad hasn’t. ”
Matt made a name for himself WHEN HE WAS IC. How many voters knew of him before he ran? How many knew of me before I ran and almost won? Trini is well known to many voters in NCC. Karen Stewart is well known too-not a good thing. When I speak with people about the office and Trini, I have many times heard “Is he running against that woman?”.
The bottom line is who holds the office of Insurance Commissioner is important. No insurance company operating in Delaware can raise its rates without approval of the IC (Matt did not have the authority to approve/disapprove health insurance rates. I wrote the bill giving the IC that authority and it became law). KWS has approved most all increased. Her then chief of staff told me that companies would ask for twice what they wanted. KWS would approve half what they requested. They would be happy and she would look good. Worked out for them didn’t it.
Why would she do this? One-she believes her primary function is to make sure insurance companies are solvent. By granting rate increases they are certainly solvent. Two- though her committee is “Delawareans for Karen Weldin Stewart”, over 75% of her contributions come from out of state-the bulk from insurance company executives and their lawyers. They like her and she needs to be liked.
Great endorsement. Certainly will not appear on a mailing.
Now all the “anonymous”es out there who work for KWS are free to attack.
Wake up Delaware and smell the coffee! KWS has been ripping us off for almost 8 years. She’s approved every rate increase that’s come across her desk. AND, she approved the BCBS-Highmark merger that diminished competition and jacked up medical insurance premiums here in Delaware.
So I looked at KWS’s most recent campaign finance report and was overwhelmed by the number of donations from out of state, presumably from insurance execs and their minions. Something like 80%…Wow!
Navarro is fighting an uphill climb. KWS is, for whatever idiotic reason, is being insulated and protected by the Delaware establishment like Harris McDowell and other incumbent sacred cows. They are working behind the scenes to ensure KWS has a full war chest to keep getting re-elected. If I were Harris, I’d jump off that turnip truck ASAP. People are sensing a chink in his armor and he is attracting opposition.
Most of Delaware’s electorate (both parties) are low information voters, too lazy to read up on the issues, re-electing useless dolts. They are like the proverbial frog in boiling water. They’ll be dead before they’ll make an informed voting decision.
My recollection is that she wasn’t the only one who approved the BCBS – Highmark merger. I believe our entire General Assembly signed off on that. The only vocal opponent I can remember was Beau Biden.
Go to http://www.trinidadnavarro.com/accomplishments for AQC or anyone who wants to read about his accomplishments as sheriff.
What it doesn’t mention is how he broke up the sweetheart deal between Farley Printing and former sheriff Mike Walsh to print and distribute sheriff sales notices. It was costing Delaware taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars yearly, millions over the many years it was in existence. Notices are now posted in the newspaper as they should be.
Farley went out of business shortly thereafter.
KWS is running a lot of radio ads on WDEL already. She must be getting nervous.
But will Trini pledge not to accept ins co money if and when elected? That would sway me big time. Haven’t heard a peep yet? Just crickets………….
@Rufus- 6 Democrats in the House voted against the bill that stripped the authority of the Dept of Justice to approve mergers and acquisitions of non profits. All senators voted for it but two told me afterwards they would have voted No if they had understood- the bill was rushed through the last two weeks of session. AND-the bill only related to that one issue. The General Assembly has NO authority to approve or disprove insurance mergers, acquisitions or dissolutions. That authority lies totally with the Insurance Commissioner.
I also testified against the Highmark takeover. It was a done deal when KWS announced BEFORE her decision that BCBSD would be insolvent within 6 years if it weren’t allowed to be taken over by Highmark.
@Chris- Trini announced to me in the beginning that he would not take money from insurance company executives (insurance companies may not, under Delaware law, contribute directly to insurance commissioner candidates. They may contribute to candidates for other offices, and they do. Nothing, however, prohibits insurance executives from from contributing to insurance commissioner candidates-if that were prohibited KWS would have no money.
Chris, why don’t you just call him and ask him yourself: 302-593-3345? He’s usually very accessible.
I am voting for Trini but this will be a close race just watch. A BaBa Booey to you all
Yo I just looked at the navarro mailer I got a week or so back. A the very bottom it says: “Paid for by Navarro for Insurance Commissioner. NOT THE BIG INSURANCE COMPANIES.”
Does that count?
I’ve gotten to know Trini pretty well in the past 6 years. Besides being a great father (he has been coaching his daughters softball team for a few years), he is also a very smart and capable guy. If you haven’t heard about how he has used the sheriff’s office to truly help people that are in pretty dire straights, you should try to catch up with him.
One of his stories is about a woman that had a house that went to sheriff’s sale because the people that she let live in it didn’t pay the taxes. She lost the house, but there was quite a bit of money left after the accounts were settled. In the past, that might have gone to the escheat’s office to get a name in the paper and then forfeiting the cash to the state.
Trini has started tracking these people down and making sure that they get the remaining proceeds. This woman was living in the Midwest and didn’t have enough money to catch a bus back here to get her money. Trini made the arrangements to make sure that she received the money. That’s the kind of stuff that I want my politicians to do. I want them to make sure that even the poorest people in our society have someone willing to go the extra yard to help them (even if the person impacted won’t even have the opportunity to vote for him).
It is exactly the opposite of what I have seen and heard from KWS.
Trini has been an excellent public servant, a skilled politician and will be a great insurance commissioner.
I will call him, thx for the phone number
There seems to be little doubt in people’s minds that “shit show” KWS can be defeated. THAT WILL NOT HAPPEN. She is the personification of The Delaware Way.
Lacking an education and professional credentials and having been well coached by erstwhile IC Levinson, she correctly saw politics as her only option for gaining wealth and power. She has no intention of giving up either until she’s carried out of the IC’s office feet first (she’s 70 years old now). Her many connections in state and federal government will support her. She’s also close to VP Biden, and her latest bonus is that her friend Tom Kaine is Clinton’s choice for VP. Her only “friends” are those who can further her agenda. She has no real friends because she is totally unlikeable, to put it mildly. So why can’t she be defeated? Consider the following:
1993 to 2000: When Donna Lee Williams as practically her first official act fired KWS from the no-show job with the DOI that her boyfriend Levinson gave her in 1989, KWS’s last words to Donna Lee were “I’ll be commissioner myself one day”. With that, she began to make a large number of connections with insurance industry officials and their lawyers by attending all quarterly meetings of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) and related functions, where she gained access by falsely claiming to own an insurance consultancy.
2000-2004: Locally in her quest for the IC’s office, she continued to play up to DE politicians to gain support for her first run in 2000 and her second run in 2004. She lost both but then expanded her search for supporters in local government by way of a smarmy charm that appeals to certain types like McDowell and his ilk. She was eventually successful and in 2008 rode Obama’s coat tails into the IC’s office unopposed. For the past 8 years, she has nurtured these connections by spreading the wealth. The party doesn’t like her and neither does the DE power structure. That doesn’t stop them from supporting her, whether or not they officially endorse her, because they benefit from her incumbency. And that is the ONLY reason. It’s certainly not her managerial skills and her fine head for business, let alone her concern for the welfare of Delawarians.
You don’t seriously think that all that is suddenly going to stop just because a good man like Mr. Navarro wants to replace her. I wish him all the luck in the world because he, like anyone else with integrity, will be a vast improvement over KWS’s dishonesty, stupidity, narcissism, and incompetence. He shouldn’t get his hopes up too high, though, because the fix is in as it was in 2012.
That sounds very depressingly accurate.
It is accurate. So why not use the information to expose her? She’s nothing but a corrupt fraud. Everyone knows it but no one wants to talk about it. Why?
Everyone here knows it and is talking about it. Granted, that’s s small universe. But we can only do what we can do. It this case that means supporting Navarro.
Are you saying that you’re only talking about this among yourselves? Supporting Trini isn’t enough. She can’t sue you and win because the truth is an absolute defense. On the other hand, she can sure make your life miserable with all the lawyers at her disposal until the case is dismissed, so I don’t really blame you. Sad, isn’t it.
I’m betting that if word about what scum KWS really is gets out and she sues somebody, the entire staff of the DOI will chip in to that person’s legal defense fund!
“So why not use the information to expose her? ”
Dude, you just read the information in public. Now you just have to get voters to care. Traditionally that is the job of the opponent. Or a crusading journalist.
“Or a crusading journalist.”
I would add “competent” to that line, but that narrows the field in this state. Then there is the editor’s trump card. They are often friends, or acquaintances of the KWS’s and Gordon’s. In this tiny state, good, objective journalism is very difficult to find, or keep.
Why not get the media to publicize KWS’s illegal campaign contributions via their lawyers from the insurers she’s supposed to regulate? That information is easily documented. Oh wait… The Delaware Way.
She knocked Gene Reed out of the race with that bogus accusation in 2008 while she’s been doing it herself since before her first run for IC in 2000.
For as long as KWS has held the office, nameless commenters here have accused her of almost everything but murdering Vince Foster. For all that time, people have been urged to bring forth the proof. For all that time, nobody has.
Mousy? The fix isn’t in ‘just as it was in 2012’. In 2012, several candidates ran purportedly as anti-KWS candidates. There is reason to believe that both Gallagher and Spivack had been recruited to divide the anti-KWS vote.
In fact, Gallagher decided NOT to run this year b/c, having been denied a job by KWS, a job that he claimed she had promised in exchange for running and diluting Mitch Crane’s support, he didn’t want to divide up the vote again.
Meaning that KWS will have to go from something like one-third of the vote to over 50% of the vote to win this year. She may do that, but it won’t be b/c the fix is in.
I’m beginning to think that Navarro wins.
Is there going to be a debate for this race?
@ El Som: Good for Gallagher. No surprise KWS screwed him over. It stands to reason he wouldn’t have the same attitude if she hadn’t reneged on the job offer. He should be ashamed to have run on that basis in 2012. Also, she’s never gotten more than 30-something percent of the vote. There’s no way she’ll get 50+ this time. I hope Navarro wins. Maybe he’ll even out her after he takes office and sees the mess she made.
@ anonymous: How much did she pay you to post your pathetic attempt at legitimizing her after 8 years of her ripping off this state and its people? Her 2012 election tampering alone plus her lies about Reed in 2008 when she promised him Deputy IC to take a fall and then delivered are proof she’s dirty. The truth will bite her in her corrupt ass eventually, despite whatever McDowell & Co. may come up with to save their cash cow.
Just produce the evidence. Just once. I’m not talking about elections, I’m talking about the millions of dollars she supposedly has stolen or been given, the Swiss bank accounts … as I said, everything but the murder of Vince Foster.
Everybody “knows” she’s crooked. What nobody has done is produce any evidence.
Pay me? Why would you think anyone is paying me? Because someone is paying you?
I’ve been asking for evidence for eight years so she could be prosecuted. Unless someone produces such evidence, she will get away with it, especially if Navarro defeats her.
Since nobody prosecuted her for tampering with the 2008 and 2012 elections, nobody’s going to prosecute her for any of her other crimes, either. It’s the Delaware Way,
don’tcha know.
Can we list the disappearance of crazy KWS-deranged people as a reason to vote for Trini?
Yes
KWS never promised me a job nor would I ever work for her.
I ran in 2012 because she is a bad commissioner and I thought I could do better. I dropped out this year because I felt like it.
I make more than all the jobs pay in the insurance department.
Hope this clears this up for all of you.
The end.
The end to the story the way you tell it.
“I make more than all the jobs pay in the insurance department.” Right.
I stated the facts and Jason330 agreed. Many of the rest of you obviously recognize that your position is completely indefensible since you immediately start attacking E. Gregious with name calling instead of trying to defend the KWS situation on whatever merit you may claim it has. And you don’t even really do a good job of name calling.
Obviously, reality has no effect on some members of the Bubble of Willful Ignorance. Good luck to you all as you continue to allow your worthless self-serving politicians to rip you off. You deserve whatever you get. Best wishes to Mr. Navarro for his possible but not likely win in November. You’d better hope he wins or you’ll be stuck with the POS in the DOI until she keels over from old age decrepitude.
Uh, fellas, I’ve been against KWS since before she ran for public office, when she was Harris McDowell’s glorified Gal Friday. She is Exhibit A for Delaware having too many elected officials.
I have asked for the evidence for the simple reason that it would bring her down for good. The failure of those who claim to know her misdeeds to produce such evidence is the problem here.
I’m sure you’ve heard that money talks and bullshit walks. Well, the same holds true for evidence on paper. Without it, you’re just bullshitting. All your intense hatred is useless without evidence. Why don’t you produce some?
To make it plain, you can’t sentence someone without a guilty verdict. You can’t get a guilty verdict without a trial. You can’t get a trial without an indictment. You can’t get an indictment without evidence.
It’s that simple.
I suspect you’re a troll for KWS who’s been dispatched to find out exactly what and how much people know about her abuse of office. You talk a good game though. Maybe you should run for office yourself.
You couldn’t be more wrong. I’ve been posting here for some time. Ask anyone.
Just produce some evidence. I’m begging here. We’ve been playing this game for eight years. The plaintiffs have never produced a single document. One of the people who made such allegations against her was eventually indicted by the feds, IIRC. Surely you’re not suggesting that she controls events at the federal level.
If she was really living large on the insurance companies’ dime, there would be records of it. Find some. If she’s traveling on state money or insurance company money, there would be evidence of it somewhere, even if it’s just her daily schedule. We’re not talking about a master spy here.
Indeed, that’s part of the problem with all this jabberwocky about how crooked she is. I met her 30 years ago and have seen her periodically since. She’s not competent to order her own lunch let alone pull off all she’s been accused of.
Her problem isn’t that she’s a crook, it’s that she’s a tool who lacks the mental capacity of the average toaster oven. Ask her any question about insurance and you’ll get word salad. She makes Sarah Palin sound like Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Isn’t incompetence reason enough to vote against her? Why must people make allegations they can’t back up? That only helps her, by making valid charges of incompetence seem like more of the same.
The proof is in the right hands. It’ll come out in due time. Matter of fact, it wont be much longer if these people don’t wuss out. Yeah, we know all about her incompetence. As she said herself, she has people for that. They’re her facilitators in every way. You happy now? I’m done.