Gov. Rowland-Rell caught lying AGAIN

This is getting ridiculous...just ridiculous.

I swear, WHEN WILL THE MEDIA HOLD GOVERNOR RELL'S FEET TO THE FIRE and get her to explain the numerous charges brought forth by the DeStefano campaign.

Gov. Rell says she met with Aetna CEO Jack Rowe and Patricia Hastert just weeks before her administration approved fraudulent health insurance plan but insists they only talked about UConn oversight.

If this were true, one would expect some staff person or public official who has something to do with UConn to be at the meeting, as they were with previous meetings Gov. Rell held with Jack Rowe concerning UConn.

But in a statement issued Thursday October 26, 2006 Gov. Rell says her July 26th, 2005 meeting with Jack Rowe (Aetna CEO) had only one other participant, Patricia Hastert. Turns out, Gov. Rell was once again not telling the truth.

The real name of the person included in that meeting was Patricia Hassett, Aetna's Chief of Staff and Vice President for Enterprise Initiatives, who has nothing to do with UConn. She is however a Rell campaign contributor, donating more than $1,100 to Rell's campaign; according to the 2004 Aetna Report to Shareholders a member of Aetna's senior management; and apparently attended a December 20th fundraiser in which more than $20,000 from Aetna’s management team was bundled for Rell's campaign.

The July 26th meeting occurred just days before the Insurance Department changed its antagonistic position towards the SRC-Aetna fraudulent health insurance plan.

"It's now apparent that Gov. Rell lied about the identity of the person she was meeting with just weeks before her administration approved a fraudulent health care plan," said Derek Slap - campaign spokesperson. "This discrepancy, between who Gov. Rell said she met with, and who she actually met with, raises serious questions. Why would she not tell the press and the public the truth? What did she, Rowe, and Hassett actually discuss, and did any member of her staff subsequently call or contact Insurance Commissioner Susan Cogswell or anyone else at the Insurance Department about Aetna's application? It's time for Gov. Rell to once and for all come clean."

Hassett's donation of $1125 was given in conjunction with 17 other members of Aetna's Senior Management Team (as named in the 2004 Aetna Annual Report and Financial Report to Shareholders) at a fundraiser in December 2005, just three months after approval of the fraudulent SRC-Aetna insurance plan.

This is the latest in a long history of questionable moves from Governor Rell that has gone unanswered.

To recap here's a list of questions that the governor has refused to explain:

* What was Rell's association with former Gov. John Rowland during his scandal and what did she know?

* What is Lisa Moody's status of Cheif of staff. and why hasn't she been fired.

* What did Gov. Rell know during the nomination of  Peter T. Zarella. Did she have knowledge that outgoing Chief Justice William Sullivan delayed delivering a court opinion of her nominee for Chief Justice, Peter Zarella, in order to help him out? (to this date question remain about why Rell pushed Zarella's nomination as fast as she did before the sullivan scandal made headlines)


* Could Gov. Rell explain whether or not she broke her pledge  to not accept any money from state contractors (although Rell stated that she would explain herself, there has been no comment from her campaign about this matter).


* Explain why  she is paying contractors that "were identified back in 2004 as being involved in various state government corruption scandals."

And of course, can Gov. Rell explain the charges the DeStefano campagin filed in their FEC complaint.
After the era of John Rowland (and seeing that Rell was Rowland's second in command) the voters of Connecticut deserve answers.