Sgt. Schultz in West Virginia? I know nothing. I know nooooooooooothing.

Jill Bentz, chief paid mouthpiece for the Insurance industry might just be the re-incarnation of John Banner, who played Sgt. Schultz on Hogan's Heroes. She sure does have that "I know nothing!!" routine down flat. In yesterday's Daily Mail, we get more deafening silence from the insurance industry on just exactly what the policyholders will be getting in return for giving up the right to sue with 3rd party bad faith lawsuits. I mentioned basically the same thing a couple of days ago when Bentz refused to answer the question on Hoppy's show.

Insurance lobbyists won't say whether the industry will abide by its pledge to knock up to $100 off every auto policy in West Virginia, but lawmakers say changes to Gov. Joe Manchin's proposal shouldn't torpedo the discounts.

Jill Bentz, president of the West Virginia Insurance Federation, declined to comment on the changes to the Senate bill, but said she had distributed copies of the amended legislation to her members. Other insurance lobbyists have referred requests for comment to Bentz.

Yeah, that inspires a ton of confidence in the industry reducing premiums.

Could Danny Jones possibly be a bigger crybaby?

I think the answer would be a resounding "no." Today on 58 Live with Mike Agnello and Rick Johnson, he was crying like someone took away his favorite toy. He put on a crying exhibition that would make Tammy Faye Baker look like a rank amateur. He whined and cried about how "his" hotel tax bill (how and when it became "his" I have no idea - what a self involved jackass this clown is) wasn't getting enough attention from the House finance Committee. He whined and moaned about how the bill wasn't going to get passed (it later did get passed onto the House Floor on a voice vote around 5pm). Well boo freaking hoo. Why isn't it that I feel the least bit of sympathy for Danny Jones? Oh, that's right. It's because he's jacking everyone who works in Charleston with his little "worker tax" to the tune of a buck a week. So, he's going to get (if "his" bill passes) another couple hundred grand of hotel tax. Is he going to use that to pay off some of the city's debt? Evidently they need money to pave streets and do other stuff, because they passed the worker tax (I refuse to call it a "user fee" because more people than workers "use" the city's streets, fire, and police protection, but only workers have to pay it, so it's a "worker tax") about 2 days after he took office. Is the hotel tax revenue going to help offset some of those expenses? Nooooo, Danny has other plans for that new revenue source. He's going to use it to help fund the Convention and Visitors Bureau. Remember, the CVB was the organization that he pulled a little power grab on a couple months ago. He's going to use this hotel tax revenue to help "promote Charleston." Bullshit. He's going to use that money to give the political hack flunkies he now appoints to the CVB, big fat raises. Oh, they'll probably go to a couple tourism trade shows too. Probably in such dreary locales as Las Vegas, or Florida, or maybe even Hawaii. Yeah, they'll spend some of that hotel tax revenue there "promoting" Charleston.

He even went on a little crying pithy rant about how we'd have a "better ballpark" if it wasn't for (and this a quote) "that lawyer who jumped off a bridge" filing the lawsuit challenging the economic grant money (that was ruled unconstitutionally granted, in its original form - evidently the suit had merit). Well Danny, you sure are one insensitive asshole. The guy's name was Larry Harless. And while I'll be the first to disagree with a lot of what Harless did, that doesn't give Jones free rein to be a jackass about his committing suicide with such a dismissive remark. Funny, when anyone ever challenges anything Charleston does in court (like the worker tax, or the grant money, or the video lottery place), Danny cries about it on the radio ad nauseam. He cries like nobody should ever question anything he wants to do. Anyone who files a lawsuit against anything on his agenda, is just needlessly clogging up the court, and wasting his valuable time.

Well, excuse us peons, master Jones. Sorry if we want to make sure scumbag politicians like yourself are spending our money on the up and up. Maybe we should just not have asked Jerry Mezzatesta or Mike Ross or Harold Micheal, or Arch Moore, or A James Manchin, or Ed Rebrook, or Dan Tonkovich, or Randy Schoonover, or the LeRose brothers or any number of other hotshot West Virginia politicians any questions. Obviously they, like Danny, know what's best for the rest of us poor schmucks and are above reproach. This arrogant, petulant attitude of Jones' was also on display when he questioned Mark Sadd's potential appointment to the Federal bench. Jones' dislike of Sadd comes from the fact Sadd doesn't toe Jones' line in City Council. Sadd opposed Jones' worker fee. And Jones kept hammering Sadd in the media with stuff like "Well, there's a lot I won't go into, but just trust me, Sadd is a bad choice for that job." Trust him? Trust Danny Jones? What a bunch of bullshit.

He even went so far as to blame the Gazette's reporting on Harold Micheal's latest pork funneling to Hardy County as a reason the hotel bill didn't move in the House Finance committee at first. This guy is a piece of work. He then went on to DEFEND what Micheal did as just "how the system works" as if that validates it somehow. Sure, funneling millions of state dollars to little tiny Hardy County to buy new band uniforms and other such nonsense way in excess of the amounts other counties got is how the system is supposed to work. More bullshit from Jones.

Look, I could give a shit less about the hotel tax. I don't stay in hotels in West Virginia that often, and when I do, it's a business expense, so the extra tax isn't coming out of my pocket. In fact, the tax will hit out of staters and businessmen, not everyday West Virginians. So all things considered, it sounds like a good idea. But if its failure pisses Jones off, then I'm all for killing that bill.

For crying out loud, Danny, could you possibly whine anymore? Here, put some of this on your obviously sore pussy and just shut the hell up.

Did I say we'd lower insurance premiums? Nooooooo, I didn't say we'd lower insurance premiums!!

One of the truly hilarious prank phone calls that you can find on the internet, is commonly referred to as the "Mark Knopfler" or "Amanda White" prank phone call. It's actually several years old, I remember hearing it on a cassette tape back in college, well before the internet. In the call, this guy calls a girl's phone number and asks for Amanda White. Another guy answers, and the caller identifies himself as "Mark Knopfler." [Knopfler is a member of the band Dire Straits] The caller then continues, "Well, Amanda told me whenever I was in town, to giver her a call, and maybe we could go out and have a few drinks. So I'm just calling to see what's up and if maybe we can get together." The guy who answered sounds incredulous, and says "You mean Amanda?" The caller then repeats himself, "Yeah, I said Amanda. You know, pretty hot girl, likes to party?" The guy who answered, begins to sound even more incredulous to the whole thing. This type of exchange goes on for a couple more seconds. Eventually, the guy who answered says "Hey man, Amanda is my wife. What the hell are you talking about?" The caller then says "Your wife?" The answer guy says "Yeah, my wife." The caller then kind of hesitates and says "Did I say 'Amanda?' Nooooooo, I didn't say 'Amanda'."

That's what the Insurance lobby said yesterday according to the Gazette. After all the hoopla we've heard for the last 3 months from Papa Joe Cheerleader about how the removal of 3rd party bad faith lawsuits will lower West Virginian's insurance rates, the insurance industry finally said "Did we say we would lower premiums? Nooooo, we didn't say lower premiums." After the week-long "Oh shit!" uttered by the Governor when a FOIA was granted on the emails between Insurance Comissioner Cline, and Papa Joe's #1 flunky, Brian Kastick (son in law of former Democratic Party Chair, Chuck Smith, anyone want to hazard a guess how he got his cushy government job), the Governor finally relented and lookee at what we found. The insurance industry evidently represented they'd lower premiums by 50 million dollars if 3rd party bad faith suits were outlawed, and their ability to drop coverages were increased, and they got some reduced liability in cases with multiple defendants in these emails. But now that they are public, the industry is backpedalling faster than PacMan Jones at the NFL combine. As the Fifth Column stated the "denial" (if you can call it that) from Dustin Foster from the Insurance Commission looks like he's trying to hide about nine elephants in the room. Foster basically said "Did they say they were going to lower rates? Noooooooo, they didn't say they'd lower premiums." Well then, what the fuck have we been hearing for the last 3 months? To be fair, the whole rate reduction stuff in the emails was conditional on the 3rd party bad faith stuff passed straight from the Senate's version of the bill. Half measures or any compromises in the house, and the whole deal (according to the insurance companies) is off. Funny, Papa Joe Cheerleader has failed to mention any of this for the past three months when constantly telling us how much cash is going to end up back in policyholder's pockets.

Earlier this week (around Wednesday or so), Hoppy Kercheval had Jill Bentz on his show. She's an insurance lobbyist (and a real pain the ass to deal with, I know this personally) and the president of some insurance trade group. She works for the law firm called Spilman Thomas, a big insurance defense firm, go figure. Anyway, she was on there, and Hoppy flat out asked her something to the effect, "How much will rates come down if you get 3rd party bad faith suits outlawed?" Her answer "I trust the Governor to get this done." What the hell does that mean? Does that mean if we get 3rd party suits outlawed, and my premium doesn't drop, I can sue Papa Joe Cheerleader for the non-reduction? Somehow, I'm guessing my answer is "no."

Now that they've gotten caught with their pants down on this "offer" it will interesting to see what happens with this issue. I also like the timing of Papa Joe Cheerleader's release of the information. Friday afternoon. That way nobody can really talk about it until Monday morning. Pathetic cowards.