Sunday Night Music Club XXVIII

I wonder if the genius who thought it was a good idea to use that stupid Roman numeral numbering scheme for the Super Bowl loses sleep at night worrying about misplacing a V or X or I in his work?

Because I hate him, and I hate Roman numerals.

But I'm stuck with it for this music series, and I'm stubborn.

So, the hell with it, here's "XXVIII" for ya's!

Nouvelle Vague is a French cover band that plays interesting arrangements of popular songs. Their cover of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" is one of my favorites.

Here's one of Nouvelle Vague's very few produced music videos, doing Billy Idol's "Dancing With Myself" in the style of French "New Wave" cinema.

Which is what "Nouvelle Vague" means...New Wave.

The video is a bit disappointing, as there is no lip-syncing to the song.

And the girl actually can't dance worth a damn.

But you can still listen to the arrangement and enjoy the song!

Climbing to the top of Bullshit Mountain

Fox News is "Bullshit Mountain", according to Jon Stewart, who is a craftsman when it comes to telling the truth. And if you're like me, you will absolutely enjoy every minute of this!

Via the Daily Kos:

In case you missed it, Wednesday night on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart delivered what may be the best 10 minutes and 27 seconds you'll see on TV this entire campaign season. Stop what you're doing and watch it now!

For more discussion (and laughs), see BruinKid's diary here.

This is someone who should be our senator?

About that headline...I don't know why I suddenly sound like an old Jewish woman, but it's all I could come up with at a moment's notice.

My favorite groin-kicking candidate Linda McMahon was late on her taxes again. Just this year, as a matter of fact, when it somehow slipped her vapid little mind that she is supposed to pay her goddamned taxes on her condo!

From Capitol Watch blog:

Republican U.S. Senate Candidate Linda McMahon and her husband, WWE chairman Vince McMahon, were more than a month and a half late in paying the first half of their annual $54,110 in property tax on the multi-million-dollar condominium unit that they co-own in a building at 1 Broad St., Stamford, city records show.

The first half of the annual tax bill was supposed to be paid by Aug. 1, but was delinquent as of early September, with $28,272 due as of Sept. 4, apparently including interest, the city’s website still showed on Friday.

[..]

McMahon’s campaign has been slamming Democratic opponent Chris Murphy in recent days for being late on mortgage, rent and car tax payments.

Remember that Linda is the genius who thought it was a swell idea to attack Chris Murphy over his late mortgage payments (which he worked out properly) when she herself stiffed banks and creditors to the tune of over a million bucks in her 1970s bankruptcy.

And just today she figured it would be a good idea to finally settle with all those businesses and individuals she screwed out of their money three decades ago! Like, oh sure, thanks for your prompt payment! But when Chris Murphy paid up his debts within a reasonable time frame, oh HE was the one guilty of a moral failing! Yeah, right!

Anyway, here's what it boils down to: if you want a billionaire in the Senate who doesn't pay her taxes on time; waits 30 years to make good on her bankruptcy (even though she's made hundreds of millions during that time, but pays only when she wants to win an election); and runs a business where part of their lovely strategy for "family entertainment" is to kick guys square in the NUTS, then Linda McHypocrite is your man!

.................................

BONUS ARCHIVE FEATURE!!!

Remember Linda McMahon's supposed rally in Milford back in 2010 when she was running for Senate the first time? Our Republican mayor (at the time) held a rally on a lovely Saturday on the lawn of the City Hall, and maybe 200 McMahon supporters showed up. There were more people on the steps of City Hall than in the crowd! They were hoping for thousands! And Richard Blumenthal won the election easily.

What it boils down to is that people just don't care about McMahon. Maybe if CT Republicans came up with a candidate who doesn't reek of a carnival side-show and billionaire tax breaks, they might get the voters interested. Until then, this is the sort of crowd you can expect, where Democratic protestors nearly outnumbered McMahon's supporters:

A fun, free, film festival!

My pal Doug Poger is helping run a film festival on October 5 & 6 in Waterbury, and it's entirely FREE!



The Brass City Film & Music Festival is Oct. 5th & 6th at Creative Cinemas 10 located at 117 Sharon Road Waterbury CT. Red Carpet walk and reception 5:30 and films start 6 PM Friday and Saturday nights. Live Music Saturday afternoon Oct. 6th from 1:00 PM to 4:30. The Festival is free and a portion of the proceeds from the concessions will go to Safe Haven of Greater Waterbury.

McMahon bankruptcy exposed

Boy, you gotta hand it to Linda McMahon. She has absolutely NO shame in accusing others of transgressions, while she herself is guilty of the exact same thing.

Even more so, by like a factor of TEN!

Linda's recent TV ads mentions how Chris Murphy, like many other Americans, ran into problems keeping up his mortgage payments. The way I understand it, Murphy was called into court for the start of foreclosure proceedings, but he managed to pull himself out of his financial situation and made good on all his debts.

Which is an honorable thing.

McMahon, on the other hand, filed for bankruptcy protection in 1976, apparently because her business was in the toilet.

Not quite so honorable, because bankruptcy often leads to creditors being shafted in the end.

In a bit of excellent reporting JC Reindl of The Day spells out Linda's financial woes:

The personal finances of McMahon and her Democratic opponent, Chris Murphy, have become central to this year's campaign, with McMahon calling on Murphy to release documents related to his financial problems in the mid-2000s.

The bankruptcy documents show the McMahons' biggest creditor as the former Mattatuck Bank & Trust Co. of Waterbury, which claimed $364,492. The second biggest creditor — a secured creditor — was Harold J. Hemingway of Burlington, who claimed $109,575. The next biggest was the Internal Revenue Service: $100,064.

Creditors also included the Bristol Construction Co. Inc. ($67,452.54); the Southern New England Telephone Co. ($5,698.17); and Sears Roebuck Co. ($1,158.27).

Of course Linda owed money to Sears!

We all know what Linda likes to do:

More from The Day:

The bankruptcy was initiated in April 1976, three months after the Connecticut Bank and Trust Co. foreclosed on the McMahons' Orchard Road home in West Hartford. At the time of foreclosure, the McMahons owed $133,167 on the mortgage, according to land records in West Hartford Town Hall.

Following a series of objections by the creditor banks over discharging the couple's debt, the discharge was granted in February 1977.

But the case didn't officially close until February 1982. During a final round of actions in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, a trustee for the creditors paid out $1,264.86, and the McMahons regained possession of a 1972 Buick Riviera, according to the documents

Land records show how the McMahons' West Hartford home was eventually auctioned for $147,500 in October 1976.

The McMahon campaign called this week on Murphy to release all documents related to his home foreclosure scare in the mid-2000s.

So, Linda the hypocrite called on Murphy to release all his financial data for his home, which he successfully pulled OUT of foreclosure; while herself not providing a scrap of data about the home she LOST and the bank had to AUCTION OFF, almost certainly at a loss after you factor in all the legal and administrative costs!

(File photo of McMahon dealing with a creditor)
So, Linda claims that Murphy is a bad guy because he was in some financial trouble to the tune of about $300K, which he made good upon; while she was tagged for owing over a MILLION dollars (over $3,000,000 in current value) and there's no proof that she paid much back!

Wow, what a great businesswoman.

But hey, there IS some good news: at least she got a Buick Riviera out of the deal!

Linda McMahon in it for all the wrong reasons

Especially her tax plan, which gives us working-class schleps an additional tax burden, while Ms. "15%" will enjoy even MORE tax breaks than what she got from fellow Republican G.W. Bush.

And here in Connecticut, we're paying her to lay off people. Is this the person YOU want to represent you?



Visit Chris Murphy for Senate and learn more.

What's an Obsitnik?

...and why does anyone care?

Apparently Rep. Jim Himes (CT-04) has an opponent for his seat in Congress.

But as far as I can tell, nobody has ever heard of him.

Something weird is going on with his campaign communications though. One of Obsitnik's communications people, Steven Rosenbaum, has a Twitter account that somehow grew from a handful of followers to over 3,000 almost overnight. This happened nearly to the day he was hired.

Now, I'm probably the last one to know this, but it's amazing simple (and cheap) to "buy" followers for your Twitter and Facebook accounts. An article in the New York Times discusses this at length:

It may be the worst-kept secret in the Twittersphere. That friend who brags about having 1,000, even 100,000 Twitter followers may not have earned them through hard work and social networking; he may have simply bought them on the black market.

And it’s not just ego-driven blogger types. Celebrities, politicians, start-ups, aspiring rock stars, reality show hopefuls — anyone who might benefit from having a larger social media footprint — are known to have bought large blocks of Twitter followers.

[..]

“And it’s so cheap, too,” he said. In one instance, Mr. Mitchell said, he bought 250,000 for $2,500, or a penny each.

One site, Fiverr, an online classified for cheap marketing services, has several ads offering 1,000 Twitter followers for $5.

So, you can pick up 3,000 new followers to make you seem more popular than you are for less than a measly double sawbuck (does anyone use terms like that anymore? It's a twenty for those of you under 50)

This practice is especially upsetting when I think about how I went out and earned every goddamned ONE of my 284 Twitter followers the old fashioned way; by begging, cajoling, and threatening. Yup, every one of my followers are close personal friends for whom I have nothing but respect and appreciation.

For example, check out these dear, dear followers:

@KeepCTBlueLaws
@EmeraldCitySmoothie
@ConnecticutDeal
@sassycabbages
@ctrealtors
@DentalAssociationOfCT

OK, so maybe I've never even heard of like 80% of my followers. So friggin' what?

Anyway, this entire topic came up because of a kind of weird Twitter exchange between Rosenbaum and Jim Himes yesterday, which was September 11th. Jim posted someone about remembrance of the day, which drew a bit of a nasty retort from Rosembaum:

The guy attacked the Congressman over his 9/11 statement. Jesus! With roughly two months to go before the election, isn't it possible for a campaign to take one single day off from partisan hackery?

Although, two years ago I remember the Tea Party rally held in Bridgeport, and one of the stars of partisan hackery, Ms. Ann Coulter, stood in the rain and used the national day of remembrance to lead a hate-fest directed at the president, complete with signs comparing Obama to Hitler.

So yeah, I guess it might be asking too much to expect some Republicans to show a little respect on 9/11.

9/11

Did anyone else notice how today's perfect weather eerily mirrored that beautiful, sunny, crisp pre-autumn day 11 years ago? More than any other anniversary since, today was the most similar to that fateful morning when everything changed.

And this is the first anniversary of that day where we all live in a world that Osama bin Laden doesn't.

I drove by a 9/11 commemoration in Stratford today. First responders, military veterans, families and friends of people who lost their lives that day were in attendance. It made me feel good that we will always remember the victims of that day, and also the untold thousands of stories of individual courage and bravery that occurred during what was the worst attack to ever happen on U.S. soil.

It makes me hopeful for our nation.

Romney tortures animals

12 hours trapped in a cage, strapped to the roof of a station wagon hurtling down the interstate.

Yeah, I can totally see how that wouldn't be a terrifying hellride filled with absolute horror for a non-comprehending yet trusting family pet.

Good work there Mittens...you've obviously won over the PETA vote!

Anyway, I'm happy to see that DEVO is still making ironic and iconic music, and there's something on the front page of their website clubdevo.com called "Don't Roof Rack Me, Bro!"

Can you guess what it's about? Trust me, you'll enjoy this catchy pop tune.

And, Mitt? I sincerely hope that the poor animal took a healthy bite out of your ass when you finally let it out of that torture cage, you cruel bastard!

The President's Speech

OK, the conventions are officially over. Now we can spend the next two months comparing the candidates and deciding which one has a realistic plan for our nation. It shouldn't be too hard; just watch Romney's speech after you finish with this one. No contest. Obama 2012.

Can he run in 2016?

I doubt it, there being that pesky 22nd Amendment to limit a President to two terms. But damn, this guy can still deliver a king-hell rousing speech!

DNC leadership trashes rules for "God"

I didn't believe my eyes (or ears) when convention chair and Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa declared that a last-second change to the Democratic platform was approved by a 2/3 voice vote, especially considering the fact that he repeated the vote three times before he pretended to hear a very slight majority of "Ayes" over the resounding shouts of "No".

The language includes the name "God" in the platform, and has wording that says we think Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Apparently the DNC leadership let the GOP bully them into including the unnecessary language into the platform over the delegates wishes.

Holy shit, if the Republicans have that kind of influence over our platform, we're pretty much fucked already!

I'm disgusted and disappointed by this flagrant abuse of the rules of the convention, and I'm sure at least HALF of the delegates on hand feel EXACTLY the same way. I know there ain't two-thirds of the crowd who supports this silly amendment.

Stay tuned for further Republican changes in the platform, likely to include restrictions on the right to choose and legal gay marriage, and a repeal of all gun laws and a top tax rate of 2% for those earning more than $1,000,000 a year; and small increases across the rest of the board.

Good work, DNC. You guys have really got your act together.



Yeah Antonio, keep repeating the vote until you get one you think is close. There's no fucking way the vote was 2/3 "Aye".

You fucking lying asshole. If I was a delegate I would have walked out then and there.

Live from the DNC

My dear friends Tessa Marquis and "not that" Mike Brown (it's been like 7 or 8 years since the horrible Katrina response; is this reference at all topical anymore? Just asking) are reporting "live-ish" from the Democratic National Convention. Tessa is a delegate from Connecticut and in addition to her reporting on her awesome blog, she'll be voting for the President when the roll-call comes.

So be sure to visit and bookmark CT Free Radicals (love that name!) and read up on some of Tessa and Mike's adventures in lovely North Carolina.

And also be sure to read the excellent coverage by my pal CT Blogger at My Left Nutmeg for some impressive coverage of the events. Al is the online journalist I wish I could be (if I wasn't so goddamned lazy!)

Oh, and I caught a good part of Michelle's speech tonight. It was amazing!