Tom Foley smoked pot

He just said so, on the governor's debate with Dan Malloy tonight.

Wow!

So they guy who wants to be governor is a lawbreaker who is against making pot legal.

Hypocrite.

(full disclosure: seconds later, Dan Malloy admitted to smoking it "once", sounding eerily similar to Bill Clinton's infamous "didn't inhale" line. I don't know a single person alive who smoked it only once...even if they didn't like it.)

Tom Foley is a dick

I just really wanted to say that.

I only hope this article shows up on his Google searches and it ruins his day. Please repost this article everywhere so it will further embarrass/anger/humiliate him.

Republican gubernatorial candidate and perpetual bridesmaid but never the bride Tom Foley has a slight lead over Gov. Dan Malloy, based on the most recent Q-poll.

Here's why I think he's a dick. Not all the reasons, but a major one. From DailyKos.com:

Four years into [Foley's] tenure [at a Pennsylvania factory], unionized workers at the manufacturing company refused his labor agreement and voted to strike – which they did, for 24 hours a day, for two and a half years.

"Because of Tom Foley … people were destroyed - and it's because Tom Foley wanted to profit," said Julie Kushner, the director of United Auto Workers Region 9, who held a press conference in Higganum Thursday along with other union leaders to call attention to the strike. According to news reports at the time, Foley received nearly $40 million as the largest shareholder when the company was sold in 2007.

"People don't do that in a haphazard way," Kushner said, referring to the length of the strike.

The strike was not resolved through labor negotiations; rather, Foley began hiring replacement employees who were not, as the striking workers were, demanding a 50-cent increase in hourly wages.

Fifty fucking cents! That's what Foley decided was worthy of dumping the factory and destroying people's livelihoods.

Of course, his $40,000,000 payday for doing so may have been a strong incentive!

What a dick!

Hey, let's be honest here. I might be capable of being as much of a dick as Tom Foley if someone was waving a $40 million check in my face.

I don't know...

But I'm not running for governor...

He is.

Anyway, it will make me feel good when Foley's campaign will spend some money on another failed bid for governor. Even if it is publicly financed this time around. At least some of it (but not all, based on his practices of hiring out of state media people) will make its way into our local economy.

At least he's gracing us with that.

And let's not forget that his multi-million dollar mega-yacht was named Odalisque, the Turkish word for a female slave in a harem.

What a dick!

You need more proof he's a dick? Listen to him yakking it up with former Congressman Rob Simmons back in 2010. You'll see what really matters to this guy...

Senate gives President authority to arm and train Syrian rebels

Welp, here we go again.

Just what we need, American arms and (almost definitely) boots on the ground in another Middle-Eastern cluster fuck!

Some of those arms will undoubtedly make their way into the hands of people who will endeavor to use them to kill Americans. Have we learned NOTHING from our tattered history of messing about in that region?

It turns out our bloodthirsty Senate voted 78-22 in favor of the motion. For fuck's sake, we can't get enough of them to vote for the justice of having American women paid the same as American men for performing the EXACT SAME JOBS, but we get a super-fucking-duper majority when it comes to killing people in a faraway land and spending unknown BILLIONS on making it so!

Our two senators split their votes. Here's what they say:

Blumenthal Statement On Senate Vote On Continuing Resolution, Authority To Train And Equip Moderate Syrian Opposition Forces

Thursday, September 18, 2014

(Washington, D.C.) – U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) today released the following statement after voting in favor of the Continuing Resolution, which, in addition to preventing a government shutdown, provides authority for the Defense Department to train and equip moderate Syrian opposition forces:

“Inaction against ISIL is unacceptable. This savage terrorist organization is a clear and urgent threat. This narrow authorization enables training of moderate Syrians to fight ISIL in their own country. It is limited in time and scope, and it explicitly prohibits American troops in combat. I continue to have concerns and questions, including the need for more specific firm commitments from countries in the region as well as global allies, and sufficient assurances that the arms and training will be used for our interests, not against us.

“The Senate will be voting again on this authorization because this one expires on December 11. My position in future votes will depend on whether my concerns and questions are answered. Chief among my concerns is whether Arab nations commit themselves significantly and vigorously to the fight against ISIL’s inhumane and dangerous brutality and ideology.

“An important consideration in my vote today was the need to prevent a government shutdown.”

And Sen. Chris Murphy had a slightly different opinion:

Moments ago, I cast my vote in the Senate against arming and training the Syrian rebels.

I continue to believe that President Obama has laid out a strong case for taking the fight to ISIL. I agree with his decision to launch airstrikes against ISIL in Iraq, to compel new leadership in Iraq to achieve political reconciliation with moderate Sunnis, and to put together a broad, international military coalition. The president has shown true, decisive leadership in the fight against ISIL and I applaud him for his strength and resolve.

I simply don't believe an effective strategy to combat ISIL requires America to get more deeply involved in the Syrian civil war.

First, the moderate Syrian rebels have shown a disturbing willingness to join forces with Islamic extremists like the Al Nusra Front, a wing of Al Qaeda, and it will be nearly impossible to stop the rebels we train from joining forces with groups that pose a real threat to the United States.

Second, it will be hard to thread the needle of supporting a majority Shiite regime against Sunni extremists in Iraq while, at the same time, supporting a largely Sunni insurgency against a Shiite leader in Syria.

Third, I believe we are too optimistic that the American trained rebels will target ISIL when their true enemy inside Syria is Bashar al-Assad. Asking a minimally trained army to take on two barbaric foes at once seems unrealistic.

I want to close by reiterating that I still firmly maintain Congress needs to authorize this new war against ISIL. This issue remains too important to not have all voices at the table before moving forward.

All the best,

Chris Murphy
U.S. Senator, Connecticut

Q-Poll shows Malloy trailing Foley

A Quinnipiac poll released earlier today shows Governor Dan Malloy trailing Republican challenger Tom Foley 40% to 46%.

There are some reasons why this is happening, and most of them point to Malloy and his re-election campaign.

Susan Bigelow observes some of the missteps of Malloy's efforts in an Op-Ed over at CT News Junkie.

Voter frustration seems to lead the list, but there is one other possible reason things are not going well for Dan Malloy, and that is the simple fact that incumbents tend to have a harder time during mid-term years. An opposition party usually has an easier time getting momentum against an incumbent, especially when he's not very effective at getting his message out, and also that he won his seat by only about 6,000 votes statewide.

There's still about two months until the election, and that's plenty of time to turn things around. But unless Malloy's campaign finds a simple and effective way to get their message to voters, it's likely to be an uphill battle.

Coverage of the Bill Clinton rally in New Haven

Here's the video and all the details I learned by attending today's Bill Clinton grassroots rally in New Haven:




























































(there would be something really cool here probably, but Democratic State Central declined to give me a media pass)





So, in lieu of a new video with Bill Clinton, here is a my video of his speech from October 2010, when the president made a stop in Norwalk to stump for Dick Blumenthal, Dan Malloy, and Jim Himes. I could have made another video like this available today, had I been granted a media pass.