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.

Gearing up for the 2014 mid-terms

Going into this year's election, we have a responsibility to keep our Democratic sweep here in Connecticut. We enjoy a strong field of incumbents, but we can't let our guard down for even a moment. The Tea Party extremists and the anti-everything Republicans will keep trying to whittle down our super-duper majority here.

Hey! Anyone remember the Republican shutdown that cost our nation BILLIONS OF DOLLARS? We need every Democratic vote in Congress to battle these short-sighted and reactionary extremists.

And we need to protect those voters who will unknowingly support them and sabotage their own futures!

Here's some folks who are running in Connecticut for reelection this year. Give them your support and let them know we are all fighting for the same causes!





And here's a couple videos that showcase fine public servants who won in 2010:

8 years ago today

Time sure do fly!

Eight years ago today Democrat Ned Lamont shocked the world by beating Neocon Joe "Bush Kiss" Lieberman in the primary for the party nomination for Senator in Connecticut.

Wow, it's been THAT long?

So, to commemorate the occasion, here's the British version of "Blog Wars", the documentary that featured a rag-tag collection of shady characters and ne'er-do-wells...otherwise known as "bloggers"!

Enjoy a stroll down memory lane and watch this, courtesy of the director James Rogan. Watching it today, it seems like that was a time when the social aspect of the internet was being formed, and soon MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter took over the internet. But for a brief, shining moment, the blogs were the center of the universe.

And it was fun as hell being a part of it!

Blog Wars from James Rogan on Vimeo.

Foley: It's YOUR fault!

From DailyKos.com:

If you are voting in Connecticut this fall, you need to watch this video. If you know someone voting in Connecticut this fall, you need to watch AND share this video.

The CT Mirror sets the stage:

Near the gate of a doomed paper mill, Republican Tom Foley alighted from the back seat of a blue BMW sedan Tuesday to assail the economic policies of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, only to find himself in a raucous street debate with the local first selectwoman and soon-to-be jobless workers.

Foley, a candidate for governor, came to fault Malloy for the recently announced plans by a global investment firm to close Fusion Paperboard, costing 140 jobs in this struggling mill town. By the time he left, Foley had defended the decision of the absentee owners and told the selectwoman and workers they shared blame for the mill’s demise.

“You want to blame people who are hundreds or thousands of miles away, malign management,” Foley told the workers and First Selectwoman Cathy Osten, a Democratic state senator and Malloy supporter. “Listen, you have failed, because you have lost these jobs.”

A little backstory—the Fusion Paperboard Company makes recycled cardboard boxes (pizza boxes, etc) and has been around since the 1960s. Last week they announced they were closing, despite heavy volume and a 17 day back order, leaving 145 employees facing unemployment, many of whom had worked for the factory for decades.

In 2013, OpenGate Financial, the investment firm that owns Fusion, applied for and received a $2 million loan (plus an optional $1 million more), with a promise of expanding the plant over the next 10 years. After six years of concessions, workers at the mill agreed to a new six year contract just days before the closure was announced. With a promise of expansion, a new union contract and a heavy volume of orders, things were looking up.

And suddenly, without explanation, OpenGate Financial announced the mill would be closing. But, why? Because OpenGate Financial decided to sell all of the equipment to the largest competitor, thereby shrinking the competition. If this all sounds familiar, it is because these are exactly the type of stomach-churning tactics used by Bain Capital and the Mitt Romney's of the world.

When questioned further about what Tom Foley would do differently than Governor Malloy to keep businesses in Connecticut, his response was:

I wouldn't have instituted the anti-business policies that Governor Malloy did. Things like mandatory sick leave, raising energy costs, uhhh, just the negative signals he sends out.

THINGS LIKE MANDATORY SICK LEAVE. Wow. Businessman Tom Foley has come down very decidedly on the side of big business, no matter the cost to the working voters of Connecticut. Forget voters, this is about shareholders. Can Connecticut afford Tom Foley? No. Hell no.

Foley rolled in to use the Fusion Paperboard Company as nothing more than a prop and a backdrop for his nonsensical talking points and he got his ass handed to him by the people in the district that will be affected the hardest. They grilled him on how he would've saved their jobs and his response? To blame the workers themselves.

The disastrous press conference was 30 minutes long, but it is eye popping and most definitely worth watching. Especially if you or someone you know is voting in Connecticut this fall.



Originally posted to Scout Finch on Thu Jul 31, 2014 at 07:26 AM PDT.
Also republished by Daily Kos.

Sunday Night Music Club v.36

Alright!

The National Football League basically justified my decision to dump that stupid Roman numbering system and go with good ol' decimal.

The NFL recently announced that the next Super Bowl will be "50" instead of the Roman numeral "L".

I consider that validation on an unprecedented level!

So, here's my choice for v.36 this week:

Leonard Cohen's apocalyptic poem to our society's inevitable decay..."The Future"!

This song was featured in the film "Natural Born Killers", that was directed by Oliver Stone and produced in part by Jane Hamsher, who currently resides at FireDogLake.com, and who was a major influence in my becoming politically active as a blogger.

So, you can blame all this craziness on her!

Actually, Jane is one of my heroes, and I consider myself lucky to have met her and done work that made her proud (see the year 2006 in the archives of this blog). And I have her to thank for influencing much of the music that was selected for NBK, including this amazing song by Leonard Cohen.

Here's the thing....

I often wondered about this linguistic crutch that people use to give themselves a moment to think of something clever to say. "Here's the thing" is definitely that.

So, just a moment ago I was pondering that phrase and suddenly I wondered, "Where's the Thing?"

And so, here's the Volkswagon "Thing". A production car I remembered from my childhood that had a brief run in the United States during the second Nixon term. It so clearly was a terrible "thing" that few people bought it.

But, it IS a "thing".

Does anyone else remember the "Thing"?

Why Eric Cantor losing is a bad thing

I didn't think it was possible to find any more room to the right of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

Yesterday Cantor, a seven term congressman and the second most powerful person in the House, was soundly thrashed in a primary by an unknown Tea Party candidate. Cantor's supporters poured something like $5,000,000 into his campaign, while Dave Brat spent around $100,000 to gain a huge victory.

Cantor was clearly stunned by the results during his post-defeat remarks. His wife didn't look too happy either.

Here's why this is such a bad thing:

Cantor's defeat sends a message to all GOP congressmen that it doesn't pay to be even the slightest bit moderate in their actions. If you want to stay in Congress, you will have to move as far right as humanly possible...and then take another three steps to the right of that! Any hint of compromise with the Democrats will be the kiss of death for their careers.

This will result in Congress doing even less constructive work than before. Immigration reform is likely dead for the remainder of Obama's presidency. And it will embolden the Tea Party to run even MORE extremist candidates to challenge establishment Republicans.

This upset should scare the living shit out of any GOP congressmen who are vulnerable, and also all the Democrats who actually are hoping to get anything useful done in Congress.

We had a government shutdown last year because of extremists in the House. I can only imagine what's in store if a significant number of Tea Party candidates win this year.

It won't be good, that's for sure.

Will Connecticut Legislature drop the ball on National Popular Vote?

UPDATE: Today I spoke to the Speaker's representative about the bill. He told me that Mr. Sharkey would gladly bring the bill to a vote if there was enough support for it to pass. But he said that the Republicans are nearly unanimous in their opposition to it, and there isn't enough Democratic support to get a clear majority. There are other more pressing issues that need to be addressed during the final days of the session, and having a bill fail to pass wouldn't be the best use of the time.

I appreciate hearing from the Speaker's office, and agree with his reasoning.

==============================================================

Reprinted in its entirety from My Left Nutmeg:

by: Kim Hynes
Thu Apr 24, 2014 at 08:37:38 AM EDT

We're getting close to the end of the legislative session and, as usual in a short session, things are getting lost. National Popular Vote is in danger of being one of those things. Under the National Popular Vote bill, participating states would join an agreement to award their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the most votes in all 50 states. This agreement would only go into effect when states representing an Electoral College majority, 270, signed on. When the agreement kicked in, the winner of the national popular vote would win in the Electoral College. We are 60% of the way there! New York joined the compact last week, with Governor Cuomo signing it into law.

Despite promising that the bill would be called if the votes were there (they are) House Speaker Brendan Sharkey seems focused on letting it die. We have heard he was very negative about it in the Democratic caucus. CT News Junkie today quotes Representative Jutila, " 'Although the speaker has said he would allow the bill to be raised if enough House Democrats wanted it passed', Jutila said Sharkey's opinion on the issue has cooled support among lawmakers who did not previously have firm positions on the issue."

If you have not yet called Speaker Brendan Sharkey or the Governor now is the critical time to express your support for House Bill 5126, the National Popular Vote Bill .

Every vote should count for President of the US as it does in other elections, support the National Popular Vote!

--------------------

Contact info:

Legislative Office Building, Room 4100
Hartford, CT 06106-1591
1-800-842-1902 | (860) 240-8500

600 Mount Carmel Avenue
Hamden, CT 06518
(203) 281-4647
Brendan.Sharkey@cga.ct.gov

Sunday Night Music Club v.35

Fuck it, I'm done with the stupid Roman numeral scheme I adopted a million years ago, back when I thought it looked kind of cool. Now when I have to hit the "x" key more than twice, it annoys the hell outta me. So, that's it for any non-decimal number system for me!

Although, the idea of doing it with hexidecimal kinda intrigues me...SNMC #23 works, right?

Anyhoo, here's 2 Skinnee J's doing "Nrrrd Riot". I saw them at Woodstock '99, which was great except for the post concert riots, which I managed to avoid for the most part, but someone gave me a Metallica T-shirt he looted during the general anarchy that followed the closing show. And that ensured there will never be another WS concert again, when compared to the '94 festival, which was largely peaceful and mostly consisted of truly caring people instead of the drunken frat-boy fest that was '99.

Which was a shame, but there were still some good memories from '99, which included 2 Skinnee J's doing an awesome late night set in one of the hangers in the old Rome Air Force Base. There was a vintage B-52 bomber displayed at the entrance of the airport that looked pretty cool in an anachronistic sense. Plus, they showed "A Clockwork Orange" on a huge screen in one of the hangers, which was awesome during the 20 minutes I chilled there. But ICP was scheduled to play on the 2nd stage, and I didn't want to miss them!