In 2009, I received a packet promoting "balanced government" at my home in Mansfield. The packet listed several candidates running for Mansfield Town Council: Lee Girard, Richard Hossack, Denise Keane, Meredith Lindsey, Gene Nesbitt, and Christopher Paulhus. All of these candidates had been nominated by the Mansfield Republican Town Committee. But you'd never know it by looking at their campaign materials or their website.
Wherever one might expect to find "paid for by Mansfield Republican Town Committee" one would find instead "paid for by MRTC."
I asked myself, "Why wouldn't they just use their full name?" To me, the answer is obvious.
My hypothesis is this: in a heavily Democratic town, such as Mansfield, where the Republicans hold a single seat on the town council only because the Town Charter requires minority representation, the Mansfield Republicans determined that in order to garner more votes, they would need to deceive the electorate into thinking that their candidates were not Republicans.
I submitted a complaint to the State Elections Enforcement Commission, which was dismissed for the following reason:
Ms. Plante (Treasurer) did not violate General Statutes § 9-621 when she made expenditures for communications that included the following attribution: "Paid for by MRTC, Doryann Plante, Treasurer," as "MRTC" is a registered name for the Madison Republican Town Committee.
That's not a typo. Well, it's not mine. The SEEC either confused the two towns, or came to the absurd conclusion that the Mansfield Republican Town Committee should be permitted to use the acronym because "MRTC" is a registered name for the Madison Republican Town Committee, a separate organization.
I don't know what's going on. I left a message with the SEEC, I anxiously await their explanation.
For those interested, the file number is 2009-139, which as of this writing has not been posted to the SEEC website.
Even if the Mansfield Republicans did not violate the law, there is evidence that suggests that they employ deceptive campaign tactics. May they become more irrelevant with each passing year.
EDIT: And just in case anyone from the General Assembly is reading, how about a bill that amends General Statutes § 9-621 to require that a party committee give its full name in all communications attributions?
It is election season in South Windsor! How do I know?
Yet another Republican is in hot water. Today, it's Rachna Khanna, the endorsed Republican candidate for South Windsor Town Council.
Check out coverage by Kory Loucks in the Journal Inquirer (password required), but excerpted below:
SOUTH WINDSOR — Allegations that Rachna Khanna, a Republican newcomer running for a seat on the Town Council, is planning to move to Glastonbury and resign after being elected are false, she said this week.
Khanna is listed with the Glastonbury assessor’s office as the sole owner of a 19-room, 9,700-square-foot, custom-built home with an indoor pool and an elevator, on almost 29 acres in Glastonbury.
According to the Glastonbury assessor’s office, the home at 298 Woodland St. has photovoltaic solar panels, geothermal heating, a 16-by-40-foot indoor pool, a sauna, and an elevator with four stops...
The land was purchased in 2004 for $500,000 with Khanna, who lives at 95 Bramblebrae in South Windsor, listed as the property’s owner.
According to online real estate records.. It is assessed at $1.51 million.
She also states she has investment property "around the world". Sound like another Republican you may know?
Following is a draft of the Congressional Republicans' working plan for financial regulatory reform we've obtained. In particular, it aims to eliminate the Fed's ability to act independently in periods of financial crisis.
OUTLINE OF POTENTIAL REPUBLICAN ALTERNATIVE
ON FINANCIAL REGULATORY REFORM
Overarching principles:
• The Republican plan will be designed to ensure that (1) the government stops rewarding failure and picking winners and losers; (2) taxpayers are never again asked to pick up the tab for bad bets on Wall Street while some creditors and counterparties of failed firms are made whole; and (3) market discipline is restored so that financial firms will no longer expect the government to rescue them from the consequences of imprudent business decisions. The Republican plan seeks to return our regulatory system to one in which government policies do not promote moral hazard, and insolvent financial firms are permitted to fail rather than become wards of the state.
Best editorial cartoon in a while. A picture is worth a 1,000 words. So I won't say anything other than if McCain is crazy enough to pick Joe as VP, you will see a revolt with the far-right like never before. It would be a slap in their face. The far right doesn't want him, the Democrats don't want him, I don't think there is anyone left who wants him.
Today in the mail I received a very nice thank you letter for contributing to Jim Himes' campaign and a membership renewal letter from the RNC.
To all those who have fretted and theorized and worried and speculated about the all powerful RNC-based Republican databases that all link with their voter file (The Voter Vault)...fret no more.
How perplexing it was to get my mail today and find the third RNC fundraising solicitation in two months. I have also received two phone calls. I recently got a home phone for the first time in years, so I thought that maybe these solicitations may have something to do with that, but this last letter was especially odd.
It starts off, "I don't want to believe you've abandoned the Republican Party, but I have to ask...Have you given up?"
It goes on to state that I should renew my membership - renew...huh? I have been a registered Democrat since my 18th birthday and never contributed to a Republican anywhere for any office. Over the past two years I contributed to six Democratic party organizations and dozens of Democratic candidates at all levels in four different states - what gives?
Anyway...seems the illustrious Voter Vault has some flaws. So here are some highlights from the letter.
"There is so much at stake. The Democrats are determined to put a liberal like Hillary CLinton or Barack Obama in the White House, expand their narrow majorities in the US House and Senate, and push our country to the Left with their agenda of high taxes, big government and weakened national security."
OK - so they didn't call him Barack Husein Obama, they capitalized "Left" and we are clearly more vulnerable to national security threats since W's been in office.
Also, "Big Labor, radical liberal protest groups and Hollywood elites are planning to spend more than $500 million to defeat Republicans and aid the Democrat power grab."
OK - Big Labor (again withe the capitalization) a.k.a. the lowly workin' folk, radical liberal protest groups - I think that includes us MLNers, and they say "the Democrat power grab." cuz the "ic" at the end is just too...well icky.
And this is odd, "So if you have delayed in renewing your membership because you feel the RNC has let you down, or no longer needs you, please let me know. I want to hear from you. Just include your comments ad suggestions with the enclosed Membership Confirmation and return them with your 2008 membership renewal check."
So in order to let the RNC know if I have been let down, I need to send a membership renewal check? They desperately need a new fundraising letter writer.
Most of us already know that press censorship and propaganda have replaced a media that formerly served to inform the public. What may be less obvious to some readers is an additional "dumbing down" of the news, prompted by an apparent failure of our education system. An avid news hound and hopeless bookworm, I have become acutely aware of the fact that many otherwise good writers -- if you simply evaluate ideas or creativity -- no longer understand the concept of noun-verb agreement and also cannot distinguish between a noun and an adjective. In the latter case, politics have come into play. I recently submitted the following letter to two Connecticut publications; however, it is unlikely that either paper will print it, as my comments reflect poorly on the publications themselves. Here's the letter:
A more intriguing pick, Sherrill said, would be Sen. Joe Lieberman, the hawkish Connecticut Democrat whose nomination would allow his state's Republican governor to appoint his replacement - wresting control of the Senate from Democrats to a tie between the two parties.
Afterwards, Little Joe can then retire thinking that he put the icing on his career, instead of hanging around in 2008 being in the minority with no one listening or caring.
Democratic National Committee Chair Howard
Dean's 50
State Strategy
is credited with helping
to shift state and federal elections
throughout the country to the side of the Democrats in the last
election. Dean seeks to revitalize
Democratic organizing at the grassroots level in every part
of the country, refusing to cede
any territory to the Republican party. Translating Dean's
successful
strategy to Connecticut would mean that
every Republican candidate is challenged by a Democrat in the general
election, and no legislative district or town is sacrificed to the GOP.
Connecticut new system of public campaign financing should
remove
the last legitimate barrier to strongly challenging Republican
incumbents in state legislative elections in 2008.
In 2006, voters from one
in six state legislative districts in Connecticut elected a Republican
who ran unopposed by any Democrat (see list below). This means that that most
Republicans elected to the General Assembly had no Democratic opposition
(33 of 57, or 58%) . In
contrast, only 28% of elected Democrats were unchallenged by a
Republican
(37 of 130). Connecticut is ranked only 22nd
in the
nation in the percentage of seats contested by both major
parties.
So while Connecticut Republicans raised only 71%
of the total funds raised by Democrats
in General Assembly elections in the last cycle, current GOP
legislators are twice as
likely to have won unchallenged by a Democrat.
Below, I discuss the free-ride Republicans, their regional
breakdown, and their vulnerability.
This is a bit about Equal Rights, Civil Rights and, more importantly, knowing your wingnut opposition, and who they chose to associate and share political tactics with. (Please bear with me if it seems to meander a little! CM1)
"A year ago I criticized Hillary Clinton for saying 'this (Bush) administration will go down in history as one of the worst.'
'She's wrong,' I wrote. Then I rated these five presidents, in this order, as the worst: Andrew Jackson, James Buchanan, Ulysses Grant, Hoover and Richard Nixon. 'It's very unlikely Bush can crack that list,' I added.
I was wrong. This is my mea culpa. Not only has Bush cracked that list, but he is planted firmly at the top."
Got it?
WORST PRESIDENT EVER!
Double your viewing pleasure... Republican Al Qa'eda Terrorist Below. (No Joke!)
In a recent Courant article they talked about "a gubernatorial ritual," where "Gov. M. Jodi Rell handed out her Christmas gag gifts Tuesday to an appreciative, sellout crowd of more than 900 at the Middlesex County Chamber of Commerce pre-holiday breakfast."
In honour of that I thought that we should give Jodi her very own internet gag gift:
Colonel Barone was Sergeant Brelsford's immediate supervisor
during the first 6 months of Sergeant Brelsford's 1995-1996 jet ski
investigation and was Director of Law Enforcement at the
conclusion of Brelsford's investigation. Vito Santarsiero
complained to Barone about the "delay" in completing the
investigation. . According to Barone, after this conversation,
Barone explained to Brelsford that "other principal parties" were
interested in the consequences of the investigation and ordered
Brelsford to "wrap this thing up." Barone explained that by "other
principal parties" he meant "the other suspects, Michael Rell and
the Lieutenant Governor because it was her son." As Sergeant
Brelsford's supervisor, and a high ranking DEP official, Colonel
Barone had a direct conflict of interest in the investigation of the
allegations concerning Sergeant Brelsford's 1995-1996 jet ski
investigation, which unavoidably involved the competence and
integrity of his supervision of Sergeant Brelsford during the
1995-1996 jet ski investigation and the communications he made to
Sergeant Brelsford at the direction of Vito Santarsiero.
(PDF update) http://www.ct.gov/ag...
This may be really old news, but remember that this just typifies modern day GOP politics. Steal, lie, cover up... Oh yeah! And promote those who help you in your efforts. Rinse and repeat, at least, until you finally get caught. Just ask the DeLays, Noes, Cunninghams, and Rowlands of the GOP party.
Democratic National Committee Chair Howard
Dean's 
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