O kay. In the news business, when someone beats you to a story, generally, it's nice if you acknowledge that you got your ass kicked.

 

For example, Ed Vargas, a soon-to-announce candidate for John Fonfara's seat for Senate, called me the other day. Ken, he said, I know that you've written a lot about franking privileges, so I hope you saw the story in the Courant about John Fonfara using tax dollars to promote a corporate event.

 

I won't give the for-profit giant Fonfara shilled for the benefit of being named. Suffice it to say that their logo looks like the Death Star. But, hats off the Courant for beating me to the punch.

 

Now only if they would do the same when we bloggo-terrorists scoop them on real news reporting. See, I'm kind of sick of not be treated as an equal.

 

And oh yeah, one more thing about Josh King of The Hartford: he was an advance promo man for President Bill Clinton. It explains the ooze coming off of him at the NRZ meeting Monday night. There is always room for members of the DLC at the corporate table...

 

In the future, I'll have more on Vargas, a longtime Hartford educator and former teachers' union president, who will hopefully unseat the unscrupulous Fonfara. Longtime political strategist John Murphy of CCAG will be running his campaign, which bodes well for an upset.

And I feel like a putz for not noting this sooner, but Wednesday was the fourth anniversary of the death of Sgt. Felix DelGreco of the Connecticut National Guard. Sgt. DelGreco was killed in Iraq. I never met him, but am friends with his cousins, and their pain is shared.

Other war news: Who would've thought that John Ashcroft would come out of the Bus administration looking good? Here's a politician who lost an election to a dead guy - Mel Carnahan, then proceeded to cover the breasts of Justice when he was Attorney General. But he is my hero of the day in the Bush Administration (if that isn't an oxymoron).

ABC News has reported that Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumself, Powell and others approved of torture techniques. ABC News reported that:

According to a top official, Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: "Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly."

Think happy thoughts: Hartford has a new bike blog, which we'll link to soon. But I think the first post will probably be about the CCBA annual dinner. Wednesday night at Adams Mill (a former paper mill) in Manchester, more than 100 of us from across the state celebrated bicycling and advocacy.

 

Hooray for us! Out of the 100, only six of us rode our bicycles out there. We need to work on that. But we raised more than $1,000 for cycling, which will probably go towards the Discover Hartford Tour on Sept. 13. And we're already planning next year's dinner affair, hopefully at Hartford City Hall.

 

Also, if you didn't see it, NY Gov. David Paterson nixed Broadwater. Hooray again! Thank you, Client #9. It is highly likely that Spitzer would've approved Broadwater. Who said sex wasn't good for us?

 

And finally, God, I hope it's true what CT Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele said in today's Courant: that Gov. Rell will run again in 2010. I would love another shot at her in a campaign. The material she and Lisa Moody keep giving us is too good. Speaker Amann makes a good point that Fedele has to say that, otherwise she's a lame duck for the next two years.

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