What is the exact amount of money that will corrupt a person? $100? $200? $10,000?

 

That's what State Representative Corky Mazurek wants to know. Mazurek, a three term Democrat incumbent in the 80th district in Wolcott and Southington, won a heated August primary over challenger Karen Houghtaling by about 70 votes.

 

Mazurek's primary victory produced one of the first bumps in the road for the new campaign finance law, bumps which the Elections Enforcement Commission is determined to smooth out by the time the 2010 election cycle rolls around.

 

Mazurek, who voted against the clean elections bill back in 2005, participated in the program during the primary, and was the recipient of a contested series of mailings by the Realtors PAC, worth about $10,000.

 

Houghtaling's campaign manager Phil Sherwood wonders exactly how many of those 70 votes came from that mailer.

Link...

 

Bunch of somewhat connected thoughts, some sad, some happy:

 

Peter Camejo died Saturday, Sept. 13. He ran for president in 1976 with the Socialist Workers Party. He joined Nader in 2004 as an independent. He was a revolutionary.

 

His range of knowledge led to books like The SRI Advantage: Why Socially Responsible Investing Has Outperformed Financially and Racism, Revolution, Reaction, 1861-1877. The Rise and Fall of Radical Reconstruction.

 

And he was a funny guy. I took headshots of him for the campaign the night he spoke in Maryland (pictured). He told me some joke about Bush and Kerry ice fishing, on a boat, somewhere in Maine. I forget the punchline. Yet I know I laughed when he told it.

 

No matter. Camejo was an amazing man - an Olympic caliber sailor, born in Venezuela, moved to Queens, and in the late 1960s, deemed one of California's ten most dangerous persons by Gov. Ronald Reagan for leading in anti-war demonstrations.

 

Speakign of late 1960s: Richie Havens kicks ass. Freedom. Freedom. John Amato over at Crooks and Liars linked to Havens' performance of Handsome Johnny. But earlier this week, Freedom was on my mind.

 

Here's a well-spent Saturday, November 22, 2008 from 5 to 9:30 pm: Pace (People's Action for Clean Energy) will host "Renewable Energy = Peace," an evening of exhibits, dinner and awards for folks trying to bring us to a carbon-free, energy independent present.

 

And one more Pace event: Sunday, October 19, rain or shine, its the 51st Solar House Tour and Seminar. If you've never done it, call 860-623-5487 for tickets and 860-693-4813 for the skinny on the tour itself. It runs at noon and three out in Bethany. What are you waiting for? Call already.

 

And a shout out to the folks at the Farmington Apple Empire store for getting the powerbook wireless again. Whew. Beto, Tim, Nikki Stan and Kate - thanks!

Vote Camejo...

 

Mayor Mike Peters and I have had our disagreements in the past, but we agree here: Eddie Perez is bad news.

 

But even more importantly, I want to put bad things aside and wish Mayor Mike the best. He doesn't look so hot, and is apprently dealing with a serious illness. I hope he is not suffering.

 

No matter what, he has the courage to face whatever he is dealing with and speak his mind about El Alcalde's failings as a chief executive officer.

 

Peters said he thinks the other shoe is going to drop with the grand jury investigation. Peters describes how he testified, and within 15 minutes, they let him go.

 

I think that if the grand jury had anything on Perez, it would have indicted him by now. Unfortunately, I don't think they've found the smoking gun.

 

If there is no smoking gun, then Perez is smarter than we give him credit for in hiding corruption. If there is no smoking gun because there is no outright corruption, then Perez has no excuse other than incompetence.

 

CTBlogger on Eddie's Troubles...

 

Sponsors of Speaker of the United States' House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi's book tour visit to the Hartford Club, Friday, September 12, 2008:

 

United Technologies, the Bushnell. the Global Women's Issues Forum of the World Affairs Council of Connecticut.

 

Laurie Aylsworth, representative of Northeast Utilities Transmission, on what a public utility has in common with Nancy Pelosi, third most powerful elected official in the federal government:

 

"People power."

 

Kelly Romano, corporate spokesperson from Carrier, the air conditioning unit of United Technologies Corporation, reeling off statistics about UTC's relationship with the great state of Connecticut:

 

"We have 27,000 employees in the state. Last year, we gave $4.7 million to not-for-profits in Connecticut last year."

 

Estimated 2007 salary of George David, chief executive officer of United Technologies, including stock options, bonuses, etc:

 

$27 million.

 

Kelly Romano of UTC on similarities between UTC and Nancy Pelosi:

 

"Like Speaker Pelosi, UTC is committed environmental giving areas. UTC embraces sustainability. We have been working towards a 20 percent reduction in absolute energy usage since 1997. Climate change is a priority. We are committed to securing a better energy climate in this country with the deployment of programs and expanded options, like clean energy production tax credits, fuel cells, and more."

 

How UTC, a fictional paper entity, feels about being part of the event with Speaker Pelosi, according to Romano:

 

"Honored."

 

Link to what Pelosi said in Hartford...

 

Barbara J. Ruhe of Wethersfield sent a letter to the Editor at the Hartford Courant congratulating Gov. M. Jodi Rell and I back in March 2007.

 

Gov. Rell and I bumped into each other at a parade, and we took our picture together. The Courant printed it. What a hoot!

 

Ruhe wrote: “The picture was the epitome of class on the part of the governor and grace on the part of Mr. Krayeske. Both qualities are rarely seen in the public realm and even more seldom celebrated.”

 

For that, I sent her Ruhe a thank-you postcard from Malta in October 2007, when I had the chance to express my gratitude to complete strangers who defended me in that hour of need. She didn’t have to say anything at all.

 

Fast-forward to August 2008, and I get an email from Ruhe. She’s an attorney, a Republican, and she is running for state senate against stale incumbent John Fonfara.

 

Ruhe and I set up an interview, and at the appropriate hour, I arrived at her law offices. I noticed not just my postcard from Malta, but standard CT GOP paraphernalia, like a signed note from former Gov. John G. Rowland.

 

Her impassioned defense of Rowland almost made me like the guy.

 

“John Rowland was the first governor in this state that paid attention to the needs of children,” Ruhe said.

Link...

 

The way the pattern looks now for pre-emptive arrest of protesters, by the time we finish the proceedings in Krayeske v. City of Hartford, federal docket number 07cv0827, I’ll be able to coach more than a few people in how to protect and exercise Constitutionally protected civil rights.

 

First, I would tell the more than 300 protesters and the dozens of independent journalists in Minneapolis-St. Paul who were arrested this week during the Republican National Convention in Minnesota that protecting civil rights isn't easy.

 

What happened to all them fit the pattern of what happened to me. There has to be a playbook for it in some federal agency.

Link...

 

Toto, the fascists aren't just in Hartford anymore. Not that they ever were limited to Connecticut's state capital.

 

But the record shows the police in Philly, Washington, D.C., Miami, New York City, Los Angeles, Denver and St. Paul are all working from the same playbook. From the Democratic National Conventions in 2000, to the Republican one in New York City in '04, to my arrest and detention in Hartford in 2007, to Denver of this year, the pattern is clear:

 

THE FASCISTS ARE ON THE MARCH, INTIMIDATING JOURNALISTS AND PROTESTERS, AND YOU, THE READER OF THIS BLOG, ARE NEXT! BEWARE!

 

I don't like to sound the alarm, but Paul Revere would have been riding a long time ago. Remember that Amy Goodman had dealt with pigs before. She was once beaten by an American rifle held by an Indonesian riot cop while covering a massacre in East Timor.

 

And now, her producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar have been bloodied and bruised while covering anti-war protests in St. Paul.

 

Attorney Glenn Greenwald called the city the most militarized American enclave he had ever seen, beating out Denver which last week conducted massive pre-emptive raids. Minneapolis-St. Paul did the same thing to protesters.

 

It's like Chicago '68, but across the country. In Denver, on the stadium floor where Obama gave his speech, security prevented Goodman from interviewing Georgia Congressman John Lewis, who once marched with Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

And now in St. Paul, this? The police have not dropped charges on Goodman, Kaddous and Salazar, and likely won't. I know from experience that this is a pain in the ass.

 

And worse than that, at first I was being cynical when I thought that the ensuing lawsuits from the false arrests were part of the p.r. budget for the conventions.

 

UPDATE 9/8/8 - On DN!last week, it was reported that the Twin Cities negotiated with the Republican National Committee that they RNC would have $10 million in insurance coverage for lawsuits from false arrests, so that the city wouldn't be stuck with the whole bill.

 

The bastards will arrest people like Goodman or Glass Bead Collective (the people who brought you the video of the NYC cop wrecking a critical mass cyclist), understand that a lawsuit will be coming, but do it anyway, just to stop any bad news from wrecking the Republican image.

 

Sarah Palin's pregnant 17-year-old may have already done that. According to Mark Pazniokas of the Hartford Courant, police response may have been justified because protestors threw watered down bleach solutions on old and infirmed Republicans.

 

I never doubt the use of agents provacatuers, although I have been at some protests where anarchists get out of hand.

 

Whatever the case is, there has to be karmic pushback - non-violent non-cooperation with evil - against the forces of fascism.

Link...

 

You should wear a bullet proof vest when you ride your bike in Hartford, my coworkers at the small suburban law firm tell me. They fear for my safety.

 

Sadly, I barely wake when gunshots rip the night in Asylum Hill, yet I feel plenty safe. But the continued violence in Hartford continues to frighten suburbanites, and worse, this rash of violence paralyzes political leadership on all levels in Connecticut.

 

Another double homicide greeted Monday, reminding this late August week that no matter how many rallies and curfews and prisons our society responds with, guns love poverty. The mating of those two elements is death and destruction.

 

The solution lies in introspection, and genuine personal change in each citizen, not from the political power brokering.

 

I imagine that Mayor Eddie Perez feels genuinely pained by his inability to stem the crimson tide washing Hartford’s streets. Mayor Perez can install his people in office, he can strong-arm opponents with legislative maneuvers and he can hand out favors to his cronies.

 

But that power is illusory, and he knows it. He lacks the power to stop the violence. For us to think that we can rely on a Mayor, or a Governor to stop it is a fallacy.

Link...

 

This is pretty cool. WFSB-3's Dennis House gave some bloggers a bigger platform, and we talked Hartford.

 

According to one critic, I'm a bit too intense (and of course, I have asked said critic for feedback on how to tone it down - we don't want to overwhelm when talking about life and death or anything...)

 

So, yeah, grab some popcorn, and cue up this magnificent piece of talk show hosting by Dennis House, and enjoy the show.

 

Link to WFSB ...

 

Visual juxtaposition: a Gremlins movie trading card and a fireworks box from Nebraska, where my former neighbors Ben and Annie hail from. One night in July we popped off some fireworks that happened to look like public enemies numbers 1 through 4.

 

A few weeks back I was at Chillwill's house and leafing through a box of trading cards, and I stumbled across the Gremlins movie trading card, illustrating the feeling that these four Middle Eastern political figures are supposed to strike in our hearts and minds.

 

Run, run for your lives! Or light a match and explode these effigies of our enemies. Boom! Fireworks are entertaining, like Shockingly awesome displays of modern weaponry falling on Baghdad.

Start your fearworks ...

 

Kids who want to learn get chewed up in the public school system, said Patrick Moore, the head of the new Covenant Preparatory School in Hartford.

 

Covenant, a private, rigorous middle school, will begin operations this week, on the corner of Farmington and Broad streets in the old YWCA facility.

 

A year ago, Moore had a vision to start an intensive academic experience for high-performing yet at-risk Hartford students. He had no building, no money.

 

“No nothing,” Moore said. Moore hails from Canton. He attended Holy Cross College in Worcester, and considered law school. But then he spent a year volunteering as a teacher in a Covenant Prep School in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

 

That year turned into four, and those four years stoked the fire for Moore to replicate the successful Covenant model in Hartford. Jesuit brothers in the lower east side of New York City started the Covenant model 37 years ago, and now more than 65 Covenant Schools dot the American urban landscape.

 

“I’ll never be able to give back what this school has given me,” Moore said. “This is my passion. I had it pretty good. I was fortunate to grow up in Canton.”

 

So Moore is trying to give back, and he is not worried that 15 students fifth and sixth grades that will start this week won’t trust him, a white idealistic suburbanite.

 

“These students are smarter than we give them credit for,” Moore said. “They know I am here to work for them.”

 

Link...

 

WFSB-3 news team, congrats! You've gotten John Rose, Jr., Hartford's Corporation Counsel, to show his true stripes on camera.

 

Not only that, little old blogger me will be on Face the State, Sunday, August 24 on Channel 3 at 11 a.m. Hooray! Dennis House invited myself, Kerri Provost of Real Hartford and Amy Bergquist of the Greater Hartford Real Estate Blog.

 

We talked about violence, poverty and educational issues in Hartford. And we graded Eddie Perez. I gave him an "F."

 

My favorite thing, though, is that Len Besthoff in the above clip reveals that the Perez grand jury investigation has called Kelvin Roldan, state representive and pig at Hartford's taxpayer trough for his cushy job at the school system.

 

Summer, boys, means the heat is on. And in full disclosure about John Rose, Jr., I should note that I am suing the city of Hartford in federal court for that arrest thing last year, and Rose, Jr. is listed as counsel of record on the lawsuit.

Link...

 

Sitting through the public hearing at the Court of Common Council Monday night, August 11 at Hartford City Hall was painful.

 

A massive crowd stuffed themselves like sardines into council chambers. Person after person paraded to the microphone to air an angry laundry list of the failures of self-governance.

 

The problems in Hartford seem intractable, so embedded and deeply ingrained that this kind of public venting and self-expression – more than 50 speakers at a pre-council meeting hearing – may be the only way to hang onto some semblance of city pride.

 

Council President Cal Torres, though, had trouble maintaining order, and some rowdy, inconsiderate speakers didn’t play responsibly, which added to the chaotic feel of it.

 

And it made me wonder if Council President Calixto Torres can’t run a public hearing, how do we expect him to lead a council with any backbone to challenge a power-hungry Mayor.

 

These are hard times. People complained about having to choose between eating and paying for electricity. Others explained the fear they have walking the streets after 11 shootings in 24 hours. Still more complained about the closures of the library branches and linked the lack of services to the explosive violent outbreak. A few derided the concept of a curfew as collective punishment on youth. Someone else praised it.

Link...