Mitt Romney fields questions after his big speech yesterday:

Reporter: So Joseph Smith put the golden plates in a hat?

Romney: Well, I really don’t want to get into all the nuts and bolts about...

Reporter: And he translated what was on the plates with what, again?

Romney: The Urim and Thummim.

Reporter: Can you spell that?

Romney: No. Look, the point is that religion and politics should never be...

Reporter: And the angel Macaroni told him where the plates were?

Romney: Moroni! It's the Angel Moroni! And I really don’t see why...

Reporter: Did anyone else see these gold plates?

Romney: Look, guys, this is getting way off-topic, and...

Reporter: Isn’t it odd that Joseph Smith put the plates in a hat...then read the words on the plates to a transcriber...who was writing behind a curtain...and then Smith buried the plates so there's no independent verification that they ever existed?

Romney: Oh, they exist, pal...they exist! And if you say one more goddam word about...

Reporter: Hey, you're not supposed to swear!

Romney: I know, I know. I'm sorry. I just... I just want to talk about why my faith won’t interfere with my being president, is all. So if I could just say...

Reporter: Now, your church considered blacks to be cursed during its first 150 years. So when that position was reversed recently, in 1978, was there an adjustment period where it was like, Hey, this is a little freaky...

Romney: No!

Reporter: Like, Hey, get outta my chair! Oops, I forgot, you're on our team now...

Romney: I'm not answering that!

Reporter: Governor Romney, about the Planet Kobol. As president would you have NASA send some sort of a probe to explore the surface of...

Romney: That's it! We're done here.

Reporter: Would you say your magic underw...er, sacred garments are in a twist?

Romney: God, I need a drink... Of water! Of water!

[Ker-SLAM!!]

Dear Mr. Romney,

In your speech yesterday you made some profound statements of belief that eloquently displayed your devotion to the tenets of Christian faith. You described how as a child your parents taught you to “honor God and love my neighbor.” Did your parents also teach you that the best way to honor God and love your neighbor is to build fences on the southern border in order to keep Latinos out of the country?

You said yesterday that you believe strongly that every person has “inherent and inalienable worth” and that “every single human being is a child of God – we are all part of the human family.” Why then do you repeatedly demonize some members of your human family by calling them illegal and insist that they have no basic human or civil rights?

You went on to speak of the fact that since we are all part of a common human family, we are responsible to one another, “to every child of God.” Am I to suppose that undocumented migrants are not children of God because you deny them any possible path to citizenship – any opportunity to take responsibility for their actions and take appropriate steps to legalize their status?

Lastly, in acknowledging that “Jesus is the Son of God and the Savior of Mankind” shouldn’t you also acknowledge that Jesus incarnated himself among migrants in such a profound way that to welcome the stranger is to welcome “the Son of God and the Savior of Mankind?” (Matthew 25) Do you welcome the stranger – the incarnated “Son of God” – by arresting, detaining, and deporting the stranger?

Mr. Romney, I do wish that the eloquence with which you spoke yesterday actually had substance in your treatment of our migrant brothers and sisters. All of us – undocumented immigrants included – are indeed children of God. Isn’t it time that our statements of religious belief become realized in our actions and national policies?

At 5:15 p.m., state police in Southbury report numerous accidents in both directions of Interstate 84 between Southbury and the New York border.

Police are responding to an incident on Pleasant Street, a steep hill in Danbury apparently covered in ice.

Despite forecasts from the National Weather Service pegging the chance of snow at 30 percent, about a half-inch had already collected on streets in downtown Danbury by about 3:30 p.m., where traffic had slowed to a crawl on Main Street.

Accidents have been reported throughout the area, in Danbury at Triangle and Byron streets and in Newtown at the intersection of Main and Sugar streets, both occurring about 3:30 p.m. By 3:45 p.m., emergency personnel were dispatched to another accident in Newtown, at the intersection of Church Hill Road and Walnut Tree Hill Road, and another in Danbury on Beaver Brook Road.

After 4 p.m. more accidents were being reported throughout the area. In Danbury a crash was reported on Brushy Hill Road, and about 4:25 p.m. emergency personnel were dispatched to a report of a disabled school bus on Lime Kiln Road in Redding near Route 53. Snowfall had eased considerably to flurries by about 5:15 p.m. in downtown Danbury.

As Governor Mitt Romney explores a presidential bid, he has grown outspoken in his criticism of illegal immigration. But, for a decade, the governor has used a landscaping company that relies heavily on workers like these, illegal Guatemalan immigrants, to maintain the grounds surrounding his pink Colonial house on Marsh Street in Belmont.

The Globe recently interviewed four current and former employees of Community Lawn Service with a Heart, the tiny Chelsea-based company that provides upkeep of Romney's property. All but one said they were in the United States illegally.

The employees told the Globe that company owner Ricardo Saenz never asked them to provide documents showing their immigration status and knew they were illegal immigrants.

"He never asked for papers," said Rosales, who said he had paid smugglers about $5,000 to take him across the US-Mexican border and settled in Chelsea.

The workers said they were paid in cash at $9 to $10 an hour and sometimes worked 11-hour days.

Romney never inquired about their status, they said.

In addition to maintaining the governor's property, they also tended to the lawn at the house owned by Romney's son, Taggart, less than a mile away on the same winding street.

Asked by a reporter yesterday about his use of Community Lawn Service with a Heart, Romney, who was hosting the Republican Governors Association conference in Miami, said, "Aw, geez," and walked away.

[...]

The situation underscores the extent to which illegal immigrants permeate the US economy. Even as Romney travels the country, vowing to curb the flood of low-skilled illegal immigrants into the United States, some of those workers maintain his own yard, cutting grass, pruning shrubs, and mulching trees.

Saenz said he met Romney through the Mormon Church and said Romney has used his company's services for a decade. Saenz said Romney never asked him if his workers are legal immigrants.

Mitt Romney, whose intolerance of illegal immigrants has been a central theme of his presidential campaign, was caught out for a second time employing undocumented Guatemalans to tend his lawn.

The revelation was an embarrassing setback for Mr Romney and a reflection of how the subject of illegal immigration has become one of the most perilous for Republican and Democrat candidates. The issue badly damaged John McCain's campaign and caused Hillary Clinton significant trouble last month.

[...]

Despite polls showing that most Americans support giving undocumented workers the chance to earn their way to legal status, nearly all the candidates seeking the Republican nomination have pandered to the party's base and decried what they call an “amnesty”. Immigration is a highly charged issue in Iowa, the first state in the contest. Winning Iowa is crucial to Mr Romney's campaign but he has been losing ground there in recent weeks.

Mr Romney's rivals have ridiculed him over the news. A spokesman for Fred Thompson said: “First Mitt Romney was for illegal immigrants working on his lawn, and then he was against it, then for it, and now I guess he's against it again.” An aide to Mr Giuliani said that the revelation spoke for itself. A laughing Mr McCain made lawnmower-pushing motions in front of reporters.

Tom “Big T” Bennett

If any clown in Danbury is worthy of having his portrait oil-painted on velvet this year, it would have to be Tom Bennett. As the former host of Big T’s Talk and Variety Show on Comcast cable-access channel 23, Bennett brought almost two decades on the air to an awkward and unceremonious end, owing to his race-baiting.

It’s easy to dismiss the cherubic, gap-toothed, and mohawked Bennett as a product of the Hat City’s recent incarnation as pressure cooker of anti-illegal immigrant sentiment.

This assumption would be a discredit to this clown’s ability to multitask his prejudices. Gays, Liberals, the ACLU—all were fair game for game for his retro-style hate speech. Big T even kicked it old school with African-American slurs and epithets.

Ironically, it wasn’t even his belief that Mexicans should be shot at the border or his suggestion that the local Spanish Community Center perhaps be fire-bombed that brought about the demise. It was a live on-air phone call with an underage girl about oral sex that ran afoul of Comcast’s standards-and-practices policy. Bennett didn’t even bother appearing on his final show; a guest race-baiter filled in.


Mark Boughton

If Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton was an actual clown, his specialty would be juggling. He balanced three scandals this year with very impressive obtuseness.

First, there were those 11 Ecuadorian day laborers that the federal ICE enticed into a work van from Kennedy Park last year and then hauled to jail. Boughton, who once tried to get Danbury police deputized to enforce immigration laws, said that his statements from then (“The city was not involved”) match what the FIOA request filed by a group of Yale law students found (Danbury police drove the van and made the initial arrests).

Second, there was James Galante, the Danbury trash magnate, ice rink–owner and frequenter of finer penitentiaries. Galante, who previously spent a year in the joint for tax evasion, looks to be headed back for ninety-freaking-three charges, including illegal bundling—the scheme where you give more than the $1,000 legal limit to a political candidate or PAC by dispersing it through friends and family. The Hartford Courant suspects Galante bundled $8,000 to Boughton’s People over Politics PAC in October 2003. Four $1,000 contributions were from the family of Galante’s right-hand man Paul DiNardo (already in jail) and three more from people that are, in some way, six degrees away from Galante—all given in the same week and making up a third of People over Politics’ yearly intake. That didn’t raise any suspicion at People over Politics? “There is no way I could have known,” Boughton repeated. Is he just playing dumb?

Third, there was Boughton’s handling of “the Basso problem.” Before he went public with emails forwarded by common council majority leader Pauline Basso that insulted Hispanics, Muslims and Africans, local NAACP president Ivan Pitts “tried to handle it quietly behind the scenes and when that was rebuffed we decided to call a press conference.” He mentioned that “the mayor is aware of the emails” but expressed merely “distaste and displeasure.” Boughton then arranged a meeting with Pitts and Basso, believing in “more communication and less confrontation.” Confront the poor dear and she might think she did something wrong? What about the scores of shocked and disgusted citizens standing outside City Hall at the NAACP’s press conference? Did they all also get dinner invites?


Pauline Basso

Pauline Basso wasn’t so special. There are plenty of old people who consider the computer a neat box where you can get racist jokes with lame graphics. What was special was the Republican’s majority-leader position on the Danbury Common Council; what is astonishing is the lack of response from city Republicans when her racist-email circle was exposed last October.

Up until last election, Basso sat next to the mayor’s podium at council meetings where her primary responsibilities seemed to be smiling and nodding whenever some member of the public with a what-the-fuck-is-up-with-all-this-Spanish-shit complaint came before the council.

During after-hours, Basso forwarded emails containing fat, greasy Mexican caricatures; alarmist rhetoric about Muslims and a picture of an Ethiopian tribeswoman carrying an AK47 and an iPod—we’re still not sure about the point of that last one. But we do know there are serious problems in Ethiopia; they aren’t funny and they, as far as we know, none of them involve iPods.

Two individuals did not want this garbage in their inbox and went to Rev. Gayle Keeney-Mulligan, of St. John’s Episcopal, who forwarded them to the NAACP, among other groups. Local NAACP president Rev. Ivan Pitts tried to go behind the scenes and address the matter with city officials. He got a half-hearted apology signed by Basso slipped under the church door. She wouldn’t even meet with him face-to-face.

After Pitts’ reluctant press conference, the pre-election silence from Basso’s party was deafening. Boughton held a meeting between Basso and Pitts—as if this was a private matter between the two. Basso refused to make a public statement, considering that note slipped under Pitts’ door sufficient. Common Council President Joe Cavo? Danbury Town Committee Chair Wayne Baker? City Councilwoman Mary Teicholz, who was CCed on the emails? No comment.

The silence said it all; racist emails weren’t something the Danbury GOP thought was important—or Basso’s reelection chances were more important. We’re not sure which is worse.

Danbury wasn’t putting up with it. Basso, who was once the common council member at large who gained the greatest number of votes in a previous election, lost her seat. At her final council meeting, Basso spotted Al Robinson, whose HatCityBLOG relentlessly pushed the story, and flipped him the bird. She gave the finger to the only guy in the room guaranteed to have a camera. It wasn’t very bright or articulate but at least she finally made a statement.

Danbury Democrats

Aside from the Bridgeport Democratic primary, there was one election in the county this year that looked like it could include some action. Danbury mayor Mark Boughton and his Republican Party launched an aggressive campaign, some of it possibly illegal, to oust undocumented immigrants from the city and barely chastised their leader on the common council when she got caught sending racist emails (see above). There were protests in the streets and rants on the web. People wanted them gone—and the Danbury Democratic Town Committee seized on almost none of this opportunity.

The DDTC’s radio ads and mailers timidly repeated information about the Danbury 11 case, the Galante scandal and Basso-gate that had already run in the Weekly, Danbury News-Times, Hartford Courant —and mayoral candidate Helena Abrantes, in her mouse-like voice, did nothing more in public debates. They barely nibbled at his heels. Do something creative with this stuff. Get a MoveOn.org consultant. We want mud!

Even more unforgivable, their website was still “under construction” three weeks before the election. This is 2007! HatCityBLOG can’t do everything for you.

In the end, Boughton raised $50,000 and got 8,140 votes; Abrantes raised $13,000 and got 4,241, and a Republican majority in government stayed firmly in place. The City of Danbury deserves better. For running a lousy campaign, Danbury Democrats got exactly what they deserved.

Elmer's Diner, of 22 Padanaram Rd., scored a 86 out of a possible 100 points during a reinspection. The eatery was cited for inadequate and improper handwashing by an employee, poor food handling practice, poor hygienic practice and inadequate sanitizer concentration. It was issued a closure warning and is awaiting reinspection.

Eateries are allowed reinspection after an initial inspection failure. If the eatery fails that reinspection, it is given a closure warning and inspected again. If the eatery then fails that inspection it is ordered to be closed by the city health director.

A former Connecticut state House member is forming an exploratory committee and is expected to enter the race for freshman Rep. Chris Murphy’s (D) seat, setting up a primary battle with a candidate who has earned the early support of national Republicans.

Former state Rep. Tony Nania (R) served three terms in the state House beginning in the 1980s, but he has not run for office since stepping down in 1991. He would face state Sen. David Cappiello, who has been the only candidate in the GOP race for months and was seen as his party’s likely standard-bearer.

Nania said he will launch an exploratory committee Tuesday.

[...]

While Nania has been out of the public spotlight for 15 years, state party Chairman Chris Healy said he has remained involved in party politics and would be a formidable opponent to Cappiello.

He said that primary challengers often hurt the party when facing an incumbent, but added that he hopes Nania and Cappiello will focus on Murphy instead of each other.

“Either one will be exponentially better congress-people than Chris Murphy,” Healy said. “That’ll be very obvious to any voter in the 5th district, mostly because Cappiello and Nania are grown-ups and understand the world as it really is.”

Nania said he is lining up support at all levels of the state party and suggested that party operatives have not been impressed with Cappiello’s candidacy. But he declined to offer any possible endorsements at this point.

Cappiello has been in the race since the middle of the year but saw his fundraising drop off significantly from the second quarter to the third quarter, when he raised only $70,000. His campaign explained he was busy surrounding the birth of his child.

The $200,000 he raised in the second quarter, however, helped put him on the national Republicans’ radar, and they eventually made him one of 10 beneficiaries of the Challengers Helping Obtain the Majority Program (CHOMP), which is run by House Republican members.

Murphy, meanwhile, raised more than $1 million in the first nine months of the 2008 cycle.

[...]

Sacred Heart University political science Professor Gary Rose said Cappiello appears to be making a renewed effort to raise money around the state in recent months. Cappiello is a member of his party’s state Senate leadership.

Rose said Nania would suffer from a lack of name recognition.

“How many people really know him?” Rose said. “At the same time, I would say this is still a swing district and anyone … could still pose a challenge to Murphy.”

Nania has not been recruited by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), which has appeared content with Cappiello’s candidacy. But he does fit one of the committee’s top criteria for prospective candidates: the ability to supplement his campaign with his own money.

The NRCC has a policy of not endorsing before a primary.

“We trust local Republicans to nominate who they believe will make the best possible candidate in the general election,” said NRCC spokeswoman Betsy Andres.

A spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Carrie James, called Cappiello a less-than-impressive candidate and added, “It’s not surprising he is now facing a possible primary opponent.”

I never meant for this blog to be political--I have other outlets for that--but I just received the 5-year revaluation for my house. It's 50% higher than it was just 5 years ago. WTF? Real estate prices are dropping and inventory grows every week. When I thought about selling two years ago, no agent would even look at my house, which is over 50 years old and less than 800 square feet of living space.

This must be some bizarre plan by Boughton and the developers who really run Danbury to kick people out of their homes. "My" land is now worth more than "my" house. If a developer came along today and wanted my block to build a 50 unit condo complex, I'd have to give it some serious thought. [...] If I thought for one moment that I could actually get someone to pay the amount that Vision Appraisal Technology has assessed for my house, I'd sell in a heartbeat. But there is no such buyer, and I think everyone knows that.

2nd Ward:
My old value was 115,000 and now it's 214,000 in the 2nd ward. I can't believe it!

3rd Ward:
This is complete bullsh*t. My assessment went from 180,000 to 297,000 and I live in one of the most run-down areas in the third ward.

Thanks Mark!

7th Ward:
Assessed value went from $166,000 to $222,900, even with the view of the water tower for the Rivington almost as soon as you walk out of the house and look up.

Appraised value currently, according the vision appraisal folks, is $318,400 which is about $90,000 less than what a family member that's a Realtor says he would list it for. He finds it funny that the 1 acre property is worth only $10,000 less than the 2000 square foot house on the property according to the new assessment.

2nd Ward:
I'm so angry that I could pull my hair out. Why did this come out AFTER the election? I read the story in the News-Times where BOUGHTon claimed that the mill rate would drop...well I heard that story the last time we were whacked and it's getting old.

We get screwed while BRT gets a 7 year tax break.

5th Ward:
Old assessment: $121,500
New assessment: $180,200
Increase: 48%

1st Ward:
Old 228,000 New 310,800
If anyone will buy this house for the new amount, I'll throw in the furniture!

3rd Ward
$113, 100 to $176,300