connecticut

Exorcise Your Gay Demons in Connecticut

The Cajun Boy · 06/24/09 08:15PM

Feeling gay? Wishing you could rid yourself of the evil gay demons haunting your soul? Well you're in luck! The Manifested Glory Ministries Church in Bridgeport, Connecticut will exorcise your gay demons, just like they did for this 16-year-old boy.

Ann Coulter Under Investigation for Vote Fraud

Owen Thomas · 02/08/09 11:32AM

Everyone's favorite scary conservative harpy may have tried to subvert democracy, twice! Property records and lawsuits show that Ann Coulter voted in Connecticut while living in New York. Now officials are investigating.

East Coast Introduces Second State You Can Get Gay Married In

Pareene · 11/12/08 03:59PM

Hurry up and get gay married in Connecticut right now before the voters ban it. Because today it's totally legal! Eight couples sued the state to allow the gay marriages, because Connecticut's civil union law was kinda-sorta unconstitutional, and they won! And today one of those couples, Barbara and Robin Levine-Ritterman, filled out the gay marriage paperwork that will destroy forever your traditional marriage paperwork. So hey, you lose some, you win some, right? You still got Massachusetts too! What lovely places for gay marriages! California can go to hell. New England's like Lesbian Vegas right now. [NYT]

Gay Marriage: Three States Down, 47 Left to Go

ian spiegelman · 10/11/08 11:05AM

Yesterday, Connecticut joined Massachusetts and California in declaring that consenting adults can marry each other—even if they're gay! The Connecticut Supreme Court struck down the state's civil union law and declared that same sex couples have a constitutional right to wed. Oh, and litigious, wing-nut "Family Values" groups take note: The ruling cannot be appealed, dicks! The new law goes into effect on October 28th—just in time for a wave of awesome gay and lesbian Halloween theme weddings!

Senator Chris Dodd, Puffy Loser Hero Of Capitalism's Collapse?

Moe · 09/23/08 02:50PM

If you haven't been spellbound by the (HUGELY telegenic) drama consuming the nation's new financial capital over the past 36 hours, here's a big takeaway you missed: Chris Dodd is the Wonk Stud Du Jour. Chris Dodd, senator from Connecticut — Connecticut, Hedge Fund Capital of the Galaxy. Chris Dodd, onetime waitress-thrower and suitor of Carrie Fisher and Bianca Jagger who more recently became disparaged as Chris Dodd, official Friend of (and recipient of a cut-rate mortgages from) former Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo "Moz" Mozilo. Chris Dodd had a big bug crawl across his head during a debate last summer, but that has nothing to do with why he may turn out to be a most unlikely hero of this epic market meltdown. Which is to say: could Chris Dodd be so beholden to capitalists he actually understands what they do?Dodd was much-maligned for ignoring his duties as Senate Banking Committee Chair to pursue a quixotic (insane?) bid for the Democratic presidential nomination as the American financial system first began foreshadowing its collapse. But if Dodd learned anything from his strange decision to relocate his entire family to Iowa the year before a caucus in which he managed to win a whole zero percent of the vote, perhaps it was that the rest of America does not, in economic terms anyway, look very much like his flush little state or the gargantuan financial services industry that nurtured within it some of America's most preposterously wealthy zip codes. Yesterday Dodd delivered a lengthy proposal to defend taxpayers from some of the more egregious ripoffs and scams that could result from the approval of Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's awe-inspiring $700 billion Wall Street bailout. It turns out that amid all the cheap mortgage receiving and tabloid living Chris Dodd has actually been paying attention to the industry that has been feeding his coffers all these years! Dodd's plan demands, among other things, that the government receive warrants that might convert into equity stakes in all those banks whose loans it is now proposing to buy at those possibly grossly-inflated prices. It seems like a damn good idea! Not that I would know. But Democrats and Republicans seem to agree. Could Dodd be the Giuliani of the Market Meltdown? I bet the Dems would throw in another abortive run at the presidency if he does! A telling quote from today's hearing came when Dodd asked Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke how he'd explain it to Main Street. "I was a college professor. I've never worked on Wall Street," he said. Indeed, Bernanke is a college professor who has published dozens of hugely influential papers on the critical role of decisive monetary policy in fending off the runaway deflation that begets Depressions. But he's a professor; does he fully understand how disconnected the types of immense wealth accumulated by the high-fee, ultraleveraged sectors of the financial services industry are from the types of wealth generated by businesses that run on plain-old lines of credit and investor equity? I understand a "run" on the money market of the type we saw Friday necessitated a massive intervention of some sort; I also understand taxpayers could very well turn a profit on its Bear Stearns intervention; I further understand the economic malaise that accompanies a deflationary spiral. It's hard to pass off Paulson as some Goldman shill when, seriously, no one actually capable of comprehending even a tenth of this crisis doesn't sport an attachment to one of the financial institutions whose livelihoods will be affected here. But it's hard to think Paulson and Bernanke, with their insistence that Everything Get Done Right Now, aren't overpanicking to soothe an overpanicky stock market. And it's like: well, look, there is no way this is going to be smooth for the benchmark stock indices. But the stock market has never been — it has only grown further and further away from reflecting — the actual economy. That is why 10,000 households in this country are worth more than $100 million apiece while nearly four-fifths of the nation's households get by on less than ninety grand a year (and about twenty survive on less than twenty.) This morning on CNBC I watched anchor Mark Haines tell his younger colleague Erin Burnett his own amendments for the bailout: something about wanting the Treasury to buy exclusively banks' better loans, allow the financial firms to work out the superbad ones, install some provisions to help homeowners renegotiate their mortgates and then pump the surplus generated into Medicare and Social Security. Burnett basically told him he was a communist and it was cute because as anyone who has watched Haines prior to this month he is so totally not. But it called to mind another scene between the two of them a few days ago when Burnett tried to get some money manager to offer viewers a more "glass half full" view on the stock market. "If you don't think this is that serious, you don't understand it," he said. He was right; it is serious; and the truly serious people watching it play out are abandoning their friends, their fundraisers, their inclinations and their ideologies in hopes of merely understanding it and conveying it to all those it will effect. We can only hope our elected officials — I have two in mind — can add "pollsters" to that list and prove capable of figuring out what's truly best for the country.

Brooklyn Blogger Boy's Birthday Project Defaced

Richard Lawson · 06/23/08 02:54PM

Remember our Brooklyn blogger boy who made a cut-out of his Connecticut-living, Brooklyn-missing girlfriend and asked strangers to pose with it for her birthday? It was cute/strange. Well, now someone has cruelly defaced the cut-out (which is located in her beloved Greenpoint) whiting the whole thing out and printing one ominous sentence: "Stay in Connecticut." Cruel. Hopefully there were enough photos taken before the dreadful, hateful incident that the birthday present can be considered complete. In lieu of flowers, please send PBR.

The Ivy Cup

Joshua Stein · 06/04/07 02:30PM

This Saturday, the rich and very rich gathered up in Greenwich, CT. (How unusual!) The occasion was the Ivy Cup, a charity polo match between the teams of Harvard, Yale, Cornell and Princeton. The group met in the main concourse of Grand Central Station: a sea of wide-brimmed hats, well-pressed slacks and day-glo green VIP wristbands. They'd chartered a train up to the CT where the chukkers would be played. Bud Lights and Diet Cokes were stored in large Tupperware tubs. The hours flew by like a cloud on a windless day. The rich don't sweat. Also, we managed to create possibly the largest and most fascinating photogallery in history, courtesy of photographer Laurel Ptak.

The Point of Living in Connecticut or Westchester Revealed At Last

Emily Gould · 11/01/06 12:50PM

"The entire point of living in Connecticut or Westchester is to limit your exposure to people who are from Long Island and New Jersey," said one magazine editor who has been commuting from Westport, Conn., through Grand Central for over a decade. "That's why we live there, it's why we wear natural fabrics, and it's why we don't stucco our homes. Granted, there are a lot of people in Westport and Darien who grew up on the island and vowed to end all the ridicule by buying a first home here, but these are the people who wear Nicole Miller and practically strive out loud. As far as we're concerned, Long Island might as well be Barbados—fine for a vacation, but year-round is so not going to happen."

Atlantic City Flat Busted, Mashantucket Beckons

Chris Mohney · 07/06/06 01:15PM

With the Atlantic City casinos closed down to celebrate the New Jersey budget crisis, would-be gamblers are treated instead to a horrible "deafening quiet" — no ringing of slot machines, cheering of craps players, or shrieking of adenoidal prostitutes. Nevertheless, if you were planning a summer weekend's AC excursion, you still have options. Donald Trump's loss is the Mashantucket Pequots' gain; the tribe's Foxwoods Casino is still open for business, and they've even added extra buses! If you'd already shed enough dignity to overnight in Jersey, how much worse can it be in Connecticut?

Picture, Thousand Words, Etc.

Jesse · 06/20/06 05:10PM


What he couldn't figure out, however, was how anyone ever — sniff, sniiff — caught on to him.