Kohut Defends Keila Torres: ‘Third World Demagogues’

Jeff Kohut, a 2011 mayoral candidate, defends Connecticut Post columnist Keila Torres, following an email from Mayor Bill Finch’s office condemning coverage. From Kohut:

It is truly telling of the Finch Administration that they find it necessary to resort to the tactics of Third World demagogues in their desperate attempt to assert a claim to credibility in regard to the exposure of the nefarious, parasitic, political and economic policies that have been unleashed on Bridgeport’s largely unsuspecting public since November, 2012.

Indeed, the insidious, back-alley attack on gutsy, cracker-jack, Connecticut Post scribe Keila Torres, in regard to her recent commentary on the sleaze and ineptitude of the Finch Administration, reeks of Third-World-style “kill the messenger” political retaliation tactics against the media.

Specifically, the recent letter to the regional business community, et al., from Bill Finch’s chief of staff, Adam Wood, assailing Torres’ criticism of the recently announced Steel Point retail anchor Bass Pro for their alleged discriminatory hiring practices, and for her criticism of the Finch Administration’s Third-World-style rigging of an election-ballot question–which was clearly designed to mislead Bridgeporters and deprive them of critical Board of Education voting rights in order to facilitate a Bridgeport Regional Business Council-instigated, mayoral power grab–clearly exposes a clueless mayoral administration blindly taking direction from a subversive, regional cabal of “business leaders” seeking to further their parasitic relationship with the Bridgeport public school system.

Shame on the Finch Administration for using the tactics of Third-World, lowlife politicians! Shame on Paul Timpanelli, et al., of the Bridgeport Regional Business Council (BRBC) for inspiring and endorsing these tactics!

By way of commentary on the subjects in the Keila Torres Connecticut Post pieces that elicited the Finch-Timpanelli vitriol:

The selection of Bass Pro as the anchor for the Steel Point development project was a ridiculous choice of anchors for a ridiculous development project that will cost hundreds of millions of dollars for Bridgeport taxpayers and deliver no tax payoff for the city in the foreseeable future. The Steel Point project is largely workforce-housing designed to accommodate the workforce needs of Stamford/The Gold Coast at Bridgeport’s expense. Bass Pro is a gun-selling, allegedly discriminatory retailer that will provide only a few, low-paying/no-benefits jobs to Bridgeporters after costing Bridgeport taxpayers millions of dollars in taxes for new infrastructure needed to accommodate their Steel Point location.

Keila Torres’ criticism of the choice of a firearms-selling retailer in shooting-murder-plagued Bridgeport was appropriate and on target. We need productive businesses that provide a big, per-acre living-wage-job bang in our land-poor city —we don’t need Bass Pro or dormitories for Stamford, we need a GE division or the like that will provide thousands of living-wage manufacturing jobs, with benefits, on the precious acreage of Steel Point.

And the Connecticut Post was certainly right to sound the alarm bells about the alleged discriminatory hiring practices of a corporation that could receive millions of dollars from Bridgeport taxpayers. (But shame on the Post for not backing up/backpedaling on their scribe on the gun-retailer issue!)

The issue of the Finch Administration’s attempt to rig the ballot question concerning Bridgeport Charter Revision is, perhaps, the political issue of the decade in Bridgeport.

If the Finch Administration is allowed to undermine the voting rights of the citizens of Bridgeport at a time when it is of paramount importance for the economic and political well-being of the city to bring voters to the polls and involve parents in their children’s education in the public school system, it is the last thing Bridgeport needs. For the Finch Administration to deliberately poison a ballot referendum question at the behest of sinister corporate interests that covet public-school funding meant for Bridgeport’s children is about as morally repugnant and “Third World” as anything that has ever happened in this city. Indeed, it resembles an indictable offense by American standards. What kind of mayor–and what kind of city council–would have Bridgeporters surrender their voting rights and their right to have a voice in their children’s education by way of a rigged ballot question?

In this era of ersatz journalism that more often than not apologizes for the sleaze and excesses of parasitic politicians and their private-sector instigators, thank God for gutsy scribes such as Keila Torres!

Thanks Keila! (Shame on Bridgeport City Hall and their BRBC instigators.)

Bridgeporters, just say “NO!” to Charter Revision/Changes in Board of Education Governance–and Third World Bridgeport politics–on November 6.