Press Releases

October 1, 2008 

 Green Candidate for Congress Stephen Fournier today criticized his opponent, Democratic incumbent John Larson, for the congressman’s vote in favor of the Wall Street bailout. 

“My question for John Larson,” said Fournier, “is which faction of the Democratic caucus–the 140 in favor or the 95 against–abandoned principle to cast this vote?  This bailout is a patchwork of political deals and does nothing to address the corruption of the financial system.  Voters oppose it overwhelmingly as too radical, too expensive, and un-American.  It amounts to the payment of blackmail to crooked bankers, who threaten to cancel further credit if they don’t get this money.  Credit markets have been stressed for over a year, while Democrats and Republicans sat on their hands.  Now, suddenly, it’s an emergency requiring an unprecedented transfer of wealth from ordinary people to the rich anti-citizens who finance these same Democrats and Republicans.  They inflated the economic bubble, cashing in at every expansion, and now Larson wants to compensate them because it popped.” 

September 19, 2008 

Green Candidate for U. S. House of Representatives Steve Fournier commented on the crash of the global financial system:“The ‘bailout’ now under consideration by Congress amounts to a vast transfer of wealth to the ‘haves’ from the ‘have-nots.’  A trillion dollars will flow directly into the pockets of people who risked money to make money, many of them Asians, Arabs, and Europeans, and out of the pockets of people who work for it, along with their kids and grandkids, who will have to sweat for at least another two generations to pay it back.   If my opponent Congressman John Larson votes for this looting of the treasury or even allows it to advance, he will be answering for it a hundred years from now.” 

 

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September 3, 2008 

Connecticut Green Party co-chair Mike DeRosa has received word that the Secretary of the State has certified a sufficient number of signatures to put the party’s four petitioning candidates for Congress on the ballot:  Richard Duffee in Fairfield County, Harold Burbank in Northwestern Connecticut, Scott Deshefy in Eastern Connecticut, and Steve Fournier in Hartford/Torrington.  With Ralph Ferrucci in Greater New Haven, the party fields a full slate of Greens for Congress for the first time ever.    

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August 11, 2008 

Green Party candidate for Congress Stephen Fournier made the following comments to the editor of the Courant on the imposition of a curfew by Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez:Before considering a curfew to stem violence on Hartford’s streets, Eddie Perez should beg our people, our leaders, our industry, our media to end the sanctioned violence we do in these senseless wars we’re having.  Does anybody think that the lessons of war and tyranny are lost on the criminals who walk among us?It stands to reason that a corrupt and warlike government will produce an intractable criminal class.  The natural inhibitions against violence are overcome when a nation resolves to rain bombs and bullets on people in distant lands, and a willingness to offend is indispensable when all transactions are fixed to favor the “haves” over the “have-nots.”    

It doesn’t help that we tolerate all this unwillingly.  We have the power to destroy the thuggish government that brought us to this point, but we don’t do it   The violence on our streets is truly an expression of our paralysis in the face of atrocity.  Nobody doubts that criminals in government have compromised our moral authority, and this must harden and embolden predators of every kind.   

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August 6, 2008

 

Volunteers collected over 3,000 signatures to make it all but certain that Green Party candidate Steve Fournier will be on the ballot in November for the First Congressional District seat now held by Democrat John Larson.   

To get on the 2008 ballot in the First District (Greater Hartford, Bristol,

Torrington and Winsted), a petitioning candidate needs verified signatures of 2,050 registered voters.  Allowing for illegible entries, gaps in the voting lists, and other disqualifying conditions, Fournier seems to have more than enough signatures to satisfy legal requirements. 

In the petitioning campaign, volunteers have been handing out an incendiary flyer in which Fournier accuses the two parties of being complicit in corruption.  He promises to “bring down” the system and adds, “Your grandchildren will thank you.”  Volunteers report that the flyer convinced many skeptical voters to sign the petition. 

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May 1, 2008 

PRESS RELEASE 

Hartford Lawyer Files Papers for Congressional Candidacy  

Hartford attorney and Green Party congressional candidate Stephen Fournier yesterday filed an official Statement of Candidacy with the Federal Election Commission.  Fournier is vying for the First District seat now held by John Larson, in a campaign sparked by Larson’s refusal to support the impeachment of George Bush.   

To appear on the ballot in November, Fournier must collect 2,050 petition signatures from voters in the First District, and he is organizing with that task as the top priority.  He has a site on the Internet, www.fournierforcongress.org, that solicits volunteers and cash donations and that features a video clip with two of his grandchildren.   

Fournier’s campaign is focused on corruption, which he blames for the nation’s involvement in war, the collapse of the economy, the pollution of the environment, and the curtailment of constitutional rights.  He says cleaning up Congress is “a dirty job that somebody has to do.”