Daily Ructions readers have been saving screenshots of New Britain’s Erin Stewart’s postings in social media and are sending them for posting. Here’s one from a scrubbed Twitter account that appeared two years ago.

A couple of shots from Facebook.

Poor New Britain. This may not be what they expected last November.

New Britain’s poorly advised and struggling mayor, Erin Stewart, posed a thought for the ages on her Facebook page and then reconsidered. Photos of her internal struggle with potty mouth philosophy below.

Stewart’s Monday evening bromide was edited later in the dark night:

The state’s election commission is expected to approve a public financing grant to Groton Republican Heather Bond Somers’s campaign for lieutenant governor. The $400,000 in taxpayer money will allow Somers to compete in the August 12th party primary with convention-endorsed state Representative Penny Bacchiochi (R-Stafford) and Bridgeport Republican David Walker.

Saturday marks the 100th anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife during a visit to Sarajevo. The miseries of the bloody 20th century flowed from that day.

The BBC’s Radio 4 is chronicling those events in a Month of Madness series with Professor Christopher Clark. One of the conspirators threw a bomb at the motorcade that exploded under the car behind the Archduke’s. The Archduke insisted they continue–into the path of the assassin.

Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra continues to struggle with his misbegotten baseball  stadium proposal. Only a few weeks ago, Segarra deemed it a “done deal”. On Thursday, Segarra lost another tussle with the facts and explanations of the secret negotiations when he made during an ill-considered appearance on WNPR’s Where We Live. Segarra tried to explain the stadium agreement provision that provides a free skybox and boatloads of free tickets for city officials.  The mayor sounds like he has not read the contract for the $60 million taxpayer-financed project. He had nothing to do with it, he proclaimed.

There’s a short audio clip of Segarra’s exchange with host John Dankosky in this link. Decide for yourself. In only a minute Segarra veers along a spectrum from panicked to slow-witted before coming to rest at incoherent.

Segarra’s wilting follows a public display of fear from City Council President Shawn Wooden as he tries to skedaddle from the proposal he embraced with enthusiasm as June began. Maybe April isn’t the cruelest month. Perhaps August is. That’s when Democratic primary voters will get a chance to offer their verdict on the stadium in a primary contest between Wooden and incumbent state Senator Eric Coleman.

Former Governor M. Jodi Rell is not happy with her successor. She says Democratic Governor Dannel P. Malloy “lies,” Daily Ructions has learned from delighted witnesses. The popular Republican, long silent on political races during and after her 6 1/2 years as governor, astounded a Waterbury crowd of about 125 Wednesday night with her stark assessment of Malloy.

Rell told the crowd that Malloy (mocking his changing first name from Dan to Dannel back to Dan along the way) did not inherit a massive budget deficit from her. It was the Democratic legislature that created the deficit. Rell pointed out that whoever is elected governor in November will face a large deficit next year.

Rell brought Malloy’s opprobrium on herself. She declined to do much to help her lieutenant governor, Michael Fedele, in his unsuccessful 2010 campaign for governor. Rell then sat out the fall campaign between Republican Tom Foley and Malloy. Many observers believed if Rell had cut an ad for Foley, he might not have lost to Malloy by 6,000 votes four years ago.

How Would You Explain This?

I know it’s tempting. It’s a big boat. The kind you are never going to own yourself. There’s a staff that will serve you food and alcohol. This is the life. But it’s trouble. Big trouble. Do not accept an invitation to take a cruise on a yacht like Donnie Brasco’s. It’s the 21st century. Everyone has a camera. A photo of you on a boat you shouldn’t be on can end up in the cold clutches of federal law enforcement officials. It’s happened. Daily Ructions has it on good authority.

Imagine trying to explain the circumstances around your presence on that yacht when FBI agents come rap-tap-tapping at your door early one morning. Nix the yacht. Go to a public beach and have a picnic with your family. Keep your nose clean, or you may have trouble rising through the ranks. Understand?

Cosseted Central Connecticut State University poet and professor Ravi Shankar returns to criminal court Thursday on a host of unsettling charges. The state’s incurious Board of Regents last month promoted the recidivist to a full professorship last month while he was serving time in the hoosegow in an unusual arrangement that allowed Shankar to go in and out of incarceration as his schedule permitted.  Some of Shankar’s pending matters have appeared on the docket 28 times. This is not typical treatment of a chronic defendant.