Free Republic

Want to know how Republicans can win in 2024? By taking a few pages out of the Democrat playbook, that's how! You also need strong, principled and fearless leaders running your local Republican party. Not a bunch of spineless RINOs. But really courageous go-getters who aren't afraid to roll up their sleeves and do the hard work that's required to take on the well-oiled democrat election machine. Here's some advice from the most unlikely of places, deep blue Connecticut, where Republicans did exactly that, and won. It started nearly two years ago when hundreds of energized Republicans from Greenwich, CT,...

Former President Bill Clinton was spotted grabbing a bite to eat at Papa Al's Pizza in Newtown on Sunday. According to Dritan Hodza, a chef at Papa Al's, the former president came into the restaurant with a security detail and ordered a couple of slices of pizza and garlic knots. Hodza said that Clinton was kind and had a "smiley face" during his visit.

A legislative proposal in Connecticut would mandate instruction on climate change in public schools statewide, beginning in elementary school. Connecticut already has adopted science standards that call for teaching of climate change, but if the bill passes it is believed that it would be the country’s first to write such a requirement into law. “A lot of schools make the study of climate change an elective, and I don’t believe it should be an elective,” said state Rep. Christine Palm, a Democrat from Chester who proposed the bill. “I think it should be mandatory, and I think it should be...

STAMFORD, Conn. (CBSNewYork) – The sound of gunfire and someone shouting “Everybody down, everybody” shocked moviegoers sitting in the lobby of the Bow Tie Majestic 6 movie theaters Sunday night, but the incident appears to have been a juvenile prank. Five children ranging in ages from 10 to 16 were arrested and face both criminal charges and potential school disciplinary action after police say they used toy cap guns to stage the mock attack in Stamford, reports CBS2’s Tony Aiello. Police say three members of the group had noisy toy guns and fired them in the theater while shouting “everyone...

A lawyer who spent six months on the run after pleading guilty in a $500 million Social Security fraud scheme was being flown back to Kentucky on Tuesday after he was caught outside a Pizza Hut in Honduras. Eric Conn was handed over to the FBI after his capture by a SWAT team as he left the restaurant in the coastal city of La Ceiba. Spokesman Jorge Galindo of the country’s Technical Agency of Criminal Investigation said they left Honduras on a private plane. Conn was expected to arrive in Lexington, Kentucky, late Tuesday afternoon. “As promised, Mr. Conn will...

A ringleader in one of the biggest Social Security disability fraud cases in U.S. history has pleaded guilty to filing more than 1,700 bogus applications, bilking the government out of potentially a half-billion dollars. But the administration is struggling to figure out how to handle the applicants, many of whom say that even though their applications were falsified, their cases are real and they shouldn’t be punished for having been ensnared by the massive fraud. Eric C. Conn, a prominent lawyer in eastern Kentucky, signed a guilty plea late last month acknowledging the scam, in which he recruited and filed...

Federal agents spent months tracking down Conn, who cut off his electronic monitor and fled in June. Conn pleaded guilty in March to stealing from the federal government and bribing a judge in a more than $500 million Social Security fraud case.

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy does not shy away from the fact that guns on are on the national ballot this November. “If Donald Trump wins, it will be a pretty dramatic setback,” says Murphy, who has emerged as the Democratic Party’s most vocal champion of new gun regulation. “Not just because how terrible he’ll be on the issue, but the fact that a presidential candidate who ran asking for a mandate on guns lost.” For Murphy, the fight is personal. He had just been elected to the Senate in 2012 when word arrived that there had been an incident at...

Last year Connecticut state senator Ed Meyer introduced a bill to create “physician-assisted suicide.” It failed, but this year he and state representative Elizabeth Ritter are trying again. H.B. 5326 would permit a competent person who is suffering from a terminal illness to “request aid in dying” through administration of prescribed medication. The bill is an affront to human life generally, but especially to elder or infirm adults and disabled individuals. For Connecticut citizens who respect life, it is unconscionable. The bill’s proponents say that assisted suicide is the compassionate answer. But an article in The New York Times summarized...

John Cinque, a Navy veteran who told Connecticut lawmakers last year he would not comply with the state's new gun control law, told Connecticut gubernatorial candidate Joe Visconti that a Branford police officer said he couldn't "wait to get the order to kick your door in," Freedom Outpost reported Saturday, citing a YouTube video posted Friday. "I live in Branford, and his words straight out were 'I cannot wait to get the order to kick your door in,'" he told Visconti. Freedom Outpost's Tim Brown said Cinque provided the name of the officer in the incident, and posted a screenshot...

Conservation Experts: This Size Cat Hasn't Been Seen Here In 100 Years. There has been a wild animal alert issued in the northern suburbs. A mountain lion, yes, a mountain lion, is on the loose. ... We’re not looking for your Aunt Mildred’s kitty here, either. This is a big cat, a 160-pound predator that hunts and eats things. ... Ironically the Eastern mountain lion was officially declared extinct only a few months ago — in March.

MYFOXNY.COM - There are numerous reports of damage after a fast-moving line of storms crossed the suburbs north and east of New York City. A state of emergency was declared in Bridgeport, Conn. after the storm. A building collapsed at 588 East Main Street. Emergency crews rushed to the scene. People are reportedly trapped in the muilti-story building, according to ctpost.com . State Police are bringing in a canine unit to help locate anyone trapped inside.

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) -- Severe storms swept across the Northeast and tore through Connecticut's largest city Thursday, downing trees and power lines, shattering windows and toppling church steeples. The mayor's office reported multiple injuries and rescuers were searching one building that had collapsed. Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch declared a state of emergency after the fast-moving system of wind and rain caused widespread damage....

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- Mayor Eddie Perez said Tuesday that he will submit his resignation Friday, a week after he was convicted on five corruption charges, and would stay in office long enough to ensure an easy transition. Perez, a former gang leader who became Hartford's first Latino mayor, said last week he would step down after being convicted of extortion, accepting a bribe and other counts....

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- Connecticut Attorney General and U.S. Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal is defending himself against a report he misstated his military service in Vietnam. Blumenthal's campaign on Monday night called a report on the New York Times website, which includes video of him at a 2008 event saying he had served "in Vietnam," an "outrageous distortion" on his record.

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) -- The family of an 8-year-old boy who fatally shot himself at a gun show in western Massachusetts say the Uzi submachine gun jammed twice before he lost control of the weapon and fired into his head. The family of Christopher Bizilj (bah-SEEL') of Ashford, Conn., says in a civil lawsuit filed Friday that a 15-year-old instructor who cleared the gun and handed it back to the victim failed to provide proper guidance.....

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. - Five months after a privately owned chimpanzee escaped his home and mauled a Stamford woman, Connecticut officials are giving owners of exotic pets a day of amnesty to turn in the illegally-owned animals at the Bridgeport Zoo. The state Department of Environmental Protection's first exotic amnesty day ends at 3 p.m. Saturday. They're hoping that people surrender anything from large felines to primates and exotic reptiles and amphibians. Officials say they'll ask about the animals' diets, medical history and temperament, but owners won't be asked their names and won't be prosecuted for owning illegal animals. It's illegal...

Joe Lieberman has been in the Senate for 18 years. He's a leader of the Democratic Leadership Council, the money wing of the party. He became the party's vice presidential nominee, even as he championed the DLC's "triangulating" politics, pushing off of the Democratic Party base to demonstrate his "independence" by embracing key elements of the conservative agenda -- championing the war in Iraq, attacking affirmative action, pushing capital gains tax cuts that benefit only the very wealthy. Now he's pushed off so long, he seems confused about whom or what he represents. He now says he's a good Democrat,...

HARTFORD, Conn., July 6 -- Shunned by many in his own party because of his vigorous support for the war in Iraq, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman clashed in a debate Thursday with a well-financed challenger who has roiled Connecticut politics and turned the Democratic primary into a national test of the antiwar movement. In a hard-hitting 30-minute exchange about the war, Lieberman sought to portray his opponent, Ned Lamont, as a fringe candidate with little grasp of the military and geopolitical stakes in Iraq. Lamont assailed the incumbent for ignoring reports of rising violence and instability, and for cheering on...

SHELTON, Conn. - A 13-year-old boy on a sleepover was found dead in what police suspect was a heroin overdose, and his friend's sister and ex-husband were charged with manslaughter. Frank Korondi was spending Friday night at the home of a 10-year-old friend, authorities said. During the night, police said, the friend's sister, 23-year-old Angela Krasowski, picked up the boys and took them to the home of her ex-husband, James Krasowski, 32. On Saturday morning, police responding to a 911 call from the home found Frank unresponsive on the bathroom floor. He was pronounced dead at a hospital. Police were...