Free Republic

MIDDLEFIELD - State Rep. Matt Lesser, who represents Durham, Middlefield and Rockfall in the Connecticut General Assembly, has set up an online survey on his legislative webpage   and is encouraging constituents to offer their opinions on issues being worked on during the 2011 legislative session. Survey questions mostly focus on the current state budget crisis. Participants are given choices as to what state spending they recommend being cut or protected and what taxes they think should be raised to help cover an estimated $3.5 billion budget deficit. Response have already been great, Lesser said, and he is pleased by...

NEW HAVEN — Whoever broke into the Episcopal Church of St. Paul & St. James early Saturday smashed stained glass windows and tore a Bible in half, but did not steal anything of great value. The damage done, however, was worse than what could be measured in money. The Rev. Alex Dyer, priest in charge of the Wooster Square neighborhood church since August, said he can only imagine that the person responsible for the vandalism was filled with anger or hate. And in this Lenten season, the holiest time of year for Christians, Dyer said the focus is on forgiveness.

An Ansonia man is accused of threatening a local state representative with a shooting like the Arizona rampage should gun legislation pass in Connecticut. John Matika, 67, of Ansonia, called the office of his Democratic state Representative, Linda Gentile, several times on March 24 and 25 about proposed gun legislation about firearm magazine capacities, police said. The bill would ban guns that take more than 10 rounds of ammunition. During the calls, he said something like the shooting in Arizona that critically injured Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, left eight people dead and 12 more with gunshot wounds would happen in Connecticut...

A top lawmaker in Democratic leadership likened Thursday's tea party rally on Capitol Hill to a "cold front" moving in. In an 11-minute, metaphor-laced talk to two reporters before a closed-door meeting, House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson of Connecticut likened the GOP majority's legislating to a "long winter" for the nation. The caucus, which Larson runs, is the top communications arm for the party in Congress.

HARTFORD, Conn. -- A former employee of the state Department of Social Services was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of stealing thousands in benefits. Suki Handly, 36, of Storrs was charged with one count of first-degree larceny. According to the arrest warrant affidavit, Handly authorized $44,600 in benefits to 10 DSS clients and then accessed the money for her own use while employed at the agency's office in Manchester. Handly worked for DSS from March 2008 until her resignation in August 2010.

"Since this is an era when many people are concerned about 'fairness' and 'social justice,' what is your 'fair share' of what someone else has worked for?" — Syndicated columnist Thomas Sowell, Dec. 1, 2009 Political gadfly Ken Krayeske thinks it's $4 billion a year. On his blog, "The 40-Year Plan" (to wreck Connecticut?), Mr. Krayeske recently put flesh on the bones of a tax plan he presented at the governor's budget forum in Meriden on March 15: "Ten Connecticut billionaires have a combined net wealth of $30.3 billion. The richest man in the state, Steve Cohen, 55, is a...

I don't really care if you have a gun for hunting or a pistol to give you some sense of protection at home. It's your right. But what's the point of ammunition magazines that allow the shooter to fire dozens of bullets at a clip? I stopped by a legislative hearing Wednesday at which a roomful of gun enthusiasts was irate about a bill that would make it a felony to own a "large-capacity magazine" that uses more than 10 bullets. The shooter in the Tucson attack on U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords earlier this year that killed six and wounded...

(Editor's Note: An earlier version of this story misreported the number of opponents at Wednesday's hearing.)Hundreds of gun owners, firearms manufacturers and people who shoot for sport came to the Legislative Office Building in Hartford Wednesday to criticize a bill that would make it illegal to own large-capacity ammunition clips — those capable of holding 10 rounds or more. Several people at a lengthy public hearing before the judiciary committee went on record in favor of the ban, including the mayors of the state's three largest cities, but critics vastly outnumbered supporters.

Liberals constantly push for and get special rights for their constituencies in hopes of moving America toward their socialist utopia. Examples abound: the right to taxpayer-subsidized health care and abortions (and more circuitously, cable TV, cellphones, Internet service, scratch lottery tickets, cigarettes, etc.); the right of homeownership for people who can't afford the mortgage and upkeep; the right to a "living wage" that is many dollars an hour above the value of the labor; and the right of illegal aliens to fast-track citizenship, discounted college tuition and most of the rights reserved for Americans. In granting special rights by legislative...

Today, a Connecticut bill banning “large capacity” magazines will have its first public hearing. Six other states have such bans in effect, though no state has demonstrated its ban has had any effect on crime. The states disagree on what constitutes “large capacity”: 10 rounds in California, 15 in New Jersey, 20 in Maryland. Connecticut says 10 rounds; its definition of “large capacity” magazines is copied almost word for word from California law. But there is no reason outside bureaucratic whim for one definition over another. People who have such magazines haven’t necessarily gone out to buy them specially —...

In January, controversy surrounded the announcement that Waterbury Arts Magnet School students would perform the play "Joe Turner's Come and Gone." Some, led by Superintendent David L. Snead, objected to the frequent use of the N-word in the century-old, award-winning play by black playwright August Wilson. Mr. Snead initially took steps to block the performance but later relented. Partly in response to this controversy, Waterbury school officials staged a forum March 16 on racial slurs, how their use can adversely affect people, and possible disciplinary action against students who use them. Such a forum is welcome and a little overdue....

out Monday night to greet Gov. Dannel P. Malloy in Hartford – a city that supported him by more than 7 to 1 in the election as he became the first Democratic governor in two decades. They did not complain much at Malloy's town hall meeting about his plans to hike the state income tax, boost the sales tax, and impose a "luxury tax'' on high-end cars, jewelry and yachts that has prompted opposition in Fairfield County. Instead, they called on Malloy to tax the rich, and they cheered the idea of increasing taxes on corporations.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal and U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney today called on the presidents of the NCAA and CBS to televise Thursday’s University of Connecticut men’s basketball game on CBS rather than on cable network TNT, as currently planned. The NCAA tournament game between the Huskies and Bucknell University is set to start at 7:20 p.m. TNT is available to cable and satellite subscribers. Broadcasting the game on TNT would mean that at least 150,000 households in Connecticut would not be able to see the game, Courtney said. In the letter to NCAA President Mark Emmert and CBS President and...

A threat an elderly Guilford is accused of making over Planned Parenthood funding doesn't quite jibe with recent efforts to be more civil in political discourse. The woman is accused of threatening to castrate a politician who wants to cut funding for Planned Parenthood, the New Haven Register reports. The FBI went to the woman's home on Norton Road on Tuesday afternoon, after receiving a report of the phone call threat

It's a dream for hundreds of Connecticut high school students, but it's out of reach because they are illegal. Proponents say there's no cost to the state, and kids should not pay for mistakes made by their parents. Opponents say it's full of potential problems. Lorella Praeli of New Milford is so smart she's been going to Quinnipiac University on grants and scholarships. She now wants to further her education at a state school, but has found a road block because she's illegal. Her mother brought her here for medical treatment years ago, and stayed when the tourist visa expired....

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton is in New Haven, leading a rally and march in support of New Haven public service workers. In February, Mayor John DeStefano laid off dozens of city workers, including 16 police officers. Betsy Rosario, who has worked for New Haven's Board of Education for years as a security officer, said she's not sure if she will have a job. Of the 80 workers DeStefano's administration has laid off, five of them were in her union. "We don't have a contact. We haven't had one and haven't had a raise...

Video of explosions at a nuclear power plant north of Tokyo and news of a partial meltdown in the wake of last week's earthquake bring back memories of Chernobyl across the world. Connecticut's only operating nuclear power plant, Millstone in Waterford, generates 2,000 megawatts of power from two operating units at the entrance to Niantic Bay. Residents there say they are okay with having a nuclear power plant in their backyard. Millstone Power Station communications manager Kenneth Holt says, "When the stations were first designed they were designed with all phenomena in mind, earthquakes, hurricanes, and flooding." Waterford First Selectman...

In truth, it was a long time coming — that moment Mariano Cardoso Jr. retreated to the secluded stairway on the 11th floor of Capital Community College. He had received the letter from immigration officials last month, the one full of jargon that he didn't totally understand, but that instinctively made his heart sink. But really, the realities of his undocumented status had been closing in from the moment his parents brought him to the U.S. from Mexico as a baby. To the days he was growing up in the Bronx and he first heard the words: undocumented. Illegal. To...

The following is adapted from a speech delivered on February 16, 2011, at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar in Phoenix, Arizona. TO BEGIN, consider one of the most important measures of property, the kilogram. It’s a measure of mass or, for non-scientific purposes, weight. According to the papers last week, a global scramble is under way to define this most basic unit after it was discovered that the standard kilogram—a cylinder of platinum and iridium that is maintained by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures—has been losing mass. You may think that this is impossible. Of all the...

Both sides are claiming victory in the $650,000 settlement of a lawsuit brought by a group of day laborers who charged their September 2006 arrests in Danbury, Conn. were unlawful and based on racial profiling. According to Yale Law School’s Worker & Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic, which helped represent the men pro bono and issued a press release about the settlement, “This is the largest monetary settlement ever paid out to day laborers by any municipality in the country.” “I have no idea what the basis for that assertion is,” said Dan Casagrande, the lead trial counsel representing the city...