Free Republic

A federal judge has upheld the State of Connecticut’s sweeping gun control laws enacted last year in response to the Sandy Hook “gun-free zone” shootings, the Associated Press reported Thursday. United States District Court Judge Alfred Covello at Hartford issued a 47-page ruling in the case of Shew v. Malloy admitting “While the act burdens the plaintiffs' Second Amendment rights," but then claiming "it is substantially related to the important governmental interest of public safety and crime control.” Judge Covello, a George H.W. Bush nominee, reasoned the law should stand because “the legislation here does not amount to a complete...

HARTFORD William Santos unsurprisingly didn't reveal he was a convicted sex offender on a MySpace profile. But he used his real name, allowing law enforcement to track him down easily. Today, the 21-year-old Waterbury man is back behind bars, the second convicted sex offender from Connecticut found on the popular social networking site in violation of his special parole. Santos will remain in custody while the Board of Pardons and Paroles reviews his case. The board hasn't scheduled a hearing for him yet. Santos is one of thousands of convicted sex offenders from around the country found to have had...

I just got a phone call from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, asking for a donation. When I tried to calmly and politely explain that I’m no longer associating myself with the Democrats because they “don’t consider Joe Lieberman a Democrat anymore,” the caller interrupted me and said, “Well, that’s true. He’s not a Democrat. He’s been acting like a Republican.” I responded that “that’s a distortion of his record” and briefly elaborated on why Lieberman is by no means a Republican. The caller again disagreed with me, saying, “Well, if you look at the way he’s been acting for...

HARTFORD, Conn. -- Sen. Joe Lieberman closed his anti-war opponent's double-digit lead yesterday to just six points as both candidates scrambled across the state ahead of today's Democratic primary. The latest polling results were a relief to the veteran Democrat, who has represented this state in the Senate for nearly two decades and who just six years ago was his party's vice presidential nominee. Mr. Lieberman predicted yesterday that the movement in polls showed momentum at his back and said he expects to win today. "I feel they were flirting with the other guy for a while, wanting to send...

At www.joe2006.com, the following message appears: "This Account Is Under Construction" According to Lieberman's campaign communications director, Marion Steinfels, "Yep, we've been hacked." "There's a coordinated effort to overloaded our bandwith and that has brought down our website and our e-mail," she said. The attack began around mid-morning, she said. Steinfels said the company that hosts the campaign website is investigating. It's the third time the site was broken into; it's the second time within a month. Lieberman opponents might suggest that the Lieberman campaign forgot to pay its bill; Steinfels says that's totally untrue. Or that the campaign is...

EAST HAVEN, Conn. - Two days before the Democratic primary, U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman made what he called his closing argument on his record Sunday as he tries to gain ground on upstart challenger Ned Lamont, who is leading in the latest poll. Lieberman, a three-term incumbent and his party‘s vice presidential candidate in 2000, has been dogged by liberal Democrats angry at him for supporting the war in Iraq . Lamont, a political newcomer and founder of a cable company, has capitalized on the war‘s unpopularity in Connecticut by accusing Lieberman of being too close to Republicans and President...

Republicans don’t have a dog in either fight, but two nationally significant races on Tuesday’s ballot will tell us a great deal about the mood of the country — and the future of two-party politics. The one, of course, is Georgia’s 4th Congressional District, where incumbent Rep. Cynthia McKinney is in the final stages of her political career. But for an out-of-district white guy who sapped 5,253 votes, most of which otherwise would have gone to challenger Hank Johnson, she would be walking around in stunned defeat now. Johnson may not beat her Tuesday, but the end is near. Her...

Democratic U.S. Senate contender Ned Lamont will get a campaign boost Wednesday from the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who will campaign with him Wednesday and Thursday in four cities. Lamont, who will face 18-year incumbent Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of New Haven in an Aug. 8 Democratic primary, also will appear Wednesday on Sharpton's syndicated radio program. "These two leaders represent hope and bring voice to many people who have been disenfranchised," Lamont spokeswoman Liz Dupont-Diehl said of the two. "We are very pleased they have come to support Ned. It shows that the campaign is about hope,...

HARTFORD, Conn. -- U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman earned the endorsement of The Washington Post Sunday in his bid for a fourth term, while The New York Times backed his opponent Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary, criticizing the three-term incumbent for his support of President Bush's national security policies. The Post commended Lieberman for his ability to work in a bipartisan manner to help advance legislation in Washington, while noting that his support for the war, the galvanizing issue in the race, is a legitimate issue to raise. "But it seems that Mr. Lieberman is also being pummeled...

ROCKY HILL, Conn., July 28 — Senator Joseph I. Lieberman commissioned a poll in January as he prepared for his fourth campaign for the Senate, and the results were sobering. Mr. Lieberman was tied against a hypothetical primary opponent, described only as a Democrat who was opposed to the Iraq war and was critical of Mr. Lieberman’s ties with President Bush, an aide recounted. That poll was one of a number of early warnings that emerged well before Mr. Lieberman found himself locked this summer in a career-threatening battle with Ned Lamont, a Democratic primary challenger who is opposed to...

HARTFORD, July 26 — Lesley Korzennik walked into a diner in Norwalk recently hoping to vent her frustrations with Senator Joseph I. Lieberman — over his continued support for the war, among a litany of other things. “I’m furious at him,” she said. But when she was asked about how she would vote in the Democratic primary next month, Ms. Korzennik, 46, who says she strongly supports Israel, sighed. “Given all that’s going on in Israel right now,” she said, “I am not going to let Lieberman go.” Ms. Korzennik expresses the mixed sentiments a significant number of Jewish Democrats...

WATERBURY, Conn. --As U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman tried to rally his supporters with a campaign visit from former President Bill Clinton Monday, some Democrats acknowledged they're worried a Lieberman primary loss could hurt other Democratic candidates on the November ballot. "It makes it more challenging," said John Olsen, president of the Connecticut AFL-CIO and former chairman of the state Democratic Party, when asked what a Lieberman primary loss would mean to Democrats running for everything from Congress to state representative. The hot Senate race has already drawn complaints from the two Democratic gubernatorial candidates running in the Aug. 8 primary....

Hartford-AP July 20,2006 8:00 AM) _ One of the Democratic Party's biggest guns, former President Bill Clinton, is coming to Connecticut to campaign for Senator Joe Lieberman. Clinton's visit, planned for July 24th in Waterbury, comes as a new Quinnpiac Poll shows Lieberman and his Democratic primary challenger, businessman Ned Lamont, in a statistical dead heat. Lieberman's campaign has not yet revealed details of the planned visit. The two politicians have known each other since Clinton worked on Lieberman's first campaign for state Senate in 1970. Clinton was a student at Yale University at the time. Clinton recently defended Lieberman's...

WASHINGTON - Liberal activists, including some California Democrats, are furious with Sen. Barbara Boxer -- a leading critic of the Iraq war -- for her active support of Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Democrat who staunchly defends the war in Iraq. Lieberman is fighting for his political life in Connecticut, facing an anti-war opponent, cable magnate Ned Lamont, in an Aug. 8 Senate primary. Lieberman, his party's nominee for vice president in 2000, has already announced he will run as an independent in the fall if he loses the primary. That decision has divided his Senate colleagues and Democrats nationwide. And...

Hillary Clinton has a complicated dance to do as she prepares for the 2008 presidential election. She has to move far enough to the left to win the Democratic presidential nomination, while staying close enough to the center to win a presidential election. She has to satisfy the anti-war left that can’t abide her position on the war without giving those who would brand her as purely political in the worst sense of the word an opportunity to accuse her of the biggest flip-flop of the decade. And, she has to accomplish that while sitting in the Senate and voting,...

NEW LONDON, Conn. -- Ned Lamont, the Democratic challenger for U.S. Senate and several of his campaign staff workers were in the same crowd that a station wagon plowed into Saturday afternoon during the city's annual Sailfest. Lamont was not injured, said a campaign spokeswoman, but three of the staffers were treated for various injuries. In all 27, people were injured in the incident. Lamont, who is challenging three-term incumbent Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Aug. 8 primary, was campaigning at festival, said spokeswoman Liz Dupont-Diehl. "Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone who was hurt," Dupont-Diehl told The Associated...

Hotly Contested Local Primary Takes National Stage As "Hardball with Chris Matthews" Simulcasts The NBC Owned Station Debate And MSNBC.com Offers Live Streaming WVIT Anchor Joanne Nesti Will Moderate The Debate, Panelists Include WVIT Anchor Gerry Brooks And Chief Political Correspondent Tom Monahan SECAUCUS, NJ – July 5, 2006 – MSNBC today announced that it will offer exclusive live national coverage of the Connecticut Democratic primary debate between incumbent Joseph Lieberman and challenger Ned Lamont on Thursday, July 6th from 7 to 8 p.m. (ET). WVIT Anchor Joanne Nesti will moderate the debate, along with panelists including WVIT Anchor Gerry...

ALBANY, N.Y. -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a longtime supporter of Sen. Joseph Lieberman, said Tuesday she will not back the Connecticut Democrat's bid for re-election if he loses their party's primary. "I've known Joe Lieberman for more than thirty years. I have been pleased to support him in his campaign for re-election, and hope that he is our party's nominee," the former first lady said in a statement issued by aides. "But I want to be clear that I will support the nominee chosen by Connecticut Democrats in their primary," the New York Democrat added. "I believe in the...

Karl Weiss: Bible followers mess up U.S. A letter to the editor Dear Editor: Everything Sen. Joe Lieberman says or does is for Israel. The man is a Zionist. Jews and evangelicals like Bush just love this person and it ALL goes back to that make-believe book called the Bible.Our government has been taken over by people who believe in fairy tales and mankind has been set back hundreds of years because of this. Stem cell research, birth control and cancer cures have all been stopped by these idiots. Ignorance rules in these United States. Karl Weiss Pardeeville Published: July...

Showing an even closer margin than a recent poll that had Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman ahead of Democratic primary challenger Ned Lamont 56% to 40%, the latest Rasmussen Reports poll show Lieberman with 46% to Lamont’s 40%.