Free Republic

HARTFORD — Former Gov. John G. Rowland, identified Monday in federal court as a co-conspirator in an alleged campaign financing scheme, announced Thursday that he was leaving as WTIC-AM's afternoon talk-show host. "Today will be my last show as I leave the station to take care of some personal issues," he said just before 6 p.m, at the end of his regular three-hour time slot. "We accept Mr. Rowland's decision to step down at this time," WTIC Program Director Jenneen Lee said in an email at 6:06 p.m. "Pastor Will will take over the 3 to 6 p.m. show beginning...

Dan Zimmerman at The Truth About Guns asks Could Connecticut Gun Laws Spark Another Waco? There’s been a lot of discussion among members of the Armed Intelligentsia lately about how Connecticut’s finest might proceed if they decide to confiscate unregistered guns from the state’s 100,000 or more newly-minted felons. The level of concern is evidenced by daily long comment threads, speculative posts by people who are not members of law enforcement, and even a couple of contributed opinions from the LEO community. The rational consensus seems to be that if the gun-grab order were given, cops would pinch a...

There’s been a lot of discussion among members of the Armed Intelligentsia lately about how Connecticut’s finest might proceed if they decide to confiscate unregistered guns from the state’s 100,000 or more newly-minted felons. The level of concern is evidenced by daily long comment threads, speculative posts by people who are not members of law enforcement, and even a couple of contributed opinions from the LEO community. The rational consensus seems to be that if the gun-grab order were given, cops would pinch a registration scofflaw at the grocery store, at work, on the road…anyplace other than his or her...

Dan Zimmerman at The Truth About Guns asks Could Connecticut Gun Laws Spark Another Waco?There’s been a lot of discussion among members of the Armed Intelligentsia lately about how Connecticut’s finest might proceed if they decide to confiscate unregistered guns from the state’s 100,000 or more newly-minted felons. The level of concern is evidenced by daily long comment threads, speculative posts by people who are not members of law enforcement, and even a couple of contributed opinions from the LEO community. The rational consensus seems to be that if the gun-grab order were given, cops would pinch a registration scofflaw...

HARTFORD -Starting Tuesday, April 1, long guns may not be sold or transferred in Connecticut without a permit to carry pistols or revolvers or an eligibility certificate for pistols or revolvers or a long gun eligibility certificate, according to the state police. The law is part of the package of gun control legislation passed by the General Assembly last year after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown. Other parts of the law had already taken effect. The law required owners of assault weapons that were banned under the law to register their guns by Jan. 1, 2014....

Democratic lawmakers and campaign finance reform advocates quickly bashed Wednesday’s Supreme Court decision to strike down total limits on individual campaign contributions, warning of future corruption in elections. Meanwhile, Republicans largely cheered the ruling from the narrowly divided court, which found it unconstitutional to impose caps on the aggregate amounts that one person can donate to campaigns, parties and political action committees. Calling himself “all for freedom,” Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Wednesday commended the ruling, saying “donors ought to have the freedom to give what they want to give.” And Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who had filed...

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- Some Newtown residents are calling for the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter's home to be torn down and replaced with a park or nature preserve, according to a new community survey. The Newtown-Sandy Hook Community Foundation received more than 1,600 responses to the survey it released Monday on town residents' unmet needs in the wake of the December 2012 shootings. The foundation has been deciding how to distribute more than $11 million in donations made in response to the shootings, which left 20 first-graders and six educators dead. While most of the survey responses said money...

Government Motors. Remember that one? That's a huge, overlooked detail in this whole GM recall crisis - the federal government's oversight of a company they bought out of bankruptcy four years ago and, under their nose, that same company is hiding its deadly, dirty laundry. Charlie LeDuff caught up with California Democrat Henry Waxman, who was head of the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform at the time of that purchase.

hamden >> Seniors and U.S. Rosa L. DeLauro planned their next move Friday as they looked for ways to keep UnitedHealthcare and federal agencies accountable after the large insurer cut Yale-New Haven Hospital and more than 2,200 doctors around the state from their Connecticut networks. DeLauro, D-3, said she will ask the federal General Accounting Office to investigate the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services on how it determined the remaining practitioners will be enough to serve patients and whether UHC gave the required notice to Greater New Haven clients. The letter has been signed by all five of Connecticut’s...

April 1, 2014 3:54 PM Democratic Senator Tells GM Car Owners to Stop Driving Immediately By Jim Geraghty A reader sends this in and quips, “Blumenthal to Michigan: Drop Dead!” CBS Connecticut: “Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal is among those calling for GM to make a stronger statement and tell owners to stop driving their cars immediately. Blumenthal believes GM made a decision to hide the defect of ignition switches.” Considering the risk from the switches, Blumenthal’s advice isn’t the most outlandish conclusion in the world. If an owner of one of the recalled cars wants to drive it at all,...

(MFNS) - North Korea announced today that its leader Kim Jung-Un has a perfect NCAA tournament bracket on the road to the final four of the prestigious collegiate basketball competition. “Our dear leader has once again vanquished the capitalist slime with his superior brainpower. While the imperialist scum sided with the largest, most powerful programs, Kim Jung-Un foresaw the power of underdog squadrons."A contest sponsored by Warren Buffet promised to give $1 billion to anyone with a perfect bracket at the end of the tournament. Every contestant has already been eliminated.Although Kim did not officially enter the contest, officials...

With just days to go before open enrollment ends on March 31, Maryland officials are reportedly planning to abandon its glitch-ridden ObamaCare website and replace the health exchange with technology from Connecticut’s marketplace. The Washington Post reported late Friday that the board of the Maryland exchange will vote on changing the system that has cost at least $125.5 million at a meeting on Tuesday, the day after the end of the first enrollment period under ObamaCare. …

Owners of horses and other domestic animals must try to prevent their animals from causing foreseeable injuries, the state’s highest court ruled Wednesday in a decision that avoided the larger issue of whether horses are inherently vicious while siding with a family whose child was bitten by one. The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled 6-0 to uphold an Appellate Court decision that said a horse belongs to “a species naturally inclined to do mischief or be vicious.” But four of the justices said that the question of whether an animal is naturally dangerous must be considered individually by lower courts. […]...

Maryland to Drop Obamacare Exchange: 'Broken Beyond Repair' Cash wasted on this clunker. Geoffrey Norman March 29, 2014 10:45 AM The state of Maryland has encountered many setbacks in its attempt to get a health care website up and running smoothly. (Sound familiar?) And now, it has run up the white flag. As Mary Pat Flaherty and Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post report: … [Maryland] officials are set to replace the state’s online health-insurance exchange with technology from Connecticut’s insurance marketplace, according to two people familiar with the decision, an acknowledgment that a system that has cost at least...

Next Round of Anti-Gun Law Provisions Take Effect on April 1The last major round of provisions in Senate Bill 1160(PDF) (now Public Act 13-3), passed in the Connecticut General Assembly and signed into law by Governor Dan Malloy (D) last year, take effect on Tuesday, April 1.EFFECTIVE ON APRIL 1, 2014: Individuals must apply for a “long gun eligibility certificate” through the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (“DESPP”) to purchase any rifle or shotgun. You are exempt from this requirement if you have a Connecticut permit to carry a pistol or revolver; a pistol or revolver retail sales...

When 7-year-old Isaiah McLoughlin wanted cars and trucks on his Waterford street to stop speeding, he decided to take action. Isaiah grabbed a pen, wrote a letter to his local police department and he is getting results. “When I went for my bus cars and trucks are speeding. It makes feel unsafe,” Isaiah wrote. Then he asked police to call his grandmother to discuss the situation. So police did. They arranged a meeting around the busy 7-year-old’s schedule, took the complaint and arranged for speed patrols, starting today. Here is what Waterford Police posted on their Facebook page: ”Traffic complaint...

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — Ted Kennedy Jr., who has been mentioned as a possible political candidate for years, said he's considering a run for the state Senate in Connecticut. The son of the late U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, of Massachusetts, said he will decide within two weeks whether to seek this year's Democratic nomination for the 12th Senatorial District seat being vacated by retiring Guilford Democrat Edward Meyer.

The number of food stamp recipients (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP) fell in Texas in 2013, dropping 4.6 percent from a year earlier to 3.9 million recipients in December 2013. Nationally, SNAP caseload declined by 2.1 percent from December 2012 to December 2013 as the job market gradually warmed up. California’s SNAP caseload bucked the national trend, increasing 4.1 percent to 4.3 million recipients, the second-largest percentage increase in the nation behind Maryland. Eleven states saw an increase in their SNAP rolls, Maryland, California, Hawaii, Nevada, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Nebraska and Rhode Island , while...

A Short List of the Lawmakers who voted "YES" on an UnConstitutional Law.

Fishermen hooking trout on opening day April 19 will have no idea what it took to make that possible. The ice this year was so thick, chainsaws were needed to cut though and open holes for trout stocking in Connecticut waters. Tim Barry, who heads the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection's trout stocking program, said, "In my 30 years with the department, I've never seen conditions like this." "All the lakes were stocked through the ice," Barry added. "It was very difficult." Some mornings were so frigid, stocking had to be suspended for fear the fish would suffer...