Free Republic

It was reading, writing and religious brainwashing at this top Connecticut high school. Staffers at Avon High indoctrinated three once-happy girls into a death-obsessed religious cult that had them speaking in tongues and acting like zombies, a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by their parents charges. Three Spanish teachers and a guidance counselor “taught students to believe in superstition, magic and a non-scientific, anti-intellectual world view,” the suit says. “They lost their humor and their empathy. They began speaking in a bizarre new language. They became unable to think critically or independently. They became dependent on the school teachers and...

<p>NEW YORK (AP) — Chipotle is asking customers not to bring firearms into its stores after it says gun rights advocates brought military-style assault rifles into one of its restaurants in Texas.</p> <p>The Denver-based company notes that it has traditionally complied with local laws regarding open and concealed firearms.</p>

Challengers see themselves in the Texas senator, even in races where their odds of an upset are considered steeper than Cruz’s surprise victory over a GOP establishment figure two years ago. He’s made endorsements in the Oklahoma and Nebraska Senate races, plus the Nebraska gubernatorial race, and sent almost $26,000 to federal candidates through his leadership PAC. “Ted Cruz would be extremely helpful as an endorser and a fundraiser,” said C. Edmund Wright, a consultant to longshot South Carolina Senate hopeful Lee Bright, in an email. “Rand Paul and Mike Lee would be great also.” But, he said, “the reason...

John and Dawn DiMarco signed up for an Affordable Care Act plan through the state health insurance exchange during open enrollment. They received their insurance card and were covered but their bill was thousands of dollars more than advertised. They spent weeks going back and forth with various state agencies and the insurance company to try and get answers. Then, this month, their carrier, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, sent them a cancellation notice. NBC Connecticut contacted Access Health CT on Tuesday and they told us it has to do with a computer issue with their vendor. UPDATE: A spokesperson...

(CNN) -- Vermont's governor on Thursday signed a bill into law that will require the labeling of genetically modified foods -- hailing it as the first such law in the nation. Under the new law, food offered for retail sale that is entirely or partially produced with genetic engineering must be labeled as such by July 2016. "Vermonters take our food and how it is produced seriously, and we believe we have a right to know what's in the food we buy," said Gov. Peter Shumlin. "More than 60 countries have already restricted or labeled these foods, and now one...

Ron Howard, the Oscar-winning director, has put his family home and farm up for sale near Greenwich, Conn., for $27.5 million. The lakefront estate is made up of 32 acres of land straddling the Connecticut and New York border. In addition to a working farm, the property includes a more than 17,200-square-foot main residence, a guesthouse, an indoor sports complex, an observatory, riding trails and woods. Howard and his wife, Cheryl, raised their family in the classic New England-style home. Among the rooms are a two-story office/library, a 14-seat theater, six bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms. The guesthouse has two bedrooms...

A year after a modest proposal to change gun laws failed in the Senate, Connecticut Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy have switched tactics. They plan to introduce a bill that would forbid anyone under a temporary restraining order from owning a gun. “It’s just common sense that someone who is the subject of a temporary restraining order shouldn’t be able to buy a gun,” Murphy said. Under current federal law, those under permanent court orders are barred from owning firearms, but not those under temporary court orders. Blumenthal said that those under temporary court orders, often imposed when there’s...

Full Title-"ABC News producer inundated with porn spam after tweeting interview requests to relatives of shooting victims" A spokesman for ABC News told The Daily Caller on Monday that an influx of emailed pornography led the network to close down an email account and several social media profiles belonging to an editorial producer, in the days following the Friday mass-murder at a Connecticut elementary school. “We’ve had to change all of her accounts,” ABC News Senior Vice President Jeffrey Schneider said of Nadine Shubailat in a voicemail message left Monday morning. Shubailat sent tweets Friday to at least two people...

STORRS, Conn. – A University of Connecticut professor asserted that he came from an ape on Tuesday as he went wild during a campus gospel presentation that included discussion on evolution. James Boster, Professor of Anthropology at University of Connecticut, spent over two hours attempting to draw students away from several evangelists that were open-air preaching and distributing gospel literature on campus. Evangelist Don Karns of Hampton, Virginia told Christian News Network that Boster approached him as he was holding a sign about evolution and became condescending and confrontational. “He asked me if I had accepted Darwin as my lord...

Paul Simon and wife Edie Brickell were both arrested and charged with disorderly conduct on Saturday night, April 26, after an apparent domestic dispute, according to New Canaan Police. A call to police about the incident at the couple’s New Canaan house was made about 8 p.m. Saturday night, police said. But details over what were not immediately released. New Canaan Police hold a weekly press briefing with local media late each Monday morning. Simon and Brickell, who have been married for more than 20 years, have lived in New Canaan with their three children for years. New Canaan Police...

Frustrated Democrats have been asking the same question for months: When are the rich going to pay their fair share? State employee unions are also asking — broadcasting television commercials depicting wealthy fat-cats smoking cigars and brandishing brandy snifters as Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell has avoided tax increases on the rich and corporations. The unions have spent about $400,000 since February on radio, television and cable advertisements in their campaign for tax fairness. But Sen. L. Scott Frantz, R-Greenwich, says the rich are already paying their fair share. In fact, Greenwich paid more than 14 percent of the state's...

Milk—it does a body bad? Some Connecticut lawmakers seem to think so. The state legislature is considering a bill that would ban day care centers from serving whole milk or 2 percent milk to children. The move, according to the bill’s sponsors, is aimed at curbing childhood obesity—but opponents say the information is outdated. While the American Academy of Pediatrics put out a 2008 recommendation that children switch to low-fat milk after the age of 2 because they don’t need the fat content, others argue that the fat isn’t the dietary demon some claim. …

Paul Guaschino was driving Friday when a fellow motorist spotted an “Impeach Obama” bumper sticker on the 62-year-old Connecticut resident’s vehicle. According to cops, the other driver apparently did not appreciate the bumper sticker and “displayed his dislike by showing his middle finger.”

A professor at Eastern Connecticut State University (ECSU) was caught on audio telling his creative writing class that Republicans will close colleges if they prevail in 2014 and that “racist, misogynist, money-grubbing people” want to suppress the liberal vote. In a four-minute recording of a classroom lecture obtained by Campus Reform, Professor Brent Terry is heard strongly suggesting that conservatives are greedy racists who want to suppress the vote of anyone who might vote liberal. “It's absolutely possible that the Republicans will take over the Senate as well as the House. And we will live in a very, very, very...

Necessity has become the mother of invention for certain birds of prey looking for a place to lay their eggs and raise their young as their natural habitats are lost to development. Local ospreys, for instance, are getting creative about selecting nesting sites in the wild ... or not-so-wild sites in the area. Pairs of ospreys, one of North America's largest birds of prey with a wing span of up to six feet, are currently building nests in densely developed sites in the region. One of the couples is weaving branches together atop a utility pole along busy Post Road...

Yale’s Agony Over Social Justice The unsettling pro-life witness by Matthew Gerken 4 . 17 . 14 Last night Yale’s campus pro-life group—after a year in which they participated in meetings and even helped raise money for the organization—became the first group in living memory to be denied membership in the Social Justice Network of Dwight Hall. Billing itself as an “independent” and “non-sectarian” center for public service and social justice, Dwight Hall at Yale is a group that seeks “to foster civic-minded student leaders and to promote service and activism in New Haven and around the world.” Though legally...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ircHCzcg3WY

A Milford man appears to be the first person charged after failing to comply with Connecticut’s law requiring the registration of certain firearms and standard capacity magazines: A 65-year-old man faces an array of charges after he allegedly shot a squirrel in his yard Monday morning. James Toigo, 258 Housatonic Dr., was charged with unlawful discharge of a firearm, cruelty to an animal, first-degree reckless endangerment, second-degree breach of peace, failure to register an assault rifle and three counts of possessing large-capacity magazines, according to a police press release. Police were directing traffic in the area of Housatonic Drive when...

At The Hobby Center in Danbury, Karl LaLonde, the store's owner, holds the Proto X in the palm of his hand. It's the size of a fairly healthy tarantula. LaLonde has decorated it with an orange piece of plastic shaped like a bird's beak. Switched on, its four tiny propellers spin. Under LaLonde's control via a joystick, it lifts off the counter and scoots around the store's airspace. The Proto X costs $50. "You can get a camera to fit it," LaLonde said. It's the smallest of the many UAVs -- unmanned aerial vehicles -- LaLonde sells. Business is good....

What steps will our federal and state governments take to reassert their dictatorial authority over a people who have become far too confident in an ability to defy their superiors? Will Barack Obama quietly authorize assault and battery, even the murder of a few unimportant Americans in order to intimidate an annoying, freedom seeking public back into line? According to the terms of New York’s Safe Act, April 15th was the final day by which “Assault Weapons” were to be registered with the state. But of an estimated 1-2 million rifles which have made paper felons of Empire State owners,...