Free Republic

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A California congresswoman whose husband was indicted on theft and conspiracy charges in Connecticut cited an “unexpected family matter” Thursday in withdrawing as a candidate for chair of the House Democratic Caucus. U.S. Rep. Linda Sanchez, now the caucus vice chair, is married to James Sullivan, one of five people indicted on theft and conspiracy charges this week in connection with a public electricity cooperative and $800,000 worth of trips to the Kentucky Derby and other locations. Sanchez, who represents the 38th District in the Los Angeles area, wrote in a letter to fellow Democrats, “Unfortunately,...

The U.S. attorney in New Haven, Connecticut announced that a federal grand jury has returned two indictments charging five people with the theft of federal funds. One if the individuals charged is James Sullivan, who is married to California Democratic Rep. Linda Sanchez. According to a government release, the U.S. attorney alleges that the defendants conspired to misuse an account that held funds provided by federal grants to the Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Corporation (CMEEC), a public corporation that allows municipal electric utilities in Connecticut to provide electricity. Under the membership agreement, six municipalities provided that excess revenues, known as...

Republican Bob Stefanowski has inched ahead of Democrat Ned Lamont by 2.4 percent in the governor’s race, which remains a statistical tie heading into the final weekend before Election Day, the latest Hearst Connecticut Media Group/Sacred Heart University Poll finds. The poll, released Thursday afternoon, shows that Stefanowski is now up 40 percent to 37.6 percent, with unaffiliated candidate Oz Griebel of Hartford at 9 percent. Just over 12 percent of those surveyed remain undecided. Stefanowski gained a 5.8 percent point swing over two weeks, the poll finds. Lesley DeNardis, executive director of the Institute for Public Policy at Sacred...

A heavyweight right-wing financier has thrown in with a left-right coalition to end the U.S. military’s involvement in the Saudi-led war on Yemen, one of the world’s most devastating humanitarian catastrophes, The Daily Beast has learned. The Charles Koch Institute, bearing the brand of one of the most influential sources of conservative political money, is backing an effort spearheaded by progressive California Democrat Ro Khanna to demand either an end to non-counterterrorism aid to the Yemen war or a direct congressional vote authorizing it. Multiple congressional and allied sources told The Daily Beast they plan to bring their resolution to...

Connecticut Democrats' evasive campaigns are an insult to voters. Let's put this bluntly: the 2018 elections are as close as we will ever get to a referendum on Democratic economic policy in Connecticut. Voters are right to want answers. In spite of a economic and job boom across the country, Connecticut's "death spiral" is accelerating. Taxes keep going up, jobs are disappearing, and property values are in the tank. Connecticut's budget deficit in 2020 will be $1.9 billion; in 2021, it will be about $2.5 billion. Those are just pick-up notes to more staggering problems, as more taxpayers move out...

A former British spy has vanished after being named as the author of a ‘dirty’ file smearing Donald Trump and fled his £1.5million mansion in fear telling his neighbour: ‘Look after my cat.’ Ex-MI6 agent Christopher Steele has been named as the author of the salacious Russian dossier containing outlandish claims about Donald Trump’s sex life and bizarre footage allegedly held by the Kremlin’s blackmail unit. The 35-page briefing, which is littered with spelling mistakes, includes an unsubstantiated and far-fetched claim Trump watched prostitutes perform a ‘golden shower (urination) show’ in the Presidential Suite of a Moscow hotel. Mr Trump...

More than 300 bridges in Connecticut — carrying 4.3 million vehicles daily — are considered structurally deficient. Highways in the Bridgeport-Stamford area are so congested motorists waste 49 hours a year in bumper-to-bumper traffic. And 62 percent of Connecticut’s major roads are in such poor condition they cost motorists $681 annually in vehicle repairs, according to TRIP, a national transportation think tank. Given those challenges, the three men seeking to replace Gov. Dannel P. Malloy could be making transportation the centerpiece of their campaigns. But instead, these candidates for governor are offering mostly modest plans to fix the state’s infrastructure...

There are a lot of reasons I’m not a Democrat. For example, I believe that… 1. Jesus, America, and capitalism have been the three greatest forces of good in world history. 2. An attractive woman posing with an AR-15 beats a screaming feminist in a pussy hat 10 times out of 10. 3. You can’t #believeallwomen or #believeallmen; you have to #believetheevidence. 4. It’s wrong and disgusting to harass people in restaurants and at their home just because you disagree with them politically. Also if you block traffic to get attention for your cause, whatever it may be, I am...

Around 10:00 p.m. Tuesday night, a 27-year-old man in New Haven, Connecticut, was suddenly attacked while walking down the street. The attacker, “an adult black man holding a knife,” allegedly said “Happy Halloween” and stabbed the victim in the bicep. As it turns out, that sentiment was premature, as he didn’t live long enough to celebrate Halloween. The victim’s 24-year-old cousin, who was waiting in his car nearby, overheard the noise and stepped out with his firearm, which he has a valid permit to carry. After he was also stabbed by the attacker (in the elbow), the cousin shot and...

Full title: Trump’s attacks on Sen. Blumenthal are actually more absurd than Blumenthal’s lies about serving ‘in’ Vietnam It’s always sad when one privileged Ivy Leaguer with five Vietnam deferments attacks another privileged Ivy Leaguer with five Vietnam deferments. President Trump went after Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., this week with an absurd retelling of how the senator once fabricated stories about serving in Vietnam as a U.S. Marine. To be clear, Trump isn’t wrong in calling Blumenthal a liar. The senator most absolutely embellished his record years ago, making it sound as if he served in Vietnam. Blumenthal never served...

Bill and Hillary Clinton are going on tour. The Clintons announced on Monday that they would headline a series of live events together -- billed "An Evening with The Clintons" -- across the country in the final weeks of 2018 and into 2019. The tour will provide the Democratic stalwarts with a notable platform weeks after the consequential 2018 midterm elections and deep into 2019, when a number of Democrats will be jockeying for positions in the fight to be the party's standard bearer against President Donald Trump in 2020. The events, which are being produced by tour promoter Live...

Charles Ludington, Lynne Brookes and Elizabeth Swisher attended Yale University from 1983 to 1987 with Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh. We were college classmates and drinking buddies with Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh. In the past week, all three of us decided separately to respond to questions from the media regarding Brett’s honesty, or lack thereof. In each of our cases, it was his public statements during a Fox News TV interview and his sworn testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee that prompted us to speak out. We each asserted that Brett lied to the Senate by stating,...

A top lawyer working with the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign contacted the FBI’s general counsel in late 2016 and provided documents for the Russia probe as federal investigators prepared a surveillance warrant for Trump campaign aide Carter Page, sources close to a congressional investigation told Fox News, citing new testimony. The FBI official who was contacted, James Baker, revealed the exchange to congressional investigators during a closed-door deposition Wednesday. He said Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann initiated contact with him and provided documents as well as computer storage devices on Russian hacking. The sources said Baker described the...

Tweets at link. On Monday, President Trump defended Brett Kavanaugh in part by tearing apart the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He had particularly choice words for Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who claimed that placing Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court would forever be a "stain" on the institution. He has also stated that Trump's prior reluctance to call an FBI probe into the allegations against the nominee was "tantamount to a cover-up." So, Trump took that as an opportunity to zing Blumenthal this week for fabricating his military service back in 2010. In a campaign speech Monday, Trump gave...

A pair of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's former classmates at Yale Law on Tuesday withdrew their support of him after previously endorsements. Michael Proctor and Mark Osler wrote in a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and ranking member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) that they can no longer support Kavanaugh's confirmation because of the "nature" of his testimonty in front of the committee last week while addressing accusations of sexual misconduct. “In our view that testimony was partisan, and not judicious, and inconsistent with what we expect from a Justice of the Supreme Court, particularly dealing with...

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) said Tuesday that Brett Kavanaugh’s temperament disqualifies him from the Supreme Court and that Democrats should teach Americans to think likewise. . . . Preventing Kavanaugh from getting onto the Court is a question of "core principles," according to Blumenthal. "I think our core principles and values would be violated," Blumenthal said.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was reportedly questioned by police in 1985 after he was accused of throwing ice on someone during a college bar fight. The New York Times obtained a report from the New Haven Police Department on Monday dating back to when Kavanaugh was an undergraduate student at Yale University. Kavanaugh, then 21 years old, was questioned along with four other men after an early morning altercation at Demery’s bar in September 1985. Kavanaugh was not arrested but was accused of throwing ice on someone for “some unknown reason,” according to the report obtained by The Times....

As an undergraduate student at Yale, Brett M. Kavanaugh was involved in an altercation at a local bar during which he was accused of throwing ice on another patron, according to a police report. The incident, which occurred in September 1985 during Mr. Kavanaugh’s junior year, resulted in Mr. Kavanaugh and four other men being questioned by the New Haven Police Department. Mr. Kavanaugh was not arrested, but the police report stated that a 21-year-old man accused Mr. Kavanaugh of throwing ice on him “for some unknown reason.” *** He said that the altercation happened after a UB40 concert, when...

President Donald Trump hit senators on the left for their hypocrisy over Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s use of alcohol in college and high school on Monday. “I happen to know some United States senators,” Trump said. “One on the other side, who is pretty aggressive, I’ve seen that person in very bad situations … somewhat compromising.” The president commented on the sudden focus on Kavanaugh’s testimony on his drinking habits during a press conference at the Rose Garden at the White House. “I watched the senators on the Democrat side and I thought it was a disgrace,” Trump said. “Partially because...

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer thinks it’s time for Brett Kavanaugh to withdraw from the Supreme Court confirmation process. If he won’t, Schumer called for Republicans to press pause on Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination in the wake of explosive new allegations of sexual misconduct that emerged against him on Wednesday. “I strongly believe Judge Kavanaugh should withdraw from consideration. If he will not, at the very least, the hearing and vote should be postponed while the FBI investigates all of these allegations,” said Schumer in a statement released on Wednesday. “If our Republican colleagues proceed without an investigation, it would...