Free Republic

Denouncing it as “a path to disaster,” investigative correspondent Cynthia McFadden’s Monday report for NBC Nightly News called out Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo for forcing nursing homes in his state to take in coronavirus-positive patients just out of the hospital. On top of that, she pointed out how he had refused to give those facilities personal protective equipment (PPE). Amidst all of this, ABC and CBS still refused to criticize their governor and bashed President Trump. The segment was set up to laud and push the model being rolled out in Connecticut by Democratic Governor Ned Lamont. “Connecticut...

Attorneys representing three high school girls in a lawsuit aimed at barring transgender female athletes from competing in women’s divisions have filed a motion calling on the presiding judge to recuse himself after he forbid the attorneys from referring the transgender athletes as “males.” The lawsuit was filed by nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom in February on behalf of the families of three female high school track athletes who say their transgender competitors are enjoying an unfair advantage. The lawsuit challenges the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference policy that allows students who identify as female to participate in women’s sports and argues...

U.S. District Judge Robert Chatigny, a Bill Clinton appointee who Obama tried unsuccessfully to elevate to the federal appellate court, said in an April 16 conference call with the attorneys that they had to abide by his politically-correct terminology for the student-athletes at the heart of the case, according to a transcript obtained by the National Review. “What I’m saying is you must refer to them as ‘transgender females” rather than as ‘males.’ Referring to these individuals as ‘transgender females’ is consistent with science, common practice and perhaps human decency. To refer to them as ‘males,’ period, is not accurate,...

High-school athletes Selina Soule and Alanna Smith (Photo courtesy Alliance Defending Freedom)Attorneys representing three female high school track athletes in their effort to bar biological males from competing against them filed a motion on Saturday calling for the presiding judge to recuse himself after he forbid the attorneys from referring to the transgender athletes at issue as “males.” The ADF filed suit in February against the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) on behalf of three girls — Selina Soule, Alana Smith, and Chelsea Mitchell. The suit challenges the CIAC policy allowing students to compete in the division that accords with...

As Rodney Butler walks through the dark halls of the Foxwoods Resort and Casino in Connecticut, he laments that the 4,500 slot machines throughout the establishment that he considers home are turned off. It’s “unbelievable,” Butler said. “They should be clinging and clanging right now.” Foxwoods, in Mashantucket, Connecticut, is one of the largest casinos in the world. It’s owned and operated by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, for which Butler is the chairman. He says that up until the coronavirus, COVID-19, came to the United States, the casino had never shut its doors. **SNIP** Across the country, from Las...

Governor Ned Lamont Tuesday announced Tuesday that due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, he is ordering in-person classes at all K-12 public school facilities in Connecticut to remain canceled for the rest of the 2019-2020 academic year and continue providing distance learning during this period. Schools will also be required to continue providing meals to children under the school lunch and breakfast programs for students at home. ... “I know how important it is for so many students and teachers to finish out the school year, and I was holding out hope – particularly for high school seniors – that...

Actor Paul Giamatti gave U.S. Attorney John Durham some credit for informing his character on Showtime's Billions. The Hollywood star plays fictional U.S. Attorney-turned-New York Attorney General Chuck Rhoades, who is loosely based on former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, on the show, but Bharara isn't the only inspiration for the role. Speaking with GQ last week, Giamatti revealed that Durham influenced the portrayal of his character too. "There was a guy that was interesting to me early on, and his name is John Durham," he said. "And he’s actually the guy who William Barr tagged to do the investigation of...

HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH) — Protesters rallied again Monday, asking for Governor Ned Lamont to consider reopening the state. “We appreciate his thinking of taking care of us all, but people are suffering right now and they’re not suffering with COVID,” said Marnee Palladino. One of the biggest complaints is they don’t understand why the big box stores can be open while mom and pop shops remain closed. They believe if Lamont does the right thing by reopening the state, people will do the right thing. “It’s unfair that big box stores like Walmart are able to be open while smaller...

Some Connecticut businesses could begin reopening in as few as 7-10 days if the decline in Covid-19 hospitalizations continued, Gov. Ned Lamont said Monday. Lamont said the state is about halfway to a 14-day benchmark on hospitalization declines established by the White House’s coronavirus task force. Still, with 88 new deaths, the pandemic’s fatality total reached 2,012 on Monday. The net decrease of eight COVID-19 patients brought the hospitalized total to 1,758, down from 1,947 on April 23.

HARTFORD, CT (WFSB) - More people are calling for Governor Ned Lamont to reopen Connecticut In Hartford, a stay-at-home protest took place on Monday as the state continues to look at how to carefully get people back to work. State leaders, meanwhile, said they're eyeing June as the month to start to get things back up and running. Monday's protest is not the first the first demonstration of its kind. Another took place last week. They're being put on by a group calling itself the CT Liberty Rally. Until the economy gets moving again, in its words, the protests will...

The Westport Police Department, located in Connecticut’s hardest-hit county of Fairfield, has abandoned its idea to use high-tech drones that can detect symptoms of coronavirus infection from up to 190 feet away. The backtracking came after people expressed privacy concerns about the program. On Thursday, Police Chief Foti Koskinas and First Selectman Jim Marpe said the drone surveillance plan would not come to fruition because it was “not well-received,” according to Westport News. “In our good faith effort to get ahead of the virus and potential need to manage and safely monitor crowds and social distancing in this environment, our...

Former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn was the subject of media leaks in January and February 2017 that ultimately led to his dismissal and eventually, an indictment. The leaked information was from transcripts of Flynn's telephone calls that are considered highly classified and sensitive. Several high-ranking officials in the government leaked the information on at least two separate occasions to David Ignatius of the Washington Post, according to the New York Times. The probe into leaks is part of a Justice Department investigation headed by prosecutor John Durham into the origins of the Russia collusion story. Daily Caller: The...

New York state joined forces with New Jersey and Connecticut to roll out a tri-state contact tracing program with the aim of preventing a future spike in novel coronavirus infections, according to NBC New York. Apple and Google Coronavirus Tool Business Insider Intelligence The initiative will be supported by $10.5 million in funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, and is currently under development in collaboration with researchers from Johns Hopkins University. For context, contact tracing refers to public health workers' efforts to track down lists of people who have come into contact with coronavirus infected patients as soon as poss

It is interesting, if nothing else. – One interesting aspect of U.S. Attorney John Durham’s decision to bring the Chief of the violent crimes and narcotics trafficking section for the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., Anthony Scarpelli, onto his investigation team is that Scarpelli has been a specialist in RICO-type investigations over the last decade. His job has been to identify domestic and international drug trafficking networks and bring the major players to justice, as he and his team did in the example described at this link. In response to the piece on this that I posted last night,...

WESTPORT, Conn. — Westport has decided against launching a pilot program to use drones in the fight against covid-19. The drones would have been equipped with technology that can determine everything from a person's heart rate to if they have a fever and if people are following social distancing guidelines. Westport Police Chief Foti Koskinas announced today that, after careful consideration and in collaboration with First Selectman Jim Marpe, the Westport Police Department has chosen not to participate in the Draganfly drone “Flatten the Curve Pilot Program.” 'Dragon fly' -- the company behind the technology says their drones are not...

President Trump shared a report that said indictments could be coming this week in U.S. Attorney John Durham's review of the Russia investigation. Part of a flurry of retweets late Monday evening, Trump's verified Twitter account, which has 77.8 million followers, shared a post from Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett's personal website with the headline: "More Russia Spygate Indictments Coming ‘This Week.’" The post, authored by "staff" and shared by Jarrett's verified Twitter account, focused on a recent interview conducted by Fox Business host Lou Dobbs, during which investigative reporter John Solomon said that "some criminal investigative activity" indicated...

A baby thought to have been the youngest ever to die of COVID-19 may not have been killed by the coronavirus after all. Days after Connecticut officials last week announced that a six-week-old baby died after contracting coronavirus, the state’s medical examiner is not ready to say that COVID-19 was the cause of death. Governor Ned Lamont on Wednesday said that the toddler who was rushed to intensive care at a Hartford hospital was the youngest fatality of COVID-19 ‘anywhere.’ As of Friday afternoon, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has yet to officially rule that the novel coronavirus...

NEW YORK—A total of nine states on the U.S. East and West coasts said on April 13 they had begun planning for the slow reopening of their economies and lifting of strict stay-at-home orders amid signs the worst had passed in the CCP virus pandemic. The Northeast states of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut will work with Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island in coordinating to gradually reopen their economies together, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. “Nobody has been here before, nobody has all the answers,” Cuomo said during an open conference call with his five counterparts. “Addressing public...

It seemed clear several weeks ago this was going to happen. East coast blue state governors and West coast blue state governors are uniting to begin the economic civil war planning to block any White House effort to re-open the U.S. economy. The three step plan seems predictable: (1) Get out ahead of President Trump. (2) Defy the ‘all clear’ and shape economic benefit to their political allies. (3) Then use Fauci’s upcoming dossier to hit the administration for heartlessly opening the economy too early. ♦ On the East Coast the governors of New York (Cuomo), New Jersey (Murphy), Connecticut...

Connecticut doctors are finding some success in treating COVID-19 patients with a controversial malaria drug that has undergone very limited testing in its effectiveness against the coronavirus. In Bridgeport Hospital, virtually every patient in the intensive care unit has been given hydroxychloroquine - which is normally used to treat lupus, an auto-immune disease, as well as arthritis and malaria - said Dr. Zane Saul, chief of infectious disease there. “We use this more for its anti-inflammatory properties,” Saul said in a phone interview from the hospital. “We’re using this is our protocol.” He described the results so far as “positive”...