Connecticut

It has been nearly three years since the Kelo v. New London ruling by the US Supreme Court, and just short of two years since the city of New London, CT settled with the final two Fort Trumbull holdouts, Susette Kelo and the Cristofaro family.

The Supreme Court's majority, in their June 2005 Kelo ruling, declared that "public use" as stated in the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution really means "public purpose" -- that is, instead of the government being able to take land through eminent domain only for the purpose of building a public structure or creating a public service (road, bridge, school, park, etc.), the government can take land for any reason it believes a worthy one. In the case of New London, the city believed that demolishing occupied, functioning houses that had stood for over 100 years and developing "something else" that would garner the city more tax revenues was a worthy public purpose.

What has been done with the property since then?

As a development-related deadline loomed in mid-May, a Hartford TV station filed this report, and gave us the answer:

Plans Stall In Fort Trumbull
Land Remains Barren After Homes Torn Down

They had to really be looking for this, but ABC's April 17 "World News with Charles Gibson" has found something else for parents to be concerned about.

This time it is artificial turf on sports fields.

"It's become part of the American landscape - synthetic turf, durable and soft," ABC correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi said. "It's everywhere, from stadiums to neighborhood soccer fields. But now, questions over whether those fields are safe. Health officials in New Jersey randomly tested synthetic turf fields across the state. Two of the fields had lead levels so high they closed them."

You really can't make this stuff up, as they say.

This is from the New London Day last Friday (link probably requires registration, and would require a paid subscription after this coming Friday; HT Liberty Conspiracy):

Fort Trumbull Developer Asks FHA To Back $11.5M Loan

Faced with a tight lending climate, the Corcoran Jennison company has asked the Federal Housing Authority to back an $11.5 million loan to fund the long-delayed construction of housing on the Fort Trumbull peninsula.

As I said two weeks ago (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog):

As an exemplar of a government-run enterprise stuck in the mud, it’s hard to come with a better example than what is happening in the area that was the subject of the infamous Kelo v. New London ruling in 2005. Nearly 2-1/2 years after the US Supreme Court ruled that the city could evict Susette Kelo and other holdouts from their homes, and 17 months after the final settlement between the city and the final two holdouts, very little has been done in the affected area.

Make that "nearly three years" (New London Day link requires registration after a short time, and a paid subscription after that):

As an exemplar of a government-run enterprise stuck in the mud, it's hard to come with a better example than what is happening in the area that was the subject of the infamous Kelo v. New London ruling in 2005. Nearly 2-1/2 years after the US Supreme Court ruled that the city could evict Susette Kelo and other holdouts and take their homes, and 17 months after the final settlement between the city and the final two holdouts, very little has been done in the affected area.

The latest setback to substantive progress in the area is significant, and is being totally ignored by the non-local press.

Here are the two major stories and the local paper's editorial from earlier this week (New London Day links require a paid subscription after seven days):

Nov. 27 (report by Elaine Stoll) -- Fort Trumbull Developer Asks For More Time, Misses Deadline
NLDC could claim default, but delay in project more likely

Memories:

"In 2000, Americans were reminded that electoral votes select presidents. In 2004, Democrats were reminded that Bruce Springsteen does not."

I guess the Boss doesn't read George Will.

His concert at the Hartford (Conn.) Civic Center last night wasn't just an evening of classic tunes mixed with an introduction to his new album. He must have memorized some kind of script, because the following (from the Hartford Courant's review) was similar to the screed he gave when he performed live for the "Today" show last week:

On the face of it, this Hartford (Conn.) Courant editorial about Fred Thompson's long-awaited entry into the presidential race seems fair. Or is it?

Initially, the editorial tries to give Thompson the benefit of the doubt when it comes to some of the more popular charges against him:

He has some baggage, too. He carries a reputation, deserved or not, of being a bit lazy. (So did Ronald Reagan, and it didn't hurt him.) And back when Mr. Thompson was minority counsel on the Senate Watergate Committee investigating the Nixon White House, the paranoid occupant of the Oval Office was said to have considered Mr. Thompson none too bright. (Critics said the same thing about Mr. Reagan, but that didn't hurt him either, and besides, it wasn't true.)

The Fairfield County [Conn.] Weekly is one of those papers that is available for free at diners and bus stations, and it's usually very liberal in its views. (A sampling of recent article titles includes one where the author claims Rep. Chris Shays (R-Conn.) was checking out her décolletage at an event, and another calling former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales a "quaint torture-monkey.")

In the first read-through, this article took me by surprise...could one of Fairfield County's most cherished liberal institutions be going "right"? Entitled You're Worth It! For one measure of your worth to society, look back at all you W2s, author Phil Maymin tries to make sense of who is revered in our society and why. He goes through a series of examples (Bill Gates, sports stars, philanthropists and artists whose work gains wealth posthumously), and finally decides:

My headline really says it all. In an article that sets out to determine why New Haven, Connecticut would choose to offer official ID cards to illegal immigrants, while Hazleton, Pennsylvania enacted legislation that would make it difficult for illegals to obtain employment and housing, Hazleton ends up with the short end of the stick. It's all in the wording.

Right away, we discover that New Haven "has a long and rich history of liberal politics" while Hazleton is "a conservative city in the mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania." It's a classic case of sophisticated city folk versus uncultured hillbilly rubes. I can hear "Duelling Banjos" now...

If you read the article through, you'll notice that New Haven mayor Joe DeStefano is given more quote "airtime" than Hazleton mayor Lou Barletta. Compare this:

The Stamford Advocate has an article out today describing the efforts of one John Orman to determine if Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) broke election laws last year when he created the Connecticut for Lieberman party but did not officially join it. The party was created after Lieberman lost the Democrat primary to Ned Lamont, who as we know, ultimately lost to Lieberman in the general election.

Orman, a political science professor at Fairfield University, is described in the article as being a "longtime Lieberman critic." We're also told that Orman joined the Connecticut for Lieberman Party in order to bring attention to Lieberman's "abandonment of it."

Connecticut's governor, M. Jodi Rell, just issued a veto on a bill that would allow illegal aliens to qualify for in-state college tuition in the state's university system.

Local papers dutifully reported the news. Below are headlines from various papers across the state:

• Illegal immigrants tuition bill vetoed -- Connecticut Post
• Rell vetoes bill to give undocumented children in-state rates for college -- New Haven Register
• Rell deals blow to children of illegal immigrants -- Danbury News-Times
• Veto Dissolves College Dream -- Hartford Courant

The Courant article also starts off by telling the reader of the "shattered dreams" of Victoria (no last name), a graduate of New Haven's Wilbur Cross High School. She will not be able to afford to attend the University of Connecticut (UConn) to study criminal justice. Yes, criminal justice:

This really is delicious: a television anchorman in Connecticut has been exposed as having lobbied members of that state’s legislature in order to get a bill that benefited broadcasters passed.

As reported Friday by the Hartford Courant (h/t Dan Gainor):

Al Terzi, anchor of WFSB, Channel 3's "Eyewitness News," personally called a key legislator to urge the bill's passage. Terzi's WFSB colleagues Kevin Hogan and Susan Raff also lobbied for the bill, according to the legislator.

"Al Terzi called me," said state Rep. Emil "Buddy" Altobello, D-Meriden, an original sponsor of the bill, which concerned only security guards. "To ask for some help on the bill."

The bill, if signed by Gov. M. Jodi Rell, would limit employers' ability to restrict when and where security guards and broadcasters subsequently work.

How sweet. The article continued by pointing out the obvious conflict of interest:

Give Food Stamp Challenge organizers in Michigan and New Haven, Connecticut some credit.

We'll probably never know whether they figured it out on their own, or perhaps read of other organizers' errors when they were pointed out by syndicated columnist Mona Charen and by yours truly (at NewsBusters here and here; at BizzyBlog here and here). But unlike their comrades in most other cities and states, they have at least framed their Challenge using a correct amount of $35 per person per week ($5 per person per day) based on this table, which was adapted from information available at the USDA's web site (near the bottom at link; the weekly amount is result of dividing by 4.345, the average number of weeks in a month):

Over the last five years, the resurgent radical left has found empowerment in the Democratic Party through what the political scribes antiseptically call the "Internet grass roots." When hawkish Sen. Joe Lieberman lost by four points in the Democratic primary in Connecticut to ultraliberal millionaire Ned Lamont, the media credited this hard left with the upset. In truth, however, the liberal media themselves were a major part of the equation.

They refused to label Ned Lamont what he is: a charter member of the far left. They wouldn’t even call him a liberal. They simply called him "anti-war." It was used ad infinitum, as mushy a term as there is, if you think about it.

It's time for today's game of see how long it takes The Washington Post to acknowledge the wild-eyed liberals (filled with "Nedrenaline") behind Ned Lamont's crusade to turn out Sen. Joe Lieberman. Instead, the MoveOn crowd are merely "grassroots Internet activists" who are "anti-war." The headline of Dan Balz's front-pager is: "Conn. Race Could Be Democratic Watershed: Loss by Lieberman May Embolden Critics of War." The story dumps off the front-page before the first L-word is deployed, 371 words in:

The passion and energy fueling the antiwar challenge to Sen. Joseph Lieberman in Connecticut's Senate primary signal a power shift inside the Democratic Party that could reshape the politics of national security and dramatically alter the battle for the party's 2008 presidential nomination, according to strategists in both political parties.

You're a Connecticut resident, a good citizen but not a political junkie. You scan the Hartford Courant - the state's largest paper - this morning and see the following headline:

'Lamont Spokesman: Blog Photo Offensive'

Quick: which campaign did something wrong, and which is rightly outraged? Based on the headline, you could certainly be forgiven for assuming that Lamont was the injured party.

As it turns out, the facts are just the opposite.

An outraged liberal tried to connect a fictional neo-Nazi group, the "Grey Wolves," to a rally of the Minutemen United, an Ohio-based Christian group that planned to rally in Danbury, Conn.

The man, who calls himself both Rick Renage and Rick Regado, emailed a reporter for the Danbury News-Times that three busloads of Grey Wolves would show up wearing "black pants, black boots, red sox with black jackets and the swastika branded on the back." The purpose of his email was to tarnish the reputation of those rallying, and hopefully diminish their influence.

The News-Times believed the email and reported it, causing the city of Danbury to withdraw the permit for the rally.

When realizing his prank had actually worked, the man contacted the police and the newspaper to apologize.