Connecticut

WashPost Hypes Study's 'Synthetic' Claim That 1994 Connecticut Gun Law Saved Lives
By Tom Blumer | June 14, 2015 | 9:56 PM EDT

On Friday, the Washington Post's Jeff Guo hyped a study published in the American Journal of Public Health by four people with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The study contends that "Connecticut’s handgun permit-to-purchase law (passed in 1994) was associated with a subsequent reduction in homicide rates" involving firearms.

Readers wondering if there is a connection to that Bloomberg, i.e., Michael, and his fierce anti-Second Amendment agenda need not wonder. There is. Two of the four authors are with the school's Center for Gun Policy and Research — very weak research which left the Post's Guo incomprehensively claiming that the state's "permit to purchase" law regulating private firearms transactions seems to have saved "a lot" of lives.

Don't MSNBC Graphics Guys Know How to Tell Time?
By Ken Shepherd | January 26, 2015 | 8:16 PM EST

See if you can spot the typos on this map, which depict mandatory travel bans in Northeastern states for the overnight of January 26-27. 

AP Blindly Relays Claim That Connecticut Vote Fraud Arrest of Democrat Shows System's 'Strength'
By Tom Blumer | September 29, 2014 | 3:07 PM EDT

Democratic State Representative Christina Ayala has been arrested and charged with 19 felony charges of voter fraud. Eight of the counts are for fraudulent voting. Other Ayala family members are under investigation, and criminal charges have been recommended but not made against one of them.

The press is letting Connecticut's Secretary of State claim that the Ayala prosecution proves that the Nutmeg State's elections system works, even though the charges go back to elections held as far back as five years. Why are we supposed to be impressed?

Priorities: As World Tensions Escalate, Schumer Pushes For Pet Meds Legislation
By Tom Blumer | July 21, 2014 | 9:16 AM EDT

Let's see. A rebel group pushing for separation from Ukaine has shot down a passenger plane, killing almost 300 aboard. Israel has invaded Gaza. Illegal immigrants are flooding across the U.S.-Mexico border, in at least one instance following a hail of protective gunfire directed at Border Patrol agents.

Meanwhile, in news concerning truly important matters, New York Democratic Senator Charles Schumer and fellow party member Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut are focusing on what's really important — prescription pet medication prices:

New London, Conn. Columnist: 'Not a Single Thing' Done in Almost 9 Years Since Kelo Decision 'Is Not That Compelling'
By Tom Blumer | February 11, 2014 | 11:53 PM EST

Veteran journalist David Collins is a columnist at the New London Day in Connecticut.

In a column supposedly published on Sunday but "updated" on Saturday (I'm not kidding), Collins assessed the aftermath of the Supreme Court's odious Kelo v. New London decision in 2005 in reacting to a lengthy story by Charlotte Allen in the February 10 issue of the Weekly Standard. In the process, he betrayed two erroneous mindsets about the case which I believe are common among members of the establishment press. The first is that it was purely a matter of "conservatives" backing property rights against "liberal interventionism." The second is his contention that the total lack of any development in the contested area in the nearly nine years since the Court's decision "is not that compelling beyond New London."

Latest Vague Plans for Kelo Ruling Area Now Barren for 8-1/2 Years: A 'Green' Parking Garage and ‘Micro Lots’
By Tom Blumer | December 14, 2013 | 9:27 AM EST

The nation's press has long since stopped paying any attention to what has actually happened in the wake of the outrageous Kelo vs. New London Supreme Court ruling in June 2005.

The court's majority wrote that "The city has carefully formulated a development plan that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including, but not limited to, new jobs and increased tax revenue." The quite newsworthy but virtually ignored fact flying in the face of the Supremes' certitude is that nothing has happened in the affected area for 8-1/2 years. The latest idea for removing the "stain" of Kelo proposed by New London, Connecticut Mayor Daryl Justin Finizio is to place a "green" parking garage and "micro lots" (with micro homes) in the affected Fort Trumbull neighborhood where perfectly acceptable century-old housing used to stand. Excerpts from a New London Day editorial reporting on that paper's meeting with the mayor follow the jump.

Not News Outside Connecticut: Every Plan on State's Obamacare Exchange Had Wrong Info for a Full Month
By Tom Blumer | December 13, 2013 | 9:44 PM EST

Searches on "Connecticut" at the Associated Press's national site and at the Politico indicate that there's plenty of news about the Nutmeg State which the two web sites believe merit national attention.

But somehow, the fact that the state's Obamacare exchange, Access Health CT, "had incorrect information online about deductibles and co-insurance impacting all 19 individual health plans from the three insurance companies that offer those plans" doesn't merit attention. Further indicating the development's national significance, as David Steinberg at PJ Media has noted, President Barack Obama himself cited Access Health CT as a success story in supposedly getting one-third of its enrollees from people who are 35 and younger (also not true) back on October 21. More verbiage from the story, as reported in the Hartford Courant by Fox Connecticut's Louisa Moller, follows the jump:

Conn. Newspaper: Sorry, We Did Not Mean to Compare Fox News to KKK, Just Ann Coulter and Ted Nugent
By Howard Portnoy | August 1, 2013 | 2:15 PM EDT

If you’re a fairly large daily paper and you’re looking to make a complete fool out of yourself, you can find a how-to primer in the editorial pages of the New Haven Register. It goes something like this: Accuse a rival news organization, whose views on race you disagree with, of deriving its inspiration from the Ku Klux Klan. Then realize how dumb you sound, and write a retraction. Then lather, rinse, and repeat.

Erik Wemple of the Washington Post reported on this lapse in journalistic judgment, which began on Monday with an editorial titled “The KKK, Ted Nugent and ‘mainstream’ racism.” The money passage from the editorial follows:

New Haven Register: Fox, Coulter, the GOP, Nugent, Some of Its Readers Embrace 'KKK's Message'
By Tom Blumer | July 30, 2013 | 11:57 PM EDT

Those who falsely smear the other side in an attempt to make an argument tend to do so because they have run out of real ones. It would appear that the New Haven Register's argument cupboard is completely barren of everything but poisonous rhetoric.

In an opinion piece which I can hardly believe is a house editorial, the Register characterizes Ann Coulter, Fox News, the Republican Party, anyone who thinks George Zimmerman really was innocent, Ted Nugent, and Toad's Place, the venue where Nugent is playing next week, as among those who have "embraced" the "same basic message that the KKK has promoted for 148 years." Tellingly, the paper turns on many of its readers, adding "a burgeoning array of fringe 'conservative' media and members of our own community commenting on stories on the New Haven Register’s website" to the KKK-sympathetic cadre. Brace yourself for what follows after the jump, and ask yourself why any person of genuine good will -- left, right, or middle -- would willingly support a publication such as this.

Eight Years Later, the Kelo Eminent-Domain Lawsuit Site Is Still Barren, As Is National Press Coverage
By Tom Blumer | June 24, 2013 | 11:19 PM EDT

How ironic it is that, as Kyle Drennen noted today at NewsBusters, that NBC's David Gregory was so vocal in advocating that "Government Playing a Bigger Role" in the economy, given that yesterday was the eighth anniversary of the Kelo vs. New London decision, a monument to colossal government failure if there ever was one.

A 5-4 Supreme Court majority, believing that the Connecticut city of New London had "carefully formulated a development plan ... (with) appreciable benefits to the community," violated the plain language of the "public use" clause of the Constitution's Fifth Amendment which was clearly designed to limit government eminent-domain takings to true public projects (e.g., roads, bridges, etc.). They instead decided that "public use" really means "public purpose" (i.e., anything the government wants to do, including condemning property so that it can be transferred from current to new owners in the name of some higher good).

Not News at AP: Connecticut Legislative District Goes GOP For First Time in 40 Years to a Second Amendment Defender
By Tom Blumer | June 15, 2013 | 9:45 PM EDT

A GOP candidate for the Connecticut State Legislature's 53rd District about 70 miles northeast of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown won election on Tuesday, marking the first time the seat has gone to a Republican since Richard Nixon was president.

Republican Samuel Belsito defeated Democrat Anthony J. Horn by a 58.5%-41.5% margin, largely because his stances in support of citizens' Second Amendment rights and fiscal restraint were more convincing. Based on a review of Newsday's Associated Press Connecticut feed carrying stories from throughout the Nutmeg State (most June 11 and June 12 stories as of the time of this post are here and here), it appears that the AP did not run any stories on the result, and almost certainly made no attempt to discern its meaning.

New London Day Continues to Boycott the Term 'Kelo,' Hails Possible 'Development Milestone' Eight Years After Supremes' Decision
By Tom Blumer | March 25, 2013 | 9:59 AM EDT

Almost eight years after the Supreme Court's odious Kelo v. New London ruling and eight years of press failure to report the utter lack of subsequent development in the affected area in New London, Connecticut, construction might start taking place in a couple of months -- emphasis on "may."

What's notable about how Kathleen Edgecomb at the New London Day wrote up her Sunday story is how hard she worked, as the Day has since the Court's ruling, to make sure that the term "Kelo" did not appear. That's "Kelo" as in Susette Kelo, the lead plaintiff who tried to keep her pink house where it was and save the properties of other plaintiffs from destruction as a result of eminent domain, and who was ultimately thwarted by a Supreme Court ruling which radically misinterpreted the Constitution's Fifth Amendment to to allow goverments to take properties for "public purpose" (i.e., any conceivable reason) instead of limiting such seizures to "public use" (e.g., roads, bridges, and other public works). Excerpts from her Edgecomb's report, including the relevant word-dodging, follow the jump (bolds are mine):