Although postings will be very light this weekend (I'm on baby duty), I had to share this video from the CTBob with everyone.

Ned Lamont always loved coming to Danbury and visited the area several times during his campaign (he even held his last rally in Hat City a day before the election).

Make sure you go to Bob's site and thank him.

The great Tribuna Newspaper gives teh rundown on Mayor Boughton's latest move.

A recent announcement by Mayor Boughton has unleashed a flurry of speculation, suspicion and half-truths - with everyone from news reporters to people in the street talking about the "crackdown on Massachusetts plates."

All we know for certain is that the city intends to make a list of vehicles with out-of state plates that have been parked on local streets for much longer than a weekend visit or a family reunion. What is really going on? Is it about Massachusetts plates? Is it about targeting immigrants? Or is it, as with so many issues today, much more complicated?

Look, lets stop kidding ourselves. This isn't complicated and (make sure your sitting down) it's makes sense.

This is a crackdown on illegal immigrants who drive around with out-of-state plates, it's that simple. Think about it ...who are the majority of people in Connecticut who drive around with out-of-state paltes? You guess it, illegal immigrants.

What's the problem with saying the obvious? If most of these people who are driving around with out-of-state plates are uninsured, they should have their cars taken off the road...period. This is DANBURY CONNECTICUT which is about 70-100 miles from the Massachusetts state line and a rock throw from the New York state line. The reason they're so many cars on the road with Massachusetts out-of-state plates as opposed to New York State out fo state plates is simply becasue it's easier to register a car in Massachusetts than New York and Connecticut.

Several states have considerably more lenient rules for motor vehicle licensing and registration. For example, just over the line in Massachusetts, one can register a car by presenting proof of ownership and insurance coverage. Some argue that this increases public safety by cutting down on the number of uninsured vehicles on the road. On the other hand, Connecticut has very strict requirements, whether applying for a driver’s license or registering a car. At any rate, as the REAL ID Act looms on the horizon - which sets clear and stringent standards for drivers’ licenses to be used as identification - all states will need to re-examine their policies to comply with the federal mandate.

It's a no-brainer.

Illegal immigrants go to Mass to get their car registered and then drive around Danbury with no problem. Ususally, the insurance will run out and WHAM, an accident happens and the victim is screwed.

Keep this simple folks, this is a plan that can go two ways 1.) to get the out-of-state cars off the street and 2.) having a REALLY easy way to track down people who are possible illegal immigrants.

Skip the taxes nonsense. The taxes off these cars are a dime in the bucket at the most. If a person is driving a car illegally, it means that they probably can't get the car registered legally so the city will never see the money anyway.

Think about it folks. This is a attempt to get illegal cars off the street that can turn into a crackdown in a second...plain and simple.

The problem is, like most issues centering around illegal immigration, politicians like to dance around the obvious thus make themselves look bad in the process.

As is all too often the case, what should be a relatively minor concern seems to be rapidly growing into a major panic. A local Portuguese-language newspaper described the proposal as "one more measure" taken by the mayor to "make illegal immigrants' lives more difficult." A local Brazilian business owner claims that Main Street's economy is getting so bad because of the “crackdown” on illegal immigrants that many proprietors are closing up shop.

Mayor Boughton said that his stance on this issue has been "lost in translation." For example, while he is well aware of the fact that those without a green card cannot acquire a driver's license or register a car in the state. But, he argued, that does not give people without green cards permission to break the driving laws. "Driving without a license or the proper documents can endanger all residents, regardless of status," Boughton said. "By working together, we can make sure that people can get to the places that they need to be and protect the public safety of all residents. If people are undocumented, they have to look for other means of transportation."

The mayor emphasized that no proposal on this matter will be announced until his State of the City address in December. "The purpose of this ‘possible initiative' is to generate revenue through unpaid taxes from [cars with] out-of-state license plates. [Mayor] Fabrizi in Bridgeport launched a similar program and found thousands of cars that were not registered in Bridgeport or Connecticut. It cost the city millions of dollars. This is not about immigrants. All people have to obey the law."

Lost in translation...yeah right. And the noise ordinance didn't have ANYTHING TO DO WITH VOLLEYBALL GAMES.

Okay, comparing Bridgeport to Danbury is like comparing a ant to an Elephant. Again, I challenge anyone to do an estimate and find out how much the city would recieve in revenue by going after out-of-state cars. Just think about it...if a person has a out-of-state car, it's most likely because they can't get their car registered through the legal process therefore, when they nabbed for having an out-of-state car, it's not like they're going to go and get the car registered because MOST LIKELY THEY'RE ILLEGAL.

Here's a case when I'm in agreement with the Mayor. The people driving illegal cars needs to stop period. I just can't stand it when people like Boughton just won't come out and say the obvious. Doing this song and dance will just come back to bite you in the butt in the end so why do it. NO ONE beleives that the nosie ordiance wasn't really a volleyball ordiance and they won't believe that this isn't targeting illegal immigrants who why try to spin it?

In this case, Boughton is well within his rights to make this happen and he'll have the support of the public behind him.

1. The cars are illegal.

2. The people driving them are probably illegal.

3. It's against the law to have an out-of-state plate on a car after a certain period of time.

4. We're coming after any car that has out-of-state plates.

5. We're going to check to see why your driving around with a car with an out-of-state plate.

6. If your here illegally, we're going to easily find out because your dumb enough to drive around with a car with an out-of-state plates for more than thirty days

Look, I'm not a fan of most of the silliness coming out of City Hall regarding illegal immigration. For the most part, it's just non-productive and looks more like a political show. On the other hand, if I was here illegally, I wouldn't do anything to give away that I'm here illegally like DRIVING AROUND WITH A CAR WITH OUT-OF-STATE PLATES FOR YEARS.

This is a case where the mayor should just come out and say what this is and stop the dancing. The proposal makes sense and there should be no sympathy for people who are silly enough to be driving around illegally getting into accidents.

When Boughton make statements like "this isn't about illegal immigrants," all he is doing is digging a deeper hole for himself just like the volleyball issue. Everyone in the city knows the deal with the out-of-state cars and who's driving them. Just come out and say the obvious and get the cars off the street.

It almost makes me wonder about the timing of this proposal. Illegal cars has been a serious issue for years in Danbury so why the sudden movement now? This probably won't get any traction until spring of next year and 2007 is an election year. Why wan't this done in 2006 or 2005? It wasn't like people werent complaining about the issue or didn't know about the out-of-state scam?

Okay, this story is getting stranger by the minute.

Yesterday, I commented on The Danbury News-Times article by Fred Lucas on the sore loser law. For those who don't know what this sore loser law is all about, in a nutshell, the law would basically keep a candidate off the ballot if they lost a primary race. This would not stop a candidate from filing as a independent if they felt they couldn?t win the primary which in turn would save people a great deal of time since there would be no need for a primary. Why have a primary if the candidates are just going to go head to head again in the general election.

Before I get into Lucas' article and how he completely misinterperted Secretary of State's comment and wrote an entire article cased on somethign she never said, let me briefly explain why I feel this law should be at least considered.

Now, obviously I'm a fan of Ned Lamont but this has nothing to do with him but more about wasting resources. Regardless of the situation, Lieberman was in a position where he could have ran as an independent with no problem as he polled at about 70 percent among Republicans throughout he entire campaign. Also, as early as April, Lieberman hinted to many that he was going to run as an independent after the primary and definitely had plans in place to do just that by the beginning of the summer. Usually, people who come out in primaries are the hard-core section of a political party and since primary voters were going to be anti-war/anti-Lieberman, it was obvious to many that Lieberman would take advantage of his high Republican support and go to petitioning route. A sore loser law would have forced Lieberman to file as a independent and spotlight could have been taken off the senate primary race and onto the governor race.

With a sore loser law, the senate race would not have been a factor in the summer since there would have been no primary between Lieberman and Lamont , just a general election (which happened anyway). You have to remember that the senate primary race sucked ALL the oxygen out of the governor race and make it extremely hard for Malloy and DeStefano to get their message out to the public. After DeStefano won, since all the attention was paid to the senate primary race, people did not pay attention to what either Malloy or DeStefano were offering during their campaigns. DeStefano basically had to re-introduce himself to the public against a very popular governor and since he had basically no cash left to get his message out, in the end, DeStefano was unable to mount a serious challenge against Rell. Enforcing a sore loser law could have allowed other campaigns get the attention they desperately needed while putting the senate race on the backburner.

Okay, that's my brief two cents into why I support some version of a sore loser law for Connecticut BUT let me get back on track with the real point of this post…The News-Tmes Fred Lucas completely dropping the ball in his reporting.

This year, the state changed the primary date from September to August BUT forgot to change the filing deadline for petitioning candidates from August to July. Normally, the filing deadline would be about a month before the primary but because of an over sight, a loophole was created which Lieberman used by avoiding to publicly announce his plans to run as a petitioning until the late July.

The Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz wants to fix the loophole, not adpot a sore loser law and although I believe the sore loser law should be at least debated, without question this silly loophole needs to be fixed. Unfortunately, Lucas took Bysiewicz's proposal completely out of context and made it seem like she was proposing a sore loser law when she clearly stated to him (and the public) that she was only wanted to fix the loophole.

To illustrate this, here's Bysiewicz's press conference from yesterday where she completely explains the loophole situation and how fixing the loophole would NOT have kept Lieberman off the ballot.



NOW, here's Lucas' article on the sore loser law published yesterday. Notice the section I highlighted in bold.

U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman's political move of turning a loss into victory might have seemed at one point unlikely. But it could soon be impossible for a future politician to do the same.

Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, one week after being re-elected to a third term, said Tuesday she still planned to push for a "sore loser" law that she talked about during the campaign.

"I am putting together a legislative package that includes moving the calendar for petitioning candidates to match that of a candidate petitioning for a primary," Bysiewicz said before speaking at Western Connecticut State University on Tuesday.

The proposal is meeting skepticism among state lawmakers, who fear it could be undemocratic. The Connecticut General Assembly convenes in January.

After Lieberman lost the Democratic primary to Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont in August, he launched an independent candidacy and was reelected to a fourth Senate term last week.

If the law Bysiewicz is proposing had been in effect this year, it would have stopped Lieberman from running as an independent after he lost the Democratic primary to Lamont.

This is completely wrong.

Bysiewicz’s proposal would have NOT stopped Lieberman from running as an independent NOR would it have kept him off the ballot. As Bysiewicz stated to Lucas, her proposal would only fix the loophole that was established when they changed the primary date from September to August. AGAIN, the state screwed up and didn't move the petitioning filing deadline when the primary date was changed. Bysiewicz was not talking about adopting a sore loser law that would keep the loser of the primary off the ballot, she was talking about fixing the loophole that was overlooked when the primary date was changed. The way the petitioning candidate process should work is that you have to file as a petitioning candidate BEFORE the primary so it will alert voters that you plan to continue your campaign regardless of the primary results. Filing after the primary gives you the advantage of waiting till after the primary to make up your mind when it should (and always has been) the other way around.

AGAIN, here's the statement Bysiewicz gave Lucas.

"I am putting together a legislative package that includes moving the calendar for petitioning candidates to match that of a candidate petitioning for a primary," Bysiewicz said before speaking at Western Connecticut State University on Tuesday.

Lucas seemed to understand this as he later stated this point.

Under her proposal, the deadline for a petitioning candidate would be a month or two months before the primary.

Lucas then takes Bysiewicz proposal and confuses the readers by mixing her attempt to fix the loophole with a sore loser law which she did not propose.

Indeed, 46 states have a "sore loser" law that either explicitly bans a candidate who lost a primary from running with another party or places the deadline for a petitioning candidate well before the primary, according to the Web site Ballot Access, which tracks voting trends and election laws around the country. Only Connecticut, Iowa, New York and Vermont don't have such laws.

Instead of making the focusing of the article on Bysiewicz’s attempt to fix the loophole, Lucas gives everyone the impression that Bysiewicz wants a sore loser law going so far as to interview several local politicians for their opinion on a law that the Bysiewicz never proposed.

The key question is whether such a law would be good for voters and democracy, said state Rep.-elect Joe Taborsak, D-Danbury.

"People are understandably upset with the path Joe Lieberman took after the primary," Taborsak said. "But at the end of the day, voters of the state did elect him."

Based on Taborsak's answer, you can tell that Lucas is questioning him about talking a the sore loser law, not fixing the loophole as Bysiewicz is proposing.

Lucas trip down the wrong road continues through the rest of his article.

"Had such a law been in place, I don't think Sen. Lieberman would be our senator today," said state Sen. Andrew Roraback, a Goshen Republican whose district includes Brookfield and New Milford. "Such a law could have the effect of thwarting the will of the majority. It assumes something is wrong with the voters' judgment and takes power away from the people."

[...]

"At first blush, I am always concerned when we limit the access for people to seek public office," said Rep. Chris Caruso, D-Bridgeport, co-chairman of the GAE committee. "The situation that developed with Sen. Lieberman doesn't happen all the time. We don't want to overreact."

Rep.-elect Jason Bartlett, D-Bethel, agrees.

"What Sen. Lieberman did was the exception," Bartlett said. "Should we create a law to prevent voters from getting a choice based on one circumstance?"

In short, Lucas blew it and since this article was picked up by several other sites, there needs to be a clarification or correction made to his story. Please contact the News-Times and tell them to set the record straight.

Reporter Fred Lucas: State house, politics (203) 731-3358 flucas@newstimes.com

News & Editorial (203) 744-5100 editor@newstimes.com

Jacqueline Smith Managing Editor/News (203) 731-3369 jsmith@newstimes.com

Eric Conrad Editor (203) 731-3361 econrad@newstimes.com

That's the senator I know.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, may have agreed to caucus with the Democrats in the next congressional term, but the Connecticut independent made it clear Wednesday he would not hold the party line on a call for phased troop withdrawals.

"Both general Abizaid and Ambassador Satterfield were quite clear and to me convincing, that for congress to order the beginning of a phased redeployment, a withdrawal of American troops from Iraq within the next 4 to 6 months would be a very serious mistake and would endanger ultimate the United States," Lieberman told reporters after the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Iraq.

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, who is to become the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee when Democrats take control of the chamber in January, said Tuesday a phased withdrawal is the only way Iraqi forces will take responsibility for their country.

Gabe over at CLP dug up this oldie but goodie from George Bush's favorite Democrat senator doing his best impression of Richard Nixon.
Don't look at me, I voted for Lamont.

Okay, this is getting too silly.

You couldn't find one person who's in support of this proposal Fred?

This sore-loser proposal is a no-brainer and make sense. Why have a primary if you can just ignore the results of your party and run as a independent? The primary battle between Ned Lamont and Joe Lieberman ultimately was a great waste of money and time for the party as a whole as Lieberman used a loophole to his advantage. If Lierberman would have just ran as an independent in the first place, the Democratic Party could have saved a great deal of money but instead, Lieberman used the party to his advantage (money, GOTV), only to dismiss the results of the primary and run as an independent.

Many people would support fixing the loophole that allows politicians to file as a third party candidate after the primary and Connecticut is only one in four states that doesn't have a law like this in place. Unfortunately, you wouldn't get that impression if you read Lucas' article as it's clearly one-sided. In fact, why did he need to get comments from politicians in the first place, Lucas could have simply wrote about the proposal, talked about the loophole and left it at that. Instead, we get an opinion piece as Fred gets reaction from selected people and it doesn't make any sense.

If you look at his past articles on the senate race, has the oppurtunity to watch Lucas' strange senate question during the 5thCD Congressional debate, heard his question Chris Murphy about Joe Lieberman last week, and Lucas'current blog entiry, you begin to see a disturbing one-sided political pattern.

Here's Lucas's last blog post.

Lieberman said on Meet the Press Sunday he would not rule out caucusing with Republicans under certain circumstances. True, the statement came from some high pressure questioning from Tim Russert, but Lieberman nonetheless left the potential open.

The Economist magazine called him the nation’s most influential senator. Most political analyst say the slim 51-49 Democratic majority, makes Lieberman ultra powerful.

If the Dems irk him and he caucuses with the Republicans, it creates a 50-50 Senate. That would put Vice President Dick Cheney in charge of casting tie breaking votes.

Joe knows how powerful he is, and he's letting Democrats know he knows how powerful he is.

Now this is silly on so many levels but when you add this with everything else Lucas has wrote in the past, alarm bells should go off in your head.

Joe Lieberman is never going to caucus with the Republicans because doing so would be political suicide. The Democrats are in great position to capture more senate seats in 2008 and Lieberman knows this. If he jumped ship, Lieberman could kiss his senority goodbye come 2008 and he would be toast come 2012. Every political pundit and insider in D.C. knows what Joe is doing right now and are not threatened by Lieberman's statements. In the end, people in the know realize that Joe Lieberman is in the game for one purpose...Joe Lieberrman. As a blogger who's watched and know people in the media it's fair to say that most reporters who know about Joementum know what Lieberman is doing right now...just stirring the pot and attempting to keep the spotlight on himself for as long as possible.

Unfortunately, Lucas didn't get that memo or failed to read it.

Several people are beginning to take notice and are criticizing Lucas' reporting.

The only reason The Economist calls him influential is because they know his vote can be bought. Lieberman can bloviate all he wants about crossing the aisle.

LET HIM! I dare him to. I double-dare him to! lol

He can go ahead and do that but a look at the Senate elections in 2008 shows that it would slip Lieberman into obscurity as fast as fast can be.

Does anyone think the "Lieberman For Lieberman" party is going to let its only candidate slip into the abyss of 4 years of irrelavence in the Senate that is in store for any GOP members left after 2008?

And ALSO consider the cold hard reality that Lieberman has been salivating over becoming relevant in a committee for ages. He has that job on the Dem side of the aisle. Do you think the GOP would bump its senior members to make room for Liberman? They are already battling a completely fractured base and don't need Joe to become another HUGE wedge in their already feuding base.

Show a little common sense Fred. Joe can talk until his face turns red BUT he will stay on the blue side of the aisle unless the Democratic party kicks his lobbyist bought'n'paid-for-ass to the curb AGAIN!

And don't be too surprised if the Democratic party does kick him to the curb if wahbaby Joe tries to hold the voter approved Democratic agenda hostage...

AGAIN, Lieberman isn't going anywhere. He knows that jumping ship would be like putting a knife to his throat as all the leadership needs is a reason to cut him loose and they'll do it in a heartbeat.

EVERY SINGLE REPORTER INVOLVED IN REPORTING POLITICS KNOWS THIS which is why this lovefest Lucas has with Lieberman is borderline annoying.

Again, can he find anything else to report on in a local newspaper such as LOCAL NEWS?!?

Can we have a followup on the Common Council broadcasting ad-hoc committee?

Can we have a followup on the various ad-hoc committes that haven't met yet?

Can we get a followup on the progress with the magnet school?

Can we get a followup on the Danbury 11? How many are out of jail? How ay were ACTUALLY deported?

Anyday now Fred? I know this might require you to leave the office but it's called reporting and that's what your paid to do. If you didn't know, there is a mayoral election coming up next year, it might be smart to start reporting on issue happening in this city. I'd be more than happy to show you how it's done and I don't work for the paper...

UPDATE: Whoa! I heard several complaints about Lucas and his reporting during the Congressional race between Johnson and Murphy. Since I didn't read much of the political stuff from the News-Times during this period, I didn't dig into those allegations. Now that the elections are over, it seems like several people are attempting to do a background check on him.

From a reader:

HA! you mean FRED LUCAS, BOY REPUBLICAN...!! he's so biased it's sad. His articles about Nancy Johnson read like LOVE LETTERS.

"Fred Lucas, born into a prominent Republican family in London, Ky."
from : http://tinyurl.com/ydrzxd

I checked out the site to verify the quote and this is what it had to say about Lucas.

“For every Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune and R.W. Apple of The New York Times at the Republican National Convention, there's a Fred Lucas of the Danbury (CT) News-Times,” Editor & Publisher noted yesterday. “We have quite a few papers who have sent just one person,” said Laura Reed of the convention's media credential center.

Fred Lucas, born into a prominent Republican family in London, Ky., is one of dozens of reporters who are representing small newspapers at the Republican National Convention in New York this week, and who also attended the Democratic convention in Boston.

Lucas and other reporters from small newspapers face the challenges of lack of funding and resources, Joe Strupp wrote for E&P. As opposed to the large spaces leased by large news organizations, small newspapers are confined to small media filing centers, starkly equipped with pay phones and Internet access, but no computers.

Now, this is not to say that someone from a Republican household can't be a "fair and Balanced" reporter but it does raise eyebrows when you read some of Lucas' political articles.

From the News-Times:

One week after the election, Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz repeated her call for a "sore loser law" that would essentially prevent a politician that loses a primary from being on the ballot again in the general election.

Just before speaking to students at Western Connecticut State University today, Bysiewicz said it would be part of her legislative package in 2007.

If such a law had it been in effect this year, it would have stopped U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman from running as an independent after he lost the Democratic primary to Ned Lamont.

This proposal would not affect write-in candidates, Bysiewicz said, such as Waterbury Mayor Mike Jarjura, who was re-elected as a write-in candidate in 2005 after first losing the Democratic primary.

This makes good common sense. Why have a primary in the first place if a person can just ignore the results of their party. Look at all the money wasted between Lamont and Lieberman during the summer only to have Lieberman ignore the results of the primary, jump on the GOP bandwagon, and win re-election based on 70 percent of the Republican vote which in turned probably resulted in Diane Farrell losing to Chris Shays and Joe Courtney going through a recount.

If people like Lieberman and Jarjura are so worried about losing a primary, they should leave the party and simply run as an independent from the get-go.

The election was on Tuesday. Today is Sunday. Isn't there something else to talk about besides ANOTHER Lieberman fluff piece?

Nothing going on at City Hall?

Nothing about what the State Reps new agenda is going to be since thwy have the power to override a veto?

Nothing about what Rell's going to do for the state in her new term?

How's that magnet schol doing?

What ever happened to the Danbury 11 (and why is it that I find more updates on that situation in the Spanish papers than the News-Times)?

Take a pick Fred, any of these topics are better than the piece you wrote in today's paper. It's not because I'm not a fan of Lieberman (obviously I'm not) but I just don't see how this story is relevent ON SUNDAY. You have a Governor who was just elected who hasn't articulated her goals for the new session (and lives in Brookfield), a Democratic Party that almost won every State Rep in the city, and a State House that is basically veto-proof. Stories like the one on today's front page looks like something that was whipped up in a few phone calls. This is the type of reporting that drives people in Danbury nuts.

the xenophobic Danbury News Times has a big front page article, a love letter to Joe... done by their crack news team of Fred Lucas and Fred Lucas.

but thats not really news I suppose. I'm still not sure why I check that site every morning. They dont even publish the food service violations anymore

Can we have some serious news please?