Connecticut Post gives Newton the thumbs down

Newton is toast and the editorial in today's Connecticut Post says it all.

Yes, it's true that Newton was never specifically mentioned by name during the court proceedings. Federal prosecutors referred only to the recipient of the bribe from Warren Keith Godbolt as an elected "public official" and a member of the General Assembly.

However, evidence detailed in court by Assistant U.S. Attorney James J. Finnerty — including a reference of wiretaps of the public official's phone on which the bribe was discussed — leads directly to Newton.

While Newton has not yet been charged in the matter and certainly is entitled to a presumption of innocence, this is yet one more disgraceful episode — and the most egregious to date — involving the senator that have brought our repeated call for his resignation.

Newton has continually disgraced his office during the past year starting with his intimidating courtroom remarks in July 2004 to a Superior Court judge during a trial involving one of Newton's sons.

That was followed by the senator's inexcusable verbal tirade against Bridgeport police last September when he said some of Bridgeport's youths might want to "take the law into their own hands and shoot some cops" after a controversial shooting on the East Side.

Now, Bridgeport and its residents — still trying to restore the city's tarnished image after years of municipal corruption and convictions — are faced with yet another "pay-for-play" incident, the result of a federal probe of Newton first publicly disclosed last January.

Godbolt pleaded guilty to paying a $5,000 bribe to the "General Assembly member" for the official's help in securing $100,000 in state bonding to renovate the facilities of Progressive Training Associates in Bridgeport.

Newton is an disgraceful jerk of a politician who makes the past political crooks in Bridgeport look like nice guys. He's serves nothing but a disservice to all democrats in Connecticut and he should do the right thing an resign but knowing the type of person he is, you won't see him quit anytime soon unless all the democrats gang up on him and force him out.