Sen. Dodd against Bolton nomination

Sen. Chris Dodd is leading the way in opposition of the John Bolton nomionation. If you never heard of Bolton, check this video to get an idea of the man.

From the Hartford Courant:

Dodd has gone public with his disdain because he is deeply offended by reports that the acerbic Bolton tried to manipulate intelligence data.

"I don't like going public this way, but this has become much more than a nomination fight," Dodd said Monday. "The issues surrounding this nomination go to the very heart of what we must restore in our foreign policy - our credibility."

Nice try

Dan Levine at CT News Junkie has the scoop on the Catholic Church and their latest attempt to tinker with the new civil union law.

For most in the state Capitol, the civil union controversy ended April 13, when Gov. M. Jodi Rell signed the landmark legislation. But for the Catholic Church, the battle still rages.

Over the last few weeks, church lobbyists have shopped an amendment at the state Capitol that would exempt church affiliated organizations from paying benefits to same sex partners. They’ve even begun phone banking legislators- state Rep. Michael Lawlor (D-East Haven), a leading civil union proponent, said he received four calls over the past week.

For Dr. Marie Hilliard, executive director of the Connecticut Catholic Conference, the issue is one of entitlement. The Catholic Church should be protected under the First Amendment from being required to follow policies that undermine its religious teaching, according to Hilliard. By mandating church funds towards same sex partners, via benefits packages, the civil union law infringes on religious freedom, she said.

“We’re trying to exercise our right not to de facto recognize civil unions through benefits packages,” Hilliard said.

Oh but it's nice to live in a blue state and most of us don't drink kool-aid and can see through their smoke screen.

Problem is, the civil union law already exempts religious organizations, Lawlor said. The Judiciary Committee’s co-chairman believes the Catholic Conference is actually pushing much stronger language which the House rejected during the debate on the bill. That language would institute a range of restrictions, and not just at churches- Catholic hospitals may not be required to recognize civil unions on a range of fronts, including visitation rights, Lawlor said.

This isn't about First Amendment rights, it's about intolerance and hate pure and simple and thank goodness Lawlor had the guts to call them on their bigotry.

“This is a pathetic attempt to have another discussion about this bigotry. Now this is pure bigotry,” Lawlor said, “and we don’t want to rent our hall to that.”

We know where the church stands with homosexuality and this is the start of their master plan to chip away at the law and the rights of gays in this state.

This battle isn't going away anytime soon.

If the Navy leaves, who owns the land?

The Stamford Advocate has an interesting article about who really owns the land at the submarine base in Groton.

The answer seems no one is sure who owns the land, the state or the military.

So, when the 112 acres were donated in 1868, Connecticut was the official donor but New London had put up the most money, Bolles owned much of the land and the base was ultimately placed in Groton and Ledyard.

The earliest paperwork does not contain provisions for what happens if the Navy leaves, Kimball said. It became the stuff of Bolles family lore.

"The story my dad told, he said that if the flag failed to fly over the base for 24 consecutive hours, the land would go back to the Bolles family," said Mary Lamphere, a descendant of Bolles.

None of this mattered much in 1868, Kimball said, because nobody considered that the base might someday close.

When you start to hear folk tales in a middle of a land dispute, you know things are going to get very intersting.

NPR weighs in on CT cocaine-crack bill

From NPR's Weekend Edition

Cocaine-crack bill update

Bill Leukhardt of the Hartford Courant writes about the effort being made by the state senate and house to quickly pass the Republican compromise to the failed cocaine-crack prosession bill before the session ends.

The sponsors will seek quick House and Senate passage of a proposal setting 14 grams - half an ounce - as the trigger amount of either crack or powder cocaine a suspect must possess to be charged as a dealer.

The law now says anyone possessing half a gram of crack cocaine can be charged as a dealer, with a mandatory minimum jail term of five years if convicted. For powder cocaine, the threshold is 28 grams.

The bill Rell vetoed would have set 28 grams of either as the threshold. Rell said a 28-gram threshold for crack was too lenient for a highly addictive drug often sold in cities by violent gangs that battle rivals for turf.

She said she would sign a compromise setting 14 grams as the threshold for the dealing charge for both crack and powder - a compromise position House and Senate Republicans proposed last month without success.

The only problem facing members of Congress is that time is not on their side.

Sen. Andrew McDonald, D-Stamford, pointed out another hurdle - the calendar.

"The enemy is time. We have much to do and only a few days left until the session ends," he said.

As I said in my last post, the members of Congress must of known that Gov. Rell wouldn't sign this bill into law as she hinted that she would veto the bill early on in the process. Now that they were running out of time this session, there is a chance that there will be no change to the current law.

We'll keep an eye on this and see how this develops.

Gov Rell vetos crack-cocaine bill

Gov. Rell vetoed the bill that would of equalized the penalites for crack and cocaine posession in CT. Currently, the penality for posession of 28 grams of cocaine and 1/2 gram of crack is the same: 5 years mininum and 20 years maximum.

To put in into perspective, 28 grams of cocaine costs aproximently 2,000 dollars compared to 1/2 gram of crack (about the size of a rasin) which costs aproximently 50 dollars. Now if one is caught with 28 grams of coke, theres a good chance that the person was intended to sell it compared to a person with only a 1/2 gram of crack in his or her prosession. Under the current law, both individuals would recive the same jail time, five years minimum, twenty years maximum.

From the Hartford Courant:

The bill that Rell vetoed would have set 28 grams - or one ounce - as the possession threshold for either crack or powder cocaine. Currently, a person can be charged with intent to sell if he or she possess 28 grams of powder cocaine or 0.5 of a gram of crack - about the weight of half a raisin. The crimes carry a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum of 20 years.

The problem in the current law is obvious. Crack is cheaper and easliy available in urban cities than cocaine and since there is a larger emphasis on law enforcment in urban areas than suburbs, more African-Americans and Latinos are in state prisons for crack prosession.

Gov. Rell acknowledged that there is a problem with the current law and wants to fix the problem.

"I have also listened to the many painful stories of racial disparities, and I intend to act to address them," Rell said. "I want Connecticut in the forefront of this fight."

There is a Republican proposal on the floor that will set the limit of crack and cocaine posession at 14 grams. This compromise has failed in both houses in the past.

The Republican proposal, co-authored by Rep. Robert Farr in the House of Representatives, would set 14 grams - or one-half ounce - as the trigger for the crime of possession with intent to sell for both crack and powder cocaine. Amendments advancing the 14-gram limit failed previously in each chamber.

The troubling thing about the Republican proposal is not the compromise itself (lets be honest, if your caught with 14 grams of crack or coke, your probably intending on selling it) but why the 14-gram compromise bill failed to pass in the first place? Some people would say that the compromised bill did not pass originally because by lowering the amount of cocaine prosession from 28 to 14 grams, more whites in the suburbs would be being locked up and by increasing the crack possession limit to 14 grams, less minorities would be in jail. Again, since there is a larger emphasis on law enforcment in urban areas than suburbs, more minorities are being locked up under a current law that is clearly wrong (and many deed racist).

Gov. Rell made it pretty clear in the beginning that she would veto the 28-gram crack-cocaine bill so why pass a something that was doomed to fail? The proposal of 14-grams is not only fair, but it makes perfect sense and hopefully the compromised bill will be passed and signed into law without delay.

Move On.org collect over 1000 2nd District signatures

The Norwich Bulletin reports on MoveOn.org petition which was handed to Rob Simmon's office Wednesday.

"Tom DeLay should step down," said Dan Cayer of Stonington, a member of the local MoveOn.org campaign that delivered petitions with 1,123 signatures of 2nd District voters to Simmons' Norwich office Wednesday.

"This really is a credit to Rob that people in his district think he's an ethical representative," Cayer said. "If Rob is ethical he'd want to distance himself from DeLay."