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Cross post from HatCityBLOG

Remember State Sen Mike McLachlan? You know, that senator from Danbury who says one thing on the campaign trail (fiscal responsibility), but offers nothing but far right teabagging nonsense as a legislator (tenth amendment/state nullification bill, homophobic legislation proposals against same sex couples, etc).

Well, for someone who claimed to the News-Times that he was “attentive to the issues in the region” and sold himself as a stalwart for fiscal restraint during the campaign, the FIRST bill he introduces in the general assembly paints a different and more disturbing picture.

Proposed Bill No. 391

January Session, 2011

LCO No. 844

Referred to Committee on Government Administration and Elections

Introduced by:

SEN. MCLACHLAN, 24th Dist.

AN ACT CONCERNING QUALIFICATIONS TO APPEAR AS A CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT OR VICE-PRESIDENT ON A BALLOT IN THIS STATE.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Assembly convened:

That title 9 of the general statutes be amended to require the Secretary of the State to be presented with an original birth certificate of any candidate for the federal office of president or vice-president that certifies that the certificate holder is a natural-born United States citizen, prior to certifying that the candidate is qualified to appear on the ballot.

Statement of Purpose:

To require that candidates for president and vice-president provide their original birth certificates in order to be placed on the ballot.

Yes ladies and gentleman, Mike McLachlan is a birther.

For those who don’t know what the term “birther” means, here’s a little lesson:

Conspiracy theories often flourish in the wake of traumatic or game-changing events – the Sept. 11 attacks, the moon landing, the Kennedy assassination – and the election of America’s first black president has been no exception.

Almost as soon as Barack Obama emerged as a serious candidate for the presidency, rumors about whether or not he is really an American, and thus eligible for the presidency, began popping up online. In response, the Obama campaign posted the Certification of Live Birth* (here it is) showing that Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961.

But that did not quiet the skeptics, a group that has been come to be known as the “birthers.” If anything, it encouraged them. They argued that the birth certificate is a fake, and that Mr. Obama is not the “natural born citizen” he claims to be. Mr. Obama, many birthers say, was actually born in Kenya, though there are a number of theories that fall under the birther umbrella.

The din eventually got loud enough that some reputable organizations checked out the birthers’ claims – and they found no evidence to support them. In fact, there was overwhelming evidence against such claims, including Mr. Obama’s 1961 birth announcement, printed in two Hawaii newspapers. Here’s one detailed investigation, and here’s another.

PolitiFact wrote after its extensive look at the claims a year ago:

It is possible that Obama conspired his way to the precipice of the world’s biggest job, involving a vast network of people and government agencies over decades of lies. Anything’s possible.

But step back and look at the overwhelming evidence to the contrary and your sense of what’s reasonable has to take over.

Yes folks, State Sen Mclahclan has joined that prestigious group of right-wing misfits that think President Obama was not born in the United States (despite all the evidence to the contrary).

CNN’s Anderson Cooper has done an EXCELLENT JOB confronting and ripping apart state lawmakers such as McLachlan who introduce idiotic birther bills.

Have you heard that the Birthers are making a comeback? They are, baby! Straight up passing laws in Arizona that would require presidential candidates to submit their birth certificates in order to get ballot access for the election. It’s just one thing that is making Arizona, in the words of State Representative Kyrsten Sinema (D-Phoenix), “the laughing stock of the nation”.

But State Representaitve Cecil Ash (R-Mesa) supports the measure — not because he thinks President Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States… no, no! — simply because it would help to remove doubts. It’s all part of that small government ethos that maintains that the power of an intrusive state government can and should be brought to bear in order to alleviate the silly concerns of legitimately crazy people.

So, last night, Anderson Cooper took up the issue on his eponymous CNN show, and more or less laid the wood to Ash, who reiterated his point about the need to dispel the “controversy.”

ASH: Anderson, I think there’s been a lot of controversy over the issue, created a division among a lot of people in the United States, for better or worse, many people don’t believe he is a U.s. citizen, they believe he has divided loyalties, i suppose you could say.

COOPER: Right, but those people are wrong, he is a U.S. citizen.

ASH: You’re telling me that he’s wrong. I’ve never investigated that. If he is, he has nothing to fear.

Also? He has “nothing to fear” because as Cooper noted, those people are wrong! But look: this is precisely how juvenile this stuff gets:

COOPER: But I mean the information is out there, it has been released, it has been shown there are some people who don’t believe it but there are also some people that believe the moon is made out of cheese. You can say you never investigated it but I think you would probably say the moon is not made out of cheese.

ASH: I certainly would.

In short, idiotic bills like this reinforces my notion that McLachlan is a disgrace to the 24th state senate district.

UPDATE: The Huffington Post picks up on McLachlan’s idiotic proposal.

UPDATE 2: McLachlan further insults the public’s intelligence.

“You have to have a birth certificate to get a driver’s license,” McLachlan said. “The same should be true to become president or vice president.”

Earth to McLachlan…Obama ALREADY did that and it’s been verified by just about every single media outlet AS WELL AS THE COURTS.

Wait…it gets better.

McLachlan submitted his proposal after hearing several arguments about President Barack Obama’s citizenship, he said.

“They claim that he is not a natural-born citizen,” McLachlan said.

McLachlan’s stupidity knows no bounds as the claim that Obama’s not a citizen has been dismissed in court…including THE SUPREME COURT.

McLachlan said he is not suggesting that Obama is not a natural-born citizen with this bill. Instead, McLachlan said, he hopes passage of the bill will stop these types of arguments in the future.

If McLachlan isn’t suggesting that Obama isn’t a natural born citizen, why is he proposing that candidates for President show their ORIGINAL birth certificate as opposed to a copy of a birth certificate that is upheld under article four of the U.S. Constitution

Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof

Finally…

“Let’s stop talking about this,” McLachlan said.

Mike, you’re the idiotic lawmaker who proposed the bill in the first place…maybe you should not listening to your ilk on the far right.

…unreal.

UPDATE 4:24 PM: More blowback against McLachlan’s boneheaded bill.

“At a time when Connecticut faces a significant budget shortfall, it’s ridiculous that Senate Republicans are focusing on tired political attacks that have nothing to do with the issues facing Connecticut,” Democratic Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo said Monday.

“Our Democratic leaders are focusing on real solutions to move Connecticut forward, and their Republican colleagues in the Senate should join them,” DiNardo added.

In an update at CTNewsJunkie, McLachlan’s backpedaling reaches new grounds as he tries to deflect that his bill has anything to do with President Obama.

McLachlan did not want to talk about the conspiracies surrounding Obama’s citizenship he said he simply wanted to write legislation that requires it going forward to stop the arguments about who qualifies. McLachlan said Sen. John McCain’s citizenship was also challenged by a Senate panel.

McLachlan’s latest bit of nonsense caused a response from Governor Dannel P. Malloy.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy wondered why McLachlan was picking on McCain.

“You know, listen, I think we should honor our constitution and I think John McCain was eligible to run for president so I don’t know why the senators picking on John McCain,” said Malloy.

Enjoy your 15 mins of fame in the national spotlight Mike…you earned it…and you can thank me for all the attention you’re receiving later.

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Cross post from HatCityBLOG

Here’s a picture taken on Sunday of a buried fire hydrant in front of the Palace Theater on Main Street…unacceptable

I know I’ve already talked about this subject but this is VERY serious.

I can not stress how important it is for residents to take the time and clean around fire hydrants when cleaning snow from their driveways. It shouldn’t take public humiliation or photographers snapping pictures of problems in the city for people to do the right thing.

First off, if a hydrant becomes buried in snow, firefighters will have a difficult time locating the buried hydrant during a fire when every second counts.

Second, if you don’t clean around a hydrant right after a snow storm, as tie goes on the snow around the hydrant will harden and make clearing all the more difficult for firefighters.

Third, if you live near a hydrant, you’re only hurting yourself and your neighbors when firefighters waste time clearing around a hydrant during a fire.

In short, you’re PLACING LIVES AT RISK when you don’t properly clean around a fire hydrant…which is exactly what happened yesterday in at a condominium complex fire in Branford.

Again, you shouldn’t need city officials to tell you to clean the hydrants…common sense should tell you to do the right thing…

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Well, I finally did it…after all these years, I finally made an appearance on Danbury’s popular local access TV show “Community Forum.”

During last week’s taping, I sat down with host John Gogliettino and talked about the state of journalism in Greater Danbury and the lack of quality reporting on local government by the area’s media outlets.

I want to thank the Community Forum crew for everything…as someone who assist in producing shows on Comcast, I was REALLY impressed with Gogliettino’s operation.

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In 2009, while running for re-election, Mark Boughton was asked by the media and Democratic mayoral candidate Gary Goncalves if he has considering a run for statewide office, the mayor was always very coy in his denial in wanting to run for governor.

Although several sources in the know stated that Boughton had his sights on running for governor back in November of 2009, and even faced with the overwhelming evidence that he decided to run for governor as early as mid-January, Boughton continued to mislead the public regarding his gubernatorial intentions.

Fast forward to 2011, with the announcement that Chris Murphy plans to run for senate, given Boughton’s past, and the current weak list of Republican rumored to run for the 5th Congressional district seat, why should anyone believe that Boughton’s statement to the Register Citizen:

Other Republicans who were rumored to be interested in the 5th district seat include mayors Mark Boughton of Danbury and Ryan Bingham of Torrington.

“You never say never,” Boughton said on Thursday. “Right now I am focused on reelection in Danbury. You always have to think about it, but right now I am focused on Danbury.”

Pleaze! If Boughton had to punch in when he entered his office at City Hall during his campaign for governor, I’m certain that one would see that he logged in less than 30 hours a week!

After everything he said about not running for governor when he ran for mayor, if you believe the notion that Boughton is not running for higher office again then shame on you. Although it’s REAL early, I can almost guarantee you that Boughton WILL run for Congress. As the case in 2009, he won’t make his intentions known until after November as he doesn’t want to hurt his chances at re-election this year.

Boughton for Congress? Count on it!

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Cross post from HatCityBLOG

From yesterday in Cheshire, here’s video footage of Congressman Chris Murphy launching his campaign for senate.

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Since becoming governor, Gov. Dannel Malloy seems to have changed his tune when it comes to his campaign promise to not cut education funding to municipalities.

Jan 6 2011:

After pledging during the campaign that he would maintain state funding for local education, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy backed off a bit Thursday, saying that is “a goal” that he will “try to accommodate.”

“That’s a goal that I have in preparing a budget,” he said during his first press conference after taking office. “There are many goals that I have. We are going to try to accommodate all of them,”

On the campaign trail he was much more definitive.

“I’m also committed to not reducing the state’s commitment to support education,” Malloy told a gathering of 500 municipal leaders in October, adding that the impending loss of federal stimulus money funneled to schools “will be taken care of.”

[...]

Roy Occhiogrosso, a close advisor to Malloy, said after the press conference that Malloy’s message has changed slightly since the campaign, “but the goal remains the same” of making sure schools have the money they need to operate effectively.

“All options are on the table, and creative, smart ways of financing important programs certainly are under consideration. And so I would think an option for [funding education] is certainly something that will be considered,” he said.

In addition to the $1.9 billion the state will give towns for education this fiscal year, towns received another $900 million to cover other costs. Malloy said Thursday it is too early for him to announce whether that pot of money will need to be part of his “shared sacrifice” mantra.

The news only got worse yesterday.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy reassured the Connecticut Council of Small Towns Wednesday that he will be mindful of his budget’s impact on municipalities as he attempts to address a laundry list of shortfalls including the expiration of federal stimulus dollars for education.

“Every step of the way I am concentrating on how do I avoid hurting communities? How do I avoid hurting municipal governments and boards of education? And, by the way, that’s not an easy job,” Malloy told the group gathered in Cromwell.

[...]

Though Malloy has said he would like to maintain funding for education not all local officials present Wednesday believed him.

Andover First Selectman Robert F. Burbank said he found most of Malloy’s speech encouraging, but wasn’t happy with the language he used when talking about the state’s share of education grants.

“When he says everything is on the table, he made a campaign promise to the towns that he would not touch the education,” Burbank said.

Burbank came close to accusing Malloy of going back on a campaign promise for failing to take a stronger stance on local education grants.

“I think we’re all in a wait and see posture until the governor’s budget is released,” said Windham Town Manager Neal Beets. Malloy’s speech was something of a mixed message, Beets said. A lot of it was reassuring, he said, but some of it was cause for concern. “School funding and education funding, it’s hard to over-emphasize how important they are to us.”

I can not stress enough how a reduction in state funding will have a devastating impact on towns and cities.

Remember, a reduction in state education funding means a shift in tax burden from the state level to the local level (a.k.a rise in property taxes) Trust me, with towns and cities taking a hit in their revenue (along with the fact that municipalities are limited in the ways they can raise revenue), this change in tone from the governor is not good news…

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You can’t make this stuff up folks!

Remember Dr. Laura infamous n-word rant she did on the air back in August? Well, the radio laughing stock is doing a series of media appearances peddling another one of her meaningless books and during an interview on NBC, she had the audacity of claim that the main source of the backlash against her was CNN and the stations coverage over her remarks.

Well, CNN’s Anderson Cooper took offense to that remark and set the record straight.

Well done!