Veterans

We all know how at times Washington short changes our veterans, the brave men and women who fight for our freedom and the State of Connecticut does to some extent make up the slack, but more should be done.
Let's talk a little about modern warfare, particularly IED's. Actually these so called "shaped charges" were first developed by the Navy over 120 years ago. They work by creating an intense pressure wave that drives a slug of metal thtough the thickest armor. But this same pressure wave can travel through the human brain tearing apart neurons that took decades to connect themselves throughout the victim's life. The victim might show no outward sign of injury, but will never be the same again. These and more obvious injuries might need a lifetime of care and that we must do and if we do not, we should hang out heads in shame. I am not in favor of raising taxes, but if the only way to take proper care of our veterans was to raise taxes, I would vote for it in a heartbeat.

Guns

The shooting in Manchester today was another awful tragedy and our prayers go out to the victims families. I wasn't going to say much about guns. The reason is no matter what gun laws are in place in Connecticut, as long as you can buy a gun from a flea market in New Hampshire or a Gun Show in Maine with no checks whatever, the Connecticut laws don't matter that much. In this particular case we do not know if the gun was legal or not.
However the question keeps on coming up and I am talking to people in order to come up with a considered and researched position.

I have a booth at the Village Fair

Located down by the Bingo at the South end of the Green. Please come by and say hello.
Remember the Village Fair runs this Friday and Saturday and does not run on Sunday.
As well as Green Party and campaign literature, Rebecca's friends will be selling green bracelets "RIP Becca" to benefit the National Athletic Trainers Assocation Region 1 (New England) scholarship fund, to benefit an Athletic Training Junior or Senior Student. Also paintings by Karen Cohen the mother of one of Rebecca's best friends, commemorating Rebecca to benefit the same fund will be on sale
The Rebecca Paintings

I have a website

green67.org
This links to the Green Party, as well as showing you how to donate to my campaign.

Why am I running anyway

As some may know the initial impetus was the murder of our daughter Rebecca an 04 graduate of NMHS who went to Northeastern Univiersity and was shot dead in her apartment in Mission Hill, Boston, May 20th 2008. As the police investigation progressed, it became apparent that whe was not the intended target and was mistaken for someone else and she was not involved in any way in any illegal activity. People being sent to kill people they do not know is a feature of the illegal drugs business and if her killing was not directly related to that business, the illegal guns used almost certainly were. I have always been sceptical as to whether simply prohibiting drugs, while being perhaps a laudable aim is actually effective policy. But it had always appeared it was the sort of thing that governments do and there was not a lot that could be done about it. Now I have researched extensively on the subject and asked people what they thought about the War on Drugs and discovered two things. One is that academics and others who study it conclude that it is a waste of time and money and almost everyone I talk to agrees too.
New Milford is largely spared the violence connected with the War on Drugs, but we certainly pay for it. We pay for it three times. We pay for investigating crimes and locking up offenders. We pay for the social dysfunctiona and poverty caused by all the violence and we in effect make a down payment to make sure that we continue to pay for all these things well into the future, by creating the next generation of drug dealers. Now in 2010 we are in the middle of a recession and money is tight. This is the time we must stop wasting money on things that don't work and start doing things that do. There are a lot of things that need doing in Connectiuct in order to move forward with a vibrant economy and there is much more in the Green Party platform than ending the War on Drugs, but ending the War will give us the money to pay for all the good things we need. This is why I am running.

News Times article and Green mopeds

http://www.newstimes.com/local/article/Father-of-homicide-victim-challenges-Republican-577177.php.
It has been suggested that electric mopeds are not green. Up to a point that is true, because the electricity is likely made from coal, but it can be three times as efficient to burn fuel in a power station than in an internal combustion engine, There are of course losses in transmission and in the battery, so the efficiency and so the carbon footprint is only somewhat better than the internal combustion engine. However in the future electricity will come from mostly renewable and nucleat energy. But that day is far ahead and in the meantime battery technology needs to significantly improve. The electric moped is a very useful platform to help that happen. The Chinese appear to understand this better than we do. They have 22,000,000 electric mopeds, so on 22,000,000 batteries they have honed their technology and manufacturing skills. Watch out for their electric cars ! As your Green Party candidate I will push for these green technologies to be developed in Connecticut not China.

Connecticut 2050 Froum on Saturday 26th June

Chris Murphy your Representative in Congress ran a forum to think about ideas for how the state will look like in 2050. Ironically most of the attendees, myself included are unlikely to be around in 2050, but doing their civic duty to discuss what kind of state our children will inherit. Three subjects were under discussion Preservation of Open Space, Water and Transportation. All are important to a livable state. Connecticut is losing young professionals faster than any other state because our cities dont match up to New York and Boston. Too much violence has a much greater negative effect in a smaller city than a larger one. I've talked about that elsewhere. We need these people to head up the job-creating businesses of the future. Also people like a place they can walk around, don't always have to use the car. Connecticut is ahead of the game in this respect since most of our towns and cities came into being before the car was invented.
One further thing I would like to mention was the Tea Party protesters standing outside, clearly furious at Chris Murphy and everything he represents. You may feel as if the country is going to the dogs and no one cares. A lot of people have lost their jobs and it seems as if no one cares. The Green Party cares. The Green Party will not sell you a bill of goods, but real solutions to the problems facing us today