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The Lee Elci Show | 8.27.26 · The Lee Elci Show

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Oh, good morning, everybody.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: And of all mornings for there to be an accident
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: in the northbound lanes of the Gold Star Bridge, why today?
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: And ironically, as I left my home in New London
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: and was driving through downtown, I observed how calm and
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: peaceful it was, that there was no traffic on the streets,
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: a stray runner passing by every now and then. And
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: then as I got on the entrance ramp to the
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Gold Star Bridge, full dead stop. And there we sat
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: for 45 minutes this morning. And I had even left
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: a little time to get in here on time in
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: anticipation of something like this happening. But anyway, I'm here now.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: And thank you to the Connecticut State Police for clearing
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: the accident as quickly as they did.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: We can.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: only hoped that there were no injuries in the accident. And,
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: of course, they're in the process now of renovating the bridge.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: It's a project that's going to go on for several years.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: So I suppose we can expect things like this to
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: happen once in a while. As we opened the show,
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: we had excerpts from two of the greatest presidents of
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: my lifetime, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who served from 19... 61
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: to 63, his inaugural speech, which was one of the
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: more memorable in the history of the country. And, of course,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: the great Ronald Reagan, who served from 81 to 89.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Both great presidents, both eloquent orators, who obviously had gifted speechwriters,
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: but they were terrific. And then we also opened the show...
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: with what I believe is the single greatest rendition of
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: the Star Spangled Banner by the late, great Whitney Houston.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: She sang the anthem at the Super Bowl in 1991,
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: and America was in the throes of war over in
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: the Middle East, you might remember, Operation Desert Storm. And
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: we had heard all kinds of ominous warnings that the
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Iraqi military was among the most formidable in the world.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: And it took the mighty American military all but four
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: days to annihilate them. And for then-President Bush, George Herbert
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Walker Bush, to mercifully enact a ceasefire. The only rendition
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: of the anthem that I can think of that even
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: comes close to Whitney Houston's at the Super Bowl was
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: at Super Bowl 50 in 2016 when Lady Gaga performed.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: That was also memorable, but nobody touches Whitney Houston. And
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: the year that she did it was the year the
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Giants won the second of their four Super Bowls. But
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: it's been a long time since my beloved Giants... have
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: won a Super Bowl, and I don't see a Super
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: Bowl championship in the near future.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: But they're going to be better.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: If they stay healthy, they're going to give a number
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: of teams their run. Anyway, it's my privilege to serve
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: as your host until 9 o'clock this morning. We've got
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: four guests who will be coming in. The first is
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: going to be.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: An old friend, Paul Formica, former state senator of the
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: 20th District. And Paul's going to talk a little bit
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: about an initiative that he's undertaken for Republicans in eastern Connecticut.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: From 7.30 to 8, we will have Mighty Mike Bassetto,
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: the owner of Philomena's Restaurant over in Waterford, which will
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: be celebrating its 20th anniversary today. this coming weekend, and
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Mike is also serving as chairman of the Safe Futures Walk,
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: which is taking place in October. Safe Futures, of course,
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: you all know, is the former Women's Center of southeastern Connecticut,
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: and you want to talk about an organization that is
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: charging forward. Safe Futures is doing great work, and Mike
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: will be here at 7.30 to talk a little bit
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: about that. From 8 to 8.30, we'll have Chris Healy,
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: who's the Executive Director of the Connecticut Catholic Conference. Chris
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: is a former Republican State Chairman as well. I've known
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: him going back to the late 1980s when we were
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: both reporters up in the Capitol Press Room in Hartford.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: I was the Bureau Chief of the day. Chris was
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: the Bureau Chief of the Torrington Register. And we've stayed
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: in touch and stayed friends since then And then from 8.30
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: to 9 o'clock, we'll have Nate Quinnell, who is the
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: head of school, the principal at Norwich Free Academy. And
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: you want to talk about a dynamic leader in the
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: educational field. This guy is the full package and has
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: done a great job at NFA. So we'll talk to
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: him from 8.30 to 9.00. So the music is coming
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: in now. We're going to cut away to a commercial,
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: and we'll look forward to being back in a few minutes.
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: ¶ ¶ ¶ ¶.
• 6:07
  Speaker 5: Fox News.
• 6:13
  Speaker 6: I'm Deborah Valentine.
• 6:14
  Speaker 7: Closing arguments are scheduled to get underway today in the
• 6:17
  Speaker 7: trial of Lindsay Clancy. She's the mother accused of killing
• 6:20
  Speaker 7: her three children.
• 6:21
  Speaker 8: Prosecutors say the Massachusetts mother acted rationally and intentionally, murdering
• 6:25
  Speaker 8: her three children inside the family's Duxbury home in January
• 6:28
  Speaker 8: of 2023.
• 6:30
  Speaker 9: Fox's Molly Lyne reporting.
• 6:31
  Speaker 7: The defense claims Clancy was suffering from postpartum psychosis. Meta
• 6:36
  Speaker 7: will pay $ 18 billion to 29 states to settle a
• 6:39
  Speaker 7: social media addiction lawsuit. Fox's Claudia Cowan has more from Oakland, California.
• 6:44
  Speaker 10: Meta does not admit wrongdoing in the settlement, but will
• 6:47
  Speaker 10: now change how Facebook and Instagram operate for teens and
• 6:51
  Speaker 10: make stronger efforts to flag and remove users under 13
• 6:55
  Speaker 10: years old.
• 6:56
  Speaker 7: Meta is also calling on rivals like TikTok and YouTube
• 7:00
  Speaker 7: to implement similar restrictions. America's listening to Fox News.
• 7:09
  Speaker 11: PC Restoration, celebrating over 10 years in business. PC Restoration
• 7:13
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• 7:40
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• 7:42
  Speaker 14: Hello, this is Richard Sosimo from Pasta Vida, the place
• 7:45
  Speaker 14: to go for gourmet to go.
• 7:46
  Speaker 13: Chef Lou and I.
• 7:47
  Speaker 14: Started Pasta Vida more than 30 years ago as a
• 7:50
  Speaker 14: wholesale pasta factory and have become Connecticut's leading destination for
• 7:54
  Speaker 14: gourmet prepared meals. Delicious selections are ready for you to
• 7:58
  Speaker 14: simply heat and serve or freeze to be.
• 8:00
  Speaker 13: Used another day.
• 8:01
  Speaker 14: We're located at 225 Elm Street in Old Saybrook. Find
• 8:05
  Speaker 14: our menu online at pastavida.com. There's no place like Pasta Vida.
• 8:11
  Speaker 15: Summer is in full swing, and everywhere you look, things
• 8:14
  Speaker 15: are growing.
• 8:15
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• 8:21
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• 8:26
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• 8:35
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• 8:41
  Speaker 16: annual percentage yield. Special rates mentioned are effective as of
• 8:45
  Speaker 16: August 1st, 2026 and may be canceled at any time
• 8:48
  Speaker 16: without notice. 4.0% APY is offered for new money only. 3.75%
• 8:54
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• 8:57
  Speaker 16: is $ 1, 000.
• 8:58
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• 9:01
  Speaker 16: Membership qualifications apply. See credit unions for full details. Scient
• 9:05
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• 9:08
  Speaker 16: insured by the NCUA.
• 9:11
  Speaker 12: If you know, you know.
• 9:12
  Speaker 17: Some of the most interesting inventory at Firearms LLC in
• 9:15
  Speaker 17: Groton doesn't come from distributors.
• 9:17
  Speaker 12: It comes from right here at home. With strong ties.
• 9:19
  Speaker 17: To EB and the sub-base, Paul and Ernie at Firearms
• 9:22
  Speaker 17: LLC regularly see high-quality resale firearms from military veterans and collectors.
• 9:27
  Speaker 17: And in today's market, when new inventory is tight, that
• 9:30
  Speaker 17: means something different every time you walk in. So check
• 9:32
  Speaker 17: in often and see what's new. Always stocked with ammo, accessories,
• 9:35
  Speaker 17: and the best firearms gear around. Celebrating 10 years in business.
• 9:38
  Speaker 12: Firearms LLC, Fame Street and Groton, and firearmsllc.com.
• 9:44
  Speaker 18: Fish on sports. More than a score.
• 9:47
  Speaker 19: And we're brought to you by Charter Oak Federal Credit Union,
• 9:50
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• 9:52
  Speaker 9: So the end for the Connecticut Sun is setting.
• 9:55
  Speaker 19: There's only three more home games left before the team
• 9:58
  Speaker 19: relocates to Houston next season.
• 10:00
  Speaker 9: And last night the sun honored a.
• 10:02
  Speaker 19: Connecticut basketball great tina charles the number one overall pick
• 10:06
  Speaker 19: of the Connecticut Sun in the 2010 WNBA draft. After,
• 10:10
  Speaker 19: of course, four incredible years at UConn, where she won
• 10:13
  Speaker 19: two national championships, is UConn's fifth all-time leading scorer and
• 10:18
  Speaker 19: top rebounder ever. She's the WNBA's all-time leading rebounder, second
• 10:23
  Speaker 19: in points, and she's just the second.
• 10:25
  Speaker 9: Player ever in league history to score more than 8,000 points.
• 10:29
  Speaker 19: She's also a three-time Olympic gold medalist, making the nine
• 10:32
  Speaker 19: years that she played basketball here in the state of
• 10:35
  Speaker 19: Connecticut nine years that anybody would.
• 10:37
  Speaker 9: Be jealous of.
• 10:38
  Speaker 19: Her next stop, the Hall of Fame. With more than
• 10:40
  Speaker 19: just a score, I'm Fish on Sports.
• 10:45
  Speaker 20: Good morning, I'm Rob Ray.
• 10:47
  Speaker 21: Mostly cloudy and humid today, high 79. A 60-year-old Plainfield
• 10:52
  Speaker 21: man faces kidnapping and other charges after allegedly fleeing a
• 10:56
  Speaker 21: Middletown traffic stop and striking several vehicles. Police say Daniel
• 11:01
  Speaker 21: Carpenter was arrested after his vehicle became disabled in Cromwell.
• 11:05
  Speaker 21: He remains in custody on bonds totaling over $ 1 million.
• 11:10
  Speaker 21: Connecticut Attorney General William Tong announced a multi-state settlement with
• 11:15
  Speaker 21: Metta over youth safety concerns on Facebook and Instagram. Connecticut
• 11:20
  Speaker 21: could receive up to $ 265 million, while Metta must add
• 11:24
  Speaker 21: stronger age checks, parental controls, and protections for young users.
• 11:29
  Speaker 21: A 28-year-old Norwich police officer has been charged with allegedly
• 11:33
  Speaker 21: collecting workers' compensation benefits while claiming a knee injury. Authorities
• 11:38
  Speaker 21: say Ryan Dunn later passed a physical agility test while
• 11:41
  Speaker 21: applying to another police department. He was released on a $ 10, 000 bond.
• 11:47
  Speaker 21: A young harbor seal named Peanut was released back into
• 11:50
  Speaker 21: the ocean yesterday after more than seven weeks of rehabilitation
• 11:54
  Speaker 21: at Mystic Aquarium. Peanut was rescued from the New Hampshire
• 11:57
  Speaker 21: coast in July, suffering from an infection and being underweight.
• 12:01
  Speaker 21: She gained more than 20 pounds during treatment. Westerly officials
• 12:05
  Speaker 21: are considering tighter regulations on short-term rentals, including limiting unhosted
• 12:11
  Speaker 21: rentals to coastal areas. The town council is reviewing Newport's
• 12:15
  Speaker 21: regulations as a model and is expected to discuss a
• 12:18
  Speaker 21: revised proposal August 31st.
• 12:21
  Speaker 20: I'm Rob Ray. When news breaks, we break in.
• 12:27
  Speaker 5: Hi, this is Pete from Yankee Remodeler.
• 12:29
  Speaker 22: Are you an experienced field or shop carpenter looking to
• 12:31
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  Speaker 22: Check us out at yankeeremodeler.com.
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  Speaker 5: You'll be glad you did.
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  Speaker 23: Take it from me.
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  Speaker 5: I've been part of the Yankee Remodeler team for the
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: past 30 years.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: So we're back.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: This is Bill Stanley, your guest host here at 94.9
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: News Now. And just a little public service announcement that.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: I'll get out there.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: And we put our grandkids on the school bus for
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: the first day of school yesterday. And there, of course,
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: is great excitement that goes with the first day of school.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: But just be.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: More mindful that the kids are out there waiting for
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: the buses or getting off the buses in the afternoon.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: And heaven knows that the first week of school, the
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: last thing the little knuckleheads are thinking of is oncoming traffic.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: So pay extra attention while you're driving out there and
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: be careful. Anyway, we're happy to take your calls along
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: the way here for myself or for our guests, and
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: any topic is fair game. We will certainly engage in intelligent, informative,
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: and civil dialogue on any variety of.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Topics.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: The phone number here, if you want to call in,
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: is 860-464-9490. Give us a call, and we'll talk. And
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: we can talk about any number of things. We've got
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: the war in Iran that is ongoing. President Trump had
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: told us at the outset of the war it would
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: take about two weeks, and now we're more than six
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: months and more than $ 40 billion into the war, and
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: there is no end in sight. Truthfully, I think the
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: Iranians are playing them like a Stradivarius. I think what
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: they're trying to do is drag this thing out until
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: the midterm elections and on the possibility or maybe even
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: the likelihood that Democrats will win back the majority in
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: the House of Representatives and very possibly in the U.S. Senate,
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: then you're going to have a constitutional showdown between the
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: executive and the legislative branches of the federal government over whether.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: We continue to.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: The war against Iran, which, and it surprises me that
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: there is such a small percentage of Americans in favor
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: of the war. Personally, I'm glad he took on Iran.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: I'm glad that he is ensuring that Iran has and
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: never will have access to nuclear weapons. And I think
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: paying attention A little extra money for gasoline and a
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: little increase in inflation is something we can all bear
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: for the short term. But unfortunately, it's a longer term
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: than the president had assured us. And listen, I've voted
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: for the guy every time he's run, voted for him
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: against Hillary Clinton in 2016, voted for him in 2020
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: when he and yes, he did lose to Joe Biden,
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: and voted for him again in 2024. And I did
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: for a couple of reasons. One, I support most of
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: his policies. And two, and more important, because I don't
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: particularly like Trump, the misogynistic, egomaniacal part of him. But
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: if you take a look at the alternative... Hillary Clinton,
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, I'd cast the same vote all
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: over again. But I tend to think that Trump can
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: be his own worst enemy, whether it's promising us that
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: the war against Iran would be over in two weeks
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: or that the war in Ukraine would be so easy
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: to resolve he would be able to end it in
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: one day. Well, he's well into his second year in office,
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: and the war in Ukraine is still going fast and furious.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: So it'll be interesting to see what happens in the elections.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: The column that I wrote most recently in the day
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: talked about both parties kind of swimming upstream right now.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: The Democrats.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Have got a very tricky issue going right now with
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: the surge in socialism within their party. And it's entertaining
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: to watch Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, the leaders of
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: the Senate and the House, respectively, down in Washington, talking
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: about the Democratic Party's big tent and how everybody is
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: welcome there. under their Big Ten. Well, everybody, including socialists,
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: coming under their Big Ten, the socialists are causing them
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: problems because of some of the extreme things that they're
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: advocating for. And even some of the Democratic candidates for
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: the U.S. Senate who claim that they're not socialists embrace
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: some of the socialist platforms or the planks in the platforms.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: Among them, opening the borders, right? So we'd have no borders.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: Anybody could come in whenever they want to, no vetting,
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: no paperwork, nothing. You want to become an American citizen,
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: you cross the border anywhere and anytime you want, and
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: presto chango, you're in. Ultimately, they say they want to
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: close down the prisons. They say they also want to
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: close down American military bases throughout the world. I'm sure
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: the folks in Taiwan and South Korea and Western Europe
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: would be thrilled to see that take place. The ones
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: who would really be thrilled would be the Russians, the Chinese,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: and the North Koreans. But apparently the socialists have not
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: thought that through. I'm trying to think of some of
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: the other harebrained things that they've advocated for. Defunding the police,
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: of course, is right up there.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, and then.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: sort of a reconstruction, a dismantling and a reconstruction of
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: the federal government. They would do away with, get ready
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: for this, they'd do away with the United States Supreme Court.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: They would do away with the United States Senate. And
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: they would do away with the office of President of
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: the United States. And they had a spokeswoman for the
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: Democratic Socialist Party on the news about a month ago.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: And they asked her, if you're not going to have
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: a president of the United States, but you are going
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: to have a chief executive who is responsible to the
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: House of Representatives in Congress, what would that position be called?
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: And this was very telling. It tells you how well
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: thought out their platform is. Her answer was, he or
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: she would be the head honcho of whatever. That would
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: be the new title for president of the United States.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: So anyway, so the Republicans have their own struggles. Trump's popularity,
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: his approval rating is in the tank. It's lower than
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: it's ever been. And with each passing week, with the
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: war in Iran unresolved, the war in Ukraine going on,
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: with the... hike in prices that occurred with the start
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: of the war in Iran, Trump's popularity has declined. And
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: off-election years like this, midterm election years, usually haunt the
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: party that occupies the White House anyway, even if the
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: president is showing strong numbers. Well, this time, and there
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: tends to be a trickle-down effect, particularly if the president
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: is having a bad year, and I think we can
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: all agree that it's not been a great year for
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Trump this year, that usually translates into a loss of
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: seats for the party in power, which in this case
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: would be the Republicans, and the majority that they have
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: enjoyed in both the House and the Senate, has been
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: very slim. So they can't afford to lose more than
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: a seat or two if they hope to retain their majority.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: And in the Senate, the Senate was once considered safe
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: to preserve the majority that the Republicans hold there. But
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: you have close races shaping up in Maine, in South
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: Carolina and Georgia and Michigan, Ohio is going to be close.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: Even a red state like Texas, which goes reliably red, uh,
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: is showing a competitive race down there. I mean, I
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: think in any race, the Republicans got to be considered
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: the favorite going in, but the democratic nominee, uh, down
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: there is, uh, well-financed and, uh, And that should be
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: another race that we keep a close eye on. The
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: one thing that the Republicans do have in the way
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: of an advantage is money. They have done a great
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: job raising money and right now have about seven times
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: more cash on hand than the Democrats. The Democrats' finances
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: are in such dire straits that they literally had to
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: put up their National Headquarters building down in Washington is
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: collateral on a $ 15 million line of credit. So it's
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: not looking good there financially. You will see a lot
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: of Republican ads on television. You'll hear a lot of
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: Republican ads on the radio. And you'll even see a
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: lot of Republican ads, I would think, in the newspapers.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: So we will look forward to that. The music is
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: coming up now. I can tell you this, as I
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: mentioned earlier, I've got a whole new understanding and respect
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: for the people who do this job every single day.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: I know that I spent a lot of time developing
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: a monologue, lining up guests. thinking of topics that might
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: be of interest to the listeners. And just doing it
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: for this one day required a lot of work. The
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: people who do it every single day, I think a
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: lot of times listeners think they just come in and
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: turn on the microphone and just start talking off the
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: top of their head. Trust me, it's a lot more
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: involved and a lot more demanding than that. And as
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: I say, I've got newfound respect for the people who
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: do it. We'll be back shortly after these breaks.
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: I know you. You know me.
• 25:06
  Speaker 24: One thing I can tell you is you've got to
• 25:10
  Speaker 24: be free. Come together right now over me.
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: Shoot.
• 25:21
  Speaker 21: Shoot.
• 25:21
  Speaker 25: 94.9 News Now and stimulating talk. Media for the curious
• 25:32
  Speaker 25: and online at 94.9 News Now dot com. On 94.9
• 25:38
  Speaker 25: News Now.
• 25:39
  Speaker 14: Two separate accidents on I-95 northbound leading up to the
• 25:44
  Speaker 14: Gold Star Bridge.
• 25:45
  Speaker 26: Use Route 1 as an alternate.
• 25:48
  Speaker 19: Route 12 is moving slow northbound in Groton.
• 25:52
  Speaker 14: Route 32, slow northbound at the Coast Guard Academy.
• 25:56
  Speaker 9: No delays on I-395.
• 25:58
  Speaker 26: I'm Eddie Schaefer, Time Saver Traffic.
• 26:02
  Speaker 27: Time Saver Traffic is brought to you by Ascend Bank.
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  Speaker 27: Elevate your financial journey. www.ascend.bank We are, I will exceed.
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• 27:38
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  Speaker 9: Craving something delicious while you're soaking up the sun?
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  Speaker 4: Your body better. Better. Much better. So much better.
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• 28:19
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  Speaker 33: We've been telling you for years you buy better at Burns,
• 28:24
  Speaker 33: but you need to know just how much better the
• 28:27
  Speaker 33: Burns Agency's gotten. Last year, we joined forces with Hub
• 28:29
  Speaker 33: International to bring our current and future customers an even
• 28:32
  Speaker 33: stronger product offering, exceptional service practices, and the most competitive
• 28:36
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• 28:40
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  Speaker 15: Email or visit us today in.
• 28:50
  Speaker 33: All the same easy ways the burns agency now a
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  Speaker 33: division of hub international proudly serving eastern connecticut since 1932.
• 29:09
  Speaker 13: Life changes fast.
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• 29:49
  Speaker 9: From Bo at O'Brien Retirement Investment.
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  Speaker 23: Group, take care.
• 29:55
  Speaker 9: God bless, and we look forward to speaking with you soon.
• 29:57
  Speaker 35: Securities and advisory services through Independent Financial Group, LLC, a
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  Speaker 35: registered broker dealer and investment advisor member, FINRASIPC.
• 30:05
  Speaker 9: O'Brien Retirement Investment Group and Independent Financial Group are unaffiliated entities.
• 30:11
  Speaker 36: Thank you.
• 30:12
  Speaker 37: We are here to address one of the most pressing issues.
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  Speaker 37: We are working around the clock to keep America from.
• 30:18
  Speaker 18: Being wiped out.
• 30:20
  Speaker 37: If this isn't a main priority, it's certainly number two.
• 30:24
  Speaker 37: And nobody wants to be caught with their pants down.
• 30:27
  Speaker 37: We understand this could be a sticky situation. So flush
• 30:30
  Speaker 37: away your worries because we are going to get to
• 30:33
  Speaker 37: the bottom of this. Otherwise, we could end up in
• 30:36
  Speaker 37: deep doo-doo.
• 30:37
  Speaker 8: Thank you.
• 30:38
  Speaker 9: Are you searching for hope, for truth, for something more?
• 30:41
  Speaker 38: Arise and Shine Ministries is here to share the life-changing
• 30:44
  Speaker 38: message of the gospel of Jesus Christ with people everywhere.
• 30:48
  Speaker 38: Listen to Arise and Shine every Sunday at 9 a.m.
• 30:51
  Speaker 38: right here on 94.9. We're inspiring hearts, strengthening believers, and
• 30:55
  Speaker 38: spreading the light of Christ across our region. No matter
• 30:58
  Speaker 38: where you are in your journey, hope is here. Truth
• 31:01
  Speaker 38: is here. Light is here. Arise and Shine every Sunday.
• 31:05
  Speaker 18: At 9 a.m.
• 31:06
  Speaker 28: Right here on 94.9 News Now.
• 31:08
  Speaker 5: Okay, we're back.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: It's Bill Stanley coming to you live from 94.9 WJJF.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: And our first guest joining us a little bit after
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: 7 o'clock will be former 20th District State Senator Paul Formica,
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: a good friend and a guy who we miss having
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: up in Hartford. He was well liked and well respected
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: by both sides of the aisle, primarily for his ability
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: to be able to work with both parties for the
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: advancement of things that were good for the state and
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: good for his district. So Paul will be joining us,
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: and we'll look forward to that. Now, going back to
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: the midterm elections, we had talked a little bit about
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: what both parties are up against as they go into it.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: And the one thing that concerns me as an American,
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: not so much as a Republican, but as an American,
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: and that is that the Democrats... in anticipation of winning
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: the majority, at least in the House of Representatives, it's
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: as if they're in a three-point stance, ready to jump
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: right out of the starting gates when the session opens
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: in 2027 to begin impeachment proceedings against President Trump. And
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: we haven't heard anything specifically that would merit the initiation
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: of impeachment proceedings, but there would be committee hearings, there
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: would be investigations, and to hear the Democrats who are
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: in the minority now tell it as they project ahead
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: to being in the majority beginning in January of 2027,
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: they've got.
• 33:08
  Speaker 13: A whole.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: Stack of impeachable offenses that they are preparing. uh, to
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: initiate against president Trump, not only against president Trump, but
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: they are going to be looking into his family's finances.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: There are allegations that, uh, Trump and his family have
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: leveraged the office of the president to further enrich themselves.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, they are, they are wealthy by all accounts. Uh,
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: but some is never enough. Apparently, uh, So we'll be
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: hearing about that, I'm sure. And there are also members
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: of his cabinet who may come in for impeachment investigation.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: The one who comes to mind first is Pete Hegseth,
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: the former Fox News personality and a veteran who is
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: serving as Trump's defense secretary or as Trump and Hegseth
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: would call it Secretary of War. For a guy who
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: was lobbying on his own behalf to win a Nobel
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: Peace Prize, I think that ship has sailed and I
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: don't think it's.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: Ever going to happen.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: When he had seemingly brokered a peace agreement in the
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: Middle East, there was talk that Trump should be strongly
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: considered for a Nobel Peace Prize, but Given what's going
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: on now over in Iran and the fact that there's
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: no end in sight, the Nobel Peace Prize is not
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: in his future. However, impeachment proceedings may be the Democrats
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: are rubbing their hands and looking forward with glee to
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: try to impeach the president. So we'll take a break here.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: When we come back, we expect we'll have Paul Formica
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: here with us and talk a little bit about his
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: Republican initiative here in eastern Connecticut.
• 35:13
  Speaker 26: Thanks for being with us.
• 35:17
  Speaker 24: Silver horses run down movie in your dark eyes.
• 35:29
  Speaker 27: Broadcasting live from the Bruce Delon Buick GMC Studios.
• 35:33
  Speaker 18: WJJF. Montauk. Ledger.
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: Mystic.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: Norwich.
• 35:36
  Speaker 18: 94.9 News Now.
• 35:42
  Speaker 39: Disaster strikes Nepal and Tibet. I'm Carmen Roberts, Fox News.
• 35:45
  Speaker 39: More than 1,300 people are missing, including 700 foreign tourists,
• 35:50
  Speaker 39: with about 50 Americans among them. A massive flood caused
• 35:54
  Speaker 39: by possibly the collapse of a glacier led to the disaster,
• 35:58
  Speaker 39: Fox meteorologist Adam Klotz explains.
• 36:01
  Speaker 31: Really horrible situation. Originally looked like a 5.2 earthquake. So
• 36:05
  Speaker 31: we saw this seismic activity, but this was not an
• 36:08
  Speaker 31: earthquake at all. All of this seismic activity coming just
• 36:11
  Speaker 31: from that rock slide, just from that glacier breaking off,
• 36:14
  Speaker 31: ultimately hitting the ground and moving those sensors. So this
• 36:18
  Speaker 31: was a massive break and you saw it fall from
• 36:21
  Speaker 31: really high altitudes, right?
• 36:22
  Speaker 5: So the Himalayan mountains, very, very tall.
• 36:24
  Speaker 31: And you get this slide that starts to shake the
• 36:26
  Speaker 31: entire earth.
• 36:28
  Speaker 39: Police in Nepal say at least 273 people have died
• 36:32
  Speaker 39: in that massive flood. The Qatari prime minister is in
• 36:34
  Speaker 39: Tehran to meet with Iranian officials today. Fox's Trey Yingst
• 36:38
  Speaker 39: has more from Tel Aviv.
• 36:40
  Speaker 40: The defense will make their closing arguments first. Reddington said
• 36:43
  Speaker 40: he will only need about 30 minutes, so half of
• 36:46
  Speaker 40: the allotted.
• 36:49
  Speaker 41: Time.
• 36:49
  Speaker 39: And the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said that the U.S.
• 36:54
  Speaker 39: is leaning into economic D-Day sanctions. And here's more from
• 36:59
  Speaker 39: Trey Yingst.
• 37:00
  Speaker 42: The visit comes as President Trump told Al Jazeera that
• 37:02
  Speaker 42: the U.S. is achieving a very big victory, but the
• 37:05
  Speaker 42: war will continue.
• 37:06
  Speaker 18: As long as necessary.
• 37:07
  Speaker 42: Another report crossed an oil tanker being hit with an
• 37:10
  Speaker 42: unknown projectile in the Strait of Hormuz earlier this week.
• 37:13
  Speaker 42: The IRGC warned Wednesday that the Strait would not be
• 37:15
  Speaker 42: opened until the United States accepts Iranian demands.
• 37:19
  Speaker 39: And closing arguments are just hours away in the Massachusetts
• 37:22
  Speaker 39: trial of Lindsay Clancy, who killed her three children.
• 37:24
  Speaker 40: The defense will make their closing arguments first. Reddington said
• 37:27
  Speaker 40: he will only need about 30 minutes, so half of
• 37:30
  Speaker 40: the allotted time.
• 37:31
  Speaker 39: Fox's Nate Foy and Plymouth. America's listening to Fox News.
• 37:39
  Speaker 23: Wesley Financial Group is not a law firm.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: Ask yourself this question.
• 37:42
  Speaker 43: Is it really worth holding on to that timeshare that
• 37:45
  Speaker 43: you know you need to get rid of?
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: Here's the truth.
• 37:48
  Speaker 43: The average maintenance fee just went up over 17%. That
• 37:52
  Speaker 43: could have been 117%, and there's.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: Nothing you can do about it.
• 37:57
  Speaker 43: When you buy a timeshare, you give them a blank
• 37:59
  Speaker 43: check for annual maintenance and assessment fees. I'm Chuck McDowell,
• 38:03
  Speaker 43: founder of Wesley Financial Group. For 15 years, I've helped
• 38:06
  Speaker 43: over 50,000 families cancel their timeshare. Not sell it, not
• 38:11
  Speaker 43: transfer it, cancel it. Did you buy a timeshare because
• 38:14
  Speaker 43: they told you it was a great investment and your
• 38:16
  Speaker 43: maintenance fees would.
• 38:17
  Speaker 9: Never go up?
• 38:18
  Speaker 13: That's a lie.
• 38:19
  Speaker 43: Are you ready to get rid of your timeshare once
• 38:22
  Speaker 43: and for all? Simply call us and I'll send you
• 38:25
  Speaker 43: our timeshare exit kit that explains all your options for cancellation.
• 38:29
  Speaker 23: Call Wesley now for your timeshare exit kit.
• 38:31
  Speaker 5: 800-393-1881.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: That's 800-393-1881.
• 38:32
  Speaker 6: 800-393-1881.
• 38:32
  Speaker 23: You'll buy it better.
• 38:32
  Speaker 9: Better at first. Much better.
• 38:33
  Speaker 23: So much better at first. The ride and show that
• 38:35
  Speaker 23: pride rides.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: You'll buy it better at first.
• 38:37
  Speaker 23: You'll buy it better at first.
• 38:52
  Speaker 33: We've been telling you for years you buy better at Burns,
• 38:54
  Speaker 33: but you need to know just how much better the
• 38:56
  Speaker 33: Burns agency has gotten.
• 38:58
  Speaker 12: Last year, we joined forces with Hub.
• 38:59
  Speaker 33: International to bring our current and future customers an even
• 39:02
  Speaker 33: stronger product offering, exceptional service practices, and the most competitive
• 39:06
  Speaker 33: insurance options available. our integration with hub makes the team
• 39:10
  Speaker 33: at the burns agency that you know and trust stronger
• 39:13
  Speaker 33: more accessible and positioned to better serve you in this
• 39:16
  Speaker 33: ever-changing insurance landscape call email or visit us today in
• 39:19
  Speaker 33: all the same easy ways the burns agency now a
• 39:22
  Speaker 33: division of hub international proudly serving eastern connecticut since 1932
• 39:26
  Speaker 33: Good morning, I'm Rob Ray.
• 39:44
  Speaker 21: Mostly cloudy and humid today, high 79. A 60-year-old Plainfield
• 39:49
  Speaker 21: man faces kidnapping and other charges after allegedly fleeing a
• 39:53
  Speaker 21: Middletown traffic stop and striking several vehicles. Police say Daniel
• 39:57
  Speaker 21: Carpenter was arrested after his vehicle became disabled in Cromwell.
• 40:02
  Speaker 21: He remains in custody on bonds totaling.
• 40:04
  Speaker 20: Over $ 1 million.
• 40:05
  Speaker 21: East Lyme Police recently identified three juveniles in connection with
• 40:11
  Speaker 21: several vehicle thefts involving unlocked cars. Police recovered two stolen vehicles...
• 40:17
  Speaker 21: and said the suspects will face motor vehicle and larceny charges.
• 40:21
  Speaker 21: Plainfield school buses will operate normally today after DATCO reached
• 40:25
  Speaker 21: an agreement with the union representing its drivers and mechanics.
• 40:29
  Speaker 21: The deal came hours before a possible strike as workers
• 40:33
  Speaker 21: sought better pay and benefits. A Charlestown police officer did
• 40:37
  Speaker 21: not activate his body camera before firing shots during a
• 40:41
  Speaker 21: June arrest. Police say 23-year-old Jonathan Vasquez struck the officer's
• 40:46
  Speaker 21: cruiser while fleeing, and the incident remains under review. Westerly
• 40:51
  Speaker 21: officials are considering tighter regulations on short-term rentals. including limiting
• 40:56
  Speaker 21: unhosted rentals to coastal areas. The town council's reviewing Newport's
• 41:00
  Speaker 21: regulations as a model and is expected to discuss a
• 41:04
  Speaker 21: revised proposal August 31st.
• 41:07
  Speaker 20: I'm Rob Ray. When news breaks, we break in.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to the sales team.
• 41:12
  Speaker 18: Here, you can have this cup.
• 41:14
  Speaker 12: Mmm, that's good.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, you like it?
• 41:16
  Speaker 12: What is it?
• 41:17
  Speaker 44: It's radio station coffee.
• 41:19
  Speaker 6: Oh.
• 41:19
  Speaker 44: The morning show always seems to make a pot right
• 41:21
  Speaker 44: before they leave. And then it just sits here all day.
• 41:24
  Speaker 15: I kind of like it.
• 41:25
  Speaker 44: The pot itself hasn't been cleaned since about 2016. Is
• 41:28
  Speaker 44: that a hair in it? Probably so. They use an
• 41:32
  Speaker 44: old microphone windscreen as a coffee filter.
• 41:34
  Speaker 13: The more you tell me, the more I seem to
• 41:37
  Speaker 13: like it.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: I know. And here's the best part. It's free.
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: Huh.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: Company pays for it.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: That's why nobody complains.
• 41:43
  Speaker 13: You can't beat free coffee.
• 41:45
  Speaker 44: Hey, what do you say we take these and go
• 41:49
  Speaker 44: watch the DJs through the windows?
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: They're like monkeys in a cage.
• 41:54
  Speaker 44: Radio station coffee made by an intern with bad hygiene.
• 42:03
  Speaker 13: Hey, you.
• 42:05
  Speaker 45: That's right, you. Wouldn't you like to know the story
• 42:08
  Speaker 45: of you? What makes you, you? DNA and Me is
• 42:13
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  Speaker 45: who your ancestors were. You might be surprised.
• 42:19
  Speaker 46: I thought I was just a standard white guy, but
• 42:22
  Speaker 46: DNA and Me showed that I'm actually 4.2% Cherokee Indian.
• 42:27
  Speaker 16: Turns out I'm not totally white.
• 42:29
  Speaker 15: I'm also part Northern Asian and even some Kurdish.
• 42:32
  Speaker 25: I'm a victim of oppression.
• 42:34
  Speaker 45: I used to get in trouble for always using the N-word.
• 42:37
  Speaker 45: But with DNA and me, I found out that I'm 2.1% black.
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: Morning, Steve. What's up?
• 42:43
  Speaker 45: The test is easy. Simply swab the inside of your
• 42:46
  Speaker 45: mouth and send it into our labs.
• 42:48
  Speaker 46: People made fun of me for being French. DNA and
• 42:51
  Speaker 46: me showed I was 8% Navajo. Nobody's making fun of
• 42:54
  Speaker 46: me now or my people who are victims.
• 42:56
  Speaker 35: I'm 13% victim.
• 42:58
  Speaker 13: I'm 21% victim.
• 43:00
  Speaker 45: Order now and find out if your friends should be
• 43:02
  Speaker 45: more sympathetic towards you.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, we're back.
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: Bill Stanley coming to you live from the studios at 94.9 WJJF.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: And a quick Full Power Radio quick update. We are
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: still in negotiations and working through the remaining details for
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: a regularly scheduled programming. And on a side note, the
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: Rumble feed is now up and running. So with that said,
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: I think we can all hope that there will be
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: a resolution to said issue. Well, we can't really say it,
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: but we'll hope that it gets resolved sometime soon. So
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: here in studio with us is an old friend, or
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: a longtime friend, I should say. He's not old. Paul Formica,
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: former state senator from the 20th district. in and around
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: New London, Waterford, East Lyme, and other communities as well. And, Paul,
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: we miss having you up in Hartford representing us.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: Good morning. How are you, Bill? Good morning.
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: You're doing a great job this morning. Well, thank you.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't exactly say that I missed my.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: Calling, though.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: We're happy to have you in here to talk a
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: little bit about the initiative you've got going.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: Tell us about CERC. Well, you know, I do miss Hartford.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: I can tell you right now I do miss a
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: lot of it. I miss the policy discussions and the conversations,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: a lot of the people up there. And, you know,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: I kind of retired in 2023 and haven't been involved
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: much until after the last municipal elections. And, you know,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: when we.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: As Republicans running in the state, it was always fighting
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: the campaign theme of the opposing Democrats that, well, you're
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: a Republican, we hate Trump, we hate you. And, you know,
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: we fought that for a long time. And fortunately, you know,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: I had a lot of years serving in East Lime
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: and in the Senate. And You know, so people knew
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: who I was. Right. And, you know, didn't stop a
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: lot of people from prejudging us, but... And then when
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: the municipal massacre occurred in November with regard to the
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: election at the local level, you know, it really seemed
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: to me that the Trump factor made its way down
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: to the municipal elections. And the campaign used that. The
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: Democrats used that as their campaign. So... Now, first, let
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: me say it doesn't matter to me if you love
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: Trump or hate Trump. I have, you know, no issue
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: with either side of that. That's not really what the
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: conversation's about. The conversation's about a campaign and how do
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: we win. We're facing numbers that, you know, are against
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: us as Republicans. We're, you know, way in the minority
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: when it went in. When you talk about unaffiliates and
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: Democrat registered voters.
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: Democrats have a huge voter enrollment advantage here in Connecticut. And,
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: of course, the largest voting segment, as you mentioned, is
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: the unaffiliated voters. Republicans are a distant third.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: And in the district where I served, it was, you know,
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: 20 percent. uh, in Republican voters. So I had to
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: reach into their pocket on the Democrat side, moderates and
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: conservative Democrats, moderate conservative and, uh, interested on affiliates.
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: Talk about a dying breed is moderate and conservative Democrats.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: Are there any left? You know, I don't know, but
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: so it just seemed to me that, you know, if,
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: if we're going to continue on as a party here
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: in the state of Connecticut and be relevant, um, we
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: needed to reintroduce ourselves to, uh, you know, to the
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: populace and to kind of distance ourselves away from being
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: always aligned and associated and, you know, with Trump. And
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: you mentioned it earlier, you know, his personality. And I
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: had friends 30 years. We did Little League with our
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: kids together and came up to me and said, I
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: can't vote for you this time. I said, geez, why?
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: Do you think my opponent is you know, going to
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: do a better job? I said, no, no, no, no, no.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: It's all about Trump. Trump's on the line. So we
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: started to get together a group, Southeastern Republican Coalition, we
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: call it. It's a kind of a regional town committee.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: Town committees are kind of struggling. You know, we have
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: 40 members of the East Lime Town Committee, and we
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: struggle to get a quorum, you know, and I'm sure
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: that it's the same for many. But there are a
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: number of workers on each of those town committees. So
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: I kind of gathered them together. And we have now
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: 16 towns represented of different workers. And we're going to
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: try to help elect Republicans here in southeastern Connecticut. We
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: have some wonderful candidates for state rep and the Senate.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: And we're doing the best we can to try to
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: reintroduce our candidates. group and the policies we represent here
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: in southeastern Connecticut, here locally.
• 48:48
  Speaker 18: You know, you.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: Talked a lot about the wars and the president's issues
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: up in the national level, and that certainly affects us. But,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: you know, here and the state and local level is
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: really where the rubber meets the road in terms of
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: affecting people's lives. And so we're trying to change that.
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: Democrats have effectively, I'm not saying I like it or
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: I agree with it, but they have effectively saddled Trump's
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: unpopularity upon the local candidates and candidates for state office.
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: My own opinion is, and I've written about this in
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: the day, is that whether you support Trump or don't
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: support Trump as a Republican shouldn't be a deciding factor
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: in whether someone's going to support you for the state
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: senate or state house or for mayor or city council
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: but there are some zealots and you know you know
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: who they are they post uh frequently uh in the
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: comment section of the.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: Day um.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: And and they bring that that trump derangement syndrome to
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: every debate in fact there was there was one uh
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: that concerned you and and your comments on development in
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: downtown Niantic. And this one woman who always checks in
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: with her hatred for Trump and hatred for anybody who's
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: Republican or anything Republican dragged Trump into a local zoning issue.
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's just.
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: But it seems to be working because going back to
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: when you were serving in the Senate, the Senate was
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: divided evenly, correct?
• 50:37
  Speaker 24: 18-18?
• 50:37
  Speaker 31: 18-18.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: Well, that's my second term. The first term, it was,
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: we picked up one seat. That was the year that
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: I won that open seat after Senator Stillman retired. Right.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: Running against Betsy Ritter. And that made it 21 to 15.
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: I was the 15th Republican in my first year. And
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: so we were still in the majority. And then the
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: next year, you know, Trump ran and we were able to,
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: he swept everybody in. The coattails that he had were
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: very positive. And we were 18-18, first tie in the
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: Senate in 100 years. The lieutenant governor broke the tie,
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: and I think every tie she broke went the Democrat way.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: So typically, you know, you could say they were still
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: in the majority, but 18-18 threw a whole wrench into
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: what the operations of the government was because the majority
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: party elects the chairman of every committee, The minority party
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: are the ranking members, which, you know, they work together.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: Some committees do very well. They have to work together.
• 51:41
  Speaker 44: Yeah.
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: And other committees, they don't even talk to each other.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: But when you're tied, we were co-chair. And so the
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: whole situation, offices were changed, parking spaces, all of these
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: little minutiae things you don't think of. Everything was in flux.
• 51:57
  Speaker 39: Yeah.
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: Well, and one of the great things, probably the best
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: thing that came out of that two-year term when the
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: Senate was evenly divided were the fiscal guardrails that sort
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: of reined in the runaway spending that the state had
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: been involved with since the advent of the state income
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: tax back in 1991. And it was back then, because
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: I was at the Capitol back then and watched the debate,
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: take place, and it went on and on and on.
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: The session that was supposed to have ended in June
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: went all the way into November before they finally twisted
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: enough arms to get the state income tax enacted. And
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: the advocates for the state income tax, some of whom
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: were good friends of mine, said this is not a
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: license to spend. Well, I'm glad to know that because
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: today the state budget has more than tripled. So If
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: it wasn't a license to spend, I don't know what
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: it was. However, at the time, Connecticut's economy had collapsed.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: The real estate market had collapsed as part of that
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: whole colonial realty scandal. And the state was in such
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: fiscal crisis that if you were going to continue to
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: avoid a state income tax, you were going to have
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: to raise the sales tax to around 10%, and there
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: were going to have to be draconian cuts in to
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: the budget, which a lot of folks in the Democratic
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: Party couldn't sign on to. So, ultimately, there were three
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: senators who were holdouts, and they finally turned them.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: So to speak.
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: There was Marie Herbst, who was from Vernon, Gary Hale
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: from Ansonia, and Steve Spellman from here in Stonington. All
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: good senators.
• 53:54
  Speaker 31: Who.
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: Finally, and there's no doubt in my mind, knowing all
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: three of them, that they did what they thought was
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: right and did what they thought was best for the state.
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: And that was it. The state income tax became law
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: under then-Governor Weicker, and we were off to the races.
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: But anyway, tell me some of the issues that you
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: think are going to be beneficial to Republican candidates running
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: for the legislature in Connecticut.
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, you go back to those fiscal guardrails,
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: you know, with that first year I was in in
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: the Senate was we were three billion dollars in deficit and,
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: you know, couldn't do anything.
• 54:38
  Speaker 18: Right.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: And, you know, they controlled everything that was going on.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: And then when we we did those that budget that
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: is still carrying forward some positive financial situations for the state,
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: the governor has been running on it for for a
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: number of years. Right. You know, it. it really was
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: the turning point of how this state is financed. And
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: I think if you look locally, there's a lot of
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: situations where the budgets are up 10%, 15%, 20%. Their
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: cooperation with the state level doesn't seem to be helping
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: the municipalities. So I think getting the financial house in order,
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: certainly places like East Lyme can.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: Can really be beneficial. And I think we have, you know,
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: the ability to do that on our side of the aisle. And,
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: you know, I think that's one of the biggest things
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: that we can do. Right. But....
• 55:41
  Speaker 47: Well, you need to sort of change the focus of
• 55:44
  Speaker 47: the debate, you know, move it, I guess, try to
• 55:47
  Speaker 47: move it away from Trump toward something that is really
• 55:50
  Speaker 47: more pertinent to a state legislative.
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: And that would be what it is in any race,
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: whether it's local, state, or federal, and those are the
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: pocketbook issues. And I think voters want to know and
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: need to know what you as a candidate would do,
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: how you would vote in Hartford when it comes to
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: some of those pocketbook issues, when it comes to increasing taxes,
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: when it comes to taxes on the wealthy.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: And interestingly....
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: Ned Lamont, the incumbent Democratic governor, who just easily won
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: a primary. He was challenged from the left within his
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: own party by Representative Josh Elliott from Camden, and he
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: buried him in the primary. Lamont has steadfastly opposed the
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: liberal wing of the Democratic Party's initiative, the push to.
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: Further tax billionaires, or the wealthy, as they say, to
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: get the wealthy to, quote-unquote, pay their fair share. I
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: think if you talk to most wealthy people, they tell
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: you they're paying more than their fair share. And the
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: danger with jacking up taxes on the wealthy is that
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: they can leave whenever they want, and a lot of
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: them have. Down in Florida, we see down in Florida now,
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: The same is true in California where they've got the
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: so-called billionaire's tax. Well, the billionaires didn't get where they
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: are by being dumb. They've packed up everything and they've
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: moved to Florida now. And what's particularly short-sighted about that
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: initiative is that when a billionaire leaves the state, he
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: or she takes with them hundreds of thousands of dollars,
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: hundreds of millions of dollars sometimes in tax revenue. So
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: they leave and you're getting more tax revenue by increasing
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: the taxes, but it's offset by the lost revenue when
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: you have two or three hedge fund managers leaving Greenwich
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: and going down to Naples or Jupiter.
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: Down in Florida. And it takes it all with them.
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: I remember the first session that I served in up there,
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: Kevin Sullivan was... commissioner of revenue services. And he, he
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: was a long time, uh, leader in the Democrat party
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: and very well respected on that side. And he, he,
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: you know, warned everybody of that situation is we were again,
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: facing a $ 3 billion deficit. And he, he said, you know,
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: he actually kept track and then kept contact with a
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: lot of those high earners and high taxpayers. And, uh,
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: you know, the fact is they were leaving and, and,
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: you know, that's something that the governor has kind of
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: held off on, much to the dismay, I think, of others.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: He's going to have a little trouble with Elliott, I think,
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: over the next few years, because he will, Elliott will
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: commandeer a group of like-minded socialists. And, you know, they
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: might be able to form some kind of caucus that
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: will really sway some legislation. And I think the Democrats
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: are going to have a little bit... If Speaker Ritter
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: will do a fourth term, I don't know if he's
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: going to do that, but he'll have his hands full,
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: whoever's leading that party.
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: Well, Connecticut sort of emerges as a microcosm for the
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: Democratic Party nationally. And that is they've got this ultra-liberal,
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: socialist wing, if you want to label them as socialist.
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: Some of them may reject the title, but if it
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: walks and talks like a duck, it's a duck. Josh Elliott,
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: who we mentioned earlier, had challenged Governor Lamont for the
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: Democratic nomination for governor, hedged his bets. He also stayed
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: on the ballot as a state representative, which.
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: I didn't know you could run for two offices. I'm
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: not quite sure how that happened. That seems interesting to me.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: Maybe the primary had something to do with it. I think.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: Had he won the primary, I mean, it would have
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: been a shock. But, yeah, he'd have to give up
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: his seat. He'd have to give up his status as
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: Democratic nominee. for a legislative seat if he was running
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: for governor, because in the unlikely event he got elected
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: to both, then what did he do?
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: He resigned, I suppose. So I think that brings up
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: a good point, you know, that we do need a balance,
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: you know, that there's such a supermajority in Hartford right
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: now with, you know, there's only 11 senators and, you know,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: Ryan Fazio, that's a great candidate for governor. I think
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: he's going to give Ned Lamont, a run for his money,
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: and hopefully, you know, he'll come out victorious. We lose
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: that seat. Tony Wong, longtime Republican senator, is retiring. That
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: brings us down to nine. I mean, if we don't
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: pick up some seats and change the thinking of people
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: who are voting, which is really what we're trying to
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: do locally, you know, talk about character. We want to
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: talk about, you know, ideas. And we have some great
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: Ant Santoro's running here in the town of East Lime
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: against socialist, you know, Nick Menapace. And, you know, if
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: you look at legislation that was sponsored by Mr. Menapace
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: over the last few years, it's certainly been way far
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: to the left. And I'm not sure that that is
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: really beneficial in the direction, I think, that we need
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: to go here in southeastern Connecticut.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 9: So hopefully.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: The candidates we have, Doc Foley and Waterford could.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: Doc Foley, I think, is an outstanding candidate. He's running
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: against Representative Gauthier, who's a freshman legislator. And my first
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: year covering the legislature back in 1987 was off of
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: a large wade of freshmen who had come in. You
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: recall in 1984 was the Reagan landslide, and Republicans in
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: Connecticut swept in the, uh, controlled both chambers of the legislature.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: Even Jerry Murphy, who was the president pro tem of
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: the state Senate was defeated by a guy named Eric
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: Benson who had never run for office before. I mean,
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: it was a shock. Well, two years later with governor
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: Bill O'Neill and Senator Chris Dodd at the top of
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: the ticket, the Democrats.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: They took it back.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: We, we took it, uh, helped, I think by the, uh,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: the party lever then. And, uh, freshmen, as I wrote
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: in a feature that I wrote about freshman legislators, freshmen
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: were viewed as better being seen than heard.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: I remember Pete Kinnair was the winner of the Senate
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: 20th District back then, and he told me, you know,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: he'd never, his first time at it, and he ended
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: up to be chair of appropriations. He didn't know what
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: was going on. Oh my God, he said, it was
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: such a little shrinking from a fire hose, as they say,
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: but You know, listen, I just think that if you
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: want to elect people in government, then you have to
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: look at their character, look at what their ideas are,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: and not look at, you know, who they may be
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: associated with just being a member of a party. And
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: I think that's really the purpose of our coalition, and
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: I think that's what we're trying to do. People want
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: to get a hold of me. It's pmformica at gmail.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: I can happily get people in. to help. We're going
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: to help do doors. We're going to help with policy.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: We're going to help with voter get out the vote,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: which is a whole different show we could do on
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: what early voting does to the people, you know, campaigning.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: You used to be able to campaign for a date
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: in November. Now you've got to campaign for a date
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: in early October. So hopefully people take a good look
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: at us and decide that, gee, some of these ideas
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: aren't the best and And we have to make a change.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: Well, Paul, we wish you well in this and hope
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: you're successful in November. And appreciate you being here to
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: share the information. This is a great initiative.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, thank you very much. And it's always good
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: to see you, my friend. And you're doing a good job.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: Are you going to do this every day?
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: Oh, I don't think so. But I'm happy to fill
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: in and really enjoy it. It's a lot of fun,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: but it's also a lot of work.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 5: It is.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: Anyway, we'll be back shortly.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: This is Bill Stanley, 94.9 WJJF.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: We'll be back after these messages.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 28: Everyone's a winner this August at Whaling City Mazda.
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  Speaker 50: News on Fiona Jalosi in just hours. Closing arguments began
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 50: in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial. The jury going to
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 50: decide whether to hold her criminally responsible for killing her
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 50: three kids.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 40: Did prosecutors prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she could
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 40: appreciate her actions were wrong? If the answer is yes,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 40: what degree of homicide would apply to each child? First
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 40: degree or second degree or possibly manslaughter if it's included
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  Speaker 40: in the final jury instructions.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 50: That's Fox's Nate Foy. More than 270 bodies have been
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 50: found after catastrophic flash floods in Nepal and Tibet, where
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 50: more than 1,300 people are still missing.
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  Speaker 48: A lethal wall of water and debris comes crashing through,
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  Speaker 48: decimating buildings and bridges, swallowing complete villages. Nearly 25 miles
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  Speaker 48: of roads were damaged, according to officials, all complicating search
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• 1:07:01
  Speaker 50: Fox's Shanley Painter. America's listening to Fox News.
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  Speaker 13: This news report is brought to you by Keith's Appliances.
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  Speaker 53: When planning for retirement, a big mistake people make is
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  Speaker 9: That's tfcheckup.com. Investment advisory services offered through Tumalo Wealth Management.
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  Speaker 18: Fish on sports. More than a score.
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  Speaker 19: And we're brought to you by Charter Oak Federal Credit Union,
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  Speaker 19: where members bank better. So the end for the Connecticut
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 19: Sun is setting. There's only three more home games left
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 19: before the team relocates to Houston next season. And last night,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 19: the Sun honored a Connecticut basketball great, Tina Charles. The
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 19: number one overall pick of the Connecticut Sun in the
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 19: 2010 WNBA draft. After, of course, four incredible years at UConn,
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  Speaker 19: where she won two national championships, is UConn's fifth all-time
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  Speaker 19: leading scorer and top rebounder ever. She's the WNBA's all-time
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  Speaker 19: leading rebounder, second in points, and she's just the second
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  Speaker 19: player ever in league history to score more than 8,000 points.
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  Speaker 19: She's also a three-time Olympic gold medalist, making the nine
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 19: years that she played basketball here in the state of
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 19: Connecticut nine years that anybody would be jealous of.
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  Speaker 9: Her next stop, the Hall of Fame. With more than
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  Speaker 9: just a score, I'm Fish on Sports.
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  Speaker 21: A 60-year-old Plainfield man faces kidnapping and other charges after
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 21: allegedly fleeing a Middletown traffic stop and striking several vehicles.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 21: Police say Daniel Carpenter was arrested after his vehicle became
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 21: disabled in Cromwell. He remains in custody on bonds totaling
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 21: over $ 1 million. Connecticut Attorney General William Tong announced a
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 21: multi-state settlement with Metta over youth safety concerns on Facebook
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 21: and Instagram. Connecticut could receive up to $ 265 million, while
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 21: Metta must add stronger age checks, parental controls, and protections
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 21: for young users. A 28-year-old Norwich police officer has been
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 21: charged with allegedly collecting workers' compensation benefits while claiming a
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 21: knee injury. Authorities say Ryan Dunn later passed a physical
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 21: agility test while applying to another police department. He was
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 21: released on a $ 10, 000 bond. A young harbor seal named
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 21: Peanut was released back into the ocean yesterday after more
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 21: than seven weeks of rehabilitation at Mystic Aquarium. Peanut was
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 21: rescued from the New Hampshire coast in July, suffering from
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 21: an infection and being underweight. She gained more than 20
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 21: pounds during treatment. Westerly officials are considering tighter regulations on
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 21: short-term rentals, including limiting unhosted rentals to coastal areas. The
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 21: town council is reviewing Newport's regulations as a model and
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 21: is expected to discuss a revised proposal August 31st.
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  Speaker 20: I'm Rob Ray. When news breaks, we break in.
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• 1:15:03
  Speaker 36: Dan's Place in West Greenwich, Rhode Island, is an awesome
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  Speaker 36: barn-style restaurant with a great family atmosphere, offering creative pizzas.
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  Speaker 36: and exciting entrees, and they have an extensive gluten-free menu, too.
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  Speaker 36: Dan's Place also has a full bar and live music
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  Speaker 36: every weekend. Famous for their pizza, burgers, wings, seafood, and more.
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  Speaker 36: Veteran-owned Dan's Place on Victory Highway in West Greenwich, Rhode Island,
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  Speaker 36: and now open down the street, Tavern on 3. Check
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  Speaker 36: them both out on Facebook and at DansPizzaPlace.com.
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  Speaker 18: And we're back.
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  Speaker 2: It's Bill Stanley coming to you live from the studios
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: of 94.9 WJJF. And we thank former Senator Paul Formica
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: for coming in and joining us. And our next guest
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: is someone who is well-known, well-liked, well-respected throughout the community,
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: Mighty Mike Busetto, the owner of Philomena's Restaurant over in Waterford.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: which is celebrating its 20th anniversary with some great activities
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: this weekend.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: Mike, good morning. Good morning, Bill. How are you?
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 9: Doing great.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 2: Doing great. I appreciate you getting up early.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 45: I didn't just get up for this.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 51: I'm up every morning ready to go, but I will
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 51: leave this segment by saying thanks for the opportunity to
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 51: be on here. Yes, Sunday, Philomena celebrates 20 years in business.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 41: 20 years in business.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 51: And both chambers of commerce will be there. Numerous, you know,
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 51: people from throughout the community, business partners. And when I
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 51: say partners, not partners and income wise, but, you know,
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 51: people like Pistello Produce and Wesley Packing and all the
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 51: local people that we deal with. So our loyal customers,
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 51: some new customers, Barry and Sue Neistat and really Sue
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 51: Devlin are She is one of the original Hueys, and
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 51: they're going to be whipping up some love salads.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 18: Oh, boy.
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 51: Yeah, so a lot of love, especially for the garlic,
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 51: will be spread throughout Philomena's on Sunday, which it always has.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 51: So we're very proud of it, and it will be
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 51: a fun day.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, what really made this an attractive story
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: for today's program and really overall, is what you accomplished
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 2: during the pandemic when a lot of restaurants, a lot
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 2: of businesses in general, either failed or had to shut
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 2: down temporarily. In some cases, they shut down permanently. They
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: had to lay off employees. And the one that stands out,
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 2: and I remember Governor Lamont coming down because he wanted
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: to meet with entrepreneurs like yourself who– found creative and
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: innovative ways to overcome the challenges of the pandemic the
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 2: way you did. And so maybe you can share some
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 2: of the things that you did that made you not
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: only allowed you to stay open, but allowed you to
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 2: flourish incredibly during the pandemic.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 51: When the governor came down twice, he actually couldn't believe it.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 51: And he had said to me, Mike, what do you
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 51: think about reopening the government. I said, Gov, I said,
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 51: to be honest, if you had a 99.9% chance of
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 51: being reelected, would you run again? He said, well, of course.
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 51: And I said, well, we have a 99.9% chance, even
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 51: if we get COVID, to be okay. And I said,
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 51: you have to reopen I said, the damage being done,
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 51: people being isolated. If you go to any doctor or
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 51: any therapist, they say, do not isolate yourself. And that's
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 51: exactly what people were forced to do. Just go into
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 51: each other's corner and stand there. It's like two boxes
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 51: ready to fight, but they, Just sit in your corner,
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 51: and we'll get to you in a couple years.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: So it was horrible.
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 51: So I just, natural instinct was to reassure people. I
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 51: think that's the word, to reassure that at some point
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 51: we're going to be okay. And my patience, thankfully, was
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 51: a little less than the government. So I figured out
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 51: a way to stay open. I figured out a way
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 51: to adjust the everyday model. But one of the first
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 51: acts was myself, just lead. And I worked 110 straight days.
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 51: And it's not a debate. My employees will tell you.
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 51: My family will tell you. I issued no pink slips.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 51: But I did tell people, come at your comfort level.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 51: And if you did not feel comfortable, please don't come in.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 51: But we're open. And I never held it against anybody
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 51: if they did not. But that reassurance to the community
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 51: was paramount. There were events held where you would drive in,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 51: and you being a former hospital administrator, I know you
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 51: remember this, Backus Hospital, L & M Hospital. There were
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 51: 250 people, doctors, nurses, janitors, security guards, who I said, please,
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 51: come to Philomena's, drive in, and you will get an
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 51: Easter dinner.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 41: And they did.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 51: A bottle of wine, a pineapple, a ham. and Girl
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 51: Scout cookies because the Girl Scouts had nowhere to sell
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 51: their cookies. So it helped, you know, flush product through
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 51: the system as well, so there was no waste. So
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 51: it was a time, and that's just one example, but
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 51: I do have to say the community rallied for that,
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 51: and it was a place for many who really were
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 51: struggling to, you know, be at home by themselves, never
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 51: mind with family members. I mean, now you're stuck with family.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 41: At the house.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 2: I mean.
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 51: You know, that's a tough thing, sitting in the house
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 51: for two years with the same people.
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: Well, you helped us adapt to it, Mike.
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 2: As I recall, a couple of the things that I
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 2: remember when I came to the restaurant during the pandemic,
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 2: you had clear plexiglass dividers between each of the bar stools.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 18: Yes.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: Which allowed people to sit and drink at the bar.
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: And I did that for comfort level.
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 51: Again, I wanted some resemblance of normalcy. And I spent
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 51: the money. and created those. A guy out of East
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 51: Lyme at the time, Delta Interiors, he really worked with
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 51: me and created it. His wife is the superintendent of
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 51: schools in Norwich, and two talented people, and by the way,
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 51: lucky Norwich to have her. So then we did a
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 51: rolling menu. I know you remember that, Bill.
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: I remember that, sure.
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 51: And we put it on wheels. It was touchless, and
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 51: it was huge. It was the size of a big
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 51: sheet of plywood. And we rolled it over to the tables.
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 51: Nobody touched it. They could see it. Or they put
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 51: their readers on. And it was great. And then in
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 51: the tables themselves, we put in almost like a placemat.
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 51: I'm just trying to so the listeners can visualize. A
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 51: placemat that was like ironed onto our sticker almost. Right
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 51: on the table. So we could just wipe the surface.
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 51: and you're wiping the menus and people aren't touching it.
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 51: And so we tried probably five different things, and it worked.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 51: And I guess that's one of the reasons why people like,
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 51: you know, they peg us with a sense of value
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 51: to their community. So very happy to, you know, fight
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 51: through those, you know, little hiccups or speed bumps.
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 2: And then as the anxiety over the pandemic began to
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 2: wear down you began having live entertainment outside in the
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 2: parking lot.
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 25: Yes.
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 51: I remember Tom Cantone, who was the head of the
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 51: global entertainment of Mohegan Sun, they were closed, and he
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 51: was down enjoying it.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 35: And he's like, Mike, this is great.
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 51: This is fantastic that you can do this. And I'm
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 51: blessed that I did have the space to be able
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 51: to provide that. So during our whole, you know, the
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 51: 20 years, we just, one thing I'm very proud of,
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 51: we just celebrated our 750th, um, complimentary musical performance at Philomena's.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: And that's, that's.
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 51: Nothing to sneeze at.
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: And I'm very proud of that.
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 51: And we never charged the cover charge. So, uh, a
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 51: lot of people get to enjoy it. A lot of
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 51: people come down to visit and they, even if they
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 51: stay for an hour, uh, they're very appreciative of it.
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 51: And we're, you know, we're appreciative too because, you know,
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 51: you pay the bands and, you know, five people show up,
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 51: it's no.
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 24: Good, but we get, you know, 100 people, 75 people.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 51: It's awesome. So it's a nice offering, amenity for the
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 51: people of Southeastern Connecticut in addition to the three event rooms.
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 51: So a lot of times people, they book the event
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 51: and they get the band with it. So they really
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 51: love that because the way our setup is, the banquet
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 51: room is, the doors go right out to the, to
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 51: the parking lot. And if the band's terrible, just shut
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 51: the door.
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 2: Either way, you know? Well, one of the regular bands
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 2: that you have there is truly a marvel, and that's Melaina,
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 2: with my old friend Bob Straub, who has been entertaining
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 2: and delighting people with his great music for more than
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 2: 50 years i mean i've known bobby since high school
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 2: and old.
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 51: Put that in parentheses yeah for sure but bob straw
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 51: even a better guy uh fun and we have this
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 51: slogan great menu fun venue and if you're not going
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 51: to have fun there you know at the restaurant um
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 51: probably shouldn't come because you're going to see a lot
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 51: of colorful characters and people enjoying themselves and We're not
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 51: the place that the Major D has a suit on
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 51: and fancy shoes, and you might see me in a
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 51: Quinnipiac sweatsuit.
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen you in a suit.
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 5: Or wearing a baseball cap backwards.
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 51: But you're going to get a good, consistent meal. You're
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 51: going to get a good pricing. In this day and age,
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 51: people keep continuously going up on prices, and we held them.
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 51: We're going a year and a half. We've held up prices.
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 51: So we're trying to show people, like, in the grand
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 51: scheme of life, in this tense political environment, there's always
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 51: an outlet for you at the restaurant. And I got
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 51: to say, Bill, many conversations and, you know, you invite
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 51: people there.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 41: Just to talk.
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 51: And it's not all about, you know, just drinking and
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 51: having fun and going crazy. That's not what I'm saying.
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 51: The point is you need a place to go just
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 51: to chat, just to, you know, bounce ideas.
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 39: Sure.
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 51: Come together for community events. You have, you have supported me.
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 51: and just about all of them, which I can't be
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 51: more thankful.
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 2: Mike, before you, let me, not to cut you short,
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 2: but just before you go, can you speak real quickly
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 2: about your role as chairman of the Safe Futures Walk
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 2: that's coming.
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: Up in October?
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 51: Yes, very proud of that. And this is, I think
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 51: it's the fourth year that they've selected me to be
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 51: their chair for the walk. It's really simple, Bill. Keep
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 51: your hands to yourself, right? And we can find... alternative
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 51: ways um during a disagreement uh than violence and it's
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 51: 30 to 35 percent of all court cases in southeastern
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 51: connecticut are domestic violence related so as a male figure
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 51: in the community i feel like it's very very important
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 51: um you know to tell people like i'm not doing
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 51: it my friend isn't doing it your friend shouldn't do
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 51: it and we just got to keep spreading that word
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 51: so Safe Futures Walk will be at the Duck Pond,
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 51: otherwise known as the Arnie Hall Memorial Park, right here
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 51: in Waterford on Sunday, October 4th. So really looking forward
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 51: to that. If somebody wants to walk, it's a short walk.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 51: If you want to talk, you can just talk. You
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 51: don't have to walk. So it's just being there, having
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 51: your presence felt, and letting people know, please don't do it.
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 51: That's a loved one, whether it's my family or yours.
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 2: It's a great cause. Safe Futures is a great organization.
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 2: Kathy Verano's done a magnificent job. They're growing by leaps
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 2: and bounds, which on one hand is troubling, but on
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 2: the other hand, knowing that they are a resource for
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 2: victims of domestic violence is reassuring for the population here.
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 51: And one of the things, Bill, if I do have time,
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 51: the Family Justice Center is being built in a broken ground.
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 51: The foundation is in right here in Waterford. And there's
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 51: only a few of those around the country. So the
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 51: wraparound services will be all in one facility, which is
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 51: going to make things even better for victims of domestic violence.
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 51: There'll be therapists there. There'll be job placement coaches there.
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 51: There'll be local law enforcement there, housing directors there, people
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 51: getting people back on the right path. And so very excited,
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 51: like you say, it's the mindset. You've got to think of,
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 51: you know, on one hand, it's good that we have
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 51: them as one hands, bad that, you know, we have
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 51: to have them. But if they weren't here, it would
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 51: be catastrophic. And so we have to help them, you know,
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 51: have the proper funding to make sure the services rendered
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 51: are adequate.
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 2: Well, Mike, thanks again for the great work that you do.
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 2: Good luck going forward, and we will see you this
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 2: weekend at the celebration.
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: Thanks for coming on with us. You got it.
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 51: Thanks, Bill. Have a great day.
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 2: All right. You too, buddy.
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 2: Thanks to Mike Bassetto, and good luck to him. Continued success.
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 2: And we will be back after these commercial messages and
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 2: the news with Chris Healy, former Republican state chairman and
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 2: executive director of the Connecticut Catholic Conference.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 13: Listen closely.
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: To what I say. And if you do this, it'll
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: help you some sunny day.
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 45: Oh, yeah.
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  Speaker 25: Traffic Alerts on 94.9 News Now.
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  Speaker 26: Route 32 moving slow northbound at the Coast Guard Academy.
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  Speaker 39: A rising death toll in the Himalayans and a scramble
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  Speaker 39: to find the missing.
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  Speaker 12: I'm Carmen Roberts, Fox News.
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  Speaker 39: Tsunami-like floods struck Nepal and Tibet, killing at least 353 people,
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  Speaker 39: with more than 1,300 missing, including at least 65 tourists
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  Speaker 39: from America. The floods have destroyed roads and bridges, making
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  Speaker 39: search and rescue extremely difficult.
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  Speaker 18: We've been able to access some of the affected.
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  Speaker 44: Areas where there are many, many traumatized people.
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  Speaker 18: But unfortunately, some of the areas can only be reached
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  Speaker 18: by helicopter.
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  Speaker 39: Red Cross Nepal chief David Fisher on Fox News. Geologists
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  Speaker 39: say that a partial collapse of a Himalayan glacier probably
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  Speaker 39: sparked the mass of an incredibly quick-moving wall of water
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  Speaker 39: that decimated communities.
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  Speaker 20: Initially, the U.S.
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  Speaker 58: Geological Survey reported an earthquake in the area minutes before
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  Speaker 58: the flash flood, but the USGS now believes it was
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  Speaker 58: which in turn.
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  Speaker 18: caused the flood.
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  Speaker 58: The Red Cross says at least 10,000 families have lost
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  Speaker 58: their homes.
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  Speaker 39: Fox's Jeff Paul in London. And now officials in Nepal
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  Speaker 39: fear a rising lake could spill over and cause more
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  Speaker 39: devastating flooding. Closing arguments will begin this morning in the
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  Speaker 39: trial of Lindsay Clancy, a Massachusetts woman. who claims that
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 39: postpartum psychosis caused her to kill her children.
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  Speaker 40: Lindsey Clancy's defense lawyer, Kevin Reddington, explained while walking out
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  Speaker 40: of court what he hopes to accomplish and communicate with
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  Speaker 1: She's just such a marvelous, sweet woman. Innocent person.
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 40: But the prosecution is expected to convey that Clancy knew
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 40: what she was doing when she strangled and killed her
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  Speaker 40: three young children.
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  Speaker 39: Fox's Nate Foy in Plymouth, Mass. The Coast Guard says
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  Speaker 43: The average maintenance fee just went up over 17%. That
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  Speaker 5: Nothing you can do about it.
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  Speaker 9: Never go up?
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  Speaker 27: Call wesley now for your timeshare exit kit 800-393-1881 that's
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  Speaker 27: 800-393-1881 800-393-1881 good morning i'm rob ray mostly cloudy and
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 27: humid today high 79.
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  Speaker 21: A 60-year-old Plainfield man faces kidnapping and other charges after
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 21: allegedly fleeing a Middletown traffic stop and striking several vehicles.
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 21: Police say Daniel Carpenter was arrested after his vehicle became
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 21: disabled in Cromwell. He remains in custody on bonds totaling
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 21: over $ 1 million. East Lyme police recently identified three juveniles
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 21: in connection with several vehicle thefts involving unlocked cars. Police
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 21: recovered two stolen vehicles and said the suspects will face
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 21: motor vehicle and larceny charges. Plainfield school buses will operate
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 21: normally today after DATCO reached an agreement with the union
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 21: representing its drivers and mechanics. The deal came hours before
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 21: a possible strike as workers sought better pay and benefits.
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 21: A Charlestown police officer did not activate his body camera
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 21: before firing shots during a June arrest. Police say 23-year-old
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 21: Jonathan Vasquez struck the officer's cruiser while fleeing, and the
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 21: incident remains under review. Westerly officials are considering tighter regulations
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 21: on short-term rentals, including limiting unhosted rentals to coastal areas.
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 21: The town council's reviewing Newport's regulations.
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 20: As a model.
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 21: and is expected to discuss a revised proposal August 31st.
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 20: I'm Rob Ray. When news breaks, we break in.
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  Speaker 36: Dan's Place in West Greenwich, Rhode Island, is an awesome
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  Speaker 36: barn-style restaurant with a great family atmosphere, offering creative pizzas
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• 1:41:01
  Speaker 36: Veteran-owned Dan's Place on Victory Highway in West Greenwich, Rhode Island,
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  Speaker 36: and now open down the street, Tavern on 3. Check
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 36: them both out on Facebook and at DansPizzaPlace.com.
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: Here we go.
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 13: He's tall and he's dark.
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 24: And like a shark, he looks for trouble.
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 52: That's why the zeros double.
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 25: Mr.
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 18: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. He's suave and he's smooth.
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 13: And he can soothe you like vanilla.
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 2: The gentleman's a killer.
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 12: Mr.
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 50: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 27: Christopher Healy is the former head of the Connecticut Republican
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 27: Party and former communications director within the United States House
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 27: of Representatives. Currently, Healy serves as the executive director of
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 27: the Connecticut Catholic Conference. Hailing from the Big Apple and
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 27: a diehard New York Yankee fan, Healy's welcome mat at
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 27: his front door doesn't say welcome.
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 18: It says take two and hit to right. Ladies and gentlemen,
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 18: Christopher Healy.
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: Chris Healy. Welcome to the show.
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 2: This is Bill Stanley coming to you live from 94.9 WJJF.
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 2: And it's a great pleasure to have my old friend,
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 2: Chris Healy.
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 41: Yes, very old.
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 2: You and I, I shouldn't say old. I need to
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 2: say long time. We go back to the late 80s.
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 41: Well, we knew each other when there were things like
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 41: rotary phones.
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 18: And that kind of thing.
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: That's right. So, welcome.
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 9: Welcome.
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 2: And you're no stranger to this program. I know that
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 2: you come on on a regular basis and always bring
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 2: with you some interesting bits of information. And why don't
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 2: we start off talking about a couple of the bills
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 2: that snuck through the legislature in this past session that
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 2: have got you.
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 41: Well, thanks for having me on, of course.
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 19: Sure.
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 41: I think it's important that... as we get ready and
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 41: as kids are going back to school, people understand the
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 41: role the legislature plays, in my opinion, unfortunately, in dictating
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 41: a lot of topics to school districts through acts of
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 41: the legislature, topics on a whole range of issues. And
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 41: a lot of them are reflective of the political will
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 41: of some members who think it's important to study certain
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 41: groups and certain periods of history and all that. And
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 41: then what happens is the State Department of Education bureaucracy
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 41: weighs in and decides to come up with curriculum and
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 41: books and videos of things to sort of, that they
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 41: approve that an instructor could take to their students. So
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 41: with that as a background, last year, and Bill, you
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 41: and I have been creatures of Hartford for a long
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 41: time and various lives that we've led, understand the late-night
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 41: activities of legislators who often try to get legislation inserted
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 41: into bills that don't necessarily meet the mustard of regular
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 41: legislative activity, meaning public hearings and debates and actual votes.
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 41: And they're often slid surreptitiously into things called or a
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 41: vehicle was known euphemistically as an implementer. And it's a big,
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 41: nasty piece of legislation that includes a lot of things
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 41: that are not at all connected, but suit the needs
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 41: of individual legislators, senators, and house members from both parties,
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 41: I might add, not a partisan thing. And often it's
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 41: things sometimes as harmless as a playground or a splash bomb,
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 41: or it's something more And what happened this year was
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 41: that in the late hours, a bill got, a provision
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 41: got slid in that would require the State Department of
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 41: Education to promulgate, to come up with a curriculum to
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 41: study Arab and Islamic civilization. And this issue had popped
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 41: up earlier in the legislative session in another form, in
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 41: another bill, and we at the Connecticut Catholic Conference discussed
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 41: And other religious organizations, the Jewish Federation of West Hartford
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 41: and some other family institute who represent other faith groups said,
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 41: you know, you're getting dangerously close here to violating the
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 41: Constitution because by using the term Islamic, you're talking about Islam.
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 41: And Islam as a religion is clearly a no-no as
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 41: it regards to the separation of of church and state
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 41: and a violation of what we call the Establishment Clause.
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 41: And the Establishment Clause prohibits the state from establishing any
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 41: kind of religious favoritism or favor on a religion. In
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 41: the state constitution bill, it's Article 7 that prohibits it.
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 41: So in the Connecticut Constitution, it's prohibited. And obviously, the
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 41: founding of our state, done by people fleeing England, were
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 41: very cognizant of that issue when they put the Connecticut
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 41: Constitution together as a precursor.
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 13: To the U.S.
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 18: Constitution.
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 41: So here we are. The state is now trying to
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 41: promulgate some kind of curriculum. And we are very concerned
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 41: about this, obviously, because it's not Islam. It could be
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 41: any religion. But the fact that now we're letting a
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 41: particular religion get the emperor of the state in our
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 41: public school system, we're going down a path that I
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 41: don't think is fair or constitutional. I mean, I would
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 41: point out that in other states, other times in our
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 41: history where, you know, people have tried to get the
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 41: Ten Commandments posted in, excuse me, public buildings. There have
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 41: been lawsuits to stop that. And this, in many ways,
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 41: is no different. Now, the proponents will say, well, we're
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 41: just making it available so people can sort of study
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 41: it scholastically and not, as they say, monastically. But it's
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 41: very hard to see how anything to do with Islam
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 41: is not going to become something that is clearly in
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 41: a religious instruction, and it's sanctioned by the state. It
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 41: doesn't say we're going to study it. let's say, 12th
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 41: century England and Christianity. We don't say we're going to
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 41: study first century Arabia and Christianity or Judaism. Those types
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 41: of things would never see the light of day. So
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 41: there's that issue. And then I just want to point
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 41: out one more thing. This is unfortunately sort of a
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 41: part of a pattern that is admitted at the legislature
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 41: because another bill, again, another one that kind of slid
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 41: under the radar that nobody was paying attention was the
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 41: legislature's authorized or required the governor to recognize the end
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 41: of Ramadan, which is obviously the high holy period for Muslims,
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 41: and it's an ending of their fast, and then to
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 41: hold a ceremony to commemorate that at the state capitol.
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 41: That's on the books now. That's another, we think, violation
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 41: of again, of this government favoring a religion. You know, we, sure,
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 41: we put up, you know, Christmas trees go up at
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 41: the state capitol, but we don't hold Christmas mass at
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 41: the state capitol, and we don't hold Passover services at
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 41: the state capitol. So again, this is just a very
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 41: troubling development that we're going to be challenging the administration on.
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 41: Hopefully we can resolve it. But, you know, it's one
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 41: of those things that in the late hours of the
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 41: legislature that you and I both have spent and probably
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 41: taken many years of our lives standing around waiting for
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 41: the inevitable, these are the kind of things that sometimes happen.
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 41: So that's where we are today.
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 2: This is why they liken the legislative process to making sausage.
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not.
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 41: A pretty sight, as you and I both know.
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 2: Sausage turns out better.
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 41: I think if most taxpayers actually watched it, or were
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 41: privy to it, if they could put up with it
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 41: and have the patience to sit through it, would not
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 41: be particularly pleased.
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 2: There was a judge back in 1866 named Gideon J.
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 2: Tucker who once famously said that no man's life, liberty,
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 2: or property are safe when the legislature is in session.
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 2: And I don't think that at any time in history
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 2: it is more true than it is these days. Hey,
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 2: I want to go back to the first reference you
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 2: made to the enabler legislation. And you said that the
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 2: language would offer study of Arab and Islamic civilization. Does
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 2: it specify religion as well? Because I know if there
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 2: were language, as you point out, in legislation that offered
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 2: instruction in Catholicism or Judaism or any other kind of religion,
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 2: the Civil Liberties Union and their ilk would lose their minds,
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 2: and they would be in court before the ink on
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 2: the bill was dry.
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 41: Well, I think the problem is the politics of it.
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 41: So when you say Islamic, you mean Islam. It's just
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 41: the base derivative of the world. There's no confusion of it.
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 41: If you ask them directly, they'll say that. What's also
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 41: sort of incongruous about this title, Arabic and Islamic, it
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 41: tries to tie Arabic and Islam together. And as you
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 41: know and everyone knows, there is Arab Christians and there
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 41: are Arab Jews and there's Arab Muslims in the world.
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 41: And Arab is a denotes a race of subjects of
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 41: the Arabian landscape. That's appropriate for Arab studies. There's nothing
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 41: wrong with that. But the minute you put Islam or
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 41: Islamic in it, it's clear what the intent is to
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 41: somehow wed the two, which is really sort of, I think, incongruous.
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 41: I hate using a fancy word there, but it doesn't
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 41: make any sense given the fact that Arabs... have a
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 41: variety of religions that they practice in their lives. So
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 41: it's a confusing deal to begin with, and it's not
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 41: well thought out. I think what the problem is that
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 41: this is pushed as sort of a part of this, unfortunately,
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 41: this sort of misnomer about the fact that Islamophobia is
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 41: running rampant. Sure, there's religious bigotry everywhere against all religions, Islam, Judaism,
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 41: particularly anti-Semitism right now is the real problem we have
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 41: in this state, in this country, and anti-Christianity. I mean,
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 41: you know, many of our churches are defaced and scrawled
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 41: with graffiti. We've had statues, as recently, a few weeks ago,
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 41: and a couple parishes damaged and headstones, and all that
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 41: stuff goes on. And if we're going to get a
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 41: grip on that, certainly we need to educate people in
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 41: a certain way about the inherent First Amendment right of
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 41: the Constitution that guarantees our right to free religion of
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 41: the religion we choose. But the same Constitution says the
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 41: state can't favor one at any level or degree over another.
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 41: And that's what makes our system so unique and probably
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 41: one of the reasons that we're still surviving as a republic.
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 41: So those are the things that we're trying to emphasize that,
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 41: you know, you could, for example, Bill, you certainly should
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 41: have a course on the Crusades, of going back to
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 41: the beginning of the First Crusade all the way up
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 41: to the last, and obviously religion plays a part in
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 41: those things, and that's perfectly appropriate to study that. But
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 41: you don't do a course on the Crusades and then
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 41: you exclusively focus on one religion and and teach that
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 41: at the exclusion of any other. And I think that's
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 41: what's going on. Now, a lot of the proponents say, well,
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 41: this is no different than studying the Holocaust or the
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 41: Irish famine. It's completely absurd. Those were historic events encapsulated
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 41: in time, and to compare it to the study of
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 41: religion is just a false argument. So, you know, We
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 41: think that in the Catholic faith, we obviously have our
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 41: Catholic schools where we teach the Catholic faith. That's in
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 41: a private school. That's permitted in college, secondary schools, and
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 41: primary schools. Public, it's not. I think sometimes our lack
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 41: of aptitude now in our school systems to understand these
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 41: fundamental principles of our government and our Constitution are waning.
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 41: And so a lot of people look at this and
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 41: sort of shrug their shoulders, but it is important to
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 41: remind people of those differences.
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 2: Well, I can remember 100 years ago when I was
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 2: in grade school, we used to actually pray in school.
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 9: Yes.
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 41: I don't think anyone particularly got hurt by that, but
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 41: the courts ruled as they did, and we have to
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 41: respect the ruling of the court until another court ruling
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 41: comes along. Um, you know, when, when Roe versus Wade
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 41: came out, you know, we in the Catholic faith were not,
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 41: as I said, understatement happy about that. Uh, but you know,
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 41: we had to respect the ruling of the court until
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 41: circumstances changed and we got a, a new ruling, which,
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 41: you know, we believe is a, is a good ruling, uh,
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 41: doesn't take away the issue of abortion and it's, and
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 41: scourge of it and how awful it is and, um,
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 41: prevents us from trying to, uh, promote life from conception
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 41: to natural end. But that's the process of our republic.
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 41: And so in this process of our republic, we're appealing
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 41: to the Lamont administration and the bureaucracy at the State
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 41: Department of Education to take a look at this and say,
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 41: I don't think this was, and I will say this
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 41: up front, this was not an initiative of the Lamont administration.
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 41: But he has, as you know, he now has to
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 41: deal with it as the legislature approved the bill.
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 2: Well, because they are the party with the big tent.
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 59: Yes.
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 2: We're talking with Chris Healy, who is the executive director
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 2: of the Connecticut Catholic Conference. And so I want you
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 2: to take off that hat for a moment, if you would, Chris.
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 41: Sure.
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 2: And as former Republican state chairman, and having worked in
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 2: communications down at the.
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: U.S.
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 2: Capitol. What do you foresee in the midterm elections this year?
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 41: Oh, boy, now you're going to get me in trouble. Well,
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 41: you know, I've always been a contrarian in my life.
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 41: I don't necessarily, I always sort of take the short bet.
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 41: I think that, you know, you look at history and
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 41: obviously the government, the president's party, all president's parties tend
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 41: to be punished in off-year elections. And this is, of course,
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 41: President Trump's second term, which sometimes is even more, can
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 41: be more catastrophic. But I don't see it being a
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 41: catastrophic evening. In fact, I think if many of these
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 41: Republican candidates were able to kind of get their, as
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 41: they say, get their act together and draw the distinctions,
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 41: I think they will do better than people think. I
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 41: also think some of the redistricting efforts in some sense.
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 41: will help Republicans hold on or pick up seats in
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 41: places that they used to lose. So we may be
• 1:58:17
  Speaker 41: back to somewhat of a very tight majority either way.
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 41: And I think just the general, you know, shift in
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 41: the Democratic Party's ideology, uh, causes some of these Democrats, uh,
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 41: some problems. The other issue that Republicans have, uh, lots of, uh, money, uh,
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 41: in various packs, uh, the Democrats are don't, uh, which
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 41: will help Republicans. I think some of these very close elections,
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 41: the president has a pretty sizable pack, which he'll be
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 41: able to spend on as well.
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: $ 400 million.
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 41: So those are things. So those are things that I
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 41: think give the Republicans a fighting chance. Um, And again,
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 41: a lot will depend on the price of gas and
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 41: how people are just generally feeling. And as you and
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 41: I both know, being in a lot of campaigns, we're
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 41: not even at Labor Day yet, and a lot can
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 41: obviously happen over the course of a few months to
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 41: change people's attitudes. And in off-year elections, where the turnout
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 41: is not as robust as a federal election, that's where
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 41: surprises can happen.
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 41: Although I wouldn't want to be an Alaska voter now
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 41: with two guys named Dan Sullivan on the ballot.
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 1: Voting isn't complicated enough.
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 41: Just for your listeners, when John F. Kennedy was elected
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 41: to Congress, I think it was in 1948 or 46,
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 41: it may have been 46, his father, Joe Kennedy, the
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 41: old master, put about three guys on the ballot named
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 41: John Kennedy sort of as a design to help his son. Actually,
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 41: it wasn't John Kennedy. It was like three or four
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 41: other guys. Another guy with a different name, but he
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 41: found three people with the same name, which knocked out
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 41: the rival to Kennedy because they split his name up
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 41: three times identically. So there's precedent for this kind of
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 41: thing before.
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 2: Shocking to think that Joseph Kennedy would have done something
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 2: like that. You know, it's interesting with the polling. You know,
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 2: I'm surprised that the American public and specifically the media
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 2: on both sides, left and right, still rely so much
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 2: on polling when you consider how off the mark the
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 2: polling was whenever Trump ran for president. And more recently,
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 2: if you take a look at the Michigan Senate race
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 2: where El-Sayed was supposedly 22 points ahead, or the socialist
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 2: candidate for governor seeking the Democratic nomination for governor.
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 41: Or the candidate in Wisconsin who.
• 2:01:13
  Speaker 2: Lost, who was up by 20 points, Honick, was.
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 41: Another one polling that was wrong.
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 2: And not even close to being right. I mean, 20
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 2: percentage points off? I mean... a person sitting on the
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 2: street corner could do a better job forecasting it.
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 41: I think part of it is polling is harder, obviously, now,
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 41: because it was when you and I started out, everybody
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 41: had a landline. And when the phone rang in a
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 41: household when we were young, that was a big event
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 41: when the phone rang. People would answer it and actually
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 41: talk to the people on the phone. They didn't avoid it.
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 41: So the ability to get the right group and people
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 41: literally on the phones And to get a response is hard. Also,
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 41: I think it's just the explosion of social media and
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 41: the sort of nonstop stimuli we get hit with so
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 41: many information dumps, not just from television but from our phones,
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 41: that people's opinions change and they're driven emotionally by what
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 41: they see on their phone. And so people are more
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 41: fickle than they are. And so I'm not as much
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 41: a big fan of polling as I used to be.
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 41: And the other problem is everybody's into polling.
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 41: If you look at the polling that really matters, the
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 41: internal polling by candidates that hire them, that's usually the
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 41: best polling available because they have.
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 55: To be accurate.
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 41: People that just do polling by sending you an email
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 41: and you responding, there's just all these people, and then
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 41: they go on the air just to promote themselves as
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 41: expert pollers because they got 3,000 respondents, and it's because
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 41: they've got three, you know, it could be a bot
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 41: that's responding for all they know. So I think that's
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 41: part of the problem. There are just so many people
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 41: in it that aren't really competent but promote themselves on.
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 41: And somebody hears, oh, the polls, I heard a poll
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 41: yesterday that said this. You know, and some of them
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 41: you can almost laugh at their appreciate. But polling is,
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 41: you know, again, driven by how people feel at that moment.
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 41: And we are becoming so ping-pong now in our lives
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 41: with ultimate stimuli and changing things and things that happen
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 41: around the world that used to take two or three
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 41: days to get to us in real time. You know,
• 2:03:29
  Speaker 41: now a bullet flies halfway across the world, and we
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 41: know about it before it hits its mark. So I
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 41: think that's part of the issue, too, just emotion, time, repetition,
• 2:03:40
  Speaker 41: and just the endless stimuli people are bombarded with. I mean,
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 41: it's exhausting. It's exhausting.
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 2: We were always trained to say as press secretaries that
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 2: a poll was but a snapshot in time.
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 49: Time.
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 41: That was the Bill O'Neill, the famous Bill O'Neill quote.
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 18: That's right.
• 2:03:56
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 2: Hey, Chris, we could talk all day, but unfortunately we've
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 2: got to run. We've got messages in the news coming up.
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 2: But thanks very much for coming on, and I'll talk
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 2: to you soon, my friend. Thanks.
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 41: Thanks again, Bill.
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 51: Bye-bye.
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 25: Traffic Alert on 94.9 News Now.
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 26: Road construction continues on the Gold Star Bridge.
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 53: Route 12 is stop and go in both directions in Rotten.
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 14: Route 32 moving slow southbound at Connecticut College.
• 2:04:28
  Speaker 26: Also slow southbound in Quaker Hill and northbound in Montville.
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 26: No delays on I-395.
• 2:04:35
  Speaker 14: I'm Eddie Schaefer, Time Saver Traffic.
• 2:04:39
  Speaker 27: Time saver traffic is brought to you by Ascend Bank.
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  Speaker 27: Elevate your financial journey. www.ascend.bank We are!
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  Speaker 19: Everyone's a winner this August at Whaling City Mazda.
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  Speaker 28: Bring in your 2019 or newer qualifying trade-in and spin.
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• 2:05:10
  Speaker 13: you're leasing, financing, or already own your vehicle, now's the
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  Speaker 28: Take advantage of Mazda financing as low as 0% APR.
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  Speaker 28: Plus no payments for 90 days for qualified buyers. Every
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  Speaker 13: The deals are here, the bonuses are waiting. In August
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  Speaker 13: Visit Wailing City Mazda today. Have we met yet?
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  Speaker 59: Justin and Vicki at Northeast Financial Group for a quote.
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  Speaker 59: They're ready to help you with your auto, home, or
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  Speaker 59: Post Road in East Lyme. To see what Northeast Financial
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  Speaker 7: I'm Deborah Valentine. Closing arguments are expected to take place
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 7: today in the triple murder trial of Lindsay Clancy in Massachusetts.
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 7: She's a woman accused of strangling her three children to death.
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 7: Fox's Molly Line reports.
• 2:06:24
  Speaker 8: The defense says Clancy should not be held criminally responsible
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 8: that she was overmedicated. suffered from postpartum psychosis and was
• 2:06:31
  Speaker 8: obeying a voice commanding her to commit the killings.
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 7: The prosecution claims Clancy acted rationally and intentionally. The death
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 7: toll following catastrophic flooding at the China-Nepal border has climbed
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 7: to at least 353 people killed.
• 2:06:46
  Speaker 9: Fox's Katie Byrne has more.
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 48: According to the Nepal Tourism Board, 65 Americans are among
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 48: more than 600 tourists killed. that are still unaccounted for.
• 2:06:55
  Speaker 7: Over 1,000 people remain missing. Officials say several hundred bodies
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 7: have been recovered. America's listening to Fox News.
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 32: For many, a new mortgage begins the journey of owning
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 32: the keys to your first home. As times change, finances
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 32: change with them. Home refinancing helps consolidate and simplify debt.
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  Speaker 45: And prepare for the future.
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  Speaker 12: As life grows, a home does as well.
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  Speaker 32: Home equity loans offer flexibility to build new spaces for
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  Speaker 18: Fish on sports. More than a score.
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 19: And we're brought to you by Charter Oak Federal Credit Union,
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  Speaker 19: where members bank better.
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 9: So the end for the Connecticut Sun is setting.
• 2:08:22
  Speaker 19: There's only three more home games left before the team
• 2:08:25
  Speaker 19: relocates to Houston next season. And last night, the Sun
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 19: honored a Connecticut basketball great, Tina Charles. The number one
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 19: overall pick of the Connecticut Sun in the 2010 WNBA draft. After,
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 19: of course, four incredible years at UConn, where she won
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 19: two national championships, is UConn's fifth all-time leading scorer and
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 19: top rebounder ever. She's the WNBA's all-time leading rebounder, second
• 2:08:50
  Speaker 19: in points, and she's just the second.
• 2:08:52
  Speaker 9: Player ever in league history to score more than 8,000 points.
• 2:08:56
  Speaker 19: She's also a three-time Olympic gold medalist, making the nine
• 2:08:59
  Speaker 19: years that she played basketball here in the state of
• 2:09:02
  Speaker 19: Connecticut nine years that anybody would be jealous of. Her
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 19: next stop, the Hall of Fame. With more than just
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 19: a score, I'm Fish on Sports.
• 2:09:12
  Speaker 9: Good morning, I'm Rob Ray.
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 21: Mostly cloudy and humid today, high 79. A 60-year-old Plainfield
• 2:09:20
  Speaker 21: man faces kidnapping and other charges after allegedly fleeing a
• 2:09:24
  Speaker 21: Middletown traffic stop and striking several vehicles. Police say Daniel
• 2:09:28
  Speaker 21: Carpenter was arrested after his vehicle became disabled in Cromwell.
• 2:09:32
  Speaker 21: He remains in custody on bonds totaling.
• 2:09:35
  Speaker 9: Over $ 1 million.
• 2:09:37
  Speaker 21: Connecticut Attorney General William Tong announced a multi-state settlement with
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 21: Metta over youth safety concerns on Facebook and Instagram. Connecticut
• 2:09:47
  Speaker 21: could receive up to $ 265 million, while Metta must add
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 21: stronger age checks, parental controls, and protections for young users.
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 21: A 28-year-old Norwich police officer has been charged with allegedly
• 2:10:00
  Speaker 21: collecting workers' compensation benefits while claiming a knee injury. Authorities
• 2:10:05
  Speaker 21: say Ryan Dunn later passed a physical agility test while
• 2:10:08
  Speaker 21: applying to another police department. He was released on a $ 10, 000 bond.
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 21: A young harbor seal named Peanut was released back into
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 21: the ocean yesterday after more than seven weeks of rehabilitation
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 21: at Mystic Aquarium. Peanut was rescued from the New Hampshire
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 21: coast in July, suffering from an infection and being underweight.
• 2:10:28
  Speaker 21: She gained more than 20 pounds during treatment. Westerly officials
• 2:10:33
  Speaker 21: are considering tighter regulations on short-term rentals, including limiting unhosted
• 2:10:38
  Speaker 21: rentals to coastal areas. The town council's reviewing Newport's regulations
• 2:10:43
  Speaker 21: as a model and is expected to discuss a revised
• 2:10:46
  Speaker 21: proposal August 31st.
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 20: I'm Rob Ray. When news breaks, we break in.
• 2:10:54
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Rob.
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 2: Bill Stanley, guest hosting this morning's program here at 94.9
• 2:11:01
  Speaker 2: News Now, WJJF, here at the studios in beautiful downtown Ledger, Connecticut.
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 2: And we've got a special guest here for the 8.30 segment, Dr.
• 2:11:15
  Speaker 2: Nate Quinnell, the head of school at Norwich Free Academy. And, Nate,
• 2:11:20
  Speaker 2: you're now in your third?
• 2:11:22
  Speaker 23: Fourth year.
• 2:11:22
  Speaker 1: Fourth year. The time is flying by.
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 18: Indeed.
• 2:11:25
  Speaker 1: And Nate came to us as former superintendent.
• 2:11:30
  Speaker 2: At the East Hartford School System and has just re-energized
• 2:11:37
  Speaker 2: my alma mater to the point where enrollment is climbing.
• 2:11:43
  Speaker 2: And I've got to tell you, if I had high
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 2: school age kids or grandkids, after seeing the level of
• 2:11:50
  Speaker 2: enthusiasm the other day when he welcomed faculty back to campus,
• 2:11:57
  Speaker 2: the level of enthusiasm and excitement and love for the
• 2:12:00
  Speaker 2: job that they're doing, educating the kids at Noah Tree Academy.
• 2:12:04
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't want my kids going anywhere else.
• 2:12:06
  Speaker 23: And we take them, Bill. We appreciate it, and thank
• 2:12:08
  Speaker 23: you for having me on today.
• 2:12:09
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. Good to have you here.
• 2:12:11
  Speaker 2: And you're accompanied by your head of communications, my old
• 2:12:16
  Speaker 2: friend Mike O'Farrell.
• 2:12:17
  Speaker 1: Good morning, Bill. Good to have you, Mike. And I
• 2:12:22
  Speaker 1: understand that someone wants to say hello to Mike.
• 2:12:26
  Speaker 3: Mike and I go way back a long time, both
• 2:12:28
  Speaker 3: tremendous athletes, both very smart, both extremely handsome. People tell
• 2:12:33
  Speaker 3: us that constantly, believe me, I'm the most handsome president.
• 2:12:38
  Speaker 3: Everyone knows it. Mike works at Norwich Free Academy. A
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 3: fantastic school. One of the very best anywhere. Really special
• 2:12:47
  Speaker 3: place doing a great job. Can't wait to hear from him.
• 2:12:51
  Speaker 3: It's going to be wonderful. I got stories about Mike,
• 2:12:54
  Speaker 3: but he'll save them for another day.
• 2:12:58
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr. President. Oh, the wonders of AI. That
• 2:13:04
  Speaker 1: wasn't real? The handsome part nailed it. The handsome part
• 2:13:08
  Speaker 1: nailed it.
• 2:13:10
  Speaker 2: Nate, tell us a little bit about, there is so
• 2:13:13
  Speaker 2: much going on up at NFA right now. One of
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 2: the things that was introduced the other day when you
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 2: welcomed the faculty and staff back was a new mantra,
• 2:13:26
  Speaker 2: free never follows. And you work in the Norwich Free Academy.
• 2:13:31
  Speaker 2: Tell us what this signifies.
• 2:13:34
  Speaker 23: Yeah, certainly, Bill, and thanks for joining us on opening
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 23: day with our faculty. Those are always great days, great energy.
• 2:13:41
  Speaker 23: When people come back to what their purpose and passion is,
• 2:13:44
  Speaker 23: that's a special place to be a part of. Last spring,
• 2:13:47
  Speaker 23: a group at NFA came together, and we're always looking
• 2:13:50
  Speaker 23: for how do we continue to refresh our presence, our brand,
• 2:13:55
  Speaker 23: our direction, and we spent a little bit of time
• 2:13:59
  Speaker 23: thinking about our history. I don't know how much people
• 2:14:01
  Speaker 23: know about Norwich Free Academy. Norwich Free Academy started in 1854.
• 2:14:04
  Speaker 23: A group of people came together, and they had a
• 2:14:07
  Speaker 23: challenge around where they thought public education was going. And
• 2:14:10
  Speaker 23: rather than complain or blame the national maybe untouchable issue, again,
• 2:14:14
  Speaker 23: this was the debate of our country around slavery, around
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 23: certainly where the country was going, they created North Free Academy.
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 23: And that mission and purpose has lasted for 170 years.
• 2:14:27
  Speaker 23: And that spirit of being free, that spirit of setting
• 2:14:29
  Speaker 23: your own destiny, that spirit of doing something different, That
• 2:14:33
  Speaker 23: spirit of standing up is the voice of our past,
• 2:14:36
  Speaker 23: but it's also the voice that we tell to our kids.
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 1: Be free.
• 2:14:39
  Speaker 23: Don't follow the crowd. And if there's an enduring message
• 2:14:42
  Speaker 23: of our school, that certainly is one of them.
• 2:14:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think it's fitting and really, really describes
• 2:14:51
  Speaker 2: the mission at NFA. When I was down in Florida
• 2:14:57
  Speaker 2: earlier this year, I had an NFA sweatshirt that my
• 2:15:00
  Speaker 2: son Billy had given me. and a woman passing me
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 2: on the beach saw NFA, and she said, is that
• 2:15:06
  Speaker 2: National Foundation for the Arts? I said, no, it's an
• 2:15:09
  Speaker 2: archery academy. She wanted to know more about it. She
• 2:15:13
  Speaker 2: was blown away. When you think about, what is it,
• 2:15:15
  Speaker 2: about a 34-acre campus with its own museum and the
• 2:15:22
  Speaker 2: gymnasium and its role and its place in the community,
• 2:15:30
  Speaker 2: One of the things that really impressed me most when
• 2:15:33
  Speaker 2: we first met, Nate, and the fact that you've achieved
• 2:15:39
  Speaker 2: the high expectations that people talked about when you were
• 2:15:43
  Speaker 2: first hired, you have brought an appreciation for the school's history,
• 2:15:48
  Speaker 2: for its involvement with the community, for its alumni, for
• 2:15:52
  Speaker 2: its donors. Talk a little bit about the importance of
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 2: all that as part of your job as head of schools.
• 2:15:59
  Speaker 23: Yeah, I think that's one of the amazing parts of NFA.
• 2:16:02
  Speaker 23: NFA has had, and again, I'm from the Hartford County area.
• 2:16:07
  Speaker 23: NFA was a place that I would drive by on
• 2:16:09
  Speaker 23: my way to the beach, and I always kind of
• 2:16:10
  Speaker 23: wondered what was that place. Many times when I would
• 2:16:12
  Speaker 23: drive by, I thought it was a college. So when
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 23: I had the opportunity to join the NFA community, one
• 2:16:18
  Speaker 23: of the things I realized really quickly is this place
• 2:16:21
  Speaker 23: is its history, and its history shapes its future, as
• 2:16:25
  Speaker 23: does everything else, our country, our community.
• 2:16:27
  Speaker 36: Sure.
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 23: But the history of NFA has been a place where
• 2:16:30
  Speaker 23: people's lives have been changed. You know, I've heard your story.
• 2:16:33
  Speaker 23: Your life has changed. And that that legacy of my grandmother,
• 2:16:38
  Speaker 23: her mother, et cetera, that you hear that story over
• 2:16:41
  Speaker 23: and over again. And so I've come to get to
• 2:16:43
  Speaker 23: know people at NFA. I feel the responsibility to that
• 2:16:47
  Speaker 23: community to carry that legacy forward. We graduated. 512 students
• 2:16:53
  Speaker 23: last June 11th. And I want those students in 30
• 2:16:56
  Speaker 23: years to remember their time at NFA as a time
• 2:16:59
  Speaker 23: where they were seen, they were heard, they were respected,
• 2:17:02
  Speaker 23: they found a life passion and potential, they were prepared
• 2:17:04
  Speaker 23: for the next level. And that's been the story of NFA.
• 2:17:07
  Speaker 23: That's the responsibility of NFA. It served the broader Southeast
• 2:17:11
  Speaker 23: Connecticut community for a very long time, and it will
• 2:17:15
  Speaker 23: continue to do so.
• 2:17:16
  Speaker 2: For people who are not aware of how NFA exists.
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 2: It's a private school.
• 2:17:24
  Speaker 1: It is the.
• 2:17:27
  Speaker 2: High school for Norwich in which surrounding communities?
• 2:17:32
  Speaker 23: Yeah, so we're an independent school. We are a non-partisan, non-elected.
• 2:17:37
  Speaker 23: We have a board of trustees, which are the board
• 2:17:40
  Speaker 23: of trustees at NFA is a very, very unique, special
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 23: group of individuals who all simply have one mission. They
• 2:17:46
  Speaker 23: care about the school. And we serve 10 of communities
• 2:17:51
  Speaker 23: around the city of Norwich. We go as far west
• 2:17:54
  Speaker 23: as Basra, as far east as Volontown, as far north
• 2:17:59
  Speaker 23: as Canterbury. We've just added Sterling to our mix. And
• 2:18:03
  Speaker 23: those 10 communities, we are one of their choices where
• 2:18:06
  Speaker 23: they send their students. But in addition... We are growing
• 2:18:10
  Speaker 23: the number of students who come to NFA whose talents
• 2:18:12
  Speaker 23: don't have a relationship. So if you are a child
• 2:18:16
  Speaker 23: who's passionate about the arts, I would really encourage you
• 2:18:19
  Speaker 23: to give us a call. We have a school for
• 2:18:21
  Speaker 23: visual and performing arts that offers opportunities for kids that
• 2:18:24
  Speaker 23: can't be touched anywhere, I would argue, in the country.
• 2:18:26
  Speaker 23: We are one of two high schools in the country
• 2:18:28
  Speaker 23: to have public museums on our campus that's integrated into
• 2:18:32
  Speaker 23: our arts, whether it's dance, fine arts, clay, pottery, 2D art.
• 2:18:36
  Speaker 23: digital arts. We're a school where those students will come
• 2:18:39
  Speaker 23: to us and we work with those students. The other
• 2:18:42
  Speaker 23: really neat backside of us is we are supported. One
• 2:18:45
  Speaker 23: of the beauty of NFA is we are supported by
• 2:18:47
  Speaker 23: a private foundation, NFA Foundation. And donors over the years
• 2:18:50
  Speaker 23: have worked very hard to give to this foundation. At
• 2:18:55
  Speaker 23: the end of every year, we give outgoing scholarships to students.
• 2:18:59
  Speaker 23: Last year, it was almost $ 870, 000 of checks to students
• 2:19:00
  Speaker 23: to go to college. you know, I think 260 students
• 2:19:05
  Speaker 23: received very significant financial scholarships. And it's, yeah, I talk
• 2:19:09
  Speaker 23: about this stuff. And, you know, sometimes my wife says, Nate,
• 2:19:11
  Speaker 23: stop talking about it. Nobody wants to hear about that.
• 2:19:13
  Speaker 23: But you can't because it's almost like pinch me. Like,
• 2:19:16
  Speaker 23: how can that be real? But I get to see
• 2:19:18
  Speaker 23: it every day. So I'm pretty sure it's real.
• 2:19:20
  Speaker 2: Well, the school is, in terms of enrollment, smaller than
• 2:19:26
  Speaker 2: when I went.
• 2:19:26
  Speaker 1: To school there 100 years ago.
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 2: I graduated in 1972 with a graduating class of, I think,
• 2:19:33
  Speaker 2: around 800 students. It is smaller in terms of enrollment
• 2:19:38
  Speaker 2: right now, but in terms of what's offered there, it
• 2:19:42
  Speaker 2: has grown. And also there are at least two initiatives
• 2:19:48
  Speaker 2: that I've seen just in walking through the campus, and
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 2: it is the renovations being done to Slater Auditorium, and
• 2:19:56
  Speaker 2: the wonderful job that your museum curator, Dane Rue, did
• 2:20:01
  Speaker 2: to Slater Museum.
• 2:20:02
  Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about those?
• 2:20:04
  Speaker 23: Yeah, so first hitting kind of the enrollment question, you know,
• 2:20:07
  Speaker 23: communities across the country, certainly in Connecticut, certainly in southeast Connecticut,
• 2:20:11
  Speaker 23: are facing and working with the declining numbers of school-age children.
• 2:20:15
  Speaker 23: So the trend at NFA is no different than the
• 2:20:17
  Speaker 23: trend certainly in New London and Basra, et cetera, going
• 2:20:20
  Speaker 23: across the board. The challenge at NFA is NFA is
• 2:20:23
  Speaker 23: a school that operates on size and scale. And part
• 2:20:26
  Speaker 23: of how we can offer what we offer at our
• 2:20:28
  Speaker 23: school is the number of students who go there. That's
• 2:20:30
  Speaker 23: one of our strengths. So on the enrollment side, you know,
• 2:20:33
  Speaker 23: we are really pleased to see that enrollment is growing
• 2:20:37
  Speaker 23: for us. I believe that's because of the choices and
• 2:20:42
  Speaker 23: offerings that we have. Our school is very different. We
• 2:20:45
  Speaker 23: are not like a traditional school. and that is a
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 23: strength of ours, both our campus and the programs we
• 2:20:50
  Speaker 23: offer to bring people to it. This year's freshman class
• 2:20:54
  Speaker 23: is an incredibly large freshman class. It's a talented freshman class,
• 2:20:57
  Speaker 23: and it's a class that when we talk to these parents,
• 2:20:59
  Speaker 23: we say, you don't come to NFA. You come to
• 2:21:02
  Speaker 23: NFA to be found. Many other communities, you have to
• 2:21:05
  Speaker 23: fit into this small little box of who's there. At NFA,
• 2:21:07
  Speaker 23: that's not the case. Your people are there, and we're
• 2:21:10
  Speaker 23: going to treat your child individually. We're going to maximize
• 2:21:13
  Speaker 23: their potential and go forward. As far as you talked
• 2:21:15
  Speaker 23: a little bit about some of the projects there, The
• 2:21:17
  Speaker 23: museum is one of my favorite places. When I applied
• 2:21:19
  Speaker 23: for the job, they talked to me about the museum,
• 2:21:21
  Speaker 23: et cetera. And I kind of thought like, hey, listen,
• 2:21:23
  Speaker 23: I'm going to go in a room. There's going to
• 2:21:24
  Speaker 23: be some pictures on the wall. Great. That's a museum.
• 2:21:26
  Speaker 23: And then I walked into the cast gallery. You know,
• 2:21:28
  Speaker 23: our cast gallery is the largest collection of plaster casts
• 2:21:33
  Speaker 23: on the Eastern Seaboard. You'd have to go to 40
• 2:21:35
  Speaker 23: different museums around the globe to see what you can
• 2:21:38
  Speaker 23: see when you visit Slater Museum for one day. It
• 2:21:41
  Speaker 23: is constantly changing exhibits. It's exhibits that go from ancient
• 2:21:44
  Speaker 23: Greek and Roman history all the way through the current day.
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 23: We have a really cool exhibit right now for the 250th.
• 2:21:51
  Speaker 23: And in our archives room, when we were cleaning them
• 2:21:54
  Speaker 23: out last year, we discovered a complete newspaper from July 5th, 1776.
• 2:21:59
  Speaker 23: It was the first printing of the paper in our country,
• 2:22:03
  Speaker 23: our wonderful country. And it was found at NFA. We
• 2:22:06
  Speaker 23: have 13 copies of those. Pretty cool. You can see it.
• 2:22:08
  Speaker 1: That is cool.
• 2:22:09
  Speaker 2: You know, one of the other things that I marveled
• 2:22:12
  Speaker 2: at the other day, you had the welcoming ceremony for
• 2:22:16
  Speaker 2: the staff and faculty in the gym because Slater Auditorium
• 2:22:22
  Speaker 2: is in the final stages of its renovation. And up
• 2:22:26
  Speaker 2: on the wall are banners listing all the state championships
• 2:22:31
  Speaker 2: that NFA has achieved.
• 2:22:34
  Speaker 1: It's like 75 of them.
• 2:22:35
  Speaker 23: Yeah, it's incredible.
• 2:22:36
  Speaker 2: Whether it's baseball or track or cross country or tennis, golf.
• 2:22:43
  Speaker 1: Amazing.
• 2:22:44
  Speaker 2: It really is. Now tomorrow night, Friday night at Lake
• 2:22:50
  Speaker 2: of Isles, you're hosting an alumni reception and you do
• 2:22:55
  Speaker 2: these on a periodic basis throughout the year, not only
• 2:22:58
  Speaker 2: here in Connecticut, but you come down to Florida where
• 2:23:02
  Speaker 2: a lot of us are spending our retirements. The first
• 2:23:06
  Speaker 2: one I attended was over on the west coast with
• 2:23:10
  Speaker 2: my friend Ed Donovan, who lives in Northport.
• 2:23:13
  Speaker 9: Our friend.
• 2:23:14
  Speaker 2: I thought there would be maybe 20 or 25 people there.
• 2:23:18
  Speaker 2: There were 90 people. And so it speaks to not
• 2:23:25
  Speaker 2: only the migration of many of us down south, but
• 2:23:28
  Speaker 2: also the continuing link that we have to Norwich Free Academy.
• 2:23:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's amazing. Yep, it really is.
• 2:23:35
  Speaker 2: So we're looking forward to Tomorrow night and hearing more
• 2:23:39
  Speaker 2: from you, I've heard more probably than most of the
• 2:23:42
  Speaker 2: folks who are going to be there. But we look
• 2:23:45
  Speaker 2: forward to hearing more about it. You talked a little
• 2:23:48
  Speaker 2: bit about the freshman class. How much bigger is this
• 2:23:52
  Speaker 2: one than the one before? From the previous year.
• 2:23:54
  Speaker 23: This one's about 60 students larger than last year. That's
• 2:23:57
  Speaker 23: a significant increase for us.
• 2:23:58
  Speaker 1: That's a huge increase.
• 2:23:59
  Speaker 23: But what I think about this freshman class, so we
• 2:24:01
  Speaker 23: start at NFA, one of the unique things we do
• 2:24:03
  Speaker 23: is we start the first day of our school year
• 2:24:05
  Speaker 23: is with freshmen only.
• 2:24:06
  Speaker 24: Right.
• 2:24:07
  Speaker 23: And we do that intentionally, coming to NFA as a freshman.
• 2:24:10
  Speaker 23: You know, you might be coming from St. Pat's School
• 2:24:12
  Speaker 23: with eight kids in your class, 12 kids in your class,
• 2:24:14
  Speaker 23: and suddenly you're in a class of 512 kids.
• 2:24:15
  Speaker 27: Right.
• 2:24:17
  Speaker 23: And, you know, certainly for a kid, that's an overwhelming,
• 2:24:20
  Speaker 23: that's a big experience. But we want to make this
• 2:24:22
  Speaker 23: for you, understand how small it gets so quickly. All
• 2:24:26
  Speaker 23: freshmen at NFA are in the Cranston house. They have
• 2:24:29
  Speaker 23: the same teachers. A hundred kids will have the same math, science,
• 2:24:33
  Speaker 23: social studies, and English teacher. They have an incredibly dynamic
• 2:24:36
  Speaker 23: principal in Mr.
• 2:24:37
  Speaker 1: Pakoulis.
• 2:24:38
  Speaker 23: We bring them in. We welcome them to NFA. Our
• 2:24:41
  Speaker 23: history is important to us. The way we conduct ourselves
• 2:24:43
  Speaker 23: is important to us. We talk about when you cross
• 2:24:45
  Speaker 23: that line of those steel gates, Things are different here.
• 2:24:48
  Speaker 23: And we want our kids to know that things are
• 2:24:50
  Speaker 23: different as far as what we'll expect from you. Things
• 2:24:53
  Speaker 23: are different in what you can expect from yourself. And
• 2:24:55
  Speaker 23: things are different in terms of what you can expect
• 2:24:57
  Speaker 23: from your school. And watching those freshmen yesterday, the class
• 2:25:00
  Speaker 23: of 2030, I can't believe that's what we're talking about
• 2:25:02
  Speaker 23: right now. 2030 seemed to me like a science fiction story,
• 2:25:05
  Speaker 23: but it's actually the freshman class. That's a special group. And, man,
• 2:25:10
  Speaker 23: you know, I would say this, a shameless plug here.
• 2:25:14
  Speaker 23: If your child is interested in a unique experience and
• 2:25:17
  Speaker 23: an experience that's going to reach them and touch them
• 2:25:19
  Speaker 23: and help them and move them, I would really encourage
• 2:25:22
  Speaker 23: you to think about NFA. And we're eager to have
• 2:25:25
  Speaker 23: that conversation.
• 2:25:26
  Speaker 2: And it doesn't just, they don't just have to be
• 2:25:28
  Speaker 2: from Norwich or a student living in any town in
• 2:25:34
  Speaker 2: eastern Connecticut or even beyond can attend NFA.
• 2:25:37
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 2:25:38
  Speaker 23: Yeah, we have a large number of students who come
• 2:25:41
  Speaker 23: to us from a variety of towns, Mystic, Stonington, Haddam.
• 2:25:46
  Speaker 23: Students come as far as Marlboro right now. And those students,
• 2:25:51
  Speaker 23: they apply to us. Those students, we have scholarship opportunities
• 2:25:54
  Speaker 23: for those students where we can help a little bit
• 2:25:57
  Speaker 23: with the financial side. And, you know, obviously those kids
• 2:26:01
  Speaker 23: integrate and work. And the other neat thing about our school, Bill,
• 2:26:03
  Speaker 23: that you know about without missing is that we're also
• 2:26:05
  Speaker 23: an international school. We're going to have over 60 students
• 2:26:08
  Speaker 23: from across the globe. We're in 17 countries across the world.
• 2:26:12
  Speaker 23: We're from China to Spain to Kazakhstan to Italy, Germany, Vietnam,
• 2:26:20
  Speaker 23: South Korea. It's an incredible range of kids. They live
• 2:26:25
  Speaker 23: with host families in the area, 45 host families we
• 2:26:27
  Speaker 23: work with that support them. And that kind of just
• 2:26:30
  Speaker 23: adds to the full flavor of what NFA is.
• 2:26:33
  Speaker 1: How do you.
• 2:26:34
  Speaker 2: students from overseas find out about NFA? Is it a
• 2:26:37
  Speaker 2: recruitment process, or is it research that they've done on
• 2:26:42
  Speaker 2: special schools like NFA that makes them?
• 2:26:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a little bit of both.
• 2:26:46
  Speaker 23: One of the things we're proud of is we recruit
• 2:26:48
  Speaker 23: each student, whether you're a Norwich student, a Lisbon student,
• 2:26:51
  Speaker 23: or a student from Spain, we recruit you the same way.
• 2:26:54
  Speaker 23: It starts with, we want you here, and we take
• 2:26:56
  Speaker 23: that seriously. And so how we recruit internationally is we
• 2:27:00
  Speaker 23: work with agents across the globe in these countries, families
• 2:27:04
  Speaker 23: who are interested in an American Western experience. And it's
• 2:27:07
  Speaker 23: incredible how many of these families know. We hear all
• 2:27:09
  Speaker 23: the stories about all the different things, but the globe
• 2:27:13
  Speaker 23: wants to have a Western experience and an American experience
• 2:27:16
  Speaker 23: in school. And there's a lot of reasons for that.
• 2:27:17
  Speaker 23: I think one of the reasons, of course, is these
• 2:27:19
  Speaker 23: kids getting to an American college with an American high
• 2:27:22
  Speaker 23: school on your transcript like NFA. It really bridges that process.
• 2:27:27
  Speaker 23: Of course, that's one. But obviously, there's the power of
• 2:27:29
  Speaker 23: the American education for these kids. And, you know, our campus,
• 2:27:33
  Speaker 23: if you come to our campus, I always say I
• 2:27:35
  Speaker 23: don't really need to talk to you. If you come
• 2:27:36
  Speaker 23: to our campus, I'll be quiet. We'll walk around. And
• 2:27:39
  Speaker 23: when we're done. you'll want your kid there. It is
• 2:27:42
  Speaker 23: a Disneyland of schools and it markets incredibly well internationally.
• 2:27:46
  Speaker 23: And that's how we get these kids.
• 2:27:47
  Speaker 2: Well, one of the things I think that makes the
• 2:27:49
  Speaker 2: experience special, Nate, and I observed it shortly after we met,
• 2:27:53
  Speaker 2: was that as you walk around the campus, you're on
• 2:27:57
  Speaker 2: a first name basis with not only faculty and staff,
• 2:28:01
  Speaker 2: but with the students. They all know you. They all
• 2:28:03
  Speaker 2: recognize you. And by all appearances, they all like.
• 2:28:05
  Speaker 59: You, too.
• 2:28:06
  Speaker 1: So keep up the good work.
• 2:28:08
  Speaker 2: We appreciate you coming in and talking to us about
• 2:28:11
  Speaker 2: a special place.
• 2:28:12
  Speaker 1: At Samaritan's Creed Academy.
• 2:28:13
  Speaker 23: Yeah, well, thanks for giving me the opportunity.
• 2:28:16
  Speaker 2: Best wishes for continued success. And, again, thanks for joining us.
• 2:28:20
  Speaker 2: This is Bill Stanley coming to you live. We're wrapping
• 2:28:23
  Speaker 2: up here from the 94.9 News Now studios. in Ledger, Connecticut.
• 2:28:30
  Speaker 2: Thanks for being with us this morning.