The following is a comprehensive interview with candidate Ned Lamont, running against Joe Leiberman for the Democratic Senate nomination in Connecticut. Thanks to Dori Smith of Talk Nation Radio for this excellent and timely interview that includes other interviews and information on the nationally important Connecticut race. (cross-posted at Talk Nation Radio)

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Talk Nation Radio August 2, 2006

“I’d vote no on Bolton. –I think going back to his days in the Administration he was somebody that seemed to cherry pick the intelligence leading up to the war in Iraq and seemed to have sort of a short patience for those who had a different point of view. In hindsight those with the different point of view had the right point of view.” Ned Lamont

“I think it would be a wonderful thing if Ned Lamont beats Joe Lieberman in the primary and wins the election in November. I think that would be a wonderful thing because it would electrify this country. It is possible to defeat these war hawks.” Henry Lowendorf of the New Haven Peace Council

“If Lamont wins the country changes. If Ned Lamont wins this primary every Democrat is going to be more focused on stopping the war in Iraq, more focused on being for civil rights; this one race will turn the Democratic Party back toward progressive roots if Lamont wins.” Paul Bass of the Hartford Courant and New Haven Independent

August 3, 2006 - Lamont Leads Lieberman 54 - 41 “In Dem Primary Quinnipiac University Connecticut Poll Finds; Malloy Gains Some Ground In Governor’s Primary Momentum for http://nedlamont.com/”>Ned Lamont the anti-war Connecticut U.S. Senate candidate, increases as he rolls to a 54 - 41 percent lead over incumbent Sen. Joseph Lieberman among likely Democratic primary voters, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.”

Welcome to our first Talk Nation Radio election special for 2006. I’m Dori Smith. Democrat Ned Lamont will be joining us to talk about his campaign. And then journalist http://www.courant.com/news/local/northeast/hc-pbass0604.artjun04,0,7611693.column”>Paul Bass joins us. He’s been following the campaign for the Hartford Courant and the New Haven Independent We will also hear from Henry Lowendorf of the Greater New Haven Peace Council and he will be commenting on what Ned Lamont said on Talk Nation Radio about Iraq and the Israel/Lebanon war.

Dori Smith: On August 8th Connecticut’s democratic voters make their choice between Ned Lamont and incumbent Joe Lieberman. Workers from both campaigns have been busy signing up new voters. Since May, 6000 voters joined the Democratic Party according to AP. But if independent and some third party members are becoming Democrats at least some of Lieberman’s campaign crew is tabling at super markets trying to get them to join “Connecticut for Lieberman.” That’s Lieberman’s third party which he will run on if he doesn’t win the primary.

Ned Lamont joined us by phone while campaigning in Connecticut July 28th.

Ned Lamont, welcome to Talk Nation Radio How’s the campaign going?

Ned Lamont: We’re going flat out. We’ve been traveling the state. We’re getting a very good response to our message and I’m just urging everybody to make sure they vote on August 8th. You can make a big difference. It’s not every day that Connecticut can make a big difference in a race that a lot of people are watching and this is one of those times.

Dori Smith: U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton is up for confirmation again in Congress. Your opponent Joe Lieberman cast one of the deciding votes in his favor last time in 2001. How would you vote on John Bolton?

Ned Lamont: I’d vote no on Bolton. Here we are as a country I think we are known for our arrogance and I think it’s important that we treat the rest of the world with respect. The best place to start is the United Nations. You want somebody that has a reputation for respect as you look around the halls of the United Nations and I’m not sure that Bolton is that person. I think going back to his days in the Administration he was somebody that seemed to cherry pick the intelligence leading up to the war in Iraq and seemed to have sort of a short patience for those who had a different point of view. In hindsight those with the different point of view had the right point of view.

Dori Smith: I want to talk with you about political rhetoric and your opponent, Joe Lieberman. Do you think that his pro-administration rhetoric over the years has been even more effective in helping George Bush than some of his votes have been?

Ned Lamont: I do. I think too often it’s the Senator’s rhetoric in the lead up to vote that’s harmful. Let’s take a couple of examples. I’d say the case of Sam Alito to the Supreme Court. I think Alito is going to fundamentally tilt the balance of the Supreme Court; it’s not just choice it’s a very narrow interpretation of the EPA and what that means for environmental rules and it’s some of the comments that Alito has made as regards the unitary executive, the sense that the President is above the law in some ways. And it was Senator Lieberman who played right into the Alito frame all the way up to the last moment when he did cast a reluctant vote against Alito. But it would have been important I think that we had a Senator from Connecticut who would have tried to explain early on and stronger why Alito was bad for the court and why it packs the court and why it has long term ramifications for the court.

And Dori it’s been sort of the same thing on Social Security. When the President was fooling around with privatization schemes including private accounts it was Senator Lieberman who was back and forth on that issue and said we have a crisis, said the accounts have got to be on the table. And while yes at the last moment the Senator said no I won’t support the private accounts it was then that you wanted the Democrats to stand up and offer a bold and clear alternative to Bush’s efforts and the Senator just wasn’t there.

Dori Smith: You’ve come down hard against the war in Iraq and you’ve talked about a withdrawal plan. But more recently we have been seeing increasing instability in the Middle East and Iraq. Do you still think a pull out from Iraq is the right thing to do?

Ned Lamont: Oh I do. I believe that the invasion of Iraq destabilized the Middle East. It emboldened Iran. And it did nothing, nothing at all for Israel’s security. And I think while we have been bogged down in Iraq we’ve taken our eye off the ball when it comes to Afghanistan which is flipping; taken our eye off the ball when it comes to Osama Bin Laden, and probably most importantly we’ve taken our eye off the ball when it comes to the peace process regarding Israel and her neighbors.

With the death of Yasser Arafat and Mamoud Abass taking over the Palestinian authority that was an opportunity for the United States to reengage and take a leadership role in working towards a comprehensive peace between Israel and her neighbors and we didn’t do that and that’s been an historic role for this country going back generations. Abe Ribicoff is the one that said, our former Senator that the United States can be of most assistance to Israel when we have respect and we have credibility throughout the region. I’d say the war in Iraq is one of the reasons we’ve lost a lot of that respect and credibility and that doesn’t help us with Israel at all.

Dori Smith: Ned Lamont your opponent Joe Lieberman has been very proactive on foreign policy, very outspoken at any rate. How important do you think your role would be as a U.S. Senator in terms of foreign policy and what do you think your outlook would be when you arrive in Washington?

Ned Lamont: First of all when it comes to foreign policy Senator Lieberman has been very proactive and outspoken and I just happen to think he’s been wrong. I think he’s obviously wrong on the war in Iraq. Wrong in voting to get us in there; wrong in cheering on the president every step of the way and now wrong in saying “stay the course” is the only solution. I think it’s time to bring our troops home.

I would equally say that I think he’s been wrong on Iran. He was one of a very few Democrats to support Rick Santorum, the Senator from Pennsylvania, who voted for funds to start destabilizing Iran. I think there is another case where I think we ought to put negotiations and direct diplomacy in the front of the train. And I think when it comes to Iran and with how dangerous they could be to Israel and other countries in the Middle East we’ve got to work with those that do business with Iran. That’s India, that’s Russia and Western Europe, and I think if we work diplomatically we will be able to contain Iran and maybe bring them back slowly into the family of nations. It took quiet diplomacy to bring Libya back from the precipice. And I think we have an opportunity perhaps to do the same thing with Iran.

More to the point when I get to the U.S. Senate I’m going to focus not just on those issues but really focus on investing here in our own country again. Rather than spending 250 million dollars a day in Iraq I think we’ve got to invest in our cities, I think we have to invest in public transportation, I think we have to invest in great schools, we’re going to keep good paying jobs in our state, the quality of our work force and the quality of our schools is going to be key to that.

Dori Smith: You mention Iran and the President spoke at length about Iran and Syria in his conversations about Lebanon. Can you tell us if you see a direction in your thinking as far as what you might do on that issue when you arrive in Washington?

Ned Lamont: Well I think I described my strategy when it comes to Iran and engaging them diplomatically and using those countries that have close economic ties with Iran and I think there you will be able to get some leverage and slowly you pull them back into the community of nations if you treat them with respect using carrots as well as sticks.

When it comes to Lebanon we’ve got ourselves in a pickle. You’ve got Israel that’s under attack by Hamas and Hezbollah but I don’t know why it took Condoleezza Rice so long to get reengaged and get back into the region and make the peace process more of a priority. I think the United States can play a real role there and I do support a cease fire but I understand that that’s a cease fire that’s also got to deal with South Lebanon and Hezbollah in a serious way. –Whether that’s a robust international force or some other way that we could demobilize Hezbollah because you can’t leave them in place launching missiles into Israel. That’s got to be key to any cease fire that goes forward.

Dori Smith: Connecticut voters are going to be remembering John Rowland for many years to come, just wondering about your view on political corruption here and in the country in general and the kinds of things that you see as a solution to corruption.

Ned Lamont: I do believe that the Rowland corruption and the corruption in his administration has had harmful effects in this state in terms of bringing good people into government, bringing business back into Hartford and back into the other cities. I look at the corruption in Waterbury and I look at the corruption in Bridgeport; I know because I’ve been very involved in Bridgeport over the years, you know what that corruption means in terms of economic development. Many business people just give up and they don’t want to get involved when there are just too many palms outreached and looking for handouts.

So I think that clean government and far sighted government is just important to not only the integrity of our state but our outreach to business and getting jobs here and growing.

I’d say more broadly as I look at Washington, D.C. there is a type of legal corruption down there. It’s legal corruption in the sense that you now have about 63 lobbyists for every Congressman, sixty three lobbyists? They are spending over 400,000 dollars a month per Congressman and obviously in some ways it’s the best government money can buy down there and we need to send people to Washington, D.C. who are looking out for the common good. So I’d look at real reform when it comes to the lobbyist culture and the earmarks and the PACs and how we are funding these campaigns because I do think that impacts our legislation every day.

Dori Smith: And can you just mention in the context of corruption a little bit about energy because the State of Connecticut has been hit with extremely high electric bills as well as high oil prices and that’s a national problem. But too there’s the situation of the President’s oil policies and energy policies as well as the Vice President’s energy bill.

Ned Lamont: Well a couple of days ago it was the one year anniversary of Dick Cheney’s energy bill. And I thought it was a bad bill. It was a bad bill because in part it was written as much by the lobbyists; he invited 50 oil producing lobbyists, energy producing lobbyists behind closed doors, and out came a bill that provides billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to the oil industry. So at $75 dollars a barrel Dori we don’t need taxpayer subsidies for Exxon Mobil to go out and drill for oil. And yet it’s a bill that did very little when it came to fuel efficiency, nothing when it came to fuel efficiency standards for automobiles and trucks, very little when it came to conservation, very little when it came to the environment. So I think it was a bad bill and I would have opposed that bill. In fact, every Democratic Senator in New England opposed that bill except for Joe Lieberman.

Dori Smith: Now that brings to mind wages and job security because a lot of people who are paying these high bills are either out of work or have been in the last few years. Just talk about how you would regain some of our jobs that have been lost, particularly in manufacturing and industry?

Ned Lamont: Yeah. I get more questions about that than anything else on the campaign trail ironically. We’ve lost almost half of our manufacturing jobs, half of our defense related jobs in the last eighteen years alone. It’s not inevitable I just think we are making bad choices. As I said before we have got to start investing in our cities again and by that I mean rebuild the ports in Bridgeport and New Haven and New London. There is a world economy and products are going to come in and out. And then have a transportation system there, light rail as well as passenger rail, that allows us to distribute products from those ports throughout New England to make sure that our cities are the launching point for there. We’ll assemble the products at those locations as well.

You need affordable housing and you need great schools. Those are the investments you’ve got to make to keep good paying jobs in this country. And secondly I’d just say that we are the largest market on the face of this earth and we ought to negotiate trade agreements with that in mind, we’re negotiating from a position of strength. And so often these agreements don’t include labor standards. I know they don’t include environmental standards and ways that we can make sure the agreements are reciprocal and they benefit both the United States and our trading partners.

Dori Smith: When you talk about improving our educational system talk about how you would keep the costs of those kinds of programs down and if you’re current plan includes an understanding of the heavy cost in the areas of health, education and welfare programs.

Ned Lamont: Well starting with education let me just say that I think the federal government has got to step up and be more helpful. You can’t put more costs upon the cities which are bearing the burden of the property tax which is just heavy to bear. I’d like to see the federal government gets more involved in early childhood education, preschool.

I teach some classes in the Bridgeport high school system and these kids are behind by the time they get to high school. They are already behind by the time they get to elementary school. And especially with welfare reform where more likely than not Mom’s working outside of the home now it’s so important that they have an alternative for these kids so that’s why I think preschool would be one of the best investments we could make. My hunch is that’s going to have to be a federal responsibility.

Dori Smith: I happen to be speaking to you from WHUS Storrs which is located at the University of Connecticut, in Storrs, Connecticut. And this campus has become a pretty expensive place to live and attend classes. Just talk about that in terms of what college students are facing in the state.

Ned Lamont: It’s in the interest of our country for students to go and get education beyond high school. Maybe it would be education in a specific field, maybe it would be general education in the form of college, but I think if you look at what’s going on with income in this country it’s those young people who get beyond in high school education that aren’t able to compete and are falling behind. So I believe that we’ve made a bad choice when we are making student loans more expensive and we are not increasing Pell Grants and we are shutting off the opportunity for higher education to more and more of our kids. But it’s the future of our state and the future of our country to let these kids go forward and get the skills they need to keep good paying jobs here in the state.

Dori Smith: Finally, Ned Lamont you are a parent and I know you spoke about your hopes for the future when you were in Windham County recently for 3rd Thursday (a popular street festival on Main Street in Willimantic, Connecticut.) and you even played “Imagine” on the piano. Just talk about your hopes for the future and what kinds of things you might say to our youth to try to get them to have more confidence in our government and our future.

Ned Lamont: Oh that was fun playing keyboards in Willimantic, by the way Dori. And yeah we did, I sang Imagine. I’m not much of a Karaoke singer. I’m not sure I was great at that but I loved the sentiments behind that song. Let me just tell you about when I teach my class at Harding High. It’s a class called “How to Start Your Own Business.” I’m there just as a volunteer teacher next to a really great woman who is teaching there. We started out bringing in entrepreneurs from the communities, those who had started up a business. And we started out talking about revenues and costs of goods sold and what it looks like. But more importantly we started telling a story. And one person after another, an entrepreneur came in and started talking about how they started in the basement and how they were turned down at this bank and turned down at that bank, and every time you get pushed down you get back up and you try again. And eventually if you believe in yourself and you have the confidence to go forward opportunity is going to come your way. And eventually you start small and you start in an area you know something about, you know we were telling these kids what do you know about? You know about the black and Hispanic culture in these cities. So find products where maybe you can sell to your friends and sell to your peer group and that’s how you will get started from there and that’s how you can build a business, and I think we gave kids some confidence and gave them the opportunity to dream and that’s important.

Dori Smith: Ned Lamont any final thoughts about the importance of the upcoming primary August 8th?

Ned Lamont: My final thought is that it’s not often that Connecticut has a vote that will make a real difference. And it seems to me that the differences between Senator Lieberman and I on the war, on investing in education, investing in our young people, investing in our country, in keeping good jobs here; the difference between he and I is stark. And I can say that a lot of the country is looking at Connecticut right now to see what type of a Senator we want and what we want to do on some of these issues. And I think your vote counts. So however you vote tell your friends and please turn out on August 8th. We need you.

Dori Smith: Ned Lamont thanks so much for joining us.

Ned Lamont: Dori great talking to you.

Dori Smith: Ned Lamont joined us by phone while campaigning in Connecticut. His primary is coming up on August 8th. For those who would like to listen to him play keyboards at Willimantic’s 3rd Thursday street fest you can try My Left Nutmeg.org.

Peace activist Henry Lowendorf of the Greater New Haven Peace Council has been following the campaign as someone who sees a Lamont win as essential for those working to bring US forces home from Iraq.

In a recent development on Iraq Ned Lamont has expressed shock that Joe Lieberman broke with top Democrats again, refusing to join a US troop withdrawal measure calling for President Bush to begin pulling US soldiers out of Iraq by the end of the year.

Ned Lamont took some anti-war supporters by surprise by coming out in support of Israel at the beginning of the Israeli-Lebanon war but I shared the candidates remarks made to Talk Nation Radio with Henry Lowendorf:

Henry Lowendorf: There are some things I disagree with on the formulation of Lamont but I think he’s far ahead of the Bush Administration and also the Bush administration’s main supporter in the Democratic Party, Senator Joe Lieberman, because Lieberman is basically backing Bush 100 percent on all of this kind of intimidation of countries around the world rather than negotiations, rather than diplomacy.

Now his comments about Lebanon I think to the extent that he is calling for a cease-fire it’s absolutely correct. If there is an interest in stopping the violence then the violence on both sides has to be stopped. One cannot point the finger at Hezbollah and say it’s your fault that there is violence.

Israel has been kidnapping people from Lebanon, they have been kidnapping Palestinians, there are 10,000 prisoners in Israeli jails that have not been charged with anything but have been kidnapped. If there is any criticism and there should be of kidnapping as a violation of human rights it has to be aimed at both, and primarily at Israel which has kidnapped so many people and kept them in jail without charging without trials for many years. Start with them and at the same time get Hamas and Hezbollah to agree. If Israel agrees to release the prisoners they’ll agree to release the prisoners. That to me is fair. Israel has done prisoner exchanges in the past. One has to ask why this time instead of doing a prisoner exchange it decided to do everything it could to destroy the infrastructure of Lebanon and the infrastructure of Gaza and Palestine.

There are a million refugees and people have left their homes in Lebanon. And that isn’t to ignore that Hezbollah is firing rockets with ball bearings aimed at civilians against Israel. But our view is that there is a complete imbalance in what is going on. Not that we support any violence at all, we oppose the violence. And our efforts right now are to say we need an immediate cease-fire in that part of the world, we need an immediate cease-fire followed by negotiations to deal with the underlying issues.

We need to get the United States government to change. And I think it would be a wonderful thing if Ned Lamont beats Joe Lieberman in the primary and wins the election in November. I think that would be a wonderful thing because it would electrify this country. It is possible to defeat these war hawks. It is possible to get rid of these war mongers like Joe Lieberman and George Bush. I think it’s going to empower and encourage millions of people in this country to participate once again in our country, in our democracy.

Sixty percent of the people want us out of Iraq. George Bush and Joe Lieberman say we’re going stay the course, we’re going to add fuel to the fire, we’re just going to keep our people there, our troops there, and we’re going to kill more troops in order to justify the killing of the previous troops. There’s such a high level of insanity and hypocrisy in the executive branch right now it’s hard not to be shocked every time you hear them speak.

Dori Smith: Henry Lowendorf of the New Haven Peace Council. His organization is collecting signatures on petitions calling for a cease-fire in Lebanon. They are also supporting Dennis Kucinich’s bill calling for a cease-fire. It has 20 congressional signatories.

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska has added his voice to the list of Democrats now supporting a cease-fire in Lebanon:

Senator Chuck Hagel: “How do we realistically believe that a continuation of the systematic destruction of an American friend, the country and people of Lebanon, is going to enhance America’s image and give us the trust and credibility to lead a lasting and sustaining peace effort in the Middle East? The sickening slaughter on both sides, Mr. President, must end and it must end now. President Bush must call for an immediate cease-fire. This madness must stop.”

Dori Smith: Next Paul Bass of the New Haven Independent and Hartford Courant joins us to talk about the Lamont/Lieberman race as the candidates are in a dead heat. Lieberman could transform himself into a third party Democrat by this November depending on the upcoming primary August 8th. I asked Paul Bass to talk about an event he covered Monday July 31st in the Dixwell section of New Haven where a beleaguered Joe Lieberman sought unsuccessfully to gather African American voters to his cause.

Paul Bass: This was an amazing event for me to watch in fact. I was really surprised at what I was watching. I’ve been watching Joe Lieberman for a couple of decades. He was obviously the home town hero here in New Haven in terms of the political scene. He comes home on Monday July 31st and holds a rally in a Black neighborhood where both candidates have been trying to get the Black vote and he pulls up in a bus and only 75 people are there. You would think it would be some rousing event. But the majority of them were either politicos associated with Lieberman bussed in from other neighborhoods, campaign staffers, or Lamont people who came to crash the party.

I mean, it’s a dense housing project and I found only at the top end fifteen actual human beings who lived there, five of whom were for Lamont. And it was in the weltering sun and Joe was talking about how forty three years ago he had marched for civil rights and it was pathetic.

He didn’t mention the reason that Black leaders around the country have been trying to stop him from getting reelected because for ten years he has been at the forefront of trying to roll back civil rights along with the rest of the democratic leadership council. He called affirmative action “un-American.” He supported a roll back provision in California. And he’s tried to change that history in this race because he is vulnerable on it but that was a telling event.

Dori Smith: We heard what Chuck Hagel http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001569.php”>said and I should note that when Wolf Blitzer spoke about Hagel’s decision on CNN he raised an interesting question, asking if the Israeli/Lebanon war might save Joe Lieberman’s campaign because he has strong support from Jewish voters. Just talk about this war and how you think it may impact the Lieberman/Lamont campaign.

Paul Bass: I think there’s a very small percentage of conservative Jewish voters who might have been leaning toward Lamont who feel insecure about Israel’s survival at a time when most of the world is against Israel and countries like Iran and Syria have openly called for Israel to be destroyed. At moments like this they will go to someone they feel is a known quantity on the issue. But I don’t think it’s a significant gain for Lieberman and it could be a loss for Lieberman because of all the images on television of destruction in Lebanon and given that he’s already unpopular on the Iraq war. Even though the American people support Israel in polls, in general, in the conflict with Hezbollah as the conflict drags on that support obviously is lessening and even in polls where the American people support Israel they by majority have said that they feel the attacks are a disproportionate response. So I don’t agree that it’s really going to be a big factor in this campaign. I think even though its probably the biggest issue in the world right now its an issue that I think by decision of both campaigns is not going to factor into this race.

Dori Smith: The national press is looking at this race as something that will take the temperature of the US electorate. And will show the level of support for the Bush Administration and also for conservative Democrats. Do you think it will have the kind of impact that they are predicting it might?

Paul Bass: If Lamont wins the country changes. If Ned Lamont wins this primary every Democrat is going to be more focused on stopping the war in Iraq, more focused on being for civil rights; this one race will turn the Democratic Party back toward progressive roots if Lamont wins.

If Lamont loses the old guards and the sort of corporate money backed part of the Party is going to crow that quote the bloggers haven’t won a race and this was their big chance and they blew it. I think politics is changing. It’s not going to be overnight. So I think that would be a false conclusion. But if Lamont loses you will see that reaction. But if he wins the entire country is going to change. Its one of those elections.

Dori Smith: What is your next story about in terms of the Lieberman/Lamont campaign or other issues?

Paul Bass: Well there’s no question that the fall campaign for Senate could be fascinating if Lamont wins. Then you are going to have a three way race because Joe Lieberman is going to run as an independent, he said. I think he does not have a chance at winning as an independent. His support evaporates the day after losing a primary. However, you may have noticed that the Republican Party has been trying to get its candidate to leave the ballot. The governor and the state party chairman are trying to get their own endorsed candidate off the ballot. They want to have a strong person. They don’t have a strong candidate now but all of a sudden they think they have a chance at capturing that state seat in a three way race. If Joe Lieberman becomes the Republican candidate which is what a lot of Republicans want? Then I think he can actually salvage his seat because that’s his only hope in the November election. I don’t think he can win as an independent because he will lose the Democratic base and he won’t gain enough Republicans. That’s going to be interesting to see how that plays out.

There is also a strong Republican Kevin O’Connor who is the U.S. Attorney; very telegenic, knows conservatives has a lot of cross over appeal, has overseen a lot of corruption investigations in the state. If he jumps into the race the way some people want, he’s been reluctant for a variety of reasons, that could make it interesting and pundits like me are going to be irrelevant because no one is really going to know who is going to win. It’s going to be one of the great wild races. It’s not going to be quite like this primary. This primary is a defining race. This is a race about the direction of the Democratic Party nationally and the country. A three way race will be more like baseball. It’s going to be interesting to see how different campaigns plot strategy and who will win. So it will be a different kind of mystery, a different kind of interesting story. It will matter but its not going to be quite as easily defined and graspable or as momentous as this primary.

Dori Smith: Well Paul Bass we certainly will stay in touch with you and hope to speak with you again after this primary and get your thoughts.

Paul Bass: Thank you very much for having me on the show it was a pleasure.

Dori Smith: Paul Bass edits the New Haven Independent online.

For Talk Nation Radio I’m Dori Smith. Talk Nation Radio is produced in the studios of WHUS Radio at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Connecticut. WHUS.org to listen live Wed. at 5 pm. Talk Nation.org or Talk Nation Radio.org for transcripts and discussions.

For video of the Third Thursday Band featuring Ned Lamont see Video -Thank you Videoegg at My Left Nutmeg blog.