Dick Blumenthal for Senate???

The questions outnumber Blumenthal’s answers.

“There’s not a whole lot of ‘there’ there,” says Tom: What does — and doesn’t — the Attorney General do?

“Local news…” what a concept.

The Connecticut legislature adjourned back in June without passing a budget, with an eight billion dollar deficit on the books, and the prospect of massive tax hikes.

Of course nary a word was said about any of this on Connecticut’s once venerable AM talk news stations, stretching from Hartford to New Haven, Greenwich to New London. So you here in Connecticut, 2 million of you who pay your state and local taxes, send your children to local schools, vote in every election and would eagerly listen to informed commentary about Connecticut politics and government, if there were any…you got nada.

My frustration has spilled over into action.

This month we launch TomScottReports.com as a venue for airing all that’s missing from local news and radio. You’ll find podcasts offering my commentary on some of the most important things Connecticut residents need to stay on top of: our expanding state budget, how to achieve initiative and referendum, getting to know the new (and not improved) Gov. Jodi Rell, combating the bid to reinstate highway tolls, and keeping up with Sen. Chris Dodd’s maneuvers to dodge his various scandals.

I’ve also assembled select links to websites that I find particularly useful to keep up with state issues, or are helpful for navigating the bureaucracy. And I’ll be augmenting these in the days ahead.

The fact that you’ve already found us tells me we are on the right track. But we are going to go much deeper and much farther in the coming months. I will be adding content on a regular basis – make sure to sign up for alerts — and will soon be broadcasting a live online show with the capacity for you to participate.

Remember “local news?”

On October 5, 1991 my hastily formed Connecticut Taxpayers Committee drew 65,000 people to the front lawn of the state capitol in Hartford to protest the passage of the state’s first income tax.

While I wasn’t doing talk radio at the time, we used the airwaves – AM and FM — to get the message out – first about our petition drive, then about numerous town and regional rallies, and then about the Big Rally. Talk about going viral. Through the power of radio, the state was on fire with people participating in a great grassroots effort to repeal a tax their governor had once promised them he would never support. Morning radio jocks were our most ardent supporters, putting me on to promote the latest rally in between tracks of Def Leppard and Madonna, and the feedback was extraordinary. To this day people come up to me, or call my show, and say “I was there,” talking about the day we stormed the state capitol.

Fast-forward to 2008, a-dozen-years-into 1996 radio deregulation: Big out-of-town corporations bought-out local station owners, amassing crippling debt in the process…so the firings began. Fewer local employees = less local news. And less corporate support for the kind of straight talk I was doing on radio.

Oh, I’m still there, on AM and FM, from time to time…filling-in for the handful of local hosts who remain on-air in Connecticut. And now I’m here, and so are you, where we can develop the dialogue Connecticut needs to have, unencumbered by the time, space and budgetary boundaries that confine traditional media.

Please bookmark www.TomScottReports.com, and check-in often. And please don’t consider this “MY web site.” I need to hear from YOU. Whether you’re a new friend or a long-time listener, drop me a note to say hi and let me know what you are most interested in hearing about, or leave a Comment, below. Tell me something interesting going on in Connecticut that more people need to know about, and I’ll help get the word out.

I know how to talk. But I also know how to listen…and how to take action in ways that get the attention of elected leaders and unelected bureaucrats.. Together, WE can take “local talk” to a new level and work to change Connecticut for the better.

Tom in-the-news…

“The Other Senate Maverick”
Read Tom, quoted in The Wall Street Journal