{news} RE: Harold Burbank in Torrington Register Citizen

[David Bedell]

Here's a better story by the same reporter; this one appeared on Friday just before the fund-raiser event.

http://www.registercitizen.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19844811

07/11/2008
Green Party candidate critical of Dems, GOP

By DAVID HUTTER

LITCHFIELD - A Green Party candidate for the Fifth Congressional District accuses the president of committing war crimes and criticizes Congress for not impeaching him.

Harold Burbank II, a lawyer specializing in human rights cases, won the nomination as the Green Party candidate for the Fifth Congressional District at a meeting held May 23. Seeking to be elected to public office for the first time, the 51-year-old Burbank condemns President George W. Bush for waging the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the U.S. Congress for funding the wars and for failing to impeach Bush.

"I say both wars are violations against the Nuremburg Charter, the U.N. Charter, and the Geneva Conventions," Burbank said. "They are crimes against humanity. They are the greatest crimes ever conceived."

Burbank will be campaigning at the home of Litchfield resident Dorothea DiCecco on Friday from 5:30 to 9 p.m. in a fund-raiser event that costs $50 per person. DiCecco, a retired University of Connecticut at Waterbury professor, hosted Independent Party presidential candidate and consumer rights advocate Ralph Nader at her house June 29. Burbank wants to reopen the investigation into the 9/11 terror attacks, believing that the United States military could have intercepted the Islamic fundamentalists who hijacked airplanes and crashed them into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania.

DiCecco said she used to be a Democratic supporter but now decries the Democratic party because it does not condemn the wars. DiCecco, 71, said she now judges political candidates and politicians individually to decide who she supports these days. DiCecco met Burbank in April after he spoke about his campaign at a public library in Cornwall.

"I heard him; I like him; I'd like to help him raise some money," DiCecco said, about the rapid time frame between when she met Burbank and from when she decided she wanted to support his candidacy in a concrete way. "I am not a big party person. I've been a big Democrat person throughout my life."

"I vote on principle - even if the candidate does not win," she continued. "I'd rather vote for the person I really support."

DiCecco identifies the most important issues facing the United States as ending the wars, introducing universal health care, upholding The Constitution, increasing the salaries of schoolteachers and offering free college education. DiCecco notes that she does not have any formal role in Burbank's campaign.
As for Burbank, he acknowledges he faces a challenge as a third-party candidate. He has to collect at least 2,197 signatures in order to get his name to appear on the ballot. He estimates he has collected at least 2,300 signatures to date and plans to collect as many as 4,000 in total.

He has conversed with thousands of people at supermarkets and other public venues in the last six weeks. He prides himself on being accessible to the people to whom he seeks to represent.

The Fifth Congressional District represents about 681,000 people, stretching from Danbury to southern Torrington to northern Waterbury and New Britain. State Sen. David Cappiello, a Republican representing Danbury, New Fairfield, Sherman, and part of Bethel in the 24th state district, is campaigning for the Fifth Congressional seat. Chris Murphy is seeking re-election to the seat he won over Nancy Johnson in 2005.

Burbank decries both the Republican and Democratic parties as being heavily influenced by rich donors and corporate interests. Burbank said that the news media often fails to report as much about third-party candidates as it does on the Democratic and Republican counterparts.

Burbank accuses Chris Murphy of failing to uphold the duties to which he promised to do when he entered the office after winning election in November 2005.
"Chris Murphy does not like The Constitution," Burbank said about the incumbent Democratic occupant of the Fifth Congressional District seat of Connecticut. "He has voted to support two illegal wars. I talked to him at an event in New Britain in September 2007. Chris Murphy stated that George Bush is the most impeachable president in American history."

Burbank asks people who are interested in learning more about his candidacy to visit his Web site at http://www.newmenu.org/haroldburbank . People who wish to attend the fund-raiser on Friday are asked to call Burbank at 693-2687 or DiCecco at 567-5763.

David Hutter can be reached by e-mail at torrington@ registercitizen.com.


©The Register Citizen 2008 
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