Lamont, Biden, Hayes Can you be a populist without being popular? Of course you can, sometimes. Can you be a populist if you talk like a member of Harvard’s Law faculty? Not likely. Bill Buckley, free of the stain of populism, once said he would rather be governed by the first hundred people picked at random from a phone book than the Harvard Law faculty. However, populism is not merely a matter of tone. Your mother – well, at least my mother – was engaging in populist rhetoric when she told you a couple of times every week, “You will be judged by the company you keep.” That sentiment, before the 1960s disturbed our increasingly secular moral universe, was widely shared – in a word, popular. Mom delivered most of her apothegms in the common tongue, as did her mother and her mother’s mother. Common sense spilled out of her like wine from pressed grapes. Despite his riches and vulgar gold toilets, former President Donald Trump -- vilified every Monday, Wednesday and Friday by the Har
Matt Ritter CTExaminer State House Speaker Matt Ritter is shocked – SHOCKED! Connecticut is awash in Wall Street money, and the extra bennies from Wall Street will enable Connecticut to pay down a slender portion of its pension debts. “This” – the unanticipated boost in state revenue -- Ritter said, “might be the most shocking consensus revenue numbers we’ve seen in years. Positive, yes. Right now, we’re in good times. Yes, it is [Wall Street] money, so we’ll have to continue to talk about that as we go forward. If I hear the word ‘deficit’ – folks, the state is in a very solid financial position.” Ritter, of course is talking about Connecticut’s most recent budget, and his joy is dampened by doubt. The Yankee Institute told us in late June of 2021, “According to Connecticut’s 2020 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the state’s unfunded pension liabilities for state employees, teachers and judges sits at roughly $40 billion,” a mountain, not a mole hill. “And, according to