Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Connecticut's General Assembly, Ritter presiding The matter has not yet been decided in court, but there assuredly will be winners and losers.   The U.S. Federal government, its back put against the wall by a Connecticut law that questions the authority of the federal government to operate in certain Connecticut jurisdictions, has sued Connecticut. The federal government will be arguing that the Connecticut law abridges the rights and duties of the federal government under what has been known as the U.S. Constitution’s “Supremacy Clause.”   The Supremacy Clause (Article VI, Clause 2) establishes that the U.S. constitution, federal laws, and treaties override all state laws that conflict with them. It ensures that all state laws, state courts, and state constitutions must be subordinate to the U.S. Constitution and federal laws and treaties made by the U.S. government.   Article VI, Clause 2 is not at all ambiguous. It reads: “This Constitution, and the Laws of...

Every newspaper and news outlet in Connecticut should be screaming from the rooftops in favor of multiple -- far more than two – debates between Governor Ned Lamont and his Republican challenger Ryan Fazio. Multiple debates between the two would reveal, however imperfectly, the strengths and weaknesses of both candidates.   Debates -- the more, the merrier -- cut across the grain of modern political perceptions. Should Lamont be re-throned for a third term as governor in the absence of serious campaign debates, he may rightly credit an indifferent “business as usual” state media for his uncontested victory. Lamont’s handlers, we know, will be advising him to maintain a low profile and use his dazzling record in office as a blind hiding his imperfections in plain sight. Lamont has so far relied on his millions to purchase anonymity from a variety of sources that over the years have produced an artificially, highly attenuated public persona, the result of choreographed public app...

  Lamont Hartford Courant reporter Livi Stanford writes in a front page story -- CCSU president steps down – “Toro’s resignation follows the scandal-plagued departures of two Connecticut State Colleges and Universities chancellors. Last week, an independent review examining Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system’s response to sexual harassment allegations against former interim Chancellor O. John Maduko found ‘serious failures in how CSCU responded to concerns about sexual harassment and gaps in the Board’s process for selecting the former interim chancellor,’ according to an announcement Board of Regents Interim Chair Ari Santiago sent to the CSCU community.”   Toro is “Central Connecticut State University President Zulma Toro [who] resigned Wednesday following an investigation into a complaint alleging the workplace culture under her leadership was oppressive, bullying and intimidating.”   The reaction to Toro’s resignation is not at all unusual. ...

Mamdani George Bernard Shaw, the wily old Fabian Socialist, once said about patriotism, with a wily old Fabian Socialist sneer, “Patriotism if you must, but please – no parades.” Of course, Shaw knew very well that patriotism is a parade, among other things.   The history of the word “patriot” itself shows some antagonistic stretchmarks. It was used as an insult by British patriots of uppity American anti-British revolutionists during the prospectively successful American Revolution. But, as Americans often do, they assigned a new positive meaning to the word -- and held parades during which, as John Adams tells us in post-revolutionary days, flags were flown, martial arms were displayed, the sky burst into patriotic flames, and everyone went home with smiles on their faces.   The war on the American flag – just a piece of cloth – and patriotism, and Christopher Columbus statues, is a relatively recent phenomenon celebrated by anti-American patriots, though not, Shaw...

Kosta, Yahoo One can only hope that Konstantinos “Kosta” Diamantis will be writing a memoir while vacationing in Greece.   The former Connecticut deputy budget director and head of the state’s Office of School Construction Grants and Review, we are told in numerous news stories, fled to Greece on September 17, 2026, just before his scheduled federal sentencing for a major corruption case.   Convicted in October 2025 on 21 federal counts -- including bribery, extortion, conspiracy, and making false statements to federal investigators – prosecutors tell us that Kosta abused his authority over state school construction contracts (worth about $8.5 million) to pressure contractors for bribes between 2018 and 2021.   According to a recent story in CTMirror , Diamantis sent a “rambling ten page email to his attorney in which he cast “the prosecution as ‘politically motivated.’ He also said that the Department of Justice was ‘weaponized’ against him, copying language ...

We are a couple of months in front of an off-presidential year election. Before we go to the polls, we should brush away the political cobwebs that prevent us from seeing clearly what is right under our noses, and so …   What is debt inflation?   Inflation is a contributory cause in high prices, but inflation is not the same as high prices. Inflation is a government caused market distortion, a reduction in the purchasing power of money.  Combined with currency devaluation, it can significantly erode the real value of a currency both domestically and internationally.   There are, we know, numerous ways to discharge debt. Ordinary people discharge debt by increasing their income and paying off the debt. There are different ways to increase your assets to pay off a debt. You might increase your working hours, get a raise from your boss, or turn to a life of crime and rob a bank. In any society in which criminal activity is punished, this last option is not, in the long ...