Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

It doesn’t take much to startle most journalists in Connecticut, many of whom are as lion-shy as gazelles. A growl from a snarling lawyer is in most cases sufficient to quiet the whole herd. Dismayed by a political column written by Chris Powell of the Journal Inquirer, World Wide Entertainment (WWE) senior vice president of marketing and communications Brian Flinn wrote to Mr. Powell an e-mail threatening to sue if Mr. Powell did not issue a retraction “by June 4, 2012 in as public a manner as that in which you made these false statements.” Should Mr. Powell fail to comply with Mr. Flinn’s demand, “we will seek legal and all available remedies,” the e-mail specifies. In the e-mail sent to Mr. Powell, copied to many other Connecticut newspapers, Mr. Flinn advises, “This time, WWE is taking a proactive and aggressive approach to ensure that accurate facts and statements are made about our company and brand. This has absolutely nothing to do with politics.” A threat to sue mus...

Chris Powell This sort of thing should happen more often. Early in June, someone asked Chris Powell, a fierce defender of open government, to address the annual general meeting of the Connecticut Council on Freedom of Information. Powell is one of those newsmen with a sense of humor, rare these days, who really does believe that the distribution of knowledge is indispensable to a flourishing democracy. And public intelligence involves unimpeded access to the organs of government, an access routinely threatened by hegemonic, one-party government.

First, God created the idiot; this was for practice. Then he created the school board -- Mark Twain Over in Manchester, two students, apparently thugs with prior police records, beat up a third student. This attracted the attention of Chris Powell, the no-nonsense Managing Editor of the Journal Inquirer, who wrote a column about it, which in turn attracted the attention of Margarett H. Hackett, chairwoman of the Manchester Board of Education. In his column , Mr. Powell, noted that two months had elapsed since the Manchester student was “beaten so badly that he required brain surgery.” The paper discovered from court proceedings that “the two students charged in the beating already had felony convictions. One of them had a pending plea bargain for assault conspiracy that was about to send him to prison.” Since state law requires police to notify school superintendents when students in they systems are arrested, Mr. Powell reasoned, it was likely that “Manchester's school administrat...

I happen to be writing something on Mark Twain’s politics, and I couldn’t help but wonder what he might have thought rather than written – for Twain was fairly cautious, some would say over-cautious, while his wife and censor Oliva was still alive – about recent Connecticut politics. Surely Twain would have noticed that the flight of progressive politicians from their sinecures have followed the flight of businesses and entrepreneurial capital from his beloved state. There’s got to be some heavy levity, Twain’s specialty, in there somewhere. Not even Olivia, the keeper of Twain’s reputation, could have prevented him from poking fun at Connecticut’s political Grand Guignol. Following a fatal dip in the polls, Governor Dannel Malloy has chosen not to run again, and he has been followed out the door by his Lieutenant Governor, a promising Democrat gubernatorial prospect who has not spent time in prison, Comptroller Kevin Lembo, Attorney General George Jepsen, and other Democ...

  “The ink war.” That is how Tom Dudchik of Capitol Report styled the controversy between Chis Powell, the icon busting editor of the Journal Inquirer, and, following a rebuttal editorial in the Hartford Courant, pretty much everyone else manning the barricades on the left who ever lifted a pen or pounded a keyboard in defense of the liberal view of the decline of print media. The controversial pieces are printed here as they appeared, in chronological sequence; first, Mr. Powell’s initial column; then the Courant’s editorial rebuttal; then, an interview with Jim Romenesko; then Mr. Powell’s response to what he regards as the distortions of his critics; and finally a Courant rebuttal accusing Mr. Powell of having defended the indefensible – namely, himself. Unprinted here are a slew of editorials and commentary pieces, all more or less bearing the same message: that Mr. Powell has attacked all single parent moms; that he is a holdover from those glorious days of yore when ...

Powell, Pesci Substack The Journal Inquirer (JI), one of the last independent newspapers in Connecticut, is now a part of the Hearst Media chain. Hearst has been growing by leaps and bounds in the state during the last decade. At the same time, many newspapers in Connecticut have shrunk in size, the result, some people seem to think, of ad revenue smaller newspapers have lost to internet sites and a declining newspaper reading public. Surviving papers are now seeking to recover the lost revenue by erecting “pay walls.” Like most besieged businesses, newspapers also are attempting to recoup lost revenue through staff reductions, reductions in the size of the product – both candy bars and newspapers are much smaller than they had been in the past – and sell-offs to larger chains that operate according to the social Darwinian principles of monopolistic “red in tooth and claw” giant corporations. The first principle of the successful mega-firm is: Buy out your predator before he swallows...

Chris Powell The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread ― Anatole France Driving around Connecticut’s suburban back roads, one sees, every so often, a sign flashing under leafy shade trees: “Drive like your kid lives here.” Were it possible to plant a similar sign in large Connecticut cities, where failing schools are winked at by always solicitous politicians, it might read “Educate these kids like they were yours.” It may be time to bring out of the closet Chris Powell’s luminous perceptions concerning the connection of failing urban families and failing urban education. But, of course, in urban areas of Connecticut, one finds boxes in boxes in boxes of chronic problems, many of them connected to one foul root. Powell, now retired, was the long-time Mangaging Editor of the Journal Inquirer. He continues to write colunms for the JI and other papers.  It has been 57 years since D...

Somewhere along the line, the new policy of New Haven, Connecticut regarding illegal immigrants ran up against a thinking journalist, the Managing Editor of the Journal Inquirer in Manchester,Chris Powell, and the collision has produced sparks that may be of interest to those who sometimes worry about terrorists. Connecticut's commissioner of emergency management and homeland security James Thomas is not among their number. With the blessing of Connecticut’s Freedom of Information Commission and the state’s commissioner of homeland security, New Haven, with perfect secrecy, may now hand out to illegal aliens identification cards that, in Powell’s estimation, “create identities --genuine or contrived -- for its illegal alien residents who have no genuine ID documents, so that their continued illegal residency in New Haven may be facilitated.” If you are an illegal alien who has penetrated the porous borders of the United States on your way to New Haven, you may be rewarded with an ...

Pesci Q: Before we get to the particulars, the details where the devil lives and breathes let me ask you some general questions. A: Sure. Q: When did you first start writing for newspapers? A: I remember my first or second column for the Journal Inquirer (JI). I’m not sure of the exact date. It was a column on Thurman Milner, who was then running as mayor of Hartford on the Democrat ticket. Milner won the contest about 40 years ago and became the first black mayor of a major city in Connecticut. Q: Do you remember what the column was about? A: I do. It has long since been consigned to the newspaper morgue at the JI. Q: Curious that you remember. A: No one forgets the circumstances involving the birth of their first commentary. The mayoralty race was well underway when the JI stumbled upon some questionable credentials presented by Milner. He had flourished a certificate from “Roachdale College.” The paper discovered the certificate was produced as a result of a dormitory ...

I have no idea how many editorials and columns were written by Chris Powell, Managing Editor and former Editorial Page Editor of the Journal Inquirer, during the course of his long and eventful career in journalism; certainly more than a thousand which, to date, is the number of blog entrees in Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes From A Blue State. Most of the entrees here were columns printed in one or another of Connecticut’s small but vigorous and independent minded papers. Shortly after he started in the journalism business, Powell became the youngest Managing Editor in Connecticut. I can testify from my own personal experience that he is a) unflappable, b) very much the hound of heaven in pursuit of a story and c) of indeterminate political persuasion. But Powell’s most endearing characteristic may be his jolly spite, which keeps him going to the office every day with a dagger in his hand and bounce in his step. I suppose if one has to force Powell into a procrustean formulation, r...

Last week it was reported, incorrectly as it happened, that President Barack Obama wished to pass through the US Congress a bill reversing the rotation of the earth on its axis because it had been brought to his attention, by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi some thought, that water in the toilet bowel revolves when flushed in a counter clockwise direction. “This is intolerable,” the president reportedly said. And, according to a report by My Way news: Colin Powell worries that President Barack Obama is trying to tackle too many big issues at one time and he offers this advice: take a hard look at costs and consider the additional red tape that will be created. "The right answer is, 'Give me a government that works,'" the former secretary of state said in a television interview to be aired Sunday. "Keep it as small as possible," added Powell, who said he has spoken recently with Obama and stays in touch with him. Powell, a Republican, endorsed Obama last y...

Powell Several years ago, this writer had a brief conversation with Chris Powell, then the Managing Editor and Editorial Page Editor of the Journal Inquirer, a fiercely independent paper lately purchased by Hearst.   The question put to Powell was:  What should we do about “fixed costs” in the state budget? Fixed costs, much of it the result of contractual obligations with state unions, was, then and now, removing control over state budgets from the legislative branch to the judicial branch, the primary enforcer of contracts and legal obligations.   Powell’s answer to the question was brief and on point: unfix the costs, he said.   “With ‘fixed costs’ and government employee compensation now constituting the great majority of state government expense, and with the discretionary portion of the budget constituting only a minority,” Powell wrote in a column published a year ago, “the only way of controlling expense is to reduce the ‘fixed costs’ and the costs qualifyin...