Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Posts

Did Chris Murphy Engage in Private Diplomacy?

Murphy after Zarif blowup -- Getty Images Connecticut U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, up for reelection this year, had “a secret meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during the Munich Security Conference” in February 2020, according to a posting written by Mollie Hemingway , the Editor-in-Chief of The Federalist. Was Murphy commissioned by proper authorities to participate in the meeting, or was he freelancing? If the former, there is no problem. If the latter, Murphy was courting political disaster. “Such a meeting,” Hemingway wrote at the time, “would mean Murphy had done the type of secret coordination with foreign leaders to potentially undermine the U.S. government that he accused Trump officials of doing as they prepared for Trump’s administration. In February 2017, Murphy demanded investigations of National Security Advisor Mike Flynn because he had a phone call with his counterpart-to-be in Russia. “’Any effort to undermine our nation’s foreign policy – e

Defending the Indefensible, Hayes vs. Logan

Hayes and Logan -- Brian A. Pounds/ Hearst Connecticut Media The first rule in the political handbook is – never attempt to defend the indefensible. The attempt failed spectacularly during the Watergate imbroglio, the dreadful Dred Scott decision that found African American slaves were property rather than persons, and on many other occasions during America’s sometimes checkered history. On October 2 nd , the Hartford Courant carried on its front page an above the fold story – “ GOP commercial blasts U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes for her vote on fentanyl. Why she defends her stance ” that should serve as a textbook example of the rule cited above. The 30 second Republican commercial blasts Hayes as having voted against a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives, the “HALT Fentanyl Act”, a priority of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration that, according to the Courant, “classified fentanyl in the most dangerous category of drugs… The measure called for classifying fentanyl as a Sche

The Israeli Peace Plan

Netanyahu and Biden -- Avi Ohayon, Israeli Government, via Associated Press It has been plain for sometime – even for those who have eyes but see not, ears but hear not – that Israel’s peace plan is to rid the Middle East of terrorist groups supported by Iran that have pledged to destroy Israel. When news hit the airwaves that Israel had in an airstrike degraded much of Hezbollah’s strike capacity and rid the Middle East of Hassan Nasrullah, Hezbollah’s Secretary General, tears did not flow from Western eyes. The Telegraph In a lead piece, “ Israel has exposed the lie at the heart of Starmer and Biden’s foreign policy ,” noted, “Jerusalem has already nearly destroyed Hamas’s organized military capabilities in Gaza and, combined with “Operation Grim Beeper” just over a week ago, has repeatedly imposed shock and awe on Hezbollah’s top cadres and infrastructure.” The fearless Telegraph pointedly noted the obvious: “Britain and America once understood what it meant to fight a multi-f

Corey to Murphy: Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are…

Corey, Murphy, Facebook Republican Matt Corey , running this year against U.S. Junior Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, is not a household name. Murphy, on the other hand, has managed to keep his name fresh and prominent before Connecticut’s electorate since 2013, his first year in office. Murphy has from 2019-2024 accumulated $2,641,556 from presumably greedy top industry moneybags and a more modest $92,516 from sumptuously endowed Yale University, according to Open Secrets . Suffering from a high cumulative inflation rate, high interest rates – responsible, many economists acknowledge, for the shortage of housing -- the high cost of food and other necessities such as energy, and a busy-body Democrat President that has violated the traditional “everyone is a king in his own home” stricture, Corey no doubt is hoping that these impositions will weigh heavily on voters in his upcoming campaign. The Biden- Harris administration, smitten by EVs, the necessary components of which are m

Journalism and the Mystery of Kamala Harris

We expect good journalism to be descriptive, and we expect such descriptions to accurately portray reality as it passes swiftly before us. Here is New York Times commentator Ross Douthat describing potential Democrat President Kamala Harris’ “new way forward.” Douthat knows that a “new way forward” must differ substantially from a preceding and discarded “old way.” Harris has been for nearly four years President Joe Biden’s Vice President. Therefore a new way must differ in some important respects from Biden’s old way. Problem: American Vice Presidents in the past have tended to be shadows of the presidents under whom they serve, firmly attached to them as a tail is attached to a dog. Douthat wrote in his column, “ Sympathy for the undecided voter ,” published in the Hartford Courant, that Harris has “offered herself [to the voting public] as the turn-the-page-candidate while sidestepping almost every question about what the supposed adults in the room have wrought across the las

Biden’s Legacy, the New Way Forward, Marx and Lincoln

Biden Harris, Getty images President Joe Biden is due to surrender the White House this November either to his present Vice President, Kamala Harris, or to former President Donald Trump. Biden was persuaded to leave office by a delegation of Democrat Party leaders , among them former Speaker of the US House Nancy Pelosi and Democrat leader in the U.S. Senate Chuck Schumer. There is some indication that Biden did not relinquish power willingly at first. Eventually, he was brought round and “passed the torch” to Harris, who most gratefully accepted it on behalf of a future generation clambering for “a new way forward.” Immediately, Harris was beset with a problem: A “new way forward” can only be a way that is in important respects different than the Biden way. Putting light between herself and Biden would necessarily entail a break with the four years of the Biden Administration and, derivatively, the eight years of the Barack Obama administration. Both Obama and Biden were neo-progr