Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

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Lamont Backtracks on Vow to Eliminate the Sale of Gas Powered Vehicles by 2035

Lamont – Hartford Business Journal The Western Journal , little read by Connecticut’s top-heavy, neo-progressive political establishment, notes, “When even Ned Lamont believes phasing out internal combustion cars by 2035 is a lost cause, you'd better believe it's a lost cause.” Following deep blue California’s lead, Lamont had vowed to end the sale of gas powered vehicles in Connecticut by 2035. An avalanche of objections, some coming from minority Republicans, buried the proposal, and on January 6 Lamont wisely retreated. Few people in Connecticut wish to follow California down a rabbit hole, destination unknown. "On Monday afternoon,” the publication noted, the state’s Legislative Regulation Review Committee, equitably divided between Democrats and Republicans nixed the proposal. “The move was celebrated as a victory for ‘common sense’ by legislative Republicans. “Senate Republican Leader Kevin Kelly said that Lamon

Israel’s Back

Getty Images On October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorists swooped down upon a peaceful gathering of young Israelis enjoying themselves at a concert. ABC in mid-October provided us with a textual description of the ensuing slaughter: “Then the video [made by Hamas terrorists] gets grisly. Other militants are busy mashing a dying man's face with their boots. Another pair screams ‘Allahu akbar [God is great] as they use a garden hoe to try to decapitate another man. In another house, a gunman sticks the muzzle of his rifle into a room inhabited by a family. It's a mash of colors. In one, a terrorist is standing on an Israeli man's chest and shoots him point-blank in the face.” The slaughter was filmed by what some news outlets in the West are pleased to call “militants” rather than terrorists. These horrific clips, used by Hamas terrorists to convince the brethren they seriously intend to displace Israel with a forward marching conquering Islam, are a trifle too bloody to appear

No Labels Lieberman

Lieberman Former U.S. Senator from Connecticut Joe Lieberman, a bit like the eupeptic Hubert Humphrey, is a happy political warrior, gleefully defending a vanishing middle ground among his fellow Democrats and so called MAGA Republicans. He is a man of what used to be called “the vital center” in American politics, and his natural optimism is deeply engrafted on his character. In the view of moderate Democrats -- a very thin residue within the party of Jackson, Jefferson and (John) Bailey, Connecticut’s last Democrat political boss, the hard right and left now bracket American politics, which, some have argued, has become Hobbesian in its passions. A remedy for extreme measures and bad political manners embraced by the Democrat and Republican brackets is the elixir now being sold by Lieberman’s “No Labels” party. Lieberman probably will recall Barry Goldwater’s quip – if you cut off California and New England, you’ve got a pretty good country. Goldwater was describing the Democ

Connecticut’s Neo-Progressive Future and the Windmill Economy

Biden and Xi -- Getty images Connecticut Democrat Governor Ned Lamont and the state’s majority Democrat General Assembly seem determined to follow California’s Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom down a neo-progressive rabbit hole. One of the distinguishing characteristics of neo-progressivism is its vacuous unconcern with attendant consequences. After the neo-progressive assault on the internal combustion engine has been completed, radical environmental extremists in the United States likely will call upon the U.S. Congress to repeal Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion, which states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Generally, the Law means that when one object exerts a force on another object, the second object exerts a force of equal magnitude and opposite direction on the first object. The law applies as well in the realm of ideas. Every idea, especially an insupportable one, generates an equal and opposing restorative idea. People in Connecticut who o

Common Sense and Budget Deficits

The Micawber principle states: “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery.” The inescapable golden rule of budgeting – announced dramatically by Mr. Micawber in Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield is this: When income exceeds expenditures by an infinitesimal amount, you are blessed with happiness. When, on the other hand, your expenditures exceed your income, you quickly arrive at the gates of “misery.” And in Dickens’ day, misery involved spending a good deal of time in debtors’ prison, the fate of Dickens’ own father. Nearly everyone in Connecticut who does not draw a salary from taxpayer provided funds, regarded as infinite by neo-progressive spendthrift politicians, tends to abide, if grudgingly, by the golden rule, even though debtors’ prisons have long been abolished. In the political realm, exceptions to the rule are the rule. Slithery polit

Let Us Now Praise Famous Women, Ayaan Hersi Ali

The more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild – G.K. Chesterton Ayaan Hersi Ali has converted to Christianity. Her road to the live and beating heart of Christianity has been a tortuous journey. Such is the usual progress of the pilgrim. She now joins other converts, among them G. K. Chesterton, whom she quotes in her most recent essay, “ Why I am now a Christian .” In her essay, Hersi Ali is playing upon the title of Bertram Russell’s essay “ Why I am not a Christian ,” an influential atheist tract. I’ve written about Hersi Ali before here , and here . Chesterton, a prolific author, is eminently quotable, always the sign of a great writer. Malcolm Muggeridge, also a quotable writer, summarized Chesterton’s view of atheism this way: “When people cease to believe in God, they do not then believe in nothing, but in anything.” Our postmodern age, by rejec