Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

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What, Me Worry?

Connecticut Dems Connecticut Democrats have little to worry about for a variety of reasons, the most important of which is: political problems become worrisome only when the opposition party or an independent media has the political resources and the inclination to exploit the problem. We know that Connecticut’s Democrat Party has been for 30 years and more the unquestioned dominant party in our state. This dominance is longer-lived in the state’s cities, now dependent on majority Democrats for funding. Hartford’s last Republican mayor was Ann Uccello who presided as mayor from 1967-1971. Political dominance, once attained, is relatively easy to maintain – particularly in a state like Connecticut in which the media, far less independent than it had been during the golden age of bipartisan government in Connecticut, partly for business reasons favors the hegemonic party in power. One of the reasons “power corrupts, and absolute power...

The Trouble With Bad Manners

Elci The trouble with bad manners, Bill Buckley once said, is that they sometimes lead to murder. Buckley was perhaps the most well-mannered contrarian journalist in the business, and he had a genius for friendship. Considering the disposition of political forces in Connecticut – Democrats own the state, lock, stock and barrel -- most contrarian journalists would necessarily fall on the Republican side of the political barricades. They would also be conservative or libertarian. Buckley s last significant collection of his writings -- Happy Days Were Here Again -- was subtitled, provocatively, “Reflections of a Libertarian Journalist.” Those who knew him well will testify that Buckley could handle disagreement without flyting off the handle. Buckley’s irrepressible good humor always stood him in good stead. Asked by a New York Times reporter during his run for mayor of New York City against John Lindsey what he would do if – miracle o...

Capturing the Flag

Sanders When we talk about political campaigns, we often resort to military terminology. In the United States, the campaign wars seem never ending. The chief problem with campaigns is that they are distortion mechanisms constructed to capture votes, which is why German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck said, “People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.” The quotable Bismarck could be disarmingly honest, as in, “Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.” For truth in politics, we look to disarmed retired politicians rather than active vote-hungry politicians. In war, capturing the flag is an indication of a battle won, and so too in political campaigns. We think of accurate accusations of genocide, for instance, as a battle for the moral soul of a constituency. For this reason, it seems to Jews in the United States a false flag to accuse the state of Israel of genocide. The children of Buchenwald and Auschw...

Fazio, Is There A There There?

Fazio The story in the Hartford Courant -- Where has CT GOP’s Fazio worked? What to know as governor’s race comes to vote – may be much ado about nothing, to quote Shakespeare. The governor’s race will “come to a vote” in less than a month and so, from the point of view of loyal opposition, it is well timed. The opposition research folks who are paid for turning over political rocks – always selectively -- probably should be given a raise on this one. The Courant tells us Ryan Fazio’s professional background includes roles in commodities trading, growth equity, and energy/agriculture sectors, but he has not publicly named the companies he worked for — a fact highlighted by the Hartford Courant as a point of political scrutiny. All political politicians come from somewhere and, at the end of their political confinement, much too long in many cases, they go somewhere to cash in on their political service. Republicans generally...

Orthodoxy, Heterodoxy And DeLauro On Abortion

DeLauro The invitation reads, all in caps: “REP ROSA DELAURO TO SPEAK AT SACRED HEART UNIVERSITY ABOUT BEING CATHOLIC IN CONGRESS.” An enticing preview of DeLauro’s upcoming remarks was provided by Kimberly Schwartz, the Director of Communications at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield Connecticut: “U.S. Representative Rosa DeLauro will address the Sacred Heart University community in a talk titled ‘Being a Catholic Member of Congress in a Changing World.’” On the matter of abortion, DeLauro’s views are heterodox rather than orthodox. That is to say, DeLauro’s views on abortion are not those professed unchangingly by the Catholic Church roughly from the 1st to the 21 st century. The orthodox view of the Catholic Church on abortion is available to anyone -- Catholic politician or not – who has a finger and access to a computer. However much the world has changed in the intervening centuries, the orthodox position of the Catholic...

Connecticut’s New Civil War

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...