What Chocolates And Government Programs Have In Common

Like chocolates, government programs are instantly addictive. They are also difficult to repeal, especially in Connecticut, because every new program creates its own constituency, instant professions; and as George Bernard Shaw reminds us, “Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity.” The laity is the world outside the profession. In government, the laity is the collective whose pockets are mined by the profession to extend and continue the conspiracy.

That is how hard pressed and friendless taxpayers in the state should think about new programs.

Old programs involve entrenched constituencies, which are considerably more difficult to uproot and cast into the fires of Hell.

An entrenched constituency is like a mouse in a house. First you see one, then two; then nothing happens for about six weeks. Then the mouse population explodes. Soon you are overwhelmed by boisterous mice chatting in the wall. What a mouse population that threatens to overrun the house needs is a cat – a bright-eyed, sharptoothed, merciless cat. Pity only serves to excite the mouse population's reproductive systems. Smile at one mouse and before you know it you will be the unwilling host to a hord of mice that will spoil your sleep and, worse, upset your wife.

Comments

Anonymous said…

Chocolate's toxic to cats, I've read.

1:23 PM

Don Pesci said…

True, other animals as well. But cats like non-chocolate mice.

4:49 PM

The Blumenthal Burisma Connection

Steve Hilton , a Fox News commentator who over the weekend had connected some Burisma corruption dots, had this to say about Connecticut U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal’s association with the tangled knot of corruption in Ukraine: “We cross-referenced the Senate co-sponsors of Ed Markey's Ukraine gas bill with the list of Democrats whom Burisma lobbyist, David Leiter, routinely gave money to and found another one -- one of the most sanctimonious of them all, actually -- Sen. Richard Blumenthal."

Obamagod!

My guess is that Barack Obama is a bit too modest to consider himself a Christ figure , but artist will be artists. And over at “ To Wit ,” a blog run by professional blogger, journalist, radio commentator and ex-Hartford Courant religious writer Colin McEnroe, chocolateers will be chocolateers. Nice to have all this attention paid to Christ so near to Easter.

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

Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

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