Tammany Hall Comes To Town Hall

Tell the truth but tell it slant: That was poet Emily Dickenson’s advice.

Applying the maxim to the Carlos Costa case, we get Tammany Hall epigrams from Carlos Costa’s lawyer, the forthright William Gerace:

"He did what he did," said Gerace of Costa, his client, adding that the facts of the allegations against Costa aren't in dispute. It's the interpretation that's at issue.

"Someone else will have to determine if he committed a crime or if he was trying to make a living," Gerace said, adding that what Costa did was grease "the wheels of business."

Costa is the Hartford developer, now under arrest, who sought to grease the wheels of business by performing what he thought was cost free work on Mayor Eddie Perez’s house.

The prosaic Hartford Courant put it this way:

“According to arrests warrants, Costa has told investigators that he thought the allegedly free work was "the cost of me doing business with the City." At the same time he was working on the mayor's house, Costa was working on a $5.7 million city streetscape project. As Costa struggled to meet deadlines and complete the city work, Perez intervened on his behalf and to his benefit, prosecutors allege.”

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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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