Dodd’s Last Cuban Fling

Laura Colarusso of the Daily Beast reported on former U.S. Senator Chris Dodd’s last trips before becoming a Hollywood mogul:

“And being a short-timer doesn’t have to crimp anyone’s style. Take former Sen. Chris Dodd, the Democrat from Connecticut. After announcing in January 2010 that he wouldn't seek reelection, Dodd traveled to Brazil, Argentina, India, Spain, and the United Kingdom on the taxpayers’ dime. As chairman of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, he signed off on close to $27,000 worth of foreign travel for himself, including a $2,000 trip to Cuba just before leaving office. A spokesman for the Motion Picture Association of America, Dodd’s new employer, said that the former senator’s trips were ‘especially important to bilateral and multilateral relations and the global harmonization of financial regulations.’"

The $2,000 tax payer trip to Cuba possibly was undertaken to bid a fair fond farewell to Cuba’s dictator, Fidel Castro. Mr. Dodd and Mr. Castro have been on friendly speaking terms over the years. And one cannot go to Cuba without leaving some fingerprints on Mr. Castro’s island. The equivalent of Cuba’s CIA takes notes on visits by foreign dignitaries – lots of notes.

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Lamont Surprised at Suit Brought Against PURA

Marissa P. Gillett, the state's chief utility regulator, watches Gov. Ned Lamont field questions about a new approach to regulation in April 2023. Credit: MARK PAZNIOKAS / CTMIRROR.ORG Concerning a suit brought by Eversource and Avangrid, Connecticut’s energy delivery agents, against Connecticut’s Public Utility Regulatory Agency (PURA), Governor Ned Lamont surprised most of the state’s political watchers by affecting surprise. “Look,” Lamont told a Hartford Courant reporter shortly after the suit was filed, “I think it is incredibly unhelpful,” Lamont said. “Everyone is getting mad at the umpires. Eversource is not getting everything they want and they are bringing suit. It was a surprise to me. Nobody notified me. I think we have to do a better job of working together.” Lamont’s claim is far less plausible than the legal claim made by Eversource and Avangrid. The contretemps between Connecticut’s energy distributors and Marissa Gillett , Gov. Ned Lamont’s ...

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."

Maureen Dowd vs Chris Murphy

Maureen Dowd, a longtime New York Times columnist who never has been over friendly to Donald Trump, was interviewed recently by Bill Maher, and she laid down the law, so to speak, to the Democrat Party. In the course of a discussion with Maher on the recently released movie Snow White, “New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd declared Democrats are ‘in a coma’ while giving a blunt diagnosis of the party she argued had become off-putting to voters,” Fox News reported. The Democrats, Dowd said, stopped "paying attention" to the long term political realignment of the working class. "Also,” she added, “they just stopped being any fun. I mean, they made everyone feel that everything they said and did, and every word was wrong, and people don't want to live like that, feeling that everything they do is wrong." "Do you think we're over that era?" Maher asked. “No," Dowd answered. "I think Democrats are just in a coma. Th...

Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

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