Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Meriden falls within state Senator Len Suzio’s bailiwick. It was there on June 27 that Frankie Resto, recently released from prison under the state’s new and controversial Risk Reduction Earned Credits program, wandered into an EZ Mart store and shot to death Ibraham Ghazal, according to police who later apprehended and arrested Mr. Resto for the murder. Mr. Resto earned 199 days’ worth of credits toward early release while serving a prison sentence for two prior robberies. The murder of Ghazal almost immediately called into question both the purpose and the construction of the early release program, which enables violent felons to shorten their prison sentences if they abide by certain administrative rules. Prison officials and the Malloy administration, as well as legislators who crafted the program, evidentially wished to place in the hands of prison officials additional tools they felt would contribute to reducing risky behavior within the prison, hence the title o...

Speaker of the state House or Representatives Chris Donovan is the Democratic Party nominee for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut 5 th District. His former campaign finance director Robert Braddock has been arrested following a Grand Jury indictment on a series of charges involving campaign finance money laundering. During an arraignment proceeding on Thursday in federal court in New Haven, charges were brought against other people involved with Mr. Donovan’s U.S. Senate campaign, among them former Donovan campaign manager Joshua Nassi,   Paul Rogers, affiliated with two roll-your-own tobacco shops in Waterbury, and union officials associated with the Department of Corrections. Mr. Donovan appears to be weathering this brutal prosecutorial storm with a degree of calm indifference that has astonished some reporters and commentators familiar with other political corruption cases in Connecticut. Leaders in the party of Jefferson, Jackson and Bailey, beginning with Governor Da...

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is disappointed in the economy, according to a report in Real Clear Politics , and the economy is likewise disappointed in him. More accurately, it is disappointed in Mr. Geithner’s boss, President Barack Obama. Mr. Geithner is but a soldier used to taking orders in Mr. Obama’s progressive administration.       "I'll tell you my general view on this," Secretary of Treasury Tim Geithner said about the economy in his testimony to Congress. "The economy is not growing fast enough. Unemployment is very high. There's a huge amount of damage left in the housing market. Americans are living with the scars of this crisis." If Mr. Obama loses the presidential election to Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney – as yet a big “if”, for the polls suggest a close tie at the moment -- there will be an autopsy on Mr. Obama’s years in office. And someone not tied to the progressive afflatus is almost certain to point ou...

First a confession: I have been trying for years to crawl back on bended knee to Holy Mother Church. The Catholic Mass is a celebration of the Eucharist, otherwise known as Communion. It is under the species of bread and wine that Catholics come together in union to profess the same communal faith, worship God and receive forgiveness for their sins, which in my case are legion. I have a thirty year unconfessed roll of sins, give or take ten years or so, that are, thank God, venial. Venial sins are not to be winked at. They still count and, taken together, I suppose – if they are weighty enough – might plunge you into everlasting torment. Hell, in the days of Dante, used to be an uncomfortable, stench ridden pit, full of faithless politicians and sinful prelates; but now, Hell is regarded as separation from God, the creative source of all felicity. In any case, it is the mortal sins that kill your spirit; venial, not so much. I have been telling myself for about ten of those ...

Salon Weighs in on Connecticut’s U.S. Senatorial Race Alex Pareene, who writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt [Romney]," has weighed in on the Chris Shays-Linda McMahon Republican primary contest for the U.S. Senate in an article titled “Chris Shays has no respect for Linda McMahon: The last Yankee Republican shares his honest opinion of his primary opponent.” Mr. Pareene, formerly of Gawker, is likely not from the nutmeg state, but this is no impediment to Mr. Pareene, who writes: "Shays is pro-choice, pro-gun control, an environmentalist, pro-gay rights, pro-campaign finance reform — basically your classic New England Yankee Republican. Or as we call them now, 'Democrats.”'This helps to explain why he’s having so much trouble defeating someone as ridiculous as Linda McMahon, whose sole asset as a politician is her great wealth, which she earned off the labor of poorly treated 'independent contractor' wres...

U.S. Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts is as close to a proletarian congressman as the state, represented in the Congress for many years by the Kennedys and U. S. Senator John Kerry, net worth $194 million, is likely to get. The following ad – which, by the way, features a cameo appearance from former Senator Edward Kennedy’s brother John – shows that Mr. Brown has not yet lost the common touch:        

As everyone must know by now, the lean and hungry Susan Bysiewicz made an oopsy daisy in one of her campaign ads. She said that her Democratic primary opponent for the U.S. Senate, current U.S. Representative from Connecticut’s 5 th District Chris Murphy, was numero uno among congressman in accepting campaign donations from hedge fund operators, the newest devil in the progressive lexicon of those who will go to the wall just as soon as progressives seize power in the Beltway. In fact, Mr. Murphy is number four among congresspersons receiving campaign benefits from finance groups in the United States and falls considerably behind his colleague. U.S. Representative Jim Himes, who brushed noses with the malefactors of great wealth when he was employed by Goldman Sachs . According to the authoritative CTNewsJunkie , “Chris Murphy has received significant financial support from Wall Street donors—to the tune of $700,000 since 2006— and voted for their interests.” AndCTMirror rep...

It’s getting very WWE out there among progressives. The long anticipated tousle over ads has begun. U.S. Representative Chris Murphy so far has produced a downy soft introductory ad showing Mr. Murphy pushing a shopping cart through a grocery store, accompanied by his wife and children. Along the way, he meets various actors posing as potential voters who toss his way the kind of easily answered soft ball questions and remarks his likely GOP opponent, Republican Party nominee for the U.S. Senate Linda McMahon, should not expect whenever she gets around to visiting editorial boards across the state. The first “shopper” to accost Murphy, his delightful wife Cathy and their two children detests the partisan bickering that has become a common feature in congress during the age of Obama. Could Mr. Murphy, after his election to the U.S. Senate, please do something about that? Here one expects Mr. Murphy to remove his arch progressive Rough Rider’s hat, don his rakish ah-shucks-...

In an interview following his last primary debate with Linda McMahon, former U.S. Rep Chris Shays whispered a Swan’s song , a stark admission that the debate just concluded very well might be his last: “It may be the last time, and I think that would be a loss for the state.” According to the most recent poll, Mr. Shays entered the debate trailing Mrs. McMahon by 29 points, a lead put down by Mrs. McMahon’s critics to her money advantage, which is considerable. During her last campaign for the U.S. Senate, Mrs. McMahon poured $50 million of the sweat of her own brow into her campaign against then Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. Mr. Blumenthal prevailed in that race, even though he was hobbled by charges that he had lied several times concerning his military service. It was an easy matter for Mr. Blumenthal to deflect these charges: He hit the mattresses towards the end of his campaign, after it had become apparent that he had stolen valor from Vietnam veterans, having claime...

Chris VanDeHoef has crossed the i’s and dots the t’s of newspaper consumers in Connecticut who suspect that the press showers favors on left of center Democrats. According to a piece in CTMirror , founders of a new SuperPAC committee that will be showering favors upon Democratic Party nominee for the U.S. Senate Chris Murphy “include Chris VanDeHoef, a lobbyist who is executive director of a media trade group, the Connecticut Daily Newspaper Association, and Kevin Graff, who became a Hartford lobbyist after stepping down last year as chief of staff of the state Senate Democratic majority.” Joining the Murphy mutual admiration society is Jeffrey Garfield, who retired in 2009 after more than 30 years as top dog at Connecticut’s Elections Enforcement Commission. Reporter Greg Hladky in CT.com , a site affiliated with the Advocate chain of newspapers, took Mr. Garfield to task for embracing a disease formerly scorned by both Mr. Garfield and Mr. Murphy. It may be important to...

"She's not okay, always crying," said Tharwat, "holding my father's clothes, smelling his clothes, it's not easy." Tharwat Ghazal is the surviving daughter of 70-year-old Ibrahim Ghazal, who was murdered in an Easy Mart in Meriden on June 27th. The presumptive murderer of Mr. Tharwat is Frankie Resto, who was given a get-out-of-jail-early card by Democrats in Connecticut’s legislature during the last days of its hectic session. “A candidate for the state’s new Risk Reduction Earned Credit Program, Connecticut Commentary has noted previously http://donpesci.blogspot.com/2012/07/risky-risk-reduction-earned-credit.html , “Mr. Resto was given a reduction in his sentence. The legislation that created the program was made retroactive by the Democratic dominated legislature, which means its provision applied to prisoners serving time before the bill’s enactment." Accused store owner killer was let out of jail early: wwlp.com

Dan Roberti, a Democrat running for the U.S House in Connecticut’s 5th District has called upon Democratic Party nominee Chris Donovan to quit the race. "It is time for Chris Donovan to withdraw from the primary race for the good of the Connecticut Democratic Party and to protect the seat,” Mr. Roberti said following an indictment returned by a Grand Jury of Mr. Donovan’s former campaign director Robert Braddock. “He has hidden behind lawyers and never stepped up to explain how members of his campaign staff could have arranged conduit contributions without his knowledge." Following Mr. Roberti’s invitation to withdraw, Donovan campaign manager Tom Swan declared that Mr. Donovan remains, even after damning disclosures, the strongest Democrat in the race . Mr. Donovan was nominated at the Democratic convention for the 5 th District seat now occupied by U.S. Representative Chris Murphy, the Democratic Party nominee for the U.S. Senate seat that will be vacated when pre...

Russians Mull Burying Soviet Leader Lenin The corpse if V.I. Lenin has been awaiting burial since the Soviet Union was thrown on the ash heap of history during the administration of President Ronald Reagan. Comments by Russia’s new culture minister suggest, according to a report in the Washington Times , that Mr. Lenin is, finally, on his way out: “But recent comments by Russia ’s new culture minister have brought closer the possibility that the father of the Bolshevik Revolution could finally be laid to rest, signaling an end to the cult of Lenin . “’Many things in our life would symbolically change for the better after this [burial],’ Mr. Medinsky said, adding that he thinks Lenin should be buried with full state honors and his Red Square mausoleum turned into a museum of the Soviet era.” Nancy Pelosi Rakes In The Dough Borrowing a page from the 1912 election featuring socialist Eugene Debs on the far left, William Howard Taft in the center,   Woodrow Wil...