Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Somewhere in his voluminous writings , criminal defense attorney Norm Pattis, a very “good” – quote marks intended – lawyer, makes the case for jury nullification. His argument runs along these lines: We trust jurors with our property, our lives and our sacred honor, why then should we not trust them to bring in a just verdict athwart the instructions of a judge or the presentation of highly edited evidence? In the modern (Kafkaesque?) trial, the defense and prosecution are permitted to argue during various sidebars and out of the hearing of a jury the fine points of law according to which this or that piece of evidence, germane or not, should or should not be presented to the jury. Why not allow all evidence, save fictional evidence, to go to the jury and allow lawyers to argue at trial whether or not the data is pertinent?

Some Malloy Democrats are convinced that Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley has his foot caught in a bear trap. On Mr. Malloy’s gun control bill, for instance, Mr. Foley has been deemed reticent on the question of adjustments to the bill that had criminalized the ownership by non-criminals of certain kinds of weapons that had been legal before its passage. Other Malloy Democrats have asserted as hotly that Mr. Foley is sadly side-stepping the bear trap because he has refused to say exactly what in the bill he would repeal or change. At least one “national GOP strategist,” unnamed in a CTMirror report , thinks vagueness on some issues in a campaign may be a plus. Registered Republicans in Connecticut represent only 21 percent of the electorate. They are outnumbered by Democrats (37 percent) and Independents or unaffiliateds (42 percent). In order to reach beyond Republican precincts into unaffiliated territory, a Republican candidate must retain his base and soften its...

This is a media advisory released by Len Suzio Len Suzio  (b. January 4, 1948) is a  2014   Republican  candidate for  District 13  of the  Connecticut State Senate . He previously served in the chamber, representing the same seat from 2011 to 2013. He was elected in a  special election on February 22, 2011,   to fill the vacancy created when  Thomas Gaffey  (D) left office after pleading guilty to misdemeanor larceny charges Ballotpedia Suzio: "Early Release" Criminal charged with Murder of Infant Arrested suspect charged with murder of 1 year old girl received "risk reduction credits" "Risk reduction credits don't work and don't correlate with reduced risk" - Len Suzio Date: August 22, 2014

There is no question that President Barack Obama is a money magnet for Democrats on the campaign trail this election season. The smiles of both Democrats and Republicans broaden considerably whenever they hear the click of coins tumbling into their campaign coffers. Vice President Joe Biden recently visited Connecticut to boost the financial prospects of Governor Dannel Malloy and assorted Democrats. All Democrats in the state were pleased to see him come and go. Sharp-eyed Democrats, however, could not help but notice, to vary a phrase used effectively by Lloyd Bentsen in his 1988 Vice Presidential contest with Dan Quayle, that Biden is no Obama. Recent polls indicated that former Republican Party presidential nominee Mitt Romney is more popular than Mr. Obama, and the grumblings within Democratic Party ranks are ominous. The New York Times has reported that Speaker of the U.S. Senate Harry Reid, “and other senators have been dismayed by President Obama’s attitude toward conc...

Vice President Joe Biden came to Connecticut for two reasons: to raise money – this is, after all, election season – and to fist bump Governor Dannel Malloy. Mr. Biden had hardly arrived in the state when some faithful Democrats began to wonder whether Mr. Malloy had fallen out of favor with the White House. Why dispatch to such a faithful state a second string, gaff prone VP? Where was President Barack Obama?

Rob Kwasnicki is a young Republican – a minor confession: Anyone younger than I, most of the planet, I regard as “young” – who is challenging incumbent state Representative David Kiner in Connecticut’s 59th District , which comprises a portion of Enfield and East Windsor. Prior to the interview below, I asked Mr. Kwasnicki to provide a brief biography. The son of Polish immigrants, whose background was in farming, Mr. Kwasnicki was born in Hartford and raised in East Hartford. His father, uncles and grandfather were all blue collar workers. Others in his family were entrepreneurs and small business owners. One was a contractor, others owned a hardware store, a machine shop and a small restaurant in Warehouse Point CT, Village Luncheonette.

For those familiar with the politics of personal destruction, it will not come as a surprise to learn that the National Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has compiled a “Dirt Book” on Mark Greenberg. Mr. Greenberg is running for the U.S. House of Representatives in Connecticut’s 5 th District, a seat presently held by Democrat Elizabeth Esty, the wife of Daniel Esty, appointed by Governor Dannel Malloy to head the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP).  Mr. Esty arrived at DEEP from Yale University and announced his intention of returning there in January. He was replaced by Rob Klee, chief of staff of DEEP under Mr. Esty. Mrs. Esty defeated Andrew Roraback, since appointed by Mr. Malloy to Connecticut’s Superior Court.  Mr. Greenberg engaged in the 2012 Republican primary but stepped aside after the his party’s nominating convention had settled upon Mr. Roraback, a fiscal conservative whose positions on social issues were left of center...

Ralph Nader once again is prowling the countryside saying things that are not so much wrong as passe. He does this because he himself is passe. Consumer advocacy, Mr. Nader’s specialty, reigns supreme everywhere in Connecticut, which only a short while ago sent to the U.S. Congress the nation’s first consumer protection senator, Dick Blumenthal, a little stiffer than Mr. Nader, but made from the same ideological cloth. Not having kept up with the times, Mr. Nader seems to be laboring under the illusion that both major political parties in the United States “continually reject even considering cracking down on corporate crimes, crony capitalism or corporate welfare.”

Former Ambassador to Ireland Tom Foley ran a soft primary campaign. Indeed, during the Republican nominating convention, when it appeared certain that potential primary challenger John McKinney would not have sufficient votes to wage a primary, the Foley forces intervened and convinced enough nominating delegates to switch their votes so that Mr. McKinney might enlist in the primary. Concerning the delegate swap, there are two schools of thought.  According to the first, Mr. Foley was a gentleman and much too mild mannered to participate effectively in Connecticut’s political mosh pit. According to the second, the delegate swap gambit was a stroke of pure genius. In one bold move, Mr. Foley had split his primary opposition between Mr. McKinney and Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton who, unlike Mr. McKinney, had rounded up enough Republican delegates to force a primary.

On December 14 of this year, a month after Connecticut’s general elections, people in the state will be memorializing the second year of the Sandy Hook slaughter. On that occasion in 2012, Adam Lanza carried with him to Sandy Hook Elementary school  an arsenal of weapons : an Izhmash Saiga 12-gauge semiautomatic shotgun, a Bushmaster Model XM15-E2S .223-caliber semiautomatic rifle, a Glock 20 10mm semiautomatic handgun and a Sig Sauer P226 9mm semiautomatic handgun. He had taken with him to the school two 12-gauge shotgun magazines, ten 30-round .223 magazines, six 30-round 9mm magazines and six 30-round 10mm magazines. All the weapons and magazines had been lawfully purchased. Leaving in the car the shotgun he had illegally appropriated from his mother, whom he had just murdered with a Savage Mark II bolt-action .22-caliber rifle, Mr. Lanza shot his way into the school and methodically murdered 26 people with the Bushmaster rifle. Having killed 20 young children and 6 staff ...

This is what a problem solver and an independent thinker sounds like >

The headline on the story was: “ Blumenthal, Murphy Issue Statements On Iraq .” But in fact, there is no more Iraq. The country, etched out by British colonialists in 1920 after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, has been partitioned, somewhat like Ukraine, by principalities and powers that never were and never will be friendly to the United States. President Barack Obama some time ago, leaning into then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s air space, clasped him him robustly on the arm, and advised, unaware that his mike was hot, that following the election, he would have much more “flexibility” to decide, among other things, whether or not to place defensive  missiles in Eastern Europe .  It was a schmooze moment, and Mr. Medvedev promised to carry the message to Vladmir Putin, Czar of all the Russians.

It’s not often reporters feel compelled to lift the veil and show the general public how politicians massage the message. This was done recently in a Hartford Courant Capitol Watch piece, and the resulting story, written by dogged investigative reporter Jon Lender, presumably with his tongue tucked far back in his cheek, is hilarious: “Pull back the curtain as top aides in the Malloy administration shape the messages that get fed to the taxpaying public, and you see how much calculation, editing and rewriting happens before a statement is finally issued — and how high up the ladder they go for approval.

Governor Dannel Malloy thinks he is at least as courageous as former Governor Lowell Weicker, the father of Connecticut’s income tax. “People said we need someone to be as brave as Lowell Weicker, to do what they believed was necessary to save the state,” Mr. Malloy told CTMirror .  “I’ve done that. I’ve done it in all earnest, regardless of what the political consequences were.” Mr. Weicker is on record as having said he believes Mr. Malloy is courageous. Both governors discharged large deficits through large tax increases. Both suffered criticism, most of it coming from ordinary people rather than politicians or left of center political commentators who ply their trade in Connecticut’s reportorial-political complex.

By  Sheila Matthews According to the August 2nd article in the   Hartford Courant titled McKinney Over Foley in Republican Primary for Governor, McKinney  is the paper’s choice to remain in the Capitol because, among other things, in the immediate aftermath of Sandy Hook, McKinney voted for the controversial and intrusive gun safety bill. The Hartford Courant  has thrown its endorsement to McKinney because the Senate Minority leader ignored the Republican base and voted with the Democrats where, “he could engage in the process and try to influence the drafting of the law.” It is unclear how McKinney influenced that legislation and, actually, it would be of some interest to the voters to know what specific role McKinney played in crafting the sweeping legislative language. While the gun restrictions are repugnant to many, Ablechild is more concerned about the other legislative measures included, specifically the costly increases in mental he...

You’ll walk the floor, the way I do You’re cheating heart will tell on you -- Hank Williams If it had been Christmas, Josh Solomon, the owner of the New Britain Rock Cats  – soon to be renamed the Hartford Rock Cats – might have found a lump of coal in his stocking. But it’s August, and the fiercely patriotic Mayor of New Britain, Erin Stewart, contented herself with a “Dear John” letter requesting a payment of back taxes owed and announcing the end of a once great romance.

The news, which was pretty much foreordained, could not have come as a shattering revelation to President Barack Obama’s administration, the Joint Chiefs of Staff  at the Department of Defense or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who this year appears to be running for President of the United states. The story was prominently featured in Malta Today , but that was because the refugees from Benghazi in Libya were pouring into Malta. The Philippines   had already withdrawn from Benghazi. They were, according to a story buried on page A8 in the Hartford Courant , struggling “to evacuate about 13,000 nationals to Malta – this after “the beheaded remains of a Philippine national were found in Benghazi last week and a Philippine nurse was abducted and raped Wednesday," all signs that Islamic militants, as they are sometimes called by the U.S. media, were preparing to add Benghazi to their borderless Middle East Caliphate.