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Connecticut’s Media And The Reigning Democratic Hegemony

We all know incumbent politicians have an edge over challengers. Their campaigns usually are flush with contributions, and this year is no exception to the rule. US Senator Dick Blumenthal, to choose but one of the seven members of Connecticut’s all Democratic US Congressional Delegation, has an arsenal of cash in his campaign coffers, while his Republican opponent, Dan Carter, has far fewer munitions. “Them that’s got,” Billie Holiday sings, “shall get; them that’s not shall lose. So the Bible says, and it still is news.”

Mr. Blumenthal has raised $8,639,009 for his campaign, Carter $361,934.  In addition, Mr. Blumenthal will rack up nearly all Connecticut’s media endorsements. Favorable press has been piling up in his corner since he began his public service career forty years ago.

Once asked whether he thought history would be kind to him, Winston Churchill answered he thought it would – “because I intend to write the history.” And he did. For the most part, Mr. Blumenthal has been permitted to write his own history in the form of media releases printed almost verbatim during those months when he is not campaigning for office, the greater part of the political year. And since he owns the multi-million dollar US Congressional seat he sits upon, he needn’t extend to his campaign challengers the courtesy of multiple debates. Connecticut has seen but one debate this campaign year between Mr. Blumenthal and Mr. Carter. The unscripted moment is Mr. Blumenthal’s worst enemy.

Campaign contributors and editorial boards operate on the same assumptions: Why “invest,” either polemically or with one’s wallet, in a candidate who likely will not win an election? One wants a return on one’s campaign contribution and one’s polemical support. Prudence is always the better part of valor. This appears to be the operative principle of Connecticut’s media and its wealthy campaign donors. The days when the media thought it was a part of its mission to “level the playing field” – an expression often used by Mr. Blumenthal when, as Attorney General, he chased down mid-level businesses in the state with a hatchet in his fist – is part of journalism’s glorious, vanished past. Our current muckrakers think it is impolite to disturb the peace of its incumbent politicians.

And that is why Blumenthal has not been asked impertinent questions concerning the plight of Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Like what? Well, there are no fewer than five separate FBI investigations swirling around Mrs. Clinton heels, piranhas waiting for their bite.

Perhaps the most important, from a prosecutor's point of view, is the Clinton Foundation investigation, which is much more expansive than at first realized. People involved have been interviewed multiple times, and the investigation centers on a “pay to play” operation that would make Al Capone blush. “Two separate sources with intimate knowledge of the FBI investigations” have told  Bret Baier of Fox News that an “indictment is likely… barring some obstruction in some way" from the Justice Department. Obstructions from the partisan Justice Department are inevitable. But here is some uplifting news: Concerning “the immunity deal that Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, two top aides to Hillary Clinton, got from the Justice Department in which it was believed that the laptops they had, after a narrow review for classified materials, were going to be destroyed, " Mr. Baier disclosed, "we have been told that those have not been destroyed -- they are at the FBI field office here on Washington and are being exploited.”

Other separate investigations involve data recovered from Anthony Weiner’s criminal investigation. Apparently, nothing in the Beltway permanently disappears, even when you BleachBit it. The Weiner cache contains new data exchanges between Mrs. Clinton and her top aide, Huma Abedin, who transferred files to her home account so that she might be able to print them out for her boss. The FBI investigation cake is topped with a Gibraltar sized cherry. According to a Real Clear Politics report on Baier’s disclosures, “FBI sources say with 99% accuracy that Hillary Clinton's server has been hacked by at least five foreign intelligence agencies, and that information had been taken from it.”

There are dozens of unscripted moments in all this newsworthy data. And, since Blumenthal is running away with his pants on fire from further debates with Carter, it might be helpful if one investigative reporter in Connecticut – just one! -- could be found to mold the usual Clinton mess into a few hard questions and toss them in Blumenthal’s direction; though, of course, the questions may as easily be put to any of the incumbent Democrats within Connecticut’s hegemonic US Congressional Delegation.

Question: When Clinton is elected President, do you feel her Presidency will be put in jeopardy by a) any of the five continuing FBI investigations, and/or b) data  acquired by foreign governments from Mrs. Clinton’s original sin – her failure to secure confidential information by acceding to legally required data safety protocols? Is it not possible that a President Clinton may bow to pressure brought to bear by foreign governments who have accesses to incriminating data?


Such questions might inconvenience the members of the all Democratic US Congressional delegation, every one of whom passionately supports Clinton’s criminal enterprise – and she and her husband have been VERY enterprising – but hey, what’s a media for?


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