Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Lamont opening the General Assembly “ The future ain’t what it used to be ” – Yogi Berra The Headline in a CTMirror story, “ CT budget deal includes $600M in tax cuts, extends gas tax holiday ”, includes a telling subtitle: “ But more than half the tax relief is guaranteed for just one year. There’s always a “but” in good journalism raining on someone’s parade. The thrust of the   story raises an interesting question: In what sense is “tax relief” a “tax cut”? Many of the “tax cuts” referenced in this and other stories in Connecticut’s media are either temporary tax cuts or tax credits. A temporary tax cut is only a “tax cut” until it elapses, after which it becomes once again a tax increase. And a “tax credit” is not, properly speaking, a tax cut. A tax, almost always permanent, moves money from a taxpayer’s budget to a state or federal treasury.   A “tax cut” terminates the movement and leaves disposable assets in the account of the taxpayer. A tax credit retain...

Blumenthal There is little doubt that Connecticut U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal has been emotionally affected by his recent visit to Poland, where he saw writ large at first hand the ravages of Russian imperialist Vladimir Putin’s policy towards Ukraine, NATO, the United States and democracy. About a third of Ukrainians have fled Putin’s assaults on major Ukrainian cities, many of them ending up in Poland. Blumenthal well understands Putin’s unjustifiable attacks on a sovereign country that has served since the Soviet Union recession as a buffer between Russia and Eastern Europe. Strategically, Putin wants to crush Ukrainian independence, move Russia’s border westward, so that it is contiguous with the borders of NATO states, put Ukraine permanently at the mercy of Russia by annexing the Donbas region, as Russia had earlier annexed Crimea, providing a land bridge from Russia to Crimea. Both Blumenthal and Biden are familiar with Putin’s strategic war aims. So are nearly all Democrat...

The Lamont Family On the one hand, Connecticut Democrats have for years had a love/hate relationship with the rich. Not a few Democrat Jeremiahs have let loose on the rich over the years, partly in order to claim solidarity with the more numerous middle class. In our progressive post-Marxian leftist universe, class is still king. The rich, by simply being rich, are still regarded in leftist quarters as oppressors of the proletariat. Connecticut’s “Gold Coast,” a parcel of well-endowed rich people stretching snake-like along the state’s southern coastline, fairly glows with wealth. Greenwich is wealth central, and a few Democrat politicians live in the glorious gilded bubble, far from the madding crown. U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal and Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont, both of whom will be heading the Democrat ticket in the midterm elections, live in Greenwich. Other Democrat U.S. Congressional millionaires are U.S. Representatives Jim Himes, who also lives in Greenwich, and Democr...

Blumenthal, Biden In the campaign season now upon us, money is, more than ever, the mother’s milk of politics. U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal, we all know, is rich in every sense of the word. He is a multi-millionaire who lives in splendor in Greenwich, Connecticut, a billionaire’s Eden. And he, as well as other Democrat U.S. Congresspersons, also redundantly rich – such as 3 rd District U.S. Representatives Rosa DeLauro, first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives more than three decades ago in 1990, and 4 th District U.S. Representative Jim Himes, now enjoying his seventh term in office – is able at the drop of a hat to assemble a formidable campaign war chest that will serve to discourage primary opponents and assure an effortless glide path to victory. In addition to personal wealth, Blumenthal is also rich in mostly flattering news reports, many of which he or his staff had a hand in creating through carefully crafted news releases not always critically examined by Conn...

Polarization, most often caused by rapid political change, sets group A, most often a majority, against group B, an aggressive minority determined, as Father of the American Revolution Sam Adams used to say, to set fire in the minds of men:  “It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.” For Adams, the lust for freedom and liberty always played a leading role in the shape and substance of government. “Government,” Father of the Country George Washington once said, “is force ,” which is why it should be deployed sparingly. In postmodern times, liberty is less important than political organization. The postmodern politician is not especially interested is freeing mankind from political oppression and unwanted force. It is interested chiefly in occupying a place of power and using hard won political advantage to rule. Force, not freedom, is the political desideratum among most parties s...

The Black Madonna of Czestochowa Just before the joy of Easter broke upon us, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, far from Russian bombardments in Ukraine. In an interviewed on NBC’s “ Meet the Press ,” Nehammer said that Putin thinks he is winning the war in Ukraine despite heavy military losses and the fruitless non-stop bombing of Ukrainian cities. Putin certainly has left his mark on Ukrainian cities, and will continue to do so as long as Ukraine’s military cannot close Ukrainian air space to what can only be called urban carpet bombing. More bombing in Bucha and Mariupol, for instance, can do little more than disturb the rubble of Putin’s carefully chosen targets. There is not a single military man in Connecticut, from Private First Class to General, who would not tell you that whoever controls the skies in a war also controls ground offenses, however brave and resolute the resistance.  “We have to confront him [Putin]...

The problem with socialism, British Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher once said, is that “sooner or later, you run out of other people’s money.” The same problem occurs when legislators, taking advantage of a temporary boost in funding from a tax rich federal government, uses temporary funding to increase spending knowing full well that the temporary and distorting   infusions of federal money soon will dissipate. The funds presently supplied to Connecticut by the Biden administration having run out, the problem the state will face in 2024 is painfully simple: How do you continue to finance the increased spending load when the federal well has gone dry? There are numerous solutions to this pressing but easily ignored problem. You might urge the federal government – which can print money at the risk of increasing inflation, already at record highs – to continue financing long term state spending, resulting in a net zero cost to the states. The net zero cost is, of course, somew...

Bucha The diplomatist’s credo in Voltaire’s Candide : “Well, my dear Pangloss,” Candide said to them, “when you were hanged, dissected, whipped, and tugging at the oar, did you continue to think that everything in this world happens for the best?” “I have always abided by my first opinion,” answered Panglos, “for after all, I am a philosopher, and it would not become me to retract my sentiments.” “Brutal” is one way to describe President of Russia Vladimir Putin’s continuing efforts to occupy Ukraine. This from a recent AP report : “On March 15, a friend of the dead man was approached by Russians demanding his documents. They’re at home, he said. On the way there, they passed the grave. He pointed it out. The next moment, witness Iryna Kolysnik says, the soldiers shot him.” Apparently, Russian soldiers do not appreciate the black humor that has found its dark seat in the hearts of war ravaged Ukrainians. “’He was talking too much,’ one said, adding an expletive.” The Britis...

Lamont and Democrat Union Supporters When Voltaire, a bitter critic of the clericalism of his day, was stretched out on his death bed, the church sent around a priest to give the dying man Last Rights. When the priest came to that portion of the rite in which Voltaire was asked “Do you reject the Devil and all his works?” Voltaire bestirred himself and said, “Now is not the time to be making enemies.” Reputedly, these were his last words. Some “fact checkers” have cast doubt upon the last words of famous figures, but most of us will agree that if the quote is spurious, Voltaire ought to have said such words as a final tribute both to his wit and his anti-clericalism. There are no last words in politics, as we know, but the ruling Democrat Party in Connecticut has generally operated on the principle that an election year is not the time to be making enemies of state employee unions. Such has been the guiding principle of two powerful Democrat governors, former Governor Dannel Malloy...

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men” -- Lord Acton Bob Stefanowski, the likely Republican choice for Governor in the 2020 election, has called upon West Haven Mayor Nancy Rossi to resign her office, according to an AP report, “ Audit questions 80% of West Haven’s COVID expenditures .” “She [Rossi] knew they were under scrutiny by the MARB (The Municipal Accountability Review Board), and she failed to put the protections in place to ensure that local resources were protected and spent with the residents needs in mind,” Stefanowski said in a written statement. CohnReznick LLP (IDT), according to its executive summary , “was engaged by the Office of Policy and Management (referred to herein as “OPM”) to provide OPM with financial advisory services related to the allegations of misuse of Coronavirus Relief Funds (“CRF”) by the City of West Haven, Connecticut (the “City”), as outlined in the Statement of Work unde...

  "The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice” – G.K. Chesterton The New York Times, a publication that cannot be accused of favorable opinion toward its bête noir , former President Donald Trump, has very late in the game stumbled upon Hunter Biden’s laptop, months after the New York Post brought it to public notice. The Times assures us that the laptop and its contents are not, as had been previously supposed, a Russian hoax. The Post’s reports on the content of Hunter Biden's laptop were generally dismissed by America’s left of center media as a political plot engineered by Russian spooks. Hunter Biden is the most recent bad boy of American politics. In the postmodern period, erotic misbehavior has not been a bar to political advancement. Former President John Kennedy apparently suffered from what some would regard as a compulsive sexual disorder, as did former President Bill Clinton, known for illicit behavior ...