Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Himes, Hunter Biden -- BizPacReview U.S. Representative Jim Himes, an agile Connecticut Democrat, is walking a very thin plank. Appearing on MSNBC on July 28 , Himes said, “Let me say something that you never heard a Republican member of Congress say in the four years of the Trump administration, which is that if Hunter Biden broke the law, he should be prosecuted." And it is clear that he broke the law with respect to taxes and possibly the ownership of a handgun. He should be held accountable for that." In addition, Himes acknowledged, “If he [Hunter] traded on his father’s influence, he should be held accountable for that. And I’m emphasizing this because you never, ever heard a Republican say the same thing about Donald Trump or his family.” But, of course, there is a “but,” not unusual when a president’s son bangs up against prevailing laws and threatens to overthrow the second term presidency of his dad, Joe Biden. According to the MSNBC account, “The Democrat...

Como and Lamont If you lop off California and New England, you’ve got a pretty damn good country – Barry Goldwater. Governor Ned Lamont, a small businessman before he became chief executive of a state now suffering an acute identity crisis, has made it plain to both Democrats and Republicans on the left that Connecticut is not New York or California. Lamont may have been former Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo’s fishing buddy ( see pic above ), but, even so, the historic differences between New York and Connecticut have been obvious to dispassionate observers for decades. In the northeast, New York was and is an advance guard of the nation’s neo-progressive movement, a slow march to a glorious future   in which we all shall be equal at last in intelligence, talent and, most importantly, in income. Historically, Connecticut was – note the past tense -- a state that sanely maintained its head when all others were losing theirs. There were, of course, scores of neo-progressi...

Putin, Biden Stalinist President of Russia Vladimir Putin has made two major mistakes from which he may not recover without a great deal of help from diplomats and business associates in what used to be called the free world. Putin has turned Russia east rather than west. Russia is historically a western rather than an eastern nation and has been so roughly since the reign of Peter the Great. In addition, Putin may go down in history as the worst Russian commander-in-chief of the nation’s military since the murder of Czar Nicholas II and his family in 1918. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) is reporting that Putin has broken, perhaps irreparably, his own military chain of command in an attempt to win his terrorist war on Ukraine cheaply and with a minimum of Russian soldier body bags sent to Moscow. Since the rubblization of Ukraine began, Putin has attempted to win his war on the cheap by relying upon bought terrorist groups, the most odious of which is the Wagner Group,...

Freire -- Didactief In many of Grimm’s fairy tales, the way out of the forest, always mysterious, dark and dangerous, is the way in – in reverse. The brightest of heroes -- hopeful, dangerously inexperienced, but gifted by God with cleverness and primed to learn -- leaves a trail of markers on his or her way into the forest so that, when a danger intrudes that threatens to overcome them, they may find their way home again. Home, the familiar past, the good and Godly spirit sometimes hidden in the warp and woof of the tale, is the great desideratum . The hero – think of Odysseus -- can and should bring his past with him into any future of his making. You can carry your past, as Aeneas carries his father on his back out of burning Troy, to a new future in a new country, to a new virgin wilderness. That is the hope and dream of every storm tossed refugee from the terrors of the dark forest who, through his own wits, has come into a new country bearing his father, his past, on his ba...

The question of the day is not “What makes President Joe Biden run?” but rather ‘Should Biden run?” Both Democrats and Republicans will be confronting a similar problem in 2024. Should their leading presidential candidates – Republican former President Donald Trump and Democrat President Joe Biden withdraw from their races? Just now, national polls are screaming they should withdraw, according to The Hill:   Majorities don’t want Biden, Trump to run in 2024: survey . No less a liberal eminence than Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, not a MAGA supporter, has argued that Biden should bid us all a fond farewell. And National Review magazine appears to be dusting off its old bromide in time for the upcoming elections. To its credit, National Review -- which devoted a whole issue of its magazine, “Never Trump”, to a stern warning that conservatives should not support Trump, the magazine later allowed dissent and published, among others, a repentant piece by Dan McLaughlin , ...

Weicker -- CTPost For Connecticut Republicans and Democrats alike, former Senator and Governor Lowell Weicker’s maturation was a wondrous thing to behold. Weicker had reached the end of his political road when he decided not to run for a second term as Connecticut’s governor. Few supposed he could be reelected, and no one in the Republican Party was astonished by his decision after he had forced an income tax down the gullets of his statewide constituents. In an oral history recorded in 2009, CTMirror’s Mark Pazniokas tells us, Weicker explained the remarkable twists and turns in his 30 year course in Connecticut politics. “When we start in politics,” Weicker said, “ if we’re going to be successful [emphasis mine], we’re going to mature in politics. I started out, as first selectman of the town of Greenwich, as a very conservative Republican, and even when I was in the state legislature, I might have moderated a little bit, due to my interaction with representatives from the othe...

The Blake Center for Faith and Freedom The Fourth of July this year, as everyone in Connecticut who has tolerated the weather the past few days well knows, was wet. The weather, along with fidgety concerns about the effect of fireworks displays on an apparently violated environment, have thrown cold water on John Adams’ view of a proper celebration of independence. “The Second Day of July 1776,” Adams wrote to his wife Abigail on the occasion of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, “will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival [of Independence] …It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.” The official celebration of Independence on July 4, pedants will note, is off by two days. The weather did n...