Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Weicker paying court to Castro Facts always arrive at our doorsteps with tattoos attached.  It is important to get the facts straight so that, as Mark Twain somewhere says, you may them misinterpret them as you will. The tattoos are conventional interpretations.   Most reporters do not neglect to mention the fact that former U.S. Senator Lowell Weicker was, until he was relieved of his congressional responsibilities by then Connecticut Attorney General Joe Lieberman, a Republican. Weicker called himself a Jacob Javits Republican.   Republicans in Connecticut, many of whom heeded the call by Bill Buckley to cast their votes in the 1988 US Senatorial election for Lieberman rather than Weicker, had some doubts concerning Weicker’s true affiliation. During his last year as a U.S. Senator, Weicker was awarded high marks by the left leaning Americans for Democratic Action (ADA). The senator’s voting record in Congress during his last year in office was 20 points higher...

Samson It’s a pretty straightforward news account, written by longtime reporter Chris Keating in the Hartford Courant and carried by the paper on its front page above the fold on Thursday, October 24 – “Senator claims election not secure.”   “Ariana Hernandez, who is a permanent resident but not a citizen,” the paper disclosed, “said in a sworn affidavit to the state Elections Enforcement Commission that Bridgeport city council member Alfredo Castillo came to her house in 2023 and said that he could help her with voting. ‘He told me to sign the voter’s registration application,’ Hernandez said in the affidavit that is dated October 4, 2024. ‘I did not fill out the form. I do not know when it was filled. I did not indicate on the form that I was a citizen. He told me that I would not have a problem if I voted as a permanent resident.’… He told me to sign the voter’s registration application,’ Hernandez said in the affidavit that is dated October 4, 2024.”   The form was...

Harris and Trump -- duMond/Brendan Smialowski/AFP/GETTY After Tuesday, November 5, it will become clear who had a sufficient number of electoral votes to win the 2024 presidential election, former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris. The election, we have been repeatedly told by pollsters, is “too close to call.”   Political commentators, of course, are not content to wait on certainty. It is speculation, some of it improbable, not certainty, that sells newspapers.   On the Republican side, Trump and Vice President Nominee J. D. Vance appear to be gathering momentum in the two weeks before the election, but momentum is not always dispositive. Money and positive coverage are also important in elections.   If Harris wins the presidency in November, the attempt by Democrats to abolish the Electoral College and replace it with a popular vote may well succeed. The Electoral College was first introduced by the founders because they did not want po...

Biden and Harris The Bret Baier interview with Democrat Party presidential prospect Kamala Harris was a debate between Harris’ two faces. Baier simply held up the mirror to nature. He had less than 20 minutes in the interview, and Harris was fashionably late to arrive and early to leave.   The former interview-shy prosecutor, Vice President for nearly four years in the President Joe Biden administration, has been interviewing at the margins the last few weeks. The Baier interview should have been political Hollywood for her but, as part of a long term strategy to duck hard questions and embarrassing exposures, it turned out to be a glaring failure, largely owing to Baier’s persistent questioning.   The more Harris ducked and bobbed and weaved and let loose convoluted non-answers to Baier’s simple and necessary questions – How many illegal migrants have crossed the border during your nearly four years as Vice President in the Biden administration? Baier was looking for...

Ritter Rising electric bills that have angered Connecticut voters are a very small tip of a very large iceberg.   In a Hartford Courant story – “ Anger over massive CT electric bills will drive voter choices on Election Day, GOP says ” – party honchoes assessed the anger.   Senate Republican leader Stephen Harding of Brookfield said. “Every day that I door-knock, every time I go to an event, I can’t speak to three or four constituents without the electric rates being brought up. People have had enough … Most voters want to see some effort to do something. We had an ability in a special session to stop the bleeding. On top of that, we can provide some immediate relief. At least it’s something. We should not dismiss it the way the Democrats have dismissed it.”   Hartford Democrat House Speaker Matt Ritter off-handedly dismissed Harding’s concerns and at the same time gave the neo-progressive game away when, shrugging his shoulders, he confessed that any attempt ...

Lincoln and Douglas Longtime Hartford Courant reporter Chris Keating pops the question in a front page, above the fold story: “Where are the debates?” and he notes, what all of us always knew, that long-term incumbent politicians tend to be debate-shy because – my opinion, not Keating’s – they regard continuance in office as an affirmation that successful incumbents need not present themselves to voter consideration during elections.   Longtime State Democratic Party chairwoman Nancy DiNardo says it without blushing: “Himes, DeLauro, Larson, and Courtney, too, [multi-term Democrats] tend to be strong candidates. I would think the Republicans have a hard time getting candidates who really want to run. … I have no doubts that whoever they debate that they would be able to beat them. Why, and this is just my opinion, give them any publicity so that people can see them? I don’t see the need for doing that.”   Also, Democrat incumbents do not wish to appear on stage with “R...

Columbus statue in New Haven removed Very little was known about Christopher Columbus when in 1892 President Benjamin Harrison issued a proclamation encouraging Americans to mark the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ voyage.   History tells us: “Columbus Day is a U.S. holiday that commemorates the landing of Christopher Columbus in the Americas in 1492, and Columbus Day 2024 occurs on Monday, October 14. It was unofficially celebrated in a number of cities and states as early as the 18th century, but did not become a federal holiday until 1937… The first Columbus Day celebration took place in 1792, when New York’s Columbian Order—better known as Tammany Hall—held an event to commemorate the historic landing’s 300th anniversary. Taking pride in Columbus’ birthplace and faith, Italian and Catholic communities in various parts of the country began organizing annual religious ceremonies and parades in his honor… In 1892, President Benjamin Harrison issued a proclamation encouraging A...

Netanyahu and Biden - Fox News Bob Woodward’s latest political Grand Guignol, War , will be available to the general public on October 15. In the meantime, we have reviews by select news organizations that have received advanced copies of the book full of horrific and devilish details. According to CNN, “Woodward’s new book, which was obtained by CNN ahead of its October 15 release, gives an unvarnished, in-the-room account of key moments as Biden and his national security team navigates international crises, from the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal to confronting Putin before he invaded Ukraine to private battles with Netanyahu. “Based on hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand participants, War is filled with newly reported details of high-stakes showdowns. The book explores the political and personal wars that Biden has fought during his presidency, including details about his decision to step aside from the 2024 campaign and conversations about his son Hunter Biden’s ...

John F. Kennedy-- the last liberal? When we say “Throw the bums out!” -- a common expression in politics -- by “bums” we generally mean incumbent politicians. Politically neutered minority politicians warming their backside on the backbenches are no threat to the state or voters. A politician unplugged is like a lamp disconnected, powerless and incapable of shedding light or producing active policy prescriptions. In Connecticut, during the last few decades, Republicans in the state have been unplugged. We may leave it to academics to tell us when this political mudslide began. Presently all the constitutional offices in Connecticut are occupied by Democrats; all the members of Connecticut’s US Congressional Delegation are Democrats; in the General Assembly, Democrats enjoy a nearly veto-proof majority, and Connecticut’s media appears to be suffering from a severe leftward-ho tropism. As is the case with the national media, Connecticut’s corporate media, less independent every day, ...

Blumenthal Ever since the elevation to the presidency of Donald Trump on November 8, 2016, the Democrat Party, national and state, has been trumpeting itself as the principal defender of democracy. For eight years, the Democrat Party has energetically pointed to Trump’s imagined disposition to bring the American Republic to an ignominious end in favor of a Stalinist authoritarianism. When the Supreme Court ruled, largely for administrative reasons, that partial immunity must be extended to presidents – all presidents, Republican and Democrat -- if a president is acting within his official capacity as president, U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal of Connecticut erupted in a following July 2024 press release: “The Supreme Court has put lawbreaking presidents like Donald Trump above the law. This cravenly political decision to shield President Trump grants him a legal armor that no other citizen enjoys [emphasis mine]. The net effect is not only to delay Trump’s criminal trial, but bestow an...

Murphy after Zarif blowup -- Getty Images Connecticut U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, up for reelection this year, had “a secret meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during the Munich Security Conference” in February 2020, according to a posting written by Mollie Hemingway , the Editor-in-Chief of The Federalist. Was Murphy commissioned by proper authorities to participate in the meeting, or was he freelancing? If the former, there is no problem. If the latter, Murphy was courting political disaster. “Such a meeting,” Hemingway wrote at the time, “would mean Murphy had done the type of secret coordination with foreign leaders to potentially undermine the U.S. government that he accused Trump officials of doing as they prepared for Trump’s administration. In February 2017, Murphy demanded investigations of National Security Advisor Mike Flynn because he had a phone call with his counterpart-to-be in Russia. “’Any effort to undermine our nation’s foreign policy – e...

Hayes and Logan --  Brian A. Pounds/ Hearst Connecticut Media The first rule in the political handbook is – never attempt to defend the indefensible. The attempt failed spectacularly during the Watergate imbroglio, the dreadful Dred Scott decision that found African American slaves were property rather than persons, and on many other occasions during America’s sometimes checkered history. On October 2 nd , the Hartford Courant carried on its front page an above the fold story – “ GOP commercial blasts U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes for her vote on fentanyl. Why she defends her stance ” that should serve as a textbook example of the rule cited above. The 30 second Republican commercial blasts Hayes as having voted against a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives, the “HALT Fentanyl Act”, a priority of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration that, according to the Courant, “classified fentanyl in the most dangerous category of drugs… The measure called for classifying fentanyl as a ...