Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

The impeachment of President Donald Trump has blotted out lesser news stories. Journalistically, the impeachment circus has become the sun that, early in the morning, hides the stars behind a veil of bright light. But the stars twinkle, never-the-less. According to most polls, former Vice President Joe Biden will eventually become the White Knight facing the Republican’s Black Knight, Trump, whom Democrats, during their somber impeachment process, hope to remove from office before the 2020 elections. This fugitive “hope” is doomed to be crushed by the numbers. Democrats simply do not have the numbers in the U.S. Senate to boot Trump out of office before the national elections and, in politics, numbers rule.

A couple of months ago, President Barack Obama drew a red line in Syria. He said if Syrian strongman Bashar al Assad, the Middle East’s answer to North Korea’s runt dictator, were to use chemical weapons against his political opponents, this would catch Mr. Obama’s interest and trigger a military response. At least, that’s what everyone thought he said. A little over a year ago, at one of Mr. Obama’s infrequent news conferences, the president said :

Secretary of State John Kerry has released a statement  on the use of chemical weapons on civilians in Bashir Assad’s Syria: "What we saw in Syria last week should shock the conscience of the world," said Kerry. "It defies any code of morality. Let me be clear: The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity. By any standard, it is inexcusable. And despite the excuses and equivocations that some have manufactured, it is undeniable."

The New Left, both in Europe and the United States, is the old left reanimated by an economic downturn. In France, former Trotskyite Jean-Luc Mélenchon is being pushed forward politically by a favorable communist wind at his back. It is said that M. Mélenchon’s public rallies rival those of President Nicolas Sarkozy in size and intensity. The Financial Times reports:  “His policies, including rescinding the new EU fiscal discipline treaty, raising the minimum wage from €1,200 to €1,700 a month and confiscating all income above €360,000 a year, go far beyond even [France’s chief socialist] Mr. Hollande’s proposal to tax income above €1m at 75 percent.” M. Mélenchon’s poll numbers have surged from 5 percent two months ago to a high of 17 per cent in more recent days, a reaction in conformity with Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion: To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction. M. Mélenchon’s recent popularity is undoubtedly a reaction to austerity ...

The following information, which includes a critical commentary, was taken from Sen. Chris Dodds’ official site . “From his time in the Peace Corps as a young man to his 25 years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,” according to the site information, “Chris Dodd has worked to strengthen America through bold engagement.” Dodd joined the Peace Corp. and later the National Guard, some think, to avoid a bold personal engagement in Vietnam. An example of Dodd’s “bold engagement” is provided on the site: “Dodd Was a Leader in Ending U.S. Military Assistance to the Nicaraguan Contras, which Opened the Door for Successful Elections in 1990.” There are two paths in Latin America. Hugo Chavez, the dictator of Venezuela mentioned only in passing on the site referenced, has taken the path more traveled by tyrants on the way up. Having seized the oil industry and crushed opposition newspapers, Chavez is now in the process of consolidating his power. A week ago, he threatened the Catholic Ch...

Former UN delegate John Bolton, the object of attention of the friends of the enemies of US interests, was tapped by President George Bush to serve in the State Department as undersecretary for arms control and international security. His appointment as UN delegate was opposed by US Sen Chris Dodd , among others, and the opponents were able to prevent the nomination from coming to a vote in congress. Writing in National Review , Jay Nordlinger tells us, that Bolton’s most notable achievement in the State Department “was to lead the diplomatic effort to establish the Proliferation Security Initiative, which has been useful in slowing the spread of nuclear weapons. (It got Qaddafi in Libya, for example.) Bolton is often faulted for being a diplomat lacking in diplomacy; repeatedly, his record contradicts that impression. What trips people up is Bolton’s strict pursuit of American interests; they think of diplomacy as multilateralism for its own sake.” Using the seat in the UN as other na...

Negotiations between belligerents after a war has commenced usually involve terms of surrender. That is why leaders of counties at war with each other are unwilling to negotiate until victory has been decided. Once victory has been achieved, negotiations are fairly straight forward: The victors simply dictate the terms of surrender to the conquered. In cases in which victory has not been decided, negotiations can only be considered, to turn a phrase, war by other means. The real problem in negotiating with Middle East terrorists and their client states -- Syria and Iran -- is that there is no clear cut victor in the battle between the United States and the terrorist network. Bush, not to put too fine a point on it, is not disposed to surrender; neither are the leaders of Syria and Iran, though both Bashar al-Assad of Syria and Mamoud Amadinajad of Iran – as well as the much arrested Cindy Sheehan, citizen of the world -- would dearly like to dictate terms of surrender to the United Sta...