Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Campaign money raised by DeLauro and challengers Those of us who paid close attention to the Republican presidential primary of 2016, which gave us President Donald Trump, and the current Democrat primary, which could give the country its first socialist president in Bernie Sanders, though this seems increasingly unlikely, have come away from these rough and tumble experiences thinking that political anarchy in the country’s two major parties is perhaps more ruinous than party bossism. Primaries, it is true, did get rid of the party bosses. Old news hounds will remember with some affection Connecticut Democrat Party boss John Bailey, the last of his kind in the state. All of the stink and corruption associated with party bossism remain, and incumbents are no more likely to be dispossessed of their power in the new system than they were under the iron rule of the bosses. “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,” the French say -- the more things change, the more they rem...

Blumenthal and Sanders Vermont socialist Bernie Sanders is exciting agita in some Democrat breasts, and he knows it. Sanders, who arrived in Springfield, Massachusetts at the Mass Mutual Center on a wave of primary wins, told enthusiasts in the crowd, “Some of you may have noticed that the political establishment and the corporate elite are getting very nervous. You know what? They have a right to get nervous. We’re going after them.” Sanders has been going after the Democrat political establishment and the corporate elite since his 1988 honeymoon days in the Soviet Union. The political trajectory of the leading Democrat candidate for president was set in the student revolution days of the 70s. Sanders may be the only live-wire protester of that time who has failed to grow up in the intervening years. Marxism is an outworn creed; the Berlin Wall fell in 1989; Fidel Castro’s seemingly endless Cuban Revolution puttered forward when Fidel died, leaving his brother communis...

The question has been asked: Should Governor Dannel Malloy’s appointment of Supreme Court Justice Andrew McDonald as Connecticut’s Chief Justice be rejected because McDonald is gay? The answer is no, and it is highly unlikely in Connecticut’s Democratic top-heavy General Assembly that the nomination would be rejected for such a reason. The flip side of the question is: Should the General Assembly approve Malloy’s nomination because McDonald is gay? The answer is no. On the gay question, it should be noted, Republican legislators have been accommodating. Connecticut legislators in 2009 agreed to replace all statutory references to marriage with gender-neutral language, a variant of a bill sponsored by McDonald and his Judiciary Committee co-chair in the House, Mike Lawlor, who, like McDonald, also is openly gay. The General Assembly voted to approve the measure – 100-44 in the House and 28-7 in the Senate. At first promising a veto, Republican Governor Jodi Rell signe...

It took the modern world two days to catch up to President John Adams’ enthusiasm for a national celebration. On July 3, 1776, Adams wrote, “The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. 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." Three of the country’s first five presidents died on the Fourth of July. Ideological rivals during their politically formative years and after, owing largely to an election that is still considered one of the most disreputable in the nation’s history, Adams, the second president of the United States, and Jefferson, drew close together after both had put aside active politics. Adams died at 90, Jefferson at 83, hours apart on July 4, 1826. Before he breathed his last, Adams whispered – almost a prayer -- “Jefferson still lives.” Five years after the deaths of...

A Connecticut political commentator noted on his blog that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave a trifling gift of $250,000 to Planned Parenthood in the wake of its jihad to force the Susan G. Komen Foundation to reconsider its momentary pledge to cut its own grants to the nation’s premier abortion provider. Not to be too obvious, but Mr. Bloomberg is multimillionaire Democratic POLITICIAN, and supporting Planned Parenthood is advantageous politics for liberals and progressives. Planned Parenthood is not new to politics. The commentator pointed out that the politically muscular abortion provider “jumped into the 2010 Connecticut U.S. Senate campaign against pro-choice Republican Linda McMahon. Democratic candidate Richard Blumenthal’s press staff member Marcy Stech sent an October 22, 2010 email to seven others seeking ‘mysoginistic photos of women and WWE. Planned Parenthood wants to hit LM hard on it. What do we got?’ Stech was doing the bidding of Democratic consultant Andrew ...

Further evidence, as if any were necessary, that “leveling the playing field” between Connecticut and New York tilts the playing field in favor of New York, Massachusetts and  New Jersey -- whose job hungry governor, Chris Christie, is waiting over the line to catch Connecticut businesses that tumble into his hands –  is offered by Mayor Michael Bloomberg of the Big Apple. There has been some chatter that USB, the large Swiss bank that has its North American headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, Governor Dannel Malloy’s old political stomping grounds, may move back to New York, a prospect that has Mr. Bloomberg swooning with delight, though he manages to conceal his expectant joy in the usual political Blah, according to CBS in New York : “Asked what it would mean, Mayor Michael Bloomberg had a bullet list. “’More jobs, more tax base, great thing. I’ve been saying for the last ten years there’s a reason to come to New York – not knocking Stamford or any other place,’ sa...

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal’s lead, a robust 40% when he first entered the U.S. senate race, has now been whittled down to 7%. The whole of the loss cannot be attributed to his casual relationship with the truth, and only part of it can be put down to Linda McMahon’s millions. The lady sure knows how to advertise. Mrs. McMahon’s considerable fortune permits her to sidestep the usual power brokers, including the mainstream media (MSM), who recently stepped up, to little avail, to revive former Rep. Rob Simmon’s moribund and penniless campaign. The MSM has contracted McMahonphobia in part because she is rich. The MSM has always suffered from pecuniaphobia. Note to the reader, if there is a reader: Don’t bother to look it up. The word has been newly minted from the Latin "money" (pecunia) and "fear of" (phobia) and, as its step-father, I fully expect to be credited whenever it is used. This annoying sidestepping steams the MSM because they want a hand at ...

A citizen of Castro’s Cuba, a hotel cook and taxi cab driver, perhaps weary of the slender tips he has been receiving since Castro came to power in 1956 , takes a drag in his cigarette outside the Xanadu hotel, built in the 1920’a by U.S. millionaire Irenee du Pont de Nemours and expropriated by the Castro regime, and tells a Reuters reporter, “Not one person here has anything against the Americans. Let them come to Varadero in their boats or whatever because for us the Americans mean one thing -- more money.” Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez speculates whether the “Cuba sí, Yankee no!" proposition is destined for the ash can of history. Supposing the island is to be flooded by U.S. Tourists, she wonders, “What would party militants think if they were told to accept those who until recently they were told to hate?" Bloomberg news reports that Latin American “leaders” such as the Castro brothers and Hugo Chavez will press President Barack Obama for an end to the Cuban embargo pu...

During the 1960s, . . . the most influential thinker was Italian communist Antonio Gramsci . He grasped that the most effective means of overturning Western Society was to subvert its culture and morality. Instead of mobilizing the working class to take over the world, the revolution would be achieved through a culture war, in which the moral beliefs of the majority would be replaced by the values of those on the margins of society. And this would be brought about by capturing all of society’s institutions—schools, universities, churches, the media, the legal profession, the police, voluntary groups—and making sure that this intellectual elite all sang from the same subversive hymn-sheet. In Britain , Gramsci’s revolutionary aims have been accomplished to the letter -- Melanie Phillips, Londonistan How about in the U.S.? Schools . Madrassas are schools for young Muslim boys whose learning consists of memorizing the Koran. Radical Muslims look to graduates of madrassas for rec...

The Greenwich Times is reporting that former senator and governor Lowell Weicker would enthusiastically support the presidential bid of New York Mayor and fellow multi-billionaire Michael Bloomberg. "I think he is head and shoulders the best candidate to be president of the United States. I think he'll find lots of support wherever,” Weicker said. There is a problem though: Over at The Politico, Roger Simon is reporting that Bloomberg has given the kibosh to third party enthusiasts such as Weicker, whose former chief aide and Connecticut Republican Party Chairman Tom D’Amore may possibly be angling for a new political prospect after his latest venture, propelling Greenwich senatorial hopeful into current Sen. Joe Lieberman’s seat, proved disappointing. “Asked if there were any circumstances under which he would run,” Simon reported, "Bloomberg replied: ‘If everyone in the world was dead and I was the only one alive, sure.’” That’s a “No.” However, in politics “No’” not ...

What a difference a day makes. The day after Democrats took over the US Senate, the prospects of U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd improved considerably. In the six weeks after Connecticut’s US senator and presidential hopeful assumed chairmanship of the powerful banking committee, Dodd “ collected more than $1 million in contributions from individuals and political-action committees associated with the banks, securities firms, insurance companies, and housing developers overseen by the panel ,” the Journal Inquirer reported. More than a third of the money was shipped to Dodd in “bundles.” “ They included: * $98,800 from 70 executives and employees at Citigroup. * $71,400 from 34 at American International Group. * $57,450 from 34 at Merrill Lynch. * $50,000 from 27 at Credit Suisse. * $38,100 from 36 at Morgan Stanley. * $27,500 from 39 at KPMG. * $34,650 from 28 at Bear Stearns. * $24,200 from 14 at J.P. Morgan .” According to the report, Dodd, “ a leading proponent of deregulation in the...