Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

The death penalty in Connecticut, after several previous attempts, was abolished today by the Senate in a 20-16 vote. The House is certain to pass the abolition bill, and Governor Dannel Malloy has pledged to sign it into law. Senator Edith Prague, who voted in favor of abolition before she voted against it, this time voted to abolish the death penalty prospectively. A prospective rather than a retrospective abolition of the death penalty, it is said by proponents of abolition, will leave untouched the death sentences of eleven inmates awaiting execution on death row,. After an emotional meeting with Dr. William Petit, the sole survivor of a home invasion Cheshire in which two now convicted murderers took the lives of his wife and two daughters, Mrs. Prague famously said of one of the two murderers convicted and sentenced to death, “They should bypass the trial and take that second animal and hang him by his penis from a tree out in the middle of Main Street.” But emotional res...

It’s a tangled affair, but John Coleman has written the best short history of the global warming poofery. “The key players are now all in place in Washington and in state governments across America to officially label carbon dioxide as a pollutant and enact laws that tax we citizens for our carbon footprints. Only two details stand in the way, the faltering economic times and a dramatic turn toward a colder climate. The last two bitter winters have lead to a rise in public awareness that CO2 is not a pollutant and is not a significant greenhouse gas that is triggering runaway global warming. “How did we ever get to this point where bad science is driving big government we have to struggle so to stop it?”

No national interest of ours could justify handing sovereign control of two-thirds of the earth’s surface over to the Third World . . . . The underdeveloped nations who now control the General Assembly are looking for a free ride at our expense—again. President Reagan, 1978 President Reagan sent his personal emissary, Donald Rumsfeld, to visit our allies around the world to explain his opposition to the Treaty and ask them to support him—which they did. Awaiting a vote now in the U.S. Senate, a “relic of the 1970s,” is the Law of the Sea Treaty, known by the acronym LOST. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has done a cursory review, holding two hearings. Seven witnesses testified in support, two against (Frank Gaffney of Center for Security Policy and Fred Smith of the Competitive Enterprise Institute). Not attending either hearing were two Republican senators who are up for reelection in 2...