Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Shortly after Democrat and Republican leaders in the General Assembly announced they were close to reaching agreement on a compromise budget, Governor Dannel Malloy offered his fourth budget, Republicanized, some believe, to make it acceptable to the “turncoat Democrat legislators” who had rejected Malloy’s third budget and embraced a Republican offering, the only budget so far accepted by both Houses of the General Assembly. Malloy pitched his fourth getting and spending plan to querulous reporters as a " lean, no-frills, no-nonsense budget ,” inviting comparisons to his previous offerings, which were, one is entitled to presume, fat, union-friendly, and replete with the usual frills and nonsense. Malloy’s third budget factored in a SEBAC deal that assures state union workers raises of 3.5 percent per year, following a temporary 3 year wage freeze, until the expiration of union favorable contracts in 2027. The SEBAC deal also prevents future Governors, Democrat or Republ...

In his latest column, “ Maybe A Little Bible Study With John Rowland, ”  Hartford Courant columnists Colin McEnroe confesses, “As some of you know, I began going to church in April 2015.” Groucho Marx used to joke that he would decline to join any group that would have him as a member. Mr. McEnroe is not so illiberal, but he makes plain that there are conditions: “We are not Jerry Falwell Baptists. We are LGBTQ-friendly. In fact, we have more LGBTQ pastors than we have the other kind. Baptists get kind of a bad name sometimes. Elijah Craig was a Baptist minister, and some people say he invented bourbon. That's the kind of Baptist we can be proud of.”

Having consolidated political power in Louisiana, Huey “The Kingfish” Long moved the seat of government from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, where there were fewer boozy night spots or opportunities for sexual hanky-panky,  and herded all Louisiana’s political animals into a brand new, free standing art deco building, the better to keep an eye on his political competitors. Autocrats can never be too careful; enemies are everywhere. It pays to pay attention. A populist progressive, Mr. Long also kept the newspapers humming. He was a political bad-boy who had a rich sense of humor and a photographic memory, operating in a state, somewhat like Connecticut, in which Democrats ruled nearly all the political roosts. “Keep your friends close, but enemies closer,” a lesson Michael Corleone claimed in The Godfather he had learned from Don Vito Corleone.

Hillary’s enemies, the so-called vast right wing conspiracy to deny her the presidency, are not all members in good standing on the right. Shortly after FBI Director James Comey failed to pronounce a doom on her, Mr. Comey having declined to prosecute Mrs. Clinton on criminal charges, the vast left wing Clintonista conspiracy began salting the political theatre with the absurd notion that she had been exonerated. Not everyone on the left bought into the “Hillary is blameless” bit. Colin McEnroe poured scorn on the notion  in his regular Hartford Courant column: