Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Most of us will be happy/sad when the national presidential campaign is finally tucked into bed. It has been a wearying 20 months. Ted Cruz began the show by throwing his name into the presidential ring way back in March 2015. Hillary Clinton, the Lucretia Borgia of the Democratic Party, announced a month later in April. Donald Trump, the Genghis Khan of Republican contenders, announced two months after Mrs. Clinton in June. Mr. Trump’s announcement was followed by shrieks of laughter; but, as the philosopher says, he laughs best who laughs last. Not only has the American campaign season lacked substance and manners, it lasted far too long, a boon for the media that seek to keep us aroused while it is hauling in cash by the truck load.

A shrewd political observer once said that Americans rarely solve their most pressing political problems; instead, they amicably bid them goodbye. Take the primary system by way of example. The primary system itself has been attended, especially during the current Presidential election, with glaring problems that pretty nearly everyone has studiously ignored. It is the primary system that has given us two of the most unpalatable presidential candidates in U.S. History. Nearly fifty percent of voters on either side of the political spectrum this year will be voting AGAINST the Presidential candidates, according to a September Pew Research poll .

Are we more safe now than we were before Governor Dannel Malloy’s prison czar, Michael Lawlor, began handing out get-out-of-jail-early credits to so called “nonviolent” incarcerated criminals? Ibraham Ghazal, the co-owner of an EZMart in Meriden, was not safe. Mr. Ghazal was murdered by Frankie Resto, a prisoner released early because the benefits of Mr. Lawlor’s program had been disbursed retroactively and not prospectively to Connecticut prisoners -- including rapists, which Mr. Lawlor evidently did not consider a violent crime. Death has its privileges, and Mr. Ghazal is now safe.

Mike Lawlor is, in the precise meaning of the term, a lawbreaker. And unfortunately, he cannot plead ignorance of the law. In January 2011, Mr. Lawlor was appointed by newly installed Governor Dannel Malloy as Connecticut’s Under Secretary for Criminal Justice Policy and Planning, a newly created position whipped up by Mr. Malloy because the energetic governor wanted to put his mark on Connecticut’s penological system. Mr. Lawlor seemed the obvious choice: he had served in the state’s House of Representatives for twelve terms, 24 years, 16 years of which were spent as the co-chair of the Judiciary Committee along with State Senator Andrew McDonald, later appointed to Connecticut’s Supreme Court by Mr. Malloy.

Just prior to the California primary, a “must win” for socialist Bernie Sanders, the Hillary Clinton campaign pointed out that their beleaguered leader had acquired enough delegates to overcome Mr. Sanders at the upcoming Democratic Party Presidential nominating convention. A headline following the announcement, typical of most, read: “ Clinton secures delegates before last Democratic races ." The message of the Hillary campaign to prospective Sanders supporters just prior to the crucial primaries in six states – CA, MT, NM, ND, NJ and SD – and especially delegate rich California, could not be plainer:  Stay home, the campaign is over . Mrs. Clinton swept California and New Jersey. Following her California win, Mrs. Clinton slathered Bernie supporters with empathy. “I know it never feels good to put your heart into a cause or a candidate you believe in and come up short,” she said from her triumphant podium. “I know that feeling well.”

                                                                                    Q: Who are the Trump supporters? A: Right now, they are, for the most part, people who are unattached, emotionally or ideologically, to either of the two major parties. The Obama administration has abandoned altogether what used to be called moderate, Reagan Democrats. Some of these people, left in the lurch by progressives, have crossed over to vote for Trump. He is running very strong among Republican, Democrat and unaffiliated white males. Within the narrower category of alienated moderate Republicans and Democrats, there are numerous sub-groups: resentment Republicans and Democrats, people who have, in one way or another, been slighted by what they refer to, disdainfully, as the party ...

Connecticut’s presidential primary is coming up at the end of the month, April 26, and the jockeying has begun. Governor of Ohio John Kasich, who has managed to corral a slender 145 delegates in a primary that a little over a year ago boasted 17 Republican presidential candidates, recently made his appearance in Connecticut and was warmly received by some legislators and editorial writers. Mr. Kasich seems to be, at least here in the northeast, the preferred candidate of what Trumpeters disdainfully call “the establishment,” meaning safe Republican politicians and, one supposes, Connecticut’s left-of-center media. In preparation for the arrival of Donald Trump, the Nutmeg Media – which has never understood or approved of the conservative movement – pulled out its critical party hats.

“Cuz that’s where the money is.” Such was the response when Willy Sutton, the scrupulously honest bank robber of the 1920-30’s, was asked why he robbed banks. Before the reader draws the usual aphorism from his holster – “honesty is the best policy” – he should be advised that Willie denied having said the quip for which he is most famous. He robbed banks, Mr. Sutton said, because it was exhilarating: “I was more alive when I was inside a bank, robbing it, than at any other time in my life!” It turns out that the most famous line in bank robbing history was inserted into an after-interview story by a reporter who thought the quip would be good copy. He was right. Reporters In those days took such liberties – not like today. It is true, however, that Willie gave his name to a law, Sutton’s Law, which holds that in diagnosing crime, one should always consider the obvious.

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy’s immediate reaction to the mass murder of innocent civilians in France by ISIS inspired terrorists was remarkably on-script and unemotional, unlike his earlier reaction to a Ted Cruz inspired video  in which Senator Cruz, a Republican now running for President, boasts that he stood up for Second Amendment rights following the Sandy Hook mass murder. The video, Mr. Murphy said, “makes me want to throw up.” Mr. Murphy’s Democratic partner in politics from Connecticut, Dick Blumenthal, also denounced the PAC video, ineptly inserting himself into the Sandy Hook drama . In that smarmy way oleaginous politicians have of placing themselves center-stage at important events, Mr. Blumenthal strongly suggested he was present when Governor Dannel Malloy told the parents of murdered students and teachers at the firehouse near Sandy Hook Elementary School that their children and teachers would not be coming home again. In truth, Mr. Blumenthal arrived after the anno...

U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal has a way of sneaking up on the truth and clubbing it to death with either a half-truth or a persistent, outright lie. And over a period of time, a pattern has begun to develop: The alluring possibility of flooding one's political stage with heroic action is, in Mr. Blumenthal’s case, irresistible. It’s like dangling a pacifier before a non-aborted baby. NBC Connecticut news is now reporting   that “Sen. Richard Blumenthal is facing criticism over claims he lied in a comment he made in an MSNBC interview about being in Newtown when families were being informed about losing their loved ones in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting massacre.”

It should have been obvious that Luke Bronin, who prevailed over incumbent Mayor Pedro Segarra in a primary, would be the next Mayor of Hartford. In one-party Democratic towns, the victor of a Democratic primary most often wins general election contests. A Hartford paper noted that Mr. Bronin had amassed a campaign war chest of $937,377, an abundance of riches the paper terms “unprecedented,” by which we should understand “indecently obscene.” Mr. Bronin’s competitors in the Mayoralty race – Republican candidate Theodore "Ted" Cannon and Working Families Party candidate Joel Cruz Jr., running for Mayor as an unaffiliated candidate, were impoverished, relatively speaking.  Mr. Cruz raised $19,587, Mr. Cannon $1,500, spending  $1,224 mostly on lawn signs. The money Mr. Cannon spent attempting to reach the hearts and minds of voters will surprise the same sort of people who will be astonished to discover there is a Republican Party in Hartford.

Apart from being friendly to each other in the past, what do Hillary Clinton, the leading Democratic Party presidential candidate, and Donald Trump, Hillary’s counterpart in the Republican Party, have in common? Both are leading in the polls, and both are flawed candidates; Mr. Trump because he’s a shallow thinker, however entertaining, and Mrs. Clinton because both her distant and recent past are pockmarked with irregularities.

Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient -- Henry David Thoreau Mike Lawlor – once, along with Andrew McDonald, the co-chair of the General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee – was tapped by Governor Dannel Malloy in 2011 as the governor’s prison czar. His official title is Under Secretary for Criminal Justice Policy and Planning and, like other Malloyalists, Mr. Lawlor has a serious case of reformitus. Mr. Malloy is similarly contaminated.

If Frankie “the Razor” Resto were an AR15 semi-automatic rifle and present laws banning him had been in effect on June 27, he would not have been permitted within spitting distance of Meridan when, newly released from prison, he entered an EZMart store and fatally shot its co-owner, Ibraham Ghazal , according to arrest records. But Mr. Resto was at that point only an ex-con who had been given get-out-of-jail-early credits under a problem plagued program that was the brainchild of Governor Dannel Malloy’s prison commisar, Mike Lawlor. Mr. Resto's criminal resume was such that he should never have been given early release credits under any circumstances; he should never have been paroled, and he should have served his entire sentence behind bars. Following his release, Mr. Resto should have been monitored carefully by Mr. Lawlor’s somnolent watchdogs and rearrested if he so much as jaywalked.

Chris Mathews, the host of Hardball known as the guy with the tingly leg, interviewed Governor Dannel Malloy, and Mr. Malloy managed to unload a quiver of zingers at benighted Republicans who were dawdling over gun legislation. The Hartford Courant’s Dan Haar summarized the zinger fest in his column:

Connecticut has a new Victims Advocate in the person of Garvin Ambrose, formerly a prosecutor and political operative in Cook County, Illinois. Chicago, murder capital if the United States, falls in the middle of Cook County facing windswept Lake Michigan, arguably the most politically corrupt county in the United States.   There was nothing wrong with the state’s previous Victims Advocate, Michele Cruz, whose job was put on the sale block after she had strenuously – and, more importantly for media conscious Governor Dannel Malloy and his Malloyalists, publically – opposed the state’s new early prisoner release program,   the brainchild of undersecretary for criminal justice policy Mike Lawlor. Both Mr. Malloy and Mr. Lawlor were prosecutors before they began to dabble in politics.

Former State Senator Len Suzio announced today that he has been appointed to the Advisory Committee for the Office of Victim Advocate. "I am extremely happy to be appointed to the Committee. The OVA plays an important role advocating for the victims of crime in Connecticut. Last year I had the opportunity to meet and work with the State Victim Advocate, Michelle Cruz as we sought to reform the "Early Release" law that allows violent criminals out of prison long before their sentences are completely served. All too often violent criminals are out of jail before their innocent victims are out of the hospital." said the former state senator.

Any true victim’s advocate in Connecticut could not turn a blind eye to Michael Lawlor’s early release Earned Risk Reduction Credits program. The program awards get-out-of-jail early credits to inmates in Connecticut’s prisons. If prison is the stick the state may use to discourage serious crime, Mr. Lawlor’s program is the carrot that presumably will induce criminals to behave properly while in prison. Mr. Lawlor was once a prosecutor for the State's Attorney Office in New Haven and later co-chairman of the General Assembly's Judiciary Committee from 1995 to 2011 before he was tapped by newly elected Governor Dannel Malloy to serve as undersecretary for criminal justice policy. Mr. Lawlor’s early release program was rushed through the General Assembly at the tail end of a hectic session the most prominent feature of which was the marginalization of the Republican Party. Mr. Lawlor’s program was not vetted in the usual manner: There was no public hearing during the cour...

It has been well established ever since Governor Dannel Malloy had been hoisted into the governor’s office by a slim vote margin that Mr. Malloy rarely has met a political opportunity he has not eagerly taken advantage of. If former Governor Jodi Rell was modest in this regard, Mr. Malloy is in comparison shameless. In the last few weeks alone, Mr. Malloy has appeared as a speaker at the Democratic National Convention where he gleefully skewered Republicans ; he joined a picket line to express his solidarity with union strikers; he traveled to China, where forced abortions are routine, to curry favor with Chinese leaders, presumably with a view of increasing China’s market share in Connecticut. The long list unreels in tandem with Mr. Malloy’s crowded calendar.   Mr. Malloy’s grasp extends much further than those of his Connecticut critics, none of whom make regular appearances on National TV shows such as "Morning Joe .”

Sen. Joe Markley (R-Southington) has written to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy urging the governor to suspend the state’s new program which enables violent felons to be released early from prison. In the letter, Sen. Markley cited the recent case involving Frankie Resto, who is charged with the June 27 murder of 70-year-old Meriden small business owner Ibrahim Ghazal. Resto, a violent felon, had been released early from prison under the state’s new Risk Reduction Earned Credit (RREC) program.