Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Chris Davis -- CTNewsJunkie Xerox Corporation, headquartered in Norwalk, was not the first, nor will it be the last, of Connecticut’s anchor companies to take the money and run. The administration of former Governor Dannel Malloy, desperate as it was generous, lathered Xerox with $4.4 million in loans 2017, in return for which the company promised to keep 150 jobs create 40 more in four years, according to a piece in the a Hartford paper . The additional jobs would in turn produce additional taxpayers, who would as the years rolled by swell the state’s treasury with additional dollars. Malloy, a life-long politician rather than a businessman, at least got that part of the economic equation right: more taxpayers equal more tax revenue. Corollary 1: tax reduction – albeit only for targeted industries – increases revenue. Corollary 2: tax reduction good, tax increases bad.

Both Connecticut's new governor, Dannel Malloy, and its new U.S. Senator, Dick Blumenthal, have put the kabosh on the possibility of bankruptcy for the state as a means of settling its deepening debts, according to Mark Davis of News Channel 8 . Mr. Blumenthal, no longer loking for someone to sue since he moved from the attorney’s general office, said "States really need to cut spending and put their fiscal houses in order without resorting to mass insolvency.” Governor Malloy, who previously has acknowledged that Connecticut’s per capita is worse than California’s, agreeed with Mr. Blumenthal. "Connecticut,” the governor said, “is looking to embrace, not to escape the responsibilities of sound financial management. We will honor our obligations and do not intend to support proposals that would enable states to avail themselves of bankruptcy." Should a state declare bankruptcy, its financial obligations fallinto the hands if judges who are able to order chang...

The Environmental Protection Agency has revoked a water permit for a mining project issued in 2007 by the Army Corps of Engineers. It blocks $250 million in investment and costs 250 jobs. It is in the coal-mining area of West Virginia and involves removal of a mountain top. EPA, as is its custom, says science required the revocation. Other firms wonder if their permits will be revoked. This revocation is in line with EPA’s regulatory excess and its anti-energy bias. EPA is among the most imperious of the regulatory agencies, arising from the vagueness of Congress’s laws and orders, and Congress’s having abrogated oversight of the regulatory process. But if Congress is reforming, there are ways to rein them in, according to The Wall Street Journal January. 14 editorial. One is to enact the “ Executive In Need Of Scrutiny (Reins) Act ,” proposed by Senators DeMint and Davis. Among these unelected agencies, scarcely a week goes by without EPA’s regulatory carcinogen witch-hunt to re...

President Barack Obama is due to end the war in Iraq – with a speech. It should be brought to a close with a parade – several parades, in fact. Obama no doubt will mention in his speech his own valiant efforts to bring to a close the war in Iraq, without over emphasizing the role played by lesser lights such as ex-President George Bush, whose successful efforts, after frequent failures, to implement a successful war strategy implemented by General David Petraeus were vigorously opposed by congressional Democrats and a left wing media that dubbed Petraeus “General Betray-Us.” Obama's view of the surge at the time it was proposed was not ambivalent. The left’s misgivings about the war are replicated in statements recently made by Connecticut’s Democratic congressional delegation on the occasion of Obama’s formal declaration announcing an end to direct military engagement by American soldiers in Iraq and the withdrawal of all but 50,000 support troops remaining in the country to ...

Mark Davis, a respected newsman at News Channel 8, was made to eat his mic by Marla Romash, a Blumenthal gatekeeper up from the Sodom on the Potomac who used to practice journalism here in Connecticut. Ms. Romash was both a political flack and a reporter of some merit back in the day. She even had a robust sense of humor. Once asked whether she liked politics, Ms. Romash -- who ate, drank and slept politics -- brought the house down by saying she liked it better than sex. Apparently, Washington has made Ms. Romash somewhat barren in the humor department. Or it may be that close association with Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has had an effect on the lady’s once ironclad but jovial nerves. Dick -- the prospective U.S. senator has invited those who report on him to call him, more familiarly, Dick, instead of Richard, a formal mouthful -- does tend to emit deadly serious vibes. Mr. Blumenthal really does seem anxious to break away from his handlers and let it all hang out. ...

The Day reports : “When Mark Davis, the chief political correspondent for WTNH-Channel 8, persistently questioned Dodd about his primary challenger, Merrick Alpert, and the challenger's claim that the senator shared blame for the financial crisis because of support for deregulation efforts in the 1990s, Dodd was curt. "’I reject that argument,’ he said sharply, then looked around for the next question.” Dodd was visiting Colonial Han-Dee Spring and trying to spread a bit of good news. Businesses have found it difficult to get credit, and Dodd was in Connecticut to assure business leaders that help is on the way from Washington, a monetary piñata: Some of the money used to bail out Wall Street has been returned to Washington, and the Obama administration intends to divert some of the returns as “loans to small businesses that have still not been able to get banks to extend them credit to continue their operations.” That problem, said William J. Lathrop, president of Ha...

"...the blow of a loy, have taught me that there's a great gap between a gallous story and a dirty deed." -Pegeen Mike, in The Playboy of the Western World “What does it mean to “co-purchase” a house together with someone like Ed Downe?” a curious blogger asks on the popular web site Connecticut Local Politics. It’s a timely question. Land records in Washington show that US Sen. Chris Dodd made three real estate purchases there. Dodd, it would appear, is not only an accomplished congressman; he is a super real-estate maestro. 1) 508 E Street, S.E. Washington DC was co-owned by the Dodds and Sanford Bomstein and wife. Bomstein was the bagman implicated in Sen. Tom Dodd’s scandal. Chris Dodd's father was censured in 1967 by the Senate for using campaign funds for personal purposes. That property was sold to Sean Roach for $10 (that’s ten dollars, no decimal error), and the filing date was 8/20/95. You can buy a lot (no pun intended) for ten dollars in Washingto...

We know the places where Senator Obama lived as a child, and we know his white grandfather wanted Frank Marshall Davis to be his mentor. We know Davis mentored him from approximately age 14 to 18. We know Davis was a black communist writer and poet. We don’t know the details of what Senator Obama did in Chicago.* We could know more but the University of Illinois, apparently at the instance of Bill Ayers who stored the Annenberg Challenge Project files there, has denied investigator Stanley Kurtz access to those 132 boxes containing 947 files. Obama says he was a “community organizer” in Chicago. The organization for which he community-organized was. The years were probably 1985 to 1988, when he left to attend Harvard Law School. About his relations with Bill Ayers, “domestic terrorist”—the FBI’s characterization—Senator Obama reveals only that he’s that “guy who lives in my neighborhood.” These, then, are the themes of his pre-U.S. Senate experience: community organizin...

After LOBgaters Rick Lopes and Stephen Palmer had been disciplined, the usually verbose Senate Democratic spokesman, Patrick Scully issued a brief statement: "Although the actions of the employees were not criminal, it should be clear that Senate Democrats take this situation very seriously and consider the behavior of the individuals unprofessional and unacceptable. Such conduct will not be tolerated. Appropriate disciplinary action has been taken in this case." The two aides, both attached to the government administration and elections committee, the legislative committee that earlier investigated improprieties committed by Gov. Jodi Rell’s chief aide Lisa Moody , were caught on tape rifling through the desk of Republican aide Juliannna Simone, who was interviewed after the event by channel 8 reporter Mark Davis. House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero Jr., who in an early report had briefly mentioned Watergate in connection with the high jinks of the two fun loving Democ...

“One of the great sorrows of modern public life in Connecticut is the way it discolors the otherwise spotless” – Colin McEnroe McEnroe was referring to Leonard Boyle, the current commissioner of The Department of Public Safety, but he might easily have been talking about former state police Maj. Gregory Senick , an apparently spotless servant of the people whose reputation was discolored by an overzealous prosecution, while the paper McEnroe writes for, the Hartford Courant, spurred on the prosecutorial harpies. McEnroe’s comment is worth quoting in full: “One of the great sorrows of modern public life in Connecticut is the way it discolors the otherwise spotless. I have never heard a bad word said about Leonard Boyle, but the actions of his department now make him look like the head of the secret poice (sic). In my one conversation with Boyle, he semed (sic) like a stand-up guy. “Now he's apparently shopping his resume around. As you can see, the Moodygate story sticks to him lik...

L’affair à La Renaissance was arranged by conservative talk show host Brad Davis. Over six hundred people showed up at La Renaissance in East Windsor to munch on lunch and listen to Sen. Joe Lieberman -- dogged by video bloggers, sulfurous anti-Vietnam war protestors, his ancient nemesis Lowell Weicker, and Democrat nominee for his seat in the senate Ned Lamont – do his shtick. Ten or more points up in the polls from what once was a neck-and-neck race, Lieberman is cautious but full of energy, a contagion he might have caught from genial host Davis, red haired, benevolent and of indeterminate age. An attractive woman at table told me while eating her baked scrod, “I used to listen to Brad during the old Milk Show days.” That was long ago. American Bandstand was all the rage, and Elvis had not yet stuffed himself to death with doughnuts. All the fast friends of Brad Davis were there: the king of “Blueberry Hill,” Davis’ nettlesome radio antagonist and Red Sox fan Ace Gizzardi, the honor...

Tom D’Amore, who joined the Ned Lamont campaign a few months ago, is former Senator and Governor Lowell Weicker’s former major domo. At one point, Weicker shoehorned D’Amore into the chairmanship of the Republican Party. The party’s central committee swallowed hard and voted him in. D’Amore also is a stormy petrel, a bird whose presence announces the coming of a storm. Weicker is the storm. Weicker and his lovely wife Claudia held a well attended fund raiser for Lamont in Chester on Sunday. Claudia is a Democrat; Weicker is still an Independent Maverick-- which, translated into Connecticut-speak, would make him a Democrat. Weicker’s face has been popping up here and there in various venues for the last few months. Recently appearing with Mark Davis of WTHN channel 8, Weicker was asked whether sour grapes figured at all in his support of Lamont, who is challenging Weicker’s nemesis, Senator Joe Lieberman, in a Democrat primary. Lieberman hitched up with conservatives and battered Republ...

It is always amusing – in a scary sort of way – to watch a politician leap from the burning deck into the icy, shark filled waters below. Such was Lieutenant Governor Kevin Sullivan’s fate when newspapers began to report that he had planned to “host” a gala affair at the Mohegan Sun casino-hotel. The annual meeting of the Eastern Regional Conference of the Council of State Governments is to be held this year in the post- Gov. John Rowland era, and eyes and ears were everywhere poised to discover offenses against relatively new ethical proprieties. Since the hot-tub affair, when the former governor of Connecticut admitted publicly that he had accepted at least one favor from people doing business with the state, it had been generally assumed, especially by Democrats who began impeachment proceedings against the future felon, that the acceptance of favors from people whom politicians were in a position to reward was a “no-no.” That assumption remains operative today, even though legislat...