Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Bysiewicz and Lamont Governor Ned Lamont does not hear the screams, possibly because his ears are cocked in the wrong direction. Within the space of a couple of weeks, Lamont decided to open hair salons, to order hair salon owners not to use blow dryers, to reverse his order concerning blow dryers in the case of African American women, because the hair of African Americans is different than that of white women and requires blow drying before satisfied clients leave the salon, and finally to delay the heralded opening of hair salons because, we are told by Ken Dixon of the Hearst papers , “The plan to have them open on Wednesday with other retail businesses was abandoned over the weekend, after Lamont conferred with Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo, who is keeping close-contact businesses closed for the time being.”

In three large Connecticut cities, incumbent Democratic mayors were drubbed by primary challengers. Hartford’s Mayor Pedro Segarra was outhustled and outspent by Democratic Party endorsed challenger Luke Bronin, formerly general counsel for two years to Governor Dannel Malloy. In Bridgeport, Connecticut’s largest city, former Mayor and felon Joe Ganim defeated Mayor Bill Finch in a three-way primary. And in New London, Mayor Darryl Finzio, more progressive than Leon Trotsky, lost to Councilman Michael Passero. One publication noted that the primary defeats of the three incumbent Democratic mayors indicated a “hunger for change” in cities long dominated by the Democratic Party. Three questions arise: What changes are in the minds of Democratic voters who turned a frozen face to incumbents? To what extent is change possible within cities dominated for decades by a single party? And why has the hunger for change not moved more voters towards the Republican Party?

January came in like a lion and went out like a lion, leaving behind in its wake a pile of snow and bone chilling winds that would make even the most fervent acolyte of global warming curse Al Gore, the high priest of the cult. GW cultists these days insist on calling their peculiar faith “climate change,” which is probably what Mr. Mark Twain had in mind when he said, “If you don’t like the weather in New England, just wait a minute; it’ll change,” or words to that effect. A neighbor across the lake, Tony Procrastinate (not his real name) who has just given up the last of the New Year’s resolutions he made at the beginning of the month, insists that Winter dumped three feet of snow on his property, and it is pointless to try to convince him that his snow footage is an accumulative figure, the present couple of feet having been added to the unshoveled couple of feet left over from the last storm. Mr. Procrastinate neglected to clean up his property last time because… well, he had turn...

Ken Dixon, a reporter and blogger with the Connecticut Post , realized after he had assembled a transcript of a media opportunity with President Pro Tem of the state Senate Don Williams that he had a mini- Marx Brothers movie in hand. Reporters were asking Williams about what Dixon called “the bicameral ethics of the state senate,” controlled these many years by fastidious Democrats. The State Elections Enforcement Commission had just penalized Sen. Joe Crisco, D-Woodbridge, $4,000 for having signed the names of his campaign officials on documents he had used to apply for up to $85,000 in taxpayer funded campaign cash, often called forgery. And the reporters in the room were just curious: Could Williams please put the DeLuca case in context with the Crisco case? Lou DeLuca, at the time a leading Republican with a sterling record, was drummed out of the senate after an FBI agent got him to agree in a conversation that he would be willing to accept the services of the agent, then pretend...

Blago has been impeached. We can breath easier. And Baltimore Mayor Sheila A. Dixon today was charged with 12 counts of felony theft, perjury, fraud and misconduct in office, becoming the city's first sitting mayor to be criminally indicted, according to a report in the Baltimore Sun . Both Blago and Dixon are Democrats, not that there's anything wrong with that. In the meantime, the Somalian pirates have run into a bit of bad luck. According to an Associated Press report, "Five of the Somali pirates who released a hijacked oil-laden Saudi supertanker drowned with their share of a reported $3 million ransom after their small boat capsized, a pirate and a relative of one of the dead men said Saturday." Somalia has not yet requested funds that the US federal government has been doling out to hard luck cases, not that there's anything wrong with that.