Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

It is nearly a forgone conclusion that tolls will be erected in Connecticut, and it is worth explaining why. Taxation in Connecticut is a matter of numbers, just as the impeachment of President Donald Trump in the House was a matter of numbers and his exoneration in the Senate will be a matter of numbers. Rationales will be offered in both chambers, but the reasons offered pro and contra are purely decorative, not compelling. It is the votes that are compelling. The same is true of Connecticut’s state budget. Democrats have commanding leads in both chambers, therefore there will be tolls. And the tolls, to be imposed only on trucks in Governor Lamont’s latest toll legislation, will metastasize in the future. That too is inevitable.

The address below was given at Meriden’s Fourth Annual Lincoln Day Dinner The day is named after Abe Lincoln, and well named too. I suppose this year those attending these remarks will thank God – who else? – that they are not called upon to celebrate the Jefferson, Jackson Bailey Dinner, which used to be a day of feasting and merriment for Connecticut Democrats. This was before conscience stricken Democrats re-named their annual event. They did so because Democrats decided, three quarters of a century after President Jackson died, that he had owned slaves – who knew? -- and was not kind to American Indians. Though somewhat debased, Jackson, revered as a populist, is still regarded as the founder of the modern Democratic Party. Lincoln owned no slaves and, in fact, prosecuted a bloody Civil War to emancipate them. He had a wicked sense of humor, unlike the stern, forbidding, disputatious and humorless Andy Jackson. On one occasion, in the midst of a speech, a heckler in the aud...

Andrew Roraback is a “fiscal conservative,” which is to say he is not a “social conservative,” which is to say he is pro-abortion but not sufficiently enthusiastic concerning abortion to merit the approval of NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut, a pro-abortion group that will admit no exceptions to abortion on demand. The very term “social conservative” is highly misleading. There are no congressional bills or judicial decisions that have no social ramifications. Everything politicians say and do and think is said and done and thought with a view towards enforcing or changing the society affected by human action. Even budgets – the last real budget was passed by the U.S. Congress in1997   before Barack Obama was elected president in November 2008 -- profoundly affect the social sphere. The science of economics, dismal though it may be, is a science of human action.

The skinny on Republican Party nominee for governor Tom Foley – he was arrested twice more than 20 years ago, charges having been dropped – probably will end in the usual piffle. The first arrest was for a fender-bender. The driver of the car Foley bumped had an argument with the householder who was throwing a party, and when Foley bumped him, he supposed Foley had done so at the behest of the householder. The charges were dropped. In the second instance, Foley got into an argument with his wife when their divorce was in process. The divorce was non-amicable. The argument centered on their son, a ping pong ball in the litigation. Foley’s wife was under a court order to tell Foley where she was taking their son when he was in her custody. She refused to do this; he blocked her car in a driveway, then relented and let her go; and he followed her up the street, remonstrating with her along the way. Both Foleys were arrested. The charges were dropped. A scurrilous charge having been ...

For the record, here are some excerpts printed in the New York Times from a transcript of prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s news conference following the complaint issued against Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich: Speakers: Patrick Fitzgerald, United States attorney general for the Northern District of Illinois Robert Grant, Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent in charge Fitzgerald: In addition to the pay-to-play allegations, which are described in greater detail in the complaint, we also were surprised to learn of an extortionate attempt against the Chicago Tribune newspaper. The Chicago Tribune had not been kind to Governor Blagojevich, had written editorials that called for his impeachment. And Governor Blagojevich and defendant Jonathan -- John Harris, his chief of staff, schemed to send a message to the Chicago Tribune that if the Tribune Company wanted to sell its ball field, Wrigley Field, in order to complete a business venture, the price of doing so was to fire certai...

It’s a little hard to determine who the initial aggressor is here, but the order of assaults might go something like this: 1) Lieberman ticked off leftist rabble rousers in his party by taking and defending a position on the Iraq war that deprived those thirsting for President George Bush’s blood of deadly talking points they might use to bring down the Bush administration; 2) the lefties rushed to their blog sites to condemn Lieberman as a traitor to his party and the human race; 3) Lieberman, threatened with a primary by Ned Lamont, a student of the Lowell Weicker Jr. school of political science, and besieged by unflattering notices on the blog sites – got ticked off; 4) Lieberman appeared on the Bruce and Colin radio talk show, where he responded to a recent Colin McEnroe rant by accusing the host of the show of – surprise! -- tendentious editing. A Lieberman quote used by McEnroe in one of his columns, Lieberman said, was “totally out of context. You might have gotten it from the ...