Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

John Larson fulminating A Hartford Courant statehouse reporter, Daniela Altimari, has had the intestinal fortitude to question Democrats in the U.S. Congressional Delegation concerning an attack upon the insurance industry in Connecticut. The title of her piece, “ With thousands of jobs at stake, Medicare for All is a complicated issue for Democrats in Hartford, the ‘Insurance Capital of the World’ “ is a bit cumbersome, but it frames the issue perfectly. First up at bat is Rep. John Larson, the congressman for life in Connecticut’s 1st District, an impregnable Democrat fortress. Larson says he does not believe that Medicare For All should eliminate the insurance company product. And he is quoted in the piece: “Hey, Medicare for All, that’s a laudable goal. It’s something people can wrap their arms around. But like anything else, there’s a lot of detail that goes with that.” One of the details that goes with that is the certain destruction of insurance as we know it in Conne...

In politics, there are two kinds of riches: personal riches – Democrat Dick Blumenthal, weighing in at $67 million, is among the eight richest Senators in Congress – and campaign riches . Democrat U.S Senator Chris Murphy, who complains often enough that hustling campaign dollars wastes time he might otherwise more profitably spend demonizing the NRA – which recently signaled its support of a bill championed by Murphy and fellow NRA demonizer Blumenthal, the “Fix NICS Act of 2017”, that would reinforce requirements that federal agencies report all infractions to  the National Instant Criminal Background Check System -- currently has about $6 million in his campaign kitty . Most people could not name Murphy’s likely Republican challenger. None of them have yet hit the $60,000 mark.

“If you don’t know where you are, how can you get to where you’re going? That’s why you’ve got to take stock of yourself every so often” – a waitress to a customer in a diner. Q: You’re getting on in years; isn’t it time for some sort of summing up? A: I don’t see any pressing need. Q: You’ve written a great deal about politics in Connecticut… A: … most of it lying dead in newspaper morgues… Q: Maybe so, but a record has been established in Connecticut Commentary for those who wish to consult it. Has anything changed because of your writing?

Looking forward past the gravitational pull of the current election season, what do we expect of Connecticut’s media? Connecticut’s only state-wide paper – though this characterization must be amended somewhat, since the Hartford Courant no longer penetrates every town in the state – has nearly finished endorsing Democrats and pummeling Republicans on its editorial pages. The paper’s endorsements themselves read like re-cycled Democratic campaign posters. All seven members of Connecticut’s all Democratic U.S. Congressional Delegation have been re-endorsed by the paper. The last time the Courant endorsed a Republican running for the U.S. Congress was many moons ago, certainly beyond the ken of any millennial voter.

Matthew Corey is the Republican Party’s sacrificial lamb this year in the 1 st District’s U.S. Congressional contest ( “Sacrificial lamb,” a term derived from Abrahamic religion traditions in which a lamb is prized as a highly valued possession and then sacrificed to a higher power ). Mr. Corey is running in a gerrymandered district that Republicans last held in 1957. In fact, the District has been a Democratic satrapy for all but six years since 1931. The demography of the District is a very picture of fate as it was understood by the ancient Greeks – powerful, tragic or comic and always inescapable. The voter breakdown in the District runs like this: Democrat active voters 156,784; Republicans 71,932; Unaffiliateds 172,626.  The Harford Courant, not unexpectedly, has recently sprinkled its endorsement over Democrat U.S. Representative John Larson. Two days before aspersing Mr. Larson with journalistic holy water, the paper encouraged the nation t...

‘All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds”  – Dr. Pangloss in Voltaire’s Candide Connecticut US Senator Chris Murphy appeared for an  interview with Bret Baier of Fox News  just as the National Democratic Nominating Convention was reeling from email disclosures that set even fierce Hillary Clinton supporters back on their heels. Mr. Murphy bullied his way through Mr. Baier’s questions but, alas, reality, that annoying spoiler of unreasoned optimism, poked its nose into Mr. Murphy’s tent. Even as the Dr. Pangloss of Connecticut Democrats was saying that all was the best in the best of all possible Democratic worlds, the convention floor was bursting with rancor and – not too extreme a word – disgust. The Democratic world had just been shaken by the release of 20,000 emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee (DNC), some of which appeared to confirm Socialist Bernie Sanders’ notion that the DNC had set its face against his cand...

In the heyday of Tammany Hall, an intrepid reporter regularly interviewed a Tammany Hall chieftain, ward boss George Washington Plunkitt, and later put together in a small book an illuminating and unintentionally hilarious compilation of the interviews, “Plunkitt of Tammany Hall.” One of the book’s chapters is titled “Honest Graft.” There are two kinds of graft, Mr. Plunkitt explained: dishonest graft, which benefits only the grafter, and honest graft, which benefits the grafter, usually a politician, and the general public as well. Honest graft advances the public good, dishonest graph advances only the private ambitions of bad men. Distinctions of this kind, though subtle, are important for politicians who wish to put a halo around questionable activities.  Democrats in Connecticut recently ran into a moral speed bump when, following a sit-in arranged by 1st District U.S. Representative John Larson, the Democratic Party used the occasion to raise funds for politicians in Connec...

Readers of this page may be surprised to learn that the U.S. Congress still prays. Convocations during opening sessions are common among Congressmen even today when, largely because of U.S. Supreme Court decisions, open displays of religious expression are discouraged. In what may be his most famous inaugural address, President Abe Lincoln said, “Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-men’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn by the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.’”

Juliana Simone, for nine years the host of the Barkhamsted Republican Town Committee's political interview show "Conservative Chat and Chairman of the BRTC since 2009," has invited me to make a few impromptu remarks during the town’s biannual fundraiser on September 30. If anyone following Connecticut Commentary attends the event, please coral me and say hello. I’ll be touching briefly on a few topics I’ve written about recently. There are some things I will not have time to address. Allow me to do so here.

Apparently, snowballs do have a chance of not melting in the fiery furnace. A Hartford paper reported over the weekend that all seven members of Connecticut’s U.S. Congressional Delegation have “offered sharp criticism after newspapers revealed the administration’s sweeping government surveillance programs, which monitor cellphone and internet traffic in the name of national security.” U.S. Representative Jim Himes, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, thought the monitoring program was too intense and overbroad: “I feel like the government is breaking all kinds of precedent here in increasing the intensity of its surveillance. There's a balance to be struck and generally it feels like we have lost that balance in favor of over-intrusive investigation and [data] collection." Having opposed covert national security operations during the administration of George Bush, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy had little choice but to object to the expansion of the program und...

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act ” -- George Orwell George Orwell, like Jonathan Swift before him, is one of those large writers who simply straddle ideological categories. He was fortunate enough – or unfortunate enough, depending on one’s point of view – to have been born in what the ancient Chinese call “interesting times,” the bloody and totalitarian 20th century. The revolutionist speaking truth to power often appears among us with a rope braided by the reigning powers draped about his neck. He steps towards gallows with a wan smile on his face.

In the Old West if a horse thief stole your mount, you either took matters into your own hands and shot him, or you petitioned the law and had him hanged, both swift and certain options. Connecticut’s 1 st District U.S. Representative John Larson did not have available to him either option when Governor Rick Perry of Texas sent out a tweet inviting Bristol gunmaker PTR Industries to remove to Texas: “Hey PTR … Texas is still wide open for business!! Come on down!” And so when the naked attempt to steal PTR, a maker of a long rifle banned by Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy and the General Assembly, was brought to Mr. Larson’s attention, he did the best he could, offering a stinging rebuke in the Bristol Press : “a typical Rick Perry move, void of substance but high on politically charged verbiage.”