Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Danbury State’s Attorney Stephen Sedensky has been keeping information concerning the mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School close to his vest, and state police spokesman Lieutenant Paul Vance has countless times told everyone in Connecticut why: “There is an ongoing investigation.” The criminal investigation has been ongoing ever since Adam Lanza, armed to the teeth with weapons he appropriated from his mother, shot his way into the school and murdered 20 young children and 6 staff members. Mr. Lanza also murdered his mother before leaving on his murderous mission.

U.S. Rep. John Larson, firmly entrenched for 12 years in a U.S. congressional seat held previously for 16 years by Barbara Kennelly, the daughter of Connecticut’s last Democratic Party boss John Bailey, is what used to be called way back in the Middle Ages “a hale fellow well met,” a gregarious, back slapping, sociable politician who likely will remember your name the second time he meets you at the Manchester Peach Festival. The old U.S. congress of the Dodds, father and son, used to be full of such convivial good-old-boys. Sen. Chris Dodd, in a recent exit interview with MSNBC , sadly mourned the passing of such amiable deal brokers, reminding young up-and-comers that the U.S. Senate is, after all, a political brokerage house where, in order to get things done, one must get along with opposition party members, giving a little here, taking a little there, in order to push the sausage through the legislative grinder. Larson is heir to this tradition. He also is something of a partis...

It appears that 2010 may be the “year of the woman” in Connecticut politics -- and not only in Connecticut. Pretty much across the United States, markedly in the Republican Party, women seem to be coming out of the woodwork to run for office, and their backgrounds, mostly in business, are not shallow. Genus feminae , of course, has been making steady progress in politics for some time. Women hold 90 or 16.8% of the 535 seats in the 111th US Congress, 17% of the 100 seats in the Senate and 16.8% of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives. Connecticut can point to bumper crop of women vying for political positions this year. One of them, Martha Dean, running for attorney general, was the highest vote getter in the recently concluded Republican primaries. Ann Brickley, running against Democratic pit bull Rep. John Larson – New England’s answer to Ear Mark King John Murtha, diseased -- has a stunning background in business. It seems that Republican women, having tasted some su...

Rep. John Murtha, known affectionately as the earmark king, has died. Toward the end, he lost the ability to count heads and apparently was deaf as a door nail.

Everyone very likely will recall the Moody-Rell-Arts And Tourism incident, then Gov. Jodi Rell’s Teapot Dome scandal. Lisa Moody, Rell’s chief aide, ordered that an address list of art and tourism organizations be put on a disk, which she then shared with Rell’s re-election campaign committee. It was assumed at the time, by very nearly everyone who had access to a computer keyboard, that the campaign committee would use the names to furnish funds for “Snow White.” This mini-Teapot Dome affair was stopped in its tracks by a vigilant press. The incident delighted anti-Rellites in both the opposition party and the media. Then Speaker of the House Jim Amann strummed the chord of corruption until the strings on his rhetorical harp broke, without once asking why Bill DiBella had not followed Ben Andrews to jail. And the media began humming “Schadenfreude, My Schadenfreude” in its sleep. The moral epigones guessed Moody was far more corrupt than U.S. Rep. John Murtha, the powerful Chai...

This is the year when many shameless congressional Democrats became U.S. Rep. John Murtha, the powerful Chairman of the House Appropriations Defense Committee and dispenser-in-chief of goodies. Any superfluous submarines that have come Connecticut’s way in the dying last days of the Bush administration have Murtha’s fingerprints all over them. Rep. John Larson of Connecticut’s impregnable 1st District was a pioneer in this regard . Way back in April, the Journal Inquirer reported in a flashy first page story that Larson had struck up a very close friendship with the earmark king of Pennsylvania, then under scrutiny for the second time by the FBI. The first time, FBI agents attempted to ensnare Murtha in a tit for tat scam involving wealthy Arab sheiks, FBI plants in disguise. One of the sheiks brought a briefcase full of cash with him, passed its fragrance under Murtha’s nose and begged favors of him. Murtha suggested the money be laundered through his favorite charity, a const...

Sen. Chris Dodd, hammered by his opponents and some in the media as having been intimate with Big Insurance from which has received in the past 20 years $2.3 million in campaign contributions, has been at some pains to show that he is not on their leash, which is why he is now peeing on their leg. They will not mind the wetting. Two recent commentaries on Dodd, one in the Hartford Courant and one in Slate magazine, both make use of Ralph Nader’s old chestnut that Dodd is “the senator from Aetna.” “Among the three principals currently working to combine two Senate committee bills on health reform,” Slate notes, “the strongest advocate for creation of a ‘public option’ government insurance plan (which private insurers strongly oppose on competitive grounds) happens to represent the state of Connecticut. And the state of Connecticut happens to be home to the insurance industry generally and to health insurance giants Aetna and Cigna HealthCare in particular... Dodd must know that ...

Anyone kindly disposed towards John Larson might have told him that if he lay down with dogs, he might get up with a few fleas. They apparently didn’t, and he did. The Journal Inquirer has reported in a flashy first page story, “ Larson on the hot seat ,” that the popular representative of the impregnable 1st District had struck up a very close friendship with earmark king Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, now under scrutiny, for the second time, by the FBI. Murtha and Larson were drawn together through their opposition to the war in Iraq, for all practical purposes now considered won by the good guys, although Murtha insisted as early as June, 2006 that the American presence in Iraq was more dangerous to world peace than nuclear threats from North Korea or Iran. The FBI didn’t get their man on the first try, an ABSCAM sting operation launched in several years ago in which agents disguised as Arab sheiks attempted to entice legislators to accept bribes in return for political favors. I...

Soon to be Vice President Joe Biden has warned, while Barack Obama is performing his victory dance in the red states, that the new president and Vice President will be “ tested ” shortly after they are sworn in to office. Will they meet the test? You’betcha! For the second time (perhaps the third time; who’s keeping count?) unindicted co-conspirator in the ABSCAM flapdoodle U.S. Rep. John Murtha is, according to Pittsburg WTAE.TV Channel 4 , “calling many of the people who put him in office ‘rednecks.’ The news comes one week after Murtha claimed the area is racist, then apologized for that comment.” Who does this gaffer think he is – Joe Biden? According to the authoritative National Review Online , votive candles bearing the image of the sainted Obama have begun to appear at a street fair at Hayes and Octavia in San Francisco. The Madonna divorce continues to wend its way through the press. Soon to be former Mr. Madonna Guy Ritchie thinks his soon to be former wife is spying on him....

Student protestors in Iran are – with apologies to Daily Kos -- crashing the gates , Venezuela is poised to kick Hugo Chavez to the curb, and a YouTube video is making the rounds showing that Bush’s ouster of Sadam Hussein had the support of a handful of prominent Democrats. And, oh yes, the surge has worked; so says Mr.anti-war bluster John Murtha .

Because Lou DeLuca complained of maltreatment and suggested that the Gaffey potboiler be handled in a way similar to his own case, both commentators and politicians, among them President Pro Tem of the state senate Don Williams, felt constrained to point out the differences. Williams said, "For Lou DeLuca to have brought this up is an outrage. For somebody who was investigated by the FBI, the chief state's attorney's office, and but for the fact that law enforcement was able to break up the hit that he ordered on a relative, he would be in jail. For him to start talking about Tom Gaffey, who broke no law … we're talking about two different universes." All true. Apples are not oranges. The characters to whom we’ve been introduced during the DeLuca drama are not at all the same as those wandering the stage in the Gaffey drama. There are no FBI agents posing as mobsters under state Sen. Thomas Gaffey’s bed, and Gaffey did not refuse a bribe and then decline to report...

A short time ago, John Murtha , a powerful member of the House Appropriations Committee and the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Defense, perhaps the most persistent critic of the war in Iraq, returned home and pronounced the surge a success, news that now is trickling down through the Democrat grapevine. Murtha’s announcement is not likely to win him many friends in the frothing progressive community. His grudging admission, however, was attended with an important qualification: The political situation in Iraq is still a mess – no argument there. It is still being argued in some quarters, by presidential hopeful Sen. Chris Dodd, among others, that American troops should quickly be withdrawn from Iraq. Dodd has proposed a withdrawal by March. Those who believe that security and efficient politics in Iraq are unrelated have a quarrel with history that they cannot win. Even in Iraq, there are signs that the two are intimately related. In a blog piece titled “What Happens After The Surge?”...

Rep. John Murtha today said he saw signs of military progress during a brief trip to Iraq last week, but he warned that Iraqis need to play a larger role in providing their own security and the Bush administration still must develop an exit strategy. "I think the 'surge' is working," the Democrat said in a videoconference from his Johnstown office, describing the president's decision to commit more than 20,000 additional combat troops this year. But the Iraqis "have got to take care of themselves." Violence has dropped significantly in recent months, but Mr. Murtha said he was most encouraged by changes in the once-volatile Anbar province, where locals have started working closely with U.S. forces to isolate insurgents linked to Al Qaeda. He said Iraqis need to duplicate that success at the national level, but the central government in Baghdad is "dysfunctional." Mr. Murtha's four day-trip took him to a Thanksgiving dinner with troops in Ku...

Sen. Lou DeLuca has now been “done in” by most commentators and editorial boards. It’s difficult to see how he can survive the drubbing, and it is safe to predict that his days in the state senate soon will be drawing to a close. The Harford Courant has, somewhat tardily , called for DeLuca’s resignation from the senate. DeLuca has stepped down as Minority Leader for Republicans but continues to cling on to his seat by (pun intended) the seat of his pants. “And Mr. DeLuca,” the Courant intoned two days before two of its columnists, Kevine Rennie and Bill Currry opened fire in the Sunday edition of the paper, “ a Woodbury Republican, was wrong again last week in deciding not to resign his seat in the Senate. Resigning would be the honorable thing to do, but Mr. DeLuca is nothing if not consistent.” Rennie , whose jeweler’s eye was trained on prosecutorial inconsistencies, in addition to holding aloft DeLuca’s severed head, also lambasted prosecutors who arrogantly refused to settle wha...

On one of his many campaign stops across the country, Senator John Kennedy, then running for president, found himself at the Alamo. It was very hot, very crowded, and Kennedy was anxious to be on time for his next campaign appearance. He was running late. So Kennedy corralled a guide and asked where the back door was. “There are no back doors to the Alamo, Senator Kennedy,” he was told. “Only heroes.” Speaker of the House James Amann beat a most unheroic retreat, one newspaper reported, “rather than have budget negotiations that included Republican leaders Rep. Lawrence Cafero and Sen. Louis DeLuca,” who has a bid of a problem involving his grand daughter’s husband and state prosecutors. DeLuca recently pleaded guilty to a charge of “threatening conspiracy,” a misdemeanor, that arose from a meeting he had with James Galante in which DeLuca was told by Galante that he would help the senator settle a family problem. The problem involved a granddaughter who, DeLuca thought, was being abu...

Senate Republican leader Lou DeLuca should resign, sparing himself and the Republican Party unnecessary grief. Any politician who has been the subject of a bribe attempt and who has not reported the attempt to the proper authorities should resign his or her office. That is true of DeLuca, and it is also true of the Democrat Party's earmark king John Murtha, still parceling out favors years after he had been swept up in the notorious ABSCAM case. Both DeLuca and Murtha were targets of bribe attempts made by agents interested in gathering evidence against them in criminal probes. Both refused the bribes but did not report the bribe attempt. Since DeLuca fessed up to prosecutors, suggestions have been made in some quarters that DeLuca himself is mob connected, and his claim that he brought pictures to police showing his grand daughter had been brutalized by an ex-con boyfriend also has been doubted. The question whether DeLuca's grand daughter was indeed brutalized by an ex-con is...

It didn’t take long for Democrat unity to become hopelessly entangled in petty feuds and party alliances. Speaker elect of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s choice for Majority Leader, Rep. John Murtha, was quickly voted down by a majority of Democrats. Many of the incoming “young turks,” swept into office owing to voter disenchantment with the war in Iraq, voted for Murtha on Pelosi’s recommendation, which came late in the day after Rep. Steny Hoyer had secured promises of support among House members uncomfortable with corruption in Washington DC. Among Murtha most vigorous supporters in Connecticut were one “young turk,” Joe Courtney, who defeated Republican Rep. Rob Simmons by the narrowest of margins, and one “old turk,” Rep. John Larson , who praised Murtha’s opposition to the war in Iraq as a sufficient reason for supporting him. Larson has been appointed House Democratic Caucus vice chairman in the reconfigured congress and, as such, may have felt himself duty bound...

Far from being a Hercules prepared to clean the soiled Augean stables in Congress of corruption, Rep. John Murtha, Nancy Pelosi’s choice for Majority Leader of the House, appears to be one of the contented Beltway cows, according to a recent story in the Washington Post , not known as a neo-con newspaper. Even the Hartford Courant saw fit to print a discouraging word. True, Colin McEnroe has not yet weighed in on the new culture of corruption in Washington DC, but then he has not yet fully recovered from his obsession with the inoffensive Joe Lieberman -- Independent Democrat CT.