Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Blumenthal and Sanders Vermont socialist Bernie Sanders is exciting agita in some Democrat breasts, and he knows it. Sanders, who arrived in Springfield, Massachusetts at the Mass Mutual Center on a wave of primary wins, told enthusiasts in the crowd, “Some of you may have noticed that the political establishment and the corporate elite are getting very nervous. You know what? They have a right to get nervous. We’re going after them.” Sanders has been going after the Democrat political establishment and the corporate elite since his 1988 honeymoon days in the Soviet Union. The political trajectory of the leading Democrat candidate for president was set in the student revolution days of the 70s. Sanders may be the only live-wire protester of that time who has failed to grow up in the intervening years. Marxism is an outworn creed; the Berlin Wall fell in 1989; Fidel Castro’s seemingly endless Cuban Revolution puttered forward when Fidel died, leaving his brother communis...

“Life goes on without’ya…” – Just a Gigolo Answers to the larger Watergate questions – What did the President know, and when did he know it? – must await the final report of Special Prosecutor Robert Muller. In the meantime, the dreaded mainstream media is always able, if willing, to provide convincing answers to smaller but significant questions, not the least of which concerns the traditional relationship between the Director of the FBI, who may be dismissed for cause, and the President – any President – of the United States. The investigatory functions of the FBI, everyone will agree, are independent of the president in this sense:  while the president has the constitutional power and authority to dismiss the FBI Director, this option by no means guarantees that a specific investigation involving the president will be dropped. Indeed, during his recently concluded congressional interrogation former FBI Director James Comey asserted publicly, for the first time under o...

Just prior to the California primary, a “must win” for socialist Bernie Sanders, the Hillary Clinton campaign pointed out that their beleaguered leader had acquired enough delegates to overcome Mr. Sanders at the upcoming Democratic Party Presidential nominating convention. A headline following the announcement, typical of most, read: “ Clinton secures delegates before last Democratic races ." The message of the Hillary campaign to prospective Sanders supporters just prior to the crucial primaries in six states – CA, MT, NM, ND, NJ and SD – and especially delegate rich California, could not be plainer:  Stay home, the campaign is over . Mrs. Clinton swept California and New Jersey. Following her California win, Mrs. Clinton slathered Bernie supporters with empathy. “I know it never feels good to put your heart into a cause or a candidate you believe in and come up short,” she said from her triumphant podium. “I know that feeling well.”

That didn’t take long. Donald Trump The Untouchable has suddenly become a cuddle doll within Connecticut’s GOP establishment. The word “establishment", it should be understood, is a fighting word among Trumpeters. Anyone who has been tainted by political office is, in the view of Trump supporters, a member of the corrupted establishment. Establishment candidates have been given the bum’s rush by primary voters this year. The Trump campaign easily managed to polish off a number of conservative Republican anti-beltway presidential candidates, including Bobby Jindal, Carla Fiorina, and Marco Rubio. Ted Cruz, recently condemned by establishment Republican John Boehner as a Luciferian constitutional conservative, unlike the former RINO Speaker of the U.S. House, is still plugging away.

                                                                                    Q: Who are the Trump supporters? A: Right now, they are, for the most part, people who are unattached, emotionally or ideologically, to either of the two major parties. The Obama administration has abandoned altogether what used to be called moderate, Reagan Democrats. Some of these people, left in the lurch by progressives, have crossed over to vote for Trump. He is running very strong among Republican, Democrat and unaffiliated white males. Within the narrower category of alienated moderate Republicans and Democrats, there are numerous sub-groups: resentment Republicans and Democrats, people who have, in one way or another, been slighted by what they refer to, disdainfully, as the party ...

Note: Sad to say, it is becoming increasingly impossible to talk about issues vital to the country without mentioning, if only in passing, leading Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump, a media sponge far more absorbent than Connecticut’s  own U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal. Trumps supporters are enthusiastic, but some Republicans are riven with nagging doubts. I have tried in the Q & A format below to say some few things about current presidential nominees, both Republican and  Democratic, always  bearing in mind the useful advice offered by Connecticut’s own Mark Twain: “When in doubt tell the truth. It will confound your enemies and astound your friends.”    Q: Who are the Trump Supporters?

By Natalie Sirkin It was originally feared that the tea parties might turn into a third party, but that has not happened, at least not yet. Not a third party, they present no threat the Republican Party. With luck, they may turn the Republican Party into a major party; the Republican Party may turn the Tea Party into a ghost. So far, they have helped, garnering 63 seats in the House and 7 in the Senate (two more in doubt) and a huge 680 in local legislatures, giving the Republicans the advantage in the next election by gerrymandering their states into voting districts. They supported 116 candidates, including Marco Rubio (won by 19 points), Michele Bachmann, Rand Paul, Dan Coats, Ron Johnson and Pat Toomey, who won. They backed some who lost, including Carl Paladino in N.Y., Buck in Colorado, Sharron Angle in Nevada, and Christine O’Donnell in Delaware. Where did they come from? Commentators have not found their intellectual leaders. It is because the tea partiers are not in Wash...