Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Schumer, Blumenthal, Murphy A day prior to the “somber” vote in the U.S. House of Representatives, now controlled by Democrats, National Review reported, “The level of support for Trump’s impeachment and removal dipped below the level of opposition for the first time since the inquiry was formalized in October, according to a RealClearPolitics polling average updated just two days before the impending House vote on impeachment. RCP’s average tipped in Trump’s favor, 47.3 to 46.7 percent on Monday following the addition of two new national polls, NPR/PBS/Marist and  USA Today /Suffolk, which found that opposition to impeachment outweighed support by three and five percentage points, respectively.” What we have here is censure parading as impeachment. The nearly three year effort by Democrats to slather President Donald Trump with pitch and set his pants on fire might have succeeded as a censure, but impeachment, always a gaudy show, is a bridge too far.

Q: It may or may not have been the most significant presidential debate in living memory, but it certainly was the most touted presidential debate in “Click Nation USA.” What are your general impressions? Cynic: In Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest,” one character says to another, “I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and really being good all the time; that would be hypocrisy.” Neither of the presidential candidates this year needs worry about that. Hillary Clinton’s presentation, more than Trump’s, was unbearable pretentious. She needed to confess but boasted instead of her essential goodness. She is not a good person – never has been, never will be. But she is a Democrat and, in our time, political affiliation is a substitute for moral rectitude. Q: Is she evil? Cynic: No, she lacks the energy to be evil. The root is old and dry. Vladimir Putin is evil. That little runt in North Korea is evil. Donald Trump bubbles wi...

I n 2012, Connecticut’s Democrat dominated General Assembly abolished capital punishment but carved out an exception for convicted murderers awaiting the death penalty on death row. The carve-out for the eleven death row prisoners was a blatant violation of what used to be called the natural law, a series of political, philosophical and penological assumptions that informs all laws, statutory and constitutional. The abolition should have been applied retroactively to Connecticut prisoners awaiting death, for reasons lucidly stated by Samuel Johnson when he was reporting on debates in the House of Commons. The Nulla poena sine lege  doctrine -- “where there is no law, there is no transgression” – Mr. Johnson wrote, “is a maxim not only established by universal consent, but in itself evident and undeniable; and it is, Sir, surely no less certain that where there is no transgression, there can be no punishment.” By abolishing the death penalty yet leaving the penalty in forc...

"Patriotism if you must, but –please! – no parades” --  George Bernard Shaw The Democratic nominating convention was merely a dot placed over a predestined “i”. Despite Jonathan Pelto’s occasional pokes at Governor Dannel Malloy, no one in the state seriously entertained the notion that Mr. Malloy would not emerge from the Democratic nominating convention as the party’s chosen gubernatorial candidate. Within the Democratic Party, there will be no room during the upcoming elections for liberty to stretch its legs. Opposition will be sternly repelled. The Republican Party convention, held this year in the sprawling Mohegan Sun Casino complex, was a different matter.