Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

I began writing “Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes From A Blue State” more than 23 years ago because early on I glimpsed the dark at the end of the tunnel, and I was determined to make a record of the destruction of Connecticut, so that, years in the future, if anyone, poking his or her head above the rubble, wished to consult a record that tried valiantly to answer the questions – What went wrong, and who were the culprits?– he or she would have a faithful reference point. Today, I have an opportunity to render an abbreviated version of the longer account. I plan to touch here on the wrong-headed policies that have led us into the dark tunnel, some of the personalities involved, the rise of progressivism in Connecticut under the stewardship of Governor Dannel Malloy, the political repercussions of unsound policies, and what the French have called “the treason of the intellectuals.” Not to paint too bleak a picture – people generally don’t want to hear bad news – I should s...

According to Public Policy Polling , Governor Dannel Malloy “continues to be one of the most unpopular Governors in the country in our polling.” Mr. Malloy’s approval-disapproval spread likely astonished most political actors in the state, with the possible exception of the phlegmatic Roy Occhiogrosso, the governor chief flack catcher, whose response to a reputable, non-partisan poll showing the governor with an approval rating of a slender 33 percent and a disapproval rating of 51 percent was a barely suppressed yawn. “We generally don’t comment on polls,” said Mr. Occhiogrosso, “because what’s there to say? Polls come and go, numbers go up and down. The governor always tries to do what he thinks is in the best interests of the people of Connecticut, irrespective of the political consequences.” Politicians also come and go, and their comings and goings are sometimes intimately connected with sliding approval ratings. On previous occasions, Mr. Malloy has said that he i...

Russians Mull Burying Soviet Leader Lenin The corpse if V.I. Lenin has been awaiting burial since the Soviet Union was thrown on the ash heap of history during the administration of President Ronald Reagan. Comments by Russia’s new culture minister suggest, according to a report in the Washington Times , that Mr. Lenin is, finally, on his way out: “But recent comments by Russia ’s new culture minister have brought closer the possibility that the father of the Bolshevik Revolution could finally be laid to rest, signaling an end to the cult of Lenin . “’Many things in our life would symbolically change for the better after this [burial],’ Mr. Medinsky said, adding that he thinks Lenin should be buried with full state honors and his Red Square mausoleum turned into a museum of the Soviet era.” Nancy Pelosi Rakes In The Dough Borrowing a page from the 1912 election featuring socialist Eugene Debs on the far left, William Howard Taft in the center,   Woodrow Wil...

Just because President Barrack Obama wants to skin the millionaires, this does not mean that he counts no millionaires among his campaign contributors. The same fat cat one per centers upon whom Mr. Obama is prepared to shower crony capitalist bucks will undoubtedly contribute lavishly to national Democratic campaigns. And even those who are not so favored will be happy to throw a few hundred thousand into the collection basket as a down payment on Mr. Obama’s elephant ears. Over the years, the purchasing power of the dollar has declined precipitously, the result of inflation brought on by the unwillingness of presidents and congresses to pay down the national debt with tax increases and spending cuts. For this reason, it takes more worthless greenback to buy ear time and a place at the table. A million bucks ain’t what it used to be. Even if all the millionaires in the United States were by some swish of the magic wand to become as greedy, selfish and slothful as Mr. Obama a...

Reporting on the New Hampshire primary, NBC Politics on MSNBC noted: “Remarkably, self-described independents accounted for nearly half of all voters Tuesday – a piece of data which has implications for November. Paul won 32 percent of independents, with Romney getting 29 percent, and Huntsman picking up 23 percent of them.” The datum on the Independent vote is important for a number of reasons. New Hampshire and New England is considered fertile political ground for liberals, which is why Barry Goldwater said many years ago that if you lop off California and New England, you have “a pretty good country.” It is remarkable that half of people voting in the Republican primary were Independents. And it is equally remarkable that Mr. Paul, a libertarian who is by no means moderate, was able to garner such a large chunk of the Independent vote. The literature on Independents is scant. Woodrow Wilson International Center scholar Linda Killian has written a book due out in May title...

Andree in Malta “It’s not what you known that counts. It’s not even who you know that counts. It’s what you got on who you know that counts.” -- Sicilian saying It may be possible that there is a Sicilian crouching in the soul of every journalist worth his ink. My recommendation for people who travel is to allow for a bit of serendipity in their trip. Malta, for Andree and me, was the serendipitous part of our travels to Italy and beyond. Why, it may be asked, Malta? Because of Mary from Malta, of course. We met MFM while living in Bethel Connecticut some years ago, when the world was young and Europe was not on the point of economic collapse. Mary and her husband lived next door, and Andrée and she struck up a friendship that revolved around Malta, a mystery my wife had not yet penetrated. Andrée is a voracious reader of mysteries -- and people. When after several trips to Europe we became poorer and poorer – owing mostly to politicians on this side of the pond who do n...

According to Greg Wilson of NBC Southern California , a possible Colorado performance artist, allegedly drunk, “was arrested after scratching, punching and, well, rubbing her butt against Clyfford Still's ‘1957-J no.2’ and causing an estimated $10,000 damage to the artwork at the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver.” Mr. Still died in 1980. He was considered, according to the NMBC report, “one of the most influential of the American post-World War Two abstract expressionist artists, although he was not as well known as others such as Jackson Pollock” – until now. Four of Mr. Still’s paintings were auctioned last year by Sotheby’s and brought in $114 million, a sum that endowed the Denver museum, which opened in November. The performance artist, Ms. Carman Tisch, “dropped her pants at a museum and rubbed her rear end all over a painting valued at $30 million,” according the NBC report. Tragedy was averted when the lady attempted to urinate on the painting – and missed. Her aim app...

January came in like a lion and went out like a lion, leaving behind in its wake a pile of snow and bone chilling winds that would make even the most fervent acolyte of global warming curse Al Gore, the high priest of the cult. GW cultists these days insist on calling their peculiar faith “climate change,” which is probably what Mr. Mark Twain had in mind when he said, “If you don’t like the weather in New England, just wait a minute; it’ll change,” or words to that effect. A neighbor across the lake, Tony Procrastinate (not his real name) who has just given up the last of the New Year’s resolutions he made at the beginning of the month, insists that Winter dumped three feet of snow on his property, and it is pointless to try to convince him that his snow footage is an accumulative figure, the present couple of feet having been added to the unshoveled couple of feet left over from the last storm. Mr. Procrastinate neglected to clean up his property last time because… well, he had turn...

“What the three [Madison, Hamilton, Jay] did not know, could not know, was that the right to have the Constitution ratified would . . . rival any that would follow in the history of the country” -- Triumvirate, p. 38 The Articles of Confederation were a failure. They needed not to be improved but wholly rewritten. The Constitution was the best form of government ever offered to the world. But to get it ratified, nine of the 13 states were needed. Madison, Hamilton, and Jay started writing essays, all under the name of Publius, (with widespread support from the biased newspapers). How they got started, was not revealed in the mass of letters available to author Bruce Chadwick for his new book, “Triumverate” (Naperville, IL, Sourcebooks, 2009). Fears by Anti-Federalists and Federalists were intense. If the Constitution were not ratified, what would become of the states that voted against it? Anarchy? Like a ship without a rudder or pilot. The chief obstacle was the need for...

Jefferson said of education that it “enables every man to judge for himself what will secure or endanger his freedom.” Historian Rick Shenkman in his new book, Just How Stupid Are We? concludes that in the November 4 election, people were clueless without 15-second infomercials in deciding whom to vote for. How can ignorant people make such judgments, asks Chester Finn, Jr., in his introduction to Terrorists, Depots, and Democracy, What Our Children Need to Know . Finn asks, “How does it strengthen America for the future if it is raising a generation of ignorant citizens whose teachers are urged not to inform them of the truth about events for which they have no context, background, or information base”? The Fordham Foundation’s monograph (no relation to Fordham University), which deals also with what teachers need to know about America and the world, contains short essays by William J. Bennett, E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Lynne Cheney, James Q. Wilson, Stanley Kurtz, Tony Blair, and two do...

In an illuminating piece in National Review Online , editor at large Jonah Goldberg points out that President Barack Obama’s “change” is hoary with age: “There’s an old saying: The oldest word in American politics is ‘new.’ Only in that sense is there anything new to Barack Obama.” Obama’s “vision” parallels that of Woodrow Wilson, a progressive president and “… the first to openly disparage the U.S. Constitution as a hindrance to enlightened government. His new idea was to replace it with a 'living constitution' that empowered government to evolve beyond that document’s constraints. The Bill of Rights, lamented the progressives, inhibited what the government can do to people, but it failed to delineate what it must do for people.” In an essay on style, journalist Henry Mencken let loose on the twenty-eighth president (1913-1921), whose speeches Mencken found stirring but vacuous: “Two or three years ago, at the height of his illustriousness, it was spoken of in whispers, as i...

The successful prosecution of “Scooter Libby" – for lying to a grand jury – was a spectacular failure because it did not answer the question “Who outed Valerie Plame as an undercover agent?" There will be no further prosecutions in the case because the prosecutor fingered the wrong man: Scooter Libby did not blow Plame’s cover, because she was not an undercover agent. Prosecutor Fitzgerald packed his bags and went home after his flawed prosecution of the case because he fingered Libby rather than Richard Armitage, chief aide to then Secretary of state Colin Powell, as the primary leaker. Libby’s troubles began with a column written by Sun Times columnist Robert Novak , who testified to the grand jury under oath that Libby had said nothing to him about Plame. “While my column on Wilson's mission triggered Libby's misery,” Novak wrote in a recent column, “I played but a minor role in his trial. Subpoenaed by his defense team, I testified that I had phoned him in reporti...

“ My mother cried, my father wept, into the wicked world I leapt ” – William Blake In her forthcoming best seller, rumor has it that Ann Coulter will apologize profusely for using the “F” word – no, not that one – while adamantly refusing rehab. Meanwhile, over on the less far right, Jonah Goldberg of National Review On Line has offered a luminous piece on the Wilsons , Joe and Valerie Plame. And Binny turned 50 on Saturday. Assuming he is yet alive, Osama bin Ladin will have celebrated his fiftieth birthday on March 10th. A celebrant, Abu Yacoub , offered his good wishes on a website commonly used by insurgents and possibly by CNN. Said Mr. Yacoub, “Osama bin Laden turns 50. God protect our leader, our Sheik Osama bin Laden. God reward him for his words and actions.” He will Mr. Yacoub, He will. Someone has turned up a article written by Winston Churchill in 1937, “How The Jews Can Combat Persecution,” that seems to assign partial blame to Jews for the reprehensible way they were trea...

“Tell the truth,” says the poet Emily Dickenson, “but tell it slant.” The poetry resides in the slant. Bill Curry , a liberal Democrat who twice ran for governor and now writes a column for the Hartford Courant, is Connecticut’s politician poet in residence. Personally, I’ve always considered it unfortunate that Curry had not prevailed over former Gov. and felon John Rowland. Had he won in one of his two attempts to be governor, the state almost certainly would have been spared a messy gubernatorial prosecution and threatened impeachment, and not only because Curry can be as honest as the day is long – when it suits his purpose – but also because the state’s liberal press is somewhat laggard in the matter of applying to Democrats the lashes it distributes with such relish to Republicans. I do not doubt – as have said or intimated many times in this space – that Rowland got what he deserved, and before commenting further on Curry’s column on “Scooter” Libby, I wish to state without equi...