Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Juliana Simone Voltaire, one of Thomas Jefferson’s heroes who was driven from country to country by the victims of his stinging wit, thought that if states wanted to take a proper measure of freedom of expression, they should ask what cannot be said. Many are the ways of clipping freedom of speech. The modern world offers unique possibilities. Connecticut's  Public Utilities Regulatory Authority  (PURA) does not paste gags over the mouths of its victims or lay them on racks, pre-enlightenment methods much too crude for modern, refined sensibilities. But there is a small, valiant number of contrarians in Connecticut who believe that PURA has not been responsive to their justifiable pleas. One of them is Chairman of the Barkhamsted Republican Town Committee Juliana Simone – obviously a Republican and as obviously conservative-leaning. Simone has been the Host/Producer of "Conservative Chat", operating undisturbed out of a studio in Winsted, Connecticut for 14...

Ralph Nader, the nation’s consumer protection nag, is opening in Connecticut a museum that will memorialize his continuing effort to bring Big Business to its knees by means of suits and moral agitation. The museum, the American Museum of Tort Law ,  will be located in Mr. Nader’s hometown of Winsted, an inoffensive, small, New England town located at the junction of the Mad and Still Rivers. One of the first mill towns in Connecticut, Winsted was established in 1750. Mill towns are themselves becoming museum pieces in New England, manufacturing having fled to greener pastures elsewhere.