Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Twin Towers post 9/11 There are few things worse than generals pretending to be presidents. President Harry Truman fired one of these, General Douglas MacArthur, in 1951. Generals in the Pentagon have since taken the lesson and learned to defer. In the postmodern period, the danger comes from presidents pretending to be generals and generals conniving at the pretense. That is what happened when President Joe Biden closed Bagram Airfield, also known as Bagram Air Base, the largest U.S. military base in Afghanistan, in order to meet a self-imposed withdrawal deadline of American troops from Afghanistan by August 31. The depleted military, their attentions diverted elsewhere, also left behind billions of dollars’ worth of sophisticated hardware and, if one any longer is to believe figures issued by the White House, 100-200 American citizens and thousands of Afghanis Biden pledged not to leave behind in the grip of Taliban terrorists.   Some critics say the unnecessary deadline, r...

Murphy Some moments last longer than the passing moment. On September 11 of this year, we descended into one of them. The Associated Press reported, “President Joe Biden will visit all three 9/11 memorial sites to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the  Sept. 11 attacks  and pay his respects to the nearly 3,000 people killed that day. “Biden will visit ground zero in New York City, the Pentagon and the memorial outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where United Flight 93 was forced down, the White House said Saturday (9/4/2021). “Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Shanksville, Pennsylvania, for a separate event before joining the president at the Pentagon, the White House said. Harris will travel with her spouse, Doug Emhoff.” Biden shed a tear at what has come to be called “ground zero” in New York City. No doubt the tear was sincere, although some men of his age, 79, have learned to cry on cue. What tears mean depends on who is shedding them. Nero, after he...

Biden in Connecticut President Joe Biden has withdrawn from Afghanistan all American troops but not – perhaps an oversight – billions of dollars’ worth of war material. In its haste to leave Afghanistan before August 31, the administration surrendered to the Taliban, still cited as a terrorist group by the sometimes United States,  American civilians, numbers unknown, and possibly thousands of Afghans who had helped the United States ward off Taliban terrorists for more than 20 years. The Biden administration deeded the whole of Afghanistan to the Taliban, along with several air force bases, the most important of which was Bagram , a watchtower that allowed U.S. intelligence, and three presidents other than Biden to serve as on the ground eyes and ears on Iran and China. In the post Biden withdrawal period, the United States will be both blind and deaf in an area bordering China, Iran and Pakistan. The Associated Press (AP) reported during the second week of October, citing a m...

Kyiv They have healed the brokenness of my people superficially saying, “Peace, peace.” But there is no peace -- Jeremiah 6:14  The war of Russian aggression against Ukraine began a full month ago, when a forty mile convoy of destructive war material was seen by Maxar Technologies in Colorado snaking its way from Belarus, to Kyiv, Ukraine. Many supposed at the beginning of the war that Stalinist wannabe Vladimir Putin would overcome Ukrainian resistance in a matter of days. That convoy certainly seemed intimidating, pregnant with portents of future mass destruction. This notion – that Ukraine would fall without effective resistance, as Czechoslovakia had done when faced with superior Nazi firepower from 1938-44 – likely was hard baked into the American response to the war. Lt. General Scott Berrier, who leads the Pentagon’s Primary Intelligence Arms, recently admitted that the Pentagon had misjudged Ukrainian resistance: “We made some assumptions about his [Putin’s]...

A publication called the  Jewish Insider reported on August 31, the day the last American troops vacated Afghanistan, that an all-Democrat congressional delegation is on its way to foreign parts, perhaps, some cynics may suppose, to staunch wounds following President Joe Biden’s “successful” – so he says – withdrawal from Afghanistan. The delegation, which will include Connecticut U.S. Senators Chris Murphy,  chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia and Counterterrorism, and Dick Blumenthal, intends to visit Israel, the West Bank and Lebanon. The West Bank in Israel has been in continuous eruption, owing chiefly to Iranian support of Hamas and Palestinian terrorists and U.S. complacency. Lebanon is, for all practical purposes, an Iran supported terrorist controlled state – just like the now Taliban controlled Afghanistan. And Israel, whose new Prime Minister,  Naftali Bennett , recently sat down with Biden for a ch...

Blumenthal mock swear in by Biden Be Bold, be bold, but not too bold, Lest that your heart's blood should run cold – From Mr. Fox , an English Fairy Tale Joe Biden spent most of his presidential campaign hunkered down in his basement -- not, one supposes, because he was inordinately shy or a political amateur. His press unavailability both amused and alarmed the twitchy anti-Trump media. Was Biden, 79 years old, a professional politician for 48 years, dancing on the edge of senility, or was his absent-without-leave campaign shrewd politics? Others supposed, for reasons never clearly articulated, that Biden, who seemed, even when reading from a teleprompter, disturbingly disoriented, feared to engage the bomb throwing Trump in a mano a mano confrontation or, worse, a twitter contest. At this point, Trump had not yet been banned from major public platforms. Or perhaps Biden’s mysterious handlers – Who are they? – feared that the mainstream media might feel obliged to trap Biden in a ...

Netanyahu and Biden - Fox News Bob Woodward’s latest political Grand Guignol, War , will be available to the general public on October 15. In the meantime, we have reviews by select news organizations that have received advanced copies of the book full of horrific and devilish details. According to CNN, “Woodward’s new book, which was obtained by CNN ahead of its October 15 release, gives an unvarnished, in-the-room account of key moments as Biden and his national security team navigates international crises, from the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal to confronting Putin before he invaded Ukraine to private battles with Netanyahu. “Based on hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand participants, War is filled with newly reported details of high-stakes showdowns. The book explores the political and personal wars that Biden has fought during his presidency, including details about his decision to step aside from the 2024 campaign and conversations about his son Hunter Biden’s ...

It was sainted President Barack Obama who was credited in a Politico piece in 2020 with having said about his Vice President Joe Biden, “Never underestimate Biden’s ability to f***k things up.” The quote was attributed to an unnamed Politico source, but it comes down to us fresh as the day it was uttered, mainly because President Joe Biden has valiantly continued to screw things up. Robert Gates, who served in both the Bush and Obama administrations as Secretary of Defense, retiring in 2011, said of Biden, “I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue for the past four decades.” A botched withdrawal from Afghanistan that surrendered Bagram Air Force base to the Taliban was a major screw up. An average of the year-over-year inflation rate for all months during the Biden administration of 5.7 percent is a major screw up. The same rate under Biden’s predecessor was 1.9 percent, according to Investopedia. Biden perversely seems not to un...

Harris -- Getty Images CNN host Dana Bash interviewed prospective Democrat Party president Kamala Harris and her vice presidential choice Minnesota Governor Tim Walz on Thursday, August 29. Unlike Harris, Bash is not a former California District Attorney and Attorney General. A prosecutor might have avoided packing her interrogatory with leading questions, easily handled by Harris, and she most certainly would have peppered her subject with sharp, entangling follow up questions. Prior to the rare interview, about 16-20 minutes in length, some Harris critics supposed much of the time would be sopped up by Walz, severely shortening Harris’ 20 minute camera time. The event was unusual – “an historic first” as the Harris friendly media might say – the only time Harris has been interrogated by the nation’s media since she was anointed to fill her slot as a presidential candidate who had received no delegate votes in the aborted Democrat presidential primary. The man she displaced, sti...

With advancing age, people who are not skeptics say, comes wisdom, and certain infirmities, many of which have taken hold of President Joe Biden. These are visible to anyone who has eyes to see and ears to hear. The man is not who he was. And who he was still remains a mystery wrapped in an enigma. If not the worse president in U.S. history, Biden is a close second or third. According to FiveThirtyEight , an aggregate poll, Biden’s disapproval numbers from Jan 2021 to June 2023 have increased from 37% to 55%. Even radicals on the left who support his radical policies, many of them disastrous, such as his unrelenting attacks on the internal combustion engine, believe that others who are not faking American leftism, would be preferable to Biden. Present Governor of California Gavin Newsom, who ruined San Francisco as its mayor and California as its governor, has now set his eyes on the presidency as an alternative to Biden. To Newsom’s right, is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son of U.S. A...

Marine Sargent Nicole Gee, political victim     There are some important differences between the Trump and Biden approaches in Afghanistan. Trump was willing to end America’s presence in Afghanistan in May, and his was a conditional withdrawal the most important provision of which was that the United States would agree to leave Afghanistan if – and only if – the Taliban were to agree to share power with the government of Afghanistan. Biden’s surrender to the Taliban was unconditional, and that is why the Taliban was able to dictate to Biden the terms of surrender. The victors in any confrontation always spoil the best laid plans of the losers. Because his surrender was unconditional, Biden found it necessary to leave both Americans and friends of America behind enemy lines following his self-imposed exit-date of August 31, surely a day that will live in shame and ignominy U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal, a Marine, said on August 28, according to CTInsider , that “he and o...

Blumenthal Sworn In By Biden U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal, we learn from a piece in the Washington Examiner , is furious at his chief. “Sen. Richard Blumenthal,” the paper reports, “took aim at the White House and State Department on Monday, saying he is ‘furious’ over struggles to secure planes to evacuate a group of Americans and Afghan allies from Afghanistan.” And here is the money quote, carefully authored, one can be sure, by some member of his staff who has learned to be furious on cue: “’I have been deeply frustrated, even furious, at our government’s delay and inaction,’ Blumenthal, a Democrat who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said. ‘I expect the White House and State Department to do everything in their power, absolutely everything, to make this happen. These are American citizens and Afghans who risked everything for our country. We cannot leave them behind.’” In fact, we have left them behind and do not know, at this point, their precise numbers, who t...

Netanyahu and Biden Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu is on trial, Fox News tells us, for “accepting gifts from Israeli Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan in exchange for advancing his interests, failing to report a bribery attempt from newspaper ‘Yediot Aharonot’ publisher Arnon Mozes, who wanted Netanyahu to allow a bill to pass outlawing free newspapers and offered him favorable coverage in exchange, and accepting an offer in which Shaul Elovitch, the owner of Israeli telecom conglomerate Bezeq, would grant Netanyahu favorable media coverage in exchange for favorable regulatory changes.”   Netanyahu has asserted that the charges are false, highly inflated – and political. Netanyahu’s political enemies have been gunning for him for decades.   It will all come out in the wash, political cynics believe. But there is a great deal of dirty linen in the wash tub. Consider the title and then the lede to the Fox News story: “ Netanyahu knocks Obama, John Kerry in...

Stefanowski Facebook -- Bob and Company The news that   Liz Kurantowitz had left Bob Stefanowski’s gubernatorial campaign was broken by Stefanowski, who announced in a press release, “Stefanowski campaign announces departure of senior advisor Liz Kurantowitz citing strategic differences.” CTMirror’s Capitol Bureau Chief Mark Pazniokas   noted in a twitter feed, “Seldom a good sign to see your campaign manager, then your senior strategist and only press contact, depart in August.” The news release flushed left of center birds from Connecticut’s media brush. State Capitol news reporter for the Associated Press  Susan Haigh , at one time a Hartford Courant reporter, rang up former Connecticut U.S. Representative Chris Shays, now living out of state, along with many other Connecticut expats. Shays was the last man standing in Connecticut’s once bipartisan U.S. Congressional Delegation. Three Republicans – Nancy Johnson, Rob Simmons and Chris Shays – all fiscal conserv...