Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Truman Before Carthage in modern day Tunisia was destroyed by Rome in 146 BC, the Roman orator Cicero was known for having ended all his speeches in the Senate with the words “ Carthago delenda est ” – “Carthage must be destroyed.” Connecticut U.S. Senator Chris Murphy is not quite as insistent that Hamas should be destroyed, but he did manage briefly to mention the Iran supported terrorist organization in a story in a Hartford paper, “ Sen. Chris Murphy makes bipartisan plea for a ceasefire in the Middle East as others, including President Biden, join call to stop bloodshed .” U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy and his Republican colleague, Sen. Todd Young of Indiana, the paper noted, “are calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers in an effort to stop civilian bloodshed. “’Israel has the right to defend itself from Hamas’ rocket attacks, in a manner proportionate with the threat its citizens are facing,’ Murphy and Young said in a joint statement issued Sunday night. ‘A...

Netanyahu and Biden -- Avi Ohayon, Israeli Government, via Associated Press The views of Connecticut’s all-Democrat U.S. Congressional Delegation on war and peace in Israel are remarkably similar, as if they had all flowed from the same mind and pen. Very likely they did. Democrats are famous for producing campaign scripts and assuring that all the players, both nationally and in-state, rigidly adhere to them. This saves politicians the trouble of thinking independently. We owe to the Harford Courant’s Chris Keating an unobstructed view of the delegation’s scripted mindset. And the mind of the delegation is set in concrete political narratives. U.S. Representative John Larson of Connecticut’s 1st District, which has lain sleeping in Democrat hands for 64 years, may serve as an example. To the politically unlettered observer, the district appears to be horseshoe shaped gerrymander. The principal cities in Larson’s district are Bristol, Hartford, and Torrington. The district has been r...

Hamas -- Chris McGrath/Getty Images The Assassination of six abducted Israelis by Hamas over the weekend was intended to be provocative. Those provoked were Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli army, the so called “friends of Israel,” presumably including the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris administration, silent friends of Israel and, if not in every circumstance, a sizable portion of US reporters and commentators. Immediately following the assassinations, Time reported, “Abu Obaida, a spokesperson for Hamas’ Al-Qassem Brigade’, said that the new instructions came into place after Israel conducted a rescue operation in June that freed four hostages but resulted in the deaths of dozens of Palestinians, including women and children. “‘Netanyahu's insistence to free prisoners through military pressure, instead of sealing a deal, means they will be returned to their families in shrouds. Their families must choose whether they want them dead or alive,’ he said.” The n...

Newsom Carthago delenda est,” Carthage must be destroyed – the motto of Cato the Elder and the Roman army during the Punic wars National Review reports, “California Governor Gavin Newsom will conduct tonight’s Christmas tree–lighting at California’s state capitol virtually, amid threats from pro-Palestinian protesters… The Sacramento Regional Coalition for Palestinian Rights announced that it would protest at the state capitol on Tuesday night — the same night Newsom was set to direct the annual Christmas tree-lighting ceremony. The group told KCRA Channel 3 that it wants to ‘out Governor Gavin Newsom for hiding from the public because he doesn’t want to face their anger at his shameful stance in regard to the genocide in Gaza.’” Perhaps President of China Xi Jinping can show Newsom the way. The Governor of California need not scurry to a place of safety because he wishes to avoid a public headline-generating backlash as a result of a strenuous moral opposition against a genocidal...

Getty Images On October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorists swooped down upon a peaceful gathering of young Israelis enjoying themselves at a concert. ABC in mid-October provided us with a textual description of the ensuing slaughter: “Then the video [made by Hamas terrorists] gets grisly. Other militants are busy mashing a dying man's face with their boots. Another pair screams ‘Allahu akbar [God is great] as they use a garden hoe to try to decapitate another man. In another house, a gunman sticks the muzzle of his rifle into a room inhabited by a family. It's a mash of colors. In one, a terrorist is standing on an Israeli man's chest and shoots him point-blank in the face.” The slaughter was filmed by what some news outlets in the West are pleased to call “militants” rather than terrorists. These horrific clips, used by Hamas terrorists to convince the brethren they seriously intend to displace Israel with a forward marching conquering Islam, are a trifle too bloody to appear...

Murphy Carthago delenda est [Carthage must be destroyed] – Cato the Elder U.S. Senator Chris Murphy always has been a stalwart soldier in President Joe Biden’s army of progressive polemicists. But Biden‘s recent withholding of arms for Israel is, even for a practiced polemicist, an attempt to square a political circle. It is perfectly plain to all that Israel will never be safe from terrorist molestations unless Hamas and other Iran supported terrorists groups are militarily defeated. Biden’s recent decision to deny offensive arms to Israel is an attempt – some would say for political reasons – to put some distance between himself and Israel’s war Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. If at the beginning of the war between Hamas and Israel, Biden had claimed that the United States “has Israel’s back,” his imprudent decision to deny military aid and U.S. Congressional appropriated funds to Israel at war can only represent a step back from Israel’s exposed back. Following the October...

Yale Daily News -- Michael Paz, Photography Editor  Hamas, active in Israel at the behest of Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei, a dark imitation of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, has been compared by some wide-awake commentators with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s proxy army, the Wagner Group. Putin, some Western political speculators reckon, may be at death’s doorstep, but this rumor may be either hopeful thinking or Russian propaganda. Actually, Iran has at its disposal three carefully groomed proxy armies: Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, bordering Israel to the north, and the Houthi in Yemen. Proxy armies allow their leaders to assume indifference and deniability to the damage sown by the proxy army, while assuring that no body bags will choke the streets of Moscow or Tehran. Generally, people react unfavorably to the stench of corpses brought home by failed state leaders. Hessian forces had their uses during the American Revolution, but it was only battlefiel...

The Jews, particularly those ravaged by Iranian backed Hamas wolves, likely would characterize former President Barack Obama’s remarks concerning Hamas’ violent attack on Israeli Jews attending a music festival as a form of extreme hutzpah. People in Connecticut who have voted numerous times for U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal, a prominent Jew, might want to know how he would characterize Obama’s remarks. Others have weighed in, while U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer , another prominent Northeast Jew, remains unaccountably silent. What cat, one wants to ask, has got your tongue? In an interview with alumni of his administration on Pod Save America , Obama offered his opinion on the ongoing war following the initial attack that killed 1,400 Israelis on Oct. 7. He fulsomely condemned Hamas’ actions but suggested that additional history is needed to contextualize the situation.  Obama wants people in the United States to examine the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, as ...

Netanyahu and Biden -- Avi Ohayon, Israeli Government, via Associated Press Consider the following brief news story from The Hill, a publication most would consider either non-partisan or discreetly partisan: “ Biden says Netanyahu isn’t doing enough to get hostage deal .” According to the lede, “President Biden on Monday said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not doing enough to secure a hostage deal, adding pressure on the Israeli leader to reach a cease-fire agreement after six more hostages were found dead in Gaza over the weekend.’ There is no argument here. The Hill notes, “Biden was asked by reporters outside the White House on Monday if Netanyahu was doing enough to reach a hostage release agreement, to which he said, ‘No.’” Well then, are those mediating the so called “two state solution” to the war in Gaza, and Lebanon, and Yemen, and, derivatively, Iran satisfied that they have put together an agreement that will appease both Israel and assorted terrorists, ...

  Meloni Q: May I sit with you?   A: It depends on whether you’re armed or not.   Q: I’m harmless.   A: We’ll see.   Q: I’d like your reaction to this story ( He brandishes an Associated Press story in the World&Nation section of the Hartford Courant: “3 allies recognize Palestinian state” ). According to the lede, “The U.K. Australia and Canada formally recognized a Palestinian state on Sunday [9/22/2005]…” Further along in the story, we find this:   “The coordinated initiative from the three commonwealth nations and longtime allies reflects growing outrage at Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza and the steps taken by the Israeli government to thwart efforts to create Palestinian state…”   A: May I?   Q: Please…   A: Either British Prime Minister Keir Starmer or the Associated Press (AP) – perhaps both – appear to be confused. The Prime Minister appears to have recognized a non-state as a state. There is a ben...

Netanyahu and Biden -- Avi Ohayon, Israeli Government, via Associated Press Hamas is one of three terrorist entities supported financially and ideologically by Iran, one of three permanent enemies of the United States. The other two are Putin’s Russia and Xi’s China. Not only is Hamas a terrorist fox in the bosom of Israel, it is the once and once-only elected government of Gaza-Palestine, supposedly one of the “two states” often mentioned by American politicians when they begin prating about a “two state solution” to problems in the Middle East. It has become clear in recent days that the Biden administration favors the much sought after, politically mystical “two state solution.” That is, the Biden administration looks kindly on the treacherous fox in the bosom of Israel that threatens to destroy it and had on October 7, 2023, through its aggressive military actions, very publically declared open war on Israel. Following the brutal surprise attack on Israel by Hamas, Prime Min...

Netanyahu, Biden According to an Associated Press report printed in the Hartford Courant on 7/25/2024 under the title “ Netanyahu defends push for ‘vIctory’ ”, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “defended Israel’s war in Gaza and condemned American protesters in a scathing speech to Congress Wednesday that triggered boycotts by many top Democratic lawmakers and drew thousands to the Capitol to condemn the war and the humanitarian crisis it has created.” The above lede to the story contains a logical impossibility. Netanyahu’s “scathing speech” could not have “triggered the boycotts” because the boycotts preceded the speech. We say A caused B only when A precedes B. The boycotts, it is apparent, were intended to deflate points made in the speech by Netanyahu, principal among them that peace can only follow the extirpation of Hamas in Gaza. Democrats protesting the speech by their absence feel that a negotiated peace between Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthis in ...

Netanyahu and Biden -- Avi Ohayon, Israeli Government, via Associated Press To celebrate the landing of U.S. forces at Normandy – D-Day, June 4, 1944 – President Joe Biden traveled to France and remarked on the courage of U.S. troops and the resolve of U.S. politicians to take the war to Adolf Hitler’s Germany. In the course of his remarks, he mentioned the present war of Russian aggression against Ukraine, but not Israel’s aggressive war against that country’s terrorist Iranian proxies. The war on Ukraine by Vladimir Putin’s Russia has been, during the last two years of the Biden administration, a defensive war. Until recently, the supply of money and weaponry to Ukraine by the United States has been conditioned by an agreed upon pledge that Ukraine would not engage in an offensive campaign upon Putin’s aggressive forces outside the borders of Ukraine. To put it in military terms, only a defensive war would be allowed. Ukraine would be permitted to defend its castle, but any aggress...