tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3859496852143595062024-03-04T23:52:40.289-05:00Connecticut Political ReporterJonathan Kantrowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13919729222396777240noreply@blogger.comBlogger743125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-385949685214359506.post-45686833531283596432014-06-08T19:06:00.000-04:002014-06-23T01:12:26.606-04:00Politics Down Under<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Republican Party in the South is, as everyone knows, more robust than it is in, say, New England. In true-blue Connecticut, the GOP barely makes a ripple.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
While on vacation in Arizona, Mrs. Pesci's attention was drawn to some political ads, the most entertaining of which featured Joni Ernst, then in a primary battle for an open seat with a fellow Republican whose ads were more cookie cutterish. Let down by a president whose impenetrable “friends and enemies list” has confused the traditional friends and enemies of the United States, Andree was amused by some of the more aggressive GOP political ads we saw while in Arizona.</div>
<a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
A farmer and a military woman who served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army National Guard, Ms. Ernst was commander of the largest battalion in Iowa, a newcomer to senatorial politics and, refreshingly, not a Harvard or Yale lawyer.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Well-grounded farmers, ever conscious of precious time and the demanding workaday lying ahead of them, very quickly get to the point.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In her first notable ad, Ms. Ernst introduced herself as an Iowa farmer who at an early age was used to castrating pigs. And with a winking smile, she said that when she is sent to Washington, she will know how to cut pork. The ad was not everyone’s cup of tea, but to judge from primary votes, it was entirely convincing; Ms. Ernst won the primary with more than sixty percent of the vote. Considered “controversial” by a media that daily engages in controversy, the ad may have caused her Democratic Party opponents to slip on a banana peel. An answering ad from Democrat Senate hopeful Bruce Braley following the Republican Primary compared Mrs. Ernst to “a baby chick.” Republicans returned fire; the thoughtless and unfeeling Braley ad, Republicans pointed out, flirted with sexism – watch who you’re calling “chick” buster! -- proving once for all that Democrats are fully capable of prosecuting a war on women.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/p9Y24MFOfFU" width="560"></iframe><o:p></o:p><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mrs. Pesci wondered why the Connecticut GOP seemed incapable of producing lively, humorous and attention getting ads.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Connecticut GOP congressmen, she knew, were not always such cautious stuffed shirts.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Connecticut’s 4<sup>th</sup> District sent Claire Booth Luce to Congress in 1942. Mrs. Luce, something of a Renaissance woman, was the wife of Time founder Henry Luce. When Franklin Roosevelt’s Vice President, proto-socialist Henry Wallace, recommended that airlines everywhere in the world be given free access to U.S. airports, Mrs. Luce, in her maiden speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, labeled the proposal “globalony.” Stung by her not infrequent barbs, Mr. Roosevelt campaigned against her, calling Mrs. Luce "a sharp-tongued glamour girl of forty." Unwilling to take this gender slight lying down, Mrs. Luce characterized Mr. Roosevelt as “the only American president who ever lied us into a war because he did not have the political courage to lead us into it.” During her second term, the “glamour girl” was instrumental in the creation of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Atomic_Energy_Commission" title="United States Atomic Energy Commission"><b>Atomic Energy Commission</b></a>; she toured allied battlefronts in Europe twice, was present at the liberation of several Nazi concentration camps in 1945 and, then a lonely voice, began early to warn the world against the rise of international communism as a dark totalitarian force likely to lead to World War III.<br />
<o:p></o:p><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A late convert to Catholicism, Mrs. Luce, asked who she would prefer as a confessor, replied, "Send me someone who has seen the fall of empires."<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mrs. Pesci was a bit distracted because our vacation coincided with - what to call it? -- the voluntary surrender of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl to Islamic terrorists and an entertaining skit performed by Mr. Bergdahl’s father and President Barack Obama in a White House briefing. Part of Mr. Bergdahl’s presentation included a supplication in Pashto to Allah -- “bism allah alrahman alraheem,” which means “in the name of Allah the most gracious and most merciful.” These words open every chapter of the Qur’an except one (the chapter of the sword, the 9th).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mrs. Pesci squirmed visibly when Mr. Obama said that prisoner exchanges were not uncommon at the conclusion of wars. It had been reported by several news outlets that Sergeant Bergdahl had been "captured" by <b><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/5/haqqani-network-pakistan-terror-group-grows-into-w/">the Haqqani Network of terrorists</a></b>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"So now," said Mrs. Pesci, "wars end when the president says they are at an end. Period. Someone should tell the Taliban."<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Andree comes from a military family. Her brother served on the Enterprise, and her father served in four branches of the military. The Descheneaux clan does not react with forbearance to acts of desertion in time of war. Neither, by the way, did Presidents George Washington or Abraham Lincoln, both cited by President Barack Obama as justification for having released to a continuing war theatre five terrorists that the U.S. Congress repeatedly refused to pry loose from Guantánamo, the prison camp in Cuba that houses major terrorists CAPTURED on the battle field. None of the "detained prisoners," Mr. Obama’s locution, had voluntarily surrendered to U.S. forces, and much blood, sweat and tears had been expended in their captures. It is true that both Mr. Washington and Mr. Lincoln exchanged prisoners at the conclusion of wars <b>they had won</b>, an important detail apparently lost on Mr. Obama.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Depending upon where you fall on the political spectrum, the detained terrorists are either the cream of the terrorist crop – five potential Osama bin Ladins -- or “political detainees.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Following Mr. Obama’s release of the terrorists, <b><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/06/bowe_bergdahl_prisoner_swap_obama_finally_releases_detainees_from_gitmo.html">Slate magazine</a></b>, a reliable left of center new outlet, called upon Mr. Obama to release the remaining<span style="background: white; color: #281b21; font-family: "sl-ApresRegular","serif"; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 17.63px;"> </span>Guantánamo prisoners, lest they die of old age in Cuba, attended by physicians denied to American veterans of war. If over the objections of Congress the worst of the worst terrorists in Guantánamo have been released, the rational for maintaining the terrorist holding facility collapses.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On a five hour layover at the Las Vegas terminal in Nevada, Mrs. Pesci permitted herself to wonder what Connecticut’s two Democratic U.S. Senators – most especially Senator Dick Blumenthal, who has taken an interest in veteran’s affairs, thought of the whole business. Answer: not much. And she worried needlessly over Mrs. Ernst’s follow-up ad. How do you surpass perfection?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/I3mG9fNOZp4" width="560"></iframe><br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-385949685214359506.post-34799995619274472012014-05-29T22:33:00.002-04:002014-05-29T22:33:30.415-04:00Connecticut's Tax And Spend See-Saw<div class="MsoNormal">
Governor Dannel Malloy has a rough and tumble personality. Even his friends and political associates acknowledge that he has “sharp elbows,” but one of Connecticut’s prominent public pulse takers, <b><a href="http://www.courant.com/news/politics/elections/hc-gubernatorial-campaign-likability-20140521,0,4363093.story">director of the Quinnipiac University poll Douglas Schwartz</a></b>, notes that there are more important issues in elections than likeability: “…the economy is clearly the most important issue in this year's governor’s election.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Romney-bitten Republicans have heard this one before. Former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign was all about the economy, stupid. President Barack Obama version of economic ills was highly bowdlerized, and well-padded with what frightened Republicans call “social issues.” Republicans – especially in Connecticut, where the party is awash in “fiscal conservatives” – consistently retreat with their pants on fire from social issues, leaving the field entirely to Democrats, with predictable results.<br />
<br /></div>
The economy is a broad and touchy subject and, like a porcupine, full of sharp quills. Incumbent chief executives who during the course of their term in office have had ample opportunity to devise and implement solutions to a sluggish economy will insist that any continuing sluggishness is due primarily to the ineptitude of their predecessors. They are not always as quick to note that their predecessors also are responsible for the good fruits incumbents invariably attribute to themselves. But that’s politics, and a savvy politician who cannot shuck off on those preceding him the troubles for which he is responsible -- while at the same time taking credit, Chanticleer-like, for the rising of the morning sun -- perhaps ought to be selling used cars.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some solutions to chronic debt work, others don’t. On Election Day, November 4, 2014, Connecticut voters will have had the advantage of monitoring for four years Mr. Malloy’s solutions to an anemic economy. The chief solution Mr. Malloy hit upon during his first term is not very different from that of one of his gubernatorial predecessors whom he has declined to swipe with his sharp elbows.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In response to a massive debt in 1991, Mr. Weicker pushed through the General Assembly an income tax bill that raised the revenue ceiling to meet a debt caused by improvident spending and in so doing forever changed the economic posture of Connecticut. Mr. Malloy, facing an almost identical debt, pushed through the Democratic dominated General Assembly the largest tax increase in state history. Despite Mr. Malloy’s tax hike, whoever is elected governor in 2014 will be facing a debt comparable to that faced by Mr. Weicker a quarter century ago. Debt-wise, we are back at square one.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What reasonable deductions may be drawn from Connecticut’s recent economic history? There are several.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Spending is tied inextricably to tax increases: As taxes increase, spending increases. And this is why tax increases are not an effective solution to debt, which is caused by spending and can be reduced in the long term only by spending cuts.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A tax increase – better still, borrowing, which shifts debt payments forward to children yet unborn -- may be an efficient means of meeting an immediate debt, but the unintended consequences of tax increases are, to put it mildly, destructive to the economy for a host of reasons.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Tax increases are economic disincentives. The money taken from a person or company in taxes must be replaced somehow if the person or company, suffering the consequences of a continuing economic slowdown, is to maintain a precarious status quo. Faced with a prospective deficit, persons and companies do the same thing that government should do to maintain equilibrium: They cut spending or they attempt somehow to increase their incoming revenue. A person who cannot afford to pay additional taxes might get another job, always a difficult chore in a stagnant economy. A business seeking to maintain its income stream might lay off workers, dip into its R&D reserves, raise the price of its goods or services, if possible, or move its operations elsewhere. Then too, every dollar removed from the private to the public market place is a dollar that cannot be spent by a person whose prudent spending may stimulate the economy, or a company that otherwise might have used the dollar to increase the real wealth of the state, thus increasing the total revenue available to the state to discharge its own debts. The less disposable income people have, the more difficult it will be to raise revenue. The more revenue a state has at its disposal, the less inclined it will be to govern its own ferocious inclination to spend tax monies.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Them that’s got shall get; them that ain’t shall loose” applies as well to governments as to the unrepentant rich. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Before she tucked her gubernatorial campaign to bed, Martha Dean raised a point in her stump speech that was both an eye opener and a reliable applause line: “People in Connecticut are finished. They’re done.” Ms. Dean meant – it is no longer possible to raise taxes to meet a deficit. After boosting taxes to satisfy appropriations that had tripled within the space of four governors, the revenue well has now gone dry. There is no more juice in the lemon. If you raise taxes on people, their own budgets will be pushed into the red. If you raise taxes on companies, they will move to secure the profitability of their operations. It’s over – done – fini. You can’t make lemonade from a lemon peel.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1988/02/04/nyregion/o-neill-offers-budget-that-taps-rainy-day-fund.html">Flashback – 1988</a></b>. Democrats, who have controlled and shaped Connecticut’s budgets for a half century, have just pushed through a budget that calls for neither tax increases nor budget cuts. Mourning the passing of budget surpluses, Governor William O’Neill, considered a fiscal conservative, never-the-less stresses the need for spending increases, which will be paid out of the state’s “rainy day fund.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Republicans grouse that Democrats have depleted a fund that was to be used for emergencies only. House Minority Leader Robert G. Jaekle, the New York Times reported, rose in opposition to the measure: ''It's a very dishonest budget, and I'm very disappointed,'' Mr. Jaekle said.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Senate President pro tem John B. Larson of East Hartford responded, ''I think 11 percent [increase in spending] is justified. That's why we have a rainy day fund, so we can offset potential problems.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
From there, Democrats moved the budget forward. Mr. O’Neill’s 1988 budget was $6.8 billion.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And now?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><a href="http://ballotpedia.org/Connecticut_state_budget#2013_revenues">A comparison of Connecticut taxes and expenditures with contiguous states</a></b> shows:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border-collapse: collapse; border: none; width: 657px;"><tbody>
<tr><td colspan="8" style="background: green; border: 1pt solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Revenue sources in the general fund, FY 2013 ($ in millions)<sup><a href="http://ballotpedia.org/Connecticut_state_budget#cite_note-expenditures2013-7"><span style="color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;">[7]</span></a></sup><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="background: rgb(68, 68, 68); border: 1pt solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 2.4pt;" valign="bottom"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">State<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td><td style="background: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;" valign="bottom"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Sales tax<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td><td style="background: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;" valign="bottom"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Personal income tax<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td><td style="background: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;" valign="bottom"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Corporate income tax<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td><td style="background: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;" valign="bottom"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Gaming tax<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td><td style="background: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;" valign="bottom"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Other taxes and fees<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td><td style="background: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;" valign="bottom"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Total<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td><td style="background: rgb(68, 68, 68); border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;" valign="bottom"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Per capita revenue**<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="border: 1pt solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Connecticut</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$3,857</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$8,719</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$742</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$612</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$5,437</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$19,366</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$5,385.31</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="border: 1pt solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><a href="http://ballotpedia.org/Maine_state_budget" title="Maine state budget"><span style="color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;">Maine</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$1,034<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$1,495<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$171<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$351<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$3,051<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$2,296.92<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="border: 1pt solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><a href="http://ballotpedia.org/Massachusetts_state_budget" title="Massachusetts state budget"><span style="color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;">Massachusetts</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$5,164<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$12,831<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$1,822<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$7,352<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$27,169<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$4,059.42<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="border: 1pt solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><a href="http://ballotpedia.org/New_Hampshire_state_budget" title="New Hampshire state budget"><span style="color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;">New Hampshire</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$552<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$3<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$1,728<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$2,283<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$1,725.03<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="border: 1pt solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><a href="http://ballotpedia.org/Rhode_Island_state_budget" title="Rhode Island state budget"><span style="color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;">Rhode Island</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$873<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$1,075<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$137<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$1<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$1,238<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$3,324<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: none solid solid none; padding: 2.4pt;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">$3,161.17<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="8" style="border: 1pt solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 2.4pt;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 12pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 7.5pt;">Per capita figures are calculated by taking the state's total revenues and dividing by the number of state residents according to United States Census estimates for 2013.<sup><a href="http://ballotpedia.org/Connecticut_state_budget#cite_note-2013census-8"><span style="color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;">[8]</span></a></sup><br /><b>Source:</b> <a href="http://www.nasbo.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #663366; text-decoration: none;">National Association of State Budget Officers</span></a></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
According to a January 2014 report by the nonprofit organization <b><a href="http://ballotpedia.org/State_Budget_Solutions" title="State Budget Solutions">State Budget Solutions</a></b>, Connecticut had a state debt of over $112 billion. Its state debt per capita was $31,298. The report revealed that state governments faced a combined $5.1 trillion in debt, 33 percent of annual gross state product. The obligation amounts to $16,178 per capita in the nation. A bulk of the state debt -- 79 percent -- was linked to unfunded <b><a href="http://ballotpedia.org/Public_pensions" title="Public pensions">public pensions</a></b>.<u><o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Such are the very expensive fruits of progressivism and one party government.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-385949685214359506.post-30219018875236454862014-05-26T18:09:00.000-04:002014-05-26T18:09:27.714-04:00Kerry At Yale<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwMUlgc62HRVPKOlqnzPgLpqYhuiWn2ueBVylPMjDyfuV2pf7B2pLMphawL0X-zk8WpO0uQkyJZFbfrt6m1SpFUjR0ycS8xqusxAqt53XA-YmYJ4pMjjpLYMdvGtmq4uIAZKLKmDHjNSg/s1600/John-Kerry-009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwMUlgc62HRVPKOlqnzPgLpqYhuiWn2ueBVylPMjDyfuV2pf7B2pLMphawL0X-zk8WpO0uQkyJZFbfrt6m1SpFUjR0ycS8xqusxAqt53XA-YmYJ4pMjjpLYMdvGtmq4uIAZKLKmDHjNSg/s1600/John-Kerry-009.jpg" height="120" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The good news is that <b><a href="http://donpesci.blogspot.com/2014/05/academic-cowardice.html">Secretary of State John Kerry is not Ayaan Hersi Ali</a></b>, and therefore his address to Yale graduates on College Class Day was not cancelled by a tremulous administration responding to charges that the appointed speaker had needlessly denigrated Islam. Yale, one may be thankful, is not Brandeis University, which first announced plans that it would bestow an honorary degree on Hersi Ali and later cancelled her invitation to speak at the college when students and Muslim organizations became restive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mr. Kerry, assuredly, is no Hersi Ali. His comments concerning the murderous assault on Christians by Muslim Salafists in the Middle East and Africa are so mild and inoffensive as to be barely noticed at all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Nor is Mr. Kerry Condoleezza Rice, currently a professor of Political Economy in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and the first African American in U.S. history to be appointed Secretary of State. Ms. Rice graciously <b><a href="http://fsi.stanford.edu/people/condoleezza_rice/">declined the invitation to speak at Rutgers University</a></b> when students at the university professed to be agitated by former President George Bush’s Iraq War.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ms. Rice fell victim to academic indignation when leaders of the university’s Islamic organizations, Ahluk Bayt, MuslimGirl and the Muslim Student Organization wrote a letter to Rutgers’ President charging that Ms. Rice, in her official capacity as Secretary of State, had been guilty of “grave human rights violations, defrauding the American public” and unequivocally supporting “enhanced torture tactics.”</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“During a six-hour ‘occupation’ of a campus office building,” one news outlet reported, “demonstrators labeled Rice a ‘war criminal’ and suggested that her rightful place was not in front of a college commencement crowd but in the docket.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The President of Rutgers showed some spine by refusing to withdraw the invitation, but Ms. Rice declined to appear because, she said, the invitation “has become a distraction for the university community at this very special time.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mr. Kerry’s invitation to speak was not protested by Yale students. Nor was President Barack Obama denounced by aggrieved Islamic student organizations for having sent Navy Seals into a sovereign nation to assassinate Osama bin Ladin, a charismatic, Islamic “religious leader. Protesting that the war in Iraq was the wrong war, Mr. Obama disengaged and committed many more American troops to “the right war” in Afghanistan, a collection of warlike tribes sometimes called by historians “the graveyard of empires.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">During his self-effacing remarks at Yale, Mr. Kerry may have unintentionally appropriated a line from T.S. Elliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
Do I dare<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
Disturb the universe?<br />
In a minute there is time<br />
For decisions and revisions</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
Which a minute will reverse.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mr. Kerry advised graduating Yale students to tie their courage to the hitching post or, as Lady Macbeth says, “But screw your courage to the sticking place, and we'll not fail.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Said Mr. Kerry, “Class of 2014, your job is to disturb the universe. You have to reject that these problems are too big, so don't weigh in." Courage must not “fall victim to the slow suffocation of conventional wisdom.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For a good part of his life, Mr. Kerry said, hidebound institutions and conventional government had responded laconically to society’s “felt needs.” As examples of the incapacity of government to respond quickly and adequately to “felt needs,” Mr. Kerry mentioned the Civil Rights Movement, the Clean Air Act and, <b><a href="http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-yale-john-kerry-0519-20140518,0,5116345.story">according to a report in a Hartford paper</a></b>, “ the ending of the war in Vietnam.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Ah yes – Vietnam. Mr. Kerry is something of an authority on the Vietnam years, a national agony that corresponded neatly with the breakdown of authority in colleges: Spitting at returning troops, non-negotiable demands made of college deans by students occupying his office, and a highly fictionalized view of the role played by soldiers in Vietnam were all characteristics of the age of protest. The students to whom Mr. Kerry directed his remarks at Yale, unlike the Secretary of State, have no personal recollection of the Vietnam War era. They depend for an accurate remembrance of times past upon such as Mr. Kerry, one of the disturbers of the universe during the Vietnam period.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Upon his return from service in Vietnam, Mr. Kerry was not one of the troops spat upon by war </span>protesters<span style="font-family: inherit;">, possibly because he eagerly joined their protests as a member of the "Vietnam Veterans Against the War.” </span><b style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucY7JOfg6G4">Invited to testify before the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs in 1971</a></b><span style="font-family: inherit;">, Mr. Kerry pulled out all the anti-Vietnam War stops, and then some. He and other returning soldiers whom he contrasted in his testimony to Thomas Paine’s “sunshine patriots” had just finished conducting in Detroit an investigation into war crimes committed by American troops in Vietnam. In his Congressional testimony, Mr. Kerry reported the findings of the “Winter Soldiers” with which he strongly identified. He wished to emphasize that the details he was providing to the Congress were:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">… not isolated incidents, but crimes committed on a day to day basis, with the full awareness of officers at every level of command. It’s impossible to describe to you what did happen in Detroit, the emotions in the room, the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. But they did. They relieved the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do. They told the stories of times they personally raped, cut off the ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown (sic) up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, raised villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam, in addition to the normal ravage of war, in addition to the very particular ravaging which is done by the power of this country. We called this investigation the “winter solider” investigation…</span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ucY7JOfg6G4" width="420"></iframe><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mr. Kerry’s graphic description of war crimes committed by American troops in Vietnam – “… not isolated incidents, but crimes committed on a day to day basis, with the full awareness of officers at every level of command” – did not prove a bar to his long career in the U.S. Senate, his bid for the presidency in 2004 or his appointment as U.S. Secretary of State following the resignation, presumably for health reasons, of possible Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">During his presidential bid, Mr. Kerry campaigned in opposition to the Iraq War, having voted two years earlier in favor of a measure authorizing then President George Bush to use force in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Such pirouetting is not uncommon among congressmen who decide they are presidential material.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yale students who may have expected a heroic anti-Vietnam War protester to launch verbal missiles at Islamic terrorists who have only recently cut off the ears and arms and heads of Christians in the Middle East and Northern Africa very likely were disappointed in Mr. Kerry’s College Class Day address, a good part of which was devoted to the ravages to the environment caused by an over-reliance on oil.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">China and Vladimir Putin’s Russia have just concluded a multi-billion dollar oil deal, shredding whatever serious sanctions might be imposed by Mr. Kerry on a proto-Stalinist Russia now busily dismembering Ukraine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-385949685214359506.post-55759457149279330342014-05-24T10:33:00.001-04:002014-05-24T10:33:46.045-04:00Russia’s Doors, Putin’s Time<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB5zETiOdi8lPvx-GCo8NWZKV4u9YkiKLPbDvwFnkuYu6Jwk-qHkxMYoxVsib8DlC1gDJapSB82BoeDytd9pfw-cG5iYIHBZFn4BvDmkkPdb8YLMdk9Fx8-7v8WTT2Pt6bvoYtczOtE5k/s1600/putin+Time+person+of+the+year.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB5zETiOdi8lPvx-GCo8NWZKV4u9YkiKLPbDvwFnkuYu6Jwk-qHkxMYoxVsib8DlC1gDJapSB82BoeDytd9pfw-cG5iYIHBZFn4BvDmkkPdb8YLMdk9Fx8-7v8WTT2Pt6bvoYtczOtE5k/s1600/putin+Time+person+of+the+year.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are, and always have been, three doors to Russia, every one of which has been jealously guarded first by Russian Czars and in the Communist era by Russian Czars posing as proletarian workers such as Josef Stalin. There is a Western point of access (Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic states), a Middle Eastern point of access (Afghanistan, Iran) and a Southern point of access (China). Access doors open both ways and, depending upon one’s point of view, President of Russia Vladimir Putin has now either opened or shut all the doors. It would be paradoxical, though never-the-less true, to say he has shut the doors by opening them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mr. Putin was featured as Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” in 2007. That year, China’s leader Hu Jintao was featured as a runner up.<br />
<br /></div>
Mr. Putin seemed to be on his way out, Time noted: “His final year as Russia's President has been his most successful yet. At home, he secured his political future. Abroad, he expanded his outsize—if not always benign—influence on global affairs.”<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But in communist “post-communist” Russia, things are not always as they seem. Putin was never out; he was simply playing musical chairs with Russia’s second in command Dmitry Medvedev. It was Mr. Medvedev whose knee President Barack Obama tapped prior to his re-election to office to convey a message to Mr. Putin. Reuter’s caught the moment this way:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
“President <a href="http://www.reuters.com/people/barack-obama?lc=int_mb_1001"><b>Barack Obama</b></a> was caught on camera on Monday assuring outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he will have ‘more flexibility’ to deal with contentious issues like missile defense after the U.S. presidential election.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
Obama, during talks in Seoul, urged Moscow to give him ‘space’ until after the November ballot, and Medvedev said he would relay the message to incoming Russian president Vladimir Putin.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mr. Medvedev apparently relayed the message, which may have been re-interpreted by Mr. Putin as indicating that Mr. Obama was a weak and indecisive president.<br />
<br />
Proof of Mr. Obama’s weakness is strewn all over the world: There were no defense missile emplacements in Poland or any of the Baltic States; Mr. Obama’s “lead from behind” foreign policy in Libya and Syria had collapsed; the personal representative of the president of the United States, Libyan Ambassador Chris Stevens, was assassinated by armed militants associated with al-Qaida, a metastasizing group of terrorists that, the American public had been told during Mr. Obama’s second presidential campaign, had been decimated after Mr. Obama had cut short the video career of Osama bin Laden. For a moment there, it appeared that Mr. Obama had turned over his Middle East portfolio to the once and future Time magazine “Person of the Year,” Mr. Putin. And, of course, Mr. Putin was only too happy to lend a shoulder.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Next year, one may expect to find Mr. Putin’s mug on the cover of Time once again. Consider Mr. Putin’s triumphs: Mr. Putin has both shut and opened the Middle Eastern access doors. He is providing help to Iran in the county’s march towards the acquisition of nuclear weapons. The western door opens to natural gas pipe lines running from Russia through an as yet partly dismembered Ukraine to Europe, which can ill afford an interruption in energy supplies. The United States might supply Europe with sufficient energy resources, but its President, convinced the country can run on fuel cells, has been dithering on the opening of a Canada supplied energy pipe line. Afghanistan, which occasionally has provided a route used by Islamic terrorists to strike at the heart of Russia, has been, since the Taliban chased Russia out of the country, operating under an American protectorate now crumbling everywhere in the world. So long as an American Cerberus guards the Afghan door to Russia, the Islamic threat to Putin will be considerably reduced.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Most recently Mr. Putin and Chinese president Xi Jinping have struck what <b><a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/378627/vladimir-putin-pivots-asia-charles-krauthammer">Charles Krauthammer has styled in a recent column </a></b>“a spectacular energy deal — $400 billion of Siberian natural gas to be exported to China over 30 years." This last foreign policy gesture opens and closes the last of Russia’s doors. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mr. Putin’s “pivot to Asia” is a live option, Mr. Krauthammer writes, while Mr. Obama’s pivot to Asia has become a dead letter. Mr. Obama’s “withdrawal from the Middle East — where from Egypt to Saudi Arabia, from Libya to Syria, U.S. influence is at its lowest ebb in 40 years — is a fait accompli.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mr. Krauthammer’s columns are not read in the White House by Mr. Obama, who appears to have settled comfortably into a position of unarmed neutrality. His is the kind of foreign policy that is to be expected from a president chronically unable to determine friends from enemies. Those who cannot read the times will be done in by them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In any case, the second appearance of Putin as Time magazine's’ “Person of the Year” is imminent.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-385949685214359506.post-83387300231157884802014-05-21T13:24:00.000-04:002014-05-21T23:48:42.187-04:00The Trials Of John Rowland<span style="font-family: inherit;">Former Governor John Rowland, now a former radio talk show host, may have been “guilty,” in a metaphorical sense, of using his position to advance the political interest of one particular candidate over another. It has been said that Mr. Rowland had subjected poor Andrew Roraback, at the time a Republican Party candidate for the U.S. House in the 5th District, to a severe interrogation on his radio program, formerly called “Church And State.” Since being appointed to Connecticut’s Superior Court by Governor Dannel Malloy, Mr. Roraback has moved out of the political into the less contentious judicial arena. Apparently, Mr. Roraback had suffered no permanent harm, and losing a Hartford Courant endorsement to his Democratic opponent certainly cost the socially progressive Republican Party endorsed candidate more negative votes than Mr. Rowland’s barbed questions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mr. Rowland’s preferred candidate for the slot, it has been said, was Lisa Wilson Foley. At the time Mr. Rowland was hard grilling Mr. Roraback, the talk show host was employed as a consultant for Apple Rehab, a business owned by Mrs. Foley’s husband. Mr. Rowland implausibly claims he was assisting Mrs. Foley’s campaign on the side as an “unpaid consultant.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Similar impostures – though news of them may shock the willfully ignorant – have been deployed in the news business from time immemorial. Abe Lincoln came very near to fighting a duel with one of his outraged political competitors when it was discovered that editorials in a Republican paper had been written on the sly by Mr. Lincoln; actually, one of the newspaper pieces had been written by his intended wife. Because it would have been ungentlemanly for Mr. Lincoln to involve his fiancée in the quarrel, he accepted responsibility for the satires but characteristically refused to issue an apology. Eventually, the matter was settled outside the law courts, without either of the antagonist having used against each other the large military broadswords Mr. Lincoln had selected as his choice of weapon. Mr. Lincoln, who towered over his opponent, hacked off a tree branch with his sword while the two stood facing each other on Blood Island, and the display of superior reach led to an amicable resolution.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In Lincoln’s day, newspapers were outrageously partisan, little more than party organs. In our day, newspapers are slyly partisan. If subtle partisanship were a crime, Connecticut prisons would be overflowing with journalists and editorial writers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Charlie Morse, for many years the chief political writer for the Hartford Courant and an unabashed Weicker-liker, produced tons of columns favorable to then Senator Lowell Weicker, one of the papers most pampered political pets. The Courant, during Mr. Weicker’s push for an income tax, was solidly in Mr. Weicker’s gubernatorial corner. Before Mr. Weicker had been sworn in as governor, Mr. Morse accepted an offer from Mr. Weicker to work for him while continuing to write for the paper for a few weeks. After his inauguration, Mr. Morse left the Courant and began working for Mr. Weicker. There is no indication that Mr. Morse was being paid for his fawning columns. Some writers do it for love, others for money.</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Courant, a left of center publication, supported Mr. Weicker because its editors regarded the “Maverick” Republican as a sort of Jack the Giant Killer. “Maverick” was the title of Mr. Wicker’s “fact based” autobiography, most adequately reviewed by Journal Inquirer columnist Chris Powell under the title “<a href="http://donpesci.blogspot.com/2007/10/andont-door-bang-yerarse-on-way-out.html"><b>Mr. Bluster Saves The World</b></a>.” While Mr. Weicker and the editorial board of the Courant were synergistically attached at their navels, little did the Courant understand that Mr. Weicker was not killing the giant; there were NO conservative Republicans in office in Connecticut at the time. He was killing Jack -- his own Connecticut based Republican Party. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There are no laws criminalizing journalistic bad habits. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects partisan and non-partisan journalists alike. Even if the accusation against Mr. Lincoln had been correct, he easily could have won his case in court by draping across his chest the breastplate of The First Amendment – or at least that portion of it that guarantees freedom of political speech. The freedom of religious expression clause in the very same amendment is not as hotly defended by the media because modern journalism tends to be instinctively anti-clerical. Some of us who understand why a watchful media should resist authoritarian displays of power cannot for the life of us understand why the same media should be so willing to bed down with grey headed incumbents whose first term in office coincided with the arrival of Noah’s Arc on Mount Ararat. Surely in our day, incumbent politicians are much more powerful than the ministers and priests who now preside over Gary Wills’ “Bare Ruined Choirs.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Though Mr. Rowland’s defense attorneys have focused of the charges brought against him in a motion to dismiss, the First Amendment conceivably could be brought into play as a sleeper defense during the promised Rowland trial -- “promised” because it is always possible the trial may be ditched in favor of some plea agreement never made public between Mr. Rowland’s high priced Washington attorneys and prosecutors. Neither Mr. Rowland nor Mrs. Wilson-Foley were practicing politicians at the time Mr. Rowland, essentially a journalist, allegedly “favored” Mrs. Wilson-Foley, an aspiring politician, on his radio program. This means that no political favors either way could have been exchanged for allegedly “corrupt” money received by Mr. Rowland.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is still very early in “the judicial process.” During Lincoln’s day, matters were adjudicated in courts of law, and instructive precedents were established. Nowadays, justice itself hangs from “process” nooses. Deals are made in private between Star Chamber prosecutors and defense lawyers, and precedence is a stranger at the hidden proceedings. Grand Juries, many political commentators understand, <i><b>are </b></i>Star Chamber proceedings, and Grand Jury findings released to the media are always highly prejudicial. They should be taken by a truly non-partisan critical media with tons of salt.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-385949685214359506.post-91433113523840655052014-05-20T13:03:00.000-04:002014-05-20T13:03:02.303-04:00Another Day, Another Crony Capitalist: Where Is The Republican Populist?<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><a href="http://www.journalinquirer.com/opinion/chris_powell/will-connecticut-ever-get-an-opposition-party/article_060155da-d202-11e3-893f-0019bb2963f4.html">Managing Editor of the Journal Inquirer Chris Powell may be right</a></b>. Even on their best day, Republicans running for office do not know how to frame an issue so that it will appeal to those not born to the purple.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><a href="http://bristolpress.com/articles/2014/05/20/news/doc537ac5b912315468801613.txt">A story written by Steve Collins of the Bristol Press</a></b> provides a case in point.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Governor Dannel Malloy had just disbursed $10 million in urban tax credits to ESPN, a well-known and prosperous sports broadcasting network that very likely did not need a handout from Mr. Malloy.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Tucked within Mr. Collins' story, one finds this line: “It’s not clear, though, that the state money made much difference to the project’s completion, since ESPN had already said it would build the center before Malloy picked it to receive state financial aid.”<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All the political honchos showed up for the ritualistic “cable cutting.” Cameras clicked, and the assembled politicians all smiled. Their smiles plainly said, “But for our generous contribution in tax credits, this miracle might not have happened at all.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That message may not have reached Mr. Collins' desk. But it is plain from the line quoted above that, if such a message was pressed upon him by Mr. Malloy’s well-oiled communications machine, he was not convinced that the $175 million project easily might have gone forward without Mr. Malloy’s $10 million contribution. ESPN is a big boy, not a bumbling upstart operation. We should all send up a rousing cheer in praise of media skepticism.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All the politicians present at the cable cutting were taking political campaign bows. Present at the opening of ESPN’s new “Digital Center-2, a 194,000 square foot, five-studio facility in Bristol, were Bristol Mayor Ken Cockayne, ESPN president John Skipper of the SportsCenter, Governor Malloy, shown cutting the cable with a massive scissors, and U. S. Representative John Larson of the impregnable 1<sup>st</sup> District.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mr. Collins notes, “Malloy, whose ‘First Five’ program pumped $10 million in urban tax credits into the project, called it ‘a great day for us’ to see it completed. The stimulus money agreement<u> </u>between the state and ESPN, announced almost three years ago, was only signed last Friday after lawyers for both sides wrangled over details.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The “great day” occurred, it will be noticed, within the context of an election period. The Democratic and Republican nominating conventions had been concluded days earlier. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is difficult to tell here who is putting the lipstick on which pig, but it looks like ESPN is doing Governor Dannel Malloy the favor. ESPN gets tax money the company did not need to open a facility that would have opened without Mr. Malloy’s unnecessary contribution, and Mr. Malloy takes a campaign bow freighted with meaning.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The meaning will be spun out by Democrats across the state in the upcoming elections: Democrats are doing things to maintain prosperity and jobs – don’t forget jobs –during the malingering Bush recession. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What is the <b><i>real</i></b> meaning of the bow? Where does the money given by Mr. Malloy to ESPN come from? Who benefits from Mr. Malloy’s magnificent gesture? Would Mr. Larson, running in a district last won by a Republican in 1957, have been re-elected to office had he not participated in the ESPN festivities?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Will women owners of nail salons benefit from Mr. Malloy’s redundant generosity?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When Mr. Malloy imposed on Connecticut the largest tax increase in its history, Nail Salons appeared on a list produced by the Yankee Institute showing companies and people hit by Mr. Malloy’s new taxes. None of the companies or people represented on that list were present at the ESPN cable cutting. Indeed, no person or company represented on a <b><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/161428018/Taxes-and-Fees-Flyer">Yankee Institute list showing Connecticut’s 371 sources of revenue</a></b> was within camera range when Mr. Malloy took his campaign bow. But this is where Mr. Malloy’s unnecessary $10 million tax giveaway to ESPN came from.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And every dollar Mr. Malloy and the Democratic dominated General Assembly has appropriated from one of the state’s 371 separate sources of revenue is a dollar that otherwise might have been used to expand a business or produce a job or increase a salary of someone in Connecticut who is not employed by ESPN.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So then, here we are: Big Government has given Big Business Big Tax dollars appropriated from the Little People.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And what do Republicans running for office this year say about it?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Where are the populist Republicans among us who might be able to mold a message from all the data laboriously assembled by the Yankee Institute that would appeal not to Fairfield based plutocrats – but to women who work in Nail Salons?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
Really, where are they? <b><a href="http://donpesci.blogspot.com/search?q=crony+capitalism">Their state is in desperate need of them</a></b>. What has made them swallow their tongues?<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-385949685214359506.post-4289215531393155782014-05-18T13:01:00.000-04:002014-05-18T13:01:42.059-04:00Parties, Nominating Conventions, And The Unitary State<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3YY7THSIazY/U3jggblXs2I/AAAAAAAAElA/dpG_Dqd0tHQ/s1600/2014+republican+party+nominating+convention.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3YY7THSIazY/U3jggblXs2I/AAAAAAAAElA/dpG_Dqd0tHQ/s1600/2014+republican+party+nominating+convention.jpg" height="135" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><i>"Patriotism if you must, but –please! – no parades” --</i><span style="font-size: small;"> George Bernard Shaw<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Prior to the opening of the convention, <b><a href="http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/editorials/hc-ed-plea-for-primaries-20140514,0,6371949.story">a Hartford newspaper</a> </b>had already agitated for the abolition of party conventions. The paper favored primaries as the most “democratic” method of selecting candidates for office; conventions were a little bit too bossy for the paper’s tastes. The same paper has advocated opening party primaries to all and sundry, regardless of political affiliation, possibly because the paper regards political parties as useless excrescences.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is the Shavian view of patriotism applied to political parties. “Patriotism, if you must,” said George Bernard Shaw, “but – please! – no parades.” Party politics, if you must, but – please! – no party conventions. And no political parties either, if you please. Who needs parades when one has Shaw? Who needs political parties when one has the editorial board of (insert the name of your favorite paper here)?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This silly position is on a par with saying, “News if you must, but no news outlets, please!” He who wills the end wills the means. You cannot have patriotism without public expressions of patriotism – that is what a parade is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Hartford paper cited former Republican U.S. Senator Lowell Weicker, who once famously characterized himself as “the turd in the Republican Party punchbowl,” as supporting the paper’s views on party conventions and political parties. Over the years, the editorial views of the paper and the eccentric political notions of Mr. Maverick have melded in such a manner that it is virtually impossible for a reader unused to the serpentine ways of Connecticut politics to disentangle the view of Mr. Weicker and those of the Hartford paper. They have become one and the same – which tells us all we need to know concerning the nature of politics and reporting in progressive Connecticut.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The real back story – even the real story about the Republican Party nominating convention 2014 – is much more interesting and entertaining than has been represented in Connecticut’s left of center media. It is true that the Democratic Party convention was a loud sleep-inducing snore, primarily because that nominating convention really was redundant. An edict from the Hartford paper successfully abolishing the 2014 Democratic Nominating Convention would have left Democratic politics precisely where it was before the Democratic delegates took their seats; and, of course, there will be no Democratic primary, and little on the Democratic side for media outlets to report. Sorry, no parade this time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Here is the puritanical Shavian political universe, right before our eyes: no dispositive nomination convention, no primary, and no need for either. Indeed, in the unitary state, one party, like Aaron’s rod in scripture, swallows all the other parties. Now, <b><i>that</i></b> is a story worth covering. In the unitary state, there is no need for patriotism, or parades, or party conventions, or parties -- or news outlets, except as messaging relay centers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Here is the Rubicon Connecticut is preparing to cross. Once we cross and burn our bridge, we will find ourselves, having arrived on the other side, in George Orwell’s Brave New World, where patriotism has been relegated to the dustbin of history and there are few manifestations of independence, liberty or creative thought. In a world in which everything has been decided by a unitary and permanent political oligarchy, there will be but one parade to march in. It should be noted that the word “patriotism” is here used to indicate a revolt against the established order. When Samuel Johnson said that “patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels,” he may have had in mind such “patriots” as Thomas Paine and American revolutionist Sam Adams.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the unitary state, one need only obey to express one’s solidarity. Parties and political factions in which inconvenient ideas are manifested will have been abolished. And in a state in which there is only one subdued and co-opted media, there can only be one thought – shut up and march in the only remaining parade.</span></div>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-385949685214359506.post-2802360797666883742014-05-15T09:40:00.000-04:002014-05-15T09:55:03.456-04:00Weicker, The GOP’s Ahab<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjocv_PfJaFdwQ7fBVeJKYeY80mCjj8MUL0vt0qQxysagB6Pk7l7jYHomdlWpcvGI4HR7Cia6b875KIk48lUUa1Ct46jL57TiRHGcpYIbwQhfz2pPFji1El3xbu45Ugt0FAjzb9aRVdw6g/s1600/weicker2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjocv_PfJaFdwQ7fBVeJKYeY80mCjj8MUL0vt0qQxysagB6Pk7l7jYHomdlWpcvGI4HR7Cia6b875KIk48lUUa1Ct46jL57TiRHGcpYIbwQhfz2pPFji1El3xbu45Ugt0FAjzb9aRVdw6g/s1600/weicker2.jpg" height="123" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“<b><a href="http://wnpr.org/post/lowell-weicker-connecticut-republicans-are-irrelevant">Connecticut Commentary</a></b>,” as usual, anticipated former U.S. Senator and Governor Lowell Weicker’s remarks on WNPR by nearly a week.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">On May 9, Don Pesci addressed <b><a href="http://donpesci.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-connecticut-gop-and-new-democratic.html">Republicans in Westbrook</a><u> </u></b>and mentioned Mr. Weicker at some length:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Both Mr. Weicker and Mr. Malloy are progressives. At the root of progressivism lies the sundering notion that if government is good, more government must be better. From here it is but a baby step to the equally absurd notion that government <b><i>is</i></b> the state. In fact, the state is all of us, the government merely an administrative apparatus designed, if you credit the U.S. and State Constitutions, to accomplish our reason informed will. Mr. Weicker, whose ego as U.S. Senator and Governor was infinitely expansive, took this absurd logic a step further and regarded <b><i>himself</i></b> as the state. I should like to call your attention to the hopeful tense in that last sentence: Mr. Weicker <b><i>was</i></b>, he <b><i>regarded</i></b>– past tense: There is a God.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> “But it never hurts to remind ourselves that there is a Devil too. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“From time to time, Mr. Weicker shows up, most often at WNPR or in the op-ed section of the Courant, to advise Republicans what they must do to become a majority party. You will never guess: They must field candidates like Mr. Weicker. But these days only progressives pay him much mind...”</span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mr. Weicker ought to have retired from politics -- eighteen years of which he spent as a Republican U.S. Senator -- an honored elder statesman whose opinions on his party should have been taken with less than a ton of salt. That did not happen, largely because Mr. Weicker thought it politically useful to define himself as a maverick within his own party. In this he was extraordinarily successful, and when a parting of the ways became necessary, no tears were shed within Republican ranks when Mr. Weicker retired from politics for good, shortly after he, as governor, had imposed an income tax on his state.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
Connecticut’s slow and painful decent into a reckless spending ditch began with the Weicker income tax. Connecticut is now the only state in the union that has experienced negative job growth. Maverickism does have a dark side. It also has a bright side, at least for Mr. Weicker. Connecticut’s state Republican Party is Mr. Weicker’s President Richard “You won’t have me to kick around anymore” Nixon. <span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Even though Mr. Weicker’s notions of what is best for his cast off party are irrelevant to most Republicans, the maverick who once fittingly described himself as “the turd in the Republican Party punchbowl” will always have his version of Republicanism to kick around. </span> In pronouncing his party irrelevant, Mr. Weicker hardly noticed that his state party’s irrelevance coincided rather neatly with Mr. Weicker’s nineteen year reign as the nominal head of Connecticut’s GOP.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">These bull bellowings are a little sad. Mr. Weicker is stuck in a time-warp groove: He repeats himself, and repeats himself, and repeats himself… No one, other than a few aged and crusty Jacob Javits Republicans or Democratic politicians eternally grateful for the Weicker income tax and the expansion of spending it occasioned pay him much heed these days.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mr. Weicker’s views are set in mental concrete and do not change with the times. As a U.S. Senator and the nominal head of his state party, Mr. Weicker favored opening his party’s nominating convention to non-Republicans, thus weakening the stranglehold on the state GOP of non-maverick, loyal Republicans. He now favors blowing up the nominating conventions altogether, because nominating conventions are, like all things Republican, irrelevant. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When Teddy Roosevelt retired from politics, he shot a few water buffaloes in Africa. Mark Twain wrote up Roosevelt’s post presidential adventure as a mass slaughter of cows. Former President Jimmy Carter built housing for the poor and wrote books no one reads. Ronald Reagan, stricken with Alzheimer’s, retired to his ranch to await with his usual good humor the grim reaper. George Bush the younger took up painting and manfully restrained himself from commenting upon the idiocies of his successor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There really is a life after politics. But not for Mr. Weicker. Like some raving Ahab, he has strapped himself to his own White Whale with his own harpoon lines, the victories and defeats of times past. He and the whale, a metaphorical substitute for thwarted ambition, will go down together. Supported by the Republican Party in his state for nearly two decades in Congress, Mr. Weicker has no use for nominating conventions or political parties. The depth of his ingratitude is boundless, almost blasphemous.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When Starbuck in Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” accuses Ahab of blasphemy, the old puritan cries out, “Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">On the last day, when the angels finally call Mr. Weicker, he will go out with a snarl on his lips and a curse <o:p></o:p>against the fictional devils in his past he has not been able to exorcise. The moment will not be recorded by WNPR.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-385949685214359506.post-45381093130382870442014-05-11T13:05:00.001-04:002014-05-11T13:05:01.481-04:00Malloy vs. Pelto<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The gubernatorial nomination on the Republican side is heavily, if politely, contested. In a few days, Republican nominating delegates will gather at Mohegan Sun Casino to sort out their ticket. On the Democratic side, the gubernatorial slot is a Malloy gimme – almost.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
State employee union gadfly Jonathan Pelto continues to sting Governor Dannel Malloy.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mr. Malloy’s temperament, like that of President Barack Obama, is sting averse. The Malloyalists who surround him sting back when stung. Both they and their chief have thin skins. And Mr. Malloy, when caught in a compromising position, has been known to throw a few elbows at his critics.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the past, whenever Mr. Pelto had harpooned Mr. Malloy on his blog “<b><a href="http://jonathanpelto.com/">Wait, What?</a></b>” gubernatorial factotum Roy Occhiogrosso, who has parleyed his Malloy connection into a Vice Presidential slot with Global Strategy, leapt forward to answer Mr. Pelto with a box on the ear.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
“No one cares what Pelto thinks,” said Mr. Occhiogrosso after Mr. Pelto had pelted Mr. Malloy for having joined the forces of darkness by attempting to purge Connecticut’s educational system of underperforming teachers who, Mr. Malloy felt, had only to “<b><a href="http://jonathanpelto.com/2012/02/14/only-thing-you-have-to-do-is-show-up-for-four-years-dan-malloy/">show up for four years</a></b>” to achieve tenure, after which dismissal for rank incompetence becomes decidedly less frequent.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Even so, Mr. Malloy last January issued a letter underwritten by Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman, House Speaker Brendan Sharkey and Senate President Donald E. Williams that delayed,<b><a href="http://articles.courant.com/2014-01-29/news/hc-common-core-push-back-0128-20140128_1_malloy-calls-performance-evaluation-advisory-council-malloy-tuesday"> according to one report </a></b>“an important component of the new evaluation system: linking a teacher's performance rating with students' standardized test scores. Malloy also said he would create a working group to make changes in the implementation of the new Common Core State Standards. The administration will also scrap a $1 million marketing campaign for the Common Core.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The decoupling of teacher performance and test scores, as well as the canning of a million dollar marketing campaign for Common Core, strenuously resisted by both teacher unions and many conservative groups, certainly did not bode ill for Mr. Pelto.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Conservatives and teacher unions oppose the Common Core effort for quite different reasons. Teacher unions are rather touchy on standards of any kind linked to student performance that might be used to weed out non-performing teachers; conservatives, comfortable with the principle of subsidiarity, do not want the federal government to do to education what it has done to, say, the private insurance market.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We have here a case of political ends touching and producing unmanageable political sparks. Without abjectly retreating from his school reform efforts – not in the cards -- Mr. Malloy has bent himself into a pretzel shape so as to remain in the good graces of the powerful unions whose votes he needs to whip in a general election the Republican Party’s gubernatorial nominee. Once the election is in the bag, Mr. Pelto will have been politically neutered, and Mr. Malloy’s education reforms, momentarily put on the back burner, may be resurrected from the “working group” to which the reforms have been entrusted for safe keeping. To parody Mr. Obama in his pre-presidential election meeting with Dimitri Medvedev, Mr. Malloy will have considerably “<b><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/us/politics/obama-caught-on-microphone-telling-medvedev-of-flexibility.html?_r=0">more flexibility</a></b>,” following his victorious election, to repair burnt bridges with unions and to deep six the annoying Mr. Pelto.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are three reasons why candidates for office enter campaigns: They’re in it to win; they’re in it to make an exotic political point; or they’re in it to affect the correlation of forces, so that the candidate’s views will be upheld by the likely candidate in a general election.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At this point, only Mr. Pelto and his conscience knows which of the three reasons cited above has moved him to suggest, very coyly in an appearance on Eyewitness News’ “<b><a href="http://www.wfsb.com/video?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=10092902">Face The State</a></b>” with Dennis House that a) Mr. Malloy can’t win the race for governor, and b) he might primary Mr. Malloy, if the delegates to the Democratic nominating convention are not enlightened enough to choose him on the first ballot as their gubernatorial standard bearer.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.wfsb.com/" title="WFSB 3
Connecticut">WFSB 3 Connecticut</a><o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-385949685214359506.post-2493725814317806562014-05-10T20:35:00.000-04:002014-05-10T20:35:11.769-04:00The Connecticut GOP And The New Democratic Progressives<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>Below is an address given to the Westbrook Republican Town Committee on the occasion of the 15th annual John A. Holbrook Awards Dinner</i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s wonderful having the opportunity to speak with you. Lee wrote to me back in February inviting me here. I told him it would be a great honor for me and that the title of the talk would be something on the order of “Whither The Republican Party? And he wrote back a note: “Gee Don, I hope you don’t plan to whither us too much.” I knew then we could have a little fun tonight. However, I do want to advise everyone that to forestall confusion the title of this talk has been changed to “The Connecticut GOP And The New Democratic Progressives.”<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ll post it on my blog site – Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes From A Blue State – for anyone here who nods off during the presentation. If you Google “Don Pesci” in quotes, the site will come up. The quotes are important because, if you leave them off, you’re likely to get a bunch of stuff on Joe Pesci. He’s the guy with all the bodies in his trunk. For some reason, people sometimes confuse me with him.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One of the distinguishing marks of the Republican Party is that Republicans really do like to have fun. Democrats, as a rule, are too busy arranging the order of stars in the belt of Orion to pause to enjoy the good things of life. Has anyone in the past few years seen a more sober mug than that of Governor Dannel Malloy, Connecticut’s stand-in for that old progressive sourpuss Woodrow Wilson? I speak only of Mr. Malloy’s public persona. I’m sure he’s a barrel of laughs in private.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Tonight I hope to review the state Republican Party’s near past and then survey briefly some positive portents.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’d like to begin with a little story about Bill Buckley and the media of his day. Things in the Northeast have not changed much. In Connecticut especially, beneficial change is agonizingly slow. Unlike Mr. Malloy, Bill was an Irishman who loved laughter, song, and ideas. Watching Bill playing with an idea was a little bit like watching Bach fingering a harpsichord keyboard. You just knew he was going to make celestial music out of his improvisations. Most of the music was wasted on the New York Times. The editors at the paper had little appreciation of stirring conservative political ideas, a failure of good taste that persists at the paper even today.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Someone persuaded Bill to run for mayor of New York against Abe Beame and John Lindsay, a left of center Republican who later drifted over to the Democratic Party. In due course, a reporter asked Bill what he would do if he actually <b><i>won</i></b> the contest. “I would demand a recount,” said Bill. Sure, sure. But if he were to be elected, what would he do? "Hang a net outside the window of the editor of the New York Times," to catch the falling bodies.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The French have a saying: “The more things change, the more they remain the same.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The leeching of journalists into the Democratic Party continues apace. The percentage of full-time U.S. journalists who claim to be Republican dropped from 18 percent in 2002 to 7.1 percent in 2013, <b><a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/05/survey-percent-of-reporters-identify-as-republican-188053.html?hp=l13">according to a recent study </a></b>by Indiana University professors Lars Willnat and David Weaver. In 1971, when Bill released “Inveighing We Will Go,” a collection of his current columns, 25.7 percent of journalists polled had identified as Republican.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some people in this room may think the seven percent figure a little high. In Connecticut, it feels like .007 percent.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yesterday, the Big Apple had its Lindsays. Today, the state has its Cuomos – and, most recently, its Sandinista mayor of New York City, Bill De Blasio. And, of course, it retains its much less influential New York Times. And here in Connecticut we have our Weickers and our Malloys and, of course, our much diminished Hartford Courant. Taken all in all, this is why Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan’s red carpet, once said “If you lop off the Northeast and California, you’ve got a pretty good country.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In Connecticut Commentary, I’ve gone to considerable trouble to point out the striking similarities between Mr. Malloy and former Senator and Governor Lowell Weicker – who once fittingly characterized himself as “the turd in the Republican Party punchbowl.” See: Republicans have punchbowls. They’re a happy group.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Both Mr. Weicker and Mr. Malloy came into office when the state was laboring under a weight of massive debt caused by – no one in this room will be surprised – massive spending. Both Mr. Weicker and Mr. Malloy arrived at the same remedy -- massive taxation. Mr. Weicker draped around all our necks a burdensome income tax yoke. Mr. Malloy was content to raise all those niggling little taxes that Mr. Weicker’s more comprehensive solution to debt was designed to exorcise. Mr. Malloy ended up authoring the largest tax increase in state history, leaving even Mr. Weicker in the progressive dust. Connecticut’s equivalent of the New York Times, the Hartford Courant, sent up a rousing cheer. No need for a net there – not yet. The Malloy long term spending cuts, in turned out, were made of fairy dust. During the next post-election year, Connecticut is looking forward to a debt of some $1.5 billion, according to the bean counters in the Office of Policy Management.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Welcome back to square one. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Both Mr. Weicker and Mr. Malloy are progressives. At the root of progressivism lies the sundering notion that if government is good, more government must be better. From here it is but a baby step to the equally absurd notion that government <b><i>is</i></b> the state. In fact, the state is all of us, the government merely an administrative apparatus designed, if you credit the U.S. and State Constitutions, to accomplish our reason informed will. Mr. Weicker, whose ego as U.S. Senator and Governor was infinitely expansive, took this absurd logic a step further and regarded <b><i>himself</i></b> as the state. I should like to call your attention to the hopeful tense in that last sentence: Mr. Weicker <b><i>was</i></b>, he <b><i>regarded</i></b>– past tense: There is a God.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But it never hurts to remind ourselves that there is a Devil too.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
From time to time, Mr. Weicker shows up, most often at WNPR or in the op-ed section of the Courant, to advise Republicans what they must do to become a majority party. You will never guess: They must field candidates like Mr. Weicker. But these days only progressives pay him much mind, because they alone are interested in tossing turds into punchbowls.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You’ve heard the expression: It’s always darkest before the dawn? Over the past few years, it has become possible to hope that a Republican dawn may yet arrive. To be sure, the same old evil spirits hang like a dark aureole around the rising sun. The Courant is still the Courant. Progressives occupy all the heights in Connecticut’s political arena – including the governor’s office, a majority position in both houses of the General Assembly, the entire U.S. Congressional delegation and all Connecticut’s constitutional offices. What we used to call in the old days “the climate of opinion” is still a silly mixture of utopian fantasy and political palliatives. The old political heresies – including the anticipated arrival of a political superman, the god of the polis who will with a stroke of his pen banish all our fears and inaugurate a long hoped for Eden – still persist, like the ragged ends of a recurring nightmare. Connecticut’s left of center commentariet would like us to believe that conservatives are responsible for this sad state of affairs – even though, asked to name one conservative governor or two or three conservative members of the General Assembly, they would be tongue-tied -- for once.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But – be of good cheer. There are rays of light, tokens marking the end of a long twilight slumber.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let me tell you what some of them are.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
First of all, the pinch is on, and people – proletarians, not the One-Percenters – are feeling the pinch. Nothing is quite as effective as a pinch to wake you up.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Malloyalists may have noted with some alarm the Hartford Courant’s post-budget editorial, “<b><a href="http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/editorials/hc-ed-gimmicks-from-the-anti-gimmick-governor-20140505,0,4646630.story">Gimmicks From The Anti-Gimmick Governor</a></b>,” in which the editorial board, usually friendly to all tax increases and gubernatorial spendthrifts, chastised Mr. Malloy for using “gimmicks to paper over deficits.” In his first campaign for governor, Mr. Malloy flailed former Republican governors for having done the same thing.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All the polls have turned into gibbets for Malloyalists. The latest poll shows an alarming 49 percent of Connecticut’s overtaxed and overregulated citizens would bolt the state for greener pastures elsewhere if given their druthers. In one of his recent columns, ominously titled “<b>Will Connecticut Ever Get An Opposition Party?"</b> Chris Powell writes:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“… advocacy groups purporting to represent the neediest just observe silently as state government finds billions of dollars to spend on pork-barrel projects like the bus highway from Hartford to New Britain, corporate welfare, binding arbitration of public employee union contracts that puts government's biggest single cost outside democratic control, defined-benefit pensions for government employees, subsidies for childbearing outside marriage, drug criminalization, social promotion in schools, what is called farmland preservation, and such.” Kowtowing to such special interests rather than representing the general good insures, Mr. Powell writes, “that spending is <b><i>never</i></b> cut.”</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The progressive palliatives – most especially the notion that a dollar removed from the private marketplace and re-allocated by politicians <b><i>adds</i></b> to the wealth of the state – have run aground on the rocks of reality. A close reading of Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations” might have dispelled this destructive fallacy. But progressives are more inclined to read “Dreams From My Father,” President Barack Obama’s “fact based” autobiography, than they are likely to read Adam Smith or Ludwig von Mises, the author of “Human Action,” or Friedrich Hayek, the author of “The Constitution of Liberty” or, for that matter, <b><i>anything</i></b> written by Bill Buckley.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here in Connecticut, Mr. Malloy has followed the same progressive campaign script as the one now being promoted by the Obama administration, a sort of updated version of Robinhoodism – with this important difference: Robin of Sherwood took from the idle rich – most of whom were made rich, it should be pointed out, by their close association with political power brokers – and gave to the poor. Mr. Malloy, masterful in fooling most of the people most of the time, has taken huge gobs of money from the working class and given millions of dollars to multi-million dollar companies that gratefully accept handouts from politicians hungry for campaign donations. Mr. Malloy was able to dispense these giveaways after having first broadening the tax base so that nail salon owners, who had previously escaped the taxman’s hang noose, would be able to participate in his “shared sacrifice.” I know of no Democratic politician who, following this imposition on the proletariat, has yet accused Democrats of conducting a war on women’s salons. A young man I know who left the state for greener pastures elsewhere told me that as soon as he heard the expression “shared sacrifice,” he knew he would be fleeced. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In some columns, I’ve called Mr. Malloy “Connecticut’s crony capitalist in chief” and – I like this one -- “Governor Bling.” No Republican running for any office this year should fear that a charge of crony capitalism brought against Mr. Malloy or any of his Democratic associates in the Gener4al assembly, will boomerang and harm real capitalists. We arrest bank robbers because we are able to make the important distinction between bank robbers and bankers. It is because progressives cannot make reasonable distinctions that so many of our young people, the beneficiaries of very expensive tax supported colleges in Connecticut, are taking their diplomas to other states. Here in Connecticut, we appear for the moment to be satisfied with a progressive government; other less predatory governors and legislators are content with progress.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here is another ray of sunshine. More Republicans in Connecticut are identifying themselves publicaly as conservative – which means more Republicans have been moved by progressive whips and scorns toward a political position that might accurately be described by those who can tell their right from their left as “right of center.” And they are no longer persuaded by passé editors who think – absurdly – that Mr. Weicker was a “moderate Republican” or that Mr. Malloy can pull Connecticut out of its nosedive by taking taxes from nail salon owners and giving them to Aetna Insurance Company. These are hopeful signs that the long Weickerian captivity of the Republican Party in Connecticut has come to an end.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nationally -- and increasingly in Connecticut -- Democrats are attempting to refashion a new and winning coalition of voters. The political world is no longer divided only into the “haves and “have not’s.” Democrats have cut up the body politic into numerous pieces: women, against whom they suppose Republicans have made war; unionized teachers, traditional allies of the Democratic Party; minority groups; the permanent government, mostly unionized state and federal workers; malleable students caught in the briar patch of progressive academia; left of center media outlets; progressive billionaires who do not yet feel the ropes about their necks – remember Lenin’s promise that after the proletariat had seized the means of production, their victorious enemies would hang the bourgeois with the rope they had so obligingly given to them -- and other groups too numerous to mention. The ambition of new progressives such as Mr. Obama and Mr. Malloy is to fashion a political credo that will capture the minds and hearts, not to mention the votes and political contributions, of all these disparate groups.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you are able to meld these body parts into a political force, you needn’t worry too much about traditional political groupings such as churches, normative family configurations or political parties. Government, George Washington said, is force—which is why, he thought, it should be used sparingly. And force in a democratic republic involves the building of coalitions, temporary or not. Think of the temporary coalition as a sort of Trojan Horse, an artful engine of destruction deployed to secure a desired political end. The end is the capture of the city or the state or the nation. And some who have been paying attention to the destructive progressive programs of Mr. Obama might well conclude that his end in view is the destruction of traditional and familiar coalitions of power. The Trojans were confident that the matchless walls and towers of Troy could withstand any assault. But wily Odysseus found a way.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is one solid conclusion that may be drawn from a party of this kind that feeds on energy drawn from elliptical interests, and that is this: the Democratic Party – certainly nationally, and now within Connecticut as well – is no longer a centrist party. Still less is it a moderate party. It is, to use a word much in favor with demagogic progressives whenever they are inclined to hurl rhetorical thunderbolts at Republicans, an “extremist” party. And if the less than seven percent of journalists in Connecticut who are Republicans were, say, twice that figure, the obvious imposture would be twice as obvious. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Twenty years ago, political commentators used to refer admiringly to the “vital center.” That center has all but disappeared within the new progressive Democratic Party – led down the road to perdition by utopian supermen such as Mr. Obama and, closer to home, Mr. Malloy.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Progressivism is a very old political creed; it sprang from the religion infused prairie populism of the post-Civil War period and found its earliest national expression within the Republican Party of Teddy Roosevelt, the Bull-Mooser. But the new progressivism of Mr. Obama, Nancy Pelosi, her Connecticut counterpart, U. S. Representative Rosa DeLauro and, so it would appear, U.S. Senators Dick Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, really is a Trojan Horse of a different color. It is a movement pushed forward by hard leftists and some overly nostalgic Democrats who look back upon the depression and post-depression years of Franklin Roosevelt as the golden age of their party.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So then, once we have established, as I’ve briefly and inadequately tried to do here, a clear view of what used to be called the “correlation of forces,” the all-important question arises: What should Republicans do to right our state and country?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The short answer to that question is this: The party should become less like Mr. Weicker and more like Mr. Buckley; which is to say – the party should unapologetically and energetically embrace conservative ideas, the only effective antidote to a wayward and destructive progressivism.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Republican Party in Connecticut has a rare opportunity to show others the way out of the progressive briar patch in which both the state and the GOP have lingered for nearly half a century.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We <b><i>know</i></b> where we are. In almost every important index measuring progress and prosperity, Connecticut lags far behind other states. We <b><i>know</i></b> how we got here. Democrats and moderate Republicans have led us into the Dark Forest of a Grimm fairy tale. We spend too much; we regulate creative capital too often, and destructively; we have become for all practical purposes a one-party state, and one-party states are notoriously corrupt enterprises; we have fallen into the crony capitalism trap; we have abandoned our cities to solicitous Democrats who have constructed gorgeous gilded cages for the poor; we have accepted uncritically such idiotic and false categories as “social conservatives” and “economic conservatives” – rather as if conservative economic prescriptions will never affect the nature of society; rather as if destructive progressive prescriptions will never effect our economic condition. If you surrender the social sphere to progressives, it will be only a matter of time before they claim ownership of the economic sphere, and that is <b><i>exactly</i></b> what happened during the last presidential contest.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the thrice told fairy tale, it is most often the third son or daughter who leads the way out of the perilous forest – usually after marking the way into the forest by laying down a path of beans. The way out then becomes the way in – in reverse. It is the third son and the third daughter who is, of all the siblings, the most beautiful, the most courageous, the most resourceful, the most determined and the most intelligent.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You here in this room – every one of you – very likely have the courage, the fortitude and the intelligence to become that third son or daughter. The way we get out of a difficulty is to reverse the way we got into it, and let no wicked sorcerer on the way tell you that the way home is not forward progress.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It may be proper to end this retrospective and prospective view by quoting Bill Buckley crying out from the center of the Dark Forest, way back in 1955, immediately after he had launched National Review magazine:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
“We have nothing to offer but the best that is in us. That, a thousand Liberals who read this sentiment will say with relief, is clearly not enough! It isn’t enough. But it is at this point that we steal the march. For we offer, besides ourselves, a position that has not grown old under the weight of a gigantic, parasitic bureaucracy, a position untempered by the doctoral dissertations of a generation of Ph.D’s in social architecture, unattenuated by a thousand vulgar promises to a thousand different pressure groups, uncorroded by a cynical contempt for human freedom. And that, ladies and gentlemen, leaves us just about the hottest thing in town.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s always liberating, isn’t it, to hew fast to a view that places you on the cutting edge of real progress? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Before I leave the rostrum, I’d like to fold in with your own my applause for Marilyn Giuliano, whom you are honoring here tonight. I don’t want to damn Mrs. Giuliano with extravagant praise – often the kiss of political commentators is the kiss of death – but I may say she is an extraordinarily bright and accomplished legislator who serves on very important committees: education, appropriations and program review. You already know that. Westbrook, and the whole of the 23<sup>rd</sup> House District, appears to be well represented. So too in the State Senate: Art Linares certainly has a promising career ahead of him. The rest of the state should be so fortunate.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’d like to thank everyone for making it possible for me to speak to you tonight and, if you have not already had too much of me, I’ll take a few of your questions.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-385949685214359506.post-43236637662726009922014-05-09T13:27:00.000-04:002014-05-09T13:27:17.998-04:00More Shared Sacrifice Is In The Cards<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ263dODCbuh9dtURAiwiesAiFi1AZqePwa7NAcaCbRDFgaB_98Cnat7dyR7VFIyjYGUna-ON889VDvUvHQiLzzKE5owDXH0PIcDYmXufYbRBp-0MmLlmnpSkHATU-yh0eZ8AOUlhquJ8/s1600/bumper-sticker-will-rogers-death-and-taxes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ263dODCbuh9dtURAiwiesAiFi1AZqePwa7NAcaCbRDFgaB_98Cnat7dyR7VFIyjYGUna-ON889VDvUvHQiLzzKE5owDXH0PIcDYmXufYbRBp-0MmLlmnpSkHATU-yh0eZ8AOUlhquJ8/s1600/bumper-sticker-will-rogers-death-and-taxes.jpg" height="200" width="200" /></a></div>
<b><a href="http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/editorials/hc-ed-gimmicks-from-the-anti-gimmick-governor-20140505,0,4646630.story">A Connecticut paper that has never met a tax increase in did not approve</a></b> breaks the news gently. So gimmicky is Governor Dannel Malloy’s budget that it puts the editorial board in mind of Mr. Malloy’s predecessor, former Governor Jodi Rell, whose budgets – all of them passed by the Democratic dominated General Assembly – relied heavily on such gimmicks as moving red ink into future budgets, excessive borrowing to balance ordinary expenditures, and other sleights of hand that, Mr. Malloy said in his first campaign for governor, were exceedingly dishonest.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This year, the paper chides, “Now, pushed into a corner by a lag in tax revenues, Mr. Malloy and the majority Democrats in the General Assembly are using gimmicks of their own in passing what they say is a balanced budget for the fiscal year that begins July .”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The post-election year will open with a bang of a deficit -- $1.3 billion or more. That is the amount Mr. Malloy and the Democratic dominated General Assembly must wring out of the first year of Connecticut’s biennial budget if Mr. Malloy hopes to keep his “no new taxes” pledge, or …<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Or what?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are only two ways to discharge a deficit, if one abjures the usual gimmicks used in the past to balance Connecticut’s books: Either you raise taxes, or you cut spending.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For purposes of re-election, Mr. Malloy has several times insisted he would not balance the books through tax increases. Funny how all politicians turn into former President George H. W. Bush – “Read my lips. No new taxes” – when the middle class, heavily burdened with the largest broad based tax increase in Connecticut’s history, is about to march to the polls.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mr. Malloy already has played his “shared sacrifice” card. To be sure, the shared sacrifice of unionized state workers was not quite as burdensome to unions as was Mr. Malloy’s “shared sacrifice” tax increases to taxpayers, which is why, come to think of it, former state Senator Edith Prague chastised union leaders for balking at the deal -- a very good one for unionized state employees -- Mr. Malloy held out to SEBAC during negotiations prior to the signing of his first budget. Mrs. Prague said at the time that union leaders would be nuts not to have accepted Mr. Malloy’s best offer, which included salary increases of three percent nine years out. After some knuckle biting, the unions supinely accepted Mr. Malloy offer. They would have been nuts to reject it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The tax increase card already having been overplayed, Mr. Malloy was under pressure this time around to promise, several times, that he was done increasing taxes. He had strained himself boosting taxes on nail salon owners during his first year in office. Taxpayers had sacrificed enough. This leaves Mr. Malloy with only one card remaining in his hand – multi-billion dollar spending for each of the next two years. Projected deficit figures are brought to us by the same Malloyalists who had recently calculated a surplus of half a billion dollars, a figure quickly whittled down by reality to a little over fifty million.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Recent polls do not indicate a sunny re-election effort by Mr. Malloy. <b><a href="http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/450ff60c364d4ca2b73abe66ac66f469/CT--Connecticut-Governor">A Quinnipiac poll</a></b> conducted between February and March found 29 percent of voters approving Mr. Malloy’s handling of taxes while 63 percent disapproved. On his handling of the economy and jobs, 33 percent approved while 60 percent disapproved, while on his handling of the budget, 37 percent approved while 53 percent disapproved.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A week before the Republican nominating convention, Mr. Malloy unfurled his “no new taxes pledge” once again: "I do not believe we will do anything but cut taxes for the foreseeable future."<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The “foreseeable future” will pass by Connecticut ears like a shot. If there is in Connecticut one editorial writer, one political commentator, one union leader or one much plucked taxpayer who sincerely believes that Mr. Malloy will wring out of the hides of state workers the entire future multi-billion dollar state deficits, that person, now carefully concealed behind then flower pot, has yet to show his head. Nearly everyone in the state who thinks seriously about budget deficits “gets” the gubernatorial wink: “No new taxes” -- <b><i>until the big spenders have all been re-elected</i></b>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><a href="http://ctmirror.org/connecticuts-looming-deficit-threatens-next-years-tax-breaks/">The rational for raising new taxes in the foreseeable future will be what it has ever been</a></b>: Despite years of throwing tax dollars in their direction, the poor are poorer. And besides, Connecticut’s huge and ungovernable dispensary of tax dollars cannot afford to lift the debt burden all by its lonesome self.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Those who have not already left the state for greener pastures elsewhere would be wise to hit the bunkers and prepare for SHARED SACRIFICE II.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-385949685214359506.post-3614853063962457092014-05-06T13:16:00.000-04:002014-05-06T13:16:02.583-04:00Killing Bi-Partisanship<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYzWJWt_ejIjz86e05CZQbQTgn7ygZRNsRJkR20c7ESHY_alesMFoQE25SDNgceHizbUI0RD-MCdmn18pbtH2UwC-AaW1nLMkrf6_iNVHA2IbxazlnWzd3wNKHaJKVXhmnpP1pDDkUrsg/s1600/malloy+wyman+campaign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYzWJWt_ejIjz86e05CZQbQTgn7ygZRNsRJkR20c7ESHY_alesMFoQE25SDNgceHizbUI0RD-MCdmn18pbtH2UwC-AaW1nLMkrf6_iNVHA2IbxazlnWzd3wNKHaJKVXhmnpP1pDDkUrsg/s1600/malloy+wyman+campaign.jpg" height="133" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Connecticut operates on a two year budget and makes adjustments in the budget’s second year. Currently, the General Assembly is addressing itself to the second year of Governor Malloy’s’ second biennial budget. During his years in office, Mr. Malloy and dominant Democrats in the legislature have never produced an appropriation and spending plan that bears Republican fingerprints.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Republicans viewed Mr. Malloy’s budget as a political document because, to say the truth, all budgets are political documents. Prior to passage, senate Republican leader John McKinney, running this year for governor, pointed to a “<a href="http://www.courant.com/news/education/hc-malloy-budget-agreement-0503-20140502,0,1760121.story"><b>frightening lack of detail</b></a>” in the single most important piece of legislation the General Assembly has considered in the new fiscal year. The Malloy budget plan will shape the destiny of the state for the next two years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mr. Malloy, it will be recalled, also shooed Republicans out of the room when he was assembling his first budget. Democratic leaders in the General Assembly pre-approved Mr. Malloy’s first budget. Mr. Malloy then negotiated contractual terms favorable to SEBAC, a state union coalition called by some Connecticut’s fourth branch of government, and the final product, altered in protracted negotiations, did not return to the General Assembly for approval before being signed into law by the governor. The Democrat dominated General Assembly, abrogating its constitutional obligation to vote on a substantially altered budget, had invested the first Democratic governor since William O’Neill declined to run for re-election with near plenipotentiary powers, an investiture of powers not uncommon in other one party states.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The back-room budget negotiations, conducted entirely in private, ought to have alerted members of Connecticut’s left of center media that neither public notice nor bi-party participation is necessary in a one party state. The Malloy administration has become the most secretive back-room directed government in living memory. But then, everybody knows that all one party governments do this sort of thing with impunity: The one party state gets away with tucking dead bodies under the rug because there is no political antagonist in the room to report the attempted concealment.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This time around, the best laid plans of Malloy and company were torn asunder by a <a href="http://ctmirror.org/new-ct-budget-missing-52m-to-cover-union-retirement-benefits/"><b>collapsing private marketplace</b></a>. Although the national recession ended in 2009, here in Connecticut, following the largest tax increase in state history, the malaise marches on. While the nation has gained back about three quarters of the jobs lost during the last recession, Connecticut has recovered only half. Noting that Connecticut “lost its chief marketing tool” with the imposition of the income tax in 1991, a recent University of Connecticut study, “<a href="http://www.cteconomy.uconn.edu/TCE_Issues/Fall_2013.pdf"><b>The Connecticut Economy</b></a>,” recommends the elimination of the state’s corporate income tax. When a tax is reduced in Connecticut, it is generally supposed by all tax consumers that the hole punched in the budget by tax reductions cannot be backfilled with spending cuts. Ergo: taxes may NEVER be cut.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Connecticut’s collapsing budget is heavily reliant on taxes reaped from financial institutions, and progressives in the state, perpetually on the hunt for new tax resources to plunder so they might fund improvident spending, would like nothing better than to take a larger tax piece out of the hides of precisely those financial firms that have been holding the state’s head above water during President Barack Obama protracted recession. So far, Mr. Malloy has been able to repulse attacks from wild-eyed progressives at the gates while schmoozing with public sector union chiefs. In a post-election Malloy administration, the governor will “have more flexibility” to reconsider his often repeated pledges not to raise taxes. The governor has not pledged to decrease spending, a kiss of death pledge in any pre-election campaign.<u><o:p></o:p></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">At least one newspaper, <b><a href="http://theday.com/article/20140506/OP01/305069978">the New London Day</a></b>, has warned us that Connecticut’s current spending level is unsustainable. But Mr. Malloy, media Malloyalists, progressive big spenders, Democratic leaders in the Democratic dominated General Assembly, fourth branch of government union leaders, municipal leaders dependent on state grants – none of these special interests are interested in lopping, say, $1.5 billion from the state budget, a figure that just might catch the eye of in-state businesses looking for the exit signs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Ergo: Taxes will rise; regulations will increase; business activity will decrease; the population of Connecticut, the only state in the union to have lost population, will decrease; prices, including the price of education in Connecticut, will increase; and the state will continue its downward trajectory until it reaches bottom, at which time it may be possible to hope for a sweeping change in government.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But hope is no surety of success.<a href="http://donpesci.blogspot.com/2005/02/will-senator-chris-dodd-please.html"> <b>Progressive one party states such as Venezuela</b></a>, once known as the Paris of Latin America, reached bottom long ago, and Connecticut, blessed by geographical determinants, a once healthy two party system and a shared understanding that state spending is no guarantee of prosperity, appears to have adopted the Hugo Chavez’s leadership model, along with his sound and fury rhetoric. It used to be said of God – when politicians yet believed in God – that He must love the poor, having made so many of them. The same may be said of most one party progressive states. Connecticut will be no exception.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-385949685214359506.post-80138162664669336932014-05-02T17:16:00.000-04:002014-05-02T17:16:56.600-04:00Blumenthal, Benghazi And The Difference It Makes<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMjb1AeXq95i6ia8uc-gmniEL8m9xx9DYxGYnXApoqeEwbHccCUM9K6gSowrtqalycgrD9HkiP1kMbzI5OixKtO86EaJhLYMYUb_jx-ClXpsNJE262qOoCNWmVjz22RFjiiqfvuDVC1io/s1600/120922BenghaziBattle_6696085.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMjb1AeXq95i6ia8uc-gmniEL8m9xx9DYxGYnXApoqeEwbHccCUM9K6gSowrtqalycgrD9HkiP1kMbzI5OixKtO86EaJhLYMYUb_jx-ClXpsNJE262qOoCNWmVjz22RFjiiqfvuDVC1io/s1600/120922BenghaziBattle_6696085.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dick Blumenthal, the nation’s first full time consumer protection senator, has now weighed in on merchants who “may be selling lower quality items produced specifically for outlet stores without properly informing consumers,” <b><a href="http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2014/05/01/3-on-your-side-are-outlet-malls-not-all-they-seem-2/">according to a Philadelphia television station</a></b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Senator has asked the Federal Trade Commission to examine claims that merchants have misled consumers in their ads. “There’s a lot of evidence,” Blumenthal breathlessly told the television consumer protection watchdog in Philadelphia, “that people shopping at outlet malls or at outlet establishments have no idea that goods and merchandise are made specifically for outlet malls.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Naturally, preventive legislation is needed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">On foreign policy issues of national importance, Benghazi for instance, the senator has been less voluble. But that is because Mr. Blumenthal is not interested in regulating foreign affairs – just outlet malls. In fact, political consumers may be unaware that U.S. Congresspersons generally are uninterested in regulating foreign policy or budgets or administration officials who deprive Congress of the data the greatest deliberative body on earth needs to satisfy its Constitutional obligations or, of equal importance, its own ungovernable appetite for regulating everything that moves and breathes outside Congressional precincts. <o:p></o:p><b><a href="http://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/blumenthal-statement-on-attack-on-us-consulate-in-benghazi">Mr. Blumenthal’s own Congressional site</a></b> carries only a brief pro forma, seven line expression of “outrage and sadness” issued the day after the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And you thought you sent your senator to Washington to hold responsible high administration officials who failed to protect or come to the aid of an ambassador to Libya murdered by – dare it be said? – Islamic<b> <i><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">terrorists</span></i></b>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Silly you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In High School, your civics text – if you had the advantage of a civics text – mentioned a division of powers as a check on presidential presumption. The Constitution, an ancient but never-the-less useful document dating from 1787, invests the President with war powers and assigns to Congress auxiliary powers that also shape foreign policy. Constitutionally, Congress is the voice of conscience perched on the shoulder of any president who has Napoleonic ambitions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Chris Stevens, the ambassador murdered in Libya by Islamic terrorists, was the personal representative of the President of the United States, as are all ambassadors.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Following the murder of the personal representative of President Barack Obama and the brave military personnel who came to his aid -- Sean Smith and two Navy Seals, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, all slaughtered by militant Al-Qaida connected terrorists -- members of the administration fanned out to spread the lie that those who led the assault on the annex in Benghazi were “protestors” agitated by a film that had insulted, peace be upon him, the prophet <span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Muhammad</span>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Persistent investigations by oversight Congressional committees and a cache of e-mails secured by Judicial Watch on a Freedom of Information demand has now shown that the Obama/Rice stage show was an elaborate pantomime designed to convey the message during a presidential campaign that Mr. Obama had dealt a death blow to Al-Qaida. As such, the deception was much more wicked – and deadly – than the ads that recently have excited the interest of Mr. Blumenthal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Among the 41 documents pried loose from the Obama administration, is an <b><a href="http://freebeacon.com/national-security/benghazi-emails-show-white-house-effort-to-protect-obama/">e-mail from deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes</a></b> that presents to then U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice four goals that were to be accomplished during Ms. Rice’s numerous television appearances days after militant Islamic terrorists murdered the ambassador and other Americans in Benghazi.<u><o:p></o:p></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/benghazi-lies_788985.html">According to the e-mail</a></b>, Ms. Rice was to: “… convey that the United States is doing everything that we can to protect our people and facilities abroad; To underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy; To show that we will be resolute in bringing people who harm Americans to justice, and standing steadfast through these protests; To reinforce the President and Administration’s strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Only the last goal had been accomplished – temporarily – in the weeks following the terrorist attack. The attack on the U.S. Consulate did not arise from a spontaneous protest; it was not rooted in an internet video; the successful assault did point to a broader policy failure; the United States was and remains irresolute in bringing to justice people who harm Americans, particularly if they are associated with the Obama administration; and Mr. Obama’s strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges – in Libya, Syria, Egypt, Iran and, most recently, Russia -- is very much in question.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mr. Blumenthal, however, appears to be blithely unconcerned with the foreign policy mishaps of the Obama administration, preferring to focus his attention on misleading representations issued by Mall vendors. Unless he refocuses his attention pronto, history will hit him like a speeding passenger train. <b><a href="http://donpesci.blogspot.com/2014/04/a-senators-brush-with-reality.html">Mr. Blumenthal lately has devoted some of his attention to passenger trains</a></b>.</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-385949685214359506.post-67147204767103367542014-04-30T18:07:00.000-04:002014-04-30T21:55:24.417-04:00Who Killed Cock Robin? Connecticut’s Disappearing Surplus<div class="MsoNormal">
This campaign year Governor Dannel Malloy had hoped to present voters with a tax rebate drawn from a budget surplus. The rebate, a slender $55 per person, disappeared because the budget surplus disappeared. On Tuesday, the bad news filtered down from the legislature’s nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis; state income tax receipts for the current budget ending June 30 will fall $357 million short of what had been budgeted. The crystal ball gazers in the Malloy administration affected surprise; the governor was disappointed. He wanted everyone to know, however, that in the event Connecticut produces a future surplus, some of the over-taxation would be remitted to taxpayers by Mr. Malloy, assuming the governor is returned to office in the next election cycle.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A number of economists, the usual culprits, were trotted out to explain who killed Cock Robin.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The explanations were lucid and nuanced. One economist connected with UConn explained why “less than three months after the administration touted a $213 million surge in income tax receipts, on Wednesday, it likely will report a revenue loss close to twice that size,” according to <b><a href="http://ctmirror.org/economists-deceptive-stock-market-sequestration-scuttled-malloys-surplus/">a story in CTMirror</a></b>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“We are in a very, very different kind of world,” said Professor Fred V. Carstensen, who heads the University of Connecticut’s economic think-tank. Yes indeed, “Graduate assistants at The University of Connecticut, “according to the piece in CTMirror, “have voted to unionize -- making them the school's largest union, with 2,135 members.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The brave new world has arrived, even at Connecticut’s most pampered university. Mr. Malloy has consistently thrown tax dollars in UConn’s direction. The governor could well afford to be generous after having imposed on struggling workers in the state the largest tax increase in Connecticut’s history. Alas, it was not enough and, shortly after arriving at UConn, the university’s new president, Susan Herbst, raised tuition. UConn has become the prodigal son of Connecticut’s progressive governor. The disappearing state surplus, Mr. Carstensen was careful not to mention in his remarks to CTMirror, was to be carved out of that massive tax increase. But somewhere on the road to prosperity, the tax increase was offset by a decline in business activity.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
From Economics 101, possibly still taught at UConn, we know this: Raising taxes during the state’s longest and most crippling recession is not likely to increase business activity. That was the message delivered by then President John Kennedy in 1962 to <b><a href="http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkeconomicclubaddress.html">the New York Economic Club</a></b>. And it is growth in business that floods national and state treasuries with surplus wealth.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aEdXrfIMdiU" width="420"></iframe><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In his eye-popping speech, Mr. Kennedy reasoned: 1) increasing taxes to finance future federal programs was no longer possible because there are rational limits to all good things, and successive tax increases had outstripped the tolerance levels of taxpayers, a situation remarkably similar to present conditions in Connecticut following two massive tax increases; 2) therefore, it would be prudent to increase future revenues by decreasing marginal tax rates, which in turn would increase business activity, thereby flooding federal and state treasuries with a net increase in taxes that later might be used to finance Great Society programs. Mr. Kennedy was right on all counts.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
According to Don Klepper-Smith, once chief economic adviser to former Gov. M. Jodi Rell and presently an analyst with DataCore Partners in New Haven who is often cited in Connecticut news accounts, Connecticut is facing a “non-traditional business cycle,” and traditional tools previously used “for fixing the state budget in the two decades before the Great Recession” -- most notably a boost in the income tax – are no longer effective. In times past, Connecticut’s “heavy reliance on Wall Street and investment-related income taxes” brought the state budget from red to black.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Not anymore.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Following the CTMirror report, <b><a href="http://courantblogs.com/capitol-watch/state-projected-revenue-down-461-5-million-since-january/">the Hartford Courant noted</a></b> that all of Connecticut’s revenue streams were down. Projected Revenue was down $461.5 million since January. The state income tax, Connecticut’s largest revenue generator was down from $9.021 billion in January to $8.632 billion. The income, sales, corporate profits, inheritance and estate, and cigarettes taxes were all down.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The way to recovery for Connecticut – a long and painful road – was sketched out by Mr. Kennedy way back in 1962: Reduce taxes and excessive regulation; cut spending every year until Connecticut’s economy shows positive signs of recovery; extend the retirement period for state workers; de-unionize government operations wherever possible; end practices such as binding arbitration that drive up municipal costs; reduce municipal mandates and vote out anyone who has sacrificed the long term health of the state for temporary political advantages.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
That would be a start along a path to recovery.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-385949685214359506.post-14781622982265815792014-04-27T22:23:00.000-04:002014-04-27T22:23:24.527-04:00Blumenthal And Lerner<div class="MsoNormal">
U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal is not just your run of the mill senator. Mr. Blumenthal entered the U.S. Senate a little over three years ago after having spent twenty one years as Connecticut’s Attorney General.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The new Senator has had some difficulty shedding his attorney general’s skin. Some critics in Connecticut – there are not many – occasionally refer to him teasingly as the nation’s first consumer protection congressman.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As Attorney General of Connecticut, Mr. Blumenthal often seemed to be a consumer protection firebrand armed with subpoena power. The statutory obligations of the Attorney General’s Office have little to do with suits brought on behalf of consumers such as Big Tobacco. The Connecticut Attorney General is charged principally with representing Connecticut in legal matters involving state agencies, duties and responsibilities of the office that are detailed in the <b><a href="http://www.ct.gov/ag/cwp/view.asp?A=2175&Q=295628">Connecticut General Statutes, Section 3-125</a></b> as follows:<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
“The Attorney General shall have general supervision over all legal matters in which the state is an interested party, except those legal matters over which prosecuting officers have direction. He shall appear for the state, the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, the Secretary, the Treasurer and the Comptroller, and for all heads of departments and state boards, commissioners, agents, inspectors, committees, auditors, chemists, directors, harbor masters, and institutions and for the State Librarian in all suits and other civil proceedings, except upon criminal recognizances and bail bonds, in which the state is a party or is interested, or in which the official acts and doings of said officers are called in question, and for all members of the state House of Representatives and the state Senate in all suits and other civil proceedings brought against them involving their official acts and doings in the discharge of their duties.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The transformation of the Attorney General’s office, engineered by Senators Lieberman and Blumenthal, from a sleepy constitutional operation representing state agencies in legal matters into a big-bite consumer protection watchdog, cast considerable glitter on both politicians. The lionization of the attorney general as the “people’s lawyer,” which began with Mr. Lieberman, became embarrassingly cloying during Mr. Blumenthal’s long and much publicized reign; so much so that it was often said of the ambitious Blumenthal that the most dangerous spot in Connecticut was between the attorney general and a television camera. Both former Attorneys General successfully launched their senate careers from their publicity rich springboard.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When Mr. Blumenthal joined the U.S. Congress as Connecticut’s “senior senator,” the tug of his former shtick proved irresistible. Most recently, Mr. Blumenthal has turned his efforts toward the regulation of electronic cigarettes. E-Cigs, as they are sometimes called, are non-carcinogenic, nicotine injection systems. Unlike real cigarettes, they are neither heavily taxed nor heavily regulated, and the electronic variant has moved many cigarette smokers away from a medically costly, often demonized product. To the extent that E-Cigs have weaned cigarette smokers off the weed, the unregulated product also has reduced federal and state revenue. Mr. Blumenthal’s intervention will for this reason be welcomed by tax gobbling legislators. Revenues lost from a product widely denounced as cancer causing must be replaced somehow: Why not tax E-Cigs as if they were coffin nails – even if they are not?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ideally, one wants an official moving from the Attorney General’s office into the U.S. Senate to carry with him into his new position all his previous virtues, while leaving behind his grosser vices.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As a U.S. Senator with more than twenty years investigatory and prosecutorial experience, Mr. Blumenthal certainly is better able than other senators to defend the honor of the Congress when persons summoned by the U.S. House to offer testimony either mislead or deny to investigation committees the data congressmen need to discharge their responsibilities.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Which brings us to Lois Lerner, the head honcho of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) at a time when the IRS was effectively preventing conservative groups from exercising their constitutional rights to assemble for the purpose of engaging in political activity by subjecting such groups to extraordinary scrutiny.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Called upon by a congressional committee to give needed testimony, Ms. Lerner pronounced herself innocent of any wrongdoing and then, on the advice of counsel, proceeded to take the 5<sup>th</sup>, thus denying Congress the data it needed to accomplish the committee’s purposes and violating both the spirit and the letter of the 5<sup>th</sup> amendment, which does not allow testifiers to both proclaim their innocence and refuse to disgorge testimony on the grounds that doing so would tend to incriminate them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After the IRS Inspector General reported that the once impartial Internal Revenue Service had targeted 248 conservative Tea Party organizations for extra scrutiny, Mr. Blumenthal issued a ritualistic denunciation of the agency, but he has been mum ever since,<b><a href="http://donpesci.blogspot.com/2009/10/everything-you-were-afraid-to-ask-about_30.html"> an unusual posture for the media-seeking Blumenthal</a></b>. One can only imagine the rhetoric that would have flowed from Attorney General Blumenthal had any witness he summoned for interrogation publically announced their innocence of wrongdoing and then retreated behind the 5<sup>th</sup> amendment.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When Mr. Blumenthal was given an opportunity to vote in favor of an amendment that would have declared it “unlawful for any officer of the Internal Revenue Service to, regardless of whether the officer or employee is acting under the color of law, willfully act with the intent to injure, oppress, threaten, intimidate or single out and subject to undue scrutiny for purposes of harassment any person or organization of any state – (1) based solely or primarily on the political, economic or social positions held or expressed by the person or organization; or 2) because the person or organization has expressed a particular political, economic, or social position using any words of writing allowed by law” the senator’s starched scruples gave way, and he voted, along with eight other Democratic Senators, none of whom were up for election in 2014, to kill the amendment.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In any contest between scruples and party loyalty, the usual congressman would not hesitate to bury his scruples. Mr. Blumenthal, it was sometimes thought, was above party flackdom.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Not anymore.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-385949685214359506.post-86485913888843610942014-04-25T14:50:00.000-04:002014-04-25T14:50:53.977-04:00Pelto Introduces A Wrinkle<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw_62fU-fhyphenhyphenNaRE8YM5KEifpXaWJxHe0kt17GGRl_YwIdW9A24zH3vVHyKG2smHDVQBSywLMvB1GWgCHkjyK3V4zv0U4MK2TagSoco7hbJnfWJrkdrtA6Su9rlirHFU-XdT6_AcQS215I/s1600/Malloy_strike.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw_62fU-fhyphenhyphenNaRE8YM5KEifpXaWJxHe0kt17GGRl_YwIdW9A24zH3vVHyKG2smHDVQBSywLMvB1GWgCHkjyK3V4zv0U4MK2TagSoco7hbJnfWJrkdrtA6Su9rlirHFU-XdT6_AcQS215I/s1600/Malloy_strike.jpg" height="112" width="200" /></span></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Were it not for Working Families Party votes in the 2010 gubernatorial election, Tom Foley might be governor today. This would have been a calamity, according to Malloyalists. “If you think our education policy is tough, just imagine what it would be like under Governor Foley,” writes <b><a href="http://onlyinbridgeport.com/wordpress/working-families-party-wont-rule-out-pelto-endorsement-for-governor/#more-58018">Lennie Grimaldi on his widely read blog “Only In Bridgeport,”</a></b> citing Malloy supporters.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> “Tom Foley,” Mr. Grimaldi reminds us, “received more votes for governor on the Republican line than Dan Malloy received on the Democratic line. The 20,000-vote difference was the Connecticut Working Families Party line where Malloy’s name also appeared for an extra 26,308 votes.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Working Families Party is the political arm of Connecticut’s powerful state employee unions, most especially teachers’ unions, and they deliver votes, campaign contributions and boots on the ground to Connecticut’s progressives. Progressive candidates such as Governor Dannel Malloy, once in office, are expected to show their appreciation by endorsing policies that benefit union workers.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So far, Mr. Malloy’ policies – particularly his budgets – have favored union workers and earned the plaudits of Connecticut’s Working Families Party. But the reformist instinct runs like a volcanic stream of lava in the veins of most progressives; and so, early into his first term, Mr. Malloy got it into his head that educational reforms were necessary. In Connecticut’s urban-scape, public schools had been faltering for decades. The governor’s contemplated reforms involved dispensing rewards for good teachers, a form of merit pay, and dismissing teachers who just weren’t cutting it.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mr. Malloy immediately was forced to confront a series of practical difficulties. Given Connecticut’s elaborate union-made dismissal system, how do you construct a side-by-side process that would pass legal challenges? Answer: You have to show that the dismissed teacher is incompetent to teach. And how do you do that? Answer: You tie teacher performance to student performance as measured by state-wide standardized tests. Without an objective means of measuring teacher performance, dismissals easily might be challenged as subjective. In a system in which both administrators and workers are unionized, the hiring and firing is done by unions through administrators, straw men immobilized by legislators and governors, like Mr. Malloy, whose futures are bound up with union interests.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mr. Pelto is the voice of union interests in the battle against Common Core, an imperfect attempt to objectify student and teacher performance. He is nothing if not persistent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The pitched battle against Common Core has brought together strange political bedfellows. Common Core is opposed on the right by conservatives and libertarians who subscribe to the principle of subsidiary, which holds that important educational decisions should be made by the smallest unit affected by the decision. Education is a local affair; therefore, hiring and firing decisions should be made by school administrators, principals and superintendents of schools, a once simple process made needlessly complex by legislators who truckle to union leaders -- such as Mr. Malloy, who may be found marching on picket lines with striking union workers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In pursuit of their ideal social arrangement, the Conservative/Libertarians sometimes blow the dust off President <b><a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=15445">Franklin Roosevelt’s 1937 letter to Luther C. Stewart</a></b>, then President of the National Federation of Federal Employees, and shout from the rooftops Mr. Roosevelt’s sentiments on the proper relationship between unions and government:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p> </o:p>“Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees. Upon employees in the Federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people, whose interests and welfare require orderliness and continuity in the conduct of Government activities. This obligation is paramount. Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable. It is, therefore, with a feeling of gratification that I have noted in the constitution of the National Federation of Federal Employees the provision that ‘under no circumstances shall this Federation engage in or support strikes against the United States Government.’"</span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is needless to point out here that a progressive Roosevelt holding such views would be exceedingly reluctant to appear on picket lines; still less would he uphold the putative “right” of unionized workers to “prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But these hobgobblins do not haunt Mr. Pelto, whose immediate concern is to hasten a return to the mutually beneficial and unreformed <i>status quo ante</i> that prevailed between Connecticut’s progressive Democrats and teacher unions before Mr. Malloy was afflicted by the notion that he could not in good conscience allow the continuing deterioration of urban school systems.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">To advance this end, progressive Democrats in the General Assembly, in concert with teachers’ unions, have proposed to “diminish the weight of the state's standardized test scores as a component of the new teacher evaluation system,” <b><a href="http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-teacher-eval-change-0422-20140421,0,7973447.story">according to a story in the Hartford Courant</a></b>. The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium test is a replacement for Connecticut’s Mastery Test now being applied in 90 percent of Connecticut’s districts. Faced by increasing criticism from the left – i.e. Mr. Pelto and the Working Families Party -- Mr. Malloy has applied for a waiver to exclude the Smarter Balance test scores for a year, and Mr. Pelto has given indications that he might challenge Mr. Malloy in the upcoming gubernatorial race.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mr. Malloy’s left flank is pushing him ever further to the left, and the right has lent a shoulder to the effort. Rather than confront his importunate and increasingly well-organized opponents on his left, Mr. Malloy has chosen to raise aloft his spook stick: “If you think our education policy is tough, just imagine what it would be like under Governor Foley.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">At some point – hopefully for Mr. Malloy on the other side of the upcoming election – reality will overcome the imaginings: Urban education is a wreck, no one is fixing it, and Mr. Malloy’s noble reform venture will be written off as necessary campaign collateral damage. Republicans, as usual, will survey the urban mess and pronounce it unfixable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-385949685214359506.post-12859897500366626672014-04-18T07:20:00.000-04:002014-04-18T14:01:15.681-04:00Lawlor’s Violent Felonious Graduates<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">The piling-on began following admissions made by Lisa Wilson Foley that a contract between herself and John Rowland, a radio talk show host following his stint in prison, was fraudulent, and recently Mr. Rowland, a burr in the side of Governor Dannel Malloy, announced he had recorded his last show. On the political stump – the governor, like his beau ideal President Barrack Obama, is rarely off the political stump – Mr. Malloy, along with the usual media attack pack, had called upon WTIC to sever its relations with Mr. Rowland.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Even Mr. Malloy’s Undersecretary of Criminal Justice Michael Lawlor contributed his mite, according to <b><a href="http://www.nhregister.com/general-news/20140401/john-rowland-on-radio-show-says-he-wants-to-respect-the-process">a story in a New Haven paper</a></b></span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">. One of Mr. Rowland’s programs, Mr. Lawlor pointed out, “included talk about guns, and as a convicted felon, </span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><b><a href="http://www.nhregister.com/general-news/20140401/john-rowland-on-radio-show-says-he-wants-to-respect-the-process">Rowland is ineligible to legally own one</a></b></span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Sure, sure. But the law – even the new gun law promulgated and supported by his eminence the Undersecretary of Criminal Justice Lawlor – is a mere inconvenience to felons bent on mayhem such as, to cite only one of 21,929 ex-felons, all graduates of Mr. Lawlor’s get-out-of-jail-early Risk Reduction Earned Credit (RREC) program, Frankie “The Razor” Resto.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Following his release from prison, Mr. Resto, one of the loads of felons given early release credits by Mr. Lawlor, procured a gun – illegally – and traveled to an EZMart in Meriden, where he murdered Ibrahim Ghazal, one of the store’s co-owners. Mr. Resto used hollow nosed bullets to assure fatality and shot Mr. Ghazal in the chest after Mr. Ghazal had obliged him by surrendering the cash in his register.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Oh8Kh9tYCkE" width="420"></iframe></span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Mr. Resto, it turns out, was not the only felon awarded get-out-of-jail-early credits from Mr. Lawlor’s Risk Reduction Earned Credits Program, an Orwellian title designed to fool some of the people all of the time. <b><a href="http://donpesci.blogspot.com/2014/02/public-safety-and-woman-who-would-not.html">Mr. Lawlor’s program, smuggled past the legislature in an omnibus implementer bill</a></b> by the former co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, increases rather than reduces risks to the general public</span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Although RREC was designed to tailor release credits to remediation programs involving individual prisoners, Mr. Lawlor approved the retroactively distribution of credits to inmates who had not satisfied program requirements. The bulk of credits were disbursed to felons who could not have benefited from Mr. Lawlor’s program. Republicans have urged many times that violent criminals convicted and sentenced for such crimes as rape, assault and arson (see below) should not be able to participate in Mr. Lawlor’s blood soaked program.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Apparently, Mr. Lawlor and his padrone, Mr. Malloy, are willing to write off as collateral damage the murders committed by Mr. Resto, awarded 199 RREC days credits, and <a href="http://donpesci.blogspot.com/2012/08/another-murder-another-so-what.html#more"><b>Keslyn Mendez, (AKA) Willie Batts</b></a></span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">, who murdered a store clerk in Manchester after having been awarded 30 days RREC get-out-of-jail-early credits by Mr. Lawlor.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Until recently, the imperious Mr. Lawlor had been deaf to the pleas of his once fellow legislators. Owing to a stiff resolve on his part, nearly all the data surrounding the misnamed Risk Reaction Earned Credits Program was hidden in the weeds. Some of that information has now surfaced. As a result of the efforts of State Senator Joe Markley and former State Senator Len Suzio, Mr. Lawlor, under the pressure of an FOI complaint, has been forced to disgorge some telling data. Both Mr. Suzio and Mr. Markley have demanded that Mr. Lawlor release all the data relevant to his program -- especially information that touches upon recidivism rates. So far, Mr. Lawlor and Mr. Malloy have been able to shape the public discussion concerning the flawed RREC program which, despite its Orwellian title, <b><a href="http://donpesci.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-coming-campaign-and-public-safety.html.">will increase risks to public safety</a></b>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">According to an information sheet released by Mr. Suzio, the data thus far released by Mr. Lawlor under pressure of an FOI request indicates:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">· From 9/1/2011 through 3/4/2014, 3,821.6 years of Early Release Credits were handed out to discharged prisoners.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">· More than 50% of the identified offenses are classified as either violent or serious.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">A breakdown of crimes and number of offenses by crime category follows:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Arson: 41<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Assault: 1,795<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Burglary, Larceny, Robbery: 3,846<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Child Pornography or Risk of Injury: 414<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Drug related: 3,514<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Illegal gun activity: 623<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Kidnapping: 21<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Murder, Homicide, Manslaughter: 129<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Sexual Assault: 385<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Violation of Protective or Restraining Order: 723<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Prostitution: 98<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Violation of parole: 4,730 (any prisoner on parole obviously had been convicted of a more serious crime earlier; the file, however, had only the latest offense for which the prisoner was imprisoned, i.e., violation of parole 53a‐32. Therefore the severity of the prisoner's offenses is not apparent in these records).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Other: 4,795 (260 had no "offense" codes, remainder were not assigned crime category)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Several prisoners received more than 6 years Early Release credits.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">The newly acquired data, according to Mr. Suzio, applies only to “discharged” prisoners, not “released” prisoner: “The released group represents another 20,836 prisoners for the same time period. Furthermore, the file did not contain data on convicts remaining in prison, about 16,800 as of February 28, 2014. Thus the number of prisoners participating in the Early Release Program has been approximately 58,000 in the first 2.5 years.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: small;">Connecticut Commentary previously has called upon Mr. Malloy to</span><b><a href="http://donpesci.blogspot.com/2014/03/fire-lawlor_3.html"> fire Mr. Lawlor</a></b>.</span></div>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-385949685214359506.post-16943101962900055842014-04-15T07:23:00.000-04:002014-04-15T16:15:03.771-04:00Taking the 5th<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK4FbH8EBn0Z_6Bkd_0MdYrmjGL4MIH0qr8GCJCjIzGsI0vy5BWvbWsiCQW2_R-v4V9WC1kV4XT509wZsVZuXulXj8M1aZ5cQjjXtiW-YBKM1lKeWcIhf6HARNhtYW26lLhxtdJbxtIxM/s1600/blood_feast-1963.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK4FbH8EBn0Z_6Bkd_0MdYrmjGL4MIH0qr8GCJCjIzGsI0vy5BWvbWsiCQW2_R-v4V9WC1kV4XT509wZsVZuXulXj8M1aZ5cQjjXtiW-YBKM1lKeWcIhf6HARNhtYW26lLhxtdJbxtIxM/s1600/blood_feast-1963.jpg" height="320" width="185" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The FBI was a major player in the drama. And everything that has happened on the public stage should convince Connecticut’s General Assembly that <a href="http://inspectorsgeneral.org/blog/connecticut-reforming-the-ags-office/"><b>the state needs an Inspector General</b></a> to uproot corruption before the FBI enters the theater. When federal prosecutors turn up on the scene, Grand Guigno unfolds.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">John McKinney, a Republican running for governor this year who has not yet been drawn by federal prosecutors into the mire, has proposed just that. His proposal has been received in silence by Democratic leaders in the General Assembly who control political business in the chamber.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">The FBI intervention began when the struggle for the 5</span><sup style="line-height: 15.199999809265137px;">th</sup><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"> District U.S. Congressional seat left vacant after Chris Murphy’s elevation to the U.S. Senate seemed to be a contest between then Speaker of the State House Chris Donovan and an assortment of Republican hopefuls that included longtime State Senate leader Andrew Roraback, a late entry into the Republican primary, and three Republicans who had not held office before: Justin Bernier, Lisa-Wilson Foley and Mark Greenberg.</span> The Republican nominating convention settled upon Mr. Roraback, a senator for more than a dozen years in the redistricted Torrington, Litchfield County area, and for several years Deputy Minority Leader Pro Tempore and Minority Caucus Chairman of the State Senate. On the Democratic side, Mr. Donovan, an early favorite, ran into an FBI sting operation in the course of which he was forced to withdraw from the race after federal prosecutors had indicted several of his campaign staff.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The FBI stinger in the poorly concealed operation was former Corrections Department union steward Ray Soucy – quite a character. In the Tammany Hall of the early 1900’s, Mr. Soucy would have made a superb ward heeler. FBI agents recruited Mr. Soucy to help them infiltrate and incriminate those running the Donovan campaign operation. He was their wired canary. The apple in the Democratic Party Garden of Eden was the promise of bundled campaign contributions given mostly to Democrats and some Republicans on the understanding that they would do all in their power to snuff a bill that would have put out of business roll-your-own cigarette operations. Several of Mr. Donovan’s campaign operatives fell for Mr. Soucy’s pitch and eagerly grasped the tainted FBI supplied campaign contributions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Caught with their hands in the cookie jar, some staff members working on Mr. Donovan’s U.S. House campaign rolled over and gave additional testimony to prosecutors inclined to reduce their charges in return for their co-operation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">At one point, Mr. Soucy stuffed an envelope full of cash into a refrigerator used by Republican House leader Larry Cafero. Mr. Cafaro rejected the cash, and his aide gave instruction to Mr. Soucy how he might legally contribute to Republican campaign coffers. Mr. Cafero was told by the FBI he was not a target of their sting operation. The big fish, Mr. Donovan, was not legally compromised. Perhaps the stench of political pollution had reached his nostrils, or perhaps he had been tipped off on the FBI sting before he could be legally implicated; in any case, his campaign had been doomed. Democrats then turned to Elizabeth Esty, who defeated the Republican Party nominee, Mr. Roraback, in the general election.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So then, let’s tote up the winners and losers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Ms. Esty won the seat, clearly a win on the Democratic side. Mr. Roraback, a liberal on social issues and a fiscal conservative, lost the race. Oddly, his candidacy was not endorsed by the Hartford Courant, Connecticut’s only state-wide newspaper. Since former Governor Lowell Weicker had left Connecticut’s political stage, the Courant had been searching for just such a golden Republican candidate as Mr. Roraback to endorse. Mr. Roraback, helpful to Democrats in the General Assembly as a passionate opponent of the state’s death penalty, later was appointed a Justice to the State Superior Court </span>by Governor Dannel Malloy<span style="font-family: inherit;">, a win for Democrats. Mr. Donovan was not prosecuted, a win for him and Democrats. And then there is the continuing collateral damage arising from the Donovan sting – all of it harmful to Republicans and beneficial to Democrats.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The collateral damage involves Former Republican Governor John Rowland and Lisa Wilson Foley, one of the Republican contenders for the 5<sup>th</sup> District seat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If we brush away most of the political froth, it is not at all certain that Mr. Rowland will be packed off to prison a second time. Grand juries produce tons of damning press, because they are, essentially, prosecutorial star chambers. What we have heard so far in the media is the voice of the prosecution. The charges against Mr. Rowland, some lawyers believe, are weak – if <b><i>he</i></b> did not falsify his tax records. The public case against Mr. Rowland – what for lack of a better word we should call the ethical case -- is damning, but judges, unlike political commentators, are not much interested in romping through the souls of politicians. Mr. Rowland, not an active politician, allegedly made a pitch to Ms. Foley to help her in her campaign on the sly; he entered into agreement with a second Republican contender for the 5<sup>th</sup> District seat to do the same. That second agreement never bore fruit, because the second politician, Mr. Greenberg, presently an announced Republican candidate for the 5<sup>th</sup> District, was more ethically fine-tuned than either Faust or Satan. As a grown-up, Ms. Foley was perfectly capable of resisting the tempter, as Mr. Greenberg had done. The case against Mr. Rowland is far from a slam dunk. It is a difficult case to prosecute, and its outcome is by no means certain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A “but" follows.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s difficult for Democrats to exploit this one politically. The two principal actors involved are a candidate for office who has never held a political position and a political commentator. The very possibility of political corruption among Republicans is slight because they are not in a power broker’s position. The political heights are commanded by Democrats. They <b><i><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">own</span></i></b><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"> </span>the political trading floor – all of it: the governor’s office, all the constitutional offices and both houses of the General Assembly. If Republicans wanted to trade political favors for money or power, it’s difficult to see how the matter could be arranged. It is possible that the FBI has not yet given serious attention to the real distribution of political power in Connecticut. The political game, all of it, has been moved into the Democrat’s court. You cannot rob a bank in which there is no money. Republicans in Connecticut are power-broke, and it is only a matter of time before federal prosecutors and political commentators in Connecticut embrace the shattering revelation – at which point all the big guns may pivot towards Democrats, proprietors of Connecticut’s one party state.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-385949685214359506.post-12127324985537835202014-04-10T20:54:00.001-04:002014-04-10T20:54:53.134-04:00Malloy On The Stump, An Orwellian Perspective<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A few weeks after announcing he would not officially begin his campaign until the General Assembly had shut down its short three month session in May, Governor Dannel Malloy officially opened his gubernatorial campaign in Stamford, his old political stomping grounds. Mr. Malloy had been mayor of Stamford for four four-year terms before becoming governor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In Stamford, Mr. Malloy explained his “early” announcement to reporters who long ago had exploded the absurdity that he was not running for governor. He had in fact been campaigning behind the veil for some time; like his counterpart in the beltway, President Barack Obama, Mr. Malloy is a perpetual campaigner. And like most politicians, he is given to telling what Mark Twain used to call “stretchers.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><a href="about:invalid#zClosurez">The Stamford Advocate reported</a></b> on the switcheroo:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Malloy said that, in part, his rationale for waiting to make his re-election effort official was to avoid distractions during his recent successful effort to get the General Assembly to enact legislation to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"’I didn't want to politicize that issue unduly,’ Malloy said. ‘I talked to Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman several times about when is the right time to start the campaign, and this seemed like the right time.’"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The General Assembly, some reporters know, is Mr. Malloy’s Pomeranian, the Connecticut legislature having been dominated by Democrats ages ago, long before some of the state’s younger reporters were wetting their diapers. Perhaps one of them is keeping a record of Mr. Malloy’s politically opportune fantasies. If so, he or she will understand the full import of George Orwell’s remark that “To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In an essay that ought to be required reading in all journalism schools titled “<i><b><a href="http://orwell.ru/library/articles/nose/english/e_nose">Under Your Nose</a></b></i>,” Mr. Orwell wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we <b><i>know</i></b> to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: The only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.”</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mr. Malloy’s official Stamford announcement gave Mr. Malloy the opportunity to stop road testing his campaign and launch his vehicle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mr. Malloy’s 2014 campaign appears to be a replication of President Barack Obama 2012 presidential campaign. Connecticut has been battered by a rough economic climate, Mr. Malloy told the Democratic in Stamford. He was careful not to draw the connection between Connecticut’s sluggish economy and Obamanomics. Hey, sluggish economies happen. The national recession ended in 2009. However, about three in five jobs added since the recession’s end pay less than $13.83 per hour. Lower-wage occupations were 21 percent of recession losses and 58 percent of recovery growth, while mid-wage occupations were 60 percent of recession losses and only 22 percent of recovery growth. Connecticut still lags behind the nation in job growth. As of August 2013, the <b><a href="http://newenglandcouncil.com/assets/CT-NEEP-FALL-2013.pdf">New England Economic Partnership (NEEP) reported</a></b>, “Connecticut had regained 62,200 jobs, or 51.3% of those lost. By comparison, the U.S. economy had recovered 78.2% of the 8.6 million recession jobs that it lost.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">During his first term as president, Mr. Obama commanded the heights: The presidency and both houses of Congress had fallen to Democrats. Instead of focusing the energies of his office on repairing the collapsed housing market – which would have been a painful ordeal for the progressive president – Mr. Obama reached for the stars and pulled Obamacare out of his hat. He also engaged in corporate cronyism on a massive scale and managed to pull off a win against moderate Republican Mitt Romney by capturing the “social issues” battleground from which Republicans had retreated with their tails between their legs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mr. Malloy’s campaign strategy may be deduced from the remarks he made in Stamford. The Malloy program no doubt has been laboratory tested by one of the many strategy groups in the business of winning campaigns. Global Strategy, whose Vice President Roy Occhiogrosso continued to speak in news reports in favor of Mr. Malloy long after he had disassociated himself from the Malloy administration, likely will play some behind the curtain role in Mr. Malloy’s re-election effort. But as governor of a northeast progressive state, Mr. Malloy will be able to draw upon a vast reservoir of political magicians, some tied by progressive political umbilical cords to the Obama administration, many of which are not formally associated with political parties.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In Stamford, Mr. Malloy said that Connecticut’s economy was on the mend, largely owing to his programs. Connecticut’s pre-Malloy “$3.6 billion deficit, the greatest deficit in the nation on a per-capita basis," has been liquidated. In fact, the deficit has been resilient to Mr. Malloy’s ministrations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Connecticut’s non-partisan Office of Fiscal Analysis (OFA) and the Governor's budget office, the Office of Policy and Management (OPM), have both <b><a href="http://www.hartfordbusiness.com/article/20140106/PRINTEDITION/301029941">projected a deficit of about $1 billion in the next 2016 biennial budget</a></b>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mr. Malloy reduced a major portion of his “inherited deficit” through<b><a href="http://www.yankeeinstitute.org/2011/02/gov-malloys-twenty-one-tax-increases/"> the imposition of the largest tax increase in state history</a></b>, a $1.5 billion tax on entrepreneurs and business people who might have used the dollars appropriated by a Democratic Governor and a Democratic dominated General Assembly to invigorate Connecticut’s painfully slow, nearly jobless recovery.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mr. Malloy’s tax increase was not mentioned during his re-election stump speech in Stamford, which is on a par with offering a history of the Elizabethan period in Britain that does not mention Queen Elizabeth. Neither did Mr. Malloy mention that Republican Governors Jodi Rell and John Rowland did not have at their command a Republican dominated General Assembly. Although it is the legislature that shapes and affirms budgets presented to it by the executive office, Mr. Malloy was content in his Stamford re-election announcement to lay at Mrs. Rell’s feet the debt he inherited. Mrs. Rell is likely to play in Mr. Malloy’s coming campaign the same <span style="background-color: white;">opéra bouff role </span>played by outgoing President George Bush in Mr. Obama’s first – and second – presidential campaigns.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mr. Orwell noted in his <i>“Under Your Nose”</i> essay that political fantasies eventually bump into reality, at which point, usually too late, those who have been lulled to sleep awaken with truth-blistered eyes:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“In private life most people are fairly realistic. When one is making out one's weekly budget, two and two invariably make four. Politics, on the other hand, is a sort of sub-atomic or non-Euclidean world where it is quite easy for the part to be greater than the whole or for two objects to be in the same place simultaneously. Hence the contradictions and absurdities I have chronicled above, all finally traceable to a secret belief that one's political opinions, unlike the weekly budget, will not have to be tested against solid reality.”</span><o:p></o:p><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-385949685214359506.post-87795359024600624222014-04-06T13:34:00.000-04:002014-04-07T14:22:38.046-04:00The Permanent Opposition<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKgD59K4Sb0OWX5qFGqpEsSUGBq91cNPsI7GALfsw_2TIHU7zFD1-cTBFWvK4etCAhvCStQs7gQv-EmFDZpwAnaufQgsrPYgfD5eImdGxNzof_wtyDJONAb_PKwbYNo10cyJhXogFkUrw/s1600/gun+rally+2014+April.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKgD59K4Sb0OWX5qFGqpEsSUGBq91cNPsI7GALfsw_2TIHU7zFD1-cTBFWvK4etCAhvCStQs7gQv-EmFDZpwAnaufQgsrPYgfD5eImdGxNzof_wtyDJONAb_PKwbYNo10cyJhXogFkUrw/s1600/gun+rally+2014+April.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">On April 5<sup>th</sup>, a year after Connecticut’s predominantly Democratic General Assembly had passed into law the most restrictive gun legislation in the nation, opponents of the legislation rallied on the North side of the Capitol in Hartford.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">The event was well attended: Capitol police estimated the crowd at 3,000; those hosting the event, the Connecticut Citizens Defense League (CCDL), placed the figure at 5,000. None of those present at the rally had been called upon by the General Assembly to offer testimony on the final bill, which itself was billed as an adequate and necessary response to<b><a href="http://donpesci.blogspot.com/search?q=sandy+hook"> a mass slaying at the Newtown Sandy Hook Elementary School</a></b>. The final bill was passed without a public hearing by a legislature operating in the absence of information contained in a <b><a href="http://donpesci.blogspot.com/search?q=sandy+hook+AND+criminal+investigation">much too delayed criminal investigation</a></b>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Governor Dannel Malloy – once a prosecutor who, Mr. Malloy has often said, had tried criminal cases – declared at the time that the data contained in the criminal report was quite unnecessary; Mr. Malloy and the legislature knew enough about the events surrounding the massacre at Sandy Hook to write legislation that would in the future serve to prevent such occurrences everywhere in the state. The gun regulation bill would advance the public safety, the public was assured, public safety being the primary responsibility of both national and state governments.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That was not all the governor said. Early on, Mr. Malloy, the complete politician from head to toe, seemed to understand, almost intuitively, that gun regulation might be a useful prop in the coming political campaign. Indeed, Mr. Malloy’s campaign howitzer was pointed directly at the National Rifle Association (NRA), what he regards as unreasonable defenders of the U.S. Constitution’s 2<sup>nd</sup> Amendment, Tea Party zanies and -- a bit surprising for the head of a state that has produced few jobs since 1991 -- gun manufacturers in what had been called since the American Revolution “the provision state.” Not only gun manufacturers but large corporations such as Pratt&Whitney still provide the U.S. government with war material. Even now, Connecticut is, to turn a phrase coined by Mr. Malloy, “still revolutionary.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And yet here was the governor of a still revolutionary state telling gun manufacturers that they cared only for profits. “What this is about,” Mr. Malloy said on one of his frequent national television appearances, “is the ability of the gun industry to sell as many guns to as many people as possible -- even if they are deranged, even if they are mentally ill, even if they have a criminal background. They don’t care. They want to sell guns” -- meaning the flinty hearts of gun manufacturers did not bleed for the innocent victims of a mass murder in Sandy Hook. These sub-humans were interested only in filthy lucre.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Compassion for the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre, the people of Connecticut were to understand, was a rare and tender emotion cherished only by politicians such as Mr. Malloy and U.S. Senators Dick Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, all of whom were determined to blunt the outsized influence of the NRA. To date, more than a year after the slayings, Connecticut Senators Blumenthal and Murphy have not been successful in persuading U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to bring a gun restriction bill before the Democratic controlled Senate. We are given to understand that Mr. Reid is not uncompassionate; he simply lacks votes in the Democratic controlled chamber to pass a measure mirroring Connecticut’s highly restrictive gun law.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is the insulting obduracy of <b><a href="http://donpesci.blogspot.com/2013/07/blumenthal-and-murphy-to-connecticut.html#more">Mr. Malloy and Mr. Murphy in particular</a></b> – Mr. Blumenthal has been slightly more cautious in his language – that has created what is now a permanent political opposition Connecticut. The trick in politics always is to slide your proposals, particularly pointless ones, past the noses of those deleteriously affected by them, not to bash them with inept demagoguery. Mr. Murphy and Mr. Malloy have made it impossible for their most virulent opponents to shrug off their persistent attacks as political posturing, the principal aim of which is to attract votes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The </span>CCDL<span style="font-family: inherit;"> rally in Harford, four months in the making, was by any measure a success. The large crowd -- rallying around the U.S. and State Constitutions, the flag and what they consider misguided legislation -- were animated and goal directed: Their goal, of course, was to flush anti-constitutional demons from the building they faced and to prevent further legislative encroachments on liberties hard won by the architects of the American Republic. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">The statues of the founders of Connecticut looked down upon them from the heights of the building. Quotes from Jefferson and Madison adorned their signs. There were scores of women and children in the crowd -- and out of state participants from New Jersey, New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Mississippi, West Virginia, about a dozen states in total, according to CCDL organizers. Most of the speakers mentioned, in one way or another, the bountiful fruits of a politics of limits: Governments were not created to put men in chains, but rather to permit men and women to guard with their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor the God given fruits of liberty heralded in the founding documents.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-385949685214359506.post-36056464002636479562014-04-02T16:11:00.000-04:002014-04-04T14:14:03.843-04:00Corruption in Corrupticut<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Not all corruption is equal.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In a recent column, “<b><a href="http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/op_ed/hc-op-rennie-a-kennedy-stirs-connecticut-politics--20140328,0,1387080.column">A Kennedy Stirs Connecticut's Politics</a></b>,” Kevin Rennie sideswiped departing Republican
leader Larry Cafero, who is to the Republican Party what Rocky Marciano was to
boxing, a hard slugger:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Cafero got snagged in a 2012 federal investigation into campaign contributions
and legislation. He was caught on video as an informant deposited $5,000 in
cash into a refrigerator in Cafero's office. The money was converted into
campaign contributions from straw donors, and the scheme was revealed last year
during the criminal trial of a campaign aide to former Speaker of the House
Christopher Donovan.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“What a mess Cafero leaves in his wake. His gelatinous, silent deputies,
Reps. Themis Klarides and Vincent Candelora, have disgraced
themselves beyond repair for failing to take a stand for honor during this long
fiasco. They will wear Cafero's deep stains for however long they remain in
public life.”</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And the sins of the
political father shall be visited upon the heads of his political children – yea,
even to the tenth generation: “… gelatinous, silent deputies… have disgraced
themselves beyond repair… They will wear Cafero’s deep stains for however long
they remain in public life.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And the stain that
has dishonored Cafero and his gelatinous deputies is … what exactly?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
An “informant,” Ray
Soucy, tapped by the FBI as a singing canary, deposited an envelope containing
$5,000 in cash “into a refrigerator in Cafero’s office.” Apparently – though we
may never know for certain – Mr. Soucy was given the cash by the FBI and told –
though we may never know for certain – to make use of it to incriminate Mr.
Cafero. Mr. Soucy had earlier used money provided to him to incriminate several
associates of then <b><a href="http://donpesci.blogspot.com/search?q=chris+donovan">Speaker of the House Chris Donovan</a></b>. The net cast over the troubled waters by
the FBI snagged a few Donovan operatives, but the big fish, Mr. Donovan, got
away. Mr. Donovan’s campaign for the 5<sup>th</sup> District seat in the U.S.
House collapsed in ruins under the hammer blows of the FBI investigation.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The attempt to
ensnare Mr. Cafero failed when the Republican leader in the General Assembly
noticed Mr. Soucy stuffing the cash in the refrigerator and rejected the FBI
bagman’s fraudulent cash donation.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Speculation may and
usually does run wild at this point. Did Mr. Cafero know when the cash was
being stuffed in the fridge that Mr. Soucy was an FBI plant? Probably not,
because following Refrigeratorgate, Mr. Cafero did accept from Mr. Soucy tainted
donations in the form of checks that he apparently did not know were tainted.
The FBI later would advise Mr. Cafero he was not a target of their
investigation. Mr. Soucy, the FBI plant, was successful in delivering tainted
campaign funds to several of Mr. Donovan’s associates, some of whom were
convicted and sentenced to prison. But Mr. Donovan, his campaign for the U.S.
House in tatters, escaped the prison noose. The play of events suggests –
though, of course, we may never know for certain – that the sting operation, at
some point, may have been compromised. In any case, the Big Fishes wriggled
free, and the FBI was satisfied with smaller fry. None of Mr. Cafero’s
gelatinous associates were arrested, very possibly because neither Reps. Themis
Klarides nor Vincent Candelora had accepted tainted campaign donations.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Never-the-less, the
two targets of Mr. Rennie’s outrage, Ms. Klarides and Mr. Candelora, are not
merely gelatinous; they “have disgraced themselves beyond repair; they are
dishonorable; they will “wear Cafero's deep stains for however long they remain
in public life.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So says Connecticut’s
equivalent of Nathanial Hawthorne’s the Reverend Master Dimmesdale, Hester
Prynne’s godly pastor in the <i>Scarlet
Letter</i>. The Reverend Dimmesdale was a secret sinner always in good odor
with his flock:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
'People say,' said another, 'that, her godly pastor, takes it very
grievously to his heart that such a scandal has come upon his
congregation."<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In any partisan
commentary that has pretentions to non-partisanship, fairness equates to equal
flailing. If you whip a Republican who richly deserves the whipping – say, a
felonious governor – you must find a Democrat to whip, so that the pans of your
justice scale will be evenly balanced. If you whip a Democratic Speaker of the
House, you must find on the Republican side someone equally odious you must
flail. And the weight of the accusation must appear to be equivalent – even
when the justice pans bear different weights.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is no indication
– NONE – that Ms. Klarides deserves the letter “A” Mr. Rennie has pinned upon
her. Mr. Cafero’s honor was not damaged by an FBI canary whose cash campaign
contribution he rejected, as politely as possible. The sting operation is as
old as Adam and Eve: The serpent in the garden is God’s advocate sent upon the
earth, like the FBI, to seek the ruin of men’s souls. Sometimes the satanic
advocate, the tester of men, succeeds, sometimes not.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Both Mr. Donovan and
Mr. Cafero rejected the overtures of the FBI’s satanic advocate, Mr. Soucy,
once a union leader in Connecticut’s prison system. Because Mr. Soucy had co-operated with the FBI, he avoided jail
time. Donovangate should put Mr. Rennie
in mind of a remark made by Bill Buckley following a failed 1957 coup plot
against Indonesian strongman Sukarno: "The attempted assassination of
Sukarno last week,” Mr. Buckley wrote in National Review, “had all the earmarks
of a CIA operation. Everyone in the room was killed except Sukarno."<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Measured by the
number of top dogs upon whom the shadow of the prison fell, the Donovan sting
operation was far from successful. Perhaps Mr. Rennie will devote one of his
columns to explaining why and then demand that the General Assembly create an
Inspector General Office to examine and prosecute future cases of corruption in
Connecticut, the state that regulates everything but itself.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-385949685214359506.post-18072922682913484462014-04-01T19:05:00.000-04:002014-04-02T13:59:27.137-04:00Rowland The Tar Baby<div class="MsoNormal">
Henry David Thoreau used to say that most ways of making money lead downward. The way downward will be swift for John Rowland, former governor of Connecticut and, very likely, former radio talk show host.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lisa Wilson Foley and her husband Brian Foley pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court to having paid Mr. Rowland for “secret political assistance” by means of a sham contract, a violation of campaign finance law.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Brian Foley fessed up after federal authorities threatened to prosecute his wife. The Foleys admitted culpability in court. Lisa Wilson-Foley said, "I did not report money that my husband paid to John Rowland while he was working on my campaign," and her husband said, “I knowingly and intentionally conspired with co-conspirator one, who was John Rowland." Prosecutors negotiated with the Foleys a plea agreement under the terms of which the Foleys pled guilty to misdemeanor charges that carry a maximum penalty of a year in prison.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Having secured the co-operation of the Foleys, prosecutors will now turn their attention towards Mr. Rowland, who really ought to have read<b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Prince-Providence-Americas-Notorious/dp/0375759670"> <i>The Prince of Providence</i></a></b>, a book that details the life and times of former Providence Mayor Buddy Cianci, who was, like Mr. Rowland, also a radio talk show host following his release from prison on corruption charges. Mr. Cianci, who carried with him into his radio talk show most of his vices and few of his virtues, was twice jailed, twice won the mayoralty of Providence, and twice sought refuge in radio talk show land.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was Mr. Rowland, Connecticut’s political tar baby, who first approached the Foleys with a proposition. He would help Lisa Wilson Foley win her contest for a U.S. House seat in the 5<sup>th</sup> Congressional District. There was, however, a proviso: Any assistance from radio talk show host Rowland must be masked – <b><i>and renumerated</i></b>. It was the renumeration, not the assistance, that caught Mr. Rowland’s foot in the prosecutorial snare.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Connecticut’s political commentators have sometimes passed from political commentating to politics without much unfavorable notice.<b><a href="http://donpesci.blogspot.com/2007/11/oneill-rip.html"> Charlie Morse, perhaps the longest serving political commentator at the Hartford Courant</a></b>, joined the Lowell Weicker gubernatorial campaign after having written scores of columns favorable to Mr. Weicker, but Mr. Morse never accepted payment from Mr. Weicker for having written the columns. That’s a journalistic no-no. <o:p></o:p>However, he did continue writing about Mr. Weicker for the Courant after having accepted a job in the Weicker administration, which is also a no-no and amounts to journalistic renumeration.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
These speed bumps were no bar to Mr. Rowland, who had in the past spent some time in prison after having pled guilty to a charge of “depriving the public of honest service” when he was governor of Connecticut.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Following Mr. Rowland’s conviction, which itself followed an aborted impeachment, <b><a href="http://donpesci.blogspot.com/2005/03/johnny-we-hardly-knewye.html">Hugh Keefe, who had defended many politicians caught in the coils of corruption</a></b>, noted that Mr. Rowland had compromised his reputation for nickels and dimes: “…when you look closely at what he did, it was nickels and dimes. And I've known a lot of politicians, who I can talk about now because they're dead, and what was going on in the Rowland administration is really not out of line with what I know was going on in the '50s, '60s and ‘70s.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
According to prosecutors, the Lisa-Wilson Foley caper netted Mr. Rowland $35,000 – nickels and dimes.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And the tar baby soiled everyone he touched. Former Connecticut Party Chairman Chris Healy was a senior advisor to the Lisa-Wilson Foley campaign. Mr. Healy, “Political Advisor 1” in prosecution documents, authored a public statement in 2012 “denying Rowland was being paid by the Wilson-Foley campaign and saying Rowland had a paid business relationship with Foley's nursing home chain,” <b><a href="http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-rowland-0401-20140330,0,6612237,full.story">according to Hartford Courant story</a></b>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Queried by a courant reporter on his false statement, Mr. Healy “said that his statement only repeated what the Foleys and Rowland told him, and that he didn't know it was false. In light of Monday's guilty pleas, he said, the Foleys ‘did not tell me the truth, obviously,’ and ‘I guess’ Rowland didn't either.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mr. Rowland may have lied to his employer as well. Early last month, retired news director for WFSB-TV3 in Hartford Dick Ahles wrote in <b><a href="http://www.journalinquirer.com/opinion/other_commentary/doubts-about-rowland-on-the-radio/article_1361a3e0-a473-11e3-8791-0019bb2963f4.html">an op-ed piece in the Journal Inquirer</a></b>, “Rowland works for a respected news organization, one of the few left on the radio. If a newspaper columnist, paid to express his opinion on politics and politicians, was employed by a candidate or her husband or even working voluntarily for a candidate without telling his readers, he’d be fired or at least have his column taken away until the matter was settled.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The matter of the Big Lie, <b><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/215566883/Brian-Foley-and-Lisa-Wilson-Foley-federal-case-documents">according to the emails provided in prosecution documents</a></b>, has been settled, and the spreading tar ought to be contained.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-385949685214359506.post-72228908919389070052014-03-31T12:12:00.000-04:002014-03-31T12:13:36.845-04:00Social Issues And The Coming Campaign<div class="MsoNormal">
A few weeks ago, Governor Dannel Malloy said that people in Connecticut would have to wait until May to discover whether he would run again as governor. He then surprised everyone by tossing his hat into the ring during a recent bond hearing meeting. In fact, the campaign had begun much earlier; the cake was baked even though it lacked the cherry on top. Before his official declaration, Mr. Malloy had said he was much too busy running the state to engage prematurely in a political campaign. He told one reporter that it would be inopportune for him to engage in a political campaign before Republican gubernatorial aspirants had an opportunity to beat up on each other? The pretense was a great tease, strategically necessary but still an obvious imposture.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Republican gubernatorial field has now been fully fleshed out. Martha Dean, who previously had engaged in campaigns for the Attorney General, was a little late, but she got in before the door closed.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Many commentators feel that Ms. Dean and Joe Visconti, who once ran against Democratic fixture John Larson for the U.S. House, are second tier candidates in a crowded Republican field that includes Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, former Ambassador to Ireland Tom Foley, Shelton Mayor Mark Lauretti, and Senate Minority Leader John P. McKinney. A recent Quinnipiac University poll shows Mr. Foley leading the pack by wide margins when matched against Mr. Malloy.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Questions concerning campaign sustainability have arisen in connection with the candidacies of Ms. Dean and Mr. Visconti.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mr. Visconti has vowed not to disappear. Ms. Dean said she might maintain her campaign beyond the nominating convention depending upon her support. Essentially, both have said, “We’ll see.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Their campaign boats have been pushed from shore by three groups: Tea Party folk, gun owners and constitutionalists. In addition, they may expect to receive support from libertarians, who are chiefly interested in individual rights, and some establishment conservatives, who are interested chiefly in economic issues. Among all these groups, there are overlapping political interests. If it were possible to speak of them together as an alliance of interests, they very easily could decide a gubernatorial election in Connecticut. But, of course, there is an uneasy alliance among these separate groups. The trick is to bring them together somehow.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Democratic campaigns generally are better organized -- for obvious reasons. Democrats have conducted more successful campaigns than Republicans and now are strategically placed on what may be called “the political heights”: The governor’s office, both Houses of the General Assembly, all the constitutional offices and the entire U.S. Congressional delegation have been moved into the Democratic column. In addition, Connecticut’s media is temperamentally allied with the Democrat’s progressive putsch.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For all practical purposes, Connecticut has now become a one party state. In the past, the Connecticut Republican Party had relied upon so called “moderates’ to attain a place at the political table. But in recent years, Republican moderates have been replaced by Democratic progressives. When then U.S. Congressman Chris Shays lost his race to U.S. Representative Jim Himes, he was the last remaining Republican moderate in New England – which suggests that the moderate Republican message is no longer persuasive. In the U.S. House, Nancy Johnson and Rob Simmons also lost office. Moderate Republican campaigns were centered upon economic issues alone; which is to say, moderate Republicans ceded half their campaign ground to their opponents before a single shot in the campaign had been fired. Mitt Romney surrendered a good deal of ground in his presidential campaign against President Barack Obama. This has not been a winning strategy. It did not take Dannel Malloy, the first Democratic governor elected since Governor Bill O’Neill, to absorb the message that Republicans were of no account. His first budget was constructed without <span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.18181800842285px;">any </span>Republican input.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The steady, long term retreat on so called “social issues” has weakened Republican campaigns.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Retreat is defeat. Nationally – and especially after the Obama-Romney campaign – Republicans seem no longer inclined to allow progressive Democrats to define social issues. But it would appear that the glad tidings have not yet reached Connecticut, once the land of steady habits, many of which have been radically altered by an aggressive progressive juggernaut. Connecticut Republicans have permitted extremist progressives to define social issues in a very narrow way that suits their political objectives.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But in fact politics – most especially bill writing – is inescapably tied to “social issues” in the broadest sense. There is not a single piece of legislation written in Connecticut, or in the nation either, that has no social repercussions. All bills shape the social sphere; and if they did not, they would be redundant. Why is abortion and not the economy a “social issue?” In Connecticut, “socially moderate” Republicans have simply abandoned the field to progressives. This is a defeatist strategy. If you’ve surrendered half the political battlefield to the opposition, why should you be surprised when the war turns in their favor? <b><a href="http://www.ctfamily.org/blog/2013/06/20/connecticuts-callous-congresswomen/">Abortion on demand during the late stages of pregnancy</a></b>, except to save the life of the mother, is an extreme position. It is not at all unreasonable for politicians to insist that abortion facilities should have on hand a doctor who has admitting privileges in nearby hospitals; neither is it an extreme imposition for the state to require that abortion facilities meet the requirements for Ambulatory Surgical Centers. Surely a “moderate” position on abortion would fall short of infanticide? Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whose seat upon his retirement was taken by Hillary Clinton, said he could not support partial birth abortion because it seemed to him a form of infanticide.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And Mr. Moynihan also had some ideas, considered politically risky at the time, concerning the effect that the disappearance of the father from the black family would have on social dislocations and urban poverty.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mr. Moynihan was a prophet unloved in his own party – but, for all that, a superb social analyst. Most fair-minded people would call him a “moderate” Democrat. His kind has completely vanished in Connecticut. It is now considered the greatest impertinence to talk sensibly about the effects that progressive programs have had on the marginally poor in cities, and those who do make a correlation between social programs and the disappearing traditional black family are shouted down as obscurantists at best, racists at worst. These are the “social issues” moderate Republicans have abandoned to Democrats, along with issues of public safety. Is public safety a social issue?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In urban areas in Connecticut, where Mr. Moynihan’s prophecies have gone unheeded and come true, mothers and children sometime worry about the public safety, the quality of education in cities, and the difference that life without a father can make on young boys – all social issues. In Chicago, where unemployment among African American boys is ninety-two percent, the city is considering an<b><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/18/chicago-minimum-wage-referendum_n_4468417.html"> increase in the minimum wage from $8.25 to $15.00 an hour</a></b>. It is not likely that unemployed African American boys in Chicago seriously suppose that artificial increases in the price of labor will increase their employment rate. In the long run, the absence of jobs may be a worse social curse than poverty. People can elevate themselves from poverty by getting jobs, keeping them, improving themselves by degrees through education, delaying childbirth until they are married, staying married; that is the usual route out of poverty.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But what if there are no jobs? What then? What if most urban schools are underperforming? What then? What if marriage as a live option has all but disappeared in cities among African Americans? Then what? These are the prevailing conditions in many cities in Connecticut. What if, further, much of what a progressive government has done to ameliorate conditions brought on by poverty has only worsened the problems? What then? It was possible nearly fifty years ago, in the age of Moynihan, to ask such questions and expect a reasoned debate on social issues.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But not now. Audacious questioners are shunned, most especially by the establishment media. This is the social fire that has singed the pants of Republicans. Such topics are whispered in private. They flee the field, and leave the poor and dispossessed to progressive Democrats. The Republican Party is a ghostly presence in Connecticut’s largest cities. Hartford, Bridgeport and New Haven are one-party cities and have been such for decades. Are the poor less poor in one party cities? And why should anyone suppose that a one party state would be more successful than major cities run for decades by single parties?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Democrats in the General Assembly just voted to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 by 2017. The governor – and President Barrack Obama, who has been fulsome in his praise of Mr. Malloy's energetic embrace of <b><a href="http://www.courant.com/business/hc-medicare-advantage-patients-0323-20140329,0,7427342,full.story">Mr. Obama’s failed programs </a></b>-- argues that the wage increase will trickle down to businesses in the state because those making a minimum wage will spend the increase immediately, thus stimulating Connecticut’s economy.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We don’t know exactly how many people in Connecticut make minimum wage, or who they are. The rhetoric coming from Malloyalists suggests the governor thinks most of them are women. An increase in the minimum wage therefore will help to mitigate the baleful effects of the Republican Party’s alleged “War On Women.”<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, let’s just pause here to examine these few propositions. First, the “War On Women” is little more than Orwellian Newspeak. Much of the data suggests that an increase in the minimum wage adversely affects African American teenagers in cities, yet no Republican in Connecticut running for governor has yet said that by supporting an increase in the minimum wage Mr. Malloy and the mostly white Democratic caucus in the General Assembly have declared war on urban African American boys. The majority of working women in Connecticut draw salaries above the minimum wage. As such, they are in the same economic boat as most working men in the state. Does Mr. Malloy believe that <i>these</i> women – all victims, like men, of the largest tax increase in state history – would be conducting “a war on women” should they, on sound economic grounds alone, resist the Malloyalist urge to buy votes by artificially increasing the price of labor?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The most efficient way to stimulate the economy is through payroll tax reductions. A tax reduction, because it leaves the salaried worker with more of his own money, has the same simulative effect as a state mandated salary increase. Why then does Mr. Malloy suppose that only <i>some</i> increases in disposable income are returned to the economy as economic stimulators? Mr. Malloy has given millions of dollars in tax receipts taken from middle class workers to multi-billion dollar companies. He has given low interest loans and tax rebates to companies he feels might bolt Connecticut without such tax relief, a grudging admission that companies flee both the regulatory state and high taxes. And it has been Mr. Malloy’s tax increases on nail salon owners, among other female entrepreneurs, that has made it possible for him to generously dispense tax funds to companies he believes are worthy “investments.” Investing money in companies is essentially a stock marketing function best done by people whose business it is to pick winners and losers in a competitive marketplace. Sometimes they make good choices, and sometimes not. But the money they invest does not come from nail salon owners they have taxed for the purpose of crafting tax reductions, rebates and low interest loans for<b><a href="http://www.providencejournal.com/opinion/commentary/20140309-chris-powell-conn.-economic-plan-is-con-job.ece"> non-profit entities such as Jackson Laboratories</a></b>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
These are all social issues; they all effect the future social, political and economic configuration of Connecticut. And the state will not be directed towards a more just and equitable path if the Republican Party lacks the courage to confront Democrats on pressing social issues of the day.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-385949685214359506.post-56522442569312163482014-03-22T13:22:00.000-04:002014-03-22T13:22:40.973-04:00Connecticut’s Media-Progressive Complex: Or -- It’s The Spending, Not The Taxes, Stupid<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
CTMirror asks in a recent story <b><a href="http://ctmirror.org/is-it-time-to-overhaul-connecticuts-tax-system/">“Is it time to overhaul Connecticut’s tax system?”</a></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The progressive wing of the Democratic Party, now in the ascendency in Connecticut, has been trying to “reform” the tax system ever since it was last reformed in 1991 by then Governor Lowell Weicker, the father of Connecticut’s income tax.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the course of its story, CTMirror quotes William Cibes, identified as “state budget director under Weicker and also co-chairman of the finance committee in 1989-90,” on property taxes. Mr. Cibes recently testified before the General Assembly’s Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee, which in the next few weeks will endorse a measure “that could launch a top-to-bottom analysis of how Connecticut taps taxpayers’ wallets.” Mr. Cibes testified that “high property taxes are a major reason why Connecticut’s tax system is broken. So property tax relief would lessen the economic burden on businesses, municipalities and individuals… Property taxes are relatively stable. But when a state relies excessively on property taxes to fund important services like education, infrastructure and public safety, businesses and individuals are punished.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mr. Cibes’ statement was remarkably similar to an <b><a href="http://ctmirror.org/op-ed-connecticuts-taxing-dilemma/">earlier </a></b><b><a href="http://ctmirror.org/op-ed-connecticuts-taxing-dilemma/">Op-Ed piece printed in CTMirror</a> </b>written by John A. Elsesser, the town manager of Coventry: “The good thing about property taxes is that they are relatively stable. As part of an overall revenue structure, which is relatively balanced among taxes on property, sales and income, they make sense. But when a state relies excessively on local property taxes to fund governmental services, as does Connecticut, it’s reasonable to begin working to fix what House Speaker Brendan Sharkey has termed a ‘broken’ tax system.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mr. Cibes and Mr. Weicker were both prime movers in the effort to adopt an income tax. While campaigning for governor, former Republican U.S. Senator Weicker, running within a party of his own making, had eschewed an income tax as a means of liquidating a Democratic generated billion dollar deficit. Adopting an income tax, gubernatorial campaigner Weicker said, would be “like pouring gasoline on a fire.” Mr. Cibes had run for governor on an income tax platform, but he and his platform were decisively rejected at the time by 65% of <b><i>Democrats</i></b>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
While Connecticut’s income tax was muscled through the General Assembly by Governor Weicker, the income tax idea and its implementation originated with Mr. Cibes, whom Mr. Weicker tapped to head the state’s Office of Policy Management. Declining to run for a second term as governor, a grateful Weicker, before leaving office, created a plush featherbed for Mr. Cibes, appointing him the first Chancellor of Connecticut’s new Connecticut State University System. Like old soldiers, old political operatives never die, but neither do they fade away. They become associated with lobbying firms or pad their retirements with pensions drawn from tax dollars.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It should surprise no one, least of all the editors of CTMirror, that <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzjFmZQE0ls">Mr. Cibes continues to insist that Connecticut is undertaxed</a></b>. Mr. Cibes certainly is within easy reach of the reporters and editors of CTMirror. Mr. Weicker’s former OPM chief was one of the co-founders of CTMirror and <b><a href="http://ctmirror.org/about-us/board/">serves on its board of directors</a></b><u>,</u> as does Stanley Twardy, former Chief of Staff for Mr. Weicker.<b><a href="http://www.raisinghale.com/2013/05/13/mirror-board-members-contribute-democrat/#sthash.ua5N4K0Q.dpuf"> According to a report in Raising Hale</a></b>, CTMirror is published by Connecticut News Project. A review of political contributions by board members of CTMirror shows that eight of the ten board members have made donations to political candidates totaling more than $125,000, seventy five percent of which enriched Democrats.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Weicker-Cibes income tax of 1991 dropped the sales tax rate from 8% to 6% and the corporate tax rate from 13.8% to 11.5%. A Rainy Day tax fund, since depleted by spendthrifts in the General Assembly, was also introduced, along with a largely irrelevant constitutional expenditure cap. Through inadvertence or design, the Democrat dominated General Assembly never quite got around to implementing the constitutional cap and, following the passage of the Weicker-Cibes income tax, spending in the state tripled within the space of three governors, two of whom were Republicans.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mr. Cibes’ pitch on the necessity of tax increases sounds wearily familiar, especially coming on the heels of Governor Dannel Malloy’s massive tax increase, the largest in state history, which out-revenued even the Weicker-Cibes income tax.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Commending a plan put forward by “Better Choices For Connecticut”, progressive tax grabbers, Mr. Cibes argued a few years ago in his pitch for higher taxes that Connecticut could not possibly offset its deficit through spending reductions alone, and he called for a “fair share’ sacrifice on the part of taxpayers and tax gobblers, a motif candidate for governor Dannel Malloy deployed effectively in his campaign.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OzjFmZQE0ls" width="420"></iframe><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The revenue proposals promoted by “Better Choices For Connecticut” and embraced by Mr. Cibes included an increase in the income tax for “those who can best afford it,” likely anyone making more than $250,000 per year, an increase in corporate taxes and an increase in the sales tax. The corrective measures promoted by Mr. Cibes insert progressive features into the Weicker-Cibes income tax, considered by some when it was passed as insufficiently progressive. At the time of passage, Mr. Cibes had told the New York Times that the architecture of the tax made it more progressive than it seemed. But progressives believe you can never have enough of a good thing.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Once the new revenue proposals are imposed on the Weicker-Cibes income tax, Connecticut will have adopted the same tax scheme Mr. Cibes promoted when he ran for governor way back in 1991. Property tax relief is little more than a convenient cover that will allow progressive Democrats to boost taxes when, after the upcoming elections, the state once again finds itself confronting a $2 billion deficit brought on by exorbitant spending. And the reporters and editors at CTMirror are too bright not to have noticed the obvious sham. One can only conclude that in failing to report sufficiently on one of its board of directors, CTMirror did not wish to place before its readers such inconvenient truths as might disturb Mr. Cibes and others who financially support the Connecticut News Project.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-385949685214359506.post-57366855396227570092014-03-13T10:57:00.000-04:002014-03-13T17:40:08.224-04:00Dean Enters The Gubernatorial Race<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p>Attorney </o:p>Martha Dean – <b><a href="http://courantblogs.com/colin-mcenroe/ol-blue-eyes-is-back/">Colin McEnroe calls her “old blue eyes”</a></b> – is the equivalent in Connecticut of Sarah Palin nationally, the woman from the wrong side of the political tracks who those fighting the “war against women” love to denigrate. The abhorrence is palpable, and possibly a bit misogynistic. Hartford Courant columnist Rick Green, recently departed to Vermont, way back in June 2010 referred to Ms. Dean as “a heat-seeking Republican missile” and “the blonde gunslinger.” Captivated by the color of her eyes, Mr. Green referred with disdain to the “cyborg-like quality to Dean's tractor-beam blue eyes.” The “blonde gunslinger,” it is well known, regards the U.S. Constitution with some reverence, and this appears to have excited <b><a href="http://donpesci.blogspot.com/2010/06/mr-green-blows-up.html">Mr. Green’s barely concealed contempt</a></b>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The difference between Mrs. Palin and Ms. Dean is that Ms. Dean is brighter, a more accomplished rhetorician, and, according to Mr. McEnroe, a trifle dangerous: “… I know it’s not a good day when you find out you gotta run against Martha.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ms. Dean had barely announced her run for governor whenshe was set upon by the usual crowd. Isn't this the Martha Dean who serves as a lawyer to the sort of gun groups Governor Dannel Malloy and Connecticut’s gun-phobic General Assembly had chased out of state to <a href="http://donpesci.blogspot.com/2013/07/malloy-gun-manufacturers-and-public-good.html%20Yup,%20she%E2%80%99s%20the"><b>South Carolina</b></a>? Yup, she’s the one. Isn’t she the bible thumping, constitution hugging lady who ran on her Facebook page a clip affirming that Adam Lanza’s murderous rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary school was a hoax?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
No, not really. The clip did appear on Ms. Dean’s Facebook page. It served principally as an example of what may happen in the sometimes wacky conspiratorial theory community when releasable information is withheld by investigators for more than a year after the commission of a mass murder.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some of the conspiracy theories might easily have been disproved by the early release of known data that would not have compromised a seeming endless criminal investigation. For instance, one of the conspiratorial theories involved the presence of a second shooter – actually a man discovered running near the crime scene and detained for questioning by police, who knew moments after questioning him that he was not a participant in the crime.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Another theory revolved around the notion that the rifle used by Adam Lanza was not an AR15. A grainy shot showed police removing what was misidentified as an AR15 from the trunk of a car; the rifle was a shotgun Mr. Lanza brought with him to the slaughter. Information of this kind could have been released immediately without damaging a prospective investigation. The lack of accurate data is the breeding ground of conspiracy theories, nearly all of which easily could have been dispelled at news conferences.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
No, the murderer was not, as was mistakenly reported, Ryan Lanza. Yes, there was only one shooter. Yes, that shooter was Adam Lanza. Yes, first responders did not immediately enter the school, though they arrived as reports of shots fired were being beamed over police radios, a datum that did not become available for public consumption until the publication of Danbury State Attorney Steven Sedensky’s criminal report, which was issued a year after the crime.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Facebook is used by most reporters and commentators to file items collected for future reference, or to elicit comments, and the appearance of a report on Facebook certainly does not signify assent to the report.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In <b><a href="http://www.wfsb.com/video?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=8237005">an interview with Dennis House</a></b> on “Face the State” almost immediately after the posting of the video, Ms. Dean said “I do not endorse it” (the video). She said that media misinformation “invited conspiracy theories.” She denounced the possibility that the assault on Sandy Hook Elementary School had not occurred, saying it was “ridiculous to raise the possibility they (the children) weren’t (murdered).” Asked, “Has there been a cover-up?” Ms. Dean replied “I have no reason to believe there was.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
All these direct quotes are readily available to any reporter or commentator with a computer who may be inclined to suggest erroneously in stories or commentary that Ms. Dean herself ever seriously entertained the notion that <b><a href="http://www.nhregister.com/opinion/20140311/editorial-martha-dean-who-gave-voice-to-sandy-hook-truthers-not-a-credible-candidate-for-governor">the assault on Sandy Hook Elementary School was a hoax</a></b>.</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0