Psychotropic Drugs, Violent Movies And Videos, The Senator From Tinseltown And Sandy Hook

Following the slaughter of the innocents at Sandy Hook, there was some muttering very early on concerning a possible connection between mass murderer Adam Lanza, his penchant for playing violent video games and the killing of 20 students and 6 faculty members at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Very quickly, public attention became focused, almost fetishistically, on the kinds of weapons Mr. Lanza brought to the school – two semi-automatic pistols, a semi-automatic Bushmaster long rifle and a shotgun that Mr. Lanza left in the trunk of the car he apparently stole from his mother, whom he murdered before leaving for the school.

One supposes Mr. Lanza did not receive permission from his mother to use her weapons to slaughter 26 people, and it seems reasonable to suppose in the absence of a definitive criminal report -- which inconveniently will not be available until after Connecticut’s General Assembly has enacted bills purporting to thwart possible future Sandy Hooks – that Mr. Lanza came by his cache of weapons through illegal means.  State's attorney Stephen J. Sedensky III, who is overseeing the investigation, expects the investigation “will go on for a number of months, but I hope that it can be [finished] within the time frame that I testified to before the Legislature, which is the summer."

In this respect, Mr. Lanza is no different from any criminal who gains unauthorized access to weapons used in any criminal activity. It is the unauthorized use of weapons that is chiefly responsible for the bulk of murders committed with guns in the United States. There is a possible technological solution to the problem of unauthorized gun use. Governor Dannel Malloy, who has been generous in distributing tax dollars to some multi-million dollar firms in Connecticut, so far has not “invested’” any tax dollars to encourage among Connecticut gun manufacturers the production of smart gun technology, which enables the use of a gun only for those designated by the purchaser as authorized users. There are several gun manufacturers in what is still called “the provision state,” so named because revolutionary Connecticut has provided arms to the U.S. government since its founding.

Before leaving for Sandy Hook Elementary, Mr. Lanza took the precaution of destroying the hard drive on his computer. Recent stories indicate that forensic investigators have recovered partial information on two computer drives.  It has been said that Mr. Lanza had spent an inordinate amount of time viewing and playing violent video games. A large cache of such games were found in the home early in the investigation.  

Other notorious mass murderers in recent years also have been frequent viewers of violence. After his arrest for having shot up a movie theatre in Colorado during a showing of a batman film, 24-year-old James Holmes, reportedly “remained in his murderous “Joker” persona” in jail while awaiting arraignment before a judge.

“He thinks he’s acting in a movie,” a prison employee told the Daily News.

Along with other mass murderers, Mr. Homes may – or may not -- have been taking psychotropic drugs.

The scientific research establishing a connection between violence, suicide and the use of psychotropic drugs is so well established that Sen. Owen H. Johnson in March 2000 was induced to submit to the New York legislature Senate Bill 703 which, according to a summary, “… adds a new section to the New York executive law requiring police agencies to report to the Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) on certain crimes and suicides committed by a person who is using psychotropic drugs. These crimes include assault, homicide, sex offenses, robbery offenses, firearms and other dangerous weapons offenses, kidnapping and arson.” Unfortunately, the bill was smothered in the crib after it had been referred to the finance committee. It is not known whether Connecticut’s General Assembly is considering such a bill.

The American Psychological Association reports that “The use of psychotropic drugs by adult Americans increased 22 percent from 2001 to 2010, with one in five adults now taking at least one psychotropic medication, according to industry data.”

Often prescribed in the absence proper evaluations by mental health professionals, psychotropic drugs, along with frequent viewing of violent scenes on videos and movies, some observers believe, very well may be a trip wire in mass murder sprees.

Not surprisingly, former Connecticut U.S. Senator Chris Dodd, now chief lobbyist for the multi-billion dollar motion picture industry, disagrees. Having represented Newtown in the Congress for more than 30 years, Mr. Dodd said in a recent interview that the Sandy Hook slaughter “is much more than an abstraction to me.'' The former senator even now, two months after the event, loses his composure whenever the mass murder is brought to his attention. Even so, business is business: “Movies stimulate, provoke, challenge and educate. The best movies elevate and enrich. They dare us to think differently, to walk uncomfortably in another person's shoes.''

There are lots of empty shoes in Sandy Hook.

The Murphy Pass and the Zen Gap

One could only imagine what might have happened at the Hartford Courant’s editorial board offices if one of their investigative journalists had discovered that former Governor John Rowland, now a radio talk show host, had failed to pay his mortgage “several times,” having been sued by a bank anxious to recover mortgage payments from a dead-beat politician.

Brains would have exploded.

Fishwrap For July

Salon Weighs in on Connecticut’s U.S. Senatorial Race

Alex Pareene, who writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt [Romney]," has weighed in on the Chris Shays-Linda McMahon Republican primary contest for the U.S. Senate in an article titled “Chris Shays has no respect for Linda McMahon: The last Yankee Republican shares his honest opinion of his primary opponent.”

Mr. Pareene, formerly of Gawker, is likely not from the nutmeg state, but this is no impediment to Mr. Pareene, who writes:

"Shays is pro-choice, pro-gun control, an environmentalist, pro-gay rights, pro-campaign finance reform — basically your classic New England Yankee Republican. Or as we call them now, 'Democrats.”'This helps to explain why he’s having so much trouble defeating someone as ridiculous as Linda McMahon, whose sole asset as a politician is her great wealth, which she earned off the labor of poorly treated 'independent contractor' wrestlers who were not even offered health insurance as they destroyed their bodies with drugs in other to retain their dangerous jobs with her company, World Wrestling Entertainment. She is a rich ‘outsider’ who repeats dumb Tea Party lines about the Fed and the deficit, and he is a “career politician” who represents a long-dead faction of the Republican Party.”

Sam Gejdenson Finds Death Of Cuban Dissident Suspicious

Mr. Gejdenson, the first child of Holocaust survivors elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, was for 19 years the U.S. Representative for the 2nd Congressional District of Connecticut. He was preceded in office by Former U.S. Senator Chris Dodd, now a Hollywood mogul, and succeeded by former U.S. Representative Rob Simmons, who in turn was displaced by current U.S. Rep Joe Courtney.

According to CTMirror:

“Cuban authorities Monday said Payá and fellow activist Harold Cepero Escalante died in a one-car crash in eastern Cuba. A Spaniard and a Swede who were also riding in the car survived but were injured.

“Gejdenson called the accident ‘a suspicious turn of events,’ but said he had no proof of wrongdoing.

“In a statement, the White House Monday called Payá ‘a tireless champion for greater civic and human rights in Cuba.’

"’He remained optimistic until the end that the country he loved would see a peaceful and democratic transition,’ the statement said.”

Communist dictator of Cuba Fidel Castro and his brother Raoul have in the past been adept at concealing proofs of all sorts, but killing dissidents never has dimmed the ardor of businesses in the United States and elsewhere who hope to ply their trade in Cuba, despite the Castros’ penchant for nationalizing corporations and dispersing the proceeds by giving them to Cubans made poor by applied Marxist-Leninism.
Mr. Gejdenson, now involved in international trade with his own company, Sam Gejdenson International (SGI) – not yet nationalized by the Obama administration -- resides in Branford and presumably is still a Democrat.

Multiple Murderer Awarded Prestigious Grant

WNEW News reports that Batman Holmes, the orange headed mass murderer was awarded a prestigious grant from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.

“James Holmes, the alleged gunman in the recent theater shooting that left 12 dead in Aurora, Colo., was previously awarded a $26,000 federal grant.”

U.N. Let’s Legalize Prostitution

Please don’t tell U.S. Health and Human Services Commissioner Kathleen Sebelius that the New York institution Charles Krauthammer described as a “sandbox of tyrants” would like, with or without your input, to legalize prostitution – in a good cause, of course.

The report--“HIV and the Law: Risks, Rights &Health”--cites a recommendation by the International Labour Organization, which recommends that “sex work” should be recognized as an occupation in order to be regulated “in a way that protects workers and customers.”

What Middle?

Depending upon which audience he happens to be addressing –business groups, unions -- U.S. Representative Chris Murphy of Connecticut’s 5^thDistrict puts on one of two faces, one appealing to the left and another to the right.

Some in Connecticut’s media are beginning to catch on to the trick, among them Chris Keating of the Hartford Courant, who reports on Mr. Murphy’s efforts to claim middle position in politics by reason of his membership in something called The Center Aisle Caucus.

Deputy Editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report Nathan L. Gonzales, Mr. Keating notes, “said the caucus is more of a social group than one that gets involved in the nitty gritty of writing complicated legislation on major issues.”

If Mr. Murphy were a moderate, it might not be a plus for him in any case because “’I don't know that voters reward moderation,’ Gonzales said. ‘If you're a member who talks with somebody from the other side of the aisle, you are immediately met with a primary challenge because you are viewed as compromising.’”

Mr. Murphy already is engaged in a primary battle with the redoubtable former Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz, who has been attempting to convince progressives in Connecticut that Mr. Murphy is the plaything of Wall Street malefactors of great wealth, a slur Mr. Murphy quite properly resents.

Mr. Murphy is the plaything of arch progressives in his state.

Gone is the day when the middle in Connecticut politics mattered. What used to be called “the vital center” of Democratic politics in the state has moved very far to the left.

Following the election of Dannel Malloy as governor, all the firewalls have collapsed, and everyone knows it. In Mr. Malloy’s short time in office, Democrats have written a budget that many believe was never in balance. The budget battle, for the first time in living memory, was shaped without any Republican input, leading Republicans having been shooed out of the room while Dominant Democrats in the General assembly pre-approved a budget that was substantially changed after the governor’s confabulations with SEBAC, a coalition of unions authorized to bargain with the governor on state contracts. One witty commentator at the time– it might have been me – claimed that SEBAC had become in the course of the seemingly endless negotiations Connecticut’s fourth branch of government.

The union friendly budget, the largest tax increase in state history, the abolition of the death penalty, the candidacy of Speaker of the state House Chris Donovan as the Democratic Party’s choice for the U.S. Congress in the 5^thDistrict, the somnolent response of the governor upon learning that Mr.Donovan’s hand-picked finance director had been arrested by the FBI for fraudulently accepting campaign donations, the governor’s facile response to the nomination by his party of former convict Ernie Newton to his old state senate seat -- all this and more suggest that the vital center of the state Democratic Party has been somewhat corrupted. This kind of corruption is the handmaiden of the one party state oblivious to its political responsibilities. Unless there is a voter reaction to one party rule, it will not be long before the entire state goes the way of its one party urban centers.

In any case, there is no middle in Connecticut politics any longer. We are all progressives now.

All In The Family

And finally, we learn from a report in the Hearst papers that the head of a new SuperPAC, Future PAC, devoted to electing U.S. Representative Chris Murphy to the U.S. Senate was a “member of Murphy's wedding party five years ago.”

Linda McMahon spokesman Tim Murtaugh snorted, upon hearing the news, “So they're not going to coordinate and communicate for six months. I'm not sure that passes the laugh test." SuperPACs and the politicians they boost are not supposed to consort with each other while in the process of scratching each other’s backs.

“On Aug. 18, 2007,” according to the Greenwich Times, “Murphy married Catherine Holahan at the Wake Robin Inn in Lakeville, according to the couple's wedding announcement in the New York Times, which noted that the ceremony was officiated by Ellen Ash Peters, a retired chief justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court…

“Murphy mouthpiece Ben Marter dismissed the McMahon campaign's notion of collusion, characterizing it as nothing more than innuendo.

"’Chris didn't ask these guys to do this, and we don't have any control over what they do," Marter said. ‘We're focused on the things we can control: our campaign, our message, and our unparalleled and growing grassroots organization.’"

Fishwrap For July

Russians Mull Burying Soviet Leader Lenin

The corpse if V.I. Lenin has been awaiting burial since the Soviet Union was thrown on the ash heap of history during the administration of President Ronald Reagan.

Comments by Russia’s new culture minister suggest, according to a report in the Washington Times, that Mr. Lenin is, finally, on his way out:

“But recent comments by Russia’s new culture minister have brought closer the possibility that the father of the Bolshevik Revolution could finally be laid to rest, signaling an end to the cult of Lenin.

“’Many things in our life would symbolically change for the better after this [burial],’ Mr. Medinskysaid, adding that he thinks Lenin should be buried with full state honors and his Red Square mausoleum turned into a museum of the Sovietera.”

Nancy Pelosi Rakes In The Dough

Borrowing a page from the 1912 election featuring socialist Eugene Debs on the far left, William Howard Taft in the center, Woodrow Wilson at left of center and Bull Moose candidate Teddy Roosevelt, the archangel of progressivism, Democrats this year have chosen to belabor Wall Street -- not that there’s anything wrong with that.

The boiler-plate assaults by President Barack Obama, in full campaign mode for the past three years, and former Speaker of the U.S. House Nancy Pelosi have been typical.

Unfortunately, financial disclosure statements are readily available; and Mrs. Pelosi’s statement shows she has been priming the outsourcing pump she has condemned from sea to shining sea, according to theDaily Caller:

“According to Pelosi’s 2011 financial disclosure statement, the Democratic House Minority Leader received between $1 million and $5 million in partnership income from ‘Matthews International Capital Management LLC,’ a group that emphasizes that it has a ‘A Singular Focus on Investing in Asia.’ A quick trip to the company website reveals a featured post extolling the virtues of outsourcing.”

When the Pullman’s strike was finally put down and a combine of Big Business, Big Government and Big Union ( represented by Samuel Gompers) finally destroyed Deb’s railroad union, the unflinching Debs refused ever again to ride in a Pullman car.

If the Democrats this year wish seriously to embrace progressivism, they must dress in sackcloth and ashes and refrain from decking themselves out in Wall Street baubles.

Obama A No Show At NAACP Convention Disappoints Some, But Not Malloy

At the NAACP Convention, Governor Dannel Malloy of Connecticut was honored for having played a major role in abolishing thestate’s death penalty. As he was acknowledging the plaudits, Mr. Malloy took a swipe at Texas Governor Rock Perry, a no-show at the convention.

But Perry was not the only MIA politician, according to anaccount in Buzzfeed:

“Convention organizers said the president's office cited a‘scheduling conflict’ as the reason he couldn't attend. (Obama spent today in Washington D.C., and has no major public events.) And the president did make an effort to ensure the convention that he hadn't forgotten them, appearing in a brief, pre-taped video praising the organization that aired before Biden's address.”

The Progressive Calls Dodd Loathsome, Depraved

The Progressive magazine was hatched in 1909 by Mr. Progressive himself, Senator Robert M. La Follette Sr. of Wisconsin, the founder of La Follette’s Weekly, renamed in 1929 The Progressive.

It’s current issue takes aim at despicable lobbyists and finds former senator Chris Dodd, now a Hollywood mogul, abhorrent. Dodd is rated as the 9^th most depraved lobbyist money can buy:

“The former Connecticut Senator, and internationally renowned eyebrow-haver, isn’t the most prodigious scum in the Beltway swamp, but he may be the most hypocritical. When asked in 2010 what would follow his thirty-year legislative career, which ended amid financial scandal, Dodd bluntly said, “No lobbying, no lobbying.” He then promptly became, as The Hill put it, “Hollywood’s leading man in Washington, taking the most prestigious job on K Street,” as chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America. The gig comes with a $1.2 million annual salary, and complimentary tickets to the Academy Awards.

“Dodd’s most public, and ultimately ill-fated, advocacy was in pushing two potentially disastrous bills: the Stop Online Piracy Act, and its Senate counterpart, Protect IP Act—both of which would’ve given the federal government the right to shut down any website that was merely being accused of copyright infringement.”

Donovan And The Politics Of Personal Destruction

It always helps if the person slated for destruction assists in the operation. In this regard, Speaker of the State House of Representatives Chris Donovan has been an obliging subject.

Mr. Donovan missed his all-important curtain call – a non-negotiable demand form Connecticut’s left of center media that he present himself instantly to answer some nagging questions -- instead sending the director of the Connecticut Citizens Action Group (CCAG), Tom Swan, to catch the flack coming his way after the finance director for Mr. Donovan’s now faltering campaign for the U.S. House in the 5^th District was arrested in what appears to be a successful FBI sting operation.

Mr. Donovan has hired two lawyers to help him weather the coming storm, the resourceful Stan Twardy, a political operative in the administration of then Governor Lowell Weicker, and a stand-by criminal lawyer.

Mr. Donovan fired his corrupted finance director and replaced his campaign manager, Josh Nassi, with Mr. Swan, who for many years has been at the helm of CCAG, trying his best to turn what had been a consumer oriented organization into an annex of the left wing of the state’s Democratic Party. Mr. Swan has been largely successful. When he floated from CCAG to chief flack catcher in the Donovan caravan, the transition was effortless.

Mr. Twardy, a past contributor to the campaigns of former U.S. Senator Chris Dodd and former U.S. Rep. Chris Shays, has been around the corrupt finance manager block before. The former U.S. Attorney was hired by Mr. Shays, now running for the same U.S. House seat coveted by Mr. Donovan, when Mr. Shays’ campaign manager, Michael Sohn, was imprisoned for a little more than three years after having pled guilty on a 12-count indictment charging him with having embezzled about $250,000 in campaign funds.

Due to be released from prison in 2013 and poorer than a church mouse, Mr. Sohn finds himself unable to pay off the creditors who had invested in Mr. Shays’ failed congressional campaign. For his part, Mr. Shays has said the creditors should apply to the indigent Mr. Sohn – not him – for payment of bills due.  

Doubtless, one of Mr. Donovan’s two lawyers have told the beleaguered Speaker of the State House that he should put a brick on his tongue until they are able to peek at the cards prosecutor are holding close to their chests. Better to incur the disfavor of a dyspeptic media than to say something publically that may lead to unwanted legal misfortune, eh?

The horns of the dilemma upon which Mr. Donovan finds himself tossed are usual in such cases: Either Mr. Donovan knew what his finance chairman was up to and therefore is legally complicit, or he was not watching the campaign store and therefore is incompetent; in either case he is not fit to represent the people of the 5^th District in Congress.

One of Mr. Donovan’s Republican opponents, Mark Greenberg, made the point tellingly in a press release following a media sidewalk interview during which Mr. Donovan planted himself firmly on one of the two horns.

"Let me be very clear about this,” Mr. Donovan said.“At no time did I know that anyone might have been trying to funnel illegal contributions to my campaign. No one ever made a deal with me as a quid pro quo."

Mr. Donovan, who as Speaker of the state House steers bills though the legislative process, said he was unaware of the bill, which would have raised $3.4 million a year from about 15 roll-your-own cigarette machines in the state. The campaign contribution accepted by Mr. Donovan’s fired campaign finance chairmen was supposed to have resulted in the bill’s dismissal, ultimately a casualty of an end of session legislative pile-up.

Reading from a statement that possibly passed under the noseof his criminal defense attorney, Mr. Donovan said of the bill during his sidewalk interview, “I did not know about it at any point during the legislative session." At the same time, Mr. Donovan adamantly refused – on advice of council? – to discuss the corruption investigation that led to the arrest of his campaign finance director, giving Mr. Greenberg an opportunity to launch the standard rejoinder:

"By refusing to discuss the corruption investigation into his campaign, Chris Donovan raised more questions than he answered. Two days ago, I called on Chris Donovan to resign as Speaker and suspend his campaign for Congress and I continue to maintain that he should step down. Donovan either knew or should have known that this illegal activity was occurring in his campaign. Whether this is a gross violation of the public trust or gross mismanagement, the people of Connecticut deserve better."

Mr. Greenberg was not alone in calling upon Mr. Donovan to resign as Speaker. In a Sunday editorial, the Hartford Courant reminded everyone that it had called upon Mr. Donovan to resign his position as Speaker when he had opened his 5^th District campaign: “Mr. Donovan should have stepped down as speaker the minute his campaign for Congress began in order to avoid the inevitable conflicts of interest or appearances of conflict that this fund-raising scandal has brought to the fore.”

The score so far? Mr. Donovan is not stepping down as Speaker; he has temporarily shifted the responsibilities of his office to his handpicked successor, Brendan Sharkey. Mr. Donovan will not in future talk about the corruption issue under litigation; and he is soldiering on in his bid for the U.S. Congress.

That’s three strikes.

The Unbought Republican Nominating Convention

The hullaballoo that arose the last time Linda McMahon ran for the U.S. Senate against the sainted and irreproachable Attorney GeneralRichard Blumenthal was that the lady was attempting to buy the election.

She did spend $50 million, mostly on campaign literature and salaries for overpriced advisors, and the wife of then Republican campaign chairman Chris Healy was on her staff. Moreover, the lady had minimal political experience, and yet here she was attempting to leap into the U.S. Congressional pool where she would be swimming with such congressional sharks as former U.S. Senator from Connecticut Chris Dodd, who following his retirement flew off to Hollywood, there to become Tinseltown’s chief lobbyist, after having assured everyone that he would never – no, never – become a lobbyist.

Mr. Dodd himself leapt into the U.S. Congress without much political experience under his belt. He served as a volunteer in the Peace Corp, Dominican Republic chapter, from 1966 to 1968, joined the Army Reserve, serving until 1975, thus avoiding active duty service in Viet Nam, and was swept into Congress as a part of the "Watergate Class of '74." Mr. Dodd’s political lineage as the son of former U.S Senator Tom Dodd gave him an edge over his competitors that even the $50 million squandered by Mrs. McMahon could not buy.

As everyone knows, Mrs. McMahon, having secured the nomination of the Republican convention, lost her last campaign for the Senate to Mr. Blumenthal. Though Mrs. McMahon had a money advantage over Mr. Blumenthal, also millionaire from Greenwich, Mr. Blumenthal clearly had a media advantage over Mrs. McMahon. So frequent were Mr. Blumenthal’s press availabilities during his 20 year run as Attorney General that they gave rise to the often heard remark: there is no more dangerous spot in Connecticut than that between a TV camera and Mr. Blumenthal. In the U.S. Senate, Mr. Blumenthal has lost a great deal of his state notoriety sheen.

It is not at all surprising that Connecticut’s media, working cheek by jowl for decades with a left of center Democratic majority, has taken on a blue tincture. Not so much unfair as unwilling to operate out of the usual incumbent box, the media presents a problem for most minority candidates who fall to the right of, say, former U.S. Senator Chis Dodd, now a Hollywood mogul, or U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, who reconfigured as an Independent after having served social liberals in the senate for more than 20 years. Mr. Lieberman was dumped by the Democratic Party in a primary, purportedly for conspiring with the enemy. He endorsed U.S. Senator John McCain for president and, though vowing to decouple himself from the current struggle for his seat, has professed warm feeling for former U.S. Representative Chis Shays, a congressional colleague of long standing.

This time around, Mrs. McMahon will face a tough primary opponent in Mr. Shays. The McMahon-Shays tousle has a déjà vu all over again scent to it. Mrs. McMahon’s last Republican Party primary opponent was former U.S. Representative Rob Simmons, whose campaign blinked on and off because Mr. Simmons, thought by some a tougher opponent of Mr. Blumenthal, was conserving his campaign cash. Despite the Democratic Party howl raised against Republicans as being the party of the rich, Republican state parties that have lost to Democrats the bulk of their moderate front line troops are the poor cousins of politics. During the last election, U.S. Rep John Larson, who holds the safest seat this side of Beijing, China, outspend his Republican Party opponent by a ratio of $7,871to $1.

Should Mrs. McMahon survive Mr. Shays in a primary, she will likely face the Democratic Party nominee for the U.S. Senate, current U.S. Representative Chris Murphy who, whatever his political merits, is no Dick Blumenthal. So teflon-proof was Mr. Blumenthal that he was able to survive a stolen valor charge that he had several times falsely claimed active service in Vietnam. Frequent media availabilities over a twenty year period in Connecticut politics do have their advantages.

The redoubtable Susan Bysiewicz will be a tough primary opponent for Mr. Murphy, driving him leftward in a state seemingly beginning to show a bit of buyer’s remorse over the hard-charging, sweet talking President Barack Obama.

At the conclusion of the Republican Party nominating convention, Mrs. McMahon received 61 percent of the delegate vote; Mr. Shays, who distained to ask delegates to vote for him and vowed prior to the convention to engage in a primary, received a more slender 32 percent. Mrs. McMahon’s advantage in delegate votes was the result of superior hustle. At the opening of the convention, Mrs. McMahon produced a list of supporters that included 95 Republican Town Chairs, 33 Republican Town Vice Chairs, 20 Republican Town Secretaries and 13 Republican Town Treasures, more than 250 “grass roots leaders,” she said in a press release. The lady put some miles on her boots to earn such support.

These figures, however, will not be sufficient to convince hard boiled opponents that Mrs. McMahon did not BUY the convention. Watch for it.